Author Archives: Peter

Two Months!

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Happy Two Month Birthday, Catherine!

ppp|Then

Then

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ppp|Now

Now

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Your mom and dad have had a wonderful two months, and we are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives getting to know you.

All of your friends and family can see [some more photos from the photo shoot Mom did for you on your exciting two-month birthday](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/baby/catherine_at_two_months/)!

By the way, you are a very expensive baby. We received our bill for your one-week stay at [Brigham and Women’s](http://www.brighamandwomens.org/) just the other day:

* Total Charges: $75,035.14
* Amount our health insurance paid: $74,535.14
* Amount we owe: $500
* Having a healthy, happy baby: priceless

Thank goodness for health insurance!!

Backup Strategy

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Somewhere within the first two weeks after Catherine was born, I found the time to implement a (mostly) comprehensive backup strategy for our website data and our home computer data. We’ve actually been operating without any type of backup for a while now, living dangerously as it were. So I decided that with all of the changes we’ve been going through recently, and the exponential increase in the amount of data we’ve been collecting (web and email content, images, video, etc), it would be smart to implement a good method for backing everything up.

If you’re interested in how I set it up, please read on.

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First Vineyard Weekend

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This weekend, Becky and I went down to [Martha’s Vineyard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha’s_Vineyard) for the first time this summer. It was definitely a lot later than we usually head down – normally we’re down by Memorial Day weekend… but we were just a tad [busy](http://prwdot.org/2006/05/27/a-dramatic-arrival/) then, and have been in the weeks since.

For the benefit of those who have just recently started following our blog, let me give you a little background on Martha’s Vineyard. Becky’s parents own a cottage in the [MVCMA](http://www.mvcma.org/) campground in [Oak Bluffs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Bluffs%2C_Massachusetts), a town in the northeast corner of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. It has been her family’s tradition for over 20 years to come to “The Island” during summer vacation to rest, relax, and play. Up until the summer Becky and I got married, Becky would go down to the island every summer for the whole summer, along with her brother and mom. Her dad would come down on weekends on the “daddy boat”. After we got married, Becky and I would regrettably go down only on the weekends.

It’s hard to explain the Lowe Martha’s Vineyard experience. It’s not the typical tourist experience, which involves coming down for a weekend to see the sights, eat at restaurants, party at night, and stay at the inns. The Lowe experience involves relaxing afternoons sitting on the swing in front of the cottage… walking down to the beach for a swim… having a home cooked meal on the picnic table in the yard… taking the kayak out into the pond. I didn’t get it when I first came to the island – I was looking for the typical tourist experience, and that just wasn’t what the Lowes were about. Eventually I grew to love it for what it was… a retreat from the bustle of the real world.

You can see [photos from this past weekend](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2006/vineyard_july_7-9/) on the island. Becky and Catherine are staying down there all this week, and I’ll be joining them once again, on the “daddy boat”, this coming weekend.

Star-Spangled Baby

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Some of you already found [these](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/baby/july_4_2006/), but on July 4, Catherine wore a one-time-only onesie:

ppp|Star-Spangled Baby|ppp

You can see the rest of her photo shoot [here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/baby/july_4_2006/). 🙂

Dinner With The Rainvilles

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On Wednesday evening of last week, Becky, Catherine, and I drove up to York, Maine to have dinner with [Jenny](http://raingirl3179.livejournal.com/) and her parents. They were staying at a condo which they rent for a week every summer. The Rainvilles treated us to a delicious dinner at a local Chinese/Japanese restaurant, as well as lots of good conversation. I did take some [photos](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2006/dinner_with_the_rainvilles/), but alas, none of them prominently featured Jenny or her family. I really must get better at remembering to take photos of *everyone* when we go places.

Recent Acquisitions

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Things wear out, things stop working. So I’ve recently made a couple of acquisitions.

First, new shoes: [Hi-Tec Multiterra 2 Sport](http://www.hi-tec.com/category.php?styleId=3744&colourId=11009) (color as pictured), for everyday and summer excursion wearing. They have a system of criss-crossing shoelaces that allow me to tie them up tight. And they have squishy rubber soles to minimize bone-crushing impact when I am walking. They also have convenient pull-tabs on the heels to make it easier to put them on. Finally, they are made of a breathable material so that my sweaty feet do not suffocate as they would in, say, a sealed neoprene sock. Oh, the wonders of modern footwear.

Second, a new cell phone: [Sanyo RL-4930](http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/handsets/index.cfm?productID=1219). Towards the end of last week, my trusty [Sanyo SCP-8100](http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/handsets/previous_models/index.cfm?productID=946) suddenly lost its ability to receive a signal. I took it over to the Sprint Store, and they said that they couldn’t fix the problem (their first question was “Did you take it out of the country?” Um…. nope! It was sitting on our counter one night, and all of a sudden it stopped working!) They offered to give me a reconditioned replacement SCP-8100, which would cost me $50. The other option was to get a $150 rebate on a brand new phone, so I decided to take that. I liked the RL-4930 because it was small, rugged, and feature-packed… it does cool stuff like recording up to 130 minutes of voice memos, speech recognition (you can say “Dial Number 555-1212” and it will dial it), and speakerphone (not a groundbreaking feature, but a feature that I’ve never had on a cell phone). Also, should I ever decide to sign up for Sprint’s “ReadyLink” push-to-talk feature, this phone is compatible. (Anybody have Sprint ReadyLink?) It continues to have the excellent user interface that I have come to know and love in Sanyo phones. It doesn’t have a camera, but that’s okay… I’ve never met an affordable camera phone that I liked. I ended up paying $30 for this new phone. Good deal!

Catherine is on the grow!

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ppp|Catherine and Mom

Catherine and Mom at Lynch Park

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So, my first week back at work after two weeks off is almost over. It’s been hard to leave Catherine and Becky at home… I’d gotten used to being able to see them all the time. However, I know that getting back into a routine will be good for everybody.

Catherine had her one-month checkup on Wednesday, and the doctor reported that she is doing just great! She was up to 9 pounds 15 ounces, which is a 2 pound 1 ounce gain in 16 days… just over 2 ounces per day! She has also grown from 22 to 23 inches in length… an inch in a little over two weeks. That’s pretty spectacular! Becky is doing a great job of feeding Catherine, and it’s showing.

Tonight, we went to Lynch Park to take Catherine for a stroll… the weather was cool and breezy, and very nice for a walk. You can see photos from our trip [here](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/baby/lynch_park_june_29/).

Becky has also taken a few pictures while she’s been at home with Catherine. These ones highlight some of her [sleeping](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/baby/home_catherine/IMG_0145.JPG.html) [positions](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/d/2/36791/IMG_0146.JPG). 🙂

Better Living Through Email

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A while back, I read an article in the Christian Science Monitor entitled, “[It’s all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood](http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p13s01-stct.html)”. In this article, contributor Daniel Enemark writes, “In a world where businesses and friends often depend upon e-mail to communicate, scholars want to know if electronic communications convey ideas clearly.” The scholars in question conclude that email doesn’t adequately convey emotion, which leads to emails being misunderstood. While I do agree that an email doesn’t contain all of the same visual cues, vocal tones, and subtleties that face-to-face or telephone conversations possess, I don’t agree that this is the primary reason emails are so easily misunderstood.

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