Welcome to the Sobblog

The rest of November 2011

2012-01-08T15:15:00.003-06:00

late post to catch up on the last part of November 2011; something about having a second kid in the house, and a newborn at that, tends to command most of your coherent (and 3 am incoherent) time.

please enjoy Thanksgiving month, courtesy of the Sobczaks

Gung Gung and Collin - quality time

Adam helps with some late-year garden plant relocations

Passion for digging

Mandated union break time

Adam shows Collin some love

Haircut - getting groomed to go meet HEBuddy and the Cars

Where're my Buddy Bucks?

Big smiles for Lightning McQueen

Daddy's laughing because he had to go into the inflatable obstacle course to retrieve an Adam who was not ready to quit overcoming said obstacles

Collin at his debut public photo shoot

Adam does dry-land practice for his hockey game

Taking a break from practice to watch some game tape

Brothers enjoying a smile

Collin, zonked out

The Lewises came over for Thanksgiving - Uncle Steve and cousin April pose with Collin

Adam hangs out with cool cousin Jacob

Aunt Karyn shows Adam the latest iPad app she bought for him

Collin totally psyched for a drive

Mommy and Daddy's bed - prime napping spot

Poh Poh enjoys a picture with the brothers Sobczak

Adam plays Name Your Brother's Body Parts

A quick laugh outdoors on a nice day

The family cleans up nice every once in a while

Sobczaks in the shadow of downtown Houston

November 2011 - A (Collin) Sobczak is born!

2011-11-09T21:22:00.002-06:00

Pleased to introduce to the world - Collin Grant Sobczak! healthy 9 1/2 pounder, little brother to his doting Goh Goh Adam. Mom and baby are doing well and we're all enjoying some family time at home.

Enjoy some pictures of young Collin and the various well-wishing friends and family members who stopped by hospital or home to meet and pose with him.

First off, mommy and Collin

Aunt Allison and eldest cousin Audrey

Dad and Goh Goh , all smiles

Adam bestows the brotherly kindness

Gung Gung and Poh Poh, proud grandparents one more time around

Adam shows off the new gifts Collin brought him

Adam snuggles up to Mommy on the reclining bed

Got your nose, little bro

The whole family gets together

Uncle Darren always dresses fancy for new baby arrivals

Aunt Karyn and Dad line up to show the Sobczak sibling trait spectrum

Dad sleeping soundly on his hospital "bed"

Family time back at the house

Adam and crew enjoy the belated birthday fishing game from Tara

FISH!

Adam happily joins in doling out the feedings

The brothers Sobczak and the grandparents, chatting before bedtime

Adam enjoys some of Aunt Karyn's watercoloring gifts

Papa Bob confers with Adam on the current building block project

Engineering goes awry at the end

Aunt Lara enjoying some cradling

Papa Bob lets Collin experience his tallest person-holding-me yet

Grandma and Adam sharing a moment

Aunt Lara and Adam catch up on the latest iPod gaming

Adam takes a sit down memory lane

Mom and son keeping warm on a cold day

Mom and sons laugh it up, I suspect because Collin burped

Sleepy time

Collin filling up not quite as much of this seat as Adam

I can still ride in this, too, right?

Kate comes by to let Adam introduce her to her new playmate

'Uncle' Lance and Kate give Collin a warm welcome

October 2011 - Pumpkins & Trains

2011-11-06T15:30:00.003-06:00

the weather finally started taking a turn for the colder which led to some outdoor fun times for the kids in the form of a visit to the pumpkin patch and some treehouse monkeying around at Day Day and Mui Mui's backyard.

back indoors a bunch of elderly hobbyists decided to entertain both themselves and the very very young with a model train convention downtown; Adam could hardly contain himself

Adam tells Gung Gung which large-scale train he wants Dad to buy and bring home

Mommy, Adam, and Collin (belly inset) head to the next exhibit

Checking out an A+ worthy diorama of the American train system of the 20th century

The grandfolks catch up at lunch after the convention

Elegant baby Mary

Adam and Audrey amidst the pumpkins

Gung Gung and Adam take a bench rest

All the kid-pumpkins in a row

You can feel the kinetic energy in this photograph just by looking at it

Gung Gung has his hands full here

Adam gives Audrey a push

Audrey hangs on for dear life

Slide time!

CRASH! nah just kidding

Evelyn in the garden

Daily iPad interface conditioning

Flash cards!

Fun time with flashlight: moon on the ceiling!

September 2011 - Adam, meet the Aquarium

2011-10-22T15:26:00.003-05:00

The McGuire family came over for some late-summer backyard fun in the water and sun, plus Adam, Paw Paw, Gung Gung, and Mommy headed off to the aquarium to see the fishes. Also, Adam shows off his iPad skills

Adam rocks out to some totally rad nursery songs

Getting a head start on mastering device interactivity of the future

Spotting the Dot

Changing tires like a NASCAR pit crew pro

Let's have an aquarium adventure!

Adam gets his height from Daddy

BIIIIIIIIG FISH

"Gung Gung, neeehhhhh!"

Prepping his wide-eyed amazement look for the shark train ride

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag. (dropping the reference yet I've never seen the movie all the way through)

A good old fashioned pigeon chase

Mommy strikes a sweet pose

Adam and Olivia cheerfully ride off together into the sunset

Uncle David helpfully fills up Adam's frisbee as per request

Getting hosed down, and loving it

heads up dude!

Olivia elusively dodges her dad's water spraying

hehe, hey stop it! ok, well one more time

hanging out together - good times

Backyard superhero!

Gung Gung puts on a science display, during which Adams stages a sneak attack

I AM TSUNAMI!

August 2011 - Where's the rain?

2011-09-25T15:31:00.002-05:00

Mother Nature kept sticking with the plan of ratcheting up the heat and denying the rainstorms, so Adam took a cue to focus on fixing things indoors with Daddy and Gung Gung, as well as getting some time in on the indoor soccer field

Maxin' and relaxin' on the couch with Mommy

Mommy checks out this thumb-sucking thing that's all the rage

Gung Gung and Adam build a tower out of off-spec foam Chinese blocks

Behold the train universe of the family common room

Hanging up the entryway mirror

Adam shows Dad how you drive a nail

Dad (in the keeper black-and-yellow) gathers in the point-blank low save

A quick low save at the beginning, and save via taking out the opponent at the end

Adam helps Dad with some kicking practice after his game

A bit of passing 1-2

Good practice done, carried off the field like a champion

July 2011: the non-Destin vacation parts

2011-08-21T17:28:00.004-05:00

July in Houston generally is, and was, a very hot summer, but that didn't keep the Sobczaks, Chows, and Bartsches from doing fun things outdoors like trike riding and naturally even more fun things indoors like coffee table ping-pong, 'horsey' races, and a visit to Moody Gardens for some sea life on exhibit. Photo / video evidence below!

Paw Paw on the run

Viewing the great trike riding landscape

On the move down the trail

Pedaling with youthful energy

Giddyup, horseys!

Little Moi Moi shown walking around quite well

Adam and Dad practice their family circus act

Making Adam smile, and making Paw Paw terrified

Only Dad has the right physical dimensions for the leg swing

Coming at ya!

Adam bests Dad in coffee table ping pong

The powerful rising shot to Dad's forehand

Paw Paw and Gung Gung with the kids at Moody Gardens' exhibit

Kids getting their hands wet - literally

Shark cage exhibit - or Moody Gardens children's jail?

Evelyn looking a lot like her sister Audrey

Evelyn soaks in the love from Paw Paw

Adam shows no fear of the mighty prehistoric shark thing

Mommy and Adam playing it cool

Destin-ation: Beach Vacation!

2011-07-17T21:05:00.004-05:00

Mommy, Daddy, Adam and Grandpa Gung Gung hopped on a plane and jetted off to northwest Florida to stay in a cozy rented beach villa duplex within sight of Miramar Beach just outside the city of Destin.

Pier fishing, the swimming pool, and of course a couple of visits to the beach were just part of the fun we all had out there.

Adam and Gung Gung hanging out at base camp

Out on Oskaloosa Pier for some periodically-rainy day pier fishing

Adam sets his net sights on one of the omnipresent coastal birds in violation of pier loitering laws

Even with the sound of the wind masking his approach, the bird remains one step ahead

Getting hands on with the squid bait

Adam shows Dad how to get the fish to bite

Gung Gung and Adam strike a quick pose before casting out for some fish

Gung Gung reels in the big catch

Tonight, we feast!

Adam and Gung Gung resting up back at the beach house

Going down the stairs pretty much "all by myself"

Hello from the beach!

