During sacrament meeting this past Sunday, about 30 minutes before Primary was to start, Nathaniel turned to me and said “Dad, do I still have to give a talk today?” The answer, of course, was yes. With the whirlwind that has been the birth of the twins, re-admitting Zac to the hospital on two separate occasions, and my returning to work, the fact that Nathaniel was assigned to give a talk in Primary completely escaped everybody in the Maldonado home (thankfully, it wasn’t a sacrament meeting talk).
I quickly left the meeting and called Mandy, who was still at home recuperating with Sam (Zac was still in the hospital, but was discharged later that day). I told her that we had about 5 minutes to prepare a talk for Nathaniel and for her to send it to me on my BlackBerry. We didn’t know the topic, so she looked it up on the Church website (the Holy Ghost speaks in a still, small voice), then she copied a few things from the Church website on the Holy Ghost. So we absolutely plagiarized a good portion of the talk, and Nathaniel played almost no part in writing it, but we were desperate.
Mandy was able to send this information to my BlackBerry, then Nathaniel and I spent the last 5 minutes of Sacrament meeting reading through and revising the talk in time for him to give it 10 minutes later. I wanted to print it out on paper, but the Church computer and printer were occupied at the time, so I just showed Nathaniel how to retrieve the talk on the BlackBerry and told him to read it from there.
Nathaniel did a great job and everything went off without a hitch, until Nathaniel’s Primary president (who is blind) asked him for a copy of his talk. Nathaniel appeared confused and wasn’t quite sure how to respond when one of the assistant leaders in the Primary told the president that he couldn’t give her the talk because it wasn’t on paper. She responded, “Wow, you mean he memorized it?!” It was now the primary president’s turn to look a little confused when she was told that it would be explained to her later.
I wonder if this is the first Primary talk in history given from a BlackBerry, I can’t imagine anybody else out there being as disorganized as we are.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
And then there were 8...
Some brief details from June 1, 2010, the day that Zac and Sam entered the world. If you want to skip the nonsense, and get to the good stuff, the pictures are all the way at the end of this post:
5:15 AM - Mandy wakes up and starts preparing to leave for the hospital. We have an 8:00 AM appointment for her to be induced, so we plan to leave at 7:30 AM. I am not even thinking about leaving for the hospital at this point, I am catching up on some last minute e-mail for work
7:00 AM - Mandy is ready to leave, I am not
7:30 AM - Jonathon leaves for school, Eliza and Nathaniel are pretty much ready to leave for school, Mandy is still ready to leave for the hospital, I am still not ready for anything
7:50 AM - I begin to get ready to leave for the hospital
8:30 AM – Nathaniel and Eliza leave for school and we take off for the hospital late (which is obviously totally my fault, I can't even blame it on the kids not being ready), leaving my poor mother home to watch our 2 smallest children, Timmy and Katie, plus Christian, who woke up with a headache and threw up (Sorry Mom! Thanks Mom!!). Grandma Rockwell was there for part of the time as well to provide strategic reinforcements
9:18 AM - I get hungry
9:21 AM - Mr. Conway grills Mandy about her last pregnancies and general health history. We determine that, outside of a relatively high number of previous pregnancies, Mandy has a boring health history
9:29 AM - Mr. Conway asks Mandy if she has any piercings or tattoos other than her ears and thankfully Mandy was able to answer no
9:35 AM - Lady across the hall begins moaning and yelling intermittently very loudly in obvious pain for a few minutes. We can hear her in Mandy's room, with the door half closed. Either she's having a baby or she realized that her husband forgot to pack her iPod. The moaning can be heard every 2 minutes, so I suspect the former.
9:52 AM - We find out Mr. Conway's name is Jerry, and that we're permitted to call him that
9:54 AM - I start to eat the beef jerky that Mandy packed for me (thanks hon!). Probably not very considerate, since she can only have ice chips until the babies are born
9:56 AM - Dr. Butt (no, that's not a typo), a relatively young, fairly attractive female resident, comes in to do Mandy's first internal exam of the day. She is 5 cm and the positioning of baby A's head is -2 or -1. We want the baby to be at a +3, which means the baby's head is crowned
10:04 AM - Moaning Lady has now officially been elevated to Screaming Lady. Wow, she does not sound like she's having fun. Her husband must have really messed something up big time
10:08 AM - Jennifer (aka Dr. Butt, but let's stick with Jen) does an ultrasound, and we determine that baby B's head is in a better position than we thought last week, so that is pretty good news
10:10 AM - Screaming Lady is quiet, she either had her baby or is now heavily sedated
10:12 AM - Jerry finally leaves, his work done for the moment. We find out his shift goes until 7 PM, so unless something out of the ordinary happens, he's going to be seeing this thing through with us
10:26 AM - Mandy has been having contractions every 2 to 8 minutes, but not all of them are particularly strong. However, this is officially labor, and she did so without any chemical enhancements. Mandy's ego is assuaged as she wanted to be sure that she could still go into labor on her own, since her last 3 deliveries needed kick-starting with drugs
10:34 AM - Apparently Screaming Lady's sedatives have worn off, she's at it again
10:50 AM - I head out to the dining room in search for something to drink
11:23 AM - I realized I was hungry again, so I went ahead and had lunch at the nicest hospital cafeteria I have ever seen in my life. Even my picky gourmet chef brother would have been impressed. You had to know I wouldn't be able to resist a good meal. During lunch, I checked out a little bit of The Price is Right, but was not impressed. Drew Carey's delivery is just not as smooth as Bob Barker's was
11:34 AM - I arrive back at Mandy's room to find she has turned on the TV and that there's cable with ESPN. Score!
