Here are a couple of Blackbird updates for you all. First, our new loft is open. Nicole used to have the office and stock room up there, but she's moved all of that to a new space across the street. The loft is now retail space, and it looks really nice.

Second, Blackbird got a mention on the influential fashion blog We Are The Market. They have some awesome stuff to say about Blackbird: they call it "Seattle's coolest store" and say "Blackbird is one of the most directional retailers in the market today" (which I think means that it's very influential, or that it has a good sense of magnetic north).

Congratulations to my lovely wife Nicole on the great props. She has worked really hard to make the store what it is, and it's great when cool people get it. Nice work, love!


Blackbird on We Are The Market

Blackbird Blog

  Here's a little thing I've been playing with:

Fishsuit Tumblelog

Let me know what you think...

  Sofia and I are watching her first baseball game on TV (Rangers 2, Mariners 0, bottom 4). We're both wearing our baseball hats (Me: replica 1940s Milwaukee Brewers, her: $2 generic Fred Meyer, backwards, at a rakish angle). She doesn't seem to get the part about hitting, but she loooooves the pitching. Whenever the catcher catches the ball, she claps her hands and cheers. "Yay!"

  It was raining really hard when I picked Sofia up from day care on Monday. We talked about the rain, and how it was falling on us, and how it was getting my head wet because I didn't have a hat.

It was raining again the next day when I picked her up.

"Look Sofia, it's raining," I said.

She gave me a concerned look, and in her loudest voice she replied, "OH NO! DADDY'S HEAD!"

  <I point at a picture of a monkey in a book.>

"What kind of animal is that?"
"Say!" (i.e., "Answer your own question!")
"Look at what he's eating. He's eating a banana. Who likes to eat bananas?"
"Sofia!"

  I.

Sofia is obsessed with the newborn baby across the street. His name is Cole. She calls him "Baby Coley", except that her "C"s sound like "T"s, so it comes out "Baby Toley". (Now we've started calling him Baby Toley.) Every day when we see their house, we talk about Baby Coley. The other day we had this conversation:

"Baby Toley!"
"Yes, that's Baby Cole's house. What do you think Baby Cole is doing right now?"
"Eating soup!"

Frankly, I was happy for her to keep saying that forever, because it was so cute, but I felt like I needed to help her learn a litle about babies. We talked about how little babies don't usually eat soup and how they usually drink milk from bottle. Then we dropped the subject. The next day, we had this exchange:

"Baby Toley!"
"Yes, that's Baby Cole's house. What do you think Baby Cole is doing right now?"
"Eating milk!"

It's an improvement...


II.

Sofia and I had our first honest-to-God conversation the other day. She had a scratch on her face when I picked her up from day care on Tuesday. They usually fill out a little form when a kid gets hurt, but no one gave me one.

"How did you get that cut on your face?" I asked, not expecting a reply.
"John-John do dat. Book," she replied.
"OK..."

The next day when I dropped her off, the teacher gave me the injury form. Here is the exact report. (Please note that the teacher does not speak English as her first language.)

"When she read book and her friend tried to take away, then the book scratched her face."

I asked the teacher, "Was it John-John?" and I told her what Sofia said. She started laughing - yep, it was John-John.

So Sofia was exactly right! She becomes more of a fully-featured person every day.



III.

Another of Sofia's favorite songs is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" (pronounced "IhBiSiDa", which sounds a lot like "Opposite Day" if you don't know what she is saying. That one took a while to decipher.)

We sang it on the way home yesterday in response to several bleating requests. ("IhBiSiDa! IH BI SI DA!" "What do you say when you want something?" "PEEEEEEASE!") After three rounds I was a little hoarse, so I stopped singing. Then Sofia started singing softly to herself:

"IhBiSiDa...down came RAIN wash sipida OUT...ah come SUN dry dry RAIN...IhBiSiDa...spout GAIN!"

It was just about the cutest thing ever. She didn't even seem to know that I was listening until I started laughing and congratulating her. Then she did it a couple more times, which seemed almost entirely for my benefit.

She has started to sing along with me when we sing "Old MacDonald", too. ("Ah MahDanald hm hm FARM! E-I-E-I...E-I-O!") I don't know why, but that really gets me, even moreso than when we have good conversations. It makes her seem so grown up for some reason.

