My wife’s head is tilted at a precarious angle; she can’t be comfortable. Our nine-month-old dosing peacefully in her lap is the image of comfort. I’ve got a ten pound head in my lap. Every couple of moments, the body attached to it squirms a little.

My family is making what is turning out to be our bi-annual trip to Mother Russia. After a few days of frantic running hither and yon, our plane ride is half over. I really should be sleeping as I’ll need every ounce of strength in me for the next leg of the journey. But I’m not. The orangey poke in the sky, 35,000 feet above the Atlantic caught my imagination.

There is something ethereal in the air before the sun bursts onto the day. Even on a plane full of unknown people, the magnetic strings of the mood suck me in.

Now the shapely stewardess, wearing her smart red uniform is coming down the aisle, wielding a curled duty free catalog. And with a few downward thrusts, the window covers are closed. And with them, my mood.

Maybe I’ve got an opportunity to catch a few more winks after all. Wait, what’s that whimpering sound? Nikita is stirring. And something tells me my winking will have to wait for later.

Soon we’ll find what fun it can be to ride the Muscovian Metro during rush hour on a Friday afternoon with two large pieces of luggage, two children, and a pram. Why? Alexei loves riding the metro. Silly parents, next time get a cab.

It’s snowing outside! Like the little kid I am, I’m ready to get up and go out to play.

Last night, Alexei and I went outside to prepare for the snow. We actually didn’t have many preparations to do, but ever since I took him out on the deck after dinner a few weeks ago to look at the night lights, he’s taken a liking to playing outside in the freezing cold darkness. Anyhow, he saw me get the snow shovels out of the shed and decided it wasn’t fair for me to have all the fun. We peeked in the windows and saw Mama, put two baseballs in the middle of the yard to get covered with snow, and visited our small park in the side yard.

Why, pray tell, am I up and at ‘em so early on a Saturday morning? The snow woke me up. Of course, it may also have had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t find any warm pajamas to wear last night, so I donned my big red fuzzy-bear. It was too warm for me in there, so I didn’t sleep under the covers. This was all fine and dandy until 20 minutes ago when I woke up shivering.

Back to the snow…on my way home from work last night, I heard on the radio that this snowstorm is the biggest one to hit the DC area since records have been kept. I suppose it’s still a little early to say whether it will fully materialize the way it’s predicted to or not. Still, the snow of the century is something worth getting up early for. Even if all I do is write a blog post, roll over, and go back to sleep.

Speaking of posts, this site gives the appearance of lying fallow. That is true to a certain degree, but at the same time I’ve got an impressive backlog of half-baked posts just waiting for me to spend a little time polishing them up. It’s a drag when life chortles along fast enough that there’s barely time to live it.

Owen baby (as Alexei calls him) is in the process of returning to dreamland. Either that or having a bowel movement. It’s kind of hard to tell — the sounds are the same. He was just a very happy boy for this most recent feeding. I’ll have to check with Anastasia when she gets up, but I think that this is the longest he’s gone between feedings, a whopping 5 hours.

All told, there’s a bit of a silver lining to me at this juncture in time. A month ago, I welcomed my second son, Owen Nikita, to this world. Nearly two months ago, I closed on my first home. Work is interesting, in spite of my perpetual behindness. I’ve got the best helpmate around, and she’s pretty on top of that. Surely, I am blessed. Granted, the upstairs is under construction, I don’t have money for the mortgage yet, the kitchen drain leaks in the basement, insurance may not cover a good junk of Nikita’s birth, and so on and so on. I’m wearing my rose-tinted glasses and plodding forward with a smile on my face (and a gnarly beard on my chin). This blanket of snow is just the icing over it all.

Today was a zoo day for father and son. The only bad thing was that I got a little bit of sunburn (fortunately, Alexei didn’t). I was pretty impressed with how quickly we were able to get out of the house. We set a personal best record by arriving at the zoo entrance before 11am.

Even though there was a nice strong breeze most of the day, it was still pretty hot. When we arrived home a bit before four, I decided it would be a good idea to reward ourselves with a glass of lemonade. Mind you, we had been drinking water all day long, but there is something to be said for sitting down and enjoying the simple pleasure of a sweet chilly beverage with your offspring.

