Anyhoo… I rushed to get the pix imported into picasa and up on the web. I excluded the awful blurry pix and I tried to go thru each of the ones and correct the red-eye stuff, but some of the pix still could be cropped better, and touched up a bit. But to appease the largest amount of people, I decided to just upload the rest of them, and let you guys grab whichever ones you want, and edit to your hearts’ content!

Just click on the link below to be taken to the album:

Coats Christmas 2008

or enjoy the slideshow!

It was pointed out that this blog could be a source of motivation since I had recently published our Christmas Holiday Pictures online, and that perhaps some of my photos were not as flattering as some had hoped.

Well ladies, rest easier. I can assure you that these photos were all taken in the worst possible light and at the worst angle by the worst photographer – ever. In fact, the better quality photos were not taken by me at all, but by my youngest son – Will-6.5. I guess he and Victoria are just naturally talented at photography.

I’d also like to take this time to point out a new section in the sidebar of this blog. If you let your eyes wander over to the right – just under the “Recent Comments” section, you will find a new section called “My shared items.” –ok the title sucks. I’ll come up with a better one later. Anyhoo, This section is a list of articles from different blogs I read that I found interesting enough to share with others. They usually range anywhere from technology, to budget living, to personal productivity. The list only shows the 7 most recent articles I’ve shared through my favorite RSS newsreader, google reader, but you can click the “read more…” link at the bottom of the box to check them all out… There’s even an article or two on weight-loss and motivation!

[tags]pictures, Coats, weight loss, motivation, New Year, Will, Victoria, photography[/tags]

Xmas2007

[tags]holidays, christmas, pictures, picasa[/tags]

Then around 10:30, I get a call from my boss. He’s stuck in training all week, so I figured that he was just calling to check on our group’s work status:

“This is David,” I say, using my standard greeting for internal calls.
“Hey, David. Since I’m out, I need you to sit in on the change management meeting this afternoon.”

I hang up the phone with a sigh. Attending one of our departmental change management meetings is like being subjected to a good hour-and-a-half of Chinese water torture. Not only that, but the meeting is in our conference room, where there are no PCs. I wouldn’t be able to track my packages!

The rest of the workday drags on. I wasn’t able to leave work until about 5:30 or so, but as I neared the driveway, I felt the anticipation returning. And then, there they were… huddled together under the shelter of my garage, three boxes sat calling out to me. At last! Now I can take these boxes inside, and get to work! I step inside to unload my keys, and lunchbox, and give a quick “Hi” to the family – when the cell goes off.

“Hey,” my boss says, “we have an emergency here, and I need you to go troubleshoot some problems we’re having with our cluster servers.”
“Sure.” I said. All the while I’m thinking, Damn! This would have to happen the day my parts come in! I won’t bore you with work details, but let’s just say that I didn’t get back to the house until about 9:30 PM, and by that time, all the eagerness, all of that pent-up anticipation was gone.

Tis a shame really…
Anyway, I was able to finally open the three boxes(still keeping some sense of satisfaction), and I’ve taken some rather poor quality pictures of each of the components that came in today. I still won’t be able to do anything with the parts until tomorrow’s delivery arrives… It has my CPU heatsink and fan, and I really won’t be able to do much until I have that assembled and mounted on the CPU and motherboard. I have, however, made the decision to take pix of each step of the assembly process as some sort of documentary. We’ll see how that goes…

I think I have come to the conclusion that I won’t really have any time to assemble the PC until Friday night at the earliest. I have Cantata practice until 8 tomorrow night, and we have to finish decorating the Christmas tree as well. Moral of the story? All that eagerness and anticipation just turned into anxiety… wasted feelings and emotions when you consider that I can’t really build the PC until the weekend.

Patience, my young Grasshopper.
[tags]work, pc, pictures, patience, zen, newegg, UPS[/tags]

“Hey, Buddy! Whatcha got there?” I asked.
“They’re glasses,” He replied. For a 8-year-old kid who was just told that he was stuck wearing glasses, he seemed fairly upbeat.

“Can you see better?” I asked.
“Yep”
“Well do you like them?
“Uh-Huh…. They’re bendy!”

