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Main > Joel's August 2005 News
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Tuesday, August 30th 2005For my brown brothers and sisters -- Fobbed Out Entertainment (hee hee) presents Curry-n-Rice Girl. Thanks for finding it, Jimboy. You know what was nuts? Checking out their photos section, and FOE has performed both at the Muqabla program @ SUNY Buffalo and Asian Occasion @ SUNY Albany (my old school!) I performed during Asian Occasion at the 1995 Asian Occasian in our SASA fashion show. Me in a fashion show? It helps being SASA president that year. :) What is with Americans and our diet? Binge, starve, carbs, no carbs. After all those restaurants started rolling out healthy (debatable, right?) meal options, the pendulum has swung back, and unhealthy food is back in style. For example, Ruby Tuesday was a pioneer in launching its Smart Eating Campaign in 2003. Since then, nearly one-third of the 40 original healthy options have been dropped. Why? Because the chicken tenders, fries, ribs, and burgers are the bestsellers. Who am I to talk? When I go to Wendy's, even though I have the option of substituting my fries for a side salad, I've only done it once. I mean, come on, what best goes with a hamburger? It isn't a side salad or a bowl of chili. Then again, the guilt from not jogging this week is beginning to build. It's a wonder that I haven't had an ulcer, the way I worry about everything. Please don't work up a sweat about my diet -- I do try to eat healthy. Normal portions, no sweets (okay, I admit the occasional candy bar, but I've been behaving for 2 months now), no cheese, creamy pastas, etc. I find it's not my diet that's bad, but the recent lack of exercise. The weeks that I actually get my regular 3x a week exercise, I always lose at least a pound. Always. That's how I learned that fad diets don't do anything, but a reasonable diet (and the occasional fries) and regular exercise.
I could really use some Taco Bell right about now. Is it wrong to be craving a chalupa at 1:19am? I feel bad about the situation in Louisiana, Mississippi (hey, I spelled it correctly, and didn't look it up), Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia. I have seen pictures of people treating this crisis as a justification to loot everything that isn't nailed down. Disgusting. My favorite was reading about how, when the police show up, little kids acting as lookouts yell out "86! 86!" to indicate law enforcement showed up. Does desperation really allow one to rationalize any action?
Plans for this weekend are slowly shaping up. We're going to head out of here under the cover of darkness, so that the baby sleeps for most of the drive. What does that mean? We're hitting the road at 4am, breakfast at Waffle House whenever he wakes up, and hope to reach our relatives in Virginia by 10am. Rehearsal dinner that night, and wedding Sunday morning. Maybe some cycling if the weather is good, and we drive home Monday. Tomorrow, we're mailing out our last rent check, and our "We're moving out, don't renew our lease!" letter. Very momentous occasion.
Finally, I've upgraded my hosting package to the "Cheap High Capacity Plan 2" plan. Should I have "plan" twice in there? Anyway, hopefully this alleviates the downtime we've all experienced these past two weeks. <wife's eye-rolling>You can all congratulate yourselves that you took down my website for two weeks with your constant browser reloading and not-completely-unwarranted celebrity worship.</wife's eye-rolling> Eschewing the features I don't care about, like 25 email accounts (I don't have 25 friends to give @joelipe.com email addresses), I now have 1GB of space, and 25GB of bandwidth allotted per month. What will I do with all this storage and extra bandwith? Did you already forget we have a webcam? Video, my bitches! Mwahahahahaha! Monday, August 29th 2005I was looking at some of my old baby pictures. Depending on the hour, someone who sees Joshua says he looks like my Mom, me, my wife, my father-in-law, etc. I guess it's the eye of the beholder. Still, when I look at him, I think he looks like me. Not when I got older, but when I was a year old or so. I definitely see his mother in him.
