thought i'd better get one last post of the year in...a lot has happened, and is happening since i last checked in here. the t-systems contract did get signed with deluxe, as expected, so i am now officially a t-systems employee. received my first paycheck from them yesterday, which was nice seeing as i haven't really lifted a finger for them yet.
there are three things i love about the holidays. i love the anticipation of them, i love them while they are here, and i love to see them go. the same could be said for relatives, bah-dah-boom! (just kidding :-)
christmas was outstanding this year. we did christmas day morning with allie's dad, brother's and family, and then hosted our first at our "new" place with my family. it sounds like this may turn into a tradition...we'll see how it goes with that.
anyway, it was nice having both of my sisters, & all the relatives, grand kids, and grandparents, together under one roof. a first under any circumstances. here is the digital documentation from said events --->.
i still look forward to enjoying the rest of my vacation, & have a few things left that i'd like to do before i head back to work.
have a happy new year!

definitely the last post for awhile, possibly 'til '04? for those who have asked, nothing happening on the job transition front. contract negotiations have stalled but it definitely will happen. it's just a question of ti-ime.
added a couple of pics from allie's birthday last week.
looking forward to my much anticipated, long awaited holiday vacation. peace on earth, over and out!

-skip

i had thought that it might be appropriate to give an overview or re-cap of this past year, similar to what many people like to include in their christmas cards. the difference: if you receive a christmas card in the mail with the "what we did last year" annual family newsletter, you feel some sense of obligation to read it, even though you may not care that 6 year old billy started soccer this year, or the family vacationed at yellowstone national park. your reading of the following paragraphs, is in direct contrast, voluntary only. if you have zero interest in topics, such as those i referred to above, please stop reading......now. otherwise, what follows is a fairly detailed summary of the price family activities for the year 2003. this does not by any means replace the standard christmas card you will no doubt receive if you are on our "nice" list. so, without further ado, from my journal archives, to you, the gentle reader, here goes:

january-

2. the biggie of the year, right off the bat! though he had his own ideas about how and when he would arrive, owen patrick price is born on january 2nd, checking in at 9 lbs, and 5. oz. i was nothing less than thrilled at the idea of having a son to go along with my 2 beautiful daughters. also, arguably the coolest birthdate ever, 01-02-03.

9. my wife and i celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary by taking the entire family to baker's square. nothing says "i love you and thank you for 10 wonderful years" like french silk pie. alaina will add that it was the first time that we went anywhere in our car as a family of five.

21. i dislocate my pinkie finger playing basketball at the Y. is this newsworthy? not sure about that, but it was extremely painful!!

27. i accept the volunteer position of webmaster for the chamber music minnesota organization. i will later discover that this job does not pay well.

february-

10. my parents vacation in arizona (ok, its a slow month!)

14. for valentine's day, we do basically nothing (see being married for 10 years above).

march-

2. owen is baptized

9. i turn 35 years old! retirement is only some 30 years away...

april-

4. me and my buddy lon go to the twins home opener, against toronto, which they lose. i then join him and his buddies for my first official acoustic jam session. it was way fun!

5. we go down to my sister's in rochestor to celebrate my nephew noah's first birthday.

24. dad's birthday

29. a somewhat rocky softball season starts.

may-

6. our oldest daughter alaina turns 6 years old!

18. my mom turns ??

30. we start our house-hunting quest in earnest.

june-

2. our youngest daughter noelle turns 4!

12. pending offer on the house we will eventually move into. also it's alaina's big dance recital night.

21-22. we pack like crazy and i store boxes in the garage from floor to ceiling. i also spend the weekend on home activities, preparing for eventual house-showings.

27. we sell our old house on continental, for asking price, after only a couple of days on the market. greeds sets in and i wonder if we under estimated it's worth. i finally realize that we are very lucky to have sold it so quickly and we make plans to move into our new home.

july-

4. we celebrate independence day at my folks in eagan, with all our many relatives. a good time was had by all.

5-31. we put the final plans in place to make the big move. we are pretty much living out of boxes and getting by with basic requirements for survival at this point.

august-

6-13. rather than take an official "vacation" this year, i take a week off to move into the new house. it went off without any major hitches.

14. i go back to work to rest!!

19. fall softball league starts.

26. me and my fellow IT techs spend the entire night combating the blaster virus. good times!

29. me and the family take our annual pilgrimage to the minnesota state fair.

september-

1. we celebrate labor day with our family at our new house. it was the first official "event" recorded at our new address.

2. school starts for alaina and noelle.

13. i get the toy i've always wanted for our family room. a surround-sound home theatre system. now we can play all our raffi and veggie-tales cd's at ear-splitting, wall-shaking sound levels!

19. a full grown wild turkey is seen strutting though our front yard. ok, we don't live in the inner-city, but it's not walnut grove either. kinda wierd.

23. some moron steals the hub caps off my car while parked in the lot at work. hope you enjoyed them as much as i did!

october-

21. after much consideration and planning, i re-design my website to it's current form.

25. i go to the vikes - giants game. this is significant because it notes the beginning of the end of a team that started the season 6-0.

27. my membership at the Y expires after we had been members for 3 years. i opt to get a cross-trainer for the home, which yes, i still use 3 times a week thank you.

31. halloween. alaina-witch, noelle-jungle cat, owen-pumpkin bib.

november-

6. i move my website host from angelfire\lycos to 1and1.com. or as i like to call it, my liberation from ads and pop-up banners day.

7. allie hosts first "bunco' party at our house. this is a game that only a bunch of chatty women would find interesting.

13. noelle has first ever pre-school program.

