To. L.A. and back in time for Halloween

I was fortunate enough to go to Los Angeles last week for Microsoft PDC 2003. Besides learning a bunch about future MSFT technologies, we actually got to see and hear Bill Gates.

I'm sure there are nicer parts of L.A., but what we saw left a little to be desired. The LA Convention Center was very nice but the rest that we saw did not leave me aching for more. I won't be disappointed if I don't have to go back there for a while. We did make it to the lovely city of Santa Monica on the coast. I would recommend going there if you are ever in the vicinity; it sure was a breath of fresh air compared to the big city.

I got back from the trip just in time for Halloween. I always love Halloween. Harry dressed up as the Incredible Hulk while Scott dressed up as a leopard. They were both absolutely darling. It was especially nice that we got to share the event with my parents (Nana and Grandpa) and our good friend Mr. Jonathan.

Recommended Halloween beers: Dead Guy Ale (Rogue) and Pumpkinhead Ale (Shipyard)

ZOMBO and Bubb Rubb

Crazy Websites of the Week:

"You can do anything at ZOMBOCOM!" > Shaud-ad to Jonathan for bringing this to my attention. If I could explain it I would.

Bubb Rubb and da Woooo woo > Thanks to our man in Atlan, Karl, for showing us this. Karl says, "I recommend the Original Whistle Tips News Video, and then hit the Bubb Rubb Sound Board for the funky flow."

Enjoy.

"There are 2 colors in my head..."

I was listening to Radiohead's "Everything in its Right Place" (from Kid A -- I love that song) and I thought to myself, "Hey, you should color you hair black." Then I thought that maybe I should just dye it blond again. Wifey tells me that people change their hair when they don't feel good about themselves. I'll have to think about that one.

We (the family) ate at Cody's Roadhouse for dinner tonight. It was good -- way too much food; we had plenty to bring home. Things to remember: (1) kids eat free there Monday and Tuesday (2) they do not seem to be open for lunch.

Bee Swarm and More Bananas

We some amazing thing in our back yard this weekend: a bee swarm. Out of nowhere on Saturday we noticed a huge clump of bees in an oak tree in our back yard. Our immediate reaction was to just run inside (which we did). Next I thought, "How do we get rid of such a thing?" I thought of knocking the hundreds of bees right out of the tree with a stick or ball or something but I predicted that this method would only be trouble. So after a little research online, I found that bee swarms are mostly temporary. To the casual observer they look like they might be a beehive, but it turns out that the swarms go away in about a day. This morning I went out and it was still there in full glory so I took some video. However, by this afternoon all but about 3 of them were gone and they left a little honey comb behind hanging from a limb of the tree. I must say it was very cool... and educational.

Our backyard seems to be just full of new things to see and learn. If I didn't mention it already, our baby banana tree recently sprouted some baby "baby" bananas! After just a little more than a year in our backyard, it has grown more than 7 feet and spawned off about 4 other trees. Hopefully we'll be able to eat them in a month or so.

I'm sorry I don't currently have pictures of all of the cool goings on in our backyard but I've been unable to easily grab the still pictures off of our digital video recorder using Windows XP. We have a Sony Digital8 DCR-TRV510 and had no problems pulling the pictures off of the camera using Sony's PictureGear 3.2 "Lite" (came with the camera) from Windows 98/Me. Apparently Sony doesn't have an upgrade for this for XP and the right drivers don't exist for the camera's serial connection to the PC on Windows XP. If anyone has had any luck grabbing the stills from this camera on to XP please let me know, I would appreciate it. At this point, the only option I can see is to install a Win98 VM on to XP just for getting the pictures off of the camera. Sounds lame, right?

Rock Lobster, Singing Pirates, Cake, and Bananas

Time flies when you're having fun I suppose. It does not seem like it's been a week since the last post. Well, Teresa (my sister) and her 3 girls, Lauren (age 8), Katie (age 7), and Abby (age 4) were in town for part of the week. So, they certainly brightened our week and helped in the fun (i.e. play hard). We all met out at Shells for dinner on Thursday and joined up with G.G. (my grandmother) and my parents. It's always nice, even if brief, for all of us to be together as family. Thanks G.G.! BTW, I had rock lobster and it was really great.

