This...is my life!

Weekend Report

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:31:18 GMT

Thursday

Left after lunch to donate blood. Got home, mowed grass, worked on packing up for weekend.

Friday

Worked on cleaning up before parents arrived. Packed up truck after they did. Rode to Prince Gallitzin State Park office, submitted forms for geocaches. Continued to cabin to unpack. Lunch. Left Sebastian with parents to place geocaches. Arrived back at cabin for dinner.

Saturday

Some minor geocaching. Only found 1. Didn't have orange on, so stayed away from hunting areas. Went out for ice cream. Watched Penn State cream Wisconsin.

Sunday

Go to mass, only to discover we had the times wrong. We arrived at the end of communion. Naturally, the door was at the front of the church, so we were nicely embarrassed and simply turned around and went back home. Packed up, watched first half of Colts creaming the Ravens (Dad had a good football weekend), headed home, stopping for Chinese buffet on the way.

Monday

Up with Sebastian, took him downstairs to let Elyse sleep off some illness. Lazy morning with Sebastian in living room watching TV. Got caught up on Terminator from last week. Elyse and Sebastian leave for her parents' house to pick up Nanaki, leaving me with an empty house for the first time ever (cat continues to misbehave and went to my parents' for an indeterminate period of time). Cleaned up in basement (almost done!), watched Giants game.

West Virginia

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:41:05 GMT

Last week we spent the week at Timberline Resort in WV. Here's a day-by-day breakdown:

Friday

Got up relatively early to finish getting ready. Dropped off Nanaki the puppy with Matt. Dropped off Mitsu the cat with my parents. Started along route to resort office thanks to new GPS. Stopped for lunch at a nice diner. Met up with my in-laws and took on Ben so that the rest of the family could have a little more room in the CRV. Arrived at resort HQ around 3. Checked in, got keys, unpacked. Relaxed around house while Elyse and her dad cleaned out the local grocery store. $300 worth of groceries! The fridge could barely hold it all.

Saturday

Justin and Tamara had arrived late the previous night. Greeted them in the morning. Went out with father-in-law to find first geocaches. First one was directly off a maintenance road whose sign also had a Gecocaching marker on it. Took us less than 5 minutes. Second one was off Deer Run trail. Started out 0.3 miles away from it, but had to walk around a marsh and ended up walking 1.25 miles total before arriving at it. Waypoint was off by at least 75ft, but my father-in-law found it.

Sunday

Skipped church. General relaxing around house. Lia and Glenn arrived at some point (either Saturday night or Sunday night, I can't remember) and Justin and Tamara got on the road around noon because she had to be somewhere at 8.

Monday-Friday

General geocaching, hiking, etc. Favorite trail: Rhododendron Lane. You walk in very cramped quarters between some rhododendrons and then all of a sudden exit the other end of the path on top of a mountain. Never see it coming. Wonderful view!

PS This entry took months to finally complete. I suck.

Hershey Park

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:25:16 GMT

Yesterday the heat wave finally broke enough that Elyse and I decided we could take Sebastian and Emma (who's visiting this week) to Hershey Park.

We left almost immediately after I got home and had an uneventful drive into the park. I knew it wasn't going to be too crowded based on how far I was able to drive past the ticket booth (free parking! another benefit of being a season pass holder) before being directed into the parking lot.

We got on the tram (driven by an impatient operator; I would've been fine taking the next one, but he wanted us to run and catch his for some reason) and rode to the gate. The tram might be Sebastian's favorite ride. No car seat, open air, not too fast or slow, etc.

Emma and I went to buy her sunset special ticket ($25 vs. standard $48) while Elyse took Sebastian through the gate. Emma and I followed shortly thereafter, and immediately Emma wanted to ride Fahrenheit (the new coaster with the 97 degree drop). Elyse said we could run ahead, so we did.

Fahrenheit looks even more impressive up close while you're in line. Emma said it didn't look all that tall to her. While we were in line, Emma realized she had lost her necklace, which was a gift from a good friend. I told her we could retrace our steps quickly after the ride and try to find it.

We didn't have too long of a wait before getting on in row 5 of 6. The train pulls out of the station and drifts up to the main attraction of the coaster: a straight-up climb followed by the 97-degrees-from-horizontal drop. Even Emma had to admit it looked much taller from this angle. The train got pulled straight up into the air, and from our perspective near the back, we couldn't see the track anymore. THAT was disconcerting, but cool.

At the top we had half a moment to look over the park before the big drop. After that it's a big blur. There's a lot of rising and dropping, a loop or two, a corkscrew, and a downhill stop towards the end (similar to Storm Runner). The picture is taken fairly early in the ride.

When we got off, we met up with Elyse and let her know we were going to look for the necklace. She was a little annoyed to be stuck with Sebastian for a while longer and therefore unable to do anything, but by the time we got back (having no luck in our search) she had changed into her swimsuit and taken Sebastian into the kiddie pool area in the new Boardwalk.

Emma and I followed suit (no pun intended) and I took over Sebastian while they went to get on some water rides. Sebastian wasn't all that impressed with the water, but he was willing to try playing with some of the drips and spouts after his daddy did. He was also flirting up a storm with every cute little girl (and cute lifeguard) he spotted. And by flirting, I of course mean staring.

