Some new Pics

[click HERE for full gallery]

GROSS!

All it took was one measly hair. Oatmeal this morning....sat down to eat it...first scoop...HAIR!!!!! It luckily did not make it to the mouth. 'twas not mine, I have none....not my wife's...it was not a dark hair. But that's all it took for me to waste an entire bowl of oat meal. I was disgusted and grossed out.
What is it about one foreign hair that turns us off and initiates the gag response? Is it because we don't know where it comes from? Who it was a part of? how long it was in there? Was it in the bowl? the packet of outmeal? Is it one of your own? Or is it because WE know what it's like to have a foreign hair in our mouths, trying to remove it with our fingers...unable to get a good grasp on it, due to the saliva and other food that is floating around our mouths?

I would much rather have a dead bug in my food. I might even have continued eating, after removing said object. GROSS!

She beat me to it

ok, so she beat me to it....the complimenting that is.
I could not be married to a better woman! It just amazes me from day to day the stuff she does.
She is an awesome mother to the boys and still has time to do laundry and cook dinner :-) Simply amazing, and most of the time she does it with a smile....yes most of the time :-) Something as simple as, my coffee mug ALWAYS being cleaned and in the cabinet ready to be used. The dishwasher being emptied when it is finished....I could go on, but I will refrain, so those that are reading do not get the gag reflex and possibly hurl.
In all seriousness, yesterday we were telling each other how awesome each other was in our duties around the house and with the boys...so we figured we would share with anyone who reads this, the awesomeness we truly are :-)

tongue - in - cheek....but seriously!

ok, now I'm done.

for those of you that didn't know already....

my husband is a pretty awesome guy! he's just fan-frickin-tastic. awesome.

ok - i'm done.

"One Small Step for Man..."

instead of commenting on it...i will just share the link :-)

July 20, 1969

Sergeant Joe

Today is Friday.....All DAY, do you believe it??? what a boring post...ok back to work.

one more thing....even though I didn't grow up in the era...what happened to good shows, like Dragnet, M*A*S*H, CAR 54, The Jack Benny Program, Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, The Odd Couple...or pretty much EVERYTHING that's on the TVLAND channel. I mean, c'mon, are our kids, or our kid's kids...going to one day say..."oh man, where are those classic shows like...America's Got Talent, Big Brother, Survivor, According to Jim, Reba, King of Queens, Yes Dear, or American Idol??" Are they going to say this??? I HIGHLY DOUBT IT!!! I can almost guarantee it! Or is television like music...I am sure for every Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw, there were TONS of other band leaders we never heard of, or for every Beatles or Stones, there were countless amount of mediocre sound alike groups that no one cares to recall. So maybe shows like The Cosby Show, Cheers, Seinfeld, and possibly Friends, will be the MASH's and Odd Couple's of the future...again....I am sad to say....i doubt it.

Or will media and entertainment be so advanced 20yrs from now that viewing a TV show two dimensionally and not actually participating in the show will be laughable and archaic? And this will all be irrelevant?

Wow this post got away from me. I am sure I can go on and on and on about how sad I think TV programming is these days...But I will not....such a strong avenue to influence people....and all we have on it is seeing if people can dance.

ho humm....

*for those wondering, the picture was added after ranting... I originally didn't set out to spew hatred towards current television programming.
good day

calmed by commotion

This has got to be one of my favorite photos that I took while visiting New Jersey this past June. I don't know what it is about this picture that just grabs me. Maybe part of the fact that it wasn't a planned picture. I snapped it in the midsts of the hectic commotion trying to get everyone setup for the big family picture. My nephew Dylan seems impervious to the loud talking and babies crying around him, with us all trying to get ready for the picture. The look on his face is in a way, touching and calming. I did however do a bit of editing to the photo. The original was color, I added a dark vignetting effect and I blurred out the surroundings and sharpened Dylan in the middle to help convey the isolation he has from the commotion around him. And the fact that he is looking right at the camera creates even more of the tunnel aspect of the photo.

