It's official.

Today I was offered and accepted a full-time job with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Washington, D.C. I am the Public Affairs Coordinator.

My sister-in-law, Rachael Heiner, has worked for ALEC for over a year now and she was instrumental in getting me the job - or at least letting me know it was available and that I would be a perfect fit for the position.

Now...it isn't baseball, it isn't even sports-related, but I spent a good few weeks looking for a sports-related job but kept coming up empty. This is a great opportunity to continue my PR skills, with a great firm.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators. My primary responsibilities include updating and maintaining the ALEC website, copy-editing all ALEC publications, creating and editing publications and assisting the Director of Public Affairs in working with the media. I also get to travel to national meetings three times a year in various cities.

Labels: work

For the Fourth of July this year we hung out with family again in Virginia, including Valerie's cousin and her family, who recently moved out here from Utah. Every year it rains on the Fourth of July without fail, thunderstorms and all, and so why should this year be any different?

We got to watch a fireworks display nearby put on by the county but afterwords, when we were planning on lighting off our arsenal of buy one-get one free fireworks, the heavens opened up on us again and we were rained out. Ergo, this year we will be lighting off fireworks on the 5th of July!

Here are some thumbnails I took with my Nikon on a tripod. (Links open in flickr)

Labels: family, holiday

Today I took Valerie to get a 4D Ultrasound done at a nearby clinic. We had been wanting to do one of these ever since I saw that a friend had done it last year. It looked awesome and was a fun way to be able to see our kid prior to his birth in umpteen weeks!

As part of the package we got a number of wallet-size photos of our kid along with a CD of still shots and a DVD of XXXXXX in action.

I came home and edited the video so it could fit online and posted below.


Here is a link to 28 still shots from the clinic this afternoon. (Any black area is fluid/liquid).

Enjoy our kid IN UTERO!

In some of the images it may look like he's sucking on his hand or thumb, but we are told (and you may be able to see in the video clip) that he's actually trying to grasp and suck on the umbilical cord. Evidently, this is how babies learn to suck on the bottle or nipple after they are born. We were unaware.

My kid in action (sorry for the nursery song, we wanted to use a song from the Nirvana album 'In Utero' but the clinic didn't ask for our submission):

Labels: val pregnancy baby

Tired of your old stagnant wallpaper? Tired of having to right-click on the desktop, find the appropriate settings and changing the image you want to display on your desktop?

Today I found a random wallpaper changer that allows you to set the images (must be in one folder) and time of randomization. It is a small program, easy to download, install and barely is noticeable in your system tray.

You can read more about it [here]. You can also download if from their site, or if you are trusting click to download.

It works with all versions of Windows, including Vista (sorry MACkers). And yes, folks, it's FREEWARE!!!

Labels: computers, photography

A lot of you have been whining and crying to see pictures of Valerie's belly now that she's entered her third trimester.

People who have seen Val say that she looks 4 months pregnant, not 6+! Our baby eats a lot of fruit and rarely eats sweet. I think that has a lot to do with why she looks "4 months pregnant."

So after finally coaxing her into taking some... here are three photos of Valerie 27 weeks pregnant with [baby name omitted by poster].

Labels: val pregnancy baby

We spent the weekend with Valerie's brother and his family at Assateague State Park - a beach south of Ocean City, Maryland.

"Assateague State Park is Maryland's only ocean park. It is located on Assateague Island, a barrier island bordered on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the west by Sinepuxent Bay. Two miles of ocean beaches offer swimming, beachcombing, sunbathing, surfing and fishing. The island's bayside offers visitors the chance to explore secluded coves by canoe or kayak. The marsh areas have a variety of wildlife, including deer, waterfowl and feral horses."

Here are a few photos I took this weekend. As always, they can be found on flickr.


Our little niece Shannon up close and personal


This is Valerie's brother and his family.







Some of the wild feral horses that live on Assateague Island. They enjoy actually playing in the surf - unfortunately I wasn't able to catch the horses actually in the surf but I got there just after they were done and were on their way back to wherever they came from.


When I took this picture it was extremely smoky due to a small marsh fire nearby and the sunset over Maryland wasn't very good but thanks to PhotoShop I was able to edit the sunset to look halfway decent.


On Saturday evening, Valerie and I were on our way to go find her some food (thanks to the pregnancy) and we saw these two feral horses just idly standing by the side of the road that leads off the island. I guess they thought they were some sort of horse celebrity or something.


Here is where the horses normally live/roam.


Driving home from the island, Valerie and I found this old barn that ivy had overgrown and had to take a picture.

Labels: family

Well the countdown has pretty much officially begun. Valerie and I have hit the "under 100 days" mark till our baby is due. It's pretty crazy. I guess I should begin reading baby books designed for dads. For those of you who know me, you know that I am the oldest of seven (now nine - two are adopted from China), so I have a pretty good idea about babies and raising kids.

I'm excited to meet this little guy and enjoy feeling him kick and move around inside his comfy little home. Supposedly he's up to around two pounds right now. I'm still praying that he'll be healthy and normal! At least ultrasounds can relieve some of the worry, but we'll see once he's born and growing up.

In the meantime, Valerie and I chillax (chill+relax, for those of you who didn't get it) with the nearby nieces and nephew.

Saturday we all went to the club pool and of course I took around my trusty camera. It's fun to watch the twins begin to really interact with each other and on occasion they will wrestle with their big sister. They generally are very happy kids.

Labels: family

This afternoon I met Valerie for lunch at Cosi and then I took the camera to the Washington Marina where there is a world-class fish market.

After snapping a few pictures and talking to a vendor from the Dominican Republic about baseball (very nice guy), I bought a 1/4 slice of a watermelon for $2 and came home to beat the heat and edit my new photos.

Recently I was ripped off at B. Dalton books [a division of Barnes & Noble] but I was okay with the price of the photography magazine I purchased. It's titled 'Practical Photography' and the $9.75 issue, published in the U.K., was an excellent source for editing photos in Camera Raw programs such as Adobe Photoshop CS3.

So I came home and opened and edited four images that I took down at The Wharf.









Larger sizes can be found on flickr.

Labels: photography

After a few days of the server being down it seems to be back up. Valerie and I have been sick for the past few days and laid up in the apartment. It hasn't been fun. We seem to have kicked the illnesses as we head into June.

Valerie's pregnancy is going well - as we start on week 25. We finally decided on a name for the little boy - but have agreed not to share with family or friends until he's born (mid-September).

We went on a walk today after work hours and I took my camera along. I'll slowly stick them up on flickr.com.

For Memorial Day Valerie and I wanted to enjoy the nice weather we had here in Washington, DC so we went for a short nature hike just minutes away from the hustle and bustle of DC.

I wanted to go to Great Falls National Park in Virginia but when we drove all the way out there it was too packed and they were turning away cars, so we kept on driving a little north and ended up at a smaller park called River Bend.

It was an enjoyable little hike, and the first I have done since I was a teenager in California. It was great to be able to enjoy the good warm weather and nature.











Valerie took a picture of me with her cellphone while I was trying to get the above shot. I had crawled out on a tree that was hanging over the water to get this shot.