It was too good to last. Chase broke his one night sleeping streak by getting up at steady and somewhat frequent intervals last night. Unfortunately for Emilie, I didn't hear him and she was stuck getting up with him all night. Poor, poor Emilie.

Chase went in to get his shots today. I wasn't there but Emilie said that he turned bright red and screamed like crazy. The trauma was short-lived as he went home and slept. Poor Chase.

In a surprising revelation, the audience of this page temporarily spiked to near double-digit numbers. This was due to my subjective analysis of the cuclearly.com/Sierra Schools Credit Union ad campaign. Benjamin Rogers from The CEO Report called me regarding my February 1, 2006 post. A Google search for cuclearly brings back my page as one of the results, so he called to ask how I cracked the case of the kooky campaign. I talked with him for a few minutes and a few days later he e-mailed me a copy of the story he was working on.

The article alludes to the idea that people at the credit union discovered and visited my blog. I'm worried that there may be some type of vicious credit union mafia that is plotting my demise because of my unfavorable review of their campaign. I'm just kidding(?)! Although the case for the "bait-and-wait" campaign is clearly and solidly laid out in the article, I must disagree with the logic. The case of Mor Furniture is used, which I cannot argue with. They point to the fact that people still remember and talk about that campaign. They are forgetting that Mor drenched the population with the name of their company while withholding information about what kind of business they were. With the credit union, there is no information about who they are or what they are. This makes them forgettable, at best. Another problem is that they seem to be trying to sell an ad campaign, rather than an actual product. Do they want people to remember their business or their campaign?

What started as an observational rant has turned into a one-sided discussion. Consider this case closed and we shall not talk about it again unless I change my mind at some future point.

Behold, the belated follow-up to the last post!

President's Day weekend deserved more attention than I gave it in the last post, so here's the follow-up with more engrossing details!

The main thrill was that Lori's family came down from Utah for the weekend. We went out to dinner at Mi Casa Too with John, Wendy, Lori, Greg and Mike. The food was pretty good and was followed-up with delicious pies from Marie Callender's, courtesy of Mike. Since this month is cheap pie month (only $5.99 for a pie!), it was entirely necessary to take advantage of the offer!

The wonderful weekend came to a calamitous close on Monday moments after we returned home from buying some paint at The Home Depot. I was putting some sample spots of paint on parts of the wall when a mysterious person came to the door. The mystery visitor informed us that we had a burst pipe at the side of the house, which was spraying all over. After spending several uncomfortable moments in the midst of heavy and very cold spray I finally got the valve shut off. The valves were incorrectly marked and also incorrectly placed. Thus, I thought the sprinklers were off but in fact they were not. Anyway, what fun that was!

The final bit of excitement that I will mention here is that we finally got satellite TV. We definitely didn't need any more reason to watch TV, but we were getting tired of the poor reception of the rabbit ears (I was going cross-eyed!). Anyway, it's a pretty cool setup and we got a sweet deal through AT&T (formerly known as SBC formerly known as Nevada Bell).

Finally, here are some recent pictures of Chase:

So much has happened. Where do I start?

I went fishing. That's pretty much it.

Just kidding. Ha! I mean, I did go fishing, but there has been so much more!

I went to Pyramid with Don last weekend, but we got skunked. I felt ripped off. My next time I'll be luckier.

We had family over this last weekend to participate in the blessing of baby Chase. We had the largest gathering yet in our house - I think there were 25 people. We had some delicious Costco lasagna that was so lovingly prepared by Emilie. It was a good event and now Chase is very blessed.

Speaking of Chase, he's growing quickly, but still not sleeping through the night. He has been very kind to start skipping one of his mid-night feedings, but we would be happy if he skipped a few more.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow and see if I can provide more info. He's sleeping, which means it's time for me to sleep. Emilie is already asleep.

Before trotting off to NappyLand, I should share some incredible news. For those of you who use the IE Google Toolbar, you'll be thrilled to know that you can now add the official BradCarpenter.com toolbar button using the link on the right labeled "GOOGLE TOOLBAR". You'll need the newest version of the toolbar, version 4, which is currently still in beta.

Warning! This blog entry contains a spoiler! If you don't want to know that www.cuclearly.com is an advertisement for Sierra Schools Credit Union then stop reading now!!

I don't understand why some people never learn! People in Reno have recently started to see advertisements that say nothing more than "Soon, the choice will be clear." The billboards or television commercials point you to www.cuclearly.com. When you go there, there is a message that says "You'll start to see things more clearly on March 6, 2006" and there is a counter counting down to that day.

This same approach was used by AT&T during their "mlife" campaign a few years ago. If I remember correctly, they even advertised that during the Superbowl. Similarly, Mor used this technique to announce their arrival to the Reno market. They never advertised that they were a furniture store - they just had weird, ambiguous ads for "Mor".

Why do people think this is good advertising? It's annoying! Maybe they think it's good because people are talking about it. Well, I talk about that crazy cannibal guy in Germany, but that doesn't make him good.

Finally, the thing that makes this ad campaign the worst is that it is misleading. When you see the ad you think 1) it is an ad for laser eye surgery or something similar or 2) it might be something else but it's probably an eye surgery place. This idea is strengthened by the fact that the billboards and television commercials show a blurry object in the background that becomes more clear as the date grows closer.

Well, the fact of the matter is that it is an advertisement for Sierra Schools Credit Union. That's right - this whole thing is about a credit union. LAMELAMELAMELAMELAMELAME!!!!!!!!

But overall I don't really have an opinion on this subject.