Jude Has Arrived!

This labor day weekend was the best labor weekend ever!
Introducing Jude - the live version: 8 lbs 10 oz, 20 inches, full of hair, and super cute.
We are very, very excited. Rachel is doing great. It's a very exciting time in our lives.
Here are a few pictures of the blessed day.
More fun news soon.

Visually Displaying Information

I'm preparing a presentation to my co-workers covering findings from an Edward Tufte lecture I attended last month. Tufte is best known for popularizing the visualization of quantitative information. Below is the classic Joseph Minard graph drawn in 1861. Due to its age, its impact, and its detail, many call this the best graphical depiction of information ever drawn. I've seen "flashier" graphs than this, but I agree that this is very deep and very rich. It tells the story of Napoleon's ill-fated 1812 march to Moscow. The tan line indicates Napoleon's charging army, while the black line indicates his retreating army:


Tufte describes it as follows:
"Beginning at the left on the Polish-Russian border near the Niemen River, the thick band shows the size of the army (422,000 men) as it invaded Russian in June 1812. The width of the band indicates the size of the army at each place on the map. In September, the army reached Moscow, which was by then sacked and deserted, with 100,000 men. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow is depicted by the darker, lower band, which is linked to a temperature scale and dates at the bottom of the chart. It was a bitterly cold winter, and many froze on the march out of Russia. As the graphic shows, the crossing of the Berezina River was a disaster, and the army finally struggled back into Poland with only 10,000 men remaining. Also shown are the movements of auxiliary troops, as they sought to protect the rear and the flank of the advancing army. Minard's graphic tells a rich, coherent story with its multivariate data, far more enlightening than just a single number bouncing along over time. Six variables are plotted: the size of the army, its location on a two-dimensional surface, direction of the army's movement, and temperature on various dates during the retreat from Moscow."

Below is another good example that he points to from the New York Times. Despite the message it's trying to convey, it does a good job of graphically telling a story. It's causal and explanatory, it includes sources, and it makes you want to learn more:

Jude: Almost, But Not Quite, Here

As of today, Rachel is still quite pregnant with little Jude. According to the doctors, Jude is bigger than the average tyke his age. That fact has Rachel and me worried, so we're hoping and praying for a smooth delivery. We are happy that we found Swedish Hospital in Seattle, the poshest place in the Northwest to give birth. Sure, Swedish has the best doctors, the best facilities, a top intensive care unit, and one single dedicated nurse. But the part that I'm most impressed by is the jacuzzi tub. It's like the W Hotel of hospitals.

On the home front, Jude's room is full of man goodies: a manly crib, manly diaper changing table, a real masculine baby monitor, and a bookshelf full of man-centric baby books like "Excuse Me: A Baby Book of Manners," and "Little Johnny's Pocket Book of Nano-Sciences." Oh yes, we're ready.

Rachel is taking a couple of months off from her work (that's all that America has determined a mother needs), and Rob is taking a couple of weeks off to bond as much as I can before Corporate America demands that he (I) return to work. Little Jude: when you're old enough to read this, we're sorry if our busy lives caused you to be strange. At least we don't live in a country like the UK where mothers get about 9 months longer to bond with their children, because, you know ... they pay higher taxes.

Catch up Post

During the months of July and August, Rachel and Rob kept themselves as busy as they could before Jude's blessed arrival. A few weeks ago, our very great friends, Katherine and Jerrod visited from Houston. Even as I write that, it sounds impressive. Thanks, Jerrod and Katherine, for flying across the country just to visit us for the weekend. We really miss you guys! It's always taking visitors around because we get to see all the best parts of Seattle over again. We saw Snoqualmie Falls, the underground tour, the Pink Door, Macrina Bakery and Bakery Nouveau, Pike Place market, and about half a dozen coffee shops.

The next weekend, Rob's sister Angela came to stay with us for a week. Again, we saw Pike Place market, drove around the area, she went to work with Rachel, and she spent a day at work with Rob (me). That Saturday, the Steele's came down from N. Seattle for a BBQ.

The next weekend, Rob and Rachel drove from Tacoma to Portland, picked up Chris and Jeanne, and drove down to Sunriver, Oregon. All on Friday afternoon! It was a long trip. Actually it reminded me how old I'm getting, and that in the future such a trip should be reserved for a 3-day weekend! But once we arrived at Sunriver (around 1am-ish ... thanks for driving Chris), we visited with about 30 relatives on Rachel's side, hung out in the hot tub, rode bikes, and breethed in fresh pine mountain air. I love that area of Oregon. I could definitely spend a couple of weeks rafting, hiking, and biking. As soon as Little Jude gets bigger, he and I shall do extreme sports together... oh yes, we shall...

