Bike Ride

This past Sunday we went to Chatfield State Park for a picnic. After lunch, Tyler rode his bike around.

Change Drive Letter

My laptop was running out of space, so I got myself a 250 GB portal external drive.

When I first connected it, XP assigned F: as the drive letter.

Today, it came through as E:

Not a huge deal, except I also put all my music on this drive. Window Media Player shows all of these files on F:

So, google came to the rescue and I found the following way to set the drive letter of an external drive. It worked fine for me. Cool Beans.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-change-the-drive-letter-in-windows-xp-for-an-external-usb-stick-or-hard-drive/

16w v2?

So, did you see the game last night?

Hard hitting. Hard skating. Great goaltending. Foresberg held in check off the scoresheet but still showing his magic on the ice and his love of physical hockey. Finally Ryan Smyth had a good game which is good to see in the playoffs. Both sets of d-men played mean and hit hard and jumped up into offensive plays. Overtime win by (who else) super Joe.

Jose Theodore was better than his counterpart and kept the Avs in the game.

And when you go to playoff overtime who do want on your team more than Joe Sakic?

It is probably far fetched to think the Avs will get 16w (15w now) for the cup, but I am not going to bet against a team that has Peter the Great, Hejduk, and Paul Stastny playing great together. A team that has Ryan Smyth playing well. A team with a defensive core as mean as Adam Foote and Rousolon Solei, as solid as Finger and Sauer and as exciting as JM Liles and J Leopold. A team with a red hot Theodore in net. And a team with (lets face it) Joe Sakic.

It was not an easy game. Both teams had to fight for every puck and every inch of ice. Either team could have won the game and I fully expect every game to be the same way. And if the Avs get past the wild, the opponents probably will not get any easier.

But still until they get knocked out... 16w all the way.

3 year old

Here is a picture of my 3 year old boy napping in his "new" big boy bed. He made the "move" this past Sunday and was very excited about being able to sleep in a bed like Tyler's. Of course it is the same bed. The only difference is that I removed one side so that he is no longer contained. My wife was nervous, just like she was for Tyler when he got out of the crib, that Connor would abuse his new-found freedom and we would spend all kinds of time trying to get him back in bed. Just as was the case with Tyler, though, he stays there until morning. So far. At least this time we did not get a stupid side rail to keep him in bed. Tracy listened to me this time on that. This is quite a milestone as it is the first thing she has listened to me on since we became parents, possibily even since we got married or maybe even engaged.

That is probably not true. I am sure she has listened before; I just cannot think of a time.

So anyway, Connor is thrilled to be a big boy. Even his big brother is excited about Connor's big step. Tyler and Connor have been begging for permission to have a "sleepover" in Conor's room. Tyler had his sleeping bag set up all week so that should the parents agree, he would be ready. I finally gave in last night, and they had a great time. They were up earlier than I would have prefered but for the most part it was not even a problem for Mom and Dad.

Connor will be 3 tomorrow, but he is still our baby. And he is definantly less grown up than Tyler was at 3. He is liking that he gets to have a birthday and he appears to be more excited about the accomplishment of growing up even more than for cake icecream and gifts.

Our baby is so cute.

Five for Fighting

I'm 15 for a moment. Caught in between 10 and 20.

I'm 22 for a moment. She feels better than ever, and we're on fire making our way back from Mars.

I'm 33 for a moment. Still the man but you see I'm a they.

I'm 45 for a moment. The sea is high and I heading into a crisis chasing the years of my life.

Half time goes by. Suddenly you are wise. Another blink of an eye, 67 is gone. The sun is getting high we're moving on.

I'm 99 for a moment. Dying for just another moment.

There's never wish better than this when you only got a 100 years to live.

Fitness

I am up early this morning working out at my favorite bally total fitness. I got here at 4:45. The place was aready open and others had been working out for some time already. The place does not officially open until 5. I am not sure how that works but it is convienient on days like his fo me.

My usual workout on early mornings is 35 minutes on the elliptical cross-trainer. Today I only did 30 minutes but now I am on the bike for a few minutes.

Today, I got to 810 calories in half an hour. That is about typical for me. But today I got to 300 in only 10 minutes. I have never gotten to +100 that fast before.

