My PS3 is dead. Long live My PS4! (Redux)

So, early this year my PS3 gave up the ghost, you probably saw the post I wrote about it on the this blog back then. I hemmed and hawed about it for a while and our family ended up purchasing a Sony Blu-ray player for around $60 about a month after the PS3 died.

That little machine has pretty much been a very mediocre one for us. It's always freezing up at random times and it takes forever to load apps (Netflix) and is just generally a poor quality replacement for a machine like the PS3.

Fast forward 8 months and this little game launched. I had read about destiny sometime during the summer of 2013 and I was pretty excited, thinking I'd pick it up on my PS3 and give it a shot (or at least rent it). Since my PS3 was dead that wasn't happening. If you haven't seen the trailer for Destiny yet, you should check it out, cause it's awesome.

I had no plans to purchase a PS4 either, but after 8 months of dealing with the sub-par Blu-ray player (compared to what we had with the PS3 anyway), and the launch of Destiny (a First-person shooter with Co-op online multiplayer) and realizing that my sister had a PS4 as well and I've always wanted to game with her.... All of these factors coalesced into me deciding that it was time to purchase a PS4.

No, I did not do the "Single Guy" move and just go out and buy one. I've learned a few things about being responsible since I've gotten married. Instead, I mentioned it to the wife and we agreed that it would be a pure luxury item and as such won't come out of our regular budget.

I told her I still had some magic cards to sell and I could probably make the $400 I would need to pick up the console. I also noted that Black Friday was coming soon so I'd wait for that and find a solid deal on the console plus the destiny game and get it all for the current price of the console.

I ended up selling enough magic cards in two weeks to fund the whole thing, and I was able to find a PS4 online for $310 ($90 off)! So I snapped that up, found a used copy of Destiny and even got a headset to boot. All for about $380 total.

My younger self feels revived in a way I didn't think it would. Tomorrow night will be my first "Gaming night" with the new console. My sister and I are going to try to become legend...

MMA 2014: A.J. "BigBro" Pielmeier vs L.P. "6 Tooth" Pielmeier

After dinner this evening the family moved from the dining room into the family room area of our house. Nina went to the recliner with Kira to nurse her, I went to my desk, and the boys went to the area in front of the T.V.

I had my back to that portion of the room and Nina's chair faced the T.V. and the area where the boys were. Apparently, Lucas and Xander disagreed about who was going to watch "their show" on the T.V. because after a few moments I hear Nina say sharply, "Let him go!"

Mind you, at this point I have not heard crying, whining, or other serious noises from either of the boys. At hearing Nina say this to the boys I rotate my chair around and am instantly frozen in place.

The sight I beheld at that moment stunned me because at first I wasn't sure what I was seeing, and then when I realized what it was I wasn't sure if I should laugh or immediately go intervene.

When I turned my chair around to see the boys it was immediately apparent they were having a serious disagreement. Xander was on his back on the ground with the top of his head pointed toward me, legs splayed out away from me, shoulder width apart. Lucas was face down on top of the lower half of Xander's body, laying with his head on Xander's right side just below Xander's hip. Xander had Lucas's right arm in both of his hands, one hand at Lucas's wrist, the other on his forearm. It looked like Xander was holding Lucas in an armbar submission hold similar to the one pictured below:

Two key differences from the picture above and what Xander was doing. One, Xander's legs were not crossed or on Lucas at all. Two, if the guy getting his arm locked is Lucas then flip him over so he's face down and on top of the other guy. Now, these two key differences don't mitigate the fact that Xander had Lucas pinned because Lucas is 16 months hold and he doesn't have the upper body strength or the abdominal strength necessary to lift himself out of the hold that Xander had him in. Needless to say I was stunned. I wasn't sure to laugh out loud or run over and help.

It all happened so fast that the decision was taken away from me anyway. At this point I was thinking, "Lucas is gonna have to tap out and I'm gonna have to go save him from Xander." It's important to note at this point that neither of my sons was crying. They were both making noises but none of those noises could be considered crying. Instead, they were more like grunts and such, maybe from exertion or from frustration, probably both.

So Xander has Lucas armbarred on the floor in front of the T.V., Nina is nursing Kira and saying for the second time to "Let him go!" and I'm stunned in my computer chair looking on. This goes on for probably five to eight seconds and I become convinced that Lucas is stuck and not gonna be able to free himself from Xander's grip. Then Lucas does what he always does: he surprises me and proves me wrong.

