10 Years at The Company

"Best of Pics": Continuing on with the series of "best of pictures"...here are a few more. Today I chose to theme it up with some nature shots. The first (rock in foreground) was taken atop Vail mountain in CO. It was a great weekend thanks to the gracious generosity of Flogger - who lets us occasionally use her timeshare in Vail. The picture is looking South across the valley at Holy Cross Mountain. The second two were taken in Oregon on some hiking trail between the Tillamook air museum and Newport. I am sure we have the name of the trail written down somewhere but not going to go fishing for that tonight...The trail was pretty easy and the falls at the end were really impressive. I especially liked the water running through the hollowed out log...that was pretty neat. Anyway...I have a whole series of lighthouse pictures from the entire OR coastline...sometime I will put all that up. [For those who have not figured this out yet...you can click on any photo for a much larger image...none are full resolution as I knock 'em down for uploading but still you can see much more detail]

10 years: So a few weeks ago was my 10 year anniversary at The Company. The was it works is that every 5 year major milestone you get an "award". This all seems nice until you start looking at the "awards". There is always the token craptacular watch with The Company logo emblazened across the face or some cheap wall clock (which by the way was what I ended up with for my 5 year). But then I noticed a few "interesting" items. First was a golf club set...so I said to myself "self, this looks promising". Well, upon clicking for more details I found out that it was just a driver...hmmm...retail value of ~$80. Then I look at a telescope which looks promising...again upon closer inspection it is the cheap knockoff of the good one...retail value ~$90. Then I look at the final item of interest...a radio scanner...looks ok, its nothing I will ever buy for myself...~$90...ok I'll take it. Well I got it and its also a piece of crap...quite useless as it does not support digital transmissions or trunking. About the only thing that I get loud and clear is the baby monitor in Kade's room...uh, note to self...that is not so secure ;-) So I guess the moral of the story is...The Company pretty much values their employees to the tune of about $10 per year...makes me all warm inside just thinking about it!

'When is grandma-Judy coming back?"

Sorry about the lag...but between illness and the weekends festivities there has been no time. So here is a longer one covering most of the action...

Grandma Judy's Visit: So in her regular tradition, Grandma Judy made the quick trip out for Kade's birthday. It was a nice trip and the kids really enjoyed having her around especially Kade. He really put her to the test keeping her busy playing castle, cars, kitchen and other various games. Here are a few pics of her and the kiddos having a good time. And then she was off as fast as she came...next visit is in May ;-)

The big Penguin Party: So Kade's 3 year birthday party in CO was this weekend. In an effort to integrate the lovely weather that we have had lately we decided to make it a winter party theme with the main event being a trip to the local sled hill. It was an absolute blast and I can honestly say that everyone appeared to have a great time. I have attached some pictures here just so you can see for yourself...Thanks to grandma Judy for slogging the 7 disk sleds out from CT...they were an absolute hit with the kids and adults as they were the fastest sleds on the hill! (I will post about the camera taking these pictures...our new digital Canon XTi camera with 300mm lens soon...it is awesome! I plan to do some comparison test shots with our 4 cameras)



Bloody Mary: Now for those of you following along, most of the Cavitation family has been a bit under the weather lately. Rob decided to power his way through the penguin party with the help of our old friend Mary. Given the fact that I can not taste a thing, Mary really fit the bill. If you just add enough Tabasco sauce...then you can actually feel the drink - clears the sinuses too...bonus!! Add in a bit of our friend Mr. Robitussin and you pretty much have yourself the perfect 6 hour solution to a serious head cold.


The Cake: Every year Jen and I make it a point to try and make a special cake for the kiddo's birthday. Once the theme is chosen...Rob makes it his mission to find a way to bring that to life. This year was no exception and the resultant was "Kade's Sledding Hill - 2007" - in accordance with our winter sledding party theme. Here are a few pictures showing the creation. Please note the tobogganers flying through the air at the bottom of the hill and the tuber stuck head first in the hill just below the sled ramp ;-) Ingredients:

• Mountain and ski/sled ramp: White Funfetti® cake
• Snow: White frosting, coconut and sugar
• Tubers: Gummy bears and gummy life savers
• Tobboganers: Gummy bears and blueberry tape gum

For those of you who have not seen the creation from last year..."Kade's Engine and M&M tender - 2006"...here is a quick picture. It was built using yellow cake with chocolate frosting, twizzlers, graham cracker sticks, M&Ms, chocolate cupcakes, marshmallows, gumdrops and various food coloring colored frostings.

