It’s the end of 2012, we’ve survived yet another apocalypse, and my baby daughter is a few days away from being born. Our due date is now only six days away, today is the 31st of December, and my wife hasn’t had any contractions yet, so I can probably kiss any chance of a 2012 tax-break baby bye bye. Oh well, we’re really just hoping she pops out healthy. Since we don’t have a baby yet and my wife is off working this fine New Years’ Eve afternoon, I figured this would be a good day to grab a beer down at New Holland Brewing and run through my mental catalog of pre-baby preparedness while I still have the mental capacity of a childless adult.

I’m sitting here at the Kia dealership getting my oil changed (for only $20!) and I just ran into the guy who sold us our new car in January. I jokingly asked how his finger was to see if he remembered me. He did. You see, when we were first looking at cars, we were narrowing it down and he was showing us the interior of a Hyundai when I slammed the poor schmuck’s fingers in the car door.

The National Kidney Foundation came by today to pick up my Jeep. They've got a donation program where you give them your car and they give you a sack full of human kidneys in about thirty days, after they auction off the vehicle and convert its value to kidney currency. At the going street rate, I'm expecting one, maybe two pillow sacks full of kidneys. I probably won't keep them.

It’s hard not to get a little cynical about the annual ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids. The event name itself gives me a twinge of agony every time I consider it. ArtPrize. It cuts right to the point in an almost patronizing way. In case we find ourselves walking around downtown and forget why we’re seeing all sorts of art, it’s because there’s a prize involved. It’s like the teacher trying to dumb down a concept for the lowest common denominator in class.

I think I must have had some kind of cooking withdrawal when we were out in California. All we had were a few pans and bowls with which to work, and our culinary creations were usually pretty slim. We never suffered for wont of food. We ate out at all sorts of restaurants all the time, and at each one, I was always curious as to how it was done, eager to get back to our full kitchen back home where I could try out a bunch of random experiments.