einmal ist keinmal...

is german for: "once is nonce", i.e., "what happened once might as well have never happened at all"

i'm happy to report that i have accepted a position with my former employer. i will essentially be filling the same role (with some expanded responsibities), at the same location as before. i have to admit that it has been a frustrating past few weeks with all of the uncertainty that surrounds being between gigs, however, i am relieved and excited (at least for now:-) to get back into my routine.
more soon...

first day of falls...

today, the first day of fall, was an absolutely gorgeous day. we packed up the kids and headed down to minnehaha park where we hiked down along the stream and admired the scenery and the first hints of color in the trees. i snapped a few pics which you can see here. we threw the frisbee, kicked the soccer ball around and then had iced coffee and bought the kids ice cream. as close to a perfect afternoon as is possible.

mlb tv...

this idea has always intrigued me so when i saw that mlb.com was offering the rest of the regular season for 8 bucks i decided to pull the trigger. you can stream (400k or 700k) any out of market mlb game (no mn twins) being played in the majors. with the pennant races heating up and many teams still jockeying for post-season, and several key series being played this week, and me still being unemployed, all the stars seem to have sort of lined up. granted, this is for hard-core baseball junkies only as the stream quality isn't the best, and is even worse through a wireless network, it still allows you to watch most of the action in semi realtime. i watched the redsox beat tampa bay last night downstairs on my mac (which has a direct cable connection to my router) and then switched over to the yankee\bluejays game and watched the bluejays pull out an 14 inning affair in new york. then, from the comfort of my couch using my wireless connected laptop, i decided to watch a couple of innings of the colorado\san diego game before i finally decided that that was enough baseball, even for me.

all about perspective...

lost among the o.j., and brit\kfed "news" items is a really newsworthy story that i learned about today on gma. randy pausch is a charasmatic and upbeat 46 yr old computer science professor at carnegie mellon university in pennsylvania. he has pancreatic cancer and has essentially been given 3-6 months to live. he made his last ever public speech entitled "how to live your childhood dreams" regarded by the wall street journal as the "lecture of a lifetime", (see video). it's remarkable the attitude that he has taken while facing this devastating reality. the man has zero self-pity and has approached his destiny in the way i think that we would all like to if we had the same fate. anyway, sort of heavy for a friday, but i thought it was worth sharing.

hurry up and wait...

it may be another week or two but i expect to have some answers soon.

wanted: good home for iPod

i've decided to put my beloved 3rd gen 40 gb iPod up for sale on craigslist. i haven't upgraded since this was brand new in the january of 2004. i'm not one to jump on the latest gadget and constantly upgrade my gear, but i really like the look of the new iPod touch and hope to get my hands on one of these in the near future. first things first though, need a job first. speaking of which, things are happening very slowly but they are happening. more to report on that soon.

this is how i don't roll...

late last week we decided it was finally time to get the taurus's hail damage repaired. so i made arrangments to get it to the body shop this past tuesday which limited us to just one car, mine. under normal circumstances this is no big deal. yes, it's an inconvenience especially with the wife shuttling kids to school, dance, etc., but definitely doable for a couple of days. and then last night...my car wouldn't start. no clicking, no lights, clock, radio, nothing,...dead. my father-in-law stopped by this morning and we jumped the car and got it started. i promtly drove it to our local friendly repair shop where they are currently testing\charging the battery and possibley replacing it. now for the time being we are down to zero cars which is sort of a major inconvenience. we can limp by for a little bit, but i hope to have one, or more, of my vehicles back very soon.

fair enough...

as promised the family enjoyed a stellar day at the fair. we went, we saw, and we ate our way through the streets. i captured the following shots on my camera phone, which explains the low quality images.



here's a rundown of the local "celebrities" that we either met, or just saw there.

met...

john reger (wcco)

mike fairborne (wcco)

saw...

paul molitor

ron coomer

frank & amelia (wcco)

chef andrew

we lasted until about 5:30 and we were all completely beat by the end of the day. it's always a good time but i'm glad it only comes around once a year!