An interesting start to the tour. Since 1967 the tour has started with either a prologue or a time trial to seperate the contenders, but this year they opted for a more standard stage. Mostly flat, with a few short climbs, and then a nice tight finish with a 90 degree bend at a bridge and then a pretty steep uphill finish.

At the end, Team Columbia had a pretty strong showing giving their GC man Kim Kirchen a real shot at winning the stage, but he kicked too early to the finish and Alejandro Valverde dropped it into passing gear and blew his doors off.

One thing that blew my mind was the Tour De France commercial being played on the Outside channel. It shows all the recent dopers from the tour riding backwards, as if erasing their tainted miles. The scene with Landis having his Jersey removed and Basso stepping off the podium were particularly poignant. Here’s hoping that there are none of those types of shenanigans this year (not holding my breath on that though).

Nice surprise, Thomas Voeckler, the French crowd favorite since his improbably run in yellow a few years ago, is King of the Mountain for the day.

More tomorrow!

OK, I can’t help it. I’m fucking addicted to the Tour de France, even though I have a terrible track record.

I’m going to be watching the Tour again this year. Thanks to doping a lot of the usual suspects are out of the race this year, but here are a few key guys that will be fun to watch.

Robbie Mcewen will be racing for the Green Jersey again this year. He is my favorite sprinter to watch, and honestly, I can’t believe he is still racing. He’s getting a little long in the tooth. But with Tom Boonen out (he pulled an Ullrich and got busted doing party drugs), he’ll figure in every sprint.

Cadel Evans, the Australian who busted ass for a podium place last year will be gunning for top spot.

George Hincapie will be riding as team captain of the newly formed Columbia team. George is great, and I hope he has a good showing. Trent Lowe is also riding, formerly of the Jittery Joe’s cycling team.

I’m not picking any favorites though. They tend to get busted as dopers. I am just going to watch the race and see what happens. It’s always good.

Today was a baby day. That means that the day revolved around doing baby related things. We finished arranging the nursery. I assembled the Diaper Genie. This miraculous device is allegedly going to keep the stench of dirty diapers from assailing my nostrils. We’ll see how well it works.

I also built the stroller. We haven’t purchased a full-blown stroller yet…just a car seat attached thingy. We figure that the baby is going to be small enough for a while where all we need is a thing to attach the car seat. I also figured out how to work the car seat and base. It won’t be long before I have to install that in my car. This reminds me that I need to get some sun shades for the BMW. Meg’s Lexus is already tinted.

Our nursery is awesome. I will have to take some pictures to post. It’s not a typical baby room, with blue and pink and shit. Our baby is going to be stylish whether he knows it or not. I tease Meghan by telling her that it looks like our baby needs to be wearing a smoking jacket and reading a copy of War and Peace.

Meghan and I have decided that we are ready for this baby. She’s totally uncomfortable all the time. She wants the baby out of there so she can take a damn breath every now and then. Me, I’m just ready to be a dad. It’s as simple as the fact that I want to see my little boy’s fingers and toes. It’s going to be awesome.

Tomorrow we are going to brunch with Steve, Kelly, and Sonya. We are getting them to witness our wills and power of attorneys, and Sonya is acting as the Notary. This is some responsible shit that we are doing. It is totally appropriate that we are doing this at the Grit over brunch.

Soon. Very soon.

So we had our week 34 ultrasound today. Everything is A-OK with the baby and the Meggy. We were hoping to get some good ultrasound images, but our baby is facedown and we couldn’t see shit. Lots of images of the baby’s ass.

The baby’s due date is 08/08/08 but we decided not to wait that long. If meggy hasn’t gone into spontaneous labor by 07/29/08, our doctor is going to induce labor, so one way or another, we’ll have our baby by 07/30/08.

So that gives us 5 weeks to get our shit together.

For my birthday my mother-in-law was kind enough to give me a $50 dollar gift card to Barnes and Noble. I’ve been kicking around an idea for a few weeks and this gift card was all I needed to make it happen.

I’ve purchased the 4th edition of Dungeon’s and Dragons. That’s right. I’m returning to my nerd roots and I’m dragging my friends down with me.

I’m going to get my books tomorrow via UPS. And after that I’ll be creating my campaign and recruiting folks to play. I gotta say, after years of strictly computer-based gaming, I’m looking forward to rolling the dice again.

No more travel for me for a while. I got back from Pittsburgh on Saturday, and I don’t have anything scheduled for the near future. With the baby on the way, I can’t risk being out of town when the shit goes down.

