what to do...

What a beautiful fall day! I don't know how to spend it....

Yesterday Xander and I waxed my truck all day. We each had to take breaks for meals. Now the 'Silver Hammer' (as I have named him) looks really spiffy.

How did I come up with that name? Well, Amanda named her car Maxxwell, so the first thing that came to mind for a name for my new rig was Silver Hammer. You know, from the Beatles song, Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

Maybe we'll watch some football and try and fix a ceiling fan.

back to work

So the newborn-vacation-time-off-of-work fun is over because I'm headed back to work tomorrow. Of course, this having a newborn is easier for me because I don't have to get up two or three times in the night to feed him. As it is, fatherhood is pretty good for now. Not any real ups and downs. It will be nice when one of these days when he can pay attention to me or look at me. And diapers aren't as complicated as I thought they were. Oh, and newborn flatulence is a hoot! Just out of the blue Xander makes the room shake.

The in-laws were here today and A's dad helped me take care of some rust on my new truck on the underside of the passenger door. Taped it off, sanded, primed and painted it. It's nice to have a supervisor. AND, even better news, he helped me get the garage squared away so that I can fit my truck in there now. There's about 6" at both the front and rear bumpers. We also hooked up a bobber that hangs from the ceiling so I know when to stop. It's fantastic. I realize though in a few years when tricycles and other things need room in the garage I'll be bumped, but it's nice for now and I'm going to savor it!

very sad, sad news

With all this happy news about bringing Xander home and what fun he is, it is with a heavy heart that I post that Robert Jordan has passed. RJ is the author of the Wheel of Time book series that Amanda got me reading. It's an awesome book series, just awesome.

The rest of this post will only make sense to Hugs, Julie, Rob and Mom.

Hugs came up and told me the news this morning and the first words out of my mouth were "May the last embrace of the mother welcome him home." I hope I got that right.

You know, there is so much I love about that book series. When I'm jogging and I really want to motivate myself at the end I chant to myself "wash the spears". I looked through the book once and looked on wotmania for more of the song and I wrote it all out, but I forgot it. I should do that again.

And, as I mentioned before, I really like the fight scene with Mat, Gawyn and Galad. I think of that when I'm trying to psych myself during a workout.

It would be really cool if at some point Rand and Galad realize they are half brothers and hug. Or at least don't try and kill each other.

I can't believe how lucky we got to meet his cousin at a wedding this summer. I sent that email and then his cousin sent me a print out of it with his signature on it. I really cherish that note now.

So those are just my random wot thoughts. I can't wait to find out what Harriet and his cousin know.

Golden Boy's Eulogy

Look at this stud!


I met my dear Golden Boy back in Toledo during my last semester around October 2002. He was everything I wanted in a truck, a Ford, 5 speed manual transmission, V6, extended cab and low miles. I still remember that first test drive and was so impressed with the power and speed (I was moving up from a Festiva...so I was easily impressed). Within the first two months of having Golden Boy he'd already proved his worth because I used him to move myself and Sergey. He came through and proved his usefulness time after time moving myself, Amanda, Sergey, Amanda and I (once we were married) and Trisha (sister in law) again and again. He even helped out at our church in Cincinnati and merrily moved mulch.

Golden Boy never left me stranded and was the test bench in teaching me how to install drum brakes, change spark plugs, change oil, change calipers, change fuel filters, rotors and flush and fill the coolant.

Not only that, but Golden Boy was great on vacations. He made camping trips fun and easy. Here is Amanda demonstrating how easy he makes packing supplies in his bed. Honestly, that was the point of this picture because this was our first camping trip with Golden Boy, it was great!


Here is one picture on our last camping trip as we are passing through Kentucky to Tennessee. On this trip we drove to the top of the Smokey Mountains with him.


So tomorrow when I go to the salvage yard to take off the license plate and remove the last of my personal affects that you are holding, it will be with a very heavy heart. Goodbye, Golden Boy, you will be missed.

