Even Closer!

You know what's great about the Olympics? It gives us a chance to see sports that are popular around the world. To see things that we, as Americans, don't get to see, much less dominate as a country. True, the biggest news in America right now regarding the Olympics is "Redeem Team" basketball team. Every game is televised live and then recorded and shown again during prime time. I don't really care. I'm more excited by the fact that we won all three places in womens saber fencing! That's something! But we only hear about it once, maybe twice during the repeats. I was actually awake the other night, watching the woman who eventually finished 3rd in her semi final match. It was really exciting.

I remember as a kid on a Saturday morning, wanting to watch cartoons, but my dad was watching the Olympics, I whined and fussed until my dad said, "Fine, you can watch cartoons today, but not again for four years. The Olympics only happens every four years. You should watch this instead."

All the athletes at the Olympics are very passionate about their sport. This is their biggest stage and it only happens once every four years. I think we should give everyone their due and watch some of those other sports. You may find something really fun to watch. I rather enjoy watching handball and field hockey, even though the U.S. isn't fielding a team handball. Badminton is a quick game and I can't wait until they start televising table tennis! I did miss the first shotgun event, Olympic trap. But I'm not gonna miss the next one.

And speaking of which, I went shooting this weekend. It's been a long time. And I even found a course closer to home than Oak Tree.

Triple B Sporting Clays is down the street. I don't have to get on a freeway to get there if I don't want to, and it's a decent 15 station course. Sunday morning Nicole, my sister-in-law Anette, and I were sitting around. I was supposed to go shooting that morning with a friend but he never called. We started talking about it and Anette decided she wanted to try it. So we packed up the truck and went down.

I'm not a fan of shooting on weekends, it's often really busy, which this place was, not to mention it is summer so it's pretty hot out. But we went anyway with the intent of also finally purchasing my shotgun. We walked into the pro shop and I told the lady what I was looking for, "I'd like to buy a 12 gauge over/under Browning Synergy with 30" ported barrels." She looked at me for a moment and said, "Which Synergy? There are a few different ones."

"Ummmm... The cheapest one with ported barrels?"

"That would be the Synergy Classic Sporting, and we don't have 30" inch barrels in stock. BUT we do have a demo model you can go shoot if you'd like... 32" barrels though."

No problem, I just wanted to shoot. I took the rental, bought some shells and took Anette and Nicole out to the course. Here's the photographs...

In a word, Form. Fantastic form.

Anette knew nothing, I had to show her how to hold the gun, aim the gun and pull the trigger. Even in this picture I had to place her left hand in the crook of the gun so she could balance it right for the pose.

Dan and his trapper.

Admittedly, she does have good form. But then again, I taught her.

I only bought 50 rounds for each of us, and Anette was too afraid of the gun and only shot 10 rounds. I shot 75, before we ran out of money on the card (the only drawback of Triple B is that they don't give you extra targets to "view a pair"). I did okay, hitting 39 of 75, about 50%. I may not shoot great, but I look good doing it.

One week of work, and then on the 21st, I order my gun!

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On Your Mark... Get Set... NEST!!!

They say when a woman is pregnant, as the date draws near, they begin to display signs of "nesting". For those who don't know what that means, it's that a woman prepares her home for the coming of the baby. It is said that most nest is exhibited in irrational ways, like cleaning gutters or yelling at men at the recycling place who park their cars across three parking spaces and block all the recycling bins using the excuse, "Well no one else was here". Thankfully Nicole doesn't display the first one, mostly because we have no gutters on the house.

But we have started the nesting process. I'm not mad that I had to move all my stuff out of my "closet" to turn it into the baby's room. But I am bitter. And once that process finished, the painting began.
I did the trim and Anette, Nicole's sister, did the bulk of the walls with the roller.
With that little project done, Ikea stepped in a sold us the changing table and crib which I had to build. Ya gotta love Ikea and their easy to understand directions, I only put the drawers together twice!

The proceeds from our garage sale went to another nesting task, getting the carpet in the living room and baby's room/Dan's overflow closet cleaned. We folded up the two lawn chairs, moved all the little bits of furniture we could off the carpets, and then invited Stanley Steemer in to work their magic.


This led to another trip to Ikea and another big purchase, a new couch to replace the one we sold at the garage sale. But it didn't stop at the couch, nesting made us buy new lamps and a console table as well as a mud bench to put by the door.


I don't think nesting is gonna stop anytime soon. But at least the jobs haven't been silly.

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Say Hello Sean Patrick!

I'm guessing most of you who read this know, I may have mentioned it in a blog or two. But in case you didn't know, or don't remember, Nicole and I are expecting our first child. Hoorah for us.

Here's what we do know:

- It's a boy.

- He's due October 9th, with any luck, Nicole will put a cork in it until the 25th which is my birthday. Last year, I tried to get Susan, my sister-in-law to put a cork in until then, which she did, but then waited until the 30th to have Dylan, our first nephew. Geez.

- Seeing as he's a boy, we figured a good name for him is Sean Patrick Kamiano Boland. Yes, I know it's one more name than we need. But we really like the ring of Sean Patrick. And I insist on having a Hawai'ian middle name, so why not mine? It doesn't matter really because his nickname is already Zeus. That's us sticking with the Filipino tradition of having a nickname that is completely unattached to the kids real name.

On Wednesday, we partook in some of the new fangled technology out there and got a 4D ultrasound done. Yes, I know, there is no 4th dimension, and the 3D ultrasound is still technically, 2D on a print. But with the use of light and shadow, it makes for a really nifty picture. Oh, and the 4th dimension, if we bought the DVD of the ultrasound, we would have had sound too. It would mostly have been of the nurse cursing because Sean Patrick was being difficult. That and his heartbeat...

Sean Patrick was being most difficult for the ultrasound. We went into the office, Nicole plopped down on the bed, the nurse put in some nice ambient baby music, greased up Nicole's tummy and started rubbing the wand around, looking for the head of my son.

But Sean Patrick had other plans, he buried his head behind his feet and leaned back so the nurse couldn't get a good shot. We tried to wake him up, we walked around the block, Nicole drank cold water, we raised her feet to see if he would shift. Nothing.

Then, Freddy Mercury brought us a miracle. The nurse pulled out the silly baby music and slid in Queen's Greatest Hits and three stomps into "We Will Rock You" Sean Patrick was alive and, well, frankly, kicking. He squirmed and danced enough for us to get some good shots. Including ones of him playing with his wiener and sucking on the umbilical cord.

The miracle that is 4D ultrasound! Oh, and the creation of life. Here's a two of the better pictures of Sean Patrick.

Hoooo, da cute!

Here's a link to the full gallery if anyone wants to see all the pictures (including the one with him playing with his wang).

Once again, hoorah for us!

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