Is it Easter already?

As you can see in the picture, little Samantha is already sporting her bunny ears in an attempt to get on the Easter bunnies good side. It seems like this year is going by so fast. In a couple of weeks, Karie, Samantha, and I will be headed to Arizona to spend a long weekend out near Sedona with Dan. I am looking forward to getting out of town a little bit and relaxing. My boss has graciously allowed us to use his second house in Phoenix and his lake house up in Munds Park, AZ. It is so pretty up there. I think right now we are planning on seeing the Grand Canyon and Sedona and possibly some hiking if Samantha will let us. It all depends on her mood. I really would like to do a hike that Karie and I did last time we were up in that area.  I think Dan will really enjoy it.

Sorry, this post is going to ramble a little bit since I have a lot of disjointed thoughts in my head right now. While my family (Karie, Samantha, and myself) is doing very well, it seems like my extending family is not. A lot of personal and health issues that seem to be pulling everyone down. It's hard to sit back and all I can do is listen or offer a kind word. Just to sit their powerless to offer and real assistance and then to go home and realize how lucky I am. To have a good wife, good baby, good, job, good life... I am sure my family will persevere and push through the issues and come out stronger for it.  I can only hope and pray and let God do his work.

House Finch

I have been noticing these little birds around my house for years now and don't remember seeing them around Texas as I was growing up. I wondered for a long time what they were and it wasn't until this week that I finally looked it up.

From wikipedia:
The House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) is a bird in the finch family Fringillidae. This species and the other "American rosefinches" are usually placed in the rosefinch genus Carpodacus.

These are cute little guys that go nuts over my bird feeder. Most are permanent residents and eat seeds and berries. The reason I don't remember seeing these little guys as I was growing up is that they are fairly new to our area. They have started migrating into this area in the 90s and now seem to make it their home.

Super Moon

"In astrology, a supermoon is a full or new moon that coincides with a close approach by the Moon to the Earth. The Moon's distance varies each month between approximately 354,000 km (220,000 mi) and 410,000km (254,000 mi) due to its elliptical orbit around Earth." (via Wikipedia)

This one is special because it's the closest (perigee) a Full Moon has been in some time.

"The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of1993," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC.

My size comparison isn't very scientific but you can see a difference. If I had taken a photo of a Full Moon at apogee (farthest) then there should have been a 14% size difference. I can't find any type of schedule that shows the distances of the moon based on date so I am not sure where the moon was on 01-19-2011.

McCutie

Happy St. Patrick's Day! As you can see my little girl is all decked out in her green for the day. She turned 9 months old yesterday and I can't believe how fast she is growing up. It seems like yesterday when we watched that first sonogram with the little cheerio on the screen. Now she is almost 20 lbs and almost walking. Crazy!

Palo Duro and Caprock Canyons

This weekend I took a road trip with both my brothers and sister. This is the first time that all four of us have gone on a trip at the same time. I have done trips with each one individually but this is the first time with everyone. So the plan was to leave McKinney on Friday afternoon after work and head to Canyon, TX for the night. On Saturday we would spend the day at Palo Duro Canyon and in Amarillo and then on Sunday we would hike at Caprock. Then Sunday afternoon we would head for home.

Everything went as planned! We got to Canyon, TX just after midnight after a 5.5 hour drive in the minivan. Everyone got up early the next morning and we headed over to Palo Duro and did the hike out to the Lighthouse. It was a long hike and was pretty hard on Kevin but he made it out there and back. We ended up hiking for about 4 hours and covered about 8 miles. Later that afternoon we headed over to the Cadillac Ranch and spend some time unleashing our inner delinquent while spray painting some cars. Then it was on to the Big Texan for dinner.

On Sunday we went down to Caprock Canyons, which to me is nicer than Palo Duro because it is less traveled and more remove. The hiking out there is great and everyone enjoyed it. I took another shot at hiking to the top of Haynes Ridge since last time I was out there (2009) David and I ran out of time before we got to the top. I almost made it to the top before I ran into a trial blockage and I was just too tired to climb over it. I made it 90% of the was, oh well, I will get to the top next time. I will made sure I am in better shape next time I am out there.

After we left Caprock, we headed home and after 4 hours more in the car we rolled back into McKinney. It's always nice to come home after a trip and plop on the couch.

Rocky Mountain Oysters

This is a picture of me eating a Rocky Mountain Oyster. On the road trip I took with my brothers and sister we stopped for dinner at the Big Texan in Amarillo. My older brother decided to order an appetizer with Fried Mushrooms, Fried Jalapenos, and Fried Calf Testicles (Rocky mountain oysters). He ordered this because he was hoping I would try one and either puke or freak out. However, when I tried one, I rather liked them. They tasted to me like Dairy Queen steak fingers, which I adore. This realization lead me to believe that Dairy Queen has been feeding me testicles all my life under the name of "Steak Finger." The funniest thing was when the waiter dropped off the platter he didn't tell us what was what.  My older brother assumed all of the items would be separate and they weren't! He had to call the waiter back to make him identify the mushrooms from the testicles.  My brothers just could not bring themselves to try them.

