The Life and Times of C. W. Nash

Birthday Parties!

2010-06-14T10:46:00.001-07:00

It's really hard to believe, but my oldest son, Griffin, had his fifth birthday this weekend! I love him to pieces. It's so amazing to watch him grow and learn, and become his own unique individual.

My mom and my wife's mom came over on Friday for a small birthday party for Griffin, and Dina and I gave him the presents we bought for him. We also spent a lot of time Friday cleaning the house, because Saturday was the larger party with both family and friends coming over.

In total we had 31 people (adults and kids) over on Saturday. It was a crowded house, but was a good time. Griffin had a TMNT cake, which he's been wanting for months. He opened his presents and got all kinds of cool toys...we'll have lots of fun playing with them together! We originally wanted to bring the party to the carnival in town (Champlin has a carnival for Father Hennepin Days every year right around Griffin's birthday), but it was too rainy, so we took the party to the bowling alley instead. Everyone had a blast (except Rohan, who slept through the entire two hours at the bowling alley). Late Saturday night (10:15 is late these days) we woke up the kids and took them to see the local fireworks display for the Festival; the kids thought that was awesome.

Sunday was a day of recovery and cleaning, but we did get some other stuff done, too. Dina's mom and aunt came over and helped her do some gardening and landscaping in the front yard. Later that day the rain finally stopped long enough for us to take the kids to the carnival for a few rides before it closed.

All in all it was a really fun, though draining, weekend. On to the week!

Weekend Worth Blogging About

2010-05-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for something to happen worth blogging about, and this weekend provided that in so many ways it's not even funny. (Actually, I've mostly not blogged because I'm lazy, but you don't know that. Except that now you do.)

The weekend was framed around road trip metal goodness, but wait! Before we get there, let's talk about Friday. I had Friday off (because of aforementioned road trip metal goodness), but I got up early anyway because I wanted to continue work on the garden box project my wife and I have been dabbling with. Power tools and wood! We were building three 1'x4'x5' raised garden boxes. Anyway, Dina and I worked on the project and got the first garden box finished, which was a major milestone, because I am largely inept with tools. Anyway, that took much of the morning, so I rushed through a shower and grabbed my stuff to head down to Rygar's for the first leg of road trip metal goodness.

The road trip was based around two things: a kick-ass metal lineup for a show in Fargo, ND (Valient Thorr, Baroness, Between the Buried and Me, and Mastodon); and hanging out with a bunch of friends. Four hours is a long drive, but worth it for those two things. Anyway, Rygar, T-Rav, and myself headed out from the cities en route to Moorhead, where we were going to spend the night at the Loopduke household. On the way we met up with Beener, and took his vehicle for the rest of the trip to Moorhead.

On the way I got to listen to lots of metal I hadn't heard before, which ruled. We arrived at Loop's and chilled out for a while until everyone else who was attending the show arrived, then we all headed out. The show was at a place called The Venue, and that was a surreal place to see a show. It looks like a huge pole barn on the outside, but inside it's a bit like a mall...there's a liquor store, a restaurant or two, a casino...oh, and a BIG CONCERT VENUE. The main room itself is pretty cool, lots of space, with a nice balcony area for drinking (it was an all-ages show). The strangest thing about the place, though, is that when we got there, we just parked and walked maybe 50 feet to the front door. For someone used to going to shows in the Twin Cities area, that was a mindbender.

The show was fantastic. I'm a metal fan, but haven't followed it too closely for a while, so I'm not familiar with today's bands. The first band was Valient Thorr. My friends who'd seen them play had told me about them before the show, but there's nothing like seeing them live. They (and particularly their lead singer, Valient Himself) are very entertaining live. Baroness was next, and was also great, but a stark contrast. A big part of Valient Thorr's show is the showmanship of Valient Himself, who talks a lot between songs. Baroness had none of that - it was all business. I was really impressed by them, especially their drummer, who was phenomenal. Next up was Between the Buried and Me, who I didn't like at all. I couldn't get into any kind of groove or flow with them, as they jumped from noodly keyboard stuff to LOUD SCREAMING WALL OF NOISE multiple times per song. Bleh. I mostly drank and chatted during their set. Then it was time for Mastodon, and they blew me away. I know some of their stuff, but not much of their new album, which they played end to end (with various other stuff afterward). We were down on the floor for these guys, about six or seven rows back. The floor was active, but not crazy, and it was a ton of fun.

After Mastodon was done, the magic of The Venue happened again. Poof - the floor was empty. It was weird. T-Rav and I hit the merch table then wandered outside, and it felt more like getting out of a movie theater than getting out of a metal show. We found our way back to the vehicle and drove back to Loop's place to cap off the night, which for me meant nodding off on the couch until I headed upstairs and passed out at about 2:30.

I woke up the next morning in pain. I had a cold hit me pretty hard and my nose was completely stuffed up; that on top of the dehydration hangover really sucked. I took some painkillers and drank as much water as I could stomach, but it took a long time to feel better. Loopduke generously made us some tasty eggs and bacon, and we headed for home. After we parted ways with Beener, I ended up taking some naps in the back of Rygar's car while listening to loud metal. It was awesome.

I got home and found that Dina's dad had come up and helped put together the remaining two garden boxes. We placed the boxes and filled them with a topsoil/compost/peat moss mixture, and put mulch around them. It looks really good. The rest of the day we spent putzing around the yard and playing outside with the kids.

On Sunday Dina's mom and aunt came over and they helped Dina plant a whole bunch of seeds and plants in the boxes. It should be a great garden! I mowed and did other outside stuff, and played with the kids (it's finally nice enough outside for squirtgun fights!).

We also got the fantastic news that Dina's sister had her baby on Sunday. I'm an uncle again! Congrats to them, and I'm looking forward to meeting little Sarah.

All in all, this was about as good a weekend as anyone could ask for.

Little Green Aliens

2010-03-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Some friends and I have a private forum website where we chat with each other and post interesting and funny stuff for each other to read. This place is called the Jabberboard, and one of the things we've devised to amuse ourselves is something called the Jabberboard Cover Song Challenge. The challenge consists of a series of rounds in which someone defines The Rules, and then everyone who wants to take part records a cover song that follows The Rules. Very fun.

The Rules for the current round are basically "record a song from your band in high school." I decided it would be fun to record a version of a silly song called "Little Green Aliens" (the original is online at last.fm). I got together with Lundo and Phil, a drummer and guitarist with whom I'm good friends and have played in various bands, and we recorded a new version, in which (gasp!) I sing. We dubbed ourselves "Negative Terminal" (a riff on "Ground", the band the three of us were in together), and recorded this.

Enjoy!

Back in the Saddle

2010-03-01T11:28:00.001-08:00

Oh, hi!

It seems I've ignored about a sixth of the year so far. That went really fast. It's been a heck of a year so far.

On January 19th, Caden and Rohan turned two! They had a fun birthday party with family, and enjoyed the heck out of their cake. That same weekend we also got together with Dina's brother and sister and their families for "sibling Christmas", which was a lot of fun.

We dealt with coughs and colds and sick kids through the beginning of February, so that month flew by really fast.

I've been able to get together to play Dungeons & Dragons with friends more often recently. We're playing fourth edition, which I initially didn't want to embrace, but to which I have come around. It is both geeky and awesome, and is a ton of fun every time.

There has been some sadness this year, too. My uncle Wayne, my mom's brother, passed away toward the end of February; he was 60 years old, and had cancer and heart failure. We went to the funeral last week. I will miss him.

In happier news, I've decided I want to lose some weight this year. I decided to set a ridiculously easy goal for myself: I want to lose one pound per week. That will put me in a pretty good place by the end of this year. So far it's working; I am down five pounds for February, which is when I really got started. Woo hoo! My approach is pretty simple: write down what I eat, and exercise every work day. My wife is also working on losing weight, but she is more dedicated and is doing so at a faster pace than me. She's working really hard at it, and I'm proud of her!

That's all for now, but hopefully I'll keep up with this a little better for the remaining five-sixths of the year. I owe it to the three of you who read this. :-)

Aaaaaand...2010.

2010-01-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

The 2009 holiday season is over. Well, almost...we still have a "Christmas party" with Dina's brother and sister (and their spouses and kids) this month, but for the most part we have made it successfully through another Christmas and New Year's!

It was a low-key year, which was great. On Christmas Eve, Dina's mom came over and we exchanged some gifts and set up our Christmas tree. This was the longest we'd waited to set up our tree, but this year there were just too many other things going on to get it done. We also had what is becoming our traditional Christmas Eve sushi dinner. Dina gets better at making it every year. Mmmm....

(A funny side story. On Christmas Eve afternoon, we took Griffin to the dollar store so he could pick out presents for Dina and I and his grandparents. While searching for something for his Grandpa Dean and Grandma Karen, he picked up a big box of matches and told Dina, "Maybe we can give them FIRE!" I'm proud of my little Prometheus.)

On Christmas Day, Dina and I and the kids opened our presents from each other. The kids had a blast, although Rohan and Caden took turns sleeping while the opening was going on. I got a couple of really nice things, but my best present was watching the kids have fun with their new toys.

That evening we went to a nearby hotel in which Dean and Karen had rented a big suite for Dean's kids and their families to get together. We had a good time visiting, and the older kids swam in the hotel's waterpark while our three played in the room's enormous jacuzzi tub. Dean always gives interesting and slightly confusing gifts that are very small-town Minnesota. This year he gave everyone new knit gloves with a roll of quarters inside. I naturally assumed the gloves were to conceal the roll of quarters, which would be held while punching someone, but my wife seems to think that's not the case.

My mom was supposed to come over the next day, but the roads near her hometown of Benson were in pretty bad shape due to ice and snow, so she came over Sunday instead. She wasn't here long, but we had another gift exchange and a good meal with her.

Time passed, and then it was New Year's Eve.

For New Year's Eve we had a couple over who had twins about a year after we did. They also have a 17-year-old. We all hung out at our place for a fondue dinner and for a while afterward, but our guests left before midnight, so Dina and I watched the replay of the ball drop in Times Square. Holy crap did Dick Clark seem old this year.

Much of our spare minutes have been spent over the last couple weeks setting up an entertainment room in our basement. We bought a projector from a friend and mounted it on the ceiling, then moved our surround sound system and Wii, DVD player, etc downstairs. Someday we can replace it with an HD projector, but for now what we have works really well. It's a ton of fun to play very-large-screen Mario Kart! Pretty nice for watching football, too. And if the kids break the screen, we can repair it with drywall and paint. :-) (And even if they break the projector, it was only $150). It's a pretty good risk/reward setup.

Wow - it's been almost a month

2009-12-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

Annnnnd....a month went by with no posting. So I decided to figure out why that's happening, and I realized that normally I post to this blog during down time at work. However, I've been part of a new project at work that has been pretty time-demanding, so my limited downtime means there's no convenient time to write a post. I'm sure I'll get some more time as the project gets over the initial craziness.

Let me catch you up a little. The weekend before last my family and I attended the funeral of my cousin's husband, who lost a year-long battle with brain cancer. He will be missed. It was a good funeral, which sounds a little strange, but what I mean is that although there was a lot of sadness and grieving, everyone was surrounded by the comfort of family and friends sharing happy memories. It was the perfect example of why we as humans have funerals. Also, there were a very many little children running around (my own included) reminding everyone that life is a cycle and we're all just at different points. It was very heartwarming to see the joy and comfort that a little kid can bring someone who is grieving.

The Sunday following the funeral I got to take Griffin to his first Vikings game at the Metrodome. I got some really cheap nosebleed seats, but we both had a good time. By the end of the game Griffin got a little bored, but he did a great job doing the same thing for such a long time. Then that night we met Dina and the twins and some other family and went to the "Day in the Life of an Elf" display at Macy's downtown. That was pretty fun - Caden and Rohan had a bunch of "gasp!" moments. The kids got to sit on Santa's lap, and Rohan balled his head off for the picture. It was perfect!

This last weekend, on Saturday, Dina and I each had chiropractor and haircut appointments. There was something really out of place in my right shoulder, and my chiropractor really had to work the muscles hard to get things back into place. It's still pretty sore today...I might have to make a follow-up appointment. The haircut was much more pleasant. I spend more than I probably should on a haircut, but I go to the same salon my wife goes to, and the relaxation is worth the extra cost. I almost feel like I'm cheating on my wife when I go, as the "haircut" also includes a scalp massage, shoulder rub, and hand and wrist massage. I am always a happy customer when I leave.

Sunday was the extended family Christmas on my wife's side of the family. We drove out to Afton, MN, where Dina's aunt lives, and had a big meal and hung out with a full house of family for a few hours. Our kids are starting to get old enough that they can play independantly now, which means Dina and I get to actually talk to other people more, which is really nice.

That evening we decided to take the kids to the Holidazzle parade, since it was the last night it ran and the weather was so nice. It was a lot of work to get them all bundled up and out there, but it was worth it. All three kids absolutely loved the entire thing. Griffin even said he wants to volunteer to be in the parade sometime!

Well, that's all for now. Here's hoping I can keep up with this a little better in the future!

Playtime and alpacas and sculptures, oh my!

2009-11-23T13:58:00.000-08:00

We had a fun weekend this weekend. On Friday night Dina had a scrapbooking event, so I got to hang out with the boys, and I also had a chance to play around with recording a bass part in GarageBand for a little while. I also watched an episode of Fringe, which I am totally hooked on after watching the first four episodes.

On Saturday morning Caden and Rohan woke me up early, so I got up with them and did the morning routine. When Dina got up a little while later, we all hung out for a while, then Dina left to run a bunch of errands while I took the boys out to a park to play. Gotta enjoy these days of fairly nice weather while we have them!

That night Dina's mom and our niece babysat the boys while Dina and I had a date night. We went to our friend Kamini's place for wine, food, and fun. There's a group of friends that has a "wine night" once a month at a different person's house each time, and although we don't make it every month, we like to attend when we can, because it's always a good time! Dina and I even did karaoke for a song, which is unheard of for us. (The song was "California Dreamin'", if you were wondering.) It was past midnight when we got home, so we thanked our babysitters and got some sleep.

The next day we got together with Dina's mom, her brother and his wife, daughter, and in-laws, and went to the open house of Spirit Song Alpacas, an alpaca farm near Lindstrom, MN.

Alapacas are pretty cool creatures. They're very docile, and very social, much like sheep, but are much more intelligent than sheep. The kids absolutely loved getting close to and touching the alpacas, who say hello by touching noses. I think someone got a couple pictures of kids touching noses with alpacas, which I'm sure are cute enough to be nearly illegal. This farm actually spins the fiber shorn from the alpacas into their own yarn, so they showed that process as well. Pretty cool.

After checking out that place, we went down the road to Sunrise River Alpacas. Another alpaca farm, as you probably guessed. This place had more alpacas, but wasn't as welcoming, so we didn't stay too long.

From there we drove to the Franconia Sculpture Park in Franconia, MN. That place is very cool. It's a free outdoor sculpture garden on a large chunk of land, so some of the pieces of art are really quite massive. Some of the pieces were your typical modern art head-scratchers...

...but there were also some that were very cool:

By the time we were done there it was dark (which is happening pretty early these days) so we headed home for dinner and the bedtime routine.

Big Thing #1 That I Haven't Blogged About

2009-11-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

The three of you that actually read this blog probably already know this, but I really should blog it for future reference in case I forget the details. :-) I traveled to London recently! I've slowly been writing the blog entry, and now I'm finally done, so up it goes!

