So on Saturday we did a photo shoot at the Dallas Arboretum. I have learned alot more about photo taking. But the one thing I don't know is what makes a photo good or bad. Right now I am displaying the photos I like to see. All I have is my opinion to go by. See the media section for high quality pics. For lower quality visit my facebook albums. For you FIOS TV customers there is a widget where you can access your facebook account on your TV and even view the albums. Talk about an easy slideshow maker.

Yup, Holly should be inducing in a week. However she is going to the doctors today so we shall see if it really going to happen then. The carseat is finally in the honda and the microwave is out of it. Holly was like, "um, are we going to put the baby in the microwave?" It was funny.

In other news I going to a podiatrist on Wed. My foot is still hurting even after the doc gave me a prescription for aleve. I hope I don't get a cortisone shot though. I hear tell that it is excrutiating. I really do blame those oh too comfortable shoes. I guess I learned my lesson. How was your weekend?

Today I vent. So there is this article that came out today on msnbc entitled "why americans hate fat people". I am like, what?? People hate me. Apparently I am a drain on our health system and I have no self control and am eating up their health care resources. Wow, I didn't know skinny people thought that. Yeah well, those skinny people that are haters are arrogant, self righteous and are pretty dumb.

I think part of it is jealousy. I mean to only eat good food once in a while and force yourself to starvation for some kind of materialistic ideal because you want to look like everyone else. I can see it. I remember back in the day when I was skinny. I heard my skinny coworkers say,"look at that fat person, I can't believe they can't stand themselves" Of course there is the obligatory, "how's it going big guy" you hear occasionally as well. That's not that bad, but I don't say, "how's it going bald guy?" or "how's it going big nose?" or "how's it going shorty?"

The fact is, people who are mean are going to feel good about themselves when they are being mean and that indicates low self esteem. I have learned in life to never compare myself with anyone, fat, skinny, rich, poor. I live for my ideals and not others judgements. I have never done anything because someone insults me. Granted I have been taking steps to correct my health problems, but it has nothing to do with appearance. So if medicine does work then I shall take advantage of it. I'm here, I'm fat, Deal With It!

Tick tock. As time is counting I am readying my technology. I've got a camera bag and have charged all of my devices. I will be taking 3 video sources: my new camera which records in HD, my flipshare which records in HD on flash memory and my old HD camcorder which records on tapes. I figure if I can setup the cameras at multiple angles I can get a professional looking video with camera switches and stuff. I think I have the equipment to do alot. I remember back in the day there was a big release of Star Wars fan films, where fans and their friends make short films like they are in the star wars universe. Me and my friends always wanted to make one. I wonder if we could do that now with all of my cameras. It, of course, would be really low budget and cheesy so it would have to be a comedic fan film. I guess one of us needs to come up with a script.

Of course the latest thing is I have lost my projector remote. Remember my gift I gave all 11 of my wedding crew, the remote finder. I wish I had that thing. I think the remote has gone bye bye. So for now I am having to actually go to the projector and switch things manually. Oh woe is me... I remember back in the day having to get up and turn a little knob that only went to 13 channels. I can't imagine turning on a radio show in the 40s. What did they do for entertainment? Read a book?

The last full book I read was Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. It was an interesting read, but mostly not applicable to me. Half of the book goes into steps to do after you have paid everything off, like save for retirement, pay off the mortgage, save for college, invest in mutual funds and all of those things that debt free people do. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. I think it has helped millions of Americans get out of debt. It is amazing how practically everyone is in debt and his plan really knocks it out quickly. The problem with his plan though is you have to sacrifice your lifestyle and live off of beans and rice and put all you've got towards the debt, including savings and vacations and anything leftover. It is very harsh but it does seem to work for those who can discipline themselves. It has pearls of wisdom in it so I recommend it.

The latest books I am reading are "Photography for Dummies" and "The Nikon D5000 Field Guide". They are good books as well, even though I just started reading them. Who knows, maybe I can get good enough to do real photo shoots and actually get paid for my skills. It is kind of like being in a band. When you are good you get paid for something you love to do. However, it did take me 16 years of guitar playing to get good enough to be a professional. I wonder if I can speed up this photograpy thing. Who knows. More tests...

Well today is an interesting day. I am currently working from home. Apparently the federal building had a backed up septic system on the first floor so they evacuated and sent us all home. I like working from home. The interesting thing is, I actually do more work when I am at home. For instance, while I used to take an hour lunch at regular work I only take about 15 minutes for lunch when I am at home since my laptop is right in front of me. Then my concept of time goes right out of the door when I am at home. I remember working from home back in the day and it would be common to look at the clock at 8PM and go, oh maybe I should stop working. The laptop is always on and people are always working, even in the evenings, so it is easy to keep on working although I am restricted to 40 hour work weeks.

