101st Post

Just saw that this will be the 101st post...that's pretty cool =)

Anyhow, mostly just checking in to say there's a big batch of photos posted in the gallery (link in the sidebar). Go to "2006 in Pictures" and there's a new album in there that has Christmas shots, etc. in it. There's a ton of shots by Raelin, and then at the end a bunch of other photos that are more or less repeats. Let me know if you need a username and password reminder.

That's it, gotta go sleep =)

3rd Time's a Charm...

...or I don't see so well anymore...

OK, so perhaps a couple shots of single malt on a Sunday night with Raelin in bed and Kelly and Liam out of town is a sure recipe for abundant blogging...perhaps not.

Anyway, so I got these new fancy contacts on Friday that more or less correct my vision. In both eyes. At the same time. See, the last time I got new glasses was about 4 years ago. I went so far as to get another exam between now and then, though that little pesky move 3000 miles from the opto kind of got in the way of actually getting new glasses. Than and the fact that couldn't function without my glasses and I didn't want to spend the cash on a new pair and my self-employed vision insurance is shit...

Anyhow, so I finally saw an opto here in Maine. Turns out he's the most thorough of the 5 I've seen, and for all his prodding, drops, looking at letters on the wall through various types of lenses, and bright lights, he fitted me with these lenses that absolutely kick ass. And I can't even feel them. Incredible to see all the detail in the world that I just couldn't see with my glasses...until I looked in the mirror. Keep in mind that I haven't seen my face clearly since before I became a parent...twice.

So know I'm looking in the mirror at this face that really, I have a hard time recognizing...certainly ain't the same young rooster I saw 4 years ago. Nope. It's the eyes mostly, and cheeks. I'm getting older. Saggier. Kelly noticed the other day when looking at pre-Raelin photos how much grayer I've gotten since R was born. I guess I could sum it up in a word: tired. I look tired to myself.

It's still tripping me out...to see this face in the mirror that I don't really recognize, because photos don't show it, the deep tiredness I see there. The cumulative months of a sedentary life, of too many countless nights of not enough sleep. Of leaving the 20's firmly behind. And I look at this face and it's not me, not what I feel like. It's that age-old adage about old people don't feel old, their bodies just go to shit. I don't feel that different than I did 10 or 15 years ago. Well, I mean my world view is somewhat drastically shifted, but essentially I feel a lot like the same guy. Perhaps this is due to the subtle changes that shift over time, cuz if you told me when I was 17 or 22 that I would now primarily identify as a computer nerd family man I'd not have been too happy about it. Though if you threw in the nature-loving societal fringe part I'd have been pretty groovy.

Geek Report

OK, so I'm giving warning of yet another geek post, which will commence now...

So I've been working on a new MacBook Pro (duo core 2.33 with 2 gigs of RAM, if you're curious =), yeah, it's pretty much the most kick ass laptop on the market right now. Mine's well, not really mine. It belongs to the company, though it was one in a small stack of such machines new in the box when I arrived, and I got paid (!!!) to build it out into my dream machine. Though it couldn't truly be such until I came home and hooked it up to my 30" display. The act of which basically mothballed my old Windows machine and G5 PowerMac in one fell swoop.

I must say, the power of this machine is bordering on voodoo. From the built-in iSight camera to the backlit-ambient-light-sensing keyboard, to the ability to set up a bootable Windows partition on the drive, which can also be run as a virtual machine via the latest Parallels beta. Throw in a measure of kick ass speed, the stunning power of BSD Unix under the hood and my God it's a dream machine. And that's just the beginning, then there's all the tasty little details like the magnetic power cord and the seemingly endless supply of killer software that's been popping up. And then there's the upcoming iPhone...

I saw a poor SOB in the Las Vegas airport with a Windows PC and a Zune. I felt sorry for the guy. I mean, the current iPod ain't exactly the end-all music player, though the iPhone (especially if Apple can figure out a way to drop a 60 gig hard drive in there and have the battery last longer than an hour) comes a lot closer.

Anyhow, yeah, it's an exciting time to be a Mac user (when has it not in the last 5 years?), and me thinks it will only continue to ramp up as long as Jobs is at the helm. Kelly asked rhetorically the other day how much Jobs is really involved with product development. And my hunch after reading Fake Steve Jobs' blog on the design process at Apple and being friends with someone that reported directly to the real Steve Jobs only strengthened my belief that the Fake Steve is right on. In other words, the brilliant designs coming out of Apple have as much to do with Jobs shitting on good stuff until what people bring him for review is great. That's just my hunch though...either way I'm pretty sure I'm a lot happier being on the user end of Apple hardware and software than the production end =)

Somber and Wealthy

Kelly and Liam come home tomorrow. They've been in Virginia for a few days, so it's just been me and Raelin. She's spent a fair amount of time with Kelly's mom as well so that I can catch up on the work hours I missed. Even still it's been such a blessing to just be with her without distraction. Tonight she's asleep now, I just finished the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy along with the last bit of single malt.

The combination has me reeling. Remembering the day of my dad's accident. The waiting rooms, ICU, spending the last few moments with him before he went into surgery to have a halo drilled onto his head...I can't remember what happened next. Maybe I came home. Maybe I went to the hotel with my mom. Maybe I went to Owls Head to gather up the things of my folks' that were still at my in-laws. I do know that I faced the edge of my family losing a pillar. Even though I had a deep sense of peace that this was OK, that things would be OK, still so much pain. And so much empathy for people sitting in hospital waiting rooms for some shred of news, so ray of hope in a dim sea of fear and despair.

And now I've become a father. And someday my kids will feel that sense of powerlessness, of mortality. And I can't help but wonder what they'll feel, what will be their world? Will this end it, or will it be as I see it, the inevitable end of a chapter, the death of a body and the return of spirit to its realm? Time will tell...

