NYE

So, what does a new father do on New Years Eve? Nothing, he stays home and enjoys his family. And that's just what I'm going to do.

Old is new again

Last night, I picked up an old Ariens ST504 snow blower. I hope it runs well. Let's see what it can do for me with the 7" of snow that is predicted today...

Back to the grind...for good

So my time working from home all week is over with. It's back to the grind. --No more exceptions, no more time to get used to being a parent. Get used to it.-- At least I have this unusual time of year (from a few days before Christmas until a few days after New Years) where the office is at a reduced capacity and tensions are eased. That's a bonus I guess.

X-Mas Eve dilemma

What to do, what to do? Each year, my wife and I are torn. Both sides of our family celebrate more on the Eve as opposed to Day. That ushers in all sorts of decisions:
-How do we break up Christmas Eve?
-How does Christmas Day factor in?
-Should we rotate each year?
-What about when we have children?

Growing up, our two families have taken similar paths; Christmas Eve is when the entire extended family gathers for many hours and then on Christmas Day each individual family does its own thing at home or whatever. Each Christmas in the past, we have basically split the day in half. We go to her side from 12-5pm and then to my side of the family from 6-10pm. I feel this works, she does not.

She feels like she has to constantly look at her watch and is on a schedule. Now that we are parents, it's even more difficult to pull this off. Amanda will be only two weeks old on Christmas Eve Eve. Our pediatrician told us to avoid contact with "large groups" for the first five weeks of her life. She is susceptible to catching illness. That begs the question, "What is a large group?"

Katie's side of the family has seven children ranging in ages from 7 to 17. In the past, she's been bitten several times at this very event. We were deathly ill on December 26, 2004 when the tsunami hit Southeast Asia. What great birthday memories I have...

I have a feeling that we are simply going to stay home on Christmas Eve and phone in our greetings. It's particularly tough on me as I would love to show off our newborn. It's quite rare that you have a child just before a major family gathering and have the opportunity to share with everyone at the same time what a joyous and special present you've received this year.

Comcast, part 7

Why part seven, you ask? I was too frustrated to write about the five visits between the first and the last and wanted to wait till I had resolution to comment with hind-sight... Anyhow, I finally have two single-stream CableCards(tm) working in my HD TiVo. Let's recap the visits:

1 (Wednesday) - CC's brought, but none worked. Rescheduled for Thursday.
2 (Thursday) - No CC's brought because the dispatcher did not include it on the list even though I clearly said my CC's are not working. Luis must have felt compelled to do something, so he checked my signal strength and removed splitters he deemed "bad". Rescheduled for Friday.
3 (Friday) - Reg was helpful, he got one multistream card to work, but it would only tune my local channels; very odd. Rescheduled for Saturday; told dispatcher to have tech bring 10 CC's to try to get this to work.
4 (Saturday) - Luis arrived for the second time with CC's and got one to work, but the second one did not work. So, I can tune one HD cable channel at this time. Not bad, but want two... Rescheduled for Monday.
5 (Monday) - Tech 5048 arrived with CC's but none of them worked. He did notice that I was not getting all my channels - Encore to be specific. He fixed that for me. Bonus. Rescheduled for Tuesday.
6 (Tuesday) - Mike arrived (best-spoken tech so far, I must have been escalated), but did not have CC's with him. I did not let him in the house. He explained that the warehouse was exhausted of them and they were burning them today so they would be available tomorrow. He asked if I wanted a digital cable box in case I was not getting any feeds at all. I told him that it would be a parallel move since I can tune one digital channel at the moment. I simply want to be able to tune two. I rescheduled for Wednesday, my first day back at work.
7 (Wednesday) - Tech 5048 again, he also wanted to check my signal strength before even attempting to insert a CC; he didn't like the look of a splitter in my basement. Man, these guys push to accomplish SOMETHING when there is no work to be done. They must be told to "tidy up" in the event that they cannot actually complete the work they were dispatched to do. He also had an apprentice with him; a young fella that spoke only when spoken to and was basically there to be a statue. Maybe I was frightening and he brought muscle with him for defense. I don't know. All this signal-checking made me nervous as I arrived home from work; it is usually an indicator they are not able to accomplish what I want them to do. In the end, the second card was activated and all was right with the world.

Could you imagine the amount of lost time and money I would have incurred if I were not working from home on as a new father? Let's just say it would be huge.

Back to work

On the train, headed into the office after working from home for 7 business days. Its the longest I've been away in over two years...

A Grandmothert's touch

My mom stopped over for dinner tonight and Amanda was a mess - crying bloody murder. All the usual tricks failed to sooth her. Moms wrapped her up and all was right in the world. She slept over 3 hours! That's huge...

Comcast, part 1

I had this bright idea; upgrade to an HDTV, get a new HD TiVo and then upgrade cable to get high definition... Which one of the three previous statements was difficult to do? You go it - Comcast.

HD TiVo uses CableCARDs(tm) which is a technology that's been around for years now, but seldom adopted. Comcast techs know very little about them and (after reading up on message boards) they don't work very well. Sometimes they work for a day, then poop out. Or, like my experience, they don't work at all out of the box.

