Well, that's the first part done...

...just 18 years to go.

Liberty Elaine, 7lbs 9oz, 1744 Central time. Posting from phone. Pics soon.

Tomorrow...

...one way or another.

BP is back up, so she goes in at 5AM. If labor isn't progessing, they'll give it a little push as needed.

No change yet...

...still having the occasional contraction, but no discernible pattern, and not particularly frequent. She doesn't want to go jogging, for some reason.

Today's update

Blood pressure is down a bit, and the doctor doesn't expect to be inducing, but did confirm that she's pretty much ready to go into labor at any minute.

I was actually starting to look forward to having a set time, but they say inducing sometimes makes things a bit harder, so I'm sure we can wait.

Keep watching...may have some interesting stuff to post this week.

We should know Tuesday if they'll be inducing labor Thursday due to the blood pressure issue. OTOH, she's far enough along that it could start on its own any time now.

Maternity Photos

We'll probably do a few more, but here are my favorites from the first attempt.

The new house

2-2, CH/A, slab foundation so no skunks can move in underneath. More than twice the space of the rental, a garage I can use half of for workspace and appliances that work right. (Except for the dishwasher, but we didn't have one at the rental, so even just having the space for it set aside is nice, and it may just be hooked up wrong.)

Moving soon...

Well, we closed on the house Tuesday, and the sellers are expecting to be out by the first, though they technically have until the fifth if they need it. If I disappear from the net for a few days, I'll either be fighting with a new internet hookup, hauling stuff, or resting up from those tasks. We're paying the full month on the rental so we can take our time moving and cleaning.
Unfortunately, this house doesn't have all the extra rooms of the one we tried to buy before, so I won't get to have a dedicated studio/photo-work room, but it does at least have space for me to finally have a dedicated workspace for reloading, metalworking and woodworking.
The baby's due in February, and we plan to take advantage of the empty rooms to do a few maternity shots before we move most of the stuff in, so hopefully I'll have a couple of those posted as soon as things settle down. I bought a 9x10ft piece of muslin for a backdrop just in case, but I think we'll have enough blank white walls before we start hanging photos to not need that.

If you're bored...

...try this site:
Photoshop Disasters

They're at it again

Remember the last bunch of attention whores?

Well, they can't even be troubled to come up with a new story. Same old lights in the sky.

There's even yet another picture of a point source of light. Gee, can't find thousands of those on any given night.

Pics from the Sonogram

I'd post the video, but I don't think I have any video editing software on here than can black out the personal information.

Heartbeat:


Face:


Arm:


Foot:


Appendage counts are all correct for a female, and proportions are within normal parameters, so it looks like we're in good shape so far.

Oh, by the way...

...it's a girl. Unfortunately, my wife has the sonogram video and pictures stashed somewhere and I'm not waking her up to ask where, so you'll have to wait a bit for pics.

Let's get tacticool

A few weeks ago, I picked up two Kimber LifeAct Guardian Angels, one for my wife, and one for myself. Mine have "Kimber Guardian Angel" on the clip, but for some reason, Kimber, as you can see at the link, has decided it should relabel the device as the "Kimber PepperBlaster."
I guess I won't be getting a couple more to keep in the cars, now, unless the older ones are still in stock at the shop where I got them before.
Now this was a nice discreet way to carry pepper spray; it looks like pretty much anything except a weapon. It could be a radio, garage door opener, PDA, phone, medical device, whatever. Now that they've stack a tacticool name on it, that advantage is gone.
Part of my reason for getting these was that they could be clipped to a pocket or bag, and carried discreetly in places like classrooms where I can't legally carry my gun. The shape and rather noncommittal name would prevent awkward questions from the anti-self-defense crowd, and allow it to even be carried in-hand in a potential confrontation without losing the element of surprise. Not only did they kill that capability, they also did it with a goofy-sounding name that belongs on mall-ninja gear, not a serious self-defense tool.

I've sent an email to Kimber requesting that they explain their logic. We'll see what their response is.

(Yes, I know I could just sand all the writing off the clip, but after paying $40 for a two-shot pepper spray device, it shouldn't be left to the user to modify it back to a more useful state.)

EDIT TO ADD: Thanks to EmergencyEm for reminding me: support SCCC and make this post less relevant.

What the hell?

Does some manufacturer now make a cologne or body spray in a 2-gallon "single-use" size? I've had four people walk by in the last couple hours that made me dig out the air freshener. I thought maybe it was just me until I went to get a fresh can of Ozium from the cleaning lady and she knew exactly why right away.

It's rarely even a scent that would be good in normal quantities, either. There seems to be a strong preference for godawful cloying some-kind-of-fruit-rotting type stenches.

The Regency Bridge

Now that's an out of the way landmark. Fun side trip, though.

Jumping on the bandwagon

What the hell, I got curious about this thing.

You are a Social Moderate (56% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (88% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. loc: (24, 143) modscore: (53, 34) raw: (5132) Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid.com: Free Online Dating Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

The carnival's in town...

It's gotten so small the last few years that they've stuffed the whole thing into a relatively tiny area with parking all around it. That makes it kinda tough to get photos without traffic in them, but it still makes for some interesting long exposures.

A couple more

I know I'm taking forever with these...I'll get a few more of them up eventually.


Sell photos on photrade | By KD5NRH



Sell photos on photrade | By KD5NRH



Sell photos on photrade | By KD5NRH

Things are settling down

Vacation's over. After a couple more days at the 12x7 contract, it's over, and I'm just covering a couple extra shifts so the guys that were having to work 12x7 at my regular contract during the other one can get some time off.

I've been slowly going through the photos from the vacation as time allows. I've got almost all of the B&W film developed and scanned, and it looks like about 600-700 shots total. Obviously, not everything turned out, and a lot are near-duplicates for exposure bracketing, but I'm guessing around 50-75 keepers by the time I get through adjusting exposure levels, touching up dust on the film scans, etc.

Here are a couple of my favorites so far:




Full set of the ones I've gone over so far at Flickr.