A 'HelpDesk' is a resource to turn to for help. It is not a 'Do-It-For-Me' resource. I think that if I could get that point across to more people my desire to kill myself daily would diminish dramatically.

I was discussing finances with some people last night and we talked about how different people reacted to the recession. Some people sold everything and hoarded their cash in low-interest investments. My personal feeling was that the stock market was on sale. All of it. I increased my retirement savings by about 50% in 2008. I figured so long as I have a job and I don't have an immediate need for this money I'd better make use of this once in a lifetime opportunity. I looked at my standard IRA returns a few days ago and I saw just how dramatic the swings in the market were in 2008:

Personal rate of return 01/31/2012
1 year : 3.3%
3 years : 19.8%
5 years : 2.5%

That doesn't mean that I made a fortune in 2009, but rather that I lost a fortune in 2008 and things recovered in 2009-2011...and then some. But in addition to that, I maxed out my IRA contributions, started a ROTH IRA, and made some large (for me) investments in individual stocks while things were down. I bought GE, C, BAC, USB, and F all at incredible discounts. GE is now almost 100% above where I bought it at. C continued to tank and is still in negative territory, but I'm confident that it will recover eventually and earn a profit for me. F is doing well. BAC was doing well, then tanked. I don't know when or if that will recover, but if it does I should do pretty well there too.

I remember a time not that long ago, maybe 3-5 years ago, when I liked my job and looked forward to going in. Now I feel like it is death by a thousand paper cuts. In the last 3 years my responsibilities have tripled, my pay has been flat, and I've lost vacation time. My benefits of been reduced. When I do take a vacation, I'm still on-call. When I wake in the morning I can feel my psychosomatic gland whipping up a flu, sore throat, stomach ache, head ache, etc in an effort to convince me to call in sick. I used to tell myself "be thankful, you still have a job". Now I'm starting to think that my job is killing me. We shouldn't live to work. We should work to live. My job is not enhancing my life in any way. It is interfering with my life and my health. The worst bit though is that I feel trapped, helpless and powerless. I can not just look in the paper and get another job. They don't exist. So on I go a little closer to giving up everyday. Damned Protestant Work Ethic. Mazlow would use me as an example. At 1 day shy of 36 I'm clinging tenaciously to the first stage of Mazlow's Hierarchy and I'm pretty sure that my job is trying to take that from me too.

5 weeks of a sick child has left me exhausted. Ender went through a long string of symptoms and is only now starting to act normal again. He has spent about 1/6 of his short life with a cold. Poor guy. I hope that he rebounds quickly.

This is a long shot, but it might be time to invest in Palm. They've essentially taken the brains from Apple and they are re-inventing the company. The stock price is fairly reasonable, and I suspect that they are going to see a bit of a resurgence against all odds...just like Apple in the late 90s. Jon Rubenstein is the current 'top dog' at Palm. Jon was chief of hardware engineering at Apple and helped to conceive and create the iPod. Fred Anderson is on the board of Palm and Elevation Partners and he was the director of Finance for Apple. Avie Tevanian just joined the board of Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that is a major investor in Palm. Avie Tevanian was the lead developer of the NeXT OS that later became OS X when Apple purchased NeXT. He worked as the head software developer at Apple until 2006. Elevation Partners was co-founded by Fred Anderson (see above) and Bono (of U2). Much of the staff of Palm and Elevation Partners seems to be ex-Apple employees and seems to be a ring of brains around Palm that aren't likely to allow them to fail. It just seems like too many planets and stars are lining up to ignore.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10433198-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://www.elevation.com/EP_port.asp
http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT.asp?id=112
http://investor.palm.com/committees.cfm

I do find it to be interesting that U2 has shilled for both Apple and RIM (Blackberry), but not Palm, despite the fact that Bono is a major shareholder of Palm through Elevation Partners.

When I wake up in the morning and I hear Ender crying or whining I'm a bit annoyed that I'm now completely responsible for him until my wife wakes up. I credit being groggy with sleep for this emotion because it is out of character for me. Once I walk into his room a miraculous transformation occurs. He immediately stops fussing and smiles the most incredible smile at me. Suddenly I feel privileged to be responsible for him. I'm now awake, happy, and ready to start my day.

