Long weekend

Cathy and I had an action packed Memorial Day weekend. We had a marathon shopping spree at Lowe's. We watched the seven baby rabbits in our yard leave their nest for the first time. One let me hold it. Now there's no sign of them. Hopefully one or two of them wil return next year to nest. We listened to the last 50 laps or so of the Indy 500, cheering Danica Patrick on to her 4th place finish. We did a lot of yard work until I smashed my finger with a rubber mallet and cut it open on some fiberglass edging! We made our first ever trip to the Bloomington Hospital Promptcare, where I got a tetnus shot and some bandages. Hopefully the huge blood blister I have will subside before too long. And we nearly finished our master bathroom remodel. We just need to hang the medicine cabinets and clean! Work is actually a little relaxing compared to our weekend!

Back home again

Being as this weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and in central Indiana that means Indy 500 weekend, I thought I'd take a moment to clear up some confusion. I suspect that most Americans, and many Hossiers, believe that the Indiana State Song is "(Back Home Again in) Indiana." While this is a great song, it is not in fact the state song. I suspect the confusion lays in the fact that it is sung before the start of the Indy 500. For many years, on and off since 1972, Jim Nabors, aka Gomer Pyle USMC, has sung it. The actual state song is "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away," by Paul Dresser. So here, for your reading pleasure is the actual Indiana State Song:

Round my Indiana homestead wave the cornfields,
In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool,
Oftentimes my tho'ts revert to scenes of childhood,
Where I first received my lessons - nature's school.
Without her face it seems so incomplete,
I long to see my mother in the doorway,
As she stood there years ago, her boy to greet.

CHORUS
Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay,
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

Many years have passed since I strolled by the river,
Arm in arm, with sweetheart Mary by my side,
It was there I tried to tell her that I loved her,
It was there I begged of her to be my bride.
Long years have passed since I strolled thro' the churchyard.
She's sleeping there, my angel, Mary dear,
I loved her, but she thought I didn't mean it,
Still I'd give my future were she only here.

Lots of nesting going on

Well, on top of Cathy starting her nesting, there's lots of other nesting going on at our house. With Cathy, it involves paint and furniture and disinfectant. With the wild animals around our house it involves twigs, fur and mud. I've posted before about the robin nest on our porch and the rabbit nest in our yard. I finally got a chance to upload some pictures. We took the pictures of the birds before the "flew the coop." They're all grown up and flying away from the nest now. Hopefully one of them will come back next year. Go to dotphoto.com to see the rest of our pictures.

Place your bets!: 2:1 odds on girl

Wow. There's been a run on votes on our poll. We've had about 8 votes in the last week. Surely spurred on by the recent post of the ultrasound pictures. The poll went from nearly a dead heat at 8:7, girl over boy, to now at 2:1, girl over boy. Maybe some of you know something I don't know! We need to try out all the old superstitions and old wives tales. Then we'll really know! :)

Can you hear me now?

Well, Cathy and I finally broke down and got cell phones. We've been putting it off for a long time because we didn't want to be the type of people that are obnoxious with their phones; talking while driving, talking in movies, phones going on in church, reading the descriptions of movies off of boxes to people too lazy to get up off the sofa and go to the movie rental place. You know, those people. But with Cathy entering her third trimester, we thought now was the time.

We got matching free Motorola V180 flip phones. They're so damn cute and matching. Ain't that cute? We went with Cingular Wireless because of their roll-over minutes, family talk plan, 12% IU staff discount and exclusive Star Wars ring-tones! Well, not really the Star Wars ring-tone, but I might get a couple just because. They even have classic arcade games like Joust, Burgertime and Defender that you can download for your phone. How freaking cool is that? Plus now we can send a text message in to vote for American Idol! Go Bo!

If you want our numbers, send us e-mails.

Ultrasound #2

Ok, so it's not the best picture, but it's still darn cute. Cathy and I went for her second ultrasound on Friday. Everything looked good, no problems detected. The next time we see our baby will be on September 13th! That'll be a long three months away. The baby wouldn't cooperate and turn it's head for us to get a profile shot, so this is a head-on shot. We're still trying to determine which parts are which. And before you ask, the answer is "No". We did not find out the sex of the baby. It'll have it's whole life to live up to, or run away from, sexual stereotypes. There's no reason to get it started in utero. If you want to see the other shots from the ultrasound, check out our dotPhoto albums.

Multiplying like bunnies

Ok, so it's a jungle at our house. Not only do we have a nest full of baby robins on our porch, yesterday I almost ran over a rabbit nest in our yard! I was nestled between our foundation and our air conditioner in the tall grass that I've been meaning to weed-eat for 2-weeks. I don't know why everyone is giving birth at our house. If the cats weren't fixed, they'd be next, I'm sure!

