Just heard a funny song on the 40's station (satellite radio).

Harry James - Mister Five by Five

Well, I've done some productive things this morning. I made a few (back-dated) posts on this blog and edited a bunch of vacation photos. I also finally got around to listening to the new album by The Books. I bought tickets to see them at the 9:30 Club next month, so I figure I should bone up on their newest stuff. [I never thought I'd say this about any band, but] their newest album might be their best. Impossible to say after just one listen.

Well, vacation is now a week behind us. I'm not so sure I care about vacations anymore. I don't have a job to get away from, which was a weird feeling when we were there. It's like I pack up every single one of my normal responsibilities and take them wherever we go. Stephen is in a very shy stage, so no one could really take care of him except me and Jaime. Then, in the few hours that Stephen was napping, I felt like I had to cram everything I could into that time (shopping for trinkets, swimming, sucking at Wii). Everyone was talking about how relaxing the trip was, meanwhile I was dying a little each day. It was very nice to spend some time with the family, though. Stephen was almost used to them by about Wednesday. He eventually would walk up to my brothers and ask to be held. I will continue to go on vacations, of course, but I just have lowered expectations now. It's just a different version of being at home. It's like, "welcome to being a grown-up," I guess. Nothing will ever compare to our Sandals vacation/honeymoon.

I don't care about baseball, but Albert Pujols is on the verge of something very great. He has been quietly building a Hall-of-Fame career for nine seasons now. For batters, winning the "Triple Crown" means having the highest batting average for a season in addition to the most homeruns and RBI's. This has not been done since 1967. Most power hitters do not have high batting averages. Anyway, Pujols is dangerously close to the triple crown right now. The thing that makes this interesting is that Pujols has never been suspected of using steroids, and his career does not have the tell-tale signs of steroid use (nagging muscle injuries, major changes in physique, wildly differing statistic from season-to-season).

We got home six days ago, and we finally started cleaning the house this morning. We hadn't even moved the suitcases upstairs since we walked in and plunked them on the living room floor.

I have been messing around with Audio Mastering software. I do not have "golden ears" as it were. It seems that Steve has a better idea of frequencies than I do (which is kind of embarrassing because I'm the producer of our duo). Between the two of us, we're going to have a good-sounding album before long. This album is five years in the making and we have all the tracks laid out, but they sound like they are being played through a tin can. I'm getting really excited. Part of the problem is that I have to clean up our first recordings which are horrible quality. (Our first recordings, the microphone was just placed on a shelf.. no mic stand).

Went to the doctor today... everything checked out.. again. Little Stephen is still hugging that 25th percentile in all categories. 15 months old and still no words. The doctor also yelled at me for not brushing Stephen's teeth.

Age: 15months
Height: 30"
Weight: 22lbs, 9oz
Head Circum: 18.25"

Related charts, graphs, etc.

What a week. There are a lot of things in this house, and I have done a little bit of everything. Swimming pool, kayaks, beach, hot tub, billiards. We have gone out to the beach a couple times (that's enough to get my fill for the next decade). We had a forecast of rain every day this week, and it only ended up raining twice. After the rain, the mosquitoes and gnats came out in full force. Yesterday we went swimming at 10:30pm and our heads were surrounded by a swarm of bugs every time we popped out of the water. That swim was short-lived.

Other notable things from this week:

• Stephen pooped in the bath tub... twice
• I am still not into taking photos, apparently. Today I have to force myself to make up for lost time
• We went to Food Lion more than once a day on average
• The bugs here are horrendous
• The wireless router in this house is not password-protected, and everyone in the neighborhood uses it. Sloooow
• I love to come in second place in Yahtzee
• Parcheesi is a horrible game of back-stabbing and betrayal. Don't play it unless you want a divorce
• Homemade ice cream sundaes are a great idea, any day of the week
• I really, really like swimming pools. The ocean? Not so much

More later? Who am I kidding?

Edit: I now realize that this sounds like a negative post. That was not my intent. I had a great time.

We're here. And it's a very nice place. Much cooler than I thought. I've already been swimming twice, kayaking. Played Mario 3 on the Wii. Just got the camera and laptop out for the first time.

One of the [many] abandoned homes in my neighborhood just had a buyer. It's the townhouse next to me that has been unoccupied for about six months. It's an investment property for the new owner, and he is just doing repairs in an attempt to rent it out. I have befriended the owner. In an act of pity, he lent me his pressure washer. I cleaned the back of the hosue, and was going to do the front on Saturday, but the guy came back to collect his pressure washer on Friday night. That was just the first of my plans to be thwarted this weekend.

