DSC_0121

DSC_0121, originally uploaded by mocajomiso.

We went over to the Lions Bridge last night so I could have some more practice with my D60. I got a little experience with Lightroom when I went to process.

Anyway, this is Sophie giving us a big cheesy grin.

Donations, Anyone?

What are the legal implications of getting donations on a website? If I set up a website call, simply, donatetomyvacation.com and I make it clear that the donations will not be going to any charity, what happens? Is it illegal to ask for donations if it's just for personal use? Is it taxable?

I've always wondered about these things...

Been a While

I guess I really haven't posted anything in quite a while. It's not as if I have anything particularly important or monumental to say right now (or ever) but every once in a while, I get the urge to post something on my all-but-forgotten blog.

Like I've stated before, this blog is more of a journal of sorts. I don't treat this as the only journal of events that I ever keep since I have no idea if someday Google will simply pull the plug on Blogger. Who knows?

I guess the same goes for Flickr. I really do use Flickr as my photo archive. I mean I keep a local copy and a local back up copy of my pictures but I don't take time to sort them. The only sorting they get at home is by the upload date. On Flickr, I take the time to tag them, put them in sets and collections, etc. But what would I do if Yahoo suddenly pulled the plug on Flickr? I guess I'd just be perturbed. Well, I'll enjoy it and use it while I can I suppose.

Anyway, today is Father's Day. I have had the honor of being raised by two awesome parents. I have never had to wonder whether or not my parents loved me and had my best interest in mind. I have always felt that my Dad and my Mom are proud of me. God has really given me an excellent example of what it means to lovingly raise a child.

The reason I made my Father's Day statements about both my Mom and my Dad is because I don't think I ever posted anything about Mother's Day on my blog. It was mainly due to laziness. It's not as if I was posting everyday in May except Mother's day. Still, I would have felt a little dirty leaving my Mom out in the cold. Happy Belated Mother's Day, Mom! Happy Father's Day, Dad!

On a more journal-esque note, Sophie's first tooth (or teeth, it's hard to tell right now) is coming in. Recently, she has been a little fussy for no apparent reason. Yesterday I did the routine "check the bottom gums for teeth" inspection and, much to my surprise, I could feel a little tooth coming in. It's possible I'm feeling two teeth but I can't be certain. Joy and I have tried to simply look by opening Sophie's mouth but she always moves her tongue to just the right spot so that we cannot see her bottom gum (is it 'gum' or 'gums' when I'm only referring to the bottom row?). Anyway, it's a neat little milestone for any baby.

A funny side note: as I type this, I am really starting to believe that the running spell checker in blogger is actually intended for British English, not American English. Whenever I've spelled words like neighbor, color, etc., I would always get the little read dotted line underneath the words indicating that they are spelled incorrectly. However, when I change their spelling to the British English (neighbour, colour) the little red line goes away.

This morning however as I was writing my little paragraph on my parents, I noticed the little red dotted line under the word Mom. I thought, "That's odd. I'm pretty sure that's how 'mom' is spelled." So I decided to change it to "mum". Doing so eliminated the red line. Strange isn't it? (Spoken with a fake British accent.)

Well, I've got to get the kids up for church. Joy will probably be staying home with Sophie since Sophie's been running a low fever.

Happy Father's Day 2009!

 

I thought I'd try posting a picture from within the Picasa photo editing program. I really like the program but I don't like how it compresses the images way too much.

Reminiscing

I was thinking today that it's been about a year ago today that our house was about to sell. I don't recall the exact date that someone put a contract on it but I do know that we closed on June 13th. We must be pretty close to the year anniversary by now.

I'm just amazed at how fast time goes by. I'm also amazed by how awesome God is. He worked out something that I was really afraid would not work out. By now I should know to trust him and not worry.

The main reason I was writing today was because I was going through some pictures on my flickr site that didn't have tags and I ran across some that I took of our yard sale last year. I remember it being really hot last year when we moved. Miserably hot.

It's kind of bittersweet looking at those pictures of our house. On the one hand, I'm super happy that we were able to sell our house and move when we really needed to. On the other hand, I really miss our house. These apartments are great but I really do miss our house.

Who knows what the future holds? So many things in my life I've wished could've worked out differently only to see later that if I had gotten my way, things would probably have been a disaster. Again, I'm glad God's in control, not me.

Well, today is Mother's Day. I hope all you mothers out there have an awesome day. We got to spend a lot of time with Mom and Dad yesterday which was great. They are truly fun people to be around.

I'll post more later. Right now, Sophie is in my lap and it is very difficult to type.

Later!

Just a Test

I'm just testing how photobucket might work out for me. I'll only be using it for ebay stuff so I'm just trying to find out how it's going to work. I could use flickr for that but I'm really not supposed to. They could technically delete my account if I got caught using flickr for selling stuff.

Anyway, here's the test.



I guess I'll work on how to get a slightly smaller image size.

Oh well!

Just a Picture From Disney World

Just thought I should post a picture of us from our trip to Disney World. We had this picture taken by one of the Disney "cast members" as we were making our way deeper into the belly of the Magic Kingdom. I kind of wish the sky wasn't so washed out in this picture but, overall, I'm happy with it.

The Disney Journal That Never Was

While we were staying at Disney, I decided to write down what we did for a couple of days. I almost made an effort to post this while on vacation but, I just was unwilling this time to pay for the internet connection at the hotel.

Anyway, here's what I typed up while sitting in our All Star Movies Hotel room.

Tuesday, March 31^st, 2009, Disney World Day Four

We spent our day yesterday at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park and had a great day. About half way through the day, we decided to come back to the hotel room so the kids could play in the pool and we could get some laundry done.

Anyway, at the park we rode the Tower of Terror, Star Tours, and the Great Movie Ride. We were able to get Caleb to ride the Tower of Terror and he liked it. He even rode it again with Joy when she was doing the “ride swap” with me. Later, he told me that he took the Tower of Terror off of his “favorites list”. I didn't even know he had a list going!

