Johnson's News

Welcome to my New Baking Blog

2011-11-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Connie's Favorite Granola Bar Recipe

Ha HA ha! Just kidding. I'm just pretending today to be a baking blogger. I rarely get the creative drive to work in the kitchen. It's not that I don't like it. It's just that I would much rather be doing the 1 crazillion (yes, that's totally a number) other things that spark my creative motor. Ya hear me? So, today is rare, but it's not, like, legendary or whatever... I do "feed" my family. And ocAaaasionally I get a little ambitious and inspired. Mostly, I wanted to try out this one recipe and that led to another one, and then another idea hit me... Let's just say I usually get carried away with whatever I do. I made 2 batches of granola bars and a batch of granola and didn't quite make it to the fruit leathers that I wanted to get to. Another day, another blog (not really, though).

So, without further ado, I will let the pictures tell the story:

Oooo...

Ahhhh...

Wow! Look at those lovely ingredients! (bonus points for finding the baby sock)

And a little help with clean-up. :)

All in all it was an okay turn-out. My friend (Connie) gave me this recipe and on the instructions it mentions that these "chewy bars" can be eaten for breakfast with a cup of joe. Mine are more like "crunchity-careful not to break your teeth off-bars." And I had to substitute a few ingredients. But they taste good (but really, the pictures look better).

Excuses: My oven is hot (1) and I was dumb (2)and baked it the entire time it said to(3), which I should know by now is way too long for my oven(4). So, lesson learned and I will do better next time... whenever that may be. Which by that time I will have forgotten what I did wrong, BUT like I said before, if I'm not dumb, I shouldn't repeat those preposterous mistakes.

NO, WAY!!! Yep! It's a new post.

2011-07-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

I had NO idea what to title this post. I keep thinking during events big and small that "oooh! This would be a great post, I really need to update our blog!" And then it never happens... So, I thought I just need to get on and post something to get started. So, here it is: Unorganized, random and rough drafty (as you all know, I'm NOT a pro writer. In fact, I bet most 5th graders can out-write me). This post will actually be very similar to what it might look like if there were daily tours through a door in my ear hole to my brain. The sign before entering would of course read: "Enter at your own risk" and there would most definitely be a disclaimer to sign...

We had a major hail storm that ripped up our backyard and damaged our cars and minor parts of our house and other outdoor belongings. Hubby took a pretty good video during the rage of the storm. Click here to see the excitement. At least I can blame my failed garden on mother nature and not my amateur skills... And thank goodness we don't live off of my skills as a gardener:

This guy looked a little freaked out the next day:

I've really been into this patchwork look and was previously having difficulty deciding how to fix up the "nursery" chair. I wanted it to be able to be used in another part of the house after Johnson Jr. #3 is done with it... I know this is just terribly exciting. I saw this web page and a few others and knew that's the style I was looking for. I also don't totally like when everything matches so nice and perfectly. AND I LOVE COLOR! So, I made cushions and a cover for our "new" rocker I got on freecycle- an awesome Cheyenne group introduced to me by a dear friend.

(Apparently I need to clarify that this is NOT the chair I made a cushion for)

We went to Super Day for the first time since living here in Chey-town a few weeks back. We'd always missed it because of conventions, but due to my largely expanding waist-line we didn't venture too far from home. I felt the need to post a preggo picture of me since there aren't any up here yet... please enjoy. So glad Mom could be here for all of this Wyoming excitement!

Did I mention I love this face?

And this one too?

I'll end with some words to live by:

"Love what you do." - Dove caramel wrapper

(tell ya what, I sure loved eating a few of those)

(This isn't a pic I took)

And some words not to live by:

"Remember your first everything" - Dove caramel wrapper

(um... no thanks)

2010, Husband Retrospective

2011-01-03T09:37:00.001-08:00

2010 is already over. Hard to believe. Like last year I will post a rough chronological order of events from memory.

Coen turned 1 (and will be 2 in a matter of days now).
I tried to get back into writing. I wrote some 50,000 words in a Jan and Feb.
I finally tried out World of Warcraft. It put an end to my writing productivity. Bad choice.
Coen started walking and Nora got a walker from Stride. Coen pushed Nora around on "forced marches"
One of Kristy's cats died.
A drunk driver drove their car up onto our lawn, hitting the curb so hard it broke their axles. If the curb hadn't stopped them, they may have stopped in our living room. This was the fourth or fifth drunk driving incident in our neighborhood in as many months. There also were a lot of incidents of graffiti. Additionally, the new highschool turned our subdivision into a racetrack and smoker's lounge. We decided it wasn't a place for raising kids and put our house on the market.
I got a Motorola Droid. A small event but it's amazing how much you start to rely on a stupid smartphone.
I wrote a Content Management System that I named Hoox CMS for quick and easy website creation. The first production-level sites were mini sites for Sierra Trading Post in foreign languages. I had to learn a little about German and Japanese and work with translators to build small sites in both languages.
I decided World of Warcraft was dumb and canceled my account. Good choice.
In about a month, far sooner than expected, our house was under contract and we had to be OUT! We hadn't found a place to live yet so we moved in with mom and dad.
We participated in girlpower2cure's Dress Up 2 Cure, raising money for Rett Syndrome research and having fun in the process. I dressed up as a stereotypical nerd at work.
We went to the IRSF's Rett Syndrome conference in Colorado Springs. It was amazing and really changed our mindset on some things. For example, we had been working with Nora on walking for months and our enthusiasm dwindled. Seeing lots of other Rett Girls walk renewed our drive to work with her on more stuff. We also learned a lot more about many different facets of the disease.
The same weekend as the Rett Conference, we ran the Bolder Boulder 10K with the DoubleA's and the Painters and had a blast.
Kristy went to Texas with my mom and the kids. The van lost a piston and had to be fixed.
We found a house that felt just right and made an offer. After 2.5 months in mom and dad's basement, we moved into our new house. I learned a little more than I expected about gutter repair and home wiring.
After some 3-4 years of service, I retired my linux server. At this point I just had too much other stuff to do to try to keep it running and desktop upgrades, new technologies like Dropbox and my hostgator hosting eliminated most of the need for a dedicated home server.
My sister had a baby girl. I now have 3 nephews and 4 nieces.
Nora turned 3! For her birthday, we bought one of those inflatable bounce castles. Nora loves it and it was a big hit with the other kids too.
Nora started taking some steps. In July, we went camping with the DoubleA's and Painters and Nora really started walking around. She continued to improve, almost overnight, until she was walking everywhere.
I built TangleRidgeFurniture.com for Brion Griffith using the Hoox CMS. It was the third site to use my new software.
The Saab, my free car from 2009, was declining in health. The engine worked fine but the locks stopped working correctly and the clutch was starting to go. We traded it in on an old, 2001 suburban with 200k miles (yes, we only drive junky cars).
The Painters family, our best friends in the area, announced that they were moving away.
Work got really crazy! One of my employees decided to move away. Then, we decided we needed two new hires. I suddenly had to hire 3 people, hopefully before the last quarter of the year.
I got a kindle for my birthday. Woot!
The niche website I started writing last year turned one year old! I am sad to say that I've barely worked on it this year but the site has almost 500 members.
We got pictures taken by The Rancher's Wife, they turned out amazing.
We had a fun halloween party with kids everywhere. I was wolverine. This pansy was jealous.
The Painters moved away :(
We started thinking about having one more kid.
In November we took the Suburban out to Iowa and then on to Wisconsin. We visited all of Kristy's family. I blew the last of my freelance money for the year on a laptop.
Inspired by the indie game, Minecraft, I wrote a 2D, random terrain generator in PHP.
I began working on a fourth site, powered by the Hoox CMS, for my brother-in-law. I improved and added features to the CMS but the site-itself is not finished.
I started laying some plans to compete in the 2011 Dream Build Play contest (see last year's highlights). I started learning to develop new code on top of an existing engine, written by someone else.
Kristy welcomed me home with a "gift" - a bag with baby clothes. I was like "What do I want with a bunch of baby clo...OH!" Looks like (Lord willin' and the creek don't rise) we're having another.
Wifey and I celebrated our 6th (!) anniversary with some time away in Denver.
My aunt Kenna had an aneurysm. She's currently in the ICU post-surgery. It's too soon for any sort of prognosis.
We enjoyed the Christmas and New Year vacations with my family.

2010 High Points (not prioritized and probably missing some things)

Rett Syndrome Conference
Moving into a new house
Writin' Code
Watching Coen start walking, talking and growing
Watching Nora grow up, especially: NORA WALKING!!!
Bolder Boulder
Camping with DoubleA and the Painter (and going to bed at 5am :P )
Reading on my Kindle
No cats. I can breathe.

2010 Low Points

The Painters leaving
Averaging 6 hours of sleep/night (byproduct of working/playing late after kids go to sleep)
Being sick a lot
Reading resumes
The cash required to put down on a house and buy a vehicle. Bye bye savings :(

Rett Syndrome Awareness Month!!

2010-10-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

October is here, although it doesn't really feel like it. It had to be in the 80's today! But, anyway, this month is a month for awareness. Most of you might think of October as being breast cancer awareness month, but we are going to try to get Rett Syndrome right up there with breast cancer!

Is Rett Syndrome just as prevalent as breast cancer?? NO, not even close. But, it IS just as devastating to the ones it affects AND I would like to believe that it's 100% closer to being cured than breast cancer is (not that I don't wish it were the same for BC).

That's right, I said cured. That means we are on the "home stretch", and if you know just a little about running, NOW is when you start to put a little more effort into your stride. You can see the end, you know you don't have to save anymore energy. The harder you push the closer, the faster the end comes. Then you can FINALLY take that deep breath of air that your burning, tight lungs just can't handle at the moment. You can FINALLY rest your legs- that are at the moment screaming at you for each stride taken. You see, your body doesn't know that the end is near, but your mind does, and your eyes can see it, so you push, push hard to the end. To be done... At least that's how I run. Then again I don't really run to race... at least not distance. I run for the sense of accomplishment that I get when I complete the run. And I like to be DONE.

Well, I got a little taken up with the running bit and got a little off track here. Now is the time where we don't have to think about saving our efforts because the end IS in sight. And the harder we push people to just know about Rett Syndrome the faster the cure will come.

I couldn't believe the kind of results our little purple cards about Nora led to. As many of you know, a crew of us ran the Bolder Boulder this past May and something really awesome happened just because we handed out the purple cards. I had a friend from high school who happens to live there who happened to be friends with one of the girls I handed a card to, who happens to work with special needs children. Too many "who happens to's"? Sorry, anyway, if you weren't following: This friend of mine works with special needs kids and she is enrolled in the Kick for a Cause event ( I think it's a yearly event) where they have teams who play kick ball for a certain charity. If they win, all the money (from entering the event, which is a certain price for each team) goes to their chosen charity. Well, this friend asked me if Nora still had a page for donation and I gave it to her. I kinda forgot about it, but then got an email from Ingrid H. who is the founder of GirlPower2Cure's website saying it was so neat to open her email to find over $1000 donated to GP2C in Nora's honor. I was so surprised when I found out it was from my friend, who at the time I didn't know was in this event. What also surprised me was that I wasn't that close to her and hadn't even realized what affect this purple card could have on people. So, that just showed me! I am now going to hand out these purple cards at any appropriate moment... probably, like, not to the person in the stall next to me in the restroom...but, you know... When the opportunity seems right.

So, other than the purple card I plan on doing some other actual fund raising things and/or awareness events. There is a garden of hope that I plan on taking to local stores to see if they're willing to be involved. It's just like the march of dimes, but with flowers. I think each flower can cost a dollar. I'm excited, but time is slipping by and I need to get on top of it. If anyone wants to help out there's lots of good ideas for fundraising on the www.girlpower2cure.org website and probably all over the web. Just let me know. But please don't feel like you have to. I hate when I feel pushed and that's not what I'm doing. JUST if your interested.

Well, everyone have a fabulouso October! So far it's been amazing weather. I'm sure we will get a snowstorm the last of the month, though. Stay tuned for Halloween costumes. Any ideas?

Randomness follows:

I do cook sometimes... but not nearly enough. Sorry, hubby.

And Justin got some air the other day. He must eat enough anyway.

Last of the summer photo shoot!

2010-09-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

I thought I would jump in here between my updates and post something current. It was so nice out that I thought I should take the kids to our favorite spot for one more summer (end of the summer) photo shoot. It didn't turn out to be the greatest. I was a little pushy with the kids (which I can't stand, but I had no skills with kids tonight for some reason) and in return they protested a bit. Among many bad pictures from our photo shoot, I actually ended up with a few nice ones.

I think these first two are my faves.

For some reason I love this picture of Nora. It just cracks me up!

One of my tricks here was giving them marshmallows to share. I had to have Coen feed them to Nora, which led to some cute ones. That wore off after a bit... there's even a limit to how many marshmallows a couple toddlers will eat.

And now, the gag reel, the bloopers (whatever you wanna call it. It was the end):

"Really, Mom??? You're still taking pictures?"

Hope you enjoyed. ;)

BNU #2 - Nora's Birthday

2010-09-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here it's been longer than a month and poor Nora hasn't had a proper "Happy Birthday" blog. I hope she will forgive us... ;) Anyway, we had her 3rd birthday bash the weekend before her birthday. It was nice. It was mostly family. Now just enjoy the pictures:

The pretty birthday girl.

Hi, there cousin. What's up?

The cake. I thought I'd try a made-to-order cake this year. Very yummy, much less work, but way more expensive. Jury is still out on this one. I bought way too much cake, though.

Nora's PT was there with her kiddos. Nora loves her. Can you tell?

Family picture.

Nora's new high chair. Thanks Papa and Gramma!

opening gifts.

excuse my poor posture.... still opening.

Thanks to everyone who came and sent cards and gifts. I still haven't written thank yous.... I'm a horrible person.

Thought I'd throw in one more. This was actually after our camping trip. We had done such a good job of keeping mosquitoes off of Nora and then while we were packing up she got eaten up!!! The bite is actually at the corner of her eye, but she swelled up all above her eyelid. Made her look like a boxer. Poor girlie. It was such a sad sight. :(

Badly Needed Update #1: Camping in the Snowies

2010-09-06T07:09:00.000-07:00

So, it has been quite some time since an update. I have at least 3 I can think of including this camping update. So, hopefully in the next few weeks we will get all caught up.

As the title mentions, we went camping in the Snowies over the 4th of July weekend. It was the perfect camping trip of all times. Except I didn't catch any fish. In fact, I don't remember fishing at all. Hmmm... so much for my season fishing license. Yikes! I better go soon! Anyway, this picture is of all of us before our hike to the falls, but first we decided to get the truck stuck in the river, which proved to be as fun as it sounded (no pics of that, sorry).

Other events we took on were, sitting by the fire, of course.

Learning to walk. (Yay, Nora!!!)

Running up the trail being boys.

Running up the trail being girls.

Playing with fire.

Enjoying a hot cup of coffee in the morning light.

Escaping the suffocating grasp of the dreaded fire smoke. (Yes, my son is retreating into the arms of a girl...I have some work to do.)

Looking pretty for the camera:

Playing house in the truck bed.

Posing around the camp fire for a group picture.

Zonking out on the road home. Dirty faces and all!!

note: You'll have to visit the Aaron and Clan pictures for captured memories of our newly founded head dunking tradition.

Rett Conference 2010.... late update.

2010-08-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

This was the main floor of the restort that had the conference. We were just waiting around for stuff to start. The dining area/buffet was to the right. They had amazing food! I ate a lot.

Bangin' on the table.

It's all about you, baby.