12:40 PM - I wake up from a short nap. It takes a lot of energy watching your wife in labor
12:41 PM - Contractions are getting stronger, and are now regularly about 6 to 7 minutes apart
12:54 PM - Contractions every 3 to 5 minutes, Dr. Aguh, Mandy's OB/GYN, is apparently on his way
1:35 PM - I am officially tired of cooking shows, but honestly, is there anything better to watch on TV in the afternoon?
1:40 PM - Dr. Aguh arrives, Mandy is now 6 to 7 cm dilated and he pronounced the babies as "happy" meaning their heartbeats look strong and normal. He starts her on pitocin (synthetic form of naturally occurring hormone oxytocin, which induces labor)
3:07 PM - Mandy is merrily enjoying her ice chips. I didn't tell her that on one of my trips to the dining hall (yes, I said trips as in plural) I had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Yum!
3:25 PM - Anesthesiologist comes in to give Mandy an epidural. I excuse myself for a bit and take another stroll to, where else? The dining hall to appease my never-ending afternoon munchies
4:03 PM - Dr. Aguh says Mandy is at 9 cm and predicts babies in the next hour or so. Also, Mandy's water has never broken on it's own, and Dr. Aguh says that this time, he will wait until we get to the operating room before he breaks the water so that he has more control over things because he anticipates things happening very quickly once everything gets going
4:15 PM - I get my operating room gear packet consisting of a cap, face mask, shoe covers and a cool looking jump suit
4:23 PM - Yet another cooking show and yet another recipe with bacon. Is there anything that doesn't taste better with bacon? Maybe ice cream, but I think even that's debatable. Bacon is king
4:38 PM - Mandy's feet are like icicles, we had to get her some socks
4:41 PM - Time for some more beef jerky
5:05 PM - Dr. Aguh is back, Mandy is "rimmed" (almost fully dilated), so time to gown up and head back to the operating room!
5:12 PM - So now I'm waiting just outside of the operating room while they get Mandy situated. At this point, my heart is racing a bit faster. The entire idea of having twins has been surreal up to this point, but reality is starting to set. I never imagined this would happen to our family. There's a bit of anxiety and nervousness because we really want them to be healthy, and the idea of Mandy having to go to an operating room is a bit unsettling, but I'm confident that whatever happens is meant to be. Part of me really wants the babies to be born naturally, to avoid whatever extra stress a C-section will cause to Mandy, but again, all will be for the best. She has never had a C-section. I am confident that Mandy will be ready to take on the responsibility of these 2 babies, I pray that I'm ready as well
5:21 PM - Operating room door swings open, a nurse walks out, but not to come get me
5:22 PM - I wonder how silly I look sitting outside of an operating room in the hallway of a hospital typing on a BlackBerry? I wonder what people think I'm doing
5:25 - Heart beating faster, not knowing exactly what's going on inside
5:26 PM - It's nice and quiet in this part of the hospital, must not be too many people here right now
5:27 PM - I feel like the guy in the old movies or cartoons who waits nervously outside for the doctor to come out and pronounce whether it's a boy or a girl. I've never not been right at Mandy's side from beginning to end of labor and delivery
5:30 PM - I've been out here by myself for 18 minutes. Lots of thoughts can go through your head when you're basically told to sit and watch the clock until somebody comes to get you. I wonder if this is what it's like to sit all day in a jail cell?
5:34 PM - 2 more nurses come out, but not for me
5:35 PM - 2 more people in gowns go in
5:36 PM - I just realize that we've been here for over 8.5 hours, but that the last 25 minutes have seemed the longest
5:37 PM - Janitor walks in the operating room area. Even the janitor gets to go in, but I'm not yet permitted
5:39 PM - Out comes the janitor
5:40 PM - No idea what's going on, is Mandy even pushing yet? (And my hand is starting to hurt from typing with my thumbs all day)
5:44 PM - Answered a couple of e-mails from work (I hate these BlackBerries sometimes)
5:45 PM - A nurse comes by and goes in to the operating room to check on things to let me know what's going on
5:46 PM - Nurse comes back out and says "They'll call you shortly, nothing fancy is happening yet."
5:47 PM - They let me in
5:51 PM - Mandy had been pushing for a couple of rounds of contractions, after a couple more, Zachary Scott was born
6:13 PM - After quite a bit more pushing, Samuel Anthony was born. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, and he struggled with his breathing, so the doctors decided to take him up to NICU (ICU for newborns). They are going to run some tests, he may have to spend an extra day or two in the hospital. We'll find out more later on this evening and after the blood tests come back which could take up to 2 days
Those were the thoughts from the day of their birth. Since then, Sam got out of NICU but Zac had to stay an extra couple of days due to high bilirubin count (neonatal jaundice), but it is now Sunday, June 6 and everybody is home. This will be the first night at home with the entire crew, let the adventure begin.