Alexei wasn’t too keen on waiting for me to pour it; he wanted to drink right then and there. When I finished diluting the lemonade a little bit, we headed into the living room and sat on the floor. My son came over and sat down on my leg, ready for a sip. I gave him one and then took one myself. To my surprise, he got up. Looking at me, he started making some strange motions with his right hand and saying something I’d never heard before. After a minute or so I guessed what he might be saying, but wanted to make sure.

The motion was something like a fish swimming through the water, like in a Sabbath school song he sings. And the word sounded like, “ish?". Thinking back, a few days ago we had taken the whole box of Goldfish crackers along with a glass of lemonade and sat down on the floor together. He remembered and was asking me for the ‘main’ part of the snack.

To confirm, I asked if he wanted fish, to which he replied, “Da.” Then I asked if he wanted reebki (Russian for fish). Another da. Finally, I tried to confuse him and asked if he wanted a leftover chocolate bunny from Easter. The smart aleck smelled something fishy and responded NO with a wag of his head. Even though he passed all my tests I made him point to exactly what he wanted in the kitchen. I needn’t have done that because it was, in fact, Goldfish he was after.

Whether or not I interpreted his gestures and words exactly as he intended me to, I’ll never know. Nevertheless, it was pretty amazing to witness Alexei communicate what he wanted but had never expressed before. Instead of just sharing some lemonade with me, my son gave me a magical moment that I’ll have the privilege of reminiscing on for the rest of my life.

Goldfish. The only fish that smiles as you eat it.

Much as a beltway around a large city often serves to starkly demarcate good neighborhoods from bad ones, in my little slice of the universe, I view rain as a similar divider. Said simpler, on a nice day anybody and everybody can walk outside. But throw in some ominous clouds and a sprinkle or two, and only the havenots are out and about.

You guessed it, today was rainy. The normal population of the Wednesday library group is around 20 children and their grown-ups. When it started today there were seven; two more trickled in before the program finished. In all fairness, the walk to the library wasn’t that bad, just a light drizzle. However, it was coming down nice and steady by the time Alexei and I left the library at noon. He was pretty happy inside his plastic bubble. All the water and cars zooming by must have been pretty interesting (especially with snack in hand).

Before I faced rain as a dad with a stroller, I had the pleasure of experiencing it in several other situations. Not to be moronic or anything (of course I’ve “experienced” rain…I don’t live in a desert), but on the backdrop of my upbringing in suburbia, rain was usually something that could be avoided. Yes, there was the few seconds in between the car and home, but that doesn’t count in my book.

I graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2007. It took me longer than most of my high-school peers to get through undergraduateville (in fact, a few of them already had doctorates by the time I gradumacated). Anyhow, way back when I entered UMD, parking was even more limited than what it is now. As a commuting freshman, my parking spot was not what you would call very good. After a 40+ minute drive to school in the morning, I had a brisk 20-minute walk to get to class. Under good conditions, I really enjoyed it. Walking in from Lot 4 to the main part of campus could be relaxing — to pass through cow country every morning was definitely one way to start the day. Coming back around to our topic: when it rained, it poured. Twenty minutes of slogging through a torrential sheet does wonders for your clothes. Sitting in said clothes for hours at a time does something else. There was some small condolence to be found in sharing varying degrees of soakedness with the others in class with me. By the time one class had finished, we’d all have dried out a little bit only to be soaked the moment we stepped outdoors to go to the next one. Walking on the sidewalk near streets was especially treacherous. I got pretty good at avoiding the splash zone (quite handy with a stroller). To close out my rambling thoughts on walking in the rain at UMD, I’d like to share a guilty pleasure. As a driver, I loved to splash pedestrians real good! Maybe I should have been more compassionate, as I was in their shoes more often then not. I wasn’t, though, and deliberately went out of my way to soak people whenever possible. Mua-ha-ha!

Sandwiched in between my eight years at UMD, I lived in Russia for a year. As part of the self-discovery bit, I wanted to get out into the world and fend for myself. Teaching English, I soon discovered, was probably the easiest way for me to make a living outside the US. The only question was where. Showing my great geographical prowess, I narrowed down my options by trying to find a really cold location, as cold weather and I get along well together. On a map, I found a small sliver of Russia, disconnected from the main landmass. I knew nobody there, and it shared a latitude with Alaska. Alaska is cold, so by association, Kaliningrad must be also.