I gotta tell you, it's strange to see another version of yourself. You really wonder how he's going to turn out. Will he act like you? Will he like the same things you do? Will he have the same mannerisms? Bachelor party planning is in full swing. I've finally narrowed it down to three hotels in Montreal that we might stay in: They're all what I think is the "happening" district, near St. Denis St., etc. If not, these hotels are all near a major metro subway station, so we can hop on and go somewhere else. BTW, who really knew that Montreal was supposedly a happening place? I've put together a big list of places to go, based on category -- night clubs, bars, pubs, lounges, etc. They even have a multitude of "after hours" clubs of R & B music, soul, house, industrial. So far, I have 11 after hours clubs that open at 3am, and go on until 10am. One of my coworkers turned me onto a club named Stereo that has great personal reviews from his friends. I even found one place called Urgence DayClub -- opens 10am and goes until sundown. Sweet. So Steve Carell is going to star in Evan Almighty, a sequel to Bruce Almighty? Uh......... really? No Jim Carrey? No Jennifer Aniston? Really? Lastly, Happy Birthday, Anil. My Pocket PC and Pocket Outlook with its reminders don't let me forget. :) I didn't realize it was your 35th birthday though. Let us all collectively say, "Dang." Sunday, August 28th 2005
I feel like Adrian Cronauer. The more "popular" I become, the "man" takes me down. First, "they" conspired to take down my home "broadband" for a "2nd week" in a row, and then "Thursday", "they" take down my "site". "quote" "quote" "quote, end quote" " " """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'' That had to be the worst abuse of "" in recent memory. I'll have to remember not to do "that" again. BTW, the problem with our cable this past week? Turns out, our apartment's connection in the central box in the building was disconnected. Just ours. WTF. $10 says that's why the cat disappeared for an hour on Tuesday. I'm home alone this Sunday afternoon. Num went with Lesh to a surprise baby shower. I would have gone, because that means free food, and some woman would undoubtedly have taken this child off of my hands. Hey, what kind of father turns down a room full of women, free food, and no babysitting responsibility? It's okay, Joshua behaved himself, and we had a pretty good time. He was so tired, he fell asleep around 7:30pm, which is early for him. Ah yeah, an evening to myself. To summarize the past week.... boring as hell. I was supposed to be in training, but apparently it was not approved, which I only found out on the Friday afternoon before the class the following week. So, I scrounged around for work this past week. There really isn't much else to say. I guess you really didn't miss anything. Nothing really interesting happened until the weekend. Read on..... Oh, we're definitely going to Montreal for the bachelor party. I'm writing up this huge Guide to Doug's Bachelor Party in Montreal, with hotel info, bars/clubs, transportation, links to maps, etc. It even has a table of contents. You know I'm going to be the only attendee actually using it. Everyone else will be staggering around, asking "Where are we going next?"
Friday, we got a gift from Anju & Sunny -- the Logitech Procam 4000. It's supposedly an early "Happy anniversary / we miss seeing your progeny!" gift. It's all hooked up, and we've all be chatting since Friday night. They don't have a webcam yet, so it's only a one-sided show, but they're looking to get one too after their move to Richmond next month. BTW, courtesy of these Chackos of ours, I've added 15 new pictures from around the time of the baptism. Oh, we ordered out for Italian for dinner Friday night too. Bowties with sausage, calamari, mozzarella sticks, and even some garlic bread. It was a veritable smorgasbord. Saturday, I went riding 23 miles. What's it been now? A month since my last ride? This has been a bad year, and a bad month. Work, being sick for a week, every weekend jam-packed with events to attend. Argh. Still, it was a very enjoyable ride, and I feel much better after getting some fresh air on the open road. Very therapeutic. Saturday night, I grilled 16 hamburgers, which were leftovers from last Sunday's Rectory picnic. We couldn't freeze them, so before they went bad, I grilled 'em all. Hamburgers for dinner last night, burgers for lunch today. Hmmm, how many more do we have left? We also have hot dogs. I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, except it's August, and I'm stuck at a picnic. I also feel like Cinderella, as I was cleaning up the greasy mess forever. So basically, I'm in a ballroom dress, one slipper, eating hamburgers at an outdoor picnic, and Prince Charming is nowhere to be seen. It's tough being me. Sunday was a quiet day at home, with some quality time with my boy. I also did a major update to the nyiia.org site -- posting employment opportunities, speaker bios, etc. I was out of control. Crap. Can you believe it's the 28th of August already? September starts friggin' Thursday. Where the hell did the summer go? Seriously? I was looking at my Tivo To-Do List, and I was wondering why Sept 1 and Sept 2 programs were already showing up. Should have seen my face when I perused the calendar. Argh. That also means we're leaving for Virginia this Friday night for Num's cousin's wedding. I hope Julie is going to cat-sit. She agreed two months ago, but she hasn't responded to my reminder email. If I have to bring that cat to Virginia, I don't know what I'm going to do. Monday, August 22nd 2005I'm considering moving Doug's bachelor party to Montreal. Looks to be a happening place. The location may be up in the air, but at least I called everyone to book that weekend of Oct 6th - Oct 10th. We don't know where we're all going, but at least we're going somewhere. It's the beginning of the end of business casual. First one guy wears a tie to the office. Then another. Now another coworker is wearing a tie. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers all over again. I half expect to see a small stem at the base of their necks. More people will start wearing ties, then the suits will come out for special meetings, and then I'm back to suits 100% of the time.... again. Damn you, you damn dirty snazzy dressers! I was feeding the baby this evening, and all of a sudden, I smelled roasted nuts. Num was making Chicken Pad Thai for dinner. It needed to be more saucy, but still, a welcome surprise. I can't find my monthly PATH train ticket, or my Metrocard. I've very irritated right now. I booked by flights for Jacksonville today. Leaving on Sundays, coming back Fridays, and staying at a Homewood Suites. Speaking of travel, in two weeks, we're heading to Virginia for Num's cousins wedding. Hmmm, I just remembered we haven't made arrangements for someone to take care of Missy. Uh oh. Sunday, August 21st 2005I'm so tired. It's actually 3:36am Monday morning, and the laundry is all folded. My clothes, baby clothes, and some of my wife's. Wife, baby, and cat are all sleeping soundly. Well, I can feel minor plotting against me by the cat "sleeping" on the couch, but she's mostly asleep. This weekend has been another exhausting weekend, and we all could use a vacation. I could try to write a detailed summary of the week, but really, what's the point? It'd just be a really long entry, and I need to get up in a 2-3 hours. I could just sleep now, but I feel the need to write. I think it's work that's really tiring me out. Not completely, but mostly. Add the baby, our move next month to a new home, the contstant thought of how much I need to do around here. Sigh. My last audit is basically over, and I'm glad to start something fresh this week. My training class didn't get approved for some reason, but I'll probably never find out exactly why. It just went into some deep dark netherworld that swallows all requests made to management. So, I'm kinda available this week, but I've spoken to the lead on my upcoming audit, and I'm going to start early on her work. I like her, so that works out for me. You know, my boss told me a few weeks ago that it's "easy" to do your job done around here. Come in at 8:30am, leave by 5:30pm, and you can finish your work. I'm not sure what he's talking about, because I feel like there are not enough hours in the day. I've worked a few late days until 8:30pm and 9pm in the past two weeks, and I worked until 11pm (you read that right) this past Thursday night. I had no energy to take my work home and pull an all-nighter. None. It's not just me. I kinda thought it was, but then spoke to another coworker, and they told me that they had done work every night until 11pm at home. For the past week. What is my boss talking about? He's been here for a while, so he knows the ropes, who to talk to, and probably works like a well-oiled machine. It's been 5 months, and I'm still trying to figure out who is who, what group does what, what process interacts with something else. All of this working hard is good for me, so it keeps me on my toes, which is good. I'm not regretting anything. I'll be stronger each and every day. Maybe lead some audits next year. I might be going to Chicago sometime next month for a day. Or my boss will. I don't know. In these situations, if it's either you or your boss who might go somewhere for just a day, the boss usually wins. I'm not holding my breath on this one. My friends have noticed my exhaustion. I had lunch with some close friends from my last job last week. They were nice enough to ask what's wrong with me, I'm not so happy and stuff. I just said, "Hmmm, work is tough." I'm not drowning or anything. Don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to do a good job. I had my mid-year eval 2 weeks ago, and it was mostly good. I still need to work on managing expectations with my lead. I apparently also need to speak up at meetings. The impression is, I don't say a damn thing. You know why? Because I don't know anything. I'm distinctly aware of people who have been here for 1-2-3+ years with lots of experience, bandying about names of people I've never heard of, processes I think I understand, that sorta thing. I told my manager when he brought this up in the eval, and he reminded me that the reason they hired me is that I have 6 years of audit experience. First off, 6 years? Already? Quick calculation, and I'm thinking to myself, "Huh." He tells me some good advice. I have audit experience. If I can't talk about my company's internal processes in detail, at least I can give my audit perspective.