Zac
Sam
Best buds forever
5:15 AM - Mandy wakes up and starts preparing to leave for the hospital. We have an 8:00 AM appointment for her to be induced, so we plan to leave at 7:30 AM. I am not even thinking about leaving for the hospital at this point, I am catching up on some last minute e-mail for work
7:00 AM - Mandy is ready to leave, I am not
7:30 AM - Jonathon leaves for school, Eliza and Nathaniel are pretty much ready to leave for school, Mandy is still ready to leave for the hospital, I am still not ready for anything
7:50 AM - I begin to get ready to leave for the hospital
8:30 AM – Nathaniel and Eliza leave for school and we take off for the hospital late (which is obviously totally my fault, I can't even blame it on the kids not being ready), leaving my poor mother home to watch our 2 smallest children, Timmy and Katie, plus Christian, who woke up with a headache and threw up (Sorry Mom! Thanks Mom!!). Grandma Rockwell was there for part of the time as well to provide strategic reinforcements
8:45 AM – This being the first time that we're going to this particular hospital to have the babies, neither of us knew exactly where we needed to go, so we found a parking deck and started wandering around. Mandy had to walk much farther than she should have, though this probably helped her dilate some
9:01 AM – We finally arrive at the lobby of the Labor & Delivery (L&D) area of the hospital
9:02 AM – We enter Room L&D 7, which would be where the doctor and nurses monitor Mandy until she is ready to deliver. Unlike the last few pregnancies, this would not be the room where she delivers, that will happen in an operating room, since they need to be prepared in the event that the doctor needs to perform a C-section. There will be about 10 people in the operating room to assist
9:18 AM - I get hungry
9:21 AM - Mr. Conway grills Mandy about her last pregnancies and general health history. We determine that, outside of a relatively high number of previous pregnancies, Mandy has a boring health history
9:29 AM - Mr. Conway asks Mandy if she has any piercings or tattoos other than her ears and thankfully Mandy was able to answer no
9:35 AM - Lady across the hall begins moaning and yelling intermittently very loudly in obvious pain for a few minutes. We can hear her in Mandy's room, with the door half closed. Either she's having a baby or she realized that her husband forgot to pack her iPod. The moaning can be heard every 2 minutes, so I suspect the former.
9:52 AM - We find out Mr. Conway's name is Jerry, and that we're permitted to call him that
9:54 AM - I start to eat the beef jerky that Mandy packed for me (thanks hon!). Probably not very considerate, since she can only have ice chips until the babies are born
9:56 AM - Dr. Butt (no, that's not a typo), a relatively young, fairly attractive female resident, comes in to do Mandy's first internal exam of the day. She is 5 cm and the positioning of baby A's head is -2 or -1. We want the baby to be at a +3, which means the baby's head is crowned
10:04 AM - Moaning Lady has now officially been elevated to Screaming Lady. Wow, she does not sound like she's having fun. Her husband must have really messed something up big time
10:08 AM - Jennifer (aka Dr. Butt, but let's stick with Jen) does an ultrasound, and we determine that baby B's head is in a better position than we thought last week, so that is pretty good news
10:10 AM - Screaming Lady is quiet, she either had her baby or is now heavily sedated
10:12 AM - Jerry finally leaves, his work done for the moment. We find out his shift goes until 7 PM, so unless something out of the ordinary happens, he's going to be seeing this thing through with us
10:26 AM - Mandy has been having contractions every 2 to 8 minutes, but not all of them are particularly strong. However, this is officially labor, and she did so without any chemical enhancements. Mandy's ego is assuaged as she wanted to be sure that she could still go into labor on her own, since her last 3 deliveries needed kick-starting with drugs
10:34 AM - Apparently Screaming Lady's sedatives have worn off, she's at it again
10:50 AM - I head out to the dining room in search for something to drink
11:23 AM - I realized I was hungry again, so I went ahead and had lunch at the nicest hospital cafeteria I have ever seen in my life. Even my picky gourmet chef brother would have been impressed. You had to know I wouldn't be able to resist a good meal. During lunch, I checked out a little bit of The Price is Right, but was not impressed. Drew Carey's delivery is just not as smooth as Bob Barker's was
11:34 AM - I arrive back at Mandy's room to find she has turned on the TV and that there's cable with ESPN. Score!
12:40 PM - I wake up from a short nap. It takes a lot of energy watching your wife in labor
12:41 PM - Contractions are getting stronger, and are now regularly about 6 to 7 minutes apart
12:54 PM - Contractions every 3 to 5 minutes, Dr. Aguh, Mandy's OB/GYN, is apparently on his way
1:35 PM - I am officially tired of cooking shows, but honestly, is there anything better to watch on TV in the afternoon?