  Sofia did not win an Oscar, but she had a couple of equally important milestones this weekend. First, she said her own name. She has been saying "Me!" for almost a year, and in the last few months she's moved up to "Fia!" and then "Tofia!", and finally this morning she said "Sofia!" Nicole and I made such a big deal about it that she knew she was onto something. Later in the car she was just sitting there trying it out like a new toy: "Sofia...Sofia!...Sofia..." She can also say "Dierdorf" if you ask her. "Sofia...Deedorf!" It's pretty great.

Second, we played our first game of catch yesterday. She's been talking about football ever since the Super Bowl. When we drive past the football stadium on our way home every day she says "Football player!" So I bought her a little Nerf football at the store and taught her how to play catch.

To call it "Catch" is perhaps being somewhat generous. A more apt name might be "Toss 'n Cringe". When I throw the ball she puts her arms straight down at her sides and steels herself as she waits for the ball to hit her in the stomach, at which point she laughs like a maniac, picks up the ball, and then walks over and hands it to me.

After a few rounds I was able to get her to throw it back to me, however, and I have to say that I was extremely impressed. She brought the ball back, stepped into the throw, and followed through, just like you're supposed to. I'd like to credit my incredible coaching, but she pretty much did it on her own. She hit me right in the numbers with a couple of throws.

It sounds silly, but I was pretty proud of her, partially because it's fun to see my little girl growing up, but mostly because this early athletic promise gives me license to become one of those maniac sports parents you always read about in the newspaper. It starts tomorrow when we head to Miami for Dan Marino's Pre-Preschool Quarterback Camp for Girls. We're making the Pre-Preschool All-America team if it kills her. I mean, us.

  I had just about given up on the whole idea of justice...and then they said "Martin Scorsese". Thank you, The Academy, for finally getting it right.

  Although "Wheels on the Bus" is pretty popular in our house, I think it's safe to say that "Old MacDonald" is Sofia's favorite song. She's been saying "E-I-E-I-O" for months, and she can now ask for the song by name. ("Ah DaDonald!") Our game these days is that I sing the song and she chooses the animals. So I sing,

"Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on this farm he had a..."

...and she fills in the dramatic pause with her animal of choice. Then I sing the rest of the verse, including the animal noises, and we start all over again.

Here, then, are Sofia's Old MacDonald "animal" choices from yesterday's drive to work, in the order in which she chose them. (Yes, I wrote them down while I was driving.)

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on this farm he had a...

Cat
Car
Baby
Helicopter
Daddy
Goat
Mommy
Duck
Tree
Grandma
House
Phone

Did you ever try to come up with a tree noise off the top of your head? It's not easy.

In her defense, most of these things could be reasonably expected to show up on a farm. What farmer doesn't have his own helicopter these days?

  Congratulations to the Colts! They played a great second half. Their offense wasn't overpowering, but they played tough, consistent football behind some great running by Dominic Rhodes. The offensive line did a great job of protecting Payton and opening up lanes for Rhodes and Joseph Addai.

However, the game changer was obviously their defense. The secondary made two great plays on the interceptions, but their entire defense played well, especially against the run. Payton Manning was named MVP - I can't really argue with that choice - but I kind of feel like it's an honorary award for everything he's done during the season. I think the real MVP of this game was the defense. I never thought I'd be crediting a Colts defense for winning the Super Bowl, but there you have it.

We even got a good commercial! The Emerald Nuts commercial with Robert Goulet was actually worth watching.

The Super Bowl pressure is finally off for the Colts. They've arguably been the best team in the NFL over the last few seasons (regular seasons, that is), but they've never been able to put it together down the stretch. I'm glad they finally won it all. Go Colts!

  Colts win!

  Wow. That may be the weirdest half of football I've ever seen. A kickoff return for a touchdown, an interception, three fumbles, and a missed extra point...and that was just the first quarter. I was glad to see the Colts settle down a little in the 2nd quarter, but then things got weird again: the Colts and Bears trade fumbles, and then Vinaiteri misses a gimme field goal. I think that's only the third field goal he's missed all season.

