But Going Well So Far....

Okay, time to follow up my last "Trip from Hell" post with the "Things are Actually Going Well" post. Things ARE going well. With a few surprises!

First, we EXPECTED that Goofy Junior (now 5) would have some jealousy issues when we brought home Lil G (2 years old). Of course, Lil G will require a bit more supervision than Goofy Junior, and thus, more attention. Knowing this, we both decided to set aside some "One on One" time with Goofy Junior and us. But... as it turned out, Goofy Junior has turned into a Lil G "Stalker". The first morning, Goofy Junior really, really wanted to wake up Lil G. "NO!" we declared. He ended up doing it by repeatedly going into Lil G's room.

Then he proceeded to grab Lil G's hand and take him for the house tour. Then the playroom for some play time (first time Goofy Junior's feet have entered the playroom in like 6 months!). He was very controlling of Lil G...up to the point of wanting to do EVERYTHING for him.

This was not the issue we thought we would have, so we had to change gears quickly. We reminded Goofy Junior that WE were the Mommy and Daddy. WE would take care of telling Lil G what to do, etc. This did not go over well, but eventually sunk in. I think we are at a happy medium now...

On the flipside, Lil G IDOLIZES Goofy Junior. Watches his every move. Follows him. Goofy Junior goes up the steps, Lil G goes up the steps. Did I mention that Lil G has never seen steps before? EEK! We were sure we would be making a trip to the local emergency room this weekend, but low and behold, as it turns out, Goofy Junior is a fairly good role model!

Regarding our dog Murphy, we decided that we would make this introduction informal. We would go get Murphy, let her do her thing around the house (which is mainly sleep nowadays) and if Lil G encountered her, he would figure she was just one more acoutrament in our household. Um, yeah, this didn't go the way we expected either. The first time Lil G saw Murphy, he audibly GASPED. He said, "ABAKA-DOH!!" repeatedly, then muttered some more Russian that we don't know, while backing up in the opposite direction.

Then he stepped forward and petted her.

Then backed up, muttered another "ABAKA-DOH!" and more disgruntled Russian mutterings.

Once we stopped our uncontrollable laughter with this weird behavior, we realized that we had a Love/Hate relationship brewing. He was scared, yet he was curious. And quite frankly, Murphy could care less. She doesn't antagonize him, but she doesn't avoid him either. And it still makes us laugh when he rounds the corner and comes face-to-face with her, and gasps. She's not a threat to him...he just doesn't realize it yet.

So it's gone well so far. He is sleeping through the night, although he wakes up about 6:30am, which is damn early. He eats like a beast. He does have little two-year-old temper tantrums, but we are pretty practiced at ignoring those that he is realizing that he is getting nowhere with those.

Yeah, things are going well....so far.

Trip From Hell...But We Have our Angel Now

We are home now with the newest member of the Goofy family - Lil' Goofy. We traveled last week to Russia to pick him up, get his passport and visa, get him a physical, and bring him home.

The trip started badly. Our flight to Russia went well, but when we arrived in Moscow, expecting to have the day in a hotel for a shower, nap and some relaxation, we were told that, no, we were being taken directly to the train station. For a 10-hour wait (!!!) for our 12:30am train the next morning. WTF? We protested a bit, but decided the travel arrangers must know what they are doing. In hindsight, hell NO, the travel arrangers most definitely did NOT know what they were doing. Ugh. Those are 10 hours that I want back! We were bored silly after the first hour. I still don't know how we did it.

Anyway, fast forward to picking up Lil G. He was happy to see us, and we had a great visit. When it came time to leave, we carried him outside to the car. Our driver was putting some items into the trunk. Lil G saw this and started crying. Once we assured him (with gestures and our very bad Russia) that he was NOT riding in the trunk, he settled down and did great on the drive.

After we boarded the train back to Moscow, we quickly found out that our train car did NOT have air conditioning. It was around 86 degrees. All we had was a window that we could open about 6 inches. Lil G was a happy camper in just diaper and shorts, but we were miserable, since we did not think to pack any shorts. It was a long night, but Lil G slept through and woke up happy.

We got to our Moscow hotel, checked in, and rushed off to get Lil G his physical. (NOTE: At this point, we had still not had a shower since leaving home...going on 3 days!) He giggled through the whole thing, as Dr. Boris declared, "this one will be breaking hearts soon." We headed back to the hotel and Lil G took a 4-hour nap.

Little did we know it was all a set-up for the hell we were about to enter.

The trip ended worse than it started. Fast-forward to our flight back to the states. Lil G got a little crabby on the way to the airport. It was a long drive, being a Friday, during morning rush hour in Moscow. He whined a bit, but when we got out of the van, he was happy and curious again.

We boarded the plane, thinking that surely he would nap. It was naptime, he had been on-schedule the entire trip so far. There was no reason to think he wouldn't.

You see it coming, doing you? We sure didn't.

The flight was pure, unadulterated HELL. Yes, in ALL CAPITALS. If there was ever a time I wanted to open my brain up and erase a 17-hour block of time, this would win, hands-down.

One hour into the flight, the diarrhea started. In total, we went through 4 diapers and one entire set of clothes on a 10-hour flight. Yeah..."ew" just doesn't really do it justice. And the clothes-splattering blowout occurred right during a "stay in your seat, there is turbulance" announcement. I explained the situation and the flight attendant let me into the bathroom, where we bumped and bounced around, trying to control damage from the diaper explosion and get some new clothes on.

He did NOT end up falling asleep until the final hour of the flight, after basically screaming for the preceding hour. The screaming resulted in a nose-bleed, complete with blowing blood out his nose onto everything, as he tried to catch his breath.

We didn't know what to expect as we carried our screaming, crying child off the plane. Thankfully the other passengers parted the way to let us through.

How did it end? Well, after we went through Passport Control and got our bags, we again had a smiling, happy perfect angel-child.

What did we do? We got our hopes up again for the final 2-hour flight back home. And yes, half-way through the flight the crazy-child, complete with yet another poopy diaper (how much poop can one child produce?!) appeared again.

We are home now and all this is starting to become a distant memory. After documenting this here, I plan on promptly forgetting this 17-hour block of time and replacing it with some of the many giggling, happy-child memories that I now have.

Case Closed.

Quick Status of Russia Trip

We picked up Christopher on Tuesday! He has been such a good traveler. He didn't like the car at first (I suspect because the trunk was open and he might have thought that was where he would be riding), but quickly calmed down and started looking at everything out the window, once we got moving. Of course, he did not sleep the entire 3-hour drive back to our region. On the overnight train back to Moscow, he was so much fun. He started talking (although we couldn't understand him) and pointing to the other trains. We all slept very well on the train. All night long even. Very cool!

He had his physical today. Dr. Boris pronounced him healthy, and said that he would be breaking little girls' hearts very soon. I do believe he is right. In the mother of all coincidences, there was a boy from Christopher's orphanage at the medical center for his physical on the same day! They acted like they recognized each other - wonder if they were pals?

We have our Embassy interview tomorrow and then come back to KC on Friday.

So it's all going well so far. Will post more stories and pics when we get home and settled.

We are Back!

Well, hopefully you've been following our progress in Russia on Adventure Bound. If not, get over there and read up! I'll wait....

Okay, so we got back into KC last night around 10:30pm. Because of storms in Atlanta, flights were backed up, so the Atlanta passport control, customs, and the terminal in general were packed! We couldn't even find two empty seats in ANY of the gates to sit in - we ended up sitting on the floor by the wall of the main corridor. Which made for great people-watching! Anyway...when we finally got a seat in our gate, we found out our flight was one hour late. I should emphasize ONLY one hour - lots of folks had it worse.

We went and did what good red-blooded Americans do after returning from overseas - we had some hot dogs & fries. Yum.

Our family and our son Alex were waiting for us when we deplaned in KC. Yippee! We came home and went to bed. Alex & I actually fell asleep on the car ride home.

Our internal clocks are still wrong (the clock says 4:00pm, but to us it's 1:00am Moscow time). So I'm going off to nap now. Will post more gory details later!

Greetings from Russia!

Since Mr. Goofy did such an excellent job of posting already, I'll let him speak for the both of us today.

Check it out here: Adventure Bound

Quick note: Up to this point, I have been feeling a bit nervous about this trip. But I woke up early this morning and had some time to think. I realized that I should be feeling excited and happy. We are bringing our new son home soon, for crying out loud!

Yes, it's intimidating to be in a foreign country, where you need to think before you speak, in order to be understood. But by focusing on the wrong stuff, I was bringing myself down.

Anyway, I needed to kick myself in the pants a bit. I think it worked. More on Friday or Saturday, after court.

