Water vapor will make your stove burn with an orange flame. The SW Gas man showed up at 0735 this morning. He came inside, saw the flame, and asked if I was running a humidifier. It's in the kitchen right now. I'm sick with sinusitis and it is helping. It's in the kitchen because the combination of a container of water with two cats on a new laminate floor just didn't sound like a good plan.

The LW woke up late this morning after going to bed with a headache. This combined with having me wake her up every hour or so during the night by coughing, didn't do her any favors. This morning she officially reached the point where eating small meals slowly became necessity. She had a big breakfast only to have CP push it right back out. That kid is already making her presence known to everyone around here.

We came home with our Britax Boulevard yesterday. We went to Aldrich Baby News here in town and picked it up. Mario, a great guy from the store, officially installed it in the car and now I see why my buddy Pat from out in Napa recommended this thing. The seat is a beast, but it has some cool features and CP should be able to use it for quite a while. I'm sure that we'll be regulars at this store for a while. They carry all kinds of Mustela products and stuff that we've only seen in catalogs. The website is kinda simple, but their selection is great.

This little snippet should show what's going on at our house right now. It's part of the bar graph from pollen.com. We're at 10.5 out of 12 on the scale here right now thanks to the rains that came last week. After 140+ days with no measurable rain, everything started pushing blooms recently in an effort to get while the gettin's good. I started sneezing earlier in the week and by Friday, it was full blown - not my nose, the sinusitis. I've been using Claritin and Mucinex for a couple of days and will be bound for the local doc this coming week. No fun there. It's beautiful outside and the LW has spent a good deal of time reading and enjoying the sunshine. She's also been doing the household stuff since I'm down and out for a bit. That's a strange reversal and it's a little hard to get accustomed to. Our little CP continues to move around alot and you can see it from the outside when she does. A few more weeks and she should be making her grand entrance. It's time to get the baby seat in the car and get the overnight baby bag ready to go.

CP is healthy and her heartbeat is fine. That's the news from the midwives at the Birth Center. Our little one continues to kickbox her mom's internal organs though and as an aside, has begun to give her mom some pretty stout back pain. Our doula is coming over tonight to do a basic interview session. It will be nice to meet her and see how her personality fits with the LW.

I'm almost done with my master gardener course and will be glad to not have to drive an hour or so each way to get to the class. This past week was citrus and Dr. Glenn Wright layed it out for us. By the end of his presentation, I wanted to plant all kinds of strange fruit. I had never heard of the Pummelo or the Cara Cara or most of the other varieties that he mentioned, but I'm determined to try them. It was a great class. Hopefully this fall we can get some dwarfs planted, but I have to see what performs well on "Flying Dragon" rootstock. I'd like an Oro Blanco and a Minneola Tangelo - the LW and I will have to wrestle over the other choices.

It rained here recently and it was a welcome sight. I'm sure that the critters enjoyed it. I figured that T. Beth over at FireFlyForest would have some great pictures this week. She never disappoints.

The LW started working from home today in the middle of her 35th week of carrying our little one. I got out back this morning so that she could have some quiet time and pulled our carrot patch. We figure that we came close to 40lbs of carrots from a 4'x16" patch that were planted from seeds. It took a while to get them cut, blanched, and packaged, but it's worth it. Little CP will have some home-grown baby food later this year and we'll have veggies on hand for cooking without making a trip to the store. The snow appears to be almost gone from the mountains. I guess that it got cold for one of the local road races recently. The snow sure is a pretty sight though and the critters and plants can use all the moisture that they can get. Last night was the last night of the childbirth class and we were tired when we got home. Something about having a childbirth class full of pregnant women sitting in one spot until almost 9pm just doesn't make sense. Maybe they're trying to get everyone accustomed to being tired. All is well and little CP continues to play visceral kickboxing with the LW's organs.

It's been a while since I've put anything here, and I apologize. Shortly after the last post, the LW's family started arriving. We had the parents in town for almost a week and on the same day that they headed toward Texas, one of the sisters arrived and entertained us through the weekend. Both were good visits as we saw Kartchner Caverns, a bit of Tombstone, and ran up Mt. Lemmon with the parents. We even conned LW's dad into making bread while he was here - good stuff. The Betsy was in town for the baby shower and while she was here we went to the short film contest at the Loft. Adding guests to our 750sf house was interesting, but the LW made it work beautifully.

The LW starts her new job soon and was quite happy to bid adieu to the guy who has made her present job grueling for the last month or two (although he said nothing upon hearing the news and hasn't communicated with her at all since). In her new job, she'll be doing technical writing from home. She's looking forward to just being a writer again since the last place couldn't figure out that they needed an office manager and Dianne was doing that job too. Only a month ago they finally figured it out and gave it to a technophobic engineer who thinks that an excel spreadsheet is as good as a well-configured database. Wheweee...wouldn't want to be a part owner in that company! Anyway, she's happy to be telecommuting again and will make site visits locally as necessary. This means that she'll be home with the little one and I most of the time. This should be very interesting.

It's starting to get warm out.

It's a bit cool today and I got chased out of the garden by sprinkling rain. I was out pulling up the broccoli that bolted and working on two new plots. Some of it that bolted into flowers is left in the garden for the bees. They are having quite a time with it. These two latest plots will bring the garden up to what I consider to be its maximum of 9 plots. It'll provide roughly 250 square feet of planting space and should be just about right for producing what we can use. Since it is a bit shady today, I pulled both of our heating pads out of the closet and put them under the new sprouting plants in the kitchen. Some of the seeds from two weeks ago are just now starting to break the ground while others are taking off.

The LW continues to grow large and has a hard time getting comfortable on the new futon couch/bed that we purchased recently. We didn't have any place for the inlaws to sleep during their upcoming visit, so it was a necessity. The LW will be more comfortable in a month or so when CP comes out to greet everyone.

I spoke to a guy this morning who wants to put in a garden at a local group home for men. They have a huge space (5+ acres) and evidently have some willing participants. Their idea is to have a big garden for pumpkins that they can sell to the public around halloween and to have some individual plots for some of the residents. It'll be good if we can get it all set up and running.

The house next door is for sale and we wonder whether we'll actually have someone come in an purchase the house to live in or if it will continue to be a rental home. It is listed for almost twice what we paid for ours, so that bodes well for a bit of easy equity.

7 days is all it took for most of the seedlings to come up and start moving. The leader so far seems to be the heirloom pole beans called "Lazy Housewife". They're moving right along and it's good to see so many sprouts. I've only got a few slow babies in this group. It was hard to choose which sprout in each cell to cut as they all look really great. I hope to start corn soon, but I still have to figure out which variety that I'd like to plant.

LW continues to do well and spent some time in the front yard and the garden this weekend sunning herself and little CP. This is the 31st week and the back pain and sleepiness are just now starting to hit. This week the childbirth classes will start and we really don't know what to expect.

This week's been a bit slow except for the broccoli bolting. That has happened fast with the heat and strong sun that these plants have been getting during the day.

Things are settling down with the LW, although the little one, now in her 30th week of gestation, has taken up organ wrestling - much to the chagrin of the LW. The LW continues to grow larger and we found some "new" clothes for her at one of the local used clothing stores last night. She was thrilled and left for work happily in a different outfit.

The massage practice is still moving along slowly. It seems as though I'm stuck in between the desire to push the business and the upcoming time when I know it will be scaled back due to S(tay A(t) H(ome) D(ad) type stuff. It's an uncomfortable limbo that leaves me to focus on plants or floors or some such distraction. Wierd phase, I guess.

I've been reading from RebelDad and some of the others out there. I've been keeping track of growth with the calendar from BrandNewDad. She should be a little over 3lbs and about 14" or so.

This weekend is the Presidio garden meeting with the Community Gardens. It should be a good time and it'll be interesting to see what's growing. We have an ongoing spinach trial at this garden to determine what grows best in our conditions.

