Jonathan Pryor's web log

Announcing Brian Jonathan Pryor

It took longer than we would have liked, and he still arrived earlier than he wanted, but Brian Jonathan Pryor was born this morning at 2:39 AM:

Vital Statistics:

Weight

7 lbs, 9 oz

Length

20 inches

Delivery did not go according to plan. Amber's OBGYN was going on vacation today at noon, so we had originally planned to induce labor on Wednesday. That fell through...because the hospitals were full. They managed to find a room for us on Thursday, so we induced last night. By Friday morning, things had gone "sour" -- Brian's heart rate was lower than the doctors were comfortable with, so Amber underwent an emergency C-section.

Aside from events unfolding in an unexpected fashion, Amber and Brian are doing fine.

Random Musings About Spain/Barcelona

Some random thoughts that occurred to me while in Barcelona:

• The "No Smoking" sign looks more like a "Do Not Enter" sign:

  

• I found it difficult to figure out how to flush some of the toilettes. I realize that there are several different flusher styles, but I wasn't aware there were so many I hadn't come across.
• Unisex bathrooms! They didn't seem that widespread, and I wonder how soon before I see more in the States:

  

• The intersections of roads in Barcelona are "weird." Instead of being a straight right-angle, the corner is "cut," with parking spaces provided in the "cut" area.

  

• I found it incredibly difficult to find the names of roads at intersections. This is probably because I'm not used to looking on the sides of buildings (!), or signs that aren't visible from the corner itself; I frequently couldn't find a road sign at all.
• The McDonald's calorie information sheets also include alergen information (e.g. does it include wheat?, etc.).
• Drink prices are...interesting. Either most States in the USA charge a lot for beer (which is true), or Coca Cola is really expensive in Europe; regardless, at many restaurantes 0.2L of Coke had the same price as 0.3L of beer -- 2.35 €. Free water? Forget about it... It's bottled water, and it frequently has the same price.
• For comparison, I'm used to unlimited fountain drinks for $1.50-$1.95 (free refills!), and free tap water.
• Light switches are more kid-friendly; they're about three feet from the floor, which is easily within reach of Sarah, as opposed to the ~4.5 feet of the light switches in my home.
• Why don't the large maps at bus stations, metro stations, etc. have a "You Are Here" sticker? Some do, but most don't, which makes things more difficult if you're completely lost to begin with...

OOoCon 2007 Trip: Saturday - Monday

Saturday was the "tourist" day; get up early, meet with Shaun, Louis, John, and several others, hike around town:

Sunday I did some actual work (I had a patch written Wednesday, but the wireless access at the University was sufficiently flakey that cvs diff never completed), hit the beach again, and started writing these blog entries.

Monday was the (long!) flight home, limited work (when will planes get real internet access?), and more blog entries.

Mental note: Try to never go through JFK International Airport in New York when returning from an international flight. I had to go through security after going through customs to get on a domestic flight. :-(

OOoCon 2007 Trip: Wednesday - Friday

Wednesday officially started the conference, with a talk by Louis Suárez-Potts.

Then were some excellent presentations on the Aqua port of OpenOffice.org, a meetup at the hotel Tuesday night with the Aqua port folks, and Tapas for dinner. Tapas are like appetizers; many restaurants I go to have a "choose 3 appetizers for one price" deal. Tapas are like a la carte appetizer-sized dishes, allowing for a wide variety of foods to be sampled.

Thursday brought chatting with Niklas Nebel, one of Sun's Calc programmers, the Chart2 overview, and OpenGL transitions. The OpenGL presentation mentioned a desire to create a UI that "mere mortals" can use to create new transitions. I wish them luck in this -- it's very difficult to create a UI that non-experts can use that won't enflame the experts (insert Gnome vs. KDE flame war here as a perfect example).

Friday had a wonderful set of presentations on source code managers, which I discussed earlier. For dinner I was supposted to meet up with Michael Meeks, and sadly got lost instead. Apparently we were on the same road (Catalunya), but since said road is very long I'm not surprised that Shaun and I couldn't find him and his entourage with 30 minutes of walking...

OOoCon 2007 Trip: Monday - Tuesday

The OpenOffice.org 2007 Conference officially started on Wednesday, but since I was going for the whole conference I needed to arrive on Tuesday and leave on Saturday. To arrive on Tuesday, I had to leave on Monday, and to get the best flight bargain I'd have to leave on Sunday. Not too bad -- I'd have a day to look around Barcelona.

So I dutifully show up ~2 hours early for my flight 3:38 PM flight, and find...that there is no reservation for me. Fun! Apparently something somewhere got screwed up (I still haven't heard what), so the flight arrangements I had made in August were canceled...in August. Oops.

