One Two Punch

Pink eye and ear infection. Not exactly the thing you want to hear a day before vacation. Megan had been more moody then usual all week, including some weird night time crying and needing extra soothing for bed, etc. She has been sick with a cold (along with Andrea) for probably the last week and half. Thursday I came home and noticed that one of her eyes looked a little darker then the other, and seemed to have a film / wetness to it.

Andrea took Megan in to the doc the next morning, and sure enough she has both pink eye AND an ear infection all at once. When it rain it pours. We have to do drops in her eyes every 3 hours and amoxicillin twice a day for the ear infection.

Andrea's parents have still agreed to take Megan for us today and over night, so we can enjoy the night off at a hotel in New Ulm. Megan did actually sleep all night last night (from midnight till 8am) so maybe she is feeling a little better. In the meantime, I'm going to try and enjoy my 3-day weekend as much as humanly possible.


Andrea got a free medium pizza from Old Chicago for her birthday, so we went there and Megan got a balloon!


So thats why none of my DVDs will read anymore...


I just liked this picture, Megan looks so cute!

One day at a time

I thought I'd made it through the worst part of work last week, but this week isn't turning out any better. Thankfully I have this weekend to look forward to, and a 3 day weekend at that. I need to stop having these worst case scenario thoughts. I'm sure I'm not at risk of losing my job at this point, but it constantly worries me. Right now our software has been found to have serious performance issues over the previous version in high volume stress tests. Why? I don't know... Maybe because it's had over 1.5 years of untested code changes? And what if the performance issues can't be resolved? Someone, somewhere is going to point fingers and need someone to blame. And then what if 1.5 years worth of development dollars get thrown out the window? That can't just happen without consequences. Ultimately I'd expect that falls on the shoulders of the project leads and project managers, but some days... I just wonder.

It doesn't help that the one time I did survive layoffs back at my first job, it was only worker drones that got laid off. Not a single management person was let go during the mass lay-offs. This was completely the wrong approach in my opinion, but who knows how companies make those kinds of decisions.

Enough about work... way back on October 8th last year I posted about how I ran over my bike with my car after the last ride of the season. I finally got it into the shop and had it looked at. The good news is that the frame wasn't bent like I originally thought. The bad news is that the wheel was in fact completely ruined. Replacing it is going to run me about $120 bucks. Sucks, but at least I don't have to buy an entire new bike. I shouldn't complain, I think Steve has gone through multiple tires on his bike.

Now I just have to figure out what kind of biking things I want to do this year. I think I want to do some more transporting of my bike to places and enjoying long miles of scenic paved bike trails. Things like the Gateway State Trail or maybe the Sakatah Singing Hills? Of course, there is also the possibility of going up north to the Paul Bunyan State Trail for a really long ride. 70+ miles of paved paths.

Vacation... soon?

Might remember back in Nov, I was talking about vacation planning. Or in my case, lack of. I've been at my job for 9 months and I've used zero hours of vacation time. This must be some kind of crazy record for me. It's not like I haven't had any breaks. I had three floating holidays I had to use at the end of December or I'd lose them (they don't carry over year-to-year). And I've taken sick time here and there. Now I'm looking at having to use 5 days of vacation time before June, or I lose those also! (vacation goes year-to-year of your hire date... don't ask, its complicated)

Anyway, the point is, we got some fun things coming up. This weekend, we are going down to New Ulm for an overnight trip. Andrea's parents will be watching Megan for us. In April, we are going to go spend the day at the Water Park of America. Courtesy of free tickets provided by Andrea "Free Stuff" Anderson. Then in May, we are going to head up North for a romantic weekend get-a-way at Superior Shores. For that weekend, my Mom is going to watch Megan for the entire weekend! Should be interesting, she says she is going to Megan proof her house before then, but really - can anything be fully Megan proofed?

If all these little mini vacations weren't enough, I've even got one more planned just for me. I'm heading out to Boise at the end of October, all by my lonesome, for a 4-day weekend trip. I think it will be great to just see a couple of my old friends from back there. The other big reason I want to go back to is run a solid half-marathon along the Boise Green Belt. No specific event in mind, just running the thing I had access to for 5 years and never even used. To think I lived no more then a quarter mile from this wonderful running location all that time... I try not to have any regrets, but sometimes it's so hard not to.

