Big Steve

Big Steve, my brother in law, has moved to Nashville, to pursue his music career. To get by in the meantime he is painting houses. Whilst painting some guys house, he sat down and wrote a song, and the guy caugght it on camera, and hopefully you can see it here too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDFpnvugA9M

Complaints

Apologies for the gap between entries, but I have been forced to sign up to the new improved blogger. You will notice no changes but I am supposed to be able to so loads more, one problem though - it takes about 3 hours for me to get in and enter anything. Very annoying, there was nothing wrong with the old way but I suppose when I learn how to use the new features it may become better.

Anyway, the main reason for this entry was to rant about airlines. They are gits are they not? We are looking into flights to come over to the UK in the summer and when looking at flight costs we discovered that we have to pay for Ellie, but and this is outrageous, she doesn't get her own seat. If we book on the Virgin Atlantic website it states that children under 2 do not get there own seat reserved on the website. The cost for Ellie's ticket was $96 plus $181 in taxes and surcharges. Someone really needs to stand up to these people, it reminds me of the rant I had about Ticketmaster. Why should we have to pay a surcharge for fuel, why not just add that into my ticket price? I'd be none the wiser. Surely the price of the ticket should cover the cost of the flight and also make Virgin a profit, why do they have to add all those extras on? And in Ellie's case why am I paying around $270 for someone who is automatically assigned a seat, won't eat the food and won't use any of the entertainment?

I get really frustrated at this type of thing because the problem is the only way to stop them doing it is to not use airplanes, but then we could never see our friends and family, so they have you over a barrel.

Jen has told me to calm down, so I'd better fly. D'oh!

Sunny afternoon

One of the enjoyable experiences was heading to the coast at the weekend when my parents were here. It got up to a whopping 25 degrees c, and so Emma & I went into the sea. Boy what a mistake! It may have been 25c in the air, but the water felt like it was minus 25.

Hope you in the UK are enjoying your weather as much as we did.

Everything that has happened to us since Ellie was born has somehow messed with our time frames. It seems that we have spent more time in hospitals than anyone should never mind a 2 month old. Yes Ellie is now just over 2 months old. All the parenting books we have are no use to us as they give the average child's experiences, and Ellie is far from being average in developmental terms. Our Doctor will no longer see Ellie as Ellie is out of her league as a GP, so we are awaiting our medical insurance to let us know if we can go ahead. We received a notice from UC SF which is the hospital we went to in San Francisco and luckily our insurance company is picking up the bill as it was $104,000.

Our cardiologist has given us the all clear to fly to the UK in the summer so now all we need to do is save the cash up.

Smiling Ellie

Just love this picture. She is the cutest girl in all of cutesville.

Have you bean there?

We also took my parents to the Jelly Belly factory where they make Jelly Beans. Here is a picture of Emma with me at the factory.

Jelly Beans make great flavours, including Very Cherry, Kiwi, Pomegranate and Vomit. Yes, Vomit, Earwax and Dirt are also flavours made for the Harry Potter range and they do taste exactly like they sound.

How do you make a bean taste like vomit? More importantly, why do you make one taste like vomit?

Justified and Ancient

My parents flew over with Virgin. This is the second time that they have come to visit us and it is the second time that they have been upgraded, the luckily so and so's. I flew over regularly for 2 years with Virgin and never got a sniff of an upgrade.

Anyway - we took my parents to all the cultural sites of Sacramento; Old Sacramento, Sutter's Fort, Denny's. Sutter's Fort (pictured) is the original settlement of Sacramento (well not including the native American tribes) and whilst walking around it you feel that you are walking through history the thing is not as old as parent's house. Sutter's Fort was built sometime in the 1840's and so it is hard for me to get excited about it when compared to some of the history that Europe has.

Tight Fit

Ok so it's been a while since I updated, as my parents have been over visiting. I aim to tell you more of my excitng adventures with them later, but I have just realised how hard tights are to put on. No not myself but on a girl. 1st of all it wasbloody hard trying to get a pair on Emma our 4 year old, but I managed it (although one day I did put them on back to front) but just when I thought I had it sussed I tried to get them on Ellie - by god it was near impossible to keep the 2 month old beauty still.

