The Long Road--Random thoughts from a waiting mother

As you can imagine, the most common question we get anymore is "have you heard anything about Grace," which I might add is a great deal better than "when are you guys going to have kids," or "have you tried X" ("X" being any type of advice about how to conceive a baby, most of which usually makes me uncomfortable to discuss in public).

For all of you Grace-watchers out there, here's the scoop: it's going to take awhile. Today, the CCAA (The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) sent out another batch of referrals. People who had a LOG IN DATE of JUNE 2005 just received their referrals (for translation of adoption terminology, refer here). Now, since our log in date is MARCH 2006, we have a wait in front of us. At this point, we are hopeful and prayerful to get our referral in March 2007, but we are prepared to even add a few more months to that estimate.

So, what am I doing during the wait. Well, I am doing things biological mothers the world over do... drinking margaritas, smoking cigars, and sitting in hot tubs. Just kidding (at least about the smoking part), but truth be told, I am pretty busy. This week I am painting Grace's room (I know people wanted me to decorate in pinks and other such girly colors, but I love blues and greens, and I don't want Grace growing up thinking pink is a girly color and blue is a boyish color; that seems silly).

I found her bedding at a consignment shop ($30 for three pieces in mint condition from Pottery Barn), and I settled on painting the room a celery color. But what started out as celery on the small paint sample, turned into neon mint. Needless to say, I am going to add some stripes to tone it down. In addition, I am going to handpaint a gingham border. I have to stay up for 24 hours next Monday (I have a wacky sleep testy thingy on Tuesday), and I think I'll finish it during the wee hours of Tuesday morning. (As a side note, staying up for 24 hours is going to be near impossible for me. I could fall asleep nightly at 8 p.m., and I am convinced the early bird special was created for me.)

In addition to painting, I am trying to gather all the necessary baby stuff via garage sales. I don't see the need to buy new stuff when Grace will probably use it for a whopping three or four months. While I'm on the subject of things I don't get... I don't understand these clothes for babies and toddlers that look like something Brittany Spears, at least in her pre-baby days, would wear. I want my baby to look like a little girl, not a hooker. Grace will be a complete nerd in school: the only kid wearing garage sale clothes, the only kid who isn't wearing hoochie-mama (actual spelling: who knew?) clothing, and the only kid who doesn't know the lyrics to songs like Spears' "I'm not so Innocent."

Also, in my spare time, I am teaching myself guitar. I've been at it a total of two days, complete with every guide, dvd, book and audio tape from the library on the subject. All I can show for it, right now, are some very, very blistered fingers.

All in all, I don't want to wish away the time I do have until Grace makes her debut. Life will never be the same when she shows up, so I might as well enjoy the long nights of sleep, the hours of quiet reading, and the drool free carpet until then.

Chickens and Horses

For Father's Day, we took Erin's parents to a local favorite here in Central Indiana -- The Kopper Kettle. Now I never ate there as a kid, but my buddy Eric used to go there with his family all the time. (My family usually ended up at Gray Bros. Cafeteria instead, which is legendary in its own right...) Anyway, the Kopper Kettle is known for serving lots of great midwestern vegetables family style along with heart stopping volumes of fried chicken. It truly is great stuff, and our food this weekend was no exception. One of the other notable things about the Kettle is that the waitresses all wear these intriguing little French maid outfits. I never have made the connection between an 1860's tavern and French maids, but who's complaining? In any case, the previous time we ate there, we had a lovely young maiden serving us, who was probably in her early 20's. She was cute enough...until I noticed as she was refilling my iced tea that she had a pierced tongue and a tattoo. Now I could write a whole blog entry on what's wrong with these kids and their piercings and such, but I'll save it. I did think it was an odd adornment given her outfit though. This time, our server wasn't cut from quite the same mold. She was probably in her late 50's, and a little, er, bulkier. I'm not totally sure that the French maid look really carries to the older set, but as long as they're refilling my mashed potatoes every 10 minutes, who am I to talk?

Afterwords we headed for Indiana Downs, which has become another annual trip. None of us is a gambler, but it's worth the trip for the people watching. (You haven't really lived until you've seen a 35 year old man call his kid a swear and spill beer on the kid's head at the same time.) Erin managed to win money within about 10 minutes of arriving, so it was lovely evening. We sat outside, enjoyed a couple of hours of horse racing, and went home with more money than we left with. Can't beat it, right? Plus I'm all about seeing horses get whipped while being forced to run around a mile long track in the dirt. I should be allowed to go out and throw marbles under their hooves occasionally, given my history with horses...or at least make rude comments towards them.

Bret

Sites and Sounds of Athens, GA

One of the stops on our vacation last week was the lovely college town of Athens, Georgia, the home of the University of Georgia as well as the home base for the band R.E.M. Now anyone that knows me knows I'm a big music fan, and a lot of what I listen to these days was heavily influenced by R.E.M. I'm still a big fan and wanted to take a trip to Athens at some point to see some of the sites of interest to those of us who are complete music geeks. Therefore, if you couldn't give a rip about music or R.E.M., you can safely skip this post. Otherwise, read on...

First off, I'd like to thank Flagpole Magazine and its Athens Music History Walking Tour for info on many of these sites, as well as the similarly named walking tour provided by the Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau. Please note that you should be able to click on any of these pictures for a closer view.

We began our little Athens voyage at the former St. Mary's Episcopal Church. This is the church where members of R.E.M. lived and practiced early on. They played their first show here on April 5, 1980. Since then, the church itself has been torn down, but the steeple remains. It's sort of an R.E.M. shrine at this point. Here's a picture of the building before it was torn down, along with a pic of its current state.



R.E.M. still runs its operations primarily out of Athens. Their offices are currently located in the second floor of the building shown here, above the cookie shop.



Erin has joked ever since our Athens visit that we took "more pictures of sites that used to be "The 40 Watt." "The 40 Watt" is a music venue in Athens that has been in, I believe, five locations since the early 1980's. Peter Buck of R.E.M. has had some ownership in the locations over the years, and it's still considered to be one of the best music venues in the eastern portion of the U.S. I got pictures of four of the locations, but forgot to snag the fifth. The original location was opened in 1979 in the space directly above what is now "The Grill."



The second location opened in 1980 above what is now Starbucks.



The third (and fifth!) location from 1982-1984 was in the space shown on the left here, which is now the Caledonia Lounge. In the late 1970's, it was known briefly as the 11:11 Club, where R.E.M. played their first club show on April 19, 1980. The show was infamously stopped by a police raid due to the lack of a liquor license. Charming, eh? The building is adjacent to a building which was previously restored by R.E.M. and housed the fanclub offices and rehearsal space for a number of years (I wore a T-shirt in high school featuring a picture of this building). I warned you that this would be geeky:



And finally, the current 40 Watt which also houses a lovely tattoo parlor. This location opened in 1990 and is still very active today.



Wuxtry Records was where Pete Buck worked in the late 1970's and apparently met Michael Stipe. It's still a cool little music store.



The Georgia Theater is another current music venue in Athens. It was open from 1978-1981, then closed, then reopened in 1989. Lots of bands have played here, and R.E.M. filmed part of the somewhat atrocious "Shiny Happy People" video here.



This is the home of the Geogia Bar which opened in 1986. The bar forms part of what locals refer to as the "Barmuda Triangle" with a couple of other bars on the adjacent corners. R.E.M. still claims this as their favorite Athens bar.



The space now housing The Grit used to be a club called the Coffee Club in the late 1970's. The building also housed Micheal Stipe's film company, C-00, upstairs, and I believe Stipe was responsible for restoring the building.



This is the John Keane Studios where R.E.M. has frequently recorded. Wilco and various other relatively large acts have also recorded there.



This is Weaver D's, whose slogan was used as the title for R.E.M.'s "Automatic For the People" album. The food here was tremendous and was partially responsible for my meltdown on the second night of our trip.



This is what is affectionately referred to as "The Trestle" by R.E.M. fans. It was featured on the back of their debut album, "Murmur", and a campaign to save it from demolition has been going back and forth for the past few years.



Philomath appears somewhat prominently in R.E.M.'s 1985 single, "Can't Get There From Here." The song couldn't have been more accurate, but it was on the way to Hilton Head, so...



Well that wraps up my rather lengthy picture tour of Athens/R.E.M. sites. I'm sure I'll endure endless abuse from my family and friends for the obsessiveness contained within.

Cheers,
Bret

Patent infringement?

