ArcoJedi's Holocron

Speedtest.net - Charter ISP

2012-02-09T22:47:00.000-06:00

It's time once again to test my Internet speed.

We've been having some connection and speed issues over the last two days, but one simple call to technical support and a modem reprovision later and things are moving along just fine. I like to make mention of this and log the results in a public place for whoever it is that might care. I don't have a 'before' speed result on this as Speedtest.net wouldn't even load earlier tonight.

2011 Retrospective: Good Friday Tornado

2012-01-05T01:24:00.000-06:00

I'm too young to admit that I flip past the weather channel (sorry dad), but I do on occasion. The other day they were doing their 2011 retrospective and they called it the "Year of the Tornado" in a severely contrived and overly dramatic way. They mentioned lots of tornadoes, including the majorly destructive Joplin tornado. They also briefly mentioned the Good Friday Tornado in St. Louis, with a brief shot or two of the airport. This reminded me that although I didn't mean to shy away from it, I managed not to post my family's story from that night. I've talked about it and I will continue to talk about the experience to anyone who ~~sits still long enough~~ cares to hear. More generally and embarrassingly, I haven't posted a single blog entry since that night, although I've saved about 15 unrelated draft entries between then and now. Myriad excuses could fill space here and I could even admit that a small contributing factor is that every time I'd sit down to write something else, I'd get a bit of writer's block from the immediate recollection. I remind myself "I really should put down our adventure from the tornado before I plunge into anything else." Meanwhile, it's now seven months later, a new year has begun and other important events are also happening that I should write about. Enough intro, here we go.

On the night of Friday, April 22^nd, 2011 we were going to go to movie night at the church. In recognition of Good Friday, Ferguson Christian Church was having The Passion of the Christ. Lisa and I had seen it before, but wanted to see it again. Reese, Olivia and Sam were going to be downstairs watching a different movie with the rest of the kids. However, while getting ready to pack the family in the car to drive to the church, we heard the tornado siren. Now, let me mention this is nothing new for us. For those of you who are not natives to St. Louis, we get about two or three warnings a year and I've never been affected by an actual tornado. Oh, I kinda thought about it and in some ways wished to witness one from a safe distance, but I never thought I would.

We paused for a few minutes and checked the local weather station. But it was unclear if the threat was high or low, and where exactly it was headed. The movie would be starting soon, so I made the executive decision that we'd be in just as much hypothetical danger in our own house as we'd be at the church. Secretly, I assumed it would pass us by just as it always had.

I should point out here that my oldest daughter has never been a big fan of storms. Me personally, I could have been a storm chaser in another life. I've been out in a tent with no rain fly, surprised by a thunderstorm in the Arizona desert. I've sat in a lawn chair on the drive way at midnight to watch a rain wall approach. I've been within a hundred yards of a lightning strike many times, close enough to feel the hairs on my neck raise up a bit from the ambient static. Once when I was a small child, a lightning surge caused a small fire in our basement fuse box. I'm not often scared of weather, but Lisa and the girls --especially Reese-- are more often apprehensive.

At my urging, we decided to go. Lisa suggested we take my car instead of hers just in case there was hail, and I agreed. Leaving the house, we could see a fair amount of lightning in the distance, but it had not yet begun to rain much. We drove to the church. In retrospect I'm glad we did go rather than stay home, although there were moments that night where I thought I'd made a big mistake.

We got to the church late and the movie had already started. We sequestered the kids downstairs with Joni and then found some seats towards the back. For a minute or two, I completely forgot about the storm. But outside, the lightning continued and strengthened. The church sanctuary was dark for the movie, but it has several windows, and although they were 'frosted' glass, it was too obvious the storm was growing. The first thing I remember most vividly about the lightning and thunder were how rapid and staccato they were. It was almost like someone had a movie sound effect button for thunder, but they were pushing it far too often for a regular storm. The second thing about this was that it added a bonus layer to the powerful moments of the movie. On the screen, Jesus performs a miracle of healing the wounded ear of a Roman soldier, in darkened slow motion with the orchestra humming out minor chords. And the thunder was pounding along triumphantly with emphasis.

Still assuming that the storm would blow over, but now with less certainty, I was a bit distracted from the story by cell phone buzzing several times. My dad was trying to check on me with the storm in our area. He knew we were originally planning to go to the movie at church, but was hoping that we'd ended up staying home. I ignored the phone at first, but it became apparent that I wasn't the only one getting concerned messages. There were about 35 people there total. Throughout the pews, the lights of more than a few phones were buzzing for attention as warnings from concerned family members were coming in. One of the calls was our Pastor's wife Angie, calling to let him know he really needed to get everyone downstairs. Pastor Stacy checked outside briefly and when he came back in he calmly paused the DVD and let everyone know. The thunder continued to roll even louder now, emphasizing his point.

Knowing our children's propensity to worry overly much, Lisa and I were the first down the stairs and the first parents to reach the classrooms. Just then the power went off, but luckily there were emergency lights in the hallway. We lead the group back to the fellowship hall, the downstairs dining area where the kitchen and large tables are where we sometimes have potluck lunches. We had a moment to collect ourselves and people were just starting to sit down. Someone said "we might as well get comfortable as we wait this out."

If it's not clear by now, I don't like to overreact about potential emergencies until that is that I know it's a real emergency. At that moment, despite the amazing thunder and the repetitive lightning... At that moment, I still thought it was going to blow over. ...Thirty seconds later the disaster was over.

An EF4 tornado that had already wrecked havoc in Maryland Heights, and the Lambert St. Louis International Airport, was passing through Ferguson from roughly East to West. It bounced along parallel to Airport road, which becomes Hereford Avenue. It crossed over N. Florissant Rd., wrecking the Little Ceasars and then tearing through the backyards and between the houses between Hereford and Royal. It knocked down fences and trees, and removed many rooftops along the way.

In the space of thirty seconds, it hit our church and then was moving on to cause more damage to the East in Dellwood and on into Illinois. Thirty seconds was all it took to take the entire roof and beams of the sanctuary and toss them across the parking lot and down the street like an armload of Lincoln Log toys.

From my perspective in the basement, thirty seconds was all it took to go from ...

C'mon, It's going to blow over, to...
I've made a terrible mistake! to...
Thank God, I think that might be over...

I didn't see much, as we were in the basement and it was pretty dark. The suggestion I'd always heard was that the sound of an approaching tornado was similar to an approaching train. But for some reason, I was listening for the whistle. I should have been listening for the rumble, a deep-throatiness growl that sounded more dead than alive. It started out so sub-audible that I almost missed it. But there was also a sensation, and that was perhaps what I noticed first. The pressure in the room changed rapidly, like opening a window in a speeding car. I'd guess that happened when some of the windows upstairs blew out. At the same moment, it felt like being lifted. For just a moment, some force was trying to pick me up --and everything around me-- and carry me away. It was not strong enough to do so for sure, but the mere presence of something opposing gravity even a little was disorientating. Also in that moment, everything in the building rattled and shifted at once. All of the drop ceiling tiles above my head bounced with the popping pressure and shifted in their fittings. My skin hairs stood on end at the pressure and temperature change, but also I felt a tiny mist of moisture pass by me.

Everyone was yelling at once. As all these things were happening, I recall the fight or flight moments and hitting the floor. The noise and the banging made you want to look everywhere at once. Dust permeated everything. My first conscious moments of deliberate motion were crawling across the floor in the direction of where I thought my wife's voice was coming from. I could hear both my girls shouting, but at first I couldn't hear my son. Lisa had been holding Sam right before it all started. She had dived under a table with him still cradled on one hip. It took only moments though still too long, but I did find them under a table. The gasping and coughing quieted quickly and so did the noise from the receding storm. Everyone was alive and unhurt. It was a very long thirty seconds.

Things get a little blurry after that. We all stood up, verified everyone was unhurt and brushed ourselves off. For several minutes most everyone was reluctant to leave the basement. As it turned out, one of our elders, Larry Doggett had not been in the basement with everyone else, but had gone upstairs and just out the FRONT DOOR to see when the storm would pass. He got caught standing in the doorway holding onto the frame as it passed just over his head. He was fine and he came down to check on his wife, daughter Joni and grandchildren. He was the first to inform us --matter of factly-- that the "roof was gone". When he said this, I assumed that a portion of the roof was gone or at best just some of the shingles. But nope, he really meant the whole roof. We now had an open-air church sanctuary.

This was taken the next day...

I wanted to see this right away, but the sirens were still going off occasionally and I also wanted to stay with my family. I called my dad and let him know we were okay. After about an hour or so, the crowd downstairs started to thin out and the storm was clearly over. We went upstairs and surveyed the damage both inside and out. My car had received scrapes on all body panels and had one small broken window (later to be declared a totaled vehicle). Luckily it hadn't been crushed by the roof beams. More concerning was that my car and most every OTHER car in the parking lot was blocked in by the beams that lay across Royal and Elizabeth. We literally couldn't leave without walking or getting a ride.

Of course my dad would come and rescue us. My cell phone came in quite handy as we waited so that we could coordinate where to meet him. As we waited, I found myself approaching our pastor and the other elders many times asking what in retrospect are silly questions. What should I do? Should we start cleaning up now? Where are we going to put all this debris? They didn't have answers except for "not much tonight, that's for sure." Strangely, in my adrenaline state, I found that unsatisfactory. I wanted to DO something, but recovery for us and the houses up and down the street was going to be a lengthy process.

Power was out everywhere. As it turned out, dad couldn't get all the way in to Ferguson to help us, at least not to the church. The police were prudently keeping areas blocked off to incoming traffic and we were right in the middle of that area. We ended up walking from the church to January-Wabash park, which is 0.9 miles or so. This is a pretty fair distance to walk if you are carrying a toddler.

We passed a news van or two and Lisa wanted to stop to give the Jeff Foxworthy joke; "It was Pandelirium!" We passed huge trees down in the road and folks already working with chain saws to cut them up. We passed the Little Ceasars I mentioned earlier where the employees were handing out food they'd otherwise have to throw out since they had no power.

We found my dad and his car and poured ourselves into it. We got a little turned around getting out of the area, but we made it home. Lisa and I were worried what our house might look like, but 3 miles to the North it looked like it had barely rained. And that was my brush with a Tornado.

I could give an update here, since it's now almost eight months later. Reese is still just as scared of storms as ever, if not understandably more so. The church is being rebuilt! Drive through the neighborhood now and it's evident some folks are still dealing with the damage. I'm forgetting some detail right now, that I'll add in later, but that's the story.

More photos

Most of these photos were taken by me the next day or so when we came to help clean up.

A Trippy Trip Down Memory Lane - Otomata

2011-04-20T00:42:00.001-05:00

Because I am an occasional stumbler (on the Internet), I find the most bizarre and amazing sites. Somewhat recently, I found this gem:

Otomata

Otomata is a generative sequencer. It employs a cellular automaton type logic I've devised to produce sound events.

