The nights are growing longer and cooler and Summer is ending.

Not only are they putting in turn lanes and lights at much needed locations, they’re also building a bike path from, essentially, the high school to Veterans Acres Park. Which means we’ll (eventually) be able to ride our bikes on neighborhood roads almost the entire way to the park with only a short section of a “can-be-busy” road to ride on.

But it’s a bit of a ways off...not until next summer will the bike path be ready, baring any more delays from weather or labor disputes.

The one down side to all this construction was the need to remove a lot of trees along Walkup. Some of the trunks were easily 5 feet in diameter and the loss has removed a lot of shade and beauty from the roadway. So, that’s a bummer. Maybe they’ll plant some new trees along the bike path (one can hope).

Overall progress can be tracked on the construction project’s website:
http://www.walkuproad.info/

I'm not sure what happened to my little boy, but something significant has changed. Maybe it's the age, maybe it's the pressure from Lily's birth, maybe it's the sudden discontinuation of naps, maybe it's something we're doing wrong. Or maybe it's all of those things and more.

photo by helloheather

I've not written anything in a long while for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because I don't have anything to say that wouldn't sound selfish and lame. There is no doubt that, compared to a huge percentage of the world, I am a very, very blessed man. And for me to complain about our problems at home or my problems at work seems arrogant at best. But that doesn't make the struggle any less of a struggle.

I love him so very much. I wish I could figure out what's wrong and help him (and us) through this change. But most of the time I am floundering and gasping for air.

We're still trying though.

Edit/Update: It seems really unfair of me to focus on just this past month and just the problems of this past month at that. I'm going to write something more balanced in a couple days.

Evenings continue to be a struggle but for the most part she's a pretty content baby. She (of course) has recognized helloheather from very early on, but now recognizes Nate (and looks for him if he disappears from her field of view) as well as me.

She's also starting to recognize objects from around the house. The old clock in the family room, the bird mobile above her changing table.

Things are happening more quickly than I remember with Nate. I'm surprised, honestly surprised, that she's now a month old.

I'm still amazed that we have another child. It feels so different from when Nate was a newborn: helloheather and I could concentrate 100% on him when we wanted to. With Lily, I feel a lot like the 3rd wheel (despite clearly being the 4th...) in our family. Nate takes a lot of energy and time and with Lily nursing, there's very little time for me to spend with her.

In many ways, she feels like a stranger. It doesn't help that I don't get much of a chance to photograph her. I think with Nate I got to know him, in part, by simply observing and photographing him. And it doesn't help that, most nights, she cries from about 6pm (when I get home) until about 10pm.

But last night she was content and happy. Last night she fell asleep in my arms (and against my chest) as I walked around while helloheather and Nate ate dinner. And last night helloheather took some photos of us.

We're having a visit from friends a couple times next week, which will be great. Then Lily's baptism-combination-Mother's-Day-celebration with family on the weekend.

And we will see how the next month progresses. I'm hopeful we can help Lily adjust more in the evenings and figure out how we can become a better family of four.

I'm working on a larger post about Lillian's birth but it's been slow going. I have, however, been able to upload photos from our stay in the hospital. No captions yet, but I'm working on those.

http://bernhard.us/photos/v/family/lillian/lillian-birth/

We've had a family member pass away suddenly and unexpectedly. We've had other family members hospitalized and/or have medical procedures. We've had family members lose their jobs. We've had medical problems ourselves, some of which are still unresolved.

We have stress thinking about the pending birth of our second child (a child who still doesn't have a name) and the changes that will bring.

Oh, and our cat is sick. She has to be put on an even more special food than what she's already been taking and will start getting cortisone shots which, if the diagnosis is wrong, could actually make things worse.

I'm trying to think positively though. I'm still employed and financially things are improving for the company. Also the company went 100% business casual which is a nice change. The weather has been improving and I've been able to get out during lunch. Also bernhard.us et al will be migrated to new servers in a couple weeks which should make things much faster and more stable.

It's a half-mile hike through the snow in Coral Woods with four stops detailing some of the history of maple sugar and maple syrup: from Native Americans sugar production in a hollowed-out log to modern sap collection. At the end, where they have an evaporator set up, you can sample the syrup they do make from the sap being collected. As the program only runs for two weeks there's only enough syrup to give out the tastes at the end, so none to take home.

This years warmer temps and sun made for a great time. Nate was very interested and participated at all the stops. He also received a number of complements from people in our group with how articulate and involved he was. By the time we were done with our tour, the number of people at the park had probably quadrupled. So we had clearly arrived at just the right time.

During the drive home, I failed to keep Nate awake (and who could blame him after our morning), which re-set his clock and left helloheather and I with a lot less time to work on house stuff. So...

Off Nate and I went again; this time to the Crystal Lake Nature Center. It's a small but fun building that is part of the Veteran's Acres park. We read books, looked at some of the animals they have, and then hiked in the slush and snow around the pond.

