Another great thing about my job is that I haven't worn a tie since March 2009 when I attended our conference in Boston. In fact, we don't really have a dress code as such. Nothing formally written anyway. I don't push it, and I generally stick to khakis and a shirt Monday through Thursday. Fridays are for jeans though. And today I decided to wear one of my new Caps jerseys (a Mike Green #32 white away jersey). I got three jerseys in one ebay auction and ended up paying the cost of one of them! I received them one day after the auction via UPS Ground from the seller in Fredericksburg (about 50 miles south from me).

The other two jerseys are...

I'm getting a wee-bit anxious about having everything ready by the time the little guy gets here, but I'm frankly running out of stuff I can do until we get the rooms painted. Then Monday I remembered something Laura mentioned about getting the three big gray bookcases in our house all in the same place, so that's what I spent two hours doing: Stripping the bookcases of everything on them, moving them, and replacing the stuff. I had to shim the bottom of the bookcases to make them even, no surprise the front room slants slightly, it was built in 1935 and before it was walled and windowed, that room was the front porch!


One interesting (to me) effect is that the two room from which I removed the bookcases both seem twice as large. Yet the front room, which now holds three bookcases, also seems bigger! I moved a chair into the newly empty corner of the living room, and our cat Buzz instantly claimed it as his own.The chair is in the opposite corner from the chair where L sits when she works form home, and Buzz sat in this chair all day yesterday and watched her (when he wasn't sleeping, of course).

I received word that my final spring book (that I edited, Christian!) shipped today from the printer in Baltimore. I was also told that as of today, there are 455 preorders for this book, which will all be filled the same day the books arrive at the warehouse. That means our organization is about to post one day's sales in excess of $10,000. Based on a single title. A title that I edited!

We had a very good weekend. It unfortunately started with the Caps blowing home ice advantage and game 5 to lose to Montreal 2-1, necessitating a game 6 in Montreal tonight. The Caps have a hard time "closing the deal."

Saturday we went to the baby store and ordered the glider for Laura. She'll be spending a LOT of time in that chair, rocking and feeding a baby, so we looked at a number of places before returning to this store to place the order. It's built like a La-Z-Boy rather than a rocking chair, which will be much more comfortable sitting in hours at a time. Then we went to a nice lunch out and came home and both napped. (Gotta get your naps when you can! Good practice for when the kid arrives).

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at a diner and Laura swore the guy in the booth across from us was a Washington Redskin, but didn't know which one. I don't follow football, so I was no help.

Sunday afternoon we were cleaning and organizing and I walked in to the bedroom to find L looking a bit despondent and asked her what was wrong. She sighed and said "nothing," but I pressed it and she said she was feeling overwhelmed because we had so much to do, etc. I put my arms around her and told her not to worry, that we'll get everything done. Then I told her to go sit and watch something on TV to take a break because she was probably tired. Long story short, I heard her on the phone a few hours later telling one of her sisters what I great husband I am.

So, in honor of my spontaneous awesomeness, here's Mr. Otis Redding, with some very good advice...

I looked closer to see if she was holding a bug down under her paw, but it was a seed pod blowing in the wind on the other side of the window she was trying to grab.

"Oh hey, Mr. Universe, 39 years from now, after a long successful movie career, you'll be governor of California. Practice saying it: Cal-i-forn-i-a. Yep, five syllables."

After work yesterday I went to a new comic shop about 15 minutes from my office (thanks for the heads-up, De! They just opened in March, so they're still getting set up, but they have a huge selection of toys (including new Mego-style Star Trek and Planet of the Apes figs, De!) and a lot of comics. The back issue section isn't huge yet, but it looks like it is expanding. I easily located the issue 81 of Starman (Robinson written, unfortunately not Tony Harris drawn) and issue 6 (of 6) of the Return of Captain America, the only two issues I really had an interest in reading from the last four months.

The store also has a shelving unit of both original art and prints from random artists (a real grab-bag). I don't know if I mentioned that we're having a baby? Yeah, we're having a baby. Anyway, I saw something and thought it might be perfect for a little boy's room:


It's a print, signed by the artist. Laura loved it, which really made me happy, because I got it without checking with her first, and recently I haven't been 100% certain when something I was doing or a choice I was making might upset her (she's pregnant, yo).

