I've noticed recently that, as every good Christian boy should, I have a lot of swear word substitutions that I use; meaning that when I would normally swear I use some other combination of words in the place of an actual swear word.

I don't really have a problem with people who swear – I mean people who swear often and inappropriately are a bit rediculous – but in general swearing doesn't really bother me that much. If you want to drop an occasional F-Bomb to be funny or when you're really mad that's fine.

At some point I just stopped swearing and it wasn't really a moral choice, so much as I didn't really find a need to swear that often. I just really don't like the way it comes out or the reaction it elicits in others. Somehow that resulted in a lot of silly phrases that make me come off as a choir boy sometimes, even though I'm really not much of a choir boy.

Here are some of them…

Good Gravy – expressed irritation or tiredness of the same thing (i.e., my current allergies)
Holy Macaroni – this I say when something catches me off guard
F – used as a substitute for, well, F.
Shiester! – I think this may be a swear word in some other language.
Frak – Battle Star Galactica influence. Genius, they've basically created a whole new swear word that isn't a swear word. I try not to say this too often 'cause I don't want the world to know I'm a sci-fi Junkie.
Jeesh! – Express discontent at the actions of another.
Holy Schnizzle! – no idea where this came from.
Pickin' – see Frak
Blast! – Sh!^

Maybe you have some?

DK

Since the internetic authority on the definition of "montage" is as follows A cinematic device used to show a series of scenes, all related and building to some conclusion it should be easy for you to see why I've referred to this constantly as a montage. It's going to be fun, and this will be the only time on the blog where you will see this many pictures of the blog author in one place. So single ladies, beware this post contains images of dan and babies and lots of images of dan holding babies. You probably better just move on and see what's going on here or maybe here.

And now that that's all settled, I present to you, without further delay:

THE DAN AT DRAYNET.COM BABY MONTAGE!!!

Part 1: Welcome to Planet Earth: Ciara Alice Palmer

Ciara was born a while back to my friends Vanya and Ryan. She's small and has lots and lots of black hair (insinuates nothing). When she's happy she makes neat little quacking sounds like a duck. For some reason she usually has a white tongue.

I chose to start the montage with this picture of her and I because it demonstrates what a great relationship we have even when she was only 4 days old.

Ciara loves uncle dan (the most?)

Ciara wakes up to a new day

She's just a few months away from an elusive modeling contract

These are her proud parents showing of Ciara and her sweet designer car seat. If you think that's cool, you should see her stroller/monster truck bed thingy. It has better suspension than my car.

Part 2: Naomi Grace Cramer

I said before that Naomi gets priority and she definitely does. She's the best to watch because she has this gazing stare that just really makes a person feel like they are interesting. She gets this from her father. And her mother. Everybody loves to hold Naomi and often Shannon and I have to do battle for her, at least until the other kids show up and then we all get to be happy. Naomi holds the proud title of having spit up on me 4 times in one holding while pooping 3 times. After that holding I declared that I would never change a child's diaper until I had kids of my own. And let's be honest, they can change their own da*^ diapers.

Naomi is sporting the good looks. I encouraged Josh and Grace to ground her one month for every time she cries in order to avoid having to ever deal with boys.

This is Naomi and Phil. Phil is not Naomi's father Josh is.

This is Naomi's mama Grace. Naomi often does cool things like chew on a bottle.

This is me holding Naomi like a football. There you go andrew, My babi3z frienz p0wnz y04z. She always makes cool faces like this.

Part 3: Welcome to the hood, Luke Daniel Nevens

Aww yeah! It's on now. LD Nevens is my homie from another cronie. He's my bro and my bro's bro yo. He's the man. He did the roll at age .05 and he owns it. And he owns. I love this guy. And when he's pissed, he lets you know. I like. I expect him to beat me at basketball by age 3. It's been 2 months since I've seen him and if the guy can't play guitar by now you can call me yellow.

Mom (gretchen) and Luke. Luke is clearly already planning world domination. He gets that from dad.

This one's for all the ladies…

Mike demonstrates the coolest way to hold a baby…

And I find myself sufficiently instructed. Luke enjoys

We were both tired after a long night of partying and wooing the women, so we decided to chill out and take a nap.

