Mighty AC, how I love thee

Can you guess which one is the new AC?



It's not quite 65 degrees inside yet, but it's getting there. It's hard to cool a house from 84+ degrees down to 65. But at least it's trying! So tonight is the first post I've ever attempted while intoxicated. I just blew a .14 in my breathalizer, so I think that means I'm pretty drunk.



Your probably asking yourself why I own a breathalizer. Well, when Andrea and I lived in Idaho, we had this long standing argument about the true effects of having 1 or 2 beers with dinner. To settle the arguement, we bought an actual breathlizer and conducted an experiement. As you might be able to guess, we often ran out of things to do.

For the experiment, we drank 1 beer every 20 minutes. We had to drink the full beer in 10 minutes, and then go 10 minutes without drinking anything in order to make the breathalizer effective. If you used it too fast after drinking, it would register the alcohol on your breath. What were the results? Well, every beer was .01 increase for me and .02 increase for Andrea. So basically she was getting drunk at twice the speed I was. After 2 hours (and 6 beers), Andrea was past the "legal limit" at .10+ and I was still at .06.

Well, tomorrow I will be helping my brother move - hopefully it goes better then the last time. We must have loaded up the U-Haul 3 times and still didn't finish the previous time. It seems like my bro is slightly better prepared this time, so it will probably go faster. One can only hope!

Enough is Enough

Tomorrow we are supposed to be getting our new AC installed. Feels like an eternity since it's been out. This week got especially hot, peaking today I think. Tomorrow night I'm going to set my house at 65 degrees, just because I can! And I'll be home alone, so no worries about anyone being cold.

Very interesting day at work today... First, just before noon we have to evacuate the building due to a fire alarm. Turns out an AC motor blew up and smoke triggered an alarm. (sounds familiar!) But then, upon returning to our desks, it seems there are also huge power outages going around. The place did have some limited UPS generators going, so some people had power depending on where they were located. Half the people were working, half weren't. Of course, MY cube was just fine.

But with the AC out... the HUGE racks of computers in the testing area right near my cube heated things up REALLY fast. Pretty soon it was 84 degrees in the office, I was friggen dying. I honestly don't know if I will be able to handle things tomorrow if they don't have some kind of back up AC. I can handle 84 degrees at my house because I can sit around in my underwear, but work is a whole different story.

I managed to get out and see Superman Returns last night. I hadn't planned on it, but at the last minute my brother called me up and asked. I enjoyed the movie, although it was a tad long and slow at some points. I thought the initial Superman + Lois scene was bad, where they finally meet up for the first time in 5 years. My brother thought it was better then X-men 3, I'm not quite sure I agree.

Lastly, I thought I'd post a quick Megan crawl update. She is definitely getting close, she tries so hard! Just hasn't quite figured out what to do with those back legs once she gets them under herself.

4-day weekend, where are you!

Some quick notes about this week at work. Food avoided on the Snackmaster so far: mini snickers bars and a huge chocolate cake. Geek topics covered: Strongbad and Magic: The Gathering. I did my first ever Magic: The Gathering "Draft". Very interesting, and also fun.

Mostly I'm just looking forward to the 4-day weekend coming up. Thankfully, I have both Mon/Tue off, which is awesome. I can't actually take any time off for 90 days, so this will be pretty much the last long weekend I will have for quite some time. So I had better enjoy it!

Megan had a new first yesterday, she imitated our clapping! It was so cute, she would laugh and wait for us to clap and then clap her hands. She is also becoming more and more verbal every day, making lots of new sounds and laughs. Still no crawling really, not sure when that will happen.

Not motivated to write more, maybe I'll get some in later this week. Definitely look for a post on Friday, as I will have the whole night to myself - Andrea and Megan are going to visit a friend and stay over night. Party time!

Nothing really interesting

Just going to post a few pictures from the wedding yesterday, don't really have any good updates. We are just trying to stay cool today - we both got some running in this morning, and Andrea ran 4 miles! I think it's time to talk her into doing a 5k with me.


Megan in a new dress that was a tad to big for her, but still fit okay.


Get this hat off of me!


Andrea and Megan being cute as can be.

