Spring Has Arrived!

The grass is getting green, the birds are churping, and the flowers are blooming at ye olde Stack homestead.

It Wasn't My Idea...

Erica thought it would be great to try out something we had registered for but hadn't yet used. Its official name is the "Snuggli", and I am opposed to calling it that.

What about man hammock? Brady Pack?

Anything but snuggli.

The Living Room

The green paint has found its way from the office into the living room, thus completing yet another project. This room was by far the easiest to do, it just required paint.

Next up? Time to get outside and get the yard ready for the summer. The breezeway and the bathrooms will have to wait until summer.

Happy Easter!

Little Papi

Red Sox Nation would like to welcome its newest member, Brady Michael Stack!

Get To Know The REAL Brian M. Stack

So, you've all been reading my blog lately, and I'll bet you've been asking yourself, do I really KNOW Brian? Well, I figured for my 27th birthday, I'd give all of you some previously unknown information about me. We'll do this as a quiz. Answers will follow at the bottom.

Good luck!

1. If I could go anywhere for vacation, where would I go?
2. What was the name of my first pet?
3. What has been the defining moment of my life so far?
4. What is my single most favorite food?
5. What is my earliest memory?
6. If I could have any job, what would I want to do?
7. If I could live life over again, would I do anything differently?
8. Who is my inspiration?
9. What contestant am I routing for on Idol?
10. How do I take my coffee?

OK, here are the answers:

1. Italy. I can't think of a more beautiful place to visit, full of histroy, culture, and great food.
2. Fisher. I got my first gold fish when I was in third or fourth grade. When he died, I got another one, appropriately named Fisher II. Original, eh?
3. The birth of my son, Brady. No doubt about that.
4. Pizza. Always.
5. My father and I went sledding in the woods when I was three, and as one would imagine, we crashed into a big tree. Go figure.
6. I'd love to be a big-name Hollywood director, the likes of Spielberg, perhaps.
7. I'd take time to stop and smell the roses. I was always in such a hurry to get to the next step. It seems like such a bad way to live life, but I still do it to this day. Its something the I've started to think about more and more lately.
8. Depends on what for. My father is my inspiration in life, I've always looked up to him as a model for what success and happiness in life is all about. As for my teaching career, my inspiration is my friend Peter Arthur, who passed away suddenly this past weekend. Peter had a way of inspiring his students to become so much more than they would have ever dreamed possible.
9. Katharine McPhee. I've liked her since her first audition.
10. Iced, skim milk, three splenda. If at Dunks, always caramel flavoring.

Mission Accomplished.

At 2:00pm today, a commercial jet from Germany will touch down at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, carrying with it Lt. Stack, who is coming home from a seven-month tour in the Middle East.

Lt. Stack was stationed at Central Command in Qatar, but made regular trips into the Middle East countries, Iraq included. He also spent some time in Africa while over there. My mother, grandmother, aunt, and uncle will be there to welcome back to US soil. He is due home to NH in late April. Congratulations Jason, and welcome home.

People Ask. Yahoo Answers.

So Yahoo! has started a new feature called "Yahoo! Answers." On this site, people can post a question to the internet public, which anyone can answer. I must say, this site is quite a riot if you are bored at work and need something to pass the time. Let me share with you a few questions people were asking at 8:0pm, when I posted this blog entry:

1. How do I create a wedding registry for money instead of registering at stores?
2. What's the best way to move from one state to another?
3. How do I get big forearms?
4. What is wrong with my car?
5. How do I invite a girl to go to the movie theater?
6. Are any coconuts grown in orchards, or are they all picked from wild trees?
7. What r sum good songs?
8. Why do drivers pick their noses at stoplights?

A Tale of Two Bradys

So Erica and I decided to try our hand at making some "professional" pictures of Brady at home. By "professional," I mean we made it LOOK like we took him to a portait studio. The problem with our digital camera, though, is the delay. A good two seconds pass between the time when you hit the button and when the picture is taken. In order to catch one of Brady's smiles, we have to gamble as to when he might smile and hit the button, hoping he does. So, we end up taking 50 pictures to eventually get one good one. Well, the two pictures you see above are the result of that hard work. The problem is, the one on the top has been altered. I morphed Brady's head over the picture because he had a smile on his face. The one on the right is an actual picture. What do you think? Is the morphed picture believable? I think it is, Erica's not convinced.

Oh well.

Let This Be a Lesson...

At 5:00pm yesterday, Erica and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner when we heard a loud noise. I looked outside the window and saw a crashed-up minivan in my driveway. There was a BMW on the opposite side of the street. I couldn't believe it! Erica and I ran outside. She checked on both drivers while I called 911. Amazingly, both seemed ok, just in a bit of shock.
Soon after, people started coming from down the street and in cars that were now blocked from passing. The police, fire, and ambulance crews showed up within minutes. The story of what occurred began to emerge. The guy in the BMW was drunk, very drunk, and hit the minivan traveling the opposite way head-on. That's why Erica and I never heard the sound of brakes. The cars: Totaled. What really got me were the empty car seats in the back of the minivan. A horrible drunk driving accident could have led to the death of innocent children right in front of my house, but luckily, it didn't. Let this be a lesson to us all. Stay off the road of you've had too much to drink!

