April!

So, I tend to let months fly by faster than I can say "I really need to blog more", but it seems that March has passed me by already. Hopefully this won't be my only entry for April, but you never know. I've become a lazy blogger. On the flip side of that coin, I've apparently become a much more motivated worker. I think I owe that to having a job that I actually enjoy.

So, the usual stuff is going on, I guess. The kids are getting bigger and doing new things. I'm hanging out. Occasionally playing video games. Working. Recording songs. Etc.

The weather is getting much warmer, and spring is finally here. OK, that's about as lame a paragraph starter as I could possibly craft, but it's true anyway. With spring come good things, like not wearing a giant coat, not shoveling snow, getting outside for walks, actually meeting our neighbors, etc.

I have to go off on a tangent here. I may or may not have talked about the Orson Scott Card theory of Philotics before. I don't think I have. Anyway, according to Card in his Ender's Game universe, there are lil' things called Philotes that kind of tie the universe together. People that develop relationships also develop Philotic Connections. Yes, this is all fiction, but it explains nicely the way that when I haven't seen a friend in a while and I start thinking about that friend, the universe sort of seems to arrange things so that I reconnect with said friend. It happens to me all the time, and probably to you as well. I truly believe that SOME sort of connection is made between people that's beyond physical.

For example, I was talking to Ryan the other day about not having seen Reuben in a while. That night, Reuben called me. There was no conversation between Ryan and Reub, it just happened independently. There are other examples. I've found myself wondering whatever happened to person X, only to go home and find out that they've friend requested me on Facebook.

Anyway, lately I've been trying to track down a friend of mine from high school named Mike. Since I now live in the same town as his parents, I looked them up in the phone book to see if I could find his number from them. Upon looking in the phonebook, I realized that they had moved...to the house that's literally out my back window. Our back yards touch. Crazy. Weird. Philotic connection? Either way, perhaps I'll meet them again soon, since it's spring and people are outside. (See? This all connects.)

Still, calling old friend's moms isn't high on my cool things list, so I just sent a FB message to his brother. LOL. That seems to have worked, as I got his phone number and sent a message. We'll see. Go philotes go.

Joey's Big Weekend

This past weekend was Joey's baptism, so we had a ton of people to our place to celebrate the big event. It all started Saturday when Kerry's parents rolled in, followed shortly by Kerry's brother Keith and his wife Beth. Kerry's dad had brought a bottle of rum and a bottle of whiskey, so we settled in and prepared ourselves for a night unlike the one we had expected (you know...sober) and put on the party hats.

Ryan and Meghan arrived shortly after that, and we also invited Lars to come over. My parents and grandparents arrived after that, and it was time to get supper going. Kerry's dad had brought a turkey burner (since I think mine is still in Rhyno's garage) and a fry pan, and 200 perch fillets. Kerry, in the meantime, had sliced up a bunch of potatoes. Soon the cooking oil was a'bubblin' (well, what hadn't spilled on my garage floor, anyway) and the fries were cooking, followed shortly by the fish. There was also cole slaw and other vegetable type things, and although I enjoyed a bit of it all, my focus was on fish with tartar sauce and fries with malt vinegar. OM NOM NOM NOM.

We stayed up late playing video games and drinking. The next morning was...well, it was awful for me. But, you do whatcha gotta do, right? Coffee + Advil + Vitamin B-12 and I was back in the saddle and ready for church.

Joey was a little angel for the whole service, and Gwen was pretty good too, because her cousin Charlotte was there and they just colored the whole time. Ryan and Meghan and Keith and Beth are now officially Godparents, and both Ryan and Keith can now make offers you can't refuse.

Awesome weekend

Life is good. First of, my little less-than-three-month-old boy is sleeping through the night, and that's is a holy crapton of awesome. It took Gwen twice that amount of time, which admittedly was heavily due to Kerry and I not really knowing how to get her to sleep through the night. With Joey, it was all about routine. We didn't even need to do the whole "cry it out" thing. He just decided that he should sleep. Good boy. :^D

This weekend marked a trek to the cities for some D&D. Lundo and Amy were kind enough to host, and as usual I had a blast. It's funny, now that I've moved out of town I play way more often than I did over the course of the last several years. That's due to the blissful lack of law school, of course. It's a lot more awesome to have one or two sessions a month than one every six months. I think that the switch to fourth edition has really revitalized everyone's desire to play, as well, and everyone is having a lot of fun.

On Sunday it was time to pay Kerry back, because she had the kids all day on Saturday and they were a couple of hellians. So, she went out for a long long lunch with her friends, and I stayed at my sister's place with the kids. When I go to my sister's place with the kids, chaos follows, because she has two kids that are about the same age. It was interesting and chaotic, and I hope they all got some rest once we left.

