Three times yesterday, my son looked right at me and said “Da da.”

I don’t know, I guess before I became a parent, I thought their first words would be more…. um… apparent. But I think that he is definatly close, and so we’ll call this his “first word.”

If we notice that he really had no clue in the coming weeks/months, then we reserve the right to negate this “first word” claim. Either way, the cuteness is awesome.

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Updated through last Sunday.

To all the naysayers — I bite my thumb at you!

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Well, maybe $7989.99 + $3.99 shipping and handling. But you’d have a book a week for the next 20 years–and they’d all be classics.

Penguin is offering it’s entire paperback collection for under $8 a book, delivered.

Pretty incredible, eh? I guess $8 isn’t that great for a paperback, but it might be a whole lot cheaper than trying to find all of the books… especially the nearly-out-of-print ones.

The benefits of working as a consultant are as follows:

• You have a flexible schedule.
• You work on a new project on a consistant basis
• You get issued your own laptop

The detriments of working as a consultant are as follows:

• You never know when you’re going to be home
• You’re always coming up to speed on the new project
• They give you a laptop, so even when you’re home, you’re working!

I got issued a laptop last week. I got a wireless D-Link routher from Fry’s on Friday ($15 after the rebate I just sent in!). So what did I do for 2-3 hours this weekend… for FUN? Worked on getting MyEclipse working and getting the utility classes functioning.

Yes. It’s lame. Very, very lame. It’s great to have it for the times that I want to be home, but need to work, but it’s also sucky because it blurs the line between work and home more and more. I have the resolve to define more and more what my “maximums” are and what I will require. My problem? How do I remain flexible to my job, which supports my family, and at the same time, remain true to my family over my job? It’s a difficult struggle with or without a Laptop–but it’s something that I have to deal with.

If anyone has any recommendations for general philosophies to implement when it comes to work/life balance, please feel free to let me know!