I added a group of pictures from our September Siesta Key Florida trip to my Flickr account - check them out!

We spent the first week of September in Siesta Key, Florida for a nice family vacation. It was more exciting for the kids than relaxing for the parents, but it was educational for all. Some examples.

• Alex learned to walk. He’s having no problems pulling himself up to standing position and teetering upwards of 20 feet before gravity gets ahold of him again. And he’s doing it consistently. The whole family is so proud of his persistence; Evan is the first to clap for Alex when he walks.
• Evan learned to swim. Well, he can jump into the pool, tread water for 30 seconds, turn around and slowly move back to the ledge. He’s so interested in continuing to learn that we were at the pool at least twice/day for 1.5-2 hours per stint. And he gets quite annoyed if I help him out if he starts floundering. Very determined kid.
• Lisa and I learned that the kids prefer the pool to the ocean. Although I was hoping for a lot more beach time, the important thing is that we all enjoyed the water together. And hey, this means that we don’t have to travel so far for our next trip!

I’ll post new pictures up as soon as possible.

Ok, everyone’s out of the house but me tonight, and I’m left figuring out something for a 1-person dinner. I actually crave these moments because I can make things that nobody else wants to eat.

Take peppers.

Peppers are an integral ingredient for so many recipes, but the family have practically excommunicated them from the kitchen. However, a few days ago a coworker brought in a bag of beautiful banana peppers from his overgrown garden, and I snagged a couple and snuck them into the house. Tonight is THE night to have a meal that uses this prized contraband as an ingredient.

After surveying what else was available, I found a grilled chicken breast from two nights ago and a cob of corn that was microwaved yesterday and left to dehydrate in the kitchen with the unlikely hope that someone would be hungry enough to consume it.

What else… looking in the fridge … “Mexican shredded cheese mix” and, hey! ..flour tortillas I bought a while ago! (We won’t define the length of “a while ago”.) Sounds like the beginnings of a Mexican meal to me! Let’s see if I can make that happen. A trip downstairs to the pantry / bomb shelter and I find enchillada sauce from 2002. That’ll work. Hot and spicy taco sauce puchased in the late 90’s that I’ve never been able to use.. Perfect. And to top it off, a can of black beans from .. who knows. (When did they start putting expirations on canned goods?)
Let’s get to work.

Slice up the peppers (mmmm.. peppers), rip the corn off the cob, and cut the chicken into bite sized pieces. Heat up some canola oil in the mini-wok over medium high heat and throw these three ingredients in. Saute.

It’s starting to look good, but much too bland. Let’s kick it up a notch. Add half of the taco sauce packet, 3 minced garlic cloves and a handful of dried cilantro. Better. Now it’s time to pop open the black beans and throw them in.

The color’s not right. Oh yeah, the enchilada sauce. I’ll throw … hmm, how much? …. let’s just make it enough so I start seeing red in the pot, which turns out to be 1/2 the jar. Mix it until bubbly and turn off the heat. Almost done. Now I have to reconstitute the tortillas, or at least the large, brittle tortilla parts that act like the Dead Sea Scrolls being manhandled by a pack of toddlers. The simplest, never-fail method is to wet down a paper towel, wrap it around the tortilla parts, and nuke it for 45 seconds.

Hmm. I wonder what this tastes like? Well it’s too late to turn back now; I’m too proud of my “Boy Scout meets Martha Stewart meets Old El Paso” creativity. So I’ll just slop a spatula’s worth on the tortilla, sprinkle with cheese, wrap it up and ..

It’s actually pretty damn good, and healthy too; except for the fact that 3/4 of the ingredients were months past their prime. Thank God for the modern miracle of preservatives. I don’t have a clue what to call it (Mexican sheppard’s pie?) However, it’s clear to me that with a little ingenuity, a lot of old ingredients, and two banana peppers, I’ve deluded myself into thinking I can be the Wolfang Puck of the deep southwest.

Evan loves playing with his Buzz Lightyear action figure of Toy Story fame, and when Lisa spotted a Woody doll at a garage sale earlier this week, she had to get it for him. This evening she showed Woody to Evan and he was ecstatic. After a little digging around, I got Buzz and gave it to him, expecting to see constructive playing out of space cowboy stories.

