...remember me? I used to frequent this website quite often, dropping in the occasional tidbit of wisdom, charm or even a witty remark or two. Today is finally slow at work after 2 months of seemingly never-ending furnace replacement after furnace replacement (I'm tied to the heating and cooling industry). Plus you know, a baby and all makes it a little challenging to get a chunk of time to put in a good solid effort an update/blog. In case you forgot, or are new to the show, my wife and I had a baby in June. Cooper will be five months old on Friday already, and it's absolutely true when they say babies change every day. He's now to the stage where he can roll with ease, and sit up on his own for long periods of time. He goos, gaas and even grrs as well as drools with the best of them. Coop clocks in at 17 pounds 2 ounces and 27 inches (as of last Monday). He loves being sung to. Mom does much more singing than I do; I sing the ABC's and that's about it (Well, he really likes it when I "doot--doot--doot" the Super Mario Bros. theme, but that's not really singing, is it?). We also read to him everyday and I like to think his favorites are Hop on Pop and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but he'll listen to just about anything, even some Tom Clancy, if you smile when you read. I can't not post pics, can I? 2 weeks (No he didn't get into the blueberry patch, he's a breast feeder, he had thrush and that's iodine.), 5 Weeks, 7 Weeks, 11 Weeks, 3 Months, 3 Months, 3 Months, 4 Months, 4 1/2 Months, 4 1/2 Months I finally caved in and got a cell phone. I've never, ever owned one and was fine with that. My wife's been hounding me to get one ever since Cooper came along, and at work my partner and I decided to get a plan for the two of us. I wanted nothing fancy, just a simple easy to use flip phone. I sent my partner to go pick out a plan after discussing what we wanted and he couldn't resist getting a couple of Blackberry Curve 8330s. Oh, well. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty cool, but I'm not nearly savvy enough to figure out how to use it to it's full potential. My jealous wife showed me how to use it. I now know how to call, text and play brick breaker on the can. The Colts are 8-0 and ready for another "Game of the Century" against the Patriots next Sunday night. So, that's cool. The Tigers lost the division on the last day of the season after being in 1st for roughly 5 months straight. Not cool. Plus the Yankees won the World Series. Also, not cool. I don't get a chance to play Nintendo much. I've played Rock Band 2 maybe three times since Cooper was born, but I'm not complaining. The only other significant gaming I've done is play through Super Mario World for the SNES in preparation for the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game which releases next Sunday. It looks awesome and I will be purchasing it that day. Not gonna wait until Christmas. We switched over to DirecTV last Friday. I've had DISH Network for over two years now and when I tried to upgrade to HD in the spring the installer said there wasn't a spot on the property to put a dish that would have a clear shot at their HD satellite in outer space. I was a little reluctant to make the switch, cause DirectTV is more expensive, but they can provide HD and they do have more channels available, namely the NFL and MLB Networks. I'm already enjoying my football in HD, and looking forward LOST in Hi Def glory in January and HD Tigers games in the summer. Until next time, take it easy fellow TV.commers.

Nearly a full week has passed since Baby Cooper joined us and the verdict is in: He's awesome. Mom's been breast feeding him every two to three hours or so, he's only cranky when he's hungry or gassy, but that's pretty much universal for all babies. At nighttime he's been doing a surprisingly good job. The last 3 nights he has had his last feeding at 11:00 or so and slept 'til 4:30-5:00 in the morning, which is awesome for Mom (Dad pretty much sleeps right through it). Cooper has succeeded in peeing and (nearly) pooping on Dad already. I got to change the very first diaper, which is always the thick black tarry (thankfully not smelly) meconium. He's since moved on to nasty stinky poop and a couple of days ago wasn't quite done filling his diaper when Dad went to change him. As for who he looks like, for now the overwhelming consensus is me. Today is a bit exciting, because my wife's younger sister who had to leave and go to gymnastics camp in Wisconsin on the day Cooper was born is coming home today and gets to see Coop for the first time. He was born at 11:02 and my sister-in-law had to leave the hospital to catch her boat in Ludington at 6:30. Cooper already has a couple nicknames, the aforementioned Coop and the totally unforeseeable "Pooker". Our twin nieces are nearly 2 and are building a vocabulary, but are a bit sticky with the pronunciation of certain words; one of them being Cooper which comes out as Pooker. Suggested nicknames that were rejected and forever forbidden are CJ (his middle name is my name, Jared) and Mini Cooper. As for life outside of the baby, there isn't really much. Which is fine. My wife is on 12 week maternity leave and I was already back to work on Monday. I pretty much had to be or else shut the shop down. It's just the two of us and my business partner's back is, to put it bluntly, effed up. He's largely immobile and when he does move, it's not very well. He's on Vicodin, Valium and Ibuprofen for the pain and it looks like he's going to need surgery of some sort. He'll see the doctor to determine exactly what they have to do on Tuesday. I'll be getting some more pictures up of the little guy soon and more often. Word on the street is babies change very quickly and that you should take lots of pictures. Will do. Take it easy, everyone. And Happy Father's Day early to anyone who applies.

Just dropping in to say that our baby boy finally arrived late Saturday night. 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches. His name is Cooper. Mom's doing great and the baby is very healthy after spending nine extra days in the womb. Obviously sleep has become a commodity around here, but the reward heavily outweighs the consequence. I'll be getting around to some pictures sooner or later, but for now I just wanted to make the announcement. Take it easy.

It's late Friday night, the wife is in bed, the Tigers are on, I can't sleep; great time to write a blog, eh? The 'ol due date is quickly approaching. My wife has had a couple of baby showers thrown for her already and the newly finished nursery is already packed to the gills with ungodly amounts of baby stuff. And she's still got two more showers to go. She's handling the pregnancy thus far like a champ. The little guy is a constant mover and shaker. He's kicking, punching, jiving and shaking constantly. No doubt his moves are from his mother. I only deal in good looks, wit and charm. Went to another Red Wings game a few weeks back. They lost to the Islanders 2-0. But my brother-in-law, some friends of ours and I had a good time. Ended up at the Greektown casino and watched the last 10 minutes of the Kansas/Michigan State game in one of the bars. My wife wanted to go to a Tigers game this year before the baby comes, so we're going with my parents in a couple of Saturdays to watch 'em play the Indians at Comerica. So glad baseball season is back, and that the Tigers haven't started 0-7. Purchased me some Guitar Hero drums a while back. As a newcomer to the drums and lacking in any kind of rhythm, I do alright. Songs I am familiar with I can handle fairly well on Hard, otherwise I can pretty much nail everything on Medium. Now that I've had Rock Band 2 for a while, it's definitely superior to Guitar Hero in every way except the on-disc song list. I don't listen to a ton of music, but I know and enjoy 60 to 70% of the songs on GH, but I can only say the same for about 30 to 40% on RB. Though RB's DLC is head and shoulders above GH's. I'm not a bad person and neither is my wife, but lately we're guilty of simultaneously busting up laughing at the Sam Bernstein ads on TV. Some background: The Bernstein Law Firm is local here in Michigan so I'm not sure if any of my non-mitten/midwest friends have ever seen his ads before. Anyway they're incredibly cheesy and generally laughable, but recently Sam's three lawyer kids have been featured in his ads and one of his sons is, ah, slightly visually impaired. No biggie, I don't hold it against him. At first in the ads he faced the camera normally as if to say, "Yeah, I know I've got a wicked cross eye, but this is how I bring in those big ol' settlements." But either the Bernstein camp has become self conscious or the ad agency stepped in. Now whenever our cross eyed friend is featured he is shown in profile with the good eye towards the camera. It's so obvious that it's even more of an attention getter than the old ads where he looked dead at the camera (and off to the side simultaneously). Anyway here's a current ad. Chuckle with me so I don't feel like too bad a guy. Game's over and we've got a birthing class tomorrow morning at 9, so we'll so you later.