That really clicked a switch in my head, and I'm glad my boss told me that. He was right. Right after that, I've been putting my two cents in at meetings, informal and formal since then. And I feel better too. I'm not blaming work for making my life tough. Heck, it's a great paycheck, and the most I've ever made in my life. I'm just really earning it now. :) This year has, overall, been a tough one. My friends Doug and Paul have reminded me time and time again that I'm experiencing the big changes in life, all in the same year. New job. A baby. Moving into a new home in a little over 30 days. Oye. No wonder I'm grumpy. God bless my wife and my family for putting up with me. My parents too. Enough about that. It's 3:57am, and I should wrap this up. Lots of new photos in the Family gallery. We're done with all three baptisms this month, after this past Saturday. Count em -- 46 new photos from the past two weeks. That includes Joshua's baptism as well. BTW, it went well. My cousin Shibu recorded it on video for us, so I gotta pick up the raw footage at some point. In addition, I just received photos of little Lisa, a real cutie patootie, from relatives Reena and Vinod in Bangalore, India. Lisa is about 6 months older than Joshua, but hopefully, she won't beat him up next time we visit.
We've cut down on expenses by not ordering out food much anymore. We did order some middle-eastern food for dinner Friday night. Since we're moving out next month, when we do order out food, we're trying out lots of places that we said we would eat at, but never did. The verdict? Friday's dinner of chicken, rice, beef, lamb (I didn't eat that), veggies, and Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookies was excellent.
Yesterday, we had Adhith's baptism, which we missed, but we made the reception out in Long Island. On the way to Jersey, I jumped out of the car on 42nd and 9th Ave so that I could walk over to Cascina Ristorante for dinner at Neil's bachelor party while Num continued on to New Jersey. The evening festivities went on to Neil's apartment and drinks at Tin Lizzie's on 2nd Ave.
