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May 31, 2006

3 day weekend

I have never been so gladly looking forward to a 3 day weekend as I have this Memorial Day. not because of anything that we had planned, but I just want 3 days not to deal with or think about work. It ended up being a very relaxing weekend to spend with the family. Naomi also chose this weekend to show how fast kids can develop. As you probably know she's been taking a few steps here and there, but Jenn and I didn't really consider it walking. We caught a lot of flak for that, but we thought that walking meant you could actually make it from Point A to Point B fairly smoothly. Whereas what Naomi has been doing has been a little bit of tottering around, no more than 10 steps before she plops down and uses her time-honored method of crawling (and boy, is she fast doing that). This weekend actually marked a shift where she wants to walk more than she wants to crawl now. She even broke into the most adorable little run (more like a scurry) from time to time, usually chasing after us. But I can no longer say that she's *not* truly walking after this weekend. She walks around, when she falls down, instead of crawling the rest of the way, she stops to push herself up to a standing position and resumes walking.

Her separation anxiety has eased a bit too. She wants to be carried a lot, but she is much more comfortable around other people. She actually goes to my mother now, something that she never did before, but now she will actually reach out to her to get carried. It helps to give us a little break now and then whenever we spend time with my parents. I guess its good that she doesn't feel that way anymore, but Jenn and I both confess to feeling strange pangs of regret, in the sense that right now, she absolutely needs us and wants us to be around. And once she loses that separation anxiety and gets older and older, she will be that way less and less. If she ends up taking after me, she will be a very independent person. So we are trying to cherish the times she scrambles to grab our legs if she thinks we are leaving her, or when she pulls herself up, makes her way to the front of our legs, and then looks up in that plaintive request: "Carry me!"

Posted by spoof747 at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

happy birthday baby

Naomi turned 1 on last Saturday. We celebrated by throwing a little party at our place. And by little, I mean oh, I don't know 60 or 70 people. Yes, it was a bit crazy. I think we've established that our house can really only support 50 guests or so, and even that is pushing it. The design of our house doesn't really allow the best flow of guests from one room to another. People end up congregating at various chokepoints and the place fills up just like that. Next time we throw a big shindig, I think we'll have to either invite people at various times or throw separate events for separate groups of friends and family.

Jenn spent a madcap week trying to clean up the place and get it into shape for visitation. Ironically, the public/common areas of the house are generally in the best shape, its our "other" rooms, like the home office and the guest room that we've let go and leave our messes in. While we had grand dreams of truly cleaning these rooms, time and realism set in and we ended up following the time-honored method of hiding more than cleaning. It didn't help that Naomi chose this week to become very needy and clingy. She has started to demand interaction all the time. One of us has to be in the same room with her, if not carrying her and catering to her whims. She has taken to asking to be carried, and once we pick her up, she points to what she wants to be taken to. Its adorable, but I just don't want it to become a bad habit later on.

We also bought a grill for the party, and as Murphy's Law would have it, we didn't get it in time. We took advantage of Jun's proximity and generosity and borrowed their grill. On top of that, Jun was grill master for the majority of the time at the party. (Thanks man, we couldn't have done it without you). Also, so many people helped out in the kitchen, it was amazing. Jenn and I felt like we didn't really do anything during the party, and we are so indebted to everyone who helped out without us even asking. Hopefully everyone got enough food and enough room to sit down and feel comfortable.

Even the yard got some use, which has been very rare since the neighbor got a bull mastiff who is a good guard dog, but is possessive of our yard as well as its own (it doesn't help, that the same neighbor has a planter next to our fence, which allows Mr. Watchdog to leap up on it, and peer down into our yard). Luckily, Jenn spoke to him and asked him to make sure the dog was tied up for the duration of that day. Now if we can only convince him to help pay for the fence between us that is falling down, partly because his dog leaps on it all the time.

Posted by spoof747 at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2006

1 year ago

as of saturday, naomi is now 1 year old. time flies.

(*yes i will be writing more than this, i'm just juggling this and a product release right now)

Posted by spoof747 at 08:03 AM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2006

blogging by the bay

sitting here in the 3rd deck of Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T Park, watching the Giants get pasted by the Cubs. Its now 8-1 in the 8th inning. We got tickets through our admin at work (she has connections) so a bunch of us headed out to the game tonight. We were hoping to see Barry tie and/or surpass the Babe, but no such luck tonight so far. He doesn't have a good record against the Cubs pitcher tonight (Carlos Zambrano) and he's been rendered pretty mute so far.

