Well, the mid-term elections are over, and now the big news draw (besides Iraq) is the presidential race. About 18 months until the election! 18 months until we get to see if anyone learned anything from the last 8 years.
Now, I'm not a Bush hater. I don't agree with some of his policies, and I disapprove of how America's goodwill has been squandered; but I think his incompetency is exaggerated, and frankly the people he ran against weren't star performers themselves, and I don't think they really would have made different decisions (although of course they all say they would've).
I am, at my core, a Republican: the government that governs best is one that governs least. My ultimate fantasy would be to convince everyone to stop pretending that federal welfare programs work and put people's destinies where it belongs: in their own hands. Let's leave the charity work to charity, and at most provide logistical support to let the Church do the job it has been neglecting for decades. I'd put Dave Ramsey in charge of the country's finances (can you imagine what THAT debt snowball would look like?). I'd ask Congress to get tough on the real criminals: sub-prime (financial jargon for "sleazy") lenders, debt-focused retail marketing, and outrageous interest rates. Let's make it a CRIME to charge more than 25% APR interest; let's make it a CRIME to lend more money than an asset is worth; let's make Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) ILLEGAL.
But I digress.
So, we've got most of our major players on each side of the aisle out there. On the Republican side, I'm predicting that it's essentially going to be Giuliani vs. The Other Guy; I'm personally rooting for Ron Paul! If by some miracle he wins the Republican nomination, he's probably got my vote. I'm not thrilled about Giuliani because he's wrapping himself around 9/11 just like Bush did (and where did that get us?). Whether he considers himself a neo-con or not, he's getting support from that camp, and that scares me.
Now we've got Fred Thompson jumping in the ring. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of that. Some great comedy moments, at the very least. Just please, don't run with Sam Waterson as your VP. While a Branch/McCoy ticket might make a decent SNL sketch, I'd rather have 4 more years of L&O--losing Waterson would finally make L&O jump its last shark.
The Democrat side is far more interesting. The front-runners are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, particularly from a sociological point of view: which is America more likely to accept first: a woman president or a black one? But there's still one wildcard out there: Al Gore. I suspect that were he to run (particularly on a "Elect me again for the first time" platform), there might just be enough latent support for him to win. All he would have to do is frame 2008 as a do-over for the 2000 elections.
So with the Republican party in full self-destruct mode, this election really is the Democrats' to lose. As I write this, the news is making a big deal about Giuliani's alleged "pro-choice" stance on abortion and how this conflicts with the Catholic church (particularly since he calls himself a Catholic). I wonder to myself: what difference does it make? The president doesn't have the power to legislate anything about abortion; a candidate's stance on abortion doesn't have any relevance on financial responsibility, foreign policy, domestic policy, or anything. It's the equivalent of choosing who you're going to hire based on how fuel-efficient their vehicle is: sure, it's important at a personal level, but unless you're delivering pizzas or working for Greenpeace, it just isn't relevant.
So, who are you rooting for? |
Prologue
I work nights. I started my day on New Years watching the BCS Fiesta Bowl. We had Rikki’s parents over to watch the game, and we watched the Boise State Broncos conquer the Oklahoma University Sooners. The next morning, Rikki had her final prenatal exam.
That last sentence isn’t foreshadowing—Monday had started the 39th week of pregnancy, and the prenatal exams stop at the 39th week. So this would have been the last prenatal exam regardless.
Just as I’m about to go to sleep, the telephone rings.
It’s Rikki. She tells me that the doctor is concerned about her back (she has a herniated disc), and so the doctors are going to induce labor at 5:00 a.m. the next morning. We spent the day preparing the nursery and trying to relax.
Arrival
Neither of us got any sleep the night before. We both showered and made final preparations. Rikki’s parents joined us for the trip to the hospital. The nurse got Rikki strapped into the monitor sensors.
The monitor keeps track of the baby’s heartbeat and Rikki’s contractions. The nurse informed us that they were waiting for staff (apparently last night was a busy night). We got situated and turned on the TV (and almost immediately missed our TiVo—although I offered several times to go home and retrieve it).
Tom Petty Had it Right
Waiting is the hardest part. Thanks to last night’s baby boom, the staff is busy attending to the newborns (I suspect they were triggered by Boise State’s nail biter win the night before). While we were scheduled for 5:00 a.m., it was about 7:30 a.m. before the nurse finally showed up. She asked a few more questions and got Rikki started on the IV. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., she was given her antibiotic and medication to begin the “ripening&lrquo; process (the softening of the cervix). The doctor himself arrived to check on things.
