After looking around a bit we decided to look in both Mason, OH and anywhere in the North Allegheny school district in PA. The schools in both areas are top notch, the Autism support is great in both states, and the cost of living is VERY reasonable.

What does this truly mean for us? First, I’d have to leave my current job. My last day at Cronin and Company will be July 9th, and I’ll be moving onto Imbee, Inc to do telecommute system administration. Second, and the hardest pill to swallow for the both of us, is that we have no family in either of those areas. Right now both of our parents live fairly close by. Even some of our extended family is relatively close. In the end, we need to do what’s best for us as an immediate family. With both of us working from home, trips to see family can easily be accommodated.

We know it’s going to be hard, and we know there’ll be days where we wished we hadn’t moved so far away. In the end, it’ll be better for our children, and that’s the most important thing of all.

The truth is, the more that goes on in real life, the less time I have to post. So, the times where the most interesting things are happening are the times I’m not posting about those interesting things.

What’s a boy to do?

Simplify!

I don’t know yet, but I may be replacing this site with my tumblr account, or maybe even a new tumblr account.  Hell, maybe I’ll write up something quick to aggregate multiple tumblr accounts and post them here.

I can’t say for sure. My time to do ANYTHING on ANY of my sites has been very limited. A new baby, trying to sell my house, an Autism Walk, and work tend to get in the way of pointless blogging.

Greyson Alexander Kalajian was born on March 28th at 12:08pm. He weighed 6 pound 9 oz, and was 19″. Both mom and baby were, and still are, doing great. Our first two just adore him, and it’s an amazing feeling to have a baby in the house again.

So yeah, we had a baby, and I didn’t post about it until just now. Of course, most people probably found out from my Twitter feed, Plurk timeline, or Facebook profile.

Here’s the entire bracket of crazy shit I’ll do depending on how much money I raise.

$500 – I’ll give myself a mohawk.

$1000 – I’ll dye that mohawk hot pink.

$1500 – I’ll shave that hot pink mohawk into a horn on the front of my head.

$2000 – I’ll get a tattoo of a puzzle piece (an icon usually used in the Autism community) on my right forearm.

I hope to have a donation meter on this site soon, but you can always see how much I’ve raised on my Walk page.

All this week is Read an RPG in Public Week. It’s meant to get the hobby “out of the basement” and into the public eye.

I already game at work, and keep a few of my RPG books there on my shelf, so this week is kinda like every day for me.

If you’re participating in the glorious week, make sure and snap a pic of yourself doing it and entering the contest over at Purple Pawn.  The prize pool is pretty slick, and contains a Tremorworks bundle that includes the above HDL Basic Rules.

Well we’re starting to take donations again.  Along with general donations, events, and raffles we have scheduled for this year, I decided to do something special.

Last year I took donations at work, saying that if I raised a certain amount I would wear a Snuggie to work for the day. I raised that amount, and had to suffer wearing the Snuggie.

This year I’ve got something a bit different planned.

Something bigger, and more permanent.

This year, with the help of all of you out there, I’m looking to raise over $1000 under my name. If I hit the $1000 mark, I’ll dye my hair hot pink for a full week.

7 days of hot pink hair.

“Wait, Rob.  You don’t HAVE any hair!”

That’s true, but starting today I’m growing my hair out just for this occasion. I’ll also be taking daily mugshots so people can track the growth of my hair, and if it gets dyed, keep me honest for the full 7 days.

I’ll also be doing some other, minor crazy things for other landmarks on the way to $1000, but I haven’t gotten them all figured out yet.

Keep an eye out for a donation meter on this blog soon.

The walk for Greater Hartford takes place on 06/06/2010, so I need to raise the $1000 by then.

Remember, only donations posted directly under my name will count towards this.  You can also use the link to sign up for the walk if you’d like to walk with our team, Aiden’s Awesomeness.

Who knows. If I can surpass the $1000, maybe I’ll even dye the beard.

What did I see in 2009?

Plenty.

Beatrice is pregnant with our 3rd child. It’s an amazing thing.

Beatrice and I put our house on the market. We’re still waiting for it to sell.

Aiden was diagnosed with mild PDD-NOS, and is making HUGE strides. He’s in a new preschool, and is thriving.

Delfina gets bigger every day. It’s amazing how smart she is. It’s a shame she was too young to start school in 2009.

I lost two amazing women in my life. Both my grandmother’s passed. Even though I didn’t get to see them much, it’s very strange not to have them around anymore. The world will be a worse place without them.

Beatrice became a full-time, stay at home mom. With 2 kids, and one on the way, I’m sure she’ll be working much harder than she ever did at an office.

After 2 layoffs in a six month period, I became fully employed, and have been for over a year.

I started moving away from PHP to program in Ruby on Rails. I’m finally coming into my own as a web developer with my own technique and preferences.

I’ve made/kept some amazing friends, some of whom I’ve never physically met, though I hope to remedy that in the future.

2009 had its ups and downs, but then again, so does every year. I’m thankful to have my amazing family, and to continue moving forward in all that we do, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

It seemed to help.

I started up my workout routine, and everything was going fine…then the leg pain returned. I’ve gone from working out 4 nights a week to 2, and it’s still no help.

Guess it’s time to see my doctor. I hate skipping workouts, because it makes me feel like I lose so much more progress than I’ve gained.

The truth of it is, I’m having a hard time keeping up with this blog. I seem to update it in waves. I am very good with updating Twitter, Plurk, etc… Tumblr has a feel similar to those sites (at least for updating), and is very easy for me to update from my iPhone.

We’ll see how long as lasts, but for now I think it’s going to work out.

Anyway. We finally moved the kids from the nursery to their own bedrooms. A LOT was involved in this process. Both rooms where basically storage for us, so we first needed to clean them out. After that was painting. 2 coats of primer and 2 coats for the wall and trim each.

>>> [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] <<<

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> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE

> source login information: ENCRYPTED

> message begins

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>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<<

Fun.

Then came the “moving them in” part. Everything went smooth until Aiden decided to help take apart his bed, destroying the stabilizer bar that helps keep the bed steady. In his defense, the thing was made out of particle board, even though the rest of the bed is Canadian maple.

A new stabilizer bar is almost $200 for his bed.

Yikes.

So what did I do? I took a trip to Lowes, bought a cedar plank and a new drill bit. I then proceeded to make a new bar on my own.

Did it work?

HELL YES.

Booyah.