Baby Sized Goodies

John and I have started to get a couple baby gifts and since they are so cute they deserve a shout out here. First, John's youngest sister Melissa sent us a handmade baby blanket her friend made for us and a squishy stuffed frog to go with. I'm sure baby will have tons of use for both items and we'll happily tuck the mini-Merancy in with the blankie.

My brother and sister-in-law also sent us one heck of an original present that I certainly appreciate. It is a rocking CAMEL!! It is a carved teak camel complete with painted saddle and decor. It's awesome and, as an ex-camel racer myself (two races, photos to prove it), I certainly hope baby enjoys it. Baby will have to grow into this a little, but I am pretty sure this will get put to good use in our house.

Thanks to both Melissa and Mark and Yousef and Kari! We are looking forward to using both gifts for sure.

We also toured two daycare facilities today and it was pretty obvious what our choice is going to be. We went to the Montessori School of Downtown first (space center and el dorado for the locals). It is a little more expensive than a typical daycare, so we weren't sure what kind of benefit there was going to be for the money. It seems there is quite a bit of value in the money and we were very impressed. The second place we went to was your standard Kindercare daycare. Ummm... not bad, but seriously I think the decision was actually very easy. The two we saw today I am pretty sure are the high and the low from our list. Then we went online and read about the other 2 we were going to see and, compared to what we saw today, we don't see the point in taking a tour. We really liked the Montessori closest to our home so we will be enrolling the peanut there. Also, since we have looked far enough in advance, all we have to do is pay the initial enrollment fee and our spot will be guaranteed for whenever we need it. One major decision down, one gazillion to go.

One Down, Two To Go

Today is officially the start of my second trimester (or week 14) of baby incubating. I hope I got straight A's for the first trimester! FYI, my high school was on a trimester system, so finishing a "trimester" means a report card to me.

Otherwise, having gotten rid of the morning sickness and fatigue a few weeks ago, I feel down right normal, which is great. I haven't gained more than a few pounds and only my skinniest of clothes are too snug. Reading the pregnancy websites, they imply I should be having more clothes problems than I currently am. But I am not complaining, I will happily wear real clothes for as long as I can. I am stockpiling a few things to help the clothing issues out when they start including Bella Bands and a B-Buckle as used by Gwen Stephani and Tori Spelling! oooohhhh! aaaaahhhh! totally a reason to buy one! ;) JK! Marketing on them is funny though.

Anywho, this week begins the daycare search too. Apparently, there are 8 month waiting lists in our area. I hope we can get in a little quicker or we could have a problem.

Stormy Apple Weekend

Houston has had quite the couple days of storms with some very hard rain Friday night and then for 6 or 7 hours today. The rain caused my work golf tournament to get cancelled in the afternoon. But last night it let up, thankfully, long enough for us to go see Christopher Titus (the comedian) with Brent and Alicia. Funny, funny show and glad we didn't get soaked trying to get there.

Today though, John and I had wanted to go to lunch and walked out the front door only to see a large truck fording the street in a foot plus of water. Back inside. Eventually the rain let up some and we went to run a few errands. One of which was stopping at the grocery store to buy some apples and oats. I wanted dessert and John wanted something warm and cheerier then the nasty weather. So I made a large dish of one of my favorite desserts, apple crisp. John loves it too and I made it, as always, with a double recipe of topping. Yummy and it is our dinner for tonight, apples, oats, flour, all you need.

The Bug or the Person?

Spotted in the parking lot by bldg 17 at work. Why would people do this to their cars? In particular, do silly people buy Volkswagen Bugs or do Volkswagen Bugs make people silly? Those are a nose and bunny ears on the beige car (and yes it has a fluffy tail too) and the red one has spots, so its a "ladybug". Har har, really people, why would you want to drive around in this?

Naming Rights

I have never been a person to name my cars or motorcycles or whatever. Typically, inanimate objects don't get a name from me. But a few days ago I was driving my car and a "name" actually popped into my head, so I feel obligated to keep it.