This is us sitting at our table at the tribute party they held for us. There was lots of yummy desserts in the back. They played a tribute video, had some dancers and Kevin Black (Clint Black's brother) and another young band performed for the girls as well.They had a silent auction as well and Gramma M made this. It was a big hit and sold for a lot.These are a few of the things I made for the silent auction. I also made some nesting baskets, a painting, and a bib with sensory toy attachments.
I just love this heavy beat and music. We got a performance from these dancers. It was pretty cool, but hard to see.This guy was the lead singer of the young band I mentioned earlier. He sang to many of the girls out on the dance floor. It was really sweet.

All in all it was a wonderful event! We learned so many helpful and encouraging things. I would love to go to the next one, if we can afford it. I would have liked to have more pictures, but it was a crazy time. We enjoyed being able to stay with some good friends, so we were close by and didn't have to pay for the hotel as well. Thanks a billion! You know who you are. We had a lovely babysitter as well, who we couldn't have done without. THANKS SO MUCH!!

New Blog Design

2010-08-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

So, I'm sure you noticed that I applied a new design to our blog. The previous one had been in use since 2007 with very few changes. So...I upgraded.

This design uses a lot of transparency so you get nice, glassy-looking foreground colors. It's purty but may load slow or display all jerky on some computers.

Ultimately, I want the blog to readable first and aesthetically pleasing second. So, if you have trouble reading PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT so I can continue experimenting with templates to find something that looks fresh but displays well.

Thanks,
J

Nora Can Walk

2010-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

So hopefully this is okay for now. Nora is napping at the moment and this is the only video I have of her walking on our Flip. She was a little fussy that day, so sorry for the screaming, Poor Nora. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Nora!

2010-08-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This is last years picture (I found it on my desktop). So, don't get too excited. I agree though, it's hard to not get excited about this picture!(wish Nora could still feed herself. This is one skill she has lost this year :( But on a good note she's learned to walk!!)

Real Post

I'm very frustrated! I'm sure some others are too! We are currently having some issues with our server, and of course, alllllll of our pics and video are on there. So, I was going to post a "Happy Birthday, Nora!" post, but I have no pictures or video to show you.

I know, it's all so frustrating, and with Nora walking now we are extra excited to share the news and show everyone. So, hang on to your britches and we'll hopefully have our server fixed shortly. I will try to post a video of Nora walking since I might have one on our camera that I didn't put on the server yet.

Sooo......

Nora's Army: Rett Runners!

2010-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend was insane! We went to a conference about Rett Syndrome in Colorado Springs. It started on Friday and went all the way through Sunday afternoon. It was amazing, encouraging, informational and totally worth it for the experience and knowledge gained. We'll probably post more about that later.

On Monday we ran the Bolder Boulder with a bunch of Friends. We decided some time ago that it would be fun to do a running event together and the Bolder Boulder was a great first run. It is in Boulder, CO and is a 10k (6.2mi). The course winds around downtown Boulder and ends at the CU Stadium (Folsom Field).

We made Nora's Army Rett Syndrome Tee Shirts for our group that was running together and handed out cards about Nora/Rett Syndrome to bystanders. The race was exhausting (partially because the conference was mentally draining and we were low on sleep) but we had an amazing time. I think the kids had fun watching from the sidelines with their Grammas too (whom I didn't get in the video, sorry!).

I don't have time to go into much detail about the weekend or race but the video above is a compilation of shots of the race from my phone. I might make a better one if I get pics and videos from others...I didn't have a ton to work with.

Thanks to everyone that helped out both at the conference and the race. It was a really fun weekend that managed to be exhausting and refreshing all at once.

RegRETT Syndrome

2010-05-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

To the chagrin of tomorrow's self, I owe it to Nora to open the doors for a minute tonight.

Tonight we went to the painter's house, had dinner, and stayed late playing games. It was pushing 11pm by the time we got home. Coen was fast asleep and there was much to carry in. The snow was falling steadily (in May!) and the ground was a muddy mess.

Kristy headed to Coen's room with our sleeping adventurer. I carried our stuff in and went back to the cold, semi-dark van for my little Rett girl. As I slid the door back, the lights came on and lit up little snow flakes that drifted down to melt on her cheeks. She smiled the biggest, crinkly-eyed, toothy smile at the snow and her daddy and snuggled up to my shoulder in the short, cold trip to the house. There was no accusation in that smile.

I thought about her hopping after the other kids all evening, nobody playing with her. Her younger brother keeping up with Haley and sharing toys and laughing together. Nora, content just to be around the others. While mommy and daddy had fun with their friends and brother played with his friends Nora explored, alone, a world she can barely interact with. Later, while she enjoyed her bottle of warm Almond milk, warm drops replaced the chilly snowflakes on her cheeks as daddy's regret and guilt overflowed.

I wrote these verses for Nora shortly after we found out she had Rett Syndrome. I don't claim that they are good but they are inspired by a little girl who can walk through walls.

My little tree, in verdant grove it grew.

It seems that nature dealt a loser's hand:

For though the trees around stood tall and true,

mine struggled to survive upon the land

To other trees, new growth was easy play.

For mine each tiny branch was hardly won

It pained to watch the struggle every day,

but joy, we shared, at trials overcome.

Surrounded by the tall, the strong and free,

my tree, both sparse in leaf and frail in root,

may not produce in size or quantity.

Yet still, it grows the sweetest kind of fruit.

Dress Up To Cure Fundraiser Day

2010-04-29T12:32:00.001-07:00

A coworker snapped this ridiculous picture of me today. I came to work dressed as a nerd (bring on the "clever" comments) for Nora's Dress Up To Cure day. To my surprise, as of this posting, friends and coworkers have donated almost $170 for the cause. Because a lot of people just gave me funny looks, I taped a sign to my back that says:

KICK ME

(and pledge $5 to cure Rett Syndrome)

Lots of people chipped in with $5 and several for more. A few also took advantage of the kick...Kristy and the kids dressed up too but I don't have pictures of them so Kristy will have to add them later.

In other news, I created a Zazzle site for Nora. Zazzle is a site that allows you to design and sell t-shirts. You can mark them at whatever price you want (above their prices) and sell them for free or profit. Nora has a lot of supporters both in spirit and that have actually donated. Most of the donations go to fund a cure for Rett Syndrome but we also are going to start a special needs trust to help cover her health costs if something happens to us. This site is a start towards that goal as I am setting all proceeds aside to directly benefit Nora. Each item doesn't earn much but many have expressed enthusiasm in wearing t-shirts in the upcoming BolderBoulder race and other events. Either way, feel free to check it out by clicking on the image below:

Good times,

-J

Coen has Euro Style... and Other News

2010-04-14T14:52:00.000-07:00

We're Moving!!!

This would explain why I haven't posted in, like, 2 months... :( I was doing so well for a while there. Mom came to visit in March and apparently I didn't take any pictures while she was here. Another :( .... Well I hope this makes up for not posting at least a little bit. Enjoy the many pictures.

Coen sits on Nora. Here area few shots that show his new hobby.

With everything a mess and half in boxes, half in unorganized piles, there's bound to be some getting-in-to:

They spilled the salt. What happens now? You're supposed to do something, right?

Mommy, can we go outside!?
Okay, just for a little bit... Or a while, so Mommy can play too:

Which one is best? You decide.
Try # 1

Try # 2
Try # 3
A different angle
Coen thought I was pretty funny jumping over them the whole time we were outside. Yes, I am a bit dorky, but I sure love playing with my camera.

Picnic Time
It was so nice the other day The Painter's wife talked me in to meeting her and her family at the park for a run and then a picnic. It was really a nice day for a picnic.
I'm pretty sure Coen has the "Naef Scowl"
Looks like great uncle Jack here.
Nora eats grass. Baaaa! Baa!
And ponders....

Nora Likes Rice

Nora gets so tickled when she eats sometimes.... When this happens we usually need to take a break, so she doesn't choke. Silly girl!

Valentine's Day
This is very out of order, but important nonetheless.

Gramma helped the grandkids cut out cookie shapes and frost them. They were so delicious! Yummy! I had my fair share... and then some.

Coen Has Euro Style

Yes, Coen is kissing the horsey.

Well, Coen has Euro style if you ignore the completely dorky sandals (I packed away his only brown shoes). I guess he just looks like a tourist... At least he's a cute tourist. This little outfit was picked up in Spain especially for Coen from some good friends/cousins. Thanks!!

Dress Up 2 Cure

2010-02-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

This is really gross, but Nora had a bloody nose the other week and this is what I found when I went to get Nora that morning. This was following a horrible night. Up from 2-6am.... Poor girly. I even had the humidifier going. I left out the rest of the blood for those with a weak tummy.

More exciting news:

http://www.firstgiving.com/du2cteamnora

So, I was very excited to see that we have our team Nora page up and running for the Dress Up 2 Cure event on April Fool's Day to raise money for Girl Power 2 Cure. I was even more excited to see that we are already over 25% of the way (by the time I finished this post we're at the 50% mark!!) to our fund-raising goal of $625. I had to set a goal and I had no idea what to set it as... they gave a suggestion and I went for it. Maybe I should have set the goal higher. I have issues with failure, but that's a whole different post....

Anyway, check it out! I am very excited/nervous. I am going to try to grow a "garden of hope" with some of the grocery stores/businesses and set up a Dress Up 2 Cure event at the local school/s to try to raise a bunch of money. I would like to have a run for next year... Runnin' for Rett. I am not ready this year, however, some good friends and we will be running the Bolder Boulder and raising money for Nora there. We'll see how that goes before I create a specific run just for Nora...

If you are at all interested in helping let me know. You can do all sorts of fund-raising events: A Bowlathon, a board game tournament, tea party, bake sale, run/walks, silent auctions, pretty much whatever your imagination comes up with. If you are interested, go to this web site as a start: http://www.dressup2cure.org/ There you will find information (too much for me to explain in this post). You can join our team or start your own or just take a look and see what it's all about. Or you can call me if this is too confusing and you want to help, but don't know how.

Anyway, I am hoping to be somewhat successful this first go-around. I'm excited to learn how big of a help I can be to Nora and all the other girls out there struggling with this Syndrome. Not many people know what Rett Syndrome is or have even heard about it. Lots of people know what Autism is. Finding a cure for this seems like something attainable, and it would help out many other disorders in the process, ones like Autism, Bipolar disorder, and many more. They're linked somehow and I think it would be great to have been involved in helping find a cure. I sure am glad there are people out there a lot smarter than me doing the actual "finding" for the cure! :)

Anyway, that's all I better say before I ramble on and on and lose everyone. Hope everyone is doing great and I'll find more pics to post for the week, so I don't get any hate mail for bailing on that this week. ;) Ah, but before I post more pics check this out too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJuwnz7n6jY

this is a great video about Ingrid Harding and her daughter Sarah. Ingrid started the whole Girl Power 2 Cure website. Check it out. She's really amazing and she's done so much for these Rett girls!

I made a couple of aprons last week for a sister/friend of mine and her daughter. I think they liked 'em. :D They were a lot of fun to make. I used an old skirt of mine and some ribbon and red/white polka dot fabric and a few buttons.

Walking, Walking

2010-02-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

So, I realize that it is past Monday, the day that I designated to be the "post" day, but I had nothing. My posts are already boring, so I didn't want to make the problem worse. Then I remembered a video we took the other night:

How could I forget this, you ask? Well, because nothing has happened since. We are convinced Coen could walk if he wanted, but he's much more comfortable crawling (and much quicker). In time you will see a video of him taking more steps. But not today.

Some other news that's kinda old is that Nora got a walker to use from STRIDE (Thank you, Thank you, STRIDE!!). She actually switches every other week with a different one. You can see the red one in the video here, which is a forward pushing walker. The other walker is purple and she pulls it along behind her. Much to my surprise she does a little better with the purple one. I am so excited about this. I got all emotional at the YMCA the other week to see her screetching and laughing walking around with the other kids. It was great!

I've got to find a video of her in it... here we go:

Pretend that our house is spotless... because it always is, of course. This is a rare day where there's clutter around... everywhere... Ummmm....

See you next week.

Last week of January... already?

2010-02-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

Already gone, that is.

I tried to make Chicken and Shrimp Gumbo the other night and it was okay, but not the best recipe maybe... First off, don't use cooking wine when it calls for beer. Just doesn't cut it. It was too sweet, but still good. It just didn't have that Gumbo taste I was craving. Hubby got the bright idea to add Chulula to the Gumbo and then it was excellent. Way to go, Hubby! If something's not great, just add Chulula. I gotta go buy some more, we're out!

Friday we went for a stroll. This is the new bike trailer I got for 30 bucks from Salvation Army. A very good deal if you look up how much these guys are. Like, just under 200 buckaroos... I think. Anyway, it was a deal. I like to use it as a stroller for now. It's too cold for me to bike.

Coen and Nora snuggle right up in there and usually fall asleep. Nora managed to stay awake this time.

I was a little discouraged this time I went up the hill outside our subdivision. I use this route as a 2mi run and it's perfect because it's uphill the first mile and downhill the way home. And I used to run it in the evenings when the sun was going down and I had nice, little, grassy hills on both sides of me. Now there is this electrical farm on the West and on the East?...
Apartments!! Yay! I don't dislike apartments, but the ones right behind our house don't supply the worlds best neighbors. (i.e. cars driving over lots, drivers throwing certain glass bottles out their window as they drive by, cars screaming through our subdivision paying no attention to the possibilities of children in the streets, etc.) And it's definitely not as pretty as grassy hills with antelope roaming through. :( I'm not sure what I expected living in town. My idealist mind was in charge of the thought that I could have my little grassy hills in town, I guess.
Finally, Coen got his very first haircut Friday night. Now our little baby is a little boy. :( I had to cut his hair because he was starting to look goofy, I just couldn't get myself to cut it all off. So, I left the top long. This was right after his bath when his hair is more curly.
This one shows the more natural look... no Elvis do goin' on here.

Well, I stuck to my rule of posting every week so far. This is only the second week.... but, it's definitely an improvement. See you next week.

Winter Update

2010-01-25T11:18:00.000-08:00

Why is there a giant, orange robo-dog cake just sitting here?

You guessed it:
Coen Turns One!

What is Coen up to these days, now that he's a big one-year-old? Here's a short list:
*Loves to give kisses to everything
*Says: "Dada" to almost everything, "woof" to every face (and looks for the doggie on his shirt), "Uh-uh" (uh-oh!) all the time and drops everything, "mama" occasionally, just started to say "nye-nye" when I ask him if he wants to go night-night. And he's starting to say more babbly stuff.
* Dances all the time, even to really bad restaurant music.
*pushes chairs, walker, Nora's walker all around.
*points and says "da?" (shows me stuff and talks about stuff)
*likes to give us stuff and then take it back, of course.
*hits toys and chases after them. Started to push cars.
*plays peek-a-boo... way too fast.
*claps and waves.
*plays little games with us when he's in a silly mood...makes them up.

Okay, that wasn't really a short list and I'm sure I forgot some. It's been so fun to watch him learn and grow and do things that Nora could never do or took a really long time to do. Makes me appreciate those little things even more now. He has a sweet personality: loves to snuggle, but also wants to conquer everything, has a streak of stubborn-ness (no idea who he got that from), wants to be in with what's going on around him. He's great at escaping places we've corralled him into. Coen is amazing, that's the only word I can really find that explains what he is and means to us. I can't wait to learn more from him... and watch him learn more.
His one year pictures I took. He's always crawling into baskets or anything he can get inside and sit in.Thanks for feeding me, Gramma, you're the best!
His very own personal cake. A robot dog. He didn't dig right into it like we all anticipated. He was a picker... don't know if he actually got any of the cake, just the frosting. So different than Nora, who completely destroyed her cake and ate most of it.

Is miss Haley bug jealous or just sniffing the cake?
Giving Daddy a messy kiss.