Special props to Josh B. - the man of the day for two reasons. Most importantly, for bringing Rock Band, where I could karaoke and jam on a fake guitar, fake bass, or a semi-fake trap set. The whole time I jammed, I couldn't help but think of that one Guitar Hero episode of South Park. The other reason Josh was the man of the hour was because he left from Sunriver for Sacramento. Yes, we lost another Bellamy to a distant land. First Andy and Joanne to Tampa, and now Josh to Sacramento. Hopefully Josh will find his way back up to Portland in the next couple of years. But in the meantime, flights between PDX, SEA, and SAC are pretty cheap.

Angela came up from California to spend a week with us. Also shown is cousin Andrea

Jackson the entertainer

Jerrod & Katherine came from Houston just to visit us. Pretty sweet

Rachel and Jude posing for a photo in Sunriver

Josh riding the cruiser in an upright position in Sunriver

Rob, Natalie, and Josh working on our mad Rock Band skills

Rachel and Jude!

House Pictures; After

Here are a few "after" pictures... but we'll definitely post more. They don't really do it justice. We've moved more furniture in since these were taken, but it gives an idea of the progress we made.

Living room. The ceiling use to have the "popcorn ceiling" texture, but Rob put on the space suit and gas mask and scraped it all off in one long evening (yey, me!). Evidently the fireplace use to have an insert (a big metal wood stove-type device), but one of the previous occupants took it out and left it a big void.

Hannah and Christina doing what they do best :-)

Dining room with new chandelier. We have great evening sunshine in this room.

Jude's "pink" room - we have a fun crib set now, more pictures later. Rachel bought a great orange-ish, brownish set. And we also have the Harrod's teddy bear from Rachel's trip to London.

Kitchen: I know it may not "seem" much to look at, but we did a huge amount of work (mostly Rachel, Linda and Jeanne ... and Josh and Chris). Jeanne re-textured the gross space left behind when Josh took the cabinet off from above the fridge. Soon we hope to have a new fridge and stove sometime in the next year or so.

Kitchen again

Our new "kitchen nook" area. We mostly eat here. This kitchen is about 2x the size of our last cute rental house kitchen.

House Pictures: During

Here are some of our work party pictures. These are mostly from the 2nd weekend. We forgot to take pictures on the 1st weekend. There's no way we could have done this all in two weekends without everyone's help. We don't have pictures of Josh and Jeremy (our British friend), but they were definitely there and helping out.

Mom & Rob sanding cabinets. The process for each cabinet door and cabinet frame: 1) course sand, 2) fine sand, 3) pre-stain, 4) 1st coat lacquer, 5) 2nd coat lacquer, 6) sealer. Props to Linda, Rachel and Jeanne.

Chris, the master pin-nailer

Dad enjoying a momentary respite from painting the dining room

Dad working into the evening - he just moved everything in a few minutes earlier but thought a break was for wusses

Angela helped Jeanne paint the inside of the cabinets - they used to be blue and pink!

Jeanne working hard on the kitchen cabinets

Dad painting. I also included this picture to show the fabulous chandelier included with our home.

House Pictures: Before

Here are a few long awaited before, during, and after photos of our new home in t-town. First, before. The house was built in 1925, so there have been lots of previous occupants who did a real great job of "personalizing" the place. If you think this blue paint is "unique," you'd be even more impressed by the key-lime green underneath it.

From living room looking into dining room. Note the rough patch on the left side of the wall. Imagine that rough wall patch scattered throughout the house. Why would they be all over the house? Your guess is as good as ours. But it's because of those patches, and numerous other strange wall issues, that we had to call in professional wall texturers to smooth everything out.

Busy dining room with old chandelier. We still have the chandelier in the basement if anyone wants it. Let us know soon before it goes in the trash.

Dining room again - looking into the living room area.

Jude's pink room. It looks much better with the neutral beige/latte tone.

Old orange kitchen with plastic nobs! Now you can see why Rachel felt it was an imperative to "just do something" to the kitchen. Imagine that picture circling 360 degrees and all around you is orange cabinets and big white nobs. Not a relaxing way to make a meal.

