On a side note, while we were all in the car today Amanda said “happy” to Milly in a high-pitched voice, and Milly mimicked her with a high-pitched noise of her own a couple times.

My eye was much, much better today, thank you very much.  I’d say it’s at about 98% currently.  There’s still a bit of that scratchy feeling, but it’s not shutting up on me or tearing up.

I conducted a few interviews today, and I feel pretty good about being able to land a quality sales and design person for the company.

Amanda started the P90X while I was gone, but I did it after work.  I tell ya, that thing kicked my ass!  Today it was all push-ups and pull-ups.  We don’t have a pull-up bar (though I think we’ll get one really soon), but we used a strappy thing with a handle to mimic the action in reverse.  About halfway through I couldn’t even do any more push-ups, but I did go through the effort of pushing as hard as I could against the ground, even if I wasn’t going anywhere, or when I lowered back down my chest pretty much just dropped on the floor.

We didn’t take any “before” pictures, but we’re going to do that tomorrow before we start the workout.  I don’t think I got all that buff or lost all that much body fat in just the one session so far.  I tell you what though, I can definitely feel it in my shoulders, which have now given my arms a limited range of motion from being so worn out.

The hardest thing, I think, will be eating right.  We already know that we’ll have some times when we don’t, such as Milly’s upcoming birthday party.  By and large though, we’re going to try to stick to the diet plan to try to get the most out of the system, and it’s already taking effect, mentally.  I saw some large cupcakes on TV tonight and wanted one so badly.  Michael also mentioned Flaming Amy’s when we dropped him off at his place, and I don’t think I ever wanted a burrito more.  It’s not that we’re not eating good food, but trying not to eat not-as-good food makes you want it more.

Amanda, Milly and I stopped by Michael’s place to pick him up and we all went to Justin and Lisa’s to meet baby Ayden, who was cute but slept the whole time (as a three week-old baby should, when he can).  We met most of Justin’s extended family and just hung out for a while.  They seem to be adjusting well to parenting life.

Amanda and I watched some things on the DVR after we put Milly to bed tonight.  Once we finished those I noticed on the channel guide that the American Idol season finale was on, so I put it on that out of mild curiosity to see who won.  When we turned it on there was a (in my opinion) boring song by Janet Jackson that sounded actually a lot like Michael Jackson, then another song by her followed by Joe Cocker singing With a Little Help from My Friends with the Idol finalists, then the announcement.  The guy won, which apparently has internet fans calling foul.  I don’t know, myself- that was the most American Idol I’d watched all season.

Zach Dotsey

So I realized yesterday that I was missing my rings.  I usually wear two- my wedding ring and what I call my training ring.  I had never worn a ring before, so before we got married Amanda bought me a silver ring with a scroll design similar to the one on my wedding band, which I wore on my left ring finger.  Well, when I went surfing the other day I took them off, as I do 98% of the time, and put them in the pocket of the shorts I was wearing.  I realized that I hadn’t put them back on, but we haven’t been able to find them.  They’re not in the shorts I was wearing, the pants I wore before changing, the bathing suit I wore later, the bag we had with us.  Anna has looked around the house and we can’t find them anywhere.  I’m really bummed about that.

As you may have read from yesterday, Milly stayed up late last night, so I let her sleep in a bit this morning.  She didn’t get up until about a quarter of nine, and when I was about to put her down to feed her I noticed a feeling on my arm.  Her diaper had been so full of poop that it squished up and out the back onto my forearm.  I rushed her to the bathtub and cleaned her off before going ahead and feeding her.

She was in a good mood today- very talkative and playful. At one point, for some reason, she was taking laps around the kitchen table, where I was working.

After Amanda got home, Amy and Eli came over and the four of them (that is, Amanda, Amy, Eli and Milly) went to the beach.  (Amanda also looked my my rings herself while she was there.)  Milly was very sandy when she got back, so she had another bath.

Oh, I shaved today.  I just decided to do it when I woke up.  For fun though, I left myself a handlebar mustache, figuring it would be fun to see Amanda’s reaction.  She didn’t even notice it until I started laughing at the fact that she didn’t notice it, and then she couldn’t look at me.  I might grow the beard back out.  I don’t know, I kind of miss it.  I think part of the reason I shaved was just that I can’t find the charger cord for my trimmer, so it was either shave or get annoyingly shaggy.

