I have been working in the evenings to be sure to meet a deadline coming up in a couple of weeks. I felt like I was deep in the weeds until about Thursday of this week because the world of programming electronic components is new to me. This business of requiring a schematic and a multimeter to complete a project is a side of programming that I hadn’t seen before. On top of this, I haven’t programmed C++ since college, and certainly not on a project where the interesting part is over four million lines of code.

In any case, I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the long hours took their toll and I kicked over last night at about 8pm, only to wake up at 11pm. After brushing my teeth and changing out of my work clothes, I tried to go back to sleep, but was plagued by a good programming idea. Despite my best efforts to write the idea down and go back to bed, my brain kept working through it and I couldn’t go to sleep. I ended up working through the night until Anna woke up at 7am and am now feeling like a small elephant is standing on my forehead. At this point I’m just hoping to make it to 9pm in hopes that I don’t wake up early again.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that my work is compelling, at least for the moment.

I have been running errands all weekend and am totally wiped. Until now I have never understood how people who live near their jobs can still manage to drive 15,000 miles a year. I drive less than half that, and it’s because I’m not normally an errand person. This weekend I went, with at least one child in tow, to: Blockbuster, Home Depot, the library, the drugstore, the grocery store, the psychiatrist, Blockbuster, Home Depot, Costco, and playgroup. I also planted a bunch of flowers and vegetables, cooked several meals, cleaned the kitchen several times, did a bunch of computer research, attempted desperately to chip away at my mountain of work, and took my own picture twice for a self-portrait project, which I embarked upon because I otherwise never have time to use my camera anymore.

If I were a single person I would probably be very excited to be traveling to Singapore in April and Taiwan in May. Since I’m a married person with children, I begged out of Singapore and am not particularly jazzed about going to Taiwan. What I am jazzed about is that all three girls are going to Florida for a week next month, and when I have a few minutes (ha ha!) I will plan out in detail what to do with all my time. Current candidates:

1. Sleep.
2. Work unusual hours so that I can actually get stuff done when other people are out of the office.
3. Hack together some sort of digital photo frame/movie player out of a touchscreen LCD I have laying around.
4. Steam clean the carpets.
5. Paint some rooms and possibly install crown molding.
6. Take some photos of the sort I never have time for.
7. De-clutter parts of the house.
8. Buy a video game and waste a lot of time playing it.
9. Think of 37 other things to do.
47. Refinish the swingset.
48. Clean the garage.

I think the best contenders at this time are 1-4 and 7-9. In fact, I’ll remind Jennifer to put a sticky note on any objects she wants remain in the house after she gets back, because the rest of it may end up on Craigslist.

¹ Note to self: If I find myself overcommitted, a good solution is not to make more commitments.

Tara is a very easygoing child, but for some reason she has chosen to be fussy about her food and her fingers. When eating, she can be very particular about certain types of food. Some things she won’t even try based on the look of them. Also, she doesn’t like to have bits of food on her fingers, which is unexpected for a child who will fingerpaint with yogurt if given the chance.

This morning, I reheated some crepes and spread them with lingonberry jam for the girls. Tara’s crepes I rolled neatly and cut into bite size pieces, forming little rolls. Tara sat and began eating. Pointing to the sliding door where she had previously seen a spider, she asked, “Where spider go?” “It’s gone,” I said. “It went to work. Spider went to work.” She then continued about eating her crepes and cereal.

At one point she had speared a bite of rolled crepe and was lifting it to her mouth when the end of the roll came off the tines of her fork and flapped loose. She scowled and gingerly tore off the flap, then held it out to me and said, “It’s icky.” I humored her and took the bit of crepe and placed it on her tray. Happily, she continued eating. When the same thing happened again, she again tried to tear off the bit of crepe but instead pulled the roll off her fork. Since she was still holding the end, the roll unfurled, spilling lingonberries into her cereal. Her eyes opened wide with horror and she yelled out “OH NOOOOOO!” We spent the next couple minutes removing tainted bits of cereal from her bowl before she would continue eating.

I keep meaning to make a note of the sort of talking that Tara is doing, because she’s doing it all the time now. This morning when I got her out of her crib, it went a little something like this:

Tara: Daddy, go downstairs.

Me: You want to go downstairs?

Tara: Yes. Go downstairs see Mommy.

Me: Mommy’s still sleeping.

Tara: (after thinking a moment) Go downstairs see Anna?

Me: Ok, we’ll go downstairs after we change your diaper.

Tara: Otay. (pointing to package of diapers) Lots of diapers there! Elmo diaper.

Me: Yes, that’s Elmo.

Tara: (rubbing her eye) Can’t reach it.

Me: Is there something in your eye?

Tara: Yes. This eye is spicy.

Me: It’s spicy? (wiping her eye with her shirt) Is that better?

Tara: Yes, all better. Thanks Dad!

I walked the show floor yesterday, and I have a few observations. Here they are, in random order.

• The Canon 1D Mark III is really awesome. It adds a ton of new features, including a huge buffer and 10fps shooting. There is a live-preview mode, but since it limits you to ISO 200-1600 and is manual-focus only, I don’t understand why one would possibly want to use it. There are a zillion customizations available, including correcting front- or back-focusing on your own. Sahweet.

• I’m going to eBay my N80 and buy the even-cooler N93 when it’s available. Slightly lower-res (but larger) screen, but includes GPS, longer battery life, better camera, and it’s thinner to boot.

• Canon says there should be a successor to the 5D before the end of the year.

• Lots of studio lights have moved to compact fluorescent bulbs since the last time I looked. I guess we won’t be able to call them “hot lights” anymore.

I feel as though I’m laughably behind on things I need to blog about, although I suppose that would actually be entertaining. Maybe “boringly behind” would be be a more accurate term. In any case, I have been keeping a list.

I’ll start out by saying that I love my family dearly, and yet I am for some reason practically giddy at the thought of getting away for a while. Nevertheless, Jennifer and I will both have a little getaway this week as we visit Las Vegas, where I will be spending a few days at the PMA trade show. For a guy like me who loves photography and gadgets and expensing the whole trip, well, how much better could things possibly be?

Our trip to Vegas is only the meat in the busy sandwich that is the month of March¹. Currently, Jennifer’s Aunt M. is visiting, and after we return to Vegas, Jennifer’s Dad will stop in for a visit. Also, I have two outstanding requests for photoshoots to deal with in April.

We went out for a visit to SeaWorld today, but I’m pretty sure they closed the place down after lunch as a result of Anna’s nuclear meltdown. The park will probably remain radioactive until long after humanity collapses and the roaches take over. After carrying 45 pounds of wailing five-year-old to the car, I believe I finally determined that the root cause was that the Shipwreck Reef Cafe does not serve noodles, and the choices of hot dog, chicken nuggets, fries, Pepperidge Farm goldfish, granola bars, cotton candy, almonds, salad, cake, and crackers were all unacceptable. I swear that at some point I’m just going to end up serving buttered macaroni noodles and ice cream sandwiches for dinner.

I anticipate that while in Vegas I will be take lots of pictures of the latest photo gear. First on the list will be a video of the Canon 1D mkIII shooting at 10 fps.

¹ When the Pulitzer people come knocking I’m going to trot out that sentence for them to engrave on the medal.