More Pics

Here are more pics from our Vail river fun and last night's chuckwagon show. Of course, we forgot our camera on the day we went to the gold mine (which I think was Grant's favorite activity); though, the calf roping from last night would also be a highlight for him.

Big Dog

After a fantastic meal at WiseGuys for our anniversary, we ate our final meal on Hilton Head at Marley's Island Grille. Again, they have an early dinner, so we got to eat our meal while the server's changed into work attire in the bathrooms and the cooks finished prepping the grills. It was delightful and more food than we could possibly eat.

One of highlights of the Hilton Head portion of our trip was watching Grant select a toy. He had acquired some cash from a grandparent or two, and he was itching the whole trip to find a toy store in which to make a donation. He ignored my repeated warnings that if daddy doesn't find a job soon, you may need that for lunch. But alas, the toddler thirst for toys cannot be quenched.

We found a toy store on Hilton Head at Coligny Plaza, so we let Grant peruse for a toy. He initially thought he might like a small airplane or perhaps another toy train. But then he discovered a collection of figurines, featuring knights, dragons, and, you guessed it, the three headed dog. Grant immediately decided that the dog was to be his. I pleaded with him to find a non-multi-headed toy, but it was no use. He purchased the three headed dog.

Grant has a history of making questionable purchasing decisions. He once purchased a giant plastic claw, and on multiple occasions, he has purchased foam swords which are immediately destroyed upon his return home. Therefore the three headed dog should have been no surprise.

My dad was with us when the dog was purchased, and he was almost unable to contain his laughter over the dog for the rest of the trip. He laughed so long and so hard over it that Grant became a little confused about it. We reassured Grant that papaw just thought the dog was funny, but after one night of sleeping with the dog, Grant decided he was afraid of it and asked that we sell it at a garage sale. Luckily, a couple of days later, he returned to loving his tri-noggin'd pal, and he's been guarding our condo in Breckenridge ever since.

After leaving Hilton Head, we made our way to Atlanta where we took in the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke. We decided to do both attractions, which turned out to be a poor choice. Everyone with a child on the eastern seaboard was at the aquarium on Saturday, so our visit was cut somewhat short. Both places were still impressive though, and I suspect we'll make a return visit in the future.

For dinner on Saturday, we made our way to the Flying Biscuit in midtown Atlanta. We feasted on biscuits, sweet tea, sausages and chicken. It was a great take on Southern cooking, and we enjoyed it mightily. Here are a couple of pics from the past few days, and I'll post more on Colorado shortly.

Happy Birthday, Grace

Our sweet (but a bit too spicy) little girl turns two today! She's growing up so quickly. We're celebrating it in Breckenridge with just the four of us, a night out and a birthday cake.

Grace is so full of life and spunk and sass. She makes us laugh all the time, and she is so smart and kind. I have a post on all her little sayings and such, but it'll have to wait until I get home.

For now, we just want to say happy birthday to the funniest-craziest-keep-us-on-our-toes two year old. We love you, Wei Wei. You are a gift from God!

Hilton Head in Pics

I'll let Bret fill in all the details, but for now (and mainly for grandparents), here are some pics.

Mid-Week Update

After arriving on Saturday, we got checked in at our resort on Sunday. We're staying (on points!) at The Westin, which is lovely primarily because it sits right on the beach. It's one thing to have to walk across a couple of streets to go to the beach when you're a couple, but it's a whole different ballgame with two crazy little people in tow.

Sunday night we at the early dinner seating at The Old Fort Pub. We had various plates of salmon, crab cake, shrimp, etc all in a quint setting overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. We celebrated an early Father's Day with my folks and went for a walk on the beach. Postcard delightful.

Monday we made our first trip out to the beach with the kids. After some initial tentativeness, they both ended up having a great time. Here are a few pics:



Monday evening we ventured out to The Sea Shack for dinner. Erin and I visited this place on our last trip, and it continues to be a favorite. It's been wicked hot the whole trip, so waiting in line outside for a half hour before dinner was a little rough. Once inside though, we loaded up on the freshest fish you can find. Grant is quite the fish eater, so he was in heaven.

