I know it’s a little late, but I just wanted to wish all you dads out there a happy Father’s Day.

We had a pretty busy day today. Woke up early and headed out to breakfast with Dave’s parents, where Benjamin behaved pretty well, and ate all of his scrambled eggs. He then made friends with this old lady who had an oxygen tank. I thought Ben would have wanted to play with her tank, but he had more fun playing with the zipper on her purse.

We went to church after that, where Ben was a total trip. We were sitting in the back of the church so Ben could walk around. He was making rounds and made several friends. He was trying to steal the sunglasses of the woman who was next to me, so I gave him my sunglasses to play with. I found his broken pair of sunglasses and fixed them up. At first, he didn’t want to wear them, but one he let me put them on, he loved them. He walked around the back of the church and was showing off his sunglasses to his new friends, giving them a cheesey grin.

After church we headed out to Brandon’s christening. Of course, Ben made some friends there as well. He also grabbed the waiter’s ass. Not because he wanted to, but because he was using the waiter’s ass because he needed something to hold on to as he was going down a step. Pretty resourceful, my little guy!

To top off the day, we headed out to Leo’s “welcome to the world” party. Since his kuya Kenzo had his shirt off, Ben decided to go shirtless, too. Though he did look a little funny because his diaper was so high up on his back. There was a little girl at the party who was about six or seven years old. She had mentioned that she had a younger brother who was as old as Benjamin. It was hilarious because she kept on picking him up from behind and carrying him around. Ben would be so surprised he was being picked up that he would just be frozen while she was carrying him around, so it looked like she was carrying a mannequin. He had a lot of fun with the other kids, trying to follow them around and take part in their little games. He was like the little brother who wanted to play so badly with the big kids!

So now I’m back at home, trying to catch up with everything before I head out to Atlanta tomorrow.

I’m so tired!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Just a video I took of Ben a couple months ago. We were at a clothing store and there were little puzzle for kids to play with while their parents shopped. Ben was flirting with a little girl he met there. It was really cute because before this, they were both playing and he was actually trying to talk to her.

Sorry, there’s no sound!

That’s my boy! Loves ‘em and leaves ‘em.

Afterwards, she had a stuffed animal and offered it to him. He took it and walked around for a little, and they offered it back. However, he was still at the stage where he knew to offer things to people, but when they’d try to take it, he didn’t let go. So his little girlfriend was a little frustrated!

Tags: Video Gaga by Yano
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I’m a hugger, as I’ve said before.

I love to hug people, and I make sure when I’m hugging, I squeeze tight. Of course, there are times when I can get the vibe from a person that they’re not a hugger, so I hang back when I feel the need to, but in most cases, I’m a bear hugger.

I think the best kinds of hugs are the ones when you give someone a hug, and they grunt at the fierceness of your hug. Or they just grunt because the hug feels so good.

That’s when I know I’ve done my job. I’ve hugged you, and you’ve “hoormphed” in return.

Those are the good hugs.

So to all you grunters, thanks for making me a better hugger.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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It’s only been one day since I’ve seen my little Beeny, and I’m already missing him. It’s going to be a tough 3 weeks!

I love taking pictures of Ben and Dave together. Unfortunately, since I’m the photographer in the family, I don’t have many pictures with Benjamin. I’ll have to remember to take a couple of the two of us, just so he has some baby pictures with his beloved Mommy to post when he gets a blog of his own.

Here’s a favorite of mine, taken at a party a couple weeks ago…

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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Hello from my “just ok” hotel room in Cleveland!

I was wondering why the nice hotels were all booked up, then when I landed at the Cleveland airport I realized why. The NBA finals were coming to town! There were posters and signs all over the airport, welcoming visitors to Cleveland, home of the Cavaliers.

My flight got in a bit late, so the car rental place took a bit to find me a car. I finally ended up with a Mazda3, which I think is a stupid name for a car. It looks cute, though. It was a brand new car, still had the sticky stuff from the sticker on the window. I threw my luggage in the back seat, fixed up my mirrors, threw in my special mix CD, and headed out.

As I was driving out of the rental lot, I knew there was something weird with the car. The car was moving all jerky and weird, and when I would push the gas the car would go, but as soon as I took my foot the pedal the car would decelerate quickly. I looked at the dashboard to make sure that I was in Drive rather than another gear. I noticed that I wasn’t in drive, but I was in “M”. “What the hell is M? ” I thought to myself. I’d never seen “M” as a choice before. I looked at the gear shifter thingy (am I even calling it the right thing?) and saw that there was an “M” option. Could this possibly be Manual? I didn’t even know that they made cars with an automatic and manual option. I must have accidentally overshot the Drive (the gear shifter thing wasn’t in a straight line like most are, it was all jagged like a manual car). Once I put it in drive, I was good to go!

Have any of you heard of these “manumatic” cars?

Tags: Travel by Yano
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The next several weeks are going to be pretty busy for me, so I don’t know how often I’ll be updating this blog…here’s my schedule:

June 11 - 13: Cleveland, OH
June 14 - 15: Milwaulee, WI
June 18 - 22: Atlanta, GA
June 24 - 26: Toronto, ON (Bern, I’ll let you know if I have time!)
June 27 - 29: Milwaukee, WI

Whew! I got tired just typing that out!

