Give Texas Back...

As if there weren't enough reasons already.... Heck, then I'd feel bad for Mexico. Hearing a young texan refer to a presidential candidate as a "stud" , declare his devotion to Huckabee, and then say that we should have a male running the country almost made me hurl my oatmeal and a few expletives this morning. Man, it seems like none of these huckster supporters read Rolling Stone. I don't know if their religions prohibit it or not, but jeeeeebus! These folks need some serious help and probably should escape from their own zip codes more often.

Just Luck

As CP runs around the house happily playing among all of the crap that's accumulated in our tiny house, the radio discusses what happens to school kids in North Korea. Instead of spending time actually learning the three Rs, they spend time trying to find scrap material for that school that can be recycled. If they're lucky enough to get out, they need years of intensive catch up work. One girl that was mentioned was at least five years behind, but she was working through her high school studies in her mid-twenties.

Seeds For Some Change

Well, the LW and I just finally got off our collective butts and ordered seed for this year. As always, it'll be interesting to find a spot for everything - especially since the garden space was downsized by 40 square feet or so. We'll make it work though. There's plenty of space in the CGT plot and a good bit of unmolested space in the pre-CP version of our herb garden.

Today was jury duty for part of the day. It was rather quiet and I got to watch part of Hunt for Red October and read some of Animal Vegetable Miracle. I like this book more and more as I read it and can only hope that some of my relatives will enjoy it as much as I do. This weekend we found out that we got an invitation to join the Tucson CSA, so tomorrow we'll be headed downtown for a bit of a hike over there to submit our application. It's a first come or get none type deal for the application, so I hope that we make it.

Team Roping and a Testy Toddler

On Monday the LW covered for me so that I could run up around Globe and shoot at a team-roping event in which Aunt Carie was participating. It was fun. I showed up at around noon and had 982 shots on the clicker and only had 35 remaining when I finally had to head back home. The event was for $10,000 and there were a buttload of folks there going for it. They had 900+ teams and I have no idea as of yet, how it went or how long they had to go.

It was my first run for the little prime lens that could. As it turns out, it couldn't. The focus mechanism kept hunting for focus and just about every shot that I took has some amount of blur in it, then there was the ghosting/flare....sheesh. Turn it to manual focus you say? - well, that'd be a good bet if it weren't a f1.8 lens. I had to keep it pretty close to wide open to get anything, which means that just being a hair off of focus blurs everything. All in all, it was a good lesson - a good lesson in why many photographers say "I could do that", but most don't. I really could have used the speed and accuracy of something like this or this, but the price is just a bit out of reach. If this stuff starts paying anything, I may just try to rent a lens every now and then. There are some companies out there that have a lot of cool equipment that's out of reach for regular folks.

CP has been exerting her will more and more of late. This has caused no small amount of distress and consternation among her parents. This morning at storytime, she didn't want to have any part of putting the bean bags back in the box after the games were finished, so we had to make several trips outside to discuss things....fun.fun.fun.

Persepolis Night Out

Auntie M. watched CP last night, so the LW and I were allowed to play around town like real grown-ups. It was nice. The first thing that the LW said that she wanted to do was to go see the movie Persepolis. Knowing nothing about it, I dutifully smiled and nodded. Once we made it to the loft, I recognized the movie we were seeing and was glad that we were there. It was just amazing. If you didn't catch it while it was in town, I pity you. It's that good. Really.

CP has returned from her overnight fun and has been on the go all day. There is a good bit of snow on the rich folks and rain flowing in the streets for the rest of us today. This photo is the reason that I recently picked up a 50mm 1.8 prime lens for the camera.

Mommy on A Bike

Last night the LW and I tried to adjust her front shifter on the bicycle so that she could ride today. I'll know whether or not it worked when she gets home this afternoon. She was up with the alarm at 5am this morning and off to the Y for a workout, then came home, packed her stuff and was off to the library for some sorely needed "out of the house" time.

