Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Yesterday, we drove to Godfrey, just north of Alton for a family reunion. It was raining as we were heading there. We actually got into some heavy rain early into the trip. It was bad enough that we were driving quite slow on the interstate. Fortunately we only had to endure the storm for a short while. The rest of the trip there was beautiful and we safely arrived at the reunion.

The reunion was nice although I really don't know many of the people. I know a few faces and some names, but I'm not clear on who begat whom. Regardless, Lourdes was a big hit.

We were in no hurry to get home. For example, last year we had the puppies and a great aunt, so we needed to get home. Even having a little baby with us this year didn't put us in a hurry. So we decided to take the long way home. We took the two-lane country roads just to see what we could see.

It was a nice leisurely drive. The radio (on a St. Louis station) was calling for thunderstorms and tornado watches in Missouri. I was pretty confident that we were not near the bad weather. So we meandered in a northerly direction in the beautiful countryside. Our route took us through several small towns. The kind with the old brick buildings all interconnected on Main Street, kind of the original stripmall.

Off in the distance, to the west, we could see it slowly getting darker. I wasn't too worried because I thought it was too far away and that we would eventually be heading in an easterly direction. Actually, we ended up heading in a northwesterly direction before we could start heading northeast. That took us into the eye of the storm.

We crossed the Illinois River at Beardstown. As we were crossing the river, the wind picked up and it started to rain. There was a tugboat pushing several barges up the river. Just in front of the barges, there was a "cyclone". It was like a "dust devil" but it was huge and over water. Very cool, and a little scary. We got to the other side of the river and it started raining very hard. I had to slow down because it was difficult to see. A Dodge Ram was right on my butt, but I wasn't going to go any faster. Then we started up a hill and there was a slow vehicle lane. I took it and the Ram sped by me. We crested the hill and seemed to be back out on the plains. We went through an intersection and then it started raining really hard. I could barely see in front of me. We came to a crawl and then suddenly we couldn't see anything in front of us. Fortunately we came to a stop right by a side road so we pulled off on the side road to wait out the storm (and to get out of the way of any crazy people who wanted to continue).

We waited for a few minutes on this side road. The rain and wind rocked the truck and I was worried about what we needed to do. We were in the middle of nowhere and a huge storm was on top of us. Who knows if there was a tornado as well.

It was only a few minutes but it seemed longer. The rain and wind let up a little so we hit the road again. The rest of the trip was fine, no hard rain, no strong winds and we arrived safe and sound at home.

Pretty Little Lourdes

The crack of the bat....

...over Jerry's head.

I know I already said good night, but after I signed off I was telling Raquel what happened to Jerry last week.

Jerry loves baseball and he coaches a boys baseball team. He was coaching first base and his player got walked. Jerry started to annotate something on the lineup and was engrossed in the sheet. The boy who was walked started to head towards first. He wanted to throw the bat towards his dugout. It hit Jerry in the head. I wasn't there but I can just imagine the sound of an aluminum bat resonating after thwacking a skull.

Jerry's got a tough nugget. He's hit it several times. He cut his forehead on a ladder at work and got stitches (about a year and half ago). Last summer, on at least two occasions, while mowing his yard with a riding mower, he hit his head on a low branch of a huckleberry tree. Not sure if he tried ducking too late or didn't see it all. Either way, both times (or possibly more) resulted in a good scrape on his noggin.

Poor Jerry wasn't thinking straight and told his dad to take him to the wrong hospital. Fortunately, he had to wait a while before being seen by the doctor. I say fortunately because he came to his senses before seeing a doctor and incurring an emergency room charge that might not be covered by his insurance. He went to an emergency room in his HMO and got 5 staples in his head.

Good night again.

Drop and give me 20 (pounds)!

We went to visit Greg and Deb and their two beautiful daughters this weekend. Greg took some pictures and posted them. There were a couple of me in there that were none too flattering...I wasn't able to suck in my big belly.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had put on quite a bit of weight over the winter. I like to think of it as sympathy weight. Trouble is, Raquel had the baby and I still look pregnant.