This musical tool sounds quite geeky, but is actually a lot of fun and pretty simple to understand. Though I can't say I was knowledgeable of the term "cellular automaton" there was something about the style which seemed familiar from my youth. Then I saw this:

And instantly I'm back as an early teenager. Other kids were riding bikes or learning skateboard tricks. I did those things too, but I also spent a large portion of my time in front of this magic box:

One of the many shareware and freeware games my dad had found this magic box was called Conway's Game of Life. It didn't seem like much on the surface. You could add squares to a grid and start them in action. Sometimes they'd fizzle out and die, but other times they'd react with each other in a very life-like way (hence the name). I followed the link to refresh my memory and suddenly I've gone down the proverbial rabbit hole and am itching to play this learning game again. What's more, I want to introduce my kids to it. With Reese's analytical mind, she'd love it!

More Information

35 Years Old ... Really?

2011-03-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

I turned 35 years old almost a month ago and I realize now that I didn't write about it. I usually do. There are two facts that I could point to for an explanation. First off, I have a really great new job that I've been at for a few months and I love it quite a bit. It's keeping me pretty busy, but it's a very good sort of busy. It's more responsibility than I've ever had and it suits me. I find myself looking forward to the day each morning. I plan to keep that up too.

The other possible reason is that I didn't really think it was a very big deal. IIRC, I was more actively dreading and equally excited about my 30^th birthday.

This year, I'm more excited about the kids' birthdays. Sam turned one in December of last year and is now a moving little dervish, destroying all in his path. Reese turns 12 in May and Olivia turns nine in November. It's only March now, but we've had some pretty amazing and exciting things happen so far this year. I could write a million words on these things but I'll post some quick notes instead. Reese did a science fair project with a potato cannon! Lisa entered into a "Biggest Loser" contest at her work, but was already losing weight rapidly. I'm more than a little jealous. Sam likes to dance, and does so whenever there is music. Olivia reads voraciously now, just like her sister. My nieces and nephews are also growing so very quickly lately, with birthdays year-round.

It feels very good to write. I should be doing this more often. I am writing pretty regularly at work, but this is more personal.

Kudos to Steven Tyler

2011-01-19T23:55:00.003-06:00

I swore internally that I'd never write about American Idol again, let alone would I ever watch it. But once again, my wife is watching it and that means that even if I'm doing something else at the same time, I'm watching it. As an aside, if there is a television on in the same room where I'm at, I'd be hard pressed to pay attention to anything else except the screen. This is true no matter how I feel about the quality of the program or how my friends might judge me for it. But that's my issue.

Tonight was the premiere episode of this season and the new host is Steven Tyler who is also the lead singer of a band called Aerosmith. There's been controversy about his decision to do the show, as not only have Aerosmith fans voiced complaints (Tyler Interview from 2011/01/19, Tyler Interview from 2011/01/17), but also his friend and band mate Joe Perry (Perry Interview from 2010/09/08, People Complaining On An Internet Forum: Because It Helps).

It's [Tyler's] business, but I don't want Aerosmith's name involved with it, Perry told the Calgary Herald It's a reality show designed to get people to watch that station and sell advertising.…

What? Okay, listen. I know I have complained copiously about too much advertising. And I have nothing but respect for Joe Perry as a musician and guitar player, but he's a bit off base here. I'm not going to say the show is the highest form of entertainment out there, but there is nothing wrong with being associated with it in this tangential way. Although Perry admits during the interview to the fact that several Aerosmith songs have been played on the show and that was okay, apparently he forgot all about his own guest performance on the show.

Here Is a Reminder...

Never forget...

All that aside, I think the real issue for Perry is the current friction within the band. To him, this is just another symptom. Whereas for Steven Tyler, he's just keeping his own options open and expanding his own career. Perry should be congratulating him, not berating him. But they are fighting like the married couple they are and perhaps they'll work out their issues or perhaps they won't. I hope they do, because I freakin' love Aerosmith!

As far as tonight's episode goes, I had my headphones in and missed most of it. But when I asked Lisa about how it was going, it is clear that none of the three judges this year is as being "mean" as we've come to expect, which was possibly a draw for a good portion of the viewers. Just how much of a jerk was Simon Cowell going to be this week? It's possible the show has jumped the shark long ago anyway. But even if this is the last season ever, I've come around to the idea that Steven's decision was the right one.

If you need convincing that Tyler's decision to be part of Idol is a good idea, look no further than the plethora of other rock stars who came to his defense.

My wife had mentioned previously that Gene Simmons was on KSHE's morning show defending Steven Tyler. If she and I can paraphrase, he basically said that Tyler was doing the right thing keeping himself out there in the public eye. It's something you have to do if you want to stay famous. The way I see it, a regular gig on a weekly show is more steady reliable work than being a singer in a rock band NO MATTER HOW CLASSIC AND SUCCESSFUL that rock band is. I know there are other issues that are causing friction within the band, many of them probably more important. I will be sad if they stop being a band, but I will be one Aerosmith fan smart enough not to blame American Idol.

Stay famous, Steven Tyler. Stay famous.

I Still Use Del.icio.us

2010-12-19T21:07:00.005-06:00

I'm writing a quick blog post regarding Delicious and all the possible news and changes that are in the works for my favorite social bookmarking site. But I published a little soon. Please return later tonight for the finished post.

I've mentioned Delicious on my blog before. I've used the link sharing site for research, community and a number of extensible features in websites I build or maintain. Check out my latest bookmarks:

In the middle of last week, a screenshot of a product roadmap was leaked from an internal all-hands meeting at Yahoo. As part of the slide, Delicious was listed among other services that they were planning to sunset. I saw the story posted first on TechCrunch. At first, it was just speculation and rumor but it was later confirmed. Also, there was some noise about the employee who leaked the photo being in trouble if they caught the culprit (*yawn* Get a clue, Yahoo! This is the more open 21^st Century.).

A number of blog posts circulated about it and eventually, the smart folks started compiling lists of alternatives (none of which excite me right now) and tutorials on how to export your bookmarks and migrate them. I made a note to come back and go through these steps resignedly.

There were several reasons cited for the shutdown. Yahoo is feeling the same economic strain everyone else is and recently laid off a large group of people. Speculation is that some of them may have been the entire Delicious team. Other speculation / commentary was that since the user forums on Delicious were so full of spam and lacking in usefulness, things were already really bad. It made me scratch my head, because I was not really aware there was a forum!

Then a day later, Yahoo / Delicious posted on their blog that indeed they are not shutting down the service, but will instead be selling it to someone else. In other words, my favorite free service was not (er, probably not) going away. At least, not today. I still backed up all 7000-plus bookmarks in one file here on my local hard drive just in case.

Ultimately, it's a free service so it could *poof* at any point and I'd have no one to complain to --except for you blog readers. So let that be a lesson to you. In fact, I'd suggest you read or skim this post on The Decline Of Web 2.0 and keep that in mind as you are updating your profiles and so forth out there. At one point long before Twitter / Facebook, MySpace was the place to be. Before that, AOL was the place to be. Before that, Usenet... well, you get the idea.

SoTel Systems

2010-11-15T23:24:00.029-06:00

I started my first day at SoTel Systems. My new job position is Website Marketing Manager and this is a pretty big responsibility that I am so very excited about.

I could gush about my new boss, my new coworkers, my company laptop, my company cell phone... But right now, I've got to get prepared for tomorrow, so goodnight all!

Forget to Mention...

2010-11-10T01:48:00.001-06:00

There was something else that I forgot to mention in a previous blog post... I've been contemplating combining and consolidating a few blog projects. Certainly many of them are due for an overhaul and I'm not just talking about their respective designs. Many of the projects are ripe for a re-branding. A variety of things have changed in my life and I need to adjust the direction these things will go if they are to continue. Let me think out loud on this page for a moment. In no particular order...

ArcoJedi's Holocron :: `http://blog.arconati.us/`

At the moment, you are here! This is my longest running blog and has a variety of personal, professional, private and worldly stuff. I've talked about my kids, my job, politics and whatever. There isn't any strong focus here and there doesn't need to be since it is basically a public journal for my rambling. This site is powered by Blogger.

James A. Arconati :: `http://james.a.arconati.net/`

The purpose of this site started as a repository for my Delicious tags. The idea at the time was that there was supposed to be a way to have your social bookmarks on Delicious automatically posted to your blog, but even now it doesn't work with Blogger. So I installed WordPress and tweaked it into what I have now. At first this was just to have a locally controlled backup of my linked sites. I expected absolutely no traffic. But this site suddenly became very big and very popular. The only posts are from Delicious with very little other changes. This site could be the best for a blog on my portfolio site, but it needs some work. This site is powered by WordPress (and Delicious).

My Portfolio `http://www.arcojedi.com/` & `http://www.jamesarconati.com/` etc.

This is my newest site and is still in progress. I am using this to promote myself and the work that I do. I build it by hand without using a blog tool. And since I started building it, I've come to recognize that everything else I manage might need to be reorganized a bit.

For instance, the Arconati network of sites...

Arconati Family: http://arconati.us/
Arconati News: http://arconati.net/
Arconati Surname: http://arconati.name/

I started with these sites and build everything else from there. If I were to draw a thought map of everything I've ever created it would start with these three in the center based on importance. At least, that was the case up until this point. I'm making the adjustment that these sites are moving out of the center and my portfolio is becoming central. The family sites will continue to represent my family at large, our genealogy and history. And links to my portfolio will be prominent. But stuff that is strictly ME will be moved to my portfolio.

And this means that some or all of the domains and sub-domains that I'm currently using for hosting certain blog projects should perhaps be reassigned. Even the address of this site --http://blog.arconati.us/-- makes less sense now since I am the only author here. Perhaps it should be http://blog.arcojedi.com/ instead. I'm still pondering these things, but...

