To the Pumpkin Smashers

To the hoodlums who visited my house last night:

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right

I'm slightly indignant that you did such a poor job of smashing my pumpkin. From the crime scene, it would appear that you were barely strong enough to carry the pumpkin off my door step and may have even accidentally dropped it. When it came time to destroy it, you were unable to raise the pumpkin sufficently high to cause a proper smashing. Next time, bear in mind the following:

1. Patience is a virtue: you must wait for pumpkins to rot; once you've waited long enough the job of smashing will become trivial


2. Real glory requires taking real risks: don't brag to your friends about smashing the pumpkins at the one house on the block with the light off and owners out for the evening. Try smashing all the pumpkins on the street where the police officer lives.

Something to look forward to

The pumpkins will be heavily booby trapped after 9PM on Halloween next year. Please stop by for a visit.

Cheers,

Danger

PS -- To all those parents wondering how to explain pumpkin smashing to small, terrified children, consider making up a mythical creature that only smashes the most fantastic pumpkins in the neighborhood. Next year they'll await the pumpkin smashsers with glee generally reserved for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

game over

we never doubted the intellectual aptitude of our readership: already, we have a winner for our name game. we thought about continuing to post clues and press forward with the contest, but our attention spans are pretty short, as we imagine most others are also.

the winner will be informed and congratulated here shortly. maybe even sooner than previously anticipated (one can only dream).

on a somewhat different note, we carved that beautiful squatty pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. bryan so loves his job as guts-cleaner-outer. can't you tell?

A Tale of Two Women

Many moons ago, I promised Emily that I would never fill this blog with political rantings. Nevertheless, two of my experiences this last week were political in nature and merit mention here.

For most Seattleites, the pleasure of seeing Senator Clinton in person last week cost $2000. For Microsoft employees willing to walk 10 minutes across campus, the privilege was free. Regardless of what you think about politics (and I expect the readership to be evenly divided), Hillary is an impressive presidential candidate. As wiser men than me have said, "the 50 states are hers to lose."

On the opposite side of the political spectrum (in scope, that is), Vicki Edwards knocked on my door this afternoon. Vicki is running for city council position in our town of 6000 people. Although Emily and I already had visitors over, I invited her in for a chat. Since a buddy of mine is running her campaign, I was already familiar with her stance on a variety of issues. I did, however, express my concern about the lack of sidewalks in our supposedly pedestrian scale community. My concern was duly noted and we parted ways amicably.




Photo Credits:
Clinton -- Jeff Maurone
Edwards -- King County

the name game

after months and months of spreadsheets, algorithms, baby books, and a few heated discussions, bryan and i have finally decided on a baby name. although according to many of my high school, college and early marriage journal entries, i had already chosen names for all my children, it turns out that such whimsies become obsolete when dealing with an actual person who will have to live with the consequences of this decision for the rest of their lives.


early on, we came up with the perfect trifecta of conditions our baby’s nombre would have to meet: easy to spell and say, not too common, and (of course) liked by the both of us. it only took us the ensuing eight months to reach our verdict. and yet, for some reason, i can still here regis in the back of my mind asking, “is that your final answer?”


we have chosen not to reveal said name until little baby’s debut, but instead, as competition runs deep in both our hearts, to encourage our adoring public (yeah susanne!) to vie for a chance to win one of three amazing prizes by being the first to guess the moniker we have selected.

here are the rules:

1. anyone we know can play (sorry random guy from flickr)


2. each individual may submit up to one guess per week


3. submissions may be made via our blog comments section or can be emailed directly to either bryan or myself (though we encourage using the blog so that all players can see the names that have already been guessed)


4. the winner will be announced shortly after we bring the little one home (middle of november-ish)


5. in the event that this name eludes all who participate, we will hold a random drawing to distribute the prize

here are the prizes:

most importantly, respect as the winner AND (bonus!) a choice of one of the following gift certificates--a few of our favorite things:

1. cold stone


2. itunes


3. netflix

here are the clues:

1. begins with the letter “s”


2. 6-8 letters


3. one baby book had this to say about it: “sweet but not silly, and can sound sophisticated when required”


4. no real nicknames can be derived


5. (additional clues will be posted every week)

this is a great way to utilize those 2.5 hours a day the average american worker spends schluffing off at work.

alice in pumpkinland

Seeking to repent of my role in the Candy Massacre of 2007 (see previous post), I was more than happy to spend the last sunny day until next summer with Emily at a local pumpkin festival. Although most children did not attend in utero, our child was still able to convince Emily to buy something we really didn't need (a giant pumpkin sugar cookie for $2.25). I was reminded of my father's sentiment that "festival" is just a fancy way of saying "a place to buy things."

