Be still my beating heart

Yesterday marked the beginning of week 12 of Trish's pregnancy, and something really, really, really, really cool happened. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was great timing, too.

It is so very easy to lose sight of how amazing all of this is. I can get caught up in financial worries, preparation worries (everything from can I get the nursery ready to can we train the dog to go easy around the child to just how good of a father am I going to be), Trish worries (is her energy level going to increase, is her nausea ever going to get better, etc.), everyday job stress and film project needs. Add to that just being dog tired and a high 90's heat wave, and excitement goes quickly out the window.

And then we hear a rapid heartbeat (162 beats per minute; which we are told is just right), and excitement flies right back in the window. Here's hoping I can keep it around, at least for another 6 weeks when we get another ultrasound. Not just any ultrasound, either. The gender discovery ultrasound. Which is the only thing I can think of that would make me more excited the hearing my child's heartbeat.

A Piece of Pavement Pie

So I had a birthday recently. The original celebration plan was that Trish and I would meet after work at Elliott Bay Book Co., and I would get a birthday shopping spree (well, a minor spree, but still). For a number of reasons, we changed the plan at the last minute and decided to have a romantic dinner at home.

So immediately following work, I went down to the Pike Place Market and bought some wine, handmade cheese, fresh strawberries and peaches, smoked salmon, fresh bread and mini chocolate cheesecake. All the makings of a light summer dinner with my sweetie.

Feeling pretty good, I headed up for the light rail station at Westlake. I was walking north just before Pine Street on the west side of 4th Avenue, and I wanted to cross 4th Avenue to get to the Westlake Mall and the station entrance, but the walk light was starting to blink. So I cut the corner slightly and ran to get across. And in so doing I caught my foot on the rim of a tree planter and took a face first dive into 4th Avenue. In front of the rush hour traffic waiting for the light to change. Cheese, cheesecake and salmon spilled out of my bags onto the street. And the light changes. Horns honk. I am trying to catch my breath and figure out what just happened. I make it to my feet with half a dozen people asking right on top of each other, "Are you ok, buddy?" I grab my stuff from the street and hustle back to the sidewalk.

A quick check shows scrapes on my hands, no holes in the knees of my pants, but I can tell I did a number of my knees from the pain, and - thank God - the wine bottle was not broken. (Priorities, people, priorities). A woman walks up and asks me if I am all right. I tell her, quite honestly, that I am fine except for being deeply embarrassed. But it wasn't embarrassed enough.

It turns out I just had to keep going north on 4th and the station entrance was on my left. No reason whatsoever to cut the corner and cross the street and taste a little pavement birthday pie.

The Best of the Worst

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton who wrote the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night...." (Turns out he also gave us the phrases "the pen is mightier than the sword," and "the almighty dollar" but he is remembered for a lousy opening line. Talk about no respect.) The idea behind the contest is to intentionally create the worst opening lines possible. The 2009 winners have been announced and there are some doozies. Some of my favorite results...

The runner up:

The wind dry-shaved the cracked earth like a dull razor--the double edge kind from the plastic bag that you shouldn't use more than twice, but you do; but Trevor Earp had to face it as he started the second morning of his hopeless search for Drover, the Irish Wolfhound he had found as a pup near death from a fight with a prairie dog and nursed back to health, stolen by a traveling circus so that the monkey would have something to ride.

The winner for the detective category:

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.

And the winner in the purple prose category:

The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored slurpie all over the damn place.

New classics all.

Movement

Trish had an Ob appointment yesterday and there were all sorts of goodies. First it appears our home calculated due date has been revised and the official due date is Feb. 6th (we had figured the 8th).

Also, they conducted another ultrasound, and we are starting to see more of a baby. It has more than doubled in size, but is still only 2 centimeters long. Little Tigger has a head (upper right pointing towards the top right corner), a torso and hands and feet, though arms and legs have yet to develop. The best we can figure from the fuzzy picture (and I have scanned these as high resolution as I can; sorry they are not better quality) is that the baby is facing you as you look at the picture. Trish said that the baby was moving around a lot, and even waving one hand.

