Circa 1982
Circa 2009
Happy Father's Day Dads.
We love you ever so much.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Summer Heat + Traffic = Road Rage
So here's something that happened on my way home from work tonight.
I was in the right lane on the Dallas North Tollway. Traffic was bad. You know how the tollway is around rush hour.
So we were all creeping along and I decided to call my Dad and chat about father's day plans this Sunday.
I don't like pressing a phone to the side of my head even when I'm not behind the wheel, so I pulled out my earbuds, plugged them into the phone, and popped them into my ears.
I'm holding the phone in my right hand and steering with my left, and I had to look down for maybe two full seconds to push the button to call my Dad.
Whole process took less than thirty seconds from start to finish.
Behind me somebody lays on their horn and doesn't let off. It was just HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK for like ten full seconds.
So I check the rear view and saw this 40ish woman in a SUV right behind my car waving her hands around like she was trying to get my attention. She had huge sunglasses and huge hair.
I saw that she was talking in an exaggerated pantomime and though I couldn't hear what she was saying I could tell she was trying to say something to me.
I focused on her mouth and decoded what she was saying. And what she was saying was this:
STOP TEXTING
As soon as I understood what she was saying my shoulders involuntarily shot up to my ears and I actually said out loud into the mirror "I'm not texting!"
But when she saw me respond she only took that as a positive sign that laying on her horn and shouting words to herself that I couldn't hear had successfully secured my attention. She began a very grotesquely exaggerated pantomime of someone texting on a mobile phone.
Her thumbs wildly flew in front of her face, presumably across the imaginary keys of an imaginary cell phone, as she opened her mouth in a slack-jawed expression of stupidity and lolled her head from side to side.
I was both fascinated and outraged. I turned around completely in my seat, pointed indignantly to my left earbud with my left index finger and shouted (out loud again) "I'm on the phone!"
And just then my Dad said "Hello?" I really was on the phone and had totally forgotten that the phone had been ringing in my earbuds the whole time and only now noticed that my Dad had answered the call.
I faced forward and grabbed the wheel with both hands and said, "Dad, hey."
Just then the lady angrily roared past me on my left but had to slam on her brakes almost immediately after passing me, since the traffic in front of her had stopped.
As I merged and exited to the right onto the George Bush Tollway and focused in on the phone conversation with my Dad, I couldn't help sneaking glances at the back of her SUV trying to memorize her license plate number until it finally passed out of sight.
And I realized: wouldn't it be so much better if we had electronic sign boards on our cars?
Doesn't a lot of the rage we feel on the road come from our complete inability to communicate with each other?
If I could have had a voice activated sign board on the back of my car at that moment I know what it would have said. Well, and so do you, because I said it out loud and I already told you. It would have said I'M ON THE PHONE!
But I might have said YOUR GLASSES MAKE YOUR FACE LOOK LIKE A BUG AND I THINK YOUR HAIR HAS CANCER BECAUSE IT IS WAY BIGGER THAN NORMAL HAIR AND WHILE YOUR SEIZURE OF MISINFORMED OUTRAGE IS NOTEWORTHY I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF MAKING A PHONE CALL USING MY HANDS FREE HEADSET AND THUS CAN'T CONTINUE TO SPECTATE AT YOUR GAME OF ANGRY CHARADES AND ALSO YOU ARE SCARING ME.
She wouldn't be likely to be sitting at her home right now wondering if she has become the subject of a blog. But I do hope that she sat at the dinner table tonight with her family and turned me into a 'texting while driving' cautionary tale for one of her teenagers who also hates her obnoxiously huge hair, her obnoxiously huge sunglasses and her obnoxiously huge car.
Or maybe she was so angry because she just lost a loved one. In which case, I'm a real insensitive jerk. If she would have had a voice activated electronic sign board on her car she could have at least explained herself.
But my guess is she was going home from a long day at the office in a car with a/c that couldn't keep up with the 5pm summer heat, faced with a line of suckers in front of her that wouldn't move fast enough, just like everybody else on the road. And she snapped a little bit.
If anything, I bet that she feels a little embarrassed tonight after she got home and put the kids to bed, and finally had a chance to reflect on her a day a little bit. I bet she hopes she never sees me at the mall or at her church for fear that I might recognize her and start madly pantomiming texting at her.