We put our names on the CSA list for vegetables yesterday, so we'll see where that goes. Just one more issue to be crossed off of the "put our money where our mouth is" list.

I hope that the LW's enjoying her time today because it's been great for CP and I, even though she's been upset a good bit. We got out and about this morning in search of a potty chair at Target, but didn't find anything. We didn't find a pottty chair, but we did manage to run into the wife of the architect who has offered to help us with the strawbale project. It reminded me that I needed to return his email. Sometimes I'm just awful about doing that. The inbox fills up so fast that I think I'd need 4 monitors stacked on top of each other just to see what's there.

CP's trick for today was to fall completely off of her chair at the lunch table and land flat on her back on the kitchen floor. On the way she bumped into several things, but it still didn't make her very happy with life in general. She's sleeping now and I'm trying to sneak around the house and let her get a nice long nap.

Busy Weekend

This past weekend was pretty full. The LW kept CP on Saturday when I went to a garden meeting, a photography meetup, and then ran up to Picacho to a team roping event to take pictures. The garden meeting was full of folks and it was good to see. The photo meetup group discussed composition, but I had to bail out before the comment/critique and monthly contest got started. Today was another garden meeting and it was beautiful out. CP got her foot stuck in the mud and was not happy about it. The mud made a suction around her foot and she couldn't get out. Pretty funny stuff really.

My event story: It took me almost an hour to get up to where the roping event was being held. Every road here is being rebuilt and at the same time the Gem and Mineral Show is in town. Crazy traffic - like Kansas City really, but with barricades and fewer orange barrels. This roping event was the Ivan Muxlow Memorial and it was held at the Aros Arena in Picacho. It was my first semi-official gig for the new photo business and it went well. I learned some things about the camera and about the event that I will be able to use in the future. CP's Aunt Carie is going to be in one of these events really soon and I needed the practice. She looked the shots over and gave me some good ideas and an overall positive critique. I showed up with 493 possible photos available on my camera's CF card and left with less than 50 shots available. There are over 360 shots out on my PhotoReflect website now and it's almost set up. I hope to have the Labtricity portion of the ordering process running by Monday afternoon and the website ordering portion will be ready to run full blast.

I need to get on the inside track for knowing who puts these gigs on though. I walked into the office as the event was ending so that I could drop off a couple of business cards for the announcer and it seemed to me that she kinda gave me a bit of the stink-eye. Almost in a "yeah, buddy..whatever" way. It's something that I'll have to work on.

In other news, the penguin humidifier is really doing a great job and CP's on the mend. I spoke to my folks this evening and she felt well enough to say, "Hi Grandy" into the phone. We hope that she'll start eating regularly again soon.

Sick Baby

Well, just like clockwork, with less than two weeks to go for her next checkup at the doc's office, CP is ill. A cough started over the weekend and is now a full-blown, fevery, and snot-laden mess. One trip to the mall play area in the flu/vomiting disease season is all that it takes. The LW was up last night at midnight with snotty vomit all over her. CP coughed so much that she finally started chucking, so the LW got in the tub with her and the tired baby got to play a bit with the light-up ducky. It appears to be flu-like and the LW and I are just wondering when, not if, we'll get it.

We did start getting eggs from our feathered pets this week though. It's a nice change and proof that spring is right down the road a bit.

Drippin' Eaves

Calling my brother back in KC to tell him about how I'm walking around in sunshine in sandals has come back on me today. It's good to see the rain though, since it really cleans the leaves and the extra blue brings out the deep green colors in the plants that is normally washed out by the sun. CP is at preschool this morning and I've been able to arrange photos and get things cleaned up in general. I also was able to book my first semi-official photo shoot with a friend this morning. I'm excited about it and nervous about things coming out like I want them to be. Either way it'll be fun and I hope to shoot some at some other events soon too.

