Getting ready to party

This Friday I'll turn 31. 31 isn't on its own significant except that I'm still getting older. But it beats the alternative. I think I'd have trouble with getting older if I didn't already have Oliver. Personally, I've always wanted to have a family and having my wife and child puts me in the position that I've seen myself in when I thought about my future-now-present. So I'm at peace with getting older.

Saturday is my birthday party, Thank(Rock). Not quite ten years ago, I decided that I wanted to have a Thanksgiving-style dinner for my birthday. I invite a house little-bit-more-than-full of people and have everyone bring something from their own families Thanksgivings (coordinated through me so we don't have 12 dishes of yams). I provide the turkey, stuffing, and drinks. It's always a fun time as I get to see friends that I don't get a chance to see enough of during the year. The event is becoming more interesting as we add a new generation of folks to the party. Oliver will get a chance to join the ranks of the toddlers this year.

So this week is dedicated to getting the house ready for people to come over. Last night I vacuumed the rugs. Tonight I get to sweep and mop all of the floors. Between now and then, we need to clean the bathrooms, clean Oliver's room, and take care of all of the clutter that has accumulated since we last held a party in November. Finally, Friday night/Saturday morning I'll get to set up the house for a party and cook the turkeys.

Diet Day 6

Breakfast: Eggs and bacon, V-8
AM Snack: Celery and laughing cow
Lunch: Salad with chicken, jello
PM Snack: Cottage cheese with veggies
Dinner: Fish with avocado salsa, almonds
Bed time: Ricoota with PB and chips

---

- It's not that I'm getting tired of eating salads. I'm just getting tired of making them.
- Weighed in last night. I'm down about 4-5 pounds. I've also run twice in the past two days (Woot!) so that may just be sweat.
- I did a "Fat Burn" workout on the treadmill last night. It was harder than my Threshold Cardio workout. The difference between the two is that FB is at 70% of your max heart rate and TC is at 85%. But I'm so out of shape that 70% was too slow to job so it was a fast walk. I'd have rather jogged, but then it wouldn't have been an "easy" day.
- The cottage cheese and veggies leaked on the other lunch containers. I mentioned to a coworker that I hate it when your lunch leaks. She looked at the stack of three containers in my hand, raised an eyebrow, and said "Lunch?"

Diet Day 5

Breakfast: Omelette with Bacon
AM Snack: Cheese Stick, Almonds
Lunch: Shrimp on Salad, Jello for dessert
PM Snack: Cheese Stick
Dinner: Chicken and Salad
Nighttime snack: Ricotta with PB and chocolate chips

---

- I was lazy this morning and just grabbed a pair of cheese sticks for snacks. Time will tell if that was a good decision or a bad one.
- I brought in a big bag of almonds to work. I have some pistachios there already as emergency snack food items. I ended up doing some serious snacking. Cheese Stick just doesn't do it for me.
- I'm getting good at making salads. That said, I'm getting sick of them.

Diet Day 4

Breakfast: Spinach Fritatta
AM Snack: Ham Rollups
Lunch: Chef Salad
PM Snack: Cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes
Dinner: Orange roughy with soy and ginger sauce, sauteed cabbage, snow peas
Nighttime snack: Ricotta with peanut butter and chocolate chips

---

- We got a late start today so all of our meals seemed jumbled on top of each other.
- I did a 'net search for "South Beach Diet Phase 1 Dessert" and only came up with more ricotta desserts and people complaining about the lack of desserts.
- I did 50 minutes at a tempo run pace. I need to make sure that I stay on top of my running.
- Both my wife and I are feeling a little lethargic. Is this a result of the diet or a teething baby?
- Sauteed cabbage actually tasted a lot better than I thought it would. And I like cabbage.

Diet Day 3

Breakfast: Western Egg Omelette
AM Snack: Cheese Stick
Lunch: Shrimp salad with dill dressing
PM Snack: Veggies and dip, Turkey rollups
Dinner: Chicken and salad
Nighttime snack: Sugar Free Banana Cream pudding

---

- We called Sarahlynn today to get a ruling on milk in the revised phase one meal plan. The milk got turned into the pudding.
- We went to a birthday party for a niece and a nephew today. We ate before we left and brought food. We could have eaten what my sister-in-law had prepared, but we felt that we were better safe than sorry.
- The shrimp for lunch was a lot of preparation, but we were both pleasantly surprised at how good it was. I made enough for a lazy lunch in the days ahead.
- Dinner was a bit of a rushed affair as we had company coming over. It ended up being a mix between what looks good and what we could prepare quickly.

Google smackdown

While the William Moseley fan club continues to use my blog as a Tiger Beat wannabe (I don't know or care if he has a girlfriend), this week's winner for Google smackdown goes to the person who got here by searching on the phrase "my boss comes in late and leaves early." Consider yourself lucky and move on, sir or madam.

Miniatures

When I was a kid, my brother BD played D&D. I remember that he would get together with some friends and play on the front porch. Once he attempted to DM my other brother and I through T1: Village of Hommlett, but gave up when we tried to kill Elmo a short way out of town. I don't remember him playing with us much after that.

B was the first person I knew to own miniatures. I can vaguely picture them, a knight and an archer if I recall correctly. He never painted them and the most artistic thing that I did with them was wrap a wire around one foot with the other end sticking into the socket and use another wire connected to the other socket to sort of arc weld new designs into the figures.

When I graduated from college, I played a game of Warhammer FRP with SS, BC, and CS. B had convinced us over lunch to try it out and we did. The Warhammer FRP had some notable flaws. As BC put it, "A naked dwarf is harder to hit than an armored human." But the notable thing about the sessions is that both BC and CS had painted miniatures. I had an ambivalent reaction. On the one hand, they looked really cool. On the other hand, it seemed like a colossal waste of time.

Fast forward a couple of years to when D&D 3.0 was being released. I mentioned to some friends at a party that I'd like to play. They had played in college, were short on money, and, with a new baby, were looking for some entertainment that didn't cost a lot of money or require them to leave their house. BC joined the group that included MC, PF, AF, my wife, and I. Combat under the new rules was easiest to understand when using miniatures, so BC brought over his collection which was now both cool and useful.

Fast forward a couple of years as I continue to DM and become unsatisfied with the collection of miniatures. There are several well painted miniatures for the player characters (PCs) and a few well painted miniatures for the significant monsters/non-player characters (non-PCs or NPCs), but for the less significant monsters/NPCs (or mooks), BC has a collection of unpainted red plastic figures and unpainted green plastic figures. When in the middle of a fight, it is hard to treat the mooks any differently (Is this the one with the axe or the spear?) or accurately record damage to specific targets (Did this green one or that green one get hit by the fireball?). Also my players know to metagame by targetting all of their fire power on the creatures that correspond to the well painted NPCs (Yeah, that's an ogre. But the little guy in the corner is significant). So I went out and bought (ironically from CS) a set of plastic figures that I could paint and turn into generic but discernable mooks (I hit the mook with the spear).

Some time passed and I wanted to provide new miniatures for the PCs. Some of the PCs were using figures that we had been using since we started playing and it was awkward to remember to say the name of the current PC instead of the previous PC that used the same miniature. And there were new NPCs that I wanted to make an impact with the players. Then I discovered Ebay. After a few short weeks, I now have more unpainted miniatures than BC. Now I get to paint them.

Once we get our PC set back up I'll post some pictures and walk you through a step by step of me painting one of them. I'm not very good yet (and given my artistic ability so far I might have already peaked), but it is something that I enjoy and that I'm then able to roll back into my D&D game. There are people who are very good at this and are able to sell their miniatures for a lot of money, but I just want to solve the unnamed mook problem. And if it looks good, then that's a bonus.

Diet Day 2

Breakfast: Western Omelet and V8
AM Snack: Celery sticks with laughing Cow cheese
Lunch: Salad with salmon, sugar free jello
PM Snack: Turkey rollups
Dinner: Chicken, Eggplant, Peppers, Salad
Evening snack: Ricotta with Almonds, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate Chips

---

- I still haven't weighed myself.
- We had to juggle some meals this morning as we didn't have any canadian bacon in the house. Later we reread and saw that turkey bacon would do just as well.
- One downside to the diet is that it seems to monopolize the time that we have at home. I think we spent about two hours making food for today's meals.
- It's a co-worker's birthday today and I passed on the opportunity to go out for lunch. Just too tempting right now.
- I found myself getting really hungry shortly after meals and snacks. Uh oh!
- I really don't know how to make a good eggplant.
- My wife wanted the peanut butter in her ricotta. She's seen the light.
- I did a treadmill workout for 50 minutes tonight. If I can do that every night, I might have something.

Moving on up

The other day we got a note in Oliver's bin at day care that he was going to move up from the Transition room to the Toddler Room. Our day care has three sets of rooms on the lower level - Infants (pre-crawling), Transition (pre-walking), and Toddlers (post-walking). Considering that Oliver is now walking into day care holding on to my finger, he's ready to go.

This afternoon we have a meeting with the head of the center about his transition. Specifically we've been worried about the food that they serve the kids. One part of the transition from Transition to Toddlers is that parents are strongly discouraged from bringing in food for their kids. We're concerned about that because up until now we've been able to limit his exposure to salt, preservatives, and refined sugars to whatever he gets second hand from Mom. The fruit that he will be getting at day care will most likely come from a can coated in syrup. At least one of the scheduled meals is corn dogs. He's going to be eating crackers and goldfish. All of these things that we've avoided will become routine. We'll discuss this at the meeting this afternoon, but I don't know precisely what can be done.

His mother and I don't seem to be the only people who are going to be sorry to see him move on. Miss J, his primary caretaker, has become a bit more clingy when I come to pick him up. I understand that they care for the children and become attached and that it's a good thing. I understand that people like my child. It's just a little creepy to see it in action.

Diet Day 1 (Again)

Breakfast: 2 Quick Quiche cups, Glass of Tomato Juice
AM Snack: Cheese Stick, Pepsi One
Lunch: Salad with chicken, sugar free jello, Pepsi One
PM Snack: Celery sticks with laughing cow cheese, Pepsi One
Dinner: Salmon with Salad and Asparagus
Evening snack: Ricotta dessert with almonds, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.

---

- Around mid-morning I realized that I was hungry. "Oh yeah, I'm on a diet."
- Yesterday was Food Day at work. They didn't finish any of the six boxes of girl scout cookies that were brought. They didn't bring them home either.
- The peanut butter cups that were in my bag had to go back to the food cube. So did my container of Jolly Ranchers. The pistachios stay.
- My wife doesn't like asparagus, but Oliver does.
- The peanut butter is actually on the approved list.
- I didn't weigh myself today.

Twas the Day Before Diet ...

Monday my wife decided that we were going to go back on a diet. It's something that we've both been talking about, but there has always been a reason to wait. With my birthday party coming up, I would have been content to wait until afterwards, but as it is I'll be bad one day and then jump back into the swing of things on Monday. But in many ways, there's no time like the present. The sooner we start the sooner the weight will come off.

Yesterday before we went to the grocery store, she still hadn't decided on which diet we were going to do. On one hand, there is the South Beach Diet. We've done this before and lost weight doing it. Once we have our house set up properly (no tempting treats, plenty of nuts and veggies, good snack foods), it is actually pretty easy to maintain. The toughest part is going out to eat either at a friend's house or at a restaurant. But we have friends who are also doing South Beach and Oliver is getting too old to take to restaurants, so we're that much ahead of the game.

The other diet that we looked at was Body For Life. It's a diet and exercise program that emphasizes eating the right foods and working out the right way. We had done that one several years ago and done pretty well with it. The thing that we liked most about that one is that every week you have one "free" day where you can eat whatever it is that you want. It makes being good the rest of the week easier when you know that you only have so many days before you can be bad again. The biggest obstacle is the exercise program. It's as obvious as the flab on my gut that I need to start working out more, but it becomes difficult to find the time with a toddler in the house. We could exercise in the morning, but if we were both exercising and he woke up, we'd have to drop what we were doing to take care of him. Exercising at night after he's gone to sleep might end up being the solution, but it is so easy to make excuses.

