Category Archives: Frenchville

Month in Review

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Everyone has been telling me how much they enjoyed my Rose Bowl coverage. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back into the habit of writing on Frenchville. Things are starting to settle down, so hopefully I can get back into the routine.

One of the first things that happened once we got back was Emily’s 3rd birthday party. We rented out The Little Gym and we were really worried if anyone was going to show up. We ended up inviting some of Abby’s friends in order to round out the group. We only had one out of Emily’s six classmates show up. For the cake, Jennifer made a new creation: a group of cup cakes which had candy lions, zebras, tigers, and elephants. They ran around the Gym for two hours and had great fun. It has been though planning Emily’s parties since they are so close to Christmas. This year was no different.

At work I moved on to a new product tentatively entitled NFL Head Coach. It’s a new NFL franchise we are creating at Tiburon that is a strategy game where you attempt to build and manage a football team. I’ve come in to manage the Gameplay and Online aspects of the game. The game will be available in stores spring 2006 for the Playstation 2, Xbox and PC.

A couple of weeks ago Tiburon paid for everyone’s family to go to Disney World’s Epcot. The girls had fun going to a park that we don’t normally go to. (We usually go to Magic Kingdom.) We went from “country” to “country” decorating a mask at each one. I finally got to ride Mission: Space, which is only at Epcot. It’s a simulator ride which really makes it feel like you are taking off in a space shuttle. It was pretty cool. However, I was feeling a little dizzy when I got off. It spins you around like you are in a centrifuge, but you can’t tell it since you are locked into a simulator room.

A week ago last Wednesday Electronic Arts laid off 5% of their work force. It was a cost cutting move that typically happens during what we call a “transition year” (the time between generations of hardware). 35 people were laid off from Tiburon. It was sad because this was the first time that we had to go through this. Last transition (1999-2000) the lay offs happened at other studios because Tiburon was so small. Now that we are approaching 600 employees, it was time to downsize our work force. Although I wasn’t personal friends with some of the people that got laid off, I knew some of them and, like I said, it was sad to see them go.

This weekend I took the plunge and had laser eye surgery. I went in Friday morning. It was really easy there wasn’t much pain at all. I could tell a difference right after the surgery. I went home and slept for several hours and I could see much better. It’s quite amazing. My vision isn’t 100%, but it’s getting better every day. There were two strange events that went on. First, a very tall lanky guy comes up to you and says in a real calm voice, “Dr. Filutowski is going to be your surgeon today. He requests that everyone have a massage to relax you for your surgery. Would you care for a massage?” That was weird, but a guy who works on NFL Head Coach who got the surgery two weeks ago pre-warned me of the event. The other strange thing is that immediately after the surgery, Dr. Filutowski has you give a “thumbs up” and they take your picture with him. It’s framed and given to you when you leave. Besides the two strange events, I’ve been really happy with my surgery so far. I was amazed how easy it was.

Finally, Isabelle has made a lot of progress over the month. During Christmas vacation she was sitting up on her own. Now she crawls all over the house and will stand up against any kind of furniture that will let her. At first she would stand up and then she couldn’t get down, but now she’s fully mastered getting up and down. This is the first time we’ve had a baby so young that is mobile in a big area. When Abby and Emily were mobile we were living in apartments and we could section off the areas of the apartment. Isabelle is going from room to room getting in trouble. Abby has been a great help watching over her and moving her from room to room when necessary.

Lazy Sunday

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I didn’t have to go into work today! The phone was silent, so everything must be going fine at work. Although, it’s Sunday, if something goes wrong, it probably won’t happen until tomorrow.

We didn’t do much today. We just hung around the house. I played several games of NFL Street 2 and Abby and Jennifer went to the nail parlor and go get their nails painted. Abby came back with orange toe nails with white ghosts on them.

Isabelle is still not feeling well. We may take her into the doctor’s office tomorrow.

For those who are following the news on Hurricane Wilma. It’s going to the south of us. We will probably get some wind and a lot of rain, but that’s about it. They canceled Abby and Emily’s school for tomorrow, though. I was looking forward to finding out what it was like with a quite house.

I’ve lost the cable to my camera, so I can’t take any of the new pictures off. I’m having to post a picture which is a couple of months old. I’m going to go to Best Buy tomorrow and see if I can find a replacement cable.

