Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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hand and foot


Good evening folks. Good cold, clear evening; dark and quiet but for our daughter crying and Sharaun shushing – I don’t mind the sound. Lots of random stuff today, nothing all that interesting among the mess of it.

Since the last of our family left sunny California, our friends stepped in and starting doing dinners for us on a weekly basis. Three nights out of the week, for three weeks, they’re bringing us dinner. In all honesty, we’re ready now to go it alone – but it’s so awesome that we’ve got friends who volunteered to take care of us. It is nice to not have to worry about dinner, and to have company to fawn over the baby. Isn’t charity awesome?

I am absolutely in love with this Tapes ‘n Tapes song, Insistor, it’s simply outstanding. In search to verify the lyrics I’d managed to decipher, I stumbled on this blog, and this post, which expand on the story told within the song. Funny that I’m writing about the Tapes ‘n Tapes in March, and he back last December – guess I know I’m B-list on this one, eh? But guys, this album is fast growing on me. Sounding like what I imagine the Wolf Parade might sound if they hadn’t had big guns production, at times reminding me of the Arcade Fire and even Pavement – it’s really an album worth checking out. I should’ve listened to the hype and bought it long ago, but it seems like the rave reviews their SXSW show is getting will continue to feed the buzz furnace, so maybe I’ll appear to be on the cusp afterall.

That kee-razy comment from yesterday is surely spam, or at least fits the bill. The misspelled nostradamus.com domain that makes up the commenter’s email suffix is a not-so-cleverly disguised redirect/spam site (with some really odd crap on it that I can only guess is script-generated). Unlike the sole other spam comment I’ve let live on its comedic merit, this one does not appear to be unique to me. Even though it sounds a little Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I think it’s just “my Rice Crispies are talking to me” enough for a chuckle – so it stays.

While not as funny as yesterday’s politics bit, I devoured this interesting article over at Slate (yes, it’s about the war in Iraq). I do detect a hint of “I can’t be wrong” in it, as it comes off a bit too self-assured and smug, but, for the most part, the points are interesting and relatively valid.

And, don’t know if you caught Radiohead’s tour announcement, but it had some interesting tidbits from the band I so adore:

We’re excited to be touring again, especially to play new songs to an audience. For the first time, we have no contract or release deadline to fulfil – it’s both liberating and terrifying. To keep things more fun and spontaneous, we will be playing new songs that are work in progress. We will also be releasing music to download when we are excited about it, rather than wait twelve months for a full blown album release. Music’s not just about all-time greats – it’s also a document of its time, and we want to be able to put out a song when it feels right.

Amen guys, maybe they’ll be able to start the revolution. A top act like Radiohead, unsigned to any major, releasing music as the make it, because they are excited about it. Sharing the creative process moreso than ever with their fanbase, and eventually still asking them to pony up dollars for their efforts. No execs running tracks through radio “fingerprinting” applications to judge their mass-appeal, no deadlines from promoters or holiday selling seasons – just a band writing, playing, and releasing music because they enjoy it. I can see the suits at the round table with their faces red in anger, reading the latest article in Wired praising Radiohead for their pioneering distribution model.

Goodnight.

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smarter, not harder


First off, I finally added some new pictures to Keaton’s gallery. Now onto the junk.

I walked out of work today to the kind crisp air that follows an afternoon of rain, that clean smell was on the wind – like everything had a good rinsing, and I could see my breath against the grey clouds. I plugged in the iPod and queued up the new Tapes ‘n Tapes album I’d “got” the day before. It’s no news to those who follow the indie buzz that the Tapes ‘n Tapes are the music blogs’ darlings this month, stealing at least some of the Arctic Monkeys arguably-underdeserved hype. Tonight’s our first night where we won’t make up tomorrow and have new or pre-existing guests in the house, our first night where, tomorrow, it’s us and the baby for the foreseeable future; bona-fide parents.

Work is hectic… frantic even. I’m speeding along trying to juggle things as best I can, trying to tie off all the loose ends. There are really three main states of “stuff to do” that I deal with at work, in order of painfulness:

  • Having a ton of stuff to do with no idea how I’m going to do it
  • Having a ton of stuff to do with clear ideas on how to get it done
  • Having everything done

When I got back from baby-vacation, I surveyed my task-landscape and took stock – my situation falling into the first class of “stuff to do” above. When I’m in this situation, things just flapping around with no closure in sight – that’s when I start freaking out. I feel out of control, aimless, at a loss and overwhelmed. I hate being in this situation. So, I start working. And that brings us to the present.

