Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Thursday, February 28, 2002
Last night instead of having my weekly poker game, I went to some marketing research focus group. It was at some hoity toity arty ad agency in a hoity toity part of town. The waiting room had one of those ten thousand dollar Sorny (sorry, simpson's reference. Homer was looking at a pawn shop, they had Sorny, Panaphonic, and my favorite, Magnetbox) gas plasma flatscreen TV, plus the place was all wood and bare metal and lit by tiny halogen spotlights hanging from wires. There were seven guys in the group, all between say 30 and 50. The study was on watches.
I have a $150 Fossil titanium chronograph watch, it's light, strong, waterproof to 200m (which, ask Mary, is 150m deeper than you should ever go, and 130m deeper than I've ever been) and looks fine to me. I've never been in style before, so it doesn't matter that much. Some of the guys in the group had these holy-fuck expensive watches. There was a bunch of banter about brands I'd never heard of. Man I am glad I'm not a watch snob. We quickly figured out that the study was done for Citizen, apparently they want to know what people think of their brand (consensus: it's a middle-aged middle-class, "your dad's watch") and get feedback on some new commercials trying to make their watches look sexier and sporty. Interesting. However, I'll readily admit I was there for the $75 cash payment. That's my gambling moola for Vegas this year.
Today is Bridget's 34th birthday. We bought her a big comfy chair last weekend as her present, to replace her thrashed papasan chair. It's faux leather (how many nagas had to die for that? heh) and nice and wide, we both fit on it barely. (We'll fit better when she's not massively pregnant). It'll be good for watchin' movies or reading to the kids.
Last night I baked her a 3-layer chocolate cake. The box mixes I used said one box per two layers, so I used two boxes and made a dozen cupcakes as well. The bottom two in the oven got a little overcooked, they were fine but their bottoms were black, so I had to carefully carve off the burned part. I put white cherry vanilla frosting between the layers, and chocolate frosting as the outside, and use the white frosting to draw a big "B" on the top. She was all "awwww", apparently nobody had ever made her a layer cake for her birthday before. She didn't know I had it in me. Wednesday, February 27, 2002
I'm goin' to Vegas with the boys on Monday. I can't wait. We're stayin' at the Luxor this year, how cool is a giant freakin' Pyramid in the desert with a kazillion-candlepower light aiming straight up? It was the first of the mega-casinos, the billion dollar ones. Actually I think it was only like 3/4 of a billion. Anyway, the other casinos thought they were crazy to build it, but looky now, there are a bazillion of them and they're all bigger. If they built the Luxor now it'd be probably 50% taller. That'd be cooool. It's amazing that the casino nets over a million bucks a night. That's profit. Well, that's profit that pays off debt service, but crickey, you can pay off an flaming metric buttload of debt service for a million a night. An off the cuff estimate, you could pay for a three billion dollar building with that kind of revenue. Not to mention the money they get from the hotel rooms and conference rooms.
Coming back on Weds, and on Thurs a bunch of us are driving over to northern Idaho where my folks have a freakin' giant 5000 sqft log home on a lake. We'll be going skiing, that's gonna rock if the conditions dont suck my ass. Monday, February 25, 2002
Holy moley.
I saw HDTV with a HD signal for the first time yesterday. Glub damn it was pretty freakin' cool. I would absolutely LOVE to watch football that way. We'd gone to Baby's Backwards-R Us to find a double stroller that is compatible with our infant seat and fits in the trunk of Bridget's Kia Sephia. Fortunately for us my mom is buying it as a baby shower gift. Across the street was the nearest Circuit Shitty, and since we'd had a few bucks on a gift card there languishing for over a year I said let's go in a buy some cheap-ass DVD and get that monkey off our backs. I ended up getting "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", one of my old favorites. Back in college I used to use the "Bill and Ted Test" on potential girlfriends. If they laughed at B&T, they passed. If not, we probably wouldn't get along. Other DVDVDVDVDVDVDs I picked up this weekend were The Dark Crystal, Das Boot (Das Boot Was Made For Watchin'), and Spartacus. Saturday, February 23, 2002
When I was in college, I lived in the dorms for exactly one quarter before I said fuck that and moved out with two good friends. Our first apartment was freakin' tiny, my room was 7' by 9', which basically leaves room for a bed and not much else. One of my friends had a bed, a desk, and a Mac Plus, but you had to sit on the bed to use the computer. We were always in his room playin' with that Mac, which in '87 was damn cooool. MacPaint could keep us occupied for hours. My friend would come home, see us, and *always* say, "Ok, number one, my bed isn't made. Number two, you're not listening to me..." and then number three was whatever he really wanted to say. We still say that to him 15 years later.
