These amazing and generous people threw a little shower for our little lady!  Heather and Kate did the planning!  Kate and Bill got to the chinese restaurant early and decorated everything.  She brought an adorable cake!

She even brought clay so that everyone could play a shower game.  Everyone had to make little ‘clay babies’ and I had to pick the winner!  My friends are not artistic.  Not with play-doh, anyway.  The results were HILARIOUS, though.  Nothing like a roomful of grown adults playing with clay!

They traveled from all over the state.  All the way from Kalamazoo, Detroit,  Muskegon, Lansing, Grand Rapids and even Alpena!  And they brought the baby-beastie gifts!  David even got his man-bag diaper bag!  LOL (this was a big concern for him- Thanks again, Jim!  LOL)

I just want to thank you all, again.  I don’t think I could possibly thank you all enough.  It meant SO much to us.

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More pictures here

It was wet, and not just because we were on Lake Michigan – it rained nearly the whole time we were there.  Still, it was nice to end the summer.  On the last night there, the clouds finally cleared off just as bedtime hit.  We were able to see tons and tons of stars.  I used an application for my iPhone to locate items of interest, and we were able to find Jupiter and other constellations.

Week 28-29

During camping the baby was spending her time developing wrinkled brains.  Apparently, they start off smooth like a rock on the shores of Lake Michigan, and later develop the wrinkly look that we think of when we think of brains.  She’s also getting fatter, and should be head-down now.  Some people say that during this time the infants start to get REM-sleep patterns, which means that she might be dreaming.  Not sure what she’d have to dream about.  I don’t think there’s any movies being screened in there or anything.

My First Week at CMU

Everything went pretty much as planned.  Parking wasn’t an issue.  I found my classes ok.  I am pleased with most of the rest of it.

BIS 228 – COBOL Python Programming

This class was intended to be COBOL programming, a language that’s from the stone age.  Nobody but big banks really use it anymore, whereas Python is actually actively used.  The professor in this class seems nice, and on the first day he told us that we could do the entirety of our classwork online and didn’t need to show up.  Also, he refuses to teach COBOL, hence the switch to Python. Sounds good to me.

FIN 302 – Integrated Financial Analysis

An interesting professor and class, we started off with a chapter on ‘what is finance’ and have finished the rest of the week off with some Net Present Value of money equations.  All review, basically.  I don’t have the calculator he demonstrates things with, but my trusty TI-84 has all of the functions.  I just need to figure out how to best use them.

MKT 304 – Integrated Marketing Management

A very friendly professor from Romania.  The book is, as you would expect from a marketing book, slick and to the point.  This class will be very involved with active participation, I think.  I’m not really ‘into marketing’ so it’ll be interesting, for sure.

MGT 303 – Integrated Supply Chain Management

This class hurts my brain.  What I’m being told in here goes against what I’ve learned in the past.

BUS 301 – Integrated Business Experience

This is where I’ll learn SAP, work on simulations of running a company, and more.  This takes place in the DiamlerChrysler computer lab, which is one of the nicer ones.  I’m not going to enjoy how late at night it is, though – I will be getting home around 10 PM on Thursdays.

I’m told at the end of my integrated business experience I am going to have to present my company to 90+ people in an auditorium, including the dean of the business school.

Yes, that’s correct.  17 hours+ on the road on the final day.  We were slowed by a 1 hour tie-up in traffic on the way back through Indianapolis, and actually became trapped at a freeway rest stop while traffic backed up.

Overall though, it was a very good vacation.  We got to spend time with family and relax a bit.  Three generations of our family was there, which made it even better.

Week 19

Week 19 was actually last week, but I didn’t have time to write about it.  Between decompressing from the vacation, a business law paper to write, and my new 12 year old constant companion (yay summer vacation) I had a lack of quiet time to write up anything.  I’ve finally found the quiet time, and so here I am.

Last week, the baby was “the size of a large heirloom tomato”, or at least so say the baby sites.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  Is it a old, dried up tomato that gets passed down from generation to generation?

