Learning opportunity

I look over and see Mateo sitting in a pile of toilet paper, busily shredding it into a million pieces. He's in full view of Steve all the while.

Me: What is he doing??

Steve: Learning about toilet paper.


(I've been laughing about this all day )

3:10 AM

Never thought waking
Would be so hard to give up
Love you more than sleep


***

I want to be in pictures! on the radio!

Listening to podcasts is one of my favorite past times. This American Life, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth, Fresh Air, Pregtastic, Savage Love.... the list goes on and on, but those are my current favs. Usually I only listen to these while in transit - while driving or walking Maeby - but since Mateo was born, I've found that I don't have nearly enough transit time to listen to all of the programs I want.

So, I've started plugging my ipod into speakers and listening while I'm at home playing with Little M, instead of watching TV or listening to music. It's a whole different kind of experience. I can be more engaged with him.

Anyway, I just discovered http://transom.org/ - a website that has all kinds of information on how to get started creating your own radio programs. I am so down for this. Who's with me??

The pictures above have nothing really to do with this post. Just thought I'd post something about my "other children", Maeby and Kittens, since M has been getting all the camera love lately.

"All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911" - Lewis Black

Another first yesterday. Mateo's first Halloween!

Unlike his father, he did not love dressing up. I guess he takes after me in something at least because I'm not a fan of dressing up either. Of course it could be that M just didn't like the wussy pea pod costume we got him. But what are you gonna do? He's 9 weeks old. Notice our neighbors downstairs dressed their son Daniel (2 months older than M) as Batman. Insult to injury to M's ego, I guess.

Now that I have a child, I think that takes some of the heat off me from having to dress up every year. Also, I look forward to next year when M can provide some input on what he will be. I imagine it will be superhero related and Steve will also go all out in his costume as well.

Final Halloween thought - every year I am tempted to eat a Jolly Rancher, and every year I remember how much I dislike them.... why?? See also: Candy corn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8yuvMsvNqY

Mateo 8 weeks (22 photos), by Jorli Baker

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

The Complexities of Sleep Deprivation

Every day is tiring in a different way when you're sleep deprived. Prior to Mateo being born, I had never really experienced this at all. Since I can fall asleep almost anywhere, with any amount of light or noise level, it's not been an issue for me.

Surprisingly, it's not always so bad. I have my days when the lack of sleep makes me a little loopy/giddy. There are those other days when my patience is razor thin, and I feel like I'm continually apologizing to Steve for being snappy. Right now, my eyelids just feel heavy, but besides that I'm doing fine.

The best part about being sleep deprived is that when you do get to nap for like 20 minutes that can feel like hours. It's really strange.

Day 1 of the Experiment

The No TV for one day a week experiment...
Will let you know how it goes. Month long,once weekly trial begins today.

Dear Answering Machine.. We're Through

I don't remember a lot of significant inventions in my lifetime, but I distinctly remember the day we got our first answering machine. After having it a few days, I couldn't imagine how we ever got by without it. The days of sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, or being fearful you might miss that all important call were over. Hallelujah. I never thought my love affair with the answering machine would end.

These days, however, I loathe having to listen to voice mail messages. Actually, it's been this way for a few years at least. I once accumulated 34 new voice mails in the course of a busy day, and I asked my then-assistant to listen to them and try to accurately capture the callers' moods, so that I didn't have to listen to the rants myself. I have messages on my cell phone that I don't listen to for weeks at a time, and don't even get me started on my home office land line voice mail... that damn red message light taunts me to no end. Usually there are between 12 and 23 messages at any given time, before I finally muster up the strength to go through and listen/delete them (or not listen/delete them, as the case may be).

It's not that I don't want to talk to people. I do. Especially over instant messenger. Or in person. If I am at my desk, I reply almost immediately to any IM I get. Text messages I also respond to very quickly. At my company, almost no one ever calls you without scheduling it ahead of time or IMing you first to say "hey, can I call you now?" It almost seems rude not to do that first.

And I do enjoy the phone, but only to catch up with old friends. For these calls, I generally make a phone date, so that we actually have time to really spend talking, undistracted. Working from home with an endless amount of conference calls has just worn me out for all other calls.

I never could have predicted that I would prefer people sending short text messages or emails to actually listening to a recording of their voice. Who has the time though? If I see on my caller ID that you called me, and I want to call you back, then there you go - I will. I'm sure part of my frustration is so many of the calls I get at home are unsolicited calls like telemarketers and political campaigns. Land lines like disappearing beacons for telemarketers and political campaigns.