So, I don’t know if you know this or not, but in comic books, particularly X-Men comics, dead characters have a tendency to come back later on.  One of my favorite X-Men was always Nightcrawler, and he appears to have been killed.  We’ll see if that sticks.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Zach Dotsey

SPOILER ALERT!  Don’t read beyond this if you haven’t seen Lost yet.

So, it’s been said that they were going to kill an important character.  But killing three and a half of them?!?  Sayid got over his evil thing and sacrificed himself to get a bomb as far away as he could from the other people (well, as far as he could get in a few seconds on a submarine).  Frank the pilot (who I’m counting as the one half, since he’s not as big a character as the other ones) is presumably dead since he got knocked out by a giant metal door before the sub sank.  Then, in a very touching scene, Jin and Sun go all Leo on us.  That leaves Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley all crying on the beach.

One thing I thought was very interesting was that Jack told Sawyer not to pull the wires on the bomb, that they’d be okay because Locke couldn’t kill them.  Jack told Sawyer to trust him, but the last time Sawyer trusted Jack, Juliette got killed.  This time, Sawyer didn’t trust him and he got a bunch of their friends killed.  It’ll be interesting to see how Sawyer reacts to that, especially given the way he’s treated Jack for the majority of the season.

In real life news, Amanda and I ate dinner with Reece and Stephanie Johnson tonight.  Kirsten has an exam tomorrow so we took Milly along, and she was pretty entertaining for dinner.  She was also very interested in their son, Jacob, for a while.

We headed from their place out to small group.  We tried to feed Milly and put her down in the pack & play, but she wasn’t having it.  She’ll often be upset initially at being put down to bed away from home, but she was really loud this time.  She ended up staying up the whole time and didn’t go to bed until 9:45 or so when we got home.  I think that’s the latest she’s ever stayed up.

Amy Warkentien stopped by for a bit today, bringing Subway lunch with her for me and Amanda.  One thing I learned on this visit is that we’ve got to somehow start teaching Milly to share.  She was drinking her bottle when they got here and Eli went to play with the zoo.  Milly got up and tried to keep him away from it and did a few other non-sharing things on top of that.  I guess we need to get her interacting with multiple kids more than once a week in Grow Zone.

In other Milly news, Amanda went to get some baby food today but somehow Wal-Mart was out of it, so she decided to just buy some big things of fruits and vegetables and start feeding Milly that.  It’s much cheaper to buy a giant jar of apple sauce for $2, she reasoned, than to buy a bunch of little jars for 50¢ a pop.  So tonight, after finishing her bottle, Milly had green beans, bits of pear and cottage cheese, all of which she seemed to enjoy.

In other baby news, I haven’t heard an update, but I got a text from Justin Hauenstein that he and Lisa were in the hospital and expecting a baby pretty soon.  I hope everything’s going well for them!

Zach Dotsey

Almost every analyst said that West Virginia was going to beat Duke.  They’re too long and too athletic.  Duke won 78-57 with Jordan Davidson hitting the last bucket of the game, a three that put the Devils up over 20 points.

That’s right- the Duke Blue Devils are going to the 2010 NCAA Championship game, and I couldn’t be more excited!

On the other side of the bracket, Butler beat Michigan State 52-50.   It was a low scoring affair with scoring droughts for both teams.  Duke should win the game Monday, especially if both teams play the way they played tonight.

I’m so excited!  Bring home championship #4, Blue Devils!

In other news, Milly slept through the night.  Amanda started feeling sick last night though, and Milly’s snot thickened up and turned yellow so I took her to the doctor this morning just to make sure there was nothing to worry about.  Our usual place wasn’t open so we went to another one.  One of the doctors there is a comic book nerd and has framed and autographed comics and posters on the walls in the waiting room.  Milly and I went around and looked at them all while we were waiting.

On a side note, I heard the ladies at the reception desk talk about how cute Milly was when we were leaving.