Kade Sayings: From the mouth of our 3 year old...

• Chinese Restaurant: After the madness of the "Penguin party", we all decided to opt out of making dinner and brave the cold. We finally landed at a local Chinese restaurant where there is never a wait (a real plus with a 3 year old and a cranky dad). The food came out quick and given my inability to taste anything (due to this damned cold) the food was quite good!! While Kade and I were going through the contents of my soup, we found one of those baby corn things. Kade immediately grabbed it, looked at it and proclaimed that is was in fact corn. While I basked in the glory of having such a brilliant son...he then proceeded to tell me that "little corn comes from a cow's butt". And there you have it - the truth behind the little corn.
• Grandma-Judy: So this morning was the first morning without Grandma Judy at the house. Kade was following his typical routine of watching cartoons while I took my shower. Then we went downstairs for breakfast. When we were halfway down the stairs Kade looked at me and asked "When is grandma-Judy coming back?". So ma, I guess you know where you stand now ;-) That afternoon of laying on your back trying to get into the castle WAS worth it after all...now where are those damned Doan's pills.
• The other night when we were returning from the Chinese restaurant Payton started crying in the car. Kade turned to her and said "Oh sweetie [pause] it's OK, we are almost home". That one must have come from Jen ;-)
• Finally, this morning I woke up and found Jen on my side of the bed and Kade taking up the other side of the bed. Payton was starting to stir so I got up to go get her before she started crying. Once I got in there and put her on her changing table, she saw her bottle from the previous night. Seeing as she has no patience when it comes to food - she immediately had a breakdown because I would not let her have the 12hr old bottle. Much to my surprise, Kade was running own the hallway at a full sprint...seeing as he was just out cold a minute before. Jen was laughing and she informed me that Kade (upon hearing Payton crying) had woken up, rolled out of bed, looked at her, said "Payton NEEDS me" and then bolted out the door. Too funny!

It is late and I did not proof read everything above...so there are probably mistakes...eso es la vida!

Starbucks Coffee for the mini-me...

Kade's Coffee: So a quick post about a funny thing that happened yesterday. Kade and I went to get his haircut yesterday at costcutters (seeing as I do not believe in paying the $17 for a kids haircut at cool cuts for kids). Kade sat there like a big boy and only occasionally moved due to being "tickled". After, we decided to walk over to Safeway and see if they had any remaining clearance toys - as we have found some Geotrax on clearance there before...and Geotrax is pretty much the coolest :-) Alas, the Safeway did not have any toys but we did pick up some chocolate teddy grahams as a "reward" (since we needed some anyway). Then we walked over to the Starbucks stand to get something for the drive home. Well, they had some little sample cups of their latest contraption...the Cinnamon Dolce Latte (360 calories and 15 grams of fat). Since they were approaching cold and it was in a little cup I grabbed one for the Kade-man. Then we sat down at the bar and Kade proceeded to drink his coffee, eat his chocolate teddy-biscotti-grahams and tell me which carts were "coming to the store", which were going "bye-bye" and which ones were "REALLY full". He was very excited and the man sitting at the table next to us was laughing along with me. I really with I had a camera because Kade's smile was infectious...he really enjoyed sitting and drinking coffee with dad (dad's drink of the day: white chocolate mocha w/ 510 calories and 24g fat...ouch). Maybe dad should re-think that one.