Here's Uncle Luke with his namesake

Most babies don't turn until 3 months. LD had it mastered by age six weeks. Mike and I were so proud that we tried to get him to do it several times in a row. This severely pissed him off.

"I'm sorry little guy." Mike had to console him. Well done little man, well done.

Part Gamma: Hannah Twombley

Hannah was born to Jeremy and Jeralyn a little over a year ago. She doesn't really like me very much, as evidenced by the fact that every time I tried to hold her, this happened:

Hannah. Not happy with Dan.

To make things worse, I tried to hold Hannah and LD together. Disaster ensued.

Part X: Anna Elaine Barber

Dillon and Kristen gave birth to Anna and she is just utterly cute. Very much like her parents. She doesn't cry, she's always happy, and she's made of butterscotch and dandelions.

Anna and Dad looking sharp.

Anna and Dad posing

Just plain cute…

But also serious at times…

My bosom makes babies sleep.

Now she's out cold.

But awake in time to play with her toys. Stay back fools!

Part 5: Welcome to Vancouver, Christian Grey Ratzlaff

Christian is just over a Year old and Heather and Derek adopted him a few months ago. As one person said in our church, Christian Ratzlaff just won the new parent lottery, 'cause Derek and Heather are as good as it gets.

This little guy is beyond words. He's fun, smart, and happy, always present with a smile or mischievous grin. I generally like to hold him upside down until he laughs. We get along great. He doesn't talk yet, but if he did he'd say, "Dan Ray, you are so cool."

Here he is planning something.

But it seems that he got distracted by some food. What is it with the little ones and food?

Part Alpha: Welcome to earth BENJAMIN WADE SPLINTER HALTON

BWSH, or as I like to call him "swoosh" (dane, that's for constantly calling me "deep chocolate") is better than bread. And that's quite a compliment coming from me. He came into this world a little bit early, so he's been gaining ground ever since. I know Luke Daniel rules, but just to be fair, Ben Wade started rolling around at age negative 2 weeks. Yeah. This guy is going places. big places.

He has been already in many ways a HUGE blessing and source of joy for Jane and Dane and their loved ones, so he basically started doing ministry the moment he was born. I love this guy.

wtf?! What am I doing here? Ben was a little startled at his early arrival.

But he acclimated quickly…

I met him on this day. He commented on how nice that sweater looks on me.

Here I gave Ben the "lion king" treatment, so that all the jungle animals could see who rules.

Bow before king swoosh.

This is Jane's favorite Ben picture. And consequently mine too. I suggest that he will be driving the car inside of 4 weeks.

Check out Jane and Dane's blog for more pictures of Ben

Part Omega: Welcome to Earth: Maia Charis Reid

I haven't gotten to meet Maia yet, which is a point of contention for me. So trips must be planned and planes must be caught soon! She's gorgeous though, just like her parents Uncle Luke and Beth.

Welcome Maia

Good morning! Anything exciting planned for today?

Proud parents Luke and Beth. We're fairly certain Maia won't have a beard, but with a dad like Luke, nothing is out of the question.

Last minute Entry!
Welcome to the World Addison Elizabeth Wilhelms!

Addison was born seven days ago and she's a doll. Had to make sure that she was added. Congratulations to Kyle and Sarah, two of my very best friends and Addison's new parents. If you want to get a deeper understanding of who they are, check out the quote on the right side of the home page.

Naked Addison: We definitely need more pictures of naked people on this blog. Seemed like a good place to start.

Addison is looking for food. Apparently these babies aren't too particular about where their food comes from.

This dude is one of my heroes. He's gonna be a great dad. As long as he doesn't sell his kids.

Addison is all ready to go with a careful glare, and alien abduction protection?

Part Revelation: Welcome to Earth, Daniel K. Ray

And the Final Picture. Worth the price of admission. This is a picture of me, age nine, hanging out with some baby in a wagon. Isn't I cute!? Too bad I didn't have a beard then.

The real question here is, which one is the baby?

Seriously Though…

Congratulations to all my dear friends and their new found joys. There's no way to adequately express the joy that we all feel with this much addition of new life, so I'm not even going to try. Hopefully this post will be an indicator though of how much all of this has blessed me and the many people (especially grandparents) that get to see their loved ones walk into this new phase of life. One day, I'll have my own kids, but in the meantime, I'll take great comfort in knowing that there are this many new people in the world who will grow up in loving, caring, Christ-centered homes. Blessings to all of you.