I think the Bears have outplayed the Colts thus far, so I have to feel good about being up by two points. The Colts need to play better in the second half if they want to win, though. Let's keep the pressure on Rex Grossman, shall we? He looks vulnerable.

As for the commercials, so far I'd rate them "meh". Nicole really liked the Toho-style Garmin ad, and Sofia has enjoyed dancing to the musical ads. I've been amused by American car commercials. Ford's "Bold Move" is a giant pickup with an even bigger engine? Sounds like the same move as before, only louder. Chevy's ads haven't been bad, but they aren't making the cars any better. Subaru's ad was lame, but I'd much rather be driving an Outback.

Prince is taking the stage now. His unpronounceable symbol is illuminated in flames on the field. I'm not sure this is what I would have predicted for the guy who complained so much about being forced to sell out to his record label. I kind of like his suit, though. Whoa, check out that unpronounceable symbol-shaped guitar.

On to the second half...

  Good luck to the Indianapolis Colts, who kick off against the Chicago Bears in about 15 minutes. I reeeeeally hope they win.

  "Good morning! Did you have any dreams last night?"
"Yes."
"What did you dream about?"
"Boys."
"Boys?"
"Yeah."

  (I'll give you a real post, too. I don't want to leave you with that sour Blogger taste in your mouth.)

Sofia has been talking up a storm lately. She will lay in her bed after lights our and just babble to herself for an hour. Her favorite subjects are: 1) the cat bus from My Neighbor Totoro, 2) the alphabet, 3) the last thing you said. Witness this exchange we had during dinner tonight:

"How is your pasta?"
"Pasta. Pasta. Yep! ...B, C, D...B, C, D...cat bus. Cat bus. Yes! B, C, D...O, B, C, D...O...B, C, D..."
"It's A, B, C, D. Can you say A?"
"A...A, B, C, D...F...F, E, C, D!"
"Do you want some more orange?"
"Oange. More oange."
"There you go. There's some orange."
"Oange! Oange. Pasta! Pasta! Yay! Hooray!"

She tries my patience on a semi-daily basis, but man, is she a lot of fun.

  Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of posting lately. Nicole has been out of town for the past week, and I've been out of my mind trying to get my work done and take care of the child. (Single parents, I don't know how you do it.)

I wanted to let you know that the blog archives on Fishsuit are going to be broken for an indeterminate amount of time. The old archives will still work, but new posts won't be archived.

<rant>
Blogger decided that a great feature of their new version would be to break the archiving that has been around for the past six years. I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to fixing the problem - in all honesty, it will likely be a few months. When I do, I will probably be getting rid of Blogger altogether. I don't particularly want to, but if I am going to have to completely redo my templates, then I might as well do it right and switch to a real publishing platform that gives me better features. (Blogger, how is it that you are now part of Google and you still don't have decent search?) Blogger's complete lack of customer support is also kind of a pain in the butt. Sorry, Blogger - I stuck with you for a long time, but you finally lost me.
</rant>

Sorry for the whining. I apologize for the inconvenience. I will try to get things fixed as soon as I possibly can. Until I do, I will be lengthening the main page so that posts won't get lost. Thanks for your patience. And if anyone has any advice on good WordPress hosts, please let me know.

  We give Sofia a brand of kid's yogurt called Yobaby. Apparently she has been listening to us talk about it:

"Would you like some yogurt for breakfast?"
"Oh baby! Oh baby!"

  As I've mentioned here previously, Stockstock has returned (finally). We've made a big change to the festival this year: it's entirely online. You download the footage online (instead of getting a videotape in the mail), you post your film online (instead of sending us a tape), and we present the films online (instead of doing a live show). Oh, and there are no entry fees this year. (People can donate online, but it's not required.) It's a bit of an experiment, and we're not entirely sure how it's going to turn out. We think this will help us reach more people, though, and we think it's a little better suited to the current state of the Internet. We're excited about it.

I shouldn't say that the festival is *entirely* online, however. Since we don't have our normal sources of revenue, we are planning to have a party/event thing as a fundraiser. We're still working out the details - I'll have more on that later.

