Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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back to work

Mountains of junk filling my house.
Wednesday night; working… at home… on work stuff. Management is hard. Although, I can totally see how, from the outside looking in, it would appear cushy and lazy. There’s not a lot of concrete results to be had by a manager, rather the sum of the concrete results of those they manage. So, management is hard. I’m really trying to get back into the caring-about-work phase, despite Lil’ Chino’s looming arrival. I did, however, finally communicate that I’m not bending to the tremendous pressure, being placed on me by my management, to do some traveling in mid-March. Only two weeks from the projected due-date, and I’d be gone for a week. Sharaun, predictably, puked all over the idea – and my initial attempts to back out were met with more pressure. However, today I just laid it bare and said “no.” Really, it doesn’t make sense: My first baby, two weeks old, and I leave my just-gave-birth wife alone to care for her? No, sorry, not gonna do it – the world of work won’t stop turning if I’m not up in front of the customer.

You may have noticed the apparent lack of focus last week that caused me to slip and miss two consecutive week-ending days. Oh, and yesterday too. It’s true, I’ve been cheating on the evening blogging routine with a number of things: running, iPod fiddling, and, God forbid, work. Yeah, I’ve picked up that old torch of working during the evenings again – things are really getting hot and heavy, and my “duck it all until the baby comes” strategy is clearly flawed. So, I chose to react, to step up and try and kick ass in the little time I have left. It may sound lame to refer to what I do as “kicking ass,” as there’s not much that sitting getting fatter in front of a monitor and winning a fight have in common – but in my cubicle-dominant world, that’s how we do it. Y’know, like tax bitches do six 1040s in one day – that’s kicking some tax-ass. Me, answering 100 e-mails and attending five meetings – that’s kicking some what-I-do-ass.

In preparing the baby’s room, it struck me last night how “modernized” the process is these days: We got our rocker off Craigslist, our custom-painted letters spelling K-E-A-T-O-N off Ebay, ordered the bedding on the internet, and manage our gift registry in cyberspace also. I swear, Lil’ Chino’s gonna come out watching the latest episode of Diggnation on her PSP (OK, that sounds super-relevant now, but won’t make a damn but of sense in a year). Speaking of “preparing” for the baby… getting a baby means an absolute explosion of “stuff.” We’ve got all kinds of stuff, piled all over the house. I swear, we have enough to fill, like… a whole other room, a baby’s room… even.

Downloaded an album by an outfit called I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness the other night, on name alone. Turns out, they are pretty dang good. Kinda melancholy and a little bit same-sounding throughout, but I like the plodding feel of the songs a lot. Also in music, I found this recent post over at stereogum hilarious – I don’t know quite why, but it really epitomizes a common feeling amongst the greedy hipsters who covet “good” bands. Oh, and, even if this Coachella 2006 poster was a fake – it seems the rumors about the Pumpkins getting together to gig this summer may indeed be true. Being that I was completely infatuated with the Pumpkins once upon a time, I’d love to go seem ’em again for old times sake.

Goodnight.

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that’s a big little hole

C'mon band, you can do it...
Wanna bet me that I’m not sitting at the computer at Midnight on Monday listening to Depeche Mode’s classic, Black Celebration? Go ahead, bet me, you’ll surely lose. Wait… midnight Monday is 12am Tuesday, not 12am Sunday, right? Sometimes I think I should know more things. But, now it’s Tuesday night, and Tuesday night is baby class. Tonight we watched the live birth video. I think it scared the shit out of Sharaun. The woman on the tape was doing it without drugs, and was pretty vocal about the pain. There were plenty of “I can’t do this”-es and wailing moans. It’s pretty real when you actually see a woman laboring through it – I think I’d be scared too… when they zoomed in on that little head crowning… man that little hole gets big…

Honestly, people… effing work is getting on my nerves. I could seriously, seriously, care less about it right now. Sure, flip back to yesterday to read more of the same, and the week before that, and likely again before this week’s out. I think I just want this baby to be here. I can’t even explain how often I wonder what she’s going to look like, what kind of Sharaun/Me combination she’ll be. Will she have Sharaun’s flat nose, or my big bubly one? My lack of chin, or Sharaun’s little round one? Will she be tall, short, chubby, have blue eyes, blond hair? Will she beat the doctors’ predictions and come out with a wiener and scrot? I just want to see her, hold her. It’s actually frustrating as hell… having to wait this last month, it’s like one long Christmas Eve when you’re seven years old and have petitioned Santa for months for the Ewok Village. You can almost feel yourself playing with the Ewoks, moving them around the deck strung up under the canopy of trees; almost see the Speeder Bikes whiz by. That’s what it’s like waiting for you, Keaton. This last month is my Christmas Eve and you’re my Ewok Village.

