Today we celebrated Martin's birthday with the family. We all had brunch at Barbara & Martin's new house. Zane and I bonded today; he's potty trained now and selected me to take him to the bathroom. ;) Kids are funny. We're babysitting the boys next weekend so it's nice that we got a chance to spend a little time with them with the whole family today. A little preparation. More photos.

Saturday Benjamin and I went to Vashon. We went to my dad's house so he & Benjamin could try to fix B's car stereo. Ariel and her kids, Samantha & Douglas, came over and hung out for a couple of hours. It was really nice to see them. After they left we had dinner with Mimi & my Dad. They made a delicious dinner of ribs, chicken, potatoes and asparagus. More photos.

Saturday morning Benjamin and I went to Morgan's and looked at fixtures. We haven't decided yet what we're going with, though we're looking at a St/ Thomas sink and some other brand corner shower.

Friday evening and Saturday Benjamin's uncle Mike came over and worked on our house. He fixed one of the new network outlets, straightened an existing electrical outlet, made it so the door in my office closes properly, put a new light in the crawl space, and tied both lights in the crawl space to a new switch. Next weekend he's coming back to start cleaning out all of the old electrical in the basement ceiling before we finish the basement. Progress! La la la.

Thank you Judy Dean

I just created and wrote a thank you card to Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean, Howard Dean's wife. I read an email from Howard today and it struck me hard his traveling must be on his wife and kids. And it's not like this just started; she probably hasn't seen her husband on a consistent basis in over a year. This is especially sad since he seems like a nice person to spend time with (unlike most politicians). So I tracked down her address online (I'm crafty like that) and sent her a card thanking her for for her sacrifices on the country's behalf. On the front I pasted a nice picture overlaid with the following quote. Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home… - Eleanor Roosevelt

Baby land

There's something in the air... many babies [that we know] are being born this week. On Saturday Benjamin's brother-in-law's sister-in-law (aka Tyler & Heather) had a baby named Louis. Sunday Claire & Erik had their baby girl Amelia Lynn. And today my carpoolmate Emilio's sister went to the hospital to have her baby (she was a week overdue and was scheduled to be induced this morning). This doesn't even include my coworker, Rive, who have birth to a baby girl named Tayten Gabrielle on Sunday, January 30th. And Ariel whose baby girl Samantha was born November 16th.

More info from Claire's mom on baby Amelia: Claire had to have a Cesearean Section on Sunday. She had labored since Fri evening dinner time, but the baby's head was cocked at an angle, and she was sunny side up, and so couldn't get into the birth canal properly. Claire was very brave, and patient, as it was a very difficult, hard labor. Thank God for modern medicine!!!!! Amelia Lynn Fadiman was born at 12:51 Sunday. She weighted 8 lb, and 14 ounces, after peeing all over everything! She is 21 inches long, and has lots of dark hair. She is looking a bit like Erik!!!! Erik was wonderful throughout. We have all been exhausted since then, and Erik has been with Claire the whole time, so no time to do emails. Claire is doing well, and she will have to recover from the C section, and she will, it will just take some time. All is well, and Amelia is of course beautiful! They went home [Tuesday night]. See more photos from Erik.

Welcome Amelia Bedelia!

Claire's baby girl has arrived. Amelia Lynn was born on Sunday February 20th at 12:51 PM by C-section. Dad, Erik, says "Mom and baby are both fine, details and pics to follow.... We’re all happy and healthy and overjoyed."

Sunday I went to Tacoma and visited my Mom & Rich & Carol. Harvey & Eileen were also there helping Mom & Rich move and clean the new house. I played with Carol and hung around with everyone. My contribution to the moving effort was to set up a wireless access point in their attic and secure their existing wireless network. We all went to sushi at I Love Bento and then H & E went home. I stayed and snuggled with Carol while Mom & Rich prepared for their Monday morning appraisals. Then mom & I chatted until I finally left to go home. I didn't get to bed until late! More photos.

