Biking, a little one and a semi review of the Townie

Since he was about 6 months old our little one has been fascinated by bicycles. Doesn't seem to matter what type, he just wants to go and see what it's all about. He can spot a cyclist on a bike long before any one else does. The obvious solution to this was to get a bike and baby seat and take him for rides. We bought an Electra townie and appropriate seat and have since spent many hours cruising around the bike paths along the river.

So here is the townie semi-review:
I've had the townie for almost 6 months now and it's fantastic. It's actually become my preferred bike to ride. This is especially the case if I'm not in a hurry. There is something extremely relaxing about crusing around on it. It's certainly more work on the hills and while you can make to to +25km/h on the flat it's no cake walk. Somehow none of it seems to matter when you're riding a townie. It always makes me want to kick back, feel the wind and enjoy the scenery. It's never going to be the bike for you if you're going to spend the weekend claiming hills or heading up the peloton in the next road run, but as enjoyable way to get from A to B I can't recommend it enough.

Now back to the rest of this brain dump. After being at day care last week someone has a new found love for riding on bikes. The small trikes in the centre are the number one pick each day. So I renewed my search for the first cycle for him. I'd always intended to get him a Hudora Joey from My First Bike, but I spotted this awesome pre-bike from wishbone.

It seems like the perfect design, a trike to start with the option to change it to a balance bike when he's a bit older. Now all I need is a reason to give it to him, his birthday seems such a long way away.

A new bike and a new riding partner

Yesterday I cashed in the profits from the sale of the Jamos and bought myself another bike. There isn't really anything wrong with my current bike but I've been looking for a way to ride around with Zachary. My road bike doesn't have any mounts that suit a child seat and the clip in shoes don't make it very practical for trips to the park.

I started looking for a cruiser style bike and settled on the Electra range for the bike. After a fair bit of shopping around and a few recommendations from the bike store I picked up an Townie 3 Speed model. The trip is pretty flat into the park or the botanic gardens in the city or even Southbank (apart from the bridge)

We took it for it's first ride yesterday and while I had loved the ride Zachary is not so sure yet. He doesn't hate it but he's not sure he loves it either. A few people we passed could coax smiles out of him so it's probably not all bad. The bike was really strange to ride especially when compared to the seating position on the road bike but once I settled into the easy riding style it was a fantastic way to get around. The low speed didn't even worry me, at one point there was a jogger keeping pace with us, it was just a relaxing way to travel along the river taking in the last of the afternoon light.

I think the biggest problem for Zachary is the helmet, knowing how much he loves hats the helmet is probably one step too far.

We'll probably a few more short rides to the park before we attempt a city or southbank run. But I'm looking forward to it either way

A picnic, a fabulous weekend and organising the appleTV

For my b'day festivus last weekend we planned on going for a picnic, with the weather we had to cancel (not bad thing still had a fantastic party at home) but today we had the picnic over again.

It was brilliant, a beautiful day (although a little too much sun judging by my arms) and super relaxing. We went for brunch and stayed until about 10:30...

Picnic in the Park (April 09)

There was only a small (but hilarious FAIL) with the butter the whole day. It really was the perfect way to finish a fabulous weekend. The source of it's fabulousness was that I managed to achieve exactly nothing. Saturday I pottered around, caught up with some friends and progressed a little further through GTA:CTW (if you own a DS you should really pick up this game if you're after a more adult experience than the 4000th revision of Pokemon). Today was a wander along the river, then one to New Farm Park for a picnic and then home. I had started a whole list of jobs to get done this weekend and unsurprisingly that list is still standing... just the way the weekend should be.

The only thing that can partially be labelled acheivement is some organisation of my itunes  and iphoto library. Having the AppleTV has meant that I'm seeing a lot more photos while I've got music playing so I've been sorting through albums both old and new trying to get a good selection of photos. I've also discovered that I lot of CDs I own haven't made it to the itunes library so I've been moving the CDs over to the iMac while I've been sorting through the photos. As a result I've also got some more photos to upload so in no specific order here are few more albums

Holiday on the Beach (April 09)

Zachary and his cousins

Zach's first ferry trip

Misc Zachary Shots

Caption This

From Caption This

I know I haven't blogged for a while but this was worth it for a mini caption contest.

A weekend of jobs (and arcade table upgrade)

This weekend we 'tried' to have an at home weekend and get a few jobs done around the house. It was mostly successful although I didn't get all the jobs I was allocated done, and I also created a few more for myself.