Eventually the girls got back and Emma took over the babysitting responsibilities for us while we went on a couple slides. There's a funnel ride that has the typical tube stuff before emptying out in the side of a big funnel and throwing you around for a while before you land in the pool. There's also Vortex which has the same concept with the added awesome of a steep drop towards the end and the fact that instead of a funnel it's basically a big toilet bowl you swirl around in for a while before dropping through a drain into the pool.

We rejoined Emma, who took Sebastian for a walk in the stroller after deciding to try to eat his life jacket in the wave pool. She and I tried out the body boarding attraction. She went first and was doing well until I went to take my turn on the wave next to hers. I managed to do well and stay on the board the whole time, but she wiped out at one point and slammed her face into a pole. No permanent damage, though. Out of respect for her pain, I refrained from responding to her "my face hurts" comment with the usually obligatory "yeah, it's killing me."

Chicken tenders, hot dogs, french fries, and sugary drinks for dinner, then a change back into our normal clothes and off we went to the rest of the park. Emma and I got on Storm Runner, since Elyse didn't feel digested enough to go instead. Afterwards we made our way towards Great Bear for the girls to ride, and I got in line for the Classic Cars.

They were on and off the ride before I even got to the cars, so they joined up with me and we all went together. Emma drove. I fear for her in a couple years when it's learner's permit time. We swung by SooperDooperLooper for Emma and Elyse and then headed for the gate.

Lost+Found didn't have her necklace, so she filled out a form and we crossed our fingers. We checked the car and the driveway/yard at home as well, but no luck. Unfortunately for her, I think it's lost for good at this point. Possibly picked up by some other guest at the park, but more likely swept up and discarded as trash.

It was a late night by the time we went to bed, totally exhausted. But it was totally worth it.

Fun!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:58:36 GMT

We just had a busy weekend. Went to Baltimore's National Aquarium with my parents for a joint Mother's/Father's Day present. We had loads of fun and took a bunch of pictures. Sebastian and I really liked the dolphin show.

I had to wrestle the check away from my dad at dinner, despite this being part of our gift to them. After saying I was insulted, he let up. I guess I finally got through to him.

Saturday was the suckiest wedding ever. It was hot, the food sucked, the caterers were rude, and the bridge and groom left their own party to hang around outside in the heat and smoke. At least it was an open bar.

That put me in a bad mood for Sunday, which continued until I got to talk to my wife a bit in the afternoon. Thus cheered, we got on the road for home around 9pm. The house was insanely warm since the AC had been off while we were gone. I turned on the permanent wall-mounted unit and renewed my search for the block of wood I knew I needed for the window unit in our bedroom. I found it, couldn't figure out how to work it, finally remembered there was a second block, found it, and got the unit installed.

Emma came down to visit with us, and she opted to sleep in the living room to stay cool. Her room and Sebastian's room were not cool enough to sleep in, so Sebastian slept with us in our room. Hopefully things will be much cooler tonight since the units will be on all day.

It could stand to be cooler here at work, that's for sure. I don't know if their air conditioners can handle this kind of weather.

Oh, and there was a first in Sebastian history yesterday. I was playing with him by running back and forth in the family room before we left Elyse's parents' house. When it was time to load the car, I gave him to Elyse, and he cried because he was having fun with me. It's the first time I can recall him preferring me to Mommy. :-)

San Francisco, part 2

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:52:53 GMT

We managed to get tickets for the Redwoods tour bus for Wednesday afternoon. Some good pictures of the Golden Gate bridge were taken at our rest stops, as well. They should be on my wife's online photo album.

Thursday sucked. We got to the airport okay (extra early because of fears that the tourists who came for the torch run on Wednesday would all be flocking home the same time we were). Flight into Chicago was rough because of bad weather, which resulted in a delayed landing. After running full tilt thinking the departures board showed our next plane running on time, we discovered it was instead delayed a few hours.

Eventually, our plane was able to take off after a 5 hour delay. They also had to TIGHTEN SOMETHING ON THE WING first. That didn't inspire confidence. Bumpy take off and start to the flight, then pretty smooth into Harrisburg at 3am. Managed to get home somewhere around 4.

Work was rather difficult to deal with in getting proper comp time for the layover, but eventually it all worked out.

First Steps

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:16:01 GMT

Sebastian took his first step on Saturday. Elyse and I had just gotten back from Friendly's. I went to put him down on the living room floor and he did his usual routine of keeping his legs stiff instead of sitting, so he was standing there holding onto me.

I gently pulled my hands free of his so he was standing on his own (which he's been able to do for a while) and backed up a bit. I held out my hands and said, "Come on, you can do it. Right now, let's go." He took one step forward and then grabbed onto my hand as if to say, "That was scary!"

Elyse and I are very excited. We haven't managed to get him to take more than one step at a time since then, but it's only a matter of time, now.