Saturday afternoon Benjamin & I had brunch at Portage Bay Cafe. It was yummy and nice to go out together. After that we went to Home Depot for some house repair stuff. I know, I know, we don't shop at Home Depot... we're bad.

This cracks me up! Download it for your desktop.

Oh baby!

My friend Claire is in labor. She and her husband sent mail early this morning and said they were going to the hospital a little later in the day. I am so excited! What a punctual girl; today is her due date. ;)

I went to see the new Will Smith movie Hitch tonight while Benjamin went to see Constantine with Ben & Alan. It sounds like both were good in their own ways. :-)

Pretty pretty.

I'm having so m any problems with Money 2005 and I really regret upgrading. I had problems sometimes with Money 2004 but not so many. They're having serious compatibility issues with MSN Bill Pay, which is deeply ironic since of course they're both Microsoft services. In the past their tight integration is what kept me paying for the MSN Bill Pay service even though I could use the free bill payment service through either of my banks online. Sigh. I switched from Quicken about 4 years ago and I've been using Money ever since. All of my data is in there, I know how to use it, all of my bill payments are set up through MSN... Damn in! I wish they would fix my problems, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I could start a fresh file and go back to Money 2004 but they say that might not fix my MSN problem. I can't even pay my bills reliably. The Money team has been very nice and tried to help, but I fear I'm going to have to give up on Money. Whah! What a huge pain in my ass.

Did I mention I've been appreciating the beauty of the weather and nature lately? :-)

Cherry trees have started blooming!

On Monday after it snowed it got warm and sunny. Then it hailed. Then it got sunny again. It was an adventure.

Dean did it!

Dean really got elected DNC Chair. Whooppee!!! You can read his statement on the Democratic National Committee website.

It snowed very briefly this morning.

Have I mentioned that we're looking into having our basement finished? We recently got a quote from The Remodeling Guys, who have remodeled three homes on our street (to varying degrees). The quote was higher than we want to pay, but is half of the first quote we got and seems pretty reasonable. Also, the owner needs two web sites done and so we've agreed to do a partial trade, which will save us a couple thousand dollars. Yesterday we had a plumber we've worked with before come look at the basement and talk to us about it. He quoted us to do just the bathroom down there. Unfortunately he's busy until May and I'm not sure that using him would save us money, but I think we're both more comfortable with him than we are with the unknown plumber that The Remodeling Guys will use. I need to follow up with TRG to find out more. The really exciting part of this, aside from having 50% more finished square feet in our house, is that Benjamin has tentatively agreed to get a pug puppy once the basement is finished and the yard is fenced. I am thrilled! My hope is that we can have it all done in time for my birthday on the 4th of July. Nothing like a new puppy as a birthday present. The next big step is to figure out the financing. We need to price home equity loans and lines of credit from various banks and for various amounts. It's scary to take on more debt but my credit card and car loan debt is almost completely paid off so our only debt is for the house and student loans.

Today Benjamin & I slept in late. After showering and grooming I made us some tomato-rice soup for lunch. After that I went outside to begin digging a bed for my new dahlias. I only dug for a half hour or so and then it started hailing.

After the matinee we drove Martin back to West Seattle and Benjamin's mom met us for dinner at the Luna Park Cafe. It was yummy as always. It's not the best restauant but the food is good and affordable ($40 for 4 people) and the 50's diner decor and music are excellent.

Yesterday Benjamin & I saw a matinee of Ocean's Twelve with Benjamin's dad. All three of us thought it was smart & fun. It's very fast moving and there are a few stretches of reality in the plot, but that didn't bother me. I think this was as good as Ocean's Eleven.

Friday night my design team got together at Bill's house for our extremely late white elephant gift exchange. After that we all walked to Bambuza to have a going-away dinner for two designers on my team - Philliip and Marc. After dinner we walked to the Sorrento hotel and had dessert and a few more drinks. I think everyone had a good time and there was a considerable amount of drinking. Thank goodness only a few people had to drive. Judy was nice enough to give me, marc & Phillip all rides home.