16. next major purchase: leather sofa for the family room. it took countless trips to many different furniture stores around town, but we finally got the deal done.

22. i get to go the the "wild" hockey game with my old boss, for free, which is the only way i can afford it ($65 ticket)


27. a mellow thanksgiving at our house with allie's family.

28. i begin internet christmas shopping and launch a major project to rip all of my holiday music to mp3's. a huge undertaking that i eventually will finish.

december-

3. i find out that deluxe is eliminating many of it's IT employees, including myself, but we are offered our current jobs with one of it's vendors, T-Systems. this is currently developing...

13. the wife and i blow off the annual christmas party based on our new philosophy called, "you can't do everything". we plan to make a better effort next year.

14. allison celebrated her 30-somethingth birthday (yes, I know how old she is)

this pretty much brings us up to date. of course the afore mentioned items aren't equally important or necessarily significant. it just gives you an idea of what happened this past year. the year really did seem to fly by! if you read my web journal regularly, there's no real surprises.

that said, this will probably be my last post for awhile as i will be looking forward to some time off over the next few weeks. i may make a post or two if anything major develops from the work front. in the meanwhile, have a merry christmas and a happy new year!

-skip

well we are starting to get more information from above re: the big employer transition. have meetings tomorrow pretty much all day with t-systems HR and also for orientation. it looks like this will go down pretty much as we were told it would. still some questions re: benefits and such but hopefully it will all work smoothly.
we got hammered with some serious snow over the past couple of days, so i guess i got my "whiten up" wish. unofficially i'll say 8" in skip's yard but that's just my best guess.
more later...

what a week last week! times they are a-changin'. anyway, had a meeting with the vice-president of distributed support services for t-systems last friday. it was sort of like an interview, all the typical interview questions, but without the added stress of actually having to compete with others for a job. last i heard, offers are being made this coming thursday. i'll report back more when i know. still lots of questions.
quite a bit on the social docket this week. the daughters christmas program, the wife's birthday, christmas party on saturday night, etc. 'tis the season! i feel fairly confident in the progress i've made with shopping. maybe another item or two to pick up. things are starting to arrive.
the east coast is getting pummled with a snow storm meanwhile things are quiet around here. hopefully we'll get a little more snow to whiten things up a bit.

BIG news on this end. at least from my current employment point of view. it appears as though as of december 15th, i will no longer be an employee of deluxe corporation. this is sort of sad in some ways because i've been employed by deluxe for almost 13 years (since april of 01 i think?). the good news is that i will be offered a position next week by one of deluxe's outsouce companys, t-systems. it's sort of a bitter-sweet thing because, although i'm glad to retain my employment, many of my co-worker were not as fortunate as a large chunk of IT positions were eliminated. suffice it to say that, in short, i'll be doing the same job, at the same place, with basically the same benefits and compensation. so all in all, i'm happy it's worked out the way it has. more later...

i realized i made no mention of thanksgiving on my previous post. my bad. we had a very nice thanksgiving, thanks for asking. it was rather low-key or as much so as could be expected with a 6 and a half, a four and a half, and an 11 monther. here are some pics that give a fairly accurate description of the days' events. note: the last image of noelle and alaina was a picture taken before the making of a wish and traditional pulling of the wishbone. let's just say that there was one happy, and one not.

i think i'm the only non-retail person in the world working today...drag! actually, it's not so bad. there's an opportunity to really get some things done with the building as empty as it is...notice i said "opportunity" :-)
i forgot to mention...i got to go to the mn wild hockey game last saturday, for free, which is the only way i can actually afford to go. $65 seats, 11 rows off the ice. they got schooled by detroit, but it's a fun experience anyway.
got a good jump on the holiday shopping. now just waiting for some stuff to arrive. the apparent theme this year is "downlpay" the gifts. it's been tried before. we'll see what happens this time.

back as promised from a couple of days off. managed to complete everything on my to-do list, so i was productive with my time.
starting to feel a little of the holiday stress creeping in. there's a lot to do, a lot going on, and lots of demands of my time. course i am not alone in this area, but this is my site, so it's all about me :-)
started my christmas shopping. not a lot of progress but it's a start. some day my dream is to be done by thanksgiving but that's not a reality this year.
i'm trying to burn my holiday mp3's to cd at the moment and it's frustrating because i've made about 4 shiny coasters so far. it seems like burning a cd should be pretty straight forward but for some reason, it's more like burn and hope for the best? it's not rocket surgeory but it seems like it sometimes. i have about 600 tunes ripped, between 3 & 4 gig so far.
one more day of work tomorrow and then another day off. yay!

interesting article on how to not get fired because of your blog. yes, i may take an occasional minute or 2 to post a blog while on the clock. similar to sending a personal email, which surely everyone else has occasionally done while at work. guilty as charged. it just makes more sense to do it here, quickly, with access to a high speed T-1 line, rather than dialing in (yes, i still dial in) and posting a "blog". if it ever becomes an issue, i'll post at home only which will no doubt detract from the number of times i will actually bother to post. 'nuff said.
i'm on a temporary high at the moment because i'm at the beginning of a looooong weekend (friday and monday off). don't look for any new posts until after that (see above paragraph). also, next week is a short week anyway due to thanksgiving. i do, however have to work friday, which is traditionally a slacker day anyway.
it will not all be fun and games this long weekend however. things to do this weekend:

- finish the last of the raking (snow coming saturday) and last trip to compost pile
- hang the out door christmas lights (snow coming saturday)
- oil change for taurus + 2 new air filters
- begin paint project in basement (optional but likely)
- misc. household chores
- continue to rip holiday discs to mp3's
- afix heating element coils to roof of porch to prevent ice-damning (damning? damming? damns?)
- other projects, which i have already documented on the fridge at home but cannot recall at this time

signing off until next time...

