yeah, i know

by Grant

My last post was incredibly stupid. I blame it on some sort of a nervous breakdown. Even if I keep my job, which although it may be more solid than I had thought is no means guaranteed, others are suffering and will continue to suffer.

Anyway, Rebekah is still hanging in there although she's about had it with Titus. Anybody want him? He's really cute. Housebroken and everything.


I joke, I joke.


/sotto voce
But seriously, offers can be sent to my personal e-mail account iamnotreallytryingtogetridofmychildren@gmail.com

Some good news!

by Grant

It's all about me. me. me. Sorry, I'm just very happy. Hey, that rhymes! I met with my new boss and she said that I was considered core and she wanted to utilize me more. So, that's all I can ask for. It may not seem like much, but I take it to mean that I have a job for at least a few more months. Whoopee!

Thanks again for your prayers. Maybe now we can buy an 8 passenger vehicle!

Small amount of good news

by Grant

background: On Wednesday of last week, right after the layoffs but before any announcement a vendor cut power to the entire data center. This is a total disaster as we have 150 normal servers and several other systems that went down hard. Most will come up ok, but our primary system is known to get corrupted. To make matters worse, the guy that takes care of that system was out on vacation without his laptop. To make my life worse, I was supposedly his backup.


I did pretty good in my book and I guess the powers that be agreed with me because I (along with 4 others) were singled out in an e-mail sent to all the IT (that's left) and the CEO/VPs.

One small bit of good news on a monday that's shaping up to be ugly as other divisions cut more people today.


Thanks to everybody that's praying for me (and my family). And to the heathen unbelievers, you know who you are, thanks for at least taking the time to read my blog post.

argh!!!

I just lost my blog post, so I'm just gonna summarize it quicklike as I'm tired and have to bathe my kids for church tomorrow.

1. Work is bad
2. Rebekah is OK. She's at 26 weeks right now.
3. Kids are good except Titus broke his finger.

Black Wednesday

They laid off 20% of IT (Information Technology). I'm still employed for now.

Just trying to hang on

by grant

Rebekah is 23 weeks pregnant. She has started to have contractions and is having trouble taking care of the kids. No fun. We think we have some contingency plans worked out, but they will definitely increase the stress of daily life, but they are necessary so that Rebekah can get by.

So, one boy and one girl on the way. they're growing good. the boy only has 1 artery in his umbilical cord which happens a lot but still isn't too thrilling since it can mean problems later.

anyway, work is scary but I still have my job so I'm thankful. For the Christians out there, we could really use your prayers. It's only by God's grace that we can get through these things without (me) snapping. For the skeptics out there (matt) find us a nanny that will work for free.

Twins 2: This time its personal

ok, for anybody who is still reading this (rss feeds keep you from totally abandoning it. check out google reader or bloglines.com), I'd like to announce that we are having
1 boy and
1 girl!

yay! 3 and 3. 4 and 4 if you count the parents. We have a female cat, so I guess we need to get a male dog soon.

The twins are growing as expected so that's good. The umbilical cord on the boy has only two channels instead of the normal 3, but that's not too abnormal. Titus was that way. The girl had a shiny spot on her heart, but they've seeen that a lot but never known it to mean anything. The C-section will be scheduled for the 37th or 38th week of the term. So that means a late April or early may birth if all goes according to plan. Rebekah is doing ok... but she's doing less and less and having a harder and harder time. I think she'll be on bed rest for the last few weeks.


The other kids are doing ok. I'm slightly mad at times because I have less patience and the boys are not cooperating like I need. The girls are pretty good. They're dolls most of the time, but they have attitudes that have to be corrected. Also, sometimes they (individually) are very fussy and nothing consoles them.

We're still not sure about transportation. we don't have 8 seats in our Durango and even if we did, car seats take too much space. We can't trade our Durango in because an SUV is worth about as much as a bucket of warm spit. We still owe a lot on it, and it's lost way more value than normal. So, we're considering lots of options.

