Quick rhetorical question:

Why is water that comes out of the ice machine not cold?!

Just a quick thought from my lunch break. Oy.

A weekend of firsts

In retrospect, it seems that we had a great weekend a la Casa de Rama. We had a few 'firsts' that were enjoyable:

• Usage of the TxTag
  Since I'm now working out of an office in Round Rock several days each week, we decided that it was worth it to buy a TxTag. So we put it to use for the first time this weekend as we made our way to a friend's house in Pflugerville. Good times, though I'm still not too pleased with toll roads in general...



• New kitchen sink
  Our 'old' kitchen sink died, and I installed a new one. ('old' being somewhat of a misnomer, since we've only had it for about 4 years!) This was a 'first' because I haven't ever installed a kitchen sink before. Bathroom sinks, yes. Kitchen sinks, no. I take it as a good sign that it's still in working order after the weekend...



• Laughing Baby
  Our dear friend Tiffany got Anjali to laugh - and it was awesome! Yes, it's always cute when babies laugh, but when it's your kid, it's really fantastic. The only downside? We haven't been able to recreate it...but that's not for lack of trying!



• Apple products
  Amar surprised me yesterday by taking me to the Apple store and buying an iPad for the family. I was staunchly opposed to owning one, since I didn't really think we needed one, but I actually like it. It's a first real gadget (aside from an iPod Nano) from Apple...and it seemed post-worthy.
  

I thought I had some more 'firsts' but now I can't think of them...anyhow, hope you had a good weekend too!

The old college try...

An Aggie who just saw the scoreboard:

Too much tv

Not only is it a pillow.

Nor is it merely a pet.

In fact, it's a Pillow Pet.




Is anyone else plagued by this completely nonsensical informercial sweeping the nation? Yowzah!

Month in review: Parental Essentials

I'm thinking I should trademark that accidental rhyme in the title. Eh?

And now onto bigger and better things: the content of this post

Praise the Good Lord that we've survived 5+ weeks of keeping Anjali alive. Seriously. Now, before I get too far into today's edition, I want to say that this will NOT become a mommy blog. Not to slam the mommy blogs, but just to specify that this is not one of them.

However, there will occasionally be some random child-rearing thoughts that I will share with you from time to time.

I just wanted to make that clear....

Moving on.

I wanted to give a shout-out to some key essentials that have helped us survive these last 5+ weeks. You may or may not be a parent, but I'm hoping that in either case, this will be somewhat interesting/useful to you...there have been 2 things that we really couldn't live without, and an additional item that seems to get almost as many comments as the baby itself. Allow me to enlighten you:

Item 1: The pacifier


Now let me say this, I'm all for kiddos coming equipped with a 'mute' button. However, our Creator did not necessarily design us that way, thus enter the pacifier. Whoever invented this device has simply got to be a gazillionaire at this point. I will admit that we've gotten a lot of mileage out of the pacifier. Not that this is a revolutionary thought by any means...I just don't think I really valued it much before having a baby. Now if they just made them for adults....

Item 2: The Moses basket



We live in a small house. This means that we have about 2 closets in the entire abode, and I am not about to clutter them up with baby gear. If you want to buy the latest gadgets for your kid, go for it. Around our house, however, we are trying to take a minimalistic approach. Thus, when considering purchasing a bassinet, I decided to pass.

However, some friends of ours mentioned that for their 4 kids, they used a Moses basket and definitely got their money's worth out of it. And since their kids are now all well past the infant stage, they loaned the basket to us.

HALLELUJAH!

I think Anjali has slept at least 6-8 hours a day in this thing, if not more (granted, those precious hours aren't in a row yet...). She loves it. We love it. This thing plus the pacifier have allowed me to sleep, eat, shower, brush my teeth and occasionally watch TV. It's been nice to be able to cart a sleeping baby around the house as needed without disturbing her.

Item 3: The stroller



Now, we haven't used this thing too much thus far, but when we have, we get a lot of comments. At church on Sundays, people will actually spend more time asking us about the stroller than about the baby. It's pretty funny, actually.

