Thug life

He got tatted up while doing time.

Ruch, Oregon

Mt Shasta

Lullaby

He was singing along with coco jambo, then got very quiet. Amy took off the headphones.

Tricycle

I saw this driving home. A motorcycle with 2 small wheels in front, it looked very easy to tip over. Maybe that adds to the thrill.

Printermania

So, after 2 years of torturing me via various means, Amy's old laser printer finally gave up on us. This is after doing things like refusing to work with postscript drivers, not sharing itsself over the network nicely, fighting with my network USB print servers, and generally being a big pain in the butt. Amy was feeding cardstock through it and decided that it wasn't going to print anymore. I cursed it, and vowed to replace it with something better. Lo and behold, Craigslist is a mecca for used printers. I found a used Laserjet 2200 dn for $40, got it working on the network that very night, and successfully printed easily from 2 PC's and a mac. To top it off, I threw the dead printer up on craigslist and scored a cool $20 off it. How cool is that?

Reconnections

I admit to being a Facebook doubter. I mean, why would I use Facebook when I refuse to use MySpace? But ultimately, someone, and I don't even remember who, talked me into it and I've been on it for over a year, now. In that time, I've reconnected with a lot of people. But in the last couple of months in particular, I've reconnected with people I actually spent time looking for several years ago, but who I considered lost to me.

Several friends from high school, from which I keep in touch with a grand total of ONE person, who attended my wedding. Interestingly, most of the active reconnecters were band friends, who I didn't even know I missed until they made themselves known and then my heart kind of had a little ache that I'd forgotten about. These were people who were there during the most difficult part of my life and whom I'd somehow blocked out of my admittedly selective and reductive memory. It was amazing what just a couple of friends from that time did to my memories of that time of my life.

Another is a friend from college who I used to see fairly often. Alex actually lived with her for over a year, before I moved in. I attended her wedding as Alex's guest. And spent some time trying to find her several times. And lo and behold, she found me! How crazy is that?! I often wonder what leads people to other people and I've decided it's seeing other people's networks. It's not like this person was searching for my name, I mean how silly is that? But I'm sure I showed up on someone else's friends list and that led her to me. Interestingly small world given the size of my college, but all in all, I'm really happy to be reconnected.

I have to wonder who else can find me this way?! There are eleven of us on Facebook. I suppose figuring out which one of us is correct isn't too hard knowing about my college and then law school.

Anyway, I wonder who else is going to find me this year? Before I change my name! Ha!

Both of us

Amy managed to catch us in the same shot.

Haircut

At the nursery

He's eating grapes while we browse the plants.

Stripey figs

Farmer's market

Morning family pile

Drew appeared in our bed this morning. Apparently, he had a bad dream and instead of crying and waiting for one of us to come and get him, he came on up and crawled into bed on the other side of Rich. Poor Rich had a wriggling child up against him starting at 5 am. Not so much sleeping this morning. I knew there had to be a bad side to teaching Drew that he could get out of bed on his own. Sigh.

Swimming at Aunt Patsy's

We didn't come prepared, so Drew and I just swam in underwear. Good thing I'm the photographer.

Amy's flower

Drew wanted to get Amy a flower, so here it is. Too bad she's allergic.

State fair

The california state fair is a horrible place where people congregate to shoot at each other. I'm glad we're skipping it this year, though i did kind of want to see weird al.

Square building

I imagined this building to be full of effiminate spikey haired young men. By far the most interesting thing i saw in la today.

Swinging

The closest to being on a swing i've ever seen him

Finding Waldo

Here i am looking for Waldo - his dog actually. The only part you see is the stripey tail. I'm in such concentration, i'm oblivious to other things going on.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns...Sort Of

It's been a pretty interesting year for me. I'm still kind of waiting to wake up from this life because who would have guessed that I'd be here? Like this? I certainly wouldn't have. And now I wouldn't give it up for anything.

The Amy Blog went the way of the dodo. Which is to say that wedding stress and life led to the abandonment of the blog. It will eventually go away for real when Rich reminds me to cancel the hosting service. It has been a good blog. And now we will have just one between us. It's going to take a lot of effort not to be a little competitive (who me?) about who blogs more. But Rich can do it from his phone and until I can do that, too, well, he's going to blog more than me.

That being said, I'll be doing more informative blogging, so you'll get some random information!

