Another birthday has come and gone. This past Friday, I turned the ripe-old age of 28. Still few more years to cling onto my 20s. Traci and I had a party to celebrate my birthday and to celebrate the holidays. It was great to have everyone over... I'm guessing we had upwards of 30 people this year. It was a good turnout, Traci did a great job with the food spread. We spent over $300 at Costco on this years party supplies, but I think it was worth it!

27 was a good year for me. Here's a quick recap:

• Started taking guitar lessons to get back into playing my guitar
• Got engaged
• Took a 2 week pre-honeymoon vacation to Italy/London
• Spent 1 week in rural Alaska (Nome, Unalakleet)
• Got married
• Spent Several days at Disney's Grand Californian Resort
• Finished off a project at work (almost 2 years)
• Conceived a child (due week of June 14th)
• Turned 28, one year closer to 29

What will next year hold?

Ultrasound pictures from this past Wednesday. 13 weeks in and everything is looking good!

 

A Gripe about gift cards

When did gift cards become an obligation to spend the alotted money at the venue of issuance? There was a time that a gift card/certificate was as good as cash. Then the rules stated that you needed to at least purchase something then you could get the remainder back as cash back.

Now if someone gives you a gift card, you have the spend the whole amount at the store. No cash back, what gives?

What's even worse is that some gift cards actually expire! How is it that you can buy the right to buy something issued in the form of a gift card, and without actually buying something, they can tell you the card/certificate expired?

Personally I feel the act of expiring a gift card is criminal.

I found an article on this subject that is interesting. In some form or another, we may actually be protected from shops pulling the rug out from under us by state and maybe even federal law.

Sometimes you don't know who to complain to

I have a gripe about this 20mph "at all times" speed zone outside of Sunset High School. Two years ago the state of Oregon passed a law that mandated lower speed limits in school zones "for safety". The magic to this law was that any road that was 30mph or less in a school zone would be re-zoned as 20MPH at all times.

In my neck of the woods there is a fairly busy stretch of road that people use all the time. Prior to this law the speed limit was 35MPH, which was reasonable for the area. It slowed down from the 40MPH speed zone just West of it. Once this law came into play. The city/county/state or whoever changed the speed limit to 30MPH so that this stretch of road would fall into this new 20MPH at all times category.

Now, not only does it congest traffic, but it's also a clever speedtrap for the city of Beaverton's photo radar van. I may not have my facts straight, but I think the city of Beaverton was already sued for shortening the length of a yellow light at a Photo-radar intersection. These tactics are downright sneaky, and I don't believe they are for the protection of these high school students.

City of Beaverton Red Light Radar

Second OB appointment

Traci and I had our second OB appointment yesterday. It went well, all the previous tests came back negative, which is good! The real excitement for us was hearing the baby's whoosh, whoosh, whoosh heartbeat for the first time. It is somewhat surreal to think that a tiny life is developing inside my wife. At 12 weeks the mom really isn't showing. WebMD has some good information on fetal development.

Which Sci-Fi character are you?

If Anthony thought he was lame for coming up as "Harry Potter." I must be super-lame to come up as Galadriel. Not only that, but my personality is also very generic when you see that the majority of people come up with Galadriel.

Galadriel

Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Galadriel is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. You can read more about her at the Galadriel Worshippers Army.

First OB appointment for Traci during her pregnancy.

We went to the Portland Women's Clinic over at St. Vincent's today and had our first OB appointment. Things are looking good so far. And by the 40 week pregnancy calendar, we are 8 weeks in (32 to go).

Another worthwhile datum to mention... Today is our 2 month wedding anniversary.

In other daily highlights, my friend Mike and I made a trip downtown to pick up pre-sale tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld this January. We opted for the mid-range price category which puts us in section BB of the orchestra level (I'm thinking this is under the Balcony). I'm looking forward to it.

Rate My Life!
Rate My Life Quiz - Final Results

I just visited this site, based on Anthony's blog. Apparently my life isn't as good as his! I'd like to think that I'm just more of a realist.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.9
Mind:	7.3
Body:	6.9
Spirit:	6.8
Friends/Family:	6.8
Love:	5.5
Finance:	8.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

The Foo Fighters (and Weezer) come to PDX.

Traci and I, along with some friends were fortunate enough to see the Foo Fighters on 10/25 at the Memorial Colosseum. I must be getting old... 'cause it was loud, even with my ear plugs in. But we were sitting all of 75' from Stage Right. (see flocito's blog for a photo). Weezer was okay... the familiar stuff was much more enjoyable. There were two high-school age girls sitting... rather standing in front of me the whole time blocking 65% of my view. I am getting old.

Traci was tired, and left after Weezer. I didn't know that the Foo Fighters were going to be playing so late... but it was well worth it. The rumors are true, they put on one kick-ass show filled with "hit, after hit, after hit, after hit..." Dave Grohl's stage banter is good too. All you wannabe rock stars, take notes. This being my first Foo Fighter's concert, I didn't realize how many hit songs the Foo's have.