Hubby played a game of Chess with KT while the rest chatted. This isn't showing all who came, just a handful. I wish we could hold more people in our smallish house. There were quite a few who I didn't get to invite... Not that Coen cares at all. It's mostly for us adults. :)I wanted to thank all Nora's teacher's and therapists for their hard work, so I made them reversible bags with goodies inside as an end of the year holiday/thank you gift.
Daddy helping Coen open his first presents ever. Good practice for his birthday.
Hadders playing with her new magnets while sitting on Coen's bath train... silly girly.
Pretty hair, Norabelle. Cute new twisty-feelies look cute as a hat. We're starting a new fad.

Sister enjoying morning drink... coffee? tea? hot cocoa?Good morning, sleepy head.
Brooklyn loves her new baby. Congrats, Sister!Nora had her EKG before the new year. Just a check up thing, nothing to worry about here. I had to hold her on my lap while they stuck a bunch of electro thingys on her chest and under her arms, then they cliped the cords to the sticky things which liked to come undone a lot. The actual EKG only takes, like 10 seconds, it's the hook-up that takes a while.

We also had some visitors from Cornland come before the new year. My sister and her family!! I was so happy to see them. They also brought their old time friend, Stephanie along. It was lots of fun. Too short, though.We played greed. It was a wild night! You have no idea!
We were about to hire out Danny's services for continually putting Nora to sleep. It was amazingly wonderful...She loves her Uncle Danny.
Senna and Ocean got to stay up and play Greed with the adults.
Stephanie tried her hand at virtual 4wheeling.
and read Glade some books, some of which she wasn't too fond of.
Nora fell asleep on Uncle Danny again. Danny had a full lap.
Aspen playing on the floor. He was quite different than the last time I saw him. Cute!
On their way home. Stephanie gave Ocean a hammer for the car ride home. I'm sure Becky and Danny were thrilled with that.

Now we are guest free and into our old routine. Daddy here is reading the kids a book after their baths.

So, my New Year's resolution was to do a blog post a week (I don't actually believe in New Year's resolutions, it just happened to be a new year), which obviously hasn't happened so far, but hopefully from now on it will. Then I can save some time by not having to post a mile long post that everyone is bored with. Oh well. Working on it. I was also hoping to join in with the 52 weeks thing and have a picture with me and the kiddos each week. Kinda scared to commit to that. Gotta try anyway. See you next week!

2009, Husband's Retrospective

2009-12-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

2009 was a crazy year. Here is a timeline of assorted events that took place this year. There is a rough chronological order to this but some things are probably out of order. This is all from memory, I didn't take the time to actually check dates.

I started going to the gym ~3 times per week to compensate for 8hrs at a desk every day.
Coen was born on January 16th. Our second child and first son.
Kathy came out and stayed with us for...a month?
My employer laid off about 10% of our staff. I was fortunate to keep my job and all of my employees.
I built a website for a company called Pharmaca.com. It was the largest freelance undertaking I've ever done.They only used it for a few months before half of their staff turned over and they ended up rebuilding a new website for eCommerce (which hadn't been a goal of the project that I did for them). This was also an interesting project in that it was entirely remote. I never met any of the clients in real life.
We had a family reunion on my dad's mom's side of the family. The first ever, I think. It was great to see old videos and pictures of my dad and other family when they were my age or younger.
The economic crises of the country got me focused on eliminating some of our debt. I got an old 1994 Saab that I got for free running and sold our 2006 Xterra, saving us nearly $400 per month.
My employer changed our health insurance plan, causing our health insurance to go up about $400 per month (that's what happens when you try to get ahead :P)
Danny and Becky visited over Spring Break
Nora learned to stand.
We had an awesome 4th of July in Laramie.
I built a planter in our front yard for flowers.
I entered a Microsoft-sponsored competition to build a video game from the ground up. I spent several months working on my submission and learned a new programming language (C#), new object-oriented programming concepts and lots more. I didn't place in the competition (my submission was pretty mediocre, honestly) but I had a lot of fun and learned tons of valuable skills.
Our family doctor gave us a referral to a Children's hospital to have Nora tested for Autism. Nora endured multiple tests. We went home.
Rebuilt a fairly-major web property for my employer using what I learned from the large freelance project.
We found out that Nora has Rett Syndrome. Many specialist appointments and trips to Denver would follow.
Guitar-building-legend Les Paul died. I bought a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar on a trip to Denver for Nora. This was mostly coincidental with Les Paul's death as I have wanted a Les Paul guitar for some time.
We bought a Canon Rebel XSI digital SLR camera and have shot tons of neat pictures that we have been too lazy to post on our blog. Sorry folks...
Kristy celebrated her 28th birthday in August and I celebrated mine in September.
We decided to get Nora's tonsils out due to breathing problems while she slept.
Kathy came out and stayed with us for over a month, helping out as Nora recovered from her tonsilectomy.
Rich and Dori came to visit
Kristy and her mom went to Texas to visit family. I stayed home by myself :(
We turned our basement into a play place for adults and kids and built Nora a swing for therapy and simple enjoyment.
I started building a new website around a niche community, developing unique software that doesn't exist online yet (as far as I can tell).
We took the kids to Harvest Farm, a fall-focused farm that had pumpkins and all sorts of stuff. They loved it.
We had some Halloween fun with the Painter and family
Coen got the Swine Flu (not totally confirmed). We all had colds and such. I took Coen to the emergency room with a high fever, got home at 2:30am. It seems like the whole family was sick for at least a month! We missed all but Laramie special meeting.
GetOutside visited
We had a small Thanksgiving at my parents house. Dad was gone bird hunting so it was just us, mom and my cousin.
I wrote a fairly-major program that can take screenshots of a list of websites. This was one of the more-significant applications that I wrote this year, it was built to gain competitive intel for online retailers.
I worked hard to get a major update to the website I built out-the-door by December 16th. A friend in Laramie started helping out with some programming tasks.
We spent a whole weekend in Laramie with the Stidolph family. It was fun to stay somewhere else as most of my vacation had been used for doctor appointments
Leaving the kids with mom and dad, we escaped to Denver for some nice alone time for our 5th anniversary. We came back for a Christmas dinner with my family.
Danny and Becky came to visit for a few days.

On this last day of the year, looking back, I have to say this was one of the biggest and, at times, most stressful years of my life. We had our second kid, a lot of pretty big things happened at work and Nora was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome. Here are the highlights and low points, not in any specific order...

High Points:

Watching my kids grow and learn new things. Being with the kids, but also:
Getting away from the kids occasionally...
Stride. If any Stride folks read this, you rock and we appreciate everything you do for Nora.
Spending time with my family, even though it seems like a lot of those times were at the doctor or sick
Facing things with my wife, understanding each other more, faults and all. (Her faults. I don't have any of course :P )
Having friends and family on both sides that are engaged in Nora's therapy and progress.
Successfully completing a competition in a programming language I barely knew when I entered it.
Building 3-4 websites and tons of small applications to solve various problems.
Working out at lunch time (stress killer)!
Getting a diagnosis for Nora so that we know what we are facing
Driving a free car that goes fast, gets ~24mpg and only costs $20 for insurance!
Getting out of the house to share good times with friends/family
Shooting pictures with our new camera, playing my new guitar!
Worker visits
Art teacher friends
Bert, Aaron, Candy, Geek Chad, Traveler Chad, Painter Chad, Lisa, Andy, Kate and other Friends, their kids and our families

Low Points:

Finding out that Nora has Rett Syndrome
Paying for expensive health insurance premiums and still fronting ~$8000 out-of-pocket for medical expenses.*
Coen getting Swine Flu (scary!)
Not getting to go hunting (although, I didn't make it a huge priority so it's sorta my fault)
Missing our annual family camping trip
Kids that don't want to sleep
Stepping on sharp kids toys with bare feet
Toys that make noise
Cats**
Friends that lost loved ones

Have a happy new year.

* This is mostly irritating because it's only going to get worse and instead of industry reform, the burden will simply be spread upon all tax payers.

** The fact that they exist doesn't bother me. Only that they happen to exist in my house.

2009-10-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Fall Fun at Harvest Farm

Hey, Llama, who's your mama?

Llama: "Are you my mama?"
Cow : "No! Shhhh...
Goat: "Yeah, shhhh. This is no time for questions. Now, be quiet, so we can give thanks.

Fall: the time for picking out pumpkins, jumping in leaves and taking rides in home-made barrel trains decorated like cows pulled by a tractor...and getting dirt in your teeth from the dust blowing in your face while your rear end turns numb as a result of being too big for the home-made barrel train decorated like cows??
Nora and Hadley take a look at their new home town... just their size.
Hubby and I go for a romantic stroll in the toddler corn maze... I swear we didn't get lost.

The corn bin! Coen and Nora made us look like we starve them, both trying to eat the corn.Nora got to kiss the sheep... goat... whatever this thing was it was sure cute.
This is the out-take of our romantic walk in the toddler corn maze... Or maybe the other one was the out-take... I can't remember. After all, this one actually has a toddler in it.
The look of pure glee on my face shows how much I am enjoying this. Smashing pumpkins is as fun as it looks.
Our newest family picture. Not bad, except the woman in the background is ruining it... she is not related...at all.

I will also post some pictures of our Texas trip, but felt the need to post a FALL post as "fall" is more like winter since we have, like, a foot of snow at least. So, coming soon are Texas pictures.

Nora Gets Her Tonsils Out

2009-09-03T10:47:00.001-07:00

Nora got her tonsils out this morning. We had to be at the hospital at 5:30am to get everything ready for her surgery at 7:30. She was pretty cheery, if a bit hungry, as we waited for everything to happen.

The surgery went really well. We were worried about our little baby but she came through just fine. She's currently sipping on cool water, eating jello and watching some videos on the laptop. When she first came out she was really zonked but she's perking up now. Apparently the next few days will bring more pain and discomfort but she's doing okay right now.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HUBBY!!!!

2009-09-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

No, Honey, you don't look old. Just a few wrinkles here and there. Eyes a little deeper set. No one will notice. You look great! Oh, wait. This isn't you, you say? Sorry, I must have had this 90 yr old man mistaken for my 28 yr old man. You can see the resemblance, right? This one below just isn't black and white like the one above. Anyone could have made the mistake... and he's holding a fan in this one.
Pretty good lookin' if you ask me!! Happy Birthday, Hubby! Hope it's a good one.

Mahogany Gibson Les Paul Studio

2009-08-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

Astute musicians amongst you will know that the guitar legend, Les Paul, just passed away. I've wanted a Gibson Les Paul for quite awhile. I originally didn't like them but while I worked as a guitar tuner for a Wisconsin band one summer, I really built an appreciation for the playability, versatility, beauty and history of the Les Paul.

Today (well, it's almost yesterday at this point) we had an appointment for Nora. On the way home we stopped at one of my favorite places: Guitar Center. I've had my eye on various versions of the Gibson and Epiphone Les Paul guitars. The Epiphone versions are similar in playability and about 30-50% of the cost of their Gibson brethren but really lack in both aesthetics and hardware quality (which is very important in an electric).

Long story short, I fell in love with a solid mahogany Gibson Les Paul studio and had to take it home with me. It is really a beautiful guitar with an excellent sound and very, very nice playability.

I had to post this tonight because some of my fellow guitarists saw my Twitter and wanted to see pics! Here you are my friends...the pictures don't tell how it feels to play but it shore is purty too :)

Coen the Libwawian

2009-08-22T21:48:00.001-07:00

So, our last post was a bit depressing. Here's a funny, cute pic of Coen to lighten things up a little! Unfortunately I only have a low resolution version on hand. I might replace it later if I remember...

Rett Syndrome

2009-08-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

We got a call from Nora’s doctor on Friday night. We have been waiting for results since her appointment on July 7th. At that appointment they took 7 vials of blood for a battery of tests, one of which was for a gene mutation and collection of symptoms that are known as Rett Syndrome (RTT). Nora’s test for RTT came back positive so she definitely has Rett Syndrome and not autism, cerebral palsy or any of the other disorders that matched her symptoms.

RTT almost exclusively affects girls. A child with RTT is usually born healthy and shows mostly normal development until 6-18 months, where skills and development begin to slow. After this, the child may regress and lose communication or motor skills. They may have disorganized breathing patterns, seizures and will have abnormal hand movement (hand washing/wringing, tapping, patting). Over time, motor problems may increase but communication and interaction may improve.

It’s impossible to predict the severity of Nora’s symptoms but she will probably require special care and attention indefinitely. She will suffer from some level of Apraxia (inability to perform consistent motor movements) which can make it difficult for her to move, make eye contact, and speak. Here are the stages of RTT (not all girls move through all stages):
1. Stage I: Early Onset Stage (6-8 months)
2. Stage II: Rapid Destructive Stage (1-4 yrs)
3. Stage III: Plateau Stage (preschool to adulthood)
4. Stage IV: Late Motor Deterioration (from time ambulation is lost on...)

It is impossible to gauge the intelligence of RTT children because intelligence tests all require the use of hands, communication or other normal skills. However, it is clear that RTT kids experience the full range of emotions. Unlike some autistic children, they prefer people to objects and enjoy family and friends, even if they can’t interact normally. Some girls with RTT can communicate [somewhat] normally. Others can learn to communicate using computers, etc.

Life expectancy in RTT is not entirely known. RTT is rare, newly recognized as a disease (relatively) and is hard to retroactively diagnose in older patients due to missing or incomplete medical records. Girls with RTT have a 95% chance of survival into their twenties (compared to 98% in all females). Between ages of 25 and 40 the survival rate drops to ~70% compared to 97% in normal females. These are mostly predictions based on a fairly small group of identified cases. Only ~5% of RTT cases have resulted in death. 95% of those diagnosed are still living.

RTT appears to be a sporadic mutation and is [apparently?] not hereditary. The chances of another one having RTT is much less than 1%.

There is a variety of information on the internet and [GASP!] not all of it is accurate. The best information can be found here:
http://www.rettsyndrome.org/

Obviously, this was not the diagnosis that we were hoping for. However, we have been prepared to face the facts that Nora is significantly disabled and we took steps a long time ago to start seeking additional help for her. While finding out that your child has RTT is shocking and sad, it is nice to have a diagnosis. We now have direction and can focus on the care that will help Nora the most. Despite the physical and communication barriers she already faces, Nora has developed a sweet and silly personality. We’ll be there to help her overcome what she can and she enjoys lots of love from her family and friends.

Happy 2 Years, Nora!

2009-07-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Our little girl is already two years old. It's so hard to believe. It really does feel like we brought her home just yesterday. Such a cliche thing to say, but so true.

Parenthood really is such a bittersweet thing. Mostly sweet, but I'm always wanting my kids to stop growing up so fast... sort of, not really... there's that bittersweet thing I was talking about. :)

Canon Rebel XSi

2009-07-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

Those of you that pay attention to my twitter or facebook will know that I haven't shut up about the DSLR that I ordered roughly a week ago for the last week. I have always wanted to try my hand at digital photography with a piece of equipment that has enough flexibility to capture the vision in my mind. If you know me you'll know that I'm a little bit artist and a lotta bit geek. Photography allows me to enjoy the artistic composition and visualization of a shot while satisfying my geek side with a shiny piece of electronics that has a ton of tweakable settings.

Kristy also really enjoys photography so the Canon Rebel XSi (a very popular DSLR amongst amatures) is our birthday present to each other.

The box came in right before I got home from work today so I quickly set it up before we went to mom and dad's for supper. There is so much subject matter there, I could shoot for hours. For one, the sun was coming in strongly as it set, which always offers the opportunity for "moody" shots like the one at the top of this post. Their house itself is interesting and it just seemed like every time I turned around there were things to shoot.

I recently set up a gallery site to make it easier for us to share photos. I have posted some of my better shots at a gallery I installed on one of my web servers. You can quickly page through thumbnails or medium images. If you click on a medium size image you will get the full version. I resize them down a little for the web but there is still plenty of detail.

Camping and Visit to Children's

2009-07-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

Camping Fun!

