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

Emotionally Taxing

This past week has been, shall we say, emotionally draining. You see, I have made a variety of mistakes which have created high blood pressure, hypertension, and a general desire on my wife's part to beat me about the head and shoulders with something heavy and blunt. I'll relate one such story below, but there have been other things in the past few weeks -- adoption paperwork snafus, new tires on the car which caused it to do donuts in the driveway without driver intervention, and any number of failed home improvement projects over the past few weeks. I've learned from my mistakes, but it's probably best to document these situations in a public forum for future reference.

The first moment when it became clear that she was in for a roller coaster ride was last weekend at approximately 7:30am. We were already somewhat tense with each other over a "discussion" from the previous evening. Nothing big, but we both awakened a little grouchy. I got up before Erin and made the first poor decision. We had received Erin's W-2, but mine had not yet arrived. Erin had been discussing what she might do with the refund we would receive on our taxes (paint the baby's room, buy some new clothes, etc), but in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder if we had really withheld enough throughout the year. I mentioned this to her a few times, but her unwaivering faith in my ability to put a zero in the right box on our withholding paperwork assuaged any fears she might have had. I decided to go ahead and do a quick and dirty trial run of our taxes, just to see if things were going to shape up ok in the end. I figured it wouldn't be hard, since I'm a die-hard Quicken fan. I figured Quicken could spew out my earnings for the year, as well as how much had already been withheld, I'd slap that into TurboTax, and I would have a reasonable estimate of our taxes. So off I went. I used last year's taxes as a guide for our deductions, put in Erin's W-2, imported my wage info from Quicken, and voila! "You owe $3800, Mr. Hawkins! Might we suggest the Comfort Inn on I-74."

Crap! This can't be right?! $3800?!? How could it be so far off. I began feverishly checking every number against last year's taxes. I found nothing. Oh no. I knew Erin was already mad at me, and she looked so peaceful sleeping. I had to tell her. I had no choice. I entered the room once, but turned and ran away -- squealing a little bit as I did so. I couldn't do it. No, I had to. I reentered the room. I gently slid the lamp away from her nightstand, relocated a pair of nearby scissors, and gently tried to wake her. As she came around, she said, "What is it?" I said, "We have a small problem."

"What is it?"

"Our taxes. We owe $3800."

I could immediately see her begin to have to restrain herself from calling me a variety of names, most of which might be defined as an "unintellectual posterior." She asked if I checked everything, and I explained how I came to this conclusion. After fuming at me for a couple of hours, she informed me that we were going on a strict budget. I agreed, and we spent a couple of hours creating a budget for the next year to get us through taxes, adoption, and any potential hospitalizations I might require (my friends and family will understand that this is a required line item on any budget Erin and I create). Erin cut down on big things for her including a few luxurious grocery items such as this oat-nut bread she likes as well as higher priced cleaning supplies for the house, while I cut out an iPod, my requisite five CDs per month, and at least one steak per weekend. Everyone has their limits. In any case, we both agreed that we would get through it, and that we had done what we had to do.

Now here's the funny part of the story. I received my W-2 Friday evening. I compared my guess entries in TurboTax to my real W-2, and I was off by a little bit. Just a little. Enough that we get a $50 refund, rather than owing $3800. Sorry, hon! My initial thought was that perhaps this was God's way of getting me to analyze our budget (and by analyze, I really mean create) -- a request of Erin's for approximately the last three years. It was a good exercise, and I think we're still going to use some of it, but we're definitely not in the bad spot we thought we were. Erin was surprisingly calm when I told her about my blunder. We even managed to laugh about it...well I was able to laugh once I got her hands off my throat.

Moral of the story -- There is a relatively high percentage of voodoo involved with figuring out your taxable income for the year. Don't try to guess it -- just patiently wait for all the W-2's to arrive.

And to my lovely wife's credit, she handled the whole situation with her usual patience and grace. I, too, handled it with elegance and grace. I'm sure my digestional tract will go back to normal eventually.

The good news is that I'm still on track to get an iPod by summer. That'll keep me occupied when I'm waiting in line for a CPA to do our taxes next year.

