Ethan at Two Years Old

That last post just made me think of some other things that impress me about Ethan. He turns two next month.

• He says (and signs) "Please" and "Thank You" for just about everything.


• He already knows his first movie quote: "What's up dog?" from School of Rock. It comes out more like "up gog?", but it's cute nonetheless. (He definitely has some Keene blood in him.)


• He has total coordination when jumping on the trampoline and gets almost a foot of air. (That's Guido blood.)


• He throws a perfect spiral with the mini-football, if he gets the grip right.

Nanny 911

We've been watching this new show, Nanny 911, and we're just amazed at how out-of-control these kids and parents are. I'm still new at this whole parenting thing, so watching this show is a great example of what not to do. But more importantly, it shows me how great of a parent Tricia really is, especially when it comes to discipline. Our kids test me a little with this, but they never, ever let their mom get to the count of 3.

One comment that stood out above the rest was when the nanny was telling the mom to discipline her kid. She says something like, "He's only 2 and a half, he doesn't know what that means!" Tricia and I just looked at each other with our mouths open.

Ethan's not even two and he friggen knows.

Tour De Corona 2004

This year's tour was a great ride overall, even with all the flat tires and crashes. I estimated a 30 mile-ride... I was a little off. The path was right on, but I messed up on the calculations somehow. Here's what we road:

Started at my house
Temescal Canyon road ride to Indian Truck Trail
Up Indian Truck Trail to Main Divide
Up Main Divide to Santiago Peak
Down Main Divide to Bedford Road
Down Bedford, through the orange groves back to my house.

Everyone met at my house around 7:00 am, including a couple of new faces. Jeff, who I only rode with once before, invited a couple of friends to come along. Which was totally cool because this past week a bunch of people backed out for one reason or another and I thought for sure that nobody was going to show.

John and Mike pulled up shortly after Jay and introduced themselves. Totally cool guys. Jeff warned me that John was a hard-core rider and rides like 5 times a week. So John starts talking about doing this ride in the middle chain ring, and I'm thinking - Okay he's definitely with the wrong crowd, but oh well, let's see how it goes.

Everyone else shows up one-by-one, eating their Jack in the Box breakfast and getting ready for the big ride. Bob finally shows up and we shove off around 7:45.

All together it was:
Me
Joe
Brian
Steve
Bob
Jay
Jeff
Jeff Jr.
John
Mike

The road ride on Temescal Canyon was a subtle incline, but we went way too fast. This was supposed to be a mellow warmup, but I had to stay in front of the pack to direct everyone. Everyone else kept passing me, so the whole group just went too fast. At this point, Jay already blew his load.

Climbing up Indian Truck Trail was nice and steady. It was interesting to see all the ancient Indian furniture on the side of the road. I'm sure that La-Z-Boy was comfortable in a tee pee at some point.

As we started the climb, Mike asks "So how far are we going?"

"All the way to the peak!" Apparently he got the email, but failed to read it. Details.

Jay started to fall back, so Steve and I waited up for him and harassed him into keep climbing. "Come on Jay, it just around that corner." Hee heee... works every time. Just before Holy Jim Trail, he threw in the towel and turned around. He probably could've went down Holy Jim to get to his house, but his truck was still at my house.

At this point, everyone was way ahead except for me, Steve and Jeff (Jeff probably had 50 extra pounds of equipment on him, including a GPS device, a walkie talkie, an MP3 player, a Hamm Radio and enough water for both him and his son). I pulled ahead slightly, and was so tired I could've sworn I saw the Indian Truck pass me by with a real life Indian smoking a pipe in the drivers seat. I looked at him, he looked at me and said "how". I blinked, shook my head and he was gone. Dehydration perhaps? They say nobody ever saw the Indian Truck and lived to tell about it, so I started to worry a little and considered it a true hallucination.

