This installment brings a story straight from home. It's important to understand, before we get too far along here, that the missus is generally pretty levelheaded. This whole time, I've been waiting for something to come seriously unhinged - which, to hear some of the other dads-to-be tell it, happens all the time, for no reason, with no warning...you get the picture.

In this installment, a story from a friend. I'd heard a rumor that Señor MC was in the same boat, but due sooner - I kept waiting for him to say something, but he never tipped it. Finally, around the time we were starting to tell folks, I said to him, "I heard a rumor...is it true?" He pretty much just looked at me.

I'm a man of very little wealth and only some taste, and that's about as far as it goes. Some might say "hey, Coors Light has better taste than you," to which I would likely respond, "bite me." Or possibly, "I know you are, but what am I?" I'm not very good with comebacks.

I am good at other stuff, though. I've been a field techie here since 2000, and before that, did essentially the same work in the well-fed city of Chicago. And back in school, I ran most of the Mac labs simultaneously (there were close to 100 machines, all told, and I was the poor sap who installed every piece of software - by hand - starting fresh 2-3 times a year). And before that, I go back as far as punch cards. In fact, I was probably the youngest person to use the machines at NCSA - at about 5 years old, I played tic-tac-toe on one of the first touch-screens in the world there.