Back in the (Country Formerly Known as) the USSR

We are leaving Monday to begin the process of adopting our new son and bringing him home. The pace will be fast and furious. Once we reach Moscow (Tuesday) we will be poked and prodded by Russian doctors to make sure we are fit to be parents. We have heard that we will be seeing about 10 doctors for about 2 minutes each. Most Russian docs have a speciality, so we will be seeing not only a General Practitioner, but also an Infectionist, a Neurologist, a Pulmonologist, a Narcologist, and (believe it or not) a Dermatologist. Obviously the medical system is very different in Russian than in the US.

If we are pronounced "fit", we will travel overnight by train to our region. There we will have just one visit with our almost-son (a fun 6-hour round trip by car), then it's off to court on July 4th.

Court is what I am most anxious about. I remember court from four years ago, when we adopted Alex. Court is intimidating. Our judge was a large, stern lady, who didn't crack a smile - even when she granted us custody of Alex. She did not speak English - we worked through an interpreter. At one point, there was some discussion about a document that was not filed correctly. Not our fault at all, but we got the impression that the court clerk was getting her ass chewed, in Russian of course. We laughed about it later, but didn't dare even grin at the time.

We are told court in this new region lasts about 3 hours. What will they ask us? Hopefully nothing too hard!

We are bringing along a letter from our pediatrician to ask to get the 10-day waiting period* waived. We did this with Alex and it was waived quickly. But that was a different region and a different time. This region typically does not waive the 10 days. But...what if they do? Then we will be bringing home our son about two weeks earlier than planned. Eeek! We will have to think on our feet if this happens, but it would be a good problem to have.

What we expect is that they will not waive the 10 days, and we will have to head back home after court. Then a week later, we will repeat the 11+ hour journey to go pick up our then-official son.

That trip is cake. No intimidating judges, no poking and prodding, just paperwork and bonding time. We get him a passport (Russian), get him a visa, visit the Embassy to emigrate him, and we are off. Then our main job is keeping him comfortable on all the legs of the journey back: car, train and plane. All of which will be brand new to him and probably overstimulating for someone whose world has been a large room with 15 other kids his age and two female adult caregivers.

Then, when we all get home, the real adventure begins...

* A period of time in which the judgement can be appealed. Sometimes waived if the child has medicial issues that require doctor's care.

Anxiety Update!

Well, about two hours after my last post, I not only got a call from our adoption agency with a court date (July 4th), but I also got a call from Mr. Goofy that he had passed his kidney stone.

So no more wondering about when we are going to travel, and no more worrying about a kidney stone removal procedure and recovery time.

Sometime things work out well, even when you just know they won't.

Anxiety can be Fun!

It has now been two months since our first trip to Russia to meet our new son. We still have not gotten a call back with a court date. It should be any day now. Do I feel ready? NO. Am I eager to get this now two-years-and-counting process done? YES. These are weirdly conflicting feelings.

Also, in this time between first trip to Russia and second trip to Russia, Mr. Goofy decided to find a new job. Since starting a new job, then saying, "Seeya, I gotta run off to Russia for about 3 weeks" would be pretty rude, he won't be starting new job until after we are back. But his last day at old job is tomorrow. Think about that. As of this Friday, no member of the Goofy household will be reliably income-producing. Am I scared about this? Actually no. My little stock trading hobby is helping quite nicely along those lines.

And, just in case I was starting to feel comfortable with the chaos mentioned above, Mr. Goofy's kidney has decided to produce another stone. A big one. One that is stubbornly stuck just before falling into his bladder - kinda like a little kid too scared to dive into the pool. If the stone doesn't take the plunge by Friday morning, Mr. Goofy's urologist plans to go in and get it. You really don't want to know how this is done.*

Oh yeah, and I'm working on our 2007 taxes today. We had to get an extension because we busy getting ready for our Russia trip and couldn't get them in on time.

Calgon? Please get me outta here!


*If you really, really do want to know, check this out: http://www.dentonurology.com/urs.html

Tuesday Randomness

It's Tuesday and I declare it Random Thought Day. Here's mine:

1. Finally...after four years and about eleven chiropractic interns (seriously), I think something is working! Chiro Intern #10 broke his wrist, so I saw the on-call this Monday. He did something called the Thompson Technique. I heard no pops. It felt pretty lame, really. But then I got up from the table and things felt different. I actually felt out of balance. Probably because I was in balance after being out for so long. Later in the day I was walking Murphy and I realized "my back doesn't hurt AT ALL!" This was huge, as I haven't had a minute of relief for four years. Of course, the pain came back that night, but I can't help but be optimistic.

