In honor of Xander at 10 months old, here’s a comic I created on Comeeko…

And if that wasn’t enough, here’s one for the road: this is what happens when we lay the kiddo down flat for a nap…maximum thrashage.

As a cyclist, I’m partial towards USPS for having the balls to take the chance on sponsoring a fledgling cycling team in the late 90’s that witnessed the incredible return of Lance Armstrong to the pro peloton. They caught a ton of flak for sponsoring an international cycling team because critics argued that nobody abroad could purchase USPS services so what was the point? Regardless, their chance paid huge dividends domestically for their brand.

Now they’re appealing to the geek in me by getting involved in the 30 year anniversary of Star Wars. How better to commemorate the milestone than by unloading R2-D2 mailboxes all over the country? Check out the slew of photos over at TheForce.Net. You have to imagine rabid Star Wars fans are going to be stealing these things left and right.

Naysayers thinking that this is some hoax have been quelled by looking up and confirming that the USPS has actually registered the uspsjedimaster.com domain plastered on the mailboxes. Now if they would just get off their duffs from painting mailboxes and start building content for that site!

I made the jump from Wordpress version 2.0.7 to version 2.1.2 yesterday evening and the wheels have yet to fall off the bus. I had to make some upgrades to various plugins as well and haven’t quite had the time to check to see if everything is working as expected. I don’t sense a disturbance in the Force, but I could be wrong. Scream if something isn’t working and I’ll take a look.

I would imagine that the point of having all the crazy crap bolted to the decks of excersaucers is for kids to play with, but not ours. Xander has only a passing interest in those items. Rather, he enjoys a slightly more destructive form of entertainment.

Witness Exhibit A: This is a rather tame form of him rocking back and forth. He’s been known to migrate the exersaucer around the room if there aren’t items blocking his path.

Witness Exhibit B: I wonder if they product tested for that kind of jumping? We particularly like that he has to hold on for dear life and the green train toy catching air.

So Xander’s growth seems to be slowing down a bit so we might not need to look into taking out loans to feed the boy. He’s now 30 inches long, 22 pounds and 3 ounces, with a head circumference of 26.5cm. That’s somewhere in the 75th percentile range. My feeble back and arms are relieved.

The last time I dined at the Dipsea Cafe, I had barely rolled across the finish line of the first (and only, to date) adventure race I’ve ever done in my life and was so hungry, it was ridiculous. I remembered this place fit the bill with generously sized breakfasts. I had tried to go there a few times on a Sunday in years past, but for whatever reason, they were closed. They seem to be open 7 days a week these days so we paid a visit on Sunday afternoon after wandering around Corte Madera in Marin.

The place was a total zoo of people, which spoke volumes for their business. Everyone ranging from parents with kids in tow (like us) to athletes returning from morning workouts in Stinson, Muir Woods, or Mt. Tam, to wannabe athletes were there in full force. Despite the throngs of people, we were able to get seated in about 20 minutes. Now forgive me as I get on my soapbox for a moment, but this needs to be said: for all you Team In Training people, stop roaming around in your bike shorts with their sweaty post-workout chamois…bring a change of clothes fer chrissake! I’m sure you’re trying to look all cute trying to show off your asses you’ve been working so diligently on, but crotch rot is waiting just around the corner for you. Do yourselves a favor and peel off the clammy chamois when you’re done riding. ANYWAYS…back to regularly scheduled programming.

I dialed up the Dipsea Special which consisted of “two” pancakes, an egg, a strip of bacon, one sausage, and home fries. Let’s just say everything was HUGE. The half-stack of blueberry pancakes that landed were bigger than my face and thicker than my thumb. I’m not sure how anyone would be able to handle the full stack of three pancakes. The bacon was thick. The sausage was long. Tam’s eyes bugged out a bit when she sized up my meal. And about halfway through my pancakes, my eyes started to bug out as well. Damn fine value for the price, that’s for sure.

The service was a bit on the slow side due to all the people in there. Our server was working a table of about twenty people among others, so he was rather busy, but still managed a casual friendly atmosphere. If you’re ever over near Highway 1 and 101 looking for something to eat and not allowed to hit the In-N-Out, definitely hit up the Dipsea Cafe.

Not exactly Xander’s first steps, but a good all around effort put in by the little man!