It's 11x17, so I'm going to pick up a frame for it, maybe with a matte, and it will be ready for his room!

I have a pile of books I'm at various stages of reading, but right now I'm reading these two:

Good practical advice. I've learned some things, and I understand some things better. (Like, did you know women get pregnant by having sex? Just kidding.)

So what does every door need? A knob! I went to Home Depot yet again today and picked up 1/4" bolts, nut & washer sets, and two brushed nickel closet "dummy" doorknobs.

A dummy doorknob is a doorknob that simply attaches to the door with two screws. It does not turn, and there is no internal mechanism. But it sure jazzes up a beadboard panel! It turns it into a DOOR! The only problem was that the padlock bracket assembly was installed at the level where the doorknob is supposed to go. What to do?

No problem! Just get the drill out, move the bracket in the frame up to eye level, install the bracket part on the door at the new level, and bam! Garage can be locked again. And that was my Saturday afternoon.

When we bought our current house (four years ago?) There was a building behind and to the left of it, a combination one-bay garage and workshop area. The workshop area had a particleboard door that was falling to pieces at the bottom.

Well, the building is still there, and the door has rotted even more, and L bugged me about it enough times (and she's pregnant now) so I decided to finally do something about it. The first thing to do was take measurements. This door was made of stuff that was easy to cut, so there was no way I was going to find something even close to the same size: 39" x 83". Wow. Okay. I also needed a board to brace the bottom of the frame on one side (it had also rotted to pieces). Thus the 1" x 4" x 59" board drawing at the bottom.

Measurements in hand, I headed to Home Depot. Thank goodness they still make cuts for you for free! It saved me a LOT of time and headaches. I browsed the flat sheets of wood, finally finding one that was about an inch thick, nice and flat, about two grades below cabinet grade wood (and thus only about $14 compared to $35). I didn't mind if it had knots and such, as I was planning on covering it.

Remember wood paneling? Thin stuff, found in every basement and rec room in the 1970s. It's still around, but there are more options now. I selected white beadboard. I had the patient employee cut both the sheet of wood and the paneling to the same dimensions (39" x 83"). I had the wife's hatchback, so I tied the sheets of cut wood to the top of the car and drove home without incident.

I removed the old door and fixed the door frame. Fixing the frame was kind of a bitch and I smashed my thumb twice with a hammer nailing it into place.

Next I put a cloth tarp on the floor and laid the sheet of wood down with the paneling on top of it. They lined up perfectly. Yay, Home Depot wood cutting guy! This was the exciting part, because I got to use a new toy: The Stanley TRE550 Electric Staple/Brad Nail Gun! Only 2.5 stars on Amazon? Weird. Brad nails are small nails (these were 1/2-inch long) with no head, so they go flush into the wood so you can't see them. I had bought the tool to staple new insulation in the attic (remember that project? Yeah, currently on hold). The problem was Target (where I bought the thing for $25, cheaper than Amazon!) only carried the staples. Home Depot doesn't sell Stanley nail guns, so they didn't carry the nails either. I ended up having to order them from a 3rd-party seller on Amazon, which was annoying because the shipping was more than the twice the cost of the nails (which were only $2). But they arrived in two days, so they were waiting for me when I got home yesterday.

Once I figured out how to load it, the nail gun was AWESOME. The secret was to push down lightly on the top before pulling the trigger. Imagine you're going to staple a big stack of paper and you get the idea. The nails went in flush (or just above flush) as fast as I could move the gun over. In no time I had nailed the paneling to the board all the way around. I went back over it with a small tack hammer (not sure why I own it but glad I had it) and popped the few above down flush. The old door had a metal brace on the long sides, and it was still in good condition, so I removed it from the old door and put it on the new one, using new 1/2-inch screws.

The final steps will be (1) get the door screwed into the hinge brace. I didn't want to remove the hinge brace from the frame and risk not being able to line up the holes in the frame or not being able to tighten the screws back into the frame sufficiently, so I'm going to do it a bit backwards: I'm going to use wood shims to lift the bottom of the door enough that it was swing freely when they are removed, and I'll set a balance on top of the door to make sure it's level before I attach the door to the hinge brace with alternating screws on both sides of the door. And then (2) I will remove the padlock bracket from the old door, close the new door, mark where the padlock bracket will go, drill the four holes for it, and attach the bracket.

