Baby Naming

We've been tossing around different baby names since we started trying to have a baby over three years ago.  We came up with several girl names over those years but we had always struggled with boy names.  Of course, the Lord has a keen sense of humor, so when His time was fulfilled and he blessed us with this pregnancy, He decided to give us a boy.  After a lot of thinking and running through possibilities, we finally landed on something.

I was actually going to make the announcement part of my "special" blog post this past Tuesday, but I never talked to DeAnne about it and I didn't want to do something without her approval.  Up until yesterday, I wasn't even sure if it was final.  I think really, we both liked it and started using it some between the two of us and after a couple of weeks now, it's kind of stuck.

So in July we'll be welcoming Harrison Paul DuBose into the world.  We're going to try our best and not saddle our children with the curse of using their middle names (both DeAnne and I go by our middle names), so we're going to call him Harrison.  We're also pretty adamant about not using shortened versions, so no Harry or Harris or anything like that.  Harrison.

A couple of funny stories.  DeAnne first suggested the name and I liked it.  After a couple of days of trying it out, I came to a realization.  I told her that if we stuck with Harrison, that'd be fine with me because I wouldn't mind my kid sharing a name with the guy that played Han Solo and Indiana Jones.  I asked her to consider changing the middle name to something from an actor in the Back to the Future series that way we could cover the big three from my childhood.  That got shot down on the spot.

Two, the young lady that plays bass in the youth band at church is a pretty big Beatles fan.  She made the connection even before I did that with his full name, he'll share names with two of the Beatles.  I don't know if the next child has to cover the other two or what, but I guess we'll see when we get there.

So there you go.  DeAnne told a pile of people yesterday and a few of our friends and family had already grilled it out of us but now it's official.  Have a good weekend.  See you Tuesday.

--Paul

Mania

Things have been crazy around here the past couple of days.

DeAnne's Nanny is still in the hospital.  She's been very weak ever since she went in to the hospital and she's just not able to get up and get around to get to go home.  They're talking about moving her to rehab today to see if they can help get her up and going.

Also on DeAnne's side, her sister threw her back out late last week and hasn't been able to move much since.  She's got an appointment today to see a doctor and hopefully he'll do an MRI so they can get a better look at what's going on.

Finally, as far as sickness goes, my MeMaw was put in the hospital here yesterday.  She's been having some stomach problems and bad acid reflux for a couple of weeks now and they admitted her last night for observation because they can't seem to figure out what's going on.

On top of all that, DeAnne's first test for her online class opened up last night and when she tried to take it, the program she has to use to take it with kept hanging up and bombing out.  She tried three times with no luck.  The only good thing about it is that before she tried taking the test, she had no idea what to expect as far as what was on it.  She has a bit of an idea now though, so hopefully she can study for a day and be better prepared.

On the brighter side, we managed to get a good bit done on Saturday when we went to Dothan after having the Rogue serviced.  We found a baby book and a coming home outfit and I found some much needed new shirts.  So we had a pretty successful trip and even made it home pretty early that afternoon.

I know that I promised today was going to be a special post.  It is in fact post #650 to this blog.  That's pretty mind-blowing if you ask me.  So I wonder where my book deal is.

Anyway, finally, ending on a high-note after all the doom and gloom: I got my iPad in yesterday.  Things were so crazy yesterday that I barely had time to do anything with it, but from what I've seen so far, I'm completely in love already.  I would have wrote this post on it, but I figured it would be easier today to just go ahead and do it from the laptop like I always do.  Keep us and our family in your prayers and I'll see you for post #651 on Thursday.

--Paul

Insanity Incoming

We're in for a couple of crazy days coming up.

DeAnne's Mom is having to move some bedroom furniture out of her house and since it's pretty nice and what we have is starting to show its age a little, we volunteered to take it.  So now it's a matter of moving everything around.  We could just about open up a used furniture store out of our storage building.  We have a living room chair and couch that we're not using and now we're going to have an entire bedroom set and we're got a hutch that's in the nursery that we're not going to use and have to move out before the baby furniture arrives.  Maybe we should buy a townhouse in Auburn, furnish it, and rent it out to college kids.  Knowing my luck the first tenant would destroy all the furniture.

I got a great email yesterday morning.  The iPad has shipped and should arrive either Monday or Tuesday. Ordering stuff from apple always cracks me up because most of the time when you check the tracking it's coming straight from China.  It happened with the Macbook and it's the same with the iPad.  I just checked and this morning it's made a stop in Hong Kong.

Finally, Saturday we'll be making a trip over to Enterprise.  DeAnne's already got enough miles on the new ride that it's due for its first oil change.  While we're over that way we're going to head on over to Dothan.  I'm in need of some new clothes and DeAnne wants to look for a baby book.  We haven't found one she likes yet, so that's the major goal for the day.

