Monthly Archives: April 2010

First Ride of 2010

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Ahh, the first real ride of the season. The weather was beautiful today for a change, so after work I came home and fixed the mirror on the motorcycle (repositioned it and tightened it back down) and then took it out for a kick spin to make sure I had it in the right position and that it wasn’t going to vibrate loose. Then I came back to the apartment and Melissa and I got ready and went for a quick ride, only about 30 minutes long. On the way back we stopped off at a local Starbucks and got an Iced Chai Tea Latte (which we seem to be addicted to lately) and then made it home just before the rain came. Here is what our route looked like:

Title: Motorcycle Ride
Description: 04/29/2010

Look How Far They’ve Come

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Kylie’s ballet recital is fast approaching and tonight I got to go see another preview of her class’ routine. It is really impressive to see how far these girls have come since they all began class. Watching a child grow and learn is truly one of the greatest things you can witness and be a part of. Speaking of witnessing it, you can view the new video below, or you can click here to view it over on the video page. The video below can take a few seconds to load, so please be patient.

Vulcan is out of the barn

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Went over to Chuck’s after work today to pick up the motorcycle seeing as it is finally a semi-nice day, of course it is supposed to rain all weekend though. We checked the air pressure in the tires before I left his house, and it was a good thing to as they were about 20 psi low. Luckily Chuck has an air compressor and was kind enough to fill them for me. He was also kind enough to attempt to tighten up my right side mirror as it was very loose. It was odd though, for some reason when I left his place I felt very nervous about pulling out of his driveway and on to the dirt road he lives on, not sure why but once I got out on to the paved road i felt much better. I made it about 1/4 mile from his house when my mirror came loose again, loose to he point that it was of no use to me, so before I do any further riding I will need to get that take care of. Apparently my speedometer is still off as well because when I got home Melissa asked me if I was ok because I was “driving so slow”, I asked what she was talking about and she said that I was pretty much always going about 10 mph slower than the speed limit. I told her that was odd because my speedometer showed that I was doing the actual limit. I have had this looked into once before so I may need to have it looked at again. Other than those few small things I am all set to ride. I do, however, need to get a new pair of boots because mine are worn flat. I’ll need to add those to the shopping list and see how I can manage finances. Now I just need to wait patiently for some nice weather.

Up and Running

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I finally got the web server back up and running on a full time basis. I still need to work on upgrading the kernel so there may be some periodic outages as I try to perform a very long overdue upgrade. I have been having problems with it for quit a while now though, so it may be time to ask for some help from a few friends.

Startaling Start to My Day

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Kylie gave me a momentary fright this morning, not intentionally, but she did something she has never done before. I woke up this morning and went to the bathroom, after leaving the bathroom I looked into Kylie’s room to check on her, which is my normal routine. I normally get up and use the bathroom, look in on her in her room then go and log onto my computer to check what the weather is going to be like for the day so I know what to wear and to how appropriately dress Kylie, then I wake her up. Today, however, when I looked into Kylie’s room her bed was strangely empty. I thought maybe she ended up laying on the floor and I couldn’t see her from the angle I was looking into the room; so I stepped into the room and looked around, but there was no Kylie. Then I thought “Well maybe she heard me go in to the bathroom because she was already awake and decided to go climb into my bed, she’s never done that before but she climbs into Mommy’s bed all the time.” So I went back into my room but no Kylie. At that moment my heart started to beat a little faster as this entire situation was highly unusual. At the same time though I was really calm because I knew she couldn’t have really gone anywhere, in fact the only place left that she could have gone was the living room. So I turned and walked back down the hall and into the living room, and there she was laying on the couch sound asleep curled up under one of the blankets we keep on the couch and using a throw pillow to lay her head on. It was really quit cute. When I woke her up and asked her if everything was ok she said it was and that she was fine, and when I asked her why she was sleeping on the couch she said she didn’t know. She didn’t remember coming out to the couch or why she came out to the couch, so the best I can figure is that she came out some time in the night possibly while sleep walking. Needless to say it was an interesting start to my day.

Finally, a 360!

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On November 15, 2001 Microsoft released the Xbox video game console in North America and though I wanted one at the time I did not have the money to purchase it. So I waited patiently until I did have the money, but no matter how I tried to save something always came up and I never got one. Then on November 25, 2005 they released the Xbox 360, which has better video, audio and storage capabilities than its predecessor. Once again I tried to save money to get this new console, and once again something always came up and I never purchased one. All that changed today! After so many years of waiting and trying and hoping, I finally purchased an Xbox 360 today.

