Finally settling down

Hello everyone, Alex here. I hardly know where to begin with this update since so much has happened, but I'll make a valiant attempt...

First, the house we're renting now is far better than most of the places we lived in San Diego. Temecula is still fortunately outside the real-estate insanity radius of Southern California and houses are barely affordable if you are at or over a six figure salary. Still insane but not nearly as insane as Santa Ana where I work. A cardboard box on a curb would probably cost you at least as much as a one bedroom house in Texas. Either you buy in to the illusion or you don't, and we aren't, well, anytime soon anyway. Charging more for a house because it is located in a nice place is one thing, but pricing out 90% of the market is another.

Temecula is a nice smaller town surrounded by mountains and we like it so far. More cultural variety (meaning we aren't surrounded by Filipino or Vietnamese), less traffic, and easier access to a lot of places like parks and shopping. A nicer place to raise a family.

Jeanette is now on the board of the Mom's Club of South Temecula! Her post will be Secretary and will add her laser-honed organizational skills to the group, taking minutes and being a mediator at meetings. I also believe the board wants her to revamp their new member procedures, since one doesn't exactly feel welcome as a new member, as the joining process is not clear. What's nice is she's able to be with other women her age who are also mothers.

On the movie front, Jeanette went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which she enjoyed but which was again short on detail as is standard translating books to film. When I mentioned the movie was already two hours long her response was "So? Make it three hours long!". Quite the die hard fan. She also took Nicholas to see Shrek 3, and I took him to see Transformers. Nicholas' favorite varies, but the first one he picked was coincidentally my first Transformer: Ironhide! Not exactly awe inspiring as a mini-van in the 1980s, he is now a GMC semi cab truck! Optimus Prime is now known as "Octopus Prime" to Nicholas as well, and the one he wants most for his birthday is Bumblebee.

We now have grass in our backyard, the owners installed sod, some sort of leafy ground cover and trees this past weekend. The boys enjoyed playing there with the sprinkler while Jeanette and I had a wonderful time trying to get the soaker hoses to stay put. It is definitely nice to have a place outside for the boys to play without getting run over though.

I have been working long days (and nights) on this game which is nearly finished. My job is to implement all music, sound, and VO so that it plays properly and is mixed well. This is the first Dungeons and Dragons game I have worked on and having enjoyed D&D a great deal growing up, it is very inspiring to see the detail and story quality that is in modern video game representations of the tabletop classic. I also got a little giddy compositionally, writing about 40 minutes of music in addition to the 80 already written by an outside contractor, making over two hours of music for this expansion pack. The original game has only 40 minutes. One of the best things about Obsidian is that they allow me to get my own dinner if I am working late, and less than two miles away is a Chick Fil A!

Finally (and this is mostly information you can find on the main site's pictures, but...), little Conner is coming into his own a bit, being able to wrestle Nicholas. The two of them roll around occasionally with many a giggle coming from the knot of arms and legs. Its very nice to see them play together. Conner is also talking a lot more, saying "ball" with fervor. He's also getting into books, "Moo, Moo Brown Cow" is his current favorite, so we read that to him regularly. He enjoys counting the animals also.

Signing off for now. Tell us what YOU'RE up to (if we don't already talk to you regularly)!

Comments

[Amy Short]

Hey Alex--

Hopefully you remember me, but if not, I don't blame you. :) I was cleaning out my garage last weekend and came across this old beat-up cassette tape that was very elaboratly labeled "Heartstone". I couldn't remember what it was for the life of me, so I hunted down a tape player and had an a-HA! moment when I realized what it was. I had flashbacks of crazy phone conversations and for some reason started thinking of the song "When Doves Cry".. not sure what that's all about. Anyway, I decided to hunt you down and see how the last ten years have treated you, and fortunately you were very easy to find. :) You have a very beautiful family! Anyway, I just wanted to say hello, and I didn't see any other comments, so maybe I will be the first!

Take care,

Amy (ami)