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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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Happy Trails!

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.

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.