Swing back to the top and look at the old door, then look at my new door below:

Pretty nice, huh? Two random things in the pic above: The "Impeach them both" sign was put in our front yard without our permission about two years ago, as Bush's second term was winding down. I removed it that day and put it in the garage. You never know when you'll want to call for the impeachment of two people, and I want to be ready! County school board, you'd better not piss me off! The framed diplomas on the wall are my grandfather's. He was a mortician and had four or five diplomas from mortuary schools. They were in a stack in my grandmother's attic after she died and we were cleaning out the house. I couldn't throw them away, but I also couldn't hang them in my two-bedroom house like a giant shrine. So my solution was to hang them in the workshop side of the garage. It's dry in there, and not too humid, so they're fine there.

I'll post a final pic when I'm all done. I'm proud of it so far. The planning and execution have gone well. Editors can be handy in other ways too!

Found this sticker on the Nakatomi website (yes, from Die Hard). It's a big sticker. Here's a wider shot on top of the open book:


And yes, I'm posting this mostly so I'll have a link to give Kate in the comments to her post on stickers.

Saturday was the 10th anniversary of my first date with L. I had moved to DC a few months earlier, having just returned from 27 months in Africa in the Peace Corps. A friend (girl) in my Peace Corps group lived in the area and we got together for happy hour a few times to catch up. One time she brought along a friend from college, a really cute girl, and I said to our mutual friend, "You gotta give me her number!" She asked her friend if it was okay, and she thankfully agreed. A few awkward phone conversations later we made a date. We went to dinner and a movie (The Emperor and the Assassin, if you're curious). And that's how it all started...

Flash forward a decade and L decided we'd give each other iPads to mark the occasion. I was intrigued, but it wasn't something I had actively expressed an interest in, or thought I needed. What does it do? How does it fit into my life? Where does it fit between my laptop and my phone?

Short answer: We'll see. It's still early. So far, there are things I discovered that are very cool, for instance...

NetFlix Streaming app. If you have a NetFlix subscription, you can watch movies on the iPad instantly via WiFi. I watched a Tom Baker episode of Doctor Who on it.


GoodReader app. A PDF reader. Why is that cool? Because I have a few CD-Roms of comic collections (Captain America, Star Trek, Avengers) that are just PDF scans of the issues. You can transfer entire folders of PDFs to the iPad via WiFi. The above shot is a cover from 1971. (Thanks to De for the app suggestion. Best 99 cents spent so far!)



Pandora Internet Radio app. Why did I avoid this for so long? Type in a band name and instantly create a playlist of similar bands. I have yet to name a band it can't find. Shows album cover and biography of the band, you can bookmark the artist to come up later, and you can vote songs or artists up or down (I won't be hearing the Police again!)


iBooks app. Apple's version of the ebook reader. Uh oh, Kindle. Apple is selling books on iTunes now. And it gives you Winnie the Pooh to get you started. You can look at spreads or turn the iPad and look at large single pages.


The Guardian Eyewitness app. Oh my. This is a nice app, and free. Each day, 100 new AP photos of the news of the day are downloaded and you can scroll through them all. A touch of the screen clears off all the text so you can view the photo alone.

That's what I've discovered so far. Not bad for four days, I suppose.

Last night I dreamed I walked into a public restroom and caught my reflection in the mirror and I looked like this:

Not so much the shirt, but I had a full beard and long hair that was pretty much a mullet. My first thought upon awakening was "Dennis Wilson." Middle Wilson brother, drummer of the Beach Boys. First band member to release a solo album, and it got great critical reviews (to the anger of Mike Love, Beach Boy cousin and a real douche bag (he's the one who tried to call out Mick Jagger at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony here. If you're a real masochistic person you can watch his entire five-minute train wreck of a speech here!)



Anywho... I dreamed I look like that. What on earth does that mean?

Look what came in the mail over the weekend:

We're heading to NYC by train on Friday morning, May 7! L's actually seeing a friend and skipping the show, so I'm going with my college roommate who lives up there!

