vanderwal.net

Most disruptinve technology

In a discussion this weekend it was determined the most disruptive technology is having a kid. It is also the most wonderful experience.

Slight changes

I have been running an incredible amount of running of errands the past few days since Will and Joy have been home. Many of the errands are just general errands, but as Joy is not able to drive for two weeks there is a lot of trips to make. We are doing well with the feedings and sleeping, so far.

We have been amazed with the amount of laundry that is generated. We knew that it was going to be a change in laundry, but not to the extent it has grown.

I also made a few modifications to the Airport WiFi in the house so that I can get a very good signal in the living room and in the bedrooms. I was going to add an antennae to the TiBook, but found that the Airport is not Omnidirectional as I had thought. By turning the apple on the Airport toward the room I really want coverage and moving the Airport six feet closer really helped. I have a 80% signal or higher. I can now hang out with Will and Joy in the living room and possibly the screen porch and in the bedrooms upstairs.

More Will

Those of you who have been asking for more Will photos now have 11 new photos of Will

All things Will will be posted on Will's page. New photo galleries will be listed there as well as updates. Soon this page will incorporate its own weblog into the page. Will also has his own subdomain on its way, once the links have been ironed out.

All here are a wee bit tired, but are very happy to be blessed with each other.

Power pole fire at home

This morning started with a bang. Literally, at about 4:45 a.m. a power transformer blew-up near our house with a fantastic boom and bright flash. Then following that there were flashes and explosions in the trees along the main street that runs next to our house. Waking from a deep sleep and four hours of sleep it seemed like I was witnessing World War II antiaircraft fire. I knew this was not the case and I noticed the power was out and I looked out the window and saw, what looked like a tree on fire on our property. I called the emergency number, then put in contacts and proper clothes and went outside to investigate.

We had the power pole on fire at the corner of Bradley Blvd. and McLean Drive and had live wires in down in the street. I could see police cars had the boulevard blocked off to traffic and a fire engine sitting back about 200 feet. The fire truck could not put out the fire due to the down live wires, so we waited for the power company to arrive. An hour and a half later the power company arrived and turned off the power (this does not stop electricity from the wires however I was warned from a screaming policeman) and put out the fire.

In the next few hours we had six to eight power trucks arrive to fix the problems. The power crew had a goal of being done by 1 p.m. so they could all go an watch the NASCAR race. This turned out to be a great motivator as they removed the hanging piece of the power pole and placed an new power pole in a hole next to the existing pole and had power restored to all by 1 p.m.

The fire was caused by a power wire coming loose from its resistor and resting against the pole. This caused the fire on the pole, which ate its way through the pole causing the top to fall off. The fire continued on both pieces of the pole. When the top fell it caused the shorts in the lines and caused the lines to fall into the trees, which produced the arcing.

What a way to start the day to bring home Will.

It is a bouncing baby boy, Will

Now introducing William James Vander Wal. More photos soon. Well after we get some sleep.

Baby on the way

We are at the hospital in labor and delivery, for those that care

Learning for lack of power

Over the past few days I have had a little more pondering time than normal. We were with out power, but thanks to the Net (wired and unwired) I could still post here, chat with friends, and had a site that was still up and running. I still had a means to communicate that allowed for updating from a mobile device, which my parents checked from a mobile device.

We did not have power, which meant no DSL (to me the dial-up was fingernails on chalkboard, only at last resort sort of endeavor. The Hiptop go me through to post. I could also e-mail with folks I had e-mail addresses for (found Hiptop truncates all my address book entries to only the primary address info, which is mostly work, and that was not were folks were the past four days around here). I really did not miss the power too much, although we cheated and went to a friend's house who had power and was out of town to do a load of laundry and recharge phones and laptops.

I did get to finish the book I started on vacation (The Discovery of Heaven), I still had nearly 300 pages left of the 735. I was rather disappointed by the ending, but the book made for a wonderful literary journey none-the-less. Much of the reading was on our screen porch and any snippet of time that was not tracking down places to get food or running errands, which took-up a great amount of time the past four days.

I not only grew with appreciation for our distributed information system, but I grew to miss the answering machine very quickly. We had a couple wired landline phone plugged in, but since Joy is still not greatly mobile I was getting the phone when it rang, well most of the time. I rarely answer the phone at home as the calls are rarely for me and I usually let the answering machine do the work for me. I also grew in appreciation for refrigerators and envious of neighbors with generators that powered their refrigerators so as not to throw out all their cold food.

Powered up

As of 4:50 this afternoon... POWER!!!

Gone Power Gone

We lost power last night at 12:20 am and PEPCO say we will have power back in 6 days. (I can still post from my Hiptop however.) Our house is fine, thankfully, but there are large chunks of trees down in front of our house. I will post photos when I find wifi or get power. The normal wifi joints are also without power at the moment.

More later...

Storm update

We are still with power, but it has flashed many times and even been out for a couple minutes a few times. The block behind us is dark. As the winds have picked up I can hear the transformer boxes hum then watch the lights dim and regain to normal. It seems much of the storm went a little farther West than was planned, but we still have a pretty good storm going at this moment.

Quiet before the storm

We are experiencing the last bit of quite before the storm. Rain is just beginning and we have had winds gusts up to 25 mph. The big thing is our 50 year and older trees not falling on our house and basement flooding. We are also hoping not to have power outages. Joy is not experiencing any labor related issues, so all is well.

More later...

To be kid update

Updating on to-be, Joy had to go get another sonogram this week as the doctor was concerned that the kid was underweight. Well after the sonogram the weight estimate for the kid is currently at 8 to 8 and one half pounds. There is still two or three weeks to go. I turned to Joy and the doctor on said, "Joy, you are not having a baby, you are having a house".

We are finishing setting up the kids room and we have a living room corner filled with baby stuff. This is the last days of the D.I.N.K.s (double income no kids) for us.

I see Mars

Tonight I got a very good glimpse of Mars. It was the moon peaking through the blinds in the office that caught my eye, but right next to it was a bright orange-red star. I went out the front door and turned off our lights to get a better look with binocular assistance. The moon and Mars were stunning.

This site made me feel small at first, but then apart of something so much larger. The moon and stars know no politics, no killing for ego or pride, no political boundaries, no foolishness. These objects in our sky, in our orbit and solar system know far more time and remind us to take the long view.

Maybe one day I will get a telescope, but looking to the stars through binoculars seems to only draw on a desire to get up on the roof to get closer to the stars and have a better look. I know that this would do little to assist my view, nor would getting on top of a tall building. There is great beauty in the heavens that are beyond our arms length, but still drive the desire to see and get beyond the petty temporal issues of the day. (Fortunately NASA site offers some solace.)

Congrats Nick and Crystal

Congrats are in order for Nick and Crystal who were married this past weekend. We wish them a joy-filled life and comfort in each others arms for all the years to come.

Bobby Bonds passes

Bobby Bonds dies. He was one of my early sports heros, along with Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. He was able to coach his son, Barry, and got to watch him dominate the game like no other. Bobby was a San Francisco Giants as well as a New York Yankee, California Angel, Chicago White Sox, Texas Ranger, Cleveland Indian, St. Louis Cardinal and the Chicago Cub. He will always be remember a Giant in my eyes.