More Baby Changes

Just some random thoughts now that my 6 week daughter is asleep...

1) What would it be like if babies compared their days the way that old men do, especially that they don't really have good memories. Kinda like old men. :)

Baby 1: "Oh, that poop was bad."
Baby 2: "You think that poop was bad? Let me tell you about the big one from way back when, I think it was five hours ago. Daddy had just changed my diaper when boom! out came too toots of yellow goodness. It was all over the place and he had to be quick with those diaper wipes. Good thing I had just eaten and was zoned, else my normal squirming would have gotten in everywhere."
Baby 3: "Five hours ago? Man, you're getting old. Hey, watch what I can do with spit-up!"

Ah yes, if it's not something coming out one end there's the surprise when you're sweet little one's body decides that fluid can come out the other as well. Maybe Daddy should invest in the baby wipe business...

2) Then there's the wonderful conveniences we just can't do without. What did people do before the daiper djinni (D&D spelling - no worries Disney will get to me yet). So nice, in the middle of the night, to have a contained place to put those items whose smell you don't want to pervade the house, and all without having to run downstairs. Thank you diaper-djinni inventor!

3) I'm suddenly afraid of autism, more specifically of my baby getting autism. I don't know why, probably because according to Newsweek autism has spiked tenfold in the past 20 years and now will strike 1 in every 166 children. That's insane, absolutely insane when you consider you have a 1 in 200 chance to miscarry if you have an amniocentesis. You're kid probably has a greater chance of being autistic than dying of SIDS, yet while everyone screems at you if you let your baby sleep on thier belly and there are SIDS warnings in every parenting magazing/book I've ever seen, there is nothing at all about autism.

Oh, don't worry about giving your kids all those vaccinations! There is no link between vaccinations and autism. Yes, well those studies *were* funded by the companies that make the vaccines but really, trust us. Yeah right. Like we're told the drinking water in Seattle schools was safe until parents noted that their otherwise healthy kids seemed to be coming down with ADD when they started school? How could this be? And low and behold, they found unsafe levels of lead in the drinking fountains that the kids use and unsafe levels of heavy metals in thoes kids bodies. Concidence? Yes, that's what a lot of doctors say yet if this is the case they why did they shut off those fountains. Even better when they turned them back on they had the same problem. Yes, I really trust my education beaurocrats. Or the government, who is putting all this effort behind "No kid left behind". Yeah, those kids wouldn't be left behind if they weren't coming down with mental disorders. This is of course the same government who said that Iraq would be a short war, that there were weapons of mass destruction, etc. Not exactly pillars of credability, are they?

4) I no longer have time. It seems most of my weekend is spent looking after the baby while my wife gets caught up on her sleep. Even when the baby is sleeping the Talking Heads (baby books) admonish us to "never leave a child alone unattended, even for an instant." What do other parents do - act like Baptists (dry counties, yet everyone drinks anyways) - leaving their babies alone while in the bathroom and sleeping, yet publically making every other parent feel bad if they every leave their child alone? It seems that if I try to raise my child the way I was raised I'd go to jail, and some of the advice given in these books seems like it would only work if you were unemployed. I'm curious of other working parents - who work more than a normal 40 hour week - take shortcuts. What are the tricks? I'm thinking we'd be better of raising our baby in China. Or Canada - which is a lot like the US but without all the baggage.

Speaking of no longer having time, it's time for me to attend to my little Princess once more. Mom is away for a night out with friends doing woman-stuff (e.g. hair/nails) so Daddy is left to figure out what to do. I wonder if she's into Jackie Chan movies? :)

N. Korea: Japan, U.S. plotting invasion

I saw this link on CNN that points to http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/20/us.japan/index.html. I can't remember which I was more surprised about - that North Korea even thinks that us Americans would do something that stupid (well, then there is Iraq...) or that it was even worth CNN's time to print such a crappy story. I mean really people, isn't this something you'd expect to read in the National Enquirer?