a fairly average weekend at the price's. it was hard on the checkbook however. after many fruitless trips to various furniture stores, we purchased a couch for our family room. it was nice to finally get something, but a downer when the reality set in that we had actually spent the money.
saw a wicked scary movie this past friday night called 28 days later. be warned if watching\listening with surround sound, you may come out of your skin during certain parts. fitful sleep was not achieved that particular evening.
our mighty vikings dropped their 4th in a row this sunday. if you remember, it all started with the giants game i went to a month ago so i take full responsibility.
starting to slowly ease into the holiday spirit around here. according to the wife however, christmas music may not be considered until november 28th, the day after thanksgiving, and then only christmas music may be listened to until april 1st. ok, just kidding on that last part.

nothing earth-shattering to report. trying to make it through to the end of another week. feeling more tired than normal....i need to start getting to bed earlier. i'm averaging 11:00 pm these days which is too late. also, trying to shake a head cold that has me slightly out of sorts.
noelle has a pre-school program tonight. not really sure what to expect, but it'll be good to finally see the inside of her school.
no big weekend plans yet, which is a good thing after last weekend. had some snow flurries yesterday and it was windy and cold, but a lot more mild today. i'm sort of ready for the first lasting snowfall so i can put an end to the leaf harvesting in my yard.
signing out til later...

did i mention, i'm extremely happy with my new web host? it's free for 3 years and then we'll see after that. hey, i won't worry about it until then? still have to renew my domain name every year, but i may transfer it in may of next year, we'll see. i just love the lack of advertisements...should have done this a long time ago.
had a busy weekend. had a busy social calendar for a change. this weekend i did more than stay up until 1 am xboxing. the wife hosted a bunco party for 8 of her gal friends and then we were invited to a dinner party, sort of a "welcome to our cul-de sac" party thrown by one of our new neighbors. they are nice people and a good time was had by all. we were sans children which was a nice break for us for a change.
i forgot my satchel of cd's today which led to my discovery of an online streaming college radio station found at ohio university. so far, so good.
we're hosting the price version of christmas day at our house this year, due to lack of space at my folks. it'll be something new for us and we're looking forward to it. something like 16 people including various toddlers and infants.
more later...

oh boy, the moment of truth..if you can read this, my host switiching is done. if there are no pop-ups and ad banners then my mission was successful. this is a test...more to come.

ps. if you still see ad banners than go to thirdthoughts.com and change your bookmark.

i'm going to proceed forward and try to make some changes on the web-hosting side of things. it may cause this site to be "down" for a couple of days. if so, that's what's going on. i think i can redirect my domain name to the new hosting servce without having to change registrars...anyway, i'm going to give it a go. if not, i can always revert back to angelfire. anyway, fair warning. see you on the other side!

we're well into november now...time for a post. i posted a couple of halloween pics but i didn't go crazy this year. just a few looks to give you an idea. didn't even get one of my pumpkin this year. we received our first dusting of snow this past monday. didn't even get the last round of leaves off the front yard yet. maybe still time? it's running short. took the trial run with the fireplace. it even works! not at all like our old one..got plenty of wood so i plan on burning lots of fires this winter. more to come...

BOO!



some thought this looked a little like owen. it was taken from the msn home page a week or so ago.

on the technical side of things, i may have found a new host for this website. if that is the case, i would no longer have to worry about ad banners and ad pop-ups, which would of course rock. the only problem is i think i would have to transfer my domain name "thirdthoughts.com" to a different registrar. it now resides at "register.com". i looked into hosting my site at the new location and i don't think i can do a redirect from register.com. i'm thinking i would actually have to transfer my domain name to the new webhost. i don't have to renew my domain name until may of '04 so i may wait until then to do the change. so far the time being, everything will remain the same. the potential new webhost is free for 3 years, at which time you could continue the hosting, for a fee, or discontinue. i'm considering doing it because, hey free web hosting! (for 3 years anyway). i know interesting stuff but it feels good to get it off my chest. next post will not contain any thing quite this exciting...

had an average to slightly above average weekend. went to the vikings game on sunday and watched them do something they haven't done all year (lose). it's amazing how seriously some people take this stuff. it's ok to be a fan, but if this is your whole life? well, that's just sort of sad. we had a great time though and the price was right.
also glad to see the marlins knock off the yankees in 6. that's what they get for beating my twins and redsox.
since my membership at the Y has expired, i decided to get some home-gym equipment. bought a cross-trainer that i plan to use 3 time per week. it was a floor model, so i got a deal, but it's not as heavy duty as the industrial kind you see at the clubs. it should do the trick. i'll miss basketball, but it was getting hard on my 35 yr old knees.
that's it for now, more later...

i made a few changes...it now looks equally mediocre in both 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions. i also have all archived blogs archived. if you ever need to go back to see what i was thinking\doing in say, my of 2002, it's all there. don't know if i'm 100% happy with everything here but it serves it's purpose of a., freshening up the look here, and b., providing me some space to add more pics over time. so there you have it. the new true blue version of thirdthoughts. any errors, be it factual, web graphics, spelling, punctuation or grammar, either percieved, or valid, occurred either during transmission, or are because you are using an antiquated obsolete browser, or have faulty equipment.

