that time of year (again)

Well it is finally here, that time of year that people like me dread. I spend all year, just wishing I could find a way out of it. Trying to figure out a way around it, or just a way to hide for the next few weeks. That is right, you guessed it.....

END OF THE YEAR PROJECT CRAM AT WORK!!!!!

Yep, nothing like waiting till the end of the year to try and complete every project that people come to me with so that they can report that "they got their projects done". haha... But, what else would I have to do these next couple of weeks. haha...

But Christmas time is coming up, and we are looking forward to that. We will be spending Christmas Eve with Randi's folks, then Christmas day with my family, followed by the day after Christmas with Randi's family in Stillwater. So it is cool, we have us a room at the Hamton Inn in Stillwater, so we will be livin' large! haha...

Also, I am still awaiting my final grades for this semester. From what I have figured on my own, it is looking like I ended up with a B in my Business Law class and an A in my Business Communications course. So it will run my perfect 4.0 I have had since I started back to school, but hey, as hard as that stinking Business Law class was, I will take the B! haha....

ada parade of lights

Kaitlyn got to be in a parade! That is right. She was asked by her cousin who happens to be the Stratford Peach Princess, to sit with her on the float during Ada's annual Parade of Lights Christmas parade. She absolutely loved it. She just had the biggest grin I have ever seen on her face, even though it was somewhere around 25 degrees and FREEZING cold!!

And mom, me and Dylan stood out there and froze, just to see Kaitlyn's big moment.

Here are a couple pics that we were able to grab even though there was very little lighting.

another one bites the dust

That is right! Another semester bites the dust for me. Thank god!

I would have to say that this was by far the hardest semester I have had. It was only my usual 6 hours, but the classes I had were way hard, and probably wouldn't normally be recommended with each other.

But with the first day of finals, I have managed to put Business Law, and Business Communication & Report Writing, to bed, and try to look forward to Choices in Wellness and Biology.

Who knows, that may be pretty rough, but hopefully not nearly as bad!

happy birthday randi!

Happy Birthday honey!!

Today is my lovely bride's birthday. She turns another year younger today.

So from me and the kids, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

dylan's birthday party pics

I was finally able to get the photos uploaded from Dylan's birthday party.  I was hoping to have more, but my camera isn't acting right.

We have actually ordered a new camera, so we are just waiting to get it. Once we get it, the number of photo updates should go up.  I guess I just wore my old Canon camera out.  I was a really good camera, but now the image gets distorted just out of nowhere and it also leaves blue lines across the photos.  You can probably see that in some of the images in the gallery.  Anyway, check out our photo gallery and see the pics.

happy birthday dylan!

Happy birthday big guy!

That is right, Randi and I now have a 2 year old in the house again. Fun times, they are a comin'!

The birthday boy, his sis and me and mom are watching ratatouille and letting breakfast settle.  And I can't believe it, but he is actually being quite! haha...

I have a feeling it is a matter of time before the terrible twos kick in though, and then it will be on like Donkey Kong.

But in the mean time, here is wishing a great 2nd Dylan!

happy thanksgiving day from the moffats

It is nearly 1:00 in the a.m., so I thought to myself... I should just go ahead and say...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!

I know I am thankful for my wife and I are thankful for both our families and the help and support they always lend.

We are thankful for our kids being healthy and happy and growing big.

So enjoy today and eat lots of food while thinking of what you have to be thankful for.

Oh.. I almost forgot.  I kicked off Jmo's Spot tonight as well with a couple posts, so be sure to add it to your RSS reader or bookmark list. It is just a place for me to talk about stuff I like, such as tech stuff, politics, and music. Give it a look-see...  http://www.jonandrandi.com/jmo.

the new 'jmo's spot' site

Man, give me a few extra minutes, a mild head cold and a laptop, and I present to you the all new Jmo's Spot site.

My all new site (http://www.jonandrandi.com/jmo) is where I will be putting all my technical mumbo jumbo. The categories that I foresee are Mac Dashboard Widgets, Mac Freeware and Software, Windows software and hardware, web design, and of course, politics.

It is just my little corner of the web for my "two cents." And since I am in the web design world, that basically includes anything in front of a computer.

So stop by and give it a try.  It doesn't have all that much right now, but I am still working out the bugs and getting all the features setup that I want.

That is it for now. Enjoy!

just another late night

Man, I wouldn't know what to do if I could actually go to bed before midnight! haha...

Just finished working on another section to my big Business Communications consumer report I am working on. I still have a few days, but it is very stressful. It wouldn't be that bad, if I had a job that I could do homework while working. But we are also approaching a launch on another site either the end of this week or the first of next week. So I have my team at work in crunch mode to get it all finished up. Too bad that I can't also get a team to bust out this paper! haha...

But last Saturday I got to get my mind off of it all for a bit.  Randi and Kaitlyn went to a craft show in Ardmore with Randi's mom, so that left the little guy and me for the day. Well, don't leave me alone with car keys and the car seat for Dylan, because you know it is eating out time! lol...