Kaliningrad, the Seattle of Russia. Obviously, I slept through a bit of geography. Instead of perpetual snow, I found rain, rain, and more rain. In fact, there was probably a month or two when I didn’t see the sun once. As an economically strapped student teacher, I never had the luxury of driving during that year. Most of the time I took public transportation. Living in a rainy city, waiting at [uncovered] bus stops, and being long walks to/from said bus stops left a sopping Troy on more than one occasion.

As I think back on these repeated walks in the rain, I really don’t have any bad memories. In fact, a certain feeling of nostalgia more accurately captures my mood. I enjoy being dry as much as the next guy, but perhaps walking in the rain does a body good. If I had had a car or some other way to avoid the rain, I’m sure I would have. And yet I’m glad that I didn’t. For without the rain, and more specifically, me being in it, I wouldn’t have these memories.

Alexei is at the age now where he can stomp on puddles by himself. He’s not real good at it by grown-up standards, but he has a ball nonetheless. I was there to see his expression the first time he made a splash. I enjoy seeing him try to jump up and down (still hasn’t got the hang of that yet). And, I’m looking forward to him someday appreciating the inconvenient rain, like I do now.

Rain, rain, go away.
Come again ano….

I DON’T think so! Let’s go out and play!

About two weeks ago, Alexei and I were putzing around the house and decided to go exploring inside the big toombochka (Russian for dresser) in the living room. He found some nice vases to clink together; I found the guest book from my wedding.

It was the first time I’d more than glanced at the guest book, and I must say I was pretty impressed. Just the simple gesture of scrawling one’s John Hancock is actually a gift in and of itself. So, without incriminating anybody too directly, I thought I’d share a few choice entries from our guest book. Nobody’s name will appear, but the handwriting is authentic.

1- Happyness	2- Not for me
3- Half measures	4- Cool
5- Go girl	6- Very Happy
7- Love Troy	8- Best life; da
9- Bravo	10- Blessings
11- Affectionately	12- Russian: Be happy
13- Russian: Newlyweds	14- Russian: Kiss
15- Proposal

As I was flipping through the pages, I found myself wanting it not to end. But end it did. And from that beginning’s end sprang the last two years of marital bliss. Happy Anniversary, us!

When Anastasia and I decided when she would return to the workforce as our family’s breadwinner, I expected that she would really miss her son. To try and soften her adjustment, I came up with the idea to surprise her with the blow-by-blow highlights of Daddy Daycare…in real-time. To that end, I grabbed a Twitter account for my son.

For those who may not know, Twitter is a micro-blogging site. That means that you can write up to a 140 character message letting the world know what you’re doing, sharing something interesting (or most of the time not-so-interesting), or just spamming anyone who cares to listen.

Over the course of a day, Alexei and I make somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 updates. If you would like to keep abreast of our doings, feel free to follow Alexei. On the other hand, if you don’t want to sign up for yet another service on the web, you can view the five most recent ‘tweets’ in the rightmost column of Alexei’s page.

In computer programming, there is something known as a “Hello world” program. It is a way to get one’s feet wet on the road to learning a new programming language. It also boosts your self esteem and makes you feel like you can actually do something, albeit as simple as printing one line that says simply, “Hello world.” Twitter is a unique web service in that 1- at its core it is very simple: a person writes a very short message and other people can choose to read it, and 2- it has an enormous user base. For these reasons and some others that would probably bore most people that may read this, writing a program that interfaces with Twitter is being called Hello world 2.0.

Here’s the clincher: out of the 30 or so days that I’ve been tweeting for my son, his mother followed him in quasi real-time once. All the other days I’ve printed her out a hard copy of the day’s tweets for her to read in one sitting when she gets home. So much for all this high-tech wizardry…

[NOTE] On the outside chance that this is the first time you’ve heard about Twitter and are thinking about taking it for a test drive, here is an informative quick read: How to introduce yourself in the social media. Once you get all set up, don’t forget to follow Alexei. Enjoy!

As many of you know, I have three younger brothers; there are four of us all together. For most of my life, I’ve been #1 in most categories for the simple reason that I am the firstborn.

For example, I remember when Trevor (Brother #2) started to play the trombone. I had been playing trumpet for a few years by that time, and both trombone and trumpet are members of the brass family. I decided that to keep my edge on him, I needed to learn to play too. So I’d try out his trombone when he wasn’t around. Granted, I gave up in a hurry, but I did try to keep on top of him in music.

