Another month+ has gone by…dang, time has been flying. All of us are just getting over our respective colds. Holly and Ben have gotten over theirs, but I think I’m about half-way through mine, which really sucks.

Benji has been adding some new skills to his bag of tricks this past month. He now rolls over with ease and seems to like to be on his stomach for more than a minute. He’s continuing eating “solid” foods (rice cereal mixed with either banana or peaches) and has started drinking juice from a bottle. In turn, he keeps getting bigger (20 lbs now). He’s working on pushing some teeth out, too. He has 2 bottom teeth that are looking to pop at any moment. Benji’s also been working on his speech (”Da” and “ba”). He does say “da da,” but he doesn’t always say it when I’m around, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know the meaning quite yet. I will continue to coach him in hopes of “da da” to be his first word. We switched his infant car carrier over to a convertible-style baby car seat. We went with the Recaro Signo. It got a lot of really good reviews and was comparable to the Britax seats, which have a very good reputation. The build quality of this seat is really impressive and well-thought out. We felt some of the other convertible seats in Target and they seemed like they were rock hard compared to the Recaro, which is rather plush. Benji went on his first play-date a few weeks ago (2/21) with our friend’s Emily and Tim’s daughter, Reese. She was born 4 days after Ben was, so it was his first interaction with another baby so close to his age. They were very cute together and Holly joked that they were going to get married. Here is the link to the photo set. Holly recieved a call to have him participate in a study yesterday (3/13) that measured eye movement in 6 month-old babies. The first part was a video that showed moving shapes and a clip of a woman saying “ba” and “da” over and over again. They had a camera that was watching where he was looking. Their computer crashed mid-way through this part of the test (go figure…it was a PC, not a MAC!) and Benji started to fuss once the second time around…so no data for that one. He settled down enough to do the second part of the study. He had to sit in front of a special monitor that had infared sensors on the bottom that measured where his eyes were focusing and where he was tracking. Since I was holding him, I had to close my eyes or the data would have been skewed. It was pretty interesting. I think he would have cooperated better if it would have been a little earlier in the day. Here are some photos I took of Benji over the past month and a half. Here’s a link to the full Picasa gallery.

In other exciting news, Holly and I have been shopping around for houses for the past few months and have made a decision. We’ll be closing on a house in Christiansburg on April 3rd. We had an inside track on this one since it is currently owned by our landlord’s Lance and Julie. It’s a split-foyer style that was built in 1972. 2400 sq. ft., .4 acre lot, brick exterior, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1 bath roughed-in, and a 2-car garage. Eventhough this will be my 7th move in the past 5 years, we are extatic to say the least. We started packing boxes a few weeks ago, but I’m expecting this move to be the least amount of trouble, seeing that it is less than 10 miles away from our current rented house. We are very fortunate to have plenty of friends and family that have volunteered to help us with the move. I’m extra excited since I’ll finally have a place to set up my press again.

Speaking of the press (and the business), I have been thinking about a plan for the upcoming show season. I think what I’ll end up doing is selling off my current stock of shirts, retiring most of them, and come up with all new designs to replace the old ones. I’ll most likely go to the four shows that I normally have gone to in the past. Volksfest in PA, Waterfest in NJ, VAGfair in PA, and H2O in MD. There are plenty others that I could go to, but the distance to travel and the size of the shows doesn’t always make sense to make the trip. I have also been slowly working on the redesign of my shedpress website. I’m just going to have to make time to get it done. Afterall, it’s not going to magically build itself no matter how I wish it would.

Well, I’m going to wrap this post up. I’m on Benji-man duty and he looks like he could use a nap. Until next time…

Categories: Baby, Screen Printing, Uncategorized, house
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Apparently I suck at writing monthly posts…haha. As always, things around here have been rather busy. Here’s what we’ve been up to.

Ben’s been developing really well. It seems as if he’s doing something new on a daily basis. Putting his toes in his mouth, grabbing his feet and anything else within range, full-on laughing, rolling over, sitting up by himself, screeching, bearing weight on his legs, and more. The little turkey has been busy. He weighs about 19 lbs. now and seems to be growing in height just as fast. He’s continuing to eat very well and has even started eating some solid (soft) foods. Tonight, he ate the most rice cereal/milk combo he’s eaten in the past 3 attempts. He lunges towards the spoon, so feeding seems to be a breeze so far. We are hoping it stays that way. Here are some of my favorite photos from the past month and a half

(here is a link to my Picasa gallery):

On January 9, our friend Ashley came to stay with us for a few weeks all the way from Japan. She had a conference to go to in the states along with some odds and ends that needed to be done here in VA. Seeing that we haven’t seen her since this past summer, it was very good to spend some quality time with her. It was the first time she has seen Benji in person, so he got to finally meet his ‘Auntie Ash.’ Here is the link to the gallery.

Holly, Benji, Holly’s mom, and I took a weekend trip to Tennessee (1/23-1/25) to take some instruments to a well-known guitar shop in downtown Nashville. Unfortunately, we didn’t get out to see any/many of the sights, but it seemed like a pretty cool town to visit again, so we will have to make it back there soon. The trip took about 7+ hours with stops and Benji rode like a champ. Mimi kept him company in the back seat most of the time. I did manage to get out and walk down West End Ave/Broadway to snag some photos. Here is a link to the galleries (1/24 & 1/25) and here are some of my favorites:

Brother Greg, Becky, and kids came the following weekend (1/31-2/2) to visit us. The weather was a little cold, but clear. We went on some hikes and spent a good amount of time entertaining Benji. Nathan and Rachel really seemed to get a kick out of him. Here are the links to the galleries (1/31 & 2/1) from the weekend. Even though it had only been a month since we saw them last, it seemed as if both kids had grown and changed a lot. I’m sure they thought the same about Ben.

