Since my wife started her new job as a Assistant State Public Defender, we've been working on getting used to a much earlier schedule.

This has forced us to do several things, in the spirit of making the 5:30-5:45 AM wakeup period as automatic as possible, including:

• Streamlining the bathroom
• Adding new bathroom shelving
• Reorganizing drawers in the bedroom
• Pre-making coffee and tea (a lifesaver!)

Still, since we've been at it only for a week, we haven't quite gotten in the groove; I end up getting in her way taking showers, etc.

So, it was a little bit surprising to me when this morning my wife started laughing while the alarm clock was not-so-pleasantly waking us from peaceful slumber. It turns out she had a very elegant, parallel solution to the morning "bathroom problem."

Use the second bathroom.

It's really a shame that it took two people with advanced degrees in law and nuclear engineering a week to figure that one out. :)

... you hear the following from your significant other:

"Well, if I go crazy, just give me a duck that quacks like a whale and put me in a padded room. I think I'd still love you."

The scary thing is, I've already heard the duck. It quacks like a whale.

... when your pen runs out of ink as a result of working on the math for your magnetohydrodynamics final. :)

As a followup to my last post, there has been an amazing response at a blog set up to thank Colbert for his performance. With more than 45,000 comments (the vast majority compliments/thank yous) in less than a week -- and growing rapidly -- it would seem that his performance struck a resonance with the American people!