I can't believe it. This monster post is finally done. On that note, I'll be taking a couple of weeks off. Watch for an update or two and lots of twitter feed updates. But other than that, it's finals time for me baby. Oh yeah.

DK

p.s. Additional Congrats to Nathan and Karen on the birth of Luke Daniels (confusing, I know) little brother Caleb. I don't have any pictures but will gladly update later.

p.p.s. If you're a single girl who reads this blog and are now profusely in love with me, check out the about page for contact info or search the site profusely for the dating application. I'm sure it's on here somewhere.

p.p.p.s. Seriously though. I don't really mean that.

p.p.p.p.s. The cease fire is officially over. You can go back to birthing new babies.

p.p.p.p.p.s. Special thanks to gmail search for all the middle names

p.p.p.p.p.p.s. Three cheers for the laptop. Not one crash yet and it's soldiered through a weekend of powerpointing, 4 classes, and some online nintendo golf. I still got the skillz to pay the bills.

All's Quiet on the Northwestern Front

This is one of those weeks where all in my world seems to be filled with peace and free of trouble. Maybe I'm just feeling sentimental, maybe I'm on drugs. I'm not sure.

Top of the good news is that Jane and Dane are finally home with Ben and officially "out of the woods." Now I can go meet Ben and get my picture taken with him, and the baby montage will be complete and ready for posting.

I had a cold all weekend which stunk, but somehow the weekend was still able to be filled with fun and frolick. I also somehow managed to meet a bunch of new people, hang out with old friends, and even hang out with a really old (chico) friend who was in town visiting. That last one was my friend Meg Wolf who is visiting Vancouver from Southern California (northern mexico), but she'd get shy if I mentioned her name, so we'll just keep that between you and I.

In my leisure (being sick) time, I've been reading books that are far too complicated for me to understand and watching old episodes of Star Trek – DS9. This, combined with a foggy head from a stuffed up nasal passages makes for some pretty interesting dreams. Think commander Worf on the Bridge of the Defiant travelling through time while speculating on the extent to which Christological events may be efficable on our eternal redemption.

If Worf was a preacher, I would totally go to that church.

I had good conversations at Fun City. This is nothing new. But particularly Lynsey and I got into a couple of topics that I think are pretty interesting and crucial (apologetics – blogging about it now). Fun City's pretty much the greatest. The difference between my house and the Friends house is that none of us sleep with each other and Friends is lame.

Other than that and the fact that every conversation last week and this weekend were about the white people blog, that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, TAL was good this week, as always.

DK

I think maybe I've already complained on this blog about the whole coffee shops never fill up my coffee thing on this blog. So sorry but I have to complain about it again.

Because I seriously end up thinking about this every single time I go for a coffee.

Now let me make some things clear.

First off I like by. Coffee black. Completely black. No sugar, no cream – none whatsoever. This means that I don't need any room for cream. Where I came from this didn't really seem to be too uncommon. In fact, I remember when I was younger I used to work on restaurants and we were instructed to ask customers when they ordered coffee if they would like it black so that we didn't waste the little cream and sugar packets if they didn't want them. Apparently in BC nobody drinks their coffee black because whenever I tell people that I drink it black they just look at me funny. Like really? Ok, well do you want to put some cream in your black coffee though?

Seriously? Really?

Hence whenever you order coffee here they fill it about two thirds full and hand it to you smiling as of they gave you some poo In a box for your Christmas present but they knew you'd be long gone before you figured it out and cursed at them under your breath.

And so they never fill your coffee. And the thing is i really like their coffee. I mean its not like I'm such a caffeine addict that I'm really happy about having to go pay a solid $2 for a cup of brew when I could make it for free at home (and I like me the coffee I make at home). When I show up at your coffee establishment, it's because dang it I want your coffee.

So when I drive halfway across town to to to jj bean (the best coffee) I'm really hoping to get that full cup. Why can't they take that as a compliment?

…at this point you're probably asking yourself the question, "Man why can't the guy just ask them for a full cup of coffee. I'm sure they'll oblige."

