Not Twit Enough to Twitter

-Greg updated so I must.
-Took Raquel to OB today, all is well, sonogram in 2 wks, then go to weekly visits.
-Got economic stimulus money last week, bough tank of gas.
-Dogs are sleeping in basement instead of our bed, they're taking it better than I am.
-How cute is Lourdes? "Too cute!"
-Recent headline in The Onion "Charlton Heston's Gun Taken From His Cold, Dead Hands".
-Survivor ending this week, why do I watch?
-Gotten hooked on Ghosthunters some how.
-Signs of the apocalypse??: Thundersnow in February, Earthquake in mid-April, then Snow, hail, rain, and sunshine all within an hour in late April; now gas getting close to $4/gallon and Britney gets visitation rights.
-Picked up sticks from the yard last night and burned them, don't be jealous.
-After this post I will go push my daughter on the swingset, just trying to be a good dad.

EARTHQUAKE!

This morning I woke up because the bed (and the whole house) was shaking. I knew right away that it was an earthquake but I wasn't worried because it was so mild. In fact I went back to sleep and forgot about it until I talked to my friend about 10 AM and he asked if I felt it. It was originally reported as a magnitude 5.4 but was later revised to a 5.2. The epicenter was somewhere in southeastern Illinois and was felt all over the midwest. No injuries or major damage were reported.

Thundersnow and earthquakes! What's next?

The Practical Joker

Yesterday Lourdes found a red Sharpie permanent marker and colored one of her fingers. Then she put on her best sad, concerned, and frightened face and ran to her mom clutching her finger. Of course Raquel thought that Lourdes was bleeding and it scared her to death. Fortunately Lourdes announced that she only joking. I swear I had nothing to do with it. Honestly.

No more THUNDERSNOW!!

Okay Greg, your post prodded me into posting. Well that and the fact that if I comment on Dan's blog, there's a link back to my last post which has been stuck on Thundersnow for a little while. I had many witty and insightful comments to Dan's posts but frankly I was too ashamed because I haven't updated in so long. But now I can comment with pride!

Everything has been going well with Raquel's pregnancy. We have less than three months left to go until our little boy joins us. That's right, we're having a boy! Time has been flying by. We'll have to do a birthing class sooner or later, hopefully not too late. We could probably get by without a class but I want to make sure there haven't been any changes to the basic techniques: the men wait in the waiting room and the women do all the work.

I'm typing this post on my OLPC XO laptop computer. I'll leave it to you to google that if you aren't familiar with the OLPC foundation or the XO laptop. It's small and difficult to type on, but it's also small and pretty cool. I use it a lot to sit on the couch and surf the internet. I'm hoping to learn some cool modifications to make it a little more usable. For example, the built-in browser was slow and didn't have many features, but I put Opera on it and works great.

I'm sure I've got more to say, but it's getting late.

THUNDERSNOW!!!

A snowstorm hit late this afternoon with nearly whiteout conditions. As I was walking to my truck to leave work, there was a flash of light in the sky followed by a loud boom. I can't recall ever seeing lightning and hearing thunder while it was snowing.

Thanks for the Christmas present!

"Ground to a halt" or "Busy as a beaver"

I was impressed by Dan's prolific blogging in November when he took part in something called NaBloPoMo and posted everyday for a month. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum and only posted a few times all year. I wanted to change things around in December and started strong with 4 posts in a row but the world conspired against me. I had a 19-hour shift at work on Wednesday, a supper on Thursday, Rivermen hockey on Friday, and Saturday was packed with gymnastics, paying bills, a little work, and finally another hockey game. I thought I'd squeeze a post in before going in to work a little bit today.

The Pregnancy

As soon as we knew that Raquel was pregnant, we told Lourdes that she was going to be a big sister and that mommy has a "baby belly". She has been quite excited and wants a little sister, but she knows mommy wants a little boy. The day we went in for the sonogram, Lourdes told Raquel that there were two babies: a little girl for Lourdes and a little boy for Raquel. We took Lourdes with us to the appointment for the sonogram and she thought it was really neat to hear the heartbeat despite the strange sound. The two baby theory went out the window with the single beating heart. If anybody asks Lourdes if she wants a brother or a sister, she says there's only one baby and she knows that it is a sister. We'll see what the next sonograms reveal.

Work, work, work

I've been very busy at work lately. We're in the midst of some projects and also trying to prep for an inspection. One huge project that I've been heavily involved in has been the upgrade of our data network infrastructure. There are so many details to take in to account and a lot of prep work. I got so much help from so many people, I could do one of those endless award thank you speeches where they start playing the music in an effort to wrap it up. There's a lot of work remaining to complete this phase so I'll be busy for a while longer.

Rivermen woes
The Rivermen lost back-to-back home games against a team they have dominated. They really should have won. You hate to blame a loss on a referee who makes a questionable or outright bad call. A team should play with intensity for the whole game so that one call is not the reason for success or failure. However, an endless series of bad calls can easily be blamed for a loss, or back-to-back losses in our case. This particular ref was officiating youth league hockey last year. This year he's in the AHL and we had him Friday and Saturday. He didn't get any better as the games went on. Hopefully, some review process will get him the feedback he needs to be an official at this level or send him packing.


Well I need to get ready to go in to work for a little bit today. Tomorrow we have another appointment and another sonogram. Will try to post tomorrow.