It's Saturday night and this was a big week. We left Lilly at daycare for the first time.

A few weeks ago, when I knew the day was coming, I actually cried just thinking about it. I was dreading the day I would drop her off with strangers, hand her off and not see her for eight or nine hours. It would be the first day of years without her, a large chunk of every weekday now spent entrusting her tiny body to people I do not know.

I've been back at work for months now, but it's different leaving her somewhere else than it is leaving her at home in her own crib, with my wife there to take care of her.

But when the day finally came, I was so overwhelmed with making sure she had everything she needed for the day to let emotions get to me. On the way there, she had a complete meltdown on the road. I had to pull over at a gas station in Kyle, Texas. It was windy and as I tried to get her out of her carseat, a rude, gasoliney-wind kept blowing in through the car door. I closed it and got her a small ready-made bottle of formula. She ate, but not much and soon her cries turned to screams. I held her in my arms until she calmed down. We were there for 20 minutes until her tantrum passed. It was getting late and I still had to get to Austin, drop her off and get to work. "I can't do this. I can't do this," I kept thinking. All I could imagine was every trip to and from New Braunfels ending up like this. Twice a day, four or five days a week, for the next few years.

When she finally stopped crying, I put her back in the carseat and we kept driving. I talked with her and put on music. She made it to Austin.

We got there and one of the two women who'll be taking care of Lilly picked her up, then put her on the floor with some of the other infants. Lilly's big eyes scanned the room. She watched and watched and I knew everything was going to be all right.

I got her milk in the fridge, put her clothes and pacifier in her already-labeled cubby and handed over a big bag of diapers.

I said my goodbyes and that was when I got a little teary eyed, but there was no time for a breakdown.

It was a good week. The first-day meltdown was the only one she's had on the road. She mostly sleeps, and the time change has actually helped getting her adjusted to her new schedule.

She loves daycare. She loves being around other babies. The daycare is so wonderful, there's not a single thing they could have done differently to make us feel more safe and relaxed. They're strangers, but they've been doing this a long time and many people we know have children there who absolutely love it. We got lucky. Things could have been so different.

When I pick her up, she's either already napping or she's still staring around room, absorbing all the new stimuli around her. She's sleeping better and getting into a routine. They take care of her and it's obvious that in even in such a short time, they're already started loving her.

Now she's home and we have family staying over and already I see her growing and changing, her expressions changing, her little habits forming, her personality developing. I think the reason I was so afraid and dreading Daycare Day so much was that I thought I'd miss it all. I think, if I just pay attention, that may not happen after all.

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I've been posting a lot on Twitter recently, mostly because it also posts to Facebook and because every time a stray thought pops into my head, it's easier to do it on Twitter than to come over here and do a whole blog entry. I know that sounds silly: posting in Blogger is not much more difficult than posting a Twitter entry, but I really enjoy the challenge of trying to say something meaningful in the short space that Twitter allows. I've even nagged some people about multiple posts because I think that sort of defeats the purpose and beauty of it. But whatever. To each their own. Go be a badass, breaking the rules.

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Several friends of mine are directly involved with the Writers' Strike. I wrote a post about it on the work blog. If you don't want to read that, just know that right now would be an excellent time not to download any TV shows digitally. Don't buy them on iTunes, don't watch them for "Free" on TV network Web sites, don't buy DVD sets of TV shows, at least until the strike is over.

For those of us not in L.A. or New York, it's a simple way to support these strikers.

Otherwise, you're saying that the writers who work on these shows you love don't deserve to get paid for Internet showings of their work, that they don't deserve a long-promised larger percentage cut for home video revenue and that they don't deserve to be paid for extra Web-only work they do for TV shows.

I'm sure that's not a message you want to send with your TV viewing habits.

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Two exciting things: there's a new LCP thing happening soon online. I'll be able to announce it in the next few days, but I'll be writing for it and it's something I think you'll like. More details to come.

And a second even bigger thing is supposed to happen next Friday, and this would be a national thing. Again, I can't say what it is just yet, but the minute I can, I'll post it here. Sorry to be so vague, but I don't want to jinx any of this.

I had a videogame review in today's paper of the highly addictive Puzzle Quest . You don't even want to know how many hours I spent playing this while holding Lilly in my arms.

A new Smallville recap is up, guest starring Helen Slater as Clark's birth mom, Lara. Like we didn't see that one coming:

Mother, Did It Need to be So... Gay? -- Kara remembers life on Kandor, where she hung out with Clark's mom, Helen Slater. Meanwhile, Agent Carter and Kara's Kryptonian dad Zor-El provide enough fey for the whole season. It's called ACTING!

There's also a weecap up this morning of the latest How I Met Your Mother, the aptly named "Dowisetrepla."

This week I thought my head was going to explode from information overload as I was putting together a story about how the presidential candidates are using online video and social networks.

This was a story my editor and I had been talking about almost all year but that I didn't actually start working on at full speed until last week. Some really great sources were awesome enough to talk to me, but one particular group backed out at the very last minute, leaving me in the lurch for a major component of the story. Luckily, my friend Raul came to the rescue and found a good substitute.

My editor Sarah was incredibly patient as all these stories came in (I think there were about six different stories to edit all told, all coming in on or past deadline). And then our L&A designer Dale did his usual magic to make the print piece look awesome with limited space.

All I know is that I busted my ass hard on this and I've already gotten some snippy e-mails (one said, "Is this a SPOOF?!") which is always a good sign. The hardest part was trying to keep it as balanced as possible and still have it all make sense.

Here's all the pieces:

A1 story about online campaigns using video and social networks.

Life & Arts centerpiece rating some of the candidate Web sites.

Short timeline of the digital campaign trail.

List of MySpace, Facebook and YouTube stats for the top candidates and a list of top campaign site stats for September.

The rest of the list of MySpace, Facebook and YouTube stats, plus a list of smaller online social networks and which candidates are using them (online only).

Whew. Now I'm ready for Wurstfest '07.