We've certainly gone through a lot this past year. Most of you know the stories and the trials and tribulations that were 2009. I was hoping against hope, but the story that was the year past had one more chapter to write. A few days before Christmas my ailing car, with a growing number of issues that seemed to have plagued it for the past year or so, decided to stay in 3rd gear. After spending the day at the service shop it turned out to be a battery issue. That pretty much clinched it. I recalled previous trips to the service shop and remember telling myself that this is the last time I'd put money into it. It cost a pretty penny just for it to pass inspection this past summer. Oh, and for those of you thinking "what's the big deal, it's just a battery", I can assure you that that was the least of the issues. The most pressing of these were two major components, the power steering and the computer in charge of the drive-train. Both were not cheap fixes and were really not the safest things to be having issues with. After seeing what was available on the lot we chose a used car that will get much better gas mileage, will have a 4 year warranty, has 4 wheel drive, and some other nice features for our expanding family.

You would think that buying a new car would be exciting, especially with the prospect of having everything work and be cheaper to own because it doesn't require premium, but it was far from a joyful experience. Frankly, I was parting with my dream car. Ever since I saw the LandRover Discovery, I was in aww. They are some of the most capable vehicles on earth, with styling and performance like no other SUV I have ever been in. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been able to own such a vehicle. As such, it was incredibly difficult for me to let it go.

Both Meg and I found ourselves quite emotional when we picked up the new car and said our final good-byes to a vehicle that had made the early years of our relationship possible. You see, we did long-distance for 3 years which meant a reliable vehicle was key to the weekend trips that were often through some of the snowiest roads in upstate. I never worried once about its ability to get me to where I wanted to be (with my future wife). It also took us to many of our adventures and vacations... or vacation adventures! We even found ourselves off-roading once or twice! I'll never forget the over 98,000 miles of memories it helped create. They are some of the most meaningful of my life.

So some of you may think I'm a little weird for getting teary eyed over a car, but as you can see it was never just a car. We've got some amazing things to look forward to in 2010 and some new memories to make in the new car, but I'll always look back on the past seven years in the 2002 Land Rover Discovery II SE with fondness.

I've been reading up on the much anticipated CSS3 Candidate Recommendations and stumbled upon a really cool feature that I can see using A LOT! I often build layouts that have sections that require a "frame" graphic to go around it. Sure enough in the CSS3 recommendation is this gem: Border Images. Basically it will allow you to create an image and then define the tiling to use so that you get nice graphic border without having to use end cap or side cap graphics and divs to hold these things. In the process I also stumbled upon this awesome design site by Chris Spooner. More tutorials to go through now! Woo!

I had a throwback Mountain Dew over the summer that was absolutely fantastic and I found myself yearning for another chance to purchase the real sugar soda with the flavor that takes me back so many years ago. It's amazing how different it tastes, and how much better I like it. During a recent trip to Target I stumbled upon the beverage section, and there... at my feet... were cases of throwback Mountain Dew and Pepsi!

I simply had to purchase one. Mountain Dew is by far my soda of choice. It's basically my morning coffee and I typically have it or another soda every morning. Hey, it has orange juice in it! Don't believe me? Check it out!

It's the little things that get me excited!

The baby has all ten fingers and all ten toes! The amazement continues!

I have long since been looking for a way to keep nested block-level elements' backgrounds from traveling under floated content. Lets set the stage a little for clarity. I have a heading, an inline div, and a div I want to float to the right that has some highlighted content in it. If my inline div has a background applied to it, it will continue to run under the floated content to the right.

Introducing the "overflow:hidden;" declaration. I do not know much about the overflow property and have come to the conclusion that I need to know more. I consider myself pretty astute when it comes to CSS, but this fix, simple as it may be, eluded me for a long time. I used to just not code these circumstances, or worse, introduce a table to get things to fall correctly. Yuck.

Here's the fix:

Watched a PBS special on the Donner party... quite amazing if you equate it to today's standards.  They literally had to go like two miles but could not make it. I imagine it would be a bit insulting if they were to come back now and see a nice highway that goes over the pass that takes but a few minutes by car.

