Marc's enormous post about all kinds of stuff in our lives

OK, here I am, back again so soon. Still not loading pictures, but my mind was racing last night after posting the last little blurb, full of other little items of note. When I converted the old cheztiar into this blog format, it was in an effort to preserve our little familial goings-on, rather than losing them each time I revised the front page. So at this time, as we approach the end of the year, when everyone is looking back on the past and ahead to the future, I want to toss out a bunch of stuff in that spirit. It may not make for the best reading for you, dear readers; the minutiae of the Tiars' recent lives, spouted forth like a broken sewer main does not "Ulysses" make. But if you're into stream of consciousness, random tidbits, and odds and ends recorded here for posterity, read on...

In the kids department, we had another one this year. Young Sid is going on five months old now. Doesn't sleep through the night. Taking formula isn't going very well. He cries more than Lola did and takes really short naps. But he's growing like a weed, cute as a button, and going to turn out OK. Lola turned three recently, and she's still our little princess. Adorable barely describes her on her worst day. That's still little comfort when she calls us back into her room 3-4 times for a sip of water or other ridiculous reason after going to bed, or when she wakes up at 4am still, or insists on pooping in her diaper (she still sleeps in one) when she knows darn well how to use the toilet like a big girl. Perhaps some regression due to baby brother and new house is going on... Both kids have had their share of colds lately, lots of runny noses, coughing, etc. but we bought a nice vaporizer that keeps a room nice and humid through the night. Speaking of devices we bought, as of a couple weeks ago, we're the proud owners of a remanufactured Roomba robot vacuum. It's still more of a novelty than a real labor saver since you still have to pick up a bunch of toys and shoes and stuff, but it works OK and it's kind of fun. Returning to the topic of Lola for a moment, Morgan toured a couple preschools this week, so we're starting to think about it. Expensive! Need to figure out the best schedule and what's affordable, but we think we've found the place when it's time. No daycare for Sid yet though, we're not ready for that yet.

(This is silly, I started writing this as a text document that I would paste into cheztiar later, but I'm having to do it in such small bits as time permits, I should just be writing online in the first place...but I digress.)

One other thing I envisioned doing a lot of on this here website was sharing books, music, and movies that I've enjoyed (or not) with you all. Not much reading going on these days - by the time I get to bed, too tired to read much, and what I've been reading is pretty dull. I picked up a book on coffee, a sort of reference book on personal finance, and one on making beer. I need to get back into some page-turner fiction. Most of my reading these days is Wired magazine, trying to get through one issue before next one comes, or the various blogs and websites I try to hit every day. I guess reading is reading, but a book would be nice sometime soon.

Speaking of personal finance, that's the other thing on my mind these days. I must be a real grown-up now, I think a lot about ways to retire early, save a lot for retirement, writing a will, and look forward to doing taxes so I can see just how much having a 2nd child and a home equity loan will improve our tax situation. This year, I opened a Flexible Spending Account, another tax break for medical expenses, and enrolled in the Hartford's 457 plan, yet another way to save on taxes and save for retirement pretty easily. Fat nest egg, here I come.

Musicwise, I just recently started listening to Sublime again. After getting the box set earlier this year, it's kind of sat on the shelf for a while, so I brought it out to listen to again, and have been really enjoying it, getting back into their music again. I have to say, I really think they claim the title of "my favorite band ever". Which brings me to a trivial little anecdote. With my renewed interest, I thought I'd look to see what Wikipedia had on Sublime. As expected, a good thorough entry, and good entries on each band member. So, reading through the entry on drummer Bud Gaugh, it mentions he now lives in Nevada. Huh, interesting coincidence. So I visit his MySpace page, read about his new surf band (which sounds great, looking forward to hearing what they put out), and it turns out he lives in Reno at least part of the time. More coincidence. Among all my reading and websurfing, I am referred to a recent SPIN magazine which has a good article on Sublime's legacy and a tribute band back east called Badfish. So I go to find that issue at the library, and Foo Fighters are on the cover. Foo Fighters just announced a concert date here in February, which I think I'll be attending. And the final coincidence...Dave Grohl is wearing a Bucket of Blood Saloon t-shirt on the cover...it all comes back to Reno. (I've always maintained, besides being a great place to live with lots of interesting history, Reno is forever destined to be the footnote to history...famous people get arrested here, relatives of famous people die here, we're mentioned in songs randomly.)

Movies...never get to those much anymore. Netflix (and the library) keeps us in recent release, but all our time is getting sucked up by Six Feet Under these days. I can't give up any more time to TV series!

Changing gears again here, let's talk food and drink. Morgan and I celebrated our fourth anniverary with dinner at Harrah's Steakhouse, probably the oldest fine-dining establishment in town. A bit disappointing, mostly the crowd, but the food was nothing that special. We'll probably return to LuLou's or 4th Street Bistro in the future. And there's always our usual splurge that doesn't really qualify as fine-dining, SUSHI. For now, our attention is on Amish Friendship Bread since receiving a starter for a coworker. I continue to dwell on my love for two beverages - beer and coffee. Someday you'll all be regular customers of Marc's House of Barley and Beans (I still need to work on the name...)

In the technology realm, we're still happily wireless and using the laptop around the house most of the time, but I had an epiphany recently and added 1GB of memory to the desktop PC in the office and it runs SO much better now! Still need to tidy up the hard drive some, and I think I've committed myself to migrating to Picasa to organize and tag photos. With two kids being reared in the age of digital photos, we're rapidly accumulating hundreds of digital photos with little organization. At least I've got some piecemeal backup systems in place, but I need something more systematic I think. Picasa and some kind of offsite storage may be the answer. Not sure when I'll have the time, but at least I've started thinking about it... I dabbled in trying to burn a movie onto DVD, wrestling with the matter from every angle before deciding the DVD burner on the laptop is kaput. Sigh.

I'll toss out a plug here for a game we've been enjoying quite a bit lately, courtesy of Grandpa Dave, Apples to Apples is our latest party-game fascination.

And lastly, I just want to give a shout-out to our little dog Daisy. She's seen some rough times lately, with her diagnosis of Cushing's Disease, recent stomach issues, difficulty with stairs, and general aging. We still love her, and hope she'll stick with us comfortably for a little while longer.

And with that, dear readers, I'll come to a close. If you've read all of this, I owe you a coffee or a beer. Keep coming back to cheztiar in 2008.