Without any further ado, here is my top four list and where I fit into things. It serves to put me back into my place somewhat.

1. I am still the eldest brother
2. I am the second tallest (Timothy edges me out by a bit)
3. I am the third largest by weight (Timothy again leads the pack in this regard {he is least heavy}; health nut…)
4. I am the fourth when it comes to book intake; all of my brothers read more than I do

Items one and two have little likelihood of ever changing. Item three, again, may not change. Although I’ll possibly never be as fit as marathon-running ultra-fit brother three, I will hopefully improve my own personal fitness level…someday. Item four is a real pain point for me. I mean, come on now, I could read before two of my brothers were born! They say the best predictor of future success is that you read and what you read. Sadly, I don’t see myself improving in this regard at any time in the near future. You need to leave something for retirement, right?

This came through my email account two weeks ago Monday:

Atholton SDA Church Email Notice — February 9, 2009

Jackie Gair, a long-time Atholton member, passed away on Monday morning.

The viewing will be held at the Fleck Funeral Home, 7601 Sandy Spring Road, Laurel, MD this Thursday, February 12, from 12:30 - 1:30 PM. Following this, there will be a graveside service for family and close friends at George Washington Cemetery on Riggs Road in Adelphi, MD. There will be no memorial/funeral service at the Atholton Church.

Please continue to remember the family in prayer during this difficult time.

Thus ends a life.

Now is as good a time as any to finish one of the many blog posts languishing in draft status: link coming when I actually finish it.

Yesterday on the way home from circle time at the library, Alexei and I stopped at a bridge to throw some sticks into the water. We stood there for a good long while and I was mesmerized by the ripples our small sticks made in the stream. Mesmerized is probably the wrong word; fascination is more along the lines of what I felt. Something so simple and natural, but inherently beautiful.

Here is an excerpt from a book I’m in the process of re-reading now.

In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: “mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriate to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.

— David Allen

Relevance? Mrs. Gair’s passing is not all that different from Alexei throwing a stick into Sligo Creek. How Mrs. Gair’s life intertwined in that of others seems to parallel how my son’s small stick made a mark on the water. Both were present for a time, changed things around them, and then faded into memory. No doubt Mrs. Gair’s ripples will long be felt by the world through her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so-on.

Jacquelyn J. Gair

Farewell, neighbor. Until one day we meet again where the silver ripples lap on heaven’s shore, goodbye.

Anastasia and I have rented the entire time we’ve been married. It is a two bedroom apartment on the second floor of a quaint corner house in one of the best parts in Takoma Park, MD. All things considered, I am quite happy that we opted to rent it. Even when you love your apartment and get along well with the landlady, there comes a time to move on to something different.

That time is not quite yet for us, but we have been looking. For whatever reason, we both rather like the Takoma Park area. While the housing market is alive here, things tend to be a bit pricier than we can swing at the moment. As a result, we’ve been looking at foreclosure properties. There is one in particular that I’ve fallen in love with. Alas, it is going on auction this afternoon.

I have never actually been inside the house, so I shouldn’t say I’m in love. In fact, reading through some of the details, there is probably some significant things not to love. Namely, there is mold damage in the basement. Where there is mold, there is some sort of water leakage. The house itself is situated on a hill, so it is not unthinkable that when it rains, it pours, or at least trickles, into the basement.

Depending on the extent of the mold damage inside, it still seems like a sweet deal. There is a little home office for me, there’s a nice backyard, open kitchen/dining room area, and three bedrooms. What’s not to like? Well, there is location. It misses the Montgomery County line by two and a half blocks. I imagine that could effect resale value. But it also means the permit process for any renovations won’t be as arduous, I am told.

Comparing this cookie-cutter type style to other houses in the vicinity, it becomes even more apparent that this really is a diamond in the rough. The house two doors down is currently on the market for $330. It is in much better condition, but with a little bit of elbow grease and some tools, there is no reason why my imaginary first home couldn’t shine too. A similar house a few streets over just sold for just under $400. I particularly like how a large opening was knocked in the wall between the kitchen and living room.

