Merry Christmas to all!

And to all a good night! It's just past midnight here, which means it's Christmas morning. Jason, Leah and me just wanted to wish all of our friends, family, and blogger pals a very merry Christmas. We hope you all enjoy celebrating this day and may God bless you all.

Disco Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The National Holocaust Museum

I would feel remiss if I didn't mention that Carissa and me had the opportunity to visit the National Holocaust Museum in D.C. last week when some friends offered to watch our daughter for us. Carissa has made it a point that once a month we spend a Saturday going and visiting the sites here in northern Virginia. With so much to see and do we have more to see than Saturdays in a year.

The museum is amazing and anyone who comes to D.C. for a visit needs to make time to go. A lot of time. There are three floors to the permanent exhibit and we spent 4 and 1/2 hours touring it all and we could have spent many more. It's a self guided tour so you can go at your own pace. However, with the nature of the things you see, you are often pausing to reflect or wipe away tears. It is amazing to me in this day and age that someone can be capable of so much hate and inspiring others to do the same. The holocaust was but 65 years ago. And even today there is genocide occurring. The destruction that man is capable of is staggering and sobering.

There were some very difficult images to view. Seeing helpless children being killed because of a deformity, a handicap of some sort, or because of their religion was almost too much to bear. There was a corridor lined with piles of shoes, thousands of them that really affected Carissa. She asked me with tears in her eyes if they were all real. Solemnly, I nodded. She quickly passed through to the next exhibit. In another display they had a small cloth brooch that a father and his two daughters had purchased from another person by trading their meager meal rations for a few days so that they could give their mother and his wife a small birthday gift. The sacrifice when they themselves were starving to death made my eyes well up.

The atrocities of the holocaust should never be forgotten. Let us never extinguish the flame that still burns in memory of those countless dead. Let us never stand idle and let this same thing happen again.

New York, New York!

On Friday last week I learned that I was going to have to make a quick unexpected business trip to Manhattan for a few days before Thanksgiving. I was none too pleased to learn of this last minute and expressed this to my boss who suggested I take the girls up to the city with me. So I called Carissa and she jumped at the opportunity, renewing library books and canceling doctors appointments to clear her schedule. We left Sunday afternoon after teaching our primary class and made great time up to NYC. We settled into the company apartment in Times Square and then I threw Leah onto my shoulders and we walked about in the cold autumn night.

Leah loved the lights. She couldn't get enough of the M&M's store and all the flashing lights. She would laugh and point to the horses drawing carriages behind them. Really it was sensory overload for her and she ate it all up despite the sub-freezing temperatures. We escaped the cold for a while by slipping into some stores including the Toys "R" Us store that features a large Ferris wheel. Leah loved all of the toys and the displays. Though she wasn't too fond of the giant animatronic T-Rex from Jurassic Park. We also stopped by Rockefeller Plaza to see the Christmas tree. All of the scaffolding was up around it for them to hang the ornaments and decorate. However, they had already placed the Swaroski crystal star at the top.

I went to work early each morning but returned in the early afternoon to take the girls out for the rest of the day. On Monday afternoon we headed a few blocks north on foot and strolled through Central Park. We made our way over to the zoo first. Leah loved the zoo. The sea lions are the main attraction and they and trainers put on a show every couple of hours. One advantage to the cool weather was that all the animals were out and you could see them. This was much better than our experience at the National Zoo a few years ago on a 100+ degree day with nearly 100% humidity. Leah laughed and said hello and bye-bye to every animal. I think she needs to be a veterinarian. Next up we walked to the Tavern on the Green, the Carousel, and then the Bow Bridge because it was featured in Carissa's favorite movie. At this point we were exhausted but we kept walking down to FAO Schwartz. Leah wasn't too happy we had to leave. I think it was more a combination of the cold, the walking, sleep deprivation, and hunger. So we grabbed some dinner at Maxie's.

