avablog

Whenever I find myself talking with someone who’s thinking about having a first child, I’m never quite sure what to say.  I tend to be encouraging in a general way, because when it’s all said and done, I do believe having a child is a worthwhile pursuit and a net gain in the happiness column.

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In the space of 13 months I went from leading the life of a confirmed bachelor with no designs on having a family to being married and fathering a little girl.  *blink, blink*

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One 1998 Volvo V70 XC 2.4L 20 valve turbo with ~81,100 miles sold for $8,500. Via con dios, coche.

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We were off to sunny Lake Zurich, IL, to visit my friend A.J. and his family over the weekend.  It was a nice trip.  We went to the Brookfield Zoo with the kids on Saturday.  Ava was afraid of the merry-go-round and the dolphin show, but she loved looking at the baboons.  On the drive […]

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So, I put our Volvo up on autotrader.com. Yesterday morning I got an e-mail from a gentleman claiming he’s working on behalf of a client who is interested in buying the car. The client — who thus far has remained nameless during our e-mail exchanges — is a diplomat representing Canada at NATO. Fine with […]

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I was out of town at a conference yesterday and without e-mail access for an entire day.  There were a couple new Dells in various locations where we were conferring, but I wasn’t that desperate to check my spam e-mail. The conference site was the Hotel Pattee in delightful Perry, IA.  I’d actually been here […]

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1998 Volvo V70 Cross Country, 81,000 miles, AWD turbo.  Tell your friends.  More pics here.

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Google Adwords code sure does produce some funny mashups now and again.  This from a site I came across today:

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It was some night. Pictures of some storm damage are here in the recent photos group. These were taken by our neighbor Dave. (10:24 a.m. update): I just added pictures to this group that I took on my bike ride in to work this morning. Some are blurry because I was pedalling and shooting at […]

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Maybe I’ll go to Hell for bragging about my wife. Maybe it’s just unseemly.  So be it. When I look at Leah I feel like Patrick Dempsey in Can’t Buy Me Love when the hottest girl in school says she’ll go out with him (yeah, he has to pay for the honor, but he’s still […]

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Leah, Ava, and I went to a birthday party yesterday for the son of a friend of ours. The festivities took place at the Iowa Children’s Museum, a place I’d seen a number of times but never ventured into. Turns out the have special birthday rooms there that you can rent out for your party, […]

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I’ve only bought and sold a couple items on eBay over the years, but I have to say I find the place pretty fascinating.  I’m always amazed by the things people do and don’t bid on.  Items you think have no or very little value end up finding some funny niche and just confounding your […]

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I’m wrapped up in a project at work that’s going to keep me away from my desk all day for the whole week.  I only checked e-mail once during the day today!  What kind of life is that? So I was driving over to pick up our pizza last night (I had a Chicago-style, feta, […]

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Our season ended last night. At last. It was the first night of the tournament, during which teams play in best-of-five matches to determine who moves on. We played four games in our first match, winning the second one, but we just weren’t strong enough to finish off the other (again, all-male) team. I decided […]

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Ava bit a kid at daycare today. Hard enough to break the skin, apparently. The daycare’s policy is not to name the bitee, so we couldn’t confirm the injury. I guess it’s like some sort of kiddie witness protection program. Anyway, when we got to daycare at 5 to pick up Ava, she was sitting […]

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Last night we played the top-ranked team in the league. As often seems to happen in underdog situations like this one, we played relaxed and had a lot of fun. The result: We took one of the five games in the match, which is precisely one more game than we should’ve won. I suspect that […]

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Every day, people die without having a chance to tell their loved ones “goodbye.” It seems as good a time as any, what with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, to remember to dole out those hugs and kisses and words of love and devotion as freely and as often as you possibly can. The […]

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A while back I added this geo tracking code to avablog after seeing it on Aprille’s blog and being smitten by it.  I hadn’t advertised it at all before now because I was curious to see what kind of hits it would get just by being over there in the menu bar. So far I […]

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Leah claims I have road rage issues.  Nonsense, I say. I regularly move about town on foot, on my bike, or in the car, and I always see plenty of examples of inconsiderate, selfish, and downright dangerous driving.  Do I get frustrated?  Yup. The problem is that we live a block from a high school […]

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