Apparently, here in week 8 of development:

Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his
brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways.

This just fascinates me, beyond the fact that it is my child. It amazes me to think that we all started like this, no bigger than a kidney bean and yet developing neural pathways that will form the basis for our thoughts, memories and everything else for the rest of our lives.

Anyway, we won't have another ultrasound for another 10 to 12 weeks, which will be the gender revealing ultrasound. (Yes, we do want to know.) In the meantime, the doc says everything about Trish and Tigger seems right on target. Trish is getting pretty tired of the nausea and the hunger and the fatigue, but is hopeful they will be ending in the near future. Fingers crossed.

And speaking of geeks

If you haven't seen this yet, at the Radio and Television Correspondents dinner this weekend, John Hodgman gave a keynote address gauging whether President Obama is a jock or a nerd.



A couple of quick points: A) I love the fact that Obama was a comic book fan as a kid, but Conan? Really? B) I think Hodgman is making an excellent point in differentiating the jock/nerd issue as certainty/uncertainty and how that mirrors the conservative/liberal divide. I love it when comedians can slip in sharp, intelligent social commentary and still make it funny. C) I know, I know, he separates nerds and geeks so my title is not very accurate but it plays off my previous post, so deal with it, you nerd.

And is it just me, or does Hodgman remind you of Bob Newhart if he did political satire?

Astronomy geek out moment

Amazing footage from an orbiter that the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) deliberately crashed into the moon.



Apparently it was moving at an estimated 3,728 miles per hour when it struck the moon. An explanation from the press release:

The series of continued [still] shots was taken with an interval of about one minute by the HDTV (Teltephoto) while the KAGUYA was maneuvered to decrease its altitude toward the impact position (around GILL crater.) We can see the approaching Moon surface as the KAGUYA went closer to it. After the final image, the KAGUYA moved into the shaded area to make its final landing, thus it was pitch dark while taking an image. This is the very final image shooting of the Moon by the KAGUYA HDTV.

You can enjoy images taken by the KAGUYA HDTV through JAXA Digital Archives, the KAGUYA Image Gallery, and the JAXA channel on YouTube.

The YouTube channel is in Japanese, but the other two links have English titles for easier navigation. OK, that's it. You can go back to whatever non-geeky thing you were doing.

Notes from a First Father's Day

A few points to mention from my first Father's Day:

• Trish was kind enough to take the dog on its 5:30 a.m. walk so I could get a little extra sleep, but she might have pushed it too hard as she ended up with her worst day of morning sickness yet;
• We had to ensure the dog is over her bout of diarrhea and convince her that the bland rice and chicken we were feeding was good and good for her;
• We enjoyed brunch with my whole family celebrating the day and my brother Tom's birthday and loving the time with my one year old nephew without the "will that ever be us someday" filter;
• The first two Father's Day cards I ever received were both Homer Simpson cards and I am wondering if that is some kind of sign - or hint;
• Went to the Mariner's game with my Dad and realized - again - how much I like spending time with him and hoping like hell enough of his dad skills have rubbed off on me or else the next 30 - 50 years are going to be very rocky;
• Then out to dinner with Dad, Mom and a revitalized Trish, just enjoying the family time;
• And finally, I was left wondering why isn't Father's Day a three day weekend.

Sporcle

Some friends introduced me to Sporcle, an extremely addicting quiz website. (I'd say trivia site, but a number of the quizzes shouldn't be considered trivia.) It quickly became a visit every day site. I never mentioned it before because a) the writer's block and b) it was pretty embarrassing that I barely cracked 50% on Countries of the World, yet could get 100% of Name the Network; or that my score on the U.S. Presidents would belie the fact that I ever took advanced placement U.S. History, but I only missed 2 out of 63 on The Simpsons.

Apparently, I am pretty late to the party as the site is very popular. It got a great write up in the Boston Globe, and lo and behold I learn that I know the two founders, Matt and Derek. I used to work with them at Adobe. (I used to play soccer with Matt and throw food at Derek.)

