BillstronBlog

I started back to work a few weeks ago.  Well… work is a bad term for it because it’s not work in the traditional sense.  I do research, and get paid for it.  This isn’t mercenary style research, that is I’m not just doing it for money, but the most of the research will goes into my PhD dissertation.  Therefore, I have a rather large, non-monetary, incentive to work hard.

Three weeks ago, I started back at 10 hours a week.  I can work from home most of the time, so this was really not problem.  Truth is, I really enjoyed this schedule.

Last week was a very trying though.  I moved back to my regular research load (20 hours is all the university will pay graduate students for… something to do with classes taking the other 20 hours… BS, I still need to work about 40 hours to graduate in a reasonable time frame.), and frankly, being a working father is more difficult than I anticipated.  I can do most of it, no problem.  It’s ALL of it that I can’t seem to get done.  This past week, it was exercise that got pushed out, but I really need to exercise.  Running is my therapy, and without it, I’m koo koo.

I’ll get a schedule figured out some how.  This isn’t a novel problem.  Billions of prople around the world figure it out.  I’d love to hear any work/family/self balance tips other parents would like to share.

A few days ago, the end of this Lifehacker article inspired me into a quick project.  The idea is to have a dynamic computer desktop background that pulls day/night/weather images of the earth from Opentopia.  They update the image hourly, so the background should change hourly.

This seemed like a pretty cool idea to me, and it’s pretty easy in Linux. Check out the detailed instructions here, and below is a quick version:
1. Download the script here.
2. Update the script with your preferred WORKING directory.
3. Create the cron job like such: 05 * * * * [path to script]/background_rotate.sh

Piece of cake! Geeking out couldn’t been more quick and easy.

The image is a screen shot of my computer with the background in place. It’s really need to see the shadow move across the earth. You can even see tropical storm Fay moving toward Florida.

Let me know about any problems or concerns in the comments.

So my honey has moved off to greener internets pastures. I’ve enjoyed sharing my internets real estate with her. I’ll miss her blogging here. That’s for sure! I hope she blogs again here soon.

As you’ve probably already noticed, I’ve restarted my geek life and will continue to post the random thoughts that I’ve always focused on (can you focus on the random), but just to keep you guessing, I’ll still be posting fatherhood related articles too. You can take the geek out of the father, but you can’t… uh, whatever.

Krista is a Mom is where my honey will be blogging. In case you ever loose her address and remember mine, I’ve added it to the blogrole on the sidebar.

I would miss you honey, but I see you in the other room.

Hi everyone! I got my own blog. Here is the address: http://kristaisamom.blogspot.com/

It is called Krista Is a Mom. Original, huh? Anyway, I will start posting things about motherhood and Molly Zelda there and let Bill have his blog back to write whatever he wants to. He is afraid he will lose some of the Molly fans so be sure to keep reading his blog, too.

I already put up a post about our trip to the pediatrician today. Hopefully, with Bill’s help, I will start putting pictures and things up there. I doubt it will ever be as flashy as the billstron blog.

Well, I guess this is so long between billstron.com and me. Not goodbye, though. I still have access to write posts as a guest here.

Love,
Krista

This time I’ve spent off with Molly and Krista have been the most wonderful couple of months of my life, but my healthy lifestyle really went to hell. Ever since the first pre-term labor episode in May, I’ve been living a slothful lifestyle. I’ve probably only totaled 30 miles of running since then, and I want to be running at least 50 miles a month (more like 75 or 100). After Molly was born, I got really really bad. Since I wasn’t working, I had a kind of vacation mentality which translated into too frequent overeating and evening libations.

The Olympics caused a sea change in my thinking though. Sitting there, on the couch with a beer, watching the best athletes in the world made me see my sloth in full view, and I’ve decided to “turn over a new leaf”, as Jason would say. True to my geek form, I’m going to do it with technology.

Last Wednesday (the 13th), I started running again, with a focus on speed training. I need a goal to my training because I get so bored with the same 3mi lap around Lake Merritt. For further motivation, I’m going to run the Bridge to Bridge 12k race on October 5. I’ve run this race a number of times, but this time I want to run it faster than ever.