Quick phone calls to the travel agency ("what's going on?!") and to my manager got things sorted out in time for the original flight, but with a change in plans; in order to get the cheapest flight, I now would be leaving Barcelona on Monday September 24. This was less than ideal -- it meant that Amber would be alone with Sarah for a day longer than originally planned -- but off I went for my first-ever trip to Spain.

After that beginning, the flights were uneventful. (Long and boring, but uneventful. Silly 8-10 hour flights! At least I was able to finish some research into a bug...)

When I landed in Barcelona on Tuesday at 11:15 AM, I met up with Kohei, who was kind enough to wait for me even though he arrived two hours prior. Thanks! We continued to wait around for Florian to no avail, because we mis-understood his 12:15 departure time for an arrival time. By 1:30 PM we figured he wouldn't be showing up, so we tried to make our way to the Hotel.

That trip was also unexpectedly long, as we had difficulty reading the bus map (can I have a "You Are Here" sticker, please?), and the bus map at the bus stop was truncated, so that we couldn't see the full path of the bus. Long story short, we got off at the wrong place because we didn't realize that the bus would loop around to drop us off at the right place (ugh!), but we quickly hit upon the metro to continue our journy.

Long story short: when someone (hub) is kind enough to provide Metro instructions over IRC, you should probably follow them. :-)

Alas, I also failed to do enough pre-planning, as once we got off the metro at the correct stop (according to hub's instructions), we still needed to find the hotel. As the bus stop was ~6 blocks (and a couple turns) away from the metro stop...this was less than ideal. Apparently we looked dazed-and-confused enough that someone walked up and helped us find our location. Much walking followed.

So by 4:00 PM we hit the hotel, get settled in, speak with kendy about fixing my bug, attend a phone conference for our Novell department, and do the ~40 minute walk from our hotel to the Universitat de Barcelona for "dinner" and registration at 7:00 PM (free shirt!). Much talking was had by all.

Yet Another Random Update...

By parental request, more images of Sarah...

Around April, we started setting up a swing set for Sarah:

Of course, play areas need to be filled with mulch:

Unfortunately our back yard isn't level, so some digging was necessary to ensure that the play set was level:

Which was completed just in time for my parents to visit, necessating...a trip to Busch Gardens:

A trip to Maymont Park:

Sarah likes to help with chores:

Sarah still needs her naps...

...Especially when we went to Chicago for July 4th to visit family, and an impromptu baby shower:

And an unfortunate side trip to the hospital:

The unfortunate trip was due to a fall on an escalator, causing Sarah to loser her pinky nail. (Ouch!) I freaked out more than Sarah, initially. We found out ~1.5 weeks after returning home that this was a good thing, as there were many incidents of food poisening at some food stands my parents hit (and we would have hit if not for the hospital).

A Zoo Trip:

4th of July, Sarah meets my cousins:

More recently, we can relax:

Also, after many years of poor health, our oldest cat Bodhi died. To keep Arthur company, we got a new cat last Saturday, Gwen:

It's A Boy!

Amber's pregnant, and it's a boy!

Estimated due date is December 22, 2007.

Goodbye Cadmus; Hello Novell

After nearly four years working at Cadmus on all manner of external and internal applications in C++, Java, and Perl, it's time to move on.

Today marks my first day at Novell, working on OpenOffice.org.

I foresee lots of reading ahead...

Rides

We went to Busch Gardens, and managed to get Sarah to ride on some new rides: The Battering Ram ("like a giant swing," I tell her), and the water-flume ride ("a big slide"). It took three attempts to get her on the Battering Ram -- she kept looking at it while riding some of the kiddie rides nearby -- and she enjoyed it immensely.

Random Update

Today is Sarah's second birthday, and I've been terribly lax in posting any pictures (or mentioning anything else for that matter). So, what's been happening in the 6 months since the last update? Lots.

We visited Mary and Steve after Thanksgiving, and Sarah got to see some horses:

Last fall we also managed to cut down some trees from our backyard, including one that was already dead:

In January, it snowed (all ~1/8" of it):

In February, Sarah was cute:

In March, we visited Mary and Steve again:

There was also some dog mhugging:

In late March, Sarah started crawling out of her crib, so we thought it was time to convert her crib to a day bed:

This turned out to be a terrible mistake, as Sarah gave up naps when we did this, and she isn't ready to give up naps; she's terribly cranky at night when she skips them. (We're not ready for her to give up naps either, for that matter.) Fortunately, we were able to convert it back into a crib a few days later, and Sarah hasn't tried to repeatedly crawl out of her crib since.

In April, we got...more snow. Amazingly, it was more snow than we got in January. Yay global climate change! :-/

Then Amber went hog-wild in cleaning up the backyard so that we could create a play area. We rented a chainsaw, cut down a few more trees, had co-workers collect most of our large fallen trees (thanks Dave and Pat!)... Then on one (rainy) Saturday, we rented a 16' Penske truck, loaded up the rest of the trees parts (canopies, small branches) and most of the dog pen, dumped it all at the town dump, went to Toys 'R' Us, picked up a swing set, a ton of lumber, then returned home exhausted.

After lots of work on Amber's part later, we get this:

(And in the middle of that, I was busy running CAT-5 and COAX cable throughout the house. I'm surprised I had the energy to do all that...)

Last weekend we returned to Blacksburg to attend Vera and Brian's Wedding. Sarah met 2½ year-old Isaac Miao, and they seemed to have fun together:

Finally, Sarah has been spending some of her evenings with our next-door neighbor. Sarah enjoys this immensely:

Sarah Pictures

I've been terribly lazy, and I need to find a better way of handling images (and being less lazy about getting all the photographs off the camera in the first place).

By parental request (How's Sarah doing?)...

Happy 1st Birthday, Sarah!

Sarah is 1 year old today. She's grown up so much.

In particular, her mental and language skills have improved, more than we realized. She's been babbling away for months now, but as far as we can tell she hasn't said a "word" yet, as word connotes meaning, "The...conception [of] an idea," and as far as we could tell she hasn't said anything with any actual meaning behind it. (We realize that we're probably being too literal here.)

So yesterday, we were lamenting that she hasn't said her first word yet (as we have a sticker book for those sorts of things), when we wondered if she was understanding us yet. She should be, as I've read that babies start understanding language at 10 months, but we haven't seen much evidence of that. Such evidence was provided, when Amber said "goodbye" to Sarah, hoping that Sarah would say something in response.

Realize that I've been saying "goodbye" to Sarah every morning for the past several weeks/months as I left for work. Amber has never said this to Sarah before (that I'm aware of), and is generally always around.

Upon hearing "goodbye" from Amber, Sarah broke down and started crying, half hyperventilating. She knew what "goodbye" meant, even if she couldn't say it, even if she couldn't say any words (by our probably-too-strict definition), she knew what it meant regardless, and the mere idea that Amber would leave... That was more than enough reason to break down and cry. It took us over 10 minutes of cradling and a walk to calm her down again, she was really unhappy.

So we learned something yesterday. We learned that she's learning English as well as we could hope for, and that she really loves Amber.

Sarah also had her first piece of Chocolate Cake for her birthday "party." She was...unimpressed. She ate it, with the same level of enthusiasm she shows when eating everything else (i.e. not much).

Winter Wonderland

It's winter (hard to believe when most of January was in the 40's or warmer), and Richmond was hit by a snowstorm. Nothing major, but I got to wake to a winter wonderland.

The current temperature is 36°F, so the snow won't be around long...

Sarah's Cruising Efforts

Random Picture Update...because I'm too lazy to post these pictures when they're actually taken. :-)

Sarah and Sadie look very cute together (January 7, 2006):

Meanwhile, Sarah continues to do well eating solid foods (January 19, 2006):

Sarah also enjoys crawling everywhere, and climbing over everything (January 29, 2006):

Standing? She's working on it (February 4, 2006):

Stairs won't be a problem forever (though we'll continue to worry) -- February 11, 2006:

Dressed to go outside (February 12, 2006):

Meanwhile, Sarah has changed her daily schedule so that she has only one nap a day. I've heard some proclaim this as a good thing, mentioning the fabled 4-4-4 schedule (4 hours awake, 4 hour nap, 4 hours awake, then bed for 12 hours). Sarah hasn't followed this; instead, she's going for 3-2-7, or something very close to it, with a 2-3 hour nap, and up for upwards of 8 hours at night. I can't recommend this at all, since it leaves little time to do anything while Sarah is asleep.

Sarah's 9 Month Checkup

Sarah had her 9-month checkup this morning, and here are her current stats:

Weight

18 lbs 12 oz (45-50th percentile)

Length

28" (75th percentile)

It looks like she's going to be a tall girl...

Sarah Picture Galore

Further proving that I never update this site often enough, here are a number of pictures taken over the past few months that should have been posted sooner, but didn't (because I'm lazy and have no time).

In chronological order, we have Amber and Sarah on June 10 and June 13, when Sarah was almost 7 weeks old:

Next is Sarah napping on me on June 14:

Of course, Sadie needs to get in on the act (on June 17):

On the July 4th weekend, we went up to New York to visit my parents, and many of my relatives were also visiting:

Chris, Sarah, Aunt Barb, Amber

Sarah, Amber, Jon

Jon, Sarah, Grandpa Peceny, Dad

Sarah Napping

Josh, Mike, Chris, Sarah, Jon, Amber

Sarah obviously likes sleeping (July 14 and July 23):

Sarah also keeps getting bigger (August 19)...

Her smiles are so precious (August 22):

One of these days she'll figure out crawling (September 10). She's gotten much better at supporting herself since.

