2nd Place!

Wow. Just Wow. My company has had a Halloween party since 2003. Well in 2003 it was just the Solutions group (Solutions means they do primarily project work). but in 2004, all of I/T was entered. Every year we've done the parade, with a hope that we might win. Well, this year we won 2nd place in the "Character" category as (note: I say we, meaning my brother and I, we tend to go together with our costumes) "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy Seventh Year Students". We were impressed, got a nice little award and everything. Now the gravy: We get to split a 25 dollar gift certificate! SCORE! I was just aiming for the little award they gave, but now I get 12.50 to spend, how cool is that? 1st Place was given to a couple of managers that share the same name, so they went as a version of Thing 1 & Thing 2 from Cat in the Hat, and a woman who did a spot on costume for Charlie Chaplain. We had a Pun/Play on Words section that was riotous. We had Wall Flower, a girl dressed as a flower with a wall attached to her. Coat of Arms, quite literally that, Pumpkin Pie. she held a pumkin with the Greek symbol Pi on it, Farmer in the Dell, Dressed in overalls and wearing a computer box.
We had a "hillbilly" that looked a lot like K.Fed. :), our Boss (department head) came as a Vampire, Count IT :) Last year he was a hippy. It's good to have a boss willing to dress up at Halloween :)

I'm just still happy we won second, now it's on to think what to make for next year's costume, any suggestions?

Why do diapers smell like baby powder?

My brother has taken up buying me a bag of diapers every time he gets groceries, and I have a size 3 bag currently. Size 2 was out, so he just went the next step up. Not a problem, they'll last until she's large enough to wear them, but I was curious. You smell them, and they have this baby powder scent. Now, diapers don't exactly have an indgredients list on them, so I can't verify if it's actual powder, or some form of fragrance they put in to help them smell better. Anyone know?

I did note, however that these butt huggers were proudly made in the USA :)

Vaccuuming the lawn

Another lawn post, perhaps the last of the season. Well after a torrential amount of rain, and a decent amount of leaves, I had to bag the grass. I was expecting to to pick up the leaves of my maples, but the grass was getting long in some areas too. Left work a bit early to ensure enough sunlight. Didn't have enough to clean off the mower though, but just barely finished with the lawn. Did note that hte leaves took up more room in the bag, so I had to empty it more often. It looks cleaner out there now :)

Trimmed back my rose bush as well, it's ready for winter. I just need to dig up those bulbs Sara's grandfather gave us so they don't die.

When finishing the lawn, I smelled a gas leak. It was outside, near my meter, so for the first time in my life, i had to call the Gas company to report a gas leak. They answered as Gas Emergency, but I tried to make it sound like the house wasn't going to go BOOM. well, about 7pm (less than an hour response time, YAY) they show up and find it on a union pipe near the ground. He had to loosen and retighten it using an epoxy to help seal it. He released a lot of gas in the air, which won't go on my bill, but he then worried that some people will smell it and call it in again.
Anyway, that was all taken care of. It was neat how he found it though. He had a soap solution in a spray bottle, and he just sprayed it around the connections, and waited until he saw bubbles form. He then proceded to spray paint it from the gren to grey, in the dark. I didn't mind so much, but I'm hoping it's not splotchy or he hit my house instead. I was planning on painting next year, so heres to that.

Taking bets on the due date.

It's amazing, how far we've reached in science and medicne, but how still we have to leave some up to guesswork.

We've had 4 Ultrasounds done to date. First to verify due date (1/20). The next two were because my daughter is measuring small. The last one was a Level 2 Ultrasound, which is a more in depth version.

Ultrasound II the tech said (besides telling us it was a girl) that her measurements put her at 1/27/07.

Ultrasound III showed her Amniotic Fluid at "low average" (side note, we kept hearing the word average, so we didn't fret, okay so she'll be petit, but still average) so that craeted Ultrasound IV: Ultrasound Level 2.

I liked the Level 2 lady. She went into great detail on what she was checking and why. they do more measurements, so they're more precise. Today's Ultrasound put her birthday at 1/15/07, so now I'll just tell people she's due late Jan/Early Feb.

My daughter is now 2lbs 5 oz, well with normal growth rate, Kidneys and bladder, stomach, brain, spine, etc all showing fine. Healthy 154bps heartrate (I apparently do a good impersonation of my daughter's heartbeat) and her Amniotic Fluid was measured around 8.77cm. That sounds low, and it is, but the range for it is 5cm-25cm, so again, we're within tolerances.

All in all a stacking up to be a healthy baby.

Any takers on her actual birthday? double or nothing if you guess the time down to the minute :)

Fine Fall Weather

Turned on the Heater for good this past weekend, as it froze twice. Now I have to go out and trim that wonderful wild Rose bush I have growing next to my AC and find a semi-sunny day to vaccuum my lawn of Red leaves.

The baby's room is 90% empty of our stuff, and we put all that we had of hers in there. It's not set up yet, but at least all that's out of the front room.

Went to the last Weekend of the KC Rennaisance Festival. Perfect weather for it to. Mid-60's but bright and sunny so I didn't need my cloak. Did the Barbarian Tournament again. Lost in the 1st round, left myself wide open. However, the fun and sucky part was that my opponent whacked me good with his foam swoard, the ones that are not supposed to hurt. Well, he hit me dead in the stomach and I'll be damned if that SOB didn't hurt. I reacted more out of shock than pain, but the audience was on my side as there was a pretty audible WHUMP! My brother was filming, so I get to see how I finished out. Brandon did well, made it through the first round, and fought a ninja in the second. He was the aggressor in that round, and won multiple times, but the judges couldn't see that. Mr Happy Ninja get's one lucky hit on reset match III and he goes on. A fair cop.

Sunday was a sloth day. Watched my DVD of The Goonies Twice, once with and once without commentary. That was the highpoint of that day.

Today is overcast and rainy again, no sun apparently, Heroes is on tonight, so there is that :)

Ponderances

You always seem to notice how much crap you acquire when you have to pack it all up and move. I got rid of what the Goodwill considered 12 boxes (large ones) of stuff. Now I have to make room for my child, which means going through all the boxes we really didn't have room for. And now I'm noticing that I kept even MORE stuff that I could have given away.

What is this need of PackRatdom? Why does a sheaf of paper with my name on it "5th Hour" written on March 12th 1992 have significance to me now? Why?


Well the room is about 70% emptied, with the remaining bits just needing to find room elsewhere, It'll be done by the end of the month.

Okay I stole this

From Felix's blog:

not as broad as one would expect. It does appear I've done the Midwest though :)



create your own personalized map of the USA

Office Move

Since June, we were told we were going to relocate down to the 4th floor. People would go on vacation, pack their life up, and come back the next week (or two) to find us still on 5.

I go to Java class, don't pack because everyone at this point thinks it's crying wolf and (can you see where this is going?) we move the next tuesday. So Monday I spend packing up my office, which is no small feat. Because, with packing comes cleaning. 8 year old documents that mean nothing now can be pitched.
I have a lot of nick-knacks in my office, and they take forever to pack. But I moved in on Monday. Tuesday i unpacked, which took me pretty much the entire day again.

In the 10 years I've been here (internship & Fulltime) I've moved 7 times... 7! that's just not right.

But now i'm down here and for the first time, I've got a window to look out of. Well it's about a cube farm or two away from me, but it's a ceiling to floor sliver window, and I can see leaves on trees. If it's raining, I'll know now! if it gets dark, I'll know! This is great! I can see weather!