Things left to do : 

• Rehang the big mirror
  

(Some of the) New things:

• Rehang Zach's pictures
  
• Fit some rubber stoppers to the new chair to give it the same angle as the black one (someone cunningly added two rubber gromets to the back chair's swivel mount to give it a greater reclining angle... much more comfortable as a result)
  
• Ebay Sellathon
  

I did manage to change Zach's cot to the bigger size because he's been hitting his head when he kicks his legs. We also started to seriously dedust after the plastering work and we've decided we've got way too much stuff in the house and have started a massive declutter. The lounge room was the first to get a makeover and now has a lot less stuff in it. I've got to work on the Ebay Sellathon and get some of our unused clutter out.

This morning though Zach woke up early (4:30 early!) and I couldn't get back to sleep afterwards so I started on one of the jobs I'd been meaning to get done; The Arcade table upgrade. Here's the list of upgrades for today: 

• RAM upgrade to 768MB from 256 (was supposed to be 1.2 but one stick was dodgy)
• Upgrade the MAME version to 0.129b
• Update some faulty Roms
• Install external USB access
• Swap out CRT to LCD Monitor

Unfortunately I dropped the last item from the list as the exposed CRT monitor was just a bit risky as it'd been powered on this morning.

The Upgrade was very successful and a whole heap of games that I loved when I was at Uni have now made it to my high rotation list.

• Killer Instinct
• Alien vs Predator
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Street Fighter Zero 2 (my favourite SF of all time)
• Marvel Super Heroes (so much time to be wasted here)
• X-Men vs Street Fighter.

There are quite a few more that have benefited from the upgrade but there is plenty of time to be wasted on that little lot. The best upgrade was actually adding the external USB access which (after I discovered that the iMac USB keyboard gave me bios support, ie F1 Boot keys etc) means I can easily change configs and update software without having to take it to bits

I've got a few more upgrades I'd like to do to the console:

• Monitor swap out (obviously)
• Upgrade to >1Gb RAM
• Add Support for 3D Games (aka Tekken my greatest arcade weakness)
• Add network support (wireless preferably)
• Add Hinged Top (for easy access and some storage)
• Add 2 Player controls to the front panel (for Street fighter et al. battles)

Anyway, enough blogging it's time to go and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

Monday and back to the grind

We had a great weekend this weekend. After a long time coming I finally got around to watching Ironman. While it's a better than average comic hero conversion movie, the transfer to bluray is STUNNING and just looked fabulous in Studio 54 GoldClass. It was almost as cold as the real gold class as well with the new industrial strenght aircon.

The weekend was filled with a fair bit of work for me with the occasional outing (as Ness has put so beautifully) for some Chrismas Shopping. It was pretty hot out in the markets but we managed to keep Zach out of the sun despite his protests about wearing the hat.

The weekend went really quickly and I feel somewhat down on sleep, but hopefully this week will be a bit quieter and I might get some longer sleeps as Zach is staying asleep a bit longer (probably with the combination of the aircon and moving Zach to his own room)

And after a few weeks of searching I finally found my DS again, which is perfect timing as Andrew and I are going to brave the worlds longest sushi queue in the City today, We'll need something to entertain us!

I remember something I forgot to post...

From more photos of zachary

Aren't baby's supposed to lie on their back? Clearly Zach missed the memo. At least he's started rolling to both sides now so he won't get a flat head.

Wish I could think of a title.

I should be able to think of a title but here we are posting and without a title. It's been a busy few days. I had a whirlwind trip to Sydney for Dev's wedding. Unfortunately we were told that Zach shouldn't be flying so we changed the travel plans and I flew down alone. I made it to one of the Ceremony's but had to fly home early and missed the others. It also ment I had to miss out on catching up with people while I was there.

From What's in a Name?

The ceremony was great and the bride and groom looked fabulous. It was a great ceremony (even though I didn't really understand any of it). Apologies to everyone I had to cut short on in Sydney.

It's really starting to get humid up here at home and I'm very looking forward to the Air Con install this week. It's been a hot few days but it hasn't got much over 27 in the house but the humidity has been up over 70% most days (even now at 7am it's 70%) Zach doesn't seem to much of a fan of the humidity either.

We went out for our usual morning walk this morning, but amazingly we weren't the only one with a STOKKE stroller out on the river walk. There is another white one that passed me this morning, while we complimented each other on a great pram choice.

