Spring is here! I call bullshit.

It is now Thursday, March 28, and, though spring officially "arrived" last week, Mother Nature is doing her usual piss poor job of adhering to seasonal temperature control. As evidenced by the following photos, we had a rather late show of winter weather last weekend/early this week. This is the most snow we've gotten this year, really, which meant, of course, that people were freaking out. But I gallantly braved the blizzard to get my butt to work on Monday (ok, Christopher drove me, but I DID have to take the bus home that evening). Anyway, these pictures aren't too bad for a Blackberry (I shudder to even imagine exactly how antique a Blackberry will be by the time wee man reads this).

Yee olde Safeway parking lot

Just around the corner from us

Christopher showing his Celtic pride

Other than the snow, a few notable events have happened. First and foremost, aforementioned wee man has starting kicking. Or maybe punching. Or perhaps, as my ever-so-clever father speculates, running on a treadmill. Regardless, he's here with a vengeance. I wasn't sure what to expect with the whole "baby kicking" phenomenon, but it's actually pretty cool. I'm right around 22 weeks now, so I can only imagine how much stronger he'll get over the next 3 months or so.

We've started thinking about names, too. Nothing has been decided upon, but Christopher was decisively kicked off the decision-making-committee last night when his "best" contributions were Spartacus and Brutus. Keep laughing, there, pretty boy, cause that committee is now a party of one!


In other news, I was in Dallas last week for a conference (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). My flight there was a typical American Airlines tragedy. Spartacus Barnabas, take note: if I EVER put you on an American flight, you have done something very wrong and are probably going to be grounded. Because it is the absolute worst airline. Ever.

The conference itself was quite nice, though downtown Dallas left a little to be desired. Not surprising to anyone from middle America - the downtown districts in a lot of those cities - Kansas City, Denver (though these two have both made huge strides in recent years), St. Louis, etc. - are really all business and nothing else. BUT my hotel room bathroom had a tv in the mirror and, because I am the mental equivalent of 13, this was plenty entertaining for me.

The half-marathon pick-up was also at the convention center, taunting me. Unfortunately, me trying to run 13.1 miles at this point would be an exercise in self-humiliation.

No, I did not take this picture. This one makes Dallas look not so depressing. That huge ball in the center was basically right outside my hotel room window. Thank god for night shades.

So in addition to narrowing down the list of potential names, there are a number of other decisions that need to be made and for which I'm realizing I don't have as much time as I thought. Such as: childcare, type of birth, how long I want to stay home from work after the birth, how exactly we're going to budget everything so we don't end up living under a bridge, whether I want a grilled cheese or macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight....and the list goes on. But, as the poster reminds me, it's all about perspective :).