Belated birthday celebrations

I wrote this yesteday but I hada migraine last night and I didn't make it up to post this out here. So here it is, just a day late.

Today is Son #1's birthday. April 26, 2002. He's 4 years old today. I'll tell you the story of his birth.

My wife and I were eagerly anticipating the birth of our first child, in about a month, when my wife called me at home. (I worked out of a home office in those days) Her water broke. OOO-kay. (Now what?? It was more like "Holy S&%t what the hell do I do now????) So I drove over to the office to get her. We weren't sure what to do. He's not supposed to come this early. We aren't ready. We hadn't even toured the hospital or anything. So we went to the Drs. office. It was about 5:15 or so and of course no one was there, except for a janitor. He was talking to us through the front door. It went something like:

Janitor: We're closed.
Us: Her water broke. She isn't having labor pains though. We thought she should get checked out and then we could go home or something.
Janitor: Hold on. (takes off running to find someone. Comes back with a nurse)
Nurse: Her water broke? (Still through the glass door mind you)
Us: Yes.
Nurse: If her water broke there's no going back. You have to go to the hospital. That baby's coming soon.
Us: Oh. Okay.

Now what? We knew what hospital and where it was since we had some very good (not) prenatal classes there (the typical thing for type-A people to do with a 1st child. Learn how to do something that nature will do for you, but whatever)

We pulled up into the ER still not sure where to go. And I alerted the front desk person that my wife's water broke and we weren't really sure where to go since we hadn't toured the hospital yet because he was coming early. (Important to say that so they don't think I'm a bad prospective Dad and failed to prepare for the day of the stork's arrival. Wouldn't want them to take away my prospective Dad card or something) It took about 3 seconds for someone to show up with a wheelchair and whisk us off to another part of the hospital. (I doubt if I could find my way today)

Then we waited. During this waiting phase we started calling family members to let them know what was up and I decided to return home to get her a bag of stuff. Since the birth was still a month away we hadn't even packed the hospital bag yet. Doh! So I ran home to do that and while I was gone my wife progressed very quickly (I was getting continuous updates from my in-laws on the phone after they talked to her on the phone. Yeah, I know, it's strange) into the "this baby is coming damn fast and you better get the Dr. here and give me the damn epidural before I jump off this bed and strangle you" phase. (I'm glad I missed a lot of this.) I returned in time to calm her down a little and watch the epidural procedure. I proceeded to almost faint and had to lay down for a while. (Yeah, I'm the strong, silent type) At this point I'm proceeding to breathe in short shallow breaths and staring at the ceiling to not look at the epidural thing going on.

Then the next thing we knew the Dr showed up, she pushed a few times and a baby came out. It was all pretty quick. About 5 hours from water breakage to baby's appearance. (Eat your heart out ladies) There was a team of about 100 people in there because they were concerned he might need some neo-natal care (and actually this hospital had the best neo-natal care in the city which is why we choose it, just in case. Strange how that worked out) but he was totally fine. He couldn't regulate his body temp very well (still can't) and they put him up a little cooker that helped keep him warm. But other than that they couldn't find anything wrong with him.

The next few days are a blur (frankly, most of the following years have been) but things went fine and we are all still together today. Sometimes I want to return him to the hospital, but that mostly temporary. :-)

FGLB

Party cuts

In celebration of the "party in the back, business in the front" hairstyle here are a couple of links to check out.

NHL historical pics

Mullet Junky

Enjoy!

FGLB

In honor of Mother Earth

In honor of Mother Earth today on Earth Day I thought I would post a list of alarming statistics. I compiled this list for the Earth Day service at church tomorrow. It started out as about 7-9 pages but I condensed it to 2 pages. Enjoy

