first me and then the baby.

So I know it is time for the 24 week post, but I don't want to do that right now. First I want to talk about how I haven't had a cigarette in 38 hours 8 minutes. My sinuses feel full and I can't stop coughing... AWESOME! Not to mention that if I've seen you I've wanted to punch you in the face, 9 minutes. the most terrible thing about quitting is that you know damn well how to fix your malady, smoke a goddamn cigarette. I want to cuss people out right now. I think its best i bite my tongue. I'm going to be working at my professor's house today in order to complete a paper by Sunday. Happy Halloween to fucking me!

23 Weeks

So I'm a little sad today. Turns out my baby is the size of a mango (roughly 13 inches and 1.1 pounds) and mango is in the same family as poison ivy. I tried to find a weight conversion that consisted of finding out how much one leaf of poison ivy weighs and then noting that goats will graze on poison ivy I had an idea. I looked up a popular docile dairy goat breed that has found its way into the hearts of Maine farmers, Oberhasli, and the typical goat of this breed needs about 5-6 pounds, says 5.5, of dry food a day. I was going to see how much my baby's worth of poison ivy could feed said goat in a day. THEN I knew that this goat can produce as much as 4655 pounds of milk a year (this is roughly 1034 Gallons). Now a gallon of milk is about 16 cups and a serving size of Lucky Charms has a serving size of about 1 cup. So suppose you like your cereal to milk at a 2:1 ratio then this goat can produce enough milk for 33088 bowls of Lucky Charms. I was going to cut this by the amount of Poison Ivy my baby would be and then draw the conclusion of how many people my baby could supply with 83% of their daily allowance of Riboflavin (based on a 2000 calorie diet of coarse). **ANOTHER EDIT: So turns out I'm a moron, i don't need to know the weight of a leaf. Suppose a goat ingests my baby's weight in poison ivy, this is about 20% of his daily feed in a day. In one day the goat may produce 2.8 gallons, not accounting for leap years. 20% of that production is .56 gallons or 9 cups. This would correspond to 9 people who can get their Riboflavin from Lucky charms... AWESOME.**

Instead I went with something more mundane. My baby weighs 1.1 pounds which may be transformed into 7700 Grain, a very precise measurement of gun power. A common round now found in M16s is the 5.56mm which comes in 10 round "stripper clips" (a small piece of metal that holds the bottoms of each round). Each of the 5.56mm rounds is 77 grain so my baby, if he were made of gunpowder could arm 100 soldiers with a clip for their M16, or probably more practically arm 5 soldiers with 20 clips.

After thinking about the gunpowder conversion I found out that typical "old-school" gun powder is 73% Saltpeter (this makes my baby .803 pounds of saltpeter if he were again composed of gunpowder). Alton Brown, one of my favorite foodies, has a recipe for Corned Beef that calls for 2 tablespoons saltpeter for a 5 pound brisket. Alas, i couldn't find out how much 2 tablespoons of saltpeter weighs so I couldn't find out if my baby's .803 pounds of saltpeter could brine my 220 pounds if I were a brisket. I'm guessing it could and then some, but I wanted to be sure.
**EDIT: So I found out, through the guidance of Lydia that Saltpeter is 2.109 g/cubic cm. Doing all the necessary conversions results in my baby's .803 pounds being able to brine 29 pounds of brisket for corned beef.**

Conversations.

I've noticed recently that I am incapable of wanting to discuss anything but my baby. He isn't even born yet. Golly gee willikers! It is kinda funny what me sort of prepping myself for fatherhood and my impending career as a professor have done to me. I've become absolutely infatuated with mentoring and advice giving. I'm sure many find my constant suggestions annoying, but I feel like I cannot help it. Soon there will be a little dude asking me the craziest questions.

Another funny thing that has been hitting me is Halloween. This holiday is going to rock so hard it hurts for like the next 15 years or so. Next year I have 3 costume designs:

1. I dress like a Gundam and the baby like my pilot and I carry him in a harness.
2. I dress like a fighter jet and the baby, in a harness, like a missile.
3. Lydia, Me and the baby dress like Olive Oil, Popeye and Swepea.

That is all I can think of now. My bet is that by next Halloween we will just be happy to put the baby in a silly costume and carry him around a bunch. I think it would be awesome if EVERY day he was in a halloween costume except for October 31st itself. hehe talk to you later guys.

