But there was an exciting part for me! And since this is my site, I get to write about that here! The guy who was behind this theme made the claim in an interview that “he was one of the 3 most important people in WordPress”. Now, he has a lot of users of his theme, but the claim is was crazy outrageous. The guy has a serious case of narcissism (as it turns out, my kind of guy!). So the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, decided to give away some t-shirts and certificates to anyone who ask. I asked… and now I’m One of the three most important people in WordPress too!

…

And then I found $5.

The whole situation makes me wonder what I’m supposed to do. How do I deal with this as someone who loves them both? Will I have to choose sides? I honestly don’t know…

I’ve known Google since the Fall of 1999 when I was introduced by one of my favorite English professors who was an avid technologist as well as a scholar. Google was so simple, so Zen (but with colors and flare), so nerdy girl how could we not hit it off right away? And like many awkwards do, Google seemed to transform into a stone cold fox as maturity came. I still see Google everyday. I get directions. I find old college professors. And Google works at my business a lot too (Voice, Apps, etc).

But I’ve known Apple longer. I grew up with Apple. In my tiny little elementary school in rural MT sat an Apple II where I learned simple math and how to play the Oregon Trail. And with any mature relationship its had its ups and downs. In fact, when it came time for me to spread my wings and leave the house to buy my first personal computer I left Apple for something called Windows 95. Its a mistake I still regret. But it was the first and last time I ever made it. And of course Apple welcomed me back 3 years later when I bought my Blue and White G3. And today Apple lives with me. In my living room, in my pocket, in my office and even in the bedroom (that’s AppleTV, iPhone, MacBook and iMac).

I can’t imagine choosing. Please don’t make me. You two really are better together than apart. Google, with your amazing web services and Apple with your incredible design and commitment to excellence. You inspire me and make me better at what I do. I need you both… and I need you together.

However, all this fun turned to hilarity when BSU’s marching ban and girls-in-tights-who-should-never-wear-tights came out for the halftime show! Now, mind you, I didn’t even watch the halftime show because I wanted to play me some Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on my PS3… but I received no less than 3 calls from out-of-town friends in the span of a minute — and had a wife in hysterics all because of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-r02-oZAW4

Mind you, this is already on YouTube and the game has just barely ended! Cow Bell Girl doesn’t seem that amused or excited, but I can promise you she did make the halftime show a little more fun. Thanks Cow Bell girl.

UPDATE – 1/5/10: OK, so this morning I learned on Twitter  that not only has Cow Bell Girl been noticed by more than my friends and wife (see here) but that Cow Bell Girl is… blind. So, I’m thinking, if this is indeed true, an apology is in order on my behalf. My wife thinks I should remove the complete post, but I’m not going to do that. I shouldn’t make fun of blind girls, or fat girls, or anyone for that matter and truthfully all I was hoping to point out was how one 5 second shot can make a game more fun to watch.

Introducing Carter Edwin Neal, born 6lbs 6oz and 19″ long and healthy as… you know, something we all think of as being very healthy.  Carter was my choice, Jill was more partial to Luke, but we agreed on Carter because if he turned out to be a she instead we would have gone with Jill’s name.  Marriage.

These were taken this morning.  Very cute.

At 5am this morning she started feeling contractions, at 9am I called the midwife on call, at 1pm we arrived at the U of U hospital (and Melissa, our favorite midwife was on call!) and Jill was 6cm, at 3pm Jill was at 9cm (oh, and I’m sick as a dog… damz…), at 5pm Jill starting going into hard labor and at 7.12pm The Little One was born!

OH!  And The Little One is a He!

That’s mom and The Little Boy about an hour after.  He went for food about an hour in… even though he doesn’t totally get it yet!  But he will.  He’s my son after all!

Oh, and here’s a picture of Melissa our midwife who stayed 3 hours after her shift had ended! I’m telling you, she is the best.

Oh, and one last story.  Or the first one… whatever.  Tonight was supposed to be our last hypnobirthing class!  Obviously we didn’t make it, but the class did a tour of the hospital so I saw them!  And, if you want to know, Jill did awesome and the hypnobirthing was totally the right way to go.  Obviously I’m not going to say something as stupid as “it was easy” but Jill was impressive even if was the hardest thing she’s ever done!

More later… I’m tired and a bit delirious!

…

Right now!

The Little One cometh.

Hypnobirthing is the birthing class Oprah would take if she were ever with child and in need of such a class. In fact, I would describe Hypnobirthing as more philosophy than actual technique.  For instance, there are “laws” we went over in our first class such as “The Law of Harmonious Attraction” (which of course gets back to the Oprah comment above).

But here’s the thing; we think we like it! Not so much the psycho babble parts; but the birth is a natural event not a medical intervention parts! Imagine that. Our midwife (Melissa, whom we LOVE) really encouraged us to participate and we are glad we did. It’ll be exciting to see how all this plays out as we await The Little One.

Its sometimes not served me as well… but that’s another post.

What’s harder though, is when I see injustice and I feel powerless to stop it. Big injustices suck, but so do the small ones. For instance, my wife and I are looking to buy a new (used) car in anticipation of The Little Guy. One ad in the paper caught my eye for a 2002 Corolla with 16k miles on it. The lady selling it was nice and even said that our baby was going to be a boy and very smart.  Which I thought was real nice.  But, she really wanted more than we could afford and so we told her we had to think about it. I decided to do my due diligence and looked up the car’s VIN on Carfax.com.

The short and long of it was that this car didn’t have 16k miles on it because it had been in a wreck in LA with 32k miles on it. I was pissed, but what really steamed me was I knew some sucker was going to get taken by this fortune teller and I was powerless to do anything about it save picketing her hair salon.  I don’t know why, but crap like this just pisses me off.

The good news is we got a car for The Little Guy. A 2002 Camry with 36K miles on it and only one owner! Sadly it was owned by this old guy whose kids decided dad wasn’t safe behind the wheel anymore, but we’ll take it still.

That and I want to try my new WP iPhone app…

Yea, that just happened. … Let it soak in a bit…

OK, I’m out.