Dylan and I made our way to Applebee's for a father/son outing. It was pretty fun. I think our waitress was hitting on me, and Dylan was hitting on the little baby in the high chair in the both next to us. He kept leaning back in his high chair and would speak very dragged out... "bbbbbaaaaabbbbbbyyyyyyy, hey bbbbbaaaaabbbbbbyyyyyy". It was actually hilarious!

But tonight Kaitlyn popped up a little fever around 7:30, so we had to dose her up with some medicine and I have been checking her about every hour since, and and her fever is staying gone so far (knock on wood). However, I am going to check it one more time, and then it is off to la-la land for me. Later!

procrastanation ninja

I believe that is what I want to have placed across my tombstone.  "Here lies Jonathan Moffat, procrastanation ninja".  Has a nice ring to it.

Nearly 4.5 years after starting at my current job, I finally decided to start my 401K.  Took long enough, don't you think! haha...

I have managed to put off a umpteen-hundered page paper for my Business Comm class that is due before Thanksgiving.

Then I have all the projects at work, but that isn't necessarily my waiting mess.  It is my group that gets them late and then fights tooth and nail to get it turned in on time.

So like I told Randi tonight, I don't know which to be more stressed about....  the huge paper and finals with school, or the 3 projects that are all due in about a week.  If I don't pick just one, then I may not make it through the next 2 months!! haha...

crazy kidos

The kids were going crazy tonight! So of course I had to try to get some video of it.  Unfortunately, YouTube stretches it and it kind of get pretty rough looking.  But we are looking at maybe getting one of those new little hand-held digital video recorders that we can use to catch funny moments like this.

Kids gone wild

Kids gone wild II

monday is calling

Just doing my usual Sunday night (Monday morning) task.  Sitting here worrying about what all I have to do this next week, and how I am going to do it all.  It is funny.  I heard on the Today Show a couple weeks ago that most heart attacks happen on Mondays.  I can completely understand that! Especially after the poor showing that OSU gave at Texas Tech Saturday.  If I weren't already drinking, that would have driven me to it, and real quick!

I do hope that everyone likes the new look. I found a few templates that I like, so I thought I would run them through in rotation.

I took some photos of the kids on their way to their mamma's house Saturday for a visit.  Kaitlyn was sporting her new OSU gear.

[caption id="attachment_780" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Hold it now, very still, no smiling!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_781" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="They just couldn't hold the pose. But their smiles sure are adorable!"][/caption]

spring 09 schedule

Well, did my early enrolling for next spring. It will be a most fun semester, that is for sure!

I will be taking a 2 hour course named Choices in Wellness, that is my official "blow-off" course for the semester.

But accompanying that course is the one I have dreaded even more than statistics.  I am enrolled in a lovely 4 hour course called General Biology!  YEA!!  So it is a good deal I am taking that with a blow off course.  That is going to be tough semester for me!

happy birthday big brother!!

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Phillip,

Happy birthday to you!

Hope you have a great birthday man!  Best wishes from the nuthouse man!

poor man's geocoding

Have you ever tried to pinpoint a location on a Google map, only to find out that it won't find it?  Well, when you have no choice but to try to find a way to MAKE Google find it, you get to use the poor man's geocoding method.

Step 1: Find the latitude and longitude of a point closest to what you are trying to pinpoint.

Step 2: Get a yellow sticky note and pen to write them down (trust me, way too many number!)

Step 3: Plug the latitude and longitude into Google maps search field.

Step 4: start adjusting each the latitude and longitude by just a few numbers at a time.

Step 5: Go take some Aleve, because your head will be pounding!!

That is it.  So to give you an example, see my pinpoint method used to find a Chickasaw Nation Wellness Center in Kingston, OK.

what a night

Well, it all started out good.  McCain stepping out first and taking a small lead.  But unfortunatly, it didn't last all that long.  I would have to say that of all my personal "watch parties" since I started voting, this one was the saddest.  I really feel for the country, and the giant mistake that was made today.  True, it made history, but my question is, at what cost?

It really depresses me, and makes me embarrased, that a past soldier for this great country, a man that has laid his life on the line, more than most, was told by the citizens of this country that it didn't matter.  That his great service for our country and the blood he spilt was good enough for then, but that he wasn't fit to  run this country now.

I just have this terrible gut feeling that we are in for four of the worst years we have ever seen.  Anyway, got a 7 & 7 staring at me, so I gotta go.

God bless America and God bless John McCain!  The hero that should be leading us into the next eight years!

vote!!

Well, me and the Mrs. did our part as Americans this morning.  We got out and made our vote count.  So if you haven't yet, get out there and do it!

I will save my soap box on my political opinions for another post. haha...

for the project manager in all of us

For those of us out there that have to manage some type of tasks.  Whether it be as an actual project manager (kind of like what I do, on top of everything else) or if it is just in managing your day, sometimes a task management software can really help.

Well, I think I have found it.  The best, open source (FREE) project management software there is. And being basically a java program, is cross-platform compatible, so it will run on Linxu, MacOS or Windows (which is what I concider to be the coolest thing after oreos and milk!)

