AT&T is apparently going through some sort of network upgrade and sometime next year, my old cell phone will stop working. So I got a text message saying that I can stop by a store to get a new one. What I didn’t realize was that I had to give up my old one, which made me a little sad.

See, I got this cell phone when I first moved back to the Bay Area over eight years ago. Eight years! I’ve had this cell phone for half my marriage! I’ve known this cell phone longer than I’ve known most of my co-workers. It’s way older than my blog. Heck, it’s twice as old as the iPhone itself. This thing’s so old it doesn’t even have a camera!

A lot of things have changed this year so it’s somehow appropriate that I’m losing my old cell phone now. It’s like I’m saying goodbye to the things in my old life. Things like my motorcycle, my old glasses, and sleep.

I took out the trash the other morning and something seemed a little different. Like, there was suddenly a lot more space in my driveway. Eventually (I’m a little slow in the mornings), I realized that someone had stolen my motorcycle.

Normally, I lock my steering column to the left. But I had recently dropped my bike which bent the frame enough that it can’t turn left. (Hence its recent nickname, in honor of another character who couldn’t make left turns.) So they just wheeled it away.

On the one hand, it sucks to lose my motorcycle. But it’s not nearly as inconvenient as losing our car or as upsetting as someone breaking into our house. Also, although I’m not particularly religious anymore, I’m reminded of a Bible verse I learned as a kid. It’s the one where Jesus is like, “Yo, if someone steals your coat, I’m sure they could totally use your shirt so give that to them, too.” I’m paraphrasing a bit there.

I was recently involved in a motorcycle accident. Well, actually, it was more of a “I slipped and fell down on my hand and I happened to be sitting on my motorcycle at the time” kind of thing. No serious injuries, but I couldn’t use my right hand for a couple days.

On the plus side, I learned to do a number of things left handed. In the order of increasing difficulty:

• brush my teeth
• type
• use chopsticks
• write
• wipe my ass
• change a diaper

The last two were a little messy, though…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eieYxDr-aU

(I was recently involved in a slight altercation with the ground. As you might guess, the ground won and I ended up with a slightly sprained wrist. Fortunately, I recorded this video before that happened.)

One of my favorite Christmas songs is Silent Night. I’m not sure why. I just think it’s pretty. So it seemed like the perfect choice to try to make a video of with the baby. And yes, I am aware of the irony of having a baby play Silent Night.

I was at a Christmas party recently that featured (what I am told) is a Dutch tradition. It went something like this:

• everyone contributes a few small presents to a pot
• people take turns rolling a die to take one to three presents from the pot until it’s empty
• then, people take turns to roll a die to see what happens:
• on a 1, everyone passes one gift to the left
• on a 2, the roller exchanges one gift with the opposite person
• on a 3, everyone passes one gift to the right
• on 4-6, read a card
• repeat until people decide to quit.

The fun part is that all the cards say things like, “Take the largest present in the room” or “Pick two people who have to exchange all their presents” or “Give the tallest woman your chocolate”. Also, all the cards were in Dutch and only two of the guests could understand them. Come to think of it, they were both pretty tall women…

I still have a bit of a lingering cough from a cold. Not too bad, but a little inconvenient when you’re trying to keep a baby from waking up in the next room. I also recently had Thai food delivered the other day (this becomes relevant in a bit) and there were some leftover dried cayenne peppers that had been marinating in Thai curry.

I remember hearing that cayenne pepper powder was good for a cold so I tried sucking on one of the peppers. It was really spicy but sure enough, my cough went away for a while. I doubt it’d work for something like bronchitis, but it’s pretty effective for a mild cold.

Everybody looks more distinguished with a moustache!

We had a moustache-themed Holiday party at work (I work with some strange people) so I had this extra costume moustache to play with. I am genetically incapable of growing a moustache so I took a picture to remember what I might look with one.

Oddly enough, my dad had really thick facial hair that he had to shave twice a day. So I wonder how my baby will turn out in that regard. Incidentally, it is really hard to keep a fake moustache on a baby long enough to take a picture.

As part of the party, we also exchanged moustache-themed DVDs. I gave away The Professional and ended up getting Gangs of New York and A Mighty Wind. We were both pretty happy about that.

I recently saw a incredible photo of the sun that included a scale reference for 5000 kilometers. Earth’s diameter is within an order of magnitude of that so I was curious to see what the image would look like with a to-scale image of the Earth in there.

Some quick internet searching and a little photoshopping later, this is what I came up with. To me, the most amazing thing is just how darn big the sun is. Those finely detailed plumes of fire? They’re bigger than Texas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjh6tFshdfI

Believe it or not, this really works! Well … sometimes it works. This was an experiment that seemed to work about half the time. Actually, it seems like parenting is just one long series of experiments. But when you find one thing that actually seems to work, the baby just switches to something else. It’s like they’re evolving or something.

I just got an email from Apple saying that promo codes (which I used to only be able to give to US customers) now work anywhere in the world. Promo codes are a way for developers (like me) to give away free copies of their apps to people (like you). Now, I know what you’re thinking. How could it possibly benefit me as a developer to give away free copies of an app which I expended blood, sweat, and tears to produce? Well, the theory is that the free copies generate publicity and then other people will find out about my awesome apps and hopefully they would actually make a purchase.

Does it work? I dunno. Maybe? I think it does. Anyways, now I can give them out to people outside the US as well, which is handy for international review sites. Now I just need to make an app that Apple won’t reject…