Ultrasound #2 tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Google Maps

Google continues to offer more and more free services. Not only do they have the best web search around, but they also offer a great image search, the new Gmail system that's sweeping the country, news groups including the archive formerly maintained by Deja.com with posts going back to the infancy of the internet in 1995, a free picture management and editing software called Picasa and blogging through Blogger.com that hosts the page you're currently reading.

They recently added to this a map service, called creatively enough Google Maps to compete against MapQuest, Yahoo Maps and MSN Maps(Which bought out my formerly favorite map service, MapBlast.com. This new service has typical map site fare with look-ups and directions, but it adds to this satellite photos! The photos are pretty low resolution though. Below is a photo of Bloomington.

Friends on the web

If you haven't done any random web surfing in a while, be sure to do so today. Why? Why not!?

Lines of Nazca, Chad Wells' latest band, has a good website where you can find their new album free for the downloading.

At John Buchanan's Blog you can read all about his exploits in Osaka, Japan.

Star Wars week begins

Less than 3 days till the opening of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Yes, I'm a hopeless geek fan-boy. I've been reading Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil by James LucenoIf the last couple of weeks. It finishes moments before the start of Revenge of the Sith.

If you haven't rented it yet, check out Star Wars: Clone Wars Vol. I. It's an animated series created by Genndy Tartakovsky, who's also worked on Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, and The Powerpuff Girls. You can even watch the most recent episodes of Vol. II online at Cartoon Network. They take place during the years between Episodes II and III.

Cathy's going to be sick of hearing about Star Wars by the end of the week. She can only hear my Chewbacca impersonation so many times!

Free, to a good home

Mirror, mirror on the wall.......................
.............. and it could be on your wall! With the help of a co-worker, I removed the huge mirror from our master bath this weekend, then spent the rest of the weekend patching the drywall and re-routing the electrical cables for our new vanity lights. It's the last room in our house we have to decorate. But now we have a 4 foot by 9 foot mirror to try to get rid of! If you want it, please let me know. You'll have to arrange delivery on your own.

Know when to fold'em

The last spring card night has been canceled. Dwindling interest and the great spring weather made for the inevitable end. Thanks to everyone who came out over the year. I hope you had as much fun as I did. See you in the fall for Monday Night Football and some more poker.

Toys for a future city planner

I saw these at Kid's Corner Toy Store in The Fashion Mall at Keystone over the weekend. They're called Plan Toys/Plan City and are made by Brio. It looked like they are compatible with the other Brio lines, as well as the Thomas the Tank Engine line of toys. These would be great to inspire young future city planners! Not that I'm going to dictate my child's career path, I'm just saying they're cool.

Happy mother's day!

Cathy and I had a great surprise when we got home from our mother's day weekend trip to Fishers and Lebanon. We noticed a couple of weeks ago that a robin had made her nest on our front porch. Sometime over the weekend three of the four eggs hatched! The symbolism is definately not lost. We'll be watching closely over the next few weeks to see the baby robins gain weight and learn to fly. But right now, they're pretty darn ugly. A face only a mother could love.

Click here from more information about the Journey North American Robin

Our moment of zen

Cathy and I had the privilege of seeing Jon Stewart live at the Murat Theater in Indianapolis on Saturday. Jon, the star of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" brought his irreverent blend of comedy and political humor to the live stage. He did about half the show as a running comedic commentary on current events and about half as a stand up act. I'd highly recommend seeing him live if you ever get a chance.

Brad Creger, 1977-2005

One of Cathy's former co-workers died on Tuesday. Brad Creger died after a short, tragic battle with leukemia. Cathy worked with him in the IU Office of Summer Sessions and Special Programs. In lieu of flowers, Brad's family asks that memorial donations be made to the "Brad Creger Memorial Children's Endowment Fund," c/o South Madison Community Foundation, 102 West State Street, Pendleton, IN 46064. Donations to the fund will be used to assist leukemia patients at Riley Children's Hospital.

What's going on down there?

Cathy felt our baby move for the first time this week! It's still not enough for me to feel it, but soon.

Treasure in the trash

Cathy and I threw our first ever garage sale this weekend. All of the junk we'd accumulated over the years since college and our marriage finally found new homes. We raked in about $110! Dair Brown and Jon Macy took part with us and pull in almost twice what we did! It was a cold, windy day in Bloomington, but there were people out all over our block. The whole neighborhood took part. We got a chance to meet some of our neighbors for the first time and they got to snoop around our garage.