We did christmas eve at my parents. It went fine, we were there for 7.5 hours, which is kind of long, but it was nice. Christmas day was at Rebecca's parents, and we were there for 11.5 hours, also a bit long, but it was nice.

Even though I was annoyed by my change of plans, even though it was never to be, I went to work on wednesday. And sure enough, one of the staff's hard drives died in the AM, forcing me to quick rebuild the machine. So even if I HAD gotten the time off, I would have been in the office anyway. So it worked out...

On new years we went to the party at kieran's and it was super nice and chill. I had a great time. Rebecca drove and dropped D and Sarah off and went home. Yesterday we chilled out until we had to go pick up mason, who spent the night at the dugan's. We got to sleep in until about 12:30. it ruled.

So back to work tomorrow.

It was funny cause we actually hired a BABYSITTER! How old are we. A coworkers daughter came over and watch mason. Mind you, she got there after mason was already asleep, so it wasn't that she had to do much aside from hang out and make sure the house didn't burn down. It is just odd to think I have to hire a babysitter. Funny shit.

My toe hurts. I cut it a while ago, like over a month ago if not 2 months, and it is beginning to not feel right. The skin was kind rough, like it was flaky or something, I dunno. But today it is annoying as my other toe rubs against it when I walk. I guess I should find a doctor. Weird.

After the autox, I got home, washed the car (it was filthy). I like it clean. And it is so easy to do... it just looks so much better. Mental note: wash the car more than once every 6 weeks.

Then I drove over to meet Rebecca and Caroline at Yitca's house. Yitca's baby Ellie (sp?) is 3 weeks older than Mason, but she is like little super developed baby. She started walking last week (so at 8.5 months). She talks (mommy, daddy, shoe, etc). She waves, etc. Crazy. But good for her. It is weird cause you can't help but to compare your own kid to other kids... and it is such a weird macro view of time at this point. You need to relax, and let some kids walk before others. In 2 years, you won't care what month your kid walked. In 10 years, you won't even remember how long it took. But now, in the 6-12 month range, it seems to be SO important. It is not indicative of anything in the future. Got to remember to leave the charts and graphs alone, and focus on the baby. He'll figure it out on his own in due time.

Sunday got up, picked up dylan, and we met scott and kieran at the old shop. Loaded up a ten foot uhaul box truck (that had NO brakes, likely due to the fact that it had no brake FLUID. We filled it up and it improved. A little) and moved a bunch of stuff to the new garage. Then we swapped the old truck for a slightly better truck and made another trip. The new shop is nice. We cleared out the little room in the basement and loaded a bunch of our stuff in it. Having storage in the basement rules. Once we get everything cleaned up, organized, put away, etc, the new shop is gonna rule. RULE. ROOL. I am excited, but since I am still sick of moving, I don't care about it. For now. Also big plus: MUCH closer to Mr. Salsa, so I will get to eat there more often.

Cali is still at the old shop, and I am hoping we can get her running soon so I can drive her to the new shop. We still have some stuff there, but it is all small stuff that can either fit in a car, or is required to finish Cali up.

Rebecca's brother was over when I got home and we hung out and chatted and shit... when I first started dating Rebecca, we didn't get along SUPER well, but I think we have both figured it out and now we can chat about this and that tech shit, it is pretty nice. So we hung out a bit, then I drove him to the metra station to catch the last train to glen ellyn... and man, was it pouring. I forgot how the tires on the camry aren't awesome in the rain (Bridgestone Potenza RE92)... but they were better then taking Audrey, which is on Rs still. That would have been hydoplane city.

So overall, things I learned. I hate moving. I forget that sometimes. I also didn't get to spend enough time with Mason, which sucked, I want to hangout with him more. Having a clean car is nice, wash it more often. Kids develop at different paces, and that is not a problem, no need to compare yourself to every kid on the block. Rebecca's brother is cooler than I had realized.

• Mason is doing great. He is smiling lots, has begun laughing on his own, and is eating like there is no tomorrow, so I would imagine another growth spurt soon.

