Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
The Future Has Arrived
Young Vincent decided to show up on Thursday, October 5, at 6:25 p.m., weighing 7 lbs 11 oz, and measuring 21-1/4" in length. I will now tell two versions of the story, in varying levels of detail. The first is an executive summary. The second is not for the squeamish.
On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. After consulting with my doctor's office, they said I needed to head to the hospital immediately. We called Dad and Marvis to let them know it was time, and we got to the hospital at about 9 a.m. I got my first ever wheelchair ride from the emergency room check-in to the labor and delivery ward. Dad and Marvis arrived at around noon. We had really nice nurses and it was kind of a comedy routine. There were six babies being born that day in the hospital, and the OB/GYN doctor was really getting worked hard. After a lot of pain and a lot of work, Vinny was born. The nurses delivered him because the doctor was busy with another birth, but we did see him afterwards.
On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. Jeff called Dad and Marvis to alert them to the possibility that my water had broken. They were minutes away from leaving for work, with Dad leaving for a meeting in Indianapolis, so it was good timing. I drank a glass of milk and called the doctor, but it was still too early so they paged the on-call doctor for me. While I waited for that doctor to return my call, I drank a glass of milk and e-mailed my boss with some results from a supercomputer run that had run overnight, the news that my water had broken, and apologies for not being able to contribute more to the report that was due that day. I sent a message to my sisters alerting them to the water breaking too. I also called our secretary but it was too early so I left her a message that my water had broken.
Eventually I gave up on the on-call doctor so I called the now-open doctor's office, and they told me I'd better go to the hospital immediately. I asked them if it would be okay to take a shower first, and they said no, absolutely not, get to the hospital immediately. Jeff drove us to the emergency room. I was still wearing my nightgown, over which I had thrown a t-shirt, and I was wearing shoes and socks. My water was still leaking as I was standing there waiting to get checked in. I asked them if I could have a tissue to wipe up the water going down my leg. They gave me a tissue but as I leaned over to wipe my leg, even more water gushed out and I made a big puddle on the emergency room floor. I was so embarrassed. Eventually someone from the Labor and Delivery department came and gave me a wheelchair ride to the right floor. At that point I was feeling some cramps, kind of like uncomfortable period cramps, and losing this water (which felt kind of like peeing except that I had no control over it).
They had me change into a hospital gown, and put me in a hospital bed with lots of absorbent padding, and I signed a bunch of consent forms for various things that might happen. The nurses were really nice and they had good senses of humor, meaning that they laughed at my jokes. ;) Naah, they also were very nice and had good attitudes of their own.
The woman doing my IV hit the jackpot or the fountain of youth or something and I bled a lot. Luckily I did not once look over there as she was doing it because I can't stand the sight of blood. I hate needles enough as it is, which is why I refused to look in the first place, but Jeff tells me that it was pretty gory. My fear of needles is also what made me want to avoid getting an epidural, if possible.
Jeff was by my side the whole time, and Dad and Marvis arrived after noon. The contractions were getting more and more painful. Jeff helped me concentrate on my breathing, and Dad and Marvis rubbed me and wiped me with wet washcloths. But it got so painful that I was pushing my nose into the side of the hospital bed really hard, and deeply considering biting the handles on the bed too. Finally I asked for an epidural. Actually, I believe what happened was somebody brought it up and I said, "Can I have one please god." So I got an epidural. It was creepy because I had to sit with my back slumped forward in a particular way, and I told Jeff that I don't want to know how big the needle that they stuck in between a particular place in my spine was but I think it had to be huge. After the epidural took effect, I was back to a much more mild level of pain and I could once again converse and ride through the contractions. The OB/GYN on duty that day, who was not my regular doctor but a member of his practice, came in and checked on me. The problem was that all day my cervix was effaced but not at all dilated. So I was having these contractions but pretty much for nothing. He checked my cervix and it was still not dilated. I was cheerful enough by that point to joke around again, so when he mentioned that I'd had an epidural I said, "Yeah, I did and it feels great. I don't know what the f*** I was thinking before!" He got such a kick out of that comment that when he went back to the office he told everybody there what I had said.
They kept raising my pitocin level and eventually I did start dilating. And I soon got to the point where I was fully dilated, and couldn't hardly stop myself from pushing. Well, I could, but it meant that I had to tense up during the contractions, which made them hurt a lot, even in the epidural state. I told the nurses that I really needed to push. They wanted me to wait because the doctor was in another delivery. Eventually after they saw that I was fully dilated they let me push.
Pushing was very painful, even halfway numbed by meds. I can't imagine how unbearable it would have been for me without the epidural. Jeff was on my right, and Marvis was on my left, and they helped me push by counting and holding me up for the pushes. Dad cheered me on from the side. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and at times it felt hopeless. As I pushed him out, it got more and more painful, probably because I was tearing. But once his head came out, it was pretty simple from there. I felt distinct relief when his chin came out. Then I pushed out the first shoulder and it was pretty much over. He cried immediately when he came out. The nurses wrapped him in a towel and put him on my belly for me to see.
The doctor wasn't there when the baby arrived, but after a while he came in, collected the cord blood, and sewed me up. I had a fairly superficial although very long tear that he fixed up.
I can't describe my feelings when I saw Vinny for the first time. I know that every family member there had tears in their eyes when he came out, but when I saw that beautiful baby for the first time it was amazing. He looked so sweet and he was so calm. His eyes were just so deep. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then he glanced over at Jeff, then back at me, then back at Jeff, then back at me. After that, the nurses took him away and fixed him up while the doctor stitched me up, but I got him back within the hour.
I'll tell you more about him, and maybe even post a picture or two in a later entry.
The Short Version
On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. After consulting with my doctor's office, they said I needed to head to the hospital immediately. We called Dad and Marvis to let them know it was time, and we got to the hospital at about 9 a.m. I got my first ever wheelchair ride from the emergency room check-in to the labor and delivery ward. Dad and Marvis arrived at around noon. We had really nice nurses and it was kind of a comedy routine. There were six babies being born that day in the hospital, and the OB/GYN doctor was really getting worked hard. After a lot of pain and a lot of work, Vinny was born. The nurses delivered him because the doctor was busy with another birth, but we did see him afterwards.
The Longer Version
On Thursday morning, I woke up to discover that my water broke. Jeff called Dad and Marvis to alert them to the possibility that my water had broken. They were minutes away from leaving for work, with Dad leaving for a meeting in Indianapolis, so it was good timing. I drank a glass of milk and called the doctor, but it was still too early so they paged the on-call doctor for me. While I waited for that doctor to return my call, I drank a glass of milk and e-mailed my boss with some results from a supercomputer run that had run overnight, the news that my water had broken, and apologies for not being able to contribute more to the report that was due that day. I sent a message to my sisters alerting them to the water breaking too. I also called our secretary but it was too early so I left her a message that my water had broken.
Eventually I gave up on the on-call doctor so I called the now-open doctor's office, and they told me I'd better go to the hospital immediately. I asked them if it would be okay to take a shower first, and they said no, absolutely not, get to the hospital immediately. Jeff drove us to the emergency room. I was still wearing my nightgown, over which I had thrown a t-shirt, and I was wearing shoes and socks. My water was still leaking as I was standing there waiting to get checked in. I asked them if I could have a tissue to wipe up the water going down my leg. They gave me a tissue but as I leaned over to wipe my leg, even more water gushed out and I made a big puddle on the emergency room floor. I was so embarrassed. Eventually someone from the Labor and Delivery department came and gave me a wheelchair ride to the right floor. At that point I was feeling some cramps, kind of like uncomfortable period cramps, and losing this water (which felt kind of like peeing except that I had no control over it).
They had me change into a hospital gown, and put me in a hospital bed with lots of absorbent padding, and I signed a bunch of consent forms for various things that might happen. The nurses were really nice and they had good senses of humor, meaning that they laughed at my jokes. ;) Naah, they also were very nice and had good attitudes of their own.
The woman doing my IV hit the jackpot or the fountain of youth or something and I bled a lot. Luckily I did not once look over there as she was doing it because I can't stand the sight of blood. I hate needles enough as it is, which is why I refused to look in the first place, but Jeff tells me that it was pretty gory. My fear of needles is also what made me want to avoid getting an epidural, if possible.