discovered a couple of other things that need fixing. for example, i found that this site does not view well with 800x600 screen resolution. also, i need to get the blog archives part corrected. need some time to do this, but i wanted to get the website published before i did the tweaking. also, you may notice that the angelfire ads are semi-blocked. this was unintentional but i sort of like. anyway, i'm sure it violates angelfires agreement, so i'll probably need to figure out how to make the ads reappear at the top of the page, before they ban me for a violation. ideally, i'd like to get this site hosted elsewhere where ther are no pop-ups or ad-banners. more to come...

ok, what do you think? it's blue isn't it. still have some kinks to work out but it's a start. more soon...

another week is past, another weekend begins. i'm a bit run down after staying up almost every night this week watching the baseball playoffs. yes, my redsox lost in grand fashion, but it was a heck of a series. i'm officially a florida marlins fan now, even though this series doesn't interest me as much as a cub vs. redsox matchup would have. just gotta go with the underdog and against steinbrenner. supposed to be a mild weekend, got lots of chores to do. not much real news. getting together with the extended family for awhile tomorrow to celebtrate my grandmas birthday.
still wondering what to do, if anything, to this website. i keep getting bursts of energy to change things, and then it's gone. we'll see what happens.

time for an october post...i'm still considering redoing this website as it has had this current look and feel for some time. it's getting a little stale and tired. i'm thinking about simplifying things, maybe ditching some of the old pictures, as space is constantly an issue for me. maybe cutting down on some of the pages and generally keeping it smaller overall. i have a couple of ideas, we'll see what happens.
it's been an absolutley gorgeous week here! sunny and 80's...today could be the last day of indian summer. have my fall state softball tournament this saturday and then that's it til next year.
lots of chores to do at home. thinking about taking a couple of vacation days next week?

ok, a big thank you goes out to the moron(s) who stole my hubcaps...at least you didn't break in, steal my stereo, cd's, hotwire, or leave my car on blocks. you simply stole my hubcaps which i of course can easily replace. so if you thought you bummed me out, HA, the jokes on you. i've had much worse done to my car before, even had 'em stolen. so nice try....you call that vandalism?! you are a joke!!!! if you would have only known about the 2 million dollars worth of uncut diamonds in my front seat IN PLAIN VIEW!!....what a pathetic loser you are. but thank you for only stealing the hubcaps. really.
got a lot done this weekend. scraped wallpaper glue, painted my ceiling patch job, mowed and fertilized. things are shaping up slowly but surely.
twins go 1 up on the yankees this afternoon. that was a big win. guarantees at least 2 playoff games at the dome and puts them in the drivers seat, at least temporarily.
signing off for now...more later

finally took a few minutes on saturday and snapped a couple of pics of the house. didn't cover all the rooms due to their varying degrees of cleanliness but this gives you an over all feel of what we're working with. also slipped in a closeup up of owen, a.k.a., "baby boo", "buddy", "boo-boo", " the boy", etc...
got a home theater surround sound system for the living room this past weekend that was met with mediacore approval at best by others in the household. been wanting one for years and scoped out a mid-level, sharp looking system that will meet our entertainment needs fine. still trying to figure out how to best hide the speaker wires but we can work around that.
here's a link to the latest pics. that all for now...

took the day off yesterday for a little home improvement. a friend and i (ok, mostly my friend) put in recessed lights in our family-room. they look really great except for an unplanned hole that was put in the ceiling by me. i won't go into details here.
saw a full grown turkey wandering around in my front yard yesterday....don't know if he was lost our lives in the neighborhood somewhere. that was sort of wierd.
my favorite time of the year, baseball playoff time of course, is getting close. looks like the home town twins are making a bid to repeat as AL central division champs. probably get the dreaded yankees in the 1st round. good luck!
work is keeping me busy as i guess is the idea with work.
my plans to revamp this site are on the shelf until i can commit some serious time to it. it's not looking good in the immediate future.
that's it for now. enjoy the weekend!

not a lot of real news to post...we are definitely settling into our routines at home. school has started for everybody. got our first hint of rain in weeks today. supposed to turn more fall-like by this weekend. still working on getting some pics of the house up. it's been an idea that i just haven't had time to act on yet. looking forward to getting this work-week behind me. that's it for now...

it's tuesday, the day after labor day, the day before wednesday, but feels like monday. enjoyed a nice long holiday weekend. took in the minnesota state fair on friday, fixed a flat tire, and got my front brakes repaired. did the usual weekend household duties on saturday, and had relatives over to our *new* house yesterday. still enjoying this streak of nice weather, although a bit of rain would be welcome. school started today and it was alaina's first day as a first-grader. anxious to see how that went. back into work-mode, but trying to ease in slowly. hope to post some house pics in the near future. more later...

ok, this week has been one wild ride. virus issues forced me and my coworkers to work through the night monday until tuesday (after having put in a full day monday). finally starting to recover around here a little bit. looking forward to a nice long holiday weekend, starting very soon. me and my crew are doing the st. fair tomorrow, then have labor day to relax until the schedules kick back into full force. school of course starts tuesday, which means i won't be the only early riser in the house anymore.
my fall softball league has started up. actually 3 weeks ago. we are 4-2 which is better than the summer league team ever was. weather finally starting to change a little. still no rain, but at least it's not 90 and humid every day now. feeling a little bit fall-ish out there.
that's probably gonna do it for august...more next month!

wow, august is almost over. i'd better get another post or two in here. we have been enduring an incredibly long bout of hot, humid weather. finally this morning, the humidity has left, and it feels quite nice outside. could still use some more rain though, it's still very dry. officially giving up on trying to keep my new yard green for this year. i inherited it less than 100% healthy.
work has been crazy with this stupid blaster virus stuff. whoever is responsible for this (my theory: disgruntled microsoft employee?) should be hunted down and beaten.
the mn state fair starts today which could only mean that summer is winding down. hope to get out there next week sometime.
that's a wrap for now...

