Nice

This has been a very nice week. I've stayed home from work to help with, and get to know Conrad. We've spent time bonding and relaxing more than I had anticipated. Conrad is a really relaxed an low key baby. He doesn't cry nearly as much as Corwin did, and he sleeps more than Corwin did too. The only time he really seems to get pissed off is when he's hungry or I change his diaper when he's sleeping.

At the supermarket.

Anke, Conrad, and I have taken walks out to marshes and wetlands of Gifford Point yesterday morning and this morning.

The lotus flowers are in bloom.

Anke sporting our her new Ergo baby carrier. It can be used as a front, side or back baby carrier. Anke is very happy with it, and feels it's a great improvement over the Baby Bjorn.

And froggies abound in marshes, which probably excites only me.


Tomorrow I hop a jet air plane for Eric's wedding in Dallas. Anke will stay home with the kids, but Maurice's girlfriend, Bernie, is going to stop by and give Anke a hand. Thank You, So Much, Bernie!

Conrad's Life at Home

So far Conrad has been of a sunny disposition. He doesn't cry much and is sleeping long hours. After his night time feedings he goes back to sleep without too much fuss. He only get really mad at night when changing his diaper. Thus far Conrad is allowing much more sleep for Anke and I that Corwin did.

Corwin is adapting to big brotherhood like a champ. He hasn't been jealous of Little Conrad at all and is always genuinely delighted to see him. Corwin tries very hard to be gentle and wants to hold him regularly. Additionally he wants to carry Conrad and have him play, but the three day old isn't quite ready for rough and tumble play of the two year old yet. I couldn't be more proud of how Corwin is coping with the new addition to the family. It does help that Grandma has been staying with us, making sure that there's plenty of affection to go around. Thanks Mom.

Hospital

Anke was brought into the hospital Tuesday night to start the induction process. If everything went according to plan, Anke was to have had Conrad sometime during the day, probably afternoon of Wednesday. So I went home that evening so that Corwin would at least have Dad there in the morning. I would get up, take Corwin to daycare at 6:45- when they opened- and proceed to Creighton University Hospital.

When I arrived at just before 7, Anke appeared to be in much pain. Immediately Anke yelled for me to begin massaging her lower back. So I did. The next hour goes like this. Anke screaming, me massaging her back as hard as I can for the next hour. At the end of this time, my wrists are throbbing and I can't feel my finger tips anymore. I challenge any of you to massage someones lower back, as hard as you can for 15 minutes. It isn't pleasant.

Anke was in excruciating pain. The greatest pain she had ever experienced in her life. She had asked for an epidural at some point, but no one seemed to pay attention to her. So 10 minutes later I brought it up for her, again. So they paged the anesthesiologist, and she arrived 10 more minutes later.

(Papa acting like a monster, impressed Conrad not at all.)

The anesthesiologist was very firm, but friendly, telling Anke to sit on the bed and don't move. When having needle stuck in your spine it's important not to move. Just before inserting the big needle in her back, Anke starts saying "The baby is coming!" It takes a few seconds, and Anke saying it a few times before they start to believe her and think to check things out. And little Conrad was coming. I run out into the hall yelling "Get a doctor! She's having the baby!"

So Dr. Babcock, the anesthesiologist, delivers the baby. Anke's doctor later told us that Dr. Babcock was glowing later, as this was the first baby she had delivered in 20 years. So all in all, Anke's actual labor was just over an hour, but she was able to cram all of the pain associated with Corwin's 23 hour labor into that one hour.

Conrad Charles Parker

8:07 AM
9lb 11oz
21 3/4 inches

Baby still In Utero

Baby is now two days overdue. Anke had a doctors appoint- ment today and they said everything was OK. We are planning on waiting until Monday, and if Baby doesn't arrive by then, on his own, Anke and her OB will start planning for inducing labor. The OB said that they would induce before Monday if Anke wanted, but induced labor is generally more painful. So she is going to wait it out a bit longer.

Baby Animals

Back Yard

Fontenelle Forest

Fontenelle Forest

Nothing Yet

I was hoping for the baby today (07-07-07), but it looks like the little fella is going to hold off. We even went for a long walking visit to the Zoo this morning to try and help things along. But no luck.

The official due date is Monday the 9th. A month ago I was sure that Baby would be here by now, judging by how Anke felt and the size of her belly. Shows what I know.

