Alright. It's been a while since I've posted, so here's a whirlwind update on everything that's been going on in the past couple of weeks.

Eva is doing very well. From what I hear, she's very easy to take care of compared to a lot of other newborns. At night, we usually feed her every 3 or 4 hours and she sleeps without waking up between each feeding. So you could say we get up to eight hours of sleep a night and only get up once or twice to wake her up. I was prepared for many sleepless nights, but it hasn't been like that. About the only bad thing is that her prime awake time is from about 9:00 PM to 1:30 AM, and during that time she tends to cry a lot. So we just go to bed around 1:30 and get up around 9:30.

Although I haven't experienced much of parenthood yet, so far it's going without many big suprises. There are some little suprises, like the number of diaper changes every day, but that's not a very big deal. Watching Eva every day and observing small changes in her behavior is a blast. We try to interact with her as much as possible while she is awake by talking and singing to her and showing her all kinds of stuff in the house. Heck, I've talked politics and music with her too. Anything to capture her interest and get her mind going.

I'm curious to know if there are any parents out there that have decided to not breast feed and instead use baby formula. I have a strong opinion out there on the topic and might write about it more someday...

While I've been taking time off from work to be at home with Nikki and Eva, I think I'm losing weight. Instead of sitting at a desk (or table) writing code, I'm running around all day doing chores or spending time with Eva. I'm usually on my feet all day and it's kind of a nice change. Some friends of mine have warned me about not having any time to do any chores (e.g. mow the lawn, do dishes, vacuum, etc), but so far we've had plenty of time to do that stuff. Maybe once I go back to work it'll be tougher, but I don't see that happening.

Nikki and I are excited as hell for the new NHL season to start. With the "new" league ready to go it should make for an exciting and somewhat dramatic season. Hockey fans will be watching closely at how the new rule changes, salary cap, and new player aquisitions affect the game. Preseason starts in a few weeks, and the regular season in about a month. Our Wild season tickets should be arriving soon. Shortly after we'll be getting together with our friends Lee and Shannon to pick games and split up the tickets. That's always a fun activity.

VirtualPuck.com launched a while back and the innagural season starts in a couple of days. If you use an RSS reader or aggregator, check out the Virtual Puck RSS Feed. I'm looking for more people who are interested in writing content for the site. Drop me a line if you're interested. Take a look at the site to get a flavor for what's in store.

My site/SharePoint feed is listed on this SharePoint list of bloggers. That's great, but I don't really post a lot of SharePoint related content. What's really mind-boggling is that my friend and colleague IWKid posts a significant amount of SharePoint-related content (much much more than I do), yet he was turned down to be on that list of bloggers.

I'm really itching to get back into music. I've got a big-time music bug. I haven't made time for either the Sidetracked Project or my own personal stuff at all since I've been home. One reason is that my "studio" has been torn down to make room for finishing the basement and soundproof studio. I'm so close to getting drywall up in the basement that I can taste it, but it'll be tough to find time. Nikki's uncle Chris came over to give me his opinion on what I needed to get finished up before the pre-drywall inspections, and he caught a lot of things that I forgot to take care of.

New baby, finishing the basement, building a deck, music projects, VirtualPuck.com enhancements, Windows Presentation Foundation research, getting back into mountain biking, getting back into golfing... busy people are happy people right?

So, life's good. Thanks for reading. This was long. I'll be back at work after labor day. Until then, keep your ear to the grindstone, and always wear a hardhat.