Would hate to see the blarg go the way of the dodo…but I wouldn’t miss it near as much as I would have five years ago.

First impressions. It’s small. In a way, it almost seems hard to hold on to, though I’m sure I’ll get used to that. Screen on the back is big and awesome! So it’s smaller, yet bigger.

My only test subject needs a haircut.

Planning to do a quick shoot out versus the old D50 before it gets put on eBay. Love that it works with my SB-400 flash, and I love my brother’s fixed lens (think I need one), which I’ve already forgotten the name of.

Every new day at the new house feels a little more like home. When we need something, we generally know where to find it. We can successfully wake up in the morning and get to work on time. And the dog is finally starting to behave. A few notes…

For the techie folk…I finally settled on a TV (3rd model, 4th overall). I must be the pickiest person in the world when it comes to TVs. Originally I had a 40″ LED by TCL (same cheap brand as my 32″ bedroom TV I like). It had a Samsung panel, and looked awesome, but then I tried playing games on it. The input lag was terrible, and it had no game mode. So that got returned to Wal-Mart. Next up was another TCL, but the 40″ version of my 32″ bedroom TV. Everything about it was just like the 32″ (good gaming, good picture), but it had terrible flashlighting in the upper corners. I didn’t see anyone else complain about this on Amazon, so I even tried a second set. Same exact problem. So they both went back. Finally went for a 42″ LG at Walmart, and we’ve got a winner. Nice picture, no input lag, no flashlighting, and cheap. Good deal.

Another thing we’ve been dealing with is a barking dog. Ours. We built her this awesome kennel, but whenever we leave, it’s bark city. It’s hard to say, but it looks like she was barking non-stop from when we’d leave for work until we got home. I tried everything possible. I watched the Dog Whisperer, read stuff online, and tried it all. Last weekend a neighbor behind us left a note about it, and we were at our wit’s end. We started reading online about some of the no bark collars, and we came across one that had unbelievable reviews. The SportDOG Rechargeable NoBark 10R. This thing is amazing. It’s a shock collar…but it’s about as smart as they can be. It requires both sound AND vibration for it to go off, so your dog doesn’t get shocked because of some nearby sound. The first thing I did was try it on myself! I had to get pretty darn loud for it to even trigger, which I like. That means she’s only getting corrected if she ramps it up. And it didn’t hurt. I think a better way to describe it is I was “extremely startled.” And the first time I put it on the dog, it worked. Took her about 15 mins in her kennel to start barking, and it didn’t go off at first. But then she ramped it up to full blast, and zap. She got startled. Ten seconds later she did it again. After that 2nd zap, I don’t think she’s barked in there once. Not even a whimper. She just sits quietly and CALMLY. She’s a totally different dog…it’s amazing. To anyone that thinks it’s not humane…it’s 100x more humane that letting her bark for 8 hours in a row. We are very excited about this.

Sadly, I haven’t had any time to play videogames, so I’ll have to find a way to rectify that. Even for little spurts at a time. I watched 20 mins of Skyrim this morning, and it looked awesome. I’ve jogged twice in the last week, so that’s a good improvement also. I’m sure at some point we’ll have a housewarming party of some kind, but no plans as of yet.

First an update on the Angels. All summer I’ve been wearing my new Angels hat. It was sort of my way of getting comfortable with the idea of being an Angels fan. The more I’ve worn it, the more “normal” it seems. A few days ago I went to my first baseball game of the year, and it was an Angels game. Tonight I’m going to my second game of the year, and it is also an Angels game. Two nights ago I watched Trumbo hit a walk-off home run. Last night I watched the future of the Angels get promoted to the bigs. I can probably only name half the players still (I admit, the bullpen is hard), but when I watched the game last night, I was rooting for the Angels. It’s still a little weird, but it feels good.

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve spent the first three weeks of this month moving in. How on earth do people move with “regular” jobs? I’ve had three weeks of zero work to move stuff, unpack, and the house still isn’t quite in order. I can’t imagine getting off work at 6pm every night, and then trying to unpack.

So speaking of the new house…we love it. It’s absolutely what we thought it would be. Quiet, friendly, kept up. Those are the words that spring to mind. We’ve met as many neighbors in three weeks as we had in six years at the old place. There are only a handful of boxes left to be dealt with (oh, and then there’s the garage, haha). We’ve been checking out local eateries. We’ve spent 30 years in the same spot…so moving somewhere else gives us a whole new area to check out. To say we’re happy with the move would be an understatement. It was a lot of work and stress in a few short months, but the payoff will be worth it.