First Week Down

I can't seem to connect to World of Warcraft, so this seems like as good a time as any to post. I've finished my first week at my new job, and overall, I think I will really like this job. "Like" being a very relative term here... I mean, it's still a job, and it still sucks ass to have to do that instead of, oh I don't know - spend all day with Megan & Andrea, but that's how life works I guess.

The people I work with are very obsessed with food. Bringing food in, donuts twice a week, and the kicker: the Snackmaster. They have this station, which just so happens to be setup directly behind my cube, called the Snackmaster. Every day someone will bring in some kind of snack and send an email out to everyone that food is available on the snack master. So far this week: 3 boxes of Cheesy Tots, a huge tub of Animal Crackers, Chips and Salsa, and potato chips and guacamole. Needless to say, it looks like avoiding food might be one of my biggest challenges!

Aside from my normal fears of failure, and being worried I won't be able to get up to speed as fast as they expect of me, everything else seems very cool. While some people were socializing around the Snackmaster, I joined in the conversations. I dropped a LAN Party joke and everyone actually got it and laughed. (or were just being nice, but I think they actually got it) At lunch, the topics of conversation were TV technologies, Spiderman's sexuality, and Commodore 64s. Yes, I am finally working with fellow Geeks. This is good!

Looks like we will be getting the new AC installed this coming Friday. One more week of living in the heat. Today is actually really nice, after that storm last night cooled things down. I biked into Penn Cycle today and got my bike in for a tune up, it won't be ready until Thursday. (opps!) Luckily I brought my cell phone, so I called Andrea and she met me half way in her car as I got some running in as well.

This afternoon, we are going to a wedding of a cousin of mine. Should be a nice time, and I'm sure everyone will love to see Megan. Lots of family that haven't seen her since Christmas. Expect some wedding pictures for my post tomorrow.

AC Woes

I haven't posted about this yet, because I've been waiting until I had a nice solid block of time to rant and rage about my stupid air conditioning. So here goes...

Last Friday night when we got home from Duluth, the house was warm. At first I thought, oh no big deal, we must have turned it off before we left. I'll just turn it back on now. At 4am, when I couldn't sleep because I was roasting, I checked - the AC was not running. Somehow in my sleeping stupor, I had the bright idea of checking the circuit breaker. Sure enough, the AC had tripped and was turned off. Hmm odd, maybe something happened with that huge storm? My computers had both reset also... Flipped the switch and went back to bed.

Woke up Saturday morning and things were fine. House was nice and cool. By mid afternoon, the AC had shut off again. Checked the circuit breaker, and it was tripped again. Tried to reset it - instantly it tripped back. Tried to force it back in, and I could see blue sparks behind the breaker. Okay... bad idea. (Yes, I tried many more times though)

4 days in the heat and $65 dollars later, I'm told my AC compressor is completely dead. Replacement would be somewhere around $800 dollars, and I'm sure that doesn't include labor. The alternative is to just bite the bullet and install an entire new Air Conditioner. Price tag on that? $2700+

Sigh...

On the plus side, installing a new air conditioner should reduce our cooling costs by as much as 40%! Most people might see that as a money saver, but I'm actually hoping it means something else. I'm hoping that if my AC is more efficient, I'll just get to keep it running longer without getting cut off for using too much energy!

Second Day Impressions

I wanted to post my first day impressions, but yesterday just got away from me. I biked 9 miles and ran 3.6 miles, had Andrea's parents come over with Megan and we had a big Fajita dinner. I was hardly able to get an hour and half of World of Warcraft in before it was 11pm. So onto the second day impressions!

Commute: 18 miles one way. Travel time is most likely going to range from 30-45 minutes, depending on time of day, number of lights, etc. Estimated gas cost per day assuming 25 miles per gallon and $2.75 gas price = (36/25) * 2.75 = $3.96 per day.

Co-workers: People I've met so far seem very introverted. This is both good and bad. On the one hand, it's going to be very hard in day to day interactions. Lunch times and social engagements. On the other hand, it probably means everyone is good at what they do. I think this is a very good sign, although quite the opposite of the loud boisterous crew at my last job.

One thing I knew I'd miss about my old job was the fun lunch hour periods where we played cards, cribbage and spades. Guess what I found out on my first day of work? People there play Magic: The Gathering during lunch hour! Too funny.

There is also a few old UMD grads that work here, and have been here since graduating anywhere from 97 to 2000. They didn't necessarily remember me, but at least one person did. UMD grads... they just seem to be everywhere!