Bret

Adoption Hurdle Crossed

January 29 kicks off the Chinese New Year—the year of the dog, and as a beautiful New Year surprise, Bret and I received our official immigration pre-approval paperwork this week. Now to understand the gift we’ve been given, one must understand that most couples wait an average of EIGHT weeks for their approval. Ours, miraculously, was finished in ONE WEEK (absolutely unheard of)!!

What does all this mean in adoption terms? Our dossier (collection of official paperwork) will be sent to China much sooner than expected. We hope to be logged into the Chinese Adoption Affairs system by the end of March (pray for the end of February). The wait from Log in Date to referral is now longer than expected (between 8-12 months), but we are hopeful (and prayerful) that we still might be traveling in 2006.

It’s a long pregnancy, but the wait will be worth it. We now know that we will indeed be receiving a girl (maybe twin girls), but we had to remove our names from the “either sex” category because of a weird paperwork glitch (that would have caused a delay).

It’s hard to believe the paperwork chase is almost over. There will be much celebration and relief once China has all of our paperwork, and while we will STILL be waiting almost double the time of a biological pregnancy, we are excited to start the fun stuff: deciding on names, painting the nursery, and buying books (the most important toy [at least to this English teacher]).

All in all, I am touched at the amazing thing that is adoption. There is something beautiful about taking a child, alone and afraid in this world, without much hope or love, and bringing her into our home as our own dearly loved child. It’s beautiful to understand, in a fresh and unique way, how the two most important needs of my life have been met through adoption: I’ve been adopted into God’s family, and now a little baby girl from China will be adopted into ours.

It’s fun for me to think that other parents will tell their children that they waited nine long months and traveled to the hospital to have them. Bret and I will say that we waiting even longer and traveled half way around the world to find our baby girl.

Public Enemy Number One

In light of Bret’s experiences during our most recent excursion to Homeland Security, I feel it necessary to let you all know, based on my own experiences during fingerprinting, that your association with me could be detrimental.

Now, I know you all think I am kind, sweet, funny and bright, but I think the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the FBI, might consider me armed and dangerous.

I avoided most of the trauma described by Bret, but yesterday had its own fear factor for me. This is what I know. I’m standing in a windowless room, several Homeland Security Agents standing ready, and this massive, speed dial-to-Washington, fingerprint machine is standing between me and my baby. No sweat. A few stretches, and I’m ready.

However, for EVERY SINGLE print, a large red warning crossed the screen: MATCH WARNING. I imagined my print being immediately checked against the list of America’s Most Wanted and coming up with a MATCH!! I start thinking: traffic ticket in 1997, car towed in 2000…. Nope, no murder. Nope, no fraud.

The officer in charge of my fingerprinting appeared calm, as if these MATCH WARNINGS appeared all the time. However, I assumed her calm demeanor was standard operating procedure outlined on page one of the official US Guide to Fingerprinting Fugitives. I half expected US Marshals, the like of Tommy Lee Jones, to enter in with guns pulled.

I made it out alive—no guns, no marshals—but I think the bigger fear now is that there is someone out there, someone in the great beyond—a not so nice person—with whom I share a special bond. John Walsh, if you’re out there, let’s find her fast!

Fingerprints

Yesterday we had our big fingerprinting appointment with the local office of the Department of Homeland Security. Even simply having to appear at this office seemed like an eerie prospect, and the experience did turn out to be somewhat surreal.

First off, the letter which arrived a month ago detailing our appointment date and time was very specific about a couple of things. First off it stated, in bold print, that we were NOT TO ARRIVE ANY EARLIER THAN 15 MINUTE BEFORE YOUR ASSIGNED APPOINTMENT. Okay, fair enough. I've relished the opportunity to sit in a plastic, government appointed folding chair for the past month, but I can give that up.

