kevmo

And you thought finding five bucks in your pocket was exciting

2007-09-08T20:26:00.001-04:00

So the other day I went to get gas; our ATM card was declined, which shouldn't have happened. So I called Kelly, our house CFO, and she started looking into it. Turns out that when she's been depositing her bartending earnings at a particular branch they've been putting it into a savings account that she forgot she'd opened. And since it's a savings account they only send out quarterly statements. Anyhow, turns out there was a little over a grand in there. Now *that* was an exciting find!!!

In other news, after looking at clean vacuum cleaner bags, Raelin declared that putting a new bag in the vacuum is like changing its diaper. Gave us pause though guess it makes sense ;)

In yet other news, Liam continues to sleep like shit. Usually pretty well while Kelly and I are up, though the intervals between waking up decrease rapidly around 11:00 or so until, well, about dawn. Through that time he "sleeps" for maybe 30 - 45 minutes at a time, and really only while in direct physical contact with one of us. We're trying a different homeopathic remedy now. Thought it might be early second year molars coming in though a hefty dose of kiddie Motrin didn't change a thing. So onward onward.

I'm sipping on a gin and tonic. I thought that the mix was off cuz I put too much tonic in so I just added a little more gin. Nope. Too much gin, so I guess I'll put a little more tonic in.

Been a busy week "off." Sure I didn't check work email at all, though been a busy bee on the shed conversion. Also gave Kelly a bunch of time, which was needed and deserved. Shed's foundation finally got done with the arrival of a cement truck on Thursday morning. Actually turned out pretty darn good, though the final test will come when the weather gets cold and I fire up the radiant floor heating for the first time.

Anyhow, wrap this one up here...Kelly and I have a new blog over at http://homeontheridge.blogspot.com

Long Lost Blog

2007-08-25T21:31:00.000-04:00

OK...serious, serious, serious blagger here. Not sure I even remember how to post ;) Anyhow, last post: May 18th. Lots happened since then. Most notably we moved up to the ridge top paradise of our dreams. Also of Note, Liam had just turned 1 and Raelin was almost 4.

Both the kiddos are doing smashingly up here. Love it much.

I think this entry will mostly be a bunch of bullets filling in the scoop from the last couple of months...perhaps a bit tasky though we'll see ;)

So yup, up on the ridge. Stunning. Beautiful. Quiet. Inspiring. Healing. The place works on me daily in very subtle ways...ways that don't lend themselves to simple words. I just know that I *feel* really good up here.

The place needs a bit of work still to get it to where we want it. Been a busy summer for sure getting it to where it is: new paint on the house and shed, my office set up in the hay loft of the barn, moving stuff to and organizing once it's at the barn. Catching frogs, picking 40 pounds of blue berries. Building a new hen house and coop for 26 (now 25 since the runt didn't make it) new chicks. We got the "meat and egg combo" so half of them will be off to the butcher on 10/4. We've painted most of the downstairs of the house. We've gotten moved in...no small feat with 2 very young kids. Installed a water treatment system for the well. A new washing machine, and new dryer and fridge are on the way (thanks mom and dad!!!!). Also got a chest freezer to hold all the berries, birds, and 1/4 cow from a farm down the road. Also looking to dig a root cellar. Also had a tractor dude come in and mow/rototill our garden beds for next year. Also are in negotiations with our friends to buy the adjacent parcel of land, which includes viewshed from our house, a nice orchard, and generally 20 acres full of knock-your-socks off beauty. Also lucked out of the house or power lines getting hit by lightning a couple weeks ago; the tallest poplar in our yard got nailed instead. Was still *very* loud. Also Kelly started working 2 nights a week as a bartender. Also Bartlebee made the jump up from Down Under for a couple days, though her trip was a bit shorter than planned cuz she slept through her flight. Not slept on the plane, mind you, like was sleeping at the in-laws when she was supposed to be getting on said flight. Raelin did the best job rubbing in the fact that a too short visit had been shortened even more with her incessant "why did you sleep through your flight?" and "next time you need to be here longer." I've simply dubbed her "Brick." However I ended up having to work part of while she was here...bummer. Also, have been out to CA 2 times for work. Also my brother came out for a couple of weeks to help with the initial move and settle in...couldn't have done it without him. Nice to watch him on the land and its effect on him. Also my folks came out for 10 days or so, though I ended up having to work while they were here, too. Bummer. Not sure why visits are seeming to line up with the crazy work weeks...

