So I really like this little girl. She’s fun to put to bed, unlike my other child who I love just as much. I have no preference, I promise. But if I get to choose, I pick to put Charlotte to bed.. here’s why:
Month: February 2010
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Who wants to cleanse?
Who’s in for a Cleansing Diet?
Let’s start Monday, March 1!!
Day 1-3 – raw fruits and vegetables and cooked brown rice only
March 4 – Thursday – add in cooked vegetables, chicken breast and fish
March 6 – Oatmeal and whole grains
March 8 – Dairy products
Or however you want to gradually add things back in
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My amazing wife
When we got married I looked good. A few weeks later I was a little shaggy and my new wife asked if I was going to get a haircut. I told her yes you are going to cut it. She had never cut hair before. Now five years later she’s pretty fast… or at least a lot faster than she used to be. She still takes a long time evening out the perfect neck line.
So the other day she got a new client. She gave tyler the haircut he’s sporting now. I’m so proud of her for how well she’s done all this time and how fast she learned. Good wotk honey. She also mentioned she wants to learb how to cut female hair.. any takers?
Wow! This is so very cool. I just saw this on a news feed. It’s a refrigerator sized box that holds a bunch of fuel cells. It takes oxygen and a fuel and creates electricity. 60 minutes did an interview last night.
The creator claims that one fuel cell (not one bloom box) could power an american home for a year. They will be officially launching on Wed. So stay tuned for more excitement, one day you might not be paying the city for electricity anymore, but a company who makes fuel cell boxes.
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Never Woulda Thought…
…That we would be McDonald’s Playplace Parents. But honestly, if you can stand thinking of what germs may be lurking there and just don’t worry about it too much, the McDonald’s Playplace is the best thing ever in the winter time. If you have a wild child to entertain (or if you have any children at all, for that matter), this should be a regular place to visit. Germs, shmerms!
We have a Playplace right near us that we frequent, and we recently discovered a much better one across from the Provo Towne Center. They have a nice area that is toddler-friendly, including a big piano keyboard (like on the movie BIG). The big climbing area is spacious enough for me to climb in play with the kids, too! We just went there today with GG and spent two hours there, which we all loved! Family bonding galore.
One thing that I refuse to do is buy my kids Happy Meals, even though they’re the only kids in there without ’em. I just don’t want the toy lying around and then going to the landfill, and I also don’t want my kids to get everything they want! And to think I used to get so mad when my parents wouldn’t get us Happy Meals…
Today we tried the new McDonald’s Smoothie, $2 for a small– pretty decent, if you ask me. Not the best smoothie of my life (Smoothie King smoothies win that award, hands down), but it’s tasty and refreshing. For the record, though, their chicken nuggets are still disgusting!
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V-Day Delights
Well, getting a decent “posed photo” of these two on such holidays is nearly impossible. They both hopped down and went to look out the window when I was trying to get a smiling shot! But I do love how tiny Charlotte looks when she’s standing next to Big Brother.
I occasionally put a little gel in Charlotte’s hair to avoid the mullet look… Because when she doesn’t have gel in it, a mullet is exactly what her hair is. And in case you were wondering, YES, those little cheeks of hers are very soft & kissable. She smells so sweet– I really adore this baby!
Chase made valentines for his Joy School friends and a few others. I cut out the hearts and he was willing to take it from there! He chose to have the candy hang from the hearts with Scotch tape.
Chase’s best friend Jaxon came over after Joy School that day, as he often does. We love having friends over all the time, and Chase and Jaxon happen to get along extremely well. I think it’s helpful that Chase is the oldest child in his family and Jaxon is the youngest in his.
(1st photo: Charlotte apparently saw something astonishing?!)
They made these cute Valentine’s bags in class. Ah, the memories of giving and getting valentines in school! I remember totally “reading into” the message on the valentine from whoever my current crush was. (Notice that the candy that originally accompanied Chase’s valentines = already devoured. That’s my boy!)
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Local people, arise and email!
Hey Utahns, we need to get on this! Google just announced that they will be experimenting with being an ISP. What’s an ISP? They are the people you pay to get on the internet. Currently in our area, we only have one worth talking about, Comcast, everyone else doesn’t offer a speed fast enough to watch youtube. So if you live in Utah, here’s what I need you to do. Get your creative juices flowing and go here, click nominate your community, fill out the form. We need to tell Google we want them to bring their fiber network to Utah.
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Google does social
OH SNAPS! Lookout facebook, google is adding some sweet functions that might make it so I never visit your site again. Check it out:
“We’re rolling out Buzz to all Gmail accounts over the next few days, so if you don’t see it in your account yet, check back soon. We also plan to make Google Buzz available to businesses and schools using Google Apps, with added features for sharing within organizations.”
