of course the simple, obvious things like cut-and-paste, and the ability to search throughout the phone and through my imap email server should have been there from the start, and while i’m happy to have those capabilities now, i still resent a bit that i had to wait for them. and while the other features also could’ve been ready a while ago, i’m not quite as bitter, probably because i’m enjoying them so much. the full stereo a2dp support (and my growing gut) has got me back to the gym. i used to hate that stupid wire between my ipod and the headphones. they’d always stick to my head, or get pulled out when i got on a machine. it also meant i usually had to have the phone within 2 feet or so. now i can set it in the corner of a gym, rock out with no wires and control the ipod from the headphones themselves. i’m living in a better future (although i’m living in texas, so maybe it’s a wash). i also like that i can actually chat on my phone now while doing other things. ironically, i’m too busy to be chatting from work though, so i hope in time to use that feature more. finally, i’ve found xGPS, a free app available through cydia (the jailbroken version of the app store) that makes my phone a full-fledged turn-by-turn navigation device. the best thing? it uses google maps, so everything is very current and accurate. it also also has text to speech, so it tries to say the names of the streets instead of the general “turn in 100ft” like most lower end models. the speech is pretty robotic and could use some work, and the auto-rerouting feature doesn’t work very well, but it’s better than my tomtom 100, and if this is the beginning, i can only imagine where it will go.

taka and jasmine and are doing well, and thanks to everyone who’s been going over and visiting them. taka sends me two pics a day, and i think i’ll have to make a page in the baby book of “my first 30 days in an iPhone” or something. i’m going to be back in la next weekend (and probably the next several weekends) so if anyone wants to get together to grab a beer or something let me know.

the job is going great. i’m mostly just in training for the next few weeks so it’s a really easy transition. but most all of the people are really friendly and very smart and while i’m sure the excitement will wear off, i actually kinda look forward to going into work in the morning (not that i have anything else to do around here). i have found my supermarkets and post offices and some really great restaurants. i just can’t wait until the wife gets here so i can share these places with someone.

on sunday again with all the time but limited on what i can do, decided to build a mini picnic table for the little one. taka and i spent about 6 hours on it and it came out really nice. it’ll probably be a couple of years before our daughter can use it, but it looks nice in my mom’s yard until then.

last saturday i picked up a moving truck, loaded it up with all my stuff and me, eric and ben drove it all to texas. it turns out texas is pretty far away. we hit the road at around 3pm on saturday with a goal of about 500 miles per day over 3 days. unfortunately, traffic was slow and the budget rental truck was pretty unstable, so we were cruising at only about 55mph most of the way. i spent most of the time following in the s2000, which turned out not to be a comfortable cross-country driver. by around midnight on the first day we ended up in chandler, arizona, only a little bit east of phoenix and about a hundred or so miles short of our first day’s goal. i spent the night in the truck and the guys slept in a motel, but we all only got about 4 or so hours of sleep before we were back on the road.

on sunday, we had an extra 100 miles make up, so we headed out early. figuring we had plenty of time, we made plenty of stops. we stopped at best buy for a while while ben bought a new dslr, we stopped at hat shops, steak houses and other random places. well at about 10pm (we left at 8am), we were about a hundred or so miles east of el paso and exhausted. these roads had no light and there was nobody anywhere. the guys started to get worried about me since i was just alone in the s, by myself and obviously weary. we had walkie talkies and i told them to just keep pushing on, but they insisted i take a break. when we pulled off in some town called kent, i imagined they were gonna say lets just crash here for the night and make it up tomorrow. turns out they just wanted to switch cars and let me take a break riding passenger in the truck for a while. you would have had to have been there, but there was something about us all being that tired and deciding to press on for another 170 miles that was just kinda an amazing show of will and strength. we finally made it into odessa a little after midnight and crashed at a motel 6.

finally on monday we were caught up to our schedule of 500 miles a day but i had to be in the leasing office by 6pm to get the keys for the apartment. it seemed that we had plenty of time, but we had the same thought about the day before so i didn’t want to take any chances. i left at 7am in the s2000 (speed limits on these roads were 80mph) and had a good, fast, uneventful drive all the way home. the guys showed up an hour or two later in the truck, we unloaded, dropped off the truck and went out to get some bbq. the guys flew out at 6am the next morning and i spent the next 2 days unpacking.

so now i’m back here in LA on baby watch. we’re due on tuesday and have been taking lots of walks and playing wii fit trying to get this baby action going. the doctor said if she doesn’t naturally start having the baby by the 26th that he’d induce labor, although at our appointment tomorrow, i’m going to ask that he induce on the 23rd if nothing’s started yet, because 1. i bet the hospital staff is going to be thin over the 3 day weekend and 2. i need to be back in texas by june 1st so i want to spend as much time with the wife+baby as i can.

