April fools! Ha Ha!
You are all a bunch of suckers. I got you guys so bad in my previous post. HA HA HA HA HA!!!! I don’t blame you though. It was beautifully written with a nice mix of detail and emotional realism.
OK, so I really only got mom and Sara a little bit, but they were really my only true and intended audience.
And we just watched a really good movie, The Pursuit of Happyness:
Aubrey and I both really liked it. Will Smith’s son, Jaden Smith, played the boy and did a great job.
I might as well break the news here, rather than call everyone. We’re moving to Germany for a year! IBM Software Group has a lab in a city called Boeblingen in Southern Germany, and my group has a new project that is starting up with a large team over there. They need an information architect (IA), which is what I am, and they need full training on our technology (we use something called DITA). It will be like what I did in China a couple years ago, but obviously more involved.
The assignment is for one year with a possible extension, and the great thing is that all our housing expenses will be subsidized. And I get a little bump in pay to boot. After it is over, we’ll probably come back to NC. The boys are already practicing a few words in German (our neighbors at the bottom of the culdesac are from Germany and have been excited to tell us all about it). Aubrey is excited for the adventure, but a little nervous too. What a trooper.
This opportunity was just too good to pass up, and I would have been a fool not to take it. I’m going over there at the end of April to get things started, then I’ll bring the family over in May. We figure that we were already so far from everybody, that you guys will do just fine with us being even further away. We’ll just have to adjust to the time zone change. I think they are on GMT over there.We’ll keep you posted on things as they go along.
In other news, we did a little bit of landscaping that we think will be a nice feature to the front of our home. We added the Japanese Maple (Shaina) and four spirea gold mound shrubs in front of it.
Collin gets to check out a book each Tuesday with his kindergarten class when they go to the library, or media center.
This week he brought home a really cool book about the history of locomotive trains. Hundreds of pictures of trains. Did I mention it had pictures of trains?
Needless to say, Owen was also fascinated with this book. Additionally, Wesley was extremely interested in this book. Wesley is also very bossy with his property, and Owen is also very passionate about possessions. Obviously, this book led to many tears and fighting and moderating/forced sharing done by the parents.
In the truck this morning driving to school, I told Collin how cool of a book he picked out this week. I told him it was such a cool book that even Owen and Wesley loved it so much.
—————————————
“Collin, that train book you picked out is so awesome,” I said for the second time.
Stop saying that,” Collin said, lowering his head. “That book was a bad idea. All it does is make Wesley cry and Owen mad.”
I looked at him in amazement as he continued.
“I think I’ll just keep it in my backpack so no one fights over it any more,” he said.
—————————————
The funny thing is, you might think he was being selfish, but he was not. He fiercely protects the feelings of his younger brothers. He is a good son and an even better brother!
Here is a video from our first live show:
These guys are the original Soul Men though:
I’m sort of reliving a bit of my past lately. Some guys at church put together a band, and they pulled me in to sing and play harmonica. Our bassist is in his 60s and he’s in the temple presidency, but he’s dang good. Our two guitar players are also both good, and we’ve got a teenager joining us on saxophone for some of the songs. I have to admit we sound pretty good. We’re all kind of old (I’m on the young end), but not quite like these guys:
We’re covering a bunch of classic songs, stuff that people will like: Jonny Be Good, Sweet Home Alabama, Soul Man, What I Like About You, Wonderful Tonight, Running on Faith, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, If, Twist and Shout, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, etc. We’re making our debut at a ward dance next weekend. It should be pretty hot. Then there’s another guy who showed up at our last practice and started jamming with us. Turns out he played lead guitar professionally for years at bars and stuff in the 70s. The dude could play. We sound pretty good on the fast and loud songs, and we gel’d nicely on the slow bluesy Clapton stuff. Fun to play harmonica on that kind of stuff.
If we record our performance, I’ll post a video. That will prove if we’re good or not.
Do you ever find those things that just make you feel content? Maybe the perfect pair of socks (I haven’t found those yet), your favorite pair of shoes, the perfect potato peeler, or the most awesome TV show ever (The Office)?
I obviously really love finding those things. Here’s one of them — my Casio G-Shock 1545.
Casio G-Shock 1545
I’ve worn it just about every day since some time last year, and I rarely want to put on any of my other watches. It fits just right, is sturdy, looks great and was only $34 on sale. The buttons could be easier to push, and there are maybe one or two features I would want added or changed, but I figure I’ll wear this watch for long time.
Books on CD
Man, discovering books on CD has changed the way I drive and the way I look forward to my commute. It’s hit and miss with the quality of the narrator, but generally they are good. The commitment is minimal (just time in my car). Here are some that I’ve listened to recently:
I feel like I’m forgetting some from that list. Oh well. Our library seems to get more and more of these all the time, and I just grab a few that look interesting, so my listening is pretty random.
I really like what was written on today’s PeakCityWeb.com blog, by the great Seth Packham.
So, I want to try this whole “trackback” technology. By linking to my other blog, it should show up on that post as a comment, linking back to this blog post.
When you write a post, enter the blog post URL in the trackback section, or just link to it in your post, and it will “ping” the other blog with your link as a comment. Very cool.
Every once in a while I see a film that almost takes my breath away. That happened tonight with our family movie night.
We’ve sort of made a tradition lately of having Friday Night Movie Night. We get the kids a movie from Netflix, lay out blankets on the floor, pop some popcorn in the microwave, put the kids in their pajamas, and hit play.
This film was probably the first one that captivated both Collin and Owen from beginning to end. I won’t give a synopsis. You can read it here, if you want. What was coolest was how different it was from the standard cartoon that we get in the States, where crazy characters, frantic action, and an overload of the senses are par for course. Spirited Away had a great and unique story, atmospheric music, plenty of great lessons about character traits, and some subtle humor.
Anyway, check it out.
They say his Mormon religion could be used against him, but that argument would look ridiculous and hypocritical to everyone but the most evangelical Christian.
Still, I think I’d vote for him, and it would be a pretty cool thing to see a guy with good Mormon values in the White House.
He doesn’t have the name recognition of a John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, but maybe with some good debates and face time, he’ll get more noticed.
Hey guys,
I’m glad to see that some of you are starting to blog. This will be a fun experiment — giving us each our own space (Virginia Woolf would be proud).
I just fixed the “image uploads” function, so when you are posting you can upload a file or an image and easily include it in your post, either full size or thumbnail, like this:
Of course, you can still pull in images directly from the Web, too. You just point to the image location rather than uploading the image to your blog, like this:
