The Holtonian

Last Gift

I had to post something so that when the first thing I saw when I hit holtonian wasn't the twisted sister guy's ugly mug.

I received my final birthday present from my inlaws this weekend and it was really awesome.

Boring Backstory: For the past 4 years I'd been looking for a worthy CD holder to hold all my cds. Unfortunatley most are either too modern or too ugly. I wanted something that was a piece of furniture, but didn't look like something from a dorm room.

I had used a plastic tower of sorts for years but we didn't like it as it was ugly so we left it in the old house.

So fast forward to this weekend and my inlaws made me a mahogony (ithink) cd shelf/book shelf about chest high. The thing looks amazing and the stained it to match, our armoire that we stained ourselves.

The only hook is the thing holds more cds than I have so I'll have to remedy that.

Also on the birthday front: The pod coffee maker that janelle got for me didnt' work so we ended up having to return it. Kind of a bummer but the thing wouldn't lock into place. Though if I'm going to get one of these things I think I'd want this one.

This is the kind we have at work and the brand I have come to know and love. But they're expensive and I'd rather concentrate on filling up my cd shelves.

Chris's 80s Video of the Day

In reference to Covenant Taking over the bagpipe

Bank of America Email Scam

So I recently got an email from Bank of America, my bank... I open the email and it says,

"Your Bank Of America account is Blocked !"

and also says,
"Dear Bank of America customer, we recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your Bank of America
account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party.
Protecting the security of your account is our primary concern.
Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access
to sensitive account features."

And tells me to click on a link below to reset my password. As I'm reading this email I currently had my bank acct open online so I'm thinking to myself, "Hmmm that seems odd doesn't seem blocked to me...but oh well..."

But then I think for a second, and read the rest of the email and notice something very odd...

"Tank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account."

I think to myself, "B of A is a pretty big company... and I'm pretty sure they would not send out a letter to its customers saying "Tank you..."

So the "Tank" gave it up for me. But I clicked on the link anyway to see what it looked like, i had closed my bank acct window btw.

The link takes me to http://banofamerica.com and references a pay pal acct in the http. And the questions are pretty scary, "Insert online id, insert password, DOB, SSN...etc" everything down to my blood type for the love"

I've gotten a few of these before, sometimes from "Paypal" saying my acct is out of wack...which is odd since I DON"T HAVE A PAY PAL ACCT. So i generally ignore those.

I also find it odd the way I detected the scam was via a misspelling... i guess I see others faults before my own.

Birthday Bash Part 3 (Revenge of the Birthday)

Not sure what that title means... oh well.

Well last night we celebrated the official birthday with a dinner out at Ginos, an Italian restaurant in mid town sans Anna-Kate. It was a really nice restaurant from appearances, really reminded me of the amazing Italian restaurants on the Hill in St. Louis, from a decor perspective.

The food on the other hand, not so much. They had good calamari, with amazing marinara however Luciano still holds the world record for best calamari. I like a lightly fried calamari and I want very few "tentacle" ones, I like the circular ones better.

But they had amazing bruschetta, decent rolls, and an ok salad.

This restaurant had two of my biggest pet peeves though. Ginos isn’t' the only place guilty, in fact I'd say 99.9% of restaurants break my two simple rules.

Peeve 1: MAKE YOUR OWN CROUTONS! For crying out loud it’s so simple to make croutons and it’s a nice personal touch. Plus fresh crotons are in my opinion far superior to the box. At panera we made our own croutons and I thought they were fantastic, my favorite crouton to this day.

Peeve 2: Put anchovies on your Caesar salad. The anchovies are a key ingredient for Caesar salads and I can count on my right hand the amount of restaurants I've been too that had anchovies on their Cesar. That or have an anchovies based dressing i.e. oddly enough Panera has an anchovies based Cesar dressing. I don't know what it is but the anchovies, even if you don't eat them, adds so much to the salad itself.

The entrees were pretty good though. I got a veal gorgonzola which sort of tasted like steak and gravy (the dark kind not the breakfast kind). It was good, but not what I was expecting. Very rich too. What also was rich was my side order of garlic butter pasta. Now I like to consider myself a garlic connoisseur... or at least able to eat garlic on just about anything... this pasta was sooooo garlicky it burned my mouth and I had to stop eating it after 2 bites.