Anyway more to come. Ellie is doing really well and is starting to gain weight - which is good. I am trying to lose weight which is going badly.

Oh an well done Monge & Jo on Spurs beating Everton. Grrr.

Cinderella 3

One of the downsides of living with all girls is the choice of movies that get chosen. Tonight I was forced to watch Cinderella 3. Another attempt by Disney to squeeze yet more money from Joe Public, or more importantly me.

I'll be honest I was unaware that there was even a Cinderella 2, never mind 3! And boy should they have stopped at one. The problem I have with almost all Disney movies is that they take a very good story and have to change it and introduce songs and talking animals. Why?? Why does Cinderella need two talking mice? Why does Sleeping Beauty need a whole host of animal friends? And why do I care?

TV Dinner

Whilst I am talking about TV I must confess that I am watching anything British or anything remotely British. For example I love watching House which not only has Hugh Laurie but also that guy from Neighbours (I know he's from Oz but Neighbours was huge in the UK for a while). I also watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip mainly because it is written by Aaron Sorkin who did the West Wing which I loved, but it also has Lucy Davis of The Office fame.

But more worryingly I have started watching pretty much anything on BBC America, the worst example being Cash in the Attic. I know I am hanging my head in shame but I am addicted, and I need understanding not hate. Please help me.

Super Bowl and other TV offerings

This weekend was the Superbowl. Superbowl 41 (there had been 40 other just like it) was an advertisers dream. Jen & I were invited to a superbowl party, and so we took the girls with us and went. We got there at 3pm and the game kicked off at 3.24pm - the reason for the odd time TV. We left at 4.20 by which time a quarter of the game was over, and we had seen about 450 adverts.

The game itself passed me by - I have already mentioned my dislike for the game, and I think the Bears won but it could have been the Racoons or even the Beavers. Why do they have those silly names? I notice that rugby union is starting to go the same way. I am all for traditional nicknames but these manufactured ones like the Sale Sharks?

So Monday swung around and at work the talk was all about the adverts. Which one's were funny, which one's were sweet and which one's bombed. No one really mentioned the game. Even TV and radio shows were focused on the ads and not the game itself. As my friend Monge says somewhere else on this blog, "a capitalist's dream".

TV here is full of adverts. And they are mostly terrible. None of the European sex, subtlety or stupidity, rather very old school adverts. For example car adverts just show the car, the car and nothing but the car. Local businesses always have to have the owner in the ad, to build the common touch link. Few are funny, all are pretty obvious, and just ram the product down your throat, after all they don't want you to think about it just buy it.

Product placement is also huge in shows, and none comes as big as Simon Cowell's coke glass that sits in front of him during American Idol. Coke have paid a colossal sum to have it sit there, and as it is not see through there is no way of knowing what Simon is drinking (although my guess is the devil's sperm). I am not a fan of American Idol or Pop Idol, but Jen likes seeing people humiliated so I have caught bits and pieces of it. Last night's was very funny. Not only did some woman murder Black Velvet by singing the wrong tune and not knowing the words, but a rejected contestants family were so angry they started making threats to Simon. They didn't know where he was from and so the presenter of the show (no Ant & Dec here which is a small diamond in this otherwise smelly turd) told them that "Simon is British" to which they responded that he should "go back to British" and believe me they were serious. Ah classic. Someone else thought that Simon was French but believe me he isn't that rude.

Come Home

Great news to report. Elena was released from hospital today and so I am typing this whilst looking at her sleeping in her crib. It is a wonderful sight and feeling. More later, I just want to enjoy this moment.

Quick update

Ellie is doing well, she is off all the tubes and stuff, but has some medication going in via a small IV. She is eating and is awake and keeps looking at me as if to say "I didn't sign up for this".

More update at the weekend, the new job is keeping me busy so may be a few gaps between entries.