babynameworld

Girls names I like

Adriana
Akira
Allie
Aria
Arwen
Aubrey
Ava
Avril
Bailey
Celine
Chloe
Daphne
Darcy
Darlene
Dina
Eileen
Elaine
Ella
Erin
Fallon
Fiona
Florida
Gabrielle
Gia
Gianna
Juliet
Kira
Kennedy
Kinsey
Laura
Leanne
Lena
Louise
Luisa
Madeline
Maria
Marley
Maxine
Meadow
Mina
Mira
Nadia
Naomi
Nina
Nora
Phoebe
Riley
Samantha
Sarah
Valerie
Winona
Zoe
Zsa Zsa

It's a girl!

We went back to the hospital the other day for our 20 week ultrasound, this was the big one we have been looking forward to as we were supposed to find out the sex of our baby. Aaaannndddd ...If you look at the picture second to the top you will see the baby's butt, and 3 lines that are labia. So that picture is x-rated!

My mom's going nuts, of course. She screamed so loud when K. called her to tell her I could hear it over the radio in the car. It's funny how we were calling her 'Jack' this whole time. This pretty much decides it - we have to try again because I need a son! Not that I care very much either way, a daughter is fine with me. My boss tells me that she's going to spoil me silly (and vice versa), I'm already starting to think of her in a 'daddy's little girl' kind of way. We already knew anyway that this baby was going to be spoiled rotten.

I think about her all the time, stupid stuff like if she likes it when K. eats ice cream, or if she can hear me playing guitar. We've started messing around with her at night - K. likes to hold a mini flashlight up to her stomach to make the baby wiggle around. Last night we held iPod earphones up to K's belly and played music for the baby. The first song my baby ever heard may be my guitar playing - or it may be 'Hijomalind' by Sigur Ros. She also seems to like 'Wildcat' by the Ratatat.

Dave Ramsey on never having car envy again

http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/lms/drive_free/player.cfm

Only love can win

I wake up to the K's alarm clock since I am too lazy to set my alarm clock at night - it goes off initially at around 6 o'clock, playing a static-y classic rock FM station. We hit snooze 4-5 times as we toss in turn in bed, half awake, until I have to get up to be at work on time by 7:30. This is my favorite time of the day, the early hours of the morning, where I just lay in bed with my wife thinking contented and hopeful thoughts about the future, making plans, thinking about what I have to do that day at work. I take a really quick shower - just rinsing myself off and brushing my teeth - as I do most of the time consuming grooming stuff, flossing, taking vitamins, shaving, etc. - at night, usually when I get back from the gym. Today I am wearing jeans and my white and green striped hoodie - a fairly common ensemble this fall and winter, although most of the time I dress a little more formal for work. I spray myself a little with cologne, put my laptop in my bag, put pomade in my hair, kiss K., and talk to her a little bit about the day ahead before leaving for work. I take the elevator downstairs with a few sleepy neighbors, and touch fists with Derrick at the front door and wish him a good day as I walk out to my car.

It is a cool morning, sort of windbreaker weather, about average for Chicago this time of year. Last weekend it snowed again, go figure - it does not get really nice here until the end of the month usually. I start my car and note that the keyless entry is still broken, and the tire warning on the dashboard is still flashing - mental note to take it into the shop for my scheduled maintenance. I missed my 10000 mile maintenance by 2000 miles, I'm too busy to go to the dealership to get my car worked on, although I have plenty of time for other things like going out to eat at restaurants and recording stuff in GarageBand.

I drive to work like all the other worker drones - Lake Shore Drive is a lot less congested at 7am, although there are still a lot of drivers on the road. There seem to be a lot more potholes on the roads these days in Chicago, there are a fair number of huge potholes on Lake Shore Drive and you really have to watch out for them or else you will blow out a tire. I arrive at work and am one of the first people in the office, these days my office mate is in a little earlier than I am although for a long time I was the first one on the floor. I sit down at my desk and unpack my laptop - the first thing I do is update podcasts in iTunes and load up a playlist with my favorite podcasts - CNN News, BBC News, 3 feeds from ESPN, The Onion, Dictionary.com, Dave Ramsey, Diggnation, The Week in Tech, NBC's Meet the Press, KCRW's Left Right and Center, Newsweek, Newshour with Jim Lehrer - this is how I get most of my news, I usually listen to these feeds on my iPod throughout the day, it's the main way I get my news, although CNN seems to always be on at home. These days I'm a little sick of all the election coverage and spend more time watching ESPN and Bulls games.

Work is still kind of boring in a way. I spend more time than I care to doing repetetive things, although I must admit things are improving as I take on more responsibility and work on more interesting projects. When I finish this migration project and/or we hire some new people, I should be able to spend even more time doing cool programming things. I check mail, talk to my office mates, my bosses come in and shoot the bull. I shop eBay, work on my personal website, sneak peeks at ultimate-guitar, gmail, and my various RSS feeds throughout the day as I do stuff. Usually on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays I go out to lunch with J. and/or P. - usually to restaurants around the area - sometimes we take a longer lunch and drive to Chinatown for lunch at Lao Sze Chuan, then we get back to work and are so bloated and lazy that we wind up surfing youtube for the rest of the afternoon.