As of now, I’m somewhere in between the 1st two with my current “to do” list. The work I’m currently scrambling to do is merely plans for doing the actual work I have to do. As wrong, or backwards, as that may sound – I’ve learned it’s actually essential. For me, it’s easier to make a first-pass at the list, identifying paths to closure for everything and then acting on those paths in parallel, rather than taking them one item at a time serially. I think lots of people would begin attacking things one-by-one, closing each out in turn and moving to the next. I, however, like to take tasks like this and move them to my second stress-class: a pile of things to do with clear plans on how I’ll get each one done. Once I get there, I feel much better. Not only does it make me feel better, I actually believe it makes me work better. It’s like the Chinese acrobats who set plates spinning atop sticks: they run from stick to stick and get each plate spinning, then step back and watch for the first plates to being to slow and give them a second spin as they do. For me, it’s easier to manage several things at once, as long as the effort was put in up front to get them pointed in the right direction initially. I guess multitasking is just part of the modern workplace.

To close, some crumbs of stories:

I got my free iPod from freeipods.com the other day, or got Sharaun’s free iPod – since I’m now able to return the favor she did me a while back. In some respects, I can’t believe it actually came. And, they send a nifty t-shirt and mousepad to boot.

In other iPod news, although it’s been around for a while – I recently personally discovered the great iPod software SharePod. A 300k executable that you put on, and run from, your iPod. Once run, you have direct access to all music on the iPod, and can do everything you can with iTunes, and more: add songs to your library, delete songs from your library, play songs, and the most important – copy songs from your iPod to a PC (something iTunes doesn’t support). And, since ephpod hoses 5G ‘pods, this little piece of software is brilliant for getting your music back off your iPod. But, the real beauty of the app is the fact that it runs on the iPod, meaning you can plug your iPod into anyone’s computer and take/give music with ease – all without said person having to have any software installed on their end. Brilliant, just brilliant.

The Daily Show does Bush vs. Bush:

Also, I wanted to thank the fine folks over at Cheetah for sending me a free registration code for their great Cheetah DVD Burner software. Their policy is to send registration codes for links to their software, or kind reviews on download sites. So, in an attempt to round out my Cheetah line, I’m now linking to their CD burning app – which, in trial form, appears to be equally as awesome (and free!) as the DVD app. If you’re looking for slick, guilt-free alternatives to whatever app you’re currently pirating – check out the peeps at Cheetah for some awesome non-soul-damning software.

Goodnight folks, I loves ya.

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into your brain


It’s Monday as I write, and it’s the last day of my week-long “working from home” vacation extension. If I were grading the amount of “work” I’m getting done while “working from home,” I’d say I’m at about 75% of my in-office capacity. It’s not that I can’t do it without being distracted, it’s that I just don’t knuckle down enough while here. So, in part, I’ll be glad to actually get back into the office tomorrow where I can be 100% worker-Dave and work my way back into the flow of things. I’ll miss the baby, and the abject laziness without regret, and hanging out with Sharaun all day eating gingersnaps – but it will be good to actually feel like I’m truly “earning” my paycheck again. Oh, and before we get into whatever we’re about to get into – I added a bunch of new pictures to Keaton’s gallery. I dunno, maybe you’re not as amped as I am about my new daughter… I suppose that’s understandable. But even so, I’m gonna keep posting pictures and linkdropping right here, mostly because you’re not the boss of me.

Tonight Sharaun ran out to the grocery store and left me to man the baby-ship. Turns out, Keaton was still a half-hour away from her next “scheduled” feeding (I like how, when they’re infants, they’re not “eating,” they’re “feeding.” Like throwing slop in the trough for the pigs every day at 4pm – “feeding time.”). However, we’ve sort of noticed a pattern in her evening eating habits – the pattern being she picks up her schedule starting around sundown, wanting to eat every couple hours vs. every three. Needless to say, she was not happy being stuck with dad – the only member of the family with milk in her breasts not around. So, I bounced and sang, swung and patted, hugged and kissed – did pretty much everything and anything to try and calm her down. I had a modicum of success, for the most part keeping her occupied between raspy wails, but I was a poor substitute for boobs. Hopefully, as Sharaun learns to love the robot suckling-machine, I can play a poor mammary substitute with a bottle of fresh stuff in mom’s stead. ‘Cause man, ain’t nothing piercing like a baby’s hungry cry… I mean right into your brain.

