Wednesday night the four of us returned home after a great visit with Nana, Uncle Bob, Aunt Sandy, and Uncle Terry in Las Vegas. Not only was it great to get so much quality time with family, but we also had a lot of fun seeing some old friends; plus it didn’t hurt that the weather was so nice. We flew out of the Bellingham airport, which is about 75 miles north of where we live. Although the drive to the Bellingham airport is technically further than it would be to SeaTac, there is no doubt that this was the better way to go. Rather than fight the traffic going through Seattle, as well as fight the crowds at SeaTac airport, we instead were able to have a nice leisurely drive with no traffic, and no airport crowds to deal with whatsoever in Bellingham.
The flight to Vegas was unexpectedly rough however. I say unexpectedly because we honestly expected Ava to have a harder time than Elise, but it turned out to be the opposite. Ava was an absolute dream, but Elise was in rare form, which included lots of screaming and violently throwing herself around. At one point I just took her to the bathroom to let her cry it out. It was all because she was so tired, and luckily after about 15 minutes she fell asleep in my arms, meaning we were then able to get back in our seat. Shortly thereafter I also fell asleep, and apparently everyone who passed by couldn’t help but comment on how cute the sleeping Dad and daughter combination were. When we awoke I was given a business card by a friendly Hippie offering to text me the photo he took of us sleeping.
Once we landed we moved onto our next struggle, which was gathering all of our stuff and finding my Uncles, whom were there to pick us up. Traveling with two small children means traveling with a ton of stuff. Two car seats, a stroller, two carryon bags, two checked bags, etc. Obviously I’m not going to let Jessica carry anything, which means I quickly found myself lugging all our stuff around as we looked for Bob and Terry. It definitely took me back to the Europe trip my Mom and I took in the Summer of 2001, when I was constantly running through train stations with more bag weight than I could handle. By the time we got to Bob and Terry I was exhausted, as well as overheating due to the fact that I wore a sweater that morning because it was so cold in Washington, yet so warm in Vegas.
From that point on we were home free, although the same couldn’t be said for my poor Mom. She and Terry were up practically all night every night that week getting the house ready, and she was exhausted. Not the greatest way to spend her birthday, but if you know my Mom, you know that she won’t settle for anything less than an immaculate house. Jessica and I were so impressed with all the work they all did on the house. As it turns out, Terry is quite the painter, and by the end of the trip I had the beginnings of a website, plus a domain name, in order to help him start a small business doing commercial and residential painting in Las Vegas. I’m really proud of everything Terry is doing in Vegas and want to help out in any way I can.
On the night of Halloween, which is my Mom’s birthday, we took the girls to the new Downtown Summerlin mall for some trick-or-treating. The mall was quite impressive, as were the variety of costumes and entertainment we found there. While we were away Bob, Sandy and Terry were hard at work at Mom’s house setting up a little surprise party. Once we returned we were greeted by decorations, a beautiful (and delicious) cake, and a huge feast of spaghetti, spicy chicken wings, and jalapeño garlic bread put on by Uncle Bob. Between dinner and cake we did the presents and Mom seemed to love everything she got. Jessica and I picked out a sapphire necklace and a pair of matching sapphire earrings online for her, and were quite happy once we saw them in person. Terry had a beautiful set of paintings done for her by a friend that really turned out amazing. Bob went out of his way to put on an outstanding evening that we all enjoyed very much. All in all it was a great (and very full) first day of our trip.
Saturday Jessica and I went grocery shopping, then I spent the afternoon making Cioppino with the 6 pounds of Dungeness crab, 3 pounds of fish, and 5 pounds of assorted shellfish we picked up. That night a few of my old friends came over and had dinner with the rest of us. It was a great night, accentuated by the fact that we didn’t even have to leave the house. We pretty much played the rest of the trip by ear and just tried to make sure to get the girls out for at least one fun activity each day. As previously mentioned, the weather was perfect, so we often found ourselves at various nearby parks and play areas.
Monday we took the girls to the strip so Mom could have some quiet time to get her work done. After picking out stuffed animals at the Disney store, we spent the rest of the day taking in the sights and enjoying ourselves. Seeing Ava’s expressions of awe and amazement at the various attractions was priceless. Some of the highlights included a carousel at Wynn made entirely of flowers, the gondola’s in the canal at the Venetian, and a live opera at the Palazzo. That night Jessica, Terry and I went to the movies to see ‘Night Crawler’ at the new Summerlin mall. If you’ve never sat in a luxury recliner at a movie theater you don’t know what you’re missing. I seriously may never go to a normal movie theater again. Absolutely outstanding!
Our last major outing of the trip was a visit to an old western town just past Red Rocks. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a combination of the type of town you’d see at Universal Studios or Knotts Berry Farm, including live shows (and even a hanging 3 times per day), plus a petting zoo. I’ve never been so up close and personal with so many different animals. Of course the girls loved it, and were completely oblivious to the oddities of their surroundings. It didn’t surprise me one bit that they also used the place for haunted tours; it definitely had a bit of a creepy vibe.
I’d say the hardest part about coming home was getting out of my Mom’s house. Once Ava realized we were leaving she got really upset. I think she formed a special bond with Nana, Uncle Terry, and Uncle Bob during our trip and she simply did not want to leave them. On one hand that makes you feel really good that she has gotten so close to them, but on the other its tough because you hate to see her so upset. She’s been talking about them quite a bit since leaving, so last night we had a phone call with Nana and Uncle Terry just so she could say hi. During that call Elise started saying ‘Hi Nana’ over and over, and it couldn’t have been clearer. She’s doing so well with putting words together! The line of the trip for Elise was ‘Hi Doggy’, which was in reference to the 7 little four-legged friends that were always by her side. It wasn’t uncommon for them to get excited and accidentally knock her on her bum, but she always got right back up and kept on having fun.
After the production we had getting to Vegas we were prepared for the worst coming home, but as it turned out everything went quite smoothly. We were given access to the special TSA line at the airport, which made getting through security really easy. Although neither of the girls fell asleep on the flight home, there were no outbursts and we arrived back in Bellingham feeling very relieved. The drive home was also super easy and traffic-free, and as expected, both girls were asleep before we even reached the freeway. On the way home we couldn’t stop talking about how easy and convenient it was flying out of Bellingham rather than SeaTac. That being said, it’s going to be a while before we fly as a family again. Adding a third child to the mix complicates things exponentially because you can no longer confine yourselves to a single row on the plane. At that point you’re getting split up into two different rows (or sides of an aisle), meaning one parent gets one child and the other parent gets the other two kids. No thank you. I hate to say it but I don’t see any family flying in our future for the next couple years. We’re more than happy to host guests at any time, but getting everyone (and all their necessities) rounded up for a flight is a bit more than we can bare for the near future.
Looks like we’re in for a busy weekend, including a birthday party at a friend’s house this Saturday for their son, then a visit with Jim, Brenda, Kristy and Madi at their place on Sunday. Monday I’ll finally be back in the office, just in time for our busiest time of year. Things are going really well for me at work and it won’t be long before I’m conducting another one-hour talk on JavaScript to a room full of software engineers. The difference this time is that rather than talk about someone else’s library, I’m going to be teaching them how to use a localization library that I have written. Hopefully it won’t be long before all of the fulfillment center applications are using my library to handle language switching. Pretty exciting stuff!
Here are a handful of photos from our trip. It really was a lot of fun.
Mom, Terry, and I on her birthday
Mom opening presents
Uncle Bob and me
Mom and Uncle Bob
Jessica and Ava watching Nana open presents
Ava and her new buddy Uncle Terry
Bob, Terry, Mom, Myself, and Jessica, taken by Sandy
Yesterday was a surprisingly special day due to the fact that I bought a new guitar. I certainly wasn’t expecting to buy a guitar, but sometimes when you find the right one there is simply no other potential course of action. This morning while driving to work, I started thinking about writing a post describing my new guitar, as well as talk once more about how excited we are for our trip to Las Vegas tomorrow to celebrate my Mom’s birthday. Soon I started expanding on that thought and decided it would be cool to write about all of my guitars; after all, each one has its own unique story that would be fun to share. Then, as the physical wheels kept turning, so did the figurative ones, and my thoughts expanded onto the concept of writing what I’m calling ‘My Guitar Living Will.’
Basically my guitars are my most prized possessions, and should something ever happen to me I wouldn’t want to leave Jessica with the burden of having to decide who should get what. Believe me, there are plenty of other possessions of mine that she would have to make the call on, but considering how special each guitar is to me, I felt like it was my responsibility to determine what should happen to each of them. Before I get into it let me make one thing clear; I’m not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. I have a long life still ahead of me, as well as plenty more guitars to purchase during that time, so if your name is on this list and you’re getting excited about one of these guitars, all I can tell you is not to hold your breath. I also reserve the right to modify this will at any time I see fit. Again, I expect to purchase more guitars down the road, but at this point my collection is worthy enough of necessitating delegation.