If any of you out there would like to take part in Stockstock, we would love to have you. Just go to our web site: www.stockstock.org to get started. If you have any questions or need some technical help, I would be glad to assist. Oh, and if you would like to help us spread the word about the festival, it would be a huge help. You could mention us in your blog, or print out one of these cool Stockstock posters and hang it in your place of business, your local coffee shop, or anywhere else you think it might be seen. Thanks!

  For Christmas we went to visit my mom in Indiana for 10 days. I think we all had a very good time. Sofia loved all of the attention. At any given moment there were several family members that she could order around and play with. (She's turning in to quite the bossy little girl. "Sit! Book!" That will stop soon, right?)

I think that her Nana also enjoyed the 24/7 Sofia exposure. Nicole and I even left Sofia there for a few days while we went up to Chicago for a mini vacation. By all accounts, Sofia was an angel the entire time. Can we get a little bit of that behavior at home?

Our trip to Chicago was fun. I went to school there (Northwestern University - go Cats!), but I haven't been back in probably seven years. It's quite a nice city. We did some shopping, went to the King Tut exhibit at the Field museum, went to a movie, and enjoyed setting our own schedules for meals and bedtime. Nic and I have both recently developed an interest in the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, so on the way out of town Nicole and I visited a couple of the last remaining sites from the original fair. (See the Chicago photo gallery for a few shots: the Wooded Island at Jackson Park, Museum of Science and Industry, and a reproduction of the statue "Republic": close-up, silhouette.)

Christmas morning was pretty fun. Sofia still didn't quite understand what was going on. She knows who Santa is, but she didn't quite understand the whole present angle. However, she did understand that there were lots of presents that were mostly for her. Once she woke up and had her milk, she was very excited. I think next year we're in for a very fun Christmas.

Speaking of presents, man did Sofia get a lot. They came in about six different waves over a period of about two weeks. We had to go through her old toys and cull the herd just to make room for the new ones. Next year I think she is going to be asking for savings bonds.

Sofia also took her first picture on Christmas Day, making me a very proud papa. She was fussing around a little, so to distract her I showed her how to use my SLR. She didn't quite have the hang of aiming the camera, but she did push the button. Here is her work: Picture 1 and Picture 2. December 25, 2006 - a date to remember.

I hope your holidays were happy and safe. Thanks for reading Fishsuit in 2006 - it means a lot to me to know you guys are out there. I look forward to keeping you semi-entertained throughout 2007.

  I hope you Seattle folks survived the snow OK. I swear, this city has some serious mental problems when it comes to weather. I went into a meeeting at 3 PM on Wednesday and everything was fine. When I came out at 4:30, it was like Thunderdome. I tried to leave work at 4:45, and the line to get out of the parking garage was at least 20 minutes. It was taking people 3-4 hours to drive the 10 miles across the bridge. I ended up just parking the car and walking to day care to get Sofia.

If you didn't know any better, you'd have thought we were under nuclear attack. They kept the cafeteria open, and those of us stuck at work huddled there around the warmth of our hamburgers. People were giving up on the commute altogether and getting hotel rooms for the night.

Sofia and I finally got on the road at about 8 PM, and it really wasn't too bad. It was slushy, but there really wasn't any ice. It only took us about 15 minutes longer than usual. I did see the source of the traffic problem, however. Excuse me while I make this formal statement:

Note to Seattle drivers - don't tailgate when it's snowing. I understand that you have a nice, big Jeep with four wheel drive, but four wheel drive doesn't help you stop if there's a wreck in front of you. You are the reason things get screwed to hell when it snows. Look, I have four wheel drive, too, and I like to drive fast just like you do. But it's a fact that machismo is no match for friction. You're never going to win that battle. Real drivers value car control much more than the ability to drive fast in a straight line and then wreck. In conclusion: please read a physics book.

Thanks - it feels good to get that off my chest.

Sofia's day care was closed on Thursday, because Sofia's day care loves to be closed. If there is one flake in the air, those people stay home. It was thus that Sofia added a new phrase to her lexicon.

"Today's a snow day," Nicole said.
"Snow day!" said Sofia. "Snow day. Snow day. Snow day."

Then she repeated that for four hours.