Over the 4th of July weekend we made plans to go camping with some good friends up in the Snowy's. We had a great time and wished it wasn't such a short trip... well, mostly.

Some of us slept... others didn't sleep so much.

Some of us went on a bear hunt and then ran away from the bears.

Some of us played in the sun... and got left in the rain for a few seconds, but no longer, I swear.
Others hung out in the back of the van... The only spot some of us won't eat rocks and pine needles.

All of us hung around the campfire and ate hot dogs, sweet corn, peas, watermelon, roasted marshmallows, s'mores and sang/listened to campfire songs...

some while sitting in new campchairs 'cause their dad sat in their pink Dora chair and broke it. No names.

The Johnson family clan.

The Mountain Man himself. A great camp fire cook!

Mountain Mama and Miss Braids exchanging flowers and sweet looks.

The Trip to Children's in Denver (Aurora)

This was our waiting room. At first I thought it was just ours until more people walked in. I wondered why they had separate waiting rooms and figured they must use the rooms sometimes for other purposes than waiting.

Nora having her milk... she was just waking up from her nap since she woke up at 5am. I'm so glad she took a nap. She was in a good mood the rest of the day.

Coen in the waiting room. Big, big eyes!

We waited more in the hallway after our initial meeting with 4 or 5 doctors...maybe six?
Coen fell asleep nursing so I put him in the Caddie. It's the name we gave our giant, wonderful stroller.
After all the doctors saw Nora and talked with us we got sent over to the main building for some blood tests and urine sample. Poor girl had, like, 7 vials of blood taken, granted they weren't all filled up, but I sure thought it was a great deal of blood taken from someone so small. Before that we tried to get a urine sample from her by taking off her diaper while she stood up which usually works when we are about to give her a bath. Of course it didn't work this time so poor Nora had to be bagged. The bag stuck out of her diaper so we could see when she went. So, we went to eat while we waited for her to go. In the main lobby it is all wide open (let me just tell you right now that this place is absolutely amazing. The tile, the walls, the art work on the walls, everything amazing). Anyway, this is looking up in the main lobby.
This is on our way over to the main building which is behind Hubby here.
After the whole ordeal we walked around for a few minutes longer. Here was a really cool ball coaster that just keeps going and going. It was pretty cool.
On our way out these bunnies caught my eye (cute). I just loved all the artwork they had everywhere.

Strapped in and ready to go home. You can see Nora's mosquito bites all over her face from camping. I felt kinda dumb explaining that one to the doctors. Perfect timing, right?

So, long story short is that Nora needs to have a bunch of medical tests done now because they couldn't diagnose her with anything yet. So, we begin the journey of figuring Nora out. It may take us/them a while, but it was nice to get the journey started. Now I will try to get some video posted.

Nora is Cool!

2009-07-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

Nora is still really good at being cool. Just a little update. In case you didn't know.

Nora Stands!! And Other News

2009-06-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

'So what has been happening with the Johnson clan?', you ask. I now present you with the merry month of May:

Nora can multi-task: not only can she stand, but she can look cool while doing it. We're all pretty proud of her. Wahoo, go Miss Badora!

We started off May with a family reunion and had pictures taken... by the end we were all ready to be done (with the pictures not the reunion). I didn't get the whole family on my camera, but I got this one of all the great-grandkids with the great-grandparents. And I think that's Papa claping in the corner.

Papa with Hadders and Coco Puff.
My Mother's day gift I made for Momer-na: A garden apron.

And then it was Hadders' birthday bash on the 16th!!Lots of cool presents....
Yummy cake....(yes that is cake in her ear)
and a nice nap with Papa.

During this party someone else was having a birthday:
Welcome Baby "D"!!!How precious...I'm kinda bumbed that this is the only picture we have.

Then I balanced an egg.

Then Miss Badora ate a snack and watched Mommy plant some Irises and Violets in the new planter that Daddy built.
All the while Coco-Puff just slept away. Those were some beautiful days!
We enjoyed one of those beautiful evenings with a trip to the new-ish park with lots of fun rides, including this spinning plunger thingy. I think J^2 and I had just as much fun as Miss Badora.

And we finished with a stroll around the "lake".

It got a little bit cooler and Coco Puff watched Daddy move some dirt around.Hello cute little froggy. Isn't it cold out here?

Coco Puff got a bath... which happens about once a month these days. Poor guy.

That pretty much sums it up for the month. There are a few things missing, like some weddings and anniversaries and work day at Chugwater and...okay May was a busy month. I just couldn't get it all in here.

And Now...

Yes! You can see it with your own eyes, now. Miss Badora is a stander. Yay! Horay! And, I know, to some of you this is old news, but if you haven't seen it you can see it now.

Happy 3 Months, Coen!

2009-04-16T12:37:00.001-07:00

Well, I can't believe that our little guy is already 3 months old! Here are some of the things he's doing:

Sleeping
Eating
Going potty (in his diaper)
Smiling really big
Hiccuping
Snorting
Screeching
Looking at close objects
Riding his air bike
Sucking on hands/fingers
Talking/cooing
Getting really mad (yes, he's already got a temper)
Finally, as you can see here he's also being really, really cute. :)

Miss Badora really likes him, but doesn't understand that he's not a toy to hit, bite or jab her thumb into his eye. We will continue to work on that one. Cocoa Puff doesn't get as much attention as our Miss Badora once did so he isn't doing all the things she did at this time. He can almost hold his head up, but hasn't yet discovered his hands and therefore cannot grab stuff yet... I think Miss Badora was doing all that stuff by now. Funny how the second one doesn't get as much attention or pictures... poor guy.

We also recently had some wonderful company which was really nice. Our sisters CJ and BB came and we got to celebrate BB's birthday which was a real treat.
I put a few decorations up... I always liked the decorations we got when my sis and I had our birthdays at our gramma's house on the farm. (hint, hint)

We've had other company too these past few months so I'll try to get a few of those pics up as well.
This is my favorite picture of Mom and Miss Badora while Mom was here helping out. Miss you Mom. :(

This was probably the best picture of all the kids when My Sis and her hubby were out visiting during spring break. They were a constant blurr of kids in motion. That was a blast! Come back again soon.Fat. Bald. Innocent.

Funny hair. It stands up straight if it's wet. I thought she looked like a bug.

This is our little girl getting stuck in a box... someone had a similar picture on her website. I too thought I should get a picture before I helped her. :)

April Fools Day

2009-04-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

I have been super busy and, although I love pranks, I haven't had any time to come up with anything fun for April Fools Day. But here's me and my crew at Sierra, being dumb:

Sierra Trading Post April Fools

Welcome to April folks.

Happy Valentine's Day and Other News

2009-02-14T10:41:00.001-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Well, Gramma K is still here and this morning she made us all a wonderful breakfast of Dutch babies and bacon...so yummy! Thanks Ma! Then, I got everyone a little Valentine gift, so we opened those and the ones from Gramma M and Papa. It was fun. We usually don't do so much for Valentine's day, but since Mom was here I thought it would be fun. Then I took pictures of Coco Puff and Punkin Face with their Valentine's Day loot.

I got Coco this cute onsie that says "Already breaking hearts," but you can't really read it. I realized today in my Valentine mode of needing to dress the kids in "Valentine clothes" that it's hard to find something a boy can wear so he doesn't look girly. I think I pulled it off though.

Punkin got a few more things this year than last. She loved it all!
These are my favorite...if only she would keep them on.

Other News: The New Face of Google

We thought starting him out early would guarantee a successful career in the whole computer industry. He's the newest member of the Google Team! Google is expanding their horizons: Google is now reaching out to mothers and babies all over the world by using Coco Puff as the new face of Google.

Okay, that may just be Hubby's wish, but it sure is cute anyway.
Google actually sent Hubby this bag, blanket, onsie and hat as a congrats to our newest addition. All made from organic cotton of course. It was really nice of them. So, in return I took pictures of our little man all wrapped up and modeling their baby line.

Here's the entire package. cute.

2009-01-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update from November before we put up any new stuff...stuff that people really want to see.

We took a trip home to visit Dad and Grampa and Gramma and some friends too. It was beginning November, so it was pretty cold. We stayed most the time at D&D's who live in a little cabin on about 5 acres of land with llamas. It was so pretty to see again. Here we are with Reubenetta. Punkin's first llama ride.

It was really cold. It doesn't look too bad, but it was a wet, windy cold. We weren't very well prepared...I had to borrow a coat from Dad and as you can see in the upcomming picture I look like a green marshmallow. It was the only coat that was large enough to fit me.This one is of our little girl in the barn on some straw bales before she started crying. I don't think she liked how they felt.

We went bowling at this really hip bowling lane. I had to do the granny bowl because it really hurt my back...I think I won if I remember correctly, but I'm not telling my score (it was bad even though I won). I think I only won because Dad was palming the bowling ball.
We visited the domes one night and got to see it in the "moonlight," a special feature they have there. It was pretty cool, but we don't have any really good pictures because of the poor lighting.

Here's a poor picture of us at the domes:
Here we went to see the lake. It was also really cold here, so we couldn't stay long, but I think I was the only one sad about that. The lake was one of my favorite spots to visit. Beaches like these that were pretty much secluded...or at least not visited too much by others. We even got a nice family picture.
There was this really nasty, big, half dead fish that Daddy is showing Punkin here.
Fun with Grampa!
Went out to eat with some friends.

Great Grampa sharing an ice cream cone.

We sure had a nice time visiting up North. Hubby enjoyed racing some RC cars with my Uncle. It was nice to see my Dad's family...It had been way too long.
Then one of our last events was trying to hook up with an old friend of mine from college. She stood us up! Sort of. I was really bummed, but we had a nice cup of cider in a cute cafe while waiting...and waiting...

I'm very sad that I somehow didn't get pictures of our visit to Bob's house. It was a pretty crazy day that day though and it just didn't happen, but it was really nice to see Bob and his daughter and her kids and then a couple of the neighbors came over, who I hadn't seen in over a year, so that was also nice to catch up with them.

Well, it's been a really long and picturesome blog post that was overdue. Hope you enjoyed a little. I wanted to post more pictures but the number of pics is already getting to the rediculous point.

A Name for Baby

2009-01-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

Well, our little guy has a name! But first the other details:
He was 7lbs 10oz and 20in long at birth.
He was born on 1/16/2009 at 7:15pm

His name is Coen Duane Johnson.

New Arrival: Husband's Perspective

2009-01-16T22:00:00.000-08:00

This post may be a little scattered because it's almost 11:30.

I took a late lunch today and worked out at the gym with my buddy Dako from work. As I was stepping out of the shower (about 2:30) I heard my voicemail chime and then got a text message that said I should probably come home.

We hurried back to work so I could drop Dako off and grab my stuff. Then I headed home.

Wifey and I got some stuff together and went to the hospital. By the time we got to the triage room Wifey was dialated to maybe 6cm. We hung out there for awhile while they got a delivery room ready. When we first arrived they were all full as today was aparently a popular day for babies.

Mom showed up and took our little girl as she was getting a little grouchy that someone had delayed her nap. Mom dropped the little girl off with the Painter's family and had to run home as she was expecting a ton of company tonight (we were supposed to come for dinner too).

By the time she got back we were getting closer. Wifey was having close contractions that were pretty strong. Pharmacousin made it up to our room and stayed for the whole process.

Wifey declined the epidural and any drugs and did really good at managing the pain and pushing the baby out. Things got a little rough for her on the last couple pushes but at least the little guy came a lot faster than our first one.

He was born fiesty and healthy with all the right parts in their correct quantities. I believe the time was around 7:20 but I didn't see the exact time. He turned a healthy pink right away and tried out his little lungs with great effect. He weighs 7lbs and 10oz. I didn't catch his length so we'll have to update on that later.

Pharmacousin brought us some Papa Johns, which was awesome, and the Painter family stopped by so we could introduce our little rascal to the big rascal.

He latched on and fed with gusto on the first attempt. He was pretty much ready to eat as soon as he blew the goo out of his air pipes. We got him washed up and moved from delivery to an actual room and are headed to sleepy land

We don't have a name yet! We had a list but nothing we were super excited about. We have a few final options but standby for another post with a name and the time/length and other details that people always ask about.

In the meantime, check out the pics of the little guy and we may get a little sleep. I got a lot of better pics and video of the bath and stuff on mom's camera but I don't have the means to xfer them at the moment. These shots from our mediocre camera will have to suffice.

38 weeks!

2009-01-14T07:47:00.001-08:00

I am actually at 36 or 37 weeks here and it's a horrible picture of me (do I look like a deer caught in headlights, or what?). It is a good documentation of my tummy size, though. You can see that my shirt doesn't fit any longer.

This was taken just last night at this boy's gramma and grampa's house. I am now at 38 weeks. I kinda have a bullet shape going on, but at least this shirt fits. I look like a rosey cheeked Santa Clause, minus the white hair. Put me in a costume at the mall and I'm sure all the little boys and girls would be flocking toward me at the speed of light with questions, concerns and/or thanks for their Christmas gifts.

I am working on a "quilt" here. Maybe I should also say: "working," as I am pretending to work on it. I bought this fantastic pre-quilted material from Hobby Lobby that I thought was really cute and put some batting and a backing on it and, walla! A quilt. To make it more quilt-like I am sewing yarn in swirly designs all over the quilt. It will also help keep it together in the washing machine...A lesson I have learned from previously made "quilts."
Sorry, Punkin' Face, your quilt is one that is messed up from the washing machine. It's pretty bad though, since it was my first attempt at a real-ish quilt and it's just kinda ugly. I'll have to make a new one for her some day.

Now a little about our Punkin' Face. This picture was taken a few weekends ago at Auntie and Uncle's place. She really likes things that rock. Other recent things/updates about our little girl:

She's been doing this downward facing dog pose or, what the people at Stride call, the bear pose. It's pretty cute to see her little tush high up in the air.

Stride gave us this blue booster chair to use for a while and Punkin' Face has been standing up to it and crawling into it, which has been exciting to see. Other things she has stood up to include her crib and some low laundry baskets. Sometimes she pushes just with her arms to get to standing and other times she gets up the same way she does her downward facing dog pose. It's her little funny way of learning, I guess. The other day I walked in to her room after a nap to find her standing in her crib. It was very exciting to see. That excitement faded a little when a few days later I heard a thud and came into her room to find her on the floor, on her back crying next to her crib. I guess it's time to move the mattress down, poor thing.

With therapy we've been working on her disassociating her legs because she would always use them in unison before. For instance, her frog-hop way of crawling. She is getting much better at this and the therapist noticed a big improvement since before the Christmas break. She is crawling more the "normal" way...about 50/50 I would say. She is also crawling up to low things, like the couch cushions and her little, blue booster chair. Sometimes she can even crawl back down from them.

Stairs are another thing she is getting better at, but will not do it on her own. She doesn't get the backward, going down part yet, but on a good day with just a little prompting will crawl up the stairs (she needs prompting at each step).

Still no words...Except the other day I was playing with her with a puppy and kept saying "puppy" and barking. She said "puppy!" clear as a bell and then never again. She did the same thing when Mom was visiting around Thanksgiving with the word "peaches." Clear as a bell and then never again. So, it has me puzzled. Was it just a coincidence? Kinda weird coincidence though. Hmmmm. Makes me wonder if she'll be one of those kids who all of a sudden start speaking in full sentences out of the blue one day. ???

She jabbers and jabbers some times...or most of the time. It's pretty cute. We have these little pet store characters that we don't let her play with because she can fit the entire animal in her mouth (somewhat of a choking hazard). For a while we had them at the top of our 5' dresser. She would spot them and just start talking to them very excitedly. She does that to whatever she can't touch and wants to. At gramma and grampa's they have a ceramic moose with a plant in it that she isn't allowed to touch. She loves it so much though and always heads straight for it to chat with it. As long as we are right next to her saying "No" she doesn't touch it, but I imagine if we weren't there she would have a hay day with it and it would be in pieces all over the tile it rests on. Basically she loves anything with a face. But, she always goes straight for the head/face of these poor creatures and chomps them to show her affection, showering them with drool and bite marks. Makes me a little worried for her soon-to-be brother.

