Baby # 2 (the Younger)

Monday contractions began...at 12:02am on Thursday the contractions were done (or at least, the baby-birthing contractions). In between was very little sleep, and increasing sense of impending arrival, me fainting in the delivery room, lots of drugs injected directly into the spine, and finally, a screaming child.

Since screaming, the child was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit, since he's about a month early, but he's doing pretty darned well.

A full accounting of the delivery (complete with my increasingly complicated explanation for my own collapse) is forthcoming, this is a brief update.

And some music (first time trying the NPR embedding function):

I love K'Naan

I also love Regina Spektor:

And finally, Modest Mouse continues to be totally awesome:

Children are a trial

My son has been epically sick this winter.  From basically October until May he had something.  There were brief, week-or-so-long respites from this reality, but they would soon be over.  For the last three weeks-ish, the boy has had a cough and a cold.  I'm not sure he's one-hundred percent over it, but I can tell he's feeling better, because he's starting to eat.  Like, eat a lot.  As in, half a plate of sweet potato french fries and a bowl of green beans and a bunch of crackers and raisens and it is actually kind of starting to become a concern.  

When the boy's been sick, he won't eat much.  For several stretches of a week or so this winter we've been struggling to get the kid to eat anything (which is borderline amazing considering his parents as well).  His sudden re-discovery of the joy of eating is probably the best sign we've had that he's healthy.  

I don't really know why I'm compelled to share this information.

Where have I been?

Our hero awakes in a white room with two rows of fluorescent bulbs hanging from wires in the ceiling. There is no floor or furniture, he is laying on the floor, which is painted white. He has forgotten...something...something important. There is no sound in the distance. There is nothing.

The baby:

Pneumonia. Yeah, not really that much fun. We've gone through a couple more rounds of sickness, with an ear infection and a round of antibiotics. But the boy is doing pretty well. He's sleeping through the night, by himself, pretty consistently. He's actually getting big enough that I'm starting to feel sad about the transitory nature of children. In less than two years we've passed a lot of milestones, and I honestly miss the crawling a little, and the laying there looking silly. Fortunately, he is now insane. When he and I play, we spend most of our time wrestling or chasing each other, I'm sure at some point we're going to hurt ourselves.

At this age, they are so much like a little puppy that it is impossible to be around him without thinking that.

We've been doing a lot of walks in the evening. To the lake, around a wetland, down by the river, around the block, through the grocery store, around dad's work. He's fascinated by birds and cats, and has no control when he sees one. He's gotten good, though, at the grocery store of staying close when you're checking out or doing something. Those places are the ones where I can barely imagine having a second child.


Work:

My wife pointed out that all I ever talk about is my next job. Clearly, I'm not entirely happy with what I'm doing. That isn't to say my job is terrible, and I'm not actually sure I could move. Not so much because of the job, but just because judas I do not really want to move again. We've purchased a house, added new furniture, settled in, and I am terrified by the prospect of moving again. But my job is dead-end, no possibility for advancement, with no window, no research, no possibility for something more. I don't really know how to work with some of the people I work with on 'research-light' kinds of projects, just because I'm not very good at not being in control.

I've spent quite a bit of time in the last week or so doing science. Writing papers, doing data analysis, learning R. I'm not sure if I'm actually any good at that stuff, but I feel like I am. I feel like I'm good at ideas, experimental design, and interpreting data. I haven't been writing much of anything lately, because I just having felt inspired, but what I have been writing is mostly science.

So I keep thinking about jobs where I can do more of that. But there aren't a lot of those out there that I could really get into without a major life change. It has been 2 years since I was in a lab environment...as my wife said "Could you go back?" That's a legit question...I like having a sense of smell again.


Music:

NPR is single-handily keeping my job interesting, if only because of the huge number of really interesting songs they have on their website. I recommend (you'll have to find videos/links yourself) Passion Pit "Sleepyhead", Lilly Allen "Not fair", "My 45" by someone I forgot, Blitzen Trapper's "Furr", "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver(?), and some others that I've forgotten.


Dam Removal:

This is supposed to be the kind of thing that should keep my job exciting and interesting. I'm working on getting some dams removed from the Neosho River. You might recall me getting some money from the fish and wildlife service to do this. Well....that's great and all, but I can't actually do any of the science to go along with it. Like, what the heck is going on in these low-head dams as far as nutrient cycling goes? How are we going to quantify the movement of fish before and after? What's going on with the sediments?

So yeah, I mean, this is more interesting than what I spend a lot of my time doing, but it isn't really all that interesting unless you can do the science as well. And I'm not going to be doing that. I'm just struggling to get permits in order, a good design, a plan everyone can live with, and a procedure for the next one. Great.


NCAA Tournament:

I'm so sick of the Big East talk. Look, these aren't that good of teams! This isn't the best conference ever, and it probably isn't even the best conference this year. There are three 'good' teams in the Big East, and UCONN isn't even one of them (did you see their non-conference schedule?). The Big East has three of the worst schools to play in a major conference this year (South Florida, DePaul, and Rutgers). This isn't the best conference ever.

The amazing thing I keep hearing is talk like the Big East is this always fantastic conference. Really? Hell, 90% of what the Big East accomplishes it does by just having more damn teams than everyone else. The conference has 16 teams! They keep putting 7-8 teams in the tournament. Big flippin' deal. From 1998-2008, the Big East has won 3 rings and has had 4 teams reach the Final Four. The ACC has 3 rings and 10 teams in the Final Four. The SEC has 3 rings and 5 Final Four teams. The odd balls are the Big 10 and Big 12, which have 1 ring a piece and 9 and 6 Final Four appearances respectively. The Big 12 even had the era of unrealized potential, when 4 teams made 5 Final Four appearances in 3 years (DAMN YOU SYRACUSE and MARYLAND!!).

And as for the ACC...good god. How many years are we going to keep giving Duke and North Carolina home games for the first two weeks of the tournament? Does this happen for anyone else? Duke isn't even a 1 seed this year! Arggh.


KU:

For the record, I predicted KU would win the Big 12. If KU hadn't won a championship last year, I would expect this team to make the Final Four. The bracket they are in is stacked with top coaches, but mediocre talent (yes, especially Louisville). KU is stacked with top tier talent, just really, really inexperienced. However, Sherron Collins has no ceiling in the college game (he is the best PG in the country, I won't even discuss this). As he goes, so will go the Jayhawks. So far in his career Collins has been ridiculously good during big games (he's the one who stole the inbounds pass from Memphis last year and hit a quick three to give us a bit of life). However, this is his first year as a starter, and when he plays bad (like he did against Baylor and Texas Tech), this KU team could lose to anyone. There is, literally, no one else on the KU roster who can propel them into a win at this stage in their career. I'm not sure they have a second player who can even run the offense at all.

As always I predict a championship. But that first round game scares the hell out of me.

And now for something completely identical to everything that has already happened.

Yes, I think that's funny.

On a more outstanding note:

- Canning. Yeah, canning. Or pickling, in my case, because i don't yet have a canner. But still, canning. I have now, on two occasions, produced food that I could theoretically eat in a year and still be fine. Wow. The concept boggles my mind.

- Spent the day at home with the little monster. He played, I cooked and cleaned. I like to cook. I like to stay home with the kid. I asked my wife's boss if she could get a 300% raise so I could just quit work and be a stay at home dad. I would probably get bored eventually.

- Remember people, we've gotta stay positive:

Good lord...

My biggest fear that is child related is that I am bringing someone into the world that is going to have to go through the absolute hell of moral depravity and idiocy that is childhood. For some reason, this country is filled with idiots who think that 'children are innocent' and 'cute'. Seriously? No, really, seriously? When you say that, all I can hear is you saying: I'm too old to remember. I'm about to turn 30, and I sure haven't forgotten. Kids, in general, are pretty much the moral equivalent of dog shit, and that's pretty much how 95% of them treat 'weird kids'.

The reality is that this is 100% encouraged by teachers, principals, and other adults in the school system. I can't tell you the number of bullies and scumbags who got 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances when I was growing up, just because the kids they were picking on were somehow weird. And yes, of course, I was one of the weird ones. I don't really know why adults (teachers) allow this kind of stuff to happen, but I assume it is because they are around it all the time. I mean, stories like this are way too commonplace. There's no defense for this kind of behavior. As a group (there are exceptions) I trust school teachers about as much as I trust Republicans.

There a lot of nights I spend lying awake and thinking about this and worrying like hell about what my son is going to have to go through. I really can't think of anything to do about it.

All of this brain cyclone

The loss begins now:

- I'm finally going to admit the truth to myself, I don't feel comfortable going through a round-about.

- Ticks..ticks are back. They're back. Screw you stupid f***ing ticks. 10 ticks! This means war!

- We've still got no internet. And no cable, but I'm not really missing the cable (other than the NBA and Top Chef)

- Does anyone else think this Boston team has to win it this year or never? (I'm in a hotel room watching the game) Ray Allen looks dead. Rondo has to get better, and maybe he will.

