"This is for everyone"

Probably the most overlooked part of the opening ceremonies was not just that Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the internet sent a very anti-SOPA message. It's that he sent that message on a NEXT Cube. NEXT was the company that Jobs created after his exile from Apple in the 90's.

College Football Uniforms

I'm a massive fan of college football, I also like the blog UniwatchBlog. The blog covers a lot of the aesthetics of sports uniforms. Without checking out their site I have noticed over the last couple of days that a lot of colleges are unveiling their uniforms for next year. I think there must of been a huge sponsor shift over the summer.

Here are 3 that are on my radar, and my analysis:

Nebraska:

The B1G conference newest addition has one of coolest uniforms that I have seen in a while. I really like the huge "N" in the middle of the uniform and the number on the shoulder blade where the Captians "C" normally is. This is a departure from most jerseys that you normally see.

Update: Apparently this is a 1-off jersey for the home opener, but I think they should keep it all season. It's pretty cool.

Northwestern:


I'm not going to say that not being able to find a video on the uniforms is major bummer, but come'on Under Armour, get it together. NU did a good job with the uniforms in keeping them in line with the NU tradition and colors. The stripe across the middle is a thowback to way back (circa 1950's) but still looks legit with the purple.

Texas A&M:

I'm a homer, I won't lie, but I'm still undecided about the new Aggie look for 2012. There is certainly a wow factor in these uniforms and aren't outlandishly a compete change. I do have two knocks though, I'm not a friend of the compression sleeves  being that long on the arm and having logos that are representative of the university. It doesn't make sense to the look. I am also over the logo being put together while the hands were put together. It's been done, move on.

Addilynn's Birth Story (as told by Dad)

I didn't think that our second daughter would ever come. Our first child, Cullen, had came 5 days before his due date and we were past that last Tuesday. I honestly thought that she would be here a week after her due date and still in mommies tummy. I also thought that we would have time to get ready. Both of these proved to be untrue!

On Saturday July 21st I got up in the morning and went on my Saturday long run with Fort Bend Fit. It looked like we were going to have a rather uneventful day. I finished my four mile run and came home and showered up. Cullen hadn't woken up yet and Corrie was still resting. I went and played a little on the computer as I was trying to get an idea of where to go on some of my work ideas for next year.

We got Cullen up about 9:30AM as he was sleeping late because we had had a movie night the night before with him. This has been a fun tradition of ours that I hope to do in the future. When Cullen got up he was rather fussy and didn't want to do much of antything we had asked him to do. We know that he is of age that he can understand and follow our directions so when he continued to do things that we asked him not too we decided to send him back to his room for an early nap. We were suprised to see that he would go down for one, but he must of still been tired.

Corrie went for a nap, as did I but I didn't end up napping that long. I got up about 1:00 that afternoon and went to go update our budget. I noticed that Corrie had gotten up but was plugging in her iPhone earbuds and I assumed was going to watch some Netflix on her phone.

About 30 minutes later she comes to me and says "Hey, I'm having contractions." She showed me that that they were about 10 minutes apart. I started making phone calls to put things in place. We would wake up Cullen from his nap, take him to our friends The Bedo's, and would go on to the hospital to see if this was real.. WHen i realized that we had everything and had gotten to the Bedo's, Corrie contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart.

When we got to the hospital it was very anticlimactic as we told the nurses that we thought we were about to have a baby. When we got into a room and the nurse was able to check Corrie out and see that she was about 4cm dilated we were told that we would be staying. We had to wait for Corrie to get lab work from the doctor so that she could get the epidural. I thought that that might not ever come with her going through those intense contractions but they had to clearance from the lab work.

The nurses then began to do their pre-work checkin information but it was rather interesting because they kept asking these questions that were so preposterous that it made you wonder if anyone had ever answered yes to them. They hurried through the questions when they realized that Corrie was ready to push and push hard. They called the doctor and we didn't end up getting Dr. Le who we had been working with this past nine months but rather his associate Dr. McDonald who is a member of our church. I really liked how that worked out by the way.

When all the nurses and doctor came in and it was go time for us I was excited. I had been told to be participative and helpful and to experience everything with Cullen, but the doctor and the nurses were completely opposite with Addilynn on this. I was amazed at how fast she came. We got to the hospital around 3;00 PM and have Addilynn by 5:50 PM.