Anyway, Milly’s snotty, but she seems to be feeling much better.  The doctor who checked her out said a virus has been going around and that’s probably what she and Amanda both have.

We went to church at 4:00 and sat with the Boscaljons and Amy.  The service was great and the music was awesome.  We saw Justin and Lisa afterwards and I asked what they were doing there.  Lisa’s been having contractions, but the baby isn’t quite ready to get here yet.

As I said, Amanda and I watched basketball tonight, and Amy and Eli joined us.  Since he works at the church, Nick was busy.  Amy did me a solid and ran out to pick up some dog food for us so I could watch the Butler-Michigan State game.  I’d run out earlier to pick up some baby food and really didn’t want to go back out again.  Harvey and Max had fun playing outside in the backyard most of the night.

Amy seemed to enjoy watching the game with us.  More than anything I think she was amused watching me get pumped up every time Duke made a good play.  Amanda was happy about Duke progressing to the title game, but she was also exhausted.  This was a lot better than the last Final Four game we watched together, back in 2004.

Zach Dotsey

This really opens things up for Duke, though I’m nervous about Baylor, and of course they’d have to win two more games after that for the NCAA championship.  The remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament are those two, Michigan State and Tennessee, who are also facing off tomorrow to see who will go to the Final Four then West Virginia and Butler, who have already made it there.

Exciting and tense times.

Speaking of tense, I’m thinking maybe I pulled something in my neck/upper back.  Maybe it’s from some time when I was tossing Milly around.

So, last night Amanda and I didn’t sleep well.  Bruce kept getting up again and Milly started crying at about 5:30 then did it again every half hour until about 6:30.  She was nice enough to let us sleep in until 9:20 to help make up for it though.

Karen treated us, as she often does when she comes for a visit, to a breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  After that she got us a membership to Costco.  In part it was so she could use it, though the closest one to where she lives is here.  Other than just being really nice, I’m not sure what other reason there is.

By the time that was all taken care of Milly was in need of a nap, so she and I were dropped off at the house while Amanda and Karen went back out to buy some new pajamas for Milly.  She’s starting to outgrow all of them that she’s got.  In that time, Adam came over to show off his new car.  Really he was just looking for an excuse to get out and drive it, so after Amanda and Karen got back he and I went to Costco so he could get a few things.

Once I was back home and Adam left (Karen had taken off while I was gone) I dozed on the couch while Amanda watched some TV.  Once I woke up I watched Butler play and beat Kansas State.  Actually, I didn’t get to see the end of the game because we were heading over to Justin and Lisa Hauenstein’s baby shower, but we did listen to it on the radio.

We didn’t get to see them much as we had to leave when to get Milly in bed, but we did meet a few new people and caught up with Mike and Kaitlyn Boscaljon, who we haven’t seen much of in a while.  I’d been thinking of them lately.

I’d set the Kentucky game to record, but I cheated and checked the score on the way home and called Seth to talk about the game since I figured he’d been watching the whole thing.  Once we got  home I just paused it where it was while Amanda and I put Milly to bed and we caught up right at the end of the game.

Zach Dotsey

I was holding Milly during the orientation and we had given her some pieces of Mum (kind of a rice wafer thing, actually called Mum Mum, but we don’t want to confuse her because that’s my mom’s grandma name) to keep her still.  Several times she bent back and looked up at me and held her arm up to share some of it with me.  It was so cute and I acted like I was eating it and thanked her, but mushy, half-eaten mum was not something I really wanted to put in my mouth.

Milly went down for a nap after we got home, which was probably around 2:00.  Considering that she hadn’t napped all day, she was doing pretty good.  There was, of course, some good basketball on, but I was nice and agreed to watch some other stuff with basketball mixed in.  Maryland lost in a down to the wire game, so I guess the Greivis Vasquez era is now at an end.

At 5:00 we went over to Seth and Dana’s to watch Duke take on Cal.  Amanda made some of her poppy seed dressing and we took some chicken and salad.  Milly made it through halftime but had to be put back down for a nap.  Amanda pointed out that her whole day was being out, sleeping, then being out some more, so she hadn’t really had any time at home and might have been out of sorts.