Adam and Gung Gung get a look at the blue Gulf water

Mommy (and little brother in waiting) get in on the beach / ocean fun

A bucket that would be refilled many times over

It's all about the scoop technique

Time for some awesome wave jumping

Beach ball, prepare to be kicked!

ka-pow!

boom!

the kick so powerful, the force of it moves the oceans

the best athletes do their offseason training on the sand

Adam working on his soccer header technique, with a little gymnastics donkey kick at the end

Beach Day 2: The Shoveling

Powerful baby legs - honed by sandwalking

Color coordinated, totally cool

The obligatory family beach photo

Pool day!

mastering the backstroke (the kicking part at least)

big splashes, big speed

smile of a champion

Mommy and Gung Gung, poolside

with the shades on, kinda already looks like a steely-nerved combat zone pilot

At the airport, a quick photo before heading home (in a commercial plane - not pictured)

June 2011: Summertime Adam

2011-07-16T22:19:00.005-05:00

no rain for the parched Houston area in June (that I can remember) , but there was still plenty of Adam antics and smiles in the forecast.

Adam works on his ping-pong game, and Paw Paw applauds heartily

Adam plays chicken with Gung Gung, then heads through the Tall Dad Bridge

All smiles on his bike ride

Helping Dad and Gung Gung with the kitchen appliance installation

Top-secret install work, Mom: no pictures!

Chomping down on some cobbed corn

SPLASH!

Kiddie pool: where a hat becomes a bucket

Enjoying the sun in a way his now easily-sunburned Dad cannot

Lookit that belly!

Belly closeup, better side view

Mommy and her camera disturbed precious nighttime Ipod time

File footage for his future engineering college application

Just hanging around on the couch, probably watching Thomas and Friends

May 2011 - Adam turns two and other great stuff

2011-06-13T15:31:00.006-05:00

May rolled in and it was all trains at the Sobczak household as a crowd of friends young and old gathered here for Adam's 2nd birthday party where a neighborhood trackless train took everyone for as many rides as their hearts desired within the contracted one-hour period.

TRAIN!

Around the bend

The end of a fun ride around the block

Evelyn watches the train depart

Everyone gathers for cake and smiles

Gung Gung and Adam travel by train through the remains of the cake

Audrey loads up on cake

Audrey and Adam test the horsepower of the 2 mph Quad

Aunt Lara catches up with Adam while he catches up with her smartphone games

Paw Paw and Audrey dance while Adam plays keytar and the camera struggles to maintain focus

GIFT TRUCKS!

Evelyn helps Adam with his new toys

Mowing a walking path in the carpet

Helping Dad get the yard looking nice

Yard man

Hanging out at the Hermann Park reflecting pool

Quick rest on the bench

In the shade of a tree

Disappointed to learn we wouldn't be taking this toy train home

Hanging out at home just playing some 'smush face'

European beach fashion

8 ball, corner pocket

Most pool hall hustlers got their start standing on indoor trampolines

Adam and Mommy enjoy some delicious cake

Audrey welcomes new cousin Mary Elise to the world

Double flip!

Fearlessly into the foam pit

Gung Gung and Adam enjoy some rough-housing

Post-bathtime storytime

April 2011 - Spring is here

2011-05-10T20:59:00.004-05:00

Great times this month with Easter egg hunts and more gymnastics fun

Paw Paw introduces pudding popsicles to Adam in order to bring truth to his "Monster Mess Maker" t-shirt

Good down to the tongue depressor stick

Eating and cleaning up all on his own

Adam doing some funky breakdancing

Breakdancing part two

Easter egg hunting made faster with a turbo basket

Paw Paw and Gung Gung pose with the kids after the egg hunt

round and round they go

Happiness in stride

tumbling down the triangle

Audrey takes off

Daddy does some much needed stretching with the kids

up up and away!

the boys pose for a picture

Adam and Audrey bounce. and bounce...and bounce

Adam learns that stretching can be fun too

The kids go for a (balance beam) walk

March-ing on : 2011

2011-04-23T16:25:00.012-05:00

Lots of fun stuff this month - helping Dad wash the car, going to a farmers market, strawberry farm picking, hanging out with the McGuires when Uncle Dave came to town for a soccer tournament, the list goes on. Good times aplenty!

Mommy and Adam - Funtime at Froberg Farms

Adam running with "Cake" (Kate) down the strawberry lanes

Selecting only the finest strawberries (left after the Spring Break families came through)

Hand in hand

Later the Bartsches joined the party - Audrey and Adam go searching

Adam and out-of-town friend Olivia get in just a little more playtime before bed

Adam, Olivia, and Uncle David get some soccer practice in...

...before Adam takes his skills to the field

looking sharp in his Houston Dynamo jersey

soccer player in motion

Adam shares some strategy tips with Uncle David at halftime

Picnic time for the Chows, Bartsches, McGuires, and Sobczaks in Sugar Land

bubble time!

chasing the bubble

Gung Gung takes Evelyn for a ride

Evelyn in her summer sun dress

"Woo-ah!" the battle cry of the pool floaty fencer

Keeping the ears super-clean

Helping Dad wash the car like a big boy

Adam loves the water, whether at work or at play

Ready to wipedown Dad!

Belly!

Farmers Market - great place for kids to get out their energy with some soccer dribbling

The kitchen - great place for kids to work on their hockey skills

Slide time at the Farmers Market

Adam saw some breakdancing on TV and decided to give it a try

Dancing to the Thomas and Friends theme song

"Sorry for the inconvience"

2011-04-14T17:09:00.004-05:00

If there is a universal truth in the world, it is this:

The person in charge of providing the public with notice that a normally accessible and usable facility(bathroom, water fountain, ATM) is currently not usable, the person who wrote the paper sign affixed to that out-of-service facility, is not familiar with how to spell the word 'inconvenience'.

"Sorry for the inconvence, the inconvience, the inconvenice........ Sorry for the hassle. - MGMT"

February 2011 - A Happenin' Month

2011-03-23T21:50:00.008-05:00

So much going on each February - Valentines' Day, my birthday , Grace's birthday plus a bejeezus-load of year-end work for myself and Grace. Free time in the first few months of the year is always in scarce supply but we still made time for the good stuff in life.

As Adam gets on the home stretch toward his second birthday, he has been ramping up his collection of sentence fragments - conversation is getting diverse and even more interesting! "I help" "Adam fall down" "Daddy Ipod please" and so on. Getting into some wholesome family mini-traditions; settling for Sunday morning breakfast watching Thomas the Tank Engine is a current favorite.

Over at Sugarland's open-air mall, running out the post-lunch energy

The building blocks, they go kablooie

Round and round, goes the whirly-basket

Adam and Audrey work together (?)

Uncle William helps out with Ipod monkey game fruit puzzle section

Cruisin' the living room with daddy power

Adam literally hanging around with yoga-like spinal flexibility

Adam and his friend "Cake" (Kate) make the swingset scene

Adam and Mommy do some soccer-gymnastics

Adam's Tower of Babble

D.J. Monkey Choo-Coo Train

Sneak Peek at Adam & Dad Storytime

Audrey!

Evelyn!

Daddy has "1" birthday this month!

Rockin' the shades

Load up the delivery ATV

Adam is fascinated with the neighbors' ceramic dog

What a great photo of mommy and son!

Christmas 2010 and January 2011 - in mid-February!

2011-01-31T22:28:00.008-06:00

Q1 (the first three months of the year, in non-accountant speak) is not the best time of the year for free time and idle projects like photo/video uploading and blogging. Work tends to be as bracing and furious as the hard freezes that swept our area in the last couple of weeks and energy tends to run low.

So now that the year-end financials have been assembled, blessed, and shipped off to the worldwide powers that be, let's catch up on some family moving / still images!

Christmas 2010

Christmas for the young man starts shirtless and +Slinky

Adam takes the Hasbro Fast n Furious Tokyo Drift car for a spin

Audrey and Adam modeling the J. Crew Kids' Christmas collection

Paw Paw and Gung Gung testing the specs of Evelyn's cheeks

Adam and Audrey explore sine waves through the medium of Slinky

The family crowd gathers for gifts

Mommy performs the first of many soundings of this horn

Adam gets his ATV on

Audrey the Christmas elf

Storytime for the kids with Gung Gung

Discovery Green! First Time Ice Skating

Not easy to pose on the ice

A return to Moody Gardens Festival of Lights - slightly foggier / drizzlier this time

The Official Christmas Family Photo (and no, it's not slouching - our Christmas tree was that short)

January!

Hanging out with Mom, Dad, and Grandma in Victoria - New Year's Day +1

Laundry Basket Spaceship Rides - for as long as Adam's weight doesn't exceed Dad's arm strength limits

Nerf and Adam share some rare face time

Nose!

