This past Tuesday I was supposed to be taking Kyle to daycare as Barbie had an early meeting that would last all day, and I could wait and take him in a little later. As I’m feeding Kyle that morning before Barbie has left, I ask her to take a look inside the Lexus and make sure there is nothing in there that I might need for Kyle. I’ve actually never done this before, but for some reason I did. Anyways, she goes out, checks the car, and doesn’t find anything that I will need for Kyle, so off she goes. About 30 minutes later the phone rings, and it’s Barbie. She goes on to explain that she didn’t notice the car seat in the Lexus, and thus I am now stuck at home with Kyle and no way of getting him to daycare in the Honda, since I can’t legally take him without the car seat. If I could, I would just stay home with Kyle all day, but I had a meeting to get to (3×3 basketball at lunch) . Unfortunately, there was only going to be 3 of us, so I needed to be there so we would have a full team. So, the only other option is take the Light Rail (Train) into work, which is just over an hour door to door.

As I begin to pack everything up, I remember that I left my basketball shoes at work, so I’ll have to have my buddy bring them to the court. Anyways, by the time Kyle wakes up from his morning nap, and we get out the door, it is about 10:30am. The poor kid is due to eat at 11am, so I’m just praying he won’t get cranky on the train. Luckily for me, he was absolutely great, and enjoyed every minute of the train ride. I gave him a few Ritz crackers along the way to keep his stomach satisfied, but he was perfect. Here is a picture of him during the ride (click to expand).

Once I got Kyle dropped off at the daycare, it was time for some basketball. Unfortunately, since the daycare is on the other side of the Cisco Campus from my building, I didn’t have time to wait for the Cisco shuttle to take me back and forth to get my basketball shoes, so I called up my teammate to have him bring them over with him, and he said OK. I then went over to the courts to begin stretching, but only wearing socks. As luck would have it, one of our guys who originally couldn’t make it showed up, so now we had 3 guys, and were just waiting on the other guy who had my shoes. As time progresses, we’re about 10 minutes past start time and the guy with my shoes still hasn’t arrived. We couldn’t wait any longer, so I decided, or better yet the decision was made for me, to play in my socks. Luckily the team we were playing was horrible, and we were able to easily win, but it took my feet another couple of days to have the burning sensation stop. At least now I have a good story to tell about how we won a basketball game with me wearing no shoes.

Finally, here is a quick video clip of Kyle and Kymba on our walk this past Monday. Enjoy.

 

 Kyle and Kymba on a walk [0:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The first thing that struck me about this book was the ominous picture of the author on the back cover. He basically looked like someone I would never get along with and/or basically despise, so I don’t know if that was the reason that this book didn’t seem to jump out at me. It could also be b/c the book I read before this one (The Camel Club) was sooo good that this book didn’t stand a chance. I can’t say I struggled getting through it, but I didn’t feel compelled to continue reading it either. It is had a lot of elements about it that would normally intrigue me, but fell short on the delivery.

The book is about a “button man” (a.k.a. hit man) who is hired to go the Berlin, Germany during the Olympics and kill a prominent figure in the German government in an effort to hinder Germany’s re-armament after WWI. Sounds good right? Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into it 100%. The book had a lot of “moments,” but didn’t seem to join them well. In other words, the “action” part of the book was missing. I must admit that the last part of the book got going, but by then it was too late to compensate for the 500 pages before it. In the end, I wouldn’t recommend this book as a whole, unless you like this particular author’s style. Of course, I haven’t read any of his other books, so this may have been the author’s attempt to try something new, but it didn’t work for me.

The Miami Dolphins are on the verge of being the worst team in the NFL. If I gave you a sheet of paper and asked you to rank them, then you might consider them a pretty good team. However, they are proving to be too old, too slow, and just plain bad. You could argue that they played two pretty good teams to start off the season (Washington and Dallas), but this week they played the Jets, who hadn’t even had a rushing touchdown in their first two games. Well, the Fins decided to give up 31 points to them this week, including a rushing touchdown to their quarterback, who is literally hobbling around due to a bad ankle. As the announcers said, it is hard to think they even have a playoff shot at all right now, and it’s only September.

As for FSU, well, they are supposed to be going through a full re-haul of their offense since the new offensive coordinator is sickened by the first 3 games’ output. He basically said we are going to find players who care about creating results. They had the week off, and play Alabama next week in Jacksonville, so it will be interesting to see if they still have Weatherford as their QB, or if they go with the more athletic QB in Xavier Lee.

Basically, this is starting off as a repeat of last year, although I still have hope for the Noles…call me an optimist.

Apparently, there used to be a supermarket store named Lucky, but we haven’t seen that name here in the Bay Area for quite some time. Well, Save Mart supposedly owned the name “Lucky,” and they recently acquired the Northern California branch of Albertsons. They have then decided to rename all the Northern California Albertsons that they acquired to Lucky. Unfortunately, this has not been so Lucky for us.

