September 2004 Archives

Jfer's estimated due date has come and gone and still no Junior. We think that maybe tardiness is genetic and manifests itself at a very early age (in utero, so to speak).

Our doctor's appointment was yesterday, one day after Jfer's 40th week, so since we are past the due date, they were to performa baby "stress test". This sound a little ominous, but actually isn't. They don't, as one of my coworkers assumed, walk up to the belly and yell "Four more years of Bush in the White House!" Instead, they simply monitor how the baby's heart rate reacts to stress, and by "stress" it means a contraction or the baby moving around.

After the usual belly measurement and the by now routine discussion as to whether Jfer will have a heparine lock, we went into the monitoring room where they strapped two transducers to Jfer's belly. The first transducer is an external fetal heart monitor and the other one is a contraction sensor. Jfer also got a button to push whenever she felt the baby move. These three wires were hooked up to the monitor which displayed HR (heart rate in BPM) and UA (which we assume means "uterine activity" in some unknown unit) and plotted this data, along with FM ("fetal movement" ?) whenever Jfer pushed the button, on a continuous strip of paper.

Then they gave Jfer some juice and she dug into her M&Ms to kick-start Junior. For a while nothing happened but eventually the baby started moving and his/her heart reate increased nicely whenever s/he was active. Jfer doesn't really have any contractions that she notices, but apparently some are going on, though not strong or regularly, and the baby reacts positively.

While this wasn't terribly exciting for me -- I didn't get to sit in a compfy recliner and they didn't offer me any juice -- I was really glad that everything looked good. I always have this dread, whenever we go for a checkup, that they're going to whisk us away to the hospital -- stat!

The president must be living in his own little world if he actually believes himself when he says that he's "satisfied with the progress" being made in Iraq, not to mention that he wouldn't do anything different even with the hind-sight of no WMDs, no Al Quaida ties, and no 9/11 connections.

This article puts the "progress" into perspective. When you read it, you may get an idea of what it would feel like if today's situation in Iraq was happening back home.

This electro-mechanic Pong Game is just too cool! The guy spent 900 hours to build a mechanized version of the original Pong game. He used 52 old telephone relays (vintage 1958) to create the controller. The collision detection is actually done through electric contacts. I think this explains a lot about why German engineering and craftsmanship rules...

I didn't initially notice that the site was in German (I guess I'm not as rusty as I thought). The video has English sub-titles, though.

The construction reminds me of the inverted pendulum I saw at the EPFL while visiting Christophe Salzman and the smaller one built by Doug Norman at NI. But it's the relay controller that really kicks ass.

The Pentagon has a Federal Voting Asistance Program website that provides expatriate citizens -- both military as well as civilian -- with information on how to vote absentee from abroad. However, according to an International Harold Tribune article, the site seems to be blocked for many civilians who try to access it through their international ISP. The Pentagon claims it's protecting the site from "hackers", although other government sites don't seem to be blocked, er, I mean "protected". Could it be that it's because overseas voters overwhelmingly support Kerry over Bush?

VerifiedVoting.org has more information about it and provides a proxy to and a mirror of the FVAP site for users who are blocked from the government site. They encourage others to set up mirrors of FVAP. Having the spare space and bandwidth, here's my mirror:

Federal Voting Asistance Program Mirror on Nonplus.net.

This Library Lookup Bookmarklet Generator is simply brilliant. It allows you to build a book marklet that looks up the book you're currently browsing at Amazon.com in your library's online catalog.

Here's the bookmarklet for the Austin Public Library. Drag it to your Link toolbar and click on it when you're interested in a book at Amazon.com.

We had a very good time attending ALO's season opener, Tosca. We were afraid we might not make it -- and I though that it would be kind of dramatic if Jfer's water broke during the show -- but we're very glad we attended and that Junior's first opera was so enjoyable. The show is nicely paced and has two intermissions, so the bladder didn't become too much of an issue.

I keep forgetting how political Puccini's works are and how contemporary -- and influential -- his music is. For me Tosca doesn't really have a catchy aria that I'd whistle on the way home, but it's very lyrical, none the less. There is one lovely motif that Puccini later more fully expands in La Fanciulla del West and that gets eventually ripped off by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the Phantom of the Opera.

Since we attend on Mondays, we don't get to hear the "star" cast. Still, I enjoyed all the principals. And the actors filled their roles and made them believable. I especially enjoyed Greer Grimsley as Scarpia I imagine the villain gets usually sung by an older (and "bigger") singer, but Grimsley made him young and cocky and delightfully evil. Judging from his publicity photo it probably wasn't that much of a stretch for him :-)

Next up is Elektra in January. We'll be looking for babysitting volunteers...

We're less than a week away from Jennifer's due date and it's slowly starting to sink in. I think we're mentally ready for it, even if the house may not be. Jfer's still feeling very well and is in no hurry to get Junior out. She doesn't think that it'll happen by her due date.

Our Dr's appointment on Friday went well. Jfer's regained her weight (having an appointment after lunch seems to have helped) and the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong. The Dr has had a bad experience with a Hypnobirthing mom earlier that week -- I hope it won't be coloring her attitude too much.

I was watching last Thursday's RNC coverage on PBS and was struck by an interview they had early in the program. I don't remember their names, but they had a couple of moderate Republican members of congress and they were talking with them about the RNC and what it was like to be marginalized within like that.

What struck me was how sensible their political views were and the way they spoke. They had the whole smaller-government and fiscal responsibility going, but they were also pro choice, for personal liberties and for responsible environmental policies. I realized that you never see these type of people in the news. It's always someone shrill like Tom "In your face" DeLay or Rick "Dog Sex" Santorum that you hear and see raving. Yet I suspect a lot of Republicans think or wish they are voting for reasonable people when they vote along the party line.

I hope for the GOP's sake that the moderates make their voices heard and move the party into a more reasonable direction. Today's announcement by the Log Cabin Republicans that they are not endorsing Bush is a good, if long overdue, step in the right direction.

I am compulsively hooked on electoral-vote.com which shows how electoral votes get distributed based on current opinion polls.

Right now Bush is ahead of Kerry, although none has an electoral majority. And since they are trading who's leading every week of so, it's clear that it's still way too early to tell how the election will go.

Looking at the electoral map and the battle ground states, you can see that how goes Florida, so goes the election...

Three more weeks to go before Junior is supposed to make his or her appearance. It's nice to be past the early-preemie stage and we're looking forward to the last few weeks of Jfer's pregnancy. The only thing her Dr suggested was to cut back on salt -- other than that, Jfer's doing just great.

Her belly is now beyond the round beachball stage where you could occasionally feel movement underneath the smooth sorface. It's now at the point where you can see movement -- it's very X-Files or Alienesque and you almost expect a little creature to burst out of her belly button. Depending on where the baby is, there is often a lump where the butt or foot or knee sticks out. It sometimes makes Jfer's belly look lopsided.