Just don't put your hands near her mouth.........

Kali 1.5 is obviously on some sort of a ridiculous growth spurt. Here's a chart of her eating for the day.........

Breakfast - 6 oz. of milk, roughly 150-200 blueberries

Morning snack - Another 50 blueberries

Lunch - 15-20 nacho chips, taco meat, half a flour tortilla, and two fist-size portions of pico de gallo (tomatoes and onions)

Afternoon snack - Full carton of red raspberries

Dinner - A full cob of corn, several bites of chicken, two eggs, and a handful of berries

Evening snack - Two handfuls of pretzels.

My whole day consisted of repeated 'More! More!' yells from my daughter. The good thing is that she's very good at saying 'Please!' now, so at least she's becoming polite with her demands. As I write this, it appears that she's over on the other side of the room grunting and making a disturbed face. I guess she had to fill her pants at some point. All that food has to go somewhere.

Yep, she's still paying attention.........

More proof that Kali 1.5 is watching my every move.

Usually, if Kali is taking a nap or is relaxing, I try to make sure that Nova 8.4 keeps quiet and doesn't bark. If he starts to act like he's going to make some noise, I'll whisper 'Nova!' and tell him 'Ssssshhhhh!'.

Yesterday, Kali and I were walking through the house to go change a diaper. A car happened to drive by the house and so Nova began to bark. Kali immediately stopped in her tracks. She turned towards Nova, put her finger to her mouth, and said, "Noba! Sssssshhhhh! Sssssshhhhh!". She then turned away and continued to walk in the same direction as though nothing had happened.

17 months old and she's already disciplining the dog.

A cruel business............

So today, I sit here knowing that someone in my group is going to lose their job in the coming week. No one in my group knows about it, including that person. Thankfully, I don't have to do the dirty work as it's a decision that my new contracting company is making.

Needless to say, it sucks. Not more than 24 hours ago, this same person came to me seeking advice about what to do in the upcoming days as he was concerned about the changes in our contract. I told him that he should always have a backup option available, but that I was told that everyone would be retained in the new contract group.

Today, I found out that my words about having a backup plan end up being prophetic. He'll be back out of a job after only a couple of months on this job. He just signed a 1 year lease on an apartment and now has no income for the immediate future. I have no idea exactly what he did that warranted his removal. The decision was made above me in the food chain. In a couple of days, I'll have to explain to him that it wasn't my choice and he'll want answers. I can't say I blame him.

Where's the posts?????

I've been busy at work of late. Our old contract ended and a new company was awarded the next contract. As a result, the workers end up basically reapplying for their old job. It's not that big of a deal as far as job security goes, but I needed to update my resume to reflect the latest work in my career. So it's a bit time consuming.

In addition, we have a couple of people in my group that have never gone through this kind of job transition. They're confused by all of the shenanigans that occur when a contract is taken over by another company. For example, the new company can't officially recruit the workers in the departing company for the same positions in the new contract. What they can do is hold a "job fair" where they only invite the current team members to the job fair and then hire the employees back again. It's a really odd system that can be really confusing for newer employees who haven't dealt with it before.

I had to talk a couple of my employees off a ledge yesterday. Both of them had been in the group for only a few months, so they weren't prepared for the chaos surrounding a contract change. I just simplified the discussion as best as I could to help them understand that everything was likely to remain the same. It seemed to work. They settled down and were much happier with the situation afterwards. Crisis averted.

Hopefully this will all be resolved in the next week or so and I can get back to blogging about stupid, meaningless things again.

What are you saying?!?!?!

I was busy playing with Kali 1.5 the other night. She was doing her usual routine of bringing over books to read, coloring in her coloring book, playing music on her baby piano, etc. I was sitting in the couch with my arm hanging over the armrest on my left.

After running around for awhile, Kali 1.5 disappeared behind the armrest on the coach. After a minute or so, she yelled, "BI BI!!"

Now, 'bi bi' can mean a lot of different things. It could mean belly button and it could mean binky. I told her without actually looking at her that she couldn't have her binky. After 15 seconds, I heard her again........"BI BI!!".

I leaned up to where I could see her and told her once again that she couldn't have her binky. She looked back at my hand which had been hanging in front of her the whole time. She pointed at my hand and said, "BI BI!!".

