Searching for Mongolia

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After church we went in search for a Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant that the Yahoo Yellow Pages said was in Maitland, a suburb on the north side of Orlando near where we go to church. The pregnancy has made Jennifer very hungry lately and we missed the Mongolian Bar-B-Q restaurant that was in Houston that we used to go to. We looked and looked, but it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. We concluded that it was closed and ended up wandering up to Jason’s Deli, another restaurant that we miss from back in Texas. Once I got home, I confirmed that the restaurant was closed by calling the phone number and got a residence. That must suck to have a phone number of an old restaurant.

Congratulations to the Texas Longhorns who were able to beat out Cal to get into the Bowl Championship Series. The Longhorns will be playing Michigan in the Rose Bowl on New Years Eve and we will be watching the game from Jennifer’s parents house in Houston, since we will be on our big Texas trip during that time.

I finished up Dan Brown’s Deception Point last weekend. It was a very good book about political games during a Presidential Election when a meteor is found that contains proof of extra terrestrial life. The data on the meteor doesn’t add up and it may lead to a government cover up. I still stick to my description of Dan Brown being “Clancy-esque”, in other words kind of like Tom Clancy. I’ve given up on The Successful Manager’s Handbook. I read about half of it and just can’t pick it up again. It’s pretty much like reading a phone book. I’ve read several technical and business books and none have been as boring as this one. For my next outing I’ve started on a pretty big quest. I’m going to read the complete Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I read the first four books about ten years ago and Stephen King just finished out the series with the last three books just recently. Since it’s been so long, I decided I would re-read the first four and then go on to the last three and so I picked up a copy of The Gunslinger today.

Emily: Independent Child

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We didn’t do much today. We didn’t even go to our usual Saturday morning breakfast, instead we opted for bagels from Einstein’s. Jennifer then took off Christmas shopping leaving me to stay with the kids. One thing I’ve noticed about Emily lately is that she’s trying to do everything herself. When it was time to go for bagels, she wanted to put her socks and shoes on herself. Well, if we had about an hour to wait for her to accomplish this, we could have waited, but we were hungry for some bagels.

She did another thing that was pretty funny today while I was watching her. She was caring around this baby doll and then she walked off to the baby’s bedroom where we still have a changing table where we change Emily’s diapers. After a while I went in there to see what she was doing and she had climbed to the top of the changing table and was using the baby wipes to wipe the butt of her baby doll. I suppose the baby doll had pooped and she was cleaning it up.

During Emily’s nap, Jennifer and Abby worked on a gingerbread house. Well, actually Jennifer worked on the house. Abby mainly tried to eat all of the candy until Jennifer banished her from the kitchen. Today’s picture is of their work of art.

The Christmas Program

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I left work early to attend Abby’s Christmas program up at church. She had learned five songs over the past few weeks and this is the first time I’ve heard her sing with a group where the audio recording wasn’t singing along with them. It was a struggle to get her up there to sing in the first place. Right before they were going to start, one of her teachers came out carrying her while she was crying. I took her and she told me that she was scared. I tried to explain to her that she was a good singer and that there wasn’t anything to worry about. She just wasn’t going to do it, so we started to leave. We retrieved Emily from the nursery and started to leave the church grounds when Jennifer asked her one last time if she wanted to sing. Jennifer even bribed her with going to “Burger Cheese” afterwards. She finally gave in. We rushed back in where the kids were assembled to sing. Too late. The program had started and all the kids were about to start singing. The teacher that brought her out earlier saw her wanting to go up and escorted her up there. Once up there, Abby just sung with all of her heart. There were several times that I even heard her over the other kids. When it was over she asked, “Can we go to ‘Burger Cheese’ now?”

Tonight was the last softball game of the season and it was against our inner-work rivals: the EA Sports team. Well, it was a tough battle, but we lost: 10-3. It was actually a very close game and we just had one inning where we flubbed a few plays. I ended up 1 for 2 with a walk and a run. On my first at bat I was hit in the hip with the ball by the third baseman while trying to reach first. I shook it off and it’s okay right now, but I will probably be feeling it in the morning. We ended the season in the cellar with a record of 1-7. Oh well, here’s to next season.

Jennifer forgot to bring the camera to Abby’s Christmas program, so today’s picture is just another one from Thanksgiving. I call this picture, “Won’t you go ahead and take the picture already?”

Searching for Deadly Squirrels

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Jennifer heard the scratching in the attic again last night so I did my husbandly duty of climbing up into the attic this morning to see if I could see where the squirrel was getting in. I grabbed a flashlight and the ladder to get into the attic. For some reason here in Florida, no one builds houses with those nifty ladders that fold up into the ceiling. The only way to get into the attic is to buy a ladder and then stand on the top step, you know, the one that says “DO NOT STAND OR SIT”. So, I climbed through the attic and reached the other side of the house where our bedroom is. There was no evidence of any squirrel or any entry point. I sat up there looking and looking, but to no avail. I even had one of those horror movie moments when my flash light winked out and I had to bang the side of it for it to come back.

Today’s picture is of Abby decorating the Christmas tree. If you look close enough you will see the hint of a fish tattoo on her hand. This was her prize from our visit to Chuck E Cheese the other day.

