bonnie & jason

Happy Halloween!

More scans of old pictures

My parents are in town visiting and brought some old pictures with them that haven’t seen the light of day in I don’t know how long. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

Mike probably around 9 months or so is my guess. Probably at his chubbiest!

Mike around 14 or so? Probably the skinniest he’s ever been.

My dad and his buddies in college around 1958. Can you tell which is him?

My mom’s college graduation photo:

Mom after moving to the US around 1968:

Me around 4 or 5:

Me almost 2? Look like a girl, huh?

Amanda and Ashley standing

Amanda and Ashley are pretty good at pulling themselves up these days:

Fun with videos

And a random pic of Amanda, Ashley, and Jackie:

Anna and Andy’s wedding

Wedding = date night and yesterday, we went to Andy and Anna’s wedding at Viansa winery in Sonoma (just down the road from Sears Point, sorry, Infineon raceway). It was a beautiful day and a beautiful venue with lots of good food and drink that started with a unique poignant ceremony and ended with heartfelt and choked up speeches.

Here are some pictures:

New bike: 2010 Motobecane Le Champ Titanium

The Lemond Zurich I’ve been riding for the last couple years was great. Never needed adjustment, handled well, and was pretty comfy. But on longer rides, it became apparent that the frame was just a bit too big for me. Even with using a shorter stem and adjusting the saddle, I still couldn’t help but feel a bit too stretched out. So I decided to sell it on craigslist (sold it for the same amount I bought it for!) and get a new bike that fit me better.

I ended up going back to bikesdirect.com and ended up with the Motobecane Le Champ Titanium.

It came via UPS today and so far so good! I probably still have some minor adjustments to make, but this frame definitely fits me better and of course, there are the other benefits of being Titanium (lighter) with new components (Shimano Ultegra 6700).

I still have to put any significant saddle time in so I’ll update this review after getting to know the bike a bit better.

More pics here.

Pumpkin Patch, Crayon box, Jason Mraz, etc.

Here are a bunch of random pictures from the last couple weeks.

Today, we made our way to the pumpkin patch behind the Target at Serramonte Mall today. Jeff, Xiao-Yi, and Gavin joined us.

Not sure where this face came from… it’ like she’s about to steal it. Either that or cram it down your throat.

There were a bunch of these cut outs all around. And apparently, they were available for rent.

This is one half of a cut out for the movie GForce.

I finished the crayon box I made for Alissa a few weeks ago with a little latch. It’s now covered in stickers and crayon “drawings.”

We went to the Jason Mraz concert with Benita and Alan at the Greek. It was really nice to get out without the kids.

Random picture of Amanda sitting up. She has pretty good posture. I don’t remember why she was crying:

Both Amanda and Ashley are sitting up on their own pretty well now. Ashley is crawling all over the place. Amanda sort of crawls but more just kinda drags herself around.

Random picture of Ashley and I in the kitchen:

Lazy Sunday

Just a few pics from lounging around watching football with daddy.

My first visit to Dr. Snip-snip – *warning* lots of stupid euphemisms and puns

Today was step #1 in eliminating any remnants of manhood that are left after first, getting married, second, having three girls, and third, finally admitting to myself that my dream of racing cars for a living probably isn’t going to happen.

So what does step #1 entail? Well, it’s basically just sitting in a room with a Urologist (Dr. Edward Collins in my case) and listening to him explain the procedure itself, what the risks are, and what to expect post-op. We also talked briefly about the possibility of reversal (in case Bonnie leaves me for Brad Pitt and my new 24 year old supermodel bride wants kids) as well as what the next steps are to get the ball(s) rolling so to speak. Finally, Dr. Collins did a cursory “inspection” to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and wrapped up with the classic, “turn your head and cough” hernia check routine. (Incidentally, the turning your head part is just so you don’t cough on the doc.)

So what is the procedure? It’s pretty simple. You can read all about it in the link above, but in short, after some local anesthetic, they just make a couple small incisions in your sac, cut the tubes that shuttle your boys up from your balls, and tie them off and tuck them away. By the time they’ve sewed you back up, about 30 minutes will have gone by.

As for potential risks and complications, they’re all rare and not particularly serious. The interesting one happens in about 1 in 10,000 when the cut tubes spontaneously rejoin. Then you’d be back in business without really knowing. Now that’s a scary one!

To mitigate this particular risk, they actually make you provide samples after you’ve had a chance to “flush out the pipes” in order to do a sperm count to confirm you’re actually “shooting blanks.”

I’m expecting to do the deed sometime before the end of the month so rest assured there will be follow up posts. Don’t worry, I won’t be posting any pictures.