Lucas's head is facing the ground and flailing back and forth near Xander's right leg as he tries to extricate himself from what I'm calling the "Baby Armbar." I'm not exactly sure what went through his little head but I imagine it was something like the following:

I'm stuck. My arm is stuck, why can't I move. I want to turn my show on. I'm trying to move and Xander is holding my arm. I can't free my arm. I need to get free. If he won't let me go I'll use my only available tool.

At this point Lucas proceeds to bite Xander's leg hard enough to elicit a squeal of "Lucas stop biting me" from Xander. The bite also causes Xander to let Lucas go, get up, and limp away complaining about Lucas biting him.

At which point I burst out laughing.

Lucas Wins!

On Transformers: Age of Extinction...

Disclaimer: I have not yet seen this movie.

The Screenwriter for Transformers 4, Ehren Kruger had this to say about this movie:

"We wanted some sense of continuity in terms of the previous films. Those films exist in this universe. But we did want to come at it from the perspective of new human characters, and new Autobot characters around Optimus Prime, who kind of vectored into the franchise from a totally different direction. And it is kind of it’s own thing. It is sort of a reboot, and sort of a fourth movie, or third sequel. It’s its own animal, but this franchise has always been its own animal. It’s as much a circus or a Super Bowl as a regular movie."

I had to read that a few times to make sure I was correct in finding no logic there whatsoever. Go ahead and read it again so you are sure as well, I'll wait.

Ok, so if this is the kind of statement we get from the writer of the movie, I can see why everyone hates the new transformers movies (the same guy wrote all three sequels).

It makes me super sad, because I was genuinely excited to go see this movie (granted it was because of Grimlock, but hey).

Lexicon X

My first born son Xander talks quite a bit and is generally very intelligible for someone his age (he's two and a half).

Every now and then though, he hits upon a phrase or word that he uses to represent something that has nothing at all to do with what he is actually talking about or he just says the same phrases constantly for various reasons.

This blog entry is dedicated to these groups of phrases.

The other night, after we had put the kids to bed, I was laying on the couch waiting for my wife to come join me to watch some TV. She was walking around the house taking care of a few things and I was laying there half covered up by a blanket. As she walked by I said to her:

"Cover me up bigger!"

She turned to me with a look in her eye that made me think that if I had said this to her while she was closer to me I might have received a solid punch to my face.

Xander will often say one of these phrases: "Cover me up bigger Mommy!"; "Cover me up bigger my neck, Daddy!"; "Cover me up bigger my teeth, Mommy!" and so on, ad nauseam. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Just cover him up then." Yes, yes you poor fool.

We do cover him up, to the various degrees he asks (arms, neck, teeth) and it matters not. He will still ask you to "Cover [him] up bigger" no matter how much you excel at covering him up. We've come to the conclusion that the words themselves don't actually mean much to Xander. Instead, he just wants you to continuously cover him up, pretty much until he falls sleep; which, FYI, is never gonna happen while you are in the room with him. Good luck with that though.

Xander knows how to push people's buttons too. He's actually nowhere near as accomplished at this endeavor as his little brother Lucas is though, but he's a quick study. Throughout the day he'll often do things that he knows he's not supposed to do (Empty out his brother's milk bottle all over the floor, Body Slam his brother, have an "accident" in his pants/all over the floor, etc.) and then he'll add insult to injury by asking his Mother this simple question:

"Is it funny, Mommy?"

Let me tell you, I've seen Vanina's face when these things happen and I can testify that it most certainly is not funny.

When Xander wakes up in the morning there are two things he invariably says:

"Good Morning Daddy" immediately followed by "Please Chocolate bread."

If I don't produce Nutella covered bread quickly enough for his liking it turns into "Pleeeeeeaaasseeee Chocolate Bread" and then if I'm still too slow it switches to "Chocolate bread Pleeeeeeeaaaaseee" just for variety.

I'm a fairly good whistler and I am practiced enough to even whistle while breathing both in and out so I can continue to whistle for quite some time uninterrupted. I also love music and sometimes I will whistle along to the music.

