Condo Update

In preparation for moving out and renting our condo (We have renters!), D has been working diligently the last couple of weekends to make sure the backyard is attractive and easy to maintain for the new tenants. She completely re-did all the planters; each of the plants will expand to cover large portions of open area, and the rest is all barked to help cut down on weeds. D worked really hard on it...doesn't everything look great?!

You've heard of Where's Waldo? This is Where's Willow? A side benefit to getting everything cleaned up is that we can let Willow out, until she 1) starts to annoy the rabbit, or 2) finds something to eat that she shouldn't be eating.

House Updates

Another week, another bunch of stuff done on our house!

The rock on the porch area is done, and all of the scaffolding is down from around the house. They're grading the front and back yards to flatten out the dirt and clean up a little from the construction.

The staircase railing and baseboards are in...both still need to be painted, but you can see how cool the stairs are going to look!

Cabinets and sink in the laundry room. We didn't order the upper cabinets (they're optional)....let's hope no one notices the mistake.

A better view of the front, without any heavy machinery in the way. The roof tiles are all up, so the outside is almost done. There will be "shutters" next to the upper windows and they still have to paint under the eaves on the porch, but it's coming along nicely.

Casa Nueva

We're buying a house! D and I have been waiting until most of it has been finalized to tell everyone, but it's looking pretty solid at this point. After we work through some final loan details and get through escrow, it'll be ours. Of course, we also have to wait until the house is built...it's a brand new house that's currently under construction.

Though we hadn't seriously been looking for a new house until recently, we've always enjoyed going to see model homes, along with the pleasant daydreams those trips entail. Four years ago, when we were looking to buy our condo, we saw some really nice places up in San Elijo Hills, in northern San Diego County. It's a master-planned community with 27 developments surrounding a common area with schools, parks, fields, stores, and other goodies. At the time, most of the properties were out of our price range and far from work (especially for me), but we liked the area and recognized the benefits of having a brand new house. Over the years, even after buying our current house, we've often gone back to that area to look at new developments. About a year ago, we found one we really loved, just outside the main community. Let's call it San Elijo Hills-adjacent. We've been keeping an eye on their new releases, waiting for a specific floor plan and home design. When they finally started building one with the exact specifications we wanted, we just couldn't pass it up.

Here's an artist's rendering of the front of the house:

Along with a beautiful exterior, the inside of the house is awesome, if I do say so myself. Let me preface this next section by saying that this is WAY too much house for us currently, to an almost ridiculous level, but we're trying to buy as much house as we can while the market is on the low(er) end, and while mortgage rates are still affordable. We will definitely be house-poor and will have to cut back a bit on our normal spending habits (no more Woot! for me), but we think it's worth it to prepare for the future. Anyway....

The house is 3,247 square feet, with five bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also has a formal living room and dining room (useless rooms), and a loft-style bonus room (my man-cave). It has a beautiful kitchen, a huge master bedroom, and plenty of extra rooms for family and friends to come visit. For people who are interested in floor plans (I love looking at blueprints), here's a link to the first floor, and one to the second floor. Our house will be exactly like the plans show, with the only optional addition being the retreat connected to the master bedroom.

Things have progressed quickly...in the last month or so, we've gone from finding out the house was available to putting in an offer, signing the contract, and picking out upgrades. We've visited the construction site a few times and seen amazing progress. The first time we walked through it, the outside was wire framed and the inside was being insulated but didn't have any drywall yet. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on that visit.

The next time we visited, they had added the first outer layer and drywalled the inside walls. Here's the front of the house from two weeks ago:

And here's the family room/kitchen area with drywall, taping, and patching:

Last weekend, we were in Chicago for a wedding and some sightseeing (pictures to come), so it was two weeks before we were able to get back to the house. We went yesterday and they've completed all of the stucco and one layer of outside paint:

Inside, they've added paint and started putting in the cabinets. This is the same view as above....starting to look better, isn't it?

A couple of weeks ago, we went and picked out flooring. The countertops are going to be a dark green granite called Verde Butterfly; until it gets a lot of light, it's so dark that it almost looks black. In the picture below, it's the oval chip on the right. As you can see, the cabinets will all be white, and we've chosen flooring in mostly grey tones. The bottom tile will run from the front door down the hallway and into the kitchen. The small square tiles in the middle represent the other tile colors, so the pattern will be varied a bit. The carpet will be in all other areas except the bathrooms, which will have the linoleum on the left. The walls throughout and tiles in the bathroom (for sinks and showers) will all be white as well.

Choosing all these options was a pretty fun experience. We'll be finalizing everything this week.