Knowing that, I have to visit the site every day, not just because it is good (and good for you), but because I must support anyone who is crazy enough to quit good, stable day jobs and pursue a wild idea. And you should, too.

The most amazing sight ever

People at work are laughing at me because I am so excited over a fuzzy picture of an oblong that is .74 centimeters long. I keep telling them that the still picture doesn't do it justice. You have to see the live version so you can see the heart beating a mile a minute.

Or maybe it is only because the little .74 centimeter fuzzy oblong is my unborn child. And seeing the heartbeat of my unborn child is truly amazing no matter what the little oblong looks like.

Trish is due Feb. 8th. She is tired, nauseous, excited and giddy. And beautiful. The nurse today said everything looks perfect - the heart rate, the size, the yolk sack. (That's the circle at the very center; it supports the fetus until the placenta is fully formed. The oblong to the left is the fetus.)

At a later date, I will probably give more details on what happened, how we found out, lessons learned from the struggles, and all the rest. But for right now I am just going to revel in the fuzzy little oblong.

I'm going to be a father. How cool is that?

Dog Blog

You are probably saying to yourself, "The worst part about Dan's writing block absence was that there have been no updates on Gracie." And I can see why you would say that, because she is an amazing dog.

Good news on all fronts with Gracie. She is calm enough now that we can leave her alone in the house for a few hours without her howling up a storm. She is marginally less hyper when she sees squirrels and cats. (This morning we saw three squirrels and she only barked once with no howling fits, for which I am sure the neighbors are extremely grateful.)


She did have one incident with our nieces Ali and Livia. After a few hours the girls proved to be too much for Gracie and she let Livia know it by placing her mouth over Livia's head; no biting just a warning. Livy got scared, but was otherwise fine. And we ended up being grateful that whatever ends up happening with us and children, we will not be adopting two energetic little ones at once.

Uncle Andrew

Quick note to mention the addition to the blog roll. Uncle Andrew is the site for my college friends Andrew and Margaret. There is a huge array of goodies on their site, so check it out. I highly recommend the Irony Supplement.

A couple of quick things

Now that the torture post is out of the way, I think I need to make up for lost time and get with the posting. So a few items that warrant your attention.

First, get well soon, Todd (and thank you for not infecting Trish or me), if for no other reason than the sanity of your wonderful fiancee.

Second, I really don't have a second but these things seem to work best in threes and I wanted to build up to the next one.

Third, final and most important, congratulations niece Madeline and nephew David. Madeline graduated this last weekend from Central Catholic High School in Portland. The whole family visited for the weekend to see her matriculate as well as to see if Rose Princess Madeline would be crowned Rose Queen. (Alas, no, but it went to one of her best friends of the group, so that's a plus.) She may not have won the crown, but she did snag a couple of scholarships and is heading to Seattle University this fall.

David graduates from All Saint's School today and is heading to Central Catholic himself this fall. (And David, good timing. Nothing is worse than being a Freshman in high school while a sibling is a Senior. Trust me on this one. And Tom, no "Gee, I don't remember that at all" comments on this one.) Turns out it is not just the family that thinks David is smart. One of his classes next fall will be Honors Geometry/Trigonometry. (I took regular old Trig as a Junior and never touched math again.) That is something you would expect an exceedingly geeky kid to take, but David didn't get any of his Uncle Dan's genes in that regard and is pretty damn cool. So I envision a scenario where David teaches all the geeky kids how to be cool by being comfortable with themselves and they teach David.... well, not math, because her clearly knows that, so I don't know what they teach David and since I cannot finish this little scenario I will distract you with a Real Genius clip as a cautionary note to David about studying too hard.

US and torture

The long silence on this blog is due almost entirely to feeling the need to write about the recent revelations on the U.S. torture program and not knowing how to do it.

As a recap, the Obama administration released four Justice Department memos authorizing the use of various torture techniques on U.S. held captives in Guantanamo Bay. The existence of the memos has been known for some time (the release was in response to a lawsuit), but the Bush administration refused to release them.