Xander has very keen ears. He can often hear things before we do and points them out, usually telling us what the noise is (i.e. if he hears a plane overhead: "Daddy, there's an airplane, do you hear it?"). However, if I start whistling, even if he is sitting on my lap, he will look around confused and say "What's that noise?" We've told him it's whistling, but it doesn't matter, if I start whistling he starts looking around all confused and asks "What's that noise?" Other whistle sounds, except train whistles (as he's something of a resident expert on trains in our house), produce the same confusion. He's like Pavlov's dogs, except instead of salivating, he gets confused.

A nice family that goes to our church gave us a Thomas the Train train-track set that came with a little Thomas the Train toy train that runs around the track on battery power. Well, we had the track up for a while, but it was huge and took up half the floor space in his room so I eventually took it down again, but he kept the toy Thomas train out to play with sans track. He calls it his "Little Thomas" and it must indeed be very little because he loses it like every two hours. When he does lose it this is all we hear: "Where's my little Thomas?" as he wanders around the whole house poking his little head into every nook and cranny he can find. As if we let him make a habit of playing with his toy trains in my clothes closet.

Here is a listing of other random stuff he says, most of them have stories to go along with them but this post will get way too long if I keep writing them:

When he wants to point out something he thinks you are missing: "Did you see that, mommy?"

Whenever we open the front door: "Is Jojo coming over?" (Jojo is his cousin, he's obsessed with Jojo).

"Lucas is a baby" either preceded or followed by the question "Is Lucas a baby?" Occasionally he'll include the epithet "Lucas is a funny baby."

Before Naps: "I'm not tired" followed by "I need to watch my show."

Sometimes even Xander runs out of energy and when that happens and he wants to not have to chase you down he'll say the following to you: "Come here. I have some important news for you."

And lastly, as you may or may not know my wife Vanina is pregnant with our third child, a baby girl. Xander is utterly fascinated by Nina's growing belly. He often wants to see her belly saying "Can I see your belly?" She usually does show him her belly, and he rewards her by saying the following:

"Your belly is so big!"

Ah yes, that's my son, he really knows how to woo the ladies.

What's Lucas like?

I couldn't think of a really appropriate title because it could just as easily have been "Living with Lucas" or "Lucas Lights up my Day." I just wanted to tell a bit about my second son.

I was sitting on the couch after a long day of work yesterday with Lucas on my lap and I could tell that he was really tired. I had both of my arms around him and he was just leaning his little head back onto my chest and occasionally saying "Ugh" and kicking his left leg halfheartedly each time he'd say it. He seemed content to just lay there on me resting and I know I was super content to just hold him. He's much more cuddly than Xander ever was at that age, or even at any age really.

Lucas lights up my life in a different way than I experienced with Xander. I love Xander and he's an amazing boy and he changes my world every day. Lucas though, I didn't realize I was missing him in my life until he showed up and changed everything for me, again.

Lucas will talk to me non-stop, and he doesn't even have to use any words. He only knows 2 words, Mama, and Dada, and yet he'll have whole conversations with me. Most of these he initiates too. He'll look at me and, while tilting his head back slightly, say "Uuugh." I'll respond in kind saying "Eh" and tilting my head back a bit too. He'll then continue this for a good long while, letting me know we are communicating.

Xander loves to play, and I mean LOVES it. But Xander get's tired of playing the games I make up and just wants to do something else sometimes. Lucas though, this kid will play any game I can think of with me and he'll play it to the bone! I've often come up with random things trying to turn them into a game just to see if Lucas would play. Every time I've done this Lucas is all in.

Lucas is calm in a way that Xander never has been. I often find myself comparing him to a rock weathering a storm. He's as patient as a tree and as unflappable as a mountain. I've seen him toss a toy out of his reach and then try to get it back and then fail, all without crying. He just tried and tried for a while, and then gave it up as a bad job and went on to something else.

He's also content either by himself or with others (us). He'll often play by himself for long stretches but also be happy playing with his brother or with us too. His brother has made him tough too. Xander is tough as nails and that has rubbed off on Lucas. I've seen Lucas fall off a step a third his height, fall on his face while crawling too fast, fall off the couch, hit his head on the underside of a table, and get body slammed by his older brother all without making a sound.