San Francisco, part 1

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:23:47 GMT

Yesterday I and Matt flew out to San Francisco for Oracle Identity Manager training. Some highlights thus far:

I set off the metal detector at the security checkpoint and ended up needing to be manually scanned and frisked. No idea what set off the scanner. Supposedly around my ankles, but the wand didn't do a thing there.

Flight to Dulles (Washington, DC) went well. Flight to San Francisco was long and more cramped, surprisingly, than the commuter flight. Decent enough snacks. Watched part of the Band of Brothers series on Matt's PSP. He has crazy headphones that require a 10 minute tutorial before you can use them.

We took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the airport to the hotel. After checking in, we went to find some food and took one of the street cars (trolleys) out to Fisherman's Wharf and walked around, eventually arriving at Castagnola's. I had the cioppino, which was a bunch of seafood in a tomato-based sauce. It was actually pretty tasty and apparently was of locally-caught fare: crab, scallops, mussels, shrimp, etc.

We barely managed to figure out how to get back, walking quite some distance uphill until finding buses heading our way.

After class yesterday we stopped by Powell St station and got a 3 day pass for $18. We've already gotten $11.50 worth out of it, and it's much more convenient than having to find $1.50 in exact change for individual fares. We got back to the hotel and changed, then headed back out to explore (which included a visit for Morley's sake to the Apple store), eventually ending up on the cable car, which was a very cool experience.

We rode that until Lombard St, which is the crookedest street in San Francisco. Took some pictures and video of that from both ends, then headed towards the wharf. We walked through the cannery to Jack's, which was a local bar. Standard bar fare as far as food, but a large selection of drinks. I had a raspberry cider and sampled Morley's Guinness. I'm not a beer drinker, but the Guinness was all right.

We continued on to Pier 39 for some souvenir shopping, walked along the wharf a bit and tried to get some good nighttime shots of Alcatraz, etc. On the way back, we stopped at an ice cream place we spotted on the way out. They served a good selection of Mitchell's ice cream, which is a local brand, and the Oreo Cookie Shake I got was incredible. We may revisit before our stay is out.

An enjoyable cable car ride back (including an informative explanation of the system by the brake operator) got us to the hotel around 11pm.

Two more full days left here. Hoping to get to see the big trees tomorrow after lunch. :-)

Easter

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:09:35 GMT

We hosted Easter at our house again this year, in a tradition that started one liturgical year ago when I became Catholic. Since Easter ended up being so early this year, that's almost a month earlier than a calendar year. Both families were there, including Nanny, making a total of 10 (including Sebastian). Unlike last year at the townhouse, everyone was able to be seated at one table or another, which worked out very well.

Sebastian got some good toys, including my old plastic wagon filled with wooden letter blocks. My dad stacked some up for Sebastian, and in a move that echoed me at that age, promptly knocked them all over. He also got a steering wheel game that makes a lot of noise, some stuffed Peeps, and a lot of attention. :-)

Several of us took turns playing Guitar Hero II on the big screen, which was also lots of fun. Everything has been disconnected now, though, because our PS3 arrived today! I hooked it up and tested it out doing a number of things. It works quite well, and the IR receiver that the guys at work got me for my birthday works quite well with it. The Harmony has been reprogrammed and handles the PS3 perfectly. I noticed that the PS3 has Folding@home capability on it, so I'm thinking I might just start that up every time I'm done using it instead of actually turning it off. Might help do some good in the medical world; who knows?

The only complaint about the PS3 is that you can't password your account on the system, nor can you restrict what accounts are able to do on it. This might be an issue if it stays like that when Sebastian gets older. I don't want him deleting, for example, my virtual PS2 memory card that will soon have my Final Fantasy save games on it. That would suck!

Well, that's it for now. How about these semi-regular updates? Let's see how long they last.

Harmony

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:54:38 GMT

I purchased a Harmony Remote on Monday from Amazon (with a $50 discount promo code, yay!) and it arrived yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise that they got it to me so quickly.

This thing is totally awesome. Not only can it control anything under the sun that accepts infrared, but it's got a built-in help function, customizable LCD display with buttons you can set to do ANYTHING, and an internal sensor that knows when it's been picked up and turns the backlight on for you.

I kind of want to buy a bunch more IR devices just so I can control them with the Harmony. :)

Weekend Update

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:15:14 GMT

Friday
Up early for Sebastian's 7am procedure to have his ear skin tags removed. Procedure went well, though he was understandably cranky for a while afterwards. Took it easy the rest of the day for his sake.

Saturday
Up at 7:30 thanks to fully-recovered Sebastian. Got ready for the day and called Morley to confirm TV shopping. Dropped off Sebastian with Joan and headed to Costco with Elyse and Matt. Looked around for a bit and eventually got to a 55" Sony SXRD DLP HDTV (OMG BBQ). Based on price tag, apparent limited availability, the included-for-free TV stand, and 90 day return policy, bought the TV and had Costco hold it for us. Drove on to Tweeter to look at their selection, which did not offer the same kind of value in our budget. We did, however, buy a 5-speaker set (RM-10, as I recall) for $250. Just need a receiver and a subwoofer now for a full audio system.