Now of course there are many benefits of working at home. I get to keep the TV on in the background since my tasks don't require extreme concentration. Plus whenever I know I will be working from home I just have to drag myself to the living room without having to get dressed. That is fun. However, it can get lonely if you keep it up for a while. Granted there are always conference calls, but there is no substitute for human interaction.

Right now the government is big on going green and is actually pushing all of their employees to work from home at least one day a week. Of course since I am a contractor that doesn't apply to me. It is weird though cause you see all the employees "working from home" all of the time and even though you are capable of working from home the client doesn't want us to. But I predict once the employees do it regularly, the contractors will eventually get permission to do it regularly. Maybe in a couple of years or so. BTW, how is this blog? Is anyone reading it?

Ah, its been a while since I have written. So what am I up to? What are you up to? Well, obviously the baby is coming in 13 days, at least that is what is scheduled. Recently I did take the plunge and got a DSLR camera, the Nikon D5000, for taking perfect baby pictures. For those unaware a DSLR is a bigger camera with a telephoto lens that people use to take portraits. I have been bitten by the shutterbug. The cool thing is the service I use to store my photos called Phanfare will let me upload whatever photos I want in its native size and it will appear on this site and if I want on facebook as well with the click of a button. Then you can order prints and albums and everything from the pics. It is kind of like flickr except it is easily customizable and they will also store up to 20 minutes of HD video, something my camera takes as well.

I always recommend storing your photos online because if your hard drive crashes you will miss those pictures. It happened to me a year ago as I lost all of my pictures from before 2000. I think this technobug is in my blood as well. I remember dad with big lights trying to get that perfect shot. If you want to see what it can do look at my last two albums in the photo section. I even took a class at the local camera stop on Sunday. It was called beginning DSLR. Basically the idea is to learn how all of the settings work. They taught me a little bit about aperture and shutter speed and ISO settings. They also showed why DSLR is better than point and shoot. With DSLR you can make the subject perfectly focused and the background out of focus. That is a portrait. Point and shoots will make everything clear, even the background. That is called a snapshot.

Anyways, I got a couple of books on the subject and figure I might as well get into this as a hobby. If you get good enough you can even do photo shoots for money and even sell photos online and make your money back. However, I still wonder, what makes a good photograph? I mean I could take a picture of a soda can and make it look good using the camera. But is it really good, or is all good art really just an opinion of the masses? Anyways, this weekend we went to the Star Wars art show and it gave me a chance to learn how to take pictures. Holly even got put in stormtrooper handcuffs as I took her picture. That was fun. How was your weekend?

Greetings to all the visitors from BrianAldenBass.com. Welcome to the new and improved website. This site has more features than the last one and there are still more to come. The first big one is our album. If you go to the media section of the site you will see photos and videos that span all the way back to the year 2000. The great thing about this part of the site is that I have integrated it into a photo sharing service called phanfare. What that means is whenever I upload pictures and video from my new Nikon D5000 it will come directly to this site. That is pretty cool.

Some other features of this site are that on top of my blog, which has been completely transferred over, now Holly has a blog to call her own. Also the news page is rather interesting. I built that to be able for me to send a text message to update the news section. It also contains the latest post by me and Holly using the google data api. So basically the news page will be up to date as well.

The site is still ongoing and I will add other stuff to it and make it look prettier. I know, that is not conan obrian in the logo, that is a characature of me and Holly done by a Dallas artist. So everyone enjoy the site! I plan on this being a site that the family will use to keep everyone updated on our latest happenings.

Today let me talk about my wife, Holly. She is the apple of my eye, the best women around. I knew when I married her two years ago that God had put us together and as two years have passed I can say it still. It is amazing how we mesh together. How we are so very different from many marriages including my parents. There are no harsh words, no caustic remarks. There are no fights, no games, no power struggles. We are partners and are very happy together. We are one. I love her with all my heart.

As I think about the past two years I know without her my life would have been worse. She was with me on my rise to fame and on my fall. She was with me on my struggles, and I was with her on hers. We listen and talk about everything. I was given advice years ago by a good friend that the women I marry should be better than me and I followed it. She is more kind and considerate than I ever could be. In our wedding the pastor told everyone how I said she was the sweetest girl I had ever known. That is still true. It is not a sweet thing like "look at the fuzzy puppy, lollipop" kind of sweet. It is more of a sensual coyness with happiness. It is so hard to describe. It like seeing perfection out of the corner of your eye while driving. It is the smile and face and neck and shoulders all melding into one. It is kindness and gentleness when not asked. It is sacrifice when not deserved, a true reflection of our salvation.

