The problem with having a blog...

...is that you go into it with the greatest on intentions - yeah, I have something - no, LOADS of things to say, yeah, I'm going to pour out my thoughts and emotions into pixellated prose and record my slice of history....this is my JOURNAL, this is my DIARY, my LETTERS, my stamp on the world to be extracted by alien archaeologist drones from half-burnt discarded disk drives discovered in the rubble of Western civilization on a strange bluish planet 3 rocks away from a star....or maybe the sun has ballooned in size by then and it's only two (bye Mercury)...or [insert fantastic and overly optimistic statement here].

And the problem with that? Steam. Chutzpah. Adrenaline. Whatever. You blow your wad fast and run out of it. Which is all just my way of explaining why 9 or 10 months would go by without posting :)

[drop into Seinfeld voice] I mean - c'mon, people....[okay enough of Jerry] Who are you people that have time to go back and dissect your entire day, record it online and furthermore, what makes you so goddamn important.

SO, my alien friends. What happened to me and mine between May 22, 2004 and now. Hm. How bout bullet format for simplicity's sake -

- my second (and last) daughter Madeleine Judson Bodine was born on 10/16/2004, she spent some time in the NICU at UC Davis Sacramento because they thought she might have been ill, turns out they were wrong but still got to collect several thousand dollars in insurance money. Ambulance ride from Sutter Roseville (birthplace) to UC Davis? $900. Shiiiitt.....if I'd known it was gonna be that much I'd-a driven her there my damn self. Anyway, she's fine. Super mellow baby. Rarely cries except for when she gets sick, like right now, which is why I'm up at 4 AM typing.

- my first holiday season went by without going back to the East Coast. A little depressing, because I miss my family at that time of year. But we got through it and I can already tell Xmas is going to be a blast with two kids.

- a whole bunch of mundane stuff went down. Bills got paid, taxes got filed, blah blah blah. That's about as close as I get to day-to-day type stuff.

- made the decision in November and made appointments to get a vasectomy, which was finally performed on 2/25/2005. And f*** yeah, it hurts. Not to the point of being doubled over, but...imagine you were used to walking around with a squashed tennis ball between your legs, you have the surgery, and a day later you're walking around with a softball....just uncomfortable as all hell. That's short-term, though, and the fact that I will have no more children is a bigger sigh of relief, cause let's face it I love my kids but damn. Maybe I'll get into describing it in more glorious detail at some other point.

- when I heal from the vasectomy, I have promised myself to begin a more rigorous program of diet and exercise. I'm just tired of getting winded taking a shower. Kidding about the shower thing.

That's enough out of me for now. See ya next time.