Went back to Morley's house to look for reviews of the purchased TV. Failing to find anything negative, took the van over and loaded it up. Had to take it out of the box in the windy parking lot to get it to fit, but it went in eventually. The TV stand box was heavier than the TV. Unloaded it and put it on the floor in the living room to test it out. Accidentally plugged the cable into the antenna port and wondered where all our channels went. Plugged the cable in properly and re-programmed and became amazed at how many digital channels Comcast was sending down the wire that we hadn't been able to see before. Granted, many of these were music channels, but still a surprise.

Started assembly of TV stand before going to Lower Dauphin High School to see my sister-in-law in an indoor guard competition. Sebastian was a big fan of all the ladies dancing around.

Sunday
Went to 7:30 mass in order to have some prep time afterwards before my in-laws came over to visit. Was sufficiently satisfied with my father-in-law's reaction to our TV (he paid more for his 40" LCD). Finished assembly of TV stand and placed it and TV into place in the corner. The TV stand is hilarious because you put the TV on it before you put the last piece (the front board) on it, because it actually goes over the pedestal stand of the TV. The stand also included a buckle on a strap in the back that plugs into the back of the TV for extra security. I don't think Sebastian's likely to do anything to that TV for years. At least, until he throws something through it.

A couple of Elyse's college friends came over just as my in-laws were getting ready to go. While they were there, DirecTV showed up. Very nice technician agreed to set it up where I wanted and run the cables the way I wanted, etc. I told him of my plans for a new plate for the hole the cables were going through. He gave me a short length of terminated double-coax to use between the plate and the receiver, as well as two barrel connectors to use in the new plate. Apparently DTV needs you to use special connectors because of frequencies they're using on the line.

He also explained that the ethernet ports on the back of the HD receivers are active and can be used for DTV's "On Demand" content.

Matt and his family came over towards the latter half of the installation. After the DTV guy finished up, we ordered food from Giovanni's and went to go get it. Got back to the house, dropped off the food, and went back to Giovanni's again because they called and told me they forgot to give me my stromboli. So that was amusing.

I still need to write about our trip to Pittsburgh to visit with Lia. Perhaps I'll do that later today.

Holidays

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:51:05 GMT

I suppose it's about time I post in here about my holidays.

Christmas Eve was a day off for me, so I got to sleep in a little bit and relax. We went to 4:15 mass, and it was far more packed than I thought it would be. We ended up standing in the back of the lobby. I held Sebastian and rocked him back and forth; after a chair opened up and I sat down, he drifted right off to sleep for the rest of the mass. I was sadly not surprised at the number of people that left early (a few before the homily even, and most just before communion).

After getting home, we had our family Christmas Eve service that Elyse wrote up. Having some time to kill before heading to Nanny's for the traditional Christmas Eve snacking, we tuned into EWTN and watched the midnight mass with Pope Benedict. It was a Latin mass, which was neat, and the intercessions that were read were in the native languages of the readers, which was also cool to listen to.

Elyse and I were impressed for a time at the person translating until I noticed he read a particular word (I forget which) before it was actually uttered (the word in question having been one I could identify based on its common root). Apparently he already had the translated homily available to him and was just reading at the same pace.

We went into Nanny's and had a fun time, though we did have to be careful to wash our hands of any shrimp before handling Sebastian, as that's apparently a high-allergy food for infants. Dad had a horrible cold
and couldn't hold Sebastian at all for fear of giving it to him.

Christmas morning we all opened presents, Sebastian loving his new mini-books. He loved the taste of them anyway, and they were the right size to get in one hand and get like a sandwich. Elyse was very happy with the presents I got her, which is good, because I was happy with what she got me as well. The coolest for me was probably Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS. Elyse liked her Final Fantasy X scorebook and brought it along to her parents' house to taunt Emma.

We arrived in the midst of present-opening chaos. One present I got that I have been enjoying is a page-a-day calendar from the Cranium folks. Each day has a different puzzle or game on it. That was from Lia and Glenn, I believe.

The new PS3 Ben and Emma got was hooked up and games played for brief periods. Good food was eaten as well. It was an exhausting day, and I had unfortunately not scheduled the next day off, so I ended up staying the night and leaving straight from there to go to work the next morning.

Of course, I forgot my CAC, so I had to stop at home anyway. And then, having spent only a few hours, I felt so sick I couldn't work anymore and ended up going home anyhow. I had apparently gotten Dad's cold and was off work the rest of the 26th and all of the 27th. It did give me a chance to play Zelda, though, so that was cool.

New Year's was very low-key. Elyse and I mainly played video games until 5 minutes to midnight, put Dick Clark on the TV until the 2008, then went to bed.

New Year's dinner went well with Nanny and my parents. My mom gave us way too much pork and sauerkraut, though, so we ended up (a week later) throwing a good portion of it out.

I guess that's about it from the holidays. Dad got over his cold just in time for his carotid stint on the 7th and is now home from the hospital feeling mainly run-down (as of yesterday afternoon, anyway).

