avablog

First Apple drops a WiFi-enabled iPod days before my birthday, and now the 20th anniversary edition of one of my favorite movies is due on DVD on the 18th. It’s like they’re conspiring against my poor wallet.

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From today’s WSJ: If it seems like you are listening to music more but enjoying it less, some people in the recording industry say they know why. They blame that iPod that you can’t live without, along with all the compressed MP3 music files you’ve loaded on it. I’m having a difficult time wrapping my […]

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I forgot to mention that our weekend activities included our usual trip downtown to the farmer’s market and the coffeehouse. If we ever manage to get Ava there during the work week, there’s not usually time for a book, but we typically do some reading on the weekend. The book she’s looking at here is […]

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What a nice weekend. Not only was the weather great, but we got to spend time with our cool friends and drink wine on two separate occasions. On Saturday evening, we attended a wine tasting held at Mara and Rockne’s house, which is only a couple blocks from ours. It was tasty and informative. Sunday […]

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Ava and I were messing around today when I was doing some calibration (etc.) on the home stereo. Turns out Ava loves her air guitar, as evidenced by: I think Ava gets this from her Grandma Georgie. I’ll try to get some video of the two of them together in a hellacious guitar duel to […]

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It’s official. Ava’s first airline trip will happen in January when we travel with the entire Klevar clan to Mexico for a week. The last time we were there, Leah was three months pregnant with Ava. Here’s what she looked like: She’s on the right. Leah’s convinced Ava’s going to have a good time playing […]

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Leah and I have somewhat different parenting styles, though I think we each do a pretty good job of acquiescing from time to time when one of us seems particularly vehement about a particular issue. Which brings me to this piece in the Journal today. Gosh, it’s good. The author has four boys, bless him, […]

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febrile Pronunciation: ‘fe-“brI(-&)l also ‘fE- Function: adjective Etymology: Medieval Latin febrilis, from Latin febris fever : marked or caused by fever From Joe Morgenstern’s review of “3:10 to Yuma” in today’s WSJ: And one can debate the ambiguities of the ending — which substantially resembles the original — but the febrile and semicoherent action climax […]

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Overall, I’m happy to be a lefty. It’s just that sometimes I feel like I have that many more annoyances during the day than my right-handed friends. Little things, is all, but then a snake bite is little, isn’t it? This comes to mind today because I have this coffee mug at work emblazoned with […]

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I was late for our first date. You remember. Back then, I was never late. I hated being late. I believed that showing up anything but on time showed disrespect, and I was especially mortified to have flubbed up on such a rare occasion as a first date. But, there I was. I’d gone to […]

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OK, maybe CNN lost it long ago, and I just haven’t been paying attention. But I was paying attention this morning, when they published this little tidbit on their front page re: Pavarotti’s death: Pavarotti died today, prompting one reader to cry on her way to work. What, exactly, is it supposed to convey to […]

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I bet that line has never been used before when a blogger switches themes. I’m a font of creative verse. If you’re reading this, you’re looking at a new theme here at avablog. Leah alerted me to the fact that the “old” theme I was using wasn’t rendering on IE<7. It’s the company default, and […]

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Steve, Steve, Steve. You vile tempter. It was three years ago tomorrow that my wife gave me one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, namely, my 4th generation iPod (20GB). How many hours use have I gotten out of this thing since then? Ten thousand? It might not be much of a stretch. The […]

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It’s no wonder I’m not involved in any way with a single one of Ava’s clothing decisions. This is the kind of thing I suggest: In this instance, I blame Leah for my inspiration. On the drive back from our anniversary getaway on Sunday, she got hold of the iPod and started rolling all sorts […]

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Leah finally reached her breaking point. After months of expressing her dissatisfaction with how long it takes to coddle Ava to sleep at night (sometimes as long as 45 minutes), the last few nights found Ava putting herself to sleep. The first night was the worst, natch. It turns out there’s no amount of preparation […]

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One nice thing about having a blog is that I can disseminate information to a broad audience in one fell swoop, and everyone gets the same information, so there’s never any, “Oh, you didn’t tell me that!” nonsense. Our trip to Dubuque was nice. Weather was gorgeous, the inn was very nice, the spa was […]

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