One crop of hemp grown on one acre of land produces the same amount of pulpable fiber as one acre of 20 year old trees.
While the U.S. makes up only 5% of the world's population, we produce 72% of all hazardous waste and consume 33% of the world's paper.
The United States is responsible for almost 25% of the world's total energy consumption. We use one million gallons of oil every two minutes.
Energy currently wasted by U.S. cars, homes and appliances equals more than twice the known energy reserves in Alaska and the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
We could cut our nation's energy consumption in half by the year 2030 simply by using energy more efficiently and by using more renewable energy sources. In the process, we would promote economic growth by saving consumers $2.3 trillion and by producing one million new jobs.
When just 1% of America's 140 million car owners tune up their cars, we eliminate nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide - the key cause of global warming - from entering the atmosphere.
Of the trash that we Americans throw away every day, 30% by weight is packaging alone. In 1993, we threw away 14 billion pounds of plastic packaging.
Running a refrigerator and freezer for one year can produce as much pollution as driving a car from Chicago to Las Vegas.
Every minute, 37,000 empty soft drink bottles are thrown away in the United States.
Every year we throw away 24 million tons of leaves and grass. Leaves alone account for 75% of our solid waste in the fall.
Every ton of recycled office paper saves 380 gallons of oil.
About 1% of U.S. landfill space is full of disposable diapers, which take 500 years to decompose.
By turning down your central heating thermostat one degree, fuel consumption is cut by as much as 10%.
Insulating your attic reduces the amount of energy loss in most houses by up to 20%.
Recycling one aluminum can saves an amount of energy equivalent to half that can filled with gasoline.
Every Sunday, more than 500,000 trees are used to produce the 88% of newspapers that are never recycled.
North Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
Every year some 45,000 tons of plastic waste are dumped into the world's oceans. One of the results of this is that up to one million seabirds and one hundred thousand marine mammals are killed each year by plastic trash such as fishing gear, six-pack yokes, sandwich bags, and styrofoam cups.
Packaging accounts for 50 percent of all paper produced in North America, 90 percent of all glass, and eleven percent of aluminum.
The United States generates approximately 208 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) a year. That's 4.3 pounds per person per day.("Recycling and Buy Recycling Fact Sheets", America Recyclers Day)
Every year we dispose of 24 million tons of leaves and grass clippings, which could be composted to conserve landfill space. (1996 Environmental Defense Fund)
Food waste includes leftover portions of meals and trimmings from food preparation activities in kitchens, restaurants and fast food chains, and cafeteria. Food waste is the third largest component of generated waste (after yard waste and corrugated boxes) and second largest component of discarded waste, after yard waste. The amount of food waste generated in the waste stream has increased by 1.2 million tons in the last 25 years, this is one of the lowest increases on a percentage basis of any component of the waste stream.
Paper cups consume trees, water, and chemicals, and dump them into streams and landfills- they are not re-cyclable. Paper cups are often wax-coated which reduces their bio-degradeability futher. Paper products make up over 40 percent by weight , slightly higher by volume - of this country's municipal solid waste, by far the largest contributor. Paper Recycling and its role in Solid Waste Management. Every year nearly 900,000,000 trees are cut down to provide raw materials for American paper and pulp mills. (Business Stastistics, 1986)
The Earth's limited supply of natural resources will only be able to sustain 2 billion humans by 2100, bad news for a world that already feeds 5.9 billion.
Farm animals consume nearly half the world's cereal produce. Growing grain to feed animals to turn them into meat is an inefficient business- an acre of cereals can produce five times more protein than an acre devoted to meat production.
The United States makes up less than 5 percent of the total population on earth. Yet, we currently consume over 30 percent of all the resources.
If every gas-heated home were properly caulked and weather-stripped, enough natural gas would be saved each year to heat another 4 million homes.
Simple heavy drapes attached to windows with a valance could save about $10 per window in heating costs each winter.
Organic farming can save up to 50% of energy, according to studies. Using manure can save 80% of the energy consumed by using synthetic fertilizers.
The cost of one nuclear weapons test alone could finance the installation of eighty thousand hand pumps, giving third world villages access to clean water.
In the US, 41% of all insecticides are used on corn. Eighty per cent of these are used to treat a pest that could be controlled simply by rotating the corn for one year with any other crop.

The man in black

I recently purchased a new CD (this is rare for me) of Johnny Cash's greatest hits. I had seen the movie and I was kind of interested in hearing some of his songs again so I bought the CD. It was kind of an impulse purchase when I was standing in line at Best Buy. I'm surprised how much I like it. I really like how good the lyrics are and how easy they are to hear. A lot of the music now is so "electrified" that you don't even know what they are saying most of the time. It's also interesting to listen to how his music changes over time. This CD spans about 40 years so you can really hear a difference in his voice, instruments and the recording clarity over that time span.

When I bought it I figured my favorite songs were probably going to be Walk the Line or Ring of Fire. But I think they are actually Folsome Prison Blues and A boy named Sue. Those two are really great. So far I've listened to them a ton and I'm not getting tired of them. I like how A boy name Sue is written a lot like Alice's Restaurant.

Any of you have any other ideas for who I should listen to and broaden my musical taste? Maybe I should try some Willie Nelson or Merle Haggard now that I'm older and might appreciate them more. Back in the day I would hear them but I was younger and much less sophisticated. Drop me a comment and I'll give them a try.

FGLB

Night of rants

OK, tonight is going to be all about rants and things that annoy me. At least I can get them off my chest and not go on a rampage or something. If you aren't interested just keep on trucking.

