So we went to the doctor yesterday, and found out we're going to have a baby girl around the beginning of November. It's so cool to see the how much she's grown in just 2 months. She actually looks like a baby now.

It was a big relief to see that everything is developing right on schedule, and her heartbeat was strong. Here's a picture of our beautiful little girl:





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It's been a while since I put anything up here. I hope Steph doesn't care if I spill this, but we're having a baby! Well, in reality, she is. I'm just along for the ride. We go Monday, June 5th to find out if it will visit the Hombres or Damas room when we visit future Mexican restaurants. I'm pulling for a boy, but I'll be happy with whatever. I even bought it a little outfit at the Mav's game the other night. Here's the baby at 9 weeks. It
kind of resembles a gummy bear:




By the way...GO MAVS!!!

One more thing: Congratulations to Nathan and Rachael. May the Lord be the center of your relationship, and give you many years of wedded bliss...for as long as you both shall live.

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Prepare to be amazed. This will put your puny attempt at Christmas decorations (and mine) to complete shame. I really don't know what else to say about this except that these lights would be up year round if I spent this much time on it:

Download the video (4MB WMV file)
(right click and save link as)
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Ok, I was just tired of seeing that stupid North Texas State Fair entry at the top, so I'm entering this just to push that one down until I can think of something good to put up here.

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So a few weeks ago, we went with some friends to the North Texas State Fair in Denton, TX. Now this isn't the State Fair if Texas. That's in Dallas, and is huge. No, this one was more like a cross between one of those scary carnivals in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, a livestock auction, and a farm equipment sales convention. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and all, but I think that was due to being there with our friends. So here's some pictures from the day, so you can taste a little bit of Texas.

Of course, there was livestock, such as pigs and goats. pig:
goat:


Fascinating, huh. Then there was the petting zoo. Quite an assortment of animals here. How about... a wooly sheep
a baby deer:
a duck with toupe:
and a camel that you couldn't pet:


Then the animal show... I don't really know what this is:
kangaroo in a diaper:
baby tiger:
one eyed monkey:


And finally, Carney town (small hands)... sad little girl riding all by herself,
we had to point and laugh:
our friends' kids riding the drug
trip pink elephants from dumbo:
Brian's posing so I can
get a picture of the mullet
carney behind him:
I think this picture
speaks for itself:
is it just me, or do those
horses look possessed?:
now that's an action shot:


Oh, I almost forgot, we met a celebrity: The Elsie the Cow:
Me &
The Elsie the Cow:
Brian, Bekah &
The Elsie the Cow:


So that was our exciting day at the fair. I hope that you could grasp a tiny bit of the excitment through my recounting of the days events.

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I saw this on Engadget, and thought I'd pass it on. I'm always looking for new inovations to make my life easier. This little gadget intercepts telemarketer calls and messes with them for as long as they can take it with some phrases that you record ahead of time. It also provides you with a recording of the conversation for your enjoyment. Check out this recording set to flash animation. It's a good indication of the intelligence level of the individuals we're dealing with on the other end of the phone. Here's the product page with more recordings if you need more convincing of just how great a product this is.

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Ok, so like Nathan said, on September 7th, Apple announced their new iPod Nano. And since I received a 4G iPod 20GB from freeipod.com about a year ago, I decided to try it again, only this time for a free iPod Nano 4GB. If you'd like to try to get one too, or just want to help me out, here's my referral link:

http://ipodnanos.freepay.com/?r=22138604

Just click it, put in an email address (I'd use an email address that you don't mind getting spam at) and password, then complete an offer. If you want help picking an offer, go to RateTheOffers.com. Sorry about the blatant plug for free stuff for me, but if it works, why not.

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Friday night Steph and I went to dinner and a movie, so I thought I'd put up some pictures from our little date. You know, we didn't hire a driver and eat at a famous cafe from a movie or anything, but it was really fun because of the company.


First, we went straight from work to The Purple Cow Diner. Apparently they have food you can trust. I don't know about you, but I feel that I can trust a waving pickle, and a trio of dancing hot dogs.


[After dinner, we took a break from our fun to go work on a wireless network for some of Steph's family, but that's a different story.]

Ok, you have to keep in mind that I'm not as spry as I used to be. We wanted to go to a movie, but couldn't decide on whether to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at 10:10pm, or Batman Begins at 10:45pm. Finally, I chose the 10:10 so I could get home and get in bed earlier. On the way to the movie theater, we drove through Starbucks to get a couple of frappuccinos to help us stay awake through the movie.

