Thank you.  You’ve given me everything I wanted from you.  It was a tall order, a long and bumpy road, but we made it!  Good luck with the next group.

Thirties, get ready to be redefined.

-Dameo

Dear Mustache,

Though you were often hard to see and frequently ridiculed, you did it, friend!  With your help I was able to raise over $500 towards prostate cancer research.

Movember was a success. And, you mustache, are responsible.

Forever yours,
Damian

I am seriously beside myself with the support that has been shown over the past month. Friends, Family, teammates, players it’s really almost overwhelming. For now a HUGE thank you to everyone and I will address each one of you personally in the next few days.

THANK YOU a million times over.

Here is his for Halloween:

Other things that have happened:

1. Lost 14 pounds (been back in the gym)
2. Got a new roof (not exactly by choice)
3. Hudson was baptized
4. Ran a fall instructional program for the Wake Forest Wizards of Fusion Lacrosse

Music has an unbelievable power to invoke memories. Hearing “My Girl” by the temptations brings back memories of my Pop’s hideously-tan Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. The musky smell of is cologne, the view from the back seat (since my older brothers always got the front), and the way he would fake shift the car like we were driving 100 miles per hour. The oldies tunes would permeate my ear drums. I was constantly amazed not only at my father’s retention of the song lyrics, but also is uncanny ability to name the artist, title, year, and sometimes even down to the month the record was popular.

On another level “Surfin’ Bird” By the Trashmen takes me back to high school football. Back then the MD state was held at University of Maryland’s Byrd Stadium and I was lucky enough to be part of teams that made the trip, and won, Sophomore though Senior years.  I don’t know who started it, back whenever, but that song was always played during the championship week.  I watched win #1 from the sideline 33-14 over Suitland, was a two-way starter in the nail-biting 7-6 win when we had a rematch as a Junior, and was a team captain in the 42-0 romp over Thomas Stone my senior year.

I feel I’d have to take a long time and really think if I were ever to build an actual soundtrack to my life.  I’m sure it would include a wide variety of music across half a dozen genres.  I know the first two tracks would be “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter Paul and Mary and “The Unicorn Song” by Barnbrak those are two I really remember singing with my Mom when I was little.

Some people will write off putting so much emphasis on music, but if you really think about it it’s a big part of human culture.

For those that care the song I answered with was Foxy Shazam’s “Bye Bye Symphony.”  While it doesn’t nearly cover the breadth or depths of 29 (really let’s call it 16) years of life matched with music, I think it’s  a pretty good summary.

Managed to keep my son alive for the first month of his life. I feel that’s a good start to fatherhood!

I think Twitter is a go. Really Facebook is the question. I suppose we shall see!

Also, Hudson will be FOUR WEEKS OLD in less than 12 hours. It’s crazy to think how it seems like we’ve just gotten him and that it feelsa we’ve had him forever simultaneously! Will be sure to post a good picture tomorrow!

The one thing I don’t like about lacrosse season is that we don’t have much time to hang out.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I could join a 24/7 place and go at 11pm or 5am, but really that’s cutting into the paltry 5-6 hours of sleep I get in a night as it is.

But not to worry old friend.  As soon as we finish our playoff run to greatness we shall reignite our love/hate relationship just in time to prepare for the summer season.

Suns out guns out,

Damian

Week two brought in a lot of visitors including GK and Granddaddy (My parents), Aunt Bettye, Cousins Lisa and Saundra, my brother Harlan, sister Lexie, and a host of local friends too! We also made our first trip to church with no problems!

I posed two albums from last week. One of a mini photo shoot Jamie did on Tuesday and another of all the visitors and week’s events. You can find all of the pictures we posted so far at http://hudson.damianhall.net.

We’re really excited to get his professional pictures done next week by Ray Barbour

In other EXCITING news Hudson’s little cousin McKenzie was born on Monday April 4th!  She is the newest member of the Hall family AND the newest member of Club 4 (we have a lot of people born on 4ths in our family)!  So welcome to the world McKenzie.  And welcome to the sleepless life Harman and Soraya!

I think that’s enough disjointed babble for an afternoon!

1. Having a child, I now believe in love at first sight
2. I openly admit that I have instantaneously become a softer hearted person
   1. But I’m still not sure if that will completely translate into coaching!
3. We have watched the first 2.5 season of The Office thanks to NetFlix and it’s one of our top 3 shows of all time
4. I love being a father.  Hudson can’t even do anything but look around and try and focus and I’m proud of him.
5. I instantaneously appreciate, with greater understanding, all the sacrifices my parents made for me
6. Pictures of Hudson can now be found at http://hudson.damianhall.net.  There is only one album now, but I’ll be making more and splitting this larger one up over the next week.

On another note we are all anxiously awaiting the next member of the Hall clan as my sister in law is currently in labor with Hudson’s newest cousin McKenzie.  Prayers up that it all goes smoothly!

