Sorry I’ve been away so long, I’ve been a bit busy, but I thought today would be a good day to return. So, here we are, about six weeks away from my little girl being here. According to the wife, the last few ultrasounds show that she has my profile. Personally I don’t see it but we’ll find out soon enough, as for everything else, most things have started to finally calm down a bit. We had our baby shower and my wife’s mom bought us the crib. It’s very nice and it’s a dark black cherry color. Which made it really hard for us and my parents to find dressers to match, but after a few weeks of looking, we found a chest, dresser and hutch that matched. It was amazing to me how much dressers cost! Luckily we found a floor model set, which was nice because between my parents and I we were able to buy all 3 pieces. So thanks to the grandparents Isabella now has a complete bedroom. Also, I would like to thank everyone else who has supported us and that gave us so many nice gifts! She is going to be the best dressed little girl in the neighborhood! So now, there’s just a few little things left to do around the house. A little more sorting and storing but for the most part I think everything is ready and waiting for her, especially me, her father who cant’t wait to have her here. See you soon!
Category: baby
So some of may have noticed there was no What did we learn this week last week. For Week 7. Why you may ask? Well, for one I was short on time and exhausted from real life. Two, after the complete and utter disaster of my Einstein post (thanks to the 4 of you that read it and are interested in science) I started to wonder if I should even bother. Then I got some positive feedback and some view from my election blog, so I figured I would keep on going. Plus what the hell us I’m I going to do in my free time? So without further ado, here is What did we learn this week……week 8 (I couldn’t name it 7 since that would’ve been last weeks!)
Rich people really don’t pay attention when they drive……
So Sunday we went with my parents to look for baby furniture. We also had to go to dinner the same night at a pretty good German place afterwards so we looked at furniture stores in that area. Now the area we were in has a decent amount of well to do and actually rich people in it. I hate driving around there because I maintain that the more money people have the less they care about their car (they’ll just get another) and the less they pay attention while driving. Thus was the statement I made when someone swerved into my lane with no blinker. As I pulled past I could see him texting away with 2 kids in the back seat. What and ass. So to further prove my point, after we got to the restaurant and we’re having a couple of drinks for my cousins birthday, the waiter came over and asked if we had a Mercury Milan. I responded yes and asked why, then he told me it had just been hit….in the parking lot.
So we went out and sure enough a woman in her late 40’s to early 50’s had backed into our door not paying attention. What was she driving? A BMW. To further my point, she has enough money to not go through insurance, and just pay to fix our car, $1649 to be exact. Don’t get me wrong, She is actually a very nice lady, and I feel bad for her, but she was from a more affluent part of the area and wasn’t paying attention. Point, set, match me.
In other news….Is twitter more addictive then alcohol and cigarettes?
Well, I’m not sure, but Professor Josh has a very in depth chart on his blog that shows it just might be, why not head over and check it out at http://professorjosh.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/is-twitter-more-addictive-than-alcohol-and-cigarettes-infographic/
“no…really, follow me!”
What did the iceberg say to Titanic? Glub….Glub…Glub….
At 2:20 am on April 15th 2012 it will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the titanic. To this day explorers and scientists along with Titanic enthusiasts are debating and still trying to figure out how it sunk (other than the iceberg) and why it went down so fast. The Titanic sits more than 2 miles down and to this day there are more and more pictures and video (higher quality than anything before) coming back from the murky depths and giving us a better picture of what happened. For some great pics and the full story check out bisarbeats blog at http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/03/unseen-titanic.html#.T2xeMOa9qTE.wordpress
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Running low on energy? Want a little snack? Then put down that banana and pick up a cookie! Wait?! What?!
Well, yeah, kinda. A study by the university of Sydney did a study to see which foods would satisfy your hunger and provide you with energy at the same time, and yes it seems that cookies and bananas are about the same. Check out http://blog.massivehealth.com/infographics/bananas_vs_cookies for the whole story.
“Bring it Cookies!”
Good news everybody, Adobe has a brand new Photoshop coming out….
