Saturday, August 14, 2004

Still Waiting on the Baby Girl

Yesterday night, two new words entered into my vocabulary lexicon - mucous plug. Anyway, look that up yourselves, but it is a strong indicator of impending labor. Of course, we've been saying that for a while, but I guess a baby just does whatever she wants. My wife was seriously freaking all yesterday because Syrinx had mentioned in the comments about a dream she had, of my wife giving birth to a baby girl. So she was pretty conceived that dream was going to come true, that Zoe was going to be a Friday the 13th baby. But no, no baby. Relatives have been calling intermittedly to find out if we've had the baby, as if we would forget to call them, but no. No baby yet.

I was having fun with Alex the day before yesterday, his toddler/little boy instincts are definitely becoming more apparent. He held up his arms when he saw me, and then he laughed whenever I made faces and noises with him. He's been laughing more, smiling more, and walking more as well. He would take five steps at a time, and stand for a while, and it just reminds me of how fast he's really growing. It's amazing even while you're watching him most of the day.

We had a company picnic yesterday that was relatively uneventful - there was a kid who was squating over a steady stream of water rather gingerly, which was innocent but since a little wrong to watch. He was wearing spider man briefs and just standing over the stream with a big smile on his face. If that was my kid, I'd escort him out of the park and tell him about things not to do with streams of water. But Alex had fun exploring in the park, just being the biggest boy. He was soaked, but he was too curious to care about the water. It took me a long time to figure out the best way to capture that on camera, but here's a couple that turned out well.


One of the few shots I'm happy about, I like his expression.


Yes, this picture does appear a bit torturous.


Water baby!


Right now my little boy's taking a nap, and my wife, who was awakened by searing back pain at six in the morning, is taking a nap as well. I'm all alone downstairs, playing Vice City. The calm before the baby storm! Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

About time, Bad Father!

Well, I made myself pack tonight, being how I've been procrastinating about packing for the hospital stay. My wife will be in her hospital gown the whole time, leaving me to be the fashion ambassodor during our visit. So far, I've got the CD player, which weighs about a hog, and a few CDs with soothing-I'm-not-pushing-a-Buick-out-my-hoochie music and I've got my camcorder and camera. Well, the camera still needs to be packed, but I'm leaving it out in case I need to take other pictures, like of Alex or my butt.

I packed my "Official Father" shirt, which is black, and my only pair of functional jeans, which is also black, so I suppose that's not real colorful of me. I have also packed the sweatshirt in the middle of summer because now I know, the stupid daddy beds at the hospital room is right under the air conditioning, and it blows right down on the daddies as if to keep their misery in perspective.

Actually, I just remembered a bunch of stuff. Quarters, for the vending machine, food, for myself, because Mommy gets catered meals, and Daddies get stuck with frozen burritos and what looks to be a waffle but turns out to be a frozen egg after you microwave it. Scary, scary food. And I also forgot to get the list of names and numbers I'll need to call once the baby is born. Nobody likes to be left out of the big news, so I gotta compile that list.

12 more days. Oh my. Little Zoe.

This one goes out to my Homies...

Trench did this once, acknowledging his friends in his blog, and I thought about how I've been ignoring mine for a really long time, pretty much since Alex was born, so I'd like to take some time to share how I feel about them. Yeah, it's going to be mushy, but no, there's no nudity involved. At least not till I get back to Trench.

Brendon and Maralise

I've known these two folks from my stage days, which were short and horribly traumatic. They helped on the technical side of putting on a play, which pretty much is everything when it came down to it. They've been helping me since, with my short films, with my feature films, and even my wedding video for my wife. They were backup dancers for my Sinatra-inspired ode to my wife, in "Can't Take My Eyes off of You." And they were even bit players in my silly movie, and they both hate being in front of the camera. They have, pretty much, been very supportive in my creative endeavors, and I had the privilege of being flown to Baltimore to see them get married. I still have to finish editing their year-old wedding, but they haven't bugged me about it (but I still have to do it.) I have to say that they've gotten the short end of the friendship ever since Alex has been born, because we've gotten dead boring. If not baby stuff, we talk about work. We've just been complete deadbeat friends, with all the excitement sucked out of us. But B and M are still there for us, hanging out with us, dropping in and making the effort to upkeep the friendship. And we really do appreciate that.

And now that B and M are going to have a little boy of their own this coming January, (yes folks, they're having a boy - you heard it here first.) they're still offering to watch Alex when Zoe is born. These are friends who should be treasured more than we're doing, they're truly an important part of our lives. I hope this friendship will be of the lasting variety, and our kids will chase each other around and whatnot.

Dansen

He is the most persistent person I know - he is so persistent that he once annoyed himself while trying to annoy us, which is one of the funniest things he's ever done. The other funniest thing he's ever done was to put his sandwich on the top of his head so that he could free his hands to do his belt. I died that time. I met Dansen when he was like 16, or younger probably - you never can tell with Dansen, while we were doing my first feature. He's been helping me with a handful of my other stuff, but he's always checking in with me to see what I'm up to, or putting time aside to hang out with me. I find that my relationship with him is pretty unique, because I spend half the time trying not to choke him and half the time wondering how much cooler he could possibly be. He is the most open minded, selfless, unconciousness person in the whole. He can boost the lowest spirits and cut the highest ego down to size just like that. He is a creative genius to which I am afraid of - he is the hoover vac to all things linguistic, historic, internet, culture, and everything in between. A unique soul with a big heart and questionable hygiene at times, but always always an entertaining fellow. Even now, while he's in Japan, he'll take the time to call me with a free 2 minute call from McDonalds, or send me a postcard, or reliably leave a comment on my blog no matter how mundane my posts can be. I'm in love with Dansen, and it's not because he once grabbed my ass while we were crossing the street.

He claims it was accidental, but you do not accidently grab someone's ass.

Cody and Michelle

Cody and Michelle have huge hearts. They threw us bridal and baby showers, bachelor parties, and observed everything in between. Cody and I have been trying to forge a professional relationship for a while, and we work pretty well together, providing if the actors don't suck and that's all we dedicate ourselves to. He is a generous soul, always willing to listen, give advice, and be there for me. I would have to say that he's probably one of the few guy friends I can really share life issues with and get some actually consoling words. He is also one of the smartest guys, with some deep wealth of information all buried under that furrowed eyebrow of cunning and depth. (It's a compliment, and it sounds cool!) At the same time, he's intensely private - I haven't been able to be inside during his tougher times, but that's okay. I haven't really had the chance to get to know Michelle too well, other than through the times we meet and the blog she writes, but she sounds like the perfect soul mate. Very cerebral couple. Their roots go deep to a very innocent time, and they've grown together like two trees that have intertwined through the years. They are now in Japan, forging new experiences and expanding their knowledges. I'm not sure if they'll come back to Bellingham, but they have been one of the best adult friends I could've ever asked for. I haven't been able to hit on another guy since Cody left, and it saddens me because his look of horror when I proposition him for his ass is priceless. A visa moment if you will.

My Wife

My ultimate best friend. She puts up with the best of me, and the absolute worst of me. She loves me when I'm fun, but when I'm a nasty, grouchy, selfish, vulgarian sourpuss wretch bitch, she still loves me. She can cut me down with a jab but she can also sincerely convince me that I'm better than I think I am. And she'd be telling the truth. She's got a great sense of humor, quite quirky and very odd at times, whereby she'd say the weirdest thing or make the strangest sound and it'd just be cute as hell. I like her hearty laugh - it's a great laugh that resonates into colors and butterflies. She can also be a sailor, swearing left and right, and being a rude bastard at times, which I love. But most of all, I like it that I can share everything with her, the good and bad, and she'd listen to every word of it. Through parenthood, through financial hardship, I'm glad I have this friend for my wife and my soul mate, because it makes the journey through life just so much better and happier. She's just so great. I'm so damn lucky to have found her, because she's just so damn cool. She lets me watch porn! She watches it with me! She lets me stay up late! She lets me dance like a retarded dork and still remains attracted to me!

