¶ Best wishes for 2004!: A series of guesses and wishes and ramblings about the year that was and the year that will be.

When all is said and done, Jonah makes 2003 our best year ever regardless of whatever else transpired. That said, we also remodeled Jonah's nursery with the help of friends (special thanks to Joe), I biked 55 miles in Reach the Beach for the second consecutive year, refinanced our mortgage with a rate of 4.897%, traveled to Montana and despite a series of automotive misadventures made it back safely (thank you Uncle Howard and Aunt Dorothy!), bought a Lexus ES 300, and survived our first months of parenthood with the liberal help of family and friends. In sum, 2003 has been a wonderful year for us, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who played a role in making it so.

Some quick hits, since illness has prevented me from doing all the web site updating I would've liked:

I don't recall any film sequel being better than its predecessor until now. One could argue Godfather II, but it's not a gimmee. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, however, is the best of the trilogy by a wide margin. Given the high quality of Fellowship and Towers, that's saying something. An absolutely stunning cinematic achievement, King concludes the triology in grand fashion and is highly recommended.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl sets and maintains an entertaining comedic tone without lurching into slapstick. Johnny Depp stars with Orlando Bloom in this none-too-deep but whole-lotta-fun adventure. Jerry Bruckheimer produced, but it's still recommended.

Finding Nemo, Pixar's latest animated feature, captured the box office crown for 2003 and in similar fashion sold loads of DVDs. Saw it today. Liked it a lot. Pixar equals good family entertainment, like Disney used to before they started turning out dreck like The Lion King. Finding Nemo is excellent for kids and adults alike.

Prediction: Howard Dean will win the Democratic nomination for president and name either Wesley Clark or Bob Graham as veep nominee. Clark puts Arkansas in play and helps insulate Dean from arguments that he has limited foreign policy experience (though even so, I can't imagine him doing a worse job than Bush). Graham, who would perhaps be the better choice in terms of electoral math, makes Florida the story of the 2004 election. (Hopefully not the same story as 2000.)

We're ambivalent about missing the roughly one foot of snow that's been dumped on the Mid-Willamette Valley in our absence. One the one hand, we're glad not to be stuck in the mess. On the other, we like snow an awful lot, and we do hope that we get the chance to play in some of it when we return home on Friday. (I reserve the right to amend this entry if our Portland to Salem travel goes poorly.)

Jonah's development progress continues to amaze. He can grab and manipulate objects one-handed. And speaking of his hands, they're huge. Both his hands and feet have grown large in the last week. He's just about pulling himself up to standing now.

I've given up on Aquila (NYSE-ILA) as an investment. It still may rebound, but I'm not as sold on the economic rebound as other commentators, and at least for me it's true what they say about getting more conservative when you get a family. I don't have the tolerance for risk that I did before I had a kid relying on the result. Others may want to hold on to see if ILA can come back in the 2- to 4-year time frame.

Speaking of fiscal conservatism, with January's mortgage payment the principal we're paying will finally exceed the interest. That's a wonderful tipping point to finally be reaching. If all goes well—a relatively big if I grant you—we'll have the house paid off in 7 years 4 months. Yes, we will be throwing a party at the end of this.

Quick picks for this weekend's NFL playoff games: Ravens over the Titans, Panthers over the Cowboys, Green Bay over Seattle, and, in an upset, the Broncos over the Colts.

I've got a cold, Erin's got a cold, and Jonah's probably got a cold. The Lillys and the Petersons have been great about helping us take care of the little man so that we can attempt recovery. Jonah's had a couple big poo-doos during our visit (you know, the kind where you want to immediately irradiate your hands after changing him), but he's done pretty well during the days. Nights have been a different story, with Jonah's insomnia proving contagious for both Erin and me. Despite all this, our apologies to everyone we've not been able to see this trip.

As for 2004, one never knows what the future holds but here are a few of our goals:

With help, remodel Erin's office into a bedroom for child #2.