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After not being able to get a clear picture the first time, we went in to try and get the heart looked at. After a bit of persuasion the baby moved into a decent enough position for the tech to do her thing. He/She is coming along nicely and right in line with our due date. We've got a disc of images that we can go through from the ultrasound so that will be a lot of fun! Simply can't wait to meet our new addition!

So if the quote goes, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy", then Tröegs Nugget Nectar was clearly the beer being referenced. It's seasonal, so get yours now!

Thanks to Tim, our fantastic host for the Super Bowl party. It was great seeing everyone and enjoying some good food.

Additionally, thanks to Serena and Charlie for the baby stuff! We really appreciate it! I wish they made grown-up sized bumbo-chairs. They look really comfortable!

Turns out we had a water filter under the sink, and it decided to burst on Wednesday. Apparently it was installed in 1989. You guessed it, all over the new kitchen floor. After 2 industrial dehumidifiers and 8 industrial fans ran for two days everything seems fairly dry. The kitchen floor is a wash and will need replacing. Ha, wash... I just punned without intent! Anyway, we are both safe and we didn't lose any personal belongings, so that's a bright spot I guess. I can only hope that's the last of things breaking for a very long time.

It seems like just four years ago I was commenting on how bad the Olympic coverage was in the US. Well, this year is no acception. No hockey on broadcast television, regardless of the fact that the US and Canada played once already and have a strong likelyhood of playing again. At the end of the game, Bob Costas (you know how I feel about him) cut away from bobsledding to show the last anticlimactic 30 seconds of the hockey game, as if it was something special for them to be showing us this. Then they proceeded to show the rink crew and Zamboni on the ice for a few more minutes. Of course, this could have been actual game coverage, but apparently this was more important to show. I believe I am an undiagnosed case of ADD, so there's really no need for NBC to help me by switching sports every few minutes. It's not like I need help not being able to stay focused. I just don't really get it. All I ask is that they show sports. Instead we get five minutes of ski jump, a story of a kid who grew up on a wheat farm that's supposed to make us all warm and squishy (not that that's inherently wrong), then to cross-country, then speed skating, then back to ice-dancing for five minutes. I just want to see sports, for more than 5 minutes so I can get interested in it. I realize some enjoy this format, but it makes it really hard for me to get into it. It's on right now, but is pretty much just filler. It could actually be anything on right now. Oh well, I guess this is what you get from the network that let Conan go.

The so-called meteorologists have coined a new term to describe what used to be referred to as a "weather event". The "snowicane" has been added not into the Guiness Book of World Records for the most idiotic portmanteau ever, but the actual mainstream media's questionably creative vernacular. Is it any wonder that we are falling behind in math, science, and other core skills when we celebrate this type of idiocy?

I can see the meeting room now. Gary spills his coffee down the front of his tie again for the eighth time today. Jane walks in from her commute and exclaims, "it's really windy outside, kinda like a hurricane!" Bob adds, "yeah, and the snow is getting awful!" Suddenly Gary's eyes jump to the ceiling as he slowly raises his hand pointing towards the imaginary idea cloud that follows him around (usually telling him to get another cup of coffee) and yells, "it's like a 'snowicane'!"

At that very moment, Brent (think Ron Burgundy with a less cool mustache) walks by and catches this pearl of absurdity, this jewel in the crown of the asinine, this nugget of pure idiocy.   He immediately dashes to the on-air graphics room and says, "In huge bold letters I need S-N-O-W-I-C-A-N-E to lead us in to the 5 o'clock broadcast. Call the sound guy and have him pull up some tension building piece we use to scare people with so they run to the supermarkets and freak out when there's only 2 loafs of bread left." The staff of course doesn't know whether to laugh or to open Photoshop.

Yes, I imagine that's how it went.

As it is the first snowicane, well, EVER, its name must start with "A". I chose Absurd. I suppose however that I should at least be satisfied that they predicted something for once! Enjoy the snow (icane) everyone!