Now that’ we’re getting closer to Christmas, I thought back to last Christmas Eve, when Jennifer was seven months pregnant with Tara and had an allergic rection to mangoes. The resulting blog post is probably the best thing I have ever written, and it’s also the last thing I tagged as a Best Of post. Let’s see, December 24… hrm hrm eighteen… carry the one… I haven’t written anything good in about a year.

I struggle with writing decent blog posts to the point that a large portion of the blog is me complaining to myself about my own blog and the lack of quality writing in it. Of course, there is the occasional praise from friends and family and strangers–all of it welcome–but one is always one’s own worst critic.

For a while, I toyed with a more methodical approach to my writing by actually sitting down and planning out on paper what I was going to write. This takes a lot of discipline, and a lot of time, and in my case, the results weren’t any better. I do think I need to go back to it, because it does help to make the posts more readable, and I can see more clearly when I go to often between points of interest.

I think that a good reason that my own writing doesn’t seem as good to me is that I run across more and more really good blogs. There really are some spectacular writers out there…. some are listed in my about me page, but there really are like a zillion good blogs out there.

I grew up hearing how good I was at a lot of different things–playing the piano, reading, writing, drawing, using the computer. It turns out there are a lot of people that are good at all of those things. I also heard quite a bit about the importance of being better than everybody else, and for a long time, I was. Then the world got bigger, and there were a lot more everybodies, and there were a lot of people better than me at everything. I can’t even claim to have a decent self-image problem by comparison.

In spite of that, I am happy that people enjoy reading my blog, family and strangers alike. I am glad to have photography as a hobby that I can enjoy and share with others. I can’t say enough good things about familyhood, even though I need to find a way to spend more time feeling like a rock star, and less time feeling like a roadie.

If I were a really good writer, or if I had spent the time to outline this post, I would here include a witty and poignant closing which leaves the reader with a warm fuzzy smile. If you want that, go read some of those zillions of better blogs. I’ve decided instead to be happy with this post just as it is.

You down with WST?

I’m way behind on posting. I know it. One of my brothers IM’d me today to say that I was way behind on WST. What’s WST, I asked? We’re So Tired. That’s how out of touch I am with my own blog. There hasn’t been a lot of stuff that I’ve missed blogging about lately, as I’ve been crazy busy getting ready to take my leave of absence. Father’s Day was nice, celebrated mostly by Jennifer keeping the girls out of my hair for most of the day. I wrote a python script for my phone which I will use to keep track of Tara’s inputs and outputs and sleep cycles. I so look forward to the day when I needn’t be concerned with anyone’s bowel movements but my own. If you have children, you know what I’m talking about.

Men who Take Leave, and Women who Let Them

To recap, I’m taking two months off of work to be with my kids. Everyone I’ve shared this with has one or more of the following reactions:

• Wow, you’re a really great dad.
• Wow, it’s really great that you can (afford to) do that.
• So, you’re going to be Mr. Mom, huh?

I like to think I’m a good father; that’s honestly one of the few areas I feel like I don’t need further validation. I don’t think I’m a truly great father, but I really do have the best intentions, and I’m trying really hard. Regardless, I am absolutely looking forward to my time off with my kids because I enjoy spending time with them, and I realize this will be a challenge for me, with more meaning than most things I call challenging in my life.

With regard to the second point, it is federal law that I can take this time off, and the State of California assures that I get paid a little for the time that I’m off, so it’s really not the financial hardship you might think at first. Even without the partial pay, I would be doing it. And yes, I feel fortunate that I can afford to take the time off, even if it is costing us a big chunk of money. Actually, the “lost” money is a motivator for me; if I can get up every morning and think of a dollar figure that I would be making by going to work, it gives me incentive to make the day worth it.

With regard to the third point, I’m really not all that intimidated by having one or two kids at home. I think the era of dads who never cooked, cleaned, did laundry, or changed diapers has gone the way of the dinosaur and the ubiquitous stay-at-home mom. I’m not saying that’s a good thing–some of those dinosaurs were pretty cool looking. Anyway, I have mad cooking and cleaning and diapering game, and I am not a perfectionist. I forsee meals even eaten over the sink. Lots of them.