So then we headed over to the Rave at North East Mall. Steph put both of our drinks in her bag because those ticket takers at the Rave can be drink nazis, and I hate throwing away $2 of a $4 drink. There were a ton of people, so I let Steph off to go buy the tickets while I parked. I must say that I'm learning from my father-in-law who can find a front row spot at Walmart on a Saturday night (practically impossible). Some how, I got a spot on the second row, which is pretty good considering I thought I'd have to hike a mile to get back to the front. It was perfect timing. I walked in the door just as Steph walked up with our tickets to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So now about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I know that this is a movie version of the book, not a remake of the previous movie version of the book, but I can't help but compare the two since I've never read the book. Let me start by saying that I've always liked the old Willy Wonka movie alot. I like this one more. I thought Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka was a totally different type of character; a little more silly. Gene Wilder's Wonka seemed serious to me, like he was giving away the factory because he just found out he had some kind of terminal disease. I liked all the background into Willy's life in this new adaptation, too. The scene where he hugs his dad, was simultaneously touching and awkward, which I think is one of Tim Burton's many talents. The Oompa Loompas, with their dancing and genre spanning songs, cracked me up every time. I liked how the guests all thought it was weird that they were singing a song that already had Augustus' name in it. My favorite scene was the squirrel scene, although I was kind of weirded out when they first started attacking Veruca. So I guess it was a good movie by my standards because I want to go see it again now.

I kept looking over at Steph during the movie to try to judge her reaction, and she didn't seem to like it. On the way home, though, we talked about what we liked and didn't about the movie, and she sounded like she liked it overall. I really wasn't sure how much I liked it when we left, but the more I thought about different parts, the more I liked it. That's how I am with most of Tim Burton's movies. Anyway, we got home at about 1am. It was lot's of fun. I love hanging out with Steph. I recommend that if you're going to get married, you need to marry your best friend.

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If you're a movie fan, you need to check this site out. Have you ever left a movie thinking that you liked the movie, but the ending really sucked? So have these guys. They have some hilarious animations showing how some of our favorite movies should've ended (Star Wars Ep. IV, Matrix Revolutions, Saving Private Ryan, with more on the way).

By the way, I posted this on Digg.com, and got my first front page link.

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I love weekends. I had fun the last three days. I hung out with Steph, finally downloaded the new Halo 2 Maptacular pack (haven't played yet though), had some ice cream with some friends, took some important steps towards a big goal, hung out with Steph (did I say that already?). But all the fun has to end sometime, and it's usually when Monday comes around...stupid monkey fart monday.
Have a great week!

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I saw a couple of movies this weekend. We hadn't been to the movies in a while and we had some free time, so we went.

Friday night we saw War of the Worlds. It was one of the most intense movies I've ever seen in my life.The closest movie experience I can think of to compare this to is when I saw Apollo 13 in the theatre. I sat literally at the edge of my seat the entire time in that movie. WotW wasn't quite like that, but it did have all my insides tightened up. The special effects were pretty amazing, too. I do have two complaints about the movie. First, I must be getting old and crotchety or something, but the language bothers me. To me it would be just as good a story without all the dirty words. Second, the ending was horrible. If you haven't seen it yet, you might not want to read the rest of this paragraph. Ok, so everythings intense. Things keep going from bad to worse. He kills some guy. Aliens are spraying blood all over the place. None of our weapons are working against them. We're basically about to be exterminated, and there's nothing we can do. Then abruptly five or ten minutes before the end of the movie, the micro-organisms come to our rescue. Hey look, the birds are landing on the tripods which means that the amoebas have done what our tanks, fighter jets, and rocket launchers couldn't, and have miraculously destroyed their shields! The end. I haven't read or heard the original story before, but I'm assuming that they had to end it that way because that's pretty much how the original ends. Ok, then why didn't someone finish reading the script and say, "Wow, that ending is dumb. We probably shouldn't make this into a movie." Or what's so bad about changing the ending to make a better movie. It's not like Hollywood has any problems doing that on other movies. I know I sound a little harsh. As a whole I liked the movie, but the ending just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Movie number two...Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I have to say that I liked this movie. It was especially good at matinee price (yet another clue that I'm getting old...early bird specials). Sure it was unbelievable that they could've lived through the last shootout scene, but that's one of the qualities of a good action movie. There was a little language, but not near as much as WotW. I'm also going to go on record and say that I liked the "on-screen chemistry" of Brad and Angelina. It's definitely not one of my favorite movies, but I was entertained. That's all I ask. Feel free to tell me what bad taste I have in movies, or make fun of me for actually using the phrase "on-screen chemistry".

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Here are some random pictures. I just got a new camera phone (SE s710), and feel that I have to justify the price by taking lots of pictures:



Random shot of driving. We do alot of that on our long commute to and from work.



This picture makes me sick to my stomach because of our long commute



I just thought this one was funny. "Safe Place" isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I see that picture.
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I have to thank Nowak, Beck, and Myers and their TA killer moblog, Mafia for helping me find PhuseBox. Nathan posted on the forum, the Godfather explained what he was working on, and I decided to check it out.

I also have to thank my wife, steffie.m, because I showed it to her, and said it looked like fun, but never created an account. Then one day, she just up and did it. I guess now she's not the oldest person on phusebox, cause I've got her beat by a year. You should definitely read her blog, because she's the funniest person I know, and I'm not just saying that because I know she'll read this later.

Ok, I guess that's enough for the little intro post. More about me to come. I really hope Steph isn't the only one to read this, cause she already knows all of it.

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