keepin it real

Totally Snuggy

It doesn’t get much more snuggled than that.

The 1st Presidential Debate was on tonight.  Obama was clearly frustrated with all the patent BS that Romney was ladling, but the Obama camp wasn’t completely innocent of taking a liberty or two with the facts, either.  Wouldn’t it be great to take the politics out of politics?  Demand accountability to the facts?  Hold people to their promises?  Insist that they do the job rather than waste our time and money posturing?

Leadership of a nation shouldn’t be a prize in a contest.

Anyway, I guess I don’t need to get all preachy while still freshly returned to the blogosphere.  It was great to be distracted multiple times by a tiny little girl that needed nothing more complicated from me than the sound of my voice and someone to pop the soother back in her mouth.  I chatted with her about ponies (Daisy and her foal Marigold) and picnics on the beach (with all her friends).  She watched me with solemn attention until her eyes just couldn’t stay open any longer, and down she went.

There are worse goals to which I might aspire than baby whisperer.

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Baby Bundle

baby bundle

Baby Bundle

She looks so serious in there! And cozy! Like, dude, I am so seriously cozy in here. You should try this. Bunny, if I could, I would. Count on it. I still scheme for ways (and the lifestyle) to justify a hammock. In the meantime, let’s reserve Mum’s carrying efforts for you.

So! Today we officially said “see you soon” to Gramma. She didn’t want to go. We were in no hurry to let her leave, either. Travel safely, Judy! Everybody’s looking forward to Christmas, when Avery takes her first plane ride to meet the rest of the family. I figure by then she’ll be carrying her own luggage, so no big deal, right?

After Judy left and Avery went down, our new mum & dad sat down on the couch side by side for the first time in two weeks. I asked Marjorie how she was liking being a mom so far. Tears burst from her eyes, and she said, “I love it.” A bit strong whilst watching Star Wars, perhaps, but I think this lady has found the centre of her universe. She’s such an incredible mom, too. I found a hundred new reasons to love her. What a family. We just need some pictures on the walls and we’ll have a real family home. Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Now… what to do about this occasional faint miasma of cigarette smoke. Don’t know where it’s coming from. A neighbour. The windows are closed but I suppose the AC units do bridge the walls. I mean, I wouldn’t have thought they’d allow the smoke in. They don’t noticeably let in the smell of tar from the construction site across the street. No smoke in the hallway. I’m at a bit of a loss. I guess I will just have to find the smoker and “eliminate the problem.” I mean kill him. I mean enquire with the building if there’s anything they might be able to do for us. Gotta protect those brand new little lungs. Apparently air purifiers won’t do it.

Seriously, who in their right mind smokes these days? What a disgusting, self-destructive, selfish thing to do. Stupid. Just stupid.

End rant. Yoda would not approve of such negative energy. Approve, he would not.

What a productive day! Finished (again) a mix, hammered out the details of the Chaos Complex Entertainment operating agreement, sorted out the old Verizon account, changed some diapers, entertained some baby, cleaned a kitchen, and sat on the couch with my wife for nearly a whole hour before she fell asleep. That’s a good day, people.

Tomorrow – yikes, I should get to bed – tomorrow morning I meet the fellas online to poke at our feature script. It’s really fun, but it’s long. Studios, I kid you not, have been known to receive a script, heft it, and discard it without reading Word One simply because it weighed two pages too much. In our case, we’re cruising around 150 pages. A feature script is typically 120. So… we’re going to see if anything can be chipped out. This won’t be our first attempt. It’s just so damned fun! Are you looking for the next Boondock Saints underground phenomenon? Here it is.

Ok then, time for bed. But yay for posting a third day in a row. Yay me. Thank you, life.

Wait. Chaos meets Wednesday. So tomorrow is another day. Goodnight everybody!

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water bunny & geek dad

Do not want! Do not want!

Oh. That's kinda nice.

Last week’s bath was a bit of a shock for Avery.  Too much freedom, too much action, not enough snuggle.  This week she was winding up for a good yell, but when her bum hit the water… oh… hang on… this is kinda nice.  You may continue the bathing, sir.

She likes a good yell, but she’s ready to admit when she likes something else.  Thatta girl.

Gramma Judy says we’re now fully qualified for parenting.  She leaves us in just a couple days, and we will miss her (oh, we will miss her!) but it’s good to know we’ve got her confidence.

Right now I’m watching a sleeping Avery via iPad, courtesy of the Withings Baby Monitor, my birthday gift from Lee and Suz.  Once you’ve got it set up, and you’ve updated the firmware, software and app, it works well.  Wifi and Bluetooth.  The frame rate is abysmal – maybe a frame per second, but I guess we’re not supposed to be looking for broadcast quality in a baby monitor, right?  The audio pickup works great, as does the night vision and the varicolored nightlight.  But the on-board speaker is terrible – the idea is that you can play music (or ocean sounds or white noise) or even talk to your baby (geekneat!) but let’s just say my baby deserves better sound.  You are so surprised to hear me say this.  Anyway, despite a couple shortcomings, the monitor, once it’s running dependably, is a Very Cool Thing.

Evidently I’m becoming a bit of a repository for knowledge of geekdad necessities.  Feel free to submit your questions in the comments.

Meanwhile, work hovers around the edges.  I had time to mix a two and a half minute promo for L’Oréal Professionnel, and then time to do it again when they asked for another round of picture changes.  Avery was very cooperative today, to say nothing of Gramma’s seemingly effortless skills.  Marjorie continues to amaze with her resilience.  Here’s me whining about my bad knee and she’s barbecuing my chicken.  That’s not a euphemism.  I can’t even imagine how it would be… dammit, now I’m going to have to figure out how to use it as one.

In other news, Chaos Complex submitted two treatments to the Whistler Film Festival’s “China Canada Gateway For Film Script Competition”.  We had four in the works, but some clown decided to have a baby and drop off the face of the planet for a few weeks, and we ran out of time to finish development on the others.  So we’ve got two strong treatments on their way.  Both are warm stories ideal for festivals and indie awards, if that paints the picture.  If we are selected as finalists, we’ll have to be in Whistler at the end of November to pitch to the Chinese production companies.  I will not be with the team on this one.  It’s a bit too soon for me to comfortably be so far away from my brand new family.  I have faith in the fellas.

Now, if we win, things get crazy very quickly.  Turnaround from concept to distribution is less than a year for a typical Chinese production.  That’s like… anything you’ve seen from The Asylum.  Yes, you should click that link.  But what I’m saying is that while Fuel is exponentially expanding its website and education program, and while CB is “developing a promising relationship” with schools and chains, and while TimeSquared Software is approaching beta testing for the biggest, most powerful business app you’ve ever seen, and while Chaos is developing a tv series with “certain undisclosed A-List talents”, and while Chaos continues development of its first feature, and while Chaos continues to shop its utterly ground-breaking other tv series, and while Adrian is joyfully diving into family life… while all that is going on simultaneously, we’re also going to be making a movie.  In China.

I need to catch my breath here…

iPad baby monitor – Avery has these cutest little duckie sleepers.  Just adorable.  We had a nap today – she fidgeted until she could wiggle her head up against my arm, and then settled right down.

There.  That’s better.

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