Here Leah is patiently waiting for her dessert:

Here she is with her dessert:



Here's Leah happy as a bug and willing to smile nicely for the camera because she has her dessert:

On our last full day in the city we decided to head south. We took the subway down to the south end of the island and hopped on the Staten Island Ferry. Leah fell asleep on the way so I held her while Carissa was able to take pictures of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as we passed by. Leah woke up by the time we got to Staten Island so we did a turnabout and got right back on but stayed out on the rear deck. Leah loved the water and the seagulls chasing the ferry. We then walked north into the Financial District, past the Bull statue, Wall Street, the NYSE, and finally stopped at Ground Zero. It's a giant construction pit as they are beginning construction on the Freedom Tower. Tower 7 to the north has already been rebuilt and my company installed the EMI shields there. We're working on a design for the Freedom Tower now. We boarded the subway again and headed back to Times Square. I was tired and exhausted from all of the walking. I had been up at 5:45am to walk to work every morning and it was starting to catch up to me. Needless to say I was grumpy and took it out on my girls. We got some oven baked pizza and I bought them some Kinder chocolate to make ammends.

Wednesday after work we headed home without any incident or traffic. I was shocked that the traffic was so light on the eve of Thanksgiving. I guess the economy had a lot of people staying home this year. It was so nice to have my girls there with me. I get so bored in the city by myself. I am already dreading the week I'll be spending away from them again when I head back up this evening. But it was a wonderful little vacation for our little family. As nice as it was, there is still no place like home.

Happy Birthday Nana!

My mother turned 30 again this year and boy does she look great. My ever thoughtful wife baked a yellow cake from scratch and decorated it with the November flower, chrysanthemums. Leah was excited to finally be able to eat the cake. All evening she was asking for birthday cake. Papa had fallen asleep and Leah went to wake him screaming, "C'mon Papa! Birthday cake!"

So Long Third Person Omniscent Narrator

When I started this blog after Carissa and I got married I began writing in third person. I guess I wanted someone else to tell our story. However, this annoyed Carissa to no end so I have acquiesced and will no longer pen our blogs in that narrative mode.

Jason, though mildly annoyed, has decided his wife's happiness and therefore his own, is much more important than me, your all knowing narrator. So I bid thee farewell.

Obama from Times Square

While working in New York City last week I was present for the election of President Obama. My firm has an apartment in Times Square where I stay at when in the city. At about 11pm EST when they announced that Obama had won the election and McCain had conceded I ran up to the roof to snap some pictures. CNN and a number of other media outlets had set up shop in Times Square and the place was a zoo as if it were New Year's Eve. Cars honked all through the night. People were cheering and clapping and chanting "Obama" all night. Needless to say I was not happy as I had to be up at 5:30am to make my way over to the eastside. But it was neat to be there for such a historic event.

This was the first year I haven't voted in an election since I turned 18. Having recently relocated from Utah I failed to register in Virginia or procure a mail-in ballot. That said I felt a great sense of apathy towards both candidates given their resumes and the challenges currently facing our country. Regardless, I pray that God directs and inspires our president-elect to help our great nation.

So what does Jason do again?

I have had to answer this question a million times and it's still difficult for most people to understand. To be honest, I don't even understand what I do half the time. So here's a not so little post to hopefully answer some of your questions:

I am a project manager for an engineering firm that specializes in Electromagnetic Interference/Radio Frequency Interference (EMI/RFI) mitigation. What we do is test electromagnetic fields in existing buildings and simulate them in buildings that have not yet been built. Based upon the data we gather we design ways to mitigate any interference. Typically this is done by shielding the source with ferrous materials like aluminum, iron and steel. As a project manager I am involved in every phase from procuring contracts, performing surveys, drawing shield designs in CAD, supervising union ironworkers during the installation of the shields, testing the installed shields, and writing final reports of our findings.

Most of our clients are universities and other research facilities that have sensitive equipment like electronmicroscopes that do not work with elevated EMI fields. But we also do work for many commercial clients who have data centers, server rooms and other computer equipment to protect. EMI fields can corrupt data and also cause computer screens to jitter and not function. We also shield areas for human exposure risks. Prolonged exposure to elevated EMI fields can cause health problems.

I recently returned from Manhattan where I spent a week overseeing the installation of a shield in a new research park on the East River inbetween Bellevue Hospital and NYU Medical School. Bellevue is where all the people who get shot in Law & Order end up.

This is the offload area for all of our materials. This is also the emergency entrance for Bellevue Hospital. We used a lull to boom all of our stuff onto the plaza level. We use 4'x8' and 5'x10' sheets of aluminum. These are 1/4" thick and weigh 180 lbs. each.

