G&G Roberts meet their granddaughter

Basically, you've got four kinds of bloggers:

1. The kind that blog everyday with little, pointless drivel (not that the degree of drivel differs among blogs in general) that doesn't really do anything for anyone. Like liberals.
2. The bloggers who post weekly, allowing interesting events to build up and turn the events into something worth reading.
3. Those who post sporadically but with distinct flavor and excitement and those who frequent the blog anxiously await every opportunity to read and comment, even if there's nothing there - like college freshmen and dating.
4. Then there are those who post once in a blue moon, so rare that you almost forget they have a blog and when they do post it's a mile long and takes almost the month before the next post to finish first.

Then there's this blog: pointless drivel, sprinkled with excitement sporadically as there are posts, but often far too long and sit down and really read. And I'm not sure that's something to aspire to.
Anyway, Paula posted some pics of my parents' visit to see their granddaughter. It was a good time, though I worked intermittently throughout their stay (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) which prevented ever venturing too far from home base. But we did have some good times. They are so great; Sunday night, Paula started feeling sick and their flight was leaving at 6:15am, which meant they needed to be at the airport around 5am, which meant we needed to leave by 4:30am, which meant getting up even earlier. So Grandma and Grandpa gave us the bed and slept on the single and couch while taking care of Lydia so we could rest. Seriously, a pair of troopers. They were so helpful and fun, not to mention very much in love with their first granddaughter. And Lydia reciprocated that love with a ton of smiles for them.
I'm going to just post some pics (with pithy comments) and wrap it up.

I'm practicing how I'm going to answer the phone when boys start calling for my daughter.
(Is Lydia there? Yep. Can I talk to her? Nope. Wha... Click. Dad!!! What? Wrong number.)

Statements like "My kid is the cutest in the world" always garnish an eye-roll from me. Really - yours is the cutest? Have you seen every kid in the world? So I won't say that. Cuz it's annoying and I'm a hypocrite in enough other ways I don't need another on the list. Even so, this kid's pretty darn cute.

This is at the World of Coca-Cola, not the North Pole. The polar bear really confused Lydia, but I assured her if it was the North Pole we'd have brought a jacket for her.

Outside the church building with G&G Roberts. Don't really have any smart comments for this...

Ah, the cousins. Both were very cute and both were imitating the other - Juliana awake and alert, Lydia passed out and fast asleep. What a couple of jokers. Whenever the general public finds out how close they are in age, the general consensus is that they'll be best of friends. We'll see; I hope so, but all bets are off when girls become teens.

Stuff

I just noticed that it’s been over two weeks since I last posted. The weird thing isn’t the lack of posting – it’s that somehow the world continues to spin in spite of this. Is it possible that I’m not as influential as I think I am? Hmmm….

Since the world’s spinning, that mean time marches on and stuff’s happening. Since 90% of you who read me read Paula, you know we’ve purchased a house. Yep, I’ve just accrued a bunch of debt. And honestly, I don’t even care. Sure, I’ll probably care when something breaks and I can’t call maintenance (not that it’s done much in our apartment) but right now I’m just excited. It’s a pretty sweet house and I spent most of my day there Saturday prepping everything for paint, changing locks, killing fire ants and ripping out a nasty linoleum kitchen floor. I did some serious sweating, grunting and a little bleeding – so yeah, a good day. I’m starting to come in early for work so I can leave early and spend the evenings getting the place ready. It’s a wild ride, but exciting.

Lydia’s awesome. Still. She’s a big hit at church and other places, so that’s cool. I mean, I’m a big fan, but am also admittedly biased; having other people affirm my prideful ambitions is nice. But seriously, she’s a great kid. I’m sure it would be helpful if I posted some pictures. I’ll do that later.

What else….oh, upcoming events. Tomorrow I’m going to a Smashing Pumpkins concert. That’s right. Wild, eh? Well, my coworker and friend Jeff had a ticket and his wife doesn’t like the Pumpkins so I’m going for free. I’m not a huge fan, but it’s free and I know a couple songs from back in the day, so what the heck. I’m pretty convinced there are going to be a ton of crazies there, dressed in black and stuff. I’ll try to get some pics. You can all look forward to that.

Thursday night/Friday morning Grandma and Grandpa Roberts are flying into town to visit their granddaughter. That should be a lot of fun – I’m excited for them to see her and her them. From what I’ve heard, Grandpa can be quite the baby-monopolizer. Luckily there are only two of them or it could come to blows. That wouldn’t be good. But seriously, I don’t know what we’re going to do while they’re in town, but it will be nice to see them. Sometimes living a couple thousand miles away from your parents really stinks.

