Look out World

Saturday May 16 4:30 am - I am awoken by what must be the most traumatic sound in the whole world ...... my alarm, seriously, if I hear the sound my alarm makes at any point in the day other than when I am sleeping it makes my skin crawl, if I hear it when I am sleeping I have annoying dreams until I figure out the source of my aggravation ..... that is either here nor there though and some of you are probably wishing I would get to the point, while others of you may be wondering what the hect I was doing waking up at 4:30 am. Well I had to take my coworker to the airport because she was flying to Guam for PIBC's TRACS visit. So I drop her of at Lindbergh Field make it home around 6:00 am, just in time to see the highlights of the Mancheseter United Arsenal game, which ended in a 0-0 tie, but it was enough for Man U to win the Premier League this year, just in case you didn't know.......

Let me back track in my story a little now....... in case you didn't know my wife had been pregnant, here is a picture (now all of you who kept asking for a pregnant picture can stop hassling me......Mom), I can't remember how far along she was when this picture was taken, but I would say about 8 months. So ... let me see.... oh yes Man U..... right ...... so its now 7:45 and I think I hear somebody stirring in the bedroom so I go in and see if Kristin wants any breakfast or anything ...... aren't I the sweetest guy ....... which she says she will get up and get because she can be kind of stubborn sometimes, she had been complaining the night before that she was feeling uncomfortable and we decided to call Triage, and while she is on the phone with them asking questions her water breaks, which the tell us we need to come in, but it would be ok to eat breakfast first, this is about 8:00 am. So we get into Triage around 9:30 am, they take her right in, and within 30-45 minutes we are in the delivery room. So this whole time the nurses had been asking Kristin if she was having contractions, which she said she had a few in the car, but she didn't really think so. So they hook her up to the monitor to watch her and the baby, and the nurse says well there I am seeing that you are having contractions, says when Kristin would have had one and Kristin says "Oh that is a contraction." So we are hanging out in the room and about the point she gets to 4 cm, the contractions are very intense and she get an epidural. The epidural works great and we are able to just hang out and talk, watch tv and read (basically all the same stuff we like to do at home) the doc came in at one point and laughed and said that was the first time he had seen a woman reading while she was in labor. So we wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait...... did I mention that we waited a long time. About 8:30 pm the nurse comes in and says ok you are ready to start pushing, that Kristin is going to push with her and then when the baby is closer to coming out the doc will come. So she says to wait for the next contraction and we'll start, which before that happens she gets a call and says that we'll wait for the next contraction when she gets back, she has to take care of something. So she comes back in about 5 minutes and says the people in the next room had to have an emergency c-section, so the doc was going to be with them, and we'll wait to start pushing for 30-45 minutes. They turn off the pitosin, or whatever they were giving Kristin to speed up her labor since her water broke sort of early, and we wait and wait and wait ..... we really didn't wait as long this time, but it felt long. So the nurse comes back in about 9:20 or so and we start pushing. Kristin does 3 or 4 sets of pushes and everything is good, then out of the blue the nurse hits a button and says she needs another nurse in the room right away. She starts moving Kristin all around, adjusting the bed trying to get Kristin at a different angle, in what seemed like a second there was 6-8 people in the room looking at the monitors, putting an oxygen mask on Kristin, moving her around, and I am standing there thinking what in the world in going on. So the doctor finally gets Kristin in a good position and I notice on the monitor that the heart rate of the baby which had been low was now back to what it had been throughout the labor. The doctor says that the baby is under stress and we need to get him out right away. So we (the doctor) ended up have to vacuum the baby out with a suction cup looking thingy he puts on the baby's head, which then forms a vacuum so he can pull while Kristin is pushing. So he does this and Kristin does 4 pushes and the baby is out. He had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice, and really throughout the labor they kept saying he seemed like a "sleepy baby" so I think the nurse might have suspected that the cord was around his neck. But he came out, he had (has) a bruise on his head where the suction cup was, it looks like a yamika right now. But he came out and everything was fine, mom and baby were (are) good, we stayed in the delivery room for a couple hours and then went up to the recovery room where we stayed until Monday morning. So we are home now and adjusting to life with a baby and so far everything has been going good. Here is the info for the baby (birth). Our son is named Milo Draven Owen, he was 7 pounds 3 ounces at birth and was 19 inches long. He was born 9:47 on May 16. This makes things particularly easy on me as his birthday is May 16, Kristin and my anniversary is July 16 and Kristin's b-day is Sept. 17 .... oh and my birthday is July 24 (hint hint hint). So here is what most of you are interested in probably the pictures. The 3rd picture is Milo getting his hearing test. So everything went really well, even though we had a brief 15-20 second scare towards the end of the delivery.

Spring Madness

So I was threatened with bodily harm if I didn't include pictures in this post, ok maybe not with bodily harm, but I was threatened with a certain somebody self censoring themself from this blog if I didn't put in pictures, and since it is strict policy of mine not to negotiate with threatening demands, there will be no pictures in this post. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (thats maniacal laughter in case you didn't know). Actually the real reason there is no pictures is that it seems that every chance I get to make a post I don't have my flash drive with me that has my pics on there.

