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we finally did it. we hit the road and went camping with the dude! and he took to it like the monkey he is. but i’m getting ahead of myself. first, we packed up what felt like the entire house and jammed it into the jetta (minus some very important items). we arrived at bastrop state park and unpacked. we made ourselves at home with the flamingoes right out front.

stacey and jax had to head out to the nearest store because of the things we forgot, pots and pans were the first we noticed. because she’s a genius, she also picked up baby wipes. it seems like no matter how many tons of those we have, it’s never enough. sadly, she also brought the devil to our camp in the guise of coffee singles. man are those weak.

but once we got all of the things we’d forgotten socked away, jax got fired up and demanded that we hike! and who are we to deny him?

on our way up the hill, we saw a big turkey. i mean, a really big turkey. this picture doesn’t do it justice, but here it is anyway.

i tried to get closer, but it bolted. clearly it didn’t want me to cross its path…with gravy!

we had a really good walk up the hill and then took the stroller down some fairly rough terrain. things that Meme would groan at knowing that she provided a vehicle for such recklessness. like playing with a leatherman…

but we did it! and the harness in that thing? pure gold. the dude giggled the whole time.

after following the map (incorrectly) we wound up back at camp. dinner was provided for the dude and then he sat on mommy’s lap while daddy (that’s me) wrestled with the fire and cooked up some burgers for those in the party with teeth and thumbs. think about that for a minute. we passed the rest of the evening relaxing around camp.

we turned in around 8:30 pm. it was dark enough and the dude was ready. we knew he wouldn’t sleep without us, so we loaded up in the tent. the temperature got down to about 55F and that was good for all of us. he only woke up once or twice. or any time i moved my arm as that was what he chose to snuggle with all night.

and then it was 5 am. and he was awake. for real.

i got up and made a fire. breakfast was ready at about 7-ish. we chowed down and hit the trail. again, it was a great day of hiking. at the end of it all, we decided that two nights would be too much and headed home. we’ve learned a lot about camping with babies. one night is good. two nights, maybe less so. so we’ll stick with our newfound knowledge and see what happens.

at 6:30-ish on thursday august 23rd 2007, James Xavier Wilson aka Jax entered the world at 8 lbs, 7 oz, 20 inches long.

he is happy and healthy.

mom is doing amazingly well after a rough day.

there were two big projects that absolutely had to be completed before our roommate arrives: resod the front yard and replace the carpet in the living and dining rooms. the sod was done weeks ago and the yard now looks 100% less crappy thankyouverymuch. with the floors looming over us, we took stock and decided to head out to look for laminate materials last weekend.

we. got. lucky. we hit below our budgeted price point and the place was just down the street. we were pretty excited. so excited, in fact, that we moved everything out of those rooms except for the massive china cabinet and the couch. i scheduled friday off and we set to work thursday night doing demolition. with the last of the furniture removed, things looked like this:







tearing out the carpet was a breeze. and yanking out the tackstrips only went to prove to me that the builder was not interested in the finest concrete makind has produced. but whatever. with the help of our good buddy bryan we had the china cabinet out and the demolition done in about an hour. then we ate pizza (i told bryan he had to stop and eat NOW before SG inhaled it all…apparently, the baby LOVES pizza).

with the carpet up, it looked a lot like this:

notice how we’re still silly and loving life. we had yet to really begin to work. somewhere deep down i knew that, but we were still having fun with it.

since the night was still young and we were planning to take friday morning to drive out to where SG went to redneck college and pick up the 1/4 grass-fed cow that we’d oredered weeks ago (and man was it good…steaks for dinner saturday night proved that this is the way to eat cows!) we decided to be crazy and put down the padding. it looked easy enough! and it was. so much so that i decided that it was my turn to be in a picture (nobody ever takes pictures of dads during pregnancy).

friday came and we got our beef. then we started slapping down the flooring. it goes very quickly once you get the hang of it. and honestly? it’s a one person job. which turned out to be quite handy since SG isn’t much for bending over these days. but she did have two very important jobs that really saved us some time. first, she got to stand on the boards as i clicked them into place (this kept things from popping up and bringing down a storm of profanity that might have disturbed our lil dude) and working the power tools. hey, you don’t have to bend over to use a compound mitre saw!

friday saw most of the floor go down. after we got about halfway through the living room (did i mention that the whole project was about 580 sq ft? no? yeah. that’s a lot of floor) betty and ken came to take us out for dinner and give “baby james” his first easter gift. let me assure you, it got to him.

that’s some seriously cute bread. really. i almost felt bad when i bit its face off. but the buttery tasty goodness made it all ok somehow.

after dinner with the in-laws, we hit it again. by the end of the evening, all of the floor was down. and we figured out why it is that we don’t take pictures of men when they’re expecting:

i remember being wiped out like that a few times in my life, but wow, i look pretty special there. so much so that i didn’t even notice when SG snapped the pic.