Monochrome

A new Black & White gallery is up for those interested.
I will be continuously adding to this gallery as I take and edit pics.

Black & White

Appetite of Destruction

Tracy, my lovely hungry wife....had nine and a half of these bad boys in less than 24 hours. Wow, breast feeding really gets that appetite going!!

"the green book"

A couple of months ago I was watching an Oprah Winfrey show...there was a whole week of shows dedicated to helping the environment, what you can do to help save the environment, and one show in particular had the authors of "the green book." At the time the book wasn't released yet and just a few weeks ago I went out and purchased one figuring let me see how I can start living green. Much to my surprise Kevin and I were already living green! We were already buying organic and eating soy based products, using CFL's, had our thermostat set higher, we don't run the water while brushing our teeth, recycling, and the list goes on. There are so many eye openers in this book...easy things that we can be doing too....using cloth napkins (I have loads of them!), asking for paper rather than plastic at the grocery store (besides when you re-use them you get a 10 cent credit on your next bill), shortening our showers (I'm working on this one), keeping the microwave cleaner, and unplugging appliances and/or cell phone chargers when they're not in use.

I know you're all reading this thinking how crazy it all sounds and some of you have even told me to be "realistic" and that I was "naive" to think that by just me living green would make a difference. Well, you know what, call me naive, call me crazy, ... I look at it as being optimistic...every little bit helps. In 20 years my kids will thank me and in another 20 years my grandkids will thank me. So please no pessimistic remarks...that's not how I live my life.

Living green really does make my heart smile.

Ibuprofen

You would think, that going to the gym three days a week, doing cardio and working out, would some how prepare my body for a half day of manual labor. This morning, after doing the landscaping work out front yesterday, it feels like a truck hit me. I am 32 years old, soon to be 33...this should not be happening....yet.
I suppose my 6 years at BFGoodrich Aerospace took some sort of toll on my back. Ho-humm...I think i might need some Ibuprofen today with my coffee.

Landscaping Progress

This weekend I have added a bit more to the landscape project that I started to do last week. I originally was just going to purchase more retaining wall bricks to raise the height of the wall and to extend it back a few feet along the side of the house. However, when I was at the Depot, I started getting ideas on what flowers, trees, & shrubs would work well in this new area. After returning home with the supplement of bricks, I fastened the wall how I liked it and asked tracy if she would like to accompany me back to the store to pick up some flowers and plants. I did not want to keep procrastinating with each step of this project (something I do very often).
Tracy the boys and I returned to home depot. (in two cars). One for her and the boys, one for me and the flowers/plants we would soon purchase. We didn't spend too much time searching as I had a good idea of what I wanted from my previous trip this morning. Tracy had a few great ideas for different kinds of plants that I had not even considered....good thing I brought them along! :-)
We returned home and I went to work, clearing the area...since I knew I wanted to extend the small rock-bed along the front of this area, I figured, what the heck, let me take a drive to the local rock quarry (place I purchased other rocks from) see if they are open on sunday and pick up a few bags of rocks. Since I knew exactly the kind I needed, (1-2" mixed mexican river bed rocks) I knew it would be a quick trip if they were in fact open.
They were open, i purchased the rocks and returned home....once again. I cleared the area for the rocks, removed most of the mulch, and started planting our new palm plants, birds of paradise, lantanas and something that I think are called grass plants. That was all for this time. I was short one bag of rocks and a few border pieces. I'll handle that in the next step. The next phase will be adding plants & flowers to the area behind retaining wall. We're thinking bougainvillea, maybe jasmine, and some creeping/hanging plants for the ledge under the window. Check out pics to see the progress so far.

previous post about project is here

Jumpy Swing Things

Reciprocationg Love

This post is pretty much a simple, boring one, just to share some pics. The pics were taken over the weekend where we basically did nothing... The pics below are from Sunday, of us hanging out in the morning and on the patio in the afternoon. The high chairs we have are extremely convenient. they can attach securely to any chair. making it easy to prop the boys up anywhere.

