Yet another month-in-review

Since I've made a habit of blogging less and less frequently, here's what's been going of late (and this will be in reverse chronological order, since that's how my brain works - deal)...

Chicago

We just got back from Joana's family reunion, this year in St. Charles, IL (about 30 minutes outside of Chicago). Being our first trip with Holden, it was interesting. He was extremely pleasant on the flight there, and only slightly fussy coming back. Oh, and there's the part about us holding up the plane for 30 minutes...

So, a couple days before we leave, I start considering the fact that we're going to need our whole carseat/stroller behemouth with us, so I call the airline to find out how that should be handled. She says that if the flight isn't full, we can bring the carseat and base onto the plane and affix it to one of the seats, just like in our car. Otherwise, we'd have to gate-check the whole mess and take turns holding the baby during the flight.

So, we arrive at the gate, the flight isn't full, so we gate-check the stroller and carry the carseat/base onto the plane. We're preboarded because of the baby, so we find ourselves 3 rows from the front, in prime position to bid the plane freakin' adieu once we land. Joana takes the window, I take the aisle and we arrange the carseat between us (this took a little elbow grease, since it was a much smaller space than the back seat of our car). We sit back for the duration of the boarding process, are told how our seatbelts work and that the fartpillows we're sitting on can be used as flotation devices, etc. etc. etc. The stewardess is making one last pass throught the cabin to make sure everybody's got their seatbelt on when she gets to our row...

"The carseat needs to be by the window."

Ah, ok, makes sense. If the plane crashes into a mountain and we all have to get out, it would be rather difficult for Joana to crawl over the carseat. So, I stand up to disengage the carseat from the base (which is attached to the seat by the seatbelt), but it's stuck. I pull harder, still nothing. We hand Holden to his grandma, then Joana's Dad (who is a freakin' ox) comes over and tries to get it off, but to no avail. Finally, somebody from Maintenance boards the plane, removes the flotation device, and disconnects the seatbelt from the seat while it's still stuck to the carseat. So, we're now about 30 minutes past our departure time, but we're the proud owners of a genuine Southwest Airlines seatbelt. When we landed, the stewardess suggested we take a picture of Holden and I in the cockpit, and they gave us a certificate commemorating his first plane ride. Cute stuff, indeed.

Did a bit of sight-seeing in Chicago, but most of the time we just sorta hung out at the hotel. Saw the Museum of Science and Industry - the U-505 exhibit was really something. Pictures of the whole deal can be found here.

We also discovered the greatest retail establishment in the history of the world: Menards (pronounced 'Meh-nards'). And it's not because of what they sell, dear reader. They're a big-box hardware/home improvement place, but they have the most phenomenal name. ever. At any rate, it provided Chris and I with a virtually unending supply of sophomoric joke fodder. We even took some pictures.


Baby Update

Holden is growing like a weed and is now about 9 weeks old (freakin' insane). There are tons and tons of pictures in the image gallery, the most recent is here.


Geeky Stuff

My friend Tom hooked me up with a super-sweet PowerMac G4 for my birthday, so I've been feeding the Mac convert in myself for the last month. I've completely (and seamlessly) switched from Linux on my desktop to OS X and I have to say, it's positively wonderful. I'm hoping to acquire an iBook sometime in the near future, but we'll see.

Migrated to Gallery version 2 for the image gallery, but because of some sweet mod_rewrite magic, all old links will still work. Hooray for those guys :)


Etc.

Got my pre-order copy of "Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness" by none other than Coheed and Cambria. It took a little time to grow on me, but it definitely has. Hopefully I can remember to get tickets for Chris and I for their show at the Grove on 10/17...

I suppose part of the reason I switched to blogger is to get a fresh start. Ever since I started this whole blogging thing, I've always posted in spurts. Hopefully this will keep me a bit more motivated to post. And I have a feeling I'll have a bit more to say in the coming weeks...

New Blog Home

That's right, this is where I'll be blogging from now on (at least, until I get bored or find out that blogger can't do something I want - then I'm sure I'll be switching again - but that's why you like me, because I keep you guessing).

This is mostly just a placeholder post. I'll be abusing the stylesheet so this blog looks super badass (and maybe I'll post something meaningful, but I make no promises), so check back. Oh, and don't give me any crap about the links that point to nothing. Trust me, I know they're there.

Also, be sure to update your aggregators with the new feed URL.