WELCOME!!

SHE FINALLY CAME!

After so much waiting, so many trials and tribulations, we welcome Julianna Alyse Mallow into our world. She was born yesterday, January 28, 2009, at 4:17am. She was 8 lbs, 8 oz and 20 in. long. I wish I could provide her a better world today, but that's a bit out of my hands. Anyway, here are a few shots of her wondrous beauty. :-)

That's her with her loving mommy. Then there's this one, with her proud daddy:

Then just one of her in her little hospital bassinet:

By the way, that very first pic, up at the top of this post? That's my favorite so far. Her birth was quite an adventure...head over to Heidi's blog and get the whole story. Some day I might provide the episode from MY perspective, but hers is good for now. Hope you're all having as good a week as I am! If not, well, the weekend's coming soon! Thanks for reading along.

You CAN Teach a New Media Old Tricks

Our friends at Rockwood have a classic up today. Yes, sometimes the "New Media" parodies itself, without even intending to do so.



"The Age of the Internet." (blowing large raspberry here)

Oh, I am SOOOO there...

Give this a look-see.

My one remaining attainable dream is that I get to go into space before I die. Rumor has it that I can achieve it with a three-night stay there for a mere $4 million. Gotta be honest here...if I had it to spare, I'd do it.

Scattered Thoughts

So we got another great Donovanism last night. I mentioned last week his "Livin' on a Prairie" by Bon Jovi. I think I've also mentioned the other well-known hit from the 80s "Walk Like A Magician" by the Bangles. Last night we went to Soda Pop's Restaurant here in Moore. It's kind of an oldies-diner type of place and they have a jukebox that plays CDs and is full of great oldies. He put on "Devil In Disguise" and came over to tell us about it.

"This is by Elvis Presley..." (then in a low whisper) "or just Elvis for short."

Heidi and I about fell out of our chairs laughing.

On a related note: a side-effect of having lots of kids and having a pregnant wife is that you eat out a lot more than you want. As I said the other day, I'm not much of a cook, and I don't always feel much like cooking after working all day. Heidi is usually exhausted and physically uncomfortable and doesn't necessarily feel like cooking, either (and I can't say that I blame her...I bet I wouldn't, either). So we go out. It saves time and energy, but it spends extra money.

I don't think I'd mentioned this yet, but I had to get rid of the Ramcharger when we moved. That was very disappointing to me, actually. While it had its issues (e.g., it looked like a old, junky, beat-up piece-of-crap truck...so it would've fit right in here on the roads in Oklahoma), it was really easy to work on and fun to drive. I even had it loaded and ready to go the week of my move, but I got it out on the road and it started having trouble. I figure the carburetor needed to be rebuilt, but I didn't have the time to get a kit in and do the rebuild before I needed to go to OKC to start the new job. So Heidi got it sold for me before we left. (I'm still bummed out about it, actually. It wasn't much but it was all mine.) So I got here and with Mom and Dad's help I got a 1998 Honda Accord LX. Dad's main customer right now is a car dealership in Tulsa (Keystone Chevrolet) that he's worked with for over 15 years, and they give him really good deals. So they got this Honda on a trade-in and sold it to us for the same amount that they gave on the trade. (It worked out for them as well because they were just going to send it to the auction and probably get the same amount or maybe less.)

It runs really strong, which was important to me; I don't mind working on cars but I wanted to have something that would run well for quite a while, and the quality and workmanship of Honda is unquestioned. The car is over 10 years old and now had 207K miles on it and still runs great and gets me 26-28 mpg. (BIG improvement over the Ramcharger, which got me 10-11mpg at best.) One issue it has is recurring codes indicating a problem with the EGR system. This isn't a huge deal and is usually pretty easy to deal with. After some online research, I decided to take off the EGR valve and clean out the passageways through the manifold. (I needed a little relaxation, anyway, after all the stress lately.) So it took the valve off and started cleaning it out. It seriously looked as though someone had poured mud straight into the engine. Now, gunk in the EGR passages is not uncommon on any car, but it's usually very dark, almost black. Exhaust gas is very hot and any oil or fluids or blowback of any kind flowing through that system is hot, gets burned, and sticks inside the passages. But this gunk that I was cleaning out was almost dark red, like Oklahoma-mud red. It was the DIRTIEST gunk I've ever seen inside an engine...and that's coming from someone who has a 26-year-old Ford Mustang. Ugh. As I said, the engine runs OK and isn't throwing any other codes, so I don't think it's as bad as it looked. I've cleaned it out pretty thoroughly twice and I've even replaced the EGR valve, so keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading along.