>> One addition: Jen reminded me that I forgot to mention how PROUD Kade was to be sitting in a big chair having his coffee...his head was held high and he had the biggest grin on his face you ever did see ;-)

3rd Day at School

Return to School: Tuesday was Kade's third day back at school. He was doing great while we were getting ready to go and when we first got into the car. Then he asked for me to play his "cartoons" (a.k.a., Backyardigan's CD) which he usually sing's happily with in the back seat...well, this time he wasn't singing at all. Let the apprehension begin. Then we finally get to school and as soon as we enter the front door...the meltdown begins. Luckily the teacher and I were able to distract him long enough for dad to make a clean get-away! His bud Zack was there too which apparently helped throughout the day. The teacher said that once he settled in, he actually did pretty good...whew! Once we picked him up from school he was in pretty good spirits and said he wants to go back. He is always talking about the "big gym" and how they get to play football or "soccer monster". For those of you who don't follow the Backyardigans, that is from one of their episodes...

Monster Detective: PABLO is a noisy but lonely Soccer-Ball-Monster who hordes soccer balls in his castle's gym. TYRONE is a no-nonsense, Dragnet-style Detective. He and his client, UNIQUA, must brave the Monster's Castle and rescue UNIQUA'S kidnapped soccer ball. 60's Rock underscores this action- packed investigation. Will they get the job done without being turned into Monsters themselves?

But I digress. All in all, it appears that we may be making some headway...hopefully. It does appear that mom taking him to school works better. Probably because the first go around with daycare it was always me who took him...

GMAIL: Jen and I both have had email accounts through my web hosting service for our family website cavinet.com. Our main complaints regarding this service had been two fold. First, SPAM!!! The spam explosion is unstoppable and I could not keep up with it. I tried both server based blockers as well as client based blockers but both were just a pain to maintain and generally failed. The second is PC migration. I tend to rebuild our systems about every year (I will be doing Jen's in another week or so...maybe I will publish directions as I do it...) and migrating email is a MAJOR headache due to Outlooks clunky import/export mechanisms. As such, I looked at multiple options and settled on GMAIL..."the Google's" email service. I know that many of you already have gmail accounts but for those who don't...it is really great.

1. Their spam filters are wonderful. They immediately started catching about 90% of my spam and with their "report spam" button they are now catching about 98% of my spam with little to no effort (Jen really likes this a lot).
   
2. There are no migration problems as everything is stored online so you can easily access your email from any computer!
   
3. They do not have "folders"! I really hate having to move email to folders because to me that takes too much thought and ultimately you get it wrong and end up searching forever to find that email you misplaced. Obviously "the Google" has the technology to make that problem go away...basically you just dump all your email into one archive directory and then you just search for what you want. You would be surprised just how easy it is to pull things back out.
   
4. It is free and has no annoying pop-ups (although there are ads on the sidebar but those don't seem to bother me).

And conversion is a snap...all I do is forward our email from *@cavinet.com over to *@gmail.com and we don't miss a beat...easy as pie. Gotta run...Payton is calling.

PS - message from Payton (who wants to type): uhj bbbbbbb trchyubnuhy yhhu uuuu uj. And there you have it, Payton's first JOURNAL entry ;-)

Could the mother-in-law be right?

Imagine the horror ;-)

So a little while ago Jen and here mother were having a conversation about blogs. She had heard of ours, visited it and was left asking herself....huh? Now, truth be told, she is not the only one who has asked me why I would spend time doing this...but she was the only one who described it as "his online diary". (Oh, I know she is blushing now) At first, I laughed it off not thinking too much about it...since in reality I simply started this as an easier way to pass along updates to the family (the static website was just a little too much for me and blogger makes it pretty darn easy). But it didn't take me too long to quickly devolve into rants about non-family stuff...note the first blog was already starting the trend. So I guess...[pause for effect]...this HAS become in effect an online diary (henceforth to be called a journal). Shock...horror, the mother-in-law was right ;-)

Now, having said that...an interesting thing happened along with that discovery. Besides the fact that I quickly replaced the work diary with journal (as somehow journal is less sissy) [insert snarky comment from CherkyB here] I also realized what it means to have a journal. The most important element of journaling (and thus blogging) is the actual process of evaluating your experiences and distilling them down to something which is important enough to write down. Ouch...my head is starting to hurt...

