Bicycle for four!

Family bike ride.

Our new bike set up, all ready for Mommy to pull three small people. The first ride, earlier this week, was a little hard on Phoebe's hands, it was about 45 minutes. Today, though, after some minor adjustments to the handlebars, and the addition of a pair of gloves, she did great for an hour! YEA!

14 Week Belly Pic

14 week Bounce House.

I've been feeling Bounce rumbling around in his/her little house for a couple of weeks, but today felt the first really good left hook. Twice. I went from looking pretty normal (but a little bloated) to looking more like I did at 20 weeks with Phoebe in about the last week or so. Crazy...

I guess I'd better let my coworkers in on the news that I really DIDN'T just eat too much over the holidays, eh?

Wrong Train Blues

All Aboard!!!.

The other day, I managed to get on the wrong Caltrain train at the Mountain View station. It was the first time I had ever done that. But as the trains get spaced closer and closer together, it was bound to happen sooner or later I suppose. Right around 6pm, there's a 5:58, a 6:03, and a 6:09 and I need to catch the 6:09. Except the schedule lists them as 6:03, 5:58, 6:09. The 5:58 is an express, it left San Jose later, but gets to Mountain View sooner which is why they are listed out of order. But of course I didn't know that at first glance. I just saw 5:58 and 6:09, I knew the 5:58 had already come and gone, and a train pulled in at 6:05 so I jumped on. When that train rolled right on past my stop I went and found a conductor. He clued me in that the number of the train is listed on the engine (or first car) on the back of what looks like a big truck side-view mirror. And that's the only place you can tell.

Down to One Car!

Down to one car!

The Tercel, our second car, just sat in the garage. We finally took the plunge and donated it to KQED, our local public radio/TV station.

Commuting to and from work will be by bike, and public transport from now on.

Pickles?

Ahhh, pickles and pregnancy go together, well, like pickles and pregnancy, no?

So my best friend, BethAnn, and I have been playing with the idea of creating a little specialty food business... and the item we've been researching the most is pickles (obviously, from the title!). We've been looking at cucumbers, green beans, okra, onions, beets, corn and sauerkraut. We've just started the research, however, and - lucky for ME, the pregnant one, we're going to start experimenting with recipe's between now and the end of the summer! Nice timing, don'tcha think?

We're also researching the venues in which we can introduce said specialty foods, and we're leaning towards the Farmers Markets. I think it's time to do some benchmarking - oh, and taste comparisons, which should be fun as well!

Now, if only I can shake this cold so that my taste buds will come back in full force...

Hitting 12 weeks

Well, I now have access to the blog, watch out!

My main purpose in wanting to post here was to keep track of my pregnancy, as it's my last, to be able to jot down thoughts and experiences, maybe even some comparisons to my last ones.

This time around I'm doing things differently, I'm approaching the pregnancy with the same mentality as I've approached my births - that it's a normal natural process that doesn't require medicine to "fix" it. I'm not sick, therefore (unlike the last times) I've opted out of being in the care of an MD. I've been seeing a midwife by the name of Donna Driscoll who was recommended to me by the L&D nurse who delivered Piper. I have really appreciated that the midwifery model of care is to take time, and to treat us as people, and to learn more about how things are going and how we are changing, both physically and mentally, over this time. The appointments are an hour long, and the physical check (i.e. heartbeat, fundal height) is towards the end of the check. She offers all routine tests, but makes sure that we, the consumers, are well educated about them, the true risk of things coming back abnormal, and the alternatives to such testing. I've opted to decline all tests except the routine 20 week ultrasound. That includes the glucose test for gestational diabetes, unless I show risk factors, the AFP, routine urine testing (again, unless I show risk factors), and the like.

I feel like this pregnancy is mine - not something to be conquered, but something to be embraced. Something with which to live in perfect symbiosis, and to respect, but not to fear.

Throughout my last pregnancy, while I had a natural outlook myself, I was constantly battling my fears from my first pregnancy/labour, and the medical model. I left an OB in the last trimester in preference for one who was less intervention-happy. I fought against a medical induction prior to it's necessity - only to be told that if I DID refuse one, it was going to be AMA (Against Medical Advice - i.e. insurance might not cover some of my care). I'll qualify that the last statement was made by the OB that I LEFT, but it still was stress when stress wasn't due.

I'm finding this pregnancy to be flying by. I'm 12+ weeks already! Part of that, certainly, is the two darling girls I'm chasing, but I'm confident that some of that is the mental/emotional comfort that I've taken in my paradigm, and therefore care provider shift. I find myself looking forward to the next visits, knowing that I'm going to be visiting with someone I'm enjoying, who actually is providing care, and who DOES care. I'm not just part of the cattle calls of the day.

Finally, I'll add my countdown ticker, just cause it's fun.

"Bounce" edd 7/30/05

Tipping Point for Apple?

Check out this article entitled, Apple's Tipping Point: Macs For The Masses. I love the graphic in particular. I found this via, The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Ergo Training

The ergo folks really want you to left-mouse, that is, use your mouse with your left hand instead of your right. The reasoning being, on standard keyboards the mouse is much closer to your center on the left than it is on the right (where there are arrow keys and the numeric keypad). Having it closer in causes less strain on your rotator cuff, your hand, wrist and so on.

I tried it a month ago when they first suggested it, but could never get the hang of it and switched back. Today I had my in-person ergo evaluation I realized I missed a key step, I didn't swap the buttons on the mouse. In other words when left mousing right-click is really a left-click and vice versa. The trainer showed me how to swap the buttons on Windows, but didn't know how to do it the Mac.

Two button mice are supported by OS X but swapping the left and right clicks is not supported directly. If you're using a Logitech mouse, then you can install their controller which has this feature. I'm sure other vendors are similar.

Once installed, the controller will show up in the System Preferences where you can configure what each button/scroll wheel does. I set the right mouse button to be "click" and the left mouse button to be "right click" and I was off to the races. Didn't even know I could do that! I also set the scroll button to be paste (actually the key equivalent of Cmd-v), so its more like the old X window three button mice. Nice.

Left-mousing still feels pretty awkward, but I'm giving it another shot.

[Update: 8/9/2005] Swapping the left and right clicks is now supported in OS X 10.4, Tiger. So no need to install third party mouse drivers. If you have a two button mouse you'll see the option under System Preferences, Keyboard & Mouse, Mouse. Note that with Apple's standard one button mouse, the option is completely hidden.

And I'm still left mousing full time. It feels completely natural.

Where's the Sidewalk?

Where's the Sidewalk?.

In the Bay Area, this is pretty much what they think of mass transportation. This is the path between light rail, and my (something like 5000+ people) employer. I just can't believe there's no sidewalk. It cracks me up.

Oh the Noise! The Noise!

Amanda was working last night. Amazingly the kids were still asleep when I woke up, so I flipped on the TV. MTV Cribs was on. Sammy Hagar was walking us MTV viewers through his house in Cabo. The Aztec bed, the beach side pool yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever. The really funny part was his wife complaining about the noise (in the guitar room, in the shower, in the ...), and more than once. Honey, you married Sammy Hagar!? The man walks loud. He made his living being loud. It made for a good early morning chuckle.

Sri Lanka Trip

A more in depth description of my Aunt and Uncle's Sri Lanka trip, written by my Uncle Phil.

I am pasting a narrative that I hastily wrote for a friend who is doing a story on us in the hometown newspaper (Westerly Sun).  I have mixed feelings, justifyably, about receiving publicity in the face of enormous disaster.  Our little story is just so....little, but one, nevertheless, that yields enormous gratitude.

We have traveled to India during the past three winter vacations, first to Goa, then to Kerala, and last year to Tamil Nadu.  Our direction of travel has been in a southerly direction and the last southern destination is Sri Lanka, prompted by the encouragement of a friend who lived there for 16 years and told us about the beauty of the land and the people.  We planned a nine-day trip from December 22nd-January 1st starting with three days at Dickwella Beach Resort.  Dickwella is located just a little east of the southern tip of the Island, about an hour’s drive from Galle, which you have seen pictures of on the news.  The Resort is located on a peninsula with beach on both sides.  Owned and operated by an Italian family, there were many Italian, French and German tourists staying there.  Very few Americans (there or anywhere else on the island).

Originally, our plans were to stay four days at Dickwella and then travel north to the central part of the country to an area called the “cultural triangle” where ancient Buddhist capitals dating back as far as 2500 BCE are now archaeological sites and tourist destinations (Sri Lanka continues to be the spiritual center of Theraveda Buddhism…74% of the population is Buddhist).  We had hired a car with a driver/guide for the entire trip and he suggested that the ride north was too long for one day’s travel.  Aubrey suggested that we cut a day from our stay in either the north or south.  We decided to change our plans and leave a day early from Dickwella.  That decision (prompted mostly by Marsha to her credit) made all the difference in the world for us.

The morning of the 26th we woke early, packed our bags and went for a long walk on the near-deserted beach.  I had a swim about 7:30 and we returned to our ground-floor room about 25 steps off the beach.  We had breakfast, finished packing our bags and got on the road about 8:45.  We had to drive east along the coastal road for a while before turning north on the road leading to Nuwara Eliya, our destination for that day.   Crossing a bridge over a river we noticed large crowds lining both sides of the bridge pointing towards the water. We saw the tide rushing in with lots of debris in the water.  People were excited and agitated and there seemed to be a lot of commotion in the town with people running, shouting, waving their arms, peddling fast on the bicycles, and turning their cars around.  Our driver stopped and asked what was going on and we were told that the road ahead was washed out and we had to turn around, which we did immediately.