Start work, so to speak, on child #2.

Finish the bathroom remodel delayed by the necessity of completing Jonah's room.

Let Ty play a lot of soccer and play it well.

Release my first album (tentatively God's Eye View) sometime in the second half of the year.

Take a summer trip (not including our biannual sojourns to California).

Keep on being the best parents we can be for Jonah.

Hang out with family and friends as much as we can.

Our best wishes to everyone for a wonderful 2004. May all your goals become a reality.

¶ Ye annual Lilly bash: Lillys come from all over for their annual post-Xmas get-together.

The extended Lilly clan paid their annual Christmas visit to Los Altos, and we had the pleasure of seeing them all. This year's crowd included Mark, Toni, Kurt, Karen, Katrina, Guy, Nancy, Kristin, Shannon, their German exchange student Florien, Jim, Marcia, Warren, Connie, and Bruce in addition to Mark, Christine, Jared, Joe and Helen. Good party, good times!

[I've unfortunately aquired a head cold—probably from the recirculated air of the airplane, but who knows?—so postings might be a bit delayed until my mind clears.]

¶ Merry Christmas part 2!: Christmas part 2 with the Lillys followed by a wonderful dinner party with the Fruens in El Cerrito.

Along with Mark, Christine, Jared, Joe, Helen, and their dog Nico, Erin, Jonah, and I slept over at Bernard and Liz's so that we could awake for Christmas part 2. Jonah was again very excited about the prospect of eating wrapping paper and ribbons. (We let him use the ribbons to floss his teeth, a project he happily spent the morning on.) After the presents and breakfast, some went for a walk. Jonah and I went for a nap.

In the late afternoon, we drove up to the George and Mimi Fruens' in El Cerrito. They have a marvellous view overlooking the San Francisco Bay, and the recent rain storms having cleared the area's typically hazy, we were treated tonight to an incomparable look at the lights of the City.

It'd been two years since we visited George and Mimi's lovely home and met with them and their kids. ("Kids" being a relatively term; their youngest, Kelsey, is a college graduate.) I spoke at length with both their daughter Christine, a career counselor for folks on the low end of the economic totem pole, and her husband Tim, an anesthesiologist in residency at UCSF. I also spent considerable time hanging out with Jonah as we watched California win the Insight.com bowl 52-49 over West Virgina in the final seconds, but it's not like we didn't hand him around. He's a popular little crowd pleaser when he's not too tired.

Great food, great conversation, great fun. Our grateful thanks to George and Mimi!

¶ Merry Christmas part 1!: Christmas part 1 with the Davison Clan then a Southwest flight to San Jose, California.

We've been separating Christmas into parts 1 and 2 for a few years, spending the morning of the 25th at my parents' place in Salem then flying or driving to California to spend the 26th with the Lillys. This has worked so well from our perspective—who wouldn't want two Christmases a year?—that we can see doing two a year for some time to come.

Jonah got his first taste of the seasonal hubbub and enjoyed it. The lights, the sounds, the smells...the wrapping paper...Jonah spent the morning and early afternoon as a very happy boy, and as expected, the rest of us Davisons had a great time too.

After Christmas brunch, we returned home to do final packing for our trip. This turned out to be a little more harried than we might have prefered, but suffice to say that we ultimately hauled Jonah, his things and our things onto the appropriate (and only half-full) Southwest Airlines flight. Jonah didn't sleep the trip like he did during the summer, but with only minor moments of whining he had a good time. (In the spirit of the season, I'll skip all the details of the diaper blow out Jonah had on the concourse as we deplaned.)

News on Christmas part 2, tomorrow.

¶ Mad about cows: Another industry that, with government complicity, doesn't care if they slowly poison you or not. Eating only 100% organic beef is one answer, going vegetarian is another. Either way, time to get angry.

