Claire Marie Parmeter was born this morning at 8:46AM. She’s a healthy 7 lbs, 7.8 ounces, and 19.75 inches long. And we love every bit of her. Already being adorable. Here are some pictures for everyone out there. More photos to come.
We’re so excited! We think that the day may finally be here! Claire will hopefully be making her début into the world soon and we’d like you to share in the moment(s). As mentioned in previous posts, I’ll be live-blogging the experience via Twitter here. So what are you waiting for? Get on over to twitter and read my blow-by-blow, sportscaster-like, coverage of the labor and delivery of our little girl. Just click here.
For the uninitiated, you may not need a Twitter account to read my twitter-feed, but it’s not a bad idea to sign up anyway. You don’t want to be left behind in the technical dust. When reading my feed (http://twitter.com/nebhead) you may want to refresh the page every so often to get the latest updates (on a PC press “F5″, on a Mac press “command+r”).
One might think that over the last month or so, nothing has happened of note in my life. But alas, that is not the case. For some reason, after sitting down in front of the keyboard, I’ve been struck with a terrible case of the writers block. I just haven’t been motivated to write about things lately. So instead of writing a well thought out post, chronicling the goings-on, I’m going to make a list of random things I’ve been up to with photos. Ben’s month in lists…
Things I’ve been doing lately:
And that folks, is just a tiny portion, of the things that I’ve been up to lately. More to come…
I’ve finally posted the video in all it’s glorious distorted choppiness. And I kept the audio, because let’s face it, YouTube is just going to make me take down any copyrighted music content. It’s embedded below, or you can go straight to the YouTube here.
This weekend, we went back to the same Ultrasound clinic that we went to several weeks back, and splurged a little because we just can’t wait to see our little daughter’s face. Thanks to some serious mathematics, processing power, and of course pure awesome physics, we can take a glimpse under our skin with a simple sound wave. (If you seriously want to know more about the real-time rendering of the 3-D images for ultra sound, take a gander at this website. Prepare to get your geek on. You’ve been warned.)
I have to say I never expected the kind of emotional response that this experience elicited from me. It’s as if I got to meet my daughter for the first time. And I’ll be darned if that didn’t bring a tear to my eye. I may be a little biased, but even looking at these distorted yellow images, I think she’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
Without further delay, click here, to go straight to the gallery.
Personally, I think she is a spitting image of Suzy. Her eyes and nose for sure. Suzy seems to think she resembles me from the lower lip down. You be the judge:
I’ll post the video’s later when I can get them compressed and posted to YouTube. Instead of the lullaby’s that were recorded with the original, I’m thinking of re-dubbing it (like a Kung-Fu movie). I’ll taking requests for potential tunes.
Until next time, I love you all.
It’s official, I am back on the bleeding edge of the internet. Yes indeed. I have officially signed up for a twitter account. You’ve been hearing about it for a while. Everyone is doing it… apparently. Tweeting. I’ve resisted for a good long time. But I’ve finally succumb to the big’ol internet and it’s new-fangled technology.
I have a plan though, so it’s not without good reason that I have signed up. You see, I have it in the plan to ‘Live-Blog’ the birth of my child. Come November, prior to Suzy going into labor, I plan to start the countdown on this very blog. And when we get to the actual event, the day (or days) of actual labor, I really want to post real-time updates replete with pictures to the internet so that friends and family can share in the experience from afar.
Here comes the technical rub. I’ve looked into the ‘live-blogging’ plug-ins for WordPress (the software that this blog runs on) and I was a bit overwhelmed with the complexity that I’d face setting up such a system. And, with people re-loading the page frequently, the site might actually buckle under the bandwidth pressure (that might be an overstatement, but it’s possible!). So instead, I’ve come up with another third-party and entirely free solution. Twitter.
