Up North ~ Life in Minnesota

With a sudden surge of lucidity akin to the proverbial “wake up call,” we realized that our little man was, in flagrant disregard of every parental effort and machination, growing up. Many of the cute, baby-talk phrases and words are disappearing from his vocabulary. His trouble with the “r” sound is substantially less noticeable, and many of his more humorous language slips are quickly being forgotten. With a desperation born of parents’ natural aversion to the passage of time, we decided to document a few of these verbal miscues so that we may grow old, and yet, never allow Gilbert to completely shed the vestiges of toddlerhood. Below is the beginning of a list that shall inevitably grow as we recall these last three years.

Britney = “Burtney”
Breely = “Byooly”
Gilbert = “Deeboot”
naked = “maked”
orange = “ohjin”
yellow = “lellow”
umbrella = “rellella”
daddy = “dadoo”
dizzy = “bizzy”
breakfast = “becky”

Dear friends, it has been far too long since I have posted! We are all moved into our new home, and - since I finally found the USB cord for our camera - I have some pictures to share.

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It’s been awhile since we’ve posted anything. Between job changes and house-buying, we’ve been mentally preoccupied. I’m sure we’ll have some photos from the move, and perhaps a story or two. We’ll keep you posted if anything interesting happens between now and then.

We upgraded to Wordpress 2.1 tonight. I’ve discovered a couple of minor issues thus far, but if you notice anything incredibly wrong, please let us know.

While I’m still somewhat at a loss as to how to deal with a design thief, I can’t help feeling a bit buoyant. After all, someone in this great big world felt strongly enough about my design to reuse it almost image for image. Despite feeling mildly vindicated as a designer, I’m also confused and upset. I spent a lot of time working on this site, time I could have spent with my family, and some random German comes along and benefits from it without expending one ounce of effort. Beyond that, this gentleman’s guestbook contains a compliment or two on the “beautiful design.” Why should someone else get the credit?

I’m not one to anger easily. I’ve also gained a modicum of confidence in 12 years of designing for the web. Although I’ll most likely just let this post stand as a record of this regrettable act and move on, I would appreciate suggestions.

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Over the gloriously long holiday break I managed to snap a roll of film with my Zenit 11. Zenit is a Russian/Soviet camera with a long and storied history that began with the manufacture of the original Zenit in 1952 at the KMZ factory near Moscow. While my model has some less-than-intuitive characteristics, it’s proven to be a simple, near-bulletproof 35mm SLR.

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