By the time I reached the top everyone was cursing at me and giving me high-fives at the same time. It was a little awkward to say the least. But I, along with everyone else, felt a great sense of accomplishment to bag the peak. I don't know what it is that keeps us coming back to these torturous rides because during the ride we think "what the fuck are we doing?" then once we reach the top we're like "hey, can't wait to do it again!". It's a very strange, unexplainable phenomenon and it happens e v e r y - s i n g l e - t i m e.

I've been up to Santiago Peak once before, but from the Orange County side. This was the first time from my house, which I've been wanting to do every since I moved to Corona two years ago.

Now comes the fun part... the downhill ride. Mike and I pulled up front for most the ride, until I got a flat. From that point on, it was flat after flat after flat. I got two, but changing my second one resulted in another because of a bad stem, so I used 3 tubes total. Similar thing happened to Joe with 3 tubes, but he had some kind of mysterious hole in one of his and Brian was determined to find it come hell or high water. He blew it up to the size of a truck tire but to no avail. He was getting so pissed.

The wierdest flat was Jeff Jr's. As we were waiting for Joe and Brian, Jeff Jr was just standing there... let me repeat... just STANDING there with his bike for a good 20 minutes. Then he said, "Do you guys here that?" We didn't hear anything. Then all of a sudden... 'psssssssssss s s s s' His tire flattens right in front of us. Very strange... Did this have anything to do with the Indian Truck I saw? Hmmm...

Steve started the crash sessions with a flying-leap-over-the-handle-bars-into-the-rocks-with-a-flat-tire-to-boot-trick. Very impressive. Mike crashed and racked up his knee to get the "Most Bloodiest Crash" award... until I crashed. I felt a little bad because there wasn't enough action going on for this ride so I saved my crash right until the very end. I crashed pretty good and ended up with blood dripping down my leg to take over the award.

We then returned to my house for some well-deserved burgers and dogs and very tasty beverages.

Everyone's computer said something different, but Jeff's GPS device seemed to be the most reliable. Here are his stats and images (Thanks a bunch Jeff):

Distance: 33.76 miles
Lowest Point: 889'
Highest Point: 5622'
Total Elevation Gain: 6138'
Ride Time: 4.5 hours average
Total Time: 8.5 hours
Flat Tires: 9
Crashes: 3

Mom is Cancer Free!!

Today my mom had her last radiation treatment and is now cancer free. I can't even begin to explain what a relief that is and how happy I am. I've been kind of a bummer the last several months, but I'm sure everyone understands why.

Date a White Woman

I have to see this book... too bad it's out of stock... How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men The reviews speak for themselves... "Adam Quan is best. He book converted completely my life. At the same time now I dating two white woman! It is best. I thought that he is the sex God." and... "I rike this product! SO GOOD! I use it to rocate woman who will not raugh at my way of talk. Now we get married! I rove her very much!"

The Cannel Plunge

We had an incredible ride at the Cannel Plunge this past weekend near Kernville, Ca.

32 miles, 8 hours, a couple catastrophic mechanicals (including a malfunctioning shoe), a ton of great scenery, way too much climbing, WAY too many people flying over the handlebars (including me, which Joe got a great picture of), sleeping in 26 degree weather, and of course, The Plunge... that about sums it up. Good times!

Of course, Julie chimes in with "Hummm... 4 mph average. Was it uphill both ways?"

I think "Wow, that fast?"

Dunstan's Colophon

I can't figure out if this guy is really that talented, or if he just has way too much time on his hands.

This is one of those things that is just really damned cool and fascinates the hell out of me.

Dunstan's Colophon

Muddy Buddy 2004

This morning, my neighbor Eric and I did the Muddy Buddy Race in San Dimas, Ca. Although I haven't done many races, this was definitely my favorite. Mainly because it mixed mountain biking with cross country running. I really like the idea of mixing it up.

Out of 79 teams in our class, we came in 33rd. Right smack dab in the middle and pretty damned good according to our standards. The most important thing was that we had a blast.

Here are the results. We're team "Ball Busters" in the Male 56-69 class (that's a combined age).