The coolest ATV-rider hat ever

Rolling down our street

Winter is for football!

Winter is for futbol!

Tunnel shenanigans

Rainy day ABC12345s

Adam's first bike ride

Ad music that drills a hole in my brain

2010-12-28T08:31:00.004-06:00

The winter holidays are great - good times with family, excellent food, presents and whatnot - but the sooner they are over the sooner I will be free from hearing this ad on TV and wanting to drive my Pilot into a lake in protest.

I know the ad men threw this song in there because it's catchy and light and emblematic of all the bright and happy lives that Honda owners lead but for me it happens to be the type of late 2000s alt-folk-hipster rock (?) that I couldn't stand the first time my friend's friend played the entire Vampire Weekend CD on a never-ending loop during a couple of days at my friend's family riverhouse.

November 2010 - A Time for Adam and "Punkin"s!

2010-11-30T21:14:00.000-06:00

(pumpkins)...November begins with the throwing out of Halloween jack-o-lanterns and most often ends with Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

November was a really full month, from having our good friend Steven stay and visit with us on his way to a New Orleans software developer conference to a nice, breezy day at the zoo and ending it all with a bunch of Chow-side family over at our house for the Thanksgiving break. Lots of time for Adam to play with his cousins and various aunts and uncles, lots of time for the elders to play Mahjong well into the late hours.

One day you're carrying your son everywhere he needs and the next you're wondering how he got so tall and so fast on his feet!

Happiness is a well-stocked toolbench.

Steven: Bringer of Smiles.

Steven and Adam appreciate each other's version of "The Aristocrats"

Contest winner!

All the cool Jedis wear white.

Superblanket Boy

Adam hangs out with new cousin Evelyn.

Showing the old folks how Mahjong is played

Adam and Audrey laughing it up at gymnastics

Photographed shortly before his gold-medal triple backflip dismount

Time to make-a the joose

The kids are crazy with the running and the yelling.

Adam helps Dad with his shoes

Mommy and Adam checking out the fishes.

Adam chats up some antelope (or xebu? can't remember)

Zoo time is good time.

Halloween 2010 Adam - October

2010-11-21T21:06:00.010-06:00

Nearing the 1 1/2 year mark, Adam's continuing to branch out his personality. Whether getting funky to his toy music or excitedly grabbing a book and plopping down on Mommy or Daddy's lap to point out the animals and shapes, he's staying active on a constant basis. Mommy and Daddy having a great time too!

Technically Adam's second Halloween this year but this time around he was no mere candy-distributor, he took his costume on the go and made the rounds on our street to collect some various forms of sugar to be eaten by Mom and Dad later.

Ready to Hit the Streets for Some Serious Trick-or-Treatin'

Meet and Greet with the local Halloweeners

Bravely Facing the Lurking Doorway Spider

Halloween Bee Dance!

The Cleaning-Up Smile

Breakfast with Beard-Style Dad

Making Paw Paw & Gung Gung proud: Drinking Soup the Chinese Way

Readin' with Dad

AT&T's lack of shame

2010-10-30T23:38:00.003-05:00

I'm known relatively far and wide for being a grammar snob; am I crazy to keep up this vendetta? Should I just lighten up?

Happened to have the World Series game three on TV tonight and in passing noticed that the in-game AT&T World Series Trivia infographic read, from what i can remember, pretty much as follows:

"What was the last year in which the American League team won it's first home game of the World Series?"

AT&T is a major company with presumably a large marketing staff. Nobody along the chain, from the junior staff who researched and wrote it to the marketing manager who approved it to the tech guy that programmed it as an on-screen graphic, noticed or cared that they should have used "its" instead of "it's"?

You might say, "I'll bet you none of the viewers who read that sentence noticed or cared either", and I'd say that's part of the problem too.

Proper grammar and word usage, on their own, aren't really a significant issue; what's more important is that "it's" instead of "its" captures a downward trend in the state of professionalism. At one point in time, corporations' marketing arms were judged on both the effectiveness and the polish of their messages; if that goes, what can the rest of society and culture do but start sliding away as well?

Maybe "it's" and "its" don't bug you that much; how about if the trivia read "During the last half of the Rangers' season, how many of they're games went to extra innings?". Where's the tipping point? Do you think anyone in the AT&T brass saw to it that someone was fired or at least verbally ripped up for the written gaffe that millions of baseball fans saw splashed alongside the AT&T logo?

The muddled but sporadically depressing and brilliant movie Idiocracy has several scenes of a radically dumbed-down future in which slack-jawed people endlessly gape at mindless TV dreck and communicate basically in monosyllabic grunts. There are a couple of steps between a few proofreading errors and that reality, of course, but it does all start somewhere..

Back in my day... / Gimme now!

2010-10-27T22:47:00.009-05:00

Could just be the thirtysomething in me talking, but I was listening to Adam Carolla's podcast today and in the course of conversation he made a remark about the intersection of youth and modern technology that I instinctively agreed with:

(not a direct quote but close enough)

" You feel a little bit sad for our kids growing up now, that they'll be able to watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas in August, and that they won't give a shit about it"

It's really true; there's a certain balance between escaping the needless inefficiencies of the past and the ever-increasing accessibility of the present and near-future and in the end I'm not really sure what is ultimately better.

Back in the 80s and 90s when I did most of my growing up in a world devoid of recording technology there was an air of excitement when CBS rolled out the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. You saw the commercial announcement sometime earlier in the week and mentally marked your Transformers calendar, making sure to speed through dinner on the day of the show in time to plant yourself in front of the TV on time so as not to miss a minute. All bathroom breaks had to be handled during the allotted commercial time; any moment you missed being absent from the TV room would be one you'd have to wait another year to see.

During the golden years of the Simpsons my appointment in front of the TV on Sunday nights at 7 pm was pretty much non-negotiable.

Same thing in the water-cooler Seinfeld era, one of the more prominent last signifiers of the "collective media experience"; if you missed out on the popular show of the moment, you forfeited opportunities to enjoy it the next day a second time in discussion with your friends / coworkers.

Sure, it was all incredibly inconvenient when you look at it from afar - adhering to Entertainment's schedule instead of Entertainment bending to fit your life. However, the introduction of DVRs, iPods (from which I admittedly do enjoy tremendous utility on a daily basis) and all have removed the concept of delayed gratification from the entertainment equation and weakened the sentimentality and sense of occasion one can feel toward a particular experience.

Not going to be home to catch 30 Rock? Just set your Tivo to record it. Forgot to do that ? Just go watch it on Hulu....I suppose this could be a slight caveat as I think Hulu posts new shows a day or two after the original air date, but still a world away from "oh well , see you next year Charlie Brown".

Anything is in reach at any time, which is great to the extent of not being robbed of the chance to enjoy something meaningful/humorous/special but at the same time strips any media from truly belonging to a time or season, a moment in which you feel a bond however slight with a particular community.

Accessibility is a wonderful thing, no mistake - as one example I know that I'm more educated and enriched from many more possible sources than I could have known ten years ago, as a result of new technology's subservience to my go-go lifestyle: I load up my iPod with podcasts and listen on the way to, from, and at work about business and money matters from NPR's Planet Money team, general how-to (from the How Stuff Works guys), and get entertained by the likes of the aforementioned Adam Carolla, Kevin Smith , and others.

So having what I want when I want it or when I can access it has its share of good too, but I realize both its worth and its drawbacks based on my having grown up in a world of relative "without". My son and everyone else in his generation will grow up in an environment where on-demand media is the only existence they will know; telling Adam about my days in footy pajamas waiting eagerly in front of the (analog) television, getting a palpable charge of excitement (then, and even now the tremors swell from deep within my memory banks) from the sights and sounds of the announcing lead-in....

....will be a completely alien concept to him. How do you now effectively explain and instill that value of how having to wait for something, despite its short-term downside, heightens the overall mood of a moment and in the end typically makes for a greater overall experience?

In the end I'm sure this will just be my turn at the "in my day things were better because...", same as how LP records are better than CDs (another innovation of my day that will be an extinct relic before too long), Carson is the funniest late-night host of all time, and so on. I guess my generation is no more exempt than any of the preceding that maybe, this time, what's unfolding in the new landscape is detrimental to the human experience.

September Adam

2010-10-12T20:55:00.006-05:00

Two major breakthroughs in verbage this month!

