A couple of weeks ago Theta Naught played at the lovely and local Monterey Live, which, in my opinion was a top-notch joint, even though attendance to our particular show was..um...low.

Anyway, I'm proud to announce that Theta Naught has joined an elite group by performing in the same venue as none other than the lovely, the talented:



Mandy Moore.

Photo journal: The Furniture
Sheri lookin' good whilst taking on The Dresser Assembly


Pete hands off the camera and picks up the screwdriver



The finished products:





Ash, what's your take on the whole thing?



Then, the following weekend:

Pete vs. The Lawn. The teams, Pete and Grond, the powerless mower:



versus



Oh yes. The results:

Well, better not show you quite yet.

Ash, your opinion?



End Transmission.

Hmmm. I suppose you could say that the Doldrums of Summer have officially arrived here on the Monterey Peninsula. The newest, most exciting piece of news that has happened here lately: My co-worker across the hall brought doughnuts in to work this morning, and I had one. It was chocolate frosted, and delicious.

Oh yeah, and Sheri and I have started to acquire baby furniture. We spent a couple of weeks crossing our fingers for a cheap deal on a crib on Craigslist or ebay or somewhere, but we finally cracked when we saw an entire bedroom set, complete with crib, changing table and dresser, for the unbelievable price of $200 from, you guessed it, WalMart.
My personal fears of purchasing WalMart furniture were assuaged when I brought them up to the three mothers and two other ladies that I work with, who, upon hearing the price, immediately and simultaneously said, "Buy it." One of them went on to add that who cares if the stuff is made out of cardboard - you're not looking to keep it forever, and the baby's going to make a mess out of it anyway.
So we bought it, and spent last Friday with a pizza and a set of alan wrenches putting it together. The results: pretty impressive, actually. Sure, it's made out of something slightly softer than balsa wood (remember the derby days, boy scouts? I could carve a car shape into that block of wood with a spoon...), and the edges on the crib need a little sanding, but the color is great, and they're light to move around, and they'll probably last just as long as we need them. It's easy to get your money's worth out of something that doesn't cost very much. Hats off to Simplicity Designs.
Well, that's about it. I suppose I could entertain with a couple of limericks that the IDFL boys and I traded yesterday. On the other hand, they were pretty PG-13, as limericks tend to be, and a couple of them are pretty rooted in obscure Star Trek references, so...maybe next time.

End Transmission

Isn't it wonderful to converse every once in a while with people who appear to have entirely lost their sense of logic? I'm in contact with this person who just about every time I talk to her completely blows my mind by the strange, outlandish connections that she makes between something I say and something completely outside the realm of human understanding. I'll give two examples:

1) She and I talk about the difference between contracting an individual translator and contracting an "outsourcer," or group of translators.

"You know what it's like? You'll get this. This is what it's exactly like. I'll bet this happens to you all the time. It's like you can either take your wife to a restaurant, and she'll either order something she totally loves or totally hates, or you can go to the store and buy like a bunch of frozen meals, and add one or two things to them, so you know, if your wife doesn't like it, you can at least say, 'well, the frozen food wasn't very good to begin with, and I added just a little bit.' Isn't that exactly what it's like? I tell you, that happens all the time."
I stare dumbly.

2) I had a class with her at school. We were in a class with a professor who's son lives in Mexico.

"Isn't it nice just to see him on line every now and again? It's like, at least you know that he's alive and doing something. Unless, of course, like he's had a heart attack and died, or people have killed him and taken over his computer or something like that. You know."

I love it. It's like every time she pops into my office I'm off on this magical journey into Non-Sequitur land. Hooray for strange people.

Here's a picture of my gorgeous pregnant wife. You are now free to say, "awwwwww." She wants me to tell you that she doesn't really look that big, and that her arm is in the way of her back, so you can't really tell how skinny she still is.
And, for those of you who don't know:

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

The baby, not my wife. Tuesday afternoon we had a very successful ultrasound, where our little girl gave us a front row peek at her nether-regions, as though she was saying, "you BET I'm a girl!" We also got a great picture of her two little hands, a picture of her face, and a shot of her ear. I think she's going to look so much like Sheri the two will be indistinguishable.

As I've been seriously remiss in my blogging duties, I'll give you a report on some other happenings, as well.

Theta Naught came to town over Memorial Day. The joy of playing with those dudes is once again in my veins, and I'm once again scanning the Utah Yellow Pages for companies in Salt Lake (or thereabouts) that I could work for after graduation so that I may once again call myself a full-fledged Naughtian. Hope the rest of the tour went well, boys. And girl.

What else? Oh, yeah, I've been filling in for my boss at work, which is both a lot of fun, and rather challenging. I think I'm due for a vacation after she comes back.

End Transmission.