Author: Michael Pellegrini

This morning we drove Grandpa Rick to the airport after a short but very productive and fun visit. His trip began when Jessica and the kids picked him up at SeaTac on Wednesday morning at 11:00. The five of them headed straight to the Microsoft campus to meet me for lunch. I was excited to show them around my building and take them on a shuttle ride over to the main part of campus for lunch in ‘The Commons’, which is where the main cafeteria, as well as many other attractions, is located. It was Earth Day, so there was even more commotion than usual, but it made for an exciting afternoon. After lunch we headed over to one of the soccer fields to let the girls run around and burn off some energy. Not surprisingly, one of their favorite parts about the visit was getting to ride on the shuttle bus back and forth between my office and the main campus. Neither of the girls had ever been on a bus before so they really got a kick out of it. We all had a fun time so it was a great way to start off Grandpa’s visit.

I wasn’t around the house much for the next couple days due to my work schedule, but as usual, Grandpa got a ton of work done. He did a bunch of yard work in our front yard and installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom, however the main project for this trip was to build a sandbox for the kids in our back yard. The final product turned out awesome. He was able to reuse several of the painted boards from the headboard that he and Jessica made at our house in San Diego, and although it was a lot of work for us on Saturday filling it with nearly 1,500 pounds of sand, it received immediate approval from all the little ones. The project hadn’t been complete for five minutes before there were four kids playing in it and having a blast. The kids ended up spending all day playing in there, and although they trecked so much sand into our house you’d think we lived on a beach, it was still well worth it. I’m thinking this will be a ton of fun for all the neighborhood kids throughout the summer.

Friday night we were joined for dinner at our house by Butch and Carol. We ate oysters on the half shell, then enjoyed Halibut Picatta and vegetables for our entrees. Jessica and I love oysters on the half shell, and normally Rick does as well, but he must have gotten a bad one because he wasn’t feeling so well later that night. He was a trooper though and didn’t let it slow him down one bit on Saturday.

We started off Saturday morning by taking Ava to soccer. Unfortunately although last Saturday she had her best class yet, this wasn’t her best week. About halfway through the class she just decided that she didn’t want to play anymore and she totally disengaged. It’s tough from my perspective because I would never want to force her into anything, but at the same time I realize that she isn’t old enough yet to make rational decisions about what she is doing, so she needs to be coaxed at times. Its a bit of a fine line but we’re going to keep going for the next several weeks and see how it goes.

After soccer Rick and I got to work in the yard. As previously mentioned, we finished off the sandbox first so the kids could have fun playing in it, then I got back to work on my dog run project that I started a couple weekends ago. Having Rick’s help out there was great and I can’t believe how much we got done. Not only did we finish digging out all the sod, but we also were able to make a trip to Home Depot and pick up 800 pounds of paver stones to line the entire inside of the fence with. Basically what we did was dig a 4” trench along the inside of the fence, then set these 12”x12” cement paver stones upright inside that trench up against the fence. Once the stones were in place we filled it back in with dirt. The idea was to keep Bella from being able to dig her way out of there, and I think its going to work. Although the project isn’t finished yet, I’m extremely happy with how it already looks. The stones are a nice touch, and the remaining work will be really easy. Next weekend I’m going to put down landscaping cloth, then cover it. The only remaining question is what I’m going to cover it with. I was originally thinking gravel, then I was thinking about mulch, but I’m also considering some type of pet-friendly artificial turf. I’m going to research it this week and make up my mind by Friday. I can’t wait to finish this up on Saturday so I can move onto the next project, which will be to create a pathway from the back patio to the entrance of the dog run. I’ll definitely post photos once everything is complete.

After moving well over a ton (literally) of sand and bricks, we were pretty exhausted, so the remainder of Saturday afternoon was spent relaxing and watching basketball. Later that evening our new next-door neighbors invited everyone over for a Smore’s party around their new fire pit. Jessica, the kids, and I hung out over there for a few hours while Grandpa got some down time to relax and watch a movie.

This morning, after taking Rick to the airport, the five of us headed downtown to Pike’s Place Market. We got to look at ferry boats crossing the Puget Sound, then we saw lots of fresh fish, pretty flowers, and plenty of interesting people enjoying their Sunday morning. We enjoyed a bag of fresh donuts as we strolled around, then before leaving we stopped by my friend Bill Erickson’s shop so I could buy one of his custom made longboard skateboards. Bill and I used to work together at El Gaucho many years ago and have stayed in touch ever since. About seven years ago he decided to leave the food and beverage industry to follow his dream of building the highest quality longboards out of exotic woods and top quality components. In addition to building longboards, he also builds the nicest cutting boards I’ve ever seen. His company, Erickson Longboards, has received a lot of local attention, and his cutting boards were recently featured in the New York Times! I’ve been wanting one of his boards for several years, so I decided to use part of my fitness reimbursement allowance from Microsoft to finally purchase one. I ended up getting a beautiful board made from quartersawn White Oak with white wheels. Not surprisingly I was thrilled to get home and ride it all afternoon, but I was still able to get my chores (garage cleanup, quick Costco run, and fertilize the yard) done as well.

This evening we had a nice surf and turf salad made from leftover filet mignon, halibut, and fried oysters while catching up on the Spurs – Clippers game. Tomorrow night should be a lot of fun for me since I’m meeting my Godfather Pete and my great friend Michael Don Rico for dinner at Il Terrazzo Carmine’s. We did a dinner like this last year and had a blast, so we were long overdue for round two. Tuesday, of course, is Jessica’s birthday, so that is definitely something to look forward to. Hopefully we’ll be going out to dinner that night, but if not we will certainly be going out next weekend when Uncle Joel and Aunt Melanie come to town. I’ve given Jessica a couple options for her birthday present (which always seems like the safest approach to me) so hopefully it won’t be long before we can go pick something out. We should also be getting her wedding band soon. We had to custom order it so it’s taking a little longer than expected, but its certainly well worth the wait.

In addition to all this family fun, I was also able to get some work done this week in terms of web development side projects. Several years ago when I was first getting back into web development I built a website for my friend Dave Talbott, who is an amazing artist in San Diego. About once a year he contacts me with requests for updates to his site, so while I was recently working on one for him I decided that I wanted to rebuild the site. I wasn’t very happy with the quality of the code I had written back then, and it has my name on it, so I decided to spend several days on the bus rebuilding it. Although the finished product looks very similar to the old version, there are some subtle differences that take it to a whole new level. In particular, this new site is mobile friendly, and the gallery pages are a huge upgrade to the previous version. Check it out at www.DavidRussellTalbott.com.

As usual we’ve got a lot to look forward to in the near future, but I’m just glad that Grandpa Rick had such a nice time seeing his daughter and grandchildren for the first time since baby Enzo was born. It’s hard to believe he’s already about to turn 3 months old! Here’s a few photos from Grandpa’s visit.

Grandpa and his girls

Grandpa reading ‘Dragons Love Tacos’ (their favorite book) to the girls

Putting the finishing touches on the sandbox. See how the cover folds up into bench seating on both ends of the box? Pretty cool…

Elise sporting another amazing outfit

Mommy after getting her hair cut

With the beautiful weather on our side, we’ve been enjoying another great weekend. We started things off Friday night by having our friend Laurel over for a sleepover and homemade pizza party. It’s been a few years since I’ve made pizza from scratch, so it was fun to do that again. I did my best to put on a show for the girls by tossing and spinning the dough up in the air; they seemed to get a kick out of it. More importantly, the pizza turned out really good and we all had a nice dinner together.

Saturday morning I took Ava to soccer class and I can say with confidence that it was her best class yet. This was her sixth week of soccer and the improvement she has made during this time is very noticeable. She’s doing great with her dribbling (aka ‘little kicks’), and her shots (aka ‘big kicks’) have been really impressive. They did a drill this week where there was an 8 foot tunnel setup about 8-10 feet from the goal. The objective was for the kid to kick the ball straight through the tunnel and into the net. Considering that it was nearly a 20 foot shot, it was really tough for most of the kids; in fact, most of them couldn’t even kick the ball through the tunnel, let alone hard enough to get it all the way to the goal. Most of the time the ball would be stuck in the tunnel and the kid would have to crawl through it to retrieve their ball before taking it over to the goal for a little shot.

Ava didn’t have a problem with this drill at all. The coach set up her ball in front of the tunnel and she kicked it so hard and so straight that it went rocketing through the tunnel right into the back of the net. I think only three kids were able to do this and she was the only girl. I was really impressed. In true Ava fashion, she still crawled through the tunnel though, just like all the other kids did.