The little Zach is really starting to grow, I'm not sure how much longer he's going to be fitting his 0000 clothes, he does look cute in a hat though.

more photos of zachary

The next few days are going to be busy as we have to clean out the study for the A/C install. I'm not looking forward to moving that desk bed that is for sure.

There has been little movement on the technology front for a while, although I am keeping my eye on a pair of speakers that match my Jamo THX ones, which would give me 7.1. The A/C budget does tend to slow the progress of the tech fund a little. I did pick up a copy of Iron Man on blu ray, which I think will be on the top of the watch list for the first post A/C movie night. With no A/C and our windows the only source of cooling it's a little hard to close half of them off to lower the screen and then turn on the heat pump (also known as the projector). We did fire up the gear for Vantage point last week on Foxtel HD. Not a bad movie (certainly not a great one) but didn't try to be too much, and it was short.

That's about it for this post, I'm sure there is more I should put in here....

A beautiful morning for a stroll

In what is becoming an early morning tradition Zachary and I went for a walk along the river. On the good side it means he's swapped his 2-4 awake time for 5-7 and as a result a lot more night time sleep for us, but not as many blog posts.

It was a beautiful morning on the river (even if it was a little hot). There are some interesting outfits on the runners in the morning... all I'm going to say is NO ONE should be wearing those short running shorts but if you're over 60 DEFINITELY NOT!

Ness and Zachary (and Suse) went to a baby shower for my Sister yesterday, leaving Tom and I to fend for ourselves. After a brief stint watching top gear we slotted straight into some 360 time with Gears of War 2. We managed to blaze through the horde for about 4 hours before we could game no more. A pretty good game to pick though if you've got some time for co-op gaming. To carry on the gaming theme we ended the night with some pizza from Hell, which is fast becoming my favourite place to get Gluten Free Pizza. You can order online, they will tell you the exact minute that you can order and they have some fantastic taste sensations. To top it off when I'm feeling really lazy they will even deliver to my house!

I'm back to work full time on Monday which I think is going to be a bit tough, having been with Zach every day since he was born. Hopefully I've got some time working from home after the start of these projects so I will be able to spend some more time with him (even if I have to be working)

The nightmare of our AC failure is starting to be rectified with the final measurements and design being completed on Friday, everything is looking on track to be in by Christmas but I'm still considering putting in some ceiling fans to get us through until then.

Lastly we've made some minor additions to Zachary's room with some cool removable wall decals. I've still got one set to put up but this is the look so far...

Wall Decals

Warning: The following post may contain Zachary

While I'm still in the excited new parent phase (as opposed to the terrified new parent stage) I though I should start warning those people only looking for tech stuff.

Tonight (aka this morning), I'm suffering from a mild case of "Zachawakitis" which isn't all bad, as well as the formentioned "exited new parent" plus side, I've also started whittling away at my overpopulated Google Reader list. But, before we get into that a few small Zach updates. We attempted a trip to the shops today, we were running a little low on food and though that Coles was probably a fairly inocuous destination for our first house -> car -> pram -> destination. The whole trip went really well, despite the checkout attendants surprise that we took an 8 day old to the shops. Zachary to his credit went through the whole thing barely stirring once. Obviously the payback is now where I'm still awake at 2am. I was a little surpised at how many people shot a second glance at the Stokke though.

In house news, our Air Con has broken down just in time for summer. It looks like it's going to be an expensive venture though. The words "well we're going to need a crane to start with..." and "body corp approval" don't inspire thoughs of cheap.

Oh and this morning I flicked on FoxSports HD to catch the end of an thrilling goal fest in the EPL. By the end I was cheering for 'Spurs to steal the point!

Now onto google reader....

This ad made me laugh....

It may be lack of sleep though.

Fable II is out and looks like a must play title. I've still got oblivion to get through so not just yet for me.

And OMG say it's not so!!!! Tennant calls time on Dr Who

BanjoKazooie is making it's way to the 360 and Portal Still Alive Available Now for Download instead of waiting for the Orange box to drop in price!

Yes Ben, He does cry...

It's not quite 4am but there seems to be a trend in these early morning posts....

Zach has been a great baby today, but between his last 2 feeds has been upset. We think he had an upset tummy - perhaps being confirmed as his nappy gets changed now. He did manage to throw up on my side of the bed tonight while being comforted by Ness ... I think it was a conspiracy.

In other news, the new Dell monitor arrived today. It looks very schmick, and if you wanted a single monitor/tv option it would definitely be on the list. It's Full HD and comes with a HDMI port (and at the time of purchase an HDMI Cable). Of course, I will hold back from making that recommendation until I'm sure it doesn't go the way of the laptop ... At the moment all it's managed to do is make a very very pretty digital photo frame. I'll put up some unboxing photos tomorrow.

