Garin's World

Top 10 things I love about the remodel

2009-03-21T04:57:26Z

As much as you can ever be done with a remodel, we finished our remodel up the first part of November. It has taken us this long to get most of the little things off the list and start to really enjoy the place. Now that we have settled in a bit, I thought I would start a top ten list of the things I like the most about the remodel. They are in no particular order and will probably not mean much to other but are things that have made the remodel worth the effort.

So what is on the list you ask? Between trying to dress nicely for work and church, I have several slacks that use to get all bunched together and half the time I could never find them in the old closet. With our new closet system we installed, I now have this nifty slacks rack that slides in and out allowing me to select my nearly pressed slacks.

There are many other great things about the house but the two of you that will read this will have to wait for Shanan to post one of her items first. Keep an eye on her blog to see what she finds worthy of her top 10.

What’s Up?

2009-03-15T07:15:45Z

Boy has it been a long time!

Since the last time I posted, we are now a few months away from adding a boy to the family, the addition is complete, Blayke walks/runs everywhere, Bailey turned four and I have a new job at Autodesk (Inventor Product Manager). With all those exciting new things, I will not be posting about any of that. Shanan does a great job at blogging about all the good stuff around the house so I will focus on other nerdy things.

I have been on the hunt for a good Bluetooth headset recently as I am trying to retire my old one that I have been using for the last few years. I purchased a Jabra about a week ago from AT&T and have tried to use it several times over the week and had terrible luck with it. On one occasion I had to have a customer call me back on a different phone since I couldn't even hear him well enough to hold a conversation. Tonight Shanan and I took the kids to the mall to play so I headed over to the AT&T store to see what I could do. To my surprise, AT&T was actually really cool about swapping it out for a different headset (of course the one I wanted was a bit more). I looked at the new Plantronics and Jawbone headset and decided to go with the Plantronics.

The sound is great so far but the thing that I like the most is the little case it comes with that is also the charger. I am always leaving my old headset in the car because I don't want to throw it in my bag and potentially break it. Now I should be able to leave it in my bag at all times which will make it easier for me to use if more often.

Lets just hope the headset is as cool as the case it comes with

Hurry up!

2008-10-06T05:00:39Z

Friday afternoon at about 3:00 pm while I was at work I got a quick call from Shanan telling me the cabinet company would be delivering our cabinets a few minutes

I was expecting them in the afternoon but thought I would have a little more of a head start (like 30 minutes). I jumped in my car and raced to my house to help the two delivery guys put the 16 large boxes in our soon to be kitchen. I spent the better part of the evening un-boxing and trying to figure out how they would all go together.

Yesterday morning our general contractor knocked on the front door at 7:08 am bright eyed and bushy tailed (who uses that saying anymore) ready to install the cabinets. We worked on em all day other than a quick trip to the local burrito joint for a little lunch. We wrapped up around 7:00 pm with everything in looking amazing I might add.

Take a look for yourself.

Other than that, this last week our tilers tiled our bathroom and new tub. Shanan hasn't seen it in person yet, just pictures but we love it.

Tomorrow they start painting the interior of the house and should start to tile the downstairs end of week or next week. Shanan gets home Friday with the kids to see all the progress we have made over the last few weeks.

Fun Fun!!

It’s funny what you find in your house during a remodel

2008-09-26T17:01:03Z

And it was alive

What are we doing?

2008-09-23T07:22:03Z

As most of you know we are in the middle of a “small” home improvement project adding a little more space for the family. I would have to say it’s been quite the project since we have been involved with a bit of the demolition work. It all started as we removed about a third of our deck for the contractor so get their machines in the back yard to dig for the new foundation. From there we tore down the siding from the back of the house and proceeded to tear out several walls, kitchen, master bathroom, and wire house for speakers and a number of other things. It has taken most of our spare time these days and the other day we realized it has taken a toll on everybody. I realized that our sweat little Blayke is growing up so fast and I hardly know her. I have read few books to her and haven't been involved in her life near as much as I was in Baileys at that age. I have done a lot of reflecting this week and have realized I need to work really hard to not let this project overshadow our family life and the great relationship I have with Shanan and our extremely cute little girls. Shanan and I have taken several breaks lately to get the girls out of the crazy house and let them unwind. Here are a few fun pics we took over the weekend at the mall playground.