Anyhow, it's really easy to use and again, Anjali seems to like it. But it still cracks me up how a lot of people are super curious about it. I think next Sunday we'll have to give demonstrations in the church lobby just to fend off the crowds.

Well, that's my take on early parenting. We have lots to learn, and believe you me, I could do an entire month's worth of posts on the usefulness of the burp cloth. I will spare you the details...

You parents out there - was there anything you couldn't live without during the early infant stage? Let me know...

In praise of the Kindle

It's no secret that we have a lot of books in our household. In fact, there are several bookshelves where I've had to double-stack books (two rows deep on various shelves) just to fit them all in.

So when Amar decided that he wanted to purchase a Kindle, I was very much open to the expense, because it meant that there would eventually be less book clutter in our house. Little did I know that I would soon become a Kindle fan.

Since welcoming Anjali to our household, I've gotten a TON of use out of the Kindle. I think I probably spent about 3-4 hours reading now, mainly because there's not much else I can do when I'm feeding her. And since feeding her means that I have one hand free, the Kindle is perfect. Basically, I can feed Anjali, holding her with one hand, and read a book in the other hand. I can turn pages one-handed (a simple click of a button). It's super easy to use, and I can switch between books without getting up. Good stuff!

Thus far, I've read the following books on the Kindle in the last 5 weeks:

• Percy Jackson: The Titan's Curse
• Percy Jackson: The Battle of the Labyrinth
• Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian
• The Bible: Psalms 20-73 (I'm reading through Psalms and Provers this summer with our church via The Voyage)
• Moneyball: The Art of Winning and Unfair Game
• Liar's Poker

Also, books are cheaper on the Kindle. Books that would cost $10-$30 to purchase soft/hard copies of are only $4-$10 on the Kindle. All in all, the Rama household highly recommends the Kindle if you're considering purchasing one. Yay!

Adventures with wildlife

Yesterday was not a banner day for me and wildlife. There were three separate incidents that led to this post. Had they not occurred on the same day, I wouldn't have really thought anything of it. However, nature seemed to be conspiring against me yesterday, thus this post was hatched:

Incident 1: The bird at HEB
After loading up Anjali in the car and dropping Amar's lunch off at his office, I decided that I had time to do a quick grocery store run. Upon arriving at HEB, I parked the car, loaded the baby into the cart and headed toward the store. I noticed that there were some HEB employees milling around the parking lot, but didn't really think anything of it.

I was about 20 feet from the store when I felt something on my the back of my head. I quickly moved to brush it off, and then saw a bird fly precariously close to my face. Then I heard someone behind me yell, "Yep - that was a bird. I'm working on it!" I turned around to see that it was one of the employees talking, and then surmised that I had just been dive-bombed by said bird. I felt my head again, to make sure that the bird didn't leave anything behind after it said hello to me. All clear. Luckily, the bird targeted me and not the baby.

Incident 2: The squirrel
After a successful trip through the grocery store, I loaded everything (and everyone) back into the car and headed home. About 3 blocks from the grocery store, I apparently murdered a squirrel. I say "apparently" because I didn't even see him. I heard him. More specifically, I heard a "thump thump" as I ran over him, and not until I checked the rear-view mirror did I realize what I had done.

Incident 3: The bug in the kitchen
Now, you may know that I have a strict no-tolerance policy towards all members of the bug, insect and/or arachnid categories. No-tolerance. I will either kill it, or distance myself so far from it as to render its scary qualities mostly ineffective. And all of them have scary qualities.

Last night, as I was heading to bed, I turned the kitchen light on. I noticed some dust particles coming from one of the lights, and called Amar's attention to it. We both examined the light for a few seconds, and then Amar said "WOAH!" I then saw the reason: a huge, black bug started to poke its head down from the light and into the kitchen. Amar quickly handed me the baby and I darted into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me.

Now, after Amar dispatched the offending bug, he and I started to realize that Bella, the not-so-bright member of the Scottish Terrier branch of the Rama family, tried to alert us to the insect earlier in the week. She spent the better part of one evening staring intently at part of the ceiling of the kitchen. Amar and I both inspected that part of the kitchen several times that evening, but found nothing. Bella remained intent (she's nothing if not dedicated, especially when it looks like she might get some sort of food out of the operation...and I can only imagine that this bug looked like dessert to her). So it now looks like we have a good watchdog in our family. Apologies, Bella, for underestimating your intelligence in the past!