2. I've never seen the benefit of having a food processor, until tonight. I bought a great one on sale at Target like last month. I've been too intimidated to use it. The whole "gotta read the instruction manual" really irks me. But I used it tonight to make some Spinach Lasagna*. This thing rocks! I actually screamed for joy! Now I can make my own Salsa! And Hummus! And Bean Dip! Look out!!

3. Our neighbors across the street have been taken to court by their next-door neighbors for 'harrassment'. What could they possibly achieve by going to court!?!? It's not like either one of them are going to move. Are they looking for money? A judgement to prove that one of them is "right" and the other "wrong"? I don't understand. Seems like our court system should be used for more important stuff.

4. I am so NOT looking forward to being in Russia for 20+ days. The region we are going to always requires that the adopting family stay for a 10-day 'waiting period' after court, supposedly in case a wayward relative decides to come forward and challenge the adoption. We know for a fact that the child we are adopting has no living relatives. Why are we stuck in Russia so long? If it was just Mr. Goofy and I, it would be great. A mini-adventure. However, leaving Goofy Junior for that long makes my heart hurt. Ouch.

5. Mr. Goofy quit his job today. He was going to wait until Friday, but the events of the day simply required the "Take this Job and Shove it" approach. He has another job waiting for him, but he is going to wait until we are back from Russia to start. So we will be eating Beans & Rice and Rice & Beans for a while. But I can make Bean Dip now! (see Item #2)

6. Just finished "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer. Awesome read! I made the mistake of starting her "Twilight" series, so three more books are in my future. I started "Odd Hours" last night, book four of Dean Koontz's "Odd Thomas" series about a guy that sees dead people. Really!


*with spinach from our home garden! Squee!!!

Thing That Drives Me Crazy #732

Companies that use cute phrases instead of numbers for their phone number in marketing materials:

Like...
1-800-EAT-CAKE
1-866-BUY-GUNK
1-888-HOO-TERS

This strategy used to be helpful. If I forgot my favorite bakery's phone number, I could remember "EAT CAKE", convert the letters to numbers and bingo! I'm ordering my brownies.

However, recently two problems have popped up that put a big wrench in this marketing strategy:
1) multiple toll-free prefixes
2) mobile phones

Item 1) simply confuses the issue. Even if I remember "EAT CAKE", I have to remember whether the prefix is "800" or "866" or "888". Or maybe just try them all. Kinda defeats the purpose of the cute name. And starts the crazy-driving process.

Item 2) has two sub-problems:
a) Why would I need to remember a phone number? If this is indeed my favorite bakery, I'm damn-well going to have the number on speed-dial, or in my Contacts (if I have a cool PDA phone). Who actually memorizes a phone number anymore?
b) All the mobile phones I've owned do not have the corresponding letters on the phone-dialing number keys! Can you tell this is the problem I've had recently? You saw it coming, didn't you? When this happens, I am dead in the water. I cannot dial the number until I look on a land-line phone or surf the Internet for "phone keypad letters" (Thank the gods for Wikipedia, yet again!)

Give me numbers, not cute phrases!

The Goofy Vegetable Garden: An Epic Adventure

It started out as a simple plan....teach Goofy Junior how seeds grow into plants.

The mission: Grow some easy vegetables in our backyard.

The victims: Broccoli, Spinach, Bush Beans, Peppers, Carrots

(I found out later that these aren't the usual "beginner" vegetables - oops!)

NOTE: We took a tip from Jerry Baker's "Fast, Easy Vegetable Garden" and soaked our seeds overnight in a mixture of weak tea, liquid dish soap, Listerine (non-mint).

Next, we very carefully planted the seeds into small peat pots. We quickly filled the two 72-pot trays that we had purchased and had to run out and buy two more 72-pot trays.

This should have been my first clue that the project had already gotten out of control. But Goofy Junior was digging it, so we continued...

Already, the squirrels were gathering and chuckling their evil laughs, "Ha-ha! Soon the vegetables will be ours! Bah-ha-ha! I call dibs on the spinach!"

Soon the seeds in the little peat pots were sprouting. The question arose, "Where in the hell are we going to plant these things?!"

So a site was quickly identified:

(Child included for scale only. He looks like he would be helpful, but he just wanted to play with the "cute" grubs. Ew!)

