I thought I saw you before!

Do you ever get a kick out of finding where you've seen that actor/actress before? When Friends became popular back in the fall of 1994 (after we graduated, not before), I thought it was great I could name shows each of the six cast members were in before Friends. And that was without IMDB!

Last night, Joanne and I watched the last 2 episodes of season 3 of the Office, which happened to include the greatest, happiest smile ever recorded on film in the penultimate scene of the finale. In my usual fashion of not being as productive as I should be (like now for instance), I checked out TWOP forums for commentary on the episode. A couple of comments were made about the performance of Melora Hardin, so I googled her, as I wasn't able to piece together that it was definitely Jan. So I started perusing her IMDB page, and was surprised to see how extensive her guest starring has been. Various shows I may have occasionally watched, but nothing that I could clearly identify.

Until I got to the mid 80's"




That is so awesome! She was Whitney Dunbar!

Stickler

Twice in league playoffs I was criticized for calls that were deemed minor, or too petty for league (and there may have been two more, but that feedback didn't get back to me). All the calls shared a common theme--how and where the disc is put into play. Somewhere along the line, this is the area of the rules that I became most precise about, so it leads to calls on infractions that are slight, but they are infractions. The calls were all made on experienced players, and in my mind, they should be called because the purpose of league is teach new players the rules. And that means the experienced players should know them. I don't make the calls to gain an advantage--it's to play by the rules (or maybe it IS just the ones I want to enforce--it's not like I make delay of game calls, which would be pretty easy in league). THe only regret I have on some of them is that I recognized the infraction, thought about it for a bit and then called it, rather than following my instinct and calling it immediately.

Those pet peeves include:
When a disc goes out of bounds, the disc is ground checked in with the pivot foot next to the line (commonly thought of as on the line, but that's out of bounds). Twice I called travels on veteran players when they were somewhere between 8" and 2 feet off the line. The first was deemed petty, the second the excuse was the crowd on the sideline. I agree to an extent on the first one. And the second, well, then the crowd needs to move, not the player.

However!

The reason I make that call, even if it's only 6 inches is that from my perspective as a thrower, and distance off the sideline is a relief, even a couple of inches, improving throwing angles and making the marker's job more difficult. It's possible I'm just not a good enough thrower, so I need all the room I can get. Or maybe other people don't have the hangups I do. But if I feel like that 6" or 8" will help me, and I don't take it, why should someone else?

Next is the need for a ground check. The ground check says "I am putting the disc into play/establishing my pivot foot here". The 11th edition was updated to define the 3 states of the disc and clarify that if the disc moves from where position is gained, it must be ground checked. The ground check also prevents/minimizes the offensive player from using any of that momentum on the throw which he or she would not otherwise have. I have a smaller pet peeve for those that ground check whenever they pick up a disc, but that's pretty minor (but also unnecessary as a disc laying on the playing field proper is "in play" and not "live"). Related, the location of the pivot when gaining possession of a stopped in bounds disc is either overlooked, or unclear. The rules state "When there is a definitive spot for putting the disc into play, the part of the body in contact with that spot is the pivot," which means the pivot should be at the spot the disc is picked up from. This may seem minor (and I've only called this travel once, on someone taking the disc laying on the short half of the field behind the midfield line for an opportunity for a two-point play), but that initial change of 6-10" can make the well positioned, legitimately stationed marker less so.

Another call (which wasn't actually a call, since I wasn't actually on the field, but I did tell them what the rule was) was someone calling for a brick after they stopped a sliding disc. Nope. Need to call the brick before touching. Or just catch the pull and start your offense.

The last issue is one in which I get frustrated with my teammates, but it annoys me so much I let the other team know when they are boofing it as well: waiting for a defensive check to start play after a brick. Why does this happen? How did it become so ingrained in everyone? If the defense chose not to mark the thrower, he couldn't start play? This one aggravates me a great deal since it's not uncommon to turn the advantageousness of the brick into a disadvantage because of an in position, and ready defense. Of course the advantage is that so many people assume that the brick is a defensive check that nobody does anything until it happens, so there I am in position for a throw (or to make one) and there's no action. Grrr.