In the evening we rode Star Tours and, once again, Caleb started to get upset and say that didn't want to ride it just before we were actually boarding the ride. I felt like a mean dad making my son ride and strap in while he was fighting back tears.

Riding the Great Movie Ride was an experience. One that we may not have to repeat again. There was nothing really bad about the ride, it's just that it's kind of... boring. I mean the environments that you ride through look very nice but I'm afraid some of the older movies are beginning to go over the heads of some of the younger visitors to Disney World. I'm not saying they need to update the ride but maybe a little “enhancement” wouldn't hurt. They've obviously already “enhanced” the movie that you watch while waiting in line. It now includes scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Our plan for today was to go back to Hollywood Studios but since there is a greater chance for rain later this week, we have decided to go to the Magic Kingdom today. The Saturday visit to the Magic Kingdom was just a quick visit. This time I think we'll try to hang out a little more.

I'm personally looking forward to tomorrow when we go to the Animal Kingdom which is my favorite park.

Well, it's about 10:00am and we are getting ready to head downstairs to have a little breakfast. Can't wait to blow some more cash on eating. Ha ha.

More updates later.

Yesterday, we spent the day at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We really enjoyed ourselves. Although, I really forgot just how big the park is. In other words, there is whole lot of walking involved.

Our first ride of the day was Kilamanjaro Safaris which is basically a cool zoo tour with a little bit of a story about poachers involved. Excellent ride. Two years ago when we came, we loved it and it is still a very cool experience to ride in an open air vehicle right beside animals like giraffes and other African animals.

After the safari ride, we made our way over to the Bug's Life 4-D show, “It's Tough to be a Bug”. It was pretty fun but I got a little ripped off. I mean the only “4-D” experience about it was when I was sprayed with water and some short air blasts. There's a scene where a stinkbug comes out and sprays the audience but I didn't see what the big deal was; I didn't even smell anything. Does that say something about me? I don't think so. I just think the seat I had was a little messed up. At the end of the show, your seat is supposed to buzz or vibrate so as to simulate lots of bugs crawling under you but, I didn't feel anything. I mean, I heard lots of other people laughing and screaming but I felt nothing. Joy said she felt it, too. Oh well.

After the Bug's Life thing, we headed over to the Asia area of the park to ride Expedition Everest. We did the “rider swap” deal so Joy could ride after I rode with the kids. I have to mention that waiting in line for Everest and the safari ride was pretty cool. They have so much presumably authentic stuff to look at while you're waiting that the wait goes by really fast. It's almost like visiting a mini exhibit.

Anyway, while we were waiting an announcement came over that the ride might close if the thunderstorm that was looming in the distance hit us. Fortunately for us, they didn't close the ride before we got on. Unfortunately for us, it started to rain as we rode. It didn't just feel like rain though. I'm not sure how fast the roller coaster goes but I do know that it felt like little pebbles shooting me in the face. It stung. After we rode, they closed the ride. After about an hour or so, Joy was able to ride.

After all this, we went to the Dinorama area and rode a triceratops ride. The Dinorama area is like a carnival area with all the typical games and short rides. After that little ride, we ended up going on the Pangani Forest walk and then Camp Minnie Mickey.

The forest walk was very cool. There was a little viewing area connected to the pool where the hippos are. We came in at just the right time to see a hippo swim right by the window. Twice. I was able to get two pictures of its rear end. Oh well.

No, we didn't do too much at the Animal Kingdom. But it was still very cool. In my opinion, the Animal Kingdom is more of an atmospheric experience. So, with that said, I guess it is an actual “theme” park.

Today, Thursday, April 2^nd, is our last full day. Right now, I have some clothes in the laundry room. After we eat breakfast and get our clothes, we're probably going to go to Downtown Disney and possibly the Magic Kingdom.

Hopefully, I'll update later. Probably after we return home.

Monday, March 30th, 2009 (Day three in Disney World)

As I may have mentioned in the last post, we will be heading to Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park today. This is Molly's favorite park and is definitely one of my favorites. The main ride we're looking forward to? The Tower of Terror. Today is the day when we will coerce Caleb into riding it.

It may not be that easy since he started getting upset in line for Splash Mountain but I'm of the mindset now that it's too bad: you're riding. Does that sound mean? I don't think so. If we went along with Caleb everytime he said, "I don't want to ride that", he would ride almost nothing.

Anyway, we just had a healthy breakfast of dougnuts and cookies and we're getting ready to head out. Like I said before, I wish I could upload more photos but the connection here is just too slow.

The weather looking good for today. Right now, it's probably just barely sixty degrees and it's supposed to only get to about 76 or so. Yesterday was a different story. It poured down rain up until about 1:30. It was okay since we had ponchos to wear. They were definitely life savers. Or clothes and camera savers I guess.

Well, I'd better click "Publish Post" before my 24 hour internet access time expires.

See you soon.

In Disney World

I'm sitting in bed in our hotel room at Disney's All-Star Movies Resort. Caleb was just awake a second ago watching an episode of Spiderman. Joy, Molly, and Sophie are all sound asleep. I won't make this long: I am super tired and my legs are killing me.

We spent today at Epcot after getting a sort of nice late start mainly due to rain. It turned out to be a really beautiful day. Yesterday when we arrived we headed on over to the Magic Kingdom and, man, it was packed.

Anyway, I really wanted to upload a lot of pictures but, apparently, the connection here at the hotel isn't so hot. I'll most likely just stop trying to upload stuff until we get back home. It's really that slow.

The plan for tomorrow is to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios Park, which I keep calling "MGM". Hopefully the weather will be as nice as it's been so far.

Heading to bed now.

Molly and Caleb at the airport, waiting to head to Disney World.

Two More Days to Disney

After working 2am until about 11am yesterday, it was nice to get some sleep last night. Work today wasn't too bad. I was just in the office processing a couple of jobs but that can really make the day drag sometimes. Especially when I'm about to go on vacation. I'm sure tomorrow will go by even slower.

