Hello Blogger My Old Friend...

...I've come to write on you again.

So I'm back. I thought I had nothing left to say that couldn't be covered in the twitter-like status updates on facebook. And maybe that was the case. But I decided that I still need to say it here, where I can store my footprints rather than have them wash away with the ebb and flow of all the other things that facebook compiles. The reason is simple -- I'm 40, and my daughter is 2. By the time she's 22, and maybe starting to learn about who her father is, I'll be a different person, and she'll never have known the person I am now. And I want her to have various anecdotes of who she was as a little girl, given that we'll undoubtedly have forgotten most of them unless they're recorded somewhere.

Of course, who I am as a blogger is not an accurate portrait of who I am -- it's what I choose/bother to share, and who I hold myself out to be in the public environment of this blog. Still, that'll have to do -- I have no desire to share everything.

And you the reader in the present are welcome to come along for the ride. It's a given that I'm writing for you too, not just future Emelia. Otherwise I could just keep a journal.
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Now that that's out of the way, let's cover Hilton Head, where we spent the second week in June with my family for our annual vacation. Unlike last year, we drove down -- our direct flights being canceled last year, thereby requiring a connection, probably had something to do with it. Both coming and going, we stayed in Raleigh with our friends Margie and Chris, hitting a bit of the beer scene down there and seeing their new house (they closed on it the Friday we were in Hilton Head, meaning that we stayed in different places coming and going). They'll be up here this weekend for a wedding, and we're camping with them next weekend, meaning we'll be seeing them all four weekends in June. Seeing Margie, a college friend, was as close as I came to attending my 20th college reunion, as Hilton Head started the same weekend that was held.

Down in Hilton Head, the house we stayed at was amazing, as the family selection seems to be each year. We let others fight over the bedrooms with the ocean view, and grabbed the darkest room we could find in hope of sleeping in. It didn't work, as I think I was out of bed by 6:30 every morning except one.

The beach was lovely and the weather was pretty cooperative (mostly sunny, and only over 90 a couple of days). We had a good time for the first part of the week, and the absence of "Explosion Wednesday" that has been present in past years was a definite improvement. Still, by the end there was some strain, which probably started in earnest on Thursday with Dad's fixation on consuming the leftovers. If we had thought to turn his mention of them into a drinking game, maybe things would have stayed a little mellower, but I only just thought of it while typing this out. And besides, being plastered by 10am is not conducive to keeping up with children, of which six were present.

The newest child to enter the family's fold is three-month old Emily, daughter to my sister Shari. We met Emily on this trip, and she's a real cutie (and sweetie). Emelia loves babies, and she had been looking forward to meeting "Baby Emily" for months. The reality mostly seemed to meet her expectations. Throughout the week, Dad regularly interchanged the names of Emelia and Emily. I can't really blame him -- when we picked Emelia's name, we were concerned with picking a name that wasn't too close to others in the family, but Shari had her heart set on the name Emily for a long time, and stuck with it when the time came. As long as she keeps Emily west of the Rockies for the most part, I figure the country's big enough for both Emelia and Emily.

Emelia had a great time with her cousins -- she gets along with all of them (they all get along with each other), and at the end of the week, she was so sad that she had to say goodbye to everyone. Probably Emelia's favorite activity for the week was going in the pool, especially jumping in from the side and having one of us catch her. Her excitement at doing that resulted in her jumping a few times before the adult was ready for her, eventually resulting in stern lectures and time out of the pool because she forgot to ask if the adult was ready. Her next favorite activity was putting on various articles of her cousins' clothing -- she already has a shoe fetish that exceeds her mother's.*

Foodwise, easily the highlight of the week was the Dallas contingent's night in the kitchen. Kim started us off with afternoon queso that was delicious. For the actual meal, Josh led off with crabcakes that were fantastic. Next up was a tasty salad course that Josh and Hunter prepared that included a goat cheese medallion covered in crushed pecans. As for the main course, most people were served 3-inch thick steaks that received universal acclaim, while Hunter, Kathy and I went with 10-ounce tuna steaks that were some of the best I've ever had. After taking a bit of time to digest, Kim brought out poundcake topped with creamcheese frosting and fresh fruit -- fairly simple but so good. In case you're wondering what we did for our night of cooking, we volunteered to make dinner the night we arrived (4pm check-in), so we kept it simple with ground turkey tacos. Our meal was well received (as were all the other meals the various family members prepared, lasagna by Dad/Mom/Shari and BBQ chicken by Rebecca & John), but it certainly belonged in AA compared to Josh, Hunter, and Kim's major league offering.

