Preseason Hype!!!

I am a late convert to college football. I attended games as a kid with my uncle and cousin, but truth to tell I wasn’t terribly interested back then. It could have been that, never having played football, I didn’t completely grasp the game beyond the obvious “run the ball in that direction” object of the sport. It could have had something to do with the fact that, throughout my formative years, the South Carolina Gamecocks - very definitely “my team” despite my ambivalence about football - were downright mediocre. Sometimes terrible.

If the fact that my ten year old self was a little “meh” about a team I only saw win at home about three times total makes me a fairweather fan in your eyes, then fine, I’ll own it. My wife thinks I still am, when really I just have a self-preservation instinct. If I don’t turn off the television after Stephen Garcia’s second pick in as many possessions, my blood pressure will literally explode my head. But I digress.

The fact is, it was really grad school before I finally started following college football with anything approaching genuine interest. The Gamecocks were less mediocre by then, certainly, or at least more consistently not-terrible. But I also think the sport as a whole had become more interesting, or at least better marketed, than it was when I was a kid. The BCS, for all it’s loathe-worthy crapitude, has at least made the entire football season an incredibly lively affair. Every week matters in the national title race, which makes for compelling entertainment, even for someone like me who grew up with nothing but a great big shrug for most professional and collegiate sports.

I enjoy watching college football, and I’ve enjoyed watching the (relative) success of the Gamecocks over the past several seasons. I particularly like watching some of the Gamecocks’ recent all-stars in action: Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery most notably. These guys are phenomenal athletes, and the individual accolades they have received are certainly deserved in my humble opinion. Moreover, unlike so many college athletes, they and several other recent recruits appear to be decent human beings. Laying aside Stephen Garcia’s off-field shenanigans (and why shouldn’t we? After this off-season, how hard can we really be on a legal adult for drinking?) the current crop of Gamecocks appear to be a high calibre bunch... in the greater scheme of NCAA athletics at any rate.  

All of that said, the recent article by The NY Post picking USC to win the national title is a bit of a stretch for a team with single digit post-season wins. I’m not saying it can’t happen, and I certainly would love to see it happen, but lets take this thing one goal at a time?

The pick has gotten a lot of coverage, both nationally and locally. That’s exactly what The Post wanted. If The Post (not noted for its extensive sports coverage as far as I can tell) picked Oklahoma or Alabama, who honestly would have noticed? How many extra issues would they have sold of that issue?

South Carolina makes some sense as a black horse pick. They are favored to win the SEC East this year, and the winner of the SEC (not the East per se, but hey...) has won the national title pretty consistently in the past several years. There’s just that little matter of actually winning the East. Then winning the SEC. Then winning the title. I will say that I don’t remember a time in my life where such a string of event was more likely. Which is not the same as saying it is likely.

But, then again, anyone who picked Auburn to win the title this time last year would have been laughed out of town by most supposed experts. And at this point in the season, everyone has the same record, and the same shot at the crystal football. That’s one of the joys of college football. You never know. I'm looking forward to seeing how much of the hype we can live up to.

Death Star v. Borg Cube Redux. Subtitle: Lawyers are big damn nerds

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless (for his own protection) shared my original Death Star v. Borg Cube blog post with an American Bar Association listserv for lawyers in solo practice and those interested in solo practice issues (appropriately names Solesez). I found the responses to be very entertaining, and it more or less confirmed everything I've ever thought about lawyers being big damn nerds.  I’ll let their points speak for themselves or this post will go on forever, but suffice it to say I agree with conclusion that the Firefly-class ship Serenity (with, at a minimum, Mal and River Tam on board) would soundly defeat both the Borg Cube and the Death Star, probably by turning them on each other. Browncoats are just too pretty to die.

I have edited the thread to protect the geeky and to save space. Specifically I deleted some of the more generic posts, and those that don’t bear on the argument at hand. Please enjoy.