At any rate, Duke beat Cal 68-53 and will face Purdue in the Sweet 16.  Obviously, and especially this year, you can’t predict anything, but Duke seems to be a pretty tough matchup for Purdue.

It was a pretty good Duke win, mainly because the scoring was very spread out.  The three point shooting was terrible and Jon Scheyer is in an offensive slump, but the fact that they did win while holding a very high-scoring offense to so few points is good.  Brian Zoubek had a terrific game with 14 points and 13 boards.  In fact, in the first half Zoubek and the Plumlee brothers combined to shoot 7 of 7.  Duke’s been scoring down low more these past two games, which is great.

My bracket is terrible now, by the way.  I’ve only got two of my Final Four picks left in the tournament.

After we got home and fed Milly and put her to bed Amanda and I watched Life, a nature show similar to Planet Earth.  Amazing to look at, for sure.

Zach Dotsey

The baby shower was nice and we got to catch up with a number of friends and meet some new people.  One of them, a lady from Raleigh, watched after Milly for us for a while.  We relieved her at one point but she asked if she could hold her again a little later.  Milly spent most of her time with her trying to eat her necklace.  Milly was passed around quite a bit and didn’t ever seem to mind.  She’s very sociable.

There was one girl, I think she was four years old and named Tyler, who was very intrigued by Milly.  We let her hold her a couple times, one of those being on a couch.  They seemed to be back far enough on the couch to not worry too much about them, but Milly leaned forward and Tyler didn’t have hold her tight enough and Milly fell headfirst off the couch.  Luckily I was right there and I caught her by pressing her against the couch with my leg.  She cried a good bit, but it was from being scared.

After we got home and put Milly down for a nap (she hadn’t had one except on the short ride to the baby shower) we watched Duke take on Boston College.  I was a little worried because BC is a middle of the pack ACC team that Duke beat by 20 points earlier in the season, but they’d just had a great game at home against Georgia Tech and Carolina is coming up on Wednesday, so I thought it might be a trap game for them.  Well, they got pretty far ahead but only ended up winning by three.  Despite that, I was happy for the win.  Next up, the Tar Heels.

There was a lot of good basketball on today.  Lots of close games.

I talked to several family members today.  I caught up with Aunt Robbie this morning and Uncle Roy this evening then Mom and Dad.  Dad had gone up to Rochester this weekend because Mom’s back was bothering her and she didn’t think she’d be comfortable riding on a plane.  They went out and about, saw It’s Complicated and it just sounded like they had a nice time together.

Zach Dotsey

It’s not like she was bad all day though.  She had some fun and sweet times too.

I met a client we’ve had for a year or so today.  He was having some email trouble and we were having a hard time taking care of it over the phone, so I just went over to help him out.  We have so many clients, even here in Wilmington, that I’ve never actually met, and it’s good to put a face to a name sometimes.

Justin and Lisa Hauenstein came over for dinner tonight.  It’s been since a little after Milly was born since we’ve spent any real time with just then, except for when we were all over at the Boscljons’ a little bit back, and it was really good to catch up with them.  They’re expecting a baby, Ayden Matthew, on May 8, a day before Amanda’s birthday.  That’ll be a great Mother’s Day present for Lisa.

After dinner, and after Milly went to bed, Justin checked out Wii Fit for a few minutes, but we spent more of our time playing Beatles Rock Band.  Amanda sang while Justin and I switched back and forth between guitar and drums.  Lisa, being very pregnant and all, didn’t have the energy.

My Xbox 360 is going green again, which isn’t a good thing in this case.  It means the video card is about to go out again.

Anyway, the Hauensteins left around 9:30 I think and Amanda and I watched an episode of Community before she went to bed.

On a different note, I talked to my friend Jason Revill today.  Their big dog, Maggie, went missing a few days ago.  They don’t know if their neighbor might have something to do with it or if someone just picked her up or if she’s just gone or what.  To boot, Sophie, their little dog, is not doing well.  Jason said they’re thinking they’ll put her down next week.  I remember when they first got her.  Jason said they’ve never not had a dog (I remember Norman and Winston before Sophie and Maggie) and Andy, Jason’s dad, doesn’t think he wants to go through getting another one and losing it again.  I really feel for them.

