My brother has worked for CarDomain.com in various titles and positions over the last few years. When CarDomain shuttered its retail sales operation, they moved him over to the editorial department where he was blogging for the CarDomain Blog. In the last month or so, he was given a whole other project, the SoundDomain Blog, in which he monitors and writes about all things car audio related. If you need a place to keep up on all things car audio, including the latest in new electronics, custom installs, tools, and car shows – check them out!
Sean has also written two pieces for Forbes’ Magazines online car site. They are Here and Here.
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Emily’s cousin is in a Christian/Rock/Alternative band in Florida and they just won 2nd place in a state-level Battle of the Bands in Florida this past weekend! The competed against 36 other bands from around Florida. I just listened to some of their stuff on MySpace and was pretty impressed. Check em out!
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Sorry to potentially burst the bubble of those who were anxiously awaiting their ‘guess date’ for the baby calendar…
About a month ago, my doctor offered to do an early induction for me on Feb 25th or 26th. After about 1 day of thought, Paul and I decided against it, mainly because we didn’t think my body would be “ready” to go into labor and I didn’t want to deal with more hospital time and a worse birth process. Fast forward to this past Monday. My doctor again, as you may know from my post, offered the early induction. I was still hesitant about the whole thing, but he went ahead and scheduled it for the 26th with an appointment to see me on the 25th and to cancel the induction if I didn’t want it.
At this point, I’d say that Paul and I are a little over 90% for the induction. Between battling 2 sinus infections, iron deficiency and now this wonderfully super duper rash all in the last 5 weeks, (lest we forget the normal loveliness of being 9 months pregnant), I’m about to my limit with this pregnancy. Besides, because I’m already 2cm dilated and 60% effaced (maybe more by now with my continued coughing), we are thinking that my body is a lot more ready for labor than I thought I would be at this point when the induction was brought up to me a month ago.
So…barring some weird outcome from Monday’s doctor’s appointment, I think we’re going to go ahead and do the induction on Tuesday. I have already settled into the bliss of thinking that tomorrow is my last day of work for 12 weeks (YAY!) and I know that Paul is looking forward to some time away from the office as well. Not that having a newborn around is going to be a wonderful relaxing vacation, but I think we’re both just too excited to wait any longer. And besides, what difference is it going to make a few months down the road to say whether we were induced or waited it out for it to come naturally?
So…I guess that means that Colleen is the winner by default for the date game. I still don’t count it as a true win, but I’m sure she’ll be basking in the glory of her unprecedented psychic abilities come Tuesday’s arrival. 🙂
I’ll be posting after my doctor’s appointment on Monday, I’m sure, about the results and our final decision. So far, it seems as though we’ll be making the drive to the hospital at 4:20am Tuesday morning for a 5:00am appointment. Ugh.
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So I just happened to look at our countdown timer just now, and saw that it said twenty days and some odd hours and minutes. Wow. It really is coming up soon. In 20 to 27 days, I will be sitting at Christ Hospital with my notebook in my lap, trying to console my wonderful wife who is going through labor. I’ve watched the TV shows, the videos, talked to friends – and this is certainly why guys don’t go thru labor. Its a woman thing and we guys couldn’t deal with it.
Twenty days – I will have a son, I will be (hopefully) moved into my new house, will have family and friends all around us, and experiencing life from a whole new meaning. I’m very much looking forward to the next 30 days, as it ought to be very interesting!!
-pc
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Do’s and don’ts with babies
(Big) Sean passed this link on to me. I guess he is concerned that maybe I won’t be educated enough when (little) Sean comes into our family. Here is an example:
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WinDirStat – Windows Directory Statistics
This is a program that I use on a regular basis on both my home and work PCs. Basically it goes thru your hard drive and will give you a visual picture of how files and directories are using the space
The top pane shows the file structure with a bar that gives you an idea of the percentage its using, the size it uses, how many items (if its a folder you click on), etc. I use it to see what in God’s green earth is taking up all my disk space so I can periodically clean things up. for example, maybe I downloaded a CD Image of a Linux distro DVD, or some new video game demo that I promptly forgot about after burning to a DVD. This can help you locate those. If you use this with my previously blogged CCLeaner, your PC should be zippy as usual. As a side note, I also go thru my add/remove programs and look thru programs I don’t use anymore. Typically, I’ll find some software that sounds like something I can use, install and try it, and not like it…but then don’t immediately uninstall. A Clean PC is a happy PC!
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I had a really busy weekend getting things ready for Little Sean. I started to make several lists: the hospital bag “what to pack” list, the “what needs to be done around the house before baby comes” list, and the “need to buy before baby comes” list. Paul and I hung up lots of stuff in Little Sean’s room too; the wall hangings, the two valances, the quilt, and a toy hammock. Everything is really starting to come together in the room and it is looking more and more ready to house a little boy! We are getting really excited, and with only 6 weeks left, we can hardly contain ourselves!
