Hi, my name is Rick.

…and some other people too.  Let’s keep our priorities straight.

Augusta, GA, Eva, GRC IV, Ivy, Rick, Sydney

Another pic of George.  See below for a slightly more substantive post.  Depending of course on your definition of substantive.

Augusta, GA, George, Sydney

Eva submitted some pictures of Sydney to a little website called The Daily Puppy.  By “little” I of course mean that if you Google “puppy” or “puppies” it’s the 2nd result.  So Eva submitted the aforementioned photographs in the hopes of young Syd being selected as a daily puppy.  All of our hopes and dreams were realized when not only was young Sydney the Schnoodle selected as a daily puppy, but he was in fact selected to represent the entire nation of puppies on this, our Day of Independence.  So congratulations to Sydney.  And to our unborn son George: you now have even more to live up to.  (Click here to see Sydney’s winning profile on The Daily Puppy.)

Happy 4th of July.

Sydney

Well the due date has come and gone, and as of this writing Eva is still very much pregnant.  Below are three child related shots: one of Eva as of yesterday, one of George’s current and final room set up, and one of an ice cream van that I would never let George even look at let alone approach.  This person’s business model bucks societal norms and people’s intrinsic risk aversion.  He has put minimal effort into image and seems to not really care much about the perception of potential patrons.  His products look shoddy and out of date.  He deserves a bail out.

Augusta, GA, Cell Phone Shots, Eva, GRC IV, Sydney

Eva at 37 weeks.  Me practicing.  One is more ridiculous than the other.  I’ll let you decide.

Augusta, GA, Eva, GRC IV, Point & Shoot, Rick, Sydney

Eva is at 36 weeks which, by my advanced math, makes her 9 months pregnant even though she’s due in a month.  I still don’t fully understand the gestational math.  Apparently the baby is due at 40 weeks which is the end of the 10th month.  The first month must be month 0.  I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter.  Eva is quite pregnant and will likely have our baby here in the not too distant future.  We’re very, very excited.

Speaking of young George Richard Cook IV: below you can see a super awesome panorama of his room as well as individual detail shots of some items of interest.  The panorama didn’t exactly stitch together flawlessly but it works.  First of all, the theme of the room is sports.  That might not be overwhelmingly apparent at first glance.  Near the door is a framed Super Bowl poster of the Steelers from the 2005 season.  That was one of their 6 victories which is, as you all undoubtedly know, the most of any team in the NFL.  No big deal.  Young George will be indoctrinated with a Steelers mentality from birth.

Immediately to the right of that magnificent poster is a pine primitive antique desk Eva and I picked up here in Augusta.  It has ink well stains in the top drawers.  I currently use the desk for my homework but George will use it in the future for his.  The chair is an antique Heywood-Wakefield from an old Georgia courthouse.  Above the Bahamian conch shell and small golf bag lamp is a sketch of my Dad’s jet from when he was a flight instructor in the Air Force.  The changing table is a repurposed oak dresser made in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s by the Louisiana furniture company Crescent Line.  Eva painted the “GRC” letters on the wall and I think they look great.

The picture on the left side of the crib is a collage of pictures of Eva and I from birth through age 13 which Eva’s Mom put together for us.  The photo on the right of the crib is one which hung on my sisters Erin and Laura’s bedroom wall when they shared a room in Nebraska.  The crib is walnut and colonial in style.  The bedding is neutral so we can re-use it with other kids.  The giant bear is from a family friend named Tae and we got it at George’s shower which my sister Erin graciously planned and orchestrated for us in Hilton Head at our Grandparent’s house.  The basket at the bear’s feet (paws?) holds some toys and sports equipment which George will eventually play with.  The cross over the window is a gift from my grandmother Mimi and is from Jerusalem.

The sports themed wall art is from a store in El Paso that sells everything for 90% off.  This sounds great, but they likewise mark everything up 80 or 90% before reducing it.  The square soccer art for example cost us 15 or 20 bucks.  The sticker price was 120 or so.  The store is actually quite comical; chock full of shoddily constructed “art” and “sculptures.”  I digress.  The leather chair is for Eva to nurse George in and for her to sit in while he plays and/or rolls around in his room before he’s mobile.  We have an identical chair in our bedroom downstairs for when George initially sleeps in a travel crib in our room to make Eva’s many wake-ups and midnight nursing sessions as palatable as possible.