Janelle got a creamy shrimp alfredo kind of pasta. It said light cream sauce... it was anything but. That being said it was good but so rich it was hard for her to eat all of her half serving.

All in all the atmosphere was worth it, but the food was just ok. It was neat to see a restaurant not soo trendy in Atlanta. ATL's restaurants are always so yuppyish so it was nice to see an "old fashion" eatery.

We were going to try and make it to the new Bourne movie but we ran out of time.... and were going to try and eat some desert... but ran out of room in the belly so we just went home and called it a night.

A nice night of peace and quiet and a nice meal to celebrate the old 27.

Birthday Bash Part 2

So the rest of sunday after ikea we went to dave and busters. Janelle, anna-kate and the crabbs took me to a land of food and video games.

The food was surprisingly good. I got the chicken parmesian and afredo pasta and was suprised to find it pretty good. They have a pretty sweet deal where you get an entree and 50 tokens for 15 bucks. So we ate and then gamed it up.

The first game i played though sort of ruined the night. I got in this flight simulator kind of thing.... on a full stomach. And it wasn't even a flight simulator, b/c that probably would have been better. It was some sort of robot simulator that basically just jerked around a lot and made me nauscious for the remainder of the night.

We played a good deal of air hockey, skee ball, basketball and a shooter game or two.

All in all it was a real blast but I realized that the days of arcades having the sweet new games is long gone. I was playing a few games and thought to myself, "My xbox is better than this..."

I mean one of the big games was need for speed.... which i had on the gamecube.

The kids generally enjoyed it all too but it was probably a bit too much stimulation for them. Granted Anna-Kate passed out when we got home so she was probably due for some over stimulation.

Birthday Blast Part 1

We started the birthday celebration today a day early with a trip to Ikea. Giving my money to a bunch of sweedish crackpots is not my idea of the grandest birthday, but what can i say they make cheap furniture. We had an hour and a half window to get there, and home after church (factor 10 minutes to get there from church and 30 to get home from Ikea and we really had about 50 mins). And if you've ever been to Ikea getting through there in an hour is a tough sale.

But we've been struggling to find myself a desk ever since we moved down here. The wife's taken over the old desk, and turned it into a sewing station/computer desk. But the goal was to give me the front room downstairs as an office for when I work at home... granted I need soundproof walls a moat and a gate to keep Anna-Kate out but we'll work on that. A desk/workstation will still go a long way for those days I want to work @ home, unfortunatey the room has no doors so that is kind of a problem.

But after months of searching Craigs List and a few furnture stores we came across the new Ikea catalog and found a new line of stuff that isn't too euro trash for us. Its the Markor series (insert umlaut over the o... can't figure out how to... and don't care to). Its a dark wood stain, not black, but close to it. A cherry finish without the cherry... if that makes sense. The desk is simple and had one key feature, the cabinet. I wanted something I can put the computer inside of so Anna-Kate and subsequent little ones won't mess with computer.

We also got two matching Markor book shelves, here's a picture from the website but they're the color of the desk above.

But the kicker on the bookshelves is the price. Basically when wife and I were down at Ikea this morning we just wanted to make sure they had the desk in stock, which they did, but we didn't think 2 seconds about the book shelves. So then crabb and I went down to get the desk and book shelves. But wife and I just assumed the bookshelves would be there, not sure why we did, but we did. So we get there, no book shelves... well stinko. So we look in the scratch and dent... two matching Markor bookshelves for a 100 bucks each (regularly 150)... so sweet good deal. Only major problem that can be forseen is one of the shelves didn't have the legs... so just take the legs off the other one and make them sit on the floor, no big whoop.

Well then Crabby notices a paper sign (today and today only 50% off all scratch and dent...(regular price 50% off)) So we ended up getting the bookshelves for 75 each... basically 150 for the pair, basically buy one get one free... also already assembled.... which presented a problem.

You see... I drive a car called the fit... not necessarily your run of the mill Ford F150... I had measured the dimensions and in the boxes, we could get everything in the car. However with the bookshelves put together... well we had a problem. Crabb and I got one shelve in easy... well sticking out the back a bit, and then the desk on top... and basically I had to run home sans crabb drop off the stuff and come back and pick him and the other shelf up. Which his patience and sacrifice of a sunday was much appreciated.

Also much gratitude and thanks go to my parents for help funding this furniture expedition. And the sweeds send their thanks as well. Janelle received a gift card from them back in february that we've horded till now and coupled with the check they sent for me birthday this weekend we were able afford this nice sweedish furniture.