But work isn't the point of this post. The point of my posting this is to celebrate just how close we are to hopping a plane to Disney World. It's really hard to believe but somehow, I believe it.

All that really remains right now is for us to go through a checklist and make sure we have everything. Not just the essentials like toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc., but the other essentials like our reservation paperwork and the Disney's Magical Express tickets. What is Disney's Magical Express, you ask?

Disney's Magical Express is an airport shuttle program. All we have to do is put the special tags on our checked luggage before we take off. When we arrive in Florida, we just hop on the Magical Express and go to the hotel. No need to wait and claim our luggage. Walt Disney himself will personally deliver our luggage to our hotel room. Or so I think...

So basically, Disney's Magical Express is a bus.

Anyway, two more days!

Six Days To Disney

We are nearing the departure date: Saturday, March 28th. It's hard to believe that next week at this time we'll be totally exhausted from walking all day in the heat. Well, hopefully not totally exhausted. Maybe the adrenaline rush, which presumably lasts for six to seven days, will keep us going.

Anyway, we tried packing today just to see what we could or could not fit in the luggage we're taking with us. The plan is only to check one bag since the airline charges $15 for the first checked bag, $25 for the second checked bag, $50 for the third, etc. I think we'll be able to do it since our carry on stuff is all going to fall under the size/weight requirements.

Once again, I'll be using blogger in conjunction with flickr to keep the updates from the park rolling in for all of my fans. All two of you: me and possibly my sister.

Have a great night. Here's couple more shots from our last trip to Disney.

This is from our first night in Disney World back in April 2007. We spent the evening at Downtown Disney instead of going to a park that night. Not sure if we'll do that this time...

This is another picture from Downtown Disney. Not sure why they keep the Christmas stuff out in April but hey, who cares?

Twelve Days to Disney

Well, like the title says, we have only twelve days until our trip to Disney World. I'm holding the baby right now and trying to type so this will be a short post.

Anyway, I was reminded that about two years ago, I had a blog post with the same title as this one. It all comes full circle at last.

Within a couple of weeks, I'll be posting pictures from Disney World.

See ya!

Disney 2007 Trip

Continuing my irregular 2007 Disney World trip photo series, here's a picture from the Star Tours ride at Disney Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney MGM Studios). Yes, this is the ride that Caleb was terrified of since he sincerely believed we were actually going into outerspace and he didn't want go.

Anyway, this isn't the best photograph of the ride but it does highlight the quality of the stuff you get to stare at while waiting in line for the various rides in Disney World. (I am not stating this sarcastically; the quality of the stuff in Disney is quite high.)

See you later.

27 Days to Disney

Well, it's official. We are going back to Disney World at the end of this month. We're all pretty excited about it. To be honest, we've been seriously looking into it for a while but we just booked it last week.

I am personally excited about convincing Caleb to ride the Tower of Terror. I think he's going to do it. We've been watching various videos of the ride on youtube. Yesterday, in fact, I ran across a video of a Half-Life 2 mod that someone made to look exactly like the Tower of Terror ride. It was very accurate right down to all the correct Twilight Zone audio that you hear right before going on the ride. Below is the video and a couple of pics of the kids.

The countdown has begun.

Shot of Molly before she knew I was going to take her picture.

Caleb showcasing his lost tooth.

Beautiful picture of Sophie taking a nap.

First Loss

Today, Caleb lost his first baby tooth. Joy was having him brush his teeth when he spit some blood out. Upon seeing this he, naturally, freaked out beyond reason. He was screaming and crying so loud that Joy had to tell him he would either have to calm down or one of the neighbors would end up calling 911.

Sadly, I was at work so I didn't get to witness any of the chaos. Eventually he calmed down and Joy was able to pull the tooth out without incident or any violent outbursts.

Ah, how we cherish moments like this long after the years have softened our minds' focus so we can look back and laugh.

In honor of this event, here's a picture of Caleb before he had any teeth and when he enjoyed chewing on plastic toys.

Big Wheel

For my own personal enjoyment, here's another picture from our much ballyhooed Disney World trip of 2007.

Another picture from the Pop Century Resort. In this one, Joy, Molly, and Caleb are walking up to the larger than life Big Wheel (non-functioning, I think...).

Another Two Year Old Picture

For some reason, I suddenly enjoy posting pictures from my flickr site to my blog. It's sort of like a "double post" since I am "posting" information along with a picture that I already technically "posted" almost two years ago.

A view at the Pop Century Resort Hotel in Disney World. Although slightly obscured by trees, you can still make out the gigantic Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and the (very) cool huge Rubik's cube.

A Flashback From My Flickr Archives

I just felt like posting one of our pictures from our uber-great Disney World trip from April 2007. Man, that was a good time. This particular one is from our first full day at Disney World which we spent at the Animal Kingdom. (Plus, I just like the way photos look against the background of this blog. Did you know the background color is called ocher?)

Birthday Eve

Joy went to work this morning and I got up with her. Of course, instead of doing something really productive, I decided to work on organizing some of my photos on my flickr site. I've been putting photos up on flickr for almost four years now but sometimes I wonder, what if flickr suddenly just goes away sometime? I'm sure it won't be that sudden but that would really be irritating considering all of the pictures that I have on there, all tagged and organized. I mean, it wouldn't really be too devastating since I'm not really using it as a real back up plan but I do like the way all my pictures all fairly organized.

On another useless note, I finally adjusted the width on the main body of this blog. Now it won't cut off pictures that I happen to post (which always irritated me).

Anyway, tomorrow is Michelle's and my birthday. I'll be 35 and she'll be 35 minus 7. We're not planning anything extravagant other than going to lunch today with our parent's after church. Also, we played Rock Band 2 last night for a while which was pretty fun. Especially when Caleb was on drums and really started freaking out that he couldn't do one of the songs since it was too hard (he was able to do it by the way).