Now the bad news, its still like $700! Yup for the first time in over a decade Photoshop is getting a completely new look, to me it was a bit similar to lightroom. It’s also getting 65 new features. Sadly the pricing is the same. I tried it out and liked it myself, to try it out for free for yourself, check out Adobe Labs’ website at http://labs.adobe.com/ oh and by the way it’s a really large download so grab a sandwich or something while you wait for it.
NFL Blitz comes to real life….
You would think a team named the Saints would keep their noses clean, but nope. Apparently as incentive to the players, the coach and management instituted a bounty system. Yup, they would get paid for hitting certain players. Let’s just be clear though, not just hitting. The defensive players were paid $1500 for a knock out and $1000 for a “cart-off”. The numbers would then be doubled or even tripled for play-off games. Some of the players that were targeted were Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner. Some of the biggest names in the sport and some of the biggest crowd draws. Also, to make it even worse, the Captain of the Saints defense Jonathon Vilma offered $10000 to any one that knocked Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC Championship Game. For more on the story check out http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7718136/sean-payton-new-orleans-saints-banned-one-year-bounties
“Wheres Bourbon Street?”
It’s a bird! An Angry bird! In Space!?
Yup Angry Birds space is now live! For all you casual gamers or people that just want a diversion the latest in the Angry Birds series is live. This time in space! Do I really need to say anything more? Go get it!
“If you think we were angry before!”
For all you TMNT fans out there…..
It looks like Michael bay is planning on resurrecting the movie series about mutant turtles, that happen to be ninjas. My good friends over at Anomic Office Drone are under the opinion that they will ruin it, but come on guys, its about a group of mutant turtles that are ninjas, how bad can it really get? Anyway head over to them and read all about it here http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/03/21/michael-bay-plans-to-ruin-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/
“Ruin TMNT? Really? Look at the pic and tell me that again!”
We’ve been slimed!
In food news more and more supermarkets are hopping on the “No Pink Slime” Bandwagon. Which I am a fan of. Granted the FDA says its safe and as far as I know in the time its been added to food no one has died from it, it’s just fucking gross. I mean come on, you’re adding Ammonium Hydroxide to the stuff to kill germs? For a list of who does and doesn’t sell it check out Allergic’s blog at http://atomiclotusbox.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/more-supermarkets-refuse-to-sell-pink-slime-in-their-meat/
“So, they said no more pink slime, I guess this might be another option for filler!”
Did you check out the new Linux based operating system created by a group of hackers?
Yeah, I would trust them not to put any backdoors into it. The Anonymous OS was released this week based on the Linux distro Ubuntu. The main problem is that the hacking group of the same name isn’t the group that put it together, in fact they say its riddled with holes and security issues! So who did put it out? Apparently no ones. For more details check out Danny Carbons blog at http://dannycarbon.com/2012/03/19/anonymous-operating-system-prompts-security-warnings/
“Seriously, this time it wasn’t us!”
So that’s it, the week in review, I’m sure I missed some things, but that’s it for me. Enjoy your weekend and as always thanks for reading!
John
Well here we are another week of 2012 in the books, so what did we learn?
Apparently you can sue yourself…..kinda.
In an ongoing saga for the great Stan Lee, he is now being sued by himself….kinda. He is actually being sued by a company he started…..then left…..which actually bears his name. I wonder in the courtroom if there will be Stan Lee then an evil Stan Lee? That would be wicked….the full confusing story can be found here http://www.movieline.com/2012/03/07/stan-lee-vs-stan-lee-the-epic-legal-follies-of-a-comics-mastermind/ for those of you interested.
What the?! I thought I had the new iPad?!
Well, not me, I never would be able to afford one, but for millions of Apple users and fans the iPad 3 was released this week to….well…I’m not really sure. There are some improvements over the iPad 2, but not to the extent most had hoped. Most of my Apple friends say they’ll wait for the 4th one. I mean it’s nice and the new display is awesome, although calling it a retina display is a bit confusing, I thought it had to do with retinal scanning for security. I’m sure it’s going to sell, I mean for 10 years Apple could’ve sold a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves in the desert, but the latest iPad just doesn’t seem to be a huge jump. While the new feature set is nice, better rear camera, better and faster graphics, better display etc, I think the biggest feature is that it caused a price drop for the iPad 2’s. Which means more people will probably be giving them a look. For the full specs take a look here http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/the-new-ipad-3-everything-you-should-know/
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Bat!
