Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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naught but a fortnight

FetusWatch 2006
Two weeks.

Is that still fourteen days? Hmm… it is huh? Interesting. Work is becoming increasingly busy, I think because I’ve started to obsess about “setting the machine in motion” before I leave. I’m desperately trying to get things on some semblance of “autopilot,” so I won’t be preoccupied with thoughts of deadlines and milestones while I should be focused on the baby. Deep down, I know work will fly out the window as soon as she’s here – but I’d still like to have all my ducks in a row before I drop off the face of the work-Earth. Let’s do the one-liner thing, the Mostly-Grammy Edition:

Man… Valentines Day… I hate Valentines Day. I resent it for being a contrived holiday which demands you show sentiment sentiment. I’ll show sentiment of my own accord, thanks.

I logged onto CNN at work today and was greeted with the headline: “Bush urges end to cartoon violence.” I immediately thought of Dubya drafting a law against dropping anvils – y’know, to protect that nice kitty Tom from that mean old mouse Jerry.

Coldplay’s dodgy performance last night at the Grammys was totally not representative of their amazing live show – don’t let it dissuade you from paying the price of admission, even if you’re not their #1 fan.

In fact, did anyone else notice how shitty the mix was for all the live performances at the Grammys? The guitars were buried, and the vocals and hihats were shrill and too up-front. The bass was pale and off in the distance, and they mixed in way too much crowd noise.

Didn’t Macca rock it with Helter Skelter? And how about Kanye… I know I’d sure hate to be on the debate team tasked with arguing against “Goldigger’s” status as 2006’s “song most likely to have massive amounts of ass shaken to.” Even I – pasty and arrhythmic – feel the need to move to that bassline, and that’s never a good thing.

50% effaced and 1cm dilated.

Guess I coulda made a paragraph after all. At least I squeezed one out. G’nite.

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parting shots (or, chicken soup for the blog)

Back to school.
Today I’m gonna gay it up, so break out your Cher CDs, aromatherapy candles, and Sex in the City DVD collection. No offense to the gay readers, of course, I use the term in it’s colloquial form where it means… “gay.” So without further exposition, let me introduce things (I know, I know).

Sharaun’s last day at work was last Friday (Last Friday was Sharaun’s last day at work?). Modifiers and their potential misplacement aside, she’s done with the whole job bag. Upon leaving, her class prepared a photo/memory album for her, each student writing some parting thoughts on a little 3×5 index card. I sat down early Saturday morning and flipped through this book, and decided that the messages were just too good not to share. Now, if you’re naturally weepy and prone to tears, you may want to get some tissue now – because, although sometimes hilariously poorly written, the sentiment here can get pretty thick and sappy. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent; and spelling and punctuation, or lack thereof, have been kept largely intact. Before you laugh a the English – remember it’s not the native language of a handful of these kids (though I’m not going to tell you which ones). Here we go:

When I was little I was most fond of my mother’s posts (pots) and pans and my father’s Pepsi (which turned out to be my first word). I hope your baby is as fond as those items as I was.

I hope your baby girl is kind, smart, and healthy. I wish Keaton will have a good life.

I wish the Keaton can be beautiful and smart as her own mom. I wish she could be strong into music just as her dad. Let this baby dream and be adventurous. Let her be who she wants to be, but be there for her in the good and the bad. Guide this baby to soar to the sky and achieve her dreams.

I know that you are going to be a great mom. You’ve already had a lot of experience with us. From my experience in being a kid the best thing you can do is push your daughter. Don’t overwhelm her of course, but don’t let her slack off. You’ll know what to do.

3 top things you should know about loving Keaton

  1. Let Keaton know you love her
  2. Cheer her on when she does something good
  3. Give lots of hugs and kisses when she is blue!

I wish your baby will become very smart. I also wish your (baby) will become very kind and happy.

I hope Keaton is smart and kind. I wish your baby has a great life. You will also feel you have a new life.

One of my best childhood memories is when I broke my elbow because my mom was always sitting beside me and taking care of me.

I hope you have a great time and a nice day. Your baby is going to be a nice kid when she grows up and she is going to be smart, kind, and lovely. I will never forgive that you are my teacher. Your a nice teacher. Keaton is going to be a good little baby.

