Brett Wins NCAA Tourney Pool Again!

For the second year in a row I managed to win the office NCAA basketball tournament pool! If it were blind luck the odds of that would be less than 1 in 500. Stock market crashing? I turned a quick 1,700% return in two weeks! This year we used ESPN to keep track and I ended up finishing in the 98th percentile nationally ranking 77,929th. I had 12 of the Sweet Sixteen, six of the Elite Eight, three of the Final Four, and the National Champion. Now for my secret: both years I have gone to analytical websites and copied their picks.

Rough Day on the Job at Church

I've been in training for two weeks to run the projections during church services. For my big debut I thought I had the songs in the software correctly but I had to make changes that morning. It turned out that they had forgotten to email me the actual lyrics for the day so I knew which verses to omit. It was a bit nervewracking since the choir reads what I have on the display and they stop rehearsing when I have the wrong stuff while I fix it and then have to start over. Next, the pastor had slides he needed on a memory stick that he hadn't emailed out.

Finally I'm ready for service with a minute to go when I notice that the background video of a rising sun has reached the end and isn't looping back to the start. The music director starts the piano for the first song and I try to advance to the first slide with song lyrics when the laptop screen goes white. I panicked and wasn't sure if I should tell her to stop the music or just hope that the choir had enough of the song in their memory they could muddle their way through it. I closed the program and restarted, recovering somewhere in the first stanza. I was laughing inside at this point thinking that everyone in the audience probably thinks I'm not on the ball. Shortly thereafter an elder opened the service and said "Let's all say..." and looked at me to put something up on the screen but I gave him a shrug and he countered with "OK, you all get to hear me say it". Communion followed and the pastor asked if I had the Apostle's Creed to which I shook my head and he quickly pointed people to the correct page number in the hymn books.

All in all I'm not sure anything else could have gone wrong. The good news is that it pretty much made me feel like I could handle anything the next time.

We've Got a Crawler and Talker

Anneliese has suddenly blossomed with skill and personality. She started crawling and pulling herself up on things all in the same week. All of us have to get used to watching where we put stuff again, including Ethan (Anneliese has finished off one of his breakfast bars). She also says "Hi" when I come home and waves by opening and closing her hand. Her first word she used repeatedly was a drawn out "Yay" accompanied by clapping her hands (learned at Stroller Strides). "Bye", "Yeah" (yes), "Eee" (her equivalent to Ethan's "Sawah" which was his default interrogatave, and "Huh?" are all entering her repertoire.

Click here or the image for photos from the month.

Engineers Week 2009

So I participated in a few events for Engineers Week 2009. I almost won a paper airplane contest, failed in an egg drop, and came in 3rd in a team competition building a 20-ft tall tower out of 50 sheets of 8.5x11 paper in twenty minutes. The highlight though was winning the machine challenge with another Brett. We had to make a car out of K-nex which I'd never played with in my life. It was a classic case of the tortoise vs the hare as our competition in the final round shot out of the gate quick but had been experiencing trouble getting up the hill to the finish line in earlier rounds. For our race it flat out choked.

Computer Guy in Training

Ethan has been learning his numbers really well by playing his LeapFrog Clickstart that Grandma got him for Christmas. Have no fears of him becoming a couch potato though. Liz welcomes the 15 minutes he actually leaves her alone to play his game.

Ethan's 1st Live Show

Ethan and Mommy went to go see Bob at a local performing arts center. Somehow she tolerated 75 minutes of musical numbers from people with foam heads. She also convinced Ethan that we couldn't afford a $25 souvenir that should cost $3.99. Bravo Mommy!

Video Quality Improved

I've updated the video quality of all the existing videos on the blog so it's a lot easier on the eyes. If you want to see them even larger, click the YouTube logo in the bottom right of a video and you'll be taken to the video. Be sure to click the black "HQ" icon at the bottom right of the video to get the highest quality. You can also watch it full screen if you'd like by clicking to the right of the "HQ" button. Enjoy!

Anneliese Update

After three shots of antibiotics over three days last week, Anneliese appears to be on the mend after the neverending ear infection. She's now starting to crawl more regularly instead of her usual rolling. She loves cords, still claps her hands a lot, grabs the spoon and shoves it into her mouth when being fed, like to organize and put small objects into containers, and is developing an early softball arm by throwing objects (binky included) well across the room. She also likes to play ball so to speak, throwing balls back and forth, as well as handing objects back and forth.