need a good laugh?
March 23rd, 2008
this is a newsweek article written in 1995 about how the internet was never going to amount to anything. it’s awesome.
my NEW iphone.
March 22nd, 2008
i LOVE the apple store. i love living in a town that has an apple store. here’s why i’m saying all of this.
yesterday i was pulling my iphone out of my pocket and i dropped it. it was a relatively small fall onto carpet. it really shouldn’t have done anything. well, a minute or so later i got a call and the vibrate was WAAAAYYYY loud. it sounded like something was loose inside. well, that wasn’t going to abide. there’s no way that i could have my "silent" vibrate function sounding like a 747 getting ready for take-off. so i made an appointment at the genius bar at the apple store in the bellevue mall (the coolest mall that i’ve ever been to) no knowing what they were going to say. so, i show up and the guy looks at it for a second and then starts typing away on a macbook pro. the dialogue between him and i went something like this:
me: so, what’s the process here?
genius: oh, i was just going to swap it out. is that okay?
me: umm, yeah, that’ll be fine.
and now i have a new iphone. thanks apple. below are a couple of pictures of the new device.
March 14th, 2008
this is a very weird post but a couple of weeks ago i was at costco and when i went to purchase milk they had completely changed the milk carton. at first i was thrown and i wondered if i was in the wrong section. i mean, this isn’t what the gallon of milk looks like. well i put it in my cart and took it home and have since decided that i really like it. it is easier to pour and supposedly stays fresher longer. i know that i am weirdo for posting about the shape of a milk carton but everyone that i have asked about it hasn’t seen one, so here it is. well in 6 weeks i will be going on a cruise, just steven and me. hopefully i will be able to forget about my daily cleaning and shopping and maybe you will get more interesting posts when i return. until then, who knows.
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baby boys
March 11th, 2008
the above is jackson and below is asher. i love these toothless smiles. for some reason they look a lot alike in these picture to me besides one being super white and blonde hair while the other not so that way. well, i love these boys and maybe they will end up looking like each other after all.
asher gets a highchair
March 11th, 2008
my little ashman hasn’t had a highchair since we moved to seattle. we couldn’t fit it in our moving truck so it was left a grandmas house in spokane. since we have been here asher has either been held or sat in his little rocking chair while he ate, it has been a huge pain. well, this weekend i finally got steven to put our kitchen table together and i got out our travel highchair. as you can see, ash was extremely happy.
a big sucker
March 11th, 2008
on saturday we took the kids to the seattle children’s museum. when we were getting ready to leave lily was given one of those amazingly large blowpops. she couldn’t wait to eat it but we made her wait until she got home because i didn’t want a sticky mess in her carseat. so, when we got home she sat at her little table for like an hour and a half one lick at a time. she was kind enough to share with jackson so here are the pics.
i thought the picture of jackson with the giraffe was funny because he was just kicking back, wearing his watch and chewing on  a giraffe. he is a funny kid, he will chew on anything.
jana’s journal
March 9th, 2008
jana has been keeping her own blog for quite sometime now. the heller family.org has pretty much been run by me. when my life is hectic, nothing gets posted. well, i’ve finally figured a way to combine our two blogs. so now, when jana posts on her blog at http://www.janas-journal.blogspot.com/, the post will automatically be added to the heller family.org. there is harmony in the world. so you’ll probably be seeing a lot more content coming to the heller family.org now. jana’s insights tend to be more poignant and family related and mine, well, usually aren’t.  i hope you enjoy these two fresh perspectives on life through the heller’s eyes.
my late night with the karate kid: a plea for help.
March 8th, 2008
so, it’s 2am and i just finished watching the karate kid. i’ll admit, it’s one of my all-time favorite movies. i’ve got a lot of childhood memories wrapped up in that movie. it taught me a lot of things. it taught me to strike fast, strike hard with no mercy (sir). it taught me that fear does not exist in the dojo (nor does pain, defeat and one other thing that i can’t remember). but above all, it taught me that a little kid from jersey with a can-do attitude and a propensity for washing and waxing cars as well as some other basic home maintenance, can beat any member of the cobra kai with a little hard work, determination and help from an old asian man (whom identifies himself from the country of okinawa. there’s some trivia for you). so, yeah, i think it’s safe to say that the karate kid has influenced my life for the positive. though i’m sure the trail of broken bodies that i’ve left in my wake would disagree. it’s been many moons since i last watched karate kid and my skills have gotten quite rusty so when the chance came to watch it tonight, i knew i had to make the time. the movie was just as awesome as i remember. though i must have been watching some sort of alternate, unreleased version because the dialogue in this new version seemed a lot cheesier than the original. no matter, the movie still rocked my world.
it wasn’t until the last scene, the final match between johnny and daniel-san in the all-valley karate championship, came that a question was raised to which i still have no answer. now, i’ll admit to you right now that i participate more in the no-rules, winner take all, street karate seen in such movie as bloodsport and lionheart and as such, am unaware of the rules of many of the organized karate tournaments similar to the one seen in the karate kid. so if anyone out there is versed in the subject, i implore your help. as i’m sure you recall, the first to get to 3 points is the winner of the match. daniel laruso, or as the cobra kai call him, ‘our little friend danielle’ (you see, danielle is the female pronunciation of daniel. they were essentially trying to emasculate daniel. quite sharp.) gains the first two points right off the bat in the final match against “put-him-in-a-body-bag” johnny. right away we think that daniel is going to win the tournament. not so. “cream puff” johnny has a few tricks up his ghi and takes the next two points. in one of the finals rounds, he punches daniel in the side of the face/neck but is not awarded a point due to “illegal contact to the head”. fair enough. in my world there are no “points”, just the sweet sting of blood in your eye, but in the world of organized martial arts i can see why they wouldn’t award him a point for such reckless behavior. the score is now 2-2. the next point takes the match. daniel slowly raises both of his arms and lifts one leg off the ground. both the referee and johnny look slightly confused. what form of martial arts is this? that’s right, it’s the crane technique. we already know where this is headed. the referee starts the round. johnny rushes in only to meet daniel’s foot with his face in the center of the ring. johnny comes crashing to the ground, writhing in pain as we see ali (with an “i”) rush in to congratulate daniel along with the hundreds of other people in the audience (who knew that karate was so popular in southern california?). daniel (with an “l”) is awarded the last point and is given the trophy by a congratulatory johnny lawrence. the end. or is it?
the ash man
March 2nd, 2008
Comments Off on the ash man
i thought this was really funny. lily and jack were playing outside
and asher wanted out with them in the worst way. he just sat at the
slider and watched and begged to go out. it was really quite sweet to
see him wanting to play with his brother and sister.
my little ash man has finally started sitting up. all three of
my children have been late sitters and he has finally caught on.
is he not the cutest baby you have seen?
music of the week – idiot pilot
March 2nd, 2008
so, i came across idiot pilot in some podcast somewhere. i’m always skeptical of new music that i just happen to run into. most of the good music on my life has come from any one of various trusted sources. i rarely come into good music on my own. idiot pilot are 2 guys that make music and perform it live. i always dig it when 2 people can make good music and manage to perform it live on their own.
[audio:IdiotPilot-OpenRegister.mp3]