Arconati Kid Korner http://kids.arconati.us/: This site is for sharing links with my kids and generally making a safe site for children. It can stay on this address as I am interested in sharing the responsibility of adding content and updating it without any parent and family member who would like to help. Contact me if you have any ideas.
NOT Tech Life Blogged http://techlifeblogged.blogspot.com/: This site I sort of inherited in a rather long story I won't rehash here. For most of my history with it, I've only been caretaker of this site as a placeholder for the original owner that moved off of Blogger. It has slowly become mine over time as I've updated it with new content as the desire hit me. It's a technology and gadget centered blog. I have thought about redirecting it using a sub-domain like tech.arconati.us or gadgets.arconati.us but just haven't yet. I think that just like the kids.* site mentioned above, I would welcome help from other family members to update a gadget blog. Let me know!
Arconati Comedy Awards http://comedy.arconati.us/: This is a joke blog, where I post any funny email forward and shared joke that I think is worthy. Again, I think this can stay on the current domain since I'd welcome any family member that wanted to post their own jokes that they find. The invite is open...
ArcoJedi's Dastardly Plan: I guess this is the closest thing I've got to a 'photo blog'. Updates are largely infrequent and usually posted tangentially from my Flickr account. The domain used for this has changed around a lot and it's not really very important. I've toyed with other stuff for this, but it's mostly public photos I've shared. I can and should fold these posts into another blog; either ArcoJedi's Holocron or James A. Arconati. I can export the posts and import them into either site with quite a bit of ease. But which one?
Musical Holocron http://music.arconati.name/: This is my music blog, where I write about music and share mp3s. Originally, I meant to use this site just for myself so that I could download my own mp3s directly onto my cell phone for free, but I could never get that to work right with my last few cell phones. Once again, this site could easily stay on the family domain name because I'd welcome any family members and music lovers who would like to write more for this site. Get in touch with me if you are interested.
R-Quotes http://quotes.arconati.name/: This is a directory and repository I created for quotes. I could very easily keep this under the family domain name. Or I could fold the posts into another site, such as the comedy.* site mentioned above. Or ... something else? For those family members like me with a fondness for a good quote (wise or whimsical), you are welcome to start adding your own. I can send you an invite and get you logged in very quickly and simply.
Seamist Inn • Dungeons & Dragons http://seamist.arconati.us/: I've had a little help with this site before but for the most part this is a site about Dungeons and Dragons written by me. The original plan was to document and play campaigns with my in-laws and they had a small hand in the site in it's early stages. However, for a long time, it's been just me. I'm getting my kids into tabletop gaming now, so this project will continue. I see no reason currently to change the domain as I'd welcome help from others with this site the same way I've already mentioned above. I should consider a more RPG related sub-domain for this site. "Seamist" doesn't seem to fit anymore.
Mudhorny http://www.mudhorny.com/: This site belongs to my little brother, but I mostly update it for him. This site's goal is to write about four by four trucks, the hobby of muddin', and promote a "Mudhorny" brand name; a t-shirt with a logo and quirky phrases will be forthcoming. For the most part, no change is necessary here, but I have plans to add a community forum (under the mudhorny.net address. Most of the updates I've posted have been links I stumble on about cars, trucks and other automotive technologies. I need to prod my brother into contributing his own stuff more often.
ColorBurst Video http://www.colorburstvideo.com/: This site belongs to my dad, but again I update it most often. The goal here is to promote my dad's brand name as a videographer, editor and titler. I mostly post links to pages regarding video editing, special effects and movies I like. There is also going to be a lot more information on home video production and services that my dad is looking to do more of now that he is retired. My dad also needs encouragement to contribute more often.
MonsterCommerceBlog http://monstercommerce.blogspot.com/: Here's a prime candidate for re-branding. MC as an entity doesn't exist any more and I no longer work for the company that owns the brand. I initially nabbed this sub-domain through Blogger back when the company was smaller and I was encouraging the leadership to start a blog. Over time, I've used it to discuss specific MC stuff, e-commerce ideas and general web development concepts. Since my portfolio is web services centered, this is a good candidate for alterations. For the future, I've got an idea I'd consider. Fold the content into an existing blog that is linked from my portfolio and redirect the URL. I could create a new sub-domain and keep the content separate. But I don't want to just abandon the site and the content that I've written there for whatever it is worth.
Happy Is The Bride - Wedding Planning Ideas and Products http://happyisthebride.com/: Here is my one active e-commerce site. This was a business idea that my wife and I shared and started in 2007, though it hasn't made much yet. In the long-term, my wife would like to be a wedding planner and event coordinator. The site is powered by Network Solutions Ecommerce, but there is also a blog powered by Blogger. Both sites could use a massive redesign and more frequent updates. What do ya say?
Friends of ArcoJedi http://friends.arconati.name/: I started this site as a link blog for my friends and coworkers who rarely had or launches web sites of their own. Nowadays however, it kind of seems like EVERYONE has their own site, which I consider a good thing if they go about it the right way. This site is a prime candidate for a bit of a shuffle. First off, the use of the family domain name here doesn't seem to fit. If these are my friends, then I should use my own vanity domain instead of the family moniker. So friends.arcojedi.com makes more sense. However, I could also easily fold the content and purpose into one of my larger and more regularly updated blogs. But which one?
Arconati News http://arconati.net/: I mentioned this site above, but I'll bring it up again here because I need to an overhaul to it. First off, I need to decide if I keep it on Blogger -or migrate it to WordPress or some other program. Do I stick to the current host or consolidate it with the other sites? And whatever I do with it, what do I do with james.a.arconati.net, since that is on the same server?

I also manage the site for Ferguson Christian Church, but that is okay for now. I hammered out a decent new composition for it that I will get around to implementing as soon as possible. And I may also upgrade it with it's own CMS of one kind or another. I host a few others, including Ratlifter.com and FrenchClassicalDressage.com, both of which use WordPress. Unless the friends that I host these for have some need, there is no reason to change these.

There really is not just one major dilemma, but a series of small ones. Do I keep using mainly Blogger? Do I move most or all to WordPress? Do I stay in multiple hosts or do I put all my eggs in one basket? Does the Arconati Family really need three separate sites or can these be consolidated into one?

That's where I'm at. Additionally to all of these questions and many more, I'm very excited that I will be starting a full time job next week. I can already tell that this is going to be a great company to work for. However, it would have been better of me to get all this personal stuff finished by now. Indecision causes procrastination.

Well, that's more than enough thinking out loud for now. Gotta wade through this...

Halloween

2010-11-01T00:22:00.071-05:00

This tribute pleases me.

I have always loved Halloween, although as an adult I've not always gotten myself a costume. I regularly want to do something in the Star Wars genre of costumes, but it's hard to do something original there. So very many of my fellow creative geeks are out there. And Halloween seems to sneak up on me faster every year. I delay putting any sort of creative time into planning a costume and ultimately end up not doing it.

But I do have fun with my kids every year trick-or-treating. The tradition is starting to form that Lisa stays home and hands out candy and the girls and I walk around. This year looked to be a little different. Both Reese and Olivia were invited to Halloween parties that night, so it was going to be just my wife and I and Sammy.

We'd bought all three of them costumes. Reese got a bee girl costume very reminiscent of the Blind Melon video from years ago. Olivia picked out a witch costume with a spider theme; a Spider Witch. For Sammy we got a cute lion costume.

In the morning, we had a full day at church with youth sunday. Reese and I played special music during offering --me on Trombone, Reese on Recorder-- with the two Bellinger boys on Trumpet. There was even a potluck lunch afterwards with lots of international themed foods. Then we came home and the girls each had some leftover homework they had to get through quickly before they could go to their parties.

Both girls had been invited by friends that we had not previously heard of or met before. Reese finished first and Lisa drove her to that party while I carved the pumpkin. She would be trick-or-treating there and wouldn't get back until 8 or 9pm. Then Olivia finished and Lisa got ready to drive her to her friend's house. She tried to look up the directions but couldn't find the street nearby. We called only to find out this was because the party was not nearby! Though the friend who had invited Olivia went to her school and lived really close, the party was actually at her Aunt's house, which was much farther away. We didn't know the neighborhood and weren't comfortable with her going. So, after conferring a bit on it, Lisa and I informed my youngest daughter that she couldn't go.

There were some tears, but I love that Olivia bounces back from things so very quickly. She doesn't see a reason to let things continue to both her. She goes with the flow. In less than an hour, she had adjusted her plans and waited patiently for it to get dark so we could trick-or-treat around the home neighborhood.

Me as...

Grim Reaper in 1996 at QU

Pudgy Darth Vader in 2005

I had finished the jack-o-lantern and Sammy went down for a nap. I put it out on the porch and even threw up a few last minute decorations. I'd swear, the sun took forever to go down, but there were thin spooky clouds setting the right tone.

Since it was only Olivia and I, I let her choose which direction we set out first and which streets we turned down as we went. There are a lot of kids in our little corner of suburbia so there were a lot of places to go and costumes to see. We wandered the cul-de-sac and up the feeder street a bit. There's a pair of houses around the corner that make a really big deal every year and have an open house with hot dogs. Their street is closed off at each end and there has sometimes been a messy punk rock garage band that sets up in the middle of the street and offends everyone. This year, they were either absent or just hadn't set up yet. We were near that area and there was a well-lit decorated house with a bunch of teenagers out on the front porch. As we got close, I could hear a few cuss words coming from the group that I hoped Olivia didn't hear, but I didn't really think anything else. I thought Olivia would just walk up to door for candy just like every other house. But she took one glance at them from the sidewalk and started walking faster clinging to my hip the whole time. She said something about how teenage boys were mean. At first, I was surprised and started to say it was okay and she could go up to their door if she wanted. I was right here and she'd be safe. But then I realized she genuinely wanted nothing to do with them. So I encouraged her to follow her instincts. Thinking about it later, I realized I should have been more proud.

There was an interesting stellar bonus. Tonight, I saw what I think was a shooting star. The sky still had some clouds, but had cleared up a bit. I was looking up as Olivia and I were walking and talking and something streaked by and seemed to be falling apart as it did so. It was bright, but too fast and quiet to be an airplane. It disappeared as it went behind a cloud and didn't come out the other side. In that moment, I tried to point it out to Olivia, but I don't think she saw it.

There were certain houses with nice decorations that she absolutely had to visit. One of her friends lives in a house on the main street that has a giant animated spider. There was another house that had a ghost house in their garage last year, but they had toned it down this year. We saw some old friends and neighbors as we walked. The weather all night was nippy but nice, not too bad. I let Olivia lead us around until she was thoroughly tired. I'd forgotten to bring a watch or anything and I thought it was very late --9:30pm or 10-- by the time we got home. Turns out it wasn't even 8pm yet. Reese was back home, Sammy was awake and in his costume though he didn't appreciate it, and our friends the VanMeters had stopped by for a visit and to take pictures.

The girls did a big trade-off with their candy. Both girls had used pillow cases instead of plastic pumpkins. Olivia had gotten way more candy than Reese while she was at the party, but Olivia is picky about her taste in candy and traded generously her fruity sweet stuff for the chocolate stuff she really likes. I put the old Dracula movie on the Netflix and we all realized very quickly that it was somewhat boring. We all stayed up later than we probably should have, but that was our Halloween.

Good night everybody. I hope your night was a nice as mine.

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

2010-10-24T02:31:00.004-05:00

The post title is alluding to a quote by William Shakespeare. You've probably heard it before.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Another one I thought about using was by Mark Twain.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

An asteroid indeed. I'm not sure where I'm going with this one for the moment. But I just have this feeling lately that I've been posting a lot of little things here and there but not making much besides a bunch of pointless noise.

I'm not feeling low about the quality of what I've been writing. I feel like I haven't been writing enough, and what I have been posting is akin to the usefulness of static. Signal-to-noise ratio?

