This is what happens when you hire professionals to work on your house: shit gets done right. We are HAPPY.
Yeah, I know, the comparisons are getting weird. What can I say, these are the jokes, kid.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked, and I apologize for that. I haven’t felt much like writing lately, and I don’t know why that is. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and the rest of the coming month is more of the same. We’re padding out the social calendar now while we have some time, knowing that we will be beholden to your stomach for the months following your arrival. It’s good, too—lots of people to catch up with, things to do. I’ve been working my tail off trying to complete a bunch of work that’s all due right around your birthday ahead of schedule so I’m not making client calls in the delivery room.
Your checkup was today, and they measured you out at five pounds, which is a full pound above average. This also moves your expected delivery date ahead two weeks (the computer offered an emotionless prediction of 9/11, which would be Very Much Not Cool) which is what I’ve been saying all along. I’m cool with the 78th percentile, but your mother and I would rather you seek to excel in the intelligence tests and not on the sizing charts. Your mother has been eating less food with more frequency these days, which means you’re definitely making yourself comfortable in there, sitting directly on her bladder. We had to hit the Target up for two king-sized pillows so that she could try to get some decent sleep again. She would really like it if you could hold it down while she closes her eyes—we understand that hiccups are beyond your control, but quit the breakdancing lessons until you’re walking, OK?
Meanwhile, we took last Friday afternoon off to go witness a quiet marriage ceremony and enjoy the afternoon on a patio in Ellicott City with friends and cold drinks.
Sunday we drove down to the Eastern Shore to visit with some other friends who have bought a beautiful house in Easton (and who are trying to get your parents to move out there with them). I don’t have pictures of that, because I was too busy laughing and enjoying myself, but I did snap some shots of this Land Rover for sale on the side of Rt. 50. It’s a little too expensive for us, but we will have one someday, I swear to you.
Leaving that parking lot, Jen spied this interesting, uh, display, and thought it deserved a picture. I’ve always thought it was “Deer Corn”, but what do I know?
Finally, good news: our windows arrived yesterday afternoon, which means we can get the porch rolling again!
File this under You’ve Been Warned: Eight reasons even the innocent shouldn’t talk to the police. The upshot: don’t let Pembleton get you in the box without your lawyer.
Oh, snap… I just read about the KODAK Zi6 Pocket Video Camera, which is poised as a possible Flip-killer, via Daring Fireball: HD video at 60fps. I’m going to hold off until I read the review to see if Kodak can make a decent camera again.
flickrSLiDR is a nice clean Flickr slideshow with an adjustable size.
After reading this article about an “art print” which brings bad luck to those who hang it, I’d like to know why exactly anyone would hang this ugly-ass thing in their house in the first place.
Apparently the Canon point-and-shoot we own, the PowerShot SD110, has a known issue with the CCD going bad and distorting images. According to the service notice, they will replace the CCD, but I don’t know if this offer is still good. I’m going to call tomorrow to find out.
Update: They believe the problem is theirs to fix (but aren’t sure yet). They have sent me a prepaid UPS label and an address to their repair facility so that I can send it in. For a four-year-old camera clearly out of warranty, I am truly impressed by their customer service. This is the kind of thing that keeps me loyal to the brand.
Update from the local Panera: After being chased from the house by an electricity-killing thunderstorm, I have finally, FINALLY cracked a DHTML tab panel problem I’ve been banging my head against for the last week, which feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. Essentially, the script I’d started with was using the visibility attribute of CSS instead of the display attribute, and in concert with some poorly-advised absolute positioning, the whole thing was appearing outside the document flow (floating above everything else instead of pushing the content downward gracefully). After trying and discarding about ten different scripts, I came back to my old reliable one and finally made it work. Hallelujah.
This article in the NYT, about the slow food movement, brings up a fascinating new trend: people are hiring gardeners to plant, maintain, and harvest a garden in their backyard. Have we become this lazy as a society?