So now we actually have furniture in the room up front. The room could use a bit of paint and some personal touchs still but we're working on that. There's some pictures I'd like to hang but we'll have to see if they meet the wife's approval. She's just glad that we can finally unpack the boxes of books we had stored upstairs.

This is my number 2...

He shoots he scores. If you haven't heard by now number two for us is on the way. The ETA is sometime in February, I say estimated because Anna-Kate was some two weeks late. Hopefully this child will be a little more punctual and considerate to its mother.

Its a very different feeling this time around. The general fear and awe is not there like last time, but there is a general, "Wow with two the sanity in this house will officially be gone." So I guess its a new kind of fear. We're prepared for another child, but we're not prepared for 2, but is anyone?

A simple night out to dinner becomes more complex, a car ride becomes interesting with two car seats in a small accord. We'd like to get a van eventually but its just not in the cards as of yet, so we'll have to make due with what we have.

Luckily we have the space in the house. Anna-Kate will stay in her room the room right next to hers will be the nursery as its the darkest, and the play room will remain the play room/sewing room.

Another girl would be nice from a here and now financial perspective. That way clothes, toys, decor, etc is all taken care of and eventually we can stick them in the same room. But a boy will be fun and save me money when it comes time to marry them off.

We're real excited, and pumped to have this new blessing. It will be really cool to see how it rocks Anna-Kate's world too. Granted she needs a sibling as she's very much a social child and i think she gets bored of her parents pretty quick.

Iphone 1---At&t 8525 0

K, I'm starting to see why the iphone is superior to my smart phone. Went to youtube... doesn't work. Alll the websites are the friggin cell phone version. Sad. oh well.. guess i'll have to use it for work purposes.

Actually got it linked up to the email server today so its been pretty cool to be in touch without having to lug out the lap top.

But one thing I'm ticked off with and hopefully will figure out how to resolve tomorrow is my contacts are now in my phone from outlook, however I can't get them to go over to my phone very easily, its like their's a partition or something in the phone.... or at least its not as seamless as it should be. Like I wanted to do a txt tonight, have 20 free ones a month and doing one took like an act of congress.

But then again having my outlook calender sink up with my phone is nice. that was the problem with every bloody cell phone i ever had is they had these calenders but they never uplinked to your work or comptuer one. Lame.

Now maybe i can remember things that are important... if ihad anything important in my outlook calender.

Hells Kitchen Finale

So in the summer as many of you know tv gets slim, that is not much on but reruns and shows about dancing and singing. The only one I realy get into is Hells Kitchen, primarily b/c i like food and people getting yelled at by british people.

I called it the first episode though, I told janelle, Rock will win. And he did. I mean his name is rock, so i mean that sealed the deal.

I thought Ramsey may go for bonnie there at the end just because i think he likes women more, but she just didn't have the rock solid foundation that Rock did. I mean she just couldn't smell... what the rock was cooking. She was scissors... against the Rock... she didn't rock and roll.

ok i'm done... i'll go back to my corner

New Phones Everywhere

Well I got my first smart phone for work. Its the 8525 from AT&T.

Its pretty shnaz and it has the keyboard the way i like it. I'm not a fan of the black berry or treo phones with the keyboard on the bottom. Basically this one looks the most like an iphone too. Actually I don't care that much but it feels smaller than a few others I've seen.

My service is still not activated... or at least its not linked into my email at work just yet so its not doing its thing. But the two things I've done that were pretty cool is take a picture with its 2.0 mega pixel camera and played the games on it. The game that is awesome is called bubble breaker and is like dr mario or something and is awesome. Not really what the company intended but till the email works I might as well use it for something.

Actually the corporate plan is kind of weird, i mean super cheap a month and the company pays for it, but the 7 cents a minute is crazy. Granted its all paid for but basically it makes you use your personal phone, so I'll have two phones here soon, ugh.

But on top of that we're dropping Sprint finally after 4 years or so. We'll probably go with AT&T but not sure as this phone doesn't have the greatest coverage at the house, the same problem we had with Sprint, which is why we're leaving.

But also we originally had sprint b/c everyone we knew had sprint post college. And now as everyone's left the chatty area they've left sprint for tmobile, at&t, and verizon. So a lot of our family is on At&T now and some friends as well.