With our current financial means, anything we buy will need to be a fixer-upper. If we restrict our market to the Takoma Park single family residences, this fixer-upper will need to be in fairly sorry condition. My current fave really has potential. So whoever is about to buy her later today, I wish you the best of luck. You’ve really got a nice piece of real estate. The equity might not be sweet yet, but with some sweat, it’ll surely shimmer.

One final piece of trivia on the fishbowl house: it was winterized on my birthday last year.

I’ve been an early bloomer throughout my life. For Christmas in the fifth grade, my dad gave me an electric razor. Naturally, I didn’t know how to use it properly and wound up giving myself the razor burn of my life on the first shave. Technology hasn’t been much different. When friends or family want advice on some new gadget, they ask me. Now, with this whole social networking thing, I’m happy to report that I am the slow guy in town.

In Russian schools, people go through their entire primary schooling experience with one set of classmates, assuming their family doesn’t move. The Russian word for your section of a grade is odnoklassniki. Odnoklassniki.ru was launched in 2006 and has quickly become the de facto social site in the Russian-speaking world. Anastasia has been on it for awhile, but with her mom here visiting us, she has had a little extra time to spend chatting with her girlhood friends. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should enter the English and Russian social networks at the same time, so I asked my wife what she thought. The answer was a big fat no on both accounts. I decided to go along with her halfway. As of yet, I’m not on odnoklassniki.

Yesterday, I finally joined the masses, according to my brother, and got a Facebook account. Technically, I’ve had one for over a year, but never visited it or anything. Part of the reason I haven’t wanted to get into the MySpace or Facebook phenomena is that it seems like it would waste a lot of time. Besides, I like owning whatever it is that I do. With this site, for example, I can make a backup of everything and be assured it is reasonably safe. With Facebook, Google, or anything else in the cloud, I don’t know for sure. Chances are that things are backed up much more regularly and better than I would, but still there is this nagging deal of ownership in the back of my mind.

My Facebook strategy: one account for work, one for personal stuff. I realize at the outset that it is impossible to segregate one’s life like that, but I’m going to try. (Generally speaking, I’m actually in the majority by having two logins.) When I want to kick back and do some facebook-stalking on my old friends, I don’t necessarily want to see my work associates’ shameless self-promotion of their wares. To (hopefully ) decrease the time investment, I’m not going to ask anybody to be my friend, but wait and see how long it takes for people to notice me.

Twitter. I like the idea, but need to get my personal prose back up to par. For that, I much prefer the blog format. However, a few weeks back I opened up an account for my son and future daughter. I figure once Mommy heads back to work, it will be nice for her to keep tabs on what we’re doing. As Alexei starts talking, it will hopefully become something he looks forward to doing…some form of early literacy, I suppose you could say.

The upper limit of friends I would ever have ten years down the road is what my brother Trevor has now. As of this writing, he has 700. I am not he, and likely have fewer real friends than that, but that’s beside the point. Realistically, I’d guess that by the beginning of summer I’ll have somewhere in the range of 100-200 ‘friends.’

At the end of Day One, I had eight friend requests. In addition to that, I asked the two brothers that hadn’t noticed me yet to grant me friend status to boost my visibility. I’m waiting to see how long it will take my father to notice me; I’ll give him to the end of the week. A few months ago he got Facebook and quickly became a junkie. My mom got a surprise from some friends when they asked her if everything was okay between my father and her. She had no idea what they were talking about…it turns out that my dad listed himself as ‘in a relationship’ because my mother isn’t on Facebook for him to say he’s married to her.

Probably nobody cares (I know I don’t…); here is my friend tally:

• Day 1: +8
• Day 2: +10
• Day 3: +8
• Day 4: +7
• Day 5: +2
• Day 6: +3
• Day 7: +2
• Week 1: 46
• Day 8: +3
• Day 9: +2
• Day 10: +1
• Day 11: +1
• Day 12: +2
• Day 13: +0
• Day 14: +0
• Week 2 = 55
• Month 1 = 60
• Month 2 = 69
• Month 3 = 77
• Month 6 = 96
• Year 1 =137

Note: I’ll be updating this post periodically over the course of the next year.

Edit: It turns out I was wrong about how long it took my dad to notice me. It was one week and one day.

Edit: And there you have it…the final tally is 137. That many people asked me to be their friend over the past year. Although if I count the number of people on my business facebook account, that number jumps to 152.