I’ll warn you ahead of time – this is by far the longest post I have ever written. Each guitar has its own story, as well a bit about the person whom I wish to receive it, and since I am the proud owner of 6 guitars, lets just say that makes for a lot of writing! Good thing I love writing nearly as much as I love playing guitar because this post is going to be over 4,000 words by the time its all said and done. So, you’ve been warned. If you want to hear the story behind each guitar, as well as who I want to someday receive it, then get a cup of coffee and read on, otherwise you’re better off to quit now while you’re still ahead 😉
Here it is in all its glory:
My Guitar Living Will
October 30, 2014
Silvertone Electric
When I was 7 years old, my favorite movie was ‘Back to the Future’. By the time I had seen it approximately 27 times, I wanted nothing more than to be Marty McFly up on stage playing ‘Johnny B. Goode’. What I didn’t realize at that time was that Marty McFly was simply trying to be Chuck Berry, but that’s okay, because it was that movie, and that character specifically, that inspired me to start playing guitar. I expressed this interest to my parents and they decided to go along with it. Before I knew it I was the proud owner of a Sears Silvertone junior electric guitar. I say junior because it’s a smaller guitar that was probably meant for kids. Although inexpensive, those old Silvertones are responsible for a million guitarists first getting started with the instrument, and I was no exception.
Since my parents couldn’t have expected me to teach myself how to play guitar at the tender young age of 7, they decided to enroll me in lessons at a local music store. I vaguely remember attending these lessons, but unfortunately all I really remember about the experience was that playing chords and melodies was really difficult, and that it hurt my fingers badly. I don’t think it was a commitment issue; after all by that time I had already been going to Karate class for two straight years and would continue doing so for another 8 years. I just think that at that young age I needed more physical activity and didn’t have the patience to sit down and learn an instrument. Frankly, I was more interested in hip throws, side kicks, and spinning backfists than I was in strumming chords or learning major scales.
So, after only about a month of playing the guitar, I decided to put it away, and away it stayed for another 7 years. By the time I was 14, I was a freshman at Lindbergh High School in Renton, WA, and the guitar bug came back to bite me in a major way. Suddenly I found myself infatuated with Jimi Hendrix, as well as up and coming bands (at that time) like Weezer, Soundgarden, and Smashing Pumpkins. My interest in martial arts was starting to fade and was quickly being replaced by my interest in music. Since I already had a guitar in my closet, I decided to pull it out and give it another go. Although it was badly out of tune and had horrible string action, I didn’t know the difference, and I soon found myself playing with it everyday.
Obviously I didn’t know it at the time, but only a few months later, on March 2, 1995, my Dad would pass away. Although by that time I also had an acoustic guitar (see below), I still very much wanted to play my electric guitar. Not long after Dad passed I realized what poor condition my Silvertone was in, so my Mom and I took it to A# music in Renton to get fixed up. Somehow while talking to the repair guy at the store, the story of the guitar coming from my recently deceased father came out. He agreed to work on it, and a week later we came to pick it up.
Much to our surprise, there was no charge for the repairs, and the guy actually got choked up giving it back to me. My Mom and I never expected this but were so grateful for his generosity. I was thrilled because the guitar was in better shape than I could have imagined and played so well. Although it wouldn’t be too long before my collection began to grow, this guitar will always be my first, and will therefore always hold a special place in my heart. So will A# Music in Renton. I haven’t been there in years but every time I think of that store I smile. It’s technically the least valuable guitar I own, but it spurred my love to play music. I’d like Jessica to hold onto this guitar and someday give it to our first grandchild. Hopefully it will have the same effect on them (or one of their siblings/cousins) that it had on me.
Seagull Acoustic
To this day, this is the one and only acoustic guitar I have ever owned. When I was a 14 year old High School Freshman, I fell in love with everything about the guitar and wanted to spend my time doing nothing other than listening to music and playing guitar. I didn’t care one bit about girls, cars, money, or sports; just music. At that time it was quite common for kids to bring their acoustic guitars to school and play them in common areas during breaks between classes. Although I had my Silvertone electric (which I could barely play), I quickly found myself feeling left out at school because I didn’t have an acoustic to play during break.
After a few months of my parents seeing me play my Silvertone every single day, they decided that I deserved something new. So, in November, 1994, my Mom and I went to a local music store to look at their selection of acoustics, and although I had never heard of the Seagull brand (from Canada) before, I quickly fell in love with it. Unfortunately, at $350 it was well out of my $150 price range, so we left empty handed. I just couldn’t bring myself to buy some super cheap Fender after playing that Seagull. Later that night I was in my room listening to records (yes records) and my Dad came in to ask me about guitar shopping with Mom. I told him I found one that I loved but it was too expensive. He asked me how short I was on cash and I said $200. As if on command, he pulled out $200 from his pocket and set it on my dresser, then told me to go get the one I loved.
This was a perfect example of who my Dad was. He never cared about having anything for himself, he just wanted everyone close to him to be happy. His old saying was that he would give the shirt off his back to someone who needed it. He hardly ever wore a shirt anyway so it wouldn’t have matter one bit to him. Of course I was extremely appreciative and quickly found myself back at that music store buying the guitar I loved. Although I couldn’t have known it at the time, this would be the last present I ever received from my Dad, and to this day the thought of replacing it with another acoustic guitar has never crossed my mind. Like the Silvertone I received when I was 7, this isn’t my most valuable guitar, but it’s value to me cannot be measured. It only seems fitting that this guitar should go to Ava; my first child. Ava has already shown an affection for singing and entertaining, so who knows, maybe one day she will be my little folk singer? Obviously every folk singer needs an acoustic guitar, but regardless of whether or not she ever picks it up, I still want her to have it.
LTD JH-600 Jeff Hanneman
In 2008, the U.S. economy was in shambles. It didn’t make much difference to me though, because I was working my ass off. I waited tables 5 nights a week at the Waterfront Seafood Grill, which was a very profitable gig, and I worked 5 days a week as an up-and-coming mortgage broker at Washington Financial Group. Although that entire endeavor is worthy of its own story, I’ll keep it short and just say that I attempted to get on the mortgage bandwagon just as the market was crashing. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this wasn’t the industry for me, but my hard work paid off and after not making a dime for 3 months, I finally found myself as the top earner in the office in my 4th month. A month later I quit. What’s more important to the story is that the government passed a bill that year called the ‘Economic Stimulus Plan’ which stated that every taxpayer in the country would receive a check from the government. Their hope was that people would receive this money and go out and spend it, which would in turn help revitalize the economy. Although its value to the national economy was questionable, I decided to take it for face value and spend the money, as they had intended. After all, I didn’t need the money to live on, and at that time it had been about 6 years since I had bought a guitar, so it seemed like a great excuse to buy myself a present.
From the ages of about 16 – 30 I was really into heavy metal. To this day I still love listening to Metallica, Lamb of God, and a few others that most normal people would hate. Although I’ve never been much of a metal guitar player, I always wanted a ‘metal guitar’ that I could plug into a high gain amplifier and just shred on. Once I knew I was going to buy a metal guitar with my economic stimulus package I went nuts researching what to buy. I studied every metal guitar on the market and based on all factors, ended up selecting the LTD JH-600 Jeff Hanneman model. For those that don’t know, Jeff Hanneman is the late lead guitarist from Slayer who passed away unexpectedly last year due to a kidney condition. Although I was never a die-hard Slayer fan like some of my friends, I always really liked Hanneman, and I loved his guitar.
LTD is the child company of ESP Guitars. Although they also make an ESP-version of the Hanneman model, it cost several thousand dollars and I couldn’t justify spending that much. The LTD models are made in Korea, and because of this I was a bit skeptical, but I bought it brand new on ebay and just hoped for the best. As it turned out I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. It’s an amazing guitar. I took it into Parson’s Guitar Shop on Westlake (which is where I got all my work done for several years) for a setup, and when I came to pick it up several days later, Randy Parsons himself couldn’t stop talking about how nice it played. If you don’t know, Randy Parsons is huge in the guitar world. He makes custom guitars for tons of famous players, but unfortunately has left Seattle and relocated in Ventura, California where he focuses on his own line of custom instruments.
Since this is my one and only ‘metal guitar’, there is only one person that I can logically leave it for: my nephew Kallan. Like myself many years earlier, Kallan absolutely loves music and spends all of his free time playing music and listening to music. Also like myself, he loves heavy metal. I’ll never forget taking him to see Metallica and Lamb of God on December 1, 2008 at the Key Arena in Seattle. I actually have a confession to make about that night; although Kallan was only 13 at the time, I decided to buy him a mini bottle of Rumple Minze (I’m sorry Dana, please forgive me). He had never drank before but it was a special occasion and I knew he would be with me all night, so I convinced him to drink it by telling him it would taste like a candy cane. He took it down like a champ, then almost threw up all over the person in front of us. Luckily he kept it down and the two of us had a blast all night. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of amazing concert experiences in my life, many of which with my wife Jessica, but this one ranks right up there near the top of the list. I’ve never given Kallan any alcohol since then (I’m much too responsible now to do something like that), and to be honest I’m not proud of what I did, but everything turned out fine. Since I will always think of Kallan as my ‘heavy metal buddy’ it would only make sense that someday he should have my heavy metal guitar.
Gibson Midtown Custom
Last night (October 29, 2014) I purchased this guitar at Tommy’s Guitar Shop in Everett, WA. I certainly wasn’t planning on purchasing a guitar that day, but sometimes that’s just how it happens. Buying a new guitar makes for a special day, kind of like buying a new car. My plan was to drop of my Jeff Hanneman guitar at Tommy’s to get a setup while we’re away in Vegas celebrating my Mom’s birthday. Ironically enough, the last guitar I purchased before this one was the Jeff Hanneman, which was over 6 years ago, and it hasn’t had a setup since taking it to Randy Parsons’ shop that same year. It’s been badly in need of some love, and I generally like to support smaller local shops over the big corporate ones whenever possible.