Ok, number one, alka-seltzer is the hangover cure of the gods. Ok, it doesn't *quite* compare to taking hits off a deep scuba diving decompression bottle (80% oxygen 20% nitrogen, air is 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen), but it's pretty damn close. It's got everything: the water it dissolves in for your dehydration, vitamin C, painkiller pre-dissolved, and seltzer to settle your tummy. I cannot stress enough how good it is. Number two, you're not listening to me. Heh. Number two is actually it's funny going to a party where everyone is ten years younger than I am. My brother Dan currently lives about three blocks from me, (they're closing the deal for the house down the street tomorrow) and invited me to a party his housemates were throwing. Of course he didn't bother to mention it was Mardi Gras themed. It was funny seeing it two weeks after mardi gras, but I was impressed, everyone was in costume, and not just beads, they had fancy masks and hats and full costumes. Most impressive, young skywalker. When I got there at 11pm the party was pretty much in full swing. Apparently the girls living there had been hitting the white russians pretty heavy earlier and were tanked, they were dancing up a storm. The DJ didn't totally suck either, surprisingly. There was a nice full bar set up in the kitchen when I got there, but by midnight it was pretty much out. I'd been chatting with the bartender a little when I found some Bridgeport IPA someone failed to hide adequetely, and ended up taking over for a while. Of course, with only liquers left, I had to be creative. "Oh, you wanna drink, do ya? Here. One of the six ice cubes left. Hmmm, ok, you want vodka? I'll give ya a teaspoon of the little that's left, a couple of hefty glugs of coffee liquer, and a splash of butterscotch liqueur. " Yeah, be happy they didn't get a floater of olive oil. Heh. Ok, that's funny. At the time I was a bit tipsy from beer and taking swigs of my brother's flask of Maker's Mark (mmm, MM is a tasty bourbon, you can never go wrong with Maker's Mark, it's in a squarish bottle with a long skinny neck with red wax on it) and I didn't notice I was a fairly surly bartender. Heh. Thursday, February 21, 2002
I hate making people uncomfortable who are having trouble getting pregnant. (Blah. I hate that sentence too, but doing it right made it more confusing)
Bridget's sister called up the other night, she's 24 and they've been trying to get pregnant for about nine months with no luck. Her sister-in-law, who wasn't planning on having kids at all, is now pregnant. She was very distraught, since she was hoping that having the first grandkid for her in-laws would get her on her in-laws good side. I could have told her she'll never get on her in-laws good side, they don't have one. I've got several other friends who have been trying all sorts of things to get pregnant, including expensive rounds of in-vitro, with no luck. (Even one reader of my blog. I hope things go well for you!!) One friend who can't get pregnant doesn't come over anymore now that Isabel is here. I have no real idea of what they're going through, since a) I'm a guy and b) we got pregnant practically instantly every time, even the first time that ended in a miscarriage at 7 weeks. Bridget has been pregnant 3 times in the past two years. Uff. I feel bad for them. It definitely makes me feel fortunate. Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Yet another Baby Movie!
Yep, now that I taught Bridget how to edit and post video, she's put up another Isabel movie: Isabel Laughs while trying to crawl
Ok, I'll hafta admit that Ty's movie is pretty funny. They're halfway decent amateur filmmakers.
El Sancho Vs LTD (warning, 33Mb quicktime movie)
So Ty, one of my student helpers decided to up the ante in their contest to see which can do the stupidest thing this year. Last year's hand's down winner was Robin getting engaged at age 20. This year Robin sliced the end of his finger off by failing to pay attention when closing his ultra-sharp pocketknife. Ty's rebuttal was to get bored last weekend and decide with his friend to make a short film of "Ty vs The LTD", himself big-time wrestling against his car. There was a mishap during the "hood flys open knocking Ty back" scene, and now Ty has a big welt on his head. Robin's required going to the ER, so I think it wins, but Ty's was actually stupider. Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Monday, February 18, 2002
BEeeeeeeEEEeeeeeeeer!!