And now, we get to wait some more.
We spent a little time walking around because the doctor was supposed to be in around 10:00 a.m. to break Rikki’s water. 10:00 a.m. turned into 11:00 a.m. and beyond. In fact, Rikki’s water was broken just after 1:00 p.m.
And more waiting.
Rikki got her epidural as the doctors started the contraction-inducing medication. Be thankful that I, as author, wield the power of montage, because I spent the next several hours drifting in and out of consciousness while Rikki went through contractions. By 9:00 p.m., she was fully dilated and ready to start.
Make Like a Baby and Head On Out
We now had a problem: the epidural that had been so effective in making the 8 hours of contractions painless was now the enemy. Rikki had no feeling in her lower body, which made pushing difficult. The next few hours were just as much biding time for the epidural to wear off as it was getting the baby out.
By 11:30 p.m., the contractions were getting closer together and Rikki was able to feel them coming. Rikki was getting frustrated with the process, but kept pushing. Shortly after midnight, she started to crown; and at 12:23 a.m. Thursday morning, David Warren Strong entered the world.
Postpartum
David is a beautiful baby! He hasn’t been fussy at all, although he’s made it clear he doesn’t like cold toes or wet diapers. The loudest I heard him scream was when he came back from circumcision (and I think that’s pretty understandable). He did pretty standard baby stuff (eat, sleep, poop) throughout the day. At night, since I was trying to stay up so I could maintain my sleep schedule, I fired up iTunes on the laptop with the volume muted and used the visualizer to create ambient light while I held David. David slept through the night with few interruptions in my arms. I drifted off once or twice, but didn’t get any real sleep.
Welcome Home
We finally checked out of the hospital and got home to find our carport cleaned, our dishes washed, our floor freshly mopped, and floor vacuumed. It was a pleasant surprise, although part of me was annoyed because I’d planned on doing some cleaning as busy work while home for bonding time.
We spent a few minutes with Rikki’s parents as we unloaded the car and opened some packages that had arrived from Rikki’s family in Portland. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure Rikki’s aunt is an OSU Beavers fan (the plush Beavers mascot, Beavers beanie, Beavers blanket, Beavers sweatpants, Beavers shirts, and Beavers socks might be a pretty good clue).
Now comes the fun part: being a Dad. But that, I think, is another posting.
Photos
I've uploaded the photos taken from the birth to my Flikr account. Here's a link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57995606@N00/sets/72157594461768597/ Current Mood:  happy |
This morning, my wife had her final prenatal exam; everything seems to be OK with the baby, but lately Rikki's been in a lot of pain in her lower back and legs; she's got a herniated disc, and on top of that she pulled a tendon about 2 months ago getting the nursery ready.
I say "this morning," but technically it was yesterday morning.
I had about 5 hours of sleep (I work graveyard shift now), but I've been awake since 7pm so this morning is still part of my "today."
But I digress.
The doctor is concerned about my wife's back (and the effects of 1-2 more weeks of pregnancy), so labor is going to be induced at 5:00 AM. For those keeping track of the timestamp, that's in less than two hours.
All the tension, stress, and nightmares of the last 9 months are now being instantaneously converted into sheer excitement. I haven't had a night like this since I was 12--the anticipation overwhelming the senses. And just when you feel like you're drifting off, that thought pulses through your brain about what's ahead and off goes the adrenaline and endorphins and all loops into a giddy positive feedback loop.
Lookout world, there's another Strong about to arrive!Current Mood:  giddy |
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Sep. 19th, 2006 @ 12:18 am
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It's fall, and that means cooler temperatures, maybe some rain... and network premieres. Tonight I watched the premiere of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on NBC.
For those who've been living under a rock, this is a behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the cast and production of a fictional network ("NBS")'s live comedy skit show. A very thinly veiled SNL--the meta-show even opens with a trademark SNL-style President Bush impersonation, albeit not nearly of the caliber of Dana Carvey. Note that Studio 60 is not to be confused with NBC's other SNL-derived show, 30 Rock, which stars SNL's former head writer Tina Fey and is, IIRC, an actual comedy.
