(this is) durkin.org

Adam is pulling up stakes and heading west.  Somewhere.  Once he sells the house, that is.  Good luck!

The weekend of depraved bachelor madness is over.

It’s Monday night and MR has returned from her trip. The house was a mess, the kids were filthy, but we had a good time and no one went to the ER (or worse). I had hoped to have the house in better shape before she came home, but Saturday turned into One Of Those Days where pretty much everything was an ordeal; not only did I not get to finish cleaning up, but the boys seemed set upon wrecking the place all day.

I have to say - I have always been as understanding and supportive of my wife (and her daily dealings with the house and kids, et al) as someone who has never had to do it can be. I’ve spent time alone with the boys before, sure, but never three solid days. Not that three days equates to almost three years, but the weekend has given me a new appreciation for her and what she goes through on a daily basis.

MR, Thank you for everything.  And welcome home.

Though I am very late (in the day) in officially noting it here, today is my father-in-law’s birthday, so Happy Birthday, Luke!  I talked to him earlier this evening, and he seems to be taking the whole thing pretty well… In any case, best wishes and many happy returns.

MR has a conference this weekend (Thursday early morning - Saturday late night), so the boys and I are kicking it bachelor-style¹.

We are having a pretty good time so far. They both miss their mother, but so far have not melted down about her being gone. She talked to them this evening while they were in the bath - Dobbs screamed with glee when he heard her voice, and you should have seen Reilly’s eyes light up!

This is a first in a couple of ways - MR’s first trip away alone from the boys, my first time alone for so long with the boys². In a way, its very sad - she misses them, they miss her, I miss her, she misses me, etc. At the same time though, this is very good: it gives the boys some time to learn to not have her around all the time, to start working on some independence; it gives her a chance to be a real person again, and not have two screaming two-footers pulling on her pants all day; and, finally, it gives me something that not many parents who work out of the home get - serious, unadulterated, uninterrupted quality time with my kids.

Of course, the flip side of all that alone time is that its completly up to me to make sure they have clothes (that match and are clean) and food (at least some of which is prepared at home) and all that stuff.

1. As if. I can assure you, if there is one thing one does not do when spending quality time with two children ages (almost) 3 and 1, its kick it. At least, not bachelor-style. «
2. Now that I think of it, I don’t know that either of us has been alone with them for this long. «

A few weeks back, I tried out a nifty plugin that allows me to serve my Flickr photos on this site, without any of the nasty firewall issues, and without using up my hosted space. There were a few kinks at first, but those have all been worked out. So, I am officially scrapping the gallery pages and am going with this album plugin solution.

I did run into one additional snag when I tried go this route (I wanted the link to appear as part of the navigation up there in the header, as it currently does, but Word Press and the album don’t roll that way), but, again, I asked for help and was pointed in the direction of another handy plugin - Page Links To.

All this to say, wanna see my pictures? Updated occassionally, of course.

Update, April 24, 2007: (this is) durkin.org in pictures is still available, but I removed the link in the header the other day for a couple of reasons: (1) it didn’t make sense to me to have a flickr album and one here and (2) I’ve been playing around with new themes here for a bit, and the in pictures page often does not render well¹. To top it off, I recently started using the flickrrss plugin to create the flickr section of the sidebar, so what was the point, really? That is all.

1. Without some work, I mean. «

That’s right, just move it along¹. We are testing² a few things with this here post, so no worries. That’s it, just keep moving, don’t bother reading this bunk.

Please move along³.

OK, then. Testing complete. I been interested in using footnotes⁴ so I played around with one or two solutions and settled on Simon Elvery’s footnote plugin. It looks harder to use than it is. I will say this for the other non-coders - the ” marks in Simon’s explanation are not part of the code needed for this to work.

1. That’s right, just move it along. «
2. Testing is such a fancy word for what this post is, but at the same time, that is what I am doing. «
3. That’s right, just move it along. «
4. Partly because I think there is a place for them, as they are much nicer than having parentheticals all through, partly because I have an abiding desire to be taken seriously and am thusly styling myself as an academic, and partly because kottke uses them. Footnotes, that is, not this plugin. «

“How about we spend less time on the cell phone and focus a little more on that clock?”

He was a jerk during the entire interaction, but mad props to the officer in ATL who let me off with a warning on Thursday afternoon. Admittedly, I knew what I was doing when I did it, but nevermind that for now.

The sign said no left turn between 4:00 and 7:00. I turned at 4:52, but the clock in my car, set to Central Time, said 3:52. The officer eventually took pity on my Alabama-ness (tag and license, plus I protested the time when he pulled me over - “But sir, it’s 3:52″) and let me go with a VERBAL WARNING. The emphasis was his; he almost yelled it at me.

Welcome Home!  After about seven and a half weeks in the hospital, MR’s mom came home yesterday.

I’ve been meaning to write about her and what’s been going on lately, but, well, there’s just been a bit too much going on lately.  You know?

At any rate - home again, home again.  And we will see them this weekend for Easter.

Sunday was not our best day.

iPod locked up? No worries - its a simple fix: Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

MR - I don’t want to go to get the kids from school and work during nap-time.
Me - I don’t want to go to back work.
Cashier (smiles) - Have a nice day.

Sunday night, the D-man took a bit of a tumble in the bathtub. The fall itself wasn’t so bad, but apparently he hit just the right spot at just the right angle - and we were off to the ER.

Pretty much the same story as the last time we went to the ER, but with much less drama. They did recognize us, which I think is a bad thing, but I never heard any mention of DHR or social workers, so that’s good. In the end, he got three stitches and was done.

It really could have been much worse: MR was at a work function, we had just started bath time (so they were both wet, but neither one was clean), and it was already about 30 minutes past their bed time. dobbs was a trooper, though, and did not cry or fuss much after the initial impact. Reilly, too, was a trooper. He was very helpful and compliant as we got the heck outta the house.

On the way to the ER, I called MR to let her know what was going on:
Me: Everyone is fine. We are going to the ER.
MR: If everyone was fine, you wouldn’t be going to the ER. What happened?