Time Stands Still

Judge Parker on December 7, 2007:









Judge Parker on January 5, 2008:









Judge Parker on May 27, 2008:










Really?! Six plus months to cover 2 days? [It reads as possibly three days, but Curmudgeon readers say 2] I haven't really followed the classics (JP, MW, S-M, MT or GT) in about that long. Glad to see I haven't missed much.

Stimulus payment, pt 2

Odd what time and becoming a tub of goo will do. When I first starting the rowing thing last year, I looked into what they cost (a Concept 2--the market leader). Nearly a Grover! OK, well, I'm not getting one of those.

But then my job moved away from the ASU Tempe campus and the Student Rec Complex. And my sole exercise became ultimate 1 day a week. That's NG (no good).

Over a year, though, I got acclimated to the cost and found out what the general market was for them used. I had been focusing on a Model C (6+ years old and what I used at the SRC), since those are getable for under $500. Alas, I missed out on two prime opportunities. The first was a guy who listed one for $50 and he was deluged with a lot of calls. I did actually get to talk to him, but he went another route (perhaps someone offered "x" times his asking price off the bat--which I did in my second of about 4 messages to him (I was approaching Mikey in "Swingers" territory). The second was listed for under $400 but the Craigslist photo looked like it was a gym. Which means a lot of use. I dawdled on that a bit, but finally called. It was actually a Play it Again sports, and they had just sold it. Doh.

That brings us to earlier this month. A model D was listed for $700, and stayed up for a number of days. It was still up, so I got the boss's approval and offered $600. Accepted, with no negotiation! I think this is about the best we've done on a CL purchase--the dining set, for example, we paid asking price. And I think most other things were either really close to asking price, or the seller discounted without us asking.

Still, $600 is a lot, but having gotten used to that cost, it just became a point-of-entry. I didn't really compare it with other forms of home exercise machines because I knew what I wanted. Turns out a new Nordic Track is in the same range. Cheaper ellipticals and treadmills can be had cheaper. The one thing I'll say in the Concept 2's defense--it is the best/top of the line. There's not really anything above it in its class. Unlike say a elliptical, in which a consumer-targeted model is a couple of hundred (but limited in terms of range and levels), the gym-level, more than $2 grand. And if it turns out we don't use it as much as I hope, it has a pretty good resale; even better since it was bought used in the first place. But I digress...

Having gotten on board 5-6 times now, despite being in much worse shape than I was a year ago, my times are actually comparable, which means my form hasn't regressed too much, but I could still use an experienced set of eyes to help set me straight. The one technique fault I know I have is my legs break before my arms are out on the return. I'm not sure why it's bad technique, but I read that it is. My guess is that the longer you hold of on the knees breaking, the quicker you can make it out of the catch (ie, more explosive, like bending the knees into a jump, rather than jumping from a squat). I'm also a little stuck on not knowing anything other than a 500m or 2000m pace. I did 5ooom the other day, which didn't go that bad (other than where it ranks (see below), so the pace problem may be overblown.

Today I had the joy of comparing my pace to the online results on the Concept 2 website. My 2000m times in the 20th percentile of so among men! That is unimpressive! Even less impressive--if I was 30 years older and had the same time, I'd be just average (The 50th percentile among men 60-69 is 8:11). The aforementioned 5000m time was somewhere in the teens. So there's some room for improvement. OK. Lots of room.

Parting shot:
Most sports have their roots in military application: running, jumping, fighting, throwing...

Rowing on the other hand was historically a form of capital punishment.

More birthdays

Back in the day when I thought I was interested in international politics, one region I avoided was the Middle East, particularly Israel/Palestine. It just seemed to be in quagmire with no resolution, no coherence and little rationality that a deep understanding would require too much time and too little enrichment. Or maybe I was just being lazy (this was my undergrad days).

