the dulcet-ness-icity

Please to be listening...

and then buying...

and then listening a-gain.

I shan't bother with a review per se, save to say that I quite like it, because I will no doubt come across as a [more than usual] pretentious dick and, on a very deep and fundamental level, I have no idea what I'm talking about musically.

There are a few favorites to be sure - among them: damhsa na saorirse, between the rains, pukana la kalelea, welcome to funkstown, and, of couse, mele ho'oluluhi. The last being for our main squeeze Lauren. It seems to be helping - thanks.

It should be noted that this electrifying review has nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with the receipt of a free and much appreciated copy. If you want your own, go belay the artist for a few hours at -2 degrees in NH. I earned this shit.

And on that note, yes, I do appreciate the irony of writing a review that will be likely only be read by the artist in question, others that could be counted on one hand, and some spam-bots.

In all seriousness, congrats Mike. It's a fantastic listen.

- Lester Bangs

booleans from cooper's rocks, wv

A hitherto near dogmatic adherence to trad climbing has recently given way to an embrace of all things climbing. Bouldering to be more specific.

I was as surprised as anyone.

static void main (string[] args) {

gym workouts for three weeks makes one feel in-shape = true;
gym workouts for three weeks makes one in-shape = false;

there's nothing quite like climbing in the fall = true;

porter can style his way up most anything = true;

brian can too = false;
brian can with significantly more effort = true;

guy who runs laps on your problem and then allows himself a "new" send by doing the problem in a different way.Equals(new Asshat());

a hole in his leg and a broken back will slow bruce down on a crack climb = false;
the same crack climb will flummox a perfectly healthy porter and brian = true;

throwing 3 cords on the few TR areas.Equals(new Selfish());

porter can keep it together on a highball = true;
barely = true;

bruce can work the same traverse as healthy folk = true;
bruce sends the longest problem of the day = true;

bastard(new Bruce()).hasn't been climbing all day though = true;
brian isn't bitter = false;

couldn't hope to find better climbing partners and friends = true;

}

m.r. ducks

Not to be overly cutesy, but this, well this is too g.d funny not to post.

right up the middle

At her two month checkup Lauren is in the 50th percentile for just about everything - clocking in at 10-1/2 lbs and a staggering height of 1'-10-1/2" (further confirming my theory that women under 5'-7" always include the fraction).

Where you see mediocrity I see a safe zone on either side - edging towards neither midget nor amazon.

So, to the the woman who had the unmitigated gall yesterday to argue with Jennifer over Lauren's f-ing age - maintaining that she [Lauren] looked too big to be just two months and was Jennifer really sure about that one - bite me.

Like I said, right up the middle.

please to be noticing

The collection of RSS feeds courtesy of del.icio.us. How you envy me.

Your first reactions is, of course, super cool. Your second, and far more probable, reaction, is what the hell is del.icio.us? Well my friend,

del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.

Clear enough? I suppose it's moderately interesting to see what others have bookmarked - although I doubt most will execute any quality control whatsoever and their pages will, if they have not reached this status already, evolve (or, more accurately, devolve) into a morass of everything and anything under the sun with no eye toward usefulness. Everything on the internet linked...yet again.

But the nifty part is the ability to share links among home, work, or anywhere. I sometimes have four different machines, all with a subset of my total collected links - which I often need across those same machines. With del.icio.us I have access to all those links all the time. And the ability to attach multiple tags to multiple items means that I don't have to remember in exactly what bin (under the traditional hierarchical system) I plunked that article about C# delegates - Was it under programming? Or development? Or was it articles? It doesn't matter. I can drill down through any of them or just query the whole list.

There are some things I'm not wild about, and some others that ought to be implemented. As the system is pre-alpha, and I have faith that the aforementioned items have been noodled through by others, I'll [uncharacteristically] shut my yap.

Right now.

OK, really this time.

plumbing

For someone who's GI tract is responsible for processing exactly one food product, this girl has got a whole lotta rumblin' going on.

her first trick

She will now, occasionally, smile. It is a fleeting beast at best - caught occasionally between the pooping, the eating, the wailing, and the no-sleeping - but it is there.

So we've got that going for us - which is nice.

Many have asked why more photos aren't available. One answer is that I've become a bit particular about content. While the photos thus far are by no means works of art, I have been striving to have a focal point. Too many baby photographs look too much like the shapeless blobs that they [babies] are. The child is small and lost among a sea of background looking like nothing much whatsoever.

The other, slightly more accurate answer, is that they all look alike. Babies sleep, and cry, and feed (defenitely no shots there), and generally look the same. Trust me, we have an enormous amount of photos that look almost identical save for her outfit, lighting, and whether she's crying or not.

So at long last I give you...something that actually looks like a bit of a person.

teacher, mother, secret lover

So one might wonder whether having a child brings a sense of fulfillment in what might be seen as an otherwise empty life.

