You would think that after going through it once, I would be more aware of the warning signs.
On the other hand, I wasn't expecting lay-offs at this time, so I was very unprepared when I was called in at 4:00PM on a Monday afternoon to lose my job. Not the easiest thing to hear when you are going to be having a baby so soon.

As happened last time (maybe this should be my warning) we had been saving some money and paying off some credit cards and, after we figured it out, realized that we will be fine through the end of the year at least.
This doesn't mean that I am not going to try getting a new job. But it does mean that I am going to really look for something that I want to do. I have grown weary of jumping for the first company that makes an offer. It generally isn't the best way to find a job you can be happy at for a couple of years.

Home again. And back to the grind.

But, before I get into the rut of complaining about work, I want to talk about the wedding. It was great. I hadn't met Zack until we went out to Utah, and even then it wasn't really until the day before the wedding that I really spoke with him. However, it was very easy to approve and know that he would love my sister and treat her well.
This is very reassurring for those of you that know Monica. Especially if you have known some of the guys she dated growing up. But, as a mature she seems to have figured out what will make her happy. We are very glad for her.

And there is no chance of her having a child before us either. The oldest son having the first grandchild, that is the way it should be (for our family, I won't impose this on everyone). But, if she wanted to have a kid, I wouldn't mind knowing what it feels like to be an uncle (sorry Mickeal and Kami, you don't really count).

We made it to Utah! Finally. It was a rather long trip, going from Boston to L.A. by plane and then driving back up to Salt Lake. Fortunately, we had some book tapes to keep us company and from Vegas on, A.J.

It wasn't so bad really. We were trying to time the trip so that we would get to Salt Lake in time for the bridal/baby shower that was planned for Monica and Mia respectively. The family was throwing a combined one and we didn't want to be late. But, for some reason we could not make the headway that we thought we should. Everytime we checked the clock and compared that with the miles left to our destination, the math didn't seem to add up.
So we finally pulled in about 6:00PM which is when the party was supposed to start, and then got over to it about 7:00PM. Which actually turned out to be just fine, things were still getting set-up and they were able to start shortly after we arrived.

I want to thank everyone who attended, helped, and gave gifts during the shower. We had more baby clothes, toys and accessories than we knew what to do with. You all have made the transistion to having a child seem much less intimidating. Yes, the expected shopping was intimidating and I am glad that I don't have to do it!

The wedding is tomorrow, so I had better sign off.

We are heading to Utah for my sister's wedding. I don't know how much I will be able to write, so in case I don't update until we get back, here is a quick one.

Things are going well for us. The pregnancy is coming along nicely. You can start to see the little basketball forming, it is so cute. Also, little Jane is so squirmy. She is constantly kicking, punching, and streching out. I know that it makes her mother uncomfortable, but I think it is funny when you can feel her head and butt on opposite sides of the stomach. Though I usually try to massage her into a different position when I see it.

Site update alert!

There have been questions about where the pictures of the ultrasound are. They are coming. I promise. I am working furiously on getting them formatted correctly and don't really know why I am having so much trouble. I will let everyone know when they are ready.

But, I do have other updates that I have made to my site. I did some reading when I went out to Utah and finally have additions to the reading section of my site.
During our trip I read some short stories by Philip K. Dick including Minority Report. For you other geeks out there, he also wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which was the basis for the movie Bladerunner.
More on what I think about these works and his writing style is available in that section.

I have also been reading Panda eats, shoots and leaves. It is an interesting mix of pedantic sensibility and individualistic reality. The line that sums this up nicely is:

What I hope will become clear from this book is that one can usefully combine a descriptive and prescriptive approach to what is happening to this single aspect of the language.

As something of a descriptivist myself, I find the book interesting. But for your true perscriptivists, beware. This book doesn't live up to the promise of being grammatically correct. While I missed some of the clause errors, I did notice that the introduction uses em-dashes appropriately while the main text of the book is littered with en-dashes with spaces around them. The spaces I can forgive but seeing so many en-dashes was somewhat painful.