Sitting on a House
The roof was a bit rough to sit on, but access to the Wii made it worth it. Okay, so I didn't really sit on my in-laws' house or it's roof. I'm sure you figured that out on your own, though.
Sunday night, we went down to their house so we wouldn't have to drive down there at 6:00am the next morning. That night I went to Blockbuster and rented Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Rabbids Go Home, two Wii games. SSBB Was for me, Rabbids for Ashley and her sister. They played their game first.
Apparently, for this game, there is a Rabbid in your Wii-mote that causes the vibrations and makes random Rabbid noises while you play. At one point in the game, it shows you a camera view as if you were looking in the back of it, through the nunchuck port and you see the Rabbid standing there. If you push a button on the Wii-mote, you see it pressed on the screen. If you shake the Wii-mote, your Rabbid bounces around inside of it on the screen. This caused several minutes of laughter. As did the loose lead inside the Wii-mote that you can use to tickle the Rabbid. Once the girls found that, the poor Rabbid was barely able to stop laughing long enough to catch his breath.
Smash Bros. Brawl is an awesome game. It's everything I hoped Melee would be (especially when i heard that the Gamecube was supposed to get online capabilities): Multiplayer, lots of characters and stages, good single player campaign and modes and hundreds of trophies and stickers to collect as achievements. In the week i had the game, I was able to unlock all 37 characters (more if you count the three Pokemon under the Pokemon Trainer and the Shiek/Zelda and Samus/Zero Suit Samus combos), all 41 stages, completed all solo events and unlocked Boss Battles and All-Star modes. I was even able to complete Classic mode with about 7 characters, one of them on the Intense difficulty and All-Star mode with one. I collected over 150 trophies, over 300 stickers and over 200 songs. I wish I owned a Wii and the game so I could unlock everything in it, but I don't and won't be able to until well after I get a good stable job.
Along those lines, Monday was my phone interview that was supposed to happen the week before. It went pretty well and I'm expecting a call or email soon to set up another phone interview. The duties I'd have at this job are things that I love doing already so I'm really hoping for this to work out.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, so there isn't anything else to really comment on until my in-laws returned from their anniversary vacation. They told us a little about where they went and what they did, showed some pictures and handed out some gifts. Ashley got a San Francisco mug that she loves, Caleb got a little toy trolley and I got a bag of chocolate caramel popcorn that only has a couple handful's left in it.
In other news, I'm planning out a review schedule that I will hold myself to. Every Saturday starting next week, I will post a review. I have dozens of movies, TV shows, books and games to review so I won't be running out of content anytime soon. Also, I am somewhat standardizing my own formats for each type of review so you'll get more than a single paragraph as I've done in the past. Instead, you'll get a bit more about what I liked in each item and why and a breakdown of certain elements of each item. It is possible that you will find minor spoilers in my reviews, but I will keep the main plot points from being revealed.
Anyway, I'm off to spend time with my wife. Until next time...
I Think I Missed a Few…
- December 2009
Entering Month #3 of unemployment. Oh, that's right I never mentioned here on my blog that I lost my job at the end of September. It wasn't anything I did or didn't do. The Navy decided to cut a bunch of contract jobs across the country and mine just happened to be one of them. Anyway, December comes and I know that it's one of the hardest months for job searching. Ashley and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we will not be exchanging gifts with each other, instead only giving Caleb the gifts we had purchased for him before I lost my job. But God is good and we received a gift that allowed us to get a few gifts for each other. I got Left 4 Dead 2 (expect a review of it soon) and a couple of GameBoy Advance games I've been wanting for a while. Ashley got a bunch of nice yarn for her knitting habit. Caleb got a bunch of toys and clothes. We had Christmas with her family and they got me a copy of the New Super Mario Bros. for the DS and an actual Buck knife. We didn't do anything special for New Year's Day. - January 2010
I realized that I had a few dollars in my PayPal account and decided to spend it on eBay. I bought a copy of Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria (another review to expect soon), which gave me 30 days of playtime on LOTRO. Booyah! Unfortunately, nothing on the job search. I do keep hearing that the market is turning around, though, and I have more hope for February - February 2010
February has started of pretty well. We got our Income Tax Refund which was a lot bigger than we had expected. I have a phone interview next week for a job in LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) development which is my specialty. I've seen more jobs on my searches, so here's hoping I'll find one soon.
