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Hi, and thanks for stopping by! We've made some big changes to the blog - including shutting it down! With social networking and micro-blogging these days, there's no need for us to blog. So check out the latest on our homepage, and thanks for visiting.

Wow – last week was just nuts. Let’s start with work… I’ve been very busy, but that comes with pros and cons. Pros are obvious: work more, make more money. Ah, the joys of entrepreneurship. The cons to that is I missed the gym 3 days in a row, by Saturday my bum knee was acting up and by Sunday my carpal tunnel was back. Not only that, but my sleep schedule was messed up, too.

Friday night we went to a sing-a-long & bonfire at Crosby Field. It was pretty darn cold out then, too. When we got home I watched the UB Bulls game, but fell asleep before the final… go Bulls!

Saturday morning was a holiday breakfast at the kids school, which included crafts & games. Then I worked some more, then got ready to go out with Laura. We went out to dinner, tried to do some shopping (we went to 3 stores, and none had the toy I was looking for), then went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert at HSBC Arena. What an amazing show! I got lots of good ideas for next year’s Christmas lights

I was back to work after the show, and got to witness a rarity… a thunderstorm with snow! At first, I thought my light display blew-up. It was pretty impressive, but didn’t drop too much snow.

Sunday started like any other Sunday, heading to Church; Jason made it interesting with a stomach bug (I won’t get into the details, but let’s just say puke freezes at 20° in about 5 minutes). When we got home, I decided to get my Christmas shopping done.. an hour later and orders placed with Amazon & others, I was done… I love shopping online BTW – Amazon had the toy I was looking for the other day.

Sunday night finished with dinner at the Bishop’s, where we had a 2005 Hardys Oomoo Unwooded Chardonnay. I finally found a white wine that I like! I think this was my 5th bottle of white that I’ve tried; the others were either too fruity & syrupy or too dry. Then my father-in-law broke out The Glenlivet and threatened to disown me if I didn’t like it. Wow… I have to get some of this. Very smooth. I was under pressure to like it, but it really was good stuff.

So this morning, with the alarm clock to the other side of my bedroom, which forced me to get out of bed to turn it off, I actually got up at 5AM to go to the gym. If the alarm was still right next to me, there’s no way I was going to get up… it was only 17° out this morning, and since we don’t heat our bedroom, getting out of bed to turn off the alarm was shocking. But I got up & made it to the gym! Hopefully I can finish up at a reasonable time tonight & make it 2 days in a row!

Now I’m sitting here… waiting for some keywords to process. Yeah, back to work.

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Hi everyone – I know I haven’t updated in a while. Here’s what’s going on with the Nagel family:

The kids have both started school. Becca cried a bit the first couple days on the bus, but she’s doing great now.

Jason is doing good in school so far this year. He’s also in soccer, Cub Scouts and started viola lessons. Yeah, for some reason, he wanted to play the viola this year.

Becca lost 2 teeth & the tooth fairy had to make 2 trips to our house in the past couple weeks. She started ballet this week with a few of her friends from school. Laura is also starting a Daisy troop for her to get started in Girl Scouts. She is also playing soccer (she’s a Timbit!), although he’s a bit nervous at games.

Morgan is taking ballet with Becca. She and Laura take long walks almost daily, and seem to be at the library 2-3 times each week.

Laura is busy organizing the new Daisy troop with Becca and her friends. She’s also lugging the kids all around town to all of their various events.

I’ve been working with the Cub Scouts & getting the year started. And working – a lot. I also found out earlier this month that I don’t have an eardrum in my left ear anymore. Instead of getting a replacement from a cadaver, I’m going to wait to see what modern medicine can offer in 5-10 years. Oh, and I start going to a new gym on Monday – can’t wait. It’s so nice… there’s TVs in the locker rooms, along with leather benches and wooden lockers. If that’s the locker room, imagine the rest of the gym! I’ve been doing 5-mile runs once / week (in addition to my weight-lifting workouts) to get ready for the Turkey Trot.

I think I’m going to try to get the pool closed this weekend, since it’s getting pretty cold at night and the solar heater isn’t keeping it warm enough to go in (especially when the hot tub is SO inviting).

We’ve got a camping trip scheduled for later this month, then we take a deep breath for October, which is going to be a whirlwind month (birthdays, wedding, lots w/ Scouts, and a Bills party at the end of the month).

If you were looking for something related to affiliate marketing, this isn’t it. Remember I have an RSS feed strictly for those things (if you don’t want to read about my family & other random thoughts). I’m open to topic suggestions, too, especially if it’s from a programming (PHP) angle (although next may be part 2 of the geo-targeting post).

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I had a series of topics I wanted to write about, but I simply haven’t had the time. So instead I’m cramming them all in one. Sorry. Get over it.

Dad’s Retirement
My Dad retired last week. Not retired like he thinks I am (I work from home) but really retired. Like golfing every day retired. Keeping the nice people at NetFlix busy retired. Really retired. Of course the GM shareholders found out and started dumping GM’s stock.

Kiva
My Kiva loan (tortilla production in Honduras) was repaid the other day, and I reinvested it – this time in a chicken operation in Tanzania. Like the first loan, I should get my money back in 10 months when I’ll pick another operation to loan the money to.

