Early indications........

It appears that Kali 0.4 may be a computer programmer.......

Play time and busy weekend.....

Been busy taking care of Kali 0.4 lately. Mrs. Lime has been working at night this week, leaving me to figure out the right buttons to push to make Kali happy on any given night. She's moved her sleeping pattern around a bit lately, which always makes things a bit more 'exciting'. Such is the price you pay for a bundle of joy.

Busy weekend upcoming as well. Mrs. Lime's heading out for a 'Girls Night Out' tonight, so Kali and I get more time to play with stuffed animals, exercise toys, talking Elmo toys, etc. She honestly only plays with a few of the toys that she likes. Tomorrow, another monthly poker night at the homestead. Our poker group has now been going steady for 3 years. Never thought it would last this long, but there's a lot of people that look forward to it now, so it's likely to stay around for good.

Baby cousins picture blowout.......

Mrs. Lime, my sister and my cousin got together to take pictures of 3 brand new babies. They are:

Kali 0.4
Alex 0.2
Gwen 0.1

Here's my personal favorite, but I'm a bit biased......



And some pictures of all three girls together......

Bumpy night.......

Kali 0.4 decided to make it rough on her main source of entertainment (that's me) last night. Lots of singing and blowing on her tummy followed by some walking and playtime to try to keep her from fussing. She's been extremely good the past few days that I've taken care of her, so it was bound to happen that the hot streak would come to an end. She did eat a big bowl of rice cereal and took some formula, but I think she was just really worn out from her day. She went swimming with Mrs. Lime and some other girls at the neighborhood pool. I think that likely did her in. It's obviously not easy being 4 months old. So many things to do and so little time to do it in.

Mrs. Lime is off tonight, so we should be able to chill out. Always nice to have nights where we don't have a lot to do other than entertain each other.

Weekend outings......

Relatively quiet weekend. Mrs. Lime put in a few hours of work and so I had daddy daycare time. Kali 0.4 was very well-behaved. Only really fussed when there was a issue she thought was pretty important, which it usually was important. She knocked back about 6 oz. of formula and some peas yesterday afternoon. She's really starting to put away the food now. She's a growing girl.

I went out and played in a night golf tournament on Saturday night. You play with balls that have glow sticks in them. It may seem pretty odd, but it's actually a lot of fun. Some of the people really get into it. They wear glowing necklaces and have flashing lights on their cart. It doesn't really matter how well you play. It's just fun to get out and see little glowing balls flying all over the place.

Mrs. Lime and I also went over to a starving artists' sale on Sunday. I would note that it's not truly a starving artists' sale as it's more a situation where they try to get people in to get a painting and then they try to get you to buy frames off them to make their real money. However, if you know what's actually a good deal and avoid their sucker buys, it's a good way to get some nice artwork for your house. We picked up 4 paintings for our house. We have a pretty good idea where most of the pictures are going, but we'll have to think on it a bit more to determine the exact spots. I'm sure Mrs. Lime has some excellent locations in mind.

Kali 0.4 picture blowout........

Ah, yes. Time for another picture blowout to pacify the masses.

First, lots of time with her new favorite toy.......





Some playtime on the couch.......







Getting a little tired.......



Showing off her gymnastic skills on the floor.......







Who likes sweet potatoes?????????



More playtime on the couch.......





Sitting in her chair.......she hasn't noticed what's on the table to her right....



Wait a second.......what's that over there???????



I think I can almost reach it..........

Friends in the right places.........

Usually once a week, I head down to the cafeteria in our building to go grab some lunch. I don't eat there every day, but it's nice to break up the monotony of the work week every once in awhile by doing something different.

There's a really nice middle-aged woman down there who takes care of the same grill station every day. She loves to chat with everyone and I usually engage in conversation with her. She would talk your ear off if you hung around there long enough, but the line has to keep moving. So you're usually saved from chatting too much as the person behind you in line quickly ends up being the next target for her chatter.

The lunch lady knows me because I usually get the same thing each time: chicken fingers and fries. It's one of the few things that they make that are really good. I've found that going down to the lunch area later often results in the lunch lady being generous to me in the size of my portions. She's always willing to do as much as she can.