Of course, looking at an unfinished family room and floor plans doesn't really give an indication of what the house will look like when it's done. There's a photo tour of the model online, so you can walk through the house and get a feel for the layout. Keep in mind that this one has been professionally (and expensively) decorated, and almost everything in sight has been upgraded to the best possible flooring/paint/option combinations. Unfortunately, our house will NOT look this nice. With that caveat, here it is.

Needless to say, everyone is welcome to visit (and stay!) as soon as we're all settled.  We're currently looking to close escrow on November 13, so we'll probably also throw ourselves a housewarming party in early December.  I'll be posting pictures as the house continues to progress.  I'm especially excited to see the countertops and the rest of the cabinets installed.

PS- At the moment, we're keeping our condo and renting it out...we'll see what the housing market does in the next year or two and make a decision then.

On Baseball

I've never been a huge fan of baseball. I realize that's essentially blasphemy to my sports-loving friends and family, but it's the truth. I'm not saying I hate it, but it's never been the most exciting sport for me to watch, play, or attend.

In my youth, I certainly enjoyed going to Dodgers games with family members, and the Birmingham Barons games every summer were somewhat entertaining, but I haven't been really into baseball since the days of Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser. When I go to Padres games, it's definitely for the companionship and the peanuts, rather than for any interest generated by the team or the game itself...I can barely get interested when the Dodgers come to visit, though I take pride in being the only one rooting against the home team.

Three weeks ago, however, I was in Boston for work and ended up going to a Red Sox game with seventeen of my colleagues. At this game, I was reminded why people enjoy baseball, and how exciting a game can be when played by offensive juggernauts. I'll admit that I went mostly for the field, and to hang out with my peers from work; it's not every day that you get a chance to go to Fenway Park. But once I was there, it quickly became about more than just the ballpark.

To begin with, our seats were pretty good. Yes, we were in the last row of our section, but we were even with home plate (if you follow the first base line into the crowd) and the upper deck protected us from the light rain during the first few innings. Here's a shot from our seats before the game started....they brought in a bunch of little leaguers to stand in front of the Green Monster:

The game started with a whimper, then a bang. I wasn't expecting much from the Texas Rangers, and they delivered on my low expectations. Then the Sox came up and batted around the order one and a half times. By the time the second inning started, it was ten to nothing. Even with an apparent blowout, I was already having a good time, since David Ortiz had hit two three-run home runs in a single inning. It was an impressive show, and I figured the game would end quickly.

Texas's two runs in the second were matched by two Red Sox runs in the third. Even when they weren't scoring, both teams were keeping the game exciting with long fouls, strategic hitting, and a fun atmosphere in the crowd. When one of my colleagues started yelling, "Let's go Rangers!!" with the loudest voice you've ever heard, it definitely made things a little more exciting in our section. The crowd was good-natured about it though, since their ten run cushion made things less-than-stressful.

In the fifth and sixth innings, the Rangers scored eight runs and five runs, respectively. The Sox tried to keep up but only managed two more, leaving them down after the sixth, 15-14. After singing "Sweet Caroline" during the eighth-inning stretch (WTF?!), the Sox were still down 16-15, and the mood in our section was much more tense. The fans weren't quite as willing to hear cheers for the Rangers when the specter of a loss rearing its ugly head. The game, however, was as exciting as could be.

The Sox tied it up with a nice double, but David Ortiz was intentionally walked after hitting two previous home runs. That brought up Kevin Youkilis, who had already homered once in the fifth. And he did this:


The "Let's go Red Sox" cheers, by the way, were in direct response to my colleague's previous cheers for the Rangers. He actually made the crowd come out of its shell and show some support....it was a fascinating study in crowd participation. At this point, almost four hours(!) into the game, they were more excited than they had been throughout. Just watch this follow-up reaction:


The entire stadium (myself included) was going nuts, and the capacity crowd was almost all still there through eight innings. When the Rangers didn't manage a comeback in the ninth and the game ended with an Ivy League Football score of 19-17, it capped a really fantastic experience. It was without a doubt the best game I've ever seen live, and I was reminded of how exciting baseball can be when it's played right (by everyone except the pitching staff). It made me interested in going back the next time I'm in Boston. It almost made me want to go to a Padres game.

Thank you Fenway! Thank you Red Sox! Thank you Boston!

