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Sun Jun 20 23:45:33 EDT 2010
May 2010 involved lots of traveling. At the beginning of the month we flew to Northern California. (More details) This was Karen's first time to San Francisco and we had fun visiting family and touring around. We visited Karl's uncle in Vacaville and Karen's grandmother and aunt in San Rafael. Karen's dad grew up in the city and it was neat to see where he grew up. While we were in California, Karen's sister had a baby. When we returned home Karen spent two days home and then drove to Tennessee to visit her sister and the new baby. She returned 12 days later to a husband who dearly missed his wife and child.
Recent Events
20-06-2010 23:45
Daniel's first Easter Egg Hunt
We had an Easter Egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Judson's house. Daniel did a pretty good job of picking eggs up, although he lost interest before all of the eggs were retrieved and needed some coaxing to keep going.
For Easter he got some large eggs big enough to hold a pacifier. We've tried to restrain his discovery of candy, although he has tried a couple of things.
Visiting Great Falls
My mom came out to visit the first week of April. While she was here we took Daniel to Great Falls. He was more interested in walking around than looking at the falls. He started walking in March so his new found ability was very exciting for him.
His independence is easy to spot too. He doesn't like having his hands held any more when he walks and anytime he can do something for himself he prefers to do it himself.
Happy Birthday
Daniel turned one. Our baby boy is no longer a baby. He has a look of "What? I didn't get into anything!" 
We celebrated on his actual birthday by going to Panera to eat and then we had a party for him on Saturday. He enjoyed his chocolate birthday cupcake and it was fun to watch.
Daniel likes the snow
20-06-2010 23:45
We have had more than the usual amount of snow this year. Daniel is especially cute in it and smiles really big. Karen has enjoyed every moment of being a mom and gets her own huge smiles when she gets to play with Daniel. 
My Thesis is Available Online
20-06-2010 23:45
The other day Karen was googling Kowallis and stumbled across my Master's Thesis. It looks like it was modified to some degree by my thesis advisor and some other person. I don't know how much of my original content they kept, but it has my title and the abstract looks pretty similar to what I wrote. I suppose I could check, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
If you want to see the online reference it is available from IEEE. If you want to read it, and I warn you it is deathly boring, I have a copy at my house you can look at. When I wrote it I asked if I could publish it myself and was told no. I don't remember the details, but it had something to do with the sponsorship of my Master's degree and me not retaining the rights to the work. I do mention the paper and the title on my school index page.
A Visit to Pittsburg
I had a career fair recruiting trip to attend at Carnegie Mellon University and since it was only a few hundred miles from home Karen and Daniel came along. It wouldn't be a vacation for me, but I would get to see Karen and Daniel at night and they would get to have a good time. We drove out on Monday night, 14 September 2009 and the career fair was on Tuesday.
On Tuesday while I was busy Karen and Daniel went to the Pittsburg zoo. Karen had a fun time taking some pictures and being a tourist. Daniel enjoyed it some, but I think he had as much fun in the hotel as anywhere else. He was fascinated by everything new. Getting him to nap was nearly impossible and at night when he would wake up and scream until we left our dark room. He just wanted to look around and was all excited. One night Karen was down in the lobby with him, and another eveining I was down there. Everyone else thought he was so cute. We agree of course, but we also value sleep. We felt bad for whoever was in the room next door. Karen said they turned on their TV during the night, probably to drown out Daniels cries. He didn't like us telling him he had to sleep when there was so much interesting stuff to look at.
At the zoo Karen got some cute pictures, including one of Karen and Daniel and a Mom and baby elephant.