ok, back to live action. i have been consumed with the process of moving these last few weeks and can now say it is officially complete. all in all, there were very few snafu's, and nothing lost or broken (that i am aware of). the household is functioning at a low but acceptable level. all furniture is in place, food is being stored, communication devices functioning, and clothing accessible. scattered boxes remain strewn about various rooms and a half a garage still contains items waiting to be deployed but we are moved! for the record, the new address is:

3056 stinson court
new brighton, mn 55112

i was happy to be able to take several days off of work to help in the transition. i was starting to feel like i need to come back to work to rest. however, upon returining to work, i am having second thoughts on that. nevertheless, this huge step is behind us and we are exited to be in our new home.
more to come...

it was a "light" blog month...guess you could say my focus has been elsewhere. getting down to the wire on the whole moving deal. i'm ready to get it behind us! got a lot to do between now and then. we are less than pleased that our closing times got pushed back til later in the day. that stuff is outside of our control apparently. it will probably be well into august before my next post. for sure it will be post-move. that's it for now!

'nother week gone by...i made some changes to my blogger account and now for some reason, my posts don't show up right away. they will eventually, but it's not as "instant" as it once was. i've tinkered with settings and tried to figure it out, but haven't had much time to spend with it.
down to 2 weeks 'til the move. how do we know we're on track? good question. i have some time off from work around then, (we won't call it "vacation") so i'll do some mad scrammbling the last few days. we have filtered out a lot of junk that's been accumulated over the years, which is good. i'd like to get rid of more, but a little bit is better than nothing. will really be anxious to get this whole thing behind us.
work's very busy, but the week is thankfully winding down. if i can make it through today, hopefully tomorrow i can feign interest for at least part of the day...no guarantees. carry on then!

k, it's been over a week. time for something here. a lot has happened in the past week. not all of it good but things are looking up. our closing date is advancing quickly. still chipping away with the packing and trying to prepare for the big event.
our buyers are having their "walk-through" tonight. it's getting more real all the time. work remains busy but manageable. hmmm...it's a short update but that's all for now.

had a nice fourth, or independence day as it is officially know. there were ballgames, parades, golf, cookouts, swimming, all the summertime activities.
official closing date is august 8th. trying to line up an official move crew to move the big items. hope to have lots of help with the smaller stuff. it's a little bit scary to think of how much we have to do in the next month! i'll have a few days off around that time so that should help.
work has been carzy these past few days...no rest for the wicked. if you have canon image runner 400's, chances are i could help you print to them.
gotta go, more later

**

things are happening. are potential buyers had their (our) house inspection yesterday. don't appear to be any "show stoppers". we have a tentative closing date of aug. 8th. still busy at work but things are begining to slow down as the holiday weekend approaches. ok by me. no major plans other than to spend some family time at the folks place in eagan, and maybe catch some fireworks somewhere. oh, an maybe wash my vehicles finally. gonna catch the twins game on saturday.
my softball squad picked up a couple of wins last night. the team we played was 1-17, but that's not important.
that's all from this end, til next time.

one other thing i did last saturday that i forgot to mention: fixed the closet doors. there, now i feel better.
well, we have some interested buyers and a signed purchase agreement for our house. it's 99% a done deal, pending the inspection, etc. i can't see there being any big stumbling blocks at this point. so...onward and upward! we have had a lot of interest since the house was listed tuesday. now that there's a deal pending, we totally expect the showings to slow way down. we hope, because it's a pain to have to leave at a moments notice, plus havng the place look clean and neat all the time. so in short, it looks like we have sold our place rather quickly, which is a good thing! more to report later.

things i did this weekend....
- cleaned basement
- packed countless boxes, moved to garage
- mowed (and bagged) lawn
- trimmed weeds
- vaccuumed cobwebs
- watered lawn
- scrapped and painted soffets under gutter
- caulked gutter seams
- swept garage
- cleaned spareroom
- cleaned bathroom
- changed lightbulbs
- cleaned and fixed walk-out door in basement
- went to compost pile
- shoveled and sifted dirt
- went to hardware store, bought drain pipe, wire brush, and weed trimmer spool
- shoveled dirt in ruts on hill from rain drainage
- implemented new flexible downspout system
- changed vaccuum belt
more i can' t remember...

things are moving right along. our current home will be listed either today or tomorrow. *hopefully* it will sell quickly. it's tough living there and being half-moved already. even though all the stuff is in the garage. will keep things posted here as things change, for those keeping score. wish us luck!!

our inspection was planned for tuesday but now it's going to be thursday...what's a couple of more days of waiting around? actually, there has been no "waiting around". we have been busy boxing up household items and moving small furniture to the garage. i have given up on having my car in the garage indefinitely. everyone is making small sacrifices these days. our house will more than likelely be officially on the market very soon. know more after thursday.
hot weather around here lately. nice day for the deluxe & friends IT picnic. cooler temps coming they say. late softball games tonight...more details forthcoming.

the last several days have been a whirl-wind of activity. we have a pending offer on a house in new brighton, not too far from where we are now. after days of much stress and mental anguish, the deal was finally struck. we are waiting a few days for the inspection before we will call this "official".
work remains constantly hectic...days are flying by!
alaina's dance recital is tonight.
back to work, more later!

what started out as a typical feign-interest friday got crazy in the afternoon and i ended up scrambling. we are also in the throes of house-hunting which is stressfull in it's own right. a rainy weekend is on tap. gotta blast off, more later.