"Yes" the all-important counterpoint to the more easily-learned and frequent "No"; also replacing the previous whisper-level assertion of "ah!"

and

child of the age of hip consumer products and commercials: "ah-pah" (Ipod), having recognized our designation of the Shuffle used to play his nighttime music. He even helps unplug it from the charger and plug it into the speakers

The Piggyback Rides Have Begun

Cornering The Elusive Adam-ant

Bedtime Amusement

So Fresh, So Clean

Kids Holding Hands: Registers An 11 On The Cute Meter

Airplane Rides Engender High-Altitude Drool

Playing It Cool In Adam's New Seaworld Gear

Mommy and Adam Cheering on Dad...

...For Kick Saves and Such

Adam Helps Dad With the Anniversary Celebration

Giant Ball!

How cheap can you buy goodwill?

2010-09-16T19:33:00.002-05:00

The other day I was at a gas station filling up the car and took notice of a prominent advertisement over the pump announcing this particular gas marketer's participation in the Upromise program, wherein the company makes contributions to a college fund as the subscribing customer uses their products.

In the case of gasoline, the company in question will pledge $0.01 for every gallon of gasoline that you buy.

Now, I happen to know from prior education that profit margins on gasoline are razor-thin and it also seems a bit ungrateful to turn my nose up at someone offering 'free money', but the economics of saving a remotely substantial amount for college in this manner is pretty laughable.

Let's say the average person in the average major metropolis (like say, sprawling Houston) refills their 15 gallon tank once a week through normal driving. Through Upromise that level of consumption would result in:

$0.15 per week x 52 weeks per year = $7.80 per year

So if you enrolled in Upromise on the day your child was born, by the time he or she was getting ready to tour college campuses you'd have a staggering $140.40 socked away to help defray the costs of higher education (and that's also if you made sure to seek out the participating company's service stations each and every time the fuel gauge needle was overlapping the E).

Never mind eighteen years of inflation - even in today's dollars that might not buy a single textbook. (Maybe if both parents Upromised you'd get that cost-free copy of Intro to Psychology)

Granted, if a million people took advantage of the offer Gasoline Company X would be out $140,000,000 in philanthropic donations over an eighteen-year-period but given how measly the savings are at an individual level I imagine that most people take a quick glance at the offer and say "eh, not worth my time to fill out the online registration. no thanks"

August - Late Summer Adam

2010-09-16T10:09:00.017-05:00

The little guy has learned to mug for the camera ("cheese" face) and is crazy about being pushed around the house in his bike, fishtailing around tiled corners. His favorite song is currently "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and he loves playing with his cousin Audrey and hugging his new baby cousin Evelyn.

Enough chitchat, let's get to the pics and videos!

The August Closeup - Who's He Looking Like These Days?

Walking a Mile in Daddy's Shoes and Remotes

On the Move in Size 10 1/2s

Toothbrush Time with Mommy

Adam Gets Cozy With Louie On The Laundry Bus

The "eeeee" Part of Saying 'Cheese!'

All Smiles On The Weekend

Reading With Dad - A Sobczak Tradition

QB Practice

Adam Knows Self-Serve

Backyard Patio Splash & Bubble Time

Cross-Training For The Junior Pros

Grocery Sorting: Chore Duties Start Early In The Sobczak House

July 2010: Summer of Adam

2010-08-21T20:27:00.005-05:00

Our little guy has been getting increasingly more vocal ( to where the months start to blur as to what words and gestures are truly new ) and also steadily more mobile ( to the point where in keeping up with him most of our memory snapshots have been limited to our eye-cameras instead of the digital camera )

Still, though , we're diligently able to grab for the photo technology at the occasional brief pause in whirlwind activity so as to keep this monthly time-lapse blogography project rolling along nicely!

Standing Room Only on the Laundry Bus

Shameless Mugging

Tub Time: Awesome Since May 7th 2009

Have Bib, Will Drool

Adam's Mastered the Art of the Horseride

Wacky Bedtime Shenanigans

Taking it to the Hoop then Horsing Around

China Cabinet Handball

You're a Wizard, Adam.

Modern TV Journalism

2010-08-18T10:49:00.004-05:00

i'm going on record here: it is not a good use of time, fuel, and other resources to employ a helicopter and camera crew to film Brett Favre traveling via SUV from an airfield to a training facility, or track the car bringing Lindsey Lohan to a court appearance, etc. just so the talking heads on TV can have a moving image over which to discuss the "news".

Unless the cars they are in are being pursued by dragons, you're wasting celluloid on the phenomenon of modern transportation.

June 2010: Adam A-Poppin

2010-07-13T21:07:00.006-05:00

Summertime and the weather's getting hotter but that hasn't slowed Adam down one bit. Whether at the pool, checking out the butterflies at the Museum of Natural Science, or just hanging out with his mommy and his old man, the little guy has stayed pretty active and happy. Fortunately we captured the evidence of said happy activities on digital film and video.

Feeding a baby metabolism is hard work

Berry time is happy time

Who needs a $160 Big Wheel? We've got an empty laundry basket

The Hamper Slingshot - Must be Under 36" Tall To Ride

Dad shares his grown-up bowl of Fruity Cheerios

Potassium Recharge

Adam evaluates Gung Gung's animal sound mimicry skills

Above the Rim

Oven Mitt = baby nunchuks

This pair of pajamas was recovered from the 1972 Sears Groovy Babies collection

Burning Plastic on the Indoor Circuit

His name is Pegleg, and yep - we took him home

Babies are cool to travel through the Amazon, right?

Baby Laughter - Try Some Today!

May 2010: Adam's Birthday Shindig + the rest of the month

2010-06-17T20:59:00.001-05:00

May was busy what with Adam's birthday pool party and Mother's Day but somehow we managed to take some pictures and videos and jot down some of the month's new milestones:

Verbage:

dunk - taking it to the hoop
"dees" - please
"pup pup" - dog
bird
"nite nite" - i'm ready to enjoy some REM cycles
more - hey quit being so stingy with those cheerios

Hand verbage

drink
eat

Activities

if it's a ball, Adam can dunk it in his mini-goal and do a celebratory round dance
getting the hang of brushing his teeth
able to point out different family members
gets a kick out of petting the dogs - the occasional dog lick to the face is cool too
cause and effect in action - understands that pressing certain buttons do things like make the cars on the race track go
starting to actually "read" books
saying that Adam loves to play in the pool would be a grievous understatement
started playing the "up/down" game on his dinner chair , except that sitting down is "down" and standing up is also "down"

Daddy Amusement Park: Admission Free for all first-born sons

Cousins hangin' out

Mommy and Me, happy as can be

Discovery Green, Houston, Elevation: Dad

We have liftoff

Awesome fun time at the pool

Adam and Paw Paw relaxing at the kids' side of the pool

Adam and friend Austin's 2' sea adventures

Aunt Lara making with the birthday wishes

Sesame Street Babies: the Muppet Babies of the 10's

Fountains = awesome

Hangin' (literally) with Mom

Nice to have family around

Madras and drool: a classic combo

All the pros got started when they were babies

A balloon, milk, and Mommy: great!

Above the (non-regulation) rim

the notsalgia surcharge

2010-06-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

one of my favorite memories as a young kid was spending sunny Saturday afternoons tooling around on my Big Wheel, a toddler version of a tricycle with two flat wheels in the back and the titular big wheel in front. There really wasn't much cooler in those days than pedaling down the driveway at a furious pace only to jam on the handbrake and swerve into a cool-looking 90 to 180 degree turn.

but why explain with words when i can let some kids who are probably now construction foremen or maritime lawyers show you the magic:

having become a man since that time and having put an end to childish things (pay no attention to that xbox 360 on the entertainment system shelf), i hadn't spent much thought on Big Wheels in the last twenty-odd years until recently when Grace and i were looking around for gifts for Adam's first birthday.

a quick trip across Amazon revealed that the "original" Big Wheel was back! Adam's a bit too young for it now, but the inner fishtailing daredevil in me thrilled at the prospect of my own son one day being able to enjoy the same exciting Big Wheeling adventures that i'd once known.

notice the main difference between the late 70s/early 80s commercial and the updated modern image: the kid-Nerfing helmet that seems to have to accompany any product that moves today's kids at a pace slightly above three miles per hour.

something strange, though - the Amazon review rating was kinda low.... why so? didn't take too long to figure out.

The Big Wheel @ Amazon

Thirteen pounds of (apparently shoddily-produced) plastic costs nearly $180 + shipping? $180????

it's been a while since i can remember seeing such a naked play on a newly-of-parenting-age generation's sense of nostalgia for their past enjoyments. happily there look to be some very serviceable substitutes by Radio Flyer and others at a third of the price (which these days is about the price i've come to expect for a kid's vehicle), so there's still a chance Adam will become a handbraking expert like his old man.

(...... $180????!)