The Astros lost again in the second game of the World Series. They came back and tied it in the ninth after giving up a grand slam, but they gave up a home run in the bottom of the ninth. The series goes to Houston for the next three games. The rain and the cold in Chicago has looked like miserable playing conditions. At least Minute Maid Park has a roof.

I finished The Drawing of the Three today. Even though I’m having a great time with The Dark Tower series, I decided to pick up The Da Vinci Code for my next book. A movie is currently in production and I would like to have the book read before the movie comes out. Dan Brown became popular with this book, but I read Digital Fortress and Deception Point before reading this one. I enjoyed both of these books and since this one has had so much press (both good and bad) I’m sure I will enjoy it as well.

I’m Back

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I can’t believe it’s been exactly a month since my last entry in Frenchville. It’s been a wild ride at work. A whole lot of extra hours for many days in a row. It’s been: go to work, come home for dinner (sometimes), go back to work, come home and go to sleep. It’s finally letting up. We aren’t done completely (I had to go into work for four hours today), but it’s slowed down. I don’t plan on going back in for the next two weeks unless I’m called in.

Let’s see. Month in Review…

We were having our shower re-tiled since I found water underneath the old tile. We had door problems, but that finally got resolved and we are back into the shower in our bathroom.

Abby and Emily finished up their swim lessons. They are both now “expert swimmers”. I haven’t actually taken them swimming yet, so I don’t know how well they are doing. Next week we are planning on going camping at Disney World. They have a swimming pool at the camp grounds and we will probably be swimming there.

The whole family had coughs and more recently fevers. Currently Isabelle has been sick. She’s had a pretty bad runny nose and you can tell she’s been pretty miserable.

The Texas Longhorns defeated OU and then took on Texas Tech and crushed them today. We went ahead and bought tickets to the Rose Bowl, where the National Championship is being played this year. Hopefully the Longhorns can keep up their winning streak alive. The tickets include a tour of Pasadena and tickets to the Rose Parade. Jennifer has always wanted to go see the Rose Parade and so we got the tickets as our anniversary gift to one another.

The Houston Astros have finally made it to the World Series for the first time. I remember watching them against the Mets in 86 and of coarse last year against the Cardinals and making it one game away from the Series. It’s too bad they lost tonight’s game, but hopefully they can come back and win the next four.

It’s good to be home and to finally have a couple of weeks off. Now that I have more time, there will be more and more entries in Frenchville.

Another Frenchville Reunion

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I had a pretty uneventful birthday on Sunday, but isn’t that what’s it’s supposed to be like once you have kids? The focus moves from your birthday to the kids’ birthdays. We went to breakfast that morning and that was a treat. We thought about going out to the beach, but with Isabelle in tow, doing stuff like that has become more and more tough.

Jennifer was sick today, so I stayed home from work. The girls and I watched the space shuttle take off on TV and then ran outside to see if we could see it in the sky, but I forgot that there’s still a time delay even in live TV, so we missed it. It had already gone behind one of the clouds by the time we got outside.

I had another Frenchville reunion today. An old high school friend, Jincy Pace, stumbled upon my blog. She’s living in San Jose, California and is a local police officer there. She investigates traffic accidents and tries to reconstruct what happens. It was good to hear from her. I’m glad Frenchville has been a great tool for getting back in touch with old friends.

New Moblog

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We had quite a scare here at Frenchville over the past couple of days. First off on Thursday the site was down for some unknown reason. Then, today, the site was back up, but the database which contains all of my blog entries was gone! I was quite worried that all of my entries for the past few months were gone. Evidently it’s all fixed now. I never heard back from my web hosting company on what the problem was. Now I must find the button that backs all of this up…

The site was back up just in time for me to get my new cell phone and set up my moblog. You will now notice a series of pictures to the right under the “Jason’s Moblog” area. These are all photos that were taken with my cell phone. All you have to do is click on the picture and it will take you to a larger version of it. The first picture I took was of Isabelle sitting in her bouncer. Next, I went to pick up Abby from the last day of her Vacation Bible School and it turned out they were having a program where all of them sang. I didn’t know about it, so I didn’t bring my camera. It was pretty handy that I just reached for my new cell phone and snapped a couple of pictures. Abby did good. I could tell she was nervous singing in front of everyone, but her teacher reassured her and she did very well.