All that to say that yesterday was not my day with the local wildlife. Hopefully today will be much less dramatic!

Chaos abounds...

We had a bit of a chaotic moment last night at the Rama household. Looking back, it was pretty entertaining, so I thought I'd share.

In general, Anjali has been a great baby. She is relatively easy to calm, and very rarely gets REALLY upset. However, she is just a baby and thus, she will occasionally have moments where she is upset even though nothing is obviously causing her pain or discomfort.

Last night was one of those moments.

I fed her around 6PM, and Amar got home around 6:30. Almost immediately after he got home, she got fussy. And not just "give me a pacifier" fussy - all out wailing and flailing.

Amar and I took turns trying to calm her over the next hour. And just to underscore how easy a baby she's been so far, she's never cried for more than 5 minutes at a time; we're usually able to calm her pretty quickly.

Last night, however, she would have none of that. We rocked her. We swaddled her. We unswaddled her. We put her on her back. We put her on her stomach. We bounced. We danced. We took her outside. We changed her diaper....you get the picture.

After about an hour, I decided to try to feed her a bit more. Amar and I headed to the nursery, and right as we were turning the corner in the hallway, we somehow knocked the carbon monoxide detector loose and it fell to the ground. As soon as it hit the floor, it started emitting the most horrible, shrill, loud and obnoxious sound known to man. I think essentially the entire block thought that our house was about to self-destruct.

So I'm trying to feed a screaming child. Amar is running around the house with a small white box that is making a horrific noise and is not able to turn it off (apparently when it fell, some part got lodged inside that prevented it from being shut off). He starts threatening to smash it with a hammer. I start laughing.

Then, somehow, the house alarm starts going off. Screaming baby. Screaming carbon monoxide alarm. Screaming house alarm.

It was pretty awesome to say the least.

Eventually, Amar got the house alarm off. Then he found a hammer and started to work on the carbon monoxide detector. The baby had stopped screaming so that she could eat a second meal. And after about 90 minutes of non-stop noise at our house, we were able to rest peacefully and have a conversation at a normal volume.

Good stuff indeed!

Update: Day 10

So our little one is now 10 days old. It's been a long, but good, 10 days :) Kudos to all the parents out there - we now understand how hard but rewarding this adventure is.

We had the 2 week pediatrician visit yesterday and for those of you into the stats, here's what we found out:

• Her head grew by 1 cm, bringing her into the 50th percentile for head size
• She is back up to her birth weight, weighing in a 7 lb. 10 oz., putting her into the 40th percentile for weight
• She is 20.5 inches long, putting her into the 50th percentile for length

All in all, she's doing really well.

Here are some more pictures that our friend Krista took:

The newest Rama

Well folks, she arrived!

Anjali Katherine was born on Saturday, June 26 at 4:55 PM. She weighed in at 7 lb 10 oz and was 20 inches long.

All was well at the first doctor's appointment yesterday. Amar and I are mainly trying to keep her alive at this point, while also trying to get as much sleep as we can. Here are a few pictures from Anjali's first few days with us:

Note: eventually we'll post some pictures of her NOT bundled up, but for now, that's her favorite thing in the world, so we keep her wrapped pretty tight most of the time.

Some last minute updates...

Well, things are about to change a bit around here, so I thought I'd provide a few last minute updates before we head to the hospital to meet our daughter this weekend.

Nursery Pictures
After the repair work was complete in the baby's room, I set things back in their proper order and snapped a few pictures:







40+ Weeks
Here's my last pregnancy status picture. The due date was 6/20, and it's 6/25, so I'm almost at 41 weeks in this picture...and apparently I make weird facial expressions during these photo shoots. Whatever.