Had a fun weekend. On Saturday we spent a bunch of time showing the rental house to potential new tenants, our old ones have moved out already but haven't finished entirely, they're due out by the end of the month. Sat night we went to a friend's birthday party, were there where three pregnant ladies and one 10 week old baby. Uff. There was also an Xbox, it was a hell of a lot of fun playing Halo in 4-person battle mode. Kill! Kill! Kill! Blood Wake ruled as well. I knew the hot water heater was old when I bought the place eight years ago, and I hadn't done anything to it since, so it was probably going to die on me anytime, probably the middle of the night right when I'm leaving on a vacation. I figured it was a prime time to replace it with a new one, they're less than $200. I've never swapped one out before, but theoretically it's easy, just cut the power, unhook the plumbing and wiring, hook a hose to the bottom and drain it, then remove. Reverse the process to install a new one. Two of my friends also had home improvement projects they wanted to do, but one of them wanted to go fishin on the other two days this three-day weekend, so we picked Sunday as the day. First we went to Parker's house to finish up his whole-home ethernet project. Crickey, I don't know why he bothers, most of his roomed were wired already plus he's got a friggin' wireless enet basestation anyway, but it was his choice, and relatively easy. He was the one who had to crawl under the house in the nastiest smallest spider-infested crawlspace, with big ass pipes everywhere to get in his way. Ha ha! I'd pound on the floor above him while he was under there... BOOOM! heh. Then we moved on the the water heater project. It took about six house, cuz %*$*$ plumbing projects always do. The new heater was 5" shorter than the old one, requiring different parts to get the plumbing to fit. Electrical wiring is fortunately easy. It was after 5pm when we finished, so poor Dee got screwed on his sheetrocking-the-basement project. We owe him future labor. Today I watched Isabel while Bridget went to see "A Beautiful Mind" by herself, since she figured we'd never get a chance to see it together. She's probably right. BeeeeEEEEEeeer! Friday, February 15, 2002
Cooool. My two youngest brothers are making a deal to buy the house four houses down the street from mine. It's currently a rental, a big old 6-bedroom 4 bath house. One of the two and another brother used to live there back before I moved into my place. They're going to keep renting out the other four bedrooms, it's the only way to afford a $410,000 house. I am still amazed that they can get a loan for that amount, one does high-end landscaping for rich people and the other cleans gutters and windows. However, they have no debt and they've saved a fat pile of cash.
If the deal goes through that will be awesome. I'll be able to get their crap out of my basement, and move a lot of my crap into their much-larger basement. Beaucoups free storage space! Plus they'll have a pool table set up in their living room, and it'll be fun having the kids' uncles living right down the block. Another plan is to build a sauna in the basement. Ahhh, nothing like a nice hot sauna. Gonna have to get a pair of 802.11 wireless base stations and a Pringles can to connect our two places. Eh, actually, we could probably just string a landline. The house immediate south of mine is a rental, those kids won't notice or care. The house south of it is vacant, the owner croaked a few years back and the heirs are using it as storage space. They're not renting it nor have they sold it. The last house between our two is owned by a nice pair of poofs, they've done an amazing job of landscaping their yard. I'm pretty sure we could get permission to string a line along the back fence. Thursday, February 14, 2002
Ok, for those of you who just can't get enough of Isabel, I got off my butt and posted a new movie:
Isabel at 8 months, eating cheese
Five wonderful years. As of last night, Bridget and I have been dating for the five best years of my life. Last night we got a babysitter for Isabel and went out for dinner at the same italian restaurant that we've gone to every year on Feb 13th. Dinner was lovely, I ordered a glass of her favorite wine so she could have a few sips.
Isabel was an angel for the babysitter, happily playing with her toys until we got home. She's such a great baby. Tonight we're having a valentine's dinner with two other couples, it should be a lot of fun. Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Well, I tried to post on Saturday, or was it Sunday, anyway, but Blogger told me that "Blogger Pro doesn't work with Netscape". I didn't think I had blogger Pro, guess if I really cared I'd ask Mr. Nosuch if his upgrade effects me.
