Hot biker-chick

Showin' off the hog.

I just cleaned my bike so it's nice and shiney. With that combined with this beautiful, crisp autumn day, I decided to show it off.

I look so frickin' cool. Look. My collar is up. You have to be really cool to put your collar up.

I'm such a poser.

Okay, here I am.

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I thought I'd better post some new photos. Here are a few from this summer while my brother was visiting. It was a good time.

Everyone's doing well, my scooter is not running up to par, but I painted it. And then I bought a chopper.

I'll try to keep up with this…for anyone who may read it.

Austin James

As the first winter blitz of the season unloaded upon us without mercy, so too did the ever increasing birth pains of labor. We crawled on the snow and ice-packed roads of Edmond and onto the freeway toward the hospital. The wind and snow made for low visibility while the ice taunted our tires.

We arrived at the hospital in time for the storm to grow even larger where it appeared to be a virtual tornado of snow, giving everything around it a thrashing and a nice shiny coat of ice. But we were here, safe and growing closer to what lay ahead.

The diagnosis was 5 centimeters upon arrival. About 45 minutes later, 7 centimeters. And as much as I'd like to say that dialation progressed in such a manner from that point on . . . I cannot. Seven centimeters was not the lucky number we would have liked to have been. Instead, it was a plateau or sorts. The steady un-anesthesized contractual endeavors (as I like to call them) grew in intensity and the dialation process seemed to be taking the night off.

Bring on the drogas! After 7 and a half painful hours of labor, we opted for an epidural. It was a valiant effort, but we could not do it any longer. And by "we" I mean, Heather couldn't deal witht the pain any longer and I could not watch her bear the pain any longer. After that, things were much calmer, as was the weather outside.

As the sun rose into the clear and calm morning sky, dialation was complete. We all moved into position and were ready to meet our boy. After a few quick maneuvers with the forceps and three easy pushes, the doctor pulled our son out and he was here. Another magical, emotional and absolute awesome experience. Words cannot describe.

Austin James weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. at 20 inches.

He is now home with us and we are adjusting to our new family. Madisyn is still "unsure" about the whole situation, testing us and her boundaries. She loves baby brother, but may feel a little left out despite our overwhelming her with love and attention. She will adjust.

Everyone is healthy and healing and God has blessed us once more by entrusting us with one of the greatest gifts he could. We are so thankful and excited to raise our now two beautiful children.

Me & my 6 year old son

In my profession, we are often required to search out stock photography to fill a certain element of our client's communication piece. Today was one of these days and for this particular piece, we were simply searching for photos to trace in Adobe Illustrator. My description in the search engine was titled, "child and parent." And as usual, this site gave me an array of great, decent and just plain bad photos that matched the descriptor. Some are cheesy, some are good. It seems that the big fad these days is to portray and active subject whose color is desaturated, lacking at lease two of the four process colors and to top that, such high contrast that the already too white whites are blown out, seeming to be one with the sun. This is beside the point. In my search I stumbled on this littel gem, which led me to believe that there must be someone small enough to fit in the back of my toilet with a teeny, tiny camera. Or, what I just said, only in someone else's bathroom taking candid shots of me and my six year old son while we brush our teeth, and who knows what else. Or, this is my identical twin who has a six year old son…because I don't think I have one of those.

At any rate, I saw this and freaked out a little. Does it look exactly like me or am I crazy? I've only experienced this one other time. I was at Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast and I saw an overly tattood fellow who looked identical to me. Even those who I was with looked at him, then me, then him, then me.

I'm not crazy.

People actually read this?

Interesting. I started this blog to simply record some thoughts (sort of an online diary), get some things off my chest, maybe share some of my interests. I guess the point of having a diary would not be to share it with everyone. But anyone who knows me, also knows that I am simply as transparent as the ambitions of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So I told my brother. Was it my subconscious that told me he'd pass it on to all who ever knew me? Maybe?

I guess what I'm getting at is: If I knew that people actually read this, maybe I'd update it more. But probably not. As Reverend Roberts so eloquently put it, I'm a "suburban soccer-dad-in-training scooter rider...." Does anyone know how much work it is to maintain this descriptor? It's really not that hard. I AM still a dad-in-training with a second on the way (which we all know is much easier than being fully trained…less responsibility, I mean) and riding a scooter is fun and economical.

Anyway, I just talked to my brother and told him I'd post a photo of Madisyn. She was having a surprisingly awesome hair day.

I'll talk to you all in another month.

I'm Scootn'

Well, I did it. I got the bike. After much thought, prayer and discussion with Heather, I finally bought a scooter. And it's awesome! I still need to tag it and get my motorcycle endorsement. But in the meantime I've been driving all around the neighborhood.

Since my last entry, I had a birthday (27th). I got an iPod nano from my bro . . . thanks bro. And me and Heather drove down to Austin, Texas to hang out by our lonesomes. We stayed in a dump, but the city was beautiful. We watched the 1.5 million bats fly out from the Congress Ave. bridge and walked up and down SoCo to see the shops, etc. It was nice to just be together, out of our element . . . together.

Heather's now 7 months pregnant. We're still expecting our little man to arrive on November 30! We're excited to meet him.

To anyone who reads this, keep your eyes open. The world is changing. The return of our Lord is getting closer everyday. To those who may not know the Lord Jesus, I invite you to post a comment and include your email address to learn about how you can. To those who already know the joy of having a relationship with him, be urgent and willing to share his love with anyone who needs Him.

Good night all.