After dropping the guitar off in their repair shop, I started browsing the store and suddenly my eyes fell upon a gorgeous 2011 Gibson Midtown Custom Black Beauty. My other Gibson guitar, which is a 1980 Gibson Les Paul Custom, is also a Black Beauty, but what makes these two guitars very unique is that they both have chrome hardware. Almost every Gibson Black Beauty guitar you’ll find has gold hardware, and although I like the look of gold hardware on red or white guitars, I’ve never cared for it on Black Beauty’s. Although this guitar was used, I couldn’t believe the condition it was in, or the price. The sales guy started telling me all about it and I soon found myself spending the next half-hour playing it through a nice bluesy tube amp.
By the end of this session I was completely in love with it and quickly found myself conspiring with the sales guy on how to convince my wife to let me buy it. To use an old saying of mine that Jessica loves/hates, “I couldn’t afford not to buy it!” I practiced my sales pitch to her the whole way home in the car, but before I could even get 3 words in she said “You want to buy a guitar, don’t you?” I asked her to just hear me out and she kept saying no. After enough pleading I got her to hear me out and explained all of my reasoning: I haven’t bought a guitar in over 6 years, I’ve been wanting a semi-hollow body guitar for a while, I won’t buy another one for several years, etc. I could tell she loved hearing me beg like this but I didn’t care.
After much persistence she gave in and gave me the okay. All I can say is that I appreciate her understanding so much and look forward to returning the favor in the form of a very special gift in the near future. I’m very lucky to have a wife that doesn’t mind my wacky combination of neurosis, desire, and persistence. I’ve always been this way and will likely never change. Once I set my mind on something it’s nearly impossible to make me change it. More often than not this leads to beneficial things, like career changes, but sometimes you just have to accept that it also leads to impulse purchases of beautiful guitars, and the like.
I have a feeling this is going to become my main guitar for quite a while, starting right now. Chances are it won’t stay in it’s current pristine condition for long, but I’m willing to exchange that for the joy of playing it regularly. I’ve never agreed with the idea of buying an instrument for its value, and then never touching it because you don’t want it to have any wear and tear. In my opinion, instruments are meant to be played, and not doing so is akin to removing their soul. Since we’re so close to the birth of our son Enzo, it only makes sense that this guitar should someday be his. I hope he loves it as much as I do, especially because it came into our lives so close to the time that he did.
Paul Reed Smith McCarty Prototype
This guitar is extremely special to me. I bought it at Guitar Center in Seattle on Westlake in October, 2002. Although I’m no guitar historian, my understanding is that Paul Reed Smith was one of the head luthiers at Gibson for many years. Eventually he moved on and started his own line of guitars. In addition to their signature body style, they were the first brand I ever heard of that featured coil tapping in their pickups.
Basically what this means is that there are two main styles of pickups in guitars: single coils and humbuckers. Single coils were made famous in the Fender Stratocaster, and are known for a quacky treble-dominant sound that was made famous by guys like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and post-Cream Eric Clapton. The biggest disadvantage to using single coil pickups is that if you combine them with a distorted amplifier, they produce a 60-cycle hum that you cannot get rid of. Modern pickup manufacturers have solved this problem, but only very recently. Humbuckers, on the other hand, have two coils in the pickups, which means they have no hum, and they end up giving you a more full-bodied, bass-dominant, sound. They sound especially good when combined with heavy distortion.
Well, with a PRS guitar, you have both styles of pickups. Although they look and sound like normal humbuckers, you can pull the tone knob out and split the coils, which effectively turns them into a single coil pickup, with the added benefit of having no hum! When I discovered this guitar I was absolutely in love. Not only did I love the pickups, I also couldn’t get over how comfortable the neck was on this guitar. To this day it may be the best neck I’ve ever played, plus I loved the way the bridge was setup, as well as how comfortable the guitar was to hold and how easy it was to access the upper frets.
The other cool thing about this guitar is that it’s a McCarty prototype. Ted McCarty was the president of Gibson Guitars for a long time, but I guess he left Gibson to go to PRS. In later years the McCarty became one of their standard models, but this guitar was built as a prototype of that model before the model was ever officially released. It was used, and had a little wear and tear on it, but I didn’t care. To me that just gave it some soul and character. I just couldn’t get over how well it played.
During my mid twenties I spent all my time playing guitar and singing in a band. This has always been my favorite musical experience of my life, and probably will continue to be until the day comes that I find myself in a new band, but that probably won’t be for a long time. During these years, my PRS was my main guitar and it got a TON of playing time. I like to think that I really learned to play on this guitar, and I have so many great memories associated with it. For some reason it just reminds me of my daughter Elise. It’s subtle and sweet, just like she is, and someday I want her to have it. Although it has a few battle scars, its still a very valuable guitar due to the fact that it’s an early PRS prototype. I believe it was made in 1995, but I’m not positive on that. It may not have quite the same sentimental value as some of the others in terms of how I acquired it, but the fact is I couldn’t have loved a guitar more than I love this one, and I continue to play the hell out of it. I hope she loves it and cares for it like I always have.
1980 Gibson Les Paul Custom
I turned 18 on July 30, 1998. I spent that whole summer selling women’s shoes at Nordstroms Store 1 in Seattle. I was part of the big move from the old store to the new one, which was a big deal on the local news, and I was preparing for my freshman year in college at the University of Washington. I worked hard that summer and saved my money with the intent of buying a Gibson Les Paul. I had owned a few Fender Stratocasters before that (which I unfortunately no longer have), but there was something about the Les Paul that I always loved. Clapton played them in his early days, Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin and Slash from Guns ‘n Roses played nothing else, and plenty other favorites of mine like Randy Rhoads, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa, and Warren Haynes were also big Les Paul players.
At that time there was no such thing as online shopping, so I would constantly go to music stores to look at them and try them out. The brand new ones were out of my price range, so I would look through the classified ads in the newspaper everyday to see if anyone was selling a Les Paul. Right around my 18th birthday, on a Friday night, I went to see the Supersuckers at a 99.9 KISW Pain In The Grass outdoor show at the Seattle Center. The Supersuckers were very successful in Seattle but never quite made it on a national level. It was a fun show, particularly because I was with friends and had never seen the Supersuckers before.
Two days later, on Sunday, I was on my way to look at a Les Paul that was advertised in the classifieds section of the Seattle Times. As it turned out, the guy selling the guitar was named Ron, and he was the lead guitar player of the Supersuckers. Coincidentally, the guitar he was selling was the Black Beauty Les Paul Custom that he played throughout that entire show that I had just seen two days prior! I recognized it immediately because, as previously mentioned, you almost never see a Black Beauty with chrome hardware. They almost always have gold hardware, which I’ve never been a fan of on black guitars. Even more coincidentally, it was a 1980 Les Paul Custom, which is the year I was born.
I ended up spending a couple hours at his house listening to stories about the local rock scene. My favorite story was the one about Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler trying to get Ron to score him an 8-ball of cocaine, even though he had just left rehab. More importantly, I loved the guitar and couldn’t keep my hands off of it. There was no question in my mind that this was meant to be my Les Paul, and I’m so happy I bought it. It’s also my most valuable guitar. I paid $1,800 for it back in 1998, and today I found an identical one selling on Reverb.com for $3,500, so it has basically doubled in value since I purchased it. It’s impossible for me to determine which one of my guitars is most special to me, just as it would be impossible to choose a favorite child. They’re all equal in that department, but due to its age and history, there is no doubt that this is my most significant guitar, and I want my amazing wife Jessica to keep it. After all, like myself she is a child of the year 1980, plus she is the love of my life that I chose to spend my life with, so its only fitting that this guitar should someday be hers. Even if it never gets played, its one sexy piece of wall candy with a good story to boot. I hope she keeps it forever and remembers my love for her every time she sees it.
There was a fatal shooting at a nearby high school today. Two students are dead (one of which was the shooter), and several more are in critical condition. You hear about things like this from time to time in other communities, and of course it’s always terrible, but somehow it feels even worse when it happens so close to home. When you combine the proximity with the fact that we now have children of our own, the whole thing feels even worse. Although I have dealt with a fair amount of loss in my life, none of it compares with what it would be like to be a parent of one of the injured or deceased students. My heart truly goes out to them.
You wish there was a reason, an answer, or even a bright side to look on, but there isn’t. Nothing can be said that can even begin to make sense of such a horrible tragedy. As a parent you wish there was a safe place to take your children, where an act of this nature wasn’t even possible, but unfortunately there is no such place. The fact is, this is the world we now live in. This never happened when I was growing up, and it sickens me to think that this is a reality that my children will have to face as soon as they venture out of the household and into school. When I was a kid we drilled for earthquakes; now they drill for mass murderers that are likely medicated, with access to a variety of guns and weapons. Even at work we now have a protocol for this type of situation and everyone is required to watch training videos on it.
You hear people on social media calling for guns to be outlawed, but I truly don’t think that is the answer. Just because something is outlawed doesn’t mean you won’t have plenty of access to it. Are the parents to blame? What about doctors and psychologists? Is it the fault of society in general, or perhaps the school districts? I have no idea. All I know is that the thought of my children ever being involved or affected by a tragedy like this in any way is too much to bare. After all, even the kids that weren’t physically harmed today will probably be scarred in some way for the rest of their lives. At the very least, their innocence is gone.
