Karrmedia

New Location!

2006-03-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

I have made this blog obsolete. Head over to http://mike.karrmedia.com.

Watch out

2006-03-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

KT is starting a blog and taking over my website. I'll post more about it when it's up! Also, don't forget to go to Eden Alley tonight at six!

Website for Erin

2006-02-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

We're posting memorial information on a website we made for Erin. http://www.erinsunshine.com

2006-02-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

Erin Susanne shines like the sun.
We miss you, Erin Sue.

Updates on Child

2006-01-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

KT says that I should post more about Nick's development, so here goes...

Nick can now crawl and sit, and go back and forth from crawling to sitting. He can pull him self up on anything, anytime, anywhere. He has six teeth showing, with three more ready to burst forth. He weighs a bajillion pounds. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, but oddly, cannot yet speak English.

I've recently started running. Running stinks though, so I'm joining a gym. I am able to exercise on an elliptical trainer for five consecutive minutes. Any more and I will vomit.

Tugboat

2006-01-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

I started running/jogging/walking this week on account of my increasing out of shapeness and expanding self. I am really, really out of shape. Hopefully it won't take too long for the excercise to become easier...

Long Weekend

2006-01-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Enjoying a nice long weekend with the family, not too much going on otherwise. We're selling Erin's Powerbook on Ebay. Know anyone who wants one?

Back Home

2006-01-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

We got back Sunday after a nice trip to Phoenix to visit friends and family. Nick was sick some of the trip, I was too, but we pulled it together to have a nice Christmas and New Year. Nick scored lots of toys and clothes, we came back with some nice stuff too, like a 12" Powerbook. KT digs it.

Nick popped another tooth through Tuesday night, he wasn't happy about it though, and by "popped" I mean KT pushed it through after hours of angry flailing and screaming. We didn't sleep so well that night, but he slept all night last night so hopefully we can get back to baby normalcy sometime.

New pictures are up at karrmedia.com, and Erin took some great ones that we need to scan and put up as well.

That's it for me... How was your holiday?

So, what's new?

2005-12-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

After getting a foot of snow a week ago the weather has returned to relative niceness and I was able to ride into work today. We rented the first disk of Firefly this weekend... I though it was really good so we'll be watching the rest soon. After seeing the first few episodes I'm a little sad that it didn't go longer.

Nick had another tooth break through today, that brings the total up to five. Is he supposed to have this many teeth yet? The kid has gone nutty with teething as a result.

We're getting ready to go to Phoenix for Christmas. Nick will get to leave the Midwest ex-utero for the first time and he'll get to meet the rest of my family. Should be fun, hopefully he'll get passed around a bunch and KT and I can sneak off to a movie or something.

I just finalized my reservations for my trip to Monterey in February. HP is footing the bill and I'm looking forward to a little seaside retreat as well as some more tablet immersion.

That's all for now.

Below Freezing

2005-11-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

My Bajaj does not
like this very cold weather
it stalls like I do

Cingular is Stinky

2005-11-16T07:13:00.000-08:00

I'd always liked Cingular/ATT, if nothing else but for their service area. But damn, how bad can your customer service be? Today I noticed that I've been getting charged for receiving text messages. I don't ever send them because I don't want to get charged for it. Of course just charging for texting is about as lame as it gets, but it seems that a number of carriers are on that bandwagon. So I called them up since I didn't get charged for texting from ATT and didn't get charged in the past for just receiving them, anyhow the woman on the phone was pretty rude about it, insisting that they always charge for receiving messages, even though their website states to the contrary... She even pulled up the same pages that I did, and read back items that were not on the page, adding words that weren't there... After she gave me a credit and blocked text messaging (it's the only way to avoid the charges) she hung up on me... Nice.

Folks I work with and relatives have even worse problems, where they open an account and then get billed for completely different plans, and then when they call they get treatment similar to mine, or worse, they've often been told that there is nothing that can be done. I don't really understand the business model of stick it to your customer... There's a reason for Cingular's poor loyalty rating and this is it. I'm happy to pay the money, I'd just like some service to go with the dollars I'm spending.

New pictures

2005-11-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

New pictures are up at karrmedia.com. I will hopefully accelerate my rate of picture updates as I now have two digital cameras. I had a Canon S230 that Dad gave me that broke just before the baby was born. Canon recently announced a recall that included that model so I called up their friendly tech support and sent it in. I thought it was just getting fixed, but yesterday when I opened the package I found a new SD450 inside. Now that's customer service. Anyway, I was pretty excited about that and read the manual last night, KT's taken some pictures already, I'll have to check it out soon too.