With Israel turning 60, the state of the nation has been a hot topic, including the cover story in the May Atlantic. The author wandered a bit (or maybe he didn't--it might have been the cover monkeys providing a misrepresentation of the article [the cover asks "Is Israel Finished?]), but there is this passage which wouldn't be a revelation to anyone who follows the Israel/Palestinian issue with a modicum of attention (that person isn't me), but succinctly illustrates the difficulty of Israel's position.

On one crucial issue, Olmert is credited by many of the most doubting Israelis with sincerity and thoughtfulness: his newfound belief that the dream of a Greater Israel—one that incorporates the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights—is dead, replaced with the recognition that the land must be split between a Jewish democratic state and an Arab state.

I asked Olmert whether there was a moral dimension to his desire to exit the West Bank... He won’t call the dream of both banks immoral or destructively utopian, because it is a dream that many Israelis believe is just. “If there had been a 10 percent or 15 percent minority which is not Jewish there, then it would have been legitimate. But you don’t come to a majority and say to them, ‘Listen, we deprive you of your right to self-determination and at the same time we won’t provide you with the natural right of equality and equal votes.’ At the end of the day, it was about demography,” he said. “We couldn’t do it.”

Max Nordau wrote that Zionism is meant to create for the Jewish people a homeland in the land of Israel, assured by international legitimacy. One sentence, the whole story. It’s about Jewish people, about defining the community of Jews as a nation, one in the family of nations. Second, it’s not a state for all citizens, but for the Jewish people. Third, it’s in the land of Israel, but not necessarily all the land of Israel. And it has to be secured by international legitimacy.”

Israel’s flagging international legitimacy is one of Olmert’s preoccupations. In an interview with Ha’aretz in November, he said, “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African–style struggle for equal voting rights [among Palestinians of the occupied territories], then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” He went on to say, “The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us, because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”"

Maybe this isn't as revelational as I thought, but it does give me a perspective I had thought about before--how does a country defined on one identity adapt/change/respond to a demographic change that, if left unaddressed, will irrevocably change the ability to maintain that identity?

Given the demographic change in the US, albeit in a more peaceful fashion, does it/will it serve as a lesson at all?

12 weeks later

Finally, another post (from me)! Let's see if the readership numbers more than my number of league championship game losses (Doh! that number used to be zero, but not anymore).

I've actually spent a decent portion of the past 12 weeks composing blog posts in my head, but, alas, that hasn't actually translated to actual posts. JT stated at one point that post-baby arrival, I'd still get the same amount of stuff done out of greater efficiency and scoff at the ineffectiveness of the pre-baby Keith. So I stand as a rebuttal to JT's thesis. I've accomplished very little outside of child rearing, and even that's giving me to much credit--Joanne's doing practically all the work, mainly because of evolutionary effects that make me less than necessary to Owen's well-being in his current state.

But that doesn't make me completely worthless to the cause. I'm sure it's been stated before, but it was something I don't remember reading/being told, and that is: after birth, of critical importance isn't being a good father, it's being a good husband. The first (almost) 3 months has been less about the travails of parenthood (for me) and more about making sure I'm supporting Joanne to the best of my ability. It's funny how that works, though. At Easter, we had the family over and it came up that Joanne had yet to do any cooking since Owen's arrival--I had taken care of that, most of the cleaning, shopping, etc. I was praised for that. Less than a week later, though, Joanne said she wanted to do some of that because it made her feel more normal. Even if she wasn't going anywhere, or if Owen was no more than 20 feet away, she still got a little separation to refresh herself. So now we've split that up a little more, which means, apparently, I do less "work" around the house, yet that's a positive. Joanne gets non-Owen time, I get Owen time (even if it's not real work, since I get to play with him) and everyone is happy.