Meg is sleeping on the couch and we just had the following exchange while she was rolling over, trying to get comfy:

Me: “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”
Meg: “Take this baby out of me.”
Me: “I don’t think I can do that…is there anything else?”
Meg: “No.”

This week we have our 34 week ultrasound! We get to see a picture of little Jonathan. Meghan and I both wish he’d hurry up and get here dammit. I can’t believe we have to wait another whole month. That’s bullshit.

I watched some Waking Life when I got back from Pittsburgh and heard this:

“While technically I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world.”

That about sums it up for me.

There are a lot of important dates for me all crammed into this space of time in the month of June. First of all, June 15th is my wedding anniversary. 6 years ago, Meggy and I got married and had one hell of a party up in Pittsburgh. I’ve had a few credible sources say that it was the most fun they’ve had at a wedding ever, and I can’t exactly disagree The 6 years have flown by, and we’re happier than we’ve ever been.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 30 years old. It’s a big round number, which means I should probably be freaked out a little. I’m not though. Ever since I got married, I’ve felt more like a 30 year old should feel, probably as a result of having to bust my ass to get some semblance of a career and give us some financial stability…so I probably feel about how a 30 year old should feel now.

Then there is the matter of Father’s Day. I’m not officially a dad yet, but it is close! I was actually born on Father’s Day back in 1978. I’ve been thinking a lot of what kind of dad I’m going to be. It’s a pretty heavy thing to digest. I’m going to try not to overthink it though. I spent way too much time worrying about not becoming like my dad, who’s negatives far outweighed his positives. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is my decision about what kind of dad I will be, and it has nothing to do with him. If anything, I have a much clearer picture of what to do now. I’ll have more thoughts on that later, as the Baby Day approaches.

We’ve spent every weekend that I haven’t been out of town doing some baby related thing. this past weekend was setting up the baby room, crib, bassinet, etc. Tonight we are going to our birth class and touring the maternity ward. The due date is officially 08/08/08, but the doc says that Meghan will probably be a couple weeks early, so it is getting close.

My upgrade worked ok. Just as a test I’m going to upload one picture from my trip. After that I’ll start messing around with the gallery plug-ins.

I’m back from China. It was a good trip. The job went well and I got to see a lot of China. I will be posting some pictures soon, but I intend to do some site maintenance first. There is a new version of WordPress that is supposed to have some better photo support built in so I’m going to try to get that working.

My grandmother passed away while I was in China, which really stinks. I couldn’t make it back for the funeral, so I’m going to go down to Dothan this weekend to see my mom and make sure that she is doing ok.

More tales from China will be posted soon!

For the past two days Meg and I have been in Beijing, China. Thanks to the week long May holiday here, I’ve had a few days off of work. We decided that we should come to Beijing and do all the common tourist things to do. So far here is what we’ve been able to do:

1. Chinese Acrobatic Show. We were the only white people in the theater. Apparently in China, there are no vacations except state-sponsored holidays. So what that means is that during the festivals, everyone travels to the major cities to take in the sights. So it was very crowded in the theater, with lots of tour groups of rural Chinese who came to the city. We were stared at quite a bit. But when the show started, everyone forgot about us. It was amazing. These little kids were flying all over the stage, juggling, jumping through hoops, climbing poles…it was amazing.
2. Eat some Peking Duck. The official dish of Beijing is Peking Duck. We went to a little restaurant and had some. It was great! The duck is roasted for a long time until it is done. It is served sliced at your table by the chef. You put the duck slices in the duck sauce then fold them up with some vegetables in a crepe and eat it. I stuffed myself. I also drank some local beer (not TsingTao, but some real local stuff) that was really good too, but they serve all drinks at room temperature. The beer would have been better cold.
3. Visit the tombs of the Ming emperors. We listened to tales of serious political intrigue as we walked through the shrines and relics of the emperors of China’s past. Apparently when they dug up the first tomb, all the parchment and paper inside disintegrated so they are waiting till technology will allow the preservation before they dig anything else up. Lots of jade, gold, and silver relics, including some gold crowns made in a way that modern technology cannot reproduce. Basically, the art is lost.
4. Visit a Jade factory. We learned the difference in the regional types of jade, as well as how to spot a fake. We got to see the pieces being carved and polished, and of course we blew a wad of money on the items. I bought a jade Pixiu, which is a mythical beast that will bring you lots of money while destroying evil spirits. perfect for my desk at my office
5. Visit the Friendship Store, a state run store. We bought some knick knacks, like a terra cotta warrior (not life sized), and got our family name written on a scroll in Chinese script to hang in the baby room.
6. Climb the Great Wall of China. We drove out to the Badaling section and climbed up. That is really steep! But Chinese from all over came to climb it, including very young children and very old people. Chinese are hardy folks. That climb hurt me. My legs were like jelly coming down from there. I don’t have my usb cable for the camera but we got some really good pictures. Meghan was a big hit, since apparently it is rare for 6 month pregnant Americans to attempt the Wall.

