It's probably a...

Just got back from having Ying's 18 week ultrasound done. We're pleased to report that everything's fine. We again saw two arms, two legs and five fingers on each hand. The new 3D technique is not recommended by us at this stage because our baby looks like something off the X-Files. Luckily, there's still lots of development to go 'cause I don't think even the mother would love this face as it appeared on the 3D ultrasound. Our baby currently weighs in at 232 g or half a pound. We didn't see the length but the heart rate was 141 bpm and we could see it pumping away. And now for the news most people are interested in. According to what we didn't see on the ultrasound, we think we're having a girl. We'll have to wait another 155 days (±2 weeks or so) to know for sure.

We're open to name suggestions at this point as well. We'll go into the hospital with a baby name book just incase it's a boy. We've only thought of one girl's name so far: Julie. It comes from next year being the Year of the Pig in China. In Chinese, pig is 猪, spelled "zhu" in pinyin and pronounced like "ju" in English. We're probably going to pick another character with the same pronunciation, 珠, which means "pearl" or "treasure." Then we'll use the character 丽, which means "beautiful" and is pronounced like "li." Of course, it's still early so we might change our mind on the name or what characters to use for her Chinese name.

174 days to go

We started late but here's Ying's belly after 15 weeks. She did start out much thinner but her pants are starting to get a little tight now.

We're getting everything in order for our new family. Our condo has sold and we've almost finalized buying a new home. We're pressuring her parents to get their passports and we'll try and have them come to Canada for a little while when the baby is born. It's our first baby so we're welcoming any parenting help.

Ying's at Mark's Work Wearhouse right now and getting tons of hours since they're understaffed going into the holidays. My work is going great and I'm looking forward to two weeks of celebrating Xmas. So far, there are three company parties lined up which is three more than I attended last year. Oh! There's also a little fiesta for our last Spanish class of the year.

We're unable to head to Edmonton for Xmas because Ying will be working so much over the holidays but we'll relax around here. Mom should be happy next Xmas. Her household population might skyrocket from one to seven which would include her two seven month-old grandchildren. Hmm, I wonder if she'll do double-duty on the free baby-sitting so the rest of us could have a night out...

Mental Aerobics

Two weeks ago, Ying and I learned that my sister will be having her first baby and is due two days after us. Since then, we've also learned that my cousin, Julie, will be having her first baby early in May.

I must have had a little too much time to think while walking to work 'cause I've realized the following: if my sister delivers her baby in England on 1 June at around 2:00 in the morning and Ying delivers on 31 May at 22:00 here in Cowtown, Les' baby will be three hours older yet a whole day younger than ours. I'll leave that as an exercise for the class to figure out. It's the same logic as saying I would be a day older if I was born in B.C. since I was born two minutes after midnight in Alberta.

Huh? Wha?

We started with Spanish courses at work today. We have a lot of clients down in Colombia who come up to visit us sometimes and Rob and Jon were recently down there at a conference. This marks the sixth language in which I've had formal instruction. Obviously, I have some command of the English language. En école j'ai étude la français. Ich studierte Deutsch an der Uni. Ik leerde een weinig Nederlands. 我的普通话不好。 Hoy yo habla español. I'm not even being geeky and counting "languages" like C, Objective-C, HTML and Python that I know varying degrees of. I do have a need for all these languages. My wife is Chinese. My job deals with lots of Spanish-speaking clients. My dad's side of the family is Dutch but, each morning when I visit them, they usually ask me, "which language would you like to speak today?" I try to keep in contact with a friend in Germany but I don't do a really good job because shorter e-mails are taking longer to write these days. An old, artistic friend and his family are French and I also have a Chinese friend who's learning French because he works for a French company which sends him to Paris on occasion. Oh well, I think it's good to be worldly.

Something to report

You start a blog thinking it'd be good for practising your writing and sharing your thoughts with the world. It doesn't take long to realize that you're either too busy or lazy to write more often and that your life really isn't worth writing about. For those devote few of you who are still reading, there is something worth reporting: Ying's almost seven weeks pregnant! I do realize that anyone who's reading this probably knows this news. If not, sorry that I've left you out of the loop. I'll see what I can do about updating Ying's condition here. So far, there's only a bit of nausea that goes away with a good walk.

Sports photography

Week and a bit into the new job and I'm enjoying myself immensely. Everyone around the office seems to be very happy working together and hanging out together. I feel I'm picking up the foundations of what I'll be doing quite well and it'll be great to build on that and be able to contribute technically to what's going on. I might even get more time for programming.

Away from work there's little going on. Ergo, I've remained fairly lazy and unfocused. I had hoped to do some cyclocross racing but I don't think that's a good idea. I get 20 minutes of riding in a day when the weather is nice and an hour of walking when the weather is poor. The only time I raise my heart rate during my ride is on the way home when I have two climbs; one up three levels of a parkade and the other up the hill behind Sunnyside. 45 minutes with a heart rate exceeding 170 bpm is probably not good for me and hasn't been done by me since last cyclocross season. I could probably get myself talked into the two races in Edmonton over Thanksgiving by Marg except for the cost of a licence for such a short time. I'll probably just exercise my new camera and take some pictures at the races around Calgary and the Thanksgiving races in Edmonton. Ying and her friends are interested in indoor rock climbing so I think I'll be doing that soon. It's supposed to snow on Thursday but skiing will have to wait a few more months.

Escape proving impossible

If I haven't told you already, I'm sure you either don't really care or I'm going to tell you soon that I've quit Tricon and will be moving to Thrust Belt Imaging to become a depth migration guy. TBI seems like a good company and I'm really looking forward to the switch. TBI even does all their work on Macs so I'll be working in my favourite environment 24 hours a day. Well, I would be if I didn't need so much sleep.