After getting lost in the corn maze and relying on Emily to guide us to safety, I decided to make myself useful by trekking deep into the pumpkin patch and retrieving the largest pumpkin I could find. Soon thereafter, I discovered that my plan was a little rash for someone who spends most of his waking hours in front of a computer. I did, however, find a nice, squatty pumpkin that was more manageable.

taffy pull

it is a relatively recent aspiration of mine to make candy. i purchased a book. i read it. and then i was ready to be (and, as is my nature, fully expected to be) the next willy wonka.

unfortunately, i decided to turn my virgin confectioner pursuits into a family affair, and for fhe this week, bryan and i made taffy. or at least that was the goal.

yet it soon became obvious to me from his ensuing sabotage that it was bryan's alternative goal to dash my candy making dreams to pieces. realistically, though, i can only blame myself for thinking it a good idea to put him in charge of the thermometer (uh, isn't he an engineer?)

due to his ever-watchful eye and precision (please read with oozing sarcasm), the candy mixture was overcooked--for those of you unfamiliar with the art of candy, this is a very, very bad thing. not knowing what else to do, we decided to press forward with the "taffy." i was able to salvage some of the concoction to make hard candies (hopes of actual taffy had long ago been abandoned). and who knows what bryan was doing; please note the difference between our end results. again, i can only blame this on myself, as i should have been supervising him more closely.

to make taffy, one must pull the glassy mixture until it changes color and becomes opaque, roll it into a rope, and then cut it into pieces. bryan just fiddled around with the goo until it hardened and moved on to another piece. thus ruining most of the batch.

he is ever preparing me for motherhood.

Occam's razor

Next time going to church for an hour seems like a drag, consider this: twice yearly, faithful Mormons around the world spend 10 hours over the course of a single weekend watching live satellite broadcasts in an event called "General Conference." I highly recommend the proceedings to interested readers, and I'm always ready to discuss, but that's not the reason you're still reading.

Despite our increasing numbers (13+ million) and an increasing number of high profile members (ever heard of Mitt Romney or Harry Reid?), Mormons remain a bit of a mystery to the populace at large. I recall an anecdote recounted to me by the son of a BYU anthropology professor. The professor, who we'll refer to as JP, frequently worked with other anthropologists who were trying to unravel a bit of the Mormon mystery.

One particular colleague of JP had a theory that speakers at General Conference used special vocal techniques to lull listeners into a catatonic state. In this state, the helpless individuals would be more susceptible to moral persuasion. Ever the scientist, JP invited his colleague to experience a couple of sessions of General Conference firsthand. Needless to say, after awaking from a rather normal nap midway through one of the sessions, he promptly discarded the theory.

On a more personal note, I did rather well this go around in terms of not dozing off. Not something to brag about, but I did want to establish a solid baseline of my behaviour before I can start blaming my napping propensities on late night interruptions from the baby.

Photo credit: cuibel

schmatt is back

with a few weeks to kill before he enters the mtc, little matto returned to our humble abode (see last year's post) for two weeks of wild and crazy fun. what he got instead was a tour of duty at the wheeler slave labor camp: assembling baby furniture, taking out garbage, preparing dinner, cleaning, and completing other various and sundry tasks as we saw fit.

here he is being forced to blow up his own air mattress, which would deflate by morning and need to be reinflated every evening (eventually, as we noticed his respiratory abilities faltering, we purchased an automatic inflator, and we did find the leak--albeit two days before he left).

but matt's a good sport, and we did manage to squeeze in some fun (not too much, though, or he would come to expect such things). now he has moved on to alabama, and there is a hole left in our little family. who will eat all the cookies? who will put together the jigsaw puzzle? who will enter all my recipes into an access database? who will play scrabble with me? who will paint the nursery? the answer to none of those questions is bryan (except maybe the one about the cookies), so we are presently looking for a new "tenant." if interested, please submit qualifications.

vulcanology thwarted

If Emily looks a little forlorn, it's because she is. After driving 200 miles and risking death (more on that later), her reward is profound fog. Ordinarily, visitors would have to pay $8 to approach this guard rail and view the infamous Mount St. Helens. Given the circumstances, we thought it reasonable to have Emily reconnoiter before we ponied up the cash.

 

On a clear day, the view would of looked more like this (credit to this random guy on Flickr).

 

On a road trip, I know that getting there is half the fun. And trust me, it was. I was able to convince Emily to snap a photo when the fog on the drive was thin. Moments before, when visibility was about 10 feet, a minivan full of tourists decided it would be safer to perform a u-turn with zero visibility on a treacherous mountain road rather than keep forging ahead towards a legitimate pull off. After coming to a stop a couple of feet from the driver side door of the minivan, I played a few notes on the international instrument of driving good will. I think he got the point.