At that point we had no idea what was happening. Nobody did.  I assumed that the flooding was the result of the full moon.  We backtracked and took an alternate road north that took us along the southern edge of an elephant reserve where we spotted our first elephant of the trip.  When we stopped for lunch, Aubrey spoke to some people who told him that many people had drowned along the coast and that this was a much larger problem than we had thought.  But it wasn’t until we arrived at our hotel in the small mountain town of Nuwara Eliya that we realized what had happened.  In the hotel lobby everyone was watching BBC on the TV describe the 8.9 earthquake and the Tsunami that had swept across the Indian Ocean leaving death and destruction in its wake.  First reports said the 2300 people had died in Sri Lanka and one million were affected.  As of this writing the estimate is over 30,000 dead.

As we later found out, we had left Dickwella about 20 minutes before the first of three waves struck the coast.  Aubrey spoke to other drivers who had been in the area and made phone calls to discover that Dickwella had been badly damaged including the seaside rooms where we stayed that had been totally washed out.  As soon as we could get to an international phone, Marsha called her sister to let her know that we were safely out of harm’s way.  The next day in Kandy we found an Internet Café and sent emails to friends and family in the US and also in Israel. Everyday we watched the news and were overwhelmed by the hourly increase in estimated dead and the extent of the damage not only in Sri Lanka but throughout the Indian ocean area as far away as the northeast coast of Africa.

Boxing Day 2004

Thankfully my Aunt and Uncle are back safely from Sri Lanka. I got this note from my Uncle this morning...

We got an email from a reporter for the Westerly (RI) Sun who wants to do a story about our experience in Sri Lanka.  She'll write the story so I don't know what the end product will be like.  I kept a journal on the trip but haven't had time to formalize thoughts yet.  A friend said I should write an article that tells what all the other stories are missing.  I'm not sure what he had in mind but I think he's wondering about the feeling of guilt that survivors experience in a disaster when others all around have died.  My response to that:

"I didn't come away from this experience with any guilt...I had dealt with that dynamic in Viet Nam a long time ago.  We really didn't see much of anything as we left the beach area just ahead of the destruction.  I think what I came away with this time is the realization that I shouldn't complain about ANYTHING in my life because whatever it is that's bothering me, it pales by comparison.  So next time I catch myself getting upset because some asshole cuts me off in a parking lot, or the waiter doesn't put enough ice in my martini, or it's too windy at the beach, I'll just think about Boxing Day 2004 in Sri Lanka and thank my lucky stars for my good fortune."

Exactly. Its always nice to be reminded of that, isn't it? The glass is not half empty. In reality its so damn full, why even be worried about the two more drops you might be able to squeeze into the glass?

Antibodies

I really liked this article by John Udell where he introduces a great quote from James O'Toole (or is it Bill Drayton?) about groups resisting change with all the vigor of antibodies attacking an intruding virus.

It resonated with my own personal experiences really well. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I've been an antibody from time to time. The story that came to mind right away was one of my days at Accrue. Our company vision, and thus mine as well was completely intertwined with doing web analytics by capturing statistics passively off the network.

But then a few clever engineers at various competitors came up with a way to capture statistics by way of Javascript embedded in the client. And of course I dismissed it, and actively argued against that method, for a lot of good reasons. But fundamental to this innovation was simply that it was easier for a client website to implement, and they ate our lunch.

Unfortunately there are other stories I could tell. My life as an antibody.

The link to Miguel de Icaza's essay Lets Make Unix Not Suck was also good. Lots of great links.

Rain Ride

Had one of those epic rain rides yesterday.

Thankfully a couple teenagers dragged me out on the ride. It was wet, cold, plain old miserable out. Left to my own devices I would have lounged around the house and not done much of anything. Fortunately my teenage friends, Jim and Matt are coached cyclists and needed to get in their four hour ride. I leeched some of their motivation.

We rode across the Dumbarton Bridge, to get to the Early Bird races in Fremont. The plan was to do the mentoring program and then ride back, only Matt had a double flat on the way over, and I wound up getting a slow leak that finally flatted in the middle of the session. We mooched a tube, since we had used all the spares we had on us. Wouldn't you know it Matt had another flat on the way back over the bridge. That made three for Matt, and four total. Unbelievable, I usually go months without a single flat. So we mooched a couple more tubes off of a friend that lives along the way (thanks Gerson) and limped the rest of the way.

I was still spitting grit out of my mouth hours after I was home and showered. But it was worth it!

The Holidays

Christmas tree decorating.

I realized that here it is, now 2005 and I hadn't yet posted any holiday pictures. So I had to fix that. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and will have a happy 2005!