• I got my new glasses. I don't have any pictures come to think of it, but they are nice. I am totally used to them now. They are dope. I picked them up on friday, 6/2. The place was nice, urban eyecare on milwuakee. Close, insurance covered them, and I like the glasses. Can't beat that.

• Gardening... so we planted some flowers. And by we, I don't mean me. Rebecca and her folks did the plant buying and the planting. The backyard looks great. I think we are going to do some new sod. I need to read up on what is involved, time windows, etc. I REALLY want to build an in ground sprinkler system, but everyone tells me it is over kill. Which it is. But I still want to build it.

• Outings... we went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens with Lisa, we have gone out the burbs a few times, hung out with Robyn a few times... been busy, but nothing too awesome too report...

• I am still not drinking pop... well, I have had like 4 cans in the last month...

• We worked on the house a bit... I may have mentioned it, but we did a bunch of touch up, I laid peel and stick vinyl tile in the laundry room, hung new lights in the basement hallway, hung some more shelves in the den, hung the projector screen in the den, bought the chair rail for mason's room, painted clouds in mason's room, etc... Slowly but surely...

• The jetta is getting close to done... the list of things to do is pretty small, and I am getting excited. Check the Cali The Jetta blog for more on the progress. Once I can drive that, the Audi goes to Al's at Chicago Performance and Tuning for the A/C repair. THAT will be nice too.

• Been doing some more side work, which is nice money, I like money. I haven't gotten paid on much of it yet, but we are getting there.

• Rebecca and I both got sick, and it sucks. On Sunday AM we both wokeup commenting that our throats felt weird. Well, now it is wednesday and I am home sick. I am feeling a bit better, but rebecca is still moving along. I stayed home to babysit and recover so rebecca could get some sleep. Being sick sucks, especially when both of us get sick at the same time.

• Autox on saturday, and we are planning on moving all the shit to the new garage on sunday. Busy Busy.

• I hacked one of the tivos. I am still playing with it, so it is not 100% awesome yet, but progress is being made. It is cool.

I think that is all for now... I think. I will try to be more current with my posts, I swear.

Aside from that... On saturday morning I went and picked up a stroller frame and a car seat base from a someone via craigslist. Those were both over 1/2 off retail and that means I can have a base in my car too and we have a smaller stroller that the infant carrier will go into. That was a good deal.

We went out to walker brothers pancake house on saturday for dinner then hung out at my parents. Sunday we went to costco in the AM and amongst other things, we bought frozen strawberries! score. But we also bought a a 9 DVD set of baby einstein movies. We bought then not sure of the price... it was $90. That is a deal considering they are $15 each, but I wasn't sold. When we got home I got on ebay and ended up scoring a 19 DVD set for $78 shipped. So no one should ever buy us a baby einstein DVD.

Anyway... then we met my parents for lunch in Greektown, which was nice. We decided we should then run up to the garage in skokie to get the roof rack basket that we are lending to caroline for the road trip to california that they are going on. Up to the garage and back in to the city.

When we got home, I had got an email back from some dude I emailed off craigslist about some lexus rims he was selling. So I called him back and locked the deal down. So then we drove up to wildwood, got the rims, then drove back to chicago. They are the 16 inch rims off the non sport IS300 rims.

$175 for them with tires, although 1/2 the tires are crap. but that is ok, we have the tires that were on the car that have 1 more season left on them. So I will mount those up and then I don't have to pull the snow tires off the steelies. Nice.

Then we grabbed Mr. Salsa and went over to Bob and Lisa's to watch the sopranos and hang out.

Overall it was a nice weekend, and I got a number of things for a cheap price. I love buying things used...