My wife had looked at the Paleo Diet, but if she had picked that one she would have been dieting alone. There may be something to it, but really it just looks like some quack said, "Grains are evil!" because everything else had already been blamed for causing obesity and cancers.

We ended up choosing South Beach. We'll add in some BfL exercises, but it won't be a core component of our diet strategy. So tonight we'll do our best to contribute to a properly set up house. So I have to go and see if I can find any candy. Wouldn't want to leave that lying around for tomorrow, would I?

Where's Mommy?

Saturday night after getting Oliver down, my wife went out for a girl's night out. About twenty minutes later he woke up and about an hour later, I got him back down. Around 10:00 or so, I decided to go to bed myself. Around 3:00am Oliver woke up. Mommy was not in bed with us. She was not on the bed in the hall. She was not on the couch downstairs. There was a call on my cell phone from 11:30pm, but no message. All kinds of random thoughts went through my head. Was she in an accident? Had she been drinking? Is she just crashing at someone's house? Should I call over there? Why didn't she call again? Why didn't she leave a message? What'll I do with Oliver?

Wit these thoughts in mind, I called her cell phone. *RING* ... *RING* ... *RING* ... "Hello." Relief. Confusion.
"Hi, where are you?"
"Just a couple of minutes away. How's Oliver"
"He woke up and had to go potty."
"Did he go?"
"He just finished. He had a good potty. ... It's 3:00 in the morning."
"I know. I'll be there soon."

I was pretty angry. A message to let me know she was OK and I wouldn't have been so worried. If it was 1:00 instead of 3:00, I wouldn't have been so worried. If she was going somewhere where she was not going to be drinking, I wouldn't have been so worried. As it was, she was OK and there wasn't anything to worry about. And when the sun came up, most of my worries went away. But the memory remained. It's not exactly a pleasant memory, but it reminds me of how much she means to me and to Oliver.

Guest Room!

Ever since we moved into the house five years ago, we've constantly had various and sundry rooms under construction. And when you have a room under construction you have to move all of the furniture out of that room and into another. So then you have two rooms that are messy - one with plaster and dust and the other with excess furniture and other stuff. Thus, you are effectively down two rooms. But this weekend we moved furniture back into our guest room. You would really have to live at our house to understand how big that is.

The other important thing about having a guest room is that the other room we got back is the one that we are going to set up as an office. Having an office means that we will have a spot where we can set up our PC. Since we started construction, the PC has been relegated to a corner in the storage room. We've still had internet access, but on laptops placed downstairs on low tables well within baby's reach. Having the PCs upstairs means that we can check email and respond more quickly to an awakening child. It means that when my wife is home working, she can be somewhere else and still available. It means that I can work on my miniatures while sitting in a chair instead of on the floor and not have to lock everything away when I'm done with it. I keep envisioning it as almost a kid-free oasis. It won't always be so, but for now it just might be.

Just as soon as we finish fixing it back up.

Prerelease weekend

Three times a year, Wizards of the Coast sponsors prerelease tournaments for their new sets. The prerelease is an opportunity for players to play with the new cards in a setting where no one else has played with the new cards. It's an opportunity for a sort of group discovery of what these new cards do. There are spoilers that are leaked ahead of time, but until the packs are actually cracked, no one knows what's inside.

Since I got married and definitely since Oliver was born, I have seen a drastic cut in how much Magic I get to play. But prerelease weekends are an opportunity for me to get to play Magic for an extended period of time. There are a group of folks that I only see at prerelease weekends, so it becomes also a time to renew old acquaintances. Last prerelease I played in three flights and ended up winning a box of cards. This time was the prerelease for Guildpact. I played in zero flights and didn't win a thing. I didn't go.

If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would have voluntarily skipped a prerelease for anything other than a compulsory attendence event (like a wedding or a funeral or work), I'd have told you that you were cracked. If you had told me that I'd have rather stayed home because I wanted to work on the house, I'd have told you that I wanted what you were smoking. But if you told me that I'd stayed home and that the highlight of my day was a walk to the park with my son walking along holding on to one of my fingers, then I'd have told you that it must have been a day well spent.

Just for that walk with my son.

On a happy note

In other news, I had a performance review yesterday for which I received generally high marks. My manager is quite satisfied with what I've been doing. It seems that the only way for me to improve is to impress my manager's manager and my internal clients.

Get ready to be impressed, folks. *

---

*After I rescue myself from the Blehs.

The Blehs

I've been having trouble concentrating at work recently. I don't know if it because the project managers relocated to the other side of the wall disrupting the relative tranquility of this corner of the billing with their chatter. I don't know if it is because I'm somewhat uninspired and at the same time daunted by my current projects. I don't know if it is because I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should get. I just know that sugar and caffeine aren't making much of a dent in the Blehs and my deadlines are only getting closer.

Zen and the Art of Boiler Maintenance

Readers more familiar with my blog may remember a couple of months ago when I wrote about getting a new boiler. We had wanted one that kept itself filled, but that ended up being really expensive, so we went with a slightly less expensive model that required manual filling. A month or so ago I went downstairs to check it and it still had plenty of water.

When I got back from work last night, my wife asked me if it was cold in the house or just her. Passing up the obvious joke, I checked the thermostat and saw that it was 60' in the house. I went to check the boiler and sure enough it was low. I added some water and waited for it to kick on. It didn't do it immediately, so I figured that it took a little while to start up. I went back upstairs.

When it hadn't started a little while later, I went to check it. The pilot light was on, it had enough water, and it was certainly cold enough in the house. Jacking up the thermostat didn't help either. I did some research on the 'net and found references to resetting the system. This seemed like a good idea, so I went to look for a reset button. So I started poking around the various controls on the boiler (of which there are surprisingly few). Unfortunately one of the controls that I messed with was the gas flow control which turned off the pilot light. A frantic few minutes ensued and I was able to relight the pilot light. But the furnace still didn't kick on.

