Sean is just some guy who lives in the Twin Cities. Updates to this blog are at random intervals. Other Pages

19 December 2008 - Lizzie has just had her regular nine-month old check-up at the pediatrician. She's perfectly healthy. Mass-wise, she has stayed consistently at about the 25th percentile for baby girls. So she's a little small (but still well within the normal range). A friend of Cindy has a baby girl two months younger than Lizzie, nevertheless Elizabeth is ending up with her hand-me-downs. Holding her up to my face, I said to Lizzie, "We ended up with a little baby. So how did we get you? I don't remember ordering a little baby." "I did," interrupted Cindy. 11 December 2008 - So at dinner this evening, Lizzie was making a strange strangled sound periodically. "She's been doing that for awhile," explained Cindy. It sounds kind of like a cough, but it clearly isn't an actual cough. I had a cold couple of weeks ago, and Cindy has had a cold for the past week, but fortunately, Lizzie hasn't seemed to have caught it. Nevertheless, the strange strangled sound over the past couple of days. Cindy realized what it is...Lizzie doesn't have a cough. But Mommy does. She's copying her. 8 December 2008 - At not quite nine months, Elizabeth can: Wave bye-bye. Crawl, very fast. I can no longer leave Lizzie in the family room just to go get a drink from the refrigerator. By the time I'd get back, she'd have followed me halfway up the stairs. Crawl up the stairs, as I just mentioned. This is probably Not A Good Thing. She crawls up confidently, usually requiring no help, but occasionally she will slip on a step, and she'd fall if Cindy or I weren't right behind, catching her. She's really probably gotten too brave; she's shown herself perfectly willing to take a dive off of a bed, or a chair, or her changing table if we'd let her. Get rid of her pacifier if she wants to. This is significant because I used to play a trick on her and offer her a graham cracker while she had her pacifier in her mouth. She'd just stare at the graham cracker, obviously wanting it, but have a confused expression as she didn't know what to do. Now if I do the same trick, she just opens up her mouth wide, dropping the pacifier on the floor and gleefully grabs for the cracker. Pull herself up and walk around the house, while hanging onto things the entire time. I think this is called "cruising". She's a good crawler but she likes pulling herself up so much that I doubt she'll be crawling for long. Understand the word "no". She doesn't always obey it, but she it's pretty clear she understands it. When we tell her "no" to something she's doing, she'll start and look guilty, and maybe whimper a little bit. But she won't necessarily actually stop yanking on the curtains, grabbing at the house plants, or gnawing on the electrical cords. Say "mama, mama." She calls for "mama" especially when distressed, so we think she may actually mean it when she says it. She doesn't really say "daddy", though, so Cindy has been working on it with her. Every day, when I come home from work, Cindy and Lizzie are waiting for me at the front door, and when I open the door, Cindy shouts, "Daddy's home!" I think it may having an effect...this weekend, when Cindy and Lizzie and I were all sitting in the living room together, Cindy looked at Lizzie and asked, "Lizzie, where's Daddy? Can you look at Daddy?" Lizzie immediately looked at the front door. 5 December 2008 - So when the photo print shop calls and asks whether you still want your prints, because the pictures of the iguana turned out pretty pixellated, you are forced to decide between one of two conclusions: They have somehow mixed up your photo print order with somebody else's. Your baby is definitely not as photogenic as you think she is. 4 December 2008 - So I took my complete 50 State Quarters collection to work, so others might have a chance to gaze at it and bask in its glory. I even had it with me when I was buying lunch at my work cafeteria, and the cashier guy noticed the book on my tray. "So you have all fifty states?" he asked. "Yep," I replied proudly. "Did you know that they are coming out with six more?" "Six more states?" Well, making change is his business, so I looked it up, and goddamn, it turns out that he was right. Wikipedia says that as of about a year ago, Congress decided that the U.S. territories and protectorates will each get their own quarters in 2009: D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands. So it turns out I'm not finished. I'm not sure I like this. First of all, if these territories want their own quarters, I think they should get their act together and become states. What other incentive do they have? More importantly, my collection book doesn't have six extra holes for those other ones. 3 December 2008 - Cindy found a Hawaii for me yesterday! Finished! Now I have something to put on my tombstone: "He Got All 50." 