I hope your baby is smart. I hope she is happy. I hope Keaton is cute and smart. I also hope she’s a healthy baby.

What do you have to say for yourself having a baby? You have wonderful students, you’ve got it all. As a mom you will need all the help you can get from your husband, your ma, pa, and other family members. Also you will need us. But with your kindness your baby will be more than comforted (trust me, I know all about babies, I babysit them, including my sister).

I hope your baby will grow up to be similar to you. I wish your baby will become smart, kind, and gentle. Hopefully the apple won’t fall far from the tree.

Please don’t spoil Keaton. She will become a humble child and will be kind and loving. That is my dream. I want a world of kindness.

I wish Keaton becomes smart, like you. I want her to become smart so she can become whatever she wants to. I hope she is kind and sweet. We will miss you, I hope we will meet again. Till then, goodbye.

I wish a lot of hopes and dreams for the baby girl. I hope that she is smart, beautiful, not snobby and all of her dreams come true. My other wishes are that she is healthy, kind, and happy. I hope that your family will have a new and beautiful with the baby Keaton.

One day your baby will be a well educated person just like you. She’s very lucky to have you as a mother. Keaton has many things ahead of her, she has a fantastic mom, a great dad… there will be no doubt that she won’t succeed. Just don’t spoil her too much! I just know you will support and care for her a bunch.

Hey what’s up? I just wanted to wish you and your child the best luck and luv through the rest of her life and yours. I hope she grows up to be a nice and great person to know like you are today. I know I haven’t known you long but even though you were the best teacher I ever had. I have love and props for Keaton. PS – We will never forget u!

I think you will be a wonderful mom. Keaton will be very happy. I have some advice for you. Don’t spoil your child and don’t go to her every need.

I wish that your baby has all of my wishes, as long as you want them too. I wish that your baby is as smart as you. Also as kind, as healthy, as gentle as you. The last thing that I want to wish your baby is that she is a caring and beautiful person just like her mother, and just like her father (even though I haven’t met her father).

I hope your baby will be as wonderful as you are. I know you will be a great mom because you know how to treat kids. I will miss you so much but at least a good thing is making you go. I hope Keaton will have a great time with you like I did.

I hope you have a healthy; happy; and a kind little baby named Keaton!!

Once when my mom was teaching me to ride my bike. I always fell. One day when my friends were outside we rode are bikes. I thought that I still had my training wheels. I was so happy.

I know that you are quitting to teach, I decided to take out my time to write this letter of compassion to say good-bye to my number one 6th grade teacher. From all the respect that you gave to me I would put you on the wall of fame for every great teacher, but I decided that you would on the top of the ladder with principals from your academic of achievements that you gave to me and the class. This is all I wanted to say thank-you for giving us full of love I suggest that love will be given to Keaton.

I

wish that the baby comes out and healthy nice, and kind like you are. But don’t spoil her because my mom spoiled her son and he wants everyone to do something for her.

I hope your baby will grow up to be smart, kind, healthy, and fair. The only thing you don’t want to do is spoil the baby. What should do is just spoil it a little but not too much.

When I was young I dove and caught a ball. My mom felt guilty because that was the only game she missed. So don’t miss your child’s games!!

I hope your baby lives a long and happy life and that you enjoy your time together. I hope Keaton grows to be healthy and strong. Hopefully Keaton will be just as smart as you. You should be very happy with Keaton, congrats!

I hope that you will have a wonderful life with your new loving daughter. I hope that your daughter will be smart, kind, and happy just like us. You are one of the best teachers I ever had! Don’t worry we will never forget you. Hope you come and visit us with baby Keaton!

I hope you have a smart, healthy, beautiful, kind baby girl. You would be a great mom because you know how to control your emotions towards kids. Also, don’t spoil Keaton, just love* her all you want, and try not to get stressed with her. *=Love is contagious.

Back in my old town, my parents were usually gone in early morning till late evening. Though one day my mom decided to buy some time to bake, and my own self knew what she was making. Cream-puffs were a favorite between our family. This is considered a cherished memory because that day I spent time having fun baking and eating most of the batter. Though, think about it, working most of the day. You should always buy some time with your child.