1:40 PM - Dr. Aguh arrives, Mandy is now 6 to 7 cm dilated and he pronounced the babies as "happy" meaning their heartbeats look strong and normal. He starts her on pitocin (synthetic form of naturally occurring hormone oxytocin, which induces labor)
3:07 PM - Mandy is merrily enjoying her ice chips. I didn't tell her that on one of my trips to the dining hall (yes, I said trips as in plural) I had a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich. Yum!
3:25 PM - Anesthesiologist comes in to give Mandy an epidural. I excuse myself for a bit and take another stroll to, where else? The dining hall to appease my never-ending afternoon munchies
4:03 PM - Dr. Aguh says Mandy is at 9 cm and predicts babies in the next hour or so. Also, Mandy's water has never broken on it's own, and Dr. Aguh says that this time, he will wait until we get to the operating room before he breaks the water so that he has more control over things because he anticipates things happening very quickly once everything gets going
4:15 PM - I get my operating room gear packet consisting of a cap, face mask, shoe covers and a cool looking jump suit
4:23 PM - Yet another cooking show and yet another recipe with bacon. Is there anything that doesn't taste better with bacon? Maybe ice cream, but I think even that's debatable. Bacon is king
4:38 PM - Mandy's feet are like icicles, we had to get her some socks
4:41 PM - Time for some more beef jerky
5:05 PM - Dr. Aguh is back, Mandy is "rimmed" (almost fully dilated), so time to gown up and head back to the operating room!
5:12 PM - So now I'm waiting just outside of the operating room while they get Mandy situated. At this point, my heart is racing a bit faster. The entire idea of having twins has been surreal up to this point, but reality is starting to set. I never imagined this would happen to our family. There's a bit of anxiety and nervousness because we really want them to be healthy, and the idea of Mandy having to go to an operating room is a bit unsettling, but I'm confident that whatever happens is meant to be. Part of me really wants the babies to be born naturally, to avoid whatever extra stress a C-section will cause to Mandy, but again, all will be for the best. She has never had a C-section. I am confident that Mandy will be ready to take on the responsibility of these 2 babies, I pray that I'm ready as well
5:21 PM - Operating room door swings open, a nurse walks out, but not to come get me
5:22 PM - I wonder how silly I look sitting outside of an operating room in the hallway of a hospital typing on a BlackBerry? I wonder what people think I'm doing
5:25 - Heart beating faster, not knowing exactly what's going on inside
5:26 PM - It's nice and quiet in this part of the hospital, must not be too many people here right now
5:27 PM - I feel like the guy in the old movies or cartoons who waits nervously outside for the doctor to come out and pronounce whether it's a boy or a girl. I've never not been right at Mandy's side from beginning to end of labor and delivery
5:30 PM - I've been out here by myself for 18 minutes. Lots of thoughts can go through your head when you're basically told to sit and watch the clock until somebody comes to get you. I wonder if this is what it's like to sit all day in a jail cell?
5:34 PM - 2 more nurses come out, but not for me
5:35 PM - 2 more people in gowns go in
5:36 PM - I just realize that we've been here for over 8.5 hours, but that the last 25 minutes have seemed the longest
5:37 PM - Janitor walks in the operating room area. Even the janitor gets to go in, but I'm not yet permitted
5:39 PM - Out comes the janitor
5:40 PM - No idea what's going on, is Mandy even pushing yet? (And my hand is starting to hurt from typing with my thumbs all day)
5:44 PM - Answered a couple of e-mails from work (I hate these BlackBerries sometimes)
5:45 PM - A nurse comes by and goes in to the operating room to check on things to let me know what's going on
5:46 PM - Nurse comes back out and says "They'll call you shortly, nothing fancy is happening yet."
5:47 PM - They let me in
5:51 PM - Mandy had been pushing for a couple of rounds of contractions, after a couple more, Zachary Scott was born
6:13 PM - After quite a bit more pushing, Samuel Anthony was born. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, and he struggled with his breathing, so the doctors decided to take him up to NICU (ICU for newborns). They are going to run some tests, he may have to spend an extra day or two in the hospital. We'll find out more later on this evening and after the blood tests come back which could take up to 2 days
Those were the thoughts from the day of their birth. Since then, Sam got out of NICU but Zac had to stay an extra couple of days due to high bilirubin count (neonatal jaundice), but it is now Sunday, June 6 and everybody is home. This will be the first night at home with the entire crew, let the adventure begin.
Zac is on the left, Sam is on the right.
Zac
Sam
Best buds forever
Friday, May 28, 2010
Cats or Dogs?
