Suburban fortress

The Bidwell house is now on lock-down thanks to our new security system that was installed yesterday. I thought I would never own a home with a security system. It goes against my philosophy on life. However, those type of things tend to change when you are responsible for the care and well-being of a sweet tiny little baby.

I've always envisioned myself living in a house that was almost completely underground; a bunker of sorts.  Above ground would be a small house. It would be very modest, if not slightly run-down. Thieves would assume there was nothing of value to steal. If they did come inside they would see their assumption was correct.  However, hiding in a back closet there is a passageway to a vast underground lair.  The "basement" would be magnitudes larger than the upstairs part of the house.  It would feature absolutely no natural light... perfect for my movie theater room.

We've had our security system for a day now. So far so good. We haven't had the cops sent out to the house.... yet.  I do feel slightly more safe with it. Just having the sign out front alone makes me feel better. It stinks that we felt like we had to have the system installed, but I guess that is what happens when you become a unrealistically paranoid parent.  I still haven't decided if I will continue to pay for a security monitoring service once I have my underground fortress built.

This week in "literally"

"Literally" is a simple enough word. However, people on Twitter misuse it, or use it for seemingly no reason. Some of them I really get a kick out of. I'm not trying to make fun of anybody. I just want to share the joy I get from this literal phenomenon.  Let's start out with the definition of the word.

Some pics from a wedding

We have been using our camera a ton to take pictures of our baby girl. Other than those shots of our pretty little 5-month old model, I haven't really used it. Maybe this summer I will get out more and play photographer.  This past weekend we attended an outdoor wedding. I decided to take the camera to play around with it. Here are a few shots after the break.

Delusion of security

We kind of live out in the country in a nice little neighborhood. It seems like a safe enough place. We had a bit of a scare the summer after we moved in, but since then everything have been good.... until today.

I came home for lunch as I do most days. Today there was a cop car sitting in front of our house.  He was so in-front of our house that I couldn't even pull in the drive. He was talking to two guys in a red civic parked on the curb in front of the house next door.  I parked my car on the street just down from them and walked in. I didn't know what was going on.

Sleep Mimicry

Our daughter has this uncanny ability to mimic somebody in her sleep. I promise she wasn't moved around in either of these pictures, she just naturally did it.  I thought it was a fluke when Amanda snapped the first picture of her sleeping on my chest. Then this morning I woke up and saw her sleeping the exact same way as Amanda. The baby usually doesn't sleep in the bed at all. She was just really fussy this morning and Amanda put her next to her to fall back asleep. Apparently they both fell asleep.

The time I pissed-off a plane full of people

A few weeks ago I flew to Chicago for work. It was my first business trip, and I wasn't sure of the etiquette. As a dude I didn't want to over-pack, but we were going to be there for 4 days and I needed nice clothes for work as well as casual stuff for the evenings. My luggage set consisted of a tiny carry-on suitcase that I couldn't fit everything into. The next smallest case I had was bigger than I needed, but it was my only option.

I got to the airport and headed to the auto check-in kiosk. I went ahead and checked my bag. Right as I was giving my bag to the lady my travel companions showed up. They groaned when they saw me checking my bag. "Dude, now we are going to have to wait at baggage claim in Chicago. Can't you just check it at the gate?" I asked the lady behind the desk and she looked at my bag. She said it was borderline, but she would probably let it go... however if I wanted to get reimbursed I would have to go to another desk and get it taken care of. We didn't really want to mess with it, so I just let them check it under the plane. We would check it at the gate on the way back.