I know I come off as a proud parent when describing this, and of course I am, but I honestly wouldn’t give her a bunch of false praises if she didn’t deserve them. In general I don’t agree with the entitlement culture that many modern-day parents are inadvertently creating, but Ava is doing really well with this. Ultimately all that matters is that she is engaged and having fun, but the fact that she has natural talent makes it even better. I would never force her into any activity, but I hope she continues with soccer. She definitely has a lot of potential and I love seeing her have so much fun.

After soccer I got back to work in the backyard on the dog run I started last week. In order to avoid making the same mistake I made before, I stopped by the hardware store and purchased a couple five gallon buckets. This way I was able to leave the yard waste bin in its usual location in our driveway and just fill the buckets with grass and sod. It resulted in several trips back and forth with filled buckets, and those buckets aren’t exactly light, but it was nowhere near the trouble we had last weekend. I wasn’t able to dig out the entire area because I eventually ran out of space in the yard waste bin, but I’m getting close. I expect to be done digging next weekend; then it will be time to move onto the next phase of the project.

I spoke to my Mom about it and got some good advice; I was originally planning on putting a tarp down and then spreading gravel over it, but she had a great point, which is that the tarp won’t allow any liquid to pass through, meaning every time Bella pee’s out there, it’s just going to sit there on the tarp and create a nasty odor. Her recommendation was to use something called ‘weed cloth’, which serves the same purpose as the tarp (not letting weeds grow through the gravel), but it’s made of a mesh-like substance that will allow liquid to pass through. Thanks Mom.

In addition to digging out the dog run, I’m also going to dig out a path from our back patio to the dog run and fill it in with paver stones. This way we will be able to take Bella back there without worrying about getting our feet/shoes grassy or muddy and then tracking all that stuff back into the house. We also want to expand the size of our back patio by lining it with big paver stones. The goal is to have a functional backyard that the kids can play in, and that we can use for gatherings. Right now that isn’t possible because of Bella, but it won’t be that way for long.

Once I’m done working on the backyard I’m going to shift my focus to the front yard, and particularly to the driveway. If you’ve been to our house you know that we have a long narrow driveway that curves towards our garage. Backing the van out of there while avoiding my car isn’t easy, and what often ends up happening is someone backs into our front yard and starts kicking up a bunch of grass and mud. Consequently the ground directly adjacent to our driveway is extremely soft and difficult to maintain.

Although I’m not 100% decided on what to do, the idea I’m currently leaning towards is to dig out about three feet of grass all the way down our entire driveway. Then I want to hire someone to come in and pour concrete in there to fill it all in, effectively widening our driveway by three feet. It’s important that I get someone who knows what they’re doing because the new concrete needs to match the exposed rock style of our existing driveway. Once the concrete has settled I want to build a little stone wall about two feet high all the way along the driveway. I think this will look really nice and give it some separation from the front yard. I just want to run that idea by a few people to make sure its a good one before breaking ground. I’m totally willing to do most of the work myself, but I need someone with lots of concrete experience for that phase of the project. There’s no way I’d be able to do that part of the job at a professional level.

After finishing my yard work and watching a little playoff basketball, the five of us headed south for a birthday party at the house of our friends Jamie and Melissa. Their daughter Ellie is turning two, and just like her party last year, we all had a really fun time. I met a guy who has been working at Microsoft for nine years and we ended up hanging out and talking for quite a while. We exchanged contact information and made plans to meetup for lunch sometime soon. It’s nice to meet someone with that much experience and tenure at Microsoft, and the fact that we have mutual friends in common makes it even better. The rest of the evening was spent watching the Mariners game, eating leftover pizza, and just chilling.

Today has been gorgeous out all day so I got the girls outside early to enjoy the weather. I set up cones and goals just like they do at soccer class and let Ava do a bunch of drills. Once again she did great and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately Enzo has been out of sorts all day, including a fever and several spit-ups. Since it’s so nice out we thought it would be fun to take the kids for a walk around the neighborhood. We hadn’t had our Radio Flyer wagon out since last Summer so we decided to throw the girls in there and head out. Enzo was strapped to Jessica and quickly fell asleep, and the girls initially loved riding in the wagon. Unfortunately that didn’t last for long.

About half-way through our walk the girls decided they wanted out of the wagon, which was fine. The problem was they both wanted to pull the empty wagon and had a hard time cooperating with each other. Eventually Elise got back in the wagon and let Ava pull her for a while, which was awfully cute, but Ava has a hard time walking in a straight line and Elise was nearly dumped over the curb into the street a few different times. After a while we put Ava back in the wagon and she threw a fit. She didn’t want to be in there and ended up screaming and crying all the way back to the house; so even though our intentions were pure, we ended up with a meltdown on our hands. I’m sure all of our neighbors loved hearing Ava screaming on a Sunday morning as we headed home.

We’re spending the rest of the day relaxing around the house. I’m probably going to take the girls back outside to play some more in a bit, then we’ve got our usual Sunday night bath routine to look forward to. Grandpa Rick will be arriving from Iowa on Wednesday, so that should be a lot of fun, then Uncle Joel and Aunt Melanie will be here right after he leaves. Shortly after that Nana will be out for a visit as well. Lots to look forward to in the near future. Here’s a couple recent pics.

He’s a cool little dude

The beginning of our Sunday morning walk

Tossing pizza dough for the girls

As the title suggests, its been a good weekend filled with good friends, good food, and a bit of yard work sprinkled in. Friday night Jessica and the kids picked me up from work, the the five of us headed out to West Seattle to the home of our good friends Leon, Jodi, and their son Miles. It was only a few weeks ago that they came to our house for dinner, so this time it was our turn to go and visit them. I was immediately struck by the gorgeous view of the water and found myself gazing up endless ferries throughout the night crossing the Puget Sound toward Vashon Island.

The kids all had a blast playing together, and of course Jessica and I always love spending time with Leon and Jodi. They are some of our absolute favorite people in the world and I always look forward to hanging out with them. Like myself, Leon is the cook in his house, and he certainly didn’t disappoint with dinner. We enjoyed barbequed chicken, corn on the cob, scalloped potatoes, asparagus, and salad, then we finished things off with angel food cake topped with macerated berries, homemade whip cream, and vanilla ice cream. Definitely a nice way to start off our weekend!

Saturday morning I took Ava to soccer practice, and all I can say is that it was a tale of two halves. There was an obstacle course set up for the kids to dribble their soccer balls through, and for the first half of class Ava was the front-runner. She lead the whole team and was doing amazing. The at the halfway point she flipped a switch and told me that she was tired and that her stomach was “making hungry noises.” This was due to the fact that we got off to a late start in the morning and didn’t have time to eat breakfast before soccer. I was planning on making breakfast when we got home, but not eating didn’t fare well for her, and she basically disengaged at that point. It’s all right though; lesson learned. No more soccer without having breakfast first.

Later that morning I decided to get to work on the dog run. If you don’t know the backstory, last summer we fenced off the north side of our house so Bella could have a dog run, however it didn’t work out because Bella kept digging under the fence to get out. She has never had a digging problem before this, but apparently old dogs can learn new tricks. Since then we’ve had to keep Bella out of the dog run, ironically, and the whole area has turned into a disaster. That side of the house doesn’t get any sunshine, so its just turned into a bunch of moss and weeds.

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to fix this area and I’ve finally come up with a plan. I started off by using the weed whacker to tear up everything back there. Once I ran completely out of wire (leaving my weed whacker useless) I decided it was time to start digging. I wheeled our huge yard waste bin back there, grabbed my shovel, and got to it. My plan was to dig everything up until the yard waste bin was filled. I knew I wouldn’t be able to dig up the entire area, but my goal was to finish half of it. By the time the bin was about 90% full I was exhausted. My arms felt like noodles, there were blisters on my hands, and my back muscles were as tight as an undersized wetsuit. The worst part, however, was yet to come. Although I have filled that yard waste bin with grass plenty of times, I completely underestimated how heavy it would be when filled with dirt. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it weighed at least 500 pounds. To make matters worse, the ground in our backyard is very soft, meaning the bin had already sunk a couple inches.

I put all my strength into it and it barely budged. I pulled and pulled to the point where my elbow started hurting and I was concerned that if I kept pulling I might dislocate it. I changed my form, got down deep and used my legs as much as possible, and then finally I was able to wheel it from the north side of the house out of the dog run over to the barbeque. I knew there was no way I could get it all the way to the driveway by myself, so I came to Jessica to ask for help. With her help we were able to get it to the south side of the house, but then we ran into our next obstacle, which was getting it through the narrow passage along the fence.