So, I’m getting ready to do more dadding, and more blogging, and more daddy-blogging.

I’m convinced that some point soon my life is going to slow down and have more time to blog. I don’t even know what it is that I’m doing that has me so busy, but I’m definitely busy. I often struggle with the prospect of what type of writing I should be doing on the blog; should I just chronicle all the things that I do on a day to day basis, or write less often, but longer and more introspective posts? Or both?

Quite often the blog writes itself. I can’t really think of anything that is more funny, poignant, or endearing than raising children. Actually, since my life outside of work is almost all about raising children, I usually can’t really think of anything else, period. In any case, I have lately not been able to write down a lot of the stuff that’s been happening lately. It has definitely been write-itself sort of material. At the same time, I’ve also had a lot of longer topics that I’ve been meaning to write about. Like this one. For the moment, would really like to trade off breadth in the interest of deeper, more thoughtful posts. As a bonus, longer posts mean that I can include more pictures, which I would really like to do, but I’m sort of limited with my photo layout at the moment.

With all of the schedule weirdness lately, we’ve found ourselves putting Anna down to bed late or eating at an odd time, and saying “you’re usually sleeping right now,” or “we’re usually eating lunch right now.” Anna has latched on to this, and many times during the day will ask “what am I usually doing right now?” anytime she senses that she’s off schedule. Tonight, when she asked for the umpteenth time, I just had to say, “You’re usually asking what you’re usually doing.”

Yesterday, Anna started coming down with a little something, as she was acting tired and mopey halfway through the day. In the morning, though, she was amazingly well behaved and helpful. She’s been exhibiting more and more streaks of very good behavior that has me wondering if she’s coming out of the “terrible twos” phase. If we had the good behavior all the time, I don’t know what I’d do with myself. It’s like figuring out how to spend your millions after buying a lotto ticket. Yesterday morning, she actually fed Tara (with occasional help) while I cooked myself breakfast, then entertained herself while I put Tara to bed. Back to reality, though, a sick Anna is a moody Anna, which is what I’ve been seeing for the last day or so, and it’s hard to be firm with a little girl who’s not feeling well, even if she is showing some bad behavior.

We’re now in our third day of full potty-trainedness, and I’m very happy to be back down to one diaper-wearing child. The tradeoff there is that Anna is now at an age where she’s seldom taking naps. It would have been nice to be at a point when both kids were taking naps, just to have a little bit of a break during the day. Anna still has nap time at school, during which she lays quietly. If we can keep that going on the weekends, we may still be able to have our own break.

I’m now coming down with whatever Anna has; the last several times she has come down with something, I’ve gotten some sort of variant of it: she gets a head cold, I get a chest cold; she gets a chest cold, I get a sore throat. This time we’re tired and cranky, but at least we get a little extra attention from Mom. Everything’s a tradeoff.

I find it really interesting how the Internet, and particularly blogs, has allowed people who have never met each other to bond. The blog phenomenon, I believe, has enabled this bonding even more than before, and I can only imagine what’s next. Blogs have on one hand become like “reality TV,” in that they give you a peek into the life of another, with all its ups and downs, in some cases exotic, in some cases tragic, but interesting more often then not. The core of a blog’s power, I believe, is that it becomes a hub in a self-organizing community, as blog readers post links to other blogs that they like. The blogs I read are of people whom I can identify with: people with kids, people who take pictures, people who cook. There are some really good writers out there, and if their parallel lives weren’t compelling enough, their writing certainly is. Some of these people link back to me, and other fans of there work have arrived here.

New readers of my blog should probably start with the Best. Post. Ever. category, which are the posts that I personally think are the most funny or poignant. If you go back far enough, you can also find the “real time” posts from when our second daughter was born.

In addition to reading blogs, I have also started listening to “podcasts”, which are essentially the audio equivalent of blogs. Podcasting is fairly new, but it’s growing tremendously. Some of my favorites are The Croncast, who are the midwestern, funnier version of our family, and the Tim and Tony Show, which is primarily a raunchy humor show, but one of the guys on the show has recently moved, married, and is now expecting a second child. Tony mentioned my blog on the air because of how much he could identify with the experiences I’ve published as a father of two.