On Monday, I learned that my guitar instructor was also at the concert. He plays in a band called "Western Aerial". I didn't see any of this from my vantage point, but I learned that he was tossing demo CDs at Dave Grohl. I'm curious as to whether this tactic works for getting people to listen to your stuff?

Visited States and Countries.

I learned of this site from my friend Anthony's blog.

Using his rules for determining whether I've ever been to a state, you get this:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

If you omit, flight layovers, I'd have to remove Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Utah, Minnesota and Colorado. I'm also neglecting states such as Texas and New Mexico, which I know I traveled through as a child (~3 years old) but have no recollection of.

In terms of Countries... I have many countries left to visit.


create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Sheryl Crow in Portland...
I was fortunate enough to be given two tickets to Sheryl Crow this past Monday. Normally, I wouldn't shell out the $80/ticket... and I didn't. They were offered up as a late wedding gift from some friends of mine from work. So, Traci and I were fortunate enough to see her at the Rose Garden in their "Theater of the Clouds" setup.

Sheryl crow is most certainly a talented musician, and puts on a good show. You can see her set list, etc on her website http://www.sherylcrow.com

Seeing an artist live, really helps you to appreciate their music.

...News Flash...

Traci and I have some exciting news... we're having a baby! We are only a few weeks along now. First OB appt is Nov. 3rd. This is all very exciting, and we're looking forward to it. More later.

The Wedding Party. 

Here's the long and short of our wedding and honeymoon. I'll post some individual pictures soon. Thanks to all who came. 

My friend Anthony posted this Nerd test on his blog (http://flocito.blogspot.com). I took the quiz... and apparently fall somewhere between Computer Geek Wannabe and Low-Rank Computer Geek. I guess that means I've got some catching up to do... Nah, I don't think so.

mike hard at work

Here's a great picture of mike hard at work. where is that maytag guy?

Today is Sunday August 21st:
I'm now less than two weeks from my wedding. I've been in Chandler, AZ since this past Thursday for work.

My throat is healing... but it does strain it to talk so much. I'll soon run out of my pain medication (Roxicet - http://www.drugs.com/Roxicet/). We've gone to the Rockbottom (http://www.rockbottombrewery.com) brewery here in Phoenix twice now. Sadly, I was unable to partake in imbibing of libations... I tried a sip of beer, but it burnt the back of my throat. I had to settle for Rasberry Ice Tea.

I'm looking forward to not having pain associated with the most basic function of swallowing my own saliva... I'm thinking that day will come soon. Next Wednesday will be two weeks.

Now back to work!

Today is Tuesday August 16th. Tomorrow will have been a week since my UPPP surgery. The healing is going well. I'm able to consume more fluids than I've been able to in the past few days, and some of my appetite is returning. I made my first attempts at solid food yesterday.

My first foray into real food was a fried egg. I tried some of Traci's on Sunday, and thought I'd give it a try (besides it's good protein). Egg has been going down well. You can cut it quite small, and it's soft and fleshy enough to go down easy. Last night I wanted to treat Traci to dinner to celebrate her first day at work. Her only request was that we be able to sit outside and enjoy the nice evening. We ended up going to Baja Fresh (http://www.bajafresh.com). The best thing I could find for myself was a bean and cheese burrito...

The good part: Wow was it great to taste something other than soup! The flavor of the tortilla, beans and cheese was great.

The bad part: Wow was it difficult to chew and swallow. I did my best to eat what I could, I had to abandon the tortilla because it was too difficult to chew. As tasty as the beans and cheese was, it too was difficult to swallow. Each swallow was painfully laborious. I might be exaggerating a little but it's not far from the truth and of course hindsight is 20/20.

The result: It was good to get some more protein in my system. I awoke with my throat in much more discomfort than the previous day. Granted it could be due to the healing process... but I'm thinking I tried to push my recovery too quickly. So today I will be sticking to the tried and true; soup.

I am also going to attempt to return to work today. Since I took some of my pain medication this morning I'll have to delay my arrival into work, which is probably for the better since I probably shouldn't push myself into a full-day of work if my body isn't ready.

Thursday 8/11/2005:

I'm back home from the Hospital. Some of you may or may not know. I snore... not only do I snore, but I was diagnosed with sleep apnea last winter. The recommended procedure is something called a UPPP (Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty). In this procedure, the doctor removes most of your uvula, trims back some of your soft palate, and will typically remove your tonsils as well. You can read about this here: (sleep apnea description etc.)

I had my procedure Wednesday morning. I have no recollection of the procedure. The healing process will likely take 10 days. Right now, I still have trouble swallowing my own saliva. Fluids are difficult too, but it is key to stay hydrated. I have some good pain-killers... that put me to sleep too. With this procedure behind me, it will ideally alleviate my snoring and most importantly my sleep apnea. We'll see what a restful nights sleep is actually like.

Traci gets back from Alaska this Saturday. I'm looking forward to seeing her.

Tuesday, August 2nd:

I made it to Chandler, AZ alright. This is monsoon season here in Chandler. I stopped for Dinner at Jilly's American Grill for dinner (http://www.azjillys.com). It's a decent place, their niche is that each booth has it's own TV with channel and volume control.