Tuesday we decided that since the forecast was for 100 degrees in the shade, we'd go for a tour of Savannah. The trolley tour was great, but none of us could have imagined just how hot it was. To get out of the heat, we had lunch at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House. Oh my goodness. You've never seen so much food in your life. Vegetables of every type, the best fried chicken you've ever tasted. Wonderful.

After returning to Hilton Head, we lounged around for a bit and had a quick dinner at Fat Baby's Pizza. None of us really needed dinner, but we ate anyway.

Today has been a lazy pool day. It's just...so...hot. We had a quick breakfast at a cute little bakery called Signe's. Their breakfasts weren't the usual "2 eggs plus toast" variety, which was nice. Grace rolled herself head over heels in a chair, which provided some momentary excitement. She was fine, although startled.

Tonight Erin and I are going out for our eighth anniversary. The kids are staying with the grandparent, and we're going out for tapas and drinks at WiseGuys. Where did eight years go? Unreal...

I know this entry was a little dry...I'm just trying to get it down so that we remember these places later. Lots of funny stuff has happened, so I'll try and post some of those things tomorrow.

Hilton Head Arrival

We have arrived in beautiful Hilton Head; the kids are in bed, and I have the sole five minutes of free time to write a blog that I have gotten all day. Also, please note that I'm blogging via my dad's netbook, which has already proven extremely handy on this trip. Unfortunately you have to be a hobbit to type properly on it, so please forgive any typos. Sincerely, Bilbo B.

Yesterday we got to see our friends The Zottis who were with us on our adoption trip to China. It was great to meet the rest of their family, and they reminded us why it's always good to drop in on friends of Italian ancestry around dinner time. I have a special place in my heart for creamy sauces and garlic, and dinner last night was fantastic on both counts.

The Zotti girls ran Grant ragged, and at the end of the night, he was VERY upset at having to say goodbye. Luckily we're seeing them again in a few weeks, so he won't have to wait long. Here's a pic of two Jiangxi girls and their respective moms.

After a night's rest, we made our way on down to Hilton Head. We had a good day of driving...light traffic and sleepy kids. Grant became a spoke's person for Chic-Fil-A at lunch. One of the employees informed us that she thought Grant would become a model. Oy.

Once on the island, we met up with my parents who are joining us on this trip. We had a nice meal at the Wild Wing Cafe, followed by a brief stop at the pool. Before bed, Erin asked Grant if he was enjoying vacation. His response -- "Mommy, can we maybe go to the pool again?" It should be a good week.

Update #4: Facebook

Yesterday, I threw away four file cabinet drawers that were full of school materials that I had collected and created over the last ten years as an English teacher at the best school in the state of Indiana.

I loved my job. I loved teaching. I adore high school students. I love reading and writing, and every day, I couldn't get over the fact that someone actually paid me to talk to kids about books. It was a dream job.

But, on Tuesday, I turned in my keys. And as I start this next chapter of my life, I am ecstatic. Teaching is not a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Being with my kids for the next few years--that's priceless.

I'm sure there will be days when I will crave and miss teaching. I'll miss students, great conversations, being challenged, but right now, I'll love the play-do sessions and afternoon dance parties more. I'd rather eat rice and beans than miss this time.

But, that leads me to the point of this post. Even though I said I would NEVER do it (see HERE), I'm going to start. I have no intention of EVER (might eat those words too) posting a status update, but you see, the young folk of today only keep in touch via texting and facebook. So, if I plan on keeping connected with the ten-plus years of students I've had, I have no other choice than to open a facebook account. I'm just doing it for the kids.

Like always.

Update #3: Cousins

Some of our cousins from California came out over Memorial Day weekend, and between cookouts, the Children's Museum and eating out, we had a blast. Both Grant (a little sad he can't marry his cousin) and Grace (surprisingly warned up to them very quickly) were so excited.

Here are a few pics.

Job Hunting

There are a lot of small things that I do not understand regarding hunting for new employment. It is highly unfortunate that some unemployed dude did not create a list of them on his blog so that I would be aware of them prior to my own employment going Titanic, hence the creation of the list below.

1. I was told that I needed special "resume paper." I went to Walmart and discovered such paper, but I found it curious that virtually every package of special "resume paper" had been opened. I found the only unopened package I could find and headed for the checkout. It cost $7.95 for 100 sheets. After purchasing the paper, I took it home, pulled a sheet out of the package, laid it on the kitchen table and stared at it for a while, waiting for it to take action. I figured for $7.95, it had better fill itself out with meaningful qualifications and all the appropriate buzz words. I now understand all of the open packages.

2. Is it "resume" or "resumè?" Every time I write "resume" on something official, like a job application, I feel as though I'm somehow offending a dead Frenchman somewhere.

3. Over the course of three days this week, I read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and watched the recent film based on the book. The book tells the tale of a father and son in post-Apocalyptic Appalachia, struggling to exist among the burned out ruins of our once thriving civilization. It features lots of decay, some occasional cannibalism, and a witness to just how unbearable a life absent of color, hope, and the occasional meal could really be. On day four, I went to a job interview and smiled and asked questions about how many vacation days I would be allotted and whether the soft drinks in the fridge were free, all the while masking the horrendous pit this book and film created in my soul. Perhaps I should have watched "Tooth Fairy" with The Rock instead.

4. Telling an interviewer that you've busied yourself by playing Little Big Planet on your Playstation 3 for hours on end might seem like a funny interjection in your head, but in reality it might not convey the go-getter spirit that you're trying to project. Saying that this is the first day this week that you've worn pants will not help the situation.

I'll continue adding to this list as I interview, and hopefully it'll be of benefit to someone else. Now back to the Playstation...

Update #2: Park Fun

We recently headed to a new park in the area. It's in the town just south of us, and we've never really been down in that area when we've needed a park, so we had yet to try it out.

But, it was fabulous. It had a playground, several miles of hiking trails, and--on the day we visited--touch a truck day.





Grant and Grace even got their pic in the local newspaper. Go HERE and look at the pics on the right.

Update #1: The end to swim lessons

We have so many updates, so many pictures. Our lives, despite the fact that Bret is unemployed and I am almost unemployed (two more days!), are moving at high speed.

So, we'll take this nice and easy, and I hope to be caught up before we head on our 27 day road trip.

To start us off, here are pics from the last day of Grant's swim lessons. He was all smiles, and he now asks when he gets to take them again, obviously forgetting--much like labor pains, I assume--the agony.



More updates to come including our first family hike, little Miss Grace and our first write-up in the local newspaper.

Updates

Several people have informed me over the past week or two that they have been disappointed in my blogging output since losing my job. I appreciate that my friends and family have appropriately prioritized their concerns for us, and I apologize for the dearth of posts.

What I've discovered is that I've actually been far busier these last few weeks than I was in the past few months of full employment. My job had been winding down for a little while, giving me ample time to share my thoughts regarding global issues such as uncomfortable restroom interactions and which of my kids is the most brain damaged.

But now that I'm in a place of needing to find someone willing to provide me with enough of a paycheck to maintain Grant's steady supply of plastic armaments, I've found that the pursuit requires a great deal of time and energy, leaving little time for blogging. Additionally, we're steadily gearing up for our big trip in June, which has also required a bit of planning.

In the mean time, I went to Walmart the other day and saw one of the products I formerly managed sitting on the shelf with a clearance tag. I considered standing in front of it while wearing a sandwich board featuring my resume, but in the end, I simply purchased a few supplies to repair our gas grill and a rubber shark to keep Grant happy.

Hopefully I'll get more time to post next week. In the mean time, Grace just pooped all over her sheets.

Mr. Mom.

