Monthly Archives: April 2005

Lazy Dog

Posted on by

It’s been another long week at work and it’s nice to get home and have a quite weekend with Jennifer and the girls (and Austin too). We are getting close to E3, so we are scrambling to get pieces of the game together so that we have something to show off.

Today Jennifer went to get her haircut at the RDV Sportsplex. They have a giant kids area that you can leave your children in while you go to the salon. Normally when we drop Emily off at church she throws a fit for a few seconds, but gets over it once we leave. However, when Jennifer dropped her off today at the RDV, she just took off to go play. It’s amazing how fast she’s growing up.

Austin is still alive in spite the girls’ best efforts. Emily picks up Austin in a bear hug and carries him around while he yelps to get let down. He’s grown quite a bit in the past couple of weeks since we’ve gotten him. He’s definitely our dog. He lounges around the house quite content on doing nothing all day.

A New Football Era

Posted on by

A new football era for myself has begun. The Ricky Williams era has ended and it’s the beginning of the Derek Johnson era and with the NFL Draft yesterday, my new team was revealed. As the 15th pick in the first round Derek Johnson went to the Kansas City Chiefs, which will be my new football team. Here’s some back history, for those who don’t know. My original football team was the Houston Oilers, but when they left for Tennessee that left me with no team. I went back to my alma mater, Texas, and an up and coming star, Ricky Williams, who was on the verge of graduating. I followed him from Texas to New Orleans and finally to Miami, where he quit last year. So, last year I went back to Texas to follow another up and coming star. I actually had two choices: Cedric Benson or Derek Johnson. I chose Johnson for a couple of reasons. I’ve been watching him for a while as a great linebacker. Even as a freshman I remember him being in attacking every play. At Texas he wore #11 which was Major Applewhite’s and Ricky Williams’s numbers while they were at Texas. Finally, I didn’t want to follow another running back. So, this brings us to the Kansas City Chiefs. Go Chiefs!

Hopefully everyone saw the Madden NFL Next Gen commercial during the draft. If you didn’t, you can find it at this link.

Madden NFL Next Gen

Posted on by
Reply

Electronic Arts has finally decided to announce the product that I am working on: Madden NFL Next Gen. I’ve created a site which will track the different announcements leading up to the launch of the game. We will be showing a commercial during the NFL Draft which will be a preview of what might be possible to accomplish on the Next Generation of consoles. I am currently hard at work trying to make that preview a reality and hopefully there will be more to share at E3.

Not a Good Day for Emily

Posted on by
1

You could tell it wasn’t going to be a good day for Emily right from the beginning. This morning when she got up she was crying at every little thing that happened. She likes to ride around the house while sitting on her bus and elephant toys. The string for the elephant toy was tangled in the wheel and she would scoot a couple of inches and then just start bawling because it wouldn’t roll correctly. It wasn’t a pretty sight and Jennifer confirmed that it didn’t stop this morning, but it was an all day affair.

I finished The Gunslinger by Stephen King this past weekend. It was good to get a refresher course on the first book of the Dark Tower series. The story was much better than I remember. Last time I read it was in college and I remember it being pretty dull, but the series really picked up in the next book, The Drawing of the Three. Next, I’m going to read The Mythical Man Month, a series of essays on software development. In particular how to tame projects which are out of control. However, first I’ve been given a book by our HR department called The Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus. It’s a very short book and it looks pretty stupid, but I’ll have a go. It can’t be any worse than Who Moved My Cheese?

Today’s picture is from our trip to the beach. Austin is lounging in the sun.

Poor Austin

Posted on by

Poor Austin is having to put up with the terrible twosome. Today he followed the girls up the stairs, got half way up and then tumbled all the way down. Fortunately Jennifer was at the bottom to catch him after he tumbled a couple of stairs. Later, they had him wrapped up in blankets and were rocking him in one of their doll’s baby bed. He’s constantly following me and Jennifer around the house so he can get away from Abby and Emily. Poor Austin.

Today’s picture is from yesterday’s trip to the beach. The water is cold, but that didn’t stop Abby from sitting in the waves.

Welcome to Austin

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve been pretty home sick lately. So, we’ve decided to bring Austin to us. Introducing the newest member of the French household: Austin the Beagle puppy! We wanted to bring a little bit of the stuff we missed back from Texas, so we decided to go out and find a new dog. We left our last two beagles at Jennifer’s parents’ house before we left for Orlando two years ago. Since the new baby is looking like a girl, we decided to make the dog a boy so that I wouldn’t be the only male in the house. We drove to Leesburg this morning and picked out Austin out of a group of four puppies. He was the one that came up to us and rolled on the ground right in front of me. Abby and Emily are loving Austin. They always are playing with him. Abby keeps saying, “He likes me!” Hopefully in a couple of weeks we can get him to chase the girls around the house.

Once we picked out Austin, we headed to the beach. First day away from home, and we were taking the dog to the beach. We got there and the beach has been pretty decimated due to the three hurricanes which hit us about six months ago. It was a little too cold to get into the water, so we played in the sand and flew our kite.

Potty Training Progress

Posted on by

We had pretty much given up on potty training Emily a couple of weeks ago. She would never think of going to the potty before she needed to tinkle. Well, we hit a pretty big milestone today and we weren’t really even trying. She ripped all of her clothes off and climbed up on the potty and pooped. We then heard from the other room Abby exclaiming, “Emily pooped in the potty!”