Until next time.... And please pass on the word that we've updated since it is a rare occasion that we do. Next post will likely be the new arrival. I would have liked to post our trip home before then, but I just don't think it's gonna happen that way.

Wordle is Neatle

2008-12-05T12:13:00.001-08:00

I just discovered Wordle. It takes a sample of text from the RSS feed of your blog (auto-generated by most blogging software) and creates a cloud of text. The bigger the words, the larger they appear in the resulting image.

This variation of the tag cloud concept is not really useful per se but as a designer and a programmer I think it's super cool how they analyze the density of keywords (something I have actually written a keyword density analysis tool to do) and then create such an artful arrangement of text. The typography is really neat and you can customize a lot of settings to tune the resulting cloud to your desire. One thing that I did notice using this is that one of us (I blame wifey) frequently forgets to put a space after a period.

HALLOWEEN? Yeah, I know, it's Thanksgiving...

2008-11-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Why is everybody looking at me? Oh, it's Thanksgiving you say?
I think I could get by wearing this every day!!
Mom agrees. ;)

So, to all those people waiting and waiting and waiting....Do you remember what you're waiting for? That's right, it's finally arrived: The Halloween Post!!

These are the pumpkins we carved at Gramma and Grampa's a day or two before Halloween.

I do apologize, but if you know me at all really, you would not have been surprised that this is coming a month late (see September 15th's post). I also apologize for the previously mentioned "spooky post... coming soon," because, well, let's get real, this post is not scary at all. So, there you have it. I lied twice in one post.

So, I had planned this Halloween party for all the in town friends and kids, but the only ones who could make it were The Painter and his family. Which turned out to be wonderful anyway. I just made less food and we had way way way too much dessert (not including the candy). It was most likely my fault for not getting the invitations out. It's hard to know to come to a party when you haven't gotten an invitation. I tried to call people, but long story short (it's really not that long I'm just a procrastinator and that sounded good) some had made previous plans and that sort of thing.

I designed and carved this pumpkin to greet guests and trick or treaters.

Here our little stinker is helping us de-gut the pumpkins. This was at Grandpa and Grandma's house a day or two before Halloween.

I didn't think our little monster would want to wear her costume all day (it was like 70 degrees) so before the evening she wore this very fitting t-shirt I picked up at the Target dollar section. It was literally fitting. I think it was for a 6 mo. old or younger. :)

Here is the dinner menu. The painter's wife also brought pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin colored frosting and brain frosting. They were delicious! Can you guess what we really ate?

And here's the dinner table all set for a nice scary meal. This was the benefit to only having one other couple over...we could set the table a bit nicer as dishes were no longer an issue.

Can you guess which is the kitty litter cake? Also on this table are some scary mouths and the week old bath water.

Can you guess what we are?? .....Hubby's is pretty obvious (pirate), but some didn't get mine. I was supposed to be an egyptian queen, but Hubby thought I was looking more gypsie-ish. How about Egysie? I made our costumes which was a ton of fun.

Here are the painter and his family. A good looking group...really...it's just, we took a bad picture of them. Sorry guys. It's the only one we have of you somehow. Anyway, the Painter was a used car salesman, but funny thing is they went to one of the lady's places he's been painting and she thought he looked "really nice!" She had never seen him in other than his painting clothes, so I guess I could understand that. The mommy here was a sourcerer and I think she's just concentrating really hard on a spell. The little ladybug was the cutest ladybug I have ever seen.

Hope you have enjoyed this post. I wanted to post more pictures, but it's probably enough. I'm due up for some videos though, so if I can get Hubby's help they will get up here soon.

NEXT MONTH: THANKSGIVING!!
just kidding, really...I'll do better.
No promises though.

Coming soon...An actual new post...Really.

2008-10-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry there has been nothing on the blog as of late. I am going to post a really cool halloween post, so hold on to your britches...It's gonna be spooky. Or, at least it will have lots of cute pictures on it. I will do a preview...

A wonderful picture of me carving away...very flattering, I must say.

Stay tuned to see the outcome and the Halloween post.

Photo Says It All

2008-09-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Polling Time

2008-09-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

We're coming up on election time so, in true election spirit, we're doing a poll! The poll is located to the right of this post at the top of the sidebar.

What do you think we're having? It could be a boy, it could be a girl....place your vote and we'll let you all know next week sometime.

*If you vote more than once I will send my robot ninja monkey army to stomp your click-happy finger into pulp.

August Update...I know, it's September.

2008-09-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

We had a family reunion the last part of July to the beginning of August. Here is the view we had for a couple of days.

This is a dinosaur footprint in the rocks, but it is caked with mud, so you can't see it very good.

Nora and I out to see the pictographs after dark.

Here is a shot of the pictographs, very cool.

For entertainment the guys shot off rockets. Nora didn't like it too much.

She didn't like bath-time either. You should have seen her when her hair was being washed. We think she was slightly traumatized by her birthday dive into her swimming pool. She is much better about bath time now, thank goodness.

Another pretty view.

This is looking through a separation in some rocks that overlooked the camp. Hubby and I went on a walk up there and carved our initials in the rock, which is a tradition.

JK+N 08

Find the lizard.

One of the family members got into a wreck the last night we were there. She spent the night in the car, but was surprisingly not hurt.

Beautiful birthday flowers from hubby.

Here they are again. They wouldn't fit in one vase.

Nora in her birthday outfit from her auntie, uncle and cousins and her birthday headbands that I got her.

She's got her teenage look down already, I can't wait.

Now the purple headband.

Brooklyn stayed over one day. She and Nora had lots of fun together.

They watched Hubby play a video game.

Sleep 1, Nora 0

2008-08-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

You can only achieve this after a long, hard battle with sleep. How she could snooze in this position I'll never know. Watch for Nora as an Olympic Gold Medal Gymnast in 2020!

Firefox 3 Lament

2008-08-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

I have oft been a promoter of Firefox, the free web browser by Mozilla. Firefox (FF for short) has long incorporated such convenient features as tabbed browsing, fast loading times and of course the ability to add third-party plugins that greatly improve the usefulness of the browser. I have installed FF 1.x-2.x on the browsers of family and friends, encouraging them to use FF for convenience and better security.

Then came Firefox 3. I was a beta tester but got frustrated enough with the beta that I uninstalled it and went back to the official 2.[something] version. Even after FF3 came out I avoided it. The only thing wrong with FF2 was a memory leak that would tie up more and more RAM if you left it open long enough. I was aware of this but it never really caused me problems. Then I got a new/fast/cool/strong work computer and was too lazy to try to find FF 2.x, since 3 had been released, and just installed FF3.

Now, if I make it through a day with fewer than 5 crashes I count myself lucky indeed. Firefox 3 is slow. Sites sometimes pause while scrolling and the whole browser locks up for 10-30 seconds. When I launch it nothing happens for half a minute before the window finally decides to show itself on my desktop. Same with opening a new tab...long delays. Any site that features lots of javascript calls such as gmail, facebook, google maps or other feature-rich pages is virtually guaranteed to crash.

Most crashes are recoverable, I can force-quit Firefox 3 and relaunch it. However, occasionally it crashes so bad that it actually kills my whole computer. Earlier today I was trying to log into a webex meeting (a software that allows you to share desktops for virtual product demonstrations). Firefox actually blacked the screen out with a bunch of verticle white bars. It required a hard-restart which is darn inconvenient when you have 10 people waiting on you in an online meeting.

Because I love Firefox, I installed v3 on my home machine to make sure it wasn't just my work laptop. My home laptop has had Firefox 2.x running on it fine for a long time. Same problems plague it with FF3.

So, betrayed, bitter, disappointed, I have to warn our readers...for the sake of your sanity, do NOT upgrade to Firefox 3. If something changes I will post about it but for now I simply can't recommend it for any environment. Find Firefox 2.x or use Opera (I still don't recommend any IE product).

Nora and Dad

2008-08-13T06:25:00.000-07:00

My aunt "Nurse" took this pic at our family reunion, which we went to at the beginning of August. I intend to post more pics but I really like this pic of Nora and I, right after she got a bath...so I thought I'd post it.

Old News, But Fun News

2008-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

We went to "cornland" to visit my family. It was lots of fun. This is a picture of Uncle Justin, Nora, and my niece(Senna) and nephew(Ocean) at "The Ledges," a park that has a creek that runs through it. It was so pretty. It recently flooded really bad and we could see the damage it had done to the whole area. This area was unaffected.

Here is an affected area.

Nora got to play with her cousins. I think Glade is spanking the baby...that cracks me up for some reason. Is that bad of me?

Getting some shooting in out in the field.

My uncle built this amazing stream that runs through his backyard. The man can pretty much do whatever he puts his mind to. It is quite a hit with the children...and me too. I want to play in it all day long.

Nora testing out the stream for herself. It was a bit cold for her to sit in.

Annie, the porch pooch. She is a sweetie, and a really pretty porch pooch too.

Hubby about to take the plunge from the tree house.

Now catching his breath after the adrenalin rush. It's scarier than it looks because you feel like you're gonna fall right when your letting go to swing. The let-go is a total leap of faith.

Just thinking back about a year ago. This is one of my favorite pictures of Nora when she was first born. I'm not quite sure why...Maybe it's her first (really alert) look into the world.

This must be the last pregnant picture of me. Not sure about the expression on my face.

Happy Birthday Nora!

2008-08-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

These are some one year pictures I took of Nora with the beach towel gramma "M" got her. I wanted to try bright, vibrant colors for a change and a different angle. I like how they turned out. I will be getting around to sending them out, but you know me it takes me a while.

Here's Nora in her pool at her pool party. She had a good time until her Dad dumped her in the pool. No, he just accidentally let her fall forward. It was quite a shock to her and when she stopped fussing about it she continued to yell at the water. She is now terrified of getting water on her head. I think it's swimming lessons time.

Here is the turtle cake I made for her. I think it looked better than it tasted. Next year I think I'll go for making the cake actually taste really good. At least this way we didn't gorge ourselves on sweets.... right?

I'll get this posted and then there will be video to come. HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NORA! We love you so very much.

Our Plans for Jan 27, 2009

2008-07-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

Recent Travels

2008-07-20T22:39:00.001-07:00

Lots of pics and catch up, so here we go:

This picture is the most hilarious picture of Nora on May Day with her flowers that Gramma M got her... I think she liked them.

This is Mom and the family at convention, minus Ocean, as he's off somewhere playing real hard. Senna is looking all moony eyed at Nora. She adores her only girl 1st cousin.

Nora loves her Uncle D.

After convention we went to the "Nutt Farm" as I shall call it. We had lots of fun. Daddy didn't come out 'till later so in the mean time we took pictures by the water pump and took a wagon ride and did lots of stuff, that I will have to post later, until Daddy arrived. I had to take a picture of Nora on the infamous swing that we have had lots of pictures taken on, some of which I will also have to post another time. These last two pictures are of some incredible clouds that came in North of the farm and then the farm at sunset...beautiful. That's it for now. I apologize if the pictures and words are all screwed up, as I am very compy/blogger/tech illiterate!

New York, new job, new year for Nora

2008-07-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Some bits of news....

Nora turns one this month! We have some great pics and videos of her but we are slow to get them posted. We'll get something new up soon.

I got a new job! Or rather, I got a promotion. I was the Search Engine Optimization manager for Sierra Trading Post. Now I'm the Web Marketing Manager. I'm in charge of our online marketing team and online marketing efforts. One of our guys is leaving and one of the people was me. Which means that the first thing I have to do is hire a replacement for each of those positions: PPC Specialist and SEO Specialist. I won't bother to explain what those positions will do right now because it would probably bore most of you.

Suffice it to say that the new position is challenging in that I have a lot of goals to monitor and meet as well as having personnel under me. The largest group of people that I have been responsible for in the past is two. It will also be exciting because I will hopefully be able to do some really cool projects with our website to make it easier to find, surf and shop. I have a cool team that I have already worked with for awhile so....should be fun.

I went to New York recently on business with Bertrand The Bold (whom you may remember from previous mountain biking posts and who is now part of my marketing team). Our hotel was on Times Square and we spent a morning just walking around Times Square and then central park. We even saw a huge fire! Pictures below...

some castle, central park

some bridge, central park

some family, central park

some cool guys, The Plaza Hotel

some fire, columbus circle

SavvyShooter.com launched

2008-05-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't really mentioned it on the blog yet but I started a new website as a distributor of binoculars, scopes and other shooting and hunting gear. Wifey is not going to teach next year. She put in her notice and will be a full time mom as soon as school gets out. Part of my goal with the new website is to create a bit of replacement income to compensate for the sudden drop in household cashflow! That and the fact that I love shooting...I'll probably be my own best customer.

Everything on the site so far is manufactured by NcStar. NcStar scopes probably don't measure up to Leupold's mid and high end or other high-end optics manufacturers but their products have a lot of features for the price and seem to be pretty solid. There is no middle man between me and the manufacturer and they don't do any advertising like Leupold, Redfield or other big names do so they can sell a lot cheaper. I put one of their scopes on a varmit rifle and have been very pleased with the results.

Anyway, it's been fun building the website and learning a lot more about optics and such. I still have a lot of work to do on the product copy blocks and website in general but everything is in place and working - it's been a lot of hard but fun work.

The website:
SavvyShooter.com NcStar scopes

Suggestions or comments to improve the site are welcome. I'm working on a coupon system so I can give family, friends and blog readers a discount. Otherwise, if anyone is interested, shoot me an email and I can do a special price.

Million Dollar Idea?

2008-04-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's another way to make a million folks. Two words: shotgun bowling.

That is literally a sport in some states...I'm guessing more in the southern area of our dear country. They set up bowling pins and shoot at them with shotgun slugs or some such nonsense. I can't lie, it does sound fun. But I have a better idea, here's how it works:

Buy an old bowling alley.
Leave all the lanes in place but make the whole thing sound and bullet proof...like a shooting range. The pins would also have to be tougher.
Buy Arduino microcontrollers and mutiple semi-automatic shotguns with 8 round magazines (or more).
Mount a webcam behind a scope atop the shotgun and control the shotgun aim with servos via the micocontroller.
Build a website where people pay $25 to control the shotgun via their browser. They can aim and then fire for 10 frames, just like a bowling game, a maximum of 20 shots.
Multiple cameras record each shot at high speed and the customer can download slow motion video of each of their frames.
Customer scores are uploaded to a high-score list and each day, the top scoring game also gets published on youtube.
Non-paying folks can simple watch the action in real time via a variety of webcams. Advertisements and other things are served to these customers to generate additional revenue.

That's it.

Overworked desk monkeys and executives who are taking time off from the golf course could pay $20 to blow off some steam by blowing stuff up. On special days maybe there would be alternative targets, such as watermelons that people could pay to destroy. A high-scores list would invite competition and people who play a lot would get special membership discounts and such...like a trap shooting club. People who aren't even allowed to have guns (such as the poor Brits) would still be able to enjoy the thrill of blowing stuff up.

*If anyone tries this idea and does make a million, could I at least have a free membership or something?

Hankerin' for Prankerin'

2008-04-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Well, April Fools came and went without so much as a whisper from me. Pranks are one of my favorite things in life, perhaps because I happen to enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude now and then. Anyhoo, April Fools Day should be my favorite holiday but the only thing I did at work on 4/1/08 was to hack the department printer's "Ready" message to read "Low BBQ Sauce" as demonstrated above.

However, that doesn't mean I've been on a hiatus from havok. My good friend Dizzney, which you may remember from some of last summer's mountain biking posts, is leaving STP. He is a prankster of the highest order. So, to show my appreciation for his tenure as a coworker, I have been trying to do a little something evil to him on a daily basis. Here's what that has entailed so far.