I’ve just re-read this post. It isn’t really that clever or informative. But it fills the space. Here’s a song from Finger Eleven. It’s called Paralyzer.

Shout Out: Double Feature

It’s been a while since one of my world-renowned Shout Outs has made the blog – nearly 7 months. It’s time for another. This is going to be a dual S.O. (that’s what they call the Shout Out on the street), which would make this post SO-SO…basically like all the rest of this blog, minus the uppercase.

First S.O. goes to a fella we like to call F-Rock or Frocker. Forrest, the last of the brothers before the break (aka Rachell) and probably the sib who’s received the least amount of love on this blog. Not because it doesn’t exist, but just because he was away serving the Lord in a little place call Brazil for a significant portion of Cyber Commorancy’s existence.

My first vivid memory of Forrest was when Mom brought him to the elementary school for “Show & Tell” in my kindergarten class shortly after his birth. We called him Daniel then and for the first little bit of his life because Forrest sounded too old for a baby; while I don’t remember when the change took place, it wasn’t late enough for him to avoid having his chops busted in elementary school with the phrase “Run Forrest, run!” (To this day my mom hates that movie for that reason.) If memory serves correctly, Forrest let someone have it with a shot to the face after one such teasing and as such it stopped.

So, Frocker, here’s my tribute to you. While we have been separated by time, space and hair density for a large part of our lives, it doesn’t change the fact I’m a big fan. To the bond only brothers can have, the soon-to-be Forrest Roberts family and of course your b-day 22 years ago.

Now if you don’t think this F-Rock is the greatest F-Rock ever, I will fight you. That’s no lie.

Who is the second S.O. to? I’ll answer your question with a question:

I can look down on the world while being rooted firmly in it;
You may find yourself riding me if you make the team but aren’t good.

(I’m sorry. We needed that in the form of a question. We’d have accepted “What is pine” or ‘Who is Pyne”.)
I’ve always been a fan of both Greg and Melissa – Melissa for her unassuming kindness and generosity, Greg for his Halo skillz (that’s right, with a ‘z’), uncanny resemblance to Dr. Jack Shepard and ability to grow facial hair seemingly on demand.

Recently Greg and Mel have been uber-generous with their time and efforts with Lydia’s arrival in our family. Every week they come to visit us – the first time was at the hospital and for the past two weeks they’ve come to our apartment with dinner; afterwards Melissa watches Lydia so Paula can sleep; Greg helps me play Halo3. Last night was a particularly impressive effort as they stayed until 1am. This is no small thing as they live 40+ miles away. As those who've had children know, having someone come and allow you rest is invaluable. Cuz if momma don’t get her sleep than momma ain’t happy and if momma ain’t happy…dang.

So, Pyne family, here’s to you – to The Big Chill weekend in Augusta, the gin incident at Carrabbas, being addicted to Lost and to friends who are always there when you need them.

Homeward bound

Hey friends! Greetings from the study/baby's room of our apartment. The little one is enjoying a delicious feast of...milk. So I got a little time to mention the going-ons of the family.

First, please note the links at the top of the left hand column of the blog (the right hand side if you're looking at the screen from behind it) as there are some links to some radio stations I've built on a little thing called Pandora. I blogged about it a while back. Anyway, if you are at work or at school or at home or the market (probably not the market;I just through that in there because saying 'the market' is sort of fun) you can come to my blog, click on one of the stations and automatically enjoy some tunes. My preferred station is Stroke 9 Radio; Breaking Benjamin is a bit aggressive; Jack Johnson is laid back; Phantom Planet is punk; Bother is...different.

Next up is a picture of Lydia. I was going to leave it to Paula to post pic's of our little girl on her page, but evidently she's too 'busy' with feeding and changing and bathing and cleaning and cooking and errands and regaining strength after childbirth...apparently this is 'time consuming' and 'requires a lot of time'. Also, Rachell left a comment demanding more pics of her niece and since I like my sister more than that boy from South Jordan does, I'm going to oblige her. Anyway, I think Lydia's still really cute. Her skin is adjusting to, well, air. This is causing her to breakout a little bit, but that doesn't phase me.

It still boggles my mind how little she is. I don't realize it because I hold her so close and have my face right next to her all the time that it seems she's bigger than she actually is. One of the reasons I'm including these two shots is because it reminds me how tiny she is. (you can click on the picture so you can see more of her and less of me. I'd suggest that). I mean, look at my hand in this first picture! it covers her whole body. Crazy. She's so precious to me that even after three short weeks of having her in our family I don't know what I'd do without her. It's mind-bottling, everything about it. Going to work is pretty much the worst and if it wouldn't ruin her sleeping habits I'd have her sleep on my chest all the time. Being a dad pretty much rocks.

