Wood Binary Adding Machine

This is super cool. I found it on the GeekDad Blog. I just might have to build one of these...



via GeekDad

C Fy and Crawling

So if your 2 and a half year old kept repeating "C Fy" over and over again, what would you think? Well it turns out what Tyler was trying to say was "See Fly". Recently we had a few friends over for dinner and I grilled up some Italian sausage, chicken, peppers and pineapple. Since everybody was inside and the grill was outside, the door was open a good chunk of the time which led to flies getting into the house.

Tyler has been less than brave about bugs in general lately. He also says "C Ahhht"... translated as "See Ant" which indicates that either 1) he has actually spotted an ant or 2) he has spotted a speck of something that looks like it might be an ant. For instance if I don't shave, Tyler will come up to me and say "Ahhts" as he points to my face.

In other news that most of you know, Alex has started crawling and has become a menace to Tyler's new train set. He also likes to pull the DVDs out of the new TV stand. All very typical 8 month old, recently "movement-abled" behaviors, but it has caught me a little off guard how many things that we've "trained" Tyler to not do that we used to have to enforce (like pulling all the DVDs out). I guess it's training round two. Hopefully Tyler can help out a little by showing Alex the lay of the land...

Mr. Wizard Passes Away

This was some sad news that I read today. Don Herbert, better known as Mr. Wizard, passed away a few weeks shy of his 90th birthday. I remember watching Mr. Wizard as a kid and it was always fun to watch. It helped to instill a sense of wonder about how things work and why things happen.

In doing some more reading about Mr. Wizard, I found this website http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/ that sells DVDs of the old shows and the old, old shows (I only saw the old shows... the ones in the eighties on Nickelodeon). In a year or two we may have to get these for Tyler.

via GeekDad Blog

Ashley and Tommy's Baby

Amber just posted about a problem that Ashley and Tommy's baby is having. I'm just going to post a link to Baby Brigham. We'll be remembering Ashley, Tommy and Brigham in our prayers.

Music for Tyler

Jennifer and I have talked a few times about what types of music we should play for Tyler, specifically while he's playing throughout the day. I recently read this blog post on the Geek Dad Blog called Music for Little Geeks (and their parents) which revived the conversation.

Right now we have some Baby Einstein CDs, the Cars and Curious George Soundtracks and Lightning McQueen's Fast Tracks. GeekDad suggests Dan Zanes' who shows up in the Disney Channel occasionally between shows, They Might Be Giants and others.

The New York Times Magazine said it well: “Zanes’ kids music works because it is not kids music; it’s just music -- music that’s unsanitized, unpasteurized, that’s organic even.”

This is one of the concerns that I've had. I didn't want music that would be annoying (Jennifer and I would have to listen to it, and probably oft repeated) but obviously free of anything inappropriate that Tyler might repeat (his language skills have been improving, such that he likes to repeat most things he hears).

So, I know that there aren't many people reading this, so I'm going see how well this works. If you have any suggestions, please add them in the comments.

Running Til it Hurts...

...which it turns out was about 5 minutes the first time I went. I started run/walking a few weeks ago and have been pretty good about going 2-3 times a week for about a half hour. I'm not really pushing myself "to the limit" each time, as it were, but I'm getting better at jog/running for a greater percentage of the time. I'm going for "general fitness" and some weight loss, not a marathon so I figure the most important thing is being consistent.

My cousins started a "Biggest Loser" competition a few months ago that should be wrapping up soon. I thought about participating (Jennifer and my brothers "encouraged me") but it was shortly after starting my new job and I had recently gained 10-15 lbs from the stress about the whole work/money situation at the time (being that I had just got let go from Aradyme) so didn't want to get involved (there was a $30 entrance fee).

Since I've started I've lost about 5 lbs. Hopefully I can keep it up and shed a few more pounds.

New Photo Albums - May and June

I've uploaded a May Album and started a June Album. See the links below!

May 2007

June 2007

It is Done Part 3

Well, the last step in getting my Master's Degree happened this past week, my diploma came in the mail! It was a little anti-climactic as it looks just like my Bachelor's diploma, but says Master instead of Bachelor. I thought it might be a little fancier, but oh well. It is still nice to get the actual piece of paper to confirm I'm actually done (you never know what paperwork might not get filed behind the scenes that might prevent that).

Here are links to some of the previous "milestones" in getting everything finally wrapped up.

It is Done Part 2
It is Done

You might be a parent if...

So I'm trying to catch up a little bit on some of the blog posts that I've wanted to write for a while. So without further ado...

A few weeks ago we went to the Park City Outlet Mall with "the uncles". We didn't mean to spend as much time there as we did, but that was mostly because Andrew and Brian wanted to go to more stores than I thought we'd go to... which I guess I should have expected. While Jennifer and I did get some stuff for ourselves (I got some new shoes and shirts, Jennifer got some more shirts as well), most of what we got was for Tyler and Alex. So, "you might be a parent if..." you spend a lot of time looking at stuff for yourself but end up spending more time buying stuff for the kids.

This experience more or less repeated itself at IKEA last weekend. We picked up a lot of stuff for Tyler and Alex quickly yet spent most of the time looking at stuff for us that we didn't get. Oh well, I guess we're parents, which is a good thing :)

Jeff on Blogger

Jeff has started his own Blog! Go on over and check it out. He only has once post so far, but this seems like a good way for him to keep us updated with what's going on after he moves to Dallas.