Running Springs Race

This morning we all went up to Running Springs for a mountain bike race, and we had a great time. This was Ryann's first race and out of about a dozen kids of all ages, she came in forth place. She was very happy and we were very proud. Here she is getting ready to cross the finish line...

As for me...

I got my butt kicked... Bad! Here's me "barely" crossing the finish line...



Here are the results. I'm in the Sport class, age 30-34.

Please Sit Down

Some new signs Ethan learned recently...
Socks
Train
Bird
Dog
Cat
Flower

Victor and I have been working on a new homepage for a while and it was finally published today. Check it out...
www.wamuhomeloans.com

It actually looks similar to the old site, just updated. The coolest part about it is that the download size of the homepage went from 130k to 36k. That's what I'm talking about!

I've been with the company for a year and a half and it took me this long to make a major change to the site. I used to be able to squeeze in a project like this over a weekend.

I rode my bike into work again today. I've managed to do it about once or twice a week and I'm totally digging it. Instead of riding my Intense, which is overkill for road riding, I fixed up my old Specialized Stump Jumper with slick tires. It's really been great. I'm already feeling like I'm getting back into shape because of this. I've been playing Ultimate every Monday night, but squeezing in other workouts during the week is just about impossible. So I'm going to try to keep this up.

For the past couple of months we've been teaching Ethan sign language and I'm telling you, it's THE coolest thing I've ever seen in child development. Our friend Heather, who is an interpreter, tought us a few signs to start with and recently she let us borrow her Signing Time DVDs. It started off with "more" and "all done", which is pretty much a complete life saver for any parent. Now he knows:
Milk
Water
Diaper
Ball
Shoes
Hungry/Food
Tired
All done
More
Sleep
Ouch/Hurt
Please
Thank You

Today it really hit me on how cool this is. I took him for a mountain bike ride early this morning (I pull him in a bike trailer). As I was climbing this hill I hear him say "Daddy", I look back and he gives me the sign for "water". I stop and notice that he couldn't reach his water bottle, so I got it for him. I got back on the bike and thought about how powerful that just was. Instead of throwing a total fit, screaming and crying and me not having a freakin clue why, he simple tells me what he wants and I get it for him. End of story. I've heard that kids who learn this early on are much more mild-tempered and I can totally see why. I highly recommend this to any parent with an infant.

Bob Dylan in Garamond

Typo

This is my Semacode...

Uh, yeah, just another geaky thing that facinates me. It's actually a URL barcode for cell phones. You can actually aim your picture phone at this and with the right software install, it will take you to my website (I don't recommend doing this since my site isn't optomized for cell phones, but I thought it would be cool anyway).

Create your semacode at SemaCode.org!

Today is National Bike to Work day, so I thought it was a good opportunity to get off my lazy ass and bike to work. Well, since I take the train to work, I rode my bike to the train station (6 miles), brought it on the train, then from the Tustin train station I rode to work (about 5 more miles). At the end of the day it's about 22 miles with a nice long steady incline at the very tail end. I liked it a lot, so I need to get slicker tires and lose some of this weight in my backpack (or something). It only added a few minutes to my commute, but it was a great way to get a good workout in during the week.

Very cool web app... Get ready to waste a lot of time...

Morphases.com

View the face I made

May 5 - 15
Our first "real" family vacation. We went to North Carolina for 6 days to visit Debi and her family. It was fun playing with the kids, although keeping Ryann and Ashlyne from fighting was a huge task. We went to play miniature golf and Ryann got her very first hole-in-one... actually she got two that day, which was very exciting. At about the same time Camerron's wheels fell off and he threw a huge fit, but Debi handled it perfectly. We also got to check out the property we bought there last year.

Then we set off to St, Petersburg, Florida for 2 days to visit Dad, Aunt Rosie, Aunt Terry and Susan. We had a great time visiting with them, who I haven't seen in way too long. The last couple of days of our vacation we went to Universal Studios in Orlando. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which had a water taxi that took us right to the parks. Islands of Adventure was the best part... probably the best amuzement park I've ever been to. Very well kept and designed. And the Spider Man ride rocked!!