You see, shortly after I started at bally, my goal was to get 100 calories every 5 minutes. At first, that was very difficult. Now, that is a little more than a resting pace for me. Currently, my goal is for the first and second 15 minutes to get an extra 100 calories. So, I try to get to 800 in the first half an hour. That usually comes out to exactly 400 calories each of the 15 minute stretches.

I have never gotten to that +100 this fast before. It was not easy. Reading this, you probably think this is not really that big a deal, but trust me most people have never burned 800 in half an hour and certainly have not burned 300 in 10.

But the problem is that I am so grossly overweight . I am one of those big-boned people so most people are shocked when I tell them that according to typical height / weight charts I am over 50 pounds overweight. I do carry a lot of muscle, but even so I am probably at least 25 to 30 pounds overweight.

I work out at LEAST two times a week, and usually 3 or 4 at intensities far beyond what most people can do. And usually my workouts are 45 to 60 minutes on cardio alone.

But still I am fat. I am listed as dangerously obese on some height weight charts I have seen.

My resting heart rate is less than 60 beats per minute and my blood pressure is normal (and better than normal when I cut out coffee for a couple of weeks). My collesterol is ridiculously low. So my obesity is not really causing me any health issues. But still it bothers me that I am overweight.

It does not bother me enough to start a diet, though.

My TV

The tweedle beetles strike again.

My big TV has been having problems for quite some time. Since about the NFC championship game, the TV has been intermittenly shutting itself off immediatey when I tried to turn it on. I have to shut it off and back on several times before I actually get it on. Once it actually comes on it if fine until I turn it off.

At first, the problem was barely a problem. In fact for awhile I thought that phone suport had helped me fix the problem by going into TV settings and resetting to factory defaults. But it started getting worse and now I can count on spending 10 minutes trying to get the TV on.

The TV is still under warranty.

Vizio sent out an independent support tech out to replace two parts and the TV still did not work. Now they are sending me a new TV. They are low on stock for my model so they are sending out a newer model.

It has taken a long time (some of which is my fault), but in another 7 to 10 business days, I will have a brand-new 50 inch HD TV.

As I said, the whole process seems like it should have taken less time but for the most part considering everything, they did a fine job resolving the situation. I do not really have a problem with their problem resolution.

I hate the fact that the most expensive TV I have ever bought caused me the most problems. The most I have ever spent on a TV before this was less than 200 bucks and it is 13 years old with NO problems. I had my big fancy new technologically advanced TV for less than a couple of months and had major problems with it. And if it had not been under warranty I would probably have spent more money getting it fixed than I spent on all my previous TVs combined (all my 2 previous TVs).

And it seems to me that the more advanced and expensive things get, the more unreliable they tend to be. And the repairs get more expensive.

The guy who came by to replace the TV components told me that my brand of TV is usually one of the most dependable he services, and that I was just having ba luck with it. I did believe that he was telling the truth.

And if the new TV lasts me 20 years, I will be very happy. But right now I sort of doubt that this will last me as long as my other TVs. And that sort of pisses me off.

Right now I feel like

V Day

I have to say that I am glad my wife does not go nuts for Valentines Day. She does not expect expensive gifts or really any gifts at all, and she does not get upset when I am not romantic for the "holiday". I hear horror stories from other guys and I am just happy to not have to deal with that BS. It seems that some guys are just destined to fail the high expectations that their wives place on them.

Tyler and Connor were excited for the day. Candy is always popular with them and the whole giving / getting cards to / from all the kids in the class is exciting. I guess I will find out tonight if it was all as wonderful as they seemed to think it was going to be. I guess since they are so young I will not question their masculinity based on being excited for the day. But real men think Valentines day is stupid.

It is, you know. It is really a stupid holiday. But I hope everyone out there has a nice one.

IE NT NTML Auto-Authentication

I ran into a problem where my personal computer seemed to be triggering a 3-password failure lockout on a client's domain. I was locked out probably 20 times in a 3 - day period. Honestly, I am not that idiotic to type in a password incorrectly 60 times!

It took me awhile to track it down to my personal laptop, but eventually I shut it down for awhile and had no problems. Almost as soon as I started it back up, I was getting locked out.

I had cleared out all mapped drives and all of the Client's printers from my computer. The issue occurred even though I was not trying to log onto any of the domain server. It appeared that all I had to do was start Internet Explorer.