My parents came to visit this weekend (2/13-2/15). They watched Benji while we went out for dinner to a local “fancy” restaurant for Valentine’s Day. Our dinner was pretty expensive for what we got. The food was just ok, but the appetizer, beer, and dessert was really good. The beer I ordered was Allagash White Ale. Their website says it’s their “interpretation of a traditional Belgian wheat beer, Allagash White is unique and truly refreshing. Brewed with a generous portion of wheat and our own special blend of spices, this beer is light and slightly cloudy in appearance, with a spicy aroma. Overall, it is a beer that is very drinkable and smooth any time of the year.” I have had something very similar to this beer before; possibly Ommegang Witte Ale as Greg K. suggested. It was good to see them and they enjoyed little Benji.

It’s getting late and I don’t have much more to say, so I’ll end it here. Night.

Categories: Baby, Misc., Uncategorized, beer
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I fell a little behind on my post from last month, so I’ll try to catch up without making this too long. Two bigger holidays have passed. Many great meals were had. Time was spent with lots of family and friends. All was good. Now, for some specifics…

Ben has been growing like a weed. He’s now about 17 lbs. and about 26″ long. He’s eating and sleeping well and has started to “talk.” He makes the funniest sounds sometimes. He has also discovered his feet just this past week and has started to grab objects in front of him. His eyes have yet to make the full transformation. There have been 2 big brown specks in his right eye for about 2 months now, but they are still mostly dark slate blue. Here are some of the latest photos:

I got a ticket to go to the Duke/VT football game (11/22) with some friends of mine. It was around 20˚ F outside, with some wind, so the pre-game festivities were a must. Jackson, Derek, and 2 other friends of Jackson’s started out at their parking spot. Jackson used his MacGyver-like skills to light a fire in their firepit (read: dump a box of matches on the fire logs) the rest of us enjoyed some food and drinks while watching Captain Outdoors work his fire magic. Derek and I ventured out to visit with our friends Mac, Michelle, and some of their friends. After that, we went to visit our other friends Katie and Brian. She’s been telling me about their “Big Beer Game” that they play every home game, and that I needed to play it. Well, I lost (2nd to last) and ended up with a big can of what appeared to be rotten cough syrup called Four Loko Fruit Punch.  The game was fun, we had great seats, I ate a turkey leg, and Tech won. It was a successful night.

Our friends Mac and Michelle stopped over the next day to see Ben. We hadn’t seem them since their wedding, which was 4 days before Ben was born. Here are a few photos of their visit:

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the second year in a row. Our friend, Bryan J. joined Mama G, Holly, and me. Holly and Mom prepared a wonderful spread.

About 2.5 weeks ago, our cat, Smokey, went missing. We would let him outside since he liked it out there. He had a habit of coming right away if you called for him, but not this time. I had a soft spot in my heart for him since I picked him out at the animal shelter. He would visit me when I would go to the bathroom and lie on my chest when my alarm would go off in the morning because he wanted me to get up to feed him. Holly saw some unfamiliar dogs outside the house around the same time he disappeared and one of our neighbors said she saw a coyote around lately, too. We’re not sure what happened to him, but I’m sure he’s up in kitty heaven weaving in and out of people’s legs. I miss you Smokey.

I found some time to clean up the Univega bike I picked up last month. It cleaned up pretty good for being a 20-year-old bike. I got some tubes and tires for it and will use it for cruising around when I need some more flexible gearing which I don’t have with the fixie. I ended up pulling the original front wheel from the Raleigh since the front wheel on the Univega had some bearing play. Here are some photos:

I also got the fixie bike back! It took a long time to get all of the right parts, but it’s finally done. I rode it right after I picked it up from the bike shop and I’m really pleased with it. I didn’t have the head badge at the time I took the first round of photos, but I snapped a photo of it on the bike. I also am waiting on some leather straps for the toe clips, then it will be 100% finished. I can’t wait for some nice days so I can ride it. Today was promising, but I ran out of daylight. It looks like there are some nice days early next week that I might be able to get out and ride. Here are some pics:

We had a few Christmas celebrations this year, and one more today (12/28) when Mama G. comes to visit. The first was at my Mom & Dad’s place with our family, Greg & his family, and Mom & Dad (12/20). We all had fun and was great hanging out with our family. Here’s a link to some of the photos from the day.

The next day (12/21) was our yearly “Yohn Christmas” which was traditionally at Nan Yohn’s house, but has moved to either my parent’s house or my Aunt Denise and Uncle Marlin’s house. This year, my parents hosted it and we had a full house…25 to be exact. We had a special visit from Santa Claus, lots of presents and got to catch up with some relatives we only see a few times a year. Here’s a link to some of the photos from the day.