I had been planning on writing a post today to talk about the fact that we’re only a week away from vacation and are so looking forward to visiting my Mom and family down in Vegas, but I can’t get this shooting off my mind. Regardless, there isn’t much more I can say to express my sorrow for those affected, or my disgust for the nature of the crime, so it’s probably better to focus on our own personal lives, which have been going very well lately.
Last Sunday we joined our neighbors for what they called an ‘Apple Cider Party.’ We weren’t exactly sure what that meant but decided to make an appearance and see what all the fuss was about. The day before, a few guys from the neighborhood went down to an apple orchard in Sumner and spent 90 minutes filling up an entire truck bed full of apples. Then the following morning we all congregated on one of their driveways to make cider. It was quite the production, with an impressive turnout, and everyone had a great time, as well as a job to do. Kids were keeping busy washing apples, while others were grinding apples, pressing apples, filling bottles with juice, etc. Everyone pitched in a helping hand, and although at times I felt like I was part of a commune, I must admit it was a lot of fun. We had donuts and coffee, plus the Seahawks game was playing, and the juice we made was the best I’ve ever had. Although we had only planned to hang out for about an hour, before we knew it 3 hours had passed by before we were preparing to leave.
Ava probably had the most fun of anyone there, and took her job of washing apples quite seriously. The only task more difficult that relieving her of her post was stripping her down naked in the driveway in an effort to clean things up; apparently she had a little too much apple juice that day and lets just say it really cleaned her out. Since that was more than enough excitement for one day we were all quite content to spend the rest of the day watching football and relaxing at home. As I write this I’m just finishing off our first gallon of apple juice, but don’t worry, there’s another one waiting for us in the freezer.
Both of the girls dealt with a bit of sickness this week but luckily it was short lived in both cases. Elise got another tooth, which lead to a fever and general sense of malaise for an entire day, but she bounced right back the following day. Poor Ava had a really rough night on Monday and of course Jessica was gone at work. She had a fever all night and didn’t want to get out of bed. I went to bed around 10:00 that night and was rudely awakened by Ava at 11:30 when she came into our room crying, climbed up on me while I was asleep, and threw up all over me. I cannot describe to you how disgusting it was, particularly because I was sound asleep and had no idea what was going on. Jessica wasn’t home from work yet and I kinda freaked out. One minute I’m out cold, and the next I’m covered in puke with a feverish child wailing in my face. I didn’t know what to do first, but opted to get Ava some juice with children’s Tylenol in hopes that it would suppress her fever. After getting her settled I dealt with cleaning up as much as possible, stripping the sheets, starting the wash, and cleaning myself up. Luckily Jessica arrived home from work shortly thereafter and I was able to get back to bed in anticipation of a busy day at work. More importantly, whatever Ava had didn’t last long and within 24 hours she was back to her energetic little self.
I’ve been spending a lot of time at work over the past two weeks preparing for a pair of presentations I was giving, and yesterday was the big day where I finally got to get up in front of the room and do my thing. Although I didn’t expect to get nervous, you never know how you’re going to react once you’re actually in that setting. As it turned out everything went extremely well and I couldn’t be happier with how well my presentations were received. I started off doing a 30 minute talk on CSS and CSS Preprocessors, then after someone else did a 30 minute talk, I got back up and did a one hour talk on JavaScript MVC frameworks. These presentations were part of a series of talks being put on by my team throughout the week, and not only was I the only person to do more than one presentation, but my JavaScript presentation, which was the final one of the week, received the largest turnout of all. In addition to presenting to a full room of software engineers, designers, and managers, I was also being filmed and broadcast to a room of similar individuals in our Toronto office. Again, the nerves never hit; there was no quivering voice, no uncomfortable pauses, and no missed beats. I never looked at my speaker notes because I quickly got into a flow and just rolled with it. I was even able to manufacture a few laughs in the midst of an otherwise pretty dry set of topics. The ultimate gratification came when I was approached afterwards by several engineers who gave me enthusiastic comments and feedback. It definitely felt good to get up there and do a good job, and I now find myself looking forward to doing something like this again in the future. It’s still a little hard to believe that I’m only 3.5 years into my career and I’m up in front of a group of Amazon software engineers and managers educating them on web development, but I’ve got the necessary confidence to get up there and own it, all the while doing my best to demonstrate the types of leadership characteristics they’re all looking for.
A week from today we’ll be flying down to Vegas for our vacation and we’re all getting very excited. Even Ava can’t stop talking about it. My Uncle Terry has been doing a ton of work at my Mom’s house in anticipation of our visit, so I can’t wait to see how it’s all turned out. The basic plan we have for now is to make a really nice birthday dinner for my Mom on Friday night, then go out with friends on Saturday night so Nana can have a night at home with her girls. We’re also hoping to go see a movie one night while we’re in town, which is something we don’t get to do very often, meaning that will be another night for Nana to have fun alone with the girls. Not sure what else we’ll be doing but I know its going to be a great time and I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about by the time we get home. This is a big birthday for my Mom and I’m so glad we’ll all be there to celebrate it with her. Hopefully spending it with her granddaughters will be the greatest present of all.
As I sit here and write this on a Friday evening, I’m completely exhausted. It’s funny because my job has absolutely no sense of physicality, yet by the time I go to bed every night, which is early I assure you, I can hardly keep my eyes open. There’s no doubt that the work I do is mentally draining, and I’m sure that plays a big part in it, but as Jessica likes to suggest from time to time, maybe I’m just getting old. True as that may be, my usual response is to agree with her, then gently point out that I’m still not quite as old as she is…
Tonight Jessica is working her fourth consecutive night this week and it concerns me. She shouldn’t be working that much, and although I realize that they are only scheduling her this much because they have no other choice, it still bothers me. Luckily everyone she works with is very careful not to let her do anything too strenuous, yet simply being on her feet all night this many nights in a row is hard enough on her. Luckily she has this weekend off with me, so I’m going to make sure she gets plenty of time to relax, nap, and get lots of rest. Unfortunately next week, which is Seattle Restaurant Week, looks very busy for her at work, meaning there is a decent chance she will have to work four consecutive nights again. Hopefully she can find a way to give up one of those shifts and split the week up a bit.
Not having Jessica at home all week means I’m on full-on Dad duty. Making their meals, doing baths, brushing teeth, all that fun stuff. Elise doesn’t seem to notice the difference but every so often Ava will make comments about how Mommy does things, and of course I feel bad that I may not be meeting her expectations, but I’m doing my best. I also feel like she likes to test me at times, just to see how I’ll respond. There have been a few occasions where she refuses to listen and I get a little short tempered, but overall the three of us have been doing pretty well. In general Ava is content to do her own thing for much of the evening, while Elise just wants to be with me, regardless of what I’m doing.
Tonight we were all pretty tired, and Elise didn’t seem to be feeling very well, so we all just stayed up in the guest bedroom and relaxed. Ava was keeping busy playing with her toys and watching shows, while Elise spent most of the time curled up in my arms asleep as I continued reading “Life” by Keith Richards. More often than not I’ve got some sporting event on TV downstairs, so it was nice to spend this evening with the girls ‘in their environment’.
I’ve got a busy week coming up next week at work, including two presentations I’ll be giving to a room full of software engineers. One will be on CSS and CSS Preprocessors, and the other will be on creating single-page web applications using JavaScript MVC frameworks and JavaScript template frameworks. I’m giving these details not because I expect anyone reading this to have any idea of what I’m talking about, but because someday I will come back and read this post and its fun for me to look back and reminisce on what I was doing at certain points in my career. I’m generally not a big fan of public speaking, especially when the subject matter is so technical and I’m delivering it to a large group of very smart people, but strangely enough I’m not the least bit nervous about it. I think I’ve finally gotten to a point where I have enough self confidence in my knowledge to consider myself an expert in a certain subject matter, and therefore am totally qualified to do this sort of thing. Although I may still suffer at least somewhat from the ‘imposture syndrome’, I can confidently say that it continuously affects me less and less.
Not only will there be about 40 software engineers in the room for me to present to, but they will also be filming the presentations and broadcasting them to various scattered Amazon offices, both domestic and abroad. No pressure, right? On top of that, I think I may be the only person that is doing more than one presentation. The CSS presentation goes for 30 minutes, and the JavaScript one goes for an hour, so I’ve got a lot to talk about. These are the kinds of things I need to be doing though, in order to get to the next level, so I’m all for it.
I’ve had a couple weeks to process all the feedback I received on why I didn’t get promoted, and although it felt like a punch in the gut, I’m doing my best to take the high road by accepting their feedback and doing everything I can to mitigate their concerns, all of which are extremely technical. The problem that I’ve had to come to terms with is that I work in an organization consisting of about 600 people, yet I am the only true web developer. My organization is very much focused on software engineers, and therefore it’s impossible for them not to evaluate me as a software engineer as well. There simply isn’t a solid set of criteria for them to evaluate me as a web developer, nor is there a higher level web developer present in our organization who can evaluate me. I raised this as a concern with my manager today during our weekly 1:1 meeting and he completely understood where I was coming from. Ultimately we have a plan for moving forward and as long as I stick to that plan I have no doubts that I’ll make the cut 6 months from now, which is when I will be re-evaluated.
