Tooth No. 2!

It's warm here.

Not 'warm' warm. More like 'early spring' warm. A.k.a. early fall 'bloody freezing'. Actually, that's not true. The temperature is in the forties. Consistently. And the wind is blowing. Consistently. Which it does here year round anyway.

It's good to be home. Even if it means I won't get white Christmas this year. It's good, because I now realize that I have missed all this people even more than I thought. And because I needed to correct a picture of life here, which I had begun to paint in a rosier hue than reality exudes.

First off, it is dark. It stays dark here for full three or four hours longer than at my new home. I mean, I don't get a hint of daylight until 10 am, and it is gone again by 4 pm.

Secondly, the pace is faster. Not just because it's a city. Everybody is not just moving faster, but more frantically too. I had begun to forget about that.

Finally, things are tougher. Like the traffic. And the fight for whatever: Taxis. Movie tickets. Fast food. Drinks. Etc. The humor is also darker. Waaay darker. Which is actually also nice. In a sense.

Home.

And then I will get my two girls tomorrow. Finally.

Wow. This has been the longest starvation of this beast since its inception.

It's not intentional. Despite the snippinesss in my last post. I've just been travelling and working a lot. Besides, that outburst does not seem to have had any effect on the whispers I am getting back.

I got the nicest whisper last night. Asking me to please continue blogging. Something interesting. And stop being a fool.

Good advice.

I've just had an epiphany.

This is my blog.

Which means that there will be no shout-outs or interviews or dialogues or discussions or intelligent conversations. Of any kind. At all.

Because you know what? It's about me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. It's all about me.

And if you don't like it, you can just stop reading this. I can't believe that you all show up here every day to read this drivel anyway. Why would you do that? It's not as if this actually means anything. It's just my incoherent ramblings. Put here to get them out of my head.

So go! Off withya all!

And stop writing me e-mails with your wishes, demands and requests.

I use a Mac.

That's no secret. Neither is the fact that this type of computers attracts a phenomenal, cult-like following. But this is just insane!

The story is that they just opened a new Apple Store in Japan. In the fancy Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, to be more precise. And this shows the line of people waiting to get in!

Un-be-liev-a-ble.

You want proof that kids can do way more than we think they can? OK. The word 'toothbrush'. It was obviously invented by an infant. Why? Simple. Otherwise it would have been called a 'teethbrush'.

There you go.

To paraphrase a local saying: Chocolate, not just a breakfast dish.

Actually, looking up words in the dictionary is an old habit of mine. Harks back to the days when you really couldn't understand what I was saying. Did you for example know that 'chocolate' is actually 'fermented, roasted, shelled, and ground cacao seeds, often combined with a sweetener or flavoring agent'? Well, yes. But this one is better: 'Breakfast=The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.' But I digress.

I just wanted to ask this simple question: How can you go wrong, when making a chocolate cake that is, if the ingredients are simply brown sugar, butter, eggs, strong coffee, normal sugar, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate?

Damn. This sure smells good, anyway.

A Wal-Mart for babies.

That's probably the best way to describe Babies'R'Us. These are humongous stores, filled to the rafters with stuff that is only for kids. Everything from preemie-clothes to bedroom furniture (only all the beds are size XS), from strollers and carseats to toys and picture books. We spent the afternoon in one.

I haven't been there since my first days as a father. Those times were so hectic and stressful that I really didn't take the time to wonder. This time, with my daughter sleeping in her stroller, I could marvel at the whole spectacle.

Imagine if this wasn't it. What if there were stores that sold business outfits for kids? Kid's coffee shops? Car dealers catering to toddlers? In short, what if kids and adults were equals? I mean, we do our best to accomodate all different varieties of people. No matter where you come from, whether you can speak the language or not, if you are mentally all there, etc. Sure, sex, skin color, sexual orientation, and more, may freak us out, and make us try to discriminate against each other, consciously or not. But at least we are supposed to strive for equality. To respect each and every human being. Regardless.

Which kind of brings me back to my point. I am watching my daughter growing. By the day. And soon enough she will be fully capable of doing all sorts of things. I mean, she will likely surpass my puny math knowledge in less than a decade. So why is she a part of a minority group in this society, whose dollars ard good enough to be taxed, but her voice is not good enough to be represented? Why are literally all her decisions, by law, not her own but mine until she is almost twenty years old?

Sure, sure. I can hear my 'whisper back' inbox wimpering 'Oh, nooo. They are going to yeall at me. Tell me that kids need to be guided. Shielded. Not least from themselves. Protected. From the evil of this world.' To this I say to you OK. I am not advocating that kids should run amok, as soon as they can run about. Of course this needs to be kept in perspective. In moderation. But still. I think that we, parents, collectively hang onto our power over kids for far too long.

It didn't used to be that way. Children used to come of age younger. Waaay younger. Read some Shakespeare, if you don't believe me. Romeo and Juliet, anyone? Granted, those times may have represented one extreme in the matter. But if so, then we today are living in times of the other extremes. I mean, people in their twenties should be able to decide whether to drink or not. All of them.

Not that I will be any better. By the time my daughter will be fifteen, I will have conveniently forgotten all these noble thoughts, that came to me in Babies'R'Us, and erased any remnants thereof.

Including this blog.

The wind is blowing again tonight.

It's easy to forget the wind. It is mostly kind of quiet. Even when it roars, it rarely says anything worth remembering.

I moved here from the coast. Wind country. A calm day is a rare treat back there.

Here, calm is the norm. First, I found the place lacked character because of this. Actually, the lack of wind and the incessant forrest everywhere you (try to) look, conspired to give me this weird clostrophobia. I used to drive to the north, just to get a little view. To breathe.

But this holiday it has been windy. Here, that is called a 'storm'. Jeez. I could show these people a real storm. They would be scared. It seems that if it rains here, and it isn't completely calm, it's a 'storm'. Boo-hoo!

Even the trees around here are wimps when it comes to the wind. They just give up. They feel something tugging at their branches, and they go "OK. That's it. I give up." And with that, it starts to rain. Trees. Branches fall from these wusses like they are getting paid for it. I will wake up in the morning, after barely hearing the wind rustling some leaves during the night, and in the morning there will be this humongous branch, violently sprawled across our road.

I can just imagine the mounds of conceded woods, littering the streets tomorrow.

So, the all-American holiday of Thanksgiving is upon us.

The street that I live on is virtually deserted. Kind of like in the middle of the night, only with daylight. Everyone has gone to their parents. To eat the big bird. And the rest. Apparently, there are no parents living here. At least not old enough to have their children come here for Thanksgiving.

It still hasn't started to snow. By this time last year, it was arctic around here. Not that I miss it. I guess it will be white soon enough.

We have been watching the extended DVD version of The Two Towers. My wife has officially become a Tolkien nut, and we both love the films.

This edition, however, is nothing short of a completely new film. It adds more than 40 minutes to the footage, bringing the total length of the feature from a respectable 179 minutes to a whopping 223 minutes! And the additions are not some low-grade stuff either.

This is simply awesome. I can't wait till December 17!

I am getting old.

Really.

This is not because my back is killing me. From biking like an idiot yesterday. Neither does the fact that I have almost no hair anymore, at all, figure into this revelation.

However. I did figure out the other day that I am losing my hearing. On the right ear. That might have something to do with this.

No. Mainly, it is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. I mean, I used to find this stuff funny. Beavis and Butthead were funny. Sort of. South Park was hilarious. Still is, probably (I don't have a TV, remember?). And I want to think that this guy is funny, too. It's just... Nothing is happening. I try and I try...

Is this what impotence feels like? That's probably next...

This was an excellent day. Not that there has been any lack of those for the last, oh, ten years or so. But this one was one, anyway.

First, I attended a real-life baby shower. Not one of these cozy little afternoon things, were a few friends come and have some tea. No. This was an all-out, all-American, organized, big-time Event! It had an organizer, a very surprised mother-to-be (mainly because she had attended another surprize baby shower yesterday), a special venue for the occasion (a local club house), a mountain of presents, twelve quiches, and twenty women. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Then, one of them took me bike riding this afternoon. Because, you see, Nature is teasing us these days. She is acting just as if spring was coming. So we had sun, calm, clear skies and temperatures in the fifties. And it's less then six weeks till Christmas!

Finally, I got to spend the rest of the day with two beautiful women. My daughter is looking more like her mother by the day. Which is a good thing.

Thank God for women!

A perfect day.

One of my little qualms is that I hate it when there's hair in my food. Hate it. With a vengeance.

Which kind of put a damper on my joy of eating this risotto I made last night. I made it with squash. And panchetta. And chestnuts. And fresh sage, and chili. And coreander seeds. And a lot of other stuff.

But it was the butternut squash that made it look as if there were hairs in my risotto. Which was a turn-off.

My wife liked it, though. Actually, she really liked it.

Said it was the best thing she has had. Ever.

She did!

Not that it matters. Any more. Maybe it never did. But it felt strangely good to hear Don Imus cut his broadcasting of George W. Bush's speech this morning short, halfway through, noting that he wasn't really saying anything.

Mr. Imus maintained that the speech was only a litany of excuses for "this stupid war".

Can't say I disagree.