It was also funny that, while we played the game, we had Sophie lying on her little playmat and she has really started trying to roll over. So much that at one point, we thought someone had repositioned her since she ended up 180 degrees out from where Joy had initially laid her but, no. She is rolling herself around. Although, not really rolling around. It's more like rocking back and forth and slowly moving around. Kind of like the minute hand on a clock: you don't see it move at a glance but if you really watch it, you can tell it's moving.

This weekend has been pretty nice. I don't know if it's just because I'm getting more and more boring but I really like the weekends where we don't have anything in particular to do aside from just hang out.

Good times. Goood tiiiiimes.

Baby Grabbin'

Sophie, three months old, is now grabbing at things. While this may not seem monumental, consider this: her usual hand pattern is a clenched fist. So I was pretty happy to see her to be (apparently) voluntarily opening and closing her hand when she her hands were resting on the table.

Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. Maybe it's just some automatic response. Who cares? It's still pretty cool.

Anyway, here's some photos that I recently uploaded to flickr.

Here I am talking some sense into sense into Sophie. "Listen to me, Sophie. Listen to meeeee!!!" I was really just trying to support her so Joy could snap this piture. Cute, right?

Molly in her creepy plaster mask that she made at school. Creepy.

That's all for now.

Countdown?

Yes, I am looking forward to getting our tax refund. No, it's not just basic materialism. It's just that we rarely get tax refunds. Praise the Lord Joy wasn't self-employed last year. That's what's killed us for the past six or seven years: self-employment tax.

I guess I'm anxious about getting the refund because I want to make sure we get it before the U.S. government goes totally broke. Also, I just want to do my small part in stimulating the economy. So, really, it's not about me. It's about my country. I'm just trying to help.

Honest.

Just a Post

Well I haven't made any entries since something like January 3rd of this year. Not that that is a problem. I was just on my blog reading the posts I made from when we went to Disney World in 2007 so I decided to post something.

Here's my real issue though: should I even bother with the blog? I mean, I want to keep a journal I guess, but I could easily keep one on my laptop. There are plus and minuses to both, I suppose. If I use my computer to store my journal, I have total control over the journal but it's only available when I use my computer.

If I use my blog, there is always the risk that Google could shut it down, effectively erasing my journal. On the other hand, I really like the format. Maybe there's a "journal" format or template available for Open Office. Hmmm...

Until next time...

Bye.

Anomaly or Harbinger?

The following pictures show a dark chocolate M&M (a.k.a. M&M Dark) in its exact condition when it was extracted from the bag. At first I was repulsed by this misshapen mass but I was soon drawn to it. Could this be in the shape of some dead president or other famous person (living or dead)? I wish. It did not seem to resemble anyone, or anything for that matter, so I threw it away.

Do you think it shares any features with anyone? If so, please let me know so I can fish it out of my trash can and list it on eBay.

Thanks in advance.

Check out the cool grey area. I think that's where the words "M&M Dark" were supposed to be. Creepy.

Silence Is Gone

Everywhere I go I see people walking around with something in their ears: earbuds, cellphones. Perhaps it's mainly due to the Christmas season. I'm sure a lot of people got iPods or some other MP3 player for Christmas this year. Maybe this is why I keep seeing so many teenagers with earphones walking around with their parents at the grocery store.

In all honesty, I haven't been around to too many places to draw these conclusions, I just believe it's a growing trend. Regardless of this unscientific method, I have to ask, How many people spend any amount of their waking hours in quiet? I would guess not very many. I'm guilty of it myself.

I've been off this past week (which I've been thoroughly enjoying) and not long after getting up, the computer is on. Not much longer after that, the TV is on (usually for a video game). Why is this? Is it because of habit? Is it because, since I'm off, I think the only way to truly enjoy it is to constantly be doing something? I hope not.

With all this noise in our houses, in our cars, even when we are out walking around, can anyone really ever stop and think? Can anyone ever really ponder anything, meditate on anything? I believe that's difficult now, especially for younger people, and it's only going to get worse. Technology, for all of its advantages, is steadily becoming ridiculously ubiquitous.

We are losing something and soon we won't even be able to remember what it was.

Using Ubuntu

So this is my first post using the Ubuntu operating system. I'm totally new to this platform, but so far I really like it. It was a bit of a challenge to get my wireless network card up and running but figuring it out was actually kind of rewarding.

Anyway, just felt like typing.

See ya.

Happy Thanksgiving

So, we're watching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or, as it should be known, the extended NBC lineup commercial. Seriously, it's getting kind of old seeing Al Roker interview one NBC tv show actor after another. I know I could turn it anytime I want but, in a way, doesn't this qualify as one of those 'captive audience' situations. I mean, I just want my kids to see the parade. Specifically, I just want them to be able to see all of the giant floats and balloons.

Which reminds me, I really don't care to see yet another Broadway show translated into street-parade format. Yuck.

Anyway, back to the three hour long NBC commercial (that's an exagerration, I know).

Happy Thanksgiving.

All Smiles

Here's a great (in my opinion) shot of the new baby.

Pretty cute, isn't she?

Blu-Ray Player For Under $150

Sounds crazy but, according to a scan linked from over at theblackfriday.com. Apparently, Wal-Mart will be selling a Magnavox blu-ray player for $128 on black friday, November 28th 2008. If you're looking for a blu-ray player, looks like Wal-mart might be your place. Good luck!

Pregnancy Journal? Oh, Riiiight...

So, I claimed I was going to use this blog as a pregnancy journal for our third child. I had good intentions but, I just didn't follow through. Basically, our baby was born two weeks ago. I don't feel that bad about it since I have been taking plenty of pictures. The only thing is none of those pictures are here on my blog yet. But they are all on my flickr site. I may or may not have a link to that here. If not, I've fix it.

So there you go. A slight explanation.

See you later. Pictures to come soon.

Maybe...

Very Funny Video From The Onion

I thought this was particularly funny. Especially given the fact that none of the actors are well known. It adds a bit of realism to it all. Enjoy!