So after dinner on Saturday, I got to hear my brothers make endless jokes about me having balls in my mouth.  The joys of having brothers!

Sugar Baby

Well Karie and Samantha are safely in Ft. Wayne visiting family. I couldn't get the time off work so I am still here at home. You don't realize how much you get used to the hustle and bustle of a busy house. And being a house with a 9 month old it is a busy household.

So once Karie and Samantha left it got really quiet around here. So I built my own baby. She isn't as mobile or noisy as Samantha but she does watch daddy, sometimes with a creepy intensity. Actually after a little while my baby creation is actually starting to creep me out a little. It feels like it's little eyes are moving as I walk across the room. Not sure if the sugar baby was such a good idea now. I think I might drop her off at grandma's house.

Cheerios

Samantha was scavenging the kitchen floor this afternoon for cheerios. She is crawling very well now and it's hard to keep track of her.

Karie and Samantha are heading to Ft. Wayne, IN tomorrow and it is going to be very quiet around here with out them.

Sharing

Samantha hasn't really learned to start sharing yet. However, she did feed me one cherrio the other day and let me chew on her giaraffe. On second thought, she might have just liked the look on daddy's face when she shoved a soggy giaraffe head into daddy's open mouth. Awww, the joys of parenthood.

Episode 2

I thought the events of last night's bath were too funny not to pass on.
I hope that Samantha can appreciate my sense of humor when she is older.

Adventures of the Temperamental Baby

This is a basic synopisis of the morning around the house.

New Baby

Well the last 3 weeks have been pretty awesome. My first child came into this world and continues to brighten my life each and every day. I will try not to gush too much because it can be quite annoying to others because when I look at Samantha I see endless opportunity and adventure. I think watching and helping her to grow up is going to be a lot of fun, even through the rough patches.

I will try to keep adding updates out here but I have a tendency to get so over loaded with all of the things home and work related that some things tend to fall by the wayside. But in retrospect the things that fall by the wayside weren't all that important to start with.

Off to the new adventure that I push into.

New year, time to get back into my routine

Well the new year is here and it is time to get off my butt and knock those holiday pounds off. Actually there are a little more than holiday pounds. As you may have noticed last year was not the best year for the economy or small companies. However, the company I worked for survived but due to the stress and long work hours I put on a few pounds. About 9 months ago I was weighing in at 209 and now I am back up to 240.

Oh well, no point whining about it.

So it about time I got back on my routine of eating healthy and exercise. I vow not to let work push me to eating my stress.

There will be one more obstacle to overcome for the next 6 months and beyond. My wife is currently pregnant so I need to try to avoid the extra weight while keeping my wife happy and healthy.

I am planning on running my first half marathon on April 11th of this year and I am very excited about it. I am hoping to get my weight back down into the 210s by then or as close as I can by then.

And I also need to start getting my base saddle time in so I am ready for the 2010 North Texas (Mountain Bike) Race Series. I wasn't able to participate last year for the first time in 3 years and wasn't really happy with myself.

Wish me luck!

Co-worker

My little co-worker joined me this morning for several hours. He was good and stayed on his desk and off my keyboard.

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Working...

I have been working for a start up company for almost 4 years now and it has been a great experience with a lot of highs and a lot of lows. I met these guys about 5.5 years ago while I was working with Picasso Software and was assigned to their project so I have had my hands in this application from day one. It is like my baby and I am very protective of it. Yes, I am a geek.

I was sitting in my office this morning pushing the latest code base and thinking how blessed I am to be working with a group of people that have passion for what they are doing and to be working for a company that has direction and real goals. For me my job is more than just what I do from 7 to 5 everyday.

This last year has been hard, because of the "down turn" in the economy but we stayed the course and have weathered the worst of it. We are starting to see life out there again in the marketplace and are starting to pick up steam again.

Lets hope for more momentum that will carry us into the new year.

370Z

I saw this new "Z" and the Texas State Fair auto show and was impressed. Very nice!

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Welcome back...

I realized it has been a while since I have posted any new entries out there. It's not like I don't have interesting things to post about it's just a matter of finding the time. I am trying the juggle work, exercise and having a life. It seems like work seems to win a lot of the time, especially since I work for a start up.

Today we celebrated my wife's birthday and my family came over to the house. I decided to make lasagna for the occasion which I thought would be nice and easy. Not so easy since I make everything from the noodles to the sauce from scratch. I spent 3 hours this morning stirring, kneading, rolling, boiling, etc. By the time I was all done, I was so wiped out all I wanted to do was crash on the couch. At least it was all very tasty!