Maybe Tuesday I'll type my post from my iPad.  Who knows?  It'd be pretty cool though.  Tuesday's post is special for another reason that I'll explain then.  Have a good weekend.

--Paul

Generic Post Title

Nothing really amazing to report this morning.  We had a good weekend.  Saturday was DeAnne's Mom's family's (whew!) annual reunion.  It's always a good time and this year was no exception.  DeAnne did give out a little early, so we didn't stay as late as we usually do, but that's probably going to be the case for the next couple of years until the baby gets older.

The final part of what we spent our tax refund on arrived last week.  We both wanted to get a good camera for the baby so we bought a Canon Rebel T2i.  The 8 or 10 pictures we've taken with it turned out pretty good considering we were just using the fully automatic setting.  It's going to take a while to really learn how to use the thing and get good pictures out of it, but it should be fun.  Dad having been a photographer when I was little, we've got him to fall back on for advice.  Despite all the advances in technology over the years, the basics seem to still be the same so he should be a good resource.

Other than that, DeAnne's been hitting the books pretty hard.  I'm trying to help her out as much as I can, proof-reading stuff for her and talking about the material in kind of an attempt to replace the live classroom discussion that doesn't exist since it's an online class.  She seems to be doing well with it though.  She's tired, but she's staying ahead or on time with everything so far.  Thankfully the class only lasts till the beginning of May.

That's about all I've got.  See you Thursday.

--Paul

Japan

From time to time I've talked about world events and politics here on the blog and today is going to be another one of those times.

Tomorrow will be a week since the tragic earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan.  It's pretty amazing how quickly it all unfolded and how suddenly everything changed for not just that part of the world but for all of us.  If you're friends with me on facebook, you've no doubt seen the several videos I've shared there.  Everything I see about Japan is not only heart-wrenching, but for me has become an incredible reminder of just how little control we have over anything and how much control God has over everything.  The earthquake, the tsunami and now the nuclear crisis; none of that has taken God by surprise and he understands all that has happened and will happen over there.  It's heartbreaking and I pray that the grace and glory of God are made more evident to a lost and dying world.

I do want to speak more to the nuclear side of things.  Being employed in the power industry, I get to see and hear a lot of things about government regulations and trends and such as that that a lot of people may not even be aware of.  Most people fall into one of two groups: those that aren't happy their electricity is costing more (I land in this group) and those that aren't happy that electricity is primarily made from the burning of fossil fuels.  You can't really be in both groups because if you want cheap power, the best way to get it currently is through burning coal and natural gas.  There is a potential middle ground though: nuclear energy.  It's not cheap to build or maintain, but over the course of several decades, it's cheaper and more reliable than solar or wind can ever hope to be and it's completely carbon neutral.  There are still issues with radioactive waste but that waste can be reprocessed and made to be fairly harmless.  Without a doubt the energy future of the United States rests in a nuclear foundation and what has happened in Japan should not deter us from moving forward with new nuclear initiatives that have been started in the past couple of years.

--Paul

Birthday Boy

Liam's birthday party was pretty great.  Everything went really well and he was as cute as he could be.  We managed to get him a nap in before everything started and that helped get him through the afternoon without any big trouble.  He seemed to really like the cake.  I think he takes after his Uncle Paul a little though.  He started off by pinching off icing from the side and eating that.  He didn't really get into the cake until DeAnne pushed his hand down in it pretty good.

We came on back on Saturday night so we were able to make it to church Sunday morning to hear Bro. Johnny Powell's testimony.  DeAnne and I both have been through some pretty tough medical issues but nothing near to what Johnny's been going through.  Still, I think it gives DeAnne and I the ability to really understand better what Johnny was saying.  It was incredibly powerful and I'm glad we made it back in time to hear him speak.

The final two purchases utilizing the tax refund, and thereby exhausting it, have been made.  First was the new iPad.  It's probably the last thing I'll really get to buy myself.  Unfortunately, the demand is so high it's probably going to take three weeks for it to ship.  We also bought a Canon T2i digital SLR camera.  This is more for the baby but really it's kind of for DeAnne.  She's always been the picture fanatic and she's done some amazing things with just a point and shoot, so it'll be interesting to see what she can do with something closer to a professional camera.  It also shoots HD video and while it's not as easy to use as a dedicated video camera, I think it'll server the purpose for at least the first year or so, especially since we've got DeAnne's phone which takes pretty good video on it's own.

See you Thursday.

--Paul

Baby Blogging, Again

With everything starting to bloom, DeAnne's asthma has been flared up and she's had a sinus infection that she hasn't been able to shake so on Monday we rode over to Dothan to see her pulmonologist.  The appointment went well.  She's already on some antibiotics and those seem to be helping so there really wasn't anything the doctor could do other than tell her to come back after the baby is born and see how she's doing then.  The real action was at the stores.

