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!

Still missing a bag = not a happy camper.

The airline industry has zero tolerance for any sort of fluctuation to their schedules. With over booked flights and what appears to be an unwillingness to augment delayed connection flights with perhaps a larger plane or simply holding a connection flight that so many are waiting for, over 50 people were left on standby lists for every flight to western NY. The first official flight within a 70 mile radius that had two seats on it was Monday.

Of course, this was weather related, so we were left to fend for ourselves. We slept (if one could consider that sleep) in Gate F4b last night while the cleaning crew literally vacuumed under us.

I'm furious that United would let a plane that was missing 50 or so of it's ticketed passengers simply leave the gate and fly home. We were all assured that because it was a Chicago-wide delay that the plane that was supposed to fly the final leg of the trip was in the same boat and wouldn't get there until after we did. I'm sure it was all part of their equipment strategy, knowing that they had to have certain planes in certain airports for the morning flights, but that's no excuse for sending that flight on time half empty.

Upon arriving to Chicago you're dumped off and told to check the monitors. Of course our flight was not on the monitor anymore. A later flight was, so we ran to try and catch it. Turns out the monitors were showing the wrong gate number. This would not be the first issue with the gate numbers changing. At roughly 1AM we decided to make the trek over to the concourse the monitor had the next standby flight leaving from. We got to the next bank of monitors and it had changed. Thankfully we saw it, because the walk would have been roughly 15 to 20 minutes. It then moved to a gate we were fairly close to, which was good because the next flight we would be on standby for was a short distance away. We of course slept at this point, thinking we'd be in the right place come 7AM for boarding time. Roughly 45 minutes before the flight is supposed to leave, the gate changes again and we have to make the 15 to 20 minute walk for a standby flight. This now means that if we don't make this flight, we have to now run back to the previous area to try standby on the next flight. Thankfully there was a shuttle bus that cut the trip down to about 5 minutes and the flight was delayed to give us a little extra time.

We were standby positions 5 and 6 with 6 seats left on the plane. Of course, this means close to nothing, as anyone with a higher class ticket of more miles on their frequent flier account could come in and say they want to standby for the flight and we (the people who have been in the airport for 12 hours now) would get bumped down the list. Apparently time on the list has no bearing.

By some chance of fate we actually got on the 50 passenger regional jet with a standby list over 30 and away we were.

Needless to say the experience just about ruined what had been, up until Friday night when room service thought we ordered and woke us up at 2AM, a really great trip.

I'm exhausted and need sleep. Pictures from the trip should be up soon.

The ZIP code is only 47 years old! Started in 1963 in the US, it was just the 4th country to do so. It's now more important than getting the address correct for routing mail. It's actually amazing how many other countries don't use a system. Really interesting! Of course, I'm basing this all off of Wikipedia, so it could all be wrong... Pretty cool none the less! Oh, and no I didn't go looking for this info for the fun of it. I was looking for postal code information for a project at work!

It's incredible how warm it's been already.

It's incredible how few pictures I've taken recently.

It's incredible how great family is.

It's incredible how awesome great friends are.

It's incredible how cute all the new babies and little ones are.

It's incredible to think we'll be there soon

It's incredible how strong my wife is.

It's incredible how much I love her.

It's incredible how much she loves me.

It's incredible.

My wife, a full 32 weeks pregnant, took on the streets for a 5K with roughly 700 other people early Sunday morning. It takes a special kind of person to take on that challenge and I couldn't be more proud of her. She even beat her expected time! Congrats to her and all the other participants!

We are certainly blessed to have such great friends and family. Thank you all so much for the wonderful gifts. The baby will be quite well outfitted! The crib is assembled and the room is just about finished! It's kind of crazy to think there will be a little one inhabiting it in no time! My wife continues to be a trooper while we put the finishing touches on rooms, clean spaces out, build new furniture to go in those spaces, paint some walls, skim coat some ceilings, and complete other assorted house related projects. Things are looking great, but we've got a few more items left on the "bucket list".