On Sunday morning, we got ready for church and the annual Rectory Picnic at my in-laws' house for the church. Very nice, but we spent most of it in the A/C in the living room. In the afternoon, I slept upstairs. So did Joshua. That's really been it, and as consolidated as possible. I'm hoping to get some rest this week. Life has been so nutty, it's taken a real toll on me. For the past week or so, I've been suffering from a bad cold. Fevers, the sweats, the chills, sore throat. Pretty bad. I would have called in sick to work numerous times, except I couldn't even afford the time away from my work. I know my health is important, but if the work that I was assigned wasn't done..... Oye. I don't even want to think about it. At least it's all basically over now. Some test wrap-up work tomorrow, and then we're done. I still need to work on Doug's bachelor party. He called me today, a little worried about how fun Tampa Florida will be. I think we all can have fun anywhere, and this is a college town too. Besides, with the amount of alcohol that will be consumed, it could be Boise, Idaho, and it would probably be fine. Still, I don't want him to worry. I'm the best man, and I want this to go well for him, and for Doug to be happy. I suggested L.A. and San Francisco, but he wants to stay on the East Coast. I suggested Vegas again, but then he said we'd already done it. I don't want my friend to sit there wishing his bachelor party was as good as the one he put together for me. That's not right. I have to do a good job for him. He deserves it. Add one more list of things to do -- arranging a fantastic bachelor party 5-day extravaganza for at least six guys. My wife sent me a list of Top 10 Bachelor Party destinations, and Tampa was not on the list. Which worries me more -- not that I was expecting to see it on there. Apparently, Montreal is the #2 spot after Vegas. Hmmmm........ Canada? 4:27am. Enough. Time for bed. Wednesday, August 17th 2005Joelipe.com is back on the air. Apparently, the site has been a little too popular (I'm betting it's the Family Guy episode I posted a while ago), and I exceeded my bandwidth limit. I put in a trouble ticket, and found out that either I pay for more bandwidth, or wait until Sept 1st for the new billing cycle. I paid. It's been a busy week. Long hours in the office, the baptism, more long hours in the office, pannini'd sandwiches, people wearing ties to the office, being horribly sick. IIA updates. Calling everyone for Doug's bachelor party. Finding out I'll be in Florida for 3 weeks on business next month. What a week. And no time to write about it. I'd write more, but I'm exhausted. Let's try again tomorrow. Wednesday, August 10th 2005I brought my laptop home to do work today, but I'm starting to feel sick. It's already 11:25pm, so I think I'm just going to get some bedrest, and then try (try, try try) to get into the office early tomorrow morning. Today was just exhausting, and I missed the 6:51pm Hoboken train by a few minutes. So, I sat around in Hoboken for 40 minutes until the next train, which got me home around 8:15pm. Anyone hear about this guy who went on a 50-hour videogame marathon in South Korea, only to die of heart failure? He was 28. Weird. Tuesday, August 9th 2005Funniest thing happened today during lunch. I'm hemming and hawing whether I should go to lunch at 11:30am, since I was so hungry, but it was so early. I decide to go at 11:50am. Once outside, I'm trying to decide if I want Subway or Wendy's. I go with Wendy's. On the line, I'm can't decide if I want the chicken strips, or spicy chicken sandwich (that's a damn good chicken sandwich). Finally, waiting for the guy in front to get his food, I'm thinking he looks a little like this guy Sibi from Long Island that I know. He looks at me, and goes, "Hey!". Turns out, it was Sibi from Long Island. He recently started working downtown a few months ago, and we walked back towards our respective buildings. Funny. A difference of 30 seconds, and I wouldn't have even seen him. Great article on Newsweek about the brutality of the war in the Pacific near the end of World War II, with the Japanese and Americans both getting desperate. Highly recommend it. I just want to state the places I want to visit and see before I die (whenever that shall come to pass):
Newsweek columnist Brad Stone calls it the never-ending upgrade. As soon as you upgrade one item in your digital life, something else needs to be replace, or upgraded to be even cooler, to interact with your other junk, etc. Sounds like my life. The record industry ("Boooo......") is rolling out new copy-protection schemes to keep you from sharing. Here's one: you can only make copies of a music CD 3x. After that, no good. There's plenty more to come, all because the record industry has been emboldened by winning the case against the P2P networks. Of course, there are workarounds, and it'll probably be cracked by November. Still, I don't like it. We got the new super-duper carseat prepped and installed in the backseat. That's what I call teamwork. I would love to buy and wear this shirt, but my wife would be so ashamed, I'd never hear the end of it. :) To continue the "shaming of Joel".... for the boys. The Girls of "Wedding Crashers" courtesy of Stuff Magazine. Also, the big debate: which Daisy Duke do you prefer? Catherine Bach or Jessica Simpson? Personally, growing up in the 80's (and also seeing Catherine Bach in Cannonball Run II during my adolescence), I gotta give it up for Catherine Bach. If anything, at least for nostalgia.
