comprak.net

Because that’s why you’re here, yes?

1) Studying.

2) Loving the kids. I’ve been trying to focus on this so much more than usual.

3) Connecting with the community. Ergo the explosion in Indian friends on FB.

4) Re-connecting with family/friends, and family friends.

5) Snail mail.

6) Taking a break.

Things I haven’t done well:

1) See my wife. I don’t know what the heck happened, but I have barely seen her in the month of January. That’s got to change.

2) Manage the house well (e.g., chores). The house would fall apart without Lisa, no joke.

3) Strike a balance. Everything is chaotic. Tomorrow will be the first day this month where nothing is scheduled. However, my sister is still here so that means nothing.

Scotch, I like thee. A thimble full, prithee.

A gentle buzz, a little celebratory drink for a day well executed. Saw family, saw friends, and above all celebrated the kids’ birthdays.

Then retired to the basement to crush two exams.

I was karmically rewarded today. Now it’s bed time.

I’m channeling this song as I type the following paragraph:

Sometimes CPR doesn’t save a life. Sometimes people just die under your fingers. I watched the person turn blue, and I kept pushing harder. My colleague (a fellow student) asked if I needed a breather, and I grunted no. At one point, she told my supervisor to switch off since I was sweating buckets.

I’ve deleted so many drafts, it’s getting embarrassing. So, here’s an amalgamation of things.

1) We’re back from upstate NY. Lisa’s parents’ new house is nice – the kids have space to run. They enjoyed their time there. I actually slept – like double digits hours slept, and did not feel bad about it at all. Lisa was sick on the bird day, so I solo’d with the kids and socialized with her family, so… what guilt? None. There was none. And besides, Lisa’s parents were hosting the kids for the first time in forever, so I didn’t care. I feel… ok. I mean, we still had to do 12 hours coming and going, but I feel better.

2) I donated that Sempron / nForce2 PC that I lovingly built over the course of several years to Lisa’s fledgling firm. It’s a beautiful machine. It’s fast. I, in turn, used some office money ($50! I’ll be only five years behind) to build a (very) slightly faster but distinctly very refurbished machine to replace it. I could have bought Lisa a refurb machine, but I’ve bought two refurbs for the office from MicroCenter and had to replace both before getting working ones. I’d rather gamble on myself and make sure Lisa is getting a good machine. The fan blades did not have a spec of grime on them. The case is gorgeous. It’s going to treat Lisa well.

I’m making it a point to use the desktop machine more, it’s easier to get work done. I need a mouse to be efficient.

3) The basement and hallway are coming along. Slowly. But, progress!

4) Black Friday saw the phone I wanted go to the grand total of FREE. The Xperia Play should be here on Monday. I am a giant dork.

5) I ultimately did not want an iPhone, ergo the Android based phone above. In turn I am selling my ipad and ipod touch in hopes to buy an iPad2. The ipod touch is definitely going, so no regrets there. Hopefully the sales won’t screw me over…

You know, I was going to buy an iphone – but the interminable wait for iOS5 killed it. I waited and waited for this mythical amazing update that was supposed to rock my world, and it when it came out it was less than stellar. More likely, I built it up in my head to the point that there was no way iOS was going to do the things I thought it said it could do.

I thought Siri was really, really cool and an android beater, but as it turns out android had voice commands built in, but they’re in google search (?). It works, I was able to dictate a text to Lisa without having to type anything. Whether or not it will return cool results for how to dump a body is unknown, but having bought a bunch of Korans I don’t want the feds to have a reason to come after me.

6)Another hobby – Magic the Gathering. It’s easy to play. It’s like nerdy poker.

7) Unlike Nora, we haven’t taken Isaac on a grand tour to meet everyone. I don’t know if he cares or will care when he’s older. If he’s like me, he won’t care in the slightest. I mention this because we went up to Lisa’s parents’ place because it had been over a year since we were last there and for some people up there they hadn’t seen him since he was a tiny baby.

I still don’t have any idea who in my family hasn’t met Isaac. I’m sure everyone has met Nora. Bad daddy.

I love the differing personalities of the two kids. Isaac at this age is so insanely cute – he verbalizes his feelings quite readily. He’s a ‘heart on his sleeve’ type of kid, and he’s stubborn like a mule.

Lisa’s mom relayed a story this morning that is typical Isaac – she asked him to stop jumping off of the table, and he did it anyway, and kept doing it defiantly until he smacked his jaw. Instead of crying, he stared as his grandma with his lip trembling (‘he really wanted to cry’ she said) – but he refused to cry (because that would be an admission of being wrong, amirite?). Instead, he hugged her, and then went back to doing what he wasn’t supposed to be doing. That boy.

9) BlogHer ruined Nablopomo if you’re wondering why I’m not doing it this year. The prompts are stupid and by the way, hosted by ‘BlogHer’. They apparently made a todo about it being men inclusive, but having checked the site a couple times, none of the featured NBPM writers are males.

I don’t mind it being an all female thing, obviously – however, I do mind the outright lying. Call it what it is, ok? Sheesh.

Ok, fin.

After this, 10 more entries to 1,000. In one month, it’ll be eight years of this.

I’ll spare you the melodrama, but I don’t know what to do when either milestone is passed. It’s not that I have lost the interest in writing; rather, I don’t have anything to write except for a very narrow scope of the respiratory field.

I don’t want to be the jerk who constantly yammers about the field, so I try not to – but its what I really enjoy at the moment. That and puzzle quest… sweet sweet puzzle quest.

The kids have their own blog and that isn’t going away any time soon, and Lisa has her own blogs. Lately, this blog feels rather superfluous. I’m not a political commentator and I can’t bring myself to be angry about anything (burn out, I guess) and last years nablpomo was a major change in my usual policy about separating this blog for my private life… and I don’t see the need to revisit that, since I think I have said everything I wanted to say.

So. Now what, I guess.