Presidential Buzz

President Bush is in town. That is always a big deal around here. We got an email today about changes to the traffic downtown tomorrow as he speaks to the American Legion convention and visits Church Headquarters. Roads will be closed and i'm sure traffic will be a mess.

That's OK, though. Tonight I witnessed quite a sight. I knew that Air Force One was going to be touching down tonight sometime, and I am one who is quite fond of aviation. I love to watch airplanes, big and small. As I was puttering outside, unloading the van, taking the garbage out, etc...I saw an aircraft approaching in the distance. This is not an uncommon sight where I live, simply because our neighborhood is directly in the flight path of the Salt Lake International Airport.

On a hunch, I wondered if this was, in fact, Air Force One. As it approached, I noticed that the tail was illuminated so you could see the American flag. Sure enough! It was indeed Air Force One! It came in very low, lower than regular commericial aircraft and it flew directly over our house! I was pretty impressed. For one, we just don't see 747's in Utah. And second, it was POTUS! ("President of the United States" for short--for you non Tom Clancy fans) Too bad our digital camera didn't have batteries!

Noisy Neighbors

It probably isn't appropriate to blog on the Sabbath, but I have to vent some frustration. Plus, both Petunia and Chunk have a bit of the sniffles, so we both decided to keep them away from spreading the wealth at church.

We've always had a struggle with one of our neighbors and their loud parties in the past. On a regular basis, they always invite friends over and sit out on their back deck to visit, which we have a direct line of sight (and sound) to from our upstairs. Last night was no exception. They actually started early around 8:00 PM and had kids jumping on the tramp making all kinds of noises. While this didn't necessarily bug us, the weather cooled down enough to allow us to finally open some windows for some fresh air, and the noise was especially loud.

The party continued well into the night, with people yelling, laughing loud, and dropping all sorts of F-bombs and other vulgarities. The Wife would try to yell out the window for them to please keep it down, but either they didn't hear us, or just plain ignored us (the most likely scenario). Just after midnight, The Wife and I just couldn't take it anymore. I stormed over there (fearing for my life because of the caliber of individuals involved) and told them as nice as I could to please keep it down. The resident feigned ignorance ("What? Too noisy? I had no idea!"..Please!) He didn't even apologize, but I came away unscathed and relieved that no other confrontation took place.

It was effective to a point, because soon after my return, they all went inside (or so we thought). It was quiet for about 5 minutes, and then we heard the same annoying chatter coming from the FRONT of their house, as loud as ever.

That was the last straw. We called police dispatch to report a disturbance of the peace, and I watched intently for the cops arrival. It was just our luck that the front sprinklers came on and drove them all inside. Around 1 AM I saw a cop car pull into our neighborhood and park a few houses down, lights off, so as to not raise suspicion, then watched intently as the officer approached the house. I wasn't in a position to hear if he actually made contact with the people inside, but it did my heart good to know that they were on the case. It must have either been a slow night for the police or serious enough to call for backup, because I saw another squad car arrive and meet up with the first officer. They spent some time chatting in their squad cars, then one of them drove by, spotlighting the cars parked in front to check things out, but no other activity ensued (thank goodness) and the police left. Shortly after 1:30, the party broke up and everyone left, leaving our neighborhood quiet and peaceful once again.

Surprisingly enough, both Petunia and Chunk slept through all of this.

I love our neighborhood, with the exception of these characters. Every neighborhood has people like them. The wife and I admit that we are homebodies. We don't do alot of socializing around the neighborhood, which is fine by us. I consider myself one who goes the extra mile to make people feel comfortable and at ease, and I guess I just don't understand why people can be so inconsiderate sometimes. That really gets to me. In a way, I'm glad we did what we did, because I did something that I never thought i'd have to do. I guess it's good to get out of your comfort zone every once in a while. When it happens again (and I can guarantee it will), I don't think I'll be the least bit nervous about reporting them again. Hopefully, they'll get a clue.

Busy Busy Busy

Wow! This week just FLEW by. We had stuff going on all week, and before we knew it, it's the weekend. I picked up my brother-in-law at the airport (coming home from a business trip to India). He had quite the time getting back--20 hours in flight from Bombay, Mumbai, Amsterdam, St. Paul, to Salt Lake City. I couldn't help but think of The Amazing Race. Don't ask me why.

We had dinner with Rainbow and a few other friends, which was very nice. Rainbow is heading off to England to work on her masters degree. This blog wishes her, hubby and Hershey all the best!

I started a new project at work, which is going to be keeping me extremely busy. On top of that, I got a brand new laptop, so I have been having fun getting it all setup for this project. By the end of today, I was finally making progress, and now I am blogging from it while The Wife and I watch the season finale of Psych. Funny show. The windows are open and it is finally cooling down a little bit outside. Petunia and Chunk are sleeping soundly, and we are waiting for Chunk's next feeding time before we all settle down for the night.

Nothing too exciting for the weekend, just cleaning house and doing some yard work. Fun stuff.

Well, I spoke too soon....It looks like Chunk just woke up, so I best get ready for burping duty.

Petunia's Birthday!

Today is Petunia's birthday. I don't think she has any idea what is going on, but she seems excited anyway. This morning we put some new bed sheets from Grandma and Grandmpa on her 'Big Girl' bed and she loved the pillow. Soon we will start weaning her from the crib (or 'the baby bed' as we are starting to call it), so we are getting her used to the idea now.