This weekend I went to Lucky’s, formerly our Albertsons, and had to get quite a few things. This was the first time that I had been to this store since its re-branding, so I was curious to see what the differences were. The first thing you notice, besides the change in the actual store sign, is that they no longer require you to have a card to get their savings. Albertsons and Safeway are notorious for this, and although you can usually just say you forgot your card and still get the discount, it was a pain. So, Lucky says no cards…so far, so good. However, as I start to do my shopping (thank goodness everything is still in the same place), I notice that the discounts they are giving are not quite as much as Albertsons used to give with the card discount. I also start to notice everything seems a little bit more pricey, not much, bet a dollar here, or a few dollars here. My usual barometer is a 12 pack of Pepsi. Anything that is $2.50 or less is a great deal, anything $4 or more is a rip-off. Lucky has them priced at $5.09 per 12-pack!

After finishing, I arrive at the checkout stand and start unloading, and I instantly notice that the Milk I picked out is leaking. The cashier asks the bagger to go get me a new one. However, it strikes me later after she has left, that I should have indicated to get the milk that expires on 9/24/07, and not the ones that are 9/17/07. Why you ask, b/c it is currently 9/16/07, and who wants milk that should expire in 1 day. I’ve heard that you are good for 1 week after expiration date, but you never really trust it. Sure enough, and I didn’t check til I got out to the car, she grabbed the 9/17/07 expiration milk. STRIKE ONE!
While she is gone, the cashier is bagging everything, and she has already asked me if I found everything I was looking for, and for some reason, she decides to repeat herself, as if she is on autopilot or something. Anyways, as she is bagging, I am loading up the cart. Common sense tells you to put the heavier stuff on the bottom, and things like bread, chips, eggs, etc. on top. Eventually another bagger, a guy, comes over to finish up as I start to pay. The bill comes out to a whopping $214. I have never spent more than $160 on any one grocery bill, even on a large run like this. Then the cashier politely informs me I’ve saved a total of $14 thanks to Lucky discounts. Are you kidding me? I used to get $20-$30 savings on bills that only cost $150. Obviously, Lucky is charging more and not giving as much of a discount … STRIKE TWO.
Finally, the last two things to be put in the cart are the Milk, and a big heavy Laundry Detergent bottle (Tide). For some reason, the brilliant minded bagger is looking to put these things on top of everything else. I tell him to simply put them on the bottom part of the cart, and as if I am mute and didn’t say anything, he non-chalantly tosses, and I mean toss, not place, the milk on top of everything else in the cart. I immediately grab the Tide bottle and place it on the bottom, and then grab the milk and put it on the bottom as well. I’m thinking to myself that he just didn’t hear me, but no harm, no foul. That is until I get out to my car and start unloading, and notice there is a bag, with not one, but two Ragu spaghetti sauces in it, that has been perfectly placed right on top of my bread. So I now have bread that looks as if it is two loaves split in half since the middle is crushed. STRIKE THREE!

If there was a Safeway anywhere near me, which there isn’t unfortunately, I would definitely start to go there. Lucky may be the new store in town, but we are not the lucky ones.

The last two days (Thurs. and Fri.) I decided to take off from work as part of something called FMLA. FMLA stands for the Family Medical Leave Act, which allows parents to take time off, with partial pay, to be with their kid during the first year of their life. I’m not sure how much time the Mother gets, but I know the Father gets 6 weeks. Unfortunately, I haven’t taken any time off yet, so I’ve got some catching up to do before Kyle turns one. However, it’s probably good that I didn’t take time off earlier, as Kyle and I get along a lot better now…probably more so for me as I can actually do stuff with him.

Anyways, so the last two days have been GREAT! It probably came at a good time as Kyle had decided earlier this week that he would no longer eat for me, and would just be stubborn about it. One night, I ended up putting him to bed without eating dinner b/c he was being stubborn and wouldn’t eat anything, including his food. Often times, he’ll deny milk, but eat his food, but this time he wanted nothing to do with me. So, with me staying home the last two days, he has had no choice but to eat, otherwise he might have starved, as I have a good idea as to where he got his stubborn streak from. Well, the days have been nothing but enjoyable, as Kyle has been great! We’ve gone out to lunch the last two days, the first with Yamo at the Cheesecake Factory, and today with Barbie at Chevy’s. We’ve done a bit of shopping at the Mall, as well as taking a quick stroll through OSH, although that was probably more so for Kymba rather than Kyle.

Speaking of Kymba, I took her to the Vet earlier this week, and come to find out she has gained approximately 20 lbs. in the past year! Everyone had said she had gotten bigger, but Barbie and I just didn’t believe it…that is until earlier this week when she weighed 100 lbs.! The Vet said she was a little overweight, but not obese or anything, and is “just a big dog!” So, we are going to put her on a slight diet and try to run her more to see if we can have her drop a few pounds, but nothing major.

