Happy Anniversary

Today is our 11th Wedding Anniversary. For those of you who do not think that I am the romantic type, the gift I gave my wife was a brand new Front-Loading Washing Machine. ( I DID take her out for a nice dinner and a movie as well - even though we were accompanied by a newborn)

I used to think that anything over 10 years was a long time, but the time has literally flown by. We've been through a lot over the years - some of it great, some of it challenging, and some of it both (5 kids). A quote from tonight's simpsons episode comes to mind: "Marge, we've been through more stuff than the Jews and Charlie Brown combined" :)

Anyway, all I really wanted to say is that I love my wife 100x more now than the day we got married. I cannot imagine life without her, and I thank God every day for Her. I am thoroughly looking forward to spending the rest of my life with Her.

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Baby Update

Krista and Apryl are still doing well. Krista has been discharged from the Hospital, but because of the situation with the medications, they want to keep Apryl one more night for observation. Took the other kids to see them yesterday:


Andy Rolling his eyes at us when we tell him to be careful.


Ally is extremely pleased with herself. After years of being the little sister, she is now a "big" sister.


Aryn is too cool for big toothy grins anymore. She is practically 7, you know.


Hard to believe that only 10 years ago, Arik was this size. Where does the time go?


Hardest part of having 5 kids? Getting them to take a decent picture together. 10 takes and this was the only one where everybody had their eyes open.

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Another Little (Big) A.

At last, another member of the Big A clan has made her long-awaited appearance.

Name: Apryl Krista
Weight: 8 lbs, 3 oz (3.72 kg for my Metric Friends)
Length/height: 20 inches (50.8 CM)

Mother and Baby are both doing really well. As of now, there do not appear to be any of the complications we feared could result from Krista's medications. She needs to be observed carefully for a while longer, but this is truly an answer to prayer.

Some pictures:

Daddy's girl: looking for something to eat almost immediately

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HelpDesk

My computer at work has been crashing. More specifically, The VIDEO driver has been crashing. This happens several times a day. I can work just fine remotely, but to actually sit at my desk and use my PC is very painful. I filed a HelpDesk ticket and waited for the fun to begin.

Solution #1: The answer came back after a few days - "We had to order you a new motherboard" What?? My video card is not even integrated onto the motherboard. That didn't make much sense to me, but few people in a company are more powerful than the computer services people, so I didn't argue. Besides, I had much better things to do than argue with them. Also, I didn't mind having to do my work from some remote location in the building where nobody could find me, so if it took longer to fix, so much the better. After waiting a week for the new motherboard to come in, and ANOTHER week for them to install it, it did not surprise me that the problem still persisted.

Solution #2: "We have to order you a new video card" - ok, this makes a LITTLE more sense, but before we buy new hardware, shouldn't we try getting updated drivers for the video card? These are not cheap video cards - we are talking a pretty high-end dual Monitor card - Especially since the problem didn't happen until they did a windows-update thing, which is notorious for messing up video drivers. Again, I didn't argue. I just waited a few more days for the new hardware to show up and get installed. Imagine my surprise when the problem still persisted.

Solution #3: By this time we are well into a month of this nonsense. I told the guy that the new video card did't work. His response? "Geez, I don't know what else to do, except maybe to update the driver" He gave me the new driver (which I had to install myself - and is all I really wanted in the first place) and I haven't had a problem since.

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$125.37

I had not filled up my wife's gas tank in over a year, but I did so this weekend because I thought gas prices were set to go even higher. Ugh. At least they raised the credit card limit from $50 to $75 so I only had to swipe it twice instead of three times.

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Really Short Movie Review

Rented "The Family Stone" last night. There's really nothing to say about this movie other than it had the most ridiculous plot of any movie I have seen lately. Seriously - from the Christmas movie genre, the story of "It's a wonderful life" or "National Lampoons - Christmas Vacation" are more believable AND less transparent. I give it an emphatic "d'oh" - or in my wife's words: "I'm glad we didn't pay money to see that"

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Another Movie Review

I have been on a bit of a Johhny Cash kick lately, so this week I rented Walk the Line.

I've been meaning to watch this for a while, but I got waylaid by 4 seasons of the Jack Bauer Show. This is not the type of movie I would normally see - It's not funny, has no good action, no violence, no thrilling suspense or mystery, no gratuitous nudity, etc..... It's just a story about a man's life. But it is an excellent, compelling, and interesting story.

I am not a Johnny Cash expert, so I had the good fortune of being able to watch the movie without worrying about things like accuracy, but as near as I could tell it was pretty close. I was glad to see that the film did not really glorify or gloss over the many mistakes and bad choices he made throughout his life.

As far as the acting goes, Reese Witherspoon was outstanding and her singing was very, very good. Joaquin Pheonix acting as Johnny Cash was very good as well. Mr. Pheonix's singing was adequate. He is certainly no Johnny Cash, but then who is? At the beginning of the movie it was pretty bad, but I think that was intentional as he was trying to portray Johnny as a little unsure of himself. As the movie went on, it definitely improved - although Joaquin does NOT have the low range that Mr. Cash has (the low notes in "Folsom Prison Blues" were a little painful to listen to).

The rest of the acting was adequate, but forgettable. The guys playing Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis were pretty weak, but they were bit parts that were not very important to the story.

Overall, it was a pretty good movie. Not one that I will run out and buy, Although it did make me want to run out and buy a copy of the Folsom Prison Recording.

On my Homer Simpson rating scale, I give it one small "woohoo"

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Hey Moron!!!!

I decided to go get an oil change this morning. Those of you who know me will not be surprised to hear that I am not overly religious when it comes to car maintenance, but oil changes are one thing I try to keep up with. I don't adhere to the the 3,000 mile guidelines, because that would require getting it changed once a month, but I usually don't let it get beyond 5k or 6k miles.

Anyway, I went around a curve this morning and my oil pressure warning light flashed. I quickly checked the sticker and discovered that I had gone 11,000 miles since the last change. oops!. So I stopped off at Prompto for a quick oil change. (I never change my own oil anymore)

I was sitting in the waiting room and my heart sank when I heard the technician go -"Hey, there's nothing coming out" I then had to sit through a lecture from the Service Manager about how bad it was to let your car run out of oil, and since only a moron would do such a thing, he "helpfully" proceded to lecture me on the corrosion of my battery terminals and the condition of my tires as well. And there was nothing I could say to defend myself. I just sat there and nodded my head and listened to the lecture.

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