Confused, I looked at my hand. I then remembered that I had a blister on my hand from yard work and had put a 'Sesame Street' Band-Aid on my blister. On the Band-Aid was a picture of...........Big Bird!

"Yes, honey, Big Bird!", I said.

She smiled and walked off to grab another book, happily knowing that Daddy had noticed that she recognized Big Bird.

Role models.........

It's natural for a person to see a larger-than-life sports star and think how great it would be to be famous. You could be a hero to millions of people. You could make millions of dollars doing nothing more than playing the same game that we all play, recreational or otherwise.

I watched a HBO show last night about Mickey Mantle. I was amazed after watching the videos just how great of a player he really was throughout his career. He could run like the wind. He could hit the ball over the fence in one at-bat and then bunt for a hit on the next at-bat. His fielding ability was unbelievable. Millions of fans loved his bashful persona and warm smile.

While he was playing baseball, his wife and 4 kids lived in Dallas, TX. They interviewed her and she talked about how rough it was to spend 7-8 months out of every year alone raising four boys. Meanwhile, Mickey never really grew up. He went to parties and bars with his teammates nearly every day. He began to drink a lot, mainly because he was a bashful person and he though people enjoyed being around a drunk Mickey Mantle. I guess he thought it 'enhanced' his personality.

After his career ended, he went back home. The only way he felt he could really relate to his kids (who were now all grown up), was to have a few drinks with them. As a result, he had 4 alcohol-dependent sons. His wife lamented in the interview just how difficult life was living with 5 alcoholics.

Eventually, Mickey's body gave out from the years of alcohol abuse. He actually realized the error in his ways in his final few months. He presented himself to the public as a role model that you shouldn't attempt to follow. Simply put, he said, "God gave me all these gifts and I blew it."

It's easy to want to be everything in life. I don't have anywhere near the physical gifts that Mickey Mantle has (though I still attempt to prove otherwise on occasion). Watching Mickey Mantle's story showed me just how big of a hero I really am. I'm raising Kali 1.5 the best way I know how with absolutely no regrets as to how I'm doing it. Mrs. Lime and I are creating positive role models for Kali that will last her the rest of her life. Not only that, I think she'll be a better person for it, rather than be burdened with issues that were not self-initiated.

It's OK to avoid being humble every once in awhile and give yourself a pat on the back. You may be your own worst critic, but you're also your own best friend.

What kind of threat is that?

Over the weekend, we went to a restaurant in the area. The wait to get a table was 20 minutes or so. We all sat down and I bought a drink for Mrs. Lime and I. Kali 1.5 was left to enjoy her toys and a few animal crackers during the wait.

While we were sitting in the waiting area, there was a group of people from out-of-state that came into the restaurant. They had a pretty large group and were quoted a wait time of 40-45 minutes. One of the teenage boys in the group started complaining about having to wait that long for a table. His dad got after him pretty good and the kid was verbally firing back. His dad then shot off this gem......."You're going to get sent back to San Antonio if you aren't careful!".

Now I'm all for some form of discipline, but when did parents earn the right to make ultimatums that literally have no chance of being enforced? So this guy is threatening that he'll send his kid back to San Antonio. How exactly does he plan to do that?

Book a plane ticket? That would work. It might set the guy back a few hundred dollars. Also, the problem-causing kid would then be in San Antonio without parental supervision, which doesn't sound like any better of an idea than keeping him in Kansas City.

Dad drives him home? That would get him home and Dad would be there to supervise, but how would everyone else in KC get home without a vehicle?

In the end, his threat was just as intelligent as the old standby "Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!" phrase. And they wonder why certain kids turn out like they do..........

Never a dull moment.......

One of the people I manage uses a cordless mouse on their work computer. While that shouldn't be a big deal under normal circumstances, we work for the federal government. So, when you switch out any computer components, they get their feathers a bit ruffled.

One of the tech people came by her cube a few weeks ago and noted that she was using a cordless mouse. At that time, they told her that she really wasn't supposed to be using that mouse without proper approval from a tech person.

This lady on my team is not the kind of person that backs down from any discussion. She's very set in her ways and has no apprehension about stating her mind. It's great in the sense that she's a very independent worker and very reliable. It's not so great when she disagrees with someone.

