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blues on the speakers

I'm sky high.
Not just any old Monday for me this week folks, nay – this Monday marks the 1st day of single-digit pre-baby waiting. Nine days to go, nine measly days… incredible. A weekend filled with a few last-minute baby-related tasks: installing the carseat in Sharaun’s car, putting together the baby swing, and getting Sharaun’s hospital bag ready to go when the contractions finally come. When the contractions finally come… wow.

I don’t know what it is, maybe a sign of musical maturity – but lately I’ve been wanting to listen to nothing but blues. I’ve been on a rash downloading streak, grabbing byte after byte and building a pile of gigs in my blues directory (all legally purchased music, of course). I always enjoyed the blues, had always been aware of it’s influence on rock music, and was an instant fan of blues-based rock acts like the Allman Brothers and Led Zeppelin. But, despite all that, I never really was a hard-core roots blues fan. Lately though, I’ve been immersing myself in the scratchy acetates of Furry Lewis, Son Seals, Blind Boy Fuller, Mississippi John Hurt, and a myriad of other amazing blue pioneers. I just can’t seem to get enough – the music makes me feel anything but blue. It spreads a smile across my face, and makes me somehow feel connected to the beginnings of rock and roll. Some of this stuff, being nearly 90 years old, is completely amazing and engaging, like being musically transported back to another time.

The past few days in Northern California have been simply outstanding. 70 degrees and sunny, with the air clear enough to see the Sierras stretch from the edge of my left eye all the way to the edge of my right. Friday was so gorgeous, in fact, that I decided to play work-hooky and pull a “working from home.” Unfortunately, I had meetings to call into most of the afternoon – but even sitting on meetings was ten times as good in the ground-level, breeze-thru-open-windows, blues-on-the-speakers comfort of home. I keep thinking about my upcoming time off in a week or so – sitting at home with the windows open and sun shining, holding my new daughter. I’m anticipating spending hours just looking down at her tiny face and drinking in her baby-skin-smell. Damn, I am straight homo.

Everyone’s on about Songbird lately and, I must admit, it does look pretty dang cool. An open-source music app, not unlike iTunes, built on the FireFox browser engine but with some pretty cool twist. Songbird treats webpages containing MP3s as playlists, and even has the ability to auto-download songs from your favorite canon of MP3 blogs. I grabbed it for the home PC, and plan on pointing it to me regular rotation of music sites to see what happens. Who knows, maybe they’ll build in iPod support some day and this thing will be a working iTunes alternative. A guy can only dream.

Before I go, I wanted to pass on my congratulations on to the now two-bigger family of sounds familiar reader maygsters – who gave birth to twin boys this weekend. You guys beat us by just about a week, way to go. Can’t wait to get all the babes together for a puke ‘n’ poop party.

Later peoples.

Posted on

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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who is mike jones?!

I am Mike Jones!
Happy Monday… lately I sometimes feel like the days and weeks are simultaneously dragging and speeding by blurrily. It seems like this day will never get here while feeling like it could be tomorrow at the same time. Think, think, think… babies and money and all sorts of things. Let’s move forward.

OK, I’d heard about it, but hadn’t actually heard it. Then, this weekend, I decided to hunt down the new Built to Spill album, which leaked a week or so ago. Word on the street was that the album sounded great, and it’s certainly one of the more anticipated efforts of 2006. Rumor also had it that the early leaked version was protected with a unique type of DRM: each song being marred by rapper Mike Jones asking, “Who is Mike Jones?!” every minute or so. Yeah, so, Mike Jones isn’t actually on the new BTS record, but he was sampled over the top of this leak… either by a band with a sense of humor, or some sadistic, perhaps rap-lovin’ and indie-hatin’, release crew. Whoever the culprit, the “Who is Mike Jones?!” form of copy protection is probably one of the more effective schemes I’ve run across. It’s hard not to listen to the songs without trying to guess when the next “Who is Mike Jones?!” sample will pop up, and it’s impossible (yeah, completely impossible) not to laugh when it eventually does. I like the album so much though, that I’m afraid I’ll become accustomed to the Mike Jones version. I’ll be the guy at the BTS show in a few months who shouts out “Who is Mike Jones?!” every few minutes so I can experience the songs the way I learned to love ’em.

