Happy Thanksgiving everyone

So I'm late with my well-wishes, so what. Had a nice Turkey day with my parents, sister and her family, and my aunt and uncle. While we were there we attempted to take some family photos since we've never done such a thing with my side of the family. Suprisingly, despite my limited abilities with a SLR, most of the photos actually turned out all right. Below is my new favoriate photo of all time, including the two most important people in my whole world.

That's all for today.

Old MacDonald

One quick story ... after giving Tyler a bath, Laura and I move him to the counter in the bathroom to dry him off. He often dislikes being put back down after having been pulled from the bathtub, so we will start singing to him to keep him calm. Usually, for whatever reason, we start singing "Old MacDonald", pick animals at random, and invent noises for them to make. This one time I sang

"And on this farm he had a ... Tyler
Eee I Eee I Ohh"

To which Laura responded, "A Tyler? On a Farm? I hope he is a Free Range Tyer".

Ok, it was silly, but it made me bust out laughing. The whole idea of a Tyler on a farm in a cage or ranging freely; it was a silly image to me. If it was my Tyler, he would certainly have to be a Free Range Tyler considering how much this little guy wants to move around.

tiny hotel soap

Good Morning from the Whale's Vagina. (How's that for a blog opening?) Yes, I am submitting a blog from beautiful San Diego, where my employer has sent me to oversee a hydrostatic pressure test on my hardware (my design, my eqipment, my "other kid"). The stuff I designed is too large to fit into either of the two pressure test chambers that we have back in Davis, and there is a company here in SD with whom we have a pretty good relationship, so every so often we package up our hardware, spend too much on next-day freight, then lower the equipmet into the big water tank and squeeze away to see whether the thing can stand the pressure.

Me personally, althought the testing is interesting, I'd rather be hanging out on the beach. I am in San Diego after all! But this trip is too short; arrived yesterday morning, prepped to test all day long, test today, and hopefully have time to pull the equipment out of the chamber and package it back up for shipment before I hop on a plane back home tonight. One night away from my wife and kid is too much already.

What is the deal with the tiny hotel soaps anyway? Even if I were staying here for a couple days, there's no way I'd ever use much of the small bar they provide. Where does all that soap go? Seriously? Either there is a LOT of soap in landfills, or some couple of families somewhere have a lot of soap furniture.

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I did have just enough time last night to drive around and (very) briefly see the regular sights that Laura and I like; the UCSD campus, the Torey Pines Gliderport, La Jolla and La Valencia (where we were married), Mission Bay. I felt really guilty for visiting the Gliderport without Laura (it was one of her favoriate, and most relaxing places to visit when she was in school here); the cool sea breaze is suprisingly refreshing and relaxing; both Laura and I could really use a lot of that. I had time for only a few deep breaths before I had to move on.

Anyway, back to it now, time to eat and get to the test facility again.

Good Morning, and Stay Classy San Diego.

drool boy

Tyler has had a cold the last few days, and at the same time he is or has got to be close to cutting anywhere from one to 26 teeth. Subsequently he has been drooling constantly lately. Wait, did I say drooling? I meant he has been waterfalling lately. I realize this is not a new thing for a parent to experience, but I'll play my "first time" card and say that it's just amazing that he hasn't become totally dehydrated.

Also over the weekend he kept his tongue stuck out. For the whole weekend. No, really. It was odd.

Going to work this morning sucked because Tyler was really wanting to play. Like, I'd leave the room for half a second to put on my shoes, and he'd cry out to me. That guy is trying to break my heart! Stupid work! Can't you see that I've got a son at home and I need to play with him? Can't you see that in just a few minutes he'll be leaving for college! Ahh!

Neil Patrick

It happened again over the weekend. It hasn't happened for a while, but this was perhaps the most random, most unique occurance of this odd trend in my life.

Moments after leaving my old friend's house in Riverbank**, CA, we realized that Tyler needed food if he was going to be happy during the hour drive to our next destination. We pulled over mere blocks from my friend's house and proceeded to feed the kid in the car.

At this point it's dark outside, and the only light around other than a couple street lights is the dome light in our car. I'm feeding Tyler while sitting in the driver's seat, and Laura is getting stuff moved so that she can sit in the rear with him as we drive.