Fast forward to yesterday. She had requested to have a new monitor installed. A different tech guy than the previous visit came by with a new monitor. Unfortunately, this tech guy has a similar personality to her. He immediately noticed that cordless mouse is hooked up to her computer. He confronts her about the unapproved accessory on her computer. Long story short, they end up yelling at each other in the middle of the office. She eventually became so angry that she stormed out of the building and went home.

So I get to spend part of today calming her down while smoothing over any other issues. Management is bliss.

Mizzou Tiger fans lose a great friend...........

Very few of you know Sarah Becking. But at the same time, all of you know Sarah Becking. Sarah is renown for her photographs of Mizzou sporting events. The reason you don't see her is because you usually see things from this angle......

The photo below was taken by a friend of Sarah while she took the above photo.



Sarah Becking died July 8th at the age of 36 due to complications from cancer surgery. She has two young kids and a husband. That kind of thing hits a lot harder when you have kids of your own. Below is a link to her husband's blog entry.

Jason's Blog on Sarah

Worse yet, Mizzou fans will miss all of Sarah's great photos from the various sporting events that she covered. Below is some of her body of work.......

MU scoring a touchdown against KU in 2006.

Chase Daniel's first game as a Tiger QB.

MU ends the Nebraska winning streak.

Kinney makes a big play against Nebraska in 2003.

A pre-game flyover at Faurot Field.

Tiger player during pre-game.

Overhead shot of Faurot Field versus Nebraska.

MU coaches Larry Smith and Curtis Jones (Corby's father) enjoy a laugh. Curtis passed away unexpectedly after that season (just before Corby's senior season) and Larry Smith passed away last year.

The Golden Girls on gameday.

Tigers celebrate their 2008 Cotton Bowl victory.

2008 Cotton Bowl trophy.

Brad Smith on the way to the end zone in the Independence Bowl.



Gameday shot of Faurot Field. Great view of the students all in gold on the right hand side.

KU/MU 2007.

They're mine! All mine!

Send me that Vehicle Title!!!!!

Just made the last car payment on my car, effectively ending my slavery to Ford Credit. I now have a SUV with 78,000 miles on it and a car with 50,000 miles on it. Both are paid off. As long as they hold up pretty well, we don't plan on getting rid of them anytime soon. My car works well for my commute to work, while the SUV provides a lot of room for Mrs. Lime when she's hauling around Kali 1.4 along with the strollers, bags, groceries, etc. What we have works pretty well and considering they're both paid off, you can't beat the price.

I'm sure my Ford dealer would love for us to head down to get a new car, but we're likely going to hold off for awhile. We've got some other home improvements that we'd like to save up for in the meanwhile. We'll worry about getting another vehicle only after one of our current vehicles call it quits.

We have a sentence.....well, not exactly........

Kali 1.4 continues to toss out new little tricks here and there. Kali and I were sitting downstairs reading some books and laughing at each other. Out of nowhere, she suddenly exclaimed, "Baby bye-bye Daddy!"

Now I'm not sure how to translate that phrase. Either she wanted one of her babies or stuffed animals to leave or Baby Kali wanted Daddy to leave. Either way, I just tossed a bunch of praise her way for saying her first big phrase. I'm sure she'll take that praise and run with it. She'll be talking my ear off in no time.

So we invited an elephant over for lunch........

Kali 1.4 had a big Fourth of July weekend. She started the weekend by heading over to see her grandparents and great-grandma. She spent a whole lot of time just wandering around the house, saying 'Hi' to everyone she ran into and trying to find lots of stuff to pull off shelves. I tailed her for most of the afternoon, grabbing her hands to pull them away from breakable objects and pointing her in the right direction every once in awhile. Once thing you quickly notice when you visit someone else's house is just how much you baby-proof your own home. It's amazing just how many things a baby can find while exploring.

Next, we headed over to Bobby's house. They had a big party at their place. We walked into the house and it was relatively quiet with only a few adults sitting at the table eating. But then I looked back in the back yard and my jaw dropped. There was no less than 20 kids, all younger than 8 years of age, running amok in the backyard. It was absolute chaos with a few adults supervising it all. We let Kali loose and she thought it was great. Lots of watching the other kids and she also wore Mrs. Lime out by climbing up and down the stairs over and over again.