We took her out in the snow, but she wasn't really too enthused. I think it was mainly an exercise for us to put her in her new snow suit that Oma and Grandpa sent. She was suitably fascinated with the snowy yard, but she didn't really like it when the snow got on her boots. She seems to have a problem with getting dirty. We're going to have to work on that.


Here's a movie:

Snow Day

Here are some pictures:

Snow Day 2007

  Apparently I am only given money so that I can hold it in escrow until Apple needs it:

Apple iPhone



I realize that this is on the other end of the spectrum from the Motofone F3 I was ogling back in September. However, it appears that Apple may have gotten the smart phone right. Everyone will be talking about the fact that it's got a built-in iPod, but I like the primacy of the phone features. No matter which of the 27 fancy features you are using, you are only two button presses away from the phone. And their take on voice mail actually makes it easier to use rather than the other way around. The fact that Steve Jobs referred to making phone calls as the "killer app" gives me some hope that their priorities are in the right place.

The proof is in the pudding, of course. It's expensive, even for a smart phone, and we'll have to see how well it really works. Unfortunately the pudding doesn't arrive until June, so I guess we'll have to wait. Until then, I'll be drooling over their beautiful industrial design.

  As promised, here are the pictures from our trip. I broke it up into two galleries: one of general holiday pictures, and another of the road trip Nicole and I took to Chicago. I'll talk more about our trip later. For now, I must go to bed.

Christmas 2006

Chicago

  Last month Blackbird was featured on We Are The Market, the blog for the fashion consultancy Brand Pimps. The post is really great: these folks really get Blackbird. Kudos to my lovely wife for her continued rockingness.

Blackbird on We Are The Market

  Hello everyone! We are back from our trip and have more or less returned to our regular routine.

I hope that you had a great holiday and did not suffer unduly because of the weather. We had a couple of hiccups on our travels, but I cannot complain after seeing what happened to Denver. We flew back to Indianapolis for Christmas, a trip for which there are almost no nonstop flights. You are therefore presented with a choice: connect in Denver, or connect in Chicago. Either one is apt to have weather problems, so it's a roll of the dice. I typically prefer to fly through Denver, but I am very glad that I picked Chicago this time.

I'll have more details of our holiday in a bit, along with some pictures from our trip. Right now I am busy going through the 650 (!) photos that we took.

I hope your 2007 is going well so far!

  Christmas is all about traditions, and this appears to be a new one in our family:



(Here is last year's version.)

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you're having a great one. If not, I hope you're having a nice Sunday evening.

  If you are looking for a charity to give to this holiday season, I highly recommend Child's Play. It's run by the guys (from Seattle, notably) who do the web comic Penny Arcade. One day they just decided that they wanted to do something to help sick children. Three years later they've raised nearly $2 million in toys, books, games, and cash for hospitals around the world.

I'm not going to give you more of a sales pitch than that, except to point out two great things:

1) Unlike some charities, Child's Play takes no administrative fee whatsoever. 100% of everything you donate goes directly to the hospitals.

2) You can give locally or globally. There are 37 hospitals around the world that take part, so there is probably a hospital near you that you can give to. This year Nicole and I decided to give to Tulane Hospital for Children in New Orleans, for reasons that I'm sure are obvious.

If you are able to give this year, I think Child's Play is a great way to do it.

  This morning we were reading Hop on Pop, one of Sofia's favorite books. ("Hop pop! Hop pop!")

Me: ALL TALL - They all are tall. ALL SMALL - They all are small.
Sofia: <sniffs the page>
Me: What are you...oh. It's small, not smell.

  Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I've been working on this project at work which has required a startling number of all-day meetings. I have to admit that it was a little surprising how much that messed up my schedule. I didn't realize how much random stuff I get done during a typical work day: emailing so-and-so, checking this, calling this other person. With my work day completely taken over by these meetings, all of that stuff got pushed into after work hours, which are few and far between these days.

You might have heard that Seattle got hit with a windstorm last night. We didn't have much damage at our house - the worst of it is the layer of sap on our deck from all of the downed branches. We've been very lucky that our power has been on the whole time. Huge parts of the city are still without power, including my office and Sofia's day care, which were both closed today. (With global warming and computer use on the rise, I predict that by 2010 "power days" will vastly outnumber snow days.)