Why is everyone is a huge hurry all the freaking time? Whenever I drive anywhere I have people right on my ass because I'm not moving fast enough for them. I always go 5 over whenever I'm driving so it's not like I'm holding them up or anything. Not only that but people are in a hurry for everything. Not calling them back fast enough, not helping them fast enough, it takes 30 seconds to get my happy meal from the Window at Fatdonald's and that isn't fast enough. Gah! Shut up and quit wasting so much time trying to hurry all the freaking time. Appreciate the fact that you're alive.

Another thing, what is up with people not pulling over for emergency vehicles? It's an epidemic from what I can tell. Now when I pull over I'm in the minority, which just makes me sick. I think emergency vehicles should be equipped with some type of device that can destroy these people who don't move over. We'll call it thinning the herd. In fact, there's no reason that this can't be extended to good samaritans provided we promise to use it only when it's appropriate. I swear, that's when I'll use it. Just when people don't pull over, and when people are on my ass for not driving fast enough.

Another thing, why do radio stations play a tidbit of a song during a commercial for themselves? It usually goes something like this: "Here on the classic rock station we don't make you wait for your classic rock, (insert kickass song intro now) we play them right now all the time" (stop song intro) This drives me insane. Here I am getting all excited because something awesome is coming on (usually one of my classic listed songs) but then they stop it. This is akin to the girl that you took on a date and would suck a nice steak dinner out of you (plus a movie) then give you a kiss on the cheek and go home at 10. (so I've heard, I personally have no experience in this department, but living in a fraternity house in college led to a lot of stories...back to my rant) So, radio stations are on my short list now too.

This goes for my sports station too. It's like they have a 20 minute repeat on their commercials so I hear the same freaking things over and over and over. No, I'm not interested in signing up for ESPN plus to hear my favorite radio shows on my schedule. No, I'm not interested in signing up for an ESPN mobile phone so I can get continuous sports updates. Can you just shut up and do some sports stuff? If I wanted to be spammed all the time I'd go through my Yahoo account.

Another thing, why do women (and some men) wear clothing that they have absolutely no business ever considering? I don't mind a short pair of shorts or crop top on a lady, but not when you are pushing 2 or 3 bills. How can these people look in the mirror and not see what they look like? That's what I don't understand. Men, if you have even a partially inflated spare tire around your midsection men, you need a shirt on when you are mowing the lawn. This rule even applies to people in the pool. I can live with more skin in this type of situation because I'm kind of prepared for it. But no man looks good in a banana hammock (speedo for those not in on the lingo). Nobody. They should not be allowed. In fact, I would go so far as to say that no women looks good in a string bikini. That is just too much skin. I'm a rather portly person and I know how to dress for my body so that I'm not wearing things that just look horrible on me. This applies to people who wear clothing that is in style but doesn't fit their body type. Like the low rider jeans. Those do nothing but make your butt look bigger. You could be a size 0 and those things are going to make your butt look bigger.

Short rants
Why are my cordless drill batteries always dead when I need them? How does this happen? Is there some elf who uses it when I'm not using it?

Why do people feel it necessary to take reading material into the bathroom stalls when they are at work? Are you kidding me? If you want to do that at home, cool, that's your business, but why would you want to do that at work? And how comfortable to you have to be at work to do that?

Why is it when I call my credit card company they try to sell me 5 extra things when all I wanted to tell them was that I wanted to update my address or ask a question? No I don't need credit protector or life protector or extra cards or a new account or a CD or a membership in the book of the month club. Just let me do my thing and shut up!!! And I don't want to have to strain over my kids screaming to make out every syllable so I can understand you on the phone. You are supposed to be serving me! It's customer service!!

Last thing, my list of best classic songs of all time was shockingly incomplete. So, for now I'm pulling my list on account of me being a moron. Thank you.

I feel better.
FGLB

9 to 5??

(cartoon courtesy of this site.)

I'm 2 hours into my workday and I'm already finished with my work and bored. Gotta love the Corporate job.

FGLB

Horses, hills and headaches.

Went out to Pleasant Creek State Park today to do their 15 mile multi use trail. Multi use means that snowmobiles, hikers, bikers, walkers, horses, etc all use the same trail. And you can tell. That thing was ripped up. It's obvious it wasn't setup for bikers exclusively. Horses and snowmobiles do serious damage to the trail, (not to mention horse crap all over the place) and some of the ups and downs on the hills were way too steep for people to make it up them over and over and over (obviously not designed for people power to move people up and down the hills). But going down of them was kind of fun.