In order to make sure that I don’t get passed up for promotion again, I’ve already started dedicating a significant portion of my free time towards working on the software engineering concepts that were listed in my feedback. Unfortunately this means that something else has to slip, as there are only so many hours in the day. Obviously I’m not going to sacrifice my time with my family, especially since we get so little of it with all four of us present (soon to be five…), so it basically came down to either taking a break from playing guitar, or taking a break from studying German. I chose the latter. Per Jessica’s encouragement, I’ve decided that playing music is such a great outlet and stress reliever that it would be silly for me to stop. I’m enjoying it so much, particularly because I’ve already sacrificed it once recently in order to make time for school. The whole time I was in school I was saying I couldn’t wait to finish so I could start playing my guitar again, so I’m not about to stop now that I have a new set of curriculum on my hands.
Taking a break from studying German really sucks, but I don’t have any other choice. Obviously it will be there waiting for me whenever I’m ready to get back to it, but I’m bummed because I was making a ton of progress and I hate the idea of starting over again down the road. I’ve even stopped going to Jiu Jitsu because I simply can’t make time for it during my daily work schedule, and I don’t have time for it in the evenings due to my family duties and studies. While I’ve never minded being busy, and maybe you could even say have thrived on it, it can be tough at times to feel like you’re constantly behind the 8-ball with more to do than you have time for.
Luckily we’ve got a nice vacation to look forward to that is only two weeks away. It’s actually exactly two weeks away, and I can’t wait! We’ll be heading down to Vegas to celebrate my Mom’s birthday, as well as visit with family and friends. The weather is going to be a nice break from the crap we’ve been dealing with here lately, and it’s going to be so nice to just get a little time away from it all. Not only am I glad that my Mom will be getting plenty of time with her granddaughters, but I’m glad that it will be in her own home. Elise has never been to her house and Ava hasn’t been there since before we moved back to Seattle. Plus this will give Jessica a full week off work, so I’m sure it will be good for everyone.
Once we get back from Vegas we’ll need to start preparing for Ava’s 3rd birthday party. Her birthday in on a Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, so we’re throwing her party the Saturday before. Amy and Tom will be coming up from Colorado, and sticking around for Thanksgiving at our house. Rick and Chris will be coming into town on the evening of Ava’s birthday so they can also spend Thanksgiving with us. We also have my sister Dana and her husband Brad coming over, plus Butch and Carol, meaning there will be 10 adults and 2 kids. It’s going to be a full house but it should be a lot of fun; we’re definitely looking forward to it.
It’s hard to believe Ava is already going to be turning three, but then again it’s also really hard to believe that we’re getting close to having our third child. I don’t think either of us ever could have guessed that we would have experienced so much in our first five years of marriage, but obviously we wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. Here’s a few recent pics of the girls; they’re growing up fast.
Wednesday at 1:00 3 of my co-workers and I flew from Seattle to Dallas, Texas so we could spend all day Thursday visiting a couple new fulfillment centers in the Dallas – Fort Worth area. This was my first time visiting the great state of Texas and it ended up being a lot of fun. As with any work trip, there isn’t much time for having fun because you have so much on your agenda, but we had a really good group and made the most of our short time there.
I had been wanting to check out Gas Monkey Bar ‘n Grill on this trip, and since it was only 20 minutes from the airport, everyone else was fine with it. Generally the hardest part of eating as a group is picking the place, so they were more than happy to follow my lead. I’ve mentioned this before, but in case you don’t know what I’m referring to, the restaurant is owned by the owner of Gas Monkey Garage, which is the focal point of a TV show on the Discovery Channel called ‘Fast n Loud’. It’s one of my favorite shows and based on the success of the show, the owners decided to open a restaurant, which is a really cool place with an outdoor bar, outdoor stage, huge indoor area with a stage, and of course a shopping area where you can buy all kinds of shirts and other Gas Monkey apparel.
There was some confusion on my part as to whether the location we were visiting was the main location, or just some knock-off near the airport. As it turned out there is only one Gas Monkey Bar ‘n Grill, and that’s exactly where we were. I recognized it from the show as soon as we arrived. The first thing you see when getting there is the long line of Harley’s parked out front. This wasn’t surprising, however seeing a Ferrari and a Bentley next to them was a bit unexpected. I had to remind myself that, like Seattle, Dallas is a very wealthy city, but unlike Seattle, Dallas is quite famous for flaunting that wealth, which is something that quickly became apparent to me during our visit.
I had promised a co-worker of mine that I would get him a t-shirt from the restaurant if we ended up going there, so I stayed true to my word and, after finding a table near the outside bar, I headed in to do some shopping. I ended up getting him and myself the same shirt, which is the one I constantly notice on the TV show. One of my co-workers that was there on the trip with us ended up getting her husband a shirt as well. She had never heard of the restaurant, or the TV show, but really liked the style of the place and confided in me that she is secretly and subtly trying to replace his entire wardrobe.
We ended up choosing to sit outside because it was packed inside and we would have had to wait 45 minutes for a table. It was fine though, as it was still quite warm out, plus there was a Johnny Cash tribute band playing on the outside stage. The food was good, the service was friendly, the atmosphere was exactly what I was hoping for, and all in all I left there having had exactly the type of experience I was hoping for. Nice way to start the trip!
I made a Facebook post on Tuesday night saying I was heading to Dallas for a work trip the following day and several people mentioned that I should ‘look out’ for the ebola virus, which had just been confirmed there. This was the first time a confirmed case of ebola had ever made its way into the U.S. and people were freaking out. The news channels were having a field day and there were helicopters circling the hospital where the infected person was staying 24/7. Even some of our co-workers in Seattle emailed us to ‘be careful’ while down there, as if there is something you can do to avoid it. Obviously everything turned out to be fine but it added a little drama to our excursion.
Having spent the vast majority of my life in the Pacific Northwest, I’m quite used to the attitudes and personalities associated with that area. I certainly don’t mean that in a bad way; it is what it is, but its easy to see when you go somewhere like Texas, how different the people actually are. I’ve heard people from different parts of the country say that the Pacific Northwest is very standoffish and passive aggressive. My experience in Texas made those sentiments feel pretty true. I quickly noticed how outgoing and friendly the people were there. Just based on the general way that strangers address you in various public places made me realize how different it actually was, and you know what, I liked it. I don’t mind talking to strangers and I like being friendly with people, so even though my appearance (Vans sneakers, sleeve tattoos) may not have been very ‘Texas’, my personality seemed to fit right in.
After several public encounters with these overly friendly Texans, I took to Facebook to mention my initial observations of Texas, which is that it was very hot and muggy, the people were quite friendly, and that I liked it there. It was a lighthearted comment that I didn’t expect much response to, but of course one of my Seattle ‘friends’ had to make a prototypical pretentious Seattle-like comment about how if you’re okay with being anti Women’s rights, anti voting rights, anti minority rights, anti health care for the poor, blah blah blah, then yeah Texas is great. I wanted to respond, but I knew that doing so would force me to break my number one rule with social media, which is that if you don’t have something positive to say, don’t say anything at all. His comment angered me because it felt like he was in some way insinuating that I was okay with everything he listed, and then of course several other Seattleites ‘liked’ his comment. The whole thing annoyed me and I came away from it feeling a sense of responsibility for making the mistake of saying something that could be in any way attacked or disagreed with. Even though my comment was lighthearted and positive in nature, it was no surprise that somebody was able to find a negative angle to poke at it. I guess the lesson here is to stick to posts consisting of family photos and updates. After all, no one can disagree with the adorableness of our little ones.
The actual work portion of the trip went quite well, and I enjoyed getting to observe these new state-of-the-art fulfillment centers. By far the greatest satisfaction for me came when I got to witness hundreds of people in these massive (and impressive) facilities doing their jobs on software that I helped create. It’s not very often that I get to see my work ‘in action’ in a true production environment, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride. Part of that comes from the fact that I’m responsible for the visual layer of the software, which is the part that the associates are interacting with. Although I have nothing to do with the business logic or back-end of the system, I am solely responsible for coding the user interfaces that the associates see when packing orders, so I can very closely relate with everything they see on screen. I ended up spending an hour or so packing real orders with the software I helped create, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. You’d be surprised how hard it is. There are so many different sizes of boxes, different types of tape, etc. I often found myself gawking at the various products people were ordering, and in turn my packing ‘rate’ was probably unacceptable. It was obvious that I was the least experienced person on the line but the girl next to me was happy to point me in the right direction when I got lost. At the end of my session my manager asked me if anything needed to be improved in the software and my response was that the software was just fine, but that the packer (which was me) definitely needed some work.
As we left our final fulfillment center and got into the rental car, a huge thunderstorm rolled in and started dumping on us. When you combine this with being in an unknown area, the result is a rather entertaining and memorable journey back to the airport. We had plenty of time to spare and found a great restaurant on Yelp that we wanted to have dinner at. I had seen a place with the same name on the street earlier that day, so I thought that’s where the map was taking us to, but as it turned out it was navigating us to the same restaurant within the DFW airport. We quickly found ourselves driving through the airport, which is as big as Disney World, trying to find a restaurant within one of the terminals. Once we figured this out I felt a bit silly, and the rest of the group had a good laugh at my expense, but we eventually made it there and ended up having a nice meal before boarding the plane to head home.