Speaking of running, on a more positive note, I got outside today for a great run. It would have been a crime not to, with this great weather. I thought it was supposed to be cloudy and rainy today, not sunny and awesome! Bad news is that the battery on my distance monitor died, so I had no idea how far/long I was running. Here is the loop that I ended up running. It was great except for the fact that for the first 4 miles, I had the wind to my back the entire time (little did I know). The way home was a bit rough, but I managed. Now to relax and enjoy the rest of today!

Friday Night Party

Involves Megan sitting on my lap while blogging and watching Harry Potter 3. Good enough for me! This weekend couldn't come soon enough. Pretty rough week at work... although I put 46 hours on my time sheet, it was more like 50 hours at the office. Guess I shouldn't really complain, first long hour week since I've been there.

Got outside for a great run tonight, gotta love the 60 degree sunny weather. Running outside is SO much nicer then running on the treadmill. It actually feels easier, I can run faster and not get as tired, not to mention it is not as boring. Don't know if I'll get out again this weekend, but I've got the itch now. Spring won't be here soon enough.

The rest of this weekend should be loads of fun. I'm only NOT at TMNT right now because Andrea had some plans for tonight, so Megan and I are home alone. Hopefully I'll catch it tomorrow afternoon. Then I'll be getting my bike into the shop this weekend so I can get it fixed for the summer of riding. Tomorrow night is dinner with the family at Applebees.

Come Sunday morning, I might be running a D&D session. I'm still waiting for a phone call if one last person can show up. I think it will be fun, and a nice change of pace to do a morning - afternoon session, instead of our usual night time - 3am games. Maybe everyone's mental faculties will be working a little better from 10am to 4pm.

Gotta go now, time to get Megs ready for bed. In her PJs at least. She's been staying up pretty late recently. Past 10pm for the last week for the most part. Might still be a fall out from the time change, it's hard to say.

Time for Change

It's weird how after I get home from work, in my head, it's the next day. It's Thursday to me, even though its not. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it? Wait, what was this post going to be about? Oh ya.

I originally bought my mp3 player back in Jan of 2006. After I got it, I put 26 songs on it. For 15 months, my mp3 player had those same 26 songs on it. 400+ miles of running, unknown number of biking miles, all to those same 26 songs. Yesterday, I finally changed the playlist. Now it has 46 songs on it, all different from the original 26. Right about now you might be wondering, who cares?

Cause sometimes I feel like my mp3 player is a metaphor for part of my personality. Change is good, right? Tonight, the new music was a great energizer to my run. It felt great... so why did I settle for the same 26 songs for 15 months? It's not my lack of music interests... Maybe partly my lack of available mp3's. (I only have 1.6 gig of music, not exactly a lot) But really I think it's just that I don't go out of my way to seek out new things as much as I should. I'm not saying I need to be going out buying things or taking extravagant vacations to exotic locations all the time, but I think it might do me some good to focus on the things I do enjoy and build on them to keep things interesting.

Btw.... TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES THIS WEEKEND!!! WOOHOOO!!

Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves...
will bring all of you to a new understanding and value of life.
A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet earth.

Like a priceless jewel.. buried in dark layers of soil and stone.
Earth radiates her brilliant beauty... into the caverns of space and time.

Perhaps your are aware of those who watch over your home.
And experience it as a place to visit and play with reality.
You are becoming aware of yourself as a game master.

10 Pointless Questions

Ahh, the lazy Sunday strikes again. Actually I did do a short work out this morning, but been relaxing the rest of the day. Recently, Megan must have screwed up the channel memory on our TV, because I couldn't channel up/down through any channels. I went ahead and told the TV to re-memorize the available channels. After doing this, I went through to find any that needed to be deleted, only to find 10 channels worth of On-Demand that are playing movies. There is really no reason I should be getting these, but for some reason they are playing. Available today: Passenger 57, Departed, Revenge of the Sith, Curious George (Megan and I watched that!), RV, and even.... Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl!! How long will it last?!? Considering I don't even have a cable box, it might just be around for awhile...

Anyway, on to the 10 pointless questions promised in the title:

1. If you could live forever, as a normal young healthy person, would you?

2. What would you do if you won the lottery?

3. If you could know what really happens when you die, would you want to?

4. If you could know the exact date and cause of your death, would you want to?

5. If you could take a pill that made it so you never had to sleep, but it would take 5 years off your life expectancy, would you?

