February 28, 2006

Priya's Adventures in Rolling

This is a video that I took over three weeks I think. We had been trying for a while to get Priya to roll over. As you can see, she hated being on her stomach - so much for belly time. So since she didn't like being face down, it was challenging for her to learn how to start rolling over. As first time parents, we were kinda freaked out that she wasn't learning quickly enough how to roll over. Now that she is almost ready to walk, we look back at this video and long for the days of limited mobility! The last 15 seconds of this video are more than worth the three minute viewing time!


February 24, 2006

Encouragements and Discouragements

This has been a fairly challenging week for me. I realized again just how poorly I deal with stress and the unknown. Common human conditions both - just the response differs.
  • Coming home last Friday, my car suddenly started shuddering in the middle of the road. I lost most power and the Check Engine light blinked like crazy. To make a very long story short, the engine is damaged, and the repairs are in the thousands of dollars. So much for tax refunds, huh.
  • Until Thursday I didn't know what the cost was going to be. I found myself obsessing over how much money I was going to spend, and how it was going to be tough, and so on. I finally decided that money was supposed to be my servant, and not my master. To prove that out, I decided to abuse my servant - by going and spending some money. I had been promising to get Tish a pink Razr forever. I finally did. And I got myself a new phone too. So here are our new phones. The thing I like about my phone is that it has WiFi built in. So even though the screen is small, it's cool to check out email, and 'surf' the web.
  • I spent yesterday staring at this machine in the little town of Morris, IL.


The end result was a stack of sheets perfectly lined up. Look at the registration marks on the right side.


  • I added more memory to my home PC. I now have a grand total of 1.5 GB. Circuit City was selling 512MB memory modules for $24.99. For fifty bucks I couldn't resist adding in a gig more of memory. Smokin...
  • Michelle beat me to it (as usual? - hehe), but here's a video that I wanted to play during Priya's dedication (during lunch), but totally forgot about. So now, here for your viewing pleasure, is Priya...

February 17, 2006

Some brief updates

  • My taxes are done for the year. I mean, not only did I file them, I also got all the refunds. So the federal government and the states of Illinois and Indiana are happy with what I showed them. And I now know what having a child does in regards to tax liability. A child under 17 is useful in two ways (at least as far as taxes go). They get claimed as a dependent (makes sense), but you also get a $1,000 tax credit for each one (take the total federal taxes that you owe, and deduct $1,000 from it).
  • Within the span of a week (the time from my last post to this one), Priya is pulling herself up and actually liking it. OK. We all know Addy will be doing sprints in a week, but hey - we all have to proud of our own kids, right? :-)
  • I wish I had a secret blog that no one knew about. There are some things I am wanting to rant and rave about, but I can't. Hence the great irony of writing blogs. You are supposed to be able to say whatever you want, but most times hold back because of the people that pass through - this makes it no different than real life.
  • A friend of ours wanted to play scrabble this weekend. In thinking about it, I realized I haven't played that game in 15 years. We used to play it as a family. I don't think even now 'distactic' has been accepted as a word.
  • We have recently been hooked on 24. I can't believe we let four seasons go by without ever watching it.
  • A priest was walking in the woods when he came upon a bear. The priest fell to his knees and cried out, "Lord, please let this bear be a Christian bear." The bear looked at the priest, and then fell to his knees. He looked up to heaven, folded his paws and exclaimed, "Lord, thank you for this meal I am about to receive!"

February 12, 2006

Priya at 10 months

Studio Pictures at 10 months

Grilled cheese sandwich. Mmm...

Priya being... well... Priya

She can stand up, but hasn't really shown much interest in doing it by herself.

OK. We do feed her - it just doesn't show too well.

She loves having teeth - biter biscuits don't stand a chance.

She can't wait for winter to be over.

February 08, 2006

Word Cloud

TS had an interesting post on word cloud. This is an image that's generated through all the words in your blog - it picks up the most frequent ones and makes them a bigger font, etc. OK. So why is Michelle's name so big? Must be the thousands of comments she puts in. Haha. I think I need to talk about Tish more often. Priya did pretty well, but guess who's the biggest... Yep. Me! You can get your own cloud here.

February 02, 2006

Early Morning Thoughts

  • I find it amusing that my last post was so depressing that I didn't even get one comment on it. Still no word on Jill, by the way.
  • It's 7 in the morning, and I've been at work for a half hour already. Most people don't start filtering in till 8, so I don't have a lot of conversations till then. Does talking to yourself count?
  • Here are the two pieces of software I stare at most of the day. Don't they look important and exciting? :-)
  • Ok. Not as exciting as pictures of Priya. I saw some new ones in the digital camera last night, but forgot to upload them. So stay tuned.
  • Priya is definitely developing a very willful side. She also knows when something must not be done. This comes out most often with pulling out books from bookshelves, or playing with cables in electrical sockets. Before reaching for them, she will look back and see if we are watching. When we say "No", she will hesitate, and then reach out anyway. Tish does a good job of disciplining her by flicking on her fingers and saying "No". One of the funniest things is when Priya is almost done eating, and she tries to tear her bib off. She does it once, you say no. She does it again, you say no with a flick. Then the third time, her hand starts to move towards the bib. You pre-empt it and say no - she then just lightly touches the bib and starts to stroke it - pretending she never meant to yank on it anyway. It's hilarious when you actually see it happen.
  • I have been asked to make a presentation at our worldwide sales meeting in Germany in May. I guess that means I'm off to Germany again for a week. Let me know if you want to see the presentation when it's done. Haha.