Catch-up #3: Death in the Family

On Tuesday my mom called to let me know that my grandmother (my Dad's mom) had passed away earlier that day. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's for a few years and had taken a turn for the worse in the last week. She apparently died in her sleep sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning. She was the last of the three grandparents I spent a good amount of time with as a kid and felt pretty close to, the others being my Dad's father and my Mom's mother. Even though I knew for a while that she was slipping away and had said my goodbyes a couple of years ago, it still hit me in a weird way.

My Mom waited to call me Tuesday until around 6p so that the news wouldn't affect my day; it was very thoughtful of her, unfortunately Tuesdays I have class until 10p so I still had quite a bit of my day left! I found myself only half listening in my History class. Then in my English class I tried to participate at my normal level, which is a lot, but every time I started to give an opinion on the pieces we had read or on a theory derived from them, I felt like I didn't know what I was saying. I wasn't even sure if I was making any sense or if it was even English coming out of my mouth. It felt like there were thousands of words spinning in my head and I had to locate and grab each one individually to make it come out. On our break in class I actually decided to ask the teacher if I was making any sense. She said I was completely and asked if I knew what was causing me to feel like I wasn't, so I told her about my grandma. It felt good to get out what was in my head and kinda spill my guts a bit.

I don't know when any sort of memorial will be but apparently it won't be for a little while. It'll be nice to get together with family and remember her.

Catch-up #2: First Obstetrician Appointment

Monday was Jen's first visit to her obstetrician for this pregnancy. It was a pretty easy visit, really just a catch up to make sure the doc is on board with what's going on and that Jen is doing good so far, which she is. We once again got hear the heartbeat. Pretty much all that happened was we got a look at how much the doc is gonna cost us this time around (not too bad, but more than 3 years ago of course) and they sent Jen to get some bloodwork done. We have some more interesting appointments coming up in the next few weeks: nuchal translucency, ob recheck, and the ultrasound where we learn the baby's sex.

Catch-up #1: Lucas's Potty Training

We had tried potty training a month or two ago, and Lucas wasn't ready for it; frankly, I'm not sure we were ready either. Jen decided to try again this past weekend and Lucas said he wanted to. This time it went really well! Over the weekend he only had two minor accidents and both were while we were out shopping. Both were also mostly our fault for not getting him to a bathroom quick enough. The only thing that he didn't do was poop; he held it all day both days until he was in a night-time pull-up. But now he's even doing that. I think he was a little scared at first, but now that he's done it he's totally into it.

The great part is that his daycare is all on board with it too and helping him out. Jen's mom did so as well on Tuesday as I'm sure my mom will tomorrow. He's just having about one very minor accident a day. I believe if he can keep this up for a month (pull-ups for naps and an accident or less a day) he can move into the next classroom, which is a ton cheaper! We need to check if he can still wear a pull-up for naps. He won't be doing that for too long, maybe a couple months but if they won't take him until he's fully trained then we'll push that timeline up. He's already peeing very little during sleep and not pooping at all so it shouldn't be too hard.

Whirlwind week...

And I've neglected to post about it. Expect to see a few blogs posted today catching up.

Good quote I ran across tonight

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- Stephen F. Roberts

Random observation

This morning I dropped Lucas off at daycare around 9:20 and headed to work. While cruising along Hwy 87 I passed a car where the lady driving was doing her makeup at around 65-70 MPH. Now I have two issues with this. One being the obvious "what the fuck are you doing putting on makeup while driving?" But my mind went a step further. I could sort of understand but maybe not condone doing your makeup while driving on a Monday morning if it was like 7:30am, you know you're gonna be stuck in stop-and-go traffic and you had a long weekend and weren't able to get up on time. But this was 9:30, when clearly the road was going to be somewhat open and traffic-free. In fact it makes it worse because the traffic sometimes goes from 70 to 0 at this time of the morning around Curtner so you have to be extra cautious. So unless this lady works until 3am, I have no friggin' clue how she could be running late enough to justify in her mind doing her makeup at 9:30 at full freeway speed.

Emergency Response Training

I'm working on becoming a member of Apple's Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT). Here's a description of what that's all about:

"The Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) program provides advanced medical emergency training to non-HealthCare professionals. This training furnishes each MERT member with the skills to provide immediate and temporary care to a seriously ill or injured employee at the workplace. This care is delivered during "everyday" emergencies and in the event of a local disaster (such as an earthquake, explosion, Haz- Mat spill, etc."

