I have a new neice

My brother-in-law's wife gave birth on Friday evening. They had a little girl, well, maybe not so little at 9 pounds and 21 inches. We went to the hospital (or hostipal as Brock calls it) as soon as we heard. I don't think I've seen such a young baby before, she was only a couple hours old by the time we got there.

Everyone is doing fine. She's a cute little baby. See my flickr sight for photos.


-- C.

Italian Restaraunt

We went out to eat last night at a new (for us) Italian restaraunt. We've been talking about this place for a long time. It's on Taylor and it's called "Italian Connection." You'd easily miss it driving down the street; it's small and doesn't really stand out.

The food was very good and we were pleased with the prices. Both of us ordered an entre, I ordered a soft-drink, we split an appetizer, and then each got a dessert. The total was just under $50. Oh, and I'm having leftovers for lunch today.

The staff was friendly and there was a nice atmosphere, with wine bottles and pictures all over the walls.

If you are looking for some good Italian food, check it out (but call ahead first, they don't have a lot of seats).


-- C.

Taxes

In the past I've done my own taxes, usually using TaxCut. I even did it myself last year after we got married. I ran through both scenarios of filing jointly and separately (filing jointly made a big difference!).

Since we bought a house last year and had a complication with the Credit Union, I really wanted to have a professional do it this year. I called up H&R Block and set an appointment for last night.

After a mad-dash trying to find a couple last minute documents (church donations, Paula's student loan interest payments, etc) we headed out to the nearest branch (about five blocks away).

It went very smoothly and the lady was very nice and friendly. She gave us a few tips, and about an hour later we were done. I opted for the extra protection option, again just in case there's something funky with the way things worked out. The extra protection didn't cost much, but the process as a whole was more than I thought. It was worth it for the peace of mind though. I'll probably go back to doing it myself next year.

Anyway, we should have a nice deposit in a couple weeks.


-- C.

Blizzard of 2007

Monday at work they were talking about the storm, so I finally got around to installing VPN on my laptop. I took it home with me and was able to log on and do a bit of work from home. There's a web page I can go to to log on and check email, but with VPN it's like I'm sitting at my desk, with connections to all the network drives. All of the source code is on network drives, so I can't do much without 'em.

After hearing everything was closed Tuesday morning, we shoveled the drive enough to get Paula's car out, then we went to the store for a few last-minute items. We would have been fine without them, but it was good to have a little extra. It was snowing pretty hard and the roads were pretty messy. We were in the store less than half an hour and our windshield was already starting to ice up. We got some milk, but it looked like a lot of people were just after soda.

We watched a couple movies, did a lot of shoveling (need one o' them snow throwers). I'll tell you, it ain't so bad being snowed in with your wife on (Saint) Valentine's Day...


-- C.

Ok then, "Heroes"

Major spoilers here, if you haven't seen all the episodes so far.

In the episode, "The List", I thought for sure I heard Mr. Bennet say there were 36 people on the list.

Here List of Heroes so far:
1. Claire Bennet - regen
2. Isaac Mendez (the artist) - can paint the future (Precognition)
3. Nathan Petrelli - flight
4. Peter Petrelli - can use other's powers
5. Hiro Nakamura - manipulate space & time
6. Niki/Jessica Sanders - super strength/alternate personality
7. Matt Parkman (the cop) - reads others' thoughts (telepathy)
8. D.L. Hawkins - phase through things
9. Sylar (Gabriel Gray) - absorbs others' powers? Now telekinesis (tried to kill Eden; who else did he kill?)
10. The first guy Sylar killed (Brian Davis?) - telekinesis
11. Eden McCain (Mr. Bennet's assistant) (almost killed by Sylar) - can make others do what she wants (power of persuation)
12. the Haitian - erases memories and can dampen others' powers (mind blocking)
13. Meredith Gordon (Claire's mom) - pyrokinesis
14. Theodore "Ted" Sprague - Radioactive man
15. "Claude" - Invisible man
16. Sanjog Iyer - the kid who invades dreams
17. Charlene "Charlie" Andrews (the waitress) - could learn things very quickly (total recall)
18. Micah Sanders (Nikki & DL's son) – technopath
19. ? Molly Walker (little girl) – attacked by Slyar; saved by Matt (the cop); Sylar went after her again later
20. ? Molly's dad (Slyar scalped him)
21. Hana Gitelman – Electronic data transcription (new)

Granted, number 19 and 20 are questionable. And I think there are a couple others Sylar killed that we haven't been told about.

I don't understand how Peter came to the conclusion that "Claude" could help him control his powers. Other than that, I'm really enjoying the show.

Of the two children that we know have powers, both of their parents also had powers (Micah - DL & Nikki; Claire - Nathan & Meredith). I don't think we've run across any other Heroes who have had children with other heroes. Or maybe not -- you have Sanjog and we don't know anything about his parents. We don't know for sure about Molly and her parents. Her dad was scalped in typical Slyar fasion, while her mom was just killed with knives. Sylar pursued Molly into a dangerous situation, so I'm guessing he knows she has powers.

I'd really like to find out how Hana's (Wireless) and Micah's powers will interact, if at all.


More later.

Lost (TV Show)

I watched "Lost" last night, after waiting several weeks for a new episode. I still like the show, but my interest is waning a bit. Carlton Cuse produced a favorite show of mine back in the mid-90's (Brisco County Jr).

I was excited that they are showing 16 brand-new episodes without any breaks -- until I actually watched the show. They had five minutes of "Lost" and then five minutes of commercials. Yeesh. You can't win.


-- C.

What's worse?

Sitting on a public toilet seat and discovering that it is freezing cold -- or finding that it's still warm???


-- C.

"Cornbag"

Our HR department brought in a shload of pizza and a giant sub-sandwich to celebrate the "big game" this weekend.

I just saw a few guys in the hallway playing "cornbag", with our companies logo on the boards.

This game is much more wide-spread than I thought.


-- C.

I'm back!

Last Sunday I left for a conference in Los Angeles. The host company fed us well the whole time, starting with a reception dinner Sunday night, and big buffet breakfasts and lunches the next three days. Monday evening our rep took us out to a place called "Asia de Cuba" and ordered enough food to feed an army.

Tuesday night was their big gala event night. Last year in Las Vegas they took us to the Las Vegas Motor Sppedway and we each got to take a couple laps in a NASCAR car. This year they rented a yatch and we motored up and down the Marina del Ray. The yatch had three levels, and you could also go up on the roof where they had a few tables set up. On the first and third level they had gamlbing tables where you could gamle away your fake money they provided. The third level also had a dance floor. The second level was the dinning area, with a nice buffet set up, including a assortment of desserts. They also had celebrity impersonators on board, including Clark Gable, Mae West, Marylin Monroe, and Charlie Chaplin. A magician rounded off the entertainment for the evening.

The conference ended at noon on Wednesday. After that I met up with another guy who had rented a car, and we did our own little tour of the city. We went to a Farmer's Market and found a few souveniers to take home. Then we went to Mann's Chinese Theater and walked along Hollywood Blvd and looked at the stars' names on the sidewalk.

It wasn't as warm as I expected out there, but it was a lot better than what I returned to....


-- C.

Keep an eye on my flick page for pictures.