So I guess bendy glasses are cool. I remember when I first learned I had to wear glasses. My older sister and I both had our eyesight decline at a pretty early age. I can’t remember when my little sis started wearing glasses. When I put on my first pair, I remember thinking, “Cool… the world seems so much clearer with these things!” But in time, I came to loathe glasses. I still do. I wear contact lenses for the most part now, but I desperately want to have surgery so I can rid myself of the dependency on either glasses or contacts. So – for the past few years, I have hen-pecked Brian when it came to his eyes with “Turn on the lights,” or “step back from the TV,” or “Don’t read on your belly!”

I guess it was inevitable that it would happen, though. And maybe he will cope with wearing specs at a young age better than I did. Not to mention, his new glasses do look rather good on him. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to upload any pix of the “New Look” Brian until I:

• Find the time to load Picasa on my laptop and import the pix in that way.
• Find a way to revive my old PC from the dead.(Definitely a hardware problem. Either motherboard or CPU)
• Build a new PC.($$$$)

I think option 1 is the best bet…
[tags]Brian, glasses, pictures, picasa[/tags]

“Daddy?”
“Yeah Hon, what is it?”
“I need you – NOW.”

My heart begins to race. I know something is wrong…

“What happened?”
“I got in a wreck…”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah…”

That makes me calm down a bit. I have her explain to me what happened. Apparently, while making a left turn she and a friend got hit by a pick-up going in the opposite direction, striking the passenger-side of the car. The force of the impact pushed them over the curb and into an electric pole. It must have just happened because her voice is shaky and she seemed more than a little lost. But I’m just relieved she’s ok. I finally ask her how the car is…

“Oh, Daddy,” she says anxiously, “the front is all messed up!”
“It’s ok hon… as long as you are ok…”
“But the car…”
“Don’t worry about the car, I’m just glad you’re safe. You need to call your mom and tell her what happened.”
“But she’ll be mad at me!” She says excitedly.
“No, she won’t. I’m going to leave here and get her, and we’ll be there in a bit.”

I make arrangements for my mom to go to my house and watch the kids while I go ahead to get Amy so we can get to the scene.
I get to my house and she is sleeping…

“Amy, AMY, you need to get up!”
“What? What?” She exclaims with a start… this is her normal reaction when getting woken up.
“You need to get some clothes and some shoes on.”
“Why?” You can hear the fear beginning to take hold.
“Victoria’s been in an accident…”
Her eyes begin to tear up.
I immediately try to calm her down. “Honey, she’s ok – she’s fine, we just need to get there.”

The minute my mom arrives, we are out the door. The accident was in Whiteville, NC – about 30 minutes away. It was the longest 30 minutes I have ever driven. I can’t begin to describe what was going through my head at the time. But I knew Victoria was safe, I had spoken to her.

Thus marks the beginning of one of the longest nights of my life. We get to the site of the accident and she had already been transported to the hospital to get checked out. I take a look at the car and I wonder how she made it out with only seatbelt and airbag burns. The policeman warns me not to get too close to the car. When the car hit the utility pole, it tore off a chunk of conduit and exposed some live electrical wire. He told me that they were lucky that they didn’t get electrocuted. Amy goes to the hospital to be with Victoria and I wait for the tow truck to arrive and to shoo off any vultures that have intentions of pillaging the car. After making sure the car is towed off, I finally meet Victoria and Amy at the hospital. They are finished examining her. She has a couple of minor cuts and abrasions. Her friend has a small chip in his forearm. We load up the car for the trip home.

We reach the house around 1 AM, and Victoria is beginning to feel the pain… Headaches and pain in her leg that she hadn’t noticed before. I think she had been running on pure adrenaline for most of the time. We have her sleep downstairs just so we could check on her every once in a while.

Her soreness has become more prevalent today than the previous days. She has some back pain and her left leg and chest are sore…. all acceptable to me. I’m just happy she’s here.
Amy was able to snap a few pictures of the car yesterday from the body shop. They look much less severe there than at the scene of the accident… but then again, the car isn’t up against a light pole….
You should be able to click on the picture below to see the rest of the pics that Amy took.

Victoria’sAccident

[tags]Halloween, victoria, accident, pictures, car[/tags]

or go directly to the album:

William-6.0

[tags]Will, birthday, pictures[/tags]