Mandy and I have had a long running “feud” over which is the better pet, cats or dogs. She is more of a cat person, I am (much) more partial to dogs. I even tried to convince her that it would be a great “learning opportunity” for the children if we were to get a dog last year, so they could learn responsibility, to which Mandy made it crystal clear that I was living in a fantasy world, so that subject is officially off the table for the next 20 years or so. So even though this is a somewhat silly discussion because it will be many years before we ever seriously consider obtaining yet another mouth to feed in our home, I thought it important to set the record straight as to who’s right. The following is, of course, a completely objective view of the way things are, my apologies to any cat lovers who may be offended:
Cats:
-Will not play whenever you want, will only do so on their own terms
-Cannot be trained to provide security in your home or to lead the blind
-Have personalities that are too hard to figure out, they can be playful, moody, pouty, annoyed, angry or anything in between. I can't spend that much energy on an emotional relationship with a member of another species
-Will disappear for hours at a time, you don’t know if they are breathing, sleeping, hiding, or secretly plotting nefarious ways to take over your house
-Cause me a potentially life threatening asthma attack whenever I’m around them or if I’m around anybody that’s been around them (probably should be my reason number one for preferring just about any other pet, including a hedgehog)
Dogs:
-Are ready to play whenever, wherever
-Will protect you in the case of an attacker
-Are loyal to a fault
-Can be brought to the park for a picnic, on a hike through the woods, in the car for a ride, on a campout, out for a jog, to the beach to catch frisbees…
-Can be taught many more tricks
-Lassie, Benji, Balto, Old Yeller, Scooby Doo…(need I go on)
I think my aversion to cats goes back well before my allergies got so bad around them. When I was a teenager, we had 3 cats that mainly stayed outdoors. In fact, there were times where we wouldn’t see them for days before they would show up looking for something to eat. However, I remember one instance where I was not feeling very well and was lying down on our living room couch. I don’t remember why, but one of our cats was inside at the time, so I picked it up to lie down next to me. I’m not sure if the cat had a bad dream or was spooked for some reason, but I thought we were both resting comfortably when all of a sudden the cat dug its claws deep into my leg. Afterwards, I decided that would be the last time I would ever try to bond with a feline of any type.
My brother and his wife have cats in their home, I have always wondered if they’re trying to tell me something?
Friday, May 21, 2010
Developments
Ever since I reached the 32 week mark, I have been going to my OB/GYN and to the hospital for an ultrasound and non-stress test every week. On Monday, May 10, my doctor told me that I was dilated to 2-3 cm and told me to lie down as much as possible, a modified bed rest. He also told me he could feel the baby's head, so Baby A is vertex now (head down). I went to the hospital twice that same week, for NST (non-stress test) and BPP (biophysical profile). When I had the BPP, the tech told me that both babies are vertex. She said that it was unlikely that Baby A would turn since his head is engaged. Other than those two hospital visits, I stayed at home on the couch. My mom came over every day to help with the kids and cleaning (isn't she the best?).
On Tuesday, May 18, I saw my OB/GYN again and he told me that I had dilated to a 3. He sent me to the hospital on Wednesday for NST and another pelvic exam to see if I had dilated any more overnight. The NST went very well, I only had one contraction during the half hour I was hooked up to the machine and the babies heart rates looked great. Also, I was still dilated to a 3, so he decided not to admit me to the hospital like we had discussed on Tuesday. Since I was only 35 1/2 weeks, we decided that we would wait and see if I would go into labor naturally.
Today, I had a BPP scheduled, so my doctor asked me to do growth of the babies at the same time. It was a week earlier than I had the growth scheduled, but he wanted to know, I guess for his own information, how much the babies weigh now. They are both doing very well; Baby A weighs 5 lbs 5 oz and Baby B weighs 5 lbs 12 oz. The other good news is that they are both still vertex. I hope they stay that way!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Hangin' in Hatfield
So my latest business trip brought me to England for the first time, to the mostly industrial town of Hatfield. Located about 60 kilometers northwest of London, Hatfield happens to have a rich history of British aviation, as some of their very first commercial airplanes were designed, took flight and manufactured there. In fact, I'm told that my company offices are located on what used to be the runway of the airfield. Now, Hatfield is mostly office buildings, shopping centers, apartments and suburban homes.
It was a short trip, only gone for a total of about 48 hours, so as you can imagine, there was little time to rest or see much. I left for the airport from my office in the late afternoon on Wednesday the 5th of May, and proceeded to sit in almost 2 hours of traffic while traveling to JFK. I'm glad I wasn't driving. After boarding, the flight was delayed because there were 3 people that had checked in luggage but didn't show up at the gate. These days that's potentially not a good thing, so the crew was trying to locate all of the luggage that these passengers had checked. Ultimately, though, those passengers turned up, not sure what the holdup was, but we were able to leave without further incident, about an hour late.
I did manage to sleep for a couple of hours on the plane (yes, my company did pay for a business class seat for me and yes, it was pretty awesome). We finally arrived at Heathrow Airport in London at 8:00 in the morning, so of course it was time to go in to the office. I cleaned up a bit in the airport restroom (called the "Toilets" instead of Restrooms), combed my fingers through my hair and off I was to work for the day.
While at work, I realized that the power adaptor that I purchased at Radio Shack earlier this week so that I could charge my laptop and my cell phone, and that the salesman swore would work in the UK, even though I pointed out to him that the package said that the adaptor was for "continental Europe" and I asked him if he was completely certain that this would work in the UK because the UK is an island and not part of continental Europe and he assured me with a confident nod that it would absolutely work in the UK without any question, was WRONG, and they didn't work (OK enough venting). Of course the IT department didn't have any adaptors for me because when people from the UK travel, they need something that will convert to the U.S. or to the other parts of Europe, not the other way around. I wound up having to walk around Hatfield for a while until I found a store called Asda (which turned out to be kind of like a Walmart with a supermarket) that had them. Even though I had to wander around a bit, the store turned out to be a brisk 10 minute walk back to the offices.
