The Kingdom

I watched the kingdom on video over the weekend and was impressed. It is a serious actioner with some pretty hard core violance. Significant blood is spilt and I suppose it could be quite shocking. But I was pleasantly surprised with the plotting and even a few "deeper" points. Don't expect an Opus but its certainly worth a look, especially with Jamie Foxx's assured presence.

31 Weeks On.

31 weeks and things are moving on nicely. The baby is really showing and really moving about. He looks quite relaxed and serene in the 3d picture... doesn't know whats gonna hit him soon.

My denial has been severely damaged by the preparations in the babies room -- the crib, changing table and accessories are all place. It seriously looks like this is gonna happen. I must admit its getting a little exciting, although of course the terror is a significant factor as well.

Its funny you start to wonder how you can avoid mistakes -- how you can nurture a "good" kid... all very confusing.

Happy Christmas (belated ) and New Year

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the belated best wishes. My wireless router blew a gaskett or perhaps a circuit board. Anyway Me and mine extend our best wishes for the season to all of you and yours.

Enjoy 2008!

Le Broken Clock Parts 1 and 2

Shameless plagiarism of one of my favorite blogs -- Josh Friedman at "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Although his malady was much more serious then mine.

I hurt my ankle last week, hurt it badly enough that I had to limp to the doctors and get it X-rayed. Fortunately the ankle wasn't broken, merely serious soft tissue damage, 1-3 weeks recovery time.

Of course being a complete Muppet I started to get quite cavalier about the limping as the week wore on and finally on Sunday night while leaving a party I didn't notice a step and screwed it again.

Needless to say I'm now limping about with a brace and regularly icing the thing. What a pain in the ankle!

Stella One Week On.

Stella seems to have recovered nicely. She has been off the painkillers for some time now and is walking and begging for food very nicely. It's not all together clear what went wrong with her, hopefully it was just a stomache ache. We will be watching her carefully, but for now the good news is, she is looking reasonably chipper.

Sunday Night At The Vet

Its clearly been along time since I contributed to the college fund for the vets kid. We have just spent an hour or two and 100 bucks at the Vet.

One of our dogs "stella" is feeling quite poorly, she's walking gingerly and breathing heavily. Unfortunately for the 100 bucks the vet was unable to tell us what the problem is -- we have been given some pain killers and instructions to check back if things don't improve. We are hoping that it is some kind of muscle strain ( we went to the dog park this morning ) or allergic reaction which will pass in a few days. We shall see and fingers crossed...

The First "Onesie".

We bought our first onesie ... even I got a little cuted out by it, as it has "I'm new here" written on it. It just had to be bought.

Fortunately for the pocketbook alot of the other ones had christmas messages written on them which wouldn't quite be appropriate for our little one.. he's gonna be a little late for that..

Moving My Study.

I've nearly finished moving my study. I've setup the laptop and moved almost everything. I've just got to clear out one more closet and then setup the server. I guess things are humming along nicely.

25 Weeks On.

I heard the heartbeat!

I went along to one of the scheduled examinations and they checked the heartbeat -- sounded good to me -- it was appearently normal at 160 odd beats a minute.

It was quite amazing to hear. I've seen the beat before on the sonogram but never heard the real thing, it sounded very alive! Fortunatly hearing the beat hasn't broken my state of denial yet -- which means I'm not freaking out .... but it is certainly one step closer.

A new father and Caffeine.

Disturbingly a recent dad told me that I may have picked the wrong time to make the move to a "sans caffeine" lifestyle. Appearently a young baby doesn't encourage sleeping.... hopefully I'll manage to stay away from the evil molecule. But if I don't manage it, at least it will give me an amazing buzz with only a small amount.

I shall cross my fingers and see what happens.

Tasting Menu From Abacus

On friday night we attended a tasting menu at the central market cooking school. The tasting menu was prepared by Chef Tre Wilcox of Abacus in Dallas. Who was recently featured on the reality TV series Top Chef Miami. If you want to know more about the show heres a link to Ted Allen's blog. Chef Wilcox is pictured left.

The Food : It was great, the highlight would have to be the crispy pork belly. It appearently took them two days to prepare and it was definitely a privaledge to eat it! The smoked chedder and jalapeno bread pudding, and seared sea scallops were also incredible.

The experience : It was very interesting to hear a chef talk about ingedients. Choosing the right ones at the right time of year, as well as the right ones for the dish. An example would be the difference between sea scallops that are shucked underwater against scallops that are shucked in air.... who knew it would matter...It was also fun to see chef wilcox prepare some of the dishes in situ as it were.