There wasn’t enough room for two of us to pull it through, so I was on my own again. The ground over there is ridiculously soft, so the damn thing started sinking again. Jessica went around to the other side with a shovel and did her best to prop the wheel out of there, but I just couldn’t pull the thing over the paver stones. Luckily my next door neighbor saw what was going on and came over to lend a hand. With his help we were finally able to get the bin up onto the driveway, and I learned a valuable lesson. Next week, when I’m digging up more ground over there, I’m going to use a big bucket, and every time I fill that bucket I’ll take it over to the driveway and empty it into the yard waste bin. It may involve more walking, but should be much less exhausting in the long run.

Once I’m done digging up all the grass I’m going to rake it smooth and spray Round Up all over the place in order to kill everything. Next I’m going to put down a black tarp, then fill in the entire area with gravel. Having the tarp there will prevent weeds and plants from growing through. Finally, I’m going to line the entire base of the fence with paver stones. This will make it look nice, and will prevent Bella from digging her way out (I hope). If this doesn’t work I don’t know what I’m going to do.. Could be the end of Bella 😉

Not surprisingly I was exhausted for the rest of the day and ended up falling asleep on the couch while watching The Masters. I woke up an hour later with my head covered in stickers. Obviously the girls decided to take advantage of my exhaustion by sticker-bombing me, but I was out so cold I never noticed a thing.

Later that evening our friend Laurel and her boyfriend Mark came over to our house for dinner. We had a great time visiting with them, and dinner turned out nice as well. We had salad, then I made a Shrimp Scampi pasta with tomatoes, capers, mushrooms, onion, garlic, bell peppers, and goat cheese. We washed it all down with white wine and champagne. It was a great night for all.

Today we’re going to relax at home and watch the final round of The Masters for most of the day, but we’ll be leaving slightly before it finishes because we’ve been invited to a barbeque at the house of one of my new coworkers. He and I have become friends in my short time there so I’m excited to get our families together. I know the invitation was extended to several of my teammates so hopefully a bunch of them will show up. Should be a nice way to finish off the weekend.

It won’t be long before Grandpa Rick arrives for his visit, then immediately after that Uncle Joel and Aunt Melanie will be here. Definitely a lot to look forward to, but for now here are some recent photos of the kids, including some from the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt last Sunday.

Ava being told she can’t eat any more Easter candy

The girls in their new Elsa dresses

Today Jessica and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Actually, to be more specific, today is our anniversary, but tomorrow night will be the celebration. More on that coming shortly. When I think about this being our five-year anniversary my natural reaction is to say “Wow I can’t believe it’s already been five years,” but when I stop and think about all the major life experiences we’ve had between now and then, it’s actually hard to believe that its only been five years. To drive that point home, here is a list, in chronological order, of all the major life experiences we have experienced together during our first five years of marriage:

• Got married (04/03/2010)
• Moved from Seattle to San Diego (05/2010)
• I changed careers from bartending to software development (10/2011)
• Ava was born (11/25/2011)
• I enrolled in college (01/2012)
• We moved from San Diego back to Seattle for my contracting job at Amazon (12/2012)
• I was hired for a full-time position at Amazon as a Web Developer (02/2013)
• Elise was born (07/14/2013)
• We bought our first house (06/2014)
• I graduated from college (06/2014)
• Enzo was born (01/28/2015)
• I left my job at Amazon and started at Microsoft as a Software Engineer (03/02/2015)

Needless to say this has been the best five year period of my life. Although Jessica and I certainly have many amazing years and life experiences ahead of us, it’s safe to say that we will never have a more momentous five year stretch than we did to start our marriage. How could we? The birth of our three children alone would have secured that for us, but when you add in all the rest, the case is closed. That being said, I’m ready for things to slow down a bit, however I think the joke’s on us because it’s doubtful that anything will be slowing down anytime soon. As the kids continue to grow we seem to find ourselves becoming busier and busier all the time. I wouldn’t have it any other way though.

So now the question becomes, how do we celebrate such an amazing five years? Well nothing we can do would come anywhere near signifying all that we’ve been through, so simply going shopping, then out to dinner, then catching a Sounders soccer game will have to suffice.

A few years ago Jessica made the comment that she would really like a diamond band to go with her wedding ring. To give a little back story, the ring I picked out for her (on television none the less) has two bands that fuse into one, and I remember the salesperson at the jewelry store saying that you didn’t really need a separate band with this ring, due to its design. When I presented Jessica with the ring she was thrilled and didn’t care about a band, but down the road she decided that it would be nice to have one. She wasn’t in any hurry to get it, but at that moment I decided that I’d get her a nice band for a special occasion. Well, this is that special occasion, so the first thing we’re going to do tomorrow afternoon when we head out is visit the same jewelry store I got the ring from and pick out a nice band to match it. She has waited much longer than necessary and I’m so excited to get it for her. She more than deserves it, and I love the symbolism of giving it to her for our fifth anniversary.

After that we’re going to walk from the jewelry store, which is in Belltown, down to Pioneer Square for dinner. I’m not exactly sure where we’re going to eat but we’ve talked about Il Terrazzo Carmine’s, which is one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle. It also happens to be where we had dinner for my bachelor party. Regardless of where we eat I know it will be great. No matter what we won’t have to deal with small children climbing all over us, or holding a baby with one hand while eating with the other. Eating out has always been one of our favorite things to do together, so I’m definitely looking forward to it.

After dinner we will walk over to Century Link field to see the Seattle Sounders game. I’ve only been to one Sounders game before this, and this will be Jessica’s first. Surprisingly enough we haven’t been to that many sporting events together. Up until now we’ve been to a few Padres games, an SDSU basketball game, and one Mariners game. That’s it. We tend to go to concerts more than anything, but there weren’t any good shows in town this weekend, so the soccer game seemed like our best bet. The last game I went to was a blast, so I have no doubt this will be the same. It’s a completely different vibe with a much more international feel than you’d get at most other sporting events. I’m just hoping for decent weather. This will be our first time away from Enzo, but we’re not worried. Everything will be fine, and we both very much deserve a night out together. I’m really looking forward to it.

I read an excellent book on the bus this week that I would encourage anyone to read. It’s called ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch. Last week I read a book on the bus called ‘The Council of Dads’ by Bruce Feiler, which was about a guy with young twin girls who finds out he has bone cancer. He assembles the Council of Dads as his ‘replacement’ should he not be around to raise them. It was a good book, and I’m glad I read it, but it wasn’t great (I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on GoodReads). My plan after finishing that book was to switch back to another rockstar biography, but at the last moment I had a change of heart and decided to read ‘The Last Lecture.’

I must admit that I knew nothing about this book when selecting it. It had been recommended to me by my tattoo artist in San Diego (of all people) several years ago, and although he told me the premise of the book during one of our sessions, I was in too much pain to remember any of it. All I remembered was the title, so there it went onto my ‘to-read’ list, and there it has sat for over four years. Since I had a copy of it on my kindle, and I could see that it was a very short book that would only take me a couple days on the bus to read, I decided on a whim to read it.

I hadn’t gotten more than one paragraph into the book before I realized that the premise of this book was almost identical to that of the last book I read. Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University (the best computer science school in the U.S.) who was married with three kids, the oldest of whom was 5. He contracted a terminal case of pancreatic cancer and was only given six months to live. At that time, Carnegie Mellon was doing a popular series of lectures by various professors called ‘The Last Lecture.’ They were named that because they were the last lecture of the semester for a particular course, and were generally meant to be a little less academic and a little more inspiring. Well, Pausch knew his time was limited, so he decided to take that concept to another level, and literally give his last lecture, which was titled ‘Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.’

I can only say that the book was absolutely outstanding. Certainly one of the best I’ve ever read. It’s a bit emotional, and I must admit that tears came to my eyes several times while reading it, but I’m so glad I did. From my perspective, whenever Randy mentions his wife and kids, I end up picturing Jessica, Ava, Elise and Enzo. We he talks about his kids growing up without their father, I can’t help but think about losing my own father at a young age, so there was a very personal connection there. The lecture he gives, and the subsequent book he writes, were his way of passing a bit of himself on for his family to hang onto. I couldn’t help but make the connection between what the lecture and book meant to him, with what this blog means to me. Considering that all the memories I have of my Dad are from my childhood, I have a deep fear that my kids will somehow end up going through that same experience. This website helps alleviate that fear by ensuring that my kids will know more about their Dad than I did about mine, for better or worse.

When I told Jessica about the book while making dinner one night this week she said “Wow you’ve been reading some sad books lately,” and on the surface I know it looks that way, but my response was that the book wasn’t sad, it was inspiring. There were so many life lessons in this book I can’t even begin to explain it. Just do yourself a favor and read it. You won’t hear this kind of recommendation from me often, but I promise it will be worth the 3-4 hours you invest in it.