Congress Debates Merits Of New Catchphrase

Some Thoughts

Brownies are good.

I am tired.

Work is bad.

I cut the grass today.

...in my non-grass-cutting shoes!

I feel bloated since I ate a brownie and drank some milk.

The milk was 2%.

Milk stays around $3.59 at Harris Teeter.

Dexter's Lab is on.

Very funny show.


Bye.

No More Classes!

Well, almost. Tonight I am studying for my last two tests (Physics and Ship Construction II). I honestly want to take more classes but, for now, I am happy to be done with studying at night after working all day.

Hopefully the tests will go well tomorrow.

Another Week Gone By

Well, that was nice weekend. With the exception of painting and caulking at our house. I don't actually mind doing work around the house, I just dislike the investment of time involved. Here's the bottomline: I need a vacation.

We had originally planned to take a vacation of sorts this spring or sometime in the summer but, now that Joy's pregnant I will be saving the vacation for something a little more important. Something like the birth of our child.

Anyway, this is my last week of classes, which I am very excited about. Non-stop classes for the last two years with only a week break here and there has really burned me out. I would like to go back to school someday but I'm being very liberal with my use of the word "someday".

To my sister who has been having some computer-related frustrations this week:

I was going to post a link to that laptop I saw in Best Buy's ad but it is only in their ad. I don't see it on their site. It's $449, Dual Core, 120GB hard drive, reads/writed dual layer DVD's, 15.4" "Brightview Widescreen". By the way, the 15.4" is the same size/orientation as the screen on my laptop. The only thing it would need would be another Gig of ram (about $35) since it only has 1GB with Vista Home Premium.

Have a great week.

P.S. If anybody has any tips on how to widen this main column a little so that the pictures I post won't get cut off, let me know. I don't know much about HTML code and I don't want to go poking around and mess the layout up (which I happen to like).

Just a Post

Work went fine today. I'll be getting a little overtime tomorrow but I guess what I'm being faced with is the fact that it's never guaranteed. I always knew that you shouldn't plan on overtime but, in my defense, we never bought this house thinking I'd be getting any overtime. We did, however, bank on Joy's job which pretty much ended over a year ago. Uh oh, I think I'm getting a little too "real" here.

The most important thing is that the more I face the day to day barrage of the unknown, the more I realize that I should have been relying on the Lord all along.

I've been posting pictures from my flickr site recently because I started trying to organize them a little more.

By the way, I think the layout of this blog messes up the way pictures are displayed. Basically, if the picture is wider than the main text column of the blog, the right side of the picture gets cut off. How do I fix that?! It's kind of annoying.

Here's some pictures anyway:

Here's a picture of Caleb from December 2003. He has really grown.

Molly, November 2003. Such a cutie.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I start my next "rotation" at my job. It's a new supervisor, a different area, different people, and so on. Sadly, the main thing I'm worried about is overtime. Hopefully I will be able to get enough. I never thought I'd actually want to work overtime so much but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Joy is still feeling sick which I'm really praying she gets over soon because it is really kicking her butt.

On a lighter and cuter note, Molly has been playing her Animal Hospital game today for her Nintendo DS. In this game, the player acts as a vet trying to heal sick animals. Well, one of the animals, a cat named Chloe, has been at Molly's hospital since Christmas when she got the game. Today, Molly took care of it enough so that it was able to go home. This upset Molly enough that she got a little teary. Joy and I weren't laughing at her. We thought it was sweet. She really has a good heart.

Caleb has been playing the game Trouble a lot since we got it for 25 cents at a yard sale yesterday. Good times, good times.

That's all I have for now. See ya.

Just a Couple of Pictures From My Flickr Page

Nothing really out of the ordinary to see here. I just felt like posting a couple of pictures from my flickr site. Wait, did I just repeat the title of this post? Oh well.

Molly and Caleb feigning surprise over their Easter baskets. Yep, this was totally staged. Can you tell?

This is the "I can't believe it! I just can't believe it!!" routine.

Pregnancy Journal, Part II

Yes, I've been taking my time updating this blog with respect to Joy's pregnancy. It's been a little hectic, I guess. Joy's been feeling pretty sick lately. Yesterday, she was especially nauseated. Although, we're not totally sure that was just from the pregnancy. It could've been the spaghetti she and kids ate Thursday night. The spaghetti that Molly vomited all over our bedroom floor around 1am Friday morning. Who knows?

Anyway, Joy went to her obstetrician last week and she had her initial ultrasound. Here's a picture I took of it since I don't own a scanner:

The large black void area in the middle (the part that looks like a pinto bean) is where the placenta, baby, etc. is starting to form. The area near the top of the pinto bean that looks like two short horizontal lines is actually the little "yolk sac". I put "yolk sac" in quotations because that is what the doctor called it, although I'm not sure if he would have put a "k" on the end of "sac".

At the time of this ultrasound, the doctor estimated the baby to be only about four weeks old. He/she is so small in fact (about 1mm) that the doctor couldn't take a measurement. We have to go back in about four more weeks to have another ultrasound. Then, we will get a more accurate due date.

Until then, there is nothing really new to report other than Joy feeling pretty darn sick all the time. Yuck.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this peaceful portrait of our current youngest child. See ya!

News Story: Dead, Then Not Dead

I ran across this story while browsing Yahoo's "most emailed" photos. Pretty amazing story.

Here it is.

Does That Count?

Does it really count as a "blog entry" to simply link to an article? I mean really, that's too easy. Then again, why shouldn't it be easy? I mean, it's not like I'm getting paid for this. Or am I...

(I'm not.)

Hilarious Onion Article

I read this article about a year ago but after seeing a pug (or whatever that dog is called) on an episode of "Bringing Home Baby" on TLC (my wife was watching it, I swear) I was reminded of just how funny this was.

My apologies if you are a pug lover. It's still funny.