However, things took a turn for the worse for Woody, as Evan used him all night long as an odd-shaped ball that could be hit across the room using Buzz’s helmut … with the right swing of course. Yup, we’re living with the personification of Sid Phillips. Hopefully it won’t come down to his toys getting even with him someday …

43Folders is a great productivity weblog authored by Merlin Mann that I've followed for the past year or so.  This morning he asked his readers to respond to the following question: What’s the wildest, most obsessive, most nerdy thing you ever saw someone do with our favorite spreadsheet program? Here's my response:

Excel helped me name our second child.  The spreadsheet included both of our first and middle name preferences (prioritized), displayed all combinations so we could narrow the list down to a reasonable 10, and mixed and matched those finalists with our first child's name, based on the following criteria:

• how the first and last name sounds like together (most common usage)
• how the first, middle and last name sounds (used when the bugger gets into trouble)
• what the initials are (with a name like Brian Samson, it's obvious my parents didn't think of this one)
• how the sound of the first name goes with our first son's first name

Each of the above metrics had a score, a relative value of importance for each metric, and a response for each criterion from both her and I.  Aggregating the sum-product of the relative values and the responses yielded a quantitatively accurate, preferred name from both her and my perspectives.  A little fancy AI and the answer was magically displayed.

We looked at the screen, ignored the results and went with our guts.  Who would name their child "#N/A #NAME? Samson" anyway?

Ok, so maybe the last part was a tad exaggerated.  The rest of it wasn't, and we did a similar exercise for Evan as well.  Nerds.

I've recently thought up a a couple parenting lifehack ideas that may be useful for others.

• Add a "bumper" over an exposed nail/screw with a rubber band.  This morning I had to screw a large screw into the bottom of a dining room chair.  Unfortunately it got stuck with about 1/2 inch still exposed, and I didn't want to risk breaking the chair or the screw, but I also knew that with Alex crawling around and using the chairs to pull himself up, the screw would inevitably find its way to making contact with Alex's head.  I found a rubber band that held together a bunch of asparagus (but feel free to use one from broccoli, green onions, carrots …) and wrapped it around the screw over and over until it became just a large rubbery bump.  Granted it will still probably hurt like hell if someone hits it dead-on, but at least it won't cause a gash.
• 2 way radio doubling as baby monitor.  We'll be heading to a week-long vacation and will be taking a couple cheap 2-way radios for when one kid wants to hit the beach and the other want to stay at the pool.  Since both have voice-activation capabilities, we'll use these as a baby monitor, so that when someone is napping in the bedroom, I can be a couple rooms over watching TV.  It also works great when someone is finishing some shut-eye in the car, but the ice cream will melt if you don't put the groceries away.  Pop one next to the baby and the other on the counter.  Works great.

It has come to my attention that the greater part of 4 months have passed since I've last recorded my thoughts, a stretch that imparted many firsts for you. Although I feel how weak would be any attempts to recreate the great moments you have recently experienced, thinking of the past season with you evokes a compelling need for me to chronicle a few endearing times that your Mom, your brother and I have been priviledged to share with you.

• At 4 1/2 months, you sprouted your first tooth.  Front-left, bottom row.  Today you sport four on the bottom that complement the four on top, and are having fun using them to your full advantage to eat practically any solid foods that we give you.
• At 6 months you really started making noises.  I believe the first was "baa baa baa baa", and today you've expanded to "daa daa daa", "maa maa maa", and the always crowd-pleasing "Pbththth!'", otherwise known as the raspberries.
• At 7 months you finally decided to roll over.  Apparently you thought the movement concept was fun, because a week later you figured out how to sit up, pull yourself to standing position, and crawl.  Today you're gingerly letting go of whatever you're holding on to and teetering at a full stand for a few seconds, at which you then gracefully fall back.  A few days ago you took your first steps, and we're certain you'll be cruising around in another couple weeks.
• At 8 months started shaking your head left and right, as if you're saying "no", but you're not.  I think it's the first obvious sign of interactive communication between you and us, because you do it any time we do.  I'm sure it won't take long for you to find out what shaking your head really means, and we'll wish it was as amusing as it is today than frustrating as I'm sure it will be.

I'd like to believe that I'll keep recording all of the times we share together, but history shows that it is something I cannot promise.  Please know that it's not because we're not sharing good times together, but rather that we are spending most available moments creating these memories.

Love always,

Dad, Mom and Evan 

I’ve added a few pictures from our recent zoo trip, as well as four great new portraits of Evan, Alex and Lisa.  Check them out by clicking the "Pictures" link at the top of the website or the Flickr Zeitgeist on the right.