One month

Julie reaches the ripe, old age of one month tomorrow. So far, so good. She's sleeping in longer stretches and she can stay awake for long periods of time as well. She can even be content lying on her own without crying; she doesn't need to be held and coddled every second that she's awake. She has become a bit more fussy lately but she will still settle down fairly quickly. Ying's been making sure that she's well fed so when she cries due to hunger, it doesn't last long. Ying's mom has been doing a fantastic job taking care of Ying and Julie which lets me make sure there's bread on the table and the house is in reasonable order; expect for the cleaning which Ying's mom is also doing.

On the work front, everything is going well. We've been a little slow of late but so has the whole industry and it is usual for a little summer lull. I did write my first useful Python production program though. Following a few examples by Marc, I wrote a time-variant AGC which Rob and Jon wanted. Since the gate length must be recalculated for almost every sample on every trace, it runs very slowly and there are few shortcuts which can be made. I was able to cut down the run time by 70% from my original version as I looked and found some good optimizations. Marc's our Python guru and he had lots of valuable insights as well. Last time I talked with him about it, he was just looking for a little more speed and cleaning up a few minor elements in the program; for example I wrote 1000000 instead of using 1.0e6. I really enjoyed writing that little program and I'm hoping I have the opportunity to do some more. If I had more time away from depth imaging and was using that time for programming, I think I've mentioned before that the job in the company I'd like to be able to do the most is Dale's. He is a TBI founder and owner but he seems to be lining himself up for an early retirement. If he does decide to check out, I'd love to be the Cocoa developer but I don't have the skills; it's a huge step down from Dale's Cocoa and application development abilities to mine. Those with most of the skills inside the company don't know Cocoa and don't really wish to learn. I don't think I'd hire me right now as a software developer but I'll keep reading my books at home for fun just incase.

In other work news, my former company has partially closed their doors. It appears that 4/7ths of the Calgary staff has been laid off. One more seems to have been given one month to finish off some work for the Houston company. That leaves the centre manager and secretary. It seems odd to leave the last two if the company is indeed pulling out of Calgary and not just cleaning house. I was glad to leave there and my experiences at TBI have only made me happier I landed where I did. I became increasingly embarrassed of the product I was sending out from there and my limited experience and limitations of management prevented any real improvement. The technical knowledge around TBI is astounding as is their desire to put in place a system which streamlines the delivery of a quality product. We've got a new accounts manager who'll constantly be shaking the trees for more work. I won't mind being busier; especially if the profit-sharing bonus starts to flow for all of us.

The world keeps on spinning

I know this picture also appears in my TFFTF photo challenge album but I kind of like it. The toys above Julie's head would be clearer with a shorter exposure but the challenge was for a 30 second exposure. I had thought about the typical long exposure of car headlights and taillights streaking through the night but this idea struck me as a good one too.

Julie's reached the age of 15 days. We're all settling in nicely around here and she's doing great. The first night home was a little rough 'cause Ying's milk hadn't come in and Julie was hungry until we gave her a little formula. There's now a plentiful supply of milk especially for Julie and she couldn't be happier. She's a very quiet baby unless she's hungry or her diaper's poopy. Even then, she's pretty calm. She was a major drama queen for the first few days when we were changing her diaper. She'd take her crying to the next level, shed a few tears and even get her bottom lip quivering but it'd quickly stop when the new diaper was on. The latest picture in her album on Picasa shows one such visit to the changing table.

Ying's mom has been great taking care of Ying and Ying's been great taking care of Julie. Ying thinks I need lots of sleep so I can do well at work so she gets up to tend to Julie during the night. Of course, there's nothing I can do about feeding Julie. Sometimes I'm woken up too and I'll do a diaper change or burping. Ying's able to get in lots of naps during the day 'cause her mom will look after Julie and do all the cooking. Once in a while I need a break from the Chinese food so I'll do a little cooking for myself. But, so far, Julie's been a great little baby and we're all doing well.

This is just a practice run...

I'd like to announce the birth of Julie. The girl we expected from our 18 week ultrasound was born today just moments before 3:00 in the afternoon. We had the name Julie picked out long ago and no other names. What started out as a practice run to the hospital at 9:00 in the evening on Thursday turned into the real deal when we asked to have a few minor labour indicators checked out. The official line is:

Julie Wei Reynard. 14:59 25 May 2007. 3.644 kg (8 lbs 0.5 oz). 49.5 cm (19.5 in). Cute as a button but that's a biased opinion.

Mother and baby are doing fine and expected home tomorrow. I'll update more after a little sleep since my last real sleep ended after just six hours at 6:45 on Thursday morning. See some photos!

Julie must have been reacting to events taking place in England with her soon-to-be cousin. My sister was induced on Wednesday but it took until the wee hours of Saturday for Joshua Arthur to make his appearance. We had briefly hoped that the two would share a birthday so Mom would have an easier time remembering dates. Josh is only three hours and 47 minutes younger than Julie but, due to the time change, he'll have to wait that extra day for his cake and presents. Congratulations to Tim and Leslie.

