As you might know if you’ve been following facebook or Twitter, my wife’s water broke about a week and a half ago, and we’ve been in the hospital almost a week. Well, she has been, but I have only been away from her for a few hours out of the last week or so.

We’ve had a completely different experience from the last time we had a child, about 11 years ago. Then it felt like we were being cranked out of a machine, we went in pregnant and the rest is foggy, but we were out in 3 days with a baby who was so tiny.

Well, so we got here on Thursday night because of a change in my wife’s condition that prompted her to seek advice from her midwife and then they said that she should go in to the hospital. The hospital monitored her condition and Pepper’s condition, and everything was going great, except that usually when your water is broken you are in labor. We weren’t, but since we have so much time to go, it wasn’t a big deal. However, Sukie had to be on bed-rest and wouldn’t be leaving the hospital until after the baby was born. So, yeah, we got admitted to the hospital and on Friday morning we were cleared to move ‘upstairs’ which actually feels a lot less tense than ‘downstairs’ where people have babies. So we settled in, I went home and got some clothes and things after having a list dictated to me by Sukie.

So we spent the next couple of days having people visit, I’d go home about once a day to take care of business and clean up, all the while feeling horrible because Sukie can’t go anywhere. My sleeping schedule got all whacked out as well, I kept waking up around 2:30 am or so and staying up until 5 or 6:00 am and then sleeping until 10:00 am or so. So it was on Monday morning, but on Tuesday morning I was being woken up by Sukie telling me her contractions were getting regular.

I sat down in the rocking chair beside her and looked over at the couch / bed and asked if I could go back to sleep, but my brain already knew that wasn’t going to happen. So we were watching TV (Sukie had already let a nurse know of her regular contractions) and we watched an episode of Robot Chicken before there were a bunch of people swarming around Sukie and checking the situation out. We got moved back downstairs to what I’m pretty sure is the first room we were in when we got there, we talked to a doctor from the NICU, one from delivery, they called the mid-wives and it was on like Donkey Kong.

As for the contractions, they were getting more intense. I tried to help Sukie relax through them as much as possible, but you try telling someone who is going through pain that they need to relax, and you be careful as you get the death stare. I pretty much knew it would be like that going in, that Sukie would not always like my ‘Wudan-isms’ and I tried to keep it to a minimum. She let me know that she did like that I was telling her how far along the contraction has gone (pain destroys all accounting of time) and that she was almost out of it.

She was feeling them pretty bad and feeling the pressure to push. She had them check her and she was dilated at 8 cm which, if you don’t know, is just about showtime for delivering babies. Well, she decided she wanted an epidural so the anesthesiologist came in and did his thing. Anesthesiologists always seem like they are rock-stars. Some things never change. So we had a pretty late epidural. It really took the edge of the contractions but there were only 3 or 4 until we were in the delivery room, which was actually an O.R. since there’s a window for passing the baby through to the NICU.

It seemed like that O.R. in particular was just crammed with stuff, and we sort of just parked the bed in there and delivered a baby on the bed. I did let the midwife know that I wasn’t going to cut the cord before the baby came out, which I didn’t do for my son.

So, remember how late we had the epidural? Yeah, takes the edge off the contractions, but Sukie really felt the delivery. It was painful but she stuck with it. They offered to get the anesthesiologist back in but we all knew that by the time any more pain meds were introduced we’d have a baby. So she pushed through it like a rock-star.

Pepper was put on Sukie’s stomach and she cried right away and we saw her for a second before she was passed off to the NICU. We wouldn’t know for about 40 minutes or so how Pepper was, but as I told Sukie, the midwife, and the nurse, “In my completely uneducated opinion she seemed really awesome” which the nurse and the midwife conceded was a pretty good estimate. The image of baby Pepper on Sukie’s stomach, crying, to let us know she was golden will forever be emblazoned in my memory, just as well as I remember seeing my son for the first time, before he was passed through a magic window to the NICU.

Unlike my son, she is staying in the NICU, but she was breathing ‘room air’ right away, and she has an IV and tons of monitors, and will need to be able to keep her body temp up and eat before we can take her home, but waiting is the easy part. It is only a matter of time until baby Pepper comes to live at home with the rest of the family.

So Sukie and I went to a Lamaze class last night. It was an interesting experience, to take a class on having a baby when we’d already done it before. But that was last century, and we have a plan this time … to have a plan is our plan. We plan on it going well.

