The Price Family Home Companion

Gluttons for Punishment

Chantell and I just finished registering for the 2004 Katy Flatland Century bike ride. While we haven't quite worked up to the century part, there are several shorter rides (60, 45, and 30). We'll be attempting the 45 miler, but giving ourselves great leeway to wimp out and only do 30.

This will be Chantell's first ride, and only my second (the first was 40 miles). We've been riding 3-5 times a week (at least 10 miles each night) for a few months now (weather permitting). Unfortunately, with all our travel this month and now non-stop rain, we haven't had too much opportunity to "train." As such, we're both a little nervous.

More Evidence that Life Begins at Conception

The BBC has a fascinating article on the development of babies in the womb using 4D ultrasounds:

• From 12 weeks, unborn babies can stretch, kick and leap around the womb - well before the mother can feel movement
• From 18 weeks, they can open their eyes although most doctors thought eyelids were fused until 26 weeks
• From 26 weeks, they appear to exhibit a whole range of typical baby behavior and moods, including scratching, smiling, crying, hiccuping, and sucking.

  Until recently it was thought that smiling did not start until six weeks after birth

No doubt the pro-choice movement will attempt to suppress these images from the public eye as it severely damages their flimsy life-begins-at-delivery argument.

Dinner with the Folks

Tonight, my parents took us out to eat at our absolute favorite restaurant, Orlando's. It's the only place we know of outside of New Mexico to get our green chile fix.

When you go, you must try the Mafia Queso. We polished ours off in short order and the Green Chile Chicken Linguine reminded my why I love it so.

As Dora's Backpack would say... Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum... Delicioso!

Afterwords, we all waited around for Brody to get in from Dallas. He didn't have any trouble with his first non rev (the industry term used to describe his new job's free flight perk), but the flight he was originally scheduled on was canceled.

Old Friends, Good Times

Tonight we met up with our good Lubbock friends, Matt and Angela. Their little boy, Brady (9 months), was just adorable. He was a tough little thing; opting to run and fall flat on his face rather than crawl. Salem enjoyed playing with all his noisy boy toys (they had an entire laundry tub filled with toys that beeped, sang, and moved). She especially liked the Fisher-Price School Bus.

It was really nice catching up with them. I'm glad we made the effort to see them even though we didn't visit for too long.

Unfortunately, I left my camera back at the house and didn't get any new photos of them. :(

Lubbock in the Front Windshield

Today we rented a car to drive to Lubbock for my Monterey High School 10-year Reunion. On our way to Enterprise, Chantell and I were discussing how we never have been lucky enough to get a free class upgrade.

After completing the paperwork, the woman leans over and says:

How would you like a free upgrade?

Incredulously, Chantell says free?.

Woman: Yes. It would be an SUV, is that OK?.

Us: Of course.

Woman: We have a Tahoe or a...

Us: The Tahoe would be fine, thank you.

Woman: ... Durango

Us: The Tahoe would be fine, thank you. Funny, we were just discussing how this never happens to us.

God: There you go. Now stop your whining.

So, we loaded up the Tahoe and went to Salem's swim lessons before making the drive to Lubbock. She fell asleep after swim lessons and later we were able to keep her occupied by pointing to horses, cows, goats, and irrigation sprinklers (which she called spee pees).

We credit the smooth trip to God's grace and His blessing in providing a nicer vehicle for us to travel in.

Downside? We want one more than ever now.

Rainbow Family

For a few weeks now, we've asked Salem if she wants a brother or a sister (settle down folks, nothing's in the oven). Her reply? A to-the-point "nope." However, she does want a dog. When asked what kind of dog, she says she wants a well woe dog.

Today, Mom, thought to ask her what color she wanted her brother to be. To our surprise she wants a Bluey brother AND a geen sister.

A well woe dog it is then.

Pfizer's Pfailures

A couple weeks ago I read an intriguing article in Fast Company about the many research failures of Pfizer.

The article details these interesting pfacts:

• Pfizer employs 13,000 research scientists (~4x IBM)
• Pfizer budgets $7.9 billion annually for research or $152 million per week (~5x Procter & Gamble)
• Pfizer currently has 479 early-stage products of which 460 will ultimately fail (96%)

It talks about what the company is doing in trying to predict product failures earlier in the product-cycle and how lowering the failure rate by 1% would be pfenomenal, but given the rate of burn, I pfind it hard to believe there's a long-term pfuture for the company. I hope I'm wrong.

San Antonio Mini-vacation

We're back from our San Antonio, TX mini-vacation. We went to see our newlywed friends, Ernie and Patty, their new house, and attend their wedding reception.

The shindig was held at Patty's parent's house out in Riomedina, TX. Many city-raised attendees had trouble finding the place. We, on the other hand, practically ran out of gas. Patty had to take me out to the "nearest" gas station to fill a small tank of fuel. We purchased enough to get us back into town later that day where gas was more reasonably priced.

Eventually, Ernie's family arrived. It was good to see Erica (Ernie's sister), Jeff and Owen (Ernie's nephew who is about Salem's age). Although we were sad that Emma (Ernie's youngest sister) couldn't be there.

Anyway, the food, company, band, and weather were all great and a good time was had by all.

Before returning home yesterday, we went to the zoo which was pretty cool. The thing that made it so different from our zoo here in Houston, TX was that it actually has animals!

Salem had a particularly good time this weekend. In fact, when we were about 2 minutes from our house she still wanted to be going to Uh-ee's house. (Ernie's house).

Salem Says

While in Albuquerque this week, Salem has started saying a few new words. Here's a user's guide to Salem-speak:

• Butt - Barrette
• Dess - Dress
• Me's - Mine
• Me - My
• Potty - Party (depending upon context it can also mean potty)
• Peep - Pink
• Pity - Pretty
• Pee pee - Purple
• Sheet - Sit
• Well woe - Yellow

The above lexicon has made for some logical sentences about her wearing her pee pee dess to the potty. However, it also has more humorous outcomes like Me pee pee butt.

On a similar note, I had to fix the upstairs toilet before we left. So, I spent the better part of an hour sitting on the tub working on the commode... but you wouldn't know that tidbit simply from hearing Salem's most embarrassing sentence to date... Daddy sheet potty.