we're all grown up now

We received our first comment spam on the blog today. We're still feeling a little breathless and shaky, even now that the first exhilirating rush is over. We hardly feel violated at all. In fact, it feels like we've passed a developmental milestone, or somehow been initiated into real bloggerhood.

Let me tell you about our first spam.

It was so. . . sweet. Sweet and gentle. It came out of the blue. Our first spam was delivered in lowercase, in a soft, faintly-exotic Eastern European accent---it's hard to tell when it's barely even a whisper. Like the lost stoned hippie chick who wanders in from the rain and ends up in a pool of light on your couch, it started with a meandering apology. It said it had lost its way, stumbled onto our blog, didn't see what it was looking for, but wondered if we wanted to make some money? Hell yeah, we say. Sure we want to make money. Then suddenly she sprouts stainless steel talons that knock over the lamp, plunge into the couch (though in a panic, we still notice that the couch is covered in cat fur. . . oh, it is exactly these prosaic small things that keep us grounded and protect us from real harm) and grind right through the floor, and she instantly grows other tentacles and whipping appendages and spikes and plates like a technohorror chia pet. Humming alien ductwork runs everywhere. Someone somewhere has fired up a stage fog machine, dramatically blanketing the room in a knee-high layer of white dry ice smoke. Her metallic spiderbot body hovers, spinning. Her red eyes glare. We wait, unable to move or even blink, limp with. . what? desire? terror? Finally, sounding uncannily like Stephen Hawking, she commands us to visit a website. Do we want to make money? Yes! Yes! We move to comply. We point our browser. But suddenly we remember the small things that matter, precious necessities like pesky cat fur on the couch and ice cream and calls to pick up siblings at the airport, and we come back to our senses. Begone, beautiful dark lady of the spam world! And take your robot spiders with you! We'll put in our iPod earbuds and crank up ABBA Gold tunes to drown out your siren song of wealth and fame and splendid penis enlargement! Go away!

It was that close. But now we're older and wiser and we know better.

haiku by cat upon release from accidental imprisonment in basement

lock me in a hole?
your reward for such hubris:
fur on your keyboard.

Slackers no more!

Yes, yes, yes - it has been almost 3 months since we've updated the blog. Our excuse...we can't or don't have time to post while at work and our home computer was very, very slow (dial-up plus an eight-year-old computer). But that is all about to change! I am proudly typing on our new MacBook using our new wireless DSL connection! The Schwillig's are back. And to prove it here is a picture right now that I took using the built-in camera on the MacBook:



In keeping with the picture theme, here is a picture of Scott running at Grandma's Marathon a couple of weeks ago.



The picture is courtsey of Scott's father, Norm, and was taken less than a mile from the finish line, which explains the smile.

Whew...I think I've blogged before properly stretching. I promise this is just the beginning. We have so much to catch up on--the pets, the house projects, oh and yeah that whole wedding thing coming up in September...