News, Thoughts, Opinions, & Stories

Used to be, Declan would wake up around 5 or 6 AM every morning, I'd go get him, bring him to our bed and Jen would feed him and we'd all go back to sleep until 7:30 or so... Not sure whether it's because it's getting light so much earlier or that he's just older, but he's stopped going back to sleep now. And so the last couple mornings, Declan and I have been getting up early... and it's the best thing I've done in a long time.

Yesterday, we went for a bike ride around Forest Park, which I haven't done in a surprisingly long time. Today, we went hiking in the amazing Oak Savanna in Forest Park and then went to the Market in the Loop and stocked up on fresh fruit. Declan eats an amazing amount of fruit. We go through a cantalope, a pineapple, a big bag of grapes, and lots more every 4 days or so.

Walking through the savanna this morning reminded me of my mornings when I used to work at Miniwanca and how much I miss it. I just feel so much more connected and balanced when I'm there; spending all day every day outdoors, exercising constantly, interacting with and leading groups of open-minded folks who question everything, discussing philosophy and spirituality and the true meat of life. To be able to spend two months a year in that world was such a blessing. It grounded me and gave me a chance to see my life from another perspective and examine my path.   Read More...

Slaving away at the office

Eric Berger was foolish enough to sign on as employee number two at my Web Development company, Efficion Consulting. Eric's been friends with Jen and me for years which is great since he's working out of Efficion's world headquarters (aka, the middle bedroom). In addition to administering regular footrubs to the other Efficion employee's (that's me), Eric will be doing HTML/CSS, PHP, DotNetNuke, ASP.NET, and lots of other things that probably won't mean much to most people but result in great websites.   

and you work too much...
and you spend too much time in front of a computer...

...when the most exciting thing you've gotten in a long time, is a chair... but this isn't any chair, it's the "Life" chair by Knoll. Everyone knows about the Aeron chair by Hermain Miller, but Aeron is so 1990's... the new thing in chairs is the ability to move with you and still be supportive so you're no longer restricted to one proper position... As I'm incapable of maintaining one posture for 10 hours a day, this is what I needed.

Knoll has a showroom here in St. Louis and they let me take home each of the desk chairs for 3-4 day test drive which was great. One of their chairs, the Chadwick, was designed by the same guy who designed the Aeron, but like the Aeron, just didn't work for me.

And now that I've bored you to tears if you indeed got this far, we'll return to our main feature... (Declan of course)   

Baby and mom are sleeping peacefully as I write this. Declan's a big, healthy boy at 8 pounds, 9 ounces and 21 inches long. He's perfect as can be other than standard newborn issues with a bit of a cone head and baby acne but still cute as can be.

Mom and baby worked hard at getting him out the old fashioned way but he just couldn't get past the cervix so after 11.5 hours of labor, we changed courses and went with a C-section, 30 minutes later, he was out, crying, and covered in goo...   Read More...

The latest round of contractions started at 10 this morning and they were the real deal this time. Jen suffered through some pretty back back pain for quite awhile and got really intense once contractions started... we headed out for the hospital a bit after 11. We recently found out Jen's water was already broken, not quite sure when that happened. Our little guy should be joining around dinnertime tonight.

Check this site for the latest... :-)   

Nothing new to report, some more contractions, some back pain and other discomfort, but still at home waiting.