avery

There’s your Christmas spirit.  Just hanging out, telling stories.  I’d say reading a book, but it was more like eating a book.  She’s just now able to get the object of her desire to her mouth, so long as she uses her entire body to do it.  So she’s a drool monkey, but she’s getting uber abs at the same time.  If it were me I could probably live with that.

She doesn’t really care for lying down if it can be helped.  She wants to sit up and chat with the big folk.  And sometimes she has to tell the whole story.  I could not tell you what it’s actually about, but it sounds very exciting.

I’m excited just watching her.  She’s ravenous for experience, drinking it all in.  You can see the wheels spinning, the gears clicking.  If you happen to be looking at her when she has a new experience, you can see her tiny eyebrows go up.  Record record record.  Now is probably not too soon to start watching the language.  And the tv programming choices.  And possibly wearing pants.

Odd.  I just paused my typing.  It seems very quiet.  The Chaos team would have a chuckle at my expense here.  Is it my fault I type with authority?  Is it such a bad thing?  Maybe if you’re a keyboard.  Or trying to sleep.

 

Are my girls at some fancy museum on the Upper East Side?  No, but I can certainly understand why you’d think so.  That’s our living room.  Yes, it’s true.  No, we didn’t hire a decorator.  I just dabble in photography and we found a nice place to do canvas mounting.  If you’re very nice I might tell you where we had it done.

And yes, they really are my girls.  My beloved wife for life, Marjorie, is the taller one there, and the little snuggle bear is Avery Peppermint, my daughter.  She’s… 14 weeks now?  I think?  15?  Time to shift the count to months.  This time next week she’ll be three months old, and officially through her fourth trimester.  I cannot imagine how bored to tears she would be if she were still cooped up in the womb.

Today’s side project was clearing out the second bedroom.  Avery’s room slash my office.  Space is always at a premium in New York, so since moving in we’ve had a few boxes on the floor full of stuff that just did not have a home.  Still doesn’t, but drastic measures needed to be taken so we can pack for the trip.  Do not open the closet.  Do.  Not.

A wise man would go to bed right now.  So I will imitate the wise man, and everyone will think I’m wise.  Big day tomorrow.  I need the brain for planning and the awesome for being… awesome.  Sleep is a good idea.

 

Merry Xmas to us!  Look what arrived today:

Bah!  You can’t get it from a web-optimized iPhone jpg.  These prints turned out gorgeous.  They look like oil paintings.  Just… smashing.  Thank you, Venice, for being so photogenic.  I couldn’t be happier.  Except now the other walls are clamoring for attention.  Patience, friends.  Your time will come.  Of course, that sale happens once a year, so it could be a while.  Dangit.  Somebody buy my script.

Gorgeous!

I’m feeling awfully fortunate these days.  Avery and I must have spent half an hour just looking at the Christmas lights, neither of us saying a word.  She drooled some.  Me too, though that might have been the smell of Marjorie’s banana muffins.  Or the homemade cinnamon granola.  See?  So fortunate.

As planned, I connected with the nice lady at the tech/design school, and it sounds promising.  I’ll put together the job description and she’ll post it to the system, and we’ll be partners in education.  A thing Fuel knows something about.  In the new year we’ll meet for an extended talk about how our worlds might complement.  I’m hopeful.  The Italian team is working some magic, but I want to get them some help, especially on the UI – something with which none of us has much experience.  She’s very pretty, but she wants to dance.  The app, not the nice lady at the tech/design school.  Well, unless it’s also true in her case.  I have no idea.  I’m sure she’s lovely.  You should take her out dancing.  You neglectful bastard.

This week, Fuel needs to wrap its official 2013 planning sessions.  Chaos will take what time it can get.  I think I have some mixing coming up.  Wednesday should be especially good.  An abbreviated Chaos session, followed by the Fuel jam, and hopefully somewhere in there we hear back from [A-List guy for Secret Project].  And then Lee and I are attending a fete at the Canadian Consulate in honour of Barb Stegemann, whom Canadians know from The Dragon’s Den and her company, The 7 Virtues.  Neither of us have met her, but she heard about us and wants to meet.  So we’re going.  And then we’re supposed to take her out to see some comedy.  Neat.  Whatever shall I wear?

Adventure.

Wawaweewa!

What’s she so excited about?  Lunch?  Nap time?  Shiny thing?

How about a giant ass Snickers?  Kablammo shazammo.

I didn’t bring it home with me.  Seemed excessive.  But one had to admire a pound of candy.  I bet it really satisfies.  And eventually nauseates.

Yeah, that’s little Avery Peppermint strapped to my chest in the background.  Slept through the whole thing.  It’s what she does.  But that’s cool.  There isn’t much you can say about the K-Mart experience that’s really worth being present for.  Which probably explains why so many K-Mart Shoppers™ seem like zombies.

Why aren’t there more baby clothes consignment stores?  Why isn’t there a baby clothes recycling operation online?  Baby Gap clothes are made well enough to go through at least three babies.  They only wear them for three months, then they’re up a size.  Premium brands would go even further.  Look, here’s the model, for free.  You don’t have to give me a dime.  Build a nice simple searchable interface.  Let people sell for free.  Let people buy for free.  Buyers pay the shipping, all flat rate USPS.  Colour photos welcome.  Add a forum for product reviews.  The whole site is user-moderated.  What’s the revenue model, you ask?  Where do I start?  Sidebar ads.  Embedded links.  Premium services like storefronts and priority notifications.  Build it and they will come.  I know because we’ve been looking.  Huge blue ocean market.  Used frickin baby stuff, dude.

The last thing I need is another business idea to work on with all my spare time.  So this one is up to somebody else.

It’s now December 9.  In ten days we’re Canada-bound for the Xmassing.  All sorts of things happening between now and then of course, but it’s bright on the radar.  You can hear the sleigh bells jingling.  Actually, you really can.  We bought some for the Christmas pillar.  I heart xmas.  My girls do, too.  Sigh.  Happy.