The LW continues to go round and round with the new boss and we'll see what happens. It doesn't look good, but she's not worried about it... We've decided not to go and look at the Mercedes 300TD Wagon. It needs a bit more TLC than our current (or future) budget will allow and would not be a wise purchase at this time. Someday we'll be making our own fuel, just not today.


I've been putting down trim and threshold strips this afternoon. It's slow work and messing with drilling into concrete is a pain. The broccoli was a bit floppy this afternoon so I just turned on the tap to give everything in the garden a good drink. It's supposed to be close to 80 degrees today and any time spent in the sunshine quickly confirms that it's close to that already.

We got a box of goodies from Brandon, MS yesterday. Wow, some of those little clothes are cute and should come in handy. We really appreciate it and look forward to everyone getting to visit with her some time this year.

Took the LW to the midwife appt this morning. She's growing as she should be and the baby's heartbeat was good. She measured ok on the circumference of the tummy and is back up to 154lbs - fightin' weight. Her new boss is still giving her fits, but she'll get him ironed out soon.

I got the laminate flooring installed this afternoon in our room for a surprise and she loves it. It does well with the wall colors that I finished earlier in the week. (Gypsy Magic - purple and California Poppy - orange) I've still got to finish the trim before the in-laws get here in a couple of weeks, but a little bit of 3/4" shoe molding should do nicely.

I'll go this weekend to look at a Mercedes 300 diesel wagon in Phoenix. It's a possibility, but who knows. I'll have to sell the bus if we decide to get it since I can only have one project vehicle going at one time. It'll have to be a pretty good deal to make it worth selling the bus.

On the home front, LW and found out some more information about the possible new work position. It's clear now that it would be a bad move. The position isn't certain for over a year and new /contracts work in the area is questionable. Also, the medical benefits are not really all that great. 50% after 90 days and nothing for dependents until a year, then only 25%. That was the kicker. We discussed it as we were out watering the plants with the laundry water yesterday evening. She's not going to take it if it's offered. It would be a nice change of pace, but the other stuff is a problem.

LW is really getting to big for her britches. The beloved coveralls will be unusable after this week. She's gaining fast and CP actually moved her arm across the belly the other night. It was strange to feel little body parts moving against the abdominal wall. Our room is still in the stages of paint and it's coming along nicely. The color that the LW chose is quite bright. Turn on the light and it's like a horn blast from a locomotive. We'll see whether or not it stays, but the project's not finished yet and it's too early to tell. This weekend holds only a garden meeting and some car repair for us and a friend. Hopefully the LW will catch up on some sleep.

In local news it looks like the legislature is clearing the way for citizens to blast away at people who come into their homes or vehicles with intent to do harm. I'm going to have to say that I fall on the side that's against Downing in this case. It might be time to re-evaluate the concealed carry classes to see if it's worth the time and effort. Either way, if someone comes through the door without an invitation, they're looking to get persuaded to leave. It looks like we'll start getting fined for not teaching english effectively to the people who have sneaked in, or come into the country legally. Another cost of the reconquista.

Reading through the national news this morning, I found a story that the WorldNutDaily has picked up and run with. A little girl who was weened off of her tubes after being beaten into a coma, miraculously started breathing on her own and by moving her eyes is "fighting to live". I expect the right-wing congressional high priests to make a show now as long as someone puts a camera in front of them, that is, if they aren't already in court defending themselves against corruption charges. The writer of the article mentions the "nanny state", but who does she think is going to be caring for this girl from now on? Her "parents" are both headed for the big-house and they won't be paying for the care. It's a sad story and I'm sure that it will be used to the fullest extent some time soon. Is Malkin going to be carrying her story in 5 years or is it just the fodder de jour?

Hamas won an election, Abramoff pled guilty, 4Q economy stats are down....come on luckyyyyyyy....big Karl needs a distraction. What's it gonna be?