By this point I'd had it. There wasn't anything wrong with the gas system. For some reason the electrical system was goofy. So I went to the fuse box, flipped off the fuse for the boiler, flipped it back on, and *miraculous music* the boiler kicked on.

As I did the Happy Dance, I thought, "Great. My boiler is a Windows machine."

3000 visits

3000 visits! Thank you one and all. I could have done it without you, but that would have been tedious :)

Coming up: Prerelease weekend

This weekend is the pre-release weekend for Guildpact, the next Magic: the Gathering expansion for the Ravnica block. To most people that doesn't mean much. To my wife, it means that I'm going to disappear for a while. And to me, it signals another fun filled (time) of Magic ahead.

In days gone by, I'd go for the whole weekend, starting Friday at midnight through Saturday and coming back on Sunday. The last couple of expansions, I've tried to limit the amount of time that I'm gone since my wife gets stuck tending to Oliver while I'm gone. It would be easier if there was something that she did that took her away for a substantial amount of time. Then it would be more of an exchange. Also I was already away all of last weekend, hanging drywall.

I'm actually kind of excited to go. The last prerelease I managed to win a box of product. I hope to do nearly as well without having to stay up for almost 40 hours to do so.

One of the Magic websites usually has a complete spoiler list out a couple of days ahead of the event. This time I haven't bothered looking for it. Since I don't really get a chance to play very much between events, I don't see the need to spoil the surprise of the new set, beyond the level that Wizards already previews it. It doesn't necessarily help my chances of winning, but as my chances are sort of remote anyway I can live with it.

I think I'll try the midnight flight again. It's sort of the best time for me to go as I only really am leaving her by herself for the night. I'm a bit of a zombie the next day - not much of a change from normal.

Google Smackdown: The non-smackdown version

It took me a while, but I finally figured out the Wiliam Moseley is the guy from Chronicles of Narnia. And all of these hits are coming from teen girls in an Internet age Tiger Beat quest for infromation on the flavor of the moment. Good luck, girls. But seriously, I don't know.

I got a couple of hits from people looking for Anna Paquin. Sorry, guys, no pictures. You might try her website. B ut if you are trolling the net, that might not be the set of pictures you are looking for...

I got a hit from someone looking for Dungeons and Dragons. I usually post my gaming stories on the forums at Monte Cook's website. It takes a lot for me to get together a gaming log so I don't often do it.

I got a hit from someone looking for information on shorn ponytail guys and another on shaving your head. I miss the ponytail and being able to draw my hair back into a ponytail. But after I got past that I realized that my hair spent most of its time back in a ponytail. Short hair is only different in that it takes a lot less upkeep. I am still tempted to shave my head, but my wife likes for me to have some hair.

I got a number of hits from someone looking for information about Kevin Slaten. I wish he'd just talk about sports instead of inflicting his politics on his listeners at the same time. George Bush was just wrong to go into Iraq. The reason we went in there was to look for weapons of mass destruction which we were told that Georgie knew he had. It's good that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, but that wasn't why we went there. If the standard set forth by Bush is the overriding standard, then why aren't we already attacking North Korea? If Clinton had done this, you wouldn't be nearly this supportive. But Georgie gets a free pass because he cut your taxes. Just great.

Amazingly I got a hit from someone looking for information on spina bifida and dukes of hazzard. I got nothing on this one, sorry...

I did, however get a number of relevant hits this week. I got a hit from someone looking for information on IUI with injectables. We went to SIRM and saw Dr. Ahreling. If you're still looking for information, post something in the comments section.

I got a hit from someone looking for information on a father's role in breastfeeding. My take: your role is to be supportive of your wife. In the early days you are an extra pair of hands to get your child started (Oliver liked to cover his face with his arms when he was hungry). You need to make sure that your wife has the time and nourishment to feed your child. While she does that, you'll need to help with cooking and cleaning. In the later months your role diminishes somewhat, but you can still feed your child with pumped breast milk.

I got a hit from someone looking for information on gendering a child. My take: just say no. You can provide an appropriate gender identity while not smothering your child in pink or blue. I totally recommend not peeking when you are having your ultrasounds. Not knowing means that you can't stand gendering your child until at least they are born. But to each their own.

I got a hit from someone looking for pros and cons of the family bed. I can't separate the family bed aspect of our parenting experience from the rest of it. so I can't say how much of Oliver's personality comes from sleeping with us. But he seems very self-assured and happy. I can say that it is easy to change him in the middle of the night. Considering that we're also breastfeeding him, it's also easy (on me) to feed him at night. In terms of cons, co-sleeping further delays onset of menses and the quest for more children. So if you want a big family, don't co-sleep or start early. There are minor annoyances like when someone, and I'm not naming names, decides to "decorate" the bed in the middle of the night. Or decides that he wants to sleep perpendicularly to everyone else. But all in all, I enjoy co-sleeping and am loath to give it up unless Oliver clearly expresses a desire for his own space.

That's it for this week's greatest hits.

A Taker Gives

Over the years, I accumulated an impressive number of IOUs. I've moved 3 times (5 if you count my wife). I've needed assistance with hanging kitchen cabinets, installing microwaves, putting up ceilings, painting walls, and other various and sundry home repair projects. I haven't often been able to pay back my friends because they are willing to spend the money that could otherwise be spent buying their friends pizza and beer on actual professionals. This clear deviation in principles has meant that my IOUs just keep piling up.

This weekend, however, I got to start paying back some of my IOUs. My friend, S, had an electrical problem a couple of months ago. The basement ceiling was removed in order to figure out what was wrong. I don't think that S & A were terribly upset to have the acoustic tile removed, but a couple of weeks without a ceiling overhead was enough to make them want to install a new one. When he told me that he wanted to install a new ceiling, I volunteered to help. In all honesty, I figured I'd be one of the worker bees in this project.

The installation began earlier in the week, as I lent him some tools in order to help him rewire the overhead lights. My wife and I had some extra junction boxes from when we had work done at our house, and we sent those along as well. I dropped by to offer some suggestions on what he planned to do. His plans were pretty well thought out, so I didn't have much input to offer. I also asked who was going to be helping us. "Just you and I." On Friday, he finished the rewiring project in preparation for installing the ceiling on Saturday.