Wicked
Steve took Laura and I to dinner & Wicked last week. I tried reading the book, but after about 1-1/2 hours, I was only about 8 pages in, and gave up. Some things I just can’t read. Anyway, the play was great – excellent storyline. I’d say there were a few songs they could’ve cut out, and Shea’s could have turned on the A/C – it was HOT in there! But we had a great time.

Fantasy Island
The next day, we went to Fantasy Island with the Fitzpatricks. This was the kids first day of summer vacation, so we wanted to treat them. I think we were last at Fantasy Island 2 years ago. The park was practically empty! After a long day on the rides & such, we went to Friendly’s for dinner. What a deal – 5 of us ate, with ice cream, for under $40. Can’t beat that!

Canada Day
Finally, yesterday we went to the Buffalo Yacht Club to watch the Canada Day fireworks at Ft. Erie. The club was closed, but we managed to get in anyways and had the balcony to ourselves.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Rebecca graduated from Pre-K today – congratulations!!! After the first day, I didn’t think we’d ever make it. Her class sang 4 songs for us, then received their diplomas. Only one of the songs made me tear up a bit (not as much as my mom!). Then we went to Pizza Hut!


Jason goes in for a few hours tomorrow, then the kids are done ’til September! We have so much planned for this summer – it’s going to be busy, but we’re going to have a great time!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Lots going on in the Nagel household now that summer is here – and it’s officially here! It was hot here this past weekend – hitting 82 on Saturday and 87 on Sunday.

We had plans to open the pool, so Saturday morning I was out in the yard at 6:30 to get started on things. Aside from a backwards check-valve causing a minor flood as the filter pumped the pool water onto my lawn, things went pretty well. I shocked the pool & got the solar heater installed, set the winter cover over the swing set to dry, and was pretty much done in time to take the kids to the monthly Home Depot workshop.

It was so nice on Saturday that they decided to hold the workshop outside! In the parking lot! In the direct sun! Man, it felt like it was well over 100 degrees out there. We quickly (very quickly) got the project done & went inside. I picked up a few things for future projects and we were home in 45 minutes. Just thinking about being out there makes me sweat.

Laura & the kids went to Art Alive at the Albright Knox while I stayed home & finished up the pool and got started on the hot tub. The hot tub was emptied, cleaned, filter cleaned, and fresh water put in. I can’t wait to get in there tonight! Being in the sun all that time made us all sleepy, so we were able to sneak in a quick nap before friends came over for dinner.

After dinner we drove down to Penn Dixie to look at the stars, the moon, and Saturn. We also saw the International Space Station zoom overhead. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty amazing. It looks like a really, really high plane going super fast. The Space Station travels at 17,000 miles / hour. Hopefully we’ll be able to see it tonight, too (at 9:47 here in Buffalo).

Sunday morning we were all up early and headed up to the cottage to have fun & get some work done. I was up on the roof with my father-in-law (who I still insist on calling Mr. Bishop, although my mother-in-law is “Mom”), finishing the front of the garage roof. That went pretty well, despite the hot temperatures. Hauling 90 lb. rolls of roofing up a ladder is much easier this year now that I’m in better shape. The hardest part is remembering where NOT to step, as we haven’t done the back side of the garage yet, and that’s where we were bringing the supplies up from.

When we were done roofing, Jason was out playing in the water and almost floated back to Dunkirk in his raft, and I had to run after him (fully dressed, mind you) before he was swept out too far. I think I went out about 150 yards – but the water was still only chest deep. Lake Erie, by the way, is still pretty darn cold these days! As soon as I got to him, Jason said, “I know… I’m dead.” How can I be mad at him when I get a response like that??? And besides, any 9-year old boy gets in situations like that. I’m just glad he’s OK.

Coming home from the cottage is always an adventure, but we pulled right into customs (no line on a Sunday night!) and got though after answering hardly any questions at all (just “Citizenship?” and “Anything to declare?”). It helps having the packet of paperwork all neatly presented for customs.

Then there was Monday… boy, was it HOT. And there’s no A/C in my office yet, and my office is in the attic. Well, I wasn’t very effective at work yesterday. It was just miserable. I took some time to get in the air conditioned car and headed to Best Buy to buy a new camera. Ours is dying, and with Rebecca’s pre-K graduation coming up, I didn’t want to take chances. I’ll write a review on the camera soon – so far, I like it.

This morning I signed on to the computer, checked email, etc. then turned off IM, email and all other distractions. I worked ’til lunch, ate and quickly checked in, then back to work ’til 4:30 before checking in one more time for the day. I had a SUPER productive day today and can’t wait to try this again tomorrow. Some things still take time, like working in PHP, then realizing I need a header, so going to Photoshop and making it, then editing the CSS to display it, then back to the PHP task I was originally working on, but I feel like I got a lot done today.

OK – this is a long post. Quickly – the vegetable garden is coming along very nicely and we’ve already harvested some spinach for a salad the other evening. I think Laura is getting some of the lettuce out today. Fresh picked spinach tastes far superior to the stuff you get in stores!

This long post is proof I need to blog more often. I’ll try to get 1 more in this week!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

The other day we were watching an episode of Hannah Montana and they showed some photos of when Miley was much younger. I think she looks exactly like Rebecca! Check this out:

Miley:

Rebecca:

It’s hard finding a photo of Rebecca not showing off her beautiful teeth, but what do you think? Rebecca thought they look similar, and she loves the idea that she looks like Hannah Montana!

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.