Randomness

- Sara had her ultrasound this morning. Looks like Tucker is going to turn out a-ok, and it also looks like he's going to be a bit on the chubby side. Its amazing to see what a difference 4 weeks makes. In the new 4-D pictures we got today, you can see that he's starting to accumulate some baby fat. The pictures from 4 weeks ago, he looked to be on the skinny side. Maybe I'll do a side by side comparison on here, if I get a chance to scan the pictures that we got today.

- Some of my friends are starting to take bets as to when Tucker will be born. A co-worker of mine says he'll be born on Halloween. Sean wants him born on the 9th (which is Sean's birthday), Dock wants him born on the 7th (which is Dock's birthday). I for a completely random guess have October 26th as my guess.

- I think I'm starting to jinx the Tigers. It seems whenever I watch them play, they end up losing, and in a big way. I went to the game a weekend ago and they lost 10-2. I tried to watch the game last night, and they lost 13 to something. I stopped watching full-time after the 1st inning. I couldn't handle it, and when I flipped over to check the score, it seemed to just continue to get worse. Maybe I should give my lucky t-shirt another try. Something needs to happen. I was starting to think maybe it was time to start panicing about the recent plight of the Tigers, but my favorite blogger of all things Detroit, Big Al, says not yet, so I'll take his advice. I mean, they are still in first place (for now).

- So its football time again. It seems like every year I'm becoming less and less of a football fan, thanks to the recent plight of the Detroit Lions. I'll never be as big of a fan as I was when I was in high school when we had Barry Sanders to watch, and when Lloyd, Mike and I would drive from Lapeer to Pontiac 3 to 4 times a week to watch training camp. At least back then the Lions were entertaining, and you could expect at least a 8-8 season from them. Even if you didn't have a great feeling about the team, you always knew you had Barry and he would probably do something amazing, to at least keep you watching, or Wayne Fontes would do/say something entertaining as well. Lately is been painful to be a Lions fan. When I say painful I mean, its really painful to watch, but yet you watch, because you want to see what's going to happen. At least while the Tigers had their down years, there was some hope that in the distance things had a chance of changing, since the guy that owned the team had a history of winning in hockey. There's no such feeling for me about the Lions anymore. The owner has a long, extensive history of sucking (what is it, like 50 years now? You could also insert any "Ford cars suck" joke here as well). He has Matt Millen running the team, who has proven over and over that he's in over his head, and the owner (when he actually does talk) continues to praise Millen, saying that his job has not been in jeopardy at anytime during the most recent period of ineptness. Ford-Millen is like the Bush-Cheney of the sports world, both duo's need to be impeached. Living in central Virginia, doesn't help matters any either though. Sundays consist of having to watch either the Redskins, Ravens, and Eagles/Giants (if they are playing at a time when the Redskins aren't). I usually end up watching whatever is on Fox, so I can keep up with the players on my fantasy team, and hope that at some point they'll break into the game I'm watching with highlights (or should I say, lowlights) from the Lions game. I guess since I live so far away, I no longer am able to talk myself into wasting money on buying tickets anymore.

- I can't think of anything else to say right now.

A Change of Heart (battery)

So Shooter Cheney is going in for surgery to have the battery in his heart device changed. This stuck me as being quite odd, because I just always assumed that the man didn't have a heart (or a soul). I mean this is the same guy that 1.) once shot his good friend in the face, tried to cover up the fact he did it, then had his friend (who he shot), apologize to him for all the media scrutiny he received over the matter; and 2) was the driving force for the unneccessary deaths of over 3,000 Americans in Iraq. And that's just the top of the list.

If that's not heartless, I don't know what is.

Last weekend (in pictures)

So this past weekend I went up to Michigan for Mike's wedding, which is my 3rd and final (I hope) wedding of the year. Overall it was a good time. My flight from Detroit to Charlotte was a little crazy as I got really nauseous about half-way through the flight. It was strange as I have never had that happen to me before. To make matters more interesting, after fighting off the strong urge to vomit in the pouch in the seat in front of me during landing, the pilot had to abort the landing at the last second because a plane taxied out on to the runway we were going to be landing on, so I had to fight off the urge for another 10 minutes. I am proud to say that I ended up winning the battle, and managed to leave the plane vomit-free. The strange thing was I wasn't the only one that this happened to. While waiting for my bag, I heard about 8 other people saying they got sick at various times during the flight as well, so I guess it wasn't just me.
On Friday, all the groomsmen and my brother went to the Tigers-Royals game at Comerica Park. It was a great time even though the game sucked (Tigers lost 10-2). We got down to Detroit super early (1:30) so we hung out downtown, and got in to the stadium right as the gates opened at 5:00. I was able to wander around the park and get some pictures:


The view from the right-field bleachers, where we watched BP

Zumaya and Leyland talking, while Verlander is shagging fly balls.