I hate Grant's swim lessons too...

Mouth Cuts

You know, there’s really nothing worse than having a cut…in your mouth.  Everything you drink stings for no explicable reason, and if you’re a fan of Sichuan style Chinese food, you might as well have paper cuts between your toes.

Every spoon that our family possesses has little nicks in the metal, all around the eating portion of the utensil,  little burrs protruding all around the portion of the spoon that will soon be positioned against the most tender portions of my lips and mouth.

I pour a nice bowl of cereal, grab a spoon…instant lip cut.  I put a handful of ice cream in a bowl, I take my first bite – a mild abrasion.

For you see, every single, solitary, spoon in our household has spent some portion of its lifetime spinning in the garbage disposal.  For whatever inexplicable reason, nobody else here seems to mind the grinding of gears and shearing of metal created by turning on the disposal with a spoon lodged deep in its bowels.

Occasionally I’ll even say, “Gee, how can you see if there’s something stuck in the disposal when there’s so much stuff piled in the sink,” but my warning goes unheeded.  Instead, I’m made to continue living with small cuts on my lips -- a constant reminder that a) I’m the only person in this place that cares about our flatware and b) I really need to lay off the Tabasco.

Drowning Avoidance

Well, today was my last official day of employment. I didn't actually report for duty today, since I'd already turned in my keys and gone through my exit interview. It's a weird feeling, knowing that all of the "stuff" you've cared about for 16 years doesn't matter anymore. But the prospect of learning new "stuff" (hopefully sooner than later) makes it feel OK.

I've been doing some phone interviews, which I pretty much detest. I understand their purpose, but I really dislike talking on the phone...for anything. The added stress of having it be the gateway to future employment makes it even more intolerable.

My prior employer has provided me access to a "career counselor" of sorts as part of my parting gift. He suggested last week that you don't want to say anything to give the potential employer the "creepy factor" over the phone. I suggested that perhaps I should no longer use "Gee, I rarely talk to someone on the phone for free while sitting at home in my underpants" as my opener. He didn't know how to respond.

Between watching the "Price Is Right" and "Regis & The Wirey Blond Chick" in my down time, I've been taking Grant to swim lessons at the local high school. We're going to the beach in a few weeks, and we wanted to make sure Grant had some basic skills in the water. We really weren't concerned about the lessons, in part because Grant has been exposed to the pool quite a bit already. He swims with us on every vacation, and he's always been a trooper in the bath tub. Boy, did we misjudge this.

On the first day, Grant spent most of the time in the pool screaming, "Get me out of this pool!" and "I want my mommy!" (Daddy never seems to get any love in these situations...of course, it's hard to hear him when you're on the ground laughing.) The picture at the top of the post was taken on Day One, albeit from a distance. As a parent, you have to let your kid learn to face these fears alone. At least that's what my dad told me as he watched me bubble under in the pool where he coached swimming.

Here are a few videos from the early days of swim lessons. In the first one, you can watch as the toddlers recreate the Bataan Death March into the pool. My favorite part is when, disgusted, Grant spots me shooting the video.

At the suggestion of another parent, we decided that bribery was the only way Grant would conquer his fears. The parent with the questionable judgment who made this suggestion stated that his daughter preferred ice cream. We knew that food wasn't the way to Grant's heart, but weaponry from the Dollar Tree probably was instead.

Part of the deal was that if Grant didn't cry during swim lessons, he'd get some new ammo or a new "gat" from the dollar store. In an effort to fully comply, Grant would turn around occasionally and make sure we saw him smiling from ear to ear. Even if he cried, he'd break for long enough to turn around. I caught a couple of examples below.

(You can see Grant's wonderful swim instructor in this photo, giving the camera a suspicious "Dateline Special" look as a very white dude shoots her picture in the pool, not knowing that Grant is, indeed, adopted.)

