Yesterday after putting Ben to bed in his pull out bed, I sat on my couch to check my email for work (I had the “day off” yesterday, yet didn’t). It was about 10:30pm. I stayed on that couch until 1:30am, working.

Today, I woke up, brought Ben downstairs to hang out and wait for his grandpa to pick him up, and logged into my computer. That was 7:30am.

It’s now 1:30pm. I’ve gotten off the couch (non-Ben related) about 3 times. Twice to go to the bathroom and once to grab a drink and eat a couple of chips. Dave’s on his way home from work and he’s getting fried chicken for lunch, so it looks like I can just eat my lunch on the couch and not have to get up for anything.

Usually, I’d go upstairs in the office to work, but I’m too lazy and too busy to get my ass and all my computer gear up there.

Work, work, work…I shouldn’t even be taking the time to type this!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I think it’s been a while since I’ve done a Ben update! Here’s his achievements as of late:

• He loves to chill out in his chair that he got last christmas. He’ll often sit in it with one leg over the arm.

• He’s an outdoor guy - always wants to go outside and wander around and explore
• He walks, he runs, he can go up stairs and down stairs all by himself. Often he wants to be like the big people and take the steps one at a time, but after a couple falls, he’s realized that his legs just can’t do it.
• He adores the show “Caillou”, about a four year old boy and his household adventures. Of course, he’s a big fan of anything Elmo on TV. He dances to Elmo’s theme song anytime it shows up on the television
• For some reason, Ben stops whatever he’s doing when he hears the M&M’s commercial music
• He is a handful at church. He loves to walk around in the back of the church and touch things, or talk to people. The other day he found one of the offertory baskets (the ones they collect money in) and he was carrying it around as if he was getting money from people.
• He isn’t talking too much, but he’s trying. His “almost” words include - Elmo, fish, bubbles, papa, mama, thank you, cheese, cheerios, diaper, and i’m sure there are others that I can’t figure out…
• He’s learned how to shake his head no. “No” when we’re trying to bring him back inside after playing. “No” when he doesn’t want to eat anymore. “No” when someone he doesn’t know is trying to carry him. “No” when we’re trying to get him out of the bathtub. I’m waiting for him to figure out “Yes”, though I think it’s going to be a while!
• He’s sleeping through the night but……he’s still sleeping with us. I blame myself and my need for my little teddy bear.

Hmm, I’m sure he’s doing a ton more stuff that I haven’t listed….if you ask questions about his progress, it might make it easier to say what’s going on with him…

He’s become a mischievous little guy, giving his beautiful eyes look every time he knows he’s doing something he’ll get in trouble for. He loves to laugh and play, but he also makes sure that he gets what he wants. My baby’s spoiled! But he’s my baby, so I still love ‘im.

Tags: Video Gaga by Yano
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Just a nice little story for today…

Wisconsin community aids lemonade stand robbery victim with cards and cash

OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) — An 11-year-old boy who was robbed at his lemonade stand is seeing another side of humankind in the outpouring of support he has received since his story was reported.

Austin Cundy says some people have asked if he would like to set up a lemonade stand at their businesses, while others have sent cards with money or offered to replace the $20 that was in his plastic container when it was taken Tuesday.

“I think it’s very nice that people care,” he said Thursday.

Austin was using the stand to raise money to go camping with his grandparents and to buy his mother a birthday present.

He told police he saw two teens eyeballing him as they bicycled past, then one of them punched him, shoved him off his chair and took the container along with his wallet.

A tip from the public led officers to the home of a 17-year-old boy on Wednesday where officers found a container but no money, police Sgt. Steve Sagmeister said. The teen was being held on suspicion of robbery and physical abuse of a child, pending formal charges, he said.

Austin’s mother, Nicole Cundy, said the community’s response has been impressive.

“All of these people are showing how much they care about a little boy they don’t even know,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

Source

Dave and I were driving around a neighborhood once, trying to find our friends house. We saw some little kids on the side of the road, selling lemonade. Feeling charitable, I told Dave to stop and pulled out a couple dollars. The girls had a little table set up and were sitting on a cooler. Their parents were sitting in the garage enjoying the day.

I stuck my head out the window and said, “We’ll have two glasses.” The little girls were elated to have customers. One girl carefully poured the lemonade into a little plastic cup while the other said, “Fifty cents, please!”

Fifty cents?!?!? I was expecting it to cost more for some reason. I handed her a dollar and she proceeded to reach into her little money box to get change. “Nah, keep the change” I said. Her eyes opened wide as she said, “Thanks!”

Her partner in crime brought over our glasses of lemonade and Dave and I were back on our way.

