Welcome to the world, Lucas John

[Annette has finally updated her blog](http://weblog.xanga.com/nettiebeau/617856768/hes-here.html) so I can finally make my announcement here. It’s exciting to have a nephew in town and Leah is very excited to have a cousin nearby.

Nothing is final yet, but the prospects of the adoption getting finalized are very good. Keep your prayers going on this.

The Birthday That Finally Ended

Today is my birthday and, yet, it seems like it’s been my birthday for about five days yet.

It all started on Friday night when [Jeremy](http://jeremy.sydik.com/) and [Kate](http://www.studioazure.com/) joined Gina and I at [Hiro](http://hirosushiomaha.com/) for some sushi and Chinese. I haven’t had sushi for a long time, and we hadn’t hung out with the Sydik’s in even a longer time. It was also Gina’s first sushi experience and, even though it wasn’t her favorite [she did survive](http://weblog.xanga.com/Nebraska_thegoodlife/616668326/sushi-and-hamburger-cake.html) and she even told me that she would be willing to try something again. But maybe a California roll instead. Hiro was delicious — the sushi was good, and the Chinese food Gina ordered was also good. After Hiro, we headed to [The Cheesecake Factory](http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/) for desert. Little did we know that Kate had never been there before but, really, does it ever disappoint?

Saturday was spent doing some work around the house and then getting a free meal at Qdoba. It’s a long story how we pulled it off, but, anyway, we did and it was good.

On Sunday we had our block party with our neighbors and that is when Gina brought out my cake — [a hamburger cake](http://xac.xanga.com/ef3c342057535147868621/m109836499.jpg) although there was no ground beef involved. That was a surprise, too.

And last night Gina made my requested meal — baked ziti with tiramisu. And, yeah, that was good as well! We had Mitch and [Annette](http://www.xanga.com/nettiebeau) over along with my brother-in-law from Denver and we had a really good time.

Today Gina and Leah took me to Famous Dave’s for lunch, and then I talked them into Ted & Wally’s for desert. At home, it was pizza and [Cuba Libres](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_Libre). And my birthday present — [Kitchenaid Skillets](http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=B000AA89JO%26tag=ws%26lcode=xm2%26cID=2025%26ccmID=165953%26location=/o/ASIN/B000AA89JO%253FSubscriptionId=1MW1MMWX4EMWX0T93DR2). Don’t laugh. It may not seem like a manly gift, but I love to cook and Gina and I both agree that our other skillets are pieces of junk. I had the pleasure of throwing them out tonight.

Gina needs a special thanks for making this birthday so special making it last for days and days on end. I love her and I’m glad she loves me too. Just being with her and Leah is really all I need for a birthday. The rest is just details.

Random Thoughts

Here are some random thoughts that I have been thinking about blogging but haven’t gotten to it. So you have to put up with one-liners.

* In case you didn’t know, [Creighton](http://www2.creighton.edu/) took away [Anne Lamott's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lamott) invitation to speak long after she accepted it. Richard Dooling had a great editorial in the Omaha paper about it and, thankfully [he put it on his blog](http://www.richarddooling.com/index.php/2007/09/04/86/).

* [Macfuse's sshfs](http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/) works much better without the GUI than with. Although maybe I should try [MacFusion](http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/mgorbach/MacFusionWeb/)

* [A creative non-violent protest.](http://asheville.indymedia.org/article/107Clowns) It makes the subjects of the protest seem like the idiots that they are.

* Anyone use [ElementTree](http://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htm) with [Jython 2.2](http://jython.org/Project/index.html)? Because I can’t get it to work. It seems to want Expat, and it doesn’t seem to be in Jython. Same with [Distutils](http://docs.python.org/lib/module-distutils.html), which is probably more important.

* [Great hint at getting a web color picker for OSX.](http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060408050920158&lsrc=osxh) Especially if you install [HexColorPicker](http://www.luckysoftware.dk/hexcolorpicker.php)

LifeLight 2007

It’s Labor Day again, and so we had another trip to [LifeLight](http://www.lifelight.org/). Technically, it’s still going on as write this, but due to the heat in Sioux Falls and the long list of things to do at home, the Hostetler’s left in the late afternoon. But we still had a good time. These are my highlights. Other people will have different ones.

* I was very excited when I learned that [Derek Webb](http://derekwebb.musiccitynetworks.com/) was coming. But, when Gina and I saw the schedule we were extremely disappointed that he was playing at 2pm at the Main Stage and then playing again 90 minutes later at the Coffeehouse. But I wasn’t disappointed in his Main Stage performance. He just appeared by himself with his guitar and played his heart out. He is just as outspoken in his talk between songs than he is in his music. At one point, when he was talking about loving and taking care of people in Africa he said, “And most people in American churches don’t give a shit what is happening in Africa.” There was a shocked silence. Didn’t he know that this was a Christian music festival? And he continued: “And most of you are more offended by that word I said than what is happening in Africa.”

* Gina and I headed over to the Coffeehouse to see Derek’s next set and a seminar was just finishing. It was a captain who finished serving in Iraq. The audience was engaged in the subject but it probably wasn’t the ideal audience for the guy who wrote [My Enemies Are Men Like Me](http://derekwebb.musiccitynetworks.com/index.htm?id=7013&inc=7&album_id=731#6052). When the soldier finished, a band started setting up. The singer of that band announced, “I was just asked to say that Derek Webb will not be performing tonight in the Coffeehouse.” Being a conspiracy theorist, I feel that Derek saying “shit” and he sudden non-performance is connected, but maybe not. [Everfound](http://www.myspace.com/everfound) seemed very ready to go for an hour and a half notice so it could have been planned. We listened to Everfound for a little while and they were pretty good.

* [Leeland](http://www.leelandonline.com/index.php) was just as good live this year as last year. Probably even better. And they moved up in the world — instead of playing at 4pm on Saturday (like last year) they played at 8pm this year — just before the big artist of the day. Good for them! They deserve it.

* Gina really like [Phil Joel](http://www.deliberatepeople.com/dp/). I was taking Leah back to sleep when he was singing, but what I heard made was good.

Seems short this year, huh? I guess that it is a little bit. Oh well . . . I had a good time.

Sort of a Loss On What to Blog About

I seem to be in a blog rut.  I have plenty of things going on, yet nothing to really blog about.  At the moment , I’m in the mood to blog but I don’t know what to say.  So here are some quick items:

• I’ve been reading quite a bit but haven’t posted any reviews.  I dunno if I will continue with book reviews unless the book is exceptional (and one of them is).  A good review is a lot of work and I think I haven’t done very well in my last few.
• The Super Secret Project I hint and clue about once in a while is starting to gain momentum again.  I hope that I can reveal it soon.
• At work, I’m still doing lots of Spring and Java.  I’m not learning anything new besides what I have posted on in the past.  I still think Spring is cool and now I think that Spring Web MVC is head and shoulders above Struts.
• My web apps at work don’t have a lot of complex needs on the presentation side. So I’ve been using JSTL for my tag library.  I’m not sure why no one seems to really use JSTL, except that you can suddenly hit a brick wall with it’s functionality.
• I’m still in awe of people who don’t write unit tests.  I can’t figure out how they know they got everything done. And they must have no idea of when things are broken, either.

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