The Puget Sound is quite beautiful. I'm feeling very thankful about that fact.

I changed my desktop to a different picture of Carol. :)

I just watched Catch Me if You Can, which I taped on HBO several weeks ago but never watched. It is quite good. I don't think fondly of Leanardo DiCaprio because of his overblown fame and cheesy roles, but he is actually a good actor; I forget that. Tom Hanks is also excellent and it is fun to see Christopher Walken.

Dean! Dean! Dean!

I got a heartening mail from MoveOn PAC today telling me that Dean is doing to win the DNC Chair nomination. I am so excited! And yet I learned the heard way not to count my chickens (read: Dean votes) before they've hatched. Here's a snippet from the email:

This Saturday the Democratic National Committee will pick a new Chair for the Party. A couple of weeks ago, it seemed to everyone this would be a fiercely competitive election, with 7 strong national candidates vying for the job. However, after the dust settled and committed supporters were tallied, the field of major candidates has shrunk down to just one -- Howard Dean. It is now virtually guaranteed that Governor Dean will be selected this weekend as the new Chair of the Democratic Party.

The whole email is really good and I can't find it online, but I hate super long posts, so just email if you want to read it and I can forward it to you. :-)

banned blood

I tried to give my regular bi-monthly blood donation yesterday. But I was turned away and banned from donating blood until Christmas. Why? Because I went into Nuevo Vallarta in Mexico. Apparently Nuevo Vallarta is considered a malarial risk area even though it is a breath away from Puerto Vallarta, which is okay. I'm really disappointed that I can't give blood for the rest of the year and that I have to consider these limitations in my travels. I don't want to have to choose between being a good samaritan and taking the opportunity to travel when I can.

I bought a memory foam mattress topper on Sunday at Costco. It came folded up and double vaccuum sealed. We had to let it lay flat for two days before we used it but last night we got to sleep on it for the first time. It was very nice! I also bought us new jersey cotton sheets and a body pillow so our bed is mighty comfortable right now. :-)

There have been so many beautiful skies recently. I feel like it is finally getting light our again and I love it!!! It was light when I left the house this morning and STILL LIGHT when I got home tonight. I even got to sit in the sun eating my lunch outside today. It was a little chilly but nice.

Last night at Costco and Home Depot I bought Dahlias to plant in my yard. I don't know where I am going to put them yet, but I am excited nonetheless. <disclaimer>I don't normally shop at Home Depot because of their CEO's extensive financial support of G.W. Bush (yuk!) but I had to in this case because Lowe's doesn't carry much in the way of Leviton plates and that is what we're using for our networking jacks...<\disclaimer>

Slurp!

Let this cute (though slightly pixelated) kitty clean you up.

Today I spend the day with my friend Claire and her husband Erik. I took photos of Claire's tummy for her. She is now 38 1/2 weeks pregnant. After that I went shopping at Costco and Home Depot for various household stuff and supplies for our networking project.

Benjamin is playing World of Warcraft (aka WOW) a lot these days. I believe he's currently Level 40. Note his favorite drink on the desk - tonic with lime and lots of ice.

Benjamin's former coworker Aaron came over last last night to work on our home network. He finished the patch panel in the basement and Benjamin made a lot of progress on the jacks, but there is a lot left to do (face plates, patch cables, and one whole outlet).

The sky was doing crazy things as the sun broke out through very dark clouds. It changed completely every half block.

My Christmas cactus is blooming.

We got takeout from Pomodoro again last night. It was yum.

There was a beautiful sunset yesterday.

You know you're living in 2005 when...

Okay, I actually found this really funny. I don't usually go in for the forwarded humor emails, but this one got me.

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
9. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
10. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
11. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
12. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.
13. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
14. You get up in the morning and go on-line before getting your coffee.
15. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. ":)"
16. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
17. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.