Yesterday, I went down around 12:50 PM and asked for the 3 chicken strips and fries. I watched as she reached down and grabbed 6 (!) chicken strips and placed them in the to-go container. She then grabbed a large handful of fries and placed them precisely to make sure that 3 of the 6 chicken strips were covered up to the naked eye. She then lifted up the container to hand it to me. She pointed at the food in the container and said with a smile, "Now, you be sure to tell them at the cash register that you have 3 chicken strips and fries. You hear me????"

I nodded with a smile and thanked her. She smiled back and said, "You're very welcome!"

It pays to be in an alliance with the lunch lady.

Some things should never be said in public........

Overheard in a nearby cube. I suppose I've heard worse things, but not much worse..........

Lady #1:

"Yeah, the scar on my foot is just itching like nobody's business. I had a bunion on my foot that was really out of control. I had it shaved off and had some surgery done to correct my foot alignment. Now I've got callouses and all kinds of other things on my foot."

Lady #2:

"Man, I've got a bunion as well that causes me all kinds of problems. Maybe I need to have something done."

Lady #1:

"Yeah, the best thing to do is just buy sandals that cover them up well. I wouldn't want to look at them if I was someone else." ***laughing***

Lady #2:

"That makes two of us!"

Happy Father's Day!!!!!!!

Kali wanted to pass on her best wishes to all the fathers (and grandfathers) in her own special way. She just got a new teddy bear from a nun who is a friend of the family. Click on the link below to see what Kali thinks of the bear........

Kali sends best wishes!

Summer: Too hot.........

There's nothing worse than the 2 hot months in the middle of summer. I'm just glad that I live in Kansas City, where the summer comes in and fades relatively quickly. The only redeeming part of the summer is that my wife actually allows me to keep the house cool. Outside of that, there's not much to like.

Baseball? Normally it would be a good part of summer, but considering the Royals haven't been in playoff contention during the summer in quite awhile, I don't get too excited about it.

Swimming? I have asthma and have a rough time holding my breath for too terribly long. Not all that exciting to me.

Golf? Maybe, but I prefer the cooler days during the spring and fall. I like to wear a jacket while playing golf.

Walks outside? My dog with a heavy fur coat agrees that the summer is not a good time for walks.

Convertible rides? Maybe, though the seats can get hot if it's 90+ degrees.

I think you can officially call me the 'Summer Grinch'.

Heat = bad
Cool = good

If global warming causes an increase in the length of summer in Kansas City, I'm going to hold Al Gore personally responsible.

Size is obviously a concern........

There are two urinals in the men's bathroom at my workplace. One urinal is much higher than the other one, obviously they were placed with the intent to cater to men of different height.

If that's the case, why is it that every time I walk into the bathroom, there's a 5-foot tall man using the higher urinal. He's often shooting upward since the urinal base is higher than his waist. It's obvious he's trying to prove that he belongs with the big boys.

Meanwhile, I'm left to use the shorter urinal. This is a dicey situation at best. I have to aim at a urinal that is roughly 10 feet below my waist, hoping that I hit paydirt and not the floor or my shoes.

I think I'm going to put signs saying 'This one is for short people' and 'This one is for tall people' to streamline the process. I'm just going to have to pray that the short people will look up and read the signs above the urinals when they walk into the bathroom.

Version upgrade and new rice-eating record........

Well, another 11th day of the month has passed, so a version upgrade is in order. Kali 0.4 is growing at an amazing rate. I took care of her last night as Mrs. Lime was working. She set a new Kali personal best of 3 1/2 tablespoons of rice cereal. Better yet, she ate it all in roughly 5 minutes flat. We're going to have to work on her table manners, as she ended up with rice around her mouth, up her nose, and on her eyelid.

She's also doing a better job of going to sleep at night. Last night, I fed her a bottle at her bedtime. She ate most of it and ended up nearly asleep. I rocked her for a few minutes and then sat her in the crib. She actually woke up when I sat her down in the crib. She looked at me, gave a couple of goo-goo's, then rolled over on her side and went to sleep immediately. She's obviously going to be a social beast. Anyone that has to get in one last 'goo-goo' before they go to sleep is going to talk a whole lot in the near future.

Monday comes again......

It seems like it rains all the time anymore. Lots of rain this past week and we get to Monday.........more rain. I guess it fits with the thought that no one is happy with the start of the work week. I was hoping to mow my lawn today, but that's likely out the door. I'll save it for Tuesday. I have lots of stuff that needs to be done around the house, so I'll do that in the meanwhile.

