Just a few minutes ago, my Dad, my sister, Dale, and I were all geeking out on our laptops, thanks to the wireless network Dale installed for my Dad the night we arrived.

Olivia is just doomed to be a geek!

If you would like to receive a holiday card from me this year, send an email to pamela (at) strangepath (dot) net with your name and postal address. If you’d like to send a card to me as well, please say so and I’ll reply with my address.

Boo:

• I was the first person to go bankrupt playing Monopoly tonight.
• After going through all the time and effort of installing World of Warcraft on my laptop, it won’t play. My graphics card just isn’t good enough.
• I’ve had to call in three times already this trip to get my insulin doses raised.

Yay:

• Dad put up the Christmas tree today, so we get to start decorating it tomorrow.
• Back in October, I gave Dad a model train starter kit. He set it up under the tree and it runs.
• I managed to fit tiny bits of pumpkin pie into meals the past few days without going over my carb limit.

Operation: Conception update

Trying to control my gestational diabetes is like trying to catch a little monster.

Dale and I are in Virginia, at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. The place is filled with family, love, and a strange mix of traditional American Thanksgiving food and Korean food. We don’t usually have turkey, stuffing, and kimchee. Or a choice of pumpkin pie or mooncakes* for dessert.

(I even managed to fit a tiny slice of pumpkin pie into my meal plan!)

Whatever you’re having, I hope it’s great, and I hope your day is filled with love and goodness.

*OK, the mooncakes are actually a Chinese food, but you get the point.

31 Week Prenatal Appointment

Today’s appointment went fine. The baby’s heartbeat was good and we’re measuring on schedule. Dr. Litzinger gave my belly…

Gestational Diabetes Update 3

Since I began insulin, I’ve had to call in and have my dosages increased on almost a daily basis.

Earlier this week, Dale had to go to California on business. Fortunately, it was concluded quickly and he was able to return Friday evening, instead of Sunday. However, the best flight he could get had him departing Burbank at 8:40pm and arriving in Austin at 3:14am (with a layover in Vegas).

Last night, Dale called from Vegas to tell me to check the arrival time at the Austin airport because his flight was late arriving in Vegas. It arrived 2 minutes before its scheduled departure time, so there was definitely going to be a delay, but he didn’t know how long it would be.

At 2:45am, I checked the Austin-Bergstrom airport site and it said Dale’s flight was still On Time and would arrive at 3:18am. At 2:50am I left the house. I ended up being about 5 minutes late, thanks to construction that closed off part of 183 and a traffic light that ignored me for 10 minutes. It turns out that I needn’t have stressed because Dale’s plane hadn’t arrived yet.

I got to the appropriate baggage carousel and checked the Arrival monitors. Dale’s flight was still listed as On Time, but it was already about 3:30am and obviously no one from his flight had reached baggage claim yet.

At 3:45am, there was still no sign of Dale’s flight, though the monitor assured me that flight 6223 was On Time. Shortly after that, flight 6223 scrolled off the Arrivals monitor.

At 4:ooam, I went upstairs and found an airport lackey and asked her if there was any way to check on the status of a flight. She looked at the bank of monitors next to us, disregarding the fact that I’d already said the flight was no longer listed. She just shrugged and said that if it’s not on the monitors, they don’t know anything.

I kind of boggled at that and said, “Isn’t there someone you can ask? A manager or supervisor or something? This flight was due in at 3:18am and all reports were that it was On Time.” She reiterated that if it wasn’t on the monitors, they didn’t know anything, and there wasn’t anyone she could ask. She said I could go down to the ticket counter and ask them to check, but they probably wouldn’t be open until 4:30am or 5:00am.

Uh, thanks for fucking nothing, lady.

Knowing it was pointless, I walked down towards the ticket counter until I could visually confirm that it was closed. I just stood at the rail looking down at flight 6223’s baggage carousel and debated going and asking a security guard I could see on the other side of a security gate. While I was debating, my phone rang.

I answered and it was Dale. I almost started crying with relief. He said they’d just landed and he was on his way to the baggage claim now. By the time I greeted Dale with a hug, it was 4:15am, almost exactly one hour after his plane was due to arrive. So much for On Time.

I wasn’t the only person waiting on the arrival of this flight. I still can’t believe that the arrival information on the monitors was so incorrect, nor that airport personnel didn’t come by or announce the delay for those of us waiting, nor that the one person I did ask told me there was no way to check the status of a flight.

Maybe I’m paranoid, or maybe it’s just because I’m pregnant, but I was pretty scared. I’m very glad that there wasn’t anything wrong with the flight. I just could have done without the 1 hour of stress.

Target seems to be expanding into the adult entertainment area. Otherwise, someone screwed up bigtime by putting this DVD on the site. (Possibly Not Work Safe - no image but naughty text.) [via Amy]

In case the page gets yanked, I got a screenshot of it.

Update: Boing Boing has a little more information on the product in question.

This is an actual work email exchange that recently took place at a certain corporation. Names have been changed, but otherwise, the emails are intact. I swear. I’ve seen the originals.

From: [Doe, John]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 1:10 AM
To: [Xx, Xxx]
Cc: [Xxxxx]
Subject: Batch Out Of Balance Large Batch Report

[Xxx],

There’s a BOOB in the Large Batch Report for last night. Please look at this BOOB first thing in the morning.