Media Boycott Continues

And especially today. Although, given what the Russians did the last time the world tried to take a day off (as it no doubt will for the Anointing Of The One), it might be worth watching what happens outside of Washington, DC, today...

And Down The Stretch They Come!

I think that Heidi and I are finally feeling close to the end of the pregnancy, and we know Julianna is coming soon. We're both a bit more energetic than we have been. It's a good feeling to be in the homestretch of this. I can say with all sincerity that this will be it for us. I don't know if we could go through all of this again.

It was a good weekend for us. Heidi got all of Saturday off, to do her own things, while the boys and I headed up to Tulsa to see my parents. I had some work to do for Dad and of course Mom volunteered to watch the boys. (Who can fight a Grandma who wants to see her grandkids? Yeah, THAT ain't happenin'.) Heidi took the opportunity to get a pedicure and a haircut.

Yesterday we hung around the house, but we also went out and did some stuff. I got some stuck bolts loosened on the Mustang's exhaust pipes; I started the day with zero of six loose that needed to be loose, and ended the day with five of six. Not bad for a couple hours' work.

Today wasn't bad, either. After my gaffe this morning, we hung out at the house for a little while, then we went out and did a little shopping and we ate at Burger King. The boys and I got haircuts today. Then we came home, Heidi and Owen got some rest, Donovan played with his friends, and I just did whatever. Tonight I made my favorite cookies, chocolate with peanut butter chips. I'm not much of a baker (or a food preparer of any kind, for that matter...grilling excepted), so to get up some gumption and bake a full batch of cookies is quite an undertaking for me. The family loves the cookies as much as I do, though, so it's pretty nice to make that stuff for them.

Hope you all had a good weekend, too. Thanks for reading along.

A Day Off?

Sometimes I do things that make me feel really stupid! (I'm laughing as I say that, so it's not too bad.)

Anyway, I work for a bank now, and today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Somehow it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be working today. And no one mentioned to me that we weren't working today. Nor did I overhear any comments like, "See you on Monday! Oh, wait, I mean, see you on Tuesday!" You know the normal stuff you hear before a long weekend like this...I just didn't catch any of that. And of course, I didn't think about it, so I didn't ask.

So I got up today like I normally do, and I got dressed and helped get the boys ready, and I grabbed my things and got in the car and drove to work. When I got to work, I noticed that the parking lot was empty. Oooooops..."oh, we must not be working today." I called my coworker to make sure and he verified that, yes, I am an idiot, and yes, we are not working today.

Never have I felt so happy to have a day off while simultaneously feeling so dumb about not knowing. But hey, I'm off today!

SHUT UP ALREADY!

The One is coming. And I am already tired of it, because it just hasn't let up.

Maybe, just maybe, after this week we can finally get away from fawning and get on with life. You're all so needlessly excited. Even Peggy Noonan can't stop gushing. Seriously, everyone acts like we were never going to have a black President. You're all so astonished at and proud of this "achievement." What a lack of faith in humanity that shows, and yet somehow I am the cynical one. I also find it horribly ironic that so many who scream about Mr. Bush's "excesses" and "expansion of Presidential power" are just about ready to make Mr. Obama the American emperor.

It's time for all you little kids to wake up. Your pathetic fawning and misplaced hopes belie the REAL problem: America is dead. We are fat, complacent dorks with no willpower, no endurance, no common identity, no shared values. We are a thousand tiny islands pretending to live in harmony, but we can't even agree on right and wrong. Our political and justice systems are hopelessly deadlocked and take forever to actually get anything accomplished. We are so screwed up, we charge our children as adults but have millions of actual adults who refuse to grow up.

One hundred years ago, America's problems were solved by Americans. Wars, depressions, panics, bank runs, natural disasters, it didn't matter; we took care of it. We accomplished things. We grew our own food, we design and built our own machines, we produced our own goods, we worked our own land, and we built our own country. We did what had to be done. We did it from sheer will, from a belief that we were good and special, and from a vision to carve out our own place in the world. We took people in from every country who were willing to share our values, our drive, and our dream. Those people came here and became American like us.

