Caveat: I play with monkeys for six hours a day.

Situation: I'm bored, so I was reading over the blogs and checking out the links. If you are also in need of amusement, check out Dan's note 8/9 and see what his town is up to. Sometimes it's funny, this week is the "Halloween Hoots and Howls Hop".

To make up for Josh's complete lack of culture, anyone catch the new Joe Millionaire yesterday? Speaking of Hoots (okay, well, Hooters--the restaurant)...should prove funny, although, I'm trying to refrain from getting involved.

Well, the recent Walsh update has inspired me to follow suit. Jill and I are doing well and are looking forward to staying home for the duration of the pregnancy (ETA 12/5/03). We've recently been on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. from baby shower to baby shower. The good news is that we are now the proud owners of 8 baby blankets, 11 baby caps and 16 baby bibs along with many other items of extreme cuteness and varying practicality. We've apparently adopted a 'ducky' and 'froggy' theme, which follows inevitably from the yellow and green forced upon those who choose not to find out if their having a boy or girl. The good news is that I'm not averse to frogs and am actually enjoying owning my first rubber ducky. Along with receiving all of these gifts we are staying quite busy attempting to transform our already cramped housing space into an acceptable nursery / play area / baby wardrobe-changing area. Sherlock seems quite uninterested by everything, but Jill and I think he'll be much more excited once baby starts raining down Cheerios and various foodstuffs onto the floor in the relatively near future.

In other news, Jill is in the midst of a huge web-database project at work and is looking forward to maternity leave and the prospect of working from home at least 2 days a week once the baby arrives. I am in the midst of background reading for my dissertation on early Latin commentaries on the Pauline epistles. I've also been substitute teaching undergraduate theology classes, which has actually been enjoyable despite the perpetual Fordham undergrad hangovers. I'm hoping to finish my dissertation in two years and to teach an intro. course of my own sometime in the next year or so.

That about covers it for now.

I apologize for the lack of references to reality television. That is all.

Hello everyone. Shannon and I just got our internet set up here at home. I'm pretty sure they monitor all my computer activity at work, so I won't be checking this much from there. But now we're connected at home.

Saw Dan and Betsy and Aidan for a brief while when they passed through en route to a frisbee throwing fest. Aidan is a tank. A big kid. He weighed about 33% more than Mary Grace. Good thing girls mature more quickly. She should have those five days that separate them made up in no time. Anyhow, here are some pictures of her from her Baptism this past Sunday. A fine looking baby, if I say so myself (and I do).

Supreme Court is going well, though it is a bit more stressful than my previous clerkship. Justice Scalia is a great boss ... just a bit intimidating because I find that I am most prone to saying dumb things around really smart people. (That was a backhanded compliment to all of you to the extent that you think that I've said a lot of dumb things around you.)

That's all for now.

Rob, are you embarrassed to live in the State of California yet? Tell me you didn't vote for Arnold today.