Dog Breeders Issue Massive Recall Of '07 Pugs

Dawn

No, I'm not talking about a dish detergent. I'm talking about my favorite time of the day. Ever since I started in my current job about two years ago, I have had to get up before dawn. Sometimes ridiculously early but I have grown to really enjoy the pre-dawn to sunrise hours. I have always loved seeing the sun come up but, in the past I was staying up pretty late so the sunrise was something I rarely saw.

I'm not sure why I like it so much but it's probably most related to the lighting. Everything takes on this bluish color before the sun comes up. The most ironic thing about all of this is the fact that I'm going on and on about the sunrise and yet, here I am sitting at my laptop typing instead of standing outside.

I think I'll change that. See ya.

Pregnancy Journal, Part I

As I mentioned above, Joy is pregnant. So, as I sort of promised, I plan to start and try to maintain a sort of photo journal. I'll be uploading pictures that document her pregnancy up to my flickr site and then linking them here.

This picture is of the second pregnancy test Joy took. The first test was taken at night but the "you are pregnant" line was rather faint. So I told Joy, "That's awfully light. I wouldn't trust it." Anyway, she took another one the following morning (they say your mornin' pee is best for a pregnancy test) and this showed up. The second line was originally a little stronger but it's faded since this test was taken well over a week ago.

There is another test Joy took that her mom purchased without our knowledge. I think it was called Clear Blue. On this type of test there are no lines, only a small LCD display. A display that reads "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant". Sadly, I waited too long to photograph the "Pregnant" display so it has since faded. Oh well. The real test comes next Thursday when Joy goes to the doctor for a preliminary ultrasound and a due date.

We've been through this twice now but it's still exciting.

See you later.

Weeping Willow

My favorite tree, if a person can have one, is the weeping willow. I'm sure there are countless others that share my fascination with the unique look this tree has. Anyway, we were at Busch Gardens today and I was able to take a picture of a weeping willow. I shot it with my Canon S2IS set to "foliage" (surprise!). I was then able to use Microsoft Picture It to remove the color and mess with the contrast.

I always loved shooting black and white photos with infrared film and I still love high contrast black and white photos. Hope ya like it.

See ya!

An Experiment

Well, Joy is pregnant. Let me be more precise: a few over the counter tests show positive as do a couple of other biological/natural tests. She goes to the official appointment next week for a due date, etc.

We kind of want to keep it quiet since, this early on, many things could go wrong and we don't want to get anybody overly excited if something goes awry.

Anyway, if everything goes okay, I want to do a sort of photo journal of the pregnancy. It will be fun and cool to look back on later.

Hopefully, I will be updating soon on the pregnancy. I'll also still be doing more of my more useless posts so this blog won't be entirely pregnancy related.

See you around.

Funny Story

Yeah, you know the deal with The Onion. Hilarious but sometimes vulgar. The following article is clean but I don't make any guarantees about the ads in the background.

Seriously, this article is one of the funniest ones I've read in quite some time.

Enjoy!

Packers Tell Fans They Gave Favre To A Nice Farm Family

Changes? Yes? No? Maybe? So?

Big changes on the way at home? (For me and my family, I mean.) Maybe. There's always something new and, in some way, huge going on at my house. Stay tuned...

...Maybe I'll update this blog before November.

How...?

How can I put into words...

...how much of a headache these contact lenses give me? Oh wait. I just did (put it into words that is.)

Anyway, I was reminded that I have a blog when I recently received an email from sort of 'bot attempting to get me to let them advertise on my blog. I'm sure I have so many readers that it would only make sense to run ads on here, right?

Nah.


I saw a t-shirt for sale on despair.com. It pretty much sums up my opinion of this blog:


Have a good day!

Finally, Some Feedback

Shortly after I published my last post about our house, our realtor's office called. According to them, the showing we had last night went "really well". He also reiterated that our house is in a really good range, under $250k. Tomorrow night we have another showing from 5:30pm to 6:30pm.

It's amazing how just when you need it, God sends along a little encouragement.

So, as always, everything's going great, it's just a lot of work keeping the house up.

Hopefully, I'll be posting more news here later.

A special thanks to Michelle for reminding me to post on here.

Later!

Nothing Yet

We've had our house on the market for about two weeks now and we don't have any contracts on it yet. It's only been two weeks so I shouldn't get all antsy I guess. We've had several people come to see our home (we had to be gone, of course) but we haven't gotten any feedback yet.

I know the news keeps reporting that the housing market is really slowing down, but I'm of the firm belief that there are people out there buying houses still. Also, the price range we're in allows us some room to lower the price if need be.

So when do we lower the price? I have no idea. Of course our realtor isn't going to want to lower right away or for very much. After all, this is how he makes his money but, I'm ready to sell and say, "Well, BYE!"

At least we're not talking with any of those "Get Out Of Your House In 24 Hours. You Pay Nothing! You Lose Money" types of businesses.

...Yet.

Did I mention that it's hot today? I mean it's very hot outside. Thank the Lord I was able to spend the day glued in front of my computer at work in an air conditioned trailer. In fact, my hands started to get that don't-want-to-move-very-fast-because-they're-so-cold feeling.

I can't wait for fall.

Some Pictures

Bodie Lighthouse in North Carolina's outer banks. I'm not sure if it's pronounced "body" or "boadie". Oh well. I don't actually care.

Another shot of the Bodie Lighthouse. I think it's about 130 years old but I can't remember exactly. I guess I could look it up on the internet right now, but, mreh. That's too much trouble.

I know this one is kinda blurry, but it's Caleb's finger-man. He really got a kick out of playing with me when I first helped him to realize that he could pretend his index and middle fingers could be manipulated to emulate a person walking around, falling, jumping, etc.

For Sale(?)

It seems like only last year that we sold our house and moved into a new house. Now, here we are, a little over a year later and we're putting our house up on the market.

We didn't reach this decision on an impulse. I've been toying with the idea for about six months now. It's just that now we actually need to sell our house. Not for profit but to "simplify", as my wife loves to say.