From October 25 - 28 I took a business trip to London. I presented at a transfer of information conference for our EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Asia) services and sales people. My purpose was to present the tech details of the new release of the software I've been working on.

DAY ONE:
I flew out on Saturday night (left at 10:30 pm), and was sitting next to a guy who was on the first flight of his life, traveling from Louisiana to the UK to marry a woman he met playing Second Life. Yeah, really. He was a nice guy, but didn't let me sleep as much as I'd have liked. (Side note: he was an inspector for water treatment facilities, and he said that he'd NEVER drink the water that is processed by those places.)

I arrived at Heathrow airport in London at about noon. Three of my coworkers were on the same flight, so we met up to head to our hotel, the Hilton London Metropole. We took a train to Paddington Station and walked about six blocks from there to our hotel.

After getting settled in the other guys were going out to a rugby match with some other Oracle folks that night, but I went to visit my friend Tony and his family up in Milton Keynes, so I took the tube to Euston Square station, then a train from Euston to Milton Keynes, about a 45 minute train ride. Did I mention that public transportation in the UK is awesome? I had dinner with Tony, his wonderful wife Kate, and their fun little 6-month-old Jack. We chatted for a while, then it was back to the train station and back to London. I was pretty tired by then, and at one point I thought I'd gotten on the train headed AWAY from London rather than toward it. Luckily I was wrong, and I arrived back at Euston with no problems. I made my way back to my hotel room and crashed.

DAY TWO:
I woke early on Monday morning to meet the other Oracle guys for breakfast in the hotel. The breakfast was fantastic - a buffet of English breakfast food, plus a bunch of fruit and breads of various sorts. After eating we took a commuter train out to Reading, about a half-hour train ride, which was where the Oracle office was actually located. A 20 minute bus ride from the train stop brought us to the front door of the office. I didn't actually present that day, so I spent the day talking to other people I knew and putting some polish on my presentation.

After the conference was done, we took the train back to Paddington and got changed to go out to eat. One of the senior sales guys who lives in London took about a dozen of us out to Maroush Gardens, a Lebanese restaurant. I'd never eaten Lebanese, but it was awesome. It's very similar to Greek food. The sales guy knows the owner of this place, so they kept bringing piles and piles of delicious food and bottles of tasty wine. It was nearly midnight by the time we got back to the hotel, and I was absolutely stuffed. Some of the guys wanted to go hit a pub, but I was too bushed, so I headed to my room and crashed after catching up on some email and voice mail.

DAY THREE:
Tuesday turned out to be the big day of the trip. The morning started out much like Monday, breakfast at the hotel, train and bus to the office. I didn't do much that morning, but I presented for a few hours that afternoon, and the presentation went great! There were lots of great questions, and people seemed really excited with some of the features in our new version.

After the conference was done I headed back to the hotel with Steven, one of the guys that works on the same product I do. We decided to head over to Piccadilly Circus, because he wanted to go to this store called Fortnum & Mason. I'd never been to a store like this. It's basically an upper-crust department store, with departments varying from grocery to stationery to crystal, all of it very high-end product. Apparently the Royal Family does a lot of shopping at this store. I bought a box of imported Iranian saffron for my wife.

After that, we stopped at a bookstore; I wanted to pick up a copy of The Gathering Storm, but alas, it was sold out. I should have expected that. So Steven and I wandered up to Soho, and ended up at a great little pub called The Golden Lion. We had a couple of pints of beer and split a beef pub pie, which was pretty good. Then we got a text from another group of Oracle guys. They had reservations at a place called Gaucho, an Argentinian steakhouse. This was just a few blocks away, back near Piccadilly, so we walked over there.

Wow, what a meal. We started out with ceviche appetizers, moved to samplers of four big cuts of steak with a bunch of sides, and then had the ice cream dessert. The wine and cocktails were flowing, and we had a cute and friendly waitress, so it was a fun time. We were there until the place closed at 11pm, and then we decided to hit the streets since it was our last night there. We tried to go to the nearby Absolut Ice Bar, but it was closed. While we wandered we were approached by people trying to lure us into "private parties" at certain clubs, which was pretty funny. We ended up going to a club called Tiger Tiger, a place with very loud but not horrible music. There were six of us, and we each bought a round of either drinks or shots, so...yeah...a lot of alcohol. It was about 2:30 am when we finally stumbled out of the place and found taxis home. I vaguely remember haggling with the taxi driver about how much we'd have to pay to get back to our hotel...I think I got a good deal. :-)

It was 3:00 by the time I was back in my room, and I knew the next morning was going to be rough, because I had a 9:30 am flight back to the US. So I packed as much of my stuff as I could, laid out the clothes I'd wear the next morning, set my alarm for 5:30, and hit the pillow hard.

DAY FOUR:
I woke slowly with a slight hangover with the light coming in the window seeming too bright. Far too bright, in fact. Looking at the alarm clock, it showed 7:30 am! I had overslept by TWO HOURS and was in very real danger of missing my flight. I jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes, tossed the rest of my stuff into my suitcase, and headed out. Luckily I could do the express hotel checkout, so that didn't slow me down. I ran down to Paddington station to get my train to Heathrow. I bought my ticket and jumped on the train, and finally had a chance to sit down and take a breath. When I got to Heathrow I checked in and made my way through security. On my way to my gate I saw a bookstore - and they had a copy of The Gathering Storm! I picked that up and headed to my gate just in time; they were just finishing boarding. If ANYTHING had gone wrong on my way to the plane, I would have missed it.

After we were in the air they brought us a breakfast meal, which was actually pretty good. With food in my stomach, I succumbed to the residual alcohol in my system and lack of sleep, and totally crashed. A few hours later I woke up and chatted with the guy next to me, an older man who turned out to be a wealth advisor for ultra-rich clients in Europe and the Middle East. (He was in coach only because he had to get a last-minute ticket to the States to attend a Bollywood movie premiere in New York for a client of his.) Pretty interesting guy. I tried to watch Transformers 2 on the plane, but it was so bad I turned it off...instead I watched an episode of Fringe to see what that show was like. Turns out it's damn good, and I'll have to watch the rest of the episodes.

I arrived in Detroit and went through customs, then went to my gate for my connecting flight to Minneapolis. After a short wait it was announced that the flight was delayed by TWO HOURS. Sigh. I talked to my wife on the phone for a while and read some of The Gathering Storm while I waited. Finally it was time to board, and I was off to home.

I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home, but it was worth it. London is a really fun place to visit, and I definitely plan on returning. At the same time, being gone reminded me how much I love my family and the place I live, so I was glad to be home.

Coming Soon: Big Thing #2 That I Haven't Blogged About...

Time for a really quick catch-up post

2009-10-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

October 10-11
Dina had her monthly scrapbooking workshop at our house, so I got to take care of the boys Friday night and Saturday. I took them to the zoo on Saturday, which was lots of fun (but a bit cold). On Sunday we all went to the mall and I bought a bunch of clothes, since I haven't bought clothes in a very long time, and I needed to restock for my work trip to London (I'll be there Oct. 25 - 28). Can't wait!

October 16-17-18
Dina had a scrapbooking retreat she was helping organize, so my mom came up and helped me watch the boys all weekend. There was also some drama with my wife's side of the family, so sadly she wasn't able to relax as much as she would have liked.

Oh, and I recorded a song over the weekend, which a friend from the Jabberboard turned into this, for the Jabberboard Coversong Challenge (Round 20). I played mandolin and sang, while he added all the other effects and remixed.

That brings us to now.
I'm wrapping things up this week at work and home to get ready for my trip to London, where I'm presenting at an info session about the product I work on. I'm really excited to go, though it'll be tough for Dina at home alone that many days with all the boys.

Wow...what a draining weekend that was

2009-10-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

I meant to write this entry earlier this week, but it's basically taken me this long to recover from the weekend. On Friday Caden and Rohan were sick; they had colds that had moved into their lungs and had deep coughs. Dina asked me to stay home from work to help bring them into the doctor, so I did.

We brought them to our clinic and the doctor had us nebulize them twice since they had short, wheezy breath. Rohan responded well, but Caden didn't, so the doctor checked Caden's blood oxygen level. The reading was so low he thought his machine was broken. We were informed that Caden would be taking an ambulance to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. Dina rode with him while I took Griffin and Rohan back home. I dropped off Griffin with Uncle Guy, gathered some things to bring to the hospital, and drove over there with Rohan. Caden was in the emergency room getting oxygen, getting nebulized, and getting steroid treatments. They gave him an IV shortly after I got there, but they had to try five times before they got a good one...the poor kid was frantically unhappy.

Eventually he got moved out of the E.R. to the regular area for kids with respiratory problems. They determined that his lungs were having an asthmatic reaction to the RSV virus. They were able to keep his oxygen level up if they gave him oxygen with a nose tube, so they wanted to keep him until they healed his lungs up enough to keep his oxygen up himself.

For the next couple days Dina stayed with Caden while I drove back and forth from home to the hospital, bringing things Dina needed and shuffling Griffin between other family members. Caden steadily got better, but progress was slow. On Sunday we were making preparations for dealing with having him in the hospital for part of the work week, when the doctor surprised us with the news that he was comfortable with Caden going home that night! We were a little unsure and surprised, since the staff during the day told us to prepare for him to be there another day or two, but were were also happy and relieved to be going home.

We still had to give both boys steroids twice a day for a few days (which they hated because of the terrible taste), and we have to use the nebulizer on both of them every four hours through today, then continuing as needed.

Those events were pretty draining, so we've been keeping it pretty low-key this week at home. Hopefully this weekend will hold much less excitement.

I'm very thankful to everyone that helped us out over the weekend, and to everyone who showed their concern and offered to help us out. We really appreciate it!

Also, lots of thanks to Children's Hospital, which is an amazing place, filled with amazing doctors and staff. All of whom we hope never to have to see again. :-)

Oops - missed a weekend

2009-09-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

Quick version of two weekends ago: Dina put on a Creative Memories workshop at our place on Friday night and Saturday, so I had the boys. Lots of playing at the park, lots of playing at home. Lots of fun. On Sunday we tried to go to the Renaissance Festival. Actually, we did go, but it got up to about 90 degrees, and the twins were fighting off colds, so we were beaten down and went home defeated at about 3:00 (we usually stay from near-open to close). We didn't get to see our friends the Fandazzi Fire Circus, which disappointed us, as we heard their show is awesome this year.

This last weekend was a lot of fun. Dina and I signed up for a winery bus trip through WineStyles in Champlin (great place - I gave Dina a year's membership in their wine club for Christmas last year). I was a little apprehensive about going, because I didn't know anyone besides my wife and I'm not generally very social. It turned out to be a ton of fun, though. Dina knows a couple people in the wine club and we got to sit next to them on the big coach bus. The plan was to drive to the Baker Apple Orchard (owned by one of the wine club members) near Centuria, Wisconsin, then drive on to the Chateau St. Croix Winery & Vineyard in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Oh, and on the bus, the wine flowed like...well, like wine, I guess. WE DRANK LOTS OF WINE. The most I've had in one day, I'm sure of it. Luckily it was spread through the whole day, so I wasn't trashed, just a bit dehydrated at the end of the day. The mix of people on the bus was interesting. There were more women than men by far, and there were some younger people there, including a bachelorette party, but most people were definitely older than my wife and I. Bus full o' drunken cougars, I tell ya. But it was still pretty fun. I'd do it again. :-)

Here are some pictures from the winery:

After we got home from our crazy wino tour, we arrived to our house already full of Dina's brother and sister and their families. We were celebrating Dina's sister's birthday, and her son's birthday too. So that was fun.

On Sunday Dina spent a lot of time getting stuff organized that we're going to sell at the Mothers of Multiples' fall sale, while I played in the backyard with the boys. I also watched the Vikings game that afternoon and Dina got her hair cut and colored. That night I bottled my Deep Dark Wheat beer. I'm excited to try it, and a little nervous, because I really don't know what it's going to taste like, or even if I'm going to like it. We'll see. I might soon be looking for a whole bunch of people who like Dunkelweizen! :-)

Four-day weekends rule

2009-09-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

I had Friday off to go to the State Fair with my family and my mom. That was awesome! Mom came up Thursday night, so we got a good early start to the fair, which is incredibly important with three kids and a double-stroller. The Fair was the usual mix of awful/yummy food, games and rides for the kids, all kinds of animals, and a complete overload of things to see. I only have one good photo from my phone...I'll post more if I get them from my wife's computer. This is Dina and the kids watching a video (or not) at the Eco Experience:

Here's a rundown of the fair food I tried (I didn't eat all of all of these, but at least tasted them all):
- Spam breakfast sandwich
- Spam curds
- mini donuts
- pancake batter covered sausages, fried on a stick
- cheese curds
- fresh lemonade
- cheese on a stick
- apple-flavored honey taffy
- wine ice cream
- chocolate-covered bacon
- Summit Horizon Red Ale
- peach-glazed pork cheeks
- braised pork sandwich
- corn bread
- Sweet Martha's cookies

Mmmmmmm. We were at the Fair from about 8:30 in the morning until about 8:15 that night. That's a lot of Fair, and we were completely wiped out at the end of the day, so we went home, cleaned up and went to bed.

On Saturday morning we said bye to my Mom as she was heading to her lake cabin for the weekend. Dina and I had a wedding to go to that afternoon, so we spent the day getting the house cleaned up and getting ready to go. Dina's awesome brother and his awesome wife babysat the kids, so we had a free night out - woo hoo!

The wedding was a lot of fun; it was at a beautiful downtown church, and was not your typical wedding, in that the readings were from The Velveteen Rabbit and an Ogden Nash poem, and the wedding couple had everyone who attended the wedding bunch together in front for a big group photo, which I thought was very cool.

The wedding was at 4 p.m., and lasted about 20 minutes - perfect! The reception wasn't until 7 p.m. at a wine bar out in the suburbs, though, so we went to Don and Bhavna's house (which was on the way) and drank some yummy beer and wine to pass the time. We got to meet their cute little dog Skippy, who pretends to be an ankle-biter, but really is not. The reception was at a little wine bar/bistro called The School II. Odd name, but a cool place. The party was great, with lots of talking with friends, good wine and beer, good food, and some really, really bad dancing. We had a good time and got home a little after midnight.

Sunday was basically a recovery day from the night before. We did various stuff around the house that needed doing. Slowly. We also noticed that the younger two of our boys were getting head colds. That night was a rough night for sleeping since those two were coughing so much.

On Monday we pretty much just ran errands and cleaned up the house. We bought a new kids' mattress, so now all 3 boys have regular mattresses (until then Caden had been sleeping on a crib mattress). We also rearranged their room so their mattresses are all along the same wall. It's pretty cute to see all three of them sleeping in a row like that. Someday they'll need more space, but for now it's cool. :-) Another errand I ran that day was picking up the windows and doors I had re-screened at the local hardware shop. Re-screening windows is one of the many house chores that falls into the category of "I could do this myself but the anger isn't worth it, so I'll pay someone else to do it." I'll get them all put back in tonight.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend, and I'm looking forward to the week!

Weekend with the family

2009-08-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

This was a fairly uneventful weekend, but I got to spend a lot of time with our boys, and we had some fun moments at home.

