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A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of male face a woman finds attractive can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. For instance, if she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating, or menopausal, she is more prone to be attracted to a man with scissors lodged in his temple and a bat jammed up his ass while he is on fire. Further studies are expected....

Greg, this is for you.

Today, the little peanut is cycling between naptime and playtime. I took Éclair for a walk and we talked it out. She is going to be very careful around the new baby and spend more time in the backyard. Henry is a momma's boy already. EL is gonna have her hands full with this little man.

Happy Valentine's Day! You know, in Napoli where love is king, when boy meets girl, here's what they say... When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie That's amore When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine That's amore Bells'll ring ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling And you'll sing "Vita bella" Hearts'll play tippi-tippi-tay, tippi-tippi-tay Like a gay tarantella When the stars make you drool joost-a like pasta fazool That's amore When you dance down the street with a cloud at your feet, you're in love When you walk in a dream but you know you're not dreamin', signore 'scusa me, but you see, back in old Napoli, that's amore When the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that's amore That's amore When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine, that's amore That's amore Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling ting-a-ling-a-ling And you'll sing "Vita bella" Vita bell-vita bella Hearts will play tippi-tippi-tay, tippi-tippi-tay Like a gay tarantella Lucky fella When the stars make you drool just like pasta fazool That's amore (that's amore) When you dance down the street with a cloud at your feet, you're in love When you walk in a dream but you know you're not dreaming, signore 'scusa me, but you see, back in old Napoli, that's amore Amore That's amore

Tonight, EL's Valentine's Day gift came home with me for the first time. I'd like to introduce the newest member of our family... Henry. Henry was trotting through the extremely poor lit kitchen and paused for a snapshot. Sorry about the DOF, but it was dark. He would like to point out that the tiles he is standing on are five or six inches across. He's a beast. His adult father is 5 pounds and his mother is 3.5 pounds, so when he grows up, he'll be a force to be reckoned with... but for now, at 10 weeks, he's just a ham. Henry, say hello...

So my wife won't get anything done today.

A decent review of (probably) the next lens in my bag... ...and the official link.

lmao from Mike: Dear Abby, My husband is not happy with my mood swings. The other day, he bought me a mood ring so he would be able to monitor my moods. When I'm in a good mood it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood it leaves a big fucking red mark on his forehead. Maybe next time he'll buy me a diamond. Sincerely, Bitchy in Boston

I was well on my way in to the office this morning when there was a multi-lane accident on the interstate prompting a detour to the park and ride station. I really dislike riding the bus. The drivers are rarely the least bit courteous and I'm almost always late when I take METRO. How can a mass transit vehicle take so long to commute downtown when all they have to do is stay in a dedicated lane blockaded by cement walls to prevent other traffic's interference? Amazing. The impromptu trip to Austin was for the funeral of my best friend's father. I have known him since we were kids and he will always live fondly in my memory. I spent some time wrestling my boss to get away, but I had to go. EL and I had a fairly easy trip up. Austin is a smooth drive once you get on 290... point the car and drive straight until you bump into the state capitol. I love Austin. I've always loved Austin. It has been an elusive destination without question ever since I was a kid and would drive up to visit friends fortunate enough to have already arrived. Long touted as the "Live Music Capitol of the World", Austin is a mecca for all flavors of artistic culture. I've discovered that sometimes sacrifices are made for the greater good... like putting a roof over your head or food on the table, but for in my dreams, Austin remains my idealistic choice of residence here in my home state. I was listening to this spot on NPR just before the freeway went whacko about how the DEA was busting legitimate doctors for, what was in their opinion, the careless prescription of opioid pain killers in patients with severe and ongoing pain. The thing that bothered me out of the story was how they chose one doctor to be "the example" and charged her with some ridiculous number of violations... well over 300. The result being a ripple effect in the medical field causing many professional physicians to prescribe lesser strength or lesser quantity pain killers to patients who would otherwise qualify for a larger dose or stronger medication. It's Janet Jackson's breast in the medical industry. What is wrong with this country? Wait, don't answer that. I may not have enough hard drive space on my server to store the length of the comment. In other news, the new chief executive at my company released a revised organizational chart of the officers and senior officers and my CIO's name was no where to be found. I have nothing to say about how that makes me feel that wouldn't get me fired. Let's just say it's a good start... a step in the right direction. I stand behind the new CEO and believe he has what it takes to make this company great again. I just hope he convinces me to stay before it's too late. Have you ever hung transparent bags of water from the ceiling to keep flies away? It works. Pretty weird shit if you ask me. I was running a little late this morning because I wrote all these love notes for my wife and left them hidden around the house, made her fresh coffee with cinnamon sticks how she likes it, took care of all the pets, etc. I need to get in the routine of setting my alarm even earlier so when my un-motivated ass hits snooze 5000 times, I still get up with some extra time to do stuff like that around the house. Typing on the bus is what I imaging it would like to type in the paint shaker machine in Home Depot. I ordered a 2.2GB micro-drive this week. It was about 40% of the cost of a similar density compact flash, so I'm going to give it a shot. I switched to a new company for my prints. I am using a professional lab now and the results are markedly better. I made the move to the pro lab when I decided to start selling photographs. Quite to my surprise, the cold morning wasn't wet. I'm loving it. I hope McDonald's doesn't sue me for saying that... but I am. It's colder than black hearted women's scorn though... the wind cuts through you like a knife. I'm approaching my stop, so the paint shaker must come to a halt. Thumbs down for the bad place, true... but thumbs up for coffee time!! w00t!!

Crazy tired. Back from Austin... must sleep. *sigh* ps. the gig shots are up over at Guy's gallery

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England." It's early, but I'm not at work. I'm off to Austin today. It's still rainy and miserable outside with no end in sight this week. This kinda feels like the Twilight Zone.