Traffic was fine aside from a crazy white trash mustache wearing guy in a nascar sticker adorned red lumina who decided that he didn't want me to go faster than he. So as I merge on to the express way, he speeds up to match my speed.... then when I floor it and get in front of him, he gets all mad. At the next opportunity he floors it, passes me on right, and, puts his POS chevy into a gap about 4 feet wide, cause me to brake. So I back off since this guys is clearly nuts. We pass all the traffic, and he sets his cruise at 71 in a 70 and goes back to the right lane. WTF? ALL of that drama, all that speeding, just so he can go 71 mph again? I don't get it. Why would you get all mad that someone would pass you when their cruising speed is CLEARLY more than you are planning on driving ANYWAY? I see it all the time-people drive all dumb and pass on the right or the shoulder but have no intent of going fast. They always pass on in the crazy way, then when the traffic is open and clear, they drive the speed limit, which is less than you were driving when they initiated their crazy maneuvers. WHY? It makes no sense? All I can assume is people are just giant dickheads? Fools? I have no idea... The other nice thing would have been had we been in the audi, I could have walked away from him in the first place, and I would have never had to deal with any of that BS. Faster cars can be nicer. But we got like 28mpg in the Camry, and me in the Audi would have never pulled that off. And it would have been much more cramped for those in the back seat.

So we got to detroit and went to the xmas party. It was fine. The pics are here. Nothing amazing. Mason was pretty well behaved and most people were excited to see him and hold him. He is a good baby. It is odd to think next year he is going to be moving around and what not. It is gonna rule.

This is the first time I have seen uncle kenny since he got in a bad car accident and had had a seizure (I think he had a seizure). (He had the accident in my old subaru). As a result of the ordeal, he had to relearn a bunch of things, walking, talking, writing, etc. Motor skill stuff IIRC. The other negative thing is that he has trouble linking words in his head, basically vocab lookup internally. Like he will be like "hey, I need a couch". He really needs a pen. But when he does the mental lookup for pen, it returns couch. And he doesn't necessarily realize it is wrong until you go to get him the wrong item, or you are like "what are you talking about?". It must be SO frustrating. But I talked to him a bit, or rather hung out with him. He has been living in an assisted living/rehab kinda house that I guess has been really good for him. He has lost a LOT of weight. I am not sure I have before and after pics, but I will check. He is diabetic and he has been keeping better track of that too, which is good. But he was laughing and seemed to be having a good time. I hope so, since he has had it rough.

Aunt Bev brought all these old pictures she had laying around, which is funny cause half of them were from weddings or of people that have since gotten divorced and remarried and were there with their new spouses. Awesome.

We hit the hotel, kevin took the car and got some coney islands from national, and we set up all the babies stuff, watched some TV, and went to sleep. I was damn tired. We got up the next AM, drove a bit, grabbed einstein's bagels, and hit the highway. We eventually caught up with my parents, had lunch with them, and drove into chicago. We dropped kevin off at his house, and we drove to winfield for rebecca's grandfather's 94th birthday. It was chill and nice. I fell asleep on the couch. TIRED. They decorated the tree a bit. Getting old is tough though.

Rebecca drove home, which was nice, since I wasn't driving.

I must be getting old, as I was totally tired, but I used to drive way more. I mean this was a 315 mile trip each way. And we made good time, but I was tired. I have done 1,000 mile days in the past and sure I was tired, but still. I dunno. Maybe I am out of practice at the distance driving. Maybe it was the baby adding stress, or the party, or the fact that I slept poorly in the hotel, who knows.

Back at work, busy busy busy. I am looking forward to a nice 4 day weekend.

So what has happened since thanksgiving? Hmmmm... work is going ok, selling lots of stuff on ebay. The ebay thing is getting old, but we do need to move the stuff, and it is my job, so that is that. The boss is out of town tomorrow through end of the year, so hopefully I will catch up on all the little things that haven't been getting done. Not that it is huge, but I have little things I would like to implement that I haven't had time to work on...

I have a website project that I need to get working on... It is a site for a company that does something (I honestly am not sure what) but I am hoping to have the skeleton of the site done soon. There are some admin pages to control the content, so that will be kinda cool to work on.