This morning on the drive home, I was treated to this broadcast on NPR. It made me really grateful to hear that some folks are capturing stories like this and sharing them. There's so much dreadful stuff going on right now with factory farming and the chemical companies that run parts of the government.

Some folks aren't taking it and are fighting back. We really need to not only hear stories like this one, but seek out others and begin to understand what's going on with all of the things that many of us take for granted on the grocery store shelves. Perhaps folks think that they're immune from crap like the stuff that Monsanto is pulling, but none of us are immune if big companies gain a hold on the seeds, the very stuff that makes plants, and patent them. Yes, patenting seeds. Don't believe me? Check this out. They're taking seeds that have been around for eons - and claiming patents on them. It's almost as ridiculous as the schmucks at Smuckers trying to patent the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It won't seem rediculous though, when standard strains get mixed with the patented seeds and the patent lawyers come knockin'.

Shutterfly

I've been working a good bit in the past two days to get all of the family albums from the most recent holiday trip set and uploaded to Shutterfly. I've almost got everything set, but I'm limited on the number of albums that I can "share" within a certain time period. Soon, family and friends will get an email that's full of links to all of the photos.

CP is busy rediscovering the mesh bag full of toys that I dug out from under the car seats...and is now wearing it over her head. She's doing well, but still has a lingering bit of diaper rash. The LW promises to un-tether herself from the laptop and escape from her code cave in order to go to the Y with me some time today. I don't think that she'll really do it.......it's just a ploy to pull me out of my 4th spot in the FitLinxx standings for my age group.

School Closings

It looks like the super-genius school board we have thinks that it'll be a good idea to close CP's neighborhood school so that it will look, on paper, like they are saving money. The LW and I are LIVID and can't believe this. If this goes through and it looks like it will affect CP's education chances here, we might be done with this town. We love Tucson, but CP's education is our #1 priority. I thought the loss of accreditation in Kansas City's schools and the head-in-the-sand Kansas creationists were bad, but these guys are smoking crack.

The Day After

Well, CP made it through her first day at the preschool in pretty good form. She enjoyed herself, but came home with two issues that are getting better today.
#1. Something got into her eyes and she was rubbing them for part of the evening
#2. She had a little poop in her diaper and it wasn't changed for a while...this gave her a mean case of diaper rash and she's been upset with diaper changes.

I was pretty bent when I found this out, but we hope that this will change as the caregiver gets to know CP and her sneaky pooping ways. I'll be sure to have a bit of a discussion next Monday when I drop her off. She really seemed to enjoy herself, so I'm not too worried. She wasn't really interested in going home with me when I picked her up.......

This morning, I got two things sent to me. It's an interesting day. The LW sent me this. My new jeebus-fearin' sister-in-law sent this in an email about how this business owner should run for president. Try not to miss the irony in that last one.

First Day at Preschool

We got up this morning with the chickens and the LW got CP ready for her first day at preschool. Since she's been there before on a trial run, it wasn't really a big deal. By the time that I was getting ready to leave, I had to get her attention so that I could wave goodbye. I hope that everything goes well and that she enjoys her day.

It's awfully quiet around here.....time for iTunes!

I'm getting around to the research of photo hosting/sale sites. I started by looking at smugmug, flickr, and shutterfly. They all have sites where they charge professionals to load photos and then sell them for a commission. After a little more searching I found Exposure Manager and Printroom. These two seem like they cater only to professionals and have some nice little gizmos included.

Mud Pies & Crackheads

Yesterday CP and I made mud pies in the back yard. We started with some of the sandy top soil and mulch that was available, but then added some of the dirt from a tree removal project that I've had going for about 6 months now (another story altogether). Anyway, the dirt added just enough clay to make the mud pies sticky and they went together nicely. CP enjoyed getting to employ Grandy's pat-a-cake method of "roll him up...thow him in the pan" and it made for some dirty hands, but that's about all. Today they were dried and she really liked picking them up and seeing whether or not they had any taste.