I'm a little slow.

2005-10-27T12:27:00.000-07:00

So I've been slow in mentioning that Nick has his first tooth! It popped out a week or so ago, is very hard to see because whenever you try to move his lip out of the way he sticks his tongue out. Pictures of said tooth are up at my site under personal. And, if they are not up already, there are some pictures of Nick in a delightful Tigger costume that Cheri bought for him for Halloween.

KT and I went to a Halloween party earlier this week and carved a Pumpkin. Nick went as Tigger and was loved by all. I carved a sweet looking pumpkin, but Erin's is better. Work is busy as always. I'm having a good time though, well supplied with toys and gadgets. I'm going to have to put up a picture of all the stuff I have sometime. It's getting out of hand.

Not dead

2005-10-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Oh blog, why have I abandoned you? We just spent some time in C-U last week, it was very pleasant an am looking forward to doing it again for Thanksgiving. This time I'm taking the whole damn week off. I need some vacation since work has been kicking my ass all over the place. Lots to do, lots of electronical toys to play with.

Nick's been changing a whole bunch lately, he smiles and laughs and plays and makes my arm incredibly sore if I hold him for more than five minutes. He's one thick chunk of baby. He's even been sleeping well though I still carry the vestiges of past days and wake up frequently throughout the night to the quiet sounds of baby and KT snoring. I wish I could say that I've done some exciting things lately... In some ways I have as I've really been enjoying family life lately, but excitement to me these days may not fit the same definition of others'.

Otherwise I'm also turning to a big ole lard ass and need to get to doing something. Others tell me that it took them about six months from the baby magically appearing to being able to do regular exercise. Sounds good to me... Looks like the new year will include me not sitting all the time to just most of the time.

I think I have some pre-Halloween candy to go track down now.

Nice surprise

2005-09-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

I was very excited to find out today that I have Monday off for Labor Day. It will be a nice chance to try to get caught up with stuff at home, like cleaning out the garage before our garage sale, properly cleaning up all the weeds in my driveway... Stuff like that.

It's been a while since my last post. In the space since then, Nicholas has gotten much bigger, KT's sister Erin has moved in with us and I've just been working and scootin' around. I rode to Leavenworth for a scooter rally with the scooter club. It was the longest day of riding I've had yet and my butt and back were super sore by the end of the day. I had a lot of fun though, and managed to not get sick after eating four hotdogs and a hamburger for supper.

Flickr

2005-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Happy Birthday, Katie!

2005-07-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

Today is Katie's birthday. I shall defer specifying her age, thanks to the undying internets as someone might google her 30 years from now and find that she has been the same age for 30 years. She could of course, get away with it as she is and shall remain as pretty as always.

Anyhow, happy birthday to the sweetest, most wonderful girl in the world!

fast post

2005-07-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

Slow in posting. I went to Portland for a week, got back and had a visit from my mom which was very nice, but that I had strep the whole time she was here and I was not very entertaining. Baby is very large and I will be posting more pictures soon. He's over 12 pounds now.

Went to an IRL race on Sunday, the first open wheel race I've been to. Very loud and quite fun. Watched the neighbors light fireworks in front of our house for the fourth, so we did not miss out altogether as we did not want to head out anywhere. Work has been very busy and draining, so energy levels outside and motivation have been low. Hopefully will be back in the saddle this week.

Stuff

2005-05-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Having a baby is funny because it really changes everything in unexpected ways. For example, it is really hard to unscrew bottles and jars with one hand. It is difficult to quickly react when a baby is vomiting on you.

The other night I was woken up at about 2am by KT calling me frantically. It took me a moment to figure out where I was, then where she was. She was standing in her underwear in the kitchen holding Nicholas and just held him out and said "help". She, Nick, the kitchen counter and numerous other items all splashed and I might even say smothered in breastmilk vomit. There were swathes of it in unexpected places as well and when I asked KT how they had managed this she said that the baby had began his chaotic upchuck in one direction, and then, in an effort to quell the firehouse of spew, quickly turned his head completely around, thus assuring an even coat.

I took Nick to the bathroom sink and hosed him off while KT tended to the carnage in the kitchen.

He has tossed his cookies on me numerous times, and every time there is no warning just his normal grunting and noisemaking and then "blark" and I'm doing laundry again.

Mom and Dad have sent me several nice gifts recently, including a digital camera. Hopefully I'll catch one of these miraculous blarking episodes on video for everyone to see. I might try to get some cute pictures too (sleeping).

Cursed

2005-05-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Forester is cursed.