Over the past, oh, two years perhaps, my lovely wife has been pitching an idea for a patentable product. Inspired by my patent work, and never void of her own bevy of ideas, her idea was to prepackage charcoal in little pyramids that held together on their own. That way, when you wanted to start a charcoal grill, you could just drop one of these preformed pyramids of charcoal on the grill, light it (it would also be ingitable), and presto! Burned burgers await! (...since I'm usually the one that does the actual grilling in our house...) She even had a marketable name for the idea -- Bar-B-Cubes. You could package several pyramids together in one cube. Not bad, eh? Everyone she has presented this idea to (roughly 3500 people) has found it to be a novel enterprise, but we've just never had a way to light a fire under the idea (har har).

While on vacation last week, we stopped at a gas station just outside Athens, Georgia. While I was in the restroom, I heard a shriek that was instantly recognizable as someone related to myself. I dashed to Erin's aid, and when I arrived, she was standing aghast at the product which sat before her very eyes on the shelf at the quickie mart -- CharCones. They even have a pretty snappy website. Erin was horrified, and she immediately came to the conclusion that her idea had been unscrupulously stolen by one of the 3500 people to which she had conveyed it. She also was convinced that the existence of CharCones meant that Grace's instant college fund had just vanished, not to mention my purchase of whatever new iPod gets released in the next few months.

So here we sit...still looking for the next great idea. Perhaps we'd still have a charcoal grill if CharCones had arrived on the scene just a little sooner.

Bret

Pictures!

I uploaded some of our pictures from our vacation for your viewing pleasure.

Click here for our pics from Hilton Head.

Click here for our pics from Savannah, GA.

Back to work...

And just like that, I'm back at work. The sun, sand, and relaxation replaced by my PC, a network having issues, and a pile of emails to respond to. It was noted by some people who read this blog that we might as well just go out to eat every night around home for a week and call it a vacation, and after reading our entries from Hilton Head, it does appear that all we did is sleep and eat. On further recollection, this is pretty accurate. Sleep, eat, beach, repeat. We did have a wonderful time though, and as is always inevitable following a vacation, part of me wishes I were still there.

The other thing Erin and I both experienced on this vacation was how much we want to get our family started as soon as possible. We've both worked through these past few years with all the ups and downs of not having children, but on this vacation more than ever before, I really longed to have kids around. I adore the time I spend with Erin on vacation, and I wouldn't trade that time for the world. But I think we both felt like kids would have made the experience that much more special. We were both constantly saying "Oh, that would be so much fun to experience with kids." There were kids everywhere...at the beach, at the restaurants, etc, and I'm sure that contributed to this feeling. But I also think that all the delays in our adoption and all the preparations that have gone into having a child, who it sometimes feels is never coming, really sort of came to a head with me in Hilton Head. We're both aware that when we do finally have kids, and we're both confident that our little Grace will arrive from China at some point, that our children will be the ones that God had planned for us all along. But it still isn't making the wait any easier...

Bret

Almost over...

Well, we've reached the inevitable conclusion of our stay here at Hilton Head. We've had a wonderful, completely lazy time, and we're looking forward to coming back here in the coming years.

Yesterday for dinner we went to a fabulous little restaurant called The Sea Shack. This place was highlighted on a Food Network show by Rachel Ray as a great place to go on a budget. The restaurant, much like Weaver D's last week, was a complete dive. Paper plates and plastic eating utensils abounded. You walk up, order, then hunt for a seat, which was tricky since there was a half hour long line when they opened at 5pm. The food was amazing. The best seafood I can remember.

Following dinner we went to play some miniature golf. The putt putt place was interesting. Each hole featured a little placard with a Bible verse on it. Of course, on about the third hole, Erin blasted a ball into the water and shouted "CRAP!" at about 100 decibels. From then on, parents were doing the "earmuffs" thing to cover their kid's ears as we approached. So much for those Bible verses... Not that anyone cares, but Erin, in her ultra-competitiveness, beat me by a few strokes.

Today we hit the beach again. I've been telling Erin this whole trip that her fear of sharks at the beach is a little bit silly. There are all these kids in soggy diapers swimming in the surf, then there's Erin constantly scanning for predators. I went to grab something at the convenience store across from our condo this morning when I saw the news story linked here. I couldn't believe it. I debated whether to tell her or not. I ended up breaking and telling her. She handled it well. I explained to her that as long as there was a diaper-laden toddler between her and the sharks, she would be fine.

After the beach we headed to the Old Fort Pub for dinner. This place was amazing as well. It was recommended by one of Erin's students, and it was well worth our trip to the opposite side of the island. Now we're sitting here for our final Internet session at Java Joe's -- Hilton Head's only free Internet hotspot, near as I can tell (other than a real estate company whose parking lot provided a signal for the first couple of blog entries.)

Anyway, we've had a great time, and we can't wait to get back and see family and friends.

Bret

Post-Savannah Sun Soakedness

Well, despite coming down here with at least a little bit of a sun tan, I'm burnt. Not badly, but my shoulders are definitely suffering. Erin is ready to start a campaign against the Banana Boat suntan company, as she's even more burnt than I am. But neither of us is in too bad of shape.

Last night we hit the Wild Wing Cafe which came (disturbingly) highly recommended by Erin's mom. (We suspect there might have been a free drink involved.) It was definitely tasty. Erin had some sort of bowl of chicken and cheese topped with tortilla chips. It was listed a low fat option. Yeah, right.

Today we took a bike ride up to the stables and looked around without getting within my court ordered radius of a horse. The little man-injuring-death-beasts were cute, and I so enjoyed smelling them while on my vacation.

After the bike ride, we crashed out by the pool for a couple of hours to enhance our sunburns before dinner. Dinner turned out to be our favorite meal of the trip thus far. We went to the Big Bamboo Cafe and had chicken and ribs. All was delicious (and the two-for-one margaritas didn't hurt).

I think tonight we'll be talking a little stroll on the beach. We'll try and bribe some passers by into taking our picture for tomorrow's blog. In return, we'll tell them all about Chinese adoption.

Bret

Savannah

Last night, our dinnner at The Kingfisher was very good. The ambience was sort of lacking, but our meals were good. After dinner we took in "The Breakup," which proved once again that Vince Vaughn is a tall, funny dude.

Today we ventured down to Savannah to take in the old homes and historic sites. The trip started off on shaky ground though. Upon arriving in Savannah, we immediately drove to the Visitor's Center. Upon arrival, I was dismayed to find that the parking lot at the visitor's center was a pay lot. I've driven down here to dump money into your city, and you expect me to pay while I determine how I'm going to spend that money? No thanks.

So we headed into the historic district to look for a parking place for the afternoon. Savannah has divided their 10 public parking spaces into various subcategories like "30 minute meter" or "3 hour meter" or "5 hour meter" and within each of these subcategories, there are other categories involving how you pay the meter -- coin or via an off-site parking validator. Logically, of course, the longer the time allowed on the meter, the more likely it requires actually coinage (i.e. you don't need change for the 30 minute meter, but you need 50 quarters for the 3 hour ones...unbelieveable). None of this matters though, as there wasn't a parking space to be found. So we drove around Savannah's crazy little squares for an hour looking for a parking spot. We then found a public parking garage, but the ticket machine wouldn't dispense anything, and there was no attendant. But there multiple signs saying that it was a permit-only garage, and you'd be towed for disobeying this rule. Not wanting my car towed, we kept looking. I will admit that I was becoming angrier by the minute. I couldn't get around why a city so desparately needing tourists would make it so freaking difficult to visit?

In the end, after some, er, guidance from Erin, we headed back for the damn visitor's center (which, as it turns out, gives you the first hour of parking free.) We went inside and selected a trolley tour of the city. Parking at the visitor's center is only a dollar per hour after the first hour, so the city should really put up a giant sign that says, "Don't bother driving into the city. Just dump your car here for the day." That would have saved me some blood pressure medication. The trolley tour we took was actually very fun and very informative. Savannah turned out to be a beautiful place with some amazing homes and architecture. After the tour, we lunched at Belford's, which turned out to be the best meal of the trip so far. Then we got some homemade candy and ice cream and headed back to the car.

"Park your car here and save your marriage and sanity. There are only 10 spaces in the historic district, and you'll have to kill three horse-drawn carriage drivers and a host of small children to get them."

Bret

Saddle Sores

So far so good...neither of us have fallen off our rented "beach cruiser" bicycles. One thing I will say after riding around on the rental bikes for a couple of hours last night...despite three years of trying to get pregnant, there are still muscles below my waist that have not moved since I rode bikes as a kid. Holy smokes, am I sore. The lovely combination of muscle strain and butt bruising is putting a distinct crimp in my style. It's hard to look suave on these goofy bikes anyway, since they have a lovely white basket hanging from the handlebars. Multiple times last night I threw my feet out to the sides and sang the intro music to Laverne & Shirley.