I love this contest over at Gorilla vs. Bear, where the author asks readers to name their top three “most anticipated” albums of 2006. What a great idea, and it got me thinking. Apparently, I’m not unlike most GvB readers, since my list lines up pretty well with what others are saying: 1) The Arcade Fire, 2) Radiohead, 3) Built to Spill. Yeah, #3 is less anticipated than the 1st two, which actually I’m salivating over already – but it’s still plenty anticipated. The Arcade Fire have so much to live up to, I honestly wonder if they can pull it off. Sophomore albums always end up under a microscope… and the one pointed at the Fire’s effort is gonna be Hubble caliber. Good luck my Canuck heartthrobs, good luck.

A short entry, but an entry nonetheless. Goodnight folks.

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i’m no nike shill

I just liked the colors, that's all.
Home from work, 6:30pm. Off with the shoes and shirt and pants, on with the fuzzy slippers, t-shirt, and sweats. Around 8:30pm I decide to run. For some reason, having an iPod makes me want to run – more time to listen to music on that little gem of modern technology. The hard drive takes my puny strides without missing a beat; I hate running, but I’m trying to do it three times a week – maybe Keaton won’t have to look quite as far back as my high school pictures to ask, “Daddy, you were skinny?” I don’t think I’ll ever get off on running like those people on the sneaker commercials seem to, but if it’ll keep me from an early, artery-clogged, grave whatever… I’ll give it a shot.

Well, not to tread over and over and over again on the same theme – but I really am having trouble keeping the “appropriate” focus on work these days. It’s a mixture of some form of “senioritis,” the inevitable winding-down that overcomes most people when they know a big break from the grind is coming, and a general sense of work seeming less-than-important. I find my mind distracted by all things baby. Thing is, we’re now pretty much ready, nursery-wise, for Lil’ Chino’s arrival. The room’s painted, the crib, changing-table-dresser thing, and glider/rocker are all set up, waiting. Out registries are, for the most part, depleted – for which I consider us to be very lucky, babies are not cheap to welcome home. But, I catch myself letting work pile up, slip, and fall off… I sit in front of the screen and work on things of little importance, but things that keep me engaged. Writing Visual Basic for scripts for Excel… sure, it’s valuable – but it’s nowhere near as high as the things on the priorities list I’m shirking while doing it. Right now, nothing’s more important than this fetus.

Y’know, funny things happen when you look at your budget under a microscope as part of a simulated-Chino re-budgeting analysis. Thing like discovering that you spend $35 a month on Starbucks coffee at work, and that’s just one a morning each morning. That’s too much to spend on coffee, methinks. So, you head to the local-economy-ruining Wal Mart and buy a buy of Verona for $6, then you spend 5min each night telling the coffee maker you got in college to make you a fresh brimming mug right before you leave for work. Throw that in a travel mug, kiss the morning ritual of “going down for coffee” goodbye, and save $30 a month. Sure, $30 may seem petty… but it’s funny how making simple trades like that can add up if you really need them to. Me, I’m not going to mind the extra $30 one bit. $30 a month on dang coffee!! Stupid Starbucks.

Time to link you up a bit. If you’re a music nut like me, you’ll surely appreciate this outstanding blog I recently discovered: coolfer. With a keen eye and ear for industry news and other music-related info, it reminds me of my days working retail and reading Billboard or ICE weekly – solid music news on a daily basis. Also, snagged from a God-blog I read from time to time, I found this quick “God plausibility” test kinda cool. You’re presented with a list of checkboxes and told to mark as many or as few attributes which the God you believe in has. Then, a team of “metaphysical engineers” tell you how plausible your conception of God is based on the combination you choose. Frivolous, but kinda neat. My God? 0.9; plausible.

I shaved my beard. Just when it was getting nice and shaggy. I also left a sweat-towel from last week’s inaugural gym visits in my truck over the weekend, now the whole thing reeks of football locker room. Goodnight my friends.

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crumbelievable

Crumbelievable.
Sharaun asked me if I was going to shave my beard before Lil’ Chino comes. I said that I had thought about it, but hadn’t decided. “But,” she said, “You don’t want to have a beard in our first pictures with the baby, do you? It’s the first time you’ve ever had a beard in your whole life, and you probably won’t have it forever; do you really want that in your first pictures with her? It’s not you.” Don’t think I hadn’t considered this very thing. My real goal with this beard was to grow it bushy and wild. So, maybe I can just grow it until Sharaun goes into labor – and then shave… or something. Who knows. I think she’s kind of right, though, I’m not sure I want this thing in those very special pictures. Then again, I actually like it, and think I might even like it more the bushier it gets. We’ll see.