Golden Boy is....

Golden Boy is dead. He is a total loss. I talked with the insurance adjuster yesterday and the estimate to fix him up was 6700 and they valued him at around 7200. The 500 dollar difference between actual market value and estimated cost of replacement isn't enough to warrant repair, so according to the insurance company, he is a total loss.

That is a definite bummer.

I could get a salvage title for it and take the check and have it fixed myself, but if I read the estimate correct there is frame damage. That doesn't improve my situation. Plus, if I got a salvage title for it, that would always detract from his re-saleability

So what do I do? Now surely isn't the time to be shopping around for a new car, not with Peanut about to hatch any day now. I'd rather spend my time elsewhere. I spent some time searching at autotrader.com for a vehicle friday afternoon and found some that I thought were worth a test drive.

As it ended up, I took one for a test drive last night after work and drove a couple more today and ended up buying a new (to me) truck. So much for a widow in mourning, huh?

It feels like such a rash decision, but I think we ended up with a good deal. I think this actually is a blessing in disguise, because with the amount of money the insurance company is offering for Golden Boy, we were able to buy something a bit bigger with room for Peanut. That is a big plus.

I won't write anymore about the new one until I post Golden Boy's eulogy.

so I go to flower shop...

So I miss a day of work because of the wreck and end up spending the morning on the phone. As it turns out, the trooper who wrote up the accident gave me a pamphlet with information on it about the cited driver and his insurance. I wasn't paying close enough attention to the name of the insurance company because my mind just wasn't too sharp at the time.

So yesterday I settled down to try and get ahold of the other guy's insurance. However, after a few minutes I realized that there is no such insurance company called "Great White Nations". I tried Googling different combinations of that name thinking it might be just a little off, but it wasn't. So that's a good thing that no Aryans or Crackers sell insurance in southern Missouri.

Sergey came through and saved the day for me because one of the pictures that I took with his camera had the company logo on it. So after a call to the company I was able to contact their insurance company, tell them my information, hopefully get my truck fixed sooner and get a rental car.

Speaking of rental cars, did you know that they actually run out of cars? There are 3 stores within 15 miles of our home and they were all out of cars. Do you think Dominos ever runs out of pizzas? Mushrooms, maybe, black olives, maybe, but not entire pizzas! Good grief Charlie Brown.

So then this accident has a few people giving me advice on what to do. Go to a chiropractor, don't go to a chiropractor. It's very annoying. I had a lady giving me the same lecture a second time on what to do and it was beyond annoying. I thought I politely asked her to shut it and thanked her for her advice, but it only caused her hair stand up and then she hissed at me.

Listen, there's only 1 woman on this earth that tells me what to do, sorry sweet-ums, but it ain't you. Thanks for your unwanted advice.

So then I thought I'd pick up flowers on the way home for the wife. I bought this deal that for 45 bucks I get a bouquet of flowers once a month. That's a good deal. So after work I went to pick up September's bouquet and the shop is gone. Empty. So my new complaint is that I have to drive to a congested part of town to get flowers for my baby momma. That's not going to happen during the evening rush hour.

So then I pull of the flower shop lot and am on the way home and I turn on the radio (Enterprise finally found a car for me) and I hear an old Nirvana song playing. I found it really ironic because the chorus went:
"Hey, wait
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice"

Now isn't that something?

death of Golden Boy?

Unfortunately, now I'll never have learned in a classroom setting how to care for Peanut for the first 3 months. I missed the first class last week because I was in California and today I missed the second class because I was turned into a sandwich on the highway.

I was merging on the freeway after work and the traffic in front of me came to an abrupt halt, I came to an abrupt halt, but the semi behind me didn't. The semi hit me, then I hit the guy in front of me, making a sandwich out of Golden Boy (my truck). The airbags deployed, which was nice, but stinky and smoky.

Golden Boy has seen better days. I'm nervous as to what the insurance guy will say, especially since the airbags were deployed, about what to do with my truck. I love my truck and wouldn't trade it in for a brand new one even if it was free.