We're going to be moving into a townhouse (Lord willing) where we will be renting. There are some who will say, "Oh, that's too bad. You'll just be throwing money away on rent." To them I say: Hey, you have to live somewhere!

To be quite honest, I'm very excited to be headed back to the apartment lifestyle. No cutting grass, no raking leaves, no cleaning gutters; it's great. I'm not looking forward to sharing walls with other people but I guess that comes with the territory.

What I'm most looking forward to in the renting lifestyle: no more worries about home repairs. If the sink leaks, call the maintenance man. If the A/C breaks, call the maintenance man. Awesome!

Did I forget to mention Renter's Insurance? It's soooo much cheaper than Home Owner's insurance. Also, if a hurricane rips the roof off of my house (which I own) I can't just leave town. Oh no! I am actually expected to repair the house and continue making my mortgage payments or face foreclosure. What planet are these mortgage people from?! However, if the roof of my townhouse suddenly flies away in a strong breeze, guess what? No worries! I can just move (assuming I'm not in a binding lease). Bye bye rented property where all of my personal belongings were destroyed!

Anyway, to all you renters out there: owning a house is awesome. My house is actually very nice. I'll miss it. Wanna buy mine? The more renters that move out, the more available units there will be for me to choose from.

Hopefully I'll be able to update this blog with good news about the house for sale story very soon.

Later!

No Recent Activity

Thank you for your interest in this weblog, or "blog". Unfortunately, the originator has become lazy and has opted to not make regular entries. Due to this, you will notice large gaps between post dates.

Thank you for your interest.

Check out this Article

Sparrow Aviation Administration Blames Collision On Failure To Detect Pane Of Glass

Funny Video

I may have mentioned the satire news site The Onion on here before but they now post videos. These videos are presented in the typical cable news station format. Anyway, they've posted one of their funniest ones so far (in my opinion). Here's the link: Something in Haiti.

Enter: Gordon II

Actually, I think he's going to be named James, another train from the Thomas the Train world. I'll be sure to post some pictures of the critter for posterity in the event of some unforeseen tragic event.

G' night!

Tragedy

We experienced a little tragedy tonight. My son had his hamster, Gordon, rolling around in his hamster ball. After a couple of minutes, I asked where the hamster was. Caleb didn't know. I searched and searched and finally found him. Our dog, Beth, had killed it.

Molly and Caleb are taking it pretty hard. Surprisingly, Molly more so than Caleb. Anyway, I'm typing this sitting up in our bed with Joy, Molly, and Caleb all beside me. There's not a lot of room here but, hey, they are sad.

Anyway, my initial feeling is to get rid of Beth. Naturally, I know that Beth is just a dumb dog and that she didn't kill Gordon for any reason other than pure instinct. I guess. I still go back to wanting to permanently say "Goodbye" to Beth, but I'll make sure that any decision like that isn't based strictly on emotion.

Have a good night.

Gordon the Hamster
R.I.P.

Some Pics from Today

Joy and me in line for Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride.

Molly and Caleb with Chip of "Chip 'N Dale" fame.

In front of Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom.



Caleb with his beloved toy knight that's been lost at Magic Kingdom.

They still make Monchichi?! Well, these were for sale in the Japanese area of Epcot.

Here's a close up of Caleb's brave "Sir Knight". I really hope we can find another one for him.

The Magic Kingdom

I'm sure I mentioned it in another post but I still say that the Animal Kingdom is the best Disney World park. We spent the day at Magic Kingdom today and I came away the impression that the park resembles more of a carnival or older amusement park than an "amusement" park. I guess, for me, it's really showing it's age.

Many of the rides like It's a Small World, Peter Pan's Flight (name is probably wrong), and even Pirates of the Caribbean smell old. Kind of like going into an attic. Nothing really wrong with that because I still enjoyed the rides but I think they are definitely starting to show their age. Although, it is cool to see effects that don't rely on computer generated images projected onto screens.

I think we will be going back tomorrow to see the parade and fireworks show at the end of the evening. We left right when the fireworks were starting tonight so we could beat the crowd.

Well, I'm uploading some pictures to my flickr site right now and I hope to show some pictures right here.

See you soon.

Here's one of the many pictures I've uploaded at my flickr site. This was taken at the Animal Kingdom Park on our way out. More pics to come.

We spent the day at MGM Studios yesterday and a great, exhausting time. We rode the Tower of Terror, saw a bunch of shows, and a bunch of other stuff. But the highlight of our day was the first ride we rode: Star Tours, a silly simulator type ride.

I say this was the “highlight” because Caleb cried almost the whole time. Despite how much I tried to explain to him what was going to happen on the ride and how much I tried to tell him that it was all fake, he still came away saying that he thought we were really going into outer space. He was screaming things like, “I don't like this ride” the whole time. Poor guy. Then again, he was already acting scared while we walked through the (very short) line.

Overall, though, we all had a great day. Today, I think we're going to Epcot.

Talk to you later.

April 22nd PM/April 23rd AM post

We went to Disney's Animal Kingdom park yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect; I wasn't expecting much to be honest. I thought it would be a semi-lame attempt at a zoo. I was wrong. That was a very, very fun park. Especially the Kilamanjaro Safaris ride. I swear we were actually RIDING the ride for close to ten minutes. Although it doesn't fit the typical mold for theme park rides since it's more of a zoo-like tour, it's my favorite ride so far.

It looks like we're going to MGM Studios today which is a pretty fun park.

By the way, the kids are having a great time. They love the pools here at the hotel. Which reminds of fact I'm sure everybody already knows: kids will play in water no matter what the temperature is. Molly and Caleb wanted to play in the pool last night and since the depth is close to four feet, Joy and I got in, too. The pools are heated, which is great. However, getting out was pure torture. We were freezing all the way back to our hotel room. But do the kids really care? No. They would shiver violently and risk hypothermia if it meant they could just play in a pool. Psycho.

I hope to be posting some pictures to my flickr site today. If I think about it, I'll link a couple here.