We still have a lot to do on the house so it isn't all fun and games yet. Last night we started to remove the hardwood floor downstairs since it is one of the last remaining items we need to remove during this project. After the kiddies went to bed tonight we continued to tear out the floor. Last night we removed about 1/3 of the floor and another 1/3 tonight. If all goes we should have the rest out tomorrow night. Here are some fun pictures from the last few nights.

At this point we are ready for the project to be over although we still have a bit more to do. I got a call today from Shanan today (not very pleased) telling me that the remodel has been extended another few weeks. That will put us up to the end of October before we have a kitchen, master bath, Baileys bedroom and a few other nice to have things. We haven't wondered why we did this yet, but we have wondered why we didn't take 2 months off and head to the Bahamas. Shanan leaves this Sunday for over two weeks to get a reprieve while this craziness ensues. I will hold down the fort and do as little as I can – that is still a lot more than I want to do

I still reflect on spending more time with the family and hope we can take more time to just have fun as a family.

What a month

2008-09-07T04:43:41Z

I haven't been very good at keeping up with my blog lately so I thought I would post a monthly update to possibly our busiest month of the year.

Where do I even start...

The Remodel

Select image to view gallery in Picasa

As many of you probably already know, we started construction over a month ago on our house to add a little more room and add a few fun things that I hear we cant live without. It has been a very trying month with all of this going on and I have no idea how Shanan has been able to handle it. We only have a few rooms in the house that haven't been effected yet and with two little ones at home and really only a few rooms in the house that haven't been effected too much. At this point we are without a kitchen, master bathroom, Bailey's room and our family room and bedroom have become the hang out places when we are home. It looks like this will project will go into mid October and I think I will probably send off Shanan and the kids to the East Coast for a few weeks for a reprieve of this all.

Biken

On a fun side of all this I was able to have my biggest bike month since we have been in the North West with a total of a little over 300 miles ridden for the month of August. No the miles weren't to get me out of the crazy house and leave Shanan to fend for herself. I had to be creative to get out this much and was able to get most of these miles in the wee hours of the morning before I went to work. I did do the Portland Century in August which allowed me to get 100 miles in a day so I had 30 days left in the month to get the other 200 miles. It was a great month of riding and despite a short summer I have had a great riding season so far.

August biking report

New Job

I also started a new job this month as I was getting ready for a change after four years as the Inventor Technical Marketing Manager. I really enjoyed my old job and was able to go to some really fun places and present our software at some great events. I decided it is was time to take a little less technical job and took a new job as the Inventor Subscription Product Manager. I will be responsible for certain aspects of the Autodesk Inventor product as well as the subscription program for Inventor. It will be a bit of a change for me since I have always been very technical and this is far less technical job. I will be more involved with the development team and customers to determine what their needs are for future release of Inventor. I will still travel a bit and will more than likely have a trip to Germany in the next few months and head to Japan by the end of the year. I am very excited for the change and a little nervous with such a big change.

Blayke is now ONE

Yep - its already been a year and Blayke celebrated her first birthday. Ok it was actually September 1st but since I don't blog much thought I should add it in here. We had a great birthday cake for Blayke, sang a great birthday song and let her dig into her cake. It was her first time she has had that much sugar and OH MY. After eating her piece of cake, she was bouncing off the wall for about 30 minutes then was out like a light.

As you can see things have been very crazy this summer and if Shanan were to post to her blog you could hear her side of it. I think I have it much easier than she does but we are a happy little family and have had a great summer. We look forward to getting the house finished and being able to nestle down for the winter and just hang out.

Lets hope I can start to blog a little more frequently

What have we been up to?

2008-08-28T05:55:16Z

It has been a very long time since I have posted although I do have a good reason. Shanan and I decided to add-on to our house a few months ago and we are two weeks into the main project. We no longer have a kitchen, several walls are missing and we are tired of fast food but the show must go on. Due to Microsoft’s new technology (Photosynth) I have taken about 140 pictures that you can easily navigate similar to a 3D model to view our downstairs.