Jeff was by my side the whole time, and Dad and Marvis arrived after noon. The contractions were getting more and more painful. Jeff helped me concentrate on my breathing, and Dad and Marvis rubbed me and wiped me with wet washcloths. But it got so painful that I was pushing my nose into the side of the hospital bed really hard, and deeply considering biting the handles on the bed too. Finally I asked for an epidural. Actually, I believe what happened was somebody brought it up and I said, "Can I have one please god." So I got an epidural. It was creepy because I had to sit with my back slumped forward in a particular way, and I told Jeff that I don't want to know how big the needle that they stuck in between a particular place in my spine was but I think it had to be huge. After the epidural took effect, I was back to a much more mild level of pain and I could once again converse and ride through the contractions. The OB/GYN on duty that day, who was not my regular doctor but a member of his practice, came in and checked on me. The problem was that all day my cervix was effaced but not at all dilated. So I was having these contractions but pretty much for nothing. He checked my cervix and it was still not dilated. I was cheerful enough by that point to joke around again, so when he mentioned that I'd had an epidural I said, "Yeah, I did and it feels great. I don't know what the f*** I was thinking before!" He got such a kick out of that comment that when he went back to the office he told everybody there what I had said.
They kept raising my pitocin level and eventually I did start dilating. And I soon got to the point where I was fully dilated, and couldn't hardly stop myself from pushing. Well, I could, but it meant that I had to tense up during the contractions, which made them hurt a lot, even in the epidural state. I told the nurses that I really needed to push. They wanted me to wait because the doctor was in another delivery. Eventually after they saw that I was fully dilated they let me push.
Pushing was very painful, even halfway numbed by meds. I can't imagine how unbearable it would have been for me without the epidural. Jeff was on my right, and Marvis was on my left, and they helped me push by counting and holding me up for the pushes. Dad cheered me on from the side. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done, and at times it felt hopeless. As I pushed him out, it got more and more painful, probably because I was tearing. But once his head came out, it was pretty simple from there. I felt distinct relief when his chin came out. Then I pushed out the first shoulder and it was pretty much over. He cried immediately when he came out. The nurses wrapped him in a towel and put him on my belly for me to see.
The doctor wasn't there when the baby arrived, but after a while he came in, collected the cord blood, and sewed me up. I had a fairly superficial although very long tear that he fixed up.
I can't describe my feelings when I saw Vinny for the first time. I know that every family member there had tears in their eyes when he came out, but when I saw that beautiful baby for the first time it was amazing. He looked so sweet and he was so calm. His eyes were just so deep. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then he glanced over at Jeff, then back at me, then back at Jeff, then back at me. After that, the nurses took him away and fixed him up while the doctor stitched me up, but I got him back within the hour.
I'll tell you more about him, and maybe even post a picture or two in a later entry.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Official Due Date
Today is Vinny's official due date. I would have liked for him to be born by now; in particular, before October 1 (which is often the cutoff date for school enrollment), but I guess they say you can't hurry something good. But it's okay, I guess, because this allows me to work longer, thereby accumulating more vacation time that I can use during my family leave.
On Monday I had a bit of a fright. I went to work as usual. But over the course of the morning, I found that I was getting ravenously hungry. I tried to ignore it and just wait for lunchtime. When I got up to go to lunch, I discovered that I was really dizzy, shaky, and was breaking out in a sweat. I managed to make it to the cafeteria and I promised myself that if I didn't feel better after lunch, I would get some help. Eating my lunch seemed to make a big difference, but just in case, I went to the lab's health department and had my blood pressure taken. It was normal, thank goodness. The nurse said it sounded like I had experienced a drop in my blood sugar. I went home a little early just to be safe. Then on Tuesday I worked from home. Jeff bought me some snacks to take to work with me today, so I didn't have to worry about a repeat of the low blood sugar.
I still don't know why my blood sugar dropped like that. I have never had that experience before, and since about the 3rd or 4th month of pregnancy, I have not needed to have a morning snack in order to make it through the day. So I don't know what happened.
On Monday I had a bit of a fright. I went to work as usual. But over the course of the morning, I found that I was getting ravenously hungry. I tried to ignore it and just wait for lunchtime. When I got up to go to lunch, I discovered that I was really dizzy, shaky, and was breaking out in a sweat. I managed to make it to the cafeteria and I promised myself that if I didn't feel better after lunch, I would get some help. Eating my lunch seemed to make a big difference, but just in case, I went to the lab's health department and had my blood pressure taken. It was normal, thank goodness. The nurse said it sounded like I had experienced a drop in my blood sugar. I went home a little early just to be safe. Then on Tuesday I worked from home. Jeff bought me some snacks to take to work with me today, so I didn't have to worry about a repeat of the low blood sugar.
I still don't know why my blood sugar dropped like that. I have never had that experience before, and since about the 3rd or 4th month of pregnancy, I have not needed to have a morning snack in order to make it through the day. So I don't know what happened.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Interesting Facts
Still around... no sign of Vinny yet. I thought I'd take this time to tell you some interesting things I've learned this week.
- Only 5% of babies are born on their due date.
- Most first babies are born late. (Damn!)
- Before a baby is born, its head drops into the mother's pelvis. This can occur anywhere between several weeks to just before the baby is born. As of my last doctor's appointment, he had not dropped yet.
- If I push on my swollen ankle with my finger, it makes a depression that doesn't immediately go away -- kind of like those Swedish memory-foam mattresses they advertise on TV.
- The super-duper computer doesn't like it if you try to open more than 128 files at once. Doing so causes your job to crash. In addition (something I figured out a few weeks ago), if your job requires more time than you requested, and the super-duper computer cuts it off, this results in a segfault and core dump. It took me a week to figure this out and after confirming with a colleague, this is indeed a "feature" of this machine (where "feature" really means "error"). They should really tell you these things so you don't spend a week trying to track them down.
- Facts about North American telephone area codes:
- Telephone area codes used to be of the following format: xyz, where x is between 2 and 9, y is either 0 or 1, and z is 1-9 if y is 0, or 2-9 otherwise. In the case of y = 0, the area code was supposed to cover an entire state, whereas if it was a 1, the area code was supposed to cover only a city or part of a state.
- Area codes with the fewest clicks on a rotary phone were assigned to the biggest cities. Thus, Chicago was 312 (6 clicks -- just add up the digits), while Hawaii was given 808 (26 clicks -- the 0 is really ten clicks).
- From 1962 to 1981, only two new area codes were added to the system.
- The proliferation of fax machines and cell phones resulted in the need to abandon this system, which is why today a telephone area code is of the form xyz = [2-9][0-9][0-9]. There are some reserved exchanges that cannot be used for area codes, such as x11, and the numbers 8yy (y= [2-5]) are reserved for future toll-free expansion.
- There are still some area codes left, but not as many as we would like. There are various plans for increasing the number of available telephone numbers, including adding an extra digit to distinguish between United States and Canadian area codes.
- If you're a numbers junkie like me, and you want to read more about the telephone number system, I got all this information from Wikipedia's articles about the North American Numbering Plan.
- Telephone area codes used to be of the following format: xyz, where x is between 2 and 9, y is either 0 or 1, and z is 1-9 if y is 0, or 2-9 otherwise. In the case of y = 0, the area code was supposed to cover an entire state, whereas if it was a 1, the area code was supposed to cover only a city or part of a state.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
I'm a Winner... and You Could Be Too!
Last week, when I was at the lab's International Festival, I entered a trivia contest at the British Isles booth, and I found out today that I won the grand prize! Apparently I had more correct ansers than anyone else, which I find quite surprising but I'm not going to complain. Anyhow, I won a fabulous paperweight from the Orkney Islands, made from a round stone with a sheet of metal hammered onto it and etched with a winged dragon. It is pretty cool looking.
It seems like I never win anything, so this was pretty exciting to me. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it made my day. Usually, contests are random and so the probability is just not on my side. Other contests are based on guessing, and I am usually no good at guessing. So it was a welcome surprise to win something based on my knowledge of famous British people.
In honor of this, I want to share the joy of winning. Alas, the only contest I can think of is a guessing game, so it will be dependent mostly on luck, I'm afraid!
Answer the following questions before 7:00 p.m. EDT Thursday, September 28, 2006.
1. When will Vinny be born? (Give both a date and a time.)
2. How much will he weigh?
You can answer in the comments, or send me an e-mail with your guess. I will determine the winner and award an exciting prize. Good luck!
It seems like I never win anything, so this was pretty exciting to me. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it made my day. Usually, contests are random and so the probability is just not on my side. Other contests are based on guessing, and I am usually no good at guessing. So it was a welcome surprise to win something based on my knowledge of famous British people.
In honor of this, I want to share the joy of winning. Alas, the only contest I can think of is a guessing game, so it will be dependent mostly on luck, I'm afraid!
Answer the following questions before 7:00 p.m. EDT Thursday, September 28, 2006.
1. When will Vinny be born? (Give both a date and a time.)
2. How much will he weigh?
You can answer in the comments, or send me an e-mail with your guess. I will determine the winner and award an exciting prize. Good luck!