See you later!

April 22nd AM Post

Up at about 7am today. I walked down to the dining area (can't remember what it's called) and poured coffee for Joy and me. The coffee isn't great and they don't have crème brulee creamer for the coffee but it'll do.

So, today we're heading to the animal kingdom. Unfortunately, it's already 8:10am so it's already going to be pretty packed at the park. But at least we don't have to worry about parking.

Hope to be posting some pictures on my flickr site tonight.

1-800-CYA!

First Day of Vacation

Greetings from the Pop Century Resort Hotel in Orlando, Florida.

Yes, we are now in Orlando, Florida. The flight(s) here weren't too bad; no turbulence, no delays, etc. However, Caleb had to go pee “really bad” a total of nine times between our house and our hotel.

Let me be specific: Caleb peed: twice at Newport News/Williamsburg Airport, twice on the flight to Atlanta, once in the Atlanta airport, twice on the flight to Orlando, and twice at the Orlando airport. That brings the grand total to nine bathroom visits during our trip. It was probably just his nerves but still, that's a LOT of peeing. The reason Caleb even had a chance to pee twice in Orlando was because of an issue we had with our rental car reservation.

I reserved an Alamo rental car through Expedia.com which wouldn't really be all that big of a deal except for the fact that we had also reserved Disney's Magical Express. Disney's Magical Express is basically a bus that takes you directly from the airport to your hotel. It's purpose is also get your luggage directly to your hotel room. That's all fine and good except for the fact that there was a conflict: we were scheduled to take the Disney's Magical Express from the airport AND we were supposed to pick up our rental car from the airport at the same time!

After three calls to Expedia, I was able to cancel my rental car. The second lady I spoke with told me no, “we can't cancel the rental car since it is part of your package”. The third person I spoke with seemed amazed that someone told me they “couldn't” cancel the rental car. Anyway, we are currently rental car-less but we're quite happy. Since we're staying at one of Disney's resort hotels, there are buses constantly running to all of the theme parks. Basically, we made end up spending a little extra on dining but it will in no way equal the cost of the rental car plus eating.

Well, I've got some pictures taken and loaded on my computer but I don't have internet access right now. I'm debating whether or not I actually wanna do it. There's a small fee associated with it so, I might. I might not.

I hope to keep this vacation journal up to date so I can sorta remember the details later on.

See ya later!

Caleb's Quote o' the Day

Caleb (to his sister, Molly): "We were twins but not twins in the same belly."

(Note: Molly and Caleb are not twins.)

Soooo Sleeepy

I'm getting very tired. I don't know why exactly. I think... I think it's because I'm tired.

On an entirely different subject, Microsoft is implementing Windows Messenger into Xbox Live. I'm not sure how cool or crappy that will be. I don't know if I know anybody with Windows Messenger but I'll give it a try. Although, it's probably a waste of time since I rarely IM anybody and lately I haven't been gaming very much. Oh well.

See you later.

(three more days)

Four More Days

Yes, four more days until our vacation. More importantly, only three more work days. The kids are really excited about the trip and so am I. I'm mainly excited about being off of work (had to be there at 5am today - ouch.) and relaxing with my family.

Relaxing. We might not get a whole of relaxation but I'm very happy that we're going to be going at our own pace.

Until next time.

Well... BYE!

Privatize My Blog?

Blogger now has an option that allows (ahem) bloggers to make their blogs available only to people they choose. So, I'm considering it. I've never posted here hoping to get noticed by the world. I've posted here mainly for entertainment and a detached form of communication.

So, anyway, I am considering it. Unless, of course, the public outcry is so great that I am forced to leave my blog open to the public. Hardy har har.

See you soon! Or not, depending on whether or not I choose to turn this blog into a private thing.

That Felt Good

I set up a myspace account a little while ago just out of curiosity. Tonight, I finally did what I've been meaning to do since about a week after I set up the account: I canceled it. I got so sick of getting those "friend" requests in my email box from spammers.

So long, myspace. I hardly knew ya. And I hardly wanted to anyway.

Blogging While On Vacation?

Should I do it? I plan on taking my laptop with me to Disney World with my family. Mainly so I can keep a lot of free space on my digital camera. Anyway, maybe I'll take time out each evening for a quick recap of the day. A sort of vacation journal, I guess.

Anyway, six more days to Disney!

Twelve Days to Disney

No, I'm not a big Disney fan or anything like that. It's just that we're going to Disney World in twelve days and I thought that the title of this post sounds like a movie title or a band name or something cool like that.

I don't know why I've gotten back into posting stuff on my blog again... oh, wait. Now I remember: my sister. My sister has posted a couple of comments here and it's made me want to post some junk on here. Thanks, sis!

One thing before I cut short this already short entry: I am sick of "Baby Story". "Baby Story" is a series on TLC and each episode follows a couple as they go through their pregnancies. My wife apparently loves it, but I am tired of the annoying couples that act like their the only ones that have ever had any kids before. "Oh, look at us! We're having a baby! This has never happened to anyone else in the entire world! And even if it has, we are the only ones who can do it right!"

Here's some more of the dumb crap people say on that show: "We want to have our baby naturally so we're not going to have an epidural." How sweet! And when you go to the dentist for a root canal, do you tell your dentist, "I want to have this root canal naturally. I do not want to have any anesthesia. I want to feel everything.

One last thing about "Baby Story" that annoys me: Why do the producers of the show regularly find people that want to have their baby in a bathtub or jacuzzi? Are the fish? Are they mermaids. Or do they just love the beautiful colors that will inevitably float around in the water during and after the birth? YUCK!

Until next time... Well, BYE!

Snow... In April? Here?!

Yep. It snowed this morning. It actually stuck to the ground a little bit. I can't remember the last time it actually snowed in April in this part of Virginia. It wasn't enough to make a snowman, or a snowball, or even to hear it crunch beneath your feet (it was a very wet snow) but it was cool nonetheless.

Here's to springtime!