My Son Arrives

Today, my second child, my son, was born.

What a day. Mrs. Lock was scheduled for a c-section. When I first arrived this morning, the surgery staff informed me that I could not be present for the operation. This bit of news was like being stabbed. I was there for our daughter's c-section almost three years ago but I was going to miss my son's? Who was going to explain to him that I have pictures of his sister's birth but not his?

I decided to fight the decision.

First, I registered my complaint with the RN assigned to my wife. She said she would ask.

Next, we were paid a visit by the anesthesiologist (one of them anyway). After he went over his plan and asked for any questions, I brought up my plea with him. He said he did not see a problem with it and would check with his staff.

After him, the surgeon who would be performing the operation came to our room. I did not hesitate to let her know my desire but she said it wasn't up to her. Not up to the surgeon!? Clearly, a higher power didn't want me there.

I brought up my OR experience (I worked six months in the surgery department of a hospital to make money for school). I was told by the anesthesiologist that would help my case. I was told by the surgeon that didn't matter. She said that if there were to be an issue with the procedure, I interrupted her and said, "then I would leave." I don't think they expected this because they didn't seem to have a reply to it.

After everyone left, a surgical tech came to get my wife for surgery. I was told that if my presence was approved, they would come get me in about a half hour.

So I'm in my bunny suit that the OB gave me. If you've never seen one, it's a light cloth full body suit with a zipper in the front. It's called a bunny suit because it's completely white. It's like wearing a mosquito net. I'm dressed in it up to my neck with my head cover and cloth slippers that cover my shoes. I wait patiently in Mrs. Lock's room for them to come get me... if they come and get me.

Forty five minutes went by and I started to get worried. I turned my focus to wishing all was going well and that I would get to see my new son soon. A few minutes later, a nurse showed up and offered to escort me to the OR. I jumped at the offer.

We get down to the OR, downstairs on a lower level (I don't think we walked fast enough) and the woman at the front desk says I can't come in with that on. They don't like my bunny suit! I looked at her. The nurse escorting me looks at her. She tells me that I'm going to need OR scrubs instead.

"Well, let's make it quick then," I said.

She reaches into the desk drawer and hands me a set of keys and directs me to the men's locker room upstairs above the OR.

This is where my apprehension starts to escalate. They're waiting for me in the OR, and now I have to make a change of wardrobe.

I fly up the steps to the men's locker room. It's locked. The set of keys that were handed to me has 3 key cards on it. I try all 3, none of them work. I scanned them too fast. I went through them again a little slower, and I got one of them to work. I'm in.

My OR experience comes in handy here. Many OR changing rooms are alike so I'm feeling confident I'll find my way around this one. At the OR I worked at, the scrubs sat on a shelf, categorized by size. You just pulled what you wanted off the shelf, stuff your street clothes in a locker and off you go. I started looking for this shelf as soon as I stepped inside the locker room. I went up and down the aisles a couple of times. No shelf! Eventually I noticed this large metal box sitting in the middle of the room. It's about as tall as I am (6 feet), has an LCD screen on it and a keypad. It also has some lettering on it that I am now forgetting. But it had the word scrubs in it. Scrubs o Matic or something slogan like. It's a giant scrubs vending machine! No shelf, indeed! I don't know how to work this? You need a degree to operate this thing.

I start pressing buttons randomly, choosing options on the screen that I hope will net me my prize. Why not just install a grappling hook, a joystick and let me fish the scrubs out for a quarter?

It asks for a keycard. I start scanning in the three on my keychain. It beeps at me a lot. I'm getting lots of errors since I am an amateur scrubs vending machine operator. There's nothing else I can do but keep scanning my key cards and randomly push buttons. Eventually I get something to work. I hear a click. A door down near my legs swings open and crammed inside a small metal shelf is a scrubs suit.

I yank it out of there, slam the door shut, rip off my bunny suit and I do mean rip, take my street clothes off as fast as they'll drop and try on my new blue uniform.

What I neglected to notice while I was randomly hitting buttons to have my scrubs dispensed was the size. I don't know if this is the default setting or the last setting used, but apparently, my new suit, according to the tag, is X Small. It wouldn't fit a pixie! And not just small mind you, EXTRA small. I'm over 6 foot, 200 lbs plus.

Tiny scrubbles. I'm in a huge hurry so with a deep breath, I yank and pull on the pants that were made for an Olympic gymnast. With no room at the crotch area, I was going to sound like one too.

Result? Not even close. They don't even make it past my thighs, so the hips were out of the question. Since I'm pretty sure washcloth-sized shirts and pants dropped to your thighs isn't accepted dress code in hospital operating rooms, I have to go back and figure out how to get something closer to my size.