Sometime over the weekend, my SATA RAID array went south. Truth be told, I knew it was going to happen – the thing’s been acting flaky now for the better part of a year. Randomly on reboot I’ll get a degraded or failed message from the controller, but usually a reboot will make the thing recognize properly. It’s been tenuous forever, and I keep saying I’ll replace it one day – but working in the “computer industry,” the last thing I want to do at home is fix computers. So, I’ve been ignoring it, rebooting until it works, chugging along and filling that crap array with more and more data I don’t want to lose. So, now, the standard frantic data copy to some intermediate drive, RAID replacement and re-copy. I’m going to a larger PATA drive array, I made a purchase of four 250GB drives long ago when there was some rebate offer – planning to change the dodgy array all along. As a bonus, aside from a non-crap array, I’ll be doubling my capacity to 500GB – which is good, as I was fast approaching my old 240GB cap. I hate working on computers, I really, really hate it.

Back to work. Cellphone alarm’ll ring ’round 6:40am and I’ll snooze it till 7am. 10min shower, dress, pour four cups of coffee into my metal carry-cup and hit the road. Tomorrow I’ll dig my fingernails in, grip tight for my 8hrs and try and kill so much work that I can sleepwalk through Friday afternoon. I imagine it being busy, when I get back; busy like it was when I left. I plan on coming home for lunch so I can hold my daughter – maybe she’ll be in one of those good moods where she just looks up at the lights and makes little snorting sounds. I think that would make my day.

Goodnight.

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realize the model


With this baby, I wonder: Older babies coo and giggle when you play with them; smiling and laughing in response to attention. I wonder if Keaton’s doing the same thing inside, but her little face and vocal cords haven’t learned the motions yet. I play with her like she can: zooming my face close to hers until our noses touch with a loud “boop” sound (don’t ask me what “boop” means, I think it’s kind of onomatopoetic for the kind of soft fleshy impact sound two noses may make, in the exaggerated children’s-cartoon world of sound). Even though her little face doesn’t give away anything, I like to think, on the inside, she’s feeling those same feelings that will later get translated into smiles and giggles – when the proper neural pathways connect the emotions and expressions. So, I forgive her for not visibly reacting – at least for now.

Uh-oh my leet pirate friends, looks like the digital-pirate spotlight is beginning to shift in dangerous directions. In an article in the Boston Globe, the writer examines an “obscure data network technology” called Usenet. Hint: this is what you’ll see me refer to on sounds familiar as “absmi,” “the groups,” “binaries,” or “the newsies.” It’s an interesting article, with some relatively insightful commentary on the day-to-day of the newsies:

The Usenet has long been one of the primary sources for the illegal files found through peer-to-peer services… [it] also has long been a center for illegal file swapping. …huge numbers of illegal video and music files are traded every day on the Usenet. [It] offers the downloader an extra measure of privacy, because the Internet address of his machine is known only to the Usenet server and can’t be intercepted by investigators.

Hollywood’s attack on the Usenet companies [is like]… ”a strategic strike to cut off the supply, like a drug cartel. This is top of the food chain stuff.”

They even have some ideas about news users, and what’s said to be a rise in Usenet usage:

”A common misconception among people who use networks like these is that they’re in a group that is above the law,” said movie industry association spokeswoman Kori Bernards. Indeed, she said the popularity of the Usenet as a place to swap illegal files has grown recently, perhaps because the music and movie industries have successfully shut down several distributors of peer-to-peer software, the most popular means of file swapping.

It’s obvious the article isn’t written by a binaries guru, as there are some misconceptions – but it is somewhat worrisome that terms like NZB, Usenet, and piracy are all being used in mainstream media articles.

Until now, it’s been relatively difficult for ordinary Internet users to get at illegal Usenet files. They aren’t indexed by Google, and downloading them is often a slow, painstaking process.

Usenet trading of illegal files hasn’t become a a large-scale problem yet. One reason is that NZB downloading isn’t free. The NZB search sites charge membership fees… By contrast, peer-to-peer systems are free.

Read the entire article if you’re inclined (if boston.com won’t let you access the article, try using one of these bugmenot logins).

Slow? Painstaking? Not free? Fingers crossed everyone; let’s hope they don’t find out. You take my newsies and I may be forced to go straight… the horror, the horror. When the story hit the front page of digg.com this past weekend, the digg user comments echoed my thoughts above. Some of my favorites:

First rule of Usenet is you do not talk about Usenet.