In the end, Grant has enjoyed the swimming lessons, and at least now we know he can scream at the top of his lungs if something were to happen on vacation. Additionally, we now have the world's most complete arsenal of plastic dollar store weaponry, all made in China. For me, it's a misty eyed reminder of my days of employment past and nights spent at the Holiday Inn Donghua. Farewell, old friend...

Tip Jars

One of the values held dear by my lovely wife is that of generosity, and I must admit that this is one of the many facets of my personality that has improved with our marriage. (Another might be the ability to eat dinner without engaging in a play-by-play style discussion of the path the meal is taking through my digestive tract.)

Early in our marriage, I would have to be revived if Erin managed to get our restaurant bill before I did, for I knew that the tip would probably be nearly equal to our original bill. We have managed to merge in the middle, and now we agree to tip well without trying to single handedly make a rent or mortgage payment for our server.

The one facet of tipping that still annoys me is the tip jar at the Starbucks drive thru. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the willingness of my window-based barista to pour me a "tall, black coffee" -- my signature drink at Starbucks. But I don't really feel like there's anything about my order that warrants a tip. I just find that the jar annoys me.

The other thing that bothers me about the tip jar in this location is that I eat at other fast food establishments, and the fine employees of those restaurants don't get tips, and in many cases they've had to do far more work for me. The woman who dresses my Whopper (something hard to say without snickering) and the man who salts my fries (not nearly as double entendre friendly) arguably work harder than someone who pours me a cup of coffee, yet they make no effort to receive a tip. They simply man their post and provide the requested service.

Perhaps the answer here, at least in my wife's eyes, is to start offering a tip to the fine folks who serve me at fast food places other than Starbucks. Or better yet, maybe I just need to lay off the cheeseburgers and coffee.

Oh, Grant...

Grant started swim lessons this week, but I'll let Bret blog about that craziness. Let's just say that there's always one child screaming his head off. This week--that's my boy! We have pictures and such, so more to come.

But for now, here is a video of Grant talking about one of his favorite topics: dinosaurs. Grant loves dinosaurs, Star Wars, and Batman, but I think dinos (he makes me say dinosaur; he doesn't like abbreviated words [same with mayo]) are the current favorite.

Your Husband Has Too Much...

time on his hands when he asks you (you, who is still working) if you "happened to catch Regis and Kelly this morning." No, no, I did not.

Grant Does the Propellor

"Look Daddy, I'm Batman!"
(And yes, he came up with that on his own...)

So we're at the tail end of what we believe to be our 2nd case of the flu this year. Three of the four of us has had fevers, sore throats...the whole nine yards. But despite his illness, each night about an hour after the Tylenol, Grant would begin to dance. Please ignore the various tubes of ointment on the floor around him. We're a house in distress.

The Children's Museum

There's not a ton of stuff in Indy that is enviable. There are no great scenic views. No mountains.

We've got the Colts. We've got Hoosier basketball (kind of). And, we have the world renowned Children's Museum.

Here are a few pics.

A Windy Day at the Park

And now back...

to our regularly scheduled programing...

oh, and the pacifier is just a toy. Trust me, if she'd take it, I'd let her have it until she was 15 (if it'd stop the screaming), but alas, it's just a bath toy!

Complete Video Geekout

Fair warning -- this entry is not for the faint of heart. This is going to be a whole lot of geeky crap that nobody in our family will really care about. My only purpose in writing it is to document what I've discovered in the past few weeks, and perhaps it will help someone else who's trying to do something similar. You've been warned.

As I mentioned a while back, I've begun streaming shows to our Samsung LED TV, which is DLNA capable. This allows us to easily select a movie on our PC, right click on "Play To" and select the TV. It's great when we need a few minutes to get ready in the morning, and we want the kids to watch a few minutes of something. And it's easier than resetting the PC to output to the TV, using it as a monitor. The DLNA stuff just spits the movie over the network and plays the movie on the TV automatically. No channel changing, no video card settings, nothing. It just works.