Second, we were NOT TO BRING ANYONE OTHER THAN OURSELVES with us to the appointment. Again, the potential for an afternoon out with the boys at the offices of a local government agency seemed intriguing, but I can give that up as well. The reason given behind this request was that there would be limited seating in the waiting area. I imagined something like a small doctor's office with 5 or 6 chairs and a TV. When we arrived at the office, there were something like 40 or 50 chairs and maybe 5 or 6 people waiting. I'll assume it's busier at other times...

As we arrived at the doors to the suite where we were to be fingerprinted, we were greeted by two friendly security agents. Prior to performing the usual metal detector sweep with a wand, they asked me to empty my pockets of anything metal. Fair enough I tossed my wallett and car keys to Erin, at which point the guard says "Whoa...they're not going to let THAT in there." I thought back trying to recall if I was carrying anything like a machete or perhaps even a lighter. Nada. What I did have was a Swiss army knife on my keychain.

Now I use this knife every day at work for SOMETHING, usually something on the order of performing step 2 on my Healthy Choice microwaveable lunch -- "cut slit in plastic." I occasionally turn a screw with it, and even more rarely I dig a piece of said lunch out of my teeth with the tooth pick. So I say to the guy, "Ok, can I leave it out here with you until we're done?" No can do. So I head down to the lobby of the building. I asked the same question of the young lady manning the help desk in the center of the ground floor. Same answer. So I trudged out to my car in the snow to drop off my $9, dull, pocket knife. I would have just pitched it, but it would be the 3rd one I've pitched in the last 4 years -- the others at the hands of the airport screeners. To their credit, the guards in this case stated very bluntly that they understood my frustration and even agreed with it. I think one of them even commented after I was gone that you could do more damage with a pencil than that pocket knife, but alas. At some point in the not too distant future, I really can envision trapsing naked through a metal detector to get fingerprinted, board an airplane, etc. You thought crowded airports were uncomfortable now, wait 'til you're trying to shimmy naked through that metal detector with the Cal State women's nordic ski team watching you jiggle from the back of the line.

Once we were inside the office, it took only a few minutes of interfacing with some entirely humorless people before we were whisked into the room with the fingerprinting machines. This was a pretty cool process, from a technological standpoint, but again, I managed to run into issues. You see, anyone that knew me growing up knows that I bit my fingernails as though there was gold under them until a couple of years ago. I've worked very hard to stop, but my cuticles are still sort of a mess, and they dry out badly during the winter. As the lady was rolling one of my fingers over this machine to take my prints, she had to try it several times to get a good image. Each time she squeezed a little harder and pressed down a little harder on my finger. Eventually a tiny bit of blood seeped from my cracked finger. Not good. Suddenly Band Aids are flying, rubber gloves are being changed, and next thing I know, they're pouring alcohol over my dry, chapped finger. After about 3 more tries at taking my print on this finger, they were successful. But I could tell that they were not pleased with me. They handed me a comment card and told me to fill it out. I quickly checked all of the "EXCELLENT" boxes and handed it back to the lady, comment side up so she could see how excellent her service was (despite drawing blood and making me say "Mommy" when she hit me with the alcohol.)

Fingerprints done. Now we wait. Hopefully we'll get the A-OK on these in the next four weeks, at which time we'll get it stamped by the secretary of state, stamped by the Chinese consulate in Chicago, and finally sent off to Denver for transmission to China.

Now where's my knife...I have a nose hair to trim with those teeny tiny scissors...

Bret

It ain't exactly cold fusion, but hey...

So some of you may remember my posting concerning patents a while ago. Well I got some good news in my mailbox at work this morning -- I've been awarded a patent! I've filed a hefty pile of patent disclosures over the past five years, but none have become actual patents until now.

Here's the link to the patent and associated documentation (you'll need to scroll down to see the majority of the patent). The brief description is that if you were watching a show on your TV -- say "24" for the sake of my inlaws -- and midway through it you decided you'd like to record it. Some TVs and cable/satellite boxes will let you hit the RECORD key on your remote to start an immediate recording. My patent was to bring up a box telling you something like "This program will air again at 6:00pm on Friday. Would you like to record that one?" thereby insuring that you get the whole program, rather than just the rest of the program you're currently watching.

It won't cure world hunger, but hey...

Bret