Cuteness...
Now I have no freakin' idea what a layette is, nor did I really put one together for Anjali. Additionally, I intentionally didn't have a 'theme' for her room...I did, however, wind up with some personalized Scottie gear, courtesy of my dear friend Danielle. Check out the goods:



I then went on to make a Scottie-mobile, during one of the days this week that I was trying to pass the time.



Wish us luck this weekend!

Goats are awesome

I've never thought much of goats until I just saw this. Now I want some.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or...

I know we're all about Keeping Austin Weird and everything, but this is NOT the way to do that. Essentially, a young man looking to score cash for drugs takes a transgender prostitute to a convenience store and robs the owner using a caulk gun.

Among the things NOT to do are:

• Pick up a transgender prostitute
• Rob a Speedy Stop
• Use a caulk gun as a weapon

Just to name a few....

People: there are other ways to keep this city unique.

Amar will be thankful for this site:

Called YourNextRead. He'll be thankful for it because I think I probably ask him to pick out another book for me about every 2 weeks or so.

He and I don't exactly have what you'd call 'similar' taste in reading, though there are a few exceptions. However, this site may make things a bit easier on him and help me start using our local library (all of 1 block away) a bit more.

Do you have any suggestions for what I should read next? Looking for something light that I can read in small increments (i.e. something that fits well into the somewhat ridiculous schedule I'm about to take on...).

The sky is no longer falling: a job well done

It's been about a week and a half since we got a new AC installed in our aging house. The AC is working great - I just need to figure out how to program it.

During that time, we've had a lot of people through the house to remove, install, repair and inspect the work. As you saw with my previous post, the work was not without its own drama. However, I didn't want to leave you thinking that we got the short end of the stick with the AC folks.

When we first started the process, we decided to go with the Strand Brothers, a local outfit here in town.

Being a homegrown Austinite, I was familiar with their cutesy radio commercials, and was generally understood their quality of work to be high. When we got a personal recommendation from a friend of ours, encouraging us to go with the brothers Strand, we decided to go for it. That, along with the fact that they do all the rebate (city, state, federal) stuff for you, and we were sold.

Midway through the installation process, some of the employees wound up accidentally making a small crack in the ceiling of the baby's room. The workers were super apologetic about it, and they scheduled repairs for a week later. Over the next week, the crack widened just a bit. Then, on the night before the repair was supposed to take place, the ceiling collapsed.

Amar called their offices immediately, and by 8:30AM the next day, there was a crew at our house. They came on Friday, Saturday and Monday to complete the cleanup, the repair, and the final inspection.

Faithful readers: know that the folks at Strand Brothers have handled this situation in a professional manner, with courtesy and humility. Every person that came through our house was respectful and competent. When they said they'd arrive between 8:30 and 9, for instance, they showed up at 8:30. When they said that they'd be done in an hour, they were done in an hour. When insulation filled our baby's room, they had a cleaning crew in the next day and hauled the dirtier items off to the dry cleaners.

The house is now well-air conditioned, the ceiling completely repaired and the house completely cleaned.

I have to agree with their slogan: they are indeed really nice boys!

Technology

I can't even begin to imagine what this search would have looked like in an email-less world. Even just ~10 years ago, combing through 34 million pages of documents would have been painstaking.

However, in this day and age, very little of what you actually communicate is private. Keep that in mind, as this article points out, if you plan do to anything remotely suspicious or even slightly illegal ;)

Too bad for the folks at Lehman Bros. Really, I feel for them....oh wait, no. That must have been someone else I was feeling bad for. Oh yeah, the rest of the country.

Anyhow, I love the mental picture the Bloomberg article paints of a bunch of lawyers sitting in a conference room trying to compile a list of search terms that people might use if they were involved in a massive cover-up. Almost makes me wish I were a lawyer.

I'm sorry, but what?

Has anyone else seen the commercials for the new "limited edition" Huggies Jean Diaper?

Is there really a need in the market for diapers that look like jeans?

Two men and a baby...

...or, two and a half men.

Either title is appropriate for what went down at our house last night.

While I was out with some girls celebrating a friend's birthday, Amar and the birthday girl's husband volunteered to babysit another friend's baby. The reports we (the girls) were hearing at the restaurant were that things were fine, and while that was definitely true, it wasn't completely the whole story.