The 4 hour flight between Seattle and Dallas is the longest flight I’ve been on in years. All of my flying in the past decade has been to either Las Vegas, San Diego, or Denver, so being on a plane for that long is a bit foreign to me. It was fine though, and gave me plenty of time to finish reading (for the 2nd time) Eric Clapton’s autobiography. I love that book so much, and since I’ve been so into playing guitar lately I felt like I needed to hear his story once again. Next up is the autobiography of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting stories in that one as well. As mentioned in a previous post, I just can’t bring myself to read fiction lately, so reading the life stories of various rock stars has become my reading material of choice.
Having a trip like that breaks the week up nicely, meaning that by the time I got back into the office it was already Friday. Unfortunately the week didn’t end on a good note, as I received the news yesterday that I had been turned down for the promotion that my manager had submitted me for. We talked for quite a while and the general response I received was that I came very close to getting it, and that from a leadership standpoint, as well as a user interfaces coding standpoint, I was doing excellent and was already there. The one part I came up short in was related strictly to software engineering, which is something that I’ve been focusing on heavily but still have room to grow in. We put together a plan for how to improve on the 3 areas referenced in my feedback, and we’re both very confident that 6 months from now, when promotions are re-considered, I will have done enough to make it to the next level. Ever since I started working there everyone has made a point to tell me that getting a promotion at Amazon is extremely difficult. They simply do not promote people unless you are already doing everything a person of the next level would be doing, meaning that by the time you get promoted you have already been working in that role for some time and the promotion is just a form of recognition. I know I’m really close, and obviously I wasn’t thrilled to hear that I hadn’t made it, but I had to remind myself that 3 years ago I was a professional bartender, and today I’m being considered for a mid-level engineering role at the largest and most trusted e-commerce company in the world. When I look at it from this perspective I have nothing to be ashamed about. I’ll get there soon enough and at least now I know exactly what I need to focus on, plus I have a manager that is dedicated to getting me there.
When I write posts on here, I always try to keep in mind that the most important part about this website is to share our life experiences with our children, and this experience I had yesterday is a prime example of the kind of lesson that I want them to learn. Even though things have been going incredibly well for me over the last 3 years, there are still going to be setbacks. That’s just part of life. The important part is how you deal with those setbacks. The easy thing to do would be to get frustrated, think that their evaluation was incorrect, and start thinking about looking for a new job, but that would be the wrong approach to take, as well as the easy way out. The right thing to do is accept the fact that you are not perfect, embrace the feedback you’ve been given, and follow a plan to improve in the appropriate areas. Keeping a positive attitude throughout something like this is most important, so that’s what I’m doing. The truth is I didn’t expect to get this promotion, but going through the process, regardless of the outcome, will make me a better web developer and a better leader. I have no doubt that I’ll make it to the next level very soon, but learning how to deal with setbacks and shortcomings is the ultimate lesson here. The biggest bummer for me was that Jessica has already given me ‘permission’ to purchase a new guitar once I get promoted, but I guess that’s going to have to wait until next year. Oh well, just gives me more time to obsess over it and regularly change my mind about what I want.
In more important family news, Jessica is doing well with her pregnancy with Enzo. It’s noticeable that she is carrying Enzo lower than she carried either of the girls, and I have to remind myself to enjoy this sight because I’m never going to see it again. Elise has become quite the walker and talker lately. It seems that her favorite word is ‘Ava’, and it really reminds me of when Ava was learning to speak and couldn’t stop saying the word ‘Apple’. Although Elise hasn’t come close to reaching the level of repetition that Ava once had, I’m sure its just around the corner.
Not a lot going on this weekend. We’re doing a family trip to Costco later today, then Jessica will be working tonight. Even though I was only gone two days it felt much longer, so I’m excited to be home tonight playing with my girls. Tomorrow will probably just consist of watching football and relaxing with the family. Being away, even for the shortest of trips, makes me think long and hard about how lucky I am to have what I have. It’s too easy to dwell on the negatives in life, but ultimately I’m in a place I could have never expected with a family I barely deserve. For that, I am eternally grateful.
As expected, it’s been a great weekend. Last night, Jessica and I went out for a date night in Seattle while my sister Dana and her best friend Michelle stayed at our house with the girls. We had dinner at El Gaucho, which was excellent, and after filling ourselves to the point of barely being able to walk out, we headed to a movie theater to see ‘The Drop’, which we both enjoyed very much. Just getting out for a night on the town is a special occasion for us these days so we’re very appreciative of Dana and Michelle for allowing us to do so. I specifically didn’t eat all day in anticipation of the fancy meal that was awaiting us, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Wicked Shrimp, Oysters Rockefeller, salads, filet mignon, mushrooms, spinach, hash browns, and bread pudding were all on the docket and we loved every bite.
As much fun as light night was, however, today was even more special. We were paid a visit by my Uncle Jim, Aunt Brenda, their daughter Kristy, and Kristy’s daughter Madi. Getting to spend time with them is always a nice treat. They were so kind to bring us new toys for the girls to play with, and fresh corn from the farmer’s market that I’m looking forward to preparing. I’ve always been really close with Jim, Brenda, and Kristy throughout my life, so getting to see all of our little ones playing together is the best.
We knew Madi would be looking forward to playing with the girls, so seeing them all have so much fun together is great. Madi loves to hold Elise, and even though Elise is eager to show off her newfound walking skills, she’s still quite content to be held at just about any time. We hung out talking, watching the girls play, watching football, and eating lunch. After about 3 hours of visiting the girls were getting tired and cranky so we had to call it a day and put them down for a nap, but it really was a great time the we hope to have again sometime soon. Next time we’ll be more than happy to drive down south to visit them, and I’m especially excited to see Kristy’s new house, which is less than a minute’s drive from her parent’s place.
As soon as they left the girls both went down for a nap, leaving Jessica and I a little time to relax ourselves and enjoy the remainder of the weekend. As mentioned in my last post, I’ll be traveling to Dallas for work this week, and even though I’ll only be gone one night, I still never like being away from Jessica and the girls. That said I’m lucky that this is the first (and probably only) time this year that I’ve had to do any traveling for work. The same can’t be said for most of the other members of my team, but my manager completely understands my family situation and therefore has gone out of his way to allow me to stay home as much as possible.
Tomorrow I’m going to make a pitch at work for an idea I have about writing a JavaScript library to accomplish various tasks like localization, hotkey registration, metrics collecting, and more, that various teams throughout our organization are all handling differently on their own. One of the key differences between a WDE 1 (my current role) and a WDE 2 (the role I’m trying to get promoted to) is that a WDE 1 has a positive impact on their own team, while a WDE 2 has a positive impact on teams other than their own. By creating this library that I have in mind, and getting other teams to adopt it, I will be impacting many teams and promoting standardization throughout the organization. This is exactly the type of leadership my manager wants to see so I don’t expect anyone to prevent me from executing my plan.
No plans for next weekend as of yet, just looking forward to getting through a busy couple of days in Texas and getting back home to my girls. Jessica is now 22 weeks into her pregnancy with Enzo, meaning she has crossed the half-way point. His due date has moved up from February 5th to February 1st, so we’ll see how that turns out. Ava was born nearly two weeks early and Elise was born on her actual due date. Only time will tell. Below are a few photos from today’s visit with Jim, Brenda, Kristy, and Madi. Thanks again to each of them for such a nice day, it was certainly a pleasure on our end.
Last night we sold our Dodge Durango to a nice couple from Marysville. I was starting to get a little worried because we weren’t getting much interest on it, and as with any car purchase or sale you never end up getting exactly what you want, but in the end things worked out pretty well. When the cash is on the table staring you in the face it’s pretty hard to let the deal fall apart over a few hundred bucks. I’m just glad to have it over with so we can focus on more important things like getting things ready for when Enzo arrives. At least now I can start parking my car in our driveway rather than the cul-de-sac.
Next up for sale is my motorcycle, although this is the wrong time of year to be selling a bike in Seattle so chances are I’ll be waiting until Spring to unload it. Every time I mention that I’m selling my bike people seem to automatically assume that Jessica is forcing me to do it, but nothing could be further from the truth. She was actually the most surprised person of anyone when I told her I had decided to let it go. My position on it is simple: all I use it for is commuting back and forth to work and I’m not getting any fun out of it. Obviously with young kids around I need to make it a point to be as safe as possible, and the thought of anything happening to me combined with the effect that would have on my family is just too much to bare. Although I love riding my motorcycle, it doesn’t even come close to the love I have for my family, so for now its time to move on. I have no doubt I’ll own another motorcycle sometime in the future, but not for now.
We’ve got a really exciting weekend to look forward to. Saturday night, thanks to my sister Dana and her best friend Michelle offering to babysit, Jessica and I will be going out to dinner and a movie. El Gaucho basically owes me a dinner for making their football pool website so we’re going to take advantage of that and have a fun night out. We don’t get to do things like this very often so we’re really looking forward to it. Then on Sunday we’ve got Jim, Brenda, Kristy, and Madi coming over for a visit. We always love getting to spend time with them, and seeing Madi play with the girls is a treat in and of itself. Considering that this is the Seahawks’ by-week, the timing is perfect. Looking forward to writing all about it sometime next week.