Siete de Sobczak, 2010! : The Adam Turns One Story

2010-05-07T17:47:00.003-05:00

it feels like it was only a year ago.. and it was! our little guy Adam Michael Sobczak turns one today.

feels like the time has flown by (probably because we were so sleep-deprived and delirious during the first four months) and both Grace and I have had the best time watching and helping him grow, all the time ably assisted and supported by loving friends and family. many thanks to you all

(also - don't miss Adam's April update below , posted today as well! (but backdated to Apr 30 for official blog reasons)

April showers bring more Adam developments

2010-04-30T16:57:00.014-05:00

April was jam-packed with new ways for Adam to get out there and interact with the world - he's doing more and more every day. A quick rundown of the main bullet points:

Skills, Motor:

- full-fledged walking (and near-running) champ

- discovered the awesomeness of playing with balloons, both helium and carbon dioxide filled

- fishtailing expertly around corners on his tricycle (parent-pushed)

- starting to work on his intro-level parkour skills by climbing on gates, chairs and couches

- plays 'human trampoline' with mom & dad by clambering atop the upper torso and gleefully bouncing up and down

- swings his arms, initiates rump-shaking and gets in the groove when he hears music a-playin'

- can wield a mean (plastic) fork to spear dinner bits and make the move from tray to mouth

Skills, Biological:

- Teeth count: six! (four upper, two lower). his is officially a toothy smile

Skills, Expressive:

- honors Native American culture by making the "ba-ba-ba" palm-rapidly-on-and-off-the-mouth-making-sounds sound.

- developed a fairly disarming laughing smirk

- WORDS!
"da-da" (pater familias)
"ma-ma" (mater familias)
"po po" (Chinese babyspeak for 'carry me')
"paw paw" (Chinese babyspeak for 'grandma')
"dun dun" (Chinese babyspeak for "light")
"No" (the universal expression)
"down" (i don't want to be this elevated anymore)
"ni ni" (Chinese babyspeak for "milk")

- knows how to "sek sek" (kiss) loved ones

- can use baby sign language for "more" and "no more"

- actively points to let you know where you need to be taking him next for further investigation

Skills, Eating:

- distinct favorite food choice: any type of berry. he'll go seriously chipmunk with some blueberries

Skills, Manners:

- understands "put on your shoes" and will sit down in your lap to let you put them on him

Skills, Educational:

- starting to go to his chair and desk set to "read" books

Happiness is a young baby and his red balloon

Walking and Waving a Balloon Simultaneously

Horseytime fun

Easter treasure hunting, in clever disguise

On the cutting edge of culinary headwear fashion

Enter: the Mystery Tunnel!

Full steam ahead

Madcap Ballcap fun

The 22 lb bench press (it's more of a toning exercise)

Modern men are secure enough in their manliness to fold laundry

Hanging around with Patrick, his largest stuffed buddy

Ready to roll

Fresh off an exciting toy box lid toboggan ride

Traveling or on the go? Take a minute to get the recap of Adam's March!

2010-04-05T18:04:00.001-05:00

March saw no decrease to the range of Adam's activities and experiences:

- he had his second consecutive successful airplane round trip - ever the well-behaved gentleman while flying the friendly skies.

- he took his first unassisted walking steps (see below) and is on his way to becoming a bipedal speed demon. he has developed a love of being chased, running away while happily looking over his shoulder at his pursuer and laughing in terrified glee.

- top teeth began to outnumber the bottoms as the fight for gum hemisphere supremacy continues.

- the athletic Sobczak instincts continued to take root; Adam is showing great interest and prowess in deliberately kicking playballs around the living room. He also tosses them but at this point it's more an 'in the air like you just don't care' approach

National Father / Son Fashion Coordination Day

When you're a baby, the world is your jungle gym.

Cracking Up

My name is Adam - I like to dance! (any Yo Gabba Gabba-aware people in the house?)

The thrill of climbing Mt. Parent

Proudly displaying a prize trophy in the Baby Catch and Release program

Reading (or the preliminary facsimile appearances of such) is FUN-damental.

Dancing (now with Singing!) - part two

We're through the solid foods looking glass, people.

Walking Tall

Making a path towards the goal.

Technically not tall enough for the table yet, but still ready to dominate.

Siesta with Paw Paw.

February 2010: Adam Speaks (on the 9 month old level)

2010-03-12T17:56:00.022-06:00

A little late on posting February's recap - Adam filled the month with a bevy of birthday gifts for his dad in the form of yet more personal development.

(EDIT: almost forgot! First haircut in February as well, just a quick neatening up with the scissors at the local Supercuts)

Vocal - the endlessly useful and descriptive phrase "Uh-oh" became a part of Adam's speech arsenal. what at the beginning was just some fun noise quickly became associated with the act of dropping an item out of reach.

Motor - the fundamentals of advanced baby motion (walking) made an appearance in February - that would be the timeless art of cruising, the method of movement that the diaper industry named their intermediate set of diapers after. there's a lot of real estate in our living room in terms of usable edges that Adam learned to utilize in pulling himself up to a standing position and giving him a base against which he could steady himself as he tentatively tried out two-limb locomotion. by the end of the month, he graduated to mobile cruising when we purchased a push walker - he loves making laps around the main rooms (with the occasional redirecting nudge from mom or dad). on the nonverbal communication front, he is getting the concept of waving 'hi' and 'bye' - right now it still takes the form of him wiggling his fingers randomly but he's getting the hang of it. lastly, he is becoming an expert of moving bits of food from the tray to his mouth - a finely-tuned pincer beginning that converts to the classic "shovel" approach as the food gets nearer the target.

Gustatory - on the topic of food shoveling, Adam has moved on to the Stage 3 canned mush foods (turkey dinner puree!) and has also added bite-size portions of certain grown-up foods to the mix. he is particularly a fan of sausage, green beans, strawberries and blueberries

Tickling the delightfully colored ivories

Mommy and kiddo

Catching a ride in the laundry basket taxi

On the way to his first freestyle rap battle

True, Dad is fairly pale but don't be fooled, he is wearing a T-shirt

Raw baby power, revealed

On the move

The push walker gets a tune-up

Light purple yogurt puffs - just like nature intended

Enjoying the plushness of Nerf's new kitty condo
The central cruising circuit track

Applauding Dinner

Defines vanity

2010-02-18T16:39:00.003-06:00

there's a lack of multimedia imagery here that would help illustrate this anecdote but i'm not the driver who would, while in traffic, fumble for the phone in his knapsack just to take a picture.

during this morning's drive to work, i saw a new white BMW 650 coupe also in the commute slipstream - most notable about the whole setup was the custom license plate reading "ENVY ME".

i don't personally know the gentleman who was driving it so in truth i am not giving him a fair attempt to make any necessary clarifications ("the car was a gift from my mother - she thought the phrase sounded 'cool') - but - i'm going to go out on a limb and say methinks the guy has gone beyond sleeves and is wearing one or more of his insecurities directly on his automobile.

the man drives a nice car - by that definition some people are going to envy him. he probably knows that fact but still presses on with the direct imperative.

this is one of those things i have a hard time getting my noggin around - seeing things from that guy's worldview. nothing screams 'lack of class' to me quite like loud and/or ceaseless self-promotion. if you sink the winning shot in a pickup game of basketball, there is no need to declare how awesome you are - give your teammates half a beat and you'll receive your due adulation. in similar fashion, if you're successful in your career and you can afford a luxury car, by all means buy one and drive it with the satisfaction of knowing your hard work made this particular perk available to you - but pull back on the show a little and stick to the regular plate or at most a non-boasting vanity plate like "I (heart) BMW". all you're doing with "ENVY ME" is making people want to test out the durability of their Corolla's keys on your passenger side door.

2010: The Year Adam Makes Contact...

2010-02-03T11:25:00.009-06:00

....with further developmental milestones!

sorry to those (maybe two or three) of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the next sobblog update - December through about mid-March are "the bad times" for Accounting people at my company and my time / energy for entering new posts has been somewhat limited.

the first month of 2010 was another busy one for Adam as he crossed the eight-month mark:

Culinary - his mastery of eating finger foods has been progressing nicely and his appetite for all kinds of food, both mushed-up and solid, remains impressive. on the fluid side, he's taken to drinking from bottles and sippy cups (with straws) all by himself, holding the container with no help.

Locomotion - the kid has started to learn the fine art of waving, or at least wiggling his fingers in a playful fashion. in addition he picked up the ability to clap his hands in response to someone else clapping, or just whenever he's feeling particularly cheerful. most notably, Adam has begun his journey into cruising, using the couch mostly to move himself around in quasi-bipedal fashion.

