For whatever reason we have Monday off, so hallelujah for that.

The hard drive in my HTPC died tonight. It was during the Dodger game, and I’m sure the death of the hard drive and the Dodger loss were related. For all the geeks, it froze, I rebooted, and could never get into windows again. Chkdsk kept freezing (a good 12 times) trying to startup, and even gave me an “unknown error has occured.” Tried to repair vista, but when it tried it said it can’t (because of a bad disk). I took the drive out and put it in my external usb drive on the upstairs computer, and even that is terrible. It showed me the contents of the HTPC drive for a minute, but then I started to get all kinds of errors trying to access it. Not sure why it went down, but I think it could be because of heat, so I’ll take a few steps to deal with that. It could be a completely random thing too, so who knows. Luckily it’s still under warranty, so the new one should be here soon. Only sucky part is I have to set it back up. I never got around to making a norton ghost image of it for precisely this situation. Oh well.

Baby is crying. I go.

Today our little guy turned one month old! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I’ve got a full 60 minute tape for the last 3 weeks, so his youth should be well documented. Once I get to editing that I’ll be sure to post links. For now though, here is his monthday picture!

Dodgers: They put up another high score tonight, so I expect a week or so of doughnuts. Andruw Jones did have two hits…in the SAME game, so that’s a positive. Four games in a row on TV this weekend/Monday.

Book: Took me about 3 weeks (since baby came home) to finish the most recent chapter I was on. I started a new one last night and made good progress, so I’m hoping things speed up. Sometimes the words just shoot off the finger tips and you know exactly how the scene should unfold, but other times it could go a bunch of different ways. Most of the time you just have to plunk away at it, and in the process you usually figure out where it’s supposed to go. I’ll wait until I have more exciting news to say more.

Videogames: I’m currently batting about .325 at AA Jacksonville in the Dodgers minor league organization. I’m a shortstop trying to rise up the ranks, and it’s a stacked position for the club, but I’m giving it my best shot. I’m riding a 9 game hitting streak right now, so hopefully the higher ups notice me.

I survived my first week back at work, and Stacie survived staying home with Luke. The first few days were hard, but the last few have been really good. He’s starting to sleep for bigger chunks of time at night, and he’s falling asleep faster. That means less fussing and more peacefulness!

We gave him his first bath the other day. At first he HATED it. The screams coming out of that little mouth were enough to wake the dead, and it’s all on tape. The worst part is that I’m laughing hysterically the whole time. Here’s a much quieter version of what he was doing.

In case I haven’t said it yet, this is one cute boy.

I’d also like to throw in my first Dodger related shout out. We’re off to a 3-1 start, and while the offense has been a little quiet (save for the 7-1 win tonight), the pitching has been pretty darn good. Kuroda looks like he’ll be a huge upgrade to the staff. Dewitt is looking sharp, but Kemp is looking terrible. He keeps swinging at terrible pitches like his first call up, not his last.

Night 1 = No sleep

Ok, not NO sleep, but very little. There was lots of “is he hungry?” and “does he need to be changed?” Somewhere around 5 am he ate well and slept after that. We’ll see how tonight goes down.

Denise and Paul came over to see and hold him. They were both naturals.

Part of the day Luke and I watched the Dodgers lose to the Angels while mommy slept upstairs. During the game I had fun snapping some photos.

As the days wear on, these posts will probably devolve into a few pictures separated by caveman talk.

Hmmm, I started writing a post, apparently closed the firefox window, but I can’t find the auto-saved draft of the post. Arg. That means second time around it will be shorter and completely void of the wit I had included originally.

Went to doctor. Doctor hear heart beat. Doctor say good. Think 6.5-7 lbs. Head down, that good. Say “go walk, make baby come soon.”

Tuesday, new baseball videogame, me excited. I know baby coming, but baby understand. He like baseball too. I play other people on the internet, I try to beat them with Dodgers. Me hope baby sleep lots so daddy has time to play sometimes.

I beat Fred in tower game. You go play.

I caveman apparently.

I’m supposed to be working on the book, but I’m watching Yellowcard in HD from Letterman from over a year ago instead. The violin is so cool. I want more music in HD.

It’s been almost a week since my last post, which is pretty bad for the blarg. I apologize. Not a ton has happened since the last post. Went to Turlock over the weekend for Grandma’s 89th birthday. It was fun going up there. Got to see three of her brothers that I’ve never really met before. Got some good video of them and the almond orchards. Haven’t gotten around to editing it, but I just need to make time.

I finished my second league in The Show ’07. I went 11-3 this season, same as the last, but once I again I lost in the World Series! As someone else accurately said, I am the Buffalo Bills. The new game comes out in less than two weeks. I’m not sure how, but I promise to myself to make time to play. One game a week!

Now I’m watching the “Brothers Forever” guy from American Idol this season. It’s so hilarious, I love it. Not only is the song catchy and gets stuck in your head, but he says a bunch of funny stuff.

Funny Part 1

Paula: “Why is Simon’s name on your hat?”
Guy with funny hat: “As long as there is free media, television, radio, people will speak the name of Simon.”

Funny Part 2

Guy with funny hat: “You are heaven’s chosen, to give chance to any talent…for free of charge.”

I love that this guy is such a supporter of capitalism, it’s great. OK, off to write the book now. Go Dodgers.

This morning I played a game of online baseball on the PS3 and it lasted for 18 innings. I was losing to the Angels 3-0 in the 8th inning, but my Dodgers put up 3 runs to tie it. From there it stayed tied until the 18th inning. Brad Penny came in for relief and pitched almost an entire game. In the bottom of the 18th Jeff Kent came up and knocked one over the wall to win the game. Very satisfying feeling! You can check the box score here.

On the way home we were driving on the freeway, and traffic was moving really well. Then the guy in front of me started to brake and put on his turn signal. Then at the last minute he swerved to avoid some debris in our lane, leaving me ZERO time to get out of the way. If you see something in the road a long ways out, don’t swerve at the last minute. He could have stopped completely! But no, I got to hit some remnants of a bumper or something and get nice big scratches on the front of the new car. Ugh. Now I’ve got to take it in to the body shop for something small and pay my $250 deductible. Turd.

In better news, the baby’s room is moving along. Everything is painted and I put up new blinds. Our stroller is on the way from Target that we bought with gift cards from Grandpa. We still need to pick out baby furniture, but Stacie has seen some that she likes. She went yesterday with a friend and registered for a bunch of stuff at Babies R Us. You can visit our baby’s registry here!

Oh how I pine for the Christmas vacation. Thee are too far away from thy present. Please hurryeth.

Nothing going on really. Rachel gave a shot out for my blog, so I’ll give a shout out for hers. New post up about Presidential election stuff. Suppose I should go over there and make my voice heard!

Kevin has some snippets from his quickly growing library of work. The second post down on his site has a link to his myspace page. Go check out the stories. Some intense stuff!

I’ll go completely random on this post. So far the Dodgers haven’t made any big moves this off season, and I couldn’t be happier. We’ve got some amazing young players, so let them play.

Is it Christmas vacation yet?