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Birthday Activities
Last Thursday, I took Jeff out to dinner for his birthday. We went to a steakhouse, and Jeff enjoyed his steak but I didn't think that my chicken was worth the price. Then we went on a huge shopping spree and bought each other's birthday gifts: the latest releases of the original Star Wars movies for him, and cookie sheets, a muffin tin, and a waffle iron for me. We also went and bought diapers for Vinny: this type of diapers called gDiapers, which combine all the benefits of both disposables (no extra laundry) and cloth (no extra garbage; the absorbent liners dissolve in your toilet and get flushed into the sewer system). They are considerably more expensive than cloth diapers, and pricier than disposables too, but we can afford it and it sounds like a good way to solve the diaper dilemma. I'll let you know how well they work.
On Friday night, Jeff made me a delicious spaghetti dinner. That is one of my favorite foods, especially Jeff's sauce. So I was pretty happy with that. Then on Saturday I made his favorite cake, although I had a bit of a mishap when I added the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and accidentally turned the mixer up to high speed. There was cake batter everywhere, even in the CD player that was (foolishly) sitting right next to the mixer. I cleaned it up as best I could but I may have ruined the CD player. I haven't turned it on again so I don't know. But the cake turned out to be really tasty, despite being slightly thinner.
On Monday, I got birthday phone calls from both my sisters and from Dad and Marvis. It was a real treat to talk to them. Unfortunately, I missed Laura's call but she left a nice birthday message.
On Friday night, Jeff made me a delicious spaghetti dinner. That is one of my favorite foods, especially Jeff's sauce. So I was pretty happy with that. Then on Saturday I made his favorite cake, although I had a bit of a mishap when I added the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and accidentally turned the mixer up to high speed. There was cake batter everywhere, even in the CD player that was (foolishly) sitting right next to the mixer. I cleaned it up as best I could but I may have ruined the CD player. I haven't turned it on again so I don't know. But the cake turned out to be really tasty, despite being slightly thinner.
On Monday, I got birthday phone calls from both my sisters and from Dad and Marvis. It was a real treat to talk to them. Unfortunately, I missed Laura's call but she left a nice birthday message.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Numbers for Today
Today is my birthday. I am 2N-1 years old today. I'll leave it to you to figure out which value of N. As a hint, I'll tell you that my dad is also 2N-1 years old, but NDad > Nme. Today is also my mother-in-law's birthday. She's turning the same age as my dad.
Yesterday was Jeff's birthday, and he turned 2N. NJeff == Nme.
Other interesting numbers: On Saturday night I measured my circumference and it was 50 inches. Today, I bought a dozen pastries and took them to work for people to eat in celebration of my birthday. It cost $26.01 (they were fancy pastries from Panera) and they ate only half of them. So I have $13.005 worth of pastries to eat. I think Jeff will be happy to help out with that.
Speaking of cost, the other day I bought something that cost $23.27, so I gave the cashier $24.02, with the idea that I would get back three quarters. But she must have mindlessly typed in the money I gave her and mistyped it as $24.01, because she gave me 74 cents. Now why in the world would I give her one penny just so she could give it back to me?!?!
Yesterday was Jeff's birthday, and he turned 2N. NJeff == Nme.
Other interesting numbers: On Saturday night I measured my circumference and it was 50 inches. Today, I bought a dozen pastries and took them to work for people to eat in celebration of my birthday. It cost $26.01 (they were fancy pastries from Panera) and they ate only half of them. So I have $13.005 worth of pastries to eat. I think Jeff will be happy to help out with that.
Speaking of cost, the other day I bought something that cost $23.27, so I gave the cashier $24.02, with the idea that I would get back three quarters. But she must have mindlessly typed in the money I gave her and mistyped it as $24.01, because she gave me 74 cents. Now why in the world would I give her one penny just so she could give it back to me?!?!
Friday, September 15, 2006
One Year
One year ago today, I started my job.
It's been a year of many adjustments, some easier than others. For example, adjusting to an income that exceeded my expenditures was not particularly difficult. Adjusting to the loss of my karate class and all my friends, that was tough. I don't think I had any idea what my life would be like today when I started my job. It's certainly much different than I might have expected.
In this year, I have made new friends. I still miss my old friends in Illinois, but I like the people here too. I have adjusted to hills and curvy roads after seven years in the flatlands. (It didn't take that long.) It was much harder to get used to my job. I feel like I work much harder at this job than I worked as a graduate student. In graduate school, the deadlines were more nebulous than they are here. I feel like I get along well with my boss and my colleagues, and that makes me happy. It almost seems like we all get along too well, and that makes me a little bit suspicious sometimes. I guess that's just my inner paranoia speaking.
The biggest adjustment is yet to come. I know that having a child is going to make my life very different. I mean, when I was a graduate student maybe I didn't work so hard but it was the same type of work. But I've never been a parent or even babysat regularly. The closest I've ever come to that is teaching children's karate once a week. But I had to deal with those critters for only one hour at a time, whereas this will be a full time gig.
Now that I've passed my one-year anniversary, I am eligible for family medical leave. It was quite a relief to pass the one-year mark without having to worry about my job. So son, feel free to come out whenever you're ready!
It's been a year of many adjustments, some easier than others. For example, adjusting to an income that exceeded my expenditures was not particularly difficult. Adjusting to the loss of my karate class and all my friends, that was tough. I don't think I had any idea what my life would be like today when I started my job. It's certainly much different than I might have expected.
In this year, I have made new friends. I still miss my old friends in Illinois, but I like the people here too. I have adjusted to hills and curvy roads after seven years in the flatlands. (It didn't take that long.) It was much harder to get used to my job. I feel like I work much harder at this job than I worked as a graduate student. In graduate school, the deadlines were more nebulous than they are here. I feel like I get along well with my boss and my colleagues, and that makes me happy. It almost seems like we all get along too well, and that makes me a little bit suspicious sometimes. I guess that's just my inner paranoia speaking.
The biggest adjustment is yet to come. I know that having a child is going to make my life very different. I mean, when I was a graduate student maybe I didn't work so hard but it was the same type of work. But I've never been a parent or even babysat regularly. The closest I've ever come to that is teaching children's karate once a week. But I had to deal with those critters for only one hour at a time, whereas this will be a full time gig.
Now that I've passed my one-year anniversary, I am eligible for family medical leave. It was quite a relief to pass the one-year mark without having to worry about my job. So son, feel free to come out whenever you're ready!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
A Swell Week
Haha just a little pun there in the title of this post! I've been swelling a lot lately. I've taken to wearing shoes that enclose my feet so my feet don't swell so badly, but all that ends up doing is making me have really swollen ankles instead of really swollen feet. On Saturday I spent most of the day with my feet in water, and it felt pretty good, although it did little to take down the swelling.
I've been finishing up the sewing that Laura and I were doing for the nursery. This week I finished up the curtains and the crib dust ruffle. I complained to Marvis about being unable to iron for very long, because the standing was making my ankles swell. Well, suggested my brilliant bonus mom, why don't you lower the ironing board to sitting level? I don't know why I didn't think of that. Anyhow I did that and was able to do more sewing at a time.
Then, my sewing machine started squeaking really badly. It was so loud it was giving me a headache. So I bought some oil for it, and proceeded to oil everywhere, but it was still squeaking. Finally, Jeff helped me turn it upside down and oil underneath it, and fortunately, that's where the squeak was coming from, so after that I was able to sew without suffering.
As for work, I've been trying to finish up some important stuff so that I don't have to worry about getting it done before the baby is born. In particular, I've been trying to get this code running on our super-duper computer. So far, I don't yet have it running, and I'm not quite sure what's going on. But I am getting closer to figuring out the problem and assuming he doesn't come too early, I should have it done before I have to go.
Speaking of the baby, I guess most everybody knows, we've decided to name him Vincent David: Vincent because we like the name, and David after my beloved cousin who died a couple of years ago. We plan to call him by a diminuative of Vincent, but I have a question to pose to all my vast readership. How should we spell it: Vinnie or Vinny? There are potential advantages to both spellings, so I can't decide. Most people seem to be spelling it Vinnie, which is fine. But spelling it with a "y" means that it has one fewer letter, making it easier to type and possibly to write for those of us who are handwriting challenged. On the other hand, writing "ie" might be easier than writing "y." But I guess this is something that doesn't really matter that much anyhow.
I've been finishing up the sewing that Laura and I were doing for the nursery. This week I finished up the curtains and the crib dust ruffle. I complained to Marvis about being unable to iron for very long, because the standing was making my ankles swell. Well, suggested my brilliant bonus mom, why don't you lower the ironing board to sitting level? I don't know why I didn't think of that. Anyhow I did that and was able to do more sewing at a time.