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Deathstar v. Borg Cube
------------------------
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 1:30 PM
To: solosez <SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org>

http://dontforgetthechaos.blogspot.com/2011/07/celebrity-deathmatch-death-start-versus.html

A buddy of mine posted this on his blog and I wanted to see what this collective said about the Deathstar v. Borg Cube debate.

From:[edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 1:44 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Oh, Borg Cube. Setting aside his bias, I agree with his analysis.
[OMG - did I just post on ST / StW in a public place?]

-----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 2:09 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Hands down. It is well established that Kirk's ship had planet busting
abilities.  Picard's ship was more powerful than Kirk's. The Borg cube
was vastly more powerful than Picard's ship.  Simple A > B, B > C, thus
A > C, the Borg cube is more powerful than Kirk's ship.

The Lucas contraption required a veritable planetoid to reach planet
busting power. It wouldn't stand a chance against the Roddenberry.

Unless their agents cut a deal.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 2:16 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Resistance is Futile!   Borg Cube in the first round!

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 2:18 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


You know you're a geek if you read through the whole thing (and get past the
cute how I met my wife part of it).

Before reading I said "Borg - no contest."

Nanu Nanu.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 3:02 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


Oh, please, this is simply SO silly.  First, I never did care for any of the
star treks after Kirk: just never saw the point behind Captian Jean Luc
Picard.

And, obviously, EITHER ONE (deathstar OR the borg thingie) wouldn't stand a
chance against a General Systems Vehicle (and that's not a Larry Niven
General Products ship, that's a Culture ship as the real geeknoscenti
recognize).  Bah.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 3:38 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


Really, it's a silly question. If a rag-tag bunch of rebels with
crappy ships can take the death star how could it possibly stand up to
the Borg?

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 3:51 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


An X-Wing is NOT a crappy ship! You take that back!

Besides, Data defeated the Borg ship by basically emailing them to go to
sleep via Locutus-Picard.  The Borg unquestioningly started their
"regenerative cycle" triggering a power cascade blowing up the entire ship.
 The collective was the weakness. If you're going to penalize the Death Star
for having an achille's heal, at least apply the standard consistently.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:01 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


I can't imagine the Borg wouldn't have learned the weaknesses of the Death
Star. I mean, seriously, we are talking about the Borg.  Between the
in-fighting on the Death Star and the inevitable vent holes which lead to
it's downfall, I'm sure the Borg are plenty ahead of the game.

This is fun.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:19 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Deathstar all the way. But rules of engagement are necessary here. Is it a
standoff? Sneak attack?

Even in the blog post, it says death star with no Jedi's, sith or otherwise.

Well how about a borg ship with no Borg on it then.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:22 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Many Bothans had to die in order for the Rebels to learn the Death Star's
weakness.  They were willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of
the Rebel Alliance but would not have done so for the Borg.  No Bothan
sacrifice, no knowledge of weakness.

The Borg win because they're the Borg is kind of circular logic.  What makes
them so all powerful?

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:33 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

I think ground rules would have to be stated.  The Borg might not attack the
Death Star directly--all they'd have to do is get a few Borg inside and
start assimilating the crew.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:41 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


Objection, assumes facts not in evidence, e.g. that Borg teleportation
technology is not disrupted by shields generated by a small base on the
forest moon of Endor.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 5:48 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

The Borg would have the death star for lunch and the Borg Queen would dance on the emperor's head. Resistance is futile!

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 6:13 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


Ahh but what about mind control and suggestions on the borg?   Are they, due
to being a collective with no individual thought,  as weak minded as
stormtroppers and thus easily persuaded to bow to the situation bidding?

