[Daniel] First Movement!

I feel really lucky. I got to feel the baby move for the first time today, just once but a movement.



I was sitting on the futon, reading a little bit of Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into Python while Moriah laid and tried to get comfortable on the floor. Despite doctor's suggestions otherwise, the only way Moriah could get comfortable was on her back, supported by pillows. All of a sudden, she told me that she could feel the baby moving and put her hand on her stomach. I smiled, thinking that I wouldn't get a chance to feel Baby Lindsley move, given my luck. But after the second strong movement, I started to come down to the floor to see if I could feel Baby Lindsley move. Of course, Baby Lindsley made one more move just before I got there and then stopped. So after a few minutes of waiting, I went back to the couch and reading, a little disappointed. A few minutes later, Moriah felt the baby start to move again and I quickly rushed down. After another minute of waiting, I felt a light but rather forceful tap against my fingers, kind of like when Bear puts his muzzle under your waiting hand and taps upward as if to say, "Hey, pet me." The baby stopped moving after that, but I was really elated anyhow.



I'm very excited for Thursday to arrive so we can start narrowing down names, begin planning and purchasing stuff and really begin preparing.

[Moriah] Whoa, was that movement?!

So, I was sitting at my chiropractor's office today waiting for my appointment when I suddenly felt what I thought might be the baby moving. The bubbly, fluttery sensation only lasted a few seconds and then it was gone. Was it really the baby moving that I felt?, I wondered.



Several hours later, as I was sitting in the recliner waiting for Daniel to get home from work, I was reading a baby book when those same sensations swept over my belly again. Though, this time it was stronger. I put down the book and put my fingers on my belly to see if I'd be able to feel anything when, all of a sudden, there was definitely a little kick or punch to my right middle and ring fingers! I practically jumped in surprise, but then sat there in awe as more little movements came and went. It lasted for nearly 15 minutes, and some of the movements were quite strong! I was amazed, and a little perplexed, that I never felt this before today. It was definitely interesting!



There were a few more movements while we ate supper, but they were very faint so Daniel didn't get to feel much yet. But I'm sure one of these days he will be able to feel them for the first time, too.



Also, we finally got my 20-week pictures up. Here's one of them:

20 Weeks

[Moriah] The saga continues...

It seems like it's been forever since I last blogged, but things have been busy around here. Tomorrow marks my 20th week already! I'll post some pictures as soon as we take some. I have definitely grown outward since my last set of pics! In fact, I'm starting to feel huge. But then I think to myself, 'oh my god, I still have about 20 weeks to go?!' and I don't feel so huge anymore. Hee hee.



I'm still feeling breathless and fatigued, especially when going up steps. I'm hoping to get in the pool for some exercise now that the weather is warming up. I've been walking every night with Daniel and Bear, as well as taking a half walk nearly every afternoon to get the mail, but I should be getting more than that. I feel very out of shape, which isn't good. It's important for expecting mothers to get exercise, though not to the point of exertion. Staying in shape helps with delivery and recovery afterward.



I think I'm finally over the nauseous stage of the pregnancy and my appetite has been picking up slightly. While I still don't like eating salty foods, onions or garlic, I am doing pretty well avoiding them and feeling good. The funny thing is my cravings are changing yet again. During the first trimester I was all into Mexican food and fruity stuff. For the past several weeks, all I've been wanting is salad, vegetables and fruit. (Well, I have been eating a good deal of chocolate too, which is naughty.) While I'm still eating a lot of salad, veggies and fruit, I am now craving Oriental food like crazy. I've been going nuts over vegan eggrolls (complete with a sweet and sour sauce I made from scratch), rice and stir-fry dishes. I just can't get enough of it! It's so weird how the body works when one is pregnant.



Next week Thursday, June 1st, marks the big day when we find out if our baby is a boy or girl! I've been thinking about it quite a bit. I'm still betting it's a boy, but we'll see how good my instincts really are. If I didn't even believe I was pregnant when I had so many signs of it back in February, I'm not so sure my hunch will be correct. We'll post as soon as we find out.

[Daniel] Linux Wireless

Tonight was a bit of an adventure. Moriah and I went into Fry's Electronics for her first time and my second. There is so very much there to see! Much larger (and somewhat better stocked) than Best Buy. However, there was purpose to our visit and we hurried through most of the store to get to it.



