Last week I bought a new monitor. It was the perfect time because we were shopping for maternity clothes which meant that money was being spent on my wife and I could sneak in a request of my own. Now, instead of the 13" monitor from 1998 that I have been using for 6 years, I have a nice 17" CRT with a flat screen. I wish that it was one of the nifty LCD thin monitors, but I will take it one step at a time.

But, with a new monitor in hand, I have been more eager to update my Web site. I have spent the weekend looking for a nice Flash slideshow that I can use to show off my photos. There are plenty out there, but most involved lots of complicated JavaScript and very little Flash.

Finally, I found a very nice Flash interface that uses an XML document to pass the URL location of pictures to a movie clip with the Flash movie. Simple and elegant, the perfect solution. I spent most of today customizing the interface shell, then dropped in the script and tried it out.

Nothing happened. Actually something happened but not what I wanted. The interface shell came up for a second, then the whole thing disappeared. If I remove the XML document from its reference area the interface shell shows up -- but it doesn't have any pictures.

I made some headway in getting the example to work (you can see it in the Picturing section of my site) but can't get mine to work. I think that it either has something to do with the XML.Onload function or the movie clip I am trying to load to.
If anyone has ideas, I would love to hear them. Otherwise, I will keep fiddling until I get it right. And once I do, I am going to post some pictures... finally.

We took some video yesterday so that we could start documenting the pregnancy. It was the first time in a while that we have used the camera. I feel bad that we have it and have missed recording so many monumental things in our lives. But, we now have a bit of video and some pictures.

I am going to be changing the format of our pictures online, soon you will be able to check them out right from my site. I make a note here when the pictures are ready.

We went to the hospital today to hear the baby's heartbeat. The doctor said it might take a while to find, but as soon as she put the monitor on Mia's stomach we could hear it. The beat was very quick, about 160 beats per minute. Fortunately this is normal for a developing baby, but I was still amazed that such a little growing heart could sustain such a quick beat for so long.

We are very excited to know that our little kiddo is growing normally. Having a strong heartbeat greatly reduced the chance of an early miscarriage. This isn't something we have been too concerned with, but the extra reassurance is comforting.

The baby is about as long a tube of lipstick by now. He/She has little arms and legs with fingers and toes. Also, little teeth buds are growing in. The skin is still translucent, but the organs are all starting to take shape. This is an exciting time for the little fetus.

We are going to be taking pictures every week of the growing belly that is housing the little growing body. It will be a neat record of our pregnancy.

In a couple of weeks we will get to find out the of the baby. We have some names we are considering, but we don't want to divulge them just yet.

The weather in Boston has turned very Summer-esque recently. We are getting much more heat even though the humidity has not ramped up. The trees are green again, a much welcome sight after such a long winter.

I installed our air conditioners this week. We probably don't need them yet, but I had some free time. Last year we thought that we would be able to live on fans and open windows all summer. But about the third heatwave in July convinced us that we needed something more. Unfortunately by that time the only thing left were the bigger, more expensive units. We got one that had enough cooling power for three rooms. The we mangled our bedroom window frame getting it installed, and tried to us more fans to get the cool air out of the bedroom and into the rest of the house. It didn't work so well. We ended up sitting in front of fans in the living room, then piling blankets onto the bed at night.

This year, Mia decided that if she was going to be pregnant during the summer, she was going to get an AC for the bedroom, and put the big one out in the living room. So I installed the new AC in the bedroom with a friend of mine. Once again it was a big pain and we ended up mangling the frame even more. Then we went to the living room, expecting another fight. We had the AC installed in about five minutes. I wish all home improvement could be that easy. Of course it might help if I was more handy. I might have to try working on that.

Today is Mother's Day, and I can't wait any longer to post this.

We are pregnant. Mia is going to have a baby!! We are very excited and called all of our family early so they could tell people at Church. We thought it was a very nice way to say Happy Mother's Day by letting our mother's and Grandmother's know that they are going to have a new generation to dote on very soon. I don't think they will mind.

So the details are few right now, but I will give as many as I can. We are due November 30, 2004. That seems like so far away, but I am sure it will come very quickly. We don't know what the baby is yet, but we do know that the little kiddo is making Mia very sick in the mornings. Especially if she tries to move around too much after eating breakfast. Sigh, such is life I suppose.

At our first appointment with the Doctor, Mia had to get some drawn. She had not been able to keep anything down that morning, and ended up fainting in the office. It was scary at the time, but I was glad that I was there for her. We came home and I decided not to go back into work that day.

We are going to try keeping a photo log of the pregnancy on my main site, check out the progress our little baby is making week by week.

So once again I have failed to keep up with my blog. But, it is never to late to try and change, we will see if I do.