Cognitive / Logic - Adam has this motion toy that's basically a twisty slide that plastic balls travel down before entering a chute and going along a pneumatic air tunnel that shoots the ball back up to the top of the slide (or off the toy entirely, depending on the force of air). we plopped him down in front of that and he quickly fell in love with watching it do its thing - he surprised us though by watching us hit the start button (you kinda hit this little animal creature on the head) to put the whole exhibition in motion and then learning to do it himself after only a few demonstrations. boy genius - you read it here first.

Growing! - near the end of January Adam's second tooth (right next to the first on the bottom) began to emerge. the wide toothless smile gives way to the goofy-cute kid tooth grin.

enough talk, enjoy January's still and moving pictures!

January 1 - thus begins a year-long game of tag.

The picture you see in phrase books depicting "tuckered out".

Celebrating the better parts of the BCS Championship game

Chinese laundry / Ancient Chinese secret, huh?

Tooth #1 sighting

Mommy and son laugh over the drool stain on Mommy's shoulder

The intensity and enthusiasm of an all-star couch cruiser.

Adam and Paw Paw (grandma) appreciate literature.

Adam and Gung Gung (grandpa) share ribald stories that shock the monkey's delicate sensibilities.

G.I. Adam reporting for duty

When Dad's in charge of bathtime, Adam's hair gets crazy.

In pursuit of cinnamon maple puff

Snacking and talking some jive

Second (calendar-accurate) Thanksgiving + Adam's december

2009-12-31T10:43:00.013-06:00

big catch-up Adam post that was overdue - though this was technically supposed to be a December post i felt the need to throw in some pictures from our second Thanksgiving, the one with our local Sobczak family on the actual Thanksgiving weekend.

The month of December saw Adam learning to sit up on his own, increasing his core powerhouse strength. Somewhere along the way he also picked up the curious habit of turning his head left and right, as if vigorously denying accusations of having placed mashed sweet potato in his hair. Further work on his fine motor skills continued unabated with him finally (though somewhat on accident) eating his first finger food - puff cereal - on his own. Most of the time the puff cereal would just be clasped tightly in clenched fist, to be eventually discarded on the floor to the circling dogs' delight.

Another big milestone - first tooth! One little guy poking through on the middle bottom, enough to keep him in a constant state of drooling and biting on things but not so much as to dampen his baby joie de vivre.

During December our good friends Dave and Mel visited with their almost 2 year old (and cute as a button) daughter Olivia. In between marathon sessions of Pro Evolution Soccer, Dave and I managed to take the families down to Galveston's Moody Gardens pavilion to wheel the kids through their Festival of Lights on a chilly Houston evening. Despite the audio / light diorama Nativity scene that greeted us with an oddly-written recollection about "how badly King Herod wanted the baby Jesus killed", a good time was had by all.

but enough talk - please enjoy the pictures and videos!

The Houston Thanksgiving

Traditional Thanksgiving meal: mushed up cereal and vegetables
Cousin April and Adam hanging out
White Grandpa and White Aunt # 2 enjoy a laugh at Adam's Zoolander impression
The Gathered Family (White Aunt #1 Karyn and cousin Emily not pictured)

December: Hangin' Around With The McGuires

Relentlessly on the attack

The baby who stands is rewarded with the ultimate prize: tapping on the toy box lid to make sounds.

Dad, please suspend me in mid-air upside down, I think it's hilarious.
Certainly son, up you go.
It's been official from day one: bath time is fun time.

Pbbbtt - I can make smacking noises and other such sounds.

The Official Sobczak Holiday Greeting Card Pose (or more likely one of the many potential choices)
Hitchin' a ride on Patrick the Giant Stuffed Toy Dog
A blissful round of Airplane.
Adam and Olivia, kickin it' footy-pajama style.
Mel and Olivia show Adam some love.
Olivia and Adam hanging out at the ol' toy box.

Adam points out the coolest parts of the jungle gym - Olivia remains skeptical.

Moody Gardens - Festival of Lights

The McGuires hanging out, stylishly i might add, in the winter cold.
Nothing says Christmas like a neon zebra.

What'choo talkin 'bout Dad?

Adam wears a wool monkey cap better than anyone.

Elves - they're everywhere.
Christmas Time is Here

This report just in - I want some food, now!

Sleepy-Time Eats

My First Accounting Desk.
On second thought, forget accounting - Adam just wants to bang on the drum all day.
Groovy drumwork man

Wrapping paper - eighty years (more or less, i dunno) of still being the best gift for little kids.
Mommy showing the Christmas love.
Cousin (and budding daredevil) Audrey delights in angled shifts in verticality.
All great kung-fu masters begin their journey by punching bubbles.
Adam begins his controlled descent.

Aquarium Time - the birthday party of one of his local friends Austin.

Mom and son pose in front of the calm blue.
A school of fish crowd their way into the shot.
Hey how ya doing?
Lights and sounds and standing and stuff.

Your orderly method of DVD shelf organization is stifling me - I crave chaos.
Happy New Year everybody

'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy / I'm a poool hall aaaace

2009-12-15T17:13:00.003-06:00

so my friend Steven of www.stevengharms.com recently posted a quick, trenchant insight about the way in which most grown-ups (i.e. people with really very limited "free" time) experience music - in short, that adults don't have the luxury to focus solely on the music, that 'lie back on the bed in the early morning listening to 'Slow Ride' on your big headphones as you recall the awesome freshman '70s party adventure you just had', that Dazed and Confused style experience.

personally speaking, one of my key early high school memories was buying Metallica Master of Puppets and Megadeth Countdown to Extinction at the local Best Buy and hanging out in my room just listening to this strange, incredibly skillful new thing called heavy metal. not playing a video game, not doing homework, just listening.

in your maturity, music is more of a nice accompaniment that floats around your subconscious while you're driving / working / etc.

that brought to mind a different thought about the the subject of music that i've been kicking around for a while

over the years i've found and enjoyed bands from a lot of different styles of music -some of it's heavy, some light, some uptempo, some relaxed, some melodic, some distorted.

across all those bands the clarity of the vocals runs the gamut - some songs i can listen to and know exactly what the songwriter was trying to express. the saga of Eddie in Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" is pretty easy to follow from start to finish. he waited until he finished high school, got a tattoo.... the future was wide open - FIN

other bands, whether due to singer accent, sub-par fidelity in the recording, studio mix or whatever, have lyrics that are for the most part unintelligible. in this new era of ipods and mp3 download album purchases, printed lyrics aren't as prevalent unless you take the time to search on the net for lyrics sites that probably plant viruses on your pc so in my experience the message of most of my favorite songs go by unlearned.

what i wonder now is - if i could know the actual words that i instead hear as a muffled or music-obscured "whirrs plebe bee ah mote peepo", would i enjoy the music substantially more?

or is the greatest amount of contribution of vocals simply being a musical instrument of a different sound, the key piece of an intertwined melody also comprising piano, drums, guitar, bass?

Adam's busy November: On the Move!

2009-12-07T21:50:00.005-06:00

the pictures representing Adam's November below are really just some holdovers from our trip to Chicago featured just recently, since the earlier part of November our camera was away on warranty service related to weak battery life.

at the start of the month Adam was just getting into his first bit of active north-south movement, doing the breakdancing-style inchworm stomach flop. it wasn't long though before he launched into high gear, getting his arms into the mix and perfecting the full-on baby crawl - now we play the parenting game of trying to keep up with him as he gets increasingly more mobile.

other big feats of strength included mastering the ability to sit up on his own and being able to pull himself up to a standing position while grabbing onto something (that something typically being his rugged toy box which he loves turning into his own personal drum - the kid can't get enough of patting hard, flat surfaces)

Clapping also entered the mix - proudly his first attempt occurred attending his very first hockey game. That was in the second period when he was awake - i'll never know how he wakes up from a nap at home with one dog bark or garbage truck on the street and yet he falls dead asleep on my lap in the third period in the middle of a cheering crowd of fans being encouraged by the announcer to "MAKE SOME NOISE".

In the realm of cuisine, Adam continued his foray into solid foods: sweet potatoes, pears, bananas, carrots are favorite while squash (rightly) is not welcomed. He also started work with cereal puffs, fine-tuning his pincer grasp work.

Breakfast taco statistics

2009-12-04T09:15:00.002-06:00

based on a totally scientific set of observations of weekly breaksfast taco consumption at my place of business, i can say that when these three breakfast taco staples are set out for consumption:

Bacon Egg & Cheese
Potato Egg & Cheese
Sausage Egg & Cheese

Potato Egg & Cheese will always be the last to go, and by a wide margin at that.

Thanksgiving the First: Early Turkey Day with the Chicago Sobczaks

2009-11-26T10:58:00.009-06:00

...Well i suppose they technically aren't the Chicago Sobczaks anymore - they belong to the outlying small towns of the Chicago area.

But still! Grace and I had a thought a month or two ago to take Adam on his very first plane ride to visit our Sobczak relatives up north in Illinois where he could meet, among others, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother.

As our schedule happened to work out, the week before Thanksgiving was our best option - happily, due to my Uncle Jim and cousin Mary C. having to work during the actual Thanksgiving weekend, they were planning to have their Thanksgiving meal during the weekend of our visit. Double helpings of cranberry sauce this year!

Our little piece of the Sobczak clan had a great time; Adam was terrific on the plane both in departure and return - spent most of his time either snacking, napping, or playing and garnering a few compliments about his temperament in the process from (relieved, i'm sure) nearby passengers.

It brought smiles to our faces to see everyone: Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary, cousin Mary C. (not too far from having her own little Sobczak soon!), her husband Jack, cousin Joe and his wife Ania, cousin Jim and his children Andrew and Rebecca (wife Renee regrettably absent due to a seasonal cold) and, of course, Grandpa Al and Grandma Lu.

I've posted pictures and video below of our quick weekend trip: enjoy!

My grievances. Which are grammar-related.

2009-11-16T09:00:00.002-06:00

is there someone out there in my vast blog readership who has a background in the world of journalism or is well-versed enough on the rules of print who can explain what i seem to find time and time again when i read my weekly subscription of Time magazine:

a small excerpt from an article discussing the future of the US dollar -

"There's widespread agreement that this setup has to change but little agreement about how to change it. Which is a risky situation."

this always looks wrong to me when i read it, most likely due to the educators of my youth advising us all against the horrors of fragment sentences. have the rules been relaxed since i left school or is this some special exception granted to the news world?

"I wanted to find the answers to my grammatical questions and I searched everywhere. But I found nothing"

just seems like you could bust out some compound sentencing up there and make it flow easier on the eyes.

men be acting like zombies at the mall

2009-11-09T08:42:00.004-06:00

we had a little family trip to the Galleria mall this weekend for some bits of casualwear/workwear shopping, our first with Adam (not counting when he was in utero), and our trip convinced us of one thing:

You don't really notice the great masses of stroller people at the mall until you become one of the stroller people.

Belated Happy Halloween - Oct 31

2009-11-05T17:18:00.003-06:00

never fear, Super Grover is here! gotta love a company that lets their employees dress up on a workday and drink booze on company premises starting at noon.

Adam's October : Halloween and 5 1/2 months

2009-11-01T14:56:00.008-06:00

October found Adam extremely busy - continuing to perfect his rolling-over technique as well as adding the newly acquired sitting and 'inchworm' crawling moves. he took up eating rice cereal and in a sometimes related and messy note also figured out how to make the universally loved "pbbbbtttttt" sound.

our good friends Steven and Lauren made the trip all the way from Austin to spend some time with the little guy and he was eager to please with smiles, laughs and generally being a happy baby who slept well for his guests in the bedroom next door. we all took a trip down to Galveston to walk the Strand and a bit of the seawall as well and finished up the weekend with a trip to Chinatown for some delicious dim sum lunch.

November should be an increasingly mobile month for Adam Ant and Grace and I look forward to getting our exercise trying to keep up with him

UPDATE: forgot to add that Adam had a photo session in his first ever Halloween costume which his 'uncle' Rich, for those of you video gamers out there, aptly titled the Super Monkey Ball outfit.

Who says modern medicine has its priorities out of place?

2009-10-28T11:24:00.005-05:00

I didn't think there was much, beyond the Viagra and Cialis ads that flood the prime-time airwaves my son will eventually view, in terms of prescription medication developed for entirely discretionary / non-life-threatening conditions.

but hey! - now there's Latisse - to help prevent the life-crushing malady of "hypotrichosis" - excuse me, i mean inadequate or not enough eyelashes.

aside from being born with a condition where your eyelashes are so short as to not serve their evolutionary function of filtering dust and other irritants from your eyes (and i'm not convinced that Brooke Shields' "before" example here fits that bill), is it really worth the possibility of "skin darkening, eye irritation, dryness of the eyes, and redness of the eyelids"?

to the credit of the makers of Latisse, there's no mention of possible explosive diarrhea or insanity / suicidal thoughts, but still it seems a bit of an annoying potential downside for a little bit of body fashion. aren't there eyeliners on the market that give the ladies' eyelashes an illusion of being longer without the cost of prescription copays or physical side effects?

bottom line: scientists spent a good amount of time and R&D money figuring out how to make eyelashes a little longer while the riddle of cancer continues on largely unsolved.

Rules of the road

2009-10-16T08:45:00.003-05:00

as i continue my early descent into the crabby "get off my lawn" phase of adulthood, from time to time i encounter situations where i get really annoyed with the selfish 'me-first', no-logic attitude put on display by some of the other human beings on this planet.

since i spend a decent chunk of my day in my car it's not surprising that a lot of these encounters are vehicle-related. in the world of driving there are certain fixed rules (speed limits, drive on the right side of the road, red light means stop, etc.) and then there are unwritten rules based on the concept of 'hey we're all in this together' and common courtesy. most of the problems you find on the highways and byways of America are due to certain people who willfully ignore the latter set of rules for their own immediate but ultimately insignificant benefit.

a good case in point that happened to me just this morning on my usual route to work downtown:

there's an overpass on a stretch of my highway commute where two lanes converge down to one as the overpass filters you onto the connecting highway. a logical and courteous driver quickly reviews the issue [two lanes' worth of cars must assimilate into a single lane without incident] and concludes , all cars and drivers presumably being equal, that at the point when the two lanes definitively become one the order of assimilation would be 'Car 1 from Lane A merges, then car 1 from Lane B, then Car 2 from Lane A, and next Car 2 from Lane B', and so on, presuming that car 1 in Lane A was slightly ahead of car 1 in Lane B as they neared the merge. this elegant ballet of merging cars occurs all over the US on a daily basis usually without a hitch because most people get the system.

what i see happen a lot to other drivers and today to me is when one of the cars in the other lane decides to circumvent the natural order.

so say i'm car 2 in Lane A; Car 1 in Lane A has gone ahead, then car 1 in Lane B goes - ok it's my turn now - fantastic.

but hey! - car 2 in Lane B sees me moving forward to my place in the merge and then proceeds to zoom up right on Car 1 B's bumper, keeping pace with me as our two lanes' width of total car-nage creeps up to the point where only one lanes' width will be able to proceed.

it's usually at this point that i start giving the pissed-off look and making the internationally-recognized criss-cross hand gestures that represent "hey , dummy, first one lane goes and then the other - get it?"

most of the time i get a look back like i'm the one who's being a jackass - there's about a 0.001% chance the other driver will cop to being the one who is in fact out of turn.

being desirous to avoid either vehicular body damage from collision or personal body damage from an unknown crazy person packing heat, i typically back off and let the baby have his bottle and we both drive off in a mood degraded a few points from earlier before the merge.

and what did the other guy get out of it? he's exactly one car-length ahead of where he would have otherwise been , something on the order of 0.3 seconds quicker to his destination, and for that minute gain a cost of shifting the world's vibe meter perceptibly more towards 'bad' than 'good' and also further cementing my conviction that the bad-natured people of the world will inherit the earth by stepping all over the meek.

Rockabye Baby!

2009-10-06T07:25:00.004-05:00

Not too long ago I was scouring Amazon's MP3 section to find some lullaby songs to download to my iPod that we could play in Adam's room at night while he sleeps (the speaker set to which the iPod is connected is an old set of desktop computer speakers that I had stored away; the set includes a cubical subwoofer whose presence may be a first in the history of baby nurseries) I'm amazed right now to think that in another ten years that setup will most likely be as relevant in technological terms as Mother Goose on 8-track.

I did eventually settle on a good CD of largely instrumental versions of classic children's songs and that seems to have worked out well so far. All's well that ends well.

The interesting sidebar to the pursuit of slumber-inducing-or-furthering music is the set of children's music that I was thoroughly amused and impressed with but did not buy.

That would be the Rockabye Baby! set of albums that take many of the most popular rock combos from the 1970s to 1990s that kids of that era (now parents) loved so darn much and converted their songs to toddler-friendly instrumental versions.

Nirvana, Metallica, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Pink Floyd - all the most influential bands are there, with their songs safely stripped of any lyrical messages about drugs, insanity, sexual frustration, and their crunching metal riffs and driving drum beats replaced with tinkly piano and xylophone.