And now for the rest of the story....

After dinner was over, Danielle, whose baby the guys were watching, drove me home from the restaurant to pick up her child. When we showed up, things were great. Baby was happy to see mommy. The boys were happy to be child-free. Everyone was still alive and breathing.

...and then Amar said something like, "Well, we had a bit of an incident." I immediately thought that they were referring to a diaper-related incident. But then he pointed to the room we'll use for our baby and asked me not go to in.

Quick background: we recently had a new AC installed, along with some insulation in the attic. While that was happening, the workers managed to lean the wrong way on something in the attic and it wound up creating a small crack in the ceiling over the baby's crib. No major damage, and they were scheduled to come this morning to clean it up. In preparation for them to clean/repair it, I had moved all of the furniture in the baby's room to the other side. However, since the boys were babysitting last night, I moved it all back in case they needed to use the room.

Back to last night:

When Amar told me not to go in the baby's room, I glanced over at the door and immediately knew why: I could see insulation covering the floor in that area of the house.

I couldn't stop myself - I had to see what happened. So I slowly walked over to the door and nudged it open.

This, my friends, would not be on the list of things you want to have happen less than 10 days before your baby is due (especially if you've cleaned everything, washed everything):

The overall atmosphere in our newly-remodeled nursery. We're going for a factory-chic look here:

Detailed view of the hole in the ceiling, from whence came showers of insulation and drywall:

Another view of the wreckage:

You'll notice that the crib became a virtual bucket for insulation! Yay!!

Zoey was disturbed by the entire incident and spent some time deep in thought...

Note: no one was harmed. Praise GOD that the guys decided not to use that room last night.

Awesomeness defined

Jim is a maker of awesome pancakes. I'm serious. You have to check out Jim's Pancakes to really appreciate what I'm talking about.

But as an avid eater of all things breakfast food, this is phenomenal....

Sneak preview:


A freakin' 3D Ferris Wheel of pancakes. BAM!

Happenings

Just a quick list:

• Got a new AC unit installed at the house yesterday - yeehaw!
• Still pregnant, with ~3 weeks to go.
• Getting a new computer at work...eventually.
• Planning to work for ~3 more weeks...
• Desperately need to bathe the dogs!!!
• The yard folks planted some cute flowers w/o me asking - good stuff!
• Baby laundry is done and ready for a little person to start wearing it.
• Heading to the lake this weekend, and will plan on sparing people the sight of me in a bathing suit.
• Car seat is installed - thanks Danielle!!
• Amar started a new job and is enjoying it - also yeehaw!

I think those are the main highlights. I know I need to post another picture...we'll try to get to that this weekend.

Facebook Privacy Settings: The Tangled Web

The New York Times has a good summary of the various ways to setup your Privacy settings on Facebook. I just went through and updated mine, because it seemed that most everything had defaulted to allow "everyone" to see things about me.

Take a few minutes to do the same, especially if you're concerned about what info is floating around on the web about you...

NYT Article: here

33 Weeks and growing

Squeamish...

Hooray for (hopefully) the last blood draw for quite awhile!

I had my 33 week check-up today (I will post another progress picture soon), and much to my surprise, I had to get my blood drawn again. Now, if you know me, then you likely know that not only do I not like medical things in general, but I have a specific aversion to needles.

So you can imagine my disappointment when the nurse told me that due to a new 2010 law, all pregnant women have to get an HIV test in the 3rd trimester. I asked her if I could just swear that I didn't have HIV, but she said no. They would just test the baby later if I refused to give blood today.

So my dear future daughter, I took one for the Rama team today. Be sure to thank me later ;)

Seriously though, I think this is the 4th or 5th blood draw since October and I'm glad to have it behind me. There is one phlebotomist in particular that I dread having take my blood. So I was specifically praying that I wouldn't get her today (had her the first time and don't want to re-live that). When Amar suggested that maybe that wasn't the best prayer, I switched to "please let me get someone who is compassionate" and gave that a spin.

Well, the first prayer was definitely answered: I didn't get the person I was dreading. However, the second prayer...not so much.