The most interesting consequence of the blogging experience so far has easily been the way it has changed the way I see the world. Before I was always seeing things from the participant role. Now I find myself more frequently stepping outside and looking at life from an observer role....thinking "how would you tell people about this story/event...what are you seeing...what are you hearing...etc". This seems simple and insignificant but it is not! You really do see things differently when you step outside for a minute. The biggest change I notice is the ability to see things with less of a bias. This actually comes in quite handy with the kiddos as you can laugh a little more at the quirky things they do...and it also comes in handy with the spouse as you can better understand where they are coming from (even if you still disagree with their conclusion). Once I started seeing things this way...I gained a better appreciation for just how much our personal biases color our world. Not in an obvious racist or bigot kind of way...no, in a much more subtle way. It is much like bringing a bad day at work home. If you are not aware of it your responses are generally more terse and confrontational than on a good work day. Not because you have suddenly stopped liking your family...it's just due to your disposition. Once you realize what is going on (usually the spouse will do this for you with a glare of some sort) you suddenly snap out of it. So in effect, I guess I am talking about "self induced snap". Next step is to actually stop saying the stupid things BEFORE saying them...

So I guess the answer to the question of "why do you blog" is now more complex than I ever imagined as it is also helping me to better understand myself - rather than just help others understand me. Ironic.

And I thought the Christmas pictures were a disaster...

One huge advantage of having a PC in our living room is that we are able to do slide shows with all our digital pictures over the years. Well, we have been taking digital pictures for about 7 years now so each time I watch the slideshow, I see new pictures and wonder...when the heck was that. I am amazed at how many great and/or funny photos I have forgotten. As a result, I decided to just go back and quickly look through all our pictures and pull out some of my favorites to make sure they don't get lost in the shuffle. Well that was not as easy as I thought. After my fourth hour (only through the first 2.5 years) I stepped back and looked at how many pictures we actually have...well that came in at roughly 10,290 pictures.... YOWZERS! This is going to be a bit of a project. Now I am about 4 years into the photos and I have already pulled out quite a few gems. So I decided that I would post a few of these from time to time just to share them with all of you. These will be in no particular order - with the exception that I started with the oldest directories so these will tend to be a little older at first. So here we go... The first one cracks me up (being a man and all). Kade took over the kid recliner & remote control and proceeded to do what men do best...started scratching! Apparently he is a natural as he intuitively adopted the face that all men assume when in this position. The second is from our wine tasting trip in CA the summer after Kade was born. He really enjoyed playing with the glasses and we caught this picture (no, he had not polished off the glass himself). That might explain why he is such a laid back kiddo ;-)

Ok, onto a more contemporary update. Yesterday was Kade's second day back at school. Apparently he did ok but it seems like he may be slipping back into his old habits. He made a polar bear which he really likes to show me (over and over again) and they also played football in the gym. Next Tuesday he goes back again. This time his bud Zach will also be there so Jen and I are hoping that things go better. Tonight he woke up about 9:30 crying and he was saying that he "did not want to go back to school". Not sure where that one came from but we will just have to hope it does not get worse. I guess he just loves being at home with his mom ;-)

And a final update for those of you on the East coast (or Hawaii)...it is damned cold here! All those liberal jokers who are spun up about global warming should come run their mouth off around here...I could use the extra hot air to help keep the house warm. My thermometer is currently reading -3 degrees F which is the same as it was when I got up this morning. About 2pm this afternoon it reached a soaring +3 degrees F. The snowfall has been small though...only about 2 inches or so which is a relief to my aching back! This morning when I came back into the house after clearing the snow off the driveway (I won't even call it shoveling) my glasses fogged up so badly I couldn't see anything. So I set them down on the table. Kade grabbed them and put them on...which explains the last picture in this blog post. It is damned cold...oh yeah, I think I said that before. Reminds me of Crapchester...I mean Rochester.

And as a special treat for me...it is currently midnight and for some reason Payton's damned sound machine just decided to switch from the soothing sounds of "waterfall" to crazy ass loud Mexican music...isn't that just craptacular. Hmmm, maybe it was made in Mexico and it is actually programmed to do that in the middle of the night in a grand conspiracy to get everyone to like Mexican music...that would explain the bizarro popularity of the Macarena....nah!

So now that I have Payton back to sleep...its time for me to sign off...hasta luego!