The software I am speaking about is called GanttProject (http://ganttproject.biz).  It is what I would call a laiman's Microsoft Project, but without the rediculously high price!  And as I have alread said, you can have it installed on numerous operating systems, and with a simple save or export, can move your project and task listing from one system to another.

The program is really rather easy to figure out, which is also a very big plus in my book. I don't have time to sit around and read a user manual just to be able to track a few tasks for an upcoming project. I needed something that I could sit down at, and in about 30 minutes to an hour, have my 20+ concurrent projects organized in a logical order with start and end dates.  And it did just that.

It does provide some nice additional features.  As the name implies, it does provide you a GANTT chart which gives you a nice view of your deadlines and how they stack up. It also provides a few nice export options for PDF, HTML or XML.  So you can get the data you need to do what you need with it.

It also gives you a simple way to manage your resources (employees) and gives you information such as how over or under assigned they are.  Which in my case, that is always over.. haha...

Anyway, enough of that, but if you ever get to looking for a task management software, I would strongly suggest giving this one a try!

Here is a little shot of a temp deal I fixed up.  As you can see, you can rollup several tasks under one, creating a "rollup" for that project.  Then you can "rollup" multiple projects even, under one.  So on mine, I have a rollup for in production, upcoming, waiting, and completed. And then under each rollup, I have a rollup task for each project, that has the actual tasks in it.  It all makes more sense when you can get on it and play.

[caption id="attachment_748" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="App screenshot"][/caption]

trick-or-treating 2008

Well, we didn't hit a huge number of houses, but the kids, I mean superheros, did have a fun time.  We visited a couple of Randi's friends from her office.  We tried to visit a friend of mine, but they didn't have their light on, so we kept on driving.  Then we hit a few of the houses down around our house (mainly to introduce ourselves to the neighbors. haha..)

But it didn't matter.  The superheros (kids) were getting tired after just a few houses.  Not to mention a little on the hungry side. So we grabbed up some superhero pizza and headed to the house.

And without further ado, here is yellow Power Ranger Jungle Fury girl and Super Man!

[caption id="attachment_738" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Yellow Power Ranger girl and Super Man"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_739" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Ready for action!"][/caption]

big 4 year old

Well, Kaitlyn Brooke had a blast celebrating her 4th birthday.  She hoped to see some folks that weren't able to make it, but we are all too familiar with having other things come up.  I have that happen way too much.

But she had a good party, and had fun opening her presents and playing with the other kiddos.

[caption id="attachment_742" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="The party setup."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_743" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Birthday girl getting ready for some candles."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_744" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="Mommas, hide your little boys!"][/caption]

quick update

Well, we are still alive down here. Quite a weekend was had last weekend, so I am just glad this week is about over. I have been trying to get ahead on my homework so I could have a free weekend, but that doesn't look like it is going to happen any time soon. This business law class is just insane. Interesting, but nearly impossible to remember! I made a 67% on my quiz in there, and that is just unacceptable.

We are also still without connection, tying into my previous post. They said they would have us up and running in no time, and then it is like they fall off the earth or something. If they didn't crap on your by making you sign a 3 year contract to even get them to look at your house, I would have dropped these folks and kept looking. So far I am really unimpressed with everyone I have talked to.

The kids are doing good. Kaitlyn got "poked" in the eye, so day care says. But it kind of swelled up and might be black or blue in the morning. Dylan just laughed, I am sure. haha.. Dylan just spends his days harassing sister and copying her when she cries. It is actually rather amusing!

Randi is just working away like me. She has done an awesome job on getting our financial life in order and laid out nicely. She is hella awesome with numbers! Good thing I married her because I think I have lost everything I knew about that! haha..

Well, it s about 12:30 in the AM, so I guess I better get. I still need to review 26 study questions for business law since I have to take another quiz in there tomorrow. Talk to you all soon.

But first, here are some recent photos of the kidos.

Kaitlyn and I at her pool party last weekend.  She had a ball.  It was in Pauls Valley at a community center they rent out there.  Pretty nice facility.  They say you have to rent it almost 4-5 months in advance to get in!

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Me and the kids tearing up moms car while waiting on her at the mall a couple weekends ago.  Dylan just loves lights though! haha...

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Kaitlyn showing me her smiley face(s)...  She is just the little comedian!

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we just might have connection!

I just recieved a call from my kind of last ditch effort company to get a broadband connection from.  It is a wireless provider, but none of the cabled providers are even thinking of running anything out in our area for a long time.

They tell me that from our house we can hit one of their towers that is close to Ada, but not in Ada, I believe it is in Fitzhugh.  Supposedly they will have to run the receiver up 15', so with our roof being like it is, I am hoping that it won't require much additional height.  But they are supposed to bring their testing tool, named Fred, out Thursday morning to do a final test to ensure signal strength.  They said that if that goes good, they should be able to do our install either Thursday afternoon or Friday.  And then NO MORE DIALUP!! Yea!

firefox vids

A friend of mine at work turned me onto this page that has funny clips for the Firefox browser.  There are some really, really funny ones on there, so you will have to take a break and check them out.  The two that he sent me were really good, so I thought I should probably just put them out for all my readers.  Enjoy!