Of Babies and Gingerbread Men

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:54:53 GMT

Elyse and Sebastian finally returned home after having spent most of the week up at her parents' house. I had missed them both, although without needing to worry about keeping Sebastian entertained, I was able to get more done around the house than I would have otherwise. Still, it's nice to have them back; the smile Sebastian gave me when he woke up (having fallen asleep as usual during the drive) was heartwarming. He's only 6 months old (come the 23rd), yet he seems to have missed me while he was away. I wouldn't have thought a six-month-old would have the memory necessary to feel that way.

We braved the massive grocery store crowd (stocking up on the essentials before a PA winter storm: bread, eggs, and milk; apparently most of us here in PA are supposed to make French toast when we're snowed in). Elyse picked up a gingerbread house kit. It's a plastic tray with trenches in for placing the walls of the house and the little people they give you to set up the scene. It also includes pre-cut and scored pieces for the walls, roof, and chimney of the house, as well as various candies and sprinkles for decorating. We assembled the basic house earlier this evening and left it alone. It needed at least 15 minutes to setup properly before you should start decorating it.

Sebastian feel asleep during a feeding around 9. I turned the volume down on the TV and turned off what lights I could in an attempt to make him sleep deeper and make it easier to get him up to his crib for the night. He woke up when I picked him up, but he seemed so groggy I decided to try putting him down anyway. He looked pretty awake when I left him, but since he wasn't crying and was instead playing with his cribside mirror, I decided to leave him and see how it went. Elyse went up to bed about half an hour later, coming back down to tell me that she checked on him and he was asleep, one hand clutching the ring attached to the mirror. Apparently he fell asleep while he was playing. So cute!

I stayed up to finish the gingerbread house. Not my best work; the icing is insanely difficult to work with. I snapped some pictures in the event of the cat destroying it before morning; perhaps I'll upload them to my website gallery.

Well, off to bed with me. I think the storm has started, but so far it doesn't seem like it will be much; early forecasts had it dumping half a foot of snow on us, but the "we're only this sure because we're predicting two hours into the future" forecast had it much more mild; freezing rain overnight turning into normal rain in time to get to church.

Here's hoping Sebastian lets me sleep in.

Half-Life 2

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:47:32 GMT

Sometime ago, Josh at work gave me the gift of Half-Life 2 and Episode One. He already owned those titles when he bought The Orange Box, so he ended up with two copies, and Steam lets you gift one to someone else. Well, since THEN, they got me The Orange Box for Christmas, so now I have an extra copy of HL2 and Episode One.

If anybody out there reading this wants those games for free, contact me at my website and I'll send it to you.

Quick note since I'm on the topic: Portal is awesome and hysterical, and Team Fortress 2 is addicting.

Thanksgiving

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:59:03 GMT

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I took the afternoon off to donate blood so I could start my vacation half a day early. I apparently didn't hydrate well enough, because the finger prick took forever to give her the blood quantity she needed, but everything else went okay.

When I got home I watched Sebastian while Elyse worked on cooking everything we were bringing to NJ. She made two varieties of sweet potatoes, some cranberry-orange bread/muffins, and of course, the cheesecake.

Wednesday we spent the morning getting packed up and hit the road around 1:30pm. We would normally only need 3 hours to get to Nana/Nonna's house, but an overturned truck on I-78 had both eastbound lanes completely closed. We were rerouted onto US-22, which was backlogged like crazy. We finally had to stop at 5ish to get some dinner and feed Sebastian. After we ate, Elyse fed Sebastian again and we set out again, this time on roads (already overclogged) even busier because of rush hour. At one point, I think it took an hour and a half to go 3 miles.

We finally arrived at Nonna's house at 7:30pm, a full three hours after I expected us to arrive. Elyse's parents, who left a good hour and a half after us and by all rights should have arrived half an hour after we did, were there already by the time we got there. It was an extremely aggravating trip.

Apparently, though, that was in order to get all the worst parts out of the way early, because the rest of the vacation was awesome. Thanksgiving day was great, with delicious food (though we were at the "kiddie" table again this year because of Sebastian, who incidentally had his first taste of sweet potatoes and LOVED them) and excellent company. There were discussions of the setup of a vacation fund for a summer trip, but naturally no progress was made on getting everyone to decide on a place and time to go. Those discussions, like the Writer's Guild strike's, are ongoing.

Friday continued with much fun, though a couple of the visitors we had that day were less than enjoyable. We went to Harold's New York-Style Deli for dinner that evening. Elyse and I shared a Reuben, which we didn't finish until Sunday. Those things were huge! I think it was 13oz of meat alone, plus all the toppings. And the cake slices that we saw on display had to be 2 1/2 feet tall.

Saturday evening, Elyse's family got on the road, and it was a much sadder affair than usual. Ben's clinging to his grandmother didn't surprise me much, but Emma's teary eyed goodbye was definitely unexpected. Elyse figures it's because the family continues to grow, but the distance between members of the family prevents us from seeing each other as much as we'd like. We stretch from Pittsburgh to Edison, NJ, after all.

Elyse, Sebastian, and I stayed through to Sunday, but as Elyse had started getting sick Thursday night, she was too ill to go to mass, so we stayed at Nonna's house and relaxed until she got home. Later we went out to Magic Grill, then eventually hit the road for home around 6:30pm. By 8:45, we were home safe and sound, with Elyse and Sebastian blessedly sleeping the entire way. That was much more satisfying than the ride up!

