We're back

Hello everyone, or at least those of you who still drop by here once in a while to see if there's been an update. It has been many many months in a long long year and there are far too many pictures to catch up on so let's just start with the new ones, shall we?

Daddy has just transitioned to a day assistant editorial gig after working the graveyard shift all year and taking care of Jack during the day. To say this year has been tough on all concerned would be an understatement. We have been concerned that jack hasn't had a lot of opportunities to socialize with other little guys. I have really enjoyed spending so much time with him every day. It is a rare treat that I will miss even more as he is growing up. At the same time, since I was getting about 3-4 hours of sleep every night I don't feel like I was really able to give him my best each day. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not beating myself up over it; it's just the nature of what has been a very difficult climb since last December.

But for now, good things are cooking on the home front. Moving to days means Genevieve and I can have some semblance of a normal life for the first time, really, since we moved out here and I started going to school 24/7, and Jack gets to see both of us at the same time every day. (Mostly this year he has spent at least a part of every Saturday and Sunday looking from one of us to the other in mock astonishment, saying Ma Ma! Da Da! as if amazed to see us in the same room.)

Also, one of the fruits of this year's labor has been that I have editor's guild eligibility, which doesn't get me any guarantees, but does open up a lot of doors that would otherwise be closed to me work-wise. I have made some excellent contacts of late an have good reason to be optimistic.

Meanwhile Genevieve keeps making Disneyland a more beautiful place every day and is loving her job. And most importantly, today Jack began preschool! He was in infant care for a long time when I was still in school but he hasn't been in day care since last year so today was a big day. mommy got him dressed up all nice and he had his Buzz Lightyear lunchbox (Daddy picked that out) of which he was very proud. He looked so cute in all of these pictures I had to post them all.

Anyway, now that life is going to be more like what your normal lives are I will be abe to update this thing at least weekly. So keep a lookout!

Apologies

Hi all. I'm sorry I haven't posted in such a long time but I think I have found a way to do this more efficiently and more often. I hope t have a big bunch of photos up by tomorrow.

More to come

I still have some kooky pictures from around the house and more birthday weekend pics to share, but I don't have time to do them right now. Some time later in the week. . .

Jack and I spent a day at the Long Beach Grand Prix a few weeks ago. At first Jack was frightened by the loudness of the cars, and my God they are thunderous! I tried to give him earplugs but I would get one in and he would have it back out by the time I inserted the second. Anyway he soon got into it. When he saw the cars coming down the stretch he'd point and shout, "CAR CAR CAR CAR!!!!" Cars would roar past and he would wave his arms around shouting "YeeeeeOOOOOOOOOWWW!! Go! Go! Car! Car! Car!" And then it would be silent and he would turn to me, palms upraised. "All go?" he'd ask. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The cool part (see above) is that the convention center served as the garage for the many different styles of race cars, from LeMans and LeMans GT cars to little import drifting racers like the Subaru pictured above. You can walk around and check out the cars and even talk to the mechanics, and the drivers if one happens to come by. I liked getting a shot of Jack with the car driven by a guy named Sheehan.

Day Out With Thomas

During the big birthday weekend we headed way up north of LA to Santa Clara to spend a "Day Out With Thomas." Thomas being Thomas the Tank Engine, of course. And all his friends as well as everything that you can slap the word "Thomas" and a picture of a train on and sell.

Well, that's not really nice, I suppose, as these Thomas events, usually hosted by rail enthusiast sites or societies, often provide the crucial revenue they need to keep running. But it is telling that the page featuring "highlights" of this year's event features, mostly, pictures of the merchandise tent. Must be prior to opening because it was utter chaos when we were there.

We had fun, though the promised train ride was less than exhilarating even for those grown-ups who love trains (read: Daddy). It was clear Thomas himself was not a functioning steamer but a shell on a car with a steam whistle built in. He also had an oddly distended head and was seriously off-model.
But not as badly as this horrifying inflatable Thomas who appears to be bleeding from the mouth and to have suffered a massive bee-sting to the face :
But the web is awash in cheesy Thomas imitations. Less so "Pied Pipers of Percussion" but based on this man I'd say the world is a better place for that.

