fine whine

This is the first* video I’ve shot with my mobile phone. I think I’ll stick to using my nicer digital camera to take videos, a device intended for such purposes, and not something that ultimately is meant to be a phone.

So what’s in the clip below? Natalya and I were running around some hallways, and I decided to shoot a little footage, for, um, posterity or whatever.

There isn’t really any sound (if you can’t see anything click here) - you can hear her laugh around seven seconds, but that’s about it. The main highlight is around the fourteen second mark, when she stumbles sideways, notices something on the wall, and tries to shove whatever she’s carrying into it.

Yes, that’s an electrical socket, and no, the footage was not followed by her falling over, crying, with her hair all sticking up. The thing in her hands that is almost completely unrecognizable (due to the bad video quality) is a wooden puzzle piece, and fortunately not a conductor. So it’s possible she learned about insulators, but not likely.

I almost learned something, though. Here I was holding the camera(-phone) and just letting her do whatever she wanted, safe or not, and I didn’t even think to stop her. I’d often wondered why people managed to make all of those videos that show up on youtube or America’s Funniest Home Videos of something painful or stupid, without dropping the camera and stepping in to help. Well, it seems to just happen that way, I guess. I’d like to figure out why.

Maybe it’s because cameras aren’t exactly cheap. I know I’d be in a lot of trouble if I dropped, and broke, my phone, though not as much trouble as an electrified toddler.

*To be fair, it’s actually the first two videos I’ve taken, edited haphazardly together with Windows Movie Maker. I think if I intend to do any real video editing, I know I’ll use a better camera and better software.

I didn’t post as much this year. Notable things about which I wrote nothing:

• Both of my grandfathers died in December. I still haven’t figured out what I want to say about that.
• I failed once again to complete a 50,000 word novel in November. But I came up with a much better idea for next year’s.
• Natalya turned 1 year old in October, meaning we could finally officially stop worrying about SIDS. Not that I ever did anyway.
• I left the fashion industry in September. I also read the complete Harry Potter series (for the first time) in under four weeks. These two events are not at all related.
• In August (I think) the guy housesitting for my neighbor across the street passed away in her house, and was not found for a week. I was one of the few people on the street who had ever even met the guy, and I didn’t even know his name until he was already gone. In cleaning up her house, my neighbor gave me a nice desk ending the four years I’d used my computer with it and me both on the floor.
• I can’t really remember much of anything from July. So ends the monthly portion of this wrap-up.*
• The two hundred or so photos I’ve posted on flickr aren’t even a fraction of the over seven gigabytes of JPGs I’ve created this year.
• I survived watching 61 movies from India, most of which could be considered “Bollywood”. Two I watched without any subtitles at all.
• The entire year passed without me attempting to access the internet with my mobile phone, despite it being capable of doing so.

More ideas may occur to me - I just didn’t want to let December pass without any posts at all. Happy new year.

* The only other month-based item of note is in January, wherein I visited Chicago the weekend of B-Fest but was unable to attend it because I was in Illinois for less than a total of 24 hours. Eating dinner in the Signature Room of the John Hancock Tower was superb. Being back at my desk eighteen hours later was not.

I’ve been meaning to post this for several weeks now*, but I had some trouble getting back into this kind of Flash animation. Basically Natalya did something small and simple that I thought was, well, pretty cool.

It wasn’t so much what she did, as the apparent thought process and (very short) time it took to do so. I think we’re beginning to see the early flickers of some sort of intelligence brewing.

Enough about intelligence though. Check out my cheesy animation. There’s no sound, so don’t worry when you don’t hear anything. Hit the big green button to play it.

* I’d like to think that now I’ll get around to posting the stuff that I meant to post after this, soon. At least, I don’t have this as an excuse anymore. I’m backdating this about a week just because it really shouldn’t have taken me this long to make a simple animation like this.

I shot this footage yesterday. If the player below isn’t working, click this link to see it. It’s not long - around eleven seconds.

A couple weeks ago Natalya finally began crawling forward. I’d been looking forward to that development for some time, and she has since had more practice and can now get wherever she wants reasonably quickly, as long as it’s on the floor.

Well, until yesterday. Yesterday she successfully crawled up a staircase. It’s only three steps, but it was three big steps for a baby.

She breathes really heavily when she’s trying hard to do something. I’ve also seen her stick out her tongue when concentrating on something (something I’m told I do as well) but that’s probably a dangerous thing to do while climbing stairs*.

I’m of divided mind, though. While it’s cool that she managed to do this, this means now her chances of hurting herself in the house just increased considerably.

* Especially in light of the two sharp teeth in her bottom jaw.

Unfortunately Natalya’s got an ear infection again. Two of them. I believe. She’s had them before, and we’re starting to recognize the signs.

Unfortunately since we don’t have an otoscope* we still need to take her to the doctor to verify the infections, and only the doctor can prescribe the antibiotics to get rid of them. So I guess we’re stuck with them for now.

