From Baby to Toddler

Well, it has been an amazing year. I've hall all the thoughts and feelings capture in my friend's blog, and yet, I still feel the need to express it in my own words.

Having Reid has brought so much joy to my life. I never understood why all the mom's cried at different events with their children... I mean, I knew why, but I did NOT understand! Reid has accomplished so much and managed to do it with such cheer and happiness each stage inspite of my lack of knowledge to help him along the way.

One day he could get on all fours barely, the next day he crawled. One day he'd take 3 steps from furniture to furniture, then next day, he walked across the room to me (and his daddy).

The joy and love that I feel for his little smile and the sweet hugs and kisses he gives me can never be expressed by simple words, but know that it is there, and I am so grateful for the blessing he is to us. I've waited almost 30 long years for this time of my life, and now that I have it, I feel nothing but joy in each frustrating step.

I love you Reid, Happy Birthday!

the cake

Reid's piece at the beginning
Reid's cake at the end
And his awesome friend who came to join in the fun!

(p.s. these are the last pics of Reid up front... so we can manage our ambiguity and not go private)

My Little Helper

As Reid has become more mobile, he has started mimicking some of my behavior. And since you are "supposed" to constantly talk to your child, in spite of how completely ridiculous you feel saying the same things over and over in the same chipper tone... you still do it so that their language skills will grow! So I have started talking to him about "helping" around the house.

Here is Reid "helping" me sweep

Here is Reid showing me where the dish towels are... and perhaps trying to clean up some drool?

And one evening, while I was doing the dishes...

He kindly made some room for more silverware.
Little did I know....

That he had found a better place for it!

I turned it so you can see it better.

And here he is, trying to find that perfect dish for me.

Needless to say... he was a real pill that night, but I was laughing so hard that all I could to was take pictures to blog about!

May Catch-up

Sorry, I haven't posted for a while... Things have been crazy. But Girls' Camp is over, so now I can hopefully find time to update the blog.


Here's some info on what's been going on...

In May the weather got warmer, and we've really been enjoying the big backyard!



We also went to visit some friends in Thatcher and went rock climbing! Reid tried it out too!

(lovely views, I know)

So, at the end of May, we had a really great time hanging out with family at the park for Memorial Day. Reid loved the dirt and the soccer ball.

Arduino

So I'm back at it again. I hadn't done anything with my stepper-motor powered Lego car for a few months because I had burned out one of my power supplies. Then, in the process of upgrading my computer's video card, I swapped out my motherboard to get a PCI-E slot and the new motherboard didn't have a parallel port. It's a bit risky pulling out all the power supplies and delicate components with the now-walking toddler. But, I decided to do it anyhow.

I got the serial communication working with my stepper motor driver, and programmed up a simple Visual Basic application to control it. The stepper-motor driver uses an ATMega168 microcontroller to drive an H-Bridge to push enough current to drive the motor. The unfortunate part is that the Australian company I bought the controller from will not provide the source code. So, I can't do much to modify the microcontroller at all. Well, I could, but no guarantees I could get it back to the original if I goofed up.

So, instead, I purchased an Arduino Duemilanove from www.sparkfun.com. (It's only $30 plus shipping!) Had I known about this board originally, I would have bought it first and simply added an H-Bridge chip to run my motors. I'll probably end up doing this now anyhow. But once I have it working, I can gleefully pull the ATMega168 out of the other stepper motor controller and re-program it. Hopefully it will fit in the socket on my Arduino.

Meanwhile, I've dissassembled a cd-drive and an inkjet printer and salvaged several stepper and DC motors, as well as some gears and axles. These will be great scrap components for my future gadgets.

I've been looking into what it would take to add WiFi to my Arduino. There's several solutions, all of which cost about $80. I may be able to work around the cost factor using my computer as a base station to gain access to the network. I can connect a RF transmitter / receiver combo to my Arduino, and another set to the serial port on my computer. Then, with some simple programming, I can connect to my computer via TCP/IP and have my server program relay any information to the serial-connected RF transmitter. It's not a real elegant solution, but it's about the same as using the XBee product.

The downside would be that the car would be restricted to networks that I can run my software and hardware on. I really would like it to be more robust, so I may just have to save up my pennies for a while until I decide to splurge again and by my next major component. Until then, I'll just work on my tethered vehicle.

There's still some major work to be done to get the motor's drive shaft connected to the car's axle without the slippage of a rubber band. I'd really like to get a gear on that axle, but haven't had much luck getting the plastic to stay connected to the metal shaft.

Is Google Reading My Email?

Usually, I'm a big proponent of Google. Sometimes people talk about Google like it's some sort of Microsoft type software giant that needs to be broken up according to anti-trust laws. But I like Google. I think they put out quality products, provide excellent features, and still have a sense of humor.

Sure, let Google crawl my webpage or my blog... then maybe someone will read the dribble i scrawl across cyberspace. But that's ok because I'm posting that stuff out there with the intention that someone is reading it.