On Saturday Dina had a self-defense course with her sister, and they went to the salon and out to dinner that night. So I got to hang out with the boys all day. We pretty much just did a bunch of stuff around the house. Caden and Rohan had fun watching Griffin play with his tee-ball set:

Griffin also had lots of fun catching grasshoppers. Our yard is crawling with them this time of year, so there are plenty for him to chase. He did manage to catch a couple of big ones like this (I love the fact that he's catching grasshoppers while wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt):

On Sunday Dina had a brunch with some friends and then had to run some errands, so I had the boys again. It's nice to watch them for Dina so she can get a break on the weekends. They can be pretty overwhelming, and she does a good job taking care of them during the week. Anyway, Sunday was much like Saturday, except I did a fair bit more cleaning and such around the house. I made some Salsa Verde with tomatillos and other veggies from our most recent CSA share box. Mmmmm....

After Dina got back that afternoon her mom came over for a visit. I went out and mowed the lawn and did some other yardwork. My grass was pretty long; my back's been sore for a while, so I've been avoiding jarring it while mowing. My back is still sore, but I had to mow or it would have become a much more difficult job. I'm paying for it a little bit today.

After Dina and I had dinner and got all the boys to bed, we actually had some time to hang out together, which was awesome. We shared a bottle of Ommegang Chocolate Stout and munched on chips and my Salsa Verde while watching Law & Order. It was a good end to a good weekend!

Beer review: Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence Stout

2009-08-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Last night Dina and I cracked open a bottle of Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence Stout:

Dina bought this as a gift about a month ago, but until last night we hadn't had a good time to try it out.

This beer is a share-me. I can't imagine someone drinking the whole bottle on their own...it's just too rich. It's a very dark, nearly opaque, brown color with a fairly thick light tan head. The beer is a Belgian style, with some sweetness, lots of malt, fairly mild hops, noticeable alcohol, distinctive Belgian yeast flavor, and all kinds of complexity in the taste. It tasted slightly different with every sip...as the beer warmed, different flavors came to the front, all of them dark and rich. There wasn't as much overwhelming chocolate flavor as I expected given the name, but you could definitely taste the chocolate notes throughout.

I'd give this beer a 4 out of 5 stars, with the caveat that I could only handle about half a bottle every two months or so. Great beer...but meant for special occasions.

The Jab-Bar-Gathering

2009-08-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Ouch...I think I sprained something pun-related writing that. (For those who weren't there, this past weekend was the Jabbergathering 2.0, an in-person party for the members of an online message board. The party was dual-purpose this year, because one of the attendees recently took the bar exam after some grueling years of law school and even-more-grueling weeks of study.)

Anyway, I'll back up a bit. I've got three kids, and my keep-cool skills were put to the test on Saturday. Long story short, my wife was out running errands, and my four year old decided to throw a toy at our TV. Crack - broken LCD screen - basically totalling the TV. I sent him to his room so I wouldn't yell at him, then called my wife. I think my exact words were, "What can I DO to Griffin?" I eventually calmed down, but Griffin knew I was pretty mad. He's been banned from TV of any sort for a while.

I kept myself somewhat calm by reminding myself (many times) that 1) nobody got hurt, and TVs, though costly, can be replaced; and 2) I was going to the Jabbergathering that evening.

Anyway, after all that, I was READY to get out of the house and go to a party. I got to the Jabbergathering at about 7:30, and grabbed a cup to make my own personal dent in the keg. The gathering contained all the typical trappings of parties amongst my friends:

Drinking:

Poker:

Watching Star Trek (sorta):

Facial hair:

And, of course, acoustic stringed instrument jams with guitars, bass, banjo, ukelele, mandolin, and mountain dulcimer:

That jam was a ton of fun. Can't wait to play some more music!

One bit of wackiness happened when an enormous tree across the street decided to drop a huge branch right onto the neighbor's house and car. I was with a group of people walking back to the house from The Four Firkins (a great beer store) when this happened. We heard it from about a block away and had no idea what the noise was. This was the scene the next morning:

As you can see, the gods of mayhem rode wild that night. Luckily they didn't take interest in me, probably because I drank a LOT less than I did at the last Jabbergathering (after which I was roundly ridiculed by my loving wife :-) ). I was up at 7:30 the next morning and drove home to spend a fun day with the wife and kids at the park. It was a great weekend!

Anniversary!

2009-08-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago Dina and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. Twelve years - wow! It's been a lot of fun so far and I hope to celebrate many more great years in the future!

For the occasion my mom came to town and babysat all three boys. Overnight! Dina and I had an entire night to ourselves, which is quite a luxury these days. We got a great deal on a hotel room in downtown Minneapolis through priceline.com. We had a fantastic dinner at Solera. Dinner consisted of about a dozen small gourmet appetizers, and they were all AWESOME. I've never had food quite like that. It ranged from roasted rabbit to braised asparagus to octopus ceviche. Yum!

On our walk back to the hotel we heard there had been some severe weather in our area, so we called home to see how things were going. Turns out my mom had to move all the boys down to the basement because there was a tornado warning, but nothing actually happened. Yikes!

We got back to the hotel and found out that, while we were gone, a fire alarm had sounded, so people had to evacuate the hotel. Turned out there was nothing wrong, someone had just pulled the fire alarm for no reason. (Interestingly there was an Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder support group event at the hotel that night. Hmm...)

The next morning we packed up and headed out, and had one more meal together in private - we had brunch at Axel's Bonfire. Tasty stuff! But we were about the only people in the pretty big dining room, so that was weird. It felt like we rented the place out or something.

After our meal we returned home to relieve my mom and return to our regular lives as parents. It was a wonderful and welcome break, though!

Catching up

2009-08-04T03:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging for a good long while now, so I figure it's time to write a catch up post. Really, if you're interested in what I'm doing, following me at http://www.twitter.com/coreynash is probably the way to go. Of course, I'm pretty sure the five or so of you that read this blog already follow me there. :-)

July 11-12
This weekend we didn't do anything. Really, Dina and I did nothing but sit around the house and play games with the kids and each other. It was glorious after having so many crazy weekends before that.

July 18-19 (and 20-21)
This was my vacation week. We spent two nights at a hotel in Duluth, MN, and then spent two nights at a hotel in Silver Bay, MN. We had fun in Duluth visiting the aquarium, walking around the Lift Bridge area, climbing Enger Tower to enjoy the view, and swimming in the hotel pool. Silver Bay was fun, too. There was a good hotel pool there, and we used the hotel as a base to visit the Split Rock lighthouse and Gooseberry Falls State Park. I love the North Shore. Absolutely beautiful. Great pictures. Didn't post 'em. :-) On the way back home we visited Betty's Pies, and stopped to visit an old college friend of Dina's. Good times! Oh, we also started geocaching while we were up there and found our first couple of caches.

July 25-26
This weekend we drove out to Glenwood, MN, for Waterama, the local small town festival. We also had a little surprise birthday party for my wife. Waterama activities included a pontoon parade on big Lake Minnewaska, followed by fireworks close enough for the burnt bits to rain down on us (it was really quite spectacular). The next day there was a two and a half hour long parade in which Griffin scooped up a whole bunch of candy. Caden and Rohan slept through the entire thing (including dozens of sirens, lots of drum corps, stunt motorcycles and go-karts, and mock gunfire).

August 1-2
Saturday we went to the Science Museum with some good friends, who had their godson with them. It was fun - the Science Museum is always fun! - but tiring. The next day we visited Dina's sister and her family to see their new kitty, Abner. (You can hear about Abner here. That actually is a link to a World of Warcraft podcast called Inside Azeroth that Gretchen's husband co-hosts, but he tells the story of adopting Abner).

August 8-9
OH WAIT THIS HASN'T HAPPENED YET. But it will be Dina and my 12th wedding anniversary. 12 years - wow! My mom is coming up and will watch the kids while we go on a date. I can't wait!

Holy Crap I Didn't Blog About The 4th Yet

2009-07-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

You'd think that with my new iPhone I'd have no problem at all keeping up with blogging. My requirements are pretty easy: at least one blog a week, describing what I did that weekend and possibly the week before, plus occasional random entries with pics of the kids and what-not. The problem is that as cool as the iPhone is, it sucks for composition. It just is not the tool for doing more than small bits of typing. It's made for tweeting, not for blogging.

Anyhow, our 4th of July weekend started on Friday. We packed up the van and ventured west to Willmar, MN, where my cousin Andrew has a house out in the country. He's done a lot of remodeling work on the place; it's really nice. Griffin always has fun there because Andrew's son Drew is close to Griffin's age (almost a year older). We hung out there that evening and let the kids go crazy playing in the yard. Then we drove over to Prinsburg, MN, and watched fireworks display #1. After that we went back to Andrew's and watched fireworks display #2 in his backyard. We slept in a guest room downstairs.

On Saturday morning we got up, had some yummy breakfast, and started packing up our stuff. We put up our jumping house for the kids to play with while we were packing. Griffin and Drew dug into some watermelon:

We had our stuff all sitting outside ready to go in the van when it got very dark outside, then started to POUR. We got most of our stuff packed without it getting too wet, but it was raining really hard. We decided to let Griffin run around in the rain and mud - he had a blast!

After cleaning up and drying off we drove to Benson, MN, to Dina's uncle's place. He hosts a family gathering for the 4th every year, and it's always a lot of fun. This year was no exception. We had lots of great fire-cooked food and a very relaxed time hanging out in lawn chairs and letting the kids play with squirt guns and water balloons. And tent boxes:

At night Dina's uncle lit his bonfire to burn all the brush he'd cleared in the past year. The fire was enormous - the tops of the flames were at times above the tops of the surrounding trees. I had the twins in the stroller, and they were throwing old aerosol cans into the fire as well, so I kept my distance. Here's a pretty low-quality video of the top of the fire from about 100 yards away:

We also got fireworks display #3 later that night. Rohan slept through most of it, but Caden loved it - he clapped after every burst. :-) We camped there that night, which we haven't done in a while, and it was nice to do so again. The twins didn't sleep very well, though, so Dina got very little sleep.

Sunday was all about packing up and heading home. We stopped by to say hi to my dad quickly, and stopped by my mom's place, but she was out of town at the lake cabin. We drove up to Dina's dad's place in Glenwood to drop off a present and install a printer. Dina grabbed a quick catnap, and then it was off to the freeway and back home!

June 26-28: At the lake cabin

2009-07-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago Dina's recently-remarried dad and his wife had a reception to celebrate their wedding at her family's lake cabin north of Fergus Falls, MN. Dina, her brother and sister, and all of our families decided to head out there to attend and meet the new family. We weren't sure where we were going to stay, since the lake cabin is a pretty small space without enough room for all of us, but Dina searched online and found a great place to stay called the County Line Cabin. It's a house owned by an elderly couple who rent it out, often as a base camp for hunters. The house was great, though, and worked perfectly for our three families. The best part was that it was only about three miles from the reception. What a find!

On the way there Dina and I got to play with the GPS + Google Maps feature of our iPhones, which was fun. We continue to love our iPhones. :-)

We had a lot of fun staying up waaay to late at the house, playing outside at the house and cabin, and watching the kids swim in the lake. One of the relatives had a brand new pontoon (it was delivered the day before we got there), and he took us out for a ride. We went around the lake looking at cabins, and aside from almost sinking it by having too much weight in front when we stopped, it was a lot of fun! Actually, the almost-sinking was pretty fun, too, truth be told.

Here are some pics from the weekend:

Griffin snacking at the house

Rohan playing ladderball at the lake cabin

Griffin, Caden, and Rohan playing Baggo

Dina and Rohan on the pontoon ride

Father's Day: Camping at St. Croix State Park

2009-06-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend we decided to go camping at St. Croix State Park, near Hinckley, MN. Dina and I love to camp, and last year we didn't go at all since Caden and Rohan were so young. This was a trial run to see how they (and we) handled it, and to make sure we have everything we need for a longer trip to the North Shore later this summer. The weekend went well! We had packed a bunch of stuff on Friday night, then on Saturday morning we got up early and packed the rest and loaded up the van. It was pretty tight, with all five of us, our camping gear, and the dog. We headed out (after a couple of "oops, I forgot..." false starts) and started the drive north. Dina's sister was going to meet us at the park with her two boys, but on the way we talked to her on the phone and realized she was thinking of a different state park, much closer. After getting that sorted out, all was good.

We arrived at St. Croix State Park at about noon, right at check-in time. We'd reserved our campsite ahead of time, which is always a crapshoot when you don't know how wooded and private the campground is, but our site was pretty awesome. We got our tent set up and most of our bedding set up, and started doing camping-type stuff. A few hours later Dina's sister and her boys arrived, and they set up, then we all had good times together. Honestly most of the specifics escape me after I've been camping...it's just nice to get out, make a fire, and enjoy being outdoors with good people. It was hot during the day - 90s - but luckily there was a swimming area at the park. (Caden and Rohan decided to nap in the air conditioned van for that, so I was with them.) Campfire, hot dogs, snacks, fireflies, playing in the dirt, hiking, swimming, lots of laughing - it was a good time. Dina's dad Dean and his wife Karen even stopped by for a while; it was good to see them.

The night was a little rough. It got colder than it does in our house, and Caden and Rohan had a tough time with that, so Dina was up much of the night soothing them in the tent. The boys and I let her sleep in that morning, though, so that worked out.

Let me just say here that campfire breakfasts rule. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns cooked over a fire are one of life's Good Things. After breakfast Dina and I worked on packing up the site while playing with the kids. Gretchen had to leave right after breakfast; her boys were going to the Saints game with their dad for Father's Day. Dean and Karen stopped by again later that morning; they'd spent the night at a nearby B&B. Sunday was another hot day, but it was cloudy instead of sunny. The last thing we packed up was the tent, and just as we started taking it down the first drops of rain started to sprinkle down. The timing was perfect. We had a good trip home, and put away as much of our gear as we could manage before exhaustion set in. We definitely will return to St. Croix state park to see more of it; it's a huge park with many hiking and biking trails and two good-sized rivers, and I can see our family having a lot of fun there in the future.

It was a fantastic Father's Day weekend for me. I love my family and can't think of anything I'd rather do than spend time with them. Happy belated Father's Day to all the other dads out there!

Fun pics

2009-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

My wife put some pics up on Facebook...I just had to post some of them here.

Griffin and Dina, with her awesome new haircut.

Griffin met Spider-Man at the carnival on Sunday:

Feeding the llama at the carnival's petting zoo:

Griffin and friend Zaysha got to feed a giraffe at the MN Zoo!

Caden smears frosting in his hair:

Rohan smears frosting on EVERYTHING!

A Just-Barely-Pre-Summer Summer Weekend!

2009-06-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Weekends just don't get any more summery than this. On Saturday we went to the carnival for our city festival, the City of Champlin Father Hennepin Festival, so-named because Champlin is apparently the place where Father Hennepin first crossed the Mississippi in 1680. Dina and I had our three kids in tow, plus our niece Lizzy and nephew Devin. It was a good time - we checked out the little flea market area where local businesses have tents/games/advertising (and our local businesses appear to consist largely of chiropractors...I saw at least two model spinal columns). Then we hit the Tilt-a-Whirl and the older kids hit the Scrambler. Griffin went on a couple kiddie rides (the airplanes and the giant slide) and then we grabbed some carnival grub...hamburgers, a bucket of fries, and mini donuts, washed down with fresh lemonade. Then we walked over to the animals area, and Griffin went on a pony ride, we checked out the "exotic animals" petting zoo, and then Griffin, Devin, and Lizzy took a camel ride, which they all seemed to enjoy (even the camel). On the way back to our minivan, we saw a carnie go into heatstroke, or perhaps have a drug overdose...it was pretty freaky. Then Dina and I took a ride on the Scrambler, and Dina was on the outside...and got CRUSHED by me. She was squished and bent and pretty uncomfortable. Good thing there are so many chiropractors in town. That evening I thought about going to see an area bassist's show, but since we had family over decided against it. Devin and Lizzy went home with their parents later that night.