Building off of yesterday

The new Hummer 2 has 325 horsepower at 5200 rpm, 1 horsepower is 33000 foot-pounds/min. My baby is about a foot long and weighs about a pound. Thus a Hummer 2 has the required power to fully displace my baby 10,725,000 times in one minutes. Let the first displacement go up one foot from zero, then back down to zero, then down to negative one foot and then back to zero. this corresponds to 2,681,250 cycles per min. This translates into 44687.5 Hz, roughly the highest frequency you find in dog whistles.

baby update

My baby weighs a pound... yeah that's it a pound.

Musak

Ask anyone what kind of music genre they are into and if they're hip they will tell you Underground ______. You know underground hiphop, underground rock, underground metal etc. I've decided that 2 genres are probably left untouched and need to be explored: underground pop and underground muzak. Just think of the walking contradiction that is underground pop. Popular music that people don't know about! That is hipper than hip. But maybe college rock would probably fall under that category.

Muzak, for those who don't know, is the genre of music where bands redo popular songs for use in elevators and such. Well i guess they've expanded services since the 80's but the core is still the same. Underground Muzak would involve taking songs that no one actually knows about, and may potentially be quite good and then remaking them to target specific audiences or movement apparatuses (elevators). Just a musing about music.

Faithful followers.

So faithful readers... yes both of you. Sorry it has been a while since I've written. I've been a little busy with school and shit. It is official that I will be doing thesis work on consensus modeling which i'm currently finding pretty exciting. I'm also doing some research in expression of networks in some very cool ways (as Rank 1 matrices and such).

My baby is 20 weeks old. That is 10.5 oz. and 10 inches head to toe (it isn't curled up as much any more so measurements don't need to be made head to bottom). Supposedly that is the length of a banana. I worked it out. My baby weighs as much as about 66 cubic centimeters of titanium. This is about half the average precipitation in Osaka. So if it rained titanium for 6 months, then a measurer thingy (I can't find a technical term) would collect my baby's current weight. RAD.

Baby update

So it turns out that my baby really likes a booming male voice. In one of Lydia's classes her professor has such a voice and she sits out front. It is in this class that the baby enjoys a good jazzercise. I find this really exciting. My baby's hair is sprouting now on the head. If its a boy he better enjoy it while it lasts. We are having trouble with boy's names right now. Last I knew a list comprising of Malcolm, Pascal, Jude, & Ari were on the table (at least my side of the table). Looking at my baby site they have some strange suggestions for unique names: Banana, Boston (i actually like this one), Hamilton, Espn (you've got to be kidding me! at least Nesn would be better :P), and Sprout. One of their weird names, Cyprus, is actually pretty bad ass. Oh my baby is 6" head to butt and the arms and legs are in proportion. Doing some "idealized" segmenting that means my baby's head is about 1.5" and the body is the remaining 4.5" meaning the arms are about 5". Cool. 5" pythons, or delicate branches, in there. Using my body as a proportionate measure my baby has a 1" fist! So if my baby could hit as hard as i can it would have roughly 4.5 times the impact.... AWESOME.

Research

I decided to write a little about my current research. I'm working on this neat thing called Cultural Consensus modeling. Essentially I create culturally biased answer keys for surveys based on the responses and assumed dynamical processes involved in survey taking. Recently I've been improving an existing technique by making it more stable and i've been trying to construct non a priori ways of identifying two cultures present in a sample. It's neat, I may post some pretty pictures tomorrow.

So TINY

Wow, you have to check this out. i can't believe the texture on her backed goods miniatures.

Rofl

So I was watching some very nasty cyst videos on utube, got pretty nautious and then turned to lol cats and discovered My First Fail. Lols ensued.

And thus the closet doors swung

My biggest fear as a father is that my kid will grow up gay. Nah, just fucking with you. Had you scared for a moment huh? No, instead this is my address to the people that apparently I'm a hero. A hero who is subjecting himself to the trial, nay the epic struggle, against homosexuality brought about by the internalization of sexual desire through pornography. Well, that is what Mike Schwartz would say. Apparently, homosexuality is so insidious that, much like the devil, it has been hiding under an unrecognizable guise, boobies. We breeders, that is heterosexuals for those unfamiliar with the vernacular, are looking at porn that will turn us gay. And if you tell an 11 year old that looking at naked ladies will turn him gay then "... do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.”