So enough of this confusion. I decided to act. At least people should be fairly warned that I hate voice mail and there is almost no chance I will listen to whatever messages are left for me. I just changed my outgoing home phone message to say, "Hello, you've reached 718-726-XXXX, I no longer listen to these voice mail messages, so please try to reach me on my cell or via email. Thank you and have a nice day!" So far, everyone that has called has hung up right after the word messages. Brilliant! I would have just turned off the voice mail from picking up, but I don't want the phone to ring and ring.

What is worse than breaking your phone?

Just breaking the screen so that I can hear when I get texts and calls but can't do anything!! Aaaarrrgh.

Another casualty of late night feedings. I dropped it on the ground. Who knew the 1 millionth time I dropped it would be the one that sealed it's fate?

Coincidence? I think not.

So I decided today that I'm going to blog a lot more. As an experiment, blog all the time, maybe even several times in a day. (I can already hear my skeptical friends scoffing at this goal, since I have fallen short of similar goals many times before). Whatever, we'll see.

My point is, just after making this blogging proclamation, I discoverd that gmail has the option to let you post blogs directly from your gmail web page. F*#king awesome!!! Since I am constantly on gmail during the course of any given day, this will be a huge help. Whether or not I will have anything interesting to say, that remains to be seen. Not really the point anyway. I just want to start writing more.

Sunday = Football

Today was the first time we had people over since we had the baby. I may be biased, but our baby is pretty awesome. Little M can sleep in even the most extreme noise situations - whether there be a fire truck blaring down the street or 6 extremely loud people chattering while watching a bunch of football games in the apartment (as there was today).

It is wonderful that M is so cool and chill around people, because I don't get out much these days, and it was really nice catching up with friends. I didn't even mind that my breastfeeding status precluded me from drinking anything except a single sip of hard cider.

Where do I even start?

The more things happen in my life, the more I seem to retreat away from sharing it via social media. Ever since the birth of my son, Mateo (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) a few weeks ago, I have been almost lights out on social media - almost no Twittering, no blogging, very little e-mail. Oh wait, well - ahem - I have still been active on Facebook, because that's where I've been posting all of my pictures of little M, as we've started calling him.

The point is, the more intense/exciting/dramatic/wonderful my life is, the less I want to share about it. I'm not exactly sure why this is, except now that I think about it, it could be because I can't imagine words possibly doing justice to the feelings that I'm experiencing. Trying to capture them completely would most certainly fail, so why even try? I'd much rather spend all of my energy savoring all of this bliss, and not waste one ounce of it on anything else.

Unfortunatley, this trait does not make me the best blogger in the world. Sigh. I do have quite a bit of time on my hands when the little one is napping though, so maybe I will start posting more. If I make any promises though, that is usually a recipe for disaster, so we shall just wait and see.

On a related note, thank you to all of our friends and family for your well wishes on our new little addition. Mateo will hopefully get to meet all of you in due time!

"Maybe poker's just not your game. I know.. let's have a spelling contest."

We're watching Appaloosa right now. Thumbs up so far.

It's making me think about my favorite movie of all time, Tombstone.

Word of warning, you will never want to watch Tombstone with me because I sit there and say all the awesome lines right along with the movie - of which there are many. My favorite is the title of this post, but here are a few more:

Wyatt Earp: You gonna do something? Or are you just gonna stand there and bleed?

Doc Holliday: Oh. Johnny, I apologize; I forgot you were there. You may go now.

Jack Johnson: Doc, you ought to be in bed. What the hell you doin' this for, anyway?
Doc: Wyatt Earp is my friend.
Jack Johnson: Hell, I've got lots of friends.
Doc: I don't.

Billy Clanton: [to Holliday] It's the drunk piano player. You couldn't hit nothin.' [draws a knife.] In fact, you're probably seeing double.
Doc: [draws a second gun] I have two guns; one for each of ya.

Doc Holliday: It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Johnny Tyler: I swear, it's like I'm playin' cards with my brother's kids or somethin'. You nerve-wrackin' sons-a-bitches.

Wyatt Earp: All right, Clanton... You called down the thunder. Well, now you've got it! You see that? It says "United States Marshal."... Take a good look at him, Ike, because that's how you're gonna end up!... The Cowboys are finished, you understand me?! I see a red sash, I kill the man wearin' it! So run, you cur... RUN! Tell all the other curs the LAW'S coming! You tell 'em I'M coming... and Hell's coming with me, you hear?! Hell's coming with me!

Doc Holliday: There is no normal life Wyatt, There's just life.

Okay, I'll stop now. Back to Appaloosa.

Going Back to my Roots

Nevermind that last posting here announcing that I'll no longer posting on this blog..

I've been doing a little soul searching, and it comes down to this. I used to love writing this blog. For years and years. Unselfconsciously and unorganized and fun.