His toughness doesn't lessen his emotions either. I've received 5 kisses and 6 hugs all within a few minutes from him. Lucas kisses like no one else I've met too. He just opens his mouth as wide as possible, sticks out his tongue and then proceeds to head butt you, mouth leading the way. It's an experience not to be missed. He loves his brother too, I've watched him watch Xander constantly. He's en rapt when Xander is doing one of his routine antics.

It's hard for me to explain this because he's only ten months old, but I feel like I've known Lucas forever. He's what was missing in my life, even though I didn't think anything was missing at all! We truly named Lucas well because he certainly is a light in our family.

My PS3 is dead. Long live My PS3!

This past Tuesday morning, at the crack of dawn, my oldest son asked me to turn on Curious George on Netflix for him. I complied and turned on my PlayStation 3 Fat to get Netflix going for him. The light on my PS3 turned green, as usual, stayed on for a few seconds and then immediately turned a kinda sick looking green-yellow for a moment and then changed to a constant blinking red light.

Needless to say I was nonplussed. After doing some research, I found that this could be a symptom of any number of things the two most prominent are: my PS3 was overheating because of too much dust, or my PS3 had contracted the dreaded disease known as the YLOD or "Yellow Light of Death." This is the death of my machine. Apparently I can fix it if I want to get my hands really dirty and buy some parts. I don't think that's gonna happen though.

This is the end of an age for me. Once I finally get past the denial stage and throw the PS3 away this will be the first time since I was 9 years old that I have not owned a console gaming machine at my house (not counting my time spent in Panama).

I feel like having a funeral because I feel like a younger part of me just died. I had this last console longer than almost any of the others. I bought my PS3 in 2007, used, from a guy who bought his when they first came out in 2006. That means my PS3 is 7 years old. Some are saying that it's a miracle mine lasted this long.

Meet Mr. Peanut "Chunk" McChubbs

This is him in action. I made up this nickname for him probably two months ago and it just stuck. He's our chubby baby because Xander was born so early he didn't have any fat on him. He's been pretty skinny ever since.

This is Mr. McChubbs showing off his new tricks:

I love this little guy so much!

Xander and Lucas: Funny Stories Part 3

We'll start backwards this time.

So I was dead asleep, trying to sleep in this past Saturday after being away on a week long business trip to Atlanta, where I slept like crap most of the time. I felt, more than heard my wife get up. I also distantly heard a child making noises and it sounded like Xander.

I immediately fell back asleep. I was laying on my right side with my right arm crooked so that my hand was under my head and my elbow was facing out away from my body. I was probably dreaming, but the next thing I know I feel like a lukewarm octopus has attached itself to my arm. I'm having thoughts of some strange creature in my bed when I open my eyes to see an eight month-old with his mouth latched onto the inner side of my elbow just below my bicep. He was sucking for all he was worth! I'm surprised he didn't give me a hickey.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one making noises and Vanina dropped him off in our bed while she went and dealt with Xander. Lucas must have thought that sleeping Daddy was the perfect target for operation "Pretend my mouth is an Octopus Vacuum Cleaner" and proceeded to latch onto me.

We are in the middle of teaching Xander how to pee standing up, because it's not only a useful skill but it helps him be more interested in going potty in the potty as opposed to on the carpet or in his pants (or both).

I was reading this funny article on parenting today and it was talking about how children become people really fast and that:

"By the time your kid is 2, you’ll be having conversations more rewarding than many you have with adults."

So in that vein I'd like to relate a conversation between Xander and I that we had in the master bathroom yesterday.

Me: Ok buddy, this is how you pee standing up. You hold your peepee like this and you aim into the bowl.

Xander: Ok, I got it.

I kid you not, he actually said exactly those words exactly like that!

Today, Vanina told me that he actually held his own peepee for the first time ever and aimed toward the toilet bowl too! He aimed too high and made a huge mess, but neither of those issues was part of the training I provided the day before, so I can't fault him for that.

Oh, and Xander learned how to play the Saxophone the other day.

Love my boys!

Xander and Lucas: Funny Stories Part 2

My wife related this story to me:

So we got home a little while ago and Xander asked me for "Chocolate Bread" (which is Bread with Nutella for the uninitiated). I made it for him and sent him on his way. About three minutes later, he comes up to me and says he wants more. I know he has a history of dropping food and throwing perfectly good things away (silverwear, food, etc.) so I ask him "What happened to your bread?" and he responds saying "It's in my tongue" as he points to his open (empty) mouth. I just laughed and made him some more "Chocolate Bread."