I am doing ok, been having more pain in my wrist. I think it's a pinched nerve in my neck. I had Carpal tunnel surgery and it didn't help. I went to a neurologist last week and he had the gaul to say that carpal tunnel was my problem. It doesn't make any sense. He said the only other thing could be was a pinched nerve in my neck. I've done research and it turns out that you can have pain anywhere in your arm and NOT in the neck with a pinched nerve in your neck. It fits better than anything else that I've read.

Work is still work. They cut our pay 5% which is painful. But we're hoping that between that and agressive cost cutting, they can ride out the storm. At the very least, I think that the WG should be able to outlast many of its competitors. Bad (and sad) for them, but good for us.

I'm shocked! shocked I say...

by Grant

...to read this morning that somebody doesn't like Obama. Al Qaeda is bad mouthing him and calling him names. Next thing you know Hamas and Hezbollah (sp?) will say that he has bad breath or something. I say we bomb al qaeda back to the stone age. Oh wait, we already did that.

Wow

by Grant

  Ok, so there isn't really a lot more to say about the beta twins (Liberty and Serenity are the Alpha twins). Rebekah hasn't been back to the Dr. yet, so we don't have any more info. She's just past her first trimester, but she's still pretty miserable. I'm glad this is our last time around the maternity block.

Forrest made me dinner tonight. Peanut Butter and honey. Our food stash has gotten rather empty of late. I've been busy trying to help at the church as well as scrounge up some other work. My pay is being cut 5% as of January 1, 2009. I can't afford that except by putting my 401k contribution to 0%. So, that's unfortunate. But in some ways, I am relieved. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The housing market is 1/3 of where it was at its peak 2 years ago. Our company is getting about 50% of the revenue it did two years ago. Wildly enough, there has not been so little new housing starts in the past 50 years. This is the worst it ever has been. Where have all the people gone? Don't they have to live in houses? I checked my trees and nobody's hanging out there. I mean, even if things are bad now, there should still be people getting married (for the first time) and needing a house so somebody gets something in the divorce. I mean, if all you have to fight over is who gets the dog it sounds a lot more petty. But I digress. Our family is doing well. As you can gather from the earlier statements, Forrest is a great help (when he wants to be). He likes being responsible but sometimes he finds it a drag. Well, I find it a drag much of time so I can't fault a 5 year old too much. He helped Rebekah a lot when she was sick the other day. I couldn't come home because we had the shoe drop meeting and attendance was required. So Forrest made cereal and fed the girls crackers and yogurt (or something like that).

I spent some fun time looking for a new vehicle this week. Today especially was fun. Rebekah wanted a Ford Excursion, AKA Land Yacht, since it had the room we need plus room for groceries. Alas, we are upside down on our Durango due to the severe devaluation of SUVs. But, since the car guys are semi-desperate I thought I'd see if they'd do anything. Their offer was so amusing (offering me 50% of trade in value on my Durango) that I laughed. Finally after a bit, they said "What can we do to make this deal happen?" I said, "Make pigs fly." He chuckled until he realized I was serious. It was an amusing experience. Our Durango is really nice and comfortable, but since it can only hold seven I guess we'll have to just drive two vehicles if the whole family goes anywhere. That's ok. that way I can listen to rock or some such heathen music while Rebekah indoctrinates our children with something wholesome. I see it as a win-win, don't you?

Breaking News!

by Grant

Rebekah is pregnant with twins again! Thankfully they are in separate sacks. And no, we don't know the gender.


More to follow if the blogger isn't too depressed.

Beka's Birthday

by Grant

  So, it's Rebekah's birthday today. We have a friend who is going to come over tonight and watch our kids for us. That's really nice. We won't do anything too fancy. I thought about taking her to a movie, but nothing looks good which is good because an adult ticket costs $9!!! Holy cow. Do people still go to movies? We finally got a big TV this year and I bought a Dolby Digital amp from a friend and so we have a really nice home entertainment system. It's pretty darn close to a theater experience. Plus the concessions are cheaper.

Pretty fascinating watching the Stock market implode. Amazing what fear can do to people. But you know the old saying "buy low, sell high." It's low now. record low. It'll probably still go lower, but I personally think it will be one of two things. 1: It'll go so low that we have a major worldwide depression in which case you'll have bigger things to worry about. Or 2: it'll eventually hit a bottom and start coming back up. The one good thing I saw about friday is that some financial stocks actually went up. Most of the drops were from other companies (like GM) that were now being affected. This sort of thing has to work itself out. The government has a role to play, but socialism is a dangerous threat if they do too much.

