Off-topic rant

Will you permit me a short off-topic rant?

I'm bewildered by the Deseret News's (hereafter DN) stubbornness and hardheadedness in not allowing Utah readers to purchase a separate subscription to the Church News (hereafter CN).

The president and publisher of DN explains on-line why Utah readers are coerced into purchasing the DN in order to get the CN.

Reading a bit between the lines of Mr. Wall's letter, I have to say it sounds an awful lot like the DN recognizes that it only stays in business because of the patronage of LDS church members. By only offering the CN to DN subscribers in Utah, the DN ensures its future survival. Apparently the DN is such a sub-par publication, that readers will only purchase it if they can't get their CN elsewhere. Mr. Wall doesn't trust us to pick the better Salt Lake paper, because he's afraid he'll lose.

So, those of us who live in Utah are forced to choose between paying for a daily subscription to the Deseret Morning News or not having the opportunity to even purchase an on-line subscription to the Church News. Simply because of where we live.

Do you think this is ethical?

PS: Mr Wall's letter states that you can purchase a DN subscription for $.34 per day. However their website doesn't show a print-delivery option for anything less than $.51 per day. You can get a web-only subscription for $.12 per day, however this (1) doesn't indicate whether a CN subscription is included, and (2) doesn't seem to offer much value, since you can get the entire daily contents of the DN online anyway.

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Friday thoughts

A couple of thoughts for this Friday afternoon, in no particular order:

Ticker math?
The logic of the ticker math defies me. OK, it doesn't defy me, but we don't count the same way. By my count, Kiddo is seven weeks old today. That count is based on (oddly enough) it being exactly seven weeks since he was born. He was born on Friday, December 1st. Today is his 50th day of life, which means today marks the first day of the 8th week of his life.

The ticker, however, thinks that Kiddo is 1 month, 2 weeks, and 4 days old. It seems to me that if by my count, Kiddo is exactly 7 weeks old, that the ticker should have us at an even week, not randomly 4 days.

However, I've discovered how the ticker does its math. It counts it this way: on January 1, Kiddo was one month old. (Can't really argue that point.) And since January first, there has been two weeks four days. Thus, Kiddo is one month, two weeks and four days old.

See, the counter is counting in months and partial months, where I'm just counting in weeks. I just think its kind of bizarre to have my count complete a full week when the ticker's count is still mid-week.

Whatever.

Kiddo photos

We had some beautiful kiddo photos taken professionally. Really, they are stunning. I love our photographer. This is the third time we've used her, and I can't recommend her highly enough. We had such fun taking these pictures. Don't you think that he's adorable?

Our photographer has a website with examples of her work and contact information. It is located at http://www.haleyannwarner.com.

And just in case you're worried, we purchased the copyright to the photos, so I'm allowed to re-post them online. (Another thing I like about her: she sells the copyright if you want to purchase it!) And it isn't that expensive, either.

Reunited at last!
So last, but certainly not least, Kiddo and BW are coming home today!! I'm very exited. I get to go pick them up at the airport in about 3 hours. Grandma is sad to see them leave, but I'm very excited to see them come home again. Very, very excited. I'm having a hard time focusing at work, I'm so excited. :) Yay!!

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Car seat safety?

Did you hear the report that Consumer Reports published in early January (technically in the February edition of their magazine)? The report claimed that of 12 infant rear-facing car seats that they tested, 10 of them catastrophically failed when subjected to the same side-impact tests that cars must endure. Apparently car-seats must withstand 30 mph frontal crash tests. However, a car must be able to endure a 38.5 mph side-impact crash. Consumer Reports claimed that 10 of the 12 seats they tested couldn't withstand the additional 8.5 mph.

The car seat we bought Kiddo (well, it was given by Grandma, but we picked it out) was one of the ones that was tested and failed. When I read the full report on the CR website, I found out that the seat failed when it was installed with the LATCH system, but did okay when it was installed with a seatbelt. I talked with C about it and we decided that we would install the seat using both the LATCH system and the seatbelt. Since the seat performed satisfactorily with a seatbelt, this seemed to be an okay solution. (We decided to do both, because I think the seat actually stays put better with the LATCH system.)

Now Consumer Reports is recalling their report. You can read the CR press release here. The report I read on CNN.com gives more information (read it here). CNN quotes an NHTSA spokesman as saying "the organization's data show its side-impact tests were actually conducted under conditions that would represent being struck in excess of 70 mph, twice as fast as the group claimed; [...] When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing dramatically."

Now Consumer Reports is urging consumers "to suspend judgment on the merits of individual products until the new testing has been completed and the report re-published."

It will be interesting to see what the legal fall out will be, if any. In any case, I'm glad we didn't rush out to buy a new car seat.

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A full-night's sleep

My BW (Beautiful Wife) and Kiddo went to California to visit my in-laws. They've been gone for 4 days now, and have 4 days left to go. A happy side-benefit of their trip is the opportunity to sleep, uninterrupted throughout the night. As fate would have it, though, I can't really sleep uninterrupted. My body keeps waking up at the times Kiddo would be getting up. Last night was the first night that I wasn't up at 2:30, one of Kiddo's favorite eating times.

The truth of the matter is that I'm a lost puppy with the two of them gone. I wander around not knowing what to do with myself. I can't wait until Friday when they are back home again!

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Drop everything: kiddo is calling!

Its been a while since I've been able to update this blog regularly. Sorry about that. Everybody who has kids told me how all-encompassing having children was going to be, and I won't say that I didn't believe them -- because I did -- I just didn't totally understand what "all-encompassing" really meant.

Anyway, Kiddo is doing great. He is a joy and we feel so blessed to have been able to share this Christmas season with our little angel. He is absolutely adorable in every way, and every time I look at him I'm overwhelmed by the recognition that is this miracle child. In the end I think I keep expecting his real parents to come pick him up (because how could he really be ours?). So far they haven't showed up, but I'll let you know.

Kiddo, as I said, is doing great. When he came home from the hospital, we were administering IV antibiotics to an IV port in his head every twelve hours. Additionally, he was on oxygen. We even got a hospital-quality pulse oximeter to monitor his oxygen saturation. Well, we finished his antibiotics the week he came home from the hospital, and the doctor removed the IV port. (Kiddo didn't like that very much; in particular, he didn't like the tape being removed from his head as it pulled out his hair. Yeah, it wasn't really fun.) And last week we were able to remove him from the oxygen. We kept monitoring his saturation, and for the most part, he's done great. So great, that we called the home health care people today to have them come pick up the equipment.

So I'm pleased to report that Kiddo has a clean bill of health. He is sleeping on my lap while I type this post.

Check that, he woke up as I was typing that post. I spent the next 30 minutes trying to sooth him. Now his mom is trying. Anyway, I'm supposed to be working. It is a work-from-home week for me. I thought I'd have vacation for it, but I took too much when Kiddo was born, so I get to work this week. It's okay, particularly because I get to do it at home.

Ok. So he started squirming again, and I had to leave this post. Now it is the new year, and I *still* haven't updated my blog.

I think I'm just going to post this with a best wishes for a happy new year for everybody out there. I'll work on this blog updating thing. :)

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