I've started running and walking a couple times a week after work. Now, I know I need to go more often. It's really disheartening to try to run. My shins hurt from the extra weight. I get winded easier. My time for running 1.5 miles is 20% slower than last year...and last year was less than spectacular. But I'm going to fight through this. I'm not going to succumb to a fad diet diet like Crapkins. I'm not going to count calories and determine if they are from protein, carbs, or fat. I'm just going to eat better (less sweets, smaller portions), drink fewer sodas, and drink more water. And work harder during exercise.

I'm a little tired now and can't think of anything funny or interesting to write.

Good night.

Help, call the police, my baby is on fire!!

A few years ago, a young man that I worked with was married to a young woman who was deaf. I bought a book to learn a little bit of sign language so that I could talk to her. "Help, call the police, my baby is on fire!!" was the first sentence I put together. I don't think she was overly impressed.

I know it's been a little over a month since I last posted. No real excuses, but the transition to a new(er) computer was one delay. Greg left a few questions:

How's Raquel and the baby? Raquel and baby are both fine. Raquel loves being a mommy and she's good at it. Lourdes has been such a good baby. She doesn't fuss a lot, she has slept a few times through the whole night (otherwise she wakes once), and she's really cute to boot. She had her two-month check-up yesterday. She weighed in at 11lbs 9oz and was about 22.5", putting her in the 50th percentile. She's in the 99th percentile in cuteness. Who am I kidding, there's not a cuter baby out there. Oh yeah, she had her first immunizations yesterday. She didn't enjoy them but she recovered quickly.

Dogs learned any new tricks? Not that they've showed me. But I suspect they are secretly trying to gas me at night.

Anything pissing you off lately? Not really, nothing of note.

What are the specs on this new computer you got? It's an emachines T2245, 2.2 Ghz Celeron processor, 768 MB of RAM, 160 GB primary hard drive, 40 GB secondary hard drive, DVD drive, CD-RW drive, 10/100 Mbps ethernet card, and Windows XP Home. A friend gave the computer to me sans hard drives and only 256 MB of RAM. I pumped it up to it's current configuration. Probably the most important thing I did to it was load vcom System Suite 5 software. It includes a firewall and Trend Micro antivirus software. If you run Windows, I highly recommend System Suite 5.

Had any time to take the Harley out for a spin? Well sort of. I fired it up a couple weeks ago and took it for a spin around the block, but I didn't have the current license sticker at that time. Now I'm legal, and I hope to start riding to work, especially since gas was $1.95 today. If it's nice tomorrow, I may take a short trip over to Morton.

How about those Cubs? I'm sure you're referring to the Chicago kind, so a quick look at their official web page shows them in second place, 2.5 games behind the first-place Astros

Let my people go, you damn dirty apes!

The Ten Commandments is on tonight.

Friday night we went to see The Rock in Walking Tall. Not the greatest movie in the world but not bad for an action flick. I wished The Rock would have kicked some more butt.

I had drill this weekend, things went smoothly. The only problem was the time change. I can't remember the last time I had to spring forward and it wasn't a drill weekend.

We went to see Hellboy tonight. I found it to be pretty entertaining overall. The main character was played by the same dude that played the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. I feel sorry for the guy, he's so ugly he has to play freaks in films.

Lourdes did just fine in both movies and is doing wonderfully in general. Still growing.

Lourdes says hi.

Well, she didn't say it, but I'm sure that she would if she could. I was sitting here holding her and didn't know what to write and she was intently looking at the screen so I interpretted that to mean she wanted to say hi to everyone.

This weekend was a full plate. Friday night we went to see The Ladykillers at the new Rave Motion Pictures cinema. The capacity for the movie was 442. I had Pibb Xtra and SnoCaps. We enjoyed the movie thoroughly and Lourdes slept through the whole show. She's such a good baby.

