Our presumed home

Here's a fancy "hyperlink" to Jaime's blog with pictures of the house we bought (closing is pending on June 6). You'll have to scroll down a bit. The pics of the huge house at the top of the post are not the house we bought, but just where we stayed while house hunting.

Rochester, NY

We've been in Rochester since Monday looking for a house to buy. We bought one on Thursday and it is sure nice to have found a little place to call home. It is small, affordable, humble, on a quiet street, and has a nice yard. Hard to ask for more than that. I may get around to posting pictures later.

Total Immersion Swim video

This is a pretty good summary of the Total Immersion swim philosophy.  I'm reading the book and watching the DVDs right now trying to learn to swim efficiently.  I still have trouble with breathing and wasting energy, but I'm really enjoying all the pool time.  My speedo is pretty sweet, too.

Self Portrait 1

"But where did the lighter fluid come from?"

The Final Countdown - please say that will literally be the last time.  These guys go through cello bows like Slash goes through guitar picks! The Final Countdown will totally be the next piece I start working on. Yeah, right after I learn a couple other classics like My Prerogative (Bobby Brown version) and Oops I Did it Again.

Great old photo bloggy blog

This site, Shorpy, has great photos that are old. Pretty simple, but really interesting pictures from back in the day when "colored" people had their own drinking fountains and hollywood wannabe actresses were ugly. Here's an interesting one for all you FUVKs (freaky utah valley kids). Yeah, I'm so above being from Utah Valley now.

We're moving.

View Larger Map

We'll be packing our bags and heading out to Rochester, NY this summer for residency. Big news for us. We're excited. Yay.

Crazy Robotic Canine

This is really cool and simply freaks Jaime out. It's a robotic dog. I think its absolutely amazing.

CONGRATULATIONS! I have matched.

I got an email today telling me I've matched for a residency spot somewhere. On Thursday they'll tell me exactly where. Probably Rochester, NY or Milwaukee, WI. The email read:

Congratulations! You have matched.

Check the Match Site at https://services.nrmp.org/R3/ on Thursday, March 20, 2008, at 1:00 PM eastern time to find out where you matched. Because you are matched, you will not have access to any information about unfilled programs.


And now you know.

Torpedo?

I'm taking up swimming down to the local YMCA. This photo proves it.

Let's give this octopus some boots

Now, I'm admittedly a classical music nerd, but I thought this was very funny (the first time through). I found this link on one of my favorite blogs The Rest is Noise .

The Firebird

I took Asher to the Powell Symphony Hall yesterday for his first symphony concert. It was a family concert for kids four and up. The pieces were all based on stories that somehow involved fire. The concert included Beethoven's overture to Prometheus, Manuel De Falla's Love, the Magician, and Stravinsky's The Firebird. Again, live orchestra performance are so far superior to recordings, that it's not worth talking about. Just go to the symphony and enjoy being enveloped in sound, rhythm, and energy.


Asher liked it, but it was during nap time so he was a bit restless. I warned him before we went into the hall that some of the music is very loud and that he shouldn't be scared, but that he could hold my hand if he wanted. Well, that really freaked him out and as we climbed the stairs to the balcony to find our seats (outside of the actual hall now) he covered his ears and told me how scared he was that it was loud. He's a cute little man.

Via the Velo Orange blog via Velorution:

On Cars: A letter to the Financial Times from a car designer:


“Absurdity is when a 70kg adult commutes alone in a 1,400kg car, meaning that for every litre of fuel he or she buys to transport him- or herself, another 20 litres is purchased to propel the vehicle. When the vehicle in question is a 3,000kg sports utility vehicle, absurdity becomes an obscenity.

“Even if we can make cars totally emission-free, running on sustainable energy, if their profusion causes constant gridlock they are no longer a means of transport, merely destructive, wasteful and expensive items of vanity.

“Sadly, particularly considering the pathetic return on investment associated with carmaking, the majority show depressingly little inclination to change themselves from being merely manufacturers of cars to being complete providers of mobility."

Short ride / Shostakovich 10

I was able to ride 18 miles today. It was pretty cold (less than 30 F) the entire ride and there was a bit of wind, but at least the sun was out. I found a fire hydrant that matched my bike and also a neat sign for a photo.

This evening I went to the St Louis Symphony concert. On the program was Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto, and Shostakovich's 10th symphony. The Nielsen was good. The Shostakovich was amazing! Seeing a symphony like that live is an almost overwhelming experience. After the concert I listened to part of the symphony on my iPod on the way to my car. Classical music is meant to be heard live. Recordings do not adequately convey the scope, depth, and warmth of a live orchestra in a good hall. There are some pretty neat youtube videos of this symphony, but the sound quality is even worse than listening on an ipod.

One funny thing about the concert: the score calls for two piccolos. The first piccolo player was the fattest man in the whole orchestra and the second piccolo player sitting next to him was the smallest woman in the orchestra. The man was probably four times the size of the woman next to him and the juxtaposition was comical. Ha!



It was nice of the city to match the paint on the fire hydrants to the paint of my bike.

Brevet

As promised here are some quick details about the ride. I rode along the Mississippi river and then rode back home. I took some photos of the bald eagles that were resting in the trees along the banks of the Mississippi. I saw about eight eagles during the ride. The trail is paved the entire way and is a well-maintained route. The first few miles don't have a very great view because the trail runs along the outer side of the levee (I guess) wall. Instead of a view of the mighty Mississippi you see a fifteen-foot high concrete wall to your right and to your left beautiful salvage yards. It's better than nothing though and gets you out of the city fairly quickly.

