Tomorrow is Father’s Day. This will only be my 2nd official father’s day; but I am already a dad many times over and a grand father once and soon to be twice. Considering my 38th birthday is still 2 months away; I guess I’m doing okay in the “growing the family” department. Mom, Dad, you said you wanted grandkids; I don’t like to waste time once I get started on a project. I may take a while to get started, but once i start....

So, tomorrow will be a day for me to celebrate Fatherhood. I have much to celebrate too. Courtney and the rest of my step-children really are wonderful and the past few years I’ve spent helping to rear Courtney I wouldn’t trade for all the MacBook Pros in the world. For me, that’s saying something. Tomorrow I also get to celebrate Father’s Day with Kristie. She hasn’t even been placed with us officially, so I don’t want to get ahead of myself; but by Father’s Day next year we will have an official holiday together.

We don’t have big plans for tomorrow, but most of the local family will be here. Tracy and I love having everyone over, it’s one of the reasons we bough the size of house we did. One day we will have more of a back patio; but for now we do have the wonderful front porch. If not for the horrible Texas heat we could probably make use of it on Father’s day. I may sit on the porch though in the morning while I enjoy my coffee and watch the sun come up.

While I am drinking my coffee I’m sure Brian will still be in dreamland, but this year he will celebrate his first Father’s Day. I would say he “only has the baby,” but to say “only” and “baby” is to make it sound SO SIMPLE. While their hands are completely fully yet, they will be by Father’s Day 2009. I remember with my grandson, year one he just laid there and smiled... year two he was doing his best to get some serious attention. So Brion, enjoy this Father’s Day because the next one may not be as relaxing.

The photo above wasn’t taken on FAther’s Day, it dates from just after Father’s Day 1975 though. It is a photo of Dad, Brion (the one in the diaper) and me. Dad was enjoying being a father for the second time, this year will be sort of that way for me. Only Courtney lives at home, but Kristie is joining us making her simillar to a second child for me. When it comes to children my life has become slightly complicated; but I LOVE IT!

Tags: Holidays

Last weekend for the holiday Dad and Nancy drove down from Tulsa for a few days to visit. We hadn't seen them since our wedding last November. Tracy and I have been trying to get up to Tulsa, but obviously not trying hard enough since we haven't made it.

They came down on Friday and left on Sunday morning. Tracy and I both stayed home on Friday and did our best to keep the hounds of business from trampling down our door. Tracy succeeded far better than I, but eventually I was able to put all my troubles to bed until after the holiday. While I worked on closing out a few work issues, Tracy gave Dad and Nancy the 5 cent tour of our new house. Then once they were settled in, we all headed to Ballard Street Cafe for an eagerly awaited lunch.

Saturday morning Dad and I headed off to Dallas to find him his favorite Irish Whisky, Red Breast, that he discovered during our wedding at Trinity Hall in Dallas. We then headed back towards my neck of the woods, with a leisurely stop at a new cigar shop in Garland. There I treated Dad to a good cigar in the store's cigar lounge. Very enjoyable.

The rest of the weekend was really just spent relaxing, eating and chatting. It was a very enjoyable time, although too short.

Tags: Dad, Holidays, Cigars

I've added a photo montage of Tracy and myself growing up. This video will be used at the wedding, but is available now for you to see. It isn't anything fancy, just whipped it up in iPhoto and added a little music. Took longer to encode that it did to create. The photos are basically in order of date, taking you from Tracy's birth all the way to our couple's shower last week. So enjoy! Click Here to Read More...

Tags: Photos, Wedding, Holidays

This father's day was one big trip for me, not in the we are going to Seattle kind of trip, but more like the "acid" variety. I'm not even married yet and I am not just a step-dad, but a grandfather and my dad and mom are both grandparents and great grandparents. When you think about it just a little ways, you come to the unmistakable conclusion that my future as a great grandparent myself is all but certain in well less than three decades. My friends will all be learning to be grandparents while I am learning how to be a great grandparent.... it boggles the mind. Stars help me, if little Carlos tries to drag me into great grandparent mode in 20 years or less. I really can't imagine being a great grandparent at 55. Click Here to Read More...

Tags: Photos, Holidays, Tracy, Carlos Jr., Dad

I found this new service for on-line videos called 4Flix . They are going to attempt to go head to head with Apple's iTunes music store video collection. While iTunes Music Store offers up short videos, TV shows and music videos for $1.99 each, 4Flix is planning on having full length features at a $1.99 each. Guaging from their holiday collection these may not be the best movies ever made, but then NightRider wasn't exactly TV's best either.

If you are interested in seeing what they have to offer and the quality (be warned it is still best watched on a 5th generation iPod, commonly known as the iPod Video) then all you have to do his go to their site and buy one $1.99 video and then you can get the rest of the holiday videos for free or you can subscribe to an iTunes video podcast and they will deliver one video a day for free. I just got Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (a very old version, but in color) and it looks pretty good considering the age of the original print and the resolution, designed as I mentioned to be viewed on an iPod screen. So check out the article at MacNN and then head over to 4Flix.net. If you do you will be experiencing a taste of Christmas Yet to Come... oh, there is an old Vincint Price TV version of A Christmas Carol available.

Tags: Video, Holidays