I typically explain to the nurse that "I'm not so good at the needles and blood thing" and they typically respond with "Awww, we'll make sure this isn't too bad." This is a dialogue I can support.

However, when I started my speech this morning, the guy barely acknowledged that I was speaking. Not a good sign.

After I closed my eyes, he then proceeded to jab the needle about halfway through my arm. Pain when shooting through my body. Then when he was done, he started wrapping the gauze and tape around the (still throbbing) wound. When he went to tear the tape off, he pressed (rather firmly) right where he had poked me. Yikes!!

I'm SO glad that Amar was there with me (even though friends/family are supposed to wait in the lobby). I got out of there as soon as I could, and then started to feel a little weak on the way back to the car. And, not surprisingly, I started crying.

Hormones!! Gotta love 'em.

To summarize:
All is well
I still don't like needles
I (still) know without a doubt that I was never meant to be a doctor

Keeping up with the Joneses

I read a few finance and money blogs (because I'm a nerd and find some of that interesting...hope you do too!), and today there was a post about "How do you know when you're *rich*"...

As in, everyone has some sort of number in the back of their mind as so what it would take for them to consider themselves wealthy, or well-off, or comfortable. It's a different number for everyone, but it's interesting to think about.

Anyhow, part of the article talked about global wealth and how you measure up. Check out this site: www.globalrichlist.com to see where you come in.

Kind of helps set perspective a bit...

Link to the original article: Get Rich Slowly - Are we there yet?

30 weeks and growing!

Off to a great start

So I've been buried in Microsoft Excel this week, which by itself, isn't that bad. I'm actually a bit of a nerd like that. I even dreamed about this one particular spreadsheet last night - oy!

However, upon getting into work this morning and starting the data mining again, I got this error:

"Excel cannot complete this task with available resources. Choose less data or close other applications."

Nice.

Does that officially make me a power user at this point?

Happy Friday!

Resolutions - an update

I think it was last year (or the year before?), that I noted some New Year's resolutions. Not being big on resolutions in general, I tried to keep it simple.

I think I did fairly well, if I recall. But I wanted to let you know that I'm still truckin'.

I'm still trying to read more, but I think I've broken my own personal record already this year. It's the end of March and I already have several titles under my belt.

Note: we have a LOT of books. So rather than going out and buying more stuff that looks interesting, I'm shopping our own bookshelves.

Here's what I've finished so far this year:

1) The last half of The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis
I started this (again) last year, and for some reason, came to a stop mid-way through Prince Caspian. So I picked it up in January and polished off not only Prince Caspian, but Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle.

If you have not read this, then you seriously need to ask yourself what you are doing with your life. And please, don't consider the movies as substitutes. There is SO much richness to the way that Lewis writes about his characters, their adventures, and timeless truths. Oy!

2) Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande
This was a personal challenge for me, being someone who just about faints when driving by a hospital, much less when reading stories from inside the operating room. But I was immediately taken in by a "behind the scenes" look at the medical world.

I'm looking forward to reading some of Gawande's other works, also about practicing medicine: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, and Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. But since we don't own them, I'll be saving those for later.

3) The Last Templar, by Raymond Khoury
Very "DaVinci Code" like in it's plot, but a page-turner nonetheless. Though I will say that I identified the "bad guy" the moment he was introduced. It was still a quick read and better than wasting time in front of the TV, which I have a strong tendency to do.

4) Deception Point, by Dan Brown
And speaking of DaVinci Code....

Yes, this is by the same guy. Totally different plot context, as in, it has nothing to do with Italy or the Holy Grail. But it's still an action/adventure story, with more twists and turns than are necessary. A quick read, and fairly entertaining. Though it's just a bit far-fetched...though I'm not sure he knows how to do anything other than far-fetched....

5) The Preservationist, by David Maine
Very interesting indeed. Amar hadn't read this one yet, so I gave it a try. It's a completely different look at a story most of us grew up singing songs about: Noah's ark.

But Maine writes it as a compilation of several first-person accounts, with a lot of artistic liberty to elaborate on what daily life must have been like at that time, what it took to pull this massive project off, and how this family unit survived and interacted with each other.