Look at pictures from his room after hanging everything:
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Well, I sold the Durango almost a month ago and part of my “agreement” with the wife, was that 1) the new car had to have four doors 2) the new car had to have as many airbags as possible, and 3) i could only spend the money i saved and not dip into our savings. Well, two outa three ain’t bad :)I’ve been looking for a VW Jetta or Audi A4/A6, as well as a couple of other makes and models for the last month and a half. Maybe longer since I think I started looking around before the Durango was sold. I’ve always admired Sean’s GTI and Erik’s various dubbs. I was *this* close to picking up an 03 Jetta GLI in Louisville, because the price was right and I really like the GLI model. It had some issues tho – check engine light and some other stuff. I expanded my search on autos.yahoo.com past the 100 miles to 200 miles and found another GLI 117 miles away in Columbus. It wasn’t in the price range, but Emily was VERY gracious and let me break rule #3. She was happy I found a newer car, with full airbags all around, and it rates extremely high on the NHTSA (4’s and 5’s, with 5 being the highest). Also got “good” in the government testing, which is the highest.
I called the seller and it turned out a guy from Louisville was having a mechanic come up to check out the car that night, and was planning on driving up Tuesday (today) to buy it, if it checked out. I wasn’t about to pass up this deal so I placed a deposit on my Mastercard. So, Emily and I drove up to Columbus after work last night to C and L Performance Auto Sales . We met with Courtney, the owner. He told us he just got off the phone with the Louisville guy and that guy was NOT happy. That made me smile. While we were talking and starting paperwork, the guy from L-Ville called two more times!
Emily and I were extremely impressed with Courtney and C and L Performance Auto Sales. He had a lot of great performance oriented vehicles on his lot and was very open about all of them when I asked questions. We were in and out of there pretty quickly and painlessly. The gas tank was on “E”, and he apologized profusely and even gave us gas money out of his own pocket as we were leaving!
The ride home was about 130 miles and went very well. The heated leather seats are amazing (the GLI includes sport seats with extra bolstering in the sides and seat). The Monsoon stereo is very bassy and sounds great. The cabin is pretty quiet compared to my previous talons and even Emily’s Mazda 3. I have a huge roll of dynamat in my garage waiting to make it even better! The VR6 engine is awesome. I can’t believe how linear and strong it feels. The GLI also comes with a 6 speed manual transmission and is a blast to drive. Here are some pics from the AutoTrader ad. I’m waiting for some nicer weather to take some pics of my own:
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Emily and I drove to Columbus, OH tonight to pick up a car for me. I’ll post all about it tomorrow. I’m in a pretty darn good mood right now!
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I know I know, I should have posted this a few days ago, but I’ve been sick! 🙂
Like I mentioned earlier, Emily and I made the trek to St. Louis to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. Sean was also in town from Seattle. Wednesday night, my sister Megan and I stayed up sharing a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle cabernet and talking until 3:30am (430 my time!). We rarely get to do that, so it was very cool. Thursday was Turkey Day! Man I love thanksgiving…I think we should have it at least twice a year! Although, I’m sure there are a number of turkeys out there who disagree with me. Mom cooked and awesome meal for us and Emily made the famous Marshall Rolls. Aunt Karen, Uncle Ted, and Scott made it down from west St. Louis as well and it was really nice seeing them.
Sean, Manders (friend of ours and Megan’s from high school), and myself then made our trip to the movie theatre to catch our annual bad-movie-on-turkey-day which started back in the day with my selection of “Paycheck” starring Matt Damon. Sean’s selection this year was Hitman. HOO BOY was it rotten. We got to the theatre about 15 or 20 minutes late so we missed the beginning of the movie ( **cue Office Space “I wouldn’t say I was missing it, Bob…” ***). The acting was lousy, the female character in the movie probably only got the role cause she showed her boobs. What can you expect from a movie produced by Vin Diesel? But I digress…
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful – we went out to an irish pub in Belleville, IL that was nice, hung out at a local bar in O’Fallon, had an awesome hamburger at Denny’s (eggs and hashbrowns on a burger! YUM!), and hung around the house. Saturday we did a family trip to Pierre Marquette State Park to lunch on their lodge’s famous fried chicken and take some family photos.
While we were home for thanksgiving Mom and Dad presented us with some new gifts for Little Sean. As we’ve mentioned before, my dad is *very* handy in wood working. When Sean and I were born, he made us a cradle that was also used for my sister when she was born. Well, now we have a cradle of our own:
Paul’s mom has also recently dusted off her knitting needles and made a fun little hat for Little Sean:
Can’t wait to have him try them both out (only three more months to go!!). Here are some highlight photos from the trip:
me showing my approval of the baby bump:
My parents – dad looks great! (mom too!)
I’ll post some more from my dad’s set of photos after I process the huge DSLR snapshots from his Nikon D80 🙂
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