So the USDA, an organization that haphazardly weaves its way between impotence and incompetence, today discovered a presumptive positive for Mad Cow disease in the State of Washington. What's remarkable isn't that there is a case of Mad Cow in the US—many independent authorities will tell you that the US is probably loaded with Mad Cow-laden cattle—it's that the USDA found it at all.

A downer cow is a cow that is too sick to stand (the USDA will sometimes claim "too old" but the truth is the cow is too ill). For 2003, there were approximately 130,000 downer cows taken to the slaughterhouse in the US. The cow they got the presumptive positive on was one of these. Now you might be thinking—like the executive director of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association claims, that, "The system worked." Except that downer cows remain in the human food chain, despite beef industry and USDA claims to the contrary. Indeed, most downers go untested, again contrary to what the beef industry and the USDA sometimes say. Legislative attempts have been made to fix this problem and insure a safe food supply, but the House Republicans defeated Senate-approved legislation that would have required removal of downer cows from the human food chain. The fallen bovine that set off the quarantine and will destroy US beef exports around the globe has likely already been in eaten, probably in the form of a hamburger. The USDA claims to have tested about 18,000 to 20,000 cattle during 2002-03, but refuses to release any records supporting this contention. Many observers, myself included, wonder exactly what it is the USDA is trying to hide.

Just so we're clear, Mad Cow disease (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD) is an irreversible, brain-wasting, horrible way to die. It is related in many respects to Alzheimer's, and in fact some scientists speculate that between 3 to 14 percent of Mad Cow CJD is being misdiagnosed as Alzheimers (up to some 200,000 cases per year in the US). The truth is that our testing and tracking of CJD is so inadequate here in the US that we don't know what we have and what we don't.

In my opinion, for most meat, "USDA Inspected" isn't a seal of quality, it's a warning label. Because USDA inspectors only do visual inspections of almost all the cattle and beef they see, it's almost impossible for them to determine if something is suitable for consumption. They lucked into finding a mad cow they did in Washington, which probably indicates that the problem is much more wide-spread—if not rampant—in the US. If you're not eating 100% organic, hormone-free beef or going vegetarian, you're playing Russian roulette with your health.

¶ Catching up and partying down: Xmas cards out the door (finally) and Robyn and Jared throw a bash.

We'd have never finished the roughly 120 Christmas cards we send out without virtually eliminating any personalization whatsoever. Trust me, we feel badly about that. But it's not as badly as we'd feel if we didn't get any cards out the door at all. We'd have loved to have scribbled individualized flowerly prose expressing the depth of our Christmas feeling on every holiday card we sent. Instead, if you hear from us you'll be getting a picture of Jonah—which is pretty cute frankly—and a short statement about our year, which is to say that the statement is mostly about Jonah. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that we really do wish for you and yours the happiest of holidays, and if you really want to know what's going on in our lives, there's no better place to learn than right here. (Why you'd really want to know that is a matter for you and your therapist.)

Robyn and Jared threw a big ol' bash this evening, and oh my did the good times roll. Bruce was in town for the holidays (the ostensible reason for the party), and it all proved a wonderful opportunity to see him and greet friends from within our mutual circle of acquaintance. The food was great—for example, Jared made Philadelphia cheesecake for dessert, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that the secret ingredient was crack—and the times were merry. Big thanks to Robyn and Jared, and happy holidays to everyone!

¶ Cough, cough, hack, hack: Good grief we're sleep-deprived here in the Davison household.

Never have I had the problems I do presently in getting back to sleep. I've been hesistant to call it insomnia since I've always taken that term to mean problems getting to sleep. I have no problem getting to sleep. I do have, however, a huge problem getting back to sleep once Jonah has awoken me at 2 AM. The poor fellow has been teething and suffering from a cough which wakes him and consequently us. I've tried some Baby Orajel for the former issue and it seems to have mitigated the pain sufficiently. The cough, well, I dunno. We've got a humidifer running at night to help with congestion. Otherwise, whaddya do?