We left my parents’ house around 4:30 on Sunday (12/21) and stopped in Maryland on our way back home. We stayed with our friends Greg and Krista, and stopped by Holly’s Granny’s house. We also met up with some other MD friends while we were in town. Here are some photos from the visit with Granny:

Then, on Christmas Day, Holly, Ben, and I opened up gifts from each other and Santa. We all got some very special gifts. While looking at a poster and print blog (OMGposters!) I stumbled on an artist named Jason Sho Green who ran into some bad luck and was selling some of his original art. I really liked his style, thought it would be cool to start a collection of original art for Ben, so I picked 2 pieces up from him (one for Ben and one for Holly). I surprised Holly with a piece I personally designed on Christmas Eve. Here’s a link to the piece and here’s a link to some of the photos from the day.

Today, Mama G. stopped by for a belated Christmas dinner. The ladies sure outdid themselves with another great meal. Standing rib roast, potatoes, green beans, macaroni & cheese, rolls, and some cannoli cake for dessert. It was great to see her and spend an evening with her since we haven’t seen her in a while. She brought our other cat with her, so we are no longer kittyless. Here’s a link to some photos of the gift exchange.

We also got a very special gift from the guys at Fender. They sent a very touching letter along with a Custom Danny Gatton Signature Telecaster for Ben’s first Christmas. Here are a few photos of this beautiful guitar:

Lastly, I found some free time to do some design work. I contribute to an art/design/photo blog along with a few friends of mine. As you can see by the name of the blog, it really has fallen by the wayside. I try to make time to do some design projects for myself, and this is where I showcase that work: fallenbythewayside.

I think that’s all I have. I know that was much longer than I expected, but I had to catch up on quite a bit. I’m sure there won’t be too much to write about in the next few days, so have a very happy 2009. I wish you all the best. Take care and goodnight.

Categories: Baby, Cars, Holidays, beer, bike, cats
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It’s been about a month since I wrote last, so time to fill you all in to what’s been going on.

I’ll start things out with a Ben update. He’s grown a lot in the past month! Homeboy weighs 14.5lbs. He’s “coo-ing” now (which is hilarious) and his hair has fallen out and is now starting to come in quite nicely. He’s been feeding pretty regularly, and sleeping pretty good too most of the time. Ben’s mouth has also managed to find his thumb sucessfully one time. He seems like he enjoys sucking his thumb, which really calms him down. The blocked tear duct seems to have unclogged itself…it’s not longer goopy. His diaper rash has disappeared too! Here are some progress pictures:

We drove up to my parent’s place in PA the weekend of Oct. 18-19th. We drove up to Mama G’s Friday night in order to split our trip up a bit on the way up. Mom Y. had set up a “visiting session” for most of my relatives to visit and meet Ben for the first time.  He seemed to do really well eventhough there were tons of people around. My cousin Brad’s son, Simon, my niece Rachel, and nephew Nathan, really seemed to enjoy meeting him. Here are some photos from the day:

My friend, Derek, asked me to join his flag football team, so I said I would. We have had a few practices and a few games, but no victories yet. We have our first (and possibly last) playoff game this Wednesday (11/12). We did better last game, but we had too many mistakes. I caught 2 long passes last game for some positive yardage. It’s been fun so far, which is cool and all, but it would be nice to at least score once…we were shut out both games! Haha.

It was Holly’s 29th birthday on 10/24 and our 2nd wedding anniversary on 10/28. We went to Red Robin for Holly’s birthday, which was the first time the three of us went out to dinner. Ben was fine up until our food was brought out! Haha. I ate real quick and walked him around the restaurant a few times, which worked out perfectly since I tracked down our waitress and told her it was Holly’s birthday. Holly wasn’t so amused, but it was all in good fun. Holly started having mastitis pains on the Sunday after her birthday (10/26), so Mama G came into town to help her out around the house. She whipped up a really tasty dinner of stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes, and cornbread. It was nice for both of us to be “off duty” when it came to cooking dinner.

I also had a little scare that same week. I was in the shower on Sunday (10/27), I saw a black speck on my knee. I looked closer and it was a deer tick that was in my knee. I dried off really quick and attempted to rip it’s mouth parts out of my skin. I pulled everything else off except it’s mouth parts. I called the family doctor the next day and was able to get an appointment the same day. The doctor numbed up the area around where the tick was, then dug the mouth parts out with a razor. He gave me a 1-time prescription that was supposed to take care of any infection that may occur.

I got a call from the powder coating guy the week of the 26th that my Raleigh bike frame was done and could be picked up at any time. I went the following Saturday (11/1) to pick it up. I ended up going with dark green. It turned out great. I swung by the bike shop on the way home to drop off the frame, wheel set, crank, and pedals. I was told that all the rest of the parts would be in and the bike would just about be ready. Once everything is on, he can measure what size stem I will need. I also need to figure out what saddle I would like. I heard back from the guy at the shop…he said the thread on the headset has an uncommon threading to it, so it he should have the proper parts by Thursday of this week (11/13). I’m really anxious to have it all come together. In other bike-related news, I picked up a bike trainer locally from craigslist on Halloween night. It was in ok condition, but for $50, it wasn’t bad at all. I took it apart, sanded the pieces down, and painted it dark gray. As usual, I’m too impatient and some of the paint scratched. I threw the Nashbar TT bike on there since it seems impossible to find a replacement front tire for that thing. I was down in our crawlspace and happened to find a 10-speed Univega road bike that belonged to our landlord. I asked him if I could ride it, and possibly buy it. He said sure, so I took it out, cleaned it up a little bit, pumped up the tires, and road it around the yard a bit. It’s a 1985 Univega Maxima Uno; 10-speed, lugged frame, and 27″ wheels, so there shouldn’t be a huge problem finding tires if I would need to.