The Firefox videos link is: http://www.firefoxflicks.com.  Go there and click on the View Flicks link at the top of the page.

This one is for those of you that know the inside scoop on what IT professionals are really like.


This one is, well, I can't really explain it, other than to say this is by far my most favorite video I have seen. I guess it is the kid in me. haha....

the best station ever

We used to have Dish Network years ago, when we lived out in Byng.  All they had then, music-wise, was their CD music channel.

Now, several years later, we are back on Dish Network, and I would just like to say that there is nothing better than the Serius channels!!  My favorite, that I can't seem to switch off of, is their Big 80's channel!  It is like the movie The Wedding Singer but on crack!

I mean, you get all the cheesy pop tunes, but then you get Ah-Ha, ACDC, Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, Cinderella, Duran Duran, and the list goes on!  It is the best man!

here is a good one

Have you ever had something that happened in your life where you really just had to stop and think about it?  Well, this is one for us down here in Latta.

The kids attend the Latta day care center just down the street from us.  Well, all the day care centers in Ada have been jacking their costs up over the past few months. But for some reason, Latta never did.  So we just kind of thought we were lucky.  That is, until Randi picked up the kids the other night and was handed a parent letter the day care fixed up.  Here is one for the record books of "dumb way to do things".

Here is just a snippet for you:

"At this time, we have decided NOT to increase our daily rate for care.  We understand that each of your budgets are stretched just as tightly as ours, and fortunately, we have been able to participate in various grants as well as renew our existing contracts, resulting in tuition staying the same at this time."

"We will be making one adjustment for private pay parents, as well as parents receiving Tribal assistance.  Effective immediatly, we WILL charge for holidays and days that the center is closed.  Normally, this will results in 10-12 days per year, depending on the winter weather.  We are adding Good Friday as a holiday as well."

So, if you have to pay out of your own pocket, well, you are going to give us more money.  That is "make Jonathan mad" #1.  But then to tell me that we are going to pay for a service that isn't even being rendered?!?!  Um yea, bring me your care to fix...  I will charge you $200 and you can pick it up as-is tomorrow.  This is just the dumbest thing I have read in a long time!

Now how should this have been worded kids?  Well, how about, take the "10-12" days pay they would receive from us, break it down over a year, and raise my day care rate $2-$3 per week.  Everybody else in Ada has jacked theirs up like $25 or more.  If you tell me you are raising my rates from $100 to $105 a week, I would be cool with that.  Tell me I am going to pay for you to go to the lake and get drunk, well, that's just stupid.

I guess this is what my old boss used to mean when she kept telling me to re-read any report I write up and try to read it from an outsider's perspective!!

dylan's new career

That is right.  Apparently Dylan has decided that clown school is his true calling.  Just look at that face painting job!  That's my boy!

we are still alive

Yes, it is true.  We are still alive here in Ada.  We survived the move, well, actually we are still in the middle of the move sort of.  We have everything moved and the house setup and living there, but the garage is still pretty full! haha..  So we are kind of working through that mess as we can.

But we love the new house, and so do the kids.  We finally got some rain yesterday which the lawn was glad to see.  There were huge dead looking spots in the back yard, and the front was a nice shade of yellow. haha...  But with the nice thunderstorms we got, things are greening up.  May even get to the mow the lawn this week.

We are also back online, as you can see by this message. lol..   But on dial up.  Not my favorite thing in the world, but hey, a connection is a connection.  We are kind of looking at some type of the satellite internet options, but they are kind of high and come with a  pretty pricey setup fee.  But we will just see.

The best part though, is that I didn't think it would be possible, but I have managed to share out my big ol' dial up account via my wireless router! haha... So I can sit in my living room with my Mac and use the dial up even though I don't have a modem in my Mac.  So that is at least something!

pre-move fun

We borrowed a truck from Randi's uncle, so after the closing today I ran home and loaded up a few things to actually place some stuff in the house.  So then of course, I have to take pictures! haha..

The first load!!  Not a lot, but I was in a hurry.  Last photo will explain it better.

Just a living room shot (I was bored and waiting on Randi).

Shot of the kitchen with stuff in it!  Yea!

This is it!  Our first purchase(s) to enjoy the new house!  Of course you notice the three bar stools.  It took a lot of sit-testing to find just the right ones.  But if you look closer, you will see even a Taco Mayo bag!  New chairs and dinner on the first night of ownership!  WOO HOO!

we did it!!

Randi and myself our now among the world of home owners! Scary thought, huh? haha...   We are very excited.  As if you couldn't tell.  Here it is at 1:56 am and I am sitting here after finally tearing down the entertainment system and computer.  We can't wait to get moved in!

