Happy Freaking New Year

Checked off a lot of big ticket items in 2007:

Left North Carolina (thank fucking god)
Moved to St. Louis
Bought a house
Got a great job
Got a cat
Inseminated my wife

I also had a great 29th birthday, ran my best half-marathon ever and biked till I couldn't really safely bike anymore. I've resolved in 2008 to have a smashup wine bar, make more money and of course, be the best father I can possibly be. I decided to eschew the "exercise more" or "lose weight" resolutions and have amended myself to simply not put on too much "new dad weight", that puffy faced, three day stubble, saggy under the eyes look that most new dad's have. No doubt the stress and sleeplessness of both starting a business and raising a child at the same damned time will take their tole on my body, I just want to be aware of it.

Laura has planned an incredible New Year's Eve feast. Josh is in town and Matt and Narcisa will come over. We decided to go all out and under the direction of our meat man at Whole Foods, we bought five and a half pounds of upright roast. We were given some incredible bottles of wine from a family friend as thanks for helping him pack up his house, so that will make for a great evening as well.

Hope all ten of you that read this has a great new years, and an even better 2008.

ABC Motherfucker

After months of nail biting, wrangling, harrassing etc. I will be closing on the business loan tomorrow. I've been at this for about six months now, and I thought I would be at this point long ago. This is a process however, a long, tedious, stressful process.

I feel like my life will be like the movie Alive only backwards. From this point on, I'm going to have to climb some mountain ranges, eat my fare share of people jerky and hopefully, get into an uncrashing plane filled with my fellow, now-alive rugby buddies and head back to Buenos Aires to party over a game victory. Yes, I am playing Stretch Armstrong with that freaking metaphor, but it's just the way I feel, dammit!

I'm going to start a second blog about the business, I'd promised to months ago when I thought the loan closing was imminant.

Commuting As a Future Father

Last Thursday I biked home in snow that turned into freezing rain that just turned into rain (but that was only after it was dark out and only for the last four miles). For me, it was the time of my life. I had my shuffle stuffed into one ear, proper gear on, a blinky light and years of experience. For Laura however, it was pure hell. She's not an edict maker, but she makes it known when she's worried she might have to be a single mother because I like to save gas.

One the one hand, I don't race motorcyles, have sex with prostitutes, own a gun etc. On the other hand, it's indefensable to worry my pregnant wife like that.

When I was about to leave for college, my mom asked of me only one thing, "Teddy, I'm trusting you with a lot here, I just ask that you don't ride a bike in New York. A woman that I work with's friend died riding her bike in New York". Of course, three weeks later I bought a bike and was riding like an asshole through the streets of New York. Later, I was a part time, semi-dilitante bike messenger. In the meantime, of course, I regularly commuted by bike, chose my jobs based on whether they'd be cool with me biking to work and even went so far as to build an office for my favorite bike non-profit (for a princely sum, of course). It was years until I admitted to my mom that I rode a bike. As fate will probably have it, I'll have a girl and my biking will worry the hell out of her, too.

I'm not going to quit commuting altogether, but now that the days are shorter and my hours at work are longer, I'll be driving in. Either that, or mixing a morning commute in with a MetroLink ride home. I went to a spinning class on Monday, but it was simular to that part in the movie "Interview With A Vampire" when Brad Pitt's character starts sucking blood from rats in order to avoid the guilt of drinking the blood of hot, creole prostitutes. You could also compare it to Tofurkey or a sexual encounter with an inexpensive sex-doll. Running might be an option, or going to a gym or yoga. If it's really not working out, I'll probably pick up boxing or some other semi-dangerous thing that can be done with lots of padding.

The Lime Moves

Laura convinced me to skip the second OB appointment, saying that it would be a perfuntory five minute weigh-in, doppler, wham bam bhank you mam. It turns out that she got an unexpected ultrasound and a glance at our lime-sized bundle of joy bouncing around her uterous. It was moving too much to get a good picture, so I was left hearing the highlights from Laura. She did count two arms and two legs, so I'm pretty happy at this point.