Max the Baby!

We have Baby!   By we, I mean Nick and Chloe.   Big baby+small Mom=30 hours of labor, but the home birth otherwise went ok:

We have not met Max yet, but N&C have been keeping us supplied with cute baby photos:

In less exciting news, we spotted a monster slug on our fence railing:

Ok, ok.  Not really a slug, but rather a fun-ly disfigured green pepper that Boris found.    And then I promptly lost to the jungle on the other side of our fence, after not taking into account that green peppers do not come with gyro balancing sensors.

Lady bugs, on the other hand, can balance just fine.    I moved this one around to various backyard flowers:

Also found him a spider web to play in:

(Yes, I rescued him afterwards).

Last month’s anti-raccoon cat food feeder got a small upgrade after they ate through my duct tape and feasted.   I used screws this time.  They got so frustrated they even tried some daytime raids, to no avail:

This makes cat very happy.   He has been fat and happy after we come home from traveling:

Traveling??  Stuck in the mud hate-to-travel homebodies Bruce and Helen have been traveling?  Why and where would they do that?  That relates to some other somewhat significant news …

For various reasons, Helen has been not happy with her job in here in Salt Lake City.   We gave it 4.5 years, but some issues simply were not resolvable.   So we have decided to check out other options.  We have been on 2 job hunting trips so far, with a bunch more to come in the next 2 months.

First stop was Charlotte NC, for a possible semi academic job.    It is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, with a pretty and vibrant downtown:

I rented a bike and biked to/from downtown.   You can kind of see me in this shinny thingy:

There is a nice river walk from downtown past where Helen would work.   She found some mulberry trees with yummy ripe berries on them.  Interestingly, none of her potential coworkers have been on that trail, right past their hospital.   Not a good indicator of work/life balance.

Next stop was Shreveport, Louisiana, an academic job.   Not as vibrant as Charlotte, but they grow some amazing trees down there: 

Next stop will be Missoula Montana.   A significantly different, non-academic job, but she is considering all kinds of different paradigms.

If we do do this, I will be selling the house here.    I will probably be getting an appraisal and listing it for sale in the next month or so.  We have been deep cleaning the house (not fun) and sorting through and taking pictures (fun!) to create this real estate web site:

  http://756northcrest.com

I will initially try a ‘FSBO’  (For Sale By Owner),  then probably revert to a real estate seller after a few months.   Lemme know if anyone has any ideas on what to add/delete/change in that listing. 

Bruce