Category: Nichelle

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National Chicken Cooking Consolation

We had an absolutely wonderful time, meeting new people and enjoying Southern hospitality (which is not overrated). The best thing was, for the duration of the trip, my gorgeous wife, Nichelle, was treated by everyone exactly the way I have always seen her—as a star.

Nichelle and I are working on a post about the trip, and we have numerous pictures to upload. Y’all will just need to be patient.


Although Nichelle didn’t win at the 47th National Chicken Cooking Contest, all the contestants were rewarded with many gifts.

Here’s what we took home:

  • 47th NCCC apron
  • 47th NCCC large collapsible cooler (which doubled as luggage for our trip back)
  • 47th NCCC silver bowl, engraved with Nichelle’s name and state
  • Four 47th NCCC cookbooks (we ordered more)
  • Cutco cutting board
  • Cutco Kitchen Classics knife set
  • Cutco Super Shears
  • Tables of Content, a beautiful cookbook produced by the Birmingham Junior League
  • Red Diamond tea bags
  • Red Diamond coffee
  • $50 check for spending money
  • Several coffee mugs (Hey, kids, look what we brought you!—NaNi can’t wait to bring hers to my office for coffee.)
  • Numerous packages of flavored pecans (those didn’t last very long)
  • Moore’s Marinade sauces—original and buffalo wing
  • Canned pear halves, from the Pacific Northwest
  • 47th NCCC recipe poster
  • Red sash with our lovely state’s name (Come on, you know this is cool.)

I just noticed that Nichelle’s recipe has been published at the Chicken Cooking Contest site.

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Next Stop: National Chicken Cook-Off

In a few minutes we’re off to Birmingham, Alabama, where Nichelle has been chosen from New Hampshire to compete in the National Chicken Cook-Off.

We’ve experienced the mixture of pre-trip and -contest stress, but Nichelle is doing well. Pray for continued serenity. (Speaking of Serenity, can anyone help but lament the only 14 episodes of Firefly?) And we have 100,000 reasons to hope she wins the grand prize.

Onward …

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Nichelle Then and Now: Unbelievable!

Most of you are aware that Nichelle has been healthy since early last summer, after two years of severe pain and a long list of inexplicable symptoms (and a decade of similar, albeit less severe, problems).

In addition to being the mom she’s always wanted to be, being selected from New Hampshire to compete in the National Chicken Cook-Off (which will happen in only 1.5 weeks!), and being a constant testimony to the grace of God in her life, Nichelle has been eating healthily, doing Tae-Bo (nearly every day), and weight training (4 days/week). Take a look at the results:

For more images of this amazing transformation, check out this Picasa Web Album!

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Photos via Picasa Web Albums

I started experimenting with Picasa’s (Google’s) free Web Albums last night. One gigabyte of storage, seamlessly integrated with Picasa, which is the free photo management software God would use if He didn’t run Linux.

Check out our new Picasa Web Albums, which I’ll be updating over the next week, and which are also linked to our sidebar. You can even subscribe to them via RSS!

And, here’s the photo I promised of my Mom and her fiancé, George Fortini:

And here’s another image of NaNi, the world’s cutest 3-year-old. She’s got the Wii controller in her hand, and is beating nearly everyone at bowling. This was taken at Nichelle’s birthday party in March:

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Life: A Quick Update

  • Nichelle’s health has been amazing. Actually, Nichelle looks amazing. She is doing Tae-Bo and weight training almost every day. She is absolutely transformed, to the point where that picture of Storm I posted for her birthday is truly not very different than reality. This is a far cry from the woman who two years ago sometimes had trouble holding a fork and knife at dinner. This is by far our biggest blessing.
  • Since Nichelle can now kill me with her pinkie, I started on the weights with her and our friend Phil about a month ago, and get in several days a week of Tae-Bo or cardio stuff as well. It’s already made a big difference, although Nichelle puts me to shame. Phil is cracking the whip on the weights and controlling our diet as well. Last night we got to eat a single piece of cheese for the first time in about 3 weeks. My doctor should be very pleased with these lifestyle changes. I will say having Nichelle working on the same things has made it immensely easier. What would I do without her?
  • As far as we can tell, David made highest honors again. Although Isaac needs to apply a slight amount of effort in math and history for the first time in his life, he did very well also. I love Isaac’s wit, and David amazes me with his insight, especially because he’s only 8.
  • Isaac bought a ball python about two months ago, which he named Knotty. Ball pythons are really cool, although we’ve learned that they really do have poor eyesight, and have become familiar with their striking distance …
  • Command and Conquer 3 and Jaws Unleashed have overtaken us for gaming, even to the point of neglecting World of WarCraft and our beloved Wii. C&C 3 is every bit the game C&C/Red Alert lovers have longed for, providing that magical balance of interesting units and fast-paced strategy for which Westwoood Studios was famous. In Jaws Unleashed, one controls Jaws himself, attacking swimmers, dolphins, boats, and other sharks and sea life. Isaac and David love it to the point of addiction, although it hasn’t received very good ratings from adult gamers.
  • We officially resigned from our old church a week ago—a decision which was clearly God-directed—although we have not yet joined a new one. We believe we will end up at Heritage Baptist in Hooksett, which we attend most, although we are checking out the Wednesday night program tonight at MVBC—Heritage doesn’t have anything yet for the kids on Wednesdays.
  • Nichelle will compete in the National Chicken Cook Off on May 3–4, in Birmingham, Alabana. I get to go with her. She is up against some tough competition, but the first prize is $100,000. That wouldn’t be too shabby.
  • John seems to be doing well for the first time since he left last June. We’ll see how things work out—he hasn’t had a very good track record—but he’s working again for the first time in months, and seems to be much more rational than previously.
  • We’re also planning a trip to Florida to attend my Mom’s wedding in June. Did I mention my Mom is 80 years old? I have a great picture with her and her fiancé George, which I’ll post shortly. The whole family is very excited.
  • NaNi is still the world’s cutest and smartest three-year-old. I had always wanted to have a daughter, but she is more awesome than I would have imagined. She has a delightful sense of humor, too. Last Saturday she woke me up by hitting me repeatedly with a chain saw, chanting, “Dad! Banana bread!” She’s also informed me, “You don’t get any hugs: Hugs are for Mommy. You get knuckle sandwiches,” and I assure you she means it. She can also locate Alabama on a map. Every time she says grace, she includes, “Thank you that Mommy is feeling better.”
  • Work has been excellent. We are winding down, mostly fixing small bugs, in preparation for the release of version 6.0 of our product. I’ve been working on the user interface revamp, which has been a year in the making, and is absolutely amazing. For the first time in years, our software will look as good as it runs. Navigation and other user operations have been dramatically improved, and everything is consistent end-to-end.
  • We finally got caught up with “Lost.” Now it’s agony to wait a week between episodes! We also are backwatching “Gray’s Anatomy” and “Smallville.”
  • Last Friday, NaNi, Isaac, David, and the Dunn children were sitting in the bleachers at a basketball game, and were all singing “Chiron Beta Prime.” I was so proud of those little geeklings.
  • Keith Lancaster’s acapella CD “Glorious God” is amazing. Thanks to Bernard Farrell for recommending this CD, as well as its predecessor, “Awesome God: An a Cappella Worship Series.” Nothing warms my heart like hearing NaNi and the boys singing “Our God is an Awesome God” around the house, and we love to listen to these while traveling.
  • After reading Michael Crichton’s Next, I’ve added about 9 books on genetics to my list of books to read near immediately. (I may never finish Mao’s China and After or The 9/11 Commission Report, but I’ll keep plugging at them.) My goal is to be able to talk the language of genetics fluently with a PhD friend of ours. I’ve already got my DNA screen saver!
  • We’re getting new carpet in the basement, courtesy of a water heater failure about two months ago. ServiceMaster came out at the request of the insurance company, and saved us from serious long-term problems from water damage. Too bad our insurance doesn’t cover the water heater itself (due to its age), but as disasters go, this one wasn’t too bad.
  • Sorry for not posting more of late. I was very busy getting my accounting caught up so we could file our taxes, and I’m working on a very long post that analyzes (refutes) a popular KJV-only tract.
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Nichelle: 36

Just a quick note to let everyone know that my fabulously beautiful wife, who, after months of working out and weight lifting, can now kill me with her pinkie, is celebrating her 36th birthday today.

I’ve included a photo, for those of you who haven’t seen her in a while.