We spent a couple of hours today out at the beach. It was relaxing, not terribly crowded, and the water and weather were nice and warm. Tonight it's off to The Kingfisher for the early bird special. Erin has decided that the best way to eat dinner at expensive restaurants here at Hilton Head is to take them up on their early bird specials. This is fine, but it does seem strange to be looking for a place to grab dessert at 4:30pm.

Bret

Beach Bound

Well, here we are on lovely Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. And since we're here and settled, I thought I would go ahead and start what I hope is a daily report on what Erin & I are up to down here.

On Thursday, we left Indianapolis around noon and headed for Atlanta. We decided to take a 45 mile gamble and go to Atlanta via Knoxville rather than Nashville. When we were in Nashville (and Louisville) in April, the traffic was absolutely nightmarish, so this seemed like a good idea, given that it's only 45 extra miles. All was going according to plan until we got to the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. We lost about an hour stuck in construction, but we still got in to Atlanta by about 9:30pm. We stayed at the Sheraton Suites at the Galleria, which we very nice. Nothing much else to report on Thursday.

On Friday we left Atlanta and headed for Athens, Georgia. On the way, we stopped at an IHOP which was very tasty...for an IHOP. I realize that I previously scorned the IHOP, but this one was pretty decent. Erin was somewhat surprised to see that the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity is a real item on their menu, and despite her temptation, she couldn't bring herself to order it because of the name. For future reference, I got the stuffed French toast, which basically was a donut injected with butter and apple goo then topped with said goo and cream cheese icing. This plus a plate of eggs and sausage made for a delightful, multi-thousand calorie breakfast. On to Athens...

But Athens isn't on the way to Hilton Head, you might be saying? Ah, but it's close. And I'm a huge fan of the band R.E.M. which hails from Athens. As an R.E.M. fanatic, it's customary at some point to make a pilgrimmage to Athens to CD shop, check out the clubs where they got their start, and generally embarrass your wife. Once we return, I'll put together a page of R.E.M. sites for anyone who cares. On the way out of Athens, we stopped at Weaver D's for a quick lunch. Weaver D's was made famous by R.E.M., as the title of their album "Automatic for the People" came from Weaver D's slogan. The lunch we got was unbelieveable and included barbeque chicken and a pile of fried and butter soaked vegetables. Delightful. While sitting at Weaver D's, the owner himself popped a squat next to me. While I was inhaling my fried cornbread, I must have startled him while I gasped for air between bites. He turned to me and said, "Is your food good?" I said, "It's wonderful." His reply -- "Automatic." I elicited an "Automatic" from the man himself. R.E.M. would be proud.


After a drive through the middle of nowhere Georgia, and a stop for an ice cream cone at Dairy Queen, we arrived yesterday afternoon at Hilton Head. We're staying at a place called the Swallowtail at Sea Pines. Here's a picture of our condo.

After getting settled in we had a quick burger and chips at a bar overlooking the water and headed back for a night's rest. The night's rest started off well enough, but was sent off the rails around 1:30am. Erin, for the second time in the last month, woke up and started running around the room shouting, "Help me! I can't breathe! Where am I?" This is funny...once in a while. And usually she wakes up and all is fine after some deep breathing and slipping her a drink. Last night though, I couldn't get her to wake up, so the bout lasted a few minutes. It made me grouchy, I have to say, but the evening's fun wasn't yet over.

Here's where things get complicated. If you'll recall, I've noted previously that my stomach as a kid used to act as a sort of trampoline. You'll also recall that on this day of driving through Georgia I've eaten: IHOP, Weaver D's, Dairy Queen, 1/2 pound burger with 1/2 pound of chips. I was awakened at 2:30 by a stomach on fire which refused to stabilize without, er, drastic measures. Lesson learned. Well, not actually. I should have learned by about age 4, but I haven't. So today I'll eat like a normal human being...mostly. And hopefully I'll be set.

More adventures to come...Our rented bicycles arrived, so I'll provide a detailed injury report tomorrow.

Bret

Grill Me

One of the nice things about Indiana in the spring is that there are approximately two weekends between the freezing cold of winter and the mosquito infested swamp of summer where you can actually grill out without it being at least a partially miserable experience. Since we're in that two week period and our poor old kettle grill has pretty much rusted away, we decided that it was time to get a grill.

To provide a little background on this adventure, one of the first projects that Erin and I undertook during our engagement was the assembling of our beloved charcoal grill. We have two distinct ways of working on such a project. I, as an engineer and detail specialist, read the directions thoroughly from end to end and work through each step of the project per the instructions. Erin's approach, as a creative thinker and risk taker, is to open the box, open up the baggie with all the little parts, and start bolting things together in what appears to be the shape of a grill, at least in her mind. I can remember sitting on the floor at about 10pm the night we purchased the charcoal grill, and by 11pm, the engagement was nearly off. Tears were shed. Methods clashed. But in the end, the grill and our relationship turned out just fine.

Recently the difficulty has been with actually cooking on our charcoal grill. I've had a hard time maintaining enough heat to cook at an acceptable speed, which has led to various insults being thrown about regarding whether it's the grill or the griller who is to blame. Since the grill has pretty much disintegrated in the elements, this seemed like an opportune time to cut our losses and move to a gas grill, which in my opinion, does not provide the flavor of the charcoal grill but does provide for a much more expedient grilling experience, and much less marital dischord over our burgers.

The assembly of the new grill, pictured above, proved to be only somewhat less of a marital crowbar than the previous grill assembly experience. I partially fault the company for it's misleading directions. This grill explicitly stated that the assembly time would be 15 minutes. You couldn't install this grill in under 90 minutes if you had a gun (or a wife with a sharp kitchen utensil) to your head. But almost four years into marriage, we made it through with only minor disagreements, and in the end, we're excited to use our new grill. Hopefully we'll get to do so this weekend, before you need a mosquito net and beekeeper's mask to step out onto our deck.

Madison

This weekend we took a quick trip to Madison, Indiana to see the "Madison In Bloom" show. Basically this entails paying $13 to trapse through the backyards of private citizens, occasionally stomping on their fine gardening handywork along the way. Erin and I have gone to this for a couple of years now, and both times we've found it to be a very relaxing way to spend a day. Madison has a very different feel than most Indiana small towns. There are lots of Civil War era homes, and you can sit and watch the boats float up the Ohio River. This show gives you the opportunity to look at some lovely gardens and say to yourself "If I were unemployed or retired, I could have a garden that looks just like this." Well, this isn't actually true. There weren't any gardens featuring "Chickweed" or "Grasses Chewed By Grubs" which would be more likely found in my backyard.

In keeping with our other vacations, we had a delightful lunch at The Downtowner. Great sandwiches and these really huge cookies that I enjoyed. We took a drive through Clifty Falls State Park, made a stop at the outlets in Edinburgh, ate dinner at Pizzeria Uno and called it a day. Quite relaxing... If you're ever trying to escape from Kentucky, I highly recommend Madison as a nearby haven of rest.

Bret

I Believe in Miracles

Now, this might not be comparable with making the blind to see or the lame to walk, but for my purposes, it's as close to a real live miracle as I can imagine. You see, Max "The Fish" Hawkins is alive. Just when I was about to flush him down the toilet, I saw his small beta fin move. I thought it was an optical illusion, so you can imagine the shock and awe of it all when his one fin move turned into ferral swimming. Just to prove to you miracles do exist, I have attached a video of Max "The Fish" Hawkins. Sometimes, seeing is believing.

Take A Moment For Max

Max "The Fish" Hawkins died sometime during the late evening or early morning of May 16, 2006 at (or around) the age of 3 in a tank ventilation accident at his home in Brownsburg, Indiana. Max was purchased by Bret and Erin Hawkins and is preceded in death by his loving tank-mate, Erma. Max was a colorful, spritely blue beta who touched the hearts of everyone he came into contact with (although when you came into contact with Max, he was generally flipping and thrashing about...contact wasn't necessarily enjoyable for Max). He lived his entire life in Brownsburg, even choosing to vacation at the home of Erin's parents on occasion. Max was a a good friend to the Hawkins family, and he served as a much needed distraction while we await our adopted daughter. He will be missed. Services will be held this afternoon approximately two feet over the bowl in the blue bathroom downstairs. Service will be open only to Max's mother, Erin, who is gravely distraught at his passing.

Max, we'll miss ya...