Beagle Bruises

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The girls were on the verge of busting down the back door with anticipation this morning, wanting to go out on the play gym. Once I was at work, I called back to Jennifer to see how they were doing. She said that they had been out there for a couple hours just running around and playing. The next problem is containing all of the sand which is starting to get tracked into the house. Also, the girls are complaining that Austin is playing too rough. He will run around and nip at their heals while they run away giggling. Their only escape is to climb up into the play gym. Today’s picture is from last week when Austin was playing too rough with Abby and scratched her neck. Emily is not injured, but because Abby had a band aid, Emily had to have one too.

I read today on my friend, Tom’s, blog that one of his stories was quoted in a news article. He had a rant about how CNN was blowing the hurricane coverage out of proportion and apparently the CJR Daily thought it was good enough to quote and write an article around. That’s pretty cool, but then also a little scary that all of a sudden something that you are writing in your blog is being quoted in a news article.

Topping It Off with Sand

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Two advances on getting the backyard in its final state happened today. First, the last of the sand arrived today. They topped off the sand box and leveled it all out. It looks much better. Now if we could only get the play gym back up… They called today and said that they could come and set up the play gym tomorrow, which is earlier than the Thursday time frame they told us last week. So, we are on the verge of having the entire backyard done tomorrow.

Today Abby started another Vacation Bible School. This one is in the evening and is at the church were she goes to pre-school. She told me she had a good time and that she ate bread and cheese. She said she also had fun in crafts where she made a dreidel. I thought we sent her to a Christian Vacation Bible School?

Finally, tonight I ordered a new cellular phone. This past weekend Jennifer smashed my phone with the Sequoia’s hatch back. So, it kind of forced the issue on getting a new phone. The good news is that it is a camera phone so I am going to setup what is called a “moblog“. Any pictures I take with the cell phone will be automagically uploaded real time to Frenchville.

The Easter Bunny Arrives

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We were awaken early this morning to Abby’s exclamations that the Easter Bunny had arrived. They opened up their Easter baskets which were full of candy and presents. They each got a video: Emily received a Dora the Explorer video and Abby received Shark Tale. Once their baskets were open they ran around the house collecting eggs which the Easter Bunny had hidden. Emily was more interested in opening up and watching the Dora video than looking for eggs.

Afterwards, we went to church and I snapped today’s picture once we got home of the girls in their Easter dresses. After lunch Emily and Jennifer took a nap while Abby and I watched Shark Tale. It was better than Robots, but I still don’t think it’s up to Shrek quality.

For dinner we had a big meal with ham, mashed potatoes, and an apple pie for desert. We ate at our new dining room table for the first time in order to break it in. Hope everyone out there had a nice and safe Easter Sunday.

One last milestone today. This marks around a year since I created Frenchville.net. Previously it was called the French Family Web site and didn’t have it’s own domain. It was this time that I started doing regular blog entries. Here’s to many more years of blogging about the happenings of our family.

Working Too Hard to Post

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Sorry it’s been over a week since my last entry. It’s been another busy week at work. Fortunately I’ve been able to do all of my work from home, but it still takes it’s toll when you are having to constantly think and do work. Even when I was my busiest last year while we were finalling Madden 2005, I had time for a small entry. This past week I haven’t even had time for that, if that explains how busy I’ve been. I’ll try to get better from here on out.

Enough about work, this morning I was woken up by Abby screaming “Sister is throwing up!” Emily has had a runny nose lately and apparently coughed once to many times and ended up gagging. Up came all the milk she had been drinking in the morning. Because Jennifer’s queasy due to the pregnancy, guess who got to do the honor of cleaning up the mess.

Because Emily wasn’t feeling well, she and I stayed at home while Jennifer and Abby went to church. Today Abby was singing in the choir. She was giving one of the small choir robes and stood in front of the church and sang. We’ve been working on her stage fright and she did very well. We had to bribe her with a trip to “Burger Cheese” in order to accomplish it, but hey, she wasn’t a crying mess, so that was a bonus.

Happy Thanksgiving

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I hope everyone is having a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We stayed at home today (since everything is closed) and fixed our Thanksgiving dinner. Jennifer worked hard to fix a very big dinner only for the four of us. We had a big turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and pumpkin pie. Can you say “leftovers”?

We also got the Christmas tree out and started decorating it. Now the battle begins of keeping the girls away from the tree and picking off all the ornaments. Currently we are at the rate of yelling at them once every 15 minutes.

I put together another one of my game tribute sites. This one for Madden NFL 2002 PC. It was the first game that I worked on for Electronic Arts – Tiburon.