Myra Maines: Our boss and eCommerce director and I worked together to concoct a story about this lady that is really good at online technology named "Myra." Both of us encouraged Dizzney to contact said lady at his earliest convenience to establish a cooperative relationship (that is what Dizzney does here). I had Googled "[random state] funeral home" earlier and made a phone call to ensure that the number I found was still valid.

Basically Dizzney called a funeral home asking for Myra Maines (my remains) but he actually screwed up and forgot her last name, which made it more funny b/c the guy he got ahold of had heard the joke (obviously many times) and....well, suffice it to say that Dizzney is going to transcribe the dialogue and I will post separately for your amusement. Yes, this was very juvenile. Yes, that is what made it more funny.

Email Signature: I logged into his computer and changed his email signiture slightly so that a few words were misspelled. I also got into his personal email account and misspelled his own name. Haha, he discovered that one today.

VNC: I enabled VNC on his machine which lets me see his screen and use his computer just like I was sitting at his desk. I keep it minimized and just bring it up now and then and move his cursor around when he's trying to do stuff. I can hear him banging his mouse on the desk from my cubical.

Toothpaste: I was going to replace the filling in some of his oreo cookies with toothpaste. However, he is out of oreos. Lucky for him.

Now some of you might be thinking....how do we get any work done? Before those comments start to appear....it took me about 10 minutes to get into his account(s) and alter his info as well as enable remote access. Which I did at 7:20 in the morning. Messing with him now and then through VNC is a matter of seconds.

The email changes didn't slow him down any b/c he didn't realize it for awhile. Once he realized it, it's a 2 minute fix.

Myra Maines took a bit of setup but it played out in about 15 minutes.

Nora goes nuts, sleeps

2008-03-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

Nora goes nuts in her jumper:

And then falls asleep at the wheel:

Finally, A Few Pics!

2008-03-16T20:52:00.001-07:00

Here they are, not the best quality. I will get more up soon.
i want to get some video up but too tired to do it tonight. I got Nora this cute glow bear for Valentine's Day. It's pretty cool.

A Real Entry This Time

2008-03-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ah, now as I promised, some new(ish) Nora Pics.
I took some on Valentine's Day in a cute little shawl she has. And one pic I took because she was eating and she fell asleep while I was feeding her. It was so cute. No real big news here though, just living life, getting sick a lot and hanging on for dear life until summer break.

One rant(or whatever you wanna call it): I can't believe how fast time goes. It seems like just the other day we were bringing our sweet girl home from the hospital. I remember leaving the hospital and getting on the elevator with this other couple. She was pretty big, apparently she was getting checked out for something, but anyway, I thought it would be soon and she would be in the hospital with her brand new baby to take home. Then we got into our separate vehicles and this other couple rolled away listening to very loud rap/hip hop music. It made me wonder what kind of life this other baby would have.
We heard at a meeting in Iowa that our children are gifts, and how do we treat these gifts? It gave me a different perspective and a different sense of responsibility.
Well, I went off track there a bit, but even knowing that time goes so fast makes me wonder if the time that I do get to spend with my girl is time "well spent."
It will be so soon and she will be a year old. Our friends were just saying that they have already spent 5% of their time with their daughter in her first year, if you figure they stay until they're 20...that's a crazy thought.

Ok, well for some reason I can't post images. I'll post this and try again.

Ol' F.C.

2008-03-15T16:55:00.001-07:00

Well, I was looking through some old pictures and came upon this picture of ol' F.C., a good friend of mine I met a few years back whilst window shopping with Hubby in Northern Colorado. I haven't seen him since. I wonder what he's up to these days. I'm sure he's doin' the same old thing as usual. He seemed so deep in thought, like he could stay that way for enernity. Must be pondering some deep question,you know, like, the true meaning of his existence....

...I know I was (not mine, his)

...What a great friend I am!

Sorry, no Nora pics... I was in a goofy mood- it could be the Tylenol Alergy Sinus meds-so, Nora pics are coming soon.

6 Month pictures

2008-02-02T20:00:00.001-08:00

Just some more photos. I think I went a little overboard. I dressed her summery 'cause I am sick of this cold weather.

6 Months!

2008-02-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Hello to all and Happy New Year (a little late). We've been pretty busy These days. Hubby and I celebrated our 3 years together at Estes Park in a little condo, which was really fun. We didn't do a whole lot. In fact we really only ate out once. I don't think you can count Taco Bell as eating out. It's kinda funny how laid back you can become about something that three years ago was planned down to the tiniest detail. Of course, we all know anniversaries are NOT weddings. Not that we don't care about our anniversary...just relaxed about it(after all, Nora came along because I couldn't bear to be without her just yet). Each year we learn more and more about how we should spend our anniversary. This time we brought lots of food in case nothing was open. Last year we had our anniversary dinner at Denny's I think. It was the only place open Christmas Day Eve. Anyway, we did a lot of relaxing and went shopping for much of the day(24th). Then Christmas Day was our checkout day. We took a family picture in the beautiful snow and went to see if any of the shops were open (some said they were going to be open).
Then the next week we went to Cornland to visit my Mom, Grandma, Aunt & Uncle, Sister and Family and all the rest. That was really fun to share Punkin Face with them again and some hadn't seen her yet, so that was good to finally introduce her. Like most family gatherings it was pretty crazy. Hubby got sick and I got a touch of something. No matter how long you get to visit your family it never seems like enough time. Maybe all would not agree with me, but that's how I feel. That's most of it for Dec. and New Years.

This month went by fast and Punkin Face had her half birthday on the 29th. We had The Painter and The Sitter and Punkin Face's friend over for some magic and they brought us a half birthday cake and tacos (a healthy delicious meal by the way). It was a yummy time. I will get more pics of Badora...more professional looking photos for her 6month celebration. For now this is what you get.

video

2007-12-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

This video was taken one morning around Thanksgiving. Nora was whimpering/crying/noisemaking in her half awake state. It was so cute.

2007-12-22T16:04:00.000-08:00

Well, it's me again, going through the unnatural process of posting a blog. I don't have much to say. I just wanted to post some pictures and maybe try to figure out how to post a video. I have so many cute videos (to me anyway,probably would bore the snot out of anyone else).

So, a lot has happened since last time I posted. We had Thanksgiving at G&G Johnson's which was wonderful. Hubby went to Vegas for a conference the first week of December, so Punkin' face and I had to go it alone for a whole week. During that week it snowed so Punkin and I shoveled the driveway and sidewalk. Brrrrrrrr was it cold! I was pretty busy at school with crazy kids who were just counting down the days until Christmas break. Somehow I've made it through until now.

Enough of the talkin', look at the pictures. Sorry for the terrible arrangement of photos. Arrrggh!

New Tew You Tewb

2007-12-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, I used to post videos on brightcove but those jerks stopped offering free video uploading to the masses. Crushed by the weight of google I guess.

Anyway, I recently went to Vegas and will be posting pics and such when I get a chance but for now....this is my first youtube music recording. Covered one of my favorite blues songs...

Long Legs!

2007-11-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

Wow! Look at those legs! They're somethin' else let me tell you. Punkin Face hardly fits into any of her 3-6mo. stuff anymore. That's it for today. Just wanted to get another pic up.

2007-11-17T15:37:00.000-08:00

So much has changed since the last post...uh, one being this is "Wifey" writing this post. So, don't let yourself get too upset if you don't find yourself laughing out loud or rolling on the floor laughing or even crying. I am not the writer my husband is. And I should apologize now for all the grammatical errors to come (or already come).

We flew out to the Midwest to see Ma and friends and family one last time before she moves close to Beckster and family (Cornland). It was a bittersweet stay, knowing I will never set foot in my old home...so many memories; bad, good and in between. Life. I know with Ma gone I just won't visit as much as I would have and it makes me sad. I will miss all the Village friends and neighbors and especially the Bramers (like Husband, I am trying to keep names and places discrete). I was very glad to show off Punkin Face (our daughter) to all there. Sadly we didn't have enough time to see everyone we wanted to.

Dad picked us up at the Chicago airport and we met up with D and a friend to see the Star Wars exhibit...pretty neat, and while we were at the museum we also saw a really fascinating German sub, which we almost weren't allowed to tour. They were sold out for the day, but when the lady asked if we could come back another day we explained we were from out west and she let us in for free. We donated some money on the way out.

Then Dad drove us home and we all had dinner at Ma's-I love Ma's food. I was anxious to get there because I knew Beckster and the troupe were waiting for us. I was excited to see Nuttma (grandma) whom I wasn't expecting to see. We had a pot luck on Sunday with our meeting which was really nice and we even had pictures taken in our semi-matching outfits. Beckster and I went through some of our old baby clothes and dolls and other misc. items to decide what each would keep or toss...that brought back memories. The house was crazy that weekend, but too short and soon they were on their way back to Cornland and it was just us and Ma.

We went to visit my friend on the lake, I'll call her Skeight, and our old roommate, Nill, came down also. Skeight, Nill and I had a great time catching up with each other's lives and Husband teased us all...I guess he had to do something to keep himself entertained with a bunch of girls. That was really nice. I hadn't seen Skeight in two years and Nill since my Track years ('03 I think). I wish them the best.

The next night we went out to eat good in the neighborhood with Husband's old coworkers who I shall call Nerd #2, Matey and Wisty. Once again it was nice to catch up.

Wednesday we went to our little bible study and they had a delicious apple crisp and ice cream for all of us. That was neat to see all the families growing up so much and in more than one way. We probably won't be back there for a long time...bittersweet.

That was our last night with Ma and again it went way too fast. Somewhere in there we had an offspring fest at the Village neighbor's house. That was exciting and made me feel kinda old. We headed to D&D's for the rest of our stay. The Greats and G&J came to visit on Friday and they got to see Punkin Face. We ate Dad's delicious cookies and were entertained both by Punkin Face and mutters and "huh"s from The Greats and G&J. It was kinda funny 'cause Punkin Face slept in her suit case since there was no pack 'n' play for her there. It worked beautifully. The llama's were entertaining as usual and the cat's numerous. The next day Dad took us back to the airport and we flew safely home...there was some turbulence and we had a rocky landing, but Punkin Face smiled and giggled through it. Little weirdo.

Now I am back at teaching, which has been a shock to my system and an adjustment for Punkin Face. I thought I was going to die of heartbreak the first week, but I think I am getting in the swing of things for now. Looking forward to Thanksgiving and then Christmas break and then Spring break...anything to make it through the year. So far it has been difficult. The house is definitely suffering...and the laundry...and meals have been interesting. Oh well, I try to be positive. We are so fortunate to have a healthy girl and a warm home and loving family and friends and an awesome daycare. Punkin Face stays east of town with a good friend and has a little friend there. She gets lots of love and great care. I hope you all enjoy the pics. It's been too long.

Oh, Punkin Face was a frog for Halloween and she is at least 25 inches long now and probably 12lbs. Ginormous! She has a few 6-9month outfits she already fits in and most 3-6 stuff is too small unless it is a dress or seperate pants and shirts.

Smiles for Miles

2007-10-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

Recent events....Wifey babysat our neice. I was going to give her the nickname Blighthead but I thought my sis might kill me. I'll have to think up a better one. Anyhoo, we have a video of her dancing to the music that Nora's swing makes. Good stuff.

I have a buddy from college (whom I will refer to as Smiles) that has always kept in touch, sending interesting emails and photos of events in his life. He just married a girl that we both went to college with and invited me to their reception. So, we called up The Major and made plans to stay with them for the weekend and attend Smiles' reception.

The traffic was horrible on the way to the Springs but we made it down their safely, if a little later than expected. We got up and went on a brisk little hike in the mountains. It was the perfect distance for a relaxing Saturday excursion. We had a lazy afternoon and then Kristy and I headed out to the reception.

I got to catch up with several people I went to school with and see Smiles again. They had a beautiful wedding on the cliffs of France. A reggae band played at the reception. They were really good, Nora liked the reggae music (seriously, lots of smiles) but we were concerned that the amplitude of the sonic waves might be slightly intense for newly formed ear drums. In other words: kinda loud for a baby.

We had some delicious fajitas for Sunday lunch, I played some quick blues guitar, and then we were off for home again. I sat in back with Nora on the way home. I was reading a book to pass the time (Lawrence Block's "Hit Parade" if you care) and every time I'd look up at her she'd give me a huge smile. I love it when she does that, her little face just lights up.

Anyway, that's about all that's going on here. I know the posts are infrequent and boring but at least I'm getting some pictures up now and then.

Weirdest Coincidence Ever?

2007-09-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the weirdest day I've had in awhile. I went FamousGhost this morning with my boss to present a final project to a client. I have never been to FamousGhost, or if I have, it was just passing through.

The project involved a photo shoot and bringing in lots of different elements into an interactive online screening video. There were about 8-10 people at the presentation.

I was very involved in all aspects of the project, reviewing photos, meeting the clients, programming the background logic, etc. One of the client's wives was in the photo shoot as we needed a few extra people (I wasn't actually on scene for the photo shoot).

So, we're watching the final piece and they're talking about the video and someone mentions that his wife (we'll call her "Sabe") did a great job, calling her by name. I was thinking "Sabe?" could it be the same one I know? So I said: you're wife's name is Sabe, as in Sabe MaidenName? He looked at me funny and said yeah. I said: whoa! I've known your wife for a long time! My wife and her were pen pals when they were little girls.

So, it was very coincidental that I happened to be in a meeting, in a town I've never been, with a guy who married someone I knew pretty well, and didn't even recognize her in the photos I was working with. In my defense, the photos all feature people in hard hats, safety glasses and other working equipment. I guess you see what you expect to see and I was mostly checking photo quality, color, etc. I looked directly at her in photos but didn't make the connection because it was just completely out of context.

But it gets better!

There were a few females at the meeting. One of them looked kinda familiar. I was thinking that she really looked like one of my more distant cousins. I quickly dismissed this as ridiculous since I had gotten up really early to drive up and had consumed a lot of coffee. Plus, I haven't seen that cousin since she was about six years old and I was about eight. But I couldn't shake the idea that she really looked like my cousin. This seemed even more ridiculous for the fact that we had just figured out that I knew this guy's wife. What were the chances that I knew someone else at the meeting?

So, towards the end of the presentation one of the guys thanked me, by name. At the mention of my name, said girl turned to her friend and whispered something. Her friend immediately looked at me and then back at her incredulously. Then she turned to look at me. Finally I said: "Are you Distantcousin?" And she says "Yes, you're my cousin!"

It was all very funny and strange. We exchanged info as she said she comes this way from time to time. It was neat to meet a family member that I haven't seen for close to twenty years.

The most ironic part of all of this is that I didn't recognize someone I know fairly well in several photographs, yet I recognized someone I haven't seen for years and years almost instantly. I should probably try to sleep more often. The world would make more sense.

General News, Photos

2007-09-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been a long time since I posted. Spare me, it's been a little busy here lately. Here's a quick rundown on the latest goings on.

First of all, my buddy from work, Jorgelish, and I put up all the rails on my fence. Now it's just lacking the planks. I've put off completing the fence until I get all the med bills from baby Nora. They just keep on coming in! Darn doctors, but I guess you deserve it for sticking to it through 7 years of school and a bunch of residency stuff. Wouldn't want their job.

Anyway, my friend Boone was also around these parts for a business trip. He came by to see the little one and our house. It was good to see him, too bad he could only be around for an hour or two. Nora's face is hilarious in the picture with Chad.

We went on a family camping trip, which is becoming a tradition, over labor day. I have a whole bunch of pictures somewhere but they are not handy and my sis posted a bunch over on her blog so you can check those out there. She's more diligent about the posting thing, which is to say, her job is easier than mine (I only wrote that because I know she'll read this).