That's not to say Studio 60 doesn't have any laughs. The show is cut from the same cloth as The West Wing, creator Aaron Sorkin's previous project and mega-hit. It shamelessly recycles TWW's breakneck dialog pacing, right down to the typeface on the scene title cards and the closing credits. The dialog is as witty as its pacing, and the cast performs marvelously.
What I find interesting is the inclusion of an openly Christian character; in the pilot, a controversial skit is pulled from the show at the last minute; we learn that the title of the skit was "Crazy Christians," and knowing the SNL heritage, you can almost imagine a hilarious skit along the lines of Dana Carvey's churchlady skit("isn't that SPECIAL?"). She's constantly pestered; "Were you offended by the skit?" "What did you think of the skit that was cut?" And when she's speaking with her new boss, she confides that she thought it was hilarious and that it should've run.
A level-headed Christian character with a sense of humor? Maybe NBC is trying to apologize for last year's "The Book of Daniel."
Coming up this week: premieres of Smith, Jericho, Kidnapped, Shark, and Six Degrees.Current Mood:  thoughtful |
Score one for Vonage's marketing department.
If you've turned on your TV in the last couple months, or surfed any popular web site, you've probably seen an advertisement for Vonage. Vonage is an Internet-based phone company that lets you get your voice service over your Internet connection instead of the other way around.
I started paying attention to those ads when my Qwest bill was regularly topping $91 (that works out to about $35 for voice service, $45 for DSL, a equipment rental fee, and a boatload of surcharges and fees). By contrast, with Vonage I get 500 minutes of long-distance service for $14.99/month. And, included in that $14.99, are a lot of features that Qwest charges for: voice mail, call waiting, caller ID, 3-way calling, *69 callback, automatic redial, and more. Vonage even has features Qwest can't provide, like e-mailing me my voice messages and the ability to take my Vonage router anywhere and place/receive calls. Now *that's* phone number portability! Oh, and did I mention that the Vonage phone adapter lets you use a regular old touchtone phone?
The other shoe fell when I received an ad in the mail from the local cable company. Now, most of these hit the round file since I get my TV via satellite from my employer, DirecTV. This ad, however, was for the CableOne internet service. The promotion is for 1.5Mbps downloads for $29.99/month, with a 1-year contract. Same speed as what I get via DSL, but no phone line was necessary.
Last week, I placed an order for the cable internet, and I signed up for Vonage service. The Vonage equipment came first, so I installed it with my DSL connection to get it up and running. Installation was dead easy, and the sound quality is fantastic. But, I hit a small snag: Vonage doesn't provide any numbers in the 208 area code (Idaho). Thankfully, I found an inexpensive alternative. Vonage lets you get your very own toll-free number with 100 incoming minutes for $4.99/month!
Let's do some math:
Internet service: $29.99/mo
Vonage: $14.99/mo
Toll-free service: $4.99/mo
Total monthly cost: 49.97
Versus $91/mo for Qwest? Me likey long time.
Buh-bye, Qwest!
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| » Cold showers! |
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On Tuesday, Rikki decided to take a shower. When she got out, she complained about the water temperature.
A note about our water heater: our heater does a great job heating water, so usually straight hot water from the tap comes out steaming hot. Hot enough, in fact, to scald if not careful.
So it was strange that Rikki had a lukewarm shower.
We had to leave for work, so I didn't think of it again until Wednesday night, when we wanted to shower after a particulary messy youth group. Now it wasn't lukewarm, it was downright cold! We were scared that our water heater had gone into that good night.
But, I noticed something. Usually, whenever we run the hot water, the water heater kicks in automatically. When we'd tried to shower, the water heater didn't kick in. That struck me as odd, so I decided to check the fusebox.
box of 4 fuses: $2.98 + tax.
gas for a trip to the hardware store: $0.75.
fixing a $300 water heater with a $3 part: priceless*
* MasterCard, this is a parody. Please don't Cease & Desist me.
May. 6th, 2005 @ 10:49 pm
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| » Sunday, Bloody Sunday |
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Wow! What a great show.
The opening band was some Southern rock band called Kings of Leon. A lot of forgettable screaming. They definitely come from the "If you can't sing well, sing loudly" camp. About the only thing worth mentioning is that they got quite the cheer when they left the stage (i.e. "They're done! Wooo!").