Finally, I'm happy to report that we are going to be home owners! Sure enough. I think I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but we had bid on a bank-owned home and were outbid. We were surprised because there's some work that needs to be done and in today's market I thought we'd made a reasonable offer. Well, apparently the jokers who outbid us were all bark and no bite. Two Friday's ago our agent told us the contract had fallen through; we resubmitted our original offer and the back countered at just $2500 more than our offer. So we pulled the trigger and just got the contract today. After a home inspection we're off to the races. The lender we are going with said he can have this closed in 2 weeks, so just like that we'll be out of this apartment and into a house. We are excited to get out of this complex; our neighbors are new on a regular basis because the previous tenants find themselves evicted. So...we don't exactly associate with the creme de la creme of society.
It's hard to believe we're at this point. I was IM'ing the Nerf the other day and he said "Who would have thought two years ago when you were unemployed, single and driving the Buck that you'd have a job, be married with a kid and owning a home? At best I thought you'd be a single father in an apartment." He's always been a builder....but seriously, I appreciated the hilarity of that zinger. I laughed out loud and shared it with Paula. But there's some truth to my brother's pithy comment - life goes by really quick. And I have nothing profound to compliment that obvious statement. It is what it is. Enjoy the pics and descriptive captions...

Here's the front

What you seen when you walk in

From the kitchen. A 42" flat screen needs to go above the mantle

From the living room to the kitchen

The back yard and such.

Week in Review

I’ll tell you what – it’s been one of those weeks. In a good way. Nothing incredibly profound or extraordinary, like winning a million dollars or having all the Dems experience an enlightening and turn from their path to socialism, but good nonetheless.

First, and perhaps most importantly I finished the fight. Master Chief (Spartan 117) again defied fate and saved Earth and the universe from the sinister parasite Gravemind and the delude Covenant. It wasn't easy and there were casualties everywhere - like my sleep. But freedom isn't free. Nor is it won without sacrifice.
I’d like to thank those that made this possible. First my wife for allowing me to dabble in silly things like video games and loving me anyway; my well exercised thumbs for the nimbleness and cat-like reflexes on the analog controller; Microsoft, for their aggressive and dominating marketing that hooked me; Archie, Zach and Nathan for countless hours of mayhem; and my new partner in Xboxing, my daughter Lydia.

Second, the Cougars of BYU pulled off a road win. This is no little task, especially since BYU is located in Utah and the state was 0-11 in road games this year until last night. I didn’t realize that New Mexico was 4-0 going into the game and that it was their homecoming, so this win is a little more impressive than it normally would. I’ve determined that we’re just a young team and as such, prone to some nervous mistakes. That’s good news for the future. Lydia was especially excited with the win, as evidenced by her wide-eyed, floppy headed gaze into the heavens and the fact she wanted me to enjoy her pacifier for her.
Editor's Note: The awesome BYU onesie is from the Sucher family. In the words of my wife's forebearers - Muchos Gracias.

Next, the season premier of The Office was this week. Not only would this normally be awesome, but the fact it was an hour long episode was icing on an already amazing cake. Three more weeks of hour long episodes...need I say more?

Also, I got a notice from Equifax that my credit score went up and it changes the rate at which I’d get a mortgage. I don’t understand this whole credit score thing and after reading up multiple times on it, I don’t think anyone does. There’s no clear cut criterion for what makes your FICO score what it is; my speculation is that credit scores were created the same way the doctrine of modern day Christianity was at Nicene: some one in charge who knew nothing about credit got together a bunch of accountants and told them to come up with some number system, though none of them really agreed about the body, parts or passions of the score. But it was the best they could do.
The reason I say this is because I have 0 (zero) debt of any kind. None. I carry no balances on any of my credit cards. I have 1 (one) delinquency notice three years ago on a Kohl’s card I didn’t know I had, but it’s only a month over due. But people with car payments and student loans and such have a better score than I do. Doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, the reason this is good news is because the house we had made a bid on a couple months back and lost on is available again. The contract fell through the seller agent called our agent and told her even before the contract was terminated that she thought it would and we should be ready to offer again. So we did on Friday. Who knows – I could be a home owner soon. Weird and wild stuff. Married with a kid and owning a home. I feel so established. And grown up.

Good thing I have an Xbox to clearly illustrate I’m not.