You'd think after 10+ weeks of thinking of this post, there'd be more to it. I suppose there was insights I made during my on-the-job training, or realizations of how I need(ed) to change, but that all seems old hat now. I remember the impatience the first couple of weeks when Owen wouldn't go to sleep and not understanding why--I thought that's what babies did. They wake up long enough to eat and they promptly fall back asleep. I suppose some are like that. Not Owen. I don't think he gets that 16+ hours of sleep that is recommended. Not that we don't try to make that happen, but he seems happy to be awake. Or maybe that's just the weekends. I know Joanne's had some rough days and nights in which I wasn't really in a position to help, but I'd say the number of periods Owen has been difficult to deal with for over an hour numbers in the single digits (that number would be higher if the time criteria was say, 30 minutes or more), as he's only had maybe 2 bouts of what might be considered colic, and food pretty much always calms him down.

Joanne previously mentioned that the Hogg's EASY method has helped and could be a contributing factor to Owen's "goodness." But the Hogg also offered/promoted some other ideas that to me seemed questionable, which brought up issues of who/what to believe, ie what approach is best. This issue is exacerbated by these approaches coming off as holistic--you have to do everything or it just won't work. But we seem to be doing OK with what we're doing. I guess we'll find out in 14 year if it didn't work.

One of the Hogg's peeves is/was "accidental parenting", that is, doing something that works for now, even if it will lead to bigger problems in the future, generally centered around sleep (ie the tricks necessary to get the newborn to sleep that will soon become the inconvenient crutch they can't sleep with out). I confess we do one form of this--how we handle Owen's daytime sleep. We have yet to make a habit of bringing him upstairs during the day. We're content with putting him in his rocker downstairs so we can keep an eye on him and letting him sleep in that. However, he tends not sleep in it unless the vibration is on. IF he's asleep and we turn off the vibrate, he tends to wake up within minutes. I suppose it might be a crutch, but, thus far, it has negatively impacted his ability to sleep at night without the same sensation.

His nighttime sleeping, though, has also benefited from us having two stories. Having been in the house for five years now, we draw a pretty clear line between upstairs and downstairs. Unless we're cleaning or need something, we're rarely upstairs during the day. Even though it's only 11 steps, the world up there is very different. This is a positive for Owen, because once we (by that, I mean Joanne) puts him to sleep around 7:30, we don't bring him back downstairs. I commented to some friends that we have yet to watch a movie since Owen was born. We're not in the habit of watching things 20-30 minutes at a time, and we've found pausing movies multiple times negatively affects our enjoyment. We thought about watching one earlier this month, but we didn't have anything short enough that we hadn't watched yet to fit into our time frame--it would be suboptimal to watch the first 1:50 of a movie then take a 30 minute break to feed Owen and then come back for the last 15-20 minutes. So someone commented, "You know, you could just feed him while watching the end of the movie." And that concept of that was.. "shocking" is to strong, but it will have to work. Why would we do that? That would just wake him up more. Once he's upstairs, he's staying there. So the person's rebuttal was "I guess you're a better parant than me". I don't know if he was being facetious or not.

Even more than his vibrating chair, but not quite as much as the feeding apparatus, Owen loves ceiling fans. If you go back and look at the lead picture, and if you're familiar with our house, you'll recognize that yes, he is indeed looking at the fan by the front door. He just loves them. He doesn't show a lot of interest in mobiles (I made some homemade B&W cards for his PnP and there are some attachments for the rocker), but fans? He can't keep his eyes off them. In the past week, I've even taken to holding him up closer to the fan in the TV room. He seems to enjoy it.

This veered way from being my thoughts on fatherhood, but that's to be expected when the system isn't quite set up to have me on completely full active duty. Or at least not as active duty as will soon be forthcoming.

"Congratulations, you're no longer a pagan!!"

