Sgt. Barry Sadler is my Home Boy

Ok, most of you know I am a bit of a sports geek. My darling wife is a literary, music type of girl so when we play Trivial Pursuit it is pretty much a battle of attrition. I get Yellow, Blue, Green and Orange (History, Geography, Science and Sports), she gets Pink, Brown, Green and some Blue/Yellow (Entertainment, Arts and Literature and the others).

So tonight, partially because we were horribly bored with the same old same old (scanning Tevo), partially because of the writer's strike and partially because we just plain need to spend more non TV/Internet time together we decided to play Trivial Pursuit.

The first game was rolling along in typical fashion. I was doing well rolling all over the board looking for Roll Again and Orange Sports Spots to keep my turns going, till inevitably I had five pies and needed Pink to fill the pie and then of course to win I would have to answer another pink.

Then fate Smiled on me with the following two questions in succession on Pink (And Nathan will love the first one):

Q: What artist had a 1966 hit with Ballad of the Green Berets?
A: (And I love this song) Sgt. Barry Sadler

and then...even better....

Q: What name was given to the genre of Italian Cowboy movies (or something like that)
A: Spaghetti Westerns.

For me it doesn't get much better than that on Pink in Trivial Pursuit. Maybe something about Snoopy....what was Snoopy's buddy bird's name or something. So Barry Sadler, this Bud's for you. Oh and I lost the second game so the Ramsey family ended 1-1. BTW, watch out for us as a team, we won't lose. 8-)

Couldn't have one without the other

Jenn and I went to BW3 for dinner the other night after grocery shopping. After figuring out that we were standing at the maitradee stand instead of just ordering we were greeted by a quite competent girl working behind the counter and training a new but challenged employee.

The competent girl had two necklaces, one with the star of David and one with three crosses on it. I found that a bit odd. The Jewish people I know wouldn't wear a cross and the Christian people I know wouldn't wear a star of David. So knowing me, ya'll know what came next.

Bryan: So you have the Star of David AND crosses. What's with that? Couldn't decide?

BW3 Girl: Well, just thought you can't have one without the other so I have both.

Hmm....can't have one without the other. Christians might say that since they know Jesus was a Jew. Jews however might not agree. In fact my boy Baer chuckled out loud when I told him this story. In my honest opinion Judaism could exist and does possibly exist without Jesus and Christianity. They don't need us, but we need them so to speak.

So to my friend at BW3. I love your ambition, but you could be mistaken. Just a bit, maybe.

Childhood nutrition

I remember one trip to my Aunt Jo's house where I chewed a Ham sandwich bite or several bites maybe for the entire road trip to my Aunt's house. She lived in Orlando. We lived in Kissimmee. I believe it is about 30 miles, maybe more. That was the story of my childhood nutrition. I was picky and stubborn. I assume my parents just gave up trying after a certain point.

However, I think they missed the point. They never gave me the options the kid I saw in Mieneke Car Care this morning. I'm sitting there minding my own business waiting for my car to be finished and a girl, maybe 8-to-10 years old comes in with her mother. She sits down at the table I am at with a bag from Taco Bell and a bag from Wendy's. My kind of nutrition. So a couple of bites into one of her tacos, she lays it down and proceeds to dig into some fries from Wendy's. Moments later he mom says, "No more fries till you eat your taco."

I had a double take because when I was a kid it was no more dessert till you eat your veggies or no more something good till you eat something bad. This kid was getting no more fries till she ate her taco. I used to eat those Tacos and trust me they are both good tasting and bad for you. Hmmmm. I'm probably 60 pounds over weight right now. Imagine if I had those options as a kid. Good job mom!

US Postal Service, neither rain nor snow...

So the other day I go to the mailbox as is typical when I get home from work. I would say about 1 time a month or maybe less we get a piece of mail for one of my neighbors. I don't think that is a bad amount.

The most recent takes the cake.

Come to find out about 5 houses down from me lives someone who retired from the U.S. Postal Service.

So when I check the mail, in it is an incorrectly delivered piece of mail from the U.S. Postal Service Retirement Organization. If there was one piece of mail you would think they could deliver correctly, it would be mail to former compatriot about their retirement. So I enjoyed that little moment of irony. That the US Postal Service is not discriminating about what the don't deliver properly.

Disturbing News

I will get back to fun stuff soon I promise.