I was the only guy there that had already had a kid, and I was probably one of the youngest guys there. It was strange to hear how excited they are to feel their babies kicking away in utero while that hasn’t been my experience. It is awesome, mind you, but I’ve spent time with my son playing Modern Warfare 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum. I’m still excited for a new member of the family, don’t get me wrong, but I think the entire experience of planning to have a child and the execution of said plan won’t mean the same to me as it does to other guys who are following a more traditional path. Pfffft, lightweights.

But the whole description of labor and the daunting task of being the chief supporter has me remembering what a traumatic experience it was last time, and how ill prepared I was for it. I feel like I have matured by leaps and bounds since, but I still have kept away for an entire decade. Well, I’m back, and I’m much more comfortable with myself now.

I digress, you’ve probably heard enough.

I was trying to blog daily, but the weekend came, and that was busy, and I changed my schedule, so that was busy. You know what happens when you go to work early and everyone is used to you working later? You end up working really really long days. But the bonus is that I get to see my family for more time at night.

Tonight we made the rounds with our delicious cheesecake and strawberries. A good time was had by all.

So tonight I bought a new jacket at Old Navy. Old Navy was, about 10 years ago, where I would have bought everything. It is affordable, though not as high of quality as GAP, and I like affordable. The styles are upbeat, though too much of their stock says their name on it, which is fine, to a degree, but about 10 years ago you could tell that EVERYONE shopped at Old Navy. 10 years have passed and I think everyone would rather not advertise that they shop at GAP’s younger bargain brother.

I used to really like the styles, then I bought stuff at Target, and now I feel orphaned by Target as their style isn’t meeting mind like it used to. Where do people buy their clothes these days? I think I prefer GAP jeans over Old Navy, the last pair of GAP jeans I had literally fell to pieces but still was much more comfortable than any of my Old Navy jeans – but I’m not about to shell out for GAP jeans when I need jeans. Last pair I got was on sale and I think it was still more expensive than Old Navy jeans.

The blog title comes from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song ‘Simple Man’ that makes me think of the advice my mother has given me over the years. I think that I have strived for achievable goals in my life, I try to be fair in my dealings with my fellow man; at the same time I embrace the fact that this is not always possible.

There’s a way of dealing with things in life, economics and politics, that is certainly more correct than how it is being done by the two ruling political parties in America – a simple and straight-forwardness that maybe has never been practiced but perhaps we should step back from the age of confrontation and find a simpler way forward. Basically, like Ozzie Osborn said in Crazy Train: The media sells it and you live the role. How many of your opinions did you gain through careful thought and meditation upon the subject?

I’m not perfect, I get caught up; I rant, I get angry. That’s why it’s called ‘Crazy Train’, damnit: it’s out of control and it feels like there’s no way to steer the damn thing.

Maybe some sunny day we’ll find the way ahead that doesn’t rely on manipulation of the facts.

Maybe we’ll have a damn rad country again.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and remember, you are a wonderful person. Til next time!

There’s a strange rash of kid-sickness that has ripped through our tiny community following a recent visit from my eldest brother and his rather sizeable family. My sister’s got strep, her daughter has Scarlet Fever (hope her family makes it to Oregon).

The boy has relapsed in to sore throatness for a second bout and this has canceled our weekend BBQ plans to have many friends over and enjoy the beautiful weather. After several days of snow the air is super clear and I am loving it. But, it wasn’t meant to be

My last post was too far down a dark corridor for the boy, who promptly felt bad for the ants. The point of it was that I feel bad for the ants to, after recently deciding to become a pacifist, if one can call themselves that after decimating an entire population.

So I’m ready to turn in, buckle up for the weekend, and maybe I’ll even get a working computer put together out of the mess in the basement.

Recently at the manor we had an infestation of ants.

Because we can’t have invaders in the house, running about on their own business, we decided that intervention was necessary. They were just out of control.

So we used some kind of liquid that you put on a piece of cardboard that was actually like water in it’s clarity and consistency. They went apeshit for it, unaware that their feast (so close to their home, too) was actually going to be their doom. They partied, and they enjoyed it, and it was going to murder all of them.

Because I am, among many things, empathetic, I wished that I could have somehow conveyed to them that their place in this universe was not my home, but when you confront a force that is determined to impose, annihilation is the inevitable outcome. Anyone wishing to make themselves a nuisance at my abode would do well to note this.

