We're having spicy food again tonight on the eve of my wife's official due date. Yesterday's weekly checkup confirmed baby is still holding steady with no change from last week. Tomorrow starts a one-week countdown to inducing the birth of the baby on the morning of Friday, November 28th--my mom's birthday. Our little Thanksgiving Butterball is still fiddling around inside as if to tell us she's really in no rush. Maybe the babe likes spicy food.

- mike lee -

With no particular need to escape, I wandered up to the roof of our building to survey the world below. This national headquarters building of AARP was designed by May & Pinska Architects and completed in 1991. One of the nicest features of the facility is the 44-foot diameter open rooftop rotunda that is some 10 stories above the corner of 6th and E Street, NW here in Washington, D.C.

The air up top was indeed fresh and sweet if not a little on the cool side. The rotunda surrounds a collection of benches and outdoor dining tables which have a fairly nice panoramic view of the southern D.C. sky and skyline with peeks at the U.S. Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. This will be a nice place to come and think, especially when it gets warmer.

This peaceful high view was just a few feet above a hustling crowd of staffers busy tracking the status of, and shaping the public opinion around the very important Medicaid prescription drug legislation, which will continue to endure contentious debate amongst our lawmakers in the days to come.

If only this roof were a place where you could truly go with your wishes to make it so.

- mike lee -

With no particular need to escape, I wandered up to the roof of our building to survey the world below. This national headquarters building of AARP was designed by May & Pinska Architects and completed in 1991. One of the nicest features of the facility is the 44-foot diameter open rooftop rotunda that is some 10 stories above the corner of 6th and E Street, NW here in Washington, D.C.

The air up top was indeed fresh and sweet if not a little on the cool side. The rotunda surrounds a collection of benches and outdoor dining tables which have a fairly nice panoramic view of the southern D.C. sky and skyline with peeks at the U.S. Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. This will be a nice place to come and think, especially when it gets warmer.

This peaceful high view was just a few feet above a hustling crowd of staffers busy tracking the status of, and shaping the public opinion around the very important Medicaid prescription drug legislation, which will continue to endure contentious debate amongst our lawmakers in the days to come.

If only this roof were a place where you could truly go with your wishes to make it so.

- mike lee -

I spent a couple hours this afternoon reviewing several large folders full of project papers with our art director and information architect Jessica Moore. Complex web development projects that span many months not surprisingly generate lots of documentation, but it's the hand notes scrawled on meeting agendas, printouts of e-mails, and interim versions of deliverables that provide the "color" and "texture" to the backstory. What makes collections of papers like this even more useful is when the owner of the artifacts is detail-oriented as Jessica.

Yesterday, I finished the last of about a dozen informative one-on-one meetings with team members. It's interesting that several people were apologetic about the piles of papers on their desks. I reassured them that I'm a "piler" too. I'm reminded once again of an archived blog entry with a quote on how piles of papers on a desk are not the sign of a disorganized mind, but of one that is contending with many complex and unresolved ideas. The quote, from a paper on the social life of paper, asserts that piles of papers serve as a rapid-access mental map of many pieces of information. This idea rings true again as the piles on my new desk are already proliferating while I wrap my mind around our web operations.

- mike lee -

So I gathered together a plastic baby doll, McDonalds ketchup cup, plastic bag, and twist tie to build a highly-simplified model of the current state of our baby. I put water in the bag, sealed the doll inside with the tie, and jammed its head into the ketchup cup. This only begins to illustrate the load that is in my wife's pelvis right now. At some point in the coming days, the bag will pop, and the whole blob will burst out over a period of hours to become a baby daughter.

- mike lee -

Kale, seeing your mention of the old Polaroid camera and 669 film reminded me of artist Wim Wiskerke's great page called DIY for photography links. I enjoy reading about your adventures, and maybe we can see some of your work on the web one day soon...

- mike lee -

We stopped at B&N after lunch and I picked up some mags and a new book. Photo Insider features photographers Jim Brandenberg whom I'd seen years ago at a talk at National Geographic, and Anne Geddes, who has built a mini-empire out of taking baby photos. The latest issue of Cinefex deconstructs the special effects behind Terminator 3, Matrix Revolutions, and Seabiscuit--great issue. And I came upon the latest book of graphics esoterica/ephemera from Princeton Architectural Press. Katerine Harmon's You Are here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination presents an eclectic collection of non-traditional map drawings and illustrations.

After B&N, we dove into our second 3-hour Infant Care class. Highlights included: a showing of Dr. Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block video where we learned about some innovative techniques for calming a screaming baby. We also practiced the "DUDU" or down-up-down-up swaddling technique wrap and learned about the concept of the fourth trimester. A pediatrician came in for the last hour and reviewed, among other things, the AAP immunization schedule. This was all great information, but I feel like we're preparing for more of a space mission than birth and child rearing.

Upon return home, my Color Sidekick recall replacement unit was at the front door. I need to remember to zero out the old unit.

- mike lee -

Standing under a giant antenna didn't work. We'll try spicy food next.

- mike lee -

Doggie can't see mommy's face anymore!

- mike lee - baltimore