The big news

Aimee says she never reads the blog, but I expect we'll soon find out. This piece of news has been "embargoed" for months, mostly for privacy's sake, but also in case the baby wasn't "all right," requiring some more drastic thinking on our part. I expect most families have much the same set of concerns in these days of fetal ultrasounds and maternal genetic counseling. Most of those worries seem past us now.  

Deo gratis.

Aimee is still not particularly interested in telling folks, even folks who probably need to be told for one reason or another, mostly because she hates all the "OMG" shrieking and back-slapping that goes along with this kind of news. In a revealing series of facts, she has prohibited all talk of a baby shower, has not bought a single baby item yet, and hasn't even had one conversation with me, her husband, about baby names. As a partial result, I'm now in some awe of my wife's amazing uniqueness of personality. Although if I reflect on other experiences, I expect I knew it would be like this, or something like this.

However, and almost certainly in spite of her objections, pictured above for blog readers to admire, is the newest Womerlippi, albeit still quite firmly part of Aimee.

Things sure are going to change around here.

They already have.

For one thing, my honey-do list is now even longer and has a firm deadline. Everything that would normally be done throughout the summer and early fall, as long as the weather remained suitable now has to be done by the middle of August or sooner. All of it. All car work, all building work, the new septic extension, the deck, all the firewood, and as much of the food preservation as we (I) can possibly do. Never mind the repair of the secondhand crib that now sits in our spare bedroom, and other more directly related handiwork.

For another, any work or service organization colleagues that thought they were going to get any particular help out of me this summer and fall, whether it was college work or the large amounts of wind power science and service work I normally do, are already or soon to be sorely disappointed. I'm not going to a single conference. I postponed a much planned formal paper writing up my anemometry results from the last three years, a decision made easier by our ridiculous current Maine governor's Koch-funded opposition to wind power, ensuring the findings would fall on deaf ears anyway. Next year will have to be soon enough, when there's a strong likelihood that the next occupant of the Blaine house will be more reasonable. I cancelled the planned extension of said anemometry work into Downeast Maine, a cancellation made easier by poor planning and unresponsiveness to emails of some landowners, who may now whistle for their wind power studies. (Since they are rich private island-owners, it gives me extra satisfaction to write that out loud -- that Sheffield lad chip on my shoulder again.) I shut down all progress on two of three major college committees of which I'm chair. I removed myself from my MASAR Resource Officer, Duty Officer and training duties, and arranged to start the RAF Mountain Rescue Journal editing a month earlier and get more help. And, I'm afraid to say, we've planned a rather severe cull of our sheep herd, to get the numbers down to something more manageable over the winter in terms of materials processing and hay storage and so on. If you wanted a starter flock of cross-breed sheep or know someone who does, let us know ASAP.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

But we have other things on our minds right now.