Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Monday, March 31, 2003
Oh my gawd I am glad to be back in the land of fat pipes. I've got cable modem at home and 100 megabit at work, so using a dialup connection that got 16.6 or 19.2 was sheer torture.
We had a pretty good time, didn't go too crazy. I managed to get a day of skiing in, my only one of this season. I also managed to go out drinking with my brothers and sister-in-laws, that was a lot of fun too. The new baby is super cute, and hardly ever cries. Good to be home, however. Monday, March 24, 2003
A fun weekend. We went to the Zoo, got rained on there, helped my friend upgrade his TiVo to a larger hard disk (the Hinsdale FAQ needs to be updated to support TiVo OS 3.2, our first attempt a few weeks ago failed), went to another friend's parents house for a birthday dinner, and spent a lot of time packing.
Today we're going to Spokane for a week to help B's sister with her new baby. B is going to do all the cooking and laundry for them, and help with the nighttime baby-holding shifts. I'm going to herd our babies. B's sister and brother-in-law have a TINY 2 bedroom house, I hope we don't all go crazy. Friday, March 21, 2003
Grrr. I started reading "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin recently because I had a recommendation and was under the impression that it was a stand-alone book. Turns out it's not, there are at least 5 in the series, two of which aren't even in print yet. It's 800 pages, I'm sure the sequels are just as long or longer, that's 4,000 pages. Uff-freakin'-da! I should have gone back to read the complete "Black Company" series by Glen Cook.
If Saddam was taken out in that first night of bombing, man that would be quite the coup for the CIA. I hope they find Bin Laden and just take him out in the desert somewhere and shoot him like a dog, burning the corpse so it can't be IDed. No body, no martyr. "We never found him..." Thursday, March 20, 2003
Gulf War II starting makes me spend a lot of time thinking back to my experiences in Gulf War I.
Multiple scud alerts at night disturbing my sleep. Driving trucks across the desert with the northern sky flashing with explosions. The sound of the 16" guns on the Missouri firing across the water. The sound of a flight of B52s from Diego Garcia doing bombing runs. Listening to AC/DC on a walkman while driving an old piece of shit truck at night in a war zone. Our platoon's private hand signal. (First and second fingers extended in a V "peace sign", followed by moving said V to mouth and waggling tongue through it like you're performing oral sex on a woman, "Peace... of ass!") Corporal Brayboy from North Carolina and the six women (ranging from 17-43) who all thought he was their exclusive boyfriend... "I'm hawd. 'member 'dat shit!" Anyway, regardless of what else I think about this war, I hope it's quick and easy so our troops can come home. Wednesday, March 19, 2003
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if Bush supported freeing Tibet, would the Seattle anti-war folks protest?
Feels good to be back at work. Between being sick last week and herding babies this week, I haven't been to work since last Weds. Feels REALLY good to have B home again. I had a great time with my babies, but all three of us missed her terribly. Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Well, it's been busy playin' Mr Mom (sorta like Chuck Pierce except with two babies).
Yesterday I woke up at 7:15, happy to get an extra half hour more sleep than normal. Both babies were asleep, unlike normal since Harry gets up at 6:30am usually. I showered, Isabel woke up, I gave her a sippy cup of milk, then Harry woke up. I got both kids fed, and since it was a beautiful sunny day and Harry didn't wake up until 8am, I knew he'd miss his 9:30 nap so I loaded 'em up and we went to the Zoo. They both had a blast, Harry loves animals and Isabel can identify most of them. One of the gorillas had a baby recently, and she was sitting right by the glass, and when she turned and looked Isabel in the face Isabel immediately replied "Hello!" So cute. After the Zoo we had to get home because it was B's turn for her babysitting group. Each week this group of moms gets together and half watch all t he babies so the other half can get stuff done. Me and two other women watched seven babies for two hours, it was pretty funny. One woman thought she had the wrong address when I answered the door, I said "Hi, I'm Eric. I'll be your Bridget for today". She said her husband would never do that, and I laughed. I mean, they're my kids too, B deserves to be able to go do things on her own sometimes... After the moms left it was naptime for the kids. During nap I got the house cleaned up for our St Patty's day dinner party that night, and put the 10lbs of corned beef in the oven. Mmmmmm! I may not be Irish (B is) but I do love corned beef, boiled cabbage, and Guiness! After Harry woke up we went outside to play on a blanket in the front yard in the sun. Harry loved tearing up fresh grass, and he tried to get into all the flowers. Spring is definitely in the air! The dinner was a lot of fun, we ate most of the corned beef and a lot of guiness, the kids were very well behaved. Isabel treated the corned beef like meat gum, she'd beg a small piece from me, chew it for 10 minutes, then spit it out and get more from me. Her teeth aren't up to beef yet. Bridget's sister had her baby yesterday at 4:30pm, B is on her way home today. All three of us miss her terribly, it's the first time she's been away for 48 hours. Monday, March 17, 2003
Well, other than a slight sore throat, I am mostly better! Wooo-hooo!