Both Erin and I have felt somewhat under the weather this week ourselves, perhaps more due to lack of sleep than anything else. Even with Erin successfully returning to slumberland on those 2 AM occasions, she's still not getting the sleep she does normally. And me...good lord, I'm on something like 3 or 4 hours a night. I'll go to sleep at 11ish, Jonah wakes me at 2ish, then despite my best efforts I'm up until about 6 AM. I sleep for an hour or so until Erin leaves (or Jonah wakes again), then I'm up for the day. Last night Erin dealt with Jonah solo, and I got a blissful eight hours. I feel almost human.

Anyway, if anyone's got a good insominia cure that's not drug-related, I'm open to suggestion.

[For those wondering, this is part of why our Christmas cards are running late this year. We hope to have them out the door soon.]

¶ So why don't I feel any safer?: US Armed Forces capture Saddam, give him free medical inspection, release tape of same to world. Is an international trial forthcoming? Don't hold your breath.

I suppose one could argue that the forces opposing US occupation in Iraq are somewhat weakened by Saddam's capture and that those events in turn make safer our troops on the ground there. The soldiers I saw interviewed didn't think so, and I'm inclined to agree. A Santa-lookalike hiding in a one-room spider hole hardly appears to be the guiding light behind attacks on our military, members of whom continue to die almost daily.

Certainly no reasonable person in the US believes we're safer here on the home front. Saddam was and always has been a bizarre Bush fetish of a red herring in the war on terrorism. Just as no weapons of mass destruction haven't been found, neither was there ever any link between Saddam and Bin Laden. This Iraq debacle has been a major waste of time and resources (not to mention utterly illegal).

In the aftermath of Saddam's capture, nobody in their right mind is sorry that the man is in custody. Some, however, are a little over the top in their desire to bring the ex-Iraqi strongman to justice. For example, today's "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" award goes to presidential aspirant Joe Lieberman who said, and I quote,

This evil man has to face the death penalty.  The international tribunal in The Hague cannot order the death penalty, so my first question about where he's going to be tried will be answered by whether that tribunal can execute him.  If it cannot be done by the Iraqi military tribunal, he should be brought before an American military tribunal and face death.

In other words, Joe doesn't care where Saddam is tried or how the fair the trial is as long as Saddam is dead at the end of it all. Time to switch political parties, Joe, to the Likkud.

The initial furor over where Saddam will be tried is silly. The US will never allow an international court of any kind anywhere near this trial. Why? Aside from the fact that most civilized nations of the world have outlawed the death penalty as immoral and barbaric, there's another very important reason.

Imagine for a moment you're Saddam's defense attorney, a thoroughly unenviable task except that you'll probably gain both fame and fortune before your client heads to the gallows. What's the first argument you make for your client in an international court? I think the answer is "I was just following the orders I received from the CIA." That sounds ridiculous, I know, but Saddam was our puppet through the late 1980s and it's well-known that we supplied him with weaponry in the war against Iran. That type of defense on an international stage would be utterly damning to US credibility. Anything and everything through that time he can, with some justification, point to the United States as a coconspirator. The US would have to be dumber than a barrel full of monkeys to let this dirty laundry get hung out, so we'll confine the trial to Iraq and to Iraqi-related torture charges (of which there are ample number) and let his own people take him down.

That doesn't, of course, make us any less complicit in many of the heinous things he's done.

¶ Student death touches Sprague: A single vehicle accident takes a young life.

One of Erin's students died in a car accident yesterday. As one might expect, the event plunged the high school into a state of shock and grief. The office made an intercom announcement that teachers should immediately check their email, wherein staff received news of the tragedy and instructions to read a prepared statement about the same. This type of thing probably can't be handled any better—you want the news to get out to students and you want it delivered authoritatively, not via rumor—but it asks a lot of teachers to cope with the emotion instantly then tell the class moments later. In Erin's case this proved doubly hard. Not only did Erin have the student last year as well as this year, but he was a student in the very class to which she had to make the announcement. His empty seat in the front row must have been a terrible visual reminder all period long.