The BradyMobile

Brady, Erica, and I decided to take a tour of the neighborhood in the BradyMobile today. Ahh, spring has finally arrived.

Top Billing, Finally!

They always say the cream will rise to the top. Well it took the whole season, but in the last US College Hockey Online poll of the season, the Terriers did just that. Here are the rankings:

1. Boston University
2. Wisconsin
3. Minnesota
4. Michigan State
5. Miami
6. North Dakota
7. Harvard
8. Cornell
9. Boston College
10. Maine
11. Michigan
12. Colorado College
13. New Hampshire
14. St. Cloud State
15. Nebraska-Omaha
16. Denver
17. Dartmouth
18. Northern Michigan
19. Holy Cross
20. Colgate

Not This Year, BC!

After BU's Hockey East Title victory over the Eagles, Brady, who is wearing his BU sweatshirt, learned to stick out his tongue.

That one is for you, Eagle fans!

Two Notches Added To My Teaching Belt This Week

I added two more notches to my teaching belt this week while at Andover High School (pictured left).

First the not-so-exciting news: I spoke at my first conference. For the past few years, I and four other teachers from AHS had been working for an education consulting firm in Boston on a new professional learning community model. We have been having quite a bit of success with this model, and last month, I was asked to speak about it at a state-wide math educator conference, called ATMIM. With my laptop & in-focus in hand, I kept a crowd entertained with my friend Brooke. It was fun!

Second: And those of you who know me well probably won't believe me, but I broke up a fight at lunch. Oh yeah, I watched these two senior boys start to go at it in full force right in the middle of the cafe. I didn't have time to react, I just dove right into the middle and pulled them apart. Hahaha....You should have seen me. I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. It was only afterwards that I realized I could have gotten a few punches swung at me too. Oh well, I guess every teacher needs to say they could do something like that.

The Final Touch

The great kitchen remodel of 2005-2006 is finally complete. Cabinets, countertops, island, lighting, sink, and new stainless steel appliences. This week we added the new refrigerator.

Erica and I went with a stainless steel "french door" style made by LG (yes, the company that also makes cell phones). I just put in a water line for the ice machine today.

Best part about the new fridge? It has a "fingerprintless" finish...just for those little hands that will be all over it before we know it!

Tough Guy.

The Patriots have lost some key players, including David Givens, Willie MacGinist, and (possibly) Mr. Clutch himself, Adam the Great.

Don't you think Brady would amke a good draft pick? I mean look at him, he's tough!

Next Stop: USA

Lt. Stack (my brother, that is), will be headed home from Qatar in just a few weeks. He just returned from a week long trip to Africa, guarding some military bases. During his tenure, he's also spent a good deal of time in Iraq as well. We'll be happy to see him home.

What's next? A year in Korea, but he doesn't leave for that until August.

Stack & Wicks, The Sequel

Who says sequels can't be better than the original? Some twenty years ago, The Doc and I became good friends, and now Brady and David might be able to do the same thing. Congratulations you guys!

Happy Birthday, To Me! By Brady Stack

Well, today is my five-month birthday. To mark the occasion, Dada asked me to write down on his blog everything I've learned in five months. OK, here I go:

1. Whenever Mama and Dada get frustrated with me, all I have to do is smile, and they forget all about it. This works especially well when I want to see then at 3:00am.
2. Whenever I see someone new, a "howdy do" doesn't quite cut it. I prefer to just spit up on them.
3. Whenever I am hungry, I just have to cry. If Mama or Dada don't get the bottle to me within ten seconds, I just cry louder, and make it sound convincing.
4. Bath time means splash time.
5. Why eat your food when you can wear it too? (hence the picture)
6. Rolling over is hard to do.
7. I like going to church every week. I especially like "doing my business" right in the middle of mass. To make it ever more of an event, I throw in a few extra loud grunting noises.
8. Whenever Mama changes me into a new outfit, I like to "christen" it by spitting up on it.
9. I like to talk to myself in the morning before Mama and Dada come get me from my crib.
10. I can't wait to be able to crawl.

The Office.

Well, I can check another room off the "completed" list for painting. This weekend, I got my office painted. Erica and I decided to do a sage green in both the office and the living room. Hopefully, the green won't make the living room look too dark, or we are going to be in trouble!

If you have been keeping track, here's a list of what rooms have been completed (in the order of completion):



1. Brady's bedroom.
2. Our bedroom.
3. The kitchen
4. The dining room.
5. The upstairs hall and stairway.
6. The office.

Still to be done (in the order they will be tackled):

1. The living room.
2. The upstairs bathroom.
3. The downstairs bathroom.
4. The breezeway.
5. Brady's new bedroom (in a year or two, he'll be moving to the other bedroom to make way for baby #2! :)