Saturday we got a late start but we went south for the day. We first stopped to visit my Grandma and to introduce her to her 45th great grandchild, but Grandma wasn't home. So we went to Kim and Randy's house to show off our little Lourdes. Katy was there with her little girl. Cammie is a couple months older than Lourdes but not a lot bigger, apparently she was pretty tiny when she was born. Poor thing is getting over a bit of a cold and seemed a little fussy, but not too bad.

From Kim's house, we tried to visit Dave and Marcia. They weren't home. We next tried my dad's house, but he wasn't home. So we went to the El Matador in Mt. Zion to eat and to show Lourdes to a Paraguayan lady who works there. Next we went to mom's house but she wasn't home, but that was ok because I wanted to work on her computer. It won't print, and I know it's not the printer. It's not the USB port, because other USB devices work. I think the operating system has gotten itself corrupted. After toiling with the computer for awhile, we went back to visit Dave and Marcia.

Today we went to see Secret Window. Again, Lourdes slept through the whole movie. Such a good baby. After the movie, we went to WalMart and bought, among other things, a vibrating bouncer for Lourdes. She seems to like it. I wish I had one big enough for me.

Back to work...

Today I went back to work. It was very different leaving home this morning. Raquel always sends me off with a kiss and tells me to hurry home. Today, Raquel and Lourdes sent me off with a kiss and told me to hurry home.

Time went by very slowly today. 9 a.m. felt like 11, and so on and so on. After work I was going to exercise. It's been since early December since I've worked out at all so I was going to ease in to it by going for a walk. I ran in to a guy who had a baby in February and we ended up talking about our babies and I didn't get any exercise.

I've chunked up over the last few months. I weighed in at 235 today and it's not a good 235. Since early December, I've come straight home from work and watched a lot of TV and played a lot of Playstation and eaten lots of sweets. I'm going to get back on track.

Last night I couldn't sleep. I went to bed at a reasonable time and fell asleep fine. Unfortunately at 10:20, Peanut stepped on my left testicle and woke me. It wasn't a pleasant way to be awakened that involved my genitals. For some reason I couldn't sleep after that. I tossed and turned for an hour, then I got up and read about math on the internet for about an hour and a half. I read about speed arithmetic. I might look at that a little closer. In no time, I'll be helping my girl with her homework.

Hopefully, I'll sleep better tonight. Watch where you step Peanut.

Growing like a weed

Yesterday we took Lourdes to the pediatrician for her 2-week checkup. She weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 2 oz and measured 21 inches. That's over a pound since she was in the hospital. Doctor says Lourdes is perfect, but we already knew that.

Lourdes did seem a little clingy yesterday. She did not want to be left in her bassinet, not even when she fell asleep. Maybe she was cranky because her umbilical cord fell off.

After the doctor visit, we went to a new movie theater close to the doctor's office. Rave Motion Pictures Grand Prairie 18 just opened last weekend. They boast that there is true stadium seating so no one will ever block your view of the screen. They also boast about 48 inches of legroom between each row. When we pulled in sight of the theater, I was impressed. It's gimongous! And they weren't kidding about the roominess. There's enough space in the rows that if the theatre is crowded and someone has to get a refill or use the facilities, they can walk, not sidestep, to the aisle and not once trip on someone or put their butt or crotch in another person's face. And the screen was huge as well!

We saw Taking Lives starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke. It was pretty good. I had Pibb Xtra and SnoCaps. I didn't even have to smuggle the SnoCaps. Oh and baby was perfect through the whole movie, not a peep.

I've been playing MX Unleashed on the PS2 lately. It's been very entertaining. I had been playing an old PS1 game called Syphon Filter with the intent of finishing it and playing the rest of the Syphon Filter series (through SF3, all designed for the PS1 console) in anticipation of Syphon Filter 4 for PS2 which is due out sometime this year. Maybe I'll get back to it again soon.

