Can you get high off of psychodelic rock?

Probably not, but I've been listening to one of Pink Floyd's earlier albums, Ummagumma, lately, and man, for as atypical as it is, I love it. Last week, while I was working 2nd shift, I popped the Studio disk in and went for a couple of midnight walks, and it was a great experience. The album is just such a break from everything that I normally listen to that I'm really connecting to it in different ways than I normally would. It's also cool to notice the groundwork for a lot of Pink Floyd's later works within this album. It's some crazy shit. Crazy good shit.

Over the last few weeks we had our two baby showers, and they were both very wonderful. Our parents (especially Sue's dad) went way out of their way to help us bring the families' first grandbaby into the world in style. Molly "Marzipan" Lackovic has more clothes and blankets and toys than I do. All thanks to the loving, doting grandparents. Having the families come together like this really ramps up the whole excitement factor. And speaking of excitement, I present 2 anecdotes: 1. My mom shakes and shivers like a little kid getting candy whenever she see's Sue. Then she immediately dives for the belly and starts talking to Molly. My teeth rot out every time. 2. We went to Baby's R Us the other day to pick up a couple of things that we didn't get at the shower, and the lady said to Sue, "I thought you had the baby already. I haven't seen Chuck in a few days." Yes, the lady at Baby's R Us, knows Sue's dad's name on a first name basis. And as a 3rd (unannounced) anecdote, Sue's mom has been making constant excuses to come up and visit. I believe she's coming up this weekend to help Sue "clean house." Yeah right, she wants to spend time with the baby. Point is, everyone has baby fever, and it's great. Molly's setting up for coming into the world spoiled to hell, and while I'd rather her not to be so, I don't think I have much choice right now. All I gotta say is our parents are awesome.


Also I want to thank all of you who went out and bought a copy of Alligator Juniper. I really appreciate you for taking the time to do so, and I totally didn't expect it to happen. If you still want to read the story, and don't have the money, let me know and I can send it to you.


Thankfully, work's been a lot less demanding of me lately (they actually hired someone to take care of all the tech support I was doing on the side for nothing), so I've been able to spend more time working on automation and a potential lead to have said automation rolled out to other call centers (which has been talked about for about 3 years now). So we'll see where that goes.

Otherwise, we're finishing up our baby classes tomorrow, and entering week 34 of the pregnancy. September 30 is the due date, but we'll take her as soon as she's ready to come out as a healthy baby. She's been moving a lot lately...and it's like world shifting moves; the kind that you can see from five feet away; the kind that make you think of the chest-bursting aliens in Alien...or the one from Spaceballs that pops out and starts singing (I like the singing better).

I'm currently working on last minute edits of my ECE, and, more importantly, the 3rdquel to "(Un/Re/I )Do" -- all about how Johnny loses his job (poor guy).

Dave has encouraged me to start reading and writing more poetry, and I've been doing a bit of both as time permits. I'm going to end today with a poem. It's still pretty early in its lifecycle, and I'm still early in my learning cycle, so suggestions would be great:

First Words

I don't yet have a voice
for these words spun in darkness.

Fluid filled, I speak
bubbles enriched with life.

I am complete. Unborn
within you.

Right now, you
are my world, and

I leave my mark
on your ribs.

Now in Print and other Rambling

As time whittles onward towards the inevitable future, a little blurp of excitement arrived via our friendly neighborhood postman today: my four contributor's copies of the latest issue of Alligator Juniper complete with "(Un/Re/I )Do" fastened somewhere between the book's cover. I haven't had a whole lot of time to flip through the book, but it does have some very cool photography in it as well, and I'm sure lots of other stuff. In short, the whole shebang looks very nice.

In other news, the first baby shower is this weekend, and we're doing it co-ed style in the sense that men are coming to an historically female dominated affair. Sue's mindset on it was that she didn't want to leave her dad, my dad and me out of the picture. I'm a little afraid to be entering such a sacred and secretive womanly domain, but I'm sure us guys will trample all over the protocol like a pack of snorting wildebeests, making everything at once awkward and new to the point that the women forget that we've just trampled tradition in favor of food and gifts for all expectant parents.