Happy Mothers Day! / Who Gives A Rip

This weekend Erin and I celebrated Mother's Day with our two favorite mothers. Saturday night was dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory with my mom (it's one of her favorites), followed by some intense competition at Pop-A-Shot and Skee Ball with my sister and brother-in-law at Jillian's. Let it be declared that despite her collegiate basketball skills, I can still take my wife on any day at Pop-A-Shot. For Mother's Day, we got my mom an assortment of things for her kitchen, including some sponges and dish towels. My, what great gift givers, you're probably thinking -- every mother longs for a new sponge on their designated holiday! This gift was born out of my mom's love of old sponges and towels. When I was growing up, we moved more frequently than my mom replaced the sponge at our kitchen sink. If you went to wipe down the countertop with it, it would try to crawl away from you. Now in her defense, she did run it through the dishwasher frequently (on second thought, I'm not really sure that's in her defense) so it wasn't quite the petri-sponge that it might have been otherwise. Last week Erin saw something on the TV talking about how you'd be wiser to dine off the seat of the toilets in your house rather than keep a sponge at your kitchen sink for more than a week, so we got her sponges. Similarly, dish towels in our house were only tossed once you could count the number of threads left in the towel, so we got her some towels, too. I love you, mom, and we fully expect you to use those sponges before the end of the summer.

Yesterday we celebrated with Erin's parents, sister, and nieces by going to church with them and then heading to the Original Pancake House. While similarly named, this restaruant bares little resemblence to a traditional IHOP. For one thing, you never have to say things like, "I'll have the 'Two Moons Over My Hammy' with a side of 'Rooti Tooti Fresh and Fruity.'" Man does that place annoy me. In any case, this pancake place serves pretty much massive quantities of food, including these weird egg-dome omelettes. Afterward we went to Costco with Erin's folks, and since we were all so full from lunch, we only tried one of each sample offered. It was a delightful trip. Happy Mother's Day, Deb and Deanna! And also, Happy Mother's Day-to-be to my lovely wife Erin whose child is being surrogately carried by the Chinese government. Touching.

The other big achievement this weekend was the completion of my massive iTunes CD ripping project. I started ripping all of my CDs into iTunes sometime around Thanksgiving, and I'm finally finished (I'm actually a handful of discs from being finished, and I haven't touched Erin's collection, but it still feels like I'm finished). In the end, I have ended up with about 70 GB of MP3s, which covers about 1400 CDs. I have more than a month of continuous music available now. Wee! Based on the final song counts, it would appear that my favorite groups are the Beach Boys, the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, R.E.M., and XTC. Sounds about right. A few people have asked, so here are some of the technical details of the project. (In other words, most of you can stop reading here and skip to the last paragraph.)

First off, I realize that I could easily just toss the CD in the drive and let iTunes import it. This has a couple of issues for me. First off, ripping this way on my PC leaves lots of little pops and clicks in the resulting tracks, which drive me batty. So I decided early on that I would use Exact Audio Copy in Secure Mode to insure that the resulting track would be identical to the original. I configured EAC per this website, which was very helpful. The only downside of using this method is that the ripping is at approximately 1/3 the speed of a normal rip, so the project immediately takes much longer than normal. Next, I considered whether to use iTunes to encode the resulting WAV files into a compressed format, such as MP3. Since I was already ripping outside of iTunes, I shopped around for external compressors and decided after much reading at HydrogenAudio that I would use the free MP3 encoder called LAME. (LAME is available for download here. I used the 3.97 beta 2 version.) I wanted to stick to MP3s because we own another older RCA LYRA that really only works with MP3, and I wanted to be able to use the resulting files on this player or my new iPod. Once I decided to use LAME, I made a couple of test discs with various tracks at various quality levels. My goal was to find a compression level where I couldn't hear a difference from the original track, yet the tracks were small enough to use on my older LYRA as well. I ended up using the "V 4" setting in LAME. I couldn't hear any difference using my burnt up ears between "V 2" which is the standard mode for LAME and "V 4" which is the medium mode. The resulting files using "V 4" are significantly smaller, so that's the mode I used. Here's a link to a page discussing LAME and all it's options. My command line for LAME within EAC was as follows:

-V 4 --vbr-new --add-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --pad-id3v2 --ta "%a" --tt "%t" --tl "%g" --ty "%y" --tn "%n" %s %d

This pretty much boils down to "rip it in V4 quality and tag the MP3 with the artist, track title, album name, album year, and track number." I ripped to a temp directory, then imported the resulting files into iTunes, allowing it to manage my library, so it copied the tracks in, and I deleted my original file. Once the file was in iTunes, I used this little iTunes Art Importer to add the album art to each file. Basically this program looks the CD up at Amazon.com and grabs the art from their listing. Very slick. For anyone that's looking, I used a version of the program available at this link, which is not listed on the website. This version is much newer and contains many features that the advertised version does not. It doesn't appear that the author is supporting this thing any more, which is a shame since it's such a cool piece of software. In any case, once the album art was inserted, the process is pretty much complete. I'm going to make a full backup of the library to DVD (I've been making incremental backups all along following my little hard drive disaster, but I still want to make a full backup as well.) Additionally I've been backing everything up to a second hard drive (the replacement drive from said disaster). All this backing up (actually the whole project) has my wife thinking I'm looney, but after six months of work, I'm not about to lose any of this because of a hard drive crash. I'd lose my mind (or what's left of it).

After it's all said and done, the resulting tracks sound great, and I can't imagine needing any other electronic copy of all my music. I realize that purists would have ripped everything to a non-compressed format, just in case something better than MP3 comes along later, but I just didn't have the space to do this, and buying a bunch of hard drives wasn't really an option (I love you, dear.) The beauty of this project is that now my lovely wife will be able to enjoy all her favorite Hüsker Dü and Pavement records while driving to Hilton Head in a couple of weeks. That Erin sure does love her post-punk college rock.

Bret

Say Cheese!!

I thought everyone might enjoy this picture of my cousin's son, Aidan. Erin was delighted when she saw this picture, as it displays her ability to connect with children at a remarkable level. She has developed this skill mostly since we got married. I do not understand the connection.

In other news, Erin is trying to get me to go camping. She's taking a group of students on a big camping trip this summer, and I think she wants to take me out on a practice run. I have a number of problems with camping, mostly revolving around the lack of proper, er, facilities. Add bugs, heat, and sleeping outside to that equation, and in my mind, the Westin is looking better all the time. In actuality, Indiana has some great places to go camping, so we may give it a run sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I really think my problem lies in that camping reminds me a lot of my lone week at summer camp in the 5th grade. On the very first night, we ate dinner at around 8pm. The dinner option? Hotdogs. Coney dogs, to be exact. Now I'm never one to pass on food, and as a hungry 5th grader, I didn't pass on the dogs. Unfortunately, as a kid, my stomach acted pretty much like a dinner catapult, so anything eaten after about 6pm ran a high risk of being deposited at about 11pm into the nearest port-o-let. As a 5th grader, all alone at camp, terrified of the bugs, animals, and high school aged Christian counselors, I didn't have the good sense when my stomach called at 11pm to get out of bed and run like, well, hell to the nearest tree or port-o-let. Instead I rolled over and unloaded my coney dogs onto a large portion of the clothing stored in the dufflebag at my bed side. You'd be amazed at how many 3rd through 5th graders will awaken when they hear a fellow man getting sick. Needless to say, they don't come running to your aid.

So I say, you try being the "pukey kid" at summer camp. My guess is that you won't go racing out to go camping any time soon either.

Bret

The Brown Envelope has arrived!

Yesterday Erin and I were delighted to find "THE BROWN ENVELOPE" in our mailbox. This is an oft discussed piece of documentation on the trail to a Chinese adoption. The brown envelope is a letter from the Chinese government which contains paper work to take with us to the American Consulate in Guangzhou as well as an ID number used to schedule our appointment.

It's one more step!

Bret

Prom 2006

Last night Erin and I decided to make ourselves feel really old by attending prom. We were delighted when a woman on the street in downtown Indianapolis asked us which prom we were attending. Erin nearly kissed the woman and bought her a Slurpee she was so excited. We explained that we were merely going as observers at the prom for the school where Erin teaches. What SHOULD have given away that we weren't regular prom attendees was the fact that Erin's attire for the evening covered more than 60% of her body. We ate dinner outside at Palomino, and as we ate, we watched dozens of prom-goers from various schools wandering around downtown. With us having a child on the way, it was somewhat horrifying to me that the dresses some of the girls were wearing contained the same amount of fabric as that of a tube sock. Additionally, nothing makes me happier inside than seeing a high school guy with a pink tuxedo on, knowing that at some point in his life, he'll have to answer for that to his kids.

Prom was held at the Indiana Roof Ballroom, which holds special memories for me as both the site of both of my proms, as well as being a place I sang at frequently as a child. The ballroom looked lovely as usual, and nothing compliments the starry sky and Spanish villa motif of the room like some thundering bass and a refrain of "let's get drunk...get high..." Ah...the "Earth Angel" of the year 2006. As a music lover, I have to admit that it was hard for me to understand how an entire hour of prom could go by without at least one song not designed to blow out the rear windows of your Escalade. But I guess that's what happens as you age...everyone that comes along after you loses all their taste.

