Haven’t updated this thing in a forever or so, guess I might as well toss some mental flotsam up! September and October have brought about some big changes for me, some good and some yet-to-be-decided on. The biggest is leaving midPhase for a new opportunity at 01.com. It wasn’t an easy decision and definitely a bit of a gamble in this economy but I weighed all the options and I just couldn’t say no. I’m working out of my house now full-time so I’m around the family more which is a definite win for me. I miss midPhase to be sure but it’s a real small world online so I’m never more than an instant message away from my old friends there.

Family-wise everyone is real good. Halloween was a blast and we’re looking forward to hosting our first Thanksgiving here at the house. Then it’s a lil skip to the holiday season and then onto 2009, which blows my mind. Aside from that, Sarah and I are coming up on 3 years married which again, blows my mind. It seems like not too long ago that we met but two kids, one house and a slew of memories later we’re still good. And I hope everyone out there is good too.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this puppy. I’ve been busy Twittering I guess, but still. So news news news, hmm? I guess the biggest piece of news is we’ve moved! We finally bought a place of our own and have moved away from Lisle and renting. Definitely enjoying homeownership and the peace of mind it brings. No more creepy landlords, no more emails from the mentally unstable and no more worrying that standing up for our rights as renters would bring accusations of “using the law against” people. Yes, renting is for suckers and we’re happy to be out of that ugly scene.

So life continues for us and it’s awesome. We have a freaking hot tub! And sidewalks! And our neighbors don’t tether their dogs to a stake in their front yard, letting their pooches defecate wherever and stink up the entire front of the house. An amazing upgrade and a welcome one. Sure we have more things to worry about now but they’re good things and most importantly we’re not giving our money to someone else anymore. Every month our mortgage goes toward cementing our own future and not that of some random whackjob.

So I’m raising a glass to the end of renting. It’s been a long, awkward road and I’m ready for a new path.

Lilah Winter Wolff was born on April 14th at 8:21pm! She’s 8lbs, 3oz and 20″ long. Perfect in every way. We’re in the hospital and recovering, bonding and reveling in our new arrival. She has a dusting of black hair and dark blue eyes. Lilah isn’t a crying baby so far, she only cried when she was just born and then again when they gave her a shot. Otherwise she’s very calm, just taking in this whole new world around her. The birth experience this time around is so drastically different, so much better. With Nathanial the doctor and nurses made some very poor judgement calls resulting in a Caesarian section for “failure to descend,” which more accurately should be described as “failure to properly gauge where the hell the baby is in the birth canal.” That left us robbed of the birth as surgery is a bad substitute.

This time around we labored at home for as long as possible, basically from 2pm on. Around 5pm things really started picking up and by the time we arrived at the hospital around 7pm Sarah’s body was pushing and we were underway. In the end she only pushed 3 times in total, the process went as smooth as can be. As she was so far along, they didn’t even give her any pain meds so Sarah delivered our little bundle of mayhem aú natural. I’m so very proud of her and we finally got the birth experience we so greatly deserved.

I’m on cloud nine and now I’m gonna go spend some more time with the newest member of the clan.

Or lack thereof! Today is Sarah’s due date but no baby in sight. It’s both a welcome and unwelcome turn of events, to be sure. See our son shares his birthday with his mom, which can be argued is my fault for jinxing her when we discovered his due date was a scant three days before her birthday. He went three days over and her labor started at 2am on her birthday. I believe at that point she started plotting her revenge and now our next child’s due date, today is a week before my birthday, the 9th. So if she goes one week late, we’ll each share our birthday with a kid and that, as they say, makes things even.

Personally, I welcome this. I’ve never made a big to-do about my birthday, I like to keep things low-key. But for this to happen means Sarah has to stay in her general discomfort and pregnant-like state for yet another week, something I don’t think either of us would wish on our worst enemies. What happens in the end is meant to be, whether the kid stays in another week or not. In any event, I’m gonna have another kid before too long and that’s simply awesome.

Work is exciting! We’re selling Dedicated Servers again and they’re quite the bargain! These powerful, powerful servers have superior genes and can stand up to the harshest of traffic and laugh. Plus we’re giving a whole ton of extras. They’re already selling pretty well, I hope that it keeps up cause a successful company means a successful sales manager. That’s me, for those of you keeping score.

