New Pictures of My Little Man

Ah, there is nothing like fatherhood. I greatly underestimated the amount of sleep I would get but then again, isn't that how it always is. You know what gets you up front? The fact that they eat and sleep the first few weeks. Our son is amazing - not just because he's, well- our son - but he's really good. Not fussy as most babies can be.

He has his moments - and it's so hard. Nothing prepared me for the heart squeazing an hour or two of heavy, tired, cranky, upset wailing would do. I have gotten so incredibly angry and frustrated. Both at my son for not being able to figure out what's wrong and what I can do to help, but also for having such horrible, horrible feelings & thoughts in the first place.

But I love him - gods, do I love him. Every time I hear his adorable laugh or see his lips widen into the biggest grin, or have him rub his eyes against my shoulder in that....I'm tired but I can't quite get to sleep.... movement. He's my son.

Here are the latest pictures from the last month or so. We've obviously taken many more, but these are some of our favorite. Enjoy.

Home Again, Baby's Den

Well, I have my first day off in a long time today - and it's to spend the day watching Will. Alone. I've been pretty nervous especially since our son had a meltdown last night from 7:45pm to 11pm. It was gut-wrenching for me and since I've always been an overemotional person, it really affected me.

I don't know how single parents do it. I don't know how a pair of parents do it with a colicy child. Heck, my mother-in-law is helping with Will 3 days a week and most weekends and only then does it feel "normal".

Anyway, something clicked at 11pm last night...he passed some gas and then got completely serene. Like he had just woken up from a nap and all was well. While he has been up every two hours the past week....he slept for 3hrs and then 4hrs and.....he's still asleep now, which has been 3 more hours.

I have it easy today....so I really can't call it my first day alone. In about 15min, I will get him up, change him, start a breast milk bottle while I feed him some formula & then we will burp and get ready to go to the office for a "goodbye/hello" lunch for old and new people. After that, we will hang around for some cake & ice cream for the same people around 3-4 then home again.

Nonetheless, wish me luck!

Virtual Reality Reality

I was talking a time-out between upgrading The Leaky Cauldron to its new server and editing the tileset document for my latest CODI project to read this fascinating account of one person's decent to fraud in the world of a Massive-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. This is just one of hundreds of MMORPG's out there and we've already heard how the economy of EverQuest, a game Kirky & I used to play to the point of addiction, is larger than some countries. Even The Sims Online has its own mob. The line between reality and virtual reality is coming closer and closer.

Planes, Manes & Monodrones

Well, since the DNC has been over....you'll notice a complete lack of postings of late. Work has been ramping up to our early September publication date & I've been spending a bit more time with Will and my household responsibilities. What free time I have left is spent in the realm of Planescape.

What is that you might ask? Well, Planescape is a setting from Dungeons & Dragons - the pride of nerds & geeks everywhere. But instead of the usual Swords & Sorcery, you get Angels & Demons and a little in between - something that very much appeals to my fascination with spirituality.

Continue reading "Planes, Manes & Monodrones"

I know people hate pigeons but torture?

Why am I not surprised? They're often referred to as rats of the city skies. They huddle in great numbers in city parks where they get fat off various foodstuffs littering the area, they poo everywhere - especially on buildings where they perch and sometimes they waddle so slow, they can't get out of your way until the last minute.

That's no reason to torture them...

I received an email from my friend Brian Martin aka Jericho from Attrition.org about his trip to BlackHat/Def Con which I missed for the first time in 5 years. He pointed me to a section of his site where he has images of a rather sickly pigeon loosing its feathers. He explains the story in this note to the hotel in which he stayed.

From: security curmudgeon
To: Keylargocasino@lvcm.com, sales@keylargocasino.com
Cc: NevadaSPCA@aol.com
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 20:05:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Report of animal abuse

My girlfriend and I just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, NV. While there, we stayed at the Quality Inn Key Largo Hotel/Casino. Shortly after arriving, we noticed several pigeons that were rather mangled and had many missing or damaged feathers. The worst of the group was limping and clearly could not fly at all due to the damage to his wings and feathers. We found out a couple days later from a staff member of the hotel that the damage was done due to hotel cook staff throwing hot cooking grease on the birds "because they hated them".