All in all it was a fun experience. Erin saw a lot of her favorite students, and we got to bust some of her not-so-favorite students. Nothing warms a teacher's heart like putting the smack down on a student during a night that will provide lifelong memories. It's like signing someone's yearbook with "You're a loser." Heart warming.

Bret

Hail or High Water

It was great getting a three day weekend to relax with family, celebrate Easter, and fear for your life in Indiana's spring weather. In the past three days, we've seen hail, wind, torrential rains, and tornados. Finally we have something to complain about in this state besides Daylight Savings Time.

On Friday night, Erin and I went to dinner with my parents and grandparents, and on the way home we decided to run to the northwest side of town to go to Costco. On the way, it started raining pretty heavily. At one point, I heard a couple of splats on the windshield, but the rain was falling with those kinds of splats during the whole drive. But quickly I discovered that these new splats contained ice. We immediately drove into a gas station to get under the awning (nearly having a head-on collision with another motorist who had the same idea). What followed was a hail storm like I have never seen. All around us there were chunks of ice the size of baseballs dropping onto cars. There were windshields and rear windows breaking, not to mention cars being totally destroyed by the hail. We watched a police car get covered in dents...hundreds of them. Once it was over, as we drove on to Costco, there were cars everywhere with broken glass and hundreds of BIG dents all over the cars. In the few seconds we were exposed to the storm, our car got probably ten shallow dents, so we were fortunate.

Having survived the hail (and consuming a berry sundae at Costco as comfort food), we headed home. At about 9pm that evening, we started hearing about tornoados in the western part of the state. As the hour progressed, the reports started emphasizing that the storms were basically rolling up I-74 towards Indianapolis. This was concerning, given that you can hear the interstate from our driveway. Funnel clouds were bouncing up and down from the ground back up into the clouds, and it appeared that they were pretty much headed right for us. I've always said that our poor little house would fold like a bad hand of Poker if a funnel cloud even came into our county, so we hunkered down in our pantry and waited. We heard a pretty good hail storm, but luckily no tornado. All of this made for a stressful Friday night. Here is a link to a news story about the storms, and here is a link to a story with a slideshow of pictures from the storms.

Last night we had another round of storms, and it appears that my yard is going to overtake the house. I put fertilizer down last Tuesday...just in time for the storms. The yard looks nice and green now...at eye level.

Bret

Down South

(Warning -- This blog entry is of record length. Reader beware.)

This weekend, Erin and I took a quick trip to Birmingham to see some of our relatives, as well as get a quick, early breath of spring before Indiana turns into its usual summer sauna. We left work a little early on Friday and headed toward Louisville. I figured traffic would be heavy, given that it's spring break for many high schools, and I was correct. We crawled through Louisville, but not really any slower than normal. All was well until we hit Nashville. Nashville seems to be perpetually under construction, and this combined with rush hour, rain, and a number of accidents made our trek through town last about two hours longer than we would have liked. We did manage to find a very good restaurant in Brentwood, TN called Vittles. Lots of great southern cooking, and it made for a nice break from the storm. You'll discover as you read this that good food was a theme on this trip. Food in general is a theme on any trip I take, so this should come as no surprise.

After plowing through another few hours of 35 mph traffic and storms, we finally arrived in Birmingham. All of my relatives in Birmingham were extremely generous and accomodating during our entire visit, and Erin and I both just want to thank everyone for clearing their weekend to spend time with us. We had a great visit. It was a little disconcerting that the first thing everyone told us was that they didn't want to "end up on your blog." They said this as though it's a bad thing, so I'll leave out any details which might leave me cut out of a will somewhere down the line.

The highlight of the visit for my wife was the discovery of her new favorite dessert, lovingly named "orange salad." It's a concoction of Cool Whip, orange jello mix, pineapple, and mandarin oranges. It's a tasty food and all, but Erin turned it into an object of devotion. We attempted to make it when we returned home yesterday, but I was left in charge of the mixing, and apparently if you use frozen Cool Whip when you beat the whole mix together, it turns from a light, fluffy dessert into a sort of mandarin sludge. Not pretty. I'll leave the making of this to Erin in its entirety next time.

Another highlight of our trip was a visit to Vulcan Park overlooking Birmingham. The statue is interesting in and of itself, given that it's mooning the entire south side of the city. But more interesting was the elevator ride up the tower and the walkway surrounding the top of the tower offering panoramic views of the city. We thought this would be enjoyable, until we reached the top of the tower and discovered that the entire walkway around the top of the tower is constructed of a metal mesh. This means that you can look out over the city in all its splendor, or you can look down between your feet to the spectre of death which lays on the sidewalk far below. Keep in mind that this statue is already on top of a mountain, coupled with the fact that you've risen 124 feet above the park in the elevator. Erin and I clung to the walls of the walkway pretty closely, as though we'd somehow be able to cling to the side of the spire if that mesh walkway dropped out from underneath us. All of this greatly amused my cousin and his wife, who I'm sure will use this experience against us at some point in the future.

Anyway, we had a great visit to Birmingham, and it was great getting to see my uncle crawl around his living room coffee table chasing his grandson. I strongly suspect that he plays with the train set which sits atop the table more when his grandson isn't present. Other highlights of the trip included a hike around Vestavia Hills looking at new homes being built, as well as seeing the land my cousin is working on devloping. This second event included a ride in his Hummer H2. The ride itself was enjoyable enough, but watching him plunk down $72 to fill it was the real delight. We filled up, drove around their development for a half hour, and I suspect it was due to be filled again. I might be inclined to tie several hybrids together to meet my offroading needs, but I digress. Again, we had a wonderful visit, and it was really great to see everyone.

On Monday morning we made our exit and headed into Tennessee to scout out the Land Between the Lakes. Erin is going camping up there with some students, and we decided that it would be good to check things out prior to her August trip. On the way up, we cut through the middle of Tennessee and landed in Lawrenceburg at the Square 40 Restaurant. They had a lunch buffet of fried vegetables, beef and noodles, and other southern specialties, and the total price with drink was something like $4.99. It was wonderful. I can smell a good buffet from a mile away, but Erin was responsible for this stop. I did hear one of the guys behyind the register threaten a man's life if he ever came in there again, but it appeared to be all in good fun. Our next stop was in the town of Erin, Tennessee. My wife was delighted by seeing her name on all of the buildings, most especially the "First Bible Baptist Church of Erin." Such an establishment will do wonders for religious freedom, I'm sure. In any case, I found the Erin Quicky Lube to be much more entertaining, and less likely to draw lightning from our Creator.

After leaving Erin, TN and looking at desolation in Land Between the Lakes for several hours and driving for what felt like an eternity, we inquired as to a good place for dinner in Grand Rivers, Kentucky. A guide at the park headquarters enthusiastically informed us that Patti's was the only place to go. Patti, as it turns out, owns a whole host of facilities in Grand Rivers, including a miniture golf course and about 25 gift shops. The restaurant itself was a sort of Alice In Wonderland meets Cracker Barrel motif. Their specialty -- a two inch thick pork chop. This, of course, was my selection. Erin got a steak. My chop was pretty great (I'm a sucker for thick meats) and Erin's steak was ok. We were tired and hungry, so we ate. They also served bread baked in a flower pot, which was interesting. Our server, Nolan, was a delightful individual, but he did make one error in judgment. After we finished our meals, he informed us that since we "pretty much devoured those dinners" he would bring us a dessert menu. While it didn't stop me from ordering a dessert the size of a basketball, it did leave me feeling a little self-conscious about the two pounds of pork I had just eaten. It was quickly forgiven. Following Patti's, we retreated to our hotel to watch the NCAA finals.

Tuesday morning we got up and headed toward Central City, Kentucky -- home of the Everly Brothers monument. We drove through town once and ended up having to stop at a gas station to inquire about the location of the monument. A local gas station attendant who clearly was sick of hearing about the Everlys pointed us back to the "thing that looks like a grave in front of the fire station." She was correct in her assessment of this tribute to two living legends. It didn't stop me from taking a picture though. I grew up listening to the Everly's, and I've made a convert out of Erin as well. It was worth the stop, even if it did turn out to be merely a headstone.