Today the Chinese make all of our goods, the Japanese build our machines, the Indians (the Asian kind) fix our problems and write our software, and the Europeans give us our morals. We pay our own people not to grow food. Do you know who is buying up all this American debt that has come out of the financial crisis? The Chinese and the Arabs (Seriously, look it up if you don't believe me. Read about it in the Wall Street Journal or the Investor's Business Daily). We don't own our own country any more. If someone actually gets the gumption to try to accomplish something good, they usually get their pants sued off. Hell, we don't even require people who come here to be American any more, to share our values, our drive, and our dream. We just give them whatever they are happy to take from us. And all the while, our society dies because no one provides or produces anything for America any more. Does this sound like a vibrant, thriving society to you?

Stop expecting Mr. Obama to fix your life for you. Stop the childish hero-worship. He is not the new Messiah. He is not Superman. He is nothing more than a man. You and you alone are responsible for what you make of your life. You want to fix America? You want to resurrect it from the dead? Do it the way we used to do it, the American Way. Remember that phrase? Let's make it more than a punchline. And make sure YOU do it, not Mr. Obama. And while we're at it, screw the rest of the world, too. We do things our own way, and we always have. We (usually) come from honorable motives; we have always prided ourselves on that. So let's just do it our way and if the rest of the world wants to go along with us, so much the better. If not, fuck 'em...they can do their stuff their way and we can do our stuff our way. ("Oh, Chris, how short-sighted of you!" Right, because humanity naturally excels at taking the long view of every problem it faces.)

So let's shut up and get to it. Otherwise, let's just admit that America is dead and move on that way.

(I had seriously planned to never post about politics again. Frankly, after this past campaign season, I wasn't even interested in ever voting again, let alone talking politics or taking the incredible amount of time it takes to post about politics. I don't think anyone else really cares, or that this missive will do any good. I doubt anyone will even agree with what I've just written. I might even lose readers or friends because of this post. I don't really care. I just think it's time we all started acting like grown-ups again.)

Movie Futility

It doesn't seem to matter how many times they show Ocean's Eleven...I've never seen the beginning. I have, however, seen them actually pull the robbery about 30 times. I must be stuck in some sort of time loop with that movie; I always happen to come in at about the same part.

A Little Donovanism

Courtesy of Guitar Hero World Tour:

"Can we play 'Livin' on a Prairie'?"

OUTSTANDING!! Now I can hear it in my head:

"Whooooooaaa...we're halfway there-y...
Whoooo-OOOAA! LIVIN' ON A PRAIRIE!"

A Great Motivational Poster

Just received this...and it got immediately printed and went straight to the wall of my cube.



(Hat tip to good friend and longtime reader Dion. And please go here to find the source.)

Yet Another Pro-Death-Penalty Argument

So, for all of you holier-than-thous out there who believe in the ridiculous concept of "rehabilitation," why don't you try rehabilitating this guy personally? I give you about two minutes before you become his next victim. "Tell me about your feelings."

If he did it, killing four children definitely should authorize the state to revoke his license to live. If a dog attacks a human, we put it to sleep. "But it's his upbringing...it's not his fault." If a dog is raised to fight, trained to fight, and is thus unable to socialize with other dogs or humans or any kind of beings, we put it to sleep. When are we going to learn that many of these individuals are no better than dogs? No impulse control, acting and living only by their primal instincts, keeping only their own interests in mind, unable to see a different between itself and others of its own kind...what type of creature does that sound like to you?

Oh, and that's another thing...unfortunately, millions of cats and dogs are put to sleep every year, and there's not a peep about "pain and suffering" of the poor animal, or that what we're doing to them is somehow "cruel". Yet we can't find a way to put deserving "humans" to sleep without it being cruel and unusual? YOU. ARE. A. MORON.

Mid-Day Quick Hitter

It appears we got out just in time. If you need further proof of what Colorado has become and will continue to become, just read the following article and notice where he's moving to.

Go East, Young Man? Californians look for an exit

I especially like this quote:

For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure.

If he believes that moving to Colorado will solve those problems for him, I am sorry to say that he is only in for more disappointment.

Native Coloradans have been decrying this "Californication" process for years; I just found it apropos that Californians have destroyed California and now they are moving elsewhere, like locusts, to destroy everything else with their "culture". I still believe we'd all be happier if they just went ahead and had The Big One, then fell off into the sea.

(Chong, get out of there now! It's game over, man! GAME OVER!!)

Sigh...................

Why can't we just WIN one???

Now I KNOW How Bad It Is

Adult Entertainment Industry Wants A Bailout

Man, if porn can't make money, what hope is there for the rest of us??

I'm With Ya, Kid...

I feel the SAME way.





