(thanks Pops and Gram G!)

Forgot to mention in the last post that Ted is also way into drumming. Auntie Christine hooked him up with a drum and sticks, and he plays the heck out of it. This video is of him when he and Kate and Christine went to the NC Museum of Life and Science.

He turns the volume up to eleven.

(ps – this is our 700th post)

A short list of things I would have written long blog posts if I wasn’t so into the whole parenting thing*.

1. The iPod Touch.  I picked this up as one-last-toy-for-me before Ted was born and can’t seem to not have it with me, ever. It’s like the iPhone, but without the phone part (and without the $60/month fees). Music, movies, Gmail and wifi internet in a tiny little package.  It’s awesome all around and has totally changed the way I think about the mobile internet and UI’s.

2. The new Portishead album called Third.  I listen to it all the time now, it’s great at-work music.  It’s been nearly a decade since they put out music, and the wait was well worth it.

3. The inevitable and long overdue demise of the giant SUV as daily driver.  Unfortunate that it comes with the price of declining economy, soaring food prices and a certain sense of dread every time I fill up.  It is exciting that the capitalism around it is spurring innovation and futurist thinking though.  Ted will no doubt fly his jetpack over homes made from recycled Tahoe’s.

4. Web technologies I’m learning about.  The past few months at work (and in freelance work) have filled my brain with new exciting knowledge about web design and the construction of websites.  I’ve spent a bunch of time learning about Wordpress (the system that powers this blog), Drupal, and the jQuery javascript framework.  Learning is good, and I feel more confident about my skills with each passing week.

5. Fatherhood as subject matter.  I like writing and would like to write more about being a dad to Ted.  It’s the new highlight of my day, coming home to a family and hanging out with Ted on the weekends.  He’s high-maintenance, but every time he smiles at me I know what we’ve done is totally worth it.  I also know that its probably also diaper-change time.

Hopefully going forward there will be lots more posts on fatherhood.

* Full Disclaimer: I took a two hour nap after coming home from work today. Clearly there’s some time out there, just not as much for blogging.

Low cost music doesn’t have to be bad music. Here are some albums that have freshened up the itunes library recently for zero or low dollars.

The Foxboro Hot Tubs: Stop Drop and Roll.

They are, allegedly, Green Day performing under a different name, singing surf rock songs. It certainly sounds like Green Day, and Wikipedia (source of truth on the internet) seems to confirm it.

They released an EP on their website for free, which seem to fit in nicely with my low budget musical needs. I suspect this will be a trend for bands hoping to break out (even established bands trying to break out under a different name), where the first series of songs are released online for free in order to build up some interest, and then the band makes up the difference in touring.

Radiohead: In Rainbows.

Radiohead, like Green Day, have been around for a while. To change things up, and to celebrate their own freedom from a traditional record contract, they released their most recent album online (no longer available for some reason) before it was sold in stores and said pay whatever you want.

I ended up paying about five bucks for the album and it was well worth it. It’s good work-listening music. It reminds me a lot of OK Computer, one of their earlier discs.

Ratatat: Remixes Vol 2.

Kate and I both really dug Ratatat’s last album, Classics, so I was pretty excited to hear they were releasing another remix album, and for free to boot. Lots of excellent guitar music, mixed in with hip-hop. You can download it from their website.

While Classics is excellent for the work day (and well worth paying money for), Remixes Vol 2 has some shady hip-hop lyrics throughout, so you want to keep the headphones on for that.

So, anyone out there hear anything good lately?

The music was a good and unlike most of the concerts I’ve gone to, my ears are not ringing today. It was a nice night out!