- So we moved into our house and it is pretty awesome. The kitchen rocks. We managed to put stuff into every cabinet, but none of them are really full. We've made some neat stuff, some that didn't work: Pumpkin tortillas...which ended up more like flatbread, but heavy. And chicken with shallots and garlic, allegedly Alton Brown's favorite recipe of all time (according to I'm just here for the food), which I have to admit, was pretty astoundingly good. The kitchen is just amazing. We've actually set up a card table, IN THE KITCHEN, and we eat there. I think of it as the Chef's Table for the house. The boy thinks of it as a place to eat puffs while dad cuts up smelly stuff.

- I'm getting frustrated about this: There appears to be a widespread perception that high gas prices are somehow something the President can directly influence. I'm skeptical that this perception is anything close to reality. Presumptive Hypocritical Party Nominee John McCain's suggestion that Congress should temporarily life the Federal Gas tax makes me think he's borderline senile. I mean, yes, it is the President's stupid policies over the last 8 years that have resulted in ever-increasing consumption (demand) within the domestic and international energy markets. I'm not disputing that. If this Administration had done what the previous administration had done (consistently push policies aimed at reducing consumption, improving relations with oil producing countries, setting reasonable limits for greenhouse gas admissions, and develop alternative power sources), then we would not be in a predicament where every random approach to producing more gas seems like a viable economic policy (I'm looking at you idiot-biofuel movement).
So yes, the President ends up affecting the price of gas, but not because he wakes up in the morning and decided: Screw you America, this year gas is going to hit $4 a gallon just to benefit my oil company plans. No, its because the President got up every damned day of his term and said: Screw you America, today I will ignore all rational thought and just do whatever my old college buddy says to do. With that policy, predictably, everything is going to pot.

- The Cavs and Celtics engaged in two of the chippiest (firefox spellcheck doesn't like that word!) first round first round series I ever saw just a few weeks ago, and yet now they are both playing like dead men. BORING!!!!!!!!!

- This drive to KC is getting longer. Wow...today's drive sucked.

- So about the Neosho Madtom: My new boss at work may have just totally won me over this week, and now I'm kinda wondering what the limit is...or if there is one. Meanwhile, I'm getting to the borderline of time to prepare this NABS talk...especially considering it is on a subject I've never spoken on before. Saying I've got a lot going on is sorta ridiculous. I've got so much happening I'm having a hard time keeping it even organized in broad categories. I need to sit down just to figure it all out, except I don't have time.
Of course, this is fun beyond all expectations. If we can accomplish something here, I'll be happy. Even if I do have to keep reading the letters of the ignorant and bitter.

Yeah...right

When is the keg party? Not soon, but whenever people come to visit...yes...maybe.

First of all:
Arg...why is it so hard for some people to get what the want, or what they need? One of my best friends and his wife have been trying to have a child. They've been trying for awhile, and with the help of some medical intervention, they are successfully pregnant.

This is actually the most frustrating story that I'm sure many other people have experienced. But judas freaking monkeys.... To start with, their first doctor was a old-fashioned semi-idiot who had them taking the most out-of-date drugs available; then the right drugs didn't do the trick, but did deliver frustration and (reportedly) moodiness; so then there is 'other activities' that I didn't want to know too much about, but I know enough; now they're finally pregnant. Initially there were 2 embryos, but then there was just one. Then the wife started getting swelling in her hands and fuck...she can't work anymore, and it turns out the only real hand specialist in town is really busy (go figure), so even getting in to see him is a semi-ordeal. The diagnosis is surgery or cortisone shots...neither of which is particularly attractive in your third trimester. Now, for whatever reason she's having severe gall bladder issues (no details from me), and again she's facing the possibility of pretty severe drugs or surgery...in her third trimester.

There's a lot of gaps in that time-line, but mostly you can just fill in the blanks in emotional terms. There are a lot of ups and downs there, and I know life is full of them for everyone, but really...is this necessary?

She's in her 25th fucking week! Pregnant women, as a group, are the most resilient, tough, and overall amazingly pain-tolerant people on the planet, but at the bare minimum she's looking at least 10-12 weeks of pain management. Real pain...she's on morphine right now. Weeks!!!! How in the hell is that going to happen? And that's the non-surgery option. The surgery option involves the terrifying possibility of induced labor three months early...

I won't lie to you, I didn't sit down here thinking I was going to write this all out. I really planned on writing a post about how the NBA is awesome and hey isn't KU great, and wow I walked around in the rain for two hours today...but...this is the kind of thing that you just can't get out of your head.