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 6:22 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Yeah I thought about that as well and my thought is it wouldn't work on the Borg because of the collective. Don't think any Jedi mind tricks would work on several billion collective minds.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 6:40 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


Fascinating.
Initally, I would have gone with the Death Star because, as is pointed out
in the blog post, "It's the Death Star." I find it hard to see how a Borg
Cube could withstand firepower on that magnetude. I would also point out
that even the Borg haven't destroyed entire planets, and Species 8472 (or
whatever it is) was able to destroy hundreds of cubes with what appeared to
be less firepower than can be mustered by the Death Star.
However, the poster's comment about the lack of maneouverabilty is
persuasive. If the Death Star can't target the Cube, it's firepower is
irrelevant.
Then again, we all know that the Borg tend to ignore anything they don't
interpret as a threat.
So, round 1, in almost all scenarios (Death Star vs. Borg Cube, surprise or
no surprise) I'm going to say Death Star, easily.
Subsequent rounds will undoubtedly go to the Borg, as would a long
protracted confrontation. The Empire could not possibly win a war of
attrition against the Borg.
Regardless, all talk of Jedi's, Siths, Emperors, and mind tricks, etc is
foolish. We all know that stuff isn't real.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 6:45 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

The borg can shoot better than stormtroopers.    The borg actually hit their
targets.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 7:02 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

When the Rebel Alliance comes out of hyperspace against the second Death
Star, they "witness the firepower of [the] *fully* armed and *operational
battle station" **as it picks apart Mon Calamari cruisers with its planet
destroying laser.  Enough with the Death Star couldn't hit the Cube
argument.*

I can't believe I'm still engaged in this thread instead of finishing my
response to a MSJ due tomorrow. Damn you geek gene!

----
From: [edited[

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:01 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Oh, for Pete's sake, people!  Move on!

Serenity over Deathstar.
Serenity over Borg Cube.

Hutzpah beats overwhealming odds
like scissors beat paper.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:09 PM
To: [edited], SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

You have a point.  Serenity has River...and we really don't know what she is capable of.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:27 PM
To: [edited]

Cc: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

River hmmph.   Serenity has Captain Tightpants who always comes up with a plan that works -- eventually.    Zoe who kicks ass - literally.   Jayne and his arsenal.   Kaylee who can sweetalk that ship into doing anything.   And Wash who can fly that ship places it shouldn't be flown once Kaylee sweettalks her.   (In my world, the BDM never happened).

----
From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:44 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Yeah, I think Serenity has it, I mean look at what they did just to get
around the reavers!
And I'm pretty sure the Tams could take out they Death Star AND the Borg
before they even knew there was a fight :)

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 8:55 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org


two words ... Kobayashi Maru ... pfffft!!!

Live Long & Prosper!!

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 9:35 PM
To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Batman always wins.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 10:18 PM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

My money would be on a fully operational Deathstar, provided rebel forces are not a factor.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:03 PM

To: [edited]

Cc: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Oh yea, River Tam rocks.  But then so does the whole crew.  Of course, better script and acting helps a lot too.

The Serenity crew and Mr. Universe (aka Charlie Epps) [and maybe a few "dolls"] could make short work of the a Borg Cube or a Death Star.  Probably turn them on each other and make us all laugh in the process.

----

From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 7:51 AM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Of course the Borg teleport onto Endor before heading towards the Death
Star. Yes, they first assimilate the small oddly Wookie like looking chub
chub peeps which name escapes those of us who really didn't retain to that
level of detail... chub chub. ♪

----
From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 10:22 AM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

That would be, methinks, the adorable teddy-bear-like Ewoks.

What an interesting mental image ... Borg Ewoks....

----

From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 10:40 AM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

At the risk of belabouring the obvious, and on the heels of a "Kobayashi
Maru" reference upthread, it really comes down to who's show it is. I
mean, hell, Dazzler beat Doom in her first ish. Point being, what makes
this sort of thing fun is seeing the underdog win, be it the Rebel
Alliance, Kirk, Captain Tightpants, whomever.

It makes sense that lawyers of all professions are drawn to this sort of
fantasy. First, our business all too often manifests pretty much the
opposite scenario: Little guys crushed by big guys, evil getting off on
a technicality, innocent men hanging that jurors might dine. Second, and
possibly more important in the collective psyche, our very system of law
is premised on the story of David and Goliath. It is founded on the
notion that God will not let an unjust cause prevail, although in our
modern state we have substituted "the System" for "God".