The high school set up a grief counselling center in the library, and they've support staff helping students and faculty cope—perhaps all the more important since the boy's sister attends Sprague and his mother is a teacher there. If ever there were a school rocked by an individual tragedy, this is it.

As for the accident itself, it appears to be the sad typical case of a teenager simply driving too fast. The newspaper story was vague on whether the car hydroplaned or if the driver failed to negotiate a curve. The accompanying picture of the boy's '92 BMW 325i literally wrapped around a tree, however, told the dramatic tale all too well. The full impact of the collision hit right on the driver's side door, undoubtedly killing him instantly. The full impact on the Sprague community will take some time to sort out.

¶ Is the outsider in?: According to Zogby, Dean polls first in Iowa, New Hampshire, and -surprise- South Carolina.

Coming on the heals of a pseudo-surprise endorsement by Al Gore of Howard Dean, today's Democratic debate promised to be interesting. Zogby polling data showing Dean with a lead in Iowa (by 4% over Gephardt), New Hampshire (by 30% over Kerry) and South Carolina (by 2% over Clark) only added to the fire and desperation of candidates beginning to crumble under the strain of the realization that they ain't the guy who gets to challenge Bush.

Moderator Ted Koppel waded right into things by asking the candidates to raise their hands if they thought Dean could beat Bush. No takers, Dean himself excluded. After asking a couple candidates (notably Kerry) why they didn't think Dean could get the job done, Koppel turned to the "issue" of Gore's endorsement. After a lot of whining from those who wanted what they didn't get, Kucinich rightly took Koppel to task for wasting time on a media hyped non-issue. Kucinich was right: The debate is no place to discuss endorsements, or process. That's for know-nothing web site pundits like me. So let me start dishing.

Some say that Sen. Joe Lieberman's campaign was mortally wounded by Gore's endorsement of Dean. I say you can't kill what's already dead. Lieberman's is a candidacy that, to the best of my knowledge, has found traction almost nowhere. Will he win a single state in the Democratic primaries? Perhaps not. Relatively few voters in the Democratic core are as conservative as Lieberman, so though he may have a base I think's insufficient to get him much beyond February 3.

Dick Gephardt has some chance of being the anti-Dean candidate, though his base support derives from unions, and Dean's already swiped several large endorsements which otherwise would've undoubtedly gone Gephardt's way. He's tried to differentiate himself from the field by touting a health care plan, but Dean's got one too, and he's a doctor. Gephardt polls well in the midwest but marginally elsewhere. If he doesn't win Iowa, it's trouble. I think he's out relatively soon after February 3 as well.

John Kerry's political supernova has provided some of the best entertainment of the campaign thus far. From pulling a Dukakis in the tank by riding a Harley onto Leno to gratuitous use of the f-word in a Rolling Stone interview, Kerry has lurched from one bad decision to the next. He's opted out of public financing and his wife is rich, so he can keep things running as long as he wants, but he's going to lose every state through Feb. 3, and I don't think things get better from there. Last poll I saw had him even losing his home state of Massachusetts to Dean. Buh-bye.

Carol Moseley Braun had some classy things to say about the late Sen. Paul Simon during the debate. As usually she was pleasant and well-spoken. She has virtually no base of support and will be lucky to do much more than rehabilitate her image (which was badly tarnished during her last senate run). When will she drop out? She's running everything on a shoe-string so she can almost stay in until the party throws her out of the debates for polling too low.

In that respect, Rev. Al Sharpton is in the same boat. He's got a little more support in the African American community, polls a touch higher, and has won several debates through his witticisms and turns of phrase. He won't win any states though, so it's only a question of when he will drop out. Since he'd like to be a king-maker, it may be some time, and he could end up being a big thorn in the side if he refuses to exit gracefully.

I continue to think that Gen. Wesley Clark might make a fine veep choice for Dean. As a presidential candidate, Clark has the unfortunate quality of being almost as inarticulate on domestic issues as he is clear and commanding on military affairs. He polls relatively high in South Carolina and may be the "anti-Dean" candidate that Democratic naysayers are looking for.