Monday we just chilled at home to uncompress from the big family gathering (I had taken Monday off because originally Elyse would've been working and would've had Monday off as well, but since she's staying at home now, it didn't matter much. However, I enjoyed it so much I plan to do it again from now on). Work these week was decent, but even after only four days, I'm glad it's the weekend.

Today holds cleaning and likely an evening mass attendance, because tonight at 11:30 I have to work on patching installations at Tulsa. Inform21 is production out there and shares the database home with Portal, which isn't yet, so that's dumb. It's nice to get overtime for patching a non-production system, though. And this time, I'm working from home because there's a snow storm expected, and I didn't want to drive to Mechanicsburg and get stuck out there or have an accident on the way back, so that makes it a good deal nicer.

Pavlov

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:57:09 GMT

For a couple of weeks now, Sebastian has become very drooly whenever I'm around. It was puzzling us for a while, but then on Wednesday I had a revelation.

He started solids a couple of weeks ago, and he's really excited for them. He gets his solids around dinner time. That's also about when I get home from work. Therefore, he sees me and knows food is coming soon, and starts drooling.

My son has become Pavlov's dog.

Girls

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:33:50 GMT

Today has been much better, because Sebastian did a complete 180 health-wise and was mostly back to his cheerful self.

This morning we went to mass, and he was looking all around the church, being nosy. He only stopped when he saw a pretty young girl to look at. There was a dark-haired girl behind us that I thought for sure would keep his attention, but it turns out that he prefers blonds. I guess since Mommy's dark-haired he's fascinated by other colors. At Emma's choir performance today (where she had a rockin' solo, FYI), he was in heaven as the 13- and 14-year-old girls were passing him around. One of the girls was a redhead, which he found quite interesting. He apparently was also all about the girls at Emma's confirmation practice, but I wasn't there to see that firsthand.

Speaking of girls, Elyse and I passed the time on the drive up to her parents' house (as Sebastian caught up on much-needed sleep) by filling out our "celebrity sex cards." In case you're not familiar with the concept, the rule is that anyone on the card (which has to be approved by the spouse) is fair game for sex if the opportunity were to ever arise, which, of course, it won't. But it's nice to dream. I had my first one very quickly: Jenna Fischer from The Office. As I was thinking of my other two, Elyse blew my mind with her first entry: Natalie Portman. How frickin' hot is that? She was totally serious, too. When we were all done, our lists were as follows:

Mine:

Hers:

Natalie Portman
Heath Ledger
Sting
Vin Diesel's voice (if somehow she could have sex with just his voice)

I think it's clear why she was allowed the fourth one.

In unrelated news, a black cat tried to cross my path on my way home today, but as I was in a car, the cat changed its mind halfway across and ran back. So what does it mean when a black cat sorta crosses your path? Just generic luck, neither good nor bad? Someone get back to me on this. :)

Cooking Tip for the Day

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:41:22 GMT

Today was pretty frustrating as Sebastian continues to be sick and cranky. However, there was a moment of great amusement to help make things better.

Earlier this week, Elyse made chicken tortellini, which had an odd taste to it. So odd, in fact, we threw out the leftovers and half of Elyse's plateful. We figured that the cooking wine hadn't cooked out fully and was overpowering the taste of the dish.

Jess came over for fondue with us today, and Elyse was making the cheese fondue, which called for corn starch to thicken it. It didn't seem to be having that effect. A moment of realization came and Elyse declared that we couldn't possibly eat what she had just prepared, because she had accidentally used baking soda instead of corn starch.

I got in the car and ran back to the store to get more cheese. Along the way, Elyse and I apparently reached the same conclusion at the same time: the chicken tortellini had been inedible because she had made the same mistake at that time and neither of us realized it. That explained why she had issues getting the sauce to thicken, as well as why it had started foaming inexplicably.

Not so inexplicable now. :-)

So your cooking tip for the day is, when a recipe calls for corn starch, be damned sure it's corn starch you're adding.

Frustration

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:04:44 GMT

I'm feeling very frustrated and exhausted today. Sebastian came down with a cold a day or so ago and he's very cranky and difficult to deal with. Elyse spent the majority of the night with him downstairs keeping him company and trying to get him to go to sleep. She came up around 7:15 and asked me to spend some time with him.

I made it an hour, and I was intensely frustrated the entire time. He's congested, so you have to suction out his nostrils periodically with this little bulb thing, and of course he hates that, so he fights you. He's sleepy, but also too achy and uncomfortable to fall asleep.

I have no idea how Elyse has the patience she does. Most of the time when I mention this her response is to remind me that all she's ever wanted is to be a mommy, so she's living her dream. I wish I had her patience.

Don't get me wrong; I love Sebastian with all my heart and it's all totally worth it, but that doesn't stop me from feeling so out of control.

Overdue Update

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:31:31 GMT

Well, as usual, it's been far too long since I wrote in here, so I'll as succinct as possible so that I don't end up writing for an hour.

