When I think about it, which I don’t think about it often. But the universe is amazingly huge and when I really sit down to grasp it… I feel like we are all so insignificant. Like an ant. But smaller.

I just wanted to share that I’ve found some hobbyist photos that outshine hubble and most NASA photo’s I’ve ever seen. The first set is Greg Parker and Noel Carboni.  I found them in this gizmodo article. They have several sites. One here and here. He setup his “observatory” for $15,000.

While browsing their blog I found a link to Wolfgang Prompers page. Some real amazing photos there too. I don’t know how he does his process exactly. Haven’t researched everything in depth. Just thought I’d share.

So, we had an excellent birthday party. I’d probably say it was life changing for all of us in this house. Over-all, it went very very smoothly and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Got to spend some time with with family that I feel I have “neglected”.

I got lots of video that I will need to unload and edit to get online soon. I might abuse my work computer for that because my poor laptop is getting tired.

Makayla was excellent in mood. I expected her to get “whiney” but once people showed up she was perfectly fine with hanging out with ANYBODY, going where she pleases and playing with balloons. The present opening, she surprisingly (again) understood. She understood that she must unwrap and then play. It was often hard to get her to concentrate on the next present because each one before it was better than the last. After all she had to check out her loot. After present opening we proceeded to the cake. She got her own cake that matched the big one. They did an EXCELLENT job with cake. Exactly what Courtney wanted and man was it good. I’m making it a point to finish it, because face it. It’s not Publix cake.

As I was saying. Makayla had her own cake. The effect of a sugar influx that size on a 1 year old is very humorous. She looked drunk. Period. She was in some sort of bliss. Heaven. Grandpa Don came over and asked how she was enjoying the cake. She cocked her head to the side and let out a large blissful grin. Then started eating again. When we finally let her out she literally almost flopped out of the high-chair. She then proceeded to stumble, then RUN into the family room. What was in that cake, I am not sure. She did stay up ’til 9 o’clock without a second nap that day, though. 

Best. Day. Ever.

Here are pictures:

We had our birthday party today. I will go into detail tomorrow, but I wanted to let you know I had a great time hosting it, being a part of it and being with all that was there.

Thank you for those of you who came (that read this)! – Also… I am exhausted. Cleaned most of the house. Still have the decorations up that haven’t fallen yet. Courtney works all day tomorrow so tomorrow will undoubtedly be long for me.. but Mak has lots of new stuff to play with. Will post more photos later and tell some stories!

-Mark

I really need to go to sleep… stayed up late working. Need to go to work in a few hours again. Oi. At least I’m taking off Friday.

Anyways. I’ve been doing a lot of coding lately I always feel really proud of myself usually by the end. I feel like I’m at least knowledgeable in PHP and CSS now. I know how to effectively use a div tag and how to create an include page to populate an entire space with 1 line of code. Basically.. it’s like making your website menu and storing it somewhere else. The old school way of making a website was you had to go and make the same menu on every single page.

Now a days you can make it on one page and “include” it into your site. So if the menu needs to change, you only change the 1 thing. If that makes sense? Anyways, yea I figured out how to get a php include into a php include file pretty fast tonight. I also feel really good about wordpress now. Just don’t ever ask me to do a yahoo store.

I had a really good day today. Courtney was at work and I spent the day with my daughter.

This morning we went to Target to just look around. I put her down and she looked through some clothes that she liked. Then walked over to the toys and showed me stuff she liked (mostly stuff she already has!). Then we went back home, she took a nap with me then we went back out. Had McDonalds for lunch (3 nuggets) and then I took her to Old Navy to get a pull-over sweater and some sweatpants. She likes the jacket a lot. After that we hung out at Barnes and Noble for about an hour at the kids section. She walked all around and played with other kids and stuff. She’s really good about playing with other kids. She tries to play with the big kids and it’s really funny to me. Most of the “big kids” which were probably about 4-6 didn’t know what to do when she tried to give them things she was playing with. She just started giving people stuff. I’m glad she’s giving.. even though she takes her given item back right away :p

Then finally after we walked all the way back to the car together we went and saw mommy at work. She got a ton of attention today and loved to walk and do her own thing, try to play with others. I’m so impressed with that little thing. Her first birthday party is on Saturday. Woah.

Been watching True Blood… caught up with the series tonight. Interesting show, I’m into it. Wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started watching it but it has a good premise. <3 HBO on demand.

Didn’t do much tonight besides go to Steak n’ Shake for dinner, which I haven’t had in ages. Steak n’ Shake was the first restaurant we took Makayla to :p

Did nothing else today besides do some work. Trying to figure out Yahoo! stores. I’m usually good at modifying templates but I can’t find ANYTHING on the their site and every time I look for help in some sort of support forum etc. all I find are greedy $)@*’s trying to charge $700 for some service. People are just preying on small business owners to get their hard earned dollar. Ticks me off.

That is all.

Long week. But somehow the week seems to go by really fast at the end of the day. I also discovered at around 5pm that I have to produce a 2 minute fully animated video with a voice over by Friday. Sucky thing is the video was my idea. Oops. I’m not going early or staying late for it, though. No sir-e. 

Tried to watch the shuttle launch tonight, which quite possibly could be the last. Saw a huge flame burst go over some of the houses before it disappeared into the stinky clouds. Now it is raining. It was so perfect last night, too.

I guess this weekend I am relaxing, getting some work done and then next weekend is Makayla’s birthday party, followed by her real birthday on Thanks Giving. I can’t believe it’s already been a year! Wow!

Okay, well. Without further ado, welcome to my new blog! Spent a bit of time learning how to theme it myself. For those wondering, I modified the default them after building a “layout” from scratch to learn how the code works. Let me know what you think, thanks!

RIP, BLOGSPOT