It is sort of weird, because I have been at the client for a long time and never had this problem (at least to this extent). I also had not changed my password on the domain for several weeks.

So, after seeming to track it down to IE, I decided to try to clear out my NTML passwords.

Unfortunately, how to do this is not very well documented and it was sort of hard to find even on the Internet. A bunch of people gave really stupid ways to trick IE into acting like and individual password was cleared out, but certainly not how to just blow them all away.

Finally, I found that where this information is stored is an encrypted text file located in a folder in:

C:\Documents and Settings\Eric Shepard\Application Data\Microsoft\Credentials

I deleted the folders in the Credential folder.

I do not know how the whole challenge / response works for IE's NTML Auto-Autentication, but it appears that my encrypted file must have been corrupted in such a way that IE was trying to logon to the Domain at least times with an incorrect password before passing the prompt back to me.

Deleting the text file seems to have fixed my problem. At least I hope so. I thought I had it nailed several times over the past few days.

So, if you are ever having a similar problem, be my guest to try this same method.

Happy Birthday

I think it is about time I figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I turned 38 on the 4th of this month. Shouldn't I have some sort of idea what I want to do with my life? Maybe something in computers would be good. I do not know, I hear computer jobs are moving to India and China.

I do hear that this internet thing might become big. I should learn to leverage a web presence.

Sometimes I feel I am on the verge of figuring it all out. Often I think I am not even close.

I need to come up with something so innovative and lucrative that I do not have to earn money from a career. That opens up tons of career choices because you can get all kinds of jobs if you are willing (and able) to work for nothing.

I had a nice birthday. For breakfast, my wife and kids put a candle in a stack of pancakes and sang happy birthday to me.

The guys that I work with bought me lunch.

I got gifts and taken out to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner.

I even got cake and ice cream.

The gifts I got were nice. My wife got me a beer of the month membership. I hope I can keep up. Apparently she decided to pay month to month so if my beer stock gets too high we can take a month or two off. I do not forsee that being a problem. The only bad thing about it is that an adult must be present to accept the shipments. There is no way to know exactly when one will arrive, and the shipping company is sort of a long way off in the event that we are unable to be at home for a delivery. Anyway it will be interesting to see how much of a pain this ends up being.

So, what am I going to be when I grow up?

When will I actually grow up?

At the moment, when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I am a "Computer Geek". That is pretty much what I am, but I do not think I am a very good computer geek. I am not really a specialist at anything. I am also not really a good generalist. Quite often (most of the time) when people ask me a computer question, my answer is that I do not really know. Do not for instance ask me what kind of computer to get. I do not know. Basically, I try to get the one with the best specs for the least amount of money.

I cannot build a computer.

I cannot hack into the Pentagone.

Lots of times when I speak to real computer geeks most of what they say goes right over my head.

The fact that I have a job at all has more to do with a series of lucky events (due to my semi-charmed-kind-of-life than any kind of tallent I have. I am actually kind of a lazy idiot.

It is interesting because no one seems to think that except me, unless an aweful lot of people have been lying to me my whole career. Whenever I have had to rate myself for job reviews I ALWAYS rate myself very low compared to my managers.

Of course, for the past two years I have been my own boss, so it has been awhile since I have gone through that sort of process. I still talk to peers and clients and think my perception of my abilities and worth is much lower than those people.

So, here I am, a 38 year old, self-employed computer geek who does not think he is a very good computer geek. I enjoy being a computer geek for the most part, but I just do not think I am great at it. And I am not the kind of person who is out there killing myself to become great at it. I am not pationate enough about work in general to strive to be the very best. So, I am not even close.

Actually, I guess technically, I am the employee (the only employee) of an S-Corporation. One of the guys in the same situation I am in says that is not the same as being self-employeed. I am not sure I agree with him, although, I do see his point. I will still call myself self-employeed, though.

A guy just told me that by 2015 there will be the biggest demand in history of technical resourses here in the US. That means I will have all kinds of opportunity whether or not a bulk of the developer jobs are overseas. I just have to maintain my mediocre status, and stay up somewhat and I am golden with the job I have now.

So, in the meantime, I still have time to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. If I pass my 65th birthday and still do not know, maybe I'll start to panic.

Happy birthday to me.