On Sunday we did some stuff around the house, then packed up and took the kids to the swim beach at Elm Creek Park near our house.

It's a man-made pond with a big sandy beach around it. The water is slightly chlorinated, but not as heavily as at some swimming pools. It's a great place for the kids, and all three had fun splashing around and playing in the sand. Griffin's been taking swimming lessons at Foss, and it really showed...he is so much more confident in the water now, which is awesome. We spent quite a few hours at the beach, so we were pretty wiped after we got home. We ordered pizza and had some more fun with the kids, then the kids went to sleep and Dina and I watched some Law & Order re-runs (and/or dozed on the couch). All-in-all a pretty awesome and laid-back summer weekend.

And it's not even summer yet!

Four years ago yesterday

2009-06-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

Four years ago yesterday, my life changed dramatically when my wife and I ceased being expectant parents and became the parents of a perfect little baby boy. When he was born I experienced this amazing mix of joy, fear, wonder, relief, sadness, disbelief, and (most of all) primal encompassing love for this tiny person I'd never even met.

Happy birthday, Griffin!

Be warned...

2009-06-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

I know there are a variety of people who read this, so be warned: this just might be a bit of a TMI post. You may want to stop reading now if you're made squeamish by the words "pain," "needles," "doctor," or "vasectomy."

Heh...well, with that introduction I guess you already know what my weekend was about. Ha Ha! Yes, on Friday morning I got a vasectomy. Dina and I decided that our family is just how we want it, so we made the decision. I won't give you all the gory details (though I am somewhat evilly tempted to do so...heh, heh, heh); suffice it to say everything went well and the only painful part of the procedure was the anesthesia injection. The whole thing took about an hour, and they'd given me a Valium prescription beforehand, so I was pretty calm. Lemme tell ya...it's really freaking odd having small-talk conversation with the person who's sterilizing you.

Getting that done meant I basically wasn't supposed to do anything all weekend but sit around and play video games. That was pretty cool, except that there was some soreness and such. Luckily they gave me some Percocet for pain relief, which I did use the first day. After that, cold packs were all I needed. I was very happy that we got our bigscreen TV replaced before this weekend. I was feeling good enough to go to B33n3r's meat & beer party on Saturday (at which my kids kinda took over - sorry about that). It was fun to see everyone there, and now you all know why I was sitting on my butt on the comfy loveseat almost the whole time. :-) I'm hoping things go well at work tomorrow...they should; I'm feeling pretty good now.

And that was the weekend. I promise not to write any more blog posts about my genitals.

Well, not many anyway.

Oops - missed a week

2009-06-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

I seem to have missed a week. I blame that on the fact that the weekend I missed was so busy, and that I had my mind on this weekend.

So last weekend (May 30/31) was a pretty full weekend. On Saturday my oldest son had a "swim meet." He's taking swimming lessons (and doing very well), and his school had a swim meet in which the older students actually race, and the younger students pretend to race. He got a ribbon for taking part, which he thought was pretty cool. Later that day there was a family swim, and that little 3-year-old swam a solid two hours without stopping. Unbelievable energy...

Sunday morning Griffin had another activity; he's in a gymnastics class, and each Spring they have a show. He was with all the other kids around his age, and the kids basically showed what they learned on all the equipment. At the end, he got a trophy, and he had no idea that was coming. He was so excited he jumped up and down. He later told me, "this is the coolest trophy I've ever seen." I was very proud of him. :-)

After his show, we got in the minivan and headed for Wisconsin - Wisconsin Dells. We had a one-night stay at the Great Wolf Lodge resort. The place was cool - a bunch of indoor waterparks and one outdoor waterpark, plus lots of activities for the kids and great food in the restaurants. Our room had a queen bed for the adults, and bunkbeds for the kids; the kids' beds were in a little room of their own that looked like a little log cabin inside the suite. Pretty cool! It would have been nice to stay more than one night. The timing was great - school wasn't out yet in most places, so there were hardly any other people at the waterpark. We didn't have to wait for anything...that rocked. I think we'll go back in a couple years when Caden and Rohan are old enough to really enjoy it.

On Monday we spent some time hanging out at the resort, then took our time driving home. We didn't get home until pretty late. The next day we took Griffin, Caden, and Rohan to Pixar's "Up." Great movie! I'll be buying it.

Another item of note - during this week we replaced our widescreen TV. Woo hoo! This time we got a Sony Bravia 46" LCD (the KDL-46V5100):

It's an inch smaller than the LG we returned, but the LCD panel is a nicer panel, and overall we like this TV much better.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

First off, here's a belated thanks to all current and former members of our military, who dedicate themselves to the defense of our country and ideals, and especially so to those who have given their lives for that noble endeavor.

Concise version of the weekend's activities: move crap out of garage, return TV, move crap back into garage, organize crap.

We didn't do anything specific to Memorial Day over the weekend; instead we took the extra day off and cleaned and organized our garage. We threw out and donated a whole bunch of stuff, and our garage is much less cluttered now, which is awesome.

On Saturday we realized that what we thought was a grease smudge on the screen of our TV was actually a permanent scuff. Our 30-day unconditional guarantee on the TV had just expired earlier that week, so I wasn't sure if we'd just have to live with the scuff. I called Best Buy and talked to a manager, and ended up returning the TV for store credit. According to the manager (and the head tech of that store) the scuff was probably caused by Best Buy packaging up the TV, which was an open box display model, with bubble wrap before it had properly cooled. So right now we're back to our old TV until Best Buy has a TV deal we consider worthy. I feel like I have to squint at the TV now! Hopefully we find a good deal soon.

An interesting note about donations...I tried to take a bunch of our stuff we don't use anymore to Goodwill on Tuesday night. They declined a bunch of it, which surprised me. Apparently they can't take Christmas stuff out of season, they can't take small appliances like our humidifier, and they can't take metal bed frames. Strange. They did take a bunch of my computer science textbooks from college, and a bunch of my old fantasy paperbacks. It killed me to get rid of my first paperback Lord of the Rings trilogy, but they weren't in great shape, and I've got a really nice hardcover version, so it was past time for them to go.

Trying to stay awake...

2009-05-18T11:05:00.001-07:00

This weekend was exhausting, not only in the amount of running around we did, but in the terribly poor amount of sleep I got.

The big event this weekend was that Dina's dad got remarried. The ceremony was Saturday afternoon in Glenwood, MN. That means on Friday we had to pack. Unfortunately, Dina also had a going-away party for a friend of hers Friday night, so she was out until about 11:00. We were up late getting as much packed as we could, so we didn't get much sleep Friday night. Anyway, we got out of the house on Saturday, went and visited Dina's mom in St. Cloud for a while, then drove out to Glenwood for the wedding. After the wedding we had a reception dinner at the Lakeside Ballroom. (The filet mignon special was awesome.) Then we headed over to the Scotwood Motel and played in the pool with the kids for a couple hours. That was fun - all of our boys love the water and had a great time. We thought they'd sleep soundly.

Two thirds of them did. However, Caden was not happy with being away from home, and got stuffed up from the dust in the room's air. He cried almost all night. Between Dina and I, one of us was up all night long. Ugh.

The next day is kinda hazy, but we visited Dina's dad and his new wife, drove to Benson to visit my dad and hisnew girlfriend (but the kids fell asleep on the drive, so we didn't stay long), visited my mom and grandpa (also in Benson), went back to my dad's after the kids were awake, and then headed out of town.

Visiting my dad was...tough. When I was a kid he was a heavy drinker and into various drugs, so my childhood was very much not normal. I wasn't physically abused, but I saw a lot of stuff that kids shouldn't see, and experienced things that have caused a lot of pain. My dad still drinks (don't know about the other stuff), and I've kept a considerable distance between us, especially since my own kids have been born. We normally give my dad lots of notice when we're coming, so there's no crazy stuff when we get there with the kids. Well, when we stopped by with little notice on our way out of town, because Griffin wanted to see his grandpa, my dad had obviously been drinking, and his new girlfriend was altered out of her mind on something...if it was booze, it was a lot. Not a good situation for the kids, so we got out of there. I'm not looking forward to the time when Griffin is old enough to see what's going on, because I'm going to have to deal with this crap again.

Ok, enough with the heavy stuff. On a lighter note, on the way home I was starting to feel tired, so I drank a Bawls energy drink (mostly because of the recent spoof). It actually tasted fairly good. I'd never had one of those before, and wow did it affect me. After getting home at 11:15 pm, I unloaded the kids, and all of our stuff, and put almost all of it away immediately. Usually when we get home that late we carry our stuff into the entryway and leave it until morning. Of course, after doing that I collapsed into a nearly-dead state in bed until morning. I think I'm still recovering today.

The Weekend

2009-05-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Friday night my wife and I did something we haven't done in quite some time. We went to a movie! Together! Without any kids! (Thanks, Uncle Guy!)

Our friends Lundo and Amy rented out the VIP box at a local theater and invited us and a bunch of other friends to watch Star Trek. The night was awesome before the movie even started. The VIP box had a receiving room where we got to hang out and eat some food, and then we moved into the box itself, which had ultra-comfy fully-reclining very-plush and otherwise-hyphenated leather chairs. The box had its own little sound system as well, which was better than I expected. I will definitely be watching movies from a VIP box again in the future.

So aside from how good the viewing experience was, the movie itself was 100% awesome. It was a reboot of the franchise, and it was superbly done. This movie was exactly what it neeeded to be - it was a ton of fun, it was adventurous, it had geek-out moments, it hearkened back to the original series when it needed to (and departed where prudent), and it set things up perfectly for further adventures in the newly conceived world. JJ Abrams did it just right. The movie's only flaw is that it's a little light; it doesn't have the social commentary that was such a big part of the original series. However, even with that flaw, here's a bold opinion: this is the best Star Trek movie ever made. I'll have to rewatch the others to confirm this opinion (ok, maybe not Nemesis), but I'm pretty sure I'll stick to that opinion.

The next day Dina hosted a Creative Memories workshop at our house, which meant that I had the boys all day. I was unsure how the day would go, because I was very tired. We're night-weaning Caden and Rohan, so that means less sleep for me for a little while (when they wake up at night it works better for me to soothe them, because if Dina does then they just want to nurse). The day went pretty quickly though. The morning was mostly taken up running errands, including the first time I'd ever gone to Costco. What a huge place. I probably would have enjoyed wandering around the place feeling like an ant, but I had all three boys on the cart (Caden and Rohan in the seats, Griffin hanging on to the end), and the place was PACKED since it was a weekend. It took me a long time to find what I needed to get. As it turned out, the afternoon went by pretty quickly, too. Griffin played with his cousin Keefe since Aunt Gretchen was over for the workshop. Rohan took an enormous nap, so I ended up basically watching only Caden. It was easy enough that I was able to put together a set of Ikea storage bin shelves for the play room. I'm the man.

That night Dina and I decided that we should go buy a couple cigars. (WHAT? Yeah, we enjoy a cigar about once every two years.) So, we found a place in Coon Rapids that is in this cheap little strip mall, but has a pretty nice walk-in humidor. Dina bought herself something small and light, and bought me something huge and robust (qualities which I would later rue). We went home but didn't really have time to enjoy them after the kids went to bed. Besides, it turned out we didn't have a cigar cutter to snip the tip, and it was too late to go buy one. So we decided we'd try them the next night if we had time.

Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day. Part of my Mother's Day present to my wife was that I spent the night on the couch with Caden so she wouldn't have to. :-) Caden just would not sleep unless someone held him...it was a long night. Dina got to sleep in a little, and then worked on some digital scrapbooking on her laptop while I cleaned the kitchen. We ran some errands as a family, and ate lunch on the go: Costco Chicken Bake Sandwiches rule! We also stopped by a smoke shop in Maple Grove to buy a cigar cutter. The place is called Tobacco Grove, and it's one of the seven businesses that got an exemption to allow indoor smoking when the smoking ban went into effect statewide. They have a big lounge area with padded chairs and lots of dark leather and dark wood. Seems like it'd be a pretty cool place if you're into that kind of thing. That night we made pancakes, bacon, and eggs for Dina's Mother's Day meal. (Well, Dina started cooking the bacon...I finished.) We also had some fun playing Youtube videos on our big TV; I recently bought the digital audio and video cables I needed to hook up my laptop to the big TV, and that's a lot of fun. The kids really love it.

After the kids went to bed and we'd cleaned up, Dina and I decided to smoke our cigars on the deck. It was chilly, but not horrible. We had a glass of dessert wine, lit up our cigars, and reminisced about good times gone by. The cigar Dina bought me had a great spicy taste to it, but it had my head spinning by the time I came inside. It ended up making me feel a little sick...too much cigar for me! I'll have to stick to the lightweight stuff in 2011.

HOLY CRAP THIS WAS LONG! WHY ARE YOU STILL READING? Don't you know that this is really just for my own convenience, so I can have a searchable record of my life? ;-)

Weekend update: Party edition

2009-05-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

What a fun weekend! We had our Guitar Hero: Metallica party and cookout on Saturday afternoon. Of course, that meant Saturday morning was all about cleaning and running errands. There was a lot to do because Dina got slammed with allergies the night before, and the twins didn't sleep very well because they had colds. So we were moving a little slow on Saturday morning...in fact we were still finishing up as the first people arrived. It was fine, though - the party went great! It was fun to meet some people I'd never met before, and also to get together with old friends. And really, how can you go wrong with video games, beer, grilled meat, and an inflatable jumping house?

After the party wound down and our house was ours again, we cleaned up as much of the party mess as we had energy for, and then got our kids bathed and off to bed. That evening Dina's friend Christine came over to play with Dina's new Cricut machine, which cuts custom shapes out of paper. While they were playing I installed some magnetic child safety locks on the cabinets in the kitchen, as we no longer have the twins blocked off to the living room; they have free roam of the upstairs now. They love it, but we're finding what's not babyproofed well enough.

Sunday morning was a lazy morning since we were up late Saturday night. After doing a whole lot of nothing in the morning, we ate lunch out on the deck (the sunny weather was FANTASTIC) then packed up into the minivan to go to the Living Green Expo at the MN State Fair grounds. The biggest reason we went was to pick up a rain barrel that Dina had ordered, but we also stopped to see Dina's friend Elaine who was running the La Leche League booth. We also like to show our support for local food by visiting the co-op and CSA booths. Oh, and of course we also like to laugh at the tiny, tiny cars.

We got home just before dinnertime, so I mowed the lawn for the first time this year while the kids were on the deck playing and Dina was cleaning out the minivan (and boy, was it dirty). I realized that I really like mowing in the Spring and Fall, and pretty much hate it in the Summer. I'm sure this is largely related to the amount I sweat in various seasons.

Today it's back to work. For a half day, anyway...Dina, Griffin, and I all have dentist appointments this afternoon. So, by this afternoon I shall have Shiny Clean Teeth (and hopefully no appointments to fill cavities).

