Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Various News
OK, so we have a few things to report. First off, Viv slept the entire night in her toddler bed on Tuesday night. Last night she managed to fall out of it and it really ticked her off and she had to spend the rest of the night in our bed. I also got the home server up and running and have web access setup and running (we have a test webpage that is already live, but I need to tweak a few things before it goes public). I'll likely be posting a link to the webpage within a couple of days once I get the configuration tweaked and the permissions for file access set correctly. I'll also get ftp access running and move over a handful of test files and have some of you more tech-savvy people play around and make suggestions before I really fire it up. I'm going to play with setting up blog software on the server as well, but that won't transition to public access for a while.
Muddy
This morning when I took Viv for her bike ride we went up along the river levee and down some gravel roads behind Chalmette Battlefield. It's been pretty wet here lately and hasn't quite dried out yet. Anyway, though Viv had the screen on her trailer down, the rain guard wasn't. When we got done Viv was covered head to toe in little specks of mud but didn't seem to mind all that much. She was just sitting there happily with her juice cup in her muddy little hands.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
New Morning Routine
Viv and I have about an hour and a half to kill every morning between when Alice leaves for work and Kathy arrives. So, I figured that maybe we should start taking advantage of it and getting out and doing something. So we've started going for morning bike rides. Viv's not quite sure why I need to yank her out of bed, slap her in a trailer, then bounce her around for 45 minutes but she seems to have fun nonetheless. Getting to see bunnies helps as well.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sprout news
Well, it seems that the Sprout has decided that we need to pay more attention to him already. I had an appointment with the perinatologist for an ultrasound today, and this is what we learned. The Sprout is small, but not terribly so. Just sort of skinny. The ultrasound actually measured him at 4 lbs 14 oz, which is great - bigger than we expected. If that’s accurate, he'll probably be bigger than Viv was when she was born by the time he gets here. However, the ultrasound isn’t much more accurate than Dr. Ryan’s hands-to-the-belly method of guesstimating fetal weight, so we really don’t know much more about his weight than we had before.
The other thing we learned is that there is a decrease in blood flow to certain areas of his body. The doctor said that you want it to measure below a 3 (whatever that means) and that some areas were below a 3 but some were at a 3 exactly, so not ideal. The umbilical cord is around his neck, but it looks like it’s only wrapped once and it is very loose, so that is not the problem. Fortunately, the blood flow to his brain is looking fine. Because of this decreased-flow situation I am supposed to have non stress tests 2x/week now - once at the hospital and once at my OB’s office. This is when they put a fetal heartbeat monitor belt on me and I click a button every time he moves. If his heart rate goes up when he moves, it means he’s reactive, which is good. I am also supposed to pay extra attention to my kick counts. This is when, after a meal, I count the first 10 movements he makes. If there are fewer than 10 movements in two hours, it could indicate a problem. The Sprout has never come close to taking that long to move 10 times.
I told the perinatologist that we were probably looking at an induction at 39 weeks b/c of Dr. Ryan going out of town. She said that it was fine to continue with that goal in mind, but, if the Sprout’s blood flow does not improve, she wants the Sprout out of there at 37 weeks. That would be in the May 19-21 range. I am really hopeful that everything improves. I am not mentally prepared for a May baby. Although emeralds are nice.
The other thing we learned is that there is a decrease in blood flow to certain areas of his body. The doctor said that you want it to measure below a 3 (whatever that means) and that some areas were below a 3 but some were at a 3 exactly, so not ideal. The umbilical cord is around his neck, but it looks like it’s only wrapped once and it is very loose, so that is not the problem. Fortunately, the blood flow to his brain is looking fine. Because of this decreased-flow situation I am supposed to have non stress tests 2x/week now - once at the hospital and once at my OB’s office. This is when they put a fetal heartbeat monitor belt on me and I click a button every time he moves. If his heart rate goes up when he moves, it means he’s reactive, which is good. I am also supposed to pay extra attention to my kick counts. This is when, after a meal, I count the first 10 movements he makes. If there are fewer than 10 movements in two hours, it could indicate a problem. The Sprout has never come close to taking that long to move 10 times.
I told the perinatologist that we were probably looking at an induction at 39 weeks b/c of Dr. Ryan going out of town. She said that it was fine to continue with that goal in mind, but, if the Sprout’s blood flow does not improve, she wants the Sprout out of there at 37 weeks. That would be in the May 19-21 range. I am really hopeful that everything improves. I am not mentally prepared for a May baby. Although emeralds are nice.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Booay!
Using the flash video conversion makes doing videos sooooooo much easier. Expect more in the future.
