Oldest daughter Reese is once again impressing everyone with her thespian skills.
And here the performance back in February of Streetcar was reviewed by professional reviewers on their YouTube channel. Reese shows up at 1 minute and 25 seconds.
This is still a little mind-blowing to me, but my daughter Reese is in college. How did that happen? I'm not old enough to have college-age children. Someone explain.
Anyhow Reese is doing great and juggling school and working part-time. Here she is playing ukulele at church a few weeks back.
The video might not be playing right now, but I'll resolve that soon enough. Update: it works now!
I mentioned yesterday that there was once again another "Year in Review" page available on Facebook for 2013. I wrote about the 2012 "Year in Review" when it first came out and in revisiting that post today, I was reminded about why I had the foresight to archive my favorite highlights from that page. If you visit the page I linked to in that post (https://www.facebook.com/yearinreview/), all you'll see is THE MOST RECENT year's review, not the 2012. In other words, it would appear their plan is to update this feature every year with your most memorable moments and the previous year gets replaced. Had I not saved my favorite data / details from that page, it would be lost to me now.
And now I'll wade through 2013's page and pick out stuff that I agree was memorable and important. I honestly recall being more amazed at the automated page for 2012 and this time around I'm pretty unimpressed. But is that a reflection of the feature OR a reflection of my year? I can't give a scientific answer, but I'm going to blame the technology here by default and just leave it at that. Here goes.
The first post highlighted was from the first week of the new year, when I shared my good news about starting my job at Integrity. I'd actually been working there since mid-December but the company blog post with my name and photo hadn't been posted quite yet. It was all pretty cool, but about a week or so later that job opportunity dried up. That happens with contract positions. I did like that job quite a bit, but it wasn't exactly a perfect fit. Not the best note to start with.
One theme in 2013 was paperwork. A few weeks later, I'm complaining about being asked to "fax" something to our mortgage company. This post garnered a lot of debate comments, but I stand by my original statement. It's the 21st Century and no one should be forced to use a fax machine anymore when there are readily available better options. Would you believe that the paperwork was only just accepted and properly processed by same-said mortgage company this past December? This has been going back-and-forth for longer than just this year though so it's not wholly unexpected.
By February 19th there was a job interview option that I was very excited about at Zeis Group. Lots of other things were happening too in my life which made that a crazy dramatic month I'd rather not relive.
I started at ZG on March 6th as an Online Marketing Specialist.
In April, we had another successful family photo shoot with JLL Photography taken downtown. I'll have to share some of these pics later.
In May, I joined the "Biggest Loser" contest at work and dropped quite a few pounds. I won that round actually, ending up just under 250 pounds. I have hovered around that, but continue to lose a little bit at a time. I may have gained a little during the holidays, but I never want to be over 250 again as long as I live.
Other pictures I was tagged in during June include a Dirty Soap Benefit show at the coffee house, the SIDS Run/Walk, and a few more family photos.
The fireworks for July 4th were spectacular. It was especially fun to really enjoy them with Sammy for the first time. I posted this:
My son, age 3, was loving the fireworks and squealing happily at every report and fire flower. This is the highlight of my night. No one is so hipster or jaded they can't at least enjoy fireworks a little, but seeing my son enjoy them for the first time he was really old enough to appreciate them, gave me an all new appreciation of amazing pyrotechnics. Your children show you world in a new way.
Later in July, I noted that my appearance on Google Street View had been published.
In August, we were forced to accept the fact that we were registering our first-born child for ... *gasp* high school! Reese was nervous at first, but I'm really proud and amazed at how well she has adapted to these changes.
This past September, Dirty Soap found even more gigs at a new place called Foam where we fit in really well.
We had another family photo shoot in October and this time JLL took us downtown to the graffiti wall where I'd been once before with DS.
The band also had a new gig place in November at Sonny's in Soulard, which we really impressed for Octoberfest.
And... that's about it. I think I must have subconsciously adapted a more subdued amount of posting on FB in 2013. My life in general has had some really great things happen, but I seem to be playing those moments closer to my chest than I've done previously. If I look at the Friends / Year in Review page, I can see a few other highlights I want to document here. Reese got a medium-to-major part in the Fall Play of DRACULA. She played Flora, who is the maid of the female lead. She ... Well, I have no words I can really use to describe how proud I was of her during those moments. Our friend Heather started a new job as a 4th grade teacher.
And there you have it, Facebook's view on the most important points of 2013. Not wholly extensive, but certainly a few important highlights.
Today I noticed that Facebook has a new feature showing snippets and photos from the past year as some sort of summary.
A look at your 20 biggest moments from the year including life events, highlighted posts and your popular stories.
"Big moments" include life events, posts you've highlighted, popular posts you've been tagged in and popular posts you've shared.
Since Facebook is ephemeral and my blog is less so, I thought I'd post some of the moments and photos and reminisce with a little bit more detail. I'll try and repost all the photos and stories with more details, but this could turn into a really long long post if I get too carried away.
I'm not one to brag about a large number of friends on Facebook. Feels weird. If the number gets too high it begins to look artificially inflated. I'd rather have a small set of really close friends than a large set of loosely-associated acquaintances. Additionally, some folks (including me) get carried away with some Facebook games that encourage you to share/invite as many friends as possible into the game to get more bonus "widgets" of some kind. So you end up inviting folks you barely know to be on your friends list. I'm well aware of this and have fallen victim to it sometimes. However, I've not jumped up and done a 'friend-purge' as some folks are wont to do. It is what it is.
However, I was honestly surprised that the number of friends that I'd added this whole year was as high as 33. I'd had this idea that I've previously added all the friends in my life that I already knew and it was not going to increase much. Who are all these people? I thought as I looked them over.
The large part of the group are folks I met and became fast friends with when I joined the band Dirty Soap. Funny enough, I was actually looking on Craigslist for a used car when my old PT Cruiser died. I got bored with not finding the right one and kicking scammers around, so I browsed other areas like musicians and web designers. I found a band looking for a trombone player and we got along great. I did find a car eventually of course, thanks mostly to my brother's help.