I know you will be an awesome mom, and I hope your baby turns out just like you. Try not to spoil her too much, just make sure she gets a puppy or two. Enrolling her in preschool and teaching her math at and early age will make her smart and make her want to go to school. I know I loved soccer and swimming when I was little, and I’m sure she will too. You’re going to be a great mom! I can’t wait to see your beautiful baby! PS – Don’t forget to give her that puppy! Mini-schnauzers are great!

It’s OK for a mom to spoil, if she knows her limits. When my family moved, my mom taught me how to swim. I hope Keaton has a great life with you.

I hope that you will have fun with your new daughter. I remember when I was little. My dad too off my training wheels and I tried to do it once, but I fell. I thought, “Oh well,” and kept trying, but I kept falling. Finally I just gave up and cried. My mom was their and she said to keep trying. Of course I was nervous, but I kept trying. And guess what? I did it!

I love how these kids’ notes are a window into their family life; you can see their folks’ priorities, which, until they start deciding on their own in a couple years, they’ve inherited wholly. You can see the values their parents have instilled in them, and get an idea of how they are treated by the way they advise Sharaun to treat Keaton. It’s amazing.

And that’s it for today friends. Until tomorrow.

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this nest has wheels

Who needs it?
Today I was proud of myself. We’re moving floors at work, so I spent all yesterday packing boxes, and we were told not to come in today – but to work from home. Additionally, I had an optometrist appointment at 2pm and needed to drop my truck off at the stereo place before that at 1pm. To make matters worse, I had an important conference call I needed to be on between those very times. How to manage this? Here’s what I came up with: Throw the bike in the back of the truck; drive up to the stereo place and drop off the truck; ride the bike up to the Starbucks near the optometrist and take the conference call while enjoying ‘bucks’ most secret beverage; meeting’s over at 2pm, walk the 30ft to do the optometrist thing; hop back on the bike and go get the truck. Well, it seemed brilliant to me, and it worked, too.

I think I liked the plan so much because it didn’t rely on a vehicle to convey me. Bear with me for an aside here, but, I work with several folks who live in Shanghai, PRC. A good cut of these folks don’t own a vehicle. They are too expensive, not practical on the city’s congested motorways, or the prefer pubic transit. When I tell them that, between Sharaun and I, we have a vehicle for each of us – it only reaffirms their view of America as a country full of rich people. Knowing people who don’t own cars and live perfectly normal lives, I get a kick out of realizing I’m not really that reliant on the beast. Yeah, not using the car made me happy. That, and I was able to utilize the cellphone to take my meeting. I love technology, it amazes me how it’s changed the way I do some things. For instance, my cellphone has replaced the following: my alarm clock, datebook, calendar, land-line home phone, and Post-It notes.

At baby class, our instructor talks a lot about the urge to “nest” that some couples feel before the baby comes. She talks about women wanting to clean, vacuum, and generally prepare the house for their new arrival. I can understand the preparing part, at least having the necessities on hand – but I’ve yet to see Sharaun go all cleaning jihad. Me, however, I think I just had my first “nesting” freak-out. Yeah. You wanna know what nesting is? Nesting is realizing your truck is so dirty and nasty that it’s not fit to ferry your child. It’s spending four hours in the garage painstakingly cleaning the interior and carpets, wanting to remove every smudge and speck of dust.

When I was in Shanghai, one of the $2 DVDs I bought was Jim Henson’s 1982 classic, The Dark Crystal. I absolutely loved the movie when I was a kid, it was the perfect mix of magic and fantasy – things I didn’t even realize I loved yet. Then yesterday, I stumble on this news online – they are making a sequel! I know most folks won’t care, but I sure was pumped. I mean, you know what they say: the darker the crystal, the sweeter the juice… or something like that.

In blogging news, using those larger images in last week’s Gimp-a-day baby theme, I decided that I prefer them to the tiny 100px I’ve been using for years now. Maybe it’s because I recently switched to a smaller screen resolution, so the bigger images don’t fill the entry as much – but whatever the reason, I’m stickin’ with ’em. Live with it.

Until tomorrow, love ya.

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3 weeks and counting

FetusWatch 2006
Tuesday night and that means baby class, only one more to go and we’ll be fully educated and ready for birth. Things are really coming to a head now, as the FetusWatch logo indicates. The occasion this time is the arrival of the t-minus three weeks and counting milestone. As for the update, not much. Things are progressing nicely. In related news, I’ve actually figured out neat way to post blog entries from my cellphone. While this may seem stupid, I plan to use it to provide real-time short updates to the page when the big day comes. The posts will fall under the new “txtblog” category, and will be accompanied by nice little graphics that will tip you off to their real-timeness.