6. What would you do if you knew the cure for cancer or AIDS?

7. If you could have a DVD of your entire life, would you watch it? (btw, I had this question in my head long before the movie Click came out)

8. Would you want to be able to read peoples thoughts, if it meant everyone else could read yours?

9. What would you do if you could travel through time? (aside from attempting to cause a paradox)

10. If you could be given all knowledge of how the entire universe came into being, how it works, and operates, would you take it?

TGIF

Okay so Friday is still another 3 hours away, but it's close enough. We ate at TGIF tonight and it was yummy. I had a french fry appetizer with some french fries as my main course. I'm a little french fried out needless to say. I just brought the sandwich I got home to have for lunch tomorrow. We dropped Megan off at Grandma G's, aka Casa De Chocolate. Now I'm kinda sick off M&Ms and Hershey bars. Can you say lots of exercise this weekend? I CAN!!

Andrea and Megan are heading down to New Ulm tomorrow night to spend the night with her folks. So Friday night I'll just be exercising until I'm sick of it, and then a long run Saturday morning. I actually got a long run outside on Tuesday this week when it was 60 out, but now this weekend isn't looking to be as nice. Bummer.

Here are the promised pictures of Megan...


This first one was just cute, although hard to see, Megan is wearing a pair of cat ears that Andrea bought for Halloween. Hmmmm wonder where those ended up, hopefully Andi got them put away.


I thought this one was funny, Megan throwing out gang signs.


I'm not sure if she just had her eyes closed, or actually had started to fall asleep in this position. I'm gonna guess she was actually asleep like this and that's why Andi snapped the picture.


Finally, Megan playing in her new booster chair. She loves just sitting in it for some reason. Recently she's figured out how to strap herself in! Too bad she doesn't know how to get out yet. Or is that a good thing...? J

Happy p Day

I had once considered myself quite the math buff, yet I had never heard of PI day until today. And I call myself a geek!? Thank god I still play D&D, it's the only thing I got left to hang on to my geekdom. Although there is a good chance I might give up on that too...

Giving up. Such an interesting concept. Probably the single easiest thing one can do. I think Office Space said it best. "Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit." I remember posting about quitting as one of my first posts. Turns out it was actually my 6th post ever. In going back to read the post, I found an anon comment from someone who had physical withdrawal symptoms (headaches, vomiting) from quitting online games. The comment came almost 10 months later, so I had never seen it until now. Interesting. Almost makes me want to go through all my old posts...

In thinking about all the things I've given up on, video games, food, drinking...(although that last one is arguable, especially considering what happened just last weekend) I wonder if maybe I've taken things a little too far. I did all this under the motivation of becoming a "better person". But what does that even mean? Have I become so obsessed with certain things that I've completely lost sight of the simple pleasures?

And in spite of all that, I find myself having thoughts of giving up on even more things. And I'm not just referring to D&D here. I'm talking about things that some small part of me still cries out that they are worth fighting for, worth holding on to. I want to listen, really I do... because the last thing I want is to give up on so much that I no longer have anything to look forward to. Not that I think it will ever get that bad, but sometimes it feels like I'm pretty damn close.

I know, I know. Why does every damn post have to be so serious/dark/brooding? Who knows... I guess because it's my blog damnit, and I'm taking it back for me! If that makes me the asshole, well it's probably not the only thing... On the plus side, I have some pictures of Megan ready to go for tomorrow so this post won't even sit on top for 24 hours. You can thank me later.

Choppin' Broccoli

She chopUUNNN!



It's pretty cool that Megan actually likes to eat healthy food. Oh sure, she loves cake, pizza, and cookies, but she will also ask for broccoli and even brussel sprouts. Especially the brussel sprouts, she will point and ask for them until she eats her fill. I even caught it on video for proof!



I'd post more but it's 11pm and I need to get some serious sleep. I've got to be in at 6am tomorrow to have some things done by 8, which means I'm basically getting up at what used to be 4am to get to work... Or something like that. I can hardly do the math required to figure that out.

A Brief History of Time

I have no clue how this post is going to turn out, so bare with me. Recently, work has been pervading my thoughts. From my nightly runs to my weekends at home, it's getting annoying! Work has not, and SHOULD not be something that invades my home life. This got me thinking about why I would let work get to me like that, which lead me to thinking as I often do, about what's really important to me, and where my priorities are. Finally, this lead to thoughts about how those priorities have changed over time and so I decided to actually put a list together in my head.

1994-1998: College Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Grades/School
2. Andrea
3. Drinking
4. Friends
5. Everything else (mostly Mario Kart)

Not much to say about college years, 'cept that there are times I miss many aspects of college. I tried to squeeze in as much self discovery as I could... When I was sober anyway.