Saturday night we were supposed to attend a drive in movie with Martha & Eric. We arrived at the prescribed location (we were even on time) to find that most of the viewing area was roped off and cars were not permitted to park there. Most people brought lawn chairs and set them up in the parking lot. We did not have anything like this, as we were planning to watch the movie from our car. We basically just walked around for ten minutes and left. Stephen walked very far without ever putting his hands down or stopping to rest. Maybe 1/8 of a mile to the snow cone stand and the same distance back to the car. We instead came home and watched Frost Gaint, which was everything we'd hoped.

Yesterday was the Men's final for the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in DC. I had two tickets that I got for my birthday from S&S, and the tickets said 12 noon. We didn't bother to check the details until yesterday morning, when we found out that the doubles final was at noon, and the singles final was "no earlier than 3pm," depending on how long the doubles match went. So we changed our babysitting plans and planned to get to the stadium at 3pm. After the world's longest drive-though line at McDonald's, we ended up getting to our seats about about 3:20pm, but the match started ten minutes late so we only missed the first two games. Turned out to be a complete trouncing, with the no-name, often-injured underdog winning in straight sets.

It was hotter than hell and there we no clouds. Being up in those bleachers makes you feel like you're right next to the sun. There are some aspects that are more impressive when you watch live, but I think I'm done with witnessing live sports. It's too much of a gamble regarding the weather, traffic, and the players. This year, two nobodies made it to the finals; there was no way to predict that when the tickets were purchased more than three months ago.

We did manage to go grocery shopping on Saturday.

Tonight is the first of our "band practices." If all goes well, Fat Man After Dark is going to do an audio interview with my band on Thursday. More on that later, hopefully.

Apparently any [and every] symptom can be attributed to teething, but no one really knows why. The diaper rash has just about cleared up. No fever, no frequent diarrhea, much less druel.

Stephen suddenly loves books. He comes stumbling over to me with a huge book in his hand several times a day. He sits in my lap, still and calm. After I read all five cardboard pages, he turns it back to the beginning. I've also been trying to get Stephen addicted to a movie before we go on vacation. It appears that he will not reach that critical age (of sitting still for a movie) before we leave for the beach house. Oh well.

He's getting slightly better at switching from "dada" to "mama" on command, and he has developed a certain word for the kitty cat. He says da-DAAAA with the second syllable being a high-pitch shriek (like a cat's meow). A few minutes ago, he walked over to the pet food cabinet, pulled out a can of cat food and said da-DAAAA.

I haven't touched my camera in weeks. I guess I'm in a lull before I go crazy with it on vacation.

Stephen has a bunch of teeth coming in (several have broken through), and I'm not sure what can be attributed to teething. He has:

Diarrhea
Runny nose
Fever
Diaper rash (first time ever)

He is also eating less, drinking less, and sleeping less. The last two days have been hideous. He has been completely pissed off both days, which usually causes him to do something rash and injure himself. The diaper rash didn't show up until he pooped five times yesterday and last night. I was up for two hours last night with him.

Edit: Well, he's super dehydrated and in rough shape. I left a bottle full of water in his crib when I laid him down for a nap. I can't effectively comfort him because I have some spreading rash all over my forearms and his diaper rash irritates him when I'm holding him.

If you are in windows, you can play these files in any of these players:

Winamp (any version, even very old versions)
XMPlay
Schism Tracker

In linux, they will play in just about any audio/media player, and there is a player called BASS which will play them accurately in linux, Windows, Mac OSX, and even iPhone. If that's not enough, here is a much bigger list of players/converters.

These files are [legally] free and free to distribute.

Falcon is a Polish producer (Jacek Dojwa) who used FastTracker 2 in the late 90's and released a lot of songs in source format (*.xm). He later went on to form the band Husky.

Falcon - 'Twixt Cup and Lip
Falcon - French Connection
Falcon - Nicollete
Falcon - La Petit Prince
Falcon - Sofa Surfin'

Enjoy.

Steve came over tonight, stopped by for a few hours on his way back home from his mom's. We played each other new songs we are working on (we are getting better). We have lost that familiarity that we had, so now every time we see each other it's a few hours of "Hey man, how you doing? How have you been?" etc. Translation: we never get anything done unless you count the consumption of wine as a productive activity.

Because of this, we are going to try to schedule a weekly "band practice" on Monday nights. Make dinner, hang out the with family until Stephen goes to bed, maybe do some recording or something from 8-10:30 pm.

In other news, I did a lot of yardwork and have some sort of poison ivy/oak look-alike. Happens every time.