In the next few days I hope to do the same thing upstairs so stay tuned.

The perfect tool/s for the job

2008-06-22T07:21:38Z

As many of you know I love to ride my bike and if weather permits try to find a few hours from my week to get out on the road. It has become a little more difficult over the years to get out as much as I once did but all the same it is one of my pleasures in life. As most of you probably also know, I am also a bit of a tech guy and always like to play with the latest technology.

Today I think I finally locked down the perfect set of biking toys that make riding all that more fun. I have been using my iPod touch when riding although today I purchased a cheep iPod shuffle that lets me dump a few hours of music on it and not worry about breaking it or losing it and I can easily change songs while riding without having to pull it out of my pocket. I took this out for a spin today and loved the little addition.

The other toy I added to my collection earlier this year was a new biking GPS from Garmin that came out earlier this year. I had the older version although it only kept bread crumbs and historical data for each ride. The new one has actual maps and turn by turn direction. Shanan loves it because I don’t have to spend much time planning my rides anymore. I can spend a few minutes to plan my ride and upload it right to my GPS and run out the door. This use to take me over half an hour just to get ready.

Today was almost my perfect riding day where I put some tunes on my new red Shuffle, uploaded a new route and headed out the door. I made a few detours along the way but was able to stay on the main course due to the GPS and have a great ride. I did discover that the GPS looks for the shortest route which is often nice other than when climbing over steep hills. Instead of letting you take less steep roads it just finds the shortest (steepest) route from bottom to top. On my ride today it had me climb a fairly steep, long hill in just a few miles (ouch). What a great ride it was and even better with a little technology.

Just don’t ask Shanan about all of my other tech stuff we have around the house that drives her crazy.

Oh to be a father

2008-06-16T06:59:17Z

I have always looked at fathers day as a day to remember your fathers and probably for the first time in my life have felt that fathers day was actually for me. Yes I have a three year old girl and have had a few fathers days where I was a father but for some reason it started to sink in a little more this year (you all know I am a little slow). I did have time to reflect how great of dad I have and all the things that I have learned from him.

Tonight we had dinner at a friends house and we were asked to think of something that we have learned from our fathers that has meant a lot to us. There are many things that make me appreciate my dad, one that often comes to mind is the ability to fix things. My dad is the handiest man I know. Many years ago he wanted a log house so he built a tractor/skidder from scratch as well as a saw mill to prepare to build one. For the next few summers we spent most of our time on the mountain while our dad personally cut down and skidded trees to build a house. The next year he milled all the trees and the year after he build a large log cabin for us to live in.

Another one of my favorites is that he wanted an airplane. Did he go buy one? Nope, he purchased what was not much more than a fuselage and built the rest. This is not a snap together kit, it required many hours to build and when he got it certified he was told it was the nicest hand built plane they had ever seen – it even made it in a magazine. I could never build a plane or a log cabin or many of the things my dad does although I did learn how to perform simple maintenance on cars and how to fix things like a bikes, household appliances and more from the best out there. This is just one of the many things that I appreciate from my dad.

As a father I have been extremely blessed – I have two beautiful little girls (not so little these days) that mean the world to me and an amazing wife that makes it all possible. As usual Shanan is always trying to find ways to make holidays special for us and today was no different. As many of you know, I love chocolate (another thing I got from my dad) and brownies make for a great Gardiner treat. Only problem around here is that we like the corners and edges so we typically eat them first then resort to the center later. A few months ago I heard about an all corner brownie pan and told Shanan about it. This morning before church, Bailey came in with a few presents for me to unwrap. First one I unwrapped was a “Brownie Mix Bliss” cookbook that Shanan found. It tells you how to make killer brownies from box brownie mix and a few other ingredients. I loved the book but still didn’t know what could be in the bigger box. I opened it and …thats right – the all corner brownie pan! Now I just have to figure out what type of brownie I want from the book and be extra nice to the wife in hopes of a nice warm pan of corners!

I had a great day and it is always nice to think about our great dads as well as getting a little pampered.

Hope you all had a great fathers day.

