The BlogJam

(that's web log Jeffrey A Martin)

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 Saturday, 10:10p, May 14, 2005

I am hoping that I keep up with this blog now.  In theory, working permanently in San Diego should give me that sort of flexibility.  But of course reality tends to be different.  I started work at CH2M Hill on April, 4 and only now am I writing, on May 14.  Deadlines and "getting up to speed" at work, plus five days in Baltimore/Washington (thanks, Mike and Cindy for letting us intrude).

Did some tile shopping today prior to heading to the beach for "volleyball."  Beach is good.

About Impending Fatherhood

About 22 years ago (Good Lord, time flies and we're getting OLD!) I did something that I had always wanted to do: skydive.  It was one of the reasons I went to the Air Force Academy: I liked flying and space, and you could fly and jump out of planes there.  Anyway, during my second summer there I got to do the jump program which consisted of a week of really intense physical training (if it's not excruciating, then it's fun and the military can't have that) prior to five 10-second freefalls.

Now, during training, I wasn't nervous.  This was simply something I had long wanted to do, I was getting ready to do it.  No big deal.  The night before the jump I had no trouble sleeping.  Prior to boarding the aircraft I don't remember any nerves.  In the plane, the jumpmaster was making the 15 jumpers sing songs to distract from the impending craziness.  I distinctly remember feeling very calm.  "Standing" in the door arched in the required very weird and precarious "ready" position, with 80mph winds swirling inches away and less than an inch from a 5000 ft drop, I wasn't nervous. 

The moment I pivoted out the door: sheer absolute panic.  Physically I was counting out the cadence and going through the prescribed motions on cue, but mentally I was curled into a fetal position plummeting towards a very sudden and splattery stop.

Same thing with Dash (leading candidate for the name: Dash Alexander), I've always wanted kids.  Looks like one is coming.  I understand this intellectually and in an abstract way.  But emotionally, you know, in a "core" way, it's still very abstract.  There have been two somewhat emotional moments, but the moment equivalent to pivoting out of the airplane hasn't happened yet.  It's only a matter of time.

Leigh is starting to look pregnant.  She didn't really look pregnant to me until I noticed an undeniable "waddle" in her step while exploring Washington, DC (Da Capital).  Of course, she was carrying my luggage, which made it more pronounced..  Here belly is round like mine, but hard.  I am afraid to touch it, as something is hold me back a bit.  I suspect it's the kid in me trying to cling to the frolic of youth and deny that he's an aging, fattening middle-aged man (I still like to think of my last couple senior years at U of F as the truest image of me (playing a lot)). 

As I have seen only a sonogram and a weight gain, it could all be a ruse.  There's some deniability left.  Hopefully I'll get to go to Leigh's last sonogram on Tuesday morning.  If so, with the heartbeat, and live, undeniable, video, I think that will be my "pivot" moment with the full emotional whallop. 

By the way, that first jump sent me to the hospital with a sprained ankle. 

And, I just now, while writing this, realized the type of aircraft that I had that "pivot" moment on:  a DeHavilland UV-18 Twin Otter.  Also known as the Dash-6!!! How weird is that?

Thursday, 8:30p, May 19, 2005

Well, I didn't have a "pivot" moment" (like described above), but watching the Sonar Technician, er, Sonogram Technician, going through the "Body Part Checklist" was definitely very cool.  Rather than a step function or Off-On switch, the experience was more like punching the gas pedal and giving an already moving process more energy and momentum.  That afternoon I was ready for Dash to already be here (but as one can expect work has grinded me down where my mental energies are all on tomorrow's deadline (how do I get off this treadmill?)).

Anyway the Tech located and measured all of Dash's major body parts to construct a model and do a weight measurement.  Similar to what I do with highways, but far more important.  Dash has two legs (skinny like my dad's) two arms (I might be projecting, but I think he was doing the Gator Chomp (Good Boy!)!) a bunch of fingers and toes, a big head (I didn't see the jaw flapping, so he is more like Mommy than Daddy in that respect), a good looking heart and spine, and apparently all the other things he's supposed to have.  Technology sure is impressive (I did get distracted by the hardware and software before I remembered the greater miracle of the biology).  So very cool.

Work is exhausting.  CalTrans' software is very cumbersome.  Oy.

The house stalled for a week. Hopefully restarting tomorrow.  Giant holes in the floor.

Hasta.

Tuesday, 9:10p, May 31, 2005

I'm feeling too overwhelmed to be doing this, but sometimes you want to stick to a resolution or commitment if for no other reason than that you have made the commitment. 