I took a sip of the lemonade and wanted to spit it out. It was pretty watery and just had a hint of lemon and sugar in it. Probably the worst lemonade I’ve ever had. Dave felt the same. We joked around about driving back to the girls and throwing the lemonade at them as we drove by.

But of course, we didn’t.

It was pretty fun to imagine, though!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Hello everyone!

I woke up last night, on the couch, at around 3am. I was on the couch because Ben and I had fallen asleep, and Dave had come to take Ben upstairs and asked me to wash the dishes. I said, “yeah, yeah” and promptly fell back asleep.

I woke up at around 3am, and thought, “OK, I’ll wash the dishes now”, and lay there for a couple seconds. Then I heard a big “pop!” outside and then all lights went off in the house. I went into panic mode (because I REALLY afraid of the dark) but luckily my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the lights from outside gave me a little light to see with. I ran upstairs, fumbled around in the closet to change out of my jeans and jumped into bed, waiting for the power to go back on so I could wash the dishes.

Turns out it was a long wait, since the power STILL isn’t back on. This morning I had to help Dave manually open the garage door so he could leave for work. Then I had a 7:30am conference call which my uncharged phone battery only lasted for 45 minutes on, and that was plugged into my laptop for power. I realized that all the phones in the house are cordless and don’t work if there’s no power. I couldn’t find just a regular phone to plug in.

So here I am, sitting at the White Hen (like a 7-11) across the street, keeping vigil on what’s going on with the power guys working on the streets in front of the house. The “free internet” sign on the store always intrigued me, and here I am, using it. However, there aren’t any power outlets handy, so I’m going to head over to the in-laws to work today.

Argh!

Today is NOT a good day.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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After thinking about this topic, I realized that my life is chock full of wonderful things that people have done for me, friends, family, strangers passing through my life. Sometimes it’s big things, sometimes it’s little gestures that make such an impact on me…So I decided to give a sampling of awesome things that people have done in my life lately…

1) An old lady gave me a $25 gift certificate when I was in line at Express, telling me it wasn’t her type of store and she saw that I had an armload of clothing

2) Michael Turner, my favorite comic book artist, was on the same flight as me to LA. We talked at the airport a little bit, and then got on the plane. As when I got off the plane, he had actually waited for me and walked with me to baggage claim. He didn’t have to wait for me or even talk to me at all, so I really appreciated it.

3) My brother in law Dan got me Cubs tickets this year because I was too busy working to wait in the virtual waiting room for them.

4) Anyone who holds a door open for me when I have Ben in a stroller is a saint. I never realized how difficult it is to maneuver around with strollers until I actually had one!

5) My relatives (aunts, uncles and cousins) who, without fail, always bring food to whatever party I’m throwing, causing enough leftovers for all the young’uns who don’t cook to bring home with them when the party is over

6) The Cajudo brothers and Rusty letting me be a part of their short track documentary, giving me experiences that I will never forget

7) Hawaiian Sam, who sent me an awesome care package from Hawaii, chock full of chocolate macadamia nuts, comic stuff, hurricane popcorn, jams, and cool LOST related stuff
My wonderful friend who gave a HUGE donation when I did the Blogathon several years ago

9) My client and his wife, who volunteered to drive me to the airport, going totally out of their way and through rush hour traffic to get me there on time

10) My other clients, who gave me a t-shirt and talking stuffed monkey for Ben’s first birthday

This is only a little cross section…from big things to little things that have been done for me. Its interesting how the thoughtfulness of other people can lighten my spirits and bring me up when I’m full of self pity and wondering if anyone out there cares…

Tags: Weeklies by Yano
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Last Saturday we headed out to our second Cubs game of the year, Ben’s third. It was pretty uneventful, and the Cubs, unfortunately, lost. There were these guys behind us that were totally enchanted with Benjamin, and wanted badly to teach him how to open and eat a peanut. Ben, however, had other plans, and proceeded to turn around the peanut in his hands and chew on the she11. After he got bored of that, his new game was “jam the peanut in Mommy’s mouth” which he found really hilarious.

I don’t think I made up a post of our first Cubs game of the year, which was a lot more eventful than this one, so I’ll turn back the clock and talk about that one.

Those of you who had watched the All Star game a couple weeks back may have remembered the announcers mentioning it and showing a replay - it was the fight in which the normally good natured Derreck Lee got into a fight with the Padres pitcher Chris Young.

It was Ben’s second Cubs game, and we were a little nervous bringing him, considering that the last time we brought him he had cried for the first 5 innings. Then again, he was only 6 months old then.