Anyway, the baby is developing regions of the brain used for smell, touch, taste and vision.  Most places agree that the baby will start hearing – and perhaps recognizing voices.

Week 20

During week 20 the baby is no longer measured from head to ‘rump’.  Instead, they’re measured from head to toe – like a real person!  Predictably…

they’re using fruit again to demonstrate the length.  This time, the baby is about as big as a banana.  Perhaps bigger news than this, though, is that it’s the halfway point in the pregnancy.  Yes, that means that every day from here on out we’re looking at a fast dwindling time of pregnancy.  The baby will be here before we know it! We’re looking forward to the next ultrasound that we have, scheduled for the 1st of July.  Perhaps we’ll find out if it’s a boy or a girl?  I’m not holding my breath, but I’m hopeful.

Friday, Graduation Day

We started off our festivities with a graduation from grade school.  This marks my third and final graduation I would be attending this year.  Maddie earned a presidential award for academics.  It was a nice time, and afterward we left for Chicago to begin our vacation.  The kids wanted to buy things at the Lego store and the American girl doll store.

We left and arrived in Chicago in the evening.  We checked into our hotel room, which we pricelined for $50 downtown.  It was literally right downtown.  We were within walking distance from “the Magnificent Mile,” known by that name for it’s shopping and other items of interest.  The room was nice, and it had a flatscreen tv.  But it had to have a flatscreen tv, because a regular tv would not have fit.  You couldn’t walk from one part of the room to the other without running into someone.

Behold:

The queen size beds were actually twins.  It felt like we were sleeping on chiclets.  Still, the price and location couldn’t be beat.

We brought food but decided to eat out, since there’s TGI Fridays all around the area.  We stopped by the Apple store, which is always neat to go in and play with the new toys they have.

Saturday, Traveling to St. Louis

We woke up Saturday to a rainy rainy day:

Still, there was shopping to be done.  After eating some in-room breakfast, I drove the girls to the girl shopping store.  The valet was very nice and held the car at the front of the hotel for me, since the garage was blocks away.  Afterwards, we picked them up and I took off to the ‘boy store’, the lego store.  This was only a few blocks away, so we walked it. Driving in downtown Chicago isn’t the easiest thing, with the construction, traffic, and a GPS system that can’t find satellites because of tall buildings.

We departed after shopping at noon and proceeded on to St. Louis/Collinsville.

We arrived at our room.  This was another $50 priceline special, but this one was quite a bit better appointed:

This was a new hotel, and walking in wearing my ‘driving outfit’ made me feel hideously underdressed.  The rooms for this were likely four times the price we paid, and there was a wedding reception being held there.  Everyone was wearing gowns and formalwear, I was wearing reebok gym shorts and sneakers.

There was a Ponderosa up the road, which is reasonably priced for kids to eat at the buffet, so we decided to eat there.  The she-beastie though is now 12, and doesn’t get kids discounts there anymore.  It ended up being more expensive than we thought, but filling and convienent.

Then, we went swimming and enjoyed the complimentary free WiFi internet access.

Sunday, Catsup, The Arch, and Branson

The hotel was actually in Collinsville, IL – just 10 minutes from downtown St. Louis.  Interestingly, the town is known for having the largest bottle of catsup in the world.  It’s actually a water tower, but still…  being just 2 miles away from our hotel, I had to get pictures.

while my family looked on disinterested from the car

I guess they don’t get the allure of large bottles of catsup (sigh)

We headed down to the St Louis Arch, and took pictures of it and the Mississippi river:

Then we got on the road.  5 hours later, we arrived in Branson and ate at one of our favorite locations there, the Hard Luck Cafe.  The waiters and waitresses sing to you as you eat, and have cd’s for sale in the gift shop.

Afterward, the kids got to spend some time where they wanted to be most – the pool

It was nice, and a welcome sight.

Pictures

There are lots more pictures that I didn’t put in this post, but you can look at them.  There are some other nice ones.