Da Vinci Credited with Developing First Search Engine

Quote of the day...

"I don't have time to become a millionaire"
--Victor Zavala

I've got the coolest Mom ever!!!

Image 1 :: Image 2

10 worst album covers of all time

Whenever I'm feeling sad and blue, I visit this site:

The Power is Yours

Very cool site... Just turn down your volume if you're viewing it at work.

FoNt fetiSh

Genius... Pure Genius!

The Brief Safe

How to Build a Computer for Almost No Money At All

Promised Land: "The only paintball park in the Midwest that features a fun Family-Friendly Atmosphere with friendly spirited competition. 'Bad-boys' and rowdies are not tolerated."

Wow, I slept for 12 hours last night!!! I needed it bad. I've been lacking about 1-2 hours of sleep for the past week and it finally caught up to me. Then Saturday night I only got about 4 hours of sleep. The baby woke up at his normal time, and we didn't get to bed until about 2:00 am. So I was dragging my feet all day Sunday. I sat in bed to do some work around 6:00, and I was out cold.

In the afternoon I was able to finally finish the projector setup in the GuidoPlex. Before Curt installed the outlet in the attic, I had a power cord dangling from it attached to an extension cord. So I cut the power cord, fed it through the pipe of the projector mount, reattached the cord and plugged it into the new receptacle. Worked like a charm. I took some pictures that I'll post very soon. The whole projector installation turned out to be pretty damned cool.

Otherwise, we need to paint the walls, buy some curtains to totally block out the daylight, and buy some antique movie memorabilia for the final touch.

Yesterday was the first time in a while where I was able to get a bunch of stuff done around the house. I've been sick every other weekend, then taking care of Tricia on the others.

First of all, our microwave gave out last weekend. It was a Whirlpool and only four years old... piece of crap. So we bought an open-box GE from Best Buy, took it home, and of course, the wall bracket was missing. We got 30 bucks off the price, but sometimes it's just worth paying the regular price. Tricia called to complain, and they mailed us the bracket a couple days later. So I installed it today and it was pretty easy. Tricia helped me hold it up while I bolted it in.

Then I replaced a simple wall light in the garage. Yesterday, Curt and his buddy came over to do a bunch of electrical work, like installing outlets (if you can believe it, there were only two outlets in the whole garage), fluorescent lights on the ceiling, and an extra light and outlet in the garage attic. It turned out awesome. I just need to put a floor down in the attic, and it'll be ready to toss all of Tricia's holiday crap up there. He also installed an outlet in the crawl space above the projector. So now I can run the power cord throught the mount and the it'll finally be done.

Then I installed my new receiver. This one has component video in and out for the best video quality. It also has the ability to play different sources in two different rooms. I'd like to install speakers out on the back patio next.

Later on we went to Michelle's engagement party. Tricia got pretty hammered. She was dancing with Michelle and actually fell. Luckily there was a chair right there to catch her. It was extra funny because she tried to play it off like she wanted to sit down.

A Family Proposal

2 - 6 women to have 2 - 15 children by me.

The preferred situation tends toward the higher numbers.

Ok, the weirdest thing happened to me today on the bus. I'm in the very back seat, minding my own business and reading the newspaper. There's this older lady next to me; I'd say around 50 years old, talking on her cell phone slightly too loud so that everyone can hear her. She was asking someone from her work to look outside the office because she left her gym bag at the bus stop. She hung up while the person went to look. All of a sudden, she's looking out the window of the bus and says "F***ing losers!". Intrigued, I kind of chuckle and asked "wha?". She says again "F***ing losers! That's the only words for them." Even more intrigued, I ask "What are you talking about?" So check this out... she looks directly at me and says "Yeah, you're probably one of 'em!" I was totally dumb-founded, with absolutely nothing whatsoever to say. I just wish I had something cleaver or funny to say back, but I could only laugh and continue reading my paper. Can you believe that? I need to think of something to say in case I see her again.