In fantasy (science or other) the writer plays God and, generally, we in
the reading and viewing audience require our heroes to "Never give up,
never surrender!"

----
From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Borg Ewoks--highly useful for a Borg assault on the Muppets or Sesame
Street.  "Hi kids, the word of the day is . . . assimilate."

----

From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 11:59 AM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

Borg Bert & Ernie?  That would bring the Borg world to its knees.

----
From: [edited]

Date: Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:09 PM

To: SOLOSEZ@mail.americanbar.org

I really love this thread! It is making a very long week much more bearable.
It is also enabling some very serious Friday morning procrastination.

My vote is for the Borg. It's a completely biased vote due to my love of
Star Trek. (But my dog, Poppins, looks just like an ewok. We almost named
her Wicket.) I do think that the Borg as a villain are more unique than the
Empire. More of a political or societal concept than pure "bad guys" with a
cool weapon, which makes their defeat more challenging. I agree with most of
the blog poster's analysis of the two technologies.

The blog post reminds me of one of my favorite Star Trek/Star Wars
comparisons, which is from Lene Taylor, one of the duo behind the "Look at
His Butt" podcast, a Star Trek/William Shatner podcast that I've been
listening to for years. She has a proposal for a talk to give to a local
cynics group about why Star Trek is the more appropriate fandom for cynics
because much of Star Wars is based upon belief in the "magical" power of the
Jedi, whereas in Star Trek, the heroes usually triumph due to their human or
human-like qualities and science. I think that it's a great debate to get
into, especially with devoted fans of each franchise. The belief in some
sort of magic is one of the bigger differences between most of science
fiction and the rest of the fantasy genre. I love both!

Don't Touch the Banana

Heh, heh. No, really, it’s not meant as an innuendo.

I tend to write only about my personal life in blog posts and in other online venues, and then only in limited detail with a degree of anonymity lent to all involved. There are a number of good reasons for this. First and foremost, my professional life is boring as hell to the average human being. This is true of most lawyers, believe it or not. As exciting as you may find Law and Order, life just isn’t that enthralling for your run-of-the-mill J.D.  I’m currently a securities attorney, or more precisely, a securities regulator since I work for the state and not for a private firm. Aside from patent law, I’m not sure there is another job less exciting to the average Joe. This is not to say I don’t enjoy my job, just that I acknowledge most people don’t want to hear wild stories about securities law. Nor could I share a lot of stories if you did want to hear them. That, also, is in the nature of being an attorney.

I am also painfully aware of the fact that your online presence follows you. Everywhere. What you say online reflects on you in the eyes of potential employers, potential clients, and judgmental strangers.

But, I don’t want this blog to become about nothing but our new baby. Cute as she is, there are thousands of baby blogs out there discussing the same stuff I’m likely to find interesting about being a parent. While I may deny it kicking and screaming, there is more to life in this universe than admiring the cuteness that is my daughter. Also, and more to the point of this post, I’m not all that interested in working with or for people who have no sense of humor, so if I can’t make the occasional observation about working for the government or the practice of law, what’s the point of having a blog and a regular audience of three or four readers? I would never bite the hand that feeds me, but making sweeping generalizations about lawyers and government is the God-given right of every freedom loving, red-blooded American. Vulcan-Americans, on the other hand, do not have this right.

Ba-dum-ching.

I’ve worked for more than one state agency in my professional life, and have a number of friends who work for various state and federal agencies, so I feel this qualifies me to comment on the condition of such employment generally. Not necessarily from my own direct experience, mind you, but from direct and indirect observation (that should be enough disclaimer for now).