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My wife had another ultrasound two weeks ago and as you might have guessed, we are having a boy. Time has really flown by. It doesn't feel like too long ago that we just got back from vacation and found out that we were pregnant, and here we are 5 months later. We've been slow moving on preparing the nursery. We only have two bedrooms in our house, one being ours and the other is used as an office/baseball card storage/memorabilia display/sewing room. Nearly everything has been cleared out, but we've still got to re-carpet the room as well as paint it. Traditionally, my wife's grandmother purchases the crib for each of her new great-grandchildren; the tradition continues. And both our parents went in together and purchased a dresser. We'll be borrowing an unused changing table, and although we haven't had a baby shower yet, the baby clothes and things are starting to slowly pile up from various family members. In other news, my wife's sister is to undergo a C-Section on Wednesday, and it'll be exciting to welcome our 3rd niece, Avery, into the world in a few days. I might even get in there and change a few diapers for practice on this one. I avoided changing diapers at all costs for the twins, but now the duty will be unavoidable in about 4 months, so I might as well upgrade from my greenhorn status in the diaper changing arena. I went to my first Red Wings game in Detroit this weekend (I've also seen them play in Chicago). I went with my Dad and brother, the Wings killed the Oilers 8-3, but we had a lot of fun. The Joe Louis Arena, while a bit outdated, certainly has a lot of history hanging in the rafters and wandering around the stadium. And in lieu of the previous picture, a literal brush with greatness: There are statues Wings Hall-of-Famers Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio, in the same vein as the ones in left field at Comerica Park of Tigers HOF'ers. As I was taking pictures of the Gordie Howe statue, Gordie Howe himself accidentally bumped into my brother, who was standing nearby. My brother turns to my Dad and says, "That's Gordie Howe!" to which Gordie, looking over his shoulder, replies with a smile, "No it isn't." He was making his way to a ringed off area on the concourse to sign some books, just blending into the crowd. Not until he sat down did people start to pay attention and immediately surround the table to get near. For my brother, bumping into Gordie was awesome. While I enjoy seeing the Red Wings do well, admittedly, I don't follow them nearly as much as my Dad and brother. They love the Wings enough to drop $200 apiece for Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals last year. However, a few years ago we did get to check out the actual Stanley Cup trophy in person. Pretty cool. As for the game itself, yeah there were a ton of goals scored, but the tension was gone after the Wings scored 3 goals in the first 5 minutes and were leading 5-0 after the 1st period. We spent the evening in Greektown, had dinner and did a little gambling. And after visiting the Joe for the first time this weekend, I already have tickets to go back at the end of March with 3 other buddies. My wife and I spent a night in Grand Rapids weekend before last for our 3rd anniversary. On the way back we stopped at a liquidating Circuit City and picked up Rock Band 2 for the Wii for 40 bucks. I own all 3 Guitar Hero titles for the Wii and had played Rock Band sparingly a few other times at friends'. I bought Rock Band simply to play nearly 100 new songs I don't already have with the Guitar Hero games. And after playing for a week or so, Rock Band is clearly the better game. I really like the way the career mode is set up, as opposed to just a list of sets with seemingly random songs on Guitar Hero. It could be just me, but the music sounds cleaner than in Guitar Hero. And at first I was wary of the notes as skinny rectangles instead of fat circles as in Guitar Hero, but I like the note charts in Rock Band much better. They are easier to see against the black background, and it could be me, but it seems like because the notes are so skinny that there is more room to see more of the upcoming notes. Though I've only played the first 25 songs or so, the difficulty on "Hard" does seem a touch easier than GH World Tour's "Hard" difficulty. Which is quite a bit easier than GH III's "Hard" difficulty. Rambling a bit, but I think that made sense. And finally, for no apparent reason, a recommendation for those of age beer drinkers, I just bought a 6-pack of Hop Hound the other night. Pretty good stuff and fairly easy drinking. It's a seasonal amber wheat from Michelob, and if you're not ashamed to buy a beer sporting a stupid dog with sunglasses on the bottle, I'd give it a try. See you around and take it easy. Disclaimer: All the pictures are mine except the Tigers statues and the Hop Hound.