But probably, she has forgotten the whole thing and will never think of it again or even remember it for the rest of her life.
Until, of course, she sees someone who really is texting while driving.
That person has got it coming.
I was in the right lane on the Dallas North Tollway. Traffic was bad. You know how the tollway is around rush hour.
So we were all creeping along and I decided to call my Dad and chat about father's day plans this Sunday.
I don't like pressing a phone to the side of my head even when I'm not behind the wheel, so I pulled out my earbuds, plugged them into the phone, and popped them into my ears.
I'm holding the phone in my right hand and steering with my left, and I had to look down for maybe two full seconds to push the button to call my Dad.
Whole process took less than thirty seconds from start to finish.
Behind me somebody lays on their horn and doesn't let off. It was just HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK for like ten full seconds.
So I check the rear view and saw this 40ish woman in a SUV right behind my car waving her hands around like she was trying to get my attention. She had huge sunglasses and huge hair.
I saw that she was talking in an exaggerated pantomime and though I couldn't hear what she was saying I could tell she was trying to say something to me.
I focused on her mouth and decoded what she was saying. And what she was saying was this:
STOP TEXTING
As soon as I understood what she was saying my shoulders involuntarily shot up to my ears and I actually said out loud into the mirror "I'm not texting!"
But when she saw me respond she only took that as a positive sign that laying on her horn and shouting words to herself that I couldn't hear had successfully secured my attention. She began a very grotesquely exaggerated pantomime of someone texting on a mobile phone.
Her thumbs wildly flew in front of her face, presumably across the imaginary keys of an imaginary cell phone, as she opened her mouth in a slack-jawed expression of stupidity and lolled her head from side to side.
I was both fascinated and outraged. I turned around completely in my seat, pointed indignantly to my left earbud with my left index finger and shouted (out loud again) "I'm on the phone!"
And just then my Dad said "Hello?" I really was on the phone and had totally forgotten that the phone had been ringing in my earbuds the whole time and only now noticed that my Dad had answered the call.
I faced forward and grabbed the wheel with both hands and said, "Dad, hey."
Just then the lady angrily roared past me on my left but had to slam on her brakes almost immediately after passing me, since the traffic in front of her had stopped.
As I merged and exited to the right onto the George Bush Tollway and focused in on the phone conversation with my Dad, I couldn't help sneaking glances at the back of her SUV trying to memorize her license plate number until it finally passed out of sight.
And I realized: wouldn't it be so much better if we had electronic sign boards on our cars?
Doesn't a lot of the rage we feel on the road come from our complete inability to communicate with each other?
If I could have had a voice activated sign board on the back of my car at that moment I know what it would have said. Well, and so do you, because I said it out loud and I already told you. It would have said I'M ON THE PHONE!
But I might have said YOUR GLASSES MAKE YOUR FACE LOOK LIKE A BUG AND I THINK YOUR HAIR HAS CANCER BECAUSE IT IS WAY BIGGER THAN NORMAL HAIR AND WHILE YOUR SEIZURE OF MISINFORMED OUTRAGE IS NOTEWORTHY I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF MAKING A PHONE CALL USING MY HANDS FREE HEADSET AND THUS CAN'T CONTINUE TO SPECTATE AT YOUR GAME OF ANGRY CHARADES AND ALSO YOU ARE SCARING ME.
She wouldn't be likely to be sitting at her home right now wondering if she has become the subject of a blog. But I do hope that she sat at the dinner table tonight with her family and turned me into a 'texting while driving' cautionary tale for one of her teenagers who also hates her obnoxiously huge hair, her obnoxiously huge sunglasses and her obnoxiously huge car.
Or maybe she was so angry because she just lost a loved one. In which case, I'm a real insensitive jerk. If she would have had a voice activated electronic sign board on her car she could have at least explained herself.
But my guess is she was going home from a long day at the office in a car with a/c that couldn't keep up with the 5pm summer heat, faced with a line of suckers in front of her that wouldn't move fast enough, just like everybody else on the road. And she snapped a little bit.
