MichaelandChrissy.com

I’m not a big party person, so New Year’s Eve holds no sway over me. I feel no obligation to party like it’s 1999. Chrissy and I usually sleep through the countdown. I think that we woke up briefly for it last year, just by happy coincidence, but then quickly passed out again afterwards. I think that I have an honest defense this year, however. I’m not anti-social, I’m just damn tired.

First, I got up at 6:30 AM with Aiden. I don’t think that it’s possible for me to stay awake for eighteen hours, so being awake for the countdown later that night was right out. I guess I could have taken a nap at some point during the day, but sixteen-month-olds don’t allow for mid-day sleeping. I think that I was shoveling snow during Aiden’s nap time, so no nap for Daddy. I crashed at 9 PM and did not open my eyes again until 9 AM the next morning. Chrissy shook me a little shortly after midnight, since she had woken up to the sound of fireworks, but I was dead to the world.

I did make a New Year’s Resolution though. My doctor says that I can’t drink alcohol until my liver slims down, since he thinks that it’s riddled with fatty deposits. I was told to lose twenty percent of my body weight, which is about twice as much as I thought I could reasonably do. So, I hereby resolve to lose forty pounds by my birthday. I’ve been exercising more during the last few months (by “more”, I mean twice a week for an hour), but I’ll really have to hit the bike regularly if I’m going to make my goal. Wish me luck! It should be a healthier new year for me.

Although Chrissy and I were both off from work for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, it was no vacation. We were all very sick. Luckily, it wasn’t all at the same time. The day after Christmas, I turned up with the flu. It kicked in pretty hard after the “Shopping Since 5 AM So Don’t Wake Me” nap. I was confined to the couch for the rest of the day, and then didn’t move from the couch for the rest of the next day. I tried hard not to give the flu to Aiden, and I didn’t. He just caught a different strain.

Two different flu types hit our house at once. I got the all-out-the-back strain. Aiden followed up with the all-out-the-front strain. It started just after bed-time, and he threw up all over his crib. We thought he was choking to death, which scared us more than it scared him. We were up every couple of hours after that, cleaning up the crib and changing sheets as necessary. We were all pretty wiped out by the next day, but Aiden didn’t stop throwing up until later that night. Fountains of Pedialyte pouring from the boy can be pretty funny, despite the mess, and smells much better than curdled milk.

Once Aiden was over his cold, Chrissy caught it. At first, we thought it was just a nastier day for the morning sickness. But then it got really nasty, and Chrissy was officially sick. Which is bad for me, since I had to clean up after Aiden when he came down with my strain of the flu (ewwww…). Happily, his second bout of illness was short-lived. We’re feeling better now, but it was unfortunate that our holidays were spent being sick as dogs. Woof.

Chrissy and I look forward to the day after Christmas almost as much as the day after Thanksgiving. We wake up early every year to get fifty percent off of all the seasonal goods. You have to wake up early to get the good stuff, since there’s always a crowd of people waiting outside the store to scavenge before you. We were at Kohls by 5 AM, but they had been selling their Christmas stuff for half off all week, so it was picked over already. Next we went to Target and bought a bunch of Christmas decorations, including six strands of blue lights and a white outdoor lighted tree.

We always hit the local Hallmark stores to buy holiday ornaments. I collect the Star Wars and Star Trek ornaments, and Chrissy collects the Pooh Bear and Snoopy ornaments. It almost wasn’t worth it this year, though, since the pickings were pretty slim. I only found two Star Trek ornaments (1, 2) and two Star Wars ornaments (1, 2). Chrissy managed to get two Pooh Bear (1, 2) and one Snoopy. It seems like they have less in stock every year. Last year, I missed out on several of the ones that I wanted. At this rate, they won’t have any at all next year. It might not be worth it to wake up so early anymore…

We made one significant purchase before heading home. We stopped at American Sales and bought a new Christmas tree, a seven-and-a-half foot pre-lit tree with a rotating tree stand. It has a thousand clear lights and almost two thousand branch tips. More branch tips means that you can hang more ornaments, which is good because we have years worth of Hallmark acquisitions. Our current six-foot tree looks pretty cramped, so we decided to go big. It’s almost too bad that we have to wait until next year to see what it’ll look like. We plan to give our old tree to my sister Nikki, since she’s been using the same tree since we were kids. It’s a little nostalgic to see the old tree at her house, but after 20 years, it’s starting to look a little Charlie Brown-ish.