Ok, boring stuff I know.

Anothing boring note. Titus is up and he's watching Max and Goofy in "A Goofy Movie." I find it amusing that they're driving a pacer. The seats and the doorhandles look right too. Of course, pacer was made by AMC and they went out of business over 20 years ago. OH no! It just blew up. It made it through the entire movie and then blew up and Goofy kicked the bumper. Sheesh, it's not a pinto. Stupid Hollywood.

Toddler/Life update:

For those of you who don't know, Rebekah is pregnant again. I'm praying it's not twins or if it is, then they're in separate sacks. I have no idea how we're gonna pay for another kid, but I'm trusting in God to provide. The girls are doing great. Liberty seems much less fussy these days. I think she's done cutting teeth. But now the temperaments of both girls are more even. I'll try to post some more pictures on my next blog post.

Attack of the killer Oreos

Renny and Libby and Renny

 


The aftermath. Worse than Chernobyl





Who are these angels and what have you done w/ my children?


One put out little person





Liberty and Joey




Gratuitous Libby and Renny shot

Blog

Working on it! lots of pictures.

Family fun

by Grant

Some people think that a family activity is say, going to the zoo. Or if you're well off and and insane, going to Disneyland. I decided tonight that as a family we'd change the oil in our two primary vehicles. Of course, I'm excluding the girls as they don't seem to tolerate late nights very well. Actually, it's more like Mom doesn't tolerate them outside in the dark with vehicles on ramps, etc. etc. etc. So, Forrest and I got started and I put the truck on the ramp. That's always fun as you have to get just the right balance of throttle combined with instant braking at just the right time. I cheat. With a four wheel drive vehicle you have more pull at lower rpms, so it wasn't very hard. Of course, I had Forrest giving me directions which were interesting at the very least. So, by the time the truck was on the ramps my wonderful wife (no sarcasm) came out to help. This is after a rough night with little sleep before. So, I set about acquiring cardboard to lay on and sent Rebekah after tools and Titus to ride his tricycle. Forrest was upset because he was trying to help but I was not utilizing him properly so he was inventing things to do to help. So, I had to find ways to utilize his desire effectively and once I did that he was a great little helper. I remember helping my Dad and getting yelled at, ahem, motivated frequently. Not a lot of fun. So, trying to keep that in mind I'm rushing around trying to get the oil changed in two vehicles with two little ones somewhat underfoot as it's getting dark and late. But after a few minor issues (I ran out of 5w-30 oil. I'll have to get another quart tomorrow) we finished up. If it weren't for my pride and frugality I would pay to have my oil changed; but if I had done that my boys would've missed out on a great family activity. And just think, maybe if we do enough of our own oil changes we can use the money we save and go to Disneyland... Not!

Toddler/Life update:
Yeah, I don't think the girls are babies anymore. Rebekah wants another urchin to wake her up at night (although Titus is common visitor to our bedroom). I, on the other hand, am thinking about headin to a monastery. Ok, not really, but with stress at work I'm a little uncertain about more financial stress. At the WG they did another round of layoffs and I was hit by the arterial spray of one head-lopping so that made me a bit nervous. But, I'm trusting in God and doing my darndest not to worry about it. The girls have decided they're gonna start on the "terrible twos" a little early. So, we're working on tough love as one starts fussing and the other one isn't far behind.

Boring blog post 2

Hmm. so far so good. I reformatted one of my 500 gig drives to ext2 w/out LVM (still not sure what that is). Now, my driver in windows can read it. This effectively enables me to transfer my movies (vob files) to a drive that can be read in Windows. So far the only hitch in my git-a-long is that I can't get the vob files to play with digital 5.1 surround sound. The things I do for my kids. Do you think my girls will appreciate all the work I went to so they can watch Baby Einstein, do you? No. They won't. Ah well, such is life.

Boring blog post -- Don't read

I warned you.