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My letter to Comcast
Melissa, thanks for reaching out via twitter. I doubt you guys can actually help, but I’ll tell you the story anyway in hopes you can bring up my issues in some sort of “the pulse of our customers” meeting.
It all starts with my wife and I being happy Comcast customers. We had basic cable and economy tier internet. However, we were getting speeds of 8mbs down and 3mbs up. Life was great. Then we decided to save some money, so since basic cable had gone up from $15 a month up to almost $18 and 21 after taxes, and we were leasing a modem for 5, we could save $26 a month if we bought our own modem and got rid of basic.
So that’s what I did. I bought a Motorola Surfboard DOCSIS 3 modem that had good reviews, installed it, called comcast and activated the new modem, and canceled basic cable. Then I ran a speed test. A dismal 2mbs down and .3 up. WHAT!? I was furious, this new modem was supposed to be awesome. So after talking to customer support I learned I was getting exactly what economy tier is supposed to get. So realizing I was just lucky before, we decided to suck it up and try our new low cost and completely honest setup. (However I really had no idea we were getting more than we paid for before and I was very tempted to hook up the old cable modem and have them reactivate it b/c for 5 a month that’s an awesome speed bump)
After a few days of internet activity on the real economy plan, even my wife mentioned, this isn’t very fast. Our video chats with friends and family were jittery and broken & our streaming netflix took a nose dive in quality. So last night I decided we had enough and I would upgrade to the performance tier so we could resume life as usual. I chatted with Ronald for a while, and he was very nice. I offered to pay 30 a month for 12 mo for performance tier. He informed me he wasn’t able to do custom promotions. I asked what he did have available for 12mos b/c previously I would call in every other 6 months to get the new promo pricing and I was tired of doing that. So ideally a low price forever would be great, but I’ll take a 12 mo promo over a 6 mo promo. Anyway he says there is a 24.99 a mo for 12 mo promo in the system, but it was only available via 1 800 comcast. So I said thanks and called 1 800 comcast. They had no idea what I was talking about and I was annoyed. It took a bit of time to get Ronald to get me that deal. So I jumped back on chat. Asking for Ronald. Someone else told me oh you need to call 1-866-565-4863 that is the promo line and they have better promos than chat or 1800comcast can offer. And I thought finally the secret! And then she said they are only available during business hours.
This morning I called 1-866-565-4863, and it sounded just like 1 800 comcast, and with high hopes I asked the guy about the 24.99 a month for 12 months deal and he said “We can’t make that deal Mr. McCulloch” and I said why does online chat keep telling me about it then!? And he said he didn’t know. I asked him if there were any 12 month deals he could offer, and he said no. So feeling beaten and annoyed, yet still not willing to call Qwest or DIGIS, I again got on chat looking to get the 19.99 deal only available online. So I started my chat with IVN who informed me the 19.99 deal is only available to cable or voice subscribers…. after some awkward silence via the chat window he told me he found a 24.99 for 6 months deal, so that’s what I signed up for minutes before I saw your reply on twitter.
Am I happy with the outcome? Well I’m glad I’m not paying 45 a month for a full 12 months… I’m mainly annoyed at the lack of clarity around deals. Life would be perfect still if I was still living in my 8mbs down / 3mbs up for 24.99 a month world. B/c for now I’m paying 420 a year for service, 6 months on a promo and 6 months off. Then next year I have to call to get another promo, or cancel. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just pay a consistent lower amount and tell everyone how much I love Comcast?
So that’s the whole story for what it’s worth. Hopefully it helps you guys in some way. What I take from it is, people love the service you provide b/c it’s clearly better than other alternatives. However it’s priced too high for people who live longer than 6 months. Isn’t there a happy medium for people who are loyal customers?
Thanks,
Pace McCulloch
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Two Kids
Today, as we were driving back from a quick Idaho trip, I had one of those moments where it dawned on me like it was some sort of new idea:
“I have two children! Whoa!”
You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I still feel a lot of responsibility and awe about the whole thing. Pace and I are “in the trenches” as I’ve heard it said. I am very imperfect and I get really overwhelmed at times, but I am also enjoying a lot of the moments while these kids are still small.
Below is a photo of a recent miracle, on a day when Chase actually took a nap, and decided to do so in Charlotte’s room. I didn’t fight it one bit. They fell asleep at the same time, and I got a wonderful break!
I enjoy having two kids, especially because they can play together and entertain each other. That’s my favorite thing. Life is certainly busier around here than it was with just one child, which can make for a lot of chaos, but it gives me plenty to do during the day. Chase and Charlotte make me laugh often, and my heart is full of love for them. And for Pace, too! Especially because he comes home from work and helps out with the munchkins.