Nathan Yip

The Nathan Yip Foundation provides schools, education, medical, and financial support to underprivileged children in 3rd world countries. It was founded in 2002 by Jimmy and Linda Yip after they lost their 19 year old son, Nathan, in an automobile accident.

Nathan had a passion for philanthropic activities and became overwhelmed by the poverty and lack of educational opportunities for children world-wide. While alive Nathan spoke of starting a foundation with his father to help impoverished children worldwide.

After Nathan's death Jimmy and Linda started the foundation with the hope that the Nathan Yip Foundation will build upon Nathan's legacy and bring positive energy from their tragic loss.

In just over 5 years, the Nathan Yip Foundation has raised over $500,000 and are funding projects in China, Mexico, and Africa.

Check out http://www.nathanyipfoundation.com/donate/makeadifference.html on how to help make a difference through the Nathan Yip Foundation.

On Saturday, February 2, 2008, the Foundation sponsored an event at the Cable Center at the University of Denver for the "International Celebration for the Chinese New Year."

The event included a silent and live auctions and included special performances from Metropolitian Opera Star, Hao Jiang Tian and the Shaolin Hung Mei Dancers.

We (Auction Automations) did the silent auction.

I thought it was a pretty cool event. I was working so was not really taking it in that much. I was stuck in a corner behind tables of computers.

The dancers were very entertaining. The drummers that went along with them were LOUD.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of the Dragons from my cell phone. I apologize that they are not very good pictures. The one on the tois a dragon at the top of a pretty big pole held up by half a dozen or so of the dancers. It was pretty cool. Again, I am sorry the photos did not turn out that great.



The silent auction ended up doing very well. It did particularly well during dinner. People really got into the wireless bidding at their tables. Unfortunately, we had a bunch of units that lost their battery power, but we keep up pretty well with the demand. Always leave them wanting more anyway.

I really admire Jimmy and Linda. To be able to take the loss of a child and use it as motivation to start something that makes such a difference in the world is really a great accomplishment. I do not even know where I would start had I been in their shoes. I am sure they had great help from friends and family, but I am also sure that they accomplished something that 99% of people in the world would not be able to do. Most people would not even have the heart to want to do something like this, let alone find a way to get it done.

Anyway, the Nathan Yip Foundation put on a good show and if you get a chance to attend one of their events in the future, I do recommend it.

Give them some money too, it goes to a good cause: http://www.nathanyipfoundation.com/donate

All Aboard!

My boys really like trains.
Why do they like trains?
It must be something hard-wired into kids. Maybe it is only boys, although, if you ever go to a day-out-with-Thomas, you will see that an awful lot of girls seem to enjoy Thomas trains.

The video is of my two-year-old playing on the train that sits in downtown Idaho Springs.

My boys could spend hours and hours there if their parents could stand it.

Anyway, the Connor boy is very cute.... and he can yell really loud.

M & M

I like M and M's. Especially peanut M and M's.

I do not eat them much because my boy suffers from an alleged peanut allergy. It is not good to have peanut products or even products packaged anywhere near peanuts around my son.

I also like peanuts themselves. I do not eat a bunch of those around Tyler either. I do sometimes snack at them at work because Rob brings them in with his food deliveries. Probably he brings them because I said they make good snacks.

Who is Rob? It does not matter.

Rob is trying to convince us to buy really expensive chairs.

I could do several Blogs on Rob Harvey. However, I would have no idea where to begin.

But this blog is not about Mr. Harvey.

I like M and M's, and I also like Eminem. I cannot listen to him at home much because my boys are too young to hear the profane language that comes out of his mouth. The sexist violent homo-phobic content is also bad for children. It is not good for adults either but theoretically I can handle the destructive nature of his songs.

"I don't blame ya. I wouldn't let Hailie listen to me neither."

I think most people would assume I would not be much of an Eminem fan because of my quiet non-violent nice-guy non-judgemental dare-I-say-Christan personality. Eminem does not have the same kind of personality.

But I think Slim Shadey is extremely talented. I do not understand why he associates himself with no-talent rappers like 50 cent or Obie Trice or other D12 idiots.

Maybe he does not realize that he is more talented than those jokers. Or maybe he realizes it and just wants to shine in their company.

Some of his songs are simply great. His profanity is horrible and some of his songs advocate some immoral things, and probably should be banned. But all of his songs show that he has talent for rapping and I would even call some of his stuff poetic.