My daughter has got her first computer program (sorry, Mac only). And she loves it! When she taps the trackpad, a random, brightly colored shape appears on the screen, accompanied by a random sound. If she taps a key on the keyboard, that letter appears, in jumbo size, on the screen. You can even have the computer read out the letters as she types. And the name of each of the shapes! This is so cool!

Writing computer games for small children. That's what I want to do when I grow up.

I can't believe how easy this is. Now I understand how 13 year olds can be dangerous hackers. This stuff is mindnumbingly simple. Or deceptively simple. Maybe it's just me that's 'deceptively shallow'.

Packet sniffers are scary.

Mommy, I'm scared. Please make the Net secure and safe and good again.

We just slept for twelve hours. More or less straight. The little one woke up only once, barely, for a drink and a diaper change, and then went right back to sleep.

I've been awake now for all of five minutes.

Think I'll go back to bed and sleep some more.

Bliss!

I finished!

My very own tiny shell!

I did not believe that I could do it. But there it is. In just one week!

WOW, this feels good. What a rush!!!

My very own tsh. Now I have two small children...

Just came back from listening to a speech. Given by Howard Dean.

He is an assertive, if not an overly warm, speaker. He has a little bit of that classic aura of an angry, young man. Talks a lot about taking back America. About how Ashcroft does not own the US flag, the people do. Etc. Still, he's not young. And not really 'angry'. 'Driven' is maybe a better word. 'Determined' is also a good description. I am sure this tenacity proved useful while he was a practicing physician, given how over-worked they are. What was interesting about him, was that he did not seem that hollow. Especially for a politician. Like so many Democrats, I find, he was more on the facts than on the message. Which may have made for less of a show. For better or worse. No 'axes of evil' visions. More 'percentage-of-income-paid-on-student-loan-payments' facts.

Afterwards, I got to meet him. Briefly. Small hands, but a firm handshake. He said that he thought a science education was an excellent preparation for a career in politics. The reason? Well, those who are not scientifically trained are not necessarily disciplined in throwing out theories, when it turns out that the facts do not support them. Good answer. A med student asked what kind of an environment she would be working in when she graduated. Dean said it was tough, since the health-care system was not functioning as it should. Why? Because it has been 'de-personalized'. For example, it used to be – and still is the case, especially if you lived in a rural area – that you would know 'the' doctor, know where to turn to. This has changed in most other areas, Dean said, partly because of "the increasing role of Corporate America" in health care. Bad answer.

So what is this poor little libertarian to do? I should be leaning Republican. But their guy is anti-choice, pro-tariffs (e.g. steel), anti-separation of church and state, pro-military, anti-balanced budget, pro-capital punishment, anti-privacy. And he invaded Iraq! Along comes this guy, from Vermont, of all places, who is pro-choice, pro-separation of church and state, pro-fiscal responsibility, etc. And he said he would not have attacked and occupied Iraq. And I believe him.

What to do, what to do?

I have been out driving. In the snow. With my baby girl.

So this was the day she saw snow for the first time.

She seemed unfazed...

Becoming a parent gives a whoooole new meaning to a lot of things.

Take exceptional flow control for example. These days I am learning about this exceptionally dry material. But since I have just become a father, some of the phrases in my textbook have taken on a new, and alarming, meaning. A few examples:

"A parent process creates a new running child process by calling the fork function."

Iiiiiinteresting. "Hey, honey, what say you we call the fork function tonight?"
And it goes on:

"The newly created child process is almost, but not quite, identical to the parent."

How true. But then it gets kind of weird:

"The child gets an identical (but separate) copy of the parent's user-level virtual address space, including the text, data, and bss segments, heap, and user stack. The child also gets identical copies of any of the parent's open file descriptors, which means the child can read and write any files that were open in the parent when it called fork."

It can?! Sheez.

"The most significant difference between the parent and the newly created child is that they have different PIDs."

OK. However, there are more disturbing quotes. For example:

"Parent processes should always reap their terminated children."

And finally, some of this stuff is just obscene. Like the explanatory chapter, entitled:

"Why are terminated children called zombies?"

I am not going to read that to you. Too twisted. Yes, CS really is a dark and scary place.

I have been watching a lot of DVD's lately.

Maybe it is the cold. The temperature has dropped, in just a couple of weeks, from the sixties to the thirties. Brrr! I miss not being able to go out biking. Yes, I know you can 'theoretically' bike all year 'round. But I am a wuss. I admit it. I am not going out biking when there are thin layers of ice here and there. BTW, it just started snowing! Just now! Ah, well. I guess it is November already.

Or maybe it is the darkness. What idiot thought of adding to the misery of diminishing daylight by moving the clock back an hour? I mean, everybody is up at six anyway. And it is dark then anyway, daylight saving time or not. So this is effectively only zapping another hour of daylight from the end of the day. Making it dark when you are finishing work, at 5 pm, instead of being able to enjoy at least a modicum of brightness until six o'clock. I know this whole thing started with farmers and their need for daylight to work. Jada-jada-jada. Do I look like a farmer? Those farmers can just haul themselves out of bed an hour earlier. And let me sleep!

Anyway. DVD's. I rent my DVD's from a local video rental shop, place, thingy, something. And I have become vaguely familiar with most of the faces of those that work there. Maybe it's just my video place, but why is it that the average clerk at Wal-Mart or K-Mart looks retarded next to the kids in that place? I mean, these are similar jobs, yes? Requiring similar skills. Similar hours. Probably paying roughly the same. So why is it that I can carry on a conversation about Kafka with a guy at the DVD rental shop without incidence, while mentioning anything that's not on a shelf in Wal-Mart, to one of the clerks there, will get me a referral to the help desk (where no help is to be found, parenthetically)? This has nothing to do with me. I am sure that the average Wal-Mart-er is twice as smart as I am. But there is no denying it. Video clerks beat store clerks. Hands down. Why?

Anyways (reprise)! There is this girl. And she just started working at the video place. Which is not out of the ordinary. She herself is neither. Maybe in her early twenties, dark-haired, brown eyes, thin frame, aloof, nice smile. All average. But she has a withered hand. She does not seem to be able to move it much, and it is much thinner than her other hand. It is also slightly deformed. Not that you would necessarily notice. Because she shields it and hides it. Elegantly. And this created the strangest energy between us. I tried not to look. Because my mother taught me not to stare. And this girl noticed that. And tried even harder to hide her hand. In the space of a few minutes, this became a sort of a coy issue. Somehow both bashful and evasive, even flirtatious, at the same time. It had an air of mischief about it, and this girl appeared coquettish, even though she was just trying to hide a part of her which didn't conform. I saw something, of her, which she didn't want to show, or which 'shouldn't' be seen. I know this sounds strange, maybe even downright twisted, but in some manner it was a very fragile, even erotic moment.

OK. I admit it. It does sound sick.

So be it.

What? The pictures have disappeared again?!

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Just took one of those online tests. This one is meant to reveal your inner rocker. As in rock star, not the furniture.

My niece pointed it out to me. She was revealed to be none other than Courtney Love! Which I found kind of silly, since my niece is the most intelligent, mild-mannered and calmly firm ideologist you'll ever meet. A far cry from the loud-mouthed, stupid-acting bimbo that this Love person at least appears to be.

Anyway.

So I turned out to be Chris Isaac.

Which kind of proves my point.

I don't actually hate Chris Isaac. I just think he's lame. And before you all go off saying "Well, we all think we're lame", let me add that he is not like me. At all. Basta!

Stupid test.

I finally found the time to move my daughter's pictures to a new server. Hopefully, they'll stay up this time.

Can you guys maybe let me know if they don't?

Thanks.

P.S. No, I won't pledge to treat this blog better than I have been doing. It's a blog! Get over it.

I have been looking for my pictures, which mysteriously disappeared from this blog last weekend. Thank you to all of you who wrote to tell me that they were missing. The culprit has been found: My web host!

It turns out that when I try to access any of my pictures, I get this nice comment from the server: "The page you are attempting to access has been removed because it violated the Term (sic) of Service." And what, you might ask, was the violation? Well... you're not going to believe this: By posting pictures of my baby daughter, I have been exploiting her, and the web host will have none of it!

Under the heading "Prohibited Conduct", in the Terms of Service in question, it says, in part: "You agree that you will not use [...] Products and Services to [...] Upload [...] any Content that exploits the images of children under 18 years of age, or that discloses personally identifying information belonging to children under 18 years of age."

Living in America!

It's becoming a tradition to post pictures of my daughter here.

This is what whe looks like to me when we're out driving together. She invariably falls asleep as soon as I start driving. Just can't seem to keep awake. So I'll watch her in the rear-view mirror.



Since she is facing backwards, I have another mirror between the headrests in the back. Don't ask me why it is surrounded with this strange blue/white elastic band. It just seems like people that design stuff for kids are crazy. And completely tasteless. This was the most subdued rear-rear-view mirror that I could find.

Sheez!

I got a cold sore.

Right after the flu. I used to get them every other month or so, but I haven't had one in almost four years. They used to come when I had had little sleep, was malnurished, and had been exposed to big changes in heat, i.e. strong sunlight or frost. This time around, only the intermittent sleep applies, although I think the flu probably did manage to weaken me.

I used to use Zovir, a lip paste of sorts, but this time I was told that it requires a prescription. So I tried a different one, called Abreva, made by Glaxo Smith Kline. That sounds like the name of a law firm. And it might just as well be. Who else would sell you a tube of paste, the size of a paperclip, that holds only a few drops, and costs more than 17 dollars? Has to be lawyers.

Anyway. This stuff doesn't fight the cold sore. At all. It isn't designed for that. It merely helps it heal quicker, once your lip has become a bleeding wound. Which is perfectly understandable. After all, you wouldn't want to kill off the source of the problem, the impetus for people to go out and buy your stuff, now would you?

Of course not.

And Quincy Jones! Man!

I have become completely, utterly hooked on fifties' and sixties' music. And I mean not the run of the mill pop music of that era. No, I mean lounge music, even elevator music, of the period.

It all began with iN FLiGHT entertainment, a cd that a friend of mine loaned me a while back. I listened to it non-stop for weeks, before moving on too Further In Flight Entertainment.

And now, I've just seen Down With Love.

And I'm hooked, I tell ya. Hooked!

Jeez, this blog is sick.

Kind of like I have been. For the last week or so. Caught a flu. For the first time in years. I had forgotten how miserable it is to just lay in bed. Sick.

I seem to be finally shaking it off, though. Just as good, since I'm going to church tomorrow morning. To hear Mozart's Requiem. That will be my final touch of healing. There is something about that piece which is thoroughly invigorating.

Probably has something to do with that holy ghost thing. Which reminds me! We carved out pumpkins today. With a bunch of friends. Boy, that was fun. Here are the results: My wife's spider on the left, and my self-portrait on the right.



Boo!

My daughter is quite possibly the laziest infant in history.

I used to own a cat. It was so lazy that you could dress it up like a Swiss yodeler and yodel to it all day long, without it waking up (don't ask).

Now I have a daughter, and she likes to sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Every now and then, she'll wake up and want some milk, and then go back to sleep. Kind of like the cat, actually.



I can already hear some of you going "You don't know how lucky you are", and "She'll wake up soon enough, and then you'll wish she was still sleeping", and even "Just you wait!". I'm sure you're all quite correct, but I want to play with her. Now!

Yes!

Finished my next assignment, which was to launch a series of buffer overflow attacks. Got a perfect 10 out of 10 for it. And it's not even due until next week!

Sweet...

I haven't gone biking for two weeks now, and it shows. My joints crack, my quads are tender, my drive is in lower gear, I am beginning to get back an old headache, and I'm having a harder time getting out of the bed in the morning. It's kind of like having a hangover.

Who ever said serious physical excercise isn't an addiction? I am in withdrawal.

I just finished de-activating my personalized binary bomb this morning. Managed to neutralize five out of a total of six phases, yielding a grade of 8.3 (out of a possible 10). Not bad, considering that on Saturday morning, I had only managed to get through two phases during the whole of last week. Still, it's less than the 8.8 I got for my first project. Ah, well.

For those of you who, like me until last week, do not know what a "binary bomb" is: Don't worry, it's nothing dangerous. Just a fancy name for buggy software code. And "de-activating" simply sounds more thrilling than "fixing".

Still, it was quite fun. I didn't think I had it in me.

Hi all

Came back Sunday, and blogged like never before. Then when I went to post it, it disappeared. Argh!

So I'm mad at my blog now, and hereby wow never to write anything substancial in it again. Yeah, I know, I know. It was pretty thin to begin with. But! Now, it will become even thinner.

I think I'll rename it: The transparent blog.

Hrmph.

After three days of little sleep, jet lag, and constant work, I'm ready to go home. Too bad I have four more days to go.

I miss my girls...

One of the very few things I do not like, is hanging around in airports, waiting for my flight.

At least this lounge has a decent Internet connection...

According to Airborne Express, my iPod is now in China! No word on what it's doing there, since it's supposed to be shipping from Texas.

Great. Or Fa Kin Su Pah.

The Good news: The iPod finally shipped.
The Bad news: It's not expected to be delivered until next week! By then, I'll be in Europe, and I had been hoping to take my new gizmo with me.

This sucks.

Just came back from a 32 mile bike ride. Lots of hill and the group was making good time, when it started pouring.

I am still getting used to this shower-raining. Did you, as a kid (or an adult), used to sneak into the shower in all your clothes? I did. Drove my mother mad. I thought it was funny. And I did too this morning. I was going "Yippeeeeeeee!" Because it was not cold at all. It was already in the upper seventies. So I pleaded with these people to continue riding in that downpour, but to no avail.

They suggested ducking into a diner instead, grabbing breakfast. Which sounded good to me also, actually. I had a large stack of blueberry pancakes, with maple syrup and whipped butter. Yum. And I still got the better end of that deal, because when we finally went off again, it was still raining! Not as hard as before, but still.

Then, just to top it off, I was able to not only keep up with the fastest rider in the group – I was beating him. After the ride, he came over and said "You're just to strong for me". Which felt pretty good.

I don't cry easily. I am not supposed to, being a guy. But, like its inmates, The Magdelene Laundries moved me to tears.

Just got an e-mail from Apple:

"Dear Valued Apple Customer,
We appreciate your recent Apple Store Order
Due to an unexpected supply delay, we are unable to ship the following item(s) by the date that you were originally quoted:
P9245LL/A, PERSONALIZED IPOD 40GB-USA
will now ship on or before 09/19/2003
Please note that product availability can change rapidly, and it is possible that your order may ship much sooner than we anticipate. You may even receive a shipment confirmation between the time we send this email and the time that you read it.
If you prefer, you may change or cancel your order anytime before it is shipped, and receive a prompt refund, by calling us at 800-676-2775 ext-56500 Mon-Fri 8am-9pm, Sat-Sun 9am-6pm (Central).
If we do not hear from you, we will continue processing your order. You will receive an email notification once your order has been shipped.
We encourage you to visit http://www.apple.com/orderstatus or http://store.apple.com/ and click the "Your Account" button to view the status of your order.
We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused you. Thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!"

Now, I've already received the accessories that I ordered with the iPod, i.e. an "incase Music Belt" and a "Belkin Auto Kit for iPod w/ Dock Connector". I've even received the hp printer, which I wasn't expecting until next week, with all its accessories.

Come on, Apple. Shape up.

We have a new set of houseguests now. Funny how having people you know stay with you is totally different from meeting them. Even meeting them a thousand times. You're somehow getting 'more' of them. Which I guess could be a bad thing. But these people are just so sweet. It's simply great to have them. The only downside is, that they are leaving in a week.

I wish I had a really, really large house, where my friends could have their own rooms, and come and stay as they pleased.

Bought an iPod yesterday at the online Apple Store. I've been on my way to get one for years, and now they just upped the capacity to 40Gb, so I just couldn't resist.

Being the obsessive madman that I am, I immediatly started trying to track the shipment. But, lo and behold, my account status soon showed an error message, "Action required". So I click on that. "APPLE IS NOT ABLE TO SHIP TO A P.O. BOX. PLEASE CONTACT 800-676-2775 EXT-55200, SO WE MAY ARRANGE FOR A DIFFERENT DELIVERY ADDRESS." A sidenote: Why does everything slightly relating to legal matters require CAPITAL LETTERS HERE IN THE UNITED STATES? IS IT BECAUSE NOBODY WANTS TO LISTEN TO LAWYERS, SO THEY THEREFORE NEED TO YELL? OR ARE THEY JUST SO STUPID THAT THEY DON'T NOTICE THAT THE CAPS LOCK IS ALWAYS ON? I start trying to find out why there is a P.O.Box number on my order, since I specifically remember not putting that on there. Discover that the reason is that the Apple browser (probably like all other browsers nowadays) has used some sort of auto-completion feature to put more information, into the fields of my order, than I put in there. Including my P.O.Box. But here is the insiduous thing: The Address 1 field on the ordering page is only one line, but the auto-completion mechanism added a line break after my address, and put that P.O.Box in a separate line, which I couldn't see on the screen. Sigh.

Anyway, like a good customer, I call the 800 number, hear a welcome message and get an error when I try to enter the extension number provided: "Please listen to the menu options again." So I wait for the machine to bid me welcome to the Apple Store. Again. Then wait for the explanation of the menu options. Pick a menu option. Wait. Get greeted to the Apple Store. Yet again. Wait for the explanation of the menu options. Pick a menu option. Wait. Yet another greeting. Finally get to input the blessed extension number.

The pleasant machine now tells me I need to wait on the phone. For approximately fifteen minutes! Jeez! So I begin to wait, and discover at the same time that you can't change the address on an existing order online, even though it's there that the problem lies. You can only change the address on <>future<> orders! I'm starting to feel like I'm in Dell country by now. Next, the pleasant machine tells me that, if I would like, I could leave a message, instead of waiting online. Great! I choose that option, am immediately told by another pleasant machine that the message box is full, and am promptly disconnected!

Arrrgghh!

I call again. A servant to dumb macines with pleasant voices. Am greeted to the Apple Store again. Several times. At the same time, try to cancel the stopped order online. No luck there, of course. Where is the intelligence in this system: Here is an order, stopped and going nowhere. Online, where the order was made, you can neither correct the problem (deleting the P.O.Box) nor cancel the order. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Who is running this company?

So I wait. On the phone. Like I'm ordering something from SEARS twenty years ago. I have my "Web Order Number" ready to go. Finally, yet another pleasant voice. This one real: "Hi, my name is Christian. Can I have your Sales Order Number, please?" Eh, Sales Order Number? I fumble around. I only have the Web Order Number. I quickly scan through the confirmation e-mail again. No Sales Order Number, just the Web Order Number. I mumble something to keep Cristian from hanging up on me, while I log in to store.apple.com to check the Apple Order Status. Sure enough, right beneath the Web Order Number, I find the prescious Sales Order Number.

I explain my ordeal. Cristian is calm. I guess he's heard it all before. He deletes the P.O.Box from my order. Does he need anything else? Nope. Should I have able to do that myself? Yup. He apologizes. Even says he'll point out the problem to someone else. I thank him, it's not his fault, and hang up.

Granted, this wasn't a Mac I was buying. Buying a Mac has always been a joyous experience for me. Not only because of my excitement over getting every one of them. But the sales people have also kind of been in a celebratory mood. Here you go, sir! Enjoy! And, perhaps most importantly, the system has always worked, more or less. At least I haven't had to deal with the same kind of stupidity that you encounter every day when dealing with other companies. Like *shivers* hp, from whom I am currently trying to buy a printer.

Maybe it was because it was an iPod, and not a Mac. But it is still an Apple. So the buying experience should be just as good. Right? But it wasn't. And that turned me off.

I don't usually talk about work here. Neither do I have often the inclination, or the energy, to spill that world into this arena, nor do I think you would be particularily interested in what I'm dealing with on a daily basis.

However...

I thought I'd make an exception today. Just to give you an insight into my day. Or to bore the hell out of you. You decide.

I was asked this morning about my opinion of the use of biometrics – in a cafèteria. Biometrics is a technical way to identify people by their physical characteristics. Like the shape of their face. Patterns in their retinas. Or their fingerprints. That is, incidentally, the type of biometric technology which is being used in this case: To pay for his or her food, a customer presses his thumb on a sensor, which is connected to a computer, which in turn recognizes said thumb and debits the customer's account with the cafèteria.

So what makes this interesting? Well, the cafèteria is in a school, and the customers are children.

As I see it, we have a few, rather distinct issues to deal with here:

• Firstly, there is the issue of consent. Consent is required from a kid's parents, and himself or herself, prior to the scanning of his or her fingerprints. Supposedly, the technology and uses for the data are explained to the parents/kids in advance. Ergo: This does not appear to be a real problem.
  
• Secondly, there is the real concern for misuse. What if the cops want the cafèteria's fingerprint database? Now, here the devil really proves to be in the details. You see, "fingerprints" are not the same as "fingerprints". Although police authorities do use fingerprints, extensively, to identify people, they need actual fingerprints for that purpose. Or at least a fairly good representation of fingerprints. In some form. The "fingerprint" system at the school, on the other hand, does not actually record the fingerprints. It merely uses a limited number of reference points in the print to distinguish it comfortably from other customers of the cafèteria. (are you bored yet?) This data is not complete enough to give a definite representation of the fingerprint in question, and is therefore not of practical value to police authorites. So proliferation does not seem to be a real problem here. Actually, you might even ask what the problem is with the police getting such access, since you shouldn't have anything to hide, etc. But that's another debate all together.
  
• Thirdly, it could be suggested that the biometrics-for-donuts is an overkill. More fundamentally, perhaps there is something objectionable to the spread of technology, previously reserved for 'serious' applications, like fingerprinting police arrestees, into more benign fields of application, like retail shopping? Technology is, however, bound to find new applications al the time, as prices drop and methods evolve. So maybe we really haven't got anything here either?
  
• Finally, and here we might be getting to the core of the matter, is the question of culture and upbringing. Is it OK for us to bring our kids up in the belief that they should be 'fingerprinted' for something as unimportant as buying a glass of milk? Should we be imprinting into our young a healthy vigilance when it comes to their civil rights? Or, on the other hand, would we perhaps fair better if the next generation, the one that understands technology much better then we do anyway, and is therefore not afraid of it, is brought up without 'irrational' emphasis on privacy? We do live in a post-9/11 world, don't we?
  

Just another day at the farm...

P.S. To all of you who were nice enough to write to me and tell me that you do not share my opinion of Michael Moore and on gun control: Don't worry! You can have a different opinion from mine. On this and anything else. It's O.K. Really. Now, take a deep breath and relax already!

Jeez!

Ahhhh.

Back home. If there is anything better than going on a road trip, it's coming back home again.

I may have finally found someone here to play chess with: Joel. Now here's hoping he's not as good as I am, since I hate to lose...

There is somehow nothing like the smell of the ocean. It's sweet. And spicy. And appetizing. And it feels like home.

Which is probably why we've been eating nothing but fresh fish, fresh oysters, fresh scallops, and fresh lobster since coming here. Yum!

When we were walking along a narrow, little path on the coast yesterday, my wife heard a woman say to her young son, when he asked what that smell was: "Yes, that's garbage you're smelling."

Pearls for swine.

Road trip! My daughter's first. And my car's.

We're going down to the coast, and staying there for three days. Hoping for good weather, but it looks like it's going to rain.

So it's five o'clock. It's pitch black. Chilly. And I'm heading off on a 30 mile bike ride.

Brrrrrrrr.

Finally saw Bowling for Columbine. It's good. No question about it. Now I'm just concerned about the validity of some of the claims. And actually the honesty of the whole project.

You see, my sister pointed me to this web page. And I find myself agreeing with some of the criticism there. Not all of it. But it does for example look like Moore gave Charlton Heston a raw deal, to say the least. And it is perplexing why he would do it, especially so blatantly, since this isn't a film that is just about Heston, but a serious problem of a whole nation.

On the other hand, not only do I not agree with some of the criticism on said web page. I find it actually to be illustrative of the very problem, which Moore is profiling in his film. For example, I find it pathetic that the web page author tries to cast a six year old child as a hardened criminal, which is supposed to 'explain' why it took a handgun to a school and killed a classmate with it. This is the same kind of sick mindset that not only puts children on trial in adult courts, and then puts them in prison with real criminals, but executes children as well. This puts the US in an elite club of such human rights champions as Congo, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Nigeria, and Saudi-Arabia. No other nation in the world executes its children.

I also find it laughable that when Moore tries to count together the number of those killed by guns in the US, the web page author blasts him for, supposedly, doing so by taking doctors' death certificates figures from The National Center for Health Statistics for gun homicides, and adding "the figure for legally-justified homicides: self-defense and police use against criminals". The web page author scoffs at this, remarking that "when we talk of a gun homicide problem we hardly have in mind a woman defending against a rapist, or a cop taking out an armed robber."

Well, I beg to differ.

The person who thinks that taking the life of another human being, with a gun, is somehow just fine and dandy, because the one who got killed was in the process of perpetrating (another) crime, is failing miserably to see what the problem is. It lies in this complete disregard, even utter contempt, for life. It is never acceptable to kill another human being. It is morally wrong, and it breeds the kind of indifference for other people that leads the dumb masses to think "Duh. He had it coming.", when yet another lawbreaker is shot to death, and "Uh? How could this have happened?", when someone who was not breaking the law is shot to death.

That is actually, in my mind, the real criticism that should be levelled at the film: It doesn't address the inbred opinion of this nation that it is 'OK' to kill other people as long as you believe that they are committing, or are about to commit, a crime. That every single police officer in this country carries a loaded gun, at all times, and you know he's ready to use it without hesitation. That this country slaughters people like animals, executing almost 900 individuals since 1976, killing more than fifty of them in this year alone, so far.

A country, and a government, which so blatantly preaches that it is not only acceptable, but even positive, to kill people, given the 'right' circumstances, can not expect its citizen to have a high regard for human life.

America, you reap like you sow.

Correction: She is a breast addict, not a milk junkie. And she's stubborn, too. Just like her father (and just like her father...)

I have taken on the task of giving her the "daily bottle", since we will have to have her adapted to that way of feeding by the time her mother joins the work force again, at the beginning of October.

And this is one hell of a torture!

This little thing, which we had been wondering whether could actually cry for real or not, is downright dismayed at the proposition of sucking on a prosthetic nipple. She can't fathom it. You can see that she wants to say "There! Now mom is here! Use the opportunity! Don't you know that she has loads of this white stuff? Right inside her?? Get off your butt, you lazy gitt, and GET ME THAT BREAST! You nincompoop! IIIIIIII WAAAANT MYYYYYY BREEEEEEEAST!!!"

Needless to say, her very, very stubborn father finally managed to get her to take the bottle. But at a high price. Do you suppose one could get a fresh set of nerves implanted into oneself? If so, throw in a fresh pair of ear drums while you're at it.

She's mine. That is not in dispute. Especially since she has inherited my main attribute.

You see, I am an addict. In case you hadn't figured that out. I am addicted to biking. And people. And chocolate. And my wife. And the telephone. And tiramisu. And women. And ice cream. Not necessarily in that order.

And now, my daughter has caught her first habit. She is a milkoholic. She has all the junkie trades: She shakes when she wants a fix. She'll do anything to get it. She will cry. Then, when she gets it, she drinks and drinks until she drops. And then she zones out.

Father and daughter. Junkies...

What is it about mothers? Why can they rattle you in ways that no other living being can? And this while they are obviously trying their best to be good to you. To actually help you.

I would never dream of becoming as upset or irritated if any other person would say the exact same things to me that my mother does.

My daughter just yawned. She yawns sideways. One day she will ask how I always manage to upset her like no-one else will.

*Sigh*

Last night, I was about to rent Bowling for Columbine, which has finally come out on DVD. Then, my wife said "Let's watch a silly comedy instead". So we rented The Hot Chick. I don't think I would even have smiled, had I rented this by myself. But watching it with my wife, and listening to her delectable laughter, made it a really, really funny film. Just like watching that same guy in Animal and in Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo was fun, because I watched them with her.

What can I say? My wife has a soft spot for silly comedies.

And I for her.

Now I know I'm insane. My riding partner dragged me last Sunday morning, at 6 am, on a bike ride with a crazy group of people.

This morning, I woke up at a quarter of 5 to go riding with the same group. And I didn't even bring my riding partner. We went almost 50 miles. In 2½ hours. I was back before 8 am.

Insane. That's the only explanation.

We do not own a TV. Which probably explains why my daughter watches clothes dryers with the same enthusiasm as the average American watches a football game.

You can just imagine her going "Get in there, you piece of sock! Get those trousers! I haven't seen such performance since the playoffs in 1957!" (remember, she is an 80 year old man)

My daughter is an 80 year old man. Judging from the grunting that she emits when she sleeps.

I keep waiting for her to sit up one day, putting her false teeth in her mouth, spitting out old tobacco and yelling: "Where the devil are my slippers?!"

The house of the dollhousemaker

We had heard the thunders for a while. Although they seemed to be getting nearer, we kept on riding. Probably the endorphines.

Then, all of a sudden, eerie crackling, followed by a loud bang! The thunderstorm had caught up with us. We stopped. We had been riding along a small lake, watching people come in on their little boats. Fleeing from the coming storm. Right in front of us a big, bulky man came running across the road, on his way to his house. He was almost bald, probably in his sixties. Wearing only swimming trunks and sandals, he shouted to us: "Get in! It's coming, it's coming!"

We gratefully accepted. Tucked our bikes under a balcony and followed him inside, just as the rain started to pour. I thought we were entering the house through a garage, but around here, no-one uses their garage as a garage. Instead, the 'garage' was a full-fledged wood shop. Not one of those hobby wood shops, but a real one, with weathered tools and saw dust in the window sills.

The bulky fellow lead us up the stairs and into his living room, where he proceded to tell us his life's story. He was a good storyteller, and we soon forgot about the raging storm outside. It turns out that our host used to make fibre-optic systems, but got really, really bored. So he started making furniture – for dolls. Itsy-bitsy chairs, and armories, and end tables, and beds. With headboards. And rounded feet.

This was it. He had found his craft. So he decided to retire. Luckily, soon afterwards, his company decided to lay off some people. He pleaded with his boss to be among those laid off. That gave him a year's pay. And he could take up the furniture making. Full time. Soon afterwards, he expanded into making whole houses. Dollhouses, that is. Which he wires. And paints. And puts wallpaper up in. He even glazes the windows.

When he finished his story, the rain had stopped. As he led us out again, he gave us a tour of his workshop. He showed us the dresser. The cupboards. And the free-standing chess board, with inlaid pine for the white parts and mahogany for the dark ones. The whole table was less than two inches wide. In the hands of this large man, it seemed even smaller.

We walked out into the drizzle. As we rode our bikes down the road, the sun finally broke through the clouds again.

Now I have formally become the head of the nuclear family, i.e. an American nuclear family:

• We spent the day at the beach.
  
• I drove the family car there.
  
• We brought the oversized cooler, filled with way too much food and drink.
  
• My wife drove the stroller, with the car seat clipped on, from the car to the beach.
  
• I put sun lotion on her back, while she nursed our daughter.

A perfect day, to be sure. But with a kid, now. Which made it all the more fine. Somehow.

Time has taken to moving in leaps and bounds. I swear that it hasn't been a week since I last updated my blog.

Anyways. A young woman, an eternal activist that is close to my heart, wrote me an e-mail today. This time she was urging me to support MADD. So I did. And so should you. Now.

We should support activists. We need them. One day, with our help, they will change the World.

How do people do this?

How can fewer than three people take care of one kid. Let alone more? I know a girl with three kids. And a single husband. And two jobs. Let alone the single mothers. My sister is one of them. She raised two wonderful kids. And she works 24/7. I just do not understand how that can be done.

We are working round the clock over here. My wife, her mother, and myself. Granted, things have been somewhat abnormal, with my wife recovering from our harrowing experience. But still.

Three persons per kids. Fulltime. That's got to be the minimum. Right?

Everything about this baby business is completely insane. Out of this world.

First, that you can actually just decide one day to produce another human being. I mean, there can't be anything more fantastic and unreal than that right there. "Hmm... Should I bake some cookies, or just make a kid?"

Then, you grow that new person inside you. For months. Just merrily walking around. La-di-da. With another individual living in your belly!

Now you would think that once your daughter is born, things would return to normal, barring any post-partum complications. But oh, no. Things just keep getting more surreal. Not only does your wife fall in love with another girl. Someone that just somehow automatically moved into your bedroom one day. On top of that, you're just fine with that. Suddenly, sharing your wife's love with another person is just dandy. You're even happy yourself that your wife is in love with this stranger. And then you become infatuated with her, too!

Then, the new girl starts growing. And growing. And growing and growing and growing. She adds 10% to her length in two weeks. And you delight in every new chin and skinfold she adds on. You start feeling like the witch in Hänsel und Gretel, cheering on your offspring on her way to becoming the Michelin man, or baby.

And then it's the every day insanity. For example breast-pumping. Your wife can actually be sitting in a chair, merrily reading a book, while a machine, attached to her breast, pumps ounces of milk out of her and into a bottle! You suddenly realize why the kid is growing so fast. It may not sound weird, but holding a full bottle of your wife's milk in your hand...

I'm telling you. Insanity!

Tomorrow, I'm buying a breast pump. Nature may have wanted my wife to continue waking up every three hours around the clock for months to come, but I'm putting my foot down. Now.

Hi. My wife is a sleep-o-holic. I mean it. She is literally hooked on sleep. The more the better. Although she is always beautiful, she is never more radiant than when she has slept twelve hours the night before. Then again, she can go on for days without getting any real sleep. But that takes it's toll on her. The color drains from her face. The smile fades. Her eyes become distant. Kind of like that night. After her surgery...

Anyways. I will buy a breast-pump tomorrow, and by week's end, we'll hopefully have enough milk to be able to send her off to the spare bedroom for a full, loooong, good night's sleep.

It will be a dream.

Went biking today. For the first time in two weeks. 30 miles. Felt okay while we were riding, but I was a little beat at the end. And quite dehydrated. The temperature hit 85° while we were out there. I guess that had something to do with it.

I guess life is slowly moving back into normality. Which is comforting.

Happy Birthday, baby girl!

I've taken to living every day to the fullest. Not that I wasn't almost doing that before all of this happened. But I would have thought this experience would take the wind out of me. Make me timid, scared for my life, and that of my wife and daughter.

But that hasn't happen. Actually, I find myself needing to watch out a bit for this new lust for life. For example, I drove down to New York the other day, to pick up a friend at the airport. I had never driven the car out of the area before. And it is a fast car. So I drove it very, very fast. It was just like being seventeen again. The exhiliration of driving fast was back. For a day.

I won't be doing that again. But something has changed. Life is more colorful. More intense. More precious. It's actually a miracle, come to think of it.

I just got a funny e-mail from someone who actually reads this weblog. He complains about the infrequency of my posts of late. He points out that if I neglected my newborn like I do my blog, I'd be sued!

And he's right. I have been neglecting the blog. It's just that since a few weeks ago, time has started to accelerate. The minutes are shorter, and the days seem to whiz by.

But I promise to try, even though there is no try.

We are slowly healing. And realizing how close we came. How everything almost stopped last week. That it could have been over now. Permanently.

Defining moments usually come unannounced. And it can take you a while to discover them, after they are gone. But this was a defining moment.

Somehow, the colors are more vivid now. The trees have never been more green.

Maybe it's just the rain.

"Monday finds you like a bomb
That's been left ticking there too long
You're bleeding

Hey hey, I saved the world today
And everybody's happy now
The bad thing's gone away
And everybody's happy now
The good thing's here to stay
Please let it stay"

We just experienced a close call. A very, very close call.

On Tuesday afternoon, my daughter had a scheduled appointment for her routine two-week examination. When we were walking out of the pediatric department, my wife felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her abdomen. We immediatly went over to the OBGYN department, from where she was sent to ultrasound. The ultrasound showed her uterus only partly contracted, a large amount of fluid in there and a bright spot, indicating a likely bleeding.

She was immediatly admitted to the same-day department, and an hour later she went in for a procedure, which was supposed to take 10-15 minutes, to clear out what was believed to be remnants of the placenta. We were pretty cool about it, since this is a fairly common procedure, short and low-risk. I waited for her in the surgery waiting room.

The 10-15 minutes passed. So did half an hour. An hour went by. After 1 1/2 hours, the surgeon came out and said "We better sit down". I paniced. She started to describe how they had started the procedure by dilating the cervix to get to what was in her uterus. First, out came the fluid that had been stuck in there. Then the bleeding started.

She bled continously through the operation. All their attempts to stopped it failed. They tried every medication in the book to get the uterus to contract, but to no avail. When she had lost more than half her entire blood volume, they started thinking about drastic measures. They started putting balloons up into her uterus, and blowing them up, in an attempt to stop the bleeding through counter-pressure. When that didn't seem to work, they prepared the interventional radiology team for an emergency procedure to stop blood flow to her uterus completely. They also started to prepare for having her uterus removed. Completely.

After the fourth balloon had been inflated in her uterus, the bleeding finally began to subside. Having lost such massive amounts of blood, she was in an extremely weakened state, and her blood pressure went down to 70 over 29. It stayed low through the night, and when she didn't seem to be recovering blood pressure and hemoglobin volume by herself in the morning (yesterday), it was decided to start giving her blood transfusions. That did stabilize her, and her blood pressure started to slowly go up again.

Yesterday afternoon and night, she stayed stabilized, even recovered a little. She was still really beat though, and could hardly sit up, let alone stand up. This morning, even though her blood pressure was off the lows, her hemoglobin levels were still critical. So more transfusions were ordered, and have been given to her through the day. That seems to have finally started to move her towards recovering, to the point were optimists are guessing she might be able to go home tomorrow.

In any case, she has a considerable recovery period ahead of her, probably some weeks. And there is also the risk of infection from having foreign objects in her uterus for almost 20 hours. So we're not home yet, but at least we're out of the woods. She is safe, and the outlook is good.

We hope we'll be able to look back on this in a few years and go "Yes, what was that all about?" More likely though, this will become the stuff of my nightmares.

If somebody would have told me a year ago that I and my wife would soon be sitting together, gazing at an almost unconcious infant and wildly cheering when it burps, I would have told them they're crazy.

I guess they weren't.

After waking from my slumber this morning, which was unusually heavy, due to my biking insanity yesterday, I discovered my wife next to me in bed, even more exhausted. It turns out that because our daughter hardly ever cries, at all, and never in the middle of the night, my wife is sleeping unnusually lightly. Consequently, every time the toddler twists or turns in bed, burps or gurgles, my wife wakes up.

So I decided to do something for her (as if staying up because of the kid were her job, and not mine). Breakfast in bed wouldn't do it, since I bring her one of those every morning anyway. Instead, I managed to talk her into sleeping in the guest room. For a whole night. I would sleep in our bed and bring her the kid when it needed feeding.

Great plan. Only now I can't sleep, almost falling out of bed when the little angel so much as sneezes.

Sheez!

O well, I guess that soon she won't be sleeping this much anyway, crying instead all day and night long. Or so I am told. And then I'll be longing for the night I lay awake in bed, straining to hear her breathe.

I did it!
I did it!
I did it!

It took 7,5 hours. But: I really did it!

And now: Exhaustion.

7 hours!

Since my daughter is already more than a week old, and thriving well, our lactation specialist told us there was no need to wake her up any more to feed her. We could just let her sleep until she 'asked' to be fed.

So we do. And her nights have been growing steadily longer, culminating in a 7 hour stretch this night. We fed her at almost 10 PM last evening, and she hasn't made a peep until now, at 5 AM! And even then, she only kind of coos and giggles. No crying. No screaming.

This may very well be a 'honeymoon' period. But she still is, by far, the best little kid. Ever.

I can't believe this day is upon me. Already.

Tomorrow I will attempt a 100 mile long bike ride. It's a fund raising event, and all is supposed to be in good spirit. But I'm petrified. A 100 miles! You've got to be kidding me!!

A friend of mine is taking me. She has not been helpful. At all. She pointed out that this will probably take us between 8 and 10 hours. Then she suggested that I take some mild pain medication. Before the ride!

Why o why do I do things like this? Promises that I made to myself after finishing running the Marathon, some 10 years ago, are coming back to me now. Looks like I am about to break most of them.

How time flies. The days, and nights whiz by. Feeding. Changing dipers. Making three meals a day for my wife. Sleeping less then 4 hours at a time.

And still it's somehow so very wonderful. I can understand that my wife draws her euphoria from her strange, hormonal state. But what about me? Are there male pregnancy hormones that make diper-changes at 4 AM seem like bliss?

Today has been exposition day. Guests coming and going. Marvelling at the little miracle. It's a lot like attending an equestrian show. People eating fresh strawberries and drinking chilled white wine. "Impressive, young filly. She'll do well." "Looks strong. How much does she weigh?"

I've changed our bedroom into a studio apartment. Literally. Complete with lots of chairs, a recliner, a few end tables, standlamps and table lamps, a bookshelf and an extra clothes stand. That's in addition to the changing table, our bed and the humongous crib. We'll camp out here. In the A/C. At least while it's 95° outside.

This is a full time job. Nursing every two hours. Around the clock. My wife is used to being sleep deprived. From her work. Not getting a good night's sleep is all new to me, however. And I'm afraid that it's taking it's toll on me. For now. I gather that people do get used to this. And the reward is great. Seeing your daughter well fed and resting is a priceless sight.

Somebody must have pulled some strings for us at the Ministry of Baby Allocation. You've seen their ads: "Have you taken your MBA, yet?" (yeah yeah, this is a wacky post, but I am a proud, sleep-deprived dad now, so you will just have to put up with my incoherent ramblings).

Anyways, we seem to have been given the kindest, gentlest, easiest, warmest, mildest, best-natured, and most approachable, tender and pleasant baby there ever was.

Why? I have no idea. Probably because my wife deserves all the best in life. Which actually begs the question: How did she end up with me?

A new day. A new month. But still no baby.

The night was hard. Until the epidural. Thank God for the epidural. What a magnificent discovery.

Now she is fully dilated. Rested. And ready to go.

And so it begins...

This has been a gruelling day. And still no sign of the kid.

I can't believe the strength that my wife is exhibiting. In the face of this obviously excruciating pain.

She's twice the man I will ever be.

OUR WATER HAS BROKEN!

I'm on my way to the birthing pavillion.

Hope I don't forget my wife.

Hello. I am an IM addict.

I got hooked on Netscape's version of insant messenger as soon as they released it. Later, I migrated to AOL's IM. I also did ICQ for a while. And when everybody else went over to the dark side, I installed MSN Messenger as well.

I did toy around with Windows NetMeeting for a while, but always found it too cumbersome and the complicated installation freaked out most of my friends. So I abandoned it.

Now, a new era is beginning. iChat AV. This stuff simply works. I just got off the 'phone' with a friend. In Amman, Jordan!

Way cool, I tell ya, way cool.

I found my balloons!

I went to a balloon festival last Saturday. And I took some pictures. Now I am not a really good photographer. I am actually a rather bad one. But there is something about these snapshots, of the balloons in flight, that is quite endearing to me. Even magical.

First, though, this really loooong ritual took place. The aeronauts had to lay out their gear. And inspect it. Then the huffing and puffing began, and these humongous vessels arose slowly from their slumber. Suddenly, one of them was airborne! Soon, more of them joined in. Gliding gracefully into the air. Effortlessly. At first, they all huddled together, like a flock of frightened lambs in a field. Then they started to spread out, exploring the surroundings.

This is where the magic began for me. Having never before seen balloons like these in person, so to speak, probably had a lot to do with it. But watching these gentle giants, gliding over the sky, was breathtaking. Sometimes, they would line up like an elevator. And sometimes, they would cover the sky like humongous chinese lanterns. They would float away on short expeditions. And then they'd come back, really close. Almost like they were sniffing you. Then they shot up again, calmly observing these infinitesimal creatures, crawling around beneath them. They even went so far up that they disappeared into the mist. Ascending into the ethereal boundary of here and there.

Magic, I tell you. And all in a simple balloon.

Hmmmm...

I posted a lot of balloons here today. And where are they now?

It's a mistery. I'll look into it tomorrow.

It's like deja vu. Listening to the leader of the free world attacking Iran. Warning the government that it should leave dissidents alone. Demanding that it stop all development of the country's nuclear (he says "nu ce lar") capabilities.

It looks like we'll have to start making buttons that say "No war on IRAN".

I got Eurythmics' Greatest Hits for my birthday. Not the CD, but the DVD.

I had a thing for Annie Lennox, when I was a teenager. Seeing these old videos brings it all back. Echos of juvenile dreams, I guess.

Like 'Here comes the rain again'.

Mmmmm...

So we've had the baby shower. An afternoon dinnerparty, really. Not the all-girl giggling fest you see in the movies.

It was nice, finally getting the bulk of our new friends here all together at the same time. I was actually surprised at how well they all seemed to fit together. They are, after all, quite strong and dissimilar individuals.

All in all a really nice day. You might even say a perfect day.

I just passed the "Is your date 'dad' material?" quiz.

Just as good. Because else: "Did your man fail the father test? Look for a new one today."

Apparently, it is quite likely that my wife will cry for a week. After the baby is born.

A week.

