2006 Holiday Letter

Part 1 - Construction

The year started off with a fairly simple goal - fix the leak in the bathroom. This started out by the removal of the soap dish. Then we noticed that we could remove the entire bottom row of tile with one finger. The wall fell next. So, we figured we may as well replace the whole tub area, since we couldn't possibly match the existing pink tile that we hated. Sadly, that same logic extended around the entire room.

Scope creep is the 5th, and strongest, basic force in the universe. The final creep came a few weeks later, when I was taking out some of the old pipe below the house. The saw I was using shook all the pipes in the house, and being at least 50 years old they had a bit of crud built up in them. So my kitchen had a stroke, even though it was on the other side of the house, and we ended up having to replace basically all the plumbing.

As we only have one bathroom, we were down to 0 bathrooms during much of the construction process. Hey, it only lasted 7 or 8 months. During this time we showered at the gym. I now have a thesis I could write on the bathing habits of the male Alamedan gym-going retired population, should I ever want a Phd in anthropology. There's an unforgivable knowledge gap there.

Part 2 - Conception

Uh, yeah. No pictures.

At some point during late February, we managed to conceive a child. At this point, Lyla started feeling like having to walk a plank to go to the bathroom was a bit of an injustice. So I started working on the bathroom, y'know, both days of the weekend. Most of the time. Hey, my dad was doing all the real work anyway, I just got in the way.

Part 3 - Continuous Self-Improvement

Facing a finite amount of time left as a freewheeling childless couple with plenty of time and disposable income, Lyla and I decided that we wanted to accomplish something. We needed to get organized. We needed clarity and focus. We needed HD.

High-definition television certainly helped with the lack of clarity. Except for all the time we weren't watching TV. "Real Life" suddenly seemed sort of fuzzy, and the color saturation was a little low. But we still weren't happy. We resolved to change our bad habits. Instead of just haphazardly watching whatever happened to be on, we would watch certain shows. We tried watching Sopranos and 6 feet under, but it felt like what I imagine reading Ulysses must like. Man, there are lot of episodes of the Sopranos. So we got the DVD of Firefly on netflix, and for the first time, we managed to watch every episode of a single show. Okay, so it was the first time since Joe Millionare, and Firefly only had 10 total episodes. Baby steps, baby steps.

Part 4 - Contractions, Contact, confusion, constipation, consternation, and laundry

Speaking of Baby, our little baby Turner finally decided to show up on November 21st, a mere week late. He was 7 pounds 14 oz, and 21 inches in length. Similar to my birth size, and what I would normally consider a fairly average sized baby, except that I have been informed by my wife that I am completely wrong, he was behemoth sized, and if I ever doubt that for a second then I can damn well try carrying one around sitting on my bladder for 9 months.

During the pregnancy, I was a little concerned that I wouldn't have the fairy-tale attachment to the newborn offspring. I'm not really a baby person, or a dog person, and I had a hard time seeing how something that sat there and slept and ate and shat and didn't really interact with you could be so enthralling. Little did I know, I had nothing to worry about. For Turner is a comic genius. Genius, I tell you, the kid has no parallel. I'll prove it to you, it has nothing to do with me being his father. So without further ado, I present the comedy stylings of Turner Bradley Smith: