Well I just started to add some of my pictures to Flickr. I think maybe that will be a good spot to have some of my pictures that I am using elsewhere to show in more ways than one what I am shooting lately...We will see. I have so many different web things that I do that I am getting tired sometimes of all the work I create for myself to do for my hobby. Ironic but I do create a lot of work to be done.
Currently I have these sites...
www.chrisandalison.name which is our family blog.
www.hiddenlightphotography.com which is more of my hopeful business photo site that until recently I have been able to work on very little.
www.hiddenlightphotography.com/dailypicture which is my current photof the day website.
www.thebookreviewers.com which is a website that I use to occasionally review books that I have read. This is a site my heart is drawn to but I put the least amount of time into unfortunately. Argh on that.
And others that are forming in my brain. I guess that I need to make a plan and focus on what I really want to have accoumplished. That is one of my goals for the year and I am getting better at doing that, but I am really unorganized. It will take a bit of time before I can really get rolling how I would like. My other issue is that I have very little time to just do whatever I want wontonly. Oh well...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
New Job
Today I took a part time job and renewed my current contract job. Both of those options were kind of scary. The part time job is working as a field researcher collecting bird data. I am not sure what the pay will end up being but I will be pretty happy with compensation for travel alone. If they do that by some meager hourly wage then so be it. I am most excited about learning how to do more field science, that it is also involving birds really is nice!
I also renewed my contract here at the EPA for full time work. I am really excited about this. I got a 5.50 dollar an hour raise this year and so that is really nice. That pushes us from surviving to surviving comfortably. Anyway, I guess the weirdest thing is setting up shop for probably another year in the same place. We may even be here longer if we end up doing a PhD. We will see about that in the coming days I guess.
Things are going well. I am also getting the bug to get out and explore somewhere. I don't think this month will see much happen in that category unfortunately but next month may be a good one for me if I plan things right...I think I may get to visit Death Valley for my birthday. Last year it was Bryce Canyon. That was fun but it was really hard for the kids because it was so cold the entire time. Especially whenever we went outside. Which we generally spend all our time doing. Oh well...Death Valley will not be to bad if we head out in February...
I also renewed my contract here at the EPA for full time work. I am really excited about this. I got a 5.50 dollar an hour raise this year and so that is really nice. That pushes us from surviving to surviving comfortably. Anyway, I guess the weirdest thing is setting up shop for probably another year in the same place. We may even be here longer if we end up doing a PhD. We will see about that in the coming days I guess.
Things are going well. I am also getting the bug to get out and explore somewhere. I don't think this month will see much happen in that category unfortunately but next month may be a good one for me if I plan things right...I think I may get to visit Death Valley for my birthday. Last year it was Bryce Canyon. That was fun but it was really hard for the kids because it was so cold the entire time. Especially whenever we went outside. Which we generally spend all our time doing. Oh well...Death Valley will not be to bad if we head out in February...
Friday, January 16, 2009
CAT Scan...
Well today my daughter and I had an eventful day.
First of all though, for those of you that see this blog as the only frequently used blog for Chris and Alison Williams we actually have a more family oriented blog at www.chrisandalison.name so go there for better stuff mostly put up by my wonderful wife. Sorry about that misconfusion. Sorry to you especially Liz!
Okay so Alison was gracious enough to let me go with my daughter to get her a CAT scan. For me it was actually kind of fun, and for Alison it would have been stressful.
Andy and I get up at 6:30 so that we can get on to the being sleep deprived thing. Usually she sleeps about 11-14 hours a night. I have to say now that I think about it, she sleeps that at night and often 2-5 more during the day. 16 hours of sleep a day, what a lazy bum. That is if she wasn't one year old and getting beat the heck out of constantly by her brother and sadly sometimes her father during play time.
So we also didn't eat in front of her because she needed to be not fed on account of the sedative can make you barf if you have a full stomach. This I think for her probably wasn't a big deal because she has a strong stomach.
Well we left the house at 8:30 and got there at 8:40 and found the correct office at about 8:45. Well 1 hour and 5 minutes later after my teasing of sleeping old men and playing around in the waiting room we were ushered in to the place where we get drugged.
