Stormy's Corner

What can you carry on when traveling?

A list of exactly what you can and cannot carry on: TSA: Permitted and Prohibited Items.  You'll be glad to know that cattle prods are not allowed onboard.

Welcome, Caleb!

IMG_0507,
originally uploaded by Storming.

It's been brought to my attention that I haven't introduced Caleb yet!

Caleb Louis
August 23, 2006
9:36 in the evening
21 inches
8 pounds, 1 ounce
to Stormy and Frank

Cuddling with the baby

P1010280,
originally uploaded by Storming.

Here's Teddy girl trying to cuddle with the baby. Or is she trying to cuddle with me despite the baby?

I expect Teddy will be the mother hen dog always letting us know when the baby is crying and later, when he's bigger, when he's getting into something he shouldn't.

Chase, on the other hand, will just lick the baby to death if we aren't careful!

No Belly Button

In my 40th week of pregnancy, I have no belly button.  It's not an innie nor an outtie, it's completely flat.

Cell phones & kids or is it Technology & Kids?

There's a lot of interesting dilemnas around kids and mobile phones.  When do you get one for them?  Is it ok to track them with a GPS?  (It's definitely tempting!)  But the one raised by this article, the fact that kids might feel dependent on phones, didn't ring true with me. Mobile phones for children: Do we want them? - Crave at CNET.co.uk.

Some day your mobile phone will turn off or will lose a signal, but fortunately for you there was a time when you didn't have one so you won't completely freak out. What about the next generation?

I'm sure there are a ton of things in my life that I take for granted that I might "freak out" if we didn't have.  Here are some things that I realize I take for granted that I'm sure my grandparents didn't:

• running water (ours got shut off for a day with no warning and it was a real pain - at least we could go to the gym to take a shower!),
• electricity,
• air conditioning in my car,
• cell phone (ever left the house without it and then "really needed" it? or better yet, had your SO leave the house without his and not been able to call him?),
• ATMs (the one near my house wouldn't give me any money one day and we almost didn't get Mexican food for dinner!),
• cable modem (I walk around the house lost when it quits working),
• Google (I'd be seriously upset if Google search disappeared),
• Google maps,
• telephone numbers on the web and/or 411 (I tossed all the phone books),
• credit cards, (how would you buy online without them?)
• ...

Yet I've coped without all of these things, a great hardship!, and I'm sure our kids will be able to handle not having a cell phone that works no matter how much of a pain they think it is.

Data and Privacy

Since AOL shared all of its users search data, there's been a lot of discussion about privacy and what we can do at the legal level to protect it.  Laws to protect are privacy are very important.  However, of more immediate concern are the decisions we make everyday that affect our privacy.  I use Google search engine and Google desktop everyday.  Not only is that data saved, but I count on it being saved because I like going back to searches I made earlier.  However, I wouldn't want it shared!

I use del.icio.us as a bookmarking tool.  It's more commonly used as a social bookmarking tool where people share the cool sites they've found and tagged.  Being the first to find a cool new site has a certain social coolness associated with it.  There are tools to share your del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog or with your friends.  However, if I shared mine, you'd have known I was pregnant before anybody but Frank.  Just from reading my blog.  And you'd have known every concern I had.  And every parenting problem I've thought about with Jacob.  And every competitor to my employer that I've researched.  And the answers to all sorts of interesting, and very personal, data.  Lots can be gleaned from someone's searches and bookmarks.

Yet the power of many of these tools are the fact that you can share them.  I rate books on Amazon because then it recommends other books that I might like rated by other users.  The privacy question comes in when I decide what user login to use on Amazon and Amazon decides how much of my data to share along with the rating.

Privacy is an issue that shows up not only in our courts and legislature but in product design and everytime a user signs up for a new service.

Hey, I just found a baby rattlesnake under my desk!

I just got an email from Frank:

Hey, I just found a baby rattlesnake under my desk!

Frank

I've heard of mice at work but never rattlesnakes!

Due Dates & Inductions

For those of you following the baby news, I have a "reservation" at the hospital for an induction on 8/29 if this little guy doesn't decide to come out and join us before then. 

This doesn't mean he's any more or less likely to show up before 8/29.  Turns out if you go into labor, you can go to the hospital anytime but if you have to schedule it, you have to make a reservation because of the nursing shortage.

(My due date is 8/23 for those of you curious about how long doctors wait for these types of things.)

Baby almost here!

The doctor was able to rub the baby's head yesterday and she said she wouldn't be surprised to see me before my appointment on Monday.  (On the other hand, it could be another two weeks still - there isn't any real way to predict these things.)  She also predicted that my water would probably break - I guess the baby's head is wedged in pretty tight at a -1 position.  (From what I understand that means his head is 1 centimeter above my pubic bone.  Most of the pregnancy he's been about 5 cm above my pubic bone.)

I'm not holding her to any of it as I appreciate her sharing her opinion, but I sure hope she's right that he's coming sooner than later!

Fly with Google Maps

You can use this online flight simulator to actually fly over satellite images of the world.  Goggles :: The Google Maps flight sim. (You can also just scroll over them in Google Maps or Google Earth, but for some reason, this is cooler.)

9 months in 30 seconds

This 30 second video made me wish I'd taken pictures in the same place every month:
9 months of gestation in 20 seconds - Google Video.

Psychology Today: A Nation of Wimps

This article on child raising that I read yesterday resonated with a lot of things I have noticed lately, Psychology Today: A Nation of Wimps.  The article says a lot of the things parents do these days are bad for our kids long term.  I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with that but I had noticed them and marked them as "strange."  Kids sitting in car seats until they are six, wearing helmets to ride their trikes, and not being allowed to run around outside without a parent right behind them.  Parents who pick up anything that falls on the floor and sanitize it before they allow their kids to touch it (my floor, at my house), but it's ok for their kid to slobber all over my sunglasses which have to be much dirtier than some floors as I don't think I've ever washed the things! 

Anyways, the article has a lot of food for thought from small kids to teenagers and how our current society, rules, cell phones, etc may or may not be affecting how they grow up.  Worth reading.

Hungry guys like heavier women

Another weird tidbit for you from BBC NEWS | Health | Hunger dictates who men fancy.

A study of 61 male university students found those who were hungry were attracted to heavier women than those who were satiated.

They also said that societies where food is scarce tend to value heavier women and societies like ours where food is abundant tend to favor thinner women.

Why we are having a boy

I really liked the book Freakonomics, so I follow the authors' blog, Freakonomics.  I also find genetics fascinating, so this post caught my eye: Why Do Beautiful Women Sometimes Marry Unattractive Men?.  Taking it all with a grain of salt it makes for some fun reading.

Selection pressure means when parents have traits they can pass on that are better for boys than for girls, they are more likely to have boys. Such traits include large size, strength and aggression, which might help a man compete for mates. On the other hand, parents with heritable traits that are more advantageous to girls are more likely to have daughters.

And it goes on to say that beautiful parents are more likely to have girls because being beautiful is a bigger advantage to girls.  And engineers and mathmaticians are more likely to have boys because it's a bigger advantage to a boy to have those talents.  So, again, taking it with a grain of salt (or perhaps a shaker of salt!), I figure that since Frank and I are both engineering types and Frank is definitely big and strong, we were destined to have a boy!

(So to the answer to the blog's title, why do beautiful women marry unattractive men?  According to this theory it's because there are more beautiful women in the world because beautiful people tend to have girls just like strong people tend to have boys.  Don't forget that grain of salt. :)

 

Google Earth images

Google Earth images are updated every 12-18 months - that's the answer to Why isn't Beirut burning in Google Earth? | News.blog | CNET News.com.