well, a great loooong weekend for the second week in a row. had a very nice weekend and did a lot of stuff. saturday we had the twins game which was fun even though they lost. the girls didn't seem to mind either way. sunday we had a birthday party\cookout for noelle's fourth birthday, and that was a good time too. i played the grill master and did bbq pork ribs, my new specia-ality. yesterday, i took the day off & we went to the como park\zoo for rides and animal gazing. we saw the usual assortment of gorillas, lions, tigers, seals, polor bears, etc..the weather this past weekend was absolutlely gorgeous (apologies to anyone on the east coast). except for the constant cotton blizzard in my yard from the cottonwood trees, this time of the year is premium. the skeeters are only now just beggining to show their presence. here are the latest & greatest photos from the big bash, if you haven't seen them yet. back to the work-week. more later...

another busy week, but i guess that's a given. looking ahead to another busy weekend too. we're celbrating noelle's birthday and have a twins game saturday with the whole family. got monday off so another short week. maybe do a little house-hunting? gotta go...more later!

hump day has arrived...a particularly active day at work. the weekend was good. my ball team didn't fair too well in the tournament but i did get my first win of the year, went 1-2, didn't survive to sunday. speaking of sunday, we celebrated my mom's birthday with all the local relatives. it was a good day. the weeks been busy as usual, but looking forward to a free night tonight. that is, no particular plans other than watching my kids while the wife does some running around. i acquired a "new" and definitely improved laptop for work, which may help things some. that's all from me...check ya later.

ok, the end of the work week has arrived. busy weekend plans start now. plenty of chores to do tonight around the house, then it's the softball tournament tomorrow, followed by mom's birthday, cookout, and family get-together on sunday. weather is supposed to be great...until at least sunday night. we'll take it. enjoy and more next week!

quick update..been fighting a cold these past few days. our softball squad continues to struggle. 1-5 on the year, lost 2 close ones last night. have a softball tourny in blaine this weekend, class d state qualifier. mom's birthday is sunday. work is super busy. what else is new? trying to make it through one day at a time...more later

out with the old, in with the new (as they say). i finally got around to purging a few of the older image archives. now, we only date back to the spring of 2001. BUT, i had to free up some space. so..that's how it goes. i still have all of those pictures of course, just can't view them from here. i'm sitting at about 16.5 of used space, out of 20mb.
here are the lates pics from alaina's birthday.
that'll have to for now. see ya next time.

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY ALAINA!,
LOVE DAD

a token update is required here, even though it's dangerous for me to enter posts at the end of a long hard day when i'm feeling a little chippy. a lot of things going on at work and home. trying to keep all the plates spinning.
my wife says i think "compartmentally" while she thinks "big picture". at least that's what dr. phil told her...is this bad? not sure.
alaina's big 6 year golden birthday is coming up on, you guessed it, the 6th. looking forward to that.
softball started up last night. looks like we may struggle, as we got housed twice in a row. we'll monitor the progress here in coming weeks.
that's it for now!

the long awaited (for some) easter pictures are here...for those of you who are always asking for new pictures, (more, more, newer, better, faster, now!!) hopefully this will hold you for a short while. as stated in the afore mentioned post, space is becoming an issue again and will need to be dealt with sooner than later. bye for now...(you know where to click, i'm too lazy and it's too late to put a link:-)

hope eveyone had a nice weekend. i will have a couple of pics soon, but nothing special. space is starting to become an issue again. i may have to go back and purge some older ones (again). 20 MB seems like a lot, and i guess it is, but when you're archiving a ton of photos, it goes quickly. i remember the good ol' days when i had 50 mb of space for free! don't see that happening again. trying to squeek by on a free webhost is getting harder and harder these days.
the mn wild have forced game 7 tonight. what a game last night! yeah for the underdogs!
weather is taking a turn for the better...finally some sun and 60's. we'll take it! more later...

another hectic work week draws to a close. i'm almost getting tired of saying it! i'm getting used to having very little time to cultivate any new content on this site, let alone change the format. but...i still plan to do so somewhere down the road. as you know, this is easter weekend. perhaps i'll be able to post a few new easter pics? a very wierd week weather-wise. went from 90 and sunny to cold and rainy in less than 48 hrs. lot of sports news in this town. the yanks role into the dome for a big weekend series against the twins, the hockey wild try to thwart elimination from the playoffs, and the t-wolves open at home against the lakers on sunday, in the first round. if i only had cable tv....anyway, hope you enjoy the weekend. i'll check in early next week.

it was a great spring-like weekend finally....got a chance to get outside a little bit, it was wonderful.
the hockey gophers won their second national title this weekend. i'm not much of a fan, but we're happy for'em. the biggest disapointment was the idiot fans who decided to burn dinkeytown on the u of m campus for the second year in a row. i don't get it. you win, so set your town on fire? where's the logic?? i think it would make more sense if the fans from the other team (who lost) came and set your town on fire. of course that would be idiotic too, but at least you can follow the reasoning....but torch yourselves? what a bunch of morons!!
another busy work week shaping up..time to sign off. we'll check back later, go wild!

i know i'm lame...seems like there's no time to post anything here anymore. maybe things will settle down a bit in the near future. right now, i'm swamped with so many other things my website is definitely taking a back seat. that said, it is friday and it is the end of a hectic work week. no big plans this weekend which is sort of a relief. i do plan on getting together with the softball guys for a little hit-around tomorrow. weather is supposed to be nice. i'm fighting some sort of cold virus...it's irritating but not debilitating. other than that not much to report. have a great weekend...check back next week.

