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June 20, 2005

news that's not news

or in other words, something that someone may not want you to know about (otherwise known as a cover-up)

except this is an issue that is near and dear to me.

thimerosal is a preservative that was added to vaccines, most prevalently between 1989 and 2003. this coincides with a spike in autism and autism-related disorders. one would think this to be front-page news material, yes?

but what appears to have happened instead is that the pharmaceutical companies rushed to cover their collective asses first, helped by some key politicians (Senator Bill Frist, doctor and friend to Big Pharma -- yes, you'd think one would take precedence over the other) and only now are "phasing out" adding this poison to vaccines. Not only that, they are still selling their remaining supply, rather than destroying them all and preventing them from ever affecting another life. Absolutely unconscionable.

we're going in for our 3rd pediatric visit tomorrow and I better hear that the Hep B vaccination shot that Naomi took has ZERO thimerosal in it.

Naomi, sometimes I feel very sorry for bringing you into a world like this

Deadly Immunity - a salon/rolling stone investigation, via daddy types

Posted by spoof747 at 04:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2005

joys of parenthood

remember before when I said that naomi was such a good girl and that she was calm and slept a lot?

ha ha ha.

that's not completely fair, but one of the reasons why I'm up at 4AM is that in the past 2 days, she has been pretty stubborn about not wanting to sleep. Plus, she's got a knack for making you as tired as possibly. You rock her and pat her until her eyes start drooping into that sleeping position. Then, in order to rest your weary legs, you start to sit down on the couch or lie on the bed. As soon as you do so, her eyes start to flutter open and she begins to grimace, and soon she is fussing and squirming around. With the added bonus of waking up enough so that you have to start the whole process over again.

I guess I didn't realize it, but over the past 3 weeks, I developed a "bag of tricks" to get her to go to sleep. Rocking her. Adding a little swing to the rocking. Patting her in tune to the rocking. Having her lie on my chest so she can hear my heartbeat. Singing a mix of 80s ballads and musical showtunes to her. Getting her into a deep enough sleep that I could drop her off in the Graco Pack 'N Play and turn on the music and the vibrating mattress (man, babies have the life!) What I failed to realize, is that she is a rapidly developing and growing human being, and that the tricks wear out fast. That's also part of the frustration of the last 2 days, in that all the tricks that worked so well just a few days before in getting Naomi to sleep were all of a sudden not working.

Infants are great. They are cute and adorable, and really tiny so you can fit them in the crook of your arm. But they can't tell you when they are upset, they can't tell you why they are upset, they can only cry. And when they cry, its the saddest sound in the world. Naomi also throws in a quivering chin when she gets amped up, and it breaks our hearts to hear that cry. I ask her what is wrong, and she can't tell me. Sometimes, I want to just jump to the part where she can tell me what is wrong so I can fix it.

Honestly, I'm glad I'm home right now so that Jenn and I can take turns taking care of Naomi, especially in situations like this. I'm just not sure how I'm going to handle it once I go back to work. How the heck am I going to have the energy to come back from a hellish work day and take over from Jenn, who I know will be tired from taking care of her all day? Now I know why my parents took naps on weekends.

Going to have to keep this short and get some sleep. Naomi is finally asleep right now, but I'm not sure how long the good fortune is going to last. Sleep deprivation is pretty interesting in that your senses are absolutely shot. Jenn just scared the crap out of me coming to check on me, even though I was looking at the doorway when she walked in. Or maybe that's why it scared me because she popped right into my vision. I'm not sure. I'm too tired to try to be funny. I'm too tired to try to be glib.

I'm too tired.

And I have been told that it will take nearly 2 years before I get an uninterrupted night of sleep again.

Joy.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:17 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2005

stroller jones part 1

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I'm a research whore. What I mean by that is that one of my greatest joys in life (and biggest time-wasters) is to take something I'm interested in purchasing, and research the heck out of it in order to make an "educated" decision (I put that word in quotes, because I've been told there really isn't a word for the process I undertake). In part, this is due to the analytical portion of my character (Now, that is what my friends tell me is "paralysis by analysis). But, hey its fun! And I am thankful that my wife tolerates this because it lengthens the times on all of our major purchases. My stated rule is that the monetary cost of the purchase is directly proportional to the amount of time I will spend researching.

For example, I took a year and a half to decide on the master bedroom furniture set that I wanted. But hey, in the course of my research, I found out my initial first choice was constructed using Indonesian hardwood that *may* or may not be illegally harvested. I used the same approach and ended up taking nearly half of our wedding planning time picking out a wedding photographer. I created a spreadsheet listing all of the important data so I could analyze at a glance. For our most recent car purchase, I purchased a buying package off the web (from Fighting Chance to help with the purchase. Ok, that isn't as good as example, because I bought research that someone else performed for me.

I think you can also figure out that in this temporary insanity, the Internet is my best friend. Although back in the dot-com heyday, there were many review sites around that were at least nominally independent, these days my fix is provided by newsgroups and forums, where supposedly, the opinions presented are that of genuine customers, as opposed to slimy shills. So I search posts and I post questions, and dig dig dig!

As the title implies, my current obsession is with strollers. Hey, its like my child's first car, so I need to check if it has all the latest features, all of the necessary safety elements, and if it comes in the color that we want. Oh, yes, and of course I want to test drive it if possible. Thankfully, Naomi is very agreeable when she is asleep, and we've already managed to put her on a few strollers for testing purposes. Before I delve into each of the candidates that we have looked at, let me give the two minute drill of stroller technology.

umbrella strollers - these are the ubiquitous 4-wheeled strollers that you see little girls wheeling their dolls around in. They are called umbrella strollers because when folded, they look vaguely like a. . .um. . .well, you know. The modern versions have a lot more padding and bells and whistles mainly so the companies can charge more.

jogging strollers - for the active parents who want to introduce their children to their lifestyle, they found out that umbrella strollers were prone to self-destructing when being pushed along at running speeds. Also, the children in them were prone to vomiting. Along came the jogging stroller, the majority of which have a 3-wheeled configuration with large air-filled tires, and the front tire locked (as opposed to the swivelling front tires of traditional strollers)

all-terrain strollers - a relatively new creation, these strollers are somewhat of a cross between the mall crawling traditional strollers and the jogging strollers. They took the air-filled tires, and many also took the 3-wheeled configuration but added the ability to unlock the front tire to allow for greater manuverability. These are referred to as the SUV-type strollers, in part because of the "all-terrain" nature but also because they do a lot of things but none of them well.

in my next post, we'll show the strollers we're looking at, and just how insane this whole stroller thing can get.

Posted by spoof747 at 02:51 AM | Comments (1)

June 09, 2005

Go Dave!

Dave is now in between Santa Maria and Lompoc as part of the AIDS Lifecycle.

10 days of cycling from SF to LA. Absolutely incredible. Best of luck to ya!

Posted by spoof747 at 02:36 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2005

lovely day

on vacation.

surfing away.

my daughter sleeping blissfully away. her head is resting on my shoulder.

life seldom gets better than this.

Posted by spoof747 at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2005

The whole point

I've been meaning to get around to this for some time, but like everything else, it has lain on the back burner. Its sad (and a sign of poor management) that I have more on the back burner than on the front burner being worked on. Either that, or I'm the type of person that tends to come up with a lot of ideas but manage to get only a portion of them into implementation.

In any case, I think I can briefly delve into my motivation for finally starting a blog after all this time. I mean, one of my closest friends is Dave over at starkdavingmad and through him, I've met many other avid bloggers. Right now, blogging seems to be the "hot" thing to do. There was even an article where corporations are hiring bloggers to write blog articles about their products. (That's when you know that its no longer cool, when people identify it as something that is. ;)) Honestly, I thought that if I started a blog, it would be little more than a vanity exercise. Oooh, look at me, look at my life, isn't that cool? Lately, I've come to realize that I want to put my thoughts down somehow, and the blogging medium is enticing in many ways. It is visual, so I can throw picture after picture in here. It is community-oriented, so it is something I can share with my friends and family (we'll see if I can keep this G-rated). And it is also intertwined with my chosen career in the computer technology field.

Ultimately, it is for my daughter and any future siblings of hers. Sure, who knows whether this medium will exist in this form when she is old enough to understand the thoughts I'm putting down here, but hopefully I'll be able to archive it somewhere. I want to take advantage of the blogging form to document the birth and growth of Naomi and also of my stumbling through the process of learning how to be a parent. I'm sure there will be lots of stories and memories that I want to capture, and just as many pictures to document this period of time.

(I thought of writing an open letter to her, but I'll save that cheesy device for later on)

And every now and then, I'll probably post various ramblings on other things that pique my interest -- politics, sports, movies, etc. I'm a dilettante at heart, so this will sometimes be quite the stream of consciousness here, but I hope that's ok.

Posted by spoof747 at 01:33 AM | Comments (0)