Dirty Soap had quite a number of gigs over the summer. And it was some of the most fun I've had in years. It's cliched to say it made me feel young again. Since the fall things have dried up a bit since most of the gang is away at school in various places. I'm hoping and expecting we will get back together in the spring.
The band had a number of photo shoots that our different photographer friends wanted to take for us, so there's plenty of fun shots. Some of the best ones were really popular.
Other new friends on my account were a few family, work or church friends that I was finally catching up with.
This number was lower than it seemed to be in years previous. Obviously, I liked the Dirty Soap page, but I was also administering the page part-time, so it makes sense. I was also liking other bands that we met and partnered with, locations we played at (like St. Charles Coffee House) and similarly related stuff. Additionally, I created a few pages for work at SoTel Systems, including MTR. Other than that, I've actually streamlined out a lot of the "Likes" that I subscribe to on Facebook as it was getting a little overblown. Most of the new ones from this year are related to projects my friends are working on or other businesses I'm close to.
For instance, one of my friends Vinnie from back in the Network Solutions days (2008-ish) has a home studio which he's working on building up. He helped Dirty Soap a bit with one gig where we needed a bassist to stand in AND he helped us start a project to record a demo set (on indefinite hold). He has also entered a few contests this year with remixes he's done in his basement of raw tracks.
I've got another buddy Ian, who has been doing music and mixing for what's probably just as long. Even back in high school, Ian always struck me as a guy who juggled a lot of projects and over the last year I liked at least three separate pages for projects he worked on.
Check out Ian on the drums/bass at the beginning of this in-process clip for a project that Arjuna Sound is doing.
Did I forget to mention previously on my blog that I did a one-time guest shot on a project that Ian did in 2010? Ian sang in a band in high school called Since Hector Was a Pup. In 2010, Ian and his brother Wade put together a new album called 2010: The Year We Forgo Contact. At the time, I asked if he needed a Trombone on anything and he did. You should check out the whole album, but you can hear me on the following track.
I've learned quite a bit in the last few years and I cringe a little hearing myself on that track now. But that's me. The rest of the song and album are awesome. Hmm, this is technically a flashback to 2010, rather than topical to 2012. I'm getting off-topic. But it occurs to me I hadn't mentioned this back when it was relevant.
Let's see, what else? Regarding FB pages, there was at least one other band I tried out for after most of Dirty Soap got busy with school. I met and played briefly with the folks from Bullseye Womprats. They are a class act, good people with more of a pop dance band. I did my best, but ultimately they decided to add a trumpet player instead of a trombone player. That's okay, they gained at least one new fan.
After the new friends and new likes, the year is summarized by a bunch of highlighted images posted by me.
That looks pretty random. This was a cool abstract image I'd made using Aviary advanced suite, which as I've blogged about before is now gone. Still, I use this as a fun background for my online portfolio --which at some point I'll get around to finishing.
Holidays are always a fun time for family. Here's my extended family on my dad's side. This is what Thanksgiving looks like at my Aunt Jeannie's house which is always one of my favorite spots. If it's possible, here's an almost bigger group at the Arconati Family reunion, which was this past summer. My dad's a fan of group shots and despite the grumbles, so am I.
And speaking of family photos, the year would not be complete without another photo shoot with JLL Photography.
This past year also has a momentous occasion in that we finally returned to our church home once again as reconstruction completed on Ferguson Christian Church after the tornado in 2011. It was a long wait, but it was worth it. We had a fun revival weekend when the building first reopened and things are really great right now. I don't actually have photos that I took, but a few news crews showed up to interview and I think I can find some of those. Here's probably the best one...
The fact that my wife is one of the folks interviewed does not affect my bias at all. Of course, she played a part behind-the-scenes getting the interviews set up and writing the press release. Here's another interview.
This has also been the year when my son Sam has started to get into everything.
After seeing this next photo, you may ask yourself if that's my son sitting between two girls, but that would be a redundant question because I'm telling you now that it is. Third kid from the right. Like a boss.
Something that Facebook didn't include on my retrospective wall; my brother-in-law got married to his long-time fiance this year. Congratulations to Nate and Beth! Do they look like it was freakishly cold? Even in October in Chicago? Yes, it was ridiculously cold.
What else has been happening this year? My daughters keep getting smarter and taller and I keep getting prouder. My wife keeps getting skinnier and I get luckier (yep). This spare tire I'm carrying keeps getting smaller then bigger again with the wrong frequency. But I am taking better care of myself in small strides and making new commitments to less of too much. We also have a guinea pig named Vicious. Random.
So all-in-all, a very good year. I'm filtering these stories through the Facebook tool, which admittedly did okay with surfacing some of the best and most popular posts and photos relevant to me. I said goodbye to one job and am picking up a different one this next week, so the end of the year will meet me at a really great spot. I may or may not post again before 2012 is kaput, so in case I forget; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Lisa is going through some career changes that we are both really excited and nervous about. Along with these steps, she's also decided to become a blog writer. This will give her a chance to expand and improve upon her already considerable writing skills. Additionally, she'll have a public place to show off. At my guidance and suggestion she's zeroed in on a set of topics that she is passionate about. For the most part she'll be writing about romance novels and reading books on her Nook. She will be reviewing books she's already read as well as books she's currently reading.
Check out her first post at Lisa's Romantic Reads: From book to nook...
My journey from paper books to my coveted nook was a slow process. I, like many others, felt that reading electronic books just couldn't have the same ambiance as reading the well worn pages of a good novel. The excitement of turning a page and being able to visually see how much more you had left in a chapter... that's what reading is all about, right?
I'm so excited for her!
I have always loved Halloween, although as an adult I've not always gotten myself a costume. I regularly want to do something in the Star Wars genre of costumes, but it's hard to do something original there. So very many of my fellow creative geeks are out there. And Halloween seems to sneak up on me faster every year. I delay putting any sort of creative time into planning a costume and ultimately end up not doing it.
