No trick or treat tonight, we’re vegging on the couch at home after a doctor visit where we confirmed a final date for pregnancy. The last ultrasound we had placed the due date for tomorrow, but if we don’t see Charlotte in a week, an induction is scheduled for the 7th. Hopefully Charlotte will treat us with a visit sooner than later.
I’m in a good mood.
No baby pictures yet, since there’s no baby… yet. She’s still twitching in Kelly’s occasionally contracting uterus. We’ve got about a week until the due-date still, so she’s technically allowed can take her time, but we are (Kelly most of all) eager to move past pregnancy and officially become new parents.
Kelly’s contractions increased, so we decided to… panic? Nah. We played video games until midnight and slept – the contractions were at 20 minutes apart and less than 30 seconds in duration, so no hospital run last night. This morning, they appear to be picking up intensity and pace a little, so it’s shaping up to be an interesting weekend.
I’m going downstairs to install the car-seat, and we’ll run some quick errands.
We’ll share news as it comes.
You may (or may not) have noticed this and sibling sites may have been unavailable recently. Sometimes it’s just gone for a few minutes. Sometimes days. Unfortunately, the server attached to the network is dying a slow death and increasingly prone to dropping its connection, rendering anything here awfully far from you. Though it’s not like I’ve been providing much for your consumption, anyway…
I blame the flood.
Much earlier this year, I was spending a lazy Sunday with the laptop on the couch, idly poking around the web. One of my coworkers IMed me, unable to connect to a server at the office. Not concerned but wanting to be helpful, I attempted the same, replicated their problem, and passed the details to the guy in charge of addressing those problems (happily, since it wasn’t me who needed to visit the office on the weekend, even though it’s walking distance for me). About an hour later, he called me.
“Hey, so, I’m at the office, and in the server room…”
“Yea? Figure out the problem?”
“*shhhhhhh*”
“What?”
“*shhhhhhh* Can you hear that? *wooosshhh*”
“No, there’s too much ‘shhhh’ … wait, that’s not… is that water?!”
“Can you join me in the office, I’m gonna need some help.”
We had a nice server room, until we suddenly discovered an water line existed on the floor above it, and that should it burst (as we also discovered it could) the result had some long lasting implications.
That Sunday afternoon entailed wading through funky water raining through eroding ceiling tiles our now sickeningly humid server room, extracting drenched production-hosting and office servers (including this one) from their home, and spreading them around the office, dissecting them to expose internal bits to drier air. By evening the server room was empty, and a few started bringing a few critical machines back online for testing and preparation for transport to offsite hosting. Morning was final configuring in the new environment (still cannot believe they even booted), and approaching noon on Monday I went home to crash. Recovery remains ongoing – we’re still playing catch-up.
It was also that night amidst toweling off wet hard-drives I found out that Kelly was pregnant, which is not how it happens in the story books. Kelly tells that part of the story better, so I’ll leave it right there, but by now you’ve probably heard that news.
Home and work set up this year with some major life stresses, but to ensure this year was as difficult as possible, fate threw in plenty more. Illness and death, moving, pregnancy (they’re not all bad)… I’ve included short mention of some here, not to diminish significance, but to share some news for those still watching and make note for later review.
This has not been a consistent place to find me this year. I don’t know if that will improve. Time and focus have not been mine, and often when I feel I’m taking back control, something else distracts.
Fortunately, we’ve had something in the works for a good distraction.
In about a month, I’ll be a dad.
I’m looking forward to fatherhood for many reasons, but one standing out is the priority it gets above all else. I have to celebrate this new life, and after this year, anything else vying for attention needs to get in line.
Sunday morning, Kelly’s mom called on Dad’s behalf to share the news of my grandfather’s passing. He was in town barely more than a month ago to see Mom, and even at 91 still the heartiest man I’ve ever known. Two weeks ago doctors diagnosed him with colon cancer after a visit for abdominal issues, and his response was something to the effect of “I’ve lived a full and happy life – open me up and take it out if you can, otherwise sew me up and let me be,” refusing a quality of life hit from chemo or radiation. Surgery removed a baseball-size tumor from the colon, but unfortunately recovery did not go as planned, and he did not make it out of the ICU.
His presence and support will be sorely missed as our family grows, and I hope pictures and shared stories of memories will keep his spirit and strength with us.
I dislike this weather.
What this doesn’t show is the humidity we currently also have, which contributes to keeping me from going outside, let alone riding the bike. We rode briefly on Sunday morning, but I didn’t feel good about it afterwards. I’ll have to visit the fitness room instead this week.
Someday I’d like to live somewhere I can comfortably ride year-round, but in the meantime, I can be found inside, with the AC cranked.
No words right now.
http://anotherdaywith-eetman.blogspot.com/2007/07/last-day.html
Thanks to many friends’ assistance, Kelly and I are officially moved into our condo in the redeveloped Ely Walker building in Downtown, St. Louis. Many thanks to Sean, Jim, Steve, Amanda, Hans, Kurt, Amy, Henry, and Kelly (you’re probably the only people reading this anyway). I hope you’re not too sore, because you made the move go awfully quickly, and it is much appreciated! You’ve got dibs on the 2nd bedroom if you need a place to crash if you’re near.
We’re still looking at plenty of boxes to unpack and much stuff to sort and put away, but we were happy to sleep here for the first time Friday night. As for continuing to be in a multi-unit building (180ish in Ely I think), it’s generally much quieter than our past apartment at Terrace Lofts, so we had to run a fan for some white noise. I think we still woke several times as the AC kicked on since it’s a different sound. I’m so far pleased with the soundproofing, as neighbors provided no distraction last night, though the lobby offered a few audible creaks and conversations.
We’re going to have to clean our floors again. I already went through with the janitor’s mop, pushing dirt and dust off the floor, but I think we’ll have to do it again with a wetter mop to really pick up the tiny debris left from deliveries and moving. My socks still darken from these wooden floors. I’ll have to get the Roomba in here soon so it can make it’s daily rounds.
We’re currently mooching weak and inconsistent wireless Internet until the Telco and COVAD complete the circuitry for moving our Speakeasy DSL over, but I hope that comes quickly.
We’ve got our couch set up against the wall by the giant windows, which has my new favorite lounging place, but I’ve got to stand up to watch the people on the street. Street noise is also noticeably quieter, which is nice, though if someone’s decided they want to make noise outside, they’re typically heard. So it goes living on the trendy street.
Our next steps include finishing assembly of our bedroom furniture so we have places to put clothes and sleeping bodies; obtaining blinds for the Washington Avenue facing windows; organizing the remaining 12 kitchen boxes into fewer kitchen cabinets; wiring the TV for audio and video games, with cable/satellite to be decided soon; and again giving everything a cleaning once it’s where it’s supposed to be.
With so much to do, I don’t expect unpacking and re-settling to be a fast process.