Productive weekend

2009-04-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

There are weekends filled with video games, pajamas, and comfort food. This was not one of those weekends.

On Saturday morning we packed the boys up in the minivan and took a shopping trip to buy new shoes and a few other assorted clothing items. We got back to the house just after lunchtime, and just in time for Dean (Dina's dad) and Karen to show up. Dean was there to help out with some house projects, so over the course of the afternoon we pressure-washed the deck (that was the big project), leveled off some gopher mounds, moved and staked the big wooden swingset, and figured out why our bathroom exhaust fan wasn't working. Washing the deck was fun, though being wet and in the wind was a bit chilly later in the day. The wood is a totally different color now; it's quite amazing. This week we plan to stain the deck; it should end up looking really nice. Staking the swingset down was fun, too. We had stakes that were 2x4's cut into a point on one side, and I pounded them into the ground with a sledgehammer, then screwed the swingset to the stakes. My swinging hand was weak at the end of the day, and there's still a little residual soreness today. Maybe I should take up shovelglove to get in shape...

Sunday started out slow with coffee and breakfast. (Aside: we recently bought a Keurig coffee machine, and I like it. It's coffee on demand.) It was rainy, so we couldn't do much outside. Instead, we started getting ready for our Big House Reorganization Project. We're going to move Caden and Rohan, who are currently sleeping in our room, into their own beds in what is right now Griffin's room. Since all three boys will be sleeping in that room, there won't be room to play in there, so we're reorganizing our downstairs family room to make better use of its space as a play room.

Anyway, we moved most of the big play furniture and toys out of Griffin's room into the garage, and moved all of the toys/furniture/junk we'd accumulated in the family room into the garage as well. (Note that in this operation, my wife is the brains and I'm the brawn. She's a very good organizer; me, not so much. She mauls me in competitive Tetris.) Then we (meaning Dina) figured out how the room should be arranged, and we started moving stuff back down. We've got the play room most of the way there now...part of it is a little den area with a futon, easy chair, and TV, and the rest is toys and games. We were up pretty late. More work to come this week!

This morning I was able to carry the productivity forward. I installed a safety gate at the top of our deck stairs so Dina will be able to let the little ones play out there. I really should have worn gloves, though...it was way too wet and cold to be dealing with a metal gate. My hands were not happy.

This week we'll be continuing the BHRP, and getting the house ready for people to come over on Saturday. Should be fun!

Innovation

2009-04-23T17:39:00.001-07:00

Apparently our bath toys just aren't cool enough. Rohan decided he needed something new during his bath tonight. Unfortunately, the nearest thing he could reach outside the tub was a full roll of toilet paper.

Granted, it was pretty cool to see the whole thing swelled up - I'll give him that. And I can't fault him for wanting to try something new. But cleanup was a pain. :-)

New update

2009-04-20T07:12:00.001-07:00

Been kinda busy the last few weeks, so I haven't had much time for blogging, but I'll try to catch you up now.

The weekend before last was a lot of fun. On Thursday night, we had a birthday party at our house for Keefe, Gretchen's younger boy. That whole side of the family was over: Gretchen and Vidi, with Devin and Keefe; Guy and Dara, with Lizzie; and of course Dina and I with our boys. Griffin was in heaven playing with all his cousins. A very wild and excited heaven. Lizzie and Keefe spent the next two nights at our house, which was a lot of fun. On Friday I worked, but then on Saturday we all went to an Easter egg hunt at Fish Lake Park in Maple Grove. We had lunch with Grandma Cathy and Todd at a nearby Fuddrucker's (at which Todd ate the largest burger I've ever seen in person...the "one pounder" that essentially had a round loaf of bread sliced in two for a bun). The next day we went over to Dara's parents for Easter dinner. It's a little odd being invited to your wife's brother's wife's parents' place for a family meal, but we know them fairly well, and they're good people. We had lots of fun enjoying the fantastic weather and playing outside with all the kids.

On Monday we got our taxes finalized and got a nice big return. We decided to stimulate the economy a bit. More on that later.

This last weekend Dina was involved in a convention for her Mothers of Multiples group. She was attending the convention as a M.o.M., but was also putting on a scrapbooking breakout session. She had 32 people show up - pretty good! Her convention ran from Friday until Sunday, so I had the boys for the weekend again. Friday during the day I had the boys to myself, but that night my mom (Grandma Lynn) came up to help out. It's always fun to have her around; she gets along so well with all the boys. On Saturday we decided to go around shopping for a new TV with our tax return money. I didn't necessarily plan on buying that day, but wanted to start looking at screens. I ended up finding a great open box deal at Best Buy for this:

It's a 47" LCD tv from LG. It's got the features I was interested in (LCD, size, 1080p, 120Hz refresh rate, all the i/o ports I need) and it was a great price. And it looks great! We've already had a ton of fun playing games, watching movies, and watching HD TV channels.

After bringing the TV home we drove over to Elk River to my uncle Gary's house. We try to get over there each year around when he makes maple syrup. He had already collected the sap but wasn't boiling it yet since it was so dry out there; he didn't want to start a brush fire. So we just hung out, let the kids run around in the yard, and relaxed. It was a lot of fun. Plus I traded some of my homemade beer for some of his homemade maple syrup. Bartering for the win!

The next day Dina came back home, and the kids were very happy to see Mama. We had a relaxing evening around the house, which was great.

Today I overslept by an hour and a half, and missed my bus downtown. I drove to work, and found out that my company is trying to buy Sun Microsystems - whoa! More to come on that later. For now I need to get back to work. Farewell!

Great weekend with the boys

2009-03-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a lot of work, but ended up with an early birthday present and a lot of fun.

On Friday I got out of work early to go to an physical therapy appointment for my wrist tendinitis. It was a pretty standard appointment, but they added Light Therapy for pain relief. They basically shine a very expensive flashlight on my wrists for a while. It seems a little voodoo-ish to me, but it did actually seem to help with the pain. Anyway, after that I met up with Dina at the church where her Mothers of Multiples group was setting up for their Spring kids' sale. Dina was working the setup, so I took the kids home and took care of the night routine.

Dina had to work at the sale on Saturday morning, and the kids got us up bright and early, so it was a full day. Since I was up early and had a little time, I grabbed this video of Griffin off our camera and put it online. He's singing his "tractor song" from his trip to the zoo the previous day. The kid is ready for metal:

Dina stopped at home after the sale and finished packing for her well-deserved night away with girlfriends in St. Cloud. She took off and the boys and I did a lot of playing the rest of the day. One of our favorite things is to get a bunch of musical instruments out and just make a lot of noise. I love it! I usually play my didge, and we all have a good time.

The night was a bit long, because when Caden or Rohan wake up at night they expect their mama to be there with them, but we got through it with a fair number of hours slept, so I was happy.

On Sunday I spent a lot of time catching up on cleaning and other domestic-y stuff since I basically just messed around all of Saturday. When Dina was on her way home she told me that she was bringing an early birthday present home. She picked up Guitar Hero: Metallica for the Wii, and also picked up the drum kit for Guitar Hero: World Tour. We didn't buy the full kit with drums when we bought the game around Christmastime, so it's cool to have the drums now. Awesome birthday present! Dina also picked up Endless Ocean and Mario Party to take advantage of a "buy two get one free" deal at Target.

I waited to play GH: Metallica until the kids were sleeping. Man, that game is fun! It was a lot like playing bass along to tapes (here, for you kiddies who don't know what tapes are) when I was a kid. More game-y, of course, but the feeling is similar. The available song list is pretty good; there's a good selection of non-Metallica songs in addition to tons of Metallica stuff. I did pretty well playing bass on Hard mode, and guitar on Medium mode. Then I decided I needed some more tendinitis, and cranked up the difficulty for guitar on All Nightmare Long. I was defeated. Here's why (this isn't me, but shows how crazy the song is):

Brew Log

2009-03-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

I decided to put my log of homebrewing online rather than just keeping it on the computer.

Brew Log

I used Google Docs because it seemed like the easiest way. We'll see how that goes. Here's to watching the list get longer!

Monday already? I'd better blog.

2009-03-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

Another weekend, another blog post. I should change the title of this blog to "This Is What Corey Nash Did Last Weekend." Something is better than nothing, though, so here goes.

Friday I left work a little early and picked up a pair of prescription sunglasses at the local eye doctor's. I haven't had sunglasses that I could see clearly through since...ever. It's pretty sweet. I kept wearing them even when I didn't need them, because it's so nice to finally have them...in the house...at night...while sleeping (kidding, but I wore them a lot). After picking up my sunglasses-of-wicked-awesomeness, the family and I got in the minivan and drove out near St. Cloud to pick up a Creative Memories shipment for Dina. We then drove over to Duelm, MN, for a benefit dinner for my cousin's husband, who has been having some pretty serious medical problems. It was a GREAT turnout, and it was good to see a lot of family that we haven't seen in a while. It was fun to let Griffin run around, Rohan toddle around, and Caden get passed around. We stayed until late evening, then headed home.

On Saturday Dina had a display table at a local trade show during the day, so I was at home with the kids. In the morning we had a lot of fun playing, and after lunch we went to visit Dina for a little while. After we got home the kids took turns sleeping, and I did some cleaning and managed to watch the Battlestar Galactica series finale. Wow...from epic space battle scenes, to character story fulfillment, to head-scratching mysteries, the finale had something for everyone. It wasn't perfect, but it was very, very good (though I can see how it could be frustrating for those looking for the answers to every loose thread). That night we all went to bed very early and got lots of sleep, which was great, because we all needed it.

Sunday was a busy day. We got up and I made waffles for breakfast, then we starting cleaning the house and doing laundry. After lunch when one of the twins was taking a nap, I bottled my batch of Liberty Cream Ale. I ended up bottling outdoors since it was so nice, and man, that was really a treat. Bottling takes some time, so I basically got to sit out in the sun for a good long while. It was a bit windy, but it felt good to soak in the sun. Griffin was outside playing all over the yard, and he kept running up to the table I was using to try to help me. "I'll help you stir! Can I soak a bottle? Can I put the cap on? Can I give you the caps?" It was pretty cute.

Later Dina and I started getting the deck ready to be a play area for the kids. We have a water toy that's basically a waterslide for toys, and a plastic toddler's swingset that we put up on the deck. We're going to install netting around the railing and a solid gate to block off the stairs, then Dina will be able to hang out with the toddlers on the deck while Griffin plays in the yard.

After that I took care of Caden and Rohan in the house while Dina and Griffin planted a bunch of flower and vegetable seeds in little starter pots. That'll be a fun project for the two of them to share through the spring and summer. It's always good to give Griffin some one-on-one time with Mama since he has to share so much of his life with his brothers.

After the kids were in bed Dina and I stayed up late wrapping up a bunch of household stuff we wanted to get done before the weekend was done. I was tired this morning, but it felt good to get a lot done over the weekend.

Is someone still reading this? Amazing...it can get pretty boring. Normally my "weekend journal" posts are kind of a letdown by the end. Well, time for that to change! My posts will end with pizzazz from now on, this I swear to you! So, for this post, I end with...fireworks!

Yeah, still kinda boring. But you're still reading. ;-)

Weekend update: Kobolds edition

2009-03-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

What an awesome weekend! Friday night Dina had the first part of a scrapbooking retreat she was hosting at our house, so I took the boys outside for a walk/trike ride as the weather was getting so nice, and then got to hang out with them downstairs. Caden and Rohan are more fun every day as they move from babyhood to toddlerhood and start to develop their personalities.

Saturday during the day was the second part of Dina's retreat, so I got to hang out with the boys all day. We went and played at Ridgedale (they've got a pretty fun kids' playground area), had lunch there and did some driving around after we were done. We tried to find a park for Griffin to play in since it was so nice, but it was far too wet everywhere.

Saturday night was the St. Patrick's Day party at Ryan's place, with A Flock of Kobolds providing musical entertainment. The Kobolds are a few friends (Ben, Ryan, Lundo, Travis, and myself) that play traditional Irish music, sea chanteys, and pirate songs. It's brilliant. I play Irish tin whistles (and occasionally the didgeridoo), but that night was the first time I'd actually played with the rest of the guys, having previously been practicing to their prior recordings. It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to hear and see some of the recordings. The only bummer was that my wife had to leave early in the second set due to babysitter drama (so she missed all the dirty songs). Funny enough, though, when she left, the CD that in the car was the Kobolds rehearsal CD I'd made, so she said she felt like she was listening to the show on the radio.

I plan to post pics and/or videos if I can get my hands on 'em.

Sunday was a day to catch up on things around the house. It was low key and a perfect after-party day. And FREAKING GORGEOUS outside, which really lifted my soul.

Aaaaaaaand now it's back to work.

Brewing: Liberty Cream Ale

2009-03-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

I realized I'd never posted pics of brewing before. So now I have!

This is me chilling down the wort (what will become beer) before adding the yeast.

Here I'm moving the wort to the fermenting bucket.

All sealed up and ready to ferment:

In a week I'll transfer it to a different container for secondary fermentation. Then a week after that I'll bottle it. And two weeks after THAT I'll be drinking delicious, delicious Liberty Cream Ale. Woo hoo!

New music toys

2009-03-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

I got some new music equipment (a.k.a. toys) recently, and they're pretty cool. Last weekend when we went to Groth Music I picked up a couple of Irish tin whistles, one in the key of C and one in the key of D. Here's how the D whistle sounds; I'm playing the intro to Haul Away Joe.

The C whistle has a harsher, less woody sound to it, but I don't have a sample right now. The whistles are fun, but yesterday I bought something that's even more fun. A guy I know was selling a used didgeridoo. It's not an authentic Aboriginal one or anything, but hey, it sounds okay and it only cost me ten bucks, so I'm pretty happy. Here's what it sounds like:

I have lots of fun playing it. The kids love it, too. Oh, and my wife is very embarrassed by how goofy I am in that video. :-)

Turns out that playing the tuba in high school was fantastic preparation for playing didgeridoo. Can't wait to get better and play some more!

Serious lack of pics lately

2009-03-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

I've been terrible about posting pics lately. (I've been only slightly better about posting words, but that's a different subject.) Anyway, here's a current pic of Caden and Rohan. Dina took them and Griffin to the Children's Museum yesterday, and Dina's friend snapped this pic.

If you can't tell, that's Caden on the left, and Rohan on the right. It amazes me that some people still can't tell them apart!

Layoffs

2009-03-03T09:14:00.000-08:00

I came in to work today, and my boss took me aside and told me "layoffs are happening today." My job is safe, but a third of the people who work on my team are gone. Things are going to get tough now, because we lost some very skilled people. It sounds like there are quite a few layoffs from all teams here. I'm thankful I still have a job, but I feel pretty helpless for the people who no longer do.

The farewell emails are starting to flow in; I hate days like this.

Twitter

2009-02-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

So, I'm trying out Twitter. For anyone who's interested, I'm @coreynash. You can see my feed at http://twitter.com/coreynash. I'm still trying to figure out the balance between Twitter and Facebook, so we'll see what happens as time goes on. I'm guessing I'll use Twitter more once I have an iPhone (which looks like May at this point).

Captain Trips

2009-02-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Wow - the illness that my family had was not yet over after my last blog post, not by a long shot. I ended up working only one day last week. Even though I was feeling better, my family was not. We're still not out of it, we all have residual coughs, and Griffin still had an upset stomach as of yesterday. At times during the whole ordeal I was thinking about the superflu Captain Trips from The Stand. Luckily it was nothing so fatal...