While traipsing around Hatfield, I did find a place that advertised what looked like chicken, beef, pork and lamb kebobs. It was lunchtime, and I was hungry, so I stopped in and ordered one made of chicken. Since they were called kebobs, I expected them to come on a stick. The meat was cooking on those spits that you see when you buy lamb gyros at the Greek festival, where they slice off the meat with a big carving knife. It turns out that I didn't get any sticks, the guy stuffed a bunch of the perfectly grilled chicken into a sort of pita pocket and then topped it off with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, onions, sliced cucumbers and a yummy garlic sauce (I'm literally salivating while typing this). It was very good.
I worked until about 8 PM that night and then got a lift from a co-worker to the hotel for the one night that I stayed over. I turned on the TV to see if I could find some sports scores as I felt out of touch for the last day and a half. I thought I found something when I came across a channel that showed an indoor stadium full of people chanting and cheering, many of whom were holding up homemade signs of support for their favorite stars. I thought it was a basketball game, so I continued watching for a bit. It turns out it was a competitive dart throwing tournament. Who knew? The crowd was raucous and they appeared to take their dart throwing heroes very seriously. As you can imagine, the 2 competitors in this “athletic event” each had physiques that looked like they had spent a considerable amount of time at their local pubs, no doubt downing many, many pints in between their rigorous training to hone their craft. It was somewhat amusing, and I was pretty impressed at the accuracy of the guys playing, but I quickly lost interest. I honestly can’t imagine spending time and money going to this type of “sporting event”, but I guess some people say the same thing about baseball (shame on you if you do, you poor, unenlightened souls).
Some things I observed about the UK:
-Very small parking spaces in the airport. It was so tight, the driver that picked me up had to go back and forth about 15 times so that he could squeeze the relatively small car out.
-The yield signs are red instead of yellow and say “Give Way”
-There are traffic cameras with radar detectors everywhere, as the taxi drivers pointed out to me. I saw numerous speed traps where the speed limit went from 50 to 40 and back to 50 within about half a kilometer or so. Good thing I didn’t attempt to drive on this trip
-French fries are called “chips”. Thick cut french fries are called “chunky chips”
-Any woman that appeared older than me called me “darling” or “dear”
-In our company office buildings, nobody has their own office. Everybody sits at long tables which are sort of in the middle of the floor and if you need to hold a private meeting, you have to find a conference room, which are located around the perimeter of the building
-I didn’t pay any sales tax, if something was advertised as £4, that’s exactly what you paid
-I did struggle a little bit with the accents when I was at a store or in a restaurant. I think people must make a better effort to enunciate when in a business setting, because I almost never have any issues when meeting with my co-workers from the UK
It turns out that Thursday, May 6th was the national election day for prime minister in England, held every 5 years from the point that the last prime minister first took office. So on the way back to Heathrow, I asked the driver about the results. There were 4 main candidates, each representing a different party, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour party and the British National party. I got the impression that, loosely, the Conservatives hold similar views to Republicans in the U.S., the Labour Party is like the Democrats, the Liberal Democrats are somewhere in the middle and the British Nationals are something of an “ultraconservative” group that is extremely focused on keeping jobs and investments of money within England instead of letting companies outsource to other countries or move money to offshore bank accounts. In order to win, your party must win a majority of the seats in Parliament, which are sort of like the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The winner needed to have won 326 seats, but the party of the current leader, David Cameron of the Conservatives, only won something like 306 seats in Parliament with Gordon Brown’s Labour party winning about 250 seats. If there is no party majority, this is called a “hung Parliament”, which hasn’t happened since the 1920’s, and there is no clear prime minister elected. It sounds like the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats might make a deal to combine their votes, but of course the Conservatives are going to cry foul over that. There’s actually quite a bit of chaos over this right now, something akin to the Bush/Gore election in 2000, should be interesting to keep an eye on what happens.
On the flight home on Friday, May 7th, one of the pilots came out to show us that we were flying about 60 miles northeast of the volcano in Iceland, so we got a pretty good view of the top of the volcano through the clouds as well as the gray smoke and clouds that are still shooting up from it. The pilot told us that the original flight plan had us flying south of the volcano, but because the clouds and ice are currently moving southeast, they decided to change so that we would fly north of it. We were told that this was as close as airplanes are permitted to get to the volcano these days.
So all in all, not a bad trip. Unfortunately, though, as anyone who travels for business will appreciate, in addition to the work done for the purposes of the trip, work back at home still keeps coming and people need answers and decisions (the marvels of modern technology where anybody can ask you anything at any time, day or night, and expect you to answer right away because we have the technology that permits it). After I had already planned the trip, a co-worker pointed out to me that Mandy was pretty pregnant, and questioned whether or not it was wise to leave her at this time. Of course, that potential issue completely escaped me, but lucky for me that I have a wife that tends to save my bacon when I make commitments without considering all of the ramifications (thanks for hanging in there, hon!).
