livin' large

Don't you wish that YOU could be having this for dinner.

bdog approved

Benjamin digs the pimpy fresh ride.

No sleep till Portland...Portland!!!

Some of you will get the B-Boys reference. The sled is in the houuuse. Given the time they picked it up from Texas... they literally did not sleep. They barely had enough time to refuel and eat. Well done.

The shiny Eurovan that started with a simple "Buy it now" click has arrived. Looks to be in near new condition. I've driven it around the block and it has LOTS of power. And it's huge. Road trips will be super fun. Suh Wheat.

Rollin'

The EuroVan is on the way. Arrival date still TBD but it's on a big truck rolling through... probably New Mexico at the moment.

"Buy it Now!"

blog battle

it seems that the spammers have crept into the blog world. I've deleted two off this extremely low visibility site. So apologies for the word verification (if you post then you'll see).

On another note... MAX is huge. I can barely lift the guy. His ped visit today will confirm just how much he's growing from a percentile perspective. I measured 14lbs/24".

And finally... xing our fingers for our good friends Eithne & Taylor who's freshly remodeled home is in New Orleans. Hope it's not in the bottom of the bowl.

Oh... one more thing, speaking of remodeling, I now have a wall bisecting my office from the other side of the garage. Slowly it's all coming together. Next phase: Cobb construction walls inside for insulation and thermal mass.

[submit]

People press the [submit] button to purchase things online all the time. Sometimes people are scared others are not. I've long since grown used to the friendly [submit] button and probably shop online as much as anyone when things cannot be found locally. Today, however, the nerves are slightly rattled as I pressed the magic submit option for a $17,000 "Buy it now" purchase on eBay. It's kind of insane that, with just a few clicks, a major transaction has been committed. The Volvo goes away and the VW Eurovan is on its way. Bought sight unseen from Texas, it should arrive... well I have no idea when it'll get here but at some point a shiny big machine will appear.


Crazy

heaven

Define heaven for yourself...

So there I was having a reasonably nice dinner with collegues on business travel. That was good and I was driving back to the hotel when I saw the flash of shiny cloth taking up a full city block. I swerved off the city street into a parking spot, got out, and walked towards the shimmering material.

The biggest convention in SLC is underway. "Outdoor Retailer" is a twenty thousand person strong event where manufacturers and buyers get together to make deals. All the outdoor brands you've heard of (and many you haven't) are here. Surely the REI buyer gets plennnnty of attention. So it's a place where you'll find not-yet-available outdoor gear.

mmmmmMMMMMMmmmmmmMMMMMMMMmmm gear

So I was creeping around a tent city where each one represented the best innovation the builders could produce. North Face, MSR, Kelty, Mtn Hardware ... they were all there and the stuff looked amazing. The materials look thinner and lighter with a shimmering translucent look, the designs abandon tradition and symmetry. Some of it may be flash for flash's sake but much of it is really great stuff. My tent was absent from the line-up but it's not new after all. It was really cool to see. Kelty has what looks like a 1 person single pole pyramid that will be insanely light and comfortable. I need to get back into that stuff.

PDX coffee people sucks

While I don't plan on getting a lawyer... I've been burned (literally) by every drink that coffee people have served me. And it tastes like crap. I have smugly walked past the starbucks in order to go to the small(ish) local chain. Too bad they suck.

Stuck in Salt Lake City for the duration of this week. I really don't like being away from the family, especially that Amy person.

Speaking of the torture of travel... after having a nasty high-fat workday where lunch was a pile of fried fish -n- chips and dinner (while not fried) wasn't much better... I then channel surf only to watch "Super Size Me." I tuned in right as he's puking out of his truck. If you haven't seen the movie, you need to. It's the true story of a guy who eats nothing but McDonalds food for an entire month. There are a few other bits to it, like he doesn't allow himself to walk more than the national average which is shockingly low btw. Oh, and if the cashier asks if he wants to SuperSize his meal, he has to say YES.


If that doesn't make you sick then I don't know what will.

Hi Ben, "What are you doing in the bathtub?"

So Benjamin's little brain is accelerating. @2years5months he's all of the sudden developed some impressive logical deduction skills along with speech to match... oh and an imagination. The title of this post was what Ben said in the voice of a plastic fish. Ben spoke on behalf of the plastic fish (which does not actually make any noise). So this means many things. First, he's personified the fish. Second, the fish is speaking to Ben with a bit of social skill, first with a greeting followed by a question. The quote is simple enough but if you look at the constructs to get there, it's quite amazing.

Then he freaked out when in bed. I was refilling his water bottle when he screamed, "Need to take a shower" followed by, "Dirty again" (which he wasn't). He never saw the shower but we talked about taking one earlier instead of a bath. He must have done a visual association with me filling the water bottle and the view of the shower which triggered that memory and then the request. He's never watched me fill water into his bottle in the bathroom but I leave and he hears water and deduces that it's coming from the sink. That's probably not as interesting a development but the overall framework that's being wired in his head is hard to even conceptualize even at this age.

equilibrium

Throw the moldy crap out of the frig and into the coop. Place eggs from coop back into the frig.


bitchin

so blue

Behold the blue that I'm feelin'

Chi is inspecting her handiwork.