.: bistan.net :.

This morning, after running a quick 7:30AM 5K, we met some of my colleagues for a trip down the Ocmulgee.  We went with Ocmulgee Expeditions, which is one of the best kept secrets here in town.

They put us in the river at Water Works Park and we paddled/drifted for about 4 miles to the Riverwalk.  The kids loved it.  It was amazing how we were right in the middle of town, but it seemed like we were out in the middle of nowhere.  Even when we passed by the trails, you couldn’t see anyone because we were so low in the river.

I highly recommend taking a trip sometime soon!

I have a new blog reader, which just *might* bring my readership up to a total of 3.  She sat down the other night and read this site from top to bottom. She gives me plenty of feedback on my posts, though you wont see any of it in the Comments section.

To protect her identity, I won’t disclose her name, but we can refer to her “wife” for short.

Here we go again. I blog about how I resolve to blog more. Then I make about 3 blog posts. Then you don’t hear from me for a few weeks. Then I make an excuse about why I haven’t been blogging and then I resolve to blog more.

I guess that means this is the excuse post. Let’s see . . . I’m swamped at work, swamped with class, and swamped in my personal life.

Work: I won’t bore you with the work stuff.  I doubt you care about Windows 7 imaging and Drupal modules anyway.

School: It was stupid to commit to doing this masters degree in the first place. My first masters degree didn’t get me anywhere, yet I sign up for another one. My classes this semester are Object Oriented Programming II and Advanced Graphic Design. “Advanced Graphic Design” is what Mercer calls a video game programming class when they want employers to pay for it.  Since my language of choice for the program is C#, I’m developing a game in XNA Game Studio 3.1.  I have a project in OOP2 due next week on secure code and wikis and a project in the game class due the following week on 2D game programming.  My game is pretty sweet and when I compile it, I’ll publish it here and you can download and play it too!

Running: My heel is still freaking killing me.  I can barely walk when I get out of bed in the mornings. I only ran 7 miles this week, but I need to knock out at least 5 tomorrow to exceed 70 miles for the month.

Personal life: We signed Tristan up for T-ball.  That should be interesting. I’m not particularly looking to spend 3 nights a week at a ballpark, but we want to get him involved in something.  Kimberlie is now up to 60 – 70 hour weeks so I have the kids by myself in the evenings for a while.  She works with two other Occupational Therapists.  One is in Africa for a month and the other just went out of maternity leave.  And then on Monday, as if we didn’t have enough going on, her mother died.  After this week, we are both certainly looking forward to a new week.

Today was Christmas Cookie Day at Tristan’s kindergarten.  Kimberlie and I, along with other parents helped about 120 kindergarteners make cookies.  Just imagine the biggest possible mess and multiply it by 100.  Kimberlie was covered in flour and had to return home and change before going to work.  I was a little more careful, since I had the fancy camera and all.

Enjoy the pictures.

Each Wednesday, Tristan brings home a folder from school.  It contains things like school work, behavior charts, PTA notices, notes from school, etc.  This past Wednesday, the folder included a request to “Help Light Someone’s Christmas”.  Basically, it’s the same concept as the Salvation Army’s angel tree: you sign up to purchase a gift for a specific amount and send the gift to the school.

Now we typically help various organizations, from giving in church to volunteering in various things, to sending canned goods to feed people who apparently only eat at Thanksgiving, to making donations, etc. Even with all of that, we have never received joy from giving.  In fact, we hate giving.  It’s like a chore.  We do it though for various reasons — whether political or religious or otherwise.  But because I love Heard Elementary School, I wanted to sign up immediately. 

Kimberlie tried to throttle me back.  We’re already room parents for Tristan’s class.  We donate classroom supplies and send paper money and sell wrapping paper and buy BBQ tickets and support the PTA, so I understood her concern. But being room parents, we’ve met all of Tristan’s classmates.  If there is someone in Tristan’s class, school, or our community who needs a token gift to improve their holiday season, I want to help.  I filled out the form and committed to purchasing a gift at the $15.00 level and returned the form. 

The next day, Kimberlie was picking up the kids from day care when Tristan handed her a paper light bulb.  It said “Jacket for a 6 year old girl, size 6/7″.  Her eyes teared up.  We don’t live in a wealthy community, but it is the suburbs and I never imagined that someone nearby might not even have a jacket.  We thought we were going to be purchasing a token gift for a child who might not have as many toys on Christmas morning as our kids, but instead, we were purchasing a necessity that in our household would never be considered a gift.  And so we were off — to find the perfect jacket!

Being the bargain-hunter than I am, we ended up with a $40.00 Old Navy jacket.  All of their outerwear was 50% off plus I used a 30% Stuff-n-Save discount to end up spending $14.00.  It could possibly end up being the nicest garment the unknown little girl owns.  Tristan’s birthday is coming up later this week and we actually enjoyed shopping for this unknown child more than we enjoyed shopping for our own child.  The jacket has already warmed our hearts — for the first time since I can remember, we feel good about giving.

Let’s hope the little girl can stay warm until Christmas!

When I was 18, it was cool to have a credit card.  Flashing that plastic was cool stuff.  Now that I’m 30, everyone I know has a credit card.  It’s just part of life.  Nothing special.  You would think that the days are gone where flashing the plastic impresses the chicks.

Not for me . . .

As any reader of this blog knows, I am a Disney Fanatic.  So naturally I jumped on getting a Disney Visa card when they debuted in 2003.  At least 1% of every purchase is returned in Disney rewards which are good for anything Disney.  Four years ago we spent a week at WDW for free and we went on a Disney cruise two years ago for nearly free.  And we bought Disney annual passes this year and paid for several nights at WDW with our rewards.  I put nearly everything on my Disney Visa (and yes, I pay it off immediately).

You can choose from about seven different card designs and for the last four or so years, I’ve had a Finding Nemo card.  Let me tell you that this card serves as an icebreaker with nearly everyone who I present it to for payment . . . especially hot chicks.

My coworkers couldn’t believe at first how fast I could melt a girl’s heart with my credit card.  Now, they just roll their eyes because they’ve seen it happen so much.  It’s unbelievable. Kimberlie didn’t notice as much at first, until I remarked one day that I should have had a Finding Nemo credit card before I got married.  It would have been so much easier finding girls.

When I’m paying for something with Kimberlie, the waitress/cashier/etc. aren’t usually as vocal about it, but they always mention it.  Some of them, however, could care less that my wife is with me.  Kimberlie used to get a little jealous, but now, she just rolls her eyes too because it happens so much.  Tonight, the very soft spoken waitress at Applebee’s returned my card, thanked us for dining with them, smiled, and quietly said, “Oh yeah, I like your Visa”.

So here’s a hint for all of the single guys out there: I’m happily married, but Nemo can have any chick he wants!