I am not going to go into much detail hear as I don't like having work discussions on the WWW, but this is a bit disturbing.

I am quite certain there will be appeals and other cases and all sorts of things I don't understand, but for now, just questions I guess.

What do you feel?

Just warning you this is pretty stream of consciousness. As most of you know by now, Jenn and I found out yesterday that we had lost the baby. What do you feel at a time like that?

I really don't know. It actually is a terribly mixed bag of things some of which I wonder if I should feel bad about feeling. I think all of it comes down to the fact that we heard a heart beat and that heart beat isn't there any more and that really sucks. Regardless of all the other stuff related to the pregnancy or now lack of pregnancy, we had created something and it is gone. Fears about money or health or being good parents, excitement over the new addition, a chance to be parents and a chance to raise a child; They are all gone for the moment.

I'm sure, God willing, there will be another pregancy and hopefully we will have a baby one day, but today just sort of stunk. It was my first day back at work and the fact that I had to tell a few people why I wasn't in yesterday stunk. The fact that when the girl who sits next to me asked when our baby was due, I had to tell her stunk. The fact that in a meeting, someone in reference to a product assortment life cycle said they wanted to know birth to death and all I could think about was an ultrasound two weeks ago that was loud and proud and an ultra-sound yesterday that was silence stunk. Like the silence on the other end of a telephone or a radio when communicating with someone and you aren't sure they are ok, only this silence represented the end of something small. No flat line tone like in the movies, just a silent audio track.

I guess I feel that it sucks. That's about it. We will move on. We will try again. I know God has his reasons and more than likely they include the fact that the baby didn't have a shot at survival or health. We didn't do anything wrong and Jenn did everything she could, bless her heart, to give that baby a healthy body to grow in. It just didn't work out and that sucks.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. I have talked to a ton of people about this and well, what do you say? I have told the same story over and over again. I hope the next story I tell over and over again is about how I witnessed the birth of our baby girl or boy and how that really didn't suck. Not at all.

You get your Mojo, I get da ba-be!

Well folks, Chiliburgers has officially gone mad. I have resorted to posting pregancy posts. Jenn has beat me to the punch with a couple, but here is my first. Color me papa-to-be, baby daddy or something. 8-)

Found below is the first ultrasound of our "bean." Following the ultrasound we determined that the baby is due on July 28, 2008. That means Jenn is about 6.5-7 weeks right now.

This was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. However, it comes with a few notes and comments as usual.

1. You always hear expecting parents talk about their first ultrasound and you think, "Wow that must be huge, like a big deal or something." The actual event is actually pretty depressingly anti-climactic in the fact that it was in the Doctor's office and took all of about 4 minutes not including the paperwork and prep and such. Don't get me wrong. The 4 minutes were really cool. Hearing the heart beat of our baby was super cool. Seeing something we created at the earliest stages of development. Crazy. But the process and the event, kind of sedate. Not sure what I expected, maybe trumpets and an announcer...maybe Michael Buffer.

2. Hearing the heartbeat was crazy cool. I never got into all the abortion debates about when a child is a child and la de da, but hearing a heartbeat of a child at 6.5 weeks knowing that in about 7-8 months that kid will be in our house. Purely Crazy.

3. When making this wave file, and hearing the heart beat again, all I could think of was the scenes from The Hunt for the Red October where Seaman Jones is talking about all the stuff he hears in the sonar.

Capt. Bart Mancuso: [after hearing Jones's findings] Have I got this straight, Jonesy? A $40 million computer tells you you're chasing an earthquake, but you don't believe, and you come up with this on your own?
Seaman Jones: Yes, sir.
Capt. Bart Mancuso: Including all the navigation maps?
Seaman Jones: Sir, I-I've got all the...
Capt. Bart Mancuso: Relax, Jonesy. You sold me.

Enjoy your viewing. Glad we could share through magic of technology. Sorry about the quality. We didn't have a blank VCR tape and forgot to buy one so well, it was recorded over some Sink the Bismark History Channel special. From the VCR into the hard drive and then the MPEG. DOH. gotta love technology though. When I was born, my mom was probably lucky to have baby photos AFTER I was out, much less 32 weeks before I was out.

Just an FYI -- Make sure you have volume up. At about the 1:55 point you can hear the audio of the heart beat. Woohoo!