A year ago today, my younger son was born. In the operating room, I watched as the doctor pulled him from his mother. I could only imagine the shock he experienced being in air and breathing for the first time. The nurse snapped me out of the moment to remind me I might want to use that camera I clutched unused in my hands. I did. They took him to a table where he was weighed and measured, and I followed. Even covered in amniotic fluid, he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He was loud, too, really giving those newly-used lungs a workout. As they cleaned him up, my thoughts ran the gambit – from how amazing it was he was here, perfectly formed, to wondering how his life will turn out, and back to how thankful I was for him. They wrapped him up in blankets, and after meeting Mom on the outside, I carried him to the nursery. Through the window there watched his brother, and the rest of our family. Each looked in with excitement, and I was probably beaming from ear to ear. Nine months of waiting resulted in a day that was surreal – as if it were a dream instead of reality.

He started with that cute baby cry – more like sobs than a true cry. Mostly he just slept, ate, and pooped. Before I knew it, my three weeks of paternity leave was over. That day was the hardest, leaving mom and boy at home and returning to work.

Each day brought new and exciting things. He first learned to look around. Next came rolling over, crawling, and furniture surfing. He is speedy at a crawl and getting faster at surfing. Walking is only a few weeks away now. He claps, says “Ma-Ma”, and loves eating the rubber duckies during bath time. He’s progressed from the tub on the counter to sitting in the regular tub. Those baths became a frequent necessity once he started on baby food, but now he’s even beyond that – eating regular table food whose scraps are found in his shirt, diapers and the crevasses of his high chair.

He smiles infectiously and bounces to background music. He loves to crawl over Dad and to give Mom kisses. He chases his brother wherever he goes, and loves to give him hugs. His new favorite place to hang is inside the entertainment center after clearing it of of tapes and DVDs.

His hugs and snuggles are the best things ever, and the way he lights up when he sees me melts my heart.

I thank God for my wonderful children, and sit in awe of how much this little one has changed in the last year.

Happy Birthday, little one.

Appleton, WI has been discovered by the civilized world!

The first Starbucks in town is under construction and will open soon. Next thing you know, there will be one on every third block! WOO HOO

I opened the Dominos Dots and took a look at the container of Sweet Icing. To my disappointment, it was not the huge vat of sugary goodness my wife had promised.

“This is not a lot,” I exclaimed. “This is just a pittance!”

She responded that at her meeting the icing had come in a large container; but then again, they had ordered a lot of the Dots.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Pittance?”

“Yeah.”

“It means only a little,” I answered.

I started to eat and forgot all about the pittance. Our conversation turned to other things – work, the house, whatever.

“What’s better than nothing?” he interjected.

Being the smart-ass I am and only half-listening anyway, I responded, “Something.” Back to my pizza I went.

“What’s better – something or nothing?” he rephrased.

“Something,” I guessed.

“Then you should be thankful for… what’s that word?”

I smiled. “Pittance.”

The kid has perspective, man. Perspective – like the guy who only wanted a pair of shoes – until he saw another man without feet.

I have been put in my place… Calling a cable car in San Francisco a “trolley” not only makes me a tourist, but apparently a stupid tourist to boot.

A trolley, while running on rails, uses electricity via overhead wires to power an electric motor which moves the trolley. The closest thing San Francisco has to a trolley are the electric buses.

A cable car, on the other hand, is powered by gripping an underground cable. Its akin to grabbing onto a tow rope at the ski hill. Cable cars have no motor, just two guys and a pair of levers.

Also, I was talking to the conductor, not the grip man, btw.

Rice-a-roni… It’s the San Francisco treat [Ding Ding!]

I finally made it out of the hotel. 20 hours of conferences packed into 48 hours is a bit much for anyone. I hit as many of the sites as I could in the three hours I had. I took the trolley (does calling it that make me a tourist?) from the hotel down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Now, I don’t want to complain, but there was a four block area where they didn’t bother to turn on the power. I walked right up to the big ol’ sign and didn’t even see it.

From there I headed to Pier 39. I snapped some shots – the Golden Gate in the dark – sea loins in the dark – what I think was Alcatraz (hey, it was dark, okay?). I filled my belly with crab, spun through the wax museum – I think I saw the Saddam Hussein figure blink, so he may have already left his country. Then I trolley-ed back. The brakeman (does calling him that make me a tourist?) and I chatted about the usual – weather. He was complaining about the wind getting cold. I told him my Wisconsin-winter-trained physiology was sweating in the balmy 50 degrees. That will change tomorrow, though, when it’s back to the frigid wasteland.

From the five-year-old genius department:

In Episode 8 of SpongeBob Squarepants, Sandy Bottoms (the squirrel), builds a rocket in the short entitled Sandy’s Rocket which accidentally launches Spongebob and Patrick into space.

The five-year-old made this connection yesterday: If Sandy were going to build a rocket, she would not fill the rocket with water, but air, since that is what she breathes. Yet, Spongebob and Patrick are in the rocket and don’t dry out, as Spongebob did in Episode 2′s Tea at the Treedome when he visited Sandy at her treedome without water. Or as Spongebob said (and the five-year-old imitated), “Water… waahhh-tterrr!”

To quote Patrick: “When in doubt, pinky out!”

My timing is impeccable…

I usually bring my own coffee in to work since the coffee there is horrible. Occasionally, though, my Thermos just isn’t big enough and I slum it with the coffee in the break room.

It seems that I have this weird ESP about it… I’ll go in there to get a cup of java and the pot will be empty. I’ll go to make another pot, only to find that I need fight packing tape to open a new box of coffee, then stuggle to open the bag inside just to get one coffee filter packet.

Something like 10 minutes later I still don’t have any frelling joe.