The best way I can assist my lovely wife in raising our two wonderful children is by keeping the big one out of her hair. Combine this with the amazing spring weather we’ve been having (save last week’s monsoons) and you’ve got an awesome day at the beach and another reason to post some rockin’ photos.

I love it when Emily and I get some alone time. And we hadn’t been to the beach for at least five months so she was particularly excited when I told her where we were going. The sun was bright, the sand was warm, and a gentle breeze was in the air. I’m really looking forward to the time when we can start playing volleyball together, even if it is only bumping around on the sidelines. But this year’s trips to the beach promise to be filled with stone and shell collecting, building sand castles, chasing seagulls, and running away shrieking from the gentle waves lapping the shore.

I love this next photo. All I did was stand her on a bench in preparation for the ceremonial pre-shoe desanding of the feet and I told her to smile. Out of nowhere she starts striking these hysterical poses! It was so unlike her and I even think this photo itself doesn’t look very much like her. But I still love it. It’s got attitude!

And then we walked back to the metro to head home. Along the way, Emily became obsessed with hide-and-seek. Here she is doing her best to be inconspicuous.

Our good friend Nadia came to visit us a couple of weeks ago. They live just on the other side of the mountain so we don’t get to see them as often as we’d like. I will briefly tell you about the day so that my narrative may serve as a weak excuse to show you some sweet photos that I took.

We started the day at our place. Nadia’s two girls, Chloe and Meritxell, are just on either side of Emily age-wise and are the sweetest things ever. They both enjoyed cuddling and getting to know Sebastian.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we all headed on down to the park. Emily spent most of her time with Chloe, digging in the sand and racing down the slide.

They would race down the slide and then sprint to the other side of the park where Chloe would climb up a fantastic blue curvy metal ladder and Emily would deftly scale the treacherous rope ladder.

Meritxell spent most of the time on her own, sitting in a quiet corner of the park watching sand fall from her hand to the ground as if she were contemplating the very essence of the Earth beneath her. Then she went down the slide about 300 times with Nadia, shrieking with excitement each time.

We ended our time together by having lunch at this tiny little hidden restaurant that Jan showed us, where you walk through the run-of-the-mill dining room out into a nice secluded outdoor patio for picnic-style dining. The kids were too busy running around and playing to eat too much of their lunch but the parents enjoyed a nice meal with surprisingly child-friendly service.

The ice cream that the girls wolfed down was all that kept them awake before we said good day and headed home for a late and much-needed nap. A good time was had by all.

Now that I’ve got my new camera (and I’m loving it!), I have so many more quality photos to share. Expect a few more of these little photo-event summaries in the week to come.

I am on a fantasy high. Fantasy baseball 2009, ladies and gentlemen, has begun.

Baseball and mathematics – it doesn’t get much better than this. And my absolute favorite part of the fantasy baseball season is the preseason draft. My league’s draft was this past weekend and I have been giddy with excitement for the past month in anticipation of the big day. I scoured the Internet, read all the articles, perused all the player projections, created and refined countless spreadsheets and draft-day cheat sheets, formulated my strategies, and participated in more than my fair share of online mock drafts. And I think it paid off.

This is my seventh year in this very competitive league. I still remember back in 2003 when Barry Bonds, John Smoltz, and Kerry Wood helped carry my team to their very first championship victory. I’m now coming off two straight years of first place finishes so expectations are high. Anything less than the stellar team that I managed to draft would have been a disappointment. But just check out the talent that will undoubtedly score me the league’s first ever hat trick:

I understand that very few of you will be interested in this, much less have any idea of what I’m even talking about, and to you I apologize. But I doubt you’re still reading, having given up after the mention of “player projections”.

Remember when I did a voice for a pilot episode of a cartoon series called Sincopats, and then the recording studio tried to rip me off so I turned down the job, and then everything worked out in the end? Well, the first four episodes of the series have been posted on the production company’s Web site.

Feel free to check them out here!