Heart

My Dad had another angioplasty in Des Moines today. He's had one bypass surgery and countless angioplasties in the past 10 years. He's always been a great father to me and set an example that I want to live up to. I love him and it always scares me when his heart betrays him this way, reminding me of mortality. He needs to lose more weight and exercise more. He really does much better with his diet than he used to, but getting the exercise is the hard thing for him. Hopefully he and Mom can get their house in C'town sold soon and they get over here to Omaha. I can just give him Corwin a couple of times a week and say, "Keep up!" That'd whip into shape in no time.

I've been lucky in that I haven't suffered much death in my life. I'm out of grand parents, it's true. My Dad's father died when he was 14. His mom died when I was only 5 or so. I was too young to really understand what was happening. My Mom's mom died when when I was a early teenager, I think. The only one to really affect me much was Grandpa. I wasn't all that close to him, he was one of those stoic old school farmer's. He didn't really believe in showing emotion. I believe he is where Maurice got his height from, and both of us got our long monkey arms from. But I used to go and watch pro wresting with him when I was 10 or 11 every Sunday. That was fun, he would always take it so seriously. That was in the days of the Iron Sheik and some Russian villain with CCCP on his red wresting trunks. How he hated them. Later at the end of Grandpa's life, when he couldn't drive safely, I'd take him to his doctor's appointments occasionally. This was at the very beginning of my Doc Martin phase (which continues to this day- Let it be known I wore them before their rampant popularity, and still wear them now that the trend has wained) and I had on a pair of plane black boots. Grandpa had on a pair of plain black shoes, too. He was so pleased that we were wearing the same kind of shoe. He died not long after that. It was sad, and I cried, but I dare say I'm a more emotional kind of guy now and would cry more.

When we were cleaning out Grandpa's house someone (I think Aunt Susan, but I'm not sure) threw an old beaten leather coat into the trash can. I thought, this is a pretty cool coat. I'm taking it. So I dug it out and put it on. It fit my long monkey arms well. But it was DRY. When I moved my arms, you could hear it creaking. The inside collar said, "100% Horse Hide". Mom put a whole tub of horse saddle grease on the coat to moisturize it. She told me that this was the coat that Grandpa used to wear when he would ride his horse to the bar to sew his oats in the 1930's. I've gotten many compliments on this coat over the years. Around 5 years ago I brought it to a tailor to have a new lining put in, and have some of the seams redone. I think it would please Grandpa to know that I'm still wearing it. And someday, I imagine it'll get passed down to Corwin or his brother. Or perhaps one of their sons.

Of the nice memories I have of Grandpa, though, we weren't as close as I would have liked in hindsight. Anke is so close to her Oma Alfrieda and Oma Renate, and she was very close to her Opa. Corwin's named after him. Corwin Günter Parker. I want my children to be close to their Grandparents, as I really wasn't. And we are off to a great start so far in that direction. But Dad has to live longer to do it. His procedure today went well and I talked to him on the phone, just hours ago. He already felt better. So he's ok, and that makes me feel better. He'll be around to see his second grandson born. I think having the Parker name carried on is important to him, so I think it pleases him that I've had boys. It also let's Maurice off the hook a bit. He owes me.

Anyway it's getting late, and I've rambled long enough. Enjoy the photo of Grandpa and Grandma from I'm guessing mid 1940's.

2

Happy Birthday Corwin

Please, allow me to introduce myself as someone else

While on the way to the store last Saturday morning, we stopped at a garage sale a block down the road. I picked up a shovel and 50 ft extension cord. Got a little riding/rocking zebra for Corwin and Baby. Before leaving I introduced myself to the house owner, as I’m still fairly new to the neighborhood. He said his name was John and I shook his hand and said “Scott Parker.”

A few days later, I think I hear Corwin saying my name out on the deck. I wander out there to see what’s up, and he runs up to Anke with his little hand out saying, “Scott Parker!” He shakes her hand and runs off.

Transfomers

There is a new live action Trans- formers movie coming out that I am rather excited about. The new Optimus Prime looks good. But I feel that they should have left him as a cab over, instead of making him a blinged out Peterbilt. The following is an awesome clip by some guy who did a transforming Ultra Magnus (Optimus Prime's cracker cousin) as an exercise in computer animation. Michael Bay should have taken some notes. I think Ultra Magnus looks great as a old disheveled Freightliner. Optimus Prime would have too, but I would have modeled him off of an old GMC Astro.

Döner Kebab!