We were out in the back yard playing this afternoon when someone, who didn't look like he was out selling girl scout cookies, came wandering through the alley looking around at what was in everyone's back yards. It just so happened that I had my camera out and was able to snap some pictures of this character. I called TPD to see if they could run by and check it out, but never heard anything back from them....even after I told them that I had snapped a few pictures of the guy. Giving him the benefit of the doubt I figure maybe he was looking to cut through the neighborhood to get to the major N/S street, then realized that it was a dead end. The thing is that you can tell that our street is a dead end the minute that you turn down our street....so, chances are, he was probably up at the methhouse apartment complex and couldn't figure his way out of the neighborhood. Anyway, the PD can come to my blog if they want his picture. I just hope that they don't have to come back and put a chalk line around this character someday. I think that a police officer's son from Pratt Kansas mentioned a bit of wisdom that his dad imparted to him about only leaving one side of the story for the police to take.......

Another Tooth Please....

..and could you bring that with a side order of cranky, a little draining snot, and a bit of intermittent malaise. Oh, and could you bring that out just before my next doctor's appointment so that I'll be off my food and lose weight? My parents reeeeeally love getting the stink-eye and lecture from the pediatrician when I fall out of the main portion of that little red weight curve diagram....you know, the one that's thrown off by all of the fat-assed similac babies.

It's tooth time around here again. It appears to be one of the larger pre-molars or molars and it's not very fun for any of us around here. We really enjoyed our weekend free day, but now it's back to reality.

We went to meet the preschool lady today and it was fun for CP. There will be two boys and CP. We're not worried about that and the place is pretty cool. The person in charge is a Waldorf type person and knows what she's doing. We've seen the results of her work in the child of a good friend and it's good. It'll be strange to have a day back during the week and I am looking forward to working more.

This morning there was an article in the "local" paper about women who are able to take their children to work with them. Reading the article and then seeing some of the comments that were left on the web, you'd think that this had been posted in Colorado City or in the Stepford 50's. Geez...some people in this town are smoking crack. Apparently all of the ills of society fall squarely at the feet of feminism. Damned uppity women wantin' to get out from the stove and go gallivanting across the countryside. Please. Today's problems have nothing to do with:

- the economics of today's world (and outsourcing or NAFTA)
- bad parenting (by folks that have no business procreating)
- that nasty little secret about the failure of at least 50% of heterosexual marriages
- wars involving this country for every generation since the turn of the 20th century (think about it (WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Gulf WarI, Gulf WarII)

Nothing like that....it's all just those arrogant women forcing their "choices" on everyone else.

Haaaappy Birthdayyy Tooo Youuuuuuuu

The LW and I have been baby free for most of the day. She spent some of it downloading songs onto her swanky black iPod while fielding birthday phone calls from family and friends - I went to a neighborhood support network meeting. It worked out well because I was out of the house and she didn't have to chase a toddler. Auntie M was nice enough to play nanny today and it's a great thing. We're about to go out for California rolls and stuff at a sushi place and then hopefully pick up Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on the way home. It's fun just playing like we're adults again.

Park Afternoon

CP and I had a good time at the park this afternoon. It's getting to where she expects to be taken out in the afternoon after her nap and that's a good thing, I guess. There's a water fountain ring near the baby swings and she really wanted to see what was inside it this afternoon. I was cold, but we looked over the edge and into it anyway. There were other kids at the park by the time we finished with the swings and she had a good time watching the older kids running all over everything.

Unfortunately, some cranker had been smurfing under the playground equipment and left the cold medicine packs. I looked around in the sand for other garbage or maybe more dangerous things, but luckily didn't see anything. Speaking of garbage, you may begin to note that photos of CP will be small and probably increasingly grainy when you open them. I'm doing this on purpose after seeing what happened to another blogger with a cute daughter.