Enough about the summer hectics, so about that work thing. I must say that I'm flying high with the job, the company, the coworkers. I think that at this point if the honeymoon were going to end, it would have ended. It hasn't. The caliber of people there and the ones that keep getting hired is staggering and humbling. Seem to have made my mark for better or worse there ;)

Been working on getting the shed-to-office conversion done. It's been very slow going as other projects keep getting triaged in. Today, however, I got a big chunk done, though not before bringing down some trees and brush near the barn the exterminator says need to go (we've got a little acrobat ant problem there that needs some attention). I still managed to get over half of the insulation in place for the slab I'll be pouring. Will bang the rest out tomorrow and also hopefully get all the radiant tubing and manifold ready to go. Hoping to get a short load of concrete delivered next week so I can keep on trucking on the project. Winter will be here very, very soon...well, OK, not *that* soon, but you get the point.

Anyhow, on a final note, I'm not going to Burning Man. Was super ultra bummed about it for awhile. Still bummed though I realize the timing's just really bad this year in so many areas. Really hoping to make my return next year...

So that's a catch up post...if you're still dropping by to see if I'll update do me a favor and drop a comment ;)

I'll Be 33 This Year...

2007-05-18T22:04:00.000-04:00

...and I've been married almost 6 years (10+ years of relationship, one more if you add pre-romance friendship), drastically changed careers, started and run a successful consultancy that kept me self-employed for over 4 years, moved across the country, became a parent twice, bought and remodeled a house, got a new full-time job with a fair amount of freelance work carrying over, have almost sold the house and closed on a new place, and only now I've learned that really, I can't do it all by myself.

And can I just say how fucking good it feels to let that unwind a bit? I mean, fuck me! So yeah, this year has been pretty nuts in the juggling department. And I'm glad to say that with the support of my lovely wife, I've started putting some boundaries around many areas including essentially hibernating my consultancy. When I took this new gig I initially had the idea that I would be able to pull a night or 2 here and get everything done. It just ain't possible; there's not enough time and quite frankly, when work starts coming upstairs with me, I'm done. Just not sure why it took so damn long to figure it out ;)

Anyhow, so big changes here. In a couple of weeks we'll be out of this house and on to the new place. There's a lot of mixed feelings about it. This place is comfortable. We've done a lot of work on it; I know it well. I know the places that are solid, and where there's issues. I know the junction box to look in for a loose wire on the smoke alarms (the electricians did a shitty job there and my fix wasn't very much better, and I just figured this one out a week or so ago anyway), I know why the shower drain pipes leak a couple drops now and again (I glued 'em and did a shitty job but was burned out on house stuff). I know which deck joists are a little off, where I mis-drilled the first ledger bolts, etc, etc, etc. There's a deep level of familiarity all around. And convenience, too with our to town.

And we're leaving this little nest to head up to the hills to a place that needs *a lot* of work. Not in the sense that this place did, I mean, it's totally livable now, but to get it to where we want it to be will be substantial. I knew this the first time we went up there, though it was more like a factual regurgitation checklist: roofs need replacing, shed-to-office conversion, barn-to-home conversion, remove those trees, gardens here and here, orchard here, wood shed here, need to install woodstoves, need to figure out some way to get off burning hydrocarbons all the time, etc, etc, etc. None of that really mattered because I was so in love with the place. And now, I dunno, it's sunk in. I wouldn't say it sunk in to the point where I'm thinking we're making a mistake, because I don't think we are, there's been *a lot* of guidance to this place in many ways that when I listen to and follow even if it doesn't make cognitive sense always has a way of clicking into discrete pieces in hindsight. Don't mean it ain't scary at times though. Seems to be what happens when one dreams big and then chases those dreams down. Sometimes it's scary. And sometimes I feel lost and doubtful.

And then again, Burning Man is just around the corner, and if there's anything I'm not doubtful about, it's getting my ass back out to the playa for a few days this year. We just finished up the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy and on the writers' blog, I found this:

So that?s it. That was our season. I did my level best to burn it all down this season, to burn it to the ground so that we can have a place to build from next season. Burning it down was hard.

I love it!!! I was talked to a coworker about BM last week (she's never been). She was curious what I like about it. In some ways BM is pretty excessively stupid: tens of thousands of people trekking out to the desert and essentially bringing their city lifestyles with them for an experiment in temporal expression culminating in burning large and small wooden structures. Pretty stupid, though also amazingly stunning; build it up, experience it to the absolute fullest extent possible, then watch it burn to the ground. Sort of a nihilstic slant on seasonality or something ;) Regardless, I'm fired up to go back out, and in a much better emotional space this year to celebrate more than the recouperate I so desparately needed last summer.