Although I’m eager to get into another book on my bus trips, I’m going to pause for a few weeks to focus on studying some new programming languages we’re using at Microsoft. I love reading, but I actually really enjoy studying as well. I know that’s weird to most people, but I love the experience of gaining knowledge, and I must admit that I’m riding a wave of inspiration caused by reading Pausch’s book.

Speaking of riding the connector bus, yesterday was the first time in just over three weeks that I actually drove my car to work. In that time I had only put 50 miles on it, so the benefits of the bus are crystal clear. I drove to work because I had a dentist appointment at 5:00 and there was no bus schedule that would get me there on time. I actually had a funny experience at the dentist that I’m still thinking about this morning.

I was at the dentist to get four fillings on my lower molars. When the dentist greeted me I noticed that he didn’t have an assistant with him, which was unusual. He later commented on this by saying that his assistant called in sick today and he was working solo. Before he got started he asked me “When was the last time you took a nice vacation? I’m not talking about a trip to visit family, I mean a nice, relaxing, tropical vacation.” I had to think about it for a minute, but I told him it was the cruise Jessica and I took with my Mom’s company to Mexico. That was the only tropical vacation we’ve ever been on, but it was a ton of fun, and I even got to hang out with my all-time favorite baseball player Orel Hershiser. I told him a bit about the trip, and even specifically said “it brings back good memories,” but in the back of my mind I was wondering why he was asking me this. We chatted about cruises for another couple minutes, then he got to work.

He told me that the cavities I had were very small and wouldn’t require much drilling, so he was going to get started. I responded by asking “without novocaine?” He said “I don’t think you’ll need it, but if you feel any discomfort just raise your right hand and I’ll stop immediately.” Instantly I realized what his angle was on asking me about my last tropical vacation. He was trying to put me in a calming state of mind because he knew that he wasn’t going to numb my mouth for the drilling, and he also knew that I would probably be a bit anxious about that. Call it a sort of mini hypnotism if you will. I had to silently applaud him (since he was working in my mouth) for the mental trickery he had just played on me. I wondered how many times he had done this to other patients, and I also wondered how many other patients caught onto what he was doing.

As I sat there in the dentist chair I realized that the entire experience isn’t all that different from sitting in a tattoo chair, and considering that I’ve spent about 24 hours of my life in tattoo chairs, enduring the worst pain I’ve ever felt, I knew this would be no big deal. As they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so regardless of my dentist’s hypnotic intentions, I knew my own experiences of dealing with pain without moving would serve me well.

As it turned out, I hardly felt a thing and was actually relieved that he didn’t numb my mouth because I was hungry and looking forward to having dinner when I got home. More than anything it was a funny experience at the dentist (which doesn’t come around often) that I won’t soon forget. All that being said, had he struck a nerve in my mouth I would have been more than happy to raise my right hand and get the shot.

So, back to our anniversary. Here we are with our first five-year stretch complete, ready to begin our second. We’ve seen many of our friend’s relationships fail, or at least face significant trouble, but we’ve been one of the lucky ones. Jessica and I talk about this often, and we usually attribute it to the fact that we both came close to getting married when we were too young, but luckily we didn’t follow through with it and ended up waiting several years until we were truly ready. By waiting until we were older we were both so much more in tune with what we were looking for and what was important to us. Should one of our children come to us with the idea of getting married at a young age, I hope they will learn from our experiences and not rush into anything. I would tell them that marriage is one of those things that is much easier to get into than it is to get out of, so please don’t be in any hurry. There are too many life experiences you deserve to have before getting married. Hopefully you will each take your time and end up finding a person that compliments you as well as your mother compliments me.

Jessica, as I said at the beginning of this post, this has been the best five years of my life. Thank you for being the amazing wife and mother that you are. Thank you for your sensibility, for your responsibility, for your ability to stay calm in strife, and for you willingness to accommodate my ridiculous fascination and devotion to hobbies like playing guitar. You’ll never know how much I appreciate the way you not just let me, but encourage me to be myself, at all costs (both literally and figuratively). Here’s to many more good years and anniversaries, to countless good times as well as our fair share of tough ones. Our family means the world to me and I’m so grateful to be able to share our lives together. All my love.

Today was a really fun day. A couple weeks ago while visiting at Kristy’s house we were invited to go roller skating at a local rink today. Apparently this has become Madi’s new favorite activity, and although we weren’t exactly sure how the girls would take to it, we decided to give it a go. Neither Jessica or I have been on skates in at least 25 years, but we both thought it would be fun to get out there. As it turned out, everyone had a lot of fun and got a good workout in the process.

I used to play street hockey on rollerblades as a kid, plus I have fond memories of rollerblading on running trails with my sister Dana, but as I just mentioned, its been quite a while. Well, as it turns out, it’s not much different from riding a bike. Although my stride and balance were a bit compromised at first, it all quickly came back to me, and the same can be said for Jessica. Before we knew it we were both cruising pretty quickly around the rink. We even held hands and did a ‘couples skate’ for a while. The whole thing had a definite 70’s vibe to it, but we had a blast.

More importantly, we were excited to introduce the kids to roller skating in hopes that they would enjoy themselves. We weren’t expecting Elise to get out there, but we were wrong. We started off the morning with a big breakfast in order to provide plenty of skating fuel. We’ve been telling Ava for a few days that we’d be going roller skating this weekend, so this morning she was super excited. She kept saying “I love roller skating” during breakfast, even though she had never actually done it at that point. We started Ava off on skates right away when we got there, but she wasn’t really into it. She struggled with her balance and quickly got frustrated.

Since Jim, Brenda, and Kristy were seated with Elise and Enzo, we took Ava over to them to play air hockey and video games while Jessica, Madi, and I went skating. A bit later Ava gave it a second try, but the outcome was basically the same as her first try. Even though we had a rolling frame for her to hold onto, she was intimidated and wasn’t having fun, so we took her back to play some more with the rest of the family. Later, while Jessica and I were taking a break, we decided on a whim to let Elise give it a try, so we put Ava’s skates on her and took her out there. She did surprisingly well and seemed to be having a really good time. Not surprisingly, seeing Elise out there having fun on her skates made Ava that much more motivated to go back out for round three.

As it turned out, the third time was a charm because Ava really started getting the hang of it. She held onto her rolling frame and did several laps around the rink. At one point we even went into the center with everyone and did the hokey pokey dance, which Ava really got a kick out of. I was surprised that even though I didn’t know hardly any of the songs they were playing, Ava actually knew the words to a couple of them. She was totally singing along and skating. I’ve never felt so old and outdated!

Ava was having so much fun out there that getting her to come in for a break was quite difficult. One of the funnier moments came when they announced that everyone had to exit the rink so they could do a ‘speed skate’ session. By that point I felt quite comfortable on my skates, so I decided to participate. I started flying around the rink, but after two laps one of the employees flagged me over to the side. When I got close to him he said “Sir, this is for girls only.” Needless to say I was pretty embarrassed, but in my defense, I wasn’t the only guy out there who didn’t get the memo. The next speed skate session was for guys, so I got my fix.

Based on how much fun everyone had I think its safe to say that we’ll be doing this again soon, so we owe a big thank you to Kristy, Madi, Brenda and Jim for bringing us along. I’m definitely looking forward to the next time.

After skating we went to Costco for our monthly trip. The girls were exhausted, so by the time we were halfway done with our shopping both girls had passed out in the cart. It was actually pretty cute, causing multiple strangers to stop and comment. Our whole monthly Costco shopping experience thing is actually really funny to me. To an outsider watching us shop we probably look like a family who lives out in the middle of nowhere and has no choice but to stock up on everything. We’ve gotten to a point where we need two carts just to get everything we need, and we’ve got everything from clothes to groceries, dog food, paper towels, you name it. We buy everything there, mainly because its nearly impossible for Jessica to go shopping with all three kids on her own. It’s just too much for one person to handle, and now that I’m working more hours the last thing we want to do is go shopping as soon as I get home from a 12 hour day.

Jessica and I have a little game we play while waiting in line to checkout at Costco where we each guess how much the total will be. Sometimes we’re incredibly close, and I still revel in the time that I came within one dollar. I was cracking up this time though because not only did Jessica and I make our own guesses, but so did the two Costco employees who were ringing us up and boxing up our stuff. I kept thinking to myself, you know you’ve got a lot of stuff when the Costco employees are guessing how much you’ve spent. It’s just better this way though because we won’t have to go grocery shopping for a month, which leaves Jessica one less thing to worry about when I’m away.

