First set of photos from month three are now online, and they include the obligatory bath photos!

Friday night we had Angel's colleague Virginia and her husband over, and they were kind enough to bring both the food and the wine. Unfortunately for me I was not able to enjoy the dinner as much as I would like. On Thursday night I started to come down with something, starting with a headache. By Friday morning I had a full on case of lower digestive trouble with nausea thrown in for good measure. Was not as productive at work as I could have as a result. Had the problem throughout both Friday and Saturday, only starting to recover Saturday night.

Anyhoo, feeling better now, and for the first time in 3 days I am looking forward to actually eating something!!

Nora - Month Three

But still getting a Nora fix!

Angel sent a couple of photos yesterday, and while we were talking she put me on speakerphone and Nora, who was fussing at the time, seemed to settle a little when she heard my voice... freaky!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

Drooling on mum be fun!!!

Burrito Baby

More photos to come soon, including a couple from just after Ike hit.

...so it is now nearly 5 days since Ike took a stroll through South East Texas on his way north. Texas is still recovering with downed trees and limbs still lying on the side of the road as they have been cut up and moved out of the road in most situations.

People are still going a little crazy, queueing up all over the place for ice, food, and especially gas. People either were really not ready for this, or they are completely incapable of surviving without power and A/C.

We still do not have power at home and with the latest status being that the power company is going round making the quick large fixes they can then returning to trouble spots later, we may be without power for a while. The other night, when Angel and Nora spent the night at a family friends house, I stayed at home. Around 2:30am the power came on for about 30 seconds to a minute, went out and then came on breifly again. The second time we heard a bang which sounded oddly like a transformer blowing out, and since then nothing. Not even much signs of the power company... that makes us think we are in the latter situation of being a 'trouble spot'

Given that the world around us is still ongoing I needed to get online to get some work done, and we have a raft of electronics that needed to be recharged. Hence trekking up to highjack an office in the Cy Fair Cancer Center. On our way up we had a funny encounter. With power out the traffic lights are out too so intersections become more crowded. On Kirby there is a filter lane for people to turn left on. This guy went through the lights in front of us then wanted to take a left, but instead of going into the filter lane he was in the left most active lane.

I then honked at him as he was blocking my lane then I went around him.

He proceeded to jam on the accelerator and pull up beside us on our right (I guess he was not in a rush to take the left).

There was a back and forward were we were telling him to use the filter lane and he was shouting at us that it was an emergency (hence why he followed us I guess) and proceeded to swear at us before calling us an 'arrogant individual' before peeling off to move to the lane where he could take a left again. There is more to it, but that is the jist of it... just a very weird reaction... and a symptom of how some people are acting after the storm. Overall the community has really pulled together, but some seem to be unravelling at the edges... lets hope either power is restored or that they go and jump off the closest bridge into the Bayou!

I will have photos online soon... probably tomorrow, but don't have the memory card with me! Lets hope that power comes back although it has not really bothered either Angel, Nora, Cammie nor I too much, but having a working fridge and freezer would be nice!

Came inland just East of Galveston Bay, south of Houston on Friday night. We started to get the wind in the afternoon and it got steadily got worse over night. We finally lost power at a little after 4am.

Our area had minor damage, none serious structural damage, and no broken windows in our house or any in the complex that we know of.

Anne is out of town, but her house has power and she was kind enough to let us stay here tonight... Nora was getting fussy.

Updates and photos when I can get power at home.

Celebrated her one month anniversary today. We actually brought her over to Ananya's 4th birthday party but kept her away from other kids and most adults.

More updates, and plenty of photos to come, including;

Although Cammie tends to play the "If I ignore it, maybe IT will go away" card, she has taken Nora in stride and has not been too put off. At times I have understood what it must be like to have twins as after Nora has cried then been fed and put down to sleep Cammie starts to scream for attention herself... can lead to a long night, but still I would not change a thing!

Nora was kind enough to put on a cute little two piece outfit and to pose with her old man for a photo for his birthday on Thursday. The birthday was a low key affair with me (Mike aka the Old Man) being up and down over the night to feed, clean and sooth the new generation. Naps, eating (food for myself... including birthday noodles from grandma Lourdes), a little work, and more feeding and diapering of the little one was the extent of the day. Not the all night drinking sessions at the O bar where we end up taking a french girl home to house for her stay in London (and nothing else you dirty minds you!), but still a nice day. Angel did her best to give me a present that just keeps on giving and giving... and one without a return policy!

As some of you may know Angel was entering the 38th week of the pregnancy yesterday and has been ready to pop for a little while. I was up in new Jersey all week, getting home at 10:30 Thursday night. We were in bed before midnight but up again just after two am... Angel's water broke!

After an exhausting 20 hour plus labor Angel gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 22:42 CDT on July 25th 2008. Both mother and daughter are doing well and will be returning home in the next couple of days. Before you ask, no we have not decided upon a name yet, but will do soon.

I will be spending most of my time over the next day or so at the hospital and can be reached on my mobile at 832.277.5211

Here is is a photo of a young, very curious girl, who as soon as she was born was able to make solid eye contact and who was intrigued by all the big folk looking in on, and looking after her...

Certainly a lot of photos to come in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Wonder if this is what I will be saying in the future while on my way home from a trip!

HP Lappies decided that the week that I am travelling and need it to take notes on it (it is a funky tablet PC) and of course it decides now is a good time for the harddrive to start to fail. It all started on the plane on Monday morning and has not stopped since. Takes the lappie over 30 mins to boot and longer if I want to do anything with it.

Turns out that the harddrive has some bad blocks (as opposed to happy or good blocks?!) and it is on its last leg. I am getting the same error in the event log every 7-8 seconds... which can't be helping things!

Only fix that I have found is a new harddrive, which luckily is on order now. That still leaves me with a machine that barely works and I need to type up all the session notes from the day on it. I went to Best Buy after leaving the site and got an external drive so that I can back everything up just in case the whole thing dies on me before I get home and I am backing it up now. Although I am typing this from the lappie and it is ok... seems that as long as I do not hibernate or power it down I may be ok... fingers crossed I do no experience a blue screen of death! And if I do, then I have a client customer I should be able to use to type any notes up on. Sigh... never easy is it?!