hobbies

OK...so since Felix came along I've sort of put most of my hobbies on the back burner because I want to do my fair share of child-rearing and currently that means trying to take care of him as much as possible when I'm available (a.k.a. not at work) and also give Andrea as much of a break from it as possible since she is the one who is, essentially, doing that job full-time and after hours on-call as well (he still wakes up at least once a night for feeding). So the hobbies I kept up with are mainly ones that can be done on the bus ride to and from work (scribbling story outlines in my notebook, watching TV shows on my laptop). Andrea has essentially put her career goals on hold to raise Felix so I think giving up my after-work entertainment and hobbies like aikido and taking apart/putting together computers (and associated computer tinkering) is not that huge of a sacrifice in comparison. And of course, both Andrea's full-time career and my part-time hobbies, are not gone for good, just on hold until Felix lets us resume them to whatever degrees we can.

That said...I think I'm finally going to make the switch from running Windows to Linux as my main home OS. Ubuntu has gotten to the point where I feel I can really, honestly, replace XP as the OS on the "main" computer. And part of the reason for this is particularly BECAUSE of my hobby reduction. What are the reasons for using Windows? Because you need it for A) most commercial software B) almost ALL commercial games. Honestly, I don't buy a lot of software. Almost none, really. I've "sampled" quite a bit of software and many games (in the past, not really so much at all in the recent past).

But what do I do with my home computer right now? I download TV shows. I burn DVDs. I browse the web. Maybe do some email. And every once in a while run a webcam to capture police raids in my neighborhood. Mostly my home computer just sits and downloads TV shows and then serves them up to us to watch on a laptop somewhere else in the house.

So here's the thing: I don't have time for games, especially not the super whizzbang new games that come out now. I'd love to, but don't, probably won't ever, have time (or even money) for doing video editing (other than the once-a-year fun project at work). My current hardware, which will not see any major upgrades in the forseeable future, is not cutting edge and probably won't support Vista anyway. So, as the next MS OS is coming out, I might as well move completely off of MS. ALSO, Andrea is a Mac user and I can't imagine that the communication between a Linux computer and her Unix-based OSX laptop could be any worse (and probably even better than) than that with a Windows machine. And to top it off, I have an AMD64 processor that is going to waste running standard XP (I never made the leap to Xp 64 because it sounded like a LOT more work and poor peripheral support). Why not run a 64-bit Ubuntu which is much better (and freely) supported?

So, maybe sometime in the next few weeks our mother's helper will provide enough slack for Andrea that can trickle down to me and allow me to reload my computer with Ubuntu... we shall see.

And by the way, boy is it ever dead at work on the day after Thanksgiving.

scare tactics

Andrea and I have been reading Richard Dawkins's latest book, "The God Delusion" and it has been fueling some very interesting discussions between us. Not debates, mind you, just discussion. Not to shock anyone (unless you've been asleep for oh, I dunno, several years) but we're both atheist. As the resident religious escapee in our equation (she didn't have a religious upbringing, I was raised Catholic...sort of) I am often asked for background or insider knowledge about what she is learning from Dawkins's book. And before you all go frantically running off to Amazon, let me warn you, if you are deeply religious this book will make you uncomfortable, and likely angry, due to Dawkins's unapologetic, openly hostile view towards religion, all religions. And also know that there are several reviews posted that make it sound like a bad book. Well, take those reviews with a grain of salt. If you Google phrases from the reviews, you may eventually find the ACTUAL authors of the reviews and not the stupid plagiarists who are clearly on a campaign to badmouth Dawkins. OK, that caveat aside, its a very good read if you are atheist or agnostic (may put the final nail in your religious coffin if you are agnostic) or an open minded, free-thinking, religious person. (snicker)

Anyway, the final chapters of the book deal with Dawkins's own proposal that religion in general does more harm than good, especially to children. You might be wondering what sort of wacko childhood this guy must have had to be so vehement opposed to religion and his likening religious education to child abuse. Well, it turns out that he doesn't have a religious upbringing. Which actually makes a lot of sense.

Ok, so what I'm getting at is that Andrea is discovering all of these things she never even knew about Catholicism (it is a frequent example in his later chapters, though throughout the book all religions are made fair game), some of which she finds quite scary. Last night she found out about the good old Catholic "emergency bathtub baptism" clause. She read the anecdote from the book about a young Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, in Italy in the 17th Century who was forcibly taken from his family by the papal police so he could be given a Catholic upbringing. Turns out his baby-sitter was a Catholic teenager who secretly baptised him when he was sick because she was afraid he might die and go to hell. Andrea asked me if I had heard of this practice (the ability of anyone to baptise anyone else if they thought the need was there, not 17th century Papal policies). My reply was, "Oh yeah. Everyone has heard about a friend of a friend being baptised by their aunt because they were sick and no priests were available, you know, just in case. I don't think the Catholic church preaches about babies going to hell anymore though...i think now they just hangout in limbo or something." She was mortified.

spousal support

Oh no! Blogging from work again!
Just kidding. I took the day off to take care of Felix. Last Friday we had a woman come and "mother's helper" for Andrea for a couple hours as an interview/trial. Sounds like she'll work out! I had already taken a day off for this week and next week to stay home and give A. a break. Felix is taking his second nap so I'm talking this chance to catch up my blog a little bit.