Summary:

My work is as bad a fit as I've ever been in.  Let's leave it at that for now.  It'd be much more tolerable if the hours were more manageable (not necessarily less, just more "plan-able" or flexible).  Oh, I just noticed, my last entry about work was that I was working at CH2M Hill.  Since May 17, I've been working for them in a CalTrans trailer using software that is inferior to what I'm a guru at.  Design Software is like a language.  It's complex, takes years to master, and is a fumble-fest until you get competent.  CH2M Hill was well managed under my boss, Joe Sawtelle, but the CalTrans job is an accelerated job with staff relatively inexperienced with the software and terribly undermanned.  If everybody works 70hrs/wk until October we'll be fine.  Nobody's fault, but it's at the opposite end of the spectrum from when I was putting in 60+/hrs a week, but setting my own schedule, negotiating (most of) my deadlines, and not being constrained on how to deliver the goods. So much for leaving "it at that for now".

Leigh's working hard getting some marketing for Leaf It To Us going.

In spite of working on Saturday and Monday, we did get some volleyball and sailing (see picture on the home page) in this weekend.

Does anyone actually read this?

Thursday, 9:40p, June 16, 2005

Dang.  I'm feeling really conscientious about keeping this blog up to date, yet it's still been two weeks.

Update in a sentence (albeit run-on): Leigh spent a week with family in Chicago/Michigan. She's really hustling with work now, afraid I might come home jobless; house is coming along, over the hump.

Leigh visited family Mom, Dad, and JoAnna in Michigan. Had lots o' fun.  I worked and finished up plans for the master bathroom remodel.  I tell ya: I'm an excellent modeler but a lousy drafter.  I had the proposed work modeled in the CAD package in a couple hours.  Setting up a cover sheet and doing all the notes and borders, elevations and sections took forever.  Same thing at work: I'll engineer all day long, but tell me that the contours I sent ya need to be a different color and I'm NastyMan.  Engineering = Truth.  Drafting = Decorating.  

The house has passed a milestone.  The hard stuff, the stuff that will outlast life on this planet, the concrete and steel interface that will be under six feet of concrete (and already resting in five feet of concrete), the stuff requiring Special Inspection, designed by Felix and implemented by Oscar and ultimately signed off on by Felix, is just about done.  The beam is now welded onto the monster columns.  From this point if something gets screwed up it's accessible for fixin (well, technically the low-shrinkage grout that is getting placed  tomorrow would be hard to undo).  Leigh and I both feel springy in our steps as a big burden is lifted.  She's taking the project back over (aggressively) as it is shifting back into her realm of expertise, aesthetics. Before and Proposed, Current Pictures Jeff in the west excavation.

My Wheel Of Moodswing is on Manic also because I am expecting to take BOTH days off from work this weekend.  I'm half expecting the traditional Friday "are you coming in tomorrow" but another burden has been lifted by reaching the "I've reached my limit and don't care about the consequences if I go attend my needs" point.  Things are easier once you give up hope.

I'm very tired and am babbling.  I recognize that no of this may be interesting in the least, but it has no less personal value than, say, a diary.

What's brown and sticky?             A stick!

Thursday, 10:15p, June 23, 2005

I felt Dash kicking for the first time last night.  Not all that different from Leigh when she's gassy.  Although a little more rhythmic.  I think he was doing the Gator Chomp.  Good boy.  Leigh, of course, feels him all the time.  She was doing a meditation thing with the Space Hermanas tonight and he was doing some sort of Riverdance.

Look west immediately after sunset, the bright stars near the sun are Mercury, Venus and Saturn.

Gators are playing for the NCAA baseball championship this weekend!  Cool! 

Saturday, 10:45a, July 23, 2005

Sorry about no writing.  Since the last blog we've been working nights and weekends on the house.  It's kind of funny.  When we think we reach a big milestone, such as finishing the steel and framing (two weeks ago) and think we can relax a bit, something previously thought as simple, becomes ridiculous.  For example, stairs should have been simple, but the steel guy needed constant supervision, correction and pleading.  Major hassle, many 3D drawings, many late nights.  Done now.  Temp steps in.  But we're pretty exhausted.  I'd get home from work and work on the house until midnight every night.  The major stressor was coordinating the schedules for the steel guy (who would not come when he said he would or do what he said he would) and the special inspector who needed two days notice.  Much progress though.  Our electrical guy, John Lupton, is excellent, as is our plumber, Steve.  

Leigh is pregnanting right along.  Only major issues are heartburn, itching, and recurrent hurling at remembering Kili crunching a mouse.  The drive back from Souplantation last night will be told and retold for decades.  Briefly, thank God we were in the unupholstered work van with lots of buckets.

