Boxing and shopping

Hello again, fellow people around the world. I am back to blog and as my stories have been told and told, I have found some new stories that might interest you.

First, I would like to tell you the day that I boxed my mom and dad with empty soda can boxes, which I also did today to my dad. Emma was also helping me, too. She had two empty boxes and I had the other two. We pounded and pounded on Daddy and Mommy until they couldn't take another pound. Today while I was boxing my dad, I had four empty soda boxes instead of two, and I kept pounding him with them. I laughed and laughed.

While we were baby shopping for Baby the other day, we had to find a bumper set we liked for the baby's crib. I hope you know this, but I do know this for sure, that yesterday you might have seen me shopping in Babies R Us. We also took some pictures there of the different bumper sets we liked.

One was called "Bright Hopes, Sweet Dreams".

The other one was called "Lady Bugs".

They both had different types of bugs on them, but they looked cute the way they matched with themselves.

I liked the Bright Hopes, Sweet Dreams one better, because it was so colorful, I thought it would be just right for Baby.

I know some of you have seen the picture from my Dad's blog post, below. I liked the picture because I was having fun. I like making grins, having smiles, and I especially like shopping for Baby.

Goodbye everyone around the world. I hope that you will log on to my dad's blog, because it is so special to me, since he is so special to me. I think you should log onto his blog to see my paragraphs that I made and have been making.

Bye!

EJW/btw

My dad's favorite things

Hello, my name is Ethan. I am posting these pictures to my dad's blog. I chose these pictures because my dad likes electronicals.

I took this picture in my room. I think I look really cool. My dad likes to wear sunglasses lots of the time.

This is a picture of my dad. His shirt says SYN and the back of his shirt says ACK. That is the first thing that two computers say before talking to each other. My dad is a computer fixer. He is called a Computer Geek, but not the bad kind of geek. Geek is a fancy word that they used as an insult many years ago that they have now.

The Ant Bully is a life lesson. It teaches you not to be a bully, because bad things can happen to you. People will bully you back. But if you do nice things to the other people, then you will get nice things back. And also, weird things will happen to you.

This alarm clock is from the movie Cars. Also, the alarm doesn't work very good. It doesn't go off but it is good to look at. It has Lightning McQueen on it, and it makes noises. It says "Oh yeah, Lightning is ready!", and Lightning McQueen has lots of stickers on him.

These eggs are not called eggs. They are called Oggz. They are odd eggs and change color. They look beautiful, and if you put them on the charger they will run all day and all night. There are three Oggz and the charger looks like a triangle. I got them as a birthday present from Grandma Barnes who bought them at thinkgeek.com.

Here is a picture of my camera. Nothing unusual really. It's a regular old camera, except it runs on batteries, and can't be charged, but the batteries can be taken out and charged. I took these pictures off of my camera a few days ago, and blogged them today. The reason that I took a picture of this, is because I got the camera for a present. It was a birthday present.

Well, that's about everything. Oh, and the reason that I picked these pictures was because my dad likes technology. I love my dad a lot, and I hope you enjoy these pictures that I blogged.

Goodbye until next time I blog!

EJW/btw

Baby on the way

Yes, we are in fact expecting our third. Let’s get some vital stats out of the way:

• Our working due date is Aug 17.
• We know it’s not twins
• No, we weren’t trying.
• Yes, we are happy.
• Yes, we’re going to find out gender if we can.
• Morning sickness has been almost as bad as with Emma.
• No, you may not touch The Belly.

We found out ourselves about a week before all the Grandparents came out for Emma’s birthday. Trish did a fabulous job not saying anything to her mom so that we could wait until my parents arrived. We racked our brains for some fun, original way to announce it. We even called Jen for ideas - I still love her response — “Get out!” — when we told her. We talked about a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament with the 2006 crossed out and 2007 written in, but we thought that might be too subtle. I was surprised at how many really cool “I’m Pregnant” t-shirts are out there (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and best of all this) (yes, you have to click on all of them), but we couldn’t get them in time, or in the right size, or both.

The night we picked my parents up from the airport, we stayed up a few minutes longer (2-ish in the morning) to hang five stockings over the fireplace, figuring this would elicit some questions. Unfortunately, that clue didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. Tricia’s mom picked up on it about 20 minutes after she got up, but my parents had to be “informed” by the kids (who also didn’t figure out what five stockings meant). Ethan went on about how “his dreams have come true”. Emma practically adopted the baby from the very first — we made the announcement on her birthday after all.

At the first OB appointment, we got ultrasound pictures. Sorry for the blurriness - it’s hard to take a closeup with a camera phone, especially on that darned shiny thermal paper. According to both the ultrasound and a website we found, the baby is about the size of a coffee bean.

At the second appointment, we got another ultrasound picture as a side effect of not being able to locate the baby’s heartbeat using the little doppler wand thingy. (What a pain!) Now we’re up to an inch and a half, head to butt. We wrote it on a piece of paper for Emma, and found that’s exactly the length of her pinkie finger.

Now in Tricia’s 13th week (LMP), the baby is supposedly about 2.5 inches (head to butt) or 3.5 inches long (head to toe), and the morning sickness is starting to fade. Tricia’s still offended by certain smells and foods and sounds, but has been weaning herself off the anti-nausea medicine.