Getting Lost

While we were in Hawaii, I mentioned something about Lost, and even though I'm a fan and she's not, D was gracious enough to look online for some local filming locations. The site was organized by episode, and had screen captures from the show along with directions to the sites. Though they were sometimes difficult to interpret, we managed to make our way to the beach where they filmed the following scene:

If you look at the treeline over Kate's head, the shape of the beach and greenery are pretty distinctive. Take a look at this picture...same beach, same treeline. You can see a YMCA camp hidden in the trees, and a fisherman and sunbather in the foreground.

I'm a huge Lost fan, and for a minute it was really cool to find the site. Then I started getting annoyed. I just kept picturing these castaways - these crash survivors - finishing the scene and walking to their trailers in this parking lot, which was within ten feet of where that screenshot was taken.

After doing more research upon returning to the mainland, I realized that we had seen some of the other sites as well. The Others' barracks, several other beach sites, and some of the city locations were all along our drive.

Hawaii Pics

Here are some pictures from our quick business trip to Hawaii a couple of weeks ago.

Coming out of Diamondhead, we had a fantastic view of the coastline, with a nice rainbow.

There was a jellyfish infestation, so we spent a lot of time looking at the water, walking near the water, and eating near the water.

We had a chance to drive around the island on the last day we were there. Waimea Bay was filled with swimmers jumping from this rock.

This resort was seen in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall; these were the rooms the characters stayed in.

More Travels and Exciting Book News

A few quick updates:

D got back from her Institute in Reno on Friday night.  She had a great time and didn't want to leave.  One of the results of her time there was an article published on the Institute's site.  Take a look here.  Her article (and the accompanying photo gallery) are in the Features section (in the left menu).

On Sunday, we took off and headed to Honolulu, where I am currently writing this blog.  I have to be here for work and have a pretty full schedule, but D has been enjoying herself around the Waikiki area.  We've had nice dinners and have taken our rental car (a convertible Sebring) for joyrides in the evenings.  Today we explored the west coast of Oahu (the whole thing).  Yesterday we circled the southest corner, going past Hanauma Bay, around to Kailua, and then over the Pali Highway and back into Honolulu.  I continue to have meetings booked throughout the rest of the week, but I'll try to steal away a bit of time to have some fun in the evenings.  Unfortunately, after we get back to our hotel, I have to work on book stuff.

Which brings me to the last bit of news: My Book!  It's up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, though only Amazon is currently allowing pre-orders.  I thought it was going to be done by December, but those sites say January or February....I'm not sure which is accurate.  Seeing it on Amazon makes it all real, and reminds me that we still have a lot of work to do!  Time to go back to work.

Greetings from Albuquerque (and Reno)

Well, we're both busy travelers this week.  I'm in Albuquerque on Tuesday and Denver on Wednesday for work....D is in Reno this week and next for her Journalism Educators Institute.  The Institute is going well so far, and I have no complaints about Albu.

When I arrived at the hotel this evening, I noticed a significant police presence...two SUVs at opposite ends of a line of vans with tinted windows.  The hotel desk clerk was less than forthcoming, but the mystery was solved when I almost ran into the Straight Talk Express on the way to my room.  McCain is here for a private fundraiser (in this hotel, I think)....I can't say that I'll be getting up early to join him for breakfast.  On Sunday I crossed paths with Obama's motorcade as he left San Diego following a speech.  It feels like I'm accidentally following the campaigns...this is at least the sixth time I've been in the same city as one of the candidates.

D and I have had a nice couple of weeks since returning from Canada.  Last Wednesday we celebrated our three year wedding anniversary with a nice dinner downtown and a very grudgingly given Coach wallet (even at the outlet, purse/wallet prices are outrageous...I don't understand it).  We met up with friends (an ex-colleague and his wife) for a quick get-together after dinner, had another very nice dinner downtown on Friday, and then went to the Padres game on Saturday.  After D's flight on Sunday and mine on Monday, I think we've been to downtown five times in the last six days.  The Padres game was fun....it was actually our first "alone" game, as we usually go with a large group.  I won two tickets and there were fireworks after the game, so it made up for the lack of offensive fireworks during the game.

I'm definitely back into the thick of things at work.  Aside from the trips early this week, I already have meetings scheduled for Mon/Tues/Weds of next week, and this Thursday and Friday will likely soon be confirmed for more.  With D's trip to Reno, this will be the longest time we've spent apart in many years....proabably eight or nine, though I'm not positive.  Fortunately, we're both keeping busy, so we won't have time to miss each other too much.

The book is still going well.  My last two chapters (one and an appendix) are due for internal reviews this Thursday, so I'll be frantically writing in between meetings.  In fact, I'm procrastinating right now.  When those are done, we have several chapters to revise after our editor has gone over them, and then we have to write all the additional materials (index, TOC, online materials, etc).  At the moment we're still on track for a December release, though I don't want to assume everything will go smoothly.  It has definitely been a painful process at points, and I'll have to think long and hard before agreeing to write another one.  It will definitely be nice to only have one job again.