Or I could have used IE, but switching browsers for a web site is against my nature. I choose to use IE on my OS X box, so it seems to work fine. Why is it that to get good TV coverage of the winter Olympics, I need to watch CBUT (pronounced See Butt), the Canadian channel? Glad I get it. Two years ago during the summer Olympics in Australia, we could watch actual *live* events on CBUT, not the spoon fed pap human interest stories in prime time only that NBC gives us. Crickey. Fuckin' NBC pisses me off. Sunday they had the freakin' NBA All-Star game on instead of Olympics. What rocket scientist gave both of those to NBC?!? Grrrr. Bridget gave us a lovely case of food poisoning on Saturday night. I was up half the night violently expelling the contents of my GI tract from both ends. Fortunately for me, they took turns. She wasn't as fortunate. Wednesday, February 06, 2002
Wooo! Isabel has her first tooth cutting through. Our little girls cute toothless grin will become a cute toothy grin! Plus now she can have steak!
(just kidding about the steak) Amazing that a tooth cut through without her doing much if any complaining about it. Damn we're lucky parents. Tuesday, February 05, 2002
Last night Bridget went to a "Pampered Chef" party, which I gather is like a tupperware party or something. Anyway, I was happy for her to get out of the house and be with adults, while Isabel and I played. I watch her about half the time in the evenings, giving her half of her baths, putting her to bed maybe a quarter of the time, and always am the one to feed her dinner.
A typical evening with an 8 month old goes like this: I get home around 4:20, and she usually wakes up from her afternoon nap around 4:30-5pm. She gets her diaper changed, then gets a 6oz bottle of formula which she hoovers down very intently, and then we play for a while. Around 5:45 to 6pm, it's dinner time. She gets a serving of peas or other veggie, a bowl with some banana and tofu mashed up, water added, and rice cereal added, and then a fruit, either peaches or pears. Sometimes she gets some cheerios which she loves, or shredded cheese (she's eating cheddar, I'm not planning on feeding my kids that creepy artificial imitation processed cheese-like food stuff that goes by the name "American Cheese". Cripes, I should make a video of it and put it up. Stupid laziness! After dinner she usually spends some time in her exer-saucer, which is a big round thing she sits in a sorta standing position in the middle of. She can rotate any direction, and the edges are festooned with toys. It's got springs in it too, so she can bounce pretty good. She also loves to play in her Jumpster, which is a seat attached to a spring that attaches to a door jam. She really jumps like crazy in it. Bounce bounce bounce bounce woooo! heh. It's awesome to watch. We're working on her crawling skills, she still hasn't gotten it yet. She can get up on hands and knees, but not move forward or backward. She can pull herself up to a shaky standing position too, so maybe she won't bother to learn to crawl at all and go straight to walking in a few months. Every other night at 7:30 she gets a bath. We've got this inflatable baby tub that goes in the main tub, and she LOVES the water. She splashes like a fiend, douching the whole bathroom in her glee. We've also got a game she learned in her swim class, where you go "ready... set... go!" and on Go you blow on her face. She gets super excited during this, and when you blow she grins huge and then sucks in her breath. At this point you pour a bunch of water over her face to simulate dunking her. Then we both laugh! After the bath she gets changed into her jammies. She's pretty good about knowing that when the jammies are on, it's time for bed. Sometimes she gets read a story, sometimes we just rock and sing or play on the bed upstairs, and then she gets another bottle and put in her crib. She's got a Gloworm, which is a soft toy with a flashlight inside so when you squeeze it the face glows. She loves it, and knows it's only for bedtime. That and her special blankey and she usually goes down without a fuss. When she does fuss, playing for another 5-15 minutes gets her tired enough to go down. Basically, by 8:30pm, she's out for the night, til she wakes up at 7:30-8am. She's a very sweet baby. Bridget is HUGELY pregnant now. Crickey. Junior is kicking like mad now. Friday, February 01, 2002
Uff. A bunch of my friends left to go spend a long weekend skiing at Whistler, BC. I wanna go. Waaaahh! Oh boo hoo hoo, woe is me.
Eh, enough of that. Nothing a few beers won't fix. Our Uninterruptable Power Supply at work has decided to NOT live up to its name, shutting the main server down twice in a week. The server is now on wall power while I decided what to do about it. StuperBore this weekend. I always enjoy watching it even if my Seachickens never make it, and the stupid Raiders choked bigtime. Frickin' Pats. Grrr. I weighed in at 182 this morning. I managed to lose about 10 pounds during January, roughly 2 pounds a week, which means I ate about 1000 calories a day less than I burned. Not too shabby. |
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