Saturday morning I had to work, but the plans were for me to be done by 10:00 to start work on the ceiling. Work took longer than I had planned and we didn't get going until almost noon. The first item of business was to go to Lowes and pick up the drywall, a truck, a drywall hanger, and some supplies. When we got there, we talked to the people in the drywall area and they told us that we should get the 5/8" stuff instead of the 1/2" stuff because we were putting a ceiling in the basement. We were ready to make our purchase when we discovered that they don't have a tool rental center so no drywall hanger. So to Home Depot we went. We got all of the stuff and headed back to the house.

At this point I had to break for lunch. My mother and her sister had flown in from Chicago for the day. My aunt had never seen Oliver and figured that as long as she was in the area that she should see Oliver. So they flew in at 10:00 and left at 7:00. I felt bad that I wouldn't be able to see them since I had committed to hanging the drywall, but my mother assured me that it was OK. Apparently, now that she has grandchildren, her children are a little less important. But I met them for lunch at Fitz's on the Loop. Oliver was a little tired and cranky, so I ended up walking with him for most of the meal. Then I dropped my mother and her sister off at the house and headed back to drywall.

Back at the house we picked a corner to start drywalling. The original thought was that we would slip the drywall under the exising moulding. And it would have worked if we were dealing with 1/2" drywall. Instead, we had to settle for putting it next to the moulding. What we should have done at this point should have been to take down the molding and put it back after we finished, but we opted not to do that. Over the next several hours we managed to get most of the drywall up and cut holes for the overhead lights. But there will need to be some crown molding before this basement is done.

Drywalling tip: if you have some things that will need to stick through the drywall, take some lipstick and smear it on the end like a Vegas showgirl. Then raise the drywall up into place. When you lower the sheet, you'll have a partial outline of the thing that you want to cut out.

The next day we finished the ceiling and took the hanger back to Home Depot. We taped up the ceiling. Then my wife came over to help with the spackling. As everyone knows, I am spackling-impaired. My wife is a skilled spackler.So I took Oliver home for a nap and she helped S out. This morning she dropped by to give him a sanding lesson.

All in all it was a good time. I got to spend time with one of my best friends. I got to pay off some (not even close to all, S) of my IOUs. He got a ceiling. Good times all around.

Mother Nature and the Change

Here is the forecast for the next few days - highs in the low to mid 40s and a day with the high in the low 50s. The past few days the weather has been similar. I wouldn't complain, but this is mid-January! The weather is supposed to be terrible! We're supposed to be wading through snow drifts and kicking slush off of our feet. As it is, there may be a day this weekend where I spend the entire day in a short sleeve t-shirt. It appears that Mother Nature is going through The Change. According to ThirdAge.com, here are some of the symptoms of menopause: Irregular periods, Hot flashes, Vaginal and bladder problems, Changes in sexuality, fatigue and sleep problems, mood changes, Visible changes in your body , Headaches, Memory problems, Joint and muscle stiffness or pain, and Difficulty concentrating.

I'll pass by the easy jokes about the weather and irregular periods, hot flashes, and mood swings (hurricane, tsunami, ...). Bladder problems are indicate a problem with the waste removal system. Mother Nature is clearly having trouble processing all of the generated waste. Changes in sexuality are indicate a problem with the reprodcutive system. Mother Nature is clearly having trouble reproducing all of the species that are endangered and the more that get added to the list daily. Visible changes in your body include thickening at the waist, loss of muscle mass, increase in fat, and loss of elasticity in the skin. Can you say obesity? I knew you could.

If Mother Nature is going through the change, what happens after that?

How I Write

Everyone is a product of their environment. My environment included eight years in Catholic school, four years of public school, and four years of a private university. At all levels I had a particular paragraph structure seared into my brain. If you go back over my previous posts you'll probably be able to see it.

I introduce the topic of the paragraph with either a witty phrase or bland statement. If I haven't done so already, I'll make central statement of the paragraph or just add some more information. I'll add more information in subsequent sentences. Four or more sentences make a paragraph. I may insert a sentence if I feel that the paragraph is missing some meat. Finally, I'll provide some type of conclusion.

My school papers were always either four or five paragraphs. The first was the introduction. The introduction finished with the central statement of the paper. The next few were the supporting arguments. The final paragraph wrapped up the paper with some sort of conclusion. Generally this was a restatement of the central statements of the supporting arguments followed by a concluding statement that related to the central statement of the paper.

I see this writing style in books that I read. Recently I've been reading non-fiction books like The Tipping Point and The Wisdom of Crowds. While reading these books, I can see the authors falling into this format. I'm trying to figure out if they wrote this way because it is the way that they have been taught or if it is because it is the way that their audience was taught.

Packages!

One of the benefits to Ebay shopping is that it makes the mail arriving so much more exciting. Did my package come today? Sure, you could cheat and use package tracking to find out exactly where it is as it travels from its source to its eventual destination. And you still get that buzz of excitement when the mailbox creaks open. Not that I'd condone cheating that way...

The other day I got a package of miniatures. I knew what was inside it, but it was still exciting to open it up. I wanted to see if it would meet my expectations or if it would be a let down. I've opened packages that did not excite me before so there is a little anxiety.

I'm always anxious to see how it was packed. Some Ebay sellers put more care into how they send off their packages then others. I had one seller ship me a group of 10+ miniatures crammed into one end of an old check box. Note the absence of any sort of packing material. There wasn't even any tissue paper. Thankfully there was not too much damage to the miniatures or I'd have been really upset.

I'm anxious to see what condition the item is in. I don't spend very much on Ebay which sort of insulates me from the frauds on Ebay. Who wants to hurt their rating for $5.00? But when they say that the item is in good condition, it could mean anything some pristine to intact but gnawed on. For miniatures, there a lot of ways that the figure can be bent or weakened so that I'll end up being the one to break it. So far I've had good luck with the condition of the items.

I'm anxious to see exactly what it is. Some sellers do not sufficiently describe the product that they are selling. Or the picture that they take of the item is too far away to get a good look at it. When you open the package, you are hoping that the miniatures look like what you expected. One package I received had a bunch of sci-fi miniatures when I was expecting something that I would use for Dungeons and Dragons. Another contained a couple of other sci-fi miniatures with the D&D era miniatures.

Aside from the genre of figure, the issue of size becomes important. I have miniatures from Ral Partha, Grenardier, Reaper and others. Each miniature line has its own scale from 15mm to 30mm as well as each race has its own size. But when a large-sized ogre is dwarfed by a small-sized halfling, it becomes harder to suspend your disbelief. I've managed to avoid picking up any figures of wildly disparate size, but some of my figures are apparently of a different scale when you stand them next to one another.

But when I get a package like I did yesterday where all of the figures were well packed, in good condition, of an appropriate genre and size, your anxiety goes away. Now I just have to have time to put it all together.

Plague carrier

So yesterday I got my first call from day care to come and get my diseased child. Oliver was leaking mucus from his eyes and they were worried about pink eye. He had been doing that the day before but since he didn't have any fever or redness to his eyes, my wife and I weren't worried. Well, day care was. So I went and picked him up about 1:45 and we headed home.

On the way home I called the doctor's office and was told that a nurse would call me back. We got home and Oliver napped for the next hour and a half. When I got the call back from the doctor and explained what was going on, I was told that he just had a head cold that could be treated with Triaminic. The doctor's office faxed a note back to the day care saying that Oliver was unlikely to be contagious.

This morning I took him back to day care. His caretakers were slightly less enthusiastic about seeing him this morning. Hmmm... wonder why... But it's been six hours and no call. We'll see if our luck holds out.

Movie review: The 25th Hour

The 25th Hour is a film about grief. What makes it unique is that the main character is not dead but is instead going to prison for seven years. Monty Brogan (Edward Norton) was a small-time drug dealer in New York City. As the film opens, someone has snitched on him and tomorrow he goes upstate to jail. He spends much of the day wandering around the city with his dog, Doyle, remembering his glory days. He eats a last meal with his father (Brian Cox), a retired fireman who is a recovering alcoholic and owns a bar. At night he has a going away party with his girlfriend, Naturalle (Rosario Dawson), and two old friends Frank (Barry Pepper) and Jacob (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) at the club his supplier owns. At the club Jacob runs into Mary (Anna Paquin), a student on whom he has a crush.

The film is slow, elegiac, as you would expect from its subject. With the exception of a rant from Monty, all of the actors give subdued performances. While this illustrates the mood of the piece, it doesn't arrest your attention. The question of who turned in Monty is given some attention, but the question is addressed in a resigned fashion as the answer can't save Monty from his fate now.

The piece that most resonated with me was a monologue given by Monty's father who speaks longingly of the life that won't be. I felt his father's regret for the days gone by and his love for his son. It really made the movie for me.

Cats and the Cradle

So everyone has a particular movie or book that scares the bejeezus out of them. Some get frightened by slasher movies or by white-knuckle tension. Other people get frightened by a particularly evocative attack on a fictional surrogate. For me the thing that has been scaring the bejeezus out of me is:

Cats and the Cradle

Now, no one is going to confuse me with a globe-trotting businessman who is too involved with his career to be involved with his son. But there are other ways of checking out. I could get too involved with my hobbies. I could get too involved in taking care of what needs to be done for tomorrow that I don't spend time in the present. And that's one thing that scares the bejeezus out of me.

The Tipping Point

For Christmas, my father gave me a copy of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell writes about how social epidemics are created. We all know of some fads that never quite took off, some that are still gaining momentum, some that have lost their momentum, and some that crashed like a tech stock.

One of his case studies is the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Historically there were actually two riders, Revere and Joseph Dawes. But while Revere woke up the countryside, the countryside where Dawes rode barely stirred. Both riders were delivering the same message ("The British are coming!"). But Revere delivered it in such a way that really took hold. A lot of it had to do with Revere - the kind of man who knew who to talk to in each community he passed, the kind of man who knew how to "sell" his message.

Gladwell spends a good deal of the book talking about the kinds of people that are needed to start an epidemic. There are the Connectors (a person who knows a lot of people in different groups), the Mavens (a person who knows a lot about something), and the Salesmen (a person who knows how to convince you to do something). He also talks about how the context determines whether an idea will succeed or fail. Imagine how futile Revere's efforts would have been if everyone wanted the British to come.

Gladwell spent a lot of time talking about how social epidemics start, but it would have been interesting to look at why they die out. He describes one case study where the epidemic died, but more post mortems would have been interesting. It may just be that a counter epidemic takes place.

As I was reading I thought about the various and sundry epidemics that I've been part of. For example, I have a friend S who decided that it would be more beneficial to spend the money that he would have spent on a movie and buy a board game with it. After doing some research, he stumbled across Carcassone and Settlers of Catan. For a while, he played games with anyone who came over, including me. I introduced the game to Paul and Sarahlynn while they were new parents and didn't get out much. They in turn introduced it to Jessica and Scott, who have become huge fans. We also taught the game to Andi and her husband. S also introduced S&P, who played with M&K and P&A. Now our whole peer group is "infected." Already I know that some infected people are introducing the game to their parents, so the board game craze is moving out.

I've been a part of two different Magic epidemics. The first epidemic happened in college. My friend D taught me how to play at his apartment. Eventually he wore me down and I bought some cards. We started playing in our fraternity suite at lunch time. Some of our friends watched us play for a couple of days before they asked to be taught how to play. We taught S (of the board games) how to play. Soon we had ten people in our peer group playing. But gradually people lost interest in the game. Strategically it was still as interesting, but the costs associated with keeping up with the game grew prohibitive. Of the group that started playing many still have their cards and like to come out and play, but I'm the only one to keep up with the game as far as I know. As an interesting sidenote to the story, S passed his cards on to his brother K, who is part of an epidemic of Magic players where he lives.

The second epidemic happened at my previous place of work. I discovered that most of the group of guys that I worked with were former Magic players. So I proposed that we could play, but minimize the upkeep costs associated with the game by playing with small subsets of cards and to keep the game fresh by rotating the card sets whenever they got stale. Instead of a massive initial investment, everyone only had to kick in a little bit of money every once in a while. This worked well for quite a while. But a combination of factors caused the game to end. The card sets had a number of unanswerable game breakers. People wanted to use larger subsets of cards. We played the same game for a long time and people wanted some variety. We lost the room that we had been privately playing in and no one wanted to play in front of our co-workers and (perhaps more importantly) managers. Finally we started losing players and there was no longer enough to keep the game going.

Sudoku

At some point over the past couple of months, someone introduced my wife to Sudoku. For the uninitiated, Sudoku is a puzzle where your are given a 9x9 box with some of the boxes filled in. A successful solution will use those numbers to fill each row, column and 3x3 box (top left, top middle, top right, ...) with the numbers 1-9. Here's a sample solution

123456789
456789123
789123456
231645978
564978312
897312645
312564897
645897231
978231564

In general, the more numbers they fill in, the easier the puzzle is. For example, if I only remove one number from the solution above,

X23456789
456789123
789123456
231645978
564978312
897312645
312564897
645897231
978231564

it is trivial to figure out what number is missing (1).

So, I've been trying to figure out how many unique solutions there are. For every unique solution there are 6^8*2 or 3359232 related solutions. I get this by taking a solution

123456789
456789123
789123456
231645978
564978312
897312645
312564897
645897231
978231564

and switching the first two columns

213456789
546789123
879123456
321645978
654978312
987312645
132564897
465897231
798231564

and you can check that it still works. You can permute the first three columns in six different ways. Then the second three and the third three. And then you can do the same thing by permuting the groups of columns. You can also do the same thing with rows

546789123
213456789
879123456
321645978
654978312
987312645
132564897
465897231
798231564

And then I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure that there is another related solution reflected across the diagonal. So 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 * 6 * 2. But this assumes that all of these are unique solutions,

Greater minds than mine have already attempted this problem: Mathmatics of Sudoku. But that isn't going to stop me from thinking about it.

It would seem that each puzzle has a finite number of unique signatures - combinations of givens that points to a particular solutions. But given that there are apparently 6x10^22+ solutions, it seems unlikely that the signatures will every be known.

Ebaying - having time can be a dangerous thing

The other day I was perusing the listings on Ebay and I came across a whole series of items from a single seller that were listed for a penny a piece plus a hefty shipping charge. I figured that someone would overtop my bids, so I bid on eight of them... and won all of my bids. Here is where having time becomes a dangerous thing. I was interested in all of the items, but it was more that I wanted to see if someone would outbid me at the last second again. And they didn't. On the one hand, go me, but on the other, I had been thinking that I didn't need to spend much more. But it was just so cheap and I was bored.

I think I'm done shopping on Ebay for wants. In three weeks, I spent in the neighborhood of $150. That's not bad - it certainly could have been worse - and I'll have boosted my rating to (14) or so. I have enough of the figures that I was buying to not have to buy any more for quite a while. Once I get organized, I may dip my toe back into the waters as a seller.

Advice to other parents

The other night we had dinner with some friends of ours who are expecting. We were talking about where they were in their preparations. They were talking about how all of the books sounded so militant. I realized that most parents sound militant when you ask them about how they are raising their child. Every parent wants to believe that they are raising their child in the best way possible. The obvious conclusion parents unconsciously reach is that every other method of raising a child must in some way be inferior. If it wasn't, then someone is raising their child in a better way than you are. Hence many parents become strident advocates of their particular form of child rearing.

Personally my wife and I fall into the category of slightly "crunchy." The term crunchy comes from the sort of New Age hippee-ism that you would associate with granola. Your level of crunchiness is determined by how you birth, feed, diaper, clean, care for, clothe, and sleep with your child. For instance, we gave birth to Oliver in a hospital, but did not use pain medication. We kept him with us full-time instead of sending him to the nursery. We use cloth diapers, but use disposable wipes and will use disposables when travelling. Oliver is breastfed and we delayed introducing solids until he was almost six months old. However, my wife would not feel comfortable suckling someone else's child. We made most of our own baby food and will use organic yogurt and cheeses wherever practicable. We co-sleep with our child. We work and Oliver goes to day care four days a week. Oliver has never used a pacifier.

There are a lot of other areas where you can be crunchier than we are. There are things that I'd like to do better. And a lot of these areas demonstrate places where we had to make compromises to fit the needs of our family. But that's really the important thing. All parenting advice is a smorgasbord. It's out there for you to take a look at and see if it is palatable to you and your family. Take what works, what fits, and leave the rest there for someone else to use. Crunchy or smooth - as long as they grow up to hate you for something, you've done your job as a parent.

Google smackdown

This week's candidates are the people who visited my blog looking to find out whether "William Moseley has a girlfriend" and "Meatball the fat cat in a sweater." I hope the person who was looking to find where to get an IUI in Missouri found what they were looking for.

Long vacations

Long vacations are nice. You get to rest, relax, and spend some time with your family. You can plan and do things that require a lot of time like trips or big projects. But personally whenever I have a long vacation I end up screwing up my sleep schedule. Over the past week I've gone to bed fewer nights before 2:00 than after it.

Part of the reason that I've screwed it up this week is that the time after everyone else is in bed is time that I can do whatever I want. Some times I use it productively to do laundry or finish up the dishes. Some times I use it to catch up on my web surfing. I've been using it as time to paint my some of my new miniatures. And while my wife is understanding, that doesn't mean that I'm off the hook in the morning.

Whatever part of me that manages my Z's has got to be anxious for me to get back to work so I can catch up. Isn't that what long vacations used to be for?

Ebay: The Addiction

I have a growing addiction to shopping on Ebay. At first, I was going to just buy a few miniatures for my D&D games. I bid on a set of 6 figures and won. Then I bid on a set of 7 figures and won. Then I bid on a set of 16 figures and won. Then I bid on a set of 27 figures and won. And there were the many auctions that got away. I'd bid up to $49 on 32 figures and it would close at $50 - so close and really forever away. I guess part of the problem is that I'm trying to game the system, putting in low-ball bids on items that I'm interested in. That's not really like the Ebay snipers who wait until just before a bid closes to try and steal it from under you. But if I'm trying to game the system, it is trying to game me. I have a feedback SCORE, bids that I've WON and LOST, and other bidders who are COMPETING against me, some FAIRly and others CHEATING, for the things that I want. As of the writing of this post I have 8 items that I'm the high bidder on.

Anyone want some miniatures? I may soon have some to sell.

New Years

On the day of New Year's Eve, my wife and I headed out to the Mills to look for a chest freezer. The chest freezer is a Buy It and I'll Pay You Back present from my mother in law. We've been scouring the available shops looking for the best buy (Best Buy [Joke!], Lowes, Sears, etcetera). Anyway, by the time we were leaving it was getting to be dinner time and we didn't feel like cooking. We decided to go to Outback for our New Years dinner. It ended up being a good time as we got seated in a long booth which allowed Oliver to walk around on the bench when he got bored with sitting. And when he got bored with the bench, the table next to us was empty and he toured the immediate area pushing one of the chairs.

After dinner we headed home and hung out for a bit. We got Oliver to sleep and then camped out in the living room with some chocolates and wine. When he woke up, I went upstairs to get him and we all ended up camping out in the living room. My wife crashed before midnight. I gave both of them a kiss after midnight.

And then sad to say, but I stayed up until 2:00 blogging.

Bragging

We went into Kiddee Kandids today to get some pictures. We were looking at the sample photo book when a familiar face stared back up at us:



Hello, Oliver. What are you doing here, you cute baby?

Needed some advice

I needed some advice, but now it's too late to do anything about it. Anyway, what do you give as a holiday gift to the people who take care of your child?

After Christmas

My wife and I planned to take the week between Christmas and New Years off. Exotic destination? Ski vacation? Puh-lease. We stayed home and finished off a bedroom. Spackled the ceiling, fixed the cracks, and painted it (Actually my wife did most of that). It may not seem like something to get excited about but we got to spend a week together working on something without the baby. We got some things done that we'd never have gotten done with him around. It was almost like a trip back to pre-Oliver days. We did still have to drop him off at day care and pick him up, but those 6.5 hours in between were productive. We even got to go see the new Harry Potter movie on Friday. The only real bummer is that we still have things on our to do list. Ah well, there's always next year...

Christmas

Ever since my wife and I started spending Christmas together the holiday has turned into less of a celebration and more of a long-distance event. Our usual routine has us running up to Chicago to spend a day or two with my family before heading back here on Christmas morning to spend the afternoon opening presents with her family before finally coming home to do our own Christmas. That's a lot of Christmasing to do. This year was no exception. Thankfully we had stock piled whatever vacation days to stretch the vacation out over a couple of weeks.

Wednesday night we left St. Louis for Chicago. We waited until it was time for Oliver to go to sleep before we left. It worked like a charm. He conked out in the back seat. My wife and I drove up to Chicago with only one stop. We got in after midnight. She took Oliver to bed while I stayed up and talked to my folks.

My mother had just had some back surgery to help her with some pain that she'd had. She had just gotten back from the hospital earlier that day. It was good to see her up and around. She reported that she wasn't quite to where she was pre-surgery, but she was already feeling less pain. I was a bit distressed to see that her face was all swollen and puffy like she'd had some dental work done. It turned out that she has/d Bell's palsy. She went in to see the doctor the next day and by the end of our visit it was no longer in evidence.

I went out to pick up one of my best friends and her boyfriend from O'Hare. That turned into a bit of an adventure. I told them to go to the far end of the pick up where I would look to pick them up. There is usually a bit of a pile-up at the front of the pick up area, but the end is easier to squeeze into. Two things went wrong here. First O'Hare decided that they didn't want to make picking up your passengers a good experience so they closed down the waiting lanes. Then to make it more inconvenient, they closed the recirculation lanes. So to drive past the pick up area you had to leave the airport property go back a few exits and then come back. Convenient, thanks O'Hare! The other thing is that my friend got in at Terminal A which is next to Terminals B and C. Including their pick up areas. So on my third pass, I got a call from them telling me that instead of being at the end of A - like I was expecting - they were at the end of B - which I had just passed. But one recirculation later I picked them up. We hung out for a bit and promised to get back together later.

My aunt Re came in later that night at Midway. I went out with my father to pick her up. While he circled, I ran in to find her. I found her but no bags. Still no bags. And still no bags. Thanks Midway! We filled out a report and headed home. She did get the bag the next day, but I think she would have rather left the airport with it - just a hunch.

The next day was Christmas Eve. Since my mother had her surgery and ny brother and I weren't really interested in hauling our respective children to Midnight Mass, we just planned a dinner and presents for Christmas Eve. Dinner was fun and it was nice to see Oliver and his cousin playing near each other. The playing with will surely happen in the next year or so. We exchanged gifts and then everyone headed home.

But it seems that one hidden gift was exchanged. Around 2:00 in the morning I heard my parents moving around. I peeked my head in to find that my mother had decorated the floor. The stomach flu had arrived. I helped my parents clean up the mess and get my mother to the bathroom. Having had the flu recently I know how hard it is. I can't imagine how my mother dealt with it so well so soon after her surgery. We ended up skipping gifts and calling my siblings to warn them. I don't know how much good it ended up being at that point. I called my friends and let them know that I wouldn't be able to see them after all since I didn't want them to get it if I were contagious.

After a day of no flu symptoms for us, we waited for Oliver to get tired, packed up, and headed to my wife's family's place for Christmas. They were planning to open gifts on Monday since just about everyone had it off anyway. We arrived there on the 25th at 11:30 and went to bed. My wife let Oliver crawl over the kids who were passed out on the floor to wake everyone up in the morning. It's a good thing he's cute. We ate and opened gifts. Next time I'll bring a bigger car. Finally it was time to be getting home. When we got there we assembled our big toy for Oliver, a combination walker, scooter, and truck that he was overjoyed to see. Over the next couple of days errant gifts arrived and Christmas was complete.