I hope everyone out there in family-and-friend-land is doing well.  We haven't been great about keeping in touch recently, and I know there are birthdays and anniversaries and births and weddings and stuff flying by.  Our next wedding-related plans are for the first weekend in September, when we'll be heading to Chicago for a UCSD friend's wedding.  We're really looking forward to both the wedding and the trip....it will be D's first time in Chicago and I have to show her the sights.  At the moment it appears we'll be staying at The Drake, and hopefully we'll have time to see some fun stuff in our off-time.

Back from Canada

http://picasaweb.google.com/jaimeryan/CanadianRockies

Well, we're back from our tour of the Canadian Rockies, and we had a great time. I've posted 190 of our 2000 pictures online, so feel free to take a look.

Since then, I had two days of work and a Fourth of July wedding in LA. We had a relaxing Saturday and might hit the SD County Fair tomorrow. A wedding, sleeping in on a Saturday, and the Fair....can't beat it.

Greetings from Canada!

Well, we're on vacation in Canada and really enjoying our opportunity for relaxation. I'll post lots of pictures when we get back, but here are a few.

We're seeing lots of mountains and lakes. This is Cameron Lake, in Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada.

We've taken various tours through National Parks. This was on a "Red Jammer" through Glacier National Park in Montana.

This is Swiftcurrent Lake, next to the lodge at Many Glacier (Montana).

We're also seeing lots of wildlife....deer, big-horned sheep, and two bears.

Catching Up on Life

Time for an update, as I purposely skipped posting last weekend. Though I had a tiny bit of free time, we (as a species) tend to make too much of birthdays and anniversaries (even happy ones), and I wanted to get away from the build-up. June 15 will always be a very special (and tragic) day for us, and I'd rather not build it up to the point where we dread it every year and can't get through the day. Instead, I had a good cry on Friday, triggered by various sad events...I was missing Andrew like crazy, and was reminded of that fact in several ways. On Sunday, I essentially ignored the fact that it was Father's Day, which wasn't fair to either of my fathers but was my chosen solution.

We spent the weekend in LA, where we saw a crappy movie (Indiana Jones and the Ridiculous Premise), had a fantastic dinner (Mastro's in Beverly Hills), and went to the concert I mentioned a couple posts ago (Fisher at the Ford Amphitheatre). They were all fun and relaxing, even the movie, and they were just what we needed to keep our minds on other things. There was only one sad song at the concert (the one from the YouTube clip), so we all got another quick cry....just enough for a fitting tribute.

When we weren't busy, I was furiously cranking out the second version of one of my book chapters. It was the culmination of several weeks of intense work on both the book and my "real job." In fact, last night was the first time in about a month in which I haven't had any work to do at night. I'm all caught up on the book and my two big work projects are both done. It's a huge relief, as I've pulled at least six recent all-nighters and been as stressed out as I ever get.

D and I are headed out on Monday for a much-needed vacation. School is over with and I'm off for a week and a half. We're heading to the Canadian Rockies on an organized tour run by the same company that ran our trip to Costa Rica two years ago. We'll see at least four national parks in both Canada and Montana, explore fun mountain towns and beautiful lakes, and hopefully come across a bunch of wildlife. This tour will be similar to one I did on a bike in 1994, and I've been wanting to show this area off to D for a while. Here's a pic from the last trip:


We'll be back on the 1st, we have a wedding on the 4th, and then we'll start thinking about the next portion of our summer. D is going to the Journalism Institute in late July in Reno, and I might be sent to Hawaii for work (the horror!) around the same time. We have another wedding (in Chicago) in September, and Danielle has a "gig" for her new part-time job in August (more on that later). I'll wrap up the book in late July/early August, and it should be on the shelves by Christmas.

I'm going to stop here for now, as I need to take advantage of my vacation and catch up on some much-needed sleep. Thank you for your wonderful notes and cards and comments last Sunday. Andrew's really missing out on an incredible group of family and friends; we're lucky to have you all.

Phoenix

When I left for Phoenix on Tuesday morning, I forgot who else would be visiting. We noticed a bit of increased police presence when we left the airport, and even more as we drove back through on the way to the car rental center. That's when I remembered that President Bush was also visiting Phoenix for a few fundraisers with John McCain. Sure enough, as the rental car shuttle was delivering us to the terminal, I watched Air Force One land and taxi over to the "Executive Terminal."