I had an uncontrollable urge to scan another old photo last night.

me, Jean, Kristin, Lori, Melissa, Tara, Usama, Roy, Brent

Here we are, my junior year at college, celebrating at Kristin’s house. I first titled this photo “Resident Assistants Christmas 96” because, well, we were all Resident Assistants at Binghamton University and this was Christmas. Then I noticed the champagne glasses and the date “1/97” written on the back of the photo (an early form of embedding meta data?) and realized that a better title would probably be “Resident Assistants New Year 97”. But was Brent an RA? He was certainly heavily involved in the Hinman College community, but I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t remember if he was an RA or not. He was my freshman and sophomore year roommate for goodness sake! So I widened the field by naming it “Hinman College New Year 97”, though a more appropriate title would probably have been “Hinman College (and Jean) New Year 97” since she didn’t even go to our college. Whatever. We were all friends. 🙂

Spring weather has happily been with us for a couple of weeks here in Barcelona so, now that the vernal equinox has officially come and gone, I think it’s about time I did a little much-needed spring cleaning. Two things have been nagging me for a while so here we go:

1. The background of this web page. I loved the snowy landscape and found it quite peaceful and appropriate for a subliminal backdrop to my writings, but it was starting to jar with my actual surroundings. I hope you find the new spring-flavored decor to be a refreshing change. I really do put a lot of thought into these things 🙂

2. My facial hair. The beard and long(!) hair were necessary to keep warm over the winter months. But, as mentioned above, it ain’t so cold no more. I have therefore streamlined my aerodynamics. Have fun rolling over the image below to see the dramatic before and after:

(2 * kids) + (job) – (sleep) = those eyes

Sebastian is one month old. How the heck did that happen?

This is how it happened…

Saturday February 14, 2009

4:00pm – The call
Emily and I were downtown with a few friends enjoying a high-flying rusty circus performance and chocolate lollipop-making expo (I know!) in a sunny little plaza in the Gothic quarter. Jan called a few times just to let us know she was OK. I should have known then that something funny was underfoot. After a filling buffet lunch and impromptu game of restaurant-hide-and-seek, Emily and I decided to head home. Just then, Jan called one more time to earnestly suggest that we head home. We headed home.

5:00pm – TV time
Jan was having “mild contractions” when we got home. She was totally relaxed but had an air about her that suggested that she would have had her bags packed and waiting by the door if we were planning a trip to the hospital. We were not. This boy was to be born here at home. So instead, Jan had started preparing the house. She suggested I begin by inflating the birthing pool. The pump didn’t work. We placed an emergency call to Ed (who was on standby) and he delivered a brand new foot pump within the hour. We put Emily down for her afternoon nap and, with the house nice and quiet, we sat in the living room and watched some TV. We finally caught up on our backlog of 30 Rock and Flight of the Conchords episodes while I foot-pumped the pool.

6:30pm – Reinforcements arrive
Sonia, our midwife’s assistant, arrived at about 6:30 – just as Emily was waking up from her nap. Emily and I played in the (empty) pool while Sonia attended to Jan in the bedroom. I have no idea what they did in there. Some sort of pregnancy stuff probably.

8:30pm – The bedroom
After rushing back into town upon hearing of the current state of events, Juls finally came to the rescue by inviting Emily to her house for a sleepover party. Labor seemed to pause with the hectic atmosphere created by so many people in the house. But once we were all alone, Jan and I moved into the bedroom for a little peace and quiet. Jan relaxed, put on some meditation recordings, and practiced her hypnobirthing exercises while I gently caressed her arm, scratched her head, a did a sneaky sudoku on the bedside table while she had her eyes closed.

9:30pm – Labor begins(?)
How long was the labor? That’s a difficult question to answer. The end is pretty clear, but when do you start counting? At this point in the proceedings, Jan was dilated 2-3 cm and the contractions were coming at regular intervals. Still too early to get in the pool or even hop in a bath, we had some more relaxing to do. The garden hose we bought to fill the pool from the kitchen sink wouldn’t connect to the tap so I started to fill the pool bucket by bucket.

Sunday February 15

12:00am – Into the pool
Midnight arrived and Sonia said that Jan could finally get into a bath while I topped up the pool. She wasn’t in there for more than 30 minutes before we transferred her into the warm and welcoming birthing pool standing proudly in the living room. The room was dimly lit with a few candles and the house was snuggly warm. The calming scent of essential oils and elixirs was in the air. Both her surroundings and Jan herself were very serene. I spent most of the time leaning over the side of the pool, holding Jan’s hand, performing breathing exercises with her, and making bad jokes.