But I do have fun with my kids every year trick-or-treating. The tradition is starting to form that Lisa stays home and hands out candy and the girls and I walk around. This year looked to be a little different. Both Reese and Olivia were invited to Halloween parties that night, so it was going to be just my wife and I and Sammy.
We'd bought all three of them costumes. Reese got a bee girl costume very reminiscent of the Blind Melon video from years ago. Olivia picked out a witch costume with a spider theme; a Spider Witch. For Sammy we got a cute lion costume.
In the morning, we had a full day at church with youth sunday. Reese and I played special music during offering --me on Trombone, Reese on Recorder-- with the two Bellinger boys on Trumpet. There was even a potluck lunch afterwards with lots of international themed foods. Then we came home and the girls each had some leftover homework they had to get through quickly before they could go to their parties.
Both girls had been invited by friends that we had not previously heard of or met before. Reese finished first and Lisa drove her to that party while I carved the pumpkin. She would be trick-or-treating there and wouldn't get back until 8 or 9pm. Then Olivia finished and Lisa got ready to drive her to her friend's house. She tried to look up the directions but couldn't find the street nearby. We called only to find out this was because the party was not nearby! Though the friend who had invited Olivia went to her school and lived really close, the party was actually at her Aunt's house, which was much farther away. We didn't know the neighborhood and weren't comfortable with her going. So, after conferring a bit on it, Lisa and I informed my youngest daughter that she couldn't go.
There were some tears, but I love that Olivia bounces back from things so very quickly. She doesn't see a reason to let things continue to both her. She goes with the flow. In less than an hour, she had adjusted her plans and waited patiently for it to get dark so we could trick-or-treat around the home neighborhood.
I had finished the jack-o-lantern and Sammy went down for a nap. I put it out on the porch and even threw up a few last minute decorations. I'd swear, the sun took forever to go down, but there were thin spooky clouds setting the right tone.
Since it was only Olivia and I, I let her choose which direction we set out first and which streets we turned down as we went. There are a lot of kids in our little corner of suburbia so there were a lot of places to go and costumes to see. We wandered the cul-de-sac and up the feeder street a bit. There's a pair of houses around the corner that make a really big deal every year and have an open house with hot dogs. Their street is closed off at each end and there has sometimes been a messy punk rock garage band that sets up in the middle of the street and offends everyone. This year, they were either absent or just hadn't set up yet. We were near that area and there was a well-lit decorated house with a bunch of teenagers out on the front porch. As we got close, I could hear a few cuss words coming from the group that I hoped Olivia didn't hear, but I didn't really think anything else. I thought Olivia would just walk up to door for candy just like every other house. But she took one glance at them from the sidewalk and started walking faster clinging to my hip the whole time. She said something about how teenage boys were mean. At first, I was surprised and started to say it was okay and she could go up to their door if she wanted. I was right here and she'd be safe. But then I realized she genuinely wanted nothing to do with them. So I encouraged her to follow her instincts. Thinking about it later, I realized I should have been more proud.
There was an interesting stellar bonus. Tonight, I saw what I think was a shooting star. The sky still had some clouds, but had cleared up a bit. I was looking up as Olivia and I were walking and talking and something streaked by and seemed to be falling apart as it did so. It was bright, but too fast and quiet to be an airplane. It disappeared as it went behind a cloud and didn't come out the other side. In that moment, I tried to point it out to Olivia, but I don't think she saw it.
There were certain houses with nice decorations that she absolutely had to visit. One of her friends lives in a house on the main street that has a giant animated spider. There was another house that had a ghost house in their garage last year, but they had toned it down this year. We saw some old friends and neighbors as we walked. The weather all night was nippy but nice, not too bad. I let Olivia lead us around until she was thoroughly tired. I'd forgotten to bring a watch or anything and I thought it was very late --9:30pm or 10-- by the time we got home. Turns out it wasn't even 8pm yet. Reese was back home, Sammy was awake and in his costume though he didn't appreciate it, and our friends the VanMeters had stopped by for a visit and to take pictures.
The girls did a big trade-off with their candy. Both girls had used pillow cases instead of plastic pumpkins. Olivia had gotten way more candy than Reese while she was at the party, but Olivia is picky about her taste in candy and traded generously her fruity sweet stuff for the chocolate stuff she really likes. I put the old Dracula movie on the Netflix and we all realized very quickly that it was somewhat boring. We all stayed up later than we probably should have, but that was our Halloween.
Good night everybody. I hope your night was a nice as mine.
The post title is alluding to a quote by William Shakespeare. You've probably heard it before.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Another one I thought about using was by Mark Twain.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
An asteroid indeed. I'm not sure where I'm going with this one for the moment. But I just have this feeling lately that I've been posting a lot of little things here and there but not making much besides a bunch of pointless noise.
I'm not feeling low about the quality of what I've been writing. I feel like I haven't been writing enough, and what I have been posting is akin to the usefulness of static. Signal-to-noise ratio?
This isn't even the real problem. It's a matter of a thousand noisy ideas in my head. I'm reading a lot of stuff all over the place and absorbing a huge amount. It goes through my mental filter and I'm very inspired to write about it all. But that's the rub of it, I can't write about it ALL. At times, I've been very good at this, but right now it's all important to me and I can't prioritize. So here is a list of stuff I'm thinking about right now in completely undetermined order.
Each one of these things could be a huge blog post on their own if I had an infinite amount of time for them. Derek Brink is a buddy whose blog I read somewhat regularly. He's a good writer and musician. He also does these "random" blog posts that contain not just one thread or theme but a bunch of short bulleted ideas that he wants to post, but that don't get a full post on their own (for a variety of reasons that probably includes time alloted).
That's good enough for him and he pulls it off well, but I've always shied away from that for my own stuff. To me, if something is worth posting, I want to write a lot about it. Being concise is not one of my stronger skills. So I end up posting the 'short' stuff in microblogging; Facebook and/or Twitter, but that again makes it feel more like noise than stuff I'd file as "Important"...