Last night was Coldplay at the local 18k-attendance arena. I remember when I first “found” Coldplay, via Napster (that should give you an idea of when it was). Struck immediately by their likeness to Radiohead, the Beatles, and U2 – I was smitten. At the time, they’d only released a handful of EPs in their native England, and I greedily stole them all over the wires. I remember reading about the group of college students, how their first couple EP releases had garnered so much praise that they made the decision to give up school and go 100% music. Stories like that enthrall me, bands making it big, chasing dreams and stuff. Anyway, I ate up those initial batch of EPs, and only just recently threw out the 1st Coldpay comp CD-R I made for the car: “EPs.” As the group rocketed to stardom, I never really lost interest so much as I did passion… it’s a byproduct of my “commercial is evil” attitude (I know, I’m working on it). But man, seeing them last night was amazing – seeing how far they’d come, all the way from EPs to CG explosions on huge digital displays… it was a testament to the rock ‘n’ roll dream.

What’s more, the performance was outstanding. The sound was great, as were the vocals, the “artsy” stuff like lights and confetti-filled balls falling from the sky was also awesome. I haven’t been that engaged be a performance in a long time, it truly was an excellent concert – and man am I glad Sharaun scored tickets for my birthday. The band was a class act all the way, from the show-ending Broadway style arms-on-shoulders bow to Chris Martin personally coming on stage to introduce Fee-Owner Apple. I’ll tell you what, when it’s an empty stage, and your band isn’t on for almost another two hours – yet you still walk out to that lone microphone and say: “High, I’m Chris Martin from the band Coldplay. I’d like to introduce Fiona Apple, I know you’re going to enjoy her.” That’s grade-A rock chivalry right there. What headliners these days take the the time to even thank their openers, let alone take the stage to personally intro them. Class act; Class. Fuckin’. Act.

Upgraded to WordPress 2.01 before I hit the sack, fixed my image uploading problem. I love this program. G’nite.

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and when at last i find you


Thursday night as I write, and in the battle of Dave vs. Dave’s Job, Dave won handily. I took the to-do list by the horns and walked it around the arena in disgrace.

Ever since we got the nursery’s rocker (I still have trouble referring to it as a “glider,” although that’s surely what it is moreso than a rocker) fixed up with the help of Erik & Kristi – I head into that room daily to just sit and think on the thing. Mostly, I try to imagine myself holding a baby whilst “gliding,” or watching a baby sleep through the cribrails. I just sit there in that pink room and pretend. Won’t have to pretend for much longer I suppose, but it’s some sort of experiment or internal bet I’ve got going with myself: that no matter how much I rock there, trying to imagine she’s already here, it’ll be nothing like the days when I’m sitting there and she is actually here. My money’s on me not being able to imagine it accurately, not being able to peg the feelings having never experienced it. If you can’t tell, I’m hotly anticipating this one… and the incessant baby-babble is likely to continue for a while. What a puss.

In other baby news (who’d’ve thunk), I think I chosen the song I’d like to be her 1st song. The ride home from l’hopital song. Beatles? But of course, could it be anything else? The track, coincidentally enough from my favorite Beatles LP, “I Will.” I’ve always thought of the song as romantic, girl-focused, whatever. But, when it came up on shuffle the other day, I realized it’s not necessarily limited to the love where one heterosexual wants to bone another heterosexual, it’s a kind of ambiguous love that could, in fact, be taken as referring to family. Plus, it’s a gorgeous soft song, perfectly short and quiet for a sleeping newborn – and more importantly, a newborn girl. A boy might get something edgier, but this song is just right for someone coming home to a new pink bedroom. Check it out, in all it’s DMCA-violating glory, here.

I just don’t have the will to write more, at least I had a full week. Peace out.

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stake your names

Can he keep it going?
Another day down at work, and a long one looming tomorrow. In at 5:30am for a meeting with folks in Germany, out after a dinner with some other managers after 5pm. Not looking forward to waking up at the butt-crack to banter with Hans and Franz – the Germans are notoriously rough on us engineers, they have impeccable standards and know how to ask pointed questions.