Also, not a book for kiddos. It's not that kind of Noah's ark story. But, if you're looking to challenge the way that you read some of the "classic" stories in the Bible, this will definitely do it. If you do happen to pick it up, let me know what you think about it. I'd be curious to know.



So that, my friends, is my progress to date. I'm off to shop another bookshelf...if you have any suggestions, let me know!

28 weeks and counting

Here's a new picture: 28 weeks today...so I'm officially in the 3rd trimester. Yippee!

I know, I know...

Several of you have been asking for some updated pictures, so here you go:


This is me last Sunday, at 26 weeks (almost 6 months).

I'm going to try to post a picture every 2 weeks, since at this pace, my circumference is rapidly increasing ;)

The official due date is June 20, so starting next week, I'll be in the third trimester. It's gone by so fast, and has generally been pretty easy so far. Here's hoping that trend continues!

Innovation

I'm not one to take politics too seriously, so when candidates (or someone on their behalf) come up with something slightly interesting or amusing, I'm generally a fan.

For your consideration: Farouk Shami Rap

Mr. Shami is a very successful businessman, running in the Democratic primary for governor of Tx against current Houston Mayor Bill White. Too bad this rap didn't come out last week...could have gotten more folks to the polls.

Here's a teaser of the chorus:
Farouk, Farouk, Farouk is on fire
Servin' the community, his number 1 desire!

It's the little things...

I did something today that wound up making a huge difference with respect to my ability to enjoy our house.

Since we moved in (about 2 1/2 years ago), there has been 1 window in our bedroom that just didn't quite shut correctly. I never spent a lot of time looking into it and just figured that it was one of the quirks of having an older house.

But this morning, as I was working from home, it started bugging me. Mainly because I could hear the kids at the nursery a few houses down and I couldn't concentrate...but also because I just knew that I hadn't figured out the mystery window yet. And solving that mystery could result in lowering the noise level...

So I went over to the window and started poking around. The bottom pane was all the way down, but wouldn't line up with the top pane which meant that it wouldn't close and lock. Why wouldn't this shut!? I opened the bottom pane to see if there was anything obstructing it....nope.

I kept looking around the casing of the window and then voila - perhaps the easiest home fix that I've ever done: I realized that the top pane of the window was open about an inch. What!?!?!

To be completely honest, I didn't even know that the top panes of the windows opened in that room. So I pushed up on the top pane and was able to finally close the window.

That freakin' window has been open an inch for the past 2 1/2 years. Letting in noise and air and who knows what.

But the moment I closed that window - immediate relief. No more noise. No more drafts. Amazing.

Yes, I am bragging about my own stupidity. It's great.

Insight into Iraq

There are a lot of stories from the war in Iraq that get glossed over, since mainstream media tends to focus on what goes wrong vs. what goes right.

I saw this article on Slate today, a 5 part series on "Searching for Saddam". After reading the first installment today, I'll be tuning in to see what comes next.

Some interesting "behind the scenes" type info on how out military gathered intelligence, sorted through tribal social networks, and eventually came to find one of the most-wanted men in the world at the time.

Searching for Saddam: A five-part series on how the U.S. military used social networking to capture the Iraqi dictator

Enjoy!

Go Scotties!

We have 2 Scottish Terriers, so you can imagine how they were each beaming with pride as I told them today that their long lost relative Sadie just won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club. They were overjoyed...and slightly envious of Sadie's dashing haircut.

The details, provdied by Good Morning America: Sadie Scores! Scottish Terrier Takes Best in Show at Westminster

Out of hibernation

I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, but I saw this on the news today and thought it was worth getting the word out:

Courtesy of USA Today:

Snowboarders have a reputation of being a bit flaky, so when U.S. snowboard cross racer Graham Watanabe told reporters Wednesday that his second Olympic appearance was like "Pegasus mating with a unicorn and the creature that they birth I somehow tame it and ride it to the sky and clouds and sunshine and rainbows," the quote seemed almost too good to be spontaneous.

Not so, Watanabe said later, "It came from my heart." -- Sal Ruibal

That is one excited snowboarder.