 The truth is that, from the standpoint of an employee, working for state government is not a bad gig. The pay is generally low, but if you aren’t shackled with obscene amounts of debt (read: if you didn’t go to law school), it’s generally enough to make ends meet. It is also an employment position that allows you more flexibility in terms of having a personal life than many similar private sector positions. Here I am thinking specifically about the legal industry. Many of my law school classmates made double my annual salary in their first year out of law school. They also worked double the number of hours I did, staying in the office for late nights, weekends, and holidays. It works for some people, and I’m not saying I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, but I have definitely enjoyed the fact that I get to come home to my wife at a fairly reasonable time every night, and can take advantage of vacation days without falling behind on the ever-looming “billable hours goal.” Now that we have a kid, this quality of life aspect of any given job is even more important.

All of that is great, but we love to poke fun at state government, and for good reason. Governments of all shapes and sizes do have some incredible bureaucracies. There are aspects of government (some would say “all of it”) which are inefficient, out-dated, inflexible, and downright useless. One thing in particular the government does not do well is respond well to change, or adapt to new situations. See, e.g., the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, or the BP Horizon disaster in 2010.

A friend of mine (one I should stress works for a different agency than I do) shared this story with me over a beer not too long ago about an apocryphal scientific study that may or may not have actually taken place (but probably didn’t):

In this study, they (the ubiquitous, scientific “they” who always conduct these studies) placed three chimpanzees in a room where they lived, worked, and played. The chimps were well-adjusted to each other and generally cooperated with each other. After an initial period of happy coexistence, a new element was introduced to the experiment: a short set of stairs leading up to a banana hanging from the ceiling.

The natural reaction of the chimps was to immediately try and storm the stairs for the banana, but each time one chimp reached for the banana, a fire hose would loose a painful stream of water not only at the chimp reaching for the banana, but at his two compatriots as well. After an initial adjustment period, the scientists no longer needed to turn the hose on the apes - each time one started up the stairs, the other two pulled him down and beat the snot out of him.

Eventually, they replaced one of the original chimps with a new chimp who had never seen the fire hose, or experienced life in this room. The new chimp immediately saw the banana at the top of the stairs and went for it, only to be pulled down by the old-timers and beaten unceremoniously into submission. It went on in this fashion until the scientists had eventually replaced all of the original chimps with chimps that had never experienced the wrath of the fire hose. Any time one of the apes reached for the banana - BAM. None of them had any idea why it was done that way, they just knew it had to be done.

This, in my friend’s view, is how many government agencies, offices, and divisions are operated. No one currently working in many such offices was around when key decisions were made, and no one is aware of why things are done the way they are. They’ve just always been that way. And if you deviate from them, expect to catch a beating.

My suspicion is that virtually every workplace has some element of this mentality rearing its ugly head from time to time. With government, it just never goes away. Gotta end this post quick. I think I hear a fire hose turning on.

Milestones

OMG! I'm in an effing shark!

Today was the big two-week check up for Olivia. For the uninitiated, this is where a medical professional determines whether or not you are competent to care for an infant based on the only-partially-under-your-control metric of whether or not your child has re-attained or exceeded his or her birth weight. It’s fairly normal for a baby to lose up to ten percent of their birth weight in the first few days after birth, and slowly put it back on over (roughly) the next two weeks. 

I don’t know what the consequences are for failing to achieve this threshold, but I suspect water-boarding is involved. Fortunately, I don’t have to find out – Olivia is back up to fighting weight with 2 ounces to spare. Overachiever.