Bleh

What's been going on? I don't even know. Go check out Analyze
Everything for pics of Kansas waterfalls and stories about asian
clams. And hopefully a picture of the first wild black-footed ferrets
in Kansas in a long, long time.

Otherwise:

- We're buying a house. Four bedrooms, 2 baths, in town, nothing
much happening in the yard, no garage but a 2 car carport. Across the
street from a Catholic school (Am I ever going to get away from
Catholics? I'd convert but I loathe religion). Best positive of the
house is that it is in town, but number 2 is the incredibly huge
kitchen. Ok, incredibly huge is an overstatement, but this kitchen is
easily twice the size of our kitchen in grad school, with tons of
counterspace and a huge pantry (wow...just...wow). We move in April
23rd, and I can't wait. I'm borderline desperate to quit driving so
much all the damn time. We're going to turn the yard entirely into
natives and garden. I've actually got all kinds of plans involving
solar heating and geothermal and damn near every other crazy scheme
you can think of (using greywater maybe?).

- Morel Hunting. So who's been doing this? Sightings are starting
to come in from Missouri and Kansas, so I thought I'd do a little
hunting last weekend, but I was totally shut out. I suspect finding
the first one will be the hardest, because I'm not even sure if I'm
looking in the right places. Basically, native woodlands with some
moisture. While I think we'll definitely get in on the morel action
this year, I think we're also going to buy a 'mushroom log'. They
sound fairly easy to maintain, and the prospect of having an abundant
supply of shitake mushrooms is pretty appealing. Let me know if
you've done this and how successful/easy it was.

- The baby decided to be extra cute this weekend, which was pretty
good timing, because both grandma's got to see him. For some reason
he's not really crawling yet. Almost seems like he's just unable to
get good enough traction on the ground, because when he's in my arms,
I'm pretty much his own personal jungle gym. The kid loves, loves,
hanging upside down. He's kind of a little monkey.

- Top Chef. I never thought I would watch this show, but I have
been, and despite the unbearable awkwardness of it (as compared to the
professionalism of Iron Chef's similar competition), the show is
fantastic. I can't help but compare Top Chef to "The Next Iron Chef"
and find Top Chef inferior. The competitors are less confident, less
experienced, and the judges seem very unprofessional. Also, some of
the competitions are pretty bogus. I'm rooting for the guy with the
weird mohawk-type hair.

- The Darjeeling Limited. In my opinion, this was probably the worst
movie Wes Anderson has made. Which actually sounds bad, but isn't,
because this movie is fantastic. This guy just makes unbelievably
good movies. I didn't think Royal Tenenbaums could be topped, but
then The Life Aquatic happened. I'd actually probably put this movie
as dead-even with Bottle Rocket, but since Bottle Rocket was the first
indie film I 'discovered' on my own, I still like it more.

- I am Legend. Disappointing. Will Smith can act, really well, and
unfortunately a pretty lame script killed what was a good film. The
next sentence is a spoiler, so stop if you want to watch the film. In
particular, I think every single thing that happened after he was
knocked unconscious kinda sucked, and everything before that was kinda
awesome. The script-writers should have read World War Z.

- The NBA: I don't care about the seeding in the West right now.
There are 5 legitimate contenders for winning the Western Conference:
Phoenix, San Antonio, L.A., New Orleans, and Dallas. Yes Dallas! Are
you kidding me? That's the last team the Spurs want in the first
round.

- College Basketball - Well, Tyler "Mr. Will"
Hansbroughuruhgoghghrogh showed his true colors against KU by playing
like ass and falling down a lot. That guy winning a national player
of the year award is an embarrassment to those awards. Yes, the guy
plays hard, but he's TERRIBLE!!! I'm starting to think Mark Madsen is
getting embarrassed by the constant comparison. Who honestly thinks
this guy is better, in any way, than Beasley?

Kind of a lot of tears today...

So this wasn't really my son's best day ever. For the past two mornings (the weekend) the boy has been pretty much an unholy terror unless dad is taking care of him. Yesterday morning I was gone for maybe half an hour before I got a call from mom that was borderline frantic. I came home, and the boy immediately turned on the charm...big-time. Big smiles. High-pitched squeals. The works.

But only for dad. And it isn't even like I was doing anything. I just sat there and stared at him. Maybe I sang "Amazing Grace" (one of the two songs I can remember at any given time).

Today, same story. In the morning the boy was borderline hostile to mom, but totally smiles and giggles to dad. This is a bad trend, since dad isn't around in the mornings most days.