So, obviously I'm somber, so what about the wealth part? What not about the wealth part, really? Just feeling so incredibly blessed. To have these incredible beings that are my children in my life, in bodies that are healthy and strong. To share this with Kelly, my best friend and soul mate, the one that completes me.

Last night I slept better than I have in I don't know how long, though it's been years. And I woke up and lolled in bed on a cold sunny Maine winter morning, the house clean from last night's labors. And quiet. Silent actually but for the intermitant low hum of our boiler in the basement...

My high school choral director used to emphasize the importance of silence. The quiet stillness that she would hold before we'd start a piece, the contrast of rests, and ideally the pause after the last reverb had echoed from stone and wood before the applause. In Europe it's customary to not applaud between pieces. When singing our first concert in Heidelberg we made it through the Kyrie of Missa Brevis, the third piece in our concert repetoire before the audience could hold back no more. It is never customary to appluad between movements in a Mass, though we easilhy forgave the German audience their transgression...they ended up giving a 3 minute standing ovation, of which we heard nothing as we had already left the main chapel.

Silence, our director said, is like the spaces in lace; it is the space between that defines the pattern. Without the space, lace is simply a piece of fabric. Or silence is the frame around a picture, the visual binding that enables the art to shine.

This morning silence was that border, though rather than being a rest before music, it's the counterpoint to to richness (sometimes overwhelmingly so =) of a young family. I suppose the same of the clean house, though I do wish we (and I'm such a huge part of this) could figure out how to keep it a bit more tidy.

So tomrrow evening Kelly will come home with not-so-little Liam, and Raelin will be with her having gone with Nana to pick them up. And the quiet silence that is our clean house will quite simply cease to be. And I'll strive to keep the memory of these moments with me. To remind me that the wails, screams, shouts, and laughter of young children is more valuable than any material wealth, and that the ensuing chaos and nights of short sleep should be cherished for their richness.

Just do me a fvor and don't remind me of this early in the morning after too late a night (again) =)

New Years Roundup

So here we are over halfway through January. In Maine, it's *finally* winter with snow on the ground, more coming, and nice cold temps to keep it there. Yesterday was our daytime low for the year of 7 with a wind chill pushing down around -11 or so. That's pretty chilly =) The nice thing about it is, now that it's back up to the 20's it feels downright balmy!

There's more going on here than the weather though. This weekend I'm flying solo with Raelin as Kelly's down in D.C. for her best friend's Blessing Way; a celebration of kid #2 for her family. Liam being the little runt that he is needed to be with her, so it's just me and the goober =) I'm really looking forward to it. She'll have her first ski lesson on Saturday, perhaps we'll go bowling, too. I'll get to go hang out with friends for an evening without wondering when Kelly's going to call saying both of them are waking up =) I'll also be able to get the house cleaned up, which became a total disaster while I was out West the first part of the month and hasn't quite recovered...

So then, about that out West trip...my loyal readers may know that I accepted a full time job offer, which started on the second. Spent 10 days out in San Jose, most of it in training though did skip out of town on the weekend for an epic Tahoe weekend with 8 other guys including my brother. Was *lots* of fun and the boarding was great. Can't wait for more snow here so the local hill will open more than just the bottom 2 runs.

The job's great though. A lot less work than running my own shtick, that's for sure. Never really occured to me just how much work and stress it was handling my own biz until I don't have to. In addition to the lifestyle improvement and benefits, the company hooked me up with a brand spanking new MacBook Pro. Now I'm a geek, and there's not many things I like more than new hardware, and this is especially exciting new hardware!!! So now I'm pretty much running my dream set up downstairs, still a few tweaks here and there, though overall pretty damn slick.

Without going into too much gory detail, the title I know hold is User Interface Engineer. The company has a private label web-based community portal product. Right now there's probably close to 30 engineers involved with various bits and pieces. The UI team is, I think 6 folks now with a couple more openings. One of my favorite things has been getting to work with other really talented people, and talking shop and having my work really valued by peers that know exactly what it is I'm doing. Already I've helped out folks that were stumped...that's cool =) Plus we've had a lot of fun doing it, which is also cool. All in all I think it's a great fit and a great move; I look forward to seeing just how far the rabbit hole goes...

Let's see, in other news, the lake is almost frozen over. Yesterday it was cold enough that the open water was steaming. Not sure exactly how cold it has to get so that ice water steams, but it was that cold =) In house news, more of the same: some interest here and there, though nothing solid as of yet. Supposed to have a showing this week though we'll see what happens, and some folks from Florida want to see it at the end of March. In a possibly serendipitous twist, the very promising buyer that loved it ended up putting an offer in on another house. However her offer fell through as the contract on her house in Southern Maine fell through. So now she's renting, and guess where: the place we're going to buy in Appleton!!! So, she may be back in the game down here, we don't know. I just wish the damn thing would sell so we could get it over with. I mean seriously =)

That all said, I've really come to realize that I'll miss this house. I'll miss all the quality touches that we put into (perhaps mistakenly, but still they're nice). I'll miss the intricacies of the wood floors, the wide range of lighting options, bright kitchen, and custom tile work. I'll miss our little view and waving hi to neighbors. And I'll miss the convenience of being close to town. I'll also miss the countless memories that we've made here as a family: Raelin growing from a baby through toddlerhood and into the preschool years. Liam's birth and infancy, perhaps his first steps if we're here long enough. Really just all the little daily bits of life, working right below where the kids and Kelly are playing and being able to keep my finger on the daily pulse of life through the stomping feet, dropped toys, and rolling balls. Lot's to keep close to my heart just as it's been with every home Kelly and I have shared.

So that's a nutshell view for now...