Yes, I know, I should have released the podcast by now. I’ve had a cold so once I’ve gotten home from work I haven’t been very productive, plus my computer has been nicely slow. And well, OK, I just didn’t do it yet. I’ll probably put it together tonight and release in the morning. We’ll see.

On Saturday Amy and I moved my desk and a couple other pieces of critical furniture from my home office upstairs, down to what had been a mostly unused room downstairs (it had Mike the Skink, a hammock, and some exercise equipment in it). Amy did almost all the disassembling and assembling of furniture. The above is a timelapse of the work, first in the old office, then in the new office. And then a bit of Mike at the end.

So I’m now in my new home office downstairs. This is of course to make room for a nursery upstairs. And yes, I know we have a decent number of months before that is actually needed, but I figured I wanted to get it done with. And besides, the new office is actually a bit larger. So far, I think I like it.

Of course, so far I really have only moved the major furniture and the computer. Many piles of papers and books and other things are still upstairs. I figure I’ll gradually move them over the next week or so.

Then the room upstairs will probably stay empty for a bit longer before we ACTUALLY start setting it up as a nursery.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying my new office… which for the moment still has a hammock in it too.

So, last week I made a quick post titled Molybdenum is Coming. It was just a picture of a square from the periodic table. But it was a code. A code I figured at least one of the readers of this blog would get.

Indeed, one did, and he proceeded to email a number of the friends we have in common, clueing at least that small group in to what it meant.

I also explained what it meant on the last episode of Curmudgeon’s Corner, titled Element 42.

I had intended both the original post about Molybdenum, and this explanatory post to happen a little over two weeks later than I actually made the posts, but some folks were anxious to get the news out the door sooner rather than later. Namely, Amy was just about ready to burst wanting to tell everybody she knew. :-)

Anyway, for any of my other readers who have not already figured it out or found out through other means, here is the explanation…

For many many years, whenever the topic of baby names came up, I would joke that if I ever had a girl, I would name it Molybdenum. Because of course it would be Molly for short and that would be a good name, plus it would be an element, and how cool is that, and also, it is Element 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything, and you just could not top that!

So yes, although there were only a handful of people who would even have a chance of getting the reference… I still figured I’d use the Molybdenum thing as my pseudo announcement that yes, indeed, Brandy and I are expecting a baby…

For those of you who didn’t get the reference, or were not told about this by someone who did, this post is the official, non-cryptic announcement of that fact. :-)

To answer the most common questions, either those people actually ask, or that they probably think but don’t ask:

• Officially at the moment the due date is September 21st, although the doctor has given us dates as early as September 6th, depending on which thing she was looking at.
• We’ve been planning this for a couple of years now.
• No, there almost certainly won’t be a rush wedding between now and September.
• We may however actually start Brandy’s divorce proceedings against her husband who she hasn’t seen in over a decade.
• Yes, Amy is very excited to have a sibling coming.
• Yes, we plan to find out the sex in advance.
• Yes, there is a registry.
• My home office will become the nursery, I will move downstairs with Mike the skink.
• Yes, I know having a baby in the house will change almost everything.
• Yes, we told our parents and close relatives and such a number of weeks before I made the Molybdenum post… I didn’t make them find out by reading my blog.
• Yes, the picture is a sonogram of Molybdenum… from several weeks ago… February 9th actually.
• No, Brandy won’t actually let me name the baby Molybdenum. Drat!
• Umm… any other questions?

Anyway, we’re all very excited.

Molybdenum is coming!

Young musicians “Monkee” around
(Steve Shay, 2 Feb 2009, West Seattle Herald)

Seattle’s Paul Green School of Rock, better known as “The School of Rock,” featured nearly 20 area musicians to perform 22 songs popularized by the popular 1960’s band, The Monkees, on stage at the West Seattle Admiral Theater Jan. 31.

The school, now a national phenom, was established in 1998, five years before the hit movie of the same name was released. The Seattle school’s music director, Benjamin Barnett, who himself sings and plays several instruments and records his own music, seemed as big a hit with his students and audience as the songs they performed.

It was a sell-out crowd, and many came to watch their kids, or neighbor’s kids, perform. But some attended just because they loved The Monkees and wanted to hear the 7 to 17 year olds take a whack at the old numbers.

And since I got a nice little handheld digital recorder thing for Christmas…

School of Rock Seattle plays “I’m a Believer”…

Last week my laptop for work melted down and the tech support guys had to reimage my hard drive. Now, having had this happen about once a year for the last few years, I’ve grown smart and keep most of my important documents and such on the network, not on the laptop, so I didn’t lose very much, and what I did lose wasn’t really important.

Other than time. I did lose almost a day to waiting for the computer to get reimaged, then reinstalling software I use on a regular basis and getting all my preferences set back to how I like them, and rebookmarking things I need frequently, etc.

But I delayed slightly on the one last thing I needed to install again… yesterday I put LeechBlock back on my Firefox. I’ve used it for over a year to control my own weaknesses. I’m a news junkie. Google Reader is addictive. It is easy to get lost in there when you shouldn’t. And before you even know it you have wasted more time than you would have wanted. This kind of thing never stopped me from getting things done when things really needed to get done, but I could feel it drawing me in during times when I’m sure I could have done better things with my time.

So I’ve had it set to restrict me from that site (and a variety of others) to only 30 minutes during work hours. (And to not let me in to the settings to change it if I’ve hit my limits.) I usually use those minutes while eating lunch at my desk. But the rest of the time, no fun websites, not even for a “quick glance”.

Yeah, yeah, I know the same could be achieved by a little thing called “willpower”. And I know there are plenty of ways around it that are dead simple. But it is just that little nag that says, “No, not right now, you can wait until you get home…” that is helpful. It is a good tool.

And in the two days or so I didn’t have it set up, I don’t think I got sucked in too much, I probably wouldn’t even have triggered the 30 minute limit. But it is still good to have it on. Just to keep me honest.