My conservative day

Last friday, I took the day off from work to get a bunch of errands done that couldn't easily be done on a weekend. I set out at about 10 am, in a pretty good mood. Some of the things I had set out to do were things Rosemary and I had been thinking about doing for some time, so I was excited to finally get some of our goals taken care of.

First I went to BECU, and took out the money I would need for the next few stops in my trip. It was a pleasant experience. I gotta say, BECU is quite a bit better than chase, and I'm glad we switched- I was pulling out a large sum of money, and they didn't give me any troubles at all, like Chase always does. Quick and courteous, and the teller had a beautiful new engagement ring on. She glowed when I complemented her, and it's cool to see happy people that are good at their jobs. :)

Second, I went down to Federal Way, to Northwest Territorial Mint, and picked up a gold american eagle coin, and some silver coins. My dad has been pushing me pretty hard to get some precious metals to help hedge against inflation, due to the entire united states economy hanging by a thread of debt. (of course, my opinion is food and supplies first, money second) I was surprised by the huge number of people in the lobby of the mint, waiting to buy or sell precious metals. Seems sort of weird to me, because I didn't think buying and selling gold/silver was that popular to the common population, but I guess it's getting more popular. The sales lady that helped me with my metals purchases also had a beautiful engagement ring on, and she also glowed after I complimented her on it. Again, another great service experience overall.

Third, I went all the way down near mcchord air force base, to a really cool shop called Surplus Arms & Ammo. This place... was completely awesome, in a guy sort of way. The shop was small, but packed out with tons of cool gear. Not junky old surplus stuff, everything was new, wrapped, and super cheap. I managed to pick up all the ammunition I had on my list, at a significantly lower price than I had priced out originally from their website. Quite shocking, when the website pricing was already some of the best I'd ever seen. I even managed to pick up a rear sight for one of my weapons, and still stay several hundred dollars under budget. :) They had cheap magazines, ammo, reloaded ammo, guns, gun parts, and more. So cool, I could spend all day in that little place.

Fourth- I went and got a burrito from Taco Time. A man's gotta eat, right?

Fifth- I dropped off some of the ammo at my parent's place, talked to my dad and Grandpa for a little bit. My dad tried to steal my new gold coin... and he denied all allegations. Liar.

Sixth- I went home and enjoyed spending the rest of the day with my lovely wife, and my son, who after seeing the gold coin, told me it was his, and that he was going to go put it in his piggy bank. I guess it technically is his- if it really does help us secure our future, it's all for him anyways.


I felt like I needed to bash Obama on facebook or something to round out my right wing crazy nutjob day. :) I refrained, of course, in good taste.

I'm so angry right now.


Microsoft has just announced that there will be massive health care changes, due to the new obama healthcare legislation, which taxes cadillac health care plans immensely, which will apparently make them extinct.

Right now, at microsoft, if my son needs to go to the hospital, we take him. It's fully covered. Zero costs. Even if I have to take him 4 times a year, or 30 times a year. That's a "Cadillac healthcare plan" and it gives me the safety and security that I know I can get my family treated no matter what. Microsoft cannot afford to continue providing cadillac plans, because it was the Obama administration's plan to tax them so heavily so they could pay for the rest of the obamacare legislation. It looks like they didn't figure in the fact that everyone will abandon these top tier healthcare plans because of the tax, and now their plan for how to pay for their healthcare is now gone. So now obamacare is unfunded, AND it's destroying top tier healthcare plans for middle class hardworking people.

OBAMACARE = SUCCESS! Let's just remove good healthcare from the majority and make EVERYONE have mediocre healthcare plans that cost thousands out of pocket. YAY.

Now I don't have enough of the details to fully understand the new health care plan options, but it seems at around 2013, we will be fully under obamacare plans, with deductibles, co-pays, and so on. Taking my son to the hospital will cost me $1500 up front out of pocket, and 10% of total cost up to $1,000. Well our last hopsital visit costed almost 10 grand, so that's something like $2500 out of pocket. And Judah visits the hospital several times a year.

YAY GO OBAMA! You are a failure as a president and you are destroying healthcare for millions and plunging us into trillions of dollars of more debt.

Judah's 2nd birthday

So yesterday Judah turned 2 years old. Quite the milestone. For the last few months, we've been marvelling at how wonderful his language skills have come, telling ourselves surely a 1 year old cannot normally have such a firm grasp of English. I'm sure some of it is just because we think our child is a genius because he is our child. But now we won't be able to say that as much, because he is 2 now. He's getting a grasp on the counting thing now, as well, and he'll properly answer you when you ask him how old he is.

It's a real joy being a father. Judah is such a wonderful little child. He has his fits, like any other kid, but for the most part he is a curious, interesting, fun little boy. I'm very proud of him. He can do and say some pretty impressive things, but most of all- he's my son. I just can't WAIT to take him shooting, fishing, bicycling, hiking, playing video games together, and so forth. We already have a BLAST playing in the back yard and in the play room, and he really loves it. It's so incredibly important to keep him into the physical activities, because look around- childhood obesity is now considered an "epidemic" in our country, and a lack of work ethic is one of the many reasons this generation is having a very hard time finding jobs. Apathy is rampant, and the average toddler watches 4-6 hours of TV a day. That's more than the average face time they get with their parents... yeah.