So the weekend was an interesting one. On Friday and Saturday Dina had a Creative Memories regional convention, so I was in charge of the boys. I got barely any sleep on Friday night, but there was no vomit, so it was a win in my book. The twins slept great on Saturday night, so that was very welcome. I also got in a good, long nap late Sunday morning. Dina got a great photo of Caden and Rohan laying in bed with me, one laying on each of my arms. (Of course, I'm writing this blog entry at work and have no access to photos. Blarg.)

Sunday evening Dina and I went on a double date with Lundo and Amy to Fogo de Chao in downtown Minneapolis. For those who don't know, Fogo is basically an all-you-can-eat meat restaurant. It's expensive, but the cuts of meat are all perfection. You sit at your table, and servers bring various kinds of meat to your table on skewers; if you want to try one they cut off a slice and you put it on your plate. Absolutely delicious. We were all stuffed silly when we left. I literally could not eat another bite.

That night I was going to get together with the Flock of Kobolds guys to play some Irish music at Lundo's place. However, the location was changed, which added a lot of drive time for me (but saved a lot of drive time for others), so I decided to stay home, be there for my family, and catch up on stuff I needed to do after being sick. I'd still love to play along on some of the tunes, but there's no more time for rehearsals before St. Patty's day due to vacations, so that's a bummer. But I did get some stuff done and got another good night's sleep last night, which is exactly what I needed.

This morning, my car didn't start, because it was too cold. My car's been having way too hard a time starting when it's cold...I may need a new battery. I tried to start the van so I could jump my car, and it had a dead battery, too. Frakking machines! Blarg. We ended up calling AAA to jump the van, and then I jumped the car from that. It was far too exciting a morning for a Monday. But at least I got to work.

Busy. Then sick.

2009-02-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

If it seems like I've fallen off the face of the planet lately, it's because I basically have. For the first two weeks in February, my wife had jury duty. She was just on call-in for a while, but then she did get called in and assigned to a case. She was part of a two-day trial. She was excited to be part of the process, but with her being the main caretaker of our kids during the day, it meant a combination of working from home and taking vacation days for me. Luckily Uncle Guy came over to help out while Dina was gone.

Then, after Dina was done with jury duty, she got sick. Shortly thereafter, of course, the rest of us got sick. Today is the second day I've taken off work due to sickness. I'm starting to feel better and am hoping to be back at work tomorrow, but it depends on how much better the rest of the family gets. It's tough for Dina to take care of three sick boys when she's not feeling well herself.

Well, I should go continue recovering. Until next time!

Blog URL is changing!

2009-01-28T07:17:00.000-08:00

My current blog URL is http://coreytime.blogspot.com

The new blog URL will be http://coreynash.blogspot.com

Hopefully you all get this message!

I'm Tellin' All Y'all

2009-01-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

The quick version:
1) letting the cousins play together is fun
2) three and a half hours of sleep is not enough
3) family get-togethers always seem to involve some drama
4) singing "Sabotage" on Rock Band is lots of fun

The long version:
What a weekend! We had Dina's sister and brother and their families to our house for a Christmas in January. Friday was all about getting the house cleaned and ready. On Saturday morning, Dina's sister Gretchen and her husband and two boys came over. Their contribution to the weekend was an ENORMOUS EIGHTEEN POUND HAM. We'd managed to borrow a big roaster from a friend, so thankfully we didn't have to heat up the whole house to cook that thing. A little while later, Dina's brother Guy and his wife showed up. They brought a bunch of food, so we got all the food put away and started playing video games and hanging out. The games of the weekend were Mario Kart Wii and Rock Band. Good times! That afternoon almost everyone headed out of the house to see Guy's daughter sing in a choir performance. I stayed at home with Rohan (who was napping) and Griffin (who was sorely in need of a nap). I put Griffin down for his nap, and found myself with a very quiet house. My brain made a noise that in text looks much like this: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH. That's mostly a huge exhaling relaxing sigh, but it's also a bit of a scream from fear of the unfamiliar. Anyway, with my chunk of free time I watched this week's Battlestar Galactica on my Macbook Pro in glorious Standard Def. (I tried a 720p version, but neither Quicktime nor VLC would play it.) Great episode - not as good as last week's, but still pretty good. Later everyone came home, we ate lots of ham, and played lots of video games (mostly the kids), and the kids opened up their presents. Toys, toys, toys, toys! It always amazes me how generous everyone is. That night, everyone stayed at our place except Gretchen and her husband, who went back to their place (their boys stayed at our place, though). It was a pretty late night...I think I turned in at about 2:30.

At 6:00 Rohan woke up and would not go back to sleep. Ugh. So I was up with him for a while before anyone else got up. I did manage to doze a little, but it was a rough morning. When everyone else was up we had our breakfast, which was make-your-own belgian waffles, and made-to-order omelettes by Guy's wife. Yum! Dina was making coffee drinks, too, which was delicious.

There was some drama when Gretchen and her husband didn't come back when we thought they would. (It wouldn't be a family get-together without drama.) We called them to see what was up and to basically say, "hey, you need to come watch your kids," and Gretchen's husband got VERY offended, to the point where he called and swore at my wife. Not cool. So he stayed home, Gretchen came over, and we got over it by playing Rock Band with the volume cranked and drinking homebrew (my Power Pack Porter turned out very good). I sang "Sabotage" (by the Beastie Boys, of course) which was a ton of fun and good stress relief. Dina played the drums a lot; I think she needed to hit things. I don't blame her! Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and the rest of the day was spent hanging out, watching some DVDs, playing more video games, and playing with the kids. It was exhausting, but fun overall.

What a year it's been

2009-01-21T12:40:00.001-08:00

Last weekend was a doozy. Dina had a Creative Memories retreat from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, so I was in charge of the three boys. Luckily, my mom came up to help out. What made the weekend tricky was that Caden and Rohan had separation anxiety and had a really tough time getting to sleep without Dina there. Dina actually ended up coming back home on Friday night because she forgot a few things, so the babies clung to her while she was home. Saturday was spent pretty much just hanging out around the house. Griffin played a lot of Mario Kart Wii with Grandma. It just cracks me up how much he loves to play that game, and how well he does, considering he's only three and a half years old.

Saturday night was a really long night. Dina wasn't around, so the boys were distraught again. My mom and I took shifts staying up with them, as they'd only sleep for about an hour at a time. They both woke me up at 5 a.m., and since I had nothing else to do and no one else was awake, I watched the newest Battlestar Galactica episode. WOW! That was one powerful and perfectly done episode. I can't wait for the remaining episodes of the season as the series winds to a close.

The rest of Sunday was spent getting the house ready for the party that evening. Oh, did I mention Caden and Rohan's birthday was on the 19th? Yay! We had a little party with family on Sunday night to celebrate. I still can't believe it's already been a year since Dina and I made the late-night drive to Menomonie, WI, where the babies were born. Wow! Anyway, attending the party were Grandma Lynn; Grandpa Dice; Grandma Cathy and her friend Todd; Aunt Gretchen, Uncle Vidi, and cousins Devin and Keefe; and Uncle Guy and cousin Lizzie. Caden and Rohan got some cool new toys and clothes, and we had some good food, with cake and ice cream. Little kid birthdays are fun! I'll put some pics up when I pull them off the camera.

Keefe stayed at our place Sunday night, and I had Monday off work for MLK Jr. Day. Griffin was tickled...he adores his cousin Keefe, and wants to be doing things with him constantly. Keefe was a great sport, but I could tell he was getting annoyed at times. Dina took Griffin and Keefe ice skating Monday morning. We also did a little shopping, and had a visit from Dina's friend Christine and her son Aidan, who is good friends with Griffin. That evening Griffin had his ice skating lessons. He's doing pretty good; he can skate for a short time without the cheater stand (they call them "race cars" at the lesson), and whenever he falls down he always gets right back up. He is so determined to skate - he loves it! It's pretty cool to watch. Keefe's mom picked him up later that evening.

Last night Dina and I took the twins to get their one-year pictures taken. We went to Flash Photography; we've always been really happy with the results we've gotten from them. There were some very cute pictures taken, and I can't wait to see the prints.

Tonight - the season five premiere of Lost! Woo hoo! It's been a long time since the end of season four, and I'm itching for more. It is going to be a little draining watching both Battlestar Galactica and Lost at the same time...those are two of the best shows on TV, and they're heavy-hitters. I think I'm up to the task, though.

The Question

2009-01-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

It happens every year at one time or another, usually in the deep winter. It's happening now, in the wake of the coldest temperatures around here for five years, in which my car was impossible to start this morning. Hell, it was just barely possible to open the car doors.

Every year I ask myself the Question.

"Why the #*$%! do I live in this state?"

It's only natural to ask; I mean, sometimes this state just seems downright unfit for human existence. Skin freezes within a few short minutes of exposure. Plants are dormant, or dead. Animals are scarce. Machines do their work to wildly varying degrees of success. Birds fall dead from the trees. (Okay, I made that last one up. I've never seen it happen. But I can believe it could.)

I normally only wonder for a short while though, because it's pretty easy for me to focus on all the reasons I love living in Minnesota. After all, where else can you hang out in a major metropolitan area thriving with music and art, then drive half an hour and lose yourself in a cornfield? Yes, I love this state, from its fantastic hiking and camping spots to that Mecca of Capitalism, the Mall of America. (I mainly enjoy the people-watching. It's a human zoo.) Also, I have many friends and much family here, which means a great deal to me. And it is a great place to raise a family. So yes, it gets very cold, but the tradeoffs are worth it to me.

But still, every year, without fail, I ask the Question.

I suppose it's healthy to do so, because without asking the Question, I would never know if I could answer it.

And as long as I can answer the Question, I know I'm still in the right place.

Wrist pain sucks

2009-01-09T21:03:00.001-08:00

Since about mid-November, I've been having pain in my wrists. It came on gradually and has gotten steadily worse. It was getting really hard to do things like pick up Caden and Rohan, and sometimes hard to do simple things like pull my keys out of my pocket. Just before Christmas I finally went to the doctor, who said it was tendinitis. Joy.

Today I had an appointment with an occupational therapist. It was somewhat cool; the therapist did all sorts of tests to isolate exactly what the problem areas were. I learned quite a bit about the anatomy of the wrists. Anyway, she decided I should get a splint on my right wrist. She wanted to splint both wrists, but thought that might make daily life a little difficult. I'm glad she just went with one.

Here's the splint. It immobilizes my thumb and extends up my forearm.

From splint

In addition to helping me heal, it's good for spreading positive vibes, and for hitchhiking:

From splint

Hopefully I recover quickly. This is going to majorly interfere with my already scarce video game time.

The holiday whirlwind is (almost) over

2009-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

The holidays were a whirlwind, as this post will have to be, to catch up.

We had two Christmases, one with Dina's mom, and one with mine. On Christmas Day Dina's mom Cathy and her friend Todd came over and joined us for our traditional non-traditional Christmas lunch: homemade sushi! We bought ingredients from Coastal Seafoods (an AWESOME fresh seafood place), and United Noodles (an AWESOME Asian market).

On the weekend after Christmas, my mom came up on Friday and stayed until Saturday afternoon.

There were, of course, lots of presents for the kids, and a few choice ones for the adults. The gift highlights were a teddy bear that lights up for Rohan (from Grandma Cathy), a robotic puppy that responds to voice commands for Caden (from Grandma Lynn), a mini trampoline with handlebars for Griffin (from us), a kids' piano for Caden and Rohan (from Grandma Lynn), Guitar Hero World Tour for me (from Dina) and a membership to our local WineStyles wine club for Dina (from me). There were many more gifts and they were all appreciated!

We celebrated New Year's quietly at home by staying up way too late playing video games; mostly Guitar Hero: World Tour and Mario Kart Wii. Both of them are incredibly fun! The morning after a 3:30 a.m. bedtime is pretty rough these days, though. Oy.

And now the holiday season is (almost) over. I say "almost" because although we've had two Christmases and a New Year's, we still have one remaining Christmas. We're building a tradition with Dina's brother and sister, and their spouses and kids, in which we get everyone together for a weekend in January. It was at our house two years ago and was a lot of fun; last year was also supposed to be at our house, but the weekend of the party Dina and I got the best possible present: Caden and Rohan were born! That threw a wrench in the party plans for us, but I was told that everyone else had a good time. I'm looking forward to taking part this year!

Life is settling back into routine now; just how I like it.

Old band videos

2008-12-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

Some of my buddies have been digitizing old video of bands I've been in, so I thought I'd link them here. Enjoy - if you can. :-) There are some more on Facebook.com - join and become my friend if (for some strange reason) you want to see them!

Ground covering Harvester of Sorrow at Lundo's house in Benson:

Ground getting frustrated (mostly because of me being a jerk):

Jabberwocky plays Planet Made of Sound at Lee's Liquor Lounge in Minneapolis:

Jabberwocky plays Positive at Lee's Liquor Lounge in Minneapolis:

Jabberwocky plays Voodoo Lady at Lee's Liquor Lounge in Minneapolis:

Jabberwocky plays Emma's Song at Boomers in River Falls, WI:

Walking on air

2008-11-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

This picture was just too perfect...I couldn't resist captioning it!

My son has a hard head

2008-10-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend Rohan decided to give me a reverse head butt while I was holding him. He arched his back and smacked me right in the glasses. This hurt, and it also broke the nose piece off my glasses. D'oh! Thankfully, my broken glasses stay on my face, but they don't quite sit right anymore. I'm off to the eye doctor to get an exam (for which I happen to be overdue) and to order new glasses. Hopefully Dina can epoxy my current glasses to get me by until the new ones arrive.

What a weekend

2008-10-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

Dina had a Creative Memories retreat this weekend, so I was Mr. Mom from Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. Luckily I had some help from my mom, because Caden and Rohan had a lot of trouble sleeping due to teething issues. Caden, in fact, had another tooth come through, which means that both times Dina's been gone for the entire night, one of the twins has had a tooth pop through. Dina's theory is that they'll do anything to get their mama back. :-)

On Saturday my mom watched Caden and Rohan for a while so I could take Griffin to the Shrine Circus in Minneapolis. It was fun! That was his first circus, and the first I've been to in a long, long time. It was hard to get good pictures since it was so dark, but here are some of the elephants:

From Kids

The elephants were almost Griffin's favorite part. For him nothing could top the human cannonball, which had a really loud boom and shot a guy pretty darn far through the air into the net. Griffin thought that was just awesome. He was right. :-)

On Sunday I got some cleaning and such done around the house while my mom watched the boys, and in the afternoon Dina came home. Dina's sister Gretchen and her boys came over (Keefe is staying at our place for a couple days) so we all had pizza. The adults also had beer - Bell's Special Double Cream Stout. Tasty!

Speaking of beer, the final event for the evening was bottling my latest batch, Amarillo Pale Ale. A quick sip of the uncarbonated beerjuice revealed lots and lots and lots of tangy hops goodness. This will be a good one. Rob, a friend who is interested in brewing and was around to help brew this batch, helped me bottle. Good God Almighty, it goes so much faster with two people.

Bring on the week!