 

 

well spent

Since I've had a long blogging hiatus, and since Emily isn't around to stop me, I'll indulge myself and pontificate a bit:

Observation #1 -- There's never a good time to ride

One of the things that excited me most about finishing grad school was the prospect of a better work/life balance. Several months and zero bike rides after starting Microsoft, I decided to blame myself. Regardless of the true source of the problem, it freed me to do something about it. I've ridden more times in the last 6 months than in the previous 5 years.

Observation #2 -- My brain is weaker than my legs

Quite a confession for someone who has been praised for his intellectual abilities and mocked for his athletic gimpyness. On Labor Day, some work buddies and I went on an monster bike ride on the outskirts on Rainier National Park. Eighteen miles and 5000 vertical feet later, I was spent. The only problem was that the car was still 3 miles away.

Ordinarily, I'd crawl to the end, blaming my unatheletic body for my dismal finish. Instead, I shifted into a harder gear and kept on grinding. Surprisingly, it worked (I wasn't riding wheelies when we reached the truck, but I wasn't an hour behind, either). Ever the closet scientist, I performed the same experiment yesterday and had even better results. Conclusion? My brain is actually weaker than my legs.

she's lump

while we were in utah for vacation, my mom and grandma threw me my first baby shower (hooray for baby showers!). and because i do not subscribe to the new-fangled "let's just chat" shower philosophy, we played the dreaded baby shower games (hooray for playing games!). my personal favorite was the how-big-is-your-belly string game; at the time, i was just shy of 28 weeks.

here is cousin lindsie. fairly accurate--only a few centimeters off, actually. what excellent spatial reasoning.

contrast with sister-in-law cindy who has apparently confused me for some kind of pregnant walrus. ah, cindy, we love you. thanks for helping me to realize how truly lucky i am.

this is what you're missing, ladies, when you don't play the games.

can't stop the clock

a truth with which both jack bauer and i are intimately acquainted.

24. significant, really, only in its closeness to 25. and what have i done with myself in those 18 years since learning to ride a bike? 13 years since losing my last baby tooth? 8 years from getting my first job? and nearly 4 years from changing my name?

well, not what i would have thought. for starters, i would have had more children by now. less job experience. fewer unfinished graduate degrees in areas that no longer interest me. a house somewhere in texas. and a husband who is satisfied working as a company man from 9-5.

but it is what it is, and i yam what i yam. i have given up trying to imagine my life on the cusp of 30; there is simply no way to predict.

for this year's festivities (to celebrate both how far and how not-really-that-far i have come), bryan took me to a mariner's game. unfortunately, i forgot my sunscreen, so the first hour and a half of the game were spent trying to hide my delicate, snow white skin from the devilish rays of the sun. but eventually, the sun was blocked by the stadium, i got a giant licorice rope, kicked off my shoes, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the evening (both watching the sport and spying on people, as i so like to do).

¡feliz cumpleaños!

Ain't What It Used To Be

If you're a new college grad with dreams of home ownership, read no further to avoid being disillusioned.

For me, it started 6 years ago. I recall reading an article describing a young, professional couple making well over six figures and living in a homeless shelter in Silicon Valley. The piece didn't exactly rock my world, but it clearly made some kind of impression given that I typically can't remember what I had for lunch on any given day.

To the American psyche, six figures was supposed to be the gateway income to the good life. Once you earned six figures, all hope of sticking it to the man was gone because you were the man. It signified a life replete with 4 car garages, golf club memberships, and ski vacations.

A mere three years ago, two friends of ours took up good paying jobs in California. Their combined income was certainly greater than $100k. Imagine my dismay upon discovering they lived in grandma's basement.

By the Numbers

So what does a six figure salary mean? I'm going to make some gross simplifications, but with $100K in annual income, you could easily take out a mortgage for $350k. In lovely Houston, TX, you could buy this 4000 sq ft behemoth with a thousand bucks to spare.

Let's forget about NYC & LA for a moment and look at what we can get in the sleepy suburb which happens to be home to Microsoft:

I'm not exactly sure what this is, but 1000 sq ft of it will be yours for a mere $2400 a month + taxes for the next 30 years. Tempting, no?

Of course, the average salary for a newly minted software engineer in Redmond is $62,814. On this salary, you could afford a house on the order of $225k. Coldwell Banker reports no homes for sell in this price range. Forty-five minutes to the east in our lovely town of Duvall, still no listings. That's right, Duvall is suburb of a suburb and still offers no respite.