I dropped the avant off to get the windows tinted last week (11/3). I was referred to a shop in Salem, VA, which is about a 20 minute drive away. It appears that they did a pretty good job. I just detailed both of the cars and took some pictures:

That’s all for right now. Until next time…

Categories: Baby, Cars, Misc., bike, cats
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I didn’t know exactly what it would be like, but I have to say, it’s a great feeling. The lack of sleep is the only thing I’m not liking too much. I know Holly is grumbling under her breath after reading the previous sentence. Haha. She’s doing really well other than not sleeping too well. She really does need to start sleep when Ben’s sleeeping. He has grown so much in a month’s time. His cheeks and legs have filled in pretty well (read: chubby). It appears he is able to focus his eyes now compared to the previous weeks. It also looks like his eyes seem to be turning from a dark blue to a tint of bluish-brown. We have been showing Ben off to our neighbors, family, friends, and strangers. Everyone seems to agree that he’s so cute…we think so too. Here are some photos from the past few weeks. Some are not very good quality shots, but I still like them:

I went to H2Ointernational (vw/audi car show) in Ocean City, MD a few weeks ago (9/27-9/28). I left the Friday before and came back the Monday after. I really didn’t want to leave Holly and Ben, but we always do well at this show, so it was a must that I go. A few friends of mine helped me at my tent and I ended up doing pretty darn well. As always, it was a blast hanging out with friends I see a few times per year.

I also went to a conference with a colleague of mine for work in Savannah, GA this past weekend/week (10/4-10/7). It was the UCDA’s (University and College Design Association) annual conference. It was my first conference and it was a really positive experience. It was comforting to hear from other designers in a very similar professional position as I am, and to hear what they go through at their schools. I found it interesting to hear how different the experiences are for designers who work at smaller schools compared to me, who works for Virginia Tech (probably 30,000+ students). I met a lot of really nice people and hope to stay in contact with them in the future. I also hope that I will be able to go to next year’s conference which is in Seattle, WA. I was very anxious to get home by the end of the conference. Holly’s mom came down and stayed with Holly and Ben while I was away. Here are 2 links to the photos I took through out my time in Savannah: Page 1 and Page 2.

Holly, myself, some friends, and co-workers just went to Mountain Lake’s Oktoberfest this past Friday (10/10). The food was fantastic, the beer was great (Spaten Oktoberfest), and a great time was had by all. My parents and Nan Y. came up to watch Ben while we went out. They, of course, didn’t mind at all!

I dropped my Raleigh frame and fork off at the powder coating shop. It should be done this week at some point. The guy at the shop called me last Tuesday and said he was waiting on the powder still. Apparently, the dark green that I specified was out at the first 2 vendors I picked. I will be sure to post photos of the frame when I get it back. I can’t wait to see it come together. On other bike related news, my Nashbar TT bike is still at the bike shop. The wrong size tire was ordered, some measurements were taken and the correct tire and tube will be ordered and shipped soon (I hope).

Holly, Ben, and I will be making a trip up to PA this coming weekend to show Ben off to the rest of the family (in the Central PA area) that hasn’t seen him yet. Everyone is anxious to meet him in person for the first time.

Well, I think that’s it for now. Night.

Categories: Baby, Cars, beer, bike, cats
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Well, I’m not going to fill you in on what I’ve been doing the past 3+ months. We’ve been busy though. The two main things are we had fall opening at work and we’ve been getting ready for the baby to come.

On with the big news. Holly’s water broke last night (9/9/08) at around 8:30pm, she called the birthing center and got the ok to come in, so we got our stuff into the car and ready to roll. The first thing I did was do some dishes, sweep the floor, pack my belongings, and shaved my head. Isn’t that what every expecting dad does? I had been meaning to get to the barber for the past couple weeks, but I always seem to be at work later than they are open. So I took matters into my own hands…with a pair of clippers. We got everything else packed up and into the car (including a new car seat that Holly had ordered from Target which came that same day). We finally left our house at 11:00pm and got to the birthing center at 11:15pm.

They got us in to a temporary room, asked lots of questions, and did some tests. At that point, they confirmed that Holly’s water did break while we were at home and moved us into our room for the duration. She got settled in and I brought the rest of our things into the room. Holly didn’t get any sleep unfortunately, but I was able to get some sleep because that’s how I do. My parents arrived at around 7:45am on 9/10/08 wielding a bag of breakfast food which was very appreciated. Around 8:00am, they had hooked Holly up to an I.V. bag and some Petocin to start induction. I drove home really fast, ate my food, fed the cats, took a quick shower, and got back to the hospital. Holly and I decided to go with the epidural. She had to wait until the bag of fluid had drained, then the anesthesiologist came in and started the epidural catheter, which part of it is a giant needle. The drugs took about 45 minutes to fully work itself into her system. After that, Holly’s pain seemed to depreciate greatly, which was a huge relief for her.