Background: Last Thursday my car was in the APR tuning shop getting an upgraded computer chip and exhaust. The pair of items (for an extremely reasonable cost) takes the engine from the stock 200hp/207ft-lbs torque to ~250hp/290ft-lbs torque, a VERY noticeable and likable performance change.

As I was cruising home from work on Friday in my newly powerful car, I realized her name is Helga, as in a muscular German woman on steroids. It had to be a woman too, because admittedly it is a wagon and that doesn't say "boy" to me.

So I want to hear from you. Do we like the name? Do you name your cars? If so, why or why not. Like I said, I don't normally name vehicles but Helga named herself in this case and now I'm curious.

And The Survey Says

Tonight I spent an hour and half or so on the phone for my bi-annual gift to all sociology majors everywhere. Somehow my family has been a part of an on-going University of Michigan study about economics and what not. My mom got these phone calls for years and now I guess I am I'm sort of a second generation study participant.

The questions get really boring. Everything from how much we spend on electricity bills , to have we collected any food stamps this year, to have I ever been diagnosed with a stroke. My big reward, aside from knowledge that I am one of the statistical inputs in funky newspapers and college thesis graphs, $65. I think the economy is facing inflation as I used to get only $50.

But, next time you hear some wacky economics statistic, you can now say that you know at least one real person that has been statified.

Names for Faces

For the second time in 4 months, I started a new job today. Not a change in company, just a switch to a different position. I was Constellation Program (all the bits and pieces of the mission paper level head office) Software and Avionics Integration. I am now on the Orion Vehicle Systems Performance & Analysis team, which includes the GNC, Aero, Aborts, and Sims teams for people in the know. I was recruited/stolen over to this team by my new customer and fellow Washington Husky (Go DAWGS!) Howard, but I was really happy to accept the change. This new role will be a lot more technical and I will get to have a far greater impact on the whole sending people to the moon thing, then my previous job. All in all I am really excited to get to learn and do new things here. Not sure what they are all yet, but I know they are out there!

Downside, another 50 or so people's names to learn... not a strength of mine. I think I know like 4 right now for sure. They should give you picture book org charts for any new job. That is my process improvement for NASA.

Goal, The Dream On Pause

Awhile ago, I caught an british indie movie on TV that I had heard of called Goal! The Dream Begins. As a soccer fan, I was interested and got beyond the cheesy title, to find that it was actually a really good movie. It is a sports movie, so it certainly isn't a movie that would ever come up in Oscar talk. But the movie avoids most straight up cliche (rare for a sports movie) and I enjoyed the pretty original aspects of the story very much.

Last week I was surfing around on movies.com and found that the movie had a sequel, Goal! Living the Dream (I know, cheesier still), and it was just released on DVD. Better yet, it turns out this is actually 2 of 3 in a planned trilogy. It was a great surprise, because it was definitely a movie I happily wanted to find out what happens 'next' for. I ordered the DVD from Amazon and watched it today. Good, not quite as good as the first, but still enjoyable. But the real downer was that at the end, it literally had the "To Be Continued...". It was a downer because this movie doesn't feel complete and can't stand on its own like the first one.

I think that's a shame, sequels and trilogies are great, but I think they should pull it off a little better and not leave you hanging so bad. Awful part is, I have no idea how long I will now have to wait to get the end of the story. "To Be Continued" should be reserved for TV shows where you only wait a week or at worst the summer for the season premier.

Sweet, Sweet Runnning Relief

Happily, I am over the morning sickness and the fatigue has really started to go away. I actually wake up in the morning vs. dragging myself from bed and I generally and starting to feel normal again. So thankfully, since I was in relatively good shape and healthy before this, the morning sickness has passed quick enough.

Since I was feeling better, I headed over to Gilruth after work and got a decent 2.5 mile run in even if it was slow. ahhhh... so nice to feel active again. It has only been a few weeks since I last ran, but boy does it make a difference.

I also passed on the baby news to my old ISS GNC group and then found out from Aaron that Fred announced it in the 10am MER tagup. ummm... weird, I think he's losing it a little in his old age. I'm not even in the group anymore, but even if I was why would you announce it at the meeting? With any luck, some people might think it was an April Fool's joke.