The actual train ride consisted of being pulled backwards by a diesel engine a couple of miles, and then pushed back into the station. Not at all worth the $16.00 each (including Jack!) thought Jack enjoyed it. I don't know that he got $16 worth of fun out of it, though; that 80 bucks would have been better spent on the ample supplies of Thomas knick-knacks available for purchase.

The day's big purchase.



Jack was pleased to receive his official photcopied Jr. Engineer Certificate.


Jack surveys the vistas of the Thomas wooden railway, available for a princely sum at a merch tent near you.

Jack met with Sir Topham Hatt. If you have to ask, you don't want to know. Jack's at a stage where he gets very shy around large, costumed figures. Especially ones with weird, stunted little hands.

Oh what a wait

Hi everyone. Well, now that my TV show seems to have come to an end and I am temporarily laid off, I have some time to devote to pictures! I am soooo sorry to have taken so long with this. Our lives have been a cycle of working, and grabbing a few hours sleep here and there, since before Christmas, with a few exceptions as you'll see.

I am so far behind I decided to dispense with the customary commentary and upload almost 150 pictures to Flickr. They are in three sets and you can view them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackjack/sets/

Let me know if you have any problems. Sorry to have to do it this way but uploading them directly to blogger when you have more than a few pictures is nightmarishly sloooowwwwwww.

Jack is doing very well, learning new words almost every day. His big love affair of the moment is the movie Cars and he has taken a sudden interest in old Donald Duck cartoons, bless 'im. Genevieve is working hard at Disneyland and loving it. I have been spending my nights training in a few programs I need some practice in and looking for work. Speaking of which I have to get back to that.

Next week is Jack's 2d birthday (April 19) and around then I am hoping to do a major redesign of the blog. I also am planning on doing at least one update per week on Sunday night so you will have fresh Jack stuff on Monday mornings. Stay tuned!!

Fatigue

OK, turns out I don't have the Christmas day photos on my hard drive yet and all this posting has left me a little ragged out, so I am heading off to bed in a bit. I will try to get all the Christmas-related pics up in the next day or so, pending how insane my work schedule is. Stay tuned!

Of Horsies and Haircuts

Not long ago we decided to go to Hollywood Park to have a little fun making $2 bets on the ponies. Mostly, so Jack could get a close up look at the horses. We all had a really fun afternoon and Jack loved seeing the horses.


Jack really got into the spirit of the thing. Without any encouragement or suggestion, as the horses were off and running, gripping my racing form he started shouting to the horses. "Go! Go! Go go go!" he shouted, pumping his hand in the air like a veteran gambler. The only things missing were a well-chewed stogie and a green eyeshade. It was absolutely hilarious. We grabbed the camera and got a quick video of him doing it in the next race, but we had to encourage him and it wasn't as funny. Still pretty funny though.


Not too long ago we needed to get Jack his second haircut. His first haircut passed without incident but this time Jack was highly suspect of the whole endeavor and most displeased. But, with the rich, velvety mullet he had growing down his back, we had no choice. We were still charged an absurd $15 for the service.

Miscellaneous shots

Before I get to the Christmas pics, which I might not get to until tomorrow or Wednesday, I want to clear out a bunch of miscellaneous shots I've had sitting around for a while. Most of these speak for themselves. Most of them are just too cute to not post. There will be another kind of mixed bag post before the Christmas ones, too.

This Mickey Mouse robe was mine, I think, when I was little.