On Friday night B got a call from her sister Annie in Spokane. She'd been to her doc that day and they'd scheduled her for inducement today if she didn't have the baby over the weekend. On Saturday B's mom drove up and I took her to the airport. Afterwards I went up to the Kia dealership to negotiate for the minivan. The plan was I'd get everything negotiated, and B would only have to show up after I called and sign paperwork, minimizing the time the babies had to be occupied. The dealership did their normal tactics of trying to start out with $2k profit OVER MSRP, and I gave them my lowball offer. They kept trying to get me to give one way or another, and I kept telling them, "no, I'm comfortable with this number". Eventually they were down to $150 over my number and were trying to get me to split the difference with them. I was almost offended they'd bother wasting my time over $75, but I didn't cave, and we got exactly the car we wanted for the price we wanted. Neither of us can believe we own a minivan. It's sorta terrifying. I was laughing at B, I needed her to pull over in the Safeway parking lot, and she just stopped right there, blocking the people behind her. I told her she's *already* driving like a minivan driver! I swear, if we didn't have 3 babies to drive around. (Our two plus the one she'll be watching) Sunday morning we went over to a friend's house for a little soiree, he was throwing a brunch party for his birthday. It was a bunch of fun, we got to drive around in our new van and see a bunch of friend and eat some seriously tasty food. Afterwards we went home, put the babies to bed, and B left for her drive across the state. The afternoon and evening were busy, herding the kids around. Isabel was NOT happy to not have her momma! Friday, March 14, 2003
Still sick. Not quite as achy, but now my throat is starting to hurt. Owowowowow. At least no nausea.
Alright, since a most of the people who read this blog play Clan Lord, (excepting a few ex-poker buddies) I figured I'd write some more about Shadowbane, the new MMORPG from Ubisoft. This will be the third Mac MMORPG after Clan Lord and Lineage. I have to admit, I have been having fun. My main character is a half-Giant Barbarian named Humbaba. He's now up to level 31. In Shadowbane, monsters and characters have a "Rank" which is the tens digit of your level. I am Rank 3, so if you click on me you see 3 Hammer icons (indicating Barbarian). Thus, if you select a monster, you can see what rank it is, but a level 1 and a level 9 are both rank zero, and vastly different in strength. The color of the monster's name gives a better indication of their power relative to yours, with white being a clan lord slaughter (you get 1 xp point) and red being a vanquish. Blues are normal, orange is tougher, light blue is slightly weaker, etc. My secondary character is Trogdoooor Burninator (Trogdor was taken. Trogdooor has hunted with a few other Trogdors...) Trog is a Channeler, which is a Mage that speciallizes in elemental spells, in his case fire so he can burninate the countryside. You get a total of five characters, so I've played around a bit with some others. For the first few levels, there are critters to fight right outside your starting village, which is outside one of the main towns on Newbie Island. As you gain in level, you have to travel further afield, and forming groups becomes very important because it gets really tough to solo stuff you get XP from. Fortunately, since everyone needs to form groups, it's not usually tough to do. After you hit level 10 you can leave Newbie Island and go to one of the other islands, and return. Just go to the center of any of the towns and re-pledge to any of the others. The trainers on newbie island can only take you so far so you'll have to leave eventually. After level 20 you can't return to newbie island. (Actually, I bet you can if you are a beefy R4 barbarian with a whole lot of stamina, I bet you could swim back) All the other islands have player vs player combat, even against members of your own group, so watch where you point that Axe! I got in the habit on Newbie island of using double-click to attack and double-click to loot monster corpses, but I learned soon on the other islands that single click to highlight, and hit control-A to attack or O to loot is MUCH safer than accidentally double clicking on someone else in your party and lopping their ear off... Whoops! My bad! The three other islands are a forested one like newbie island, a frozen winter one, and a barren desert one. I've mostly been in the desert one, even though the good barbarian trainer is in the frozen lands, because there are a lot more people in the desert city. Forming R3 groups there is pretty easy, we go out in the desert and kill stuff. Apparently there are some PK (player killer) clans out in the desert, but the one time we found a group of them they just charged us 1000gp per head for a "hunting tax". Since that was like 10% of the gold we earned, and we were getting a ton of good XP, that didn't bother me too much, beats getting killed. I don't know how much fun I'd have long term, since after you hit the soft cap at level 70 your only choices are doing political things, but for now I'm having a blast. Thursday, March 13, 2003
Ugga. I started feeling worse and worse yesterday, and by 6pm I knew I couldn't play poker. Managed to get it moved to another house.