Ok, WHO TALKED?

waves fingers
You didn’t see any USENET.
disappears into the shadows

this is not the warez network you are looking for, move along

Never heard of it. Move along, nothing to see here.

But, of all the comments, one stood out as particularly insightful to me:

this is crap. why can’t the industry understand. I have “a friend” who uses newsgroups. “He” pays a subscription fee to a nzb provider, and pays a monthly fee for access to “the usenet”. now what does this mean? it means that even people who are called pirates are WILLING to pay for a service that provides reasonable pricing and CHOICE. driven by demand and request, and not dominated by a drm technology that impedes the ability to listen or watch content on the medium of their choice. these stupid organizations need to take a lesson away from their so called “discovery” of usenet. idiots, realize the model and present a compelling alternative, and you get subscribers.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, seeing as I also have a “friend” who follows the same model. What a great comment. If someone is willing to pay ~$15/month for unlimited access to illegal binaries, wouldn’t stand to reason that they may be willing to pay the same for unlimited access to legal files? Sure, there’d need to be a huge selection, and they’d need to be DRM free – but the model is already working, just illegally. Flip that, folks, take that and do it within the boundaries of the law – and you’re a rich man. Too bad there are so many middle men and so much payola in the music business that it’s unlikely a Utopian agreement like that will ever be able to happen.

Everybody catch England’s newest hitmakers on Saturday Night Live this weekend? Coolfer has some interesting commentary about the Arctic Monkeys craze (which I’ve written about previously here and here), and how their US success is much slower-coming, if coming at all, than it is across the pond. This band is more hyped than anything I can recently remember. Every time I hear something new about them, I pull out the album again… in an attempt to hear the greatness so many extol. I plan to check it out again tomorrow, just to be sure. In related news, The Four Stages of the Arctic Monkeys:

Goodnight.

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like a ton of bricks


First day back at work, even if it is from the comfort of my couch in slippers, and I’m already ready for another baby-vacation. It’s always been hard for me to truly work when I’m “working from home,” so I’ve been closeting myself away in the computer room – attempting to be isolated as much as possible from the hustle and bustle of the new-baby rest-of-the-house area. It’s working OK so far, I was able to catch up on mail and at least bring myself up to speed on what’s going on – now if I could just read enough e-mail to make me care. Nah, that’s unfair; I care… just not as much as I do about the new little life that’s sleeping behind the office double-doors, just in the other room. Somehow work just pales in comparison.

While I was sleeping on a hide-a-bed in the corner of the hospital room where our daughter was born, I’d put the iPod on “shuffle songs” and drift off to sleep to some rand() generated mix of tunes. Today I took advantage of the rarity of recent days that was sunshine and mowed the front and back lawns during a working-from-home lunch break. Again, I put the iPod on “shuffle songs” and let the little computer decide what I’d hear. It was during that random listening session that I got the idea for a blog feature centered around the iPod’s “shuffle songs” function: the iPod random memory generator. For me, songs are tied to memories almost as closely as smells are (I’ve written about it before, so won’t put myself through documenting it again). So, this evening while Sharaun and her mom were out shopping, I put the iPod on shuffle and began remembering. The rules: I document what the song makes me think of, what I remember thinking about the song, and I skip songs that have no appreciable memories. Here goes:

The Byrds – Eight Miles High
Middle-school summer, maybe 7th or 8th grade. I think I 1st heard this song as part of some “deep discount” bin 60’s psychedelic comp cassettes. The seemingly random guitar jumble that makes up the bridge immediately turned me on, as did the foreboding harmonies throughout the track. Another one of those songs that made me want to try marijuana.

The Beatles – When I’m 64
Middle school again, 8th grade this time. Sitting in the backseat of my best friend Kyle’s mom’s miniature Dodge Colt, Kyle’s had her put his Sgt. Pepper cassette in the deck. At the time, I’m deeply in 7th-grade-love with Kyle’s little sister – something about which I think he has no idea. In reality, sometime later Kyle tells me all his friends eventually come to be infatuated with his sister. I felt bad, but that can-count-the-weeks-on-my-hand closet “relationship” did wonders for me on the road to the perfected womanizing I’d so enjoy come my nubile college years.