On October 1, Amber's parents came down to help us cut down some trees in the back yard, pick up some trash destined for the dump, and to watch Sarah as we worked:

This allowed me to pile more work on Amber:

Allowing us to fill in a trailer and take the trees away:

Six Month Checkup

Today was Sarah's 6 month checkup, which consisted of four shots, and the vital stats that everyone really cares about:

Weight

15 lbs 15 oz, which is the 50th percentile for girls of this age.

Height (length)

27", which is the 80th percentile.

It looks like she's going to be a tall girl. :-)

Cereal

We've started feeding Sarah cereal today. Well, we've attempted to start feeding Sarah cereal today. It's rather messy:

Sarah, Yard Work

Sarah is getting good at holding her head up:

Meanwhile, we have some yardwork to do. In mid-August, we ordered a truckload of mulch to help our ailing garden:

A full truckload may have been too much; while we've put a serious dent into it -- we've probably used half of it -- there's still a lot left. It's likely to get "dumped" into the forest-like backyard.

Sarah at Four Months

Sarah was four months old on August 24, 2005 (or 17 ½ weeks). Here she is on August 27th:

We visited her pediatrician last Friday, and her current "official" weight is 13 lbs 4 oz (50th percentile) and her length is 24.5" (~55th percentile), so she's doing very well, though she feels heavier than 13 pounds to me...

Sarah's currenty weekday routine is:

6:00 AM - 8:00 AM

I take care of her. She wakes up anywhere within this range, though she may wake up earlier. I normally feed her breakfast (consisting of ~7 ounces of formula), coo at her a bit (she's too cute!), and try to get her back asleep before leaving for work. Intermix feeding and walking Sadie (our dog), shaving, and otherwise getting ready for work, and I'm occasionally not sure how I have time for everything.

8:00 AM - 5:30 PM

Amber takes care of Sarah, usually feeding her at least twice during this period. Sarah tends to go at least three hours between feedings, frequently napping immediately before a feeding. Playing, tummy time, and the occasional bout of smiling/insanity will insue, plus taking Sarah on a walk around the block (optionally with Sadie).

5:30 PM - 10:00 PM

When I get back home from work Sarah is my responsibility again. The first order of business is walking and feeding Sadie with Amber and Sarah in tow. Dinner for Amber and me swiftly follows, though frequently Sarah needs a feeding about when I'm trying to eat (bad timing!). Sarah gets one or two more feedings during this time as well (depending on when she feels like going to bed). Intermix email with caring for Sarah, and my night ends far too quickly.

Weekends differ in that I'm responsible for her all weekend long, with assistance from Amber when necessary (it's Amber's time to take a break, care for the garden, and other non-Sarah-related things).

We haven't started feeding Sarah solids yet, though it looks like we'll be able to within the next month.

During tummy time, Sarah's feet seem to have the idea for crawling down, but her arms don't (possibly because they're not strong enough to lift her body yet). The result: she's an inchworm, slowly moving forward, when she moves at all. Very cute. She occasionally holds her head up, but she's not quite strong enough yet.

Two Wonderful Years

Thank you Amber for a wonderful two years of marriage, and thank you for bringing us Sarah. She's a joy to behold. She's also going to co-op the rest of this entry. :-)

Sarah has enjoyed sleeping in my arms. She's the cutest thing, and she's been doing this for quite some time. Here she is, two weeks old (on May 8th):

Sarah is also staring at everything in sight, as should be expected, at 2 weeks 2 days (on May 10th):

Normally she sleeps in a bassinet, as this makes it easier to move her around the house without actually waking her. In theory, anyway... (One month, 4 days old on May 28th):

When we really need her to sleep, we put her in The Chair. This wonderful rocker has a battery-operated vibrator, which helps put her to sleep (on June 4, at 1 month 1.5 weeks old):

We also take her on walks with us. The stroller is too cumbersome most of the time, since there are few sidewalks in the area, so we carry her in a baby carrier (1 month 2 weeks old, on June 7th):

Group Pictures

Jon, Amber, Sarah, Mary, and Steven Hall:

Jon, Amber, Sarah, Chris, and Michael Pryor:

More Pictures!

By popular demand, more pictures for the family:

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A Child Is Born

My first child was born today, Sarah Rose Pryor. She was born on April 24, 2005 at 3:30 PM. She is 7 pounds ½ ounces. More information as it becomes available.

Gratuitous Images. :-)

Sarah and Amber are both doing fine, though Amber was in labor for over 14 hours (using 1 AM as the onset of labor, though we weren't entirely sure that labor had started until her water broke at 2:36 AM; Amber thought the contractions were really just strong cramps, especially since they were localized to the lower part of her abdomen, not throughout the entire uterus). I managed to help Amber and the nurses with delivery, and was given the opportunity to cut the umbilical cord -- which promptly decided to shoot blood everywhere, including my hand. Umbilical cords are messy. :-)