Then, my sewing machine started squeaking really badly. It was so loud it was giving me a headache. So I bought some oil for it, and proceeded to oil everywhere, but it was still squeaking. Finally, Jeff helped me turn it upside down and oil underneath it, and fortunately, that's where the squeak was coming from, so after that I was able to sew without suffering.
As for work, I've been trying to finish up some important stuff so that I don't have to worry about getting it done before the baby is born. In particular, I've been trying to get this code running on our super-duper computer. So far, I don't yet have it running, and I'm not quite sure what's going on. But I am getting closer to figuring out the problem and assuming he doesn't come too early, I should have it done before I have to go.
Speaking of the baby, I guess most everybody knows, we've decided to name him Vincent David: Vincent because we like the name, and David after my beloved cousin who died a couple of years ago. We plan to call him by a diminuative of Vincent, but I have a question to pose to all my vast readership. How should we spell it: Vinnie or Vinny? There are potential advantages to both spellings, so I can't decide. Most people seem to be spelling it Vinnie, which is fine. But spelling it with a "y" means that it has one fewer letter, making it easier to type and possibly to write for those of us who are handwriting challenged. On the other hand, writing "ie" might be easier than writing "y." But I guess this is something that doesn't really matter that much anyhow.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Adventures in Travel
So we decided to get away this weekend for our last child-free getaway. Jeff decided that we should head south. We didn't actually end up getting very far, only to Chattanooga. But we had a good time because no matter where we go, being together is fun. Also, there are a lot of things to see and do in Chattanooga.
On Friday night, we got off the interstate at an exit that promised to have lots of hotels. It was a good thing it did, because we went to three hotels that didn't have any non-smoking rooms before we found a fourth hotel where we could stay. By that time it was very late and after I looked at some brochures about the area I went right to sleep.
We did not see the eponymous choo-choo. But there is a park where you can go and see it. Instead, we went to Rock City, a kitchy attraction made famous by barn advertisements throughout the nation. We never knew where it was until our neighbors told us it was there near Chattanooga (actually just a few miles south, in Georgia). It was an interesting place although a bit challenging to navigate. You walk along all these paths through rocks and gardens. I managed to squeeze through "Needle's Eye" and "Fat Man's Squeeze" although I'm glad we didn't take this trip a few weeks from now. I was pretty worn out by the time we got out.
Then, since we were so close and Jeff had never been, we drove into Alabama and had lunch there. In case you were curious, Chattanooga and Georgia are on the eastern time zone, and Alabama, about 20 miles west, is on the central time zone. After lunch in Alabama, we traveled back to Chattanooga and went to the Tennessee Aquarium, where we saw an IMAX movie before going into the two aquarium exhibits. Both exhibits begin at the top of the building and proceed downward. First we saw an exhibit about rivers, and it was really interesting. The other exhibit was about the oceans. By that time I was getting really tired. After we saw the aquariums we headed back to our hotel where we rested up before going out to dinner.
We left for home on Sunday, and we spent the rest of the day resting up. Then today we went shopping in preparation for packing our bag for the hospital. There were a lot of things we needed to get, including snacks, toiletries, a bathrobe, and nursing bras and nightgowns. Jeff had the patience of a saint while waiting for me to try everything on.
There are a lot more fun and interesting things to do in Chattanooga and I hope we'll get down there again someday. For example, there is the Chicamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway (which I want to ride next time), and a riverboat cruise. I never knew there was so much to do in Chattanooga.
On Friday night, we got off the interstate at an exit that promised to have lots of hotels. It was a good thing it did, because we went to three hotels that didn't have any non-smoking rooms before we found a fourth hotel where we could stay. By that time it was very late and after I looked at some brochures about the area I went right to sleep.
We did not see the eponymous choo-choo. But there is a park where you can go and see it. Instead, we went to Rock City, a kitchy attraction made famous by barn advertisements throughout the nation. We never knew where it was until our neighbors told us it was there near Chattanooga (actually just a few miles south, in Georgia). It was an interesting place although a bit challenging to navigate. You walk along all these paths through rocks and gardens. I managed to squeeze through "Needle's Eye" and "Fat Man's Squeeze" although I'm glad we didn't take this trip a few weeks from now. I was pretty worn out by the time we got out.
Then, since we were so close and Jeff had never been, we drove into Alabama and had lunch there. In case you were curious, Chattanooga and Georgia are on the eastern time zone, and Alabama, about 20 miles west, is on the central time zone. After lunch in Alabama, we traveled back to Chattanooga and went to the Tennessee Aquarium, where we saw an IMAX movie before going into the two aquarium exhibits. Both exhibits begin at the top of the building and proceed downward. First we saw an exhibit about rivers, and it was really interesting. The other exhibit was about the oceans. By that time I was getting really tired. After we saw the aquariums we headed back to our hotel where we rested up before going out to dinner.
We left for home on Sunday, and we spent the rest of the day resting up. Then today we went shopping in preparation for packing our bag for the hospital. There were a lot of things we needed to get, including snacks, toiletries, a bathrobe, and nursing bras and nightgowns. Jeff had the patience of a saint while waiting for me to try everything on.
There are a lot more fun and interesting things to do in Chattanooga and I hope we'll get down there again someday. For example, there is the Chicamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway (which I want to ride next time), and a riverboat cruise. I never knew there was so much to do in Chattanooga.
Adventures with Imaging
On Thursday we got the first portraits of our son. Thanks to the wonders of 3-D ultrasound imaging, we now have pictures such as this one of our pride and joy:
It might be a little hard to see at first but it's a profile view. Jeff thinks his nose looks like mine, but it just looks like a typical baby nose to me. It looks like he may have inherited my lack of chin, but it's hard to tell because the umbilical cord is in the way.
We were also able to see some real-time images (which they refer to as 4-D, the fourth dimension being time) of him practicing up on breathing. You could see his chest moving in and out, even though he's just inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid. She confirmed that he is indeed a boy, no mistakes from last time. Also she checked out his size and estimated his weight at over six pounds. He seemed to be about two weeks ahead of the curve. Maybe that means he'll be born early.
It might be a little hard to see at first but it's a profile view. Jeff thinks his nose looks like mine, but it just looks like a typical baby nose to me. It looks like he may have inherited my lack of chin, but it's hard to tell because the umbilical cord is in the way.
We were also able to see some real-time images (which they refer to as 4-D, the fourth dimension being time) of him practicing up on breathing. You could see his chest moving in and out, even though he's just inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluid. She confirmed that he is indeed a boy, no mistakes from last time. Also she checked out his size and estimated his weight at over six pounds. He seemed to be about two weeks ahead of the curve. Maybe that means he'll be born early.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
With Apologies to Bob Dylan
How many times must a woman go pee,
before her baby arrives?
How many aches will she get in her feet,
her ankles, her knees, and her thighs?
How much more weight will she gain before then;
her ankles will swell to what size?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times will the baby kick me,
until he decides to come out?
How many days will it take me to lose
the weight that is making me stout?
And how good a mom will I turn out to be
and will I remain filled with doubt?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.
before her baby arrives?
How many aches will she get in her feet,
her ankles, her knees, and her thighs?
How much more weight will she gain before then;
her ankles will swell to what size?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.
How many times will the baby kick me,
until he decides to come out?
How many days will it take me to lose
the weight that is making me stout?
And how good a mom will I turn out to be
and will I remain filled with doubt?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
the answer is blowin' in the wind.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Busy B
I've had a busy week. Last week, I worked really hard at work. Then, on Friday, Laura came for a weekend visit. As a gift for Vinny, she came to help me sew for his nursery. It was a big help because thanks to my medial epicondylitis, I really can't do much sewing by hand. So we did the pieces that would require the most hand sewing first: the blanket and bumper. Thanks to Laura's excellent sewing skills, we finished both of those pieces. She also cut out all the pieces for all the other nursery pieces: the curtains, the valance, and the crib caddy. That was a big help because it's now a little bit hard for me to get on the floor, much less get up from the floor. So it's nice that all these pieces are ready for me to sew whenever I get to it.
The nursery theme is tropical fish. I looked at all the nursery themes at the store but was unhappy with them, so I decided to make my own instead. I found some great tropical fish fabric on the internet and went from there. The cost of the nursery is comparable to if we'd bought a set at the store, but it's more what we want. Plus it's made with love, so it's got to be better, right? :)
In addition to sewing, we also managed to talk a lot and have a good time. We took some time out to have fun, like going to what is the best Thai restaurant in East Tennessee, according to a friend of mine; eating delicious Mexican food cooked by Jody and delicious manicotti made by Jeff; and seeing a few sights around town. She also was kind enough to clean our gutters. I told her to come back any time!!!