I spend a couple more frantic minutes at the machine trying to figure it out. In my off hours when I'm not waiting on my children to be delivered, I maintain multi-billion dollar computer infrastructures and networks for a federal administration. Very technical stuff that doesn't scare me. Machines are fun. As for this contraption that needs to dress me, surely I can figure this out. I HAVE to figure this out.

I can't figure this out.

During my fiddling, another guy walked in the locker room getting ready to leave for the day. I swallowed my pride and asked for help. I approach the guy in my underwear (remember I couldn't put those pants on and I wasn't about to waste precious seconds getting my own jeans back on) asking him for help. He politely escorts me back to the scrubs machine to show me how it's operated. He gets me to scan my card in and shows me where I can pick my size. I select large and thank him for his help. My new suit opens in a different door. I rip that out and with much success and sweat, finally don them.

I'd say 15 minutes has passed from the time I've left the room until now. It has felt like hours.

I cram my street clothes and the tiny dancer scrubs into some random unlocked locker. Steal my clothes, I don't care. I rush downstairs to get to my wife.

I return the keys to the OR front desk and ask them where OR 4 is located. She tells me down the hall, make a right.

That's where I go, down the hall, made a right. I start looking at the room numbers: OR 10, OR 11, OR 16. I'm going the wrong way! I am getting frantic now. Maybe I'll just lie in a fetal position on the floor until someone finds me. That sounded pretty good about then.

I turned around and started heading back. I stopped a nurse in the hallway to ask where OR 4. By this point, I'm thinking they've already delivered, I've missed everything, she's probably out of surgery, through recovery and back in her hospital room. Forget that. She's probably already packed and gone home with the baby. They're at home watching TV wondering where I'm at. All of this was for nothing. The nurse gladly escorts me to OR 4.

As we approach the room, she asks me to wait outside for a minute to find out if I am allowed to enter. She returns after a few seconds to tell me I'm too early and they will let me in shortly. Early?! I just spent a fortnight trying to get down here! Fortunately though, I didn't miss anything.

After a few minutes, a nurse comes out and lets me into the room. There are no less than 16 people in this room now. It could've been more like 20 but it's hard to count that many people moving around in one room. We are delivering at a med school hospital, so I imagine some are students. Some are on the c-section team, the anesthesiologists (plural), the nursery staff, some are here to intervene if Mrs. Lock's tumors start acting up. Some are just here to witness the surgery of a patient with pheochromocytoma tumors, being as rare as it is.

They gave me a stool and let me sit next to my wife at the head of the operating table. They've got a tent of sterile paper covering her upper body. Patients who are awake during surgery aren't allowed to see what's going on down there. She acknowledged me, seemed a bit pale and nervous. Given the amount of drugs in her system, this could just be a physical reaction. The room was packed. I was crammed in between the nursery team, the anesthesiologist team and my wife. It was a love triangle.

I managed to snake my hand into the paper tent and close it around hers. She had the pulse meter clipped to that hand so it was an awkward union but just the touch of the flesh was enough for me to say 'I'm here with you.'

The anesthesiologists were chatting it up with me. They asked me what hospital I worked at, what I did there. We were just shooting the breeze while the surgery team excavated my wife. And excavate is a good term. They even have miner helmets with a little light on top.

Spelunking anyone?

I found out later from my wife, the person who did not want me in the OR during the procedure was standing right behind me with the anesthesiologists. She was in charge of the room. My wife knows this because as they were wheeling her to the OR, she asked her if I could attend the procedure. The woman sighed, got very serious and told her that she guessed I could attend but that she was not going to talk to me and at any time during the procedure, she could eject me from the room and also added that she would not hesitate to call security to enforce her will.

Ok lady!

It's hard to believe that this is the same woman who was talking my ear off the whole time. She was very friendly, very inquisitive about my background. Very forthcoming about medical knowledge. She was talking so much, I wanted to tell her to pipe down so I could visit with my wife and watch the procedure. Maybe I'm just that charming. Or maybe she's bipolar. I didn't care. I got what I wanted.

I heard someone say here we go. That was my cue to stand up and start filming. I didn't ask anyone if I could film. I wasn't even allowed to be here. I was just going to start shooting and if someone objected, first I'd stall as long as I could but eventually I'd oblige. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

No one objected. I got the whole thing on tape (old man term for SD card). They pulled my son from his mother, yelled out a warning to the nursery crew that a giant was being born and quickly put him in the warmer bed to be cleaned up and weighed. I'm still filming at this point and did so until they weighed him. It was several minutes at least, then I turned off the camera to soak in what just happened. He was born at 11:20am (give or take 3 minutes) on 12/3/07.