This worked so well, that I decided to also do something similar with our TiVo. I wanted a program to stream DVDs to our TiVo without actually downloading the movie to the box. (Downloading is fine, but it's slow and fills up the already tight hard drive on the TiVo.)

I discovered a great piece of add-on software for the TiVo called Streambaby. This allows me to do exactly what I wanted -- stream DVDs and movie files to the TiVo. This is a great find, because it allows us to not need the actual DVD discs for the kids to watch their movies. I can box the DVDs up and never find them on the kitchen floor covered with peanut butter ever again.

So what I did initially was create a DVD image of each movie using DVDFab. I then used either VOB2MPG or VideoReDo to create an MPEG file of the DVD movie. I could then stream this MPEG-2 file (including the Dolby Digital surround sound) to the TiVo, and it worked great with the DLNA on the other TV. I would also use Handbrake to create an H.264/MPEG-4 file with AAC audio for the iPods using the iPod preset. (There's really no way to create one version of each movie which looks good on a 61" TV and a 3" iPod. This doesn't really bother me though, as the iPod files are very small in the end.)

The downside is that this process takes up tons of hard drive space -- several GBs per movie. And while I'd love to keep perfect images of all of our DVDs, I really don't have the money to buy scads of hard drives for our DVDs and CDs. So I need to compress.

I decided to start converting the original MPEG-2 DVD files for the TVs into H.264 files using Handbrake, similar to what I do for the iPods. Only I would use a different level of compression so that the videos still look great on the big screen. I also decided that I still wanted to preserve the Dolby Digital (AC3) surround sound, so I used "AC3 passthrough" mode rather than converting the audio to AAC, as one would usually do in an MPEG-4 file.

Since I started doing this, I've encountered several problems. The first was that I have some DVDs with 2 channel LPCM audio. What I discovered is that the TiVo can't play LPCM audio, so I needed to convert this to something else usable, namely AAC. This worked great.

The second problem I discovered is that I could not play my new MPEG-4 videos with AC3 using the DLNA features of our Samsung TV. In researching this, I discovered that Windows Media Player would play the video, but not the audio in these files. Apparently using AC3 within an MPEG-4 file is a somewhat strange configuration. It was started by Apple who packaged movies in iTunes this way, but now it's becoming more common.

In looking for a way around this, I knew that Streambaby on the TiVo would only look at the first audio track in a file, so this HAD to be the AC3 track if I wanted my surround sound. So I got clever and tried using Handbrake to put the AC3 track first and also add a second AAC audio track to each file to make the DLNA stuff (and Media Player) happy. I thought this had worked great, as the files played fine in Media Player. But unfortunately the Samsung TV still wouldn't accept the file. D'oh.

In the end, what I've decided to do is use AAC audio on DVDs without surround sound -- lots of kids movies are just good old stereo, so this is fine and plays on everything. For the bigger productions which feature surround sound, I'm sticking to my MPEG-4/H.264 with AC3 sound. This works great on the TiVo, and if they want to watch these on the Samsung TV in the other room, they can do so by playing the movie out to the TV using the TV as a monitor. It's not as convenient as using the DLNA connection, but it works.

So for anyone who is interested, here is my basic command line in Handbrake for creating Streambaby-capable movies for the TiVo:

handbrakeCLI -i "Kids Movie.mpg" -f mp4 -O -e x264 -b 2000 -a 1 -E ac3
-x ref=2:bframes=2:me=umh --strict-anamorphic -v -o "Kids Movie.mp4"

Basically this says, "Take the MPEG-2 file, use H.264 to compress it at 2000 kb/s (because the TiVo likes a constant bitrate), optimize it for streaming, pass along the AC3 surround sound, and spit out a shiny, new MPEG-4 file." The only real variations on this are changing the "ac3" to "faac" for the 2-channel stereo movies where I want to use AAC, and if the movie was originally NOT widescreen, I take out the "--strict-anamorphic." I won't go into what that means, but you can read about it here.

