This was filmed on 1/12/2008 and is just me trying to get some video of Kyle walking. Unfortunately, he is not really 100% comfortable walking at this point, so he goes for a little bit then crawls the rest of the way. The fun part though is him once he notices the camera, because then it is go time. Just watch and you’ll get an up close visual of Kyle…Enjoy!

 

 Kyle coming to get you [2:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I was thinking we didn’t get that much footage of Kyle’s Birthday party in San Jose, but come to find out we got quite a bit. This was before he was walking on his own, but as you’ll tell in the video, that didn’t prevent him from going everywhere and anywhere. Also, I just got the video off my phone from when we went out on his actual b-day to have a chocolate cupcake. He absolutely loved it!

FYI…the one video is very large.

 

 Kyle's Party in San Jose: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Podcast Video [0:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As most of you know, I’ve recently made the switch to a Mac computer. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right cable to go along with my camcorder so I couldn’t get all the videos off for quite a while. However, this week that has all changed, so now you will be a bunch of random/older videos, the first of which is Kyle and Cole going trick or treating for the first time for Halloween 2007. Kyle went as Tigger, Cole went as a roaring Lion, and the parents all went as sports people (Referee, Tono Romo, Ricky Williams, and a Aggie Fan). Enjoy!

 

 Halloween 2007 [1:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ever wanted to go to Space without the hassles of going through Astronaut training. Apparentely you will be able to do so sooner than you thought. For a mere $200K, you should be able to travel to space for and experience weightlessness for a 4.5 minutes. Read the article to find out more, but it is definitely cool.

Virgin Galactic Tourist Spaceship Design Unveiled in New York

Everyone has heard about the superstitious rule that celebrities die in threes…meaning that there are always three celebrity deaths in a row, or very close to each other in time. Unfortunately, we have had two in the past few days, the first coming on Friday when Bobby Fischer died, and yesterday we heard about Heath Ledger’s untimely death. The sad news is that there is supposed to be another death coming in the next month or so. Of course, this is all superstition, but it seems to fit every now and then.

As for Bobby Fischer, this guy was once great, and then turned into a crazy man who thought 9/11 was a good thing to happen to the US. I actually liked Bobby Fischer a long time ago when I was a kid. My cousins had a chess table, and of course I wanted to learn how to play so I could be cool to, so they gave me a book on chess written by Bobby Fischer. I absolutely loved this book for some reason, and read it rather quickly. I don’t remember how many days, weeks, months that it was later after getting the book, but I played my cousin later and was able to take him down to a stalemate, which I was obviously stoked about. I’m not sure why it sticks out in my head as I was probably only 8 or 9 years old, but it just one of those things that is stuck in there.

Another fond memory that turned into a not so fond memory is when I entered a chess tournament at my Dad’s youth center. Not like I was a geek, but I was there playing, it was going on, so I said what the heck. I think there were probably like 10 kids in it, and I was about 10 years old, and they had a single elimination tournament. Well, I played 3 games worth, and made about 14 moves total. The kids kept falling for the classic 4 moves to checkmate maneuver, so I won a nice little trophy for first place. Unfortunately, my dad decided he wanted to play me for the “Title” and he ended up winning, and I don’t think I have ever won the trophy back. Every now and then he’ll taunt me with it and ask for a rematch to win the trophy back, but I haven’t been able to win it back after 20+ years, not that we have played in the last decade, but I still haven’t won it back.

I remember being a kid and thinking I was cool when I setup a bike ramp and would jump over it. I could never imagined doing anything like this.

I had heard about this book a long time ago, but finally got around to reading/listening to it a couple of months ago. The first thing you notice is that the author is the same person reading it, so it gives you a sense of feeling more involved. The author’s voice is very, how shall I say, “sad.” It’s almost as if you spend the first part of the book waiting for something bad to happen, and only after a few chapters do you get used to his voice as a normal narrator.