Ender is just a few days over 4 months old. As he stared up at me while sucking down yet another bottle this morning I thought 'this is probably as close to being a god as I'll ever come'. At the same time I felt utterly insignificant. I had helped to create a new life--something that has been aptly referred to as the 'Miracle of Life'-- yet I am well aware that this "miracle" has occurred at least 7-10 billion times in the history of the world. That makes it hardly a rare occurrence but it doesn't make it any less a miracle somehow.

In the book 'The Age of Intelligent Machines' Ray Kurzweil argues that humans build upon their technological developments and this causes the technological developments to increase in frequency. He argues that within my lifetime computers will exist that exceed the storage capacity of the human brain and which will also exceed the computational power of the human brain. That doesn't mean that a smart machine is anywhere on the horizon in my opinion (though Ray Kurzweil disagrees). Ender was born as an essentially unfinished fetus with a brain that was a blank slate. For three months he finished developing while outside the womb and NOW he is starting to become a human. I see the scientific process at work in his brain before he even knows what science is. Observe, create a theory, experiment, review, integrate results into next experiment, form new theory, repeat. He is creating a framework from which to hang his personality on. He is learning how to learn. Think about that for a few seconds. It is a chicken/egg conundrum yet he doesn't let that bother him in the least. Simple tasks such as watching my wife drink from a glass are revelations to him. From that single observation he is learning about fluid dynamics, gravity, muscle control, biology, leverage and who-knows-what-else. It is really amazing to see how a human brain learns how to learn. When a computer finally learns how to learn, beware -- Terminator 4(5?) can't be far off in the future.

Today we leave for Seattle on the first leg of our trip back to Pittsburgh. We're staying overnight with a friend who lives very close to SeaTac. Then we leave in the morning for Pittsburgh. It is the first time we're travelling with the little man. We will be just as confused by the experience as he will be, maybe more so. There are different rules for the FAA, airline, TSA, and the 'unspoken' rules for the random TSA inspectors. I'm sure that at some point someone will make us get rid of something, but we don't know what, so we're trying to plan for every contingency to guarantee that we have diapers and formula no matter what they ask us to leave behind. We have to arrange to have car seats available everywhere. At least this will be the first flight where the screaming inconsolable child that everyone curses will be MINE! Mwah ha ha ha ha!

Last night my wife and my in-laws and I went to see Bill Cosby performing live at Central Washington University for their homecoming. I wasn't really sure what to expect. He delivered an hour and a half long monologue about his experience with getting his daughter through high school and college. It was an interesting experience. I didn't expect 1 long topic. He really managed to drive home the point of view of a parent. His speech was clearly targeted at the audience (college students and their parents) but also managed to reach any parent with a child in college, or graduated from college. What was interesting to me is that my child is 3 months old and I already was able to relate to his words about a parent's love being unconditional. I only have unconditional love for a handful of people in this world, and my son has earned it within a short 3 months. To be honest it happened in only a few seconds after he was born.

Ender has grown quite a bit. On his last visit to the doctor they told him he was in the 99th percentile for height, but because of his height, he was in the 45th percentile for weight. He looks like a 2 year old with a baby's head. It is a bit awkward looking honestly. Still unbearably cute though. He is a happy kid who loves to smile and giggle. He graduated to his crib a few weeks ago because he was simply too big for the bassinet. We're getting ready for a week long trip back to Pittsburgh and that is a daunting task with a 3 month old child. I guess that we'll just have to wing it. The TSA and the airlines have so many rules for traveling with a child.

I rode this bike about 12 miles last week. It is a pretty cool bike. It is an A2B Metro from UltraMotor. It is an electric bike capable of going 20mph for about 20 miles. It came pretty close to meeting those claims. I only managed to average 17MPH for about 14 miles but I suspect that it would have gone the distance if I'd peddled a bit more. I was considering buying one to replace my motorcycle. The problem is that the bicycle barely can reach its claimed top speed, and barely went the distance that it claimed it could go. As a bicycle it has 7 gears, but it weighs almost 75lbs because of the batteries. That doesn't make for a pleasant pedal bike. The biggest obstacle though was the cost. It lists for about $3000. The one that I was looking at was on close-out for $1800, the cheapest price in the country I've learned, and that is still too much. I can buy a NEW Honda Rebel motorcycle for $3000. It gets 60MPG and will go 60 MPH easily. The A2B Metro is a good start, but it is just not quite ready for mainstream in my opinion.