I'm so very happy that we can afford to have Rosemary stay home and focus on our children's development and family life. Yeah we have less money. But you know what? When I look at Judah, all those concerns melt away, and I just want to be the very best dad possible.

In just one year, he's learned to walk, talk, run, jump, slide, climb, manipulate, beg, empathize, and lie. So Judah, here's to a new year, with even more exciting developments, and more exciting family fun. I look forward to being the best father I can to you, and enjoying your snuggles and punches.

First day back at work after we had the baby.  Yeah, it's been a while since I blogged.  I had a baby, spent 750 bucks on my cat who was very sick, thatched my back yard, buffed/waxed my car, got new tires, had the house painted, etc etc.

It was good to get some things done around the house.  The time off was also good for Judah and I, because we became best buds while mommy was taking care of baby sister.  Poor guy though, I'm home for a month and I go back to work, and it's probably a huge shock to him- he wakes up and his dad is gone all day.  Well the month was good- it felt long, and short, all at the same time.

So here I am, back at work.  It sounds like there are some major shakeups coming for my team.  My boss won't tell me, we just had our 1 on 1 meeting and he didn't say a peep, but he's not real great at hiding important meetings.  I saw on his calendar, an hour long meeting in sammamish titled "Rick Ochs' role in Strategic Adoption" with a bunch of text in it that sounded like there won't be a place for my skill set in this team much longer, and in the meeting a different, senior team member was invited, too.  Sounds like my boss will be getting all of his employees removed, and they will be redistributed between two of the other people in the team, and in addition, they might try to move me out to a different group or something.  We'll see I guess, but my skip level manager set up a private 1 on 1 with me for tuesday morning.  Probably when she thought I would be back from my paternity leave. heh.

So we'll see how all this shakes out.  It's a little bit of an answer to prayer, just because my relationship with my boss is so rocky, but it's also a very unsteady feeling, not knowing if they want to just tell me to find another job, or if they will just keep me around as baggage for some time.  Who knows.  But it doesn't bode well for my yearly review, either. :(

Anyway.  That's life.  I miss my family quite a bit right now...

so, I know I should post, but I'm not sure what about. It's just been a long time, and a lot has happened, but nothing really comes to mind- usually I've got something specific to talk about, like a car, a paintball event, a relationship, etc... but not this time.

So, my son is now 9 weeks (today) and he slept for 9 1/2 hours last night. He was pretty darn fussy last night, which is hard to deal with when they are unconsolable, but it's an amazing joy when he is in a great mood- he smiles at everything, and it's one of the greatest things to see your son recognize you and smile at you when you come home from work. You can see the excitement in his eyes and face when he sees me after a day of being away, and it's awesome. :)

I think we have tentatively decided we want to buy a house in a couple of years, before we have our second kid. Having two kids in our current place would just be a little too dicey, since there's only two bedrooms. The square footage isn't the problem, it's just the bedroom situation. Another deciding factor is having a yard for the kids to play in. Kids just need a yard. Another factor is definitely the fact that I want a two car garage. Our parking situation has limited me to only one car (two total fo the whole family) and I've always wanted a daily driver/fun commuter car. I just love the idea of driving around an old Honda or a little miata, fun little sporty car that gets 30+ mpg easily, even when you drive it like you're on crack. I had one for a while, a beautiful 89 prelude SI, bought for a grand under value, and then I put a grand into it fixing it up, and it ran BEAUTIFULLY. It was very, very fast, it cornered like it was on rails, even with cheap tires, and it was super reliable.

Most days, I get in my subie, and I just don't drive it like it should be driven. I mean, I commute in stop and go freeway traffic a couple of hours a day. How can I use an AWD rally inspired car in those situations? To even have fun with the thing, you've got to be doing triple the speed limit. It's got so much traction and power, that I can't really stretch it's legs. On the other hand, when I had that little prelude, I could break the front tires loose on almost any turn, slide through the turn, and whip that wheel around, all while only going 20 mph. If I tried that in the scoob, I'd be doing 60, I'd have all 4 loose, and I'd be sliding across three lanes of traffic.

I've kind of started wanting that little scooter of a car in rear wheel drive lately, just to get used to it. I know how to break the wheels loose around a turn in front wheel drive easily. But in the future, I wouldn't be surprised if I had some sort of high performance rear wheel drive car, and it'd be pretty messy if I had no experience in a RWD car, to get into an M3 or something. That's why I mentioned a little miata. Something that is light and maneuverable, but you can still dump the clutch and get those wheels spinnin. :)

In other news... I've picked up playing the piano. The keyboard, more like... I just started a couple of days ago, and I've got all the major chords down already. I just studied some chord theory, and figured out how to create chords based off of theory and went from there. What inspired me was this

It made me remember how much fun it was just to mess around with the keyboard when I was younger. I'd sit there for hours and hours, playing with different sounds and rythms. The guy is a litte different, but he's an absolutely amazing artist. Definitely my style of music, too. I'm kind of hoping that having a keyboard in the house will tug at Rosemary's interest and that she'll pick up some, too, because she has had some lessons (more than I can say).

That's all for now, folks. We'll see if my facebook link brings any more readers, heh.