What a ridiculous question.

While children may have their charms, true fulfillment can only be found through a well-architected fall TV schedule and a DVR.

How dare her crying interrupt the premier of Lost?

the no-kidding answer i gave at a meeting to the question of, "so how is your baby doing?"

"Well, she's still alive."

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me?

whilst tapping code...

Working with NHibernate (and now that I get it, having grand fun), and enjoying Charlie Hunter.

Brighter, tighter, out-of-sighter.

duct tape

Somone should invest in the above for this entire f-ing family. From Barbara Bush re: Katrina refugess in the Houston Astrodome:

And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

Thank god for natural disasters.

NY Times article

are you kidding me?

Stunning, just stunning.

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.

Are you f-ing kidding me? Did anyone proof this thing?

Asshat.

Time article

White House Press Release

to the previous poster

You sir, are an idiot.

The charm of a newborn is considerably lessened when, as you attempt to change this child for the second time in five minutes, watch poop actually arch out of her and land no less than 1' down-range.

My little howizter.

live nude girls!!

Tastefully done, of course.


Hell yeah this girl can cry. Her hunger knows no bounds - to the point that she managed to give herself a fever whilst in the hospital she was so hungry. That's my girl.

But all is well now as we (it's worth noting up front that by "we" I inevitably mean "Jennifer") adjust to our new tax break - learning day-by-day the subtle tricks that make life a wee bit easier with a newborn.

For instance, I have already learned that a solid night's sleep is difficult to come by. Feedings at 12, 2, 4, and 6 will drain the life out of most, and Jennifer, polite as ever, has promised to be much more quiet when getting up from now on.

It's early yet, but I think we've already learned a valueable lesson re: parenthood:

It is what it is.

I remember looking at friends holding these screaming infants and wondering how on earth they do it (the parents, not the infants). How can that be fun? And the answer is, it isn't. Holding a screaming little girl where you can't do anything to console her (esp. if you lack the proper "feeding insturments") is not fun on any level. And despite what anyone says, it's not rewarding either. But this is:

exactly what happened to the pecking order around here?

and then there were three

Lauren Abigail Connors

Born at 1:13 p.m. on 8/29/2005 at FairfaxHospital, VA

1'-9" and 7lbs

there's a 5AM?!? what else haven't you told me?

Please to be noting the post time.

It is indeed a scary thought upon rising from bed that this, sleep-wise, is the best you're going to feel all day. And speaking of day, when the night attached to the aforementioned day swings round, well mister, the sleep - she may be hard to come by.

Stay tuned.

the calm before the storm - part the second

By this time tomorrow I shall be a father.

Exactly what have I gotten myself into?

I spoke with my brother-in-law today. Said he had the mental picture of me pacing around the house chain-smoking. Which is funny of course because I didn't think to do exactly that. Cigarettes would likely have helped.

We've obviously known this was going to happen for some time. But heretofore, it hasn't really been my problem per se. There was some painting to be sure, and some organization, and quite a bit of discussion re: the name, but from my perspective things have just been creeping along. Until lately of course when the spectre of "it could happen at any time now" reared its narcissistic head and really cut into my drinking. Oh scotch, we hardly knew ye...

But tomorrow is it and it's an odd sensation to be sure. All along we imagined that one night we'd simply be plunged into it - that there would be some frantic driving, hopefully not overly long with the whole delivery thing, and then we'd be parents. But instead, the delivery date came and went and now inducment is scheduled for the unholy hour of 6AM. Surely a more hospitable time was available?

At any rate, this is all very, well, FedEx like - "So we ordered this kid like nine months ago. Got the notice saying she arrives tomorrow." So I guess that's it.

See you tomorrow kiddo.

the calm before the storm - part the first

T-minus 31 hours. Or thereabouts.

In an effort to have the home in something approaching order before the chaos that is to come, I have been instructed to organize the basement. To be fair, it is mostly - in point of fact nearly entirely - my stuff. I have endured with good humor the jibes re: organizing my stuff as opposed to our stuff but it is largely true. While there are items that belong to us, it is stunning even to me, the original purchaser, the sheer volume of items. All of them useful to be sure, but good lord. A peek at the highlight reel:

• An embarassing number of skis (all of them mine) for someone who lives in Virginia. Different types, different purposes but... nevermind. There's no justifying it.
  
• All manner of climbing gear. Truth be told, far too much for someone of my middling talent.
  
• Geek stuff that may or may not revolve around a now dormant interest in flight simulators.
  
• Far too many scraps of kitchen flooring that might (although I can't imagine how) be used again

You get the idea.

Some of this stuff does actually get used - I've got pictures and everything. And I'm looking forward to using it all again, but I've got some stuff to do.