Well Mr. or Mrs. Smarty Pants maybe you wouldn't mind telling me the freaking magic word then.

Because no matter what I say my cup always comes back half empty, i.e.,

This always leaves me in the awkward position of having to ask the coffee person to go back and fill it up the rest of the way. You can imagine how hard it is to phrase that one without sounding like a petty spendthrift. I'm thinking of starting to say, "Listen, just give me a coffee, the whole damn coffee."

Advice? I really hope this isn't making me sound like a cranky old man…

DK

p.s. sorry about the grammar errors, I wrote this on the iphone in the coffee shop

That's right, the Suburban Refugee is back, but now he's the World Wide Refugee or something. Just like Randy Johnson at the bottom of the 8th, right when I was about to space out and stop blogging forever, SBR is back to finish the day. Whohoo. But I guess all that R.I.P. stuff and the enless tears and the shrieking and the counselling were a waste of time. Dude sure knows how to play with a guy's emotions.

Anyway, Now you don't have to be bored anymore. I'll throw up a feed for the right column as soon as I have time.

So we've eliminated the event-planning (redundant to sites like facebook/evite), the link feature (you can read them on digg or send them via email), and the file sending (for this you can really use email) of the new Pownce social networking site. That only leaves the section where people can leave notes. So what's the point?

Here's how it works. Basically you get to post a note. You have the option to post it privately to a single person, privately to all you friends, or post it to the entire public. Most people opt for the public option. When you post it to the public, it shows up on your pownce feed, as well as the pownce feed of all your friends. This is like Myspace comments on crack. In addition, anybody who comes along has the option of replying to that post (also public). Anybody who comes to any of these feeds can read the posts and participate in the fun. To make things more interesting, if folks thing your little post is somewhat profound or interesting (e.g., "I just robbed a bank") they
So here we have a very advanced and beautifully designed commenting system that is completely divorced from any actual over-arching topic or theme. It's basically a social commentary on randomness.

Welcome to the micro-blog, welcome to the social.

The micro-blog, by the way, is over-against the blog proper (which your reading) or the "mini-blog", an example being my tumblr page (the feed of which you can now find in the right hand column).

The purpose of the blog is obvious, the mini is designed to post random tidbits – photos, links, and quotes, and the micro? Well, I suppose it's basically all about posting whatever is on your mind. It's the equivalent of a beefed up version of status part of facebook.

Let's take a look at the result, here are a few of the posts, stripped from Justine Ezarik's (semi-famous web hottie) feed. I've sliced them up into categories for you.

Random Apple Nonsense—This is true of any social blogging site, especially the micro-blogs. Mac owners love to talk… ...about macs, which they do, all day, over and over again.

Trying my new Apple keyboard for the first time! It takes some getting used to, but I like it so far.

Sigh…yesterday I went in for a MacBook Pro, but unfortunately they were all out. Gotta call and go in again today.

Looking around at hacking the iPhone. Anybody had good/bad results by adding apps to your phone?

Saving money to buy…new iPod, iPhone and macbook…but only with Leopard. Apple come on!

Mac fanboys drive me nuts.

Talking about Pownce—People on pownce talk a lot about pownce. This makes sense I guess.

The one thing that I believe would help folks "get" Pownce would be a link in the top bar to public notes. I forgot about this link but it would help users jump in and start building friends from the start. I think often folks poke around, don't get new friends like Twitter or Jaiku and then depart w/ a miss-conception of the site. Anyone else experience the same question?

too bad Pownce and Twitter don't alert you when someone stops following you…could be real fun!

Hangover-speak—I've seen this alot on pownce. For some reason after spending the night out drinking like they're irish, a common natural inclination the following morning seems to be 1. find a computer 2. write about how hungover they are. You can also find this on facebook

I'm so hungover.. I think it was the chicken skillet and pancakes at 2am at Village Inn that really messed me up.

Are you f!@#ing kidding me? A $300 tab at Fox and Hound?! What the f!@# happened last night…

This is especially fun when it's my co-worker leaving the message and he or she has called in sick.

Non-Human Interaction / Compulsive Status Updates—This is the big one on Pownce. Basically everyone just makes general statements about their state of mind, what they're doing, or in the case of the third guy, two completely unrelated topics. They talk to Pownce as if it was people and hope that somebody's listening.

