IT'S A........

BABY!!!

So it turns out we didn't go to the ultrasound appointment after all. Amy got really sick and we had to reschedule it. Sorry to keep you all in suspense for the entire weekend.

We're not scheduled to go back in for 2 more weeks. Apparently we have been unwittingly cast into the middle of a battle that is constantly being waged between the doctors and the ultrasound clinic regarding the correct time to send pregnant couples in for an ultrasound. We were at 17 1/2 weeks, which, according to our doctor, the pregnancy webpage we signed up for, and the 4 or 5 prego books the hospital hands out like candy, is far enough along to get a good reading. The ultrasound blokes disagree, and apparently they wish the doctors "wouldn't send them in so early". All of which is kind of funny in that they had no problem signing us up for the first appointment.

Ah, the baffling wasteland that is our health care system.

Anyways, we'll find out Feb. 8th and I'll post it then. Still think it's a dude.


PS- extra points for anyone who got that "It's a...baby!" reference. Mike Brady, I'm looking to you.

Tomorrow is the day...

Tomorrow is our ultrasound appointment. We'll find out if it's a boy or a girl. Honestly I am pulling for a girl just for the sake of variety (I grew up with 5 brothers and no sisters). I think it's going to be a dude though.

Don't get me wrong, I totally want a son or two in the future as getting beat up and learning how to punch are important for any child to learn in life. I'm just hoping for a girl first.

By the way, I just did a Yahoo image search for "3D ultrasound". Umm....I wouldn't recommend it.

I'll post the gender as soon as we find out. Toodles.

Would you like a nine with that Big Mac?

So not even a week after my first posting, Marcus Vick is arrested for pulling a gun on some teenagers in a McDonald's parking lot. Outstanding. I almost feel sorry for the guy.

This just in...Marcus Vick is an idiot

(**Disclaimer- Before you read this entry you should know that I am a fan of college football and that's what the following post is almost entirely about, although I suppose it has some appeal to those who feel that many athletes today are spoiled, uneducated, immature imbeciles. If you are one or the other, you will find this post interesting. If not, check out Wessman's page)

So Marcus Vick has just been kicked off the Virginia Tech football team for what will, from this moment on, forever be referred to as "the Vick Stomp".

After getting tackled by the other team's defensive end (a man named Elvis Dumervil, no less) Vick, a shining example of sportsmanship and self-restraint, stomped on his calf as he walked by. The refs never saw it, so no penalty was called. Later on Vick claimed it was "an accidental play, and football is football." He then said he had apologized to Dumervil. Dumervil said he never heard anything from him.

Here's a video of the Vick Stomp, so you can see how "accidental" it was.

Isn't this great? Have you ever seen such a thinly disguised temper tantrum from an athlete before? (McEnroe doesn't count. His weren't disguised at all.) Who does that? I mean, it's like an angry little boy sneaking up on his big brother and dropping a bowling ball on his groin while he's sleeping. Fantastic.

Speaking of classless revenges you're likely to see only on a kindergarten playground, how about Kobe's elbow to Mike Miller's throat a week ago?

Miller had accidently made contact with Kobe's face during an earlier drive and made him bleed. So Kobe, paragon of virtue that he is, decided to elbow him in the throat during a subsequent play. Best part of this one: Kobe's explanation-

"You can't let anybody come down the lane, you gotta hit them. You can't just let them come down the basket and lay an easy basket in."

Why is it so great? Miller was at the free-throw line and had passed the ball two steps before when Kobe decided he better stop him from "lay[ing] an easy basket in." Priceless. Wouldn't expect anything less from the Mamba...

And these are the most famous, idolized people in our country.

Anyways, good for Virginia Tech, I say. They had to decide whether to do what was right for the team or to turn a blind eye in order to keep an uncontrollable yet talented player, and they went with the former. It's the old "Terrell Owens" dilemma.

Wonder where Ron Artest is going...

Synopsis of the U2 concert

Here is my synopsis of the U2 concert:

BEST-CONCERT-EVER.

