No, in this case, I’m not talking about the BVM that so permeates Altoona. I’m talking about the latest way to calm a crying baby. I think I mentioned in the most recent monthly newsletter that she likes when we dance to music. I tried Madonna. She loved it. She calmed immediately. I wonder how much this will embarrass her in the future?
And am I pleased or sad that this may embarrass her in the future? Probably some of both. What good are dads if not as a source of embarrassment? OK, hopefully, we’re good for a few other things, too.
I was reading on The long tail, the blog authored by the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, that he doesn’t visit mainstream media sites directly any more. He gets all of his news filtered through a select (but large) group of bloggers, figuring that if it mattered, it would get blogged about, and so he’d come across it. I had a friend and office-mate that treated a few mailing lists that way. He figured that if it was interesting, funny, or noteworthy in some way, I’d mention it to him or forward it to him, or it would come up in some way. I don’t know for sure how well that strategy worked for him, but it must have done well enough, as I gather it is one he still empolys when he can.
This is a geeky post. Non-geeks may safely skip over this post and still have a full breadth of understanding of my life (and Sam’s, and to a lesser extent Carolyn’s), or at least as full a one as can be had from this blog.
There, now that that’s out of the way, let me fill you in on what’s up. I’ve seen a few blogs (mostly LJ, but some others) that have a “mood” emoticon, and a little “What I’m listening to” bar wherein users can type in the tunes they are currently jamming to. I thought it was a neat idea, but could reasonably be taken a step further. I’ve already mentioned that I now own an audiotron. Well, one of the cool things about the audiotron is that not only does it have a web user interface, so that I can control it anywhere in the house where there’s a web browser, it also has a web-based API. Naturally, I thought “OK, I can write a wordpress plugin that will query the audiotron, ask it what it’s playing, and add it to the wordpress site.” So, I did. Right now, it only puts the information on the admin pages like the “Hello Dolly” plugin, but that was fine for proof of concept.
It’s been a while since I’ve stumbled across something on the web that made me chuckle quite like “stuff on my cat”. I was looking for new themes for wordpress, because when I get stuck on what I’m working on, it’s easier to fantasize about how my blog could look than fix whatever is stumping me at the moment. One link lead to another lead to stuff on my cat. Of course, they claim to be mentioned in GQ and several other magazines, so it’s hardly a discovery. Still, if you’ve not seen it, check it out.
I’ve been meaning to write about this first one for a while. In the early days of Sam, we received a lot of stuff. We’re (Carolyn’s) gradually making it through our thank-you note list, but one thing remains a mystery. And a fairly significant one too. We received a rocking chair. It was shortly after both Pop-pop and a family friend named “Jo” said they’d send gifts, but gifts from each of them came the same day or shortly thereafter. Those kinds of mysteries, I can live with and appreciate, so long as the giver intended them to be mysteries, and isn’t waiting impatiently for a thank-you that will never arrive. That said, maybe, maybe I’ll call the shipper and try to wheedle the buyer information out of them.
Tonight, she’s been ornery. The surest way to wake her up: put her in her crib. The surest way to put her to sleep: prepare a bottle for feeding.
I had been using wordpress as managed by the Ubuntu package management system. This had caused a little bit of trouble because of the way it handled (or didn’t handle) multiple installations. It more recently became even more trouble because it has PHP4 as a requirement, but I wanted to install something else that had PHP5 as a requirement. I’m pretty sure that wordpress will do just fine under PHP5, but it would have been auto-un-installed with the move from PHP4 to PHP5. I’m sure that there’s a good reason why it’s PHP4 instead of just PHP (version 4), and I bet if I cared I could figure it out. I don’t. So, I haven’t.
Samantha,
Imagine if you will: You’re on a TGV or Bullet Train. You’re traveling through snowy, mountainous countryside. As you speed along, you pass through regularly spaced tunnels each a little bit longer and closer than the previous. As a result, it’s alternately light and dark, and you hear a bit of a whoosh sound as you make each transition. That’s what this past month has been like for me. I can’t turn around without noticing that it is already tomorrow. Or was that yesterday?
My brother-in-law and his wife (my sister-in-law-in-law?) are here from the NYC suburbs for thanksgiving. In an effort to show them that we don’t live in a cultural wasteland — which, ya know, compared to NYC, we pretty much do — we showed them my audiotron which gets a variety of international radio stations. As she is Japanese-American, we put on “Osaka Hit Radio” and some other Japanese AM (and web-broadcast) radio station.
Babies like to suck. Babies need to suck if they want to go on living. We’ve decided not to give Sam a pacifier because, like so much in parenting, there’s a wealth of information about it, but very little agreement. Good: It can calm the baby. Bad: It can interfere with breastfeeding. Good: It can help reduce the risk of SIDS. Bad: It can be a hard habit to break. Good: Unlike thumbs, it can be taken away. Bad: The list goes on and on. Given our history of breastfeeding and a general (and largely unexamined) feeling that a pacifier is “cheating,” we have decided to stay clear of the pacifier. However, babies like to suck. So, to help calm Sam, we let her suck on our fingers — usually we remember to wash our hands first.