NOTE: Man, sod is hard to get up when it's attached to the ground! Much Advil was required for aching back after this stage was complete.



Raised beds were requested by Mr. Goofy. This required a trip to the Big Box Hardware Store for the purchase of large quantities of wood. But wait!!!! Lowe's did not carry the suggested cedar in 2' x 16' planks. Of course not. So we had to buy fir. Fir?!?! BTW, fir must be water-proofed if used outside. Of course.

Also, because of the length we had to buy, this increased our beds from 5' x 5' to 6' x 6'. ARG! More digging. More Advil.

Then ensued much cutting and staining/waterproofing of the wood....

Are we done yet???

Whee....that smell makes me feel all goofy inside...

...meanwhile, the seeds (now plants!) were waiting patiently indoors:

"Boy, it sure looks nice outside. Why are we still stuck inside this freaking basement?"

"I don't know, but quit pushing me!"

"Step off! You pushed me first!! Have some manners!"

Then I did my best impression of Ty Pennington and constructed the boxes that would be sunk into the ground to surround the raised vegetable beds.

I love power tools!

Four cubic yards of soil/compost mix and a half-bottle of Advil later, we were ready to plant our little darlings....

But hold that spade!!!! We then had 3 days of crazy-freaky storms, with 70 mph winds. I didn't want to plant our precious veggies and have them end up down the block. So we waited....

...and waited....

Finally, we were able to plant our veggies.

Done.

What?!?!? You have to water these things!?!? Groan.

The Lemon Pie Incident

Mr. Goofy & I know another couple that is as crazy about food as we are. If we hear about a new restaurant, we grab them and go. Recently, all of us have been a little tired of eating out. I think the strain on our pocketbooks was showing. Also, with Goofy Junior, there would have to be a sitter involved and that requires planning ahead. Something we are not great at.

So...we started a dinner club of sorts. Mr. Goofy cooked first. The other couple (let's call them Mr. C & Ms.C) brought wine & dessert. It went smashingly! We all had a great time, Goofy Junior went to bed, and we continued to have a great time. There was talk of doing it again and even talk about playing bridge at some point (Mr. C knows bridge, and Mr. Goofy & I are card fanatics).

This past Saturday was Ms. C's turn to cook. She made a yummy walnut-fig-kalamata olive spread with pita for appetizer. Then a delish shrimp with creamy sauce over pasta dish for dinner. I was in charge of wine & dessert. I chose two Chardonnays (one $16 and one $6, just to be goofy - we all liked the $16 and not so much the $6).

The dessert was to be Average Jane's Lemon Chiffon Pie. I've made it before and it's super easy and super delicious. Plus, a perfect, lighter dessert would go well with the creamy shrimp.

I started making it during Spectacular Spider-Man on Saturday morning. I got to the filling part, which is eggs, various lemon parts, sugar and cornstarch. The cornstarch thickens the filling, eventually to the consistency of gravy. That's how you know you are ready to put it into the pie shell.

Well, two Spider-Men (Mans?) later, plus a Mrs. Spider's Sunnypatch something-or-other later, still no gravy! I remembered this part taking about 10 minutes the previous time. I was looking at 30 minutes already! I added some more cornstarch. No dice. I removed the filling from the heat, thinking maybe it would thicken upon cooling. No love.

I finally gave up looking for gravy after about 40 minutes and just put the filling in the shell and cooked the pie. I blame the whole thing on old cornstarch, although the true cause will remain a mystery.

Well, when it came out of the oven, it was jiggly. Very jiggly. Pamela Anderson-jiggly.

I figured it would settled once it cooled. Nope.

I put it in the fridge for an hour. Did it thicken? Nope.

So what did I do? I FROZE it.

And guess what? It was delicious! Ms. C & I had two slices each. And it made for an interesting dinner story, to boot.

Who says I can't be creative?

Multi-Level Madness

If you ever have a friend or co-worker invite you to lunch because they want to talk to you about "a new exciting project that they are working on that they want to tell you about" or "that you might be interested in", just run. Run. Fast.

Jeez. You would think I would see the signs. But no, this happened again last night.

Another MLM (multi-level marketing) pitch.

I got a free dinner, yes. But I also got an hour-and-a-half long pitch about becoming a representive for a company that would 'build my financial independence'. *

Of course it all sounds good. They learn scripts for these sorts of things.