It was a short trip, only gone for a total of about 48 hours, so as you can imagine, there was little time to rest or see much. I left for the airport from my office in the late afternoon on Wednesday the 5th of May, and proceeded to sit in almost 2 hours of traffic while traveling to JFK. I'm glad I wasn't driving. After boarding, the flight was delayed because there were 3 people that had checked in luggage but didn't show up at the gate. These days that's potentially not a good thing, so the crew was trying to locate all of the luggage that these passengers had checked. Ultimately, though, those passengers turned up, not sure what the holdup was, but we were able to leave without further incident, about an hour late.
I did manage to sleep for a couple of hours on the plane (yes, my company did pay for a business class seat for me and yes, it was pretty awesome). We finally arrived at Heathrow Airport in London at 8:00 in the morning, so of course it was time to go in to the office. I cleaned up a bit in the airport restroom (called the "Toilets" instead of Restrooms), combed my fingers through my hair and off I was to work for the day.
While at work, I realized that the power adaptor that I purchased at Radio Shack earlier this week so that I could charge my laptop and my cell phone, and that the salesman swore would work in the UK, even though I pointed out to him that the package said that the adaptor was for "continental Europe" and I asked him if he was completely certain that this would work in the UK because the UK is an island and not part of continental Europe and he assured me with a confident nod that it would absolutely work in the UK without any question, was WRONG, and they didn't work (OK enough venting). Of course the IT department didn't have any adaptors for me because when people from the UK travel, they need something that will convert to the U.S. or to the other parts of Europe, not the other way around. I wound up having to walk around Hatfield for a while until I found a store called Asda (which turned out to be kind of like a Walmart with a supermarket) that had them. Even though I had to wander around a bit, the store turned out to be a brisk 10 minute walk back to the offices.
While traipsing around Hatfield, I did find a place that advertised what looked like chicken, beef, pork and lamb kebobs. It was lunchtime, and I was hungry, so I stopped in and ordered one made of chicken. Since they were called kebobs, I expected them to come on a stick. The meat was cooking on those spits that you see when you buy lamb gyros at the Greek festival, where they slice off the meat with a big carving knife. It turns out that I didn't get any sticks, the guy stuffed a bunch of the perfectly grilled chicken into a sort of pita pocket and then topped it off with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, onions, sliced cucumbers and a yummy garlic sauce (I'm literally salivating while typing this). It was very good.
I worked until about 8 PM that night and then got a lift from a co-worker to the hotel for the one night that I stayed over. I turned on the TV to see if I could find some sports scores as I felt out of touch for the last day and a half. I thought I found something when I came across a channel that showed an indoor stadium full of people chanting and cheering, many of whom were holding up homemade signs of support for their favorite stars. I thought it was a basketball game, so I continued watching for a bit. It turns out it was a competitive dart throwing tournament. Who knew? The crowd was raucous and they appeared to take their dart throwing heroes very seriously. As you can imagine, the 2 competitors in this “athletic event” each had physiques that looked like they had spent a considerable amount of time at their local pubs, no doubt downing many, many pints in between their rigorous training to hone their craft. It was somewhat amusing, and I was pretty impressed at the accuracy of the guys playing, but I quickly lost interest. I honestly can’t imagine spending time and money going to this type of “sporting event”, but I guess some people say the same thing about baseball (shame on you if you do, you poor, unenlightened souls).
Some things I observed about the UK:
-Very small parking spaces in the airport. It was so tight, the driver that picked me up had to go back and forth about 15 times so that he could squeeze the relatively small car out.
-The yield signs are red instead of yellow and say “Give Way”
-There are traffic cameras with radar detectors everywhere, as the taxi drivers pointed out to me. I saw numerous speed traps where the speed limit went from 50 to 40 and back to 50 within about half a kilometer or so. Good thing I didn’t attempt to drive on this trip
-French fries are called “chips”. Thick cut french fries are called “chunky chips”
-Any woman that appeared older than me called me “darling” or “dear”
-In our company office buildings, nobody has their own office. Everybody sits at long tables which are sort of in the middle of the floor and if you need to hold a private meeting, you have to find a conference room, which are located around the perimeter of the building
-I didn’t pay any sales tax, if something was advertised as £4, that’s exactly what you paid
-I did struggle a little bit with the accents when I was at a store or in a restaurant. I think people must make a better effort to enunciate when in a business setting, because I almost never have any issues when meeting with my co-workers from the UK
It turns out that Thursday, May 6th was the national election day for prime minister in England, held every 5 years from the point that the last prime minister first took office. So on the way back to Heathrow, I asked the driver about the results. There were 4 main candidates, each representing a different party, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour party and the British National party. I got the impression that, loosely, the Conservatives hold similar views to Republicans in the U.S., the Labour Party is like the Democrats, the Liberal Democrats are somewhere in the middle and the British Nationals are something of an “ultraconservative” group that is extremely focused on keeping jobs and investments of money within England instead of letting companies outsource to other countries or move money to offshore bank accounts. In order to win, your party must win a majority of the seats in Parliament, which are sort of like the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The winner needed to have won 326 seats, but the party of the current leader, David Cameron of the Conservatives, only won something like 306 seats in Parliament with Gordon Brown’s Labour party winning about 250 seats. If there is no party majority, this is called a “hung Parliament”, which hasn’t happened since the 1920’s, and there is no clear prime minister elected. It sounds like the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats might make a deal to combine their votes, but of course the Conservatives are going to cry foul over that. There’s actually quite a bit of chaos over this right now, something akin to the Bush/Gore election in 2000, should be interesting to keep an eye on what happens.
