So I’ve updated the site layout a little bit. Nothing drastic, but I wanted to highlight the improvements:

Different Font – I got tired of Trebuchet. It’s a nice font, but it looks awful without ClearType. Also, it’s just too curvy for online use, especially at a medium font size. So I decided on Arial. It’s so Write.exe (a Windows 3.1 reference for any non-geeks out there), but it’s also very Web 2.0.

Width Limit – Large computer screens are getting more and more common, and there’s just no reason for my blog to word-wrap text at 1440 pixels. But I also hate fixed-width web design, where you can’t see everything horizontally unless you’re browser window is big enough. So I’ve got the best of both – the site is resizable between about 600 pixels (small enough for an 640×480 screen) and about 1000 pixels (fill most of a 1024×768 screen).

New Header – I changed the font used in the header to reflect my more musical nature.

Updated Sidebar – My sister got married almost a year ago. And it took me that long to put Jason’s name on the sidebar… I’ll admit it, I’m a slacker! I also added links to some of my favorite political and programming sites that I read (or contribute to). And now up at the top are my “critical posts.” These are the handful of things I’ve written that most define what I believe and how I think.

New Photo Albums – I’ve added a link to my Picasa photo album. I’m still behind on getting everything moved over, but that’s where the new baby pictures will go. Eventually, videos, too. And it has its own RSS feed, so you can know as soon as I get around to putting more pictures up there.

Part 2 of the saga… Amy woke me up at about 3:30 am today to let me know that the contractions she had been feeling before we went to bed were about 4-5 minutes apart. Still not very painful, but they were keeping her from getting back to sleep. So she did the checklist of things to see if they lessened – go to the bathroom, take a bath, have a snack, etc. At 4:30 am things hadn’t really changed, so I called my mom and she called the doctor. The doctor was still in the mindset to try to stop the labor, so he went ahead and told us to come in.

We got to the hospital around 7:00 am. The contractions had slowed down a little bit by that time, about 8 minutes, but they were thinking about trying some medication. We decided to wait a little longer instead. By 8:30 am they were about 20 minutes apart and they sent us home.

So we’re back at home now. With orders to stay at home until the contractions get painful, and are really progressing. In other words, they are definitely not going to try to stop them next time. Which is fine with us, because we don’t want any more false alarms! But it could tomorrow, next week, who knows?

As they say with any good trilogy, the third installment changes everything. So next time will be the third time we’ve gone to the hospital thinking we’ll have the third baby. Hmm…

Well, things have slowed down enough that they’re sending us back home. We have no clue how long it will be until we have to come back – things could pick back up anytime. But at least we can wait it out at home instead of having to wait here.

We’ll keep you all posted on how things are going. They’re hoping we can put this off for another week or so. Keep us in your prayers!

UPDATE: Things are still calm as of this evening. Amy is still having a 3 or so contractions an hour, but they’re not painful. Which isn’t unusual for this point in a pregnancy, anyway. Before we left, the doctor told us to call when things were more intense than they were yesterday – which indicated to me that they won’t try to stop it next time.

Amy called me at 9:30 this morning saying that she was having contractions. And that she had three of them in the course of 15 minutes. They weren’t the typical, minor pre-term contractions, either. These were painful.

After a couple hours of resting, and talking with the doctor on the phone, we came in to the hospital at about noon. We’ve been here since, and they’ve not been able to lessen the contractions with the medication they’ve tried. Things haven’t really progressed yet, so there’s still a slim chance that they’ll go away. But we’ll be staying overnight in any case, while they monitor the contractions.

The couple of hours we had at home this morning gave us a little bit of time to finish getting some stuff packed and for my mom to come over to watch the kids. So we’re ready if it is indeed time. Amy is at 34 weeks, which is a little earlier than ideal. But our other kids were born at 37 weeks at over eight pounds – based on some estimates from ultrasounds a few weeks ago, this little girl should be over six pounds when she’s born. But we would definitely appreciate your prayers!

And yes, I’ll post here when we’re sure this is it. They’ve added free Wi-Fi here since the last time we did this three and a half years ago. So you’ll see a birth announcement up here within a hours instead of days.

Family – My sister Shane and her husband Jason left for Germany on Friday. They’ll be sharing their experience on their blog. They’ll be there for nine months, with a visit back in January. We’ll miss them, but this is a great opportunity for them!

Harry Potter – Just finished the seventh and final book this morning. I’ll share my thoughts in another post, but it was very, very good.

Baby Watch – I got the “guest room” cleaned out, with some help from Britt. So we’re one step closer to being ready for a new baby girl! Now we’re on the lookout for a dresser and some other miscellaneous stuff. Amy’s back has been doing better over the last couple of weeks, which has been a blessing. But she still wants to speed up time and get to the end of this pregnancy.

Home Improvements – We’re getting closer to finishing our latest major project in this house, which is fixing up the master bathroom. We knew when we bought this house that the shower would need some attention – the grout on the shower floor tile had more or less failed. The trim in the bathroom was also of the shiny brass variety, but the finish was looking pretty rough in a lot of places. We ended up having the shower torn out and had a new one put in with a mixture of ceramic tile and natural stone. We had a plumber in over the weekend to change out all of the fixtures, and we’re having a new shower door put in today. Now we just have to touch up some paint, and we’ll be replacing the lights, towel bars, cabinet knobs, etc. I’ll post some pictures when we’re done, hopefully by next weekend. But it is really coming together, and it’ll look great when it’s done.

Heath tagged me. This is supposed to be about five weird habits I have. So here goes.

Blogging – I enjoy blogging, and I have a lot of thoughts I want to share, but the weird part is I don’t post nearly as often as I should. But you probably already knew that.

Commenting – I have a knack for posting snarky comments on other people’s blogs. Right now, particularly Josh’s. If I agree with someone a lot, I rarely comment. If I don’t agree with someone at all, I usually stop reading. But if I am pretty close to agreeing with someone and just differ on key points, I end up commenting frequently. And yes, I tend to be that way in real life, too.

Technology – I have what is commonly known as “gear lust.” I love new gadgets, technologies, software, etc. This applies to my passion for music (Line 6 rocks!), computers, gaming, and entertainment. Fortunately I have a wife who helps me rein all of that in and keep it sensible.

Coke – in the South we do not use the term “pop.” Like Q-Tip, Band-Aid, and Kleenex, we say “Coke” around here to refer to any dark-colored carbonated beverage – except Pepsi, which many in the Atlanta area equate with poison. In any case, I drink a good bit of it. Probably too much. Whenever I get around to really trying to lose weight, I know I’ll have to cut down. Probably doing that alone will help me lose a pound a week. Vanilla Coke is my favorite – which to my delight they just brought back!

Sinus – I’ve had sinus troubles for the last several years, including a sinus surgery a couple of years ago. Which helped things tremendously – I’ve had an average of two sinus infections a year since the surgery, down from about eight per year before that, and they’re much less severe now when I do get them. But one way I keep it in check is to rinse my sinuses. I know it sounds weird, but it’s actually quite refreshing, and really helps to keep everything moist and cleaned out. If you have sinus trouble I highly recommend it.

All right, so now is the part where I tag other people. So I’ll pass the torch on to Josh, Pat, and Kevin. Don’t worry guys, no pressure, nothing bad will happen if you don’t pass it on.