In the interest of finishing this post I'll tie it off here, though perhaps come back around in the next few days with some family updates; Liam's now 1, Raelin's almost 4, and the antics are keeping Kel and I rollig with laughter, banging our heads against the wall in frustration, questioning in self doubt, and mopping the overflow from our hearts off the floor. Indeed life is full full full ;)

Trying to Catch Up

2007-04-10T21:58:00.000-04:00

(And here's another one that I started and never finished from a week ago)...

And not only here...

It's been so long since I blogged, and I mean really blogged, that I'm not even sure where to pick up...

Really I don't. I mean, there's been some really deep emotional shifts moving around, good ones though certainly not always pleasant. Stuff around becoming a father (this goes back, oh, 4 years or so), and more navigating the radical shift a marriage goes through when kids come along. It's been a lot of work and I'm glad that we've come out the other end of it, not because I ever remotely doubted we would, but because it just sucked.

And then there's these 2 people in my life that are my kids, and they're getting older so very fast, and yet still so very little and vulnerable.

(anyhow, I'm in no mood to finish this one, so I'm posting as-is; just know that there's some big, deep stuff happening, too ;)

Stomping in the Ol' Cruzin' Grounds

2007-04-04T00:25:00.000-04:00

Wow. I got as far as titling this post back in the beginning of April when I was out in CA on a biz trip. Must have been right after I rented that sweet (and I mean *sweet*) Turner 5 Spot from Another Bike Shop. All I can say is....oh...my....god....

I can still feel that bike, and the long, long, ok-I-have-no-idea-where-this-trail-comes-out-and-it's-gonna-be-dark-and-I-have-no-lights-or-reflectors-and-I-really-don't-give-a-flying-fuck ride I did up through campus, then down through Grat Whale and into Wilder. Seriously, I couldn't just cut and go back to the studio, and I ended up, well, out in the dark. By the time I made it down to the bike path back to town I could just barely make out the white stripes against the black pavement. But, the bike; it was literally like flying. At one point I was down in a gulley and the sun had gone down and it was near total dark down there. I went down a little berm on the trail that looked to be smooth and ended up being a 2-3 foot drop, all onto the front end. On most bikes it would have been an instant over-the-bars wreck, though with a 5" travel front fork from Fox it just plushed through like buttah. Seriously, people talk about the ease of a point and shoot camera, well this is a point and shoot bike. So incredible to ride...

Anywhoo, that was the highlight of that trip. Also got to eat up a burrito at my favorite SC taqueria, grabbed a breakfast burrito and latte from the Chill Out Cafe (where they roll the fatty :p ), picked up a 6 pack of Red Tail Ale, saw the first swell in many weeks roll through the Lane, and generally had a kick ass time even though I was working like a dog during the days. Managed to get up to SF to see the old crew (and even bump into my brother, w00t!) and pick up a pre-release of the new Bassnectar cd. Which has me soooooo fired up for Burning Man this year OMFG!!!!!

Yeah, a good trip. Did I mention I worked a lot? I did, though true to the company values, that too was a blast. Oh, and the coffee place a couple blocks from the office has redefined the latte for me. It's that good; they even swirl a little heart into the touch of foam on the top. I'm such a sucker for that kind of stuff; the last touch of love...

Crayola Head

2007-03-20T14:04:00.000-04:00

Tried to post this the other day...didn't work...

Anyhow, here's the purple...

Boarded Out

2007-03-19T11:30:00.000-04:00

Today is a slow day on the body front. And sore. A couple of weeks ago, when we got back from our trip Kelly and I were talking about things we really wanted to do; I really wanted to get some more turns in and at the time we had a ton of snow here. Then we had a string of 3 showings and an open house in 4 days, near the end of this a major rain storm moved through and, well, it pretty much tanked the local ski season.

I was pretty bummed, so Kelly being the most awesome wife in the world that she is told me to beat it to Sugarloaf the following weekend for a day. I did have a couple gift cards that were about to be worthless, so the lift ticket would be a freebie. Without hesitation I said yes. Then the next storm lined up...

The 'loaf got about 18" of new snow over the last weekend; when I showed up on Sunday morning the sun was starting to break through flurries and the groomers were exceptional. Spent the next couple hours riding solo until a buddy from NH got there, then we rode for another several hours in the afternoon. It was totally epic.

Anyhow, I didn't think I'd ever say it, but I'm pretty boarded out at this point, and looking back at this season, there's some pretty sweet notches on the old belt:
-hit 2 days at Kirkwood in January right after they got a big dump; it was the last storm there for about 6 weeks.
-hit Vail for 1.5 days after they got 100" (yeah, that's 100!) over the prior 3 weeks.
-carved up some freshies at Sugarloaf yesterday.
Throw in the handful of mixed days at the local hill and that's really a pretty phenomenal season!

