What's Your Function?

Picked up the Schoolhouse Rock DVD last night. I had forgotten how many of these things there were! I bought this primarily for Dee but I like them too. These songs are the reason my generation was known as the one that couldn't recite the Preamble to the Constitution without singing it.

I had also forgotten there were some religious references in a couple of the songs. The song "Elementary, My Dear" which is about the 2's multiplication table centers around Noah's ark. This doesn't really bug me so much as it's just a story and has no more significance than Interplanet Janet. However, "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" ends with the line "God bless America, let freedom ring." That's a little more annoying but it's just one line. The song "Elbow Room" uses the phrase "In God we trust" several times throughout the song. That's a little more annoying and the song isn't all that great either.

I may end up copying these to a new DVD and leaving out "Elbow Room" and perhaps "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" even though I do like that song. There's also a few others that are a bit out of date like "Interplanet Janet" but I'm undecided on those. But that way we can put the DVD in on random shuffle and get just the ones we want to see.

Language Skills

Dee has mastered a few words. Please note that I use the word "mastered" quite loosely. To that extent I mean that she can sa a few words well enough that you can understand what she is saying. These words are: Dada, Go, Diaper, Hello, Bye Bye, Bathroom and Elwood (the name of our pet rat). One word that you may notice as being particularly absent from that list is Mama. Mama is currently Da (I'm Dada). This has made Terri quite chagrined. To make it worse, Dee has recently added a new word to her vocabulary. Unfortunately I don't know what it means because it's in Rat.

That's right she's talking to Elwood in his own language. Elwood makes a noise sometime's that between a snort and a sneeze and Dee's been imitating that. Terri about lost it last night when she first heard her do it. It's very cute, Elwood will do it and then Dee will mimic him. Yes, looks like we have our own little Dr. Doolittle.

Incidentally, I recently put some new pictures of Dee online. These are part of her continuing adventures in self-feeding. They are at: http://www.texascareys.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=36&pos=0.

The Ever-Awake Baby and Packing

Dee had another late night last night. Not sure why, but we didn't get her to sleep until almost 1am. We tried every trick in our arsenal but it was no use. She wasn't going to sleep until she was good and ready.

Additionally, it looks like everything is proceeding apace for us to move into the new house at the end of next month. We're packing each room in turn. We go into a room and every thing in the room needs to end up in one of five places:

1. It needs to stay out because we'll need it in the next month


2. It gets packed in a box and labeled


3. It goes to the trash


4. It goes to be recycled


5. It goes on eBay

Using this simple method it should be easy to get the majority of the house packed up before the last minute. Does that sound overly optimistic?

Wedding Pictures Online

I've got the pictures from my Aunt's wedding online. You can see them HERE. For some reason the thumbnails are coming out with weird colors but the actual images are OK. Not sure what's going on there.

Room to Poop

I already know there's a couple of things that I'll miss about our current house when we move into the new house. One is the bathrooms. The bathrooms in our current house are much larger than the bathrooms in the new house. It's not really that big a deal but something I'll have to adjust to. Overall we're getting a lot more room. The house is about 200 sq ft more that our current house and the bathrooms are part of that. So we'll be getting a lot more living space out of the deal.

No Worries

So I was waiting yesterday for a call from the real estate agent about the house but the call never came. When I got home last night I told Terri that I was surprised that we hadn't heard anything about the house today. She gives me this look for a second that says, "are you crazy?" Then she remembers, "oh, that's right I tried to call you but didn't get an answer and I forgot to try back later. Marion called and said that everything was accepted and we're good to go."

So I'd been worrying all day for nothing. I was thinking that the lack of a reply might mean that they were having difficulties accepting our latest offer or that they got another offer on the house. But it turns out that my wife just couldn't reach me.

That's understandable. There's only one or two methods that she could use to contact me while I'm at work. I think she tried my work phone, but I was probably away from my desk. That line's got voice-mail but I can understand not leaving a message. I've also usually got my cell phone but I don't think she tried that. That's OK. That's probably not really the reason I bought it and pay outrageous monthly service fees. I've also got my work and personal email addresses. But then she'd have had to type up a message and send it to me. No. I think it's much better to wait until I get home and then see if I mention it first. After all the Prilosec is making my stomach feel much better already.

Several Cool Things

Saturday we went in to Marshall for my Aunt's wedding. This was the second marriage for both of them. I really don't think you're required to stand on tradition the second time around but Libby insisted on not showing up at my grandmother's house (where the wedding was being held) until the last minute because Andy (the groom) was going to be there. It's also harder to come up with a gift for someone who's remarrying. After all they've both already got toasters. Anyway, I video taped the wedding and will be editing it into a DVD for them and also took a bunch of still pictures. (I was the cheap photographer).

We were supposed to bring a china cabinet back from Marshall that my grandmother left me but U-Haul screwed up my truck reservation. Their only excuse was, "well a lot of people want to rent our trucks right now." Oh! I see! So that means you get to act like idiots and treat your customers like crap? Incidently they did have a truck for me. But I'd have had to drive to Tyler to pick it up! That's over an hour each way!