Wifey's grandparents were out, visiting their son down south. Wifey took Nora down to see them. I was working so I didn't get to go but we're hoping to visit Wifey's family soon.

We babysat Babyhaley on Thursday so the Painter and his wifey could have an evening to theyselfs. She was pretty cute, crawling all around and making noise. She realized, when Wifey was changing her diaper, that Wifey was not Mommy and started looking frantically for mom and dad. I played a little guitar for her though and she quieted down and was soon snoozing. It was a pretty uneventful babysitting.

Nora has been growing a lot. She's getting more and more aware. She seems to smile on purpose now, though not consistently, and occasionally makes a little noise.

Work has been super busy the past week or two. I blame my lack of blogposts on that. It's exciting because we're working on some really cool projects but it's also stressful as I am the only programmer and pretty much every job calls for some programming. We're booked pretty heavy through the end of the year, given our small staff. Still lovin' it though.

Anyway, that's a short and boring update but nobody is gonna read this anyway. You're all just here for the pictures.

Quick Nora Video Post

2007-08-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

So I don't get yelled at by our readers :P

Laptop Cooling Mod Walkthrough

2007-08-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

(I will post a baby video immediately after this post so just hang on, you baby-crazy people! Gotta keep some posts on here for the nerds out there.)

My laptop gets hot. Really hot. When I'm running a resource-intense program I've seen the CPU (Central Processing Unit) temp hit 85 degrees Celsius. Keep in mind that 100 degrees is boiling on the old "C" side of the thermometer. Electrical tape is compromised at 85 degrees Celsius. Running a computer, if it runs and mine doesn't, at that temperature for very long will ruin your circuitry.

I purchased a cooler pad shortly after I bought my laptop (it's almost 3 years old). However, the poor design of the machine means that the cooling pad doesn't help much at all. Something had to be done.

Here was my progression of ideas, starting with the most obvious and moving steadily to "technical:"

Buy a cooling pad: didn't change the temp more than 3 degrees
Replace the thermal paste: this did conduct the heat from the circuitry to the heatsinks better but the heatsinks were still not dissipating the heat quickly enough.
Build an external fan: I built a small fan unit that assisted the internal fan by sucking more air from the exhaust port. This didn't work for two reasons. A: the moronic engineers allowed the monitor to cover 1/3 of the exhaust port while open, eliminating the ability to place an extra fan on the exhaust. B: it still didn't pull enough air and was inconvenient, requiring an additional power source.

Having exhausted the logical options I ventured into the more risky thought paths...cut a hole in the case to improve airflow. The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) has a large heatsink that sits right against the bottom of the laptop and has no fan. Most serious GPUs have a good fan that pulls air through the heatsink. If I cut a hole directly above (or below rather) the GPU heatsink I could either install a fan or just put in a screen for easier airflow.

I decided that if I were going to cut a hole in my laptop I may as well install a fan too. I tested the airflow of several fans I cannibalized from old motherboards and power supplies and selected a 12V .25A processor fan. It pushed almost as much air as both of my cooling pad fans combined...which can push 40cfm. Then I tested it with my laptop power supply to see if a 12 volt fan could handle 19.5 volts without immediately burning out. It did just fine.

I removed the bottom cover from my laptop and made sure there would be room to put the fan in without getting in the way of screw holes or other components. There was room for the fan but there was no way it would fit completely flush with the bottom, which meant that I would probably have to increase the size of the risers on the laptop too. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing as it would allow more air into the case.

I carefully drew in the fan dimensions and started cutting with a razor blade. The case appeared to be black plastic and I thought I could get a more controlled cut with a razor than with my dremel. However, the case turned out to be aluminum, which was surprising because it felt like sturdy plastic. I used my dremel with a grinding blade to cut a nice square and then trimmed the cut up with some jewelry files that Wifey had from some of her college art classes.

The cut turned out really nice, the fan fit so tight that I almost didn't need glue. I also found a fan cover in my boneyard (computer junk) that fit the fan perfectly to prevent accidentally getting fingers or anything else in the fan. I wired the fan into the main power supply right where it plugged into the motherboard and I had a working laptop fan.

To increase the riser size I took 4 thumbscrews (handy aluminum case screws that you can get from any computer store) and glued them where the previous risers were, putting little rubber bumpers on the bottom to make them nonskid.

At this point it was pretty late at night but I tested long enough to determine that I had been successful. The CPU had a resting temperature of 52 and a 20 min load temp of 65. Compare this with an original metric of 55-60 and 80-85 under load. Pretty cool, literally. However, there were some things I hadn't thought of.

I wanted the fan to only run if the laptop was on AC power. I assumed the battery charging mechanism would have diodes to prevent backflow of current from the battery towards the AC adapter port (where my fan drew). This was correct, so my fan only ran if it was plugged into the wall. What I didn't foresee, though it's obvious now, is that the fan would not turn off if the machine was powered down. The fan is also fairly loud. The ideal situation would be a potentiometer (POT) with an off position. Like a dimmer switch for a light that would control speed.

The next day I stopped at radio shack and picked up some POTs for testing from their limited selection. I picked up a pack of about 10 POTs that were small enough to fit in a modem port. This was the only feasible place on my slimline laptop to fit a switch or POT. That case is tight (which is what caused the heat problem in the first place). I tested several pots on the laptop power supply. Bad news. None of them could handle the voltage. One of them almost started on fire. As a backup plan I went back to the boneyard and found a tiny switch that would fit perfectly in the modem port.

Then I talked to a guy at a local electronics supply store. He said they didn't make POTs that could handle 5 watts of power for any sustained time that small. The problem is basically the same problem that my laptop had in the first place: not enough surface area to get rid of the heat buildup. Oh well, speed control would be cool but it's not that necessary.

I tried to install the switch after our Wed study. The soldering and switch install went well. However, when I tried to close the case I couldn't get the additional wiring to fit anywhere. It was simply to cramped. At midnight I gave up for the night, too tired and frustrated at such a simple obstacle to make progress.

I revisited it last night and revised the wiring, closed the case and booted up the machine within about 45 minutes.

Summary: I define the project as a success. It looks pretty nice, considering the size of the fan I installed. It keeps the laptop up to 25 degrees cooler (that is a LOT). Eventually, under load the heat will build up but if you take the load off the CPU the temp drops back down at the rate of about 2 degrees per 5 seconds. I also like the increased height. The keyboard is much more comfortable to type on, which was a positive side effect. Keep in mind that the fan isn't even installed on the CPU, it's installed on the GPU, which I suspect is far cooler but I have no way to measure it. I recommend not cutting into an 1,500 laptop if possible, but if heat is gonna kill your machine anyway....go for it :)

Image captions and notes:

The processor with heatsink removed...applying new thermal paste (arctic silver).
The fan and the location penciled in. I had already started to cut out the vent. Notice how poorly designed the vents are to actually get any airflow.
The cutout, before smoothing with files.
The fan, grill installed and mounted in case. Also, you can see the risers.
Motherboard. You can see the CPU with heatsink and CPU fan remounted. GPU heatsink is the large silver thing. The fan sits directly above the angled fins. The AC power cord is sticking up into the air, it crosses over the top of the CPU fan.
How I initially tapped into the power without soldering. I didn't want to solder on my actual motherboard. I had to change this method but I still did it without solder. I did solder the fan wires and switches, just no superheated metal near the motherboard.
The completed laptop as it sits on the table, the fan hangs a few millimeters from the table at a slight angle so it's not trying to draw directly from the surface under it.

I haven't gotten pictures of the modem switch yet, which I am most proud of. Also, if you're wondering, the fan draws air in. I thought this would be a better system as it could then help the CPU fan out by offering more air to that fan. If they both blew out, they would be competing for intake through the poorly designed vents.

Anti-Anti-Bacterial

2007-08-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

Using anti-bacterial soap at your house is a good thing, right? It sounds good. And anti-bacterial products fill the cleaning aisle at your local grocery store.

However, these products have a significant negative impact that is similar to the problem that overuse of antibiotics cause: bacterial mutation and decreased natural immunities.

Anti-bacterial soap typically uses Triclosen, which penetrates the cell wall of bacteria and kills something inside of it. The more often this occurs, the more likely that bacteria will adapt to resist this, which could reduce the effectiveness of many things that are supposed to kill bacteria when you really need to kill bacteria.

Remember in history class when you read about the Native Americans and how many were killed by diseases the Europeans brought? The locals had no immunity because they'd never been exposed to those diseases. We can recreate that effect to some extent by constantly disinfecting our surroundings and reducing our immunities while potentially strengthening the local bacteria.

Moral of the story: don't get all OCD with the Lysol and Purel. You were intelligently designed to resist the other elements in your environment long before convenient hand and counter-top sanitizers were invented. We should probably be more concerned about breathing the gases released by your car interior or the lead content in Fisher Price toys than the bacteria that 's hanging out on your doorknobs, toilet seats and counter-tops.

(read a study about this)

Now, excuse me. It's time for me to go feed Nora some dirt.

Get Rich Quick Scheme #3,654

2007-08-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

A quick departure from baby pics for a geeky post:

Are you a slacker? Have you ever wanted to get rich quick but don't like to work for it? Let local children work for you!

Google has just released their Business Referral Program. Here's the summary of the program: Google is trying to increase their business listings on their Maps and Adwords properties with their obviously deep pockets. They will pay you $2 for each business in your local community that you provide information (such as hours and payment methods) about. You also must take a digital photo of the business. They send a postcard to the business asking them to confirm the data. If the business confirms the information you get another $8. So, you can potentially gain $10 per business listing that you supply.

Here's an equation I came up with to describe your potential riches (remember highschool math?):
d = ((n*p)*10) + ((n*(1-p))*2)
where n = business info collected
where d = desired earnings
where p = percentage business response

Here's how you leverage it. Recruit a few hundred kids from your local youth group or school. Create a treasure hunt contest where teams of a few kids go from street to street filling out a form and taking a photo with mommy's digital camera. The kids get one week to get as many sheets filled out as possible. Sheets can be turned in any time during the week. Any duplicate businesses only count on the first sheet to be handed in. Kids do not have to stay in their community. Create a few cheesy prizes based on total business sheets collected to give them a reason to compete.

Entering the data should only take a minute per sheet if you have decent typing skills.

Buy yourself something nice with the resulting treasure. Remember Jump Rope For Heart or those Magazine Subscription deals that elementary schools always sucker parents into? This is like that only you get rich :)

obligatory baby pic:

Write Your Own Caption

2007-08-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

Kristy shot this while Nora was in mid yawn. Turned out pretty funny. She looks real mad like.

I'm sure you visitors can come up with some funny captions in the comments section.

Videorific

2007-08-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

(If you do not see a video window above this text you may need to install the latest version of macromedia flash)
Here's the first video of Nora. One Week old...sorry about the bad color quality. My video camera doesn't auto-adjust color very well and compression compounds the problem (I can give you a technical explanation of compression resampling if you really want it).

Nora Settles In

2007-08-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pictures of our new little treasure. We are being discharged from the hospital today. It's a good thing because we were both getting a little stir-crazy in this little hospital room.

I almost went back to work today but we have a lot of stuff to cart home and get settled. I plan on heading back to work tomorrow. I could take this whole week off but it's hard for me to go a whole week without working when I'm two minutes away from my job. Makes me antsy. Plus, we're hoping to take a trip to visit Wifey's family before the end of the year...gotta save a little vacation.

We had several visitors while we were in the hospital. Thanks to everyone who came and visited. Thanks also for cards, gifts and warm wishes. If anyone is wondering if there's anything we need, yes there is: experience! You should see me trying to figure out how to clean the plumbing on something that's squirming, kicking and (sometimes) crying. Dressing the little squirmer is also a challenge.

Visitors are welcome, let us know you're coming and you don't need to bring anything!

Welcome Nora Larene

2007-07-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the post ya'll ladies have been waiting for. Enough of the geekery, let's see some BABIES!

Nora was born Sunday, July 29th at 10:59AM. She weighed 7lbs 12oz at birth and was 20.75 inches long. She's content, complete and healthy as far as we can tell!Kristy got up on Saturday morning and went to the parade with Mom, her mom, Sister and some others. I got up at 6 and helped dad work on his house. We finished up at about noon and I met Bro-in-law (BNL) at my house. We hung out in the basement and were playing some games on the computer. It was pouring rain outside and I suddenly noticed that the window well had filled up halfway in about 5 minutes! Water was beginning to seep into the basement.

BNL and I dashed outside and I jumped into the window well and started bailing water with a ~gallon bucket. The water was coming in faster than I was throwing it out so BNL brought me a trash can to bail with. I kept bailing while he tried to reroute the water. A trashcan full of water has some weight to it and I had to toss the water at least five feet past the edge of the well or it would just run back in, all of this while standing in waist deep water and mud.

Wifey called right before we noticed the window well filling up and said she was in light labor and was coming home. Wifey and Mother-In-Law (MNL) got home right after we had the window well cleaned out and were working on shoveling a trench to drain the water. They went down to the basement and moved some stuff around to avoid the water. Not very much got in.

After we got the situation somewhat under control I went to Dad's and got some flexi-tube to reroute the water from my downspout. I hooked that up and then took a shower in case we had to go to the hospital.

Kristy's labor was picking up but we wanted to wait until it was more serious before going to the hospital. I didn't want to take a nap because I wasn't sure I would wake up for a solid 8 hours.

At around 9PM we checked into the hospital and, after a brief stay in triage, settled in to our labor room. Kristy and I (mostly Kristy, I didn't have much of an opinion as it would be her pain) had decided to try for a natural birth so she declined the preparation for epidural, IV and other medication procedures.

Kristy initially moved through the labor process pretty quickly. By midnight it looked like we would be having a baby within an hour or two. Such was not the case. The hours slid by with Kristy having painful contractions and me trying to stay alert and be whatever support I could. I took quick snoozes here and there, or rather, fell asleep with my face on the bed rail. Mom, Dad, MNL, Sister and BNL were also in the hospital but Dad and BNL went home to get some sleep a little after midnight.

Kristy decided to allow the doctors to start an IV around 6AM, she was dehydrated and getting pretty exhausted. She also agreed to .5mg of Stadol, painkiller, as the contractions were getting excruciating.

Finally by 10AM we were making some progress. They had tried a few test pushes earlier but things just weren't ready. This time, it was for real. With the doctor, nurse and I helping, Kristy brought Nora into the world. It was hard for me to truly appreciate the miracle of birth because I knew how much Kristy was dealing with but it was still pretty amazing.

Nora's cord was wrapped around her foot, which cuts down on the blood supply from the cord, so she needed a little oxygen when she came out. I went down to the nursery with her, so they could monitor her heart and oxygen better, and rocked her for a few hours. I nearly rocked myself to sleep so I started calling people with the news to stay awake...I don't remember any of those conversations! When we were ready to go back they had moved Kristy into the postnatal room.

Anyway, that's pretty much the whole story. The birth was mostly-natural with just a little Stadol and oxygen. I tried to offer enough details (without too much information) to satisfy you ladies, hopefully these pics will hold you over until I can post some more.

PS: Her name: We liked Nora because it's not an unknown name, most people have heard the name but we don't know anyone named Nora...it's unique. I liked Lorraine as the middle name and Kristy liked names that end in -ene because several of her family members have -ene middle names. We combined the two to end up with Larene. The last name was easy.

More than meets the eyes

2007-06-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, lots of stuff has happened since the last post including work on our baby room, etc. However, I don't have pictures yet and don't have time to post much since I'm at work. We've spent most of our spare time lately doing much needed house-cleaning and other chores to prepare for the coming baby.

But I did this photo manipulation that I think is pretty fun so I wanted to share. The bright, Times Square picture at the beginning of this post is the original. In the darkened "robot invasion" revision below, I did all of the photo manipulation except the robot on the left. That includes the darkening effects, weathered billboards, explosion, the right robot, and lots of little subtle things to enhance the realism. The left robot was done by Jorgelish...one of my coworkers here at Local Creative.