so lots of things going on. once i do go down to texas, i’ll probably fly back at least every other weekend until taka moves down with the baby so i’ll still be around for a while.

taka’s going to be staying at my mom’s house through the pregnancy, and after this week, i’ll be staying with her there too, and will come down here for good either the 25th or june 1st, depending on when the little one arrives. i finally met the group of people i’ll be working with down here and i’m really excited. these people are friendly, young and smart and a totally different atmosphere than where i was. the offices are also very fancy high tech with doors that unlock as you walk through corridors and very trendy designs. everyone i’ve run into since i landed here has been really polite, it’s all very surreal.

things have been happening so fast that big things seem like small things in comparison. we’re due in like 2 weeks!!! we had the family baby shower on sunday and it was really nice. almost all of my family and eric and tina (the god parents) came down, and we really received almost everything on our registry, with gift certificates to buy the last few things that we still need.

amazingly, eric and i sold the boat in just a couple of days! we sold it for $1000 less than we bought it for, so not a bad return on investment on something that we got so much use out of over 4 or so years. while it was sad to see it go, it was the second happiest day in our boat ownership. not to mention my mom was happy to have her driveway back.

i imagine it’ll be a while before i’m back to my regular blogging, but i plan to make a correspondence post here and there. i’ll also keep up on the twittering, so you can follow me there.

kentomatic on twitter

the biggest problem is that we never really got strong at dealing with the ocean’s rockin’ and we usually had to quit because one of us was seasick. we tried dramamine, bonine, ginger candy, acupressure wrist bands and lately even prescription scopolamine, but all either made us too drowsy, or didn’t work well enough. so with me moving out of town, the boat just having been paid off, and us having had a very short fishing trip, we spent the rest of the day cleaning, detailing and getting the boat ready to be sold. it’ll be sad to see her go, but she served us well.

there’s a bunch of lakes in texas near where i’ll be, so maybe i’ll buy a small fishing boat if i find that i have time, money and the space to keep one. i’ve never done much fresh water fishing, but after all of the expensive and difficult ocean fishing i’ve been through in the last few years, it might be a nice change.

if any of you guys are interested in a 2001 glastron 175 sx fish/ski runabout, let me know, i’ll give you a good deal :)

i’m gonna be here all of next week and then down there the following week, and then back up here to get the move ready. hopefully while i’m down there i’ll be able to find a place so i won’t have to go back and forth too many times. taka’s going to move into my mom’s house and will stay here in socal for the birth and probably for a month or so afterwards and i’ll try to spend as much time up here as i can. both her and i want to keep things as familiar and easy as possible for both her and the baby. of course we haven’t figured out all of the logistics, but talk about throwing gasoline on a fire.

and wtf, i never got a thank you note from george bush!

Here’s Kari’s Top 10 things she’s noticed about being pregnant on the show:

10. When Grant says “Holy crap, run!’ I can waddle at best.
9. My new keen sense of smell is a disadvantage when handling jars of gorilla poo, rotten ballistic gel, or smelly, old socks from fans.
8. My tummy keeps getting dirty, since I have no sense of how big I am.
7. I can’t tie my own shoes very well, and I wear knee-high work boots.
6. I made a ‘Costanza’ under my desk to I can take naps when no one is looking.
5. The baby knicks when I am using power tools.
4. I can’t see what I am stepping in.
3. I am starving all the time!
2. Until it was obvious, everyone thought I was just gaining weight!
1. If I drop a screwdriver and try to pick it up, sometimes i need help getting back up myself.

a few days after the series finale of battlestar galactica aired, i decided to start watching the series. i had always heard from ben and rushubh and other geeks that it was as fun as lost but for whatever reason i never picked it up. it turned out to be a great show, and played like a 60 hour movie (yep, i watched about 60 hours of bsg in 15 days) and just like the o.c., by the time the series finished, i felt like i had real connections (well technically i’m probably related) with the characters and i was sad to see it end. definitely some of the best sci-fi i’ve seen in a long time. i really hope when lost wraps up next year that they do as good of a job.

taka had no interest in battlestar but her and i have started watching one tree hill to fill in our tv watching time together. the more pregnant she gets, the less we go out, so serialized tv shows have become part of our evening routine. i know it sounds like we’re getting old, but i consider this the calm before the storm. things are bound to get pretty exciting and hectic around here soon.