Just then a group of perhaps high school aged kids walks by the car along the sidewalk. As he passes our car, one of them says, I kid you not "that guy looks like Neil Patrick Harris".

What is it? Do I really? No! The only thing interesting about it happening this time is that this is the first time anyone has gone straight to Neil Patrick and not said Doogie Houser. That could easily be rationalized away because Mr. Harris is back in popularity what with "How I Met Your Mother", but the fact that this keeps happening is just plain odd. Typically it's been in face-to-face interactions with someone like a cashier or similar, so this occurrance is definately a unique one.

But really? Dark, late, outside, random walker-by, guy in a car feeding his kid, yeah sure, that must be Neil Patrick Harris.

Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I should contact Mr. Harris and offer to be his body double, stunt double, or whatever you call a person who helps distract the papparazzi so that you can go about your normal business. Maybe that is my true calling, waiting to be answered.

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** Where in the hell is Riverbank, you might ask? East of Salida I answer. And where is that? Why it's just north of Modesto, of course. Geez.

of mice and minivans

I was falling asleep one night last week while bottle feeding Tyler, very comfortable and relaxed in the Lazy Boy rocking chair that we bought for just such a purpose, when Laura comes into the room with a spooked look on her face.


"We have a mouse", she said. At the moment I was somewhat still asleep, and the whole idea of there being a mouse seemed preposterous to me, although to be fair I also kept thinking that I was at my parent's house, and that they should deal with it. After waking up fully and accepting the fact that I was indeed my own house, it occurred to me that Laura was serious, and had no interest in letting the mouse remain in the house.


About a half hour later, after corralling and shooing and brooming and various attempts at getting the mouse into a box, we finally encouraged it to leave through an open door. It's funny how this tiny little thing (maybe an inch and a half long) encites dread in people. Maybe it's more the fact that it is not supposed to be inside the house, than the fact that it is a mouse, that got us wound up.


So it was much to my dismay when, after cleaning up mouse poop last night, that I found mouse poop again this morning, and in the same location. As I was thinkng about going to buy a trap, another (or the same) mouse jumped up out of the garbage can and scurried into the recycling bin. After a minor heart attack, I covered the recycle bin with a trash bag and re-delivered the mouse back outside, where it will no doubt go back through whatever hole it is using to get inside my house and proceed to poop all over the place until I realize that I just have to bait it.


Oh, so much fun, having a mouse in the house.



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In other news, we may buy a minivan. Yup. Are you not excited for us?

Ever since Tyler was born, getting him and his car seat in and out of our sedan has been tough on our backs. It's not that we're weak people, it's just awkward because we're tall. So we started talking about replacing the sedan with a SUV some time next year, but never got very serious about it. Then last week, Laura comes to me with the idea of a minivan, claiming that "we'll probably end up with one some day anyhow, so why bother with an intermediate step of the SUV?"

Probably? Anyhow? Really? When did we become a big family? Why do we want to drive such a stereotypical family soccer-event car around? The whole idea made me tweak a little bit.

Then Tyler outgrew his removable car seat. Ok, no big deal, just install the convertable seat rear-facing (because he still isn't one year) and everything will be fine, right? Well, he is so tall now that you literally have to hold him sideways to fit him between the car seat and the roof of the car, then stand him up in the seat, then pull his feet out from under him to get his butt to drop down to the proper location. Long story short, the idea of a larger car is starting to sound marvelous, and suddenly the idea of bypassing something like an SUV to move into something like a minivan is, well, sounding very practical.

Sure, there are only three of us, but some day there might be four. And each of the road trips we've taken lately seems to require the packing of a stroller, a pack-and-play, Tyler's clothes, our clothes, blankets, pillows, toys, hiking backpacks, etc. This stuff fills up the trunk of an Accord pretty fast.

So to summarize, don't be suprised of some day soon we arrive for out visit driving a miniature van.

random post

Tyler seems to have figured out that kicking his legs while in the bath means that the water will splash all over dad, the mirror, the countertop, him. He's not quite sure what it all means, or he is just so curious that he hasn't allowed himself to laugh at it yet, but there is some sly enjoyment in it because last night he just kept doing it and got everything wet. Crazy baby!