On the flip side, it is pretty interesting to be able to blog from the park. Having free WiFi is pretty nice, especially when the game is this lopsided. Of course, I did get yelled at by my co-workers for breaking out my laptop at the game.

Posted by spoof747 at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)

May 03, 2006

Go Niners

The 2006 NFL Draft happened this past weekend and my beloved Niners did fairly well, if the media grades are to be believed (anywhere from an A to a B+). Most writers were complimentary of the Niners draft, especially their Day 1 picks (Rounds 1-3).

Prior to the draft, the Niners gave up a 2nd round pick and a 3rd round pick to Denver for a 1st rounder (the 22nd overall), giving them two 1st round picks (6 and 22). This put them into position to select the top TE in the draft (Vernon Davis) at #6 and DE/OLB Manny Lawson at 22. A couple draft sites had called this correctly in their mocks, and many of the fans on the online forums were rooting for these two picks, but at the same time, many people also projected Lawson to go higher than 22, and there was rising buzz the past week that Davis was coveted by both New York at 4 and Green Bay at 5. (Looks like a smokescreen in hindsight).

Here's my take on each of the picks:

1st round (6th pick) - Vernon Davis
Vernon Davis was a junior tight end out of the University of Maryland. He broke some records at the NFL Scouting Combine, running the fastest ever time recorded for a tight end (4.38) and some other excellent numbers. Supposedly, he's more than just a workout warrior (please, not another Mike Mamula/Jim Drukenmiller), the initial signs are bit concerning.

He had one good year, his junior year, after which he decided to submit his name for the draft. And in some quote before the draft, he actually make note to thank a company that makes supplements! hmmmm. . .

on the flip side, there were quite a few highlights of him actually doing more than just lifting weights, such as ragdolling a cornerback trying to tackle him, as well as some pretty nifty route-running and some nice hands on some catches. The hope is that his production will exceed the hype and that he will be the security blanket that Alex Smith needs to take the next step in his development at QB.

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1st round (22nd pick) - Manny Lawson
At 22, the Niners took Manny Lawson out of North Carolina State. He was the 2nd defender taken from that school (DE Mario Williams went #1 to Houston) and eventually 5 people from the NC State defense would go in the draft. Naturally, one would assume that the NC State defense was dominant and set all sorts of records. In fact, the team as a whole went 9-7 and had some pretty bad losses along the way.

Apparently, Lawson popped out on film while the Niners were scouting both him and Mario Williams. This is another guy with pretty good measurables. He is 6'6", 241 pounds, and ran a 4.43 at the Combine (Sad Factoid: After these two picks, Niners coach Mike Nolan said, "We just drafted the two fastest people on the team." That's pretty sad and shows how far the Niners have fallen.) Lawson also showcased a non-stop motor as well as the intelligence to read and react to various offenses. It looks like the Niners are taking Lawson to replace Julian Peterson, who went to Seattle. From a measurables perspective, he brings a similar size-speed combo, too light to be a true DE, but perfect for a 3-4 OLB. Hopefully, he can fulfill the unrealized sackmaster dreams that people had of Peterson when Nolan brought over the 3-4 defense. The jury is still out as to whether it was injury or some other cause that prevented Peterson from reaching his potential in the 3-4. In his first season back from an Achilles injury last year, he got 3 sacks in the first game and was shut out for the remainder of the season. It seemed like Peterson never had good timing when rushing out of the 3-4 and had only 1 move, beat the OL to the corner. I really hope Lawson will be able to do better than that.

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3rd round (84th pick) - Brandon Williams
Due to the pre-draft trading, the Niners then had a long break until the 3rd round, when they drafted WR Brandon Williams out of Wisconsin. NFL Draft Scout (here) called all 3 of the Niners picks correctly. This was a bit more confusing to us armchair quarterbacks, as the Niners have a lot of needs, and there were higher rated WRs on the board. Coach Nolan was quoted as saying they were bringing in Williams to help with the return game, as he has college experience in returning punts and kicks (The Niners had Otis Amey and Rasheed Marshall splitting these duties last year, which made for great storylines with Amey being an undrafted free agent and Marshall a converted QB, but made for some bad football). Maybe its wishful thinking, but maybe this guy can turn out to be another Steve Smith, who was undersized, drafted low, but is one of the best receivers in the NFL right now.

Posted by spoof747 at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2006

yay for walking

Naomi took her first unassisted steps yesterday.

She then got startled by our cheering and sat down.

Posted by spoof747 at 12:52 PM | Comments (1)