Oh yeah, some one took off with her gym bag... He heeee!

l 4m |_4m3

A 17 year old dude named Mike Rowe is big in the news today for adding "Soft" to his name. Check out his site:

MikeRoweSoft.com

We all watched Couple's Fear Factor, while flipping back and forth to the first episode of American Idol. What a crack up. The first few episodes are always the best.

After that was Average Joe 2, another great show. There's something about that show that I'm really drawn to; I can't really pin point it. I think it's because I see myself as one of those geaky, awkward, average guys and I was able to land a hot wife. So I feel for them. But it's so embarrasing to watch some of the things they do, especially when that one guy serenaded her. Dude, come on now.

Met Tricia at home in the afternoon. She was well rested, but still really tired. She took over with the kids and gave me chance to work on the dirt bikes.

While Ethan was taking his morning nap, I took Ryann out on our dirt bikes for about an hour. She's getting a little more comfortable riding in the dirt, but I'm starting to realize that she's only good for about a half hour. Her fuse starts to go out after that and she gets frustrated and falls real easily.

Tricia took off to help Michelle pick out her wedding dress today, so I had to entertain the kids, including Jordan and Ryann's friend, Nicole. I took them all to this little carnival that's going on at Tom's Farms. There wasn't much there, so we only stayed for about an hour and a half. By the time we got back, Nicole's mom came to pick her up.

I then took everyone to Cathi's house in Victoville. Tricia stayed the night at her parents so she could try to get a full nights sleep. I got to work on Cathi's computer and program her remote controls for her new home entertainment system. I got a hair cut of the deal. That's how we usually do it.

Took the family to the San Diego Zoo. We also brought Jordan and one of Ryann's friends that she hasn't seen in a couple years. We didn't have that great of a time, I think because Ryann and her friend just wanted to play and act like 7 year-olds, instead of look at all the cool animals. At the first exhibit we saw these monkeys picking each others butts, so I thought, "hmmm, this is going to be an interesting day." But the other animals were rather tame in comparison. Seeing the panda bears was pretty cool.

Took the family to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. This was the first time for everyone and we had a great time. We got to pet sharks and sting rays and watch the bigger sharks get fed. We only had about four hours to spend, but we could've spent the entire day here.

Later on we took a drive to the Wayfarer's Chapel were we got married two years ago. We just barely caught the sunset and they were just closing. So we could only spend about 5-10 minutes there. I think that was THE perfect place to get married.

Took the family to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. I took Jordan there a long time ago when it was called the Museum of Science and Industry. It's all new and improved now and we had a great time. At least I did. I love this science stuff.

We also watched an IMAX movie about underwater volcanos, called Volcanoes of the Deep Sea. The movie itself was so so, but seeing anything in the IMAX theater is just amazing. This was the first IMAX movie for both Tricia and Ryann and we had the whole theater to ourselves... it's great to go to these types of places on a weekday. There was hardly anyone at all in the museum.

Finished the ceiling mount for the projector. I had to go up into the crawl space, which is always challenging, to fish the video cable and install the mount. Tricia was a huge help from down below.

The mount actually turned out pretty damn nice. I combined different ideas and suggestions from a few sources from people on the hometheaterforum.com. There's a lot of good ideas out there, but I'm surprised that many people didn't really fine tune them. For example, I didn't really see any attempts to hide wires and cables in the mount. I thought it was pretty simple and it made a HUGE difference on the appearance. Hopefully, I'll take pictures of it and share it with the others on the forum.

Worked on the ceiling mount for the projector a little more. I think I'll be ready to install it by tomorrow.