The memos are extremely difficult to read, mostly because of how clinical and detached the tone is in describing the techniques. I have given up trying to write about them, but Frank Rich of the New York Times has a good summation.

Since the release a few things have become clear. One is that there were people who opposed these actions, including an FBI interrogator who was able to get actionable intelligence from Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the first hour of a traditional interrogation. It has also become clear with the leak of a number of Justice Department e-mails that the "ticking time bomb" justification for these acts of torture is false.

Marcy Wheeler has a comprehensive torture timeline and Rachel Maddow has good summation as well.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

In a nutshell, the White House instituted a program of torture to try and find justifications for the war in Iraq and then tried to create the legal cover after the fact. There has been no credible evidence of any other reason for violating US and international law.

And now we are left with the question of what to do next. President Obama is taking no leadership on next steps and seems to be hoping it will go away. I get why. The Clinton impeachment hearings practically shut down all business in Washington. Those hearings would pale in comparison to torture hearings, and right now there are a enormous number of problems that need solutions quickly. But this gets to the core of the American system and it is not something where we can simply say it will never happen again. Without consequences for these actions, it will happen again, it is just a matter of when. Again, here is Frank Rich on transparency.

Plus, in addition to the torture, there are still prisoners missing. They are in U.S. custody somewhere, but we do not know where. It is deeply unlikely that they have had formal charges brought against them, access to lawyers or any type of court. This is what dictatorships do. In fact, this is what North Korea is doing right now. The only difference between North Korea detaining these journalists and the U.S. detaining the missing prisoners is that North Korea actually put on a sham trial and has announced an end date to their prison sentence.

And when the U.S. and North Korea can be seriously compared in the same breath, it is well past time to change our policies.

Once again,

what Trish said.

The thing about this (the elevated status of our conception struggles) is that it did not start out this way. Three years ago, when we first started trying, it did not change much of anything. I went and found a new job; Trish finished physical therapy for her wrist; we kept on pushing to create new film projects; we hung out with friends, went out to dinner and movies and generally just enjoyed our lives.

It was only as our efforts kept failing, that it started to grow in importance. And even then, it was in good ways at first. We ate more healthy foods, started buying organic products, etc. But more and more in crept into our lives in ways we did not expect and started taking up huge amounts of time, energy and money. Our social life dwindled rapidly, mostly because we were both so damn tried all of the time; creativity (at least for me) has fled; and grief would sneak up and grab us when we least expected it.

So vacation was great not just to get away from work and the weather, but to get out from under all of this, as well. But it was not long enough, so we are going to take a break this month as well. After that, maybe we will want to get back into it, maybe we will want to take a longer break, who knows. The whole point of the break is that we do not have to figure anything out during it. And we can re-discover the lives we had unwittingly set aside.

Twittering

I doubt I will ever start using Twitter. It is hard enough to keep up with Facebook, this blog, e-mail, let alone an old fashioned phone call or face to face get together. Adding one more way to "stay connected" seems like too much.

Then, too, there is the fact that some people who are using Twitter are using it in much funnier ways than I ever could. Case in point, Christopher Walken. Yes, that Christopher Walken. And when you read these, use your best Walken imitation.

UPDATE: And it turns out, it was not really him at all after all....

So — for the following months I quietly posted my “cwalken” posts for my amusement and as a subtle prank — not a prank on the world but a brotherly prank on my buddies at Clusterflock.

Something happened a couple of weeks ago and everybody showed up. Now it’s a little weird and would appear to be a “hoax” on a much larger scale. And maybe it is now but it wasn’t supposed to be.

Some days don't you just hate the Internets? (Though I do have to give props for one hell of an imitation.)

Final Vacation Blogging

The weather our last few days was picture perfect, so most of our time was spent on our little secluded beach, with a few breaks up at the cottage where it was cooler.

The cottage worked out pretty well, although it was clearly designed for hot weather and our first few nights were pretty cold. Once it started warming up at night we were paid regular visits by a little friend.


Loved that he ate the bugs; hated that he chirped half the night. We spent all day Saturday traveling, making it home late that night. And it was an early morning Sunday, so we could bring Gracie home.