Basically it entails 36 hours of training, including CPR/AED, First Aid, fire extinguisher, bloodborne pathogens and building evacuation. Today I completed my CPR and AED certifications and next week I'll be taking First Aid. The bulk of the rest of the training is done on 3 consecutive Fridays, all day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help people out.

Lent again

Lent starts again tomorrow, and once again I find myself wanting to try giving something up for "40 days and 40 nights." Although I'm completely against religion, I do like the idea of testing yourself and restricting your intake of something that might give you pleasure but isn't necessarily good for your "soul" (although I'm for sure not giving up what the dude in the movie did, f-u-c-k that [pun intended]).

Last year I gave up beer for a couple months. It wasn't that bad. I still allowed myself some alcohol but the beer restriction did drastically cut down my drinking. So I was trying to think of what to do this time around. I'm really working on getting back into weight loss. I've kinda stopped working on weight loss; I'm still at my lowest weight in a long time and haven't gained anything, but haven't really lost anything in a couple months.

So here we go. I've decided to give up beer again. But that didn't seem to be enough. I want to go big this year. So along with beer, I'm going to cut red meat and chocolate from my diet until Easter. Hopefully that should give me the kick in the ass I need.

Show Review: Foo Fighters @ Oracle Arena, February 2, 2008

The Foo Fighters have been on my short list of bands I've really wanted to see live for many years, but for one reason or another have never been able to make it. So I was greatly relieved to get a chance to see them on their tour in support of their latest album, Echoes Silence Patience and Grace. And the song set reflected the fact that they are still an active band; one quarter of their songs came from their most recent album. Also of interest was the fact that the next album that was most heavily represented was their 3rd, There is Nothing Left to Lose, from 9 years ago and that only two tracks came from their album previous to ESP&G, one acoustic track and the last encore.

Anyway, about the show. It was a very oddly paced affair. Just when you thought they were going to launch into a full-frontal assault of rock with a tune like 'Breakout', they would mellow out into a laid-back jam like 'Learn to Fly.' It was a nice touch for them to add a second auxiliary stage at the opposite end of the arena so that almost every attendee got a more 'intimate' look at the band, but even that contributed to the off-kilter feel. Even though the stage was at my end of the venue, with the "almost acoustic" nature of the songs they played while out there, it almost felt like the 5 song session was one long bathroom break.

Now, don't let this feel like an indictment of the show. In fact, it was a bad ass rocking concert and I had a blast. The set (including the 3 song encore) was a full 2 hours and 19 songs long. I think the pacing is more a reflection of Dave Grohl as a maturing rocker. He reflected on some past Bay Area shows, at more intimate venues like Slim's. He also half-jokingly referred to the general state of the air in the arena: "Is pot legal in this city?" It seemed like a good rock show from an artist who has been in the public spotlight for 17 years.

Overall, a solid 3 out of 4 stars.

Set List:
Let It Die
The Pretender
Times Like These
Breakout
Learn to Fly
Cheer Up, Boys (Your Makeup Is Running)
This is a Call
Stacked Actors
Skin and Bones
Marigold
My Hero
Cold Day in the Sun
But, Honestly
Everlong
Monkey Wrench
All My Life

Encores:
Big Me
Long Road to Ruin
Best of You

And so begins our second journey

A couple weeks ago was one of the coolest and most exciting weeks of my life, and I'm just now prepared to talk about it fully in blog form.

First off, Jen got her next certification as a CME (Certified Manager of Exhibits). It's representative of many hours of work on her part and is a great compliment to her silver-level CTSM (Certified Trade Show Marketeer) certification.

A couple of days later, I was offered the job at Apple which, as I've talked about elsewhere on here, I enthusiastically accepted.

While I was working on all the paperwork for my offer, we got some even better news. Jen is pregnant! I guess that's what happens when both of our companies have Christmas shutdowns at the same time. ;) Anyway, she really wanted another kid and I decided I was cool with having one more. She managed to get pregnant the second month off the pill.

Apparently her doc is now into doing ultrasounds really early on, so we did what they called a "viability ultrasound" at 6 weeks. I'll scan the pic tonight or tomorrow, but don't expect much; it looks like a blur with spots. But we did at least find out the due date, which is September 16.

More details to come on this blog!