I've also started dabbling in PHP frameworks and am currently working in CakePHP to build my image site. If this works as well as it looks like it will, this may become my new preferred method of web development. I'm looking at building my comics and forums sites in Cake after the image site is up.
In more personal news, Caleb is now 18 months old. He runs (not walks) everywhere he goes and babbles sentences in his own little language, all the while learning new words almost everyday. The other day he said "Spongebob" and "two bowls." He is up to 3 feet tall and over 30 pounds (as my dead arm can attest to after holding him for more than a minute). As I write, he is dancing to the music (tobyMac) on my computer and playing with his plastic lightsaber (*sniff* I'm so proud!).
Ashley and I have been watching a lot of TV shows online (since we don't have cable) lately. We recently watched through Prison Break (yet another review in the pipeline). I am glad and sad that I missed this masterpiece of a show while it was still running. Glad because I didn't have to wait a week for new episodes. Sad because I would have loved to be part of it's fanbase during it's run (as I would have loved to be in Firefly's fanbase while it was running). We started watching Criminal Minds which is truning out to be quite an interesting show, though it is very dark (even compared to Dexter, which we also watch). There's been a few times when we had to turn on an episode of another, lighter show so we could go to bed. It's a great show, don't get me wrong, but be warned if you are going to watch it that getting into a criminal's mind as they do on the show has psychological consequences. We also started watching USA's new show, White Collar. So far, it's as good as the rest of their shows that we watch (Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight). I'm watching through the last half of Battlestar Galactica's third season and I'm loving what I'm seeing. My friend was right when he said that from season 3 on, it's like a completely different show from the first two seasons.
We watched the season finale of Heroes the other night and loved it. I hope NBC keeps this show for next season as the ending was quite exciting. I love that they've brought Sylar around to being a hero now and not in the way they tried in volume 3, when Angela and Arthur tried manipulating him. Now he's actually made the decision himself, which is the only way it was ever going to stick. It was weird watching Samuel, though, as it was during the holiday break that we watched Prison Break and I kept expecting him to break out T-Bag's southern drawl.
On the reading front, I've been reading a lot of Tom Clancy's work (Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, Without Remorse, and Debt of Honor) and I finally took the time to read The Bourne Identity. Let's just say that the pen is obviously mightier than the camera for all of those that are also movies. Currrently, I'm reading The Bourne Supremacy and a new Star Wars book, Crosscurrent. It looks interesting for two reasons: 1) it follows the character from the game Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy, Jaden Korr and 2) it's the first Star Wars story I know of with time travel. Once I'm finished with those, I have Millenium Falcon to read on the Star Wars front and The Bourne Ultimatum on the other, then on to the rest of Clancy's Jack Ryan series that I own (Patriot Games, Executive Orders, Rainbow Six, The Bear and the Dragon, Reb Rabbit, Teeth of the Tiger).
So there's my big blog for the last two and a half months. I'm going to try to be a bit more active here on my blog and write a new post at least every week, if not more often, as I used to do. Actually, I won't try. I will do as Yoda said: "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."
Gobble Gobble
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
I just wanted to post a few things that I am thankful for real quick.
I am thankful for my wife. She completes me and I would be lost in this world without her. She makes me a better person than I am and makes me want to be even better than that. I love her and am so grateful that she is in my life and is my wife, sharing in all the things that life brings us, good or bad.
I am thankful for my son. Frustrating as he can be sometimes (read: most times, since he's a toddler now), I still love him and he reminds me not to take things too seriously or personally. Whenever I find myself getting too wrapped up in something I'm working on, he's usually hanging on my arm as if he's saying "Daddy! Come play with me! Take a break from all that boring stuff for a few minutes. I want to spend time with you and besides, you are always in a better mood after we play for a while." I love him and thank God for him everyday.