'Nuff said.

I went with an old buddy from High School, Ben Stemmons, whose wife is 8 1/2 months pregnant. He had to leave halfway through. Poor bastard.

U2 Concert...Giddyup!

So I'm going to the U2 concert this weekend up in Salt Lake. I'm way stoked. Big U2 fan, BIG. Actually I've only been to about 5 big time concerts (you know, a big name band in a huge, sold out stadium) and 4 of them have been U2. The other was Paula Abdul when I was about 13, and I'd rather not talk about that...

Get this though, Kanye West is the opening act. The rapper. I want to know who books the opening acts for U2. Are they clueless? Are they purposefully trying to alienate an entire fan-base here? Pop-Mart had Rage Against the Machine. No offense to any Rage fans, but Rage sucks. I mean, who books these bands? I can just picture some clueless executive big-wig sitting down with the tour management team and having this conversation:

Executive Big-wig: Great, everything else is settled, we just need an opening act. Johnson! Who's big these days? Quick, give me someone!

Johnson, searching his mind frantically, then recalling the newspaper article he had read that morning about Kayne West ripping Bush a new one: Uh, how about Kayne West? He was on the front page of the paper today...

Exec: Kayne West? Never heard of him! What's he sing?

Johnson, trembling slightly: Uh, Rap, I think.

Exec: Rap huh? The kids love rap these days...All right, put him in! I'm off to Barbados.

I am a little interested in Kanye West, though, as I've heard some good things about him (he's brought class back into rap, etc.) And who can forget the Hurricane Katrina outburst, which scored him some points in my book (not necessarily for any of the views he expressed, but more for speaking his mind and for the stupefied look on Mike Myers's face), but I don't think we'll go out of our way to make it on time.

Anyways, U2 is the best, I'm way stoked, update when I get back. Peace out.

Doctor's Appointment #1

*Not an actual picture of our doctor.

Just had our first appointment with the Doc. She's great, I think we got a good one. Turns out we're about 10 weeks along, which is about 5 more than I thought. The Due Date is June 30th. I'm hoping it comes earlier and not later than that, as July 1st is our anniversary, July 3rd is Amy's B-day, and July 4th is July 4th.

Love trips to the hospital. First they give you an obnoxiously thick stack of forms to fill out that asks things like: "Have you or anyone in your family had a history of _____ (insert random disease)", "Do you have any food allergies", and "Have you had more than one sexual partner?" After filling this out you are psyched to get in and see the doctor, but instead you sit in a room with the assistant who asks such important questions as: "Have you or anyone in your family had a history of _____ (insert random disease)", "Do you have any food allergies", and "Have you had more than one sexual partner?" She then gives you a stack of literature, pamphlets, and advertisements, and leaves you to wait for the doctor. Finally the doctor comes in and asks such novel questions as: "Have you or anyone in your family had a history of _____ (insert random disease)", "Do you have any food allergies", and of course, "Have you had more than one sexual partner?" No kidding. That's seriously what happened. Apparently they're not allowed to read the form you just spent 20 minutes filling out. Probably a sanitary issue...

It was fun though. I'm way excited to be a dad. Probably more excited than Amy, but that's understandable in that I'm not the one who's uterus is doubling in size.

A Griswold family Christmas...

Check this website out- http://www.uglychristmaslights.com/.

The guy doesn't seem to like absurd amounts of Christmas decorations, but I think they're pretty cool. We're getting ours set up right now, I'll post a pic as soon as they're done. I've got a thing for the blue ones.

Turning the other cheek

Apparently a preacher in Oklahoma was in the middle of a sermon or something and some random guy just decked him. Here's the video:

http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_327120803.html

The best part is when they show the guy's mugshot. Doesn't this guy look like the type of person who would just randomly assault a complete stranger? Doesn't he? I mean, if I saw that guy in a mall or something I would find a seat (at a safe distance) and watch, because you know it's just a matter of time before the fireworks start. Good for him (not for decking a preacher, but for being spontaneous).