Story 2:

Xander goes to music class once a week, but this week we couldn't go on his usual day, so instead we went to the class the day after. He wanted to wear his Bugs Bunny Halloween costume but it was dirty so he settled for wearing his Yoda costume (it was Halloween). He was so excited to have it on!

On Thursday's there is another boy at the class that is Xander's age so they were doing way more running around than singing and dancing today. So he was running up and down the halls with this other kid and I lost track of them for a bit. Then he comes running back into the music room without his costume on! I guess he just decided to take it off? He brought it back to me and said, "Mommy, put my costume on!" Like I'm always just gonna be there to fix his problems! :) Oh, and he calls his Yoda ear hat his "Yellow Hat." That made me laugh.

Xander and Lucas: Funny Stories Part 1

Our children sometimes do some funny stuff.

This is a story Vanina told me about Xander:

"So I brought the vacuum out and when Xander saw it he sprinted for the recliner and jumped up on it looking back at the vacuum. I began vacuuming and as I got closer to the recliner I saw a wrapper from one of Xander's snacks on the floor. I asked him to get down and grab it and he just shook his head.

I finally had to just grab it myself and I finished vacuuming and turned off the vacuum. While I was putting the vacuum up Xander jumped off the recliner, came up to me and said, with a serious face, "That was close!"

Here's another story Vanina related to me:

"Ok, so i was in the kitchen making Lucas's bottle and both of the boys were on the blanket.  I then hear Xander starting to get upset. I don't remember what he said now but something to the affect of "Lucas is eating it."  So I don't know how this happened exactly (if Lucas stole it from him or if Xander offered it to him) but i walk into the living room and Lucas is stuffing his face with Xander's Nutella bread.

Xander had almost finished it so the bread was separated because that's what he does when it's almost gone and Lucas had nutella all over his fingers. He had such a tight grip on that piece of bread.  He cried when i took it away. Luckily his bottle was done by that point and I was able to stick that in his mouth and he forgot about the Nutella but we did have to go wash his hands because they were covered."

I love my boys!

Test of the Email Blogging System

This is just a test of the Email Blogging System. If this had been an actual emergency, instructions to scream your head off and go down fighting would have ensued.

A great quote....

I just wanted to pop in and make a post...surprise! Life is busy, blah blah blah.

I needed to get this quote in here to preserve it so I can refer back to it later:

"Your self-doubt just ain’t that effective. Or accurate.

It’s like the weatherman. It’s rarely right and yet we listen anyway." ~ Chuck Wendig

So awesome!

Carry on.

Dreaming in Chinese

My best friend's native language is English. However, at some point in his life he was exposed to a lot of the Spanish language such that when he is drunk he can speak fluent Spanish. This may seem odd, but as scientists are discovering every day, the brain has strange powers (2nd paragraph).

Last night I dreamed that I was in China, the reason I was there was not clear but it had to do with work (not my current job, some other job I had). The entire dream was in Chinese. Now, let me be up front and say that I do not speak Chinese. I can count the number of words of Chinese I know on one hand. The dream clearly was in a language I do not speak, and everyone in the dream was Asian (besides myself), and the town I was in looked like downtown Hong Kong (big Chinese neon billboards and all) and yet I was able to read and understand everything I saw on the billboards and everything I heard people say.

This is difficult to explain but what I'm trying to say is that people were speaking Chinese words in my dream and I understood them when I heard them. My brain was doing the translation from sounds to understanding the same way it does it for me in the other languages I speak (English, Spanish, French). Very strange stuff indeed. Maybe this article explains it (again 2nd paragraph but also the last 2 paragraphs as well).

On a completely different topic I found these two quotes online and thought they were hilarious so I have to share them. The first one is a biblical reference to Ruth and is a warning for women who are getting impatient to find their "True Love" or are just lonely and want companionship:

"To all the girls who are in a hurry to have a boyfriend or get married, a piece of Biblical advice: 'Ruth patiently waited for her mate, Boaz.' While you are waiting for YOUR Boaz, don't settle for any of his relatives; Broke-az, Po-az, Lyin-az, Cheatin-az, Dumb-az, Drunk-az, Cheap-az, Lockedup-az, Goodfornuthin-az, Lazy-az, and especially his third cousin Beatinyo-az. Wait for Boaz and make sure he respects Yoaz."