If anything, I bet that she feels a little embarrassed tonight after she got home and put the kids to bed, and finally had a chance to reflect on her a day a little bit. I bet she hopes she never sees me at the mall or at her church for fear that I might recognize her and start madly pantomiming texting at her.
But probably, she has forgotten the whole thing and will never think of it again or even remember it for the rest of her life.
Until, of course, she sees someone who really is texting while driving.
That person has got it coming.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Gender Reveal Party
Chris and I found out early Wednesday morning the gender of our two lovely babies.
The Dr. would point out different parts - arms, heart, etc., and then type the part for us to see on the screen.
After showing us the femur, he typed in "I'm a Boy."
I was fully expecting to see the word "femur" on the screen so it took my mind a good 10 minutes to adjust to the sentence I was reading.
When it did adjust I looked over at Chris who was already looking at me and grinning ear to ear.
Chris and I shared one of the biggest smiles we've ever shared.
It was similar to the private smiles we shared right after getting married.
We managed to keep the secret from everyone for about 10 hours.
I did this by not talking on the phone to anyone!
Since we wanted to tell our close family in person, we opted to have everyone over for some pizza and cupcakes.
We made sure to balance any pink items with blue items so as not to arouse any suspicions.
All that thought the babies would be boys wore blue, and those that thought the babies would be girls wore pink.
The cupcakes served as our announcement medium.
One bite in and you knew!
Proud Parents to be of Identical Twin Boys
It's still all very surreal, exciting, emotional and just plain indescribable.
We made sure to balance any pink items with blue items so as not to arouse any suspicions.
All that thought the babies would be boys wore blue, and those that thought the babies would be girls wore pink.
The cupcakes served as our announcement medium.
One bite in and you knew!
Proud Parents to be of Identical Twin Boys
It's still all very surreal, exciting, emotional and just plain indescribable.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
It's Official
We have visual confirmation that the identical Wehkamp twins are boys!
Lock up your unborn daughters.
Anticipation
It's 1:23 CST.
I'm fixing connection errors at my desk in the soon-to-be nursery, waiting to hear back from another IT guy on the west coast who's pulling an on-call shift tonight like me.
I can't stop thinking about what I might find out when the sun comes up. I think it's sinking in that I'm going to be a father of little humans.
We have our first shot at finding out which flavors of humans we're getting, boys or girls, in six and a half hours. I'm really hoping the ultrasound shows us something conclusive.
Honestly, the tech could tell me anything at all for all I can make out in the ultrasounds I've seen. They look like the amateur grainy videos of aliens you see in the UFO shows on tv where it could be an extraterrestrial or it could be a cloud of swamp gas.
On the show they bring out a 'UFO Expert' who motions to the top of the cloud with a laser pointer and says, "There you can see the alien's head."
At least the ultrasound tech doesn't use a laser pointer.
There are a lot of things that come along with this waiting process. A lot of confusing stuff inside that I think I'm only allowing myself glimpses of.
I've started to try to imagine how they'll look. I've started to picture myself holding them. I'm very slowly wrapping my head around it. Slow motion osmosis that this is really happening in reality, in actuality, in real-time.
It is a confusing cocktail of feelings.
And there's west coast IT calling on the phone and saving me from trying to flesh that last sentence out.
I'm fixing connection errors at my desk in the soon-to-be nursery, waiting to hear back from another IT guy on the west coast who's pulling an on-call shift tonight like me.
I can't stop thinking about what I might find out when the sun comes up. I think it's sinking in that I'm going to be a father of little humans.
We have our first shot at finding out which flavors of humans we're getting, boys or girls, in six and a half hours. I'm really hoping the ultrasound shows us something conclusive.
Honestly, the tech could tell me anything at all for all I can make out in the ultrasounds I've seen. They look like the amateur grainy videos of aliens you see in the UFO shows on tv where it could be an extraterrestrial or it could be a cloud of swamp gas.
On the show they bring out a 'UFO Expert' who motions to the top of the cloud with a laser pointer and says, "There you can see the alien's head."
At least the ultrasound tech doesn't use a laser pointer.
There are a lot of things that come along with this waiting process. A lot of confusing stuff inside that I think I'm only allowing myself glimpses of.