I took Laura to the bus station early Monday morning, and then returned home and went back to bed. Then in the afternoon I went to the doctor because I was a little worried about the sudden swelling in my feet, hands, and face that I had developed. As it turns out, I'm just fine, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia.
Today, they held a baby shower for me and Jeff at work. As part of the celebration, Jeff got to come to the shower. Since he had a visitor's pass that was good for the entire day, he just came to work with me and read while I worked. I took him to lunch to experience the disgusting cafeteria food, and after lunch we went to an awards ceremony during which my boss got an award for being a good mentor. I was not the one who nominated him for the award (it was a summer student), but I definitely think he is a very good boss and I can understand why the student nominated him.
The baby shower was at 2:00. Lois, our department secretary, was the one who organized it. She had evidently been listening to me when I babbled to her about the baby, because the shower theme was tropical fish, with a cake decorated with tropical fish, paper plates shaped like tropical fish, and a tropical fish tablecloth. All the attendees, except for one woman from upstairs, Lois, and myself, were men, and in fact some of them said it was the first baby shower they'd ever been to. Lois said they had to play one shower game, so she had a list of baby-related words that they had to unscramble, and whoever got the most in three minutes won a prize.
I think everybody got together and gave Lois a bunch of money and she went and bought a bunch of gifts for us. There was a lot of stuff, and it was really great. In addition, my boss gave us a gift card, which was really nice of him.
It made me feel really good to know that all those people cared enough about me to chip in for this baby shower. I haven't been here quite a year yet but I have made a lot of friends and put down some roots. I am always surprised to (re)discover that people really seem to like me, and today I was pleasantly reminded that I am not as unlikeable as I appear to myself.
The nursery theme is tropical fish. I looked at all the nursery themes at the store but was unhappy with them, so I decided to make my own instead. I found some great tropical fish fabric on the internet and went from there. The cost of the nursery is comparable to if we'd bought a set at the store, but it's more what we want. Plus it's made with love, so it's got to be better, right? :)
In addition to sewing, we also managed to talk a lot and have a good time. We took some time out to have fun, like going to what is the best Thai restaurant in East Tennessee, according to a friend of mine; eating delicious Mexican food cooked by Jody and delicious manicotti made by Jeff; and seeing a few sights around town. She also was kind enough to clean our gutters. I told her to come back any time!!!
I took Laura to the bus station early Monday morning, and then returned home and went back to bed. Then in the afternoon I went to the doctor because I was a little worried about the sudden swelling in my feet, hands, and face that I had developed. As it turns out, I'm just fine, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have pre-eclampsia.
Today, they held a baby shower for me and Jeff at work. As part of the celebration, Jeff got to come to the shower. Since he had a visitor's pass that was good for the entire day, he just came to work with me and read while I worked. I took him to lunch to experience the disgusting cafeteria food, and after lunch we went to an awards ceremony during which my boss got an award for being a good mentor. I was not the one who nominated him for the award (it was a summer student), but I definitely think he is a very good boss and I can understand why the student nominated him.
The baby shower was at 2:00. Lois, our department secretary, was the one who organized it. She had evidently been listening to me when I babbled to her about the baby, because the shower theme was tropical fish, with a cake decorated with tropical fish, paper plates shaped like tropical fish, and a tropical fish tablecloth. All the attendees, except for one woman from upstairs, Lois, and myself, were men, and in fact some of them said it was the first baby shower they'd ever been to. Lois said they had to play one shower game, so she had a list of baby-related words that they had to unscramble, and whoever got the most in three minutes won a prize.
I think everybody got together and gave Lois a bunch of money and she went and bought a bunch of gifts for us. There was a lot of stuff, and it was really great. In addition, my boss gave us a gift card, which was really nice of him.
It made me feel really good to know that all those people cared enough about me to chip in for this baby shower. I haven't been here quite a year yet but I have made a lot of friends and put down some roots. I am always surprised to (re)discover that people really seem to like me, and today I was pleasantly reminded that I am not as unlikeable as I appear to myself.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Thinking about Math
I love my job because it fits well with the way I think. Thinking in a logical and orderly fashion comes naturally to me.
These days, I spend most of my time at work writing and debugging programs. I come up with algorithms, implement them, and then figure out what went wrong.
I begin by determining what I want my algorithm to do. Then I do a simple example, and from there, try to generalize to an algorithm. After that, I try the algorithm on a more complicated example. If it doesn't work, I revise my algorithm until it does work. And then I keep thinking about possible counterexamples and amend the algorithm accordingly.
Eventually I get to the point where I can't come up with any more counterexamples and I go ahead and implement the algorithm in C++. (I enter this stage of the process with the understanding that there are probably still cases that I have not considered that will cause my algorithm to mess up.) After I get it to compile without errors, I run the algorithm on a simple example, and if it works, go ahead and try it on a more complicated case. If I'm really lucky, then these tests have worked and I try the algorithm on a simple real-life case. At this point I usually find that there is a flaw in my logic and I track it down using print statements and logical thinking.
I told my sister Laura once that what makes me such a good mathematician is that I'm "fair with the numbers." That is, I consider all sides and look for counterexamples before drawing a conclusion. For example, given the fact that 2 + 2 = 4, 2 × 2 = 4, and 22 = 4, it might appear that the addition, multiplication, and exponentiation operations are equivalent! (I know, this seems like a really stupid example, but bear with me.) A careless mathematician would draw the conclusion that the operations are the same. If I didn't know anything about these operations, but had a source that could give me the results of using these operations, here's how I would figure out whether they were the same or different.
First, I would generalize each operation. I would try to find a counterexample for x + y = x × y = xy. Here's one: x = 2, y = 3. 2+3 = 5, 2 × 3 = 6, 23 = 8. Okay, so these operations are not the same in general. But what about in the case where x = y? Maybe they are the same then. So I need to look for a counterexample. Here's one: x = y = 3. 3+3 = 6, 3 × 3 = 9, 33 = 27. From this I conclude that x = y = 2 is simply a special case in which the operations happen to yield the same result.
I know that this was a ridiculous example, because we all have an understanding of the addition, multiplication, and exponentiation operations. But in my line of work, I look at much more complicated operations, sometimes called "black box" functions, the inner workings of which are beyond my comprehension. The only data I have are the input and the resulting output. So the techniques I used on the simple operations above come in very handy when dealing with more difficult functions.
I think about most things in life in a similar fashion, and I find that it really helps me to make sense of the world. For example, my fellow human beings are classic black box functions. I have no idea what makes them tick. The only way that I have to understand them is the input and resulting output. So, based on previous data, I can say with some degree of certainty that if I buy some cream cheese for Laura, she will eat it, because I have seen this happen in the past. Or if I give her a hug, she will hug me back. I know her fairly well, so I have a lot of data on her.
Strangers, on the other hand, are more complicated. When I interact with someone for the first time, the only data I have is an approximation of how they may behave, based on my previous experience with other people and my reading of their body language. Usually I try to say something humorous, to make the other person laugh, because in my experience, humor is a good way to open doors with people. But, it doesn't always work, because of the differences between the person I am talking to and the sources of my other data points.
Someone not laughing at my jokes doesn't necessarily mean I'm not funny; it just means that given the input of my joke and the input of whatever else in their life, their black box doesn't compute "funny" in this case. Why did they not compute "funny?" Maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe they didn't hear me. Maybe they're preoccupied with something else. Maybe I inadvertently offended them. Maybe I'm ugly and my mother dresses me funny. Maybe I don't have a good sense of humor. There are many possibilities, and without more data, I can't be sure what it is. But, I can narrow it down based on nonverbal cues and past experience.
For example, in the vast majority of interactions, when I tell a joke, people laugh, so I don't think it's that I don't have a good sense of humor. I could be ugly, although most of the time people are able to look me in the eye, so I'm probably not that ugly; and my mother definitely has no say in what I wear. Maybe I have accidentally said something offensive: I try to consider this from every possible vantage point. My jokes are never racially-, gender-, or religiously-oriented, and very rarely politically-oriented, so this seems unlikely. I examine the nonverbal cues to see if anything stands out. I can usually tell if someone didn't hear me, because they get this certain look on their face. And I can often see evidence of a bad day or preoccupation in their eyes and mouth and mannerisms.
This sort of logical thinking helps me to take my interactions with others less personally, the bad interactions in particular. When I was younger, I thought that a bad interaction was something personal against me. Now that I'm older and understand that the other person is a real person responding to stimuli based on their own outlook and experience, I am able to take things less personally when things go wrong. For example, I have a seemingly unresolvable conflict with a close family member, but I am able to see why that person might take what I say in the wrong way, and instead of beating myself up over it, I do what I can to avoid further misunderstandings while remaining true to myself. It doesn't make things easy, but it does make things easier.