This isn't even the real problem. It's a matter of a thousand noisy ideas in my head. I'm reading a lot of stuff all over the place and absorbing a huge amount. It goes through my mental filter and I'm very inspired to write about it all. But that's the rub of it, I can't write about it ALL. At times, I've been very good at this, but right now it's all important to me and I can't prioritize. So here is a list of stuff I'm thinking about right now in completely undetermined order.

Sammy is great. He learned to start climbing the gate into the kitchen this week. He's only a few inches off the floor, but still.. That's not good as there's no way he can get really high without falling forward over the gate OR just knocking the whole thing over. He is much more active than any of our other kids.
I'm very excited about some job news that ... I'm sitting on at the moment. I can't post too many details other than to say that I had TWO very good interviews at the same company and I've very excited about this likely opportunity.
Been working on two things at the same time for music. That's right, MUSIC!
- I'm going to be recording a Trombone solo on a song for a local band my friends and I all knew back in high school. I've been practicing along to a CD for what I'll need to play over and it's going to be hard but a lot of fun.
- At church, we are working on some special music for youth Sunday (October 31^st) and I've been in charge of this a bit with myself and two boys who play Trumpet and Reese on recorder, and anyone else we can get together.
It feels like forever since I did anything of substance musically, so this is really refreshing for me.
Wait, my oldest daughter has a blog now? How did that happen? (Ask me if you want to be added to her subscribers. I'd link to it, but it's set to private.) Next, she'll want Twitter. At least she stopped asking for MySpace.
My online portfolio is coming along. Visit ArcoJedi.com. I've got more text to write and some images to add and the home page will be done. Even with the possible job news I mentioned above, this doesn't change the need for this site.
I mentioned here that I was going to run a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for my daughters and their friend. Well the first session went well and if I can manage to keep their attention, we will keep going. The feedback I got was that there needs to be more fighting and less talking. That can be arranged.
I finished reading the Lord of the Rings books to my girls. Olivia has been in love with these stories since I started reading The Hobbit back last year. Reese is much more into the Rick Riordan stuff. We are still reading from the Percy Jackson series (out of order) and also some R. A. Salvatore. I try and read to them every night.

Each one of these things could be a huge blog post on their own if I had an infinite amount of time for them. Derek Brink is a buddy whose blog I read somewhat regularly. He's a good writer and musician. He also does these "random" blog posts that contain not just one thread or theme but a bunch of short bulleted ideas that he wants to post, but that don't get a full post on their own (for a variety of reasons that probably includes time alloted).

That's good enough for him and he pulls it off well, but I've always shied away from that for my own stuff. To me, if something is worth posting, I want to write a lot about it. Being concise is not one of my stronger skills. So I end up posting the 'short' stuff in microblogging; Facebook and/or Twitter, but that again makes it feel more like noise than stuff I'd file as "Important"...

But I thought this post was better than nothing.

I Hosted an "Ask Me Anything"

2010-10-12T00:58:00.000-05:00

Anyone heard of Reddit? Start here if you've never heard of it. I know many of my geekier friends probably, but most likely not everyone who might read this will also have been to that site before. Reddit is a social news site owned by the same folks as Wired.com, among other sites and magazines. The community is a bit of a cynic's paradise with an interesting mix of humor, geek love and good will. They have a subsection specifically for Ask Me Anything where someone with a somewhat unique experience or story will start a question and answer session with I Am a someone with something. Ask Me Anthything. Examples include:

IAmA guy who was an exchange student in Japan when I was 15. I knew no Japanese. AMA
As requested, IAmA Detective --Yes, they take and encourage requests.
IAMA co-manager of a large Halloween store, AMA

I don't always find these topics very interesting, but they can be pretty active. It looked like fun. The reason I mentioned Reddit at all was that I recently hosted my own AMA. There are many things that are unique about me, but seeing as how October is SIDS, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month... Let's talk about this some more.

I Am a Father Whose Firstborn Son Died of SIDS. Feel Free to Ask Me Anything

I wanted to share a link to the thread here so that you could read along and see the questions and comments. I got a lot of really good questions, some of them that were emotionally difficult to answer, but I did my best. The first thing you will notice is a huge block of text where I recount the day that it happened. About halfway through, someone asked me what the circumstances were of finding Lucas' body. I thought that might come up, but when it did I realized I've never typed out the whole story. So, I did. And so you here you have it, 2703 words later.

It was very cathartic to type this all and to answer questions and respond to comments. It wasn't the most popular IAmA by a long shot. But there are a total of 123 comments, about half of which are me answering the random strangers. Here are a few of the gems:

…Thank you for your courage to relive this experience once again. It has been very useful -and I'm sure that I can say this for others as well, a very powerful way of bringing awareness on SIDS for people that have little kids and also for those who plan to have them.…

…I'm gonna sign off reddit for the night and go hug my 6 month old. Thank you for making me think to do that. I am so sorry.…

…My parents' firstborn son also died of SIDS in 1984. Everyday I think of how my life would have been different had my brother had lived. I never knew him, but every year on his birthday I bring flowers to his grave.…

That's just a few, but the whole series of posts and comments is available if you want to take a look. I'll most likely copy & paste the full story here on my blog in the next few days just because I want to keep it archived in case Reddit ever explodes.

Let me add that Reddit is not for everyone! It's a bit snarky, cynical, rude and preachingly atheistic at times. But their heart is in the right place and at least in the case of this particular thread, these folks were at their best.

A Quick Update on Sammy! (In Summary? All Good!)

2010-09-13T03:23:00.002-05:00

I wanted to update everyone in relation to a post I wrote back in June regarding Sammy and his sleep apnea monitor. Then I realized just now that I never finished or published that post. Oops… So there it is!

The new information is that Sammy is no longer on the sleep apnea monitor, but we are still using the motion monitor (for now). When he would wake up in the morning, he was getting pretty active and the wires were a hazard we could live without. More importantly, he is 100% healthy and continues to grow and crawl and cruise around the furniture at a high rate of speed. We are starting stage 3 baby foods this week (for those that know what that means). He has had the one tooth in his bottom gums for some time and this past week he is getting what appears to be four teeth all at once in his upper gums. He's not too cranky about all of this, which is an unexpected gift.

Portfolio, Mine

2010-09-04T09:16:00.001-05:00

Template for 960.egg on Aviary.

In case you were wondering what I've been up to lately, this is what I've been working on. It has come to my attention that I am long overdue to have an online portfolio of my work. This all started from some very good advice I got from a friend. If you are reading this, you know who you are, so thanks a lot!

The site is not online yet. This is just the final draft of the design. I can write more about this composition later. And once the site is online I'll obviously link to it. But I'm looking for honest constructive feedback on the design, layout, colors and themes. Please use the comment box below OR the comment space on Aviary if you have an account there. Clicking the thumbnail you see here will take you there and you can see a much larger version of this image. Anything you could share would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

BOOK REVIEW: Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter

2010-07-25T13:50:00.008-05:00

Here is my review of Abraham Lincoln :: Vampire Hunter, written by Seth Grahame-Smith.

Since your mind was just blown completely by the book's title alone, I'll give you a moment to compose yourself. Alright now, you okay? Good, now watch this:

It's worth the two minutes. Wait for it... wait for it... wait for-- BOOM! And Honest Abe goes for the neck and the kill shot! Getting past the completely unrelated shocking news that books now have trailers --what WILL they think of next?-- let's jump to your most pressing question.

Jim, are you trying to tell me that according to this book, Abraham Lincoln was a bad-ass guy who hunted and killed VAMPIRES?!

Yes, exactly. Like, seriously. I KNOW, WOW!

Genre: Historical fiction, vampire horror, fictional biography, civil war.

Format: Hardback edition, borrowed from a friend. (Thanks Heather!)

First, some background. You may have missed this, but there have been a few books released in the last year or two that take old dusty classics that admittedly no self-respecting guy would admit to read and recreating them as a mash-up with something from the horror genre. For example:

The Jane Austen coming-of-age love story gets a retelling with a severe twist. I haven't read these others, but the point is clear. Get people who have never read a story like these (again, the target audience is probably dudes) to do so and enjoy themselves while they do it.

There have been a huge multitude of books written about Abraham Lincoln. Amazon.com lists over 14,000. And there have been hundreds of movies about him. He always tops the lists of popular and influential presidents. His face graces the penny and the five-dollar bill. More recently, some speculation among historians and biographers has arisen regarding his sexual preferences. I'm not sure about that, but no matter what you believe, there is some mystery to his life and personality.

This book takes the tact that the mystery surrounding the famous Abe was vampires. You can rest assured that these are not the fang-less, neutered, sparkly vampires that Stephenie Meyer wants you to believe in. These are evil, blood-thirsty monsters, for the most part. And from a very young age, Abraham Lincoln's life was affected by them.

The story begins as the author relates how he came to be in possession of a box of artifacts, including a series of handwritten journals which comprise multiple volumes of the secret journal entries of Abraham Lincoln. It moves forward weaving historical facts with snippets, anecdotes and interviews that tell how the man who would be our 16^th president came to hunt the undead. First, as a young boy of nine, Abe would sit helplessly by his mother's bed as she died of what the doctors at the time called milk sickness. Later, he would learn that she was actually killed by a vampire's poison. He was also to learn from his father that his grandfather was brutally murdered by vampires. Against his father's wishes and warnings, he vows revenge and sets out to learn all he can and become a hunter of unnatural predators. That's right, it's a tale of vengeance.

* Shudder *

It's very interesting to envision this iconic figure going through this journey, and it appeals to me and mine in a special way. There's an inside joke in our household referencing "Red Kryptonite". You see, in the television series Smallville, the hero who will be Superman encounters multiple kinds of Kryptonite that affect him in different ways. The classic and most well known kind (to fans) is green, which injures Kal-el and takes away his powers. But during one story arc that spanned a season finale cliffhanger, Clark encounters the red Kryptonite. While under it's effects and in close proximity to the element Clark keeps his super powers, but loses his good nature and becomes the proverbial evil twin. He even gets over his fear of flying. More importantly, he steals a motorcycle, wears a black leather jacket and becomes a very bad boy. Check out his glowing red eyes.

As it turns out, my wife likes the bad boys (go figure). She looked forward to the multiple reruns and further episodes that included the "Red Kryptonite Clark". Later, we would make a mental connection between Clark's transformation and Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode III. Though she suffers to watch my favorite movies with me only on rare occasions, her favorite scene of Anakin is on Mustafar shortly after he's killed all of the Neimoidian Separatists. Again, check out the eyes.

Quote from my wife: HAWT!

Another parallel is that both characters experienced a parent dying; Anakin's mother and Clark's father. Their suffering and how they deal with it make for good story. Now, let's apply that same logic to the tale of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and you may be getting just a small idea of where this goes. The young Abe needs only manifest glowing-red eyes and the symbolism would be complete. The book divides his life into three distinct parts; Boy, Vampire Hunter, President. At age 11, Abe vows in his journal to kill every vampire in America. He picks up his trusty axe and with a year of secret practice and study, the first creature he kills is the same vampire who killed his mother.

But the story takes a few surprising turns. Abe's subsequent attempt to kill a vampire is less successful and he is rescued from death by a different vampire. He comes to an understanding with his rescuer, a vampire named Henry. As the first part of the book (Boy) ends and the second (Vampire Hunter) begins, he learns of the terrible secret connection between slavery and Southern vampires. The slave trade is also a trade in blood.

Abe was raised by an abolitionist family and already believed slavery was wrong. So he folds in a goal to fight and end slavery as well as killing all vampires. The rest of Part II follows his adolescence and early adulthood as he becomes more learned and influential politically. By day, he betters himself through study and books and begins a reluctant political career. By night, he hunts vampires.

I don't want to give the whole story away, but you can see a possible path from there to the White House. A lot of very interesting adventures happen along the way. What I think is most historically accurate about this work of fiction is how actual truths about Lincoln are weaved into this fictional retelling without any of the seams showing. For instance, I seem to recall that Lincoln was very reluctant to seek the presidency, though I can't find a citation for that. Another defining aspect of Lincoln was the birth of his sons and the death of two of them. He was, by many accounts, a doting father and the book includes many references to his time spent with the children. Since his early years had been spent around death, the following excerpt is succinct and rings very powerfully with me.

Abe took to parenthood with a passion. But two decades of burying loved ones had taken their toll. As the months went on and Robert grew, Abe seemed increasingly obsessed with losing his son, whether to sickness or some imagined accident. In his journal entries, he began to do something he hadn't done in years: he began to bargain with God.

My only wish is to see him become a man. To have his own family gathered beside him at my grave. Nothing else. I shall happily trade every ounce of my own happiness for his. My own accomplishments for his. Please, Lord, let no harm come to him. Let no misfortune befall him. If ever you require one to punish, I beg you-- let it be me.

Even if this quote is entirely fictional, I WANT it to be real. I want this important historical figure to be that emotional and to have that much depth. Because of his concerns and his worry over his family in general, Abe retires from battling vampires. But the coming calamity of the Civil War looms large on the horizon and whether he likes it or not, Abe continues to be thrust onto the national stage as the strongest, loudest voice against slavery. And he redirects his violent passion towards public speaking and politics, still with the goal of ending vampires.

Even his eventual death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth is recast with vampires as the back-story. Of course, Booth himself is a vampire here. But other than that, the assassin's motives and methods are exactly as has been suggested historically. Booth originally conspired to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for southern war prisoners, but altered his plans after hearing the president give an anti-slavery speech. His altered plans also included killing the vice-president and other high-ranking officials in the hopes that his would knock the Union back so heavily that the Confederacy could regroup and recover enough to win after all seemed lost. But his fellow conspirators either chickened out or failed miserably in their assignments and Booth didn't find escape back to his home in the South as easy as he had at first assumed.

Abraham Lincoln is by all rights a national hero. What I like most about this book is that it takes those accomplishments and elevates them even further with the addition of secret vampire killings throughout most of his early adulthood. The author does a superb job of keeping his importance as president and statesman intact while gilding his life with a secret agenda against the undead. It might seem like it would a tiresome 330+ page long joke, but it's beautiful and poignant and weaves an eye-catching twist element into the full story. There's even a very unexpected surprise ending, a la M. Night Shyamalan that will leave you wanting more. You'll have to pick up the book to learn more about that one.

He watched his old friend somersault through the air… wood metal wood metal wood metal. He knew. From the moment he let it go, he knew the blade would find its target. Knew the sound it would make when it broke through the skull of that false god, splitting its confident smile in two… tearing through its brain… denying it everlasting life. He knew because this was his purpose.

It had always been his purpose…

Still not convinced? Well, that's too bad. This is an awesome book about history, adventure, horror and redemption. I devoured every page of it in the space of four or five days. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter! Who would have dreamed this up?

Thanks again to Heather for thinking of me when she was done reading her copy AND for lending it to me.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Last Airbender

2010-07-06T13:47:00.001-05:00

Hey, I just posted a movie review over at Arconati Kid Korner for The Last Airbender. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

I've mentioned writing book reviews before but I also want to write about movies sometimes, so this is what you get today. I started writing the review shortly after seeing the movie over the holiday weekend in Chicago with my in-laws. I was writing it on their new computer with Windows 7, something else I could review (harshly)... but not right now.

Update (2010-07-11): There is a rather scathingly funny review of The Last Airbender on Cracked.com that you should check out. They place the blame pretty squarely on the director, M. Night Shyamalan. Perhaps they are correct, but my thought is that to err is human but to really screw things up requires an entire film crew.

What Is With the Wires?

2010-06-22T20:06:00.272-05:00

Some of you may have seen this video posted by my sister-in-law. Actually, most likely very few to none of you saw it. But I wanted to talk about it briefly and explain what you are looking at. First off, here's the embedded video:

The wires you see are part of a device called a Sleep Apnea monitor. More about that in a minute...

I have my own YouTube account, but there are very few clips of my children on there at least until more recently. I've guarded our privacy a little bit. The world has teeth and it can bite you with them anytime it wants. That being said, I'm not mad that Katie posted the video she took with her iPad. I sound like a total dork and I don't think I realized she was recording it. I was a bit surprised when the clip showed up in my YouTube subscriptions later that week.

Things were a little helter-skelter at that moment that got captured. My in-laws had just arrived from Chicago. We were getting Sammy and the girls ready for bed. But of course, everyone had to wait until Grandma (and Aunt Katie and Uncle Nate) arrived.

The part I want to talk about are the wires that are coming from the leg of Sam's sleeper. They'd become a part of our nightly ritual at that point and weren't news to us. We would joke that with them on he was "wired for sound." But they were new to the rest of Lisa's family. Kate wanted a clip because they reminded her of a song by a band she is obsessed with; "Plug In Baby" by Muse.

But why is Sammy wearing a Sleep Apnea monitor? (you might be asking) Does he have Sleep Apnea? Nope! According to every checkup he's been to, he's 100% healthy. And he continues to get bigger and rowdier and cuter every day. He is joy to me and to Lisa and the girls.

But we naturally worry. Everyone who knows us knows that we worry and why. It's been almost three years since Lucas died. Sammy is several months older than Lucas was. Every day that goes by, he gets a little bit further through and away from the danger zone for SIDS. Statistically, the chances are worst until four or five months, then incidents drop off dramatically at six months. The risk drops to almost nil at one year old. More specifically, Sammy is very different from Lucas in a multitude of nameable and unnameable ways. He learned to hold his head up very well very quickly. He learned to roll over faster and more confidently. He's more active, more alert.

When he was born, we were very happy to use an Angelcare monitor any time he was in a bed sleeping. For those not in the know, besides being a regular baby monitor with sound, the Angelcare that we have also has a movement sensor pad that goes in the bed under the mattress. If the baby stops moving for 20 seconds a sensor beeps once. If they don't respond within 10 seconds after that, an alarm sounds. And this thing is VERY sensitive. Even if you can't see the baby moving as it is sleeping soundly, the sensor can pick up very small vibrations and the indicator light is very reassuring.

This worked great for Sammy's first few months before he learned to roll over. As long as he stayed in the relative center of the bed everything was great. However, Sam started to roll over while awake pretty early (age three months?) and then started rolling over in his sleep. He seems to prefer to sleep on his side or stomach (the little stinker). If he rolls too close to the foot or head of the crib, the sensor can't find him and it goes off in a false alarm that's pretty scary at 3am. Eventually, this started to happen EVERY nap and EVERY night, sometimes more than once. Each time, we'd run in his room and each time he was just fine. Even when there was an alarm and we arrived in his room to find him just fine, it was still frustrating because it wasn't clear if he had just moved into the wrong spot or he was really going to be in trouble and we had woke him up just enough.

Get away from her you *bleep*!

During more than one of these sleepless moments, I jokingly lamented to Lisa that what we really needed was some sort of futuristic type of shirt or onesie that would measure his actual heart rate and breathing rates instead of just his motion. In some sci-fi soldier movies or future war documentaries they show the soldier on the front line wearing all sorts of gear that detects their pulse and breathing and displays it on a monitor at the command center. What we needed was something like that for Sammy, something that would monitor his actual vitals no matter where he moved in the bed and would record this information in a way the doctors could perhaps retrieve later.

This went on for a few weeks and we mentioned it to some friends and family. Even though my other children were staying overnight at the g'parents' houses within the first few months of their life, we weren't yet comfortable with Sammy doing so, even if we were to send the Angelcare monitor with him. My folks didn't argue and I think they felt the same way.

My mom goes regularly to a support group with other people her age who've lost grandchildren to SIDS and there were a few things she'd learned that she shared with me. The first was that there were other grandmothers in her group that had lost their FIRST and ONLY grandchild. My mom has five living grandkids and so feels blessed in this way. The second thing was that for those families that did have subsequent children after losing one child, they often requested a Sleep Apnea monitor from their pediatricians. She thought we could ask for one too, but I initially said no. For some reason, the way my brain works we didn't need an apnea monitor because Sammy didn't have apnea. Still, she'd gently mention it on occasion. When the Angelcare monitor was working great with no false alarms, I thought it would be silly and obtrusive and not something that we needed.

But as Sammy got more mobile and rolled around his whole crib all night, I continued to lament that what we really needed was some very expensive high-tech sci-fi gadgetry that probably didn't even exist yet, even as a prototype. I still didn't connect the dots until my wonderful wife said "You know, they actually have that --or something like it. Your mom mentioned it at least once." See, I don't know everything. Who knew?

Anyway, so we talked to Sam's doctor and he said it was possible and not that unusual. He gave us some time to think it over (which was really only a few hours). A very helpful guy delivered and set up the machine the next day, with thorough lessons on proper use.

The machine itself is about the size of a large lunch box or purse. It comes with a carry bag and shoulder strap so it's even portable. [Note to self: take some pictures of the thing and post them.] It plugs into the wall for power, but it has a 15-hour battery just in case. It sits outside his crib beyond his reach. For Sammy, there is a small elastic strap that goes around his chest at armpit level with two sensor pads on either side. The two small wires that you see in the video --one white, one black-- come from these pads and go along his skin down his body, past his diapers and out the leg of his sleeper. Then the wires go between the bars of his crib and plug into a socket wire for the machine. The thing is sophisticated enough that while it is on, there are two different kinds of alarms; one for user error and one for actual emergencies. It's sophisticated enough to know the difference. A user error indicates that a wire has come loose or the pad has slipped off his skin enough that it needs to be adjusted. The emergency alarm indicates if it is a heart or lung problem, based on the light that is blinking on the machine. More importantly, it records every breath and heart beat digitally in solid state memory that the doctor can access later if necessary to spot problem trends.

The strap doesn't bother him and it works well. We've had a few alarms and some of these have been at night. But they've been user errors for every time. He'd kick the wires loose or the elastic strap would slip just a bit. Every time except the one when his breathing was a bit slow, but it perked right up with all the racket of the alarm.