OK, the last 4 days have been nice for me, hell for Kodiak. Ender has been sleeping almost all night long, except for a short 20m break around 3 for diaper and milk. Great! Everyone gets a full night of sleep. Except he wakes up HUNGRY just as I'm leaving for work. By the time I get home Kodiak is drained from trying to placate the child for 10 hours and he is just now starting to wind down. She is exhausted as she hands the kid to me and I get the tired, content, loving child who thinks that I can do no wrong. Hardly seems fair, but I'll take it.

Sleep has become an issue of contention in our household. I'm now the primary earner. Kodiak took time off to raise Ender. I need to keep my job, which means I need to be able to do my job, which means I need a certain amount of sleep. Having said that, Kodiak is sleeping in 2 hour shifts because the little man has a voracious appetite. We're trying to find a balance, but it is tough. At most I get 4-6 hours of sleep. Kodiak might get the same amount, but it is broken up throughout the day making it not very fulfilling. I try to give her a nice chunk of un-interrupted sleep every few days, but it is tough during the week. Her mother has been helping out during the weekday mornings, but she will be going back to work soon as the summer comes to an end. We'll figure something out, but I'm hoping that Kodiak doesn't go crazy first.

Baby Ender has been doing well. He is feeding regularly and sleeping a little too well. His sleep schedule is about 180° off from ours, so we spend all night awake and all day sleeping...in two hour shifts. It occurred to me that it is strange that fathers are so proud of having a child. I'm happy, but I don't think that I can take much credit for it, certainly not enough to be 'proud'. The only part of the process that I actively participated in was the step at the very beginning of the rollercoaster ride, you know, the part that was fun and enjoyable for everyone involved. After that my wife did all of the work. The only thing that I contributed was ample amounts of fear and nervous anticipation. She grew a person inside of her body. She grew a new organ that didn't exist before. She managed to pass a 3.8kg child out of her body after 22 hours of contractions. She is now providing nourishment for the child from her own body. What have I done for the kid so far? I've cleaned his bottom a few times and held him while she went to the bathroom to attend to the stitches in her bottom, the result of passing a 3.8kg child out of her body. I'm proud of my wife for not only accepting this enormous task, but for wanting to undertake it. I don't think that I would have been so willing. God bless you dear. I'm proud of myself for choosing you. For that, I'll take the credit.

Andrew Rainier Hieber was born at 03:57 on 7/26/09. He weighs 8lbs 9.2oz. He took his sweet time joining us, but he is here now.

We're up to about 4-5cm dilation. Kodiak is a trooper. She is pushing through the contractions. It isn't easy, but she seems to be doing really well. I'm impressed. Our doctor says that fewer than 5% of her patients do it this way anymore. I'm just in awe of my wife.

MapMyRide.com - General Road Cycling: iMapMyRide Jul 19, 2009 3:57 PM on 07/19/2009

MapMyRide.com - General Road Cycling: iMapMyRide Jul 19, 2009 3:57 PM on 07/19/2009

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6 years ago today I married my wife. I don't remember things the way my wife does. She remembers details. I remember the moments, moods, the big picture. It was blazing hot and time stood still. 1 guy passed out from the heat in the back. That is about the sum of the details that I recall. I remember that she was beautiful, but I can't explain why. My family and friends from afar were frolicking on the lawn of the arboretum, but I don't remember who. I felt like I had tunnel vision that day. Everywhere I looked, my wife was in the center of my field of vision. Even with my head turned I caught her reflection in the glass as she danced with her father. Someone talked to me and I watched her in the reflections of their sunglasses. She looked tall and ethereal as I watched her dancing through the bottom of a wine glass. Not much has changed since then really. We're still in love, and everything I see is framed by how she fits in the picture. She's going to need to move over a bit to the side though. Our baby is due TODAY. I'm not sure what I did to deserve her, but I'm glad she thinks I'm worthy of being her partner in life. I can't imagine it any other way.

MapMyRide.com - General Road Cycling: iMapMyRide Jul 15, 2009 7:28 PM on 07/15/2009

MapMyRide.com - General Road Cycling: iMapMyRide Jul 15, 2009 7:28 PM on 07/15/2009

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My poor wife has been pregnant for almost 14 consecutive months. We had a miscarriage after about 3 months the first time. She is about 1 week from her due date so any day now there will be a new 'little me' to blog about. I'm anxious, nervous, scared, and just about every other emotional adjective you could think of to describe how a feel right now. We're really looking forward to the rest of our lives.