The other night I happened across David Blaine’s Street Magic special on TLC. I remember the first time I saw it years ago, and all the love of magic that over-the-top “illusionists” like David Copperfield had sucked from me over the years with their cheesy music and light shows came flooding back to me. Seeing real people react to close-up magic is so much more engaging than seeing Mr. Copperfield walk through the Great Wall of China from 15 different soft-focused camera angles. I swear I chuckle with glee when I see him pull off the more amazing of his non-trick-deck sleights. Anyone can use a stripper, svengali, or rough/smooth deck… but even with the assistance of trick decks he’s got a charisma that makes even the most hackneyed tricks feel fresh. It’s the personal, close-up, stuff that’s the best, even the Balducci levitation played up throughout the entire show pales in comparison to the nickel-filled coffee cup anyway. Altho, when he does it for the cluster of hearing-impaired kids, I swear I tear up at the happiness on their faces.

Remember my beard? I shaved it one night last week. My beard is gone.

My mom and Sharaun’s mom both sent packages in the mail for Lil’ Chino. I thought it was funny that they both used the notes accompanying these pre-birth packages to attempt to establish their “grandmother names.” My mom stuck her claim on “Grammy,” while Sharaun’s mom opted for “Gami.”

Dropped my iPod for the first time today, seems to be OK… but it gave me a scare seeing how utterly dependant I’ve become on its awesomeness.

I always knew I wasn’t attractive enough to pull the kind of game I consistently do.

Tuesday night and that means baby-class at l’hopital. Tonight they gave all the preggers little stress balls to squish in their hands while they worked through the fake contractions and associated breathing. I lost it when the instructor kept gently intoning: “Now… keep squeezing your balls,” and, “Continue to squeeze your balls, in and out.” There’s a lot of unintentional humor in the class.

The other night I spilled super-glue on the cat. I had to cut out a huge chunk of her fur because I was worried she’d lick it, ingest it, and die. Now she has chunky bald-spots on her front shoulder.

Added some new pictures of the nursery progress, almost done now.

OK, seriously… what is up with this ginormous buzz surrounding the Arctic Monkeys’ debut record? I have the album, and I am, thus far, underwhelmed. There are some catchy hooks… but I don’t see what’s supposed to be so amazing about it. However, I have decided to give it a few more open-eared spins just to check my (mostly) infallible instant sense of good vs. bad.

Goodnight my friends.

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t-minus one month and counting

FetusWatch 2006, Day 1
Some may think a month out is perhaps too soon to start my regular baby coverage, not me – I’m gonna do this in true media-blitz fashion. And, keeping with that blitziness, coverage will approach a fever pitch as the denouement approaches. Plus, I figured, I made the fancy news-style banner (thanks Inkscape!), I might as well kick off the feature. I’m not saying we’ll be all single-topic now, but you can expect the baby-talk to increase.

At the request of the to-be-hitched Ben and Suzy, Sharaun and I rambled up to some sawdust-burg set deep in the old-gold Northern Californian foothills Saturday evening. The place they’ve chosen to nup’ at has some “promotional” deal where the couple-to-be can come up and stay and drink for free, and, what’s more, they’re encouraged to bring friends. Not being ones to pass up an offer of such caliber, we gladly accepted and hit the road. It was a nice night, filled, for me at least, with wine and beer and some bad-judgement cigarettes I bought from the center console of some girl’s Ford… really, she had two-inch white heels on and sold me a pack of cigarettes out of her truck. Had I not switched to water around 1am, things could’ve been much worse – it was a swirly, headachey sleep as it was. It was a great night though, haven’t done that much unbridled imbibing in a while.

And, in iPod news, I spent some time this weekend importing album artwork into my library using the iTunes Art Importer, which works really well, if slow. Every time that little picture of the album comes up with a song, I feel a smile spread across my face. This thing, this “iPod,” was invented solely for me; I’ve been waiting for it since I was 12 and didn’t even know it – how I lived this long without it, I have no idea. I’ve also been slowly wading through the library and making sure the genre tags for all the tracks are correct. I never cared about tags that much before, but with the ability to shuffle within or listen to a particular genre – it’s become more important. Want a grunge mix? Blues, maybe soul? Fire it up.

No more writing. Goodnight.