Tomorrow we visit Tiananmen Square. We drove by today on our way out of town, and there were a vast amount of people there, just hanging out. It will be interesting to see this place, where so much history has happened. We might also get a chance to see the casket of Chairman Mao…with his dead body in it. (It is see-through). Weird. I plan to get my picture taken by the huge portrait.

Then the Forbidden City, the ancient home of the dynastic emperors. After that I catch my flight back to Nanjing, to finish up my work. So far it has been a great trip.

As I was walking back to the hotel after my long day of work, I witnessed some sort of altercation. There was a group of men and women standing on the sidewalk. One of the women was yelling or something and it looked like one of the crowd was throwing water or something on her face. I obviously couldn’t understand any of it, but it seemed to me that she was upset and they were trying to calm her down. Well, as I walked by, she bolted from the crowd into traffic and just stood in front of this bus. Everyone in the crowd was screaming at her. The bus slammed on the brakes and she just stood there like Bill Murray from Groundhog Day. One of the people in the crowd ran out, grabbed her and carried her to the other side of the street. I just walked into the lobby shaking my head. WTF?

So I’m in China. It has been a long couple of days. Here is a quick version of my trip so far:

I got up on Thursday at 4:00AM and drove to the airport, arriving at 6:00AM. I got through security and to the terminal about 30mins later. The first leg of my flight was to Chicago. I sat in the terminal at Chicago for about an hour, and then boarded a 747-400. I’ve only flown on a wide-body once before. Usually my flights are all short haul domestic so it is a little strange to get on board such a huge plane.

The day before, Meghan upgraded me from Economy to Economy Plus. As it turns out, I was also on a row with no one else, so I had my own 3 seat bed. That was a huge help. The jet took off about 10:00 CST. I spent most of the flight reading the Lord of the Rings and sleeping. The route took us over the North Pole and down through Mongolia. The sun was bright the entire trip…no darkness. As we descended into Shanghai, I began to see how large that city really is. It seemed to go on forever. The buildings all resembled giant government projects. All together, that flight took about 14 hours. It was 1:00PM local time on Friday when I landed.

The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the smell. Diesel fumes were everywhere. You could taste it. Also, there were English signs everywhere, which was nice, but I figured that would change when I got out of the airport. Customs was no big deal, they just examined my passport, gave me the once over, and then stamped me through.

The customer I’m here to work for had one of their guys waiting for me. He helped me find the bus that would take me to the Shanghai Railway Station, bus #5. It was about an hour drive. The traffic here is out of control. Signals and lanes are mere suggestions. Bicyclists will ride in front of moving trucks without even looking. I will probably see at least one crash and one bicyclist get killed before I leave, I’m certain.

The train station was crazy. The place was PACKED to the limit. I’m glad I had a guide with me. He got my tickets for me. I had to wait an hour or so for the train. there was only one other caucasian in the entire terminal, and the place was packed. By this time my guide had left and I was on my own. At this moment the realization that I was 9000 miles from home and totally on my own in a country where I didn’t speak or read the language hit me full on. That is a feeling that I highly recommend you experience at least once. Even buying a bottle of water took a lot of courage.

I waited for a while and then saw that my train was boarding. I followed the throngs of people and got on board. I screwed up and got on the wrong train car so I ended up standing for most of the 2 hour train ride. By this point I was dog tired and getting cramps in my back and shoulders. The train ride was uneventful, since i was standing and couldn’t see clearly out of the windows. When I got to Nanjing, I needed to get a taxi to get to the hotel. Every guide book I read said to be careful of pirate taxis, guys who operate with no license or meter. They were everywhere. But the problem was the line for the real taxis was ridiculously long, and I really needed to get somewhere to crash, so I bit the bullet. I found a guy who looked like I could beat up if he got crazy, and went with him to his car.

It was a good choice since I had an uneventful cab ride. I got to the hotel, took a shower, made a few phone calls on my China Mobile cell phone, checked my work email, and then went to sleep.

So now I’m on the job site. I’ve been here all day and everything is going well. More later!

I am up in Pittsburgh for work. The day I flew in, I got into my rental car, turned on the radio and here is what I heard: Myron Cope has died. This is a sad day for Pittsburgh and Steeler Nation.