Dennis Kucinich won this last debate in my view. Despite this, he's way left of center in today's political spectrum and though his supporters are fervent, he lacks broader appeal. He could drop now since he leads nowhere, but he may choose the liberal gadfly role and stick it out until the convention.

Sen. John Edwards is hopefully on a mission to acquire the skills he needs to successfully run a presidential campaign in a few years. He's young and smart, but he carries the baggage of having voted to authorize Bush's Iraq debacle and having co-written the much-maligned Patriot Act. That sinks his chances this time around with most hard-core Democrats. Out of the running after Feb. 3 unless he turns up a good showing in South Carolina.

The field should narrow after February 3's primaries, when losses and lack of funds begin to really take their toll on campaigns. Will Gephardt or Dean win Iowa? If Gephardt loses, he's probably done. If he wins, it may give him enough oomph in media coverage and donations to keep going. Who will finish second in New Hampshire? Barring catastrophe, Dean will win handily. Whoever gets number two there will likely spend the next week or so as the prospective "anti-Dean" candidate. I don't think that will be sufficient to topple the Dean bandwagon but not knowing makes political races interesting.

¶ A trip to Eugene: Saturday market and more with Jim and Terri.

One would think that we'd traverse the 60 mile distance between Salem and Eugene more frequently. We just don't go south that often, I'm afraid, despite it being a rather straight shot down the interstate. But we did today, and if today's visit with Jim and Terri isn't proof that we should do this more often, than I don't know what is.

After a brief layover at their home, we ventured to Eugene's Saturday Market. I would call Eugene's version akin to Portland's, but with a greater hippy flavor and, importantly, a roof. Held in Eugene's Expo Center, the only rain we had to dodge was in going from car to building. Perhaps being indoors provided an atmosphere of class to the proceedings or maybe it just made for a more pleasant shopping experience. Either way, Eugene's Saturday Market experience has a lot to recommend it even if most of the vended items aren't exactly the types to which I'm personally drawn.

Afterward we returned to Jim and Terri's place. Their dog Porter is a border collie/retriever mix, and the intelligence of his breeding was obvious. They've taught him all kinds of different commands and tricks, and he clearly delights in learning and doing things. A lot of this kept Jonah intrigued and entertained.

Jim's company is closing their Eugene office, so he'll be working out of a home office like I am. He's been testing it out, and except for a not quite having yet figured the logistics of FedEx drop-offs, everything has gone well. I almost wonder if he'll find his productivity enhanced by the home environment. I've never been able to test that (having always run SiteRev from home), but I suspect it might be the case. For her part, Terri's been working (through her company) on planning projects for the University of Oregon.

Thanks to them both for the great Sunday!

¶ We are the champions my friends: Never have I seen a more unlikely rag tag band of winning superheroes.

Through some stroke of incredible luck my Men's over 30 Division III soccer team stumbled into the league championship today. On Delta Park's Strasser field, an artificial turf pitch perfect for inclement weather, we faced off against a 10-0 team who'd beaten us 2-1 twice during the season. Interestingly, we had the run of play for the first half and even took a 1-0 lead into half time.

The opposition evened the score mid-way through the second as our midfield and defense began to tucker out, because we are, after all, a bunch of out of shape has-beens and not-so-goods. We more or less packed the back and iced the puck until regulation ran out. Some genius strategies are intentional; some are borne of desperation. You can guess which this was.

Because other games were scheduled to be played on Strasser, our game went immediately to penalty kicks once regular time expired. In this scenario, each team selects five players—all of whom must have been in the game at the end of regulation—and the two teams take turns attempting penalty kicks. Best of five wins. If it's tied after five, then we go player by player through the rest of the on field roster until somebody makes and somebody misses.