Monday, August 8th 2005Did I mention that I took a vacation day today? Doesn't matter, as I was up at 6:30am anyway. Had a number of errands to run that morning. Julie, and anybody elese who's interested, here's last Sunday's episode of Family Guy Blind Ambition [link removed]for download. Don't even try it if you don't have a fat pipe. As it's 620 MB, I'll keep it up for a week, then take it down to save on server space. Sunday, August 7th 2005
What a long day yesterday. First, we went to Leah's (cousin's daughter) baptism in the Bronx, then drove up to North White Plains for Sonia's (went to church together when we were kids) wedding. We didn't attend the reception, as it was a long day for the baby. It was so good to get home and relax. I didn't take one single picture at either event, as I was holding/calming the baby down. Num took one picture at the wedding. Friday turned out to be a momentous occasion. I learned yesterday that Joshua discovered his own toes. Good for him. This should keep him busy for the next few weeks as he tries desperately to stick them in his mouth. He likes to see new things, but then it needs to go in his mouth.
After we got home, I went out for a run (2.25 miles). I picked up some Thai food, and we were supposed to watch Fight Club last night, but we were too tired. New York Democrat Victor Bernace is going to have a fundraiser event next month. Sound interesting? No. So, he's going to have exotic dancers in bikinis for the $20-per-head event. Hmmm, one of those elegant, high-society events I keep hearing about. Forbes just came out with their list of 10 Worst Foods, based on how unhealthy they are. Setting aside the fact that Forbes is all about finance, but here's the article anyway. I'm ambivalent -- I can see they're unhealthy, but I doubt I'm taking them out of the rotation:
Hmmm, that's six out of 12 items on the big bad list. Maybe I'll just treat myself, instead of making them normal staples for lunch.
Today, I don't think anyone is making it to church. We're all tired, and could spend a whole week sleeping. That includes the cat. However, that is not to be the case. We're visiting my cousin Shiku and his family today -- they just had a set of twins Hannah & Philip last week. Afterwards, we're visiting my parents. You know the problem with lots of the blogs out there? Besides the excessive ranting and raving? Not enough pictures. I really like pictures. Of anything. Even paint drying on a wall. All of these blogs with just pages and pages of text is nauseating. I feel like I'm reading those procedure control manuals in the office that I always have to read during an audit. Blah blah shopping. Blah blah what's that smell? Blah blah this rash is spreading. Show me items in the store. Show me that stinky thing. Show me the rash!
11:02pmWe're back from visiting everyone, once I was back from faxing documents at Staples, picking up cash, gassing up the car, picking up special occasion greeting cards, and buying stuff for Joshua. Babies were cute, and doing well. We also visited my parents, and Joshua had a very good time. Friday, August 5th 20053:58amAs usual, I'm up. Getting ahead on some work before the weekend. I don't think I'll get to register for that Windows 2003 training class. The class is in 2 weeks, and I've heard bupkis on receiving an approval. Now it's too late, because I'm scheduled to help out on another audit during that week, and if I disappear for a whole week.... well, the lead reviewer may go into cardiac. I've been asking about whether it was approved or not, but I got the "It's on so-and-so's desk... so stop asking." Better luck next time. Creative is just about to roll out the Zen Vision. 30GB of storage, accepts CompactFlash cards, and has a 3.7-inch screen. Plays audio and video, and is compatible with Tivo's TivoToGo service. Comes in white or black. Hmmmmm.
Added two "Joshua can almost hold his bottle when he wants to" pictures in the Wednesday posting. Is it me, or are people's websites slowly disappearing? I went to three personal sites this week -- two were defunct, and one hasn't been updated in a long while. Anybody looking for a pool table? My buddy is selling his cheap. Please support the local Indian economy. Wednesday, August 3rd 2005Joshua was holding his own bottle yesterday evening. Pretty cool.
