Jackson Geocaching Scavenger Hunt

This weekend we spent 5 hours on a GPS/Geocaching Scavenger Hunt that our friendly neighbors set-up. It was a nice sunny day and a good day for an adventure. Highlights included a good view in Queen Ann and my first trip to Sand Point.

With Laura's suggestion we googled and found a way to share our GPS tracks with you the internet world on http://maps.innersource.com.

Irony

Irony is being smug about your driving record when your wife gets a speeding ticket in your car, then receiving a speeding ticket on the same stretch of road your wife got one 3 weeks later.

Paul

Cohawk

Thanks be to blogs, instant communication, and the shrinking of the world we can share our pet stories at the drop of a cliche.

One such anecdote is about our little kitten Comox. It turns out he is defective. But I won't have you call him defective, I mean it in as loving way as possible. His poor little problem is that apparently he wasn't born with all his hairs attached to muscles, the muscles that allow a cat to stand all its hair up. He only has muscles to control a line of hair down his spine.

This means that when he becomes frightened he has a line of hair that stands up, a mohawk really. Or as we affectionately call it a Cohawk. It is a treat to see these days as it is a bit funny.

Now that I think of it, it probably isn't a defect. He probably has exacting control over each of his hairs and he decided to make a Cohawk?

Paul

BC Project

Well the BC project is well on its way. BC, Baby Cooley, is a name given to the baby by my teammate who seems to be very excited about this pregnancy. So I am working hard on this BC project. - 15 weeks 3 days or 172 days left until my due date. Oh my.

I had a checkup today. Heartbeat is good, sounds like this. Blood pressure is good, urine is good, and my weight is up 2 lbs from my first visit 5 weeks ago. I did learn some interesting things today. My blood type is A negative. I guess this negative can be a problem if the baby ends up with a positive blood type. So I might get a shot of Rho (D) immune globulin (RhoGAM) after the baby is born or/and if I have any bleeding during my pregnancy. Doesn’t seem like a big deal just something I need to be aware of. I have another appointment in 4 or 5 weeks where we will do an ultrasound and maybe find out the sex of the baby. I think it will be a boy but I could be wrong.

On another note my mom broke her pelvis bone and is having a hard time with pain and moving. She can hardly move. Paul and I are bringing dinner over to my parent’s house tonight. I am hoping I can trade help for her recovery now for help with the baby when it comes.

ill on the weekend

Twice in as many months I've had the misfortune to make it through the work week and wake up on Saturday ill. This last Saturday I woke up with a fever of 102. That said, it wasn't as bad as those fevers I recall having as a child. I had a couple of bad ones that really were uncomfortable. In fact they would either give me nightmares or lead me to a little sleep walking. The nightmare actually in retrospect was, well, weird -- Mundane even. It was basically of everywhere I turned things would turn gray. Not gray exactly, more like static. The more I looked the less there was to look it. That left an impression to this day, let me tell you. In fact I cannot remember a dream for more than 3 hours, but this little nightmare is going on 25 years. That said, it was my only known time in my past in which I've slept walked. To my knowledge. Maybe I do it all the time and end up back in bed, but I doubt it. However, it would be a good excuse for those missing socks, eaten deserts, extra pounds, and actually you name it. That is it, my excuse is now: I did it while I was sleep walking. Nah, not going to work.

Anyways that tangent completed, on to my being sick. My wife was extra kind and took care of me while I went from being too hot to too cold and back again. All with a little less patience and energy than normal. What a sweetheart she is. Kudos to her. Love that woman! And on top of all that she is pregnant and not feeling as energetic as before. I hope I didn't bring her a fever.

The other negative to this is it is basically a wasted weekend where nothing fun really happened and we didn't go anywhere. I wrecked it for the both of us. I'll need to remember to make up for that. Valentines day is around the corner isn't it?

We are pregnant.

Due date is August 4^th. Not sure when people started to say "we are pregnant" but it happened at one point in history. Does that mean that Paul gets more credit for all the work my body is doing at this point? Well he should get credit because for the past 8 weeks he has been doing more work around the house, cleaning the litter box, more dishes, more grocery shopping, more cooking, and giving me more back rubs than normal. I have been having morning sickness that doesn’t happen until the afternoon. I have figured out how to manage it so business trips have been event free. There was about 4 weeks of figuring it all out. Laura’s rules of pregnancy:

1. Don’t take the prenatal vitamin even on a full stomach. (3 Flintstone vitamins are fine and have my daily supply of folic acid).

2. Don’t brush your teeth if you are feeling sick to your stomach. This is a sure fire way to get a kick start on morning sickness.

3. Eat every 2.5 hours even if you feel sick or not hungry or if nothing sounds good.

If these rules are followed then morning sickness seems to be avoided. Then that leaves me with fatigue. I spent week 6-9 taking 2 hour naps during the day and not sleeping at night. I have since cut out most naps and I am sleeping somewhat better at night.

I am able to put this in my blog now because my coworkers now know about my pregnancy. It is fun to see how different people react to my news. Women are excited and offer up free things like cribs. Men are worried about me. Sit here, how are you feeling, don’t listen to that pregnancy story, do you need something to drink. The advice has started and lots of questions. Do you crave anything? My answer includes, I hate brushing my teeth, I hate my prenatal vitamin and nothing ever sounds good to eat. I make my husband pick something and then I will eat it. Fruit is on my number one list of things to eat. Chocolate moved to the bottom of the list but is starting to sound good again.

