Memorial Day

I remember you who gave more than you had to. I pray it was for a good cause.

J.V.

Sleeping in the Dorms

Ha! I am staying at the Dorms in a Seminary! How cool is that?

It doesn't feel like I'm in Philly. I am in the middle of Christian-Land. I am getting royal treatment though, everybody is so nice. It's amazing.

Joe is a friend I know from the Marines, he had a bachelor's degree when he went in. He has now completed his Masters of Divinity,he plans on getting ordained somewhere, so he's going to be Rev. Joe.

After all these years we have managed to keep in touch.I think is great to be here.

I feel a bit weird given my non-religious views, but, so far everyone's been nice to me. I just hope that nobody starts a discussion about politics or religion and I should be fine.

There are times when is better to keep one's mouth shut.

J.V.

Philly

Life is good.

I am sitting at the airport, taking a little break to see my friend Joe graduate up in Philadelphia, PA.

The break is from work, being at home is enjoyable still, in fact, I am going to miss the hell out of the gang, but, I'll be back in a couple of days.

Philly, philly, the city of brotherly love, Bill Cosby, Will Smith and Girlfiend. I can't wait to get me some Cheesesteak, last time we went Joe took me to some place called Pat's I think, it's near the downtown, (south side) there was long line, the people were not that friendly, my clothes smelled like onions afterwards, and I absolutely loved it.

Work is getting a teeny bit stressful

Monday night I was up until 1 AM trying to figure out a problem with my code. Turns out, there's nothing wrong with my stuff, but it depends on another component which in turn depends on something else, which has problems, therefore, it breaks my stuff.
But, that's life. I am just glad I can get away from it for a little while. I am, in fact, not going to check my work email for a little while.

Airport wireless are getting better

Six months ago the speed of the wireless network here at Ft. Lauderdale International was sluggish at best. Now I have a decent 11.0 Mbps. I like that. I just opened the laptop and I was automatically connected.

That is all. Good day good people. Carry on.



J.V.

Introducing the Mouse, Mouse

It's a computer mouse made with an actual...mouse. What will they think of next?

Holy Crapola!

This picture, could it be a fake? a hoax? Please let me know.

Do I get extra money if I report my own family members?

OK, on a serious note, what's happening to us? Why? Why? Why?

Thursday

I changed a couple of the links in here, I took out digg and del.icio.us. because I don't go there anymore, I added the link to Slate Magazine, since I read that a lot.
Usually it's the series blogging the Bible that I read "religiously", it's very good. I've gotten great bible verses like Ezequiel 23:20, just to name one.

I just finished reading Dear Oprah, please stop promoting The Secret.
Insightful.

I've also added a link to a blog I've been reading for years but have never placed a comment. Coding Horror is one of the best blogs about programming out there.

Working from home today

It has its perks, but, it sucks having two bosses at the same time, the one that gives you money and the one that spends your money.

But, I don't have to commute, and it's about the same productivity. The only down side is that it's tougher to ask questions when you are not there. I like to talk face to face, the old fashioned way.

What a day

Don't even ask.

Things to do

I have a bunch of things to do. Serious ones and not-so-crucial ones.
I've got to do the weekly budget get-together with Martha to agree where we are going to spend our money. I say wine, books and coffee, but she wants to pay bills and crap like that, so we have to arrive at a compromise once a week.

I've got to screen mail, something that I loathe, my impulse is to hoard it until it becomes a big pile, and then just throw the whole thing out, one time I accidentally threw away a $700 check from the insurance company, good thing that I hadn't taken the trash out when Martha asked me about the check.

Other than that, I plan on updating my myspace profile, even though I hate myspace, I like to keep in touch with people that otherwise wouldn't talk to on a daily basis. I still think that all the world's retards congregate on that site. But oh well, that's just me.

I want to open a flickr account, and move all the pictures I put on my msn space in there.

I am so tired though, last night Gaby didn't want to go to sleep, Martha took care of her until 3:00AM I took her from 3 to 7, then she fell sleep, she's been up a couple of times now, but it's obvious she's got her internal clock a little off. Oh well, at least Anthony has been napping since 10:30 AM, he should be up soon. Anyway, now that I think about it, I don't know if I'll have time for the flickr just yet. But, it's on my list of things to do.

My Reaction to Nietzsche.

I have finished reading the Portable Nietzsche. I can’t say I understand everything that he wrote, I didn’t even agree to most of it. However, it made me think, it made me understand that I don’t know Jack. I loved him and detested it at the same time. I loved how it would suddenly make me stop reading, and make me think about it. I loved his attitude towards life, reason, inquiry, reality, truth. I loved how he wrote with passion,
He commands us to deny our soft side, to become hard.

