Journaling on estrip is easy and free. sign up here

Carolinian's Journal

carolinian
My Podcast Link

04/24/2008 21:38 #44133

Baby's first week
Category: baby
Okay, so my first week of fatherhood is past me now.

We took the little guy home on the 17th. It became a little stressful when he had some difficulty feeding, but eventually stuff worked out. Right after he was born, he got jaundice, which he still has but which we're working to lower. Apparently, newborn jaundice is common, but it's a little upsetting seeing your son have yellow eyes.

(e:inscrutable)'s family came up and helped us with stuff, like laundry and keeping sane.


Lesson's I've learned:

- You really have to watch them every second
- While you want to be gentle with them, they're hardier than they look.
- The "you'll have to change them every several hours" warning is bullshit. You can change them and they'll go in the new diaper thirty seconds later, and another clean one thirty seconds after that.
- Never be more than five feet away from a pacifier if you lack the ability to lactate.
- Not being able to lactate doesn't mean they won't try to get milk from you anways.
- Having a new child is like meeting somebody new whose personality you're trying to figure out.


tinypliny - 04/25/08 20:09
I think I had neonatal jaundice as well. I was a preemie to boot, by about a month. Apparently, I looked like and weighed as much as a grown rat. My mom's memories of me seem to be very fond, even though I looked like a rodent. :) I am sure you will get through this slightly challenging phase and love it all!

Cheers!
TP
libertad - 04/25/08 15:21
You look very happy being a new father. Congrats!
paul - 04/25/08 11:03
Congratulations - here's to an even easier second week - although I have no real advice as I don't have kids. I think I had jaundice as a baby too. or maybe mike did, I am pretty sure I remember my mom talking about it.
fellyconnelly - 04/25/08 10:50
aww well congrats on making it through your first week of daddyhood!

04/15/2008 23:28 #44024

Newest Peep
Category: baby
Born at 10:55AM, weighing in at 8lbs 8.8oz, it's Mr. Wiggles!

image

image

image

image

image
tinypliny - 04/25/08 20:02
Wow. How did I miss this wonderful post!! Congratulations on the tiny new and such a splendid little heir!!
leetee - 04/17/08 08:54
Congratulations!!
jenks - 04/16/08 19:28
aww, congrats. he's precious. and I love the little pooh hat.
museumchick - 04/16/08 17:42
Congratulations!!!! Your son is adorable, I'm really happy for you!
metalpeter - 04/16/08 17:16
First of all congratulations and since a few other people said it Happy Birthday.

Now for a little sillynes or maybe it isn't really silly. You said there is a new (e:peeps) and that his nickname is Mr. Wiggles . 1. Does the nick name have any thing to do with the singers/kids show the wiggles? 2. Will Mr. Wiggles also be his (e:strip) user name and if not what will it be? 3. When can we expect to read his first post (maybe in baby language about how he doesn't want a bottle he wants a big boy cup but he can't hold up his head yet so that isn't really an option for me yet). 4. Didn't you two have a cat that posted ? 4a. If that is correct will that cat start posting again and what is the cats view on the new (e:peep)?

In all seriousness congratulations and I wish all of you the best of health and wish you and the family well, I'm sure you will be a good dad. If I smoked I'd some a Cigar for ya so I'll smoke one in my mind.
carolinian - 04/16/08 12:52
He's a tax baby and we can't even claim him as a deduction this year. What a ripoff!
lizabeth - 04/16/08 12:37
ZOMG, bebeh!!!!!

Congratulations, y'all!!! :D SO cute!!!

Aw man, poor kid's birthday is tax day, tho'.
carolinian - 04/16/08 12:36
Mr. Wiggles is his nickname.

According to tradition, I'm not supposed to announce names until after eight days and the ceremony, to confuse either the Evil Eye or the Angel of Death or something else otherworldy and nasty.

His initials will be A.N.V.

The A can be found in Numbers 24:9

The N can be found in Numbers 1:7





jason - 04/16/08 12:10
Hi Mr. Wiggles! And congratulations, Dad!
james - 04/16/08 09:43
Is Mr.Wiggles named after someone? Your Uncle Mr.Wiggles perhaps?

Congrats.
terry - 04/16/08 09:31
Congratulations!
megan - 04/16/08 09:24
aaw he's beautiful! congrats!
jbeatty - 04/16/08 08:39
congratulations!
fellyconnelly - 04/16/08 08:30
HAPPY BIRTH!
wow congrats!
drew - 04/16/08 06:59
congrats!
imk2 - 04/16/08 05:11
oh wow! this is awesome...congrats.
ladycroft - 04/16/08 03:08
woah! happy birthday little guy!

let the parenting begin ;)
zobar - 04/16/08 00:20
Mr Wiggles.

I don't think that's a name that I would have picked, but if that's what feels right, then that's what you gotta go with. Congrats.

- Z
theecarey - 04/16/08 00:05
hello new lil (e:peep)! congrats to both of you :)
paul - 04/15/08 23:38
Congratulations! What's his name?
mrmike - 04/15/08 23:33
Congrats!

04/04/2008 17:24 #43904

Frog Blast The Vent Core
Category: work
Dammit, I need to let off some steam.

I'm trying real, real, hard for the image of my infant son relying on me for food and shelter to get me past the image of the enormous, ridiculous brick wall that my predecessor's built into what I'm working on.

I have tried my damnedest to redirect these people I work for around this problem, and every attempt I make to take the loaded gun they're pointing at their foot out of their hands has led to one more loaded gun they manage to somehow pull out of their cavernous desks/other spaces.

No matter what workaround I try, it's just not good enough for them. Yeah, I could easily make something new that would solve their problems now and in the next 20 years, but that's making something new, and that's something that they don't want to do, even if during the timespan of me modifying something old I could have made at least three new things twice as better.

People, please, momentarily stop rearranging the f'ing deck chairs on the Titanic long enough to understand what the heck a tradeoff is. Yeah, things are far from perfect. Yes, I hate the way I to get around them as much as you do, if not more-so. What I'm working on has been so enormously damaged and limited for so long by the people who came before me that it should be expected that there's a whole freakin laundry list of stuff that is going to suck and that you're going to have to put up with.

In the tradeoff, you accept having to deal with one thing for the ability to acquire another; in the case of this business, it's putting up with lack of explicit detail they so crave yet don't understand themselves in order to get what they want working at all. In the case of me, it's putting up with this situation so I get money to support my family.


museumchick - 04/05/08 13:08
Maybe another job will come your way soon. Either way, I hope the best for you!
ladycroft - 04/05/08 04:29
oh ho ho buddy I hear you on this one!!!! Sometimes you can't save people from their own stupidity.
paul - 04/04/08 20:14
I hate that kind of situation. Here's to letting you rebuild.

03/14/2008 17:30 #43668

Opportunities
Category: life
When a great opportunity drops into my lap, I sometimes don't take the maximum advantage of it that I could out of consideration for others.

I need to remember that when I do this, it's often because I'm acting like a wuss and I'm concerned about what others might think of me, and also often because I lack the confidence to make full use of such an opportunity.

What I need to remember most of all is that when I don't take full advantage of an opportunity and water it down out of concern for others, the opportunity is utilized in a half-assed way, and the opportunity:

1. Either completely fizzles out with the net effect of the opportunity being nil and me not having another opportunity like it for a very long time.

2. The opportunity blowing up in my face and possibly in the face of the person to whom I was trying to show consideration, because half of an opportunity can be more unstable and explosive than a full one.

3. Both #1 and #2

4. #1, #2, and the people around me being dumbfounded as to why I made such a half-assed decision.

I guess that the best way to deal with my latest experience with this is to turn it into a learning experience. Yeah, it cost me something, but I'll learn to be smarter the next time around.


03/09/2008 20:18 #43596

Longer Answer
Category: programming
To answer (e:jenks)' question, yes I'm downloading the iPhone SDK and I'll be trying to start writing iPhone applications. It would really help if I actually had an iPhone, but with a baby on the way, I've really been trying to justify it.

I'm not a very well-paid programmer, as I make less than a buffalo elementary school teacher, and once the little one comes into the world, I might as well have my employer do a direct deposit to my landlord, daycare, univera, whatever infant daycare provider I manage to find, and the bank that does my car payments; after those get taken out, we're eating and buying baby clothes off of (e:inscrutable)'s paycheck, which is about half of mine. I'm not going to complain, because people in some other area of the world would kill for 1/100 of what I have, but the situation has me scared shitless.

I probably will end up getting an iPhone, because I can justify it with trying to earn extra money for my family by developing and selling iPhone apps by whatever mechanism Apple sets up. I'm also studying Google's Android phone development environment, so I can enter something into their contest, which has some pretty lucrative prizes. There's so much crap I have to cram into my head to make money on the side, but the more I can cram into my head better off things will be for us.

Screenshot of estrip on a simulated Google phone



image
carolinian - 03/10/08 17:30
Update: Apple apparently puts the SDK under NDA, which is geekish for "if you tell anybody about anything, you're dead". As anybody with a pulse can get a free Apple Developer Connection account, this is kinda silly. They won't even let programmers on Apple mailing lists give each other help on how to write stuff for the iPhone.

This means no iPhone app screenshots for (e:strip), at least until June. I can still show Google phone stuff, though.


paul - 03/09/08 20:36
The iphone sdk has an iphone emulator so you can still program without one.

Seeing as the new firmware isn't going to be released until June and apps will not be available until then, I would just use the SDK's emualtor and buy an iphone in June when the new ones come out.