Catching up
Posted on by PatrickNow that my work’s busy season is finally winding down, I can post some of the things that we’ve been up to.
Emily continues to grow and grow and grow. Maggie’s got the update post for you to check out.
Brenden’s also been growing and learning so much. Since my last post, he’s now able to tell us all the numbers from 1 to 9 as well as the letters of the alphabet. That’s been fun as he’s learning the alphabet from the ABC book from Dr. Seuss. We read it nightly and he loves it. We’re determined to make sure our kids are readers.
We joined the Dallas Zoo as members for this year to check that out. We’ve already been about 4 times. Brenden loves the place! Here are a few pics from our visits (Emily mostly sleeps during these outings).
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As for me, I’ve been trying to keep working on my iPhone application. I sent out a first beta and based on the feedback I received, decided to start over on the UI and overall user experience. I’ve also started a separate blog for my Cocoa coding endeavors called CocoaDevNation. Look for more technical stuff to end up over there.
links for 2009-03-09
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2009-03-06
Posted on by Patrick-
Take an iPhone Stack trace from Xcode and gives back property symbol names
links for 2009-02-28
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2009-02-17
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2009-02-13
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2009-02-06
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2009-02-01
Posted on by PatrickPlaying Trains
Posted on by PatrickAfter going to the Train Show last Saturday, Brenden and I went back there Sunday for some additional looking around. Brenden really, really likes playing with Thmoas the Train Engine toys here at home and when we walked in, we went by the vendor who had some large Thomas the Train Engine model train sets in HO scale. They were pricey even at 30% off.
While looking them over, the gentleman running the booth came over and introduced himself and asked what I was looking for. I wondered aloud if there were smaller sets for Thomas to get started with? He said he had one that was $70 and had Thomas, Clarabell, and Annie and a circle track. To sweeten the deal, he threw in 2 straight pieces of track so we could make an oval. I added a Troublesome Truck and the Sodor Mail Car as well. Still stayed under $100 which is pretty good in my experience looking at model train sets. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I have always wanted a model train set growing up. Of course I bought the train for myself Brenden.
After bringing it home, I eventually got it setup to show Brenden and taught him that this wasn’t a “touching” train, but one we were to watch. He actually has grasped that pretty well. Today he even requested I bring out the set and play again. He really likes to watch and see if he can see Sir Topham Hatt in Thomas. He also checks Clarabell and Annie to see if there’s “hot chocolate” being served. He got that from watching The Polar Express a lot.
I plan to continue to add track and additional cars and engines. Hopefully one day Brenden and I can build an awesome layout together. ( Emily can join us too! )
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| Setting up the cars to go. | Brenden watching the train go around. |
links for 2009-01-20
Posted on by PatrickDallas Train Show
Posted on by PatrickBrenden has been very into trains of late, almost exclusively playing on his Thomas play table with all his Thomas trains. As a reward for him being a much better sleeper this week ( which is another post in itself ), I was going to find a model railroad place to take him to. As luck would have it, I saw this tweet on Twitter this morning. It turns out this weekend is the Dallas Area Train Show!
We left Emily with grandma and took Brenden to the show. He ( and I ) had a blast! I’ve always wanted to have a model train set and going to this show certain rekindled that interest. Brenden wanted to look at all the exhibits and we had to tear him away from most. He really didn’t understand why he couldn’t play with the trains, so that complicated things at times.
There was also a ton of Thomas stuff and we ended up getting him a Toby car on a very good deal and he’s been happy adding it to his other trains.
I’m hoping to maybe get a small set started sometime this year. The biggest problem right now will be finding space for it unless I want to keep putting it up and tearing it down when I want to play.
Some photos to entertain:
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links for 2009-01-15
Posted on by PatrickBrenden time! ( with some Emily snuck in )
Posted on by PatrickIn the interest of giving some equal time to the big brother, I present some pictures of Brenden…and sneak in a couple of Emily.
Brenden has been enjoying having some of the baby stuff back out. He really likes Emily’s car seat as seen here:
He’s also been having all of us play trains with him near constantly. This time Grandma was being a good sport:
On Sunday, our friends Amy and Brandon brought over their son Will as well as a wonderful lunch. Will and Brenden played a lot!
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Of course, Amy got some baby holding time in:
For Christmas, I got a bunch of Best Buy gift cards, and with them, I bought Guitar Hero World Tour. Brenden has been very interested and of late has been trying to play. Here we are with Brenden hitting the buttons and me strumming. Needless to say, he’s got a long way to go, but it’s fun:
This was tonight before Brenden’s bedtime watching an episode of Kipper The Dog on Sprout:
And lastly, a nice close-up of Emily, spit-up and all:
links for 2009-01-11
Posted on by PatrickMore Emily Picutres ( and Brenden too )
Posted on by PatrickWe’ve made it home and Brenden continues to love his little sister. This morning the first thing he asked me when I got him out of his bedroom was “Where’s the baby?”. It’s pretty cute. He’s also very gently with her.
Here are more pictures.
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| Brenden checking out his sister in her hospital roller crib |
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Emily hanging out with her daddy |
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| Emily hanging with mommy |
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This is too cute. Brenden reading a book to himself going to bed |
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| Taking a little siesta on daddy’s shoulder | ||
Emily Grace Burleson
Posted on by PatrickOn Monday January 5, we welcomed Emily Grace Burleson to our family. She was born via a planned c-section at 3:58 PM and weighed in at 9 lbs 12.3 oz and was 19 in long. Maggie and Emily are doing very well.