So, I got this email from Frank Billingsley (KPRC chief meteorologist) yesterday stating that my photo of the sunset in Spring from back in October was going air on the local news last night. I wasn't home in time to see it, but that's kinda nifty.

"It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care." - Peter Gibbons (Office Space) I realized the pathetic level of cardiovascular shape I have achieved after just a short run last night. It amazes me how quickly it all slides. Éclair and I ran the block circuit in the neighborhood and I was so winded, I had to stop and walk once. Beer and Mexican food are a couple of my prime de-motivators. I live in the heart of real Hispanic culinary culture. I'm like an insect drawn to the ultraviolet bug lamp when I get around Mexican food. Homer Simpson with a donut. Nemo's Bruce with blood in the water. You get the idea. Anyhoo, I've decided to get back in shape. It sounds so trivial when you say it, but it is an unbelievable commitment of time in the rat race of Houstonian life. I was in GNC on Sunday morning browsing the aisles of variety. Shelves stacked upon shelves of every known or unknown flavor of organic or otherwise supplement, vitamin, or infomercial gimmickry. It was quite impressive. I picked out the stuff I wanted... a men's multivitamin without iron, a daily DHEA supplement, some milk thistle for my alcohol dented liver, some more of those Sean-and-Clayton-discovered-on-Sixth-Street orange chewy C's, etc. As I was reading the few bottles in my hand, I noticed they had a selection of pre-packaged vita-pack style doses as an alternative. I compared this and that and the other thing and found the one that most closely matched the stuff I had selected. I did some quick math and figured that it was a better fit for me to buy the pre-packaged combo, so I grabbed the one with the goods I was looking for and headed for the register. As the young lady was ringing me up, it was then I first noticed the "most closely matching" pack I had picked up was the "special formulated for men over 40". Fuck. So, with my 30% or so salt-n-peppa grey, I paid the youngster and headed for the car seeping with realism. I'm not a kid anymore. It's a love hate relationship. Yesterday, being Monday and prone to all the badness that CorpoHell can generate, wasn't altogether bad... just busy. I had three too many meetings and some unnecessary face time with my boss, but it wasn't bad. Just busy. I'm hoping that today will be smooth and stress free. I didn't sleep well last night. I woke up at 4:00 from a really weird dream about comparison shopping Compact Flash cards online, buying the wrong one, and then my struggle trying to correct my order. I may just need medication. I think this stems from my real life Compact Flash nightmare last Friday when I needed to take many more photos than I had storage and ended up offloading to my laptop in a dark ally in a seedy part of town several times with great discomfort. I opted for the METRO this morning because it was sprinkling outside. When the air is moist, Houstonians removed their brains, set them on the driveway, and beat them with a hammer. All common and uncommon sense is nonexistent on the wet roadways of Houston. Watching Houston drivers in the rain reminds me of when I visited my grandmother a couple of weeks ago and one of my uncle's chickens was eating a Styrofoam ice chest. Yeah, good analogy. So, I'm at the mercy of our highly qualified METRO staff today. At least they have cement barriers blocking off the one lane they have to stay in during the commute. I sat down on the bus and one of the patrons behind me set off some type of buzzer alarm when he scanned his ride card. He looked at the driver and said, "What does that mean?" to which the driver replied, "I have no clue. Go sit down." Awesome. I patched my Battlefield 1942 to v1.6 last night. I also downloaded the relatively new Beta 0.7 full install of Desert Combat. There is a big LAN party coming up in the first part of March and I'm almost certain it will be 99.5% Desert Combat. That game rocks. I suck at it. I rarely play games anymore. When I'm on my computer, my screen is in a monogamous relationship with Photoshop Creative Suite. I really wish CS had a native Linux port. I'm in serious need of a computer upgrade. I did some quick looking and it appears that I can build a dual 2.8GHz Pentium IV system for the same price as a single processor 3.4GHz Pentium IV system. Any increase in CPU clock would be good for me, but my main concern is RAM. I'm running half a gig now and I think that I need around 2 gig... at least. It's been a solid two years since I looked into building a new system, so this will be a healthy evolution in refreshing my street sense of what's out there. I would love a PowerMac G5, but they are cost prohibitive for me right now. It's not the hardware as much as it would be the software migration as well, but still... pricey. We'll see how it all works out. I have a laundry list of other commitments to address before I jump into tuning a system. Well, the magic chariot of METRO is approaching my stop. I'm a hop, skip, and a jump from a jumbotron coffee and the 60Hz hum of my rectangular cell. I sincerely wish all a fabulous day. Ciao.

It feels like I've been under a rock. After a late night on Friday, I spent most of the weekend just relaxing with EL. We had the fireplace cranked up for the unexpected chilly Sunday that remained overcast and dreary to round out the weekend. Today's circus antics in the office have been less than fulfilling. Anyhoo, I need to get back to the grind. Here is another shot from Friday night's show. Guy doing his musical saw rendition of "Over the Rainbow". When all the world is a hopeless jumble And the raindrops tumble all around Heaven opens a magic lane When all the clouds darken up the skyway There's a rainbow highway to be found Leading from your windowpane To a place behind the sun Just a step beyond the rain Somewhere, over the rainbow Way up high There's a land that I dreamed of Once in a lullabye Somewhere, over the rainbow Skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me Where laughter falls like lemon drops away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me Somewhere, over the rainbow Skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true If happy little bluebirds fly Beyond the rainbow Why, oh, why can't I?

Here is some more snaeky pre-PMA leakage for you non-SLR shooters. Oh, and I also found this sneak peek at the new printer.