The nurses kept checking his and her vitals and everything was progressing really well. She was 1cm when she came in, 3cm at 8:00am the next morning, 6cm at 1:00pm, 9cm at 3:30pm, and 10cm at around 4:45pm. The nurse checked her at 5:00pm and she felt the head within 3 inches of the opening! The nurse said she felt some hair, too! Things started to get going at 5:35pm. Holly’s contractions started to come on and it was go time. She did a great job of pushing. Benjamin Daniel was out at 6:02pm and the doctor had me cut the cord. He weighed 7lbs. 3oz. and was 19.5 inches long. The whole experience was truly amazing. Ben stayed in our room through the night and he only fussed one time. The nurse came in every 3 hours to wake Holly up to feed Ben. He must be really tired because mid-way through most of his feedings, he will fall asleep. I hope he will keep liking the boob. There has been lots of research saying how important breast milk is. We are anxious to get him home and have him in his room. We got the nursery finished up last week, thank goodness! I will have to take some pictures of it when we get home. It turned out pretty cool.One thing that needed to get stored was my press room and everything in it. That means I’ll be putting the shirt biz on hold until we move into another house. I might build a temporary 1-station, 1-color press in the corner of the upstairs so if I would need to, I could still print a shirt or two. We can’t wait to start our little family. It’s going to be fun and very rewarding. On with the pictures:

I also have a bike project going on right now. I bought an 80’s Nashbar time trial bike in mid-July. I picked it up for $75 on craigslist with intentions of converting it to a fixed gear. I attempted to adjust the extreme rake by replacing the stock fork and 24″ front wheel with a standard size fork and a 700c wheel. It didn’t work as I had hoped unfortunately. I then had the stock fork back on and ordered a 24″ tire and tube with hopes of either selling it, or having it to cruise around on.

A few weeks later, I noticed an old Raleigh road bike beside our friend’s apartment. I looked into it and found out the bike had been given to our friend, Ashley, by Holly’s co-worker, Pat. I asked Pat how much she wanted for it and she said nothing and was happy that I wanted to fix it up and ride it. So, I would using this bike frame as the basis of a fixed gear conversion. I found out that the bike is a 1972 Raleigh Grand Prix, I talked with a friend of mine who runs a small bike shop in Blacksburg, and my wheels started spinning (PUN! LOL!) I started out doing lots of research and seeing what was out there in the way of fixies. I have learned a lot in the past few months. I started ordering parts last week and quickly realized that only thing that will be used from the original bike is the frame and fork. So I will have a brand new updated and custom vintange bike when I’m done. I will be getting the frame and fork sandblasted and powdercoated. I am going to stick with a dark green. Per Holly’s suggestion, I have dubbed this bike “Project Cicada” because of the color combination I’ve got going on. Here is the parts breakdown:

• Soma Urban Pursuit handle bars (shotpeen black)
• Soma Urban Pursuit brake lever (black)
• Soma Forged Seatpost (black)
• Shimano 105 long-reach front brake caliper
• Pake 165mm 46t Crankset (matte black)
• Weinmann Deep V wheelset (black with gold hubs)
• MKS Sylvan Track Pedals (gold)
• new headset
• new stem
• new bottom bracket
• new tires and tubes
• new chain
• new rear cog

Here are some progress pics of the Raleigh: Here is the bike when I got it (8/25/08):

Here is the biked pulled apart to get ready for the powder coater (9/7/08):

Here is the bike semi-mocked up:

That’s it for now. I am taking at least a week off from work to help Holly with the transition home. Ben is sucking on my finger as I type one-handed, so I am going to wrap this up. Bye for now.

Categories: Baby, Misc., Screen Printing, bike
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It’s official. I actually have written 2 entries in a months time!

We’ve been busy lately, but there seems to be a break in lots of traveling, which is really nice for once. But I know that in a few weeks, we’ll be back in the car cursing traveling again.

On 5/30/08, my brother and his family came down to visit us for the weekend. It turned out to be a pretty nice weekend all around. They were calling for thundershowers all weekend, but it only rained a little bit Sunday afternoon. We had some small things planned, but nothing major. They got here around 4:30 pm on Friday. Holly and I got off work early so we could get some things done before they arrived. We had planned on doing some fishing down at the pond, so we stopped at the Blacksburg Seed & Feed on the way out of town to get some worms. So, we hung out for a while after they got their things in the house. Greg and I went down to the pond with the kids. Nathan got bored with casting after about 3 times. We saw a bunch of salamanders and fish, but had no bites. I guess the fish are not that dumb around here. We all came back to the house to have some burgers and dogs, then went out to our favorite dessert shop, Gardner’s Frozen Treats. Then on Saturday, we all went out for breakfast at Famous Anthony’s, then on to Blacksburg to show off our offices. Nathan really liked my office since it had lots of different colored papers available to his little hands. We all went back to our house to get the kids down for a nap and some relaxation for the rest of us. Before it got too dark, Greg and I collected some wood for the campfire we had planned later on that night. Greg, Nathan, Holly and I made our way down to the fire pit beside the pond around dusk. It was pretty dark by the time we got down there. Turns out that a decent-sized brown-colored snake was hanging out next to the wood pile. Holly just about stepped on it! So, I grabbed the rake and pulled some of the wood closer to us so we could at least get a little fire started. We brought our walkie-talkies with us so Nathan could talk to Becky, who stayed up at the house since Rachel had already gone to bed. We didn’t stay down there too long since we didn’t have much luck with the fire and it was getting pretty dark as well (no flashlight either). Greg, Becky and the kids got packed up and left the house at around 8am on Sunday. They met up with a friend of theirs in Roanoke for breakfast. It was really nice to have visitors, and to show some other members of the family where we have been living and working for the past year (almost). Here are some pictures from the weekend:

