avablog

That’s what I finally ended up with for an LCD TV. Office Depot was (still is, until 6/2) selling these units for $699, which is a nice deal. So I ran over and picked one up. It looks good so far, even with a standard def feed. Of course Leah walks in, looks at it […]

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Anyone who’s talked to Leah since we made the decision to move to a new house (and even before then) knows that this has been a very emotional time for her.  She’s very attached to our old house, particularly because she was close to the woman who lived there for 70 years. Well, this morning, […]

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From the WSJ: American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers’ generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds. Well, I’m in my 30s, but I don’t know that I’m worse off than my father was when we […]

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If all goes according to plan, we should be the owners of a new home tomorrow in about 11 hours.  Leah’s walking around with a $170,000 check in her purse; it even survived a trip to Domby, which is a miracle.  We haven’t used a realtor for this transaction, so we’ve learned a lot about […]

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Leah and I are trying to keep an eye on Ava for signs of stress or discomfort during our relocation. She seems to be doing pretty well, but we do get the sense that she’s off just a bit. So we’re trying to do fun things and get plenty of ice cream and read lots […]

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Some people just are. You know the type. They’re thick skinned and resilient. They’re no-nonsense survivors. They can look at any potentially sad or scary or negative situation and see a glass half full. I’m not of that ilk. Nor am I of the ilk that sees the glass as half empty. No, I’m the […]

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It’s the weekend that wasn’t. At least if your idea of a weekend is taking it easy, kicking around downtown with a coffee and maybe taking a long stroll through the park. No. This wasn’t one of those.

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I’m having some difficulties arranging ‘Net access at my mom’s place, where we’ll be staying for the next month or so.  This should make for an interesting social experiment if I can’t get something figured out, and fast.

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One of my favorite movies EVER is Alien. I love everything about it. I’m also a moderate fan of most of the sequels, but there’s a scene in the first sequel, Aliens, in which they introduce the power loader. When I first saw this machine, I told myself that I must live long enough to […]

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They’ll always remind me of this little house on College Street, I think. The place where we first moved in together–where we celebrated our wedding and brought Ava to life. The place where we yelled and cried and laughed together. It has a big old maple tree in the front yard that fills our living […]

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Aren’t they all misc. items? Anyway…. My mom’s presently wending her way up the Mississippi on a five-week bike trip from NOLA to Lake Itasca. It’s her second time riding the length of the river, only this time she’s going uphill. God love ‘er. The upshot is that Leah and I get to stay at […]

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You have to be pretty oblivious not to be bowled over now and again by the plain old biology of this whole child-rearing thing. It’s easy to get caught up with all the financial and school and medical stuff (which is really all financial stuff, actually), but sometimes I’m caught off guard by the simple […]

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Really. I never cease to be amazed by the number and variation of ways people find to off themselves, particularly kids. The odds against something like this have got to be millions to one. Also, do you keep scissors on top of your fridge? Girl Dies Falling From Chair With Scissors POSTED: 9:53 am CDT […]

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It’s going to be quite a weekend.  Leah’s whole family is in town to watch Ava while Leah and I pack. I’m cooking three chickens tomorrow for dinner.  I’ll smoke two with apple wood and throw the third one on the grill with some “five star” bbq sauce I picked up last week.  Rachel has […]

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I hate being jealous.  It doesn’t happen that often, really (I have a pretty darn nice life, after all), but sometimes I see something that just steams my clams.  And sometimes I see it repeatedly, and I try to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist, lest I collapse into a big quivering pile of […]

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UPDATE:  The bank accepted the check for deposit without any hassle.  I love my bank.  

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Life isn’t fair. It just isn’t. I recently found out that my dear friend and college roommate, M, has advanced-stage breast cancer, for which there is no cure. She was newly pregnant with her first child when she was first diagnosed last year, and she had to terminate the pregnancy to begin an aggressive round […]

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I get asked relatively frequently about buying a digital camera.  There are a lot to choose from, and they all have dozens of options, some of which are better or cooler than other cameras in the same class.  My mantra has always been, “Canon, Canon, Canon.”  I love the color out of these cameras, and […]

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I almost hate to write about the evenings we spend at Simone’s Plain and Simple. It’s nearly impossible to relate even the smallest detail of our meals there without coming off like a braggart, but there’s hardly anything I can do about it; there’s always at least one dish in any of her offerings that […]

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I hear that a lot these days. I’ll run into someone, usually at work, who hasn’t seen Ava in a while, or who knows I have a child but isn’t quite sure what sex it is or how old it is, who asks. And these days I say, “Two and a half.” The reply, almost […]

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