saturday morning i felt pain like i haven’t felt in quite some time. muscles i never knew i had were screaming at me. it would seem that crawling around on the floor all day isn’t for me. huh. whoda thunk?

and yet we still needed to get transitions and quarter round to finish things off. our numbers were off so i had to take a break from swearing, i mean putting in the transitions and quarter round, to pick up more. after another day on my knees, we were done. a trip to target to get some rugs and assorted items earlier in the day really finished everything off quite nicely.

before bed we put all of our furniture back into place and i sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor. that is to say i fell onto the couch and couldn’t move for a good thirty minutes.

in the end, it looks like a new house. it’s almost like we were on one of those home make-over shows only we paid for it all and did all of the work. so i guess…um…it’s nothing like that. except that i did get to work with a hottie who is good with powertools!

and i should mention that porschea is beside herself. she hates it. running around on this stuff is like trying to sprint on an ice rink. she keeps to the rugs in the middle of the room and is doing some serious pouting because she knows that she’ll never win at tug again.

we found out today that the growing bulge in SG’s tummy is a little boy to be. we couldn’t be more excited.

you can find all of your pictures here:
http://othertime.com/galllery/main.php?g2_itemId=72

i have decided to do a little more blogging about music. so the front page of othertime will now be the intro (first 2000 characters) from my most recent musical post. i’ll include criticism, discussions about tools for music creation and production, new sketches and all sorts of stuff that doesn’t seem to suit the new family theme of this blog.

so. subscribe to the NEW MUSIC BLOG!

cool? cool.

oh yeah…we’re having a baby soonish. we’ll post about that in this space.

the title pretty much says it all. the album has hit the iTunes music store. to pull it up in iTunes and preview tracks (and maybe even BUY IT!) you can just click this text right here! that’s a great way to show a link, eh guys?

if you do take the time to download it, let me know what you think!

thanks and enjoy!

this is the second in the new collection. it’s called, interestingly enough, two. it’s a little faster…maybe more intense than its predecessor.

the core of the “song” is a sketch that i made many, many moons ago in my along the way collection. those were put together under less than ideal circumstances and i’m having fun repurposing them for this project.

how far will this go? stay tuned…

this weekend was spent doing some serious slacking. but in the midst of it, we did manage to get out and have some fun. we had originally planned to go camping saturday night, but the urge left us as quickly as it arrived. nonetheless, we did do some hiking on sunday and porschea got to try out her new x-mas gift.

gone are the days of the slacking puppy who has her humans carry all of her food and water for her! now, she can truly be called a working dog. she seems to love it. she gets some gear of her own and it makes her stick a little closer to us since she can’t just run off at a moment’s notice. did i mention she can carry her own water? now that’s a load off of my back!

we spent the rest of the day decorating our first annual gingerbread house. we saw the kit at whole foods and SG just had to have it. we baked it up saturday night (the hardest part) and did the fun stuff tonight. check it:

tons of fun and almost NO effort!

i was noodling around in my studio and whipped this up: one.mp3. it’s in a totally different vein from the green man collection. it’s electronic. it’s ambient. it’s kinda mellow. i’m not sure, but i think that this is going to lead to something entirely new.

and in other, cooler news: i am back into the total gnu/linux audio experience. this track was produced with muse, zynaddsubfx, hydrogen, and the jack timemachine. i have backed away from garageband because it took a lot of my thinking away from my work. on the upside, it was great to sit down and just record, but it took a lot of fun out of the sound design and the craft of the recording. i dunno, it sounds like i’m looking for an excuse to play with cool toys.

and cool they are. dig that zynaddsubfx if you get the chance. it rocks my face off, to quote kevlar.

back to the point: does this track suck? let me know.

the green man collection is now available on CD. i’m charging $10.00 per cd and that includes shipping and handling. it’s all being handled through paypal and with any luck, i’ll sell a few to people who either want the actual disc or who just can’t wait for the iTunes release (which should be in about 6 weeks).

i guess i’m pretty excited about it. SG tells me that i’m not excited enough. it just took so long to get this thing together that now that it’s done i am loathe to tout it as an accomplishment. i know that makes no sense, but there it is.

so if you want a CD (an more importantly, you want to give me $10 so i can recoup pressing the discs, printing the labels, etc) head to the main page of othertime or the green man collection page and make with the paypal. i know i’d appreciate it, if you dig it. the free samples of most of the tracks are still available and won’t be going anywhere, so take a listen and try before you buy.

and for the iTunes nuts, i will have it on the US/EU/Can/Aus stores within the next 6 weeks according to my distributor.

so if anybody is reading this, spread the word! support the indie musicians who are trying not to suck!