On a surface level, it's such a tabloidish, sensationalist thought that it's hard to believe CNN would even want to print such rubbish. Isn't there something more relative to the public's attention that we need to know about, like how planning for the invasion of Iraq was started even before 9/11, or what is the motivation for politicians to spend tons of money to fight poverty and get public health in other countries yet refuse to fund public health in our own country.

On a deeper level, I have to also say that I'm amazed CNN is so desperate for eyeballs that they have to print something as boring as this. I mean, is there any value to this story? It's kinda like a story stating that China is manufacturing more steel this year, or that there is new pressure for China to revalue the yuan. Yawn! Dude, these stories haven't changed in years! China isn't going to revalue their yuan just because some new group of nobodies says so. The US government has been pushing for it for years with no effect at all. So what, North Korea is paranoid. How is this any different from what's been happening for the last 20 years?

I guess in the end it's not that I really care what the leadership of North Korea thinks, nor that I'm worried about the US invading North Korea, but what I mostly feel is sadness that a news outlet like CNN that used to have a lot of prestige no longer has the resources or the wherewithal to do decent, investigative journalism anymore but has to print such crap to fill up their content with.

Ah, nostalgia. Memories of when kids were able to walk to school, water was free, engines where measured in cubic inch displacement, and CNN was a respectable outlet of journalism.

Apprentice Season 3, and even Season 2, and Season 1...

OK, I just have to get this off my chest - what's up with this year's Apprentice? The candidates are horrible!

Season 1: Bill Rancik really stood out as being a great fit for the Trump organization. He had a great breadth of experience, was highly capable, and had a super high EQ (emotional quotient). He was able to inspire people to work for him and was a great candidate. Even Kwame was pretty good, though I felt he could be a little passive.

Season 2: I still think Jen M. would have been a better apprentice than Kelly, but both were pretty good candidates. Even Sandy and Ivana were good, as was Kevin. In the end they had some very competent players. What I liked the most was that they were a very creative bunch.

Season 3: One quits, quits! How the heck did that person get selected? Out of 10,000 or whatever applicants one would think they'd select only people who'd rather die than quit. Perhaps this is my bias that there is no shame in failure but there is shame in quitting. Anyway, this group has about as much creativity as a bowl of fruit. Did you see the commercials they came up with? Horrible! I can't imagine last years' crowd doing even remotely this bad. Maybe I'm judging prematurely, but I don't see the creativity and execution and passion in this group that I saw in the last one.

Oh yeah, they have to focus on the drama but at this point we're not even sure if Craig can speak. And whose the other blonde lady in Magna that we see for one minute but never see again? And what about Tara - does she do nothing at all?

Ah well, I guess that's TV and we'll see more of these people as the season progresses :) Even with my missive on how I don't see this group being as creative as one would think (given that most tasks involve marketing and selling a product), I still love the show and will still watch every week.

And...Survivor starts soon... :)

You know your life has changed

Quick jot:

You know you're life has changed when you and your wife get more animated talking about the new breast pump she bought and the new Baby Bjorn carrier you bought.

It was not long ago that our excitement would focus on the new TiVo or the new espresso machine.

Amazing Cats; or "Are you a Cat or a Dog?"

While attending a religious retreat one of the excercises we had was on introspection and learning more about yourself. The leader for the excercise would give us a pair of words, we had to decide which we felt we were most like then stand on one side or the other of a couryard. Once this was done he would ask each side why they felt that way. Some examples of the pairs:

Are you a mountain or an ocean?
Are you water or wine?
Are you a whisper or a shout?
Are you a cat or a dog?

It was interesting to not only discover how you saw yourself, but also how others saw each side of the pair. For instance on the last question, dogs would answer:
Because I'm loyal
Because I like to play
Because I'm hard working

and for a cat:
Because I like to do my own thing/am independent
Because I'm a bit aloof
Because I like my alone time

I think this was a great excercise to see how you see yourself and also interesting to see how people see each side of the coin. And even better it's actually a fun game to play; to see if there is a common thread between you and your friends (e.g. do you tend to hang out with people who are like you, or different) and to discover how your friends see themselves.

So cats are aloof, sleep a lot, can't be trained, do their own thing at their own time, are finicky, and fey. There's a lot of truth to this or else people wouldn't think this way but like so many things it's only part of the story and there is always another that lies beneath the surface.