Part of the problem might be that mom is the one wielding the snot-sucker. What? You don't know what a snot-sucker is? Here's one, apparently the correct term is aspirator. All I know is that my son views it as a highly developed torture device. I don't know if I've ever heard him scream the way he did this morning. And that brought on the tears. This was actually a lot worse than the shots he got at the doctor's office.

(yes, you have to use an aspirator on a baby. They don't blow their noses! And it seems like all babies have a ton of mucous build-up overnight. The boy is so bad in the morning that he can barely breath through his nose at all. You try nursing a boob without the ability to breath through your nose...ok...you probably won't want to actually try that. That's gross.)

Baby tears are tough on mom and dad, especially because you know the kid is fine. There's nothing painful about the damned snot-sucker. There's nothing painful about waking up. There's nothing painful about being alone for ten minutes. But that doesn't mean the baby doesn't feel like crying whenever those things happen.

Is this becoming a blog about my kid? Are the only interesting things that happen to me lately kid-related? What has happened to me? Here's the other stuff that happened this week:

- My good friend J and I rented an XBOX 360 and Halo 3 on Saturday. You know, to see whether those video games the kids are always talking about were worth anything. Well, the game is good, and the system seems good, but $400 good? Has inflation really gone up that much? The most I ever spent on a video game system was on my DreamCast, and that was because it came with 2 games, 2 controllers, and it was the Sega Sports all-black edition. My XBOX cost less than $200. And I'm going to have to pay $350 just for a system with 1 controller for the 360? No. No.

- I went to a hibachi bar for the first time in my life on Friday. I was pleasantly surprised. The only really memorable things about the food were the sauces (an intense ginger/soy thing and a mild mustard sauce that was referred to as 'spicy') and a ginger-rice vinegar dressing on the salad. But the overall atmosphere was fun, and I like seeing my food cooked. As far as I could tell it was all pretty simple.

- Nothing makes sense in the NBA. The Boston Celtics played amazing on Sunday against the Magic, but lost because Hedo Turkoglu hit an amazing shot over near-perfect defense by Paul Pierce. And am I the only one who thinks Pierce looks thirty pounds heavier than he did three years ago. Is that muscle? Last year Ray Allen scored 30 ppg for the month of January and averaged 26 ppg, 4 apg, and 4.5 rpg. What happened to that guy? Meanwhile the GS Warriors (whom I loathe) aren't as awful as they ought to be, and the New Orleans Hornets are, without a doubt, the best team in the West. Nobody else is even really close. They demolished the Spurs on Saturday.

All Hallow's Eve

Well, Alton's first Halloween was fairly boring. We didn't even leave the house, Grandma and Grandpa came over and we made some Emu tacos.

Yeah, Emu. I think the list of animals I've eaten in my life goes like this (in approximate order of frequency):
Chicken, cow, turkey, pork, bison, deer, tilapia, catfish, bass, walleye, crappie, sunfish (various spp.), crayfish, rabbit, pheasant, quail, dove, shrimp, elk, ostrich, oxen, _emu_, alligator, and I can't think of anything else right now, but I might have had a fried grasshopper once.

We were walking through the farmer's market and I saw the emu stand and couldn't resist. Very red meat. Wife and I couldn't tell any difference between it and bison (maybe a little less fat), but my parents didn't like it as much as beef (I, of course, haven't eaten beef in years, so no basis for comparison). My parents could have been reacting to my 'taco' recipe, which included red bell peppers and potatoes, as opposed to just meat and onions.

ANYWAY, here's what I've done this week:

- Visited Manhattan, home of _the_ Kansas State University. Met up with a friend of mine there and got some good advice on various aspects of a talk I'm giving. Good encouragement as well. This was an official work trip, because I needed to dig out papers on heavy metal pollution, but I brought along the whole family. I think the family had a good time (wife says yes!).

- In my mind, college campuses should have crazy people. When you go to college, you should end up experiencing diverse viewpoints and ideas. KU is like this, KSU...not so much. Notre Dame wasn't really like that as much as KU, but there was at least some oddity. Manhattan's sea of people who all looked like the preppy bastards I knew from high school made me think up a few possible slogans for the school:

"Kansas State University: Why would you want to learn anything anyway?"
"Kansas State University: Conformity is happiness....right?"
"Kansas State University: Comfortable with ignorance."

- In all seriousness, K-State has a nice library and some really good profs, so I shouldn't make fun of them.