Work is great. As great as it can be I guess, meaning they are still paying me and my job doesn't suck. Work takes on a new flavor when you have a kid. On the one hand, going to work every day provides a lot of structure and regularity and a small respite from the times when Felix is having a bad day. Lately he's been congested so we have to suction out his nose. Not fun for him, not fun for us. Also, he seems to sleep less and less during the day, and he pushes bedtime back further and further. He usually sleeps through the night, or at least until about 4 or 5am. But when he gets tired, instead of falling asleep, he gets cranky. But over the past couple days he's gotten a lot better. I think, as the administration might put it, we've turned a corner, we'll stay the course!

Actually, Felix is a pretty happy baby. Its just that he gets to a certain time in the evening when he is done for the day but he doesn't want to admit it. That's when he gets grumpy.

I was playing with him on his butterfly mat/toybar the other night when he, out of nowhere, just rolls over from laying on his back. I was looking right at him. He just sort of went up on his side and then whump, rolled onto his tummy like it was nothing. "Uh....honey...Felix just rolled over onto his stomach." Andrea rushed into the living room from the kitchen, "He did?!?!?!" "Yep."

See, up to this point I've been missing the first times because they usually happen at work. "He just rolled over onto his back!!!!" "Oh yeah, he's been doing that for a couple days now," she says in an offhand manner. "WHAT??? Why didn't you tell me that?" "I did but you weren't listening..."

So I finally got my own Felix First. And I got another one today. He fell asleep while I was bottle feeding him. Bottle feeding has been something of a necessary evil around here and he usually only eats just enough to stave off complete hysteria. When he nurses with mom, of course, its the most relaxing thing in the world so he frequently falls asleep or continues to sleep-nurse. Well, no sleep eating from the bottle.

And he's awake...gotta go.

chips are down

So it was an eventful election day. Most of minnesota went respectably blue, though we still have a red governor and the crazy jesus candidate in the sixth district won as well, so there's another bible-thumping, gay-hating, science disbelieving, Dubya disciple walking into the halls of Congress in January (or whenever the turnover date it). But, i am proud to inform you, I voted for and helped elect the first muslim Congressman of the USA, ever. Good job me.

Of course, these US Senate races will be undetermined for probably...oh I dunno, until Bush is out of office. Yeah, Virginia and Montana, I'm talking to you. Ohio is so happy that they got to shirk the mantle of being at fault for our current administration. Are you sure you guys want to know what that feels like by not doing right? As if there were ever a time NOT to be depending on Virginia and Montana to go all sensible on us...

Ah well. At least the future is a little brighter.

weekend warrior

So the weekend is over and I'm back at work, drinking my coffee and getting the feel of my professional surroundings once again. The weekend was blissfully uneventful insofar as I did not go anywhere or "do" anything. I was basically the babydaddy all weekend which is nice and tiring at the same time. On the weekends I get a slight taste of what Andrea does all day every day and so learn to appreciate even more that she is able to stay home with Felix.

Not that nothing happened, it was actually a weekend rife with activity and circumstance.
A) Dad came up on Thursday night to help me do some emergency plumbing (no, not radiateors again, NEVER AGAIN) on the kitchen sink which had essentially completely fallen apart both top and bottom in the course of a day. Technically not the weekend, but it was close enough.
B) Mom and dad stopped by to drop off some clothes for Felix (a big bag from Dave and Anne, THANKYOU!) since he's outgrown just about everything. I think he's going to be not just a big kid, but possibly a tall kid. We think Andrea might have some tall genes we don't know about.
C) Sunday night when Andrea's dad stopped by to visit us (Felix) for dinner he brought apple pie. Unfortunately Felix was so congested and it was "that time of day" so he was pretty crabby and not very excited to see anyone, so grampa only got to hold and bounce and dote in Felix for about half of the time he was there. And his drivers side window got smashed in while his car was parked on our street. While helping him sweep up the window glass, we found what appeared to be a broken glass bottle in his car, so it would seem someone threw a glass bottle from a moving car or otherwise hurled it through his window. I don't think this should really reflect on our neighborhood badly since it was probably someone who does not live here who did this. That's the problem with living in a decent neighborhood surrounded by bad neighborhoods. The people going from one to another bad area tend to fuck it up for everyone. Its like, just because you're an asshole who doesn't have anything and you hate your life doesn't mean you have to make everyone else hate you too, by tagging on houses or smashing windows or doing other property damage. Asshole.

so, hey, just in case this is a popular past time for the local assholes (we got our window smashed a while ago too) make sure you have comprehensive with no glass deductible if you plan on parking on our street after dark. Just a suggestion. Or I can point you to a good glass place that had good turn around. And a drivers side window costs about $220 if you pay out of pocket. They charge your insurance like twice that if you have insurance (which we didn't at the time, we do now!).

Ok, now I'm back to work. It has also been the most uneventful on-call week for me (knock on wood). Only 1 more day to go.