But with the good comes the bad sometimes.  Yep, so far - no highspeed internet has been found.  We have tried about every route we can find to get something besides dialup and so far haven't been lucky enough to.  We were probably about 30-50 feet shy of getting one wireless highspeed company that has antennas at the cement plant, which is close.  We have an order in to Dish to get Dish, home phone, and DSL.  However, I have a friend that lives closer to Ada than we do and he isn't able to get it, so I am pretty sure that we will be told the same.  But there are still a couple options open, so we are looking.

Long story short...  I need highspeed connection for both work and also for my online classes.  Not too big on having to go back to dialup.  So we may just not have internet at the house for a bit.  So that means the posts may even be less than usual... lol...

So with that in mind, I have a couple other posts that I am going to cram in here tonight, and then I better get to bed.  Jake is going to come help me get some stuff moved tomorrow.  So it will be a busy day!

by the way, the garage sale is over...

Yea, kind of got list for a bit there, huh? haha..  The garage sale went pretty good.  We made a lot more than I thought we would have for our old junk.  The bad part is there was a few things that are really worth the money, but people didn't buy those.  So I think we are going to move some of that to the new house, wait a bit, and then have another garage sale.  That way we will be closer to Ada too!  Might get more traffic.

day 1 of the sale

Well, we did pretty good today.  We managed to get rid of our dining room table and chairs, the old green recliner, my old book shelf (from around 1992 or so), my old Sega Dreamcast with the games and accessories, and then a few of the baby clothes.  We were hoping to see more of the clothes gone, but that is ok.

We also didn't have a hit on our pull behind yeard spreader that hooks up to a riding lawn mower.  I kind of thought we might.  But we did have the head coach of the Roff baseball team stop by and look at it, but said it was too high.  But I figure with it being brand new, never used,  and kept inside since we had it, I just have a hard time coming down much on it.

But we did have a few people that said they would try to be back tomorrow to look at clothes.  We did have a couple ladies stop by that said they had friends that were pregnent but none knew yet what they were having.

Anyway, 7am tomorrow is the beginning of day 2.  So we will just have to see what that brings I guess.

the big sale

Well Randi and her mom spent about 1/2 the day today getting everything out of our house and into the garage for the big garage sale that we are kicking off Friday morning at 7am.

I would have never dreamed we had the amount of stuff that is in the garage!  Our garage is almost packed just with junk that was (somehow) stored inside our house. haha..  And we still have a book shelf and kitchen shelf, recliner and kitchen table and chairs to put out there!  I don't think we will have a problem getting rid of stuff though.  Our landlord's daughter and her husband live across the street from us.  They just had a new baby several months ago.  So when Randi and her mom where out at the end of the drive today she came and Randi invited her over to go through the baby stuff if she wanted any, and she bought quite a bit!

Anyway, here are some photos of the old garage.  But now some things in there aren't going to be for sale, like my trusty Cub Cadet mower, but I just couldn't leave it out over night, so we had to pull somethings in for the night.

    

Also, we had made signs about "Free cat to a good home" to try and give our little guy, Lucky, away in hopes that moving to a new home with new carpet and no pets having ever been it, might help Dylan's breathing.  Well Randi barely got a sign hung up down at the gas station on the corner and a lady behind her read it and insisted on seeing the cat.  So her and her little boy followed Randi to the house, took 1 look at him and she said she had to have him.  She had a cat for many years and then one day it up and disappeared and she has never seen him since.  She was really nice and we visited for quite some time with her and got the feeling that she would really take care of him.  So we loaded him up, let the kids say goodbye and off he went.

So all that took place on Wednesday night. Well, shortly after the lady left with Lucky, my little Kaitlyn looked at me and said "Daddy, I want a puppy for Christmas."!!  She is just too cute!

house update

Well, we are still waiting to hear final word on exactly when we are closing.  All the stuff in the contract say that we are close on or before the 21st, but I guess there was some delay in getting the warranty needed for the FHA portion of the loan, so now it looks like we may be cutting it very, very, very close.

But we are still looking good they tell us.  We had to go in this afternoon and sign a couple more documents.  I will need to do some wrist exersices before we close though, from what I hear.  A lot of signing your name over and over again! haha...  But we can't wait!

we are good to go!

We just received word from our Realtor this morning that according to the FHA underwriters and the bank, "we are good to go"!  So the sellers Realtor is going to start the title process and work with the sellers to get the 1 and 10 year warranties setup and everything.  So we are one step closer!

the kids fun last weekend

Last weekend when I was studying and taking my test, Randi took the kids over to her folks for the day and they went into the Chickasaw Park in Sulphur to do some swimming.

Randi sent me this photo which I think Vicki took of them. As you can see, you get the kids near water and they have a ball. I think this was taken though before Dylan fell and scrapped up his knee. But he still had fun!

we all need a good radar

In today's weather with uncertain patterns, such as today, there is nothing better than a good weather radar at your fingertips.  Man, I think I found about the best out there.  If you haven't checked it out, you need to.

First, I will just say that Channel 9's new site (www.news9.com) is just awesome!  It is about the best new station site I have seen.  But they also have the best online radar I have seen in a long time!  It is their Interactive ESP Radar.   You can see the whole state or just regions of the state.  But it gives the best, up to the minute, refresh I have ever seen!  No more of that "updated every 15 minutes stuff".