- Manhattan drove home a reality I've always realized but never thought about: Driving in college towns sucks. After thinking about this, I can actually modify it a little: driving in state college towns sucks. The reason, I assume, is the fact that college admissions have sky-rocketed over the past 40 odd years, resulting in a great demand to expand buildings, but also a sky-rocketing price for nearby real-estate. So roads become expensive to build, and colleges are somewhat committed to the "walking campus" mentality anyway, and so road organization doesn't keep pace with the traffic load. This isn't really a problem if you're living on campus, and it isn't too much of a problem if you work there (usually with easily accessible designated parking), but for visitors it is a pain in the ass.
By comparison, Notre Dame, which has maintained a fairly even class size for decades while systematically eliminating ALL road traffic on-campus, has funneled traffic to large roads that can handle the load, and built parking lots in easily accessible locations near the edges of campus (eliminating the need for drivers to get on-campus at all). But of course Notre Dame is under no obligation to allow more students, as state schools often are.
I would love to hear of an example of a state-college town that doesn't suck to drive in (at least around the college). Here are the ones I have seen this effect in up-close:
Lawrence, Manhattan, Norman, Athens, even Golden, CO (even though School of Mines isn't a huge population). Ann Arbor's probably the best driving experience, and I was almost in a huge accident the last time I was there!

- NBA!!!!! Watched the first two nights of NBA action and here's my thoughts:
The Mavs are going to be better than last year.
The Spurs are going to lose this year.
The Celtics aren't going to be that good.
The Bulls will, ONCE AGAIN, start the season horribly.
The Suns and Bulls will face off in the Finals.
Mostly though, I'm just happy we're back in the NBA universe.

The Arrival

My son was born on September 3rd, 2007 at 6 26 pm. He is named Alton.

My wife started having serious contractions at 1 15 am on the 3rd. At least, that's when she told me. I was in the middle of a round of furious on-line gaming at the Kongregate website. By the time we had convinced ourselves that, yes, these were real contractions, it was 2 30-ish. We got into a room at the hospital at 3 00 am.

As it turns out, having a baby on a minor holiday is probably a good thing. The delivery ward we were in was usually packed, because there are numerous planned inductions scheduled. But on Labor Day nobody wants to schedule an induction. We had an induction scheduled for the 7th ourselves. If we had come in the previous Monday, we would have had to go through a good chunk of the early part of the labor (the contractions) in a 'non-delivery' room (although, because of crowding, they often do deliveries in those rooms anyway).

Instead, there were just 6-8 deliveries occurring during the time we were there. I think this means we ended up with a little more time from nurses.

The process itself was traumatizing, exhausting, vaguely humiliating, astoundingly painful, and heart-wrenching. And that's just my part. When Alton finally arrived I very nearly just fell on the floor and started crying.

My wife, and any other woman who has gone through that, well...my god. I had an idea, but watching it on TV or reading about it or whatever is nothing compared to what it actually is.

Last year I started getting really sick due to an early-onset ulcer. That can be pretty painful stuff. One night I felt like I had drunk a bottle of phosphoric acid, then I started throwing up, and I just felt burning all up and down my esophagus, down into my intestine, and especially in my stomach. I was in agony, and it continued for 6-7 hours before I gave in and went to the ER to try and get something to alleviate the pain. It took a couple of days for me to recover, and a couple of more days before I would eat anything.

I'm pretty sure that's comparable to what my wife went through during the first 6 or so hours. That was the easiest part of the entire delivery process. At the end my wife was screaming, and everyone in the room (which by this point was about 12 people) were telling her to keep pushing and that she was doing a wonderful job. I think she ignored all of them, but I kept repeating everything they said, and, in her words "You had to be my brain."

Alton turned out to be 7 lbs and 14 oz, and 19.5 inches tall (long). This is the same length as my wife and I were at birth, but he's actually a lot lighter than both of us. Which meant that my wife's mom could say he was "really little." That's crazy. That's crazy. There's no way I believe that the human race will continue to propagate.

I know I won't continue to propagate.

Anyway, Alton arrived a brilliant shade of purple, but it turns out that isn't too uncommon, and so after a few good screams (he's got good lungs) he was pink...and loud.
---
Ok, I had to go hold him for the last 2 hours, which turned out to be really easy, because he just slept. Now that I'm back I've completely lost my train of thought, so I'll continue this later..

Good morning Saturday

What I did this week:

1. Drove to Topeka and sat in on a committee that is deciding what to do about reservoirs and sediment and available water in KS for the next 50-70 years. And by "sat in" I mean "participated". I ended up meeting a ton of interesting people, but it was a long meeting.

