wrong, oh so wrong.
It's 9:20pm (that's late around here) and I should be finishing up my homework but I got sidetracked by my RSS news feeds and just had to point this one out to people.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BOTCHED_SURGERY
That's just wrong.
So.. while I'm here, I should give something of an update on life.
I notice that my blog has left out all kinds of interesting things. Well, Lori and I are getting married soon, and our to-do list is shrinking quickly, so other than hoping that her dress arrives on time, things are actually becoming a bit less stressful on that front.
Kaelyn is rolling around everywhere and lifting up her chest, but just can't quite do that whole crawling thing yet. She can sit up and play without any concern for falling, and when she does decide to fall she does it gracefully and without injury. She laughs and smiles constantly, the people at her daycare really like having her around since she's always so happy. Her only real issue is that she doesn't want to go to sleep. They have a hard time getting her to nap at daycare, and then she cries for a while when its bedtime at home. She'll get there, practice makes perfect, right?
On the home front, no major changes, we're just keeping things running, and trying to slowly get the builder to repair the things that were wrong after the house being built. For those playing along, the pool and the remaining grass are done and looking great. We just need to catch up on the rest of the landscaping. They are finally building a house next door, and we lucked out with it being another one story, which makes me pretty happy at least.
For work, I actually traveled at the beginning of the year to Buenos Aires, and more recently to London/Basingstoke and completely failed to mention it on here. Buenos Aires was pretty cool, and I'll post some pictures on here when I get some time. The U.K. trip was all work and I didn't even bother to take my camera. Lori and I had done enough sight seeing when we were there a year ago. For those that missed them, here are pictures from that trip;
http://www.disturbed.org:8888/gallery/v/mikes_pictures/vacations/england/
Other than travel, things have been busy, and my company has been acquiring other companies, which has left me in charge of a large portion of network integration. It's a huge collaborative effort to make sure you take two major telecommunications networks and make them work together, but I've been fortunate enough to personally get to make some of the up front decisions and lead some of the work. I've really enjoyed the challenge, but it has taken its toll on my hours of work and focus on other things. My department is also growing, which is really exciting for the company. My team does development, so if we're growing that means the company is looking to grow in to new areas, which means we are officially over that whole bankruptcy hump! However, that means I'm beginning to be much less of an engineer, and much more of a manager. It's a choice I really like (much to my own shock), and recently decided I'd like to continue down. We'll see where it leads, and if I can continue to be successful. Worst case I can always be more of a geek again!
School is... school. I just got through what Lori tells me was the hardest class in my program with a B+ (despite being overseas for part of it), so I'm really happy with that. It's funny how much less a grade means when you're already working in a career you love. I know I hear this in every class I take, but you really do appreciate the learning much more now. The ability to apply it immediately and relate it to your own experiences makes it far more valuable than anything you can learn before you begin to work. I guess when they say that learning should be life long; they really do know what they are talking about.
Lori and I have been having fun with Kaelyn and seeing parts of Maricopa. We've branched out to a few restaurants around town we hadn't seen previously, and visited the casino (my first in Arizona!) just south of town. We even went around and looked at some more new home models this past weekend to get some decorating ideas and look at the new areas. We really like our home and our town. The drive is continuing to wear on Lori, but even with the growth in the last 8 months we haven't seen any significant increases in time to drive to or from town. That's a great thing in my book..
We've been cooking quite a bit at home, which has always been a really streaky thing for me. I've really been using the grill quite heavily, and while I'm no master of the propane (or its accessories - for the King of the Hill fans) I am getting better at it. It's funny how elaborate I've tried to make some dinners in the past, but how easy it is to grill some meat with a couple spices and cook some vegetables quickly. There is no need for dinner to take an hour to cook. I think tonight took us 15 minutes altogether and it was great. I definitely recommend cooking at home from time to time.
Anyways, enough about life, time to finish my discussion question for school so I can finish laundry and get to bed.
Hi Daddy!