What's the problem here? Maybe it's the 6 figure median income in Remond ($101,247 by some estimates). Maybe it's our country's 5 year real estate binge. But whatever 6 figures means, it certainly ain't what it used to be.

Sparks fly

Though most of humanity has been aware of its presence and power for thousands of years, this Independence Day, Emily discovered fire.

sugar and spice

as one can clearly see from exhibit a, in which our baby is widely spreading her legs and showing the whole world how she has no penis, it's a girl. (ultrasound pictures are a strange view, but for this one, imagine she is sitting on a piece of glass and you are looking up at her from beneath.)

not only is this baby a girl, but she is definitely her mother's daughter. yesterday at our appointment, as the doctor went to place the fetal doppler and listen to the heartbeat, she vehemently kicked it off. bryan could just hear her saying, "don't touch me!" (shout out to matt and ken who have experienced this abuse in real life.)

the other two photos are profile views. in the third picture, she is arching her back, and you can get a great view of the spine. she has beautiful bone structure (just look at that nose!), a great heart, perfect organs, ten fingers (we have one photo of her flashing us some sort of womb 'what up' signal), ten toes, and a highly functional brain which bryan can fill with all sorts of intellectualism and, of course, lies.

thus far in our adventures with her, she has been very energetic, outgoing, curious, and stubborn. so, mom, it looks as if sweet justice is coming my way.

and do i dare say we are thrilled, or will that sound too cliche? oh well, let's throw caution to the wind here: we are thrilled!

and deeper

After years of disarray, the Wheeler Family Reunion emerged from the ashes this year promising a once in a lifetime opportunity. I boarded a cruise ship in Copenhagen with 25 of my closest (genetically) relatives for a 10 day tour of the Baltic Sea. For lack of a better word, the experience was intense.

FAQ

1. How many times a day did you eat?
I stuck to 4-5, though my cousins averaged 7-8. Before you laud my self control, bear in mind that Emily promised dire consequences if I came back any heavier (see my belly in photo 1 versus 2).

2. What facet of the American justice system did the cruise ship most resemble?I'm going to have to go with those minimum security prisons for white collar criminals. The food was good, but it wasn't great. The cabins were good, but not great. It all adds up to take quite a toll. I can see why that Enron guy decided to have a heart attack rather than go to prison.

3. What was Emily's favorite part of the cruise?
Clever... a trick question! Due to the progressive and forward-thinking nature of American public schools, Emily wasn't actually able to go on the cruise with me. I know many couples these days like to take separate vacations, but I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Additionally, I've incurred a sufficient amount of emotional debt to make sure I never make the same mistake twice.

I've resisted the urge to post a travelog. Interested parties can check out my photo galleries on Flickr or Facebook soon (blogging is like a soap opera, you always need a hook to keep them coming back).

in memory

last week, grandpa homer died. he was 87. (above is grandma lucile at the funeral. i didn't know whether or not it was appropriate to post pictures of the casket--closed, mind you--so gradma lucile will have to do.)

knowing little of his early life, i can assure you that his later life was very abundant. grandpa loved to go to the DI, watch movies at movie theaters (even though he slept through most of them), spend the day at lagoon, catch the weather report, make soup (i use the term "soup" very loosely here), play scrabble (above all else), and, for some odd reason, eat at arctic circle. sometimes i thought he was their only patron.

matt and i played a token game of scrabble on the day of his funeral. and due to unknown powers, matto was able to beat me by five points. who knew that ford was the new-fangled spelling of fjord? kids these days: anglicizing everything. despite the loss, it was refreshing to play the game again. bryan refuses to play with me--says i get too mean and competitive (me??), and since we haven't a neutral third party to either support or deny his claim, we have stopped playing.

grandpa homer would be displeased.

sidebar

i just found this archived picture of bryan and i eating some one and a half years ago. it appears we have not been able to come up with more creative poses since then. (see previous post; look familiar?)

smallville

every year, on the first saturday in june, thousands upon thousands of residents and nearby residents descend upon our little town for the famed "duvall days." bryan and i were a few days too late to attend last year's festivities, but made it a point in 2007 to go out and see what all the fuss was about.

sadly, we yet again missed the "fuss" as it were, because apparently the real show-stopper is the parade. (details to come on this portion of the event in 2008--all we know for sure is that there are some dissenting votes on whether or not the duvall ward primary should be involved. presently, they are, though thankfully minus any "scripture power" pantomimes).

what we did find at the event was plenty of sunshine, folk music, food, and chiropractors (how does a town of less than 6,000 people have 3 chiropractors?)

here we are with our $30 hotdogs and hard-as-ice sno-cones. we have since decided to forgo purchasing fair food (as our fathers did before us). however, as it seems to be every child's dream (as it was ours) to partake of such over-priced delicacies, we have also decided to invest in some of the special tissue paper and cartons in which such food is found at the fair. when the little ones cry out for the fair fare, bryan can wrap the hotdogs (conveniently smuggled in in his backpack) in the appropriate trappings while i engage the children in scouting out a seating area. everyone wins.