Then I got home an did the obligatory Internet search for the company name + 'scam'. Oh, lookey there, 8 links! All from previous "representatives". And all scathing.

At least I got a free dinner.

* I won't mention the company here, because I really don't want to attract THAT sort of linky love. No thanks.

OMG...the weirdest dream EVER.

Okay, so I had this dream last night. It was bizarre and weird to the extreme.

I was going to a new doctor for some reason. A physical, maybe? I mentioned the weird back/hip pain that I've been having for like the past four years or so.

The doctor looked at my right knee and found...screws behind my right knee. (why did I never see these before!?) He unscrewed the two screws behind my each side of right knee (and two more he found by my right ankle) and took off the outside of my right leg. There was room for storage in there. What was there? Well, electronics. Obviously, I'm bionic. LOL. But on top of the bionic stuff was....a tray of Mrs. Fields cookies. WTF?

Of course, they were stale, but the doctor ate one anyway.

Like I said, this was one weird dream.

Then, of course, he found the same screws on my left leg, and removed a similar panel from this side, revealing a similar storage area. What was there? Well, to start with, a "Who Sunk My Battleship?" game, already in progress, with all the accompanying pieces, and about a dozen small ball-peen hammers (???).

I can't remember all the stuff that was stored in my legs, but I remember thinking, "This stuff is all from the late 80's. I can't remember putting it there, but I must have. I've been walking around with all this baggage from way back THEN???!!!"

I remember thinking, "Wow! I've been walking around with all this BAGGAGE all this time. It will be so nice to get rid of all this stuff and be lighter". Significance? I dunno. Am I ditching some emotional baggage now that I've been carrying for some time? Dream interpreters, please let me know!

On a related note: I realized when I woke up from this bizarro dream that the right side of my head was facing upwards. (I was laying with my left side on the pillow) Usually, when I dream really creative/bizarre dreams, the right side of my head is upwards, like this. When I have more practical, day-to-day dreams, the left side of my head (brain?) is facing upwards.

Does anyone ever have this same thing occur? Pay attention next time you have a weird (or not weird) dream and let me know. Maybe I'm just imagining this...

p.s. I should mention that right before I went to bed, I watched "Battlestar Galactica", you know...the show where Cylons (robots) look just like humans? And also that I'm reading Stephanie Meyer's newest book "The Host", which is about alien life-forms inhabiting human bodies, while the souls within them are still present. Might explain some of the weirdness.

Goofy + 31,000 Other People...

went to visit Warren Buffet and his Merry Berkshire Hathaway Festival of Capialism. Yes, I scored the tickets on eBay and they actually let me in to the Shareholder Meeting. Me and 31,000 of my closest friends. Buffet's fan(atics) filled the Qwest Center, and then some.

Having gotten some last minute intel from GA, I showed up at 7:10am for the 8:30am meeting. Being just me, myself and I, I scored a pretty good seat about 5 rows from the floor, on the aisle. Again, on intel from GA (thanks buddy!), I had my binoculars, so I did some intensive people watching until the show started.

I had a great conversation with very smartly dressed lady who has been coming to Warren's annual party for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. Dude! We discussed how this was probably the only event in the Qwest Center where you could "save" your seat by simply draping a newspaper over the seat and leaving. People did this! They showed up, draped the newspaper, then went and got breakfast or visited the exhibition hall. Then about 8:00am, they came back...and their seats were still there!! She also mentioned that people bring their purchases from the exhibition hall back to their seats and leave those too, when they take a potty break.

This kinda restored my faith in the human race. A tiny bit.

All in all, the BRK shareholders are pretty fine peeps. Generally older than me, there were a lot of grey-haired couples, in sweater vests and trousers, looking very dapper and buying lots of peanut brittle.

WTF? Yes, peanut brittle! See's Candies is one of BRK companies. At the exhibition hall, I circled their (giant!) booth like 3 times, looking for an opening to buy some candy. But I was DENIED. 8 rows deep was the line to check out! For candy!

I kinda like these folks....

As far as racial diversity, there was some, but not really representative of the general population, IMHO. I saw many Asians, lots of Germans, some Hispanics and Indians, but I was hard pressed to find any Black folks. ??? I pondered this way too long before deciding that, well, the companies that BRK owns maybe just don't really market towards that population. I guess. Once I noticed this lack of diversity, it was hard to overlook.