This past Saturday was Owen's baptism. The whole affair was a lot less formal than I thought it was going to be. Which was probably mostly due to the fact that it was run by Deacon Dutch, who is constantly making jokes ("I've got more chins than a Chinese phone book!"). It's a good thing I didn't spend $45 on a fancy outfit on Owen that probably would have been huge on him. It was a night of connections: my friends Clint and Deb were there for two baptisms; the third baby being baptised was the grandson of a family that we did Religious Education with growing up; my parents had Nebraska and Virginia in common with my friends Mark and Lois - just to name a few of the many. The biggest surprise of all was seeing Jason from the Burque (Albuquerque) show up during mass after he responded to the evite that he couldn't make it. It was also great to have my brother Ken and his wife Katie in town from San Diego to see Owen for the first time.

After the ceremony we invited our Catholic friends and family over to our house for food. It was great to visit with everyone. Owen's favorite part was probably Evelyn's (multiple) goodbye kisses. Which led Keith to comment that Sarah must be teaching Evelyn to go for the younger men. Josiah pointed out that Evelyn was robbing the cradle - literally!

Sunday was my very first Mother's Day as a Mom. How special! Keith made me an omelette for breakfast and made sure that I didn't change hardly any diapers all day. He is also getting me a digital SLR camera, which has me really excited. In college I took a b&w photography class which turned out to be one of my favorite classes in college. It was a lot of work, but I started seeing the world around me in a new way - I started freeze framing my daily life. I pulled out my old textbook to freshen up on concepts and terminology, and am researching the web for more digital-specific subjects. Keith has done most of the research (surprise!) on the actual camera to get. We are currently debating the Canon XT, Canon XTI, or Canon 30D. Once we get that figured out, we get to have fun with lenses! Anybody who has any thoughts on the subject, please let us know.

It's so E.A.S.Y.

One of the cards we received at our shower had several pictures of babies crying on the front. The captions for each said "Hungry", "Hot", "Cold", "Wet", etc. It was meant to be a guide to understanding your baby. Of course, every picture was exactly the same. As Keith would say, "It's funny because it's true!".

When we were in the hospital (the first time), the nursery had Owen on a 3 hour eating schedule. They/I would feed him at 11:00, 2, 5, 8, etc. It was fairly easy to do because he would sleep most of the rest of the time. When we got home, we quickly got off that schedule. He appeared to be hungry every 1.5 to 2 hours, sometimes wanting to eat for an hour or more. The pediatrician told us to see a lactation consultant. We did, and $70 later, we still weren't getting more than an hour of sleep at a time. (Not to say she wasn't helpful; she did help me work on my form.) The good thing was that Owen was gaining weight, so we didn't have to worry too much about that.

Then our friend Jill let us borrow some books by Tracy Hogg, the "Baby Whisperer" (Keith calls her "The Hogg"). While I don't necessarily agree with/like everything she says, we learned some very important information. The most helpful to me is how to interpret you baby's cues. For example, if he is sucking his tongue, he's not hungry - it's self-soothing. We realized that we were probably feeding him when he wasn't hungry. He wasn't going to refuse the breast - he can use it as a pacifier. The main point of the Hogg's books are that babies like to be on a routine: Eat, Activity, Sleep (E.A.S.; the Y stands for You time while he is sleeping.) The whole routine would repeat in so many hours, depending on his age. The idea is that if he starts crying at hour two in a three hour schedule, he's probably not hungry; if he hasn't been sleeping yet in this rotation, he's probably overtired. Or, if he was sleeping, he may be wet (butt moving side to side), cold (bottom lip quivering), or he has gas (pulling his legs up).

The Hogg also has suggestions on how to get a baby to sleep for longer at night. She promotes doing a cluster feeding and a dream feed. A cluster feeding means feeding him before the normal time (2 hours on a 3 hour schedule; say at 5 and 7pm) and then feeding him without waking him up right before you go to bed (at 10pm).