This book is about a Mount Everest ascent that went wrong, costing the lives of numerous people. The main character, Jon, grew up as a mountain hiker, but eventually settled down as a writer for Outdoor magazine. He eventually got the chance to scale Mount Everest on Outdoor Magazine’s dime, so he was able to finally try to realize his dream. He starts off the book explaining the history of Mount Everest and who first scaled it, while also explaining its lure and danger. As I mentioned, after hearing all of this, along with the author’s voice, you just expect something bad to happen. Anyways, he finally gets out there and begins the long ascent up with one of the most famed hikers in the world, Rob Hall, leading him and his group. It is amazing all the things that have to go into scaling this mountain, and how they would literally have to “train” on the way up…going up a few thousand feet, then coming back down to spend the night. They would stay at different base camps along the way so their lungs could acclimatize to the thin oxygen, as well as get them used to the cold and help determine who were the stronger climbers, and those who would need help higher up on the mountain.

As boring as this may all sound, the author did a good job of keeping it interesting by doing a lot of character development. It actually was difficult to try and figure out who was who for awhile, but in the end you knew everyone’s name, their history, their flaws, their desires…everything. I believe this is what made the book all the more impactful as you come to hear the end of the story when a blizzard catches many of the hikers on the same day as they reach the top, and eventually trapping them up there. I’m not sure how the author did it, but he was able to detail almost everything that went on with all the hikers in a very good timeline. He would give one view point from one of the hikers he interviewed after the fact, but then completely contradict with another hiker’s viewpoint…so you could almost understand how crazy things were up there and how panicky things were.

The craziest story of them all is about a large Texan man, whom they thought had frozen to death, so they left him and another hiker on the mountain since they couldn’t bring them down to the safer base camp. Come to find out, a few hours later, this Texan man comes stumbling into camp, frostbitten and somewhat bewildered saying he didn’t remember seeing them earlier, but that a light just clicked on in his head, and he decided he wasn’t ready to die, so he got up and walked down the mountain in near blindness b/c of the blizzard. Anyways, despite everyone being surprised that he made it down, they didn’t think he would make it through the night. The following morning, as the remaining hikers were getting ready to go further down the mountain the main base camp, they basically forgot about the Texan. The author, Jon, decided to go check on him just in case, and sure enough he was still alive and was pissed off! He had been cursing and yelling all night b/c his tent had broken in the high winds, and the tarp kept smothering his face and suffocating him, but since he was so frostbitten, he couldn’t move, and basically had to struggle for his life the whole night. Due to the high winds, none of the other hikers heard his screams. You feel sorry for the guy, but you are laughing the whole time thinking what this big Texan is going through and how he is now just pissed off b/c everyone keeps leaving him for dead. He eventually did make it and get air lifted down the mountain by helicopter, so all ended well for him.

In the end, eight hikers were killed on the mountain, and although most people would like to blame a single decision, the author is very good about pointing out that it was the result of a cumulative number of small bad decisions that mounted up to cause such a disaster. The book is very good, albeit humbling, and I’d recommend it to most.

Yesterday we went to a classmate’s of Kyle’s day care’s class first birthday party. Needless to say, Kyle was having a good time enjoying playing with all the new toys and hanging out with some of the new kids. However, the moment of extreme fun came when he and Jacob (the birthday boy) got to push each other around on one of the little push carts at the house. Jacob and Kyle have done this before at day care, but this was the first time we got to see it live. Below is a quick video I was able to grab of Kyle pushing Jacob and going absolutely nuts laughing (it’s a little blurry and grainy, but I only had my digital camera and not video recorder). They literally played this little game up and down the hall for about 20 minutes. We would simply change their positions, and they would keep going like the Energizer Bunny. There are also some more photos in the photo gallery with more pics from Miami, as well as some photos from yesterday. Enjoy.

 

 Kyle Pushing Jacob [10:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Kyle and I were watching football this afternoon and decided to say Hi. After watching and listening to myself, I begin to wonder why we as adults want to talk so strange when speaking with our children. I must say I don’t sound very manly, but Kyle is great, so I’m posting it anyways.

 

 Kyle Saying Hi: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I really don’t have that much to say about this audiobook as I couldn’t even get through more than a few hours of it. It is not really a book per say, but just a compilation of her writings throughout the past few years. Therefore, there really isn’t a flow to it, and it is just bash, bash, bash of liberals. It is one thing to be a Conservative and not like a Liberals view point on some things, but she seems to have taken it to a personal level. I somewhat enjoyed her first book (Slander), but this one was over the top and just became redundant. Sure, I probably got a few tidbits of information that may be useful in a debate, but overall the book was just bad. The book is technically about 13 hours long, but I could only take 3 hours of it before deciding to stop. So, take my advice and avoid this one if you can.