Price of a dollar

2008-06-01T07:51:35Z

Today was a special day for Bailey.

Some of you might remember a previous post where we just finished Baileys fortress and she asked if we could put a trampoline next to it. Apparently it was past time to learn about the value of a dollar. For a few days after, Shanan and I had several conversations about how we should tackle the growing tendency of wanting more. With the help of Shanan's sister (Nichol), Shanan decided to make a chart that Bailey would place stickers on when she did something around the house. When the chart was filled, she could go to the dollar store and pick out ANYTHING she wanted.

After several weeks of filling out the chart, today was the day she finally filled up the chart and wanted to go get her gift.

We told her I would take her to the dollar store while mom made dinner. Bailey reminded several times on the way to the store (only a few miles away) that she didn't need any help picking out her gift. We get to the store and all I see is this little blond head bouncing from isle to isle hardly stopping long enough to look at what was on the shelves.

After about five minutes of this, I stop her long enough for a quick picture to document such an achievement and try to slow her down a little. I was told that she wanted play-doh, then a little pony, then a princess crown, then colored clay then a baseball bat and ball. She then dropped everything when she saw some balloons, I had no idea she was so attached to regular balloons. She then saw the golden ticket - large punching balls (large balloons with a rubber band). We quickly headed up to the counter to pay for the item and I was told that I needed to blow up the orange one first then the green one and finally the yellow one when we get in the car (this must be her mothers planning influence).

The checker had been watching us the entire time and when we approached said "you found the perfect gift hu?" in which Bailey replied "yep". Bailey then went to pay the the cashier with four quarters when she dropped one on the floor. She instantly said "I'm sorry lady" picked it up and finished paying for her balloons. The cashier and I both had to laugh at such a grown-up comment and we strolled out the door.

So far the punching bag has been a big hit (pun sorta intended) and we look forward to many more trips to the dollar store in hopes of our little ones learning the price of a dollar.

Blayke's first ride

2008-05-10T17:55:14Z

This morning Shanan had a few errands so I had kid duty. After we all had a little breakfast, Blayke started to get a little fussy so we thought we would get out. I thought a little ride around the neighborhood in the jogger might do her good. Sad to say but with the crummy weather this spring, we haven't had much of a chance to take her out without rain.

I bundled the kids in, grabbed my new GPS and we were off! Ok so I make is sound like an adventure - it was just around the block - but we had a great time and as you can see from the following pictures Blayke really liked it.


Before the ride Blayke was a bit fussy but I didn't want to put her down for a nap just yet. You can see by the end of the ride she was ready for more.
	We also took the beast with us to make sure we didn't have any lion problems on our walkabout.
Bailey as usual is good for about half the ride then wants to get out and walk the dog. Helix does much better with her than with me. He will typically pull Shanan and I, but when bailey he tends to be a bit more kick back.

I have had many requests for some pics of Blayke so now you can stop asking for a week or so

Its done...

2008-05-08T08:46:28Z

Summer can now start!

I have received a few questions this week about the play structure a.k.a. "fortress" and I am happy to inform you that we have tightened the last bolt.

The structure came with not only an instruction booklet but also a DVD that showed a girl and guy about in their early 20's. They mention that I would need a hammer, level, screw driver, ratchet with a few sockets and a screw driver. Wow they painted such a pretty picture, I thought it was going to be like a day at the beach. I think it took them about 60 minutes to assembly the structure on a perfectly level cement floor.

Lets just say that it have a faster video than their 60 minute DVD but looks can be deceiving.

It also took me a few more things than they specified such as 3 drills, 3 bits, 2 screw drivers, 2 wrenches, 2 ratchets, 6 Band-Aids, 2 spot light (for after hours), flat nose shovel, round nose shovel, washers, laser level, 3 peanut butter sandwiches, 5 Frescas, 2 friends, 1 dad, 1 wife, lumber, metal brackets, wood chips, ax, sprinkler caps, plumbing tape, electrical tape, cookies, wagon, gloves and I am sure a few other things that I cant think of right now.