Slowly settling back into the old routines and the tans are already fading, but it was an incredible two weeks.

Vacation Blogging, Part 4

The weather Sunday, Monday and today has been amazing. It has been very hard to tear away from our secluded beach even to come into town for groceries or a wi-fi hit. Not many pictures taken since mostly we are on the beach or on the lanai. Here is sunrise from our lanai. 

Tuesday was not a great beach sitting day so we hiked the Kuilau Ridge Trail.


Nice easy going hike. Apparently when it is clear, the mountain is spectacular. We had to settle for views of the lush valley. 

Along with a stop at Wailua Falls. 

Not sure if we will take the time for another wi-fi hit before we leave Saturday morning. In the meantime, you can check out more photos of Part 3 and Part 4 on Facebook. 

Vacation Blogging, Part 3

The weather here has been... well not the ideal you picture when you picture a Hawaiian vacation. Not bad, but not sunny and hot. We took advantage of the overcast to explore a couple towns and shops, including heading back to Hanalei and its New England style church. 

We also went out for a night out with Jessie on his last night in town. Sadly, Trish and I both crashed well before Jessie, who ended up out on his own. 

Saturday, we checked out of the condo and found some sun on the north end of the island at Tunnels Beach. It was glorious - everything you would picture when imagining a Hawaiian vacation. 

Said goodbye to Jessie at the airport


and headed to our beach cottage on Anahola Bay for our last week. More rustic than we had anticipated, but it works very well when the weather stays good. Like it did from sunrise into this afternoon.

The rest of this week is getting played by ear. We are going to try for another hike and some more snorkeling, but if the sun is shining, it will be very hard to leave our secluded hideaway.  

Vacation Blogging, Part 2

A few more pictures from the past few days. The weather on the east side of the island, where we are staying has been kind of crummy, so we went in search of a good spot to snorkel or swim. We ended up at Lucy Wright Beach Park on the west side. No chance for snorkeling there, but plenty of fun in the surf.


We did get some snorkeling in at Larsen's Beach on the east side of the island. And took a little time to relax afterwards, too.


Then we explored the north end, specifically the town of Hanelei, where we found a scenic spot and good sushi.


And the lovely Ha'ena Beach Park.


Today we went back to Hanalei to kayak the Hanelei River.
 



Sadly, Jessie tipped his kayak and he, his phone and his camera went into the river. We are hopeful the memory card from the camera can be salvaged. If you want to see more photos, I have posted almost all of them on Facebook. If you are not signed up to Facebook, you can still see the photos here and here.

Vacation Blogging Part 1

The view from our room balcony our first night in. 

One of the falls in Waimea Canyon

On the trail with Jessie 

At the Waipo'o Falls in the Waimea Canyon

And away we go

So the final reason it has been so quiet around here recently, more than the video projects, more than the dog, is that the hard won equilibrium I had found around infertility issues has been lost, and how.

I am not going to go into detail now. The nutshell version is that in January it really started to look like we had conceived the old fashioned way and that was pretty damn incredible. When it turned out not to be the case, I kind of, well.... I hit a bit of wall. And I am not sure what to do about it.

So we are going on vacation tomorrow. We are taking a month off from trying to conceive. No IUI, no timed sex, no conversations about what do we do if. Just vacation in the sun. Well, actually at the moment, it is raining pretty steadily in Kauai, but I think we will manage quite well. Worries and problems are being left in Seattle and will be re-looked at sometime after we get home.

Our first week, our room should have wi-fi access, so we will post a few pictures during the course. Not sure about the 2nd week.

Oh, and speaking of pictures, Todd has a few stills from the Duo shoot posted. I have seen the rough cut of the short and it looks great. I'm excited to get the other chapters shot.

Issue #0

Last year, we finished the pitch package for the feature film Duo: A Geek Tragedy and, sadly, have not been able to find financing. Not a huge surprise considering the current economic conditions. But we really wanted to work on it, 'cause it is a good story and will be fun to shoot. So we got creative.

