Roblag
Just like a diary, only without a way to dot the i’s with hearts; robla, margl, and hazel’s blog

We got to check out of the hospital yesterday and head home. Everyone is doing well…Margaret and Hazel are sleeping, and this is the first time I’ve mustered the energy to get back in front of the computer since being home. Some more details below the fold…

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Quick note: Hazel Mae Lanphier was born late last night. Mom and baby are fine…gotta run back to hospital, but took a sec to upload a couple of photos: http://photos.robla.net/gallery/v/2006/

As folks who know us may have heard, my lovely wife (pictured) and I are about to become parents.  Not that it’s really sunk in or anything, but I imagine it will some time this week, as, well, we’re due and the doctors aren’t too keen on the idea of letting the baby just chill until she’s good and ready..

Baby FAQ:

1. Do you know if it’ll be a boy or a girl?
   It’s a girl, unless of course modern science has totally failed in its predictive powers.
2. Have you got a name yet?
   We’ve got a list, but we haven’t decided and we’re not telling.  We figure if the gender isn’t going to be a surprise for anyone, you’ll just have to wait to see what we have in store.
3. Has Margaret had/done X (where X is some horrible pregnancy related thing that lots of mothers-to-be have)?
   No, knock on wood/vaneer/whatever, this has been a remarkably trouble-free pregnancy.  Either that, or Margaret is really doing a good job covering.  Or maybe I’m an idiot (more likely than her “covering” per se).  But as far as my admittedly limited guy-insight on the subject can see, there hasn’t been many problems.

So there you have it.    Watch this space…I’ll try to post the update here when there’s more than just a bump.

Apparently, Mayor Nickels plans to propose a parking tax for downtown Seattle to fund transportation.  Fantastic!  That means that the people who commute to downtown from Issaquah or wherever pay some for Seattle transportation (as they should) whereas those of us who live and work in Seattle aren’t getting disproportionately taxed.

I’m not an Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have to hand it to them with the new laptops.  Not points on quality, but on revenue maximizing genius.  Specifically, charging $150 more for a black laptop.  People will pay for the cachet, and charging $150 is just enough to make sure it maintains cachet.  That said, please shoot me if I ever think it’s a good idea for me personally to spend $150 more on a laptop just to get the color I want.

A friend recently told me about yet another mobile startup who I won’t name, but suffice to say has yet another one of those generic amalgams of “Mo” or “Mob” with some other word. It got me thinking “hey, I can automate this; maybe save everyone some time”….which I did (at least the first part). Applying my proprietary formula to the not-exactly-exhaustive-but-close-enough word list that comes with in most UNIX-y systems, I came up with a list from which investors, domain squatters, and edgy industry soothsayers can all pull from to define the vocabulary of the 21st Century. Particular favorites of mine include “Mobarrassing”, “Mobgoblin”, “Mocabre”, and “Mosogyny”. Definitions for “mobnobbing”, “mocialite”, “mocreation”, “mobauchery” and “mobsidize” practically write themselves, and it’s only a matter of time before some hack tech columnist uses one/all of these words with a straight face (or whatever face they make when they write that stuff) More after the fold…
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