If I ever were in prison

This is probably something I would do....


Still keeping up with going to the "Y" every morning. Did 30 minutes on the Total Elliptical this morning. Don't know what I will do this weekend when I go to my parents. Perhaps I will need to do some running or walking with Jackson.

Had a pretty good day at work today. I wrote my first Apache Struts application. Granted, all it did was pop a html screen that said "Your content here", but hey, you have to start somewhere.


Karen, my boss, has given me the daunting task of training the rest of the team on this stuff. Don't know how that will work out, but it is pretty cool to take on that challenge. Of course, it would be a lot better if the training dept at Jones would do it for me, eh? I'm training people on stuff that I barely understand myself. Oh well.

This weekend we head to my parent's for Labor day. we will be celebrating the first of Nate's birthday's there. One will be celebrated down here the next weekend also.



later,

100K

Well, today I had to estimate a project that one of our users would like to have done. Basically, it would take the trading system and ripping it's spine out. One of the hard things about working on a legacy system like that that it's built on some assumptions and basic principles that we can't really change easily. This one turns out to cost over $100,000 and will take a year and a half to work out. But then again, that was with the 2 sentence requirement that I was given. I think we could do some things piecemeal for them and make it come to them a little easier.

I got to watch Nate for a little while last night while Lynn went to the library. we went for a long walk so we could exhaust out Jackson. He didn't want to do much afterwards.

Kind of cooler today. Lynn has opened up the house.

I've been pretty regular to the gym in the last week and a half. I've set my cell phone on the bed side table to alarm at 5:50 A.M. every morning. Thing is, I don't get out of bed until 6:20 usually. oh well. I've reviewed my Getting Stronger by Bill Pearl book for some more structured workouts. I will need to copy them down and take them with me. Yesterday I did an inclined situp and my abs are really aching today. Will need to really work them, strengthen them up. Bill makes a point in the book that for white collar workers, we need good abs cause we sit all day. apparently your spine is pretty good support for the back part of your body, so you need those abs to strenghten the rest of you.

No pictures of nate today. I just heard the Rap Cat commercial on tv in the background. I find it hilarious....

Later,

Radio Flyer

Picked up Nate a Radio Flyer Red Wagon for $3 at a yard sale yesterday. I'd been wanting him to have one. It is in pretty good shape, some rust spots. He loves being pulled around the house in it with all of his toys in tow.



Later,

Rainy Day

Woke up and it is raining hard out there. That is good we need it. Well, this pretty much nixes any of our outdoor plans today. maybe I will spend the day practicing foldig my shirts.




Here's a picture of Nate in his new blue jeans...



Later,

TP Disaster

You all have to go to Lynn's blog and see Nate's most recent disaster.
Lynn went off shopping at Kohl's tonight with my $10 discount. she bought Nate some cute clothes.
We cleaned up the garage a bit tonight. Packed up all the giftable stuff that we were going to give to the Children's home but never quite got it out to our porch to donate. Good Will, Here we come.
Nate and I took quite a walk tonight. we went up and down every street in our subdivision. When we got back, I watched the Dateline special on the Katrina aftermath. kind of sad what happened to everyone down there, but then again, when you build your city in a bowl........
Otherwise, things are going good. we were going to clean out the garage tomorrow, but since we spent 30 minutes getting it straightened up tonight, we'll have more free time tomorrow. Don't know what we will do with it though. Maybe I'll find a free minute to go to the Y and do some cardio.
Otherwise, we are going to Maryland Heights and getting some of the free mulch. Lots and lots of much apparently. We are going to cover everything. Would be kind of cool to have a mulch yard, with no grass to mow. Then again maybe not. Well, I will stop the stream of conscience right now.

Hope all are doing well.

I'll leave you all with a picture of Nate I took. I wrote "Wide Load" on the back of one of his disposables....

Logan Carson Hawkins

Logan was born at St. John's at 6:59 P.M. He was 6 lbs and something.
congratulations Ben and Laura....

I got this from Gramma Hawkins earlier on Saturday morning. More official Stats for you all:

Logan was born 8-24-2006 at 6:59 PM. He is 6 lbs. 8oz. and 21" long.
He was taken to the special care nursery that evening. They were concerned about fluid on his lungs. He has progressed well and was given antibiotics this morning for an inflection shown in his blood work, but his lungs look much better and if everything goes well he will come home Sunday or Monday.