Yesterday I did the shopping and completely cleaned out L's office (which will be the kid's room down here), moving all of her cookbooks and knitting books onto a bookcase in my room (all the Marvel Legends and DC Direct figs got dumped into a bin to make room).

Holy shit, I would be hard pressed to say how this could have been a better day. My last spring book of the season (of FOUR, if you're counting, and yes, that's a LOT!) went to the printer today, and HEY, BY THE WAY, it's the #1 BESTSELLER on our website right now! So yeah, that's freaking awesome that people are preordering the thing in droves! Yay!

Then we took a half-day off and headed to the our place at the river, and L's mom brought over a giant bag of baby clothes she simply HAD to buy. (Did I mention we're having the first baby among SIX daughters, and we have SIX grandparents itching to spoil something? Yay for being first!)

The weather was beautiful, and my father-in-law grilled steaks for us. We wandered back to our place early enough to catch the Caps game and it was AWESOME! I'll spare you the details you don't care about, but it was great!

Quick backstory: When we had the house built, I am sitting in what was originally going to be the garage, but at the last minute we came to our senses and had the builder insert a wall of glass doors where the garage door was going to be (facing the Chesapeake Bay) and had the room insulated and drywalled. Now it's our playroom, with a huge TV and a pool table. So it is the room where hockey games are watched.

(1) Our boy dog likes TV. He recognizes the music from certain commercials that have dogs in them and runs into the room if he hears the music! I'm not kidding! This comic is the natural progression of his TV love:


(2) In this one, I just saw it and went "awww" because I pictured our boy hanging out with our dogs... and I'm a big pussy.

Another doctor's appointment, another trip to Goodwill. How about this find?

Four early-to-mid career Dead Milkmen cassettes, including the one with their big hit "Punk Rock Girl" and a live release! Grand total: $2.00. Instant collection. Been listening to them in the car.


I also picked up this for 50 cents:

I mentioned in the last post that we bought a car seat and the little swing the car seat fits into on Saturday and that we saw the crib we wanted. The crib is the Palisades 3-in-1 convertible crib (goes from crib to toddler bed to kid's bed) with a dark walnut finish. It was originally $600 but is being discontinued (just this particular model, and not for safety reasons!). It was marked down to $199. We asked about it on Saturday and the woman told us they only had one in stock and it was on hold for a customer until tomorrow. We could call and see if they claimed it or not.

When I woke up on Sunday I checked the store's website and saw that they would be open at 11am (on Easter Sunday, no less), so I got Laura to call the store promptly at 11 and ask about the crib. There wasn't a hold on it, so we claimed it and drove over immediately to get it (The store is about 20 minutes away in Springfield, VA). We also discovered we could use a 20% off coupon for the purchase, so we got an additional $40 off! They brought the box out and luckily I still had rope in Laura's car from our trip to IKEA, because it was not doing to fit inside the car!

Watched the Caps set a new team record tonight by winning their 51st regular season game (they tied their previous record of 50 wins in a season on Thursday, a record previously set in 1985). The posed for their team photo on Wednesday. I haven't seen the high-res version yet, but here's one taken by the Washington Post:


I've also been listening to some random tunes this weekend, including Adam Ant and Bow Wow Wow:

We also bought a car seat and identified the crib we want!

And, in a turn that will ensure this post is all over the map, I sent an email to a friend on Thursday, and his wife emailed me this morning and said that he tried to kill himself Thursday night. She said he's in the ICU, but will be okay and home soon. I don't know any more details, but I hope he's getting the help he needs. He lives four hours away so I don't get to see him very often the last few years. Fingers crossed he'll get better.

The son's reaction is the best.

“O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” --Romeo and Juliet


I know it's an exercise in futility to take a picture of the moon with the camera in my phone, but it was so amazing looking at 6:45 this morning, I had to try.

Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, scene 5:

PETRUCHIO

Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHARINA

The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO

I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHARINA

I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO

Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father's house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!

HORTENSIO

Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHARINA

Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO

I say it is the moon.

KATHARINA

I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO

Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.

KATHARINA

Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.


THREE Shakespeare sun/moon quotes today! The blog post title is from sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red ;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


...And there's your culture for the day! Forgive my dalliance with pretension this morning. I so rarely get a chance to flex the literature portion of my master's in English!