I am working on our media center right now. Various children are running around while I'm trying to concentrate on how to create a partition and format a drive so that it's non-lvm so my ext2 driver in Windows can read it so I can get data off of it. Yeah. I didn't understand it either. To start @ the beginning, It all started a few months after the girls were born back in Spring of 07 (pronounced "ot" seven). I discovered that over the previous few months the demon spawn, ahem, I mean sweet angelic children had destroyed some expensive DVDs. So, I decided to rip all of my DVDs to a computer and then the munchkins wouldn't even touch them. In attempt to save money, I decided to recycle (how green of me) a computer that we were disposing of @ work. I took that and bought a few pieces and installed Linux w/ a Media Center preconfigured (called MythTV). Well, after a month and a half of working on it (that sounds like a long time, but with kids that's highly efficient) I had a working system that I was proud of. It served us well for a year and then it started acting flaky. I think that it realized that I had decided to replace it with a newer and shiner (albeit more expensive) media center. So, although I had been hemming and hawing, I have begun moving from Linux to Microsoft Vista. This is hard for me. Linux is the geeks toy. If you know what you're doing, then Linux is for you. Newbies get Mac (although that's changing) and hum drum go Windows. Well, tragically, Linux and my install just wasn't making me happy anymore. It lacked flash. It was single tasking (by this I mean that once I started a movie I was no longer in the media center program). It was awkward (set up lirc sometime and you'll see what I mean) and I was frustrated because I couldn't watch various shows that are streamed online (like Lost, although Heroes (NBC) does work).

So, now that I'm done waiting, I guess we'll see how the next step goes.

BTW, in case you're interested in family stuff, I am trying to keep my mind off things because life is just too frustrating right now. Hence the warning about the blog post being boring.

May you live in interesting times

by Grant

That saying (look up) is supposedly an ancient chinese proverb (my book of insults says it's Irish but everybody else says Chinese... eh). It's actually a curse. Interesting times are usually interesting because they're scary. Times of prosperity and and peace are not interesting. I read the Wall Street Journal and I've discovered that I'm intently interested in the domestic financial news. I'm watching Oil futures and reading about the Bank and mortgage woes. Horribly boring stuff except when you look at the price of gas and ponder whether you (or your neighbor) will have a job tomorrow. I work for a company that is 90% domestic housing driven and it's been ugly. I think that we've hit the bottom and it's leveled off, but it's been a wild ride. Thankfully, sometimes you don't know that you're on a roller-coaster until you're half-way done w/ the ride. I haven't blogged in a bit because I've felt a lot of stress from many different sides and didn't want to start whining on the Internet. It's tough to not fret (although I am the first to admit that worry has no benefits) when I look at our budget (yes, we actually have a budget) and see that without major changes (such as selling a car or finding a different job) we can't take any more expenses. Of course, it's at times like this that we get hit with improperly billed medical expenses and find out that we won't get any bonus in the next year and by-the-way you only get 2% pay raise this year no matter how good or bad you performed. Hmmm... that sounds a lot like complaining. Yeah, I think it probably is. God promises to meet our needs. Our pastor said that was "food, clothing and shelter." You mean that doesn't include cell phone and gas?? Well, God frequently meets those "needs" too, but I think it's vital to remember that we Americans have expanded "need" to include so many things. Well, hopefully that wasn't too painful.

Family/life update:
Girls are growing and getting even more fun. They're a blast to play with. Serenity is a super ham and Liberty is almost always demure and graceful. Although, both Rebekah and I were laughing loudly at Liberty as she did her best to imitate a drunk dinosaur (the kind on the Flintstones). I'm not sure where she got that from, but I wish we could've gotten a video of it. A friend from church gave us a print-out of a "permission to date your daughter" application. It was obviously a joke, but I made a mental note to find it when our girls get that age (30).