Zach Dotsey

There’s not much I can add to it, except that I was a little stressed out with work towards the end of the day.  The phone seemed to ring incessantly for the last hour.  I’m planning on putting in a little work tomorrow.

Amanda’s grandpa, Earl Lemons, called me today with a pretty big surprise, which Amanda may or may not have figured out.  (She did.)  It’ll be here Monday.  I felt bad because he wanted to talk to me about it, but it was during the absolute most stressful time of my day.  I’m extremely grateful for what he’s doing, and I hope my stress didn’t keep him from realizing it.

It was really great catching up with the old small group, though I wish Elliot could have been there.  Melissa and Lisa are pregnant, so from what I could tell, a lot of the girls’ conversation centered around that.  Mike, Justin and I mostly talked sports.  How stereotypical is all that?

Everyone seemed to really enjoy holding Milly, and aside from making some screeching noises before she was fed, she was very well behaved.

Zach Dotsey

I did go to sleep early though, like I said, and I ended up getting up just a little before 8:00 this morning.  I was planning on getting Milly’s breakfast ready and getting her up at 8:15, but Amanda told me from upstairs at 8:14 that Milly was up and crying.  I fixed the bottle and went upstairs, where Amanda was going into the nursery.  She doesn’t get to get Milly up often in the morning, so she was kind of excited going into the room.

We fed Milly and watched House.  After that Amanda showered and we walked to the store to pick up a few things with Milly in her stroller.  A lady at the store told us that we had a beautiful baby.  When we were in the checkout lane Justin Hauenstein walked up to us.  Justin lives on the south side of town, but he was up this way doing some work for Time Warner.  He said that he said to himself when he walked into the store that he thought he’d see me.  We talked for a few minutes.  He and Lisa are expecting a baby, and Lisa’s had a rough first trimester.  They find out the sex in about a month.

Most of the rest of the day was spent taking care of Milly and cooking.  Well, Amanda cooked.  We were going to Blake and Stephanie Konny’s tonight and she made chocolate chip and toffee cookies and macaroni and cheese to take there.  The house smelled good.

Amanda’s brother, Michael Mercer, and his girlfriend, Jenn Greenawalt, came over at 4:00 to babysit Milly for us.  Amanda gave Michael a crash course in feeding and diaper changing (which Michael was not pleased to learn) and showed Jenn what to do when putting Milly to bed.  After that we headed over to Blake and Stephanie’s.

Blake and Stephanie, as long as we’ve known them, lived in a one-room (well, two if you include the bathroom) garage apartment behind Stephanie’s sister’s family’s house.  They moved into a rental house not too long ago, and this was the first time we got to see it.  Mike (Lars) and Kaitlyn Boscaljon were there when we got there.  We haven’t seen them in quite some time.

We had a good time there.  Chris and Katy Davis were there, and even though Chris had to leave early I talked to him a bit.  I also spent a good bit of time talking to Stephanie’s brother-in-law.  Amanda and I both thought that his and her sister’s younger daughter, Sophia, looked a bit like we imagine Milly will look like in about a year.

Later on we played The Blake Game.  Guys versus girls, as usual, and also as usual, us guys won.

Early on when we were at Blake and Stephanie’s I got a call from Michael.  Milly was screaming in the background and he was wanting some advice on calming her down.  He called again a little later and she was quieter.  Eventually they took her for a walk and she fell asleep, and I think things were fine from then on.

When we got home we looked in on our sleeping daughter then talked to Michael and Jenn for a bit before they borrowed a few DVDs and took off.  A few minutes later Amanda and I heard Milly crying upstairs, and to be honest we were a little glad since it gave us an excuse to interact with her.  We changed her diaper, gave her her sweetmaker and put her back in bed.  She gave us a smile before rolling over on her side and falling right back to sleep.  Amanda pointed out before that she sleeps like me.

The only real regret I have about going out tonight is that Duke played NC State tonight, kickoff being at 4:00.  Duke versus State was the game I went to last year, and the Wolfpack beat the Blue Devils.  They got some revenge tonight though, and how!  The score was 49-28.  I wish I had DVR’ed it.

Zach Dotsey