So if you are like me and don't want to have to watch the news stations constantly, or don't have a TV at your office or something, just use their site.

and the vacation begins

Well, let me just use the phrase "time off from work". haha...   We don't actually go anywhere, and Randi wasn't able to take time either, so it is just me, at home with my summer school homework and a gamecube. lol...

But, today was a very good day.  I played some gamecube for a bit then headed outside to mow the lawn and weed eat and all that good stuff.  Finished that up late afternoon and then headed back in the house to the gamecube for a bit then off around 4:30 to pick up the kids.  That is about as relaxing as it gets for me.

I still have a few honey-do's that I need to complete this week and then of course the three chapters worth of homework questions and discussion questions for the chapters we are covering just this week!

But it appears that my staying home Saturday to study extra hard on the first exam paid off.  I just checked, and the grade the online book shows is a 39 points out of a possible 39.  So I will take that, no hard feelings or anything.

Anyway, just thought I would drop a line.  Will chat more soon.  Later.

welcome chloe

Our good friends, Harley and Nicole, had their new baby girl this morning in Norman.  Chloe Isolde was born this morning around 6:30 to 7:00am.  She is 18.5" long and 7 lb, 10 oz.

Way to go Harley and Nicole!!

weekend update... with jonathan

Hello folks. We hope everyone is doing good. Just had a few minutes sitting still so I thought I better get an update out there. Don't have any new photos though, kind of a busy week.

Summer school started this past week. Oh what a joy that is! haha... We are covering 19 chapters in 8 weeks! So we school started last Tuesday and last Thursday we had assignments due from two chapters! Then next week we have the remainder of chapter two and all of Chapter 3 due by Thursday with a test over chapters 1 - 3 that opens Tuesday and closes Friday. Needless to say, this pace is most definitely something that I CANNOT keep up for very long, so thank god it is only 8 weeks and that I only took one class! haha...

quick kid update

Randi just took Dylan to the doctors this morning for his 18 month check up. I know, 18 months!! Man time flies!

Well he is still doing good and growing. He said his chest was still a bit tight, but that his breathing sounded ok. So the breathing treatments we are doing is still helping, which is good to know. But he had nothing else wrong.

He weighed 25 lbs and is now 32" tall. I think most of the 25 lbs is in his belly though! haha....

it be done... finally!

We did it, we did it! Just a short 1 1/2 years in the making, but we finally launched our newest redesign of our web site at work. It took a while, and one redesign was shot down just days before launch and we had to start all over again.

So it was a lot of work and we all had a lot of time vested in it, but it was all worth it for today's launch. This was the smoothest since I have been there. When it came down to launch time, all we had to do was edit one file and bingo! it was there. As with anything, we did have a few bugs that we had to work out, but very few compared to what we could have had.

We had a lot of new features built in that are a good start to more advanced stuff later. I did some interviews for our programmer position today and even had one cadidate that has not only Flash experience, but Flash Streaming Server setup and design experience! So we are excited about that as we are trying to utilize more and more video.

Anyway, if you want to check out where all my gray hair came from lately, just take a look at www.chickasaw.net.

And here is a little "before and after" of our site.

Before


After

spike moffat

That is right, that is the new name of our youngest! haha... Dylan got a hair cut last night at Vicki's house. Vicki styled it for him before she brought the kids home tonight. I told him that I am jealous of his hair though, it looks really good! See what you think. And notice the mouth FULL of graham cracker he has going on. I don't think he could fit another crumb in there!



Also, I have heard from several saying that the videos in the Memorial Day gallery aren't working. They do, but not with Windows Media Player. I am going to try and get those converted to another format over the weekend and I will replace them. Just wanted to let everyone know.

memorial day weekend fun

We took the kids over to Randi's folks on Sunday for a little fun and relaxation, and to celebrate Ryan's birthday. Vicki made some homemade ice cream and we had some cake and just a good ol' time.

After the cake and ice cream, and the gift opening, we took the kids outside for some time in the sun and water. Vicki and Travis had picked up a slip-n-slide and they hooked that up in their backyard, and the kids went to town on it! Dylan and Kaitlyn had so much fun that it was nearly impossible to get them off of it. haha... Here is a link to some photos and videos that I took of them playing.

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After the kids finished with the slip-n-slide, Travis took us over to their neighbors pond for some fishing. Kaitlyn wanted to fish with me, so we cast out our first time, and BOOM!, we caught a little perch. Then Kaitlyn, trying to be somewhat adventerous, decided she wanted to touch it, and she did, but that was enough apparently. Because she didn't touch any of the others.

Then, Randi's brother, Brandon, was fishing down the bank from us, and we start hearing some hollaring. Come to find out, a water moccusin started towards the shore. But Brandon used his jig and hooked it, pulled it on shore, and then killed it. Thank goodness becuase I was about to go running to the bed of the truck! haha...

