5 Months Old Today

My how time flies when you are ... getting less sleep, your world revolves around someone else's bowel movements, pacifiers are your best friend etc. etc.

Anyway, we dressed the kid up in the shirt and hat he got as a present recently from his Aunty Shari so we could go out for some lunch to celebrate.

At first he seemed to like the hat.



But then he had some trouble with it.

Saved It Just For The Camera

A short video of the kid hanging out in his high chair, with a surprise at the end.

Australia, now closer to the US ... literally

The UN has agreed in theory today to extend Australia's continental shelf (ie. the area of water around the mainland that still counts as being Australia) by 2.5 million square kilometers.

So since Australia is now closer to the US, I assume the flights are going to take less time. Yes?

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23575295-5006301,00.html

My Guys Make The News - Sort Of

ALERT ALERT - Geek Talk To Follow

We completed a migration off of IBM WebSphere over to JBoss recently at work. Well of course RedHat wanted to brag about this to the world, so here is a press release they put out today. I did provide some input into what they should say, but apparently Eric was more believable! :)

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080421/20080421005086.html?.v=1

First Morning in the Crib

We put Callum to sleep in his new crib last night. When I went in to his room this morning to get him up, it would appear that he didn't like sleeping the "regular" way in the crib and found his own way.

Callum's All Grown Up

Today we set up Callum's brand new crib in the 2nd bedroom. We shuffled furniture a little bit to see what we could really fit in the room, but in the end the computer desk got the boot, but we did keep the guest bed. The only downside for anyone staying with us, you now are going to be roomies with Callum. You have been warned!

Here is a photo of Callum taking a nap this afternoon in his current bassinet, you can see why it was time for something a little larger I think.



Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Callum's Crib

2008 Brewers Association World Beer Cup Winners

The 2008 WBC Winners were announced today.

http://www.beertown.org/events/wbc/winners_list/winners_2008.html

Some interesting winners, some from around Southern California (like Port Brewing which won for best overall Small Brewery, which is the place we went for dinner on the Friday night of Jen's Birthday weekend). Also there were some Australian winners too, but I did notice that all of the Australian winners seemed to have been in the very light lager categories, not sure why that is, I am pretty sure there are at least a couple of Australian's who are not afraid of a bigger beer flavor. :)

Hockey Playoffs

We went to Game 5 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals tonight between the Anaheim Ducks and the Dallas Stars.

We started the evening across the street from the stadium at JT Schmidts, but it was standing room only so we stayed for just one drink. Our tickets were on the club level so we hit the nicer bar since we were early for the game.

This is not the first ice hockey game that Callum has been too, we went to one when my Mum was here in January. Last time we tried to use these silicone ear plugs on him to try and keep the noise down and limit the amount of frights he got. But they were a hassle and kept falling out. So this time we upped the ante and bought some proper ear protection. The only downside is that Callum looks a little like he is from Star Wars when wearing them.

Anyway, it was actually a pretty decent game with the right amount of fighting and penalties (seriously why would you watch Ice Hockey if it wasn't for the ever present possibility of two guys dropping their sticks and punching each other out). As an added bonus, the Ducks won and forced a Game 6 on Sunday night.

Also, as you can see in the photos, the hearing protection worked so well that Callum slept though most of the whole game.

Here are some photos.

Ducks Playoff

Hearing Damage is Suprisingly Entertaining

The details of the first real concert I ever went to have faded in my mind somewhat, but here is what I remember.

It was at Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide. It was a school night and I went with 2 or three friends from high school. Somebody else's Mum (its a story about Australia so I am going to spell Mum that way) dropped us off and another someone else's Mum picked us up at the door. The support band (which now with hind sight was a really good deal) was Cheap Trick, touring on the strength of "The Flame" (you know you remember it). The headline band was The Angels touring in support of their "Beyond Salvation" album.

I recall coming out of that concert and squeezing into the back seat of the car, hot, sweaty and dirty (can't even imagine what we smelled like to the driver) and basically screaming at each other because our ears were ringing so badly we could barely hear. This was the start of a long tradition of loud concerts and repetitive hearing damage. I have faith that science will be ready to just implant new hardware in my head to fix the issue if it ever becomes a problem in the future.

Anyway, The Angels were a huge band in Australia in the late 70's and then through most of 80's and even marginally into the 90's. However, I expect no one reading this blog from other parts of the world have even remotely heard of them. Definitely a rock n' roll band, not something your mother would be interested in, but not heavy metal either. They broke up sometime during the 90's, but have just announced they are getting back together. Yay!

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,23556647-10388,00.html

How 'bout Them Carrots

Callum meet Carrots, Carrots meet Callum. Enough said.

Fort Collins

We drove up from Denver last night and are spending the weekend in Fort Collins with our friends Brian and Nikki.

Today we hit 2 really great breweries (Brian and Nikki share our love of good beer). We went to New Belgian and also Odell (see the photos below). Got to try some local brews they have that they don't ship to California and best of all they were within walking distance of the house.

We came home and chilled out for a while after that. Then we hit Coopersmith's brewery which is a much smaller operation than the other 2. This is where Callum did his "Cup Hands" act (see the photos).

For dinner we went to a Scottish restaurant called Stonehouse Grille. The food was pretty decent and we had some Scottish beers to wash it down with.

We ended tonight back at Brian and Nikki's with some more beers that we had picked up along the way over the last few days and a few rounds of Guitar Hero on the Nintendo Wii.

Here are the photos.

Fort Collins

We are going to hang out with Brian and Nikki for most of tomorrow then back on the plane tomorrow night and we should be home around 11pm local time.