February is almost halfway over! Bajeezus, the year is off to a racing start. We’re waiting for our tax return to make some important purchases but the most important are the birth supplies. We’re planning a home birth for the next addition to the Wolff clan and there are supplies that go into a home birth so that there are no unexpected supplieses. We need a birthing pool, various metal doodads, common herbs and alchemist potions, jaws of life, plum wine, backhoe, etc. And soon, as there’s only about 7 weeks left in this game and that’s if everything goes just as long as it should!

Fatherhood part 2 is impending, I hope I can keep up with two kids! Nathanial is too damn smart for me and even at 20 months he’s already finding way of getting around me, I imagine two will be that many times tougher. Good thing I have a wide wingspan, otherwise who knows what could happen.

Work-wise things are finally getting into their groove. I’m working on some relaunches as well as internal promotions, I’m confident things are going to rock harder than ever. We’ve had guests from the UK2 side the past couple weeks, everything seems very nice and I hope to visit over there before too long.

We’re two weeks into the acquisition and I’m quite happy to report that things are going swimmingly, work-wise as well as with the family. The UK2 Group acquired my company, sure, but they’re more than satisfied to let us continue to do what we do best - kick ass and chew bubblegum. They have suggestions on directions we should move in, strategies to pursue and case studies to examine but at the end of the day, midPhase is in the hands of one general manager and his six deputies, trying to make web hosting something to behold.

Family wise everything is good. The next installment of the Wolff family is due in April and we’re thrilled about that. Nathan is getting so grown up, not saying much but he’s very expressive in other ways. All in all I have no complaints about life. I’ve been immersed in work for the past couple weeks but it feels like we’re moving things in the right direction so until further notice, the redcoats have come but they were bearing gifts and candy - so we’ll keep ‘em.

So the UK2 Group has acquired midPhase, my employer. What does this mean for me? Good question and one that I don’t have any sort of answer to. The hopeless optimist that lives in my left ear believes the goodwill being showered upon us by our new overlords. They say they want to come in but not touch a thing, the proverbial dainty bull in a china shop sidestepping and tip-toeing as to not disturb the goods. That fool in my left ear thinks that the UK2 Group wants nothing more than to nurture our company and make life easier for us.

Then there’s the insufferable cynic that lives in my right ear.  Having been through a few mergers and acquisitions before I should know better than to trust the new guys. They have a very successful affiliate program of their own, even if they spell it programme, and their need for a sometimes lackluster, always contrary and independent affiliate manager may very well be nil. They’ll talk a good talk and say they want to integrate things to fit in with their style but in the end I’ll have a severance check and another notch on my resume.

But to be honest I don’t know which ear to listen to. Part of me wants the magic that is midPhase to last an eternity with everyone getting along and things going as smoothly as possible. I want the UK2 Group to see how great an atmosphere we have and perish any sort of thought of breaking it up. Then again, a change of scenery could be nice. I’ve been at midPhase for almost 3 years, an eternity in the dotcom era. There are all sorts of new challenges out there and I wonder if I wouldn’t be a little better off pursuing them.

I’m just so damn lazy sometimes. I write for a few sites out there and as a result I neglect my poor, poor blog. It’s a good thing my readership isn’t higher, otherwise I might be letting some folks down! Anyway, go out and be good to one another. I’ll write more someday, I promise.

So we have a 53″ widescreen television. It’s not a plasma or LCD, just a rear-projection but it’s HDTV-ready, meaning with an HDTV receiver we can watch all the local channels in glorious high definition. So until this past weekend it hasn’t been an issue as until this past weekend it hasn’t been football season! But now it is an issue as we have an HDTV receiver but no antenna by which to get a signal.  So our poor HDTV capabilities are, sadly, impotent. I’m working on a solution but we might just have to bite the bullet and upgrade our Dish Network service to HDTV and bypass this silly antenna business altogether.

So my ex and my ex-friend are getting married. This much doesn’t surprise anyone in my circle as the two of them deserve each other, much like lint sticks together. She was a shitty wife when I needed a friend, he was a shitty friend when I was losing my wife. I’m way over the actual breakup and subsequent drama, I just get this pang of *something* when checking out their absolutely retarded wedding site (I mean seriously, how shitty is -that- site?) and seeing all the quasi-happy people doting around completely ignoring the 700lb gorilla in the room.

In this case I’m not referring to my ex, fatter as she has gotten, but rather the fact that it all feels so damn familiar. Almost as if it had happened before, 5 years ago. Ohwaitaminute… yeah. Only instead of Spencer being the best man, he’s the groom. But Lisa’s still playing the same role. And it’s what little solace I take from that unholy union that I know it will end the same as it began, with untrue hearts making promises they know they never intend to keep.