On Friday I will start my second trimester. Everyone says this is the easiest one. I am happy for that. Right now I have ordered some maternity clothes on ebay. I got 2 pair of jeans. They are way too big all around, maybe they will work in the 9^th month. I need to order the small size from now on. I guess for now I will do the elastic band trick in my jeans that are just a tad to tight. So far my dress pants still fit.

More snow.

Got to love the weather! Snow in Seattle has me home today. I was supposed to go to Portland but I decided to stick it out at home. No need to be delayed. Last week I got stuck in Portland when it snowed. The weather has been crazy. I wish it would warm up and we could go back to normal rainy Seattle where I can drive.

Oh and the Seahawks lost. Oh well, there is always next year.

On another note we are getting new kitchen counter tops. So we are with out counter tops, a kitchen sink and dishwasher right now. They should be installed when I get back from San Fran on Friday. Washing dishes in the bathroom is just not right.

Seahawks, one down three to go

I am not a huge football fan but I do like the playoffs. Paul wasn't feeling well tonight so we picked up a pizza from Garlic Jim's and watched the Seahawks vs Cowboy wildcard game. That had to be one of the best football games I have ever watched. In the last 1:13 I knew were going to lose the game. There was no way to pull off a win as I told Paul. Followed up with, well unless some fluke things happens on the snap. Sure enough we won. Way to go "he-hawks" (as my sister called the team when she was 2).

Still no power at home. I think we might get power tonight but then again I will not believe it until the house is above 60 degrees. One more night in the hotel then we are off to the cabin, my parents or if we are lucky to our own house with power. I am so drained from everything I can hardly take it. Now I need to figure out something for a late lunch.

Power

Who knew that power was on the top of my list of needs to live. Burr. Power went out late Thursday night and we are still without it at home. We left Saturday for the cabin that has power. Go figure. We got back tonight to figure out what to do for tonight/tomorrow. We can check to see if the power is on at our house because Paul has a weather station that will update the internet every 5 mins when it does come back on. http://weather.paulcooley.com

Yikes - I worked with this guy and now he is a fugitive

This is not a thing you want to find out about a former co-worker. Mind you, it is slightly better that he is a former co-worker. This man worked at drugstore.com for a time. Not on my team or anything, but that matters not.

It makes me uncomfortable to realize this. However, you cannot go back into ignorance.

America's Most Wanted Profile


Paul

Let it Snow!

We have 2 inches of solid snow on the ground and it doesn't look like it is stopping any time soon. Paul worked from home today so that worked out for us. The traffic reports look dismal.


The snow in this photo isn't as impressive as it feels.

And today Nov. 28 in the daylight ...

The day in the life

Reality in the Cooley home these days.

YouTube Movie of our Kittens Kona and Comox

This is the little movie of our Kittens: Kona and Comox. I posted this a couple weeks ago. They definiately oscillate between trouble and cute.



Paul

Makes you think - Construction Crane Falling in Bellevue

Darryl Holman wrote up an article about this in his Blog.

This was all at once shocking, riveting, and scary. Looking down from the 12th floor of the office I work out of and seeing a 12 story crane lying on its side. Considering that given it falling 180 degrees it would have been the building I use that would be damaged. It is too close for comfort and sitting and dwelling on it doesn't make it better.

It is a solid reminder of all those things that are cliches: Remember to tell your wife you love her; Remember to live each day to its fullest; Remember to focus on what matters; ... Life is truly not perminant.

Paul, remember to remember to make your life matter.

Crane in Bellevue

Well here is what Paul can see from his office today. One person died in this accident. It could have been so much worse.

The dawn of Zee or Zed

Several weeks ago and my wife stated, "You never blog about anything 'interesting'". Several weeks before that that I started to blog; a blog that was documentation, how-tos, and various other tools of the trade in what turns out to be the day-to-day sort of mini-projects that employ a soul who enjoys solving problems with technology. Several months before that my wife suggested I should blog. Several years before that my wife began her weblog. Returning to the present, here these words be. Truth be told, I've had thoughts I wanted to blog, but seemed inappropriate in my other more 'serious' blog.

Of course like the two to three other people would collect their insights on the internet, the next step was to arrive at a cute, witty, smart, life-changing name for our blog. It turns out there are a number of great names already taken -- grrr, a dollar short and, say, five years late. This landed us with the discovery of a topic that Laura and I have had countless times, the conversation of which dialect is correct in the linguistics of daily spoken English. The ol' is 'Z' pronounced zee or zed? Is it process or is it pracess? Is it about or aboot? Is it Java or Jaeva? Is it spelt color or colour? Truly something of the upmost importance to our daily lives, something that we are working out the solution to, albeit slowly.

There you have it. The unabridged story of Laura and Paul Cooley's shared blog named 'zee or zed.' It will be were we share with the world whatever wisdom we might have -- or not have.

I hope you enjoy it.
Paul + Laura
Our other online content:
http://linuxlore.blogspot.com
http://cyan73.livejournal.com
http://www.paulcooley.com
http://www.lauracooley.com

Zee or Zed

I wanted to be the first to post on Zee or Zed. I was going to make Paul name it Z or Zed to prove that Z doesn't not need to be spelled out. Now to get Paul to change the color of this blog. Orange is not working for me.