So my son is on a Sleep Apnea monitor and that is what the wires are that you see in the video. And let me just say that we have had a continuous stream of much more restful nights of sleep thanks to that little machine. True, it may be a bit of overkill. And it is still no guarantee against SIDS --because there isn't one. Believe me, I looked. But it has been very worth it.

I am relaxed. This is going to work.

Web Design Work - A Portfolio In Progress

2010-06-08T09:43:00.001-05:00

Confidently boasting about what I've done or can do is not something that comes naturally to me. However, it is a given that when selling your services as a freelancer that potential clients will want to see some of your previous work. I can't share everything because of certain confidentiality agreements but here's what I've put together so far in a very rough format.

By way of introduction, I've been working in the e-commerce site setup, design and promotion industry for the past six years. Here are a few things that I've worked on personally.

The project that I'm most proud of is the site I maintain and update voluntarily for my family's church, Ferguson Christian Church. I also maintain the church's Facebook pages and Twitter account.

One of my most steady freelance clients is the American Optometric Association. In my role for them, I format email marketing and newsletters for distribution to their paid membership.

I'm the administrator and co-owner of an e-commerce site that sells wedding favors and supplies called HappyIsTheBride.com.

I've set up and contribute to a blog about video editing with my father called ColorBurstVideo.com.

I've set up numerous WordPress blogs including one for a family friend about horse training called FrenchClassicalDressage.com.

Additionally, I have a personal blog, mostly for my own ramblings. So this really doesn't look like much but it's a start. I've left so much out that I simply can't yet talk about. Additionally, if this were a real portfolio it would include screenshots and other examples.

Not to worry, all of this is in progress! In the meantime, this draft will give an introduction.

Maintaining Optimum Temperature During Sleep: A Thought Experiment

2010-06-08T01:31:00.000-05:00

The following is a thought experiment that I've been thinking about lately. A thought experiment, if you don't care to follow the link to Wikipedia, is essentially an experiment about something that you perform in your head based on things you know and what you can observe. In this sense, it's usually done because you can't actually perform the experiment in a lab environment although that's not the case here. I attempted to turn this into an actual experiment as it seemed possible at first, but that didn't work out as will be documented here.

According to observations, some people like to sleep entirely under the sheets and some people like to sleep with some or all of their limbs out from under the covers. While these differences are not usually a problem for people and often go unnoticed, the variance is curious. Differences in body chemistry and metabolism aside and assuming that a somewhat stable room temperature is secured, there should be an optimum sleeping position that everyone could and perhaps should adapt to.

First off, let's describe in summary how the body maintains it's own temperature. What comes to mind first is perspiration, where the body secretes moisture to rapidly cool the skin. What is less well known is the process where blood vessels expand or contract to increase blood flow and transfer heat. The blood carries heat from the torso and internal organs out to the extremities and the heat dissipates. If necessary, sweat glands kick in and take it one step further in the more familiar way.

For the most part, my thought experiment will concentrate on the legs, since this seems to be where the most disparity is in people's choice and preference. Some people like to sleep with their legs covered and some keep their legs uncovered. If we set personal preference aside, it begs the question; which method is most efficient?

With the legs and the rest of the body covered completely, not only do the blankets greatly insulate the skin but they prevent the sweat from evaporating efficiently. This leaves the body working too hard to be cool. Blood vessels expand too much and the body sweats, sometimes quite a bit.
With the legs and the rest of the body uncovered, the skin might be more easily cooled by the body's natural processes. But perhaps in standard room temperature this leave the body too cold. The body has to preserve heat and tighten up the blood vessels just to keep warm.

Both options are inefficient as it seems, at least to me. At this point, an idea occurred to me! Perhaps the best way to sleep is a compromise with one leg covered and one leg uncovered. If we assume that the blood vessels in each of our legs can work independently to contract or expand, and if we assume the blood circulates through the entire body and spends an equal time in each leg, then the alternation of hot and cold can work with the body for perfect comfort. The hot leg can expand the blood vessels and dissipate excess heat, and the colder leg can contract the vessels and keep in warmth.

Normally, I sleep with both legs covered and I've never given much effort to trying it any other way. I also can't remember why I started doing it that way, but we can all change our habits. So all I had to do was to give this a try to prove my theory.

So I Gave It A Try…

This was a bad idea. And I don't mean that it was a bad idea for me, but this is such a bad idea I believe strongly that no other human being should try it. Ever!

There's something in all my thought experiments and musings that I'd completely forgotten. A hard truth that is inescapable and should not be ignored no matter how much it might seem inviting to do so. You can't escape from…

The Boogieman Factor

That's right, the Boogieman! I remember now why I keep both my legs covered at night: FOR SAFETY! I don't know how anyone can sleep with their legs unprotected. Of course, I understand this is a fear born from childhood and that some might attempt to insist that it is irrational. Screw that! When it's the dark of the night and your thoughts start to drift in that zone between wakefulness and sleep… Well, I don't care how old and mature and sensible you think you are. You keep those legs covered with your sheet and blanket because it's the only thing that keeps you safe from the evil monster living beneath your bed or in the closet. I … can't explain how or why the sheets repel this beast, but it doesn't matter because they do. Go ahead and make fun of me if you want to, but I'm 34 years old and am not ashamed to take the proper precautions to protect myself! That's all I'm going to say about it.

"Tee-hee-hee" came the sound. "Did you hear that?! OH NO!"

Disclaimer: I'm just trying to be funny. Or perhaps that's just what I'd like you to believe.

I Am A Ninja?

2010-04-12T01:51:00.010-05:00

My career as a freelance webmaster now has a foundation. I've been working for the past few weeks as a part-time HTML E-mail Designer/Coder for American Optometric Association. I'm helping them with their email newsletters. In summary, I take document files that are sent to me and an existing HTML template that was used for the previous month's newsletter and I integrate the new articles into the newsletter for the current month. The result looks something like this example. This is a great opportunity for me and all I need now is to get a few more jobs just like it. Eventually, I'll have a rotating list of jobs and projects that will help me develop my skills and interests. That's the dream anyway.

Before I continue typing about this, let me take a moment to state emphatically that I don't like the term "webmaster" for the purpose of describing what I want to do. I don't want anyone to use the word in this industry any more. It's klunky. It can variably cover any and all of the following roles -

Web designer: CSS, graphics, logos
Web developer: PHP, ASP, SQL, databases
Web administrator: Server administration, Linux, IIS
Web marketing: SEO, PPC, SEM, Social Media, Email

But when someone says "webmaster" this sounds too much like "dungeon master" and I picture the dice rolling and a purple robe with stars embroidered on it. We need a new encompassing title for what we do when what we do is some combination of the above.

It's a little bit funny that there are no real standard conventions for these roles or a way for people outside the industry to have a decent frame of reference. From outside, it can seem like magic. From inside, it can too often seem like technical support.

DO NOT WANT!!

My fellow web-workers, I sometimes think we need a new job title. But I get the feeling that the connection with our nerd heritage means that this -master thing is going to stick around.

Wouldn't Webninja be more appropriate?

See this Video at WSJ.com.

I guess we could all be Ninjas. There's even a theme song for this.

Well, I. M. Ninja!
He is Ninja!
She is Ninja, too!
I. M. Ninja!
We are Ninja!
And I believe that you are Ninja, too!

I'm good with that. Just call me Webninja!

Update: Thanks for reading! Tune in next week when I reconsider this "ninja" business and instead go for WebJedi!

Spring, When a Young Man's Fancy May Turn to Thoughts of Love

2010-03-11T00:08:00.000-06:00

Today went like this.

Man, he thinks, the weather all day is going to be really great. I should totally open all the windows in the house and air things out.

Opens all the windows... Takes a deep breath...

Ah, that's much better! This is great. The spring air smells wonderful.

Itch... Sniffle...

This isn't too bad. Maybe I'll find something for us to do outside later.

Sniffle... Sniff... Snort...

Hmm. My nose is really starting to run. Must be my allergies. But it is really nice outside.

Sniff... Sniff... Sniff-sniff...

Yeah, this is definitely allergies. But it's too nice to close the windows so I'll just deal with it.

Sniff... Sniffle... Snerk... SNEERRRRKGHGT

Okay, well we are officially out of tissues now and these meds are just making me sleepy. Perhaps I really should close the windows.

Snerk-snerk, sniff, sniffle, snort --AHHHCHOO!

Ow, that sudden sneeze really hurt. I hope I didn't break a rib or something.

Achoo! Achoo! AAAAKCHOOK!

Sinus pressure... Can't think... Send help...

ICKCHOOOOOO, sniffle, snort, snerkle, thhhhhhhhhnk.

Groan

Someone, just please kill me.

Finally closed the windows. Lying down to die.

So, anyway, ... goodnight. Sniffle.

Blogger Says Goodbye to Full FTP Feature Support

2010-03-04T01:28:00.113-06:00

Blogger has delivered more work for me to do for free. Thanks!

By now, this will be old news in the technology universe. But by the end of the month, Blogger will be phasing out support for blogs published over FTP. You can read more at Blogger Buzz. Previous to this change, you could use their service to host your blog at an "example.blogspot.com" address on Google's servers OR your own domain pointed at Google's servers OR published over FTP to your own hosting account. But the FTP option is going away.

There are changes and improvements internally to how they're systems work and the FTP option has always been a bit unstable and difficult to support. Too many engineering resources are being assigned to fixing these specific problems when only a small portion of the users of this free service need it. Basically, this means that they removed one optional feature used by only 0.05% of their users. This small percentage included me.

Six of the blogs that I use for different sites are posted over FTP this way. It was late at night and I was pretty tired when I found out about this. Before I cooled off and thought about it, I got a little irate trying to post constructive comments.

ArcoJedi said...

Well, I'm so very very very glad to see we finally dropped that very problematic and difficult to follow rule about "doing no evil". That's been slowing you guys down. Do I have your attention now?

I've been using Blogger since 2003. I have a mix of FTP and custom domain blogs (total on Blogger: 17) that I use for a variety of my hobbies and interests.

One of the things that I've used to my advantage is that you can post via FTP to two separate blogs into the same hosting account or even the same folder. For instance, these blogs were all in different sub-folders of the same main site:

Friends of ArcoJedi

Musical Holocron

Mudhorny

R-Quotes

Lisa is 30!!!

Since all of these were posted with .ASP file extensions and my own includes on the back end, I got to do some more advanced stuff over the years that 'widgets' just aren't going to cover.

One of my blogs - http://arconati.net/ - is even hosted in the same site as a separate WordPress site - http://james.a.arconati.net/ - and the two do not interfere. I could have the first site also be .PHP, though it's just .HTML files right now. With your plans to drop FTP, I'm not even sure there's a way to continue what I'm doing now. Unless of course, I simply install WordPress and import all posts and be done with it.

Additionally, for clients that want a simple blog added to their existing site in a sub-directory, your FTP was a lot easier to implement than WordPress. I've got some projects on complete hold now because of your changes.

