During the initial planning of our trip to Italy, I figured Rome would be just another big city and I wanted to spend more time in the countryside. It was really only after reading Angels and Demons that made me want to spend a little more time in Rome, so I could retrace the book and see the sights in person. We allocated three days/two nights stay in Rome and I was actually thinking that may have been too much.

I couldn't have been more wrong.    more »

Working hard at home

Sara and I both worked from home today so I could drive her to her doctor's appointment.  Tough to find parking around the doctor's office, only thing we found was a spot about two blocks away.  A two block walk isn't difficult for Sara... unless it's straight up a steep hill - I ended up half-pushing, half-carrying Sara along.

When the doctor saw how big Sara had gotten, she said "when did this happen??  Good thing we know for sure there's just one in there."  The baby is already about seven pounds and there's another month to go!  The doctor thinks we're going to have an eight pounder - that's huge for somebody of Sara's size.  Sara is terrified (and slightly angry at me for giving her such a big baby) - "For SURE I'm getting epidural."  The doctor also said "don't worry about having it early" which is not good news for Sara as it means another four full weeks of discomfort.  We also went to the post office today, and the lady behind the desk asked Sara if we're having twins.  Yes, Sara really is that big.  :)

Enjoying the beach

We felt small and regular vibrations coming from Sara's tummy, and we think the baby has hiccups.  We also felt biiiiiiig bubbly vibrations, and that's either the baby burping or farting.  The baby is starting to sit lower in Sara's abdomen, and Sara's belly button has started to poke outward, both sure signs that the bun in the oven is almost fully baked and will soon be ready to come out.

Sara is experiencing major sciatica pain now, with intense shooting pains in her lower back and buttocks.  The books all say to lay on the side opposite the pain, but I don't see how my lying on her tummy will help her...  eh, that was a bad joke; Sara just rolled eyes.  Anyways, Sara lies on her side but it doesn't relieve any of the pain.  I'm frustrated because I can't seem to help her with the pain.  Lower back massages help a little bit, but she's still going through major pain and discomfort - she wants baby out now!  I think baby wants out too: there's been major kicking and punching activity lately.

Sara found out she's entitled to take up to four weeks off from work prior to giving birth, on top of the regular maternity leave.  She feels guilty about taking the full four weeks, so she's only taken three weeks off.  Her last day of work will be August 31, which means she'll have all of September to go through her nesting phase and clean out the condo.  It also means she's gonna get a head start on calling me five times a day at the office and ask when I'm coming home.

I've posted a new shot of preggo Sara from our excursion to the beach today; full pictures from today will be posted later.

We're fast approaching our due date of September 21 - only four weeks to go!

I'm in a Panera Bread cafe now, there's free wifi and a coffee station that offers free refills.  I don't want to leave my laptop unattended but I also don't want to pack up all my stuff just to get a cup of coffee... what to do??

My lonely laptop makes an inviting target

I decided to just leave my stuff and go get the coffee.  Luckily the place is pretty empty so I would notice if anyone went near my stuff, and also there's only one exit so I figure I can tackle the dude who walks by my stuff and then heads for the exit.

Nothing happened, of course, but it was mad stress for the 45 seconds it took to get a coffee.  I kept looking over to where my stuff was and almost made a mess - it's hard to pour milk into your coffee while looking elsewhere.

So I got my second cup of coffee without a hitch.  But now I need to go to the bathroom....

For the next portion of our Italy trip, we visited Mount Vesuvius and the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. This was an amazing experience.   more »

A couple weekends back, we spent a nice day hanging out with Brian, Sooji, and Haiden.