Friday, we all (same party as above sans G.G. and Grandpa) went to Disney World (Magic Kingdom). Oh man, did we have a good time. It was the first time for the girls. We saw singing pirates (you know we've been on this pirate kick lately too) ... Dumbo ... Pooh ... Peter Pan ... Grand Prix ... Country Bears. I do not think any of us got enough. Needless to say we were completely worn out by the end of the day. Thanks to Nana (and G'pa) for everything, but especially the mouse ears for the boys (they are still wearing them).

Saturday was a recovery day which really just means we stayed at home and worked hard. We put some work into Harry's "boat bed" (thanks Mr. Jonathan). It's not looking like a boat quite yet but it is now in Harry's room with the bed (and Harry) on it. Oh yeah, we (I) also made a cake to celebrate earth revolution #30 for Jonathan -- Happy Birthday Mr. Jonathan! We still have a bunch of cake so I guess we'll just have to celebrate all week.

Today was nice... another "recovery" day. Work, play, work play ... I made banana bread for the first time. It was pretty good. We ate it with our friends and neighbors Simone and Jeff and family where we just got back from a wonderful time. We definitely had a banana theme happening -- kebabs, bread, and Foster (on fire). The kids had a blast. We had fun ... we ate good food. Thanks Simone and Jeff! I look forward to more good times with our friends. Jeff and I talked about taking the boys out to the local race track for some fun one night soon. I imagine that the boys will love it. Stay tuned for that.

Well, this ends another week / weekend with the Sauers. It all seems to go by so fast. One of these days I feel like one of these we're going to be watching our boys graduate or get married or something. Growing up seems to go by in the blink of an eye.

HaveWeekend { return; }

Well, the weekend is now had. Even with all of the excitement, I still call it good. We have a new* family motto: "Work hard, play hard."

*I do not think we actually had one before


Today:

• Love


• Play


• Play


• Pirates


• Go Bucs!


• Disney On Ice (Harry V -- thanks Simone)


• Work


• Jonathan's Scooter


• Snake


• Ice cream cones


• ...

Friday Pirates and Saturday Stitches

About last night... Aim and I made it out on a date to see movie Pirates of the Caribbean. We both thought it was an excellent movie. I'm looking forward to watching again with our boys once they are old enough. Thanks to Mimi (Amy's mom) for babysitting so that we could get out.

Ooooh man. What a day today! At least FSU won the football game today. Our plans for the day were to rest, see my parents (Nana and Grandpa to the boys), then come home, grill out with Marc and his girlfriend (whom we have not met -- I wonder if he'll get married?), and watch the FSU game. Well, it didn't work out like that at all... Sometime after 9:00 AM, Scott (16 mos old) gets his little pinky finger run over by a toy firetruck. You wouldn't think this is a big deal hearing this but believe me when I tell you there was blood everywhere from the poor little guy. So, we ended up spending most of the rest of the day at the emergency room at All Children's Hospital in St. Pete. What a pain! Well, in retrospect it was all probably worth as Scott now has 3 stiches on his left pinky. Fortunately nothing was broken. Besides having to wait around most of the day, we had good people taking care of our little boy.

Scott, if one day you ever read this, I am sincerely sorry you had to endure as much pain as you did today. You were a champ today! I've never seen you so very brave. I hope by the time you are old enough to read this that you do not have much of a recollection of all that you had to go through today. I love you!

Po' Boy Lunch on the Bayou

I went here for lunch today: Cajun Cafe on the Bayou. It was awesome -- literally on the bayou. I had a crawfish po' boy -- very good. I think this would be a good place for a date. ;-)

Slide-show

Hello... Hello again.

We love our 2 boys, Harry and Scott, so very much. So I imagine I will mention them a bunch here. Well, we took a bunch of black and white pictures of them this summer. We just got them developed and this week I put up a slide-show to show them off. I hope to be able to put up more in the near future.

TTFN

Intro

Hi. I'm Harry and this is my attempt at blogging. Hopefully it'll be fun and entertaining... otherwise this may be the last post I ever have.