Just closing up tabs.

A really extensive list of the first lines of novels. Very in depth and ordered by visitors votes for best first line. Fun to scroll through for sure.

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Gimme Friction Baby. Do not... wait, let me get this right...DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT click on the link to this addictive flash game if you have anything to do in the next hour. possibly 2.

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I think this is the coolest Tricycle for a kid I have ever seen. More pictures and the artist Sasha White talks of making it for his daughter Delilah here.
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Here's a list of lists of the tops of the decade. Top books, movies, music and comics of the past decade from Paste magazine. And while we're at it Kottke.org took on an intern of sorts to compile more lists of Best of's for the Noughtie List. I love the term Noughties for this decade and hope it the one that sticks. That or the oughts.

Famous wartime photos with 100% more superhero action.****

I started a Posterous blog for any of my pictures from my phone or sent to my phone by my wife. Some fun spontaneous shots of Liam over there.

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Living in the Future.

Even when I was working hard to become a photographer I didn't do all that much photo "editing" in Photoshop. Nothing excessive. A dodge and burn here and there but mostly a tweak of the levels and trying to get as much done in the RAW conversion as I could. I used to think that maybe it would be best to just shoot jpeg and save myself the step. Now I know better. I need my photo editing computer up and running because posting these shots only using the editing of Picassa is killing me. I need control! Photo was taken by the wife the other day. Good stuff.

Photography frustrations aside things are going pretty well. Work has been getting better. It seems that I really did win the most recent long running battle with the insurance company and they are going to do the right thing. Although we still have occasional "events" here and there, the seizure meds are working well and the tweaking of his doses has Liam awake and alert for much longer stretches of time. Physical therapy is going well, Liam and Mom learned some new exercises today while I was at work and he just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Nursing care can still be tough because we just want to have our own house to ourselves more often but boundaries are being set and we are better at letting our expectations be known.

I hung our first Christmas wreath on the front door yesterday. Family tradition states that just like we used to say in my church as a kid "Merry Christmas and may it last 'til Easter" we will keep it hanging until Easter. The trick is to flip it over around groundhog day to get a bit more green needles for your buck. I will post a picture soon and hope to hang more lights soon to go along with the wreath.

There's still a bit of white stuff on the ground but it is icy, crunchy stuff. I'm looking for the fluffy stuff. The stuff that can quickly have you looking at more than a few inches to shovel but if you get out there before it freezes together will push right off with ease. Staying home with my wife and son during a major snowstorm is another one of the dreams I've been waiting so long to come true. During last winter we had a few pretty major snow storms with some good accumulation. Through it all, Karin and I made our way back and forth to the hospital every day. Looking forward to a day when we would be able to see our son without changing out of our pajamas. A warm cup of cocoa, the morning paper, fluffy white stuff piling up outside and my boy with me on the couch. I can't wait for that. That's why I'm hoping for big snow storms every weekend this winter.

I've started reading The Hobbit to Liam. It's been so much fun. We aren't very far into the book and I'm already struggling with my voices. All those dwarves and Gandalf along with them is proving to be a bit low for my range and I'm needing more pauses for water. But Tolkein's conversational storytelling style along with songs makes it so much fun to read. This was an important book to my family as my father was so taken with it that I can remember him reading from it at the dinner table when I was a kid. The nurses and Liam's mom read him the big large picture books showing him brightly painted penguins and elephants but I like it just the same to have Liam rest his head on my chest with only my soothing voices comforting him to sleep.

Karin mentioned the fact that we had a photo shoot for a holiday card on her facebook page and within minutes we had about a dozen emails of peoples addresses to receive said card. It was a bit strange how quickly it happened. It is incredible how this baby boy who has been so sheltered from people and germs that he has yet to meet all of his family that even live in this area has touched so many lives because of the internet. We truly are living in the future.

Holiday Card Day.

Karin has been trying for days to get a couple of pictures of Liam in a holiday looking outfit so that we could make our Christmas card. All attempts were busts and so a change of strategy was in order. Liam is very photogenic but he makes you work very hard to capture his brand of adorable magic.


Instead of having some sort of plan for a photo shoot time we decided to just keep him in holiday clothes with holiday blankets all around and just shoot all day rather than putting some pressure on a few hours here and there.


Although none of the pictures truly scream holidays we did get enough to send out a pretty cool card. Karin and I are pretty unorganized people and we have never sent out cards in the 7 years that we've been married. This year we wouldn't be able to get away with not sending out cards. Everyone wants to know how the baby is doing.

He's doing just fine by the way. We had an ok weekend even though I had to work yesterday. Today we spent the day together watching yesterday's snow melt out the front window and screaming and yelling at the patriots on TV. We read the first chapter of The Hobbit aloud, during which I gave myself a sore throat trying to come up with voices for all those dwarves.

My sister spent the day with us watching the football games and then after going home to finish her laundry came back in the evening with my parents who made us all meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and bread. We all ate and laughed and had general storytelling and merriment. The visitors all headed home before 8pm which left a few hours of quiet and privacy before the nighttime nurse came in at 11:00pm. A very nice and relaxing day which could have only been improved with a patriots win over miami.

Snapped this today just in case any of you wanted to see what three days worth of Liam's meds would be dispensed with. This gallon sized ziploc holds all of the syringes used from Friday morning at 6am to Sunday evening at 8pm. I suppose I could do the math but I think the picture is much more fun. Tonight they'll all be separated, boiled and organized by size for re-use.