Kali wasn't phased by the fireworks either. They were blowing off some pretty large fireworks and Kali didn't seem to mind at all. She loves watching them blow up in the air. To be honest, she doesn't seem to be scared of anything. That's a blessing now, but could be an issue when she gets older and starts getting bright ideas. I'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Saturday, we took it easy. We hadn't really had a free day in some time, so it was nice to hang around the house. Kali and Mrs. Lime took an afternoon nap. Mrs. Lime watched several episodes of the 'America's Next Top Model' show that she had missed from the previous season. We also went to Parkville, MO to look at some of the shops and have some ice cream.

Sunday, we went to the Rainforest Café for lunch. Kali lost all control. From the moment we entered the place, she just pointed and walked from one animal to the next. She did a great job with some of the names. She nailed 'butterfly', 'monkey', and 'fish'. She recognized a few of the other animals, but didn't say their name. Sometimes, she would make the noise that the animal makes rather than actually saying the name of the animal species. We had a table right next to the elephants, which was great. Kali's a big fan of the elephants at the zoo, so to have noisy elephants right nearby was a big thing for her. The only problem with the restaurant was that Kali didn't eat all that much. She was too busy taking in the sights to even care about eating more than a few bites of her lunch. Such is the sacrifices you make as a toddler. Play or eat?

A July 4th story...........

Yes, today is the day when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, thereby freeing all Americans to have the right to go outside of their home once a year and blow their fingers off. Bearing that in mind, I thought I'd relay a fine fireworks story of my own. My parents should prepare themselves now for the fact that this is another story they're hearing for the first time. Thank God for blogs and my own sharp recollection of past events.

As is often the case, I was a young boy who liked fireworks. Anything that would blow up was extremely cool. There's a mindless rush in seeing something explode, especially when you're a child. It's the one time of the year where you get to do things that are much more dangerous than any other day of the year.

I had a neighbor named Kurt who enjoyed fireworks probably more than I did. Just like any other July 4th, we were outside shooting off fireworks together. We had the usual Black Cat firecrackers and we were shooting them off one by one to pass the time. Being the bright kids we were, we were lighting the firecrackers while holding them in our hand. We'd let the fuse burn for a second with the intention to make sure that the firecracker blew up while still airborne. Any young boy will point out that if the firecracker blew up after it hit the ground, it was a failure of monumental proportions.

Every once in awhile, you'd get a quick fuse that you'd have to deal with in a hurry. You could either drop it where you were and run away or you could try to hurry a throw and get rid of it. Often, they'd blow up just after they left your hand, instigating nervous laughter from everyone knowing that you just escaped removal of one of your fingers via explosives.

On this particular day, I had a quick fuse that I had to deal with. I saw it was going quick, so I pulled back my hand to throw it. Only one problem.......it exploded while I was holding it. My right ear started ringing pretty good. I quickly stuck out my hand in front of me. 1.....2.....3.....4.....5 gunpowder-blackened fingers. Whew.

My fingers were stinging like nobody's business from the flash-burn on my thumb and pointer fingers. I knew I needed to run some water on my fingers to cool them down a bit. Being the bright child I was, I knew I'd get an earful if I went inside my own house to deal with the damage. Going into Kurt's house would have only been worse as I would have got an earful from Kurt's mom and then my mom would have been notified and I would have got an earful from her as well.

So I did the only thing I could do at that point........I stuck my hand in our above-ground pool in the backyard. It wasn't the best alternative, but it felt awfully good. I left my hand in there for 30 minutes or so and that helped quite a bit. Over the next few days, I just dealt with the pain as best as I could because I didn't want anyone finding out what I had done. Thankfully, everything healed up quite nicely and all fingers were intact.

Of course the moral of this story is 'If you nearly blow off your hand doing something stupid, take all measures possible to make sure your parents don't find out just how dumb you are'.

Have a good 4th and keep the fireworks on the ground when lighting them.

Guess what? It's raining again.

We've received a brief respite from the fireworks. No fireworks were fired the night before last and Mother Nature put on her own fireworks show last night, drowning out any chance for human-created fireworks. We had a set of storms last night that just kept going in the same places. Specifically, they kept going right over our house.