Blue living room. We tore out the shelf above the window. Why? We just haven't been around long enough to accumulate so many knick-knacks.

America's # 1 Killer: Chocolate Cake

America, nay, The World is under a threat bigger than terrorism, war, global warming, AIDS, and BPA leaching from Nalgene bottles. The biggest threat to mankind is chocolate cake. Every year more citizens of this world fall victim to its yummy, decadent succulence. We've always known that heart disease, obesity, and type II diabetes together account for more American deaths than all other ailments combined. But we're now seeing the sinfully delicious killer strike more and more of the most vulnerable youths and elderly in places as far away as Holland, Bavaria, Oompa Loompa Land, and China.

My friend, Todd, chooses to ignore the peril of chocolate cake. He believes free will allows us to choose between eating the cake or ignoring its lascivious allure. Don't listen to people like him. Their fallacious spin doctoring is mere argumentum ad ignorantiam and they will try to confuse you by appealing to your lust rather than your sensibilities. Don't be ignorant to this man-made travesty. End this arteriosclerotic menace before it strikes you and the people you love.

Like Jiffy Pop

June really flew by! Amazing... Rachel is a little more pregnant (her belly looks like Jiffy Pop - Jude must be playing a game of hacky sack in there), and we moved into our new home in North Tacoma. We closed around the middle of the month but immediately began the following major projects:

1) Scraped the popcorn ceilings in the living room and dining room
2) Textured all the walls in the downstairs (professional texturizers)
3) Painted all the walls and ceilings in the downstairs (3 coats total)
4) Resurfaced all the kitchen cabinets and installed new hardware
5) Installed washer and dryer
6) Moved everything into the house!
7) Am I missing something? I dunno, but just thinking of all of that makes me tired. We've been installing curtains, buying extra furniture, spraying down the outside of the house, pruning the arboretum that came with the house, taking trips to the dump... it's crazy.

We could not have done this without the following special hard workers:

• Mom (Linda)
• Mom (Carol)
• Dad (Bob)
• Chris*
• Jeanne*
• Josh
• Andrew, the traveling Brit that Mom (Linda) met on the Amtrak train somewhere between Klamath Falls and Eugene. Very funny... I may write a special story about Andrew.
• Angela
• Hannah & Christina (they helped eat our food :-)

*Chris and Jeanne had so much fun the first time that they took 2 days off and came back the next week!

We'll definitely post photos in a few days. It's fun to see the before and after "greatest generation" style make way for the "gen x" style.

A Sunny Day in Seattle

We took advantage of the sunny weather the other day by taking Jackson and Jude to Lincoln Park (in West Seattle). Behind me is the Olympic Mountains. Rachel and I really need to get over there, but between Jude and moving into a house, such a journey might be delayed by another summer. (the Hoh Rainforest must wait...)

Rachel looking adorable and coy on the park bench.

A close up of Jackson, Jude (at 6 months along), Puget Sound, and the Olympics. We're really going to miss W. Seattle!

Danelle's Wedding

Congrats to Rob's sister, Dani, on her marriage to Adam. A couple of weeks ago, on a beautiful sunny day in Portland, the various families on Rob's side got together to celebrate and festivitize Dani and Adam. Dani's life story is almost Oprah-worthy. Truly inspiring. We love her and wish her and Adam the best in their new home in Longview, WA.

Mitch, Matt, and Nick entertaining guests as they arrive at the rehearsal. Rachel took this photo after telling them she wasn't going to take the picture "until you actually smile." This picture is probably my favorite. I can't help but smile.


We're excited to have a real picture (not a hand-out photo). And Rachel is doing very well, thanks for asking. She's six months along with little Jude and looking more like 3 months along!


A really great family photo courtesy of Adam and Dani's photo album. This is most of the tribe, but believe it or not there are more missing.

New Home

Rachel's mom once said you should separate major life changes by at least two years. But we think that's way to slow. Here's a link to the house we're buying. It closes June 10th.

Ode to Nau

I'm very sad to hear the news that upscale-urban outdoor retailer Nau has closed up shop only a year after opening. My good friend let us know on Friday that his job at the home office and all of his colleagues' jobs had been completely dissolved with less than 48 hours' notice. My friend introduced Rachel and me to Nau several months ago, and I immediately found their clothes to be perfect for my slender frame. Since then I've been one of their biggest patrons. As I look down at my extremely well manufactured Nau jacket and wool pants, I don't understand how the investors would allow Nau to simply stop production. It just doesn't make any sense. Where will I go now? North Face is so pedestrian, and all those clothing stores in the mall (ala Banana Republic & J Crew) have no personality and are made of extremely poor quality fabric for pear-shaped men.