But I thought this post was better than nothing.
I wanted to update everyone in relation to a post I wrote back in June regarding Sammy and his sleep apnea monitor. Then I realized just now that I never finished or published that post. Oops… So there it is!
The new information is that Sammy is no longer on the sleep apnea monitor, but we are still using the motion monitor (for now). When he would wake up in the morning, he was getting pretty active and the wires were a hazard we could live without. More importantly, he is 100% healthy and continues to grow and crawl and cruise around the furniture at a high rate of speed. We are starting stage 3 baby foods this week (for those that know what that means). He has had the one tooth in his bottom gums for some time and this past week he is getting what appears to be four teeth all at once in his upper gums. He's not too cranky about all of this, which is an unexpected gift.
Some of you may have seen this video posted by my sister-in-law. Actually, most likely very few to none of you saw it. But I wanted to talk about it briefly and explain what you are looking at. First off, here's the embedded video:
The wires you see are part of a device called a Sleep Apnea monitor. More about that in a minute...
I have my own YouTube account, but there are very few clips of my children on there at least until more recently. I've guarded our privacy a little bit. The world has teeth and it can bite you with them anytime it wants. That being said, I'm not mad that Katie posted the video she took with her iPad. I sound like a total dork and I don't think I realized she was recording it. I was a bit surprised when the clip showed up in my YouTube subscriptions later that week.
Things were a little helter-skelter at that moment that got captured. My in-laws had just arrived from Chicago. We were getting Sammy and the girls ready for bed. But of course, everyone had to wait until Grandma (and Aunt Katie and Uncle Nate) arrived.
The part I want to talk about are the wires that are coming from the leg of Sam's sleeper. They'd become a part of our nightly ritual at that point and weren't news to us. We would joke that with them on he was "wired for sound." But they were new to the rest of Lisa's family. Kate wanted a clip because they reminded her of a song by a band she is obsessed with; "Plug In Baby" by Muse.
But why is Sammy wearing a Sleep Apnea monitor? (you might be asking) Does he have Sleep Apnea? Nope! According to every checkup he's been to, he's 100% healthy. And he continues to get bigger and rowdier and cuter every day. He is joy to me and to Lisa and the girls.
But we naturally worry. Everyone who knows us knows that we worry and why. It's been almost three years since Lucas died. Sammy is several months older than Lucas was. Every day that goes by, he gets a little bit further through and away from the danger zone for SIDS. Statistically, the chances are worst until four or five months, then incidents drop off dramatically at six months. The risk drops to almost nil at one year old. More specifically, Sammy is very different from Lucas in a multitude of nameable and unnameable ways. He learned to hold his head up very well very quickly. He learned to roll over faster and more confidently. He's more active, more alert.
When he was born, we were very happy to use an Angelcare monitor any time he was in a bed sleeping. For those not in the know, besides being a regular baby monitor with sound, the Angelcare that we have also has a movement sensor pad that goes in the bed under the mattress. If the baby stops moving for 20 seconds a sensor beeps once. If they don't respond within 10 seconds after that, an alarm sounds. And this thing is VERY sensitive. Even if you can't see the baby moving as it is sleeping soundly, the sensor can pick up very small vibrations and the indicator light is very reassuring.
This worked great for Sammy's first few months before he learned to roll over. As long as he stayed in the relative center of the bed everything was great. However, Sam started to roll over while awake pretty early (age three months?) and then started rolling over in his sleep. He seems to prefer to sleep on his side or stomach (the little stinker). If he rolls too close to the foot or head of the crib, the sensor can't find him and it goes off in a false alarm that's pretty scary at 3am. Eventually, this started to happen EVERY nap and EVERY night, sometimes more than once. Each time, we'd run in his room and each time he was just fine. Even when there was an alarm and we arrived in his room to find him just fine, it was still frustrating because it wasn't clear if he had just moved into the wrong spot or he was really going to be in trouble and we had woke him up just enough.
During more than one of these sleepless moments, I jokingly lamented to Lisa that what we really needed was some sort of futuristic type of shirt or onesie that would measure his actual heart rate and breathing rates instead of just his motion. In some sci-fi soldier movies or future war documentaries they show the soldier on the front line wearing all sorts of gear that detects their pulse and breathing and displays it on a monitor at the command center. What we needed was something like that for Sammy, something that would monitor his actual vitals no matter where he moved in the bed and would record this information in a way the doctors could perhaps retrieve later.
This went on for a few weeks and we mentioned it to some friends and family. Even though my other children were staying overnight at the g'parents' houses within the first few months of their life, we weren't yet comfortable with Sammy doing so, even if we were to send the Angelcare monitor with him. My folks didn't argue and I think they felt the same way.
My mom goes regularly to a support group with other people her age who've lost grandchildren to SIDS and there were a few things she'd learned that she shared with me. The first was that there were other grandmothers in her group that had lost their FIRST and ONLY grandchild. My mom has five living grandkids and so feels blessed in this way. The second thing was that for those families that did have subsequent children after losing one child, they often requested a Sleep Apnea monitor from their pediatricians. She thought we could ask for one too, but I initially said no. For some reason, the way my brain works we didn't need an apnea monitor because Sammy didn't have apnea. Still, she'd gently mention it on occasion. When the Angelcare monitor was working great with no false alarms, I thought it would be silly and obtrusive and not something that we needed.
But as Sammy got more mobile and rolled around his whole crib all night, I continued to lament that what we really needed was some very expensive high-tech sci-fi gadgetry that probably didn't even exist yet, even as a prototype. I still didn't connect the dots until my wonderful wife said "You know, they actually have that --or something like it. Your mom mentioned it at least once." See, I don't know everything. Who knew?
Anyway, so we talked to Sam's doctor and he said it was possible and not that unusual. He gave us some time to think it over (which was really only a few hours). A very helpful guy delivered and set up the machine the next day, with thorough lessons on proper use.