So we survived another year, even thrived at times, and Josh and Kim get to pick next year's place. That they haven't already is something of a miracle considering how much Mom was looking at places for them to select. Collectively, our family is crazy enough to think that the destination should be all set up a full year in advance. Last night, Josh and Kim threw up their hands by sending around a list of six possible houses in four different locations, and seeking feedback. Our response is simple -- all the houses look lovely, and we'll be happy with whatever you choose. They're not getting out of their responsibility that easily!
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* - At least it exceeds it now that Kathy's somewhat reformed.

Flags at half-mast

Over the weekend as I drove around town, I saw that flags were at half-mast all over town. Since then, I confirmed that President Bush had ordered flags to be flown at half-mast through yesterday in honor of the Virginia Tech dead.

While it's sad that those 32 people died, and while I don't have an objection to their being mourned nationally in such a way, I was struck by the lack of similar recognition given to the American soldiers, many the same age as the students who died in Blacksburg, who are dying every day in Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. The Blacksburg 32 get a week of such recognition, while the 3,000+ who have died over the past five years in the service of their country are recognized as part of a day of national mourning (Memorial Day) along with all other fallen soldiers from all other wars.

It's not my call to decide when flags should be flown at half-mast nationally, but it is for my blog. So in honor of the American soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, I've added a flag at half-mast to my blog, and will continue to display it for as long as we have combat troops dying in these countries. If you click on the flag, you'll be taken to a Washington Post site that provides information on all the American casualties in these two countries.

Have You Heard From Me Lately?

Yesterday we almost had a fallen baby. The changing pad was no longer squarely on the table it's sitting on, as more and more stuff was getting crammed onto the far edge. And Emelia likes rolling, so in a flash while I was reaching for the new diaper, she rolled toward me and both she and the changing pad went off the edge. I caught them both before they hit the ground, no harm other than a scared child. Kathy was relieved that I was the one that happened to, given my excellent reflexes. And for the future, we removed stuff off the far edge and the changing pad is once again squarely on the table.

But that was an unusual event. Most days are pretty routine, with little to distinguish them from each other, which is why I haven't been posting much lately. I've been enjoying being home with Emelia -- there have been challenges, but there have been lots of joys as well. I've settled into a comfort zone of knowing what to do during the day, and am fully capable of adjusting to whatever comes our way (assuming she doesn't get into the habit of falling). She's learning new stuff every day, as am I. She currently thinks she's a rooster, crowing to her heart's content. Her big milestone on Friday was not stopping when she rolled from back to stomach -- she kept rolling until she was back on her back. I've discovered that her latest favorite thing for me to do is lift her in the air, and wiggle my nose into her belly. She has started teething, with occasional associated fussiness. Everything checked out fine at her four-month-old checkup this past Thursday. But I can't imagine people who aren't her parents (or perhaps her grandparents) really care about such things, or to the extent that they do, they wouldn't want daily blog entries devoted to such trivialities. And even if they do, I'm not sure I want to discuss such minutiae regularly -- I don't have much interest in babbling endlessly about my child doing things and reaching milestones that all children do and reach.

I can say that the weather's gotten better (in fact this weekend was fantastic), and that's meant we're getting outside a lot more. That makes me happier, and it gives us lots more to do. Ok, it gives me lots more to do, seeing as how most of the time she's still in her stroller.

The big thing that's going on in our lives is the making of a decision. Namely, what are we going to do with Emelia in seven weeks, when I go back to work. Kathy's considering staying at work full-time, going to part-time (or if that's not ok with her work, finding a part-time job), or being a full-time stay-at-home-Mom. Of course it's a big decision, and not an easy one. And if she ends up choosing to work part or full-time, we'll need some sort of child care, likely a nanny share (which is a very common arrangement where we are). The day care facilities in our area don't seem to have vacancies at the moment (we applied at the end of August), and they've indicated that it's likely to be August before they'd have an opening.

Pic Pain In The Patuchus

Although the picture in my last post showed up without difficulty last night, this morning it was no go. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I have to wonder if it's being blocked because the source for the photos is a "rival" site, yahoo. After all, all the links in my book reviews still show up fine, even though they're from bn.com. Regardless, I downloaded the photo from yahoo, and loaded it onto blogger, and as you can see, the photo's there now. FWIW, Kathy's trying to keep the photos of Emelia relatively current here, and if you can't remember that link, it's linked directly from the front page of her blog (which is listed here under "Blogs I Read").

Housekeeping

Been making a few changes to the blog over the past few days, adding tags, updating some of my lists, and installing a favicon (I'm not certain I'll keep this one, but I had to start somewhere). Could be a couple of other minor tweaks upcoming, but nothing major.

