grateful for everything 2008 brought my family

Keep on rockin in the free world! 2008 was a good year for our family inspite of the econominc slow down. I was blessed with a beautiful daugther, changed jobs for the last time, and got to enjoy it all with my beautiful wife.

I'm really looking forward to what 2009 will bring

Elena's first DG round at BP

Elena made it out to BP yesterday for her first time on the DG course. She did very well and slept during most of the back nine holes. I put on her the only winter coat we have that is thick enough to go to the north pole thinking the cold weather would be TOO MUCH. Luckily, it turned out to be a pearl of a day. We didn't play a full round because there were alot of creepers behind us and we were playing kind of slow. Chris, Bernie (Brian), MV and Madaline (aka MGeeZ) played with us. I played ok, only one birdie. Unfortuneately, I was unable to go to my truck and honk the horn to celebrate, Zach H style. We had a good time, fo sho. Chris talked two guys that seemed to be fairly new to the game into throwing across lake on hole 16 (?) by telling them that the yellow tees (that don't require you to throw over the water) are elementary. And eh, both guys threw it in the water. The first guy to throw managed somehow to throw the disc 90 degrees to right of the whole. I think one guy ended up losing a disc but Bernie being the team player that he is, gave them a disc he found. That's what DG is all about.

Just got back from watching the giants lose at the last second.

Posted with LifeCast

Family reunion

Three generations of EITs (Engineer in Training).

Another classic

This one is going to the archives with the other photo.

DUDE SERIOUSLY?

I found this photo at work on the server while I was looking for something work related. I hope Elena's hair doesn't turn out like this.

Finally!

After being away on a cruise and not seeing my baby, I came down with strep throat. So I had to wait another week before I could hold her again. That was the worst part of being sick. She's the best, she got to pet Althea and Maggie this weekend. We also put up the christmas tree up this weekend.

Back at UR

I've been back at UR for almost three weeks. It's pretty cool being back but I definitely miss the gang at Baskerchill.

Well, alot has happened in the last 6 months...

-Elena was born 

-Jenn threw me a 30th b-day party with 30 different kinds of brews

-switched jobs

-went hiking twice

-saw bisco and conspirator

-went to staunton for another McQuay trip (chillers)

-and other stuff I can't remember

My grandma flew in yesterday and will help my mom babysit next week. It's going to be tough but I hope once we're on the water, Jenn will be able to relax.

More from the Veendam...

It's been a while

Wow, the wait is finally over for me. My baby girl was born yesterday at 10:40 AM after a long and crazy night. We arrived at the hospital the night before and the doctors confirmed that Jenn's membranes had ruptured and told us Jenn was going to be put on pitoscin (sp?). We asked to be started with a low dosage of pit. and have small increases as needed. The nurses were great and did just that. Unfortunately, after the last increase of pit at 4 AM, the contractions were coming so fast with hardly any breaks in between. Jenn did an awesome job managing the pain with the pattern breathing and the help of our doula, Kathy. The pain got to be overwhelming and Jenn opted to get the epidural around 6 AM after being checked and finding out that she was 6 cm dilated and 90% effaced. It took about an hour to get the epidural after we asked for it so that hour was UBER intense. Jenn was having some serious pain and all I could do is just sit there try to comfort her. After the epidural, everything was much better for all of us. Jenn didn't feel any pain and her contractions kept coming. The baby's heart rate never dropped below the "acceptable" range even with the intense contractions brought on by the pit. Anyway, a few hours later, Jenn was ready to push and my baby girl, Elena, was born at 10:40 AM. She weighed 8lb 2oz and the nurses said she had one of the biggest umbilical cord they'd ever seen. Elena is awesome. She took to breast feeding right away and sleeps like a champ.

I can't wait to take her home and spend all week with her. It's going to be tough going back to work next week.

BINGO!!!

Luckily I passed on my first attempt!! I can't say the exam material was uber tough, but the questions were super tricky. It was easy to get confused and have to read the questions over and over again. I finished with about 50 minutes left and don't think I could have sat in that room for another 5 minutes without going nuts. I was so anxious to see if I had passed at the end that it reminded me of when the NFL Super Bowl XLII Champion Giants' defense held off the New England Patriots (pronounced pay-tree-oughts) at the end of the game. Intense! Almost a little.... TOO MUCH!

Well, it was good to get it over with before the baby comes. Now we'll just have to see how easy/hard it will be to build green.

