captured the heartbeat in all it’s digital audio glory at the last doctor’s visit. i have some fun plans for that little sound file, but in the meantime, i just like to listen to it– it sort of makes things more real (??). the pregnancy is progressing along nicely. a few days after labor day we will be back to the doctor to (hopefully) determine the sex of the baby! at our clinic/hospital/place they give you a DVD of the ultrasound (sonogram?) for $2. i’m going to take my video camera because – yes – i’m already over-documenting my child.
in other news, after cutting back for a few months, i’m on the gum. no more smokies, just nicorette gum. so far so good. this is, of course, day one of “phase 2″. hopefully in 12 weeks, i’ll be a “non-smoker”. wish me luck on that.

i’ve been wanting a parlor guitar for quite a while now, and finally snagged one up the other day. this beaut is an early 60’s silvertone, which somehow had stayed with it’s original box. i THINK i’m the third owner — the second had it for about 4 months. sounds great and i am very happy with it. i’m thinking this might be one of my last selfish purchases for quite a while. all i need now is a custom royal-forest contact pickup.

so my trip to austin was pretty great. got to do all the things i wanted, plus some. recorded what i think is a great soundtrack, and got some stuff rolling for the ol’ balcony record. looking forward to all that. super duper thanks go to the perkins’ for letting heather and i, and then just me, crash at their place for so long. saved us a ton of money and provided a great way to get back in touch. goodness me, twas great.

oh, and of course, we told all our austin friends that heather and i are “expecting”. due date is january 25th. we heard the baby’s heartbeat on monday. i was sitting there ready with my digital audio recorder, but once i actually heard the heartbeat my brain turned to mush and i forgot to hit record. awesome. either way it was a pretty amazing experience. i was in “shock” for a few hours though, with no ideas or thoughts flitting in the vacuous cavern of my brain.

had an interesting night at the movies tonight. saw “inception”. first things first, i frickin’ love cillian murphy and leonard caps. i feel like they’re just…goooooood at what they do. second, i still frickin’ hate ellen page. she was a little over her head i’m thinking on this one. the score was really heavy handed, and sometimes made me feel like a gateway to hell was going to open up underneath me. that is to say it was extremely effective, but almost annoyingly so. a slippery slope, yessir. that movie was a “triple rainbow”. dunno if i liked it really, but had a good time watching it. lots of great eye candy, but if you have it figured early on, it’s a long long long movie.

oh yeah, and my greatest accomplishment as of late: a 100 score at karaoke. twas journey’s “faithfully”. aahhh.

for the past 4 or 5 months, i’ve been looking forward to going to austin for super fantastic fun times (and making a record). well now it’s happening, and i’m kinda overwhelmed with good vibes. it is hard to pack for such a long trip, btw. things i hope to do whilst in the vicinity:
1. eat at tamale house…regularly
2. eat some serious p. terry’s
3. get some real texas bbq (salt lick anyone?)
…you know what, these are all food related…

hmm.