I let some strange guy hold me while touring the USS Iwo Jima during Fleet Week

For Memorial Day, I toured the USS Iwo Jima while it was docked on the Hudson River for Fleet Week. You can read about the USS Iwo Jima HERE.

Picture of the Day: Shopping at Costco with Mommy

Picture of the Day: I pulled down the mat by myself. Now, I can play peek-a-boo with you!

Constructive Criticism vs. Destructive Criticism

Do you know the difference between "constructive criticism" and "destructive criticism"?

Constructive criticism is whenever I criticize you. Destructive criticism is whenever you criticize me.

Picture of the Day: I love you and all, but I'm going to crawl to the other side of my apartment now.

Picture of the Day: Ok, I'll smile again.

Picture of the Day: Yeah, I'm teething. Everything goes in my mouth.

Picture of the Day: Now I lay me down to sleep...

Katie Food Update

It's been a while since I've posted any update about Katie's food. The reason for that is that, well, her food is pretty boring. She eats minced up fruits, veggies and meats. She also eats grains and yogurt. But, this week, we have started something new. She now feeds herself finger foods. She's getting very good at popping little organic baby puffs in her mouth.

Picture of the Day: If Daddy won't share his pizza, I'll eat my stroller. Strollers are fun to eat.

Picture of the Day: Daddy gets to eat a slice of New York pizza while I play in my stroller. Not exactly fair.

Picture of the Day: After Daddy left the office, we went over to Bryant Park and ate dinner together. Mommy and Daddy had bbq chicken. I didn't.

We're Not Raising No Dummy

In the last week, list of skills has grown considerably. For quite a while now, she's been doing the army crawl. For a while she has also liked to go over to objects and pull on them. Now, she crawls (not an army crawl any more - a full blown racing crawl) over to items and pulls herself up to the standing position.

A few minutes ago, I put Katie on the floor. She promptly crawled over to her toy box, stood up and then started to pull each toy out one by one. Within a couple minutes, she had made a pretty considerable mess. Her toys were spread all over the floor.

Katie stood by her toy box and surveyed her work. She seemed quite proud of herself.

Suddenly, Katie let out a squawk. As I stood next to her, she did the the cutest thing ever - she lifted her harms as if to say, "Hold me. I want you Daddy." It was adorable.

Of course, I immediately picked her up. I'm a well-trained Daddy.

As soon as I picked her up, she seemed to forget me. She started surveying the room again. Her eyes carefully scanned back and forth across the floor. She was clearly looking for a particular toy. As soon as she found it, she motioned that she wanted back down, and she crawled right over to the little wooden book that is her toy of choice for the week. She ain't no dummy.

Picture of the Day: 9 months ago today, Katie made her grand entrance into this world

Picture of the Day: I'm really pretty.

Baby's Growing Up

It is official! Katie no longer does the "army crawl." She is a full-blown crawler now. This on the eve of her 9 month birthday. My little baby is growing up too fast!

Note from Husband: Mommy's immediate response to the crawling - she started to cry.

Picture of the Day: I like to crawl under things

Picture from Sunday: I See a Camera!

Picture from Yesterday: Playing in Central Park

Picture of the Day: Swingin' on a Sunday Afternoon in Central Park

9th Avenue International Food Festival

This weekend, we enjoyed the 9th Avenue International Food Festival in Hell's Kitchen. For two days, right outside our door we were treated to hundreds of restaurants showing off their eats on 9th Avenue between 42nd Street to about 57th Street. Besides the fine dining, there were also tons of "fair food" type stuff (i.e., fried Oreos, etc.). I was extremely happy to see all that junk for the non-discriminating to jump in line to buy to prevent them from crowding the lines for the good stuff.

Wife and I did quite well with out international food tour, enjoying a variety of Indonesian appetizers, a bowl of Thai snacks, a combo plate of Indian entrees, a French crepe for dessert, and a unique Indian shake to sip as we walked home. Though the streets were extremely crowded, a great time was had by all.

I did, however, consider becoming a vegetarian when I walked by this sight on 9th Avenue a few hours ago (if anyone is concerned - no, Katie didn't see it. She fell asleep):



You can read about the 9th Avenue International Food Festival HERE.