Griffin's first dentist appointment

2008-10-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday Griffin had his first dentist appointment. He was a little worried beforehand about the vacuum they were going to put in his mouth. When he first got to the appointment he would only talk with his teeth clenched shut. :-) But he watched me have my appointment, and that loosened him up. When it was his turn and he got in the chair, he was great. No hesitation, followed directions very well, and just did a great job overall in a somewhat weird situation. Here's a pic of him in the chair:

From Kids

The sunglasses were to keep the bright overhead light out of his eyes. The assistant really helped make it a positive experience for Griffin. I was pretty proud of my boy. :-)

OH MY GOD THEY'RE MOBILE

2008-10-13T13:34:00.003-07:00

Over the weekend, Caden and Rohan started crawling in earnest. Life will never be the same.

Lots of great stuff

2008-09-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

It's about time for my monthly blog posting...

Two weekends ago, lots of great times were had. Rhyno's bachelor party was on Saturday, and we went out to the Leinenkugel's brewery in Chippewa Falls, WI. That was pretty cool, more so now that I've been homebrewing and understand a little more of the process. After the tour we made the traditional bachelor party progression: first dinner at a restaurant, then some bar hopping, and then, of course, the library.

The next morning came too early, as mornings after bachelor parties tend to do. I rode back to the cities with Lundo and was back home by about 11 am. Incidentally, it was cool to ride out to Wisconsin and back with Lundo, because I haven't spent much time with him lately, even though he lives something like 400 yards from my house. Anyway, I did some chores at home, and then that night I flew out to San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld.

OpenWorld, for those who don't know, is Oracle's annual conference for its customers. Employees, like me, can come, too. They essentially take over the area around the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. There are hundreds of hour-long sessions on dozens of topics, both technology- and business-related. Long story short, I went to a lot of really good sessions, fell asleep during a couple clunkers, had some fantastic food, drank some good local Anchor Steam beer, and got better sleep than I've gotten in the past 8 months.

Did I mention Rohan and Caden are eight months old now? It's crazy. They'll be crawling soon, and then Dina and I will realize how much we've let the childproofing slip as Griffin's gotten older.

So anyway, I got home on Thursday night, and worked from home Friday. Then on Saturday we went to RyanJ and Meghan's wedding. It was great! Those two are perfect for each other, and Dina and I were happy to be invited to the ceremony and reception. The reception, as I remember it, consisted mostly of whiskey, vodka, and phone-bowling. Good times...

Dina, the boys, and I stayed at the hotel that night, and early the next morning we went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. We wanted to get there when it opened, and we did, which is pretty amazing considering how long it takes to get all three kids (and all the stuff associated with them) packed. The Ren Fest is awesome - I've been going for something like fifteen years now, usually more than once a year, and most years I've gone with Dina. Like the total geek I am, I went in costume, and this year Griffin went in costume with me. Dina normally goes costumed as well, but went for practicality this year and went in street clothes to make it easier to deal with Rohan and Caden. It is beyond cool to be able to share the RenFest with Griffin. He fell in love as we went in the front gates; there are a bunch of performers that interact with you right away as you come in. Griffin couldn't get enough of it - he basically spent the whole day talking to random people (both people who work at the fest and those who don't). Who can resist a cute little three-year-old in costume? We made sure to see the Fandazzi Fire Circus, which is organized by our friends Theresa and Chris; it was awesome. Fire rules :-)

After all that, Sunday night was basically an effort of taking care of stuff around the house that really needed to get done, then falling asleep exhausted when the babies allowed for it.

Wow, that was long and rambling. I must be tired. :-)

Weekend 8/23 - 8/24

2008-08-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

It was a good weekend. Saturday was spent recovering from our long day at the State Fair and catching up on some house cleaning, laundry, and other domestic activities. At the end of the day we decided we'd try to squeeze in a trip to pick up some necessities at Sam's Club and swing by our favorite swimming beach. It was late, so we were pretty rushed, but we did get our stuff from Sam's and make it to the beach in time for Griffin and I to swim for a half hour before the beach closed. Dina hung out with Caden and Rohan in the minivan. The swim area we go to is the Elm Creek Park swimming pond, a man-made sand bottom pond and beach. The water is chlorinated, but pretty lightly, so you can hardly smell it. After the swim Dina and I took the kids over to the "creative play area," which has the coolest playground structures around...bridges, swings, zip lines, tunnel slides...it's great, and Griffin had lots of fun and got lots of exercise. We stayed until the sun went down, then went home and had a little dinner and got the kids to bed.

Caden and Rohan didn't sleep great; probably because of their teeth coming in. That's nothing new; Dina and I are adjusting to having cruddy sleep at night. It's only temporary...every tooth they get is one tooth closer to them being done.

The next morning I got up and played bass in a church band. Pretty boring music, but it's all the playing I have time to do these days. After I got home Dina had to run off to a Creative Memories event, and my dad came into town. He stayed at our place that night because he had a doctor appointment the next morning. All the kids had fun seeing Grandpa Dice. After Dina came back from her event we all went out to Old Chicago for some yummy pizza and beer goodness (root beer in Griffin's case).

That night after Griffin and my dad went to bed, I bottled the batch of Scottish Light Ale I'd brewed. The oak chips that had been soaking in the beer gave it a very Scotch whisky smell. I'm looking forward to opening one in a couple of weeks to see how the taste comes out. Bottling took FOREVER though, since it was the first time I'd done it on my own, and I was using 12 ounce bottles; the previous time I bottled it was with a few other guys and with 22 ounce bottles, which sped the process up quite a bit. But as Ben says, the reward will be worth the work. Now I need to start thinking about when and what I'm going to brew next! Woot!

The Minnesota State Fair

2008-08-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

The day after my blood donating experience, my mom came into town and joined my family in going to the Minnesota State Fair. I love the Fair. I think I only went once as a kid, which is really too bad, because I think I would have had a lot of fun. As it was I basically walked around in wonder at how much of everything there was. Livestock, people, grease...everything in abundance.

Griffin, my three-year-old, had an absolute blast. First of all, he loves spending time with Grandma Lynn. But he loves pretty much everything else about the Fair, too. Highlights for him were the Kidway rides, the huge corn dog (so long he could hardly reach the end), the fish tanks at the DNR building, the newborn animal barn, and the butterfly house.

Caden and Rohan had a pretty good time, too. They love being outside, feeling the wind, and soaking everything in that they see - and there was a lot for them to see! It was pretty warm outside, so for much of the day we had them wearing only their diapers. It is amazing how drawn people are to twin babies wearing diapers! There were countless "awwwwww" comments from people. Grandma Lynn couldn't get her fill of carrying a baby. I'm sure her arms were pretty sore the next day!

We had my mom up for the Fair last year, too, and it's a family tradition I like and want to continue. I love the feeling of creating family traditions for my family. It's very rewarding and fulfilling. I love being a dad!

In Which the Author Donates Blood, and Lives to Tell About It

2008-08-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

(Note: prepare for rapid-fire. I've got some blog catching-up to do, and I'm listening to The Sword, which makes me type 150% harder than usual.)

Last Wednesday I gave blood. I've never donated blood before, I've only sold my plasma back when I was a college student. The last time I sold plasma, it was a bit embarrassing; I got light-headed after I was done, and had to sit in a chair for a half hour drinking a ginger ale before I was allowed to leave.

Anyway, my wife is a member of the Champlin Moms Club, and they organized a blood drive. My wife and I showed up for our appointments; we were among the first of the morning. After answering the exhaustive question list and getting my red blood count checked to make sure it was high enough, I was moved to the reclining chair apparatus. The nurse found a vein, tapped into it, and started filling up the blood bag. She was very nice, and even commented about my blood's nice bright red color.

The supervisor there was a small, thin, man of fifty-something years with a thick eastern European accent. That just shouldn't be allowed. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was a vampire. I kept my eyes on him. For a while, anyway.

I remember thinking about the frigid air conditioning, the annoyingly bland music they had playing in the speaker right next to my ear, and the faint sanitized smell in the air.

That's when I lost consciousness.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up...everything was dark and I heard voices saying my name very loudly. I was completely disoriented; I had no idea where I was, how I got there, or what I was doing...and it was scary. Eventually memory returned, and I realized what was going on. Luckily I had warned the staff about my previous plasma experience, just in case, so they were keeping an eye on me. Apparently I was extremely pale and shaking a little before they got me awake again. They had me drink a couple bottles of juice which had such a high sugar content that they immediately gave me nausea. I didn't retch, but my gut certainly didn't feel right.

I ended up taking a sick day from work and sleeping about six hours that day. I assume my body was hard at work replacing the blood that had been taken. I wasn't back to normal until the next morning. I'm glad to know that the pint of blood I gave will do someone good, but from now on the only pints I'll be dealing with are beer going into my body. No more donating blood for me.

Cleaning a Glass Carboy Sucks

2008-08-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

I've always been a fan of beer. Well, not always, but since I've been of age. Or possibly slightly before. Anyway, this summer I've started homebrewing. Ben and Ryan have both been brewing for a while, and earlier this summer they lent me some spare equipment and helped me through the process of brewing and bottling my first batch. It was a Copper Ale, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, from the serenity and wonderful aroma of the boil to the rewarding first taste a month later.

About a week ago I borrowed another friend's equipment to brew another batch with Ben and Ryan; this time it's a Light Scottish Ale. Over this weekend I had to crack open the fermenter to add some oak chips, and I decided that before I did so it was time to stop mooching off my friends and buy my own equipment.

I headed over to Midwest Homebrewing Supplies and bought a kit:

The kit contained all the basic supplies for brewing and bottling beer. I also bought some other accessories, like a wort chiller (very useful for quickly cooling down your beer-in-progress before putting it into a fermenter).

Let me just say that Midwest Homebrewing Supplies is an awesome place if you're interested in brewing. There's so much there to look at. I could wander for a long time looking at all the equipment for making beer and wine. I felt like a kid on Christmas when I drove out of that place! If anyone needs gift ideas for me, just head on over to their website.

So now I have joined the ever-growing legion of homebrewers. Should be a fun time! I'll post updates here about what I brew. Too bad for your sake, dear reader, that I can't post taste samples...

If you're not familiar with homebrewing you might be wondering about the title of this post. A glass carboy is that big glass bottle you see in the picture above. I used a borrowed carboy to ferment my Scottish Light Ale. Once I had my own carboy I siphoned the beer from the borrowed one to mine. That went fine, but then I had to clean the stuck-on dead yeast from the inside of the borrowed carboy. Look at the hole at the top of that thing - it's tiny! Cleaning the inside is no easy job. The long L-shaped brush in the picture helps, but it's still no easy task. Even though that part was a pain, I still enjoyed the process. I take that as a sign that this is a good hobby for me!

Some recent pics

2008-08-13T04:41:00.001-07:00

I had a moment to toss a few photos up

Rohan and Caden having a fun time in the morning

Tribal drumming...at 6 months

Me and my boys!

Pics from the 4th

2008-07-14T19:02:00.001-07:00

Grandpa Lee & Grandma Jean

Uncle Guy with Rohan & Caden

Watergun Griffin

4th of July weekend

2008-07-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

What's that? 4th of July weekend? Wasn't that something like ten days ago already? Quiet, you...I'm taking baby steps here...

Our 4th of July weekend was great! I was a little worried that it'd be exhausting, and it was, but in a good way.

On Friday morning we packed up the minivan with Caden, Rohan, Griffin, our niece Lizzie, our dog Porter, Dina and myself, and all of our stuff. It was a full load! Luckily my wife is a black belt Tetris master and can pack pretty much anything into pretty much anywhere. We left town around noon for Dina's uncle's place near our hometown of Benson, MN. Every year Dina's mom's side of the family has a gathering there for the 4th, and it's always a ton of fun. Highlights this year included fireworks (some legal, some il-), a huge freaking bonfire, having fun burning clearanced cans of de-icer, a 50-caliber rifle firing tracer rounds, helping the kids catch big fat tadpoles in the pond, squirtgun fights, riding the 4-wheeler, playing with the pet goat one of Dina's uncles brought, lots of grilled meat and beer, and good times had by all. Most people bring tents or campers and camp in the yard, but we decided to sleep at my mom's place in town, figuring it would be easier with the babies. Next year we may camp instead.

So that burned Friday and Saturday. On Sunday we went to my dad's place in town. My grandpa Lee and his wife Jean were going to be in town (they live most of the year in Benson, AZ, but drive a 5th wheel to cooler climates in the summer) so we were going to meet up. We only get to see Lee and Jean every couple of years, so we were excited about that. It eventually turned into a full-fledged family get together at my dad's, including my uncle Wendell and his wife Martha; three of my cousins, Dominique, Jesse, and Alicia, with their families/significant others; grandpa Lee and grandma Jean; my Grandma Fran; and a couple other people that I don't remember. It was great to see everyone. It's a little weird; I'm not all that close to my dad, and because of that I don't see his side of the family that often. However, I have fun on those rare occasions that we do all get together, and I'm glad that they get to see my family and vice-versa.

After spending some time at my dad's we again packed up the van and headed home. Lizzie rode with us again, which is great, because Griffin absolutely adores her and it makes the ride much more smooth (don't get me wrong, we love Lizzie, too!). On the way back, we stopped at our friends Theresa and Chris' house for a quick chat. Their baby girl Morgan is getting big, and is very cute. She's a few weeks older than Caden and Rohan, and I'm sure someday they'll all run around the yard together, getting into all sorts of mischief.

That was pretty much the weekend! I'll post pics if I can get my hands on them. :-)

Update on Big Babies

2008-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

Caden and Rohan had their five-month doctor appointment today, so I now have official weights. Caden is 17 lbs 14 oz, and Rohan is 19 lbs 12 oz. They're even bigger than I estimated!

The important thing, of course, is that both of them are perfectly healthy and doing great. Woo hoo!

Holy Blogging Deficit, Batman!

2008-06-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Has it really been this long since I posted anything? I'd swear the date is wrong on that last post. It couldn't possibly be this bad, right? Sigh...

Well, much has happened in the last 2+ months. The twins are getting big. And I mean big! They're in the 16-17 pound range now, and they're just over 5 months old. Big babies! They're starting to be able to figure out their bodies now; they're able to grasp and gather objects to them. They're still teething, but no teeth have erupted yet.

(As an aside, one of the reasons I haven't blogged is that I keep waiting until I have pictures to post. We've taken lots of pictures, but we don't always move them from camera to computer in a timely fashion, so by the time the pics are available to me, I'll be too busy to blog. I'll try not to use the "I don't have pictures" excuse anymore!)

Griffin had his third birthday on June 11. It's hard to believe that he's been in our family for three years already - wow! With the recent stretch of very nice weather Dina has been hitting the potty training hard with him, and he's doing very well. He's pretty much done with diapers during the day, although he still wears them when he sleeps. That is a BIG RELIEF. Changing diapers on three kids is a chore, and being potty trained frees Griffin up for many activities that he just wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

We had a couple of "kid parties" since I blogged last. One was a "come meet the twins" party (kind of like a post-birth baby shower), we had lots of friends and family show up, and it was a lot of fun. We found a great deal on an inflatable jumping-house for the little kids to jump around in, so that gets set up when kids come over now. We also had a party for Griffin's birthday (two actually - one early playdate party for Griffin's kid friends and one later party for family).

Whew - I really should give more time to each of these things, but there are just too many things to touch on.

My father-in-law helped me build a big cedar playground for Griffin with swingset and slide. It's sweet! And it was great to have his help, because I know as much about building stuff as I do about martial arts - just enough to get myself hurt. He also helped us fix some very crappy wood on our deck, which rules, because that was sorely needed.