This was Aiden’s second Christmas, but only the first one where he was old enough to unwrap his own presents. There was a lot to unwrap. Aiden loves to play with MegaBlocks, so Santa brought him another 200 or so blocks. Some came in a helicopter carrier, some came in a bulldozer carrier, but most of them came in huge multi-colored bags. Aiden also got plenty of stuff that lights up and makes noise. We’re having trouble finding room for all of his new stuff, in fact. Chrissy is an over-achieving organizer, though, so we should have the mountain of new toys stacked and put away momentarily.

Chrissy and I had both decided that we would focus on the boy this year instead of buying gifts for each other. Although I agreed, I was the one who broke first. I got her a bunch of Pooh & Friends figurines to add to her collection (not breaking the bank but not leaving her without anything under the tree). Here’s a lesson to all the men out there who don’t know any better: “no presents” actually means “something small but sincere“. If she gets you something anyway, then you’re safe; if she gets you something better than you got her, then you can always make up for it on Valentine’s Day.

Chrissy snuck off to Best Buy to get something for me under the tree as well. This is yet another reason why I love her so much. She’s the best. I got an HP digital picture frame and two PC games: “Crysis” and “Unreal Tournament 3“. Crysis is supposed to be the best shooter to date for the PC, with such insanely cool graphics and gameplay that even my newly upgraded box will have a hard time keeping up. I’m still playing “Gears of War“, which I got from Chrissy’s family for Christmas, but I can’t wait to try the new games.

We did send out a Christmas letter this year, but I wanted to post it to the web site anyway. Who knows, maybe somebody who isn’t on our holiday mailing list would like to know what we were up to this year? Click “Continue Reading” to read the 2007 Christmas Letter.

I’ve been keeping my web site at eDataRack for the last five years. It’s a pretty cheap hosting plan, only $40 a year, but there are tradeoffs in service. Up until last year, I was content with static pages and the occasional uploaded photo set. When I finally decided to set up some automation, getting the photo gallery and blog features installed was like pulling teeth. I was at a loss without direct access to the server, and there is only so much that you can do without proper support. Things that I could do in ten minutes with a telnet session were dragged out to week-long email conversations with their server admins. We eventually got them running, but just barely.

Now I’m interested in running some other open source software, like WordPress, and the latest version of Gallery. Unfortunately, eDataRack won’t help me upgrade either one. I’ve decided to let my account lapse in February. Last year, they didn’t even send a bill to remind me, they just killed off my web site on February 1st. It came back up after I paid for the year. I plan to set up a new account with AN Hosting, a Chicago-based web hosting company. I learned about them from a student of mine at IUN in a “Hosting Company Roundup” term paper. The idea is to set up the new account, build up a new site on the new servers, and then switch the domain name to AN before eDataRack pulls the plug on me again.

It’s official: Chrissy is pregnant again. We were keeping that under our hats for the last few weeks, but the cat is now out of the bag. I was hoping for supernatural confirmation from the psychic at the UChicagoTech Holiday Party ^TM, but we got the crappy psychic again and she didn’t call it. The “official” announcement was in our holiday newsletter, but unfortunately those didn’t get mailed out until yesterday.

We won’t know the gender until March, so we haven’t picked out a name yet. So far, we’ve been calling it “Baby #2″, but that’s not a long-term solution. “Baby 2.0″ is good too, but that would imply an upgrade over Aiden. The new baby will be due some time in July, so we plan to come up with a more suitable name some time between now and then.

I stumbled across this on YouTube while watching BioShock videos and had to share it. Somebody made a Big Daddy costume for Halloween, and a little girl was dressed up as a Little Sister to accompany him. Too funny.

Carl, who was the best man at my wedding, called to tell me that his wife, Misha, just gave birth to their first son. Little Connor was born on 12/6/2007 at 11:13 AM. He weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and he was 21 inches long. Congratulations!

I remember what that was like when Aiden was born. Not completely clueless, since we took the lamaze classes, but still a little worried about what could go wrong. Carl and Misha took the baby classes in San Diego, so they should be fine. I’m sure that we’ll be exchanging “daddy stories” before too long.