Yes We Can !

Beer is good. :-) Don't you agree? Someone told me that they really like this photo and that I took an ordinary glass of beer and made it look like art?

I'm a helpless romantic. I've come to that conclusion time and time again. I have a big heart. Do you feel my love? If you do show me some love in return. Make Love not war!

Life is what you make it. If you are unhappy then make the changes that are necessary to be happy. Its that simple. You can have the life you want just decide to. Today.

Noah's First Birthday Party. Lots of fun and good times. Noah ate three pieces of his birthday cake. Mama Monika made a delicious banana cake that had no sugar or sweeteners.

My good friend Martin Fuchs was recently visiting (and will actually visit again this weekend... another story for another posting)and waiting for him was a plastic storage bin that Monika and me saved some of his belongings from another visits. Every time Martin visits he leave a few things here a few things there. Any how one of the things were some 35mm black and white film. He is now shooting a project of his using a medium format Hasselblad and didn't have much use for this film so he gave them to me. So I loaded one of the rolls into an old Canon AT-1 camera that I have that Monika used when she was into photography before I knew her. I started shooting and it was really a great exercise. So many things I had started taking for granted. I told Martin at one point that I thought the greatest invention of the 20th century was auto focus! I have to admit another thing that I had gotten in the habit of using was auto aperture setting on my digital camera. Never mind things like advancing film or having to click your f-stops on the lens in addition to focusing. So for about 2 weeks I walked around and shot everyday things around the house and here are some of the photos. For all the work of setting up the photos I have to say that post production was minimal. No converting my photos to black and white. I mostly played with contrast or brightness and only minimal. Now of course the cost of film and developing will primarily limit when I shoot film but I have to say it was lots of fun. As a result of this exercise and a few conversations I had with Martin I will mostly be using my camera in a full manual mode. Except of course for auto focus!

Thank you Noah,

For filling everyday with joy and laughter. You remind me that all the mundane routine doesn't matter. I love you! One day you'll read this and understand.

Love always, DAD DAD

Some people will always see the glass as half empty. Just like some people won't see what they have because they are too focused on what is missing. What is lost. What they never had. Some people will even take it a step further and say hey why is that person's glass over there have more than mine or Hey I wish I had that glass instead of mine.

This is actually a photo from May but I realized that I never posted it. Noah's teeth that you see here are now just about fully in. There is a 5th one coming in on top.

This is the King of the Jungle, uh I mean the King of Schoenbrunn Tiergarten. This was taken a couple of weeks ago when we went to Vienna to visit family and friends.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

Noah grows each day. This week he turned 6 months and had his 6 month check up. He is 18 lbs, 26.5 in long and his head is in the 90% percentile. haha. It must be all those Jedi chloridians in there. The force is strong in this one. Here are a few pics depicting his jediness.

Victoria and Noah, my children,a piece of me that will continue in this world after I am gone. Men tend to like these kind of grandiose ideal thoughts. The one thing I love about being a father is that there is no faking it. All you have to do is be there and give. As long as you do that they will return it 10 fold. The joy I recieve from being a Father is like nothing in the world. I hope that I can be the father that these two angels deserve. The time goes by fast I want to enjoy every moment with them.