I found this story on cats, training cats, and their abilities in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/211816_agilecats.html.

(As an aside Seattle has two newspapers, the Seattle P-I & the Seattle Times. The P-I is considered the intellectual/business oriented paper and the Times is considered more focused on entertainment/events/lifestyle. For me it was also interesting to see this in the P-I instead of the Times).

Here was irrefutable evidence that cats can be trained to do many intricate tasks. And why not? As the article states: "After all, the cat is one of the most athletic creatures on earth -- flexibility that puts a yogi to shame, excellent balance, keen jumping, and pound for pound, Superman-strong."

But what also stood to my eye was the difference in why cats and dogs do these courses. According to Shirley Piper: "Dogs do things to please you. Cats do things to please themselves."

As a cat lover, it was joyed to see some press on the positive qualities of cats that most people tend not to notice - such as thier beauty and agility. Yaay cats!

But I think it's also good and equally important to self-reflect on which you are, a cat or a dog. In the end it doesn't matter which you find yourself to be - both have strenghs and there is no right or wrong answer - what does matter is that you know yourself.

When you're down - who are your friends

There is an old quip that goes something like: don't judge a man by how he treats his friends but how he treats his enemies. Or in my case, you never know who your friends really are until you're unemployed.

Last week my work group got re-orged, dissolved, RIF'd, downsized, rightsized, whatever you want to call it but in the end it's the same - we were laid-off. Oh, they were really nice about it and all, telling us how good a job we did and such, but in the end it's still the same in that you are being let go through no fault of you're own and it's time to find a new paycheck. Er, home.

The timing was tough for me in that I'd been with the group over 5 years and had just welcomed my first child into the world the week before. And my wife isn't working. And oh, we're in the process of selling moving up from a condo to a house. Bad timing? Ouch! Ah well, when life gives you lemons make lemonade, right?

One other thing I noticed is how easy it was to tell who your real friends are at work after this occurs to you. Some people treat you as if you never existed - as if all those times you bailed them out never happened and all those times how they told you how wonderful you are were never said - that once you were no longer any use to them directly they dropped you like a lump of coal.

Others immediately joined the "whatever was done previously is junk code/processes and now that we'll have a new team we can do real work and make quality products" bandwagon. Basically if they didn't create it, it's obviously a bad design. Nevermind that these same people who are now responsible for what you used to own never swing by and ask "hey, why did this end up the way it is", or were at the meetings where the customer put their foot down and demanded a certain piece of business logic be a certain way. Or remember when you tried to make improvements but management decided to make you work on something else, even if you were willing to make said improvments off hours. Yes, it's very interesting to see how people treat you when they have nothing to lose by alienating you.

But it's also motivating to see people reach our their hands to you when you're down. While I'm seeing some pretty shady behavior, I'm also seeing a lot of positives too. Family and friends especially, but there are also people at working sticking thier necks out for me, and it's been amazing motivating. So motivating that even though it seems like a lot of tough changes at one time, I can't help but be in a good mood all day. I admit I was in a bit of a panic/funk the first few days after the news broke, but in a strange way I am far more optimistic about my future now than before I was laid off.

While it's a bit of a shock to be told not to work on what you're working on and that your only job now is to find a new job, it's been quite refreshing. I see all the support email come in and am becoming quite adept at hitting the delete button without reading the contents. :) While at first all I could think about was all the work that I had wanted to do that will now never be completed and feeling disappointed that I couldn't complete what I had been working on, now I feel the opposite.

But now...I feel liberated. Instead of having to worry about updating all that old code - some of which was written 5 years ago, in my next position everything will be new. Or at least if it's old code, hey at least it's not my bad old code :)

So where was I? Oh yeah, who your friends are. Yes, judge not people by how they treat you when times are good and the living is easy. When you are flush with cash and have a cush job, and you are in a position of influence. Your true friends will appear when you are in more dire straights, when you are unemployed and pinching every penny. When you cannot go out for beer because you have no budget for it. Yes, judge people by their compassion, if you judge them at all.