I also stopped at the fabric store and picked up a couple samples of different material for the big screen. I bought more blackout cloth, and some silver satin, both about 1x3 feet. I taped them onto the wall for comparison and this is when the yellow from the wall really stood out. The white blackout cloth was way too bright overall, especially in the black areas. And the silver satin cloth looked incredible. It had just enough reflection to it for the whites to look bright and the silver color really made for some dark blacks. I think this is the way to go. I'm either going to stretch this over the existing frame I built or add some thin door panel to the frame and stretch the cloth over that to ensure a perfectly flat surface.

Finally starting to feel pretty good. Today we went to the Fender Museum here in Corona. It was smaller than I thought, but still pretty cool. Ryann got to play a guitar hooked up to an amp with headphones, so she was stoked. She's been wanting to play the guitar ever since we saw Freaky Friday at the drive-in. Of all the intruments to play, guitar is definitely the coolest. I wish I would've learned that instead of the freakin' clarinet. Then I'd be able to live my life long dream of being in a folk music band.

Messed around with the THX optimizer tool on the Ice Age DVD. There's also a similar tool on the Fight Club DVD, but it's a little older. Later in the evening we watched xXx, which had some of the worst acting I've ever seen, but very cool action shots. That, with the bumpin' sound and large size actually gave me goose bumps.

Watched Reservoir Dogs, The Salton Sea and Fight Club in the GuidoPlex. Recovery couldn't be better.

I manage to muster up enough energy to put up the projector on a ladder. I'm in the process of building a ceiling mount, but I probaby won't be able to get to that until I feel better. It was hard enough getting it up on the ladder. First I managed to open the box and get the manual out. Then I slept for an hour. Then I got the ladder out. Then I slept for an hour... It pretty much took me all day, but that night we got to watch SpiderMan in full glory. It was awesome.

I'm pretty disappointed on how my DIY screen turned out. There were some ripples in it that really stood out when the movie was projected on it and the paint that I used looked horrible; way too reflective. So I took down the screen and projected it onto the wall. It looked friggen' amazing! The wall is actually kind of yellow, but it still looks great.

I got a chance to pay a visit to my doctor... Dr. Milkey (yeah, seriously, that's his name, Dr. Milkey - I can just hear it over the hospital speakers... "Dr. Milkey... Calling Dr. Milkey to the breast exam room"). He said I didn't have the flu, but just a really bad respitory cold.

Whouldn't you know it... our friggin' projector finally came in today... and I'm too damn sick to do anything about it. I ordered that thing ONE MONTH ago! I wrote nasty complaint letters, and made nasty phone calls threatening to cancel my order and write about my horrible experience on all the home theater forums and review sites. And NOW I get it... when I'm almost on my death bed.

Last night was horrible. About 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up with the worst chills I've ever had in my entire life. No matter what, I couldn't get warm... at all! I swear, I was shivering like fag at a weeny roast.

Things are definitely going down hill now. My temperature's starting to rise, Ethan is getting worse and Tricia is still not even close to fully recovering. Ryann has been at her grandparents and she's been coughing like crazy.

I made all the calls... the trip is canceled. We'll have to go in May when Ryann has another month off of school.

Ok, so I just spent the entire weekend nursing Tricia back to health from the flu, taking care of the baby, and preparing for our trip to North Carolina and Florida tomorrow night. Now guess what? I think I'm starting to catch what Tricia had.... bummer.

I came home from work early because I'm starting to feel achy and a slight cough. Ethan was starting to cough as well. If this gets any worse, we'll have to cancel our trip. We'll see how the day goes.

I had the day off today, like most people, so I thought it was a good opportunity to take Ryann out for a dirt bike ride so she can get used to riding in the dirt. Turns out my Aunt Mary was in town from Ohio at Cathi's house in Victorville... a perfect riding area for Ryann. Also, Tricia starting showing some flu like symptoms last night.

So I basically killed 3 birds with one stone... Took Ryann (and Jordan) riding, visited my aunt, and let Tricia rest all day. The only bad part was by the time we got home, Tricia's temperature was 102.5. I felt so bad!