Picture of the Day: This picture makes Mommy laugh. Hopefully, it will make Katie laugh in 15 years too.

The End of an Era

Wow, I just got the news. Law & Order is canceled (I'm talking about the "original" version - not the SVU soap opera). I'll admit, the show has taken quite a turn for the worse over the past few seasons, but, still...I find this painful. Maybe because there is something comforting about the show's longevity. Maybe it is because of the fun of running into L&O crews filming on our street and around our city. Possibly it's because so many Broadway actors and actresses made extra money by appearing on the show.

I'm going to go mourn now.

Picture of the Day: Why didn't you tell me you were taking pictures?

You're Richer Than You Think

How rich are you? Find out here:

Richer than you think.

Picture of the Day: So, if I climb in here and buckle myself in, can we go outside?

Picture of the Day: Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin...jump around! Jump around! (does anyone get that?)

Picture of the Day: Or, maybe I will wear this swimsuit.

Standing by Herself

For the first time last night, Katie pulled herself all the way up by herself with no physical contact from anybody else. Katie was playing on the floor and next to her was a folding chair. Katie crawled over to the chair and pulled herself all the way to the standing position by herself. Undoubtedly, she'll be ready to drive before we know it.

Picture of the Day: I'm about to go swimming with my bff Shea (her daddy is a Met's fan)

Mother's Day Weekend - A Chance to Play Tourist in the Big Apple

To celebrate Wife's first Mother's Day since Katie was born, I decided we should so something special this weekend. I went back and forth with several different ideas, but, finally, came up with a plan. It's tough coming up with a plan that will keep everyone happy (and by everyone, I mean Katie). For 48 hours, we took a vacation in New York City. From Friday evening through Sunday evening, we acted like tourists (except for having an apartment to call home at night). How did we act like tourists? We bought a 48 hour guided tour package of NYC.

For nearly three years, we have seen the tourist packages and always said, "We should do that." Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, we never did it - until now. It would have made sense to to this when we first moved here. If we had done it three years ago, when each of the tour guides asked us, "Where are you from?" we could have responded by saying some other state. But now, we responded, "New York," The tour guides always responded, "Oh, what part?" When we said, "Manhattan," the tour guides always looked a bit puzzled. Almost everyone around us was on holiday from a land far, far away.

It has been a very, very busy 48 hours. Friday night, we started the tour with a "City Lights" tour where a guide took us on a bus to various areas throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn to visit the best nighttime views of the city. Katie was a happy little baby on this tour because it was all about lights. If you've followed the adventures of little Katie very much, you know that she loves lights. We met a very nice couple from Norway that seemed to spend more time making faces with Katie than paying attention to the tour (actually, the wife spent most of her time playing with Katie. The woman's husband appeared to be thinking, "Why did I pay all this money for this vacation. I could have just put an infant in front of my wife and she would have been just as happy").

Saturday, we had a full day enjoying guided tours of Midtown, Times Square, the Garment District, the Flower District, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, Downtown, Chinatown, Little Italy, Battery Park, Korea Town (I didn't even know that was here). We went back later to check out Korea Town - not nearly as exciting as the tour guide made it sound. Funny that we've lived here so long and didn't know that we had Korea Town just a few blocks away.

However, the best part was the the day was the tour of Brooklyn. We hadn't spent a lot of time in Brooklyn, but we had an outstanding tour guide who was very informative. The guide has lived in Brooklyn his entire life, raising 6 children. He claims to have given over 2200 tours of Brooklyn. This tour alone was worth the price we paid for the package. He almost made us want to move to Brooklyn. Really, he did.

Today was another busy day. First, we enjoyed a harbor cruise halfway around the island of Manhattan. As anticipated, the harbor cruise was probably Wife's favorite part of the weekend (though that Brooklyn tour really was good). For everyone keeping track of Katie's "firsts" - this was Katie's first boat ride.

After getting off the cruise, we continued our land tours with a tour guide taking us through Times Square, the Upper West Side, Harlem, and the Upper East Side. Very possibly, the tour guide only let us see the better parts of Harlem, but Harlem looked a lot nicer than I anticipated (nice enough that I would be willing to consider moving there).

But, I think the lesson that Wife and I walked away with after the completion of this weekend - we should become tour guides. The Brooklyn guide was great (did I already say that?). Other than him, I think we could better tours than every other guide we had.

So, here's the deal. We only charge $50 per person per hour (with a four person, three hour minimum - and we expect a 20% tip). For every three hours you pay for, we will give you a forth hour for free. Come on out to Manhattan and either Wife or I would be happy to give you a tour of the Big Apple. As an added bonus, Katie will also provide her commentary about the attractions you will see (there is no added charge for Katie's commentary).

Unlike all the other tour guides, our tours will have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If we are not satisfied that we gave you a great tour, we'll give you your money back.

Picture of the Day: I just finished dinner my new high chair.

Picture of the Day: I LOVE playing on the floor!

Picture of the Day: Yeah, I'm standing up by myself.

Picture of the Day: So, what's under the rug?

Picture of the Day: No, this isn't staged. Katie pulled the books off the shelf by herself, rolled around with them, and opened this one up.

Remembering an Era Gone By

I remember the good old days when I could put Katie down and she would stay where I left her.

Coming Soon to a Television Near You

This evening, Wife and Katie met me outside my work so that we could walk home together. I anticipated walking out the door about 7:45. Instead, I was delayed until about 8:00. After we met out outside of our building and started walking home, Wife casually said, "Oh, I just finished a couple television interviews." During her time waiting for me, Wife was interviewed by NBC and also by a reporter that works for Verizon for some cable show. The theme of each interview was discussing a New Yorker's perspective on the attempted terrorist attack this past weekend.

The reporters couldn't have found a more entertaining interview. Wife's attitude is always, "I'm not going to live in fear. Bring it you terrorist punks" Wife said that one the reporters was extremely taken aback by her answer to the question, "Are you expecting another attack." Wife said something like, "Sure, New York is the greatest city on earth...we're a huge target. But I'm not going to live in fear."

I also hear that Katie loved the camera and microphone.

Picture of the Day: I just finished eating pears at Bryant Park. Mommy and Daddy's food wasn't nearly that healthy.

High Level Encryption

Since I work with extremely sensitive information, I've started to pay attention to ways to encrypt files that I work on at home. As you may know, I'm a bit OCD about some things (such as ensuring that the id3 tags are perfect for my mp3 collection). I'm currently on a quest to encrypt my files so well that the encryption can never, ever be broken. I realize that the truth of my pursuit of the perfect encryption is something like this:

Picture of the Day: Ok, I'm ready for bed. Daddy, take my daily picture and let me eat my late night snack. I'll see you in the AM.

Picture of the Day: I'm climbing under my Exersaucer

Picture of the Day: Now, I'm playing underneath my Exersaucer.

Stuff Y'all Ain't Gonna Do in Texas

We are about to go eat gourmet food served out of trucks. Yummy.

Read about it HERE.

Yes, the Times Square Bomb is Blocks from Our Apartment

There's never a dull moment in the Big Apple. Yes, this is just around the corner from our apartment (from the Associated Press):

New York City police have removed bomb-making materials from a parked sports utility vehicle in Times Square, including propane tanks and a clock suspected to be a timing device.

Top police spokesman Paul Browne says investigators have also removed gasoline and explosive powders from the vehicle. An officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV around 6:30 p.m. and cleared the streets of thousands of theatergoers and tourists from the landmark.

Read about it HERE.

My Marriage May be in Trouble

As Wife and I watched the Laker game together, we noted that the Cleveland-Boston series begins tomorrow. I commented, "I dislike both teams so much that I just don't know which one to root for. The Lakers can definitely beat Boston in the finals, so I should probably root for the Celtics."

Wife turned to me and replied, "If you root for the Celtics, I don't think I can stay married to you."

Don't worry - Wife was just kidding. If I don't root against the Celtics, Wife will definitely be very disappointed in me, but our marriage will still be strong.