Week 18

This week, the hearing of the baby is supposed to be getting better and better.  It’ll try to cover its ears when it hears loud sounds and can start to hear voices.  It’s going to be gaining weight and size from here on out, having developed almost all of it’s final organs.  Mom is doing well, though is feeling ‘very pregnant’ now.  The long car rides aren’t optimal for her, but she’s doing very well overall.  Sometimes ‘flutters’ can be felt, but the baby is still a bit too small to make the movements felt very often.

Sounds good to me!  Think they mean the Mississippi?  Here’s our vacation route:

The first leg of the trip will bring us to Chicago, where we have pricelined a hotel room for dirt cheap just 1 block off of Michigan Avenue, where we’ll be shopping.

The second leg of the trip will bring us to just outside of St. Louis.  We’ll be staying at an upscale hotel there for, again, dirt cheap.  The town is Collinsville, and is just oustide of St. Louis.  It’s the home to the largest ketchup bottle.  I will make it a point to visit there before we head to the arch.

The third and final leg will bring us south of St. Louis through to Branson, Missouri.  We’ll be staying at the same timeshare we were at last year – it should be amazing.

I was curious what it’s function was, so I wrote an email to the state police through their website:

I have a question that’s more of a trivia question than anything else.

What is that placard/fin thing on the front of the car for? The one that says ’state STOP police’. I’ve never seen it used, and it seems like if you
were close enough to read it you’d be already stopped anyway. Most traffic stops I’ve seen would render the thing not visible behind the cabin of the car.

Does it have a name? How is this used? Is it there mostly for tradition?

So I got a response today!

Hi David.

The MSP Webmaster forwarded your message to me.

I’m a retired MSP inspector, and serve as the department’s “unofficial” historian. I now work as an outreach specialist in the MSU School of Criminal Justice. By the way, my wife is from Midland–her Dad worked for Dow many years ago.

I get a couple of questions a year on this specific issue about the patrol cars.

The “STOP–State Police” placard on the hood of MSP patrol cars goes back to the late 1920s when the department used Harley-Davidson motorycles on patrol, just before we bought our first fleet of marked patrol cars (Ford Model A’s in 1929).

The department installed small “State Police” placards atop the front fenders on the bikes so troopers making side traffic stops (the bikes had no
red lights) could pull up next to the driver door of a car, and the motorist could see the State Police sign and pull over. The MSP uniforms were a very plain black design at the time, so even the uniform did not make it obvious that it was a trooper. The MSP quit using motorcycles in 1942, during the war, but brought them back on a limited basis in Detroit in about 1993.

We didn’t use placards on patrol car hoods until 1954 when they switched from the old black color to the bright new blue color and gold door shield with lighting bolts still used on MSP patrol cars today.

At that time, since MSP still did blockades (pulling across predesignated places on major roads to stop and check cars following major crimes), and also did side patrol stops with the cars, they thought the plexiglass “STOP–State Police” placards would help make the cars more visible and
identifiable as MSP cars. The placards are also lighted in the mounts at each end, to improve their visibility at night, and help identify the cars
when troopers would pull into someone’s driveway at night on an investigation. We troopers often did not turn them on, because we also
feared it made us a better target!

MSP quit teaching side stops to troopers and ended the blockade system as impractical back in the early 1980s. Thus, the placards really have no
practical use today. The head of the state Motor Transport garage called me about ten years ago asking for my support to propose to MSP that they drop the placards. They are very expensive to buy and install, and a real pain for the mechanics who have to prep new patrol cars.

I raised this issue with HQ, but was told politely to forget about it–theyhad become a traditional feature of MSP patrol cars, and so they would stay!

Phil Schertzing, Ph.D.
School of Criminal Justice
Michigan State University

This was an AMAZING answer!  I am shocked at the effort put in by Dr. Schertzing in formulating this response.   Now that I know the story behind the placards, I love the fact that they’re on the cars to this day.  It’s like an appendix for their cruisers or something!

A couple more pictures of some most excellent placards – a 1958 chevy and a new dodge charger:

Simply splendid.