It's been a while, but here I am. Since I last wrote, there have been quite a few happenings and goings on in my life. Work has been plenty busy for my business partner and I. I dressed up as "3-hole punch Jim" from The Office for Halloween. My wife and I spent a week in sunny southern California in late September. A few of our friends are making plans to get married. And my wife and I found out that we will soon be entering that next chapter of out lives entitled "Parenthood." We don't know exactly what we're having yet, but we do know there's just one bun in the oven and it'll likely be ready to come out the first week of June. Needless to say we're pretty excited. More recently, just this past Saturday night, another couple and my wife and I went to see John Heffron at the comedy club inside The B.O.B. in Grand Rapids. Hannibal Burress opened for John. They both were pretty good. I haven't watched to many stand-up comics in person, but every time I go, there's always one or two people in the audience that looked bored/borderline angry the whole time. They either are constantly rolling their eyes or will set with their arms crossed and try their darnedest not to move an inch while maintaining an look of slight constipation. Why bother? Been playing Guitar Hero: World Tour lately, got the game beat on Hard, and I'm about to begin my quest on Expert. I'd say I enjoy playing about 50% of the songs, 25% have potential to grow on me and 25% I never really want to play again. Locally, four high school football teams (out of eight divisions) from right here in Muskegon County have made it to the State Championship game at Ford Field this weekend. Quite a few people around here are excited about that. However, the Lions and Wolverines certainly haven't given anybody anything to cheer about. And the Colts are definitely (thank God) playing better after a 3-4 start. The plan is to blog more often than once every three months, so hopefully you'll hear from me again sooner rather than later. Until then, see you in the forums and take it easy. Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.

Lake Michigan Sadly, the end of summer is near. What have you been doing to fill up your time in the sun? I've been doing some golfing (more bad than good), bonfires, lawn maintenance, marathon Pictionary sessions, beer drinking (I guess this applies to any season), tanning, pool lounging, Lake Michigan sunset watching, Tigers baseball watching (thank god it's nearly over), weekending in TC, grilling (though my wife mans the grill), and sleeping without any covers. I had some pictures from Arbutus Lake in TC to post last time, but for some reason couldn't get them to work. Here are a few a month and a half after the fact. No one else seems to care for this one, but I kinda like it Everybody seems to like this one though; its my current desktop image as well Just as a storm is rolling in Stumps And to show off the contrast of colors, the top one is from the summer and the bottom one is fall: Things have been going pretty well at work the last few months, now that it is just my business partner and I running things. We haven't hired anyone yet, so the workload can get taxing at times, but our profits are steadily increasing. We've given ourselves a pretty significant raise, and yet are still paying out less than we did when it was three of us. The only problem is there isn't anyone to cover for us, so time off is now comes at a premium. My wife and I booked plane tickets to San Diego for a week vacation months before the business ownership shifted from 3 to 2 partners, and it will be a bit of a stressful week for my partner at the end of September. We've tried to plan ahead, to make things go smoother at work that week, but it really just boils down to how busy we get, and there just isn't really any way to tell how it will be until that week comes. San Diego you say? Yeah, my wife and I are going out to California for a week to visit my (our) best friend in, who is in the Marine Corps and stationed there. He's got leave for that week and plans to play tour guide for the area for us (he's been out there for about a year now). He's got the local watering hole scene down pat, and plans to get us out surfing. Though after "Shark Week" on Disc. channel my wife plans on staying out of the ocean. I plan and grabbing a ton of photos and it looks like we'll be able to catch a Padres game while we're there. After this trip I'll have visited 9 states overall. (Technically 12, but Texas, Kentucky and Missouri don't count, they were just layovers from past flights.) I've been to the red states below and DC (except CA, yet).
Create your own personalized map of the USA Have you heard about the Football pick'em tournament here at TV.com? IM, Tommy, and fish are already in on the action, but anybody else who might happen to read this is welcome to join in the fun. Just post in the linked thread to let 123home123 know you want in and he'll send you the info. That's all for now. I've already done some golfing today, and later I'm headed out for some beer drinking/bonfire fun. Take it easy.