So where does technology come it? I’ve been running with a Nike+ iPod Sport kit for nine months and absolutely love it. It comes with a little pod that attaches to my shoe and a dongle that plugs into the bottom of my iPod Nano. The pod transmits information to the dongle that allows for tracking of speed, distance, etc. The best part about the Sport Kit is that the run data is uploaded to Nike’s website where I can view and track my progress.

In order to publicly motivate myself, here is my public Nike+ page (link also in sidebar, at the top under Navigation), and I’ve placed a widget on the sidebar (———>) that displays my last five runs. So if you see that I’m slacking, let me hear about it. Also, if anyone else out there is running with a Sport Kit, send me a challenge.

I haven’t written a post in a while, but we are all doing really well. Molly is doing really well on her new feeding regimen, and my milk supply seems to be balancing out (i.e., it is decreasing somewhat to better meet her needs). Yesterday, Molly Z and I took a nice long walk around our neighborhood, visiting shops and generally enjoying ourselves while Poppa Bill worked from home. Molly is generally sleeping around five hours when we first put her to bed at night. The rest of the time she usually only goes about three or so hours between feedings. I guess she has an internal monitor like the rest of us that says we should sleep when it’s dark outside and be awake when it’s light. (my monitor these days is saying I need to sleep even when it is light, though. ) I am pretty tired, but that’s okay. I am SOOO HAPPY! Everyone told me that being a new mom really makes one tired, and I believed you all, but I guess you cannot really understand it until it happens.

Molly is starting to look like her Aunt Kelly I think. It’s subtle, something about the way she furrows her brow.

As of today, Molly Z is an official citizen. We got her birth certificate today from the Berkeley vital records department. She will forever have the stigma of being born in Berkeley. While we were out we stopped at Crixa, the same bakery I ate at the first time I felt Molly (then “Sprout”) kicking. That was very exciting.

Yesterday we had to take Daisy to the vet for a skin rash that she has had for months, but seems to have gotten much worse lately. She was given an antibiotic that was the same thing Molly was on for her NEC. Interesting, huh? I bet the stuff Molly was on is MUCH more expensive that the stuff Daisy was given. Daisy’s was only about $15 for a multiple week supply. We’re not sure how much Molly’s cost–Bill is still planning on getting an itemized bill for that HUGE statement we got to see exactly how much Medicaid will be charged–but I am sure it was more than $15. Molly’s “pharmacy” charges were $33,000, “IV solutions” (that might be her nutritional fluids, not actually any medication) was $7000, and “drugs/details code” (whatever that is) was $5000. Even though I don’t know what those things mean to regular people, and what were charges for her antibiotics, this evidence suggests that her drugs were more than $15. Speaking of that, I wonder how much Medicaid actually pays, what their reimbursement rate is for hospital stays–does anyone know for the state of California? I wonder if it is something close to 10% or if it’s closer to 80% or somewhere in between. I’m sure it’s not 100%.

On another note, while we were out yesterday going to the vet, we saw a guy on a bicycle totally WIPE OUT! He was riding down College Avenue, a pretty busy and narrow street, when this woman in her parked car opened her car door at exactly the right time for the guy on the bike to run straight into her door. It was a terrible sound! He was okay, but he was yelling at the woman who did not seem phased at all by the fact that she almost killed this guy. She almost seemed irritated with him. I would have been really mad if I had been the guy on the bike, too.

Don’t worry, you’re in the right place. We’ve just been doing a little late summer cleaning. I thought that the blog needed a better, cleaner, look. Most of the navigation around the site should be just about the same. Let me know what you think about the simpler look in the comments.

I’ve also added a sidebar widget listing my most recent shared items on Google Reader.  I read hundreds of blog/news postings in a day using Google Reader, and I like to share stories that I find interesting in one way or another.

We have been doing our new eating routine for about five days now. It seems to be making a difference! Molly Z is not having nearly the difficulty pooping now like she was. She also has much fewer poopy diapers now, which may indicate that she is getting more of the nutrients she needs from the hindmilk (which, according to Le Leche League is also easier to digest), and she doesn’t need to get rid of extra waste, or it just could be that she is maturing. The nurses at the NICU told us that we should expect fewer poopy diapers in a few weeks. Do any of you know about the age that should be expected?