While in the waiting room she was pretty cute. There was an older gentleman who was trying to sleep while waiting for his wife and when his eyes were closed she would go up to him and pat him on the knees. It would get him to wake up and then she would flash all 16 pearly whites and run off. Luckily he was just bored and thought it was cute.
So we got in the waiting room and the weighed her, she is now 28 pounds, and got her medicine ready. Well she unfortunately saw the juice box first and said I'll take that instead of the junk you have there. I should have shot it all down her throat fast instead of being nice and doing it slow. That just ended up with me having to nicely stuff the last teaspoon down her throat later. Well they warned me she would basically be drunk shortly thereafter and so beware so that she would get any bangs, scrapes or cutes because of her potential wobbliness. Well I was also interested to see what my daughter was like drunk! With out actually abusing her and forcing her to get drunk.
It turns out that she can hold her liquor (medicine) well. The funny thing is that she would probably be the crazy person who when drunk loses all inhibition and fear of anything. After that she was ready to play with anyone (usually she is pretty shy), and wanted to climb on everything and jump off. Usually this is the case but in her inibriated state she was pretty confident gravity had no effect on her. She was trying to climb on top of wall mounted TV's and everything else.
This is were I got frustrated and less sympathetic. She was bouncing off the walls and basically told me that she wan't interested in being held at all. Pretty funny actually. So after 50 minutes of me pulling all the punches to get her to relax and go to sleep they said they could maybe give her some more and hopefully that would knock her out. I thought to my self "get her more crazy?" I said go ahead. So we did and she did get a bit more tired but overall she wasn't giving up. So I finally did what the nurse said helps lots of kids, I gave her a car ride. Usually she isn't really a car sleeper, but with drugs it seems she will sleep fast. She actually fought that hard as well, but eventually went to sleep. I went back and at 12:00 she was ready to get scanned. 2 hours later. Apparently most kids get the medicine and are out in 15 mintues. If the kid lasts 30 minutes then you have a really resistent person on your hands.
I did hear about a kid that never would go to sleep and so he had to reschedule for later. I wonder what they will do next time to him. Probably just not let him sleep at all the night before. Next time we will take her in around nap time if we have to go again. I think that she doesn't go into sleep mode unless she has had a good lunch and is in her own crib. Oh well.
Once she was asleep it was easy. They positioned her on the table, the machine slid her in and did the scan. That all took maybe 10 minutes. Crazy. I guess as well that I could stayed longer to see results but they didn't want me to so I just got her to show off her eyes for a minute and we were gone. I guess they have to check the pupils to be sure they don't have anything wrong.
It was pretty fun to see that sophisticated machine as I enjoy that type of thing. I had to laugh when they asked if she was allergic to any medications. She really has never had anything besides kid tylenol. Well I said she isn't allergic to that. I haven't really been inclinded to see what she can't handle!
Well that is one adventure that was cool, but hopefully we won't have to repeat.
First of all though, for those of you that see this blog as the only frequently used blog for Chris and Alison Williams we actually have a more family oriented blog at www.chrisandalison.name so go there for better stuff mostly put up by my wonderful wife. Sorry about that misconfusion. Sorry to you especially Liz!
Okay so Alison was gracious enough to let me go with my daughter to get her a CAT scan. For me it was actually kind of fun, and for Alison it would have been stressful.
Andy and I get up at 6:30 so that we can get on to the being sleep deprived thing. Usually she sleeps about 11-14 hours a night. I have to say now that I think about it, she sleeps that at night and often 2-5 more during the day. 16 hours of sleep a day, what a lazy bum. That is if she wasn't one year old and getting beat the heck out of constantly by her brother and sadly sometimes her father during play time.
So we also didn't eat in front of her because she needed to be not fed on account of the sedative can make you barf if you have a full stomach. This I think for her probably wasn't a big deal because she has a strong stomach.
Well we left the house at 8:30 and got there at 8:40 and found the correct office at about 8:45. Well 1 hour and 5 minutes later after my teasing of sleeping old men and playing around in the waiting room we were ushered in to the place where we get drugged.