I saw a commercial for a new kind of Kraft cheese the other day that used EMF’s 90s anthem “Unbelievable” to hawk curds. You know what they changed the song to? “They’re crumbelievable.” Oh. My. Crap. That’s possibly the worst, worst-worst-worst commercial sellout I’ve ever heard. “Crumbelievable?!” EMF… for shame. I hope they don’t own the rights to that song, because that would mean they came together as a band and listened to a pitch that may have gone something like this:

Kraft goes:
“EMF, we here at Kraft would like to use a reinterpretation of your classic song, ‘Unbelievable’ to market our exciting new line of cheese. We think we can give your work the respect it deserves as iconic 90s dancepop, while simultaneously utilizing its near-universal genY appeal to give our new Kraft Crumbles an edgy edge with the extremely cynical late-20s demo.”

EMF goes:
“Uh, OK… how were you planning on ‘reinterpreting’ it?”

Kraft goes:
“I’m glad you asked! We are actually planning to change the hook from “it’s unbelievable” to “they’re crumbbelievable.” “They” being in reference to the actual cheese crumbles, which are, indeed, unbelievable. Here, we’ve brought some for you, EMF, to sample.

EMF goes:
“Oh. Wow. That’s… Wow. And we get how much now?

Kraft pushes a piece of paper across the table, past the untouched glass bowl of Crumbles, towards EMF. Band members pass the paper around, one to the next. They put their heads together in a brief whispering conference. EMF turns to Kraft.

EMF goes:
We, EMF, accept your offer of money in exchange for our artistic integrity. We will use said money to clutch, if only fleetingly, at memories of our one-hit-wonder, drug and women-filled heyday of 1990s psuedo-stardom. Thanks in advance for the humiliation.

As a postscript, turns out that iPod I mentioned Sharaun winning on the radio yesterday is only 30GB. Oh, and it’s laser-etched with the Discovery Channel logo on the back. Odd, but hey – don’t mistake it for complaints, it’s 30GB and one laser-etched Discovery Channel logo better than the iPod I had before it. Anyway, I filled it to the brim last night and couldn’t be more in love with it.

Goodnight peoples, I be lovin’ you all.

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a troll in the stork’s workshop

Gasp!
Probably a boring entry today, in play-by-play style but at least spiced up with some photographs to make you think it’s meatier than it really is.

Lately I feel something like an elf in Santa’s workshop – working tirelessly day and night to make toys for all the good boys and girls of the world. But… I’m not an elf; I’m taller and rounder and much hairier, a little more like a troll. And… I’m not in Santa’s workshop; I’m in my home – working tirelessly day and night to make things ready for Lil’ Chino’s arrival. OK, not quite tirelessly, but I’ve at least been working (at times with the assistance of others) for four days or so. Oh but folks, the hard work has definitely paid off. With the addition of the glider we got on the cheap off Craigslist, a new white-rimmed light fixture, and some new white shelves, it’s just about perfect.

Friday night… we opted to stay in, beat-down as we are from last evening’s late ending. Sharaun did her day on an hour and a half of sleep, and is now sawing logs on the couch. She’s got her shirt hiked up above her bulging belly and every once and a while I can see the whole mass squirm and writhe like I’d imagine it would were an octopus coiled inside. No ocean-life here though, just our little girl; she’s getting bigger, stronger, and making herself more apparent everyday. Not just by trying to push her way out Sharaun’s belly, either, just by… permeating. Saturating my thoughts more and more every day. And… I love it; I really do. I’m ready for her to be the center of my world.

Sunday was Sharaun’s final baby shower, and we once again came away with armloads of loot. Sharaun’s friends threw one of the most thoughtful and well-lain showers I’ve seen (not that I’m some kinda baby shower aficionado, but it just makes you realize what good friends do). While the ladies were brokebacking it up over at the house, I haded over to Pat’s for some football with all the abandoned dudes, only to come back later for a look at the plunder. Without going down the list, we did manage to score (between this and her other showers) most all the “big ticket” items on our registry – which is more awesome than I can even say.

But, out of all the gifts we got, there was one that I loved sooo much, I had to take pictures and show the world. Given to us by one of sounds familiar’s devoted readers, maygsters, were these awesome handmade onsies (as I’ve been told they are called) and hand-knitted little booties (lots of baby things end with Gollum-esque “ies”). It’s hard to make out in the picture below, but if you click you can see a larger version that’s more legible.

If you can’t read ’em, there’s: Daddy drinks because I cry, a Justin Tenderlegs (must be for Sharaun), the blog logo, Been on the inside for 9 months, and, needless to say, my absolute favorite – the “Lil’ Chino” logo’d tee (in realistic Latino streetgang typeface!). I seriously can’t wait to get her into it.

Goodnight.