I’m flattered to have people coming to my blog, reading it, liking it, and saying so. While I originally set this blog up as a something functional, I can’t deny that I really like to be complimented¹ for my writing. More than being flattered, I am just staggered when I get supportive comments, from complete strangers, or people coming back day after day because they identify with what’s happening in our life. That sense of community make the internet something more personal and powerful than I had ever imagined, and I’ve been at this for a really long time².

I have to admit, that with the increase in readership, I do feel a pressure post more often, to be humorous, and to be interesting. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not, but it is always a good feeling to go through the process of sitting down, laying out my thoughts and experiences, even if nobody ever reads them. It’s just a bonus that people do.

¹ Of course, so does everybody else–I just like it more. Seriously. I’m not kidding. I insist that you compliment me right now. Ok, I’m kidding. But not really.

² In fact, I invented Al Gore.

I’ve done a little more work on the blog, specifically to bring it up to WordPress v1.5. I don’t think this really means anything to anyone but me, except to say that there may be some weird stuff going on in the short term.

While I’m writing about the blog, I have received a lot of compliments on the design and writing of the blog. Thank you, everyone. I have spent a lot of time on it, and for that I have Jennifer to thank. Based on the amount of time I have spent as a web application developer, technical writer, graphic artist, photographer and web designer, it could be better; it’s good enough for me and that’s what matters.

This blog started out for me as the zillionth in an even longer string of gadgets for me to play with, but I have really taken to it for several reasons. First, I get all sorts of compliments for it, and I definitely am all about that. Second, because of the whole blog phenomenon that is going on, I feel like I’m part of something cool, that I missed out on when I graduated college and took a job that was less glamorous than what I once dreamed of. Third, it’s therapeutic to sit down and sort out my thoughts for the day, to look back on things with a little humor and perspective. Last, it’s yet another way to capture a little bit of what this part of my life is like and to share it with my friends and family. Someone noted that the way I write is different than the way I talk, and that’s very true. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that my “comfort zone” is far larger in the world of computers than it is in the world of people. At least it is today.

Out of curiosity, I was just looking at the statistics for the blog. In December and January, the blog averaged 80 hits/day. February started out at about 50 hits/day, up until 2/7, where it had 233 hits, and since then has dropped off to about 175 yesterday. In particular, on 2/7, there were less than 10 hits in each hour up until 5pm, then traffic peaks up to 70 hits in the 8pm hour, when Tara was born.

I’m glad I set up all of the mobile blogging stuff before Tara was born, I just wish I had a phone with both a camera and a keyboard, because text entry on Jen’s camera phone is big pain. I really love my Nokia’s user interface, so my next phone (July I think?) will probably be another Nokia. Hopefully there will be some sort of Series 60 phone with a builtin keyboard.

I just got a new gadget which is in theory an MP3 player, the Sandisk MP3 256MB. I say in theory, because my intended use is the voice recording function. It can record 17 hours of audio (though I’m sure the battery will die long before that) to its internal memory from an onboard microphone. Unfortunately, most reviews of MP3 players don’t cover the voice recorder functionality, so I had to buy this without having heard the quality, which it turns out mostly stinks. Oh well, it’s good enough to get the gist of things, and with some postprocessing, it’s listenable. Here’s the catch. I’m going to be postprocessing to OGG format, which I don’t think Windows will play right out of the box. Why OGG? because it’s a open format that I will be able to read years down the line, and it sounds much better when you’re starting with the junky 4-bit 8khz audio from the MP3 player. I now have the recorder at my bedside, so hopefully I’ll remember to record some typical morning behavior. It’s pretty amusing, sometimes I think a Starbucks opened in her closet.

I’ve fixed up the design of the blog a little bit. I believe it looks better in Internet Explorer, as well as being a somewhat cleaner design. IE is broken in so many different ways, but next to security, the most broken area is CSS support. CSS is the mechanism this blog (and most other fancy web sites) use to specify the look and feel of a web page. Thankfully, many people have set up web sites dedicated to the atrocities of IE, and I was able to things straightened out. Please let me know if anything looks weird on design of the site.

