I am currently laid up & writing Scholastic Bowl questions to the best of my ability. A cold has recently struck me -- I am unable to make the phone calls needed to edit questions, & have missed my second day of work. Fortunately, I feel as if I am turning the corner, & will attempt to go back tomorrow.

As for Scholastic Bowl, I am now writing match #27. I've got enough questions for districts to start play, and once I put Marian's edits into matches #6-#13, we'll be good to at least start. It is a tremendous opportunity to help high school students the way I am doing, & once I am finished with match #28, I will turn my attentions to
the leagues in Missouri which are counting on my assistance.

The S&P 500 makes a new record high! Can anything stop the stock market?

I don't think a simple financial or political issue is going to stop it. It's survived 6.5 years of Bush, a débacle in Iraq, the slowdown in real estate, and so on, and so forth.

It's going to take another 9/11, an energy crisis, or something that will cause the world to lose confidence in the US.

Part of the reason the latter has not happened is that there are no real alternatives. The PRC economy is still an appendage of the American consumer, so PRC is not yet interested in taking over. The EU is in as poor fiscal and social shape as the US, and Russia may be able to join the party when they stop running out of people.

Of course if the next President stays the course Bush is staying, people may turn to someone, anyone else.

Melanie is growing so fast. Here's a link to her photo album. New photos will be added as I take them, and I've gotten Lisa to send me some of the cuter moments she has during the day.

Today was fun. I got to go on a date with Rebecca, as her parents graciously agreed to watch Melanie. So we went out to Mario's Pizza in Berryville, where I enjoyed a nice spinach calzone -- it was too big for me to eat, in fact. Before that, there was a little visit to my parents, where I hung out with Mom, my sister, my brother, and Melanie. I have a few pictures of Melanie to give to my mom.

At dinner, Rebecca and I talked a bit about the web message boards I frequent. There's a lot of really angry people on there and I sometimes feel out of place, simply because I am just not as angry. She seems to come across the same thing on the mailing lists she is on.

There is plenty of injustice in this world, don't get me wrong. Maybe it might help if I limited the number of things I get angry about.

Well, I mailed off my stock certificates, and I put in a bid for the Missouri state championships. I need to call the woman at the MSHSAA and make sure my bid is officially in -- we will see what I get. I'll probably write 20 or so Missouri-formatted matches and see if people want to use them for conference championships, tournaments, or whatever. I'll probably write 20 or so tournament sets if people want to use them.

Well, I am now a proud father!

Melanie Sharon Pickrell was born on February 18, 2007, at 8:41 a.m., and weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces, and was 18 1/2" long. She's back to her birth weight and is now 19" long.

The hospital stay was surreal. I remember having a giant headache for most of the 18th, which only fully went away by about 7pm or so. Becca was hooked up to an IV and so was frustrated that she couldn't do the normal kid-care type things. One of the nurses got her a little upset when she (the nurse) asked her (Rebecca) about what sort of help she will have at home. The 19th went by OK, especially when they took Rebecca off the IV, and the 20th, we got home.

It turns out Rebecca wasn't producing enough milk, and Melanie screamed the entire night for about 12 hours straight, except when she was latched onto Rebecca's breast (to her credit, Melanie was pretty good at doing that.) We gave Melanie a couple ounces of formula on the morning of the 21st and it was like we had a whole new baby. Seriously, if this had kept up we probably would've gone to the hospital by the 22nd or 23rd.

The first couple of weeks went by smoothly, with the doctor's visits going well and Melanie even learning how to sleep 6 hours at a time (I think she pushed 7 once but that was an exception.) She is sleeping through the night (we define it as roughly 11:30pm to about 5 or 6am) about 2/3 of the time, so right now the sleep loss is just gradual. Our secret is plenty of hugging and once she is drowsy, we put her in the car seat and put the car seat next to the heating vent. Our bedroom is pretty cold (at least for babies who aren't able to cuddle under lots of blankets) and so the car seat seems to work better. I'm looking at the playpen/bassinet/changing table that Jennifer's friend Briana gave us and to be honest it is better than the one we have. The bassinet thingie is smaller -- Melanie is a tiny baby (still under 7 pounds and in the 10th percentile in height and weight) so it seems she feels lost in the big giant crib. Eventually we are going to have to learn how to get Melanie to sleep in a playpen or crib -- right now she just sleeps while cuddling Rebecca or in the carseat. It seems we're making some progress since she is asleep in the bassinet thingie right now.

Right now, we're at Becca's parents and they are making sure Becca gets plenty of sleep. I will probably write what the 2008 Scholastic Bowl religion questions will be about (as opposed to actually writing them) after finishing this. I'm working through the various paperwork things needed for the corporate structure to work out fine, and so far I've got two shareholders that want to be paid in stock and two that want the money up front.

Melanie is a beautiful girl that loves to be cuddled and seems to be enjoying our company. I'll have to admit that since I left to start work again she is a bit closer to Rebecca but we have years and years in which to bond.

I feel truly blessed to be a father right now.

My original thought for the day: With the passage of time, the probability of any online community becoming a closed set approaches 1.

Well, the VHSL state Q's are ready to go off to the editors. I placed an ad for editors on hsquizbowl.org. I hope someone answers it; the questions need feedback from people who are very good subject matter experts.

The bathroom upstairs is torn to pieces. I should go and take a picture of that, but getting to my camera will require climbing over so much stuff from the baby shower Sunday. Putting that stuff away is more difficulty since Melanie's future room is now full of stuff for the bathroom remodeling. At least I have a toilet and sink down here that I can use. I hope Melanie's future bedroom will be ready by Friday; Jennifer and I will be going through the numerous books and carting them off to Samuels or Shenandoah Public Library. If not then, well, it'll be at some point.

I'm told the work will be done Friday afteroon. I'm guessing tomorrow is when the drywall and floor tiling will be put in, then I suppose the shower tiles get put in place. By that point, it'll probably be 5 or 6pm, since the drywall has to well, dry. Apparently there's some fiberglass-based drywall that gets put in bathrooms these days. Hopefully it's not designed to break down in 5 years. Wednesday, I guess the bathtub, toilet and vanity get put in place, and Thursday, I guess the painting gets done if it hasn't been done already on Wednesday. Then I look around the joint and ask them to do a few random odds and ends, and they clean up after themselves.

I then have a remodeled bathroom, which I suppose counts for a couple grand in the house price. Then, Rebecca and I will chose to (1) do nothing, (2) put a second full bathroom in the basement, (3) remodel the kitchen/dining room area or (4) expand the den. Of course Melanie stuff has to take precedence, but I can see myself doing one of the latter three by the end of 2008.

Needless to say, I worked from home today. I figure I can get in some basic hygiene in tomorrow morning, and then try my luck with going into work. I might take a cab as it's supposed to be very cold. Brr.

God is certainly blessing me with each day I am here. My daughter is fast approaching, and I feel more and more ready with every day. There will be several surprises, but I hope and pray that I can handle them all. Then, after several months, we'll have to decide whether we want to have more kids!

Lots going on right now. I am thankful that Rebecca, Melanie and I have been given such a supportive family and so many friends that can share in our joy.

Had Rebecca's baby shower earlier today -- the third of four we apparently get to have. We are very blessed in that regard. The first was my work, the second her work, the third family/friends and the fourth our church family/friends. Right now, the living room is entirely filled with stuff we got from family and friends.

Ordinarily, this would annoy Rebecca to no end. However, she is going off to her parents, while the bathroom is being gutted and redone. We had the opportunity to wait until Melanie was a few weeks old, but Rebecca decided she wanted the work done ASAP. The contractors are telling me it'll take about a week to do the work, and hopefully we'll have a nice new mold-free bathroom to enjoy by Friday or Saturday. In the meantime, she'll be at her parents, and she will not be all by herself. Her parents seem a bit worried about that.

Our youth minister's wife agreed to babysit Melanie at her place when she is 6-8 weeks old and Rebecca is ready to go back to work. This is truly a blessing as she loves working with children and was looking for a job in the first place. The two women we interviewed for the nanny position wanted to work under the table -- which might have been fine but we can't really do that.

