Our Newest Addition

Hoo-Ray !!

Today, October 20th, we welcomed Lindsay Erin Palmer into this branch of the Palmer Family Tree. She weighed 8 lbs. and 2 ozs, and measured 19 inches long. Rachel was again, a trooper, during the whole thing, and yet again, a very short labor. We arrived, checked in, and were in the room by 10 AM then Lindsay made her appearance at 12:55 PM. There was another woman delivering in the room next to ours, and when Rachel said she had to push, I went to try and find a nurse. None to be had, and the doctor was AWOL, too. So, I hit the red cross call button on the bed, and went into the hallway to wait. Marcia (more on her later) came, and asked if everything was okay. I said that Rachel said she needed to push, so she came in, and checked. The doctor showed up 2 mins later, and then here's Lindser. She already has a nickname, too. They put her up on Rachel's chest, and she took one look at the baby, and Rachel says, "You're Momma's little Tank, huh?" Just a chubby, healthy baby, with a nickname only Daddy could love.

Marcia was our nurse today that helped deliver Lins. Marcia was also the nurse that helped deliver Allison, 4 1/2 years ago. Marcia was also the nurse that we took our LaMaize (sp?) class from in the hospital before Allie was born. We're officially inducting her into the honorary Aaron and Rachel Palmer family as an emeritus member. Anyone who is that involved in starting our family deserves it. Thank you also to Doctor Tucker, who was on-call this weekend, for delivering a healthy baby. She was great !!

A High Point in My Life

I was looking through pictures recently, trying to organize and pick some out for a project that I'm working on. As I was going through them, I found pictures that I forgot I had taken, some that I hadn't seen in a while, and some that I consider treasures.

It was December of 2005, and one of the presents I asked for at Christmas was a membership in the Queensryche fan club. (For those of you who do not know who Queensryche is, shame on you.) It came close to the holiday, and Rachel says, "Go ahead and enroll, it's one of the presents I wanted to get you." YES!! I signed up, and about a month later I got my package of stuff from the fan club - signed 8x10, some stickers, and a certificate. It's a little odd for a 32 (at the time) year old man to be so excited by this, but I don't care. My love for this band goes back to 1992. I had moved in with Tom and Jim in the Main Street house, and I was playing video games with Jim one night in his room. He puts in a CD to listen to, and I was hooked. Queensryche - Empire. Geoff Tate's voice, combined with the guitar licks from Wilton and DeGarmo, the thudding bassline from Eddie, brought together by Scott Rockenfield's drumming just amazed me. I must have borrowed that from Jim 10 times in the first month after this. Well, then Jim bought Operation: Mindcrime, their album that was immediately before Empire. Again, I was blown away. The whole Mindcrime album is a concept album, and tells the story of an underground revolution set to take down the government, and the false idols of religion. From started to finish, just my favorite album of all time. I still listen to it to this day, and if I start the CD, I almost compulsively have to listen to the whole thing. I love it. It also helped me through a rough time of transition for me, as I just left Mom and Dads and was trying to make it on my own. I think that's why it's stuck with me for so long, because that album helped to bring me out of my shell .. hard to explain to another person, but that's what I feel.

One of the things I wanted to do in my life was to see Queensryche perform Mindcrime, but live in concert. I accomplished that in 2005 once, and twice in 2006. Well, then the summer rolls around and they are announced they were the opening band for Judas Priest for their tour. Now, one of the perks of being a fan club member is the requesting of Meet and Greet passes. You actually have to sign up for the passes on their website, for the concerts you are planning on attending. They then pool the requests and randomly (yeah, right) pull people out of a proverbial hat to give passes to. I say randomly, because I don't believe it's random at all. The same people always seem to get passes, all you had to do was see the pics they posted on the forums to see that fact. Well, the time came when they announced the concert in Hershey that I was attending, and the time came and went and no pass. No surprise there, there are two pretty active local fan clubs in this area that have people who usually receive this honor. Well, I get home from work last year, and I see an email from the fan club. I get that nervous, sick feeling as I opened to find that I had been picked to receive two passes to go backstage. Well, the friend in our Ward who I usually metal out with decided against going to this concert, and now I have backstage passes. He still drug his feet, even knowing that I had these passes. Oh, well, fall out. I ended up promising one to this guy on the forum who was pretty cool, and because I didn't want it to go to waste. I told him my only requirement was that he HAD to take pictures of me with the band. Well, the night came, and my instructions were to go to Will Call window, show my ID and pick up my passes. I still didn't believe it. Well, there they were ... one envelope with my name in black marker, and inside were two passes.

I met Scott almost immediately, and we hung out before the concert. He was older than me, a music teacher from the Scranton area, and looked kinda dorky. We were both able to sneak our camera's inside the venue, as the meet and greet was scheduled for during the Judas Priest set. We jammed all through the Ryche's set, a lot of older songs that I hadn't heard live. I took my Rage for Order vinyl record backstage, and sat it on the table with a borrowed silver Sharpie. Well, they all walked in one at a time ... they talked with us, signed my record, posed for pictures, and just were so good with the six people who were backstage with me. As I left the backstage area, I was treated to the LOUDEST music I've ever heard, as Judas Priest was cranking at that point. I left and headed for home, since I was going to this same concert a few days later, and I really felt like a tool alone at the concert. I got what I came for, so no worries. Thank you, Jim Jardine, for turning me onto this incredible band. Thank you, Rachel, for giving me the gift of the fan club. Thank you Queensryche for your music, and for allowing me to fulfill a dream of meeting you face to face. Pictures now -


First Pic - Geoff Tate (I was considering naming our child Tate, if it was a boy. Rachel said she would've considered it, and liked that we could nickname him Tater)
Second Pic - Eddie Jackson (great background vocals, and hammering bass)
Third Pic - Michael Wilton (he wanted to made the faces at the camera, not me)
Fourth Pic - Scott Rockenfield (he said that it meant more for him to meet me, than vice versa)
Last Pic - Matt Stone (he replaced Kelly Gray, who replaced Chris DeGarmo when C.D. left the band before the release of Q2K. Stone's wife was so normal, I couldn't believe it)

I posted these pics on the band forum, and one of the comments that was made was asking if I was a giant, or something. She had been to a few meet/greets and remembered how tall she thought Geoff Tate was, and here I am much larger. I replied back something to the effect of - "Yes, I am a giant. Please look for me at the next concert. I'll be on the lawn, devouring little children." She said she couldn't stop laughing after reading my reply.

Email, Email, Email

Okay -

Rachel and I are trying to put together something for the family reunion that I think everyone needs to participate in. No, not think, but HAVE TO participate in. I sent out an email to each of my sibling's email addresses that I have (no spouses, except for Brooke), asking for them to read the email and please respond if you are in or out on this one. I also posted something on the family website, asking for everyone to check all their email addy's for a message from Rachel and I. To this point in time, I only received 3 responses back, all wanting to participate. I even went as far as to make a second posting on the family website, asking for everyone to please email Rachel or I ASAP to tell me if they are in or out on this project Rachel and I are trying to undertake. Well, still nobody new has responded. It's really starting to tick me off at this point. If I can't get everyone to participate, it's fine, and Rachel and I will go on with this project without anyone. Just frustrating, since I see that people have visited the family site, and still haven't sent a simple mail out. Oh, well ... I need to stop obsessing about this for now. Got enough stress to carry me over.

On a lighter note, the Redskins beat down the Lions today at FedEx Field. Rachel and I were having some new ward members over to "try them out" and see if they could fill our vacant friends position that needed to be filled once the Hassells abandoned us. John and Kim Wright (sp?) are a trip! They came over between conference sessions for dinner and to hang out for the second session. Our dear friends, Liz and Ed Ott had a special day today, as it was the baptism of their son, Sam. Liz told Rachel about it yesterday, and invited us to come. They were doing a simple family and friends thing, and didn't want it to be a big deal. So, I took Zachary with me, since he is between Katie and Same in age, and they usually end up playing together once the Otts and us get together. He was a little annoyed, since he wanted to sit and watch football. It was an honor to have the Otts invite us. They only had family there besides me, so it felt good that I was able to go. There was a chance that I was going to have to go on a sev 1, but the page never happened, so I dodged that bullet. We came home after the picnic, and socializing to watch the end of the Skins game. I walked in and John said "Hey, the Skins are getting creamed, it's 24-3." I am never surprised at how the Skins can sometimes disappoint me, so "Oh, well" was my resigned reply. Well, Allison then told me that wasn't true and the Skins were winning by that score. I saw the Carlos Rogers interception run back for a TD, so that was sweet. Then we flipped back to conference, and when the choir sang, we checked on the Chargers game. That was sad, too. Both my Skins and my Chargers won, so a man has to be happy with that, huh?

More later, I have to let some anger die down a little before my typing starts.

It Falls on Me

Well, it seems like almost everyone who voted in the latest poll agreed that Fall was the best of the seasons. I would have to agree, so all those who voted along with me, give yourself 10 bucks. All who didn't agree with me .... assume punishment positions.