I am happy to report that some of her strategies are apparently working for us. We are now on a 3 hour schedule fairly consistently (which is normal for his age). I have employed the cluster feed and dream feed (although I don't think he necessarily has to be asleep), and he is now waiting until 4 or 4.5 hours before he wants the next feed. Still some room for improvement, but things are getting much EASIER!

Other developments: Owen now has some tears when he cries (they don't start off that way). He is also showing more interest in visual things. When we put him in his rocker with the hanging toys he will first look at the dog, and then the cat. He will also turn his head to see who is talking. Every once in a while he'll give a look that appears to be a smile (not quite a conscious smile yet, but we'll take it!). His neck strength is also getting better day by day. He is getting better at getting his thumb in his mouth. Overall, he's getting cuter and cuter!

529 decision

I was aware that my content had been minimal since Owen was born, but I didn't realize it had been so lame even before he was born (only a handful of posts in January and February--I really thought I was a little more productive than that). And I've been putting off the "new father" post for five (!) weeks--missing 8 personal deadlines (weeks 2-7, one month and 50 days (yesterday)). But instead of finally addressing that, I'm going to follow up on my 529 post from January, since it's now easily fundable since Owen is here.

In retrospect, that post, while a nice summary, didn't really contain any content not easily obtainable from many other sources. I will rectify and maybe provide some alternate considerations.

After that post, I had settled on West Virginia's DFA plan, despite the higher expense ratio associated with the portfolio, because of DFA's allure and the structure of the all equity fund. Now that it's crunch time, there's some waivering between it and the Ohio College Advantage plan, which has a number of Vanguard offerings for one to get to a reasonably good self selected allocation, rather than something fixed (this is what put Ohio over Illinois. IL is cheaper, but there's fewer and less flexible options).

IN trying to decide between the two, a couple of questions have come up that I think are important to clarify how one will invest in a 529:

1. Is the 529 considered its own portfolio, or is it simply a component of our overall portfolio?
2. Are contributions to the 529 the full extent of the planned contribution to college, or do we expect to spend more outside of it?

These two questions speak to the risk (or lack of) that one can/should take in selecting a plan. To respond "own portfolio" and "all contributions" might mean one takes more risk early, and a lot less as college approaches. For Owen, the plan is to treat it as part of our overall allocation, but we don't plan on the 529 being the extent of our contributions.

What are the ramifications of that decision? For starters, it means finding a 529 that offers the asset classes we're already invested in. Not a problem--many plans have Total Market, S&P Index, International Index, Bond funds, etc. So then it becomes a matter of placement. One option I considered for a bit was "transferring" our REIT allocation to the the 529 by opening up a Virginia VEST account, which has a REIT option. This would allow us more tax deferred space and a straight forward approach to filling a gap of our allocation, but some of the costs of making that switch didn't quite appeal to me, not did splitting the allocation into different accounts. So then I started looking at Bond options--the Ohio plan offers a TIPS (Inflation protected securities) and Total Bond fund for a low ER. And I almost convinced myself that that was the way to go, until I remembered that a 529 is similar to a Roth in that all earnings are tax free, so we're better off investing for growth in the 529 to take advantage of that.

Which leads to the second part of whether the 529 is the extent of our contributions to Owen's education, which I find to be unlikely. This means we'll be using other assets outside of the plan. This is another reason to go for growth (equities) in the 529, rather than using bonds. As was mentioned in the exchange I had with Jot in the comments of the original post, you can borrow for college, but you can't borrow for retirement. So if the extra risk in the 529 doesn't work out, since it's part of one's overall allocation, that means there was even less risk (ie, more bonds/fixed income) in the retirement accounts. That means a more stable growth in a 401k/IRA. The two extreme scenarios are: (1) a lot of growth in the 529 to better pay for college, but less growth in the 401k/IRA (which isn't all bad, as that will all be taxed as regular income when the day comes) or (2) the 529 unfortunately doesn't take advantage of the tax advantages, since equites dropped. but because there were more bonds in the 401k, retirement is better accounted for. Sounds reasonably win-win to me.

