Well, I’m not going to fill you in on what I’ve been doing the past 3+ months. We’ve been busy though. The two main things are we had fall opening at work and we’ve been getting ready for the baby to come.

On with the big news. Holly’s water broke last night (9/9/08) at around 8:30pm, she called the birthing center and got the ok to come in, so we got our stuff into the car and ready to roll. The first thing I did was do some dishes, sweep the floor, pack my belongings, and shaved my head. Isn’t that what every expecting dad does? I had been meaning to get to the barber for the past couple weeks, but I always seem to be at work later than they are open. So I took matters into my own hands…with a pair of clippers. We got everything else packed up and into the car (including a new car seat that Holly had ordered from Target which came that same day). We finally left our house at 11:00pm and got to the birthing center at 11:15pm.

They got us in to a temporary room, asked lots of questions, and did some tests. At that point, they confirmed that Holly’s water did break while we were at home and moved us into our room for the duration. She got settled in and I brought the rest of our things into the room. Holly didn’t get any sleep unfortunately, but I was able to get some sleep because that’s how I do. My parents arrived at around 7:45am on 9/10/08 wielding a bag of breakfast food which was very appreciated. Around 8:00am, they had hooked Holly up to an I.V. bag and some Petocin to start induction. I drove home really fast, ate my food, fed the cats, took a quick shower, and got back to the hospital. Holly and I decided to go with the epidural. She had to wait until the bag of fluid had drained, then the anesthesiologist came in and started the epidural catheter, which part of it is a giant needle. The drugs took about 45 minutes to fully work itself into her system. After that, Holly’s pain seemed to depreciate greatly, which was a huge relief for her.

The nurses kept checking his and her vitals and everything was progressing really well. She was 1cm when she came in, 3cm at 8:00am the next morning, 6cm at 1:00pm, 9cm at 3:30pm, and 10cm at around 4:45pm. The nurse checked her at 5:00pm and she felt the head within 3 inches of the opening! The nurse said she felt some hair, too! Things started to get going at 5:35pm. Holly’s contractions started to come on and it was go time. She did a great job of pushing. Benjamin Daniel was out at 6:02pm and the doctor had me cut the cord. He weighed 7lbs. 3oz. and was 19.5 inches long. The whole experience was truly amazing. Ben stayed in our room through the night and he only fussed one time. The nurse came in every 3 hours to wake Holly up to feed Ben. He must be really tired because mid-way through most of his feedings, he will fall asleep. I hope he will keep liking the boob. There has been lots of research saying how important breast milk is. We are anxious to get him home and have him in his room. We got the nursery finished up last week, thank goodness! I will have to take some pictures of it when we get home. It turned out pretty cool.One thing that needed to get stored was my press room and everything in it. That means I’ll be putting the shirt biz on hold until we move into another house. I might build a temporary 1-station, 1-color press in the corner of the upstairs so if I would need to, I could still print a shirt or two. We can’t wait to start our little family. It’s going to be fun and very rewarding. On with the pictures:

I also have a bike project going on right now. I bought an 80’s Nashbar time trial bike in mid-July. I picked it up for $75 on craigslist with intentions of converting it to a fixed gear. I attempted to adjust the extreme rake by replacing the stock fork and 24″ front wheel with a standard size fork and a 700c wheel. It didn’t work as I had hoped unfortunately. I then had the stock fork back on and ordered a 24″ tire and tube with hopes of either selling it, or having it to cruise around on.

A few weeks later, I noticed an old Raleigh road bike beside our friend’s apartment. I looked into it and found out the bike had been given to our friend, Ashley, by Holly’s co-worker, Pat. I asked Pat how much she wanted for it and she said nothing and was happy that I wanted to fix it up and ride it. So, I would using this bike frame as the basis of a fixed gear conversion. I found out that the bike is a 1972 Raleigh Grand Prix, I talked with a friend of mine who runs a small bike shop in Blacksburg, and my wheels started spinning (PUN! LOL!) I started out doing lots of research and seeing what was out there in the way of fixies. I have learned a lot in the past few months. I started ordering parts last week and quickly realized that only thing that will be used from the original bike is the frame and fork. So I will have a brand new updated and custom vintange bike when I’m done. I will be getting the frame and fork sandblasted and powdercoated. I am going to stick with a dark green. Per Holly’s suggestion, I have dubbed this bike “Project Cicada” because of the color combination I’ve got going on. Here is the parts breakdown:

• Soma Urban Pursuit handle bars (shotpeen black)
• Soma Urban Pursuit brake lever (black)
• Soma Forged Seatpost (black)
• Shimano 105 long-reach front brake caliper
• Pake 165mm 46t Crankset (matte black)
• Weinmann Deep V wheelset (black with gold hubs)
• MKS Sylvan Track Pedals (gold)
• new headset
• new stem
• new bottom bracket
• new tires and tubes
• new chain
• new rear cog

Here are some progress pics of the Raleigh: Here is the bike when I got it (8/25/08):

Here is the biked pulled apart to get ready for the powder coater (9/7/08):

Here is the bike semi-mocked up:

That’s it for now. I am taking at least a week off from work to help Holly with the transition home. Ben is sucking on my finger as I type one-handed, so I am going to wrap this up. Bye for now.

Categories: Baby, Misc., Screen Printing, bike
5 Comments »