Todd wrote a series of 4 shorts that act as back story for the main characters. Or in comic book parlance, he wrote Issue #0 with 4 chapters. Which is why we are calling it Duo: Issue #0 (we're clever that way).

We shot our first chapter on Saturday (which is actually Chapter 2, but is the first one we shot), and it went extremely well. Especially when you consider our crew had never worked together before (some of Todd's people, some of my people, an intern and an artist), we had not been in the space before (generally something to avoid, but it was unavoidable in this case), and we had to tear down a real artist's studio in a space too small in which to shoot and build it again in the shooting space and then reverse the process when the shooting was done. Heck, even Todd and I, for all our work together over the past year, had never worked on a set together. But a little independent-no-budget-film creativity (who needs a ladder with such great producer supervision?), and ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, we are out by 5pm.

Todd will start editing Chapter 2 while Trish and I are on vacation. We will post it when it is done. We are going to try and shoot the next chapter on the list (which I think is Chapter 1, but I don't remember; we're not super linear) on or around the Emerald City Comic Convention in early April. Tight schedule since I will be out of commission for two weeks soaking up sun, but Todd should be able to manage.

Mainly, we are filming Issue #0 because we want to work, but we are also hoping we can turn it into marketing tools as well. In the meantime, we have submitted the the feature to the Netflix Find Your Voice Competition. Beating the 1,999 other films that submitted and winning this would give us a good chuck of our budget and distribution through Netflix, so keep your fingers crossed. Semi-finalists will not be announced until May 1st.

Oh and if you were wondering about the public service announcement competition, they have not yet announced the finalists and they have pushed the final decision date back into April.

Who knew?

Why is it that pre-Obama the only time we saw Democratic presidential candidates act in a warm, confident, human manner was well after they lost the race? Case in point, John Kerry is pretty damn funny.

Q: How often do you Google yourself?
A: When I was growing up, the priests
taught us to think that was a sin.
Q: What do you know now that you wish
someone had told you 10 years ago?
A: How to give shorter speeches.

(via Daily Kos)

Early morning treats

So part 2 of the answer to Dan, where have you been all this time, is out walking the dog. Seriously.

Pre-Gracie, a morning for me would start sometime around 6:30 depending on how well I was sleeping. Make a little breakfast and sit down at the computer; peruse the news sites, my friends' sites, and start to pound out an entry of my own before getting the day started and catching a 7:50 bus.

Post Gracie, sleeping in to 6:30 is a distant memory. If I am lucky, she is simply awake stalking the halls and can wait to go out (don't want to make that mistake again) and I can stay in bed until 6. But even with the earlier waking time, by the time we have gone for a walk, conducted some training and gotten her fed, my time for myself is pretty much gone. So fewer blog posts, but really, even if I wanted to cut time with Gracie short, who could resist those eyes...

And there are benefits. Not only am I losing weight - and will hopefully lose a little more before we head to Hawaii (Have I not mentioned Hawaii? Silly me. We are going to Kauai for two weeks starting March 7th and are staying here and then here.) - but now that the sun is rising earlier, there are some great, if power line obstructed views from the trail.







Sadly my photography is not up to snuff, but you get the idea.

Public Service Announcement

If you have been asking, "Dan, where have you been all month?" I can partly answer you. A video I have been working on is finished and can be found here. I would embed it into the post but that would be the low quality version and you really should see the hi def option (the link for the HD option is just below the video on the right.)

We created this as part of a contest put on by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for its new End Colon Cancer Now campaign. The winner will be used as part of the campaign, so we are keeping our fingers crossed.

According to the rules, it will take several days to clear the pre-screening, then the video will be posted here along with the other contestants. 15 finalists are chosen and the winner is announced by March 15th. Though it is a judged competition, comments can be posted about the finalists, so I will be asking all my readers (oh so many of you) to drop a positive comment or three.

I am very pleased with the final product, and I really want to thank everyone who worked on this. Each of you really came through and I am grateful.

44th

UPDATE: Turns out due to the cold the quartet was not playing live. I wish I did not know that.

I assume you have all seen the speech by now. Instead here are two of my favorite moments from yesterday.