Sadly there are just a few short weeks until school starts. I won’t complain too much though, because the amount of time I have left to lament the end of summer is equivalent to what most people get all year.

Mike Piazza.

He’s why I became a Dodgers fan. I always thought that if I’d paid attention to baseball in ’88 when the Dodgers won it all, I might have skipped the Oakland phase altogether. But it was a pack of 1992 Bowman, and a Piazza rookie card that started my love of the Dodgers. I watched him win the ROY (followed by Mondesi, Nomo, and Hollandsworth), and I was well on my way to being a dedicated Dodgers fan.

For nearly 20 years (wow, that’s a long time), I stuck with the Dodgers regardless of whether they won or lost. There were lots of great moments, and even some playoffs, but success didn’t matter, I was a fan. My greatest memory is being there for Fernando’s no-hitter, on my birthday. The last few years especially had been great watching guys come up through the farm system and produce.

But something that has nagged at me for a while is the experience of going to a game. I used to go to multiple games a year when I was younger, and for the most part I enjoy myself when I go, but over the last 10 years that feeling has slowly been changing. My experience has been that the crowd at Dodger stadium is getting increasingly obnoxious, ghetto, intimidating…however you’d like to describe it. And for the most part, I put up with it. I’d go with some friends, and if we happened to get some drunk idiots behind us, we’d suffer through it.

But then I had a son.

This is where I see a big divergence in opinions. There is no way I would take my son to a Dodgers game. Maybe if I had $500 seats, and I knew the people around me would be nice, but the $50 seats have become a total crapshoot. I’ve found that people with kids absolutely know what I’m talking about, and people without don’t see the big deal. Yes, I’m generalizing all the opinions I’ve heard, but that’s been the common theme.

As a dad who wants to take his son to baseball games growing up, I’m now faced with a dilemma. The team I’ve grown up rooting for is in a crappy part of town, with a crowd that is becoming increasingly like a Raiders game (and from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t take my son to one of those either). I’ve had to make one of hardest decisions of my adult life.

I am divorcing the Dodgers.

I’ve never gotten divorced, and never will, but I imagine this is exactly what a real divorce feels like. I don’t want to do it. I have all these great memories of a wonderful relationship we used to have…but things have changed. I’m not even sure it’s anyone’s fault. It’s almost natural considering the Dodgers location, and changing demographics over the years. When everything around you is turning into a ghetto, don’t be surprised when the seedier parts of society start dominating the attendance at games.

So for that reason alone, I don’t blame the Dodgers as an organization. I don’t even care about the McCourts…they’re an owner, and they will be gone someday. It’s not even the players fault. There are a ton of crappy guys on this years team that I could use as a scapegoat for why I’m leaving, but that’s part of being a fan. You root for the team through thick and thin, winning or losing.

But I will not take my son to a game. Maybe someday when he’s older I’ll take him to a game to show him the stadium I grew up in. But for his sake, and mine, I am changing my allegiance.

I am now an Angels fan.

This is not an easy decision. I have nothing against the Angels (except the DH), but changing the team you root for is the strangest feeling. I don’t know that many of the players, I’m not used to their announcers, and I don’t know their history. But I’ve been to games there, and it is night and day compared to Dodger stadium. Is the crowd perfect? Of course not, but I would feel comfortable taking my three year old son to a game now.

I’m still very much in transition. I bought an Angels hat (old school one with lots of blue), and I’ve been wearing it everyday. It’s helping me get used to things…slowly. I’m excited about some of the young players on the Angels that I will hopefully be able to follow for a while.

Over time, it will start to feel like my team.

I wanted to hit the 200 mile milestone much earlier, but I finally hit it the other day. To hit my first 100 miles it took me 315 days, but to hit my second 100 miles it only took 196 days! Originally I had hoped to do 100 miles in 100 days, but that didn’t happen. Maybe miles 201-300 will be in 100 days! You can always follow my progress at RunKeeper.

Otherwise we’ve been staying busy during the first week of summer. We found a place to rent in Rossmoor, and put down our deposit earlier this week. It’s a 3 bed/2 bath house. Rent is a little more than our previous mortgage, but much cheaper than buying. Bathrooms and kitchen have all been remodeled, so it’s a place I can see ourselves staying for several years. Gives us time to save up, let the housing market figure itself out, and in the meantime we can start enjoying Los Al schools and the neighborhood. Here’s a picture before they put in the grass.