It was a good Saturday. The kind of hints-of-spring type day (we heard sandhill cranes flying north while at Coral Woods) that really can reinvigorate.

http://sites.google.com/site/sxswtorrent/

The first download is 646 singles from musical groups playing at this years SXSW festival. That's not all the bands, mind you. Just the ones included in the first download/release. Last year there were 1302 songs.

Every year since 2005 there's been a music download, and every year I spend the subsequent 365 days trying to trim and cull the list into a "Rob's Best-Of." In 2005, 2006, and 2007 I was able to do this, getting down to about 150 songs for each year. I failed to accomplish this in 2008 and 2009. Of course, in 2009 there were nearly 600 more songs than in previous years, but still.

Part of the problem stems from the results of the 2005-2007 best-of play lists. There are a number of songs on these lists that I simply do not like any more. I can't understand why I put a few of them there in there in the first place. So, that poses an interesting question: if those songs are there, what did I delete and why?

With 2008 and 2009 I found myself deleting fewer and fewer songs. "Well, I don't really want to listen to that /now/ but what about later?" It's an interesting question, I think...but one that freezes decision making.

There's also the possibility that my inner pack-rat is being a little more assertive. Just a little.

Anyway, I'm 200 songs in, or so, and I'm finding the quality and caliber of music to be as varied as all the previous years offerings. There's some really great music and some really awful "music." For the record, I don't even bother with the death-metal. Sorry death-metal fans, but I'm so very done with having someone scream (gutturally) at me for four-and-a-half minutes straight. And most of the rap is predictably narcissistic.

I was catching up on my RSS feeds and came across this "Big Picture" post from Boston.com

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/vancouver_2010_part_1_of_2.html

Absolutely stunning images.

Nate went through a growth spurt not too long ago, where he grew over an inch in just 2.5 weeks. He was hungry all the time (no wonder) but now the appetite is more normal, so I think things have slowed.

I made a ha-ha-lame joke last night about how it's better to be European than Europoopin' and then had to explain the joke to Nate. He loved it and I'm just such a great dad, right? (You should have seen the look helloheather gave me...)

Nate's time at his new preschool seems to be going very well. A small class of kids more his age was definitely a good change. Our school-art-on-display collection is growing again, which I love. Having stuff on the cabinets, doors, etc. is so cool. When helloheather cleaned house (we had completely run out of space to display stuff) it felt so empty and naked in the kitchen.

Child number two is rapidly approaching his or her birthday. We've changed doctors (yes, somewhat late in the game) but we're both very glad we have. The previous practice was not being supportive or informative. The new doctor also delivers at the hospital 5 minutes from our house rather than the one 25 minutes away. An added bonus.

My parents (and paternal grandfather) felt the 3.8 earthquake we had in northern Illinois on February 10th. They were only 5 miles away from the epicenter though. People as far away as Madison, WI felt the quake actually, but neither helloheather or I woke up.

We did have an addition to our family, photographically speaking, at Christmas. Thanks to a generous gift, we're now the owners of a Canon T1i Digital Rebel. It's a very good upgrade to the Rebel XT that we've been using since 2006. The auto-focus is faster, the ISO range expanded, a bigger and brighter viewfinder, the shutter is quieter, and it has a big and detailed LCD. Exciting stuff.

(This post brought to you by The Committee To Complain About El Niño And Our Lack of Snow and Why The Heck Does DC, of all places, Get To Be Buried While We're Here With Flurries And Almost No Accumulation For Weeks On End)

(This post is also brought to you by The People Who Are Probably Being Hit Over The Head With Newspapers For Suggesting Thirty Inches Of Snow Is Better Than Zero Inches Of Snow)

And so I did not clear our driveway of snow yesterday evening. I went to bed early, in fact. I was done with yesterday.

But, to avoid ice and unsafe conditions, I wanted to clear the driveway. I woke up at 5 with the intention of shoveling the whole thing. It became apparent quickly that there was more snow than I realized and so I shattered the morning quiet with my snow blower. 15 minutes later I was done and inside the house.

I wonder, though, if any of my neighbors cursed me this morning for doing this. "The snow's all going to melt in a day or so anyway!" "Why didn't he do this last night?" etc., etc.

I just like using my snow blower, darn it.

http://bernhard.us/photos/main.php

The previous version of the software was not tied to a database and had almost zero anti-spam tools. It was something of a mess.

The new version is much easier to manage, seems to be faster, and certainly offers more features. It took a while for me to migrate everything over from the old gallery install but I believe I've done it without losing anything. I've even managed to figure out how to get redirects to work so all the old url's automatically forward to the correct album in the new install.

Now, I just need to get back into the habit of uploading albums starting with the backlog of family photos. That task is only slightly daunting.