Anyway, one trip down and two to go. I'm leaving for the airport (and subsequently for Reno) in about three hours. I'll be landing back in San Diego at 9:30pm, so it'll be about a 17 hour day from door to door. Happy Wednesday.

Nice Weekend

We had a nice long holiday weekend. On Thursday, D and her mom flew to Las Vegas for a couple of days (a Mothers Day gift). On Friday they went to a concert with at least fifteen artists; it was a tribute to David Foster, who is a writer/producer that's worked with some great performers. This particular concert included Josh Groban, Michael Buble, Andrea Bocelli, Babyface, Kenny G, Katharine McPhee, Michael Johns, and many more. They had a great time, then flew back to LA on Saturday for my church's Greek Festival. I met them there and we spent the day catching up with friends and family and eating far too much Greek food. We drove back to San Diego on Sunday for a fun Persian wedding that went late into the night, then spent Monday sleeping it off. All in all, it was a fantastic, exciting weekend (with a little relaxation thrown in to boot).

Our crazy work schedules will continue for at least a few more weeks. I'll be leaving for Phoenix in less than five hours (so I should get some sleep), and then headed to Reno on Wednesday and LA on Thursday. I might be able to stay in San Diego on Friday and for some of next week, but I'll be busy at local customers. D only has a few weeks left, but that always includes lots of grading, semester projects, and finals.

This summer we're going to a concert that by all rights should be amazing. It's at the Ford Amphitheater (a great venue in LA) and features one of my favorite performers, Fisher, who we've seen at least eight times in recent years. My only concern is that the concert circumstances might be part of a "Perfect Storm" of sadness. The concert is on June 15, the day Andrew was born. This year, that day happens to fall on Father's Day, which was difficult enough last year when he was in the hospital. Aside from the day and date, Fisher's music (though beautiful and touching) is not known for it's happy mood. Songs like this will take on a whole new meaning:

Whew!

It's been a while. As of two hours ago, this is the first time in about a month in which I haven't been behind on 1) writing a chapter for the book, 2) reviewing someone else's chapter, or 3) working at my "real" job. I've been reading and writing furiously for the last two days, coming on the heels of four straight weeks of ridiculous schedules. It started with a week in which I drove to Los Angeles three days in a row (from San Diego), garnering a speeding ticket along the way. That was followed by a week where I was in five different cities in five days...Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. I followed that up with a five-day conference in Las Vegas, where I spent 12 hours a day with colleagues at seminars, labs, meetings, and meals. Which brings us to this last week, which I spent in Rosemead at a customer site. I drove home late in the evening on Thursday, worked all night on my chapter, then spent all day Friday and Saturday reading four others. I got a little bit of sleep last night, but I've still got a few weeks to catch up on.

At this point, it'll be hard to even remember everything that's happened in the last month, but let me try to get through the big stuff. We've been to several concerts (Bon Jovi, Jason Mraz, and Michael Buble), a Padres game, and a going-away party. I've been all over the place for work...D took a trip to Phoenix for fun. We both went to Anaheim for a journalism conference with seven of her students; I sat in the hotel room and worked all day while they went to seminars and discussions. I didn't actually participate in the journalism part, but it was really fun to hang out with intelligent, interesting students that are excited about the newspaper.

D's had a lot of great stuff happen for her, work-wise. The most exciting is that she was accepted to a two week journalism symposium in Reno this summer. It's a very selective application process, with the acceptance rate somewhere south of 30%. Getting in means they pay for the education, the travel to and from Reno, full room and board, graduate credits, subscriptions to various journalism education publications, and much more. This is something she's been looking forward to since she first heard about it, and we just received the good news this month....I'm very proud of her.

There have been some major layoffs in schools throughout the state, due to the budget shortfall, but D's been able to turn a negative into a positive. First she escaped a pink slip by the slimmest of margins (essentially a coin flip), and now she's turning her increased class size into an opportunity. The extra students being added to her journalism class are going to restart a long-defunct Intro to Journalism curriculum, which will prepare younger students for the Advanced Journalism class that produces the newspaper. This could eventually lead to a full class, which would be a great addition to her schedule. In the meantime, she's using ideas from the conference (and what she's learned over the last four years) to update the newspaper in various fun ways.

D's last softball game was on Tuesday; they finished up with only three in-league losses. Softball's been taking up every afternoon for the last few months, so it'll be nice (for me at least) to have that time back. We didn't do anything particularly special for Spring Break (that I can remember now), but there are only four weeks left in school. Last Saturday was publishing day for the final big newspaper issue of the year; there's one more short issue produced entirely by the sophomores and juniors that will go out early next month.