I did a lot of walking up hills today. And 15 miles is way too long. The trail is a loop so once you start you pretty much have to finish. And after all the pounding you take from the really rough torn up trail your arm are ready to fall off. I know mine are. I ran out of water too which always stinks.

On the cool side, some of the downhills had some sweet jumps on them. The jumps were mainly there because of wash out from water running down the hills. (They didn't do any switchbacks or anything so water just ran straight down the hills) But they were certainly fun to clear. I was getting enough air that I could feel the bike shudder when I landed. Sweet!

Unfortunately, most of the time the uphill after a downhill was walked by me. Somewhat because I was tired, somewhat because the path was so rutted and washed out I couldn't get any traction and momentum up to get up the hill and somewhat because they were way too steep.

I think this park could have some fantastic mtn bike trails, if they wanted to portion off a section of them to just be for mtn bikes. They have a lot of great hills that would be a blast if you had switchbacks cut into them and were able to weave your way back and forth. Not to mention that you would be able to have a lot of trails since they have 15 miles already. Just cut a chunk out of that 15 and you could have some really good riding. Probably will never happen.

I'm tired. I'm out.
FGLB

Lookalikes

We have some people here at the Corporate Towers who look like other people. One guy looks just like Harold from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Everytime I see him I think of this scene:
Harold: Officer, I'm glad you're here. You ever heard of that show, Doogie Houser, MD?
Officer Palumbo: Yeah, what great show. Doogie.
Harold: Neil Patrick Harris just stole my car.
Officer Palumbo: Hey! NPH wouldn't do that, 'ight!

We also have another guy here who looks like the Ragin' Cajun, James Carville. It's uncanny. Of course whenever I hear him talking I'm thinking of the scene from Old School.

"Have at it hoss."

Makes it very hard to work with people when all you can think about is these kinds of things.

FGLB

What a ride!

Wow, today I was able to get out onto the Sugar Bottom trails. Incredible. No wonder so many people like this mountain biking thing. It is way more fun them straining away on a piece of pavement going up and down hills with nothing to do but pedal. Wow. Riding this trail was the most fun I've ever had doing any athletic event. I'm serious. The whole time I was riding I was smiling, and concentrating, and pedaling hard and killing myself, and thinking about what to do next on that section, and how to brake the right way, and loving it.

Based on my rough calculation of the mileage I only rode about 5-6 miles. (I think I must have an old map because some of the areas I went through don't seem to be shown) But it took me about 90 minutes, and it was great. There are tons of uphill parts, which obviously affects my speed, but I certainly wasn't the fastest person out there.

I wiped out twice when the hill went up too quickly and I couldn't keep my speed up. I took 3 breaks while killing myself (I accidentally took the most difficult part of the trail out of the block which is not good for my first time ever), and it was great. The down hill speeds flying through trees and over rocks and bumps were great. The switch backs were fantastic. And I even loved the uphills parts (even if I had to walk a few times). It's great. No wonder it was voted one of the 50 best trails America.

It's a great workout too. Not only are my legs fried, but my arms are killing me from all the work they had to do, plus my shoulders and back. Great workout in a little time. Sounds good to me. I'm sure I was maxing out my heart rate most of the time so I was definitely feeling the burn.

We are already working on plans for how I can get down there to ride these trails at least twice a week. Man, mountain biking is where it's at.

FGLB

What a day

Man, today was a day to end all days.

I was up late last night because we rented American Pie: Band Camp. Pretty funny flick. It certainly lived up to the previous 3 editions, although the main character (little Stifler) was annoyingly Stifler like and I didn't think his act was funny this time around. I was fine with the original Stifler. Something about this guy bugged me. I spent the whole movie thinking the main female person was Mandy Moore but it was someone I hadn't heard of. I enjoyed the movie. Well worth my $2.59.

So even though I stayed up late I was up early with two little boys. And I had stuff to do. I jumped right into it feeding the boys and such and then got to work on my garden. I decided to start a little vegetable garden this year. But like most things, I don't do things like most people. I came across a book called "Square Foot Gardening", and I read it and thought it made a ton of sense. And that made me realize that growing your own vegetables doesn't have to be as much work as most people think it is. I've been planning this garden for a while but this week is finally when it all came together. On Thursday I built my little 4X4 garden box, per the instructions in the book. And I went to the store and bought the vermiculite, peat moss and 5 different kinds of compost, just like the book instucted. So today was the day to lay out the weed cloth, mix the soil, fill the box and get some things planted. Here is a pic of the finished product. Yeah, I know it's not pretty, but before I spent some money on boxes that looked really nice I wanted to try this gardening thing out on the cheap. So, I slapped together this box out of OSB I had laying around, and the grid for the top is made of weed eater twine that I have plenty of. I'm thrifty! (I'll be trimming that weed cloth better too)