These days, I spend most of my time at work writing and debugging programs. I come up with algorithms, implement them, and then figure out what went wrong.
I begin by determining what I want my algorithm to do. Then I do a simple example, and from there, try to generalize to an algorithm. After that, I try the algorithm on a more complicated example. If it doesn't work, I revise my algorithm until it does work. And then I keep thinking about possible counterexamples and amend the algorithm accordingly.
Eventually I get to the point where I can't come up with any more counterexamples and I go ahead and implement the algorithm in C++. (I enter this stage of the process with the understanding that there are probably still cases that I have not considered that will cause my algorithm to mess up.) After I get it to compile without errors, I run the algorithm on a simple example, and if it works, go ahead and try it on a more complicated case. If I'm really lucky, then these tests have worked and I try the algorithm on a simple real-life case. At this point I usually find that there is a flaw in my logic and I track it down using print statements and logical thinking.
I told my sister Laura once that what makes me such a good mathematician is that I'm "fair with the numbers." That is, I consider all sides and look for counterexamples before drawing a conclusion. For example, given the fact that 2 + 2 = 4, 2 × 2 = 4, and 22 = 4, it might appear that the addition, multiplication, and exponentiation operations are equivalent! (I know, this seems like a really stupid example, but bear with me.) A careless mathematician would draw the conclusion that the operations are the same. If I didn't know anything about these operations, but had a source that could give me the results of using these operations, here's how I would figure out whether they were the same or different.
First, I would generalize each operation. I would try to find a counterexample for x + y = x × y = xy. Here's one: x = 2, y = 3. 2+3 = 5, 2 × 3 = 6, 23 = 8. Okay, so these operations are not the same in general. But what about in the case where x = y? Maybe they are the same then. So I need to look for a counterexample. Here's one: x = y = 3. 3+3 = 6, 3 × 3 = 9, 33 = 27. From this I conclude that x = y = 2 is simply a special case in which the operations happen to yield the same result.
I know that this was a ridiculous example, because we all have an understanding of the addition, multiplication, and exponentiation operations. But in my line of work, I look at much more complicated operations, sometimes called "black box" functions, the inner workings of which are beyond my comprehension. The only data I have are the input and the resulting output. So the techniques I used on the simple operations above come in very handy when dealing with more difficult functions.
I think about most things in life in a similar fashion, and I find that it really helps me to make sense of the world. For example, my fellow human beings are classic black box functions. I have no idea what makes them tick. The only way that I have to understand them is the input and resulting output. So, based on previous data, I can say with some degree of certainty that if I buy some cream cheese for Laura, she will eat it, because I have seen this happen in the past. Or if I give her a hug, she will hug me back. I know her fairly well, so I have a lot of data on her.
Strangers, on the other hand, are more complicated. When I interact with someone for the first time, the only data I have is an approximation of how they may behave, based on my previous experience with other people and my reading of their body language. Usually I try to say something humorous, to make the other person laugh, because in my experience, humor is a good way to open doors with people. But, it doesn't always work, because of the differences between the person I am talking to and the sources of my other data points.
Someone not laughing at my jokes doesn't necessarily mean I'm not funny; it just means that given the input of my joke and the input of whatever else in their life, their black box doesn't compute "funny" in this case. Why did they not compute "funny?" Maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe they didn't hear me. Maybe they're preoccupied with something else. Maybe I inadvertently offended them. Maybe I'm ugly and my mother dresses me funny. Maybe I don't have a good sense of humor. There are many possibilities, and without more data, I can't be sure what it is. But, I can narrow it down based on nonverbal cues and past experience.
For example, in the vast majority of interactions, when I tell a joke, people laugh, so I don't think it's that I don't have a good sense of humor. I could be ugly, although most of the time people are able to look me in the eye, so I'm probably not that ugly; and my mother definitely has no say in what I wear. Maybe I have accidentally said something offensive: I try to consider this from every possible vantage point. My jokes are never racially-, gender-, or religiously-oriented, and very rarely politically-oriented, so this seems unlikely. I examine the nonverbal cues to see if anything stands out. I can usually tell if someone didn't hear me, because they get this certain look on their face. And I can often see evidence of a bad day or preoccupation in their eyes and mouth and mannerisms.
This sort of logical thinking helps me to take my interactions with others less personally, the bad interactions in particular. When I was younger, I thought that a bad interaction was something personal against me. Now that I'm older and understand that the other person is a real person responding to stimuli based on their own outlook and experience, I am able to take things less personally when things go wrong. For example, I have a seemingly unresolvable conflict with a close family member, but I am able to see why that person might take what I say in the wrong way, and instead of beating myself up over it, I do what I can to avoid further misunderstandings while remaining true to myself. It doesn't make things easy, but it does make things easier.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Showered with Love
Yesterday Jeff and I went to a baby shower in our honor that was hosted by fearless relatives Ginger, Rhonda, and Liz, at the home of some of Jeff's cousins. We drove up to Kentucky on Friday night, spending the night with Dad and Marvis before continuing on to the shower the next day.
The shower was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of relatives and friends that we hadn't seen in a long time, including Jeff's Aunt Mary and Uncle Wayne, who drove all the way up from Harlan; my cousin Elizabeth, a journalist temporarily assigned to work in Louisville; and my high school friends Carrie, Tabitha, and Chris, and Tabitha and Chris' daughter Samantha, whom I met for the first time.
There were more people there than I could count, but I would still say that it was a finite number, definitely less than 100, and probably under 50. I'm not the world's most outgoing person, so the sheer numbers of people and the resulting loudness was a bit much, but I tried not to let it overwhelm me.
Ginger came up with some wonderful games, including one where the object was to make as many words as you can from the letters of the baby's name. Thanks to the very long name that we have chosen for him and Ginger's word and spelling abilities, she came up with over 150 words that were contained in his name! She showed me her list, and the one that made me laugh the hardest was "tirade." If he inherits anything from either of his parents, we're going to hear a lot of those in the future!
Jeff made a very clever movie trailer about our baby, using his Father's Day gift video camera and the awesome software that comes standard on a Mac, and burned it onto a DVD. He gave one copy to Dad and Marvis, and another copy to his parents. But he also showed it at the baby shower. I can't really describe it without completely giving it away, and I want two of my fans to see it and enjoy it (I'm thinking of you, Rachel and Laura!) so I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say that the movie generated a lot of laughs and people really got a kick out of it.
Of course we also opened lots of gifts. Mostly we got stuff that we had registered for, but highlights from off the list include an afghan handmade by Jeff's mom, a UK outfit to counteract the UT onesie Jeff sacrilegiously bought for our son, and a hat handmade by bonus sister Vaughan. In total, we came out of there with a lot of loot. My dad used his packing SUPERPOWERS to fill every single nook and cranny in the trunk of our car, while dad-in-law and John Rice used their talents to fill the back seat, and by defying the Pauli Exclusion Principle, they fit all of it into the car.
I mustn't forget the amazing cake, brought by Rhonda. I am so bad about taking pictures and now I wish I had one of the cake, because it is hard to describe. It was a beautifully decorated cake with the baby's name, blocks with his initials, and two baby booties made of frosting. Under the icing, half of the cake was chocolate and the other half was white cake. The cake was specially ordered from a particular bakery in Winchester and it was really outstandingly decorated, and delicious too!
We drove home after the shower and got in just before midnight, because today we are going out to dinner with some friends. A graduate school classmate of mine, his wife, and their one-year-old son are in town visiting his parents, and they graciously agreed to take some time away from the family to see us. He currently works at Sandia but because of the dire financial situation there is looking for a job after his term of employment ends. He's interested in working here, because this is the happening place, evidently. No, seriously, national labs have their ups and downs, and right now Oak Ridge is on the upturn, while Sandia is on the decline. Ten years ago, ORNL wasn't such a great place for computational science, but now, we are becoming the center for leadership computing, we have attracted great people from elsewhere, and more and more money keeps flowing in. So I seem to be in the right place at the right time.
The shower was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of relatives and friends that we hadn't seen in a long time, including Jeff's Aunt Mary and Uncle Wayne, who drove all the way up from Harlan; my cousin Elizabeth, a journalist temporarily assigned to work in Louisville; and my high school friends Carrie, Tabitha, and Chris, and Tabitha and Chris' daughter Samantha, whom I met for the first time.
There were more people there than I could count, but I would still say that it was a finite number, definitely less than 100, and probably under 50. I'm not the world's most outgoing person, so the sheer numbers of people and the resulting loudness was a bit much, but I tried not to let it overwhelm me.