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Another Novel Nightmare Treatment

Parents of small children are no strangers to the effects of nightmares. We in the Wilcox family are no strangers to unorthodox approaches to treating them. (For example, see this post, which describes how letting David watch Jurassic Park at age 3 cured his dinosaur-laden nightmares.)

NaNi had bad dreams or night terrors of some sort last night. She started crying around 1:00, and wouldn’t wake up enough to stop, in addition to putting a stranglehold on Nichelle.

We’ve been through this before. It never ends well, because Naomi ends up restless or crying in our bed for a number of hours, and none of us gets the sleep we need.

Remarkably, probably because I’d left work a little earlier and taken a long nap before dinner last night, I was more clearheaded than usual, and came up with a plan that would give us all enough sleep, if a bit strangely distributed.

I said to NaNi, “Want to play some World of WarCraft?” She agreed, so we marched off to the family room, and within a few minutes of her sitting on my lap while I played, she had woken up enough to shake off the fear, and demand that she play using her character, so I ran the mouse while she ran the keyboard, which worked very well.

I’m not used to playing a lower-level character (my Gnome is now at level 38), so at first I kept getting us into situations that led to a rapid death. At one point we were outnumbered, and nearly dead, so we ran from the bandits we were fighting—not something that always works. When the last one stopped following us, I had her turn around and I ran the “/taunt” emote, which does a chicken imitation with arms flapping and clucking sounds.

Nichelle, rather than having to try to tend to NaNi, got her own much-needed sleep.

After about 40 minutes, I let NaNi continue playing—she definitely wasn’t ready to go back to bed—and I retired on the couch. I woke up at 4:45 a.m., to find she’d stopped playing, apparently also after spending some time coloring, and crawled onto the couch with me to go to sleep. So I got up and went back to bed, leaving NaNi sleeping peacefully.

Nichelle got enough sleep to pull off our morning preparations on time; she let me sleep a little bit extra to catch up enough for me to take the kids to school and drive to work, and rather than listen to NaNi cry while trying to comfort her, we had some great father-daughter time killing Defias bandits around Goldshire.

I suppose one would have to describe that as a win-win-win.

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And the Queen of Sarcasm Is …

Nichelle, of course!

Sunday morning I was teasing Nichelle, because she didn’t cook me an omelette like she does during the week. I said, “If you loved me, you would have gotten up early to make me an omelette.”

Her response: “I love you Monday through Friday; I have the weekends off.”

my pimped pic!

And, for those of you who are tempted to point out that I could demonstrate my love for Nichelle by getting up early enough to make her an omelette, I wish to point out that serving Nichelle any omelette prepared by me would not be considered an act of love.

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So what do you get when you mix chicken with a lot of great ingredients?…

….a really cool opportunity to cook on TV!!! That’s what I said. I entered a cooking contest and you can read about that here: http://www.chickencookingcontest.com/contest_history.cfm. I saw the contest from 2005 and boy was I impressed. Did some searching for it and got the information and started creating recipes. I created seven in all and submitted two. Doug will be sure to mention that he had to beg and plead to get me to submit the recipe that won. The first recipe is called, “Tropically Kissed Chicken” and the one that I submitted about a week or two later is a burger recipe. Not disclosing the information on that one. :). You’ll have to wait.

This morning at around 9:30, I got a phone call and was told that the recipe I created was selected for New Hampshire. Can you imagine how thrilled I am!!! I’m still in a bit of shock over it. I will receive more information in February about this and will keep you updated. The contest will take place in May 2007 and I will be flown to Birmingham, AL (all expenses paid) for a few days. Just the excitement alone to be chosen and now to go and actually make the dish live…it’s exhilarating. So pray for me and all that will have to sample this dish repeatedly between now and the competition to get the cooking time down and so forth. Many thanks, too to all who have continued to pray for my health. I’ve been doing awesome since July and that in itself is beyond worthy of Praise to God!!

Ah, for those of you who already know the recipe that was selected, please no mentioning things here in the blog about it. If you have any questions, please send me an email. Many thanks. 🙂 And to read more about what takes place in judging, etc read here.

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Merry Christmas!

Lots of Christmas news today, but I’ll save it for later. Here are a couple of photos, one an outtake from our family photo shoot, another showing how Geek boy Isaac dresses for school this season.