This man is clearly a little crazy, but I think that his misinformation is a classic example of chicken-or-the-egg style conundrums. He sites the pre-adolesent ridicule of being gay and that because they are not-so-against gays later in life is because they were exposed to pornography. But which came first the child's dislike of gays or their parent's? Seems pretty simple to me.

The internalization of sexuality arguement seems a little baseless to me. When you consider the "porn makes you gay" arguement you have to wonder why people look at porn. To get aroused. We all don't get off by being a voyer, we internalize, we put ourselves there. And sure, some probably put themseleves there servicing the well built man in the scene, and they are probably gay, but others want the woman. The straight guys. I think I'm meandering and I'm not making a good point aside from this dude is full of turd.

So remember kids, even though you have "the right to commit buggery" "homosexuality is inflicted" on you... sigh

Worries

Ever find yourself sitting at a table with friends sharing stories about how hurt you've gotten via some crazy accident or general stupidity? This has lead me to the obvious conclusion "Holy crap! My baby is going to get hurt!" And also lead me to the obvious rationalization that "This must have been what Rapunzel's parents were thinking." So I believe an adequately appointed and padded fortress is in my near future, I'll have to become BFF with someone who works at Home Depot.

All seriousness, yes seriousness, aside I guess if I survived then my baby can. I make no sense.

Formation

It is pretty spectacular how deformed a fetus is while growing and how everything still just comes together and falls in place. This week my baby's ears have achieved their final position but stick out a little. For some reason I have a vision of Will Smith-like ears on a baby in momma's belly. That is some special kind of silly.

The baby site reports that my baby is the length of a green pepper, roughly 5.5 inches long. I prefer to think of the BL 5.5 inch medium gun. For those that don't know the measurement on artillery such as this, i.e. the 5.5 inches, is the caliber or diameter of the projectile it fired. So while it will be roughly 10 years until my baby weighs as much as one of the projectiles fired by said gun it is as long as they were wide.

Connundrums in the Clouds.

So why do clouds have flat bottoms? I noticed this while I was landing in PHX today. The National Weather Forecasting Somethingorother so apparently it has to do with condensation an the temperature being just right when you get high enough. Cool. A mammatus type cloud, like that to the left, can form when the droplets on the bottom become too heavy and the bottom gets a puffy shape. Usually high humidity and very little wind is required.



So I flew into PHX today from Kansas City, MO and Lydia is flying to Corvallis with a stop in PHX on the way. Our flights are like 3 hours apart so we asked the guy if he could bump either of us. Sure enoug he could for the penance of a pittance $190, merely 90.47% of the cost of the original ticket. I felt like pointing out which of his extremities could be inserted into which of his orifices. So, now I'm waiting in a pretty mediocre resteraunt for Lydia to arrive in due time. What happened to customer service? I'm paying 210 for a ticket somewhere and then $20 for my checked bag EACH WAY!

Turn out, according to the 2009 JD Power and Associates survey I just got off a plane that received the WORST rating out of all airlines ina year that saw a severe decline in satisfaction with airlines nearly across the board (only Southwest improved). I think that next time Alaska Airlines or Jetblue (the two most approved of) will be my choice when it comes to flight.

There is something that is bugging me though. A very special sensation went through me when this guy told me I couldn't fly with my pregnant girlfriend. I think the airline industry has forgotten about the journey. Traditionally part of the trip was the trip to the destination itself. Even though this flight was only a few hours, imagine walking somewhere in a mob of people you do not know for two hours. Now imagine that your best friend is walking beside you. Much different right?

So here is my thought: put the JOY back in JOurneY... terrible I know. How about this: Take the fucking train. Granted finding how to go from where to where on Amtrack is a fucking chore at first, when you know where to look it easy. AND coverage aint quite up to par, but it hits alot of major hubs. Sooo if I book a train on tuesday from Tuscon to Albany, OR I'd pay $174 for coach on a train and $ 378 for coach on a plane (I used Bing!) and if I max out my accomidations on the train I'd pay about $530 and an average of about $950 for first class in the air. I gues you pay for speed, but you pay for it with comfort... and alot of money.