Despite the sleep deprivation and total lack of coherent feedback from our child, I can see why so many parents make a big deal about this age. The first year, and definitely the first month, is packed with milestones. First car ride (almost necessarily the one home from the hospital), first outing, first trip in the stroller, first time in the crib, first time you interpret a random hand stretch as your daughter giving you the California howdy... there’s a lot going on if you are observant enough to pay attention. There are also a lot of firsts for parents. First sleepless night, first infirmity brought on primarily by lack of sleep and consequent loss of immune system, first night spent sleeping (or trying to) on the floor of your child’s nursery, first poo, pee, and/or vomit related stain found on your clothes while in public, and so on…

The firsts are fantastic. I’m trying not to miss any, but I know inevitably there will be some I can’t be there for. Mostly because I haven’t found a way to stay home and watch the baby all day long and still get paid. If any of you out there can think of a solution to this dilemma, please let me know. As much as neither my wife nor I want to closet ourselves off from the world (we don’t) it is hard not to selfishly hold on to these early days for ourselves alone. Especially when we see our friends’ children, a mere two months, or four months, or nine months ahead of Olivia, and see what a huge difference such a short period of time can make.

Hell, the first two weeks have already made a big difference. She’s already gained two ounces.

Things I've learned in one whole week of parenthood

We received a lot of advice and warnings from experienced parents in the nine months leading up to the birth of our daughter. We also endured the taunts and maniacal laughter of those who couldn’t wait to see us dealing with the trials and tribulations of parenthood. These are people who supposedly love us. I’m convinced at least a part of the joy of being a grandparent is an unhealthy dose of schadenfreude.

Needless to say, much of the advice we received, whether good natured or not, turned out to be right on. Here’s a little of what we’ve learned so far.

You will not sleep again.  Duh. I never said these were going to be profound. Certainly each baby is different, but in general they have no respect for clocks, schedules, or the fundamental difference between day and night. If you can catch two or three hours at a stretch, consider yourself fortunate.
It’s not been long enough to assess how well we operate on such a poor sleep schedule. I’ll hazard a guess - not well. But so far, we’ve done better than I would have guessed. That is not to say “well,” but we do what we can.

Listening to your baby crying for no discernible reason is about as helpless as you’ve ever felt. Every parent goes through it. It’s as inevitable as Congressional gridlock, and almost as painful. Your baby has one means of communication available to her when she is born - crying. Crying can mean anything from “I’m hungry,” to “I’m tired,” to “I’m in pain.” It can also mean nothing at all, as some of the literature will tell you that babies sometimes need to cry for some period merely to expend excess energy. I don’t know that I buy this, necessarily, but there are definitely cries that appear to have no obvious cause. They. Suck. If you are remotely human, you don’t like hearing your child cry. Having it go on for hours and knowing you’ve tried pretty much everything humanly possible to alleviate the cries makes you feel like the most incompetent parent in the world.
If those cries happen to take place at night, and feed into the lack of sleep discussed above, then... well, your nights aren’t going to be fun.

Car rides and strollers are kind of magic. Our kid doesn’t exactly love the infant carrier. The idea of being strapped in to something doesn’t sit well with her, so we tend to get serenaded with high pitched cries every time we have to take her somewhere. As soon as the car gets up to speed or the stroller starts bumping along, the volume falls to zero. I suspect this will not last forever, or at least not for the duration of long car rides to visit family, but it is pretty nice to know we have an almost surefire way to put our baby under without pharmaceuticals. 

Digital cameras are a godsend. I used to fancy myself a hobby photographer. I haven't picked up a camera in any serious fashion for several years, but I have taken more photos in the last ten days or so than I have in the previous ten months. I am very glad I don't have to pay to have all of them developed. Even a biased dad like me recognizes that the blurry picture of my daughters foot isn't really worth keeping.

Friends and Family are incredible. Southerners do food for almost any occasion. Someone die? Feed the family. Somebody born? Feed the family. We've had a lot of friends and family taking care of us, in many more ways than just keeping us nourished, and that has allowed us to spend more time focusing on our new addition. We are immensely grateful, and I can't imagine doing this without some kind of support system in place. Also, we have a ton of leftovers if anyone is hungry.
Mostly, I’ve just learned that I’m a big sap. Having a kid is pretty awesome, and we’ve spent a lot of time just staring at her sleeping. It’s hard to be human and not get a little sappy about your kid, so I fully expect I will embarrass myself will all manner of unmanly demonstrations of sentimentality in the coming months and years. I probably won’t share all of those.