I had an appointment for a visit yesterday. The tech came, inserted the card, the TiVo recognized it as a MultiStream CableCARD(tm) and began to download "something". It was taking a long time to download whatever these segments were so I told the technician that if I had any issues, I would call. He gave me his cell phone number and off he went.

The card did not successfully authorize, initialize or whatever. I called the tech, but it was 3pm by this point and he was probably out drinking some fine Russian vodka and smoking cigarettes by then. Either way, he didn't answer. So, I scheduled an appointment for today noting that my CableCARDs(tm) were not working. I called Comcast to see if they could "hit" or restart my card, but they see the card as looking good on their end of the world so they cannot help much. I remember having cable modem issues in the past and tech support could go in and touch the cable modem easily. I guess CableCARDs(tm) are not that savvy.

The tech today came thinking I had a signal issue; he was not told to bring cards with him and so I have yet another visit for 10am tomorrow. Good thing I'm home with a newborn or this would get frustrating in a hurry. I called Comcast support several times trying to find a way that I could drive to a store to exchange the card on my own. No such luck. Since I live outside of Chicago, there are no brick and mortars where that can be done. It must be a tech visit. So, I'll cross my fingers and continue to watch crappy analog cable on my 52" HD set.

Second night...improvement

Our second night at home as parents improved. Of course, as the father, I have a distinct point of view here - I don't have the ability to breast-feed my child. As we are on a strict regiment of no-bottle; even if I wanted to help out, I couldn't. I am left to tend to household matters of laundry, dishes, vacuuming, cats, etc. All the great tidying up that must go on. I run errands, try to keep up with the office and support in any way I can. I'm amazingly alert for having much-interrupted sleep for nearly a week. My last good night of sleep from last Friday, but I digress.

Lawn

If the stork brings the baby, who brings the stork? Well, in my case it's my best friend Brian. What great people I have surrounding me...

Rough first night

What a wakeup call being home is. Mail, garbage, laundry, housecleaning, dishes.... Geeze, can't we just focus on our daughter? Not likely.
While I cannot say we really slept our first night, we did get some rest. Rest in the sense of being able to relax.

Travel

On our way home. Weather is less than ideal... It's sloppy, raining, dark and cold.

Departure

We just got word that both mom and baby are cleared for discharge from the hospital. All things are looking good. I'm not sure that we are ready to go home, yet. We've had such a support team for the past 48 hours here in the hospital. We'll be on our own, soon...

Arrival

5:40am
6 pounds 15 ounces
21 inches long
Amanda Marie

Great progress

9cm at 3am...

ER

Arrived at ER. She's already at 6cm...

Contractions

She's starting to have contractions 30 seconds long, 10 minutes apart... Looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel for our child.

HD is mine

52" of glory...

Root canal

I have a root canal tomorrow morning bright and early at 8:00am. Fun times. The sad part is that since I've been taking antibiotics (to bring down the infection in the roots), there is no more pain - temperature sensitivity, pressure, nothing. Unexpected. The roots must be dead.

HD update

I've received clearance from the tower to purchase an HDTV. Luckily, Best Buy is offering a no-interest purchase option - you don't have to pay until January of 2011. Very nice. I'm looking at a Sony; been a Sony guy most of my days and their Bravia XBR lineup gets the best reviews:
http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/sony-kdl-46xbr4/4505-6482_7-32468193.html?tag=pdtl-list

I'm looking at their model# KDL-52XBR4
Sony - BRAVIA XBR 52" 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

If it's good enough for Payton Manning, it's good enough for me.

HDTV

Is in my sights...

Happy Thanksgiving

We just got home from Thanksgiving at my mother's house. It was nice. We left at about 7pm realizing that we had two MORE days of family time coming up. We have my neice's 2nd birthday party on Saturday at my sister's house and then a family gathering on Sunday to see a cousin who is in from San Diego. Whoa; lots of visiting this weekend. I cannot possibly go out on Black Friday; no good reason to do so anyhow.

Dan in Real Life

Saw "Dan in Real Life" last night. Great flick, I recommend you see it. It has the hottest-looking plastic surgeon ever cast in that role. Anyhow, it's worth a look.

Leaves, leaves everywhere

I have five trees on my property and they all waited until this week to drop their leaves. I now have a 20-foot long x 4 feet wide x 3 feet deep pile of leaves waiting for pickup in the gutter of my street. What a great deal of work it was to 1)rack 2)blow 3)pile onto tarp and 4)drag them from my back yard. Here are my results:

ND in 360

Finally found out who this dude is. We spotted him at our ND-Army RV game this month. Wild apparatus he has on. Captures some great shots; you can see them here:

http://nd360.nbcsports.com/

Big night tonight

This soon-to-be father spent over 90 minutes cleaning up the remaining items from our baby registry. Yep, my future holds great promise of untold fortunes... It was cool, I bought $300 worth of goods, but paid only $40 out of pocket due to gift cards and returns. Nice.

Babies-R-Us is laid out like crap. It's amazing anyone managed to purchase anything for our baby shower. I just don't understand this place. It's similar to my first stroll through Menards as a 'Home Depot Guy'. I couldn't find a damn thing. Now, I'm starting to understand Menards. I hope the same holds true for B-R-U.

