Thank you, Sprint. Thank you, video chat.

For the past several days, my Kindergartner's first loose tooth has been giving him fits. He keeps accidentally chomping down on it at mealtime, causing quite a bit of pain. Last night he kept asking me to pull it, but it still seemed too attached. So I just told him to wiggle it around as much as possible and it should come out soon.

Well, it did! This morning at work I got picture mail from my wife of the tooth and the gap! I was a little disappointed to not be there in person. So, I immediately got out my Motorola Photon - powered by Sprint's 4G NOW Network - and fired up a Google Talk video chat with my wife. It was super-awesome to get to see how excited he was about losing his first tooth. And he thought it was way-cool to see me in the video chat. To make it even better, as we were about to wrap up, his little brother came toddling in to the kitchen. At first, he was just really confused (having just woken up), but once he realized he could talk to me AND see me, he was grinning from ear to ear.

Technology rocks.


Thank you, Sprint. Thank you, video chat.

Cutting cords. Cutting costs.

High speed cable modem with VoIP - Check.
HD DVR cable box - Check.
Remote control - Check, Check. (Why did we have two remotes??)


We dropped off all our Time Warner Cable equipment and cancelled our service. So that's it. No more land-line phone. No more Internet. No more TV.

Well...not exactly! Enter Sprint, Roku, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. We got a 4G desktop modem from Sprint for our ISP and we've got a Roku box to stream Netflix and Hulu Plus. We're getting our basic TV over the air with a digital converter and antennae.

We've been thinking of doing this for over a year, but just haven't gone through with it. Finally, with a little inspiration, we've made the jump. It's not flawless; periodically we have some buffering and loading issues, but not that often, and it clears up quickly. A small price to pay considering this is saving us around $80 a month.

If nothing else, it has proved one thing. I knew that if I ever started watching Heroes, I'd be hooked.

2 Hands. 2 Binkys. 1 Mouth. No Problem.

The other morning, The Boy had 2 binkys in his mouth at the same time. It was quite amusing and made for some great pictures.

He can crawl up stairs now. Closely monitored, of course.

He likes to chase and be chased, and he just laughs & laughs when he pops his head around the corner and finds me.

Work and life have been busy, so I haven't posted much recently.

I got a new phone (with Sprint) and I love it.

There are at least a dozen other things I've wanted to post about recently, but I can't think of them now.

EDIT: He's learning new sounds. He's got the "D" down and he's getting "M", too. It's fun to pretend like he's saying da-da and ma-ma.

FILE UNDER: PARENTS, GEEK

Buzzword

I've got to do something with my computer cables. At least I think that's the problem. I have this erratic, obnoxious, all be it barely audible, buzz in my speakers. It's associated with mouse movement, CD activity, etc. It's annoying as heck.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

A Fool And His Data

We got some good loot from some friends who had a baby a couple months ago. He's already outgrowing some of his stuff. Some of it is not gender specific, and some is, but still, it's FREE!

We now have most of a plan for the baby room and the new spare bedroom. Now we just need to start working on it.

Our big dog (75 lbs.) hates fireworks. They make her a nervous wreck to the point she won't even go to the bathroom. She just wants to be inside and far away from them. The little one (55 lbs.) doesn't like them either, but she mostly ignores them except for the really loud and bright ones.

Our computer is back up and running, complete with a 300GB external drive for backups. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

FILE UNDER: PRE-PARENTHOOD, DOGS RULE, GEEK

Vacation Good, PC Bad (delayed post)

Texas was good. We had fun. It was nice to see my brother and his family. Sea World was really very cool. We did it in 2 days which was a good plan. It could've been done in one, but I bought the 2-day passes on the Internet, and they were only another $4. That way, when we got hot in the afternoon, we called it a day and went back to the pool and swam. We had a lot of fun swimming. In fact, we had a lot of fun in general. Then we went back the next day, saw the stuff we missed, and saw the really cool stuff a second time. Getting to pet and feed the dolphins was very cool for me. And watching those people interact with the whales was amazing.

Oh, at one point The Wife kind of forgot she was pregnant and tried to "hop" out of the pool by throwing one leg up on the side. She kind of teetered on the edge for a second before she was able to get enough ooomph to make it out. I recommended she use the stairs or ladder from then on.

Then when we got back, the PC wouldn't boot. I knew it was the hard drive or the controller card. Turns out it was the hard drive. I've still got a guy trying to recover the data, but it's looking like a lost cause.

FILE UNDER: THINKING, PRE-PARENTHOOD

I suck

We were on vacation for a week, came back, PC busted. Big time. I don't know if it was lighting, a surge, or just it's time, but my hard drive is dead. I even tried swapping out the circuit board because the platter was spinning, it just couldn't seem to read anything. No luck.

So, I'm re-building. And between trying to recover from vacation, work being busy, and a lot going on around the house (painting, windows, doors, etc.), it's taking me longer than I should. It's also keeping me from posting baby updates. There's a lot to tell, and I'll get to it soon.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

ROTS - Comments

I don't consider anything I've written below to be a spoiler. But if you're completely paranoid about reading any potential spoilers, you might wait to read this after you've seen ROTS.

Despite the fact that I knew Anakin would become Darth Vader, it still broke my heart to watch it unfold. The way it happened. The things he did. The fact that Darth Vader was no longer just some bad guy in a black suit. In the original Trilogy, he was just that bad guy and that's how it was. No big deal. But to see him transform and to know that Darth Vader could have been prevented. And to know that some evil bastard took advantage of his adolescence and his hard life. It was just sad.

The movie was amusing and suspensful. It was visually captivating. The whole movie brought such closure to so many things.

I truly enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing it again in six hours.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

ROTS

I'm going to see Revenge Of The Sith in 30 minutes. Very excited.

FILE UNDER: GEEK

Mail-to-Blogger (3rd try)

This is just a test to see if I can email a blog entry.

FILE UNDER: GEEK