I put him in his Cubs gear and his brand new Cubs hat (his old one was lost at the mall) and we headed out to the ballpark. Our seats were in the shade, so we didn’t have to worry about too much sun exposure. Dave wasn’t with us since he was cramming for his exam, so it was me, Dave’s dad, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.

Ben was much more well behaved this time around, amazed by the people who were going to the seats in the upper level, passing by on a walkway several sections away from us. He also watched the game a bit, but he had no idea what was going on. He was happy enough watching people go by and munching on french fries.

I was only paying half-attention to the game, but I heard the crowd go “Ohhh!” and I looked at the batter, Derrek Lee, on the ground. I figured he got hit by a pitch, and he got up slowly to take his base. He started walking towards the base and by that time, a lot of people in the crowd had already anticipated what was going to happen next, since they were already standing. Then everyone started shouting and hooting and it took me a second to comprehend why Derrek was halfway to the pitcher’s mound. Turns out that words were said by the pitcher, Chris Young, to Derrek as he was about to take base, and Derrek didn’t like the attitude, since he was the one hit by a pitch. Then all of the sudden, the benches of both teams are on the field, everyone’s cheering, cameraphones are up in the air and the whole crowd is standing up. Poor little Ben was wondering what the hell was going on. Only then did I realize that I had my camera, too, but by then, the mini-brawl was already over.

What was interesting about the fight was that Derrek Lee and Chris Young are two of the tallest guys in baseball, with Young at 6′10″ and Lee at 6′5″. Two big guys going after each other, both being restrained by their team. If you had watched the replay on TV, it was pretty funny, because pitcher Carlos Zambrano was just getting out of the locker room to find the fight on field, and he was running onto the field while still putting on his belt. To someone who didn’t know, it just looked like he whipped of his belt to spank someone.

The rest of the game was pretty awesome, with Zambrano having a no hitter until late in the 8th. We lost, though, which was a bummer.

Anyway, here’s our pictures for the game….enjoy!

We sat Benjamin in the seat in front of us, and he made a new friend

Ben eats nachos on his godfather Justin’s lap

Z almost had a no hitter that day!

Fight! Fight!

Ben watches the action behind us

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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….make ‘em learn the routine to “Thriller”.

1500 inmates of the CPDRC prison in Cebu, Philippines, gettin’ down.

Makes me proud to be Filipino…um, kinda…

Tags: Video Gaga by Yano
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I changed the default layout to “Fishing” for now. I’m working on some BIG (yet, not really that big) changes for the blog…

Tags: Page Update by Yano
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Just wanted to show off my new toy. My previous phone had been falling apart, even though I had only had it for a couple years. I also had some phone envy after seeing some of my coworker’s phones at our conference in April. Often I’m at a client site where I don’t have access to company email or the internet, and having a web-enabled phone was a good idea.

So after a little bit of shopping around and research, I finally went for the Sprint MotoQ. In terms of performance and price, it was definitely the best option for me. I still haven’t set it up for my company email, but so far, so good, it’s working well for me. I’ve also become quite the texter, thanks to the easy to navigate keyboard.

The main con I had for the phone was that the charge didn’t even last 12 hours. It was really annoying because I would have to turn off my phone for part of the day if I was traveling just to make sure that I had enough power in case something happened with my flight. Of course, I hadn’t taken time to read the manual, so it was only a couple weeks later that I realized that if I turned off the “Constantly recieve data” option (or something like that) then my battery life moved up to 3 days.

So I’m lovin’ my little MotoQ, it’s slim, light, and has all the functions I need!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I’m here at the Toronto airport hoping and praying that this time, the weather gods will be good to me and let me leave the country tonight. One again, like the first time, I got on an earlier flight than my scheduled one, but which has gotten delayed - leaving a mere half an hour before my originally scheduled time. I can see the clouds coming in and the delay is, of course, due to thunderstorms in Chicago. Why does it only rain in Chicago when I have to fly back?

Anyway, I’ve been in meetings over the last couple days (sorry to you Canucks who I didn’t contact, it came up just last week). There was a point in time when one of my clients said “penetration” and I had to hold back the pre-pubescent 10 year old boy that resides in the back of my brain and tell him to stop laughing “hee! hee! he said PENETRATION!”

I also had to hold back a giggle everytime I heard them say “PROE-cess” instead of “prah-cess” which I’m used to. (FYI - the word is process)

Since I saw I was staying right next to the Eaton Center mall, I decided to do some window shopping, which ended up being a pretty expensive shopping spree at H&M. Sad thing is, it was all for Benjamin! Mommy got her boy some pretty cool threads at the store. Of course, I didn’t take into account that I had my small suitcase with me, so I had to really jam in all my stuff in there.

Rain, rain, go away! Christine wants to go home today!

Tags: Travel by Yano
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