Ministry – Flashback
9th grade. I’ve taken to wearing black steel-toed boots, long back socks which, when coupled with my too-long black shorts, leave only an inch of exposed calf, a Skinny Puppy t-shirt, and shades. My lord, I must’ve made the worst looking wannabe goth of all time. I remember diving into the industrial/noise scene head-first. Fueled, of course, by a fascination with the music – and then later bleeding into a misguided attempt at adopting the culture. I tried my best though: bought incense, outlined my windows in velcro and affixed a hook-side copy of the velcro square to pieces of 5mil black visqueen which I could use to completely blot out all external light from my bedroom, dressed the part, etc. I did everything short of dying my hair, painting my walls black, and posing for pictures in graveyards. What a joke; but what a memory.

Dungen – Sluta Följa Efter
Fall 2004. Riding around with the windows down, this absolutely euphoric album blaring. Sharaun is complaining, they’re not singing in English, she can’t understand them, they sound all “fjordy” and stupid, like the hurdy-gurdy Swedish Chef muppet or something. But God as my witness, this album is infectious – saccharine and dreamy, with layered cymbal, bursting beats and spinny guitars. Eventually, I oblige and change to something more “intelligible” for Sharaun’s sake – but I think this LP will always remind me of my last pre-baby summer.

The Decemberists – Los Angeles
Driving the 405, headed to a yacht on which my best-friend from 5th grade is about to be married. Before this, I’ve only seen him once since I left California so many years ago. A surreal experience, seeing him again and being able to be there at his wedding – so many years in the future.

Donovan – Riki Tiki Tavi
College. I have a one-bedroom place in town, Sharaun stays with me most nights even though we’d be condemned to Hell should her family find out. We don’t hump, I swear. My computer is stashed away in a desk that’s been shoved into my walk-in closet – and it’s here that I struggle through my first few engineering courses. Every night I fall asleep to music, and Sharaun with me by default. I’d picked up a bunch of Donovan LPs remastered as CDs at the local college used-CD store, and kicked them fairly often. Visions of pizza boxes on the counter and second-hand futon furniture… college.

Sleater Kinney – Little Babies
Junior year of college. I take a 36hr bus trip halfway across the country to visit Kyle in his Air Force barracks. An amazing journey in itself – but while there he introduces me to some new music (as he’s done for years). Sleater Kinney is one of the acts he turns me on to. Without re-writing what’s already been written, here’s what I remember when I hear this song. Oh, and I think there’s a paragraph in here too.

That’s enough of that for now. It’s fun though, I think I’ll try it again sometime.

Today the baby stepped up her game and launched a three-front attack on her poor old dad. Sharaun pawned her off on me for a wet diaper change, so I stripped her down and laid her on the changing table for a wipedown. She immediately peed on herself, and the table. Pee on her back, legs, everywhere. I cleaned up the pee, wiped down her entire body, and laid her back down on a cloth diaper. I turned to reach for a fresh diaper, turned back, and she’d peed on herself again. Wiped her down, put her on a new cloth diaper, and began strapping on her new clean one. Then the coup de grace, she spit up all over her face, neck, and hair. A three-fluid attack pretty much warrants a bath… those scented wipes can only go so far.

Oh, and I’m happy to report that the dead-animal smell which was coming from my beautiful new daughter’s nasty bellybutton is waning – as the shriveled thing finally made up its mind and dropped off. But man, we had neighborhood dogs ringing the doorbell and asking, in an extremely complicated sequence of barks and whines, which I eventually deciphered, if they could roll around on her. I don’t know if I have an extra-sensitive nose or what, but, to me, it really was that bad. Apparently, rotting stuff stinks. Sure, they look cute in photos when there’s not liquid poop running down their legs and curdled boob-milk leaking from their mouths. I was misled, people, babies are nothing like their presskits.

Until tomorrow, hope all is well out there in the blogosphere. Oh, and a warning, tomorrow’s will be a completely canned entry about religion – written long-ago and saved for a “vacation” day. Despite this admission, I urge you to keep reading, and keep commenting – it’s what keeps me going.

Goodnight.

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the times they are a-changin’


Sometime toady I realized I uploaded the last batch of photos to Keaton’s gallery at 640×480 resolution instead of the 800×600 I usually use. With a little ingenuity, I discovered how to go into the Coppermine database and reset the size without having to redo the entire album. So, for the vision-impaired, the images should now be sized big enough for your challenged oculars.