I went to a video game auction over the weekend. There were a lot of really good deals. That's usually the case at summer auctions. As the holidays get closer, the prices will go up as more people are there to bid. There wasn't anyone who seemed all that interested in buying stuff other than the video game brokers who snapped up all of the good deals. I'm sure they were quite happy with their purchases. I'm glad I didn't pick up an auction card to bid as I likely would have bought several things. I wasn't really overwhelmed by the selection, but the prices were extremely hard to beat. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun to go play some games for awhile.

Best uses of a bathroom stall.......

I went into the bathroom and happened to notice a very unusual pair of shoes in one of the stalls. Not sure why I noticed it, but it stuck in my mind.

45 minutes later, I went back to the bathroom (I was drinking a lot of water). I walked in and noticed the same pair of shoes in the same bathroom stall. Worse yet, as I stood next to the stall at a urinal, I suddenly heard snoring! This dude had decided to turn the bathroom into his personal siesta hideaway! Being a huge fan of naps, I did what any person would do when a person was sleeping in a bathroom stall. I proceeded to clench my fist and solidly slam it into the bathroom stall wall, waking up Senor Siesta in the process.

I wish this was my first experience like this, but something similar happened in one of my past jobs. One day, there was a guy who wasn't working in our group anymore. I mentioned it to one of my friends and he said that the former worker was fired for sleeping in the bathroom. Evidently, this guy would sleep a few hours a day in the bathroom each workday. It worked just fine until our director walked into the bathroom and heard him snoring. He was fired that day.

How many of you have more than one experience of guys sleeping in bathroom stalls at their workplace?????????

Kali 0.3 first swimming pics.......

Mrs. Lime and Kali 0.3 went to the pool on Tuesday. Kali liked playing in the water and also took a nap on the pool deck. Just another day in the life of a 3 month old baby........

D-Day memories.......

Today is June 6th, known as D-Day. For those that are interested, the website below has quite a few first-person accounts of that day in 1944. Obviously, with many WWII veterans no longer with us, these stories are very important to retain a narrative of what happened that day.

Stories from D-Day

Below are a few interesting WWII/D-Day stories related on a message board I regularly visit......

Both of my grandparents fought in WWII. One of them was a POW in a prison camp for most of the war (shot down while doing a bombing run), while the other fought in North Africa, Sicily, then entered France D-Day+4 the whole way through V-E Day. Neither of them spoke too much about it and I never understood why until recently. After reading and watching documentaries (Band of Brothers), you realize that the men don't want to talk about it because the memories of it are so horrific.

I often wonder how I would've reacted if placed in such a situation. Having the boat pull up to the shore and once that hatch goes down you know that your chance of living is less than 50%, but you still do it for the honor of your country. The heroism just amazes me.

I only got to personally thank one of my grandparents for what they did. I did it in a letter only months before he passed. But anytime I see someone with a hat or shirt that says WWII vet I make a point to go up to them and thank them. It does seem like much but each time I get a smile and a short story.

My Grandad was at Dunkirk. He lost a few good friends there, and I'm not sure he ever really got over what happened during Dunkirk in particular. I do know that he very nearly drowned that day, a man who was a stronger swimmer saved his life basically. They had to swim out to the boats that were picking them up, as the water was too shallow for them to come in. He wouldn't of made it if not for this other guy who basically saved his life as I say.

Previously to that they were in the sea for 24 hours or more. The Germans were bombing the beaches, and the water was the safest place as it lessened the effect of the bombs apparently. He is still afraid of water to this day.

He quite often talks about other things that he witnessed in WWII, some good, some bad. One particular story was when he was going in convoy going through France, at night so that they wouldn't be spotted. He was driving a truck, following another that had about a dozen guys in the back.

The trucks had little glow lights underneath the chasis, so that the guy behind could follow, but planes couldn't see from above. Suddenly, this glow light 30 or so yards ahead flew off to the right like "some sort of UFO". This truck was actually hit by a train, which was also traveling with its lights out. I presume most of, or all the guys died in the truck, I didn't want to push the issue.

On the bright side he met my Gran whilst on leave, and spent 40 odd happy years with her. He met her whilst on leave in WWII.

I think my Grandad feels pretty daft for enlisting in the army. The young boys were lied to about what to expect, they were made to believe there was a lot more glory involved than there actually was. (I'm English BTW, I can't speak for circumstances in the states) He was underage, just turned 17 when he signed up. To some degree I think he felt a bit of a mug for getting involved in such a situation that he didn't have to, due to his age. In light of this I've never really thanked him as it didn't seem appropriate. He did what he had to do really, there wasn't a heck of a lot of choice involved.