I know it's been a while since I last posted. It's been pretty busy and I honestly don't remember where all the time went! For some reason I sense that will be a theme in the coming months! All good stuff though! I wouldn't want it any other way.

My awesome wife put together a party to celebrate my birthday a few weeks back. We rented out this really cool "lodge" at a park near by. It was awesome, complete with tables and chairs and fans and a grass area outside. We weren't sure if it would rain or not, so it was absolutely perfect to hold everyone! A bunch of family showed up, as well as friends I haven't seen in at least a year. It was really great and the food was awesome! I just love me some good BBQ! Especially with Cherry Bomb sauce! I also acquired KanJam from good friends to help round out the outdoor activities! I now keep it in the car at all times. You know, just in case we need to play a game in a parking lot or something! I had a great time and thanks to all who showed up. Special thanks again to my wife for putting it all together while 30+ weeks pregnant!

We were supposed to have our floor replaced two weeks ago and to make a long story short, it ended up taking 6 days. It was just a comedy of errors, but it's finally in and looks very very nice! At the end of this whole fiasco we decided we really needed to get away and we packed up our overnight bag and headed down to the Finger Lakes to enjoy some beautiful weather, awesome food, and Uno! Oh yeah, we went swimming too! It was exactly what we needed and we had a blast. We sat out for a while and took in the sights at a local park, played some Uno (which Meg always beats me at), got some awesome food at a restaurant we both love, took a bunch of pictures, drove to the other end of one of the lakes, had a picnic lunch, bought a micro brew, stopped at a winery (no Meg didn't have any), and enjoyed a really great drive with beautiful weather. It was just about perfect. I'm sorry I hadn't planned for us to do it sooner. But I know for sure we'll be doing it again soon!

This past weekend was pretty decent. I finally got the lawn mowed and we had a nice dinner over at the parents house. I was able to paint the bathroom, which you really don't realize how small it is until you try to paint it. We also caught up with some friends to celebrate a first year birthday party. Never seen a 1 year old only want to use a fork to eat their cake! I was hoping for the face plant into the frosting, but no such luck! Hard to imagine we're going to have one of our own soon!

As for freebies, Friday we hit up the free doughnut day at Dunkin Donuts. The first one we stopped at was out, even though we called before going to see if it was still going on.... seriously. We also hit up free cone day on Saturday over at Friendly's. Pretty solid weekend for free food!

Well, I'm leaving stuff out and have things in here that may be out of order, but you'll read it and you'll like it! I'll do my best to keep the site aware of current events in the near future. Something I'm getting pretty bad at lately.

The sign-off to Extreme Makeover Home Edition from Ty went through both of our heads as we pulled into the driveway after being in the hospital to welcome our beautiful new addition. She's absolutely perfect! Mom and I are getting the feeding schedule down and we're just so happy to have her around! She's sleeping now right in front of me. Amazing! More soon.

She's been with us for an entire week already! It's hard to imagine that it's been that long, but at the same time it's gone by so fast! She's sleeping right in front of us right now, just absolutely perfect. We are truly blessed. We're doing pretty good and think we're getting close to a schedule for things. It's comforting in a way, a sense of normalcy in a way. It's calming.  :-D

One of the many lessons we've learned so far is that every medical professional has an opinion, and there are a few that either forget to put the opinion into context, or they're just flat out wrong. Being new parents, it becomes a full time job wading through all the information out there and figuring what's best for you and your child. Thankfully we've had friends and family grounded in reason, and our pediatrician is amazing and hilarious!

More updates soon!

I've got a set of photos I've taken up at Sips for the month of July. Stop by and check them out!

The little lady slept from roughly 12 to 7 this morning. I'm not going to get too used to that just yet, but it's a good sign! We're all doing great and trying to beat the heat. Good thing there's air conditioning in Target! She's resting comfortably in her vibrating bouncy chair. It's too bad those chairs cost roughly $500 for grownups.

