Hi All,

I know it’s been awhile but we sure have been busy around here. I have been hard at work securing websites for my side business as well as maintaining my current websites and of course the most important one rfmd.com So far I have several new sites mediabrewer.com, The Neal Tractor Museum, Frye Heating and Air, and Paul Milam. They are all in different stages of completion like mediabrewer is up but not with the right theme, the tractor museum is in design, as well as Frye heating and air, and Paul’s site will be managed by me with a third party doing the actual development. So this is an exciting time to see if I can really handle doing all of this without letting my home-life or my work slip. So far I have been able to handle it all but it does cause me to be very busy so well see.

Jess has been hard at work trying to get into the groove of now having two babies to care for. We recently had to switch formula from one labeled advanced to one labeled good start because baby Same has been very fussy and gassy. We also switched bottles so that we where sure to knock it out. He seems to be doing much better now. Daniel is taking to the new addition very well. There are times that he requires one of us while we are trying to take care of Sam but for the most part it all seems to click together. At least he hasn’t asked us to send him back .

So about this weekend we started off visiting my mom’s (me-maw) so that she could get her baby fix and then set off early Saturday for a trip to the mountains. This is the first LONG trip we have decided to undertake after having baby Sam. Steve one of his paw-paws or his great grandmother (Maw-Ri) had never seen him before so we hoped to have him all dressed up for the occasion. When Daniel this would not have been possible as he used to get very car sick on long trips. I must say the trip went very well. He was fussy sometimes but for the most part he just hung out and looked out the window. We found an awesome yard sale along the way and got a pack and play as well as a mirror for my car that mounts on the headrest all for under $10. We then visited with Steve and his Maw-Ri for awhile Daniel amused himself there by throwing bottles around and they never looked happier to see a new baby. We then visited Steve’s brother as they had just bought a house. We then took a beautiful trip through Floyd and then went to maw-maw and paw-paw’s for a visit and to relax a bit before the hour and half drive home. Daniel and the girls played really hard and Sam kept Jess and maw-maw very busy. She will surely blog about this trip as well on merryheartcrafts.com so there will be some really cute pictures on there. We had a lovely outdoor meal. it was so nice, cool, and serene up there I didn’t want to have to come home. I also got to fix Maw-Maw’s computer so she could post to her blog. We stayed as long as we could before driving home and the drive home was very nice, Jess and I always love to be able to spend so much time together we get to catch up on each others lives without interruptions for the most part.

Today we are going to try and pick up the house from the tornado called Daniel that came through it and then rest and relax before I have to go back to work.

Hope your weekend went as well as mine.
David Bates

Update: Maw-Maw must be slacking as I got this post up before she could… and she said I never updated my blog

Heres to a bright future and much daddy play time
David Bates

We then went to get strawberries, a new tank for the grill, and some hamburgers. We all eat and played until about 1pm when the mountain folk had to go. Daniel was very sad afterword… Until we informed him that he would be spending the rest of the afternoon playing with his cousin Zach.

We went to my Mom’s where I had a ton of son duties to perform as Jess, my mom, and sister prepaired the house for her baby shower next weekend. We all had a great time and the boys got super nasty playing in the sand. We had steaks and salad followed by icecream. It was an awesome Saturday.

Thanks for reading
David Bates

I have been chatting up the #GoogleGSO thread this morning after hearing the JoshInTheBox Google Song on 1075KZL this morning.
Play it here:

It seams like there is a lot of discomfort around how the city of Greensboro is handling the marketing campaign to try and lure Google into our town. First they abandon their 1,400 follower twitter account in order to create a new branded one instead of simply using a hash-tag, and then they pay $10,000 for RLF to build a wordpress site, which is Google’s competitor for blogspot. when there already where good standing grass roots movements like http://www.google4gso.com/, and the twitter hashtag #GoogleGSO on twitter.

I hope we get it, it would mean a lot to our community but if Greensboro as a city is going to make these kind of basic mistakes on a marketing campaign we made need to look for better business leaders to help us next election season.

One thing I will give them credit for is the google crate… that is awesome

Thanks
David Bates

Stolen from Donna

Thanks for reading
David Bates

As the title suggests someone very close to me passed away last week. My grandmother Doris Jones died on Feb. the 23rd. Her health had been declining for several years and she really started to decline in health about 3 months ago. She died from complications from COPD a very harsh disease that bassically renders your lungs useless.

My G’MA as we lovingling called her was someone I greatly admired and loved. She helped to raise me and was there for me during every event of my life. She will be missed greatly.

Her funeral was held over the past three days and was fitting. Her friends and family where beside of her and she was laid to rest beside of her husband Charlie Jones (POP’s) I had created a video tribute to her and will try to post it here over the next couple of days.

I would like to thank all of you who sent cards, flowers, visited, and even tweeted to me to help me through this time.