I know, I know, I am sure you look at it and think I am pulling your leg but this was a bit of a process over a two week period and every day Bailey would ask when we would put up her slide. We have determined that we have spent over 30 hrs to remove the grass, level the ground, build a frame to hold the bark and assembly the house.

	To finish it all up we just needed bark. I was anticipating having the bark people deliver it to my driveway and I would haul it to the play structure in the back yard (by hand) but I caved in and spent an extra $100 to have it blown in. That was the best $100 I have spent all year.
We decided to have a party Monday night to celebrate (cinco de mayo) with about 20 kids to play on the new toy. I would have to say everybody had a great time and nobody got hurt other than possibly my feelings when Bailey told me she wanted a trampoline. Anybody want some firewood?

Thanks goes out to friends and family that lent a helping hand.

What we do for kids...

2008-04-22T16:14:06Z

Over the last few years Shanan has been prepping me to buy a kids play structure. This year she had a little help from Bailey.

Every time we would go into Costco (more than I would like to admit) I would hear "lets go look at the slide" and Bailey would say something like that as well.
	We made Bailey save her money for a short time and Shanan had her do odd jobs around the house to pay for the new slide. We finally pulled the trigger one evening and purchased it just before Easter.

This is where the real work began. I don't think we realized how much time would go into putting up the play structure or else I would probably have dragged my feet a little more. On Thursday (April 17) I started ripping up grass. It didn't take long before I also ripped a little skin in my hand slowing regression a bit.

We had to remove all the grass and level the ground where we would put the play structure so I needed a little help.
	I had to call in the big guns and have my dad help me remove the rest of the grass and start to level the ground.

I am still far from finished so I will have to update you all as we progress. Tonight I was able to get it mostly leveled. Bailey let us know this morning that she doesn't want the slide to "stop in the mud" so I guess we will have to bring in some bark dust once we are all finished, boy I cant wait till then.

30 seconds of fame

2008-03-10T03:17:40Z

What an interesting work week it has been this week. One of the reasons I typically enjoy my job is that is that is always changes and I never really know what to expect from one week to another. that said, I was thrown a fast one on Wednesday that didn't really even give me much time to react (probably a good thing).

At about 10:30 I received a call from one of our public relations guys in a bit of a panic. He explained that NBC was heading to our office and wanted to film a short demonstration for the local evening news in about 30 minutes. I had just re-formatted my machine the day before and was still setting everything up with a new version of our software. I had about enough time to make sure I had a few nice 3D models that I could open up and show to them when they showed up. I was expecting for them to film our VP talking while I showed a few things on the screen although once they were set up and had a quick tour of our new facilities, they asked me what I could demonstrate to them. I started showing a few things thinking it was more informational for them and that they were just gathering background for the new spot. Next thing I know I am on the 6:30 news for about 45 seconds explaining a little about our software.

I have to say it was a bit exciting and have had a lot of people from my office make mention of it. I had hoped to be able to post the quick clip but as you know this is not legal so I wont cause myself any future grief - instead you silly picture.

I was also wrangled into doing a 60 minute web radio show for a Las Vegas radio station about technology and tools for creating and editing videos. I might actually be able to have a link to that the first of the week although at 60 minutes I am sure you all have more interesting things to do than listen to an hour long nerd show.

Other than that I am looking forward for work to slow down and hope to have the weather change so we can all get out a little.

Afternoon with Bailey

2008-03-02T06:42:56Z

I had a great start to this blog thing although recently I have had a tough time getting things posted. As some of you know this is my very busy time of year due to our software release schedule. I work half the year just to get ready for this month so you can image my last minute cram session. Fortunately I have not traveled as much this spring and was able to make sure to be home for Bailey's birthday this year (Feb 28). Shanan planned a great party today for Bailey where we had a lot of her friends over to play. I think Shanan will detail out the party more but had a chance to take Bailey to get her nails painted while Shanan got ready for the party. I would like to say the idea was mine although I probably would have taken her biking or shopping for electronics so Shanan set up the daddy / daughter date and we headed out.

