I don’t want you to take care of my kids Hillary - that’s my job.

(notice she didn’t say ‘Proud Wife’)

Oh, and on a slightly different note:  JD (lvl 39 warrior) helped me level my WoW warrior to 30 and get my HORSE! WOOT!  She doesn’t have a name yet, but we’re working on that.

And on that note, I will also say that I <3 subjective sports.   Swimming - touch first, you win.  Track - finish first, you win.  Basketball - score more points, you win.  Gymnastics - blatantly disregard rules, seemingly nudge judges decisions, be the host country, you win?    Something doesn’t smell right.

Woman slides 78 feet - on ketchup. More disturbing video.

The Opening Ceremonies are ‘tonight’  (Beijing is +23 hours from here, so they are in the middle of the first day of competition).   We’ll be watching.

I was in Beijing as they were a year into the preparation for the Olympics and the city was already being turned upside down.  I’ll bet the change has been amazing.

I’m looking forward to swimming, track & field relays, and volleyball - just to name a few.

What is your favorite sport to watch?

2001 - 2008

TiVo died this past weekend.

It’s a little difficult to breathe, let alone watch TV.  I’ve known TiVo longer than I have known my wife.  He was like a member of the family.  Like that jolly uncle that gives you bear hugs, movie recommendations and takes out all of the commercials of life for you.  Yes, he was an old uncle.  Seven years is like 432 years in consumer electronics years.  It’s good that he has passed.  Now his loud whine won’t annoy Pete while we are praying in small group.

We had so many good times together.  I still remember how much we laughed together watching that Panthers game when the guy on special teams got pantsed.  We must have rewound that a million times.  Or the time Amanda and I were actually ON tv on the Screen Savers.

Time to move on.  Amanda will have to move on without having that Gilmore Girls finale that she was “gonna watch”.   We’ll have to figure out how to clean the house without playing that Kylie Minogue concert in the background.  And because of the money-sucking-media-delivery-monopoly companies, we will have to move on without TiVo.  You see, they figured out that time-shifting was the future and developed their own Frankenstein’s monster-esque DVR’s that offer half the quality and features at twice the price.  They told TiVo to take his bright user-friendly menus and go home.  He wasn’t welcome anymore.

So go to a happier place little guy.  You will be missed.

TiVo is survived by three Macs, an iPod, and a new-to-us dishwasher.

So, this afternoon I am sitting in my office which overlooks our front lawn.  I notice the truck/trailer of the company that does my neighbor’s lawn comes by and about a half hour later hear the sound of a blower.  about five inches right of my monitor I have the vantage of my driveway, and I see the lawn guy blowing the clippings he’s just created onto and over my driveway.  The clippings ended up in my lawn and at the base of my garage door.

I proceeded to go downstairs and ask Amanda if this was confrontation worthy.  I explained to her that it was an ongoing thing where byproducts of lawn care seem to find their way into my lawn directly after a visitation by said company.  She, having bigger things on her mind, gave me the old “do what you want.”

I went outside and interrupted the lawn engineer’s blower session and after he removed his ear buds I asked him in a stern tone not to intentionally blow clippings into my yard.  He responded with a sigh, a wave of his hand that translated to “whatever” and walked away.

Now, I understand I may not do the most pristine job of lawn mowing and on occasion some clippings go into my neighbors yard, but I intentionally do not blow clippings outside my yard because I consider it Rude.

Please let me know - Did I overreact by confronting the guy?

March 2009 we will be welcoming our second baby.  After Ace’s first birthday we decided to start trying for numero dos.  We asked Ace if she wanted a little brother or sister and she said “Bwa bwa, cat, mama.”  That means “Yes!”

Amanda’s about six weeks along and is already getting her preggo super powers:  faster than a speeding locomotive as she goes to the bathroom for the 20th time, can go from zero to nauseated in four seconds flat, able to smell what the neighbors are cooking for dinner - four houses down.

(We are praying that this time around the powers will fade before week 20)

• Amanda ran a 5K on Saturday, and we filmed another episode of The Mom Crowd Show (out tomorrow)
• Mom and Dad start RFCK today. Mom’s the “camp nurse” and Dad’s a counselor.
• “Hi, my name is Daniel and I play WoW“. “Hi, Daniel”. Last week Barb was over and mentioned JD was probably home playing WoW. I’m a Warcraft/Starcraft fan from way back, and when JD told me that the game has a Mac version, I couldn’t resist. I was up playing till 2:30 a.m. this morning…..Old obsessions return easy and with vigor!  I once lost a college semester to Starcraft II, let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself

For example, our dishwasher broke about 9 months ago. Instead of spending money on new one we bought a $12 drying rack at Ikea. However, our dishes usually look like this:

Late one night I was looking at the free stuff section on Craigslist and I saw that someone put out a working dishwasher in front of their house about three minutes away. Daniel hopped into his car and found that it was still there. Unfortunately, he couldn’t lift it by himself nor fit it into the trunk of his Mustang convertible. So Daniel called his Dad at 11:30 p.m. to drive out with his truck and pick up our new-to-us dishwasher.

Hopefully with a little cleaning the dishwasher will work and Daniel can get a break from the dishes. I help dry and put away, but he does most of the dishes. I am totally spoiled.

Earlier in the day our neighbors across the street put out a fan. Daniel went and got it and knocked on the door to find out if it worked. Apparently, they just upgraded but nothing is wrong with the fan. It will go well in our guest bedroom, where in the past we have had to bring in a box fan for guests. This one will be nice when it is up.

You may notice the wood in the background of the photo above. Daniel has plans to build a box to keep under the deck in the back to store the lawnmower. He got a lot of free scrap wood from a lady on Craigslist that was moving. His parents brought him more wood from a dumpster at a house being constructed in their neighborhood. Hopefully, all this wood will turn into something useful. Daniel organized it all after I took this photo.

Last week I also got this toy shelf on Craigslist for $12. With all the bins this shelf retails at $60. We want to transform our “library” in the front room into a toy room for Annabelle.

On Friday I came across this jogging stroller at a garage sale in my neighborhood. I have really been wanting one, but just couldn’t justify the cost. The sticker on it said $30, but I only had $20 in my purse and Daniel encouraged me to haggle. So I went up to the lady and asked if she would take $20 and her response was “Sold!” The inner tubes needed to be replaced and that cost us $12 for all three tires and Daniel fixed the brake for me. We tested it out tonight and it worked great!

Finally, my most favorite find on Craigslist. I would like for you to meet “Jane.” She is an older iBook G4 and she is beautiful. We found her for $450 from a guy about 30 minutes away. She wasn’t being loved and needed a good home. Now I can work downstairs while Annabelle runs around and plays. Also, I am not bugging Daniel in the office while he works. It is very difficult for Daniel to work while Annabelle is pulling on wires and being really dang cute. (According to the guy in the TED video women have more connectors in their brain that enable them to multi-task and men are missing those extra connectors and can’t multi-task.) He says this is the best $450 bucks he has ever spent.

For $494 dollars we got a used Apple laptop, dishwasher, ceiling fan, shelf with toy bins, jogging stroller, and bunch of wood. Not too shabby.