Batman Year One Deluxe edition is being released on March 14th. For those that don’t know, year one is critically acclaimed and is one of the most important in the Batman saga. It’s obviously about the crime fighters first year, one thing that makes this issue special is that it’s written by Frank Miller, with artwork by David Mazzucchelli. So if you’re a Batman fan, this is a must have. For more info check out http://firewireblog.com/2012/03/08/batman-year-one-deluxe-edition-new-printing-due-on-march-14th/
They do exist! Well maybe.
So, in Peru a mummy was found, nothing new there, except that it has an elongated skull. Yup, this things skull is almost the size of its small body and as usual everyone is baffled. Did I mention the larger than normal eyes also?
An anthropologist believes it to be a child of under 2 with an enormous head which possibly a human sacrifice. Let’s be real for a minute, chances are it’s just a deformed human, but I’m sure that crazy greek dude, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from Ancients Aliens (I love that show) will be talking about it soon enough!
Check out the full article at http://reinep.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/mummy-with-giant-head-discovered-in-peru/
I just bought the game! What do you mean there’s already DLC that I have to pay for!?
So the hotly anticipated ending to the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3, was released this week…..along with the first DLC (downloadable content) Some people see this as just another way to get more money from the already popular game by offering the DLC at launch. We as gamers are always surprised to see a patch needs to be installed for a game that just came out, but to have DLC on launch day just makes it seem like we bought an incomplete game, jeese, give us a month to think that our 60 bucks bought a full game before you release the DLC! Anyway that’s just my thought on it. As long as it’s not important to the finale I guess no one’s twisting your arm to buy it.
“What do you mean there’s already DLC?”
Glad you’re back from the injury, now if you would look at this pink piece of paper…….
It was announced this week that after 14 years the Indianapolis Colts decided to release Peyton Manning. I guess the main concern was the amount of surgeries he had, but in 2011 they signed him to a 5 year deal, worth 90 million dollars. I guess the prospect of another injury was too great for a team that went 2-14 last year. With Peyton gone and their Superbowl winning coach, I guess it’s time for rebuilding. I’m sure Manning isn’t retiring anytime soon and plenty of mediocre clubs would pay millions more for him. For more about it check out http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/03/07/peyton-and-the-colts-part-ways/ and http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82777827/article/peyton-manning-colts-part-ways-in-most-appropriate-fashion
“Seriously, I always thought you’d get cut before me!”
From the “What the hell?!” department…..
Conservative Christian Pat Robertson wants Marijuana legalized. Yeah I know of all people right? His arguments actually make sense on this one though. He talks about the cost of the war on drugs and even thinks the US has gone too far when it comes to drugs. Pointing out how many juveniles are being locked up for years over a joint, unless you’re rich of course (he points that out) He also says that he believes it should be treated like Alcohol. He even points out that since 2006 47,515 lives have been claimed in Central and South America (granted not all are related to Marijuana) Any way, if you’d like to read more, and I’m sure some of you would like too, here’s the full story http://20poorandfabulous.com/2012/03/08/pat-robertson-wants-marijuana-legalized/
“Is it 4:20 yet?”
What’s it take to be an internet star?
Well apparently not doing an informative beer show on Youtube, blogging about beer or this blog either. Apparently you need to be a rebel leader for 20 years in Africa kidnapping and terrorizing villages oh and keeping them as slaves, normal and for sex. In an effort to catch him a video about Joesph Kony was released on Youtube. The 30 minute video shows his atrocities and had 32 million views by Thursday. For more on Kony check out http://www.freep.com/article/20120309/NEWS07/203090359/Hunt-for-jungle-militia-leader-Kony-goes-viral-aiming-to-get-him-arrested?odyssey=nav%7Chead or Wikipedia him. If you want to check out the video of this scumbag for yourself, take a look here http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc
“Joseph Kony, putting the infant back in infantry since 1986”
Take him down Red 1!