3:30am – The nitty gritty
Our midwife, Ariana, arrived just in time for the fun to begin. The contractions were getting more intense and Jan, who had previously been breathing calmly through each contraction, was now performing some sort of ancient toning ritual with every surge. It’s a good thing the pool had handles on the inside because, right about now, Jan was making full use of them. As the moment grew closer, Jan started to experience what I can only describe as electrical shivers. Ariana and Sonia were quietly observing from a distance, making full use of the pool’s transparent sides and a tiny flashlight to monitor the situation. Sonia told us that the little boy, at this point still without a name, would be joining us very shortly.

4:45am – Sebastian is born
Ariana told Jan to reach down and feel the head that was now peeking out and staring me in the face with its cold purple gaze. Just a moment later, the beautiful little boy popped out and gracefully swam to freedom. Sebastian was a caulbearer. In medieval times the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck. It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Or it meant he was a vampire. In any event, our great new boy snuggled into Jan’s arms in the warm early-morning candlelight while Ray Lamontagne played softly in the background. Mommy and baby were gently toweled off and left to rest on the couch while Sonia and Ariana quietly put the house back in order.

6:00am – We’re already home
Maybe the nicest part of having a home birth was the fact that, once it was all over, we were already at home! No long hospital stay with nurses coming in every hour to test this or monitor that. Once the cord was cut and the placenta dutifully delivered, we were free to snuggle up in our own bed and bask in the magic. We were all sound asleep by 7:30am.

Monday February 16

4:00pm – I’m home!
The front door opened and a not-so-little voice asked, “Where’s my brother?”. Emily was filled with excitement, anxiety, pride, and pleasure. But mostly excitement. She stroked Sebastian’s head, tweaked his nose, smiled an enormous grin, and enthusiastically ran around the house collecting clothes, dolls, blankets, milk bottles, and diapers that her new little brother would undoubtedly be needing. Our little family was a little bit bigger.

But I didn’t go down without a fight.

I was dead set against making the jump from my pocket-size point-and-shoot to a bulky and inconvenient reflex. In fact, I just recently bought myself a brand new Canon SD880 (happy birthday!). But I was curious. How much better could the images actually be? Is it really that much fun to use a DSLR? What kind of flexibility does having interchangeable lenses really provide? I wanted to know.

So, after much research (hey, you know me!), I found an amazing deal on a new Nikon D40 (happy… Ash Wednesday?) and let me tell you, I haven’t looked back!

My kids will only be young once (probably) and I love having quality photos of my family and friends. My only regret is that I didn’t make the jump earlier.

There is a world of difference between the image quality of a point-and-shoot camera and a DSLR. It really is fun to use a reflex camera. I never knew how important a good lens was for good photography. I still have lots to learn about f-stops, apertures, and composition techniques, but I enjoy learning new things and look forward to the process.

I still carry around my Canon pocket rocket in case I want to video anything. That is the reason I bought it in the first place. But my new Nikon will be with me whenever real photos need to be taken.

The day after I got the camera, I brought Emily (and the Nikon) to the park for an impromptu playground romp and photo session. I think I took 155 photos.

My Trusty Steed

Lost In Thought

Chute

I’m Hiding

It turns out there’s a happy ending to the tale of woe I wrote about last week (where I turned down that cartoon job). I got a call from the studio saying that they would now be able to pay via nomina with the standard social security payments and wanted to know if I was still available for the project. Of course, I said yes.

Turns out the producer “spoke” with the studio and explained how important it was to have the actors he had originally chosen.

I could have easily missed out on some work here and I was very happy to let this job go in an effort to communicate the seriousness of our community of professional Barcelona-based English-language dubbers. Luckily, it didn’t come to that and the desired outcome was reached.

I shared this story on a local actors’ web forum (of which I am the site moderator) to reiterate the fact that we are stronger if we work together. We are so few and so good at what we do that there is no reason to think that we will do anything but benefit in the long run if we all stick together, stick to our guns, and stick up for our rights as professionals.

We start dubbing on Monday.

Emily had a great time at her very first Purim carnival this weekend. We went to a Jewish school on the other side of Tibidabo with one of Emily’s friends from nursery (thanks, Tony, Shani, and Asia!). True, the falafel were poor, the giant inflatable shark was scary, and Emily was severely traumatized when the bouncy castle collapsed on them, but all of the kids in costume was fantastic, the playground was tons of fun, and the weather was phenomenal. Happy Purim, everyone!