(Hat tip to good friend, long-time reader, and fellow Sooner fan Betsy for bringing this poor little guy to our attention.)

Musings and Favorites

You haven't lived until you've played "Livin' On A Prayer" on the new Guitar Hero: World Tour video game. I'm not even much of a Bon Jovi fan, but I tell you what, I really got a charge out of it.

OU is going to win tomorrow night. Florida will be overconfident, and OU will be angry with a lot to prove and a gigantic chip on their shoulder.

I really enjoy corned beef hash. I typically eat it from a can. It looks like dog food when it comes out. It is one of the most unhealthy things I could pick to eat, with each serving accounting for 390 calories, 37% of the RDA of total fat, 55% of saturated fat, 1g of trans fat, 27% of the RDA for cholesterol, and 42% of my RDA of sodium (VERY unhealthy for someone with high blood pressure). But it is SO good! So I only eat it once every couple of weeks at most.

Oh, and I also still enjoy Spaghettio's (with meatballs or sliced franks), Dinty Moore beef stew, Pop Tarts, and Hunt's chocolate pudding cups. Sure, I'll die young, but I'll die happy.

Hey, while we're on the subject of some of my favorite things, let's try a few more:

1. Google Apps -- if you're a family or a small business or just a group of people who need to work together and want to share information, e-mail, chat, calendars, documents, etc., Google Apps is for you. (FYI, mail/chat, calendars, and backend webpages for the Daily Okie all run on Google Apps.)

2. BancFirst -- Well, duh. This is, though, the best bank I've ever dealt with as a customer, too. (Apologies to non-Oklahoma people, though we do provide services to anyone who wants them.)

3. Weatherbonk -- Need to know current conditions near you? How about on a nice Google map complete with as-recent-as-20-minutes-ago updates? Oh, and a nice window with your choice of forecasts from three different providers?

4. Kubuntu -- Are you tired of Windows but don't want all the ridiculous sanctimony and incessant kow-towing to Steve Jobs provided by being an Apple head? Then Linux is for you! And the best version of Linux for a new user, IMHO, is Kubuntu. Relatively simple to install, pretty easy to use, and you will be able to do nearly everything you can do on a Windows computer (except play hardcore games...it's still a bit limited there without some extra tech time) or a Mac. The best part? The Kubuntu user community is very friendly and helpful and won't mock you if you ask "stupid" questions.

5. Ford Mustang -- Again, duh. True, it's not a Ferrari or Porsche or Bugatti or some sort of ultra-high-performance vehicle (though it can be, with the right mods). But if you want a cool vehicle that is very customizable, good-looking, fun to drive, and with a long, rich pedigree, the Mustang is for you. The only American performance car to be around continuously as long or longer? The Corvette...expensive and boring. (Remember, Challenger, Camaro, Firebird/Trans Am, Cougar, and Charger were all discontinued at some point during their lifetimes, even if they were revived later.) "Forty-five years in the fast lane." That says it all.

6. OpenOffice -- With everyone complaining about how expensive it is to get Microsoft Office, very few non-IT people know about this fully-functional alternative. And....get ready...it's COMPLETELY FREE!! There are a few high-end document-production features that it can't provide, but it provides 90-95% of the functionality and capabilities of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. So it's useful to about 99% of the home users of the world who just want something to type up a resume, write a novel, or do up a budget sheet. Oh, and it also will read and edit MS Office files with no problem, so you don't have to worry if someone sends you one. How can you beat that?

7. College Football News -- ESPN may be "The Worldwide Leader" but it is so laden with agendas now that I can't even stand to watch SportsCenter any more. But the guys over at CFN are top-notch college football analysts and actually put out great stuff. During football season, I am over there quite a bit. If you love college football as much as I do, you should check it out.

8. xkcd -- You all know I already enjoy Rockwood very much, and it's definitely a fave, but xkcd is right up there at the top of my list. With quirky humor, deeply profound insights, inside jokes from the science, math, and computer worlds, and just some all-around funny stuff, it's a geek's dream. Sometimes the humor is even over my head, but it is almost always enjoyable. Published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, just like Rockwood.

9. Southwest Airlines -- These guys have been doing air travel the right way for over two decades. They are inexpensive, about as cheap a fare as you will find anywhere. They are friendly; after many flights I have never had an unpleasant moment while flying with them. Finally, they are hitch-free; I have never experienced a maintenance, ticketing, or luggage problem with them, even though I have flown with them about 2-3 times more often than any of the other airlines.