As I was getting a piece of plywood to work on my car, I saw a giant wolf spider. I went inside to get my camera and snapped a few pictures:

This past Friday (6/6/08), we went to Holly’s cousin, Courtney’s high school graduation, which was held at the JMU Convocation Center. It was good seeing some of Holly’s family that we hadn’t seen in a while. We all went out to eat afterwards and got a chance to catch up. Holly and I stayed at Mama G’s house the rest of the weekend. We helped her with some odds and ends at the house. We helped her get one of her bedrooms stagged since she will be putting her house up on the market soon. I also cut her grass. It was crazy hot out, so it wasn’t very fun. But I did enjoy doing it for her since it’s such a chore for her to do. I was wiped out by the time I was done. On Sunday, we cleaned up the house a bit and had a really nice lunch. Holly ordered some food from Williams-Sonoma for her mom’s birthday (6/8/08). We had some tamalés and watermelon, followed by chocolate hazelnut cake and ice cream. It was delicious. We got home around 4:30, so we hung out, unpacked, and I made some time to wash the cars before it got too dark.

I’m going to be dropping the avant off at a local shop tomorrow (6/10/08) to get some brake work done on it. I had ordered new pads, stainless steel lines and new brake fluid to do the install slowly by myself. I started to work on it one day last week after work, but then I came to a realization that I would rather pay someone around $100 to do this for me. Seeing that I don’t have a proper cement pad or garage, it’s a chore to get the car up on jackstands or even to use a floor jack. So I got some quotes from around the area and got a recommendation from a guy at work who had several Audis who said that this certain garage did really good work for decent prices. So I called them up, got a really good quote, so I’ll be taking my car to them to see how it goes.

Work is still going great. We are gearing up for orientation, which will be here sooner than we think. I’m working on a pretty important piece right now, which I’m anxious to hear what the higher-ups think of it. So far, in the department, the supervisors really like it (design-wise). I’m really happy here and seem to fit in really well with everyone. We went out to lunch today to celebrate the June birthdays. I was one of those people (June 18th), so my lunch was paid for.

I got an early birthday present from Holly, too. It’s a really cool scale train model that I can decorate with different graffiti art and tags. I will add it to my collection of strange and fun toys in my office. Here is a photo of it:

I will be doing a fair amount of printing over the next couple weeks. I’ll be gearing up for Waterfest (an Audi/VW show) in Englishtown, NJ, which is the 3rd weekend of July this year. I know that will be here before I know it, so it would behoove me to start early since it seems that I’m always up late printing the week before the event. It’s never fun to be under the gun like that on top of a 8 hour drive. We will be staying with our friends, Cory and Stacey like we did last year. I’ll most like be taking off the Friday before and the Monday after to cover our travel time.

Well, I think that’s about it. I actually had some extra time to write an entry, which is really nice. Until next time…

Categories: Cars, Misc., Screen Printing
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Another month (almost 2 months, haha) has gone by yet again , but a lot has happened.

On 5/15/08, I went to the Blood Donor center at the American Red Cross office in Blacksburg and gave my pint of blood. I’d like to give on a regular basis (every two months). Now that I work close by, I can walk into town with no problems.

Holly saw an ad in the Roanoke Times for a Driving Study. It sounded interesting, so she called the number listed and answered some questions. But she wasn’t allowed to take the study because she is pregnant, but I called and got the ok to take it. So I went to the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute on 5/18/08 and met up with a lady. I had to sign a waiver in order to drive the vehicle. I had to wear a contraption on my head the entire time. It had a little red light that would flash periodically. Then, I had a sensor button on my finger that I was supposed to push when I saw the red light on my head. I had to drive around the Blacksburg/Christiansburg using different methods of navigation (maps, Yahoo Maps directions and TomTom navigation). From what I got out of it, it was to measure how tentative you are while you are driving around while getting to a specific place. The whole experience was pretty strange, but interesting. I got paid $50 for doing the study.

On 4/23/08, I went in to fill out some paper work for my new job. I also got a mini-orientation by the former Senior Graphic Designer, Kristin. She showed me some of the ins and outs of the day-to-day happenings.

I had to get a bunch of shirts to print to get ready for the first show of the season, which is Volkfest held in Campbelltown, PA (4/26/08). I ended up running into a time crunch so I just printed the lighter color shirts with black ink. The show went great. We sold 300% more shirts than last year, which was really surprising considering I didn’t have any new designs and limited color options.