Last year was the (first) year of the blog. It exhibited an astronomic rise in the number of both readers and authors of blogs, as well as first ever appearances in mainstream media. Breaking events such as the war in Iraq and the Indian Ocean tsunami have been a showcase for bloggers as journalists. Photoblogging is establishing itself as an art form. Numerous talented writers are becoming “celebrities” in the blogosphere.

The trend of recent years toward reality-based entertainment, combined with the long tail phenomenon are strong indicators that blogs will continue to increase in exposure in 2005. People want to connect with other (real) people, and blogs are an unprecedented medium for it. Podcasting is at the beginning of a similar growth curve, merely waiting for some enterprising group of programmers to write some software to enable it. Photoblogging is already well on its way.

Over the last year or two, it has been documented that people are spending less time watching TV because they are spending more time using their computers. Web surfing, e-mail, and instant messaging are the primary activities that time is spent on. With the increasing mobility of all of those applications, and the growing popularity of weblogs for both news and entertainment, when can we predict that blogging begins to replace television? My guess is that 2005 is the year that “the media” will realize that the shift has begun. Already some traditional celebrities had started blogs, and this year will see bloggers become celebrities.

This leads me to some technological advances which I believe will be significant in the coming year.

• Improved multimedia blogging tools. Currently, Nokia is the only phone manufacturer I’m aware of shipping photoblogging software. Others will follow.
• Bloggregation. Google lists a couple uses of this word, but I’m going to claim credit for it in the context of consolidating not the bloggers, but the blog postings based on location & time information. Imagine being able to read all the postings around a particular event in real time–concerts, earthquakes, riots, protests. Other countries will do this first.
• Internet-integrated television. If television wants to reclaim some of those hours lost to web-surfing, they’re going to have to combine the two worlds. Microsoft tried many years ago with WebTV (and probably has some important patents around that), but this time the networks will be motivated to cooperate. Look for real-time chat, blogging, and interaction with TV shows.

Ok, that’s about all I can muster as a pretend technology pundit. I guess I’ll go back to being a pretend photographer.

I never had a diary growing up; in my mind that was something for girls, or at least for the girls in after school specials. Now, in effect, I do have a diary, and I believe it’s starting to affect my brain. It’s something like being the newspaper editor in Spider-Man, looking at every situation with the ultimate goal of selling newspapers, making a big story out of something. I find myself having experienced something, and in the back of my mind I can not help but work out what would be a good title for the inevitable blog post.

In a way, this blog is a creative outlet for part of my brain I don’t get to use much as an engineer–the part of my brain that scored 700 on the verbal part of the S.A.T., and can’t help but copyedit the non-parallel sentence structure in Curious George books on the fly¹. It has, however, taken over my brain in a way that is now keeping me awake in the middle of the night, on a night when I should have been able to pull off close to 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Tonight, at about 11:45pm, Anna screamed very suddenly. I was headed out bedroom door almost before I was awake, and it’s a really fortunate thing that there was nothing on the floor between me and the door. My first thought as I was jumping out of bed was that she must be hurt. Jennifer said something like, “It’s alright,”² and I slowed down for just a moment, before the second thought hit me, which was that there might be someone or something in her room. I was prepared for anything.

As I ran down the hallway, she was running from her room into the nursery, still shrieking. As I picked her up, she stopped crying, but she was shaking and her heart was racing. I carried her into her room, verified that nothing else was in there, and sat on the bed with her for a couple minutes. Via some head-nodding I was able to ascertain that she had a nightmare, saw something in her room, and did not remember what it was. She yawned, and surprisingly, wanted to go back to sleep. I tucked her in and headed back to the bedroom.

The next hour was spent trying to go back to sleep, unsuccessfully, and to think up how to write this post. I’m hoping now that I have the post out of the way I can go baczhydrfegt;p/

¹ I’ll put an example here, but the gist is that one should write “to be or not to be,” rather than “to be or not be.”

² She just didn’t want my to hurt myself, because there usually is something on the floor between me and the door.