Oh, and I’d like to throw a shout-out to Lumos Studio (www.lumosstudio.com) for the photograph above. As I mentioned, I'm a biased observer, but I happen to think they do some pretty damn fine work. Thanks guys!

Olivia: The Prequel

Intellectually, I think most prospective parents... nay - thinking people - understand that the Hollywood representation of labor and delivery is total BS.

I can confirm that your suspicions on that score are accurate.

In film and television, labor almost always begins with the woman's water breaking suddenly, without warning, and generally in an inconvenient location or in the midst of a dramatic conversation. Usually, by the time the pregnant woman arrives at the hospital, the baby's arrival is imminent.

In reality, every pregnancy, and consequently every delivery, is unique in its particulars. Probably there have been a handful of Hollywood-esque deliveries in the history of modern obstetrics, but most are a little more drawn out, a whole lot messier, and much less overacted.

Our story began on Thursday night, a full three days before Olivia was actually born. My wife began having contractions around 9:30, too sporadic at that point to consider going to the hospital, but strong enough to make us believe this could be the real deal if they got close enough together.

Most OBs and midwives will tell you not to come to the hospital until contractions are coming at least every five minutes, and have been for a couple of hours. Some may want them even closer in time. What these professionals really aren't so good at conveying, especially to first time mothers, is how to tell when real labor has begun. Not all contractions are created equal, and most women in late stage pregnancy will experience Braxton-Hicks contractions, which generally aren't very painful (relatively speaking). If those go on for, say, ten hours at five minutes apart, even a woman who suspects she is not in active labor will probably get annoyed enough to call her practitioner and try and find out what the deal is. And if the practitioner's answering service has instructed its people to tell every woman who says the word "contraction" to come on to the hospital, the woman may end up sitting in a hospital room for six hours or so unnecessarily. I'm not bitter towards the answering service at all.

What we learned from this experience (a week before our Thursday night contractions started) is that labor contractions should be strong enough that the woman cannot talk or walk through them. Besides the obvious problems with this guideline - that it is completely subjective and every woman has a different threshold for pain - it turned out not to be entirely true when real contractions started on Thursday, and continued into Friday and Saturday. While it became increasingly unpleasant to walk or talk through those contractions, it could be done. It was a little harder for my wife, but she managed too. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

By Friday morning, it looked like active labor was likely at any time. The sporadic contractions were becoming more regular, though still too spread out to head to the hospital. It was not until late Friday night that they were consistently five minutes apart and we headed out to the hospital. We were assessed, and ultimately the hospital staff determined that labor was not progressing. Even though the contractions never stopped. This is apparently known as prodromal labor - labor like symptoms that don't progress to the birth of a baby. And when they don't stop at all, they suck. We were sent home, and the contractions continued unabated, strengthening throughout the day Saturday. From Thursday night until Sunday morning, my wife might have gotten a total of three hours of sleep. I wasn't much better off, but I wasn't dealing with stomach wrenching cramps at ten minute intervals, so I think I was still in the better position.

By Sunday morning (and I mean early Sunday morning) it was clear that something had to give. We headed back to the hospital for the third time in a week, and I will admit I was afraid they were going to send us home yet again. Mostly, that idea was just disheartening. We've heard some first time mothers end up in the hospital dozens of times with false labor, pre-labor, or whatever else pregnancy can throw their way, so I guess a false start or two can be forgiven, but when you are entering your third day with no sleep (and you don't have an outside baby to account for that lack of sleep) the prospect just makes you tired.

As it turned out, my concerns were unwarranted. Sunday was it. We arrived around 5:30 a.m. and were whisked to a labor room by 6:30 a.m. I'll spare the details - very few of you would actually have any interest, and those who do can ask my wife in person. The reader's digest version involved the best epidural ever, a lot of raspberry popsicles, several hours of Sportcenter (my wife is awesome), and a mere 10 hours of waiting-and pushing-beyond what had already been endured.

