shenanigans

I’ll keep this short and sweet…it is 3:50 am, I’ve uploaded the initial pictures from our little girls first big day.  She finally came out to say hello to her mom and dad at 11:58pm the 7th of July.  Katie weighs 5 pounds 14.7 ounces…but they say they round up…so 5 15, 19 inches long and has a great set of lungs!

Both mom and baby are fine and resting.  I’m sure Barb will be back up in a couple of hours for a feeding while I came home to check on the dog and post the pictures on the web for friends and family to enjoy.

Barbara had a scheduled check-up yesterday afternoon, she is attending them weekly now since she is now in her 35th week, about a month from the due date, July 24Th.  After the exam, her doctor told her that her cervix was dilated to 3cm (about one inch).  Needless to say, she was directed to go to the hospital for some tests and to be placed on several monitors.  Of course, when she called me to tell me the status, I promptly left work so I could meet her at the hospital.  The tests went well, the baby’s signs are really good according to the medical staff.  Barbara however is showing some signs of pregnancy induced hypertension and has been placed on STRICT bed-rest.  The doc says if she starts to deliver, she won’t stop her because of the blood pressure issue.  We are a little concerned because she has a month left but the doctor says Katelynn should be just fine.  She would be officially considered a Premature baby until the 37th week, which is then considered full term. We are hopeful she can make it to her 37th  week or further but, what ever happens at this point is fine.  We are as prepared as we are going to get.  I’m happy to report we finally got a crib, so Katelynn won’t have to sleep in the sock drawer as initially planned.

Wish us luck! 

For those of you who don’t know my family or haven’t heard me talk about them…here is an insight into our CRAZY dynamics.  My dad’s birthday was this past weekend and because it coincided with the long Memorial Day weekend, we all (minus Ben (my little brother) and his family, they’re in Europe and excused for missing it) converged on my sister’s NEW house in Knoxville for the weekend.  My parents drove in from southern Maryland on Friday. Barb and I drove down from Kentucky on Saturday.  And Nicole (my little sister) drove up from Atlanta Saturday as well. 

When my family gets together, there is one guarantee…lots of fun and laughter will be had by all.  This weekend was no exception.

A little background…my lovely family has a tradition of getting gag gifts for each other.  We are really just a bunch of pranksters.  This tradition is usually reserved for Christmas, but this weekend an exception was made for my dad. 

My mother, who is the ring leader, planned this prank weeks ago and had everything set.  She went to the store and had an empty cardboard box decorated like a cake.  Let me tell you…it looked real!  They did a great job.  After she brought it home, she was very careful to keep it hidden.  She even took it to the car and covered it up so my dad wouldn’t see it before the time was right.  Little did we know, he saw it in the back seat when he was packing up the car and said he thought to himself “AWWWW how nice, she bought a cake for my birthday”.  He deduced it was supposed to be a SURPRISE, so he didn’t mention anything to my mom. 

Sooo…Saturday night, we pull out the “cake” and present it to him…candles and all (don’t ask me how my wife and sister got those candles to stand up on that damn box). 

He did his part and acted all surprised.  We brought out the plates and handed him a knife…

Note: this is a large video…about 57 meg…sorry it’s so large, but boy is it worth it.

You have to watch this video to get the full appreciation. 

Enjoy.

In the Army, soldiers who couldn’t keep track of theirs stuff had it tied to them with 550 Cord  (Fondly referred to as Dummy Cord).  Especially appropriate when folks had stuff tied to themselves, like weapons.  Only a dummy would need to keep that tied on so they didn’t loose it. 

In civilian sector there are other solutions, not so degrading, but just as effective. 

I (without admitting anything) MIGHT have used some dummy cord in the past and find it hilarious that the Basis team came up with this solution to collect up all the stuff I leave behind.

NOTE: This collection device is in a different building and on another guys desk!

Thanks guys!

 Quack

We have decided on a name for this little-one.  Here are her first “photos” taken since the decision has been made.  It is amazing to watch her development occur.  The 3d images at the bottom are specectacular in the detail they provide…and just think, she is just over 1.5 pounds at this point.  Enjoy.

It’s A GIRL!