Brian works for LucusArts and he took us to his office complex in the Presidio, which I've always thought was just was just a nice park area in the city - I never realized it housed the nicest office complex I've ever seen.   The four low rise buildings do

A sign of LucasArts, I am

not look corporate at all and they surround a very well landscaped park that just cries out for picnics on its manicured lawns.  It's all very serene and looks more like a very expensive hospital instead of the headquarters of LucasFilm Ltd.  There is absolutely no signage to indicate that this is home to George Lucas' empire, and the buildings are simply marked Building A, Building B, etc.  The only thing to give it away is the Yoda Fountain, which as you can guess is a small water fountain bearing a life-sized statue of Yoda.  I can't believe Brian works in such an environment!  I'm sooo jealous.  We didn't get to tour the office itself as it we were visiting on a Saturday, but there is a room somewhere in there that contains all things Star Wars, not to mention the movie theatres which are of course THX certified.  I'll have to go visit someday and check it out.

Old Faithful

After the Presidio, we headed up to Calistoga, which is north of San Francisco and in Napa Valley, a.k.a. Wine Country.  We weren't going on a wine tasting, however - we came across an Old Faithful geyser on the internet and wanted to check it out.  Apparently there are only three geysers in the world to earn the 'Old Faithful' designation, which indicates that the geyser erupts predictable and regularly.  Our Old Faithful erupts every 30-40 minutes and according to the brochures, it is supposed to shoot sixty feet into the air, which sounds totally awesome and I was looking forward to being impressed by it... in actuality, the geyser got no more than 25 feet into the air and we were all quite disappointed.  It had the feel of a tourist trap the moment we got there, with the cheesy souvenir store charging an $8 entry fee to see the geyser... the whole thing was so pure tourist trap that it actually was fun for us to hit a place like that.  I won't be recommending it to any visitors, though.

Check out the pictures from the day out.

Not a great week for exercise - it's been less than two months and already I'm suffering from "I'm tired today, I'll run tomorrow" syndrome.  So much for re-dedicating myself to losing weight.  :(


At least I didn't gain any additional weight since last week, but I face the very real possibility that I'll not lose any weight, and maybe even added a couple pounds, at the conclusion of this contest with next week's final weigh-in.

Sara and I attended a couple classes on the weekend: 8 hours of Childbirth Preparation on Saturday and 3 hours of Breastfeeding 101 on Sunday.   more »

Woah, came across a pic of Eddie all drunk and hanging out with Mike Bibby:

Tas Melas, noted Greek analyst and half of The Basketball Jones dynamic duo, perfectly breaks down the Greek baller mentality.

Back to normal working hours mid-week, so I was able to get in a couple good runs. Let's see where I'm at.   more »

Sara doesn't need me to put on her socks and shoes for her, but she doesn't exactly mind when I do.   more »

Okay, so our trip to Italy was over two and a half years ago, and it's been a year and a half since I posted the first set of pictures from Italy, but there are still lots of great pics from the vacation. In this edition, I've posted pictures from our day trips to the Amalfi Coast and the island of Capri.   more »

We obtained a storage locker a few months back, which enabled us to clear out all of our boxes and get rid of a lot of junk.  The condo now feels very airy and spacious and not so cluttered, especially when compared to the last set of pictures I had posted.

Finally got rid of the boxes

The cleared up space also allowed us to finally create a real second bedroom.  Previously, we had the guest bed out just sitting out on the open floor which didn't sit very well with us - we wanted to provide some bit of privacy, but at the same time we didn't want to lose any of our condo space.  Building walls would create a permanent separation and we would end up losing space to a seldom used area.

After tossing around a bunch of ideas, Sara finally came up with a great solution: use curtains as walls.  With the curtains pulled back we retain the open and airy feel of the condo, and when we have guests over we can draw the curtains to provide some privacy and clearly identify the bedroom area.

I've posted a bunch of new pictures of our condo so potential visitors can see what their lodgings will look like....

We visited Jenn in Calgary back in the first week of July, and I had the most luxurious experience of my entire life: Jenn's new shower.  It's a steam shower with a giant rain shower head on the roof of the shower, and it's got water nozzles on the side of the shower.

Yes, that's a speaker system in there.

Side nozzles.  Utterly brilliant.

You have not experienced true luxury until you've experienced a shower with water hitting you from above and the side.  A usual shower for me is about 10 minutes; in Jenn's shower, I reluctantly left after 30 minutes...

Great post on Gilbert Arenas's blog; here's an excerpt:



 
Hilarious stuff.