Back at the jumpoff

In the words of the Lil' Kim - "I've bin gone for a minute now I'm back at the jumpoff." So here I am at the jumpoff. Yes - THE jumpoff. I think you all know what that means. Don't pretend you don't know.
I've not abandoned blogging like a mother abandons her child. I'm back at the jumpoff. As a dog returns to it's vomit - so Andrew returns to the jumpoff. This is the real jumpoff.
Everybody say "jumpoff". Now high five the person next to you.

Okay - back to the latest news.

Christmas 05 was great. We traveled back to Wales to spend time with my family who were happy to see us, but more interested in the new baby. In fact, my Nanna had been holding/smothering Alec for 15+ mins before she actually said "Oh, hello Andrew. How are you?". But that's what Christmas is all about. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Alec experienced his first trip to the beach which was great. The whole trip felt like a warm happy dream. He slept all the way from Chicago to London. Apparently - our next trip will have us tearing our hair out because he will want to be toddling around by then and crying because he won't be able to crawl around. So we really enjoyed his immobility.
For the first time in his little life he was with Daddy for 5+ hours at home without his Mom. I must say that we had a spectacular time. After taking a 2.5 hour nap we played together and I fed him 2 little bowls of rice cereal and a jar of pear baby food. He no longer needs his Mother.Now she can go down to the boats whenever she wants while Alec and I hang at home. I'm going to buy the boxed set of the BBC wildlife series - 'The Blue Planet' which I think is the most incredible wildlife series ever filmed. I know Alec will enjoy watching it with all the colours and movement. The glory of God under the sea.

Other news -
I'm reading Donald Miller's (Blue Like Jazz) new book 'Searching for God knows what' and I intend to finish this book. I never finish books. I will finish this one.
The exchange rate between US and UK currencies continue to hover around 1.7731911234 USD to the GBP. The pound is still stronger - but I'm hoping that it spikes so that I can accept some GBP from my Dad at the best possible time. So I've signed up for daily email updates informing me of the exchange rate.
I've also started number crunching a lot. Calculating all kinds of thing. Travel time back and forth to work over the period of a year/2 years/3 years etc. How much money over the space of several years I could put aside for something fun by saving $10/$20 a week. You get the idea.
I've ordered a new gadget it's a Dell 24" LCD monitor that is much cheaper and also brighter and bigger than the 23" Apple Cinema Displays. So I've bought the first link in the chain to having a home setup. So, anything could happen. I'm now at the point where I'm trying to decide if I should wait to get a G5 tower or get one now. Now or later? Later or now? What if I buy one and then next week they upgrade the line of machines? What if next week they release earlier-than-expected the G5 PowerMac G5 line of machines with the new Intel chips instead of the PowerPC chips that they currently have?
Which graphics card will serve me best? The 6600 or a 7800GT? Will it make a big difference in Final Cut Pro rendering time? Motion? After effects? Which applications are multi-processor aware? Which tasks can utilize multiple processors? How much better is 4 processors compared to 2? How much time will I save in rendering time over 2/3 years by having a faster graphics card? WIll I be able to take a family vacation with the time saved? Will the G5 spend more time waiting for me than I will spend waiting for it?

Now I need to go and change my son's underwear.