On the book front, things are going well. The chapters we finished this week were turned in for the 50% benchmark.....we are officially halfway done with the first draft of the book. In theory I have another chapter due tomorrow that will begin the next 25%, but I'm ignoring that for the moment.

We're trying to plan a vacation or two for the summer, but we've both been so busy that we haven't gotten very far in the planning stages. We have three weddings to attend, D's symposium, and plenty of work....my schedule is already full through the middle of June.

That's all I can think of at the moment....I'm going to try to blog more often than once every 1.5 months, so hopefully I can come up with more things I've forgotten in the next few days.

CDH Awareness Day

I'm not generally a cheerleader for individual medical causes....I'm not sure why a disease becomes more important the second a celebrity (or any individual) happens to be diagnosed. I'd obviously prefer that we have enough federal funding for all research so that disease advocacy groups don't need to fight over limited donation dollars. I don't want to get political, but I happen to know of half a trillion dollars that have recently been spent on a debacle in the Middle East....perhaps that could have cured a few diseases instead....but I digress.

Here's where I go against everything I just said and become a cheerleader for an individual medical cause that has affected me....I'll try to keep the rah-rah to a minimum. From a "cure" perspective, there's definitely a difference between Andrew's condition and many of the other fatal and semi-fatal diseases that are out there. Though there are certainly research dollars that need to be spent investigating the best way to deal with symptoms....pulmonary hypertension, lung hypoplasia, digestive malformations, ventilator dependence....the most important part doesn't have to cost that much money. With a disease like CDH (Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia), the critical step is awareness. One in 2500 is more than you would think, and there are some very specific ultrasound measurements that can detect it as early as 18 weeks.....yet up to 50% of children aren't diagnosed in utero.

Today, March 31, has been designated Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness Day. CDH parents have written to governors and other politicians all over the country, and this commemoration has been made official in 22 states, five cities, and at least one foreign country (Mexico). I'm not going to ask for donations or tell everyone to wear a turquoise ribbon....just consider yourselves aware. I know Andrew had an impact on a lot of lives, and hopefully we've educated our small corner of the universe. You can bet that our pregnant friends are going to be asking their ultrasound technicians to look for a strong diaphragm and healthy lungs.

This is probably not following the CDH Awareness Day script, but here's how I'd like you to "celebrate" today:

1. Think of cute little Andrew an extra time today.
2. The next time someone tells you they're pregnant, tell them to get a very thorough sonogram that will be reviewed by an entirely-engaged radiologist.
3. Think about ways we can better prioritize our federal budget, so that none of these diseases slip through the cracks.
4. Vote with the candidate (or party) that will bring federal dollars back to medical and technological research.
   

Long Overdue Update

Wow, I didn't realize quite how long it had been since my last post. It's been a busy two weeks, and I'm only conscious now because I got a lot of sleep last night. Last week I was in Austin, TX for a couple of days and then spent all day Friday with a customer here in San Diego. In between, I tried to fit in as much work on the book as possible, but got an incredibly small amount of sleep. The week before, I was in Kansas City; I had never been there before, so it was a nice experience. Unfortunately, I again had to spend every free second working on the book, so I didn't get to explore too much.

When I used to have to take longer business trips, back in 2005, I made sure to see the local sights, try some of the local food, and generally make the trip as fun as possible. I was only in Kansas City and Austin for two days each, but it was my first time in both places, so I at least wanted to try some yummy food. Kansas City is known for its barbecue, so I did some research and came up with a local barbecue place that had rave reviews and was known for having some of the spiciest barbecue sauce around: LC's Barbecue. The people in front of me in line had seen it on FoodTV, and I found it on RoadFood.com; I took the website's advice and got the "burnt ends" with fries and baked beans. I learned a whole new barbecue vocabulary in my short time there, and would definitely recommend it.

In Austin, my hotel was right next to a Cajun Seafood restaurant called Pappadeaux's. I talked to a local colleague about it and realized it was a chain of restaurants owned by a Greek family, and that they also had chains of Mexican, BBQ, Steak, and burger restaurants.....pretty much everything but Greek. Even as a chain, I had heard great things, so I tried it out. The restaurant was packed and everyone seemed to be having the "Crawfish Catch" special. I wasn't quite ready to work that hard (digging the meat out of over a pound of crawfish), and ended up with the "Pontchartrain Panbroiled Fish Fillet Topped with crabmeat & shrimp in a brown-butter wine sauce with dirty rice." It was fantastic, and to make up for turning down something as down-home as crawfish, I also ordered the Fried Alligator appetizer. It was very good, and though I expected it to "taste like chicken," it was actually more tender and flavorful than any chicken I've ever had.....yummy!