12 years ago a little game called Counter-Strike was released, well, to be fair it was a Half-Life mod. It quickly became one of the most played PC online tactical shooters ever, in fact many still play the original today. Then a few years later Counter-strike Source was released, bringing a new level to the genre of tactical shooters. Not only were the graphics better, but using the Source engine made the physics way better as well. Even though the Call of Duty and Battlefield series have kind of taken the lime light, both Counter-Strikes are still played today. Now, 12 years after the original, Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment are releasing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. One of the coolest features? Cross platform play across all supported systems! Yup, whether you have a Mac, Windows machine, Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll be able to blast your friends full of holes. I for one can’t wait. For more info and a trailer check out http://store.steampowered.com/app/1800/
“Here Kony, Kony, Kony.”
It really is bigger on the inside.
So apparently the babies room, formely my computer room/office/catch all is a T.A.R.D.I.S (Time and Relative Dimension In Space for you non Doctor Who fans) because it seemed to bigger on the inside. For the last for weeks I have been sorting through 15 to 20 year old crap and throwing out countless garbage can loads. I then moved the rest into a much bigger space in the basement….which apparently couldn’t hold everything, so I went through again and finally the basement is about 90 percent done. How an 11×11 room wouldn’t fit in a 40×20 space is beyond me. How I accumulated that much junk is also beyond me, I guess old John is less tolerant of crap and throw more away then young John did.
“Yup, there is 25 years of crap in here, including a Sony sports cassette walkman and a socket 3 486 motherboard! Old Skool bitches!”
So yeah, that’s it for this week, it’s actually kind of a lot isn’t it? So I hope you learned something and enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
John
What did we learn this week? Well I learned that this is a lot harder to do when I’m in Vegas for 3 days, cleaning and painting a babies room and working all week so I don’t have time to read any blogs! But for my fans I’ll see what I can throw together.
If you’re ahead….stop! then shop!
While in Vegas I made my money back the 2nd day and decided not to gamble anymore, I did spend money on food and a shirt but that was about it. My friend that was with me on the other hand was winning at the machines then “reinvested” in the tables….lets just say the market collapsed!
What the hell is leap year anyway?
Well, if you were paying attention to my blogs you’d know! Yup I explained on leap day, so if you want to know the history, or at least a brief history, check the blog at https://johnsbluebox.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/leap-day-and-leap-year-why/
R.I.P Davy Jones.
Yup, no snarky comments, no jokes. Just R.I.P Davy Jones, who was a member of the Monkees. Davy was probably the most famous and popular of the Monkees and died way to young at 66. You could read more about him here https://johnsbluebox.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/rip-davy-jones/
What are the odds that United would fail me 4 out of 4 times?
Apparently very good. I’ve had 3 bad experiences on United, not horrible, just bad delays and luggage lost for a few hours. So for the Vegas trip we booked US Airways (we were delayed leaving!) So when we got to the airport to find that the “US Airways” flight home was actually a United flight I thought, “What are the odds I’d have bad luck with them 4 out of 4 times?” Apparently better than I thought because we had a 2 hour delay that got me home (in my house) at 2 am instead of midnight. Should’ve bought a lotto ticket that day! I will say the flight crew, ground crew and gate staff did a commendable job getting us off the ground and home quickly, albeit 2 hours late.
A burger by any other name…..
While in Vegas I also learned the Le Burger Brasserie has awesome albeit expensive burgers. I had the Italian burger, that consisted of the burger, pancetta, arugula, fresh mozzerella, with tomato and red onions on the side if you want to add it, I also had my choice of buns, I picked the parmesan crusted roll. It was awesome. If you’re up at the casino, stop by Paris and try them out. Oh did I mention the Waitresses look like this?
Welcome to the John Potoky Retro Junk and Computer Museum………
So as I cleaned out the closet in the babies room, I found all kinds neat old things. The oldest was probably a light up schlitz sign from the 70’s that I didn’t even know I owned! (know to find out how much its worth!), next would be the 2nd generation Commodore 64 and 2 small boxes of Commodore and DOS software, then the pink M.U.S.C.L.E characters. Some where in that mix was also a Socket 3 motherboard (for you non geeks that I believe was a 486 board and was probably about 20 years ago) and an even older server board. So I am glad to say that stuff is not in the closet anymore….or the house.