The machine itself is about the size of a large lunch box or purse. It comes with a carry bag and shoulder strap so it's even portable. [Note to self: take some pictures of the thing and post them.] It plugs into the wall for power, but it has a 15-hour battery just in case. It sits outside his crib beyond his reach. For Sammy, there is a small elastic strap that goes around his chest at armpit level with two sensor pads on either side. The two small wires that you see in the video --one white, one black-- come from these pads and go along his skin down his body, past his diapers and out the leg of his sleeper. Then the wires go between the bars of his crib and plug into a socket wire for the machine. The thing is sophisticated enough that while it is on, there are two different kinds of alarms; one for user error and one for actual emergencies. It's sophisticated enough to know the difference. A user error indicates that a wire has come loose or the pad has slipped off his skin enough that it needs to be adjusted. The emergency alarm indicates if it is a heart or lung problem, based on the light that is blinking on the machine. More importantly, it records every breath and heart beat digitally in solid state memory that the doctor can access later if necessary to spot problem trends.
The strap doesn't bother him and it works well. We've had a few alarms and some of these have been at night. But they've been user errors for every time. He'd kick the wires loose or the elastic strap would slip just a bit. Every time except the one when his breathing was a bit slow, but it perked right up with all the racket of the alarm.
So my son is on a Sleep Apnea monitor and that is what the wires are that you see in the video. And let me just say that we have had a continuous stream of much more restful nights of sleep thanks to that little machine. True, it may be a bit of overkill. And it is still no guarantee against SIDS --because there isn't one. Believe me, I looked. But it has been very worth it.
I am relaxed. This is going to work.
Confidently boasting about what I've done or can do is not something that comes naturally to me. However, it is a given that when selling your services as a freelancer that potential clients will want to see some of your previous work. I can't share everything because of certain confidentiality agreements but here's what I've put together so far in a very rough format.
By way of introduction, I've been working in the e-commerce site setup, design and promotion industry for the past six years. Here are a few things that I've worked on personally.
The project that I'm most proud of is the site I maintain and update voluntarily for my family's church, Ferguson Christian Church. I also maintain the church's Facebook pages and Twitter account.
One of my most steady freelance clients is the American Optometric Association. In my role for them, I format email marketing and newsletters for distribution to their paid membership.
I'm the administrator and co-owner of an e-commerce site that sells wedding favors and supplies called HappyIsTheBride.com.
I've set up and contribute to a blog about video editing with my father called ColorBurstVideo.com.
I've set up numerous WordPress blogs including one for a family friend about horse training called FrenchClassicalDressage.com.
Additionally, I have a personal blog, mostly for my own ramblings. So this really doesn't look like much but it's a start. I've left so much out that I simply can't yet talk about. Additionally, if this were a real portfolio it would include screenshots and other examples.
Not to worry, all of this is in progress! In the meantime, this draft will give an introduction.
I decided not to make an actual New Years resolution this year. Doing so has never really been my style. And when I have made some public or private resolution, it has never stuck and I've just ended up momentarily disappointed. It's good to have goals and it's good to have benchmarks, but January 1st is just not good timing. I may change my mind by next year at this time, but we will see how that goes.
That all being said, I did plan to do a lot more writing this year. I even thought that perhaps I'd aim for at least one blog post per day, or more conservatively one post per week. But now we are a week,.. two weeks, three weeks, a month worth of days into the new year and I've not published a thing... At least, not here on my personal blog (more on this later).
It should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that I've been rather busy these last few weeks. Stick with me a moment and I'll get a good retrospective on my life and my family's life for last year put together and that will be a good starting point for this new year.
If you recall, one year ago was when it seemed that everyone -- and I do mean EVERYONE -- got Facebook for Christmas. As a blogger, web site hobbyist and general technological snob, I'd resisted the lure of both Facebook and Twitter with a bit of misappropriated disdain. I thought, Why would anyone who already has a blog or website (or multiple blogs and websites) need a micro-blogging service?
I used social bookmarking through Delicious and StumbleUpon but that was it. Up until January of last year, I'd lumped them in with MySpace and ignored them.
But then my wife signed up for Facebook. Her coworkers were on it and had bugged encouraged her enough that she signed up. I soon followed and I felt like a bit of a sheep to do so. And I have regretted my previous snobbishness on many different occasions. The site provides a simple way of reconnecting with old friends from college, high school or wherever. But it also has a lot more than that. And it's free. I haven't used my dumb Classmates.com account in years, for the simple fact that every other feature I tried to use they asked me to sign up for their paid service. Facebook is free and it really is the "database of everybody" in addition to all the fun integrations, games and applications that exist there. For instance, a link to this blog post will appear on my wall moments after I publish through Blogger. My Delicious and StumpleUpon accounts are also integrated.
It's cool. But in fairness, one of my first posts was to reference that Facebook as a website had become THE biggest name on the Internet, just like AOL was 8 years ago. Everyone has an account on Facebook, just like AOL 8 years ago. And Facebook will be around forever, just like ...Oh, oops.
Okay, enough about that. The other much more important thing that happened in January was that Lisa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. That evening was entirely too awesome for words. Whereas I had help with some of the arrangements --my dad got us the room at Harrah's using his club points-- I planned the whole darn thing and it turned out pretty well. 
My niece Lillian and I both have our birthdays in February. Lilly will soon be THREE YEARS OLD! I'll be turning 34 this year, which is much less exciting compared to three. I'm not really bothered this time around by getting older. I think it bugged me last year and even the year before, more than it ever had before. But this year all I can muster up is a shrug for reaction. Meh! Perhaps I'm just happy with where my life is right now.
More birthdays for our extended family happened in March. Both Linda K. and Zöe V. share this month. Lonny and Tami had their son Bryce, so there is one more birthday. Additionally, both of our kids got invited to birthday parties for their friends at school. On some weekends they were double-booked! There was also an awesome Orchestra concert for Reese.