The more knowledgeable 0.5% of us who know what we are doing enough to get FTP to work and care enough to do more advanced things with the blogger tools on our own hosted sites, we are your most loyal fans. When asked the WordPress vs. Blogger question, I have always stated that they both have very valid and useful features with plenty of expansion. I have recommended Blogger just a little bit more because I simply had more experience with it and I couldn't think of anything I couldn't do with it.

Now? Yeah, not so much.

Okay, wow. That's a lot of venom considering this is a free service. I don't normally go that far, but I've loved this service and used it for ... huh, 7 years now! Has it really been that long? Well, anyway, I didn't get a response comment but I owe an apology to whomever might have had to read that poison.

The good news is that the migration tool is actually pretty promising and I can easily get five of the six blogs that this affects moved over with a minimum of effort. The last one, Arconati News, will be a little harder to somehow get migrated properly. As I mentioned above, it's posted to the same account as a separate blog powered by WordPress. I'm not sure yet how to get the DNS settings right for this to work. But I'll keep hammering away until I get the option to work.

And coming from the other side of the fence, I can understand why they need to streamline things and simplify what they can and cannot support. From their point of view, it's got to be hard to continue to support a feature that doesn't work as well as they'd like and to get it to be up to standards will require way too much development and engineering resources than they can commit to a free service.

It still stinks. That's it, I guess.

Update (2010/05/25)

I've gotten all the blogs migrated over except the last one. I've tested some settings that proved to my satisfaction that I could get it to work. I'm a little tied up with other stuff right now to finish this last one so I'll let it sit on the back burner for the time being.

Dear Canada,

2010-02-19T01:05:00.003-06:00

...Reflections on the Olympics

Hello to our neighbors to the North. I've visited your country twice, both times as a teenager on crazy road trips with friends. The one time was to the Northeast, near the area around Niagra Falls and Quebec City. The other time was to the Northwest, Calgary and Banff National Park. Canada is the only country I've been to besides my own and I had a pretty good time.

But besides those few times and the other impressions I get from television and movies, I don't really know much about Canada. So getting to watch your country throw a party for the Olympics is a real treat. What I was a little surprised to learn is that you all as a nation had to be encouraged or urged to be more patriotic than you would normally be by your very own Prime Minister.

The Liechtenstein Screamer
Originally uploaded by jonwick04

From my stereotypically American perspective this is a truly foreign concept. I mean, the United States of America is not a perfect country, but you can ask anyone on the street here and they will tell you that we are the best in the world. But honestly, what the heck do we know anyhow?

And sure the games have not gone completely perfectly; the weather has sucked a little, the forgettable flub at the opening ceremony with the one torch tower, ...not to mention the unfortunate tragic demise of the Georgian Luger. But you can't let this stain the experience for you.

You should be really excited. Can you believe you've finally won home-field Gold Medals after hosting the Olympics two times in the recent past? That's open license to go riot-level crazy right there. USA has an advantage when it comes to winning medals that can't really be ignored; we have more athletes competing than ANY OTHER COUNTRY, including China and they have a much higher population. And you are in the same time zone as us, which makes watching some of the events live or in prime time possible. Honestly, you are doing great. Enjoy this!

If roles had been reversed and we had won the host city for the Olympics this time around, we wouldn't need anyone to tell us all to jump up and be more patriotic. In fact, we'd be better off if someone in authority told us all to tone it down a notch, which we'd likely ignore anyhow.

After all, we are the best darn country in the world! And I'd say this even if Sarah Palin wins in 2012. However, please note that --like many people-- I may make good on my promise to MOVE to Canada if she does. So,... fair warning, okay? Make room.

Causation and Correlation

2010-01-19T19:42:00.060-06:00

In my Retrospective 2009 post I mentioned that I was let go from Network Solutions but I went on to say that in the long run this may end up being a very good thing for me personally, professionally and financially. This seems a bit backwards, but so far it has been true. First off, we got reconsidered for the "Obama" mortgage modification plan and this knocked about $400 a month off our bill. Then I applied for temporary unemployment from Illinois and this has filled the gaps a bit.

However, when this happened it was pretty rough. Besides the obvious worries about money, there was a really strong sense of déjà vu regarding the situation. In fall of 2006, I was working for the Ferguson-Florissant School District but unfortunately was let go from that job.

This happened while Lisa was pregnant and due in early May of the next year. Additionally, I had Bronchitis (correction: Sinusitis) pretty bad and then later I got Cellulitis in my ankles. I vowed to get a new position very quickly come hell or high water, but these infections pretty much knocked me on my butt for weeks. The job market in fall of 2006 and into 2007 was not great anyway, but this just made it worse.

Of course I did get better. Before the baby was born, I gladly went back to work for my old friends at NetSol at my old position. I started catching up on those bills that had piled up. My son Lucas was born in late April instead of early May, but otherwise everything was great. It was arguably the best Summer of my life so far. Then Lucas died at the age of four months and seven days. That was 2007.

Fast forward to this last September when I was let go from Network Solutions. And again, I'd been nursing a pretty bad sinus infection. And again, an infection manifested in my ankles, this time diagnosed as Erythema nodosum. Lisa was also pregnant, but this time the baby would be born in December and not the following Spring!

That certainly felt like too much of a coincidence. You can spout off about the difference between causation and correlation if you'd like, but you are wasting your breath. My brain says that just because the pattern seemed to be repeating itself doesn't mean that it would continue. I get it logically, and so does Lisa. But the alarm bells in our hearts went off anyhow. Logic does not cure panic. Lisa was pregnant, I was pretty sick but got better, I lost my job and found a new one and then we lost our son. It happened before, it can happen again. Clouds of impending doom seemed to be gathering around us without much we could do about it.

At least, that's the way we felt initially. Further discussion with my current doctor revealed something my other doctor from 2006 didn't mention. It turns out that a severe infection in your sinuses and/or bronchii can enter the bloodstream and land somewhere else like your ankles as Cellulitis or Erythema nodosum. So what seemed like a weird cosmic coincidence was actually a likely cause and effect. I had a respiratory infection and as it wained, it found a new home in my ankles. I should have thought of it before.

More importantly, from the moment that Sammy was born, it has been strangely clear to us that he is not Lucas. He is different in many ways and this give us hope. I don't know how to explain this opinion, how we know this or what specific detail there is to let us know that.

So, what can we do? Not much but be vigilant and wait. That's about it.

Retrospective 2009

2010-01-05T20:46:00.662-06:00

I decided not to make an actual New Years resolution this year. Doing so has never really been my style. And when I have made some public or private resolution, it has never stuck and I've just ended up momentarily disappointed. It's good to have goals and it's good to have benchmarks, but January 1^st is just not good timing. I may change my mind by next year at this time, but we will see how that goes.

That all being said, I did plan to do a lot more writing this year. I even thought that perhaps I'd aim for at least one blog post per day, or more conservatively one post per week. But now we are ~~a week~~,.. ~~two weeks~~, ~~three weeks~~, a month worth of days into the new year and I've not published a thing... At least, not here on my personal blog (more on this later).

It should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that I've been rather busy these last few weeks. Stick with me a moment and I'll get a good retrospective on my life and my family's life for last year put together and that will be a good starting point for this new year.

January

If you recall, one year ago was when it seemed that everyone -- and I do mean EVERYONE -- got Facebook for Christmas. As a blogger, web site hobbyist and general technological snob, I'd resisted the lure of both Facebook and Twitter with a bit of misappropriated disdain. I thought, Why would anyone who already has a blog or website (or multiple blogs and websites) need a micro-blogging service? I used social bookmarking through Delicious and StumbleUpon but that was it. Up until January of last year, I'd lumped them in with MySpace and ignored them.

But then my wife signed up for Facebook. Her coworkers were on it and had ~~bugged~~ encouraged her enough that she signed up. I soon followed and I felt like a bit of a sheep to do so. And I have regretted my previous snobbishness on many different occasions. The site provides a simple way of reconnecting with old friends from college, high school or wherever. But it also has a lot more than that. And it's free. I haven't used my dumb Classmates.com account in years, for the simple fact that every other feature I tried to use they asked me to sign up for their paid service. Facebook is free and it really is the "database of everybody" in addition to all the fun integrations, games and applications that exist there. For instance, a link to this blog post will appear on my wall moments after I publish through Blogger. My Delicious and StumpleUpon accounts are also integrated.

It's cool. But in fairness, one of my first posts was to reference that Facebook as a website had become THE biggest name on the Internet, just like AOL was 8 years ago. Everyone has an account on Facebook, just like AOL 8 years ago. And Facebook will be around forever, just like ...Oh, oops.

Okay, enough about that. The other much more important thing that happened in January was that Lisa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. That evening was entirely too awesome for words. Whereas I had help with some of the arrangements --my dad got us the room at Harrah's using his club points-- I planned the whole darn thing and it turned out pretty well. As I sit here typing away, the next big item on my to-do list is to plan our 11^th anniversary for two weekends from now, which probably won't be quite as involved but to my mind still needs to be special for my special lady. &heart;Lisa&heart;

February

My niece Lillian and I both have our birthdays in February. Lilly will soon be THREE YEARS OLD! I'll be turning 34 this year, which is much less exciting compared to three. I'm not really bothered this time around by getting older. I think it bugged me last year and even the year before, more than it ever had before. But this year all I can muster up is a shrug for reaction. Meh! Perhaps I'm just happy with where my life is right now.

March

More birthdays for our extended family happened in March. Both Linda K. and Zöe V. share this month. Lonny and Tami had their son Bryce, so there is one more birthday. Additionally, both of our kids got invited to birthday parties for their friends at school. On some weekends they were double-booked! There was also an awesome Orchestra concert for Reese.

April

It's getting to be a regular thing that both Lisa and I sing in the Easter Cantata every year. I never thought of myself as a singer, but it's fun. Also in April of 2009, as in 2008, we had a day at the cemetery celebrating Lucas on his birthday.

May

More birthdays happened in May. I still can't believe this, but my oldest child turned 10 years old! Olivia had her Girl Scout Bridging ceremony and then school went to break for the summer.

Although Lisa and I knew for a few weeks, May was when we announced that God had answered a prayer we'd had for several months. Lisa was once again pregnant! So began a whole new journey and chapter of our lives that I'd given up hope of coming true. There was a lot of worry and trepidation that immediately settled into my mind, but trust and faith have been carrying me and still do.

For more global news, May was when the news regarding Swine Flu, the vaccine that was being developed for it and possible shortages started making the rounds everywhere you looked. My dad had some ruminations on the news and how it echoed the 1976 flu season. I came to understand that my parents' experience of the vaccine from that year was rather negative. I'd vaguely heard the story before as a youngster, but suddenly it was topical again.

I also took a day off work to be one of a dozen Career Day Presenters at the elementary school where my mom is the counselor. This was a really fun, empowering day for me.