 When I asked the Doc if we could FINALLY find out what the sex was, this is her response ”Either you should contact Guinesses book of world records for the worlds smallest boy parts or it’s a girl”.  

Now knowing my parts, there is still a remote possibility that we’ll be making that call, but we are assuming the latter.  LOL

See if you are any better about determining what your looking at in this Ultrasound below than I was.  I needed an explanation from the Doc, so I’ve provided that in the second pic.  I don’t know how they do it…I suppose it’s experience. 

It is OK to announce the BIG news now.  Barb and I decided to wait until after the first trimester to announce publicly.  We told our parents at Christmas but have waited till now to tell the world.  So if you are reading this and are surprised…you probably know me and have heard me say more than once Barbara and I aren’t going to have children.  WELL as you can see things change.  We did in fact plan this…we didn’t have to wait long once we started “trying”…I suppose that’s from all the previous years of practice. 

 Enjoy the ultrasound pics…I’ll keep you posted! 

Until today, my appreciation for airbag technology was merely hypothetical.  Now however it is firmly planted in first hand experience.  First things first, everyone is ok to include the other driver that insists the accident was my fault.  We’ll get to that later.

So…there I was (that was for you CSM Thompson) on my couch getting ready to watch my first Redskins game in a couple of weeks,  I thank the National Guard for keeping my weekends occupied, and I’m pretty excited about the prospect of being a couch potato when my wife gives me a call.
 
So you know, Barbara has been out of town all weekend and is due back home this afternoon.  She left Friday night after work to participate in an organized shopping trip in Atlanta with my sister, who lives in Tennessee.
 
She informs me she is at a gas station near an exit off of Interstate 75 about 30 miles south of Lexington (2 hours from home) and she believes she needs a tow truck.  After a brief discussion, I concur.  It appears her clutch has gone out and she can’t get the transmission into ANY gear.  I do my best to instill a sense of calm and control.  I tell her…give me a few minutes; I’ll get a hold of a towing company and be on my way to get you.  After a few phone calls to arrange for her car to be policed up I head out.
 
I stop and top off my car with fuel (go figure) and I start towards the interstate.  I get about 5 miles down the road and a car makes a left turn in front of me.  Maybe I didn’t say that loud enough.  I said…a car turns left RIGHT in front of me.  Squealing breaks, a loud crash, bent metal, broken glass and plastic ensued. My car went airborne, when it came down it was on its side.  It slid into a telephone pole and junction box as it came to rest.  What a mess.

I pulled myself out of the car by climbing out the driver side door.  That was a little tricky given the telephone pole and lines leaning against it, but thankfully a man came by to help.  He held the wires out of the way while I pushed the door straight into the air. 
The first call I made was to Barbara to inform her I wasn’t going to be able to come get her.  She surprisingly (he says facetiously) wasn’t too concerned about herself, but more so the state of my car (again facetiously stated).  No really she was great…she said she would find a way home, and indeed my industrious little lady did.  The tow truck driver drove her to the airport in Lexington were she was able to rent a car.  She has since made it home and I was brought home by the sheriffs department.

Back to the other driver.  She said “I never saw you”.  I said “I know, otherwise you wouldn’t have made a left turn in front of me.”.  She asked me I can’t tell you how many times “Why did you hit me?”.  My only response was, “Because you made a left turn right in front of me.  I tried avoid you by slamming on my breaks and veering left, but you kept turning.  There was nothing I could do to avoid it.”  Apparently she told the sherrif it was my fault and I should have not ran into her.  Needless to say, the cops assign fault to her.  I had the right-of-way and she failed to yield.  We’ll see what the insurance has to say once the police report is finished on Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted.

Take a look at these pictures.

1. From the United States, how has social media changed your life? How about the lives of your other family members?

I twitter to keep “friends” up-to-date. I blog about major events and significant findings on a personal and professional level. I have RSS feeds to my favorite blogs. I find I spend much of my “off” time on the computer. I have found reading and contributing to the social network to be much more than bubble gum for the brain (a saying my wife and I use to refer to the television, meant to refer to the act of causing just enough synaptic activity to keep you alive). All-in-all, I would say it has changed my life quite a bit.