Actual Work: It looks like they have a mess of software and are hoping someone is going to come in and clean it all up and set everything straight. It seems pretty clear even now, that I have a very good opportunity to become a very "key" person quickly. The question is, will I be able to accomplish that?

Unfortunately, like every new job, it's hard to get anyone dedicated to getting me "up to speed" quickly. My second day of work, and I'm already spending 90% of the day on my own, attempting to stumble my way through mounds of undocumented software. It is of course not the best way to learn, but until companies realize you can't just throw someone into a fire and expect them to come out unscathed, it's all I have for now.

Long term, I think this is going to be a great job - something I will be able to dig into and make some very useful contributions to. It's much easier going to work knowing that what I am working on is a main product advertised on the company web site.

First Father's Day

I had wanted to get a few more posts up this weekend, but just never got around to it. So here I am on Sunday, my first ever Father's day! And what is my Father's Day gift? The afternoon alone. :-) Andrea has to bring Megan down to New Ulm so that her parents can watch her over night and tomorrow while Andrea goes to Jury duty. There is still a slim chance she might only have to show up Monday and be dismissed.

Friday we did our first ever road trip to Duluth with Megan. It was a pretty successful adventure - only some minor crying in the morning on the way up, but nothing too bad. We visited some old college friends and even found time to do a tour of Glensheen Mansion. 4 years going to college in Duluth, and I had never bothered to checkout Glensheen. Sad isn't it?







We drove home Friday night thinking, "Hey - Megan will fall asleep on the way home!" That part worked fine, the only problem was we drove straight into a HUGE rain storm just south of Duluth, which pretty much lasted the whole way home. It made for some scary night driving, but at least it kept me awake! Thankfully we got home with no incidents, and Megan was asleep the whole time.

Yesterday we attended a BBQ / birthday event over at Steve's. It was lots of fun, Megan got to see another small dog which she just loved again. Also there was another baby there, 6 month old. Megan's reactions to other kids now are just hilarious. She will scream and get all excited and make loud happy noises. It's all very cute. I got the Guitar Hero ball rolling, but was quickly humbled by people that actually own the game. Steve says Guitar Hero 2 will allow for separate difficulty levels for each player, so there can be some more even competition between the elite guitar rockers and the weekend warrior rockers!

Jury Duty and more

Thought I'd give an update on Andrea's jury duty if anyone is curious. She headed over to Hastings on Monday morning, and had to sit in a small waiting room all day basically. There was something like 70 people, and only 40 would be picked this first week. Long story short is that she didn't get picked, and was sent home and doesn't have to do anything else this week. That's cool and at the same time sucks. It's cool cause now we get to do fun family stuff all week, but now Andrea has to call Friday night to find out what she has to do next week. I would pretty much assume she will have to go in next Monday, which means we will have to find day care all next week potentially. Shitty!

So yesterday, Andrea and I checked out something called Matinee Movie Magic at a theater in Inver Grove Heights. The idea behind this special screening is that you are welcome to bring crying babies into the theater. Check out the FAQ section regarding this.

We get there and there is NO one else in the theater. That's really not that unexpected I guess, it's 11am on a Tuesday afternoon. We settle in and just as the movie starts, two younger girls walk in and sit down somewhere behind us. They did NOT have a child with them. This wasn't exactly what we were expecting, and although Megan was fine for the majority of the movie, Andrea doesn't think she would ever go back again - unless she organizes a larger event through Mom's club where there are more parents with kids there.

Today we headed over to the MN Zoo for a quick visit, it was fun even if Megan doesn't quite get much out of it yet. But she really enjoyed the dolphins and the other fish tanks. I'm looking forward to when she is a little older and we go.

Other then that, we've just been dealing with Megan's bad cold this week. She has developed a very bad cough, unlike anything I've heard before. We think it might be "croup", but I guess I'm not 100% convinced it is. I did bring her into the doctor today just to make sure she didn't have any ear infections, and also to make sure it didn't sound like anything deeper in her lungs. Doc said she was okay, so no big deal. Peace of mind is worth $15 bucks for me. Steve went all out to help me out and grabbed a cold air humidifier from his parents so that I could borrow it. I think it is helping, she slept much better last night and tonight is looking good too. Thanks Steve!!