But Kaitlyn and I ended up catching about 6 more. They were all little perch and bass. But we did get one that was about 1 - 1.5 pounds. But the fish were really biting. I think that everyone ended up catching some. Brandon was hauling them in just about one after another.

After the fishing we headed back to Randi's folks and ended the night with some very tasty burgers and hot dogs. Pretty fun time though. And the best part was that the kids were so exhausted that the slept in the next morning until after 9am! That Never happens! They are usually up by like 6 or 6:30 on the weekends. So that was a real bonus for Randi and me.

the new pony

Vicki and Travis brought over a new pony for the ol' farm last night. Well, it is the size of a pony, but is actually a rocking horse. It is very beautiful though!

The pieces were designed and cut out by Randi's grandpa, Andy. Randi's mom took them and finished the rest of it. I just can't say enough though. It is just really awesome looking.

And the kids love it! Kaitlyn just jumps right on it and goes to town. Now Dylan though is a bit more cautious. He will walk up to it, point and grunt. And then as soon as you approach him, he will turn around and run! haha.. But he is getting better. When I was gathering his breathing treatment this morning, he did that and then he let me put him on it. He just rocked and rocked and laughed. He doesn't get it going that much, but you can tell it is enough for him.

Here are some photos of "Big Brown" and the kids on him.

      

happy memorial day weekend

Hope everyone has some good activities planned for the long weekend.

Of course it looks like Mr. Weather may decide not to cooporate a little, but who knows, it is Oklahoma, just wait a few hours. haha...

We are going to be going to a birthday party on Sunday.  Who knows, if it is nice enought, we may have to break out the ol' slip-n-slide!  That would most definitly be good for a few laughs (and some funny photos)!

Well, here is hoping everyone has a good, safe, long weekend!

couple photos

These are just a couple of photos I found of the kids that were funny. Enjoy.

   

something looks different, doesn't it?

Hhhmmm....  Something is different.  I know it, but I just can't put my finger on it... What is it... hhhmmm...

Oh yea!!   A NEW THEME! haha..  Yes, as you can see, Jonathan got bored again, so I it is time to update the theme.  But I am glad I did, this one is pretty darn cool lookin'.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Oh, and Dad...  I am working on getting the newer photos uploaded... Sorry it took so long.. haha..  :)

what a monday

If you have seen the movie Office Space, you will know that there is nothing worse then having a "case of the Mondays".  Well, our house just didn't have a case of the Mondays, the Mondays ran over us, backed up and then forward, then backed up again and peeled out all over us! haha...

First, unfortunatly, we didn't get the house we had an offer in on.  The more we talked about it, the more we really wanted it.  But the owners decided that our last offer that was $5,000 less than what they asked for, was not even worth continuing to negotiate, and decided to walk.  Well, they have been trying to sell that house for over 7 months now, and if this now makes the second time they walked just shy of thier asking price.  So now I just hope they are stuck with it.

Then I get a call from Randi with the words that I dread to hear, "I had a wreck". Yep, Randi decided to play bulldozer with '84 Nissan pickup.  Luckily she was ok, and she had just dropped Kaitlyn off back at day care from her doctors appointment, so there weren't any injuries.

The Nissan was driving towards Randi and decided to shotgun across the road in front of her to turn into an intersection.  The road was a 4 lane road though, and there was a big truck in the inside lane, so the Nissan couldn't see Randi coming up beside the truck and just went for it.  Randi yanked the car hard to the right to try and dodge them, but ended up hitting them square in the passenger door.

Her little Saturn car, just a scratch a about a pencil size bit of paint that is messed up.  The Nissan, the passenger door is now shaped like a U and the passenger door window is gone. haha...  Who would have thought it.

But there was maybe some good.  Our Realtor called and she ended up finding a house in Latta, where we really want to be at, and it is under 100,000 and it is 3 bedroom, 2.5 baths, 2 car garage, fenced back yard and a storage shed in the back yard.  WOW!  I drove by it tonight and it looks good on the outside.  We are supposed to go look at it tomorrow though.  So we are keeping our fingers crossed.

And just think, it is only Monday! haha...

happy anniversary jake and trish!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY JAKE AND TRISH!!  One year, man, it seems like only a few months ago it all went down.

Well you all have a gorgeous daughter to show for it.  We love you!

craft-master randi!

Well, my friend Harley and his wife Nicole had their baby shower today. They are very excited about the upcoming birth of Chloe.

Randi was invited to the baby shower, and she decided to get in craft mode for it. And so she did. She whipped up a diaper cake, the likes of which I haven't seen. She sat down at the coffee table and started working at it last night about 7:45-8, and by about 10:15 she has the finished product you see below. It was a site to see, and Harley and Nicole liked it very much!

The burp cloth you see in the third photo was made for Harley and Nicole from Randi's mom, Vicki. She has been fielding a number of requests for these lately, and has been doing an outstanding job at them. They are gorgeous!

This is view #1 of the grand diaper cake (that Kaitlyn kept wanting to eat "I want a bite of cake... " haha...)