BOOB’s this big usually need to run from batch1 as root, so you can’t handle most BOOB’s manually. The BOOB is usually just too big to fit through the BigIP.

Please massage this BOOB in the database so that the [software] batch binary can see the BOOB again, and then present the BOOB to [the company] for settlement from batch1 as root.

If you have any problems working with a BOOB of this size yourself, please ask [Admin1], [Admin2], [Admin3], or myself for assistance, as we are all quite experienced in handling large BOOBs. If none of us are available, you may need to escalate this to management, who are also adept at handling BOOBs of all sizes, although maybe not necessarily of this nature. Anyways, they will definitely be anxious to help you with your BOOB issue, if you need them to. All you have to do is ask.
We’re here for you.

Thanks,

[John]

From: [Higher Up]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 7:04 AM
To: [Doe, John]
Subject: RE: Batch Out Of Balance Large Batch Report

[John],

To prevent the BOOB’s from getting out of control, I recommend we initiate a Batch Reconciliation Audit (BRA). A BRA will help us immediately identify and control large BOOB’s. Based on the size of the BOOB’s we can then assign an appropriate Customer Update Procedure (CUP) to fully address the issue.

-[Higher Up]

(Yes, ‘Batch Out Of Balance’ is a real situation. It’s just not usually referred to as a ‘BOOB.’)

I just finished watching Ju-On (The Grudge). I think the last time I was this spooked was after staying up late and reading the screenplay for Ringu (The Ring).

I spent most of the movie with my hand clamped over my mouth, knowing something thoroughly creepy was about to happen. For once, knowing didn’t help, and I was thoroughly creeped out.

Ju-On is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. Now I’m no longer sure if I want to see the American remake, The Grudge. If it’s half as scary as the original, it’ll be way more intense than most of the ‘horror’ movies being made lately. Ju-On and Ringu were able to bring a lot more fright to a movie using a pale girl with long dark stringy hair hanging in her face than most American movies can manage with buckets of fake blood and top of the line prosthetics.

I’m really quite tired now, but I’m not quite ready yet to turn off the lights and go to bed. Figures the first time I’m so spooked, I’m home alone. Dale is out of town until late tomorrow night.

A couple of months ago, Dale insisted on buying a new and expensive digital camera. Apparently, our Nikon 990 wasn’t going to be good enough for taking pictures of our baby. He settled on the Canon D20 and a fancy lens. Since then, he’s picked up a few other accessories, like a neat backpack camera bag and a remote shutter release. He’s still using our old tripod and the zoom lens we got for my old Canon Rebel EOS, but he wants to upgrade or replace those as well. Even though I’m still reeling from the amount of money he’s spent, I have to admit I’ve enjoyed his enjoyment of the camera.

Since he got it, he’s thrown himself fully into learning all about it, taught himself Photoshop and other image editing software, and spent hours reading digital photography forums to find out just how to get a certain effect. He’s also used the camera on a daily basis and started a project. He’s decided to take a photo a day to display on his web site. Though it’s called “Year of Pictures,” he’s gotten a head start and began uploading photos in mid-October.

I am very impressed with how much he’s learned in such a short amount of time. I’ve also been quite surprised by the beauty of some of his photographs. Dale’s always denied having any creativity. He’s proving himself wrong.

In addition to being very picky about his photographs (he won’t just go take a quick picture and upload it just to have one for the day), Dale’s had a very specific idea in his head for how he wanted his online gallery to look. For that, he enlisted my help. Together, we’ve been hacking and altering Gallery’s code to get the design he wants. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m proud of what we’ve done so far. Especially, of what Dale’s done. So, please, go take a look, and feel free to leave Dale some comments.

Year of Pictures

My friend Genevieve has started a betting pool on when my baby will be born. This is mostly aimed at Livejournalers, since the prize is a 1 year paid subscription to Livejournal, but anyone can go ahead and pick a date. Maybe if the winner is a non-LJer, I’ll send out an Amazon gift certificate instead.

At any rate, if you want to get in on the game, here’s her Livejournal post with the information. (If you’re not a Livejournal member, be sure to leave your name with your comment!)

Dale converted and resized the photos taken with our camera, and I’ve uploaded them.

Take a look if you wish!

Genevieve, Aaron, and Gretchen are awesome people!

Genevieve organized a sweet, wonderful couples baby shower for me and Dale. She helped create some really cute invitations, made me matching ‘Thank You’ cards, turned her popular ‘baby bear cake‘ into a ‘baby monkey cake’ for me, bought snacks, put together some games, and decorated tables at Aaron’s house.

Aaron, a guy to his core, opened up his house to pink tablecloths and tableware, plus a sizeable group of family and friends, and cooked up 10lbs of kalbi that my Mom prepared and overnighted to us.

Gretchen flew down from Nebraska to come to this shower, despite never having met or spoken to me in person yet. Then she helped Genevieve set up for the shower, took pictures, and choreographed the gift opening like a pro. Then she helped clean up!

I also have much love and thanks to everyone for coming out (Dale’s family drove up from Houston, and Mel hobbled in on crutches) and for the wonderful gifts! Dale and I are blessed to have such people in our lives, just as Olivia will be.

(Tons of photos were taken and will be posted soon!)