I'm a Happy Robot!

I wanted to give another quick plug for chip tune music so here it is. I've been listening to the stuff for a few years now and I'm really fond of a handful of musicians. I urge you to start surfing and check out the scene. There's lots of free, full-length mp3s to sample at 8bitpeoples.com. Personally, for anyone just starting to explore, I would recommend anything by Bit Shifter and Paza at that site. Bit Shifter works exclusively with Game Boys I believe and Paza did some remixing for Beck's iTunes exclusive single Hell, Yes (the one with 4 tracks). Paza's Ninjani Diskus collection is fantastic Atari ST noise. If you're in the Christmas mood, check out the 8-bit Christmas collection. Fun stuff, that. One more that I can suggest is mmfan316. mmfan316's starbase is in Japan and his songs sometimes include natively inspired melodies which can be a nice change of pace from the Western melodic influences. Hope you like the tracks. Enjoy them, my robots!

Guess What?

I can tell this story now. I'd meant to write it down a long time ago, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

After work one evening this past June, I went outside to enjoy our new deck and wait for Amy to get home. When she did get home, we decided to grill something for dinner. We were both getting the food and place settings ready, bringing everything out to the table, hustling past each other through the sliding glass door. Unfortunately, we were both irritating each other, too. She seemed to be critical of my every move. Nothing I did, from turning the grill on to handling the meat was correct. At least that's how I perceived things. Because of this, I decided that I wasn't going to pay much attention to her suggestions which then rubbed her the wrong way. By the time the meat was finished cooking, we were full on mad at each other. It was turning out to be quite a party.

Neither of us take very long to start talking when we have our little tiffs so I started by asking her if anything happened during the day that had upset her. She said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But then she didn't say anything in return, didn't ask me why I also seemed irritable. All she did was start to cry a little bit as she broke down, "I've been keeping this in all week and I don't know how to tell you because I'm afraid of your reaction."

"What could possibly be so bad?", I asked tentatively.

Then she dropped it: "I've been feeling ill all week and my boobs hurt just walking up and down the stairs. I think I'm pregnant."

I paused and took another swig of my beer, swishing it around in my mouth before I swallowed. "Really?". Another pause. "I think I'm going to need another beer."

In retrospect, I wish I'd said something more, I don't know, intelligent, profound, non-dopey, but it's too late now to take it back. Regardless, I understood why she'd been acting a little strange and that I'd noticed that sort of behavior all week and was starting to wonder if this announcement would be forthcoming. We made up. I told her how happy I was at the news and that she hadn't needed to be nervous at all about telling me. We hugged, gave each other a kiss, and then proceeded to have a long conversation.

Babies on the Cheap

We had another appointment with the obstetricians' office on Monday. Everything is progressing well and normally. The baby is about 9.5cm long and is moving around quite well. It has moved beyond the sort of microbiological twitching you might observe in earlier stages of development and has now progressed to moving arms and legs in very human, very natural looking motions. It's not voluntarily controlling those motions quite yet, but it's still a pretty amazing sight. We were unable to get a good picture of it this time as it was facing backwards, but we were able to view the spine and rib cage with superb clarity.

You may have read earlier posts about a couple of friends, Vern and Wendy, hosting board gaming nights in the recent past. Unfortunately, their short tenure in Illinois is coming to an end and they'll be moving back east again. We will be sad to see them go again, but if the past is any indicator, something tells me we'll meet up again. (For anyone unaware, we met Vern by coincidence in our first apartment building in Pittsburgh before he met Wendy and they moved to California.) Anyway, they were having a moving sale on Saturday that included many of their baby items. I think we probably ended up with about $600 worth of stuff for $225. We bought their crib, a swing, a playpen, a very nice high chair, and a Maya wrap for that price. Thanks, guys, and good luck!

Mo' Money Maybe

We had some good news recently, but got it in a weird way. Amy had asked for a raise at work a few weeks ago and had also asked for a meeting to discuss the possibility. The meeting never came so we reasonably believed that no raise was forthcoming. But when Amy got her pay stub last week, there was more money in it. In fact it was more almost exactly equal to the amount that Amy had requested. She asked about it the next day and discovered that the raise had been approved. Now don't get me wrong. That is great news. I just think that it's weird that nobody discussed anything with her first.

This Labor Day weekend hasn't been as entertaining as our previous couple have been, but we did manage to squeeze in a bunch of chores that have been waiting in the queue. I replaced the insulation that got wet in our basement wall a couple weeks ago and put the wall back together. We also did more mundane things like shopping for groceries and maternity clothing. Saturday was pretty lazy. Amy was having a bad day so we pretty much just sat around, watched a movie (Seven Samurai), and generally just tried to keep her mind occupied on something other than feeling ill.

And I guess I neglected to finish the raccoon story earlier. We did indeed capture the raccoon the morning after we initially heard it in the attic. There was only one, thankfully, which brought the bill in at the lowest amount that it could have been.

So, happy September and I hope you like fall as much as I do. I can't wait until the cool weather starts setting in again.