This is just another view of the awesome diaper cake.

This is the burp cloth that Randi's mom made up for them.

all better now

Well, Joel, our landlord, just left after REPLACING the hot water heater! We love Joel!! haha..

So tonight (or tomorrow morning) we can have warm showers! YEA!

And I guess something good that may have come from this, is that I learned a little on how to replace a gas hot water heater. So if we end up in a house where it needs to be replaced, I know to call someone else! haha...  No, I know that I will need to learn some of this "DIY" stuff, but I usually tend to mess things up worse!

cold water days (and nights)

Well, we have ran into another snag in that which is our lives. Yesterday morning, during my shower, the hot water didn't seem to be as hot as usual. But it had gotten pretty cold the night before, so I just figured that was it. But last night when I got home and tried to run water to do dishes, I noticed the cold water wasn't even warm at all!

So I finally decided to check out the hot water heater. Well, the pilot light was out on it. So I tried to light it, but it wouldn't have it. So I figured I better check out the propane tank. It showed just under 20%, so I just new we were fine. But through the rest of the evening I kept trying to light it and it just wouldn't stay lit. So we ended up calling our landlord. He was kind enough to come over, even though it was late. He tried to light it and it wouldn't work either. Then we decided to blow it out with an air tank, and that didn't work.

So after all that we decided the gauge must be wrong. So I called our friendly propane guy down the road and he brought us propane first thing this morning. Except he found that our gauge wasn't messed up, and that instead, it was the thermal coupler on the hot water heater.

So we have notified our landlord, and are hoping that there is something he can do to fix it. The ice cold shower this morning isn't one that I want to repeat anytime soon! haha...

the results are in...

Nothing special, but I thought I would share. This is my spring 2008 grade report from ECU.

I AM FINALLY A JUNIOR!!  It only took, um, well, way longer than I wanted it to, we will just say that. haha...

And my GPA that I started with at 1.45, is now a 2.55!!  And I have gone from 40 hours to now 61!  The sad part about that though, is when I compare the number of hours attempted to the number of hours earned.  Unfortunately I have earned 61 hours out of  88 hours.  Not my proudest accomplishment. lol!

spring scores on finals are in...

I did it!! I actually passed my finals! haha...

I know that sounds funny, but my marketing class had me scared to death. Usually I will take a final and then feel like I did good, or at least pretty good. My marketing final, I felt like I completely bombed it, so I was a bit worried. However, I passed!!

So here are my grades on the final. Course final grades are due out on the 14th. But needless to say, baring any addition and division problems, I will have A's in both classes!

In my world music class I made a 96%!

In my principles of marketing class I made a 92% on part 1 and a 92.98% on part 2!

Woo hoo!!

some phone camera pics

Farmer Dylan and Daddy


Kaitlyn's drawings


Spring is here!


I think this is where the kids take after their Daddy


Kaitlyn can't be left out!

we are currently experiencing technical difficulties...

My goodness!! It has been a long time since I have posted, huh? Sorry about that. Let's just say that life got the best of me for a while. Well, not really life, but work and school. We have been working on a project at work for about 2 years now. And we were trying to do all we could to finally get it rolled out. Well, what really happened is we did one redesign about 2 years ago, and it was scrapped right before launch. So we started on another, and did some major new programming and scripting and have made it look very sharp. This is one of those "blow people out of their seats" web sites (we hope!).

Then one of my professors disappeared for about 3 weeks during this semester. Well that put us behind in the syllubus because he only released modules a week before they were due. Well, we were three modules behind. So what he did was make all of them due the day before the final was made available to take. So I had to make a mad dash to read three chapters and then take the quizzes, then watch the videos for them and take those quizzes, then read the case studies and take those quizzes!! Then we had "part 1" of the final that was over the last 5 chapters we covered, followed by "part 2" of the final that was a complete comprehensive final!! OH MY GOSH!! That was not fun at all!

Needless to say, that same professor is keeping to his ability to not show up and do what he says he will. He was supposed to release our 2 part final score online today at noon... um... still waiting.....Anyway. Now that school is over, and we have the redesign project at work turned over to our Administrator for launch approval, I am going to try and get caught up on this site. At least until summer session gets here. I get to take Principles of Management over the summer. Both for my degree and for a career development program I am in at work.

To kick things off, I am going to toss some updated photos of the kids on here. They are just getting more ornery day after day. I will be posting more pics over the next few days. I have a good number of them. The ones here make a flip book almost!  Oh, and be sure to read Dylan's shirt.  We thought it fit him to a T! haha...

Kailtyn and Dylan (before)

Kaitlyn and Dylan (after)

welcome to the family Isabella!

Today at around 11:33 a.m., we had a new addition to the "clan". Welcome Isabella "Bella" Ann. She showed up today, 4/8/08, at 6lbs, 10oz. and 20" long. She is just adorable!

Congrats Jake and Trish! Can't wait to get Kaitlyn and Dylan up there to meet her in person. In the mean time, here are just a few photos I took today of the pretty little one. Welcome Bella!