Where's the guidebook? Very soon we will be going to Guatemala, the first time we will meet our son-to-be. We had hoped by now he would be home, but things are moving slowly now in the Guatemala system, so we'll have to wait a while for that. For some reason I've had trouble posting about this. As we get closer to the trip, I realize I'm pretty scared -- not of flying or going to Guatemala (although that's a big change for someone whose only other trip outside the USA was to London) but of meeting the boy, and the foster mother. I'm not great at new situations, and this is indeed a new situation. Having not been a father before I can't say what it is like, of course, but while biological parents go through their own sets of fears and joys, they've all seen people go through this before -- if not for real, at least on TV. Adoption is different. Especially when the adopted child is a toddler. Having a baby (or adopting a newborn) you are beginning at the beginning of a story. With a 2-year-old, we've skipped quite a few pages, and we will never know exactly what was on all of them. We'll be meeting a person, with a personality. (Ironically, many people have chosen Guatemala for adoptions in the past because most of adoptions from that country have been of babies, often coming to their new home as little as 6 months old or less. That wasn't really our goal, however). Although I've seen plenty of mailing-list posts about meetings, each one is still different. His foster mom will have already been a big influence. From all we can tell, she has been very good, making the coming transition perhaps even harder for him. And before that of course was the biological mother; we won't meet her on this trip, but probably will when we go down to bring him home. I want to somehow convey to all of these people how hard I'll work at being a good father. I haven't a clue how to do that. (I meant convey it to them, but that statement is pretty much true of knowing how to be a father, too). And my Spanish knowledge is two semesters of night school, and very little speaking experience. At this time when I feel I need the most energy, I seem to be running very low. This extended wait has been wearing me down. We've got guidebooks on Guatemala and guidebooks on adoption, but somehow there's really no guide for this.

Anybody seen Noah (the ark guy) ... Rain isn't new 'round here recently, but right now it is pouring. We had a nice Indian meal with some friends at a restaurant in Natick, and on the way back the skies just opened up. Maybe we beat the storm driving east on the Mass Pike, because when we got home it was just drizzling again. But now it's really opened up. The sound of the rain on the roof was amazingly loud for a few minutes. Rain on the roof is a pretty good sound, but we do not, I mean do not, need more of this. Even for gardens -- there's plenty of water, the plants need the goddam sun already! Only a fungus could really like this weather.

First harvest

One of the neighbor kids saw that we had a strawberry on our vines -- the first real one we've had (the strawberries were planted two years ago, and only had tiny berries up until now).

It's only one, but it was tasty (we split it).

So far the garden has not done much -- lots of rain, but no sun

The lettuce did well -- until the groundhog ate it

Regent benefit We went to a show last night to benefit the Regent Theatre here in Arlington. It's owner is trying to bring live performance back to the old theater. We were there mostly because of Vance Gilbert, a new favorite, but the whole show was a lot of fun. This was the first time we've seen the other headliner, Deborah Henson-Conant. She plays the harp, but I'm not sure anyone else really plays it they way she does. Dancing around the stage wearing her electric body harp, she plays jazz-rock-whatever and sings. She's good, but you really have to see it for yourself. She and Vance together are eclectic times two, and a great combination. I only wish the show had been longer. Both now live in Arlington and played for free to help the theater get going. Let's hope it does; it's a great boost for the town.

Well, OK, at least that worked

Sometimes home projects seem to take on a life of their own, as in Dr. Frankenstein's creation, I mean.

Today one actually was pretty easy -- installing a remote control for the ceiling fan in our bedroom. Yes, a real lazy person's item, but the regular switch for the fan was broken anyway, and now we have a dimmer for the light (which are extra-bright not because the new light kit also put up today has 4 60-watt bulbs -- a little too much sometimes without the dimmer).

The receiver in the remote control kit (made by Hunter) just barely fit into the fan's canopy, but it made it.

The first time I fired it up for testing -- nothing. This really puzzled me -- how could it totally not work? Turns out that the DIP switches in the unit got nudged to another channel when it was being installed, so the remote did nothing. Easy to fix, at least.

Something not so easy -- getting a SIP softphone on my Linux laptop to work. I have two -- linphone and kphone. Both receive from the other end (a Cisco ATA box hooked up to a phone), but they send completely garbled audio. I think it is a problem with the sound on the laptop. Well, the idea of this project is to learn more about voice over IP, so I guess I'm doing that ...

Lunchtime jazz Yesterday a jazz band and chorus from a local school played at our cafeteria during lunch. It was actually pretty cool. It kind of lent a homey touch to the place. It also encouraged me to want to be a parent, soon I hope. Also, the drummer kicked serious ass -- look for him in a club near you, in about 10 years....

Random thought guy This title is a ripoff of my friend's Random Thought Girl&tm;. .... It's a cloud day here, and cool, after a big rainstorm yesterday. We are so much in wait mode on the adoption now that it almost seems like life is on hold. I'm just working, studying networking stuff, and waiting. But outside these walls stuff is happening, of course. ... By now if you drop by here you probably already have read about Dave's accident, but if not drop over there and wish him a speedy recovery. This is yet another reminder that somethings you should just think about how being all in one piece and so on is something good in and of itself. On a completely unrelated note, except that it is also a Boston blogger thing, a bostonblogs event tomorrow will feature some interesting folks, you might want to drop by. ... Cats are good to have on a rainy day. A dog wants to go outside, get walked, etc. Cats are perfectly happy to flop out with you on the couch or bed. I like both cats and dogs, but cats are better on a rainy day.

When tools suck I've just spent a while wrestling with a new Web-based collaboration tool we have. This is supposed to help us "work smarter", but so far it is just causing me aggrevation. 1) It's not clear if this tool really works with any browser but IE. And the Java part of it doesn't work with JDK 1.4 on Linux 2) I don't seem to have access to add anything, such as the status report I'm supposed to add This may be wonderful eventually, but tools that are not set up right or don't work really suck, because they waste your time and not only haven't you become more productive, you've become less productive because you've wasted hours trying to get the tool to work. Now this was a tool produced by some company that is supposed to be a specialist in doing this. Now they can't be blamed for my account being set up wrong, but as for the browsers, what the heck?

Rainy day thoughts The rain is both bringing me down and calming me down a little (I do like the sound of rain on the roof on a day when I don't have to go anywhere, which today is). For me a good cure for what ails me is to drill big holes in the house and run new wires for things, and I need to do that today, so all should be well.