The Prodigal Blogger Returns

NILS - So I haven't posted anything to the blog in quite a while, but I have been busy enough to justify my absence, I think. It's been a great couple of months, though. My new job is going really well and I finally finished one of the company websites. I also am designing their higher end racing simulators, so they'll look like little mustangs that you sit in and race. I'm also starting to design the logos and artwork for the various gumball machines and skill games that we produce so maybe in a few years you'll see my artwork in every Wal-Mart, Old Navy and other gazillion stores that buy our machines. That would be pretty cool. I'm just about to start on the racing simulator website for work, so that should be fun. It's really cool to see how the work I do directly impacts the company for good, though. By no means am I the greatest web designer or graphics guy but they were in such need of someone with a moderate skill level that they're really liking my work. And there's plenty of it, too.

Also new in my life is my sweet new ride. I like cars- like every guy. So any new ride I get is going to be fun. My 91 Honda Accord Wagon finally earned the label of 'unsafe' recently so I had to get a new car quick. I was driving the accord home from work and slid into a curb pretty hard in the snow. It must have knocked something loose because it really drove weird after that and started making really loud noises. I tried to drive to work the next day but had to get off the freeway after the first exit because I feared for my life. Enter Katrina's car dealing brother, Tom. He doesn't sell cars for a living but he buys them more than many dealerships. In this case, his brother-in-law left for a mission and failed to sell his car. Tom ended up with the job of selling it but it was out of our $6,000 price range so I wrote it off. Tom decided to pitch in some money to help pay for it in order to get it off his hands. Long story short, I'm now driving a 2001 Acura 3.2 TL for $7,000. Nice. I realize a car is a car, as long as it gets you from point A to point B, but this car makes it a heck of a lot funner than my old Accord did. Plus it's an Acura, which is made by Honda, so it should be a trusty car for a good long time, and a safe one, too. Two words: Heated Seats. Aaaah, they're great. Now the 1.5 to 2 hours a day I've been spending commuting to and from work are so much nicer. Also, when we move into our new house, I'll still be spending 1 hour/day in the car, so the 29 mpg is nice there, too. Not to mention the 225 horsies under the hood :)

The coolest new thing to happen since I last wrote, though, was our recent ultrasound. First of all, I think ultrasounds in and of themselves are pretty darn amazing. It's like a really expensive pair of x-ray glasses. We went into the doctor and saw our little.... GIRL! She was awfully squirmy, which was pretty neat to watch. We were both completely shocked because we just knew it was a boy. Or so we thought. Needless to say, we're really excited to know that we're having a little girl- it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's also much easier to talk about our little girl rather than 'the baby'. So we're really excited. June 2007. Child Numero 3 :)

In other news, I finished Paul Chilton's website once and for all (even got paid) so that freed up some time. I also finished Jon Saline's website. That's very good. That frees up some time to start on my next website, which is a collaborative effort with my brother, Grove, who is extremely talented. We should be starting that later this week. To make life even greater, I was only able to enroll in two classes this semester- due to lack of availability mostly. I'm slightly unhappy about this but mostly relieved. Full time school and full time work and side jobs and commuting and church and family and hobbies... it's all too much some times. It's great to get a break in one area. I plan on spending a lot of my late nights working on the basement in our new house, so it's convenient to have less school right now.

Last but not least is our upcoming home remodeling project. We've decided (at least for now) that we're going to remodel the kitchen of our new home before moving in. We're also going to re-carpet, repaint and replace all fixtures and door knobs. Wow- that's a lot of work. Luckily we're with Katrina's mom right now so we don't have a big mortgage to pay for at the moment. I'll be doing a lot of the work myself, which means a lot of trips to Saratoga Springs after work and long Saturdays there, too. Honestly- I love that kind of stuff. What I don't love is being away from family, though. So we'll have to work something out to entertain the kids while we spend shifts up there. It'll be awesome to move into a virtually 'new' home. Once we're in, the work begins on the basement. I drew up a 3D layout of what we're thinking of in Google's SketchUp software. Pretty cool for free software.

I guess that's the gist of my recent days. If any of you read this whole post, good for you. I have a tendency to post huge books due to infrequency. By the way, if Dave or Holly Lesue read this- I really like your blog. You guys blog how we should. Short and frequent posts with lots of pics. Very nice. Well- it's homework time. Yippy friggin' skippy.

Peace Out. -Nils