2. Staying in Lawrence and got to see my...uh...niece. Wow, I just realized my sister's baby is my niece. That's weird, but I guess not really. Anyway, she's 3 weeks old but still very tiny.

3. Went to Kansas City and looked at Redbelly Snake habitat. Which consists of oak-hickory forest with steep gradients. In 105 degree heat. That was a hot, sweaty, exhausting experience, but a lot of fun.

4. Went to see a play starring a college friend.

5. Read Harry Potter 4.

6. That's probably enough.

I'm thinking it would be really cool to record notes and a review of each of the restaurants I visit while on this job (only visiting local stuff) and call it "Threatened and Endangered Food."
I think that'd be fun.

Today it is back to the birthing class. Yay. After last week I've been telling people that if I saw that video in November...well...I wouldn't be pregnant.

5 questions you had better know the answer to...

...if you want me to take you seriously as a scientist. This if from an article in the Guardian, about scientific illiteracy. Here are the questions:

Q: Why does salt dissolve in water?
Q: Roughly how old is the earth?
Q: What happens when you turn on a light?
Q: Is a clone the same as a twin?
Q: Why is the sky blue?
Q: What is the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Now, I say 5 questions because that last one is totally bogus. You could have been very good at science for years and completely understand the basics of thermodynamics yet not remember which law is which.

I have no problem answering all these questions (in fact, the very article described above does a piss-poor job of answering some of them [and they are wrong about the twin one!]), but anyone who works in science should really have some kind of understanding of what the right answer is to each of these.

At the very least your answer better be better than some of the people they interviewed for this article (on ions):

Kirsty Wark Because it's less dense.

Daisy Goodwin It forms
another compound. The only reason I know any of this
is because I've been
testing my daughter on her GCSEs.

Uh, your daughter is failing! But hey, Daisy Goodwin works on poetry anthologies and Kirsty Wark is a newscaster. Check out the reply of Robert Winston, who is a "Human fertility expert and science TV presenter" (a former medical researcher):

It's to do with ions isn't it? Let me just work it out. It's to do with the way
sodium and chloride ions, um. Do you know, I'm not sure I can really explain it.
I can't remember now from my physics years ago.

Yeah, you work on biology. Even more, you work on physiology (of a particular organism). You're telling me you don't understand how water dissolves things? You do realize that your organism of study is 80-odd percent water?

How about these replies:

(Age of the earth)

Susan Greenfield Oh blimey. Well, I know that human beings have been going for
about a million and a half years, so ... I'm just grasping here. Something like
60 billion years or something like that, but that's a grasp. I'm not a physical
scientist and it shows. I'm probably not scientifically literate.

(why is the sky blue)

John O'Farrell My daughter explained this to me the other day. She is in
Year Seven. It's to do with blue being the dominant colour in the colour
spectrum.

Kirsty Wark Because it's a reflection of the oceans on the planet. No idea
apart from that. I think the sky is blue because... the rain clouds obscure the blue, and the blue is a reflection... because of the sunshine. Fuck! I don't know! Why is the sky blue?

Seriously? People don't know this stuff? And John, your child is probably failing too.

Ok, first of all. My friend M and his wife L (and their baby C) got me what is, to this point, pretty much the most amazing baby gift we have recieved. Little Alton has a shirt that contains the answer to the question: "Why is the sky blue?" courtesy of M, L, and C (have I sent you guys a thank you yet? Gosh, I hope so! THANK YOU!!). I'll admit, as I have previously, that this is exactly the kind of question that I'm worried could throw me off my guard when my own child is asking me for the first time. However, these people are being asked by an adult, given some time to think, and that's the best they could come up with? Reflection off the ocean? I've lived in Kansas, and I can assure you the sky is blue there.

Secondly, I hate to hold people up to ridicule, but this is exactly what is wrong with western civilization and, indeed, the world. We are all idiots. 90% of people I've met in my life only know how to do a handful of things. Even 'jack-of-all-trades' people who do mechanical odd-jobs often don't seem to have the faintest clue why something works. Scientists seem to be among the majority here. Are we really being served well in society by producing engineers that can't understand any biology? Or biologists who literally can't do 1st year calculus?

Anyway, it is late and I'm tired and a little intoxicated so I should probably stop here. But seriously, from now on, if you can't answer basic questions about the world, then I'm not counting you as a real scientist.

What's going on?

So.

The NBA Finals don't start until Thursday.

THURSDAY!!!

How the hell am I supposed to make it until THURSDAY!