That night was cool because when we gave our families the notice that we were going to be in the hospital. My mom had picked Cullen up from the Bedo's and was hanging around town. Corrie's mom and grandma, and aunt were on their way up from Victoria. It all kind of worked its way together that Corrie and I got to have our families in the delivery room about an hour and a half after Addie's birth. I can't tell you how awesome that was to have everyone there. It was great that it all happened that way and that our family could be there for us. Addilynn had a low birth temperature so they had her under a tanning bed essentially to warm up her core temperature. It worked out great because all of our family could see her.

Arian Foster gets Twitter

Cullen and the Wii

We haven't broken out the Wii in several years, probably 2 if I am guessing right. It's not that we don't like it, we just don't have time because of this little guy named "Cullen." We broke out the Wii this evening and enjoyed playing "Wii Resort." One of the games that was on the Wii was bowling. We made Cullen an account and decided to let him try out his hand at bowling. We played a game on Wii Sports Resort that was a 100 pin challenge so our points were higher and we could see more pins being knocked down at once.

At times, he really wasn't interested.

Cullen didn't do too shabby!

Cheerleaders

Commanding a group of middle school cheerleaders through the Chick Fil A play place.
— Cullen Portier (@Cullenportier) July 19, 2012

Cullen (plaid pants) had no fear of the girls 10 years older than him.

As most of you know Corrie is almost at her due date. We are also in our summer break, so we are figuratively waiting for our watched pot to "boil". We got out of the house with intentions today to go to the Stomping Grounds and let Cullen get out some energy. Well it was around noon when we finally got out of the house and realized that we needed to go get lunch first. We went to our staple favorite Chick-Fil-A because we knew Cullen would eat it and we didn't feel so guilty eating from it. When we got there he was excited to eat there and did so rather quickly, but then decided he wanted to go play in the Chick-Fil-A play area. We had no problem with this as it is pretty normal for him to want to do. About 10 minutes later a horde of middle school cheerleaders ran into the playground to play. I was intitally nervous about Cullen being in there with some bigger kids, but it took all of 10 seconds for them to find him cute and for Cullen to have them wrapped around his finger.

Taking off his socks.

There was one girl that followed him around the whole entire structure making sure that he could get up or didn't get trapped up. Little did she know that Cullen had moved through the play structure for the last six months at least. He had her waiting on him hand and foot. She was very precious to our little boy!

Visiting the Doctor

Corrie is 39 weeks pregnant. Cullen knows something is coming but it's pretty funny how much he cares. We took him to the doctor today for part of Corrie's weekly visits now. While the doctor was giving a listen to the heartbeat, I decided to film Cullen's response.

Big Brother Bonding Conference

Our precisous friends, the Roberson's had a party for their daughter yesterday. Mike and April invited us to take Cullen out to celebrate with her. When we got there Cullen was polite (as a 2 year old can be) and said Happy Birthday Karis (after being coached) and then proceeded to play with some of his other friends that were his age. I'm grateful that Cullen has little buddies at this age to play with. He loves to socialize with other guys.

Cullen is about to be a brother to a baby sister.

Andy (behind Cullen) is about to be a brother to a baby sister.

Turner is a brother to a baby boy.

Cookie Monster and My Little Monster

I found this video the other day when we were at the computer and thought that Cullen might like it, the song is by Carly Ray Jepsen but was spoofed by Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. I can't tell you how much this thing cracks me up. I introduced it Cullen and he wasn't initially wowed over by it like I was. The next day after and playtime with Mom I was sitting at the compute when Cullen came and asked me "Wanna see Cookie Monster?" which meant of course I want you to find the Cookie Monster video and play it for me.

Toy Story Movie Night

A few months ago Corrie and I decided that since we couldn't take Cullen to the movies yet that we would try to bring the movies to the house. We tried out "Cars 2" but he only lasted about 45 minutes into the movie before he was completely lost all curiosity. On Monday night we decided to try "Toy Story 3."  We finished dinner and then went to the couch and I put in the movie. Cullen liked seeing Buzz Lightyear and was delighted to see that Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head were in the movie. He had recently over the last few days been introduced to Mr. Potato and called him affectionately "Small Potatoes."

Corrie bawls like a little girl at the last 15 minutes of Toy Story 3, but I normally can hold out, however I Facebooked this.

Great night though, I loved getting to hang out with my family of 3 before it comes to the family of 4.

June 2012 in review

Corrie and always wield our cell phones around where ever we are and take pictures of our little family outings and events:

Hailey's BIrthdya party, Cullen's & Corrie's week with Grammy, Kyle, and Kelsey, Cullen's week with Bon-Bon, Learning how to use Building Blocks and Play-Doh, Trips to Fuzzy's Tacos, Trip to the Children's Museum, Weekend Visit from Grandma.

June 2012 from John Portier on Vimeo.