In the realm of Scholastic Bowl, the folks in the Central Region caught a math error in Match #7, and the folks in Region IV decided they had better things to do than use the VHSL questions I produce. Never mind that the Region has ordered from me every year since I started doing this or that the Region handbook itself says "order from the provider for the state tournament." The tournament was run by a school that considers Academic Hallmarks to be the pinnacle of academic competition. (Never mind that I produce enough questions for their county competition as well.) Hopefully this will get cleared up shortly.

Well, right now there's the Super Bowl to watch. Go Bears!

Well, working from home today. We had a doctor's appointment which determined that everything was on track. We also added a few items to our baby registry. I'll probably go over and add some more stuff to the registry in the next week or so. As of right now we will be working right up until the 9th of February -- Rebecca's due date is the 12th

Going home yesterday was interesting. I found what I at first thought was a stray bit of a coat on the Metro, but then when I sat on a seat that became available, found that there was a whole mess of these things.

My first thought, said out loud, was that someone's coat was hurting, but then I realized I was wrong (with the help of the girls doing GRE prep across from me.) It was hair extensions. There were about 50 or 60 hair extensions sitting on the floor of that Metro car.

Then at the Court House station, I saw a security guard come on and talk to someone else. Turns out there was some sort of medical emergency on the other car and in about five minutes we were on our way.

Scheduled estimates for the two bathrooms pretty much all next week, every morning. I talked with Rebecca some about the need for this work, and hopefully the other estimates will come in lower than Case's estimate. She was really put off -- they played the "ohnomoldwillkillyourbaby" card and then when we asked about the schedule were like, "Oh, if one phase is done on Wednesday we'll just wait until Monday to finish the next phase." I think the mold is real -- I didn't even mention the pregnancy until the guy was saying it'd take three weeks to refinish the bathroom, during which the bathroom would of course be unusable.

Putting in a birdsnest or some sort of temporary bathtub probably wouldn't help much -- we'd still have to hook up the plumbing to the temporary bathtub, ventilation would still be nonexistent, and the thought of taking a bath in a giant tub like the pioneers is still offputting, especially when we can afford to put in a second bathroom -- and the house will need one if we ever sell it to anyone other than some mega-developer that will erect a 12-story condo in our neighborhood. Seriously, we are two traffic lights from I-395. The neighborhood is surprisingly quiet from I-395 and we have a gas station blocking us from the traffic of Glebe Road.

Then at some random point in the next year, I get to have the floors replaced with some sort of hardword imitation made from metal or ceramic or something. At least in the dining room -- I don't relish (heh) the thought of cleaning up Melanie's food if she goes through phases where she accidentally or deliberately makes a big mess.

I suppose I should be working on the VHSL questions about now. Tomorrow I am going over to Edison to see the Northern Region's Scholastic Bowl tournament (and in the morning the District "regular seasons.")

Well -- we have a promising lead on an in home daycare in South Arlington. We will be visiting it before too long, hopefully tomorrow.

However the big news is that we will have to get our bathroom redone due to mold. We had been talking about putting a full bathroom downstairs but now it is time to do it. Once that's done we'll be able to totally renovate the bathroom upstairs. Right now we're getting estimates -- we've called some companies in Northern Virginia and I'm asking some of the Scholastic Bowl folks from outside the area if they know anyone. If some guy from the Northern Neck is able to come up and do the work for half the price of the local folks, then I'm all for it.

When we renovated the house before moving in the estimates ranged from about $12,000 to over $25,000. We took the lowest estimate after he provided a six month warranty. I was going to try and call the folks that did those remodelings but they seem to have gone out of business.

One of these days I'm going to have to organize the Scholastic Bowl questions for state into matches. I won't be able to do any more tournaments but I think Jason Mueller might be able to oversee writing of tournaments. Plus we have 8 full Missouri-format matches, 150 short tossups, 50 pyramidal tossup and 50 bonuses sitting around.