Following Central City, we headed toward Owensboro. Now this might seem out of the way, but Owensboro is the home of the Moonlite BBQ. There are BBQ joints all over the south, but the Moonlite is something special. As we arrived in Owensboro, I stopped at a gas station, again, to inquire to the location. The girl behind the register finished her directions with "you'll smell it before you see it" which is always a good sign for a restaurant. We headed through the doors of the Moonlite ready to stuff our faces with chopped pork when I looked at my watch -- 10:03am. Now there are few times when good BBQ doesn't sound completely appealing. 10:03am is one of them. We still ordered our food, but a few bites in and both Erin and I had realized that our previous judgment call in the car ("we'll just stuff it in") had been incorrect. You can't just stuff in BBQ brunch. We boxed everything up and headed out. I happily ate the BBQ in the car somewhere in southern Indiana.

All in all, we had a brief but excellent vacation. In the last six weeks I've been to Denver, Chicago, Traverse City, and Birmingham. I'm looking forward to a weekend in good old Brownsburg this weekend...

Bret

The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round...

This morning on my way to work I passed a row of school buses waiting to take flight from a local Speedway gas station. At first I started waxing sentimental. "Oh, how nice that the busses are lined up, ready to jet students off to another day of exhilirating education." And then I realized that the reality of the availability of cigarettes and a cruller probably had more to do with the location of the parked busses.

All this got me thinking about my days riding the school bus. I hated it. Virtually every minute of it. The only time I didn't absolutely detest riding the bus was when I got into middle school and discovered that the bus was a great place to catch another 30 minutes of sleep before Social Studies. During elementary school, I can remember standing at the end of the driveway, absolutely frozen, waiting for the bus to arrive. I had a friend who waited for the bus with us who stuttered, but none of us ever noticed since all of our teeth were chattering making all of us stutter. The elation of the bus's arrival and the blast of heat (and elementary aged schoolchildren body odor) that greeted you at the door was always tempered by our beloved driver saying "Hurry up and get in your seat, or I'll call the depot." Our bus driver was always threatening to "call the depot" on you. I had the same driver all through elementary school, and I'm sure underneath her grizzled exterior she was a lovely woman, but all I ever heard her do is bark and threaten to "call the depot." She did have an amazing ability to drive and watch you in the mirror above her head continually, all at the same time. She also looked like someone had pried the drink out of her hand before she started her route.

My favorite bus story from elementary school involved me and the two older idiots I used to have to sit with. We had assigned seats on the bus, and as a first or second grader, I always used to get plopped in with two fifth graders. Yes, we had three to a seat. Given my penchant for a quart of ice cream for desert with a candy bar chaser, I could have easily stood to have had my own seat. But no, I was smashed in with two other guys who were ticked off about sitting with the fat little kid. In any case, one day while we were parked at the school waiting to depart for home, these two dilinquents convinced me to raise my middle finger solo in the direction of the bus driver in the bus parked behind ours. I had no idea what this gesture meant, given that I hadn't spent as much time around state fair carnies as these two clowns I was seated with, so up went the finger. I can remember seeing the driver behind us immediately grab her little CB radio transmitter, and I can remember seeing the spectre of my bus driver headed back towards my seat. I don't really remember what happened after that, but I have a feeling the bus drivers had a good laugh at my expense about it later. It was probably recommended that it might be more appropriate for someone of my naivete to be riding a shorter bus. Who knows...

I salute you, Metropolitan School District of Perry Township, Bus 70. I don't miss you, but I salute you.

Bret

What the?!

So I went into the bathroom at work this morning... (at this point my wife is already cringing as she reads this...she knows that I could do a blog entry per day concerning the bathroom at work). Anyway, I went in, used the bathroom, and while I was washing my hands to make my exit, another gentleman came in. He stood at the urinal for a few moments and then headed for the door.

At this point, every part of me is thinking about how gross this guy is. Using the bathroom without washing your hands ranks up there with, well...er, it's nasty. Anyway, as I'm imagining the bugs that must be crawling around in this guy's cubical, he steps around me, snatches a paper towel from the dispenser, and uses it to grab the handle on the door as he exits. Huh? Wait a minute. I'm confused. Was this to protect your precious, already soiled hands? Was this a gesture of courtesy to the rest of us? "I don't want to foul the handle of the door with my uncleanliness...I'll just wait until later when I shake your hand to infect you..."

I can't take it.

Bret

Geek Alert

I've added support for RSS and Atom web feeds to our little blog. If that sentence sounded like "I added support for absolutely nothing I care about" in your head, then ignore this post. For the curious, read this description of RSS and web feeds. You may notice that I've added buttons to the right side of the page (down below the links to our church and what not) for adding us to Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc. Basically those button will add this page to your Yahoo, Google, etc front page, and you'll be alerted whenever new content is added to this blog. So you don't have to check us every day (as I'm sure so many of you do.) Many news sites (CNN, Fox News, etc) feature RSS feeds that will "push" the news to you throughout the day, so you don't have to continually check their page. Many sites are using the new orange icon below. If you click on it, it will take you to the feed for that site.


It's a cool technology that I was able to add with minimal effort. So for the two of you who will use it...enjoy!

Bret

Watching and Waiting

Erin has informed me that when she tells her high school students that her husband is an engineer, they usually say things like:

"Oh, he must be a big dork" or "I bet he never got a date in college" or "Why would you marry someone so nerdy?"

After she agrees with them on all counts, she tells them that part of my job is to watch TV all day. This is really only partially true. My job is to develop software, and part of that job is testing software. The testing, for me, is the boring part. In any case, her students usually light up at this point, aglow in the thought that a job exists where you watch TV all day. "Your husband is so cool!" and "You're so lucky that God led you to Indiana to find the perfect man to fulfill all your dreams" are usually their next comments.

Today is one of those days where I'm mostly testing and watching. I've been sitting here watching an automated script change channels every five seconds for the past, oh, four hours. So not only am I not actively participating in the process (since we have an automated test tool to change the channels...oh if they can ever get an automated tool to write software...or find someone to do it for a much lower salary...oh wait...), but I don't even get to really watch anything. Just about the time I wake up enough for my eyes to focus, the channel changes. I'm looking for the TV to do anything out of the ordinary, at which point I would scurry through the code praying that the offending software was not written by yours truly. So far so good. The frustrating thing is that right about the time Bob says "The winner of today's showcase is..." -- the channel changes. "The results of the paternity tests are in, and..." -- the channel changes. "State is down by one with two seconds to go. The final shot is up..." -- the channel changes. Not once in ten years have I seen Mr. Rogers get that second shoe on.

The only thing more irritating than the vast wasteland which is network TV in the afternoon is not even being able to watch it long enough to decide that it's not worth watching.

Bret

There's Another Woman--or something like that

So, on Sunday, it happened. I had worried about this day for months, and on Sunday, it came to fruition. Nothing could prepare me for the reality, and even now, days later, I'm reeling from the fallout.

Simply put, Bret purchased an IPOD. Yes, a 60G IPOD. He has been ripping CDs for months in anticipation, and just a few days ago, he brought home the box that officially labeled him a music lover of the 21st century.

Now, why do I have a problem with said IPOD? Why wouldn't I want my husband, an avid music fan, to have such a toy?

Because... I never see him. He stashes himself away into a deep and dark corner of our home, and he rocks himself into R.E.M oblivion. Some women might not complain about a less-than-present spouse, but he's never missing in one of those moments. He's missing when someone needs to take out the trash, clean a toilet, or answer the phone.

The saddest part about this whole adventure is that this new fangled IPOD doesn't even hold all of Bret's music. Bret has over 45 DAYS of consecutive listening, and while this IPOD can make a dent in his collection, it is still lacking. Now, if you know anyone in the Hawkins family like I do, you know what this means. This new IPOD, which in my female terms costs about the same as FIFTEEN pairs of shoes, is only good until an even bigger one is placed on the market. Then, the cycle begins. Bret will want the new IPOD because it will hold all of his music (and then some). But, then it holds "and then some," and he'll need to buy more music. Then, of course, the newest IPOD will be unable to hold all of his new music. And it just keeps going.

I guess I have to come to terms with the fact that my husband is an audiophile. Now, I just need to figure out how to make him a garbage toting, toilet cleaning, answering phone kind of audiophile.

What's a girl to do when she loves a boy?

BlogThreat

Last night while making ourselves miserable running on the Precor machines at our local gym, Erin did something particularly rude to me, partly in an effort to break my Carl Lewis-like stride. In response, I barked "I WILL BLOG YOU," meaning I would expose her evil doings to the online community at large if she did not cease and desist. This turned out to be a particularly effective threat in our online age, and it caused her to immediatley halt her running and give me a good staring. Unfortunately, I think several other people in the gym heard me say "I will FLOG you," and probably thought "Gee, that seems like a particularly first century, Roman sort of threat" as they considered reporting me to the authorities. In any case, the threat of public humiliation seemed to work wonders. Take note...

Bret

Chicago, anyone?