It's getting to be a regular thing that both Lisa and I sing in the Easter Cantata every year. I never thought of myself as a singer, but it's fun. Also in April of 2009, as in 2008, we had a day at the cemetery celebrating Lucas on his birthday.
More birthdays happened in May. I still can't believe this, but my oldest child turned 10 years old! Olivia had her Girl Scout Bridging ceremony and then school went to break for the summer.
Although Lisa and I knew for a few weeks, May was when we announced that God had answered a prayer we'd had for several months. Lisa was once again pregnant! So began a whole new journey and chapter of our lives that I'd given up hope of coming true. There was a lot of worry and trepidation that immediately settled into my mind, but trust and faith have been carrying me and still do.
For more global news, May was when the news regarding Swine Flu, the vaccine that was being developed for it and possible shortages started making the rounds everywhere you looked. My dad had some ruminations on the news and how it echoed the 1976 flu season. I came to understand that my parents' experience of the vaccine from that year was rather negative. I'd vaguely heard the story before as a youngster, but suddenly it was topical again.
I also took a day off work to be one of a dozen Career Day Presenters at the elementary school where my mom is the counselor. This was a really fun, empowering day for me.
Right before May ended, my brother and his wife Kelly had a new addition to their family, Sophia Louise Arconati. She was so adorable and it was starting to look like a really good year for new babies.
We began going to very regimented doctor appointments for Lisa that would eventually get as regular as every two weeks and more. Due to Lisa's diabetes, previous c-sections and so on, she has one of the best medical teams due to her high risk status. Still, not a day went by without a few moments of worry.
There was a week of PROBE for Reese, a week of VBS for both my girls and Isaiah V.'s birthday rounded out the month.
This is always a busy month for birthdays in addition to Independence Day. Lonny, Kelly, Lisa and my great-aunt Ruby all celebrate their birth in July. Lisa's folks came down to visit us for about a week and to see the fireworks. For the very first time, Reese went away to summer camp for an entire week! My mom, my wife, my kids and I also spent an entire week at the time-share at Lost Valley Lake. Come to think of it, we were also joined by my aunt and uncle for a few days.
My step-brother Lonny and his wife Tami came into town from New Jersey for a baby shower for their son Bryce, who was born in March. Lisa's dad and her twin siblings Kate and Nate have a birthday in August. My little brother Jon also was born in August. If you want to know a weird coincidence, Jon and my wife's siblings were all born on the same day. Of course, Jon was born years earlier but they all three share a birthday. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that twins are normally born on the same day. The coincidence is that my little brother ... oh, nevermind!
Going back to Lost Valley Lake for a moment, you may have seen the news in August when the news was the fire at the main sports complex. It's a pretty big deal for them and a little weird considering that they had another large fire that gutted an entire building back in 2004. It's bad luck and they are just in an area of the county that fire departments have trouble getting into. A lot of people in St. Louis have been to LVL over the years. But for our family it was a little more eye-opening to see because we had just been swimming and playing mini-golf at that very building only a few weeks earlier.
Lisa and I had planned a second trip to LVL for a weekend in early September. It was just us four: Lisa, myself, Reese and Olivia. Well, four and a half, if you count the pregnancy. We got a chance to see the completely destroyed building. We spent hours swimming at the pool and had tons of time for fishing. Both my girls caught fish. Even my wife caught a fish with my pole while I was walking back to the car to fetch the cooler. I caught nothing except mud and weeds! At night, we slept in a rented trailer and told ghost stories around the campfire. I told a few that I know, but Olivia made one up completely on the spot that was very involved and in depth. I wish I'd written it down.
By this point in the year, it was clear that Lisa was growing with pregnancy and this was really going to happen. I mean, we had been watching the baby's progress on regular ultrasounds and everything was going smoothly. But in the back of both of our minds, it still seemed so unreal. We waited silently for the joke to be revealed. We waited for some sort of tempering mildly bad --or really bad-- news. We held our breath and waited for the other shoe to drop...
Something I should mention is that when you have infant loss, there is a blissful ignorance that you no longer possess. The veil of security, the idea of invincibility and the boastful claim that "this will never happen to me" is no longer possible. We'd experienced loss of an infant, and we'd also experienced miscarriage. So we could no longer be blissfully ignorant, even if we wanted to be.
Near the end of September, I was let go from my job at Network Solutions. My former coworkers and supervisors may still read my blog, as so many of them are still my friends on Facebook. I'm not going to bad-mouth or complain about the company, though others have done so both privately and publicly. Things happen and (allow me this analogy) like a recently divorced marriage, accusations of blame could be tossed around recklessly. In reality, it may have been time for both parties to part ways. But hey, that's just the truth for me and should not reflect on the confidence of my buddies in their jobs or of any of NetSol's clients (who hopefully don't read my blog anyhow). For my own personal reasons, this change to my life might be the best possible news in the long term.
The first financial thing we did prior to wading through the unemployment benefits stuff, was to call our mortgage company and reapply for the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. We had initially applied back in the summer at some point, but our combined wages were too high. Now that I was not gainfully employed, it was very simple to ask them to reprocess our original application and we got a positive result quickly. Our monthly payment was reduced by about $400/month. By the end of the month, I was also earning unemployment benefits through Illinois and it was a good percentage of my previous wages. I haven't computed it to the exact dollar, but I feel like I'm actually ahead if you don't consider the medical and other associated benefits.
In the job market, I knew before I started looking that things weren't great. But I began to find some new avenues that I hadn't considered before on various smaller job boards as well as Craigslist. Realistically reevaluating my skills, I've begun to look at my favorite role as more of a designer, developer and consultant with tons of small business expertise that I have not yet been able to fully wield. This is opposed to or in addition to my more limited role as a technical support software expert. I've mentioned that I'm reading Covey's First Things First and using it to Dream Big. This is only one of many reasons why.