The dogs have been really good with Lourdes. They are definitely interested in her, but have been behaving. Unrelated to interaction with the baby, Dover has picked up a cool little trick. If the water bowl is empty, he picks it up and brings it to us to remind us that we need to take better care of them. Hopefully Lourdes will behave similarly.

Family Night Out

We went to see Hidalgo last night. Yes we took the baby and she was perfect. She slept through the whole movie until about the last 10 minutes, but Raquel fed her before she got very loud.

The movie was pretty good and I had Pibb Xtra and smuggled SnoCaps. I have to smuggle in the SnoCaps because the movie theater suddenly quit carrying them. Deb and Greg may also question Pibb versus my usual Cherry Coke. Well the theater doesn't carry any kind of cherry cola. Besides, Pibb Xtra is really good.

There was a cool looking trailer for a movie coming out this summer, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It looks like 1930's sci-fi movie, only modernized.

Baby's sleeping the night better than I am. I have to get up at least a couple times to pee or let the dogs out. The last two nights, she's only got up once after we went to bed.

The dogs seem to like their little sister. They are definitely interested in her, they want to smell her and lick her, but then again who doesn't. Well everyone wants to smell a new baby, anyway.

Today, we'll be visiting Decatur/Mt.Zion and showing off our beautiful little Lourdes.

Welcome Lourdes!!

Lourdes Dianna came into our lives on 5 March 2004, weighing in at 7 lbs 7 oz and measuring 19.5". She's beautiful!!!

Not so miniature...

So you know we have two dogs a miniature dachshund and a miniature pinscher. They were due shots last week so we took them in on Friday. Peanut, the dachshund weighed in at 12.3 pounds and Dover the MinPin weighed in at a whopping 19.6 pounds! He's solid.

Friday night went to see the Rivermen play Johnstown. Awesome fight that got 2 players from each team thrown out as well as penalty time for others. The Rivermen won the fights and the game.

Saw Stuck on you on Saturday. Some funny parts but not as funny as I had hoped.

Sunday we cleaned the carpet. Puppy training took it's toll and it was time. The dogs still aren't 100 percent trained but they aren't that bad.

Played a lot KillSwitch this weekend and even finished it. That was both cool because everytime I got stuck, I eventually figured out what I needed to do to get through that section. It was also kind of disappointing because I've always had difficulty finishing these shoot'em up games. Maybe it just means I've progressed as a gamer. Who knows?

We had quite a bit of snow on Saturday, second time this season. The first time was the day after Thanksgiving and it melted the next day. This time it melted on Monday. Raquel thinks the snow is beautiful. Peanut loves playing in it. Not sure what Dover thinks of it.

Well I'm going to eat now. Talk to you later.

Did you have a good Día de Acción de Gracias?

That's Thanksgiving Day in spanish. We went to my father's house and enjoyed the turkey he made. My dad has hosted Thanksgiving for us for a long time now, kind of a tradition. My mom often does a Thanksgiving meal as well, but the acutual day depends on her work schedule, so this year she hosted on Wednesday evening. We live just far enough away that it would have been difficult to make it there since I had to work Wednesday, but fortunately plenty of others made it so her efforts were enjoyed by others.

This weekend was a PlayStation and movie weekend. I recently bought KillSwitch and logged several hours this weekend. It's a pretty cool shoot'em up game. It's very challenging for me, but I've made significant improvement. I can't believe how complicated it is to walk/run and aim/shoot. The directions said that it becomes second nature after some playing time. Hmmm...it's getting close to being second nature for me. Guess I better log more time. It's funny, in one section you have to get from point A to point B in certain amount of time. Well along the way, you have to kill about 25 or more guys who are shooting at you and throwing grenades at you. At first I couldn't make it through the first room because I was so concerned with time and there were at least eight guys shooting at me. I learned eventually that if I just take my time and just relax and stand out in the open and pick them all off one at a time, it's not so bad. I eventually made it through and on to a more difficult section.

