Tag family

My day at the3six5

Late last fall, when Daniel Honigman and Len Kendall were running around online talking about the3six5, a sort of social media experiment where a different person would write a post each day of the year 2010, I was interested.

I claimed a day, choosing August 9, with the aim of taking a shot at the increasingly goofy excitement surrounding any and every date that happens to put a few consecutive numbers in a row.

As it turned out, our second kid turned two months old on the day, and as it turned out, we took him to the pediatrician on a routine visit.

If you’ve ever had a kid, you know that things like weight and length and head circumference become a really important set of measurements in your life for the first few months. Way more important than, say, an arbitrary date that happens to put a few consecutive numbers in a row.

So I had plenty of fodder for a short post (less than 365 words) about numbers.

It’s a quick read. You’ll like it better if you have kids, or if you know me.

Here’s a sample:

“Is this the right scale? We used a different scale last time. I’m sure we were in Room Three last time. This isn’t the right scale. Can we go to Room Three? We want to use the same scale.”

Enjoy.

As if posting weren’t already light enough…

SENTINEL VIDEO: Halloween – Downtown Santa Cruz – Sentinel Multimedia

Friends and family: See if you can spot the family member in this video… No idea who was shooting it – I saw a Sentinel photog, but didn’t see the GL2 if he was carrying it.

SENTINEL VIDEO: Halloween – Downtown Santa Cruz – Sentinel Multimedia

Halloween debriefing, baby-friendly in 2007

Checking out the scenery

Downtown Santa Cruz yesterday in daylight hours, among throngs of candy-seeking children and stroller-pushing parents (notably, myself, the wife, and our neighbors).

I’m the one in the funny hat.

Last year, this costume was quite a bit less baby-friendly.

Notes on migrating three quarters of a mile

So we moved. And by “moved,” I mean we loaded our stuff into a truck and drove less than a mile to an apartment with more space, less drunk people throwing up next to our bedroom window (so far), and far more sanity all around us.

The state of our new living room as of a night or two ago:

A portion of our possessions

Yes, we did this with a seven-week-old in our arms the whole time, for those of you taking notes.

Many thanks to all the friends who lent a hand or a back over the weekend.

And thanks to my bosses who resisted the urge to insist that I work today. (We sent an intern to the illegal fireworks at the beach with a video camera – I’m banking on greatness.) I can hear all the action from our dining room table, now that we live on a block that’s actually above sea level.

One of the fun parts about all this packing and piling has been reading Grapes of Wrath in the middle of it all. The Joads just got to California, and they’re hanging out by the river near Needles waiting for the sun to go down so they can cross the desert.

Our short trip wasn’t quite so dramatic, but it was worth it.

Happy Independence Day.

Well that was an interesting week

It has been a long time since I’ve been this happy to see a Friday night.  It’s the end of my first full week back at work since the birth of our daughter.  It’s the end of a week that started with a blog post that was intended to get approximately the amount of attention it got.  It’s the end of a dramatic week in terms of staffing changes at work.  We (my family, not my employer) also seem to be squeezing the act of changing addresses into the month of June, although it’s all just paperwork and phone calls at this stage. (If you live in Santa Cruz and have a stash of good cardboard boxes around, drop me a line.)  Somewhere in there factor in an oncoming series of family visits and a long list of tasks and a large stack of paperwork or two.  I usually call this a rains/pours situation, and I stopped being surprised by it long ago.  Being surprised isn’t in my job description — any of them — but keeping my sense of wonder intact definitely stays high on the list.  Luckily, I have a 6.5 pound source of wonder in my lap as I type this.

Italy Picks Oscar Hopeful – SF Chronicle

Note to self: Write the screenplay for Grandma’s second book, but get the movie made in Russia, in all the applicable languages. Win Oscar.

Italy Picks Oscar Hopeful – SF Chronicle

Sailing

I am the sea!

San Francisco Bay, aboard Voyager.

I still feel like I’m on the boat.

In other news, you should really go see that Pirate movie that’s in theatres now. It was awesome. I hear Part 3 is going to be…. Rated Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

And we’re back

It’s going to take another night of sleep before I can make much sense, but we got back from Italy late Saturday night. I’m working on uploading the rough edit of pictures right now. Video will come later. Exhaustion is the word that keeps coming to mind.

45-ITALY2006-134

My wife, her grandmother, mother, and brother. Napoli.

A few highlights: Quiet swim in the sea at Falerna Marina, several walks in and around St. Peter’s in Rome, the chaotic drive through the Spanish Quarter in Napoli, spending time with Zia Rosaria in Sicily, watching the US battle Italy to a 1-1 draw over beer and pizza in Pietrelcina, never needing a jacket, visiting the farm in Raddusa (more on that later).

I’m not going to pretend that I have time to catch up on what’s gone on in the newspaper/tech/media world the last few weeks. Apparently, some companies were bought and sold, and some conferences were held. People made speeches, redesigned sites, and started new jobs.

Speaking of which, my internship starts Wednesday. I’m still not sure how much I’ll write about that here, if any. I’ll probably just link to the stories I write, and then make a big fuss when I hit the front page.

;)

One last Flickr drop before we leave

The new camera is great. I just uploaded a few more shots to Flickr from this past weekend in L.A. with my Dad. The foggy trail is in Claremont Hills Wilderness Park – a pleasant little five-miler on fire road sort of stuff, with lots of joggers, dogs, etc. to keep us company. The picnic by the creek was somewhere just uphill of Mt. Baldy Village, if I was reading the signs correctly.

shadows and fog