As the title of this post suggests, today Enzo turned two months old. A couple days ago he went to the doctor for a checkup, and we were pleased to hear that he has already gained four pounds. That may not sound like much but at his age its actually quite a bit. When you consider that he was 8 pounds at birth, you realize that this is a 50% weight gain for him. The doctor was very pleased with him, however Enzo wasn’t so pleased to receive three shots during his visit. It’s all good though; he’s doing great and growing fast. He’s also starting to show some personality in the form of the sweetest little smile from time to time. I’ve been looking forward to that since the first time I saw him.

The girls are also both doing great. Ava is keeping busy with day care, art class, music class, and soccer. I’m sure it won’t be long before Elise’s schedule is just as busy, but for now she seems quite content to stay home and cuddle with Mommy or Daddy as much as possible. She’s usually more than happy to sit with me and watch concerts on TV. This morning while watching a bunch of amazing guitar players she looked at me and said “I like guitar.” Obviously I was thrilled; then she proceeded to say the same thing over and over. Maybe we’ve got a little musician on our hands. Either way I just love how willing she is to curl up on the couch with me. Ava generally doesn’t like to sit still for long so its nice to be able to spend that kind of time with Elise.

This was a big week at work for me. On Tuesday we launched a new service called Azure App Service. I was the main developer responsible for creating all the web pages describing each portion of the service (Web Apps, Mobile Apps, API Apps, and Logic Apps), and everything went off without a hitch. The launch was super successful and our team received lots of praise from some very senior managers for the work we did. It felt great to make an impact like this so quickly, but as expected, there wasn’t much time to sit around and revel in our victory. We’re already onto the next big project, which is full of several unique challenges of its own.

I’m continuing to enjoy taking the Microsoft Connector bus to work everyday. I’m getting tons of reading time in, meaning that this week I was able to finish ‘Strange Beautiful Music’ by Joe Satriani, then switch gears and read a book called ‘The Council Of Dads’ by Bruce Feiler. The title caught my attention, for obvious reasons, but the subject matter was a bit heavier than I was initially expecting. It’s the true story of a father of young twin girls who finds out he has bone cancer in his left leg. Facing the grim possibility that he may not be around to raise his daughters, he decides to assemble what he calls ‘The Council of Dads’ to help raise them. Each ‘Dad’ was selected to represent a particular quality of their real Dad. Based on my own personal experiences I was able to relate to the story, so it was certainly worth my time. It’s not the type of book I normally read, so most likely next week I’ll get back to something more familiar like another rockstar biography, but its nice to switch things up from time to time.

Since today was such a busy day for us, tomorrow looks like it will be the exact opposite. Our good friend Laurel is coming over to visit, so that should be nice. The girls love playing with her, and we’re looking forward to hearing about her recent travels. I’m hoping to wash the cars, mow the lawn, and of course get some quality guitar time in. Here’s some recent photos of the kids, including Enzo’s second monthly photo.

Enzo at 2 Months

Opening some early Easter gifts

Ava and Uncle Jim

For the first time since June 2008, I don’t own a motorcycle. Yesterday I sold my 2007 Honda 919, and strangely enough, the guy I sold it to lives in Fairwood, which is the neighborhood I grew up in. It seems fitting that my bike would end up in the area where I grew up. I made the decision to sell my bike several months ago, but decided not to sell it until now because I figured the chances of selling it in the middle of winter in Seattle would be slim to none. I received a fair amount of interest in the bike, but as it goes when selling anything on Craigslist, you have to deal with lots of flakes before you find a legitimate buyer.

It feels weird not to have a motorcycle, mainly because of all the memories Jessica and I have created going on rides over the years. Whether it was riding my first bike (a 1982 Yamaha Seca 650) through the mountains and into Eastern Washington, or the long rides we took on my 2008 Yamaha FJR 1300 to Hurricane Ridge, Seattle to Reno in a single day, Reno to Las Vegas, Vegas to Los Angeles, L.A. to San Francisco on Highway 1, or when we rode it from Seattle to San Diego in preparation of moving there shortly after getting married in 2010. Even after I traded in my FJR for the Honda 919 we had fun riding around San Diego and La Jolla taking in all the amazing scenery. So many great times were had going on rides, but there was one thing we had in common throughout all of them – it was just the two of us.

Once we had Ava it seemed pretty obvious that going on motorcycle rides was going to be a thing of the past, and that feeling only became more and more of a reality as our family continued to grow. It quickly got to a point where the only time I would ride the bike was when I was commuting to and from work. It’s not like I’m going to ditch my family on the weekend to go for a motorcycle ride, so for now getting rid of it was the right thing to do. I was a bit sad to see it go, but I fully plan on owning another bike somewhere down the line when the kids are pretty much grown up. By then we’ll probably be that old couple you see touring in style on a decked out Gold Wing. Something to look forward to I guess.

The good news is that I was one of the fortunate ones who never got in an accident and never got hurt on their bike. I never even used to worry about that kind of thing, but over the past year I couldn’t help but think about the danger I was placing myself in. I’ve got a lot more to lose now than ever before, and as I’ve said many times since having my first child, becoming a parent makes you more aware of your own mortality than ever before. I couldn’t stand the thought of getting injured (or worse) and putting Jessica and the kids through an unnecessary hardship. It just wasn’t worth it.

In other family news, everyone is doing great. The kids have all gotten through their colds and runny noses, so that’s a relief. I haven’t been able to go running all week due to a bad shin splint in my left leg. I’m also having pain in both of my knees, so I can’t help but wonder if this is the right form of exercise for me. I already made the decision that I’m not interested in running road races or anything like that. My only goal is to get consistent exercise, and I’m worried that the constant impact on my joints might be doing more harm than good. I’m starting to explore some other options for exercise, and since Microsoft gives me an annual fitness reimbursement allowance, I think I’m going to get a rowing machine. I like the idea of getting more of a full-body workout that includes lots of cardio with little to no stress on my joints. I couldn’t believe it when I found out about the fitness reimbursement allowance Microsoft gives us, mostly because Amazon would never do something like that, but I’m very appreciative of it and can’t wait to start using it. Microsoft’s commitment to the health of their employees is just one of the many nice benefits that come with working there.

Speaking of work, I just completed my third week and everything is going great. We’re getting ready to launch a new service this week called Azure App Service, and I built all of the web pages describing each part of the service. I’ll put out a link to the pages I built once the service goes live this week. There’s still a lot for me to learn, and it will continue to be that way for months, but I’m really enjoying it and am happy that I made the move.

Last week was also interesting because I started taking the Microsoft Connector bus to work everyday. They have a pickup about 5 minutes from our house, meaning I’m putting practically no miles on my car and get to spend an hour each way reading my book. I quickly finished my Stevie Ray Vaughan biography and started a new book called ‘Strange Beautiful Music’ by guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani. Looks like I’m going to start cranking through the books, so its good that I have quite a few queued up to read. The only downside to taking the bus is that I’m gone for a full 12 hours each day. Because of this I’m thinking that I will start driving my car on Wednesdays. This will allow me to go into the office a bit earlier, and then leave earlier. I like the idea of splitting up the week and getting more time with my family on Wednesday nights.

There isn’t too much else to catch up on around here. This weekend has been pretty relaxing. Yesterday I took Ava to her third soccer class, which she enjoyed very much, then we attended a birthday party at an indoor trampoline place and the kids had fun bouncing around. This morning we ran a few errands, which included a trip to Home Depot to start looking at flooring, paint, and a few other things related to some house projects we plan on doing this year. We found some bamboo flooring that we’re pretting interested in, so we’ll have to do some research on that. Time to get off the computer and help Jessica with a few projects around the house. Here’s a few recent photos of the kids.

It was another busy weekend for our family, and for me personally it was one to remember because I made the final addition (at least for the next 5 years) to my guitar collection. More on that in a bit, but first, lets talk about all the fun stuff we did with family and friends, as well as Ava’s second week of soccer.

Friday night our good friends Leon, Jodi, and their son Miles came over to our house for dinner. Leon and I have been buddies for about 15 years (going back to my early days at El Gaucho), and although we have both lived in various places during that time (Him in Costa Rica, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Minneapolis. Me in Las Vegas and San Diego), we have always remained close. Fortunately we both ended up back in Seattle at about the same time, and his son Miles was born only 3 weeks before Elise, so getting our kids together to play seems like a no-brainer.

Since I had to work all day on Friday and I knew there wouldn’t be time to get home and make a fancy dinner, I decided to keep it simple by making spaghetti and meatballs. I made the sauce the night before and let it simmer all day until dinner on Friday. It was probably the most reduced (and darkest) tomato sauce I’ve ever made. I thought it was pretty delicious, although I burned the meatballs a bit in the skillet. We also had salad, and Leon was nice enough to make a homemade apple pie, as well as pear sorbet for the kids to enjoy. Most importantly, we all had a great time hanging out. Jessica and I don’t have that many ‘couple friends’ so getting some quality time with them was really nice. Plus the kids had a blast playing together. The funniest part of the night was when Ava opened the front door during dinner, and without anyone noticing, all the kids wandered outside. Luckily Jessica noticed the door open pretty quickly and we rushed outside to find all three kids playing in the driveway. It was pretty cute.

