Hum

I was listening to this NPR report - it was the second time I was listening to it really, so it was just a refresher, but it basically said there the low hum in space is the echo from the big bang. So, thus the title. I know, not a great excuse.

I am tired. Headache tired. Yesterday we went to visit my wife's sister and husband, who flew in for a couple days for business from New Mexico. By the end of it, the kids were fast asleep in the car and I had been up for over 20 hours. I did get a full night's sleep but I'm still worn out all the same. We haven't really done much today, but the kids are tired, I'm tired, and we're all just waiting for more sleep, at least on a subconscious level.

I lucked out on not having to work today, we originally had to but there wasn't enough work for it. Good thing too, since I needed the rest. Been thinking a lot about looking for another job, not because of the company or the pay, but because I need this oddball schedule and overtime is slowly killing my spirit. I have way less spare time, I'm constantly tired, and I feel like I'm just going paycheck to paycheck, with very little personal progress in my personal life.

Listening to Paul Haggis during the Indiewire podcast was interesting, he was talking about being a struggling scriptwriter and filmmaker, who started relatively young in the business but didn't direct his first film till he was 49. He talked about being extremely stubborn, firm, and to take rejection lightly. He said that scriptwriting is a full time thing, not to do it and have any backup like be a doctor, because you'll just end up being a doctor. Not to give yourself an alloted amount of time, because it doesn't work that way. I don't know, I miss writing sometimes but whenever I start it up, I just think I'm a hack just reworking other people's ideas into my own. Like the young pregnant mom who doesn't want to finish school, I'm the father of two who can think of 1001 reasons why I can no longer be a filmmaker. Of course, that's not true at all. I think when the kids start going to school and I settle into a better job with regular hours, I can start to venture back into filmmaking. For now, I'll just have to blog and podcast to keep my mind sane and occupied. When it's not busy sleeping anyway.

So the iPhone 3G came out, and I'm supposed to be excited about it, but it's been a meh reaction thus far. The "lower cost" of the phone is just subsidized, so with basic math you're actually paying 40 bucks more at the end of two years, because EDGE service was just 20 bucks a month but 3G is 30 bucks. I don't know, I would jump on it if they offered a data plan with a minimum or prepaid phone option, but paying for minutes that I'll never use is just not something I'm interested in. Besides, aside from the 3G and the addition of GPS, there isn't much new to the phone. Steve Jobs did look a bit gaunt from the keynote though. It's as if he had shrunk, since the clothes he was wearing looked too big for him.

Well, time to think about dinner. After the short streak of illness with the kids, their appetite has been touch and go. Literally. I end up throwing their food anyway or just gnawing begrudgingly at their scraps because I've inherited my Mom's attitude toward wasting food.

Its quite easy to procrastinate on blogging especially when there's a new Samsung 22 inch monitor to distract me.

Coming to terms that I couldn't afford a decent HDTV was easy when I learned about this alternative. Suddenly to have hi-def goodness without the huge debt or space hog was a pretty good alternative to utilizing my ps3. All this while I've been gaming on standard def, wondering how much better it would look in its native goodness, and the answer is - very good. Droolingly spectacular.

So we are still dealing with Franklin not being around, and Alex has been sick these past couple days has been a sort of distraction for us. Alex vomitted in the middle of the night three times, and then twice during the day. So he hasn't really eaten a full meal for a couple days now.

Franklin

It's been a rough week, so I haven't really been posting because I keep waiting for the news to get better, but I think it'll be what it is.

When we came home on our vacation, I was carrying Zoe in at 2am and Franklin darted out, like he does every so often when people come home at night. He does it often enough to not cause any concern, so we didn't think much about it.

Well, the next day my Mom reported hearing a cat outside her bedroom window, and some birds sqwaking about. We searched around the perimeter and my wife saw some gray fur, and a red stain on the grass. It was probably about a cup of blood or so, but then we got worried. Perhaps the birds just pecked him in self defense.

Posters went up, wife started asking door to door, and visited shelters, and we got a few speculations from people she told. But I didn't think any of it was feasible, just wild speculation from people who enjoy embellished stories.

On friday, I was driving to work for some overtime at five-twenty in the morning when a pack of two gray dogs crossed the road in the distance. It caught my eye because they were travelling in packs, and I've never seen dogs built like that. I managed to catch a second glimpse before they disappeared into the woods.

Its hard to imagine that any animals pose any threat to cats, but after seeing them, I held off on telling my wife for a day before I asked her what she thought happened to Franklin. Then we had to grasp that our chubby friendly Franklin was probably taken by a coyote. We still get sad when we think about it, and we're still checking shelters, but we're fairly certain he's gone.

Sucks.