Yup, I love my wife. As we partake in having a new child I can only think how much more love I will give. It is awesome to think that I didn't deserve my wife and now I don't deserve my child. I am truly a blessed man. I know it is from faith, not from works that my blessing comes. Many times I do feel like a fool with something so good that I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to act bad lest I bring us down. Holly makes me a better person. She inspires me to be a man of God. She accepts me as myself even if I am different than her. She is my best friend. It fills me with joy whenever I think about her. What an awesome wife. Happy Anniversery Holly!
Love,
Brian

So this weekend was a weak end. On Friday it started off well with lunch at my favorite restaurant of all time, Rafain's. They are a brazilian churascura and that is the place where we had our wedding rehersal dinner. Then Friday night we went to Black Eyed Pea for dinner. Never go there. So afterwords we go shopping at Babies R Us, our new walmart, and I start to feel really flushed and sweating. We went home and watched TV. Later that evening I was hot, then cold, then hot, then cold. I couldn't breathe well, even with my machine I felt quesy. It really felt like I had a hangover and I haven't had one of those in about 5 years. So I ended up doing a yakoff smirnoff in the bathroom and broke my current streak. I blame Balck Eyed Pea considering Holly was a little bad as well. Never go there. I ended up falling asleep after it was over and woke up with a thought that it was all a bad dream, a horrible nightmare.

On Saturday we took a mini trip to Wichita Falls to visit mom. We did our usual IHOP trip. They know mom there. I also got mom a new humidifier and changed the air filter on her air conditioner. Mom is doing well. Mom has gotten thinner. I think she needs some new clothes. She is still letting the neighbors take care of things. I am like, whatever, even though they stole from you. I told mom eventually her credit card company will take her to court to get the money. But, I am for that because I do agree mom shouldn't have to pay for it and maybe she should have her day in court. I tried to get her setup with a facebook account, but I highly highly doubt she even turns on her computer so I wouldn't bother befriending it.

On Sunday we did the usual Church/Sunday school. Later on we had took Princess to her doggy training. She does just fine in class, but when she comes home she forgets all she learned, except how to sit. I think she has that down. I am also working on creating a new web site. This time it is purely personal. This blog will be moved to a new website address, complete with an easily updatable photo album and even more features. I think yall will enjoy it. Stay tuned... How was your weekend?

As Brennon soon arrives I am thinking about taking the plunge into the world of photography. Right now I have a cannon powershot 5mega pixel camera. The pictures quality it takes is simply ordinary and sometimes grainy. It is not that special. I was in Best Buy the other night and took a look at the digital SLR cameras. They are the next step for the camera enthusiest. What you get with those cameras are crisp and clear images that professionals use. The lenses and the focus make SLR cameras one step above. I could tell a difference when I was testing them out.

Of course entry level SLR cameras cost around $500. I was reading the other day on cnn about how sometimes things that are important are worth the extra money and actually do bring satisfaction. But of course being rational is something that tends to go bye bye when you talk tech toys. I think it is in my blood.

But I am no photography expert. I think I could be if I read a good book on it. That kind of stuff though is like an addiction. In the beginning you get one camera with one lens and then you realize there are tons of lenses that give you different shots. I seem to remember my dad having tons of lenses and bright lights. I don't know if I am going to take the plunge with SLR. It would be good for baby pictures, but will it be good for the wallet? Probably not.

I've been thinking about where technology is heading. I think this Christmas will actually be a good season for technology. For one, Microsoft is releasing Windows 7, which has had tons of good reviews. Top it off with Netbooks (PCs costing $400) and cheap terabyte hard drives you've got a good reason to upgrade. If they can get netbooks with Windows 7 then people will be happy. However, Windows 7 is purported to work on all computers that have Vista on it, so really all you need to do is upgrade the operating system. But I am willing to bet alot of people who have been waiting for 5 years to upgrade are waiting on Windows 7 and will upgrade their whole setup.

However, even though NetBooks are the big thing right now I predict their popularity will fade next year. I think it is because you still have to carry something, might as well carry something that is powerful and has a bigger screen size. It's like what is the difference between 2 pounds and 10inches and 4 pounds and 18 inches, about $1000. So next year laptops will start to go down even further in price and then it will reach a point of about $600 for a good laptop. Then netbooks will go away. Then there will be a new product come to market. I predict Apple will bring it first. It will be a foldable laptop that can fit in your pocket. That is the future. They already have screens that can fold, they just need to engineer the whole thing together to create an iPhone with a 18inch foldout screen and foldout keyboard. They also have mini-projectors now too. You could forego the foldout monitor and just project the whole thing from the phone onto a wall or a piece of paper.

Convergence is getting closer and closer. Like I can listen to my songs that are on my computer at home with Simplify for the iPhone. I can watch any DVD using ORB on my iPhone and another computer. And I can even use LogMeIn to access any computer from my iPhone. So say you did have a phone with a projector in it, all you need to do is connect to LogMeIn and you will have a complete virtual PC in your pocket. Pretty cool. I remember I created a business plan for a new company I called freeverge.com. I even bought the domain cause it is a cool name. Basically it allows the iPhone user to watch NetFlix on their iPhone using a SlingCatcher and a SlingPlayer. However with the recent announcement that NetFlix streaming is coming to the iPhone I am glad I didn't persue that. Patience is a virtue.

So last night was our last baby class. It was held at Babies R Us and they went over caring for your baby. In my generation dad's actually participate in all of the caring rituals. Although I think at these classes we might learn a little too much. Like you don't want to know what merconium and colostrum is. However, there is alot to know. For instance caring for the belly button, how to properly bathe and change a baby and the types of circumsicms and caring for it. There is alot of details. I probably will forget it all by the time Brennon is born.

They went over SIDS and how we should have nothing in the crib and he should sleep on his back. They also said the perfect temperature for sleeping is 68-73 degrees. I was like, yea! we don't have to turn the air up. They went over breastfeeding and how babies who do that are 90% less likely to get SIDS. Also, we need to keep him in two layers of clothes. They went over how to swaddle a baby. No sunlight the first year. No products with scents in them. No cold medicine the first 6 months. We shouldn't wear body spray or cologne either cause the baby will smell it when we hold him. Also, bassinets need to have a breathable fabric to be SIDS proof and only use them for like 2 months. They went over diaper rashes, how to burp a baby, and that we should entertain them when they are awake. Also they said when the baby first gets awake, change the diaper, breastfeed, then play until tired. She also noted how babies nowadays take longer to develop and said it is because we do let them sleep on their back. Back in the day when we slept on our stomachs we were able to do pushups and increase the strength of our muscles in our cribs and started walking at 9 months. Since our babies don't increase their muscles by sleeping on their backs they start walking around a year now and their muscle building takes longer. So she recommended some supervised stomach time for our babies.

I tell you, I think I am ready. I just need to install the carseat and Holly needs a diaper bag and we will have the necessities. She said at the sonogram on Monday they said the baby was already 5 pounds 11 ounces and he's got 5 weeks to go. I bet the 8 pounds are getting close. I think they rescheduled the inducing to September 8th with her going to hospital September 7th(labor day) to get ready for it. Anyways, if I am not ready I will be. People tell me, get sleep now. I think I'll take that advice.

Today is meeting day. I think I need to have a meeting about that. Can't get much done at a meeting except talking. Back in the day at another company I remember making bets with my coworker about who can get up to the board and draw a smiley face and make it flow with the conversation. That was fun. Maybe I should do that again...

Let's see. This weekend we went and saw Harry Potter on Friday. I never read the books so I just go for the entertainment value. I still don't know if I have ever seen all of the movies, but it is like a soap opera. The first movie we learn that Harry is meant to kill the guy who killed his parents. Four movies later he still hasn't got around to it. I think the best movie should be the final one. Then all you need to see is the first and the last one to get the gist. Anyways, it was actually an entertaining movie. Nothing bad with it. It kind of reminded me of Empire the way it ends, kind of like a downer. 3 out of 5 stars.

On Saturday we went to my brother Grant's house and visited with his family. He was gone on a sound job. He basically does two jobs, one at Honeywell and the other as owner of his sound company. So most weekends he is out running sound for bands and events. It is lucritive though. All you have to do is own the equipment and know how to operate it, then all you do is run sound for these events. Anyways, his family is doing fine. We saw the new baby. He is little and was under some kind of lighting system for jaundice. I think he looks a little like Grant. I also visited with my nieces and nephew. I can't believe Dylan is 12 years old. Makes me feel old. I was calculating the other day I now have 5 nephews and 4 nieces. I guess that means Brennon is going to have lots of cousins.

On Sunday I helped with the babies at the church nursery. This time I got the cryers. I guess I should get used to that. I am thinking about making an iPhone app that can detect wave patterns in babies crys and interpet what they are wanting. That would be an interesting project. Sunday afternoon I went to a friends surprise birthday party.

Today Holly went in for another sonogram. She will be 34 weeks this week. I wasn't able to go because my hours at work are getting real short. I no longer have personal days and just have 4 vacation days left. I guess I will take those when the kid is born. I haven't got the pictures yet, but Holly said he has alot of hair and a big head. Like 95th percentile big. I guess he is going to be smart. Although a big head means that the odds of doing a C-Section increases. I wonder how they can tell he has alot of hair? I am a very hairy individual. I wonder if he is going to come out with a beard. He is 5 pounds right now and they predict he will go up to 8 pounds. That is pretty good. I think I was 8pounds 6 oz when I was born, although I am not sure of my head. Despite what the naysayers think my head is actually pretty small. We shall see. We may need a huge pillow.