Tree Huntin'

In Cedar we don't go out and buy Christmas trees like the city folk. No sir, we go Tree Huntin'. Tree Huntin' is when you buy a $5 tag from the city, drive out into the cold and treacherous mountains with nothing more than your bold spirit and a rusty saw and cut your own tree down, ala Clark W. Griswold. You then "tag" the tree, take it home and put it on display as though it were a stuffed bear.

Sorry about the bad pic. This is us with our friends the Sidwells after we bagged our wild tree. We got it from a camp ground, which I am pretty sure was illegal. Oh well, teach them to put better directions on that map of theirs.

It's official...

Two lines means baby.

Just got clearance from the committee to release this: We're prego. Well, really we're not, just my wife is, but it's a teamwork sort of thing you see.

I'm really excited. It's been a little tough as she's not always her usual cheerful self and spends considerable amounts of time praying to the porcelain god. As a guy I want to just make everything better. It's hard to be in a situation where you can't.

It's amazing to look at her and think, 'Wow, right now my wife is making a person. Have I done anything productive today?' I made a little snowman a couple days ago, but it's just not the same...

Our due date will probably be late July or early August, although if we follow recent familial trends we can expect it sometime in April.

St. George Triathlon

So I've decided to enter a triathlon. The St. George Triathlon takes place May 13th, 2006 at Sand Hollow State Park. Yessir, 700 meters of vigorous swimming immediately followed by 10 miles of mountain biking, 3.2 miles of running, and, from what I hear, 10 minutes of freestyle puking. Needless to say, I'm very excited and have been training for about a week and a half. This should be interesting for 3 reasons:

1. I despise running as a form of exercise;
2. I pretty much taught myself how to swim and therefore have no technique (my stroke of preference happens to be the "underwater torpedo", which I made up); and
3. Every time I've started training for a relatively large athletic event I inevitably get injured. Sprained ankles, bad knees, debilitating diarrhea, you name it. Well, maybe not diarrhea, but you get the picture.

The training schedule isn't half bad though. I was worried I would have to run 2-3 hours a day and start rinsing my cottage cheese (Sorro should get that reference), but really it's just about half hour a day. I can do that.

So of course I'm excited about it now, but the real test will be to see if I keep it up once the initial excitement wears off. Just like blogging...

Back Home...

Ahhh... It's good to be home again. This week was the end of Regional Meetings. Tuesday I was in Vegas and Wednesday was Phoenix. Here are some pics:

In Phoenix we stayed at the Arizona Golf Resort, a beast of a nice place full of sun, golf, and old people.

Here's the front of my room. A boring pic, I know.

Here's the backyard though, a nice green golf course.

More golf. Don't have any pics of Vegas, the place is no longer a novelty to me and I don't find it picture-worthy. If you're immensely disappointed about this and aching for some candid, high quality pics of Vegas (such as the ones of Phoenix I have displayed here), then you can visit the great state of Nevada's webpage. I'm not even going to bother getting you a link for that.

It's good to be back. I find I appreciate Cedar City a lot more when I leave it every once in a while. I also came home to some pretty big news, though it hasn't been cleared for publication on the blog yet. Here's a hint though: akachan.

I'm in Denver

Apparently La Quinta has had a problem with eggs exploding in the microwave and decapitating hapless customers. "We're warning you, do NOT microwave the egg for more than 10 seconds! You wanna see what happened to the last guy?!"

It's Friday morning. Last day of Regional Meetings (for this week anyway). I'm excited to get back home. I've had loads of fun, but this trip reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day-- go to meeting, give little spill on Employee Management, get on a plane, check into a random hotel, go eat dinner around 9:00PM, watch an NBA game, call my wife, sleep, alarm goes off around 7:00 AM playing festive mexican music that somehow gets incorporated into my dreams, eat semi-good continental breakfast, then start the cycle all over again. Don't get me wrong--this trip has been loads of fun, but I wouldn't want to do this anymore than once every 4 months or so. Consequently, I can't wait to get back home.

Here's a couple quick pics of Denver. As you can see Denver is actually about 200 miles away, which is curious considering our hotel is next to the Denver Airport. As far as I can tell the airport is actually located in Wyoming.

See that distant, white dot? That's the start of Denver. You can't see it very well in this pic, but the entire city is behind it, and the Rocky Mountains are behind that. I was wrong about Wyoming, I think we're actually in Nebraska.

Me in front of the fabulous La Quinta Inn, Denver Airport. Oddly enough our Salt Lake hotel was a La Quinta, and my room is almost identical to the one I had there, which only adds to the eerie Groundhog Day feeling.

It's a pity we're not closer to the city, I'm a big fan of Denver. Went to a U2 concert here with some buddies back in aught-1, one of the best road trips I've ever been on. I also have another brother that lives here, Gid, but I don't think we'll have time to meet up.

That's all. Next update will be from good old Cedar City! Peace Out.

Salt Lake City

Yesterday we were in Salt Lake. Got nothing to say about Salt Lake. Here's some cool pics from the plane though.

Here's the company plane. Not flying commercial is the best: No delays, no demonstration of how to buckle your seatbelt, no waiting 45 minutes in a security line and having to take half your clothes off.

I'm kind of bummed that this one didn't turn out better. This is the Dallas Mavericks private plane, owned by the benefactor Mark Cuban himself. Our plane pulled up and parked right next to it. They were in town to play the Jazz. Jazz won.

Here's the inside of the plane. It seats about 10 people. The woman giving the unsuspecting "oh crap, someone's about to take a picture" face is Joanne, our new HR Director.

I'm in Portland

Yep, that's pretty much what I thought this place would look like.

Last night we flew into Portland. I'm excited to be here, I've always wanted to see the Pacific Northwest (Oregon or Washington) and this has been my first chance. I guess I came to Oregon once when I was a little kid, but that doesn't count because all I probably cared about was whether or not my dad was going to buy me candy. Anyways, we got here around 7:30 PM and it was too dark to see anything, but the air was cool and it smelled like camping.

I also have a brother that lives here, Adam. I called him up and he met us at a steakhouse downtown. We don't see each other or talk very often, so it was really good to see him. He moved up here with some friends just to get a change of scenery.

That was last night. Now it is morning and I'm getting my first look at Portland. I went jogging, here's some pics:

Cool houses. For some reason this place reminds me of "The Goonies"

While in Portland, participants of Regional Meetings will stay at the fabulous Windgate Inn. Amenities include a workout room, heated indoor pool, full breakfast bar, and B.O. free rooms and sheets.

That's pretty much the most ducks I've ever seen at one time.

The Cord

See. Here's the cord I was talking about. You thought I was lying didn't you?

I'm excited it's here, that means I can update much more frequently.

I'm Still Here

Look! Seals! Reminds me of the frat days...

Haven't updated lately, we've been waiting for a cord to come in so we don't have to pay WalMart $4 every time we want out pictures. That's why I haven't been updating lately. The cord's here, so I'll update soon. I've even got a pic of it so you know I'm not lying...Anyways, good stuff to update on; a trip to San Fran, Idaho, Halloween, & more. Stay tuned!

Regional Meetings

So I just found out that I will be attending Regional Meetings for work. These happen once a year and give us the chance to meet with agency co-owners from all over the country. The first stop is Sacramento, from there we go to Portland, then to Salt Lake, then Denver. Next week is Vegas and then Phoenix. We have a company plane, so that should be good.

Honestly I'm a little bummed about going to this.

HR Conference

Tomorrow I am going to a conference up in Salt Lake for the Society of Human Resource Management, of which I am a memeber. We will discuss important and boring HR issues such as current employment law and strategic planning. I've got a lot to get finished before I go so I'm going to stop writing in my blog and get to it. Ready...go.