And another one that I think many people (on many levels) can relate to when they think about their upbringing (and if you can't, you are blessed):

"I was raised in the valley
There was shadows and death
Got out alive but with scars
that I can't forget."

Hard? No. Impossible.

[Note: I wrote this post about a month ago, in the middle of the end of the semester blues. I finished the paper I mention below. I still haven't gotten the grade back yet, but you know what? It's done. So very done. :)]


Writing is a funny thing. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it doesn't come at all. The range of difficulty encompasses everything in between (and maybe something outside that) as well. I've often believed that only in writing does man truly find in himself something deeper, everything else one might do or be is just a shadow of that deeper aspect. Who's to say if I'm right or wrong? Everyone who reads this I suppose; however, I will simply agree to disagree with you.

A life's work can be anything, it's true, but only in hearing about it, reading about it, or seeing it do you really get a glimpse of it; if not a complete understanding. Those three: hearing, reading, and seeing, are just a form of storytelling, implicit in the way our senses work. We tell ourselves stories all day everyday through our senses. That's all writing really is: storytelling.

If I could tell you a story now, I would (and who knows maybe I am already), but none come to mind. I sit here after a full day of ostensibly working on a research paper, but all I've done is learn how much I didn't, and that made it all the harder.

"Like a face, getting forced to the floor." That's a line from a new Chevelle song that just came on right now and it made me smile sadly. Sadly because it reminds me so much of what it's been like to try and write this research paper. I have a weak idea, and less interest in it than I do in watching the paint peel on the wall near my cubicle. That makes the writing go beyond difficult; into the range of near impossibility.

What men think about...

This made me laugh. A pretty funny version of how to prepare your daughter for certain things in life.

Lol!

Brain Lag

I'm sitting in my office right now listening to a Paul Oakenfold "2 Years of Cream" set, trying to write.

I'm no stranger to writing, in fact I've written a few lengthy items of late. The type of writing that I am trying to do today though, it's a whole 'nother ball game. I'm trying to write a Theory Paper on Competing Network Logics. The main crux of the problem I'm having is that I feel exhausted.

The sad thing is, I have all afternoon just to write this paper. It's not due tomorrow or anything like that but it is due sooner rather than later. I am in crunch time as next week is the end of the semester and this paper does not give a rat's about my finals or my problems to anthropomorphize it a bit.

So, since I haven't written in this blog since our little baby was born, I thought I'd use it as a way to "jog my brain" and get me on track. I can tell you though, right now I'm not feeling any better than I was a few minutes ago. It almost feels like every thought is swimming through syrup in my brain. No, not the yummy maple stuff you are used to either. I'm talking about a cranium sized electrified fence worth of ozone and scorched smelling protein soup that anything less agile than electrons would stick in like a quagmire.

I can't talk about my brain anymore so I'll talk about something else. Baby Alexander is doing great. He's pretty much the cutest child I've ever seen. If you don't believe me I'd usually say I'd fight you if you don't agree, but that's not the case here. If you look at him you can't help but agree with me, you lose all free agency in the face of his cuteness and are rendered helpless to his overwhelming cute power. In the absence of his immediate presence you may attempt to disagree, but I have a thousand pics worth of his cuteness on my iPod Touch that will argue that you are wrong better than any of my words ever could. So no, I don't need to fight are argue with you, I'll just flash you a pic and rest my case.

He's over 9 Lbs now and gaining. He's still short for his age, and looking chunky to prove it, but it only adds to the overall effect: he's super cute. I went in to say goodbye to him this morning and I almost didn't leave for work because I was captured in the tractor beam of his utter adorableness.

So yeah, he's pretty awesome! You should come visit him.

Ok, I'm off to write a paper...or at least some words.

Waiting...anxious...

It's currently 1:31am. My wife has just been admitted to the Women's Care Center at Northwest Medical Center here in Tucson for an emergency C-section.

They stuck me in this cubicle to wait so I hacked in to their computer (it wasn't hard) so I could post this. You'll see it when you wake up, and by then we'll be parents.

