Here is Dana and our four monkeys:
Alex has taken a keen interest in the bookshelf that hosts all of Dana's law books and papers. Here he's caught in the act of "sorting" some of her class notes:
Someday he may also be quite an avid chef. He spends a lot of time pouring over our cookbooks:
The last few weeks have seemed completely out of control and hectic. I feel like a clock that's running down, and I haven't been able to wind myself back up again. There's been lots of travel, but I don't think that's the problem. I've been eating horribly, and that might have a lot to do with it. Also Dana's new work and school schedule has kept her very busy and away from the house. When I'm not at work it is mostly just me and Alex. He is usually a lot of fun, but it is hard to know what he wants. I will be grateful when he starts using actual words, even if it's slow at first. I know that means we'll have to start watching our language more, but it will be worth it to have real verbal communications. I always feel like I'm not paying enough attention to him, but whenever I try to insert myself into whatever he's doing (playing with a toy, crawling around, etc) he just turns away or ignores me or forgets about the toy.
Well, enough complaining. I guess this is what I signed up for almost two years ago, and there's got to be some slow weeks in here somewhere.
Alex's first birthday is in less than two weeks now. Richard and Sarah and cousin Alex are coming for a visit - their first in ages, and I think Alex's first ever. I expect we'll have a great time with them. The following weekend Ali and Eric are coming out, and possibly my parents as well. So Alex could have as many as three birthday parties. We haven't planned anything formal but consider this a de facto invitation to anyone who wants to come out and celebrate the little guy's first birthday, +/- 1 month.
I'm flying out to Corvallis, Oregon tomorrow morning for a frantic two-day hardware installation part at Oregon State University's Open Source Lab. OSU will be hosting a running instance of our Fossology project. I shipped out all the hardware this week, and Matt and I from work will converge on Corvallis tomorrow afternoon to start racking the equipment, turning it on, and reconfiguring it to work with OSU's data center. We're also going to do as much ambassador-good-will type stuff as we can, as we think OSU is going to be an outstanding partner to work with on hosting this stuff. We're also meeting with the guys from the Linux Foundation who will be shifting most of their hosting to OSU sometime in the next year.
For some reason most of the hotels in Corvallis are booked solid through the weekend, so we may have to stay at some dumpy Econolodge on the edge of town. I'm trying to work all the angles to get into a decent hotel near campus, so we'll see. At any rate, I'll be back Saturday afternoon-ish to resume my daddy duties and hopefully not have to travel again for some time.