I got together with Ben and Ryan and brewed my first batch of beer! (Other than the Vine Park beer I've brewed, which is mostly hands-off, but still cool.) I made some Copper Ale, and I must say, it turned out pretty darn good for a first batch. Stop over and have a taste sometime! Ben and Ryan graciously let me borrow some of their equipment, and walked me through the steps (quoth Ben: "STIR, mofackey!"). Brewing is great - I will definitely be brewing again, and plan to buy my own equipment sometime soon.

Well, out of time for now. Hopefully in the future I'll be posting more often with more content. Once-every-two-month cram posts wasn't really the intent when I started this thing. :-)

Pics from Coon Rapids Dam Park last weekend

2008-04-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

I finally put some pics from last weekend up on Flickr. Here you go! Also, if you want an RSS feed of any photo I upload to Flickr, here's the feed URL: http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=22696873@N03&lang=en-us&format=rss_200

Me pushing Griffin on his stroller tricycle:

Caden and Rohan in their stroller, with the dam in the background:

Griffin and Dina crashed on the couch after we got home:

Rohan crashed, too. Doesn't he look like an infant Emperor Palpatine?

Here are a few other random cute photos:

(other sizes can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22696873@N03/)

The sun is alive!

2008-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend! It started out a little rough as neither Dina nor I got much sleep on Friday night while Dina prepared for her Creative Memories event on Saturday and we both took care of the kids. We think Caden and Rohan are starting to teethe (at three months! give us a break!); it was definitely a long night and early morning.

The actual day went pretty well, though. Dina took off for her all-day event a little after 8:00 a.m., and I was alone with the kids for a couple hours. My mom was coming into town to help take care of the kids, but the roads between her place and ours (she lives about 120 miles from us) were horrible, and her trip took much longer than normal. She arrived around 10:30, though, and it was nice to have her help for the day. Dina came home around lunch time, and then she went back to her event while my mom, the kids, and I took an afternoon trip to run some errands. We met up with Dina at her event to show off the babies for a little while, then went home and hung out until it was time for me to go pick up Dina. Normally we stay up really late when my mom comes over, but that didn't happen this weekend due to Friday being such a bear of a night.

The sun showed its face on Sunday! I had my doubts for a while there...I was really getting into a lack-of-sun-and-warmth funk. Sunday, with its bright sunny sky and decently warm temperature, completely changed that. Dina and I took Griffin, Caden, and Rohan out to the Coon Rapids Dam park. My mom came with and took a quick walk with us, then headed home to make sure she was home before it started getting dark. Dina and I had Caden and Rohan in a double-stroller that you just clip removable carseats into, which is very handy. We brought Griffin's stroller-tricycle (it's a trike that has a handle sticking up from the back that lets an adult push and steer). We walked across the dam, which is always impressive, spent some time at the park's visitor center, then walked to a little playground and let Griffin run off some steam. After some playtime we headed back across the dam and to our minivan to go home.

It was great to get some fresh air and exercise with the whole family! We were pretty pooped out by the time we got home, though - Griffin and Dina collapsed on the couch while Rohan slept in his carseat. Caden and I had some one-on-one hanging-out time, then I put him down to play on his playmat while I dozed a little. I've got some great photos I'll have to post!

Now it's back to work. Mondays are so much easier after having a refreshing Sunday. Here's hoping for many more to come!

Easter weekend

2008-03-31T12:37:00.000-07:00

Griffin had fun on Saturday of Easter weekend playing with some water and food coloring in a squirt-bottle while Daddy cleared the snow off the driveway.

He also had lots of fun playing in the ball pit his Aunt Gretchen gave him. He even got Mama and Grandma Lynn to join in the fun!

Rohan got some good quality sleep time in Daddy's arms.

And Caden was showing off his grins and smiles to Grandma Lynn.

Here's Grandma Lynn proudly holding her two newest grandsons, who are all business.

We spent some time playing video games as a family.

On Sunday morning, Griffin got to hunt for Easter eggs and couldn't decide what to play with first from his Easter basket stash:

Later that day we all went over to my uncle Wayne's house and got to see Wayne & Melody and all their kids and grandkids. Griffin was a little shy at first, but he warmed up to all those people after a while. The babies mostly slept. :-)

All in all it was a good Easter weekend!

(larger images available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22696873@N03/sets/72157604332882865/)

Whirlwind weekend

2008-03-17T08:38:00.001-07:00

The weekend went off as planned. Almost. Saturday morning I called my dad, who was going to show up around noon, and asked him if everything still looked good. His reply? "Yeah, I'm still coming up tomorrow!" Uh...what? It wasn't a big deal, we were able to shuffle things a bit so we could hang out with my dad on Sunday morning, which gave us Saturday morning to just chill around the house.

Saturday evening we took the family to Reuben's place and hung out with a bunch of friends and friends' kids. Seeing my kid(s) play with my friends' kids will probably never stop being weird. It's like looking into a hall of mirrors where you see images of yourself, but smaller, repeating forever into the distance. Anyway, Griffin had an awesome time playing with the kids, and Dina and I had a great time with our friends, too.

Sunday morning my dad came over and saw Caden and Rohan for the first time. They treated him like one of the family, spitting up on him almost immediately. That's a sign of true acceptance right there! That afternoon we went to an indoor Equinox egg hunt (no wait...EASTER egg hunt) that was put on by the local Mothers of Multiples group that Dina recently joined. Eggs, easter bunnies, dozens of families with twins and triplets...with all those signs of fertility a woman could probably get pregnant just breathing the air in there. We met a family that lives close to us that has kids whose ages line up pretty close to our kids' ages; we'll probably be spending more time with them in the future, so that's cool. It's bizarre seeing so many twins and triplets in the same room. I was comforted by the fact that all the other dads there looked just as tired as I did. I'm glad I'm not alone!

And then, of course, Sunday night was D&D night at Ben's. R.I.P., Gary Gygax. The session followed the typical pattern of very little role-playing and a whole lot of hanging out and chatting, which was awesome. I managed to trade a bag of Cheetos for a six pack of Ryan's homebrew Irish stout. That's a win in my book! I left sometime around 11:00 p.m., and had some mundane stuff to do at home before I could go to bed, so this morning is a tired one. Hooray for coffee!!

Where did the last month go?

2008-03-14T11:47:00.001-07:00

Since I last posted, it's been a long month of changing diapers, staying up late, making time for Griffin, and staring at babies. I've been back at work, which means my time at home is much, much busier, leaving little time for blogging. But I plan to get back into regular postings!

Dina sent me some great pics today at work. You can see how much bigger these babies are getting! They're looking more and more like little people every day.

Here's Griffin grabbing on to the baby toy, Caden looking fascinated by it, and Rohan looking bored of the whole thing.

And here are Caden and Rohan being very expressive. This is great to see! They're starting to progress beyond the "eat/poop/sleep/repeat" phase. Woo hoo!

This weekend looks to be busy, but fun. Saturday around noon Grandpa Dice (my dad) and Great-grandma Fran (his mom) are coming up to visit for a couple hours. That evening, Dina and I are piling our family into the minivan to trek out to River Falls to Reuben and Carrie's for Halvard's birthday party. There will be a number of other kids and babies there, plus a bunch of the Jabberboard crew as well. Should be a good time! Then on Sunday night I'm heading over to Ben's place to play D&D with a bunch of other D&D nerds, in memoriam of Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons. I am far more excited for this than I have any right to be. I even bought a brand spankin' new set of dice for the event! And yes, the set includes a d12. I refuse to believe the D&D world has changed at all since I was a teenager.

What day is it today?

2008-02-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

When our twins were born, I took four weeks vacation from work. The interesting thing about having so many days off in a row is that there is no differentiation between weekdays and weekends; this means I usually have no idea what day it is. It'll be a little strange going back to work and knowing what day it is again.

A couple of good pics today. First, we have Griffin playing with his numbers and letters in the tub. He was arranging by color today, which means he already has a better sense of color than I do!

Next we have Griffin stepping into the big brother role, helping Caden keep his pacifier in. We have to keep a close eye on him, but he loves to help!

And finally my favorite - while my lovely wife was taking a well-deserved hot shower, I was in charge of the three boys. They were all piled on me and I tried taking a picture. I couldn't get much of myself in the picture since my arms aren't very long, but the picture of the boys is great.

Ben, Kerry, and the Gwenner came over tonight to meet Caden and Rohan. Griffin had a hard time sharing his toys with Gwen, but eventually warmed up. He even invited Gwen to help feed the kitties - and that's a big thing for Griffin! Ben and Kerry bought some cute Baby Gap outfits for Caden and Rohan, and Ben dropped off a couple homebrews - a stout and a trappist ale. Yum!

This blog worthless without pics

2008-02-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

I should have learned this a long time ago, but pics will make this blog much, much better. So on to the better!

First, a picture from the hospital. The five of us!

And here are the promised "first bath" pics. Here's Caden's bath, catching Caden in a moment of full alertness.

And here's Rohan during his bath, looking around for something to eat - a favorite pastime of his.

Lastly, one of the cutest pictures we've taken of Caden and Rohan yet. I'm working on getting this put in the dictionary under "adorable."

Holy time warp, Batman!

2008-02-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

Has it really been so long since I posted? The days are flying by, which I don't expect to stop anytime soon. That's right, my boys will be driving any day now, I'm sure. I completely subscribe to the theory that as one gets older time seems to go faster because each unit of time is relatively smaller to one's realm of experience. It's why when you're five, the time between Christmases seems huge (a fifth of your life!), but when you're thirty, it seems much shorter (it is, relatively).

Anyway, here are some of the things that have been going on the last few days:

Caden and Rohan got their first sponge bath. Total cuteness! (Pics coming soon.)
Wildly inconsistent sleep. Some nights the boys seem to want to nurse about every half hour. It's tiring for me, since we co-sleep with the babies, but it must be totally draining for my wife.
Food, food, food. I think we're finally near the end of all the food people gave us. I have truly never eaten so well!
Two of my coworkers had their babies, both on Feb 2nd. Congrats to Greg and Jenn, and to Aaron and Becky!
Yesterday Theresa and her New Year baby Morgan visited. Morgan is a doll; such a cutie! I spent the morning with Griffin at a huge indoor playground called Adventure Park. It was awesome, because it's set up so parents can climb around in the tunnels and stuff with their kids. I felt like a big kid myself. The best part about being a parent is how young it makes you feel! (Of course, reality crashed headlong into my body and I feel MUCH older today. Ah, well.)

One-Hand

2008-01-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

Did I mention I'm getting pretty good at typing with one hand? And not for the reasons one might expect from a computer geek.

Delirium

2008-01-31T06:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a couple days, because illness has been touching my family. A few days ago my eldest son was up all night puking. Fun. He didn't really understand what was going on, so he was pretty scared. We went through a lot of bed sheets. He seemed to be better the next day, but then he puked again the next night. And the next night. The next day (yesterday) my wife got it and was letting loose the floodgates as well. I thought maybe I'd avoid it, but, alas, it hit me later that day as well. Luckily the babies were unaffected (so far...eep).

The sucky parts of being toilet-ridden (to borrow a phrase from rhyan /djay) are well-known. The fun part, though, is that if you're sick enough you get to experience a taste of LSD-like hallucination. Yesterday there was one point where I was convinced I was living Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge. I had just crashed on the planet Labion, and all around me were wonderful low-res graphics. I was ready to go explore the jungle, but I decided to go back to sleep instead. (If you've never heard of Space Quest II, shame on you. Go here.)

I am pretty much better now, as is the rest of my family, but a part of me is secretly waiting for the next time I get to hallucinate from being sick. You've got to look on the bright side, right?

So I'm a dad of twins...

2008-01-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

On January 19, 2008, my twin sons Caden and Rohan were born. I already have a 2-and-a-half year old son Griffin, so just like that my wife and I tripled our kids. WHOA. I've decided that in order to process all this I need to journal some thoughts and experiences, which I figure should be an interesting read in a few years. Probably a good laugh as well!

My twin sons have been around for a little over a week now, so here's a quick unordered list of some thoughts so far:

The Births - spiritual and amazing. I was front and present for the births, which were entirely natural and unmedicated with no interventions - not a common occurrence, and almost unheard-of for twin births around here. My wife is an absolutely amazing woman!
The Babies - could there be anything more precious? It's quite a different experience from our first, which was amazing in its own right. Now with two little ones around there is an overwhelming number of quiet touching moments, as well as some chaos when both need attending to.
Griffin - he's such a great kid! His first words when he saw the babies were, "They're kinda cute." He's having issues with his mother and I having our attention split from him, of course, but he's working through it and I'm sure he will be a fantastic big brother. He's told me more than once that he loves the babies. Awww....
Lack of Sleep - this is tough. Keeping up with one baby all night long is enough of a chore. Two is a lot more work. Add to this that Griffin has had a bad cold (he was up all night our first night home) and an upset stomach (he was throwing up all last night) and it gets pretty rough for Dina and I sometimes. Luckily we've had lots of help from friends and family, which leads me to...
Generosity - I sincerely cannot thank everyone enough who has helped and continue to help us out with this transition. It's amazing how generous people have been. Coming over to help us with mundane home tasks, spending quality time with Griffin, bringing food - good god, the food...I've never eaten so well, not to mention the various gifts people have given us. It's very humbling and I appreciate all of it very much. Thank you all!

Well, that's all the time I've got for now, but I hope to keep up posting here every couple days or so. Expect over-the-top cuteness, doses of frustration, and probably some wackiness due to sleep deprivation. It'll be a fun ride!

Java One 2007: Day Zero

2007-05-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

This was largely a non-day. The four-hour flight from MSP to SFO was mildly interesting - the guy next to me was a software consultant, so we had much to talk about (he got me interested in trying out some object databases). My seat was annoying, though - it was worn out and would recline slowly without me realizing it; I would suddenly be hitting the knees of the poor long-legged woman in the seat behind mine. So I tried to sit forward as much as possible, which gave me a bit of a backache since it was such an odd position.

Once I got to SFO, I took a cab to the hotel. My room is a corner room on the 18th floor, which gives me two great views. I walked over to the Moscone Center, got registered for the conference, and picked up my obligatory JavaOne backpack. I've got three others at home.

I grabbed some Indian takeout at a place called Naan N' Curry across the street from my hotel, and used the remainder of the evening to get some rest. That included watching tonight's episode of Heroes. You know a show is a good show when an hour feels like too little time for the episode! There are only a couple more episodes left this season, and it definitely has that "careening toward the finale" feel at this point.

Tomorrow JavaOne starts in earnest for me. Let's hope the sessions I'm signed up for turn out to be good ones!

Can I sleep more?

2007-01-30T03:58:00.000-08:00

It seems lately I haven't been able to get enough sleep. I always intend to go to bed earlier, but there's always "just a few things" I want to get done before I go to bed. Of course, these things always tend to expand and fill up quite a bit of time at night, so I end up going to bed only four or five hours before I need to wake up. I'm pretty sure this lack of sleep is affecting my life in many areas. I know there are days at work where I'm not as sharp as I should be. I drink coffee to make up the difference, but the inevitable caffeine crash puts me on a bit of an alertness roller coaster.

I'm making a goal for myself to start averaging an hour more sleep a night than I have been the last few months. I'll start small and work up to a full eight hour night. Hopefully this will help me start catching up on some of that oh-so-important shuteye.