And remember, keep smiling.
(10 points if anybody knows who "Mr. Kidsel" was on the "Burns and Allen" radio show)

A Saturday to Remember

By Grant


We had some pretty ambitious plans for yesterday, but our day started out with sadness. Our dog of 7 years, Koffee, got hit by a car and killed. I knew it was going to happen because in the past year she had started going across the road to a farmer's field. We saw her almost get hit I don't know how many times. But just a week ago she also started using the carpet as her bathroom as well. After the 5th or 6th time we stopped letting her spend the night indoors and it was that event that precipitated her death. She got hit early saturday morning before we were even out of bed. I feel a bit guilty because I know that If I had been able to train her better, etc. we might have avoided this. But, with four kids and a full time stressful job plus church frequently and involvement it was pretty much impossible to spend more time with the dog.

whew! I just got interrupted by a screaming Liberty who was falling out of her chair under the table because I didn't buckle her in.

Back to the sad story...
So, I took the wheelbarrow across the road (dodging cars) and got her. I made Rebekah stay behind because she couldn't promise that she wouldn't cry. Well, if she started crying then I might and I didn't need that. One of those things that you have to be tough about and just accept with a tinge of regret. I then spent the next hour digging a grave with Rebekah and we laid river rocks on top of it. And even though I don't believe animals have souls, I still prayed a prayer thanking God for the good times she gave us and the protection she provided our house.

I'd like another dog, but I need to find one that's not too energetic and is good with kids. And I am going to get our place fenced in soon to prevent this from happening again. If you have any dog recommendations, please let me know.

Random Pictures 1

Stupid trees. That's the second time a big branch has hit that power line



no idea. beka took these 2


@ Grandpa's house

Naked came I

by Grant


    Now that I have your attention. Let's begin.
(Just in case you're interested, that's from the Bible  (Job 1:21 to be precise). It's also (quite ironically) the name of the autobiography of Opus the Penguin from Bloom County. Unless you're my Mom or brother, I'm quite sure you don't know what or what that is. Although, if you strain your membrane a bit, you may remember a fat penguin in the funny pages (particularly Sunday) named Opus. Aaah, such fond memories. Moving right along...)

I promised myself I wouldn't apologize for not blogging since if there ain't nothing to blog ain't gonna blog (eloquent right). But I've had several things I've wanted to put down and haven't gotten to it. Mostly because I'm lazy, but having four wee ones plays a small part in monopolizing my time.


A few topics I've pondered include the "The refrigerator that could," "Two flew out of the Ballard's nest," "Memorial Madness," "Cheer up Buckeroo"

I guess I'll do "Cheer up Buckaroo" (BTW, I'm working on pictures too)

    This probably isn't too fascinating, but it's the shortest and most recent. I've worked at my current place of employ since 2001. During that time it's been tumultuous but most of my co-workers have been pretty static. The economy has been pretty hard on the good old WG so one of my buddies got laid off in January, another friend (not so much co-worker) got cut a couple months later, and now my cube-mate has moved on to greener pastures (or will in a couple weeks). Que Sera Sera (I hate French! Ooh, and if you're really observant you might notice that's a tautology. bonus points to whoever remembers what that is and who said it). So, who knows what else will happen. The frustrating things is a lunch buddy and commiserating buddy are gone and the work load has to increase. But, no time to feel sorry for myself as there's too much work to do. Oh, and if you're curious about the title (the buckeroo one), my buddy said that when he heard me sigh towards the end of the day. It's funny because he knew exactly the type of sigh and what I was sighing about. I guess you kind of get to know somebody after 5 years working next to each other.


Baby/Life update:
Girls are doing pretty good. A bit too fussy for me. I'm still bothered by the whole girl thing. Not that I don't love them or wish I didn't have them but rather I have been terrified in multiple fashions about how much impact the father has on his daughters. Not to mention guarding them from lecherous men w/out turning them into old maids. Yeah, I'm worrying a bit too soon maybe but it's never too early to start I always say. But they are cute little things and I have to be doubly sure they don't wrap me around their little finger (as the saying goes). Boys are doing great. Forrest is really growing. Sometimes I think he's more mature than the average guy. Not saying that means he's an angel (He's not) but there are many good traits that need nurtured. It's amazing how showing your child love is like giving a plant water and sunlight. They thrive with it. Yes, that's obvious I'm sure, but seeing it in action is much more powerful than words. And Titus, well, that kid has gotten out of more spankin's cause he's so darn cute. So many of the times when he's naughty it's because he is just curious. Anyway, I feel very blessed to have such a great family (and I'm not just saying that).