Halloween was lots of fun. Thinking historically, this holiday is becoming less of an open door-to-door kind of day and more of a closed party style of day. We hung out with the VanMeters for a little while once again this year and then we gathered candy. There are two houses around the corner from me that throw a combined open house. They barbecue hot dogs, have a half-barrel of punch and some teenagers actually put together one of the worst punk-rock bands I've ever heard. They have a "stage" and even closed off part of the one cul-de-sac for a mosh pit of sorts.
My dad, my mother-in-law and my daughter Olivia all have November birthdays. I believe that both Ryan and Heather also have their birthdays in November in addition to their wedding anniversary. Against our better judgment, we caved to Olivia's request to have her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my Aunt Jeannie's house with the traditional hike.
During the hike, Olivia was complaining that her feet hurt and she wanted me to carry her. In a joke, I said something about Bilbo not needing to be carried for his whole adventure to reach the Lonely Mountain. One of my cousins asked with some suspicion if she would even know what I was referring to. And that's something else I'm proud of from the last year. By Thanksgiving, I'd been reading to the girls from the Hobbit every night. We normally read something right before bedtime, but this was the biggest and longest book we've read so far. I started reading from J.R.R. Tolkien's great work after Reese had gotten so excited about the Percy Jackson
Lisa continued to grow more pregnant and the baby continued to grow in complete health. After a minor scare which proved to be nothing, we decided to find out the gender of the baby. We had originally planned to wait until the end and be surprised. But we changed our mind and until the technician confirmed otherwise, I thought we were going to have a third girl. Instead, I was floored that we would have a boy! I would have been happy either way, but admittedly we wanted a boy.
My mom has a birthday early in December. My son, who's name was going to be Samuel, was also going to be born in December. Plans for the cesarean section and the hospital stay were firmed up. A last few ultrasounds and other tests were performed and everything was great.
An interesting scheduling act was performed as the date approached. Lisa's due date was the 20th, but the doctor we prefer was only available on Wednesdays, so that meant scheduling the birth for the 16th which was a perfect time for us. However, we were also going to be singing in the Christmas Cantata, which was scheduled for the 13th, the previous Sunday. Lisa even asked to do a short solo. In the past, my wife had scheduled c-sections for both girls, but she went into labor a few weeks early with Lucas. There was a very real possibility that Lisa would go into labor early and we'd miss it.
Ultimately, the day of the performance came, we sang and when the service was over, Lisa was still pregnant. The last few weeks of pregnancy are always the most uncomfortable and seem to take the longest. Even so, the feeling that this was all so unreal and precarious made the whole nine months actually fly by way too fast. It seemed like I was still reeling from the fact that the tubal ligation reversal was in fact successful, and then to learn the news that we were going to have another son... and then:
He's pretty dang handsome isn't he? Samuel Joseph Arconati was born 21.5in tall and weighing 8lbs 5.1oz. And he just keeps on growing.
In the days that followed, Lisa's mom and sister came down from Chicago to see Sammy and to stay with us through Christmas. They arrived two hours early, Lisa was still in the hospital with Sammy and I'd had about four hours of sleep. My mother-in-law, who I adore on most occasions, immediately started barking orders at me in regards to home maintenance. In the end, it was all sorted out and all was forgiven. I did get some sleep later on and I got a cleaner house in the bargain, just in time for Samuel to come home.
The girls spent the night with my mom on New Year's eve (a tradition, it seems) and Lisa, Samuel and I spent it with each other just doing nothing but a bit of cuddling.
Throughout the entire year in 2009, there was much more involvement with all kinds of activities for the girls. In addition to Pioneer Club, the girls were both involved in Girl Scouts and Reese joined chorus and Celebrate Children (think show choir) at school, in addition to Cello in Orchestra.
We continue to read from the Lord of the Rings series at night among other books, and I'm eagerly anticipating the day we complete them so they can watch the extended edition DVDs. I've been watching the bonus features when the girls go to sleep and it's really sinking in how huge these stories are.
So it was a pretty great year throughout. The highlight was getting to hold my son for the first time and to realize that he is alive and healthy and vital. And the moment I saw his face I knew he was not Lucas. I'm still worried, and I will likely continue to be until his first birthday. But I'm not as panicked as I expected to be. Our little family of five is complete and blessed and together. I will continue to thank God every day for these "small" miracles, which by my account are not small in the least.
If you've really read this far, it should be counted a Herculean task for which you should be proud... or perhaps ashamed, depending on your perspective. I can just hear you saying "There's 20 minutes I'll never get back!" Thanks for your time and I pray also that God blesses you this new year at least as much as he's blessed me in the old.
Now to see about getting some sleep...
I'd like to formally announce the birth of my son, Samuel Joseph Arconati. Today is the culmination of a strange and wonderful journey. I can't even really figure out where exactly it started, but the first time I posted about this new baby on my blog was back in May when I talked about how God works in Mysterious Ways. My life has experienced roller-coaster-up-and-down changes since that post and I haven't written about many of them, but I'm still being blessed daily. I want to once again thank everyone for their notes, best wishes and prayers these many months.
You might want to know how I posted this from the hospital. I cheated. My secret is that I wrote this yesterday afternoon on the 15th, and set it to automatically post right now. You'll notice that I didn't start this post with a qualifier like "barring any disasters" or "assuming there are no unforeseen complications". That was difficult for me. I very much wanted to start this way and had a bit of writer's block until I worked (and prayed) around it. Because right now, all the worries and concerns and fears are at the forefront at the front of my mind. Someone should have warned me not to check Wikipedia about Cesarean Sections. Of course, by now posting these concerns and mentioning this block, I brought it up anyway. So again, I cheated.
I guess technically, I'm cheating all of you with this non-news. I don't have pictures yet, or the traditionally important height/weight stuff. But I will be posting those details and photos direct from my cell phone to both my twitter, my facebook and my flickr accounts. So if you've read this far you can follow those links to learn more and confirm things.