In 3 hours, we picked up around 4-4.5 inches of rain. It was coming down in buckets and going sideways at the same time. For about 10 minutes early on, the outdoors resembled an ice dispenser as we had quarter-size hail. I don't think I've ever seen a summer with this much rain and this many big storms.

Meanwhile, people 30 miles south of us got absolutely no rain. Not a drop.

All that said, I believe you can take one thing from this post: I must be getting old because I'm talking about the weather like a farmer in a corner café. Please resume your normally scheduled life and ignore the babbling man in the blog.

We're being shelled............

So I was *that* neighbor last night. There's a family that lives at the end of our street who has a few teenage kids. Those kids always seem to have friends over, so there's always 8-10 teenage kids in that house each night. Add in the fact that the parents seem to think that their job is to be friends with the kids rather than be parents and it's a bit of a mess.

These parents seem to think that it's a great idea to shoot off fireworks every night around 10:00 PM for 7-10 days before July 4th in a city that doesn't allow fireworks of any kind. Now I'm not a scrooge to the level that I mind them shooting off fireworks on the 4th or even July 3rd, but it gets a bit old when they're doing it late every single night for several days. Plus, there's a lot of kids in the neighborhood that are likely asleep by that time much like Kali 1.4.

So, I walked down the street at 10:15 PM last night and arrived just after they had gone inside. A couple of kids were still outside, so I asked to talk with their parents. I told the parents it was illegal to shoot off fireworks in the city and that shooting them off late every night was a problem given all the kids in the neighborhood. The mom looked at her husband who walked up late and said, "He says that it's illegal to shoot fireworks in the city".

Now, I may have 'stupid' written on my forehead and just not know it, but I'm pretty sure that there's no way in hell that these two both didn't know that fireworks were illegal in the city. The mom topped that comment by another gem. She said that "they didn't mean to disturb anyone".

So you're shooting off three-inch mortar shells in a neighborhood at 10:00 PM on a weekday night five days before July 4th and you didn't mean to disturb anyone?????? As shocked as I was by that comment, I kept my composure and said that I hoped we wouldn't have this issue anymore and thanked them. They gave a hollow-sounding 'sorry' as I walked away.

Any wagers on how much parental control these parents had as a kid? I'll put the over under at 0%.

Back on the court..........

My friend Bobby and his wife managed to land access to the local high school gym every week for the rest of this year. Great deal as I don't have access to a good gym in the area to shoot around.

I'm always amazed when I get to play basketball how quickly things come back to me. I can still shoot pretty well. My free throw shooting technique is good as well, thought it's not as consistant due to lack of repitition. I've also found that my jumping ability hasn't change much either; I'm still a lousy jumper.

We played a couple of games after shooting around for awhile. I shot the ball pretty well when my feet were set, but had some issues with my mid-range pull-up shot. I'll have to work on that in the coming weeks. My stamina was actually good. I easily had the best stamina in the last game and I came within a free throw miss of winning the last game.

At the end, we decided to run some suicides to get in some extra work. For the uninitiated, a suicide means you run from the baseline down and back to each of the major lines on the court (both free throw lines, the half-court line, and the other baseline). When I played basketball in school, we had to run a suicide in 30 seconds or we'd have to run it again. While we didn't have an official time, I'm pretty sure that we didn't run our suicides in 30 seconds. It felt like forever, but was likely in the 40-45 second range. We'll start timing in the upcoming weeks to see if we can improve our times. For the time being, I'll just feel good that I even finished 2 suicides after playing a few games.

The good news is that I'm actually feeling good today. I assumed that I'd be sore today, but I'm thankfully intact. I can only hope that continues in future weeks.

Please pardon my nausea.........

Dear me. The conversations that women start in a female-dominated workplace sometimes just boggle the mind.

Woman 1: Yeah, Mrs. Smith's baby was born really early. She had the white goo all over her and her legs were just floppin' around.

Woman 2: Oh my goodness!

Woman 1: Yeah, it was something else. Hey, you're pregnant! Your child will come out with the white goo all over it.

Pregnant woman: Oh no. My previous two kids didn't come out with any white goo at all. Judging from the size of the two boys when they were born, they likely ate all of the white goo.

Woman 1: Ick!

Pregnant woman: They've always been hungry. There wasn't much left to clean up. They ate the white goo, the placenta, EVERYTHING! My boys were born hungry.