Myron was the voice of the Steelers forever, and also the inventor of the Terrible Towel. The whole city is in mourning. Not the kind of news I wanted to hear when I got to town.

To top it off, I got sick while I was up here and am trying not to die myself. I fly home Monday afternoon.

Well, we had our 12 week appointment with the doc. Everything is awesome. We got to hear the baby’s heartbeat again. That amazes me every time! According to the doctor we are proceeding according to the plan. In 4 weeks, we have another appointment, and then 2 weeks later we get our 2nd ultrasound. We are very excited to know if we are having a boy or a girl. I don’t really have a preference…but I’ve found it easier to come up with names for a girl.

I also found out that my friend Kerry is also pregnant and due the same month as we are. And so is my dentist. Must be something in the water!

This has been a roller coaster ride of a year. Looking back it is hard to believe the amount of shit that happened. I accomplished a major career milestone, my mother was diagnosed, and recovered from, colon cancer. Meghan and I decided to start trying to get pregnant and then, a month later, we found out we were successful.

New Year’s Resolution? Mine is to make having a well balanced life a priority. My life wasn’t exactly balanced this past year. I spent a lot of time focusing and studying in order to kick the most ass at my job. I did a pretty good job too . But the reason I did that was so that Meghan and I could have the option to start our family on our own terms. My resolution is not to waste that opportunity.

Also, I need to get healthier. I’m 29 and I can feel my body changing as I get closer to 30. I don’t want to be one of those guys who wakes up one day and realizes “hey I’m a fucking slob”. This year, all my previous life routines are going to get blown out the door. It will be my chance to set up some new ones. So I’m going to try to eat better and exercise more. the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I’m actually going to make a plan and do this. I have some nice running shoes collecting dust right now.

Happy new year folks! I’m looking forward to it.

We have known that we are having a baby for awhile now, but it hasn’t really been real yet. But today we had our 8 week appointment with the doctor. This was a big one because today was the first ultrasound. Up until now, the pregnancy has all been symptoms. Meghan has been nauseous and sick, but really, that could be anything. Sure she’s gotten 6 positive pregnancy tests, but who knows really?

Well, here is the proof!

That little blob with the line through it is our baby!

It’s really hard to describe all the feelings that were going through my head while Meghan was lying on the table. I knew that if there were any major problems with the baby, we’d know very quickly. I was a little nervous but I hadn’t really said anything to her about it, since I didn’t want to freak her out. But when the doc pressed that wand onto her stomach, he very quickly removed any fears I had. He showed us where the head was, pointed out all the signs of a healthy pregnancy, and then we actually got to hear our babies heart beating! I wasn’t expecting to be able to hear that so quickly and it took me by surprise. I was just amazed at what I was seeing and hearing. Meghan kept laughing, which is what she does when she’s excited.

The doc was great. We thought we were excited before but now it’s so much more real!

In order to break up the continual monotony of my morning and evening commutes, I’ve started downloading and listening to podcasts. I know, I’m a little late to the party. I’ve had my iPod for a year and I’m just now getting around to it. But better late than never.

Here are the casts I’m listening to now: ESPN: Pardon the Interruption, NPR: Car Talk, San Francisco Zen Center Public Lectures, and the Alan Watts podcast.

Anyone have any recommendations? I’m also trying to find a good podcast for new dads to listen to, but I haven’t had much luck. I may end up having to make one.

We had a good weekend but it was too short. Meghan is getting into the groove of being pregnant, despite her fear that it will all be some illusion. She won’t be truly convinced until we see the ultrasound. I’m convinced though, since she has all the signs. She’s been eating all kinds of weird stuff, plus she’s tired all the time. Almost narcoleptic. She will sleep at any given moment.

We spend Friday night at her brother-in-law’s condo in Smyrna. I have a great time hanging out with him and his wife, Heather. We went out to eat at Ippolito’s off of Roswell Rd. Then on Satuday we went to Lenox Mall and then Ikea. Amazingly, we didn’t buy anything, other than some food.

I’m dreading this week at work. Nick is on vacation, and I’ve got a large install to do. This usually means that I will get slammed with trouble tickets and other crap. I’ll just have to tough it out.

Note: This is not baby related.

So today the Falcons coach quit after less than one year and went to Arkansas of all places. The Falcons are in pretty bad shape. Then I read this article in the AJC.

What are the odds that Arthur Blank will attempt to hire Bill Cowher? That would make me an instant Falcons fan (Steelers come first though). It seems too amazing to even consider. They will probably end up with some shmoe. But wouldn’t it be cool?