Walked outside this morning to find that a parked car had rolled from the street into the exact area of the car as the last accident. I think we may want to think about trading this thing in.

He's Here!

2005-05-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Timothy Karr popped out of Katie on Saturday, May 14th at 10:57am. He weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces and measured 22 inches long. Katie and Nick are doing quite well, recovering at home with me. Nick is swinging peacefully in his swing right now as I type this and making cute little baby noises before his certain to be forthcoming flatulent storm.

Picture of Nick and the birth are available at http://www.karrmedia.com under the "Personal" link.

I was told that having a baby changes you powerfully and immediately. It's true, I feel far more connected to everything around me and much more a part of something. As well, I have discovered a natural talent swaddling and cry soothing. Nick is a big, beautiful baby and I feel incredibly lucky to have him here with us.

All we have to do now is convince him to abandon his vampire hours and try out sleeping at night and playing during the day.

Temporary Excitement

2005-05-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

We had a brief night of excitement on Saturday as KT began having regular contractions for about an hour. They vanished after that, but I think we got our hopes up for a bit. I've been talking to Nicholas and telling him he needs to come out now, but he's stubborn like his mother.

A bit of bad luck last week as we were taking pictures of KT's gigantic belly, the digital camera buzzed a little and died. Baby pictures will be temporarily delayed as a result. It fizzled out on Thursday, the original due date. I think it was plotting against us.

Anyway, still waiting.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

2005-05-05T13:06:00.000-07:00

Today is Nicholas's due date, but I don't think he's ready to compete with Mexican Independence. So the midwives say he'll be hanging out a little longer in KT's belly. Speaking of which, KT waddles like a duck. Maybe she'll start quacking like me and Grandpa.

Anyway, the midwives made an appointment for next Thursday for KT. I'm hoping she can't make it on account of birth. Another week or more of pregnant KT? I don't know if that's such a good idea. Come out, baby!

New pictures

2005-04-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

New pictures up at Karrmedia.com. Click on Personal... KT's mom thinks that the baby will come next week. Who knows? The room is almost ready so I guess baby is welcome to pop out anytime after Monday. Preferably before the 29th so I can skip out on a presentation at work...

Dad's visit was a lot of fun, I wish Mom and Alex could have come out too so I could convince them all to move out here. Dad seemed to like it though!

That's about it though. Getting ready to start waiting.

Baby shower

2005-04-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

Katie has a gigantic belly. It is inescapable. She finally got to see the scope of it when we were looking over videos of our baby shower in Illinois last weekend. We received lots of fantastic stuff from the shower which is awesome on account of the fact that we had very little to start with.

Dad is coming this weekend! Hopefully we'll get out and see Sin City. I think there are about a million movies out right now that I'd like to see that KT cannot for fear of corrupting the child. I've already corrupted myself, so no problems there.

I hope to have some pictures from the shower and updated pictures up on the website soon so everyone can bask in the glory of the planet sized attachment on KT's abdomen.

New toys (again)

2005-03-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

I can attribute the lack of updates recently to numerous factors, the topmost being the receipt of my new tablet pc. In short, it is the coolest thing ever. If apple made one of these things I'd be all over it. I have the HP TC1100 (http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/tabletpc/tc1100/) and it is glorious.

Still waiting for the car, looks like we'll have it back by the end of the month. Just in time for the baby shower on April second (I hope) . We still don't know anything about the car owner's insurance. Doesn't look like he had any so it'll probably end up costing us a bit. Bleh. We've been cruising around in the trusty Camry since then, and since I walk to work everyday (unless KT takes me) we haven't really felt too many ill effects aside from the pending monetary ones.

Nicholas has proven to be a madman, kicking and punching like crazy. Poor KT is sore and tired from his consistent pummelings and nightly internal beatings. Her bladder is definitely feeling the effects of pregnancy as well. I can't wait till he's here though, I have a nice list of toys building up for me... I mean Nick to play with.

And Ray, you should definitely come by on tour. We can put a few bandmates up in our guest room, just remember that everyone has to take turns changing diapers...

Bad host

2005-02-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm a bad host. I tried to kill Doug and Cheri tonight while on a quest for custard. Coming through a busy intersection I found us in the midst of a high speed police chase and we were hit by a the guy doing the running.

There was significant damage to the Forester, but everyone seems to have come out alright, and Nicholas appears to be in tip-top shape. Very scary though as we spun through the intersection. Lots of people stopped and checked on us and I think the police eventually caught the guy later on. I've never been in an accident like that before and I certainly hope to not experience that again. I called 911 and had an ambulance come so they could check on Katie and the baby and as I mentioned before, everyone came out fine.