"Lose Yourself" from 8 mile won an award and completely deserved it. It is a great song about doing what it takes to chase your dreams. It is a timeless theme and the music itself is powerful and fun to hear.

I also think the movie 8 mile was a very good movie and Marshall was awesome as the protagonist. That sound track probably includes the best of his serious lyrical work.

Mockingbird is also a wonderful song. It is a sweet proclamation of his love for his daughter.

"When I'm Gone" is also a poetic masterpiece. It is an insightful self realization of how destructive his Slim Shady persona has been to his family. Ironically it appears to be his "swan song". He kills slim shady as part of the song's narrative. To be honest, I do not necessarily know that he has done anymore songs after he published "When I'm Gone".

He has many other great songs, and even those that are not great are very good. I do not think I have heard an Eminem song, especially those where he does not go in with 50 cent or some other "Gansta Rapper" that I do not enjoy on some level. Some are silly and funny. Some are profound. Some are sweet. It is just too bad he cannot figure out how to clean up the language (and other immoral subject).

"Will Smith don't have to cuss in his raps to sell records. Well I do so f+@k him and f#$k you too."

I think Eminem likes me too. When he refers to a typical white upper middle class suburban kids he uses the name Eric or Erica. I am quite sure he was thinking of me when he made that choice.

White America ... Eric looks just this. (White America)
White America ... Erica loves my sh!t. (White America)
Eric ..oh ..ah (My first single)
Square dance . People (Eric) it feels so good to be back. (Square dance)
Sheppy-do wants to square dance with me. (Square dance)

I made up that last one, but I am sure if I were more famous so that more people would catch the reference, he would have added "Sheppy-do" to his song.

Anyway, I am sure no one cares whether or not I like Eminem.

Hockey Game

I am at a hockey game. Avs vs. Blackhawks.

Of course I am wearing my blackhawks jersey.

It is sad I do not really follow the BH anymore so I do not know many of the players.

I do follow and know all the av players.

But I still find myself cheering for the Hawks.

I need to go to more hockey games. This is fun.

My Best Blogs

Here is a page on my website that lists the blogs that I think are my best. None of them are that great, though.

http://www.ericshepard.com/docs/favoriteblogs.htm

I think if I had to name my #1, it would be: Male Lions

Atheist Seuss

Apparently there is another blogger who does not trust the Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz.

http://longshrift.typepad.com/longshrift/2007/12/beware-dr-seuss.html

I am not sure his purpose for writing this blog. It is an exact copy of the second example on http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp except he replaces references to Phillip Pullman, the atheist who wrote the Golden Compass, with Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

Perhaps the author of the blog is trying to point out how easy it is to post something completely ridiculous on the internet. Not only is it easy, but it is not all that difficult to make it sound authentic.

I do not know if that is actually what he is doing.

Maybe he is just trying to pull me into an intellectual Maelstrom where I spend hours contemplating Dr. Seuss as a poisonous anti-Christian author. This contemplation would certainly make me dizzy.

Or maybe, he really thinks Dr. Seuss’s work is meant to contradict Christian themes found in the Narnia books. I sort of doubt it.

Actually it seems sort of like something I might do. Why would I do it? My main reason would be that I am a weirdo. Maybe this guy is sort of weird like I am. Trying to read his mind is probably not worth the effort. It would be similar to the intellectual Maelstrom only this is my own creation, and not his intention.

Maelstroms are exciting. Did you see the one at the end of At World’s End? It was cool.

I have to say, all this controversy on the Golden Compass makes me want to see the movie even more than I did before. I also want to read the books now.

Based on what I have heard / read, the worst of the three books is the third where a couple of child heroes go out to try to kill "god". In this case, though, it sounds to me that the "god" they are killing is an entity that claims to have created the universe but did not. It is a false god.

I have no problems with an author going out to kill a false god. Kill all the false gods you want. I sort of doubt Jesus would have a problem with getting rid of false gods. The Bible is full of stories of faithful standing up to the false gods established religion. Moses destroyed the golden calf. Jesus himself went crazy in a temple to protest the established religious leaders of the time and how they no longer were actually serving the true God.

Anyway, people who go out of their way to point out and become outraged about controversy in works of fiction need to get a life.