So, I understand the issues surrounding water preservation, rationing, etc. for areas that face drought on a regular basis, and this may come across as elitist or privileged or something, but living close to a great lake, I can't help but think about this. Please don't think I'm uneducated and out of touch with the issues facing our planet, but I just have to think logically about this. OK, here goes... So all this fresh water runs through the great lakes and out the St. Lawrence river into the salt water ocean. So far, the communities on the coast have yet to be able to consume all of this water. One way to look at this is we're wasting it. So I guess there's no problem with me watering my lawn for 8 hours. OK, I didn't do that, but if I did I guess the only thing I would feel bad about is the bill. Yes, I'm also aware that there are rivers that have been siphoned off to nothing before they even reach their destination (read Colorado River). OK, just a weird logic post, had to share it. Don't worry, a baby update is coming!

See, I told you you'd get your baby update!

Anyway, she's sleeping right next to me in a propped up position on the couch on my pillow, looking so freakin cute! She's been having a good day and even enjoyed a trip to the grocery store! She turns 4 weeks old in two days. I really just can't believe it's been 4 weeks already. She's already grown over an inch too. We think she's on the verge of smiling. She seems to be doing it a bit more lately while looking at us, and doesn't appear to be related to gas. She's had some prolific spit-ups, as well as some other prolific things. We're going in for the 1 month tomorrow so we'll have more to report. Do check out the photos added to the right, or back through the homepage and into the Flickr collection created for our little peanut! She's so freakin cute!

Here's a general thanks to all the people who have stopped by, helped out with meals, and given our baby girl awesome hand-me-downs, and some beautiful gifts! We are so blessed to have such a perfect little girl and such amazing friends and family.

Well, we're gonna head out for a stroll(er) around the block while she's still kinda tired before her next feeding. Hope everyone's doing well!

So it's officially been a month since she's joined the family. That in and of itself is incredible to think about. We're taking weekly pictures so that we can document her crazy growth, and also to capture those really cute outfits like said cowgirl with socks that have little boots printed on them. We had our first vaccination this week. That wasn't fun, but she took it like a champ and calmed down relatively quickly. In fact, she fell asleep for a good while after getting it. That may not sound special, but she's definitely a morning person! She's quasi asleep as I rock her in her bouncy seat right now. Dreaming about who knows what. I wish I did know. Like, does she just envision endless feedings or something? Maybe someday she'll tell us! I'm sure that day will come before we know it too! Anyway, stay glued to the site for more photo updates and fun goings-ons from the little lady.

The little french fried onion bits? You know! They are simply amazing and take just about anything from bland to boom!

In actual news, the little lady is 5 weeks old today. In true digital age fashion, I have yet to print a single picture of the over 500 I have taken. Must get better at this!!! I think I'll try and get some done this weekend. She's sleeping in the crib overnight tonight. I must say, I'm a bit anxious about it. I'm sure everything will be fine, but man, this whole "being responsible for another human being" thing is pretty intense!

Anyway, hope all is well with everyone. Up early for work tomorrow... booo! Talk to you soon!

Friends of ours gave us these really cute socks that look like Mary Janes so Meg put them on Everleigh yesterday. They are SOOO freakin cute! I've got some pictures of them and I'll get them online soon!

In other news, we finally got air conditioning! Holy crap what a difference! It's not so much the cold air, but the fact that it cuts the humidity right out. No more sleeping in the living room! Only down side was the unexpected need for a new furnace. That was not cool and I blame who ever put the original furnace into the house. It was way too big for the square footage and most likely cause it to fail early. Anyway, it's all set up now and we're loving it!

Those of you who know me may remember that I'm a bit of a typography nut. I saw Helvetica last year and loved the background and perspectives that so many great artists had. It's truly amazing to think about something that's so taken for granted and realize the craftsmanship that went into it.

Well, I stumbled upon another movie that looks really cool. Typeface dives into an old wood type factory that's trying to hang on to its identity, event after the factory closed its doors. Looks really interesting.