Other stuff:

- Webcomics: I just found a really cutesy, cat-oriented webcomic called Mows (it is a flash site, which I hate, but..). I didn't even know 'cute' was a term you could associate with webcomics. I mean, really...a 'cute' webcomic? What planet am I living on?

- Friday's a big day. In a week or two I'll mention why.

- For some reason I am experiencing extremely low self-esteem lately. I wonder why? Oh maybe because I suck at everything I do. Of course, that's never bothered me before...

- We have a baby shower this weekend. And apparently there might be windsurfing. I don't think these are related.

- I have to go back to the lab now...moo.

And at the same time...

My life certainly doesn' t suck.

Just a few weeks ago I hit the top, the most amazing moment in my life. I saw my son on the sonogram at the hospital.

Seriously. That was amazing. Beyond amazing really. I wasn't expecting much. I certainly wasn't expecting to just about explode with joy and giddiness. I mean, he's real. He's right there. And his hand is resting on his chin as if he's thinking about something.

Really no way to put that into words, and I certainly didn't expect the need to, but hey, having a kid is really astounding.


Plus this Ok Go song is really great.

This weekend

“The Wife” and I like to go somewhere at least once every three weeks. Last weekend was 3 weeks, and so we went back to my hometown. This could be considered a ‘boring’ getaway, since we’re just going places we’ve been before, but we needed to get the title for our car, and we needed to not spend a lot of money (our budget is tight).

We ended up having a blast. We took my mom out for her late birthday dinner at a really neat Mediterranean restaurant, I got to watch a couple of NBA games, and we got to see some of our friends.

In particular, we got to see my long-time buddy MH’s new baby girl. Well. Well. I’m just glad we’ve still got a few months to adjust to the idea of being parents. My wife seems to be easing into the idea, while I am less comfortable now than I was before. This baby is almost a month old, and she’s just a few ounces larger than I was when I was born. Oh my god...I feel so sorry for my wife. We both hoping this baby turns out to be a lot smaller.

Other stuff:

- My first-round NBA predictions (I wrote these up Friday night): Pistons, Cleveland, Bulls, Jersey in the East and Suns, Spurs, Rockets, and Mavs in the West. (Note: The Mavs are going to definitely be tested against the Warriors. I don’t understand the many commentators who think that the regular season doesn’t matter: The Warriors are still coached by a guy who gives the Mavs fits. The Bulls are a much better team than the Heat, only poor officiating can save the Heat.)

- I doubt anyone else is paying attention to this, but a few months ago Penny Arcade started challenging the video game industry to ping-pong matches. They won the first one, and, apparently inspired by this, announced the throw-down publicly. Uh, big mistake. As far as I can tell the PA guys have gotten shellacked in every match since that first one. This latest one is particularly hilarious.

- I had a hard time figuring out whether or not the Onion had started covering real news when I read this.

- Wind. Seriously, wind. We drove back yesterday against a strong, constant, driving wind. The kind of wind that blows down small trees. The kind of wind that rips grass out of the ground. The kind of wind that seriously reduced my gas mileage. And on Earth Day no less. I should have driven north! Or just skipped work today. Seriously though, if you’ve never lived out here on the plains, you cannot believe how freaking windy it can be (well, I’m sure it is worse or just as bad on the ocean).

- Also, does anyone know what’s going on with honeybees?

Why is the sky blue Daddy?

One of the many things that terrify me about having a child is being asked that question and suddenly forgetting the answer. I know the answer. I understand it. I can even demonstrated interesting aspects of it with a pair of polarized shades.

Yet I am terrified that I'll forget everything when a tiny person points at the sky and asks me that.

I've been reviewing the answer on a daily basis for the last month or so. I figure I've got quite a while to get ready, but when I hear that question, I'm going to have the answer ready.

I hope.

Baby Update!

My wife made her scheduled appointment with the baby-delivering doctor (technical term). There can now be no doubt as to the reality that a child prodigy will be entering the world in the late-August, early-September time-table. The little guy/girl was, in the words of the doc: "Really squirmy." That's not really a problem now, I think the little guy/girl is the size of a peanut, but that's going to suck if he keeps it up once he gets a little bigger. I think we're going to have to cut back on sugar and caffeine in our diet.

Oh, and the first question I asked my wife: Just one heartbeat, right? The answer is yes, and it is a strong one.

Still to early to get an idea of the sex. I'll have to keep using the slash pronouns for now.

UPDATE:
A pic from the sono! Somebody who presumably knows something about babies said that this is a picture of our child.
As far as I can tell that is just two little blobs, still kinda exciting.Oh, and that date at the bottom is the new 'due date' projection. Please let our child be born in August!