I still haven't figured out how to take good low-light pictures without using the flash. Maybe that isn't exactly possible with digital cameras... If anyone has any advice let me know!

I'm thinking Arby's

First off, I want to thank everyone that has called me, emailed me or snail mailed me a happy birthday. Odds are, if you knew it was my birthday today you probably read my blog, so THANK YOU! (and, for those of you that haven't, there is still 4 hours and 25 minutes left!)

Today's gluttony: Arby's 2 for $5 dollar Turkey subs, medium curly fries, and 2 potato cakes! Estimated calorie intake: 1916. Yummy factor: 7 out of 10. (curly fries were a bit stale)

Strangely enough, I don't think I will eat fast food tomorrow. Not because I don't want to, but because we have too much fresh food around the house that we have to eat before it goes bad. But fear not! The week of Fast Food will continue, I believe the next stop will be Taco Bell.

Last Saturday, we went to the birthday party of Lily, who turns 1 year old on June 14th. (not quite as cool as June 12th, but close!) It was a lot of fun, and it seems like Lily and Megan were already hitting it off! Maybe they will grow to be good friends in the future, being only 4 months apart. :-)



We also gave Megan a big bite of her first cupcake. Sure, it looks cute in this picture but you should have seen what happened afterwards. Let's just say... she wasn't quite ready for cupcakes.



One last picture before I sign off... I have to get out and get some running in, even if there is no way I can make my calorie output match my input today. :-)

A Year Ago

My blog has officially been around for exactly one year today. I'm not quite sure why I started my blog the day before my birthday. Maybe because it was a Saturday, and I had some spare time. I've enjoyed blogging, even if I'm not that good at it. At least there are pictures of Megan from time to time, right?

A year ago I also started down my path of healthy living. Starting with 4 mile bike rides that I could barely handle, to 30 mile bike races, to running and a 10k race. For all intents and purposes, I've lost 100 lbs in this last year. Crazy. I'm 2/3 the man I used to be. Am I a different person? Yes and no. There are still times when I "feel" like that guy I used to be. So I know he's still there, lurking.

Tomorrow I turn 30.

Last year, I might have thought that 30 was the half way point of my life. Now though, I like to think I might be able to squeeze in a few more years. I'm not doing anything big for my birthday. It's just going to be me and Megan, hanging out. It will be perfect.

I've decided for my birthday, I'm going to give myself a present. Actually, it's not for me. It's for that other guy I used to be, the one still lurking. I'm going to indulge him with a little fast food. Each day this week will be something different, something bad for me, but oh so yummy.

So bring on the Week of Fast Food!

Oh Crap

And I'm not talking about the kind Megan is making in her pants right now. I'm talking about the really bad cold Megan has developed.... More on that later.

Last day of work was fine. Awkward lunch as pretty much as I expected. I over ate, which is going to be the theme of the next week. More on that later this weekend. As I mentioned, I opted out of any kind of exit interview, so all I had to do Friday was meet with an HR person, turn in my badge, sign some paperwork and I was off. They didn't have to escort me out or anything like that, it was all fine.

After work, I had planned to go out to eat yet again with my family, only this time for my birthday celebration. I decided to pick some place no one had ever been to, and went with Joe Senser's Sports Grill & Bar. Everyone ended up liking the meal that they got, and so I think we all agreed the food was good. Now, by good - I don't mean, super high quality, but tasty given the bar atmosphere. Just one word of advice, DO NOT use the public restrooms there. They were a tad on the scary side.

For dinner, we dropped Megan off with Great Grandma Ruby! I guess they had a great time, so that was good news. The bad news is, Megan developed a very bad cold last night. She must have got it a few days ago, Andrea thinks possibly from the Children's Museum. It came on quickly, because yesterday before Grandma's I just barely noticed it, and then on the way home it was really bad. Now this morning, it sounds like the worst cold Megan has got thus far. Uuuggghhh. This sucks, because I just got over a cold!! What the hell, its June, you aren't supposed to get colds in June!!!

I suppose I should get some exercise in today while I still can, before the cold incapacitates me.

The Final Countdown

Once again, another week of no posts. At least this time I actually have some excuses. Monday night I had a conference call with our offshore teams to hand off my workload from my job. The call was from 7-8pm, which was 8am for the offshore team!