I've started to try to imagine how they'll look. I've started to picture myself holding them. I'm very slowly wrapping my head around it. Slow motion osmosis that this is really happening in reality, in actuality, in real-time.
It is a confusing cocktail of feelings.
And there's west coast IT calling on the phone and saving me from trying to flesh that last sentence out.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Hour Long Vacation
Because that's about how much time we spent relaxing this Memorial Day weekend.
Since buying a house both Chris and I started working a total of about 8 full-time jobs.
My jobs are:
-teacher
-photographer
-baby oven
-homeowner
Chris's jobs are:
-IT
-IT on-call
-homeowner
-caretaker of baby oven (this can often be the biggest job)
It's so far beyond multi-tasking at this point - it's like simultaneously standing on your head while baking brownies and dictating your autobiography.
I'm so tired, and so turned around right now that I can only present to you a photo diary of this last weekend.
I didn't come close to taking a picture of everything that transpired - I was literally moving too fast.
Here's where we were starting from.
It was the first snow cone I've had this season and only the first of many.
Since buying a house both Chris and I started working a total of about 8 full-time jobs.
My jobs are:
-teacher
-photographer
-baby oven
-homeowner
Chris's jobs are:
-IT
-IT on-call
-homeowner
-caretaker of baby oven (this can often be the biggest job)
It's so far beyond multi-tasking at this point - it's like simultaneously standing on your head while baking brownies and dictating your autobiography.
I'm so tired, and so turned around right now that I can only present to you a photo diary of this last weekend.
I didn't come close to taking a picture of everything that transpired - I was literally moving too fast.
Here's where we were starting from.
Which of these things is not like the other?
Mayhaps the weed whacker and the microwave don't belong in the living room? Hmmmm...(and yes, we do listen to 90's pop while we work. When we're not listening to dance electronica.)
Mess cleared.
Time to hang some window treatments.
No sew hem = genius. (Yes, the 90's are still jammin').
By Sunday at 1 pm Chris has already mowed and edged the lawn, I'd laid out the area rug and re-arranged the furniture, we'd churched, ate, ran by the old apartment, and bought a king-sized mattress.
Are you dizzy? Cause we sure were.
But did we stop? No.
Returned some paint to Home Depot, exchanged keys that didn't work, and rented a truck to go run our IKEA errand.
When all was said and done, I needed a snow cone.
East Plano did not disappoint.
Mayhaps the weed whacker and the microwave don't belong in the living room? Hmmmm...(and yes, we do listen to 90's pop while we work. When we're not listening to dance electronica.)
Mess cleared.
Time to hang some window treatments.
No sew hem = genius. (Yes, the 90's are still jammin').
By Sunday at 1 pm Chris has already mowed and edged the lawn, I'd laid out the area rug and re-arranged the furniture, we'd churched, ate, ran by the old apartment, and bought a king-sized mattress.
Are you dizzy? Cause we sure were.
But did we stop? No.
Returned some paint to Home Depot, exchanged keys that didn't work, and rented a truck to go run our IKEA errand.
A few things to note before moving on:
1. You did hear laughter in the video right? Lest you get the idea we've lost our sense of humor about any of this...
2. We hauled butt to try and make the 75 minute $19.95 time frame. All the way from Plano to Frisco, huge purchase at IKEA, unload at house, gas fill-up, and back to Plano Home Depot - we were sweating and parched and sore and...4 minutes over the allotted 75. Boo.
When Chris returned the vehicle he asked if we made the 75 minute time frame. Santa looked at our "account" and said "well, I didn't even note what time you left so we'll say sure."
When all was said and done, I needed a snow cone.
East Plano did not disappoint.
It was the first snow cone I've had this season and only the first of many.
And a drive-thru no less!
Nailed it.
But we were done then? Still no!
Time to unwrap all our IKEA goodies.
This house and baby-making thing is a lot of work. But it's also fun. And funny.
And now I'm so tired that I'm out of words.
Time to unwrap all our IKEA goodies.
This house and baby-making thing is a lot of work. But it's also fun. And funny.
And now I'm so tired that I'm out of words.
Stay tuned for a finished living room and baby genders!
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