23 November 2008 - We had breakfast with Elizabeth's aunt Monica this morning. MONICA (talking to Lizzie): So there's another baby at your day care? ME (interrupting): His name is Dayton. MONICA (still talking to Lizzie): So, Lizzie, you know a boy named "Dayton"? ME: I've seen Dayton, Lizzie's a lot cuter than Dayton. MONICA: Lizzie, do you like Dayton? ME: He's not really a good-looking child. MONICA: Is Dayton your boyfriend? ME: Lizzie can do better. 21 November 2008 - So my workplace is forcing us to upgrade from Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007, and to my horror, I discovered that Microsoft has changed the Outlook logo. The image on the left is the old logo, and the image on the right is the new one: In most respects, the new logo looks more modern and advanced and better, except, they got the time wrong! The old Outlook logo was cool because the image of the clock was not only a clock, but (masquerading as the hands for 3 o'clock), it also had the letters letters "O" and "L", for Out-Look. Part of the reason this was great was that I had been using Outlook 2003 for like a year or so before I noticed this subtlety. I remember thinking that the suite of Office apps had a consistent primary color theme going, with a blue "W" icon for Word, a green "X" icon for Excel, too bad there's no yellow "O" for Outlook—hey wait, there it is! Nifty! In the redesigned logo, there's absolutely no reason why they couldn't have kept the time as 3 o'clock, but they didn't. The clock border is so thin now that it's not really an "O", and the "1:50" time just doesn't resemble an "L" much at all, so it's gone. It's ruined now. Just another casualty in a long line of neat but abandoned logos. 15 November 2008 - Today I was watching Lizzie in the family room, and I stepped out of the room briefly, and came back to find that Lizzie had pulled herself up by grabbing onto our CD shelves, out of which she was enthusiastically pulling CDs. So it begins... 14 November 2008 - On Monday Elizabeth abruptly decided that she'd learned how to crawl. On the weekend, she didn't know how, but early Monday morning, before I took her to day care, I had put her on the floor and there she was, making her way around the living room. I could hardly wait to come home that evening to tell Cindy what I had seen, but as soon as I opened the door, Cindy said to me excitedly, "Guess who learned how to crawl today!" So obviously she wasn't doing it for just me. Today I decided to find out what object she likes to play with the most. So I seated her in the middle of the family room, and then gathered up some of her favorite toys and put them all on the floor several feet away from her, surrounding her: our electronic piano keyboard that she likes to bang on, her big inflatable beach ball, her smaller grabbable bouncy ball, and her Happy Baby Colors board book. Then I sat down on the floor to see which particular one she would go for. Lizzie looked around at the toys around her, slowly leaned over, got on her hands and knees, and then crawled in a straight line right to Daddy. 8 November 2008 - Today I was checking the Electoral-vote.com web site, wondering if Missouri had been called for McCain or Obama yet. (Assuming the former retains his razor-thin lead there, that means that my prediction had only 1.2 states incorrect; Indiana and the Omaha district of Nebraska went to Obama instead of McCain.) While I was there, I noticed the following headline: Bush Advised to Wait on Book I'd have to agree with that advice. Since Bush has waited this long to actually read a book, he might as well wait till his term ends before starting one now. 4 November 2008 - 3 November 2008 - As promised, here's my prediction for tomorrow's results. (This isn't rocket surgery, by the way. My guess is that a lot of sites are predicting a 353-185 Obama win, and I pretty much agree with them.) (If you've never seen this kind of map before, the geographic map is adjusted to make the area of each state accurately represent its electoral vote count. In 2004 I got tired of seeing conservative sites pompously link to counterfactual maps like this, deliberately inaccurately overemphasizing nationwide support for Republicans; needless to say, the vast majority of the red counties are areas where few people live, and the blue counties tend to be major population centers. The two states I'm least sure about electoral-wise are Missouri and North Carolina. Missouri I have as red, but it could easily go blue (especially because that's where the Intrade bets appear to be going). But what the heck—I'm satisfied with 353 Obama votes—I can afford to be generous with 11 votes from the Show-Me State. And besides, the Republicans may get fifteen of them back anyway if the Tarheels go red. Virginia will get called for Obama relatively early in the evening, and since McCain absolutely must win Virginia to have any chance at all, there won't be much drama in the presidential race this year. It would be nice to see the Democrats get sixty seats in the Senate, but I suspect that they'll fall a little short of that. Everybody who reads this blog, make sure you get out and vote tomorrow, and make sure you vote for Barack Obama! 1 November 2008 - Bad news for Obama supporters. "The Interested American" web site has made an update since my last entry. They report that McCain/Palin has widened their lead, with Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania!) flipping to the Republican column: McCain/Palin defeats Obama/Biden 299-239 I see that when tagging his web site, he's very careful to include Obama's middle name. For some reason he doesn't do that with McCain, Palin or Biden; I wonder why not? I admit that it's not really fair of me to keep pointing this particular conservative-run web site, since it's being run by an individual who is obviously a complete idiot. By contast, here's another electoral prediction web site, also run by a conservative, but this guy's prediction is much more realistic. As of November first, Election Projection predicts: Obama defeats McCain 375-163 The guy is very careful to be objective with his projection, and I have a lot of respect for that. Quoting his post from last Monday: Today, I have a news flash. I am no longer wavering on how I believe this election will turn out. In my mind, there is little doubt now. Eight days from Election Day, here is this blogger's conclusion: Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide. He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more. McCain may benefit from some measure of the Bradley Effect, but that advantage will be overwhelmed by African-American turnout, Palin-induced defections by moderates, and under-funded, unenthusiastic GOP get-out-the-vote efforts. This week's update shows Obama with a 375-163 electoral vote edge. The actual result may be a tad closer, but I'd be less surprised if his victory surpassed even that landslide tally. 31 October 2008 - Happy Halloween! 30 October 2008 - Here's the prediction of "The Interested American" web site. Unlike Fox News's site from yesterday, the guy running this site doesn't have any toss-ups; he's calling every state and declaring an overall winner: McCain/Palin defeats Obama/Biden 278-260 In calculating McCain as next Tuesday's winner, he's calling states such as Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire and Nevada for the Republicans. His rationalizations include "correcting rampant oversampling of Democrats," "a modest Bradley effect," and (the sure sign of a right-wing nut) the hysterical hue and cry of "voter fraud." The prediction market site Intrade is currently offering 5-to-1 odds on McCain winning the election. So for example, a bet of $20,000 will net $100,000 when McCain wins. Sounds like a lot better investment than the stock market these days. So I wonder if this guy is putting his money where his mouth is? 29 October 2008 - It's electoral prediction time! We'll start with that pinnacle of journalism, Fox News. Bill O'Reilly's prediction (as of October 29): McCain leads Obama 189-183 States like Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan? All "toss-ups." So I guess according to Bill, about half of these will go to Obama and half to McCain. North Carolina and North Dakota are firmly in the red. I'll probably post one of these every couple days till November 3, and I'll publish my own prediction then. We'll see who's most accurate. 19 October 2008 - Elizabeth can now roll over pretty much at will, and as a result, despite the fact that we always put her to sleep on her back, we now usually find her in the morning sleeping on her front (head centered in a mattress drool stain). And when she's awake, she's often on her front, arms and head up, trying to see through the hallway into our bedroom from between the bars of her crib. (She's waiting for either Mommy or That Other One to come get her.) Also, in addition to the cereals and mashed fruits and vegetables that she's been getting regularly, today Cindy tried giving her a cracker. Lizzie took it and ate it, all by herself. Finally, Elizabeth can now crawl, but only in a backwards direction. What you can do is put a toy that she wants in front of her, just out of reach. She'll get off of her tummy onto her arms and legs, and then slowly, very slowly, back away from it, and then start crying when she realizes that the toy is getting further away from her instead of closer. So I don't think she knows that she's going backwards instead of forwards. 4 October 2008 - So this morning I read about an Ohio poll of people who watched this week's vice-presidential debate. 38% of the people thought Biden won, and 37% thought Palin won. The blog The Talent Show says it best... ...Biden clearly demonstrated his deep knowledge of foreign and domestic policy while relentlessly hammering John McCain while Sarah Palin was able to stick to her talking points and form complete sentences, even if it meant ignoring the actual questions that were asked. Or in other words, a tie. Maybe next time we face a major crisis, whether it be a misguided war-turned-quagmire or an economy that’s sunk under the weight of enormous irresponsibility, we should remind ourselves that the American people seem to have a hard time choosing between a competent, experienced Senator ready to step into the presidency and a folksy, relatable idiot who speaks in cliches. This is ridiculous. Fortunately, I've been following electoral prediction web sites, and I'm not too concerned. At what point will the GOP realize that McCain has no chance of winning, and stop wasting money on the national campaign to focus on more winnable contests? Hopefully not at all. 15 September 2008 - Elizabeth produced her first solid poop yesterday! We're so excited! 6 September 2008 - A Packers fan who has never known any starting quarterback other than Aaron Rodgers. 4 September 2008 - Elizabeth has recently learned how to eat solid foods, if you count rice cereal mush as "solid". You don't even have to put the spoon up to her mouth; if she sees the spoon anywhere near her, she'll stare at it and open up her mouth really wide. It's actually pretty amusing if you see it. This week Cindy ran out of rice cereal so she switched to oatmeal. Lizzie took one bite and then gave her a confused "What the hell is this?" expression. But she ate it anyway. Since both her mommy and daddy like to sleep on their sides, I guess it's not too surprising that Elizabeth apparently likes to sleep on her side, too. She still falls asleep pretty fast; especially if you give her her pacifier. You can tell when she's getting tired, so what you can do is put in her crib, on her back, and she'll immediately begin whimpering to be picked up. So, you just put her pacifier in her mouth. She'll immediately roll over 90 degrees, and then be asleep. It's like magic. Lizzie's been babbling more than ever. When she's happy, a lot of the time it's "Lalalalalalalala." When she's unhappy, it's "Nananananananana". Other sounds, also; this weekend I was making breakfast, and when her grandmother carried her in to the kitchen, she looked at me and said brightly, "Hidad!" That may have been just a coincidence, though. 31 August 2008 - So the boobs are coming to town, but in a stroke of luck for them (but bad for the people of New Orleans), Hurricane Gustav is preventing the two biggest boobs from being able to make it. After eight years, even the most misguided Republicans have to admit that the Bush adminstration as been a total disaster. So their non-presences at the convention can only be an advantage for McCain. In the meantime, check out this advertisement that I read in the paper this morning... 3 August 2008 - At 4½ months, what's new with Lizzie? We now successfully have gotten her to sleep overnight in her crib in the nursery instead of our bed (hooray!). Other than that, she's not doing anything really new. However, everything that she used to be able to do, she now can do a lot better. For example: Two months ago she was just starting to giggle. Now she can laugh out loud. Two months ago she could roll over to her back when placed on her front. Now, when placed on her front, she doesn't immmediately cry and try to roll back over. She'll be content to play awhile, staying on her front. Two months ago she was just starting to talk (nonsense). Now she talks all the time. It's still nonsense. Two months ago she was just starting to get interested in her toys. She plays with her toys all the time now. I guess if when you say "play", you mean "put into her mouth". Two months ago she was just starting to drool. Now she can drool really, really well. 19 July 2008 - From Simpsons Avatar Creator: "You gave yourself too much hair," Cindy said after my first draft. So the above is my second draft. "You still gave yourself too much hair." 11 July 2008 - He's in, he's out, he's in, he's out. Now he's in again? Sorry, but I never liked Ross Perot; I certainly don't want him for a quarterback. Let him go. 15 June 2008 - So I'm driving home on I-35E through downtown St. Paul, and I always notice St. Joseph's hospital when passing it, because Cindy and I had to go there for our childbirthing class last January. The hospital has always had a big sign visible from the interstate that read: "HealthEast St. Joseph's Hospital — Caring since 1853." But now it reads only "HealthEast St. Joseph's Hospital". (I can still see dark marks from where the other letters got removed.) I can only assume that they have stopped caring. 14 June 2008 - Elizabeth is just about three months old now, and she is able to: Hold her head up without any support Giggle Roll over to her back when placed on her front Put her pacifier back in her mouth after spitting it out Suck her thumb when she has no pacifier Say the word "hi" (taking into account the fact that of all the random different syllables that she makes, one of them is bound to sound like "hi") Some of the things that she is not able to do: Climb out of the bathroom sink after being placed in it 1 June 2008 - You are what you read...         24 May 2008 - Elizabeth is staring at me intently. Watching closely right back at her, I slowly and deliberately show her the brightly colored rattle in my right hand, and then shake it for several seconds. In her own left hand, Lizzie is clutching her own rattle. (I had to put it there, because she can't pick anything up on her own, and it stays there, because she can't drop anything on her own, either.) After I'm finished shaking my rattle, Lizzie pauses for a couple of seconds, and then begins waving her own left arm, back and forth. Except she doesn't know how to move her left arm without moving her right arm, right leg, and left leg, too, so seated in her little chair, all her limbs are waving frantically. After a few seconds, she stops moving, and then watches me intently again. I shake my rattle again and stop. She shakes her rattle (and whole body) again, and eventually stops. We repeat this ritual a dozen times. A few times during, she shrieks with excitement. (It's not the first time she's shown enthusiasm. She almost always squeals ecstatically whenever we put her in her crib under her mobile and wind it up.) Now don't get me wrong...still the majority of Lizzie's output by far is just plain crying. But she's definitely showing more signs that there's somebody in there. 19 May 2008 - A public service announcement: Everybody knows that you should be buying your digital music downloads from Amazon's MP3 store and not from iTunes, right? I thought everyone knew this, but apparently iTunes is still leading the market. The explanation? Amazon downloads being cheaper is reason enough, but even better, Amazon music lacks Apple's annoying DRM. For those of you Mac fanatics, feel free to just ignore my advice. I know that Apple, by definition, can do no wrong. 3 May 2008 - For those of you with Java-enabled browsers: The Futility of Unending War by Sean 27 April 2008 - So we saw a couple of brief, fleeting smiles on Lizzie's face yesterday. First real social smiles are supposed to start around six weeks, so she's about due. I'll bet we see a couple more when we give her a bath tonight—we know that she likes getting baths. Cries are still a lot more frequent then smiles, though. When Lizzie cries, Cindy always picks her up, immediately. I don't always, though. It doesn't bother me to let her cry for a minute before trying to comfort her. I've seen Elizabeth, red-faced, screaming like there's no tomorrow, and then, twenty seconds later, having fallen completely asleep. So obviously, whatever it was, it couldn't have been that bad. So it's hard to take her crying too seriously. 26 April 2008 - A haiku, by Sean: An Evening With Elizabeth Her pacifier Spit out—wails—I replace it Repeat 90 times 25 April 2008 - This is the goofiest thing that I've come across on the web in awhile, so now I have to post it. Make sure you hit "Refresh" at least a couple of times. Apparently all you need is an photo editor. As it says, if you're not saying "Om Nom Nom Nom" out loud when looking at the pictures, you're doing it wrong. 22 April 2008 - My creation(s). 19 April 2008 - So I'm shopping around for hanging wall letters for the nursery (the "Elizabeth" name choice turned out to be a poor one financially) and I find the following on a web site: I'm no expert in the wooden letter production game, but I've got to think that your business is not going well if: For some reason you can only provide 23 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Of the three letters that you chose to not provide, one of them is "E". 18 April 2008 - Ripped from the headlines... 1 April 2008 - What's new with Elizabeth: Not much, really. Two weeks old isn't enough to show much of a personality, yet. Still: As I mentioned previously, unlike other babies, she really doesn't like being swaddled. A swaddle looks a lot like a miniature straitjacket, and she struggles pretty much like she's in one. She doesn't seem to dislike taking baths. When we first tried it (after her umbilical stump fell off) I figured she'd scream the entire time she was in the infant tub, but she seemed pretty content the whole time. She sure screams when she comes out, though. Must be the cold air. Elizabeth doesn't seem to care for her bassinet next to our bed, where she's supposed to sleep. If she's already sleeping, we can put her in there. But if she wakes up, she'll start grunting and thumping her arms and legs, and eventually crying, until we take her out and put her in the bed between us. Which is now clearly where she prefers to sleep. (Yes, as my father-in-law observed, she has trained us well.) Her absolute favorite thing to do is to feed. So far, she's been pretty easy to please. Basically, if she's crying, that means she's hungry, and feeding her is what quiets her. A pacifier, while much less satisfactory than an actual feeding, does manage to settle her