Saturday, June 30, 2007

Lily Video #1

I had grand plans of taking a bunch of video of Lily and then doing a bunch of editing. Since that has not yet happened. I thought I would create a simple video of her enjoying her bouncer. I know at least the grandparents will love the whole thing.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Google Alert

Thanks to Google Alert I saw that my Uncle was mentioned in a blog. Good read if you like programming or engineering.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

My own mom, now a blogger

I am very pleased that my own mom has entered the world of the bloggers. Be sure to visit her blog often.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

One Week Old

Lily got a good report from the doc today. She is very healthy and growing. She weighed in at 8 lbs 8 oz up from 8 pounds even when she left the hospital. I added more pictures to the online album this evening for you to enjoy.

Friday, June 22, 2007

We are home!

Lily was able to come home around noon yesterday. She is doing great, she loves to eat, sleep and to be held. I have about 15 more pictures up. I was having trouble with the technology yesterday thus the delay in the pictures.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Pictures!

Lily Grace
I added a few more pictures of Grandpa & Grandma with Lily @ 7:30 tonight

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Lily Grace


Our daughter Lily Grace was born today, Tuesday June 19th at 6:13PM. She weighed in at 8 pounds 11 ounces at 20 1/2 inches Long. Danielle and Lily are doing great and resting. Lily has long wavy brown hair - which I am very excited about since baby girls look really cute with hair! I'll have more pictures tomorrow after I get some sleep.

Still a few hours off?

3:31 PM Eastern time Wow, the hospital has free wireless internet in her room. Still no baby yet but hopefully in a few more hours. We hope to have picture up tonight.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Off to the Hospital

According to the ultrasound our baby weighs 9 pounds 1 ounce accurate within 6 ounces except when it is not. So tonight we are going to the hospital - yeah for inducing. We are doing well and very excited. Feel free to guess on the baby's weight.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Father's Day '07

This father's day has become deeply reflective for me. I stand at a vantage point of looking back on my childhood memories with my Dad and looking forward to being a father in the very near future. I have much to thank my Dad for. My dad taught was the importance of many things which include:
How to have a relationship with God,
The value of hard work
The importance of Family,
How to make hard decisions,
The importance of understanding how money works, and how to avoid needless debt,
That nearly everything could be taken apart and fixed,
The fun of playing countless "side yard" football with my brother,
How to catch fish without using a bobber,
How to drive safely,
and how to be a father through example.

I can attribute my career path of computer programmer to my father. He taught how to use the Quick-Basic programming language when I was in 4th grade. He taught me the single line if statement, the goto statement, variable assignments, and math operations,the print statement and the sound statement. Believe it or not that we all we needed to solve me problems and have loads of fun. But most importantly it allowed me to program and build excitement for the endless possibilities of computer programming.

Thanks Dad. I love you.

Nesting for Father's?

I found it interesting on what I found important in getting ready for the arrival of our little girl. Since Danielle and I (mostly Danielle) have gotten everything else ready weeks and months before today. I become concerned with cleaning my desk and washing the car. Since was park our car outside, it falls prey to much bird do-do. I just couldn't imagine taking our beautiful daughter home in such a dirty car. So Danielle helped me clean it inside and out. Our girl is special and deserves to come home in a clean car. :-)

At this point I think we are as ready as we can be at this time. Tomorrow will be a big day for us with ultrasounds and doctors advise. Please keep us in your prayers.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Happy Birthday Danielle!

Danielle was able to celebrate her birthday today. She opened presents from me and in the afternoon we went shopping and played mini-golf at Young's. She ended up beating me by one stroke. oh well. Happy birthday Danielle!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Economics of Used Cars

So, I did a post about politics so, I thought I could also to a post of money and economics.