While in the waiting room she was pretty cute. There was an older gentleman who was trying to sleep while waiting for his wife and when his eyes were closed she would go up to him and pat him on the knees. It would get him to wake up and then she would flash all 16 pearly whites and run off. Luckily he was just bored and thought it was cute.
So we got in the waiting room and the weighed her, she is now 28 pounds, and got her medicine ready. Well she unfortunately saw the juice box first and said I'll take that instead of the junk you have there. I should have shot it all down her throat fast instead of being nice and doing it slow. That just ended up with me having to nicely stuff the last teaspoon down her throat later. Well they warned me she would basically be drunk shortly thereafter and so beware so that she would get any bangs, scrapes or cutes because of her potential wobbliness. Well I was also interested to see what my daughter was like drunk! With out actually abusing her and forcing her to get drunk.
It turns out that she can hold her liquor (medicine) well. The funny thing is that she would probably be the crazy person who when drunk loses all inhibition and fear of anything. After that she was ready to play with anyone (usually she is pretty shy), and wanted to climb on everything and jump off. Usually this is the case but in her inibriated state she was pretty confident gravity had no effect on her. She was trying to climb on top of wall mounted TV's and everything else.
This is were I got frustrated and less sympathetic. She was bouncing off the walls and basically told me that she wan't interested in being held at all. Pretty funny actually. So after 50 minutes of me pulling all the punches to get her to relax and go to sleep they said they could maybe give her some more and hopefully that would knock her out. I thought to my self "get her more crazy?" I said go ahead. So we did and she did get a bit more tired but overall she wasn't giving up. So I finally did what the nurse said helps lots of kids, I gave her a car ride. Usually she isn't really a car sleeper, but with drugs it seems she will sleep fast. She actually fought that hard as well, but eventually went to sleep. I went back and at 12:00 she was ready to get scanned. 2 hours later. Apparently most kids get the medicine and are out in 15 mintues. If the kid lasts 30 minutes then you have a really resistent person on your hands.
I did hear about a kid that never would go to sleep and so he had to reschedule for later. I wonder what they will do next time to him. Probably just not let him sleep at all the night before. Next time we will take her in around nap time if we have to go again. I think that she doesn't go into sleep mode unless she has had a good lunch and is in her own crib. Oh well.
Once she was asleep it was easy. They positioned her on the table, the machine slid her in and did the scan. That all took maybe 10 minutes. Crazy. I guess as well that I could stayed longer to see results but they didn't want me to so I just got her to show off her eyes for a minute and we were gone. I guess they have to check the pupils to be sure they don't have anything wrong.
It was pretty fun to see that sophisticated machine as I enjoy that type of thing. I had to laugh when they asked if she was allergic to any medications. She really has never had anything besides kid tylenol. Well I said she isn't allergic to that. I haven't really been inclinded to see what she can't handle!
Well that is one adventure that was cool, but hopefully we won't have to repeat.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
CAT Scan...
So my daughter is scheduled to get a CAT scan this friday. Which I don't know how I really feel about. The reason is that her doctor thinks her head might be a bit bigger than it should be. She is apparently in the 150% percentile in that category. She does have a head that appears to be a bit larger. So in the last month it grew about one half of a centimeter larger in diameter. The doctor believes that this amount of growth is far to much.
That is where the CAT scan comes in. They want to make sure that she isn't hiding anything else in there. So we are getting ready for that. The hard thing for us as parents is that we have to sleep deprive her and starve her. So put her to sleep later and wake her up earlier and don't give her any breakfast so that she will take the minor sedative and go out like a light.
Doing that to your baby girl who already has me wrapped around her finger doesn't really get me excited. In fact I feel bad. I think this is mainly my fault because as a little kid I had a very large head. In fact even at a year old I sometimes had trouble holding it up. I am fine now, and I feel like she is just suffering from my bad genes. I guess we will prove somebody wrong friday morning. We are thinking that we will make it a daddy daughter date and give Alison a break on this one. She deals with a lot and not having to deal with this may be a relief.
I guess we will see how things turn out...She will be the first in the family to get a CAT scan. Surprisingly her mother hasn't had one even with all the accidents she has been in.