Switching to Haloscan

I got comment spammed last night in a big way (apparently it's possible for shitheads to automatically generate spam comments onto a blogpost, and I deleted about eight before I got really pissed off), so on a going-forward basis I'm switching to Haloscan for comments -- the link that will appear below any post will let you comment similarly to before. Hopefully that'll make the problem go away. If not, I'll try something else.

Call 1-800-aaron's-blog

I've been exchanging posts with a number of cool people, both on their sites and my own. But they don't provide their e-mail address, and given my desire to remain at least semi-anonymous, I've been reluctant to make my regular e-mail (which has my name on it) public. As of today, however, I've created an e-mail address just for people I've met through blogging to reach me. The address is argo0blog (at) gmail.com, and you can access it via my profile page.

Obsidian Wings

I just wanted to spend a moment to encourage folks to check out Obsidian Wings (it's on my Blogroll), a collective of political-thinking intelligent folk, ranging from liberal to traditional (not neo-) conservative. While I relate most to hilzoy's perspective, there's good stuff from all of them, often on significant subjects to which I'd otherwise give no thought.

Especially noteworthy of late:
hilzoy on CAFTA
Charles Bird on Mugabe and Zimbabwe
von on the proposed Patent Reform Act of 2005

The substance I've found on blogs like Obsidian Wings is truly remarkable when compared with what I can find in newspapers, let alone TV (I stopped watching TV news for anything but election results years ago) -- Michael Jackson is not the most significant news story of today, no matter the press his trial is receiving.

Maybe those people who argue that blogs are ushering in a revolution in terms of access to information and analysis know what they're talking about. I can only hope.

Meeting on a Tuesday Night

It started when I stumbled across another blog that I really liked. I added it to my list of other blogs, a.k.a. blogroll. A few days later, the author of that site posted on my itty-bitty new site, and damn was I flattered! I figured he could track who had linked/posted to his site, but that didn't mean he had to post to mine. I posted to his site, he posted to mine a couple more times. I e-mailed him, and he said he was coming to dc. I invited him out for a beer if he had time, he said he was getting together with other dc bloggers and I should join them. I said I'd be out of place as I'm not a real blogger, he responded by adding my site to his blogroll. So I went.

I arrived at 6:30, ready to meet complete strangers. I was looking for two women and one man, didn't see a group that looked like that, walked around the block figuring I was early (it was a beautiful evening to be outside). I came back, went to the bar, and discovered that the group of three men and two women to my left were Brandon and the other bloggers. So I was introduced to kat, supine, Jake, and kat's SO Seth. Jake was somewhat of an outsider too, as his blog is less of a journal than the others' blogs -- in a sense, they're part of a sub-group of blogging. We did drinks for a while, and based on my past experiences with meeting people from online, it was no surprise that all of them were quite nice. Jake had to leave after a while, but the rest of us eventually made our way over to a Mexican place where we stayed out pretty late for a school night.

Thoughts on the evening:

• It's somewhat different from meeting other beer geeks or boggle players. With beer or boggle, you talk about your common bond and your life outside the common bond. With blogging, the distinction between the two is blurred -- generally speaking, blogging already is all about your life.

• The weird thing was that, even as I was worried that I wasn't "worthy" to be in such august blogging company, the others felt like their own blogs were inadequate. Brandon writes so poignantly, and while he acknowledges that others like it, you realize that he doesn't truly believe it. Supine doesn't think much of her stuff, even though she recently was a finalist for best new journal.

• One difference between most of them and me is that I don't hide who I am in my blog. Kat and Supine are anonymous. Heck, Supine said her closest friends don't even know she writes her blog. Anonymity enables them to talk about anything, and because their blogs are well-written, it attracts a good audience. As I've posted earlier, my blog is for my friends and family, and if others enjoy it, great. The downside is that I can't be quite as open about certain matters, and so don't generate as wide an audience as I might otherwise (also my writing isn't as good, but we don't need to go there). Brandon asked if Kathy read my blog. I think I surprised him when I said that not only does my wife read it, so do my parents.
  

• So why do they blog? Kat said she blogs because she wants to get published, and she's in need of practice after law school beat out all her creativity (I can certainly understand that feeling). It was interesting to hear Brandon and supine talk about their need for recognition -- that they check how many hits their site gets, that when Brandon isn't getting many comments he goes back to earlier posts that garnered lots of hits, to see what he should change. They also said that the best way to get comments is to post on other people's sites -- they'll comment back on yours (apparently some people get mad if they post on yours and you don't post back). And it felt like this was particularly important because they want to maintain or, preferably, increase readership/comments. Still, they always want more, and I wonder, if they increased readership/comments twentyfold, would they be looking for ways to increase traffic to even higher levels within a month? I admit to having an interest in readership, but I don't think the blogging bug has hit me as much as it has them (which stands to reason, since they've been doing it much longer).
  

