{"id":1656,"date":"2009-09-19T19:42:45","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T01:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/?p=1656"},"modified":"2009-09-19T19:42:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T01:42:45","slug":"happy-birthday-little-buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/2009\/09\/19\/happy-birthday-little-buddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, little buddy!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two years ago tonight, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/2007\/09\/19\/the-ultimate-question\/\">the best thing that ever happened to me<\/a> just happened to happen to me.  My son was born. <!--more-->  I heard him before I saw him, and then they handed him to me, scream and all.  I still hear the scream from time to time, but he knows something now that I don&#8217;t think he really knew then: daddy&#8217;s here.<\/p>\n<p>I could go on and on about what little E has added to my life, but to put it simply, he&#8217;s my best buddy and he&#8217;s given me a purpose that I didn&#8217;t have before, to be the best dad I can possibly be and to give him the best childhood I can &#8211; way better than mine (which was no slouch for the most part).  I love seeing the world through his eyes, so much less jaded and tired than my own.  I&#8217;ve said it before many times, but I really mean it: I want to be more like him when I grow up.  I hope I&#8217;ve been a good dad to him, and I plan to stick around for quite a while so I can keep trying to be that, and watch him grow up into a smart, friendly, compassionate man who&#8217;ll have an amazing life.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/hizzouse\/q4-07\/evan00.jpg\" alt=\"Evan then\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/hizzouse\/q3-09\/evandaddy.jpg\" alt=\"Evan now\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Happy birthday, buddy.<\/p>\n<p>By a vast coincidence, three years ago today, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/2006\/09\/19\/and-14-hours-later\/\">I won my Avid on eBay<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/hizzouse\/q3-06\/avid1.jpg\" alt=\"The Avid then\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/hizzouse\/q3-09\/avidnow.jpg\" alt=\"The Avid now\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This piece of kit has enabled me to earn something that could almost be mistaken for a living while I take care of the little guy and watch him grow up.  It&#8217;s also helped me to get away from a job (and a lifestyle that went with it) that probably would&#8217;ve killed me by way of sheer stress by now.  When I got it, it had maybe a hundred hours of use on it; in the three years since I acquired it, it&#8217;s produced nearly 30 hours worth of my own projects on DVD, quite a few hours of material for clients and other folks, and God only knows how many hours of web video that you can find elsewhere on this site.  It&#8217;s paid back every cent that&#8217;s ever been poured into it, and has probably earned more than ten times that much.<\/p>\n<p>For me, these are two reasons to celebrate that go hand-in hand.  To me, happiness is sitting in the same room with my son, watching him playing or sitting next to him, in front of the Avid, making stuff.<\/p>\n<p>September 19th is my favorite day of the year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/hizzouse\/q3-09\/thecakeisalie.jpg\" alt=\"The cake is a lie!\" \/><br \/>\nBaked by dad, decorated by mom, eaten by Evan!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two years ago tonight, the best thing that ever happened to me just happened to happen to me. My son was born.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[44,64],"class_list":["post-1656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-and-baby-makes-three","category-gadgetology","tag-avid","tag-little-e"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}