The movies we saw were Timeline and The Missing. The first movie wasn't much to brag about, not a thumbs up nor a thumbs down. However, The Missing is really good. Opie directed this one and he did a terrific job, Raquel and I enjoyed it. Clint Howard makes his usual appearance in his brother's film, but it was kind of different, he was actually good (didn't hurt that his screen time was under 5 minutes.

You should be scared.

Last week we went to the dentist. Raquel couldn't get her teeth cleaned because she has a heart murmur (we already knew) and she has to take an antibiotic before the cleaning due to the possibility of infection. This required coordination with the obstetrician to get an approved antibiotic. So we've got the medicine, now we need to make another appointment with the dentist. Who knew a heart murmur could be dangerous for something so common as a trip to the dentist?

Friday night we went to the movies. Gothika is pretty chilling. The theater was packed and the audience was really in to the film, letting out collective gasps and shrieks. This was another movie that I didn't really think I would want to see but Raquel wanted to so we went. I thought it was pretty good.

Saturday, I helped Jerry a little bit. He's been working on his house for years, and this weekend he wanted to get the siding finished. I've never done siding before, so I don't know how much help I really was, but I was there. We stayed for pizza and wings and I played Playstation with Jake. We played football (not sure which version) and he creamed me the first game. I really wasn't sure how to play (meaning what buttons did what) but then Jerry showed me a play. The second game was all mine. I kicked his butt! The poor kid was dealing okay with getting beat, but as the game wore on, I kept scoring and he couldn't do anything. To make matters worse, Jerry and another guy were teasing Jake relentlessly. Suddenly, Jake couldn't take any more and burst into tears and couldn't breath right nor talk. Sound cruel? Well Jake had been talking smack the entire time he beat me the first game, so he was getting a taste of defeat. But I wasn't talking any smack. But in the end, Jake sucked it up and finished the game so he was a trooper in the end.

Sunday we went to see the Looney Toons movie. It was really quite funny, but I got really sleepy while watching it (no reflection on the movie). After the movie, we went to Menard's to buy a toilet snake, you know, one of those roto-rooter things. We were having problems with the sewer backing up into the basement. Yuck. So we bought this 25-foot long snake thing that you connect to a drill. I snaked out a bunch of stuff from the drain, mostly roots. After doing this a few times (and being generally disgusted both from the task and from lack of major success) I gave up.

Today, Roto-Rooter came out and snaked out (with their powerful snake) our sewer to about 110-feet. Now we can flush with confidence.

Aim for the mizzenmast!

So we went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World yesterday. I must say, it is a very impressive movie. It appears they went to great lengths to make it look look authentic. I don't know what made me go see this movie, because the previews didn't make it appealing to me at all. For some reason we went, and I'm glad we did. It's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. The only complaint I have is that the accents took a while to get used to. If you go, keep in mind that it is about two hours and twenty minutes long.

That's all I want to write about. Good night!

Going in circles

A lazy Sunday afternoon. Temperature isn't too bad, but it's damp out. Flipping through broadcast tv and there's not much. NASCAR's final race of the season, so they're going in circles at 170 MPH. Bears vs. Rams on another channel, and neither team is playing well. Golf on another channel, just not interested at the moment.

We're going to see that new Russell Crowe movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World today.

Saw Elf last week. It was good. I had Dots.

I love the Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercials. My favorite is Mr. Foot-long-hot-dog Maker. Cuz he gives us what we all really want - a bigger wiener.

I read someone's blog saying that last night's Saturday Night Live was one the worst ever. Hmmm. I thought it was rather funny. I especially liked the way they made fun of the latest Prince Charles scandal. Seems the British press can't come out and directly talk about some accusations about Charles' private life due to libel laws. So this skit talked around the accusations. Another skit was Roy's comeback performance with the same tiger that injured him. I laughed out loud.