I can not say that I am very smart, I cannot say that I am a deep thinker or that I have come up with observations no one else has had before. I just appreciate seeing things from a new perspective, and that’s what I liked about his works.

That’s what I loved about it.

I detested having to guess at what he meant most of the time. Zarathustra did not read very well, I kept reading the words out loud, but somehow, it sort of made sense, but I am not able to say exactly what I got from it, I think it deserves another read or two.

He was a crazy man, and I am thankful that he had pen and paper to go with that madness.

P.S.

It was funny that the he titled the chapters in his last book "Ecce Homo"
-Why I Am So Wise
-Why I Am So Clever
-Why I Write Such Good Books
-Why I Am a Destiny

Ha! such modesty.

We are now home

Just got home, Martha was the perfect patient, no complication, well versed in the whole motherhood thing, and easy to work with, all the nurses loved her. So we're out of the hospital.

I just noticed that Gaby looks a lot like Anthony.

I'm going to get some rest.

Gaby's picture

It just hit me, I have TWO kids man, Two freaking kids! What am I going to do to keep myself sane? Dunno, it was interesting before, now it's just crazy. Thanks to all the family and friends for all the help so far. I have no doubts things will turn out OK.

My concern is, will I be a good Dad? It's hard for me because, I am so lost most of the time, I live inside of my head, pondering about useless things, it takes effort for me to keep my head on reality. That's why I rely on my wife so much, she's good at this type of things. But she cannot do this by herself, that's why I need to pay attention, my theory is, teach them the skills they will need to make it to this world, I will talk to them about everything my parents didn't talk to me about. I want to give them lots of love. That's it. It's live and learn baby.

This reminds me of my favorite quote by Kurt Vonnegut:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Anyway, that's it for now, there's a bunch of people in the room, so I better go.

J.V.

Long Day

I am going to spend the night here at the hospital. It has been a long day, driving back and forth, I still have not had a chance to upload the baby pictures to the laptop. I think it's awesome that we have a wireless connection, I also realize how long it's been since I used to write regularly in the blog. But as it happens that means I'm busy.

Lately I've been trying to get through the books I mentioned earlier last month. I am almost done with Nietzsche, Yesterday I got the new book by Douglas Hofstadter. It's titled "I am a Strange Loop" So I can't wait. It's supposed to be about the same thing that The Eternal Golden Braid is about. I've written about that book before. It's one of my favorites.

So that's that.

On a completely unrelated matter.

This story.

My first reaction: are you kidding me?

It's Titled the Dark Side of Diversity, written by Pat Buchanan, what surprises me is not the level of bigotry, but that people actually listen to such drivel. His argument basically is that only immigrants do bad things, completely ignoring um, reality. This is sad.

Gaby is here!

1:55 PM EST in Coral Springs N.W. Hospital.

I thought it would take a lot longer, so I went home to fix myself lunch, when I got back, she had just come out, I stepped in literally one second and half after later, I almost missed it! But I was there.

I can't believe it. I grabbed the wrong cable at home, so no pictures yet. She looks a lot like Martha. Wow, this one was quick!

So there you have it folks. We are one big happy family. Thanks Loralee and Natasha for the comments.

More updates later.

We are having a baby today

We are inside the hospital room right now. I can't believe there's a Wireless connection. If I had brought the usb connector, I could be uploading pictures live.

Anyway, we are doing good. She's getting induced today, which was not how we thought it would happen. But so far everything is fine.

That's so cool. Gabriela comes to the world today.

*****UPDATE #1 9:35 AM EST

Contraptions every 2 minutes. On a scale from one to ten, she says she's feeling a three. The room is not a big as the one we had in Minnesota, but, I have a nice couch to sit on. Hell, I am even tempted to log in to work... but I won't, I took the day off, dammit! I am not a workaholic, I swear.

Martha is comfortable and watching T.V. I am reading a book next to her. I feel relaxed and happy. Everything looks good.

*****UPDATE #2 11:25 EST

Is it wrong that while my wife is going through labor I am blissfully surfing the net? she does not seem to mind, she's watching ER on TV while the nurses seem to be the only ones that care about the fact a baby is coming pretty soon. But the peace and quiet will not last forever. My Mother-In-Law (God bless her) is coming over soon. I love her and everything. But this place will be anything but quiet after she's here, two's company, three is a crowd. But that's cool. That probably means I won't post much after she gets here.

I have no idea how long this will take, when Anthony was born, Martha was in the hospital at 9:00 AM and he was born at 7:00 PM, Gaby seems to be taking her sweet time, I can't say I blame her. Knowing what awaits her in this world.



J.V.