So they frolicked, they rejoiced in their great find, an abundant source of food, but like one who buys cheap food from a street vendor, the joy was shortlived. I imagined the poor denizens of the ant-world in the unlooked-upon spaces of my home, bodies being torn apart by the great works of mankind’s chemical weapons; a poor disastrous fate. And all they wanted was to enjoy an abundant food source.

They were completely wiped out. Gone. It was like the Mayans, sucked in to the earth by whatever god was angry the week they were wiped clean from the earth.

Only, they were not wiped out.

Like survivors of an apocalypse, the ants who remain are in some sort of half-life, shocked to exist, half in denial, they seem to stumble forth in search of … who knows what survivors search for? Is it death that they seek? Do I have the heart to terminate one, I have already killed so many. So many of their corpses must litter their living space as it is, heaped high, these freshly spawned ants must live in a macabre twisted dungeon – so many of their aunts and uncles must haunt them, their rotten smirks offering a mock-comfort.

I pause, and I consider the survivor of the apocalypse that was my design and wrought by my hands, and I have no choice but to continue down my chosen path. I have empathy for the survivor; in this hell which I have brought down upon him, death is mercy.

Yesterday @Sukie80 and I dipped some Strawberries in chocolate using Saco’s Chocolate Dipping Stuffs and it turned out good. But we had extra. So, me, being so damn crafty, I said, I know what I shall use this for.

I cut up a banana and got out a bamboo skewer and dipped me some bananas in chocolate, dropped it in the fridge for about 3-5 minutes and ate it up. Damn, bananas is good in chocolate. I was in flavor country.

Then some people we know came over and we ate a big meal. It was good.

I tweet, I think, but I just don’t blog.

My wife just told me that I better not blog about PAX, which I didn’t go to. So I won’t. I won’t even mention Wil Wheaton and his brown beard.

So I basically can’t find words to express myself these days. I’ve been working long hours, trying to keep my sanity together, but I’d seriously love to just be ahead of the curve for once.

I just don’t feel like blogging anymore.

on a dark path
all things that were to be were seen
and scratched and clawed
and made nice and embraced
but all the hurt poured in to every stress fracture
and made the thing start
and was too late for pittance
and plenty
too late for much of anything
but still you look upon the cracked and ragged peices
and ask again for forgiveness and redemption and other sunday promises
frown down upon the free and thriving thing
that which is good and holy
and untouchable by your redemptions
and sanitations

Ok so it’s time for me to update this here blog. I’ve been to Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, and it is worth noting that the service of park employees is better at Walt Disney World. The castle is bigger, so that must be it, right?

Well, I’m becoming obsessed. I’ve put a reserve on the ‘Be Our Guest’ book that supposedly explains why WDW service is so damn kick ass. I don’t kick that much ass, but I’ve worked in customer service for a while and there’s a focus on customer service at my work right now so I’m interested in doing it right. I learned to talk nice to people (I have a specific tone of voice when I’m doing my best service) a long while back and it helped me scoot along until I started getting engineering work and later became a manager. Somewhere along the way of being responsible for people and then being leaned on an UNGODLY amount at work, I’ve got no game for charming the socks off of people.

I also read the first half of a book about Civility while I was on vacation several months back (by P.M. Forni) – it was on Oprah a few months back. I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed recalling pieces of it over the last several months.

I have been spending time in reflection, thinking about what I want to impart to my children – I think that choosing to live a moral life based on principles is great, but since it is apart from my parent’s religion I have to think about how I will impart my sense of morality and principle on to my children. I think that it is interesting that religions (many of them) have built in instruments of passing on morals to children – as I am fond of telling my son, it’s my job to make sure he’s a decent person.

And soon, it’ll be my job to make sure I raise a decent daughter. It’ll be interesting, because I think women should be on the strong side, so she’ll be raised to be strong and capable. Good luck to my future son-in-law, cause he’s in for it.

From day one when The Boy was born and cried about things (as babies are to do) I said I’d raise the first child that could be reasoned with. And that means I’d stop whatever I was doing, and take the time to explain things to him. I don’t know why people don’t do this more often, because young children are capable of being rational. I guess it’s just my way of doing things.

I also really like teaching kids – it’s really just amazing how quickly they learn – and if you do it right, they get excited abou learning. After a certain point, The Boy was off and running, he had learned to read and could read anything and learn anything. I look forward to teaching my daughter all the same stuff, and I think The Boy will love having a sibling and helping us out with her.

Upon this world of rock and ruin
Hate and trouble often brewing
Few who live to love are left
Many follow hate in word and deed
And the rest are consumed by zombies