Disconnected Monday, Apr 28 2008 

State of the Blog and Technology GeekLady 8:23 am

We had a lightening storm roll through on Friday night/Saturday morning.  Computers are fine, but the cable modem is fried and Comcast swears they can see it on the network, so they won’t fix it unless we pay for a site visit.  Here’s a hint, Comcast, when annoyed customers call because they haven’t had internet access all day and want to know if the storm damage is fixed yet, telling them their modem isn’t broken and so you won’t fix it, this is bad customer service.

So we’re waiting for a home phone line to get installed so OpLink can start providing us with DSL.  This will take about 10 days, unfortunately, and my only internet access will be via work.  Posting will be rare, new comment approvals will take time (sorry HBM), and my twitter frequency will be about the same, very slow because I’m still boring.

And Comcast… there are certain aspects of pregnancy that even I find noxious.  You can kiss’em.

 

Ahh, technology Wednesday, Apr 23 2008 

Pregnancy and State of the Blog and Technology GeekLady 5:56 pm

WordPress has gotten off its collective butt and fixed the posting engine in Safari.  I am a very happy nerd at the moment, because I hated posting in HTML.  Hadn’t we moved beyond that, honestly?  Not until a few days ago, apparently.

Apparently the whole backend of WordPress has had some cosmetic and functional changes.  I have to relearn my way around things, edit categories and tags, et cetera, ad infinitum, yada yada yada.  It is, however, better than cleaning my living room, and I can’t touch my embroidery because my nailpolish is drying.  Okay, it’s clear nailpolish, but I still don’t want it smeared around on the latest project.  The project that has only 12 weeks to get done, yes it has to be done just like everything else baby-related… and I don’t have the time or money to begin again.

No, apparently I don’t care about getting nailpolish on my long suffering keyboard. Occupational hazard of being a keyboard.

It’s funny, but I’m not as intensely interested in traditionally geeky stuff at the moment.  3G iPhone?  Cool, but feh, I couldn’t afford justify the 2G version even before Podling showed up.  I certainly can’t now.  I don’t like talking about everything at my job to all and sundry, and found out yesterday that it squicked out my OB.  You’d think a guy that got through gross anatomy in medical school could cope, but apparently not, poor guy.  I’m not even twittering as much anymore.

This is all much to my dad’s disgust.  He says I have baby on the brain, but that’s not strictly true.  I have baby in the uterus, who kicks me soundly whenever he thinks I’m not obsessing enough about him. Usually this is somewhere unpleasant, like a kidney.  So it’s kind of hard to not be constantly aware, and consequently stressed about how much is left to do.

I’ve just noticed WordPress thinks it’s 11:56 pm.  I should go fix that, overhaul my categories, add tags, instead of sitting here yammering about it.

 

The Home Stretch Tuesday, Apr 22 2008 

Parenting and Pregnancy GeekLady 6:19 am

I start the 3rd trimester today.  And I’m so tired.  Not so much physically, oddly enough, but mentally and emotionally.  I don’t think I ever believed we would really make it this far.  Something would go wrong, something always does after all.  It’s hard to grasp that I only have twelve weeks, 12 short weeks, until my due date.

And all the things to do in those weeks.  Housewarming parties, birthday parties, at least one shower, a 6 hour (1-way) drive to see my inlaws at 8 months, prom.  Yes, I’m going to prom, 31 weeks pregnant, with my husband who is chaperoning.  My first ever prom date.  Oh, and there’s the whole “preparing for baby’s arrival”.

Because I don’t have anything done.

Our apartment is a baby death trap.  The lovely vision of a complete and decorated nursery, hah.  We have a crib and a mattress, a few baby odds and ends (Converse!), but that’s it.  The dresser is still in the garage in a half-stripped state.  I can’t for the life of me figure out how to protect my embroidery projects from the orifice-induced terror of a baby while keeping them moderately accessible.  The (not yet sewn together) baptismal gown is stretched on my pin frame with 4 letters on the chest stem-stitched.  The TV remote AAA batteries are dead.  Big problems and little ones, all in a big fricking pile on my living room floor.

It makes my brain hurt just thinking about it all.

I’m emotionally tired too.  Tired and overwhelmed by all the opinions on motherhood and parenting and baby stuff that are flung at me like monkeys fling…  Those friends who offer their experience without pressure to treat it as gospel, they are truly priceless.  Also rare.

And the baby stuff.  The junk mail has doubled this trimester, all pimping out the must-have baby products without which your child is undoubtedly suffering the most insidious form of child abuse – lack of material possessions.  People look at you oddly, and shake their heads if you mention not buying some vital bit of baby gear, without regard to whether it is useful for you.  I half expect to be chastised for not purchasing a swing set even though we don’t have a yard!

And I won’t even get into the pink v. blue debate.  Today, at least, you are safe.   But only because if I got into it I would be late for work.