I need to fill out the 1099-MISC forms I have lying around. This will require me to do a bit of research. Of course there's the Mystery Box of stuff I have yet to unpack in the basement study room as well. Lots of things to do. I think tonight I'll be able to unpack the Mystery Box. Wish me luck!

Well, today we offered the nanny job to Maria -- I think she has to check with the folks who are employing her currently. So we're keeping our ears to the ground until a contract and a start date is agreed on.

I'm still conflicted whether I should want Rebecca to stay home. Right now, she wants to go back to work, but she seems to change her mind on this every day or so. Given that she will get most of the criticism, and do most of the work, no matter what decision she makes, I figure the decision ought to be hers to make -- as long as having a nanny or day care doesn't end up being a giant money loser for us.

I finished up the Rock Bridge tournament this morning and got the questions off to them.

Posted twice on a Fark thread where they discussed labor -- it seems off to me to discuss supply and demand for labor when we're talking about actual human lives here. But then again, the Market is like any other human institution -- it is capable of taking a life of its own and becoming the master instead of the servant.

Work wasn't so bad. I started off like I was going through molasses, but by the end I had gotten pretty productive.

And that is another day in the life of a father to be.

Well, it's MLK day. We set up the pack n' play in the living room and I have to move a few things around. I finally finished the Rock Bridge tournament but I should go through and check for repeats, which will take a while.

We interviewed a nanny yesterday. Maria seemed very conscientious, thoughtful, etc. The only problem might be that her English is moderate, but her current employer said it was improving. So, I've told Rebecca we should hire her, at least for three months while we see how it goes.

Home improvement continues, we have a pile of stuff to go through in the basement adult room and I'm going to call a handyman to replace the Windowsill of the Rotting Wood ASAP. Then the replacement of the carpet made of dog hair (I'm sure it was made of something else once) will follow. In other words, a laundry list of the things I wanted to do but was too lazy/cheap to do.

Today I'm getting a DVD of ultrasound pictures that I'll post up here if I am smart enough to do that and will also pick up some hangers. We'll need to get some new wardrobes and the such, too, in the next few months. The sort of thing that is meant to be a Family Heirloom as opposed to Twentysomethings That Can't Afford Anything Else (which we were when we got most of this stuff.)

Well, I'm signing off as I sit on hold at the handyman's office. Case will be expensive but I can be assured that they will actually do the work as opposed to simply not returning my calls.

Wow. It's been about two months since I last updated this. My five readers, I suppose, got bored and stopped reading this.

Well ... the biggest news is that Rebecca is pregnant, and it's a girl!

Her name is going to be Melanie Sharon Pickrell. Sharon was pretty easy, since both grandmoms are named Sharon. A first name was harder. Rebecca liked Janis and Lorna, neither of which I liked. Since there was an A&E Biography show on Janis Joplin, I started naming musicians from the 1960s and 1970s. We eventually settled on Melanie, who is best-known for singing "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" with the Edwin Hawkins Singers and the bubbly hit, "Brand New Key."

And we didn't know until about a week ago. Honest. On November 10, I noticed Rebecca was feeling a bit ... odd around the stomach. However, I guess I crudely phrased it since she thought I was calling her fat. A few weeks later it got to the point where she was noticing, and so she called the doctor. The doctor essentially told her to come back another day. Finally in late December it got to the point where we couldn't ignore it.

So on Tuesday the 2nd we found out she was pregnant and on Wednesday the 3rd we found out it was a healthy girl, 34 weeks along. She is due on February 12th and we are both very excited.

I think we've done pretty good when it comes to preparing. We've gotten a carseat, a playpen-type thingie (it has a name but I forget what it is), and found ourselves a pediatrician. A crib will be arriving and we even have a second crib lined up. We'll be moving as much of the "adult" stuff to the basement as possible and making the living room more Melanie-oriented. There's going to be a number of changes like that gradually occurring.

We'll be doing the hospital tour thingie in a couple weeks, and getting various knick-knacks from friends and family. There'll be a shower for work on the 26th of January and for family on the 4th of February (I think.)

I'm excited.