This morning all my joints ache like I've been pounded on with hammers. I've been alternately freezeing and breaking out in cold sweats. Sleeping is so uncomfortable that the clock is dragging, every 600 years subjective time is a mere 3 minutes on the clock. Needless to say, I did NOT go to work today. Going back to bed now. Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Heh, Isabel is jumping around the house like a kangaroo. Yesterday B had watched a friend's two-year old and didn't make it out of the house all day, so after dinner we loaded up the kids and went to the mall. We put Harry in the umbrella stroller and just let Isabel walk.
When I say "walk", what I really mean is RUN. She got all excited and just took off running down the mall. Fortunately she's not that fast, so a quick walk kept me next to her. When we got to the Disney store, however, the brakes came on screetching! "POOH!" she squealed, seeing a giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh. "Eeyore!! Tigger!! Piglet!!" We got her going again, and she took off running again. She ran the full length of the mall, and halfway back she slowed down and decided she wanted to help push Harry. Speaking of malls, blech. I remember liking them as a teenager, but for the life of me I have no idea why. I can barely find anything I want in a mall, and if I do find something I can undoubtedly buy it for half price or less elsewhere. I mean, kids don't make a lot of money, why would they spend full price to buy a CD in a mall store?!? It just doesn't make sense to me. It does make for a lighted dry place to excerise your kids in the winter... Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Ok, for two weeks now, Isabel has been standing in the middle of the room, concentrating really hard, half bent over. I figured she was pooping, but then she'd push one leg down and then the other, in a funny step. I finally figured out she was trying to jump. Too cute!
Anyway, last night she was at it again, and I was jumping too to help show her how. Finally it clicked, and she jumped with both legs at the same time! She was SOOOO happy! She jumped and jumped, "Isabel jump!!!" Watching child development first hand is amazing. Love that little girl. Monday, March 10, 2003
Friday night we had a dinner party with some of B's friends. Four couples, five babies. The other three babies were all little girls right around 2 years old, just a few months older than Isabel. It was a lot of fun, the guys are a lot more familar with each other now and we had more fun. The food was tasty, a variety of mexican dishes with homemade tortillas, and towards the end of the evening I was sitting in the living room with the four little girls, they were bringing books for me to read to them, then all sitting on me wherever they could fit. Very cute, very fun.
On Saturday I mostly didn't do crap. In the evening I had some old high school/college buddies over, they've also recently had babies. It was funny to see my old friends with small babies. On Sunday B and I shopped for the dread minivan. B has hated them since she was in college shortly after they were introduced, thinking of them as yuppie scum mobiles. I've never liked them, but I've always had a thing for practical vehicles, and being relatively social, always liked the idea of being able to carry 6-7 people. (In college we regulary fit 8-10 people in my old Vista Cruiser station wagon) Anyway, B's car is too small to fit 3 babies, and with her starting to do daycare for a friend's baby next month, I don't want her trapped in the house or driving the truck everywhere. We went and test drove a Kia Sedona EX. It was pretty nice, lots more power than we need, front and rear anti-sway bars gives it good handling and cornering, the optional ABS make the braking adequete, and it doesn't look too bad either. One thing B was concerned about was if she'd be able to reach the kids in the second row of seats, and since they slide way forward, it will be as easy or possibly easier than in her car. She was also concerned about it feeling like a huge barge, she was forced into a rental Chevy Venture some years ago on a business trip and it was mammoth. The Sedona is only 8" wider and 2' longer than her current car, she liked it a lot. Base price is $21,600, with $1k for the optional ABS and a sunroof (at least I'll be able to pretend I got a convertible...) and tax& licence, it's $24,800. There is a $2k rebate and a $1k "customer loyalty" rebate (B currently owns a Kia), bringing it down to $21,800. $2,500 trade-in on her car brings us down to $19,300. $3,000 down from our tax return brings us down to financing an amount of $16,300. At 4.49% for 60 months, that's a car payment of $306. Pretty affordable for all the options it includes. I'm also a big fan of the 10 year warranty, you have to figure they put some work into making sure they're not going to have to pay too much for warranty claims. It's got a seperate radiator for the transmission fluid, since it's designed to be able to tow 3,500 pounds, which helps the tranny last a lot longer. Anyway, B will have to think about it, since it'll be her car. Her current car was her very first car, so she's pretty attached to it. Friday, March 07, 2003
Last week we had taken Harry to the doctor to check his ears, he had another cold and we wanted to make sure he didn't have another ear infection. He was clean, and over the cold (on his own, no antibiotics needed!) but while we were there Isabel was playing with the selection of Mega Bloks, and this time, she was able to stack them up and build quite a tall tower, nearly 2 feet. (Her understanding of foundations is a little lacking, something that will come with experience).