After my culinary adventure, I later learned that the owners of Pappadeaux's, the Pappas family, does have a Greek restaurant. It's called Yia Yia Mary's, and it's in Houston. For those of you that didn't immediately shout, "No Way!!!!," my Greek great-grandmother's name was Mary, and I called her Yia Yia (Grandmother) Mary all my life. It was such an amazing coincidence that I will absolutely have to go there if I ever visit Houston, even if I have to drive all the way across the city.

In between trips to the middle of the country, I went on our annual visit to Las Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness, with my dad and a bunch of friends. Though I flew home a big loser overall (as expected), I had a lot of fun. Next year I'll be trying the dartboard approach to picking winning basketball teams, since it couldn't be any less effective than actually trying to choose teams based on my incredibly poor knowledge of college teams. Or I just have to focus my attention on the ridiculous Wheel of Fortune quarter slots, where last year I found $200 in chips and this year I walked away a winner almost every time I sat down. Say it with me.....Wheel! Of! Fortune!

We also had a great Easter, where I came away more of a winner than I had in Vegas....I found $20 in an Easter egg. It was great to have a fantastic (home-cooked) dinner and see lots of family, in between very impersonal trips to random business locations. It did, however, make for a long string of being away from home. Sunday-Tuesday in Kansas City, Wednesday-Saturday in Vegas, Sunday in Orange County, Monday-Wednesday in Austin. It's stretches like that that really make you miss your bed (and your wife!).

D's doing well and having a good time with softball. They won in the bottom of the seventh last week with a walk-off homerun against a really good local rival. They have two to four games a week, with practices every other weekday. She's at school right now (on Saturday), preparing the school newspaper for publication....it's a tradition that happens every six weeks during the school year. Today, the students had more of their pages done prior to arrival than ever before, so hopefully they'll be done in record time....they're usually at school from 8 in the morning until 7-9pm. I often join them to help edit pages, and might go in later if they're having trouble, but I was able to read a bunch of them last night and edit from the comfort of our couch.

I (surprise, surprise!) have more book stuff to do this weekend as well. It somehow feels like even though there are four other authors, I'm doing just as much work as if I had done the whole thing myself. Every week or two, each of us has a chapter due. Then we share them with each other, and every person reads, corrects, and comments on every other chapter. Then we incorporate all the changes/suggestions that everyone made on our own chapters, and distribute a "Version 2." We go through the whole thing all over again (review, revision) until we have a somewhat official version 3. Then we have to submit that version to the publisher, who has their own reviewers and editors look at every chapter. I'm close to version 2 on my first chapter, I've reviewed all the other first chapters, and I've reviewed version 2 of one person's chapter. This weekend I have to finish V2, review some others, and start my second chapter. I'm tired again just thinking about it.

Last note....on Monday we get to go see one of our favorite musical artists, Jason Mraz, in a private concert on the roof of a swanky hotel in downtown San Diego. I won tickets from a radio station contest, and I'm really looking forward to it. The concert is right before the Padres' opening night in Petco Park, which is only a block from the hotel. Unfortunately we don't have tickets to the game, but we are going to see the Padres get beat by the Dodgers next weekend. I'm looking forward to it!

Rough Week

It's been a (physically) difficult week. D was sick last week, and I managed to catch it by last weekend. The symptoms started with a sore throat, which eventually got worse and added a painful cough/headache combination. To make things worse, I had to leave the house at 5:45 am on Monday and Tuesday, for all-day trips to Salt Lake City and Sacramento. Having gone to bed between 2 and 3am each day and not slept well due to coughing and wheezing, the trips were exhausting. I spent most of Wednesday on the phone and Thursday in Mountain View, and I still haven't caught up on sleep. Friday is another phone day, then I have to spend the weekend writing a chapter for my book project. Everything becomes much less fun when it feels like you're swallowing fire.

D dealt with all the side effects of sickness last week, and was also busy with softball. I went to their game on Saturday and watched them win a hard-fought contest against a very competitive school. On Sunday we went to Sea World, and we've been spending this week seeing each other whenever we could find the time. Next week I'm in Kansas and Las Vegas, so our schedules aren't clearing up any time soon.

I know there are worse problems to have, but I'm so exhausted that everything seems just a little more overwhelming than usual. For instance, I have to wrap this up before I fall asleep sitting up. G'night!

