I have to admit that a huge part of me not writing for the past few days are because a couple of my loyal readers are now on the road, on the way to Montana. I suspect that oftentimes they read my blog because they're bored at work, but it doesn't really matter to me either way. Trench and Syrinx are now on their brand new adventure, and we already miss them tremendously. Nobody can intimidate my little boy more unwillingly than Trench. Couldn't imagine if he actually tried.

So we finally got the van back in our possession, after we traded 800 big ones with the evil auto mechanic corporation for our van. I swear that they could do whatever they wanted - and we wouldn't have a clue. Other than the panel lights being brighter, I couldn't really tell a whole lot of difference in the ride. It's great though, that Alex really fancies the ride. I took him to the video store and he was just about asleep twice. On the way there, and on the way back. I think the ability to look out the window is quite a treat for the little guy.

I have to brag about this, being how I basically utilized my bargaining powers to gain monetary things. I used Gmail swap and my invitations to get these things so far -

$5 to paypal from a guy in Britain,
$5 to paypal from a guy in China who has my same last name,
$10 from someone,
$10 from someone else,
$20 in Amazon.com gift certificate,
Game boy Advance (probably cheated out of it, he hasn't emailed me back after I trusted him)
True Crime for PS2 (still haven't gotten back to me yet either)

Actually, I shouldn't complain about the things I didn't get because they were free invitations after all. I think that aside from the monetary gain, I discovered that I can be a pretty slick negotiator if I really tried, as long as it's anonymous and as long as it's fun. Unfortunately, the swapping is now almost gone down in value. I have 6 more invitations again, and it seems that the swaps are getting lamer and lamer. Now it's down to just groveling.

Alex is getting to be more of a handful now. Seems like he's impossible to hold anymore, what with his increasing weight and wiggliness. Whenever you hold him facing you, he wiggles to see in front. And whenever he's facing the front, he'll make himself stiff as a board, ready to pounce from your arms. In fact, I'm fairly certain that once he learns to walk, he'll need tranquilizer darts of some sort of humane leash to keep him from wandering off. Mobile thrill-seeking knee biter...