I smelled something caustic. They've turned on the wood burner tool to begin the procedure of fixing my wife. I kept my attention on my new son.

The way the warmer bed was positioned, my wife couldn't get a good look at him. The bed sat on her left and down a little so that the paper draped over her blocked the view, that paper and the 20 people in the room. I took some pictures with the camera, and showed them to her on the digital screen.

After they got him weighed (10 pounds) and cleaned up, they asked me if I wanted to hold him. I checked with my wife for the okay, which she gave, and enthusiastically summoned the nurse to put him in my arms. We didn't get to do this with our daughter. I was holding my son minutes after he was born. With him in my arms, I was able to show him to his mother, up close, face to face. Tears of joy start flowing. She's happy to see him alive and well.

I return our son to the nursery team. They need to run him up to special care nursery to be checked out. After a few minutes, my wife starts to complain about something. I don't remember what she said, she was getting too cold or she felt really really bad. The anesthesiologists check the displays and acknowledged something was going on. Someone else was ripping open IV bags and getting them hung as quickly as they could. The RN who tended to my wife in her hospital room who was also in the OR, told me it was time to go.

I understood and went willingly with a bit of nervousness. I had complete faith in the doctors that were caring for my wife. I knew all would be well. I just wanted someone to tell me when.

I went back up to the room and by this time, all of the parents were there. They wanted to see the baby. I was under explicit orders from the Mom that no one was to hold the baby until she had the opportunity herself. I was going to enforce this rule with military command. But that didn't stop me from going to visit him in the nursery. I left the family behind in the room and spent some time with my son. I was still waiting word from my wife so I kind of had my thoughts split while I sat with my son who was passed out in the warmer bed in front of me. I talked to him, played with his tiny fingers a little. I was there for about 20 minutes, then decided to go back to the room and wait on my wife.

I don't remember how much time had passed. Probably an hour or so after I left her in the OR. They finally wheeled my wife back to her room. She was groggy from recovery but was in good spirits knowing she and her son came through the procedure successfully. We visited with all the parents in the room for some time and eventually they wheeled our new arrival into the room. Finally, mom got to see her son and hold him close. We all stood around watching as he was placed on her chest. My wife was very glad to see him and hold him.

That's it. The kid got passed around to everyone, lots of photos taken.

Little did we know at that time though, the hospital wasn't going to let us go so easily. Something was very wrong with our son.

Part II: Hirschsprung

What's In A Name?

Oh man what a year.

So Mrs. Lock is closing in on birthing our second child, a boy. I say closing in, he's due in 3 days. I wish I would've posted more about the pregnancy but it's been a pretty standard one. It was a lot of fun to experience it all with our first child, but now it's old hat.

In fact, Mrs. Lock says she likes being pregnant! Since we're done after this one, she has said she is going to miss it.

Three days before the game, and we're still discussing names. I wanted to name our first child, Tumor since it functions like one, but since Mrs. Lock is growing actual tumors in her body, this is no longer appropriate.

For this child, I wanted to named him Oden, after the Viking supreme being. She's considering it but we both have veto rights and I have vetoed plenty of suggestions she's made. Maybe she's making suggestions she doesn't even like to make it appear I'm being difficult about this.

She's made a couple of suggestions I do like but I only like them because it's along the same vein as me wanting to name him Oden. Only she doesn't know that until I mention why I like it, then she no longer likes it. She really liked the name Griffin. I did too, but because it's the surname of a famous TV family on a show called Family Guy: Peter, Lois, Stewie, Meg, Chris and Brian, she has changed her mind.

So now what I'm doing is when she begins to suggest names that the inner-child in me likes and not necessarily the responsible adult would go for, I am keeping the story behind the name to myself and agreeing that yes, it is a nice name. She'll find out as soon as we get his name inked on that birth certificate.

In talking of life, and a reminder that the Universe is balance, I have to mention that last Thursday, on Thanksgiving night, my Grandma Lock passed away. She was 89. Rest in peace as you always did in life. I miss you.

Nonpreferred Customer

I wrote (emailed) my credit card company, outlining for them the security holes they have on their website login. It's ridiculous that a supposed "premier" financial institution has such weak security for their website.

I ended the email with "I'm not comfortable using your website until you rectify these security concerns."

I got a response. I should say I got a link to a response. The email reply told me to log into the message center on the website to read their reply.

Ouch.