This is a view of the East River from where our shield is being installed. That's Long Island across the river. It was rainy and chilly day. The wind blowing off the river certainly doesn't help any.

This is the research park from the ground. As you can see it is still far from completion. We are shielding the plaza area designated by the orange safety fence at the bottom of the picture and also sections of the first floor along the curtain wall. Directly beneath the open plaza are all of the vaults that will house the electical transformers and switchgear rooms that will power all of the building. Using sophisticated software we simulated that these will generate large AC fields. Because this is an open area where people will congregate we designed a shield of 1/4" aluminum and 1/8" low-carbon steel to limit human exposure risks.

This is the plaza area that will be shielded. On the A-frame cart you can see some sheets of aluminum. The ironworkers and some laborers are preparing the floor for the shield. The shield is pinned to the concrete with Hilti powder actuated shots and then bolted in place. Then the aluminum must be seam welded.

This is the first floor which will be shielded.

This is the dual-substrate shield. The steel is on the bottom and the shiny stuff is the aluminum on top.

Here's one of the ironworkers welding the sheets of aluminum together, then a few pictures showing the shield after two days' worth of work. The shield will not be the finished floor. On top of the shield waterproofing will be applied and then another slab of concrete which will then be covered with pavers.

So that's it. If you're still reading you're probably bored. Sorry for the 5 minutes of your life I wasted. But trust me I have wasted more than that explaining all of this to people who just nod their heads like they understand and say things like "wow" and "interesting." So thanks for indulging me and reading along even if you still don't get any of what I do. Don't feel bad. Because neither do I.

Our Boo-tiful Butterfly!

If you peruse through our archives you'll see that this wasn't really Leah's first Halloween. She was a darling little monkey last year. However, Leah didn't get the chance to go trick or treating. Not because she didn't want to, but because Carissa decided that Leah can't trick or treat until she can say "Trick or Treat." So Jason has been working diligently with Leah for 12 months and was stoked to take her door to door as the proud, beaming father of this beautiful child. All was going as planned and then Jason had to put out a fire at work. And then another. And another. By 7pm he was finally on his way home, but by then the number of trick or treaters in our neighborhood had dwindled and Leah, escorted by Carissa, had already amassed an absurd amount of candy from neighbors.

Fortunately Carissa snapped some great pictures of our little gal and our pumpkins we carved the night before.

These two pictures crack me up. Leah can't decide which she likes better. Blueberry. Cherry. Cherry. Blueberry. Hmmmm. Let's try Cherblueberry!

She was so tired last night. She had a long day without a nap so by this hour Leah was running on adrenaline and sugar. We're great parents. She actually passed out and while asleep we brushed her teeth. So we made up for allowing the glucose binge. Kind of.

Carissa never grew up celebrating Halloween. So believe it or not this was the first pumpkin that she has ever carved. She was so proud and rightfully so. Her cat and moon pumpkin came out great. Jason was a bit worried that he'd have to clean out her pumpkin but Carissa pulled out all the seeds and guts herself. Jason carved a little owl.

"If she were a president she would be Baberaham Lincoln"

Our Baby Girl . . . .

. . . . is growing up! She has officially been a toddler for a while now, but sometimes certain moments make us realize what a beautiful little girl she's turning into. The other day Leah and Carissa were in the backyard. Carissa was trying to take some pictures of the leaves changing colors (our backyard backs up to a forest, it's great!). Carissa snapped this picture of Leah and thought it was such a perfect moment that represented her so well. She is certainly our bright beautiful little girl.

Blow Out

Jason has proven that he has what it takes to have his own reality show a la Jonathon doing hair. Carissa caught him styling Leah's hair after her bath the other day and snapped these shots. Ever since Leah insists that Jason dries her hair with the blow dryer and brushes it.

And the final product:



Look at the volume and sheen. Beautiful.

When Leah's cousin Mikaela was in town awhile back they wanted to try styling their hair by themselves. These two are too cute together and we wish that we were closer to them so they could continue playing together. Occasionally Leah will ask, "Where Kayla?"

Then we explain that she is at home in Kentucky to which Leah responds, "Tucky?"

"Yeah. Tucky."

I love this series of pictures. You can almost see the conversation these two are having.

"What's that?"

"A blow dryer."

"Should we turn it on?"

"I don't know."

"Uh-oh, it's on!"

"Funny!"

"Ahhhhh!"