This was much better! 50 miles and I was well prepared. Had a good night sleep and ate sensibly the day before (no drinking...).

However, 50 is a lot. I'm not sure I'll be ready for 100 in just one month.

The surprise of the day? It's not my legs that are hurting. And not my butt. It's the palm of my hands! Feels like I've been standing on them for 2 hours.

Went on a 40 mile bike ride this morning. After drinking a couple of different red wines last night. And single malts.

Not a good idea...

Making food. Again. For guests that are coming tonight. I think I am addicted to treating guests to good food.

Making others feel good can actually be a really selfish act.

It's funny. My wife was driving us home today. In the new car, which we bought today. And I suddenly realized how shallow I am. How short my memory is.

Not that I haven't realized it before. I've just conveniently forgot it again. And again. And again. Here I am, spending all this energy on deciding whether I should go for the nicer floormats. And the chrome exhaust. And only a few short months ago, I was devastated over the fate of the Iraqi people. The injustice of that invasion. I actually swore that I wouldn't forget.

What a pathetic piece of equipment I am. If it wasn't for this blog, and my periodic readings of it, my biggest worry would be that the fancy stereo in that car is not sounding nice enough.

And people are surprised at how badly we do when we're electing our representatives for office? If I am a shining example of how long we stand up for our believes, then I am amazed that we are not doing even worse. Politicians are banking on people like me. Quiet, nice, little consumers. Now that the Dow is back above 9000, everything is well again in never-never land.

I wonder if I should opt for those extra foglights, that go into the front bumper?

I woke up in the middle of the night. From a dream.

I dreamt that I was walking through sumptuous gardens, early on May Morning. They were the grounds of a grand fort. Mossy stone bridges criss-crossed a stream, leading from an old building. I could almost see Mr. Lewis sitting by one of the windows. Pondering the latest discussion with Mr. Tolkien. Or one of the other inklings.

I continued my walk through the gardens. Admiring the deer that were grazing lazily in the sun. And then I hear the voices of Magdalen College. Eminating from the tallest tower in the valley. It is so moving that I wake up from my sleep.

I was not dreaming after all. I can still hear the singing.

Haaaa ppyyyyyyyy
birthday to me happy birthday to me happy
biiiiiiiiiiirth daaaaaay dear me meeeeeeee.
Happy birthday to me!

A little over a week ago, I was sitting in a 'Socialist Labour Hall'. It was built in the early 1920's. The hall was filled with people. They were enjoying a classic, Italian lunch of anti-pasti, lasagna, and Chianti. The sun was shining through the windows. Ceiling fans were rotating lazily overhead.

The hall has been renovated, to some extent. That renovation is revealing a building that is very Italian in every respect. You almost feel like you could walk out the door and into a bustling piazza, a town square, somewhere in Toscana.

Although hundreds of people were in sitting in that hall, it was almost silent. The only prominent sounds were that of a slightly out-of-tune piano, and the voice of an old man. Singing. If you could call it that. His voice was broken and he could hardly carry the tune. People in the audience started talking. The 'singing' was slowly fading into the chatter.

I was experiencing a blend of annoyance and embarrassment. Why couldn't they find a better singer? Since they had to have someone sing. Which they didn't, in my opinion. People could have just eaten. Listened to the dull speaches. And left.

His voice had almost vanished, when it touched me. Or maybe it was the sight of his countrymen, straining to watch him through the kitchen door. A tear was running down the cheek of one of the women. The Italians had moved here a century ago. To cut the granite. From the largest granite depository mine in the world. They came because this was the source of the best sculpture material you could find. They could tame it. And the results would last forever. So they uprooted themselves and moved to this foreign continent. And adapted. And cut stone. Of course, now they are all considered to be Americans. Or Italian-Americans. But their English was broken, their demeanor was Southern-European, and it was obvious that they were holding onto something. Their country. Their culture. Their soul. Something.

I realized, that it wasn't how well he carried the tune. It wasn't how high his voice could reach. It was his heart. And whether or not you could hear it singing.

Suddenly, I could. And I was in Toscana.

Wow. That was a long break!

I should actually be worried. You see, soon after I started talking about our pregnancy, in this blog, I received an e-mail. It suggested that me tending to this blog would be a good test of my endurance. That is, if I was diligent in feeding the blog, every day, it could indicate my diligence as a father.

Ooops!

Then I read in some pregnancy book, or maybe a magazine article, that how well you attend to your garden, if you have a garden, can reveal how well you will tend to your child.

D'oh!

This does not look good.

Like a true workaholic, I am more tempted by enticing work opportunities than by almost anything else.

For example now. When I am really trying to cut down on work. Have promised myself to be in no more than a 100% position, combined, by the time the kid is born. And all of a sudden, along comes this really luscious job. Damnit!

But. It's OK. Do you know why? Because I know it's a test. Of sorts. Somehow, I am being tested. And that makes it bearable to turn away.

But man, o man! This was attractive.

Home. Feel like I just woke from a long sleep. Dreamt about lazy days and tropical forrests.

Georgia. On my mind.

Paradise, thy name is Georgia. In May.

We are spending this week on a 250 acre estate in Georgia. The guesthouse that we are staying in is larger than our house. We are told that everything is larger in the south.
We passed a jeep yesterday that was towing a gargantuan grill. On wheels. Our southern friends didn't seem to find it interesting. I was amazed. And took pictures.

But nature seems indifferent to the activities of mere mortals here. The flora is a force to be reckoned with. To keep a field growing just grass, you have to do more than just cut the grass. You also need to weed out the trees. Like every month! I kid you not. Any spot that isn't looked after really regularly will turn into a tropical forest before you can blink your eyes.

And everything seems to grow here. When I go out for my morning run, every fruit imaginable seems to be growing on the trees by the road. And the aroma of the honwysuckle is intoxicating.

Heaven. I'm in heaven.

Just got back from riding my bike.

...

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!

THIS IS SO COOL!

I CAN GO SOOOOO FAST!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

On June 3rd, Amina Lawal is to be be buried in the ground, up to her neck, and then stoned to death. The execution is only being postponed because she is currently breast-feeding her newborn child.

My birthday is June 3rd.

If you are interested in a petition against the execution, you can find one here.

Amina Lawal lives in Nigeria. I find this appalling, but I would also like to point out that barbaric, government-run extermination of human beings is rampant in this very home of the brave. It has actually been growing almost exponently since the late seventies. Since then, US authorities have butchered in excess of 850 individuals, using such savage instruments as electric chairs, gas chambers, poison, hanging ropes, and firing squads.

What happened to the "inalianable right to life"?

I'm getting my bike today! I'm getting my bike today!

I feel like a little kid. I haven't had a bike since I was fifteen.Which would explain why I said to the salesman: "You only got this in girlie-red color?" I got this quite perplexed look from the guy, plus a calm explanation, the kind you give to a kid, of why this is a perfectly good color for a man's bike. The first calm explanation I've received in years.

I didn't really figure out where this animosity against having a red bike came from, until I was driving back home from placing the order. But then I remembered, for the briefest moment, what it was like to be fifteen.

And I smiled.

Back home. Which is good. I missed my wife like crazy during this last week. She may be undergoing a change, due to alterations in her hormone levels, caused by the pregnancy. But I am changing too. In some weird ways.

I've always missed my wife when I'm away from her. But this time, it's different. It doesn't just feel uncomfortable. It really hurts. It's akin to having this tight knot in your stomach. Constantly. Not good. I just want to be there all the time. Protecting her. And our baby. Somehow. Tell me this isn't some damned hormones.

And it's spreading. Into other areas of my life. For example this headache with the car. You would think that I would be looking at buying something really cool. Since I need to buy another car anyway. Right? Wrong. All I can think about is reliability. And security. Dependability. Sensibility. 'How many airbags does it have?' 'Does it do well in crash tests?'. I've actually heard myself asking 'How many miles does it get to the gallon?'

Heeeeelp!

Debout les damnés de la Terre!
Debout les forçats de la faim!
La raison tonne en son cratère,
C'est l'éruption de la fin.

I was working today. With another guy. We were sitting inside. Working. On May 1st.

May 1st is totally lost on Americans. Not on Europeans. They celebrate the eternal struggle of the working class against the viscious oppression of the capitalists. Or something.

It's a holiday here, anyway, and working on this day is a bona fide sin. We would probably have been shot if they had caught us today. Me, at least. I was the one who demanded that we work. Today. I felt kind of bad making him stay there when the marching band passed our window on their way to the parade. Especially since the weather was really nice.

The poor guy didn't complain. But I know he was dying inside. His internal working class self was suffering from marching deprivation. And I was playing the part of the merciless despot.

I'm a bastard. No. Worse. I'm a capitalist.

It is so relaxing to be able to see for dozens of miles in all directions. Trees are nice. But when nothing else can be seen because of them, no matter where, all day long, I sometimes feel like I'm suffocating.

I've been gasping for a view.

I may be getting old. Maybe not old old. Question: Can you really get 'old', anyway, when you still have people like older siblings and parents? They will always treat you like you're young. Or at least younger.

No, I feel like I'm getting older because I don't like all the things I used to like. Like being always on the move. Working like crazy. Drinking Coke.

