If you got an error trying to read the blog earlier today… Yeah, that was my fault. Everything should be hunky dory now, and nothing was lost.

OK, so here it is. Nine hundred ninety-nine posts have come before this one. Let’s see how we got here.

At the overall rate, it will take me another seven years, four months to get to Post #2,000. But had I kept going at my pre-graduation rate, I wouldn’t have gotten to 1,000 until 2015. If I keep going at the last year’s rate, I’ll have another 1,000 around October, 2013.

Um, yeah. I think I have too much time on my hands.

I guess I never really new how badly my router stunk until I tried to let it run for a month unattended. It had run for months without a reset, but I hadn’t been pushing a consistent stream of data across it. I set up a couple of webcams to take pictures of the house and upload them to the server (Pepin). I guess the router folded after a week or so of that much activity.

It was a simple problem to fix: I just had to reset the router, which I could access via SSL… Wait. The web interface has no reset option… And changing settings, updating firmware, etc. didn’t have the same effect. That’s when I pointed the domain to a temporary site with the message you’ve been seeing for the past month.

Two weeks ago a tornado came within ten miles of our house. The power went out and my router reset, but Pepin, the server, wasn’t set to restart after a power outage. The only computer that was fully functioning when we returned was Honeycrisp, my old iMac.

Anyway, we’re back and I have a massive backlog of stories to tell and pictures to upload. We’ll probably have daily posts until school starts, so watch this space.

We’re trying desperately to get everything done around here so we can get out of town on time.

I’ll post updates when we’ve got a moment to breathe.

Wow. What a way to waste a milestone post.

Besides hearing some timely inspiration today, Brooke sat the kids down and kicked off Easter week with dying some eggs. I’m the only one in the family who actually likes to eat the things, so I was glad when two (out of two dozen) cracked in the pot… I made a small batch of deviled eggs.

Anyway, If you haven’t noticed, I decided to make the blog a little classier. I had something totally different in mind when I started, but it kept looking like every other WordPress-based blog on the web. So, I went mid-1990′s graphic design retro. It’s not done yet, but I’ve already got the input of the youngest blogger in the family (when he wasn’t drooling on the keyboard).

Yeah, it’s a shaky picture, but he wasn’t holding still for me.

1. Yes, I’m messing around with the theme. The red leaf was good for Fall, but as you can see by our frosted creek, it’s not Fall anymore. I’m not really happy with the way it is right now, but it gives you an idea of the conditions up here. I’ll work some more on it later.

2. The ultrasound and NST went well today. The babies are each over six pounds… Yes, Brooke is carrying over 12 pounds of baby, and they’re not used to being poked. As the sonographer was positioning them to get a shot of Baby A’s head (which was low and practically engaged) Baby B (who was draped horizontally across the womb) raised his head. It looked like something out of Alien.

3. Since everything is looking fine, the doctors are in no hurry to get the babies out (much to Brooke’s chagrin). The 22nd of December is looking more and more plausible.

It took longer than usual for this blog to pop up on some spammer’s list. All comments are held until Brooke or I approve them, and we ban IP’s that post spam. Now we’ve got some bot from an Isreali domain submitting from rotating final 2 octets, so I’ve banned the whole range.

WordPress matches IP addresses the same way it matches comment content, so we might get a few false positives. In other words, this may affect your comments too, but the odds, provided a random distribution of IP addresses, are 65,025:1.

If you make a comment and it doesn’t show up in a day or two, email us and we’ll take a look.

½ – The number of TV stations we get

1 – The number boys/men Brooke has kissed

1 – The number of cars we currently own

2 – The number of children we currently have

2 – The number of loaves we have in the oven

2.1 – Jeremy’s first-semester GPA

3 – The number of times Jeremy broke his left arm before turning 14

3 – The number of undergraduate majors Jeremy had

4 – The number of bones Brooke has broken

5 – The number of part-time jobs Jeremy had at the same time

6 – The number of computers Jeremy has owned

7 – The number of addresses Ben has had

8 – The number of children Brooke’s mother wants us to have

8 – The number of car payments we have left

12 – The number of years Brooke took piano lessons

14 – The number of days Jeremy worked as a custodian

15 – The number of different kinds of animals (not counting common birds or bugs) that we’ve seen in our backyard

17 – The number of cousins our children have

28 – The number of teeth Jeremy has (four were pulled when he was a kid, something about his mouth being too small)

29 – The number of aunts and uncles Brooke has

46 – The number years we’ve spent in school

47 – The fastest speed Jeremy has ridden on his bike

49 – The number of days we dated (according to Brooke)

83 – The number of miles from our house to Niagara Falls

107 – The number of miles Jeremy once rode his bike in a day

110 – The number of months we’ve been married

125 – The number of days we were engaged

153 – The number of DVDs we own

356 – The number of mortgage payments we have left

500 – The number of posts on this blog

If you look to the right (or left, depending on the theme I’m using), you should see a new poll. For the next little while, we’ll be taking votes on the twins, their gender, names, etc. So check back often.