This weekend the wife and I (I can use that in a blog entry, since she's not physically present) made a visit to the Windy City. As was mentioned previously, we went primarily to see our new friend Kaya and her handlers, as well as attend a couple of concerts. As is always the case with our little weekend trips, it was the unexpected little moments that made the highlight reel.

First off, I would just like to note that I truly am starting to feel like a grouchy old man at club concerts. Friday night was a visit to the Riviera Theatre in Chicago. We stood in front of an inebriated denizen of Cook County who provided ample evidence of why people in other countries might have a problem with Americans. This guy talked loudly through the whole concert. And for a guy who just spent $35 to see a show, he obviously hated the band, with the exception of three songs -- the names of which he shouted as loudly as possible during every pause. He called the singer names, made insults about the country the band was from, and just generally made an idiot of himself. After several people had relocated to get away from him, I threw my hat in the ring and turned around to tell him to "can it." I think it surprised him. Luckily his buddy stopped responding to his inane babbling, and we weren't treated to his pleasantries for the majority of the rest of the show. I must say that as I turned to tell him to stop, I imagined what it would feel like to hit him. But then I remembered that I'm a former choir boy with a gimpy right arm due to my horseback riding prowess and prayed silently that he wasn't the fightin' type. Score one for the weenie.

We spent a lovely Saturday afternoon with the Longs. Kaya was charming, as usual. They took us to a delightful Costa Rican restaurant on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately the Costa Ricans had a rebel uprising in me this morning, which makes me think I should stick to eating my usual turkey sandwiches and the like for lunch. In any case, it was great seeing Kaya...and the other two Longs. ;)

Saturday night we went to another show at the Vic Theatre, and this time we sat in the balcony. I couldn't handle the thought of having to turn my vengeful eye on a fellow concert goer for a second night in a row. Following the show, I got the bright idea that we could cut quite a bit of time off our ride on the El if we took a bus a couple of miles straight down Belmont Street. On the surface, this seemed like a great idea, but we ended up on the CTA's "Bus of the Damned" for that week. The driver was in a bad mood upon boarding, and the bus was full of people coming out of the show. So we stood, clinging to the poles of life while the bus raced down the street (please note that I have all sorts of issues with "hanging on" in any kind of public transportation...somehow I always imagine that the last guy to be hanging on to the bus in the position I'm holding probably was slowly dying from Ebola. It always provides a nice OCD moment for me.) In any case, after several near head-on collisions and an altercation between the driver and an angry man on a bike whose stop had been passed by the bus at approximately 60 miles per hour on a city street ("My bus is full" was the driver's excuse, but by that point, the bus was maybe half full...kudos to the guy on the bike for being able to catch the bus. I didn't figure the Batmobile could have caught that bus...), we arrived at the El station and headed back to our hotel.

All in all, a pleasant but tiring trip. The only real new discovery we made about Chicago was that their I-PASS system for bypassing the toll booths is very nice. I'd heard guys at work talk about blowing through the toll plazas at 80 miles per hour, so I couldn't resist buying one of the gizmos. What they neglected to mention was that the plazas you can drive through at high speed are the new "open tolling" plazas with no booths, merely cameras mounted over the highway. The ones where there is still a booth, but you don't have to stop, are tricky at 80 miles per hour. It's sort of like threading a needle, except the thread is a mid-size Hyundai and the eye of the needle features concrete barricades and a moderately terrified state employee. Not pretty. The horror of being beaten senseless by my angry mother-in-law always makes me slow down though.

Bret

Huh?

Over the course of the past few months, I've become increasingly interested in my hearing. Now anyone that knew me as a child knows that I spent literally thousands of hours with headphones on. I started out listening to opera records as a really little kid. (Parents -- take note. While it might SEEM like people would say "Oh, how cute!" when you tell them that bit of information as an adult, what they actually say is "Oh, how weird." So thanks, dad, for making me aware of the classics...and also for nearly making me unmarketable on the dating scene years later.) Eventually I moved on to listening to a radio, then cassette tapes, then CDs. I sat in rocking chairs and listened to music for hours as a child. To this day, I'm most relaxed sitting in a recliner listening to headphones. My wife and several friends have noted that I look autistic, sitting there rocking with headphones on. I pay them no mind and retreat into my high decibal happy place. There used to be an online magazine for music fans called "Addicted to Noise," and that's probably an excellent description of yours truly. I love music. I love sound. I love the craft of creating sound. This love of noise has gotten me involved with children's choir as a child and a band as a recent college grad clinging desparately to his youth. It also means I've gone to several hundred concerts in my lifetime, and I've seen virtually every band that I really like, and in many cases, several times each.

This little obsession led to several results as I grew older. First off, I spent a gutload of cash on CD's during high school and college. If any of my apartments had ever caught fire in college, investigators would have probably declared that the place had been occupied by someone with a serious investment in plastic coasters or Tupperware. The second result was that I have developed some hearing loss and tinnitus. Now the hearing loss has never been enough to really bother me...my ears ring when I lay in bed, and I do occasionally have trouble hearing people on the phone. But it's mostly relegated to my right ear (funny...you usually stand on the right side of music halls, and you lose more hearing in that ear...), and I've never really thought of it as a problem. But now I'm getting worried. I'm much more gentle on my ears now, but have I started the ball rolling on having really bad hearing as I get older?

Hearing loss runs deep in my family. Several years ago I joked at a family get together that we should just drop a car battery in the middle of the living room and let everyone hookup their hearing aids to it. The majority of the older adults in the family wear hearing aids, and at holidays, it was not uncommon to look around and see lots of old people cupping their ears immediately followed by various pitches of chirping and humming coming from the hearing aids. It looked and sounded like you'd entered a bird sanctuary full of crazy old people trying to fly away. My family has filled up a landfill with hearing aid batteries, no doubt, and I suspect if you walked barefoot across my grandparents family room, you might be able to build up a charge from old hearing aid batteries embedded in your foot. When they all took their hearing aids out, it sounded a little like the New York Stock Exchange with everyone talking over each other.

I've been debating investing in an iPod over the past few weeks. I think I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger, but the thought of yet another hearing-killing-device in our house has caused me to pause. I'll definitely have to work to use it responsibly. My dad got one a while back, and he's enjoying his. Since he hasn't succumbed to the hearing aid yet, I suspect he's had to rigup some sort of amplifier meant for a soccer stadium to get enough volume out of it to hear it. (Anyone who knows my dad knows that this is quite possible. He's liable to have welded something new to his iPod by now...he has had it 2 weeks, you know?) I also had to laugh this past weekend when I visited my grandfather. He wears wireless headphones to watch TV, since it means he can control the volume. Previously, everyone else in the family room just sat around stunned by the jet engine volume of my grandparent's TV wondering how long it would take the bleeding to stop. What I noticed this weekend was that his headphones were loud enough WHILE ON HIS HEAD that I could listen to the show he was watching just from the audio that bled out of the headphones. It really is a testament to the strength of a Hawkins skull to have endured that for so long. If I tried to listen to those headphones at the volume he had them set at, I'm realtively sure that my fillings would have come loose. You could launch a missle three feet from his head, and he'd have no idea...

So as I head to Chicago to see two concerts (Belle & Sebastian with the New Pornographers, and Stereolab...) this weekend, I pack my earplugs and pray that I'll be able to hear my grandkids say "PLEEEEASE turn down the TV grandpa!"

Bret

Mountain Mayhem

In the midst of all our adoption excitement, I've been shipped off for a week to beautiful Louisville, Colorado. Louisville is a suburb of Denver, approximately midway between Denver and Boulder. It was 65 degrees here today, so I can't complain about the weather, but it still stinks to be away from home.

While away on business, I try to maintain some semblence of a normal dietary and exercising life. This isn't always an easy thing to accomplish. Let me give you some details of my day to explain the dilema. This morning, I stumbled jetlagged into the lobby of the hotel to partake in the bane of any dieter's existence -- the buffet breakfast. Now I'm a complete sucker for those Golden Malted waffles that you pour into the iron then flip over then wander away to get orange juice then wander over to look at the egg offerings then wander over to look at the cereal and fruit then simultaneously hear the beeping of the waffle iron (which has now been beeping for several minutes) in harmony with the beeping of the smoke alarm signaling that your Golden Malted is now Golden Charred. In any case, I had a waffle for breakfast, using a carefully measured amount of syrup to try and not totally kill my diet. Then off to work. (Take note that my traveling companions each ate a half dozen eggs plus a whole hog's worth of bacon...mmmm...bacon....)