The only difficult part has been leaving my old job. Those in power have decided it's best to communicate their wishes through intermediaries. I was hoping they would throw me out of the office but no such luck. I'm owed 4.8 days of holidays so I thought I'd be on holiday my last week. Again, no such luck. The latest word, I'm told, is that I'll have to work the rest of my days and then get paid out for my vacation. That wouldn't be so bad but I'm eager to leave and there's nothing to do at work. I'm supposed to pass my knowledge around to others in the office but they either know what I know already, have no desire to learn or there's not enough time left. It also doesn't help that we have no data around which is suitable for training. I guess I should have been more of a bad egg around there. All the previous bad eggs who quit got tossed out of the office right away. Maybe I just learned too much and was useful and important.

Blown Away

Our first attempt at camping did not turn out so well. The day was quite nice and relaxing. We had an early start and got ourselves set up at a campsite on a reservoir near Bassano. The day was hot and sunny and there were even some other campers there with dachshunds! Unfortunately, just as it was getting dark, it got pretty windy. The Brooks weather station reported sustained 41 km/h winds with gusts of 62 km/h at one point in the night. It felt worse where we were. With these winds, threatening clouds and lots of lightning in the area, we decided to bail and head home. I had pegged the tent down but the ground was too soft and most of the pegs were ripped out of the ground when we went to pack up. I'm not sure how much blowing my tent can withstand and I prefer when it doesn't tumble across a campsite and float away on a lake. I think we got everything stuffed into the car before it blew away. Oh well. We'll try again soon. Maybe we'll even try a backpacking trip next.

ハイキング

Previously posted on 5 Aug 2006

Today we got out and about for a short hike. We went towards Chester Lake which is south of Canmore. My speed skating friend, Arcton, was going with his wife, Yukiko, and their two children. I say hiked towards Chester Lake because Ying and I didn’t make it all the way to the lake. Despite it being a beautiful day, we had to return home early in the hopes that our mattress would be delivered. I hope the rest of the hike was good for Arcton and Yukiko. Waiting for the mattress is trying my patience. Because we missed their call last week, we’ve had to endure days of incompetence by the delivery company. As I said before, last Saturday they couldn’t schedule a delivery because they were doing inventory, please call Tuesday. Tuesday they weren’t answering their phones. Wednesday they couldn’t schedule the delivery because their computers were down. Thursday, they phone to say they’ll deliver Saturday but they’ll phone me back on Friday to tell me what time. Friday, they call while while we’re out at a restaurant for Ying’s birthday dinner and they tell me our delivery is scheduled for 14:00 - 17:00 on Saturday; ergo, Ying and I turn around from the hike early and rush home to wait. And wait. And wait. At 18:00 I phone the delivery company. No answer. The store where we bought the mattress senses some hostility from me and decides to take action. The delivery guy just called to say they’ll arrive in the next 30 - 60 minutes. 他妈的! I’m considering demanding my delivery fee back because this is a joke. Especially, if you include the two weeks of shipping ‘cause the mattress started in Ontario. We paid for our mattress on 13 July! At least they’re faster than the Camera Store. I order my $8 part on 10 July and it arrived yesterday with only three calls by me to encourage speedy service. I’m interested in a Pentax SLR and looked at one again while I was in the store today. They only had the display one in stock. Like a fool, I put down my name to have them call me when they get their next shipment. I think I’ll not bother waiting on them and look elsewhere tomorrow or next week.

I can’t get no satisfaction

Previously posted elsewhere on 2 Aug 2006

Is it just me or is it getting harder to get good service?

Case I: bought a new mattress and paid quite a bit to get it delivered. It didn’t arrive the first week after we bought it so I had to phone the store three times to find out they didn’t have the mattress we wanted in town so it was being shipped in from Ontario. The second time I had called, the saleswoman said she’d find out where our mattress was and call us back. The delivery company called on Friday while were were out of town. I thought I’d wait until we returned before calling them back but they called again Saturday at 8:30 in the morning. I missed that call but phoned them back 15 - 30 minutes later. At that time, their system was down for inventory and I’d have to call Tuesday to schedule delivery. Well, I called five times yesterday, left two messages and I still don’t have a delivery scheduled.

Case II: I broke the clip for the extendable leg on my tripod. I searched the manufacturer’s site for a Canadian dealer and found one in Ontario. I e-mailed them and they got right back to me with technical drawings and we figured out what I needed; an $8 clip but $15 for shipping if I ordered from them. They suggested I try to order it from a store here. I phoned The Camera Store on 10 July. I tell them the exact part I want and that it’s in stock from their supplier and that it’s $8. Their rep comes in that morning and they phone back saying that my part is on order and it will arrive at the end of the week. I phone back one week later on Wednesday. The salesman I talk to rudely tells me that, if I haven’t been called, my part isn’t in. One week later I phone again and the much nicer saleswoman says the same thing but she’ll keep an eye out for my order. Two days ago, three whole weeks after ordering, I phone again. The salesman is helpful and actually tries to figure out where my order is. Of course, it’s not there and I’m not sure what’s happening. They called me back once to say my part had been ordered but promised to phone back a second time after talking to someone from the company that makes my tripod. They never did phone back. If I get bored at work today I might try somewhere else and give The Camera Store a piece of my mind. I’m in the market for a digital SLR camera but, if The Camera Store cannot even order a small part for which I told them the price and availability from their supplier, I think I’ll take my business elsewhere.