The stage was laid out in an oval shape, with a circular band stand that featured concentric circles (a la the "Vertigo" music video). The oval track and the concentric circles featured programmable rope lights (although the lighting on one portion was glitchy for most of the show). There were also strand lights that came down from the ceiling and formed a crude LED curtain. Each "pixel" could be one of the major primary colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow). It was kind of like those scroll banners you see at the post office, only vertical and much, much larger. These currents could be raised and lowered to get out of the way when not in use.
The show started with "Love & Peace or Else" followed by "Vertigo." Vertigo was intense--the light curtains shone with dizzying patterns. By far one of the more spectacular portions was during "City of Blinding Lights" where glitter was released from the roof and the spotlights illuminated it spectacularly. In the meantime, the light curtains where showing video loops that resembled the streaking effect you see in night-time time-lapse videography.
U2 played a lot of older material--some songs I knew the titles of but didn't recognize the melodies. Of course, the acoustics of Key Arena aren't the best. There's a few sites out there you can look on to get the full set list. The crowd really went nuts during "Sunday Bloody Sunday." It's a really powerful song about the protestant/catholic fighting in Ireland. What I enjoyed was that it had that powerful drum track that was pretty popular back in the 80's--except the drums were live not synthesized at all.
The set ended with an acoustic rendition of "Yahweh" and "40". Wow. Plenty of Christian Rock artists turn their concerts into a worship service, but whoever heard of a top-tier secular band doing it?
Nathan
Apr. 26th, 2005 @ 11:21 pm
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| » The tickets are here. |
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And they're in the fire-proof safe.
Feb. 26th, 2005 @ 12:40 am
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| » Proof that God loves me |
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First, a bit of an introduction:
A few weeks ago I found out that U2 was starting their Vertigo tour. my father-in-law is a huge U2 fan, and my wife and I both thought it would be a great early/late birthday present (his birthday is in September, but we can't control when U2 goes on tour, can we?). Unfortunately, it looks like the closest they're coming to Idaho is either Seattle, WA or Denver, CO. My brother-in-law lives in Seattle, so that was the option I chose to investigate. The BIL already has tickets from a fan pre-order, and Ticketmaster didn't (at the time) have a date set for when tickets would be on sale.
Fast-forward to yesterday morning (Feb. 5th). My wife, on a whim, tells me to check Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster's site indicates the tickets would go on sale 2/5 at 11:00AM. My wife and I panic because it was 11:20 at the time, but the BIL says that the times are local (i.e. Pacific) time (Idaho is mostly Mountain time). We set the egg timer for 39 minutes, and wait.
And wait.
As the alarm goes off, I put my credit card info into Ticketmaster's system (no sense in losing my tickets because I typed my card number too slowly). Just as the clock hits noon, I'm refreshing the ticket listing, which now says "Search for tickets" instead of "More info." It was readily apparent that half the online world was also trying to get tickets, because Ticketmaster's site slowed to a crawl. My first two attempts (for the standing-room-only price) failed, so I relented and went up a notch.
Now, for those who haven't used Ticketmaster's website, they basically put you in a first-come-first-serve queue, so that scalpers can't spam the servers and get all the tickets. The queue page auto-refreshes and shows you the estimated wait. What started at 2 minutes went up to 5, then 12, then 36, before coming back down almost as quickly. By this time I was getting fairly nervous. We had the BIL on the phone, when the ordering page came up. I had 2 minutes to make my decision, so I quickly entered the information needed. The BIL informed us that the show was now sold out, which meant that if I bailed now I would be SOL.
Thankfully, Ticketmaster's site works flawlessly with Firefox and the order went through without a hitch.
And I now have a pair of U2 tickets!
No, you can't have them.
Feb. 6th, 2005 @ 09:34 pm
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| » Still in crunch mode |
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Well, we've hit the halfway mark on Rikki's next book. Which is good, because we still have about 3 weeks left to finish it. The book will be a creative re-telling of the Passion Week (that is, the week leading up to Christ's crucifixion). It actually started life as an Easter devotional, but we decided to concatenate the stories and make it a stand-alone book. We could probably use some outside feedback, so drop me a line if you're interested. However, we are on a tight deadline so please be willing to move this to the top of your "to read" stack because it goes to the publisher very soon.
Today also marks the last day I have to run the youth group by myself. This is Rikki's last week of training, and she'll be joining me out "on the floor" on Saturday. Then we'll have the same days off! It's been a long 5 weeks...
Feb. 2nd, 2005 @ 01:58 pm
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