That is where the CAT scan comes in. They want to make sure that she isn't hiding anything else in there. So we are getting ready for that. The hard thing for us as parents is that we have to sleep deprive her and starve her. So put her to sleep later and wake her up earlier and don't give her any breakfast so that she will take the minor sedative and go out like a light.
Doing that to your baby girl who already has me wrapped around her finger doesn't really get me excited. In fact I feel bad. I think this is mainly my fault because as a little kid I had a very large head. In fact even at a year old I sometimes had trouble holding it up. I am fine now, and I feel like she is just suffering from my bad genes. I guess we will prove somebody wrong friday morning. We are thinking that we will make it a daddy daughter date and give Alison a break on this one. She deals with a lot and not having to deal with this may be a relief.
I guess we will see how things turn out...She will be the first in the family to get a CAT scan. Surprisingly her mother hasn't had one even with all the accidents she has been in.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Money...
Today I payed a bunch of bills. That is always a depressing time of month, to see all the money that you made go out the door. Wow that is really depressing. Anyway, I discovered this month that because of our current economic depression that one of our credit cards that we have with a balance of about 4000 dollars and an interest rate of 4 percent has decided to try and get us to pay it off faster or accept a worse option that would eventually lead to high interest rates before I could pay it off. That is really depressing because the big companies that are making lots of money on us already are now trying to scalp the people that they are already getting fat off of.
I shouldn't complain, I have a job and can pay my bills I will just have to accept the reality of having to pay a bit more and playing a bit less. It is really frustrating to have a deal and then have people change it on you in the middle of it when you thought that they wouldn't or shouldn't technically be able to do that. Big Argh there.
The brighter side of this situation is that I will be able to pay that card off faster than I had thought I would be able to. That is really nice.
I shouldn't complain, I have a job and can pay my bills I will just have to accept the reality of having to pay a bit more and playing a bit less. It is really frustrating to have a deal and then have people change it on you in the middle of it when you thought that they wouldn't or shouldn't technically be able to do that. Big Argh there.
The brighter side of this situation is that I will be able to pay that card off faster than I had thought I would be able to. That is really nice.
Photo Contest!
So sorry for the form mail type email. I am writing to let you all know that Robert (my brother) and I had a photo contest in the month of December 2008. We have made an online gallery and want you to check it out. You will be the judge. Just visit the site if you want and rate the pictures that you like, and if you feel inclined leave a comment.
Here is the link http://www.chrisandalison.name/zenphoto/2008-december-photo-contest/page/2
I hope you enjoy!
Chris
P.s. I am sorry if I sent you this and you don't care to see it. I tried to avoid that if at all possible!
Here is the link http://www.chrisandalison.name/zenphoto/2008-december-photo-contest/page/2
I hope you enjoy!
Chris
P.s. I am sorry if I sent you this and you don't care to see it. I tried to avoid that if at all possible!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Been to long...
Wow I haven't been good lately at writing in the journal. It is even a resolution of mine to do a bit more of that this year. Seeing that it is the 12th of January I have some catching up to do.
Well I am here and so I will keep at it from now on.
So work is really interesting now that I just have work and no school or thesis work to worry about. I kind of feel weird being at my job for 8 or 10 hours and doing just that, not worrying about anything else like a thesis or school work. I like it, but unfortunately I haven't really experienced the huge outpouring of time that some have asked how I like. Mainly what I am experiencing is a big reduction in the stress level of things that I need to worry about. I still have all the regular things like insurance, bills, living issues and all those, just fewer dealing with work.
Work is actually nice because I go and do Science all day long. Currently I am trying to determine the partical size distribution for a bunch of samples that have a high organic matter content in them so I am trying to remove that but it is a slow process. Really slow actually. You add some peroxide and wait a while and add some more and when it is done reacting then your are all done, but I have lots of samples that are taking a while to get done reacting. Not really a bad deal for me. I just add and wait a lot of my time and can work on other stuff in the mean time.
Anyway, the kids are getting big. Zach talks up a storm, and is really developing his personality and ability to express emotion. It was funny last Saturday when we were hiking. He kept saying to his mom that he was "working really hard" and she would say are you having fun? And he wasn't to sure, so she asked if he was sad and he said "no," and so Alison assured him that he was having fun, this got us a contemplative look and a oh I am having fun working hard! He is a smart kid. He also is getting really good at potty training. We are getting to the point that we can count the number of accidents in a week on one have rather than just a day.
