Christmas day has come and gone once again. It hasn't felt as Christmas-y this year to me for some reason, probably because it's been so freaking warm the past month with not even a glimmer of any snow. We got to actually sleep in on Christmas - I woke up around 7:30 or so and played some Madden, then the boys woke up and had breakfast and played for a while. We didn't get around to actually opening any presents until nearly noon.

Apparently we were all good little boys and girls judging by the stuff Santa left. Alex was much more interested in ripping opening packages than last year. The downside there is many more of his packages this time around were either wrapped in the Cursed Metal Twist-Ties(tm) or the Cursed Blisterpak(tm). I despise these things (especially blisterpaks - not only are they good at keeping thieves out of packages, but also people who purchased them! :P) Aaron got mostly new clothes, some college fund donations and a couple toys.

It was good seeing some family come down, including my Grandma and Aunt Jane. I didn't get to see Aaron most of the day as he was being hoarded by the family, but that's ok. :)

As for me, I got a new 30 gig iPod with video from my lovely wife. Also a TON of Steelers stuff (hammer, pens, keyring, polo shirt, steering wheel cover, hammock). Too bad they won't make the playoffs after all :( As a family present we also got a new digital camera, a Canon Powershot SD600. It's really nice, and hopefully it'll encourage us to put up photos more often. :)

The new job has been going well. It's been an adjustment as I've been used to the slow periods around Christmas during my time at AOL; here it's just the opposite - lots of stuff going on right before the new year. My computer (finally) showed up this past Thursday, which is a godsend after having to deal with a loaner laptop that I had no priveleges to install software on. I'm used to taking the week between Christmas and New Year's off, so this three day weekend will be a nice respite to relax and enjoy time with the family.

Hope you all have a safe and happy New Year's!

Regardless of how you feel about the War in Iraq, I hope you'll consider donating something to Let's Bring Em Home. They buy airline tickets for US military personnel so they can be at home with their family for the holidays (who otherwise could not afford to).

For those of you who may not know, I tendered my resignation at AOL on Wednesday, and my last day will be December 1^st. They took it pretty well, although they are sad to see me go.

I'll be heading back to Mitretek and will be starting there on December 4^th.

Should be an exciting remainder to the year. At least I won't be paged at 2am anymore. :)

I decided that the page had been looking way too 1999 lately so I revamped things a bit, and converted the blog to Blosxom today. I also removed all hardcoded colors and switching to CSS stylesheets. Some older content that hadn't been updated in ages (screenshots, etc.) was removed. Let me know if anything seems to have broken.

On a related note, I registered thunderkeys.net and that will be my new primary domain. tynian.net will be retired at some point in the future. Email will continue to reach me at both domains, but update your email client to point to bma <at> thunderkeys.net when you get a chance. My new AIM name is also Thunderkeys.

Aaron Robert Almeida
Born 1:42pm on 11/6/2006 at Inova Fairfax Hospital
7lbs 12oz
20.5 inches long
More pictures are available:

Hospital and Homecoming

On information overload: Amen, brother. And I really need to move to a new blog solution, cuz the one I have here sucks. I also discovered del.icio.us the other day and am really digging it. Thank you, 43Folders.

I know it's been forever since the last post, but there's a big announcement. Karen and I are expecting our second baby! She's a little more than 2 months along and the expected due date is November 16th. More info forthcoming as it is available...