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.

My mother was in town this weekend. She came back from her summer classes in England. She is getting a master's degree in Education Technology. Or more specifically integrating technology into to her teaching methods. I was able to help her with her Web site (though not as much as we wanted. Sorry Mom.) and see the sites of Boston.

Our first stop was Plymouth Plantation, which was highly recommended by my friends. We were able to visit the Mayflower replica while we were there too. Both were very interesting sites. The ship was smaller than we had expected with a larger hold than we expected. Something of a contradiction. We were told that over 100 people were housed on a ship that would probably fit inside a chapel (with overflow). The pilgrims were amazing people to have endured so much so they could achieve religious freedom. I am thankful that our country today is accepting of different religions and doesn't persecute as in times past.
The plantation was also well done. There were actors dressed and living as though they were pioneers in a new land. They spoke about the things that were important to them: farming, fishing, cooking, sewing, carpentry, religion. It was certainly a difficult time to be alive.
My mother as a history teacher was very interested in everything going on. I have been more reluctant to embrace history but even I found it very interesting. Mia and I think of everything these days in terms of bringing our kids back. This is definately on the list.

While my wife stayed home the next day, mom and I went into the city of Boston to walk the Freedom Trail. The trail is about 2 miles long, though we only traveled about 1 mile of it. That tour is packed with so much historical information it is ridiculous. We learned about the founders, the patriots, the myths that surround Paul Revere (he didn't shout as he rode) and myriad other facts about one of the oldest cities in our country.
Some great things happened in Boston and I am proud to live in the city were freedom was so highly regarded.

Before she left, my mother and father gave us the best gift. I want to thank them so much. We know that it is for the baby, but we hope you don't mind us breaking it in first :)

Today was David's wedding to Chris. It was held in Utah at the top of the Snowbird ski resort. The wedding was very nice, it went (mostly) smoothly and there were quite a number of people in attendance.
This was something of a shock because they gave everyone about 1 month's notice about the whole affair. I do not mean to say that we were suprised to hear they were getting married, quite the contrary. However, we were suprised that it was happening so suddenly.

When we were told, David offered to fly us out to Utah from JFK airport in New York city at midnight. That meant a 3-hour drive, driving through the entire city, and then catching a red-eye flight out to Utah. Fortunately, we were able to work out a deal that let us leave from our hometown at about 9:00AM. That worked out much better for us.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the wedding was very nicely done. Chris has more family in Utah so they made quite a showing. We enjoyed meeting them and getting to know her boys better as well. They will be moving to New York in September so the boys can begin school and get settled in.

We drove out to Albany this weekend to visit the Mia's family. We have been doing that quite a bit recently. They just have too much going on in their lives for us to keep up with.

As we were driving we decided to come up with names that we like for a . We are getting more confident in the idea that our baby will be a little inday (the Filipino word for a baby ). We had a couple of names written down from some baby books. None of them felt quite right, they seemed to be trying too hard. After much debate we decided that we liked the name Kimberly Jane Johansen.

Jane comes from Mia's maternal grandmother and will be the name that we call her. She can certainly decide for herself to switch that later, but for the first while we are the parents and get to make aribtrary, caprious decisions.

Kimberly doesn't have roots in either family. We both think that it is a cute name and we hope that our daughter will like it as well. I might just have to steal a nickname from my uncle though and call her Kimmers. I suppose it depends on what she will respond to.

This is one of the most exciting posts that I have had in a while. We went in today for our first (and only) ultrasound. We were eager to see pictures of our little baby and find out if everything was alright so far.

The first pictures that we saw were of random legs or arms, then the technician pointed out the beating heart. From that moment the whole baby seemed to come alive. We could see it moving, squirming, kicking, trying to suck a thumb. We were enthralled, I was enthralled.

The good news is that our baby is healthy. There are a couple of medical histories on Mia's side of the family that had us worried, but everything is fine. the baby is developing normally and from the measurements, our due date was put at 2 days after what we already had calculated. A very good sign!

The only downside is that we were hoping to find out the of the baby. The couple of shots we got, the baby was kicking the whole time, were inconclusive. However, the best guess at the time, and our own feelings on the matter, lean towards having a female baby.

Having a -baby (or boy) will be the best thing that has ever happened to us. We are so thrilled that we can barely wait until the end of November to greet our little newborn.

I will be sure to keep posting her progress.

First, I have to put in the plug that I finally updated the pictures of our pregnancy. We don't have many, but there are some pictures of the growing belly that my wife is carrying around. I think that she is looking cuter and cuter each day, but she doesn't believe me. I guess I will have to keep telling her until she does!

But now, what I was going to write about tonight is how bad I feel because I missed Father's Day. We went out to spend the weekend with my wife's parents, we got so caught up in the affairs of their lives that I forgot to call or write my own father. Now this might not be such a bad thing, if I wrote to my parents regularly, but I don't. So now I have the guilt of not writing often enough, combined with missing the day that I should have been especially focused on my father.

I think that it would be doubly shameful of me if I did not take this chance to write why I feel so badly about this. For everyone that knows Arthur, they know that I have been raised with one of the best role-models for a father that a boy could have. He was always calm but funny, always loving both to us and our mother. He was stern and unyeilding on the principles that were important to him (and are now important to me).

I know that my father has doubted that he was around often enough for us to appreciate him, but some of my best memories are fishing, skiing or playing Master of Monsters with my Dad. He is ready with profound advice whenever I ask and has shared his testimony of the gospel with me throughout this life, in his teachings and example.

Thanks.
I love you Dad.