Saturday Evening Post

Sleeping in Grandma's arms.


Our little preppie.


Is it me or does Taylor look like she is ready for a little brother? (Hint, hint Jennifer.)

Wasting time

Add this live Mario Brothers reenactment to my list of favorite Internet videos relating to the original Nintendo. Also, this toy is every little brother's worst nightmare.

Cancelled

It appears that Connie Chung has decided to commit career suicide. I didn't see this when it originally aired (I must have been watching a real newscaster) but the unintentional comedy is off the charts. Thank goodness for You Tube.

Happy Father's Day

A Baby Story

Friday morning, at 5:45 am, Christina woke me up to tell me her water had broke. Her water was a little cloudy, which means that Dillon had a bowel movement. I had her call the Birthing Center as I hopped in the shower.

Twenty minutes and a few phone calls to our parents later and we were headed to the hospital. At this point Christina had not had any contractions so I was preparing myself mentally for a long day.

Flashing forward to noon, Christina was only 4 centimeters dilated. Her contractions were still manageable but she was very nauseous and frequently vomiting. The nurse was hesitant to give her a spinal injection (aka happy medicine) because one common side effect is an upset stomach.

Around 2 pm Christina's window (5 centimeters) was open for a spinal. Surprisingly, the spinal made Christina's vomiting go away. The pain from her contractions were also gone.

As her spinal began to wear off, the nurse noticed there were signs pointing to the umbilical cord potentially being wrapped around Dillon. She was able to know this by observing Dillon's heart rate during the contractions. His heart rate was normally anywhere between 130 to 150 but would dip to as low as 50 during some contractions. She monitored this closely as Christina's contractions grew closer together.

At 5 pm Christina received her second spinal of the day. Unfortunately, this one made her sick and she would be vomiting through the rest of the evening.

Christina finally dilated to 10 centimeters around 7 pm. The nurse called the doctor and Christina began pushing. Dillon still had a ways to drop before he would be delivered. The doctor said it could take 2-3 hours of pushing before the baby could come out.

During pushing, Dillon's heartrate was continuing to drop to the low 50s. At 8:15 the doctor said that Christina was going to have an emergency c-section.

As the doctor and nurses prepared Christina for surgery, I updated all our family in the waiting room.

Twenty minutes later Dillon was born. (A side note: the nurse was right about the umbilical cord. It was wrapped around his neck twice.)

It took Christina 3 hours for her to recover due to the hard labor and the third spinal of the day (for the c-section). During that time all the family came in to get their first look at Dillon. Tears, laughter, and hugs were all shared during the joyous time.

**********

Below are some of our favorite pictures so far in Dillon's first week of life.

I never knew how much newborns sleep. This little guy sleeps at least 16 hours a day.


Nothing wakes this boy up, not even a turtle nibbling on his ear.


Dad's favorite picture.


Someone is not very happy with Grandma. I had the same expression when I found out the Lakers had traded Shaq to the Heat for fifty cents on the dollar.

Dillon Michael Nixon

On June 9, 2006 at 8:39 pm, Dillon Michael Nixon came into this world weighing 7 pounds and 3 ounces and measuring 20 inches long. Christina and I would like to thank everyone for all their prayers, thoughts, and phone calls. Christina and Dillon will be released from the hospital on Monday. I will post a few pictures now but more will follow once things settle down.

Here is Dillon only a few minutes old. His normal, pink color had not come to him yet at this point.

This is Dillon right before his first bath. He is a few hours old in this picture and you can see he is not quite as pale as when he was first born.

One proud dad.

Three generations of Nixons. (The fourth generation will be coming to Sonora soon, which will cause all school teachers of the past, present, and future to be overwhelmed by a collective shutter of terror and fear.)

Poor Man's Bellagio Fountains

A semi-current online fad is to post video of mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. Most of the videos consist of a two liter bottle of Diet Coke, a pack of Mentos, a camera, and some junior highers replicating the science class experiment. But these guys take it to a whole new level.

My Fortress of Solitude

Finally. The office/game room is finished after five months of work. Just in time for Baby Nixon (that's right we still don't have a name yet) to arrive. Before I get to the pictures of the finished product I would like to thank Mike for all his help. Without him this would still be on my "To Do" list. To see the start of the project click here.


This is a shot taken from the door that leads to the garage. On the left you can see Otis enjoying my authentic Dodger Stadium seats. To the right is a bed (with a few big pillows it will double as a couch) and the ping-pong table.


This is a close up shot of my Sandy Koufax picture, newspaper clipping, and ticket to the perfect game. Here is the family history of that game.


Here is a picture taken from in front of the aforementioned Sandy Koufax picture. The door on the left goes to the garage while the door straight ahead leads to under the house.


And last but not least is Otis wishing he was in Dodger Stadium.

This is why Al Gore invented the Internet

During the middle of season 3 of 24 I wondered to myself how many people have "died" on the show. This website does not quite answer my question but it is still cool.

Here is an interesting take on the season finale of Lost. The author also has some whacked out theories about the show. Warning: Do not read if you have not watched the season finale.