Yardwork

With the help of my Stepdad, Oscar, Jenn and I reworked our mulch beds and put down some new mulch in the front of our house. Jenn added some color near the mailbox and Oscar and I added a plastic border around the mulch bed near the house. The old mulch used to spill over everytime it rained so that's why we added the new border. I think it turned out nice, but we're all pretty sore.

Go green!

Go green, buy a growler!

64 oz of hoppy goodness!

CES Brunch 2008

Me and the boys from Baskervill were invited by ACES to a half day seminar to learn more about the CES group.

We don't work on many projects that involve mechanical penthouses but it was cool to see how everything gets packaged together. The two other seminars were on ERVs and the Fan wall technology. I hope to work with more of these products in the future. Both have LEED potential and just make sense to use. Esp the fan wall... this thing is SWEET! (There are alot of cool features available on the fan wall so I recommend checking out the CES group website) I got to check out the trailer that was at the seminar and stand inside of it while it pushed 24,000 cfm. It was so quiet that you could have a regular conversation without having to yell. (Disclaimer: the fan was running at only 0.03 inH20, it may be slightly louder at higher pressures) The ERVs will be tricky to get on a job without being VE'd (value engineered... aka cut from the budget because the owner is too cheap to do job right) but I think we can make it work on some of the larger jobs we work on. We'll see.

MOJITO!

Headed up to Minnesota to check out two of McQuay's factories. The trip was made possible by the boys from ACES, Scott and Patrick.

Day 1
I pulled an all nighter the night before flying back from Colorado so I was a little tired by the time we rolled into the hotel. We met up for drinks before dinner and I was the last person there. Everyone was pounding drinks when I got there so they were starting to feel pretty good. Dinner was next door in the Mall of America. Good eats, for sure. After dinner, we headed back to the bar for some more drinks. Stan continued to drink a different kind of liquor with every drink he ordered. Little did we know how much we'd be talking about one of Stan's drink selections, the now infamous MOJITO. There were endless amounts of references made the next day to Stan's mojito. Stan was a good sport about it and took it in stride.

Day 2
Getting up and out of the hotel by 7:30 was a little tricky. Breakfast was a blur and the 45 min ride to the factory provided some much needed sleep. After watching a quick video in the McQuay office, we headed into the RTU factory. WOW! It was amazing to see how these units are built. We got to make a loop around the factory and see each phase of the process. We even got to check out the fairly new "Maverick" unit. They were testing one unit before shipping it out and I could barely tell it was running while standing beside it. It's a pretty stout unit. After lunch we headed to the other factory where they make the air handlers. We got a better look here how the coils are made, each fitting at a time. The coolest thing was seeing the the foam filled panels and getting to hold one. It was heavier than I thought and super strong. I hope the rest of the industry makes foam inject panels a standard in the near future.

All in all, I was impressed with the quality of the McQuay units. I definitely feel comfortable specifying McQuay in the future.

Back in the saddle

Spring is back and that means yardwork needs to be done. We did a little yardwork, spring cleaning, unpacking, chillaxin this weekend. Jenn is getting prego-er but still looks smokin hot. We had a nice dinner at Pescados on Saturday and ran into Staples and his fiance. He told me that Smile is breaking up and the new band may be called smirk... we'll see. He's staying in Richmond and going to run the new firebirds near Robious and Hugenout. Keeping it real on the southside!!
Brad came by the house with Andrea for a quick visit. Andrea's left arm was hanging a little low due to the big ass engagement ring Brad gave her.

On Sunday, we checked out a new church, Sycamore Pres They had a full blown orchestra and sounded pretty good. The sermon was very good but we're worried that they may not have a contemporary service. We'll see... We went to my dad's house for brunch after church and got to hang out with Steven and the rest of the fam. Rogelio's girlfriend was in town from Bogota. Nanny and Gustavo are going to hawaii in May so that should be fun. Nancy Sr. is picking up English quite a bit so that was encouraging to hear.

Today is another day in paradise. It feels good to feel normal again and not feel so out of place. Seals was killer, we worked abs this am. Work is busy as ever but time goes by quick, esp when I'm jammin out to bisco.... psst.

Well, that's it for now.

Keystone 2008... Good times

Got it last night at 12:30 from Minnesota and am struggling this morning. All of the traveling has finally caught up to me. Keystone and Breckenridge were amazing but I look forward to getting to see Jenn again and hang out at the house.

Day 1

Here is one of the many photos from our day hiking and riding phresh trax in Keystone. It was quite a hike but well worth it. More to follow...

Go to Tom's site for an aussie's point of view... click here