So I'm stoked and got a belly full of fat turns. Here's to the long fast until next winter!

Who Needs February, Anyway?

2007-03-10T21:26:00.000-05:00

Wow, so I managed to slide past an entire month without a post. Go figger. Lots been agoin' on...took a big 3 week trip out West, saw some good friends. Was nice, though invariably also tough. Lots of outward focus and hard to give attention to things like, well, my wife =)

Anyhow, so being home is great. Especially since we have news of an offer on the house to be arriving Monday. Been pretty nuts on the house scene. A few days before we came home there were 3 showings in 2 days. We've had showings each of the last 3 days, and an open house tomorrow. Looking good, looking good.

In other news, like, I'm now a blond, or more a yellow. I'm still deciding whether or not I'll take the second phase of the plunge and drop in the plum colored hair dye...thinking not for now. Can always bleach it out again when the roots come up. Kelly says she likes it, though also commented today that I look like some 80's rock star. Raelin says that I should bleach my eyebrows, too, and that really right now it's not very pretty, though that the purple would make it pretty. She also commented that Kelly and my black suitcases are not very pretty, nor is my gray snowboard bag. Her pink suitcase, however, does cut the mustard...

Let's see...there's also a lot of meat in there; last month or so has brought some very deep introspection into fatherhood. Not sure I want to get into it all just now, though will likely post something about it soon. Still a lot settling out.

Just posted a bunch of photos in the gallery of the place we'll be buying as soon as we get an offer we can't refuse (fingers crossed for tomorrow). Still deciding how we could swing also picking up the adjacent 25 acres. Would put a major crimp in the ol finances, if we could pull it off at all, though it's so hard to not try to weasel a plan about it!!!

101st Post

2007-01-26T22:38:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-01-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

...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

2007-01-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-21T19:59:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

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...

Muppets, John Denver, and Loud Music

2006-12-29T21:07:00.000-05:00

OK, so checking in here with some of the latest Raelinisms:

We've listened a lot to John Denver and The Muppets' A Christmas Together. It has remained Kelly's favorite holiday album (and one of my favorites as well). Raelin, however, has taken affection for this cd to whole new levels. To the point where a few days ago, she declared that she was in fact, John Denver. And that she was building a house out of blocks for the Muppets. And that I didn't know anything about building a house for the Muppets, but that John Denver had in fact built many Muppet houses, so he knows how to build Muppet houses.

The Muppets, in general have become sort of a parallel to the infamous Suds. We know that muppets are not Suds (though we're really not sure what the hell Suds are). We also know that Muppets aren't like the ones on the old TV show that we all know and love. I can assume that the Muppets, like the Suds, are somewhat morphable in physical shape. They can fit into very small block houses, are somewhat obedient, though still have to be repeatedly called and clapped for. We did get the original Muppet Show on DVD because we thought Raelin would really like to see the Muppets. Didn't go over so well. Not that she didn't like it, lets just say that Raelin wanted to watch the intro over and over and over =)

We found out the other day that the most promising house showing to date, the buyer put an offer in on another house. We also just found out today that we may have a showing tomorrow, with an hour's notice or so. Nice, eh? Anyhow, so even though it's Kelly's birthday (did you call or email her?) and we were going to her mom's to celebrate, we rushed around a bit tidying up the mayhem that our house so easily becomes. To get my clean on, I like house music. Kelly likes it a lot of the time, Raelin likes it almost any time, and Liam, well, he'll have to learn to like it if he doesn't already. So I put on some music at what I consider a moderate volume and hit the kitchen. Raelin starts dancing around and having a good time. Kelly comes out from the back of the house and turns the music down. As soon as she heads back, Raelin goes over and turns it back up. Repeat 3 times. I watched the whole thing from the kitchen and was dying by the end. Kelly and I have the same conflict routinely, so having Raelin weigh in on my side of the fence on this one is an early key ally. Thing is, when it's just me and Raelin then we really crank it up, then she holds me hands and stands on my feet so we can "dance around the house together"

That's the hit for now, check out Kel's blog for more specific on the whole Christmas day thing; link in the right hand column =)

2 in 1 Day

2006-12-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

Here's some other random updates:

-house situation is more or less the same, the exception of a couple bright spots:

We had a showing this week that came back that we're #1 on the list. Perfect fit: relocation to the area, middle-aged single person, new job at the local hospital (less than 5 minute drive). Hopefully she'll give us an offer that we can work with.

We've committed to moving to the new place 5-1-07 regardless of whether the house has sold or not. There's a lot of moving parts on this one that need to be nailed down. Of course all of them will evaporate if the house sells before then =)

-job situation is good. I'll be heading out to CA on the first for training, orientation, and to get my new laptop (_drool_). Oh yeah, also gonna swing up to Tahoe with some friends to break in my new snow board (_drool_).

