Cupcakes

Becky (and Tim?) made us some awesome carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting a while back. Yum!

We've also been the happy recipients of some great food from Maya and Ryder as well. Maybe Bethany has the pictures on her computer, but I can't find any on our two cameras. Alas. The zucchini casserole and bread were superb.

Banana Stand ice cream

I'm trying to catch up after not having posted for so long... Here are a few pics from our walk up to the Banana Stand ice cream shop with Maya and Ryder a week or two ago. I only had my cell phone with me, so the pictures aren't any good. I can blame poor composition on that, right? Ryder is the only one I ended up getting a picture of with ice cream.

Grandma Kathi's Labor Day visit

My mom came for a nice visit over the long Labor Day weekend. I'm happy Silas is getting at some good grandma-time, despite the distances involved. At times, it's difficult to not be living near family.

We did a lot of touring around the city admiring the old architecture. She's a huge fan of architecture. Becky and Tim joined us for dinner one night, as evidenced by the picture below. Maya and Ryder came over on Monday for brunch. It really happened, despite no pictures being taken. Funny how it seems that a picture validates an experience when blogging. You'll just have to trust me that they really did come over for brunch, bringing some great zucchini bread and cookies.

The last pictures were taken eating at the Church Brew Works and at Pamela's diner (the Milvale location).

Silas for President!

Silas made the channel 3 news today! Follow this link:

Silas for President 2008

Satisfaction is Complacency

I'm in trouble with Bethany for my current mantra at inopportune times of "Satisfaction is complacency, is stasis!" I figure I at least owe her a link to the reference, especially since I'm trying to figure out how to screenprint this sixth panel on a onesie for Silas...


I love the comic Cat and Girl. I think Robin led me to it, for which I'm grateful.

http://www.catandgirl.com/view.php?loc=639

Happy Birthday Courtney

Birthday girl, Courtney (R), Regina (L), and the big hugger, Silas in the foreground.

Courtney's birthday is coming up. She and Regina had people over on Saturday to celebrate. Bethany, Becky, Silas, and I went to usher in another year for our friend. Silas was happy to get passed around and be the center of attention...

Run around the square

The cheering section

Yesterday was my first 5k race of the year - the Run Around the Square. I'm not really in great shape between an injury in July and then the distraction of Silas. Nonetheless, I had a decent time for me. 23:59. Placed 237th out of 1183 overall and 27th out of 76 in my age group (35-39). It was a good time. I felt strong for the first time since breaking my foot and getting back on the roads this year. I could have finished with a better time, but was being cautious and also get stuck in slow groups on the trails at a few places.

Bethany and Silas came down to cheer me on. It was fun to have them there. There were a lot of significant others with new babies at the finish line. I think it's a good world to introduce them to.

Bethany's learning how to feed Silas in public. :)

Congratulatory hugs

Beer helps recovery

1,400 miles

I'm at 1,400 miles on the bike this year in Pittsburgh. For an idea of the scale, the name "Pittsburgh" is about 1.25 miles. I tread the same paths a lot. The Google Earth map doesn't do a great job of showing that. I've had to reduce my mileage the past few weeks, of course, but I'm easily on a path to reach 2,500 miles for the year on the bike. I offset driving for 25 miles of work commuting a week and probably another 10 or more miles on average of errands. With work and vacation trips out of town, I'd guess it works out that it's maybe a 1,000 mile offset of driving the car. Using the federal mileage rate of 50.5 cents per mile, that's $500 in approximate savings. I can replace my bike every three years or so at that rate. :)

Best picture of the farmer's market

So, I took this picture of our neighbor Tom with Bethany and her mom in the foreground. Tom is the old man holding his shirt collar in the center of the picture. Tom lives directly across the street and is a wonderfully sweet man. When we moved in, he helped us carry stuff in from the truck. We frequently see him sitting on his front stoop striking up conversations with passersby or walking up to Rocky's for his $2.50 breakfast. He's fond of referring to Bethany as the boss. :)

I think it's great that it turns out that I caught the little girl staring up at him. She's a cutie. I see her around the neighborhood from time to time with her parents. Also, the woman cyclist walking around wearing her helmet and is mid-bite of a plum or some other fruit. And then there's the poor guy walking with his son toward the camera. If you look closely...

My other blog

I have had a hard time getting content flowing on my other blog (for HGTV Pro). I got another post put up today. It's been challenging to create new content that isn't just regurgitating other blog and news posts from the internet. It seems everything I read in a lot of the technology blogs is a repackaging of something they read in someone else's blog, which of course was lifted from a chain of other blogs repeating the same information in a weird, world-wide, inbred game of telephone.

Nonetheless, that blog is: Building Science

It's much easier to write about life and fun things in any given day and especially, the new little life we have with us than it is to write inside a box called "Building Science"...


As I don't understand trackbacks, this last part is an experiment, please ignore.
http://blogs.scrippsnetworks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1551
http://blogs.hgtvpro.com/hgtvpro/building_science/archive/2008/08/intelligent_hvac_control.html