I'd say my career is on the upswing, after a long period of stagnation due to burnout after finishing my Masters, preceded by a burst of workaholism and rapid career advancement. My hours hover at about 50 per week - I know that when I was getting a promotion every year at the start of this millenium, I was working 60-70 if you count the amount of time I spent on schoolwork for my Master's classes. I tell myself that after I square away some of these financial odds and ends - I'll get to that later - I'll have more time to devote to focusing on my career and personal programming projects like starting my side business that are related to my career. It is busy, on the weekdays I only have an hour or two at night to sit around veg out, usually before bed. I like it that way, better than being lazy and feeling guilty about it. Ideally I'd like to work around 60 to 70 hours a week, at least 20 of that on my personal programming projects, and side business, all of which will make me a better employee and make me more valuable on the job market. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a plan to go back to school to get my MBA - probably after K. gets her Masters - but I'm dreading that. Going for my last Masters degree damn near killed me, and made me hate my field, I'm only now starting to get back on track. Thankfully despite my career burnout, I managed to do really well in school so getting into another Masters program shouldn't be that difficult.

Work is generally enjoyable, although there are definitely a fair number of days when I walk out the door just a giant ball of stress, ready to pop. The bottom line is I love programming and any tasks that involve logical thinking, I like being around smart people, although it wouldn't hurt if there were more women in my field - not that I'd do anything since I'm a married guy, it would just break up the monotony of looking at geeks all day. I like my bosses, although I have issues with some of their managerial decisions, I generally get along well with my co workers, although there are a few that are weird and/or assholes. One recent development is that my buddies always tell me that I'm well liked around the office - after hearing that so often I'm starting to believe it. That's a good thing, and it's definitely a sign that I'm learning to get along better socially.

I can sense a change in my perception of myself. Last year I told K. that I'd like to eventually get my resume and start interviewing for a better job, but I'm generally satisfied where I'm at - and, more significantly, I didn't feel confident enough in my skills to embark on another grueling round of job interviews. After interviewing new employees over the past couple of months and doing a lot of good work this past year - I no longer feel so insecure about my skills. If anything I feel pretty confident about my skills compared to the competition. I'm still pretty happy with where I work as I said - pay is decent, work is interesting but not too stressful, generally good relations with coworkers, etc. - but I may throw an updated version of my resume out there and see what opportunities arise.

Lunch with J., I have a few hours left at work. I drink a lot of water throughout the day and wind up going to the bathroom quite a lot. It doesn't help that drinks are free where I work. I have my iPod on most of the day, it's a pretty laid back afternoon as our bosses are gone on some leadership retreat. Thinking about life and all the things I have planned for the rest of the day. I get out of work around 3:30 - on my way home I usually call K. and talk about our days, on Wednesdays she has class until around 9pm, so I'll have the house to myself until she gets home. Since K. is so busy with class, and since she is unable to do a lot of physical stuff due to her being pregnant, I generally take on all of the daily household maintenance tasks. After work I have to drop off some stuff at the dry cleaners, work out, meditate, practice guitar if I have time. I'm starting to record again, btw - I feel like my guitar skills have been growing in leaps and bounds the past few months, all due to my regular practicing and the discipline of having to perform for K. on a regular basis. I also have to clean the house, when K. gets home we have to finish assembling 300 invitations for our wedding reception in June. We spent 3 hours on this last weekend and we're still not done with it. There are scraps of papers and ribbons everywhere in the living room as a result.

I try to use every available minute of free time after work, sometimes I'm too exhausted to do anything but early on in the week I have a lot of energy - the past two days were pretty productive. Sometimes I get sidetracked - for instance, my parents asked me to come over and move some furniture yesterday which ate up most of my free time after work, or K. will want me to accompany her to Target or All You Can Eat Sushi, so the night is a wash. The hardest things to slip into my day at this point in my life are: extra reading for work, personal programming projects, and especially - work related to taking care of my finances. It seems I can always find time to work out 5 times per week, or go out to dinner with K., or practice guitar. That is my big roadblock in life to be honest. I'm improving lately, I'm a lot more productive as I said but I still don't get as much stuff done per week as I'd like. Probably nobody does, unless you are some kind of robot. I just know I have to work on being disciplined, with a baby on the way it will not get any easier, and I'm far from where I want to be financially or career-wise.

I'm losing weight again these days. My mom and K. and K.'s mom give me shit for trying to lose weight - 'you will make your pregnant wife look fat when you have your wedding reception party'. So they would rather have me fat, and K. would rather have a fat husband. This is incredible to me, so I resist as much as possible, I work out a lot - I'm running on the treadmill again these days, which is rough on my knees. I'm always covered in sweat at the end of a workout. It's also tough in that I come back from a hard work out really hungry, and wind up eating a lot before bedtime. I'm doing as much as I can though, given the fact that I'm living with a pregnant woman who eats whatever she wants and is now off weightwatchers. I'd really like to get down below 180 for the wedding party in June.

After the working out and the guitar playing and the working on the personal programming stuff and the eating out at restaurants and sitting around watching Lost or whatever is done, we wind up going to bed around 11 most nights. K. yells at me when she is trying to sleep and I'm still watching youtube videos on my laptop. I try to leave the laptop in the living room and just read a programming book or something. That's hard because I like to try stuff out in whatever programming book I'm reading. Eventually my eyes get heavy and I fall asleep wrapped around K. like she is my favorite pillow, which she is.