Cicadas are mating everywhere!

- mike lee - baltimore

...in a sense. Mommy went to work while the rest of our clan is here at home to take baby to a doctor's appointment. We're enjoying a quiet moment playing with the ribbon of a helium balloon. Oh, now baby is crying about a poopy diaper--off for a change.

- mike lee - baltimore - the last frame is what my dying camera is doing before it crashes the phone

...and daddy.

- mike lee - baltimore - "hi viv!"

Bought from Olsson's Books and Records today: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King widescreen DVD and McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue Number 13, all comics special.

- mike lee - washington, dc

We drove up north to the Pennsylvania border late this afternoon to join in Loie and Bucky's 13th anniversary party. It's been almost two years since our last visit. There was a live band, little kids and dogs, and grown-ups movin' to the music. Our dog had a great run in the yard, and baby enjoyed sitting in the grass. Two pots of yummy-smelling goulash simmered over the campfire to be served later under starlight. We had to leave before that to get baby girl home for bath and bed.

- mike lee - hampstead, md - taking photos with my wife's cam and relaying them through mine for posting

At the maul today, I stopped into Sharper Image and the Apple Store to pick up these three white LED lighting accessories:

• Griffin SightLight for the Apple iSight camera ($39)
• Inova 24/7 LED light ($39)
• Sharper Image Dual LED book light ($29)

My goal in the next couple years is to replace all my incandescent lighting and vacuum tube TVs with solid state devices.

- mike lee - baltimore

My iPod mini has been a good companion on my daily commuter train rides from Baltimore to DC and back. It's so small and lightweight that I clip it to my shirt instead of using the wired remote. The smaller storage space hasn't been an issue at all--1000 songs is an insanely huge selection for four hours of listening time a day. I just sync it a couple times a week to my wife's monster collection.

Yesterday was my last day of commuting by train for a while. Today we started driving from Baltimore to DC so that we could drop the baby at my mom's while my wife and I continue on to work. So I'm not going to be using my iPod as much now. When I'm in the car, I genrally ride in back and entertain the baby.

Though the iPod's doing OK, my Sidekick camera capability is dying. I've switched to a new camera, but the camera app only rarely recognizes the camera, and when it does, my Sidekick often reboots and loses all data. It takes hours to restore from the server, draining my battery to near empty.

I've basically worn out my Sidekick from a year's heavy use, and now I'm no so sure that I want to replace this one or wait for the upcoming third generation Sidekick. Quite frankly, the build quality of the Sidekick was mediocre, and I feel lucky that I got so much use out of mine.

Also, after 17 months on the market, the promise of usable productivity apps via the catalog is still unfulfilled. I just don't care about games and ringtones.

Blogging to hiptop Nation has been a great experience. The communal posting along with the unique image layout are what keep me coming back. But as I approach 600 posts, I can safely say that I've made the most of being here.

This isn't a goodbye, but I'll be posting much less here and more to my main blog while I think about what I will do next with moblogging.

- mike lee - baltimore

While walking the dog tonight, we spotted a few dozen cicada nymphs crawling across the sidewalks. This is the batch known as Brood X that were last seen in 1987. I collected a few in a plastic cup to photograph and then returned them to the base of a tree so they could start their climb to find a hatching spot. There will be a million-fold more surfacing in the coming days.

- mike lee - baltimore

I'm waiting in a lounge area of the convention center with sleeping baby while wife Amy gives her talk on "Communicating with Older Audiences" with friend Dana. Baby Cianna is doing quite well at her first professional conference. Earlier this morning, I ran into Beth, Whitney, and Thom in the registration area a little while ago. They all happily poked the baby. The talk ends in a few minutes and then baby goes home with mom, and I head back to DC with Dana for a meeting.

- mike lee - baltimore