Quick Nau highlights: start-up, investor money, lots of press, cult following, credit crunch, investor money stopped (huge missed opportunity & super dumb non-visionaries), cash flow = $0, 48 hour termination notices, very sad patrons, like canceling Seinfeld after the first season, big gap in the apparel world.

Tally-ho, Eh!

Last week Rachel was in London and Rob was in Vancouver. Yes, I know that seems strange since, a) we're no longer world travelers, and b) Rachel is five months pregnant. But, a) "it is what it is" (voted by USA Today as the #1 cliche of 2004), and b) we really had no choice. So we boarded our little Jackson, said our farewells to each other, and went our separate ways.

Rachel spent the 9 hour flight in business-class luxury - a necessity given her medical issue (child in belly). She arrived well-rested at Heathrow on Sunday morning, checked into a Sheraton near Trafalgar Square, and began a really enjoyable work-week. Besides meeting folks from the London office, Rachel reports eating lots of great food, including Starbucks, Pret a Manger, and Wagamama. Those lucky enough to live in American's Northeast already have access to those last two restaurants. Rachel was impressed by the healthiness and freshness of food in London. Whole juices, fresh veggies, and scrumptious meats seem to be more common over there than over here. We hope the trend makes it over to this side of the pond. Rachel reports hearing of some football matches in the area (Chelsea and Arsenal) and she made the time to find me (Rob) a snazzy slim-fit dress shirt with French cuffs... so of course she also had to get me a pair of cuff links. And I admit I'm very hooked to the English dress shirts. I've already found the company's website, priced it out, and am collecting my next order (Let me know if you want to go in with me on the "4 for 100 GBP" deal). Rachel also visited the Tower of London, where she took the following pictures:

Tower of London

Nice Flowers somewhere near St. James' Place

Tower Bridge


The day after Rachel's flight to London, Rob hopped in a taxi to Seattle's train station. Yes indeed, I took a train up to Vancouver. A new experience for me here in America. The Amtrak between Seattle and Vancouver was about four hours - roughly the same as driving to Vancouver, but without the long delay at the boarder. Once in Vancouver, I checked into the Kimpton and got to work for the next few days. Unfortunately I don't have as many snazzy stories as Rachel. I was slightly disillusioned from my long-held notion that Vancouver was sort of part of America. I heard my share of "American's take all of our energy" and "Canadian cattle was banned for two years!" and "America is our biggest trade partner" and the likes. I realized then and there that while Canadians act similarly to Americans, their world-view is probably more closely aligned to the British and even the Romanians than to Americans.

Did you just say Religion? Probably not, but I'll mention it anyway: I was impressed by Canada's personal convictions towards their Christian faith. When I explained my bizarre childhood of moving over 40 times (my dad was a church planter - someone who starts churches in new communities and shepherds them for a year or two before moving to another community), several different people started talking about the churches they attend, their parents who are pastors ("I'm a PK too!") and their brothers who are youth pastors. The fact that Canadians tend to view faith and Christianity more similarly to Americans than do the British or Romanians added to my metaphysical "what does it mean to be Canadian" dilemma .

While I sit and ponder the meaning of all of it, below are a couple of simple photos from my camera phone:

Downtown Vancouver (aka, Metropolis from Smallville)

Inukshuk statue (you'll see this in the 2010 Winter Olympics)

Springtime At Last

What a remarkable spring day - the finest day in Seattle since around October of last year. At last, the winter has passed! We made it! It's been a tough time these past five months, but today Rachel and I donned our short sleeve shirts and headed to Alki (northern tip of W. Seattle. We live in W. Seattle). Here are a couple pictures from our part of town. This is what our family and friends miss when they don't come visit :-)

Obligatory hold-out photo. We really need a camera tripod!

Little J loves the spring and summer. He's been packing some weight over the winter months due to our great antipathy towards walking in the winter rain.

Rachel with a teeny tiny view of the Olympic Mountains in the back. Over the summer we'll have more pictures of the Olympics and Cascades.

Another fun view of the Seattle skyline from W. Seattle. When Jackson and I ran to the end of the dock, he just about jumped in.

Just for kicks, I added this super cute photo of Rachel trying on an outfit for her trip to London. She totally looks like an Austin Powers stand-in.