Ginger came up with some wonderful games, including one where the object was to make as many words as you can from the letters of the baby's name. Thanks to the very long name that we have chosen for him and Ginger's word and spelling abilities, she came up with over 150 words that were contained in his name! She showed me her list, and the one that made me laugh the hardest was "tirade." If he inherits anything from either of his parents, we're going to hear a lot of those in the future!
Jeff made a very clever movie trailer about our baby, using his Father's Day gift video camera and the awesome software that comes standard on a Mac, and burned it onto a DVD. He gave one copy to Dad and Marvis, and another copy to his parents. But he also showed it at the baby shower. I can't really describe it without completely giving it away, and I want two of my fans to see it and enjoy it (I'm thinking of you, Rachel and Laura!) so I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say that the movie generated a lot of laughs and people really got a kick out of it.
Of course we also opened lots of gifts. Mostly we got stuff that we had registered for, but highlights from off the list include an afghan handmade by Jeff's mom, a UK outfit to counteract the UT onesie Jeff sacrilegiously bought for our son, and a hat handmade by bonus sister Vaughan. In total, we came out of there with a lot of loot. My dad used his packing SUPERPOWERS to fill every single nook and cranny in the trunk of our car, while dad-in-law and John Rice used their talents to fill the back seat, and by defying the Pauli Exclusion Principle, they fit all of it into the car.
I mustn't forget the amazing cake, brought by Rhonda. I am so bad about taking pictures and now I wish I had one of the cake, because it is hard to describe. It was a beautifully decorated cake with the baby's name, blocks with his initials, and two baby booties made of frosting. Under the icing, half of the cake was chocolate and the other half was white cake. The cake was specially ordered from a particular bakery in Winchester and it was really outstandingly decorated, and delicious too!
We drove home after the shower and got in just before midnight, because today we are going out to dinner with some friends. A graduate school classmate of mine, his wife, and their one-year-old son are in town visiting his parents, and they graciously agreed to take some time away from the family to see us. He currently works at Sandia but because of the dire financial situation there is looking for a job after his term of employment ends. He's interested in working here, because this is the happening place, evidently. No, seriously, national labs have their ups and downs, and right now Oak Ridge is on the upturn, while Sandia is on the decline. Ten years ago, ORNL wasn't such a great place for computational science, but now, we are becoming the center for leadership computing, we have attracted great people from elsewhere, and more and more money keeps flowing in. So I seem to be in the right place at the right time.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Interesting Math Links
Because I know that sometimes the mathematical content on this blog is a bit sparse, I have found two interesting math links for you to peruse. The first is a blog written by a professor in the math department at Northeastern University. Professor Bridger is an unpaid consultant for the popular television series Numb3rs, and he gets to review the scripts before they begin filming. The blog is mostly dedicated to Numb3rs episodes and a discussion of the math in each episode.
I'd have to say that Numb3rs is one of my favorite shows on television. I don't watch much TV, but if I see that Numb3rs is on, I will watch it. It's usually on at 10 p.m. Friday nights on CBS.
The premise of the show is that the younger brother of an FBI agent is a mathematician and he uses his math skills to help the FBI solve crimes. It's a mathematically accurate show. The writers take their inspiration from real-life cases solved using mathematics, and they employ many mathematics consultants to make sure that the math is right. Sometimes they go a bit overboard with gratuitous equations on the chalkbord that serve only to impress the television audience. But overall, the math content is very good and it serves to show people that math isn't just boring equations and esoteric theorems. Math is important and applicable.
The second math link is the website of actress/mathematician Danica McKellar. Ms. McKellar is probably best known for her portrayal of "Winnie" on "The Wonder Years," but she is also an accomplished mathematician. As an undergraduate math major at UCLA, she was the co-author of a mathematical proof. After college she continued her acting career, but she is still an advocate for math education and for women in mathematics. She's coming out with a book aimed at encouraging girls to pursue mathematical studies, entitled Math Doesn't Suck. For more details about her accomplishments, see this article.
I'd have to say that Numb3rs is one of my favorite shows on television. I don't watch much TV, but if I see that Numb3rs is on, I will watch it. It's usually on at 10 p.m. Friday nights on CBS.
The premise of the show is that the younger brother of an FBI agent is a mathematician and he uses his math skills to help the FBI solve crimes. It's a mathematically accurate show. The writers take their inspiration from real-life cases solved using mathematics, and they employ many mathematics consultants to make sure that the math is right. Sometimes they go a bit overboard with gratuitous equations on the chalkbord that serve only to impress the television audience. But overall, the math content is very good and it serves to show people that math isn't just boring equations and esoteric theorems. Math is important and applicable.
The second math link is the website of actress/mathematician Danica McKellar. Ms. McKellar is probably best known for her portrayal of "Winnie" on "The Wonder Years," but she is also an accomplished mathematician. As an undergraduate math major at UCLA, she was the co-author of a mathematical proof. After college she continued her acting career, but she is still an advocate for math education and for women in mathematics. She's coming out with a book aimed at encouraging girls to pursue mathematical studies, entitled Math Doesn't Suck. For more details about her accomplishments, see this article.
Friday, August 04, 2006
The Calculus of Voting
Yesterday Jeff and I did our patriotic duty and voted. It was strange because not only was it a Thursday, but this election was a general election for county offices and a primary for state and national offices (e.g. state senator, governor, and U.S. senator). We used these newfangled electronic voting machines. As a computer scientist, I have some reservations about electronic voting machines, particularly systems that do not have a paper backup. I don't think we have the notoriously bad machines here, but I still feel skeptical about their fairness.
The security issues of electronic voting machines could be a post of its own, but of course I know that my vast audience comes here for the math, not the computer science. So instead I am going to discuss another way in which elections may not be completely fair, even assuming the votes are counted perfectly.
Ideally, we should use a voting scheme that selects the most preferred candidate as winner. This would be the candidate who always win in a run-off between himself/herself and any other candidate. The most preferred candidate is also known as the Condorcet winner. In a vote between two opponents, selecting the most preferred candidate is simple: people vote for their favorite candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins. But for a race with more than two opponents, selecting the Condorcet winner is complicated, and sometimes, there may not be a Condorcet winner.
With the voting system that we use, unless one candidate is clearly preferred over all the others, the Condorcet winner may not win. In fact, the Condorcet loser may end up being selected. A classic example of this is the presidential election of 1860. This was the year that Abraham Lincoln was elected president. That year, there were four candidates: Lincoln, Breckinridge, Bell, and Douglas. Lincoln carried most of the northern states, and the three other candidates split the remaining states. Let's pretend for the sake of argument that the winner of the popular vote would win the election. (In reality, Lincoln got 40% of the popular vote but 59% of the electoral college, so in some sense he won the majority of the vote.) Here are the election results, in percentages:
Lincoln: 40%
Douglas: 29%
Breckinridge: 18%
Bell: 13%
So Lincoln received the most votes, but he did not receive the majority of votes. Would he have won a runoff against every opposing candidate? Probably not. Chances are, if the people who voted for Breckinridge or Bell had to pick between Lincoln and Douglas, 99.9% of them would have selected Douglas, so Douglas would have won that race 60% to 40%. Similarly, Lincoln supporters would have probably preferred Douglas over Breckinridge or Bell. Douglas was almost certainly the Condorcet winner of that election.
In yesterday's primaries, there were a plethora of candidates for nearly every position. In the Democratic race for United States Senator, there were five candidates. As it turns out, one candidate, Harold Ford, Jr., got 79% of the votes, so there is no doubt that he was the Condorcet winner of that primary. But for the Republican race, there were four candidates, with the highest vote-count going to Bob Corker with only 48% of the vote. (Is it just me, or does that name make you laugh?) Anyhow, it is possible, although unlikely, that Bob Corker was actually the least preferred candidate, despite winning the election. Let's call his opponents X, Y, and Z. It could be that all supporters of X would choose Y over Bob and Z over Bob, and all supporters of Y would choose X or Z over Bob, and all supporters of Z would choose X or Y over Bob. I'm not trying to pick on poor Bob Corker, but I think you get the idea. The point is, Bob's supporters could be very overzealous about him and only him, but the supporters of X, Y, and Z could prefer anyone but Bob. This means that Bob was actually the least preferred candidate, despite the fact that he got the most votes out of anyone.
How can we be sure that the Condorcet winner is always elected? As I hinted above, we can't always be sure that there is a Condorcet winner. We could have a three-candidate cycle, for example. If we have three people (1, 2, and 3) voting in an election between three candidates (A, B, and C), the voters might have the following preferences:
1: A > B > C
2: B > C > A
3: C > A > B
So, if we ran A vs B, A would win 2-1; A vs C, C would win 2-1; and B vs C, B would win 2-1. So no candidate wins all the runoffs they are in; therefore there is no Condorcet winner.