Ahh, and now I have to go to bed with her. And she's sleeping in the middle of the bed, leaving me a sliver of bed to squeeze into.

I love her.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

And here's the biggest boy! Doing tricks and taking names!

Sleeping my life away...

Sorry about the cliffhanger there. I mentioned that my wife was having contractions and then left everyone in the lurch by not posting a follow-up. Well, turns out it wasn't anything, though she had contractions again last night. I think we're close to it, but I was really hoping later because I'm still a bit ill, and I don't want to be kicked out of the delivery room for being contagious.

So, this business about me being ill. Well, I came home from work after 3 hours there, and I pretty much slept the whole day. Literally, from 1pm yesterday, I slept till 6am this morning. I woke up a few times for bathroom and food breaks, but even those were short because my head was hurting so badly. Thoughts swirled in my head about permanent brain damage, like somehow after this fever, I wouldn't be able to tell colors apart or do basic math. But the pain is pretty much over. I've slept enough and baked my fever out by sweating it all out, and I should be okay. I'm a little better today, but I'm still staying home because I didn't want to miss...

The Biggest Boy on earth! Whilst on my deathbed, my son was learning how to stand on his own, and I've got the video to prove it! My wife sounded so very happy when Alex was doing his trick, so I'm glad to be able to stay home and do some video and photos of him standing up by himself. He's also attempting a few steps, so it won't be long before he's running around like a maniac.

Well, more later. I'm starting to sweat profusely again. My body temperature has been out of whack for the past 24 hours.

A quick post - no baby yet, and I'm down with a 100.6 fever and mondo headache. So I'm going to be out for a day or two. Sorry! But no baby yet...

Sunday, August 08, 2004

A Busy Weekend and perhaps a Busy Week?!?

My first weekend with no engagements, but I still wore my butt to the ground. In addition to the crazy egg experiment, I cleaned out the garage after a couple years of accumulating weird crap and old trinkets, and took a bunch of stuff over to Value Village. For the first time in years, our garage might actually have enough room to fit a vehicle inside. We never do so, because it's too much of a hassle to get in and out of the car just to open the manual lever.

We followed that by a long walk at Lake Padden, which is usually about a half hour walk or so. But because my wife is so pregnant and I got so gimpy from the couple days of work, it took us over two hours. About half the shots I took with my camera were crap, so I'm not sure if it's from the egg residue (which I cleaned it the best I could) or just the different contrasts. Anywho, I finally got a little downtime watching "The Dead Zone", which is a pretty good show.

All through the show my wife was having some contractions, so she issued me a "Baby Alert" for tonight. Right now she's telling me that the contractions have indeed stopped, and she doesn't think it's going to happen, but I'm still wondering. Figures, after getting my butt worked to the ground, this would be the morning when she wakes me up at 3 in the morning because she's in labor! Oh well, whatever comes, I suppose. I'm feeling the onslaught of mild illness coming on. Hopefully I'll just sleep it off.

Oh, Alex saw Fred Bear today, one of the big stuffed mascots that promote store awareness, and Alex was a little petrified. Even in his little naive mind, he knows that just ain't right.



Freakin' Awsome!

So this is what I've had formulating in my brain for the past few days - shattering eggs with my bb rifle and getting it on film. I got 2 dozen eggs from Costco for $1.99, and then spent about an hour and a half cleaning up the garage to make room for the project. Then I spent about another hour setting up a platform for the egg, a board to stop the bb from going through the garage door, a sniper's nest from which to shoot the BB, and a lot of time configuring my camera to get the right lighting. I have a handful of successful shots, after programming my brain to listen for the self timer. The pictures did turn up a little dark, but now I'm figuring out how to photoshop up the contrast and brightness, as well as removing some of the noise from the photos. I think this project has fulfilled my "what am I doing with my god-given talent for absurd stunts" bug for a while. I'm feeling really good about the photos, knowing that my conceptualization for the project was fully realized. The photos pretty much came out exactly the way I imagined it, with the exception of the focus, which I had hoped would be a little better. But hey, it ain't bad either. If you're digging the photos and want more, I'll be posting them in the next five days at Fifth Eye.