Well, I was out all week for training in Dallas and wow, we passed a couple of inspections and the drywall jumped up while I was out. Thanks again Greg! New pic is up on Flickr. Time to start planning the inaugural meal. Hmmm.

The moment has arrived. We just had the 20-week ultrasound and, yep, its not a beer gut but an actual baby girl. All is well and she is growing normally, with al the parts in the right place. It is pretty weird, but you can see all the bones better than anything else – we got a brief profile shot but mostly we saw her little skull, brains, spine, arm and leg bones, and heart. Probably (and hopefully) we won’t get to see all that again from now on. I have to say it delighted my forensic anthropology bug (I do love those “Secrets of the Dead” shows), so I thought it was extremely cool.

I just found out today that the Google Map’s streetview of Austin is online. I figure it wouldn’t be too long before they got to us. Anyhow, anyone hankering for a street-level virtual tour of most of Austin, have at it.

-D.

Well, the subs are in and are doing up the plumbing/electrical. Hopefully we’ll get inspected this week / early next week by the City and get underway with the drywall and finish work. There’s some new pics up, but most of it is pretty unglamorous at this stage. You can get a glimpse of the new cabinet color there at least.

Sorry for no new baby news. The next big appt. is on 4/4, so we’ll have more then. Mindy reports sensing quite a bit of internal movement. I’m trusting at this point it’s not an alien parasite or anything. Too much scifi/horror for me, clearly.

After that big bitchy post I made about “Second Skin” during SXSW, I was turned on to “The Guild” on youtube. It’s 8 eps so far, and rather humorously addresses the MMO gamer stereotypes. I have to admit, much of the slagging off is deserved. I think one of the more interesting characters is a gamer stereotype I’ve not personally met: the stay-at-home mom gamer. Check it out.

-D.

Thursday March 13

“Humboldt County”

This was one popular movie. Mindy & I saw the lineup for this one at the Alamo Monday night. They twice opened another theater and, at least on Monday, sold that one out also. As for the film itself, think “The Graduate” meets “Harold and Kumar”. Actually, it’s much better than that likening makes it sound. The story follows the adventure of a young, burned out medical student from L.A. who finds himself among the off-the-gridders in northern California and their pot farms and, through various misadventures, finds some kind of personal salvation. Sure, the movie is reminiscent of the naturalistic 60′s/70′s style “drop out of reality, get redemption” story, but the characters feel real, not so ethereal, and the plot is well structured in terms of the main character’s travails.

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First, I would like to thank everyone for all the wonderful support and comments from my e-mails and blog entry. At this point there is not much news on the baby front – right now I am trying to get everything done that I can before I get too big to crawl around my workshop.

As you can see from the photos, we are in the midst of the kitchen remodel, and due to the film festival we have not been eating at home too much (not too bad when your kitchen is a 6-foot table). Its a good thing that all of the Alamo venues serve food or we would be starving our way through SXSW. Dave has dedicated the most time to movies (see reviews below), but I have not done too badly this year. There have been years past when I had to opt out almost entirely, but I have managed to squeeze in a few at nights this past week. Maybe someday I can take a week off too.

My greatest responsibility at this point is to get the cabinetry done in time to be installed in the kitchen. The uppers are done and ready for a final coat of paint, but the base cabinets need a little more work. Slowly, we will get there. The most complicated thing with the kitchen remodel at the moment is the fact that the house is out of square in some places, as it is with most older homes, so making sure the cabinets will line up and the flooring is level is the biggest obstacle.

However, one fortunate side effect of all this is that we had to get off our buts and get rid of some furniture. Both Dave and I had our respective rocker/recliners that were purchased by our parents the year of our birth (1971 for those who don’t know) and after 35+ years they were getting a little rough around the edges. It has been long past time we finally got rid of them, but laziness and the expense of new furniture have prevented us so far. But, we needed room in the living room to store all the boxes of stuff and the appliances we are keeping, so they finally had to go. Goodbye old companions! – we will probably never see your like again.

Monday March 10

More Panels

The one of interest to report was the panel titled “Behind the scenes at Troublemaker post”. I’ve heard a lot of things about how Troublemaker, Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellan’s Austin film studio, has been revolutionizing how movies are made. For one, they do so largely outside the Hollywood system, which is about all I knew going in. The panelists, all members of the post production team, were able to fill in some of the blanks.

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Friday, March 7

“Goliath”

Our first film of the year (year 12 for me, hard to believe): a narrative done by some local favorites and previous creators of shorts, the Zellner brothers. This story features a very lonely guy, working a dead end job, just completing a divorce whose final straw is his cat “Goliath” going missing.

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In case you come across him in the flickr Kitchen set, I just wanted to add few words about Greg Madsen of Form and Function. He’s a good neighborhood friend of ours who helped us out with the drywall on our garage workshop project a couple years back. Besides being one of the nicest guys I know, he is also one of the most talented carpenters (and related disciplines) I’ve met. All that, and he has superior taste in beer to boot. Sorry ladies, he’s taken.

Anyhow, we’re thrilled to have him back as the lead man on the kitchen effort. Watching him quickly and more or less single-handedly jack up our sagging kitchen header to fit in a new beam today made me feel like a real amateur! All who have called us brave on this kitchen thing have him to thank; I’m way more comfortable having him aboard.

On a side note, new pics might be a little slow coming this week as I’m into my year 12 of the annual SXSW Film madness. I’ll try and get some reviews up when possible.

-D.

Well, after 4+ years of toying with the idea, agonizing over the plan, re-agonizing over the plan, and then agonizing a little more, demo has at long last begun! Check out pics as I get them on my Flickr site. The 3 most recent are shown on the sidebar at right, just click the “more photos” link to see the whole Kitchen 2.0 set.

-D.