I'm betting on at least a nine-pounder. Thanks again... ☮
So what's really happening in my life lately? It's about time I get everyone caught up. I've been writing about mostly mundane stuff lately and on the one hand this was avoidance but on the other hand this was a smoke screen. It's high time now to throw back the curtain! After all, I have a big announcement... So pay attention, if you please.
After my son Lucas passed away, I despaired quite a bit as anyone would expect. I came out of it little by little and perhaps that surprises some people. I still have bad days of course, some of them very bad. But thanks to my wife, my two girls, my family and most of all by the grace of God I have way too many reasons to go on living. Most of all, I know that I will see my son again some day. I could and should talk more about this experience, because I know it's important. However, that's not my goal today.
As time passed, Lisa and I began to broach the subject with each other of having another baby. This was difficult on multiple levels. There's the emotional understanding that we could not and would not be replacing something that had been lost. Lucas was always and will always be our only true perfect child. There was a time interval too because we wanted to wait long enough to fully grieve but we didn't want to be trying to have children past the age of 35.
Heavy on our minds and hearts was the fact that at Lucas' birth, Lisa had gone through a tubal ligation, making pregnancy improbable without expensive surgery. But my wife is an excellent planner and we found a way to make that surgery happen.
The surgery in November of 2007 went well enough or so it seemed, albeit they were only able to repair the one side. We were hopeful at first, but months went by with no luck. We had a follow-up appointment with dye tests and x-rays and so on and things didn't look as good as the doctors had hoped. Scar tissue or some other blockage was probably in the way. The risk of an ectopic pregnancy was high. We were referred to another doctor. We come to find out this doctor's specialty is in vitro fertilization which is beyond all sorts of expensive. Unless we won the lottery, it wasn't going to happen.
So, we abandoned that as an alternative. There was still a little hope in us that the tests were wrong or the scar tissue would heal or something else would happen. Months went by. I know that we probably sound pretty spoiled to some ears. After all, some couples try for years without getting pregnant and here we were giving up after such a short time. Please understand that we'd never had trouble getting pregnant before, so this was a hard blow.
It seemed that we were still mourning the loss of Lucas... and then we have to mourn the loss of any future hope of having more children. And the crux of it was that we had requested the tubal in the first place. It's not like we could have known what would happen, what might happen. The guilt and blame sat there anyway.
We prayed a lot and that is the most helpful. We are still going through counseling and that has been very helpful. Our families have been so helpful. Several weeks ago, during prayer time at church, I asked the congregation to pray for Lisa and I as we come to grips with the likelihood that there would be no more babies in our lives. Many of the nice old ladies in church that day came up to me with hopeful stories of their life and how long they waited for miracle children they thought would never come. This, in a way, was helpful too. Surrounded by all this helpfulness and people trying to give me hope, I still had decided that in this lifetime it was not in the cards for us. There are three answers to prayer; "yes", "no", and "wait". Sometimes when you pray to the Lord for what you want, the answer is still "no" and as His children we have to find a way to deal with that (hopefully, while seeking His help).
I think I'd almost come to grips with it. I'd taken a long hard look at our family of four and decided that it was so very perfect just the way it was. My wife and I and our two girls and the memories of Lucas would be all that we ever really needed. With the correct perspective, I became humble and thankful for the gifts that I have. And I was just about content.
Let's consult the Ultrasound, shall we?
So, the great news is that the one tube works! The other great news is that she is just about 10 weeks pregnant! Furthermore, the baby is in the right place and already has a steady heartbeat. We aren't out of the woods yet, as Lisa has had one previous miscarriage before getting pregnant with Lucas. But based on our first ultrasound, when they saw the heartbeat on the monitor (and man, they can zoom in pretty close these days) the chances of that are extremely low.
I should apologize that it took this long to spread the news. We've known since the first week of May. I had to wait until all the really close family was told and today when we told the folks at church. I'm so glad none of the nice older ladies came up to me afterwords with an 'I-told-ya-so.' I certainly deserve it.
More importantly, though I wasn't patient enough to wait for my prayers to be answered, they were answered anyway. Perhaps it's right that today's sermon was about patience, among other fruits of the spirit. I should have known better.
This lesson I'm learning will come with more diaper changes and late night feedings. At this point, I don't care if it's a boy or girl, I just want a healthy baby! For those who've been praying for us already, please don't stop now! Obviously, you have to know now that it works...
Goodnight! And God Bless!
The family and I have been going to the library on a semi-regular basis lately. It's a new tradition I'm going to do everything I can to maintain. The kids love it of course, but I'm renewing a love of reading and learning that I'm sad to say I'd been ignoring for too long. Also, the more I read, the more I want to write --which could mean more posts may show up here and elsewhere with more regularity (but don't read any promises into this).
I grabbed a few Stephen King novels that I'd missed over the years. I've also been digging through the non-fiction stuff, books on music and movies, graphic novels and so on. I'd like to post some reviews of some of the treasures I've found, but I'm too busy reading.
Something new with the library is that they now allow you to take quite a few books out at once. I asked and the maximum per card is 100! Who has time to read that many in two weeks? I know you can renew every time, but that's ridiculous. I've found the one negative is that if you forget to return or renew your large stack of books for the whole family, the fines add up quickly ($.15 / day / book). So just be careful.
I'm working slowly through the design changes I mentioned in my previous post. Here is the color palette I'll likely use as I redesign the site.
Something about the color combination caught my attention and my immediate family responded positively to it so I'm going to dive in with it.
I'm also working on the font spacing and typography quite a bit for better readability. Here is my inspiration and reference guide at Smashing Magazine.
Sounds kind of like a contractible and misunderstood illness, doesn't it? Well, I've gone and signed up for Facebook as of today. I was being an elitist snob about it until my wife got interested in it from her friends at work.
I predict I will be addicted to it quite shortly.
Update (a few months later): I saved this post on the listed date, but forgot to publish it until just now. My prediction came true, just in case you wanted to know. Or hadn't you noticed a lack of meaningful blog posts?
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