The above isn't to say I plan that we'll have the 529 in 100% equities until Owen is done with school, but by treating it as part of our overall portfolio, it provides more flexibility in terms of how to structure our account, the risk that we can take (since risk elsewhere in the portfolio will be reduced), as well as taking greater advantage of the tax benefits of the 529.

This brings us back to the two main contenders. The DFA/West Virginia all equity option is 40% large cap; 35% small cap, 25% international, with a heavy value tilt. This doesn't quite fit our equity allocation (2x, 1x, 2x), but it is made up of 8 component funds that are constantly rebalanced so that minimizes risk to a small degree (not as much as it could since there seems to be increasing correlation of returns between different equity classes). The ER for the all equity plan is 0.88%

The options in the Ohio plan are broad Vanguard Indexes that can generally match our allocation. The only minor issue is that Extended Market and International Developed Markets don't quite fit the allocation areas I'd like to hit (small cap and a broader international index such as the FTSE all world index), but these same limitations are in my 401a/403b and that doesn't stop me from using them there. A mix of S&P INdex/Extended Markets/International similar to our overall allocation would have an ER of .29%. Splitting it into 4 funds (the 3 mentioned and either Total Bond or TIPS) would cause little change to the ER.

Based on the write up, it should be a clear Ohio is the proper option, but I still am compelled to strongly consider WV because of DFA's structured approach and strategies. But to use it, I'd have to either disregard that its stock allocation doesn't quite match our own, or break down the numbers (not a big deal with a properly set up excel sheet) to have it match our allocation plan. And then there's the potential rollover to another plan in 12-15 years. Another point not in it's favor is that the 529 is never likely to be more than 5% of our portfolio (or at least not for a while), so any super outsized gains that may be derived from DFA really wouldn't have a large impact.

But, then again, when it comes to college, every little bit helps, right?

How's it Goin' Owen?

Catchy, isn't it? This is one of our favorite things to say to Owen, perhaps only second to "You're a cutie! Yes you are!". (It's no wonder he's got a big head.) I once said "What's up, Doc?!", but then Keith reminded me that the cost of schooling would be outrageous, so I changed it to "What's up, Engineer!"

Yes, Owen, your parents are weird.

So, to answer the question, he is doing well. He had a good visit with our friend Amber yesterday. He also had a very brief, but important, visit with JT. (Don't worry, JT, there will be many more chances for a longer hold.) We had a group of people over to visit with Jim and Amber, who were visiting from Florida. It was great to see Jim and Amber and many of our friends. For me it was also a big step in a return to normalcy. Don't get me wrong, having a baby is great, but for a while there you think that you will never get your old life back. I realize that you don't ever fully get your life back, (which is a good thing imo), but pieces of it can return. I always like hosting, and our house is finally somewhat clean and orderly. I'm also starting to play Ultimate again, and getting out of the house more.

I'll also start working part time from home in a week. I have to work 20 hours to keep my benefits. I really don't know how anybody could go back full time at this point. Even if you do use daycare, it takes too long (about 10-12 hours) for me to get a good night's rest.

Speaking of daycare, we visited Bright Horizon's near my work last week. They had an open house with food and games for the kids and tours for those interested. It looks like a great place except for the price - over $1K a month! We're going to look into other options, including using the grandmas and working from home 1-2 days a week in order to delay daycare. But there are some pros to using daycare, but I'll leave that topic to another post.

Other things happening: We're still dealing with Owen's gassiness (which is apparently painful to him and smelly to us!). I gave up dairy to see if that helped. I'm not sure it has, although I haven't exactly done a good job at getting rid of all dairy (I still use some cheese). I think I'll drink a big glass of milk this week and see what happens. It could also be caused by other things in my diet, which I am also trying to cut out (excessive citrus, iron, peanut butter). The list of possible suspects is pretty long. Hopefully Owen's digestive system will mature soon!