Scotty having a döner kebab and pilsner at Mt Ararat in Dreseden circa 2003. A little slice of paradise.

As some of you may have heard me go on about at one time or another, a döner kebab is one of my three or four favorite foods. But I only get döners when I visit Germany. I did have one in NYC once, but it was a poor imitation using a flour tortilla, instead of a pita.

Until Wednesday. A QA at work told me about a little shop that opened in Dundee that sells döners! So I skipped my packed lunch and hopped in the car at lunch to go check it out. And they do sell them Amsterdam style, not German style, which is too bad. But still the taste was 9/10ths right. The only thing that pisses me off is that they opened this shop in my old neighborhood four months after I moved.

Observations

The other day I was driving home from work with Anke and Corwin on the freeway. We get passed by a late 90's civic with one of those loud coffee can mufflers. Corwin is at the age where he likes to point out the obvious. He promptly says "lawnmower!" It's enlightening that there are things he can already figure out on his own, and doesn't need to be taught.

Flood

Yesterday I went with a couple of co-workers to Missouri Valley, IA to help clean with the flooding that occurred a couple of weeks ago. The neighborhood that we were working was a rather poor place to begin with, before everything was swamped with three to four feet of water. Most of the houses were single story homes, built on concrete slabs. The owners of these had no where to put their valuables even had they known the water was coming.

In the morning I helped out with the salvage of one of these homes. This old woman lost nearly everything. The stove, fridge, washer and dryer. All of the furnishings of the house creating a pile in the front yard. The carpet that we were pulling up was a drab brown, except for a single two foot by four foot rectangle of white where something had protected it. We cut the carpet into blocks, pulled it and the padding up and added it to the growing detritus. From the pile it would go into the bucket of a giant end loader donated by the local Case Implement dealer to be taken Zeus knows where. Nasty, ugly, smelly work. It made me thankful Woodmen provided free tetanus shots for us.

It's saddening to see those that have so little, lose nearly everything. It makes me thankful for what I have, and that I don't have to live on a flood plane. It has to be disheartening to see all of the possessions that have taken you years to accumulate and many of them that must have some sentimental value, being ruined and thrown away like the garbage that they now are. How do you start over?

After lunch I helped at a vet clinic. Most of the clinic had been emptied by the time my team got there. We were helping to clear out a storage room in the back. The vet had seven or eight book shelves back there filled with books. The bottom half of all of them sat in water for a week. It felt sacrilegious to be throwing so many books into plastic bags and added to growing pile of junk in his horse trailer. Thousands if dollars of books being added to the thousands and thousands of dollars of other stuff. The vet was in a better situation than most, financially, to deal with the disaster, but he too was hurting. Especially because during the cleanup he hasn't got any income coming in.

I had to leave early to pick up Anke at work and Corwin in daycare. The relief effort was being organized at the local pool, which was convenient, allowing me to shower and change clothes before having to climb into the car and meet civilization again. But that may have been the coldest shower I have ever taken. I suppose swimming pools don't feel the need to hook their showers up to hot water heaters.

Yard Work

For the past month and a half, Anke has had me out in the yard doing Yard Work every weekend. I had no idea that owning a house would entail quite so much of the stuff. First shoveling snow and now this.

To help with the job, I picked up a Craftsman racing mower from sears. It has a 6 3/4 pound feet of torque Briggs & Stratton engine. Big directional tri-spoke wheels. And a parachute on the back to help me slow down. On top of all that, it's menacing black, with a fire red engine cover. Maurice may have a faster car than me, but my mower smokes his. One thing that does confuse me is that I can't find the rabbit and turtle to control the throttle.

See those bushes behind me? They used to be huge. Anke thought that they were too huge, and had me wack them down to nearly nothing. She says they'll come back bigger and better than ever. All I know is that it was a lot more work than I wanted to do. And now I have a big patch of dirt that used to be covered by bush.

Notice how tall the grass is here? That is in my swampy area that nearly never dries off. At some point I'm going to have to do something about that, like a French drain. Or something. But my racing mower took care of that 8 inch wet grass like it was nothin'. Torque bitch!

Here is the obligatory picture of Corwin trying to help out. He loves water and therefor he loves the water hose. He's also getting taller and talkier.