Good morning world. Err, well fellow Powncers at least. =$

Shower, breakfast, and then heading to the conference.

Going to help a friend pick out a car today. And possibly pick out a suit for myself.

Gotta wash the cars. Better to it now before it gets too hot.

morning all. I'll tell you I am so grateful that Hurricane Dean looks like it will miss us here in South Florida. That looks like a real nasty storm. I feel bad for Jamaica though, looks like they may get a Cat 4 or 5.

@home

off to bed!!

If somebody was in the forest, and they told everybody on the internet, would anybody care?

Self Betterment—People like to write about how they are going to get it together.

I'm reloading this weekend. Time to get well and healthy, finally. That means more or less no social stuff (ie Pownce, Facebook etc) and a minimum computer time. Lovely.


Have a great weekend people!

Goal for this weekend…spend as little money as possible. Vacation, car repairs, life, etc. Very expensive indeed.

I guess this is good, but really, who's going to hold these people accountable? The internets?

Complaints about anything and everything—Obviously, one of my favorite uses

And so the weekend begins.Why do I have to work this morning?

Grr, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to update Pownce or Twitter…or for that matter, had the energy to do much more than work & sleep, and maybe eat.

I endorse all complaints made on this website.

"Anyone else?" posts—Random questions for everybody these get a fair amount of attention

Anyone else testing BlogRovR?

Meebo selling music?
Is anyone else getting this on their Meebo?

Hall or Oates?

anyone else watching flash gordon?

Um… NO, I don't know, I don't care, and no.

Stop. Please stop.

Profound Thoughts / Questions—lots of these, everybody's a philosopher.

What if you had 6 month's to determine what you will do with the rest of your life?

And finally, lots and lots of posts about Chocolate Rain—and every other youtube video in existence.

Chocolate Rain stuck in my gray matter. Over and over and over again.

So that's pownce. And yes, it's obviously wrought with gobs of unadulterated self-love. But to be honest, I kind of like it. The interface is slick, it works perfectly, and as you may have noticed, I've figured out how to get my pownce feed to show up in the sidebar of this blog. So now you, the reader, will know when I wake up, want a burrito, or have something important to say about chocolate rain.

You could do a sociology thesis on this phenomenon. Why are people so keen on spending their few free moments telling the entire world what they're thinking, doing, or looking at? I don't have the answer, but maybe somebody will post it somewhere on pownce.

side note: if you think this looks interesting, let me know, I'll send you an invitation.

So I recently realized that the about section on this page is pretty out of date, and even worse it had a grammatical error so that needed to be dealth with asap.

So now it's under construction with a nifty simpsons cartoon to explain exactly what that means.

I'm going to rewrite it, but I thought I'd ask you for your help. If you, the readers of this blog could leave me a sentence or two "about" me or the blog in the comments (or email it to me dan at draynet dot com) that'd be just great. They should come in the form of:

this blog + [verb] or
dan + [verb]¹

The sentence can't be mean, but other than that anything is fine. In fact, it doesn't even have to be true; for instance, "this blog can run faster than the speed of sound". is just fine, i'll post the necessary disclaimers.

So I'm grateful for your help. After I get a few submissions I'll piece together a new and decidedly more interesting about section. Thanks.

:: dan

Also, this was a great excuse to post a giant picture of a questionmark on the top post; something I enjoy doing, for some strange reason.

1. remember that "is" is a verb, i.e. the verb to be: am, is, are, was, were, be, been [ƒ]

An old friend from my post highschool round-table days and I got into a little spat about technology and HD-DVD vs BLUE RAY. Something that I honestly know nothing about but have an opinion on anyway because I'm illogical like that.

HD-DVD is good and Blue Ray is bad

Ted, who of course knows something about these two technologies, proved me wrong, and as punishment posted two pictures of me when I was about 10 years old – including the following:

(note: if you look closely at my right arm you can see that this was taken before Susanna Edwards tried to run me over with a boat)

If you want to see the other one, you'll have to follow the link up top, but you'll easily understand why I used to be terrified of women if you do (bottom of page).

In retrospect, I suppose that I should be a fan of Blue Ray now, seing as how we both have the same last name. Blue Ray forever!

>dan<