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Because the smoke detector went off this morning (twice) and now I can’t get back to sleep. So Jack has taken my spot in the bed because of course the sound of a smoke detector isn’t bad enough a crying 4 month old only tops it off. No worries though, armed with a ladder, a can of compressed air, and a pair of very sleepy eyes I cleaned it and haven’t heard anything else from it. So while I sit here wide freakin’ awake I figured “why not blog?” so here it goes a run down of what has been going on….

We have been watching the Olympics a pretty good bit, and I gotta admit Michael Phelps is awesome to watch. I kinda figured they (advertising folks and NBC) were simply hyping the one thing that people would remember from the last Olympics because lets face who else remembers anything else from four years ago let alone from those Olympics. The Men’s basketball team looks good from what I have seen, I can only hope that they win the gold and dominate as they do it (so far so good). My only gripe so far has been NBC there are way to many commercials and analysts and enough with the beach volleyball.

Jack has been doing great and has been adjusting to the new schedule better then we have. Why a new schedule you ask? because Tiph started back to school last week so we have started the in school babysitter rotation. He has started eating some solidish foods (oatmeal and babyfood) and he seems to be getting the hang of it pretty quickly. We got him an exer-saucer last weekend and he seems to really like it and moves from toy to toy. I think I heard him say he was going to try and blog this weekend if eating, sleeping, and playing didn’t get in his way so be on the watch out for that (links to the right).

I LOST THE STINKING LIST!!!!! In my last post I mentioned that we came up with a scavenger hunt list that made the reunion way more fun. Welllllll of course now I can’t find the list so I guess I won’t be sharing it. It’s a real shame because it was… well……. awesome!

The Cubs are still in first place by five and a half games and there is way to much positive talk for my tastes. The words world series keep popping up and as much as I would like to think the Cubs are going to make it I know there is way to much regular season left and anything can happen.

Well Jack is up and is looking like he could use some oatmeal…..

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So this past weekend was my 10 year high school reunion and I want to preface the post by saying that the people who were putting this on had a very daunting task in front of them by having to find the addresses of 120 people who last talked 10 years ago and they also had to stage this event in Gadsden Alabama not the most happening of places. For all those points I say congrats you did a great job I just have some suggestions for the 20 year reunion:

• The live band: avoid if possible however if you decide to go with one when they want to turn the volume up to 10 so that they can RAWK! you might want to ask them to back it down a notch… remember people are trying to talk and catch up.
• The lighting: while I will agree that the live band needs the appropriate mood lighting in order to RAWK but people are trying to recognize others who have had 10 years to change and dark doesn’t really encourage this task very well.
• The food: wasn’t bad it was just tiny and seemed a little disappointing considering the cost of the event which would equate to a very nice dinner for two people, maybe consider scaling back the live band next time to accommodate better food.
• The open bar: having the band members manage the bar seemed to be very efficient and worked well. However I would suggest having more than 3 choices for drinks and as a rule of thumb one of those choices should never NEVER be the jagerbomb honestly it should illegal to sell such a beverage as it is not good for anyone involved.
• Engaging people: you are all very personable people and obviously not socially awkward (like the author of this post) so it may be beneficial to have a larger set of questions to ask the audience beyond the 5 you prepared. Also powerpoint is a great tool to show pictures of the people you invited and it is kinda nice to look at pictures as a collective group.
• Family Friendliness: next time it would be nice to have an event where kids were welcome just so people can meet the families of our classmates.

Overall the reunion wasn’t bad and it was good to see people who I haven’t seen in a long time and it was a blast to hang out with Beau, Liz, and Jake for the entire weekend. Also it was a blast coming up with the scavenger hunt that made the reunion way more fun (full details coming soon).

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So we all keep hearing about the hydrogen based vehicles and how they are sooooo cool and how they are going to be great for the environment yadda yadda yadda. But whenever I see this…..

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the only thing I am thinking is how hella cool it would be if I was able to use my jet pack to get to work. More actual details about the jet pack here

Other than dreaming of a Jetson esque existence, we are getting ready for Beau, Elizabeth, and Jake to come into town tomorrow so we can all go out to the river and then head to the reunion on Saturday. I am still mildly excited about the reunion, I guess I am just having those “holy crap?!?! has it really be ten years since high school?!?!?!” thoughts and kinda wondering where time has gone.

Jack is doing really really well he is now weighing in at 17lbs3oz and has what the doctor calls a familial big head. Not really sure what that means or if it is an insult but I figure he comes by it naturally. We have started giving him some rice cereal although I am not sure why they call it “cereal” because A. it looks nothing like cereal and B. it tastes nothing like cereal. He has a new way to hang out around the house a Bumbo Seat (pics to the right), Grandma gave it to him after seeing it at her friends house.