Anke has also had me planting plants galore. Two rose bushes. Two currant bushes. Transplanted a blue berry bush. Weeding, weeding, weeding. Ripping out Virginia creeper and a couple of poison ivy vines by the root. The yard really did need a lot of work. Since the house was unoccupied last summer, the yard was a bit neglected. We also planted two bamboo plants, one of which is shown. I'm actually excited about the bamboo. They are small now, but they should reach around 6 or 7 feet in height. The bamboo photo was taken with my new phone. It isn't quite camera quality and very far from our DSLR, but it's much better than my old phone.

Social Distortion

Maurice and I went to see Social D on May Day.

The first opening act was The Black Halos. They were kind of like the Evil Dead 2 of punk bands. Like Evil Dead 2, you're not quite sure if that was supposed to be funny or did it just happen to be funny? It took me awhile decide: Is the lead singer was really trying to be super cool or is it a bit of a tongue in cheek act? It was when the lead singer took off his shirt and he had a bit of a Chris Willcolm build (a round belly and narrow chest) that I decided, he can't be taking himself too seriously. I liked them a bit better after that. Musically I thought that they were a talented band, but the lead singer needs to learn how to sing. I could never understand him.

Band two was I Hate Kate, and they were very good. More of a modern rock band, but very strong. ...this post is now continued almost a week later. I'm sure there was more that I wanted to say about I Hate Kate, but I can't recall what it was. Anyway, I liked them.

I like Socol Auditorium. It's an old place in south Omaha, that has lots of character. And no air conditioning. It is set up mainly like a giant high school auditorium, but with no seats. There is a balcony that rings the main floor, giving a good view of the stage if you are in the first couple of rows. But Maurice said that the balcony is a good 10 degrees hotter than the floor. When we got there early the building was comfortably cool and it remained that way though the first two bands. Then it rapidly started heating up as the energy level was noticeably raised when Social D took the stage. They played a variety of tracks from their whole catalog of albums including favorites like Prison Bound, Ball and Chain and Highway 101 from their newest album. A couple of covers were included- The Stones Under My Thumb, Hank Williams Sr.'s Six More Miles and of course Ring of Fire made popular by Johnny Cash, but written by his wife June Carter before their marriage. The didn't play my favorite Social D song Story of my Life, but that was the only disappointment of the night.

Social Distortion played with the precision that one would expect of a band that's been around since the late 70's, but more energy than one might expect of guys on the north side of their mid 40's. I was surprised by how old they looked until I thought about how long Mike Ness has been making rock 'n roll. And I doubt they were all easy years.

It was also fun seeing Omaha's Rockabilly crowd come out. There was an authentic rad rod parked across from Socol when we came in. If I had more garage space and time. And money. I'd really enjoy having a rat rod. Along with several other cars. But now I'm getting off topic. There were several cats there with the slicked back black hair or horn rimmed glasses or black and white wing tips. The punk girls with tattoos and 50's style bobbed hair, the tight capri pants and string tank tops. Yummy. I love punk girls.

A grand night out, and one of my last ones for the next year or so.

PowerBook G4

A design flaw of the titanium PowerBooks is that the hinges are made of aluminum and not titanium. Therefor they are a bit fragile. The PowerBook is a bit outdated, but it does most of what I want a laptop to do, so I wasn't ready to give up on it yet. Plus it is still stylish and aesthetically pleasing.

I was able to pick up a used hinge mount from ifixit.com for under $20 w/ shipping.

Replacing the broken hinge mount was surprisingly easy. I was lucky that only the brittle hinge mount broke and not the actual hinge itself. That is closer to the $100 and requires complete disassembly of the laptop to reinstall. I think I could have done it, but it would have been much more of a pain in the arse.

It was so easy I let Corwin finish up for me.

Weekend Images

We have bonus images this week, but Dinner is the official photo of the week. Slow cooking the beef ribs wasn't so easy as a hurricane rolled during hour two of the ribs cooking. The patio is located underneath the deck and I put the patio furniture umbrella beside the grill to help keep the water off, and my grill temperature up. And marinated vegetable kabobs is a yummy way of eating my veggies, which Anke says I need to do a better job of in order to set a proper example of Corwin and the soon to arrive Scotty Version III.

Corwin has a ball on his little swing that he got from his Opa.

Finally starting to get some green in the forest.

Corwin is all about learning how to drive. But it won't be in this car.

I'm just buzzed

This is short film of Will Ferrel and his daughter. Very funny.

Nappy Headed Moe

For the record I thought that Imus deserved to be fired, and I'm glad that he was. But this made me laugh.