I will post some pics from Chug, the baby room and other stuff as soon as I get a chance.

Turtle Rock x3

2007-06-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Whew! I've spent a lot of the week on (and occasionally off) two wheels. Saturday I helped dad frame his house from about 9 to 3:30. I wanted to go for a ride in the evening. Dad showed up at my house at 5:30ish wanting to go ride Turtle Rock (after hearing me talk about it). So we packed up and went for a ride. Afterwards we stopped by the Ames monument (highest point on the original transcontinental railway) and checked that out. Photo above.

I knew I wouldn't get a ride in the rest of this week so BertrandTheBold and I had talked about riding some of the Happy Jack trails in a little guide book he has today. We hooked up at about 2:30 with one of my coworkers from STP (Dizzney, see the post about Lorry State Park) and headed to the Lincoln Monument exit where the Tie City trailhead starts. Some reps from Trek and Specialized each had a little trailer set up with some demo bikes there. After we checked that out for a few minutes we hit the trail.

The Tie City trails consisted of lots of loops that all interconnect and end up back at the trailhead (for the most part). We just rode and rode until we had covered a lot of the loops. The trails were all up and down and very rocky. Tough to climb but worth it for the downhill. We finished up at Tie City but hadn't gotten enough. We threw the bikes in Dizzney's truck and headed over to Vedavoo.

We horsed around on the rocks at the base for awhile and then set out on Turtle Rock again (third time in a week for me). We quickly left that trail down a little offshoot and forded a stream to get to a trail that disappeared up into the trees. We climbed up through the trees and came out on a little ridge overlooking the East face of Vedavoo. BertrandTheBold and I were pretty eager to blast back down the trail we came up and the trail we were following had kinda petered out so we turned back and went-a-romping back down to the creek.

Across the creek again and we were getting pretty tired. We decided to complete Turtle Rock and call it a day. By the time we came out on the other side of Vedavoo we had probably ridden 10ish miles the hard way: up and down on pretty rocky trails. BertrandTheBold and I were pretty wiped but when we got back to the truck Dizzney was still romping all over the rocks. Kids! I took off my hydro-pack and pretty much just laid down on the pavement. Yeah, maybe I'm not in the best of shape.

Dizzney headed home. BertrandTheBold, Wifey and I grilled some burgers and brats and then I had a rootbeer float. Pretty darn close to an ideal day!

Anyway, I've posted pictures below.

Summit Loop crossroads, from Tie City

Summit Loop, scenic overlook crossroads (I-80 distant in background)

Dizzney on a rock outcropping

BertrandTheBold on the scenic overlook

Dizzney crossing the creek

Me on rock outcropping, Happy Jack general area in distance

Turtle Rock trail, west side, near sunset

Perception vs Reality

2007-06-08T07:06:00.001-07:00

BertrandTheBold brought some Mountain Biking DVDs to work that show crazy professionals doing 30 ft drops and giant backflips off of jumps. When I looked at the picture of me riding down the rock (see last post) after seeing some of that footage I felt small, weak and scared :P

So I SPICED IT UP with a little photoshop magic. YEEEEEEEEhaw, that's more like it. Click the photo above for a larger image.

Vedavoo and Turtle Rock trail

2007-06-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in yesterday's post, BertrandTheBold and I rode Turtle Rock trail at Vedavoo yesterday. Everything was [almost] perfect. We left work at 4, loaded up our bikes and headed out by about 4:30. It had rained at Vedavoo just enough to add some stickiness to the sand. The weather was just right, overcast and cool. The trail was also amazing. It is around 2 miles and loops around the backside of Vedavoo from East to West (or West to East, see, it's a loop). It has little uphill and downhill stretches that are a great balance of uphill cardio and downhill blasting. The trail is easy enough for mildly competent riders but features rock outcroppings that the most advanced riders can enjoy playing on.

The actual ride went very quickly because the loop was so short...we probably completed the two mile track in 35-40 minutes...taking our time. Then we just rode around on the rocks around the parking area for an hour or two: lots of fun stuff to play on. We didn't shoot many pics because we were having to much fun to stop. I have included the pics I took but none are spectacular. None of these images are from Turtle Rock trail. I didn't even take the camera out on that trail. The rocks are a blast for general rompery.

I've never been afraid of getting hurt but now I have a family to consider. I have developed a very bad habit of bailing on stuff I could ride out because these thoughts are in the back of my mind. This is actually worse than just riding it out because you land hard on your ankles, maybe trip and sprain wrists, and invaribly destroy your shins with sharp spinning pedals. It also is very hard on bikes. Case in point: I hopped a little rock yesterday at a pretty good clip. Upon landing, another rock that I didn't see before (blended in with the sand) was suddenly in front of me. This rock was roughly the height of a curb and about two feet across. Not a big deal. I can easily hop up a curb going very fast on a bike. It only requires a slight hop with the front wheel and your back tire will ride over it.

Instead of just riding over the rock I bailed, stepped on my bike as it was sideways on the ground, and smashed the rear dereulier into the rock. The rear shifting mechanism was bent bad enough that the spring-loaded little sprocket was rubbing on the wheel spokes. I was able to bend that part back pretty easily but part of the frame is bent. I need to disassemble the back gear system, reshape it, and then adjust my whole shifting system to accommodate the slightly-altered shape. Fortunately I'm pretty sure I can repair it.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I have always maintained that a fearful driver is more dangerous than an aggressive driver because indecision causes wrecks. The same thing applies to MTB: and now I have a bad habit of being indecisive on the trail. That's going to have to stop or I will destroy my bike before the summer's over.

Breathlessly Awaited Update

2007-06-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

Gentle readers: I apologize that it has been so long since I harangued the masses with a moving diatribe. Rest assured that my torment in light of this failure is complete.

News. Wifey's shower was this last Saturday. We are very grateful to all who planned, executed and attended the event. We received many nice gifts and are very thankful to everyone for their support of our soon-to-be-growing-by-a-member-family.

I have been working 7-5 every day and taking off on Friday at noon, which is nice. I left work at about 1 last Friday and helped dad frame his house until around 8. Then I worked for him on Saturday from about 7-1. I spent a lot of the day building walls so I was bent over with a nailgun, tacking stuff together. My hamstrings are hatin' me for that.

After I left the jobsite on Saturday I hooked up with Bro-in-law (BNL hereafter) and purchased a Ruger 10/22, semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle and a 4x scope. I also bought a bunch of clay targets and shotgun ammo at Wally World. Then we met up with the Painter, babyBrother and shot up some clay. I also sighted in my new gun. Then we went to the races where Dad and bluegrassBrother showed up.

Coincidentally my new boss also showed up. His wifey was due any day and they were hoping that the excitement and intensity of the races would inspire the little one to join this crazy world. Sunday they called and said she had delivered the baby at 9:30 so maybe it worked!

Sunday afternoon BNL and I went out and shot .22s again. We went through an entire brick (550 rounds) of ammo and I now have the 10/22 sighted in enough to nail a quarter at about 40-50 yards. Craig and I both have a quarter with a bullet melted into it and I also have a penny with a hole directly through the middle.

The first week I worked here I went biking with my coworkers over in Happy Jack. It was a beautiful area and I was inspired to camp there. So Memorial Day weekend we went camping with the Painter and their little family on that Sunday night. We all rode in the Xterra and it was packed to the gills. The next day we hiked around the Vedavoo area. Here are some pics of the adventure. Tonight I'm going to ride Turtle Rock trail with a coworker.

Mother's Day and my new job

2007-05-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

We did mothers (and mothers-to-be) day in FC this weekend with Mom and Dad and G&G. Above is a pic of us from the weekend. I haven't posted a recent picture in quite awhile so I thought I'd share. Wifey is doing okay but I think she's getting sick of her current dimensions.

Well, I'm leaving my position at STP. It's kinda bittersweet because STP is the only place that I've worked since we've moved here (I've had three different jobs within the company). I have many good friends in my coworkers that I will genuinely miss working with. Despite that, I'm very excited about my new position. My last day with STP is the 18th. I start the new position on the 21st.

The new company is called Local Creative. They are based Locally and do Creative stuff: imagine! Seriously, they do web site design, print design, interactive media design/programming and other creative work. My official title is Digital Fulfillment Manager. That means that I will be handling all of the technology development that powers the websites and other media design that Local Creative produces. Initially it will be lots of hands on work programming in PHP and other languages and working with database design, etc. LC is a small company right now but as we grow I will be responsible for bringing in and supervising new digital technology talent as needed.

It was a hard decision to move out of a large, stable corporation to a small, fairly new company. But looking at the quality of work and dedication that the owner has put into LC convinced me that this will be a fun, flexible and exciting place to work. STP has been a great company to work for. I will actually miss my boss a lot as he was an excellent guy to work for (no, he doesn't read this blog and flattery wouldn't get me anywhere at this point anyway). It's probably rare that you can honestly say you really like your boss. All that being said, I never really made a conscious choice to get into marketing. I found opportunities at STP and took them, which led me into marketing but I am ready to get back to more creative pursuits. I think I will like my new boss too, I already respect him for his demonstrated ability and that goes a long way with me. The other guys I'll be working with seem really cool.

I know you're probably thinking: programming, creative? Yes, web programming and application development requires creative problem solving. Technology without creative regard for usability and efficiency is worthless (ohhhh, M$ Windows anyone?). I enjoy [trying my best to] blend the technology and design elements needed to create a seamless web experience for the user. Since this is a small company, I will probably be getting my hands "dirty" in some of the other design and print jobs that come in. That might be a nice break from lines of code.

The company itself is located in a renovated industrial building. It's an old old redbrick, complete with antique painted signs on the side. It manages to be trendy, historic and quaint all at once. Inside it has hardwood floors and the wonderful hum of dual-core processors and 24" widescreen monitors.I asked my new boss what kind of computer I would have and he said "what do you want?" I said I usually built my own at home so he let me compile a list of components from newegg.com (my fave computer parts company) and he ordered them for me. It's not everyday you get to build your own work computer and yes, I consider that a huge privilege. The goodies came in today and dropped in to assemble it. For my geek friends, here's what I built:

Coolermaster case (I highly recommend these, built by people with good brains)
Dual core 64 bit AMD proc (built by psionic supermutants, it's the only explanation)
2GB ram
256MB nVidia GeForce 7600GT
320GB 7200RPM SATA drive
ASUS, dual Gigabit ethernet mobo that can handle up to 8GB RAM and 2 GPUs in SLI
500W PSU
Logitech MX518 mouse

I'll be getting a DVD burner, 24" widescreen LCD (I think/hope) and an ergonomic keyboard. Basically this machine will outperform my home machine in just about all categories and that's saying something.

So there's your windy dose of news and nerd. Hope all had a happy mother's day.

Lory Weekend Adventure

2007-04-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

(click images for bigger view)

I gave the new bike a run for its money this weekend. Wifey and I met up with Dizzney, one of my coworkers, and drove up to FC with our bikes on Saturday morning. On the way up I leaned out the window of the truck and my hat blew off. We stopped and I jogged back about a quarter mile but couldn't find it anywhere. Then Dizzney noticed it, wedged between the bike spokes in the back of the truck. Good thing, I like that hat!

In FC we met up with another coworker, Sharkdog, and his girlfriend and her friend and set out for the reservoir. We paid our park dues and found a place to park the vehicle and then set off on our adventures. The ladies were going to hike around while we dudes did some biking. Our parking spot is circled in red on the map above. The ladies set off to the West, up the mountain, but we decided to ride down by the shore first (green path going East from the parking spot).
(Sharkdog and Dizzney at the summit, all photos taken with bad cell phone camera...)
We rode along until our trail dead-ended at the reservoir. There was a "slight hill" to our left and we decided to climb over the top and catch the trail (that we imagined) on the other side (first red section of the map above). This took place on foot because there were spiky bushes and cacti that made in unfriendly for riding. Plus it was pretty steep. At about this time we were soaking with sweat and we all got rid of our t-shirts.(View from the summit down to where we started at the reservoir)
When we finally reached the top the other side was a short cliff (10-15 feet?), unsuitable for riding down. Sharkdawg crawled down and then Dizzney and we passed the bikes down (first blue section of the path). We descended into a little gully with a sort of dry creek bed down the middle. We rode part of that out but also had to walk some because of large rocks and cacti (second red section). Keep in mind that there was no trail here. The gully ended in another cliff that we navigated using our previous method (second blue chunk).

From there we were pretty much back on trail. We rode up the coast to a trailhead that went up the mountain. It was a long, hard climb. The trail was thin and had lots of rocks and roots to navigate over. It was steep enough that if you lost momentum you pretty much had to walk to the next switchback so you could get started again (at least at my riding level). Also, I couldn't stand up to pedal much because it took too much weight off my back tire and I would start spinning out. You can see on the map above how steep it gets by looking at the topo lines.
(Me and Dizzney on the summit, Dizzney is just glad to be alive)
Dizzney and I were on our first ride of the summer and neither of us have been training. By the time we hit the top it was all we could do to keep pushing the pedals down. My bike seat came loose and rotated backwards so I couldn't sit down for about a mile until we ran into a guy with a bike tool. I had left my bike tool behind because I decided I didn't want to carry a backpack.At one point I was heading upward and hit a rock that stopped my progress, I tried to put my left foot down but there was nothing to put down on. The mountain dropped off too steeply on that side of the trail. So I ended up sort of falling on my shin in a spiky tree that was growing up the mountain. Kinda tore my shin up and my ankle got a little stiff for the rest of the ride.

Sharkdog stayed pretty much daisy-fresh through the climb. He trains hard almost every day and has a triathlon lined up for pretty much every weekend this summer. I think he also intends to compete in the ironman: 2mi swim, 50mi bike ride and a half marathon at the end. He was our main inspiration to keep going as we weren't sure that the trail we were on would lead us back over the mountain to our parking spot. His curiosity about what lay at the top of the mountain (and apparently infinite energy) kept us motivated.

We finally topped out on an old logging trail and found the summit at Arthur's rock. It was a great view, overlooking the reservoir. After we rested for a bit we started down the other side, a much steeper drop that ended right at our vehicles.
(Climbing up the final rock pile on weary legs)
The ride down was a blast but would have been more fun if I had more energy left. We found out later that it was a walking trail only and there were lots of places where we were riding down nature's equivalent of stairs...large terraces of rocks or logs planted by the parks to stop erosion. We also discovered that it was rated "Moderate to Difficult" as a foot trail. It's important to keep your butt over your back tire and your weight as far back as possible when you're descending stuff like that. I was heading down a really steep rock drop and my front tire dug in at the bottom. My bike threw me as smoothly as any horse but I got my feet over the handle bars and landed painlessly on my feet. Dizzney, who was behind me, and a couple hikers following up were pretty amused by the unconventional dismount. I think my wrecks could have been avoided, not with more skill but with more endurance. My wrecks were the product of slow muscles and slow brain from over-exertion.

Anyway, by that time we were all hallucinating hamburgers and were glad to get to the bottom. The ladies were waiting for us, having walked up the path we just descended to the summit and back down. We did damage to the food supply at Lucky Joe's and then headed back home so Dizzney could make a soccer game that evening. Sharkdog had plans to relax in his hot tub (so jealous...).(Me and the Sharkdog, unaware of how bad the sun is burning us right now)
When we got home I discovered how incredibly sunburned my back was, a joyous discovery to be sure. Sharkdog and Dizzney appear to be equally toasted.

Anyway, it was a blast and a great adventure, if a little more than I planned for my first summer ride. I definitely broke the bike in and got used to riding it. It rides a lot different than my old Giant. It can also withstand some damage, I'll vouch for that!

PS: I found out at work today that Sharkdog rode another 35 miles on Sunday and then ran 5 miles. The guy should get his head checked :)