I am thankful that God has given me such a loving family as those two.
I am thankful for the roof over our heads and the food in our cupboards. These are especially important right now with me not having found a job yet.
There's a lot more, but that's all I'm going to post here. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
To My Love…
Two years. How quickly they have gone. Two years ago, at the time I am writing this, I was preparing myself for what is still the happiest day of my life: the day I married you.
Now look where we are. We have endured things that break up marriages a lot older than our own. We have a beautiful son. We have overcome all the obstacles life has thrown our way. We are more in love than we were two years ago.
I just wanted you to know that I love you now more than ever. You make me want to be a better man than I am. You give me the courage to take on the darkest of days. You help me to see my weaknesses and how I can become stronger in them. You make my life worth living. I could not have designed a better woman than you, had I been given the opportunity. You complete me in ways that I still discover every day.
I love you, Ashley, and I will forever. Happy Anniversary, my love!
Airborne Swine Coming Soon to an Internet Near YOU!
So… For about four or five years, I’ve been saying that I’m working on a new version of my site. Each time I’ve said it, I meant it. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow through. Not enough time, got bored with the design or just plain didn’t want to code. Now, I want to code it. I am coding it. I’ve finished the public side of my site. I just need to finish the admin panel and fill in some content and it’ll be ready. I’m shooting for May-ish, but no guarantees.
You can start looking for those flying pigs now. When you see them, my new site will be live.
In other news, I just moved Tia’s website to her new domain: www.capturedbytia.com. I’m sure she would appreciate you taking a look and be sure to contact her if you need a photographer.
Since I’m talking websites, I should probably plug my wife’s website again. You can find it at www.unfinishedproject.org. She’s got gluten-free recipes, a couple reviews and pictures of Caleb all up ons her site.
A Not-So Unfinished Project
So I was wrong in my last post. Ashley’s website will not be taking weeks.
It’s done!
Be sure to check out www.unfinishedproject.org!
And for the record, I am a website coding machine! Two websites in two weekends! BOO-YAH!
Crawling, Court & Websites
As of tonight at 11:31pm, Caleb is 7 months old. He’s growing up way too fast. I keep telling him to stop, but typical of a child, he won’t listen. The last few days he’s been sick with a nasty cold. It’s harder for him to sleep, eat, and breathe and he has a ugly cough. Does that stop him? Of course not. He has still picked up crawling. He now crawls and rolls his way to whatever he wants in out apartment and nothing is safe. See the video below for proof.
Also, his first word was "Tiggy." While technically not a word, it is what we call his little Tigger toy. Sometimes it come out as "tsssiggy" or "iggyts" or just "iggy," but his meaning is obvious. Especially since he is always looking at his toy and holding out his hands.
He’s taken to putting his arms out when he wants up now, too. It’s great that he’s finally able to communicate. It was heartbreaking, however, when I put him down for a nap he put his arms up for me to pick him up while he cried.
*sniff*
Ahem.
Anyways, tomorrow (read: in 8 hours… I really need to be in bed) I go to court for the accident where I totaled the Hyundai. I’m not fighting the ticket, just trying to defer it. If they allow me to defer it, I have a chance to keep it off my record. All I would need is one year of no tickets and it doesn’t show up on my record. Short of that, I hope that they will drop the amount, since, to my extensive (read: not-so) legal knowledge, it seems that the $550 is higher than allowed by law. Pray that it goes well.
EDIT: It went well. I got the deferment!
In other news, I’ve been working hard on my website. I’ve got a good chunk of the coding done (about 50% by my estimation), but I’ve still got a long way to go. This is easily the most complex website I’ve built and I want it to work as close to perfect as possible. Once the code is done, there’s the task of filling in the content. I want to copy over the content from my old site, which shouldn’t be too hard, and begin putting in new stuff. Hopefully, the end result will be a website that everyone can enjoy and lasts a long time.