Pray that the airport gods are kind to me this time around!

Tags: Travel by Yano
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The other day I was driving to Milwaukee, a little sleepy because Benjamin had been restless the night before. I was already past all the city traffic, almost at the border of Wisconsin. There weren’t too many cars on the road, surprising for that time of the morning.

I was listening to my home made mix tape (CD, actually) which I like to call “Yano’s Jams ‘98″. Anyway, I was distracted with my thoughts when I saw something weird coming up on the side of the road. There was some movement there, and it took me a couple seconds to realize what it was.

A deer had wandered onto the highway, and the car a couple hundred feet in front of me spooked it, so it started darting around the road. As I was approaching it, I quickly considered my options - switch lanes? Swerve to avoid it? Were there any cars around me? If I hit it, that’ll really mess up my car…A million thoughts ran through my head as I sped up to where the deer was jumping around the road.

Since there were no cars around me, I decided to stay in the middle lane and try and avoid the deer. Luckily, he was near the median when my car had approached him, though I did swerve a little because he was starting to come my way. As I past him, I watched in the rearview mirror to see his fate - there was a big pack of cars behind me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw him make his way back to the forest from where he came, right before the pack of cars got to him.

For the 4 or 5 seconds it lasted, it was pretty terrifying. It was only after the incident that I noticed that there were several “watch out for deer” signs on the side of the road. I’m sure I noticed them subconsciously. But I keep an eye out whenever I’m around there, just in case…

Tags: Travel by Yano
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Guess who drove me home on Tuesday night?

My sister Fatima!

Now for those of you who don’t know her, that statement brings no surprise. But for those of you who do know my sister, as well as the history of the females in my family, then you’d be surprised, and probably pretty impressed.

The thing is, my sister doesn’t have a driver’s license, and she’s in her mid 20’s. Of course, it’s not a bad thing, it’s just a personal choice that she has. She has just never needed to drive.

We’ve got something close to a family curse, where no females in our family have gotten their driver’s license when they were in highschool. I’m not sure why - I got mine when I was 19, my sister Claudine was in her 20’s, my cousin Marilyn still needs to get one, my cousin Marian was in her 20’s as well.

Although I took the required driving class when I was in highschool, we weren’t required to actually get our licenses. I was planning on getting it, but after a red light misshap (who would have thought that two interections with red lights would be so close together?) I didn’t feel like going in to take an extra lesson, so I never went for my license. However, when I was in college, I dated this guy who lived about 15 minutes away from my house by car. Since I didn’t drive, he would pick me up when we’d go out. He’d also pick me out when we were just hanging out at his place. After a while, he got pretty tired of having to make that trip back and forth, so he told me that if I didn’t get my license, I would have to take the bus. Being stubborn, I took the bus. So the 15 minute trip to his place ended up being an hour and half by bus. I did that a couple times, but then realized I had to suck it up and get my license.

So each of us has had our own reasons for putting off the whole license thing. I’m happy that Fatima’s making the effort to get her license now. I had gone over to her place to pick her and Marilyn up to have a sleepover at my place. Since my car is getting on in years (when Claudine was first learning how to drive, I stated that she could never drive my car, or something like that) I’m not as protective of my car as I was before. So I asked her if she wanted to drive, and although she was a little surprised that I offered, she agreed.

We drove back to my house, which involved some city driving, a LOT of crazy merges, one toll and 3 different highways. She did great, although there were one or two times when I needed to squeese the door handle just a little tighter. However, at no time did I press the imaginary passenger side brake, which is what my dad used to do when I was learning how to drive (and still does to this day).

So the last one that needs to get their license is Marilyn and then there are no more females left in our family, so the curse should be over…that is, until I have a baby girl!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I love this video by Nickelback. I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of their music, but they’ve got great ideas for videos.

Watching this video inspires me. It makes me believe in the human spirit and our ability to do good deeds. I know that there are good people out there, people who make a difference. It makes me think that I, too, can make a difference. Maybe not raise millions for the starving in Africa, or winning the election in South Africa, but maybe make a difference in one person’s life.

…anyway…enjoy!

Tags: Uncategorized by Yano
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In the next couple months, I’m going to be making some BIG changes to this blog. Which is kinda funny considering that I have zero free time, but I’m getting antsy with this site and I won’t be able to rest until I fix some things up.

So, since I care about all of you, I want to make sure that you’re YWIM reading experience is minimally affected by my tweakings, which will involve the layouts available. There’ll be some spring cleaning done on the available layouts, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t delete and of the ones you’re using.

So which layout are you all using? Are you using the default layout, or one of the ones listed on the sidebar?

I don’t even know who’s out there anymore! I know readership has gone down, but that’s my fault for having sub-par posts and not enough time to update this darn thing! I do appreciate all of you who’ve stuck out this hard time with me…you rock!

Tags: Page Update by Yano
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