Al Gore says global warming is YOUR fault!
"He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!"You don't say...
I'm just a normal guy who was trying for medical school and ended up in finance. I'm not quite sure how I got here, but there aren't alot of hippie tree-huggers in finance, so I might stick around for a while. Other than that I'm spending time with my wife and dog, working out at the gym, sports (baseball mostly, but I'll settle for basketball and football), reading, music, and more. In the end, my free time isn't very free, so I'll probably do most of my posting from work. Hopefully they think all that typing is me actually working.
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Here's a gorgeous shot of Balboa Park from the sky buckets at the San Diego Zoo. The Fetching Mrs. Wookie and I took the Wookette and my cousin who was visiting for the week to the San Diego Zoo a week and a half ago. We met with the Wookette's God-mother there too. I think our little Wookette slept most of the time, but we all still had a great time! Here's some more pics, including the 4 day old giraffe!        |
| It's scary how time flies when you haven't blogged in a while... Everything's going fine over in the Wookie household, I was just too busy at work to blog. I rarely blog from home, especially since the little Wookette was born. So that really just leaves work, and since they'd been drowning me in paperwork lately, my blogging suffered. True only 3 off you noticed the hiatus, but we love our loyal readers here at Cake or Death, so I'm back. And to be truly honest, I really wasn't very excited about blogging anything lately. Nothing in the news was really grabbing my attention. I needed a jumpstart and who'd have guessed it'd come in the form of an email forward. The Fetching Mrs. Wookie hasn't been feeling well the past couple days, so in her recovery time, she sent out a few forwards. Some are political, some are religious, some are just fun, but one in particular caught a couple people's attentions which led to an interesting reply. The email in question was about, the Religion of Peace. A state employee was participating in a regular training session that included representatives from Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim faiths who were there to summarize their beliefs. Each got their turn to speak, and when the Q&A period came the original author of the email asked the Imam some pointed questions regarding jihad (holy war against infidels), infidels (non-believers), and who qualifies to be labelled as an infidel (anyone not Mulsim), and what devout Muslims are supposed do to infidels (namely, kill them). It was interesting in that the Imam acknowledged everything including the interpretation that Muslims are supposed to kill infidels. But it was the replies to the email that the Fetching Mrs. Wookie got that started the blogging juices flowing again. One friend replied back saying how emails like this promote discrimination and hatred, that Muslims are a peaceful religious community, and that we ought to do the Christian thing and stop such prejudiced emails. That got me a little fired up. My reply was as follows...
It's good to be back... |
| The Fetching Mrs. Wookie, the little Wookette, and I had to make a run to the local WalMart Sunday to pick up a few things... Diapers? Check. Baby wipes? Check. Deodorant? Check. 12 guage shotgun shells? Check. I think the funniest part was that the girl at the register didn't even think twice about it. I guess diapers and ammunition is a frequent purchase combo at most WalMarts... |
| I know, I know... you'd think I could've gotten my little girl's pictures up a little faster than I have. But hey... no one told me this baby stuff was so much work. But despite the diapers, late night feedings, and crying, it's the most wonderful thing in the world... And she's the cutest damn baby ever!    So for those interested here's the birth saga... My original post on December 21st that we were off the the hospital ended at 1pm when they sent us home because The Fetching Mrs. Wookie was only 1cm, despite contractions 3 minutes apart. Well I had called everyone that we were heading to the hospital, and by the time they discharged us, my parents had arrived. So we all go get some lunch, then head home. My parents leave at about 4pm and 15 minutes later my wife's water breaks. Go figure. Anyway, we didn't head right back to the hospital because her contractions had stopped, so we figure we can wait for contractions to start again in the comfort of our own home, or in the cramped, uncomfortable, hospital room. We stick it out at home until about 8pm and then figure as nothing's changed, we ought to head back to the hospital. We check in around 9, and the nurses confirm the her water did indeed break. We still don't have any contractions however and The Fetching Mrs. Wookie is still only 1cm. As a general rule, the doctors will want the baby delivered within 24 hours of the water breaking. At this point, we're still trying for a natural childbirth, so there are no drugs or IVs in place. Contractions start up on their