Oh, and by the way, I’m not just building my own site right now. I’m also building an image hosting site, a forum site, a comics site, a resumé/portfolio site, a family tree site, a web design site and Ashley’s website. Ashley’s should actually be ready within the next couple weeks! The Image hosting site is actually finished already. I was able to code it over my four day weekend last weekend. Booyah! I’m a website-coding machine!
So… now I’m off to bed.
Christmas Stuphs
So Christmas has now come and gone. We had a good Christmas this year, especially when compared to last year. I thank God for my job and hope to never be unemployed over Christmas again.
Caleb made out like a bandit this year, but then again, he is a new baby and they tend to get spoiled. He loves his new toys and the ones that his Nana and Papa (Ashley’s parents) got him. The last picture in that link was him sleeping with his new caterpillar in his high chair.
My gifts this year were lots of candy and sweets, new sheepskin slippers, a KJ-52 CD, Brisingr, a new keyboard (pics below), some freaking comfy Wii pajamas and a Moutain Dew beanie. Ashley’s parents got me a Best Buy gift card and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. We don’t have one so I either have to play at their house or at the base recreation center, but that’s no biggie.
Ashley actually got more video games than me this year. She got Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 and Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force for the DS, and a mystery game for the computer. She also got an eBay gift card, the new Patricia Cornwell Scarpetta book, Short Circuit on DVD, a Shea Cashmere gift set with cashmere socks and lotion, and the David Cook CD.
Aside from Christmas, we’ve had quite an interesting couple of weeks with all the snow up here. It’s been fun to just try to get to the Starbucks in our back yard.
Caleb is now eating stage 2 foods, which are thicker than the stage 1 foods we started him on last month. He had his first taste of Macaroni & Cheese yesterday for dinner and he loved it. He’s getting so much into eating his solid foods that he grabbed the spoon from Ashley one day to feed himself.
Caleb Stealing the Spoon
He also now has his first tooth! We tried to get a picture of it, but the flash just reflects off his saliva and drool so much that all you get is a big white spot where the tooth is. We’re thinking his second tooth won’t be too much longer as we can feel a bump where it would be.
Anyway, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Happy New Year, too!
My Old, Disgusting Keyboard
New, Sexy, Sleek Keyboard
Wedding Photos and Caleb Videos!
So, after more than a year, Ashley and I got the DVD with all of our wedding photos. This is good, because other than the really nice prints in the wedding album, we don’t have any pictures from our wedding. No one who took pictures ever sent us any. Oh well. Now we have all the professional photos and we are loving it.
You can find the photos on my Facebook or here.
Also, Ashley put together another video of Caleb and put some music to it. Here it is!
Caleb’s First Christmas
Caleb has the Christmas spirit! See for yourself! Also, check out the video below!
Music
Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!
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SoC's Tweets
- Done with Lost Season 2. That was a confusing cliffhanger. Oh well.. on to Season 3 tonight!
- Me: "I love you." My son: "I know." Quoting Han Solo at two years old. *sniff* I'm so proud. #starwars #geekpride
- Just finished Lost Season 1. I guess I'm officially hooked. C'mon library, tell me I can pick up seasons 2 & 3 tomorrow... please?
- Halfway through Lost Season 1. Liking it so far.
- So... we are back from the "Camping Trip from Hell." That was decided by all to be the official name for it, so no I'm not exaggerating.
- Today we clean house and finish preparations for vacation. Tomorrow, vacation. Booyah! Thank you Dave & Becky for making it possible!
- Recently, my wife watched Lord of the Rings for the first time. Now, Caleb is watching Lord of the Beans and she wants to watch LOTR again.
- Anyone have a rhino killer that's not a giant gun or explosive? We have a nasty one running around our apartment, and it needs to die now.
- My wife just called me "old".
- If I were a shape, I would be a rhombicuboctahedron today. Also, if I were a number, I would be between a square and a cube.