Sunday night Dee went to sleep in Terri's arms while we were watching TV. So Terri got up and went to the bedroom and laid down with her for the night. I went out to the computer to try to get some stuff done. Shortly, Terri was standing at my shoulder. This is not all that unusual. Often Dee will wake up once Terri gets her to bed. Sometimes she'll go back to sleep but other times she won't. On those occasions when she won't, Terri ends up frustrated and put out. But on this occasion, Terri was grinning. When I inquired as to what had happened, she said that Dee had woke up and started babbling. So, hoping she'd just lay back down and go to sleep Terri just ignored her. At this point Dee crawled up on Terri's chest and gave her a kiss on the mouth, sat back and giggled. Terri tried not to react on the hopes that Dee might still go back to sleep on her own. Then she did it again... and again. Finally Terri couldn't stand it any more and started laughing along with Dee. We ended up driving her around for a little bit before she went back to sleep.

Also we did the inspection on the new house yesterday. A few things turned up on the report so we're asking the seller to have the AC serviced at their expense and asking for $1,000 for repairs that need to be made. We also started the paperwork on the mortgage. Looks like we'll be getting a rate around 5.6%. If everything goes OK we're expected to close on August 18th.

House Hunting

Well we went back last night and took a second look at two of the houses we liked from this weekend. We decided to make an offer on one of the houses. We should know in a day or two if our offer's been accepted.

Offer Accepted

P>Well, the home owner sent back a counter offer and we accepted it. So now we've got to get the mortgage and all that stuff together. Fun Fun Fun!

Also, Normal Bob Smith is having a contest for people to draw one of his hate-mailers. Here is my entry.

House Hunting

A house and a zoo

We went out looking at more houses Saturday and I think we found one we like. We're going to go back and take a second look at it tomorrow (Tuesday) and if everything still looks good we'll make an offer on it.

Also went to the Fort Worth Zoo again on Saturday. The Fort Worth Zoo is very cool and has some very nice exhibits. We spend a couple of hours there and had a very good time. Of course it was very warm out so most of the animals were lying in the shade and taking it easy, but there were a few that came out as strutted around for Dee.

Where the pervs are

The Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Records Service has an online registered sex offender search engine. One fun thing to do is to enter your home town zip code (wherever you went to school) and see if you recognize any of your old classmates! The mapping application is useful if your looking to buy a home. It's always a good idea to know who your neighbors are.

Take off the blinders, please.

I'm not sure what my wife is thinking sometimes. Wait, that's not right. That should read, "I'm not sure IF my wife is thinking sometimes." Last night was a good example. We went to a local BBQ restaurant that serves in a cafeteria style line. I was carrying Dee and she was asleep on my shoulder. I managed to push my tray down the serving line without much trouble. At the end of the line we get rung up and I pay. One of the girls behind the register notices that I've got my hands full and comes around to help us to our table. Well, since Terri's tray had more stuff on it than mine she opted to grab Terri's tray. Presumably that would leave Terri free to carry my tray for me while I carry the baby. However, Terri simply followed her out to the table leaving me standing near the register with a baby in my arms and no reasonable way to carry the tray. The remaining girl behind the register and I exchanged puzzled looks but there wasn't much she could do about it. I wanted to shout across the restaurant at Terri and do my level best of embarrasing her in front of everyone in the restaurant but I had Dee asleep on my shoulder and didn't want to startle her. So instead, I simply stood there waiting until the girl behind the register could find another employee to help me get my tray to the table. I still haven't mentioned this to Terri. I don't think she even has a clue as to what she did. I think I'll just let her read it here.

Another long weekend... sigh

The problem with long weekends is that you've still got to go back to work after them.

Had a pretty good Fourth of July weekend. We went down to Granbury to watch the fireworks display. Every year the same thing happens. Terri wants to go out and watch a fireworks display, but she doesn't know where to go. I never know where to go either because I'd be just as happy sitting at home on the couch. But she wants to make a big deal out of it so she scrambles around at the last minute to try to figure out where we should go. So we end up driving down to Granbury. They put on a pretty good display and it doesn't last more than about 30 minutes. The only problem was that we didn't take any insect repellant and spent a good deal of time swatting mosquitoes.

Granbury has another dubious clam to fame for me. Back on Dec 31, 1999 CNN was doing it's coverage of the new millenium (yeah, yeah, I know). Anyway, they had reporters doing stories in Paris, London, New York, Chicago... Granbury... That's right, Granbury. What we figured was that someone at CNN possibly the reporter that did the report from Granbury was from there and convinced the CNN folks to let her cover the new year from Granbury instead of Dallas. "It'll give some perspective on the small town," she probably said. Anyway midnight rolls around and they do the rounds, New York, London and Paris are all still partying as Chicago and Granbury ring in their New Year. Then about ten minutes later they're checking in at each of the locations an everyone in Granbury has gone home. They had a pathetic shot of the reporter standing in front of the court house square and while all of the other reporters are talking about how the party is still going strong, she's like, "um... everybody's gone home." It was hysterical. I think they also ended up coming back to her several times but everyone was still gone! Heh.