Being a father has been great. Sebastian's been smiling, laughing, fascinated by his toes, grabbing things, recently learned how to make "buh" sounds, and just this morning learned how to roll over from his back to his stomach. He can be quite the handful, but he's totally worth it.

Elyse did a great job this morning cleaning up the house in preparation for her uncle and his family visiting us today. They're due any minute, actually. The upstairs is still in shambles, as is the office, but the rest of the living space is looking really great. Especially now that my parents' dining room suite has been delivered to us.

Okay, now that I've remembered to update this, maybe I'll actually update it more regularly. Cross your fingers!

It's a boy!

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:19:03 GMT

I'm a father! Sebastian Thomas was born at 12:46am on Saturday, 23 June 2007. He was 7lbs 12.5oz and 20 3/4 inches long. He's just the cutest bundle of joy ever!

The day started around 7am on Friday when Elyse said she thought her water may have broken. She already had an appointment with the OB/GYN at 9:45, so we decided to just bring it up then. But you best believe, when we were getting ready to go to the appointment, we packed the car as if we were going to the hospital.

It's a good thing we did, because they checked the fluid and confirmed that the bag of waters broke, so our next stop was Labor & Delivery. They monitored her for a while and saw that she was having some contractions, so they admitted her and used some gel to try to speed things up. It didn't work well enough, though, so in the afternoon they gave her some pitocin. She also got some Stadol to help with the pain. It basically made her high, which was hysterical. It took half a minute, but then it hit her like a ton of bricks and she said "Whoa," let her head slump back, "whoa," and let her eyes close, and then she was mostly asleep.

The pain eventually got worse, however, so they were going to do an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and was able to get a line into her epidural space in her spine really easily, but his some veins on the way in, so they had to abandon that one. The next attempt looked good, so he tried a test dose, but Elyse's ears started ringing and her heart started racing and that's a sign it got in her bloodstream. At that point the anesthesiologist said it was the first time in his career he had two vein sticks in the same person. It ended up being 4 or 5 by the time he was done, which had never happened in the man's decades-long career.

After that, though, she was able to get some rest and dilate from 5 to 10 cm in her sleep. She woke up to the baby's head being low and ready to go. She paged the nurse, "I think there's a baby down there." She checked and confirmed that it was time to push, at which point I checked the clock. 12 midnight. "Looks like it'll be June 23rd, hon."

46 minutes later and Sebastian was born. The nurses and doctor were very excited that we didn't know the gender of the baby ahead of time, so once he was out, the doctor held him at his hips and held him upside down, genitalia towards me, and said, "What is it, Dad?"

"It's a boy!"

Powerball

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:45:00 GMT

I had a dream last night that the Powerball drawing was for the exact numbers on my ticket. I'm amazed my subconscious brain actually remembered the specific numbers. I got so excited in the dream that I bolted awake at 3:30am. I was tempted to check the numbers right then, but figured that was silly and so went back to sleep.

This morning I got up and checked the results against my ticket and was amazed to find...not a single damned number on my ticket was drawn.

Oh well! :-)

Pittsburgh

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:02:07 GMT

This weekend Elyse and I went out to Pittsburgh to visit with her sister Lia and her fiancée Glenn. We had a really good time; there was lots of great food and fun things to do. I hung out with Glenn most of the one day we were there and picked up Star Wars: Infinities. It's three volumes of comic books that explore alternate realities in Star Wars. For instance, what if the torpedoes in A New Hope failed to destroy the Death Star? It's pretty cool.

I got upset on the way down. About 20 miles or so before our exit, I noticed that my wedding ring was missing! I thought back and figured that it must've fallen off when I used the bathroom at Somerset Service Plaza. I remembered hearing something hit the floor, but I checked my keys and watch, not even considering it could be my ring.

We got to Lia's workplace and I called the Turnpike Commission, but they were already closed. On our way back on Monday I tried to call again, but they were closed for President's Day, apparently. I managed to get in touch with two of the service plazas we used on the way down, but they didn't have it in their lost+found.

Finally, we stopped at Sideling Hill service plaza, which just happens to service both directions. I went into the bathroom and suddenly realized that THIS is where the ring must've fallen off, so I check their lost+found, and--miracle of miracles--there it is! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd manage to return home with it; I figured best-case scenario they'd find it and mail it to me.

I felt so lucky that I bought a Powerball lottery ticket. I'll let you know after the drawing tomorrow how the ticket did.

Baby!!

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:36:57 GMT

My apologies to anyone who is finding out via this blog instead of directly from me, but if that's the case, it's likely I haven't had a chance to tell you in person.

Elyse and I are having a baby! We're both very excited about it. The baby is due 26 June, and we just had the anatomy ultrasound done today. There are some pictures from the ultrasound at my website. What an experience that was! It's absolutely amazing to be able to watch the baby moving around in there. Yesterday -- hell, 5 hours ago -- I would not have thought that a grainy black and white picture on a small monitor could be beautiful, but I would have been wrong. Every parent says this, but it's true (at least with mine): the baby is SOOOO cute and adorable, and that's just based on ultrasound pictures! :-D

To answer some frequently asked questions:

No, we did not and are not finding out the gender of the baby.
Yes, we have names picked out. No, we are not telling anybody. You'll find out after the baby does. ;-)

Honeymoon

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 22:13:04 GMT

Okay, it's been a good four months since my wedding entry, so I guess I'd better get the honeymoon entry in. It was an absolute blast. We've got an insane amount of pictures that I'll be posting on my website as soon as I get a chance to download them all.

