Baby Preparations Update

Wow, I think I may need to finally break down and get a new laptop. If I were a skilled touch typist, I’d be going even more crazy that I currently am. I can type about a sentence or two before the first word shows up on the screen. I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a virus to blame, but I’ll probably try a fresh OS install as a last best chance to save the Edmund Fitzgerald of laptops. However, I fear for the worst. Of course, even if a fresh install helps the performance, it won’t do a blasted thing for the approximately 15 minutes of batter life I get on a “full” charge these days. Since I got this laptop from Eltron a few years ago as a holiday bonus, I won’t feel too bad about sending it to Boulder’s CHARM (Center for HArd to Recycle Materials). It’s actually been a pretty nice laptop over the years, but it’s a bit bulky for my taste. Something like Jess’s little Eee PC would be far more portable, and I have a nice desktop at home for serious number crunching. If you have any recommendations, send me an e-mail or post a comment to this blog.

On the baby front, there’s no birth news to share, which is good news from Jess’s perspective. She still has some final exams to grade and would like to finish them before the whole labor thing gets underway. We have finally finished all of the painting in the nursery and have most of the furniture set up and all of the baby clothes sorted into vague size ranges. In theory this will help us to avoid having a huge number of unused, but outgrown, baby clothes. Somehow I imagine we’ll end up with a few that get missed anyway.

This afternoon we made another trip to the most feared Babies ‘R Us in Broomfield. There were just a few odds-n-ends to pick up, so it wasn’t too bad. As an aside, I discovered that Babies ‘R Us is absurdly overcharging for batteries. We awoke this morning to a chirping smoke detector loudly complaining that its backup batter is going bad. We ended up picking up a pair of 9-volt batteries at Home Depot for around $5.00, but they wanted almost $8.00 for the exact same Duracell batteries at Babies ‘R Us. A 60% markup for “convenience” seems more than a little steep. Basically, don’t buy batteries at Babies R’ Us.

This past week was pretty hectic but fun. On Wednesday, we thought the Raisin might be coming a bit early, but we were happy, Jess especially, that nothing happened. Jess has been hoping that she wouldn’t have to share her birthday, so we’re glad to have dodged that bullet! We went out to the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse for dinner. It’s one of Jess’s favorites, and only in part due to the awesome decor. The spicy Asian peanut noodles are pretty good too. I tried a chicken dish with risotto that seemed new. It too was pretty tasty.

Jess opened her cards at dinner and then we walked over to the Laughing Goat for a little chocolate cake and some coffee for dessert. When we got back home Jess opened the rest of her presents. I got her one of the Bamboo drawing tablets for use with her laptop. It’s a little USB thing that has a touch sensitive rectangle that maps to the computers screen and comes with a stylus for drawing. You can use it like a mouse, but since it’s pressure sensitive, it should really make a fun art tool for drawing on the computer and editing photos. Jess should have some time and motivation to perfect the later use in the coming months. Theoretically, it can also work with the new version of Microsoft Office to do some markup, etc. in Word documents. It might be a nice tool for copy editing once we figure everything out. That part is like a little present for me!

As I mentioned above, the nursery is pretty much all ready for the Raisin to come home. Jess finished painting Marvin the Merry Monster onto the walls on Saturday. She did the paintings by scanning scenes from the original images into the computer and using a digital projector to project the images onto the wall. It’s a modern twist on an old-school idea that Jess’s parents used to add Babar to her room. I added a few framed photos (that I took) to the other walls to increase the visual stimulation. There are even a couple of ice climbing photos of mom and dad hanging on the walls to inspire the little one. It won’t take long for the Raisin to out-climb the parents. We’ll deal with the shame and indignity whenever that time arrives.

PC Update: I did try the OS re-install on the dying Dell, and sadly there was no real impact. This in part is the reason it’s taken so long to finish a simple blog post. Even starting with a fresh install of Microsoft Office XP (Service Pack 2), the computer needed to go through an obscene number of updates. Way to go Microsoft! Regardless, the OS install had little if any impact, and a subsequent hard drive inspection turned up no problems. If the memory checks out as well, that pretty much leaves the motherboard. That wouldn’t be too surprising because I’ve noticed some wonkiness with the USB thumbdrive I use for e-mail. It seems to not register sometimes when I plug in the drive. Oh well, I guess a new computer is in the offing. Seriously, any suggestions?