Last week we had a talent show at Church. I read some of my poems there. It is always fun to have the chance to share what I have written because I think that it is fun material. The audience also liked it, though it was hard to hear over the kids running around playing in the ural hall.

Reading my poems has made me realize that I don't do enough writing, I am going to try and start up again. That means more reading and less TV. It also means that I am going to have to be dedicated to it. It can be so easy to just ignore something because it takes effort. You keep ignoring them until you realize that those are the things you would rather be doing, effort or no.

There is so much that the human mind can imagine, I need to tap into it and let it come out.

Another month practically over. I need to get onto my site more often. I haven't done too much with it lately. I tried to make some updates last week though. The navigation works better now, the links all stay in the same place and they all work.

We had some friends come out this weekend and I helped Stewart update his resume and coverletter. I think that the resume and coverletter are a great medium. I enjoy working to make them concise yet informative. Searching for the language that will engage an employer is an interesting battle. You can't get too esoteric with your choice of words but at the same time you want to avoid the mundane. Quite the balance to strike.

Stewart has been looking for a job over the last year without any success. I am interested to know if our updates this weekend bring in any results. He is applying for a political position down in Washington D.C. so I am waiting to hear what kind of response he gets. If it is positive, I might try to do some freelance resume writing. I think that would be an interesting side job.

Speaking of which, I need to put a bit of work into my resume now that I have a new position. I am not going to send it out, but keeping it current is good exercise.

Happy Birthday to ME!!

People have tried to call me old today, but at a spry 27 I feel that I am just getting started in life. I am not worried about feeling old, I have so much left to do with my life.
I am in a good job, I have a good calling in the Church and a beautiful wife. What more could I ask for?

I feel that over the last few years I have done some worthwhile things with my life. I have learned so much from going on a mission, going to college, getting married, traveling around the world, moving to Boston, and working in editing, public relations, and direct marketing. There is so much that I have been able to do that is unique to my experience that I can't help but feel everyone else has missed out. Of course this is an extremely egocentric point of view, but my life has been very good to me.

I am looking forward to the coming year. There are exciting things that are happening and I expect to happen. My sister is getting married in August, as well as my parents coming out to visit. I believe I will be getting a promotion at work this year. And my wife has started working again, so we can afford to keep living in Boston. I am looking forward to all of these. I am looking forward to another great year, full of experiences that no one else will have, full of experiences that I would regret not having.
All in all, I do not feel old but energized to continue living a full, exciting life.

It keeps getting longer and longer between my posts. Part of the reason is that I have been working very hard at my job lately. Last night I did not get home until midnight. However, things are getting better, and I feel encouraged recently that they really want to keep my at work.

I have been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do each day. I have been vocal about this, not just for myself but for the people I work with also. Just in the last few days my account work has been spread around over a couple of other people. Nothing that will overwhelm them, it was just when it was all on one person.

But, the nice thing recently has been the compliments. I have been complimented from a number of people on how well I have been doing with all of the work that has been piled on me. Amazingly, even when I don't actively involve myself in a particular mailing, I always know something about it, so that if I am asked questions I can at least provide some guidance. I don't know how I keep all the information about so many different jobs in mind, but it has been a very positive experience learning how to juggle so much.

The other thing I like about my job is that I am not afraid to speak up for the group. We had a meeting today about knowing ahead of time if we are going to miss something. Our supervisor then asked if anyone thought it was going to be difficult to know an hour and a half ahead of any deliverable if it was going to be missed. I was the only one that said yes. We had a good discussion using my day as a case study for how to get a handle on this. Later, I was speaking with my supervisor again and she said she liked that I was willing to ask questions, because other people have the same questions but aren't asking them.
This was a nice validation from a previous conversation in which she asked why I felt I could speak for the group.

So, all in all my work life is improving. I am working hard, but enjoying it. And I am learning so much.

Such very sad news today. My wife and I decided that we wanted to get a fish for our house, something to keep her company while I am off at work. So we went to the pet store, bought a little bowl and a Betta fish. We started calling it Mr. Fish, for lack of a better name. But he wouldn't eat and two days later, he died.

We went back to the pet store and asked what we could do to keep a Betta alive. The saleswoman, who was very excited about fish, went through and picked us one she thought would do better. We took him home and called him Isda (the Ilonggo word for fish, we are very creative people). He was active, he was eating, and we thought everything was good.

Then a snowstorm hit overnight and in the morning we had to move him out of our living room. Bettas prefer warm weather and water to live in, and we think that the snow did our second fish in. He never quite recovered after we moved him, he started swimming more sluggishly, stopped eating, and finally died sticking straight up and down.

We are saddened and have decided not to try raising another Betta until summer comes along and we know the water will stay warm enough. We hope that if we can survive the first few months of summer, things will work out. We are still hopeful about adding a fish to our home, but it won't be just yet.