Dentist

Went to the dentist today; need a root canal. I've reach a new low in dental care. How did it all go so wrong so fast?

Time tracker

Do any of you need to keep track of your hours at work? I do; in two separate systems. I need to create a category called "time spent keeping track of time".

RV trip

Our annual RV trip went off very well Saturday afternoon; much smoother than the Irish offence. I guess that was to be expected. Outside of the realm of winning/losing, the day was excellent. Each man fulfilled his duties with honor and brought the required items assigned to him. I had the distinction of simply bringing beer, a cooler and ice. Done and done. Easy stuff.

This year, we rented a 34-foot Four Winds XL. Yeah, sounds like luxury, but still a bit cramped for 12 men, 6 coolers, 2 bean bag sets, Playstation, all our food and gear and such. It was just about all we needed, however. A great time was had by all.

Baby showers

Katie had two baby showers over the weekend; one for each side of the family. Both went swimingly well and we collected a lot of loot from family and friends. Man, I need to have a pratical "future father's" baby party where I get gifts like cigars, humidors and LCD TVs. How nice would that be? Yeah, I know - not very practical. What about a new HD camcorder...? No?

No snow

If it's going to hover around freezing, there might as well be snow on the ground to make things more interesting.

Snow?!

Snow is forecasted in the Chicago area for tomorrow night! It was 65 degrees just last week... Mo Nature can turn on you that quickly...

Got good news

Big news. Katie can go back to work on Monday.

Give me some good news

Today, Katie finds out if she can go back to work. She needs that peace of mind that everything is okay and she can just live her life until her due date for the next six weeks.

Candy

I have over 19 pounds of candy left over from Halloween. What in the hell am I supposed to do with it?! If I bring it to work, they'll kill me. But I can't live in a house with 80,000 calories worth of candy in it.

Trick or Treat?

Where are all the kids? It's 7:45PM and we have pounds of candy left over. I must have the wrong idea of what trick or treating was like when I was a child. This is my first Halloween living in my own home and the experience is completely new to me. I live in a friendly suburb with houses all around me and we are giving candy away by the shovel-full... I don't get it.

Babbysitting responsiblites complete

What a fun weekend it was to practice as a parent. I changed diapers, installed a carseat, pushed a stroller - what more can a guy ask for? We had a fantastic time at the zoo. It was "Boo at the Zoo" so the place was decorated in all sorts of Halloween-like ways with staff members in costumes and kids wearing all sorts of cute ditties. The weather was great, but forecasters must have scared people off; the place was nearly empty. Parking was a breeze and there was not a single wait for anything - food, bathroom, attractions. I need to go more often at this time of the year.

The moral of this story is that my neice left in one piece and was a joy to be around for 48 hours.

Baby sitting

Night two is under way. So far so good as we round the home stretch babysiting for my neice. She's a well-mannered 23-month old...

Nextel Two-Way Message

Testing Nextel.

I have a future in voice-over

I work for a very large company. I used to work for a very small IT consulting firm. Both have their advantages. My current place of employment is in the notifications industry (voice, e-mail, text, fax [yes, people still use fax]) where we make phone calls for many clients; I manage the production operations side of the house (servers, networks, applications, etc).

One such client wants to send out a blast call to alert customers in SoCal that their homes are on fire and they won't be getting their prescriptions as previously thought because the entire earth is ablaze and UPS/FedEx/DHL cannot deliver to a slab of concrete.

I've been tapped to voice the call that will ultimately touch the lives of, oh, about 15-75 people. To be completely honest, I've only been asked because the female voice talent that did the last call happens to have a vacation day today. In case you don't know, female voices are more sought-after than male voices. When was the last time you went through an automated voice prompting menu and it was a male voice? I digress. We'll see how it goes.

Multimedia message

Testing MMS from my BlackBerry...

Origins of "The Bun Maker" moniker

So I went Halloween costume shopping. I'm not that into Halloween, not sure why. I've decided to give it a go (have to show up to company party with costume - "highly recommend"). So I'm at a mega store (some old bookstore in a strip mall that went under) and I am desperate for something that impresses. I'm not interested in ghouls and gobblins, etc. and this is my third store looking for something interesting. I thought about being "Neo" from the Matrix, but it just didn't seem right...

Until I found the one that really hit home - "The Bun Maker". It's a simple costume, really. It has an apron and a chef's hat (the big, puffy, white kind). On the apron, it reads "The Bun Maker". On the package it reads, "Goes well with 'Bun in the Oven' lady's costume". My wife is prego and could deliver our first child any day now.

She's currently home on a Dr.-ordered leisure lifestyle which means she needs to try to do very little and stay horizontal. A dream, right? Wrong. Give it some thought and it's really like a death sentence. Sure, you get to stay home, but do what? She cannot cook, clean, go for a walk, clean house, shop, etc. You get my point. Anyway, back to the costume.

I really clicked with the silly $30 costume and bought it. I hope the folks at work *get* it. And that's how I came up with my blog name.