Then I decided to get a new fancy pants squarespare blog and write about technology. And even though I love technology, it turned into a chore. More of something I had to do than wanted to do. Perhaps because technology is my day job. Anyway, then I changed the blog to be about everyday stuff, but it was too late. That blog was soulless.

So I'm coming back home. To good old blogger. I already feel better.

Announcement - New Blog Address

Alas, I am no longer updating my blog here.

My new blog can be found at www.jorlib.com

Hipster is the new Yuppie

From the [awesome 1998] movie Last Days of Disco:

Des McGrath: Do yuppies even exist? No one says, "I am a yuppie," it's always the other guy who's a yuppie. I think for a group to exist, somebody has to admit to be part of it. Dan Powers: Of course yuppies exist. Most people would say you two are prime specimens.

This weekend I went to this place that was so full of hipsters, it was all I could do not to openly gawk... and Des' above quote came to mind. I mean, would any of them admit to being a hipster? Doubtful. But when witnessed in such a herd, it was impossible to deny their existence. Also impossible to not be a little creeped out.

Will the apartment please stop swaying? I'd like to get off

So let's file this under "things they never tell you BEFORE you do something". I returned Saturday from a 7 day cruise to the Bahamas with Steve, which was delightful and relaxing and all kinds of nice.

I did my fair share of time being seasick while I was on the ship (on my worst day, I believe the phrase "F*#k the F@~king ocean" escaped my lips), but Dramamine and slowly getting my sea legs made it go away relatively well.

However, despite being back that I'm back on dry land, my sea sickness is showing no signs of stopping nor adhering the laws of physics and decency. I just googled this phenomenon, and apparently it is pretty common. Ugh! This is not what I signed up for.

Strangely enough, Steve wasn't sick at all on the boat, but he too is experiencing it now that we're back. Apparently we have confused our inner ears and will be paying the consequences for another week. I don't know if that all you can eat buffet was worth it. Make it stop.

National Treasure – Day of Reckoning

Sure, sometimes I like to make snap judgments. One example is when I first watched the preview for the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I didn’t see the first installment of this movie franchise, but as soon as I saw the preview for the sequel, I renamed it “National Treasure – Day of Reckoning” and would say in one breath whenever I saw a tv commercial or billboard for it “OhGodThereItIsNationalTreasureDayOfReckoningTheWorstMovieofAllTime!!!” If you’d "like to confirm this, just ask Steve or Ang, who had to put up with me saying this all the time.



Looking back, it was a little unfair. Fun, but unfair probably.

Anyway, today I’m stuck on an airplane, and guess what I’m stuck with watching? Yep. I could have just not watched I guess, but after about 15 minutes, curiosity of the badness got the best of me.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

“The president’s secret book… for presidents, by presidents and for presidents’ eyes only.”

"Of course somebody else is after the treasure. It’s the axiom of treasure hunting."

“Okay..it’s tee time chaps.”

“This is an extinct, exceedingly rare language.” (which one is it?)

“Your great great grandfather killed President Lincoln1” – spoken by a random 6 year old

“Last time I checked, we pretty much make our living off crazy.”

aaaaaaaaaaaaand my favorite:

“He carved Mount Rushmore in order to erase the map’s landmarks that would lead to the City of Gold.”

So is it the worst movie of all time? You tell me.

p.s. Helen Mirren plays Nick Cage's mom in this. what??

p.p.s. I suspect that the people sitting on either side of me must be really wondering what the hell I'm doing typing down quotes from this trainwreck of a movie. It's a risk I have to take though.

Easy source of blog content

You know, I'm always thinking that I have nothing to write about on my blog, and there are many gems of IM conversations that are completely forgotten overlooked, never to be seen again.

Well no more! I plan to post some of the more entertaining IM conversations. Like this one I had today with Ang about the this McCain supporters video.

angelaiscaustic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaP9eiWuX3s
WTF?!?!?!
me: these ladies are HORRIBLE singers
angelaiscaustic: its like im watching it
but my brain is rejecting it
me: hahaha
my ears are bleeding. thanks.
Sent at 1:57 PM on Wednesday
angelaiscaustic: ha sorry
the old lady is terrifying
me: GET OUT OF MY HEAD
angelaiscaustic: hahahahhaha
me: i was just going to say, waht the fuck is up with the old lady
i mean, really?
Sent at 1:59 PM on Wednesday
angelaiscaustic: with the weird eyebrow come hither thing towards the end?
Sent at 2:00 PM on Wednesday
me: i didn't watch that part
and hells if i'm watching it again
angelaiscaustic: its at like 2:08
hahhahaha

Happy Easter - A Photo Essay

OOh! A peep with my latte...















Wait a minute, I hate peeps...














You know, it's not half bad....















A watery end.