Work News

After a couple of reflective and not entirely happy posts, I thought I'd break the ice with some good news....I'm writing a book! Unfortunately it's not a book about Andrew and/or dealing with CDH. More unfortunately, it's likely that none of you will ever read it. If you do happen to read it, I love you (and I apologize).

Myself and four of my coworkers are writing the IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance Handbook. I know it's a mouthful, but the product I work with (DataPower) is an "SOA Appliance," purchased in 2005 by IBM and put into the WebSphere brand. Like I said, a mouthful. It will definitely be a technical book, tailored to users of the product that prefer a more conversational tone to their documentation.

It's never going to by a NY Times Bestseller, nor will it be much of a moneymaker for me personally. It will, however, add to my credibility in the industry and hopefully assist in the sales process. It will also be nice to be able to say that when it comes to DataPower, "I wrote the book."

On the negative side, it's going to be a ridiculous amount of work for very little up-front payoff. The tentative publication date is sometime in October, but our writing has to be done by June. That means I need to write a chapter or two every few weeks. Thus, any free time I have will likely be dedicated to writing. That said, I'm excited and can't wait for October.

A Case for Exhaustive Photography

I have almost 450 videos and 2500 pictures of Andrew, including 120 pictures from this day alone. And yet every time I look through my files, I wish I had taken more. I wish I had 1000 from this day, because it's one of my favorite ways to remember him. I wish I had hundreds of thousands. Heck, I wish I had five months worth of constant high definition video.

I think this is why I love photography....because you can capture a moment that can never be retrieved. Obviously not everyone has issues like we did with Andrew, but it's still just as important. Your kid/dog/grandmother/sister is only going to look exactly like that once; if you don't record it, you may have to rely on fuzzy memories later. The only difference is that we can't go into the nursery and update those memories with a current view.

Even if there's not a person in the picture, your memory of a time and place can still be triggered by a picture. There are tourist destinations I've been to a few times (Paris, Venice, Athens, Rome), but the pictures from each trip evoke entirely different memories, even if they're of the same monuments. Even if you're never going to print/post/frame/hang the picture, just taking it then looking at it yourself later is worth the effort. Trust me. Every time I stumble across the picture above, it's worth it.

Focusing on Work

Work is starting to get pretty crazy for both of us, and it shows no signs of slowing. I spent last week being bombarded from all angles, working late into the night and then getting up for early phone calls. I headed to Utah (Salt Lake City) on Tuesday night and was supposed to be there Wednesday and Thursday. Fortunately, we wrapped up all our meetings and got to fly home late Wednesday night. In theory, that meant I had an "extra" day on Thursday; in reality, that meant I quickly found "extra" work to do. Next week I'll be in Chicago for a few days, prior to which I have to do a significant amount of prep work. I also have to prep for the week after, when I'll be back in Salt Lake City and then in Sacramento on back-to-back days.

D is busy too, as softball season officially started during President's Day weekend. She usually coaches the Freshman-Sophomore team, but this year there weren't enough girls to field three full teams (Junior Varsity and Varsity being the others). So this year D is an assistant coach for the JV team, which means more games, more practicing, and a bit more pressure. She has to be at practice every day, which means driving to campus on the days she's not working....I don't think she's been home before 6pm in the last week. It also bites into weekends. There was a fundraiser activity at school today, and the next several weekends are taken up by tournaments. Last weekend we were both at school, helping to edit/approve the newspaper, for which D is the faculty adviser.

So, we're definitely keeping busy. I suppose that's good, as it gives us less time for sitting around and missing what we don't have. Still, I've been a little emotional recently and I find myself crying at completely random things...from home videos to pictures to TV shows to music to political videos (I said it was random). I just heard the most recent offender for the first time on the radio tonight.....a song called Teardrops on my Guitar, by Taylor Swift. D warned me that I shouldn't listen to it, but I hadn't heard it before and didn't have any idea what it's about. For the most part, it's a sappy teenage love song, lamenting the fact that her crush (who happens to be named Drew) isn't paying any attention to her. Naming coincidence aside, it takes a personal turn about two and a half minutes in, where it finishes with the following lyrics:

So I drive home alone, as I turn out the light,
I'll put his picture down and maybe get some sleep tonight...

Cause he's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart,
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do...

He's the time taken up, but there's never enough,
And he's all that I need to fall into..

Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see...

There are a couple parts that really get me....I won't go into details. I'm not sure why my emotions have been more raw recently, though I think perhaps we're going through some (adult) growing pains. Some friends are battling illness, others are moving away, and we've definitely had our share of loss. The feeling that nothing is as it should be is a bit unsettling. Fortunately, I tend to be pretty good at shifting expectations and moving forward, so I know we'll be okay.