BTW, just before posting this, I checked back on his blog. I had left a comment telling him I did not get the joke. He responded and It turns out my original thought was pretty correct. He was making a point on how easy it is to post ridiculous claims about any work of fiction. He was also making a point on how ridiculous the whole uproar about the Golden Compass was too. I have to say I completely agree on both points.

He wrote:
“I wasn't sure what about the original 'Golden Compass' screed was more ridiculous: the claims of the author or the crazed style in which it was written. And I got to thinking that you could, er, embellish just about any work of fiction with similar claims. And I happened to have just finished reading 'The Cat in the Hat' with my son.OK, maybe that was reaching a bit too far.”

Tweedle Beetle Update

So remember the Tweedle Beetles? (http://esheppy.blogspot.com/2006/03/tweedle-beetles.html) I bet I have referenced them the most of any person or thing or concept in my blog. I blame them for all kinds of ills with my life and the world in general. Some of my claims in regards to the Tweedle Beetles turned out to be false. For instance, I no longer think that Tweedle Beetles invented the big-screen TV. It was also not their fault that I did not own one. I now do own a big-screen TV and no Beetles of any kind attempted in any way to stop me. Obviously, the Tweedle Beetles did not prevent the Rockies from making the playoffs since the Rockies did end up winning the NLCS. I do not even think that the Tweedle Beetles had anything to do with the pathetic showing the Rockies had in the World Series, although I am quite sure that Tweedle Beetles are big Red Sox fans. They do not like Fox in Socks, but they probably do like Baseball Players in Sox.

Anyway, I still do think that they are involved with the Summit County mob. And I still do think they need to be stopped. I am still looking for the Fox in Socks and the Knox in Box to form an alliance whoes sole purpose will be to fight the Tweedle Beetles. Unfortunately, the Fox still has not gotten back to me, and I fear that the Knox has been neutralized by the Tweedle Beetles (or some of their minions) and may even be dead never to be found. I'll bet they put cement overshoes on the poor guy and sent him to the bottom of the ocean. Davy Jones might know where he lies, but DJ will certainly not tell me and even if he did, would it do me any good?

I have come close to tracking down the Fox, but nothing concrete enough to share with my faithful readers of this blog (or should I say reader of my blog).

In case you wish to refresh your memory about some of the things I have written about the Tweedle Beetles, I have listed some links of Tweedle Beetle Blogs. You might want to go in reverse direction to maintain a chronological order in your mind.
Auction Automations
TV
Rockies
Subdomains
Knox in Box
Fox in Socks
September
Wasn't There
Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz
Tweedle beetles

A close second to the most referenced person or thing or concept in my blog is probably Jesus. How screwed up am I that Tweedle Beetles seem to hold more interest to me than Jesus? I am pathetic.
Christmas
Caiaphas
He is Risen
Eat Pig
Homeless
Is anger a sin?


And actually, I did a blog search on "Tyler". It appears that I reference my kids much more in this blog than Jesus and Tweedle Beetles combined:
Ryan ; Pool ; Kelsey ; Is anybody there? ; AA ; Miscellaneous thoughts ; Baby Adventure ; He is Risen ;Male Grizzlies ; Male Lions ; Happy New Year ; Potty Training II ; Potty Training ; Thanks ; Theodore ; Smacking Tyler ; Jeremy Shepard ; 10 Years ; 14ers ; Time Flies ; Tyler Cowboy ; Is anger a sin? ; Good Day to Die

That is certainly appropriate because Tyler and Connor do interest me more than anything.
I reference my wife quite a bit too. Probably more than Tweedle Beetles but less than my kids.

I keep saying how uninteresting this blog is, but as I went back through some of these posts, they really were sort of good. (only if I say so myself) I really should go back and read the old posts more often. You should look at some of these too.

Anyway, I promise to you that I am not done fighting the Tweedle Beetles and just because I have not chronicled every little battle, does not mean I have not been actively trying to rid the world of the evil known as the Tweedle Beetles.

Everyone other than the Tweedle Beetles and their minions, please have a healthy and happy 2008.

Church

We are visiting my parents in Illinois. We went to their church today. They have a cute little church where when there are visitors, people notice. It is sort of aggrevating. We know we were the only visitors because they take time to introduce all visitors after the service.

