Trip to D.C.

Lori and I just got back from our final pre-baby vacation to Washington, D.C. I think we walked a grand total of 20 miles during our four-day stay. Although I can't confirm it, I'm fairly confident that our ankles are now nothing more than a collection of hairline fractures. It was totally worth the pain though; D.C. was amazing, and finally made me happy that my 8th grade trip was cancelled due to the 1st war in Iraq. It was definitely easier to appreciate at 30 than it would have been at 13.

Places like the Vietnam Memorial, Holocaust Museum, Korean War Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetary were as somber as you read about.


We pretty much saw all the standards, including:

• The Lincoln Memorial
• The White House
• Capitol Hill
• Numerous Smithsonian Institute venues (Natural History, Air & Space, National Zoo)
• The National Archives (Bill of Rights, Constitution, and so forth)
• Tons of other places I can't even remember

Lori was especially excited to see the Department of Justice, which prompted this display:


Aside from the monuments and memorials, D.C. is an incredibly clean and beautiful city (it had a very "Cambridge-y" feel in lots of places). You know, those places that weren't built out of thousands of tons of marble and granite.


After four days of touring the city (and an incredibly turbulent descent into Boston), it was nice to get back to the 'Ham and a delicious Dunkin's iced coffee.

Click here for our entire photo album from the trip.

Spinal Tap to Reunite

England's loudest band is reuniting for the Live Earth concert on July 7th at Wembley Stadium.

In addition to their performance, world-famous director Marty DeBergi will produce a new 15 minute short about the band's reunion. Simply awesome.

How could I leave this ... behind?

Lookin' for a HEARTBEAT!

At just over 11 weeks, we were treated this afternoon to the incredible sound of the baby's heartbeat. Everything was healthy and normal and wonderful!

Unfortunately, my cell phone sound recorder did not seem to get much of it recorded. To give you an idea of what we heard, here's a link to someone else's baby's heartbeat (it sounded pretty much just like this). I'm not sure how they got such a clear recording, but I'd like to find out how!

P.S. Anyone who got here by Googling "heartbeat" and expecting the epic Don Johnson music video from 1986 is going to be sorely disappointed.

Ok, fine. I can't let you guys down. Us dudes who are lookin' for a heartbeat need to stick together.

Parks and Dogs

On Friday we spent the night at historic Fenway Park watching the Sox begin their 3-game sweep of the Yankees, behind an amazing eighth inning comeback against Mariano Rivera. As you can see, the Sox wore green uniforms in honor of Red Aurbach.


Saturday was spent at Callahan State Park in Framingham with the Moens and their dog Scout. It was Scout's first time swimming, which added to the uber-cuteness.

Cody was happy to get back into the water on the first really nice day of the spring. Click the image above for more photos from the afternoon, or watch the video below of Cody fetching a stick.

I know what you're thinking ... this is what the internet was made for. Watching dogs fetch sticks.

I find your lack of altitude disturbing

In 2005, someone came up with the idea for a Darth Vader hot-air balloon, and it had its first flight about a month ago.

Hard to believe they can make all the points and contours of the helmet with fabric, but apparently it can be done!

Pizza Delivery at Fenway

Ummm ... yeah. I'm really not sure how to describe this. Just go ahead and watch this clip from the Patriot's Day Sox game.



See if you can count the tragedies in the clip (I came up with three distinct NOOOOO! events).

Perfect Harmony

I'd been eyeballing this contraption for a while, and buy.com finally ran a deal on the Logitech Harmony Universal Remote w/ support for the Xbox 360.

Is it entirely necessary? Of course not. Is it nice to have if you're juggling 4 remote controls for different components of your setup? Absolutely. I'm probably about 3 years late to the party on this technology, so bear with me as I describe how neat this thing is.

The remote plugs into your computer via USB, where you tell the software what components you own and what your 'Activities' are (watching TV, watching DVDs, playing Xbox, and so forth). The remote then assigns actions to all of the physical buttons on the remote, as well as allowing you to customize buttons and labels for the 'soft' buttons that appear on the lil' green screen (4 at a time, and you can create about 10 pages of buttons per Activity).

So, let's say everything in the room is off and I press the button for "Watch TV". The remote then:

• Turns on the TV
• Sets the TV input to the cable box
• Turns on the cable box
• Turns on the receiver
• Sets the receiver input to TV

That's taking what used to be seven button presses, and reducing it to one. Think of the extra time you can now spend with your family (if you weren't already watching TV)!!

Now the volume button on the remote controls the volume for the receiver, and the channel + - buttons control the channels on the cable box. Again, the software for the remote allows you to customize all of these buttons (although I found I only needed to add ONE button to the whole shebang after the software created the default setup). The software itself is very intuitive (think TurboTax, as it asks you questions about your setups in much the same manner).

After having the remote for a whopping 24 hours, I said to myself "Hmmm ... I'm hardly even touching this remote. Was it worth it?" Then I realized that was pretty much the whole point.

Recommended!

Weekend Update

Easter weekend was spent in Albany with Lori's parents and family. On Saturday, while the ladies went to the mall to shop for maternity clothes, Rick and I hung some drywall ceilings in the bathrooms and closets at the house they're renovating close to the city.

Saturday night, a bunch of us went to The Pillars restaurant in Lebanon Center for an amazing dinner. This place has been a Nehls family favorite for some time.

We sat at that table in the back, right in front of the fireplace (which was NOT in use, thankfully!).

On Sunday Eileen cooked up a great ham dinner, and the Masa family came by for the afternoon. We ate dinner, watched Happy Feet, and I was beaten repeatedly in games of 'Uno' and 'Trouble'.

Never, ever underestimate the board game powers of 10 and 6 year-olds.

Happy Easter

Because nothing says "Let's celebrate the resurrection of Jesus" like a rabbit and a baby duck.

This picture should help make sense of the holiday.

Happy Easter, all!

Fitness Puppy

It's a cold, rainy, miserable New England day. Is that any reason for Cody to not get exercise? Of course not!

On those days when it doesn't make much sense to go outside, Cody enjoys spending time on the treadmill to simulate his usual 2 mile walk.