Dear Zoe,
We will remember your third month as “the month with all the puking.” At least, I hope we will remember it that way, and not “the first of many, many months of puking.” Although, as I write that, I can hear every other parent in the world laughing at me, so maybe I should just give up that crazy dream and focus on the good things that happened this month.
I just found out that Steve Swor, one of my friends from the radio station, killed himself last week. They found him in his truck in a closed garage on May 15th. He was 38 years old.
I haven’t seen Steve since Annie and I left Ellensburg a few years ago, but we’d been keeping up on him through Eric and Jill. They would tell us that they’d just heard from him, stomping around in the jungles in South America, or visiting family up in Alaska. He had mentioned several times that he wanted to come through Portland to visit, and we were toying with the idea of doing another radio play with him.
I hope no one thinks this is disrespectful, but Steve will always be “Uncle Scotchy” to me. He got the nickname after splitting a bottle with me at a Robbie Burn’s night party at Eric and Jill’s one year. At the radio station, he was legendary for his deep, gravelly voice. I’m sure anyone else who heard that voice would agree that he had a truly sexy on-air persona. He always had a smile on his face and it seemed like he was constantly off to one party or another.
Here’s to you, Steve. You can be sure we’ll be tipping a glass in your memory every year.
Update: Steve’s sister just sent me these two extra photos of Steve. Thank you!
I have mixed feelings about the beta. On the one hand, it’s totally good. The gameplay is exactly what you would expect – sort of a synthesis of the best parts of Halo and Halo 2. The feeling is familiar, all the new weapons and gadgets really enhance the experience, and the graphics are beautiful. On the other hand, I really don’t like playing Halo online with strangers, so it’s a bit frustrating to get a taste of the game now, but not be able to spend any time doing what I really like Halo for – co-op campaign mode and local multiplayer. Adding to my frustration is that it takes an incredibly long time to get into a match, because you have to wait through loading Crackdown, then loading Halo, and then for it to find a match. Still, it’s nice to get a taste of what the final game will be like, and now I’m even more excited for the single-player campaign.
(Sorry for the delay in posting this – I’ve been sitting on the draft for nearly four months now, planning to expand it, but it’s time to cut my losses and just post it as is.)
Annie had been going to bed with her cell phone on the nightstand for the last two weeks, just in case Rose called in the middle of the night in labor. On Friday, January 26th, at 2 in the morning, Rose called and Annie got in the car right away. She arrived at about 4:45am, and got to witness the water birth. Milo was born at 6:20am. He weighed 9 pounds 14 ounces, and was 21.5 inches long. Annie said the look on Dave and Rose’s faces when they found out they had just had a boy was priceless.
I hopped a train after work and got there about 10pm, and got to hold Milo right away, while Rose was taking a bath. The thing I remember most is that he was so large and solid that it didn’t feel like holding a newborn. It was hard to believe that he was only 16 hours old – and he was noisy! He was making lots of sniffling and snuffling noises.
We stayed the night on their couch, and hung out all day Saturday as various family members and friends came to visit. The light was excellent from their sliding porch doors, so I got photos of just about everyone with the baby.
Over dinner on Saturday, Rose and Dave were debating names, and we came up with several extra ones (Hannes Olo, The Unholy Astronaut, and the Pain Salesman). Oddly enough, Rose stuck with Milo.
We stayed the night again on Sunday, and headed home in the afternoon, after watching Oskar eat Nutella Toast.