The view from the stands, behind home plate.

Kenny Rogers warming up in the bullpen.

The view from our seats.

Saturday afternoon was the wedding. It was a great time. The weather was nice and cool for the most part, so I didn't roast to death in my suit, although at times I did start to get uncomfortable. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures since I didn't have my camera on me. My brother was supposed to take pictures during the ceremony and reception, and he did, but most turned out pretty blurry. A few managed to turn out alright:

The 4 of us groomsmen who crashed at Mike's house after the game Friday night. Myself, Ron, Mike, and Steve. Lloyd had to rush home to get dressed up in his Harry Potter outfit to Barnes & Nobel after the game so he could try to be first in line keep his sister company in line while she waited for the new Harry Potter book to go on-sale at midnight.

Mike, Myself, Steve, Ron and Lloyd minutes before the wedding. Lloyd is smiling really big because he is happy with the ending of the new Harry Potter book that he finished right before this picture was taken.

All in all it was a great time. I got to see some friends that I hadn't seen in quite some time. It would have been even better had Sara been able to make the trip with me. Then again maybe its better she didn't. She's never seen what happens when Mike, Steve, Aadam, Lloyd and myself all get together in the same room for longer than 2 minutes.

Catching up

- So last week we finally found out that we're having a boy. Ever since Sara found out that she was pregnant, I just always assumed it would be a girl, so when we found out it was going to be boy, I was pretty surprised. Its nice to now be able to refer to the baby as a "he" and not an "it", and also to be able to call him by his name - Tucker. November can't get here soon enough!

- I found the entire ultrasound procedure pretty spectacular, and probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen. After seeing Tucker's man-parts from various angles and at various zoom levels, we were also showed his kidneys, butt, heart, and brain. With me being facinated with computers, and tech stuff like that, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I'm not gonna lie...I was jealous that I couldn't play with any of the stuff. After they showed us everything with the normal ultrasound pictures, they then kicked it into 3D and we got to see Tucker grab his foot with his arm, and pull it towards him and play with it a bit, and we basically got to see what he's going to look like. We get to go back again in a month for another round of ultrasounds, so hopefully we'll get some more cool pictures.

- We did have some troubling news while in the ultrasound. While taking measurements on the brain, the ventricles measured at 10 mm, which is the high end of being considered normal. The Doctor (Dr. Gary Helmbrecht) then started going through a list of worse-case scenarios of what could happen, one of which was that Tucker could be born with water on the brain. After confusing us with medical speak, we were convinced this was the case. Yesterday we had our regular monthly appointment with our usual doctor, and they informed us that the only way this would be worrysome, is if Tucker's head was abnormally large, and based on the measurements they took, Tucker's head is in the 54th percentile, so really there isn't much to worry about. While we are happy to hear that we don't have to worry about that now, I must say that I'm little PO'd that he didn't give us that bit of info. We were then informed that this doctor has a history of freaking out patients on a near-regular basis, and that our doctor occassionally gets calls of patients freaking out and calling her wanting to know what to do. I guess we weren't the only ones that have been freaked out by this "doctor". Its one thing to make the parents aware of something, no matter how slight of a chance it may be, but if they are going to do it, they need to speak to the level of the patients, and not throw around their big words that just confuses everything, and makes it harder for the patients, who are undoubtedly freaking out no matter how slight the chance, to comprehend what is being said. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that the doctor is a certifiable jerk-off.

- 2 weddings down, 1 more to go to this summer. Next week it's back up to Detroit, for the 3rd, and final, wedding of the summer. It should be a good time. Thursday is the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which is a backyard cook-out at Mike's new house. On Friday, Mike, the groomsmen, and my brother are going to the Tigers-Royals game, and maybe do a little pre-game/post-game pigging out at Cheli's Chili across the street from Comerica Park, and/or PizzaPapalis in good 'ol Greektown. Saturday is the big wedding and reception, then its back home on Sunday. After that, I think my summer will finally be settling down.

- I finally got my computer set up at home once again, and got some new music for my iPod. I highly recommend the new Ryan Adams CD "Easy Tiger", and the Maroon 5 CD "It Won't Be Soon Before Long". Good stuff all around.

- I think I've finally found a show to watch this summer - The Singing Bee on NBC. Caught the first episode last night in between watching the All-Star Game, and I'm hooked. Guess I'll check out the same show that is on Fox tonight, and see how that one is as well. Other than that, there's not much that I find that has the status of "must watch". The show I'm hooked on is Last Comic Standing, and we usually watch "America's Got Talent", but other than that its pretty slim pickings as far as TV watching goes this summer. I wish that Boston Legal and The Office were on year-round.

- There was more I was originally going to say, but I can't remember what it was now..