-I got a random email from a fellow local hacker that's been following my blog (you know who you are =). It's this kind of stuff that continues to amaze me about the internet. I mean, with the explosion of social networking portals this shouldn't be that much of a surprise. The other time that really blew me away was many years ago when I got an email from a total stranger who's ex-wife had just passed away. They met in the Sierra at the foot of Pather Creek Falls, which is a stunning waterfall that drops into the Middle Kaweah river in Sequoia NP. He'd found a photo I had of the falls on google, though I'd since taken the page down and he could only see the cached thumbnail. I ended up sending him a high-res scan so that he could put a 7x10 framed print on the alter at her funeral. Talk about moving. It's stories like these that really keep me blogging. That and looking back at old entries to see what we and the kids were up to last year and earlier.

That all said, if you're lurking on my blog drop me an email or leave a comment. The more I know people are reading the more I make an effort to post...

Streeeetttttcccchhhh

2006-12-23T13:11:00.000-05:00

...in an emotional sense. I had a very grumpy morning. I have this thing with sleeping that once I wake up in the morning it's unlikely that I'll go back to sleep. If I actually get out of bed and walk around, even more so. And even if I do get back to sleep, no matter how tired I feel my body wakes up by 7:30. So that was this morning. Not wanting to be up, but up. Add to that our threenager and 7 month beefcake while Kelly caught up a bit on sleep, and grumpies not helped much.

See, the thing about being a parent is, every thing gets amplified. Often this is really pleasant, like when it's happy love time, or I'm checking on Raelin at night to make sure she has covers, or any other countless number of heart-melting scenarios. However, there's also times when it's not so pleasant. When we first made the jump to parenthood I had a very rough time adjusting to not just being a father (this was actually not too bad), but becoming husband to a mother. That right down kicked my ass for several years. By the time Liam was born I was pretty much over it though...

However, that's neither here nor there. I was talking about the negative emotional enhancement aspect of parenting. Like this morning when I'm grumpy and pissed off. Then Raelin starts in about Liam being within some imaginary boundary she's chosen, in this case within a 6' radius and that being "too close." Or Liam trying to grab my glasses for the millionth time, or whatever; there's never any shortage of ways to have my patience tested =) I'm not one for those little books of inspirational quotes, though one did strike me that goes something like "children have endless things to teach us, for instance how much patience we have." *Ping* that's the sound of a nail being hit on the head.

So now we're in Christmas season, and while I'm more excited for this holiday this year than I've been perhaps since I was a youngster, at this point I'm also very ready for it to be done. I'm done with shopping, with staying up late performing random tasks, with having Kelly more or less constantly occupied after the kids are in bed with sewing, knitting, felting, or other crafts. I'm done blowing off work during the day so I can be in my shop building things for the kids, which I can't do at night because they're asleep and my shop is right under our bed where Liam sleeps.

Granted, as I write this it's petty and whiny, but it's also very real. For now. Come Monday we'll have slept a bit more, and there will be nothing to do but sit around and enjoy the family. Hell we're even going out for dinner this year, which I think is a stroke of brilliance...

So, if you have no kids and plan on having some, I highly suggest you start stretching that emotional reality of yours, cuz those little ones will pull it farther than you'd like even as they warmly wrap you with it in bliss...

Body Mods

2006-12-17T09:59:00.000-05:00

So Raelin and I were just talking about animal bodies. I got to thinking, what mods do I wish I had; here's a short list:

-trunk
-prehensile tail
-opposable toes (early hominids did have these, though I suppose they make walking pretty tough =)
-gills/amphibious skin (frogs can transfer oxygen across just their skin. Not as efficient as lungs, though gills would be tough to keep wet all the time =)
-wings
-full-color night vision
-upgradable chassis
-upgradable memory
-cool case lighting effects
-video inputs with less distortion

I tried looking for some of these on newegg.com though came up empty =)

Close Call...

2006-12-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

...or you know you're living rural when...

Yesterday Raelin and I were heading out for some last-run Christmas tasks. As we headed up the main road near our house, out of no where a deer bolted from the shoulder. We missed it by a couple of feet, which isn't much when you're going 40. The car coming the other way, and especially the deer, weren't so fortunate. What was fortunate was that the other car was a little Hyundai (sp?) something or other, which has a front end pretty much made out of plastic.

As I passed I could clearly hear the sound of plastic shattering, and time seemed to slow as the animal was first scooped onto the hood, then sent flying into a roadside yard as the driver slammed on her brakes. The deer went sprawling across the grass, got up looking very dazed and ran off with a heavy limp.