On the flight home on Friday, May 7th, one of the pilots came out to show us that we were flying about 60 miles northeast of the volcano in Iceland, so we got a pretty good view of the top of the volcano through the clouds as well as the gray smoke and clouds that are still shooting up from it. The pilot told us that the original flight plan had us flying south of the volcano, but because the clouds and ice are currently moving southeast, they decided to change so that we would fly north of it. We were told that this was as close as airplanes are permitted to get to the volcano these days.
So all in all, not a bad trip. Unfortunately, though, as anyone who travels for business will appreciate, in addition to the work done for the purposes of the trip, work back at home still keeps coming and people need answers and decisions (the marvels of modern technology where anybody can ask you anything at any time, day or night, and expect you to answer right away because we have the technology that permits it). After I had already planned the trip, a co-worker pointed out to me that Mandy was pretty pregnant, and questioned whether or not it was wise to leave her at this time. Of course, that potential issue completely escaped me, but lucky for me that I have a wife that tends to save my bacon when I make commitments without considering all of the ramifications (thanks for hanging in there, hon!).
Friday, May 7, 2010
Mouse in the House
Pretty much ever since we bought our house, we have had problems with mice, usually just during the fall. I'm not sure how they find their way in, but this past winter, Michael and I had had enough. Especially after we pulled apart our living room searching for a mouse that I had seen run from the kitchen to under the couch that I was reclining on. The kids were quite entertained from their vantage point upstairs watching us chase the mouse, but never quite catching it. Soon after that, we decided that we were tired of setting traps and bought mouse bait.
Today, while I was working in the kitchen, I turned around and almost stepped on a mouse. I screamed and scared Eliza. The mouse wasn't moving, but I could see that it was still alive since it was breathing. I grabbed a container and put it over the mouse. I then found a flat box and slid it under the container and the mouse squeaked a couple of times. I turned the container over and the mouse was still just sitting there, kind of curled up. The kids all wanted to see it before I took it outside and threw it in the garbage. I'm pretty sure that it didn't have much longer to live.
I detest the thought of the germs that mice carry and seeing mouse poop anywhere in my house. However, I felt sad seeing it suffer. After all, mice are God's creation...and they are kind of cute. Can someone come over and seal up every nook and cranny so I don't have to feel torn like this?
Out with Six and Pregnant
I don't want you to think that I am embarrassed or ashamed that I have a lot of kids. I am a somewhat shy person that doesn't like too much attention and I dread that someone will say something harsh. So, I usually try to avoid going out by myself with all my children. Not only do they sometimes get a little crazy, but I don't like all the stares. Especially now that I'm obviously pregnant.
Yesterday, I had to take Jonathon to get his hair cut because today is his 8th grade semi-formal and Michael is out of town. Christian also wanted his hair cut, so I decided to risk taking all of them out. When we got to Hair Cuttery, all of us went in and I gave the hairstylist Jonathon's, Christian's, and Timmy's names. Meanwhile, a lady that was having her haircut was watching us and asked me if they were all mine (by the way, I get that even when I go out with three kids). Then Nathaniel told her that I was pregnant with twins. I don't mind telling people that, but usually only when I'm out with three kids or less. Apparently, Jonathon was embarrassed because he told Nathaniel to be quiet. Well, you can imagine the surprise of everyone within earshot. The hairstylist told us that the wait would be about 30 minutes and that we could take a walk and come back in 20 minutes. Maybe she saw that there weren't enough seats for us to wait or she thought they wouldn't be able to sit that long.
So we walked next door to the supermarket and did a little shopping. By the time we'd gotten to the checkout, Timmy was tired of sitting inside the car part of the shopping cart and started climbing top of it. Ever-helpful Jonathon kept trying to get him off and every time he did, Timmy would scream. By then, I was in a hurry to leave since two ladies that work there were standing nearby just watching. One of them asked me what I was having and I told her two boys. I think she was too stunned to say anything. She was very nice about it though and wished me luck as I was leaving.
The kids behaved better (no screaming or telling each other what to do) once we got back to Hair Cuttery. The bigger kids and I all sat down on the four seats that were available with the youngest on our laps and within 10 minutes Jonathon, Christian, and Timmy were in seats getting their haircuts. They looked great when they were done and since all of them were pretty good, we stopped at McDonald's on the way home.
Michael has made a rule that there is no eating in the big van, so we waited until we got home to eat. I think it's funny that he made the rule, yet when he took the youth on a temple trip last week, they ate breakfast in the van... Maybe now he realizes that it's a lot easier said than done.
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