down, at least for a few minutes. Until, while waving her arms around randomly, she knocks the pacifier out of her own mouth, and will whereupon begin instantaneously wailing loudly. Now that she's feeding so much, her face has definitely gotten more round. When gazing at the newer, filled-out Elizabeth, I can imagine, I think, a little of my own face in hers. Maybe. We are well familiar with crying-face Lizzie, but we have yet to see smiling-face Lizzie. Though I've noticed that sometimes she will show what looks like a smile, for a split second, right as she's preparing to start wailing. Smiles may come soon, however. Her expressions now do appear to be somewhat less vacant than they used to be. She does seem to enjoy looking around at things. It may be nothing but a blank wall, but she'll nevertheless stare at it. I guess even a blank wall will seem interesting after nine months of dark uterus. The most important thing is that at her last appointment her pediatrician pronounced her to be in perfect health. And that's what I most care about. 23 March 2008 - Cornflake goes for $1,350 And to think I ate mine! 22 March 2008 - Elizabeth is a week old now, and this is what I have learned so far: Elizabeth is such an incredibly beautiful baby—the pictures that I have of her don't do her justice. She's photogenic in her photos, too, but she's much more cute in real life. It's hard to believe that someone so cute is related to me. Even when she's mad and crying, she's cute; she just can't help it. For a few days after she was born, when she was trying to scream at her very hardest, she wouldn't actually make any noise, so instead, a weird hiss would come out of her wide-open mouth. She was trying to be angry, but was still adorable anyway. Lately, though, she's found her voice during these times. (So it's getting to be a little less cute, now.) It's hard to get anything done on the computer now (like writing this). I'd rather look through her pictures. We don't have any idea where her dark hair comes from. Both Cindy and I had light hair when we were born. Lizzie doesn't really look like either me or Cindy, actually. But I can tell she's mine; although Cindy says she doesn't see it, Lizzie looks a lot like my dad. (Cindy's never seen my dad without a beard, so that's probably why she doesn't see it.) Before she was born, one of the things I worried about most was changing diapers. I need not have concerned myself about this at all...it turns out that changing diapers is trivially easy. (Though it did take me a couple to get the hang of it. At the hospital we had to get rid of her first swaddling outfit...when we opened her up to find her first really big poop, her diaper happened to be wrapped around her ankles.) Speaking of swaddling, it turns out that, unlike most newborns, Elizabeth hates swaddling. Swaddling is when you wrap the baby up tightly except for her head so her limbs are mostly immobile. Well, when we try to swaddle Elizabeth, she immediately starts struggling to get her arms free. One time I swaddled her right side, and before I had even finished wrapping the blanket around to her left, she already had her right arm out and up over her head. I've never seen anyone else take the expression "half-asleep" literally before. A few times, she's been sleeping, but then she wakes up and looks at me. But only with one eye open. Elizabeth likes to sleep during the day, and stay up late at night. I read that when couples first get home from the hospital, often they look at each other, and the baby, and think, "What do we do now?!" We didn't have that problem at all. When we got home, Elizabeth was sleeping, and we looked at each other and both said, "Let's take a nap." 15 March 2008 - Elizabeth Anne 7 pounds, 5 ounces She's beautiful. 8 March 2008 - No baby yet. I called my brother to find out whether he was going to be playing in the company tennis league next month (I'm the coordinator), and he said, "I thought you were calling to tell me you had the baby!" I suppose anyone that I call in the next several days is going to think that. (He should've noticed that I was calling from my home phone. If I'm making that call from my house, instead of at the hospital with my cell, then we've probably had an exciting delivery.) It's still eight days till the due date. And I've been reading that very often first-time mothers are a week or so late. Nevertheless, last night before going to bed, I told Cindy, "We're supposed to go to the hospital when your contractions are five minutes apart. So, if you notice that you're having contractions, wake me up when they're six minutes apart." She didn't laugh. I'm not going to try that joke again. 