The Shoeless Wonder

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The day was dominated in the search for shoes for our child who doesn’t like shoes: Emily. The kid has the magical ability to repel shoes right off her feet. We will put shoes on her before leaving the house, I buckle her into her car seat, get in my seat, glance back to make sure I really did buckle her in, and she has no shoes on. How is this possible? I’ve even tried putting her shoes on one extra notch in the buckle, but it is no use. They still pop off. When we were looking for shoes, there was a perfect pair, but they were laces instead of buckles. Jennifer and I were in agreement that there was no way we were going to get a shoe with laces. It’s just more work for us having to tie the shoes every time they pop off. We found two good pair of buckled shoes at the mall today which should suffice for the fleeting moments when Emily is actually wearing shoes.

We watched Moulin Rouge today. For those of you who don’t know, once you have kids, you’re time of going to the movies on a regular basis ends. That’s why we have a subscription to Netflix. We alternate each week on who picks the movies. This week was Jennifer’s movie. Anyway, that was definitely an interesting movie. The look of the film was unique and the use of modern music’s lyrics in a traditional musical format was different. It was a little jarring because you were sitting there trying to play “Name that Tune” instead of paying attention to the movie. Jennifer didn’t like it. She thought it didn’t live up to the hype that was going on about the movie when it was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Today’s picture is of the shoeless one hanging ornaments on the tree. If you could see her feet in the picture, they would not have shoes on.

Longhorns Dominate Aggies Once Again

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This morning we went to breakfast instead of doing in on Saturday because we needed to get an early start so we could get the Sequoia to the Toyota dealership at 9:00. We figured if we planned to going to breakfast, we would be ready to get the truck in as early as possible so we could get it back on the same day. After noon, we got a call that the truck was ready and we went and picked it up. The scratches on the side are now totally gone. You cannot tell that there was even any damage.

The Longhorns rolled the Aggies today 26-13 in what ended up being a pretty wild game. Twice the Longhorns crossed the plane of the end zone and the referees didn’t call it a touchdown. One of these ended in a Vince Young fumble which the Aggies ran all the way back in the opposite direction for a touchdown. There was also an incident where a missed Longhorn extra point was advanced by the Aggies, but they ended up getting tackled in their own end zone for a 1 point safety. Everyone, including the announcers, were pretty much baffled on what was going on. But, once again the defense stepped up shutting out the Aggies in the second half. Now it’s a waiting game to find out if the 10-1 Longhorns will even make a BCS game. Last year they had the same record and were #5 in the BCS rankings and didn’t make it into a BCS game, because of how certain conference champions have automatic bids into the BCS. I know Tom is probably grumbling while reading this because his 11-0 Utes are in the same position.

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.

Shopping at the Outlet Mall

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Today we all went down to one of the outlet malls in southern Orlando looking for some shoes for Emily and to do some Christmas shopping. We made the mistake of saying yes to Abby’s request to eat at Chuck E Cheese, so after every shop that we went into we would get, “Now we go to Chuck E Cheese?” We also had Abby driving Emily around in the umbrella stroller, which was pretty humorous. Abby would spin Emily around in circles which would make Emily giggle. Yes, after the outlet mall, we went to Chuck E Cheese.

Afterwards, Jennifer went to a Girl Scout meeting. She’s been helping out this troop which is meeting up at our church. I was left with the kids and I figured Oreo cookies would be a good snack for the girls. That was until Emily came out of the play room with her hands and face covered in black and Abby screaming, “Emily’s a mess!” in that “I’m telling Dad on you” voice.

Tonight I finished up Sly 2: Band of Thieves game. It was a pretty good platformer, but not as good as the original, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. The plot was good, but sometimes the missions started to feel the same and I never really felt challenged. I would only recommend the game if you like platformer games and you’ve played the original game. Next, I will be starting a new series of games, another platformer by the name of Ratchet & Clank. The latest game, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal has been getting good reviews, so I figured I would start with the original game since it was in the bargain bin for $20.

Today’s picture is of Abby opening presents at her party last Saturday.

Saying Cheese Amidst a Sea of People

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I took the whole week off from work, but today they were having a company photo, so I went up there to participate in that. I missed our last company photo because we were still living in Austin at the time. All 250 or so employees were down in our lobby area while the photographer was up on the third floor balcony. We’ll have to wait and see if you can actually see me amidst a sea of people. We also video taped a “cameo” video for the beginning of our game. We all yelled “EA Sports! It’s in the game!” and cheered.

Jennifer went to the Toyota dealership to see how much money it was going to take to fix the scratch on the Sequoia. It turns out that it will be about the same amount that Jennifer saved by complaining to Rent a Jumper. They are going to have to repaint the area that was scratched. We are going to take the truck back in on Friday and leave it there so that it can get fixed back up.

I put the final touches on the Close Combat: Battle of the Bulge tribute site. This was the second game I worked on and the last while I was at Atomic Games. I’m slowly going through all the games I’ve worked on and getting tribute sites up. The next one will be Madden 2002.

Today’s picture is of Emily playing on the bounce house at Abby’s party.

Bounce House Vindication

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The day started out with Jennifer placing a call to Rent a Jumper to tell them how displeased we were with the bounce house we rented for Abby’s party. She told him it was frustrating enough without the attitude the driver had, which sent us over the edge. The lady on the phone said she would relay the message back to her boss. I figured that was the last we would ever hear from Rent a Jumper. I was wrong. They called back later that afternoon and Jennifer convinced them to give us half the price we were supposed to pay since they we only had the bounce house for half of Abby’s party. So, I will take back what I wrote earlier. Everyone can consider using Rent a Jumper.

All the Frenchville archives are back in operation, even the Abigail Rose French web site, which was the original web site that I started when Abby was born. Pictures from Emily’s birth and our move to Orlando are also in there.