In addition, instead of spitting up for hours (it seemed like that anyway, but was probably more like 30-60 minutes) every time she eats, she seems to only do that for the feeding between 5 and 6AM. That is probably because I am really sleepy and am not pacing her as well. I have been pulling her off the breast every few minutes to burp her and let her spit up if she needs to, instead of waiting until the very end. So, I guess maybe it is a combination of things that have added to the less frequent and explosive spit ups. But I think the pooping is definitely because she is getting more of the hindmilk that is easier to digest.

On another note, this article was in the NY Times a couple of days ago. It talks about how so many people are having trouble with insurance and are taking extreme steps to get coverage. It brings to mind the problems and extreme measures we had to take with Molly’s insurance. We discussed doing some pretty extreme things, too. It has all worked out, though.

thanks so much for all the comments! I really love reading them, and it makes me feel connected to lots of people, especially my family and friends in Kentucky. I wish I could get more advice from the older generation in my family and those of you in my generation who have gone through the infant stage already. Love, Krista

Things are going really well here. I’m just hanging out with my daughter, who is right now sleeping peacefully in the Moby on my chest. Molly Z and I are on our own today for the first time. Bill went to campus today for a few hours. So far, so good! We are watching the Olympics. We had some belly time a little while ago. I took some pictures of MZ holding her head up a little bit. Bill will have to post them. I guess maybe I should learn how to do that.

We made some changes to Molly’s feeding schedule yesterday. Because I had to pump for five weeks while MZ was in the hospital, I have a bit of a milk oversupply. Which is certainly a much better problem to have than not having enough milk. Molly really seems unsettled after eating for a long time, until she burps and spits up a lot. It also seems like she strains a lot to poop. So I did some reading on Le Leche League’s website yesterday and decided to try some new things out. Here is what I understand: When a baby nurses, she first gets foremilk, which is more watery, has fewer calories, and has more lactose (making it more difficult to digest, possibly making it difficult for MZ to poop) in it than the hindmilk, which comes out from the breast last. Because the foremilk has fewer calories, Molly needs more of it, but it is difficult for her to handle that much volume of milk. Further, there is kind of a gush of milk right at the beginning, and Molly has to work really hard to swallow it all. She ends up probably swallowing a lot of air trying to handle all that milk (worsening her burping problem). She usually pulls herself off right after she gets that gush so I have been burping her right then, and if there is a lot of milk, I catch that in a towel until the flow slows down a little bit.

Many women feed their babies on both breasts for every feeding. I was just feeding Molly on one breast per feeding, but she still was never emptying the breast. She ends up filling up on the foremilk and never getting the more fattening, nutritious hindmilk. So, following Le Leche League’s advice, I have been feeding her two or three times on one breast before switching to the other one. This way she empties one breast before moving to the other one, and she benefits from the hindmilk. I suppose my supply will eventually balance a little more with Molly’s needs.

It’s not too much of a big deal, I guess, because she is gaining so much weight. As I said, though, she really seems to strain when she poops, and she needs to burp a lot. Hopefully, this will make it a little easier on her system.

I follow politics pretty closely, and I just love the US presidential election season. This one is no exception. In reading through my political news this morning, First Read pointed me to an Entertainment Weekly article about McCain’s and Obama’s pop culture preferences. These interviews are pretty funny, but I’m not sure how much of it you can believe. For instance, McCain says that one of his favorite TV shows is Seinfeld, and Obama says is favorite is M.A.S.H. This seems possible for McCain since Seinfeld is the best show ever, but I’m calling total B.S. on Obama. M.A.S.H. is a great show, but come on… it seems a little too convenient that this show makes Obama seem a little older. If he really wanted to seem older he should have stated his favorite TV show as Matlock, Walker Texas Ranger, or NCIS (did I make anyone feel old with this ). Further, the last video game Obama played was… wait for it… PONG! No way!

All in all, I really enjoyed these interviews. They are very light and funny.

McCainamania on EW
Obamarama on EW