January 11th, 2007

I woke up this morning, on my own, just before the sun came up… went up to the lido deck with my mac, checked my email as the sun came up over the ocean.. very beautiful…

After breakfast, found the gym and got my exercise on while the boat rocked… the eliptical machine is much more interesting when the ship is rocking back and forth… LOL

This afternoon I conquered the waterslide…  The spirit has a really cool really high water slide.  It is pretty much the highet point on the entire ship and is a bit scary when you are up there, but you really get flying on it..

Here is a picture i found online .

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The water slide is on the back side… CRAZY!!!

Tonight is formal night, so I am going to be all gussied up while we eat…

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Posted in Personal, The Wait |
January 10th, 2007

Yep.. It is January, and that means we are setting sail again.. Currently I am on the Lido deck of the Carnival Spirit en route to Acapulco.. It is a very crisp night so far, but once we cross the Mexican border (water border any way) we will have nice warm winds and sunny days to tan the skin…

A very nice new feature is the wi-fi access throughout the ship… :)

And here is a picture to make you all jealous… ;)

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Posted in Personal, The Wait |
December 30th, 2006

Since late 1997 I have been a daily visitor to Starbucks… And since 2000 I have gotten the exact same drink every day, once at 6:30 AM and once at 1:30 PM… A “5 shot Vente (large) Americano with no room”.

For those of you who do not drink espresso, an Americano is espresso and hot water.. Very basic.

I was so constant with the drink that the baristas wouldn’t even wait for me to order, when they saw my car pull up they began making the drink and there it sat on the counter waiting for me.  I will admit that over the last 10 years Starbucks has been good too me, but I have been even better to them.  On average, I spend just about 400 dollars on coffee in a months time…

Today I announce that Starbucks is dead to me…  Because of our long standing relationship I have given them three months to get their business in order, but alas, they have rejected me..  In the last three months, my Americano’s have been warm (not hot) and the new baristas are not making any effort to get to know me or my drink, and worst of all, they use machines to pull their shots now, so the Americano tastes like water.

Today.. I took my Starbucks card into Starbucks (still with 50some dollars on it) … Showed it to the manager, who knows me, and informed her that she would not see me in her store, or any other Starbucks again.  I am OFFICIALLY done..

As of today, I am also announcing a full-time partnership with Coffee Bean… I went over to the coffee bean and loaded up my new coffee bean card with a few hundred dollars and settled in to a tasty toasted bagel (which Starbucks won’t serve), and a gloriously hot and strong Americano with 5 shots, and best of all, free wi-fi service…

Will my departure from Starbucks hurt them… Not in the grand scheme of things, but for them, I leave this thought… If your bad service, and lowered standard of coffee excellence was enough to drive away someone like me, who has always been the ultimate defender of Starbucks, how long will it take before you begin to lose your customers en masse….

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Posted in Personal |
December 9th, 2006

The year is not over, but the way time is going these days, I will probably wait too long to get this up if I don’t post it now..

I think that this is first year of my entire life that I could step back and say “This year was about ….[insert something here]“. Of course our something is the adoption. It really has been all encompassing and while we had hoped that 2007 would not be about the adoption [process] but about the parenting…

Back in January, we had to put everything on hold — you will remember this post : I Popped the Clutch

We got back on track faster then we thought we would, but then discovered that there is a whole process of waiting during the paperchase that you don’t get any control of… :Still Going

During March, the adoption was put on hold because some close friends of ours were having really serious medical problems.. Helping them became first priority in our lives, and while these blog entires never made it here on the adoptoin blog, they have found their way here now :
Scariest Place on Earth

Finally in April we were able to have our dossier approved for authentication by the agency … : Authentication

But we also realized that I am not the most coherent person in the world when I am excited… LOL : Tales of a Moron

May was also exciting, for the blog, since we got rid of the black and went with orange and we opened to the public. For a long time we required people to sign up to read the blog, but eventually I wanted to cut down on the maintenance of the blog and give more people an oppurtunity to join the fun.

June and July were the months of special note though…. We got great news from our agency in the first part tof June : Dossier Approved!