The most amazing part of the whole storm for me was the rain last night. I don't think I've seen rain like that in the 10 years I've been in Seattle. It was coming down in sheets, and it just didn't let up. After only 20 minutes or so it was running in rivers down the streets.

There was also a Seahawks game last night, AND one of the bridges was closed because of the wind, which led to prodigious traffic. Sofia's day care is across the street and around the corner from my office - 4 minutes by car or on foot. Last night it took me 15 minutes.

I hope the rest of you Seattle residents are doing OK. If you're reading this, I'm assume that you either have power or a diesel-powered laptop.

  Today is my lovely wife Nicole's [REDACTED]th birthday! Happy Birthday, love!

  Blackbird marked its two year anniversary in November. Can you believe that we've had a store for over two years? I can't believe it, to the extent that I suspect it's not actually true. If anyone has any proof that our planet has not traveled through a wormhole, I'd like to see it.

We had a slightly-belated roller skating party in Lynnwood to celebrate. Sofia even got to try her hand (foot?) at roller skating. It was pretty funny. It was sort of like watching someone wake up to discover that they're on an ice planet. Everything she thought she knew about walking was suddenly invalidated. After a few minutes you could tell that she was starting to figure it out. She's a smart kid.

After taking her skates off, I had the interesting job of chasing her around the roller rink while still in my skates. If you think that corralling a toddler is hard in shoes, you should try wearing wheels. She loved breaking free of my grip and bolting for the concession stand, where she apparently thought that she worked.

Here are a couple of photos of the occiasion. (Click the photos to enlarge.)

  "Tree!"
"Yes, that's a big tree, isn't it? How old do you think that tree is?"
"Two!"

  We had some serious snow overnight. It was so wet that the flakes were sticking together in midair - it looked like it was raining snowballs. I made a video of it, but it doesn't quite capture how cool it was.

Snow Shower

  Citysearch is running their "Best of Citysearch 2006" voting, and Blackbird has been nominated in a number of categories. If you are so inclined, we would love to have your votes! Click the categories below to see the competitors and vote. Thanks!

Best Men's Clothing

Best Shoes

Best Jeans

Best Accessories

Best Jewelry

  No time to read a long blog entry? Fishsuit MiniBitez are the perfect treat for your workaday lifestyle! Pack a few in your purse or backpack, and off you go!

Design Goals
"Our goal was to come up with a machine that moms would want — easy to use, quick to start up, not a huge energy drain, and quiet while it was running."
- Nintendo game guru Shigeru Miyamoto, on the Nintendo Wii

The Big Ideas Behind Nintendo's Wii

That sounds like something a lot of people should want, whether they're a mom or not. It's nice to see a computer product whose goals are ideas and not technical specs. This is more evidence that Nintento is on the right track.



Why Do We Need Design, Anyway?
"I frequently argue that it is the job of the software designer to make choices on behalf of the user. That's what designing is all about."
- Arno Gourdol

The Design of the Mac OS X Shutdown Feature

The designer should be a filter, not a funnel. I think this is a good insight. (In fact, a similar point was made to me by Nicole when we got engaged. I suggested that we design our own wedding rings; her response was, roughly, "We'll probably get better rings if they are designed by someone who actually knows what they are doing." She wasn't as nice about it, though.)



MiniBites Fotoz
Click for a larger view.


Here's what I saw when I got to my car this morning. What is this, North Dakota?

All bundled up and looking like a fashion model.

  Here's an interesting article about the new round of video game console wars. As a fan of the brilliant Nintendo DS Lite, I think that Sony and Microsoft are on the wrong track. The XBox 360 and Playstation 3 bring a lot of firepower to the table, but it doesn't necessarily mean the games will be any better. The author of this article suggests that Sony & Microsoft's business might not be any better either, and that Nintendo may be best positioned to make money with the Wii.

In Praise of Third Place

  For the second straight evening, there has been snow in Seattle. Last night it was pretty warm, so the snow was very wet and melted really quickly. Tonight it's a little colder - I fear traffic tomorrow morning.