As far as male/female ratio, I was pleasantly surprised. There was pretty many women there. Probably because of the aforementioned 'couple' thing.

At the exhibition hall, I got my picture taken at the GEICO booth on a way-cool motorcycle, and flirted with the Fruit of the Loom fruit guys (the purple grape guy was especially cute).

And, the highlight of my day...I saw my personal hero, Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek". He was sitting in my section! I did one of those, "is that HIM? Is it? Nah. Hmmm... Yes! It's him! Oh shit. Do I go say something? What?!?!" I was chicken and didn't approach him. Then read on his blog the next day how he was nervous about the possibility of meeting Warren Buffet and how he prepared his elevator speech, just in case.

Lesson learned. Next year I will prepare for the impossible.

Saturday night was the big Beach Party. Food, music and lots of Buffet fans, in the Nebraska Furniture Mart parking lot. As it turned out, this was the longest line of the day! These folks wanted a damn $5 taco, and were willing to wait in line for it. Quite a long line...

We passed and ended up in the hotel room with pizza and wine and "Chronicles of Narnia". All in all, and fine ending to the weekend.

So, did I learn anything that will make me piles of cash in the next year? Well, sadly no. Did I experience something that lots of people don't and that I may not again my in lifetime. Yes!

And that, my friends...is priceless.

In Which I Score Big on eBay

I love eBay. I have bought a LOT of stuff on eBay. I have sold a LOT of stuff on eBay. I love the 'thrill of the hunt' and sniping something away from another poor schmuck in the last 7 seconds of an auction. I've gotten quite good at it.

But I was denied today. DENIED. But it all turned out well. I love when that happens!

I was bidding on a set of Berkshire Hathaway 2008 Shareholder Meeting tickets this afternoon... What's that? You're wondering why in the world would I want these? Well, my friend... Mr. Buffet (as in Warren, not Jimmy) throws quite the party bash for his shareholders. We are talking a weekend of pure capitalist fun in Omaha, including a cocktail reception Friday, a Baja Beach Bash on Saturday night (2007's bash included the other Mr. Buffet - Jimmy!), and exclusive shareholder shopping day on Sunday and a DAY-LONG Q&A period with Mr. B and his crew. I heard from someone who's been there that it's better than an MBA.

...which sounds like a blast to me. I know, I'm a weirdo.

So, if you own at least one share of BRK stock, you get two tickets for free. The problem? The stock is currently trading at $4387 per share. No, I didn't forget a decimal point. Four GRAND and change = Too rich for me.

Luckily, Mr. B is generous and gives away some tickets each year at a nominal fee.

Which leads us back to this afternoon. I had found the tickets on eBay and was bidding. There was not too much action on the auction, so I wasn't worried (first bad sign). I waited until about 30 seconds were left in the auction and jumped in at $20 for two tickets. I was the high bidder for about 3 seconds, then I wasn't. ARG! I showed my hand too early! I tried to quickly re-bid at $26, was denied, and the auction ended. The tickets sold for $30.

Damn! I had really counted on winning the tickets. So I looked at my "Sorry you're a big fat loser" email auto-generated by eBay, and looked for 'similiar auctions'.

Lo and behold, there it was! A link to tickets offered directly from BH. No auction required, just "Buy it Now" for $3. SCORE!

So I lost, but then I won and saved $27 in the process. I love a happy ending! Squee!

The Name Game - Part Two

Before we traveled to meet New Kid, I wrote about potential issues with names. Since New Kid comes "complete with name" we needed to decide if that name would "work" in the US.

As it turns out, his given name is Sergei. Not a bad name. It would work in the US with no problems. However, here's the rub: the kid does NOT look like a "Sergei".

I imagine a "Sergei" as a dark, swarthy, handsome and mysterious dude. New Kid is not that, even accounting for the fact that it's hard to be dark and mysterious when you're only two years old.

He is blonde. He has blue eyes. I just can't channel "Sergei" from that.

So the Name Chase has begun. We have a few potentials, but not many. Most the names we like are now attached to one of Alex's schoolmates. And typically not in a good way, if you get my drift.

Before we knew his name, we discussed coming up with something that sounds similar, since he knows his name currently. This would confuse him less. Hopefully.

Two problems with this:
(1) What in the hell sounds like "Sergei"?
Fergie? Surrey? Suri?!

