Almost exactly 10 years ago at this moment, this happened https://www.flickr.com/…/226784…/in/album-72157594222125545/

This day has me feeling a bit nostalgic, so to recognize Mason turning 10 today, here’s 10 random thoughts. Mostly from that day.

1. It was a long day. Keturah went into labor the afternoon before, while she was at work in downtown SF. In a rookie move, I wasn’t carrying our hospital bags with us in my car and I was down in Mountain View at 4 pm (this would end up being 20 hours before Mason was born) and I had to get Marin General Hospital. And our stuff was in our house in Half Moon Bay. And this was when HWY 1 around Devils Slide was closed, leaving one highly bottlenecked way in and out of Half Moon Bay. Yes, I went to get our stuff. After all, my camera was there. Those of you with any sense of bay area geography realize that the next 4 hours of my life involved a lot of me being tense while sitting in traffic.

2. But at the time, we didn’t even know we were going to be having a Mason. What I mean is, we didn’t know if K was carrying a boy or girl.

3. In case you wondering, if K gave birth to a girl, we’d have a Simone.

4. Looking into that photo EXIF data, I took pics on a Canon Powershot S230. I think i was carrying around a Palm Treo 650, too. In any case, I had hook that camera to my laptop, transfer the files to my computer, and use an email client to send them out our friends and family. Yup, times have changed.

5. It’s definitely pretty cool that I just used the EXIF data in that Flickr photo to nail down exactly what time Mason was born.

6. Keturah ended up having a C-Section. I had to deal with those very lonely 5 minutes waiting in the hall outside the surgery room all by myself. With nothing but my thoughts. And fears. That was as tough a 5 minutes as I’ve ever had. Life felt pretty fragile at that moment and I was scared shitless.

7. As you might expect, Keturah went to sleep very easily that night. I stayed awake and pretty much stared at Mason in amazement all night.

8. The next night in the hospital, ESPN was broadcasting the Red Sox game. So one of our first family nights involved sitting around, watching the Red Sox, and (me) drinking a beer. Pretty great.

9. You can see a lot of Mason year 1 in the rest of that Flickr album: https://goo.gl/vvX86F

10. I’m a little sad that I’ve abandoned using Flickr.