We've started work on finishing the attic. Not in any hurry. Before putting in insulation, we need to provide ventilation between the insulation and the roof. We're putting in Styrofoam rafter ventilation channels to begin.

Raquel's belly is getting bigger as Lourdes is growing inside. Everything is going fine with the baby. Raquel hasn't had any problems. She'll still get nauseous every so often, but nothing like the first few months.

Maybe Greg will put me back on his favorites.

Survivor night

Just a short note tonight, gonna watch Survivor in a little bit.

We have a tentative name for our baby - Lourdes Diana. It's still early but I like it so far.

Went to Spooky Hollow Friday night as planned and Raquel really enjoyed it. We were going to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Saturday but never made it that day. Saturday night we went to see the Peoria Riverman lose in overtime to Toledo. It was a good game until the very end. Sunday we did see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I must say it was pretty good. I normally don't care much for horror because they are usually just plain stupid. But I was really into this one and it was pretty chilling.

Well this weekend, not sure what all we have on the schedule. But it's time to go now.

The cube still lives!

I have a small Rubik's cube on a key chain. When I was in high school, and the Rubik's cube craze was in full swing, I bought a book on solving the cube and I memorized the moves I needed to do so. I was able to solve the cube in about a minute. Of course, I haven't seriously touched a cube in 20 years so I can't solve it anymore....for now. I looked on Google and found a website and solved my cube. I hope to get proficient again. Long live the cube!

The worst drill weekend ever...

Last post was just before my drill weekend. It was the worst drill weekend ever. I'm not going into details because I don't want to be accused of gossiping. Let's just say that next drill weekend will be better.

Raquel is in the kitchen beating up chicken. I promised Adam and Jerry that I would ask Raquel to prepare some chicken and mandioca like her mom makes. It's really yummy.

Peanut is trying to hump Dover. Shame on him. Maybe it's payback because Dover always tries to hump him. Stop that, Peanut! Put that thing away! No, not there!

We saw Kill Bill Volume 1 last weekend. We loved it! Lot's of blood and kung-fu! Can't wait for Kill Bill Volume 2 next February. Still more members of the Deadly Viper assassination Squad left to kill, plus Bill.

Great smells coming from the kitchen. Raquel is a really good cook, especially considering she doesn't have a lot of cooking experience. I think the guys are going to enjoy Friday's lunch.

This weekend we have several things on the plate. Friday evening, we are going to meet several people from the base at Todd's house for a bit of a cookout followed by a trip to the nearby spooky woods and haunted house (a jaycees type of thing, we're not just traipsing through some random woods and an old house). If Raquel is good with that, we may continue on to another town and try their haunted house. Saturday, we will probably go see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saturday night we'll go to the opening game of the local hockey team, the Peoria Riverman. Sunday will either be a day of relaxation, or a day of shopping for materials to work on the house.

Adam is going to help me transform some of the house over the next three or four months. We will probably convert the living room into a bedroom, and the dining room into a living room. We will also work on finishing the attic. The unfinished attic should yield a small den/library/computer area, a play area for the kid(s), and a half bath. Adam is quite good at this stuff.

I need to call it an internet night. We recorded Survivor earlier and are going to watch that before going to bed.

Blah, blah, blah, blog.

Not a much to say today. It's just after nine. I'm tired. I have drill tomorrow. Not really looking forward to it either. It always creeps up until it just pounces right on top of me. I never seem to be prepared, but it never seems to pay to be prepared for drill. I can never count on being able to do what I want to do because there are external forces at work to put a wrench in things. Regardless, I hope we get some good training accomplished.


So how about this weather? It's turned rather cool here. Even had a frost the other night. I kind of like it when it gets a little cold so I can get out the long-sleeve shirts. The dogs are reluctant to get out from under the warm blankets and go outside to take care of business. But then again, so am I.

Told you I didn't have much to say. Good night!