Saturday morning I took Ava to her second soccer class. She was excited to go from the minute she woke up that morning, and by the time we arrived at the field she could hardly contain herself. Unlike our first week when the weather was beautiful, this week we had to deal with lots of clouds and rain, but she didn’t care one bit. We worked on dribbling again, and like last week we got to score a couple goals. I took several short video clips and merged them into a funny little montage of her in class, which can be found on YouTube by clicking here. I’m just glad she is enjoying herself and getting exposure to new things. Hopefully this will continue to be fun for her, but if not there are plenty of other things we can try out as well. Seeing her so happy out there is what its all about, so I’m already looking forward to her next class. The rest of the day Saturday was pretty relaxing for us. We didn’t do much besides hang around the house and watch movies. We knew Sunday was going to be a busy day, so we were all content to have a relaxing Saturday at home, particularly with the weather the way it was.

Sunday morning the five of us headed out at 10:00am and went down to Kristy and Madi’s house in Des Moines. Although the weather wasn’t ideal on Saturday, it was actually considerably worse on Sunday. It was pouring pretty hard, so we had no choice but to stay inside throughout our visit. Earlier in the week Kristy and I had kicked around the idea of taking the kids to a park, but that just wasn’t an option based on the weather. It didn’t matter though; we all had a great time catching up and watching the kids play. Jim and Brenda arrived shortly after we did, and they were very excited to finally meet little Enzo. Brenda obviously has the grandmother’s touch because he slept so soundly with her for quite a while. As always, Madi was great playing with the girls, and Jessica and I were happy with how well they listened and behaved. Ava is also eating a lot more now, which makes me happy. The poor thing was sick for a couple weeks straight, and she lost three pounds. That may not sound like much, but it’s 10% of her body weight, and it was noticeable. She really seems to have her appetite back, and we’re constantly encouraging her to try new things.

Elise seems to have made a full recovery from the cold that was ailing her last week, but poor little Enzo is still dealing with a lot of chest congestion. He gets so much phlegm in his chest and throat, but doesn’t know how to deal with it, so more often than not he swallows it, which ends up upsetting his stomach and causes him to throw up. Unfortunately Kristy found that out that hard way. He was coughing so hard the other day that Jessica had to hold him upside down and hit him on the back several times just to get everything out. Hopefully this won’t go on much longer, but there isn’t much we can do for him. He’s certainly not big enough to be taking any medicine, so we’re trying some naturopathic approaches recommended by my sister Dana.

Jim and Brenda are getting ready to head to Las Vegas on Wednesday for a visit with my Mom, Bob, Sandy, and Terry. This is technically their second trip to Vegas, but the first one was all about Aunt Lisa when she was hospitalized, so this will be their first ‘real’ trip to Vegas. I’m excited for them, and I know my Mom is really looking forward to it. As usual she’s been killing herself trying to get the house ready for visitors. Obviously this is completely unnecessary, but she can’t help it; I just hope everyone has a nice time. They’re going to see Elton John on Wednesday night, and Jersey Boys on Friday night, so it should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to hearing all about it once they return.

The plan after leaving Kristy’s house was to stop by a music store in Seattle called Dusty Strings so that I could order a custom guitar. I had it all picked out in my head; I was going to order a relic’d Bill Nash Stratocaster. When I say relic’d I’m referring to a popular trend in new guitars where you’re getting a new guitar that looks and feels like a vintage guitar. They’re a bit beat up and worn in, but they feel and play amazing. Bill Nash is a local guy down in Olympia who is recognized nationwide as one of the premier relic guitar manufacturers. I had my mind set (or so I thought) but while I was waiting for help, I started playing a different relic’d stratocaster that was hanging on the wall. It was made by a company called King Bee guitars, and although I wasn’t familiar with them, I instantly fell in love with the guitar.

I spoke with a sales guy about the idea of ordering a Nash, but what I thought was going to be a 2-3 month wait was actually going to be more like 6-8 months. I would have been willing to wait, mainly because I had to promise Jessica that I wouldn’t buy another guitar until my 40th birthday (which is about 5.5 years away), but the King Bee was just so nice that I couldn’t justify waiting so long for the Nash when I had the perfect guitar already in my hands. I realize that most people reading this probably think I’m crazy and can’t understand why I would need another guitar. I can’t really explain it other than to say that I just really love playing them, looking at them, and obsessing over them. Each one feels different, plays different, sounds different, and looks different. From a musical perspective, the kind of music that I’m devoted to playing is Texas blues, and my main inspiration is Stevie Ray Vaughan. One of the primary characteristics of that sound is that they play stratocasters with single-coil pickups. I was able to justify it (to myself at least) because I don’t have a guitar with single-coil pickups. All of my other guitars have humbucking pickups, so I can’t get that Texas blues tone that I’m looking for. When I looked up King Bee guitars at the store yesterday, I loved the fact that the guitar, and the single-coil Amalfitano pickups in the guitar, are all hand-made in East Texas. When I plugged it in I couldn’t help but grin because it had the exact tone that I was looking for. Plus, from a looks perspective, its a classic design: Olympic white with a maple fretboard. This style of stratocaster became famous when Jimi Hendrix played one at Woodstock.

Although I was thrilled to be going home with a new guitar, I knew there wouldn’t be much time to play it last night. We needed to give the kids a bath, run to the grocery store to pick up dinner, plus I wanted to work out and shower. I had just enough time to get the guitar mounted on the wall, then spend the rest of the night relaxing with the family and watching a movie. At 5:30 this morning I eagerly jumped out of bed and went downstairs to play my new guitar for 45 minutes before getting ready for work. I took the Microsoft connector bus to work for the first time this morning, which gave me plenty of time to continue reading my latest book, which is a biography on Stevie Ray Vaughan. I opened up to the page where I had last left off, and immediately read about a time when SRV was at some big music event and saw Prince sitting at a table surrounded by bodyguards. Stevie snuck up behind him and whispered in his ear “You may be the Prince, but I’m the King Bee.” I had to smile based on the realization that I had definitely purchased the right guitar.

Here’s a few recent photos of our family. Hopefully you enjoy the video collage of Ava’s second week at soccer. My favorite part is when they’re all huddling together and the coach is talking about teamwork. When it comes time to do a team cheer, Ava may not know what she is supposed to say, but she’s still the loudest one. Then, when they’re supposed to go give the other ‘team’ a high-five, she just runs off on her own in the other direction. She’s hilarious.

Aunt Brenda and Baby Enzo

Sleeping Beauties

Ava the Artist

Elise having breakfast

Enzo, just hangin’ out

My new King Bee Strat

Well I survived my first week at Microsoft. It wasn’t exactly an easy week, mainly because there is so much for me to learn, but overall I’m very happy with how things have started off. I like my team, and I really like the fact that I’m working on a big website. For comparison’s sake, all of the projects I’ve worked on over the past few years at Amazon and Scrollmotion were applications (web and mobile), so this is a bit different, but in a good way.

Although I’m going to try to keep the comparisons between Microsoft and Amazon to a minimum for now while I get up to speed, there is one observation that already seems fair to make: my new team at Microsoft is more organized than my old team (and the other teams I worked with) at Amazon. The general process my new team uses is to have a weekly meeting with the engineers (towards the end of the week) to discuss what each of them will be doing the following week. When you come in on Monday morning, all of your tasks for the week have already been assigned by a project manager in an online tool. Each task has a priority level associated with it, along with an estimate of how long the task should take to complete. Obviously new things can pop up throughout the week, but for the most part, this is what you’ll be doing this week, so you can plan accordingly. Further, time has been allocated for certain engineers to review your work and provide feedback. I love this format because its so much more organized than what I became used to at Amazon.

At Amazon my team didn’t have a project manager. My new team has three. Work wasn’t tracked very closely, and priorities were always an estimate. Plus they never allocated time for code reviews and feedback. Consequently we would regularly have ‘fire drills’ where something urgent needed to be done immediately. This led to lots of peaks and valleys in terms of your effort, and there just wasn’t a lot of foresight. Obviously I can’t speak for the entire company, but that was my experience both as a full-time employee, as well as when I was a contractor.