It’s available August 1st, so that means we’ll be spending another month at the in-laws. It should still give us time to move and get settled in to the new place before the school year starts, but it’s making this summer feel very different than all the rest. Everything is in transition!

Otherwise I’ve been keeping busy with my PS3. I just finished Red Dead Redemption and was really disappointed. For getting so many GOTY awards, it was a big let down. Not only did the storyline and voice acting get tiresome, but the controls were obnoxious. It shouldn’t take me 5 tries to go through a doorway! Now that’s it done I picked up Borderlands, and already I like it a ton more. The controls are super tight, and I love the RPG aspect of building your character and finding new weapons. I have a feeling the story will get lost amongst all the missions they send you on, but it’s fun.

The last thing I’ve been enjoying lately is Google+! I’ve never been a huge Facebook fan, so to have an alternate social network to try is great. I’m a big fan of most things Google, so this is yet another area I can’t wait to see them push into.

If you get a summer, I hope it’s off to a great start. If you don’t get a summer, I’m sorry.

Living at the in-laws has been working out fine. It helps that it’s the end of the school year, and there isn’t a lot going on at work. I also had one requirement: my own TV with my PS3. Thanks to netflix, we’ve had plenty of stuff to watch, and games to play when we need our own space.

Our original plan was to move out of the townhouse, and then find a new place to buy…but going through the process of getting out of an underwater mortgage has a way of changing you. The more I read about the housing market and the economy, the more reticent I am to get into a new mortgage. Lots of people are saying prices could still drop another 20% before they stabilize, and I believe it. Some of the houses we’re looking at in Rossmoor are still $200k more than they were in 2002. And even if prices don’t go down…there’s no way they go up. Combine this with unemployment, all the foreclosures banks haven’t even tried to unload yet, potential for rising interest rates, and we’re just not ready to buy anything.

So for the last week or so we’ve been looking at renting. If we can find something to rent that is a lot cheaper than buying, in the neighborhood we want, and is a place we can see ourselves living for a while, then renting makes sense. We went and looked at a place last Friday, and we’re putting in our application tomorrow.

So we’ve got a lot going on here as the school year comes to a close. I’m glad summer is coming.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy we’re moving, I’m just tired of the process. Moving in with the in-laws will be interesting. We’ll have our own room, with my own TV, and my PS3, so that will give me my “own space.”

This weekend everything gets moved out, most of it to storage, and the essentials to the in-laws. It will be a jam packed weekend.

Once we’re out we can get pre-approved, but we’re  not in a hurry to buy. If we see something good to rent, we’ll consider it. With the economy looking worse, and all forecasts pointing down, I don’t feel like buying unless we get a steal.

It should be an interesting few months.

Originally, we had hoped to already have baby #2 by now. I’ll stop right now, and promise to not go too much into detail. Let’s just say it took about 10 months, a few doctor visits, and a lot of tears with each unsuccessful try. Even when we finally did get pregnant, it was very hard to believe.  We conceived naturally, but it wasn’t easy.

The whole time we were going through this, I was just telling myself that I was very lucky to have one healthy baby. Some people never get any, so if I wasn’t meant to have two, then so be it.

It has given me a new appreciation for how much I want children. The whole ‘you don’t know how much you miss something until it’s (potentially) gone’ thing. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but if everything works out with this one, I’m pretty sure I’d want to go for one more. There’s not a very big window for having children, and once that window is closed, you can’t open it.

The other thing I appreciate now is that you only get to ask people about having children once, and that’s it. Now if the person is your absolute best friend whom you tell everything, that’s different, but asking people “when’s the next one,” and “about time for another,” I think you only get to do that once. It never bothered me that much, but this experience has shown me that you never know what a couple’s situation is, and questions like that might just be little daggers every time they get asked. I can only imagine what it must be like for a couple trying to conceive for the first time who is having trouble. Each month of failure they’re starting to think more and more that they can’t have kids, so each time someone asks, there’s this hidden pain they feel.

I know people don’t mean to cause any of that, but it’s something I’ll think about now before I ask someone.

Watching Luke grow up is amazing. Doing that again and knowing how quickly they change will be a lot of fun. We’d both like a girl, but a healthy anything will be wonderful. We went last Friday to hear the heartbeat, and the doc couldn’t find one, so she rushed us over to her ultrasound machine. Within seconds she found the baby squirming around (which she assured us is even better than a heartbeat). Personally, I think it looked like a girl.

I just hope everything goes OK, and mommy and baby stay healthy. We’ve been blessed with one wonderful child, and getting a second is just as amazing.