Unfortunately their office is clear across town, about ten miles or so, seemingly through some of the worst traffic no matter what time we need to go.

Unfortunately we were running late this morning, and things did not look good for us making our appointment on time. I’m not going to say that I was rushing, but the odds seemed stacked against us. Somewhat anxious and growing more impatient when I needed to change lanes, I ended up getting wedged in closely between an SUV and a big white van just before I turned onto the highway.

Unfortunately just after I turned I saw flashing lights in my rear-view window. I waited for the policecar to pass me, but it didn’t, so I pulled over, expecting to be cited for a dead brake light (which I really should replace one of these days). Apparently, though, I had run a red light in making my turn, not noticing this because the tall van in front of me not only also ran the red light, but also was too tall for me to see the light. I’d only looked at the (lack of) oncoming traffic before turning.

Unfortunately the officer pulled me over, not the van. While that driver was making his escape, Jessica and I were frantically trying to find the proof of insurance card. Uncharacteristically for me I began freaking out, since all we could find was a long-expired one from 2002.

Fortunately the officer eventually apparently determined I was telling the truth about being insured, and returned from his car with a written warning for me. He didn’t write me a ticket, which was nice, and he didn’t even mention anything about my brake light.

Of course, once I was back at the house, had given Natalya her medicine and cleaned up the pink stains from it, I sifted through my stash of insurance forms. Despite receiving one every so many months, I hadn’t had a current one in the car for the last five years. I guess it’s a good thing I’m a good driver, when I don’t have my mind on 103 degree fevers.

* You know, that pointy flashlight/magnifying glass that the doctors use for looking down ears and throats, hopefully cleaning it in between, of course. I think I want one.

Welcome, Carnival of Breastfeeding readers. My wife put me up to this, but as long as she does the majority of waking up late at night, and changes more diapers overall, I’m generally willing to go along with what she tells me to do.

So our daughter is breastfed, basically exclusively, other than the applesauce*. That said, she’s eaten in a variety of places, public and otherwise, and every time I’ve been ready for somebody to be outraged. And waiting.

Except that nobody is bothered by it, to my befuddlement. I aggregate a few “new dad” blogs, and they rarely fail to point out a new media blitz when some celebrity in NYC or L.A. pulls up or down her shirt and gives her kid some milk. The blog and/or youtube comments following those articles are very, very informative as to the great gulf between the folks who find ‘feeding fantastic, and the ones who are disgusted by the very notion of its mention, let alone seeing any portion of an exposed breast. Likewise the stories of women thrown off airplanes for offending more prudish passengers or flight attendants.

But out in the real world, I can’t seem to find anybody willing to vocally object, or to even sneer, or look away in disgust. Either I’m ignoring such people, or they just aren’t out there, around here. A couple weekends ago shoppers passing through the hoity-toity upscale mall portion of Columbus’s Easton shopping mecca might have glanced, in the front window of Claire’s (an earring and cheap jewelry boutique, for those of the non-female persuasion), a distraught baby with two new holes in her head, getting some comfort food from her mom.

For the record, I’m still not convinced getting Natalya’s ears pierced before she’s old enough to pay for it was a good idea. I have no such reservations about her being breastfed, and again, am almost sad nobody else seems to object either.

Not that I’d throw down my gloves and get into a good scrap with the offended party, anyway, but I’d point out that my wife would give them a good talking-to.

As for this Carnival, here are some more links:

• Jessica’s post
• breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com
• breastfeeding123.com
• mamaknowsbreast.com
• thelactivist.blogspot.com
• breastfeedingmums.typepad.com
• crunchydomesticgoddess.com
• nursingyourkids.com

* I don’t really count shoving spoonfuls of peaches and sweet potatoes into her mouth “feeding” as I think of it as, more or less, an early, pediatrician-approved form of torture. The mashed-up bananas, well, once she’s started eating more than she ends up wearing, then I’ll figure out what I think of those.

… a baby rolling over! If you can’t see the player below, click here to see the video.

The funny thing is, of course, that by the time I finally got around to uploading this, she’s mastered the front-to-back roll as well, so she can now roll over and over and over*.

I’ve also uploaded a few more pictures to the photo album, which means I’m only about a hundred behind, or so.

* I guess I’ll just have to build a tracking dolly so I can get a film of that.

… or rather, lack of content.

First, let me be the last to wish everybody a Happy New Year 2007*. I never intended to let the entirety of January pass without writing anything at all, but the fact that I’m actually writing this on February second would show that exactly that has happened.

I didn’t have any drafts started for the month, at least not in my software.

This is not to say that nothing interesting has happened; only that writing about it isn’t atop my to-do list anymore. Coincidentally, neither is beating up the denizens of Azeroth - I’m almost completely weaned from the World of Warcraft, too.

But enough about things virtual and insignificant.

