Things are going really well. Today I discovered that I finally broke the 100 kilogram limit and will continue going down. Since I'm still losing weight by diet alone, I'll push the gym time back until February or so. Then the muscle gain phase will kick in, and hopefully I'll be able to be where I want to be, health-wise by summer.
DA-DA
My daughter is now able to say "da-da" sometimes. It's still sort of babbling, but she does say it. She also says it to my wife, so perhaps she identifies "da-da" as being a parent. My wife didn't like that she wasn't saying "ma-ma", but she sort of got her revenge when yesterday my daughter said, "dumb da-da". Again, just babbling, I think, I hope.
Christmas
We had a great Christmas, and although I took over a week off of work, we were busy the whole time. I'm looking forward to when things settle down again. We took down our tree and decorations this past weekend.
Christmas Break In
On Christmas Day, a house across the street from us was broken into. Nobody lives there as this was just an inventory house that the builder is trying to sell, but still it's bad that it happens since every house in my neighborhood has alarms (monitoring is paid for by the HOA), and there are off-duty cops paid to patrol the neighborhood. In any case, I'm glad I own guns.
Christmas Loot
I got a lot of great stuff for Christmas, such as Super Mario Galaxy which is as fun as Super Mario 3 in my opinion, my wife got some great stuff, but nobody got as much as my daughter. Something like 90% of the presents under the tree were hers, which was great. Having a kid reinvigorated the holiday for me. As she gets older, I'm going to make sure she has a lot of fun. I'm also going to conspire against her with my step-grandfather to make her think that he is Santa Klaus. In any case, this year she got tons of toys, way too much in my opinion, and some that were not age appropriate so they are staying in her closet for a while (I think the worst was the one that says it is for three years old and up, from someone who should have known better.) Anyway, she's having a lot of fun, and the new toys are challenging her and helping her grow mentally.
Work
An ominous email went out on Friday, so I think we're either going to sell off part of the company, we're going to buy another company, or the BOD are trying to generate a huge increase in stock prices before bonuses go out so they can give that money to themselves. It really wasn't that ominous, but it means we may not be able to start our projects on time. That's fine, as I've got tons of non-capital projects to work on in the mean-time.
The new guy is a great help and is able to work independently. He's really taken off on the reporting side, which is a place I don't really want to deal with. My only complaint about him is that he doesn't like Indians. I understand that his last job was going to be lost to offshoring, but he shouldn't hold people from India personally responsible for that. I think Indian people are great, and have friends from all over India. I still think offshoring sucks and is a horrible thing, but it's a combination of the U.S. government dropping the ball and corporations taking advantage of it. This is being a problem though, as I have a good friend at work who is an Indian and the three of us went to lunch once, where the coworker bitched about Indians the whole time. This pissed off my friend, not just at the new guy but at me, so I have to keep the two apart I suppose. The Indian guy can hold grudges almost as bad as a woman, so I have to be careful.
Greening Up My Life
So my wife and I are taking further steps to become 1) more environmentally friendly, 2) save money on stuff, 3) healthier, and 4) make things easier in our lives. We've been working on it for a while, but we're taking bigger steps now. Our new step is the cleaning supplies. We're making our own and buying the Seventh Generation stuff for things we can't or don't want to make. My wife tested it and everything works well. We just have to see what the maid thinks, as she comes tomorrow and can be bitchy about us not getting the specific name brands she wants.
We also are looking at more ways to improve our diets. Since we are primarily eating fruits and vegetables now, we need to improve that in the above ways as well. We tend to go to a cheap farmer's market when we can, but it's both far, and hardly without pesticides and such. As a result, I'd like to find a local farmer's market (which I've not yet found), and I'd like to look into buying meat in bulk from a farmer that doesn't use hormones and lets the cows graze. This means I'll probably have to buy a big freezer, which I'm not thrilled about either.
Politics
I'm glad Hillary is going down. I'm not a fan of anyone, but I'd much rather have a President Obama or President Edwards. As far as the Republicans are concerned, they are all nuts. Huckabee is the scariest though. If he were to become president, he would make Bush look like some great hero to the left. Huckabee is the religious reich's candidate, and if elected, he would probably try to rename the country to Jesusland or something as ridiculous. Extremist Christians need to learn that the Taliban was bad isn't because they were Muslims, but because they were theocrats. Tyrannical Christians would be just as bad as tyrannical muslims. I know what you people did at the beginning of this country, and I'd like to avoid being burnt at the stake because your milk curdled or you dreamt about flying monkeys.
rizzo's Diary
Ok, I posted a lot on that diary, and pissed some people off. Here's the deal. YHBT. Seriously, even if it wasn't his intent, some of you got overly pissed off over nothing. I didn't agree with a lot of stuff he wrote, but it was even more impressive to see how angry some people got in response to him. Ok, I don't believe that Bush, Israel, or our government did 9/11. There was certainly government incompetence involved, and I think it could have been prevented were circumstances different. However, I will not get up in arms at someone who does believe that. I don't see how rizzo's beliefs about the U.S. government being involved in 9/11 harm me in any way.
I think that we have some really angry, bitter people on this site, and that they will lash out at others given any excuse. Life is not all puppy dogs and roses, but if you are miserable all the time, that is your fault, and not the fault of the universe. Get over it, and life might improve.
Root Canal
My wife will be getting a root canal this week, on a tooth that she already had a root canal done last year. It appears our former dentist was an incompetent fucktard, who only removed one of two roots. Now the other root has to be removed. I'm taking the day off to help my wife and take care of the baby, so hopefully this is a smooth process for her.
Movies
We watched a shit-load of movies over the break. These include Live Free or Die Hard, The Namesake, Some stupid Jackie Chan movie, some stupid Ben Stiller movie (the only good thing is that it had the phrase "slammin' pussy" used many times), some strange bunch of mini-movies called Paris Je Te'ame, and Eastern Promises. I think there were probably some other movies in there that I forgot.
Weather
I normally don't give too much of a shit, but it was in the 80's yesterday here. All you cold people are laughable to me. Of course, you can laugh at me during the summer when I complain, but I like mild winters like this.
Anyway, this is probably long enough, so I'll talk to you all later. Ciao!
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