Right before May ended, my brother and his wife Kelly had a new addition to their family, Sophia Louise Arconati. She was so adorable and it was starting to look like a really good year for new babies.

June

We began going to very regimented doctor appointments for Lisa that would eventually get as regular as every two weeks and more. Due to Lisa's diabetes, previous c-sections and so on, she has one of the best medical teams due to her high risk status. Still, not a day went by without a few moments of worry.

There was a week of PROBE for Reese, a week of VBS for both my girls and Isaiah V.'s birthday rounded out the month.

July

This is always a busy month for birthdays in addition to Independence Day. Lonny, Kelly, Lisa and my great-aunt Ruby all celebrate their birth in July. Lisa's folks came down to visit us for about a week and to see the fireworks. For the very first time, Reese went away to summer camp for an entire week! My mom, my wife, my kids and I also spent an entire week at the time-share at Lost Valley Lake. Come to think of it, we were also joined by my aunt and uncle for a few days.

August

My step-brother Lonny and his wife Tami came into town from New Jersey for a baby shower for their son Bryce, who was born in March. Lisa's dad and her twin siblings Kate and Nate have a birthday in August. My little brother Jon also was born in August. If you want to know a weird coincidence, Jon and my wife's siblings were all born on the same day. Of course, Jon was born years earlier but they all three share a birthday. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that twins are normally born on the same day. The coincidence is that my little brother ... oh, nevermind!

Going back to Lost Valley Lake for a moment, you may have seen the news in August when the news was the fire at the main sports complex. It's a pretty big deal for them and a little weird considering that they had another large fire that gutted an entire building back in 2004. It's bad luck and they are just in an area of the county that fire departments have trouble getting into. A lot of people in St. Louis have been to LVL over the years. But for our family it was a little more eye-opening to see because we had just been swimming and playing mini-golf at that very building only a few weeks earlier.

September

Lisa and I had planned a second trip to LVL for a weekend in early September. It was just us four: Lisa, myself, Reese and Olivia. Well, four and a half, if you count the pregnancy. We got a chance to see the completely destroyed building. We spent hours swimming at the pool and had tons of time for fishing. Both my girls caught fish. Even my wife caught a fish with my pole while I was walking back to the car to fetch the cooler. I caught nothing except mud and weeds! At night, we slept in a rented trailer and told ghost stories around the campfire. I told a few that I know, but Olivia made one up completely on the spot that was very involved and in depth. I wish I'd written it down.

By this point in the year, it was clear that Lisa was growing with pregnancy and this was really going to happen. I mean, we had been watching the baby's progress on regular ultrasounds and everything was going smoothly. But in the back of both of our minds, it still seemed so unreal. We waited silently for the joke to be revealed. We waited for some sort of tempering mildly bad --or really bad-- news. We held our breath and waited for the other shoe to drop...

Something I should mention is that when you have infant loss, there is a blissful ignorance that you no longer possess. The veil of security, the idea of invincibility and the boastful claim that "this will never happen to me" is no longer possible. We'd experienced loss of an infant, and we'd also experienced miscarriage. So we could no longer be blissfully ignorant, even if we wanted to be.

Near the end of September, I was let go from my job at Network Solutions. My former coworkers and supervisors may still read my blog, as so many of them are still my friends on Facebook. I'm not going to bad-mouth or complain about the company, though others have done so both privately and publicly. Things happen and (allow me this analogy) like a recently divorced marriage, accusations of blame could be tossed around recklessly. In reality, it may have been time for both parties to part ways. But hey, that's just the truth for me and should not reflect on the confidence of my buddies in their jobs or of any of NetSol's clients (who hopefully don't read my blog anyhow). For my own personal reasons, this change to my life might be the best possible news in the long term.

October

The first financial thing we did prior to wading through the unemployment benefits stuff, was to call our mortgage company and reapply for the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. We had initially applied back in the summer at some point, but our combined wages were too high. Now that I was not gainfully employed, it was very simple to ask them to reprocess our original application and we got a positive result quickly. Our monthly payment was reduced by about $400/month. By the end of the month, I was also earning unemployment benefits through Illinois and it was a good percentage of my previous wages. I haven't computed it to the exact dollar, but I feel like I'm actually ahead if you don't consider the medical and other associated benefits.

In the job market, I knew before I started looking that things weren't great. But I began to find some new avenues that I hadn't considered before on various smaller job boards as well as Craigslist. Realistically reevaluating my skills, I've begun to look at my favorite role as more of a designer, developer and consultant with tons of small business expertise that I have not yet been able to fully wield. This is opposed to or in addition to my more limited role as a technical support software expert. I've mentioned that I'm reading Covey's First Things First and using it to Dream Big. This is only one of many reasons why.

Halloween was lots of fun. Thinking historically, this holiday is becoming less of an open door-to-door kind of day and more of a closed party style of day. We hung out with the VanMeters for a little while once again this year and then we gathered candy. There are two houses around the corner from me that throw a combined open house. They barbecue hot dogs, have a half-barrel of punch and some teenagers actually put together one of the worst punk-rock bands I've ever heard. They have a "stage" and even closed off part of the one cul-de-sac for a mosh pit of sorts.

November

My dad, my mother-in-law and my daughter Olivia all have November birthdays. I believe that both Ryan and Heather also have their birthdays in November in addition to their wedding anniversary. Against our better judgment, we caved to Olivia's request to have her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my Aunt Jeannie's house with the traditional hike.

During the hike, Olivia was complaining that her feet hurt and she wanted me to carry her. In a joke, I said something about Bilbo not needing to be carried for his whole adventure to reach the Lonely Mountain. One of my cousins asked with some suspicion if she would even know what I was referring to. And that's something else I'm proud of from the last year. By Thanksgiving, I'd been reading to the girls from the Hobbit every night. We normally read something right before bedtime, but this was the biggest and longest book we've read so far. I started reading from J.R.R. Tolkien's great work after Reese had gotten so excited about the Percy Jackson series that she found. Reese likes Tolkien just okay and usually it lulls her to sleep. But Olivia listens with rapt wide-eyed attention! She asks questions too and is so taken with the characters that she is writing her own version in a little pocket notebook, which she calls the "girls version".

Lisa continued to grow more pregnant and the baby continued to grow in complete health. After a minor scare which proved to be nothing, we decided to find out the gender of the baby. We had originally planned to wait until the end and be surprised. But we changed our mind and until the technician confirmed otherwise, I thought we were going to have a third girl. Instead, I was floored that we would have a boy! I would have been happy either way, but admittedly we wanted a boy.

December

My mom has a birthday early in December. My son, who's name was going to be Samuel, was also going to be born in December. Plans for the cesarean section and the hospital stay were firmed up. A last few ultrasounds and other tests were performed and everything was great.

An interesting scheduling act was performed as the date approached. Lisa's due date was the 20^th, but the doctor we prefer was only available on Wednesdays, so that meant scheduling the birth for the 16^th which was a perfect time for us. However, we were also going to be singing in the Christmas Cantata, which was scheduled for the 13^th, the previous Sunday. Lisa even asked to do a short solo. In the past, my wife had scheduled c-sections for both girls, but she went into labor a few weeks early with Lucas. There was a very real possibility that Lisa would go into labor early and we'd miss it.

Ultimately, the day of the performance came, we sang and when the service was over, Lisa was still pregnant. The last few weeks of pregnancy are always the most uncomfortable and seem to take the longest. Even so, the feeling that this was all so unreal and precarious made the whole nine months actually fly by way too fast. It seemed like I was still reeling from the fact that the tubal ligation reversal was in fact successful, and then to learn the news that we were going to have another son... and then:

He's pretty dang handsome isn't he? Samuel Joseph Arconati was born 21.5in tall and weighing 8lbs 5.1oz. And he just keeps on growing.

In the days that followed, Lisa's mom and sister came down from Chicago to see Sammy and to stay with us through Christmas. They arrived two hours early, Lisa was still in the hospital with Sammy and I'd had about four hours of sleep. My mother-in-law, who I adore on most occasions, immediately started barking orders at me in regards to home maintenance. In the end, it was all sorted out and all was forgiven. I did get some sleep later on and I got a cleaner house in the bargain, just in time for Samuel to come home.

The girls spent the night with my mom on New Year's eve (a tradition, it seems) and Lisa, Samuel and I spent it with each other just doing nothing but a bit of cuddling.

Overall

Throughout the entire year in 2009, there was much more involvement with all kinds of activities for the girls. In addition to Pioneer Club, the girls were both involved in Girl Scouts and Reese joined chorus and Celebrate Children (think show choir) at school, in addition to Cello in Orchestra.

We continue to read from the Lord of the Rings series at night among other books, and I'm eagerly anticipating the day we complete them so they can watch the extended edition DVDs. I've been watching the bonus features when the girls go to sleep and it's really sinking in how huge these stories are.

So it was a pretty great year throughout. The highlight was getting to hold my son for the first time and to realize that he is alive and healthy and vital. And the moment I saw his face I knew he was not Lucas. I'm still worried, and I will likely continue to be until his first birthday. But I'm not as panicked as I expected to be. Our little family of five is complete and blessed and together. I will continue to thank God every day for these "small" miracles, which by my account are not small in the least.

If you've really read this far, it should be counted a Herculean task for which you should be proud... or perhaps ashamed, depending on your perspective. I can just hear you saying "There's 20 minutes I'll never get back!" Thanks for your time and I pray also that God blesses you this new year at least as much as he's blessed me in the old.

Now to see about getting some sleep...

Samuel Joseph Arconati

2009-12-16T12:03:00.074-06:00

I'd like to formally announce the birth of my son, Samuel Joseph Arconati. Today is the culmination of a strange and wonderful journey. I can't even really figure out where exactly it started, but the first time I posted about this new baby on my blog was back in May when I talked about how God works in Mysterious Ways. My life has experienced roller-coaster-up-and-down changes since that post and I haven't written about many of them, but I'm still being blessed daily. I want to once again thank everyone for their notes, best wishes and prayers these many months.

You might want to know how I posted this from the hospital. I cheated. My secret is that I wrote this yesterday afternoon on the 15^th, and set it to automatically post right now. You'll notice that I didn't start this post with a qualifier like "barring any disasters" or "assuming there are no unforeseen complications". That was difficult for me. I very much wanted to start this way and had a bit of writer's block until I worked (and prayed) around it. Because right now, all the worries and concerns and fears are at the forefront at the front of my mind. Someone should have warned me not to check Wikipedia about Cesarean Sections. Of course, by now posting these concerns and mentioning this block, I brought it up anyway. So again, I cheated.

I guess technically, I'm cheating all of you with this non-news. I don't have pictures yet, or the traditionally important height/weight stuff. But I will be posting those details and photos direct from my cell phone to both my twitter, my facebook and my flickr accounts. So if you've read this far you can follow those links to learn more and confirm things.

I'm betting on at least a nine-pounder. Thanks again... ☮