On my way to the Sheraton Wild Horse Resort and Spa (http://www.wildhorsepassresort.com) I encountered the start of the Monsoon. The wind kicked up gusts of 50+ mph, then the rain, thunder, and lightning began. It was pretty thrilling to watch a storm like this from my window. It was directly overhead and was picking up steam (this storm was news worthy). The wind, thunder and lightning was so severe that it knocked out power to the resort and supposedly 1/3 of Phoenix. Power was restored at 1:40AM. Though I was exhausted from my travels, part of me was used to staying up that late coming from Alaska... that coupled with my desire to have the lights back on. Maybe I should've brought my headlamp and flashlight with me?

On our way upriver from Unalakleet to camp.


The view from the top just outside of camp.


Blassi teaching me a few new tunes.

Sunday, July 31st: Back from Vision

Today, we returned back to Unalakleet from camp. Only caught one silver Salmon this year... and I had to work hard to get him.

Vision was good this year as well. (some info on vision here http://home.gci.net/~eccak/biblecmp.htm) Seems like they have a history of organizing good speakers. This year's speaker was Ron Mancini from First Covenant Anchorage (http://www.anchoragefirstcov.org/STAFF.htm). If you talk to him long enough, you'll learn something that his "Sicilian Grandmother told [him]". Ron spoke on Hearing God, stated another way, listening for God. We're all busy people, and taking the time to remove ourselves from our daily distractions is a good thing. His message was refreshing and honest, and I appreciated that (his sense of humor was a great add too). It was really good to see many familiar faces from last year too.

I spent Sunday evening back in Nome, with Chris & Lloyd, and Jamie. Jamie, two of his friends (Josh and Michael) and I went fishing on the Nome river that night. We fished for hours and came up empty handed. The closest I got to catching anything was when I snagged a fishing line and pulled it in and found a fish attached to the other end. Unfortunately the line broke.

Monday, August 1st:
Spent some time tooling around Nome. Flew out to Anchorage and met up with Ty Norrish (a friend of mine from High-school and college) and had dinner at the airport. I got my 3 hours of sleep and proceeded to work that morning... got my stuff packed and flew to Chandler, AZ for the rest of the week for work... more later.

Monday July 5th: We did rent a car at the low-low rate of $75/day (Normally $90/day). We took the car out towards the village of Teller (approximately 76 miles from Nome). We stopped around 72 miles out where Traci suggested we stop and I climb a small mountain off the road. Though the "mountain" wasn't very tall, the Tundra is very misleading. Things appear much closer than they really are. It was fun to climb up to the top and check out the view. (photo at right). I could see for miles in all directions. The village of Teller was hidden from my view, but I did find an animal carcass at the summit. I guess I wasn't the first to claim this mound. Afterwards we decided to pick some Salmon Berries among the Tundra. Along the way, we encountered a lone musk-ox (below), and herd of musk-oxen, a Bald Eagle (unusual for this part of Alaska since there are no trees), and several Reindeer.

On our way back into town we popped up to the top of Anvil Mountain, one of the White Alice project sites. (http://www.whitealice.net/ or http://www.arcticflash.com/wacs/). Basically a cold war duplex microwave communications system. Afterwards, we headed out towards the village of Council, but only went as far as the "The Last Train to Nowhere". You can read about it here http://www.nomealaska.org/vc/roads.htm. On the Nome-Council road. It's basically a relic of the Gold Rush Days.

Tomorrow, we're off to Vision in Unalakleet at the Covenant Bible Camp.

I'm currently in Nome, Alaska. From Portland, it's about 5.5 hours of flying, and with all the layovers it works out to be 11 hours of traveling. Traci and I got to sleep for an hour or two on a bench in the Anchorage airport. Once again, we are blessed to have good weather and great host. We've been staying with our friends Chris and Lloyd Perrigo who live along seawall here in Nome. (I'll post pictures when I get back).

Sunday evening, we made a spur of the moment trip to Salmon lake (picture at right). It's about 35 miles outside of Nome. Mostly on gravel roads, which makes it about an hour trip. We left around 9PM (still plenty of daylight). It's a beutiful lake in which salmon return to spawn. There we cast out a net to bring in some Sockeye Salmon and brought in 12. (picture below)

Chris and Lloyd bringing in Salmon from the dip net.

Today, the plans are to rent a car and make a trip out to White Alice among other sites. There's limited road here, but it should be a great day of sight-seeing and experiencing more of Western Alaska.

Watch out this halloween... 

Traci in Monte Rosso al Mare. 

The red moped makes the picture... otherwise it'd just be another alleyway. 

Woo hoo, Starbucks... and my Starbucks City Mugs. 

Westminster Cathedral. 

Big Ben. 

Chris in Picadilly Circus 

Traci and I on our terrace. 

The Campo during the day 

Il Campo, Siena at night. 

Ponte Vecchio. The only bridge in Florence spared by Hitler during their retreat from Italy.