29 February 2008 - Leap year baby? It looks like, no. The timing was such that there was an outside chance. But, as we predicted seven months ago*, baby's birthstone is going to be aquamarine. * - Another duck! 24 February 2008 - Thirty-seven weeks. Full-term. So if Cindy gave birth to ****** right now, she wouldn't be considered premature. I read somewhere that first-time mothers can almost count on having a their baby a little late, at least a few days after the due date. So it may still be awhile. On the other hand, I was my mother's oldest, and I arrived a month early. So if my daughter had been me, we would have had her by now. Thus, we have now entered this weird window of time, where, Cindy could have the baby tomorrow. Or, she could have it four weeks from now, just as easily. It's strange to simultaneously be ready for this momentous event at any time, yet also be somewhat resigned to the idea of waiting almost a month for it, as well. I know which of the two I'd prefer. I can't speak for Cindy, but I'm ready now. 23 February 2008 - So it turns out the baby has yet another rubber ducky, a pink one that I didn't even know about before. Instead of being in with the toy box with the rest of them it was in with a big pile of clothes. Undoubtedly this one was just trying to escape detection. I'm pretty sure my daughter already has more clothes than I do, and she hasn't even been born yet. 21 February 2008 - Today's entry continues a theme from the previous one. The cover of the upcoming book from one of my favorite authors was released by Amazon.com today, click that first link to see it. I wonder what the cover illustrator was thinking would best sell the book, while he was coming up with a picture to paint. "The Swordsman attacks! Also, killer flightless birds!" 18 February 2008 - What you get after the baby shower when you put one (one!) rubber ducky on your baby registry: One rubber ducky is cute. An entire army is menacing. We also got 37 bibs (we counted). 13 February 2008 - Val Kilmer replaces "Arrested Development" star Will Arnett as the voice of the new KITT. They've made a huge mistake. 3 February 2008 - Huh. It looks like the life of New England's "perfect season" ended with terminal cancer. 21 January 2008 - I'm not sure exactly how well an eight month-old fetus in the womb can hear, or what her learning capacity is at that point. But nevertheless, after going to my brother's house last night to watch the Giants-Packers game (and since Cindy was sitting next to Chad), by the end of the game, I'm almost sure my daughter now knows how to swear. 18 January 2008 - Have you been waiting your entire life for a diet soda that tastes just like a Tootsie Roll? Or, more accurately, a Tootsie Roll Pop, where the Pop is cherry-flavored, and almost, but not quite, completely licked through, so all you have left is the Tootsie Roll middle surrounded by a thin remaining shell of cherry? If so, then congratulations! Your long wait is over.* * - Here's the real funny part: it's actually quite good. 15 January 2008 - It appears that yesterday I was a special guest on my friend Scott's blog. I am, you know. 13 January 2008 - Here's a shame that I've kept secret for years. I have never understood how the percent key worked on pocket calculators. I never use it. I've been clandestinely avoiding it my entire life. Whenever I'd have to calculate a percentage, I would just figure it out without using the key. For example, to figure out a 15 percent tip, I'd just multiply the bill by 1.15 (or 0.15) and guiltily avoid the mysterious key altogether. 24.00 x 1.15 = 27.60 I know that gives me the right answer. Using the percentage key, I'm not sure whether it's 15 % x 24.00 = , or, 115 % x 24.00 = , or, 24.00 x 15 % = , or, 24.00 x 115 % = , or maybe it's not any of these. (Trying it just now, none of these worked, but I see that the last one gave me the right answer, as long as I didn't hit the equals key at the end, which then messed it up and gave me 662.4. So apparently you are not supposed to use the equals key at the end?) The reason I finally admit this now is, somebody else, also apparently with this secret shame, asked the question on a Windows blog that I read regularly, and finally the percent key is explained. I'm still going to avoid the percent key, though. I think I just prefer doing it the "hard" way. I must not be the only one, though...I see that when you switch the Windows calculator from Standard to Scientific view, that mode doesn't even have the percent key. 12 January 2008 - From the StarTrib today: Tot found in van at strip club returns home Setting completely aside the unbelievable thought of leaving a 1½-year old kid alone in a freezing car for hours, I'm thirty-five years old, and except within the context of "tater", I don't think I've ever used the word "tot" in a sentence. I don't think I've ever heard anyone else use the word, either. June Jones mulling between SMU, Hawaii "Mull" is another word that always jars me for a second when I read it. No one ever uses the word "mull" in real life. The only time you ever see them are in a newspaper, because they're short words that nicely fit within a headline. Now that I told you this, you'll read "tot" and "mull" in newspaper headlines all the time.