Capenteria, California

Grandpa Jeff is back and taking lots of pictures. Ronin loves the ball. It’s really critical equipment around here. I don’t know what we’d do with out it.

Ronin loves to bounce on the big red ball but the constant movement makes for blurry pictures. That doesn’t stop Grandpa Jeff though.

My dad has been ridiculously excited about Ronin, but hasn’t been able to come up until now. He brought cigars… Apparently he’s been giving them out to everyone he meets (“IT’S A GIRL!!”) and arrived with the last half dozen or so. We’ll have to try one.

Carlos sent us some pictures of his big truck adventure to Texas and Grandpa Jeff got so excited he decided to skip his flight and drive back. We sent him off in Tyrone and he’s now somewhere in Utah (I hope it makes it). It sounds like a good time. He already got stuck in the snow once while trying to 4 wheel it to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Also, those Utah cops weren’t sympathetic when he tried to explain that the transmission works a lot better at 80 than 65. But it’s true, Tyrone won’t drive 65.

We went out for pho before he left. We’ve been braving restaurants for lunch only. She does okay most of the time, and it helps if there is a place to stand near the table.

[Inspirational tile art. Kharkov, Ukraine 2005]

Even though I had no real intentions of getting a job, I’ve kept an eye on craigslist just in case something interesting appeared. Luckily most worthwhile listings have always been on the other side of the river in Beaverton, Hillsdale or even, GGACK, Wilsonville. However, I saw something last week that was nearly perfect: part time and nearby. I hemmed and hawed for a few days before sending in a resume because, well… sending out resumes inevitably leads to work. A thing I wasn’t totally committed to.

I agreed to an interview but kept reminding myself that I didn’t actually have to accept the job. In the end, it turned out to be fun and I decided to work with them. However, it’s really too soon and I feel a little guilty about leaving Cheyenne alone with Ronin. They’ll be fine, of course, but it can be hard to do something as simple as brush your teeth when you’re alone with an infant.

My new office (by office I mean folding table in a large room and by large room I really do mean large as in large enough for over a hundred people sitting on pews if there were still pews instead of five or six folding tables) is an old church. Think Alice’s Restaurant without all the garbage. The best part aside from the location and the hours is that everything I’ll be working on is open source software. Not very interesting open source software — unless you come from some parallel universe where insurance is somehow interesting and smalltalk consists of RDBMS queries — but at least a little bit cool. OK maybe not, but It makes up in convenience what it lacks in glamor.

You may be wondering what this means for my tax resister status. I had previously pledged not to pay any taxes until our current set of criminals were at least out of office if not in jail. The only legal way to accomplish this is through unemployment. However, I’m confident that by only working 2 days a week and by factoring in our new little tax deduction I can get away with zero tax liability again this year. In any case, even if I can’t keep it at zero I’m 1099 so won’t actually have to pay until mid 2009 (with penalties to be sure). I’ll just call it a little bonus for our new leader whoever they may be. Of course, I’ll still have to pay social security so all you boomers can breath a little easier.