For those that may be wondering all is well at chez Hall. Hudson and Jamie are both 100% healthy.

Hudson had his 48hr after discharge check-up and everything is on the up and up.  He currently weighs 7.96 lbs which is well within where the doctors say he should be.

Jamie and I are a little sleep deprived, but we are learning to live on his schedule!

First and foremost Jamie and I want to say a big thank you for the outpour of support and congratulations from Family, Friends, Co-Works, and the Broughton Lacrosse Community!  This has truly been an amazing and humbling experience.

24 hours and beyond!

Hudson had a busy but great day two.

He saw doctors or nurses that:

• Checked his hearing
• Performed his PKU (wasn’t a fan of that test)
• Got a circumcision
• Gave him his first round of Hep B

He also had a lot of visitors include his God Father Uncle Michael!  It was a good day.  We’re all excited to go home tomorrow.  Here are some pictures from today!  He’ll be getting his own section on the site soon enough!

Pictures

I am officially a father.

Hudson Thomas Hall was born on March 26, 2011 at 11:10am

8lbs 3oz 21in long he’s perfect

I took some self-preventative measures to make sure that I received as little communication from the social networking sites as possible.  I have created rules in my email, changed my password, and removed shortcuts and phone apps from my computing devices.  So it would take a concerted effort on my part to even log in!

I’ll admit the first couple days were hard.  I found my mouse unconsciously traveling to where the bookmarks use to be.  I would make note of daily observations worthy of a “tweet” only to remember that my ego-inflating perception that people find my comments poignant and witty would have to go unfulfilled!  it also doesn’t help that the native Facebook app on the Android does not seem willing to be removed, and randomly pops up sometimes when I turn on the phone, but I’m still holding strong.

Still no baby, don’t know how much longer he’s going to last.  Poor guy has almost NO room in there.  Still haven’t figured out how I will alert the world since I don’t have access to my passwords for social networks….hmmmm

All in all we’re excited for our little man to make his grand enterance into the world. However, we have spoken on several occaisions that Dad would prefer if he waited until at least April 2nd.

The actual due date is April 8th.

This next week is going to be a whirlwind of baby activities:

1. Rearrange the guest rooms to become the nursery, a guest room, and a bed wrapped in plastic in the garage.
2. Paint the nursery:  There is still a color debate going on but we are closing in on some shade of light green
3. Put together the crib: some assembly is required
4. Put together the dresser: more assembly required
5. Register for the baby shower: hoping I don’t get carried away here
6. Get my custom baby bjorn cover ordered from B.B. Sprouts
7. Continue my quest for a set of clothing that resembles a Michigan football uniform:  The “winged helmet” hat is proving most difficult

I think I’ll probably try and post some follow ups as I go, to be sure I’ll post on Twitter.  So request to follow me if you’re really interested!

Finally here’s a pic of our guy!

I’m a little disappointed in myself for not switching my theme earlier.  Breast cancer has deeply affected my family over the years.  We’ve had survivors and we’ve been given angels.  Why which was which isn’t our call to make.  Sometimes God’s plan just isn’t the same as our own, and it’s best just to ride the wave.

Life as a part-time MBA candidate is in full swing.  The first paper and first test are out of the way.  So far there have been no major events to influence my undergraduate perceptions other than the level of expected work is definitely higher.

This month is also been “exciting” on a personal level as we try and finally get rid of our Baltimore summer home, attempt to track down a contractor while we wait for the replacement to come finish our 10 week bathroom remodeling plan that should have taken 10 days, and I try and organize the Broughton Lacrosse non-conference schedule.

Whew, fall has been nuts.  Spring is going to be crazy

Today there was another one of those posts that, for no good reason, assumes that creating a well designed, well formatted, and high functioning website is a walk in the park that can be done on a lunch break, if you know what you are doing.  This one I found really ironic due to the nature of the client, a lawyer:

Everett Law Firm, P. A. located in Chapel Hill has a significant web presence (see www.everettlawfirm.biz) and is seeking an individual to assist with the management of web page management. Duties range from editing current content, writing content, setting up new webpages, embedding code, and some SEO (we have an SEO guy). We have webpages up in php, asp, and html – so some ability to work with each is helpful.

Ideal candidate is a college student looking for part time work who already has some relevant skills. I am not interested in hiring an over-priced company or individual who is charging excessive fees, been there done that.

Please email a resume or summary of skills.

I just find this highlighted bit hysterical, because who charges excessive fees more than a lawyer?  I’d be willing to bet this guy charges upwards of $200/hr and would think that a quality web designer should be less than $20/hr, even if it means dealing with their Frankenstein’s monster of a site.  For someone that has a significant web presence, you’d expect them to value it a bit more.

#shakingmyhead