Our first shot was in and their first missed. I shot second and slotted mine nicely. Indeed, I could go on at length about how great a shot it was: low, hard, perfectly in the corner, etc., etc. Even if their keeper had been other than the tall, immobile fellow he was he couldn't have saved it. Their second shooter scored as well when the ball went through our keeper's legs. Painful, that. Both third and fourth shooters scored. Our fifth shooter missed over the bar by 6 inches. Their keeper ended up being their fifth shooter. He helpfully kicked it wide, and suddenly we became a most improbable set of league champions and proud owners of white tee-shirts which proclaimed the same. (Though the word "improbable" is not technically on the tee-shirt, it should be.)

I returned to Salem basking in this victorious glow and nursing a pretty unhappy calf muscle. Somewhere in the aforementioned proceedings I got kicked hard along the side of the shin, and ice, Advil, and elevation were all the new game plan until Erin, Jonah, and I departed for a marvelous party this evening at Phil and Sarah's.

This assemblage held the distinction of bringing together the most recent children of Sprague's teaching staff, so we had little Liam, Jonah, Marc, and Laura to keep adults distracted and amused throughout the evening. The rest of us, who included David, Heather, Erin, me, Phil, Sarah, Matt, Ginger, Leif, Kathy, Mark, and Sheri, ate terrific food, conversed on a varied of topics, and admired Phil and Sarah's beautiful house (love the sun room!). Good times.

¶ Jonah in the tub; Me in the studio: Splish splash I was takin' a bath.

Following Erin's get-well instructions to the letter helped confine the worst of my symptoms to the weekend. I'm still a little sniffly, but I'm also feeling remarkably better than I normally would at this stage of an illness. Erin's curatives included lots of sleep, chicken noodle soup, and toasted cheese sandwiches. There's something else as well, but it escapes me at the moment. Hope that's not the lynch pin of the antidote; apologies if so.

Jonah's eating a lot more solids, by which I mean mush from a jar. We've started up peas and green beans, and we'll have additional items soon enough, I'm sure. We also tried doing some oatmeal instead of barley as a main part of the meal, but he's not taken to it particularly, and most of it ends up on him rather than in him.

Jonah and I take evening baths (with Erin's help) as part of Jonah's go-to-bed routine. He's more excited about the prospect of bath time than the actual bathtime itself. (Plus he likes being naked.) We've started splashing about a bit. He likes that, but not as much as he enjoys attacking the yellow rubber ducky when it floats into view. He's got a couple of yogurt cups (which we use to dump water on him as necessary) that he also likes to gnaw on when the opportunity presents itself.

I wish his sleep patterns could have maintained their solid 12 hours, but Jonah now needs a little less sleep than before. He's still pulling around 9 or 10 hours (with an interruption or two) plus a couple of naps during the day. I can't complain. Or rather, I shouldn't, but I probably will.

I've started working on music projects in the evening. Most days I drop Jonah off at school in the late afternoon which gives me a few hours to plunk around. It's not enough to finish recording a song, but I can make progress which, over time, is all I need.

I've decided to make Undeserved the second album I record. In part this because of the difficulty I'm having in taking what I write on piano and creating a full production of the same in the studio. It might seem like there'd be a lot of overlap—and there is—but it's not enough that I'm yet able to get what I hear in my head successfully translated. (The Who We Are demo is the closest I've come, and as much as I love the song, the production isn't as good as I want Undeserved to be.)

At the same time, I'm liking a lot of what's happening in studio. When the creative process starts there it's much easier for me to get a song into a final form with which I'm pleased. Imbued, for example, could have never been written on piano, yet it has a sound and a vibe that makes it album material. (Hopefully, you agree.)

This new album is tentatively titled God's Eye View and, if I can get the money together in time, should be out the door in late summer or early autumn of 2004. At this point, I have two songs for it finished and three others in demo form. I'm aiming for 12 songs on the CD when all is said and done, so that provides a reasonably accurate update as to how far along I am with the process. More to come—including additional b-sides to the Music section.