Elyse unfortunately got a sinus infection about halfway through, so we didn't spend as much time in the parks as we had originally planned. We still had a ton of fun, though.

We ate SO much because of the Disney dining plan. Each supper we both got an appetizer, entree, and desert. Much weight was gained as a result. :)

We particularly enjoyed eating at Victoria and Albert's our first night there. It was a very fancy restaurant, and we got wine pairings with each of the seven full courses. It was pricey, but definitely worth it. I would eat there again. After many years. When we've saved up enough. :)

That's about it for the honeymoon. There's probably more I should mention, but I can't remember right now.

Wedding

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:46:25 GMT

Okay, huge entry coming up, so readers beware!

Let's start with the events leading up to the wedding. Earlier in the week I dropped Mitsu off at my parents' house so they could cat-sit her while we were gone on the honeymoon. Then, on Friday, I drove up to Elyse's parents' house around 8 o'clock or so in the morning. We went through our bags for the honeymoon, because airport regulations had changed and you couldn't take stuff like shampoo or hand sanitizer or other liquids in your carry-on. After that, we headed out to Kraras Hall to work on decorating.

While I was there, Dad called and wanted to meet to get our tuxes, so I left Elyse at Kraras and headed over to pick up the tux with Dad. After that, I went back to the house while Dad went to pick up Mom from Beverly Hills Tavern, where she had been decorating for the rehearsal dinner. Dad went back to the hotel then and met up with my cousin Craig, who I hadn't seen in years, so that was very cool. He's a great guy and very friendly; it was good to get reacquainted with him.

Dad, Craig, and I went out to pick up the car Dad rented for the wedding day. We had a heck of a time finding the place; it turns out it was a lot further out than we thought it would be. Still, we managed to get there on time and had a good rehearsal. Fr. Rich was amusing as usual ("I think I got the homily under 45 minutes"). Then, it was off to the rehearsal dinner. That went really well; the food was pretty good, the cake was excellent (a lavender cake from House of Clarendon), and everyone had a really great time. Craig was seated with Nana, Uncle David, Carl, and Howard, and they had a blast talking theology.

Elyse and I handed out thank-you letters to those who were in attendance, and Elyse handed out itineraries for everyone to make sure no one was too early or too late the next day. Then we all eventually departed to our respective hotels for the night. Neither of us was able to sleep very well.

I woke up the morning of the wedding well ahead of my alarm clock and headed down to breakfast with Mom. Dad went down after we came back up; he decorated the car while he was down there, so that was very cute. We got dressed and arrived at the church right at our appointed time of 10:15AM. Elyse was scheduled to be there at 10:00AM, so we figured she was already inside. Then a couple of the people already there start yelling "Get inside, Elyse isn't here yet, you've got to hide!" because, naturally, I wasn't allowed to see her until she was walking down the aisle.

I go to wait in the church in a side room, chatting and having fun with Dad and some of the other people, such as the ushers and Justin and Ben, while waiting for 11:00 to roll around. Elyse got there around 10:40, so things were kind of frantic for those 20 minutes, but we managed to get started on time. The ceremony flew by. It was a full Catholic mass wedding and took about an hour, but it only felt like 5 minutes. I remember a few snippets:

Emma almost forgot to take care of Elyse's dress at the beginning, but remembered quickly
Lia apparently fell at one point when she got up to take care of Elyse's dress, though I didn't notice
I almost put the wedding band on Elyse's right hand, and then when I got the hand correct I almost put it on her middle finger instead
My wedding band wasn't going on easily for Elyse, so she had to twist it on, which was amusing
Someone forgot to bring in the flower to be used as a gift for the Virgin Mary, so Elyse offered a prayer instead (quick thinking on Fr. Rich's part)

Then it was off to the reception. We got there just behind some of the guests, apparently, because of the construction that was going on. The reception was awesome! We were announced and had our first dance, then got to eat. Later, we had the parent-child dances. Elyse and her Dad did a proper waltz box step dance (Elyse and I tried to do that for our dance, but it was no good, so we just did the "Junior High sway" with a couple of twirls and a dip in places to make it not so boring). Mom wouldn't look at me for most of it because she was going to cry. It was adorable.

It took forever to get to all the tables to talk to everyone, but even given that the reception seemed to fly by as well. It was amusing when they had the married couples dance. Elyse needed to be reminded that she now qualified, and then the first timeframe announced was "if you're married less than 24 hours, please leave the dance floor." So that was a short dance for us!

Speaking of dancing, Benjamin was absolutely nuts! He was really in his element and had an amazing time flailing himself all over the place. Also speaking of dancing, the DJ was incredible. He was only noticeable when he needed to be, and the rest of the time he was completely inconspicuous.

Well, I'm taking a break for now, but I'll be back at some point with reminiscences of the honeymoon!