Three Faces of Finn

Finn asleep:


Finn awake:


Finn in action:

bathtime series

four x finn

if macgyver had a baby, he'd devise an ad hoc pacifier, too.

linksys kicked my ass

In a virtuoso display of obsessiveness, I spent the entire day yesterday unsuccessfully trying to set up an ethernet bridge to link our classic iMac G3 to our wireless network. That'd be in the neighborhood of eight to ten hours lost forever in a fog of distraction, while Finnian, unnoticed, sprinted past developmental milestone after milestone. The insane crabbiness is fading away now, but it was touch and go there for a while. Wife, child, and dog huddled behind the couch for safety while the ugly obsessive fireworks show quietly unfolded. The litany of woes went something like this:

1. Linksys touted their device as being platform agnostic. Works with everything! No drivers to install! Easy! Whip the QuickInstall disc in. . . and it's configured as a PC-only installation wizard. No documentation included for Mac. But no problem. . .
2. There are plenty of forums out there with ad hoc instructions. Change ethernet settings to connect manually to the bridge, configure the bridge, and switch back to DHCP. Easy. . .
3. Except that the bridge inexplicably refuses to send an IP address. And thus begins endless hours of rebooting, tweaking, and ping-ponging between ethernet settings. The forum chatter is vociferous and passionate but fails to shed light. The leading theory is that a firmware upgrade left Mac users out in the cold---the iMaculate rejection. Note to all you neo-networkers out there: Abandon hope, all ye who enter http://192.168.1.226.

There comes a time when the only remaining option is to cut your losses and walk away. That time came about 4 pm yesterday afternoon, then again 11pm last night, and one more time about noon today. But it's really and truly over now, I promise. The device is back in the box, waiting for the UPS guy, or for the bonfire flames to get high enough, whichever comes first. Despite Linksys' nefarious efforts, we've managed to solve our little home networking problem by moving the iMac and wireless modem closer to the phone jack.



To add insult to injury, we realized we missed Arcade Fire on Austin City Limits last Saturday.

the remuneration of the generous

Brace yourselves, gentle readers. Schwillig! been comment-spammed again, this time by Brazilian telecommers. We were sorely tempted by their offer ("Accurately this that your read, is paying you to connect."). Paying us to connect? Hell yeah! But cooler heads prevailed and we deleted that sucker.

The text is now available in the Babel Fish English edition, a sensitive translation that captures the earthiness and urgent cadences of the original Portuguese. References to specific websites have been redacted for your protection and ours.

Oi, I found its blog for google is well interesting I liked this post. It would like to speak on the [REDACTED]Net. The [REDACTED]Net is a dialed supplier of InterNet that remunerates its users for the hardwired time. Accurately this that you read, is paying you to connect. The paid supplier 20 cents for the moment of connection dialed with local linking for more than 2100 cities of Brazil. The [REDACTED]Net has a connection accelerator, that leaves its faster connection up to 10 times. Who uses broad band can also profit, is enough to register in cadastre itself in the [REDACTED]Net and when it will be to sleep to connect for dialed, it is possible to pay the ADSL alone with the money of the dialed one. In the schedules of only minute the expense with telephone is minimum and the remuneration of the generous [REDACTED]Net. If you I to want to linkar [REDACTED]Net in its blog I would be been thankful, until more and success. If is possible add the [REDACTED]Net in your blogroll, I thank. Good bye friend

When we take that vacation to Rio, I bet they'd put us up in an oceanside villa if we add them to our blogroll.

thanksgiving

This is an open video love letter to all of you from all of us here at the Finnian Show. We're thankful for your help, gifts, visits, calls, emails, hotdishes, and brownies. Happy thanksgiving.

inflation

A year ago, we were in misty Manhattan wandering among the helium tanks and the flaccid Scoobys and Snoopys. Our first night in town, we headed over to Central Park West for the great inflation ceremony, the precursor to the next day's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. All the balloons slated to be flying in the parade are laid out on the perimeter of the American Museum of Natural History, and then the jump-suited helium crews descend to do their dirty work while the adoring masses stroll by.

Not long after this, we began a nine-month inflation ceremony of our own.

The boy is on my lap hiccuping; he thinks that's a pretty funny comment.

To commemorate the anniversary, I think we'll pick up some balloons and blow them up tonight.

a boy and his dog/a dog and her boy

grandpaparazzi

A gallery of new Finn photos, courtesy of Grandpa.

huckleberry finn

Thanks to everyone for all the visits, calls, emails, comments, and good wishes. After delivery, we moved to another wing of the hospital that had no wireless signal. Since this was an unacceptable situation, we had words with the management and took our little show home in a huff.

Okay, just kidding. We are home now, but not because of our wireless addiction. Aside from needing a nap after graciously accepting visitors all day and eating and crying all night, all is well with Finn and his parents.

Feast your eyes on the huckleberry.

welcome to the world, sleepy little boy

Finnian Peter
5:14pm
11.16.07
6lbs 3oz
19 inches
purple feet
lots of black curly hair
happy family

UPDATE: Scratch that bit about curly hair. After his first bath, the hair uncurled and has now settled down into what his mother is describing as "muppet fur."

news flash: we've been admitted

Good morning. We're at the hospital. As we speak, sweet wife is hooked up to an antibiotic IV and wrapping up a medical history Q & A with our nurse Diane. Our publicist is out in the lobby holding a press conference with the jackals and paparazzi.

We had our weekly appointment this morning and were routed right over to Labor & Delivery. 4 cm dilation, real live contractions, the whole shebang. There was momentary doubt about whether the baby was in the right head-down position, but a quick ultrasound clarified that. So here we go.

