Control to tower....standby

Another day pretty much in the books, and Jill continues to be a good sport about this overly pregnant thing. She gets up and goes to work everyday, while Jim, Judy and I all just wait for her to get out the door so we can start the party.

Tonight we did double duty, in both trying to get this kid moving downward and getting the dogs some much needed exercise by going on a 1.5 mile walk around the neighborhood. I grabbed the camera to try a couple things out and to slow down the pace when needed, so here are a couple shots of our other children who are about to get a big dose of reality (just like Jill and I).

Baloo finally sits still long enough for me to take a pic so he can be a Blog star too.



Molly somehow in the last year or so got this odd freckle on her tongue.


So our Groundhog Day starts again tomorrow. 95 degrees, Jill goes to work, Molly naps all day, Baloo wants to play fetch, I ride my bike to burn some nervous energy, Judy cleans the house and Jim works out with more weights than a 25 year old.

Update from the doc...

Molly is anxiously awaiting to hear what the doctor has to say...


Doctor says Jill is 2cm dilated and that things are progressing, so it could be anytime. We got to listen to the baby's heart beat and they did an ultrasound for us but it was pretty hard to see much since he is so crammed in there right now. We're hoping that things get moving along naturally, otherwise we're looking at inducement on August 4th.

Waiting is just too much energy for Molls, she needs to pace herself.

Anticipatory ride

Everyday that I get the chance to squeeze in a ride, I try to take
advantage of the opportunity. This morning I left right behind Jill,
on her way to another day of work. I was out before the masses and the
cool, crisp morning was a welcome relief from the heat wave we are in
the middle of currently.

No baby, we should get some news in the next hour or so at our latest
doctor appointment. Update to follow...

At least someone is having fun...

Molly seems to be completely unfazed by this baby waiting game. She loves to get out in the backyard, roll around and enjoy the outside. Of course, after she gets hot she'll stand at the back door and give a single woof to let you know she is ready to enjoy the comforts of air conditioning again.

Sunday Morning...No baby

Not much activity. Jill tried all the old wives tales she could yesterday, but still no baby. She is ready to get the show on the road, but either the kid has to decide to show up on his own or we hit August 3rd, which is our scheduled inducement date.

We've got another baby appointment tomorrow, so we'll know more then. It would be great if we get some activity and get to cancel that appointment, but I doubt it. At least we should have an update as to the progress of the process tomorrow afternoon.

Burning the edge off

I've done pretty well up to this point, but this morning without work to tend I started getting a bit antsy. Despite missing the crisp, cool morning hours I decided I needed to get on the bike and burn some of the nervous energy off. Not wanting to get too far away from the house, I grabbed Nancy the Niner, fresh off her upgrades, and headed out to put in some solitary miles out on the dirt roads.

As I went on I felt better and better so I kept going. I stopped under a shade tree to catch a drink and a snack, and while I was snapping the pic above Jill called and said "no news". So having that bit of knowledge, I pushed on and kept adding side routes to my normal meander through the Weld County countryside.

Thought I'd stop and catch a little TV on my ride.


I braved the pavement for about 1/2 mile to connect over to the Sandstone Ranch, where there is a nice little crushed gravel path that has a short, but steep climb on it. The other draw here was that I'd travel through a park that would let me refill my only water bottle.

A sign that I will continue to obey


After getting back to gravel road salvation, I retraced my routes and started to head back home. The day was warming quickly, but with a nice wind at my back and my trusty steed back with shiny new cranks, wheels and tires it really felt good to be out again.

One of the great things about riding the dirt roads is I get to meet lots of colorful characters along the way, most of them having 4 legs.


So now we go back to wait and see mode. Jill is done with work (possibly for good?) in about 30 minutes, then Jim, Judy and I can all continue to sit around and stare at her awaiting some Hollywood-esque labor scene where we all panic and run around before jumping in the car and speeding off to the hospital. Yeah probably nothing like that at all....

Still waiting...

The wait goes on. Today (the 25th) is my guess for the kid's arrival, but like clockwork Jill got up and headed out the door to work again this morning. When I went to sleep last night, I kind of expected to be getting up and heading to the hospital in the middle of the night but not yet.

Jill still seems to be doing quite well. She felt good enough to head to Boulder last night to have a ceremonial helping of Chicken Julianna at Pasta Jay's and then do some window shopping on the Pearl St. Mall (and of course I drug here to REI). So we keep waiting and guessing as to when Super Coop wants to show up. Jill's parents are here, my parents have flights booked for the weekend and I am nervous about getting on the bike and being more than a couple miles from the house today.

Couple random pics from last night...

The Lovejoy clan


Jill poses with her husband


Hey Molly - Is this your company's bag? Jill and I thought it might be.


True. Life is Good, and yeah Jake Rocks too.

Time Tested

Much like the paw of my faithful pooch Baloo, Jill and I are getting a
lesson in testing time. 40 weeks of build up, and we wait. Tomorrow we
visit the doctor to see what wisdom they can instill in two anxious
people, until then we wait.

Jill at 9 months

Tomorrow (Sunday) is our official due date. Doesn't look like its gonna happen, but it could start at any moment so we are going through the motions of getting prepped. We've got the car seat installed, we've packed a bag to take, camera batteries are charged, etc. Jill thinks we are a week off. I think we are 5 days off (my guess is July 25th).

Before we left to catch Batman: The Dark Night this morning, I grabbed the camera to get another progression shot of Jill. She looks great, and has really had a great pregnancy thus far. We're in the home stretch, and both just very excited to get this little guy here so we can start tormenting him.

Ned follow up

After nearly walking out the door to ride the road this morning, I picked up the phone and told John that we should ride something on the mountain bikes. It was going to be hot today, and I couldn't spend my potential last free Friday churning along on asphalt. So up we went to Nederland for some West Mag sweetness.

JP took it pretty easy on me, which is a good thing. My form is fading fast, but I still get out there and try to turn the cranks. We did some "new to me" stuff today, which was great. I've never had a bad day when I've ridden new trail, and today was no exception.

Here is the elevation graph from today


Here is a quick iPhone photo of The Punisher approaching the turn


And just like that he's gone. This is the view I normally have of John.

Ned-itation with The Punisher

In what could be my last venture into the wilderness for a bit, John
and I headed up to Nederland to escape the heat and ride some fine
singletrack.

I didn't bring a big camera today, so I just snapped a couple shots
with the iPhone camera.

More details to come in a later post...

Mobile blogging test

Just doing a quick test of blogging from my iPhone. I am going to try
and get better at doing more real time blogging and less catching up
posts. Let's see how that goes with a newborn...

Live from the road

At long last I have my prized iPhone. I went to Boulder early Saturday morning, and after about an hour and a half I was walking out with a new 16Gb iPhone in white.

White? Yep, they were out of black so my options were either the 8GB version in black or the "girls" version. After some pondering, I checked out the white version, and I actually liked it. The black version shows smudges terribly, and I may end up using a case anyway. So my want to get a phone and be done with it trumped my desire for black.

So I am off to San Antonio for a brief visit to get a couple things rolling while we wait for Cooper to make his appearance. It will be a nervous 36 hours for me, although Jill and I both think its going to be a bit so we decided I'd make the quick trip.

The iPhone is pretty much everything I expected, maybe a bit more so far.

An honorary addition to the family

Tressa stopped through town to show off her gorgeous (who would have guessed Tressa had a pretty baby, weird), 2 week old baby girl Riley this week. Of course, out of town guests means chow down time at Pasta Jay's for the rest of us. Sarah & Tressa met Jill & I in Boulder Thursday night for some Chicken Julianna, my absolute favorite dish, and so that Sarah & Tressa could laugh about handing Riley off to me the second we arrived. Tressa is pretty much a sibling, she's had honorary White status (maybe "honorary White" is a bit of an oxymoron) for years and years.

Little did they know I'm now a pro at this baby stuff after my intensive 3 hours of training via Daddy Boot Camp. I'm totally unfazed, cool and collected. OK maybe I'm just a bit less nervous than before, but something tells me I'll get used to it.






We're getting very, very close to having our own addition. 8 days and counting till the proposed due date, although Jill & I both agree we're expecting Coop to be late. The "about to have a baby" thing didn't really strike me upside the head until Tress had Riley. When that happened a couple weeks ago, I've gotten super excited and am ready to have this kid show up. Of course you can remind me of this sentiment in a month when I'm walking around with blood-shot eyes in a zombie state from no sleep, but even then I'm sure I'll be a very proud dad.

Another Try?

Well, judging by this the Apple store in Boulder still has 16GB iPhones in black available. Word on the street is that Apple stores have lots of stock, you just have to wait in line because the activation has been so slow.