We had an appointment in Roanoke on 4/21/08 for a level 2 sonogram. We found out that we are having a boy! Here are some sonogram photos that were taken:

While looking around on the Tech website, Holly saw a full-time job opening in the Student Programs department (which was the same department I was hired for a few weeks earlier). So I got my resume ready and put my application in. I set up an interview on 4/29/08 at around 4:00. I was to be the last of 4 interviewees. The next day, I got a call from my supervisor, Holli, around 10 AM asking if I’d like to join the team as their Senior Graphic Designer. I, of course, accepted the full-time position. My supervisor said that the other candidates had more experience (design and managerial), but I blew them away with a solid portfolio and my overall organization. It feels really good to beat out people who have way more experience. I will have to go to a few management workshops in the near future. Holli also mentioned that I should consider getting my BFA (Bachelors of Fine Arts) degree. She said down the line, the lack of a Bachelors degree would hold me back in the department. So, I’m going to look into it.

Also during my first week of work, I and the rest of the Marketing/IT sub-department of Student Programs employees (around 15 total people) went to a retreat house at Claytor Lake, VA. It went from Wednesday evening (4/30/08)until early Friday afternoon (5/2/08). It’s about 30 minutes south of Christiansburg. We did team building exercises all based around StrengthsQuest. It’s basically a web-based questionnaire that finds your top 5 strengths. My top 5 are Learner, Discipline, Relator, Empathy, and Imput. I think it was pretty accurate. It was a really good way to get to know my fellow employees. I felt very welcome to the team; while only being employed for less than a week.

The next day (5/3/08), we went to Washington D.C. for the day. Holly got tickets for Kids in the Hall comedy group. She’s a big fan and wanted to see them since they don’t tour very often. We drove up to Mama G’s house Friday night, and drove into D.C. Saturday morning. We walked around most of the day; going to the Hirshorn Art Museum and Capitol City Brewing Company for dinner, then on to the K.I.T.H. show. It was a long day, but it very fun. Here are some photos I took:

The next weekend (5/9/08-5/12/08), we drove to southern MD and stayed with our friends, Greg and Krista. They hosted a bbq at their place on Saturday. It was good to see people I haven’t seen in a while. Then on Sunday, we drove to NoVA for the Radiohead show. We stayed with our friend’s Mac and Michelle. It was pouring rain when we got there and, of course, I was not prepared. I had forgotten my raincoat, so I made one out of a trash bag. We decided to fare the weather and go into the show. It was cold and rather miserable, but we all had a great time. All of us were soaked from head to toe. I took the Monday after off seeing that we would have to drive a good 4 hours back home on top of recovering from the late show the night before.

I got a freelance job to design and print some shirts for a show and shine event to (sponsored by Harrisburg Area Volkswagen Owners Club) to raise money for a breast cancer walk. I designed a few options and passed them onto the client. I recommended that since she loved both of them, that she used the one this year and the other one for next year’s event. So, I finished printing the shirts today in order to drop them off with one of my friends so they have them a few weeks before the event. Here are some photos:

We made a drive up to PA today (5/24/08) for our baby shower/Memorial Day picnic hosted by my mom and dad. The picnic and shower were great. It was good to see some relatives that we haven’t seen in a few months. Plus, we got some sweet stuff for the little guy, too!

We got home at around 7:45 tonight. The drive back wasn’t bad at all. I’m going to wrap this up. Night.

Categories: Baby, Misc., Screen Printing
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Well, looks like my once a month entry is right on time.  I promise I will attempt to make more than one entry a month from this point on.

I’ve been working on getting my portfolio together for some time now, and finally made the time to do so. I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I have applied for two graphic design jobs at Virginia Tech. I got a call late last week about coming in for an interview for one of those jobs. The interview was set for Wed. April 9th. I got my stuff together and practiced my delivery a few times the previous night. I met with 3 people from Student Services at VT. They all were very nice and asked a bunch of questions to test my competency. Things were going well throughout the interview. They all said they liked my portfolio and website, so it all seemed very promising. I got a call today (4/10/08) from the woman who was in charge of hiring. She asked me if I wanted to work with them and I gladly accepted. I need to work out the small details, but as of right now, I plan on starting in two weeks.

I have been doing production work for my previous employer since we moved to southwest VA last September. The work is in no way creative and I’ve come to really not like doing the same sort of work over and over again for them. So I decided it’s time to move on and work towards a more positive working environment. It was and has been a good thing to get the paycheck, but it has been very frustrating not to be able to spread my creative wings on a semi-regular basis. I want to keep growing as a designer and in that sort of environment, it was stunting my creativeness. I have been trying to get my nose into creative magazines and books as much as I can lately just to get out of the non-creative rut that I’ve been in. One book in particular seems to have jump-start my creativity. It’s called “Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to wake up your brain.” They challenge you to do one exercise per day. I’d like to try to do that if I can just to keep my mind sharp. I’ve been trying to sketch in my sketchbook on a regular basis as well. I hadn’t been sketching much for a time and really missed it. So, I’m going to push myself to sketch more often.

I also picked up a new digital camera. My previous camera had an issue with it’s imaging unit. We had sent it back to Canon when it was still under it’s factory warranty, but the warranty had expired before it started acting up for the second time. So, I was camera-less for a few weeks and it really started to bug me since I enjoy taking photos. So I did some research and set my sights on a Canon Rebel XTI. I already had 2 lenses from my SLR that I could use with the DSRL. I didn’t feel comfortable getting something like that off of ebay, so happened to look on the local craigslist. I found exactly what I was looking for. A year old Canon Rebel XTI body. I didn’t need to pay the extra money for a lens, so all I needed was the camera body. This one came with 2 batteries too. So I met up with the guy, took a look at the camera and really liked it. Once we heard back from the tax guy, we made the decision that we could afford it. So I called the guy up again, met up with him and picked up the camera. I haven’t had lots of free time to play around with it, but I hope to in the near future.