Car related... the Jetta hasn't been touched, but the Suzuki Throttle Bodies came. Those are cool. I need to order the standalone engine management too. Oh and start building the engine. I have been thinking about painting the car myself, although we need a bigger compressor for that. The Audi is doing fine. Al got me a great deal on the AC compressor that I need, so that will be fixed by summer. I also put snow tires on the Camry, although I didn't replace the valve stems, so they leak air. awesome. Now I have to pay to get them fixed since we are driving to detroit this weekend and I am not risking that...

Mason related... I will post more on his blog, but he is doing good, although nothing super notable. He is smiling more, which is cool, but it is usually when we engage him. Soon it will be in general, which will be neat. He had some shots the other day, but he did quite well, barely cried and was fine since then. I am still waiting for him to be more exciting. It will come quickly.

Christmas is NEARLY here, which is kinda freaking me out cause I am not ready. We put the tree up, and there are pics posted of course... I also built shelves into the wall, which I still need to sand and touch up, but they came out pretty nice. I like them. Pretty modern looking.

I haven't got my shopping done, which sucks cause I haven't had time to think about what to get people. Time is slim now. And I am getting late in the season to shop online as I usually do. Grrrrr.

The xbox is cool. NES and SNES and Genesis games are cool. Old. But cool.

So there are more pics of Mason that everyone should check out. We are ending month 2. Word. He rules.

this weekend rebecca took mason to the burbs with her and they went to get paper for the birth announcements. They done chose good stuff. I went out the garage with dylan to hang out and work on cars. In typical Dylan/Bryan fashion, we spent more time driving around and eating then working, but it was a nice break none the less. We got work done on the rabbit, I cleaned out the Honda, reseated the stereo, and finally got the CD changer magazine out (rebecca hasn't seen those CDs in a long time). Then we picked up Sarah and went back to our house.

We hung out a bit, then Dylan and I went to pickup Robs as well as Mr. Salsa and Thai. We all hung out at the house for a bit, it was nice. We ate at the table. It was cool. In hindsight, it is really funny. Like we haven't ever had that many people over and eaten at the table. I think we should have more things like that. Not even dinner parties, but just people over and then we eat. Perhaps we could throw in a game of some kind as well. I love Cranium. That could rule. I may be on to something here. I need a card table or something though if we are going to play around the couch. or a coffee table. hmmmmmmmmm....

We also sold the Honda to Dylan for Sarah's folks, so that car is no longer in our arsenal.

Sunday we stayed in for the most part. I ran a few errands. I installed the timer control for the front porch light. It is pretty neat. It occupies the place where the switch was and it is fully programmable as well as has a full look up table for sunrise/sunsets. I have it set to on at sunset and off at sunrise. It is pretty cool.

Monday I installed the projector to the wall and set that up. I forgot how nice it is to have a huge TV and video games. I played some Burnout-Takedown until Rebecca got annoyed. It was dope. The xbox mod chips come this week too, and I picked up a 160gb HD for it. Micheal and I are going to mod them up and I am all over installing xbox media center on mine. It will make watching all the tv and videos I have on the computer way easier. It will be nice. And I love tinkering with things.

We also stopped by the wabansia house and saw the kittens. Damn kittens are cool. They are so playful and entertaining. Michael needs to take more pictures. Michael's dad built this incredible cat castle. it is insane. HUGE! totally cool, although it makes them look kinda dorky, but that is certainly ok with me. It would actually get bonus points in my book!

Mason is doing great, check his blog for more updates. He is still eating and sleeping and pooping, but he is awake more now than ever. He is also a bit fussier, not such that we can't get him to be quiet, but it is still kinda annoying. He still grunts and groans as he tries to move around and use his muscles and whatnot. It is funny. But you can tell his vision is improving and he can focus better, which is neat. His dexterity is also improved, as he now actually will hold onto things, like a blanket, etc. It is cute.

I am sure there are other things that have happened, but I forget things.

Tonight we are going over to Robyn's to see the new place, have dinner, hangout, etc. It is gonna rule. Mason will get to see a new place and new cats.