Also this way we'll get some ATL numbers. So new cell numbers to come soon.

tired of being tired... i think i've used this title before...

So i may be alergic to home. I feel fine all day then come home and i'm all stuffed up not sure what thats all about. Been taking airborne but like I said i get to work. Maybe I'm liking work too much? I think the wife might think that, I've been working some insane hours both at home and at work. Its coming to a point though and I think I'm generally seeing some progress or at least a flicker of light at the end of some tunnel. That or its another train, but we'll figure it out one way or another.

Last night was a rough one, left the house after bfast with the fam. Stayed at work till 7:15, went to a softball game, see prior blog post, then got home at 10. Showered, ate some dinner, put the wife to bed, worked till 1AM... and then woke up at the butt crack to do it all again. And then today was one of those days where you don't have time to come up for air. Not complaining just stating my life.

I actually enjoy the business. At cigna i had the opposite and was not a fan of just sitting around and casually working on stuff.

And on top of being a bit under the weather and working insane amnts i've got a bit of insomnia hitting me. Not sure what it is but i generally feel pretty exhausted today so hopefully tonight I will commence sleeping at night again. If I don't I'll come down stairs and drink a bottle of wine and that should help things out. And if that doesn't work i'll take some pain killers and nyquil and maybe a horse tranquilizer or two... better get the stomach pump handy.

The worst part about the long days, long nights, and no sleep is the short fuse i've had. Really the only time its really been bad is driving... unfortunately i live in atlanta where everyone gets in my way and decides to drive slow and obnoxiously... I wish sometimes i had magneto's powers and could throw cars around or push them out of my way... that or a force push like star wars. Ok... i must be tired i'm descending into dork talk aka video games and comic books. Henceforth i shall end this post now.

Big League Softball

So after a month off on the DL i made it back to the diamond tonight. The month off was actually for traveling, business and pleasure. But I showed up a few innings late, work is insane, and i probably shouldn't be blogging since its late and i'm working on a million things right now but say la vee, know what i'm sayin?

So i show up, go strait to second b/c we were down a 2nd basemen and an outfielder... so if i didn't show up my team would have killed me. But i played 2nd and thankfully nothing came to me. Got up to bat the next inning and got another infield hit... not sure if I've touched the outfield yet, but there's always hope.

No the game was real close for the most part and much like the braves tonight our bull pen blew it...not really. It was a matter i think of us making key miscues.. me for one let one run slip by when I was playing catcher. Basically played the bag, and the ball was thrown from the outfield and for some reason i didn't go get the ball (slightly towards 1st). I think i thought, "If i just stay on home he won't score..."

Anyway, they ended up winning in the bottom of the 6th (last inning) by a few runs. Its hard to teach and remember and do instictively a lot of things you need to do in baseball/softball. I mean the sliding into second that was instinct, but a lot of the other basic and simple things just don't come to me. Like covering home infront of home, instead of on the bag, or going to the ball, or covering second, or hitting... you know the simple stuff.

But we lost, it was rough oh well. The worst part was striking out... yep i struck out at church league slow pitch... its probably more feasible to strike out playing t ball. It was kind of ironic too b/c the guy infront of me struck out looking, which i was like, "oh man thats rough..." then i get up and strike out swinging... not a foul tip mind you, swinging, complete wifferoonie.

So that sucked... but i got outside... and ran.. and sweated in this awful heat... so that counts for something right?

Bob the Builder Unmasked

So the wife, Anna-Kate, and myself went up to Indiana for the week to see my folks, sort of a vacation/visit with the fam. One of the good things about the part of Indy we got to, Michigan City, is its close to Chicago which helps with airfare, also if you get bored you can go into the city, an hour car drive, 30 minute train commute, also Michigan City has a killer outlet mall. Also there's a good beach on lake michigan which we spent a lot of time at.

I'll blog about the trip later but what I wanted to discuss was the day of Thursday August the 2nd. I was in Children's Place outlet store with the wife looking for clothes for Anna-Kate. We realized quickly that though it was an outlet 20 dollars for a pair of jeans for Anna-Kate was rediculous, specially with consignment season heating up. But as we were in the store looking for something reasonable Bob the builder was on... and I thought to myself, "man bob sounds so familiar... how do i know that voice..." and I realized, that its Greg Proops from Who's Line is it Anyway. The proof is hear. But you can now rest soundly...