Around Boulder

I had an afternoon to spare today so I did some sightseeing. I hit a couple of breweries and a meadery and also walked around downtown Boulder a little. Then I went for a drive up into the mountains, where the weather deteriorated drastically into heavy snow and whiteout conditions pretty quickly. But by the time I got to where I was heading things had cleared up and it was bright and sunny (still wickedly cold though).

Here is a bunch of photos from the last few days in Boulder.

Boulder

Off to the airport to get Jen and Callum and then north up Interstate 25 for about an hour to Fort Collins.

I Am Now A Master - I Have The Certificate To Prove IT

So this is going to be super uninteresting to almost everyone that reads this blog because it is extremely geeky. But nonetheless, I am going to tell you anyway.

I finished my training today and I am now officially a Certified ScrumMaster. Yeah, its a bit of an ostentatious title, trust me, I am aware. But, basically it means I am able to lead my team at work developing software following the "Scrum" methodology (see I told you this was all very geeky).

Ironically I have been running various software teams in the last couple of years following agile methodologies already, but now I have a certificate, which basically is just good resume fodder if nothing else.

The Cute Doesn't Stop When I Am Out Of Town

Jen sent this to me today while I was in class here in Boulder.

I Am A Mile High

I flew into Denver airport this afternoon and I am now in my hotel in Boulder. I am here for some training for the rest of the week.

For those not familiar with this part of the world, I am at somewhere above 5,000 feet elevation right now, so the air is quite different to that in Orange County and visitors and new comers can definitely feel short of breath if they are not careful.

However, I was careful tonight to not lift any more than 1 pint of beer at a time to not over exert myself. Actually, all jokes aside, I am not 100% healthy right now with some kind of flu going on. So I am going to have to be a little careful while I am here.

I drove through downtown Denver on the way to Boulder (Denver airport and Boulder are on the exact opposites sides of central Denver). I hit the Breckenridge Brewery and took a look at the Sandlot Brewery, but it is only open on game days (it is part of the baseball stadium) and you need a ticket to the game to get in. I weighed my options and decided that watching Colorado play Atlanta in 33F (~ 1C) weather wasn't really worth it.

Once I got out towards Boulder I stopped at the Southern Sun Brewery, which was pretty good actually. Lots of interesting beer and some experimental stuff and some stuff on nitrogen taps.

I am staying in the Hotel Boulderado - not kidding, that is its real name, it sounds more like a ride at Disneyland. Anyway, it is a historic hotel from the 1800s and is supposed to be haunted in some rooms, so it might be an interesting night.

Attack of the Prunes

Next food on the list for Callum was Prunes. Here are the scientific results.

No Smiles?

Somebody mentioned they hadn't seen a good photo of Callum smiling. I am not sure they have been looking hard enough, but just to be sure, here are a couple from a ride in his stroller the other day.

Food, Glorious Food

This post is a little belated, especially for something so big.

Last week (the 26th to be exact), we took the plunge and gave Callum his first serious solid foods. It was a basic paste of Rice Cereal and breast milk. Generally speaking he did really well I think.

In summary, it started like this:


And ended like this:


For those who want the whole experience, we video taped the whole thing. But it runs about 16 minutes total and does not upload easily (its 300+MB). So I will try playing with the editing software on my Mac and see if I can cut the size down and post it later.

The next night it was my turn to drive the spoon and Jen held the camera.




Then finally the next night we were brave enough to try something other than Rice Cereal. I believe it was Sweet Potatoes.

The Aristocrats

Well OK so clearly that last post was a joke, in fact it was an April Fools joke, the biggest joke day of the year. Special thanks to those who correctly observed that it was in fact a joke and got a laugh out of it.

To those who chose to not find it funny, well what can I say, but you have discovered the main problem with the internet - every moron with a connection now has the ability to post whatever they like and it is not filtered, censored or monitored in anyway (unless you are in China of course) and so there is no guarantee of quality whatsoever. My advice to you for the future is to remember it is the internet, remember who is the author and remember what the date is.

Now surely we can all agree that this is funny:


Anyway, I am off to Denver this afternoon for the rest of the week. Plenty of good beer in that area, so should be a good trip.

Amazing News

Jen and I have some amazing news to share with everyone we have not had a chance to contact yet.

After Jen went to the doctor on Monday we had it confirmed that she is pregnant again! But it gets better, we are expecting twins this time! No word yet on sexes.

As you can imagine we are both a bit shell shocked and freaking out a little. This was most certainly not planned.

The due date is November 28th - 2 days after Callum's first birthday no less!

We will write more in the next few days.

Cheers!

It's A Good Old Fashioned Fare Ware ... With Any Luck

The US-Australia route is the most expensive in the world (based on my 8 years of trying to pay for those flights). It infuriates me to no end when searching for flights from Los Angeles to Sydney and I see flights from LA to Tokyo for a third of the price. Clearly there is a monopolistic influence occurring - Qantas, do you have something to confess????

But last year Air New Zealand started its LA-Auckland-Adelaide route which offered at least an alternative to Qantas' LA-Sydney/Brisbane/Melbourne-Adelaide routes, but the prices were roughly the same.

Now with the signing of the "Open Skies" agreement being signed while Kevin Rudd (Aus. Prime Minister) was here in the US this week, it is going to be easier for other airlines to schedule flights on these routes.

The first of which is an airline called V Australia (questionable name at best) - which is one of Richard Branson's bazillion companies. Here is the article from The Advertiser.

But here is the rub I fear. I have always found Qantas' service to be exceptional, even in Economy class (the seats still suck, but that is par for the course). So does competition simply drive the quality of the service down in lock-step with fare reductions? If the Virgin Blue airline in Australia (one of Branson's other bazillion companies) or just about any airline in the US these days is any example, the answer unfortunately is probably yes.