We hit Target and Babies R Us to finish out the registries there.  Now that we know we're having a boy, DeAnne wanted to get some gender specific things.  We also got all the furniture for the nursery ordered from Our New Baby.  It was expensive, but we bought a crib to college set that will probably be the only furniture that Baby DuBose has until they get out on their own and buy something for themselves.  Fortunately, we got our tax refund from the Feds last week, so we were able to pay for it then and be done with it.  I think this is the first furniture we've bought that we didn't spend a year paying for.

So the furniture is ordered.  It's supposed to be here towards the end of April.  It seems like forever, but I'm sure we'll probably still be trying to get the room cleaned out the day that they bring it over.

One last thing:  I have to say "Happy Birthday" to my awesome nephew, Liam.  He turns 1 today.  We're going to be heading down to Navarre tomorrow evening and his party is Saturday afternoon.  I can't wait to see him with a cake in front of him.

See you on Tuesday.

--Paul

Cat, Tree & Me

A story I failed to mention last week:

We were getting ready for bed and a lot of nights, one or both of the cats will go outside while I'm walking Emma before bed.  This time they both went out and it just so happened that the neighbor's dog, Samson, noticed us and came over.  Samson's a pretty nice dog.  He's a little bit bigger than Emma and all he really wants is for Emma or one of the cats to play with him.  Of course, Emma's some kind of snoot and won't play with other dogs and the only dog the cats will go near is Emma, so poor Samson usually finds himself out of luck when he comes over to our house.

This night, he must have got too close to Mama Kitty because I heard her hiss and then him yelp and then Izzy chased him back to his house.  None of this was a big deal until another dog came to Samson's rescue and chased Izzy up a pine tree behind our house.  Unfortunately for me, the pine tree Izzy chose was half dead and every branch he touched on the way up broke off.  He finally found a solid branch around 16 feet in the air.

So DeAnne and I hear all this and we get some flashlights and head down to the woods and start looking for Izzy.  We find him and then the question becomes, how do we get him down?  Blessedly, we just happen to have a 10' ladder, so I get that, lean it up against the tree and climb to about the 2nd to top rung just to find I'm way too short to get him.  I ended up having to steel my nerve and stand on the very top of the ladder, hugging the tree for dear life with one arm and reaching for Izzy with the other.  Thankfully, he was ready to come down and when he saw my arm was close enough to reach, he made his way down my arm and on to my shoulder.

Total time for rescue: about 40 minutes.  I never, ever want to be a fireman.

--Paul

It's A...

Boy!

I didn't think we were ever going to get in at the doctor's office yesterday.   I don't know if they were backed up or what, but we were there for about an hour and a half.  I guess we were just meant to have to wait it out as long as possible to find out.  Thankfully, out little guy was cooperative yesterday and it didn't take long to get a good angle.

Everyone seems to assume that I'm more excited for a boy but I really don't think I'm any more excited than I would otherwise.  It's just amazing what God has done in mine and DeAnne's lives and this is just icing on the cake.  Of course, that may be a bad analogy since anyone who knows me knows that the icing is my favorite part.  Anyway...

If our boy turns out to be a little tech geek like me, I'll be able to tell him that the day we found out he was a boy was also the day that the iPad 2 was announced.  No real surprises from what I saw.  It's thinner, lighter, now also comes in white and has a better processor and a front and rear camera.  Pricing and storage stayed the same.  Reading that, you would think I wasn't excited about it, but I'm pretty sure that this is the model that's going to get me in to the iPad.  I said last year that I was really only waiting for it to have a camera and that's there now.

No major plans for the weekend.  I'm on call.  I think we're going to hit the Little Lambs sale Saturday morning and then I'll probably be doing some yard work after that.  Have a good one.

--Paul

Big Wednesday

Tomorrow's looking like a pretty big day.

First up, I'm going to be taking CPR training at work.  They offer it about once a year and with the baby coming, I figured it would be a good time to take it.  I was certified once upon a time a long, long time ago but it'll be good to get it again.

I'm going to have to cut out in the middle of the class though to go to out next ultrasound appointment.  We're going to be making an attempt to determine the gender of our little one.  They tried when we went a couple of weeks ago and he wouldn't cooperate so hopefully this time we'll get a good look.

Finally, Apple is set to announce the next generation of the iPad tomorrow.  The press event starts at noon. I'm really not expecting anything earth-shattering hardware wise.  It'll have front and back cameras and a new processor but that'll be the extent of the hardware changes.  The unknown factor is iOS 5.  Will the iPad 2 be the debut of the new operating system or will we just get a preview and have to wait until the release of the next iPhone to actually get the new OS?  That's the major question for me.  I'm also curious to see what they do with price/storage configurations.  I would probably be surprised if they stayed the same as they are now but I'm not sure what the possibilities would be otherwise.  I'll let you know Thursday.

--Paul