bastone.org

Announcing Baby #2…

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It’s official. We’ve known for over a month now that Sharon was pregnant, but have sat on the news until we went to the doctor for an ultrasound to make sure everything looked okay. Sharon went to the doctor today for an ultrasound, everything looked fine, and she’s nine weeks along. The due date is tentatively set for July 3, 2007, but with the issues that came up with Julia, we’ll be scheduling a c-section a week or two before that.

Ideally, we wanted a little bit more time between having kids. There will only be about 17.5 months between and we would have liked it closer to two or two and a half years. This still works, at least they won’t be several years apart.

So here’s to starting off another baby on this site. I hope I still have time for writing to this site after July…

Home

Ken Bastone

I haven’t been able to post anything for a while now, and am just feeling up to it again.

On Saturday, November 11, Ken (my brother) was killed in a motorcycle accident. I’ve created a page for him, separate from this blog.

I’m still struggling to deal with the situation. It was overwhelming to see the entire community come to mourn our loss and to celebrate his life. Ken always lived life to the fullest. I was told (and reminded of) many stories that gave everyone a good laugh.

You’ll see a new heading at the top of the screen for the separate page on Ken. I’ll update that with whatever you want to send me. I’ve got some pictures I need to sort through, but would love some more pictures.

Gadgets Random

Worst iPod Accessory Ever

I was looking through one of the great catalogs that I randomly get from B&H, and saw the iCarta+.

My favorite quote from the product description:

The iCarta is great for playing music while you’re in the shower, or for any other occasion.

Any other occasion? How long do you really spend in the bathroom, wishing you could listen to your music? And why would you spend $90 on this? A small stereo, or small speakers, can do the same thing.Except dispense toilet paper.

News Random Travel

Election Crap

Post author By joemama
Post date November 11, 2006

It’s a little bit dated, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway. I used one of those touchscreen voting machines last Tuesday, and it went incredibly smoothly. While I was making my selections, there was a roll of paper behind plexiglass on the left side that would print every choice I made.

So that was that. No controversy, no nothing, just a very orderly process. Hope it’s like that the next time around.

[tags]Election, Voting, Touchscreen[/tags]

Home Julia Photos

Picture Gallery #11

Post author By joemama
Post date November 5, 2006

Another batch of pictures have been uploaded to the picture gallery. Lately, Julia has been playing outside in the leaves. She’s also figured out how to stick out her tongue. It’s very Michael Jordan-esque.

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[tags]Pictures, Photos, Julia, Family[/tags]

News

Christmas Already?

Post author By joemama
Post date November 4, 2006

I ran across an article about a mall in Chicago that is all decked out in it’s Christmas stuff. Wal-Mart has decided to start cutting prices on all sort of junk already. (I still wouldn’t go there, regardless of the sales.)

Today, we shopped at Target, and the Christmas section was already full of stuff. In fact, it was crowding in on the Halloween stuff over a week ago. Then at Office Depot (side note, they have a 50 pack of DVD+R and DVD-R for only $13, it’s a great deal!) the Christmas music was already playing. We’ve even seen the Christmas tree places starting to set up their shops. At least they know when to start selling trees.

Is it just me, or did [tag]Christmas[/tag] start way too early this year? I fear that people will just be sick of it when we finally do get there, two months from now. I’m perfectly content with waiting until the day after Thanksgiving to start the season, and have a month-long sprint to the big day, instead of this two month marathon.

There might be one upside though. If they are cutting prices this much already, just wait for the sales that we are bound to see in the coming weeks.

Home Julia Photos

Julia’s First Halloween

Post author By joemama
Post date October 31, 2006

Julia “celebrated” her first Halloween by dressing up as a fairy. Sharon made a wand to go with the costume, which Julia proceeded to hold on to quite tightly.

We only went to a few houses, at which point Julia really wanted to get back home. We then gave out less than half of our Halloween candy. (What gives? We even had full size candy bars this year, none of that snack size crap.)

Anyway, here’s some pictures of Julia’s [tag]Halloween[/tag] Adventure.

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[tags]Pictures, Photos, Julia[/tags]

Julia Video

Happy Julia Video

I’m making my first real attempt at uploading a video to the site. I haven’t figured out a way to easily embed it in the site, or how to convert an avi file to a flash file. (If you know of a way, leave it in the comments.)

Anyway, here is a video of Julia being happy. Right click on the link and save the file.

News

Spammers in Greensboro

Post author By joemama
Post date October 29, 2006

Earlier this week, I ran across an article where someone in Greensboro was sending out spam messages from a local cafe.

I didn’t necessarily find that the interesting part, but the article itself. It seems to assume the reader has almost no knowledge of many basic principles. Examples: it explains what spam is, that spam is annoying, and that Wi-Fi lets you “tap the Internet without wires.” I guess I figured that anyone reading the article would know about that.

One last thing I took away. The owner thinks the spammer was up to mischief. I disagree. They saw an opportunity to send millions of messages without paying for the bandwidth and they took advantage of the situation. No mischief there, just pure greed.

Random Web

TP Insurance

While on the way home today, I was listening to the radio. During the mindless banter between songs and commercials, the DJ was talking about how a girl in Texas is offering TP Insurance for Halloween.

Here’s how it works: you give her $10. If your house gets TPed on Halloween, she and her friends clean it up. And the money goes to charity.

I think this is pretty inventive. I’m sure they could charge even more if they wanted to. I’m just curious to see how many houses get TPed. But they don’t do eggs or “forks”. Not sure what those forks are, any ideas?

[tags]Halloween, Insurance[/tags]