So thats what an F-Stop is……
I also watched a little video from B&H Photo and Video about taking portraits and started reading a great book, understanding exposure, 3rd edition by Bryan Peterson, that explains how to use the manual mode on my Canon T3, so now I can actually use the camera the way its supposed to be used. Here’s a sample…..
That’s about it, like I said I am way behind on my reading, so next week I’ll be more on top of it. Hope you enjoyed it and if you want more to read I did post a new post over at http://thebeershow.wordpress.com/ so have a good weekend! Oh and always, thanks for reading.
John
Yup, I ‘m sure by now most of my friends and family know that we are expecting our first child on May 28th, a little girl. We went for an ultrasound yesterday and it was the first time that she looked like a little baby and not a little alien! She was looking right at us, and even though I haven’t been surprised, seeing her look like a little baby brought a smile to my face. In 3 months I’ll have my little girl and my life is going to change, hopefully for the better. So I thought I’d share my thoughts about the adventure so far.
Contrary to what some people thought, I did want to have kids, or at least a kid. For the first 3 or 4 months I really didn’t do anything around the house, I was worried I would jinx something. So I waited until the 5 month to start, thats when the doctors said everything was normal and looked good. In fact we were just told that she is right where she needs to be! 🙂
The first big hurdle was to rearrange our basement so I could fit 15 years or so of stuff from my office (soon to be babies room) down there, and still keep it a family room. This was also going to disrupt the wife’s working from home, since when she does it was in the basement. so 4 loads of garbage and recyclables later I have 90 percent of my stuff down there, it also looks like a pop culture and comic book flea market but there is a certain appeal to it. I still have some things to take off the walls, posters and such and I still need to clean the closet, but most of thats just getting thrown out anyway so it shouldn’t take long.
We also went to register for our baby shower, and wow what a selection of cool baby and toddler things there are now! I mean it was a lot of fun! A little confusing but still I had a good time picking things that she would look cute in or with. We also have a lot of support, most of our friends had little girls and are more then willing to let us use stuff to save money which is awesome and I thank you guys! We picked the color for the room, and bought a neat ceiling fan that has a globe for the light, it has reversible blades, one side has spaceships on it and the other is plain black, I like the spaceships, the wife not so much….so that’s still being negotiated. We also already have people buying clothes and stuff which is great, but please don’t bankrupt yourselves! lol
The part that’s been the most stressful to me? Not the wife, not the cleaning or not even the thought of losing sleep. It’s people questioning why stuff isn’t done yet. Don’t Worry about it! It will get done before she is here! Believe it or not the wife and I know what we want to do and have a plan to get it all done before she arrives. As long as the bulk of the big things are done, and she has a loving family to raise her, I think she’ll be ok. People were raised in far worse places for hundreds of years (no we don’t live in a shanty, we live in a typical middle class brick ranch home, some of it’s just a bit dated) and survived, so I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine. Believe me I’m just as anxious if not more so to get everything done. Already We’ve accomplished a lot and believe it or not there isn’t that much left to do. Also the people that tell me how she is going to be as a baby and that we wont sleep, sorry but every baby is different so we’ll just have to wait and see, we know plenty that did sleep through the night.
I already know the things I want to do with her, things my father never really did, I want to do stuff with her everyday, take her places, even if she’s to young to remember. I want to get her out of the house for walks, both around the neighborhood, take her to the zoo, when she’s old enough take her to ballgames, and yes, she will of course be a gamer as are we, and she’ll probably be a bit of a nerd also. We both want to do those things with her. She’s going to know two if not three languages (the wife is fluent in Spainish, Polish and we both speak English, maybe Italian if I can remember any of it) and I’m hoping I can learn them along with her. I think she’s going to be a very well rounded little girl coming from two families with such rich heritages and histories. I want her to be happy and I’m pretty sure she will be, because even though she isn’t here yet, I love her already and smile every time I think of her, or look at the ultrasound pic of her. She is entering the world surrounded by two loving parents, Grandparents that are so excited they’re driving me a bit nuts (but I understand why) and two very caring families. So for now, all I can do is wait, but in 3 months when i see her for the first time, all of it will be worth it.
as always thanks for reading!
John
Johns Blue Box 