I do feel bad for the semi truck driver that hit me because he was 2 weeks away from reaching his 150,000 mile safety bonus award. That's too bad, I hate to see someone miss their bonus.

I had the truck towed and Sergey showed up and took some pictures for me then dropped me off at the hospital so I could check in with the wife in baby class and get checked out in the ER. I'm just back from the hospital and everything is good, only soreness.

Please pray for Golden Boy to have a safe return to me!

silicon valley and adulthood

I spent monday through thursday of last week at a customer site in California for the delivery of 2 of our systems. While I was there I noticed some interesting things about California. First, there are too darn many people there. However, being that there are so many people out there, it is unbelievably diverse. It's great to walk down the street and not be surrounded by only whites and just see different people.

Second, forest fires are real man, Smokey isn't lying. Of course they are real, but in Ohio you hear about them on the news and they are always in some far off place burning x number of acres and y number of homes are in danger and the information just passes in 1 ear and out the other (for me anyway). Well, when we landed at SJC there was a forest fire just down the road about 10 miles. It seemed huge to me and we went up the road a couple of exits (away from the fire) to our hotel and I could see it from my window (along with Yahoo! and McAfee buildings--right there!). There was just this huge column of smoke that went up into the air. My first forest fire. Unbelievable.

Third, Silicon Valley. Here I am in the hotel lobby getting my breakfast in my doc martens that severely need shining, faded out Levi's, a button up shirt from Kohl's and my jheri curl still wet from the shower flopping whichever way it wants to flop surrounded by all these Silicon Valley hot shots with their shiny shoes, dockers, crisply ironed shirts, business suits and ties. I pointed this out to my co-worker and he said 'hey, we're silicon valley hot shots too!'. Who knows. It is what it is.

Sorry for the lack of an appropriate segue here, but one downside to having an adult vehicle that young adults in their late teens and early 20's don't have is that there is a lack of helpful information to be found on the internet on that vehicle. We've got a little brake light issue and I thought I would try and find a forum for our car, post my problem and some gear head who could type would tell me all I needed to know. That's what I do for my truck and what I used to do for Amanda's old car. So I find a forum that seems decent, register and post my question friday night. Well, in 24 hours there has been no reply. There hasn't even been another post since then and the most recent post before me was on wednesday! Good grief Charlie Brown.

furniture update

Here is an update on the furniture.

I finally finished the crib. Amanda's dad made some brackets for me to hold the spring base in place because the brackets that came with it didn't match. I think it turned out pretty good and everyone else thinks it's great, so I think I did okay. I should have replaced the screws too, so that they were all nice and shiney and all match, but I forgot. Maybe I'll remember next time I go to home depot to pick some up. Notice the I Love Peanut bumper sticker.


And here we have the current status of Peanut's dresser. It's completely sanded down and ready to be stained. I did make a home depot run and bought new handles and a trim piece for it because I didn't want to sand either of them down. The trim piece had too much detail for even Bob Vila to sand down, so I wasn't going to mess with it. The handles I would have had to sand by hand and they had a nice curve to them that I didn't want to attempt to wrangle.

The replaced trim piece is in my left hand. The replacement trim piece is attached and just under the tabletop. And I am covered in wood dust. Covered.



This dresser was built for me when I was a kid, and in the process of refinishing it for Peanut I've noticed the knots in the wood and the pattern it makes. It used to be more noticeable when I was a kid, but time faded it out. Now you can really see the knots especially in the top drawer. I think that's pretty darn cool.

Oh yea, we had our house warming party yesterday. I made a social faux pas and called it a house warming party, which implies you want people to bring you gifts. I didn't intend it to be that way, I just didn't know what house warming really meant and titled the email invitations as such. Anyway, thanks a whole lot to those of you who brought us gifts and thanks to everyone that came over and enjoyed themselves. We had lots of fun. And to those of you who cut out before dark you missed the smores!