I have yet to try this, but its on my to-do list.

Nice find Charles.

There are a lot of costs associated with having a child. There are the obvious ones like feeding, clothing, etc. There are also the ones you start saving for immediately, like college. But the biggest, most obnoxious cost that I've had to deal with lately, is finding a new place to live.

Kim and I have lived in the same apartment for the last four years. Its approximately 750 sq. ft. in Midtown East. I love this apartment. It is below market for whatever reason - it is currently almost $300 per month less than when we first rented it in 2008. That's now how rents usually work. Thank you market crash and semi-depression!

We have a great building with doormen we like (with the exception of one) and things generally work how they're supposed to. We have to give up this apartment because of Evan Jr. We can't have a baby living in our living room. We need a second bedroom. Or at least a "sort of" second bedroom in a junior 4.

A junior 4 is not a true bedroom. Its an apartment that has four rooms, but the fourth room may or may not have a closet, it may be pretty small (think 9 x 10 in a generous situation), and it may have two entrances. You can put up a wall and maybe build a closet in to make it more like a true two bedroom, but that second bedroom is going to be small, and it will never be a true two bedroom.

A couple weeks ago we found this amazing apartment. It was 1350 sq. ft., which is astounding for someone like me in Manhattan. The price was decent, not great. We basically committed to it. Then the owner came back form Portugal unexpectedly, and because his son's stage 4 cancer had returned (is that possible?), he wanted to keep the apartment. And we're now scrambling.

This is great. Evan Jr., you better support me in my old age.

I've played my share of games where you have the ability to mold your character to be what you want - Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc.  That, coupled with something I read on Deadspin, made me think about Evan Jr. If I had a certain amount of attribute points to give him, what would I want him to be?  But first, what are the categories?  I've come up with:

Intelligence
Attractiveness
Personality
Character
Athleticism
Health
Luck

Each would be rated on a 1-10 scale.  40 points seems fair (I know, 35 points would be average, but my kid won't be average dammit).  Here is my build for Evan Jr.

Intelligence: 8
Attractiveness: 3
Personality: 5
Character: 6
Athleticism: 7
Health: 4
Luck: 7

So obviously Evan Jr. has the stereotypical combination of high intelligence and low attractiveness.  But you know what?  That combination means he's not going to get any teen mom pregnant.  He's smart enough to not ruin his future by knocking up some girl, and even if he wanted to he probably couldn't convince a girl to let him.  That's definitely a big benefit from my end.  He won't be a total outcast, though, as his above average athleticism will partially offset the lack of attractiveness, meaning he can probably find at least some date for homecoming or prom.

I do wonder if I have athleticism too high.  9 would probably be college athlete, 7 we'll say is high school varsity starter.  The 7 rating its not going to be real beneficial past the high school level, meaning its somewhat wasted points after he's 18.  Still, those 18 years are pretty important, and it won't be totally useless.  It could have some positive impact on health, as he will be less likely to trip in the shower and fracture a hip.  

Hopefully the higher than average luck will also offset the lower than average health rating.  While he may be more susceptible to the common cold, he might be lucky enough to avoid hanging out with people who have it.  And that luck rating helps everything else a little bit too.  

Character and personality are a bit tricky.  If Evan Jr. was a girl, I'd probably put more emphasis on these categories and less on athleticism.  As it stands, Evan Jr.'s personality rating doesn't take anything off the table (but doesn't add anything either), and he is at least usually honest and has some integrity.  He won't end up in jail or anything.  Although an interesting build would be Intelligence 10 / Character 1 / Luck 10, making him unlikely to be caught when he does whatever bad acts.  I guess that would be some sort of supervillain. 

Now I just have to figure out a way to show Evan Jr. this build so he can internalize and start working on it.   

Kim's pregnancy has won yet another round, as we spent Saturday at Babies R'U:



Somewhat cool how strollers can fold up.



I guess this will be my life for the next few years.



This stroller isn't heavy for someone like me.



Our baby must protect this house!



$1,100!  What a bargain!

Kim has calculated that my average in bowling this season is down 15 pins.  While her average is up 15 pins.  The only explanation is that the little Chinaman inside of her has sucked away 15 pins of bowling ability and given it to her (temporarily).

You've won this round pregnancy.

I haven't laughed this hard in awhile, partly because I used to drive a teal Grand Am that was passed down to me by my Mom.

http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/04/is-this-the-greatest-craigslist-ad-ever-posted/

We went to Hill Country Chicken for dinner on Friday (which is awesome), and the fries weren't ready yet.  The woman asked for my name.

Evan:  Evan.
Woman:  Kevin?
Evan:  Evan.
Woman:  Okay.

When Kim took a look at the receipt, she started cracking up.

"Heaven."

Yup, my name is Heaven.

Heaven Lee.

As I walked to work a couple days ago, I saw a smiling guy walking across the street towards me.  He looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s, and appeared to be talking to himself, which is fairly normal as people have bluetooth things going on all the time.  I've learned to ignore it.

I heard him ask, so where do you work?  I kept facing forward.  Until I heard him ask it again.  I turned to him and pointed at myself.  Me?

He said yes.  Somewhat startled, I said Midtown - West Side.  The strange conversation continued.

Guy:  So what do you do?
Evan:  I'm an attorney.
Guy:  Oh very nice!
Evan:  Meh.
Guy:  What kind of law do you practice?
Evan:  General commercial litigation.
Guy:  Oh okay.
Evan:  (starting to walk across the street, and the guy does the same) What do you do?
Guy:  I'm in publishing.
Evan:  Okay.
Guy:  We have a lot of lawyers at our company.
Evan:  Yeah but not for the big stuff.

And that was pretty much the extent of the conversation.  I continued walking West, and he turned to go up Second Ave.

Kim and I were able to spend some time in San Diego this past week, so we took in some of the sights in the time I wasn't stuck doing work. La Jolla Cove was very cool. There were a lot of seals (or sea lions, whatever they were) just hanging out on some rocks in the cove. They made weird loud noises but it was very interesting seeing them in what I assume was their natural habitat. We even saw a couple older seals sort of fight with each other, with one of them being pushed off the rock. There were also some small tide pools too that had little crabs hanging around. A pretty neat place to go to for an hour or so. We of course had to hit up the famous San Diego Zoo, and while it was generally pretty cool for a zoo, there was one part that I took issue with. There was this big area on the map called "Panda Trek." It had its own gift shop area and a special archway.

 

Given all this hubbub, how many pandas would you expect to be on display? 10? 5? There were 2.5 pandas. Two stupid lazy sleeping pandas, and one half panda / half fox. That's it. There were a ton of random other animals they threw in - some small donkey type things and for some strange reason some snakes. But that's it. The Panda Trek was very disappointing.

We also caught a game at Petco Park, home of the 18-36 (worst record in baseball) San Diego Padres. If you are wondering why we went, I just wanted to cross another ballpark off my list. Petco is not much to look at from the outside - it looks more like a big office building than a ballpark.

 

There was one good thing about the crappiness of the Padres - cheap seats. We had third row seats a little bit past first base, for forty dollars each. Not bad at all! The Padres lost 4-2, with the insurance run coming on a balk. I guess they're in last for a few different reasons, most of which relate to their general suckiness.