Zoo x 2
We spent a lot of time at the zoo this weekend. Friday night was the Kids' Zoo to Do, and we went back today for a short trip since the weather was so nice. In addition, we picked up a bunch of new baby-related stuff yesterday in preparation for the next one showing up. We got a new car seat for Viv, a new crib mattress, and a double stroller that works with our current car seat bucket. Viv also got her toddler bed setup yesterday and seems to consider it more akin to a trampoline than a place to sleep. Hopefully that'll change over time.
Alice also has a note about the next one's arrival date:
So, at my appointment on Friday, my OB - who always clowns with me - tells me he's going out of town on June 7 to San Francisco, two days before the Sprout's due date. "Good, I'll go with you and have the baby there," I say. "No, I am serious," he says, smiling. "Well, just give me a vertical C-section on the 6th." "No, I am serious," he laughs. Two nurses in the room are nodding. He's serious. So, the Sprout will be at least a bit early. He thinks I will be induced on the Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. We'll see. Maybe the Sprout will decide to come out on his own by then or before then. Also, because the Sprout seems to be a little small, I get another ultrasound with the perinatologist tomorrow.
Alice also has a note about the next one's arrival date:
So, at my appointment on Friday, my OB - who always clowns with me - tells me he's going out of town on June 7 to San Francisco, two days before the Sprout's due date. "Good, I'll go with you and have the baby there," I say. "No, I am serious," he says, smiling. "Well, just give me a vertical C-section on the 6th." "No, I am serious," he laughs. Two nurses in the room are nodding. He's serious. So, the Sprout will be at least a bit early. He thinks I will be induced on the Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. We'll see. Maybe the Sprout will decide to come out on his own by then or before then. Also, because the Sprout seems to be a little small, I get another ultrasound with the perinatologist tomorrow.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
ABC
This is kind of a long video.
At any rate, I've figured out some tricks with video encoding. Sites like Youtube encode videos to a flash video format (.flv or .swf). The software they use to do this is rather pricey (if you use windows or mac) so I figured there must be an open source program to handle it. Sure enough, with a little bit of playing around I was able to install a flash encoder in linux (Pod- for your reference it's the ffmpeg flv-muxer). To make a long story short I was able to take a starting file that was 273 Mb and compress it to 8.3 Mb once it was encoded to flash format.
So, who the hell cares?
Well, I do- and here's why:
If we do the blog from our own server in the house we don't want to have to load video to sites like Youtube, it kind of makes having our own server a bit pointless. Being able to encode to flash format means we can skip using Youtube, convert the video here, and just slap it on the blog. No need to upload anything. We just encode the video on one of the linux boxes in the house and stick it directly into the blog.
At any rate, I've figured out some tricks with video encoding. Sites like Youtube encode videos to a flash video format (.flv or .swf). The software they use to do this is rather pricey (if you use windows or mac) so I figured there must be an open source program to handle it. Sure enough, with a little bit of playing around I was able to install a flash encoder in linux (Pod- for your reference it's the ffmpeg flv-muxer). To make a long story short I was able to take a starting file that was 273 Mb and compress it to 8.3 Mb once it was encoded to flash format.
So, who the hell cares?
Well, I do- and here's why:
If we do the blog from our own server in the house we don't want to have to load video to sites like Youtube, it kind of makes having our own server a bit pointless. Being able to encode to flash format means we can skip using Youtube, convert the video here, and just slap it on the blog. No need to upload anything. We just encode the video on one of the linux boxes in the house and stick it directly into the blog.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Grumble
The new server is (almost) set up. The keyboard for it is a special type of keyboard that only works on Sun systems (and other keyboards, conversely, don't work on Sun systems). Wouldn't ya know it, but the space key on the keyboard is broken. I'm going to run the server in what's called headless mode which means no monitor, keyboard, mouse so no big deal, right? The only catch is that during the install, which uses a keyboard and monitor to make it easier, I needed to type one short string of commands. There were only 3 spaces between words to make it work with remote login and be able to ditch the broken keyboard. So, three strokes of a space key are all that separate me and a functional server.
I ordered a replacement keyboard for $17 bucks tonight. That works out to $5.66 per space.
I ordered a replacement keyboard for $17 bucks tonight. That works out to $5.66 per space.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sunday fun
This Sunday, Curt & I celebrated our 3-year anniversay, which was really last Wednesday. But since the Sprout has decided that I can no longer enjoy a nice dinner (heartburn stinks!), we decided to save our celebration for the weekend and go to brunch. We went to Brennan's, famous for their brunch, and it was fabulous. Viv played in City Park with her Grandma and Nonna, so she had a great morning too. Then, when we all got home, Viv played outside in the backyard. How she loves to be outside! The still shots in this post and the video in the previous post were taken then.
