The fun things in life sometimes come in bags of crap

Kids have more fun than adults. This is a fact I think most of you would agree with and have come to grips with. I’m trying my best to defy that concept. As a child, I would fill my life with genuine unadulterated fun, but these days I use cheap tricks to achieve the same results. I'm speaking, in part, about consumerism. The joy of succumbing to your American given right to buy crap.

Woot! (.com) is a great enabler for your inner consumer. The basic idea is that this website sells one item (but many of that item) each day. They talk to suppliers ( and I’m guessing probably magical crap-building gnomes) to find new items or clearance items. Then they mark them way down and put them up for sale for one day. The next day it's a new item if they sell out or not. I really enjoy that concept and have been visiting their site for a long time.



Once or twice a year they will sell a "Bag of Crap", or BOC as it's known to Wooters (I'm hip with the lingo). Over time, Woot.com acquires a pile of odds and ends that they probably can’t dedicate a whole day to. They take these items and sell them for a dollar each (three is the limit) and ship them to you for $5.

The beauty of the BOC is that you have no idea what you are buying. It's a rare event and has become somewhat of a phenomenon to many circles on the Internet.

I was fortunate enough to have checked their website at 12am one night and bought a BOC before it sold out only minutes later. What mystical items would I get? Could my random bag of crap bring me the enlightenment I have sought out for so long? Probably not, but I was very excited.

Here's what I got. Keep in mind I ordered three items and paid $8 (including shipping):

1. A very rudimentary Sony tv/vcr remote. Ok, well that'll make a good kids toy.

2. A faux leather briefcase/bag with a “cell-phone pocket”. It's really nice. Betsy snagged that up right away.

3. A water gun that also shoots bubble. The idea here is that you blow bubbles and then try to shoot them down with the water gun. Sounds like fun, but it's still in the packaging.

4. 2 blank DVD rewritable media. I can use that.

5. A Christmas nutcracker doll. Fan - f'n - tastic! I love it.

I was so excited by all of this opening of my bag of crap that I’m not sure it was healthy…and I think I scared Bets a little, but it f u n!

So next time you find yourself up at 12am, be sure to check Woot.com. You never what you'll get.

Good News...

Good news for you, the reader. This is the last post (yeah, umm, it's probably the last, but who knows) about our pregnancy for at least a year. Unfortanately, I feel obligated to disclose to you that there is a good chance I will be posting a lot more kid information. ...and soon.

Dan, my brother, thought it would be a good idea for me to post some general information about where we'll be when the miracle ... the miracle ... the miracle ... takes place.

I agreed and here it is.

If all goes according to plan, we'll be at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, just south of downtown. Here's the information you'll need:

• Directions (basically, from the south, take 35W to Lake St, don't turn right on Lake and follow the big blue H signs)
• General Information Website
• Phone number for information and the operator: (612) 863-4000
• Due date: 12-6

Monday morning pick-me-up

Sometimes, I need a little humor to help me get through the day. Here's something I ran across today that made me laugh.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds sung by a young William Shatner - who is obviously either on something or heavily influenced by the beat poet movement.

Baby info, lucky you!

I’m sure most of you aren’t on the edge of your seats waiting for an update on our pregnancy. To you I summarize, “The bun’s in the oven, still cookin’, and everything’s ok.”

For the rest of you or to those who have to read the entire post once they've started, here’s a little more baby related info.

Betsy will be starting her ninth month of pregnancy next week. It’s amazing how quickly these things go by. She had her last biweekly appointment yesterday, and will go once per week for the rest of her labor. They checked her out and everything is going well. Her cervix is fifty percent effaced and 1 cm dilated. Effaced refers to the thinning the wall of the cervix, which is necessary for labor (though I’m sure most of you who care about this already know what it means). So far, her tests have been good for protein, sugar, and a whole host of other issues. Also, the baby is head down and very low. I don’t have much else to report medically as there really aren’t any problems, which we are grateful for.

In preparation for our new little bundle of joy, we have wrapped up most of the essential baby projects. We finished the baby room, which was our largest project. We’ve washed all of the clothes/linens and put them away, we put baby supplies on the shelves, and the room is decorated quite nicely (in my opinion). I’m sure we will run into situations where we have to run out and pick up one thing or another, but we’ve bought or received most of everything we figured we’d need. Also, we’ve worked through our finances and planned our time off. Kirsten, Betsy’s sister, is planning on coming to help after the birth, too, which is very generous and we appreciate it very much. I’ll be taking 2 weeks off and Betsy will be taking 6 weeks off.

Last, but not least, we’ve pick out 2/3 of his name (we don’t have a middle name yet). James Gravley. Middle name suggestions are welcome. We liked James for many reasons, but mostly because Betsy loves James Harriet stories. We’ll call him James or Jamesy as kid. If it’s a girl, we not sure what we’ll do for a name. I suppose we had better get on that, eh?