In the end, this compresses my movies by more than 50%, and they still look perfect on the TiVo. I could probably even reduce the 2000 kb/s to something smaller, but much like my music, I'd rather not see/hear any reminders that I've compressed my files.

Hopefully eventually the Samsung TV will let me pass an MPEG-4 file using AC3 audio, and this solution will work perfectly for every scenario. But for now, it works with Streambaby on the TiVo, which is where I need it to work 99% of the time.

And the kids can always watch the 2-channel stereo files via DLNA on the Samsung TV, or use the Samsung TV as a monitor for the other files by playing them using a video player (like VLC) which can play MPEG-4 files using AC3 audio. Either way, I can make this configuration work for any movie.

Hopefully some other poor schmuck will find this via Google and save himself some time. And if you read through this looking for pictures of the kids, don't say I didn't warn you.

Week One

If you see a guy on your street out washing, waxing, and detailing a giant white Kia mini-van that looks like it should belong to the Disabilities Ministry at the local church, it's a good bet that he's unemployed.

So far this week, I've weeded all the flower beds, cleaned up Erin's van, and done a host of other household chores that have been getting the brush off. Erin's van was, by far, the largest task. It took almost three hours to get the outside looking decent. After that was completed, I opened the doors and began work on the "under seat buffet" that is always present in our cars. The special this week was raisins, fruit gummies, and three month old milk. It was delightful.

When Erin got home from work, she asked, "Did you happen to find my iPod in there?" Alas, the iPod is still MIA. I suspect it is being enjoyed by whatever youth discovered it sitting all alone someplace, waiting to be picked up. Hopefully they're a fan of 90's indie rock. If so, they hit the jackpot.

In between projects, the job hunt is progressing, albeit slowly. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the break.

So, an unemployed couple walks into a bar...

Since it's now official, I guess we can let everyone in on what's going on with us. As many of you know, Erin and I made the decision a while back that Erin should stay home next year with the kids. We just felt like it was the right time, and with plans for a third at some point, we figured we should quit dumping money into day care sooner than later. So several weeks ago, Erin didn't renew her teaching contract for next year.

Additionally, many of you know that my job has been somewhat unsteady for a long time. But finally today, after working for essentially the same company (under various names) for 16 years, I was let go.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for what an unemployed couple with two kids can do? Our answer, in the short term, is to enjoy some time as a family. We have a trip to the beach coming in a few weeks, and who knows after that. I've been blessed, yet again, to be given a financial parachute that will last us for a little while...hopefully long enough to find a good job, wherever that may be.

In the mean time, I've been brainstorming some ideas for Erin & me, since we're both unemployed as of this summer:

1. Comedy Duo -- Nothing is funnier than watching a couple try to make it on stage when there is a slight undercurrent of uneasiness (see Sonny & Cher after the divorce).

2. Ice Cream Truck or Hot Dog Cart -- For ages, I've said that either of these things could make it in the large office park where I curr, er, used to work. I think this is our big chance.

3. Open a CD Store -- I realize that the use of a physical medium for music distribution, such as the CD, is going the way of the dinosaur, but we could live for a while selling off the extra copies of each Beach Boys or Kinks album that I have in my collection. Or at least we should recycle the plastic.

4. Late Night Office Cleaning Team -- Now I realize that my fear of germs would prevent me from doing most of the cleaning, so that would fall to Erin, but I could straighten the chairs in the conference room and empty the occasional trash can. Perhaps I could even do this for my old company. For a fee.

In reality, we're glad that one of our big unknowns is finally a known and that we can start moving forward with our lives. And what better time of year to get to spend some extra time together. We know the rest of the loose ends will come together in their time.

Sorry So Slow

Sorry that it's been such a slow week on here. The reality is that we have LOTS of things going on, not the least of which is enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

There are big changes coming for us, but I can't really update everyone just yet. Lots of unknowns and lots of unanswered questions. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to do a more complete post. My doctor informed me yesterday that you can get a time line for what's going on with me right now from a chart of my blood pressure over the past two weeks. Nice.