I've previewed the albums of all of the bands that I like and have to say I'm really impressed with the production - all of the songs are quite recognizable, just as if they were part of a Sesame Street remix compilation suitable for young'uns. That said, only the Radiohead album in my list would really make a suitable selection for kids asthe songs of bands like Metallica and Tool have too many dark minor chords as their backbone to sound like a soothing nighttime lullaby, even if filtered through instruments normally reserved for Muzak.

If anything, the albums might be a worthwhile purchase for the parents - I could see myself enjoying a more laidback version of my favorite heavier bands as I braved the slow commute to work or while slogging away on a project at work.

Adam's September - 4 to 4 3/4 months old

2009-09-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone - just catching up with Adam's picture gallery month-in-review. This was a big month for Adam as he turned the corner on mastery of thumb-sucking and, consequently, self-soothing which means he has also been a champ at getting to sleep with little fuss and with rare exception sleeping all the way through the night (Mom and Dad are very pleased with this development)

It probably also helps that Mommy, baby, and me have established a routine of evening feeding and storytime (as narrated by Dad) that give him a set cue of actions that proceed his departure to sleepytown.

September also saw a visit from his white grandparents who don't get to see Adam all the time; he put on a pretty good show of smiling, cooing, and laughing - Adam's always up for a performance for visitors.

Lastly, the later part of the month (unfortunately not captured below) has seen a resurgence in luxurious black hair atop his head, making his crib mullet a bit less distinguished. Perhaps with that he'll get enough natural self-confidence to where he can sell that compensating red Power Wheels Corvette.

poor kids - ye know not the real Homer

2009-09-04T09:07:00.005-05:00

i feel bad for the kids of today who watch what currently passes for The Simpsons on TV. due to the tendency of syndication to re-run only more recent 'old' episodes, they'll probably never get much exposure to the Simpsons' glory days of the early to mid 1990s when the writing staff in place was finely honed on the right mix of comedic elements (not to mention that Conan O'Brien had a hand in producing & writing on some classic episodes).

case in point, one of my favorite episodes involves Homer trying to slim down by ordering a subliminal weight loss tape, only to be sent a subliminal vocabulary builder instead. as the days pass Homer's command of the English language grows in league with his waistband.

(passing the prankster son Bart in the kitchen and opening up the refrigerator for a drink)
"Now there's a Machiavellian countenance. Oooh, a sextet of ale!"

(Marge and Homer discussing his weight loss progress)
Marge: I'm not sure that tape is helping. You ate three desserts tonight.
Homer: Forbearance is the watchword. That triumvirate of Twinkies simply overwhelmed my resolve.

(Marge and Homer, again discussing weight loss progress)
Marge: Homer, has the weight loss tape reduced your appetite?
Homer: Ah, lamentably no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satiety.

(Lisa and Homer, the final progress check before Homer loses his patience with the tapes)
Lisa: Dad, do you know what today is?
Homer: The vernal equinox?
Lisa: No! It's been two weeks since you got that tape. Let's get you on the scale! [Homer gets on the scale] You've gained thirteen pounds.
Homer: Disingenuous mountebanks with their subliminal chicanery! A pox on them! [discards tape]

(naturally, without the vocabulary tapes Homer quickly reverts to his standard intellectual capacity)
Homer: Marge, where's that... metal deely... you use to.. dig.. food?

the printed words don't really do justice to hearing them emanate from Homer's gently buffoonish voice, but you get the idea.

compare that to the current writing staff's efforts that seem perpetually set to Angry Sarcasm, the lowest rung of the comedy ladder - the Simpsons have been on the air for 20+ seasons but the real Simpsons died out somewhere around season 8 as near as i can figure.

it's just odd to think of new viewers starting to watch the show fresh in season 16, 17, etc. and not knowing that Homer used to be a mild-mannered innocent childlike figure while Bart and Lisa had the real adult discussions on love, friendship, death... now it's just Homer calling everyone a jerkass and getting injured in increasingly violent / bloody ways while Bart & Lisa have reverted to petty kids' squabbles.

hopefully ten years down the line i'll read about some Simpsons renaissance where the grown-up second or third wave of Simpsons viewers will rediscover the best seasons, where intricate comedic writing of a quality rarely seen before or since created instant classics with every episode.

More Adam pics + some playmat happy time video

2009-08-30T10:19:00.005-05:00

here are some photos from Adam's August, in chronological order with accompanying increasing hair loss, plus a video - if you listen closely (or turn your computer speakers up loud enough), at the end he makes a definitive statement without saying a word.

over the last few weeks the little guy has really amped up his level of smiling, cooing, laughing, and happy squirming - he's getting nice and active with an appetite to match and Grace and I are enjoying every minute

Adam at 16 weeks

2009-08-26T15:38:00.002-05:00

he's in the process of losing the hair with which he entered the outside world, time for him to buy that Power Wheels Corvette to soothe his ego

you have officially expired all of your Bueller goodwill

2009-08-19T08:11:00.005-05:00

you know what? nuts to Ben Stein for being the first person i can recall meeting the celebrity threshold who is hawking "free" credit scores to the dumb public.

i saw his TV ad yesterday - just another in a long line of various companies purporting to give the consumer free copies of their credit scores and/or reports only to have them enrolled in one of those automatically deducted monthly fee programs for 'monitoring services' and such.

technically that's all fine and good by capitalistic standards - money exchanged for services, even if the exchange is set up on the sly - but where Stein should really feel shame is that he is perpetuating the trend of obscuring the fact that every citizen in the country is guaranteed by federal law to be given free copies of their credit reports (with no strings attached) once a year through annualcreditreport.com, the website set up by the three credit agencies to satisfy government legislation requirements.

FTC website FAQ on federally mandated free reports

sure i don't like those annoying freecreditreport.com musicians either for doing the same thing, but at least with them i get the feeling that they're motivated by desperate financial need - to me it's feasible that they are actually living out an existence in the same squalid conditions as depicted in their commercials.

if Ben Stein is doing it out of desperate financial need then he must as good with managing his money as your typical straight-out-of-high-school pro athlete. Mr. Stein, i say 'good day' to you sir!

Adam's Fun-Time Rolling Party

2009-08-17T09:00:00.001-05:00

our little man did some serious physical feats of baby strength this weekend, executing the advanced-level back-to-tummy roll no fewer than six times in the space of ten minutes. you could hardly stop him

the crazy gentleman

2009-08-14T13:08:00.002-05:00

there's a certain personality on the streets of downtown Houston of whom i've up to now only heard legend from one of my coworkers

however in returning today from an offsite lunch i was able to bear witness to the intriguingly puzzling situation

black guy, probably in his forties or fifties, well - dressed: fedora, matching ironed slacks, dress shirt, formal tie, polished shoes.

all the above + location of downtown Houston is a normal formula for modern businessman (well the fedora would be an anachronistic touch but i digress)

what makes the detour to crazytown is that he spends his time standing on the corner yelling angrily at the crosswalk signs.

what's more, apparently his ire is reserved solely for the "walk" stick figure; whenever the "don't walk" hand is visible he has nothing to say.

the concepts of 'well-groomed' and 'arguing with inanimate objects' are as incongruous as oil and water or toothpaste and orange juice.

it's so baffling and interesting that i felt compelled to stick around and listen to the details of his complaints against "WALK" guy. unfortunately midwestern sensibilities prevented me from openly gawking at the spectacle so the true nature of his beef will likely remain a mystery.

Government priorities, MJ, and your need to get somewhere in LA right now

2009-07-07T11:48:00.003-05:00

i didn't want to make a second post about michael jackson, but...

aside from my simmering rage over the fact that purported major news agencies are spending 3 hours today on anticipating and/or televising the various commutes of the Jackson family on funeral day for every 15 minutes of reports on say, world leaders meeting about economic crises or civil unrest.....

...now we see from a handy helicopter camera trailing MJ's hearse to the staples center that it appears local Los Angeles transportation authorities have pretty much shut down to the public all parts of the route for the funeral procession.

the feeder roads are packed as the Jackson hearse glides alone over five wide-open emtpy lanes of highway.

as a coworker friend of mine was seen to remark on IM:
"what? you're in a hurry because your wife's in labor.... (forget) you, michael jackson's casket is 5 miles away. No freeway for you!"

using public funds to shovel aside thousands of drivers to make way for a dead person who did some great stuff in the 80s but died a mental basket case who, in all likelihood even though not technically proven, did some inappropriate stuff with children. and the funeral / memorial is going to whitewash over that last part.

related: i also saw a clip on The Soup last week showing how Entertainment Weekly had breaking news (the reporter actually called it "breaking news") that Barry Manilow would escort Liza Minelli to the memorial. that's not breaking news, it doesn't even count as plain "news" in the intended sense of the word. it's worthless garbage; for shame!

we live in a loony bin most days here in the United States.