I knew right then she needed to have a set to play with at home. I loved playing with Legos at home, I still have a bunch of them (including two full Pirate ships) and even asked for the Lego Imperial Star Destroyer for xmas. (Didn't get it cuz it was $270, but it's over 3000 pieces, 3'x2'x1.5', wooo!) We went to Target last Sunday and bought the wagon with 50 pieces in it for $20, plus a bag of 70 more pieces for $13. I tried to buy a second bag but B said 120 was plenty. Sheesh, you can't build a tower to the ceiling with only 120 pieces!! Geez. Anyway, Isabel and I have been building towers every night since then. Sometimes I build stuff, but often I just hand pieces to her and she stacks them up. She can build a tower over 3' high, higher than she is. It's very cute to see her standing on her tippy toes trying to reach up to get yet another piece on. Then she loves it when the tower falls over BOOM and the pieces fly everywhere. (Mega Bloks don't hold together like legos, which is good for young kids). It's really her first toy that I enjoy too. I'm going to be having a lot of fun with their toys in the next few years... Bwah ha ha! Thursday, March 06, 2003
I was down most of the night at poker last night, but in the end I won the final pot and ended up $10. One of our friends set a new poker record. After an hour and forty-five minutes, he lost over $30, but the record is he didn't win a single hand. Not one. Amazing, that's never happened before.
My parents were going to come over this weekend to help build a bit of deck off my kitchen door for my BBQ, but it's dumping snow in the pass so we're going reschedule. The pass will probably be bare and dry next weekend. B's sister's baby is due any day now. She's really wants to be there for the delivery, so hopefully the labor will take long enough to allow that. I told her she can drive, or I'll drive all of us, or she can fly. Monday, March 03, 2003
Hrm. Blogger was fighting me on Friday, my link to editing my blog didn't work, but doing it manually does work. Weird.
Friday was B's 35th birthday. I'm totally lame in some respects, I still haven't found her birthday present, but in my defense I don't get a lot of chances to shop alone these days. I did make her a tasty chicken pot pie dinner, and we were going to go out after the babies went to bed (mom-in-law was in town to babysit) but she was too tired so we just watched some TiVo. Saturday I spent the day frantically cleaning, buying food, and preparing for her big birthday party. I made a cheese plate, a veggie plate, spinach dip, and coconut shrimp with apricot-curry dipping sauce. There ended up being 27 people, not too shabby, but everyone left by 10:15. A few minutes later, as we were bemoaning our lameness for having a party end so soon, 4 more people showed up and we had a good time till a quarter til midnight, a much better showing. I played some more Shadowbane for a while late Friday night, but the lag was so bad I couldn't open doors or town gates in town, so it was basically useless. The biggest thing I hate about Shadowbane so far is "The Run". Your spawn spot is a minimum 5 minute run to the nearest place to kill critters, and it's boring as hell. If any of you play Shadowbane, be dang sure when making a character to get the talent "Fleet of Foot", it speeds you up 5%, which can save your life, plus it makes the boring parts go a tiny bit faster. I also got a game of Master of Orion 3 to turn 175. I'm sorta figuring things out, but I think I hate the user interface. Jury is still out on the game, I need to make war on someone first. It's really slow, stuff takes forever to get around the starlanes. I guess I need faster engine techs, but I'm up to tech level 21 so far and that gets me Sheilds III and the 3rd or 4th engine tech. And now for something completely different: I met Mr. Nosuch in a dream last night. I've never met him in meatspace, but I feel like I have. Anyway, in this dream I was at his apartment, and in the middle of the living room (which was much too large for Manhatten) was a big backyard swingset type frame, but instead of 3 swings or toys, it had 3 weird sex chair thingies. Mr Nosuch was tied up, hanging from one of these things, naked except a large cage contraption on his cock-n-balls, (yeah, I'm mentally blind now too) with this weird box strapped on his back to his right shoulder blade. Apparently it had an exacto-type razer blade in it, and via remote control Connie could cause this blade to stab into him up to 5 times a second. He was smiling huge while describing how great this was, and I was laughing my ass off, glad as hell that I'm vanilla. Wierd dream. yeah, yeah, I know. My brain is a hazardous place. |
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