You'll pardon me while I empty the contents of my stomach in the porcelein god.

Not my daughter...........

Parents are so oblivious sometimes.

There's a message board that I frequent where you can put pictures at the bottom of each of your posts if you'd like to do so. It's sometimes referred to as a 'signature'. People put all kinds of things in their signature and I'm not sure they think it through completely.

One guy has a 4 year old daughter that he talks about regularly. He talks about how much fun he has with her and things she learns. He occasionally posts pictures of the girl so people can see how she's growing.

In his signature, he has a picture of 7 college-age girls in what can only be described as a compromising pose for purposes of this blog. A middle-aged mother who has older children on the board noted this signature picture. She asked the guy what he would do if his daughter was in a picture like that one. His response: "25 years to life".

While the response was amusing, more parents need to be aware of things they do and the effect it can have on their kids. If this guy is still posting these kinds of pictures on a message board, I'm guessing he lets his guard down a bit more than he should around his kids. I'm not sure who needs to grow up nowdays: the parents or the kids?

How to test your body's limits..........

Rough week for me as I seemed to get hit with one issue after another. It all started about 10 days ago when I somehow managed to get a spider bite. It proceeded to turn bright red and swell up pretty good. Had to pick up some steroids to take care of that situation. As a result, I will not be playing in Major League Baseball this week for fear I may not pass a drug test.

A week ago, I went to the waterpark with Kali 1.4 and Mrs. Lime. We got there and I started playing in the water with Kali. I was so busy playing with her that I managed to forget to put on suntan lotion. Received a nice little burn on my shoulders as a result. I'm usually good about putting on lotion, but what can I say? Water slides make me lose control!

4 days ago, I mowed my lawn. After 5 minutes or so, I turned under one of the trees and pushed aside a low-hanging branch. Unfortunately for me, there was a large hornet sitting on that branch that took offense to my actions and stung me. That turned red and swelled up my forearm. Needless to say, it hurt pretty bad.

2 days ago, I took time to trim back the low branches on my thorny trees in the backyard. I was stuck by the thorns no less than 5-6 times. Painful, but thankfully no swelling this time.

As a result, I'm going to barricade myself into my home for the next week in the hopes that I can avoid any further injuries. Given my luck, a 747 will likely crash-land on my house.

Royals/Cards 2008 trip.........

Last year, some of my friends had made the trip out to St. Louis to see the Royals play the Cardinals. I wasn't able to make it as Kali 1.4 was only 3 months old at the time, which would have made travel a bit more difficult. This year, the game came at a perfect time as the family all needed some vacation time and it was a manageable short vacation for us to work into the schedule.

We decided to take the train to St. Louis. Although the travel time is roughly an hour longer, it's a much easier trip to make on a train when you have a baby. The ride on the cars was much smoother than I remember on my previous train ride. The seats were also much more comfortable. Kali was able to get up and move around all she wanted with two parents available to assist since we weren't driving. We'd take walks down the aisle and also walk down to the dining car for some snacks. Kali loved to walk down the aisle, turning to just about every person she passed to say 'Hi!' or 'Hey!'. Everyone in the car quickly grew accustom to her walking by.



The train that we rode on goes right along the Missouri river for a good portion of the trip. It was pretty impressive to see the river up close given the amount of flooding in the Midwest. Portions of the track were no more than 5-6 feet above the water. We saw lots of ruined fields and closed roads along the way. We also saw some small homes built next to the river on 10-12 foot columns to keep them above the water. Many of those homes were surrounded by water, but they often had a boat tied to the house for transportation purposes.







My friend Ted picked us up when we got to St. Louis. We drove to a restaurant to get some food for Kali and Mrs. Lime. After lunch, we went back to Ted's house to relax for a bit. Mrs. Lime and Kali took a nap and I hung out with Ted. We played a few video games to burn some time. I played a game called 'Hitman' which I hadn't played before. The main character is an assassin who can choose how to proceed through each of his missions. You can be stealthy and try to avoid detection or you can go in with guns blazing. I did one mission using mostly stealth, though I did the vast majority of my work with guns on auto-fire. The mafia boss in me just came busting out.

