I just need to sneak this in here amongst all the baby talk.
I have posted all my Christmas albums, but this is last years list.
And also the Christmas Music listening allowance countdown. You have 32 days left people, so break out those Perry Como, Andy Williams, Rat Pack, albums.

Christy and I were working on compiling the updated list of Christmas Music albums when stuff started to happen.
I will be posting that soon, once Hadley goes to sleep and we get some much-needed rest.
Did I mention how lucky we are?

Happy Christmas Music Listening.

Hadley and family are doing awesome. We are still in hospital but leave tomorrow for home.
We have had lots of visitors. I will post more pics later. Thanks.

Hadley August Gannon
Born: 7:42am
11.27.07
19" long
6.1 lbs.

We are all doing well.
Baby is great, and so is mom.

More later.


Hadley August Gannon

they just gave christy Pitocin which will help kick in her contractions. she is still 5cm dilated and since her water broke over 6 hours ago they want to take it up a notch. could we meet our baby girl by sunrise? let's hope so. check twitter as well.

You may have to sign up but this will be an easy way to stay up to date.

https://twitter.com/dhgatsby

Monday, 11.26.07 8:07pm
Christy's water broke, POSITIVELY this time, at around 4:45 today. We just got here and were admitted into our fancy, schmancy birthing room. This place is like a hotel. Big tub, tile, wood floors, and a DVD player/TV, cd/mp3 player, wireless internet, and wet bar.
I just got back from loading all of our stuff into the room from the car. I am sitting here on the "dad" bed right next to my lovely pregnant wife who is going through small contractions about 5-6 minutes apart and 1 minute long.

I really cannot believe I am in the delivery room blogging, but this is 2007. I will be writing when I can and when I am not coaching her through bigger zonkers.

Here we go!

Quiet Riot's lead singer, Kevin Dubrow found dead in his Las Vegas home. This is a bummer for all 80's metalheads.
I saw these guys a few times in their heyday. They rocked.

Christy, god bless her, in her 8.5-month pregnant state, threw me a birthday dinner at 17th Avenue Grill with 6 of our good friends and family. So we are having dinner at a place which I have celebrated my birthday the past 8 years, and then the talk around the table came to "where should we go afterwards...?" They ended up saying we should just to to the Uptown Tavern down the block. I accepted even though I think it is a big stinky smokey meat market, which it was the last time I was there three years ago. Anyway we walk in and I can't find Jeff and Cynthia so ask Christy where they are. She points to the back room. Do you see where this is going? I sure didn't. So we walk past all of these stinky people watching a football game and into this intimate low-lit room and BAM! SURPRISE! I see Jason and was just thinking "Why wasn't he at dinner with us?" and then I see Holly and Bruce. It was awesome. Completely surprised me. We played pool, drank and chatted. Good times. Here are a few pics.
Thanks lovee for the great night.

With it being so cold outside, I hope all of you are inside, cozy and celebrating.
Happy Thankgiving everyone! Have a turkey leg on me!

p.s. no baby yet. christy is feeling a bit uncomfortable, but for the most part, lots of energy and content.
we are both excited though.

Dave

It's snowing right now. How do I know? Nope, not by looking outside, but by hitting F12 and pulling up my Weather Desktop Widget.


This is Mac's Weather Widget. I use it all the time. I have three set up on my computers. One for Denver, one for Canton, and one for Yankton. I also have one on one computer set for Burlington, VT just cuz I love their weather.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I am giving thanks to all my wonderful friends, family, and clients.

Yesterday we went for another weekly checkup for Baby G. Last week, Christy called and said that she was "OMG - 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced." Well yesterday we took the doctor by suprise when he did a quick finger test and found that she was 4 cm dilated and 80% effaced exclaiming " wow, I hope you have a bag packed." He hopes that she stays in long enough to come the day after Thanksgiving but you just never know with these kids, do you? Needless to say, we are SOOO excited! And nervous. And excited.

A few of us guys went to see Dweezil play tribute to his dad, Frank at the Fillmore on Friday night. I was never a big Frank fan, not because I didn't think he was talented, but because I just thought he was too off the wall. But I love Dweezil. So when I got tix through work, we went. Here is a taste of what brought me into the Zappa music. It's Let's Talk About It - by Dweezil from the 80's. Remember this MTV Video?

I was out, like the past two picture postings, stringing lights. The two were chasing each other around like two little kids, one with an ice cream cone, the other, without. It was so cute. I love Tica's expression in her eyes and Gibson's body language.

As I was prepping all the lights - (i.e) stringing them out on the lawn to warm up and uncurl, I decided to grab a few photos of the dogs playing, and well, me playing as well.
I am running the lights along the full roof line of the house. It was an obvious decision given the roof angle and proximity to the ground and the street. I hung icicle lights, even though I am sort of opposed to them given their proliferation on everyone's houses these days, but it works best for the house now. Out back, we are going to hang these big colorful round bulbs that I had used for the past three years on the back patio at the old house. While out back "warming" the light chords, I got this shot.

Greetings. So, I was hanging Christmas lights this weekend, and Gibson was there at my side helping. You might be asking yourselves, "Why would Dave be hanging lights this early in the season, it's not even Thanksgiving yet?" and I would answer this question the same as I did with my curious neighbor. "The baby is due in less than a month ( or tomorrow), and we wanted to make sure that we were good, festive neighbors spreading the spirit - in case Baby G comes early - I didn't want to be too tired or overwhelmed that I could not hang some lights. I promised not to plug them in until after Thanksgiving.

