Monkey House

A colleague/friend of mine and his wife are photography enthusiasts with a fair bit of good equipment. They were looking for opportunities to build their experience in photographing people, so we happily volunteered our time for a photo shoot (read as: jumped at the chance for free maternity shots!).

I haven’t had a chance to putz around with them yet (the free session for obvious reasons did not include dozens of hours of Photoshop retouching!) but here’s one of the nice “belly” pics:

Do Not Open Until June 7, 2009

More to come!

Just read an article about the forthcoming Kindle DX eBook reader. Ever since the eBook concept was first brought to the public eye, friends and family have said, “Ugh, I can’t imagine reading a whole book on a laptop.” I’m sure I’m not the only person who was forward-looking, but for at least the last 10 years I have responded with, “But wait until the electronic ‘page’ starts to look and feel like a real one. You’ll see!”. I don’t think the current generation of eBook readers are there yet. But the screen colours and contrast at least aren’t eye-offending.

Here’s where I get annoyed, though: I have always been counting on the advent of the eBook to bring down the prices of books again. After all, a small marked-up text file is cheaper to produce, manufacture (there is no manufacture), and distribute than a real book. Pass the savings along to the readers! But no. This world is effing greedy, and new eBooks cost roughly the same as a paperback.

What will really get me to move to an eBook reader like the Kindle DX is the combination of a few things:

1. Lower price for a unit: ~$400 is still too much for a rather focused tool. Eye strain or not, if I were to spend $400 on something similar, it would be for a netbook. Why? ROI. The assumption is that to get return on investment, you should weigh against the cost of the existing alternative (printed books). For $400 I can get:

• a dozen new (current) hardcovers
• 30 new paperbacks (the same as 30 new eBooks, it should be stated)
• 60 or so “Bargain Section” (but new) hardcovers
• 60 or so used hardcovers (it’s debatable whether the market in used books should be allowed since authors and publishers get no additional revenue; but it’s not illegal!)
• 100 used paperbacks (see above re: used books)

You can’t even GET used eBooks unless you want to be shady. Unlike the printed version (a physical asset), as far as I know if you redistribute an eBook you are breaking copyright and committing piracy. Arrrrr…. It would take me probably 8 years to get through 100 books.

2. Lower price for the downloadable books: ~$10–$15 for an eBook from the bestsellers list is the same cost as the same book when it comes out in paperback. I prefer hardcovers in general, but you’re not getting that with the eBook either.

3. Increased personal spending on books. Whether it’s the rising cost of paper books or increasing my volume of reading beyond 8-12 per year (at best), if my personal yearly spend on books increases into the hundreds, it would be worth it to me to have an eBook reader.

4. Desire for the technical features. I think this is what they’re counting on. People deciding they just want their several-dozen books in one portable place, or people who find it more convenient to read at night with a backlit screen than with annoying booklights.

Until these things conspire to make an eBook the right option, my smugness at having predicted more readable eye-friendly screens is squashed alongside my dreams of people offering eBooks for the right non-gouging, non-opportunistic cost.

Finally, because I like images in my posts… I just grabbed this from a related Kindle DX article over at betanews about the Kindle DX. The author liked the screensaver. Someone has made a quiz out of it. I got (shameful for a lit major, but we were reading books, not looking at pictures!) 3 out of 5. I didn’t register at the end, so I don’t know how highly I ranked. (scroll way down… weird empty space automatically inserted…)

Not much of an update… more like a first post! The subtitle of this blog refers to shenanigans in new parenthood… it’s about time I talked a bit about the baby! Let’s start off with a movie of the 18-week ultrasound, for no other reason than because videos and images look good in blog posts.

Here’s the FAQ for our upcoming new addition:

Q: When is the baby due?
A: June 7, 2009. I’ve jokingly asked Mama Monkey a few times to hold off for a week and a bit so that the birthday will coincide with its aunt’s.

Q: Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?
A: Nope. First we both wanted it to be a surprise, then I went for a short time where I thought I’d rather know (but deferred to my wife), and then a friend convinced me that the surprise is one of the only true surprises in life, so I’m back to not wanting to know.

Q: Are you crazy? You JUST got married, bought a house, had other expenses, and Mama’s not done school!
A: Aren’t ALL parents crazy? Just kidding. We were actually aiming for a family sometime after Alie’s (gotta call her that from time to time; Mama Monkey ain’t gonna cut it for every reference!) last Ironman, at which time being finished with a gruelling training regimen would permit it. As it turns out, fate conspired for us to be married and buy a house at around the same time. But the baby was a definite priority so it’s all going according to plan. Muhahahah! As for school–some things in life you just shouldn’t wait forever for. Some of her colleagues said that grad school is a great time to start a family anyhow.

Q: Got a daycare yet?
A: Nope. We’re on the list for public providers. Private providers often won’t let you contact them until the date draws nearer. We have some contingency plans, though.

Q: (laff laff, snicker snicker) Greg, you always sleep in. How are you going to do that with a baby? (laff, snicker, point)
A: I’m not really planning to. My sleep schedule is sporadic. When people think I’m sleeping in 12 hours, I may have only been in bed for 4 as it is. I’m under no illusions here, though. Luckily it’s not something you can “prepare” for, so why bust my chops about sleeping in now? As with all new parents, we’ll be grumpy, whine to whoever will listen about how we have so little sleep, and cope with it. Have any other parents ever been any different?

Q: Picked out any names yet?
A: Started to! Nothing’s set in stone yet. Somehow it’s easier to pick out boy’s names for the two of us, even though neither of us really expect the baby will be a boy. However, we won’t be announcing our choice until after the birth is recorded.

Q: Prepared for the expense?
A: As much as you can be! But people don’t have families as a method of amassing wealth.

Q: Midwife or OB/Gyn?
A: Midwife. The care they give is much more personal and comprehensive. They’re still trained to do the “clinical” type stuff during the (more frequent) visits; it’s not all new-agey despite some persistent misconceptions. We will still be going to the hospital for the delivery, though.

Q: Excited?
A: You bet! I haven’t been this excited since my wedding!

–

Other miscellaneous stuff:

- Nursery is almost done. Bought furniture, built some storage, had to have custom mattress made for European-sized crib, Mama Monkey made some fitted sheets, blankets, diapers/pads, etc. Still remaining: window treatment, fun wall art, and drapes for closet (instead of existing sliding doors)

- Baby is going stretchy-kicky like mad in the belly. The sound of my wife going “oof” is far more frequent lately, and sometimes her belly reminds me of that scene from “Alien”… you know the one.

- We had a great photo session with some friends who are developing their skills as they move toward a potential career in photography. Some beauties were taken, which we’ll post here.

- Finished our prenatal classes. I learned that my wife is going to be a somewhat different creature once labour begins. I also learned that I get the great opportunity to be her primary “support” person. I’m not looking forward to her being in pain, but I’m looking forward to the experience.

If I think of anything later, I’ll add’er in!

Greg

Just a first attempt to come up with a vector-based character for Mama Monkey…. also an exercise in learning Illustrator, as the idea for the graphic came from the following tutorial:

Vectips Create a Cute Panda tutorial

If I use it, I will make it smaller… add a body, and make a corresponding “Greg” character. Probably won’t use the radial background, either, but it looked good in the tutorial so I grabbed it for this as well. Here’s Mama Monkey in her monkey costume:

Eek, just realized how different it looks on a different monitor… going to have to make the “smile lines” less gray… but rather than be a perfectionist at the moment, I’ll get back to it if I decide to use this motif.

I’m not allowed to post full-motion video of my wife, so I’ll have to learn how to edit a video before I start showing anything… I always manage to film her giving high-fives and stuff, thereby making an otherwise video a little more fun but a little less publicly-consumable.

The built-in was a relatively easy project, but we got great satisfaction out of it. The best part of it is that the Ikea “Komplement” drawers we picked were just shy of the full depth of the existing closet. If we had tried to just “hide” a dresser in there for extra storage, it would have been much shallower. We’ll get some good storage out of these suckers. Plus we went with cavernous shelves which will be good for storage versatility.

Here’s what you need:
- melamine boards, with 1 finished edge
- variety of screws (some long enough to go through melamine + drywall + grab a chunk of wall stud)
- a level and a measuring tape
- melamine heat-applied edging (optional touch to cover visible particle board edges)

Here’s the pics:
(left to right 1: final product; 2: brackets installed 3: just needs finishing steps)

In the final product there’s a top to the built-in that extends the existing shelf. There is also a toe-kick that gives it a polished look.

The project was relatively easy, but still took about 9 hours including snack breaks, watching some tube or internet here and there, etc. The general breakdown of how we approached it:

1. Measured from carpet to existing shelf to get height for sides of the “cabinet”. There’s no way we’d expect both to be the same, so we measured in EACH location and cut each “side” separately, adding a couple mm to account for carpet squooshiness.
2. Located and cut grooves so that the top would fit in and around the existing shelf and so that the bottom could go over the existing baseboards
3. Removed baseboard from right side so that cabinet side could go right into the wall
4. Screwed right side into wall. Screwed left side through the pre-existing “shelf” into the top of the side. This was unecessary and we ended up having to unscrew later
5. Measured where we wanted first (bottom) drawer to go, and added the rest of the slider brackets from there:
   1. used level on first bracket to locate where “back” screw would go; installed bracket
   2. used level to go across (not trusting measuring up from floor or down from top; dimensions are never square or straight!) to locate and install front screw of next bracket
   3. used level to locate and screw in “back” screw and installed bracket. Now we have a matching pair so we test-fitted a drawer. It worked!
   4. since the first pair worked, we now had a “base” for measurements. Measured all the front screw holes and installed brackets.
   5. using the level worked in the past, so we used the level for each of the remaining 6 brackets to locate “back” screw and finish installation

Test fit– all drawers work, but we wanted it less sticky.

6. Unscrewed left side and “tapped” left side into place before re-screwing through the top
7. cut and installed 4 “ledges” for our 2 shelves using a similar levelling technique. Why ledges? Can’t drill easily into that right side… might as well be consistent. You can see the front of the ledges in the “later” photos

We screwed up one of the screws somehow, or the cut for the ledge was crooked… either way, we decided to keep it as-is. Hard to notice.

8. put our 2 shelves on the “ledges” and screwed them into place also from the left side.

Now the whole structure is rock-solid and “built-in”

9. added the top (trickier than you think! No angles were 90 degrees, so we had to make a few cuts and eventually steal time on dad’s mitre saw for half-degree cuts in order to get it pretty tight)
10. re-installed some of the baseboard on the inside of the closet

Done!