This was the second time I'd seen an animal get hit; the first time was a goose getting hit in the middle of the grille on a semi going about 70 on I5 in California. Needless to say the goose's end was instant in that case.

Thing in this case that was so spooky was how quick it all happened, like almost in an instant. And how I had Raelin in the car with me. Just gives chills to think about it all...

Geek Alert

2006-12-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

OK, so I finally got around to fully hooking up all my new networking hardware. Last week I signed up for a new ISP that's a fairly new local player in town. Their whole shtick is wireless. Initially wifi mesh and now expanded to include point to point wireless. My account has a theoretical throughput of 2.5 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up. That's pretty fast, especially the upload. Anyhow, for now I'm keeping my DSL as well, and picked up a new D-Link dual WAN router than can handle 2 broadband connections and theoretically outbound load balance on them. Right now I'm uploading some pretty big files as a test and yup, the router's working like a charm, though I'm seeing no where near 1 megabit on the wireless connection.

I wrongly assumed that I could configure my existing wifi router into a wifi access point. No dice on that, so I had to pick up an access point. Go figure, a decent access point is noticably more expensive than a 4 port wifi router with all the trimmings. I must admit though, I am quite enjoying the cool blue LED light show on the top of the access point. While I wouldn't choose to pay an extra $40 for this, I'll take it. Granted, the wifi in this thing *should* be way more bomber than my old router, but we'll see.

In addition to all this fun stuff, I've also got VoIP running here now. With the exception of the minor glitch that the original number I chose couldn't accept incoming calls, that's looking pretty solid. To VoicePulse's credit, their tech support answered pretty quick and their engineers called me within a couple of minutes of the call ending with a new number, and on the VoIP line =) That's pretty sweet...

In other geek news, since I'm on the topic, I'm absolutely loving my 30" Apple Cinema Display. 3 years ago when I first made the jump to flat panels I chose to go with Samsung over Apple. Back then Apple displays were good, though quite a bit more than the other kids on the block and Samsung was the top ranked. How things change. The first time I saw one of these large Apple displays I was overtaken by instant techno lust. Years have made the heart grow fonder, and I do not regret the capital outlay one bit. So stunning.

In yet other geek news, I also recently jumped back into the PDA world with the purchase of a refurbished Palm T|X. Really like it. Alot. I haven't owned a PDA since my Palm III died many years ago. The devices have come a long way since then, and Palm has done well by bundling a ton of software. I love the wifi and bluetooth, though the thing is, it's got a better sound card in it than my 3G iPod, and that's just pathetic (for the iPod). One night I decided on a whim to head over to Staples and pick up an SD card for it. As I was looking at the cards in the aisle, I somewhat forlornly decided that the $100 for a 2 gig card was worth it and went up to the register. Just so happens that there was a guy bringing back a whole pile of SD cards. One of them was a 2 gig that didn't work in his PDA as it couldn't address that much memory. So I was like, "hey I'll buy that, any discount for the open box?" The cashier basically let me know that it was a huge pain in the ass for them to send it back to HQ, so they dropped the price 10%. Not huge, but I'll take it. Also turns out it was the last day of a sale on those cards, so the register price was like $35 or something. Plus the discount, plus the ink cartridge coupon I had. I went ahead and bought the other one they had in stock, too. So now my new PDA is like a 4 gig iPod nano, though with expandable memory and a decent UI.

OK, end of geek ramble...until my new job starts and I get hooked up with a new Macbook Pro...reports to follow...

Angry Hippies Piss Me Off

2006-12-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

Just returned a little while ago from a friend's birthday party. As at most parties there's always some folks I don't know, and being the introvert that I am I actually tend to avoid meeting them so I can just talk to the people I already know though don't spend enough time with...

Anyhow, so my friend and I were catching up a bit, just shooting the shit. I was asking him about the house he's been working on for some time and what's next. He was asking me about the new job. Since he's self-employed he had specific interest in why I decided to take the jump into working for someone else. Through this conversation there was this woman standing a few feet away that I've never seen before and hadn't even been introduced to. At some point in the conversation, when answering my friend's question about how the offer came about and I was saying something to the effect of "well the salary's really good, and the benefits are great, you know health insurance, stock options, and retirement." I mean, what the fuck, that's pretty tame. But little miss hippy priss who's not even *in* the conversation and no less even *knows my name* chirps up with a sarcastic "wow, health insurance, stock options and retirement, sounds like someone's talking about the American Dream." Yes, as a matter of fact, I *am* talking about the American Dream. Mine. So fuck off.

Anyhow, a few minutes later I'd moved into the other room and was chatting with another woman who I've recently met through Kelly and some other mutual friends. It was the first time I'd talked just to her. She runs a small business with a partner and she was telling me a little bit about wanting to expand into online sales. So she was asking me questions like who do I work for, what's a typical day look like, etc. In general I find that people don't really have a clue what I do, so I tend to be somewhat ambiguous when I answer such questions, but she kept looking for more detail. My not-friend from earlier had also happened to join in, and when I mentioned that most of the employees at the new company work from home as the company is virtual, she couldn't keep her cake hole shut, even though she *still* didn't know me and *still* wasn't in the conversation with a happy "wow, virtual, it doesn't even exist!" followed by a forced laugh. Um, go blow a goat or something...

The thing is, I know what it feels like to be a self-righteous hippy type. I was one for many years and poo-pooed anyone that worked in front of a computer as a soul-less wage slave and deserving of my contempt. That was before I utterly burned out on outdoor education, which by the way also enabled me to meet some simply incredible people that made their living in tech. Hmmm...time to re-evaluate the old world view.

Anyhow, so I didn't take it too personally, but it still pisses me off. I want to be like "ok, did I actually do something to piss you off or are you just an unhappy bitch?" Perhaps that's a little too harsh, but it does get to me when I feel judged simply for my choice of work and the fact that yes, I enjoy computing. Get that? I enjoy my computers. So go eat yer frickin' granola and keep to your self. While you're fuming I'll be teaching my kids about perma culture, the importance of eating organic meat, and generally building my dream life with the means provided by my silicon job. I certainly know first hand that striving to be wholer-than-thou led only to a deep sense of personal insecurity...

Finally...

2006-12-06T22:10:00.000-05:00

OK, just when I come in to finish a rough beginning of an entry, I find it gone. I guess Google was serious with the "beta" label for this version of blogger =)

Anyhow, so where was I? First off, a couple of kid updates:

-A couple weeks ago at dinner were eating turkey (surprise =). Somehow the conversation turned to what animals we eat and which we avoid. After a long joking list from me, Raelin chimed in with "Reggie." See, Reggie is our cat, and as incredibly annoying as he has become in middle age, I would personally not want to eat him. I told Raelin that wouldn't be such a good idea, to which she responded with her threenager response "why?" Well, because animals with paws don't taste very good, I answered. Totally straight-faced she replied "well then just cut them off." ROFL!!!

-A couple nights ago she stirred in her sleep. Somewhere between waking and sleep she said "Daddy?" I answered "Yes, Raelin?", her "goats like to climb" and with that fell back asleep.

On the Liam front, well he's learned himself how to crawl, but being a chip off the old block that's not good enough. No. He wants to walk now. He's been standing with our help for a while now, and he's even pulled himself up to standing on his own a couple of times that I've seen. Today as I was holding his hands he took 5 steps, then 3 more. Now realize these are very wobbly, very primitive steps. But steps none the less. He was quite pleased.

Other things he likes: babbling, drooling, taking tubs, watching Raelin, whatever Raelin happens to be playing with, Raelin. Being upside down, tossed in the air, etc.

And that's about it...short and sweet as I need to be off to bed here =)

Loads of New Photos

2006-11-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

OK, so finally got Gallery reinstalled on my Dreamhost account and even got all my backlog of photos up there. So, swing on over to the gallery and take a gander. However, you will notice that I've dropped a password prompt on there. I'm tired of filtering all the photos and wondering if a simple shot of the kids in the tub will get found and linked to by some sicko's site. So I've solved that problem, hopefully it's not too much of an inconvenience to any of you, my faithful readers.

If you want in, drop me a line and let me know. Don't feel like you have to send me some long chatty email if we haven't talked for a while; I'd rather you get in to see the pics...

That said, you can get me at photos -=at=- kevcallahan.com, or any of my other addresses =)

And the link to those photos is www.kevcallahan.com/gallery2/

Off the Chart

2006-11-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

Kelly took Liam in for his 6 month check up yesterday. Doc said he looked really good. Head cirumference is perfect, length at 29" is in 95 percentile, and weight, well, weight is 25 pounds, 9 ounces. The weight isn't even on the charts, not even the new breastfed chart. Now, this isn't really news to us, I mean, we've known he's more or less a tub o' chub for sometime. And we've also known that he routinely outweighs and is bigger, sometimes substantially bigger, than babies 6-12 months older than him. But to have his weight not even on the chart? Wow. In the words of Roy D. Mercer "well how big a boy are ya?"

