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.

Happiness is

Darkness has engulfed us. Avid readers may have noticed that we've maintained strict radio silence over the last week. Truth be known, our dearth of communication hasn't been from lack of trying. Our power went out last Thursday, along with a million other people. The only difference between us and the other denizens of the Pacific northwest is that their power came on long ago.

Fortunately, our bodies have become acclimated to the near freezing temperatures in our house (this morning, it was actually colder inside the house than out). Friends and co-workers have mistakenly guessed that sleeping in a cold, dark cavern is the pinnacle of the problems. It's not. Boredom is the real issue.

Since Emily's school has been closed, she's become a permanent fixture in my office. Rather than justifying her presence by answering the two phone calls I get at work each day, she's had a wonderful time catching up on Grey's Anatomy. As much as I love work (I truly do), it's been hard to focus with her having such a good time a mere 2 feet away.

At any rate, happiness is... the 18 utility trucks parked outside of the Duvall Safeway this morning (I saw plates from Indiana, Alambana, and California). The power is coming. I can feel it.

Football anyone?

I'm going to venture out on a limb here and say that our thanksgiving traditions are decidedly nontraditional. While most families were basking in the glow of large screen TVs, I loaded everyone who wasn't on cooking duty into Emily's 4runner and headed straight for dangerous, snow covered mud roads. Since I had recently learned that target shooting was a perfectly legitimate use of national forest lands, we threw several hundred rounds of shotgun shells and a couple of boxes of clay pigeons in the back of the car to amuse ourselves at a later point in time.

Unfortunately, we ran out of clay pigeons before we ran out of time--I had promised Emily that I would keep people out of her kitchen until at least 2:30 PM. I did, however, have sufficient foresight to bring along the GPS. Cindy was all too happy to get out of the heavy snowstorm and go for a ride in search of a geocache. Remarkably, and in spite of all the snow, we found the geocache hidden in an ammunition box within a stump. James promptly left some Pfizer promotional materials.

let it snow!

as it turns out, we were in for quite the weather treat when we relocated to the beautiful pacific northwest. this november has been the wettest month since december 1933. and, for all you smarties out there, what does wetness do when it is engulfed by sub arctic temperatures (also a weather novelty for this year)? it freezes.

thus, school has been closed for the past two days due to treacherous driving conditions. microsoft closes for no one--no, not even mother nature. how else is bill to get his billions?

meteorology aside, we have just finished entertaining the wheeler clan for thanksgiving. this year's lessons learned: we should return to plain white mashed potatoes and no more cheesecake. we also learned that i beat everyone at bowling (with my special chicken dance) and cindy washes a mean dish (take that, grant!). and when bryan drug us out into the snow blown wilderness in search of another one of his geo caches (which, for morale's sake, we FINALLY found) we learned that snowshoeing can actually be quite hard (shout out to all our troopers!)

plus, for those of you who may be unaware, butter becomes a raging flame when left in an oven with temperatures excessive of 400 degrees fahrenheit. always keep the baking soda close by.

Inordinate decay

Emily's been pressuring me to get rid of the pumpkin goo on our front step. My goal has been to make it last until James comes for a visit (unfortunately, this is directly at odds with emily's goal of cleaning up the pumpkin goo before anyone comes for a visit). I was hoping it would remind him of the night when, with the suggestion of an older brother, he decided he would like to try his hand at pumpkin smashing. Given that the night in question was a good deal after Halloween, the two brothers should have realized that any pumpkins still remaining on doorsteps would have already turned into a pile of slime and mold. Alas, the follies of youth.

cry me a river

so after months of waiting for this alleged "wet" weather that plagues the pacific northwest to begin, the sky has finally opened her fury...and it has been raining for over a week. really, really raining.

two days ago, as bryan and i were leaving for work in the morning, we discovered that the road we usually take out of duvall was flooded (please note pictures above). however, we also discovered that an alternate route was still available, and being the smart cookies we are, we took it. only to discover several hours later--while still at work--that all the roads in and out of duvall were closed due to flooding (there are only three). alas, we had been clever enough to get out, not thinking about how we would then get back in.

so we didn't. we actually enjoyed a mini-vacation at the marriott in downtown bellevue. i purchased shirts for each of us so that we wouldn't go back to work in entirely the same outfits (everyone has different priorities), we ate out, watched tv, and i finished my report cards.

it still hasn't stopped raining.

Hallo-CareerDay

Emily has a long standing tradtion of wearing a necktie one day per year. This year, tie day fell on Halloween. It was probably because career day fell on Halloween as well. I think the school district figured out it couldn't prevent kids from wearing costumes, but at the same didn't couldn't appear like it was supporting a religious holiday.

In case you were wondering, religious holiday is a bit redundant, since holiday likely derived from "holy day." At any rate, Emily and I were shocked to discover that many people strongly believe that Halloween is fundamentally more than sinister trick-or-treaters and late night pumpkin smashers.

smashing pumpkins

it is our goal (and when i say "our," i mean "my") this year to participate in more holiday traditions. to kick off, we bought our own fireworks in july (and then were sorely shown up by all of our neighbors who must have saved for their pyrotechnic displays for months). since that terrible understatement, our lives have been pretty devoid of special occasions.

but the holiday we owe to the Celts, All-hallow-even, is upon us.

here is bryan cleaning out the pumpkin guts. an impressive feat given his disdain for organic ickiness. but it was all he could contribute as the lefthandedness doesn't lend itself well to carving.

i think we did fairly well for our first time.