Winding Down

CP will start going to preschool one day a week and I'm pretty damned excited to get one day a week back to work and finish many of the lingering projects around here, in my business, and in all of the volunteer work that I've unknowingly buried myself with. It'll cost us what amounts to another phone bill every month, but we'll make do. We'll go see about it some time soon, but we're pretty sure that it's a sweet gig based on a personal recommendation from a good friend.

Another day goes in the tank as CP goes down to sleep, but not before causing one more bit of an uproar though. I never thought that breast feeding would be such a logistical pain in the ass sometimes. I pulled CP from the LW's arms a bit ago so that she could finish figuring out how to insert song names on iTunes. Well, CP decided that she would start to crash out on my shoulder and I figured that it would be a good idea for her to nurse before bedtime to keep her from waking up at midnight. Man, was I ever wrong. Little did I know that this bit of last-minute switch up would send the LW into a complete swearing, tossing stuff tailspin...just one more thing in a day full of back to back tailspin fodder. Maybe tomorrow I can be the windshield.... and maybe this week or the next CP will wean herself from this single-parent need.

Who... Me?

Nothing like starting the day off right. (fellow blogger Chile-see link on right sidebar-urged me to post this)

CP comes into the bathroom this morning and starts messing with something...I can't even remember what it was now...anyway, Frago the cat is in the catbox taking care of things. I give CP the loud "ehhh" goose snort of a correction and Frago interprets it as something he's screwed up and bolts, unfinished, out of the catbox trailing litter bits. He settles into the hall and licks himself for a bit. I'm still running the sonicare, and CP is standing in the hallway near Frago just looking for the next thing to get into. The sonicare gives me the final beep and we make it past all of this craziness and head out into the living room just in time to see Frago the cat slinking out of the, thanks to the Ikea bookshelves, very hard to reach into corner. There's only one reason that he slinks...he knows he's busted. Yup, he'd sneaked into said corner and emptied his relatively full cat bladder onto the floor. Why, just when I'm trying to get out the door? I mean, I just got up and got all lined up to get the kid out of the house and away from the hard-at-work LW. Well, all manner of sailor-speak came out of my mouth and he took off running, leaving CP standing there befuddled and wondering what she'd done wrong.

All of this prior to changing the second really poopy diaper and putting CP in the car just to get to the gym and then to Costco. If this seems funny to you, remember it the next time you're walking through the store somewhere and you see that parent who, at 9:17am appears to be just on the edge of grabbing a bottle of Crown Royal in the liquor section and polishing it off in the store. Smile at them and tell them that their kid is cute or something else nice.....it may just help a bit.

iPodded

The LW's birthday is coming up, so I purchased her present with the help of her siblings and asked her if she'd rather wait and pretend to be surprised about it or pretend to be surprised now. Of course, being impatient as she sometimes is, she chose now and is completely overjoyed with her new black iPod. We've already loaded our entire music collection onto it and relegated the CD's to storage.....and we still have 71GB left on the thing. It's an amazing little gadget and it's brought us back in touch will all of the music that we haven't listened to in a long time with it's simple shuffle function.

CP and I escaped to the park yesterday afternoon and had a good time. I chose a nearby park for a change of scenery and there were kids all over when we showed up. I sat down next to a very talkative lady who wanted to play with my camera and was so tied up with her that I didn't really get to talk to the lady on the other side of me who at one time worked for the AP as a photojournalist....that's the way it goes, I guess.

I was reading about China's banning of plastic shopping bags over at Katie's site and saw a comment posted by a gal from central Mississippi near where I grew up. It discussed the strange looks that she gets when she walks into grocery stores there with cloth bags. In some ways I remember MS being ahead on things (my education, fads, etc), but in many ways the state is just plain backward and seemingly unchangeable (my uncle calling me out on our VW by saying that I was giving money to "fawrners"). T-town is pretty good for getting good cloth bags and for people actually putting them to use. My favorite bag though, is the one that I had my logo printed on at CafePress. If you're wondering about the price and size, don't worry. It's a big, sturdy bag, and you get to put whatever you want on it!!