Now we move into the second trimester, when we can seriously start shopping for houses, and also shape up this house to sell it (ugh!). We’ve talked it over, and we just don’t think it’s really practical for us to stay in this house with five people. We’re looking into public storage as a way to “declutter”, and some necessary repairs, plus getting prequalified for a new mortgage. (Spammers: buzz off.)

Whew! Got this one off my list. Not having set the famework has made it really awkward to think about posting, since I couldn’t make offhand references to what I hadn’t said yet.

Watch soon for a special guest poster. He’s got a camera and he’s not afraid to use it.

Non.political post of the day

The two most important women in my life.

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Car Wash

Me and my shopping buddy.

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Woo hoo!

Now that's the kind of gas price I can live with.

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Future customer service?

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Non-church church picnic

Joined some friends for a barbecue with a bunch of people from the church we don't go to anymore. Kinda strange. Nice to see old friends and see how big everyone's kids are, but still kinda wierd. Trish looked nice with her Grand Canyon jewelry, though.

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Tornado

Here we are in the basement waiting for a large storm to pass. Weather channel on the wireless as long as the cable stays up.

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Drained

Went to the doctor. He decided to drain both feet, big relief. However, Trish and I weren't impressed with much else. I saw the Dad of the practice, and he was a little too old school for us. Not very sanitary, quick to cut without explaining. We think we're back in the market for b family doc.

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Emma's haircut

This just in. It's off her neck, but still long enough for a ponytail.

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Progress!

I haven't been idle. That Work Thing keeps intruding, but I have actually made some progress on my list:

• Install Bacula on Progeny, configure it to backup Tricia's machine and the other servers on schedule. (Installed, not configured)
• Pull all my O'Reilly books together on one shelf, take a picture, bragblog about it. (organized, just need a picture)
• Get the Saturn into the dealership and have them reset my radio. (Locked out after a jump start.) (Done)
• Call T-Mobile and see what deals they can offer me to switch. (Left message, they haven't called me back)
• Call Verizon Wireless and see what deals they can offer me to stay. (They can't offer me bluetooth sync to my laptop: points off for that!)
• Move the script backing up my Bugzilla site from Athos back to Progeny. (Done)
• Get some lumber and start putting walls in my basement. (Starting to get a plan)
• Rearrange my office so the servers are outside the curtain to cut down noise on phone calls. (Nope, but moved the noisy switch to where it's farther from my phone)
• Buy a new battery for the digital camera so Trish can use it to take more pictures. (Trish did this)
• Get a newish computer to run Unix and X-windows the way they were meant to be run. (May have a line on some old servers from work)
• Figure out why my "sitemonitor" script notifies me about a particular site every night, even though I had programmed it to ignore that change. (Solved it by just not monitoring the site anymore)
• Exchange the fullscreen Indiana Jones DVD set I received for Christmas for the widescreen edition (thanks, Mom). (Trish took care of it)
• Get back with the Lindens to update the TongShan site I helped them set up. (Talked, but they had to go adopt yet another!)
• Write the Great American Application, make millions, retire early. (Still in progress!)

Things I've been meaning to do

Now presenting a random list of things which have been cluttering up my mental "todo" list.

• Install Bacula on Progeny, configure it to backup Tricia's machine and the other servers on schedule.
• Find a quiet time for reading the Bible and praying.
• Pull all my O'Reilly books together on one shelf, take a picture, bragblog about it.
• Get the Saturn into the dealership and have them reset my radio. (Locked out after a jump start.)
• Buy the bike Ethan "gave" me on my birthday in 2003 (2002?), go riding with the kids.
• Call T-Mobile and see what deals they can offer me to switch.
• Call Verizon Wireless and see what deals they can offer me to stay.
• Move the script backing up my Bugzilla site from Athos back to Progeny.
• Get some lumber and start putting walls in my basement.
• Rearrange my office so the servers are outside the curtain to cut down noise on phone calls.
• For that matter, just cleaning up my office would be really nice.
• Redesign my website, using Drupal to manage content and setting myself free from FrontPage.
• Buy a new battery for the digital camera so Trish can use it to take more pictures.
• Get a newish computer to run Unix and X-windows the way they were meant to be run.
• Release a new version of Customer Service Alerts on my own time, since I can't seem to find time at work to get it done.
• Get over to Victory Christian Academy and see if some of the less pleasant popups can be blocked.
• Figure out why my "sitemonitor" script notifies me about a particular site every night, even though I had programmed it to ignore that change.
• Exchange the fullscreen Indiana Jones DVD set I received for Christmas for the widescreen edition (thanks, Mom).
• Migrate my Bugzilla install to the new server purchased two months ago for that purpose.
• Inventory the various unused computers in my basement and get rid of the ones I have no use for. (I mean really, how many 200Mhz PC's can one person use?) I guess I could work up a simple install image and set up my whole family up with FreeBSD firewalls. Gotta be low-maintenance, though, otherwise I'll never see my family again.
• Get to the doctor and see about this finger that's been giving me trouble.
• Configure Tricia's old computer as a games (ahem, "educational software") computer for the kids; find a good home for it where they can play supervised. Hmm, maybe the landing?
• Get to a different doctor and get screened for adult ADD (which, if it comes back positive, could explain much of this list).
• Write the Great American Application, make millions, retire early.
• Get back with the Lindens to update the TongShan site I helped them set up. (Guess I won't be done with FrontPage very soon.)