At noon, my two teammates wanted to get Mexican food, so we went to a local establishment called "The Three Margaritas." My cohorts each ordered the "Mucho Burrito" which looked like it probably had "Mucho Million Calories." I, again in an effort to not gain 50 pounds on one trip, ordered a relatively healthy taco salad. I'm not shooting for the figure of an Olympic gymnast here, just to not gain weight.

For dinner, we trapsed up to Boulder for Italian at Pasta Jay's. I've eaten at Jay's three or four times now, and every time it has been wonderful. Tonight I had a linguini and shrimp in a cream sauce. Oh, and I had a pint of Fat Tire Ale. Now I'm fully aware that this meal is not going to garner me a call from Jenny Craig looking for a spokesman, but I was tired, stuck with two engineers for a week, in ski country with no chance of skiing. So I raise my glass of Fat Tire.

We got back to the hotel around 7:30pm, and I decided that to makeup for the sins of dinner I needed to checkout the workout room. I changed into running attire and headed downstairs.

Now the workout facility in this hotel features two treadmills which I'm relatively sure were developed in Edison's lab. The treadmill I chose was basically a piece of rubber stretched between two coffee cans with a gerbil running for a motor. It was an ugly machine. To make matters worse, I learned a quick lesson in altitude adjustment. My home in Brownsburg, Indiana sits right about 800 ft in elevation. Louisville -- 5560 ft. Couple this with the fact that I normally workout on a low impact Precor machine versus this hellish gerbil wheel featured at this hotel, and you have a good image forming of how poorly this workout went. I sweat. I huffed. I gargled linguini and shrimp. After about 15 minutes, I pulled my shirt up to wipe off my forhead, and I let out a stiffled squeak. My skin had turned completely pink. Not just splotchy here and there, my gut looked like a hairy bottle of Pepto Bismol. Not pretty. As I fell off the treadmill after 30 minutes, I turned to swear at it, but couldn't catch enough breath to get out anything more than "stupiiiii peee of shhh..."

I made it a full 30 minutes, but I'm not so sure that I'll be able to do this every night while I'm out here. Perhaps tomorrow night I'll try running outside versus running on the treadmill on loan from Medieval Times.

Bret

Dossier to China--HUGE STEP

For those of you who don't already know (and we keep telling everyone we see), our offical paperwork is on its way to China (more specifically, the China Center for Adoption Affairs).

From here, it's all a waiting game, and I thought I would try to outline the process. Part of my attempt here is to explain why we can't just go pick up our baby next month, which seems to be the standard plea of our dear daughter's grandparents.

Upon arrival, our dossier will be grouped by color and agency, logged in with an offical date (the date upon which our referral is based), and set on a shelf to sit and sit and sit. Sometimes, these dossiers sit for a year; other times, the wait is only a few months.

Here is a picture taken (no idea to whom to give credit) inside the waiting room:
















After their wait, they are sent to the "REVIEW ROOM," where they are checked for authenticity. Once clear of the review, dossiers travel to the "MATCH ROOM," a magical place that pairs parents with kids. The twenty or so workers in the Match Room pour over the dossiers trying to pair the perfect child with the perfect parents. The matchers take into account the parents' interests and hobbies and compare it to what information they have from the orphanages. Hundreds and hundreds of dossiers are matched each month. Based on our list of hobbies and interests, we expect to be matched with a 1960's singing, crocheting, hiking outdoors kind of baby. I'm sure the orphanages know that kind of stuff.

After the dossier has been matched, our adoption agency will receive the finalized referral, and in a short time, we'll have a special package, delivered by the FedEx man, with her pictures and medical information.

After we accept our referral, we'll start trying to secure a meeting with the American Embassy in China, and in a short 6 to 8 weeks, we'll be in line for 24 hours worth of travel to pick her up.

Once in China, we'll have a few days of sightseeing (probably in Beijing) before we fly to our baby girl's province to pick her up. We'll stay a few days in her province, and then we'll head to the American Embassy in Guangzhou, where we will spend a few days securing her visa and shopping. Then, with a vocal toddler in tow, we'll get on another plane and travel half way around the globe back to Indianapolis, Indiana.

Whew! I can hardly wait.

Booty Call

Something happened at work yesterday (yes, my 31st birthday) that confirmed for me that I'm old--real old.

I was walking down a virtually empty hallway on the way to my office. In front of me, obviously tardy to class, walked two female students, neither of whom I have had in class. In their hands, they carried every type of Valentine's Day commodity known to man: candy, roses, stuffed bears.

Walking up behind these girls, I said it, and as it escaped my mouth, I knew it. I am old. No more denying it.

I said, “Wow, you girls sure have a lot of booty.”

That’s right… booty, as in “plunder taken.” But, let’s be honest, there’s another way to think about that word… a handcuffs in prison, sexual harassment lawsuit kind of way to think about that word.

Main Entry: booty
Variant(s): also boo•tie /'bü-tE/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural booties
Etymology: dialect (African-American) booty, boody buttocks

So, happy birthday baby girl. Welcome to the official world of over the hill. However, I’m not going down without a fight. It’s to the world of the young for me.

I am going to, like, buy some deece CDs, and like, make my own myspace, and chill with my peeps. TTYL.

Hard Drive Blues

Just before Thanksgiving I started converting my music library to MP3s, with the eventual goal being the purchase of an iPod. There were several issues with this plan. First off, I have a lot of CDs. Second, the 60GB iPod is really, REALLY expensive, in my opinion. And third, this whole thing requires me to purchase an Apple product, which is simply against my principles. But I forged ahead, ripping CDs night and day through the holidays. This ritual continued right up to Sunday night.

I'm about 80% finished with the whole task. And then I saw it. While ripping an excellent Sloan CD, my screen froze, and my 6 month old hard drive started making a repetitive sound. There was no response to keys, so I did what I had to do -- I slammed the power switch. When I rebooted, for a second I thought things were fine. The drive showed up in the BIOS, but then I got it -- "No valid boot.ini." This was followed by a black screen and that same repetitive noise. I frantically scrambled to find my hard drive diagnostic disc from Seagate. I ran the tests -- hardware failure. I try all the tricks I know, but nothing even will recognize the drive. It won't boot, I can't access it from a boot disc, nothing. Luckily the drive had a 5 year warranty, so a replacement is on the way. In the mean time, I bought a really big new replacement drive, and I'll use the other drive as a backup. I had all my email and our documents backed up from about 3 months ago, so luckily the losses weren't huge. I should probably have seen this coming. My friend Eric had a similar experience a few months ago. I helped him through his crisis without considering that maybe it was a sign. :)

Oh, and about all those MP3s I was making? I have a 14 DVD backup made one week prior to the crash. Had I not had the backup, I might have been inclined to stop listening to music and using computers in any way, shape, or form. At least for a while.

Moral -- Make backups. Always. New drives fail. Seagate warranty = good.

Bret

Dossier to Denver

A quick update on the adoption -- our dossier arrived safely at our agency in Denver yesterday. They get the task of translating and checking the massive pile of paperwork we shipped them. If all goes well, we're hoping that the paperwork will land in China sometime in March.

I must say that the trip to the post office to drop all of this in the mail was a bit of an OCD/Rain Man moment for me. I'm relatively sure I checked everything about 50 times. There was something very unsettling for me about handing the Express Mail envelope which I had careful constructed and gathered paperwork for since October to a postal employee who immediately turned around and did a jump shot with it into a bin of other, much less important pieces of mail. But it made it to Denver, none the less...

Bret

Linguistics 'r Us

Over the past couple of days, my lovely wife and I have been having a debate over the pronunciation of the word "missile." The other night during a reality TV show of one sort or another, the occupation of one of the participants was shown as "Missile Engineer." As Erin read it to me off the screen, she pronounced "missile" something like "miss-isle," with a long "i". I quickly asked, "What was that?" thinking that perhaps she had just read it phonetically and not really realized what she was saying. She repeated it -- "miss-isle." I started laughing. I informed her that she sounded like Yosemite Sam -- "Varmint, I'm a-gonna blow you to smithereens with a MISS-ISLE!"

Now in case you're sitting there going, "What wrong with that?" it probably is an indication that you ain't from around here, which probably isn't a bad thing. Here in central Indiana, I believe that the usual way of pronouncing "missile" is something akin to "miss-ul." No long "i." I should probably be careful in ever poking fun at the way someone pronounces a certain word, given that many of us Hoosiers have the linguistic abilities of Chewbacca.

When Erin looked the word up online, it was shown with both pronunciations, with HER version being listed as "primarily British." I promptly asked her if she was knackered and needed to go to the loo or have a plate of bangers and mash -- perhaps drive a lorry to the petrol station. She wasn't amused. Frankly I think she still clings to the belief that her California heritage makes her dialectically superior to me, somehow.

Perhaps...

Bret