Then in July…. We’re Logged In!

Of course, after being logged in we realized it was time to start getting the house ready for our baby so it was off to ikea, and what ended getting up being quite a story…How Ikea Ruined my Weekend

August served as a 1 year anniversary from when we began the process of adoption, and nothing happened.. we waited, we worked on the house and we wondered when we would hear about our baby…. All the while the referral process slowed down more and more…

In September we made our lives about the Backyard (which still isn’t finished… :) ) : Our Backyard

October was a difficult month for me…. When we began in August of 2005, we figured about 13 months from beginning to referral, so we had planned on being in China October or November of 2006.. Whether that was reasonable or not doesn’t matter any more since it didn’t happen. Of course, for our friends who have been with us through the whole process, they began to wonder as well… So :Still waiting

So in November the wait was really getting to me… Ruminations

So we stopped waiting… well not really, but we did start doing some things to get our minds off of it… Disneyland, San Diego, and Las Vegas… It was a busy busy month…

All of November

So now it is December… 2006 is coming to an end … we’re still waiting, along with hundreds of other perspective parents. It is difficult, be totally worth it. But Like I said in November :

2007

So as we begin a new year, stay with us, things are bound to be more exciting then ever this year….

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Posted in Adoption, Personal, The Wait |
December 7th, 2006

Some of you may remember that I had a personal blog over at my other site (http:///www.thelonecoder.com), but that I shut that all down in favor of actually promoting my business, which I figure will be a bit more profitable. ;)

There were a lot of old posts there though, that I thought were pretty good, and meaningful for me, and I wanted to add them here so that they wouldn’t be lost forever.  Most of the stuff is drivel but read it anyway, it might give you a better perception of who we are…

Our adoption blog officially began August 11, 2005, so any posts before that were just added, and there were a few scattered throug 2005.

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Posted in Personal |
December 7th, 2006

As you know we were the gaurdians of 5 kids over the weekend… Whew… To all the parents, of any number of kids. Much love and much respect..

The kids were fantastic all weekend, and we got through everything without any major hitches. Kids got to school Monday morning, with thier hair combed, and the house did not burn down. In fact the house was clean even.. LOL

Thing is, we did NOTHING else all weekend. I told Laura, “This is great, except that I know that it ends Monday so I can put everything off till then and not worry about it… Imagine if this was everyday, day in and day out..”

I suppose I would eventually have gotten into a rhythm that would have allowed for some other activities to take place, but it would have been awhile…

Suffice it to say, we were exhausted on Monday. I came home around 7 PM had a beer and feel asleep on the couch…

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Posted in Personal |
December 1st, 2006

Today we start the weekend of fire… a trial if you will… We are currently solely responsible for 5 kids. You can see them in the pictures below.

They are the greatest kids in the world. Yes, I hear you thinking it. “Well” your thinking, “their not greater then my kids.”

That’s just it though. They are. Sorry – nothing against your kids, I am sure they are fantastic… but these kids are better.. ;)
Of course, tune in on Sunday to see if I am still singing the same praises.. LOL

Seriously though, I am scared out of my mind. I know your not supposed to show fear, though, so I am wearing a mask… Of course that is just scaring the younger ones… hmmm.

Ok, so stay tuned… if you don’t hear from us again…..send help. :)

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Posted in Personal |
November 27th, 2006

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Posted in Photos, The Wait |
November 20th, 2006

Here is Laura and I at the Venetian… by the gondolas.

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Here is all of us out front of the Venetian.

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It was a lot of fun…. so working today really blows…. LOL :)

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Posted in Personal, Photos, The Wait |
November 19th, 2006

So we are here in Las Vegas…. well actually we are in Henderson.. a small suburb of Vegas.. We came up a day early to spend some time with friends of ours who moved here from LA. It has been a lot of fun catching up and seeing thier new place… I drove around for a half hour this morning trying to find a starbucks, and thanksfully my nose for starbucks works as well in Nevada as it does in California. LOL :)

So, this afternoon we hook up with the Scott and Angie, and check into the Venetian. Pictures will be forth coming. ;)

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Posted in Personal, The Wait |