They tell me Vanina has something called HELLP Syndrome, a form a pre-eclampsia. Her liver functions are way off, her platelets are low, and her blood pressure is skyrocketing. All of that means little to me, really, when compared with what really matters: Vanina has a TON of pain in her chest (from the liver) and she can barely breath (BP mixed with the platelet thing).

The cause of all this: her unborn child. No one seems to know what exactly causes pre-eclampsia. The treatment is to deliver the baby. So that's what they're going to do, in a few minutes.

Pray for a healthy mother and child.

(slight pause here as the doctor came and talked to me)

OK, so they are having trouble putting in the spinal anesthesia. They decided to do that instead of an epidural. They didn't say exactly what the problem was but if they can't get it to work, they'll have to do general (put her out). I hope they don't do that, it will make this experience even more stressful than it already is right now.

I can't write about it any more, it's making my head spin.

Writing usually helps, it's not doing squat this time.

I'll post more later (today? tomorrow? not sure when but soon-ish). Call me if you need a quicker update.

Tucson, First Impressions

So Tucson is...nice. Ha! You thought I was gonna say HOT!

It does get hot here, I'll grant you that, but it's like I told my wife the other day, here's a direct quote: "It's hot here, but it's not as hot as I thought it would be. I mean, I've been walking around in the sun and it's 105 degrees and I don't feel too uncomfortable. I'm sweating but I don't feel like I'm going to die."

We keep the air condition in our house at 78 degrees. I feel comfortable when it is set there. If you would have told me a month ago that I would feel comfortable in my home at that temperature I would have laughed at you. It was that hot in our house in Utah and I thought my eyeballs were going to melt.

The house, our first home by the way, is awesome! My wife picked a good one. We are gonna do some painting next weekend but that's about it as far as fix it up.

It is monsoon season around here. It will be blue skies (more on the sky later) one moment and the next it's raining so hard that the storm puts out the Clock Tower at our local shopping center and they have to use the Emergency Broadcast System to let us know whats going on. NO, it was NOT a test of the EBS, it was for real. I happened to be parked just below said Clock Tower at the time of the storm too, lucky for me the wind was blowing west instead of east. If it had been blowing east I'd be looking for a new car probably (you should have seen the debris all over).

Besides the weather, school starts on Monday. From what everyone has told me (and what my class syllabus look like) this semester will be the toughest one of my entire program. I suppose I should be grateful because I will know if I'm cut out for this by January. If I can make it through to January then I will definitely be graduating with a PhD in May of 2016.

Wish me luck!

That's it for now, oh wait, I almost forgot. This is what happens when you leave a box open on the floor around here.

Yes, nap time inside a box is better than nap time just on the floor I guess.

I forgot to talk about the sky too. The sky here is larger than life. Think about the colors from movies like Mulon Rouge, The Lovely Bones, and The Warrior's Way (that last one is an awesome Ninja vs Cowboys movie, if you like that stuff). When seen in HD these movies make the colors pop out and invade your living room. Well, the sky here is almost the opposite. It looks so full of color that it's unreal. The blues are too blue, the evening sunsets are too full of violet and orange and red. It's like some director told the CGI guys to use too much color to make it look larger than life; except that it's the real sky you are seeing up there. It's almost indescribable.

You just have to see it for yourself.

Order Up!

The book is ready. If you have a hankering for a Science Fiction Novel, and can stand reading something not on the New York Times's Best Seller list, then I'd suggest you run on over to CreateSpace and order yourself up a piping-hot plate of Alterity, my first novel!

Here's the link:

ORDER ALTERITY HERE!

Enjoy!

P.S. I know it's kind of expensive, I did not set the price. Blame that on CreateSpace and their ability to grab me by the short hairs when it comes to setting the price. I apologize for that.

The end is in sight...

Hi all, it's just after noon on Tuesday May 31st. I am sitting at my desk at work, thinking about how in 74 hours I'll be done with this job forever. (When you say 'forever' in your mind as you read this please try to make it sound like this: for-ev-AAAAAAHH).

[Intermission]

Ok, it's now 3:20 pm. I had to go do an inventory audit with the corporate auditor that is here from Minnesota. It went ok.

Unfortunately, since it took three hours, now I'm tired and I don't feel like writing so much.

So there it is. A short post...with the end in sight.

Cheers...