Category: Life

Here’s one of my favorite pictures of Matthew:

There’s nothing better than a smiling baby.

Matthew doesn’t sleep all the time. In every other picture I’ve posted he’s either asleep or looking sleepy, so here’s one where he’s wide awake:

He still has a full head of hair and dark blue eyes.

Paige and Matthew are asleep on the couch, so I thought I would upload a few more pictures. Here he is with his eyes open, looking very scared of the camera for some reason:

He does some funny things when he sleeps. Sometimes he pulls the blanket over his head. He also likes to show us his fists while he sleeps:

We took Matthew to the doctor back on the 10th and they said he has already grown an inch and gained a pound. I’m sure he’ll be full grown before we know it.

We’re slowly adjusting to our new way of life now that the baby’s here. I know at one point I used to sleep for 8 hours or more at a time. Now it’s more like 3-4 hours at a time, but that’s OK. It’s all worth it to know that I’m raising my son.

Updates are a little sparse around here right now. We still have tons of pictures to post, but somehow that doesn’t seem very important anymore. Playing with Matthew is a lot more fun that looking at pictures of him on the screen.

Matthew wasn’t my only Christmas present this year. Paige also got me an awsome acoustic / electric guitar. It’s an Ibanez AEG10. Here’s the official picture of it. I’ll eventually post a picture of me playing it.

This, finally, brings up the reason for this post. Now that I have an acoustic guitar, I’m wanting to learn some of the classic acoustic guitar songs. I’m working on a list of my own, but I want to be sure and not miss anything. Here’s what I have in mind so far:

• Eagles – Hotel California
• Kansas – Dust in the Wind
• Animals – House of the Rising Sun

I consider those pretty much the holy trinity of classic acoustic guitar songs. After those, I have lots of other ideas.

• Lots of Dave Matthews Band songs
• Some Beatles songs
• Some Eric Clapton (I love Bell Bottom Blues)
• The songs from Nirvana unplugged
• Some Pearl Jam songs (Elderly Woman…, Yellow Ledbetter, etc.)
• A few Pink Floyd songs (Paige hates most of Pink Floyd)

Now it’s your turn. I need some different stuff to play. Are there any good newer acoustic guitar songs? Let me know what I’m missing…

I would like to introduce the world to our son – Matthew Anderson Lewis. He was born at noon on Christmas Day. He weighed 7 pounds and 12 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Here’s Paige and Matthew on the day he was born:

We spent the rest of Christmas day letting everybody see him and hold him. That night, we took him to the nursery so we could get to sleep. The next morning, we picked him and found that the nurses had put a Christmas hat on him:

We spent the 26th holding him and playing with him. Paige finally got the camera away from me and took my picture:

Finally, on the 27th we got to go home. We dressed him in his nicest gown, and we were ready to go:

We took about 50 pictures while we were in the hospital, but I thought these were the best ones of Matthew. Don’t worry, I’ll post lots more later.

I should really thank all of our friends and family for everything they’ve done over the last week. We haven’t cooked a meal since Matthew was born. It’s been great to not have to worry about day-to-day things and instead focus all of our attention on our wonderful new son.

One more thing before I forget – Happy New Year!

Just when you thought I couldn’t get any geekier…

I just read about this show on Slashdot and I’ve got to go see it. It’s called ‘Dear Friends – Music from Final Fantasy’. Yahoo has the press release.

I probably know most of the Final Fantasy music by heart. I still remember how good those songs sounded coming out the Super NES in stereo (that’s right kids, games didn’t always have surround sound) and going through Ben’s Bose speakers. I can’t imagine what it would sound like live performed by an orchestra.

The only U.S. date so far is in Chicago. They’re calling it a ‘tour’ so surely there will be more shows. If they come anywhere near Texas, I’ll be there. Hopefully they’ll visit the Bass Hall in Fort Worth.

It’s almost time for the Christmas holiday and I can’t wait. I really need two weeks off about now. Between working all day and writing code most of the night, I’m getting a little worn out.

In case I haven’t mentioned it here before, my goal is to start selling my own software by June 8, 2005. I don’t want to just have a program to sell on that day, I actually want to sell at least one copy of something before June 8.

I think this is a pretty realistic goal for me. Time will tell.

http://www.chrismahanukwanzakah.com/

We’ve been working on simulating card games for the last few weeks in my Computer Science class. During the discussion today, someone brought up card throwing. That reminded me of a site I found a while ago.

After a bit of searching, I found it – Card Throwing: A course on how to throw playing cards. Maybe someone else will find this useful. Please use your newly aquired skills for good and not evil.

So, what are your plans for Thanksgiving?

I’ve got a 15 pound turkey in the fridge right now that’s not going to eat itself (and if it does, I’ll just go buy another one). I would be honored if everyone reading this right now would join us for a feast on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That’s this coming Saturday for the calendar impaired.

I don’t think anyone would deny that last year’s Thanksgiving was a big success. There will again be turkey and dressing along with gravy, green beans, rolls, and cranberry sauce in the shape of a can. We’ll probably even have at least one kind of dessert and a few things to snack on while you’re waiting for me to carve the bird.

You don’t need to bring anything, except Tony Foster who must bring 2 pumpkin pies – one for himself and the other for everyone else. If you want to bring something, by all means do, but you aren’t obligated. I’ll even make a pitcher of sweet tea for those who want something to drink besides water or juice.

See ya Saturday.