Total Quality Management

You may be wondering why updates to this site have been a little slow lately.  The primary reason is that it's been a pretty exciting week:  We celebrated Andrew's 2nd birthday, welcomed his new cousin Caleb into the world a day later (albeit remotely), and, just 3 days after that, picked up a new family member with Mara and Arthur's wedding.  With all this going on, there just hasn't been much time to sit in front of the computer and write up great stories about how excited we are for everyone.

Which is a good thing for our friends over at Hewlett-Packard.  Long time readers of this site might remember some of our not-so-distant trials and tribulations with this world class computer supplier, but after a few go arounds, they did finally manage to get our machine up and running.  Unfortunately, even if the week's events had allowed time for unrestrained, stream-of-consciousness updates to the blog, we would have been stymied.

Yes, you guessed it, I am sorry to report that our relatively new computer has died.  Again.  Same thing as before.  Completely dead.  Won't even boot up.  Considering that all we use the machine for is to surf the web, update this blog and play Elmo games, we're a little disappointed that the HP machine can't hold its own here.  My old AST 486 DX 33mhz did all the same stuff - and more - through 4 years of undergrad over 10 years ago.  So much for Moore's law here.

Anyway, we'll have to go through the whole "FedEx Your Computer Back to Us" thing once again, so in the meantime we will be posting via other channels at somewhat more, irregular intervals.

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March Madness

I'm not a huge sports fan. Don't get me wrong, I love playing sports. I've already purchased a whole range of athletic equipment and balls under the guise of "Andrew really wanted one" simply as an excuse to try out the new soccer fields and basketball hoops at the bottom of the hill. So, perhaps I should say I'm not a huge sports spectator. However, after ten years of being upset at NMSU for terminating men's swimming the year after I graduated in the name of Title IX equality (as well as the NCAA for threatening to take away my hard-earned accounting scholarship when I exceeded their allowable limit by $300), I must admit that I've really enjoyed watching my Alma mater come alive in post-season basketball play.

Last night, thanks to Tivo, I managed to catch a full, uninterrupted showing of NMSU's men's basketball in their win over Utah State to take the Western Athletic Conference and earn an invite to the NCAA tournament. Granted Las Cruces hosted the conference playoffs, and the conference's top-rated team, Nevada, failed to advance to the finals, but when big wins have been as elusive as they've been in southern New Mexico the past few years you enjoy any win you can get.

The home court definitely seemed to give NMSU's often sloppy play (the team squandered 14+ point leads a few times throughout the game) an advantage, but Andrew and I got a kick out of the fast-paced action, excited crowd, and numerous turn-overs anyway. Not sure if Andrew knew who he was rooting for but whenever the fans on television were "hootin' and hollerin'" he gleefully joined right in. Leslie, on the other hand, looking for any relief from an eight-months pregnant belly, decided to red-shirt this game in lieu of a soak in the tub with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Diana, and Camilla.

NMSU will likely find out its tournament ranking, bracket and next opponent today so we'll be setting up the DVR to make sure we don't miss a minute of their upcoming game (their first tournament invite since I was a student there). In the meantime, Andrew was asking me about the kind of surfboard that would work in decent waist to head-high swells at beach breaks like Huntington, as well as some of the sand bars and reefs around San Onofre. I told him he might want to look into some of the new hybrid fish like Rusty's Piranha or Channel Island's Sashimi.

We'll have to go check those out today - since Andrew was wondering.

I'm still pregnant

Still pregnant and ready to be done - this is going to be a long 6 weeks! This picture was taken about a week ago, and I am perceptively bigger than last week. I am predicting this kiddo will weigh more than Andrew did (I am hoping so since I now weigh more than I did when I delivered Andrew!)

I am deep into third trimester fun - hearburn, no sleeping, and complete absentmindedness. In an attempt to make coffee the other day, I neglected to actually put coffee in the coffeemaker. I was wondering why Eric was laughing when he went to get us a cup - I had put water in, so I made hot water. Another day, I drove off to work with Andrew's shoes in my car and the poor guy had to stuff his feet in an old pair (we've since upgraded his shoe collection).

Even though I am a bit uncomfortable right now, I am overwhelmingly thankful that we've made it this far and this baby boy is doing just fine.

Home again

Leslie's home now. After spending a surprisingly comfortable night in the hospital (thank you to whatever sleep aid my lovely nurse gave me :), I'm home again. I'll be on strict bedrest (the kind where you are really only suposed to get out of bed to go to the bathroom) for the next 3 days. I'm also on some great medication that makes sure my uterus stays nice and relaxed. While I was at the hospital I was given the Fetal Fibronectin test that will tell you the likelyhood of going into real labor within the next two weeks. My test came back negative which is a very good sign. The goal now is to keep this baby put for at least the next 5 weeks so we make it to 36 weeks.

The good news in all of this excitement is that the baby continues to be just fine. The ultrasound we had on Tuesday showed him growing nicely. And all of the contractions and poking and proding we went through yesteday seems to have not bothered him at all - his monitor showed him to be happy as a clam.

Super Bowl

In typical Capron fashion as of late, we are, yet again, spending Sunday. hanging out at the hospital.  Not to worry - Andrew is fine, Eric is fine, and Leslie is fine.  However, last night as Andrew was deciding whether we was rooting for the Bears (grrrr) or the Colts (heeeheheheee), Leslie started having pretty regular contractions which continued into the morning. 

She's been hooked up to a monitor for the past few hours, as Eric splits his attention between the NFL pre-game show and the wavvy lines scrolling out of the fetal monitor's printer.

So far things look to be improving, but we have a few more hours of waiting to go. Hoping things clear up before kick-off, Andrew's got some animals to cheer for.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
 

This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law.  If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message. 

Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. [v.E.1]