steady rain, no wind

our back porch is about 14 feet wide and goes out 18 feet from the house. it is covered, but not enclosed. we have a set of patio furniture taking up about half of this space with a grill and wood bench on the other half.

i love sitting on this porch at night and relaxing with a cigar and a near beer. tonight it was raining. but since it was not windy, i liked this. i'm one of those freaks that likes the sound of rain. it is very mellow and while i am surrounded by back yards, there is also a wooded area nearby. so it is a very mellow scene and i can really relax. sometimes i'll get into watching all of the planes in pattern as they approach our airport.

every time i do this, i wind up somehow thinking of my three colleagues that died in the accident. it's done in a good, respectful way. somehow i am letting them know i appreciate moments like this more than ever. i take nothing for granted.

this was a fitting end to a good weekend. a salad weekend of sorts...one that won't stand out, but a good weekend overall with weather, family and productivity. the good ones that blend into the background.

wife is pregnant so i am trying to pick up some more slack while she adjusts to it all. now that she has daughter, it's not like her first pregnancy when she could simply take a nap. the appetite is back too while the little succubus inside her saps her energy and nutrition. just 8 weeks in and the gravity is clear...the little bambino needs a lot of fuel to develop.

so now our house has plenty of comfort foods. my favorite have been the fritos. she's been into cheese a lot too. none of the cheez whiz, american/nacho cheese stuff either per se. provolone and munster were the latest. :-)

now i need to figure out how to eat better and/or run. my diet is shot and i am running less these days. so i've put some weight back on. can i get away with sympathy gains? oddly enough i recall having a similar gain this time last year. so maybe it's just summer as a whole.

daughter is keeping us on our toes. she's testing us, but nothing major. mostly she winds up cranking at the end of the night. and by this i mean she's cranky. tonight was no different, but it was punctuated by her falling off the basement stairs and clocking her horse. mom witnessed it and wigged out too. this never helps matters unfortunately. but both calmed down and daughter has a knot on her check to show for it.

got our latest pictures back and took some "art" pics for fun. by this i mean it was not pics of daughter or family, but pics of various subject matter i take for fun. so i click on bloggers new upload/image file icon and merely find directions of how to link to images already online. cheap bastards. if you're not going to add the capability, don't turn the answer to a question into a friggin formatting icon on the interface. if only to manage expectations.

but this new browser is not all it's cracked up to be. i like the new template choices and all, but my last post got eaten at some point. this made me want to fly out to seattle and kick somebody's arse. not that said post would have won my ANY prizes, but it felt like a good post. the kind of post that keeps me from deleting this pocket mirror of a backpat piece of shit self love fest blog.

it also becomes the yin to work blog's yang. i wind up playing them off each other so i wind up blogging all the time, but i switch between the two to avoid burnout. well, the night my post was half-eaten, i nearly deleted both blogs and turned my monitor into an aquarium (insert link here to show the site that has done this and includes step by step directions).

so, to recap: good weekend. fuck blogger.