I love the fact that I know exactly what I’ll be doing each week, and what my priorities are. There’s no question that a lot is expected of me, and I’m planning on working considerably more hours now than I ever used to, but that’s the tradeoff I was willing to make. For example, yesterday I worked 12.5 hours in order to stay relatively caught up. This means that I put in 50 hours my first week, but that’s fine because its exactly inline with what I was expecting. Like Amazon, the bar is very high at Microsoft, but unlike Amazon, no one really talks about it; its just implied. At Amazon they constantly toot their own horn about how high their bar and standards are. At Microsoft its just a given.

Enough about work. This morning Ava and I attended our first Saturday morning soccer class. The class is held at a nice park about five minutes from our house, and its designated for very young kids like her, as well as their parent(s). Its only a 30 minute class, and its entirely focused on the fundamentals. Today we practiced dribbling the ball (aka Little Kicks) to various landmarks on the field. At the end of class each kid gets to dribble up towards the goal and give it a Big Kick to score a goal. It may be too early to tell but my initial observation is that Ava’s biggest challenge will be paying attention and staying engaged. From a physical perspective, I couldn’t believe how well she did. She seemed to have a lot of natural talent, and I don’t think I’m just saying that because I’m her Dad. As long as she’s enjoying herself I’m happy.

I accidentally made the mistake of parking the car next to the kids playground, so getting her engaged in the soccer class was a bit difficult at first. Throughout the class she kept asking me if she could go play at the park, so once we were done with soccer we headed over to play on the jungle gym and go down the slides. Soon enough most of the other kids arrived to play, so I got a chance to chat with a few of the parents. There was one little girl in Ava’s class who was all decked out in a full Adidas soccer suit, complete with shin guards and cleats. Personally I thought it was a bit overboard, but after class I chatted with her parents for a bit and found out that her name was also Ava, she’s three months older than our Ava (although much smaller), and they live fairly close to us. I remember as a kid that my parents became friends (or at least friendly) with the parents of other kids that I played sports with, so I’m sure that will be in our future soon enough. The class goes for another five weeks, then we’ll have the option to move up to a new class.

It seems like everyone has been sick around here lately. A couple weeks ago Ava had a bad stomach flu that lasted about a week. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but she powered through it like a champ. We thought we were in the clear with her, but then this week we got a new surprise. Wednesday night around midnight I woke up to the sound of Ava screaming and crying. I went into her room to check on her and saw that she had a very high fever. Jessica came in to take her temperature but then realized that our digital thermometer was broken. I got dressed and jumped in my car to go buy a new thermometer. I went to four different drug stores but all of them were closed. Finally I was able to find a Safeway nearby that was still open, and luckily they had thermometers in stock. When I got home and took her temperature, it read 103.8. This was very concerning so we called the on-call physician at her doctor’s office and explained what was going on. He told us to give her some children’s tylenol, keep her well hydrated, and keep a close eye on her.

The next morning her fever was gone so we thought we were in the clear, but then that afternoon around 4:00 I got a text from Jessica saying her fever was back and was up to 104.6! This was pretty alarming, but she said they were already on the way to the doctor’s office. I left work about 20 minutes later with a plan of meeting them at the doctor’s office, but traffic was so bad that I was still 15 minutes away when Jessica called me at 5:15 saying the doctor had diagnosed her with an ear infection and had prescribed her liquid Zithromax. Today is her third day on antibiotics and she seems to be back to normal. We’ve still got two more days to take it, but that should be about it. Unfortunately now Elise is sick, plus Jessica and I woke up this morning with sore throats. It’s always something, but at least Enzo hasn’t come down with anything.

Jessica injured her ankle, most likely from running, and hasn’t been able to go lately. She’s been doing yoga at home instead but is hoping to get back out there once her ankle heals. I’ve still been going running regularly and am enjoying it. I’ve come to the conclusion that running is the exact opposite of drinking alcohol. With alcohol, you feel good up front, but later you feel like crap. With running, however, its the other way around. You go through the hard part up front, but then later on you feel amazing. The only issue I’m facing right now is that with me getting home from work later than what I’m used to, its not always going to be feasible for me to run in the evenings. I guess tonight is daylight savings time, so that should help me out a bit, but still, after I’ve been at work all day I’m looking forward to coming home and spending time with my family.

Consequently I’ve decided to start running early in the morning before work. Tuesday morning I got up at 5:30 and went on a 4 mile run. It was only 25 degrees outside and I didn’t have gloves on, so by the time I reached the entrance to my neighborhood my fingers and ears were numb. It took about two miles before they came back to feeling normal again. By the end of the run I was going by cars parked on the street that were completely frozen over and I was confused because to me it had warmed up considerably, but obviously that was all due to the run. As it turned out it was still only 27 degrees.

Even on the mornings that I’m not running, I’m committed to getting up at 5:30 because it gives me some quiet time to take a guitar lesson online, practice guitar, or read. The early morning is pretty much my only time to do my own thing, so I’ve come to embrace it. The flip side to that coin though is that I’m exhausted by 9:00 every night. I think its worth it though.

I know that was a long update but its been a very busy week. Oh one more thing; Jessica and I bought plane tickets to go to Austin, TX in November. We’re going the week before Ava’s birthday because Amy and Tom will be in town to watch the kids. We’re looking forward to checking out a new city, seeing some live music, eating out, etc. I told her my only requirement was that I get my picture taken with the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue. Other than that I’m wide open. I’m currently reading a biography on SRV and its turning out to be quite the story. We’ll be there for five days, four nights. Neither of us have been to Austin before, so it gives us something to look forward to. Here’s a few recent photos of the kids.

Today was a significant day for me for a variety of reasons. As the title of this post suggests, today is the 20th anniversary of my Dad passing away, but on a more positive level today was also my first day at Microsoft. Strangely enough, March 2nd was also my first day working at El Gaucho back in 1999. When you consider the fact that the only reason I got the job at El Gaucho to begin with was that I was Elmer Pellegrini’s son, it makes things even stranger. I’ve been looking forward to writing this post for a while, mainly to pay tribute to my Dad, but I’m going to save that for last. First, here’s a breakdown of my first day on the new job.

I spent the first half of the dat at NEO (New Employee Orientation). As you can probably imagine, there is a lot to go over when joining a big company like Microsoft. Although the orientation is very similar in format to the orientation I attended at Amazon two years ago, there is no question that today’s orientation was much more interactive and fun. They really went out of their way to make sure that everyone was engaged and enjoying their time, while simultaneously gathering all their much-needed information about their new role. I came away from NEO really impressed with Microsoft; the benefits they provide to their employees are world-class, and the commitment they have towards making positive change in the world wasn’t lost on me. It was definitely a good experience, and a very nice way to start my career with Microsoft. I’m sure that is exactly how they intended it.

After NEO I met my manager for lunch. During that time we got to catch up, talk about the team I’m joining, my new responsibilities, and get to know each other on a more personal level. He mentioned having kids, so I asked him how many kids he has. Usually when people ask me this question and I tell them that I have three kids they say “wow!”, and that was exactly what I said when he told me he has seven children! Seven kids is no joke, plus he mentioned that his wife is out of town right now due to a health issue with her Mother, meaning he is caring for all seven of them on his own. That’s impressive.

After lunch we headed back to our building and I was able to start setting up my desk and computers. There’s lots of software to install, accounts to create, etc. I spent about four hours working on all of this but I’m still not done. Looks like I’ll be basically done with all of my setup work tomorrow morning, meaning I should be able to start working on assignments sometime tomorrow afternoon. I also got a chance to meet all of my teammates today; everyone was really cool, and one of them is ex-Amazon, so we chatted about that for a bit. There’s another engineer starting next Monday who will be sitting right next to me, plus there are two other guys on the team that started within the past month, so we’re all basically in the same boat. I’m glad to not be the only new guy on the team, and I’m excited to get to work with such a talented group.

The best analogy I can make to my day today is that it’s just like the first day of school. You don’t know where anything is, and there are lots of unfamiliar faces. In our case, the Microsoft campus is enormous; there are over 100 buildings on the main campus alone! Because of this you need to either drive or take a shuttle in order to get across campus in a timely fashion. One of the things that stands out to me immediately regarding the difference between Microsoft buildings and Amazon buildings is the quality of the decor and furnishings. Microsoft is a high-margin business, and because of that they can afford to spend extra money on fancy artwork, beautiful furniture and lounge seating, huge cafeterias, etc. Amazon is a low-margin business and they simply can’t afford to do these types of things. Don’t get me wrong; its not like the Amazon buildings are a dump. Far from it, but they don’t go the extra mile the way Microsoft does. Luckily we are encouraged at Microsoft to bring our families to campus for things like lunch, family movie nights, etc. I can’t wait to bring Jessica and the kids there to show them around. Based on her experience with interior design I’m sure Jessica will appreciate it even more than I do.