My Dad gave the childrens sermon. The majority of the kids up there (5 out 8) were Dad's Grandkids.

I am used to our church where we have been members for over 6 years and most of the people there do not know us. I have never seen a childrens sermon with as few as 8 kids. I do not know if I have ever seen as few as 20 kids up for the Childrens sermon. There are probably more visitors on a typical week at our church than total members today at my parents church.

A church with so few members that you can double the kids in a childrens sermon with just one family seems dangerously small to me. It does seem to be a pretty old demographic at the church, so the membership does not have a lot of kids, but still.

A church where you can be a member for several years and still very few of the congregation knows your name is probably too big. Part of the reason is that I am not very outgoing and do not participate a whole lot, but still.

Anyway, Dad did a pretty good job with the Children's Sermon and the Congregation seemed to think it cute that most of the kids were Dad's Grand Sons. It was actually very cute.

Air Flight

We are at the concourse almost 2 hours ahead of time. It gives us plenty of time for a leisurely lunch. We got to the airport so early because of the snow we got yesterday and the nightmare the airport was last year. Last year we gave ourselves almost 3 hours to get through check-in and security and we needed almost every minute. Plus we were rushing so hard that we lost Tyler's carry-on bag.

This year we could have taken one hour to check in, one hour for security and one hour to get to our gate. Checking in took less than 10 minutes. Security took 25 minutes. And so we are sitting at McDonalds with plenty of time to spare.

It is so much nicer to not have to rush, but it sure would be nice if there was a way to know exactly how long things would take. There is a hotline you can call to get security wait times, but I discovered last year that the posted time is not necessarily accurate. Last year it was probably 45 minutes off. This year it was closer, but still underestimated the wait by 5 minutes. You can check to see if your flight is on time, but they never admit to being late until they actually are late, so that information is pretty much worthless. So between not being able to trust the published information and not knowing how traffic will be (traffic reports seem to be about half an hour later than ever does you any good.), and the x-factor of traveling with young kids, your only real option is to build in a ridiculous safety buffer between.

So this sort of begs the question: if the published information is wrong, isn't it better to not publish it at all? Ironically, it is probably fine 90% of the time... When everything is going smoothly, but it is the 10% of the time when things are not going normally that you most need the information and it seems that is when it is most off. Maybe whoever is in charge of collecting information is too busy trying to correct problems to get timely info on the website or recorded message or radio or whatever. But what good is a security wait time that is off by 45 minutes?

Anyway, I am now in Wisconsin. We had an uneventful flight. I am actually typing this while on an exercise bike close to Milwaukee. My goal today is to burn 2000 cardio calories before heading back to Tracy's brothers house. So far I am at 1632, but I am slowing down. I also lifted today so I am probably over 1800, but lifting does not count because the weights do not keep track like cardio machines do.

Speaking of inaccurate information, the scale in the mens locker room is obviously off because when I put the big weight on 250 and the little weight on 0, the scale says I am well below 250. When I put the big on 200 and the little on 50, it tells me I am over 250. I hate it when fitness club scales are not properly calibrated, but I have never seen a scale do this before. It does not matter that much, we will call it 250, but it certainly is something to be miffed about as I peddle and type.

1720 calories.

Someone who exercises as much as I do should not be 50 lbs overweight. I usually lose a good 10 or 15 pounds almost immediately after the holidays. This year I hope to make it more like 25. My biggest problem I think is the beer. I would probably be skinny without beer. And pizza. And lattes.

I published photos of the kids on http://kids.ericshepard.com This is the first addition to the website in over a year and a half. You might ask: why even have a website if you are not going to keep it up to date?

To that I answer: Shut up.

1810 calories. 90 minutes of cardio. I am getting exhausted.

This blog is already too long and boring. I am going to send it up.

Ryan

Tyler's friend Ryan is at our house.

Together, they are wild, loud and silly. Connor seems to think they are hilarious.

I think they are loud. And weird.

I am sort of glad Tyler was not twins.

Of course it has been along time since I have had the kind of fun they are having together. And at least no one is crying yet. Their laughing is loud but better than screaming and crying. Their sense of humor is sort of childish. They are acting like kinder gardeners.

It is sort of sad that as an adult, I no longer have the ability to have this kind of fun. Oh well... I will just have to live vicariously through my boys.