Speaking of the Seahawks, we attended our first neighborhood party this past Sunday to watch the Hawks face the Denver Broncos in a Superbowl 48 rematch. We’ve become good friends with our next-door neighbors Jim and Cara, so we were excited to go over there for the game and get to hang out with everyone. As expected we had a great time and enjoyed getting to know some of our other neighbors that we hadn’t spent much time with before that. The kids were all great and we came out of it planning to host a party of our own with the neighbors sometime soon.
Although I haven’t had to do any traveling for work this year, I’ll be making a trip to Dallas next week to visit a couple fulfillment centers and take note of how we use the Kiva robots. I’m going to be working on software related to Kiva robots next year so getting some familiarity with them is important. I’ve never been to the state of Texas before, and although we’re only there for one night, I’m sure we’ll make the best of it. I’m a big fan of the TV show ‘Fast ‘n Loud’ so I’m hoping to have dinner Wednesday night at the Gas Monkey Bar ‘n Grill, which is owned by Richard Rawlings, who also owns Gas Monkey Garage – the focal point of the TV show. The restaurant is very close to the airport so hopefully I can convince my co-workers to check it out.
Not much else going on right now. Looks like we’ve got some family coming out to visit for Thanksgiving, which is also Ava’s birthday week, so that should be great. We’re still studying German daily and really enjoying it. Hopefully all the fun stuff we’ve got going on this weekend will give me plenty to write about next week. For now I need to attend to a couple of hungry little girls. Au revoir!
Monday afternoon at 4:00, while Ava was still in daycare, I met Jessica and Elise at a doctor’s office near our house for arguably the most important day of the pregnancy other than the day of delivery: the ultrasound appointment where we learn the baby’s gender. We’ve been looking forward to this day for quite a while and, as expected, it turned out to be quite exciting. As I’ve been saying all along, all I’m hoping for is a healthy baby and a healthy wife, and so far we are right on track with both of those requirements. Although Jessica is still dealing with some pregnancy-induced sickness, she has shown some improvement over the past couple weeks, and the baby is right on track.
I was running a bit late due to traffic but arrived just in time for the big news, which is when they announce the baby’s gender. The technician’s exact words were “I think it’s a boy.” After a long pause I asked her how sure she was about that announcement, and she said “Well, I never tell anyone that I’m 100% sure, but let me take a closer look.” Upon further inspection she said she was quite sure it’s a boy, and proceeded to point out his parts, which was good enough for us. I think I was slightly in shock because I didn’t say a word for several minutes. Of course Jessica cried, which is par for the course in this type of scenario, but I just stood there holding Elise and took it all in.
I didn’t want to say anything publicly until we found out what we were having, but I had a dream about 3 weeks ago that we were having a boy. I never had a dream like this with either of our first two pregnancies, but the dream I had was so vivid and clear that I felt nearly positive from the moment I woke up the following morning that we were having a boy. Obviously I wouldn’t have been the least bit upset to have another girl, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely excited about having a son. Growing up, family members on my Dad’s side always told me that if I didn’t have a son, the family name would end with me. Overall I think the Pellegrini name, which is the most common name in Italy, will be fine regardless of the outcome of this pregnancy, but I’m thrilled to keep our little branch growing on for future generations.
Now that we know the sex of the baby we can move onto his name, which has been decided since before Ava was born. Before I get to the name, however, I need to share a couple of stories from my youth, which will make the reasoning behind the name much clearer. When my Mom was pregnant with me they didn’t have the kind of technology they have now, meaning they didn’t know whether they were having a boy or a girl. My Mom knew though. She knew in her heart and in her gut that she was having a boy, and she wanted to give him a really cool and unique name. She was basically settled on naming me either Giovani or Giancarlo, but my Dad, who was much older than her and from a different generation, had other ideas. Both of my Dad’s parents were born in Italy, and they both made that long journey across the Atlantic ocean to the United States in search of a better life. They both passed through Ellis Island in New York and both ended up in Aberdeen, WA. At that time, having an ethnic sounding name meant that you would often experience disadvantages in America, so it was a common practice for families just arriving in America to change their name to something more ‘American sounding.’
Based on that logic, and the realities of life during my Dad’s youth, which was the Prohibition era, he vetoed my Mom’s ideas of naming me Giovani or Giancarlo. So, as cool as it would have been to have a name like that, I understand and respect his reasoning behind that decision. Ultimately he didn’t want his son to face any disadvantages in life due to his ethnicity. What he didn’t realize is that in this day and age those types of disadvantages are all but extinct, but there was no way he could have known that and I don’t blame him one bit. My paternal Grandfather’s name was Modesto, but in America everyone called him Mike; because of this they decided to give my Dad the middle name of Michael. In order to keep that name alive, they decided to name me Michael as well, and to this day that’s why I go by Michael instead of Mike.
Here’s the other story, albeit a bit more concise: when I was a child, my Dad always used to tell me “If you ever have a son, don’t try to honor me by naming him Elmer. Don’t make him go through life with a name like that.” To hear the story about why he was given the name Elmer, read this post. I always promised him that I would honor his wishes, and I’m certainly not going to back out on my promise now, but he never made me promise not to give my son the same initials (‘EMP’) as him, so that is exactly what we intend to do.
When Jessica was pregnant with Ava, before we knew whether we were having a boy or girl, we spent a lot of time thinking about names. Jessica came up with the name Ava Simone Pellegrini, partly because it would mean that she would have the same initials (‘ASP’) that her Mom had when she was born. I liked the name and gave it a thumbs up. For a boy’s name, Jessica said she liked the name Enzo, and immediately I thought about the story of my Mom wanting to give me an Italian first name, but my Dad saying no. I also liked it because it started with the letter E, just like my Dad. Giving him Michael as a middle name also made perfect sense because it kept the family name alive for another generation, and it gives him the same initials as my Dad, all without breaking my promise not to name him Elmer. From that moment on Jessica and I agreed that if we ever had a son, his name would be Enzo Michael Pellegrini.
Not to get too sentimental, but something as simple as this means a lot to me because it keeps my Dad’s memory alive. For my own selfish reasons I would love to have him back so that I could spend time with him, even if just for one day, but nothing would be better than to see him with all of his grandchildren. He only got to meet Dana’s son Kallan, his first grandchild, and the image of him holding Kallan and talking to him is something that will forever be etched in my mind. He died a month later, and part of me thinks he held on just long enough to be able to hold his first grandson in his arms and tell him he loves him. I know nothing would make him happier than to see all the beautiful children Lora, Dana and I have had in the years since his passing, and I’m so glad that one of them will be carrying on the ‘EMP’ torch. Guess I know who will be receiving all of his various ‘EMP’ engraved lighters, money clips, and other memorabilia.
With a name like Enzo Pellegrini it seems like there are only two possible professions: race car driver, or soccer player. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. In all honesty, we weren’t planning on having a third child. We couldn’t have been happier or more in love with Ava and Elise, and our plan was to quit while we were ahead, but that’s not exactly how life works. Looking at our situation now I have to believe that having a third child, and a first son, was meant to be. After all, my Dad had two girls and then a boy, so why not me as well?
We were thrilled to pass along the good news to the entire family, and they all seemed equally as thrilled to receive it. I’m sure the Grandma’s are already out shopping for little boy’s clothing. Obviously we’re not home free yet; there’s still that little delivery part to get through, as well as about 4 more months of pregnancy for Jessica to endure, but as far as I’m concerned February can’t come soon enough. Did I mention my Dad was born in February? I keep wondering when this string of luck and good fortune for our family is going to wear off, but as it stands we couldn’t be in a better place. We have two little girls that we love more than life itself, and can’t wait to extend that love to our baby boy Enzo.
In the wake of my Aunt Lisa’s passing last weekend, I felt like making a trip to Las Vegas this week was the best thing to do. I wanted to help out in any way I could, and getting some quality time in with my Mom and uncles seemed like a good idea. Although the purpose behind my trip was grim, I knew that each of us would make the best of it, and as expected the trip ended up being very enjoyable.
I flew into town on Tuesday evening and after being picked up by my Mom at the airport, we stopped by Lisa’s place to check on my Uncle Terry, who has been staying there all week. We then quickly stopped by Bob’s place, which is in the same neighborhood, before heading out to dinner. After having an excellent meal at a Mexican restaurant, and a good talk about Lisa, we headed home to get to bed early. We knew Wednesday would be a long day and wanted to be as ready as possible.
Wednesday was the hardest day of the trip. Denny came over to ride with my Mom and I, then we met Bob, Sandy, and Terry at Bob’s place and all of us headed over to the funeral home for a viewing. Since Lisa didn’t know anybody in Las Vegas, it didn’t make sense to have a formal funeral for her, but it was important to us that we all assemble and say our final goodbyes. Obviously this is a tough thing to experience, and although I was sad to say my own goodbyes, seeing my Mom and uncles say theirs was, for me, the toughest part. I have plenty of good memories with Lisa but they pail in comparison to all those collectively shared by her siblings. It’s just really hard to see people you love so much dealing with all this emotional pain, but there is nowhere else I would have rather been, and I know it meant a lot to them that I was there.
After the viewing Mom, Denny, Terry, and I went out for lunch. We shared stories and got caught up, which turned out to be a lot of fun. This was the first time I’d seen Terry in a very long time, and I hadn’t seen Denny in a while as well, so it was nice to catch up. After lunch we headed back to Bob’s place so Terry and I could help him install a window in his home. With the addition of Lisa’s bird Charlie, he now has two birds, and he decided that a window in their area would be good for them. Although neither Bob or I is a trained carpenter, Terry actually is, so getting to work on it as a group turned out to be a great experience. As with all home carpentry projects, it wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the hardware store, but I didn’t mind. Getting to hang out with my uncles was a rare treat that I wanted to take full advantage of.