Obviously when you start any new job there is a ‘honeymoon phase’ that lasts for a while, so it’s going to take me some time to give it a realistic comparison to Amazon. Right now everything is a bit over-the-top and impressive. I’m certainly not under the delusion that everything will be perfect at Microsoft, but I can say with confidence that I’m happy with the decision I’ve made, and I’m already proud to represent them. Plenty more updates on this coming soon. Coming home from my first night was also a nice treat because Jessica prepared a delicious Seared Ahi Tuna dinner with roasted Brussel Sprouts and Mashed Potatoes. We enjoyed dinner with some nice local wine (after all it is Washington Wine Month) and I got to tell her all about my big day.

Now I want to pay a little respect to my dear old Dad. In one respect it’s hard to believe that he’s been gone for 20 years, but when I really think about all that has happened in my life since then, it makes perfect sense. At this point I’ve lived considerably longer without him than I did with him, yet all of his little sayings and stories stick with me. One thing he always used to tell me was “Stay focused on what you’re doing. Don’t think about playing baseball when you’re in math class, and don’t think about math class when you’re playing baseball. Presence of mind and awareness are very important.” Another thing he always used to tell me, which was probably my favorite of all his sayings, was “Moderation is the key to life. Too much of anything is no good, but a little bit of poison won’t kill you.” As a kid I used to wonder why anyone would ever intentionally take poison. It wasn’t until I got a bit older that I truly understood what he meant.

One of my favorite qualities about my Dad was the way he always put other people first, even people he didn’t know. For example, we would drive to the grocery store and he would intentionally park in the back of the parking lot even though there were open spaces up front near the entrance. When I would ask him why he didn’t take the spot up front he would say “Leave that spot for some old geezer that needs it. We can walk.” Meanwhile by that point my Dad was in his 60’s and could easily be considered one of those old geezers he was referring to, but he didn’t see it that way.

Another time, my parents went out to dinner at the Metropolitan Grill to celebrate my Dad’s birthday, and my Dad wore a beautiful new tie that my Mom got him as a birthday present. While they were out they ran into some friends, and one of them said “Elmer, what a beautiful tie! I’d get married in that tie.” Well, my Dad took the tie off right there on the spot and insisted that he take it. I asked my Mom if him doing that upset her but she said no, you couldn’t be upset with him because that’s just the way he was. He was generous to a fault.

It seems like every time I meet or speak to someone who knew my Dad they always have something very nice to say, or a fun story to share, and hearing all those great stories always makes me feel really good. He truly was one of a kind, and although I don’t have any regrets about our relationship, I certainly do wish we’d had more time together. I never got the chance to spend time with him as a grown man. I’m sure there are plenty of stories he would have shared with me once I’d grown up that simply weren’t appropriate for an adolescent boy. Now that I’m all grown up and married with my own kids I would love nothing more than for him to be able to meet Jessica, Ava, Elise and Enzo. Unfortunately he was only able to meet Kallan, his first grandchild, before passing away a month later. I know he would be proud of everyone though. He always used to tell me that all he cared about was that my Mom, my sisters, and I were all happy and healthy. Nothing else mattered to him. Considering the love and compassion he showed to complete strangers, you can only imagine how he felt about his own family. He always used to tell me “Don’t do what I do. Make something of yourself and do better than I did.” I know he would be very happy with how the lives of all his children have turned out. We each have families that we love more than anything, and for my Dad, nothing was more important than family.

Enzo at 1 Month

Today our sweet little guy turns one month old. It’s a bit hard to believe that he has already been here that long, but as Ava’s first pediatrician in San Diego told us years ago, “the days will seem long but the months will fly by.” He was right about that. So far our initial observations of Enzo are that he is perfectly healthy and growing fast. He seems to spend more and more time awake every day, however the majority of his time is still spent sleeping and eating. In his case, no news is good news, and that’s pretty much where we’re at. He has had a couple checkups so far and everything looks perfect, so we’re very thankful. I can’t wait to see him smile for the first time, and I love holding him and watching him look around to examine his surroundings.

One thing I can say for sure about Enzo is that he is the loudest nighttime baby we’ve had. He grunts, snorts, and moans all night long. It’s probably fair to say that we got off easy with Ava when it came to sleeping, but Elise and Enzo have been more of a prototypical baby in that respect. Ava was sleeping through the night by the time she was a month old, and I remember feeling at that time that all the hype you hear about sleepless nights with babies was totally overblown. The reality was we just got lucky with Ava when it came to sleeping, and even today she continues to be the heaviest sleeper of the bunch.

Now that Grandma and Grandpa have been gone for a bit, the rest of us have had a chance to get into a normal groove, and things are going well. The girls have adjusted nicely to having a baby in the house. The weather is starting to get better and Spring is just around the corner, so it feels like we’re on the up and up. Ava is transitioning from her weekly art class to a weekly music class (which makes me very happy) and she seems to be enjoying it so far. Very soon she and I will also be going to a soccer class on Saturday mornings. I love the idea of exposing each of our kids to a variety of activities and seeing what sticks. The main thing for me, particularly on the weekends, is to get up early with the girls and keep them occupied so that Mom and Enzo can sleep in. There is no question that Jessica has it much harder than I do when it comes to caring for Enzo in the middle of the night, so I want to do whatever I can to take some of the load off of her.

Yesterday was my last day at Amazon. I was looking back through old posts on our website and realized that my career as a full-time employee at Amazon lasted exactly two years and two days. Certainly not as long as I expected, but as I’ve said in the past, everything about my time at Amazon happened faster than I expected, including my exit. I’ve heard many people at Amazon say that one year at Amazon is like two years anywhere else; this is because of how fast you work and how much you’re expected to get done. I personally hardly ever felt like we were under unrealistic expectations, but I also like to stay busy as often as possible. There is no question that I gained a ton of valuable experience and knowledge during my time there, and I’m very excited to apply all of it towards my new role at Microsoft.

My final day was a good one. There was no work for me to do, so I spent the day meeting with various people that I’ve become friends with during my time there to talk about why I’m switching jobs. The response I received was 100% positive and everyone agrees that I’m doing the right thing. I think the thing that felt best about my departure was that not only would my own team welcome me back anytime, but I was also told by two other teams that they would also be happy to have me should things not work out at Microsoft. It felt really great to hear that, and by no means would I ever discredit the thought of someday returning to Amazon. They are a world-class company whom I was always proud to represent, so who knows? It’s important to me never to burn a bridge, but for now I will continue to be a loyal Amazon customer, while my professional focus shifts entirely towards Microsoft. I’m really excited about this new opportunity with Microsoft and can’t wait to get started on Monday. Plenty of updates on that coming soon.

Today should be a fun day for us; we’re doing our monthly Costco trip later this morning, and having our friends Laurel, Solana, Josh, and their son Ronin over for dinner this evening. We’re doing kind of a potluck thing, but Jess and I are making tacos, so that should be fun. I’m also hoping to squeeze in a run somewhere in between. Jessica and I have both been running for the last few weeks and we’re enjoying it. I used to run at the athletic club when I lived in Las Vegas, and after a while I got to a point where I could run 10 miles without stopping, but then I tore my meniscus and gave it up. I’ve been wanting to get back into it for a while now, but decided to wait until after Enzo was born because I knew Jessica was also interested in running and I didn’t want her to feel excluded.

Although we don’t run together (because someone has to be home with the kids) we’re both enjoying it, mainly because it gives you a chance to get away and clear your mind. When I first started running, the route I was taking was only 2.25 miles. I would get home exhausted, but after a couple weeks I found myself taking a route twice as long and finishing not nearly as tired. I’ve found that running is entirely a mental battle, and that’s actually my favorite part about it. I learned from a Navy Seals book I read a while back that the mind will always give out before the body does, so I will sometimes remind myself of that when necessary. One thing I’ve learned about running is that its best to keep your mind occupied with something other than running. Never think about how far away the finish line is. You see a lot of people out running with headphones on, but I have headphones on all the time at work, so I prefer not to wear them when I run. Instead of listening to music while I run, I think about music. Specifically I think about music theory and how it pertains to the guitar fretboard. I’ve found that this works well for me because music theory is complicated and requires a fair amount of concentration. If my mind is focused on the intricacies of music theory and guitar, that means that its not focused on the run, meaning that my body gets into a comfortable pace and before I know it, the run is complete. The best part is that I’m simultaneously becoming a better musician while I exercise. It’s all about finding something that works for you.

Jessica will be doing Enzo’s first monthly photo later today, so I plan to include it on my post this Monday. Monday is a big day for me (for a variety of reasons) so I’m looking forward to writing another post that night. Happy weekend!