The staff member told us that several birds had died during the incident, and several others were hurt badly. During the day, the wounded pigeons can be found in trees near the swimming pool where they have found a source of water. At night, the most injured of the batch stays in a tree on the east side of the building (the middle of the three trees along the hotel). He can not fly into the tree, but he is able to walk up to a branch where he sleeps.

While I understand that many people do not like pigeons and consider them a nuisance, throwing hot cooking grease on them is inexcusable. The staff member we spoke with said the employees responsible for the abuse were "yelled at" and nothing more. If this is how Key Largo responds to animal cruelty, rest assured we will not stay there again.

Brian Martin
Denver, CO

ps: Nevada SPCA, I can provide pictures of the wounded pigeon if necessary.

Here are those pictures - I'm sure they will make you just as furious & disgusted as I am. Fellow bloggers, do your duty and spread the word. You can find detailed contact information at the Casino's Web site including email addresses, snail mail, phone numbers and fax numbers.

You can also find contact information for the Nevada ASPCA at the bottom of their home page however they recommend a complaint be made to Clark County Animal Control which also has emails at the bottom of their page. Finally, there's always the papers, (Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas Review-Journal) or the television news, (KLAS, KOLO, KVBC, or KVVU).

Get Your Classical Rock On

So I'm having kind of a blah day - hurry up and wait. Then when I want to spend time with Will, it's rush, rush rush. But everything else just DRAGGED on. Plus "The Leaky Cauldron" is having database problems right as we get our first huge Goblet of Fire casting exclusive and Melissa is at work dealing with the verdict of the Staten Island Ferry Incident. Mercury must be in retrograde. *checks* OK, maybe not but it goes into retrograde starting August 10th to September 2nd. Look out people - I know I'll have everything backed up on an hourly basis and make sure I listen to my wife...very....very...carefully.

Anyway, was looking for some uplifting music to well, uplift me. Is it weird that Mozart's Requiem is uplifting? Specifically "Lacrymosa" which translates to "Lamantation". Well, no Requiem on my machine. So I go searching for O Fortuna from Carmina Burana. Eh - every movie trailer feels they must use that. Firebird Suite? Takes too long to get to the good part. I listen halfheartedly but what do I settle on? Yes.

No....I mean, not "Yes" the afirmative. Yes the band. Specifically their 90215 album and the rockin' song "Leave It!" I love the harmony and majesticness of it. Then off to Kansas and "Carry On Wayward Son". Gotta love music cravings. Almost as bad as the stereotypical pregnancy munchie cravings.

Back on the Wagon, Again

Well, this morning I've started back on track to "improve my way of eating". I say "Way of Eating" because it's not any particular diet per se. It's modified South Beach Diet (SBD) if you want to label it but basically it's just good food sense - low fat, low carb, no hydrogenated oils, lots of water & omega 3s.

I gave up on SBD the day Will was born because a combination of things - 1) I was in the mood to celebrate and reward myself, 2) I didn't want to have to think about eating or cooking, 3) It was just easier. Well, it was easier until the cravings came back. About a month ago I started to have an ice cream sunday every Friday & the week Kirky was gone in California I was a horrible, horrible sugar/snack binging fiend.

I haven't weighed myself recently but I probably gained about 15lbs back which would put me at about 280lbs total. I think my lowest was 264lbs. Anyway, its not just about the weight. As much as I love all the junk it seriously effects my blood sugar and puts me into these draining "food comas" after meals. I daresay it even contributes to my lethargy & poor moods.

Luckily, I'm starting back up pretty quickly so the weight gained doesn't have time to, er, get stored & solidify. However exercise will be interesting - since I haven't done my walks since May, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to cope with the heat.