No sox!!

So I'm in Kansas City, Missouri to visit Lydia and I wanted to catch a baseball game.  So I go to the Royal's website.  Turns out they are AWAY every day I am here.  To make matters worse the day after I leave Red Sox are playing at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Royals, for 4 days in a row!  Ouch.  I will write more in a few days.

Missed Yesterday

Ready to go skiing at the airport? I know I am now. I have been seeing these placards for like a year now and I had no idea what they were. A blue square surrounds the cut out form of a dude in slightly baggy clothes with a ball cap and a suitcase leaning against him. the sign proclaims that this is what a casual traveler looks like and further that he is knowledgable with TSA regulations but wishes not to be rushed. I had always thought to myself who the frig do they think they are profiling me as not wanting to be rushed. Hurry my ass through the line! Turns out this is a new sort of line thing that I haven't had the opportunity to exploit, but I really want to. It seems that the TSA are doing what ski resorts have done all along allow us to pace ourselves. If this works I envision families pizza-frenchfrying all the way through security while most people with sort of be coasting their way through. I intend on full on mogul slaloming, not sure if that phrase is a proper verb, down the backs of the weaker and slower as I sprint through security flipping off the meek wearing nothing but one of those speed skater suits. ROFL just coming up with that made me laugh.

On a completely different note I think it would be awesome if Obama called Kanye a Jackass. I mean what kind of world is it where you get an apology from someone you shoot in the face and you can't call a hyper active, self absorbed entertainer what he is?

There should be a different word

for when a recession is over, i.e. the economy strengthens, and when 6-pack Joe will notice, i.e. when employment actually increases. Bernanke says that the recession is likely over and that the economy will be experiencing growth, ergo the end of the recession. What does that even mean? Does that mean our GDP will increase? I would suppose not because that is usually indicative of lower unemployment and those numbers are projected to increase. Maybe some production centers are being "reactivated" with no new work force. I guess that could happen.
But if that is not what he is talking about, or if production is increasing without an increase in work force, then there should be another term. Like unemployment. I say unemployment and not unemployment rate because the statistic is not a rate. A rate confers some dependence on time. As it stands those figures, like the 10% quoted to Bernanke, are essentially (# of Unemployed)/(# of People who comprise the work force), of coarse times 100 to make it a percent. If you want to talk about unemployment rate you could talk about the (change in unemployment)/(the change in recorded times). For instance looking at Wikipedia unemployment data between each year from 2003 to 2008 we have the following rates: -.5, -.4, -.4, 0, 1.2 and assuming a 2009 unemployment of 10% a rate from 2008 to 2009 of 4.2. The reason I would draw a major distinction between saying Unemployment and Unemployment rate, besides the correctness, is that I think what is really hurting us right now is not that 10% are unemployed but that this is a jump of 4.2% from last year. Thus, the systems that are set in place to handle unemployment which could conceivably handle the 10% are actually being overworked in handling the sharpness of the increase. Oddly, providing more people with jobs to handle the massive FLUX of unemployed individuals would fix both problems.

Parasitoid

So I just had an interesting and lively conversation about parasitoids. I got home cracked open my laptop and did some google searches. Turns out, yep they're still nasty. The botfly is a ridiculously gross one. You can Youtube a video of these friends pulling a few larvae from a guy's back. Soooo gross. This made me question how I've been so nonchalant I've been about my kid playing in the dirt with bugs and crap. Well I found this and this. Both essentially say what I had been holding to: kids who eat dirt have stronger immune systems. So I guess as long and I keep a vigil on bug bites and "rashes" for larvae then it is okay to pay in the dirt.

17 weeks...

My baby is now 17 weeks old. I love the rediculousness of baby sites. My baby weighs 5 oz. and according to Baby Center that means my baby weighs as much as a turnip... A TURNIP?! How is that supposed to connect to me? I'm not the prince-archbishop of Salzburg! Incidentally my baby weighs the same as a box of Digiorno: Pepperoni Garlic Bread Pizza does on the moon. See that would be how you connect to the average dad about the weight of their baby. Compare it to something that tastes good and put it in a cool place.
(EDIT: In case you're wondering the apparent conversion from earth weight to moon weight is roughly 1/6)