Imminent to six weeks

A big thanks to Rod for coming up for the weekend and driving my Beetle here. We're now ready to sell it. I should've let him borrow it for the entire week as he might have wanted to buy it. It's still available to anyone who wants it. I'll be cleaning it up and putting out some ads right away. While he was here, we did very little. This was mostly due to the bad weather over the long weekend. It even snowed on Monday! Ying's mom did show us how to make zongzi, a Chinese, sticky rice treat. The ingredients are simple; wrapping the bamboo leaf is tough. Still, I'm willing to keep practising until I get it.

On the birth front, there's a doin's transpiring! Monday morning brought some practice contractions and Ying also put on a little bloody show for the doctor to check this afternoon. According to legend, Ying's mom delivered 姐姐 just hours after a show and 姐姐 delivered 倩 a day or two after a show. Our regular baby doctor was away today so we saw one of the other doctors in the clinic. She's young and admitted that she doesn't deliver babies. Our regular doctor's team is at the hospital and it now seems that they all practice out of different clinics. The doctor who saw us said the show could mean the baby will come soon to two weeks. The book Sheila gave us says imminent to six weeks. Of course, there are only nine days before the due date so I don't think this pregnancy will last another six weeks. The nerves kicked into high gear Monday morning before the contractions proved to be obviously false. Feeling unprepared and having a long time to go is one thing; feeling unprepared and having to head to the hospital for the real deal is another.

In other news, my sister will be induced in the morning. Looks like my baby will be the younger cousin as I was the younger child.

Not my fault

If you're tuning in for a baby update, sorry, but this is one of my little observations. This one brings to mind the quote from Einstein, "the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits."

I'm finding the deteriorating quality of drivers rather humorous but that's probably since none of them have rammed my car or bike or person lately. Since it's no longer winter, near where I used to live there is construction which has closed a main road out of downtown. Busses are still allowed through; taking turns using one lane. Even though the detour, construction and do not enter sign start seven blocks before the road closure, lots of people believe these signs don't apply to them. As I ride the bus through that zone, I take a sadistic pleasure seeing the police inform them with a small piece of paper that those signs do indeed apply to them. I wonder what excuse these people have for obviously disobeying signs. At least with the carpool lane, those signs are high overhead and not easy to understand. I'm sure that's why I still see about 70% of the vehilces in that lane driven by single people, alone in their SUVs, unable to comprehend that little sign under which they might drive about 230 times a year. It's sad that most of the people who got a ticket for driving through the construction zone will end up in court, trying to explain why they thought it was okay to drive where mostly busses were driving, past all the signs telling them to change their way. Most of those people will have their fine reduced by a judge, lawyer or some clerk of the court; thus ensuring that our courts will remain clogged and police with remain in those courts defending their quota of tickets because people know they can save a wad of cash just by showing up with a fabricated story. CBC had an excellent example on The Fifth Estate about a man who's still driving very dangerously despite multiple traffic offences. I've also heard stories of drunk drivers getting off because they're alcoholics. It's not their fault they drove drunk; they're an alcoholic. You'd think the first step of admitting you're an alcoholic would be followed by the second step of having your driver's licence ripped up.

Cavalry

The cavalry has arrived. Ying's mom successfully navigated Vancouver's airport and Canadian Customs and arrived here on Monday. Since then, she's cleaned our home while not letting Ying lift a finger, witnessed an extra-chippy basketball game of mine, gone for dinner with her relatives and braved Calgary Transit with Ying. As you can see from what I found when I arrived home for the long weekend a little early, she's either kept busy or is still dealing with jet lag. You'll have to ask Ying what's her excuse. Rod's coming down this weekend and Ying's mom will be giving a lesson in making zongzi. She thinks there are a lot of tall people in Canada and Ying's already let her know that Rod is the shortest of my three best friends. Obviously, Ying and I are extremely happy that she's here. Ying hasn't seen her in a year and a half and the extra help with the baby is most welcome. Ying's mom and sister also bought a lot of baby clothes while in China. The set of drawers which were just given to us are already full.

Need more stuff

Ying and I have gone and done the baby registry thing. We have mixed feelings about it. We're not trying to send a message to everyone that we want some material goods because we're having a baby. If we only wanted material goods, we'd advertise our birthdays a bit better. On the other hand, it is tradition to buy something for your close friends to help their new baby get started. There's lots of stuff to buy for a new baby but we've been lucky to have people lending us lots of things they don't need until they're expecting again or another friend is expecting. We appreciate everyone who's given us something already and all those who've also made promises of baby items. So, IF you haven't already given us something and IF you were going to give a present and IF you don't know what to give, you can surf your way over to Toys 'R' Us and log into the baby registry. We are DarcYing and our registry number is 913431354.

Be sure to stay tuned here for more frequent baby updates as the days count down to 31 May, or so. I suggest a news reader to anyone who follows blogs or RSS feeds as most updates are random at best.