Excuses

First and foremost, I have been a major slacker in terms of posting recently. My sincere apologies.

Just so you know my time on the blog has been limited lately as I have been in preliminary discussions with joining the Barack Obama administration as Health and Human Services Secretary. Unfortunately, like Tom Daschle, who withdrew his nomination for failing to pay taxes for having a limousine driver, I had to back out of negotiations as tax attorneys were questioning my monthly expenditures on Green Flash IPA and Enfamil baby formula. Apparently this was raising red flags.

Ok, ok, so maybe I only wish I was under consideration for a Cabinet appointment. But I have been in discussions with UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart about replacing coach Billy Gillispie mid-season. The second-year coach has clearly lost control over this UK team which has now lost a dreadful three games in a row to subpar SEC teams. Once again, my dirty laundry appears to have come back to haunt me as a picture in a London tabloid with my friend Michael Phelps is making Barnhart gun shy about making a historic coaching hire.

Not buying it? Well, after making it through the phantom hernia (as my pal Chris called it), I have had to ease back into running so I have been taking up walking more. While on a walk through the neighborhood the other day I was approached by a Tyrannasaurus Rex and a Triceratops who wanted to know which house was Owen's and Gus's. When I refused to tell the hungry meat eaters, they tossed me about with their friend the Brachiosaurus and wouldn't let me return home. Hence, no posts.

(For the record, Owen & Gus loved the version of that last story I told them at the dinner table. They now insist on trying to outdo me with tall tales of dinosaurs scratching at their windows & dinosaurs approaching the car at stoplights while I'm driving.)

The truth is life has been rather hectic the first month of the year, especially on the work front. IBM -- as countless other companies dealing with the economic recession -- has laid off thousands of people over the past couple of weeks. Fortunately for Amy and me, we both still have jobs at Big Blue. But many people we know and work with were impacted. So I think there has been a renewed vigor with which we approach our jobs -- both a desire to make sense of all the changes and a determination to show that we have our place in the new environment, whatever it may look like.

We do have some fun things to report.

"Jack" is now 4 years old, but he knows how to drive. Mom and Dad can't see Jack, and Owen is allowed to see him.....sometimes.

Everything out of Tess's mouth is "Da-da." When I come into the room, it's "Hi, Da-da!" When Amy picks Tess up off the floor, it's "Hi, Da-da!" As Amy says, Tess is going to need more fingers since she has me wrapped around each of hers. Indeed.

Our little girl is turning 1 this weekend. Nana and Aunt Kay flew in last night to help us celebrate which we are very excited about. Amy has a ladybug cake on the docket which the boys are excited about. And we are planning a small get together with some of Tess's many caretakers which should be a lot of fun.

So there is some goodness going on with us outside the stresses. I will do a better job of updating.

If I can just steer clear of those dinosaurs....

Cheers!