Bailey braced herself thinking that adding paint to her toes would cause pain - not sure why since Shanan paints her toes often.
	Once started Bailey was very interested to see what the nail artist was doing. I am sure they aren't called nail artists I just don't know what to call them
We had to wait around a bit to let the paint dry before we headed to Bailey's party so I handed over my iPod to Bailey to watch a movie. Crazy how fast these little once can pick up things - she showed me a few things I didn't know while we were sitting there.
	Once we were finished Bailey was able to show off the new toes. I kind of wanted a more normal color like pink (Bailey's favorite color) but she threw us all off track and chose bright orange.

We had a great date and the party was very exciting as well. I look forward to the the next daddy / daughter date perhaps even with Blayke.

Enjoy!

The Mailman Cometh!

2008-02-01T06:40:18Z

For those of you that are following my blog (all eight posts), I recently posted about by biking experiences this last year and jokingly posted a link to purchase me Twinkies to energize me for the future year of riding. Apparently I am of little faith and underestimated my few readers. Tonight as I went to the mailbox I received a big box. I had an idea what it was although the USPS packing tape was a little stronger than my fork but eventually I did prevail.

You can probably guess what I found inside - a box of 10 Twinkies. George (father-in-law) was kind enough to actually order up a box for me. I haven't had one for years and had to eat at least one. I look forward to eating the other eight (Shanan had one as well) to fuel my future bike rides.

Till next time.

Garin

A lil bit of Heaven

2008-01-28T09:44:16Z

Whenever I head to California I secretly hope I am able to find a close In-N-Out Burger for a quick drive through visit. You have no idea how big of smile this put on my face as we drove past it tonight going from the San Francisco airport to my hotel.

I have a two day meeting in San Francisco that starts tomorrow morning (actually in a few hours) so I decided I would head out tonight. My flight was at 6:45 PM which should give me plenty of time to grab dinner once I made it to the hotel. Making it to the gate, I had plenty of time to spare so I sat down and started cleaning up my overflowing work mailbox. About 45 minutes into the cleanup, they came over the airport intercom announcing that the flight would be delayed a bit due to bad weather. About the time I was getting really hungry (9ish), I started to pack my things to make a quick run to the nearest fast food joint in the airport. Just then, the intercom crackled and they announced that they could start loading us within the next few minutes and that we shouldn't go anywhere. Forty minutes later we boarded the plane and we are off. This brings me back to the smile on my face as we left the airport and passed the In-N-Out near the hotel. Begging the driver to stop he continued on his course to our hotel - what type of person would give up a free burger? We quickly check into the hotel and called for a cab. Twenty minutes later we were on our way - can I tell you how hungry I am at this point?!

Ten minutes later we place our order and we are heading back to the hotel. Its hard to believe that a bag full of goodness only costs $4.80...plus the twenty four dollar taxi ride.

In the end it was worth the wait and the best In-N-Out burger I have ever had.

Now its time to get a little sleep before the meeting starts.

Last Years Miles, This Years Goals

2008-01-23T05:40:13Z

For anybody reading this, you probably already know I am a self professed biker. As many of my friends were off playing football, baseball and basketball, I spent most of my time on my BMX looking for jumps to conquer. I started BMX racing when I was about 10 years old and raced for three for four years. Every Saturday morning I would show up at the local track to race in the morning and travel to the next town over for a second heat of races. I have very fond memories hanging out at the track watching what tricks the older boys were doing then trying to pull off the same stunt. It usually didn't end well and my mom got pretty handy at pulling dirt stains from my bike jersey. Some would say I have grown up a bit although Shanan is pretty wicked with the stain stick

It has gotten a little more difficult over the years to log the kind of miles I once did although I still try to be more than just a weekend warrior. I am a true mountain biker at heart although I spend more time on my road bike to log the miles. This last year was a little slower year due to a stupid bike accident where I broke my elbow on the 4th of July. You can imagine it put a little damper on my riding for the summer although I was still able to get out on the road a bit during the healing process (week in the San Juans and a century MS ride in Oregon).

Last year I rode the equivalent of a ride from Portland Oregon to my parent’s house in Vernal Utah which would take me more than three days riding 24 hours a day. I would have climbed the equivalent of riding up Mount Fuji over five times while consuming a total of 984 Twinkles to power me through the ride.