It’s been a big month for our daughter, too. Just last week Natalya started attending daily day care, and Jessica’s gone back to work. Our day-to-day routines continue to evolve - I now wake up more than twenty minutes before I leave as it is my responsibility to feed (and sometimes re-clothe) Natalya. I think I’m going to assemble a DVD or two of TV episodes to watch in the morning as I feed her, since my initial experiments into holding a baby, a bottle, and a Playstation 2 controller have been less than successful.

I haven’t added many new photos of her to my gallery recently, and in fact haven’t taken as many either. But I do have a few to upload, and have no intentions of stopping taking pictures anytime soon.

So then you ask, other than not taking pictures of my daughter, what have I been doing these last several weeks?

At work I’ve been spending a considerable chunk of my time doing workshops that are not exactly in the scope of my day-to-day responsibilities. My day-to-day responsibilities have not exactly shrunken to accomodate these added demands, however, and as such have had some extra workload issues.

As such, I’ve been borrowing a laptop at night. A laptop which, I have discovered, gets better wireless reception than any of the ones I’ve tried before in my house. In fact I am able to piggyback onto the wireless network of one of my neighbors across the street, as long as I stick to the front rooms of our house, particularly near the windows. I’ve entertained the notion of trying to figure out exactly which house houses the router to which I connect, but haven’t tried very hard so far. I have, however, finally seen the first season of Arrested development and the first two of NBC’s The Office, and I must say, they’re quite funny.

Of course both shows would be perfect feeding-time entertainment, but this idea has only occurred to me after I’ve already watched them, before I was consistently feeding Natalya every morning. I suppose I could always re-watch them, of course.

As ever, though, watching TV shows is the merest fraction of the time my TV is on; I’m watching movies at pretty much my usual pace. Unusual, however, are the movies themselves: I’ve begun watching Bollywood movies. Though I haven’t made it through ten of them, I (arbitrarily) decided to watch 50 Hindi movies by 2008, though I may need to revise that goal to ‘movies from India’ to better cover the non-Bollywood films (i.e. ones not in Hindi). Even from the few I’ve seen I have much about them to write, and hope to get around to doing that soon, since I’ve been bouncing the ideas around in my head for quite some time.

At the risk of promising almost nothing and still failing, I’m not going to make any promises or resolutions about posting more.

And any rumors that this post is timed to match yet another threadless sale are, well, nonexistent until now, and entirely untrue. They are, in fact, doing another sale, however this time around to save $5 per shirt you need to buy two of the same, for you and ostensibly for your sweetheart. This is also your chance to stock up on duplicates, I suppose.

Whenever Jessica and I inadvertantly wear the same color shirt I’m tempted to change clothes - I’m not sure I’d be interested in wearing the same (trendy, hipster approved) shirt as her. So it goes.

* Or may I be one of the first to wish a Happy New Year of the Boar? Chinese New Year is rapidly approaching - it won’t be 4704 much longer!

I can’t resist it any longer. Threadless has been running a $10 sale for almost the entire last month, and it’s over Thursday.

I’m considering buying only one this time around: The downside of genetic engineering.

Other notable designs:

• The Communist Party
• Funkalicious
• No Repeats!
• Mechanical Mayhem
• Calling Home
• Memories, Sweet Memories
• The War Against Work
• THIS Is How The World Ends

But enough about shirts*.

December is not the brightest month, generally. If I put any stock in all of the newly discovered ‘disorders’ (or owned stock in the companies that make drugs to treat them) I self-diagnose myself with a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, whereby as the seasons get colder I’m less of my warm self.

Except that that’s pretty much what happens to most people, to some degree. The days are shorter and darkness falls earlier and earlier; people don’t leave their warm abodes as often, fostering cabin fever, and then there’s always the incessant Christmas music that is inescapable from Halloween on.

Every year I’ve been posting to this site I’ve posted less and less during the month of December. This year I’ve got even more of an excuse: sleep deprivation.

Which brings me to the baby. She’s been doing pretty well - we’ve got her on something of a normal schedule at night, at least, whereby she sleeps from about 11 until 5 in the morning. Unfortunately in order to get her to do this we need to keep her from getting too much sleep during the daytime - and by ‘we’ I mean Jessica during the day, and me after dark. Some nights she’s okay with the plan, but other times she cries and cries, until I can find the one magic fix, which is never the same night to night. Sometimes she just wants to lay on the floor or the table, other nights she wants to be rocked in the rocker, some nights I walk with her on the treadmill for half an hour, and sometimes she calms down in the swing. It’s never the same thing one night to the next, but I guess that’s just how babies are.

I have set up a photo gallery of sorts, and you can look at it by clicking on the ‘/photos’ link above. At some later date I’ll post more information about where the pictures are and how you can get better copies of them, for printing and such, but at the rate I’ve been writing lately that won’t happen until February.

Until then, well, happy holidays and stuff.

* The best way to shop is the stock chart. The usual disclaimers apply: All of the Threadless links, except the one in this sentence, contain affiliate information for me through which I get store credit if you buy a shirt. Or lots of shirts. They make great gifts, you know!