A Good Friday

Today was a great Friday. This morning I went to work and had Panera Bagels waiting for me. I love the way Cinnamon Raisin bagels smell, there is always something special about that smell that reminds me of my grandmother. Anyway after that I did some work and before lunch our shipping guy came in and told me that I was not supposed to bring pets into work and that I needed to go pick up my snapping turtle from outside I thought he was just being silly but decided to go and check it out, boy am I glad I did…

Link To Photo Gallery
Check out the tail on that thing it looks like a dragon tail. Anyway I snapped a picture with my iPhone and sent an email out to the whole building to tell them to be careful not to disturb the turtle and to watch out for him as they drove past in the afternoon. Well that got everybody out of their seats and made them come down to see it for themselves. So many people came that facilities thought it best to put him back near the pond. It was a fun break away from work and got everybody talking about it.

Anyway then we headed of to La-Hacienda and had some great Mexican food. I always love to go “Suck Cheese” with my amigos from work. So anyway some more work and then off to the house. I bought Daniel two new Koi fish to put in his tank as his last fish had bit the dust over a week ago. He was super-excited to see me home and even more excited when I told him that today was the start of the weekend. He currently only associates the word weekend with Daddy being home for two days. So I setup the fish and then went outside to grill up some tenderloin as Maw-Maw, Paw-paw, and the girls were coming down to spend the weekend. About half way through the Grilling I notice that we had run out of propane for the grill (go figure). So I packed up Daniel and the propane tank and headed to our local gas station to get it exchanged. Daniel was super grubby from playing in the gravel in my carport but I didn’t think anything about it as we where just heading out for a minute.

On the way to the gas station I got in-behind the very nice looking older car and noticed it was going to the gas station as well. I knew the driver as he lives up the street and thought nothing more of it until I got to town…

As you can see we where very surprised that there was a car show going on… there is always something happening in Madison during the summer. So me and Daniel took a little detour and looked at all the cars. All of the owners were super nice and one even let Daniel drive their car. Take a look at all the great cars they had. If you’d like to see them in person you’ll have to wait until the second Friday of next month.

Link to Photo Gallery

After the show we went back home grilled up the tenderloin and enjoyed the evening with the family.
One more thing I’d like add is that finally the old truck is gone! I sold that thing about 3-4 months ago and the new owner had never picked it up… What a perfect ending to the day.

Thanks for reading
David Bates

An Update and A Visit to the Mountains with the New Baby

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

Welcome Samuel Lucas Bates

Baby Sam was born on June 7th at 10:58am he weighed 7pounds and was 20″ long. We are still out on the haircolor as my wife refuses to believe she didn’t get the darker hair she requested but he has big blue eyes and looks like his older brother Daniel. Jess was in labor for about 12hours and did remarkably well. Daniel has taken well to his new duties as Big Brother and has helped us sooth baby Sam several times by giving suggie and holding his hand. My Mother-In-Law has a blog as well with more pictures and description… check it out here and enjoy the pictures below:

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

A Saturday of Sun, Sand, Strawberries, and Steak

Today was a good Saturday. When I left work on Friday I never imagined I would have a good Saturday as I thought I was going to have work all weekend. We started off the day by sleeping in until 9am and then watching some cartoons with Daniel when we had a suprise visit from my mother and father in law from Floyd, VA! They had just bought them a new car and wanted to test it coming down the mountain. We let Daniel play outside with my sisters for awhile while me and George caught up with things that had been going on.

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

Admitting it, is the first step on the road to recovery!

You may say to yourself one day, “I seek help elevating my electronic promiscuity, so I paid astronomical dollars for a product as an idiotic higher echelon of retarded dimwits member.”

Fear not my friend, there are those of us willing to help.  But first, we need to break down your statement to better understand the complexity of your issues and to be able to give you the help you are so desperately crying out for!

“I seek help elevating my electronic promiscuity” – The solitary reason you buy Apple products is because everyone else has one, right?  You don’t want to seem “uncool” so you “just have to” buy one too.  Failure to do so will decrease your chances of being viewed as cool, which, when dealing with gadgets, seriously lowers your potential promiscuity.  This is known as an “iSheep” syndrome.

“I paid astronomical dollars” – $499 for the cheapest model, but did you stop at that?  Of course not.  You *need* that 32GB model, I mean after all, where are you going to store you movies, right?  You know, the ones you more than likely already own on DVD or Blu-Ray and enjoy watching through that 35″+ wide screen TV with sweet surround sound setup, but are about to forget all that to watch them on your beautiful 9.7″ LED with audio heard through the Built-in speaker.  Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of books that you, as an avid reader who somehow sidestepped purchasing a Kindle, are going to now purchase for your new device.  But, as said avid reader, at least you don’t have to toss out all your physical books, right?  I mean, you can’t toss what you didn’t purchase.  We call this the “iPad” syndrome.

“idiotic higher echelon of retarded dimwits” – The definition of insanity is sometimes thought of as “repeating the same process and expecting different results.”  Well, based on my observations, I can safely redefine the definition to state “when consumers buy first generation Apple products.”  The observations, you may wonder?  Simply put:  Apple releases a product and a consumer buys it.  One year later, Apple releases a second generation of the product with one or two more features, and the same consumer rushes out to purchase it.  Repeat a year later for the third generation.  It is with this third generation that the Apple product finally reaches that I would say is the “complete product” – yet the consumer isn’t asking why these mundane and basic features were left out in the first two generations, oh no.  They are to busy with their “shiny new innovative” toy to even stop and ponder the common sense questions.  This issue is collectively called the “iHerd” disorder.

An iSheep, buying an iPad to remain in the iHerd!  You, my friend, are a true and through, Apple fanboy!  But fret not, we have the cure!  Merely submit to us ten* payments starting with the forgettable amount of $0.99 and doubling every payment.  Before long, your disease will be gone and the light will have shown you the way!

*Some treatments may require twenty “doses” to be 100% effective, if you are in doubt, please do not take any chances!

This post was made by Inacurate a friend of mine I met on twitter. He is a great Nokia enthusiast and leader of the iSheep resistance.
Check out his blog here. His twitter profile reads: I am me. Learn to love me because I do everything in my power to always be right or hate me because you can’t see the effort and think I am arrogant.