(2) Russians don't typically use their kids' given names in everyday conversations. They are very big on nicknames.
I didn't hear anyone in the baby home ever call him "Sergei". That's too formal for kids. Sergei's nickname is "Seregozha". Huh? It took us two days to get the proununciation right. I'm not even trying to match that with another name.

I'm thinking "Bob" sounds about right at this point...

Cookies Make the World Go 'Round

We met with New Kid three times last week: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

On Wednesday (our first meeting), New Kid did not want to have anything to do with Mr. G. Typically all the staff in the Russian baby homes are female, so this was to be expected. Mr. G belonged to a new and unusual species, of which New Kid had never seen before. He kept a close eye on Mr. G and wouldn't let him get too close. At one point he actually pushed Mr. G away!


On Thursday, we were determined to have New Kid do a little more interaction with Mr. G. New Kid was playing with some blocks, so Mr. G moved up slowly and sat behind him. You could tell that New Kid was still not digging this. We decided a little movement was in order.

I took one of New Kid's hands, Mr. G took the other and we started walking around the room. After a few steps, New Kid pulled his hand away from Mr. G....Darn!

Then New Kid walked over to the table in the room, that just so happened to have a tin of butter cookies in it, from lunch. He stopped in front and stared at the cookies. I smelled opportunity...

Mr. G got a cookie, showed it to New Kid, then sat down and pulled New Kid onto his lap. And started feeding him bits of cookie. There was no whining! And no crying! New Kid happily munched his cookie, possibly thinking, "Hmm....I kinda like this new species. Yum!"

A little while later, we saw New Kid's first smile (of many to come!). And after this, New Kid's fear of Mr. G simply disappeared.

Looks like we will be stocking some butter cookies in the Goofy pantry from now on...

We are Home!

Ahhhhh...it's so nice to be home. We were able to adjust our flights so that instead of getting home Sunday at 6:00pm, we actually flew to Chicago last night and got in this morning around 10:00am. This gives us an almost-whole day at home before the real week starts.

In the process of changing flights, we got bumped up to Business Class on Lufthansa. Let me tell this, this was kick-ass! More leg room than my living room and the seats have their own remote control that allows you to adjust almost everything. This includes a feature to make the seat lay all the way down into a bed. Flat! Which is pretty cool for a > 9 hour flight. Oh yeah, and there were about 20 movies to choose from. I had to keep my eyelids propped open to finish the two movies I wanted to watch ("National Secrets - Book Two" and "Golden Compass", if you're curious). And the food? Let's just say between us we had smoked trout, veal, lamb and tillapia. And tiramisu for dessert. On an airplane. Whoda thunk it? Oh, and the free wine (6 choices!) wasn't bad either.

I'll post more later - it's about midnight for me body-clock-wise, and we still have a dog to pick up and laundry to do.

Our Own Amazing Race!

Well, we finally made it to Russia. We have not had much spare time at all since we arrived.

Right out of the gates, things went wrong. Our flight from KC to Chicago was delayed FOUR HOURS because of thunderstorms in Chicago. And this is after getting to KCI TWO HOURS early (suggested for an international flight). Of course it took us only 15 minutes to check in.

I love sitting in airports waiting, don't you? GAH!!!!

Okay, so we finally got to Chicago. We thought MAYBE our flight to Munich would be delayed in leaving because of the weather. Nope. It left without us. RATS!

So another THREE HOURS waiting in Chicago for the next flight to Munich.

On the Munich flight they played two movies that you wouldn't want to watch before going to adopt: "Martian Child" (single guy adopts really weird child) and "August Rush" (mom thinks her son was born dead, but in reality he is alive and homeless). Both great movies, but I really wanted to get my mind OFF adoption. "Golden Compass" would have been about my speed.

So we get to Munich, wait only ONE HOUR this time, and jump onto our plane to Moscow.

Because of all the delays, when we reached Moscow, our poor driver had to drive really, really fast to get us to the train station for our overnight train to our region. No nap. No snack. No change of clothes in Moscow.

We finally got some down-time on the train. The train was cool. We had a sleeper cabin with two bunks (Ah....we got to actually lie down to sleep. Yeah!) and a small table. We had dinner in our cabin - yummy.

We slept well and in the morning we were in our region. Instead of going directly to a hotel to, I don't know...SHOWER, we headed straight for the Ministry of Education to get details about our referral child.

Only after this did we get to our hotel. For an hour. We showered, then jumped into our driver's car for a THREE HOUR trip to the baby home.

Yeah...and that was just the first two days.

More later....