So, we were trying to

So, we were trying to go to sleep last night, my wife and I. We were talking, as we normally do, when Jen let loose one of her famously mispronounced words (she doesn’t think they are… maybe she speaks her own dialect?). JenWords come in two varieties: the emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable and the mixed-up-first-sound. I don’t even remember what it was last night that go me started… but it made me laugh. Now, I love JenWords. They keep me on my toes, and I think maybe she does it to make sure I’m paying attention, because to miss a JenWord is to miss something beautiful and original.

I must also say that most of these happened while Jen was pregnant, and therefore must be attributed to hormones or something. Otherwise, it’s just an endearing quirk that I hope never goes away. Here are some of my favorites of both types:

emphasis-on-the-wrong-syllable: (phonetically)

  • cement: SEE-mint, so it sounds like semen with a t.
  • drixoral: dricks-or-ALL, you know, the allergy medicine.
  • mercury: I don’t even know how to do this one, just be sure it’s funny.
  • syllable: sill-AAAAA-bull – makes me giggle every time.

mixed-up-first-sound:

The wonderful thing about these is that 1) they’re hilarious, and 2) you never know when she’ll do it. The emphasis words are pretty regular, but these are gems!

  • french onion: fred onchion – we went through this phase where chopped up potatos + some mix + 400 degree oven = yummy when we first got married. fred onchion potatos was Jen’s suggestion one day. We still bring up good ole Fred whenever we need a laugh.
  • great outdoors: bud ortdoseman – Sunday morning shortly after moving to Virginia, she asked if SportsCenter was coming on after that bud ortdoseman show… she meant The Great Outdoors… really, it was funny at the time. Now, Bud and Fred are friends.
  • Buddhist Monks: Moodist Bunks – This one was recent, so she can’t use pregnancy as an excuse… eating dinner at my mom’s. I don’t know why we were talking about Buddhism, but there you have it.\
    There are others, and I’ll add them if I remember them, but you get the idea.
Published
Categorized as family

I love Sunday afternoons. It’s

I love Sunday afternoons. It’s this time, after church and lunch, and everyone’s come home and changed clothes that I feel like I have nothing to do and nowhere to be and I love it. Jen and Max are asleep; I keep listening for them, trying to decipher creaks and sounds from the baby monitor as the signs of waking. The TV is on, providing background noise to my surfing and goofing off. The laptop is on the dining room table, and I’m not working. All is quiet, and peaceful. I’m a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a friend – and right now I’m all alone doing nothing, all of those things that I am in the background to me being me to myself, doing nothing but sitting and taking a break. This is the best time…

Published
Categorized as Kevin

So, where was I yesterday?

So, where was I yesterday? I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art with my wife, son, mother-in-law and mother. Other than taking the looooooooooooooooo-oooong way there through downtown DC (all to avoid congestion on the beltway. reminder to self: never trust mom with a map), it was a great trip. Max was an angel the whole time. We saw some great art.

If you haven’t been, and live in the area, I totally suggest it. It’s not as impressive as the old Getty or the LACMA, which are full of the paintings you see on postcards and calendars. It still has a very nice collection of Matisse, Picasso drawings (which I enjoyed more than the paintings), and some great abstracts by some of my favorite artists like Paul Klee and Kandinsky.

It really got me in the mood to paint again. There’s something wonderful about seeing real paint on canvas. The texture of paint is so gorgeous. It’s never carried over in prints or even in reproductions. And it’s funny, it’s those details that make a work great. Looking at some Matisse in books or postcards makes it look hurried and childish. On closer inspection, the care taken in the brush strokes to bring out the knee and calf of a dancer, or a painter in a grove of olive trees make the painting beautiful and complex. I loved it. I need more…

We also ate at the museum restaurant, which, in most cases is a baaa-aaad idea. But, this museum has Gertrude’s (which I hear is closing… so sad). The food was AMAZING and the place was packed. I had the salmon alla bella and almost died of seafood happiness. It was the best I’ve ever had – and I’m an expert on restaurant salmon. Everyone else got crab cakes, and they were a little too full of old bay spice for me, but they were still very good.

My mother-in-law is headed back to Tucson today. It makes me sad. Yeah, really. I dig my in-laws. They’re fun, funny and caring. They’ve accepted me and my family and are always great to be around. I really wish they were closer or could visit more often. It also makes me feel guilty for dragging their daughter and grandson across the country. When we’re independantly wealthy, we’ll make it up to you Connie, I promise.

