The Gambler

Yesterday Graham and I were watching CMT's version of Cribs which featured the Atlanta home of country music superstar Kenny Rogers. At one point Kenny directed the camera man's attention to he and his wife's space aged tanning booth and I said to Graham, "if we can't count on Kenny Rogers to be authentic, who can we count on." In fairness to Kenny, during the program he admitted that he watches 6-8 hours of tv per day, which explains why he can't do his tanning the old fashioned way.

Graham's Life in Pictures

Grandma Sandy

Graham and Jesse after a sneak attack peeing incident during a diaper change.

Brad, Heather, the Dude.

Graham and Mimi.

Graham meets his maternal grandfather.

Graham to Scout: "You've lived how long with these crazies?"

Graham listens with intense interest as is father reads "The Power and the Glory" aloud to him.

Graham reacts to the film version of "The Work and the Glory."

Graham giggles with delight after learning what results from the crossing of an Elephant and a Rhino.

Graham becomes the youngest person ever to sign an equipment sponsorship deal with Nike.

Graham reacts with a skeptical look upon hearing the news of the bonuses paid to AIG executives with federal bailout funds.

Graham gets a bath.

Hello Readers!

(Winter Hat)

the world's deadliest beast (pound for pound) has died

There is something especially sad about the passing of a family dog. At least for me, when a close relative or friend passes, the sting is tempered somewhat by a set of beliefs defining how I think of death. Centuries of religious teachings however, don't hold our hands when our dog dies. This is part of the reason the death of my family's dog Nick has been so hard. Humankind has devoted much time and effort to defining where a person goes after death, but has done an inadequate job investigating the eternal destiny of our pets, leaving us to fill in the blanks. To make matters worse, in Nick's case, it's not at all clear whether he'd even qualify for heaven. If held to exacting standards Nick might fall short. For one thing, Nick refused to learn any basic commands. He peed on my mom's carpet multiple times resulting in thousands of dollars of repair costs and he was constantly running away. And while he was courageous at times, he wasn't consistent. My friend Andy for example, affectionately termed Nick "pound for pound the world's deadliest animal" (after he tried to kill both a baby deer and a porcupine), but he was deathly afraid of lightening and fireworks; in fact, any loud bang would result in Nick cowering behind the bathroom toilet, a spot he would leave only for enough time to go pee on my mom's carpet. He also refused to swim. The foregoing notwithstanding, I am sure Nick is in heaven now, he has to be--because a heaven that excludes the best damn dog of all time, is no heaven at all.

Thanks Nick, for 18 great years. Enjoy it up there and try not to pee on the carpet.

Love,

Jesse

Full Success!

Graham Gideon Oakeson was born 2/20/2009 just before 11pm via cesarean section. He weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 21 inches tall. Michelle and baby are both recoving nicely. Although last night was trying at times we couldn't be more happy and more tired so apologies to everyone whose calls and messages we've ignored; please accept these photos until we are able to catch up with everybody personally.

Michelle beaming with anticipation the night before.
At about 10am Michelle was induced. Twelve hours later we began discussing the possibility of c-section because the baby had failed to make the needed progress. Apparently the hospital has felt the sting of the failing economy because they put me in a painting suit someone found in the janitor's closet.

Success!

Pets

The wife just read the first post with disapproval and suggested that a family blog should contain more family related content. To that end, I've opted to use post #2 to introduce our readers to the family pets (in order of importance):

Scout- Dog- age 2

Buddy- Cat- age 5


Rusty- Cat- age 4


Those readers who are sensitive to food handling issues in the final picture will be relieved to know that, since the date of this photograph, Rusty has agreed not to nap on or around the family dishware. In exchange, Michelle and I have agreed not to ask questions about he and Buddy's "lifestyle."

It's on!

Hey, I'm just test driving the new blog and thought it made sense to start things off right with the coolest picture ever. Enjoy.