So now I'm contemplating heading to Boulder early tomorrow morning to see if I can procure this elusive device. I'm totally wiped out tonight from a 3 hour ride up St. Vrain Canyon in 99 degree heat this afternoon, so we'll see how I feel in the morning. I didn't think I'd do the wait in line bit, but now I'm thinking I'd kind of like to just get one of these and move forward instead of having to constantly stop by an Apple or AT&T store for the next couple weeks.

We'll see what happens in the morning, and make sure the availability forecast still looks rosy when I get up to feed to pooches at 6 A.M.

Denied.

Well no iPhone for me yet. I casually dropped by the AT&T store today but they had long sold out of all of their phones. The Apple store in Boulder and Westminster evidently both have lots of stock, but due to the Apple servers crashing its taking 30 minutes to process a customer so the lines are outrageous.

Yes I've been wanting one of these for going on 16 months, but I'm not going to stand outside in line on the hottest day of the year. The AT&T store had forms to fill out that you could put a phone on order, but the orders were given no priority. The AT&T rep told me they would be getting phones in just about every day next week, but those phones would be first come first serve and the fulfillment orders would be given no priority. Sounds like a hell of a deal right? Pay now and then let them distribute the next batches of phones to come in to other people. No thanks.

So instead of getting my iPhone today I think I'm going to go out on the road bike and see how long I can stand the heat. Maybe if I get high enough into the foothills it won't be too bad today.

The quest continues...

Lets see...where were we

Yeah I've been on the go a bit lately, spending time in baby classes and trying to keep Baloo from giving himself a heart attack due to the fireworks. This week I started my Colorado stint again while we wait out the arrival of Thor. Thor? That's right, I'm back to Thor instead of Cooper in honor of the Thor de France which kicked off Saturday. Thor Husholvd pulled out a win in Stage 2, furthering my belief that we should name this kid after the Norwegian God of Thunder.

My proposal to Jill was Tour de France naming roulette. Meaning we'll name the kid after whoever won the Tour stage on the day the kid is born. Wouldn't it be great to name the kid Rest Day White? What about Cadel Evans White? Has a ring to it doesn't it?

Now on to more serious matters...For some reason I felt compelled to compile a list of things tonight. No real connections between my list items, but its my blog and I have full editorial control (until Jill gets my password).

Item #1 - 3G Iphone

Yes, Friday is finally the day. I have no "strategy" established yet, basically will just drive by one of the Apple stores or the AT&T stores at some point and then wait it out to get one. I'm absolutely getting the 16GB version (for more storage for music, pictures of Thor, Baloo, Jill & Molly, etc) but still on the fence on the white or black. Thoughts?




Item #2 - The Colbert Report



This guy kills me. I don't get to watch it as often as I like, but every time I do catch it I find myself laughing out loud (LOL for you Lyndal). While browsing through Border's the other day, I picked up his book (pictured above) and it was thoroughly amusing.

Here is a video clip of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell back in their Daily Show days arguing religion...

Item #3 - Viva la Vida (i.e. the new Coldplay Album)

After hearing "Viva la Vida" and "Violet Hill", the first two releases off the album, I declared to Jill that this was "the best album in history". Yes I was joking, sort of, but I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with the album thus far. There are some gems, like the two songs mentioned above, but overall it doesn't start to compare as a whole to A Rush of Blood to the Head or Parachutes but perhaps (jury is still out) better than their last release, X&Y.

Regardless, I'll be seeing them in concert this November which I am certainly looking forward to already.

Item #4 - The Clear Pass

Another of my favorite things is my new Clear security pass. What is it? Basically its a "Go directly through security" pass. You get pre-screened and have biometrics taken, then you go to the aiport and bypass the long lines at DIA. I clear security in about 5 minutes even on Monday morning at 8a.m. It isn't cheap ($120ish for a year I think), but its worth every penny.

Item #5 - High Def Video

Preparing for the arrival of Thor, we got a super sweet camcorder. Ended up buying a Canon HD pro-sumer level camera. I've barely had a chance to use it (old PC doesn't like decoding HD video much), but the quality looks downright amazing for a small video camera. I do love Canon stuff.

So yes, the 3 readers of this blog can begin preparing themselves to be inundated with shaky, hand held video that everyone except the proud parents will find utterly boring.