Microcenter can go fuck itself.

I don’t have time to write this evening, but I need to take a break from photo processing. (Here’s a preview.) I took over a 1100 photos at Beth and Morten’s reception, but a large quantity of those could charitably be categorized as duds. I take a lot of photos, but overall I think the quality of my work has been drifting. The kind of haphazard approach encouraged by using digital cameras may be part of the issue—there’s practically no cost associated with taking a photo, so my approach probably isn’t as measured as it would be if I had a limited amount of film (and a limited amount of money to get it developed).

Quality of rendering has been an ongoing issue as well. I rely too much on bumping up my camera’s sensitivity to take photos in lower-light situations, and it shows.

So, anyway, it was a busy weekend. My beautiful wife, who I love dearly, insisted on taking our four-month-old to a pumpkin patch on Sunday, and the results were, well, kind of what I expected. We got some cute photos, though, and a bunch of Japanese exchange students got to utilize Mathias as an object lesson on what “Halloween is in America.” (Seriously.)

Other than that, not much to report. Cleaning around the house, shopping at SuperTarget, watching disasterously bad movies, and, well, working on photos.

Oh, and Mathias sat up for the first time with no assistance. Dad got to see it happen, because mom was in the shower. Lisa, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, ran out to the living room as soon as I alerted her as to what our son was doing. She was excited to see the little man sit up and grab his own toes for support, but at the same time brought up her theory that Mathias is deciding to do his firsts in front of dad for some reason.

A problem with that theory: Mathias has put his pacifier back in his mouth on a couple of cases, which his mom has seen, and his dad… hasn’t.

Well, back to photos. (And probably laundry.) More later.

It was not for lack of trying, but I got remarkably little done this weekend.

With both Lisa and Mathias battling a virus this week, I stayed home yesterday morning to provide support, and as a result had the privilege of watching Mathias sit himself up for the first time.

Lisa was out for a few hours, and I was hanging around in the living room with the little one, him resting in the dip in my lap. He was in a bit of a grabbing mode, so I put out my two pointer fingers for him to grab. That he did, and after a couple of moments leaned his head forward a bit and then, as if he’d already done it countless times before, just pulled himself up and forward.

I was astonished. “Holy crap, little man, did you just pull yourself up?” He smiled and giggled a bit. I let him sit up for 30 seconds or so, and then gently rested him back down on my legs. Putting my fingers out, he grabbed them like little handle bars, and after another pause lifted himself up a second time. In all, we repeated him sitting up five or six times.

At first I figured this was something Lisa had already seen, another small item I’d missed as a working parent. When Lisa got home, I asked her how long he’d been doing that, and she gave me a look that made it clear that she hadn’t. “How long he’s been doing what?” she asked.

“Sitting up.”

“He hasn’t done that before.” Pause. “Why do you always get to see these things first?” As it happens, I’d been the first to watch him turn over as well.

I picked up Mathias, walked over to the couch and set the two of us down as we’d been sitting earlier. I put out my fingers, and with Lisa watching, he did his baby equivalent of a pull-up. That was an improvement over rolling over, which Lisa still hasn’t seen him do without assistance.

And now the paranoid mom theories have begun. Lisa seems to have convinced herself that Mathias only wants to try this stuff when dad’s around. I think it’s just coincidental, or maybe just the result of me playing with him in different ways than his mom, rather than any preference on his part. Standing and first words are the big ticket items in baby development, and with the time those two spend around each other during the week, I bet she’ll get to see those first.

Turkey Party 2007 has been bumped to November 10th. Details to follow.

I finally handed in the industry analysis paper that’s been consuming my life for the past four weeks, and as a result the coming weekend is looking kind of… open.

Kind of. There’s still a lot of work to do around the house, and a few hundred reception photos that need to be sorted and optimized. But for a few days, at least, I’m won’t have to be be constantly under the gun for everything. Lisa, baby and I should actually be able to spend some quality time this weekend, which will be nice.

Also up this weekend: Thank you notes, baby-proofing, and, hopefully, finally finishing off the office.

Speaking of the industry analysis paper, I just want to say Google Docs is pretty cool, except for when it’s temporarily offline. Or giving vague error messages. Like today. Two hours before I had to hand in the paper. Which hadn’t been printed. And required a few last-minute edits from others working on it.

After about an hour and a half of pulling out my hair wondering why our 32-page report wasn’t pulling up when everything else I had in Docs was showing up fine, I finally realized the problem: Google Doc’s autosave feature saved the error message over the report. Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. Why is something like that even possible?

Fun times, yes.

It turns out I was to make two trips to Eau Claire this weekend. One was to photograph the wedding reception. The other was to retrieve Lisa’s cell phone from our hotel. (Shared responsibility on that oversight. Long story.)

I just got back to Minneapolis, and I’m kind of tired. Hello Monday, see you at work in seven hours.

Today was Mathias’ four-month birthday, so here are some new photos of the little guy.

I just spent an evening acting as the primary photographer at a wedding reception. While my rate was rather, uh, cheap, I actually got paid, making tonight the first time in 9+ years I’ve done anything remotely “professional” with a camera.

I’m downloading the photos now, and all I can say is I hope they don’t suck.

For all practical purposes, this evening represents the first really open evening I’ve had in, oh, three weeks. That’s not to say I would’ve been writing if I’d had the time. My post about Kelly got indexed surprisingly quickly, and as a result this site became a bit of an unintentional gathering place. There were a couple of times I had things to write about, but felt bad about bumping the Kelly stuff down the page. In a way, I didn’t feel like this site was completely mine anymore, if that makes any sense.

I guess this is me taking it back. Kind of.

There’s not much to say about Kelly’s memorial service last week. It was a good celebration of his life, but also an indication of just how much was lost. It seems he made quite an impression, a very positive impression, on just about everyone who ever met him.

Lisa inherited his old office plant, a relatively-wide bamboo plant we’ve since named “7-Up.” The reason? Kelly fed it 7-Up because he thought it would be invigorating to the plant. (Seriously.) And Kelly didn’t even drink 7-Up, meaning he bought the soda specifically for the plant. So, there you have it, Kelly in a nutshell, sillyness and sadness sitting on the living room mantel.

School has been tough as of late. It’s not the coursework itself as much as the time constraints around everything. My performance on the midterm was mixed. I did very well on most of the tough questions, but made a number of stupid mistakes on a number of the easier ones. My grade suffered accordingly.

Today in class we spent a few minutes on a short business case on US financial companies trying to enter a Japanese market that would prove to be very different from the market the companies were used to at home. I only mention this because it may give a bit of an illustration as to how my brain works. When the case mentioned American products that bombed in Japan, my first thought was… Hiroshima.

It’s late, and I’m tired. More later.