This semester is stretching me right now. I have more things to do and less time to do them at work, which is making things a bit stressful. Enrollment is down at the college, and last week we had some lay-offs, so we have less library employees, which means I've picked up a number of new responsibilities, while at the same time having my hours shortened a little bit. Thankfully, I agreed to teach a computer class for the adult program, which starts in April, so even though I am losing hours, because of that I am not losing a lot or any income, and of course since I have less hours I get some extra time off, which is nice. At least things look very positive for the Fall semester, the college has many students interested in coming here for Fall, so the attitude on campus is that once we get through Spring everything will get back to normal.

Things at home couldn't be better, everything is going great with Kristin's pregnancy, we are having fun getting the bedroom ready, we bought a crib on Monday, and have gotten a nice shelving thing to keep books and toys in, I took a huge load of things to the Goodwill and now my closet and music room (or baby room I guess) is starting to take shape.

I played drums at church for the first time on Sunday, and realized that my drumming skills are VERY VERY rusty. I haven't really been able to play my set in close to 2 years, so it was a bit of a challenge, playing 4 new songs that I had never drummed to before, after not playing drums at all for a while, and then only having 45 minutes to learn the songs on Sunday morning. So it was a little rough, but it came out ok.

So thats a quick summary of what is going on in S. Cal, more posts and yes even pics at some point to come.

Back to Work

I am back at work now, Christmas break was amazing, we had such a good time hanging out with friends and family. Work is really slow today as classes don't start until next week and most everyone on campus is trying to get into the beginning flow of spring semester. We made it back to San Diego on New Years Eve day, we had a very nice drive in the fog from Folsom all the way to the Grapevine, as soon as we got into LA the weather changed fairly drastically from foggy and cold to sunny and warm, it was really nice. We made the drive in 7 hours, which is pretty good time.

Didn't really do to much for New Years, hung out with some friends until a little after midnight and then went home and then just relaxed and watched movies New Years Day. I watched the Dark Knight, which I thought was OK, but a little long.

On Friday, Jan. 2 we went to get the Ultrasound pics and found out that we are having a boy, most everyone was certain that it was a boy and that is how it turned out. We are both very excited.

I know I said I would be posting pictures on here, which I obviously have not done, I will be doing that, but in the mean time you'll just have to use your imagination.

Vacation Time

Its the end of the semester, and in a few short hours I will be leaving work for the last time this year. Thankfully I get a nice 2 week vacation for Christmas, which is well deserved as this semester has definitely worn me out. None of my library programs are working yet, as the server that houses everything I use is being rebuilt, what that means is that I'm scratching my head for things to do around here, I've already tried to fix a broken chair, moved some computers around and played 3 games of pool........ all in a days work right. Kristin is working a half day today, and probably hoping for some "time to herself" this afternoon, but I'll give her a Christmas surprise and show up at home about the same time, because I'm taking a half day too, haha.

I am sure most of you are wondering more about her than about me anyways, so I will just say that she is doing good, she is finally really starting to show, and she told me last night that she has started feeling the baby kick and move around and all that good stuff. It was really weird, up until Thanksgiving she wasn't really showing at all, we got back to SD from LA on Friday evening, she still wasn't showing that much, then Saturday all the sudden it became very very noticeable, just in one evening. Maybe she ate too much Thanksgiving turkey.

So for all you naysayers out there that thought I wouldn't make another post, here is a *gasp* second post, we are looking forward to seeing all of you soon, and of course eating some of Grandma O's homemade noodles, you better make a lot Grandma, Kristin has been talking about those noodles for a few weeks now. Oh and I'll be sure and put some pictures up on here when I am at home and have access to them.

Welcome!!!

As many of you know I am really bad with communication...... it probably runs in the family, so that combined with tedious boredom at work while I am waiting for a server, or more importantly my ILS to be back online (thanks Windows Update!!!) has prompted me to start this blog. I don't know how often I will update it, and I can't promise that I won't forget about it all together, but I hope to give you the inside scoop on my adventures and musings on life, the universe........ and everything, well maybe not everything, I have to maintain some level of mystery. To add to that, despite the amazingly interesting title I have given this blog (rest assured I have traveled to the strangest places in the Milky Way galaxy..... Humboldt county), I am sure most people will not find learning which piece of library software I am researching, or how many books I cataloged last week, or what web page project I am working on very interesting (so there will be no work related talk here). That is not to say I will not have interesting things to talk about, like didgeridoos, animal encounters, music, the inflating price of rocket fuel, deviled eggs, nature excursions, interesting books, multiple dimensions, what I say when I talk in my sleep, the crazy people who knock on my door at 9:00 at night trying to sell me incredibly overpriced chocolate or magazine subscriptions, how bad southern California drivers are (especially in the rain), oh and of course family things. Although I am sure most people reading this would rather hear about the witty bantar I have with myself in my sleep. Niesch bothe gromulty sra vegra (I speak a made up language when I am sleeping). So there you have it, stay tuned for the next ultra exciting post.*

*Disclaimer - there may not be a next post, as I can make no promises to my ability of remembering to make a next post - read each post as it may be the last ....... from me anyways.