This year I would like to be able to consume even more Twinkles so I am starting a campaign to almost double my miles this year. I figure that putting it in my blog is as close to signing in ~~blood~~ cream filling.

SUPPORT THE CAUSE!!!

Fuel the fire click here

Fuel the mind and leave a comment.

Happy Trails!

There's No Such Thing as a Free Dinner

2008-01-17T18:47:40Z

Yesterday, the team I work on had an all day meeting where several individuals flew in from out of the country to attend. Our manager told us she was going to take us all out for a nice dinner when we finished the day.

You can imagine our surprise when we arrived at the restaurant and they handed us all aprons.

Yep - there is no such thing as a free ~~lunch~~ dinner. We spent the next three hours getting schooled on cooking our own meal. I had to lean how to properly handle a knife, dice, sear meat and much more - all without cutting a finger.

From time to time I was able steal a quick snack to hold my appetite for the main course. before we knew it we were able to sit down and enjoy!

It was definitely a fun and unusual work dinning experience but well work the effort.

Unboxing of Dell XPS 420 Computer

2008-01-11T06:55:22Z

About a two years ago we purchased a cheep desktop from Dell to replace our 5 year old home build machine. We initially just used this machine for pictures and email although the last year and a haft we have changed it to be a Windows Media Center to host up all our TV as a DVR through our two XBOX 360's. We have outgrown this little desktop and recently ordered a new desktop that will allow us to watch Digital Video through the use of two digital tuners through ATI. I know, BLAH BLAH BLAH but iy is a killer desktop that will allow us to watch and record HD content from two different channels.

Now I just have to wait until the end of the month for the tuners to come - then I will be able to put our other desktop out to pasture.

The Case of a Sleeping Bailey

2007-12-18T04:15:00Z

Tonight Bailey fell asleep at 6:00 since she longer will take naps. After an hour of sleeping we decided to wake her up to ensure a timely bed time. We enrolled the service or her best friend (Helix). Any guess how we pulled it off?

One Stretched Weekend

2007-12-17T02:08:57Z

Oh what a weekend! Here we are driving back from Seattle (no I am not driving - Shanan is) from a fun weekend getaway. We planned the trip around one of Shanan's longtime friends (Tiffany) who had her 30th birthday and whose hubby Ryan had a surprise party that we attended. We drove up the night before and stayed at Chris and Nichole's then took a ferry from Bremerton to Seattle for the party. The night started at a nice Thai Restaurant in downtown Seattle and lead to a jaunt around the city in a stretched Hummer 2 limo.

I think it was my first limo ride and what a fancy one it was. We headed over to Wallingford to pick up a dozen high dollar cupcakes for the road. There were even a few Tiffany blue cupcakes for the Tiffany since she is such a Tiffany Co. nut.

Then it was off the the ferry to get back home before our carriage turned into a pumpkin. This is where the trip gets a little interesting...

We purchased tickets to get back to Bremerton although 30 minutes into a 60 minute ride we were told we had arrived at our destination. We quickly realized in our haste to get home that we took the wrong ferry and were now on Bainbridge island. After collecting ourselves and taking a quick breath, we jumped back on the ferry back to Seattle. Once there we had to nearly jump the dock onto the ferry as it pulled away and off we went.

You might think that our adventurous weekend was complete, although on the way home I was feeding the kids in the back seat and I hear Shanan mumble under her breath as I feel the char sputter to a stop. Next thing I know I am standing in the rain talking to two older women in a red SUV asking them to help us get some gas. They were a little apprehensive to take me to the station although I gave them a $50 (thinking I would never see them again) and off they went. fifteen minutes later the pulled up with a few gallons of gas and off we went. With only 10 minutes left on the ride home I am almost confident nothing else will happen so I will close it for now.

For additional pictures from out trip take a look at the album below.

Seattle Trip

welcome!

2007-12-13T07:14:00Z

Welcome to my personal blog.

Shanan and I have talked about setting up a web site and a blog for a while although we are just getting to it. I have had a work blog for a little over a year but I look forward to posting our personal experiences here.

feel free to check back regularly for images and other fun things.

Garin