Jon’s Corner of the Whirled

Saturday night and Sunday night were painful for both Lisa and I.  For Lisa, they were painful in the physical sense — Saturday she had contractions every five minutes or so all night long.  Unfortunately they weren’t “true labor” contractions.  Also unfortunate was that they kept her awake until they stopped at 5 AM.  She slept until 7 AM.  Sunday night was a similar story. The contractions were more intense, but not as frequent, she managed to get a little more sleep.  It appears we are heading in the right direction.  The nights were painful for me as well.  I feel pretty useless, watching Lisa have to endure the contractions, and the best I can manage is to rub her back occasionally and watch the clock for her. 

Lisa was due on May 5th, if you ask her, and May 1st if you go by the first ultrasound.  In either event, she is past due, and ready to be done with being pregnant.  I can’t say I blame her.  She stopped work a week ago Friday.  Lisa isn’t a patient person, and the notion that waiting for the baby might take a few more days is not something she wants to wait for.  She is trying everything she can to make it happen now. :)  She has been hard pressed to find things that she can do — she did yard work one day, and sewing another, but it is difficult for her to sit for long periods of time.  She even mowed the lawn on Saturday, against my objections.  I tried to reason with her.  “I don’t think pushing the heavy lawn mower around is a great idea.  Second”, I said in a kidding tone, ” what kind of husband are the neighbors going to think I am with my ‘past-due’ wife mowing the lawn?”  I don’t really care too much about what the neighbors think, but I am concerned that she pushes herself to hard.  I guess all we can do at this point is wait.

While I was in Eugene last weekend, I took my fly rod to The Caddis Fly in Eugene. The rod was a gift from my father several years back. It doesn’t have markings for line weight, so I wasn’t sure what line to purchase. The line on the reel he had given to me with it had started to separate. I’ve been trying to find things to do that aren’t computer related, and fly fishing seems like a good possibility.

At The Caddis Fly, the guys there put a reel on it with 6 weight line. It worked well, so that’s what I bought, along with an Orvis Clearwater III reel and a new leader. My thinking was that the Clearwater isnt’ terribly expensive as well as being easy to find. I plan on getting a spare spool and a sinking tip line in the future.
I was digging through my fly tying supplies and noticed that the Hare’s mask I had was mostly dust, along with the calf tail and squirrel tail. Bugs had gotten to them at some point. I’ll have to purchase more. I haven’t yet found a good fly fishing shop in Portland, but I haven’t looked too hard either.

Lisa, Morgan and our yet-to-be-born-much-less-named baby have been occupying most of my free time.

Lisa purchased new waders, boots and a float tube for me for Christmas. I’ve been wanting to go fly fishing for a while now, but haven’t been motivated. I’m lacking a bunch of gear. I have a rod and reel, but the line is at least 10 years old, nor do I know what weight it is. The reel is a pfluger knock off my dad purchased when he had the rod made back in Albuquerque. I can’t find my fly vest anywhere, and only have one small fly box. I do have all the fly tying materials in the attic, so I’ll have to bring those down. I’m going to have to go shopping to get all the gear I’m going to need: a vest, new line, leader and tippet, fly boxes… I’m sure once I’m in the store there will be a bunch of other stuff I’ll find I need. I also need to get a new Oregon fishing license.

I found a couple of good websites related to Oregon fishing. www.ifish.net has a good discussion board, and www.nwlunker.com has a searchable database of lakes and rivers. Besides the “what” question in “what to buy”, I have to figure out the “when” I’m going to go fishing, and the “where”.

In the past, I have primarily done trout fishing, but reading all the steelhead reports on the website, it sounds like that might be a good target for the end of 2006, beginning of 2007. The rod I have is too light for steelhead, but Lisa’s father gave me a 6 weight rod that might just work, from what I have read.

It seems 2006 is upon us already. It should be an interesting one for our family considering the new baby coming in May (according to the doctor at least). Lisa and I have been reading various books about what to buy for the baby. One book is a stand out: Baby Bargains: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on Baby Furniture, Equipment, Clothes, Toys, Maternity Wear, and Much, Much More! It has been very informative, and given us a lot of good hints. Lisa had been enamored with a crib in the JC Penny catalog. I was concerned about spending $400 based on a description and a couple of pictures in a catalog. I convinced her that we should look around town again. I’m happy to report that we found a very nice crib in town. We chose not to purchase it right away — we are trying to pace our spending for the baby.

Aside from the crib, we still need to get a car seat, stroller, bedding for the crib, and a bazillion other things. Who knew that someone so small could need so much stuff?

It seems the weather men are at it again. The threat of “snow” is in the air. There is a small chance that it might actually be below freezing somewhere near the ground in the next 24 hours. I’m certain “Stormwatch 2005″ will be in full swing on the evening news, although I never watch it.

I remember the last “big” storm we encountered, the newscasters were reporting that there was snow falling in Salem. That made the news. Almost as exciting as this entry.

Next week is a big one for our household. Lisa and I are going in for the next ultrasound, and we should find out the gender of the baby! Once we know the gender, name selection should be a little bit easier. It will at least cut down on the potential search parameters.

Work has been time consuming, and we had a slight reprieve with the Thanskgiving break. It would have been nice to have a few more days off before the chaos of the end of year holidays begin, but such is life.

Our television stopped working a few weeks ago, and we have been forced to use Lisa’s 13″ television. The color reproduction on her 13″ is a lot better than the 27″ we had before. I’d like to replace the 13″ with a 32″ LCD HD television, but I have run into complications. First is the expense. I can’t justify spending that much money for a new TV right now. The second is the cabinet. The TV must be 32″ wide to fit into the cabinet that Lisa bought a while back. The interior of the cabinet is actually 38″, but the doors on the cabinet push in when they are open, to be out of the way. Unfortunately this leaves us with 32″ of space. It has been a bit difficult to find a 32″ LCD that doesn’t have speakers on the side.

On that note, shopping for a TV is at best frustrating. I’ve read reviews online. I’ve been to Best Buy, and Costco to compare. The problem with Best Buy is that they don’t seem to care what the TVs look like. Half of them are out of adjustment, one of them even had the cables swapped, so all the colors were inverted. Its nearly impossible to make a sane decision about what is good and bad in those environments. The sales people could seem to care less.

I’ll just keep saving my pennies, and perhaps someday soon I can replace the 13″ with something more, well, visible.