I've been obsessed with Chess lately, thanks to chess.com and their lovely app for facebook. I've been playing against my friends, and it's a ton of fun. If you play chess, and are on facebook, I look forward to your challenge. It's made me really want to break out one of my chessboards and go to town against friends or family in an actual, factual, head-to-head game. Hopefully Lars and I can make that happen soon.

OK seriously

I suck at blogging this year. I really do. My first excuse (and really, that's all it is) is the new job. Yes, I have more responsibility now. There is, however, still down time, and I should really update the world on my life. Because seriously. The world needs to know. Don't you?

Life in the old town is...well, it is. Honestly, it's kind of like living in a fish bowl. Everyone knows who I am, who my family is, and what I'm up to. You'll notice that I didn't even mention said town in this post, because there are only a few people here, and google is good at finding things. Anyway, it's good to be back here, but there's definitely a culture-shock style adjustment.

The job is going well. I can't get into specifics, due to the lack of privacy on the internet, but I'm doing lawyer stuff. I've been to court, and although the first time was terrifying, I'm confident that I'm in the right place, doing the right thing. For essentially the first time in my life, I'm happy with my job. I probably already said that.

My family is doing well. Gwen is super into dancing now. Kerry found a pair of old ballet slippers from when Kerry was a little girl, and gave them to Gwen. Gwen now wears them at all times, and is freaking adorable.

My Grandpa recently celebrated his 90th birthday. We had a party for him at their church, and well over 200 people showed up. He gave a speech (well, so did all of his children, but we'll focus on his) and he said that he was talking to his doctor. The doctor said that getting to 90 was a great milestone, and Grandpa said, "Now what?" The doctor said, "Well...try for 100!" Funny.

I've happily been playing a lot more D&D, which is awesome. I have the coolest friends in the world, because they're willing to truck all the way out here to play every other session. That's been awesome, and as a result I'm playing the most D&D I've played since back in the epic days of 2001 - 2003 when I had a weekly session. I'm all geared up for another session this weekend, and it's going to be a blast as always.

I had gotten out of playing WoW, in favor of my shiny new PS3. Monday night, though, I had woken up with Joey at about 3:00 am, and couldn't get to sleep until 4:30 because I was thinking about WoW. I actually got out of bed at 4:00 and downloaded the latest patch, so that I could play last night. The problem was that by the time 9:30 rolled around last night, I was all set to play, but I was tired as heck. I still played about an hour, though, and it was blissful.

Settling In

Another day, another dollar. So, I woke up to the realization that I've been at this lawyerin' thing for a full quarter of a year now. I started with the firm back in October. You'd think that by now I'd have a little confidence about what I'm doing, but that's not the case. Friends and colleagues tell me that it takes a good year to start to feel comfortable, and I believe them. A word to law students: They don't teach you anything in law school about being a lawyer. Even the stuff that really seems like you'll need to know in the future can be rendered close to useless, depending upon what path you take.

That said, I know that I'm more comfortable now that I was at the outset, and I am confident that I will be able to learn everything I need to become a good lawyer. On to other, more fun topics.

Joey, whose official nickname is "Bubs" now (although he'll answer to Bubsy, Zubs, Zubsy, and other variants) is growing at an exponential rate. The lad is huge. I think he's gonna be a bruiser. He could surprise me there, though. I was a little blubber baby as well, but I turned out short and relatively lean. I also turned out generally terrible at sports. We'll see.

Gwenner is basically completely potty trained now! It's amazing -- she just decided that she was able to go on the potty, and now that's what she does, every time. She's a very good and very smart little girl, who astounds me daily. It's amazing to come home and sit down for a conversation with my little girl. She's a chatterbox with a frightening command of the English language. She's also freaking adorable. I'm biased, but it's still true. :)

I got a new toy for Christmas, in the form of a shiny new PS3. It's freaking awesome. As a father, however, my video game time is limited, and I'm afraid that I'll have to give up on WoW for a little while. At least until Cataclysm is released. Although, as an addict, I still feel the pull to play. Perhaps I can devote 1 of my gaming nights per week to WoW. Woo! Justified monthly payment!

As far as PS3 games, I've acquired three that will soak up a lot of my time. The one I'm currently in the midst of is GTA 4, and it's a beautiful and engaging installment of the series, very true to its predecessors. Rock Star seems to have taken out a lot of the more outrageous things that made their way into GTA: San Andreas. Missions where you fly jetpacks to pick up alien goo may be fun (and seriously, GTA:SA is one of my favorite games ever) but they kind of detract from the gangsta feel of the game. GTA 4 is another romp in Liberty City, and so far has provided me with a lot of fun and a minimal amount of swearing.

I also picked up Dragon Age: Origins, a game that virtually every one of my friends has played or is playing. I'm very excited, because I've heard nothing but good things about it. I know that one's gonna be a time consumer.

My brother-in-law got me Assassin's Creed for Christmas, another title that I'm extremely excited to play. It's gonna be a good few months for gaming.

Let it snow

Well sheesh. It appears that I let a month slide by without blogging. Well, it's the holidays and all, and I think I lost my readership anyway. But hark! This clickety-clack is the sound of me trying to pull it together and type a blog.

What's been going on for me lately, you ask? A lot, but that's always the case. Work is going well. I've finally started doing things that real lawyers do, instead of just typing documents. I'm keeping myself busy here, and enjoying the heck out of being a real live lawyer.

Baby Joey turned one month old on Christmas day. He's growing exponentially, and if this rate continues, he will tower over the buildings of Benson by next fall, and will cause a lot of damage around town just by crawling. Shudder, mortals, for the day of Joeyzilla draws night. In all seriousness, he's doing fantastic.

Christmas this year involved some travel, but not as much as usual. On Wednesday night we drove from Benson to Taylors Falls, MN (where my Grandparents reside). We made this trek in the midst of SNOWMAGEDDON 2009!, a much-hyped winter storm. The drive was pretty intense, but we made it without too much difficulty. We had a lovely Christmas dinner, where I successfully avoided eating any lutefisk (ish). We stayed until Christmas day, and made the trek back home.

The drive home was worse than the drive there. At first the roads were just wet, but by the time we were within 30 miles of home it was complete crap. Four-wheel drive and a speed of 30 mph got us home happily, and I discovered to my great joy that our neighbor across the street had cleared my driveway. I love my neighborhood.

It continued to snow, and I woke up the next day to the sound of a motor, and glanced out to see that once again, my neighbor had cleared my driveway. I didn't see which of my neighbors was the awesome one. I decided to pay it forward, and went over to my parents' house with a shovel in hand. This was Saturday, and they were returning later in the afternoon.

That was the worst time I've ever spent shoveling in recent memory. It took me close to 3 hours, and part of it involved cutting through a chunky wall of snow that was well higher than my waist, piled against the end of my parents' driveway by a series of snowplows. I seriously should have left that there, because it would have easily repelled looters or hordes of orcs. I feel that I singlehandedly destroyed my parents' fortifications, but such is life.

Yesterday, I once again heard the sound of blowing snow. I sprang from my bed like a wildman, intent on catching Mr. Awesome mid-snowblow. I was successful. I ran out the front door and found that it was my neighbor from across the street. I thanked him profusely for his kind act. I went inside and collected a large plate of Christmas cookies, and then brought it over to said neighbor's house as a thank-you gift. I love my neighborhood.

After that, Kerry's parents and some other relatives came to our house for Christmas Two: Electric Boogaloo. We had a great day, filled with food, beer, wine, mead, merriment, and more presents for a very excited three-year-old. I think that Gwen is now convinced that it's going to be Christmas every day.

Welcome to the world!

The evening of November 24th was fairly quiet. Typical evening here in Benson, without much going on. We put Gwenner to bed at her normal, reasonable hour. Then Kerry and I watched a little TV, and we went to bed. I read some more of Dan Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol.

At 4:10 am, Kerry said, "HONEY!" I've never woken up so quickly in my life. "WHAT????" I replied, bolting upright. "I think I'm having contractions," she replied. "How far apart are they?" I asked, not daring to hide the panic in my voice. "I don't know," she said.

Now, when Kerry says "I don't know" in the context that she did, it really means "you don't want to know." In this particular situation, it turned out to mean "ten minutes", but over the course of the next half hour, that number decreased to four. With a 30-minute drive to Willmar, MN in our future, that number was too close for comfort.

It was snowing outside. My parents rocketed over to our place, and we were out the door around 5:30. I can't really recall the time. There was some dilly-dallying in there. I was more than a little panicked.

We made it to Willmar somewhere around 6. Just like last time, I remember being really annoyed at how long the triage takes. Seriously folks, this lady is having a baby...can you move it along a bit?

Kerry's contractions were very painful by this time, and all she really wanted was an epidural. Unfortunately for her, this wasn't going to happen. She was too far along, and had to just power through it. I reassured her to the best of my ability, and off we went.

We were in our room at 6:30. The baby was born at 7:29. WOW! A little over 3 hours of labor sure beats the 22 hours for Gwen.

SO, welcome to the world, Joseph Dennis Wilcox! 7lbs, 12 oz. 22 inches long, cute as a button.