Software Developer, Media Nut, and Proud Father of Two

Since I have such an awesome job, boss and supervisor, I had the opportunity spend a full week in New Orleans for Thanksgiving. Typically when we travel to New Orleans, it's a weekend trip that starts early Friday morning, but since I have a company provided laptop with wireless broadband, I was able to extend the amount of time I spent there, and as a result, had a much more fulfilling trip. A lot of times Becky and I rush to see one or two people before having to make our trek back home on a Sunday afternoon, not being able to see family and friends outside of the initial visit to their home and at church. I was tempted to extend my visit by a few days since my best friend Anthony's wife is going to have their third child on Wednesday, but I was ready to come back home. Not only did I spend time with family and friends, but I also got to ride in a helicopter and get majorly defeated in UNO by the Queen of UNO (Becky). During some of my down time I decided to become more acquainted with social networking sites, partly for work related research and partly due to curiosity since I have seen and heard plenty of social networking, but never got involved.

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:

Monday was the three hour premiere of Heroes, with the first hour being a long promo that was built up to the real two hour premiere. I'm happy to have Heroes back, and there were some big twists in the story, shocking revelations and a big start to what I hope will ultimately be a successful season. However, as an avid watcher and reader of the online comics, I can't help but feel that there were some issues with the story that made this opener feel a bit rushed, and by rushed I mean crammed with so many different plot elements so as to create a "shocking" and "crazy" two episodes. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but now that I look back on it and think of the inconsistencies, unexplained circumstances and apparent continuity errors, I can't help but feel that the writers of the show are aiming harder for crazy twists and turns than they are with producing a quality story. Spoilers ahoy, so read with caution.

It's that time again; cool weather is beginning to move in, TV shows are starting their season premieres, and it also marks the start of this little American sport that gets me all worked up, for better and worse, called football, you know, the one where the "wimps" where pads (according to some rugby fans). I'm happy that football is back, and I think Becky kind of is too because the background noise from the TV helps her take a nap, forcing me to restrain my joy, frustration, or amazement during whatever game I'm watching. There were some interesting developments yesterday, but I'll let NFL.com be your one stop shop to all things NFL. I'll merely comment on interesting things.

Five years ago, I couldn't count on one hand the number of TV shows that I watched (including Saints games). Today, I need at least three. With Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego wrapping up, loads of news about my favorite shows, and others that I consider mediocre or simple entertainment, is coming out the wood works. There are a lot of shows to look forward to, and here's something we will see a lot more of in the upcoming season of Chuck: Bromance.

Bromance is a love between two friends that are like brothers. If you've ever seen the show Chuck, you would know that Chuck (Zach Levi, right) and Morgan (Joshua Gomez, left) are best friends, practically soul mates (according to Morgan). This was taken at Comi-Con 2008 in San Diego and rumor has it that the upcoming second season of Chuck will be filled with more gaming and bromance. Awesome.

There were 13 people moved from the island to the freighter; only two, Sun and Aaron, got onto a helicopter before the freighter exploded. Sadly, Jin ran onto the deck about 10 seconds after the helicopter was departing; Michael was also on the boat, redeeming himself for his past actions.

I typically discuss TV shows and movies on Neowin, but felt like sharing here as well. Last night was the season four finale of Lost and it was amazing! Some wild and crazy things happened, of which I won't delve into just in case you haven't seen it. Watching the show reminded me of just how great this show is, but also about how much junk there is out there. Sure, not all shows need to be serialized and have the most in-depth and intriguing story line, but that doesn't mean it should have half an effort either. The outlook is more grim when counting the number of bad movies that have been churning out. Hollywood has suddenly developed a fascination for picking up old franchises and making further sequels or by rebooting a franchise.

By far one of the coolest things ever on Lost. At this point, the island is lost, go figure!