I have really dropped of the face of the earth.  I essentially talk only to my Mom and work crews.  I look forward to calling some of you soon.

Sunday, 1:15p, August 14, 2005

check out the new pregnancy page

Geez, another 3 weeks since writing?  Hard to believe since it's one of my top recreational priorities.  Working hard.  House is getting done; down to drywall, tile, cabinets, carpet.  Click for Before and Proposed, Current Pictures

Leigh was a very bad girl yesterday.  We haven't played much but I have been able to get a hour or two of volleyball at the beach in on an occasionally Saturday.  Leigh has been reluctant to go down since she had to stop playing volleyball.  I urged her to come down with me yesterday.  Upon arrival and surveying the games in progress Leigh announces "I can handle this.  I'm playing."  My arm-wavey objections went unnoticed in that way only a wife (or husband) can filter out a spouse.  Leigh starts in the setting position.  First serve, first shank, first dive for the ball.  Oy.  She played four games quite well; a step slow on defense but still hitting the ball down and low with topspin.  An exhibition in athletically impressive poor judgment.  All is fine, but I will not urge Leigh to come to the beach on volleyball day.

We did our first Birthing class (We hit Babies R Us on the way.  Good Lord, what stuff.  We apparently must buy 1000 times the  baby's project birth weight.  Strollers the size and complexities of SUV's.  Those papooses one where's on ones chest can run $100. 

Anyway, the thing I learned at Birthing Class, is that my panicking doesn't really help Leigh much.  So, embracing a Tony Robbins philosophy that I rejected out of principal when I read "Awaken the Giant Within", I will completely distort my perception of reality in order to do what I need to do to cope:  Billions of people, mostly women, have given birth with no problems whatsoever; Leigh is in such good shape that she'll be fine; she not only tolerates pain well but actually enjoys it (consider: she married me).  No problem.

Thursday, 6:35p, September 1, 2005

Holy Cow it's September.  Six weeks til D-Day (Dash Day). Good Gravy.  

I have a brief lull in the storm, unlike the hurricane-stricken in No m'Orleans.  Man, is that place in trouble, and for a long time, too.  The should move it to above sea-level as it will be uninhabited and uninhabitable for a while.  

We're expecting a big three-day weekend of painting, cleanup (lots of cleanup), and some grinding of stair steel as the welders were in too much of a hurry to do a good job (and we so underconfident in them that we didn't think they'd do it right if we gave them more time).

I'm writing because I have writing time: got the laptop in front of the TV watching the first college football game of 2005:  Steve "Still a Gator" Spurrier's South Carolina's Gamecocks vs. Central Florida Golden Knights.  Grabbed the old television from the garage and put it in the living room. House is coming along.  The biggest items remaining are kitchen and bathroom cabinets and countertops.  Probably next Wednesday for cabinets, two weeks after that the granite should be done.  Then done?  Then three weeks of rest (I seriously wonder if we're capable). The master bathtub room has been converted to an office.  Dash will have a crib and stuff in there for a while. Some miscellany: stairs, tile sealing, wood sanding.

Leigh's upstairs watching the US Open.  Tennis is her addiction, college football is mine.  A nice afternoon.  Very enjoyable watching football, doing something fun (this).  From the same position I sat last year I saw a nice sunset.   The Booga was very friendly; he got a good long and overdue petting and brushing.  Pulled out a lot of hair.  Threw it blithely on the floor for the last time (haha) since I think that after the cleanup this weekend I'll have to honor "we're actually in a house" standards again. Leigh just told me the cats were locked in so that explains their attention.  Sigh.

Been attending Birth Classes.  How amazing.  You know, Intelligent Design seems so much more reasonable than Darwin's blind change.  I can see the appeal there.  But in science you really can't default to magic as the prime mover.  Doesn't mean that magic wasn't a part of it, but it literally can't be part of the equation.

I know that lots of men have their perspective profoundly changed at the birth of their child.  It's interesting to me.  Call it twenty-five years of intense focus and effort to do something extraordinary (or at least non-average), efforts to excel in a narrow (and increasingly irrelevant) niche, strange experiences (parachuting, hang gliding, bungee jumping, Manta Ray feeding dives, etc).  That lifelong urge to separate oneself from the masses humbled by the fact that the most extraordinary and amazing moment of my life will be something shared by billions and billions of mothers throughout history.  Ironic that the most profound is that which has been shared by so many.  Neat.

Earler Blogjam ending 2005, January 04