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Baby Hawkins...

Got a call from My friend Ben today. Baby hawkins is on it's way. we don't know the sex, ben is hoping for a boy, and I hope he gets one. Nate's been so great to get to know. I don't know how I would feel with a girl? Oh well.

In other news, there really isn't one. I got a call from my mortgage company today and I took a survey. they asked for my birth year and annual salary at the end. I told them, no. they should have that kind of info, at least I think they should. Oh well.

well, I need to get a rest. we may be going up the hospital later to see what is up with Ben and Laura. at the rate she's going, we may not see a baby until later tonight.

Oh yeah, for all of my more adoring fans, I recently set up "site meter" to keep a track of all my site's visits. probably means I need to stop viewing it myself, cause that will throw my numbers off. stats are at This site.
Later,

Mama Mia!

Last night we had spaghetti at the Starbuck Household. First time that we let Nate have it by himself. Results are shown below:

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Things are going pretty good around here, otherwise. Planning Nate's b-day for 9/9/06. That should be fun.
We had a conference at work and I went to a session on building security into your web application. Was pretty wild some of the stuff I learned, with all the spoofing and phishing and stuff that hackers can introduce into web sites. Thankfully the applications I write aren't that high profile and won't cause any issues if they are hacked. Our online access for customers is another story. I heard that is locked down pretty good.
had a fun game tonight with Nate of hiding from him behind a chair and having him look for me. It is so cool seeing him develope. he likes drawer's and doors right now. We have to tell him "no" a lot, but I don't think he quite knows what it all means, just yet.
I've been pretty regular going to the Y this week. Got to goals.

1. Lose some weight
   
2. try to get a little more muscle definition
   

Not that I want to look like this freak

but it would be nice to show some guns. Oh well, it probably won't happen. I'm not the type of person to say I will do something and then go after it whole heartedly. But this is what I can try for. We'll see.
Nothing much else is new. We finally have a free weekend coming up where we absolutely have to do NOTHING. (no going to parents, in-laws, cousins... ). will be nice to stay home and veg. But of course, on Saturday afternoon, we seem to play the "What are we doing today" and "I chose last time". Don't know. I do have this nice Casa Coupon we could use this week. we've been good about not eating out..

Later,

egg on my face

Last night, Lynn made up Nate some scrambled eggs to eat. He made quite the mess of it all. Jackson loved it though. Most of it landed on his back. It was quite a sight. I posted a picture below.

Work was pretty good today. found out I had a problem with my project where I wasn't converting a value from British pence to British Pounds. Big Ooops on my part. threw the numbers way off , but turns out that it is going through user testing right now so it all should be okay.

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Also, we took Nate outside to play in his car tonight. got a pic of him and Jackson together.

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Later,

FUNNY!!!

Found these videos out on the net today while visiting with my cousins over in Columbia today. It was a good visit and got to catch up with my cousin David who I haven't seen for a year.

Go Chad!!!!!

A long night

Last night had another bundle implementation for work. this one took 8 hours. thankfully, no problems on my end. we'll see on Monday how everything performs.
Nothing much new on our front here. Today, Lynn, Nate & I went over to St. Charles and checked out the shops downtown, and then we drove up through St. Charles county over to the Alton area. Lots of corn.
Tomorrow we head to Columbia to visit with my cousins. Should be a good day.

Later,

Nate's New Car

Nate got a new car tonight.
we took a video of it to show everyone.

2nd most beautiful baby

Went back to my parents this weekend for the annual city fair, Queen City Pioneer Days. It was a good time. I got to see my nephew and niece show their sheeps and hogs. They got some trophies from both, but I can't remember what, except Ashton got one for hog showmanship.
We entered Nate into the Baby show. He got 2nd in the 9 to 12 month boys. My personal opinion he looked the best of all three, course I really didn't pay much attention to the other two. They had some Sorority girls doing the judging. They thought Nate was cute, but I think he got second cause he was an "out of towner". I've linked a pick below in his costume. theme was western.


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