I had a few of the local VW guys over for a bbq this past Sunday (4/6/08). I had only met one of the guys in the area before, so I figured it would be nice to have some of the other guys over to meet them. We had  6 vws and 1 audi at the house (my avant and Holly’s rabbit included). It turned out to be a little chilly outside, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m hoping to make the bbq a regular thing and add some of our other friends into the mix. I’m looking forward to the spring and summer.

Our next OBGYN appointment is in about a week and a half (4/21/08). We should find out the sex of the baby at that one! We are quite excited. I still have a big long list of names to go through. I might not make it before the appointment, but I’ll try.

I’ll be gearing up for the show season in the next couple weeks. The first show of the season is Volksfest in Campbelltown, PA on 4/26/08. Any free time will be dedicated to printing. It always comes down to the last few weeks…ugh!

I’m going to bed. Night.

Categories: Baby, Cars, Misc.
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It appears that an entire month has passed since I have written an entry. Wow, I really suck at this, huh? I’ll try to make this as painless and quick as possible since a fair amount of things have happened since my last entry.

Well, I sold my beloved GTI and upgraded to an Audi. I sold the GTI to a kid in PA. I had lots of offers and interest in the car, so it only took a month to sell it. Once it was sold, I could seriously start looking for my ideal wagon. There were a few choices, but I narrowed it down to the B6 chassis Audi A4 Avant (wagon). There didn’t seem to be too many used A4 Avants out there that met my needs. I had a salesman at the Roanoke Audi dealership looking for me. He ended up finding one, but it was available through an online auction, costed way too much and was in California. So that was definitely out. I had been searching on autotrader.com and cars.com to see if there were any out there with the combo I was looking for. A 2003 Ming Blue Pearl Effect A4 Avant 30v manual with tan leather popped up in Kentucky, so I called them to make sure it was still available. I made some calls to the bank and got pre-approved. So I set up a trip to Louisville, Kentucky starting early in the morning 2/8/08. A friend of mine, Derek, expressed his interest in coming along since he had been to Louisville not-too-long ago and wanted to show me around since I had never been there. I’m really glad he came along since it would have been a very boring drive alone. We drove a rental there and dropped it off at the airport when we got to Louisville. We got there, took the avant for a spin, signed some papers and were on our way. We went back to the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat at a local brewery, then downtown to a few bars. The drive back didn’t seem bad at all either. It was a fun trip and I’m loving the new car. I just got it inspected and the VA tags put on it, so it’s ready to roll! Here are some photos of it:

The following weekend (2/16/08), Holly and I went to a local park, Pandapas Pond. It was a great weekend weather-wise, so it was really nice to get out and enjoy our surroundings. Here are some photos I took while we were at the park:

Our cat, Smokey has staked his claim as the head of the household (over our other cat, Selena). It seems like he wants to play, but I also see him instigating a fight with poor Selena. She has lost a lot of weight lately and seems more frail than ever. I’m sure the weight loss has to deal with the stress of Smokey picking on her. Here are some pics of the kitties:

I got a chance to play in a game of pick-up roller hockey on 2/28. I found out about a student-run roller hockey league and got added to their email list. One of the guys that organizes the league sent out an email asking if anyone was interested in a pick-up game before the students left for spring break. It’s been over 3 years since I last played, but I felt like I did really well for not playing for a long while. It turns out that the school has torn the rink up and are going to replace it with more parking. The guys who run the league are trying to get local businesses to donate some money for a new rink in a new location. They hope to have enough money donated to get what they need by the Fall. I hope to join back up with the leauge when it starts back up again.

We went to visit Mama G’s on the weekend of 3/1-3/2. We wanted to finish taking the wallpaper off in her kitchen and paint her kitchen and dining room area. So, we made that our main priority for the weekend. We finished up mid-afternoon on Sunday and headed back home soon after we cleaned up. It looks a 100% better than it did and really brightens up the place. It’s amazing what a few coats of paint will do for a dark room. Mama took us to a Ham and Oyster Dinner at the local Ruritan Hall and we got to see what the locals had to offer. The food was really good and we left very full. I never thought that I would be an oyster type of guy, but they were quite good.

I’ve been working on my portfolio website for some time now. I finally got it up and running. I bought a new domain to put it under brianyohndesign.com I’m pleased on how it turned out and have had lots of compliments on it. I plan on getting to Kinkos this week (maybe tomorrow) to get my portfolio pieces printed.

On 3/6/08, we went to Roanoke Memorial Hospital to get some testing done on Holly and the baby. We were having testing done to see what the likelihood of the baby having downs syndrome. We had another sonogram taken and got to see Captain Peanut moving around for the first time. It was quite exciting! The doctor said from the sonogram, the baby appears not to have downs. They drew some blood and will do some more testing on it to give us a more accurate percentage. As of right now, things are looking good. Here are the latest sonogram scans:

We will be going up to PA this coming weekend (3/14-3/16) to visit with my parents and my brother’s family. We haven’t seem them in a while, so it will be good to see them.

I’m sure I missed some things, but I’m going to wrap it up. Night.

Categories: Baby, Cars, Misc.
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