Overall, I learned a whole bunch about blogging, and was introduced to an entire culture that I have only just scratched the surface of. More importantly, I met several really cool people that I hope to get to know better in the future (assuming my pop-psych analysis here doesn't piss them off).

Taking Stock

So I figured it was time to take a look at what I'm doing with this blog:

1. Especially of late, I seem to be doing more "what I'm doing" type of posts than I had anticipated. I expected the vast majority of my posts to be along the lines of "what I'm thinking" instead. It might be a phase, or it might be because...

2. There are certain things I'm thinking about that I don't feel comfortable sharing. I didn't give it much thought when I started this blog, but by the manner in which I've posted, I've made it semi-anonymous -- I don't generally use my last name (I since removed the one time I did), but I do provide enough info that anyone determined to find out who I am could. One consequence is that I don't want to say something that could come back to bite me in the ass, be it about work or co-workers, friends or family. Another is that there are a few things on my mind that right now I only reveal to the people that I am closest to -- I might reveal them here if this blog were completely anonymous, but I gave up that ability when I decided to tell folks about the blog. I guess if I want to type those on a blog, I'll need to start another blog (or, since I wouldn't tell any of you, maybe I already have ;) ).

So going totally tangential for a minute, the stress I've been experiencing, the cause of which I'm not going to discuss here, has been causing me to clench my jaws. It got me thinking -- why do many people (including me) clench their jaws when they're stressed? Is it because our animal ancestors would bare their teeth at their most common source of stress, other animals? Or is it that people generally tense all their muscles under stress (fight or flight), and the jaw, along with certain other places (such as neck and shoulders), can't handle that tension as well as other muscles? I tried a google search, but I didn't see anything useful.

I now return to the made-for-blog special, Taking Stock, already in progress.

3. What happened to music? I've only posted twice about music, and I think that's because I've only been to one concert in the past couple of months, and haven't bought much lately. I need to write a review of one or more of the albums I did buy.

4. I'm enjoying writing a blog -- I didn't think I'd post as much as I do, but it's been good fun from my end of things.

5. Judging from the amount of feedback I've been getting, a number of people are enjoying my blog as well. Thanks to everyone who has commented, both on the blog and by e-mailing me privately -- it means a lot to me that you care enough to tell me what you think. It means even more to me that you care enough to lie by saying you like it.

Tom Tomorrow

Tom Tomorrow does a weekly political cartoon that I read faithfully. Gotta say that I was a bit surprised with his cartoon for this week. On bankruptcy. Title is Moral Bankruptcy (no biggie -- there are only so many ways to be clever with the subject). First panel refers to credit card companies "handing out credit cards like Halloween candy" (an apt simile that readily comes to mind). The cartoon points out many of the same flaws with the bill that I did (duh, of course he did), and acknowledges that some Dems joined with the Republicans (factually correct).

Of course I'm not so full of myself that I think he stumbled across my blog, took many of my ideas and used them (adding things like the Silent Movie villain). When there are thousands of people addressing the same subject, there are only so many different ways to express yourself -- there's bound to be significant overlap in a number of cases. I just find coincidences like this both fascinating and a bit disconcerting.

Needed -- Color in my Blog

At the moment, my blog is too many words and not enough pictures. Unfortunately, I haven't taken many photos recently, so here's one from last February, when our friend Todd visited us (all the way from Ottawa, eh?). The background is the ravine formed by the Potomac River, and Maryland beyond that -- this is at a "scenic spot" along the GW Parkway:


And here's one of the Smithsonian Castle that I took as I walked into work on a pleasant day last March:

Test Photos

Testing out the picture software/photo server that you can use with this site. These are a couple of photos from our recent trip to Costa Rica. The first is just another Costa Rican rainbow -- taken New Years Day, 2005, at Amapala; and the second is a coati, taken near Lake Arenal thanks to our driver -- he knew where to look for them and how to lure one (snack food). You can click on the photos to see bigger versions.

My Blog's Appearance

One thing I'm sure the three two regular readers out there have no doubt noticed is that I keep tweaking the appearance of this site. It's because I started with a template that blogger provided -- if you click on the "next blog" link in the top right corner of the page, and scroll through some other blogs, you'll see that a large number of blogs look very similar. The template I selected wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite right either.

So now I'm messing with the code despite knowing nothing about coding a webpage (in the past I've used Netscape Composer or some such program). I'm enjoying the trial-and-error component, though I wish I was doing a bit more learning beyond simple substitution & insertions of color codes & gifs. Still, it'll come, and maybe one day folks will visit my blog just to see what's different about how it looks (hmm, I wonder if I can archive past site appearance in addition to past posts?).