Andrea is becoming quite a character as well, and to my hearts delight she really loves her father. She is often a Daddies girl, and is actually now saying DA DA. Pretty nice to hear, and I hear it a lot! She also has decided this last week that she is done with the high chair. She will be using a chair from now on we are seeing. Well that will be the next step for her I guess. Good times.
Alison is getting closer to being due with our third child. I hope that I have mentioned that previously. If not, oh well we are due in March. She is starting to show with about anything she wears, while before now as usual she doesn't show much at all even at 7 months pregnant. It makes me laugh to hear ladies at church say "I didn't know your wife was pregnant!" Well she definitely is...The funny thing about this baby is that we know almost exactly where and when this baby was concieved if we aren't mistaken. Unlike the other two.
Anyway, I think that is all for today, I will be back. Well a bit more. I am reading the bible this year, actually finishing it hopefully. I wanted to finish it last year and I just didn't get far at all. So I am reading 10 pages a day to get done by April. I am currently in Psalms. It is really interesting to read these. To bad we don't know exactly when each was written to get an idea of what was precisely going on in King Davids and the other writers lives. It is also interesting to see the bible in a grander perspective as I read it 10 pages a day. So far I am ahead of schedule so maybe failure won't be the case on this goal!
Well I am here and so I will keep at it from now on.
So work is really interesting now that I just have work and no school or thesis work to worry about. I kind of feel weird being at my job for 8 or 10 hours and doing just that, not worrying about anything else like a thesis or school work. I like it, but unfortunately I haven't really experienced the huge outpouring of time that some have asked how I like. Mainly what I am experiencing is a big reduction in the stress level of things that I need to worry about. I still have all the regular things like insurance, bills, living issues and all those, just fewer dealing with work.
Work is actually nice because I go and do Science all day long. Currently I am trying to determine the partical size distribution for a bunch of samples that have a high organic matter content in them so I am trying to remove that but it is a slow process. Really slow actually. You add some peroxide and wait a while and add some more and when it is done reacting then your are all done, but I have lots of samples that are taking a while to get done reacting. Not really a bad deal for me. I just add and wait a lot of my time and can work on other stuff in the mean time.
Anyway, the kids are getting big. Zach talks up a storm, and is really developing his personality and ability to express emotion. It was funny last Saturday when we were hiking. He kept saying to his mom that he was "working really hard" and she would say are you having fun? And he wasn't to sure, so she asked if he was sad and he said "no," and so Alison assured him that he was having fun, this got us a contemplative look and a oh I am having fun working hard! He is a smart kid. He also is getting really good at potty training. We are getting to the point that we can count the number of accidents in a week on one have rather than just a day.
Andrea is becoming quite a character as well, and to my hearts delight she really loves her father. She is often a Daddies girl, and is actually now saying DA DA. Pretty nice to hear, and I hear it a lot! She also has decided this last week that she is done with the high chair. She will be using a chair from now on we are seeing. Well that will be the next step for her I guess. Good times.
Alison is getting closer to being due with our third child. I hope that I have mentioned that previously. If not, oh well we are due in March. She is starting to show with about anything she wears, while before now as usual she doesn't show much at all even at 7 months pregnant. It makes me laugh to hear ladies at church say "I didn't know your wife was pregnant!" Well she definitely is...The funny thing about this baby is that we know almost exactly where and when this baby was concieved if we aren't mistaken. Unlike the other two.
Anyway, I think that is all for today, I will be back. Well a bit more. I am reading the bible this year, actually finishing it hopefully. I wanted to finish it last year and I just didn't get far at all. So I am reading 10 pages a day to get done by April. I am currently in Psalms. It is really interesting to read these. To bad we don't know exactly when each was written to get an idea of what was precisely going on in King Davids and the other writers lives. It is also interesting to see the bible in a grander perspective as I read it 10 pages a day. So far I am ahead of schedule so maybe failure won't be the case on this goal!
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