Baby Cianna put on my 40+year-old baby hat as we headed out to work this morning. She looks like she's ready to start a cultural revolution.

- mike lee - langley park, md

This is the promotional shelf full of empty PSP boxes at my local Toys R Us store. In a week or so, a shipment of these will arrive, sell out, and be replaced by the empty boxes again. This is the new American Way.

- mike lee - langley park, md - leaving the store with the incredibles two-dvd set in hand

This split-level colonial-style 4 bed/2 bath home is the largest of the three we saw today. The living room (2) has a nice vaulted ceiling. Step down to a family room (3) and OK kitchen (5). Bedrooms upstairs are pretty basic (4). Roomy high-ceilinged basement (6). But the shrubs in the yard are too big and too close to the house (7 & 8). Seller wants $489,000. Cianna's diaper is leaking, so we're off to grandma's house for a wardrobe change.

- mike lee - silver spring, md

Another four bedrom house. It looks small from the outside and would feel that way inside but it has been expended twice with additions. The street seems relatively quiet (2); the yard is nice (5). The bedrooms are small (3 & 6). I did like the agent's hand sketched diagram of the landscaping (8). Only asking $524,900! Last house was $450,000.

- mike lee - silver spring, md

On this first day of spring we're visiting three homes in the Silver Spring area to get an idea of the kinds of places that are going up for sale. This first house lists four bedrooms and features a cute little wood floored craftsman's cottage in the nicely landscaped back yard. Down sides: the house feels smaller than the row house were leaving and it's right on a busy road.

- mike lee - silver spring, md

An Open Letter to Joe Britt, CTO and Co-founder of Danger, Inc.

Dear Joe,

I know you told me you enjoy hiptop Nation and check in regularly. Please head over to Professor John Maeda's (1) SIMPLICITY blog to read his thoughtful post about seeing beauty (2) in the death of his beloved original Color Sidekick.

If Paris Hilton can get a free crystal studded Sidekick II, surely you could help a world renowned professor of digital design at MIT get a refurbished one. Then he could retire his spent device to his ephemera shelf as I have my B&W (3).

John wouldn't even need his Sidekick II crystal studded by NYC Peach like Paris and Lindsay. Although NYC Peach might attract a higher-brow crowd of digerati if they added John to their testimonials page after adorning his new Sidekick with Pixelblocks.

- mike lee - baltimore

Wife and I each just signed a packet of papers in 21 places for our real estate agent to begin the process of putting our house on the market. We'll likely be out of this place and in a new in early May. On top of the pile of papers is a handwritten list of photos I should take of the interior and exterior of the house in the next two weeks.

- mike lee - baltimore

...in Wyman Park. It's sunny and pushing 50 degrees. We did the slide and swings as usual. But Cianna was more interested in poking through the bed of wood chips, and shoved a moist chunk of dark topsoil in her mouth. I'm sure she will try to eat dirt again, but today's grimace means she won't be trying for a while. To clear her soiled palette, we shared a cookie before heading home.

- mike lee - baltimore

Baby Cianna loves the second floor level of the newly completed deck behind the house. It's a perfectly enclosed playpen. This morning, she has been checking the contractor's work by stomping on the deck surface and tugging at the railings. Last night, we made our last payment to the contractor who says the job went amazing well for him due to the good weather of the last two weeks. The back rooms of the house are much brighter now that the old structure is gone.

Our real estate agent will stop by this afternoon to see the results and advise on next steps to sell the house. Tomorrow we are doing some house hunting in Silver Spring.

- mike lee - baltimore