Twitter allows me to update the world, very easily, in real-time, from my iphone in chunks of 140 characters or less. It allows me to post pictures directly from my iPhone. It’s nearly perfect for my plans. It’s not quite as fancy as the Live-Blogging that Gizmodo or Engadget does for big tech announcements (like WWDC). But it’ll do the trick.
So folks, come November, when we hit the big day, look for my link to twitter where I will be giving the blow-by-blow updates of what’s going on in our delivery room. I am soooo bleeding edge.
Happy fathers day everyone. Kinda feels like this day was created just so dads wouldn’t feel left out of the whole mothers day thing. But dads surely do deserve a day to be revered as well. I love ya Dad, and I hope I can do as good a job at raising my child as you did with us kids.
As a celebration of fathers day and of my own impending parenthood, I’m posting some videos from our most recent ultrasound. This was the appointment where we found out that little Gizmo was going to be a girl. I have to say that it was a pretty awe inspiring experience to see my little progeny-to-be fluttering around inside my wife.
Since YouTube only allows ten minute videos, I had to cut this up into two parts. And no comments about the music, this was all part of the “experience” that we received at the place we had the ultra-sound done. This was done right around week 17 of the pregnancy, so Gizmo still looks like an alien monkey. Frankly, a bit creepy. But also cute and awesome at the same time. (Gizmo – I’m sorry, in advance, for posting a video with your naughty bits all over the internet – it’s really hard to see them anyway. Some day you will will understand)
Readers, I just wanted to bring your attention to some changes around here recently. I have quietly introduced several new blog links to my “friends links” just over there on the left hand side of this page. See? I’m proud to be hosting some of these new blogs right here on parmeter.net, but they are all excellent. So head on over to Anne’s, Ingrid’s or Laura’s blog. Heck, check them all out – they’re outstanding! Also added to the parmeter.net home page is Kirstin’s blog on myspace music – and bonus, she has some great tunes on there too! And of course don’t forget about Suzy’s excellent blog which trickles out some great material. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by some superb writers in this family. So get read’n!
Well folks, just so you know, I haven’t just been sitting on my hands lately. I have been working on the website. I did a bunch of exhaustive research on free picture gallery software to use on this website. I was motivated by the few sporadic pictures that I get from my sister through e-mail. I’d sure like her to be able to post pictures (easily) to the site so that everyone could see them. The dilemma is, unfortunately, that there just is no simple gallery software out there for your own website. I honestly tried a bunch – gave them the a serious shot. I currently have four installed and none of them cut the mustard (whatever that means). I tried Gallery 2.0, Coppermine, Singapore, PHPGraphy, and Gallerific. All of them had their good points, but universally they suck at user-friendliness. They’re downright limited.
So, sis, I think I’m finally going to throw in the towel and say, let’s use Flickr. It’s fast, easy and best of all free (there are limits). We can link directly to your galleries from the website and I don’t have to worry about broken databases, site outages, code atrophy, or whatever else plagues this site.
So there we go. With that said, I’m going to switch to using a built-in gallery in wordpress and for everything else, we’ll switch to Flickr. If I have time this week, I’ll post some pictures from Suzy and I in Yosemite last weekend.
Muwah.
Ok, so I know that you don’t like sappy Hallmark cards, nor do you like any cards at all. They’re expensive and usually quite wasteful. Let’s compromise, and instead I’ll write down my sentiments here – all oohey gooey and extra syrupy for the internet to see. To my wife, here it is, 101 reasons why I love you:
1. I love your persistence.
2. I love the way I know you’ll never give up on me.
3. I love the fact that I wouldn’t ever give up on you.
4. I love the way you look at me.
5. I love how beautiful your eyes are.
6. I love the way I can’t imagine a day without you in my life.
7. I love the way if we were ever separated I wouldn’t know how to go on.
8. I love the way we cuddle.
9. I love the way we finish each other’s sentences.
10. I love how I know you’ll always be there when I need you to be.
11. I love the fact that I will always be there for you too.
12. I love how when I dream of my life partner, the only person that I can see is you.
13. I love how complete I feel when I am with you.
14. I love how we just fit together.
15. I love the way you make me laugh.
16. I love the way you laugh.
17. I love the way you won’t compromise yourself when we are together.
18. I love the way you won’t let me compromise myself.
19. I love your thoughtfulness.
20. I love your tenderness.
21. I love your ability to speak without saying a single word.
22. I love the way we glance at each other across the room and know what each other is thinking.
23. I love the way, how even though we may be miles apart I still feel like you’re right here with me.
24. I love the way you surprise me with the perfect gifts that show you pay attention to me.
25. I love that you enjoy video games as much as the boys do.
26. I love the way you are with my friends.
27. I love your love for the things that interest me.
28. I love the way you let me live my life freely without jealousy.
29. I love how you demand respect but are not controlling.
30. I love how I would do anything in this world to make you happy.
31. I love how you would do anything in this world to make me happy.
32. I love the way your voice sounds over the phone.
33. I love the way your voice sounds when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
34. I love breakfast with you in the morning.
35. I love your sensuality.
36. I love how our romance feels like it’s uniquely ours.
37. I love how you are my soul mate.
38. I love the way you handle troubled times.
39. I love the way you respect me.
40. I love the way you protect and defend me.
41. I love how you feel when we cuddle.
42. I love the softness of your lips against mine.
43. I love when you let me eat those unhealthy things, and share them with me.
44. I love when you don’t let me eat those unhealthy things and make me share a salad with you.
45. I love laying in bed at night talking about nothing. (believe it or not)
46. I love waking up to find we’ve been cuddling together.
47. I love the surprises you leave for me.
48. I love your intelligence.
49. I love your ingenuity.
50. I love your ability to make friends where ever we go.
51. I love your phone phobia.
52. I love your passion your career.
53. I love how every time I look at you, you take my breath away.
54. I love how I thank Norlock everyday for bringing someone as wonderful as you into my life.
55. I love that we share our food.
56. I love the special moments that we shared that will remain my fondest memories of you and I.
57. I love spending the holidays with the one person I love the most.
58. I love how my heart skips a beat whenever you walk into the room.
59. I love how you love me.
60. I love how I love you.
61. I love the ways you choose to show your affection for me.
62. I love the way you inspire me to be more than I am.
63. I love the way you spark my creativity and imagination.
64. I love the way you make me feel like anything is possible as long as I’m with you.
65. I love your sense of humor.
66. I love the way you make me feel like royalty.
67. I love the way you dress.
68. I love your understated elegance.
69. I love you just the way you are.
70. I love your spontaneity.
71. I love our life together.
72. I love how if I died right now I would be the happiest person alive knowing I found my one true love.
73. I love the fact that we will grow old together.
74. I love your way with words.
75. I love the way you look when your sleeping. (even if it creeps you out) 
76. I love the way you think you look awful when you first wake up when it is actually then I find you the most beautiful.
77. I love your willingness to share everything and most especially your heart with me.
78. I love your strength of character.
79. I love taking walks together
80. I love the way you leave me love notes in my luggage when I go on business trips.
81. I love the way you treat me.
82. I love the way you take care of us.
83. I love your cooking.
84. I love the way you take the time to thank me for doing every day things.
85. I love the way you show your affection when we are around friends and/or family.
86. I love the way you are not scared to show your affection when we are in public.
87. I love your confidence.
88. I love your ability to make me feel better when times are tough.
89. I love the way we make up after a fight.
90. I love that you love gadgets.
91. I love the way you support me when I’m off track.
92. I love the way you take the time to show me how much you love me.
93. I love your amazing hair.
94. I love your amazing body.
95. I love your openness to try new things.
96. I love your ability to talk things through.
97. I love your courage to be you.
98. I love your greatness.
99. I love the fact that you want to be with me and only me.
100. I love how I am and feel when I am with you!
101. I love you for you!
In the interest of full disclosure, I did get help from the internet for this list. But it doesn’t make it any less true!