Chasmo’s Place
Just a biomed, ma’am, just a biomed.Archive for Baby
Stuff
Well I am slacking again. On the way to work I was listening to TWiT and Leo was talking about filling 5 hours of video time a day from his new office, and everyone was ripping him, because he states he is going to put real content up, not just a Chris Pirillo sit in front of a webcam for hours, and thinking that I want make sure I put something up everyday. Who knows what it will be. Today is a hodge-podge of ideas. So, here we go…
Well my biggest hit on these pages was my rant about Comcast, and how their customer service just plain sucks. Since then I have 3 outstanding calls to these VPs that were calling me, none of which have been returned. Great job guys. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and obvious from my experience, Comcast has people whose whole job is to scan the interwebs for rants about Comcast. Well that alone speaks volumes about how much of a reality this is. If you need people to do this, you are merely plugging big holes in your ship with a paper bag, it simply doesn’t work. While I think it is wise for them to do this, because they certainly get a lot of bad PR on the web, calling the posters up and giving them a month free or something similar doesn’t fix the whole, it masks them. I am sure, from talking to people who have written me regarding these entries, those whom have similar sites posted to their free web page supplied by Comcast, have had their accounts either blocked or their site blocked, or accounts simply cancelled. None of these things do anything to fix the problem either. What it does do is upset the people that are posting these entries, such as myself, even more, hence they go elsewhere and post more similar entries. What Comcast needs to do is focus on fixing the issues, not painting over them. Returning phone calls, hiring enough people to man the phones, so no one waits on hold for more than 5 minutes to talk to a human. Having humans, instead of computers answer the phone. Here is an idea, giving people what they pay for, instead of figuring out how to charge them more for services that they already paid for. Now that word is out that they are capping what people can download, and how much, they are working on plans to put a 250GB cap on their unlimited plans. Doesn’t sound unlimited to me, does it to you? Now, you may be saying, “Chasmo, 250GB, is a lot.” Well right now it may be, but if you look at what is going on out there, people are starting to download movies to rent from iTunes, XBox store and amazon, not to mention the music and TV shows. It all adds up pretty quickly, and is going to quickly become more and more prevalent. They already throttle the download speeds they give you so that you get slower speeds than promised. Yes their ads say up to, the highway signs say speed limit 65, which means you can go up to 65 MPH, how many people really go slower? The fact is you expect that speed. And to throttle it without telling you is just bad business. The fact of the matter is, the executives may have grown up where consumers didn’t have a voice, consumers now have a voice, and once more people are listening, you know that, you hire people to watch that, now the next step is to actually fix the problems, not squelch them.
Ok, so enough Comcast bashing, no matter how well deserved. This AM, I woke and made Squish and I lunch, she a Lebanon bologna, salami, and swiss and a German Bologna for me. I have been on a Bologna kick lately, not sure why, but hey its cheap, and thats a requirement right now, and I like it so why not. Oh and a pear for me, Squish still didn’t eat an apple in her bag, so it stays. I am also into pears again. An old favorite.
Thursday we leave for Jekyll Island for Emily’s wedding. We are flying down on my NWA frequent flyer miles. If we couldn’t do that, we wouldn’t be going, it is simply too expensive. We were hoping to have a new picture of B/C, but alas the anatomy ultrasound can’t be done until next week. Shannon plead our case to Dr. Ufberg, but he simply told her, you can’t take a picture of what isn’t there yet. Oh well, but we get a new picture on the 28th!
Oh, and I am not wearing pants.
Another Day
Baby Doppler Heartbeat(not B/C, generic)
The other day, Tuesday, Squish and I went to Dr. Ufberg’s office for her second visit. I like him, quite positive and still able to give you the what-ifs. I have found usually the positive Docs choose to forgo the what ifs until they become a reality. I just like knowing what could happen, but dwelling on the good that has actually happened. So I find Dr. Ufberg great. After some probing with the Doppler, we got to hear B/C’s heart whoosh-whoosh. Squish cried, I smiled. Doc told us it was a rate of 160, which according to the old wives tale, means a girl, so B it is. Still smiling. We really don’t care what it is as long as its healthy. I still tell Squish its going to be a monkey, still want a monkey.
