Trevor F. Smith: Exterior

Golden Master Day

This fine Saturday I'm finally putting a bullet in the head of the old system which has run Crosscut.com and switching it out for a shiny, new, Django based news engine, Yesler. Spinning up an instance on the cloud and pouring data across the net through various filters, SQL clumps, and secure channels is not quite the same as driving with Baron to deliver the gold master disk to the dup house, but it is a sweet moment.

Not that it can't go horribly wrong and crash in public, embarrassing ways...

The Day So Far

It's 8:45AM and I'm sipping an americano and wifi from Uptown Espresso in Belltown. I was awakened at 4 as I am every morning, by a brain too quickly spinning through the fragments of my days: fixing bugs on Tomorrow Space, reaching new segments on online community wranglers, how I can be a better father/husband/friend/executive/citizen/sapien, and turning over the news that cancer has once again infiltrated a member of my extended family.

When my stomach got too tight and my inner cacophony too loud, I dressed in the dark and the first light of the day came when I crack the Mac to fire up Reader to begin my infovore's feast. 400 feeds later I spun through the nights tweets, got my email boxen to empty, and started the kettle for tea.

For the next hour (and two cups of Earl Grey) I skim political blogs and build a social map of that community, looking for people who can gather a community around them and for signs that they recognize the need for synchronous meetups. I'm working on a market vertical for Tomorrow Space, it's true, but like most knowledge workers there's never just one project, one story, for any slice of work. The same people who might find value in virtual event halls could foment movement in organization of an online city, could back a municipal server cloud, or any of a dozen other connections against the mesh of interrelated projects in which I'm playing different roles.

And then I took a shower and sang my daughter her morning wakeup song. She slept well and so Shelley (her mother) and I successfully tiptoe through the groggy period into that happy morning ritual of breakfast, car talk, and drop off at day care. Through it all there are New Yorker articles browsed, NPR in the background, and the people of Seattle around us, emitting style and state in our standing wave of culture.

And now I'm going to post this, pick up the parking ticket which I see through the coffee shop windows that I've just received, and head to Ian's to start the work day.

Inappropriate Country-Western

Now that I'm a father, I sing more often and often I sing original songs spun on the spot. Unfortunately my songs are usually inappropriate for children, and occasionally a bit too spicy for adults. Here's an example from this morning's country-western medley:

You broke my nose, but you saved my life.
You inflate fast, just like my wife2.
You notice when, I wrecked my truck.
You saved me then, and that's just my luck.

<Chorus>

Well an airbag, is a drunk's best friend.

You save my ass, so I'll drive again.

And thanks to, the great Ford company,

For making eight, great airbags just for me.

¹That's a theoretical, country-western wife, not my actual wife.

The gist

Most of my time is spent tending the kid or tending the household. I try to take at least two trips into the Blue Room each day, which usually end up being a dog walk and an errand.

We're still unpacking and arranging the household, and I look forward to the cleansing feeling of emptying and recycling the last box.

When I decided to take some time away from employment and be an All-Day-Dad, I really underestimated how little time that would leave for other things. Though I'm certain things will settle down after unpacking is complete and we shake out all of the various coping systems which every household and parent run, I believe that I vastly overestimated the amount of free thinking time I would have during a day of baby care. I simply don't have time to settle into focused exploration in between the tasks of maintaining the household and caring for a 5 month old baby.

This is a bit unsettling, since I'm supposed to be inventing or discovering my next professional adventure in time for the kid's as-of-yet unscheduled day care initiation.

Ah, the kid just woke up.

Stress

Logically, taking a 4 month old across the continent seems like the last thing to do to shed the stress of a interstate move. But I napped "real hard" this afternoon while my mother watched the kid swing, I just put the kid down after an evening in the wondrous chaos that is my inlaws' house, and now I feel pretty safe and satisfied.

One of the numerous, faulty memory anonymized^* memes floating around in my head is the phrase, "the most stressful things you can do are move, change jobs, and get a divorce." Luckily, after the stress of the other two Shelley and I are not getting a divorce.

Also on my plate: starting a new business, convincing voter registration that I'm a Washitonian, paying the DMV to bless me and my car, punting dialup back to 1995 when the priest of DSL comes on Wednesday, and connecting to all of the Mothers Groups^** in Seattle.

*anonymesia?

** fathers accepted in small numbers

Cookin'

With a baby girl on the way, a 50 minute commute, and a feeling of anxiety when I think of starting new personal digital projects, I rarely have the urge to blog.

I usually post snippets to my space at linkmonger and call it a day.

I am, however, learning to knit. Seriously. I've made a scarf, a misshapen green hat, and this weekend I'm starting a baby sweater. I'm sure the final result will highlight the hilarious nature of my being a parent in all its lumpy, drop-stitched glory.

Movements

To meet the family of friends is a bit like the unexpected appearance of the hidden half of an astrometric binary; to recognize in a stranger the movements and attitudes which I previously felt were unique to the person I know.

I had the pleasure of meeting a friend's mother this weekend, and it tickled me to find a particular facial expression and gesture of humorous dismissal of folly was inherited.

I can only hope that by October, when my little one is due, I will have as graceful a gravity to share.

Keep me away from photoshop

Don't forget Mothers' Day (which is a made up holiday, but sometimes made up things are quite nice) is coming soon.  Everybody is somebody's something.

Weekend patterns

For the past three weekends, Shelley, Emmy, and I woke up at 7, ate breakfast at Boogaloos (which is to SF what The Grit is to Athens), and then headed over to Crissy Field for a jaunt by the beach.  You would think that doing this on both Saturdays and Sundays would get old, but it is a rather nice way to start the day.

Today the water was very calm and for the first time Emmy decided to swim for items thrown beyond where she could reach without leaving the sand.  She did it once, and then she did it 30 times without taking a break.  Despite the fact that Emmy is all muscle (so she has to pump hard to stay afloat) she is fast and strong for a new swimmer.

Go team!