I just finished wrapping her presents (a bubble blowing toy, some peek-a-blocks, and a book), so we should be set. I still need to put together her tricycle, but it is in the van, and The Wife took it so she could pick up some baloons while Petunia is napping. The Peaches are coming over for some hamburgers and cake later (and hopefully some XBox time, if the ladies permit).

I can't believe she is two! Time sure flies. She is really growing up too fast. Before we know it we will be celebrating Chunk's birthday!

Speaking of Chunk, he smiled for the first time yesterday. Yes, he's smiled before, but this time it had nothing to do with gas. He only does it in the morning first thing, but it sure is fun to see!

This week we are having dinner with Rainbow and some other friends in Salt Lake, so I am looking forward to a night out on the town. We haven't eaten out in a long time, so this will be a nice treat.

My Virtual Villagers are doing well. I have about 78 of them and have solved 10 of the puzzles. The Wife's villagers aren't doing so good. They just don't seem to want to do much of anything. Oh, well. That's the nature of the game I guess.

Home Alone

The wife and kids decided to go to Tremonton for a few days to visit family before they go back to school for the year. My mother-in-law is a teacher and my sis-in-law goes to college, so she thought it would be nice to spend some time up there. Plus, she'll have some extra hands to hold Chunk.

That leaves me here home alone. But it has been nice and productive. I've been able to clean the house a bit without Hurricane Petunia messing it up behind me. So, at least for now, things will be in order. Plus, i've been able to relax a bit. I wasn't feeling very good last night, so I went to bed WAY early and was able to get a full night's sleep. I feel much better today, and I know that sleep helped. I love my wife dearly!

And, it's not all work around here. I've had time to cook my dinner (from My Girlfriend's Kitchen) work on the Blog (do you like the new title?), checkup on some other blogs, play with my Virtual Villagers, watch some of my Tivo'd shows (The 4400 has been exceptionally good this season), and just relaxed. I don't know if i'll even have time to play XBox. If I don't, no big deal. Did I tell you that I love my wife dearly? I owe her big time for this!

Being home alone has its pluses, but I am also realizing just how much I miss the fam. I know The Wife won't believe this, but it's true. By this time, I would have watched an episode of The Little Einsteins with Petunia (her favorite show) and read her stories before sending her to bed. I would have burped Chunk at least three or four times by now, and I would have spent some good quality time with my dear sweet wife. I miss that. I feel like i'm on a business trip, yet, sleeping in our house. Weird. Good thing i'm going up there tomorrow to pick them up. One more day of this, and I would have gone crazy.

The weekend!

We made it to the weekend! How glorious! And, what's more, Petunia went to Grandma and Grandpa's yesterday afternoon, so my wife had time to focus on Chunk. She naps when he naps and just relaxes.

Petunia loves it in Huntsville. She plays in the park, pets the horses, jumps on the trampoline and has an all-around good time. She was worn out, though, because she slept for 12 hours. That was nice for me and the wife.

In other news, we downloaded a very addicting game yesterday. It is called Virtual Villagers. It's kind of a cross between Lost and The Sims. You are trying to establish this new civilization on an island, and train them in farming, construction, etc... Very fun.

Burning the midnight oil

After more than two months of agonizing over an issue at work with one of my projects, we were finally successful in upgrading it. It required us to do some work in the middle of the night (which was just completed-hence this very early post), and I just had to blog about it. Aside from a few minor glitches, it appears to be working! I won't bore you with the details because if I did, you would do like my wife does and just nod your head with feigned interest.

A lot of people have put in long hours to make this a success. Even though we never did nail down what the exact problem was, we found a way to make it work regardless, and I am very pleased with the results. I'm sure the Lord had His hand in making it happen when it did. Looking back on it, maybe there was a reason why it wasn't supposed to work the first time. But I am sure glad it works now. Now I can move on to other new and exciting projects without this monkey on my back. I'm sure that feeling is mutual among all members of the team.

I didn't even have to set my alarm to get up at this early hour, because our son decided he was hungry at about the same time. He's my backup alarm clock!

Well, hopefully I can get a few more hours of sleep before heading into work again. This can only be described as the "Sigh heard 'round the world".

Putter Day

It's been a busy week, and I realized that it has been a long time since my last entry. 6 days in blog-world is a long time.

Today has been a putter day. Done a lot of things around the house. We always make a list of things to do, but never seem to quite get all of them done. There is something about crossing things off a list that feels good. Weeded the garden (which was a monumental task--we've basically ignored our garden this year because we've wanted to finish the basement), cleaned the house a little, went to the library, played in the sprinklers with Petunia. I still need to balance our checkbook. Oh, well. It'll happen eventually.

Just noticing outside the window that there is a good amount of lightning going on. It is so fun to watch the weather change around here.

Family is doing well. Can't believe our baby is already over 3 weeks old! His night feedings continue, and Tivo has been a big help. We Tivo shows that we can watch during his feeding so we can stay awake. I found one that was most interesting. It was on ESPN called 'The World Series of Darts'. I was fascinated at how accurate these guys can be! One of my posts will be devoted to our Tivo watchings, so look forward to that.

Well, it's late, and for ONCE both kids are asleep at THE SAME TIME. So this is prime sleeping time.