1998-2004: Stagnation Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Work
2. Everquest
3. Andrea
4. Drinking
5. Everything else

98 started out with me living by myself and having nothing but work, and I poured everything I had into it. In the long term, it helped me be good at what I do. But I call these the stagnation years because, as hard as I worked, there was very little growth on a personal level. I drank every weekend to fight the monotony. With all my time spent on Everquest, and Andrea working mostly nights, I often wonder if I could have found more productive pursuits. But I try not to regret my decisions... I made some good friends and we had some good times. I'm actually heading back to Boise in October to visit people, and looking forward to that.

2004: Year of Shock
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Work
5. Everything else

Moving back to Minnesota in Nov 03 was a much bigger shock to my persona then I realized at the time. I look back now and realize that moving back was a major catalyst to all the change in my life. Being around my family again made me realize how important they were to me. Friendships found there way back into the top 3 as I did my best to reconnect with everyone. I took a solid 6 month break from work as it dropped far down my list of priorities.

2005-2006: Rediscovery Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea/Megan
2. Family
3. Shawn
4. Friends
5. Everything else

2005 started off with the news of impending fatherhood. It was also the start of my year of sobriety. Two interesting things stand about my priorities during this period. First, it's the first time I actually showed up on my own list, and second, it's the first time work went off to the way side. I think that is why I ended up in a dead-end job for 2 years without realizing it. I refer to this period as a self discovery time, because I still see two distinct personalities between pre and post 2005.

2007+: Year of ???
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea/Megan
2. Shawn
3. Work
4. Family
5. Everything else

Which brings us to today, where I find work is constantly struggling to move up to the #2 spot in my priority list. It's important to me to succeed, but only so far as it helps me achieve my personal goals. What I dislike is when the desire to succeed causes me to think/worry about work outside of work, and it can be a constant struggle. On the plus side, I'm very happy where I'm at and with my current priority list. I think I just need to keep the top 3 in balance (a.k.a. keep work in check) and the rest will just work out.

Two's Day

Not much new to report, or should I say, not much I want to post about right now. Instead I'll just say how much fun was had on Saturday with all our things, and how Sunday we all just sat around enjoying a relaxing do nothing day. Here are some pictures of Megan from the weekend.


Playing with Grandpa B and the basketball. Swoosh!


Megan got a new outfit to wear, so we put it on right away, before she out grows it!


She thought this was a fun game, to get her head stuck in the stool... I let her figure out how to get out. :-)


Hard at work at the computer... She's playing this game if your curious.

Between here and there

Somehow I survived this week? I'm not even sure how... between the lack of exercise, the long nights at work, the snow storms... This week was really a downer. Yet here I sit on Saturday morning after my morning run feeling much better. If there is one thing this week showed me, it's that how tightly my mood is currently tied to my exercise / activity levels. That must mean something good, but my brain is too damn exhausted from this week to analyze it much more.

Work highlight this week... So I'm sitting in a meeting with the Project Lead, the Quality Assurance Lead, and myself. We are going over potential problems in the software, and in discussing something the QA Lead makes an off-hand comment, "Well you guys would know better then me on that one, it's your code." The Project Lead responds jokingly, "Well, at least 1/3rd of the people in this room know the code." He was of course, referring to my knowledge of the code. Not bad for 8 months... Now to just survive the next 8! HA!

Today is pretty busy, although a small lull right now gave me time to blog. In about an hour, Grandma B & Grandpa B will be arriving to visit Megan and spend the afternoon here. I'll be out running a few errands while they are here. Then tonight we will be dropping Megan off and Grandma G's, and Andrea and I will be going out for a nice date night.

First stop is this new place in Apple Valley, down off Galaxie called Luxury Sweets. It's sorta her post birthday present, since I didn't have time to really get her anything and she couldn't even leave the house on her birthday. We will be getting their specialty, Getati's!! I can't say if I've ever actually had an official Gelati, but I'm sure they will be mighty tasty.

After that we are going to head to the movies and see Zodiac. The hype says this movie should be pretty good, and I'm up for a good thriller. Only two things that kind of stick out... first, it's 160 minutes (2 hour 40 mins!) long. Second, since it's based on true events, you pretty much already know the bad guy gets away / doesn't get caught? It might be kind of rough to sit through 160 minutes of movie when you already know the ending...