Good Kids

"When you're a law student, they tell you if say that if you can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either, apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over again "it's lawful", and to think that the American people will somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience that was shown here today."
- David Cole, Georgetown University Law Professor

I was out running errands yesterday when I stopped in the post orifice parking lot to call my dad. I still can't remember their address and I forgot to bring my palm pilot along. After exchanging pleasantries about this and that, I tried to point him toward this blog. It turned out to be a funny conversation filled with, "now, look up in the right corner near the box with an x in it" type directions. It cracks me up to hear him saying the letters as he hunts and pecks to create words on the screen.

It's strikes me as odd to see this from a person who:
- when I was a kid, tabulated the grocery cost in his head while we were shopping in the store and then bet the lady at the cash register a coke to see who came closest to the exact amount. This may not seem like much, but we'd only go once a month and my brother and I recall having 3 or 4 carts stacked full on most of our trips.
- can recall problems with specific models of document production machines from almost 30 years ago and probably give part numbers for the parts in them that failed most often.

Anyway, I found some cool stamps while I was at the post orifice and I sent a copy of the book See No Evil to my father. I got the book for xmas and really enjoyed reading it. The LW and I would like to see the movie Syriana some time soon, but I may have to wait for it to come to Casa Video. I don't know if the little one will like all of the noise. The roundtable discussion from the website for the movie has some interesting tidbits, but may not work for those folks on dial-up.

While I was out, I grabbed some of that blue tape for painting and two gallons of California Poppy by Ralph Lauren. That's the color that LW picked for our room and it should brighten things up a bit. Today will be sanding day and hopefully I can paint on Friday.

The LW and I ran over to kinko's last night and got her resume and associated stuff printed out. Her meeting was this morning and it seemed to have gone well. She's excited about the new prospect and I'm happy for her. The work will be a change, but it's similar to what she was doing in Colorado Springs when she was working as a contractor for a big company with military contracts. I guess they have an office here in Tucson and she has the potential to move into other things if she gets it. They don't seem too concerned about the pregnancy stuff and they actually seem to value the documents that are produced which is a big shift from the present employer.

It's beautiful out today and all is well.

I found this cartoon in the paper this morning and have found that he consistently comes up with some good ones. Roberts and Alito will be around for a long time. Several of the other judges who were born in the 30s will probably bail out at some point in the near future.

I've recently decided to sponsor a local guy who's going to give the Great Divide Race a go this summer. He's supposed to be quite a character as you can see from the picture and will need all the help that he can get to complete this 2490-mile self-supported mountain bike race.

LW just sent me a note mentioning that I should mark my calendar for the upcoming pregnancy classes. We'll get a tour of the nearby hospital (just in case) and an intro class on breastfeeding as well. We'll be Medela pump experts in no time at all. I've been a little worried lately that we wouldn't get in anywhere. In order to have a child at the Birth and Women's Health Center, you must attend some form of class so that you know what to expect. I asked the midwife on the last visit if LW doesn't intuitively know everything that she needs already. She danced around that for a bit and then said yes, but that we need the classes anyway. We're hesitant because we're not really into the idea of sitting around with a bunch of happy little breeder Stepford(house)Wives looking at baby pictures and hearing about Dick and Jane's fourth little baby or the like. Not necessarily anti-social, just anti-unecessary BS.

in Tucson

Man, I feel for those guys at Ford who are going to get the axe. This will hit the local communities pretty hard as well as it funnels down through the local suppliers and other companies that keep the plants humming along. There are quite a few liquor stores outside the front gates of the plants that will be closing up, but the churches won't get to savor that victory for very long as the collection plates slowly begin to grow dusty.

I remember the same thing coming down finally from Sprint about the ION project going down the crapper. Schnikeys that sucked. It turned out ultimately though to be the best thing that could have happened. It led me away from things that just sucked the life out of me and toward some really good stuff. The wife and I packed up and left the midwest behind; something that we might have done eventually anyway. Off to Colorado to try it out for bit and then on to Tucson when we outgrew our taste for small-town xenophobic Colorado (just google "Royal Gorge"). I haven't had to take a "production job" at a fast-food place yet, so things are lookin' up!