Sunny day in the park.

Having a little fun before dinner and karate.

I'm becoming a disciple of TV chef Alton Brown. He recommends putting a stone tile in the oven to encourage even heating and provide a good baking surface. This afternoon I went out and found this beautiful piece of travertine. It's a little large, 16 x 16, but the woman at the tile store gave it to me free! Now I just need to figure out how to trim it. Anybody got a stone saw they're not using?

Hanging out while Mommy shops.

Fwd:

Sleeping with the fish. (courtesy of My Lovely Wife)

Snow!

Snow!

Snow!

My mother-in-law is visiting to help with the boys during spring break this week. Yay!

As my dad used to say,
"Spring has sprung.
The grass has riz.
I wonder where
the birdies is?"

Happy Vernal Equinox, kiddies!

After my first son was born, I wanted to wear a reminder of him, like the wedding ring I wear to remind me of my wife. I thought of an ID bracelet, but there were a number of problems with that idea. Finally, I stumbled on the notion of a simple beaded bracelet showing both my son's and my wife's names in Morse code.

Now that we have the new baby, I've been trying to decide what to do. I happened to discover a couple of weeks ago that he was born on the same day as Louis Braille, so I added a three-strand section to the bracelet that has his name in Braille. The Morse sections use my, my wife's, and my eldest son's favorite colors. Baby boy doesn't have any preferences yet, so I'm sticking with monochrome for now.

We're on our way to Joplin, MO today to visit my wife's grandma. Our traditional halfway point is the world's largest McDonald's.

This is what I see from the reference desk every day. It's not a bad view, really.

Fun Fact: the second trombonist in Michael's band plays a valve trombone. I knew they existed, but until last night, I'd never seen one.

No cameras allowed at the concert tonight, so you'll have to be content with the program. I don't know if you've heard about Michael's stage show, but the reviews don't do him justice. One of the best concerts I've ever seen.

I'm breaking my own rules by typing this on the computer, but just for one post to give a sort of "program note". I'm not sure how many readers I have, but those of you who are watching may have noticed quite an uptick in posting in recent weeks. As I mentioned, we got new phones with a new service provider, and I've been kicking the tires a bit, posting pictures (the major new toy) and working on the best way to get text onscreen. With my former provider, I knew my limit exactly. The phone would tell me if I entered too many characters. The new one just lets me roll on and tells me only after the fact that it's sending two messages. The second one never gets through, so my post gets truncated and I have to go back in manually and edit each post. Not to mention, I have to take out the "Message from a Cingular wireless customer" sig on the end of each one. Sure, we're happy with the little orange guy, but I don't really want to advertise him every single time.

The alternative was to send Multimedia (MMS) for each post, which is how I get photos here anyway, but my plan gives me 200 text messages and only 40 MMS. Not nearly enough to keep up my suddenly blistering blog pace. What I'm working on now is actual e-mail, using my phone as a gateway to my gmail.com account. There's a monthly bandwidth quota on that, but I'm less concerned with hitting that ceiling than I am with MMS.

I realize that none of this means much to any of you who are reading, but the gist is this: I'm having a great time with my new toy here, and the result for you is more posting and, hopefully, longer messages. It's hard to get a lot of meat in less than 256 characters, after all.

Now back to your regularly scheduled mobile-only blog. Happy Reading!

It's not easy to see, but in the center of the photograph is a cloud with a silver lining. It was quite beautiful to see coming out of the restaurant last night.

If you aren't watching The Boondocks, you are missing some of the most powerful work on television.

Nearly six months without a good rain, and what do we get tonight? A frikkin hailstorm! I blame Bush.

My latest book display. Who knew so many book titles started with"City of.."?

Big Brother and his cousin Collan.

You know you are truly a parent when you open your constipated son's diaper and begin singing,"Let's hear it for the poop! Let's give the poop a hand!"

Circus day at Big Brother's school.

My eldest son has been taking karate lessons for several months now. Last night I joined him for the first time. I'm so sore today I can barely take a deep breath.

I made my first loaf of bread completely from scratch today. It went pretty well. I've been baking loaves from dough built in the bread machine for awhile now, but this is new. I'm pretty proud.

My six-year-old son just got a call from a girl! On my phone! And it's a girl he doesn't even go to school with anymore! I'm kinda freaking out.

Big Brother is a reader already.

Here's my new boy.

Success!

Testing address #1

I'm trying to get used to my new phone, convincing it to send photos to the blog. Hence the long silence.

I'mWorking