But, assuming there is a Condorcet winner, there is a simple way to find it, and that is by having the voters rank the candidates in order of preference. From this data, a computer can compute the outcomes of all the runoffs, and determine the Condorcet winner. If the Condorcet winner does not exist, there must be some sort of tie-breaking method agreed upon ahead of time so that the election will have a winner.
Unfortunately, Condorcet voting methods are rarely used. Even in places like Europe where there are multiple political parties, the instant-runoff or Borda count methods are usually used, and neither are guaranteed to elect the Condorcet winner (assuming it exists).
Personally, I would like to see Condorcet voting methods implemented in the American election system. Now that our voting is becoming computerized, I don't see a problem with implementing these methods. It would take a computer very little time to find the Condorcet winner. And if one candidate garners over 50% of the vote, no computations would be needed!
If you are interested in learning more about Condorcet voting methods, may I recommend the Wikipedia article on the topic. Also, I got my information on the election of 1860 from the Wikipedia article on the United States Presidential Election of 1860.
The security issues of electronic voting machines could be a post of its own, but of course I know that my vast audience comes here for the math, not the computer science. So instead I am going to discuss another way in which elections may not be completely fair, even assuming the votes are counted perfectly.
Ideally, we should use a voting scheme that selects the most preferred candidate as winner. This would be the candidate who always win in a run-off between himself/herself and any other candidate. The most preferred candidate is also known as the Condorcet winner. In a vote between two opponents, selecting the most preferred candidate is simple: people vote for their favorite candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins. But for a race with more than two opponents, selecting the Condorcet winner is complicated, and sometimes, there may not be a Condorcet winner.
With the voting system that we use, unless one candidate is clearly preferred over all the others, the Condorcet winner may not win. In fact, the Condorcet loser may end up being selected. A classic example of this is the presidential election of 1860. This was the year that Abraham Lincoln was elected president. That year, there were four candidates: Lincoln, Breckinridge, Bell, and Douglas. Lincoln carried most of the northern states, and the three other candidates split the remaining states. Let's pretend for the sake of argument that the winner of the popular vote would win the election. (In reality, Lincoln got 40% of the popular vote but 59% of the electoral college, so in some sense he won the majority of the vote.) Here are the election results, in percentages:
Lincoln: 40%
Douglas: 29%
Breckinridge: 18%
Bell: 13%
So Lincoln received the most votes, but he did not receive the majority of votes. Would he have won a runoff against every opposing candidate? Probably not. Chances are, if the people who voted for Breckinridge or Bell had to pick between Lincoln and Douglas, 99.9% of them would have selected Douglas, so Douglas would have won that race 60% to 40%. Similarly, Lincoln supporters would have probably preferred Douglas over Breckinridge or Bell. Douglas was almost certainly the Condorcet winner of that election.
In yesterday's primaries, there were a plethora of candidates for nearly every position. In the Democratic race for United States Senator, there were five candidates. As it turns out, one candidate, Harold Ford, Jr., got 79% of the votes, so there is no doubt that he was the Condorcet winner of that primary. But for the Republican race, there were four candidates, with the highest vote-count going to Bob Corker with only 48% of the vote. (Is it just me, or does that name make you laugh?) Anyhow, it is possible, although unlikely, that Bob Corker was actually the least preferred candidate, despite winning the election. Let's call his opponents X, Y, and Z. It could be that all supporters of X would choose Y over Bob and Z over Bob, and all supporters of Y would choose X or Z over Bob, and all supporters of Z would choose X or Y over Bob. I'm not trying to pick on poor Bob Corker, but I think you get the idea. The point is, Bob's supporters could be very overzealous about him and only him, but the supporters of X, Y, and Z could prefer anyone but Bob. This means that Bob was actually the least preferred candidate, despite the fact that he got the most votes out of anyone.
How can we be sure that the Condorcet winner is always elected? As I hinted above, we can't always be sure that there is a Condorcet winner. We could have a three-candidate cycle, for example. If we have three people (1, 2, and 3) voting in an election between three candidates (A, B, and C), the voters might have the following preferences:
1: A > B > C
2: B > C > A
3: C > A > B
So, if we ran A vs B, A would win 2-1; A vs C, C would win 2-1; and B vs C, B would win 2-1. So no candidate wins all the runoffs they are in; therefore there is no Condorcet winner.
But, assuming there is a Condorcet winner, there is a simple way to find it, and that is by having the voters rank the candidates in order of preference. From this data, a computer can compute the outcomes of all the runoffs, and determine the Condorcet winner. If the Condorcet winner does not exist, there must be some sort of tie-breaking method agreed upon ahead of time so that the election will have a winner.
Unfortunately, Condorcet voting methods are rarely used. Even in places like Europe where there are multiple political parties, the instant-runoff or Borda count methods are usually used, and neither are guaranteed to elect the Condorcet winner (assuming it exists).
Personally, I would like to see Condorcet voting methods implemented in the American election system. Now that our voting is becoming computerized, I don't see a problem with implementing these methods. It would take a computer very little time to find the Condorcet winner. And if one candidate garners over 50% of the vote, no computations would be needed!
If you are interested in learning more about Condorcet voting methods, may I recommend the Wikipedia article on the topic. Also, I got my information on the election of 1860 from the Wikipedia article on the United States Presidential Election of 1860.
At Arm's Length
Update about my left elbow and the shot I received on Tuesday:
I've been icing it down every night, just like the doctor told me to. I'm supposed to ice it down every night for at least ten nights. I also need to find my counterforce brace and wrist brace and wear them during the day when I'm using my left arm.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I had a tough time bending my elbow more than 90 degrees, which made life rather interesting. For example, I needed help fastening my bra. Doing my own hair was challenging too, so I had two really bad hair days. Another thing was that I couldn't move my arm fluidly enough to eat, so I had to eat completely right-handed.
Today it was less stiff but still not great. But I was able to get dressed on my own and I didn't look like I'd used a five-year-old as a hairdresser. I was even able to write a little bit with my left hand! So it is definitely getting better.
Still, I'm trying to take it easy with the left hand, because the shot won't last forever. I'm definitely going to need that elbow for much more important things, such as holding my baby, in roughly 60 days. So I'm still trying to eat right-handed and do as many things as I can without using my left hand.
I've been icing it down every night, just like the doctor told me to. I'm supposed to ice it down every night for at least ten nights. I also need to find my counterforce brace and wrist brace and wear them during the day when I'm using my left arm.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I had a tough time bending my elbow more than 90 degrees, which made life rather interesting. For example, I needed help fastening my bra. Doing my own hair was challenging too, so I had two really bad hair days. Another thing was that I couldn't move my arm fluidly enough to eat, so I had to eat completely right-handed.
Today it was less stiff but still not great. But I was able to get dressed on my own and I didn't look like I'd used a five-year-old as a hairdresser. I was even able to write a little bit with my left hand! So it is definitely getting better.
Still, I'm trying to take it easy with the left hand, because the shot won't last forever. I'm definitely going to need that elbow for much more important things, such as holding my baby, in roughly 60 days. So I'm still trying to eat right-handed and do as many things as I can without using my left hand.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Elbow Grease (part 2)
Today I saw the orthopedist again. I don't think that the occupational therapy had really helped very much. Unfortunately, there are not two parallel universes, one in which I had occupational therapy and another in which I did not, so I can't say for sure whether it helped. For all I know, I could be a lot worse now if I hadn't done it. In any case, things have not improved, so I went back for another appointment with the doctor. He decided to let me have another shot in the elbow. So I took him up on that.
Before the anesthetic wore off, it felt like I had a new elbow. Now it feels worse than it felt before the shot. But I know that after my elbow heals up from having a gigantic needle stuck in it, it will feel much better.
If it hurts more after the baby is born, he told me to come back again. He said it was reasonable to give me a shot at most once a year, but if I need it more often than that, then he really needs to try something else. He talked about surgery, and seemed open to the idea of doing it, after I was no longer pregnant and assuming the problem came back. He did remark that I had a pretty bad case of medial epicondylitis. Hopefully (worst case) this injection will tide me over for the next few months and then I can have the surgery if I need it.
Before the anesthetic wore off, it felt like I had a new elbow. Now it feels worse than it felt before the shot. But I know that after my elbow heals up from having a gigantic needle stuck in it, it will feel much better.
If it hurts more after the baby is born, he told me to come back again. He said it was reasonable to give me a shot at most once a year, but if I need it more often than that, then he really needs to try something else. He talked about surgery, and seemed open to the idea of doing it, after I was no longer pregnant and assuming the problem came back. He did remark that I had a pretty bad case of medial epicondylitis. Hopefully (worst case) this injection will tide me over for the next few months and then I can have the surgery if I need it.
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