Jack as post-bath monkey-boy. Sometimes after I wrap him in this monkey towel he will immediately start making "ah! ah!" monkey sounds.
Sometimes, a daddy is a daddy. Most of the time, a daddy is a handy piece of furniture. Jack will often come careening into the living room and grab me by the hand, or shirt, and pull me into his room. He will sit me down in the corner and show me his toys, or sometimes, as below, stack them on me so he can see them and play with them better. This is as fun for me as it looks.Some mornings -- now that Daddy is working nights -- we watch a movie. Lately, the other obsession of Jack's is Buzz Lightyear. Jack can't quite say "Buzz" so he refers to Buzz as "Baouw." Or "Bo," for short. He flies him around and tries to say "To Infinity, and Beyond!" (Buzz's catch phrase) but what he says is "Oooo, eee -- yahhhh!"

Anyway a couple of times we've had an early morning Buzz film festival and this pleases Jack greatly. He gathers up his Buzz and a blankie, crawls into an easy chair and has a great time, rapt for the whole 90 minutes.

Jack loves to "read" his books. All the time. The socks complete a great look for him.I don't know when this one is from -- judging by Jack's hair I'd say summertime. But it's way too cute not to post.

A Million Pictures

So I have been procrastinating like crazy getting pictures up here. Mostly that's because we have the most heavily documented child in the world and the sheer amount of work involved in getting these photos into shape and uploaded appropriately has become overwhelming. You know how it is. It's one of those tasks that keeps getting bigger and harder to do the more you put it off.

Well one of my resolutions this year is to get much better at regularly clearing my picture folder of pending blog photos. To do that I have a lot of catching up to do -- so without much further ado, here is a round of pictures from our DL trip on my birthday, 11/17/2006. I've so much to post that sometimes my comments will be sparse, so bear with me.

Our first stop on 11/17 was for a big breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, Storytellers Cafe in the Grand Californian, the insanely beautiful arts and crafts/Greene & Greene-inspired hotel adjoining California Adventure. As usual Chip, Dale, Koda and, um, that other bear from Brother Bear were there.

Jack performs his patented "funny face" routine for Dale.
And kisses Koda. Awwwww. It's always the lower lip sticking out, by the way, for the kisses.
Then it was on to the parks. Jack, as many of you know, has a growing fondness for (bordering on obsession with) choo-choos. Well, of course the Disney parks have some of the coolest choo-choos in the world -- antique real steam engines, rescued and restored and running around the park all year long. The trains were Walt's babies, and in the lobby of Main Street's train station is a replica of the Lilly Belle, the train he had in his backyard (the original is on display, with many other trains, in a holiday display at the Nixon Library up in Yorba Linda pending its permanent relocation to a Disney Family Museum at the Presidio in San Francisco in 2009. This is literally the only thing that would ever get me to the Nixon Library and I don't intend to stray out of the train exhibit except to use the rest room).

Anyway, if you're lucky, on any given day you can ask for, and receive, the opportunity to take a ride around Disneyland sitting in the tender of some of the trains. It depends on a few things -- whether someone is training, which means they are sitting on the tender riding with the crew, or if they will need to take on water. And I may be wrong but I think it's only the CK Holliday and the Ripley that you can ride the tender on. But if you ask the conductor at Main Street and it's OK with the engineers they will let you ride practically right up in the cab of the train.

Well, it is awesome. Jack and I got to ride the tender on my birthday. Jack was overwhelmed. We had to wait at the station until the right train came along and that alone was worth the whole day as far as Jack was concerened -- running about the station, looking at all the cool train stuff, and watching trains arrive and depart, all to lusty cries of "OooooOOOOOhhhhh! Choo-choo!!" It's really something. The engineer and fireman explain all the ins and outs of the engine, the fire (fueled by diesel) that boils the water and how they maintain the mix of air and aerosolled (is that a word?) fuel to keep it at the appropriate temperature, the pressure gauges. It's really remarkable. Jack was really in awe. He just kind of sat there and took it all in. I mean it's one thing to wave at a passing choo-choo but to actually sit up front with the driver? Amazing.


Mickey was meeting and greeting in California Adventure and Jack was straining to run and meet him. When he did, a love-fest ensued.