Part of my birthday monies were put toward a PCI wireless card that I intended to use with Ubuntu. Anyone familar with Linux will recognize that this is a difficult task. Most network card manufacturers refuse to publish specifications for their cards so that people can write drivers (for free at the expense of their own free time!) so the cards may be used under the various free operating systems. However, in a sea of basically unusable crap, thanks to speaking with a supervisor, we found a card that he claimed would work with Linux.



The card is an Airlink 101 Super-G Wireless PCI Adapter - AWLH4030. It uses an Atheros chipset. Once we got it home, setting up the card was dead simple.

1. Shut down Ubuntu (5.10 - "Breezy Badger").



2. Open case.



3. Install card.



4. Close case.



5. Start Ubuntu.

Note how the list stopped there. UBUNTU PICKED THE CARD UP ON BOOT AND LOADED THE MODULE WITHOUT ISSUE. I logged in, went to "Administration" -> "Networking", and there was the card, fully recognized in the list and (with a little configuration) working.



I was amazed because I remember the days when getting even a wired networking card installed and running took several hours of hunting down drivers, extracting and compiling then debugging the damn thing till it worked. Needless to say, I was blown away.



My only complaint is that I was unable to get WEP working with the card. I'm trying to integrate it with our Airport Extreme and I believe it handles WEP keys differently for Macs versus PCs. I'm anticipating the release of Ubuntu 6.06 - "Dapper Drake" later next week to see if that will improve my situation.



The Airlink 101 (though generic looking) is awesome. I thought I had hours of pain ahead of me and instead enjoyed a mere 30 minutes as it just worked. Kudos to the Linux device driver writers and to Airlink/Atheros for a good chipset.

[Daniel] Auditorium Shores

We took a little excursion today with Bear. Through the center of Austin flows Lake Austin (better known as Town Lake or the Colorado River). There are two fantastic parks located by the water, Zilker Park and Auditorium Shores. We had intended to visit both but, with the steamy weather (93* F), we only visited Auditorium Shores.



The park itself is located off Guadalupe/S. 1st and Riverside Dr (map), along the southern edge of Town Lake. The whole area is terraced, presumably for concerts and whatnot by the river. There's trails along the river with lots of joggers, bikers, walkers and tons of people with dogs. The center of the park is largely open (the terraced portion) with trees in the outlying areas around the edge.

Panorama

Despite the heat, it was a gorgeous day to go and visit and we had a lot of fun walking around. We snapped quite a few pictures. The highlight for me, though, was visiting the memorial statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan that's located within Auditorium Shores. Of course, I got pictures.

P5200040

I had a lot of fun visiting the park. It'll definitely be a place to take anyone who visits in the future. And I'm looking forward to checking out Zilker Park/Botanical Gardens in the near future.

[Daniel] Open Letter To My Toilet

Found through the way I find all things online (click a link on Project.ioni.st, read the comments, go to the blog itself and surf), I present to you the funniest thing I've seen all day - Open Letter To My Toilet.



And I will have you know Moriah loved my dramatic reading of it. :D

[Daniel] More Django-mania

I deployed my first stable Django app this evening. Moriah wanted a companion application to her recipe database, something that would let her catalog recipes that she has in various books/magazines that she doesn't plan on entering into her recipe database.



I literally threw it together (complete version was built in under 1 hour). It's not very complex (only uses the models and admin parts of Django) but it should definitely meet her needs. It took longer for us to decide what data needed to be stored and how it should be presented in the admin view than it did to build. And I got to experience how to deploy on Dreamhost, something I will have to be quite comfortable with in the next month.



There's no public view of this right now because it's mostly for Moriah's use. So unless you have the exact same books as Moriah, it's not very useful. However, here's some shots of the app running.

Catalog Item List

Catalog Item

Outside of that, work on Wagging Work is progressing steadily, though not nearly as rapidly as the recipe catalog came together. I'm still mostly on track for the launch date but the next week or two will decide if that remains the case. There's a big project at work that I'm going to be responsible for (and that I'm not sure I'm prepared for) and it's got to be perfect to keep the client happy.