Software Developer, Media Nut, and Proud Father of Two

Man, it's been a while. I don't even know where to begin or what to ramble about. In a nutshell, here's what has been going on: Anna is now five months old and has broken her first two teeth in one day, my father-in-law has celebrated his 57th birthday today (Happy birthday Mike!), the Saints have been mediocre while having the #1 offense in the NFL, I've been rocking the NFL Pick 'em group (to my own shock and amazement), my boss supplied me with a sweet laptop that has wireless broadband, I've delved deeply into Mass Effect, experienced the NXE update on my 360, played the Left 4 Demo demo several times with Tim on expert, played Nazi Zombies on Call of Duty 5 with my neighbor, almost went insane dealing with C# and MonoRail, decided to start wearing a new hair due, jogged/walked five miles to raise money for Speed The Light, had my parents over as guest for a weekend, had Anna dedicated at our church, took a family portrait (arriving tomorrow), flooded myself with numerous TV shows, began the initial steps in becoming more involved with BuyFromAChristian.com, and have fought way too many times with my health insurance provider about their crappy coverage. Whew, what a busy two months it has been. Here are some recent photos to share:

On the media front, I recently subscribed to Netflix. I decided that instead of spending a decent chunk of money on a single season set of a TV show, we would rent them from Netflix instead. We're still in our first month and so far we've gotten our hands on half of the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. By the end of the year, we'll probably have started with season five and rented two or three movies, and have only spent $20. One season of Star Trek: The Next Generation will cover 5 or 6 months of Netflix service, which allows us to watch the remainder of the show and other shows and movies. But, there are some movies I still want to get my greedy little hands on, like the masterpiece that is The Dark Knight or Wall-E.

In other media fronts, Monk has been renewed for an eighth, and final, season. This should give the writers ample opportunity to wrap up Monk's only unsolved cased and return him to normality. The second season of Chuck has been superb, providing great laughs that top its first season and has become one of our favorite shows. But on the down site, TV's biggest flop for the 08-09 season so far has been season three of Heroes. It's better than the second mind you, but the constant continuity errors and plain bad writing have made this season hard to watch. I get flak for criticizing the show and am constantly told to just "enjoy it." Sorry, after what I saw with the first season, I can't just enjoy it. Season's two and three of Heroes are to season on as the second and third Matrix movies are to the first: major let downs. There was something special that the originals had, and then all was lost. We haven't given up on the show entirely, but we're not as excited about it as we were during the first season. Some tidbits are coming here and there about the fifth season of Lost, and I'm biting at the bit to get my fill of it.

In the gaming arena, I've been playing way too much Mass Effect. I don't know, maybe I like it a lot more than I'm letting on, or maybe I'm just caring too much about squeezing out a few more achievements... I vote the later. At least it's a fun game. Then there are all of these other games that my neighbor keeps getting. He kindly lets me borrow them without giving him anything in return. Maybe I'll get him something for Christmas as a way of saying thanks. When he's bored, sometimes he'll come over and watch me play because he has nothing else to do, which I don't mind, gives us a chance to "chill." The last few weeks have been bitter sweet for gamers. Release after release of highly anticipated games, and so little cash to spend. To name a few off the top of my head: Red Alert 3, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Dead Space, LittleBigPlanet, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War, Far Cry 2 and Crysis: Warhead. It's a good thing I'm not a gaming enthusiast, else I'd be spending a fortune. I'm near the end of my toying with Mass Effect, so I think Fable 2 is up next... or maybe I'll load up a FPS, like Dead Space or Medal of Honor.... or maybe I'll go on a gaming fast. I think I should.

Next week I'm going to New Orleans and I'm pretty excited about it. Because of the great laptop I have with work, we're going to stay for a full week, which will give us plenty of time to visit family and friends that we get to see little of when we do take the time to visit. It's getting late and I got up early, so I think I'll cut it short here. I've babbled enough today, especially with my insurance provider... -_-