Monday, April 21, 2008
New Post
I'll put up some new pictures on Tuesday during the day. I had planned on getting some stuff up today but we lost power in the chem building during the day and I didn't get around to it tonight.
I also picked up the Sun workstation that I'll be converting over to our server. I'll likely load the new operating system and get the basic server configuration setup on Thursday or Friday. I'm throwing together a simple webpage to test out the server and will give everyone the details once that's done. This won't replace the blog at first, but if it all goes well we'll migrate the blog to the internal server. I'm going do this a step a time to make sure everyone is happy. However, if it works well it means everyone will have access to (slightly) more frequent updates with more pictures.
I also picked up the Sun workstation that I'll be converting over to our server. I'll likely load the new operating system and get the basic server configuration setup on Thursday or Friday. I'm throwing together a simple webpage to test out the server and will give everyone the details once that's done. This won't replace the blog at first, but if it all goes well we'll migrate the blog to the internal server. I'm going do this a step a time to make sure everyone is happy. However, if it works well it means everyone will have access to (slightly) more frequent updates with more pictures.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Music Music Everywhere
Last night we went to our fortnightly happy hour/music camp at the Big Top Gallery. Marc Stone was the musical act, and it was one of the best we've seen there. Marc Stone plays guitar and steel guitar. He had a stand-up bass player who was dynamite and a harmonica player who was even better than that. We wish we knew either of the other guys' names, but we don't. But the harmonica player is playing the music of Little Walter in the movie Chess that's being filmed in town right now. We aren't sure if he's playing the acting part too or just the music of Little Walter for the soundtrack, but either way, he was good.
Here's a picture of Vivienne yesterday at our house, another one of her at music camp, and a video of her watching the band.
Today was a big music day indeed. The Louisiana Children's Museum had its first annual Jump & Jive on Julia St. The museum was open, and there was face painting, and all sorts of extra activities. But, we primarily parked ourselves near the stage and enjoyed the music. The first act was Amanda Shaw, who is really amazing. I am not sure how old she is now, 17 or 18, but she is cute as can be, has a cool voice, and plays a killer cajun fiddle. Next was Johnette Downing, a local children's musician who really gets the kids involved in her performances. Unfortunately, Viv slept all through her set. Next was Dr. Michael White, a New Orleans jazz clarinetist, and while he was very good, his music was too subdued to get the kids all riled up. After that was a Mardi Gras Indian group who paraded through the crowd. But the big show-stopper, the band I thought could never be as good as the hype about them, was saved for last. The Imagination Movers. Let me tell you, those guys are seriously good and great fun. Curt called them the Red Hot Chili Peppers of kids' music, and he's totally right. They were funky and had everyone very involved in their performance. And they are local guys who've made the big time - they have a show starting this fall on the Disney channel. One of them, who I happened to be acquainted with in high school, came through the crowd near us and gave Vivi a high five. The whole thing was great. The first two pictures are taken with Tim Duckworth # 75, a guard for the Saints who introduced one of the acts. The inside one of Viv is in the toddler area in the museum in the play kitchen. The other inside one is of the toddler area's Goodnight Moon room.
Here's a picture of Vivienne yesterday at our house, another one of her at music camp, and a video of her watching the band.
Today was a big music day indeed. The Louisiana Children's Museum had its first annual Jump & Jive on Julia St. The museum was open, and there was face painting, and all sorts of extra activities. But, we primarily parked ourselves near the stage and enjoyed the music. The first act was Amanda Shaw, who is really amazing. I am not sure how old she is now, 17 or 18, but she is cute as can be, has a cool voice, and plays a killer cajun fiddle. Next was Johnette Downing, a local children's musician who really gets the kids involved in her performances. Unfortunately, Viv slept all through her set. Next was Dr. Michael White, a New Orleans jazz clarinetist, and while he was very good, his music was too subdued to get the kids all riled up. After that was a Mardi Gras Indian group who paraded through the crowd. But the big show-stopper, the band I thought could never be as good as the hype about them, was saved for last. The Imagination Movers. Let me tell you, those guys are seriously good and great fun. Curt called them the Red Hot Chili Peppers of kids' music, and he's totally right. They were funky and had everyone very involved in their performance. And they are local guys who've made the big time - they have a show starting this fall on the Disney channel. One of them, who I happened to be acquainted with in high school, came through the crowd near us and gave Vivi a high five. The whole thing was great. The first two pictures are taken with Tim Duckworth # 75, a guard for the Saints who introduced one of the acts. The inside one of Viv is in the toddler area in the museum in the play kitchen. The other inside one is of the toddler area's Goodnight Moon room.
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