After watching Psych last week and then seeing the latest JCPenney commercial about a million times I am completely jonesing to watch the Breakfast Club, but unless I can find it for 5.00 in the Wal-Mart bargain bin, I will not be endulging my craving for a bad 80’s movie.

Well I guess that wraps it up……………. SeeeYA!

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So it has been a while since I have done any kind of post so here it goes…….

The biggest news is that we got a new car!!! yeah we traded in my car and got a mazda5. It was kinda bitter sweet to trade in the olllll grandam, on one hand it had been giving me problems with the ignition cylinder and it had definitely seen its better days as far as basic functionality goes but on the other it was still running strong(once you got it started) and I hadn’t reached my goal of 200k miles. Overall it was a good car and there was a lot good times/events that happened during its tenure two degrees, one wedding, first “real” job, several road trips, and ohhhh yeah one kid. Sooo here’s to you silver bullet may retirement treat you well.

Yesterday I came to the realization that I am only three weeks away from my 10 year reunion. It creeps me out a little bit to think I have been out of school for 10 years and that it has been 6 years since I graduated college…. where has time gone? Oh well it should be a good time despite the inevitable onset of memory loss as I won’t remember anyone at first glance.

I am excited about the upcoming week, not only am I taking off a couple days but we are heading over to Atlanta to see Beau, Elizabeth, and Jake and we will be heading to Jack’s first baseball game on Friday. Hopefully we will make it through at least 5 innings but you never know maybe we will make it through all 9

Jack has been doing great lately he has really been discovering his hands, feet, and toys and most everything seems to make its way into his mouth. We have found his new favorite toy… the O-Ball, I hate to sound like a commercial but he has really taken to it and plays with it constantly.

The Only other thing going on is that I finally have something semi-useful up and running at BHMTraffic. What is BHMTraffic? it is a small web app with the goal of helping people with traffic problems in and around Birmingham. Why? Because Birmingham stinks as far as traffic reports go How: user submitted traffic reports, stuck in traffic? submit a report so others can avoid. It has been a slow go as far as getting stuff done but check it out and let me know what you think or if you have any ideas on what features would be good.

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Tiph has been taking tons of pictures with her new camera and this has to be my favorite….

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So I have been wanting to blog for a while and every time I start Jack beats me to The punch about his latest news. Then Tiph read the excerpt below from this forum(a discussion about nursery water) which made me laugh really hard.

click for details

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With all the hype around grads and dads right now, this could be the perfect gift…….

Armed with a TV, TiVo, DVD, XBox, laptop, refrigerator, megaphone, and an Ipod dock this may be the greatest toilet ever

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Thursday was the first time to be alone with Jack all day. Overall the day went great he took a really long nap in the morning and since you are supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps I decided to take a nap as well. The afternoon was drastically different from the morning, after lunch we decided we were going to play in the floor about 10 minutes in he started getting fussy I thought we could play our way through the fussy, I was wrong he started crying and my normal repertoire for stopping crying was not working so I had to go to the failsafe…. the bottle. Several seconds later the crying had stopped and life was good again. After he was finished with his bottle and had a short power nap we played on the floor until Tiph got home.

Jack has been doing great lately and has been doing a lot more “talking” and he has started to show more interest in Molly and Cassie.

Well it is off to finish up the yard work.

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How is that possible you ask, well it seemed to start last Friday we have been having trouble with the AC and we had noticed water in the basement so I called the builder and he came out to look at it. Come to find out that you can’t use preferated air filters on our system, not a problem right? jjust go get the el cheapo air filters and be done with it. WELL of course it wouldn’t be that easy… I need a 16×24x1 air filter and due the the fact that the length of your common air filter is in an increment of 5 (ex: 16×20, 16×25, 16,30) so after driving around for the rest of the afternoon looking for the mythical 16×24, in the end I ordered a case of them from the local hardware store which I forgot to pick due to not having my car and getting home late from work most days(details later in post) over the weekend we ran all over the place celebrating memorial day and then on memorial day itself we were picking up the new couch and so during that process I had moved my car out of the garage so we could store the old couches well as I was trying to put it back in the garage it wouldn’t start. So at this point it has been in the shop since Tuesday, hopefully it will be ready on Monday. Then on Tuesday I got to do the stay at home Dad thing and take care of Jack (highlight of my week) and then take him to get his 2 month checkup which was rough because he got 4 shots. After that it was just work as usual except it just seemed to drag along over the remaining 3 days.

Well I am off to get some laundry finished……..

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