After the girls woke up from their nap, Ted drove us downtown to the new Busch Stadium for the Royals-Cardinals game. It's actually a very nice stadium that reminds me of Camden Yards in Baltimore. I later found out that the two stadiums share the same designer, which made perfect sense. The main difference was that Busch Stadium probably has better sight lines than Camden Yards. Otherwise, there wasn't a huge difference between the two stadiums.







The Cardinals were missing Albert Pujois, who is their star player. The game was great from Kali's perspective, as it only lasted around 2 hours and 20 minutes, which is very fast for a baseball game. Her normal bedtime is 8:00 PM, but she was still awake at 10:00 PM. We decided to make a side trip on the way home and go get some Ted Drewe's Custard. For the uninitiated, Ted Drewe's Custard is a big St. Louis hangout. We arrived to see 200-300 people crowded around a small ice cream stand with police directing traffic (on a Tuesday night!). We eventually found a spot and picked up some custard. Kali hung out with Cooper at the game and then played chase in the parking lot while we were eating custard. She managed to avoid falling and scuffing her knees, which appeared to be a minor miracle given the pace she was moving. We finally got home at 11:15 at night and Kali was amazingly still awake. But she went to sleep with only a quick 15 second cry once we got back to Ted's house.





We slept in until 10:00 AM the next morning. We decided to head over to the St. Louis Zoo. We wandered through the first section of the zoo and didn’t find much until the end where they had an animatronic dinosaur exhibit. Kali really liked that because all of the animals were near the trail and made lots of noise. We didn’t let her know that they weren’t really real and that the noises were coming from stereo speakers.

Later, we headed over to the Children’s Zoo. Kali really liked that area. She was able to get up close with all the animals. The petting area was her favorite. She brushed several of the goats.







We moved on to the next Children's Zoo exhibit. Kali pointed over at an area and said 'Cat!'. I looked over there and told her that it wasn't a cat. However, once we got over there, it turned out that she was close to being correct than I was. It was actually a Meerkat. Nothing like finding out your 16 month old daughter knows more about the animals than you do.



Kali and I headed to the Conservation Carousel for a quick ride. Kali got to ride the endangered Black Rhino and had a great time. I was glad to see that she did so well because she got scared the last time she rode a carousel.



We finished the day by going to the Sea Lion show. Kali nearly fell asleep at the start of the show, but we managed to keep her awake and she liked watching the sea lions move around and jump out of the water. The largest of the sea lions (Alex) weighed nearly 600 pounds and he was very protective of his food. One of the smaller ones (Rosie)tried to grab one of his fish treats and ended up getting bit by the big sea lion. You'll note in the picture below that Rosie retreated to the pool at the bottom of the picture to get away from Alex after his tantrum over the food.





We took the train back and Kali didn't sleep a wink despite the fact that we didn't get back until 9:50 PM. She stayed awake all the way back home and finally went to sleep around 10:30 PM. Must be difficult to go to sleep when you have so much fun packed into two days.

Back from the Lou...........

Got a trip report from the trip to St. Louis upcoming, but it's not quite complete yet, so you'll have to wait. In the meanwhile, I headed back to work today. Nothing like showing up to work and opening up the Inbox to see 150 new e-mails. Finally finished that up after a couple of hours in the office and then headed around the office to catch up on the office gossip/politics.

As much as I have additional work with my new management position, the office politics take up just as much time. I have to constantly make conversation with the other manager in my group. I meet up with my subordinates to make sure that they stay happy and make sure they're comfortable with their workload and enjoy their job as much as you can enjoy a job. It's a constant juggling job, but it's worth it in the end. It's a good experience.

Tomorrow I hope to put in another fine day in my 2 day work week before heading into another weekend. It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it.

Kali 1.4 picture blowout.............

More pictures for the masses.....

Hey, someone forgot their clothes!



I think the dog wants in.........







Playtime in the back yard.........







Somebody went to Marti Gras and didn't tell Daddy........







Princess in our prescence..........



Hey!!!!!!



No pictures please!!!!!!





Cousin Gwen climbing the stairs.......



Man, is Gwen happy to see Grandpa or what?!?!?!



Who likes chocolate chip cookies?







Dad, enough with the pictures! I can't see the cartoons!



Ladies, always make sure to take your purse in the car with you.......









I thought this was Kali's naptime?!?!?!



Daddy's little girl........