I’ve been wondering if I should change my blog theme… I like the front page OK, but I think I’d like to change the comment section. I’ve got some stray div tags that get put in when you’re looking at a post in permalink/comment view which I’d love to clean up. Thing is, WordPress theme implementation has changed sooo much since I first hacked together my blog, it’s almost like I’d have to start from scratch. My index page and stylesheet, while functional, are spaghetti on the inside. My CSS skills are mediocre at best, and most of what I get is luck rather than skill or artful use of the stylesheet. I’d love to start with a clean modern WordPress them and start hacking from there… just so I could slim down my main page loop code and bloated stylesheet. However, that’s a lot of work… and I am partial to how things look now – it’s been my format forever, after all. What do you think, friends? Should I redesign from the ground-up, or are you, too, familiar and happy with the look of this page? I’m just not sure.

Continuing the blogging thing, keen observers may have noticed that I removed the toplink to my “cast of characters” page. I did this because the thing was just sooo outdated. I thought about going through and making a sweep of it, to bring it up to date… but the thing about that is having to stay on top of it. I’m not sure what the eventual fate of the page will be. I entertained a quirky thought about opening it as some kind of limited-access wiki where each person in the cast would own their own bio, and be responsible for keeping it up-to-date. Those who didn’t log on and polish their info once every three months or so would be bubbled-down and eventually “hidden” from the cast, re-listable only after an update. It’s a cool idea, maybe I’ll give it a shot. Right now though, the page isn’t gone, it’s just delinked from the header – several older entries still point to it. We’ll see.

Let’s do some linking, shall we? I know it’s lighting up the blogosphere lately, and I’m rather late to the party – but for the benefit of those who may have not seen this yet, I really recommend reading Jeff Jocoby’s We Are All Danes Now op-ed piece over at the Boston Globe. I’ll let you read it and mull it over, but I certainly enjoyed it. Not sure I like the term “Islamofacist,” but I do like the article.

Before I go: What does Mike Jones have in his hand? A neon pickle? Dildo? No, folks, after much analysis I’ve decided it’s a wad of bills. Classy Mike Jones; classy. Goodnight friends, until tomorrow.

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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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at least it’s better than r. kelly

For the love of!
Monday evening, pre-Coldplay show. Another “woe is me” post I’m afraid; when it rains, it pours.

Just a quick update on yesterday’s post before moving onto today: Turns out Sharaun’s car problems were covered under warranty, which is great – take that Axiom. Next, the stereo fix-it place can’t get the Ford in until Wednesday – which means I’m driving around with nothing but the rhythms of roadnoise to jam on until then, hey – at least it’s better than R. Kelly. Not sure what the stereo overhaul will run me, but hoping for less than the deductible I’d pay were I to file an insurance claim. For what it’s worth, I did file a police report, just in case they caught some teenager Friday night with a gymbag full of radios or something. Stupid ghetto neighborhood filled with half-million dollar homes and Cadillac Escalades… I should’ve known it’d be a thief’s Disneyland.

Sharaun called me on her way home from school today in tears… She’s angry and upset with herself for not doing enough to help transition her student teacher into the role of permanent teacher, which he’ll inherit this Friday – her last day before maternity leave. She sobbed about her disorganized classroom, her lack of instruction and guidance to the fledgling prof, and her guilt over “dumping” things on him. I tried my best “listening husband” routine, which seemed to work OK, but it’s hard when she’s so upset. I hate when she’s like that. I tried to remind her that, come Friday, none of that will be her responsibility anymore – and that surely her student teacher has been under her tutelage long enough to take over – but she didn’t seem to agree. Me, if it were my last week of work, I’d be more concerned planning the party I’d be continually throwing for the foreseeable future than any turmoil my leaving might cause.

My TiVo will have not made a daily call in 100 days on Wednesday, and, believe me, it won’t let me forget it.

Goodnight.