Today we had the pleasure of an unscheduled doctor appointment for the little one. Being the 1st-timers we are at this whole parenthood deal – we were most alarmed by an extremely foul stink coming from our perfect little daughter’s shriveled beef-jerky-lookin’ umbilical “stump.” All the books say “stink = infection,” so we called it in and headed to the baby-shop. Turns out, she did have the beginnings of an infection and the doc recommended we clean the area with alcohol – something the hospital recommended against. One thing about baby-care advice: it’s a very waffley science. Not to mention, many of the things they told grandma to do with her baby a mere 30yrs ago are now strictly verboten or, much to grandma’s chagrin, recommended against. Nothing’s worse than a well-meaning grandma trying to dispense advice from the trenches she remembers being met with a, “Mom, they actually don’t do that anymore.” I think they probably hear, “Mom, you did things the wrong way back in the stoneage – we don’t use bloodletting anymore, it’s barbaric; you are stupid for ever buying into it and I’m likely damaged as a result of your outdated mothering.” Not that we’ve had that happen with either of our two grandmas, who are both low-touch as grandmas go and fairly unassuming. We got lucky.

It kind of scares me how tuned-in to my life the junkmail syndicate is. They knew when we graduated college, and assaulted us with loan consolidation offers daily. They knew when we bought our house, upping the number of “refi now!” offers we got to mailbox-busting levels. And now, somehow they know we had a baby. We get complimentary magazines, packages of laundry detergent, diapers, formula, and all manner of baby-sundry. I’ve often wondered what my junkmail “profile” looks like. I wish it had a radio button for “shreds every single piece of the shit we send him,” so they’d realize and stem the flow – but, alas, I doubt there’s such a field in the record. I likely show up as a twenty-something married male who makes good money, has a kid, a house, and some college loans. Oh, and if my snail-mail and e-mail junk profiles are one in the same, they’d also mention that I have a ridiculously small penis, desperately want to learn more about human growth hormone and phentermine, and have a 24×7 addiction to online gambling. Based on a profile like that – I better get into some therapy, stat.

Goodnight.

Posted on

why i work


3:30 on a Monday afternoon and it’s clouding over outside, making the light in the living room all grey and somehow damp feeling. I’ve got a sleeping baby nestled in the crook of my left arm, a crocheted pink blanket draped over her naked-save-diaper body to keep her warm; I couldn’t be happier. Sharaun’s out shopping, something that I think is actually pretty therapeutic for her – so I’m glad she’s feeling up to it. The iPod’s jacked into the stereo on “shuffle,” and is currently offering up some Doors – fitting the weather well. Today I wrote about the baby more. Oh, and here’s the toplink to her gallery – updated with a few more things yesterday afternoon.

A week folks, one measly week – that’s all the vacation I asked of work when Keaton arrived. One week vacation and the next week “working from home,” which means I sit on e-mail and attend meetings on my cellphone. But, one week without worry, not spent thinking about what’s due next or who I have to call tomorrow. I seriously just want to lie down on the couch and drift off to a lazy sleep, soundtrack provided by my newborn daughter on my chest and the little smacking sounds she makes with her mouth. Just one week of that, guilt-free. I’ve got friends who just had babies, and they took off three weeks – I only asked for one, yet I can’t seem to “escape” work. It’s more me than it is work, I suppose – not being able to detach myself completely from that sense of responsibility – but it’s not made any easier by people who seem not to care that I want, nay, need, some downtime. So today, a little late I know, I decided to give the whole deal the figurative middle-finger. I’ve got all the time in the world for friends and family and my wife and little girl – but just for the rest of this week, work doesn’t get a spot on the rotation. You hear that work, eff you.

I’m still in that giddy new-father phase where I actually smile hearing my baby cry. Where I just like looking at her little mouth wide open as she tries to communicate with us, the skin around her little eyes pursing up tight as her face reddens. But man, we’re thankful daily that she’s as “easy” as she is – I can’t imagine having one with a less sunny disposition. We’re lucky. We haven’t had a terrible night to speak of yet; last night being the “worst” of it with back-to-back set and stanky diapers and feedings keeping all three of us up until 2:30am. But, after that she sleeps right through to her next boobytime and lets us do the same. She did pitch a fit through the emotional clincher of Brokeback Mountain Monday night, right as they were trying to suck me in – effectively preventing me from getting tied up in the gay-cowboy love story. She was entirely silent, however, during the buttlove-on-the-range scene – go figure. Anyway, she’s a great baby – and we’ve decided to keep her, or, at least evaluate her a little longer.

Goodnight folks, we love ya.