Overall : Highly recommend this class if you can get to it.

Pregnancy Amnesia

Well I've noticed something interesting. I think my lady is getting a bit more absent minded. She forgets her keys, and phone and stuff. A few days ago she left the keys in the car and today she almost reversed the car into the garage door before it had finished opening.... incredibly this seems to be a symptom of pregnancy... can you believe it!

some text about this can be found here. It amazes me that this would be true -- but I can attest that it seriously seems to be happening....

Knife Skills 101

This weekend we attended a class at the central market cooking school, called Knife Skills 101. I have to say it was great fun and very informative. The class was perhaps a little over subscribed for my tastes. But the chef tried hard to include everyone. More information about the cooking school can be found here. The class covers a lot of ground, including how to sharpen knives, hold them, and of course how to slice, and dice.

I have to admit that probably the most amazing thing was slicing a tomato into seedless sections, it was pretty impressive and really hard!

anyway I highly recommend the hands on class if you can make it.

Diet Coke, Caffeine and Me.

I drink a lot diet coke! which means a lot of strange chemicals and a lot of caffeine. Well stimulated by the up coming life changing event I've quit!

Yes quit!

I have stopped drinking diet cokes in resturants with lunch and enjoying that greatest of american traditions, the bottomless soda.

My goal naturally has a little wiggle room in it -- but so far thats a good thing.. I've been trying to keep caffeine to a minimum with perhaps 1 or 2 coffee's a week. That seems like a radical enough change.

I'm beginning to get used to the taste of water and although it doesn't exactly taste good yet, I'm hopeful that it will taste good soon :-)

The Austin Film Festival

Yes folks its finally here.

We went to it last year and liked it so much we're going again!

The austin film festival 2007 -- its something like the 17th time this has been on and its pretty cool I encourage anybody who is actually in the austin area to come and see something... its whats keeping austin weird.

you can find more information about the festival at : http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/new/

Getting In Touch With My Child Side

We have been swimming a lot recently as a preferred work out regime, which is especially nice in the outddoor pool at the gym.

Anyway we were at the gym recently and on the spur of the moment I decided to ride the waterslide! they have a three storey waterslide at the gym for the kids and I've never used it, with a son on the way I thought it would be the perfect chance to get in touch with my child side. I have to tell you that it was freaking great! -- maybe there are some fun things to look forward to!!

Curra's Long Bar.

Since our refrigerator is still broken (no doubt that will be a blog subject soon) we decided to go to Curra's long bar on Parmer Lane.

Its a good place to eat a quick casual meal. It's nice and cheap and pretty tasty.
The food is Mexican and that is really more interior Mexican. So less Tex and more Mex. It is certainly worth a visit if you need a quick meal with no hassles.

However be aware they make you pay for the chips and salsa -- which always feels vaguely annoying to me!.

We were joined by two friends J and Rob and managed to pass a pleasant night even without alcohol .. ( I feel its a little on the mean side to imbide too much considering my other halfs condition ).

20 Weeks On.

Its a son!

Yes you heard correctly, I'm gonna be a dad.
I'm pretty sure that this news hasn't entirely sunk in as I don't feel that nervous. Although I would love to think that this is simply a positive attitude and sunny outlook. I suspect that I'm swimming in the comfortingly warm waters of the river of denial.

No matter it is certainly exciting. It was a significant turning point when we found out the sex of the baby. Not specifically because its a boy, more because it has become a being - a "He".

I find my mental attitude has changed a little even before he is born. I was sitting down to watch the movie "World Trade Center" - the movie about some rescue workers who where buried in one of the towers, and I found that fifteen minutes in, I just didn't have the stomach to watch.

Don't get me wrong I can still make it through an episode of CSI just fine, I haven't turned into a complete pansy. But even on those shows I find myself thinking more about the death and disaster that occurs to some of the characters in the name of plot. These thoughts are of course even stronger when the character in jeopardy is child. You start inevitably thinking about what you would do -- serious strangeness.

Naturally the prep work has also begun. I've started moving my office so that it can become the baby's room. Although there is a little trepidation in doing too much prep work too soon, no-one wants to jinx these things.

The whole thing is definitely going to be an adventure, I'm assured that there will be lots of good parts. Although the same people that assure me of that, have been happy to oblige with stories of the bad parts. I guess its time to cross fingers.

Very Approximate Current size - 6 golf balls.