As most of you know I am usually a Mac user. And recently I have noticed that my MacBook Pro has been acting funky. So last night I decided that I would back it up, and do the reformat and reinstall of Leopard. That is usually an easy thing. Just boot up the Carbon Copy Cloner and do a full, fresh back up overnight, and then the following day while working have it reinstall and restore my mac. So far the back up worked well, as far as I can tell, I can boot from that HD so I am trusting it. It does what I call a file for file backup not the vault back up that so many back up programs do. So I can actually browse my files and see that they are there, which I prefer since I have done the other and found that it wasn’t a good back up only when I try to restore. And take it from me that sucks worse than Comcast customer service. What’s worse is when I rebooted, my Vista side booted and realized it needed to update 12 things, so I let it do it, and it seems to have worked, although I haven’t really done anything with it, other than play games, its what windows is worth. Thank God it didn’t give me the usual, you have changed you computer we need to reactivate…not valid please call India for help, note I usually get for no reason, but thats a whole other rant. Anyway, I booted up to my leopard DVD, here at the office, and and it got thru about 3/4’s of the install and crashed. I took the DVD out, cleaned it and tried again, no such luck. Luckily I have access to other copies here, so we are trying again with another DVD, wish me luck.
Day 2 of Haiti Surgery
So we are deep into our second day of surgery here in Hinche Haiti, and all is going well. We have decided to up the ante to 66 patients instead of the planned 40, by adding a local table. All is going well. I had my first fatherhood tingling in my stomach today. I was sitting in the PACU watching a mother and baby and it hit me how that will soon be my reality. Scary stuff. But I soo look forward to it. Love B/C already.
Feb. 28, 2008
Well its official, Squish closed on her first house sale this AM. After yesterday, she needed some happiness. Yesterday she had her first battle with morning sickness. Not fun. I only got to see a little of it, as I was at work all day, but she was in the bathroom all day. I am happy she is feeling better today, and as Rissy says (whom just finished battling the morning sickness), “It just means a healthy baby.”
I just spoke to Martine whom I am OpSmile Biomed training in Haiti next week. I have mixed emotions about going, as I know it will be my last trip for a while, with B/C on its way, and I really want to be around for Squish. That being said, I know OpSmile is for the greater good, and am happy to be going. It looks like the mission is going to be a step below Bolpur, which is really sad, because Bolpur is so poor, seeing people living like that simply hurts one’s soul. I am happy that I have the advantages and can offer what I can to help even just a few of them thru a few days. It’s true that we get back so much more than we give. It’s so sad that today not having a 60 inch TV is so important to us, and these people don’t have houses. Then I see celebrity volunteerism, which means that Oprah gives a million to someone somewhere, of course I am sure she is well reimbursed for such a hardship. She could go down to NO and give everyone that is homeless there a new home, and really not even feel the money missing, but instead talks about how others are not doing enough. Sickening. Enough about that, but it really gets my goat, so much in fact, I don’t even have a goat. And as Dingler once stated, “Can’t get enough goats.”
Hello Baileigh Rose/Charles Ryan!
Well as I mentioned, a few weeks ago we found out we were pregnant! As I am sure most first time parents to be feel, I feel overwhelmed, scared, happy, scared, happy, overwhelmed, proud, wierd, happy, scared, overwhelmed…well you get the idea. I really am happy for the most part, scared a little less, and overwhelmed all of the time. I don’t know where the money is going to come from, I don’t know how we are going to fit in our little home. I don’t know…I think that is the problem, I don’t know. I can ask my friends, whom are all in different areas of parenthood, babies, infants, school kids, college kids, well out of the house kids… but I really am the kind of guy who doesn’t really understand anything until I get my hands on it, wrap my soul around it and dance with it. I am ready blogs, websites, books, watching videos and I still really just can’t believe it is happening. Really the only thing I know is if its a boy his name will be Charlie Ryan (the men in my family are all CRS, I am Charles Richard, Dad is Christopher Robert, Didi was Charles Raymond…), and if its a girl she will be Baileigh Rose (I am not really sure where the name came from but Squish and I like it, its a nice Irish sound, and it reminds us of a Vietnamese bakery near us called Ba Lei, which we always say with a strange Asian accent when we pass). Anyway, I plan on putting stuff here about B/C for now, later about Baileigh or Charlie. I will keep you posted, and don’t ask we don’t want to know before 10/15, B/C’s ETA.