But what about your email? Do you think it's secure, and that no one reads it but you? Don't they encrypt it when they send it to the server, or to someone else's inbox? I don't know, but probably not. I doubt there's any RSA Public / Private key exchanges going on.

Well, stop by your gmail inbox, and read some of the advertizing along the right hand side. The ads are populated based on the text of your emails. This means that before your email is displayed, Google reads the text and queries some SQL server to pull custom ads to display on the side-pane. Perhaps that data is encrypted too? Doubtful. I'm just not to keen on the idea that Google is crawling my email... and eventually, I'll find some personal note published where any unsuspecting googler might mistakenly come across my information. My online order receipts... or my password reset notifications.

I know it's been this way for quite a long time... and it never bothered me so much. Not that I have a whole lot of real importance that I need to hide... but if I did, I probably wouldn't use gmail... or email at all for that matter.

Update:
Check out the following link: http://search.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/05/22/1218242

Does He Ever Cry?

So, I have this friend at church who's little girl seems so sad everytime she is at church. My friend promises that her little girl will happily lay on a blanket for long periods of time at home, but thinks that maybe she doesn't like being out in public.

Well, Reid is the exact opposite. If he's out in public, he's happier than ever. He knows just what to do to reel everyone in too. He gives them a big smile, then hides in my chest, then gives a big smile and hides in my chest. It's like he knows that if he doesn't just sit there and smile all the time, they will keep paying attention to him. Seriously, can he have manipulation down at 9 months?!

So I started thinking.... how much pre-wiring into their personalities do babies come with? I mean he's not even a year old (or my friend's baby isn't even 3 months old yet)! Do they really have a personality already? And if so, do they really know how to show it? Cuz let's face, they are still figuring out what this whole physical body thing is all about. Can they really be showing intravert and extravert tendencies at this age? I mean, I thought that was something you figure out once your an adult and you're forced to do teambuilding stuff at work... But maybe, it always was there.

So the other night, laying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, I started to wonder... If Reid is already showing extravert tendencies, what are the chances that he is going to be geek? I fear, not very good. I know I am an extravert, but let's face it, I'm the girl. Girls naturally talk more. When I was at BYU, there is only one major extravert I can think of, and his form of extravert was sitting in the back of the classroom heckle-ing the teacher and making up names for everyone based on their weird querks. (and how sad is it, that my "querk" was that I was THE blonde girl)

I digress... The most common thing we used to hear was "What a smiley baby!".. now all I hear is "Does he ever cry?" .. the answer to the question, is YES, he does cry, every day. At all the normal baby times, when he's hungry, tired, not being held, or when he doesn't have an audience.

But what really matters here people, is whether or not he is going to be a GEEK!

More on merging

In response to Gretchen's comment on "Changing Lanes is not the Same as Merging":


Question -

"How do you feel about the situation where a merge is required and the merge lane is stopped but the main lane is steadily moving, but solid with traffic? It's rare, but I've seen it. Do cars stuck in the lane that is ending have to wait for hell to freeze over, or at some point is it ok for someone in the main lane who sees they will NEVER get in to slow down to a near stop and let them in?"

Answer -

If people actually followed the traffic laws, this is how it would go down:

A car approaches a merge where their lane is ending.
The car puts on their blinker before coming to a complete stop and should attempt to "change lanes" before coming to a complete stop.
If changing lanes is not possible before the lane ends, the car stops at the merge point and their blinker remains on.
People in the through traffic lane see a car with their blinker on. The stopped car(s) and traffic control devices indicating an upcoming merge should be an indication to drivers in the through lane of what is happening ahead.
The first few people can't react in time, so they continue on past.
People who are approaching the merge point should realize that a car is attempting to merge up ahead because they can see the blinker on well in advance.
This is where the part about "preventing a merge" comes in. Since people in the through lane have adequate warning that something is happening, they should be able to slow down in time to allow a merge to occur.
If they fail to allow the merge to happen when they've had adequare warning, then they're considered driving recklessly and should receive a traffic ticket.
Traffic should zipper together, every other car if there is a constant supply of cars in both lanes.
If only an occasional car is in the ending lane, then they must wait for the through traffic to slow down so they can merge.

If an accident happens while merging, it will always be the fault of the car who was doing the merge (ie: the car coming from the lane which is ending), because they left their lane before it was safe to move into the other lane. So, the merging traffic should be especially careful that the through traffic is actually letting them in.

So yes, someone should let the merge happen. Unfortunately people don't allow the merge, and never get a traffic ticket.

But if they never get a traffic ticket, how will they know they ever did something wrong? They never will, I suppose. This is why I think people need to take refresher Driver's Ed classes, or pass some sort of "advanced driving" test in order to renew their license. (I also think that "salvage titles" are a scam by the insurance companies... I'll blog about that sometime in the future.)

This does not apply to people pulling out onto the street from a business or side street. That is not a merge. I am un-aware of any laws which dictate how that situation would be handled.