I'm also starting to like things that I remember that my parents liked when I was a kid. Like soft music. And waking up early. And just talking.

Maybe it's just an early onset of a mid-life crisis. But if that's what it is, I should be chasing girls half my age. Right? Granted, I do love women. Well, people I guess, but mainly women. They are simply more interesting then men. There's just more there. Somehow. Anyways. I've always been bewitched by women. So that's nothing new. Besides, I feel closer to my wife now then I've ever felt with another woman. So that's not it.

It's probably simply that I haven't noticed these changes happening slowly over the last years because I buried myself in work. Now that I have started paying a little bit more attention to myself, I am discovering this 'older' guy. And I kinda like him. But then again, I've never really not liked me. I hope.

It's nice seeing non-US news for a change. They are simply more critical. For example, take a story on what Mr. George Bush, president of the United States is doing or saying. In the US, it will always be "the President" is doing this or "the President" is saying that. In Europe, it's "Mr. Bush", "George Bush" or even "the current president of the US".

Objectivity. You can't beat it. With a stick.

(is jet-lagged, drunk and sleep-deprived blogging maybe not the best blogging? maybe not.)

Trans-Atlantic flights are always a little strange. If you don't sleep on the plane, you are a little disoriented when you finally get there. Then, if you sleep all day, you wake up feeling really disoriented. Then, if you start drinking that same night, you become really disoriented.

I got of the plane at 6 this morning.

The car died last night. We named it after a cow, so it was no surprise when it started to slow down when I was driving past a field filled with cows. Leisurely eating the few really green straws that were striving to break from the earth and into the spring. This is were it stopped. And asked to be put out to pasture. A metal cow among all the hormone-injected ones.

I was on my way to a dinner. After being rescued by some of the other dinner guests, I was inundated with offers of cars to use until mine had been nursed to health. Offers of help in finding a good garage. Or another car. One girl even offered to sell her car to me. For next to nothing.

And today, when more of my friends heard of my troubles, they offered to loan their cars, pointed me to good mechanics and offered to help with getting another car.

Why is it that I am always so awe-struck with how good people can be? Why am I less surprised when I hear of some wickedness than acts of kindness? Can it be that I do not believe in the inherent good in man?

Anyway. My car is still dead.

It is official. I am a junkie. A people junkie. I just can't get enough. It doesn't hurt that, for some unknown reason, I seem to have a guardian angel that keeps steering wonderful people into my path. Or me into theirs.

There were thirteen people in all here on Easter Sunday. Painting eggs, swinging from the trees (half of them are under the age of ten), eating chockolates, playing games, singing, searching for easter baskets, sunbathing, drinking, talking, napping, reading, looking for worms, pole vaulting, and dining.

We had a double steak dinner. Our houseguests made glazed ham, and I made my leg of lamb. I have always thought of ham as just something you put in a sandwitch, but this was something else! I must have eaten a whole pound of it. And the lamb was actually quite good, even if I say so myself. We poured the juices from the lamb over the mashed potatoes, which took them to a whole new level.

Mmmmmmm... I have to go now. I just remembered that I still have some leftovers in the fridge.

Four days. I know, I know.

Sorry.

I just noticed that I am now updating my blog only every third day. Strange. It doesn't feel like time is passing any quicker than when I update it daily. I feel like Riff: It's astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness. Takes it's toll.

Time has a way of smoothing everything out. Or muddling it into vague memories. For example, my first coherent memory is from when I was a little over one year old. I was sitting in the grass next to another toddler. This was on a farm of sorts just outside my hometown, where my uncle lived with his family. It was sunny. My parents were laughing. I felt good.

It doesn't come as a surprise to me that this is the first thing I remember vividly. Tears and rain do not make up a big portion of my memories. Maybe I just had such a wonderful childhood. I did. But I think I remember more laughing than crying because that's what my mind chooses to remember. I think it selects mundane, pleasant things to store in my memory so that I do not go insane. That's my explanation of why it was always sunny when I was a kid. It's just the warm and fuzzy blanket of time, which has been drawn over all things past.

And why do I mention this? Because of The War, of course. It's virtually over, the invasion stage of it, anyway. And I am afraid that I will see these times through some rose-tinted spectacles, when I'll look back on them, twenty or thirty years from now. "Do you remember?", I will ask my wife. "We were pregnant, had just bought our first house, and I was demonstrating against the invasion into Iraq. Those were the days."

I hope this will not happen. But deep down I know it will. I will forget the let-down, the desperation, the incredulity, the sorrow, the nausea, the indignation. The horror. The slaughter. It will all become somehow sugarcoated. And it will become about me. How these were my rebellious years. How this was the time when I stood up for what I believe. And nostalgia will follow. O, how foreseeably pathetic I will become. And probably am already. Pitiful. Sad, really.

But I digress. I was about to explain why I'm only posting every third day now: The thing is, thie blog is an outlet. A vent. And when there is nothing to vent, nothing interesting gets written.

Like now.

For a couple of weeks, our car has had this weird little noise coming from the engine part of it (can you tell I know nothing about car engines?). I took it to a mechanic, who basically scratched his head, changed some oils and gave me a bill.

The sound didn't go away, so I took it back today. The mechanic scratched his head again, changed some more oils and gave me a new bill. That was not reassuring. And the noise was still there. So I did something you should never do. I asked him to guess. That's like asking your doctor to guess. You don't want these people guessing what can be wrong with you. Or your car.

His best guess? "Slowly failing torque converter". His words. To fix that, if that is indeed what's wrong with it, it would be "best" to install another automatic transmission. A low-milage used one, plus labor, could cost a thousand dollars.

So my options are:

• Wait until it breaks (a week, a year), and then buy a used 'tranny'.
  
• Trade the car for another used one. More money, maybe less hazzle.
  
• Buy/lease a new car. Much more money, definetly less hazzle.
  

Fun. Fun. Fun.

Incidently, that curious little Secretary seems to be fascinated with the phrase "Henny Penny, the sky is falling", from the revered literally masterpiece "Chicken little".

On the testing of nuclear weapons:

There are other things that come along where people, especially in Pete's shop that look at problems. They look at problems and they find that a country, pick one, most from the terrorist list are buried deeply buried under ground. They have tunnels and tunnels and tunnels. They look at a problem of how do you deal with it. So these people without worrying about all the frivolities and all the henny penny the sky is falling and do exactly what they're supposed to do. They screw their head into the problem and figure out more ways to do things. And one of them may be a deeply penetrating capability.

On the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence debacle:

And then there was the office of strategic influence. You may recall that. And "oh my goodness gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall." I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have. That was intended to be done by that office is being done by that office, NOT by that office in other ways.

On the 'liberation' of Afganistan:

Well, my goodness, democracy is untidy. Freedom is untidy. Liberation is untidy. It's a very good thing that's happened in Afghanistan. And all of this 'Henny-Penny the sky is falling, and isn't it terrible?' is nonsense.

On the treatment of prisoners of war from Afghanistan:

Well, I guess I think the truth ultimately wins out, and the truth of the matter is, they're being treated humanely. And the people down there are fine young men and women and the commanders are talented and responsible people. And the work that's being done to create facilities that are appropriate is moving forward with dispatch. And I think that the American people will see that, and indeed, I think the people of the world will. You know, it's perfectly possible for anyone to stand up and say, 'Henny penny, the sky is falling, isn't this terrible what's happening' and have someone else say, 'Gee, I view with alarm the possibility that the sky is falling.' And it gets repeated. And then some breathless commentator repeats it again, and then it goes on for three days. Now, does that make it so? No. At some point, does the air come out of that balloon? You bet.

On the war on terrorism:

It's not against a religion or a people, but it's against terrorists. The link to the weapons of mass destruction, without saying the sky is falling, without henny penny, we're all going to be blown up, we told the truth. The truth is that if you've got terrorist networks that are global and if they're well financed and if they can plan something like this, and if they have relationships with countries that have weapons of mass destruction, it does not take a leap of imagination to suspect that at some point terrorist networks conceivably could get their hands on those weapons and we have to recognize that and we have to behave in a way that recognizes that.

After reading this fable, the source of the Secretary's obsession with it is obvious to me. He is Henny Panny incarnate. Going on and on about the imminent danger that desolate nations in faraway countries pose to the US. That the only way to stop the sky from falling is to invade them. One after the other.

Or maybe he is Foxy Loxy. And we are the stupid chicken that he dupes. And devours.

The United States has crushed Iraq. This worthy adversary has thus joint the ranks of other mighty nations which the US has engaged. Like Korea, Indonesia, Congo, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, Sudan. And Afghanistan. Oh, the bravery. The valor.

And as the most expensive military in the world has pulverized another poor, third-war country, the inevitable is happening. Lawlessness, looting, killing. Anarchy.

But the 'news' media does not seem to get it. This is only "natural" behavior in a country that has just been "liberated". The Secretary of Defence is 'appalled' by the media's obsession with this trifle. Yes, appalled. He doesn't seem to comprehend why the media would bite the hand that has fed it so well in recent weeks. Why can't they just report that everything is hunky-dory? The Secretary pointed out that a little bit of looting and killing is nothing unusual. After all, "we have seen it happen in many cities right here in the United States"!

Ah, the irony. You just don't know whether to laugh or throw up.