Tao Of Foo

Ben and I are headed to the Davis Mountains in a few weeks. My parents are spending about 2 weeks out there doing a bunch of work around the cabin so Ben and I are going to help out for a few days. We’ll be replacing some decking, fixing and replacing some eaves and rakes, adding flashing to a few exposed exterior walls and several other projects. I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve been out there. That’s way too long for me.

We might even make it to Balmorhea State Park on our way home. Ben has never been out there and it’s going to feel so nice after a couple of days of working hard up in the mountains.

To those readers who aren’t (yet) parents, I apologize. This post is likely to disgust you. This is however precisely what life is like with a 4 year old boy.

As Ben was getting dressed for bed this evening he made me the following offer while standing in his bedroom completely naked:

Ben: “Daddy, smell my finger.”

Me: “Why? What does it smell like?”

Ben: “Like hot peppers, fresh tomatoes and yummy milk.”

Me: “Um, no thanks.”

Last weekend we had the honor of attending my cousin Seth’s wedding in Denton. Ben and I were actually in the wedding party (Ring Bearer and Groomsman respectively).

During the reception all the kids were running around dancing themselves silly when the Rascal Flatts cover of “Life is a Highway” came on. Keep in mind that “Cars” is probably Ben’s vaforite movie right now. When Ben heard the song he froze in his tracks, held his hands out and yelled, “I know this song!”. Once the lyrics started and I knew he was going to sing every word I ran tward the stage, told Ben to follow me and I grabbed the microphone. I turned him loose, stepped back and watched as every single person in the audience slowly turned to face him once they heard somebody singing.

He literally knows every single word to the song. Not only was he singing the words however, he was also singing the guitar solo and some of the drum beats. It was a blast. Every single person in the audience was laughing and some (including myself) were crying it was so funny. When the song ended he got a really loud round of applause and he thanked the croud. What an event.

Seth and Lora, congrats guys. I am so happy for the both of you. See you at the reunion.

I have an addiction. An addiction to RSS feeds. I admit it’s not one of the more destructive addictions one can have but it’s an addiction nonetheless. One of the positive side effects of this addiction is that I find out a lot of very interesting (to me at least) yet useless crap. Sometimes this can come in handy, the other 90% of the time … not so much.

One of my feeds happens to be a Google search for Nathan Anderson. In the last week the following 2 websites were found:

• Man admits to impromptu parakeet beheading; in which a man rips the head off of a parakeet during an argument with his girlfriend
• Nathan Anderson, 25, failure to appear for theft

Just for the record if you are an old friend looking to get back in touch and you happen upon either of those two articles, they aren’t me. I am a very peaceful software developer living in a small town. I have no ill will toward birds and I don’t steal. Just in case there was any doubt or anything.

“Ben, why do you look scared?  It’s just a butterfly.”

“Daddy, I’m scared because he’s going to drink my nectar.”

Since Amy had a conference in Austin for a few days, Ben and I decided to head to Ft. Worth for a few days to hang out with my parents.

We did a bunch of really cool kid stuff while there including a cattle drive and a train ride. I took a few pictures but my Dad took much better ones.

There’s a thick (.5″ in many places) blanket of ice covering everything in Boerne right now and the sleet has hardly stopped all day. The local news stations have of course all given this storm wonderfully descriptive names like “Winter Blast” and “Winter Wallop” (my personal favorite). We are supposed to get snow later this afternoon.

Stay warm.

Update: We never received more than about 10 minutes of snow but we did loose power yesterday for a little over 9 hours. We did have a full inch of ice everywhere. My new workshop was completely sealed shut as were the cars. Check out our pictures.

(Yes I’m a week late in posting this, been a litttle busy.)

It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone. Ben is about to turn 4 in a few months and is constantly amazing us. Amy’s business is growing so much we are converting the garage into her full time studio and office. I had a workshop built in the back yard. We took a few vacations to the coast, the Davis Mountains, Ft Worth
This year we have lots of big projects around the house. Painting the house, a deck, the garage studio, new phone system for Shutter-Happy etc. Per Paula’s suggestion I made a list the other day and was a little overwhelmed as it kept getting longer and longer and longer.
At work I moved to a different project with lots of new challenges and learning opportunities. On a sad note though a good friend is leaving our department. Heather, we’re going to miss you and Darrell (and the cookie crack) tons. Rackspace is growing by leaps and bounds though. I am in a very small minority that has been at the company over 5 years (I hit 6 back in December). Despite the growing pains this is still a kick a$$ place to work.

This year my cousin Seth is getting married, Amy has a couple of photography conferences scheduled and we are going to finally make it up to Chicago to visit Myk.
2007 should be a good year. Bring it on!

Today I worked from home so I could supervise the construction of my new workshop. A little bit of background first though. Amy’s business is growing like gangbusters but it’s getting a little old moving furniture out of the living room to turn it into her photography studio every time she needs to run an indoor photo shoot. Also our spare bedroom makes for quite a cramped office and storage is becoming an issue for all of the props she is acquiring. Earlier this year we started thinking about converting the garage into her studio and office. There are only 2 problems with that though, my workshop and storage. My workshop takes up about half of the garage with the workbench, radial arm saw, lumber and tools. I do a lot of woodworking and other projects so I desperately needed to keep that space. That reminds me, I need to finish the writeup of the playset I built for Ben. The other half of the garage is basically lawn and gardening equipment, all of our camping gear, bicycles, a little (currently) unused furniture and random storage.

I had originally wanted to build the workshop myself but came to the conclusion that it would take me about 3-4 months to do so. And that’s not necessarily factoring in the winter holidays, Amy’s work schedule or any spring vacations. So I contracted out the work. Three guys showed up at 9am and were gone by 4pm. Not too bad for a 20′x12′ workshop with lots of loft/storage space. Now I didn’t pay to have it completely finished. I’m going to deck in the storage loft, build a workbench and shelves, wire in AC for lights and power tools, finish the interior walls, paint the exterior and eventually build doors for the storage loft.

I’ll probably start building the workbench pretty soon that way I can at least move some of my tools out there. After I finish this project we’ll get started on the garage. First I’ll need to add a few AC circuits for the additional recepticles for her lighting equipment. Then I’ll build a wall to replace the garage door. That will give her a separate enterance for the business and a big bay window. Then it’s just painting and flooring.

It seems there is always another project or 10 when you are a home owner.

Seeing as how Amy had 3 photo shoots on Sunday, Ben and I decided to get out of the house and do a little hiking out at Lost Maples. We had planned on meeting some friends out there on Saturday but Amy wasn’t feeling too well and she wanted to rest up for her busy day on Sunday. Since she was going to be in and out all day working I decided to take advantage of the cool weather and get some exercise.

Ben and I left the house with Daisy around 9am with a packed lunch, water and plenty of snacks. We made it to the park, headed out on the West Trail (4.9 miles, our usual route) and made it up to the summit right around noon. We took our time with plenty of pit stops, “cave” exploring and lots of “boulder” excitement. Ben told precisely every hiker we passed to “watch out for boulders”. That got plenty of laughs and smiles along the way. All in all I think I carried Ben on my shoulders at most 1/3 of the total hike.

My little 3 year old is quite the trooper. I felt like an accomplished parent when he slept the entire way home.