10. Chris Isaak -- This guy just does great music. He's gotta be my all-time favorite. And he is just as great live and in person as he is on his albums. My wonderful wife got me tickets to go see him for my birthday a couple of years back and it was the best concert I have ever attended. I would go again in a heartbeat.

Ten is enough of a list for now. I'll throw more in as time goes along.

In case you couldn't tell from my opening, we got the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game for our kids' Xbox 360. It's a ton of fun. But it also got Heidi and I talking about possible band names. A few that I think would be awesome, with the genre appropriate to the title:

Alterna-rock: Parts of the Penis

Rock/hard rock: Courtesy Flush

Bluegrass: Redclay Bluegrass OR Jack Fork String Band

Country: Truck-Fixin' Daddies

Electronica: Slave of Steel OR Trip The Light Fantastic

Generic, but for MY band: Government+Binding (remember, I'm a linguistics major, so look at this link for an explanation)

I think that's enough for today. Thanks for reading along today.

A Perfect Connorism

To set the scene:

I'm being chased around by Owen, because he wants something to eat...but we just can't figure out what. My mom is in the house with us and is observing this. The older boys are somewhere else in the house.

Me: "What is it, Owen? What do you want?"

From somewhere far away, we hear Connor's voice:
"He wants you to give me two dollars!!"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! THAT'S MY BOY!

I Haven't Posted In Two Weeks

So sue me.

This has been a crazy holiday season, the craziest I can remember in a long time. It's had some incredible highs and some difficult lows. But overall, it's been the best Christmas season I have had in years. I'm back home for the holidays, REALLY home, for the first time in a long time. I actually spent Christmas Eve at my parents, with just them and my sister and me. I don't think that's happened since before I was married the first time. I also got to reconnect with some very old friends, the parents of one of my childhood best friends. It's actually kind of funny because I hadn't seen them in ages but now I've seen everyone in their family except for their son, who was my best friend in elementary school. (I know where he lives now and how to get a hold of him, so I hope to see him soon.)

Getting to actually be home for Christmas was the best part, even though Heidi and Donovan and Owen were up in Colorado for Christmas week. I couldn't make the trip with them because I was short on vacation time, only being in the job a few months, of course. Next year we'll get to be together on Christmas. Even though I was by myself, I wasn't lonely; I did lots of stuff with my parents and got to still thoroughly enjoy my Christmas holiday.

There are a lot of "this hasn't happened in a long time" things going on...in fact, I would say that since I got back to Oklahoma, "not in a really long time" has pretty much been the story of my life. I've been sick the past two days, sick in a way I haven't been sick in a long time. I take multivitamins and generally avoid serious illness (except for the digestive kind, which is usually of my own doing). However, the past two days I have had terrible sinus problems and my head feels like it's about to explode. I've been sore and achy and really sick. Of course, my kids are in town and I'm on vacation...go figure.

On a related note, nothing tells you you're getting older like taking a bunch of pills. I normally take five in a day (and ideally it would be six), but I threw in two more today to help get rid of this cold or whatever it is. So in addition to my usual low-strength aspirin, multivitamin, two St. John's Wort caps, and Prilosec OTC, I took a couple of Coricidin HBP (yes, don't forget that whole blood pressure thing from early 2008). And we'll have fun, fun, fun, until Daddy takes the T-Bird away.

Owen turned 21 months yesterday, and he is a firecracker. He is a VERY physical little boy, enjoys hitting things and banging on things (future linebacker, I'm sure). He is also working harder at using his words. He says "mama" and "dada" just about any time we like. He also says "please" and occasionally "night-night". But more importantly, he responds more when we ask him to say things, like he's really trying. The consistency of his attempts is a more recent development and a very big step in his language acquisition. I'm thrilled to see it.

As I said, Katie and Connor are in town this week and it's actually gone very well this time. Their time here has had a few challenges (there are always challenges in blended families) but those few have been relatively minor and we've managed to overcome them all. Chong was also in town this week and stayed a couple of nights with us, so this week we've had a full house (also something that hasn't happened in a long time). It's kind of nice to have folks visiting and spending time here with us in the new place. We finally have a home that is not only worthy of such visits but also large enough to accommodate everyone in relative comfort. The house in Westminster was nice, but not nearly as big, and that made guest situations difficult to handle.

I think that's enough of an update for now, and life will be getting back to normal soon. That means more posts, more regularly, like I was providing before. In any case, Happy New Year!