I'm headed back up to Traverse City for the 4th of July weekend. So, to anyone looking to submit to The Simpsons guide: I'll be gone from Thursday evening 'til Sunday evening (July 3-6) and I won't be able to moderate my queue. I was up in TC a few weeks back and took some new photos. I'd show some to you, but I seem to be having trouble getting them to upload onto TV.com. So maybe next time I guess. I picked up my GH: Aerosmith bundle on Sunday. I've been looking for some new songs to play and I wanted a second guitar so my wife and I, or more than one friend can play at a time. I'll admit I'd never heard a handful of these Aerosmith songs before, I think my favorite new one is "Kings and Queens." I really like the fact that you can play the entire Joe Perry guitar solo after you've beaten Perry in the game. Too bad there's only one solo though. I plowed through the game on Easy just to get a feel for the songs and I'm currently cruising through Medium. I've 5 starred everything so far on the first try, mostly in part because this isn't my first time with Guitar Hero like it was with GH:III and this game doesn't seem to be as difficult as GH:III. Which is fine with me, I might have a chance at beating all the songs on Hard. Saw a cool little thing at IndianaMom's blog that I decided to borrow. Instructions are as follows: Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." Ask your friends do this in their journals to see what unique things they've done. My 3 things share the same theme: Sports. And if you're a regular here you should recognize #1. 1--I've ridden in an elevator with Peyton Manning. 2--I've witnessed Sammy Sosa hit 3 home runs in the same game at Wrigley Field. 3--I've actually touched the Stanley Cup. Hopefully, next time I'll be able to get some pictures up, I'm sure I'll take some more this weekend. Take it easy fellow TV.commers.

This weekend I'm finally headed up to Traverse City for the first time this summer, so to anyone looking to submit to The Simpsons guide this weekend: Go ahead, but I won't get a chance to process them until Monday night. Arbutus Lake in the fall. A few things have changed at work in the last few weeks. The small business, of which I purchased a 10% stake of last summer, has 3 partners: Me, and 2 brothers (not mine). This past Monday one of the brothers started a new job; myself and the other brother are in the process of buying out his 45% of the business. Work has been slower the past few months and the workload will increase for the 2 of us, but so will our wages, so I'm not complaining. And over the course of one short year my initial investment for the 10% has basically tripled.. My business partner and I will equally divide the other brother's 45%, bumping my share of the company to a touch under 33%. I expect things to get a little hectic latter this summer and fall, which is our typical busy time, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. Without getting into too much detail, the brother that left and found another job didn't always have the same vision as the 2 of us still running the business, and my current business partner and I are always on the same page, so I'm excited about the possibilities and opportunities this change will bring about. I, of course, haven't stopped rooting for the Tigers, it's just been hard to be enthusiastic about them thus far this year. The White Sox sweep looked very promising, but the only 2 other times the Tigers swept a team this year (Yankees & Twins), they promptly went into a slide. So who knows, I'll feel a little better if they can take 2 at home against the Dodgers this weekend. Hopefully, they can rattle off a 8-2, 10-3 type run and get into striking distance of .500 by the All-Star break. We'll see. I've put away Mario Kart Wii, for now. Up next will be Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and right now I've gone back to playing GH: III here and there. I was stuck on the 7th tier on Hard, particularly "Knights of Cydonia" (sp?). But after about a month layoff I dusted off my guitar and eeked past it after a couple tries. Now I'm stuck on the 8th tier. I'm pretty sure I can get "Cliffs of Dover" with some practice, but Metallica's "One" (which is cake until the last 15% or so) is impossible. I haven't even bothered with "Raining Blood" or "Number of the Beast". I did jump up to Expert and am halfway through the 3rd tier. I've hit a couple songs I need practice on, "Lay Down" and "The Seeker", but I mostly have been perfecting a few of my favorite songs on Hard, "Talk Dirty to Me", "Even Flow", "Cult of Personality", and a few others. I've been out golfing quite a bit lately. The first couple of times I shot a forgettable 56 and 58, but the last 6 times out I've shot right between the 48-53 range. I'm a bit of an unorthodox golfer and I do not use my driver or any of my woods. This year I've been teeing off with my 7 iron, only because it's the club I'm most confident with. I've sacrificed distance for pretty decent accuracy; most (certainly not all) of my tee shots are 170 to190 somewhere in the fairway. I usually golf every Wednesday and once every other weekend with a foursome consisting of me, my brother and 2 friends. One of whom could easily hit 280-300 yards on a consistent basis if he could eliminate his slice and control his swing. He shot a +4 39 last Wednesday, with 6 pars, 2 bogeys and 1 double. For the most part we are all pretty competitive and scores are usually within 3-5 strokes of each other. Last Wednesday we shot 48-50-50-51, mine being one of the 50's. I'll be taking my wife to a nice little par 3 course west of TC this weekend, I'll let you know how we did. Take it easy fellow TV.commers. Go Tigers.