We did eventually get our custard a couple hours later. I had a strawberry shortcake thing from Culvers. It was pretty good, and now Doug and I are sitting on the couch playing car crash games.

Progression

2005-02-15T06:41:00.000-08:00

Progress is a painstaking process. While many things come together many others need tending.

Life at the medical center is going well. I'm doing challenging work that will affect many students positively and hopefully help make them good doctors. I don't think I could ask for much more than that.

I've been neglecting taking and posting new pictures of Katie. I need to though, she's growing so fast, the baby will be here on no time at all. I'm excited. I talked to Katie about this the other day, I have no fear about the changes to come or our ability to raise children. These are things in which she has a natural ability and I figure I won't do too bad myself.

Was quite ill last weekend and thus got no work done on the house. Feeling better now, but I won't have the drywall hung in the baby's room before Doug and Cherie get here on the 23rd. I guess I'll have to put them to work while they are here. Otherwise it's pretty neat enjoying a nice comfortable place to call our own. I like it. Some time soon I'll clean up the place and put up some new pictures. They are overdue.

Katie started some temp work yesterday. I'm glad she has the chance to get out and do something away from the house. It won't be long before she's cooped up again.

We're In!

2005-01-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

A longish time since my last post on account of moving in and fixing stuff. We have lots of work to do on the house yet and a good percentage of our belongings are in boxes all over the place. Our first night was very cold as the thermostat was broken and the doors and windows are very drafty. Bob came over Sunday and helped install a new thermostat and covered up the windows for us so our subsequent evenings have been... warmer. It's been pretty cold in KC. Tonight I'll hook up the dryer I found in the garage. It seems to work, so there's one less thing to buy!

Just a short update as moving and work have converged to make the perfect blog-blocking storm.

It's a boy!

2005-01-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

It's a boy! That's what the ultrasound tech thinks, anyway. It sure looked like it to me. His name is Nicholas Timothy Karr, and he appears to be 1 pound, 3 ounces. I put some videos of the ultrasound up at http://www.karrmedia.com for you all to look at. Click on the "personal" link to see them.

After we visited the midwives I went to the house and put on the first coat of polyurethane on the top floor. Getting closer! There are some pictures of the house at my website too.

Getting There

2005-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Work was cancelled yesterday due to the ice storm so Bob and I rented a big floor sander and an edger and attacked the top floor yesterday. It looks pretty good now, just needs some touching up before I put on the polyurethane. This stuff really is taking far longer than I expected. As well, the weather is keeping the termite sprayers away, which in turn delays when we can move in due to toxicity of the chemicals.

I'll head over tonight and finish up the sanding. If I'm lucky I'll even get a coat of poly down. It all takes about twice as long as I think it will though.

In other news, Katie will have her ultrasound tomorrow. We'll find out the baby's sex and if there are ten of them in there and the like. I'm glad I've got housework to distract me, or else I'd be pretty fixated on this event! Really, I can't wait for tomorrow afternoon.

Homeownership

2005-01-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

Hey, KT and I are now homeowners!

Being a homeowner has been rather difficult thus far. At Bob's urging we decided to refinish the hardwood floors. We have one more coat of polyurethane to put on the main level and then must proceed to continue heavy sanding of the top level due to poor staining techniques by owners past. By we I mean Bob, Karsen and I as KT can have nothing to do with polyurethane.

I'm also replacing a wall that was in poor shape and perhaps will do a bit of painting here and there. We hope to move in this weekend, though that will depend on how soon I finish the upstairs room. So far, homeownership has left me a little tired and with a sore back.

Tomorrow

2004-12-29T17:55:00.000-08:00

If all goes well I'll be a homeowner by this time tomorrow. Insurance purchasing has been our last holdup until this afternoon, KT found a different company than the one that wanted us to track down documentation for a $291 claim that the current owner made two years ago. Apparently that was enough to hold up a house purchase. No thanks, someone else can have our money.

After all tha tis done tomorrow I'll begin the long process of creating a list of repairs and changes. Hopefully I'll start knocking things off of this list this weekend. First thing, nursery.

Christmas Eve

2004-12-24T15:56:00.000-08:00

I was reading Ray's blog and he was talking about going to see The Life Aquatic. I'd like to see that too, I've thought that since Rushmore Bill Murray reminds me of my Dad. I though tthat way espescially after seeing Lfe in Translation, particularly when Dad was working in Japan. I wondered at the kind of solitude that he had to take, at odds with my opposite situation now.