Our plans for moving in September are proceeding nicely. It's damn expensive. In other news, we've finalized the menu for the baptism lunch next weekend. You know, I'm really going to have to start bringing in my lunch. Yesterday, I spent $10 on lunch at Cosi. $7 for a sandwich? Well, it's almost justifiable in NYC, because it's gourmet, and awfully tasty. However, looking at the receipt, they charged me $1.99 for a bottle of Diet Coke. Excuse me, but isn't the average price of a soda bottle $1.25? That's outright price-gouging. On a totally unrelated subject -- Kanishk, you were right. A slice of swiss cheese on a pastrami sandwich makes all the difference. Tuesday, August 2nd 2005
So, I'm sitting here, it's well after midnight, my wife is sleeping on the couch, and I'm eating a heaping bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Sounds like a typical night with the Ipe family. Lemme 'splain my day to you. Somehow, I caught the 7:20am train (extremely surprising), and got to work by 8:15am. I had scheduled a meeting with my boss at 9am, which he blew off, as he was pretty busy with conference calls and such. So, I smiled outside, grumbled inside, and went back to my desk. I started working on my next audit, reading deliverables and such. I had a soggy chicken cutlet sandwich for lunch from a new place, and now I've sworn off the entire establishment from my lunchtime repetoire. Never again. I also realized that after eating healthier for the past two weeks (Dear David: no more Snickers bars for breakfast!), my dress pants fit better today. Let's take a moment to realize that this is a good thing. In a good use of my time in the office, I spent time this afternoon researching for Doug's bachelor party. I originally suggested a road trip from Atlanta to Tampa (two hot spots: Buckhead and Ybor City), but it's been near-to-impossible to rent 2+ SUVs for one-way trips. It appears car rental offices don't want to lose their Ford Explorers. Now it's looking like Tampa or Cancun. At least we've settled on the dates -- Oct 6 through 10, taking advantage of Columbus Day weekend. Thanks to Leena & Mike (separately) for the info on Tampa and Ybor City.
After work today, Num and I (yeah, yeah, the baby too) went to Target to attempt to snatch the last Eddie Bauer Deluxe Convertible Car Seat. For some reason, this baby is growing in leaps and bounds, and now requires a new car seat. For $119. And he's not even 5 months. Unbelievable. Whoever told me that kids were cheap to maintain, and that sexual harassment in the workplace is okay again, was dead wrong. The only problem was the Clifton NJ store only had one item left in stock, open box, missing instructions and the warranty. This $119 car seat is unavailable everywhere. So, it's either this one, or wait 2-6 weeks because of the backorder. Argh. So, now there's a car seat in the backseat of my car, and I need to install it this week sans instructions. After we got back, diaper changing, and bottlefeeding ensued, and Mr. Joshua fell asleep around 9pm. Once he fell asleep, so did the rest of us, and I just woke up around midnight, with the girls (includes the cat) sleeping in the living room. No dinner tonight, I guess. I can't really go without eating, so that explains why I'm eating breakfast cereal. To an old friend: Matt Maliel, long time no hear. Thanks for writing! About a week or two ago, an episode of Family (one of my two favorite shows on now, the other being Battlestar Galactica) had a great reference to A-Ha's 80's music video "Take on Me". Check it out on milkandcookies.com, or try this putfile.com link.What's even more amazing? According to lyricscafe.com, A-Ha has produced 9 albums. I didn't know they had written anything since 1985! In case you forgot, Family Guy rocks. This arrest is straight out of a movie. A police officer in Bergen county (right around here, and I've cycled over this bridge overpass) was coming back from a motor vehicle stop early Sunday morning when he saw a Jeep parked over on the overpass overlooking the Passaic River. Three teens were unloading a steamer trunk, and it kinda looked like they were going to dump it in the river. What does the officer find? The dismembered body of 16-year-old Jennifer Parks.
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Oooh curtains....... FOR MY MOUTH!
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