own around midnight (I think they started around midnight... I took a short 90 minute nap around that time). Everything is going swimmingly until around 3am when our little girl starts getting shifty in the womb and rotates herself from a correct, anterior presentation (face down) to a posterior presentation (face up) more commonly called back labor. I had heard back labor was more painful, but my mother described it to me as the feeling of being ripped in half from the inside out. Ouch... My wife endured 3 hours of grueling pain before deciding to take the edge off first with Nubain. Then at around 9am, 15 hours after her water broke her doctor wanted to speed things along, since she was still only at 2cm. She wanted to add pitocin but as that would increase the frequency and strength of the contractions, she wanted to give her the epidural. We agreed. But as 1pm rolls around, we're still only 2cm dilated. And now my wife has a fever as well. Things are starting to look like a c-section, but then things start moving along rapidly. At 3pm we jump to 5cm, 7cm at 4, and by 6pm we're at 10. In comes the labor and delivery nurse, who ensures us that moving the baby down into the birth canal and the actual delivery portion can take 3 hours or more. That just motivated my wife even more. She breated the baby down the birth canal in 20 minutes and then began the real pushing. They actually had to rush to get the doctor there in time to deliver the baby. He walked in, she pushed twice, and out came my little girl. Well not so little actually... 9 pounds, 6 ounces, and 21 inches. And when all things were said and done, it was 39 hours of labor. And watching the birth was probably the most amazing thing I've ever been a part of... literally an undescribable feeling. It seems cliche to say it was the best day of my life, but now I understand why so many men say that. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes! Hopefully now some form of regular blogging will resume... |
| The arrival of little baby Wookie quickly approaches, and since the fetching Mrs. Wookie's due date is only a week and a half away, we figured it's probably about time to get the little tyke's room ready. So adios guest room. Hello explosion of lavender and yellow! The big idea was taking a mocha brown colored room and doing a 2 tone paint job: lavender and pale yellow. Then we thought, let's get real creative and add vertical stripes and a chair rail. Ooh and add a deep purple pinstripe on top of that too. That's a heel of a good idea and a hell of a lot of work. Here's how it went. Since I haven't posted in a while this is going to be a long one... After putting on a white primer coat with the help of my parents 3 weeks ago, we put on the base coats of lavender and pale yellow the following weekend (again thanks to the soon to be grandparents for the help with the paint job).   Not too bad... a level and some painter's tape and it was easy. The fun part was the vertical stripes. We were adding 12 inch wide lavender stripes to the pale yellow top portion, and the toughest part there was taping it off. Can you say "tape in a straight line"? If the laser level was off it was off around the whole room and the room was starting to look like it was spinning... Of course that could have been the paint fumes...   Moment of truth... painting on the stipes. We checked and rechecked those stripes. Seemed like everytime we looked at them they were crooked...   So off comes the tape and the room's starting to shape up. About time too since this was all from this past weekend, only 2 weeks til the due date.    I'm sorry, but that's just about the best damn paint job ever. And then we add the chair rail, move in the furniture and voila!! Cutest friggin' baby's room EVER. It may have been a lot of work, but I can't walk by the room without stopping and checking it out. Plus I've shown the pictures to just about anybody who'll listen to me ramble about the baby room that's straight out of a pottery barn catalogue, so I figured let's have my 3 dedicated readers have a look too...    So now the main debate is the deep purple pinstripe. Put it up or leave it as is. For that pinstripe we're not painting it on. My mom came up with the great idea of using ribbon instead of paint for the pinstripe. It's a lot less work... no taping, no leveling, no painting. Just sticking the ribbon to the wall. So let's get some opinions on the choices below...    So let's hear it. Pinstripe or no pinstripe... What do you think? Labels: baby, family, home improvements |
It was a beautiful ceremony... extremely moving.
I was lucky enough to meet Jeromy once, even if it was only in passing, and I was truly saddened when I heard he'd been killed by a sniper in Iraq. I knew how hard this would be for his family because of how proud his mother and sister were of him and his service. He will be remembered and honored for years in this area. Thank you for your service Jeromy. Rest in peace. |
| "I dunno... that turkey looks kinda tough..." "That turkey doesn't look so tough. I could take it in a race..." Labels: family, holiday, Thanksgiving |