My grandfather actually enlisted before the draft. He told me that he knew there was going to be a draft so he thought he might as well choose which branch he wanted to go into.

He wrote his brother back home and told him to enlist in the Navy because in his opinion he was safer on a boat. His brother did and while in the Pacific his ship was split in half by a Japanese Torpedo. He survived and it was a running joke between the two for years to come.

Mother Nature strikes me (again).......

For those that don't know, when I was younger, our house was struck by lightning. There was a wall behind the headboard of my bed. On the other side of that wall was a hallway and there was a fire detector hung on that wall. When the lightning hit, that fire detector on the other side of the wall from where I was sleeping was blown off the wall, flew into the bathroom across the hall and landed in the bathtub about 15 feet from where it was originally hung. We later looked at the fire detector and it was black from the charge that it took from the lightning bolt.

We were very lucky in that it was pouring down rain that night. Although a foot-wide hole was blown in the top of our house that night, the downpour kept the fire to a very small burn. There was just a little patching required on the top of the roof. Most of the electronics in the house were cooked. So it made for a good story with an insurance claim attached.

Last Wednesday, a huge downpour moved into our area. It was just dumping buckets of water around my house. I was on the second floor of my house playing a video game.

WHAM!!!!!!

What the?!?!?! The whole room lit up like an enormous flash cube with a simultaneous loud crash. I had a good hunch what that sound meant, though I wasn't sure how close that lightning strike was to my house. I immediately walked through the upper level of the house, looking for any signs of smoke or damage. Didn't really see anything, so I assumed a near-miss. No trees were down in the yard either. The video game was
not interrupted, so I was pretty sure it didn't hit the house.

I went back to playing my game. After a few minutes, Mrs. Lime calls and says she's in the driveway and that the garage doors won't open. I figured the power got hit by the lightning and caused an issue. So I head down to check the circuit breaker and find the garage breaker kicked off. I went back up and found the garage doors in working order.

As I walked into the garage, I noticed a plastic cover laying on the garage floor. I was puzzled and picked it up. When I flipped it over, I noticed something very familiar. It was covered in black burn marks, just like that fire detector that flew through the house when I was a kid. I knew then that the house had been hit by lightning. I looked over at the controller for the sprinkler system and this is what I saw.........



That, my friends, is one toasted sprinkler system controller. Thankfully, the builder had grounded the metal decorations on our roof, so the damage in the house was pretty minimal. It blew up the sprinkler controller and fried a phone and one other piece of equipment, but everything else appears to be in order. Nothing that a little money and an insurance claim can't fix. I'm just glad that I managed to dodge a lightning bolt for the second time in roughly 20 years. The bolt actually hit the roof about 12 feet directly above where I was sitting. I've got to find a way to stop attracting these things. I've got enough things to worry about in life without having to dodge lightning bolts.

Kali 0.3 eating pics.......

Here's Kali's first attempt at eating. She was busy wondering why Dad was so intent on taking pictures of her. She had trouble concentrating on the matter at hand, but still did manage to down all the rice cereal that Mrs. Lime had made.

Rice, rice baby!!!!!

Kali 0.3 got her first shot at something different last night. She tried out the new fad in baby food------rice cereal!!!! Mrs. Lime whipped up a batch of rice cereal with some breast milk. We put a bib on the girl and began the experiment.

She started off her first bite with a bit of a funny face. I think she was caught off-guard by the texture of the cereal. The second and third bites went a bit better; no funny face, but she was trying to lick and suck the milk to get it off the spoon.

After those initial bites, she took to it really well. I was holding her in a seated position. She became even more eager to eat the cereal and actually started to try to grab the spoon to pull it into her mouth. She even grabbed for the bowl at one point. That's my girl. She's already thinking big only weeks into her short life.

We'll keep working on it, but I think she's going to take to the food pretty quickly. She seemed to think it was a lot of fun. We'll start nice and slow with the food, but early results are very promising.

Kali 0.3 has a new playmate!!!!!

Name: Gwenyth Catherine
Date: May 31, 2007
Weight: 7 lbs., 6 oz.

Kali and Mrs. Lime are headed over today to meet the new arrival. I'm sure they'll be crawling around playing with each other in no time.