Random Update8:25:41 PM

Okay -- when people ask me to update in my comments it has probably been too long. I don't have anything super pithy to say, so I guess I'll just use the shotgun approach:

• Everything is going good with the baby.  Rachel is starting to get big!  We are reading to her every night and trying to get our lives in order so that we are ready.  We are almost through "The Witch and the Wardrobe." We've been reading a chapter each night.  After we are done we will continue reading the rest of the Narnia stories out loud to each other and the baby.  I know she can't understand what is going on but I want her to know my voice.
• We went to Chicago last weekend.  My Sister threw Rachel a baby shower at the Ritz-Carlton downtown.  The service in the garden was wonderful.  My sister's two girls had an especially great time.
• I've been buying some cool stuff.  The first is my terabyte array for my main computer.  I ended up with five 300GB SATA drives in a cage running software RAID 5.  That comes out to ~1.2TB after you factor out the redundency.  I didn't get a dedicated machine to keep costs down.  I can always do that later and move the drives over.  Everything has been running like a champ.
• Also to prepare I picked up a Canon SD300.  This is an update to our aging S100 (the original digital Elph) point and shoot.  It is amazing how much these things have improved.  I loved the S100 but the SD300 is so much better.  My favorite feature is that it can do 640x480x30fps movies until the card is full.  For short clips there is no reason to get a video camera.  I also ordered a 1GB SD card but those are apparently sold out everywhere.
• I'm thinking about getting a new car as the baby approaches.  I want to take a serious look at the Honda Element.  Having an interior made of rubber that you can hose down sound like a good idea with kids. Plus, it is only $21k completely decked out.
• Between Rachel and me, we've recently read the entire Raymond Chandler catalog.  I love his writing.  You can just feel vintage LA ooze from the pages.
• I haven't been taking many photos lately.  I have some more stuff from the Arizona trip that I should post.  I haven't put up any of my slot canyon photos yet. 
• Work has been going great.  I still can't talk about what I'm working on but I really feel like I've made it over the hump of moving to a new environment and I'm starting to be really productive.  The contrast between Google and Microsoft couldn't be greater (at least from an engineer's point of view).  No meetings and few politics means that I spend much more time coding.  I've written more code so far at Google than I have in the last year at MS.  (That really isn't apples to apples as I spent most of my time in the last year at MS writing specs.)  I totally feel like I'm in the loop on my project without having to play political games.  I guess that is what happens on smaller teams.
• I'd love to have some intelligent comment on the whole AutoLink/SmartTags thing as I've been around for both.  However, I just don't see a clear cut answer here, unlike some. 
• Finally, Numa Numa.

That's it for now.