Below the photos of George’s room are some shots of Eva in her current pregnant state.  Enjoy.

Augusta, GA, Eva, GRC IV, Point & Shoot, Sydney

Sorry for the lack of updates if you happen to check for updates frequently.  I’ve been busy with school.

The first picture is of Eva at the infant CPR class we went to last week.  If George comes out looking like the little guy down there, we’ve got problems.  I mean, of course, if he comes out with Frankenstein neck screws and plastic bag lungs.  Geez.  You’re so racist.

The second shot is of Sydney, the 1 year old, 13 pound schnoodle, standing on our living room end table.  I don’t know why he does that.

I’ll post a new photo of Eva tomorrow.

Augusta, GA, Cell Phone Shots, Eva, Sydney

Note the jersey.  We needed something to cheer us up.  The sound of a little baby heart seemed to do the trick.

El Paso, TX, Eva, Sydney

I wonder what people in Ethiopia think about the show The Biggest Loser?  Trick question.  They don’t have TV.

The Seahawks won the NFC West are going to the playoffs with a losing record.  I think that pretty well closes the case of the AFC versus the NFC.

The pictures today are of Sydney during the Great El Paso Snow Storm of 2010.  He loved the snow.  There was about a half inch on the ground.  It’s gone now.

Cell Phone Shots, El Paso, TX, Sydney

1. to keep you in the spirit.

2. because I took the pictures and want to post them.

El Paso, TX, Sydney

In celebration of Christmas, I’m posting a Christmas photo explosion!!  Can you believe it?!  I can.

El Paso, TX, Eva, Rick, Sydney

I’ve decided to provide a little cut-and-paste clarity for those flat tax nay sayers.

“Faster Economic Growth. A flat tax would spur increased work, saving, and investment. By increasing incentives to engage in productive economic behavior, it would also boost the economy’s long-term growth rate. Even if a flat tax boosted long-term growth by only 0.5 percent, the income of the average family of four after 10 years would be as much as $5,000 higher than it would be under current tax laws.

Instant Wealth Creation. According to Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, tax reform would boost national wealth by nearly $5 trillion.[7] It would do this in part because all income-producing assets would rise in value since the flat tax would increase the after-tax stream of income that they generate.

Simplicity. Complexity is a hidden tax amounting to more than $100 billion. This is the cost of tax preparation, lawyers, accountants, and other resources used to comply with the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Service even admits that the current tax code requires taxpayers to devote 6.6 billion hours each year to their tax returns.[8] Yet even this commitment of time is no guarantee of accuracy. The code is so complex that even tax experts and the IRS often make mistakes. All taxpayers, from General Motors to a hamburger-flipping teenager, would be able to fill out their tax return on a postcard-sized form, and compliance costs would drop by tens of billions of dollars.[9]

Fairness. A flat tax would treat people equally. A wealthy taxpayer with 1,000 times the taxable income of another taxpayer would pay 1,000 times more in taxes. No longer would the tax code penalize success and discriminate against citizens on the basis of income. Tax burdens would no longer depend on the number of lawyers, lobbyists, and accountants on the payroll.”

I got all this here.

And before you even say it, 5% is not more to someone making $20k a year than it is to someone making $200k a year.  It’s still 5%.  That’s called math.

Here’s a picture of Sydney and Eva sleeping to cheer you up.

Eva, Sydney

“I’ve always been self-sufficient.  My house was close to foreclosure.”

I heard that exact phrase, in that order, on a bankruptcy attorney’s commercial here in El Paso.  The beauty of that sentence is that the attorney who made the commercial doesn’t see how ridiculous that is.  Either that or he knows that he is dealing with such dim-witted dregs that he knows they’ll hear that and be able to relate.  Unreal.

I apologize for the lack of updates this week; Eva and I had a little addition to our family arrive this week on a plane from Phoenix.  His name’s Sydney.  He’s a Schnoodle: half Schnauzer, half Poodle.

Sydney