I happened to be reading though my jobs internal classified ads yesterday and stumbled upon someone selling an Xbox 360 with a 120GB hard drive, one wireless controller, and Rock Band 2 with the drums, guitar and microphone; all for $125! I literally had no choice but to buy this bundle! Now let me put that into perspective for those of you that are wondering why I didn’t have a choice; the Rock Band 2 bundle on its own is selling for $127 at this time, and the Xbox 360 Elite bundle (which this is the equivalent of) is going for $299! I practically stole this console! On top of that when I met the guy to make the purchase he also threw in 4 other games, a second wireless controller, a headset, and a memory module in addition to the console and Rock Band 2 for no additional cost!

I can not even begin to explain how excited I am to get this setup and to start playing Xbox 360. I know a lot of people who also have a 360 and a few from work are already planning on bringing in some older games for me to play. This is going to be a blast!

I’m Glad It’s Not Croup

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I got a phone call at work today from Tiffany to tell me that she was having Mimi take Kylie to the doctor today because when Kylie got up this morning she had a very bad, deep cough (to the point that Kylie started to cry) and both Mommy and Mimi were afraid that it might be croup. They were able to get an early appointment so I made arrangements to leave work and go to the appointment seeing as the doctor’s office is right down the road from my office.  When I arrived at the office Kylie seemed like she was feeling fine, but then again that is extremely deceptive with Kylie because unless she is really sick she is normally her chipper self. Then as we were sitting in the waiting room Kylie had a small bout of coughing, and from what I heard I had a pretty good feeling that she just had a small cold. When we got called into the Doctor’s examining room Kylie weighed in at 47.5 pounds; when they took her temperature it was 98.7. The doctor looked Kylie over and said that her ears looked good (which is always good news considering her past record with ear infections and my record with them when I was a kid) and that her throat was a little pink (but nothing to treat) and that her lungs sound clear. After all the examinations the doctor said that she had a simple cold and the reason her cough sounded so bad in the morning was due to nasal draining over night and that perhaps a humidifier might help prevent such hard coughing in the morning. Additionally some decongestant before bed might also help to ensure that Kylie sleeps well and wont have such a rough cough in the morning. Here’s to hoping that she feels better tomorrow morning.

Happy Easter

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This morning when Kylie woke up she was very excited to come out and see what the Easter Bunny had left her. She enjoyed her new book: A Light in the Attic, but like most children was even more excited about all the candy! We decided that seeing as today is a special day we were going to have breakfast out, and everyone decided to that Ihop would be the place to go. So Kylie, Melissa and I all got dressed and ready to go for breakfast. However after we got dressed Kylie insisted we take pictures because “everyone looks so pretty.” So we took a few pictures and then headed off for what turned out to be a very good breakfast. Afterward we came back home and enjoyed a nice relaxing day together.

Visiting Daddy’s Office

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Today was an oddly special day, well odd as to why it was special. Today Kylie got to come see Daddy’s “office” for the very first time. I was doing some work from home today and suddenly was not able to connect to my work computer any longer, so we took a ride in to the office; Kylie, Melissa and I. After signing in and going up the elevator we got out on the 5th floor and proceeded to head to my cubicle. When we got there Kylie was amazed at how many pictures of her I had all around my desk. She kept saying “That’s me in that picture. Oh, that’s me too” and then she noticed that hanging on the walls of my cube where various pieces of art she had made me over the last few years. She was really happy when she noticed that right next to my monitor was a ceramic shooting star that she had painted fro me for Christmas. She said “Aww, Daddy I painted this for you” and I said “I know you did and that’s why it is here. Whenever I miss you during the day I can stop working and look at all these pictures of you, and at all the things you have made me, and I feel better because you are with me.” Kylie smiled and replied “I am always with you in your heart.” I gave her a real big hug after that and told her she was absolutely right. Then she had lots of fun standing on my desk and writing all over my whiteboard as I worked to fix the issues I was having. Her and Melissa played for a while and generally had a good time while we were stuck in the office. Luckily it only took me about an hour to resolve the issue and then we were able to go back home. A few pictures of Kylie writing on my whiteboard can be found here in the gallery.