I already have two kinds of peas planted, some arugula, some lettuce and some onions. I'll be placing some spinach in there this week (most likely kid #1 will as he requested it. Yeah, I know, he's strange, he likes veggies). In about two-four weeks another set of peas will move in along with Broccoli and Carrots and another set of onions. And I still have 4 more "squares" to fill, with what I'm not sure. Then I wait for warmer weather and get another box prepared. I'm going to make another box for nothing but Herbs. I've got some Basil, Oregano, Cilantro and Parsley ready to fill that one. And after these colder weather plants are finished I'll be replacing them with some green beans, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, probably more onions and canteloup (muskmelon for some people) and I'm not sure what else yet. The beauty of this system is that with proper planting you can use the same squares three times per summer. So you don't need as much space to grow a ton of food.

So I got the garden stuff all cleaned up and then I took to the bike to swap out the road slicks for mountain bike tires. I haven't done this for about 15 years, but it was easier than I expected. (I think being older with more muscle helped) Not to mention that I actually bought tire levers instead of using a screwdriver like I use to. That really helped speed things up. Having the right tools is important.

Then it was lunch time. Definately had some lunch to fuel up because I was going to hit the trails in the afternoon. Headed out to Pleasant Creek State Park. Problem was, after driving 2o miles to get there the trails were closed because it was too wet. Man, that sucks. I have a feeling that will be the situation around here for a while. Seems like we get rain for two days and then two or three days of sun. Not enough to dry it out. Tomorrow I'm planning to head to another trail that is open no matter what, so we'll see what that is like. It's mostly motorized play things so it will probably be pretty torn up. I was able to ride my bike over to my apartment today because I was showing it to a prospective tenant. (I was over there in the morning to meet someone about some work to be done so this was my second trip today) I could really tell I hadn't been on a bike in a while, not to mention changing the tires. I was huffing and puffing up the hill by my house that is usually not much of a problem.

After dinner we went to a Cedar Rapids Rough Riders hockey game. We were able to get some free tickets, (3rd row) and man, it was a blast. I can easily say that this game was the best sporting event I've ever been to in person. I've seen plenty of baseball games, football games, an NBA game and none of them compared to the excitement of this thing. I've always been a hockey hater. Hockey sucks, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that hockey doesn't translate to TV. In person, it was crazy exciting. It felt like a kickoff return in football when the returner just breaks past the last guy, for the whole game. It was crazy. My ears and throat hurt when we left. The icing on the cake is that the mascot for the team is a Donkey. Yes, a Donkey. So, the crowd is full of cowbells that they ring the whole game to generate excitement, pump up the players, etc. The coolest part is when they want to rev up the crowd, they play a quick little sound bit "I need more cowbell" (you know what show this is from) followed by a little drumstick knocking from "don't fear the reaper". Crazy. The crowd gets fired up. (the entire music package was incredibly top notch) I'm not sure if the pro game would be as exciting because you would lose a lot of the intimacy of our small arena and team, but I definately will be checking out more hockey games.

Then we came home, but the boys to bed, I'm typing this and I'll hit the sack. It's been a full day. I hope I can get out to that trail tomorrow.

FGLB

PS. If you don't know the show I'm talking about check here.

Been having some nice weather lately, but have opted to play Tennis over lunch instead of riding the bike. I'm expecting to be on the bike tomorrow. Although the recent reports show rain...

I've been researching some mountain bike trails in the area to try out this summer so I'll let you know how that goes. I've never actually used the mountain bike for what it was intended. For some reason in the past mountain biking just did not appeal to me. Now I'm wondering what it's all about. I'm not sure why I've had this change in heart. Maybe because road riding is what it is. It's kind of the same thing every time. From what I can tell, mountain biking is completely different than road riding and no ride is the same. That is appealing to me. Combine that with the fact that with the changes in my life lately my riding will be more regimented, in that, I'll need to do it at a specific time. And that kind of fits into mountain biking where you go to the trail and ride and then go home. Plus, when you are riding off road it seems like you ride hard and fast for 60-90 minutes and then you are done. Road riding is really more of a long distance endurance type of thing. This compacted riding seems to fit into my life's time constraints better.

I'm even getting serious enough to print some maps and swap out my tires.

This is a good site about local bike trails in Iowa. And a list here.

I'll let you know how it goes. I'm not sure when I'll get the tires swapped and get on a trail but it's on the task list.

FGLB

Snow day

I swear we didn't break him out of a Columbian coke plant. It was muddy outside and we substituted expired baking powder for dirt.

Good times.

FGLB