Today, we're still waiting to hear about when we might be able to close on the new house. And get things figured out for our general future. It feels odd to be thinking in years instead of weeks. I'm so used to thinking abstractly about the future, which is to say I'm good at writing up several plans spanning several years and then put them aside. It's surreal to be thinking where we need to live to be satisfied with schools for Drew in several years. Or which room might be used for a nursery in another year or two. When did we become grown ups?! It's a bit daunting, thinking of a larger house and all that means. It's like I've been playing house all this time.

We're going to start packing up this weekend and getting ready for the flurry of trips back and forth between the houses until we're done moving it all over there. We'll be living out of boxes for a while, but I think we're going to take our time unpacking and place things thoughtfully. Meanwhile, Zelda can't wait to paint. She sent me home with a box of paints to put on the wall to see how I like the colors. She's already got a plan and is also apparently actively looking for furniture having had a rather exhaustive conversation with me about my style and had me send her links to furniture I like.

Meanwhile, we've been dropping in and seeing Evan as often as Julie & Aaron can take our presence. He's already grown and is totally starting to show a remarkably mellow personality. Drew loves seeing him and can't wait until he's a little older and more interactive.

The wedding stuff is coming to an end over Labor Day weekend with our Oregon reception, a BBQ at Rich's parent's home. Then we move into thank you card territory. We started working on them and had all the photos printed we wanted to include, but then realized that we were moving, so we might as well also include a moving notice, too. So they're waiting a few more weeks and we'll send them out...just in time to send out Christmas cards.

I'm in full Olympic-mania. As many are well aware, I'm kind of nutty about...well, a lot of things.
The Olympics hit a sweet spot and I've been losing a lot of sleep staying up to watch swimming and gymnastics and well, now we're into the track and field events. Just a few more days! Sigh. The gymnastics call...

Bear

A picture of aaron and julie's spunky cat with an active lifestyle.

My buddy

I think he'd rip my head off and eat it if he could. He didn't really like me.

Palm tree

I think i was upside down

Zelda loves her doggie

Drew's horse

Lana is huge. And next to Drew, even bigger.

Flower head

I just can't explain a lot of what he does.

Drew and Evan

Oh, and i think julie is in there somewhere too.

Amy and Evan

Korean food

He's eating ssam.

Walkthrough of new house

That's it!

This is me saving the earth

I'm doing a compost experiment in the back yard in an old planter pot. It's absolutely disgusting and reeks up the whole backyard. It's also full of worms whenever i turn it. Saving the planet is nasty work.

Kids don't float

Not entirely true, but i suppose they're getting their message across.

The balloon game

You step on their balloons and they try to step on yours. As I predicted, the game ended in tears.

Beatdown

The park riots saw many innocent victims today.

New game

Drew and friends pass a croquet ball back and forth

He's eating again!

After a sick day, it seems he's back to normal...at least for Drew.

Benecia

Taken right before i ran the fastrack tollbooth. I always hope the camera doesn't catch me so i get a freebie.

Sunset

Amy is out of the car running to get a picture. Drew and i follow in the car.

Shiny hills

In Walnut Creek. The hills are brigtly illuminated as evening falls on the town.

Fried dinner

We made tempura last night. It was pretty good, we used yam, purple potato, eggplant and beans from our garden, and shrimp. It was nice and crispy, but Amy's stomach didn't agree with it, and when I went to take some for my lunch the next day, it was soggy and very un-crunchy.

Drew swimming

He was going in and out by himself

Allie at the pool

Drew at the pool

New dad

Aaron checks up on his little dude.

Evan?

He doesn't have a name yet, but he is a very handsome boy.

Welcome, Boy Ogilvie!

Congratulations to our good friends, Julie and Aaron Ogilvie for a beautiful baby boy. Unfortunately, the baby decided he enjoyed the breach position, but he seems to have had a very successful c-section delivery, and is now happily posing for cameraphone shots. Image was sent from Aaron to Amy to me, where the baby makes his internet debut. Read more about his story inside Julie on their blog.

http://boyogilvie.blogspot.com/

Eggplant

One of our more successful crops

Drew and the garden

He picked me some basil

Tatted up

They're supposed to be washable, but we'll see. He asked for a robot and i gave him a Bender. That's also a pirate on his arm, I'm so proud.

My failure

I couldn't get the valve off. Every time i tried to unscrew it, the metal on the faucet yielded. It's not that bad of a leak...

My victory

I fixed the auto sprinkler today. The solenoid wasn't getting power because the wire nut was rusted and also not connected properly.

A to-do item for my dad

We like this bed design.

Creepy Willie

This is at the RC Willie store in Roseville. Drew was so terrified of him that we had to walk around him when we came back to the store a second time.