had a great weekend. went to the twins game friday night and had a blast, (even though they lost:-). sat in on post game jam session which was also a lot of fun. 3 guitars, 2 banjos, and a bass. i was the standout novice of the group but i hung in there. played a lot of obscure folksy/blugrass stuff that i'd never heard of, and some more popular tunes. it was a blast and i'd love to do it again sometime. went to rochester for noah's 1st birthday on saturday. i posted 3 pics here, taken from my mom's digital camera. their new place is great! and less than 100 miles away which beats billings, mt. more later...

hello again. it's thursday already, time for a post. it's been an extremely busy week. fortunately, it has gone really fast.
my twins have started the season 2-0. going to the opener tomorrow night. nice way to cap off a friday. then on to rochester for my nephew's birthday on saturday. some gnarly weather is moving in. it's gotten cold and blustery today. what happened to spring? we haven't completely cleared the corner yet.
that's it for now...

ready to sign off for another weekend. not a whole lot planned which is fine by me. the latest slush-storm has killed my plans for getting together with the softball squad. it's been a stressful work week which explians the lack of recent posts. i have put my new site build on hold although i still plan to make some changes somewhere down the line.
anybody that knows me knows that i'm a huge baseball fan and the mlb season starts on sunday night. going to the twins home opener next friday night so i'm looking forward to that.
have a great weekend!

it's been almost a week..i guess it's time for a post. i enjoyed my couple of days off. spent a good portion of it at home and watching my various children, so my wife could do a few things unfettered. we also went to the children's museum last friday. stayed up late a few nights, watching war coverage and playing video games. these are tough times but we'll get through them. also finished a good book called "in harm's way", a story about the sinking of the u.s.s. indianapolis in 1945, just prior to the end of WWII. i think that get's me caught up..check back later.

it's tuesday afternoon but my work-week is already winding down. gotta like that. half a day tomorrow and then off thursday and friday muh boy! looks like the u.s.will be going to war soon...all i'll say is that i hope it's successful and over quickly..gotta fly, more later

happy friday! got around to posting a couple of new birthday weekend pics, click here. not a lot else is new. spring is definitely in the air right now as it is in severe meltdown mode outside. seem to be recovering from some kind of 24 hour flu bug.
enjoy the weekend!

had a great birthday yesterday. to all those who participated, thanks to all of you, from all of me. turning 35 wasn't as painful as i feared as i am still the "baby" in the family, (not counting the real babies). it's nice having family closer now too, it's easier to get together for events. another severely cold day today, but we're promised a big warm-up come this weekend. it's nice to know that with st. patrick's day right around the corner, spring can't be too far behind. all for now...

it's ash wednesday, midweek, or humpday as we like to say in the business. turning the corner on another one. it's another busy week too. my sister and her family are moving to rochester, mn as we speak (or at least as i write). haven't heard from my bostonian sister in awhile, (hey if you're reading this drop a line will ya?). things are good on this end. owen is 2 months old now and getting bigger. he's only waking up a time or two at night so that's been manageable. haven't been able to spend a lot of time on my "new" website but i have a mock-up in the works. my other"website" (http://www.chambermusicmn.org) has been pretty quiet lately. haven't heard from my contact there so no edits this week at all (so far). so...that's all for now.

the end of another work week draws nigh. it couldn't have come at a better time...it's a busy weekend at the price's. owen's baptism is sunday, maybe i'll have some new pics next week? sounds like one more big cold snap this weekend and maybe then some more seasonal temperatures. off to get a much needed haircut. still working on some ideas for a new look to the website. trying to see if i can go the "frontpage" way, (again). a "wysiwyg" tool is the way to go if i can pull it off.
happy weekend!

google has purchased blogger, my current weblog publisher. what does this mean you ask? supposedly nothing but we'll see. i think initially it means a lot more exposure and more blogger users but nothing more.
it's monday, the start of a new week. a fairly uneventful weekend at the price's. my sister from montana will soon be moving to rochester and taking a new job. hopefully that means we will be able to see them more. 2 hours away instead of 14. my other sister from boston has HUGE news that i'm not sure i'm at liberty to reveal worldwide (potentially).
rented appollo 13 last night. saw it years ago when it first came out but enjoyed it almost as much this time.
my birthday is coming up march 9th. i will be 35 years old...tough to accept. i will be playing softball once a week this year, tuesday doubleheaders in burnsville, USSA, class "C". i saw a saying that sums up my belief the other day. "you don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing". sounds good to me. more later...

well, it's tuesday. i have a couple of more owen pics to post as soon as i get a chance. his first sink bath, always a classic. not much in the way of big news. i am in the early stages of begining to think about re-doing this site. it's been nearly a year with the same look. gotta keep things fresh. however, time is a major factor here. don't expect any big changes soon. in a bit of a work-rut, perhaps i need a vacation day? all is well for the time being. more later...

a certain sister of mine, who shall remain nameless, but will soon live in winchester mass, can breath a sigh of relief now that i have posted some fresh pics of owen. click here, dork, or on the images link above. enjoy in moderation. it's valentines day night, the kids are in bed, and here i sit at my computer...can you say, "looozeeer". listening to miles davis, "kind of blue" which rocks. plan to head to the x-box shortly and complete some missions on tom clancy's "ghost recon". ok, serious loser. more later...