In other news, Zach is part of a news.com.au "baby boom". Are we the next baby boomers?

(sorry for all the baby post but the 3 hour feed cycles limit the amount of non baby stuff.... and he's a bit adorable, I should probably order one of these though )

OMG am I going to be one of THOSE parents

Ok I'm really going to try not to, but (and you knew there was a 'but' coming) I managed to get the photos off my camera (rather than just the ones on my phone)

So here are a few more photos,

Zachary Day 2

Both Mum and Zach are still doing well!

Welcome to our cute new arrival

Cameron and Vanessa would like to introduce our son Zachary Elliot, born on 22/10/2008 10:45am, 7lbs 11 (3.4kg) & 51cm long. 

Zachary arrived a little unexpectedly by an emergency c-section because he insisted on having his hands over the top of his (37.5cm) head making it impossible to arrive any other (even after 4 hours of labour). So far Zachary has been a delightful baby even with mum and dad learning how to look after him. I'm proud to say we can now successfully change nappies. Despite his reluctance to arrive he has started feeding like a champion and has even managed to give himself a hickey on the hand.

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful well wishes (my phone is now flat from all the 200+ text messages) and gifts of flowers we feel very spoilt!

Zachary Day 1

Thanks again from two very proud parents!

Nothing like coffee by the moon light

It's official, nothing is going to make this baby come out. Our second fire alarm in as many weeks and still no movement from the little Paris.

We took our freshly brewed coffee to pass the time (and yes they are my bare feet, I wasn't the one who forgot shoes though!!!)

Jaw Cramps are Very Painful

I'm on the ferry home tonight and for no apparent reason my jaw has cramped up and refused to uncramp for about 5 mins.. I is quite inexplicably painful....

Anyway, it's been a pretty quiet week. We're still waiting for the little addition to arrive so everything is pretty low key. It's strange knowing that in a matter of days there is going to be a small screaming pooping thing in my house that I'm going to have to look after, exciting, amazing and terrifying all at the same time.

I'm sure I've got more to blog about but the wind on the ferry ride home is too cold and I can't think...

San Francisco, Day 2

It's another beautiful day here, I think I'm going to try and hit the shops today (at least in the middle part). The Sunburn from yesterday won't be much fun if I repeat it today. I didn't bring any sunscreen with me and so far haven't found one I'm not allergic to.

I really wanted to get to Alcatraz today, but the labor day holiday has foiled my plans with tickets really hard to come by. I did have some successful shopping yesterday, highlighted by a trip to BabyGap for some stuff for Paris.

(Un)Fortunately I've only brought small bags and they are pretty packed already so there won't be much room for any really big shopping sprees...

This is my last day in San Francisco proper, tonight (and for the rest of the week) I'm staying out at Pleasanton. Yesterday was fantastic (apart from the sunburn, which is more embarrassing than anything) got to see lots of great sights and pack in quite a few different things yesterday. My favourite though has to be the cable car ride at night. Hanging off the front of the through the lit streets was great.

Ness is keeping me up to date with everything that is going on back home... which is fantastic.

Cute (geeky) Baby things....

All your milk...

BABY TAGS

Fully Charged

It was nice having a wife while it lasted....

Well we all new it would happen eventually..... Blizzard has announced Diablo 3. Tie that in with the fact that Ness has a shiny new Macbook on the way and it's pretty safe to say that Ness will be "dedicated" to it for quite some time. Let's face it Paris will be lucky if Ness isn't playing Diablo 3 while she's in labour.

and other Brisbane Sale adventures

So it's sale time (one of the best times of the year). David Jones and Myer both had their big Stocktake sale events this week and we had a bit of a shopping excursion last night.

The result was one of our first big baby purchases (not counting the car).... The Pram...
DJs had a pretty good sale price on the pram we wanted so we ordered one. It'll be here in a couple of weeks.

We got the whole kit, bassinet and all, in orange. I struggled getting it to unfold in the shop (not helped by Ness laughing at me) but I'm sure I'll work it out.

First toys for Paris?

These cute little items popped up on Play Asia this week. They are even more cutesy than Mario Galaxy itself (who would have thought that was possible). They are probably not safe from birth but as sure as our new arrival hits six months the gaming indoctrination will be starting off with a few Mario Plush toys.