Snow Pics!

http://picasaweb.google.com/bvandenbos/MakenaSSnowPics#

More Pics!

Uploaded a few more photos.

November

Apparently we've been busy because I haven't had time to post in a while.

Let me explain... no there is too much. Let me sum up.

Went to Toronto, came home. Makena's schedule got out of whack, so we didn't sleep much. We went to Mt. Baker Chalet. Makena got sick, and we didn't sleep for much. Makena got better. We went to Mom and Dad's for thanksgiving. We came home and now Makena seems to have forgotten how to sleep altogether. So, now we're more or less not sleeping at all. Looks like we're getting pay back for an easy-going first 4 months. Doh.

Makena started rolling over and is absolutely obsessed with kitties. She can't stop staring at the Hun. So far, her direct interaction with the Hun has been strictly limited, but she has pet her successfully. The Hun has been on her best behavior. Mak was also very interested in Cookie at Mom and Dad's. It's pretty funny to watch.

Makena joins the jetset

I must admit I was worried about having a 4-5 hour flight to toronto with Makena, but she did great. She slept for probably 3.5 hours off and on. She only fussed for 10-15 minutes which was quickly overcome by pacing the aisle a few times. To be fair, Air Canada also made it a bit easier because they have a few more inches of leg room and on demand movies and TV for each person (awesome).

Makena walks on to the Husky Basketball team

Ok, not really, but here are her updated 4mo stats:

Length: 97th percentile
Weight: 70th percentile
Head size: 30th percentile (pea head!)

Makena meets Anna Lynn

Last night at 11:30ish PM Anna Lynn Millikan was born. Why is this significant? Well, Anna is Makena's new best friend, though they might not know it yet. Here's the proof:

Sharing iTunes Library (and iPhoto) between local users on a Mac (OS X)

As any married man knows, you need to have separate accounts on your home computers. I'm fairly picky about how my computer is organized and I don't let people messing with it (hmmm... maybe an only-child thing).

At the same time, it's important to be able to share media (particularly music) between accounts for ease of use. If I buy and song on iTunes, Erika should be able to listen to it easily from her account and vice versa. The same with photos.

To that end, I went on a mission configuring the macbook to do exactly this. Here are my findings:

For iTunes:

User A is the iTunes master (ie: the one who actually has the music)
User B is the iTunes slave (ie: the one who will be sharing the music)

1. Create a new user group call "music" (you can do this from the Account system preferences window). Add User A and User B to the "music" group.


2. Go to User A's home directory in Finder.


3. Navigate to /Users/<user_b>/Music/


4. Set the permissions on iTunes to include read & write access for the "music" group (you can do this via "Get Info" or from the terminal with 'chmod -R g+rw iTunes'.


5. Next, create an alias to iTunes by hitting Apple-l (lowercase l). That will create a file called "iTunes alias". (NOTE: you must be an admin to do this)


6. Now log out and log back in as User B


7. Remove User B's iTunes directory (/Users/<user_b>/Music/iTunes


8. Now copy the "iTunes alias" file from User A's Music directory to User B's music directory.


9. Rename the file to just "iTunes". This will fool iTunes into thinking it's library lives in the normal, default location for User B.

Fire up iTunes as User B. The library should be exactly the same as from User A's perspective. Any changes made by User A will be reflected in User B's view and the other way around. This includes purchased music - no authorization required.

For iPhoto:

The process is effectively exactly the same, except instead of using the iTunes directory, you use iPhoto (in Pictures).

59 degrees and dropping

Welp, 13 hours until the furnace gets installed. Which is good because I don't know if I can handle another night by myself in here. It reminds me of living in 1100 before we decided to turn the heat on... except I don't have a space heater (other than the Hun).

Busted Furnace

It was 61 degrees in the house this morning, which makes for a cold transition out of the shower. Erika and Makena have been living at her mom's for the week since the furnace gave out on Sunday. It could be the thermostat, could be the furnace. Either way we were planning on replacing the old oil furnace with an electric one in November, so this just bumps up our time table (hurray).

Rich is coming over to help me run a couple 240 lines to power this sucker tomorrow. Should be good times. (Don't worry mom, he knows what he's going). The new furnace gets installed on Friday, so I only have two more freezing nights alone with the Hun. I might wimp out and head over the Leanna's tonight though...

Dear Discovery Channel

Where did you go wrong? When I was young you perked my interest with quirky animals, spectacular glaciers and an endless universe. Now you are plagued with "reality". The worlds deadliest most explosive dirty robots is inspiring no one but future frat boys and over sensationalized couch potatoes. For shame.

Was it the Eco Challenge that corrupted you? Or was it the taste of network TV ratings that pressured you to degrade? Perhaps a single digit channel number was something you were never meant to have.

Alas, it is to public broadcasting that I must return. PBS, perhaps I will pledge money to you next year.

Q: If everyone passes the buck (loan), who ends up with it?

A: The taxpayer.

Ok... one more...

Yeah, I'm bathing in the kitchen. So what?

Misc Photos

Family hike at Heather Meadows.

It's raining... time to cover up

The resemblance is scary...

Sam and Makena... yeah, that's pretty cute.  Hands where I can see them, Sam.

Drill, drill, drill? Really?

There seems to be this misconception that drilling for more oil will miraculously fix our current economic crisis (trying really hard not to place blame...). You don't just wake up one day, decide to drill, and tomorrow have 20% more crude. It takes a many years, even decades to see the return on a drilling investment (as a nation), an investment that yields absolutely no technological advances in the way of sustainable energy. So, instead of investing in renewable energy now, we are supposed to invest in oil so that in 10-20 years we'll be worse off than we are now? This rattles every fiscally conservative born in my body... not to mention the environmentalist ones...

I want to remove our dependency on foreign oil as much as the next man, but replacing it with a dependency on our own (limited) supply doesn't solve the problem, it just delays it, and at a huge cost to future generations.

More over, it *might* be nice to save some of that petroleum for things other than fuel. Plastics and many other vital products require oil as well. We might not want to burn it all.

Man, my political to baby post ratio is on the rise... more light hearted stuff to come...

Quote of the Day

We've all heard this quote:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Today I heard an awesome adaptation to suit the current administration:

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Nice.

Makena's 2mo Doctor's Apt!

She's perfectly healthy, but the vaccines she got today did not make her very happy.  In fact, the screaming was something to behold, not to mention the shade of red she turned.

Here are her stats:

Head size 50th percentile

Weight 90th percentile at 12lbs 9oz

Length 95th percentile at 24.25 inches

Well, at least we know she's getting enough to eat ;).

Why are we so concerned with winning the war?

The GOP is boasting that their candidate(s) won't stand for the US losing a war and that the Dems have a "defeatist" attitude towards Iraq. To that I say, and? Who's keeping score of war wins and losses anyways? Is there some kind of prize later that I'm not aware of? Do presidents get bonuses for declaring "mission accomplished"? This is not a football game!  What's going on here? Am I going crazy? Do they not even have to talk about why we're still at war despite being less safe now than we were when we started this insanity?  Is there no accountability in this country?  No, let's just ignore injustice, chant "U-S-A", and all will be well.  We've become a nation of war mongering Frat boys.

Do you know how much alternative energy and healthcare you can buy for 2 trillion dollars?  Well, I can't tell you because we burned all that money in Iraq.

I might be oversimplifying things, but I see is 80K in US debt per household, 10s of thousands of bodies in Iraq and no end in sight. This has to stop, it's madness.

Super-senior discount at Baker

John McCain, you're in luck:

http://www.mtbaker.us/prices_pre_passes.php

I love the internet...

I just saw an ad for a Christian dating website that claimed it had "Certified Christian" singles. I wonder how the certification process works...

More snoring...

Too hot for clothes...

iPhone on T-Mobile T-Zones

<preface>
All credit for the hard work here goes to syasses and the iphone dev team and my friend sachin who sold me his old 1st gen iphone for cheap. I just wanted to aggregate all the steps in one place and share my experience. I linked to sources where applicable.
</preface>

This documents my experience from start to finish of unlocking, jailbreaking, and proxying a 1st Gen 2.0 iPhone to work with the T-Mobile T-Zones dataplan (the $5.99/mo one). I figured there should be one page that has all the steps from start to finish.

0) Buy an iPhone (1st gen, not 3G).

1) Unlock and jailbreak phone. One app will do this all for you, but you need access to a mac. Download it here: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/42931306/pwnagetool-2-0-1

Follow the instruction here: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1557

There are instruction out there on how to do this on win32, but I haven't tried them.

2) Here's how to sign up for the cheapest T-Mobile data plan (T-Zones - $5.99/mo)

• Goto my.t-mobile.com.
• Login.
• Under the "My Account" menu click on "Change Services".
  
• Scroll down to "Web & Application" and select "T-MobileWeb".
• Then click "Change services" at the bottom and step through all their confirmation pages.
• Now, this can take up to 24 hours to take effect. You can continue following the rest of the steps, but if it doesn't work right away, try waiting 24 hours.
  

3) You should have Cydia installed after Pwnage pwned your phone. Which is great because there just happens to be an app that handles all the t-mobile hacks for your

• Open Cydia from the home screen.
  
• Hit "Section" in the lower menu.
• Scroll down to "Tweaks".
• Scroll down to "TZones Hack".
• Select and install it.
• When it's done, restart the iphone (hold down power + home for 8 second).
• Once it comes up, goto Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data (used to be label EDGE). In the APN field you should see "wap.voicestream.com". Username and password should be blank.
• To test your connection disable wifi (Settings > Wifi > Wifi Off) and open up Safari. You should be able to hit pages. If you have Gmail configured w/ IMAP, it should also work as should Google Maps. YouTube does NOT work, unfortunately, so you'll have to save the videos for when your're on wifi.
  

4) Speed test. Make sure you're not on wifi. Here are some to try:

• http://www.iphonespeedtest.com/
• http://i.dslr.net/tinyspeedtest.html
• http://testmyiphone.com/speedtest
  

6) Done. It's not the fastest connection in the world. It's sort of bursty, but it's enough to check mail, etc. And, hey.. it's only $5.99.

Back to work for mommy

Today was the first day Erika left Makena with someone else (for more than an hour). She had to go back to work. Apparently 6 weeks has gone by already.

Little Giggle

Dad.. you're embarrassing me.. seriously.. stop it.

More fun with baby...

Also some new pics on picasa

First Smile

On Tuesday, Erika claimed that Makena smiled at her (legitimately... not just a pooping smile). I didn't believe her. But, yesterday when I was holding her after I got home from work, she definitely smiled. It didn't last longer enough to get a picture, so we'll see if we can get one tonight.

New Pics

http://picasaweb.google.com/bvandenbos/MakenaSFirstSummer

Snoring

You'll have to turn up your speakers pretty loud. Yet another trait she gets from Grandpa Roland.

Meta-Reality TV

As if one layer of "reality" wasn't enough...

I just saw a commercial for Design Star which is a reality show about picking out a host for another reality show about home design. This is what I've feared. Up until now, all reality shows were non-recursive, thus limiting the total possible number of shows to the total number of "reasonable" (read: sellable) topics, which is some finite (albeit large) number. At some point, we would simply run out of "reasonable" topics for reality TV and it would slowly burn out. Now, someone (HGTV) has demonstrated the plausibility of meta-reality TV (reality TV about reality TV) and in doing so has created an infinite number of possible realty shows for every given "reasonable" topic. Now we're going to see a reality show for picking the new judge on American Idol, and then after that, a show about picking the host for the show about picking the judge for American Idol. Then possibly a show about picking a producer for the show about the host for the show about the judge of American Idol.

I just died a little on the inside and I think I can hear Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch giving each other high-fives.

Back to work tomorrow

Welp, time to face reality - time to fuse old life with new life.

Gulp.

Arms Up Game

Day 4 of Fatherdom - The Range Test

Pee range on baby girls, though not fully tested, is at least 1 meter. In test case #001, stream was intercepted by the dresser. Suspected full range to be 2+ meters, but as yet unconfirmed.

Notes for test #002: a cool breeze and a quick removal from containment seems to increase triggering probability and projectile velocity. Interruption during a depositing event also appears to increase triggering probability.

Baby!

Welp... after 19 hours of labor, Makena Grace was brought into the world. She was 8 lbs even, 20 1/2 inches long. Mommy and baby are doing just fine. We hope to be home this evening. I'll get some super cute pic up here pretty soon, but here's one I took w/ my phone for now.

Still No Baby

Despite a walk around Green Lake (and then some)... baby count is still at zero.

No Baby Yet.

Unless a lot happens in the next 24 hours, it looks like I'm going to have wait another year for my first Father's Day.

Roommate

Allison, one of the Youth Department's summer interns, moved in today. She's living in our basement for the summer (until August). We figured having a baby wasn't quite enough, so we decided we'd have someone we've never met move in, too.

Allison goes to WSU and is from Pullman (yes, apparently can actually be from Pullman). She'll basically be doing Erika's job at the church while Erika is on maturity leave.

Gates Law

The saviness of any PC user is inversely proportional to the number of icons in his/her system tray.

The riches of this world are fleeting

Last night our house was broken into (burgled, if you will). Fortunately neither of us were home, they didn't do too much damage and they didn't take anything that isn't easily replaced. They got a couple TVs, XBox, my guitar (grrr...), DVDs, laptop, etc... Not the most pleasant experience, but it could have been worse.

Here's a link to the pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bvandenbos/TheBreakIn

Tim gets a new roommate for the weekend

Since we're going to be out of town for the weekend, Tim graciously took the Hun in. The poor fool...

The Religious Debate

Brian sent me this last night. He also warned me that I was raised Calvinist (implying that I was predestined (so to speak) to preference DOS/Windows).

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html

He may be more right than he knows. I just recently switched to linux (a free, open-source, operating system for those of you that have no idea what this post is about). Linux is clearly even more Calvinist than DOS in that there are no clear steps and it is not an easy struggle :). However, at its core it's a Lutheran Reformist in that it emphasizes free, open access to the source [of salvation].

March Madness @ Avvo

So, no matter how much I might complain about stress at Avvo... it must not be all bad.

Mazama

Erika and I took a couple days off and went to Aunt Cindy and Uncle Jim(bo)'s "cabin" in Mazama (10 miles west of Winthrop). We just hung out, read books, went snow shoeing, and watched a couple movies. A good time was had by all. Here's some pics.

(for the complete gallery)

No, this squirrel is not fake.

yay snowshoeing

mountain.

This Old House - Episode #1

So, Tim, David, and Kristin came over on Saturday and we tore down an old wall in the basement and re-sheetrocked it. Fortunately David knows what he is doing and showed me and Tim what to do. We started by ripping down some of the old ceiling tiles and dry wall. I've got a couple scabs on my knuckles from punching through it. Hey, it's not very often that I get to punch through drywall. Gotta take advantage of it when I can.

7 hours, 4 sheets of rock, 70 feet of spacer boards, 1.5 pizzas, 4 beers, several pounds of mud, 2 garage cans of junk, 1 shop vac filled with dust, and 2 trips to Home Depot later there was a wall where there wasn't one before. Booyah. Fine, there was a wall there before, but it wasn't as cool.

Next week's episode: installing trim.













































Screwing in the rock.



















Me fitting the corner piece.























one piece hung.























That is is one good looking end.






















Get that wall!























Down to the studs...














Whoops. Looks like we left 3 of the studs out. Nice.

The Hun discovers TV

So, I was watching that Planet Earth special on DVD last night and the Hun was sitting on my lap intently watching the screen. Then she got up and this happened:



I apologize for the sideways video and poor contrast, I took it with my phone.

It's Tax Season

Seattle Tax Lawyers in case you get yourself into trouble

Sy Snootles is pregnant?

Last night while she was attempting to get comfortable on the couch (which is apparently getting more difficult by the day for her) Erika informed me that she finally figured out who she feels like when she looks in the mirror. Sy Snootles from Return of the Jedi (you know, the singer in Jabba's palace with the long mouth). I'm not going to lie, I was particularly proud of her obscure star wars reference.




















Note: the use of the original Sy Snootties (not the new CG one) was deliberate.

Car Accident

Erika was in a minor car accident last night. Erika was waiting at the stop light when one car hit another that turned left in front of it at almost full speed. That car slid into Erika's car (the honda) and knocked it back a bit. Erika is fine as are the other two people involved. The cops came and issued the lady who turned left a ticket, so the insurance issues should be pretty straightforward. She'll be going to the doctor to have the baby checked out. She's felt the baby move since the accident, so we're not too worried. The jolt wasn't bad enough to bruise her, but her back is a bit sore. The car has some superficial damage to the front, but nothing major. It was a close call.

Felt the baby move for the first time.

And all it took was a little Abbey Road.

Baby Consumption

With the advent of trendy baby rearing, each consumer decision we make could potentially be the one that makes us the dreaded uncool parents. The prospect of having to use purchases for many years and for multiple children only compounds the importance of each decision. Furthermore, for the father, any lack of opinion or display of indecisiveness is immediately translated as indifference towards the baby's future and well being (which is not good).

The entire experience (though it's just begun) has been a little shocking. Then it occurred to me: this is a lot like getting married! There's almost a year of anticipation, your relationship with your wife undergoes constant role-changes as it is redefined, you take a bit of a backseat in most baby-related decisions, your wife spends more time on the phone with her mother (bless her heart), and (the most disturbing part) your life is fraught with consumer choices. What crib bedding color combination best expresses our taste as a couple? Which alphabet card set is cutest? Do we want a bassinet or a sidecrib?

I'm still struggling with the basics: What's a bassinet? You need a special car seat for infants? We need how many different types of strollers? Why do we need a travel crib? How old does she have to be before she can play with Legos? Someone just said "breastpump"... quick, run to the next room, cover your ears and hum.

For future fathers out there, I make one suggestion: the tactics you used to negotiate the build-up to your wedding will translate well to the first pregnancy. You need to employ such phrases as "well, which one do you like best?" followed by "yeah... me, too" and "I think that this will go well with that" rather than "I don't care, you decide". In fact don't ever say that. The worst possible design suggestion is always better than not caring. In fact bad suggestions introduce the possibility of being excluded from future decorating decisions and maybe even future shopping trips. Also, take the amount of money you think this will cost you and double it (triple it if you're really clueless). Once you can accept that, things will go much smoother.

Think back to your wedding - you're along for the ride on this one. Just make the least amount of waves possible. No matter how tired you are of shopping, keep your mouth shut because your wife always carries the trump card - she's the one giving birth.

Oh boy - it's a girl!!!

We just had our 18 week ultrasound. At first glance, everything seems fine, but we won't get the final results from the radiologist for a few days. BUT, we did find out the it's a girl!!! (though, come on, we're not really that surprised ;) ).

Here's a profile shot from the ultrasound and you can see the hands. A second after this was taken she waved at us.

I can safely say that watching her swim around was one of the most awe-inspiring moments of my life. We could see her bones, heart, kidneys, brain, feet, hands, and face. Her head is 15 cm around.

Over the last couple weeks Erika has been able to feel her moving, mostly in the morning. She's developed enough now to be able to hear what's going on outside the womb.

Baby at 8 Weeks

This was the post I promised months ago. Baby's first ultrasound.

16 weeks and counting

We had another doctor's apt yesterday. Everything seems fine. I got to hear the babies heart beat for the first time. That was pretty amazing. Erika is feeling much better and getting some of her energy back. She's still taking it pretty easy, but has started swimming again.

A few more weeks and we'll go in for another ultrasound. Yes, we are going to find out the gender.