Now, back to Kyle. I took him to the Lab office today so they could draw some blood to run some standard tests. The last time he got a shot, Barbie told me he didn’t cry or anything. Of course, I believed it, but just figured it was dumb luck on Barbie’s part. Well, today when the stuck him to draw the blood, he kind of flinched, then acted like nothing was happening. I was absolutely amazed! So, I figure he is either the toughest kid alive or just doesn’t feel pain, which is a bad thing. I probably wouldn’t think the latter at all, but I saw an episode of House, where there was a kid who didn’t experience pain. Apparently it is a disease that happens to a minuscule amount of people, so I doubt he has it. This is what I get for watching TV.

Anyways, Kyle has been great, and is probably one of the toughest kids around. Here is a quick video taken from my phone a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

 

 Kyle at 9 Months [0:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Wow…it’s almost a month since I last posted, and for that I apologize. I do have somewhat of a decent excuse though, so please hold off on your judgments. So this post is just going to be some random thoughts about things that have gone on, nothing really in chronological order, just some quick updates.

First let’s start with a Kyle update. He’s now a whopping 9 months and getting bigger everyday. He has actually grown over an inch in the last month, and still hovering around the 25th percentile for weight and height given his actual birth date, and about 50% for his expected due date. Unfortunately, the doctor thinks he’ll probably always be a little on the smaller side, so don’t expect him to banging down low in the paint when playing ball in the future. However, we have determined that is quite tough guy. He had a fever for about 5-7 days, and it would go up and down, and never really stay down. Then one morning he started getting a pretty bad cough, so that combined with the fever meant it was time to see the doctor. When Barbie took him there, the doctor was appalled that we had not brought him earlier since he had a really bad ear infection in one ear, a bad infection in the other ear, a lung infection, a cough, and sore throat to top it all off. Of course, the doctor couldn’t get over the fact that despite all these health issues, Kyle was still just looking at him and smiling and laughing, which is obviously why we didn’t take him in earlier b/c we didn’t know there was really any issues b/c he is just so happy. Anyways, the fever is now long gone, as well as the lung infection, cough and sore throat, but the Amoxycillin didn’t cure the ear infections, so he now has to take something slightly stronger called Augmentin ES-600, which sounds cool if nothing else. Finally, to prove that he is a happy kid, take a look at some of the most recent Kyle photos.

Now, if that last sentence wasn’t a great segway line into me telling you about my new phone, which I received about a week ago, then I don’t know what else to do. So…I got a new phone, which is by far the coolest phone I have ever had. It is the Nokia e61i, and it just about everything. I didn’t actually buy it, but got it through work. Cisco actually gave me two choices, the Samsung Blackjack or the Nokia e61i. After much research, I decided to go with the Nokia for a few reasons, mainly b/c it has wireless Lan connection, which means I can connect to my home wireless network, as well as the network at work, which is by far faster. It will also be able to do VoIP calls using Cisco’s network, which means I won’t burn any minutes when at work, and I’ll also get a good reception throughout all the buildings. Anyways, it is just a cool phone thus far.

Now, let’s talk about why I have been gone for the past month from this website. Well, it is mainly due to the fact that I came up with a new idea for a website, and have been working on it for most of my free time while on the computer. To give you a little background, I had heard of a site called PlentyofFish.com, where a guy back in 2003 had been looking to try dating online, but couldn’t find a free service, so he decided to design his own. After a year or two of continuing to work on it, improve on it, and basically continue to try and make it successful, he now has a site that receives over a billion hits per year (300 hits/second), and rakes in about 5 million dollars a year just by using Google ads. The most stunning part…he is the only employee, the 5 million is all profit.
Then I heard about a site called HotorNot.com which was started by two guys who just wanted people to be able to find out if they were hot or not, according to other user votes. They had a much quicker rise to success, receiving over 1.8 million hits by the 8th day they launched. Their only marketing was to send it to 40 of their friends…after that, it was pure word of mouth, and they now make 5-6 million dollars per year, although they have about 7 employees.
So, I decided that it was still feasible to make a site that was completely advertising based for profit. The concept was this whole Web 2.0 thing, where the community drove the content, and the website was just a platform. Since I am into sports, betting, and designing websites, I came up with the idea of WhoToBet.net. The site is about letting the community comment about upcoming games and let others know why they would bet one way or the other. It also allows users to vote on who they would bet based on the spread, so we can see what the overall user community thinks as a whole. Hopefully, this mass collaboration of information will help people make smarter decisions, as any new information about the game can be shared immediately. I plan on giving this thing a full year of support to see if I can get it off and running. If it is still successful, then I’ll obviously continue, but I want to set a minimum time of support for my own personal goal.

Well, that is about all there is for now, so hopefully this gets you caught and up to date.