Last Christmas my sister stayed with us in Flagstaff. This year though we find ourselves staying in KC, and I definately miss my family now. Dad will be out here in March though, and Mom and Alex in July. It feels like a long time... But, I have my family here too, and tomorrow will be another Christmas morning. I appreciate every Christmas morning that I spend with my wife, and all of the mornings yet to come.

Waiting

2004-12-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

The powers that be here just told everyone that they could leave for the holiday. I'm stuck waiting a bit for the Dell people that never showed up to fix that silly PC yesterday. I'm not particularly happy with them right now. On the bright side I just tested out video chat from my office successfully and spent a fair amount of time talking to my folks. That was pretty nice and improved my outlook for the day.

Not much going on otherwise. A quiet day at the office thus far. Some Christmas dinner plans coming up, including a Chef Bob prepared big ass Ham. Ham is great. I love Ham. I like it so much it gets proper noun treatment.

Right now it's 17 degrees outside. It was somwhere around five degrees this morning, and my face is still red and windburned from the walk into work. I was told it didn't get too cold here or snow much before I moved here. It has become apparent that those were lies. I need to find the box with my earmuffs and scarves before my ears fall off.

New phones

2004-12-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

I ordered new phones and service from Cingular. I got KT a Motorola V220 and a V180 for myself. After some poking around I discovered that these phones work great with iSync and address book on my Powerbook. The Dell guy still hasn't shown up to fix the steaming pile, so these experiments are happy fun time filling adventures.

Anyone know if there is a comparable free package on Windows that does the same thing? It's awfully nice to have things just work. Time to see if the Axim follows suit.

Edit: The answer is no, the Axim does not follow suit. And I ain't buying the Missing Sync either.

Toys

2004-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

So I have this cool new Axim... I don't know how to use it! Can someone tell me what's out there for apps and stuff? Does Pocket PC 2003 use anything like graffiti? Tapping on the mini keyboard is super lame.

My new Dell PC blew up yesterday. A stinky burning mess. I brought the Powerbook to work to use in the meantime. Can't install any new ppc apps in the meantime though. Eating chedder goldfish, time to get back to work.

Impatient

2004-12-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I faintly heard the baby's heartbeat with a stethescope. It seems so small and far away, but it was there. Then last night the baby started kicking, KT felt it first and then I put my hand on her belly and felt it too! Baby kept KT up for a while, I was too tired to really enjoy it since it was about 12:30 or so and I needed to get some sleep. So if the baby is a boy, his name will be Nicholas Timothy, if baby is a girl, then Madeline Rose. In the meantime the baby's name will be madolas.

House closing has moved again to next Thursday the 30th. I guess closer is better, I have New Years eve off, I can theoretically spend it breaking things in the new house. I'm getting fat and lazy, I'm looking forward to getting physical.

Some people at work came through and got me a Dell Axim X50. Lots of bells and whistles like bluetooth, wifi, big ol' screen. It's fun. Wireless internet in the palm of my hand is awesome, if not hard to read. Still waiting for my tablet though. Really looking forward to that, I'm ready to change the way I look at and use computers.

Quiet Time

2004-12-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Sitting here, alone for the first time since I moved to Kansas City in September, I realize that I don't feel any different than when the rest are around. Apparently I've become good enough at isolating my mind from this environment that it no longer matters. Or maybe the presence of private time hasn't sunk in yet. It will be over soon, but even now I feel a tenuous peace on needles. I'm not comfortable. Haven't been since I got here. Ignoring it is no problem, but I've never liked watching things go by without having my hands in the mix.

We're right of the verge of really beginning. New house, baby will be here soon, my new job... I'm afraid if I start paying attention now I won't like what I see. Maybe it just a fear of what I can't yet see.

Home Buying

2004-12-17T18:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I finished building a railing around the deck of the house that we theoretically will own on the 31st. Silly stuff, having to work on a house that isn't yet ours, but it's cheaper than paying someone else to do it. The situation is strange, as we qualify for a grant for this house that has some pretty stringent requirements. It's worth enough money to be worthwhile, but has also extended our closing time by about a month. We have it pretty good right now living with the in-laws, but I know I'd rather be living under my own roof again. Only two more weeks to go. I hope. We thought we were going to be closing today until just a few days ago. House buying is hard.

First Post

2004-12-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

I thought it was time to detail life as I'm in transition. House closing should be on the 17th. I'm getting ready to actually start living in Kansas City.

Anyway, my name is Mike, I recently moved with my pregnant wife Katie from Flagstaff, AZ to Kansas City, Kansas. I plan on talking about pregnancy, house buying and future fatherhood as well as countless other subjects in the times to come. That's it! Thanks for looking.