As for me, I’m excited as I was when Brenden was born. The adrenaline rush from the birth didn’t wear off until around 2 or 3 in the morning. I maybe got a total of 3 hours of sleep last night, and that was certainly not contiguous. ( It doesn’t help that I quite possibly have the most uncomfortable sleeping surface in the history of the in the fold out chair that’s in our room )
I’ll keep this short as I know most of you just want to see the pictures.
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| Maggie just as we got settled in to wait until the surgery |
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Amazingly enough, this is Maggie after the surgery while they were putting her back together |
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| The nurse cleaning off Emily and getting the first cry |
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Maggie holding Emily for the first time |
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| Maggie’s mom checking on her once we got back to the room |
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My dad holding his new granddaughter |
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| Maggie’s mom getting her first time with Emily |
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Maggie and Emily |
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| The new arrival |
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Maggie finally able to get up and hold Emily |
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| Brenden meets his new sister |
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He was actually really excited about it |
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| But he did miss his mommy | ||
MoneyWell
Posted on by PatrickEver since I switched back to the Mac, I’ve been trying to find the “right” financial management software to replace Microsoft Money 2000.
I’ve tried Quicken For Mac, iBank, Cha-Ching, Moneydance and Horizon. They all fell short in some aspect of what I needed. Either they were missing scheduled payments, balance forecasting, or just had a terrible user experience. I thought I was going to have to run Windows XP in a Virtual Machine so my wife and I could track our finances forever and it didn’t feel right.
Fast forward to mid 2008 and I’m listening to the MacSB podcast and they had an episode titled “Battling Big Iron Software Companies as a Micro ISV” where the host “Scotty” interviewed Kevin Hoctor of No Thirst Software about his relatively new product MoneyWell. I started researching the product to see if maybe, just maybe, I could finally stop booting Windows on my Mac.
It turns out, by trying to find an exact replica of MS Money, I was looking for the wrong thing. MoneyWell takes an electronic approach to an old way of managing your money: the envelope system. To do this, MoneyWell uses “buckets” for allocating income to spend. As you spend money, you assign those expenditures to a particular bucket. The amount available to that bucket goes down as you spend it until there’s nothing left to spend. If you go over the amount you’ve allocated for that bucket, and you don’t want to go into debt, you have to pull money from another bucket to cover your overage. In that way, you are somewhat forced to live within your means. It’s this approach to money management that Maggie and I had actually been looking for.
I was going to write a full review of MoneyWell and its use, but I’ll leave usage to the very excellent video tutorials provided by No Thirst. If after watching those videos, you still have questions, then I suggest you join the most excellent user group on Google Groups and ask your questions. One thing I love about the user forum is that not only are people talking about how to use MoneyWell specifically, but how to go about managing their finances.
Something that really sets No Thirst Software apart is the amazing level of customer service Kevin provides. I can not emphasize this enough. While several customers, including myself, try and help those that have questions on the Google Group, Kevin generally gets to them faster. He provides the most amazing enthusiasm for supporting his software and trying to solve user’s problems. I have never seen the care and time spent providing such public support from any other developer.
As for my review, I’ll say that MoneyWell works really, really well for Maggie and I and gives us a very accurate picture of how much money we have left to spend on particular things. It also shows us what we’re not going to get when we overspend elsewhere ( such as eating out, which is our Achilles Heal ).
If you’ve been looking for a finances tracking application for the Mac, I’d very much recommend you check out MoneyWell for yourself.
Christmas 2008
Posted on by PatrickThe past two days have been long, but amazing as we saw a lot of family and friends. Brenden had a blast as he got to play with his cousins from California while also playing with a ton of other kids. I should tell the tale in pictures.
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| We start visiting my best friend Andy’s grandparents’ house in OK. This is his dad Andy ( far right ) and uncles Benny and Scott ( left to right ). | Next, we went to Andy’s parent’s house. This is his mom Linda opening cards. |
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| Andy and his dad having a discussion during present opening. | Brenden playing with Andy’s nephew Noah. The boys had a great time playing with the microwave in the background. |
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| I really liked this shot of Andy laughing at a joke. Andy’s a chef, which leads to the next picture. | Moving to Christmas Day, with Andy’s instruction, I made my second Prime Rib. It was scrumptious. |
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| The entire Christmas Dinner spread showing the smoked ham my dad brought. It was equally scrumptious. | The tree just before presents were passed out. Lots of gift card envelopes this year. |
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| Brenden got this very cool elephant that he can sit on. | He really likes it. |
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| Brenden also got a lot of gifts. The child might be a bit spoiled. | Maggie’s sister Rachel and her husband Frank who drove here from CA with their other sister’s boys. |
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| Brenden “playing” with his cousins from CA. The older boys were engrossed by their game systems. | Maggie’s mom and dad and my dad watching the festivities. |
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| This is the coolest thing. A neighbor builds this train up in his backyard and gives kids free rides from 6 – 10 PM every night from the day after Thanksgiving till New Year’s Day. Here are the boys from CA, Ely and Dylan. | Trying to capture the epic-ness of this guy’s back yard is hard. The next few pictures are my attempt. |
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| Epic-ness. | Epic-ness. |
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| Epic-ness. | Epic-ness. |
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| Epic-ness. | In the end, Brenden was exhausted after two days of running around and no naps. After our guests left, he crawled on the couch and passed out. I carried him to his room and he’s still there in his clothes sleeping away. I think he really enjoyed the days and so did we. |
We had an amazing couple of days and I want to wish all my family and friends a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 2009 will be an exciting and new year for us as we welcome our new baby shortly after the new year.