Later that night Bob, Terry, and I went out to the Luxor casino to play in a poker tournament. I decided I’d allow myself one night out on the strip while I was in town, and it ended up being a good one. Terry doesn’t play poker so he decided to stick to the slot machines, which turned out to be a good idea. Although neither Bob or I ended up in the money in the poker tournament, Terry was able to turn a $20 bill into $250 at the machines. After taking Bob home Terry and I decided to hang out a bit more and get something to eat. We walked around the strip for a while and talked about all sorts of things. Since I haven’t been able to spend much time with Terry throughout my life, I had lots of questions for him.
As the night went on I asked Terry a ton of questions about his life. One look at him tells you that he is a pretty tough dude, but I’ve always known that there was a lot more to him than meets the eye. I was worried that all of my questions would annoy him, and I even told him to feel free to tell me to shut up at any point, but he was more than willing to share many of his life experiences with me, which I appreciated very much. It quickly became apparent to me that Terry is a really smart and talented guy. He’s got a great sense of humor and loves his family very much, so it was an honor for me to get to spend this time with him. It was certainly the most time we’ve ever spent together one-on-one, and I came away from it with a newfound respect for him, as well as a plan to regularly keep in touch.
After the long day on Wednesday, the rest of the trip was a piece of cake. Nothing but good times and some much needed work around the house. I started off on Thursday by cleaning my Mom’s minivan. The outside needed a little love, but the inside needed much more than that. She’s been using her Mazda minivan as a work vehicle for years and it had gotten pretty trashed over time. I must have spent at least an hour vacuuming it out and throwing stuff away. After that my Mom had a couple projects around the house that needed to get done. First I installed casters on the legs of a table she had recently refinished. She wanted to be able to roll it around and it was a super simple project for me to do.
Once that was finished I got down to the real work. Years ago my Mom replaced all the carpet on the main floor of her house with tile, however the laundry area (including the downstairs bathroom) had a different type of tile. The plan was to rip up this old tile and replace with a new tile that matched the rest of the downstairs. This seemed easy enough, but of course it turned out to be harder than expected. The problem was that there’s a layer of glue between the tile and the concrete, and although the tile comes up fairly easily, that layer of glue is extremely difficult to remove. Luckily my Mom has a Dremel power scraper that came in very handy, but it was still a ton of work. I had to disconnect the washer and dryer, which I knew how to do after moving into our new house, and move them out of the way so I could remove all the tile underneath them. After working for two days on it I was able to get about 90% of everything removed. I wanted to finish it off but my Mom forced me to quit at a certain point. I’m just glad to have been of some help to her around the house.
We had everyone over for dinner on Thursday night and Friday night, both of which turned out to be a lot of fun. Thursday night we had appetizers, grilled sausages, and salads, while watching the Ravens absolutely dismantle the Steelers. Then Friday night I made Chicken Picatta with pasta for everyone. We sat outside on my Mom’s back patio and had a great conversation about family, our favorite television shows, and our favorite books. I didn’t realize this but as it turns out, Terry is a big reader. After talking about some of his favorite books I decided that I need to get him a Kindle and fill it up with my entire book collection. That should keep him busy for a while.
Speaking of books, the only mistake I made on this trip was the book I chose to read at the airport and on the flight. Normally the vast majority of the books I read are related to web development, but I also really enjoy reading non-fiction, mainly because you learn so much when reading non-fiction. Autobiographies are easily my favorite genre of books, and due to all the time I’ve spent playing guitar recently, I’ve decided to re-read Eric Clapton’s autobiography, which is easily the best of one I’ve ever read. For this trip, however, I decided to switch things up a bit and read a novel called ‘Choke’ by Chuck Palahniuk. I’ve read a couple of his books in the past, including his most famous novel ‘Fight Club’, and really enjoyed them. Unfortunately this one was a complete dud and I quickly found myself cursing myself for reading fiction. I actually decided that my punishment for reading such a ridiculous story was to finish the book. The whole time I was reading it I was thinking about what a waste of time this was, and how I could be using that time to study something worthwhile. When I read, I want to learn something; I’m not into reading fictional stories and the idea of reading purely for entertainment just doesn’t jive with me. Anyway, I got through that stupid book on the flight home today and am looking forward to getting back to my usual type of reading material. Hopefully I’ll be starting the Clapton book tonight, and I’ve got a new programming book that I’m pretty excited to dig into as well.
Luckily while I was gone Jessica and the girls had some company. Joel and Melanie are out here visiting from Iowa for the week, and as always its great seeing them. They’ve been staying busy exploring the area, including an overnight camping and hiking session at Mount Rainier. Tonight they’re going out to dinner and tomorrow they’re going to the Mariners game. I’m glad they’re making the most out of their trip, but I’m also looking forward to spending some time with them before they leave on Tuesday morning.
This was the longest I’ve ever been away from my girls so I’m very glad to be home with them. Plus we’re only about 6 weeks away from going back to Vegas to celebrate my Mom’s birthday. Although this wasn’t the easiest of weeks, I’m so glad I got to spend an extended amount of time with my loved ones. Looking forward to a relaxing day at home tomorrow, then hitting it hard on Monday with a very busy week at work. Most importantly, we have Jessica’s doctor appointment on Monday evening. We’ll be doing an ultrasound that day and finding out the gender of our new baby! Obviously we’re very excited about that, so I can’t wait to share the news. Until then…
Me, Monkey, and Denny. I love that little dog so much!
Bob, Myself, and Terry after dinner on Thursday night
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but my Aunt Lisa passed away this morning at 1:30. Last weekend she was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery on her stomach, and she simply wasn’t able to recover from it. This whole ordeal happened so quickly that it’s pretty hard to even comprehend. She was only 55. Obviously I’m very sad to have lost her, but more than anything my heart goes out to my Mom, Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda, Uncle Bob and Sandy, and Uncle Terry.
Lisa didn’t have any children but she was a mother to her many pets. In my entire lifetime I’ve never seen someone more connected with animals than Aunt Lisa. When I was a child she worked as a horse trainer at the Longacres racetrack in South Seattle. Over the years she has cared for many dogs, cats and birds, and she loved them all more than you could imagine. She had such a presence with animals that you had to see in person to believe it. Not only did her own animals follow her every command, but so did other people’s pets. For example, my Mom used to have problems with her dogs running out of the house if the door was left open. However when Lisa came over, she had such command over those dogs that she could leave the front door wide open and the dogs wouldn’t budge. I asked her how she did it and she said that “they have to recognize you as the leader of their pack.” If you’ve ever watched the show ‘The Dog Whisperer’ she was exactly like that.
Lisa spent the past 20 years or so living in Yakima, which is in Eastern Washington. For the past 5 years she would make an annual trip to visit my Mom in Las Vegas. She had been wanting to move to Las Vegas for years in order to be close to my Mom, and even more so after Bob and Sandy moved there, but she had to wait until she could retire from her job at Safeway. Just over a month ago she finally made the move that she had been looking forward to for so long. She recently emailed me to wish me a happy birthday and said she was looking forward to seeing me and my family when we come down to visit on Halloween. I was very much looking forward to seeing her and introducing her to Elise. She met Ava once when Ava was very young so it would have been great to see two of them together again as well.
I have fond memories of Lisa babysitting me as a child, but more than anything I will cherish some of the recent phone conversations we’ve had over the past few years. Although we didn’t speak often, it wasn’t uncommon for our conversations to last an hour or more. Lisa was really smart and fun to talk to. In many ways she reminded me a lot of her Mom, who was my Nana. She was just so real and so easy to talk to. You could talk to Lisa about anything and expect to receive honest and valuable feedback. I don’t think she had the easiest life, but she was happy, she loved her animals, and she loved her family. She was my Mom’s only sister so the bond the two of them had was very special. Without question I feel fortunate to have had her in my life and, like many others in our family, I will miss her dearly.
With Lisa now gone my attention and focus needs to shift to providing love and support for her siblings. I’ve been having a lot of lengthy conversations with my Uncle Jim over the past week and I know that he’s doing okay. In order to provide some much needed emotional support for my Mom and Uncle Bob, I’m going to be flying down to Vegas on Tuesday evening and staying until Saturday morning. This will be the longest that I’ve ever been away from my own family, and that will be tough, but it’s the right thing to do. I’m so fortunate to have such an understanding and supportive wife as Jessica. Luckily Joel and Melanie will be coming into town right as I’m leaving, so at least Jessica won’t be alone the whole time with the girls.
It’s times like these that make you realize how much you love your family, and how important it is to not take anyone for granted. As we all know, people can be taken away from us with little to no notice, so it’s important to me that everyone knows how much I love and appreciate them. Although the cause of my upcoming trip is very sad, I’m going to make the best of it by spending some quality time with my Mom and Uncle Bob and trying to bring them some much needed joy. I wish I had a chance to say goodbye to my Aunt Lisa, but there is no question she knew I loved her, and I know how much she loved me. Rest in peace Aunt Lisa; you will forever be in our thoughts and our hearts.
Lisa enjoying the view during her visit to San Diego, 2011