By far the best thing I ever bought was our 1994 Saturn SL2. We bought the car about 4 years ago for $2,900. It has only 61K miles on it and included just about everything we needed or wanted: AC, Power windows and locks and cruse control, and tape deck, automatic transmission. According the the sticker price the car new cost $15,360. So the original owners put had the car for about 8 years and 61K miles which translates into $1,557.50 a year or 20.4 cents a mile. Now, that is just for the car not counting tax, insurance, repairs, oil, or gas. The car now has 135K miles on it. I have spent about 750 for tires, breaks, and other small repairs for a total cost of $3,650 which translates into $912.50 a year or just under 5 cents a mile. Another advantage is having a low value car is that you don't have to pay to have to car itself insured, just insurance to drive the car. (By the time you pay a $1000 deductible and the extra premiums, it's not really worth insuring.) Another important thing to remember is driving low priced used car is having it paid for in full, no car payments! A used car does have more risk of needed repairs but not 12 thousands dollars worth. According to reviews on the web many 94 Saturn Owners have their car last over 200k miles. At this rate with assuming another $750 in repair to get to 200k, the price per mile drops to just under 3.2 cents per mile or 488 a year. Ok that is a lot of assuming but oh well :-)

Incandescently, the advertised MPG was 23 city 32 highway. I'm still getting 25-29/31-39mpg. Which is very good even by 2007 standards, one would think that in 13 years the MPG would have increased to 30/60+ ok I guess that Honda's and Toyota's can get that.

Bottom line financial tip. When buying a car look for a older model car with lower millage if you look, you can find them. By and large price drops with the age of the car and reliability drops with millage. Use this paradox to your advantage. Just think, No car payments, much lower insurance, much lower license and tax charges. But it does help to have a friend that in knowledgeable about car repairs :-) Do your homework and check out the reliability.

Another Update

Danielle had a doctors appointment today. The doctor guesstimated by how Danielle measured that the baby is already about 8 pounds. So, we have an ultrasound on Monday, which will tell us the size of the baby and what to do next. Danielle is doing great. All things considered, she is very comfortable. We spent part of the evening mini-golfing at Young's while enjoying a 79 cent frozen coke drink from Speedway.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Taking her time

I guess that our little daughter is deciding to take her time. With less than 90 minutes left today, it's very clear that we are now officially past due. Danielle is doing well, we are just eagerly waiting to meet her. We are passing the time with walks, puzzles, and free mini-golf at Young's thanks to coupons on the Mountain Dew cans.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Strange Maps

Yet another great blog site, right inline with my childhood interests: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/ I'm sure I'll be spending hours here.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

What happened to the Ron Paul Comments?

OK a rare political post.

After the Republican debate on June 5th. CNN put up comments on their political ticker blog about the debate. A VAST (I'm guessing between 80%-90%) percentage of the comments where in favor of Ron Paul. The link URL was

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/06/05/who-won/#comments

However, if you go to this link it redirects to:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/06/03/who-won/#comments


Which are the comments from the Democratic debate! I verified this from looking at my browser history. View the original comments here.

Ron Paul has a huge following on the internet. At this moment he is the #1 Republican candidate on the facebook poll, and the voted #1 best candidate for nerds on Slashdot. If you have not heard about Ron Paul I challenge you to read what he stands for. There are few that would question his consistency in defending the constitution. He is an open candidate that is not your typical corrupt politician. You would be hard pressed to find any figure in Washington with this record.

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

He voted against regulating the Internet.

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

Too bad there were not more congressmen and senators with this record.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Pregnancy in Review a Father's perspective.

*The days are being accomplished* As the Danielle's due date approaches, I find myself more reflective. I have received tons of advice and suggestions. Seeing as I have no clue what the next months *really* hold, I find most of the advice nearly worthless at this time. I know that I am going to look back and think, yeah they were right, but at this time I don't know enough to act on the advice. Each little girl I see make we wonder what our girl will be like.What color will her eyes be? What color will her hair be? Will she listen to me? Will I even know what to advise her? Will she enjoy the adventures of bike riding and geocaching like me? and/or will she take after Danielle and constantly be thinking of creative ideas. Ideas that are useful for not simply decorating, but creative ideas to help and serve others. What will she make her life's ambition? What will Danielle and I do if we disagree on how to raise our daughter? I pray that I will be a good example and that by God's grace she will become one of God's Children. As I await the birth of our daughter, I know I'm not ready of all this, but I know that God is faithful and step by step He will lead and instruct us. Through it all I know that out family must learn, to love, forgive, learn and laugh together.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Nathan and the Brotherhood

I thought I show off my new camcorder. Enjoy this video of Nathan's parting gift.