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When we were younger I used to race my brother to the store doors or to the car or to the store carts. You name it, I wanted to race. The conversation usually went like this:

Me: Race ya to the store!

Drew: no

Me: Come on! I’m gonna beat ya!

Drew: Fine

Me: Come on! Run!

Drew: No, I’ll walk.

So imagine this conversation going on daily for most of our childhood.

Now, enter adulthood.

Drew and Michelle told the family over Labor Day weekend that they are expecting their second child, affectionately known as “Dos”. We are elated to have another cousin in the mix. It has been so much fun to watch Riles and Avery grow up together. We’re ecstatic that our next kids will do the same.

To Drew and Michelle, with all sincerity, congratulations. We’re happy and over joyed that we’ll have friends and family we can relate to again. You guys made us not feel so crazy when we just weren’t getting Riley some days. It will be wonderful to have someone to lean on again.

We told our families early on about Courtney’s pregnancy in August. We knew were weren’t going to be able to keep a secret long. We whipped up this video to tell everyone. We hid the announcement under the guese of a funny Riley video:

Back to the race.

After a few more doctor’s appointments Courtney’s due date was honed down to March 27th, my cousin’s birthday. I’ve been happy to have another March baby. With my birthday being March 20th I thought it would be neat to have my kid have the same birthday month.

Back to the race.

Drew and Michelle tell us over Labor Day weekend about “Dos” and we quickly did the math. Michelle is one week further along than Courtney, putting their due date roughly one week ahead of ours. In the most impolite fashion I denounced their method of joyous announcement as rotten and underhanded.  My brother had beaten me in the race.

But, as it was when we were children, I think I may be the only one racing.

Looks like Courtney will be getting an iPhone shortly too.

UPDATE:  Courtney turned down the new phone offer mentioning that we’d be better off replace my lost wedding band before she gets a new phone. Sometimes her logic baffles me.

For years I’ve bought bleeding edge tech devices. In 1998 I bought the first ever MP3 playing CD player, imported all the way from a back alley in China. I bought a 6 gig Archos MP3 player which held a charge for all of 2 hours in 1999. Hell, I even had an Apple Newton 130, bought off a BBS for $480, which I connected a modem to so I could send email from it in 1995.  I’m no stranger to the not-so-perfect technical solution.

Last month our standard DVD player stopped working. It would boot up but would not read a DVD. It would just sit with a “Loading” message flashing. I used the opportunity to upgrade to an upscaling DVD player. I’m not ready to drop any serious money on any next-gen DVD technology. I’m not convinced that it’s worth the money yet. I’ve heard good things about upscaling players, which take a normal DVD and “upscale” the video resolution to that of modern HDTVs.

I ordered up the Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player  from Amazon for $65. The upscaling works well. It’s a nice player, simple and nice. The video quality of my existing DVDs looks awesome through the player.

But when I got it I noticed it had a USB port on the front. I can plug something into it.  Hmmm…

I read through the manual and discovered the player was aslo capable of playing Divx movies from a USB drive. In the past I’ve tried hundreds of methods to play Divx videos on my TV. I’ve connected my laptop to the TV, transcoded the video to VCD format, streamed them to my Wii, etc…None of them had worked even the slightest bit well. I was skeptical. And if I was skeptical, imagine what Courtney thought.

So I hopped on the internet, found some interesting Divx videos, threw them on my thumb drive, and plugged it in. In an awe inspiring moment the DVD player played the movie. It did more than play it too, it played it well! It just worked! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had finally found a technology that worked without some cumbersome, poorly implemented, feature set. Thank you Philips.

Last night we sat down to watch a show I had downloaded. Court looked at me and said, “This isn’t going to stop half way through is it?” She knows me too well. I assured her that it wouldn’t…Well, I assured her that I hoped it wouldn’t. To my delight, it played all the way through.

Chalk up a win for me. I’ve found a diamond in the rough. It took me 15 years, but I finally found one.

Ever wondered what it’s like to live with me? Courtney details it well.

The short version of the Wii struggle is: I still don’t have one. There’s no need for me to bore you with the details. Let me just say that it’s been a very frustrating hunt this weekend.

Wednesday night I thought it would be great to wash Dottie’s dog bed. Over the past week she’s had some “issues” that had left her bed a little worse for wear. Her bed is so big, though, that it cannot all fit in the washer at once. I got a great idea to take the polyfill out of the bed and wash it separately from the cover.

An hour after the washer began I came down to a smoke filled laundry room. It seems that I had filled the washer too high with the polyfill and burnt out the washer engine. Wednesday night we went washer shopping.

This capped off a week (a short week nonetheless) of situations where Courtney had suggested that I not do what I was about to do. It started on Sunday when I was about to give Dottie some ibuprofen for her hip. Court said, “Are you sure that she is supposed to have that?” “Why not?” I said. One trip to the vet and $350 later I discovered Courtney was right, dogs aren’t supposed to have ibuprofen.

The ibuprofen caused Dottie to start having bladder and kidney problems. These problems caused her bed to be soaked in leaked pee. The soaked bed was the reason I was trying to wash the polyfill. Court asked me before I started dismantling Dottie’s bed so I could wash it, “Are you sure you should wash polyfill in the washer?” “Why not?” I said. One trip to the appliance store and $450 later I discovered Courtney was right.

So I vowed after this weekend to listen to Courtney more. She seems to have some good ideas, or at least cheaper ideas than I have.

Court and I went to the State Fair yesterday for two things: 1. Visit the liberals and 2. to see the Bodeans (Guess which one of us wanted to do which of those). We knew that the fair would be tough on Court, having just entered the 8th month of pregnancy. We attempted to calculate when the Bodeans would be on stage so we would spend as little time on our feet as possible.

By the time the second band finished up at the show Court was pretty beat. My back was starting to ache a little bit too. We had been standing around for 4 hours and had to take a break. We walked over to a green gate on the side of the grandstand and sat down for awhile. A security guard stood near us, guarding the opening of the gate.

We sat on the ground for a good 20 minutes without being harassed. The security guard started to get a little antsy not only with us but with others starting to gather around. He started escorting people away, asking them to not loiter by the gate. Finally, he walked over to us and asked us to kindly move along. “I have to ask you to move, ” he said, “I’ve let you stay here already too long. I have to keep this area clear.” We were not surprised by the request and we started packing up.

Getting a pregnant lady up off the ground takes a little bit of skill. Over the last few weeks I’ve begun to recognize when Court needs help in and out of cars or up off the ground or other precarious situations. I stood up as the guard had asked and grabbed Court’s hand, braced to pull her up, and with a swift motion helped her off the ground. We wiped the dirt off our pants and gathered our energy to move back into the crowd of drunks.

Moments later the same security walked over with a horrified look. “I’m sorry. Sorry…I..I didn’t realize. You’re pregnant. Here, take my chair.” It was a kind gester from him. We thanked him for his effort and approval to bend the rule a little bit. I realized Court has reached the point that we can start getting special treatment. I started wondering what else we could get…

In the end we were flattered by the gentleman’s willingness to help out and felt a little bad for him. I hope he didn’t take it too hard that he just asked a pregnant lady to not sit around anymore.

Details of my latest handywork, from the other side.

Okay, the cat is out of the bag. Tonight, October 31, 2000 Courtney and I got engaged. Wahoo!