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pinks

Would look sweet on the side of a van.
Happy Thursday to you, this week is going fast. To start: some pictures, as I finally got around to taking some of the nearly-done nursery, in all its two-tone pink glory. I’ve added them to my media page, and attentive readers may also find the online debut of Lil’ Chino’s real name (it’s a big thing).

Tonight is the Wolf Parade show in San Francisco; it kinda snuck up on me, and it’s a late one too… doors at 8:30pm and there’s three, count ’em, three opening acts… meaning the Wolf likely won’t even start parading until like 11pm. Looks like it’s going to be a late one, current pillow-ETA estimates coming in at approximately 3:30am. Of course, the show is sold out – two nights actually, so it should be fairly well-attended and, hopefully, high-energy.

I had to replace the headlight on my truck; I’ve done it before and remember it being dead-easy. So, I bought a headlight, and flipped open the manual to the headlight maintenance section to jog my memory. This time though, the burned out headlight was on the driver’s side, previously it was on the passenger. Turns out the driver’s side assembly is a good deal tighter, and not really made for fat hands. Replacing a bulb couldn’t be easier in theory: unplug it, twist the locking ring to the right, pull out the bulb, put in the new one, twist the ring to the left, plug it back in. I failed at the “twist the locking ring to the right” step, as my fat hands couldn’t fit in the tight space well enough to give me sufficient twisting power. Why do things I’m bad at have to be so hard? Anyway, I got smarter than the tight space and went to the trouble of removing the entire battery so I could approach the twisty thing from the rear – that did it, twisted that defiant mofo right off and had the new bulb in lickety-split. Plus, as a bonus, after the hood was closed and tools put away, my hands were stained with suet and grease – to the casual observer I could’ve passed for someone who works on his car because he knows how. Pretend-skills… I got tons of ’em.

G’nite friends.

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oh my god there’s a human in my wife’s belly

Behind the iron curtain!
Evening folks. I was going to post some pictures of Lil’ Chino’s pink and pink nursery today, but other things came calling and it just didn’t happen – tomorrow perhaps.

Tonight was our first baby class at the hospital, two hours every week for the next six weeks. Tonight there was lots of talk about vaginal mucous and other such unsavory items – but, overall, I think I’ll enjoy the class. I’ve certainly got things to learn, so a class isn’t such a wacky idea. To kick off the class, the instructor played Bill Cosby’s famous birth/labor bit from his Himself standup – a classic through and through. At some point in the class, I think when the instructor was saying that some babies actually “play” with their mothers’ bladders like constantly inflating beach balls, I realized that this “thing” inside my wife isn’t just some fluid-breathing “growth”… no, this is a human being. While I know she’s not in there contemplating the meaning of life or doing algebra, it’s not like she’s a rock or some other inanimate object – she stretches, rolls, flips, covers her eyes when it’s bright, etc. Oh my God there’s a human in my wife’s belly.

Work today was furious-productive, which is good as I need a kick in the pants to get me going. It was one of those days where I decided to work smarter, not harder, and it seemed to pay off in the end. I always feel good when I have some measurable accomplishments at the day’s end – output really justifies effort for me. Also in work news, I got word late today that I’ve been tapped for a trip to Moscow and Prague in late April – two months post-Lil’ Chino. Now, normally, I wouldn’t really want to travel that close to the baby… but… Moscow and Prague?! I mean, I’ve never been to Europe, and something about Moscow has fascinated me for a long time. So, I asked Sharaun, and she grudgingly said OK. While not official yet, I’m leaning towards going – that could all change after the baby though, who knows if I’ll be interested in travel… maybe I’ll just want to sit around a stare at my new daughter.

Sometimes I hate how heavy-handed I am. I’m just not built for fine, detailed, or small work. I’m all forced, dumb-muscled motions, largely due to my severe impatience and low frustration-factor. I rarely eat something without some of it ending up on my clothes, I break things trying to fix them, and I cut-corners out of frustration and accept less than perfection just to “get the job done.” Now, that’s a generalized statement. When I really have pride in what I’m doing, I go to extra effort to ensure it’s 110% – the catch being that, for whatever reason, I have to care about the results. My backyard, certain tasks at work, etc. The amount of pride I have in, or effort I put into, something is directly related to how skilled I am at the task. I.e., if I’m good at it and/or it’s easy for me, I take extra care in making sure it’s done right. If I’m so-so at it, I put in so-so effort. Not a good way to build skills I suppose, I should work on that. Although I’ll never carve the alphabet on a grain of rice, perhaps I can hone some lacking skills.

Writing that last paragraph, I waffled between using the phrase “take pride in” or the phrase “have pride in.” Do those actually mean the same thing? Strange.

Goodnight my peoples.