And then there was Olivia. 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and 20 1/2 inches of born contrariness. And she is everything we imagined she would be.

A brief epilogue. I will never in a million years compare the male experience of labor and delivery to the woman's, but I was completely unprepared for the physical toll the process would take on me. There is more adrenaline, tension, fear, and exhilaration in a brief period of time than any human body is meant to take. I crashed harder the night my daughter was born than I have in a long, long time.

My wife stayed up and fed our daughter. She is way tougher than me.    

She has arrived...

Olivia Katherine was born August 14, 2011 after a mere 65 hours of labor (God Bless my wife). Hope this explains the absence of a post on Friday and Monday. The vital stats and stories will come later, but for now I just wanted to share the good news with those who might not have already heard through the grapevine.


More to come....

Making sense of the chaos...

Fair warning - not the most lighthearted of posts. I'll trade by keeping it relatively brief. 

I am not a theologian. I am, frankly, pretty awful at apologetics. I know that many of the reasons people have for doubting the existence or the goodness of God are rooted in some intensely painful places, and there is no denying that people are capable of incredible evil. I don’t think I need to list examples - read the headlines this week or the history books published twenty years ago, and you can find plenty on your own. Bad stuff happens to people all the time, and I can’t offer a specific explanation for most of those circumstances or point to a greater purpose behind the suffering. But I do believe a greater purpose exists, and despite the condition of the world and the suffering I see in it, I do believe in the existence of a loving God who is more than just a theistic clockmaker who watches over the world without acting.

A group of us gathered this week in a friend’s apartment to pray for a man we all know and love who has been suffering with incredible pain for the past few months. It’s left him unable to work, and at times unable to get out of bed or walk. He’s a good person, as evidenced by the number and quality of the people who surround him. If circumstances were dictated by the worthiness of the individual, then his current condition would be completely incongruous with who he is. But rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike.

In the midst of the pain he’s been going through, he has been incredibly patient, positive, and grateful. Yeah. Grateful. Among the things he is grateful for, he expressed to us that he has grown closer to his wife in the last three months of trial than they have been in a long time. In all likelihood, the circumstances he is suffering through right now will pass - maybe not as soon as we would all have it, but pass just the same. Whether they do or not, those circumstances have still produced something good. These circumstances are not the hardest I have seen friends and loved ones go through, but I offer it as an example that the seemingly random crap that life occasionally throws at us is not always meaningless, or useless.

I’ve seen this in my own life through lost jobs and lost opportunities - things that outwardly appear completely negative, but produce great good. My wife and I would probably not be anxiously awaiting our first child right now if we had not also gone through some very uncomfortable circumstances in the recent past, and we'd never trade what we've gained for anything. I’ve also seen lots of dim circumstances - lost loved ones and sickness, for instance - in which I cannot point to any obvious greater good. Not that can be observed without some degree of faith, anyway. Some people will beg for the explanation to every circumstance, but I don’t think anyone can give that to you always. But I’ve seen often enough that the bad is not always so bad as it seems. And I believe that there is, in fact, some greater purpose. Yeah, I wish I could see it too.

I’m not saying God causes bad stuff to happen to bring the greater good out of it. Again, I'm not a theologian, and even theologians will disagree about that depending on where they fall on the free-will spectrum. I personally don’t think God directs a murderer to pull the trigger (call me a heretic if you will), but I have seen what I attribute to God bring good out of a bad act of human frailty numerous times.

Life is chaotic. That is neither inherently good nor bad, but sometimes rough stuff happens that doesn’t seem to have a good explanation at the time. Or ever, to our human point of view. Faith that there is a larger story that I can’t completely comprehend helps me make sense of the chaos.

I realize this post is a bit heavier than usual. That’s intentional. Every now and again I think it’s important to take a step back and examine so when you spend the rest of your time not taking yourself too seriously (as you should), it’s not because there is no substance there to be taken seriously.