Click HERE to View Full Gallery

Oh I forgot about me FINALLY starting the landscaping work in our front yard. It's nothing that big...just something to pretty up the area to the left (to the right, if you're looking at our house) of our front door. We had crappy ol' 70's style hedges right there at the top of the drive way, and a brick retaining wall for what was once a flower bed under the front bathroom window. The hedges needed to come out and so did the bricks...for my master plan that i am envisioning in my head.
The last time I removed these same kind of hedges, along our driveway in order to put the rock bed and landscape lights in, I cut them all down by hand and cut the roots out with a small axe. This time..with the weight of lacking interest in manual labor weighing over me, i decided to go rent a Sawz-All at The Home Depot(i think that's what they are called). Much to my shagrin they were not renting those out. So i went down the tool isle and lo -n- behold for $50 i can own my own Ryobi saws-all thig-a-ma-jig! (Reciprocating Saw I find they are called) So I picked one up.
WHERE WAS ONE OF THESE DARN THINGS WHEN I TOOK THOSE OTHER HEDGES OUT TWO YEARS AGO!!!????
Man this thing "cut down" labor time by 75%. I was loving it. However I still needed to rip the roots out. This time I chose to use a spade shovel and wedge & yank 'em out. Worked like a charm! After the hedges were out, and I cleaned up the mess...I moved on to the bricks. Not as easy getting these puppies out. As below the surface of the dirt, there was another layer of bricks which was firmly embedded in a nice foundation of concrete. So, i tried just wedging the shovel under one end of the 'wall' and counter levering it to pry it out. Just like that, the whole thing unearthed and came out in one large 8ft long x 2ft high piece. Pretty damn good concrete foundation huh? Anyway...now that the wall was out I had to break all the bricks out of their place for ease of disposal. Sadly during this whole ordeal...the boys were inside with mommy and they were not letting her have the calmest saturday afternoon. I felt horrible as I could not go in to help calm either of them. I was covered in sweat and lots of dirt. After a few times checking in on things, I started laying in the 24 retaining wall cement blocks I purchased while at The Home Depot. After doing so I realized I needed much more dirt to elevate the flower bed to the top of this new small wall. My question is...where do i get dirt???? Does the Depot sell it, do i find someone getting rid of dirt....puzzling

Ok that's it... for now...the project is not finished yet. The next step will be to pick out what flowers, trees, and/or shrubs we plan on including in this landscape.

Gears of War CD July 31st

For any who are interested, the music I wrote for the XBOX 360 game, Gears of War, is finally getting a soundtrack cd release.
You may find a bit more info here on the release: IGN

And if you are interested in pre-ordering, you may do that here : AMAZON.com

Boredom = Whines

It seems as though our boys whine and are cranky only when they are completely bored out of their minds.
This isn't the biggest revelation in the world but we seemed to have come to this conclusion during our july 4th festivities. For the 4th, my friend Adam (adam and I became friends when I worked with him on the ABC series 6 Degrees this past fall) and his wife Jeannie invited us to their house for a day of food, drinks and many many many little kids :-). If we did not have kids...I would certainly have felt out of place and uncomfortable. We arrived mid afternoon and the party was already under way...the food was great, drinks were good, and their friends and family were inviting and great to hang out and talk with. The boys seemed to have a great time meeting a bunch of new people...they were on their best behavior...no crying, whining or fussing.
However, if we were home, hanging out by ourselves I have a feeling there would have been a touch more vocal notification from them, wanting attention. For most of the time, we had them in their baby bjorns facing out to everyone...this was able to free our hands for beverages and food, and at the same time...include them in all of our conversations :-)

So it seems to us, they really enjoy socializing, and were very attentive to all things happening around them. no crankiness at all. It made the day very comfortable and relaxing. Our goal i suppose now is to go out to parties as often as possible? This way the boys will always be on their best behavior and will come home and crash! IDEAL RIGHT?