D.C.

Not that I've been posting a ton lately anyway . . . but it might get even more sparse. Next week I am going on my very first real business trip. It involves flying, staying in a hotel, and going to a training course on AS9100. (If you don't know what AS9100 is, it's kinda like ISO9000. If you don't know what ISO9000 is, they're both quality systems standards. If you're still lost, count yourself lucky.)

So, Monday I'll be flying off to the Washington D.C. area. I've never been out there, so it should be exciting. Don't worry though, I'll be dropping Shannon and Julia off at the Andersons for the week, so they won't be left alone. Also, they can visit all the grandma's and great-grandma's and friends who haven't seen Julia yet. It's sort of a 'win-win-win' situation.

Indy

Either all the TV stations want the new Indiana Jones movie to do well, or they're trying to piggy-back off all the Indy promotions. imdb only has 58 credits (2 not out yet) for Harrison Ford, which is actually a small number, considering the first one was back in 1966. Usually about half of an actors credits are for extremely small parts when they were just starting out, or short appearances once they were big. I don't want to bother counting, but Harrison Ford has probably only "starred" in 2 dozen movies at the most.

And yet, they were all on TV over the weekend. Yes, this weekend if you had enough TVs and my standard cable package you could have watched:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark (twice in English, once in Spanish)
• Temple of Doom (twice in English, once in Spanish)
• The Last Crusade (twice in English, once in Spanish)
• Star Wars: A New Hope
• Air Force One
• Witness
• Patriot Games

Surely this can't be a coincidence?

Movies

Have you seen these movies?

Movie1

Movie2

Movie3

More Biking

The first day of May seemed to be a good day for the first bike ride to work of the year. It really is tricky riding to work, because it was still fairly cool this morning at 8am (cool enough that I wished I had gloves) but it'll be plenty warm this afternoon. Before too long, it'll be way too hot in the afternoons to go home. The ride went well, and a co-worker rode in with me. He only lives a few blocks away, so we met about a half mile from our homes and rode the rest of the way in together.

On Saturday, I went biking with the scouts in Snow Canyon. I hadn't used my bike at all since last fall. The scouts are working on their cycling merit badge, so they went up to Snow Canyon on Friday afternoon and rode 25 miles and camped. I went up Saturday morning to do another 25 miles with them. I figured that anything that a 13-year-old can do, I can do. It turns out I was right, but just barely.

From the camp ground, we rode down the road to the park entrance, and then up a dirt road to the top of the canyon. Then down the dirt road to the park entrance. Then up the dirt road to the top of the canyon. Then down the dirt road to the park entrance. Then up the main road back to the campground. While we may have come up just short of the 25 miles, the dirt and rocks and sand more than makes up for that. It took us a bit over two hours, and in the last mile I pretty much bonked. Of course, the scout who was up with me (the rest were 15 minutes behind us) bonked, too. It was all we could do to make it back to the campground. Oh, and my poor little rear end didn't enjoy all those miles of bumping either.

Maybe you can please everyone all the time

So, in a bit over 2 days, you all commented on my blog 57 times. That equals the number of combined comments my posts garnered from January 23rd through April 16th. So, apparently I should keep giving you what you all want:

No posts over the weekend, because, you know what? We were dead tired. We have very few priorities around here: Julia eats, Julia sleeps, Shannon eats, Shannon sleeps. If we can make those things happen, the day is a success. Julia (I still call her Wombsly sometimes) things that it is great to be asleep all afternoon and awake all night. We don't agree. But, while she was napping on top of me this afternoon, I did manage to get a picture.

One day older and wiser, too

Julia is a day old! We actually slept last night! We were lucky enough to get the room on the mom/baby floor w/0 a nice recliner for me to sit in, just a boring ol' chair. So, they brought in a cot so I could have a sleep over w/ Shannon and Julia. It wasn't a very good cot, but since I only slept 2 or 3 hours the night before, I didn't mind. They probably don't get too many complaints about it. I, of course, was out like a light. We sent Julia to the nursery for part of the night so Shannon could get some sleep, too. Shanny reports that Julia was taken there at about 1:30. At 6, Shanny went to go get her figuring she'd be awake soon. She was still sleeping at 7:30 when I left. Hooray! I came home to shower and change and rest for a few minutes, while Shannon showered at the hospital.

Shannon's parents and youngest sister came down last night, and will be in town this weekend. Today is also the day everyone should come home (probably this afternoon, or maybe early evening).

Julia is a very anxious eater. You don't have to ask her twice if she wants dinner (I wonder where she inherited that from?). I think if you were foolish enough to get your elbow in range, she'd attack and start going to town on it. Watch out for this one!

Julia opening her eyes to see what this place is like:


Julia with her nose smashed up against me:

I didn't hardly know that we knew this many people! Good job commenting guys! Julia has had her first official visitor: Mama Lowe! For those of you who are confused, that would be my brother-in-law Adam's sister-in-law. She was in the hospital to see someone else and came and said hi. Both my girls are sleeping right now. It turns out Julia isn't very happy when we make her sit around in a diaper full of tar for a little while. But we fixed that. I've got more pictures ready to go as soon as blogger will cooperate.

Julia

10:37am -- Shannon just said "we make a good baby". Julia is sleeping quietly. It turns out that after washing out all the blood from her hair, it isn't quite as red as it first appeared. (It was never bright red or anything. Sort of a blond-red. In our defense, all the doctors and nurses said it was red, too.) I still think there's a little bit of red in it, but you have to look closely. She's got quite a bit of hair though, even if it is blond. But really, none of you want to read words anymore, you've all been clamoring for pictures!

Taken 2 or 3 minutes after she was born:


During her brief visit to the NICU:

5 hours old: