So it begins...

So we finally got around to starting the floor plan for the remodel. It took me about 5 hours on Sunday to come up with the placement of two bedrooms, a bathroom, the dining room, living room and placement for the basement stairs. We'll see how long this plan stays in its current form.

I still have to figure out where to put the master bedroom, master bath, closets, kitchen, family room, and placement of the water heater, furnace and air conditioning unit. Notice the big void at the top of the diagram? That's where all that needs to go.

Blue lines depict exterior walls, green lines depict interior walls, and the grey lines are where the basement is going to be located. The fine red line in the existing foundation footprint.

Welcome Baby E

Oh Sank Heavens for Little Gurlz
My kid siste Michelle and her husband Chris welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world on Monday morning at 1:30am. Emma Anne weighed in at 7 pounds, 5 ounces and is resting comfortably with mom at the hospital.

Sonya, Karyan, Ryan and I took a trip to the maternity ward on Monday night to visit the latest addition to the family. She's a wee little thing, measuring about the length of my forearm when she's swaddled up.

Emma's big brother Connor is hanging out at Omi's house until his mom and dad (and new baby sister) come home from the hospital. That hospital would be the same one Michelle, Connor and his new sister were all born at. I had my adnoids yanked there when I was six (so I to have a kindred affiliation to the joint!).

Mom and baby are expected to be discharged on Tuesday afternoon.


Me & Emma

The Money Pit

Not all Spam is bad
Sonya and I spent the better part of Sunday checking out home remodeling options at Expo, and then attempting to start work on our new floor plan. For those that haven’t heard, we’re considering a major remodel of our house. This plan comes courtesy of Prop 13, which would have quadrupled our property tax had we actually purchased a home in any of the areas that we’ve been looking.

Our neighborhood isn’t bad, and we love the schools, so the remodel is looking more and more like a reality. It will however be overwhelming. There are so many things to consider, that’s almost not worth it. The kitchen alone is probably going to drive me over the edge.

We’re contemplating a basement, which will serve as the game room / office, similar to the one our friends Brad & Lindi put in a couple of years ago. We’re also going to raise the ceilings throughout the new floor plan which should do wonders for the confined feeling our current house has.

If you know of a good architect, structural engineer, interior designer, contractor and / or basement specialist, let us know. We’re looking to break ground this Fall (Sonya is thinking more realistically, and is hoping for this time next year.

Emma Alert

We also got word that my kid sister went into labor tonight, so I’ll be an uncle for the second time over within the next few hours. I’m hoping that Michelle will pump baby Emma out a little faster than Connor. She was in labor for six or seven weeks with him (at least that’s what it probably felt like to Chris!)

Looking forward to welcoming my new niece to the family. I already told Michelle that I would be referring to her as Emma-C-Hammer. Her older cousin Karsyn is glad to have another girl in the family.

Hey doc, can you do a Carrera?

So this is one of those stories that is too fantastic to pass up. Sonya and I were lounging in bed last Sunday, watching TV during a lazy weekend morning. Karsyn's morning routine includes hopping into our bed, and making sure we're awake.

There’s not much worth watching on TV on Sunday mornings, so we have the boob tube on some TBS movie about a band of high school cheerleaders that rob a bank in order to raise cash for one of the cheerleaders who was kicked out of the house by her parents after getting pregnant.


Nothing gets past this one
The plot of the movie is partially relevant to the story, so I’m forced to admit that I actually spent time watching a movie that had high school cheerleaders as the primary characters in the film. Well, now that I think of it, I’m getting to that point in my life where anything relating to a high school cheerleader is actually semi-interesting. But I digress.

Anyway, when the pregnant cheerleader tells her cheermates that she’s pregnant, one of said cheermates immediately blurts out that “they’ll be right by her side when she gets her abortion”.

Radar ears Karsyn hears this word of course, then proceeds to start our day off on high note with the following observation.

“A-bortia!,” she says. That’s daddy’s favorite car!”

The laughter that filled the room was priceless. I think I’m more tickled by the fact that my five year-old knows that the Porsche is one of my favorite cars, but you can’t help but love the observations of children. Priceless indeed.

Ry Turns the Big Uno!

Hard to believe that it’s already been a year since Ryan was born. We celebrated the event with his 1st birthday party the weekend before last, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to post anything. I think it took that long for both Sonya and I to recover from the flu that we both had the day of his party. We were both down for the count, feeling miserable.

Putting things into perspective, I’d settle for the flu versus the ordeal Sonya went through when Ryan was born. Ryan’s birth was one of the happiest days of my life, but what followed almost turned into the worst day of my life. I was almost faced with the worst nightmare of my life. I don’t dwell on why we had to go through all of that stuff, but rather think of it as a new opportunity for both Sonya and I.


Ry scores some loot!
We’ve been blessed with two beautiful children, and we both have our health now, so I look at the silver lining part of the whole ordeal. Of course it’s easy for me to move on, because I wasn’t the one who had to endure the birth of a child, then spend the next two days in intensive care with a breathing tube down my throat. I can only hope that Sonya looks at the positives that came out of the deal.

I’m a lucky man, and I know it.

So with that said, I’ll get back to talking about the celebration we held for our son’s first birthday. I’m sad that we were both sick, because I really wanted it to be a celebration. Ryan is a great kid, and I’m ecstatic to be his dad. It was certainly an event worth celebrating.


Eyeing the sugar
The weather gods had other ideas however. We had to move things back to our house, because the temps were dipping into the 50’s, and the wind didn’t help matters. It was great to see our friends and family, and Ryan is diggin all his new toys. Happy Birthday Ry!.

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw
One of the latest perks that Yahoo is offering employees is a speakers series, dubbed the Influencers Series, which features soem of the movers and shakers of this world. They kicked off that series on Tuesday by having former NBC Nightly News anchorman Tom Brokaw speak on campus. Brokaw spent an hour up close with me and my fellow Yahoos, wooing the audience with his trademark baritone voice.

He touched on a wide variety of topics, starting with a few words of concern for his ABC counterpart Peter Jennings, who revealed on Tuesday that he has lung cancer. Brokaw also spoke about the internet and how it was a “phenomenon that he would have never imagined in his lifetime.” He spent the better part of the hour covering world events and how we as Americans are in the uneasy situation of having things that much of the world envies, not all of those things being material possessions, but the liberties that we take for granted.

I was surprised to hear him take responsibility on behalf of a large number of American journalists for the political leanings in America that tend to favor one ideology. It was refreshing to actually hear someone stand up and take accountability, which was one of the key points to his speech.

The most interesting part of his speech focused on America’s current quandary in the Middle East. He had some ideas on how America could address Muslims from less of a dictatorial position and more from a peer level. I don’t agree with all of solution that he threw out, because the situation in the Middle East is not one that can be solved over a cup of coco and some hugs. The Middle East is a complex problem in need of complex solutions. Out issue is that nobody in government today has the brains to figure out what that solution is.

Brokaw wrapped up his talk with the one thing that he may be best known for over the last two or three years, and that’s his take on the Greatest Generation, or the generation of Americans who lived through World War II. I’ve read portions of his book, and wholeheartedly agree that the intestinal fortitude of Americans is one of the most interesting chapters in the United States’ history. Brokaw’s message was not about great battles or specific events that occurred during the war, but rather of the spirit of Americans during this moment in time.

His message focused on the attitude that Americans lived during the depression period that led up to the war and the sense of community that brought this nation together when the fighting started. His message to us as members of this society today was to make an effort to share the resources that we have at our disposal (not necessarily monetary), in order to build our communities. If we don’t take the necessary steps to evolve our society, then we will have failed those that placed us in the situation of being the envy of the world that we are today.

His message was something any patriot could understand, regardless of their leanings. I for one, am thankful I had the opportunity to hear it from an American revered by so many.


Brokaw signs his book after his speech
*My photos were taken with my mobile phone, hench the quality.

Tee Ball Update

Checkout that determination!
The Orioles played in their second game of the season on Saturday, against the A's. It's hard to describe how much the kids have improved over the past few weeks, but it is remarkable. Karsyn played most of the game at third base, where she took a couple of ground balls. I was blown away at how fearless she is at the "hot corner". Her defense and clutch hitting earned her the "game ball", which we now have ready to disply!.

More photos at the [game album].


2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate...

Great Mike

Great Mike & the Midgets
Sonya's Uncle Mike came to the Bay Area for a visit, so we popped up to Redwood City on Thursday night to have dinner with him and Sonya's parents. Uncle Mike, or "Great Mike" as he is now affectionately known, lives down in Oceanside (where Karsyn & Ryan's Great Grandparents used to live).

Great Mike got his name from Karsyn a few years ago, after we tried to explain to her that while Sonya calls him "Uncle Mike", she should call him "Great Uncle Mike". In true two year old (or three year old, I don't really remember how old she was, but you get the point) fashion, not everything always computes, so "Great Mike" is what she was able to grasp. So he's been Great Mike ever since.

I have an uncle that everyone calls "Moo-ma", because that's what I called him when I was two or three. Karsyn is obvioulsy more advanced than I was at her age. At least she got Mike's name mixed into the moniker.

Great Mike was up in the Bay Area for a few days, so we only got to spend an evening with him. Mike is one of those guys that you never stop listening to, because if you do, you'll miss something great. So it was a shame that we only got to spend an evening with him. We'll have to get down to Oceanside this Summer.