Breathing's just a rhythm.

As we speed towards the end of the year and the decade I've been looking back on the past year and what, if anything, has penetrated the focus on Liam to make its mark on my year. Each year I do enjoy looking back on what my favorite books, music, movies of the past year would be, but this year there was little in my consciousness other than Liam. I didn't see many new movies over the year and although I did read a bunch, much of that was simply turning pages next to Liam's bed. Regina made it into the memories. She made it big time and for the rest of my life I will always associate her newest album Far with driving back and forth to the hospital. The album never left the cd player of the car and since we would often drive back and forth 3 and 4 times a day we would normally hear the whole album every day for over 3 months.

This song is especially meaningful as a close listen to the lyrics may show. It will always be for us Liam's Picu song, and easily my favorite song of 2009. Enjoy.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

One of the true pleasures of having a pulse oxymeter at home is those wonderful nights when it decides not to "pick up". Nothing excites Karin and I more than staying up through the night pushing the silence alarm button every three minutes because although Liam is doing just fine the notoriously unreliable piece of equipment just reads blanks. Kind of hard for Liam to be moving around so much if his heart rate is in the teens and pulse ox at a nice robust 32. At least the ear piercing alarm that sounds every three minutes is a nice soothing tone like the comforting vibrations of a dentists drill. How could we not sleep through that?

Beers and Bedtimes

As promised over the weekend here are the pictures of Liam's Lager. Brewed by my brother and aged 153 days or the same amount of time that Liam stayed in the NICU.

Just wanted to get the pictures up and make it a quick post tonight. Liam's new medication doses have wreaked havoc on his, and our, sleep schedules. The side effect induced insomnia had Liam falling asleep last night at about 10:30 this morning. No sleep in this house for about 20 hours. Dr.'s have been called and doses have been re-adjusted and hopefully we can all get back to resting when we should soon. Just a matter of Liam's body adjusting to the new meds. Until then, he's in charge of his sleep schedule and we just have to accommodate.

Night nurse tonight and so its off to sleep I go. Like I said, quick one tonight.

My Writing Process

I know, I know people are asking me all the time. "With all that time spent sitting on the couch watching TV how do you find the time to blog so often?" The blistering productivity of almost 2 whole posts a week doesn't come easy folks, but since so many of you, my darling readers, are wondering I'm going to let you all behind the curtain. To see how I play the wizard to this blogging Oz of mine.

I have been perfecting my writing process since college. Through all the blogs I've started and then lost interest. All of the short stories I've started, and of course the book that when published is going to make me an overnight success. Every couple of months I get all hyped up about writing and I rush to the bookstore and buy a new Moleskine notebook. Usually I'll pick up a mechanical pencil or a fancy pen because, you know, I've got nothing better to spend my money on like food and rent. I take it home and fill out the reward if found blank on the inside cover with "A nice chat over a couple of beers" and start writing down all the witty things I'm always thinking. Story ideas, character sketches, book reviews, the works. I carry it with me from room to room in the house and it comes back and forth to work with me. The pocket in the back may even get a cool newspaper clipping or funny fortune from the Chinese take-out from last night. I refer to it. I number the pages and date each entry. I do all this for about 2 or 3 days.

Then I sit in front of the computer. I read articles online and check in on all my favorite blogs before I buckle down and really get to what I'm truly gifted at. You'll never find someone so good at procrastinating. It really is a talent of mine. Tomorrow since its my day off I'll really have the time to write something. Tomorrow since we have a nurse I'll really get into some good blog posts. Tomorrow I'll work on that post about health care or the book review and I haven't even talked about what my favorite movies are yet. I have a shit load of writing to do tomorrow. I am always busy tomorrow.

The moleskine stays in the backpack for a day. My hands feel less restricted not having to carry anything or I'll wear the pants that don't have any pockets big enough for my little notebook and then all of a sudden a week has gone by and I haven't jotted a single note. I post a compilation of one and two sentence thoughts but nothing resembling an essay or fully composed piece on my blog. I forget about writing my book, short story or screenplay. The idea for a one act play sounds juvenile and uninteresting and why would I want to really try my hand at writing anyway? I don't have the time. Top Chef is about to start their finale this week and The Patriots were on Monday night football tonight. Can you believe how intense last week's Criminal Minds was? Besides, How can I expect to score 300,000 points on Bejeweled Blitz (using The Wife's facebook account no less) without putting in some serious practice every night? Priorities. Oh yeah, I've got a kid at home too, but we've got enough of the serious meds here to knock him out pretty good. How else we supposed to get anything done around here? [DISCLAIMER * DISCLAIMER * I like to try writing jokes every now and again. Don't bother with the email and comments about drugging my kid to get him to sleep. For that we use Scotch. Blended, because Liam can't tell which is the good stuff yet.] A week turns to a month and BAM! its been over a year and the photoblog hasn't had new photo posted. Or the Super Bowl just happened and I haven't posted in the baseball blog since the All-Star break. Its how I work. Its my "method".

I know what your thinking but its not as hard as it looks to be a "writer" and "blogger" who doesn't write. You can do it too if you really work hard at your procrastination skills. Thinking about trying something is just about as good as trying something right? I'm going to write that novel, short story, blog piece and screenplay.

I'll start them all.

Tomorrow.