Our second-floor room overlooks the pebbled roof of United's emergency room entrance. We're literally right behind the pointy decorative triangle.

Kelly is enjoying a hearty breakfast of red jello.

you(terus)tube: a pre-enactment

This stunning, lushly filmed cinematic masterpiece envisions and interrogates our preconceptions of conception and beyond, showing us the gritty realities of life in utero. Sample Bear turns in a convincing Teddy Award-nominated performance as Baby Schwillig.

this week is making us stupid.

This week is making us stupid.

So said Kelly while sitting in the car in the driveway, right after I asked her to pull the cord or the lever or the cantilever or whatever the hell you pull to make the car park and stay parked. The parking brake.

On tonight's agenda: figure out how to use the breast pump, that extractor of pure, nutritious motherly goodness. Just to keep things equitable in the gender role department, I'll be down in the basement cleaning cobwebs with the shop-vac.

Word through the grapevine is that the nesting effect is spreading to grandparents and aunts and uncles. Members of the Nesters Auxiliary, keep up the good work. There is much painting and cleaning to be done.

spooky action at a distance

You may have noticed our babyboy poll lurking there in the sidebar. Please cast your vote if you haven’t already.

The poll is symptomatic of a larger problem: that is, while we have a solid lock on girl names, the boy names are proving to be slippery and elusive (note to self: “Morpheus” aint bad). A certain family member has floated a controversial gender-assignment theory that may shed some light on our indecision. The theory agues that, while in utero and right up to the moment of birth, babies are just floating, glowing balls of gender-indeterminate energy, and that their physical selves aren’t fully expressed until they’re directly observed. This could be seen as a kind of gestational derivative of Bell’s Theorem (note to self: add “Bell” to list), or related to the notion of quantum entanglement---what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” Call it epistemological wishy-washiness, or just-in-time cosmic decision-making.

"Einstein". . . that's not bad, either.

The ball-of-energy theory further proposes that, with concentration and serious body english, we can influence whether the baby turns out to be a girl or boy. This opens up a whole Pan/Pandora's box of questions about getting what you wish for versus wishing for what you get. We will studiously avoid that whole debate and instead concentrate on coming up with more baby names. I'm really liking Einstein.

nester for hire

Well, a certain someone woke up today bursting with energy and perky as hell. After three solid days of nonstop nesting, you'd think Kelly would be tired. . . but apparently not. Since we've now completely exhausted the nesting possibilities in our little house (baby books shelved, floors vacuumed, dog bathed, etc.), it's time to move this show to work. She plans to de- and reconstruct her cubicle today, plus much cleaning, polishing, and organizing. After her own cube is in perfect order, she'll move on to her coworkers'.

We should harness this powerful, elemental force and use it for profit. Premium nesting services at a reasonable fee. Act now! This offer may only be available for a short time.

all quiet on the westside front

Well. Nothing much happening, other than that we've been sleeping with a kind of quiet desperation. We're beginning to think Friday was just the baby's warning shot across our bow. HEY! I'M COMING! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER! 36 hours later, our act is shakily holding together (pay no attention to the duct tape and twine, please). The crib is assembled, the laundry's done, the leaves are raked, the bags are packed.

A confession. We went to BabiesRUs last night to return some stuff and buy some other stuff, and not only didn't the world end, it was actually quite pleasant. We were greeted by a friendly woman at the registry desk who helpfully directed us to Guest Services. This ran counter to our expectations. We thought that upon entering the store we'd be immediately caught in a man-trap net dropped from the ceiling, surrounded by chanting associates in gowns and vestments embroidered with cute giraffes and duckies and led by an assistant manager trainee named Greg who would imperiously wave a ceremonial rattle-shaped BabiesRUs sceptre, and carted away to a featureless, fluorescent-lit back room where we'd be relentlessly programmed into buying carloads of unnecessary plastic crap. But it wasn't like that at all. Greg was very nice and patient; he only made us repeat the BabiesRUs Creed ("I believe in the sanctity of child restraint safety systems, in the holy trinity of Graco, Evenflo, and Boppy; I believe in the accessorization of infants and toddlers. . . ") twenty times before releasing us, instead of the usual fifty recitations. We'll be going back.

birthwatch

. . . and welcome back to BirthWatch 2007. The preceding message was brought to you by Evenflo.

Not much action to report at the moment. After last night's fireworks and frenzy of nesting behavior, birthin' progress has ground to a halt. As Markle Sparkle says, we've been downgraded to Def-Con 2. We're learning a lot by watching This Old House reruns. Especially thrilling: the profile gauge, which allows the user to instantly trace the outlines of whatever curvy or irregular shape you have handy. No shortage of curviness around here.

The crib brigade swooped to the rescue earlier with a home delivery. The cats would like to extend their deep appreciation for what they expect will become their sumptuous new sleeping quarters.

The dog has been on high alert all day. Will the suspense never end?

Our trusty friend Sample Bear has offered to fill in as understudy for carseat practice. Looking good, Sample Bear.

Now we're watching the Weapons of Independence Armageddon Destruction Day Channel's Saturday Night Movie. In which a hurtling asteroid threatens our very American way of life, and when the fed's best and brightest are stymied, our planet's only hope is a misfit team of roughneck drillers led by Harry Stamper.

Listen up, baby. You have many life lessons to learn from this man.

"Six billion people on the planet. Why'd you call me?"

Check your math, Bruce. That's six billion and one.