Largish Latitudes

In honor of the worldwide celebration of motherhood, Emily and I boarded a plane to Calgary to visit my mom who was quite excited to have us there (and my father, whom we had anticipated was also pleased to see us). However, upon my return, I came across a photo that may reveal some underlying jealousies and desire for my mother's undivided attention. Fortunately, the icefield was sufficiently treacherous as to make my father believe he might need my services on the way back down.

The only (other) downside to the trip was that our visit coincided with a time of year that is neither good for ice hockey nor canoeing. Should you ever require some stock photos of frozen lakes, I have a fine collection which I can make available on a royalty free basis.

apple is back

the "free computer" powers that be have smiled down on the wheeler family yet again. we have once more in our possession a shiny new, aesthetically pleasing laptop from steve jobs (aka apple). while its intended use is primarily for bryan's work, we have also found exciting programs pertinent to our everyday lives. take, for example, the photo booth application which provides seemingly endless hours of entertainment simply by contorting our faces. this may not sound all that interesting at first; however, i, myself, have not laughed so hard in a long time.

jay leno and doogie howser can speak for themselves.

yes, folks, bryan has now adequately explained to you what he does for work, but this is how we spend our free time.

To placate

Remarkably enough, all of you have shown restraint when it comes to asking me what I actually do for Microsoft. Though your politeness is truly appreciated, today is your lucky day. Today's the day I indulge your curiosities.

I'm a program manager. I won't tell you the team name; in my opinion it's a little lackluster and you will stop reading. I will, however, tell you about the most interesting program I've managed thus far.

If you have a few moments, go and check out the Times Reader from the New York Times. It's a fantastic application and a great way to get the news. Unfortunately, I can't take much credit for it. I joined Microsoft right as our most intense involvement was ramping down.

The concept of the Times Reader has resonated well with a lot of publishers around the world. Most publishers have neither the technical expertise nor the resources to create one of these experiences from the ground up. My job has been to work with a team of developers at Microsoft and create a starter kit which allows publishers to quickly create these kinds of applications.

In February, the first round of publishers released beta applications based on the starter kit. Some of these applications were created in just over a month. Some of them are still a bit rough around the edges, but you should go and check them out.

• The Seattle PI
• The Daily Mail
• Forbes.com Reader (go to bottom)

As a teaser, I've included a screen shot of the daily mail. It's a British tabloid. Before you download it, I should warn you that British tabloids are decidedly less fictional than their American counterparts. Although I'm not exactly within their target demographic, I do find that the stories make interesting water cooler conversation.

curl gout sookies

more american than apple pie.

it's that time of year again: the girl scouts are out and about and on the prowl. knocking on doors and parading in front of grocery stores for two weeks, practically forcing you to spend $4.00 (or more!) on their delicious and highly addictive snacks.

this year, they have another thing coming.

behold the power of the internet: unbeknownst to them, i have found, through diligent searching, the recipe for a bonafide imitation of the famed thin mint, and the scouts are in for some heated competitition.

in a double blind taste test, 100% of those polled (sample size of 15) agreed that emily's version of the cookie was tastier than the previously favored "girl scout cookie."

...unfortunately, due to the high cost of production for the "emily cookie" (both in resources and manpower), the girls in green still maintain their precious corner on the cookie market. but mind you, that corner is steadily shrinking, and my time as cookie queen is soon to come.

next year, samoas!

.

sounds like

Just saw this interesting post on Jeff Maurone's blog on an American accent survey. It squarely pegged him from Philly. Firmly believeing in the validity of short questionnaires to produce accurate assessments, I gave it a whirl. My results were much less interesting (and frankly, my voice is simply much too nasally to be on TV).

Take the quiz here. How did you fare?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

churchill incarnate

this is the dog. when we went home for christmas, the dog took a special liking to bryan. odd, given her usual wariness of individuals of his height and apparent intrusion into our home. but even odder still given bryan's dislike for her. was she deterred? no. did his constant refusing of her advances curb her efforts? no. would she sleep in his suitcase every day hoping for some morsel of affection? yes. did her persistence pay off? possibly.

in the end, bryan moved from abhorrance to tolerance. a good step.

let mitzi's determination be a lesson for all of us.