i hate it when i post a message here and i assume that it's viewable, then i go to look for the post and it never appears, it's just gone...vanished into cyberspace. anyway, what i was saying was....i don't really have any interesting or fascinating stories to report. we have pretty much settled into a regular routine at home, which isn't all bad. my main goal is to have some new owen pics posted by this weekend. he can spmetimes be coerced into a grin and i'm hoping to capture one on the digital camera.
the outside temp seems more reasonable..supposed to hit 25 degrees today. valentines day is tomorrow of course. we have no real plans. it would be nice to have a night out with the wife, but it's just not gonna happen. maybe next year? i'll write more when i have more nothing to say...

had a good weekend. nothing unusual to report. owen is still doing well and getting bigger! i know i need new pictures.
it's still cold! noticed it was -11 on the drive in to work. the parental units are leaving for arizona on wednesday (or thursday?) not a bad time to do that!
been keeping busy with work, and the new chamber music website project. they keep finding changes they want done, which is fine. i do enjoy it.
if you don't want to hear my opinion on possible war with iraq, stop reading here....
can i just say one thing? why do people think that entertainers know better about what's best for our country? should it really matter what madonna, dave matthews, ted turner, and dustin hoffman think? any more than it matters what other people think?? they are just entertainers! that's it!! and not very good ones at that! (ok, dustin hoffman's pretty good). of course no one wants to go to war! some things are necessary to keep the peace and protect freedom. i think it's best to back your country's leaders and be supportive whatever happens. that's my two cents. ok, that's all you'll get from me on the topic...

noticed that my december and janauary weblog archive wasn't on the archive page. so... now they are if you wanted to catch up with what was going on with me then. or, if you'd rather just proceed onward with new things and forget about the past, that's o.k. too.
not a lot of new information. seems like i'm always saying that! it's finally winter with both cold AND snow.
have made some actual updates to the chamber minnesota music site i am now responsible for. a few more edits to make but it's getting better.
went to a corporate i.t. all-hands meeting today. the new corporate buzzwords seem to be "sunset" as a verb. i.e., "we will be sunsetting that legacy technology". Or"sandbox" which i assumes means a "testing environment".
you can't make those things up...or can you?
more later.

ok, nothing really too new or exciting to report. we finally got a couple of inches of snow. maybe some more this weekend? no big whoop. heading into the weekend with no major plans. we might actually have a couple of owen visitors, which we've had surprisingly few of. he's doing well by the way... and no new pictures yet.
we got a suprise package from my friends from colorado (who are moving to mn this spring). a box full of super-cute boy outfits for owen! (thanks liz!). they are such cool people. anyhoo..a busy day awaits at work. later...

oh yeah, i accepted the volunteer position of webmaster for the chamber music minnesota website . i haven't actually done anything with it yet, but i'm asked to maintain it and make changes as needed. should be fun and a way to keep up on my web design skills.

happy to be back up. was a relatively quiet weekend. got caught up on the house chores and watched the movie "signs" with mel gibson. it was basically a 2 hour x files episode which is why i didn't really "get it". two out of four stars is being generous. took in the superbowl at home this year, which was fine by me. had a mini-party with the family. taking the taurus in for some minor repairs? it's been leaking oil for several weeks. fix it! check in in a couple of days...

my website has been "down" for a couple of days now which is very frustrating. of course, if you can read this, it is back up which is a good thing. it's very hard to get any feedback from angelfire\lycos "support". i understand that my webhost is providing me space for free, minus their advertising, but if it doesn't work, what good is it? anyway, i can log into my webshell and i can see the pages and the directory structure is there, just not able to view it. hopefully this will be resolved soon. more later???

no new pictures...still...owen is doing well and is getting used to us a little. had a nice long weekend thanks to mlk. got some miscellaneous chores done. oh yeah, i dislocated my pinky finger playing hoops at the Y on friday. that hurt. fortunately there was a dr. onsite to pop it back in. still kinda purple and swollen. busy as heck at work these days. fires are flaring up faster than i can put them out. look forward to seeing my sis from montana for a couple of days and showing off the new son. rock on...

need to check in again. no new pictures, (sorry mom). maybe if i ditched my full time job i could do a better job of maintaining this site? it's been a busy but fast week. taking the whole family, yes, even owen, to sesame street live tonight. (woo-hoo!) the girls are all geeked up for it. should be fun.
weekend is coming fast, have monday, MLK day off. maybe time to catch up with a few things then.
i did some research on the name "owen price". apparently, he is also an up-an-coming english soccer star .
more later...

hello,
no new pictures or anything. just thought it was about time i posted here. owen is doing fine, each night seems to be a little better. allie and i "celebrated" our 10 year wedding anniversary yesterday. i use the term celebrated loosely. we both agreed ahead of time to not do gifts or even cards. there's just too much going on right now, plus, owen is gift enough for both of us. at one point, long ago, we had illusions of going sompleace warm and sunny for our ten year. instead, the whole family went out to dinner at a family type restauraunt - woo-hoo!, (no, it wasn't perkins). it was the first time all five of us were out together. life is good! more later...

i have posted a few more pictures here or, click on the images link above. everyone at home is adjusting normally. back to work on wednesday :-(

to all family members, (and any other concerned parties). i WILL have more pictures posted as soon as i get a chance. things are a little bit busy at home right now. maybe by tonight or tomorrow for sure.
owen is doing well. not really getting the traditional night vs.day sleeping pattern thing yet. that'll take awhile. one more day off of work (not counting today). more later...

owen patrick price arrived on 01-02-03, at 9:55 pm. he weighed in at 9lbs, 5 oz, and is 21" long. he has dark hair (for now) and has the same long eyelashes as his sisters! mom and baby doing very well and dad is surviving. he had his own ideas about how and when to be born but everything worked out in the end. a few more pics on the images page and more to come later. thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers!