Not that you’ll notice, but I’ll be gone a few days for technical reasons. We’re switching broadband providers at home which will leave us without DSL for a couple of days while the switch takes place. .

In the mean time, my wife has taken the opportunity to wear me out doing web design – or web redesign. She wanted to give her blog a makeover and, well… It’s been long enough since the last makeover I needed to quickly relearn the whole WordPress theme process to get going. My wife also has the tendency to push the envelope on my Adobe Photoshop knowledge.

She’ll say something like, “Can you take this object and completely change its color, but nothing else on the screen?” and I know Photoshop can do what she’s asking, but I know I don’t know how to make Photoshop do it.

So, while the blood is draining out of my head I mumble, “uh-uh,” and quickly try to find a short on-line tutorial for changing object color in Photoshop before the rushing drain of blud sucks all control from my hand.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the technical challenge and I love to learn new techniques, but my wife is the high pressure, micromanaging type of project manager who sits right next to me throughout the entire process. She wants instant results, and instant redesign and asks why “X” feature is broken when it worked fine before, and all this time I’m just trying to figure out why the whole screen just turned white except for a 5×5 square of pixels which are olive green. Hang on a sec, my conscience is sending me an IM…

OK. I’m back. I’ve been asked to stop lobbing criticisms toward my wife to the benefit of our marriage and my sleeping comfort. In fact, I’d go so far as to say she is a design genius whose sole limitation is the non-professional tasked with bringing her imagination to life. Really. I’m looking at the new blog theme now and I can’t understand why we put up with the old one so long.*

Eventually, you’ll likely see some changes around here too. I need to recoup the uh, educational investment required to upgrade my wife’s site and will get some of that lost time by improving my own stomping grounds. Of course, by eventually I mean someday.

*If you’re my darling wife this comment is for you and is intended to explain the two paragraphs preceding the “comment mark.” These paragraphs were nothing more than a cheap literary device for communicating my sheer lack of talent and ability to pull off your really cool ideas.

Okay, the word “fight” might be a bit too strong since what I’m about to write is more of a running argument than a full blown fight. Still, I’m jumping into deep waters here and I might as well do it with both feet firmly planted in my mouth.

My wife and I disagree about the merits of HDTV.

If it’s not already clear let me put it right out there. I’m a tech geek. I love new gadgets. I love cool software. I love surround sound, fast computers, and the smell of new electronics. My wife’s opinion of the same is a little less enthusiastic

I see HDTV as the necessary way to enjoy video – a private venue through which our large family can enjoy entertainment at the fraction of the cost it would take to journey to the theater on a weekly basis. I see digital pictures of our children floating across the screen. I see a neat, geeky gadget which I can fiddle, tweak, and enjoy…

My wife sees a mess.

To be fair, she has come to embrace some of my geeky ideas – satellite TV, digital video recorder, Xbox, and her favorite gadget, iPod. She also uses geeky stuff like DSL, WordPress and MirrorFolder every day (only giving me an earful when they don’t work). Each one of these has been a tough sell. But never have I had to face an argument as determined as, “High def TV’s are so white trash.”

If you know my wife, you know once she makes an opinion about something the subject is closed. No amount of logic, discussion, pleading, moping, or outright crying will cause her to change her mind. Arguing out of such a position is like trying to exit a doorless, windowless, room which is encased in concrete, magnetically sealed, and buried in the deepest, part of the ocean.

It’s frustrating being stuck in a place where no amount of ammunition will open the cage and where the depths of determination keep sweet persistence from entering. I sometimes despair with the thought of finally getting my wish some distant point in the future when my eyes are too weak to see or my ears too old to hear.

Then I remember how valuable her tenacious opinions really are. Despite the gadgets, the geeky science fiction kicks, the electronic experiments, and even the whimpering she holds fast to the one opinion I cherish more than anything from this earth – her opinion of me. Somewhere along the first of our 11 years together she made the decision to marry me. Her determination ensures that decision will never change regardless the number of times I beg for an HDTV.

Deep breath.

Here begins the obligatory “I haven’t written in a long time…” blog. I could easily try to explain away my absence as writer’s block, life, or laziness. In reality, it’s a bit each — but not a single one. Life has been a blur of work, rocking, and rest – work, rocking, rest. I haven’t made time for ideas. I haven’t kept time for writing my thoughts. Not that it would matter, my thoughts seem to barely stay alive long enough to become ideas.

I am going to ease back into things the next few weeks.

Thanks for your patience.