As for my family, most are far behind the power curve if you will. My wife is the only immediate family member that even knows what RSS is or how to subscribe. If I said I “twitted” something to my sisters, brother or parents, I am positive I would get a deer in the headlights look from them. To sum it up…not so much.

2. From the United States, how do you think your personal and business lives will change over the next five years? How about for the rest of your family?

I read Doc Searl’s answers to these questions on Shel Isreal’s blog where he references Project VRM. If this project has any traction, I suspect it will have a major impact on the personal and professional lives of myself and my family members.

As I understand it…a forum will exist for the consumer as a whole to ask for stuff. Vendors will have access to the data and based on the consensus of their applicable market (maybe the whole thing) produce stuff we want. Not produce stuff and then convince us we want it ( AKA modern day marketing ).

The notion of consumers thinking outside the box and asking for features or products that don’t exist yet and allowing all vendors to gain from the collective requests is novel. Good times, I look forward to that day.  The prospect of individuals exploring their imagination and coming up with new features and or products could be likened to each of us being inventors of sorts.  Now that is exciting!

3. What do you feel are the ascending social media tools and which are descending?

On-line collaboration is definitely ascending. User forums, blogs, Wiki’s Both on a personal and professional level. SAP’s SDN is a prime example of a collaboration tool that has taken off.

Descending social media: 1 900 numbers LOL

4. The folks at SAP are particularly interested in social media’s impact on the global enterprise as well as small to medium-sized corporations. Do you have any knowledge or advice for them?

I am an SAP professional so hopefully my insight has SOME merit. As a Content Administrator of our Enterprise Portal, the tool SAP provides for social media…my advice is make it easier to deliver the tools the business wants. A “Collaboration” room…are you truly kidding. I also have exposure to (I hate to say it) MS Sharepoint. My company uses both interestingly enough. When I compare the two…Sharepoint wins hands down. The ability of the developer to “drag and drop” web parts to deliver the look and feel along with the desired functionality the business wants doesn’t compare to how I have to do that same thing in EP. I had an entire collection up and running in Sharepoint in 30 minutes…no kidding. I have been working on a standup portal in EP for 3 months. Enough said.

5. Do you have any interesting case studies of unique uses of social media?

No not really. Mostly the usual functionality. Forums, Wiki’s, Blog space etc. I would like the senior members of companies to embrace the functionality that they make us build.

6. What social media tools do you use? Which are your favorites? Why.

Answered in question 1…I guess I should have read all the questions before starting.

7. Do you see language as a barrier for social media? Will English become the global language of the Internet? Should it?

I think it could be. As a prior military member, I have had the privilege of serving overseas. While abroad, I learned most developed countries require English classes in school. That being said, most individuals that will /have access the internet can understand a least the most basic of English words and phrases. Most North American people couldn’t read Spanish if their lives depended on it. And Mexico is the closest (non-English primary language) country. If I said, Korean, I could understand why most American’s don’t speak it, but Spanish for goodness sake.

Should it is another question all together. I’ll leave that up to the majority.

8. Are you reading more blogs or less these days? Are you watching more online video or less these days?

Blog reading for sure. On-line videos…not so much. I don’t feel a great deal of growth from watching a bunch of videos of people mimicking the “Jack Ass” franchise.

9. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Working for myself….building the next generation of business solutions with some of the brightest people I know.

It looks like the house in PA is sold. We accepted a very good offer this weekend and are hopeful the inspections scheduled for next week go well.

One inspection is radon for example. I have never had the house tested…lets hope it’s fine. I would hate to find out now that first; we lived in an “Unsafe” house for the past year and a half and second; I need to dump a bunch of money in the property to “Mitigate” the effect of high radon readings.

I’ll announce some more good news while I’m at it….

Barbara had an interview for a job last Friday and received an offer for the position on Tuesday.  She should start work on July 1st, she would start sooner but has a trip to Maryland already scheduled to see my little brother, his wife and their new baby (first grandchild) between now and then.

The new parents are flying in from Germany and the whole family (minus me) is converging on my parents house to get a first glimpse. I wish I could attend, but new job….no vacation. IT SUCKS I have to miss this. I so badly want to go.

More later.

Quack