Goodbye G’MA and may God be with you.
David Bates

Ducky has been pronounce dead at 6:00PM his departure from this world was a lot of fun for me. The wife shuttered when she saw the videos, it was great. If you don’t know the story that led me to kill Ducky you need to read this post first. Ducky died from gas and fire that was lit with a toilet paper fuse. I recorded the whole thing for your viewing pleasure and you can watch the videos below… BTW there is an explosion that made my wife shake when she knew I was the one holding the camera


Ducky’s Setup:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7It7LsozGx4

Ducky Demise Part 1 “Lighting the Fuse”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ObepCmLic

Ducky Get’s Blown Up!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pggpukL8hbY

So the title of my post may be a little misleading. I love Christmas and all of the memories you make during it. This Christmas however has been off to a rough start. Monday I decided to work from home for two reasons one was the snow and the second was I was feeling pretty sickly. I was happily typing away on code to attribute to my latest project when I got a call from my frantic wife where she informed me that my mother had slipped on ice on her steps, that I had just scrapped, and she believed broke her leg. I quickly informed my Boss I was not going to be able to be reached for awhile and headed to her aid. It took about 2 hours to get an ambulance to the house because of the snow and the holidays but when they got there she had been in pain for some time and had what looked like a bone pushing on her skin but not broke through. They with my help then loaded her onto a backboard and then the stretcher. The driver asked how much my mom weighed (as my family is hefty) and then called in for backup. I guess she scared him Soon the entire Bethany fire department was there to help. My Mom was in so much pain she didn’t catch any jokes I tried to crack to cheer her up. We got to the hospital and here is what the break looks like:

After that you may have guessed that my days have been filled trying to get her here and there but that is not it. Monday night after we got back from the Hospital my wife and son got a stomach virus… very bad so now I had three to take care of and I made until Tuesday morning when I myself got it. Now when I get sick I react a little differently than most people I know I simply goto sleep and continue to sleep until I get better. I don’t know why I do this and my wife hates it but it all works out. So after being in a dead-like sleep and missing Tuesday altogether I was able to get mom back to the doctor starting at 7:30 on Wednesday.

Now I must say that the previous paragraphs make it seem like I did all the work. I don’t want that to be the case as my wife and my sister has helped equally if not more than I. I also don’t want it to sound like I haven’t had a good Christmas I have. Spending time with my family is always good no matter what the circumstance and my mom is pretty funny when she is drugged

Now as for today I went to Lowes to do a little last minute Christmas shopping. I got my mom a safety rail for her bathroom so she can get around on her peg leg and got my father-in-law a little something too. I got to eat a nice smoked pork shoulder with the family and now I have to go downstairs and play Santa for my little boy. He is fast asleep with vision of trains and cars in his head.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
David Bates

All in all we got about 5-6″ of snow with some ice mixed in. I have a lot of work to do scraping the driveway while my son and wife take an afternoon nap…

Enjoy the pictures below, I hope to take some more this afternoon.

Hi,

I know it has been awhile since my last post and there has been a lot of time between my post. Truth is Since early this year I had lost interest in posting as what I had to post was not at all pleasant and was very hard for me just to talk about it to my own family much less blog about it. My wife wrote a beautiful post about what happened but to re-iterate we lost a baby that my wife had carried past the second trimester and worst of all she barely made it through the ordeal alive. She developed something called DIC which is very rare but basically caused her blood to not be able to clot. Luckily her doctor had seen one case of it before and immediately knew what to do. If it was not for his quick action I would have lost both of them. So you can see why I did not wish to write about this, heck I don’t even know why I am now other than to to let you know that I have not disappeared. In fact I am more into web developing, blogging, and social media more than ever. I accepted the role as the Web Developer for RFMD.com in June and have been overseeing the website since then. I am also trying to convince RFMD as a company to utilize social media.

When all of the trouble happened at the first of the year it was easier for me to use twitter than it was to blog. I added my twitter feed to this site so that you could look along. I know it is not the same as post but it helped me stay in touch and let people know how I was doing without actually blogging about it. I choose twitter as it was the best option for what I needed. You can locate my twitter feed and follow me from the list on the left.

We also found out at the first of October that we are pregnant AGAIN! we have both been scared to death given the outcome of the last one and happy all at the same time. But fortunately this time around has been completely different from the last but we are getting close to the same time in the pregnancy so we will be on edge for at least the next two weeks. We love the fact that we have another little one on the way. Daniel and our lives will be totally different. We will move from a family of three to four.

Earlier this year I bought a house for us. We have rented in the past so this is our first home. I say I bought it as it happened along the same time as the loss and Jess was very reluctant to commit to anything at the time. I had been looking for a new home as our family was about to grow and the place we was renting was way to small for another little one. The market in housing at the time was also a proponent as we found an awesome house and saved a ton of money on it. Jess loves the house and has told me many times since that I was right to go ahead and purchase it.

That being said the house was in need of repairs since we moved in we have completely redone the downstairs bathroom going all the way to the floor joist and jacking up the house. We have also replaced the water heater, every faucet in the house, and the downstairs heating system. All I can say is thank GOD that Obama saw fit to give us some tax money to help when we replaced the heating unit downstairs we made sure to get an energy efficient one so that we can qualify for the tax credit next year as well.

I love our house and how it is becoming our home. I always find it amazing how my wife can turn a boring room into something that looks like a piece of art. She is truly a master of design and of decorating. I cannot believe she allowed me to propose to her so long ago.

Current:
Daniel has a pretty bad cold and has been real clingy to his mommy recently I love the little guy. He has started to talk plainly and we can communicate very well together. This is a huge achievement. He also knows his shapes and colors and can even draw circles now. He makes me the happiest dad every time I come home. I can also see that he is going to be a good hearted boy as he is so sweet to everybody. He says please and thank you that which I must attribute to his mom’s teaching. She is doing a great job with him.

Well that is all my pregnant wife would like a bit of the cheeseball she has made and it is 10:00PM so after that I will probably go to bed exhausted from rough-housing my playtoy (Daniel)

Happy Holidays, let me know how your year has been below:
David Bates