Tuesday night I got in a long 5.5 mile run, which was very nice. I'm still not sure what I am going to do with my Lifetime membership. After I change medical insurance, both Andrea and I might lose our health club discounts. That's $40 bucks a month... On the other hand, I know I'm going to want a membership again this winter, so I can't really cancel either. It's almost like once they get ya, you are locked in for good.

Wed night I was over at Steve's place, helping him stain his deck. I have never stained anything in my life, so hopefully I didn't ruin anything too badly. We didn't get everything done so I really hope it doesn't rain too soon. Tonight I got home super early because I've pretty much wrapped up everything at work. I was able to get a real quick bike ride in. Just 8 miles but I did it in under 35 minutes.

Well tomorrow is my last day at work. We are going out for my "goodbye" lunch. Pretty standard procedure, but I didn't even really want to do it. Half my group is already gone, taking vacation this week. So there won't even be that many people out for lunch which will just make it that more awkward. Oh well... I guess one of the best things I've read during this whole job changing thing was about loyalty. No matter how loyal you may be to a company - when the shit hits the fan, a company will have no loyalty to its employees and would never think twice about having to lay you off. (except for maybe the guy that actually has to tell you)

I don’t know why, but for some reason that puts it all in perspective for me. I guess the fact that I've been in a company that did massive layoffs, it has more meaning to me.

Red, White and... Dude?

As I'm getting out of the shower this morning, I noticed the colors on my arm didn't look exactly right. Sure enough, I got some sun burn yesterday! The coloring is just hilarious though, because normally my arms don't burn very easily because I have pretty dark skin which is double protected by lots of hair. But check out the awesome whiteness + red on my arm:



Just that little area around my elbow got burned. Now that I'm sitting here out of the shower, I can actually feel it - and it hurts! Must be because it is my first bike rides of the summer, because last year I don't remember ever getting any kind of burns.

Today Megan will be spending the afternoon with GG. Andrea and I are going to get some things done (grocery shopping, how exciting!) and go out for lunch. After that, this afternoon the Bieraugel grandparents will be coming to visit Megan. What can I say, Megan is a precious commodity these days. This picture is just for you Grandma B!

Biking Galore

This morning was a very fun bike ride with my brother. I did a total of 24.5 miles, my brother was with me for 15 of that. I might have pushed him a little harder then he is ready for, but isn't that what big brothers are for? He said to remember that he's a year behind me. If you ask me, if he can lose weight like I did for a year, he will be 4 years ahead of me! We got to catch up on things, which was very nice.

I think I'm just going to lay low the rest of this weekend, try and relax. Next week at work is going to be tough, saying the final goodbyes to everyone. I've decided I am going to opt out of the optional exit interview process. The reason being, there is no real good way to explain why you are leaving. If your leaving, it's obviously because there is some aspect you aren't happy with. Why point it out? Nothing is going to change.

Andrea has suggested that during my week off between jobs, we should squeeze in as much fun as we possibly can with Megan. Zoo trips, park trips, and whatever else we can think of. We might even check out this movie theater that has a special screening setup specifically for parents with babies & little children. It's a normal first run movie, but you don't need to worry about having a crying kid!

So here is one picture for today... I'm just floored at how well Megan can stand, yet she still refuses to crawl much. Oh well, I'm sure by the time she is crawling and walking we will wish she was back to her less-mobile self.

Heading into the last week

I kept wanting to post all week. Every night I'd be thinking, "I should really set aside some time to post." But I just never got around to it. It's still hard to believe that in two weeks I'm going to be 30, quit a job, and start a new one. How's that for making my 30th exciting?

I got a couple nights of exercise in this week, so that was good. I keep bouncing around the 20x weight, where 2 < x < 8. Need to stay focused for a solid 3 weeks to make another dent and hit that 199 mark! Tomorrow morning I'm going to go biking with my brother, that should be fun.

So I managed to get a week off in between jobs. The reasoning for this, is because Andrea has been called to Jury duty the week starting June 12th. I don't really know if this means she will be gone all week, part of the day, or not at atll. But it works out well that I can stay home for that week, that way we don't have to worry about a babysitter or day care.

Well, it's 12:30am and I just got done feeding Megan so I should probably head to bed. More posts coming this weekend!