Published
Categorized as family

I’ve realized that I have

I’ve realized that I have a gigantic set of blinders on. I can ignore stuff that doesn’t work or look good as long as I think it’s cool, or even worse, if I built it. It happens at work all the time, I’ve just been oblivious to it. This fabulous intranet I built for our group is cool. I built it. Therefore, I’ve reserved my biggest blinders for criticism of it. Now, I realize that the criticism is valid, and the site is really geeky (look at who built it) and not terribly easy to navigate.

At least I’m being big about it and admitting it. I had to send mail asking for help, “I know it sucks, how can I fix it.” What fun! I should leave the design stuff to the experts and just stick to building stuff and then make it look like they want. But, will pride let me? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I’m wearing my humble little blinders and trying not to make much noise… let’s see how that works.

Published
Categorized as Kevin

Why am I such a baby?

Why am I such a baby? Someone sent me a flame mail about our group’s site. It’s someone in the group, but not someone I work with. Basically, the trashed everything I’d done on the site for three months and said it was unusable. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me, and I’m not sure why this did. Is it because I spent a lot of time on it, built some amazingly cool AOLserver stuff, did it all myself, configured the box from scratch (installed RedHat, AOLserver, PostgreSQL, etc), and then pored over it every day for a month (in between my real work)? Or, was it the dismissive tone? “and I hate the studio site.. ” Wow, thanks, that was constructive, baby. That told me what you think is REALLY wrong with the site. Educated, and thorough in your criticism.

Or, wait, is it because it’s the Friday before Memorial Day and I’m the only person in my group left in the building, because I had to go to some stupid two hour meeting AFTER solving the world’s problems and continuing to make this company millions? Oh maybe… Maybe I just need a vacation and two Exedrin.

Published
Categorized as Kevin

There’s something horrible about sinus

There’s something horrible about sinus infections. I’m well enough to go to work, but sick enough to be really annoyed that I’m here. Plus, I’m still digging out of the post-vacation emergencies, and well, I’m just not pleased. On one hand, it’s made me see how well I do my job. But, on the other, it makes me wonder why no one else can do this stuff. Tcl’s not a terribly difficult language to learn. HTML’s easy. Why is putting the two together so difficult? It beats me.

New Subject: Max has allergies, or so says the doctor. We’re supposed to go get liquid benadryl tonight and see if that stops the torrent of snot issuing from his cute little nose. It’s so ever-present that we can’t keep up with it. I came home from work yesterday, and he was covered in it. It looked like he was wearing a mask. Yep, these are the joys of parenting. On a happier note, I think Max is REALLY close to talking. He’s saying whole syllables, and they’re not the same thing over and over again. There’s real variety and inflection now, which is really cute. It reminds me of travelling overseas and sitting in airports surrounded by the cacophany of dozens of languages being spoken at once. I can’t wait for him to be able to tell us what’s going on inside that curly head of his.

Published
Categorized as Max

When will it end? I

When will it end? I went to the doctor this morning because I keep coughing up lovely chunks of lung goo, and haven’t felt well in almost two weeks. What do I find out? I have a wonderfully advanced and special sinus infection and I need to lose 100 pounds. How scary is that? I’m to a point where losing 100 pounds will get me to a normal weight. Dammit, I’m fat! So, my goal is to lose 52 pounds a year for two years and get down to slightly fluffy instead of the round mound of rolling pudge. Ahhhh, what fun.

Published
Categorized as Kevin

I have a job. I

I have a job. I work a lot. I’ve worked for the same company for almost six years (my entire 20’s experience almost). My dad has had more jobs in the past six years than I’ve had in my entire life. He’s not even a bum! These jobs are well-paying and pretty cool. Am I TOO stable? Am I TOO predictable? Beats me.

So, my brother and his wife are here, and I took Max over to play last night. It was so great to see my son and my brother playing together. Tim chased Max around the yard, showed him flowers and leaves, and played Max’s “Pick up rock, drop behind my back” game for a good long while. It made me want to cry, but my knee hurt so much, and my allergies were so bad, I forgot.

Oh yeah, my stupid knee. I had my ACL replaced on 5/4 of last year. I figured, “Hey, it’s been a year, let’s try some volleyball”. Yes, you can call me a dumbass now. I don’t THINK I didn’t anything serious to it, but my kneecap hurts like hell, and walking sucks. So, I’ll give it a couple days, and then call up my patient and long-suffering doctor.

And the worst part about it is that I’ve done this to my wife already. It was really hard on her. I feel guilty already, and I don’t know if I did anything to it. I’m sorry, sweetie. I will never play sports again, ever ever ever.

Published
Categorized as family