Sudz Return and Granny Kicks My Ass

2006-11-09T11:44:00.000-05:00

So indeed, for the last couple weeks or so the infamous Sudz have made their return into our world through Raelin. They're still invisible to us, though still seem to be pretty small. I recently substantially upgraded my monitor to a 30" Apple Cinema HD display (droooooollll), which as you can imagine comes in a somewhat large box. Raelin commandeered it and set it up across the bottom of the basement stairs as the "sudz gate." She would get *very* concerned if I moved it and didn't put it right back. At one point I thought that perhaps I could get away with stashing it in the shop. That lasted less than a day. At this point she seems to have lost interest in making sure the sudz stay in the basement to work. They do still need to be called in from the front deck. Raelin will open the door, go out, clap loudly and yell out "Sudz come! come, Sudz!" This is typically followed by muttering as they come back in with her.

She also recently got a special deck of Go Fish game cards from Kelly's mom. Each pair is a lower and upper case letter with a baby and adult animal to match. Kelly was playing with her the other day and I happened to be upstairs. Kelly and I were both a bit punchy and Raelin asked about the quail, which comes out more like "twail," so we would say "twail, what's a twail" to which her response would be "QUail, not twail, QUail!" Same thing with vulture/wulture. Don't want to push it too hard and make her feel bad, but we all have a little fun with it. And the best part is, she does it back to us as well...

This week I finally got to a yoga class for the first time in like 5 years. Been wanting to do it though never quite got there. Enter Kelly, who went ahead and picked one out, signed me up, and simply told me when to show up. Amazing how that works. So Tuesday was the first class I went to after missing the first class meeting. It was me, a woman about my age, and a few senior citizens. The 2 women were both a bit chunky. However, I was totally humbled by both of them, first when I caught one of them in a full torso twist and then seriously ass-kicked when we were all doing half moon pose. Me and the other youngster were dying and both bailed out of the pose early. The 2 elder ladies however were just contentedly hanging out without a visible sign of stress. OK, that's awesome.

In house news, things seem to be moving a bit more. Had a bunch of brokers here yesterday, and we know that we're the #1 choice for a couple from out of state that's trying to sell their house so they can buy ours. Couple other out of staters are interested, as well as a couple of locals. I don't really care who buys it, I just want it to be sold so we can get out of here and up to the hills. Speaking of which, our friends closed on the land a couple weeks ago and invited us up to go inside the buildings. The house was as expected, needs some paint, a chimney for woodstove and a tankless water heater installed. Nice layout, it actually feels bigger than our house now. From there is just got better. The shed was better than I had remembered/expected even including a poured concrete frost wall...for a shed. Plan is to convert it to my office. And the shiner was getting inside the barn. The construction is all oak post and beam; timbers are 8" or so. Absolutely stunning. We have big plans, and it just feels so good there. The little pond even looks bigger now that the vegetation has died back. So we checked it all out, then everyone took a nice walk to the neighbors to see their goats and then down to the bottom edge of the property. There's a beautiful brook fed by a spring just below the pond. One of the highlights of the walk was being there with another family with a 3 yo and 18 mo. We're not alone =)

Anyhow...that's if fer now...

Now My Heart Breaks Again

2006-10-29T20:38:00.000-05:00

The last couple of weeks have been great; epic in fact. I accepted a new job offer that had Kelly and I flying, my dad's recovery is going well, the kids are well, Kelly's doing good. Things were as close to perfect as they can get.

Then, late Friday night Jasmine bit Raelin on the head. Again. This is #3 and Kelly and I promised that after #2 if there was ever another incident we were done. See, thing is, once a dog bites (and there's a whole range of biting on which these all were the very minor end), no one will touch it. Shelters won't take it and neither will the rescue groups I talked to. Add to this her bad and getting worse knees and it's a certain lost cause for adoption, to say nothing of the stress it would be on the dog to up and move to another home.

So, most likely tomorrow we will have her euthanized. And this has my heart torn open. As angry as I am about her behavior, and as much fury I felt seeing Raelin crying on the floor with her face bleeding, I love this dog. I love her a lot. For me it's one thing to put an animal down at the end of its natural life; it's another to take that step of compassion and apply to every 'what if' scenario that we can think of. In other words, due to factors largely out of our control (her puppy hood and socialization) or environment (we've got 2 young kids that leave little time for retraining), this is the end of her natural life. And in some ways, several ways, it is the compassionate path. Just so happens that compassion doesn't always equate with happiness.

So I sit here now in a sort of emotional void. Took her out for a long walk today, fed her steak for dinner, invited her up on the bed this morning, and have been popping pain meds into her 3x a day. It's just so hard to let a friend go...

Anyhow, love your dogs; I look forward to the day when we can have one again...