We also got the rocker for the baby's room as well. We scored. We think. It is the perfect pink to go with all the decor Christy has been decorating it with. Our theme is pink and green. We have not painted the walls, leaving them the drab creamy-white that covers our every wall now. But that will change too, next week, when I begin painting the living room and entry way.

Yes, I have not posted in 8 days. I apologize. I have just been extremely busy with freelance and baby stuff. I have again been awarded two more high-profile websites to build, all within 30 days. Since this is crunch time - preparing the house for Baby G to arrive, in exactly 30 days- and finishing up all these loose ends on the sites, I have not had much time to post.
Christy had the baby shower this past Sunday and her mom and aunt were in town.

Girls are not the only ones that get baby showers, as proven by my most thoughtful coworkers last week. The Monday after our housewarming party, they had decorated the entire office with baby balloons, streamers, and signs. A surprise breakfast followed with a bunch of gifts, including the car seat we had on our registry. So many fun gifts and cards. THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!




The baby's room is ready with the exception of a rug and rocking chair, which we hope to find this weekend.

Also, in the next month I am starting a new website called 5280 Dad. This site will be dedicated to new dads. I am sort of anal when it comes to cleanliness, design, clothes, safety and scents, so I thought maybe with all my research I could help guys like me deal and share ideas and stories. I will post when the site has launched.

Thanks for being patient and happy fall!

My coworker Walmer sent me this article when he found out we were pregnant. He said it offered him some perspective and comfort when he and his wife were expecting their first boy.

Funny You Should Ask

So we were lying on our backs on the grass in the park next to our hamburger wrappers, my 14-year-old son and I, watching the clouds loiter overhead, when he asked me, "Dad, why are we here?"

And this is what I said.

"I've thought a lot about it, son, and I don't think it's all that complicated. I think maybe we're here just to teach a kid how to bunt, turn two and eat sunflower seeds without using his hands.

"We're here to pound the steering wheel and scream as we listen to the game on the radio, 20 minutes after we pulled into the garage. We're here to look all over, give up and then find the ball in the hole.

"We're here to watch, at least once, as the pocket collapses around John Elway, and it's fourth-and-never. Or as the count goes to 3 and 1 on Mark McGwire with bases loaded, and the pitcher begins wishing he'd gone on to med school. Or as a little hole you couldn't get a skateboard through suddenly opens in front of Jeff Gordon with a lap to go.

"We're here to wear our favorite sweat-soaked Boston Red Sox cap, torn Slippery Rock sweatshirt and the Converses we lettered in, on a Saturday morning with nowhere we have to go and no one special we have to be.

"We're here to rake on a jack-high nothin' hand and have nobody know it but us. Or get in at least one really good brawl, get a nice shiner and end up throwing an arm around the guy who gave it to us.

"We're here to shoot a six-point elk and finally get the f-stop right, or to tie the perfect fly, make the perfect cast, catch absolutely nothing and still call it a perfect morning.

"We're here to nail a yield sign with an apple core from half a block away. We're here to make our dog bite on the same lame fake throw for the gazillionth time. We're here to win the stuffed bear or go broke trying.

"I don't think the meaning of life is gnashing our bicuspids over what comes after death but tasting all the tiny moments that come before it. We're here to be the coach when Wendell, the one whose glasses always fog up, finally makes the only perfect backdoor pass all season. We're here to be there when our kid has three goals and an assist. And especially when he doesn't.

"We're here to see the Great One setting up behind the net, tying some poor goaltender's neck into a Windsor knot. We're here to watch the Rocket peer in for the sign, two out, bases loaded, bottom of the career. We're here to witness Tiger's lining up the 22-foot double breaker to win and not need his autograph afterward to prove it.

"We're here to be able to do a one-and-a-half for our grandkids. Or to stand at the top of our favorite double-black on a double-blue morning and overhear those five wonderful words: 'Highway's closed. Too much snow.' We're here to get the Frisbee to do things that would have caused medieval clergymen to burn us at the stake.

"We're here to sprint the last 100 yards and soak our shirts and be so tired we have to sit down to pee.

"I don't think we're here to make SportsCenter. The really good stuff never does. Like leaving Wrigley at 4:15 on a perfect summer afternoon and walking straight into Murphy's with half of section 503. Or finding ourselves with a free afternoon, a little red 327 fuel-injected 1962 Corvette convertible and an unopened map of Vermont's backroads.

"We're here to get the triple-Dagwood sandwich made, the perfectly frosted malted-beverage mug filled and the football kicked off at the very second your sister begins tying up the phone until Tuesday.

"None of us are going to find ourselves on our deathbeds saying, 'Dang, I wish I'd spent more time on the Hibbings account.' We're going to say, 'That scar? I got that scar stealing a home run from Consolidated Plumbers!'

"See, grown-ups spend so much time doggedly slaving toward the better car, the perfect house, the big day that will finally make them happy when happy just walked by wearing a bicycle helmet two sizes too big for him. We're not here to find a way to heaven. The way is heaven. Does that answer your question, son?"

And he said, "Not really, Dad."

And I said, "No?"

And he said, "No, what I meant is, why are we here when Mom said to pick her up 40 minutes ago?