This summer I hope to catch up on the Lost Experience. I plan to start at this blog.

Finally, you have to give Bud Selig props for pushing MLB.tv, especially once this upgrade becomes public.

Open Invitation

To all family and friends,

As Christina's due date approaches (8 days and counting) I would like it to be known that there is always an open invitation to visit us in Sonora. We have plenty of room to house a fair number of guests. I know some family is already planning to be in Sonora when Christina delivers. Others plan on coming up after the birth. We are just glad to share this wonderful moment with all our family and friends.

If you do plan to visit us please just give us a call or email me. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers as we approach this life changing event.

Ask Jimmie

The following are questions (and my answers) I am asked every day by Joe Q. Public.

Q: What do you get when you combine two of your favorite things, baseball and sudoku?

A: Baseball sudoku, of course.

Q: Speaking of merging things, what do you get when you combine a loser with an Internet sensation?

A: The most annoying clip of all time.

Q: What do I do if I am jogging and need to know the time, distance, and pace of my run?

A: Buy the iPod compatible shoes from Nike.

Q: Where can I find a geometry related game?

A: Right here. I have reached level 5 before I ran out of time/patience.

Q: What is the MLB Heavyweight Champion and who holds the current title?

A: The MLB Heavyweight Champion was devised by Ken Arneson (see the toolbar on the right hand side) and is defined as if MLB champs were decided like boxing: beat the champ, your the champ. The current champ as of May 23 is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Q: What is your favorite part of The Colbert Report?

A: The Dead to Me and On Notice lists. I also thoroughly enjoy Stephen's trek from his news desk to the interview desk.

And finally...

Q: What can I do if I am bored?

A: Use Snoop Dogg's Google and read this blog again.

Happy 20th Birthday Jason!

Hope you have a wonderful day bro!

Stay Classy, San Diego

I spent the last few days at a conference in San Diego. (If you want to know what the conference was about follow the link or ask me about it in person, trust me it isn't an interesting subject.) The conference was drab and boring. Unfortunately, so was the weather during the trip. The sun only came out a total of 10 minutes during our stay.

Before we left for the airport on Friday, we swung by the Cabrillo National Park. On a clear day the view is supposed to be spectacular. We could barely make out downtown across the bay. On a side note, I did learn that San Diego was not discovered by the Germans in 1904.

I love this game?

It’s been almost a week now. I have had time to calm down, contemplate, and put some coherent thoughts together. All five senses were thrown out of whack. For a week and half the world had turned upside down. Every basketball fan knows what I am talking about, the Phoenix-LA first round playoff series.

***

It was the end of the regular season and Kobe had done the unthinkable, threw up Jordan like stats, led his make-shift team to the playoffs, and even had a nice winning streak to end the season. I was still skeptical. Yes, the Lakers had just spanked the Suns in their last meeting of the regular season, but Steve Nash sat out the game. I could not get over the fact the Lakers had yet to beat the Suns when Steve Nash was in the lineup.

Game 1 started much like everyone expected, the Lakers not being able to keep up with the runnin’ and gunnin’ Suns. But still something was different about LA, they were playing like a team. It wasn’t all about Kobe. They continued to pound the ball inside and took advantage of the weak front line of the Suns. By the fourth quarter the Lakers had fought their way back into the game, but a couple of no-calls later (which of course went the Suns way) and Phoenix had squeaked by for a 1-0 lead.

The next two games the Lakers stuck to their game plan of making Kobe a play-maker, not a scorer, and using the big men to take the 2-1 lead. Did Phil Jackson know Phoenix had a weak link all season but refused to exploit it during the regular season in case they met in the playoffs?

Game 4 was a classic. Laker fans knew after Game 4 who the real MVP was, as evident to Nash’s two critical turnovers and Kobe’s two heroic shots. The series was all but over. If Chick was still announcing he would have put the series in the fridge, the lights were out, the eggs were cooling, the butter was getting hard, and the Jell-O was jiggling. The Suns had just suffered a Level 2 Stomach Punch game.

I underestimated one thing though: Steve Nash’s ability to pick himself up and move on. For the next three games he kept plugging away, running the pick and roll perfectly. He was the difference maker. True, other players like Barbosa, Diaw, and Tim Thomas stepped up, but Steve Nash stayed true to himself.

In the end the better team won. Sadly every Laker fan knew it.

***

I guess the best way to describe the Suns would be to compare them to my Uncle Larry. Like my uncle, the Suns have a fun attitude that surrounds them. Like my uncle, their unselfishness is contagious and great to watch. Like my uncle, the Suns can make you smile even if you have told yourself to play it tough. My uncle has also been known to have a short fuse. To no one’s surprise my uncle has thrown a cell phone across the room, you can see where it is easy to replace my uncle with Raja Bell and the cell phone with Kobe.

***

Did I just compare the Suns to my uncle? Maybe I haven’t recovered from the Lakers collapse after all.

Is there a doctor in the house?

On Friday night my dad received his doctorate in Theology. We are very proud of his accomplishment and all the hard work that went into this feat.