Happy New Year! (that's all)

Wishing you the best of 2009 and a glass of something luscious...

Oh the excitement, watched the New Year arrive on the east coast (yeah for satellite TV broadcasts -- Times Square looked very cold and windy).

With the new addition to the family, this is all the celebrating I'll be doing. :)

Happy New Year!

rootie

I've gained a daughter and lost a chair...

I'm a daddy! (again!) *yawn* no, I'm not *yawn* tired.

There is nothing that can prepare you for the event of a new baby. Months of planning for the nursery, mounds of baby gifts from friends, neighbors and relatives, even prior experience with a new baby -- all nice to have, and all practically inconsequential to the arrival event itself.

For the men in the audience, if you haven't stayed by the side of your partner while she goes through labor and delivery, you are missing a spectacle of sheer awesomeness that is without parallel. I cannot count the number of times I was thinking "ohmygod! they're doing *what!?!?!* to my wife!?!?" all while putting on my calmest, most reassuring face... "honey, can I get you more water? maybe some ice cubes? how about diamond jewelry?" Try not to flinch or make a face when they bring out a needle the size of the alaskan pipeline to put into her back, I double dare you.

In some ways, medieval torture still bears a close resemblance to modern medical practices -- there is still substantial room for improvement in the process. I'm not saying that to knock modern medical practices though -- I can't even imagine what this would have been like "long ago" when I was born. (discussions with my mother-in-law suggest we've come a long ways). Even comparing the birth of my son (natural birth because he was too quick in coming for us to do an epidural) to the birth of my daughter (with epidural), it is night and day. I can see it in my wife. If you have a choice, take the drugs.

So what does this have to do with a chair? Pretty much everybody who has held the baby has ended up sitting at least briefly in my "easy chair" -- a recliner-rocker. Instant sleepy baby. (ok newborns are prone to that, but this even more so) this leaves me tired, happy, and camera-in-hand, sitting elsewhere. A small price to pay for the most beautiful girl in the world.

As some of you well know, sleep is precious, so off I go...

Merry christmas!

rootie

Where is "Home"

Google has a built-in searchable dictionary. Ok so it isn't their dictionary, but seemingly everyone else's dictionary they'll search for you. I find it quite handy to get a wide variety of perspectives on a word. To use it, simply put "define:" (without quotes) in front of a search term to get a definition. My search history using "define:" contains a real mishmash of terms including "define: hermaneutically", "define: sandwich", "define: sport", "define: teleology", and tonite, "define: home". Yes, "sandwich" and "sport" are really in the list. Haven't you ever had a deep discussion whose resolution can best be found through an appeal to authority? ah, but I digress...

What is home to you?

I can be on a business trip and head "home" to the hotel room. I can go "home" from work. I can go "home" to my hometown and return "home" again to my current residence. It clearly isn't a fixed place.

Thanks to mom-in-law, tonite was a "Date night", (perhaps one of the last for several months, more on that topic *real soon now*, I hope) -- anyway, a chance to be ourselves, a chance to be away from the frenetic pace of mundane shopping trips that all too often seem to have become a family outing. After dinner we enjoyed a steaming hot beverage next to a fireplace (ooh, a fireplace on a cold winter evening!), and concluded by driving a couple areas of town looking at holiday lights before going home. Well, not "Home", but "home". You see, we found "Home" while we were out of the house, eating dinner, shivering our way along the street, and expressing conflicting viewpoints about the admirable qualities of the various lighting and other holiday decorations.

"Home" for me has never been a place, but instead is an emotional state of mind; one of comfort, satisfaction, and (usually) peace. It is right beside that place on the couch where my son leans against me to watch TV.

This morning, on my way out the door, my wife asked 3 or 4 questions, all of which I started to answer at the same exact time as she started to ask the question. These weren't all the same questions of every day, but there was still a comfortable predictability about them. Maybe I'm psychic, maybe being together over 17 years I just know instinctively what she'll ask, maybe she gave me a list of them earlier to memorize and then I forgot memorizing them. Maybe I'm just "Home."

Where ever it might be, may each of you find yourself "Home" for the holidays.

rootie

Kidstuff: Emergency preparedness :)

On the drive home tonite, my son spontaneously spoke up "if I had fire on me, I'd stop, drop and roll!" echoing lessons of school and home. I decided to test his understanding and have a little fun in the process.

"What would you do if you were covered in water?" "I'd shake"
"What would you do if you had a candy necklace on you?" "eat it"
"What would you do if you were covered in mud?" "wash"
"butterflies" "I'd tickle"
"bumblebees" (silence -- I got him with this one-- I gave a brief mention that if they weren't stinging him to just leave them alone)
"What would you do if you were covered with legos?" "Just build"

Yup, kids know everything...

Photo: Crystal slippers

A couple small plastic candy dishes from a baby shower begged to be immortalized. I spent about an hour mucking about with them in the kitchen, trying different things, fixing lighting problems, creating lighting problems, and blinding anyone who walked into the room without a pair of Ray Bans.

There are some photos that it doesn't matter what camera you use. This photo I couldn't have done with my old equipment. This is two flash units off-camera, with one of the flashes pushed +3 and bounced off a shiny pink gift bag to create the extra color on the left.

Compare that to the simple photo with ambient light and no special equipment requirements.

The only thing I did in photoshop was crop the image, and resize for the web. Everything else was straight from the camera. This just goes to show that if you try 75 different ways of doing something, chances are you'll find a better way than your first attempt. :)

(yes, I did add more candy partway through. yes, I did eat candy partway through, and before starting, and after finishing, yes, I did take something on the order of 75 different photos of this)

rootie

ps. (T-3 weeks and counting down)