In longer news, I've decided to ride a brevet in April. A brevet is an organized bicycle ride that is different a regular race. The idea is to finish a determined distance within a set amount of time rather than to finish before everyone else. For example, the brevet I plan to ride is 200 km and you have 13.5 hours to ride it. This is the shortest brevet. Other distances are 300, 400, 600, and 1000 km. There are some famous brevets such as the Paris-Brest-Paris which is 1200 km and the time limit is 90 hours.

This type of bicycle racing is called randonneuring after the French Randonneurs who started this type of riding back in the late 1800s. It's about camaraderie, testing yourself, and riding self-sustained. I think it is a sport I will really enjoy.

For now, I need to get out on my bike more. 200 km is about 124 miles, four times farther than my last ride.

34 miles

I went on a bike ride today - a 34 mile bike ride!  This is the farthest I've ever ridden on my bike.  And this is the first ride I've made in months.  My legs, back, arms, neck, and constitution are telling me I should have started out with a shorter route.  But I guess this is what I deserve for being so awesome.

I rode five miles from my home to the Riverfront Trail which parallels the Mississippi and goes north out of the city for about 11 miles (12 miles if you cross the bridge to Illiniose at the end of the trail.  Counting the ride across and back over the bridge round trip is about 34 miles.  I'm good at math.

This is also the first ride I've done on my new bike after putting a lot of work into it.  The bike is a 1986 Trek 400T Elance that I bought (for too much money) on Craigslist late last fall.  It had a stuck seat post that took me probably two hours to remove.  I will always check to see if the seat post is fused before buying any other bike.  It's a great black and silver Reynolds 531 lugged steel frame with the usual scratches and paint blemishes.

The work/parts I put into it include: Brooks B-17 Honey saddle, MKS Touring/Cyclocross pedals, stainless steel toe clips with leather straps, Panaracer Pasela Tourguard 32 mm tires, Nitto Technomic deluxe stem, Nitto Noodle bar (42 cm I think), Tektro brake levers, Novarra black brake cables, Shimano brake pads, Cinelli cork bar tape coated with six or seven layers of one of the coolest words in the English language - shellac, repacked the grease in the hubs and head set, and cleaned and lubed the chain.  I also tried to true the wheels, but they didn't get much better.  Jaime gave me one of her best Christmas gifts ever this last season: an Ostritch handlebar bag with rain cover.  I had to buy a decaleur for it, but won't be able to fully use it until I also get a front rack.  The final touch is a Japanese made brass bell that has a ring so lovely that it would make even Merry Poppins envious.  

I also bought some Velo Orange fenders, but they don't fit very well (at all) with the 32mm Panaracers on there so they are not on the bike yet.  Because of this and the fact that I need to update the wheels anyway I've been considering converting the bike to 650b which would allow more clearance for big tires and fenders.  But I'm really happy with it the way it is now though so I think I'll hold off on that for a while.

The next post will discuss the actual ride.

No more rhyming (anybody want a peanut?).

Jst qck pst t tll y 'm bck n tp!  Ths pst s s qck tht th vwls r lft t.  f y cn rd ths y r smrtypnts!  Pc t.

You're the pilot, Violet!

Well, Jaime has been having lots of contractions today. This morning they got to where she couldn't sleep through them anymore. So I stayed home from work and watched Asher so she could sleep. Later this afternoon the contractions seemed to lessen so we went to Tower Grove park and walked around for a while. Asher learned how to throw rocks into a pond and it was really cute. He would pretty much drop a pebble into the pond and then giggle and laugh so hard when it plopped into the water. He has no clue his little sister will be here soon.

After the park we stopped by Costco to pick some things up. Jaime had a few really good contractions while we were there and so we decided to get home and get ready to go the hospital. We got home and called the doctor and our babysitters and our doula, Maria. We are waiting for our babysitter to get here now, but Jaime says we need to leave. So I'll write again tomorrow and let you know how this goes!

Change the namey, Amy

Ransom Scoob
Originally uploaded by blogenstein.

I realized I had two posts that had rhyming titles ending with a name of a man so I changed all of my posts to have similar titles. I also included a womans name for this post as well so the females get some representation. Of course, all this hard work is for your enjoyment.

It's early in the morning still, but no sign of baby Violet coming today. At least not right now.

Funny story time: At church Asher was playing with a Scooby-Doo doll that belongs to the daughter of some of our friends. We forgot to give it back before we left church. Later, I received an email and the girl's dad did a "by the way" and asked if we had the doll. Here is what happened:

The Killer (Aaron):

Yes, we have the doll. And you'll never see Scooby alive again unless you leave a stainless steel suitcase full of unmarked crispy cremes on the doorstep of 4242 Louisiana Ave in the city. Just leave them in front of our door.... um, I mean in front of the green door and I'll contact you with further instructions.
-The Killer

Reply:

ok, ok, the cremes are yours, just don't hurt the dog.

The Killer:

Let's "cut" to the chase: Scoobs whiskers are getting a little long. I suggest you quickly comply with our demands or else Scooby will get a really close "shave". If you are "sharp" you may want to get a "handle" on this situation and purchase a handsome "cutlery". Uh... I guess that last one didn't work, but do you get the "point"?

And the above image was attached to that email.

Yeah, the spookiness is what is so funny about this right? Right.

-The Killer

No go, Joe

No baby yet. So quit calling and asking about it! Why don't you just check this website, huh? That's what it's here for, you know? So I'm thinking tomorrow we'll have a baby. I'll be sure to post it here if we do.