As far as we know, this is the first time Sofia has ever seen snow. I would describe her reaction as "Terrified Amusement". When she sees the snow out the window, she puts her hands on her head and says "Oh no!" Then she gets a concerned look on her face, gives a crazy laugh, and says "Snow!", and smiles. Then she waves at the snow. Here's a short movie to demonstrate:

Snow!


Here are a couple of pictures. (Click them to see a larger view.)

Last night:

Tonight:

UPDATE (11/28/06): The weather did get worse, and Seattle was partially shut down all day. Sofia's day care didn't open until 10 AM and closed at 3:30 PM, so she and I had a half day today. The roads around our house were fine, but things were pretty bad elsewhere, particularly east and north of Seattle.

  OK, so "tomorrow" turned into "five days from now". Sorry about that. Things have been a little busy the last couple of weeks. Let's turn back the clock and see what I've been up to:

November 9 - 12: Weekend Outing My dad and his wife came out to Seattle to stay with Sofia while Nicole and I went to San Diego for the weekend. The two of us hadn't taken a trip by ourselves since our honeymoon, so we were long overdue.

We stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado, which you might recognize as the hotel used in the film Some Like It Hot, (a fact that they will not let you forget - it plays on the hotel TV network every two hours. Luckily, it's a brilliant movie.)

We got a lot of great suggestions from people about what to do in San Diego, which we happily ignored. We had a good time just relaxing. We walked around and looked at the shops, went for a bike ride around the island, and ate a three-hour dinner in their actually-very-good restaurant (1500 Ocean). Oh, and we saw Borat right before we had to go to the airport on the way home. A weekend without rain and we get to see a movie? It hardly seemed possible.

It was interesting to travel without the munchkin. We missed her a lot, but we also enjoyed just being by ourselves. It was so nice being able to set our own schedule. We ate when we wanted. We went to bed when we wanted. If we wanted to walk on the beach after dinner, we did it. Oh, and air travel is SO much easier without a kid.

By all accounts, Sofia had a great time too. She's been a little clingy lately (much crying at day care when she gets dropped off), so I was a little worried about how she would fare. She did great, though. They took walks, played, read 87,000 books, ate in retaurants, and even went to the mall. It sounds like Grandpa and Oma had a great time, too. We're all looking forward to doing it again.


Nov. 17-19: Stockstock Web Site As I mentioned the other day, the Stockstock web site is up. We're doing the festival differently this year - the whole thing is online, even the screening - so we decided to redo the entire web site. Man, redoing an entire web site is a lot of work, and I only did half of it. The almost inhumanly talented Feng (by which I mean that his talent exceeds all expectations, and that he has a robot hand) delivered the graphics and the pages. I spent the weekend finishing the content and doing the programming, in between birthday parties and baby showers. As it turned out, finishing the content ended up taking almost the entire time, and the programming still isn't done. I also undertook the myriad of other tasks associated with resurrecting an online venture that has been dormant for a while, chief among which was clearing the spam out of our email accounts. Holy CRAP did we have a lot of spam. The online mail system our host uses is terrible (unsurprisingly), so that made it take even longer. We're back in shape now, but we have got to figure out a better long-term solution. If anyone has an ideas, I am all ears.


November 22 - 24: Thanksgiving We went to Port Townsend for Thanksgiving to visit Nicole's family; we just got back last night. We had a nice time, but it was a long drive. 5.5 hours is far too long to get to Port Townsend. On the plus side, my right foot is now extra strong from all of that braking in traffic. Luckily, the trip back wasn't as bad.

Nicole spent most of yesterday cooking, while I corralled the young one. Sofia had a fun time playing with her cousins and getting in to all of her Grandma's stuff. Unlike our house, which has gradually been babyproofed into a No Fun Zone, her grandma has lots of low tables and cabinets, and many of them were covered with either a) little bowls of snacks or b) breakable stuff. I think Sofia thought she'd gone to heaven. I'd estimate that she ate roughly 37 Chickens in a Biskit, simply because she could steal them and eat them before we could react. (Aside: Did you know that in Australia they have Vegemite in a Biskit?) How Grandma's china made it through the day unbroken is a mystery.


So that's the story. I'm going to try to get back to my one-post-per-day schedule, although it may be tough with my Stockstock duties. I may go to once every other day. We'll see how it goes. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!