Top 10 Video Games

Talking to a friend about our top five favorite video games. I gotta make this list and expand it by 100%

First, the criteria for being a personal fave:

• That wow factor (and I don't mean World of Warcraft). It's gotta hook me instantly as soon as I see it. This tends to rule out sequels as I've seen it before, but there are some exceptions.

• I tune out the world around me as I play it. If my house is on fire around me, I'm not going to notice and death is likely to occur.

• Addictive as crack. It's got to make me shed my responsibilities in this so-called real world, whatever that is, because I have to play the game. If the game resides at a friend's house, it makes me visit the friend under the guise of caring for that friend, but in actuality, I'm thinking about loading that game; oh why won't he shut up so I can go play my beloved game. I missed you game at my friend's house.

• D) When it's over, I come back to do it all over again. These tend to be the titles I have played repeatedly and they never get old.

Maniac Mansion (C64)














This was the game at the friends house. 5 1/4" disk too. A computer store in the mall called Babbages sold this title and every time I was in there, I picked it up, looked at the box, thought about buying it, but put it back. Why buy the cow when you get the milk at some guy's house.

I was all over this game like a kid on video games. Good graphics, good mystery plot line. Hot 8-bit chicks. A nerd (Bernard) I couldn't relate to because he was a bigger nerd than I was. I still remember that loose brick in the basement that got you out, the rusty grate that would get you in and tentacle that wanted to be in a rock band.



Doom (PC)
















Who didn't love Doom? Before that, there was only one real FPS made by the same group. I spent countless hours on Castle Wolfenstein. I even made my own maps. But Doom was eerie with occult themes and creatures could be above you now, reigning down their terror in pseudo-3d. Plus the BFG was just fun to use on the rare occasions you had ammo for it.

I made maps for this game too. I wonder where they're at?



Diablo 2 (PC)
















Did anyone like Act 3? No one I knew liked it, but we muddled through it like the dreaded Act 3 in most Hollywood movies. Precursor to the drug known as World of Warcraft. This was the cigarettes before nicotine. The chocolate before sugar. The Robin before Batman.

This met criteria A of my list to be a favorite because D2 was another animal compared to D1. It really wasn't a sequel. It was this game called Diablo 2, the first and only in a series of games called Diablo 2. That was Diablo, this is Diablo 2. What? No, never mind the number.



Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)

















Holy crap! Did I just run over that guy? Freedom to make my own moral choices? Are they allowed to do that? God bless Rockstar Games! And a kicking soundtrack to boot. To date, there's never been a better game soundtrack than Vice City. Obviously a child of the 80's would say that. "Next up, Meester Meester."

San Andreas is the better of the GTA titles, but it didn't meet criteria A. A child born too late.



Resident Evil 4 (Xbox)
















I didn't think I would get the control system down, but it became comfortable as I progressed. The feeling to survive is a great incentive to learn any unfamiliar system. I talk about this game in more detail in an older post.

This sequel gets included because I didn't play RE's 1-3. It'd probably still win even if I did.



Magic Carpet (PC)

















A young Peter Molyneux title, before he made games like Dungeon Keeper, Black & White and Fable. It's exactly what the title implies. You fly around on a magic carpet bombarding the landscape below you. Sound boring? It was very intricate. You had dozens of spells to reign down. You could build castles, burn enemies and dog fight in mid air. Lot of fun. Wish I could still load this DOS game in XP.

I think it'd be great if he updated this title to current graphic standards and rereleased it.



The Last Ninja (C64)














Third dimension viewpoint. Instead of running NSEW, you ran NE, NW, SE, SW.

You're a ninja, you better be sure-footed. Great midi music too. I'd catch myself singing it in falsetto.


World of Warcraft (PC)

















I could fill up my blog's hard drive writing about this game. It's probably the video game title that's taken the most of my time. No, not probably - it is.

Last time I checked, I had 60 days playing time. That's 1440 hours.

I don't need to describe this game, odds are, you've played it.


Half-Life (PC)
















Another FPS like Doom but major upgrade. The real world weapons were a first in the FPS I had experience with and it was kinda fun to use rocket launchers that actually looked like rocket launchers. Plus TRUE 3d! Good plot, good graphics. Lot of fun. Played it again as soon as I finished it.



Age of Empries II: Age of Kings (PC)
















My love of RTS started with a title called Command & Conquer but it didn't meet criteria A for RTS until I got to AoE: AoK. I wasn't hooked on C&C like I was on AoE. Who doesn't love building up forces just to unleash a massacre? Forget the win, you want to dominate.


That's my list. So why no Atari titles? I do remember the Atari days. I had a lot of favorite games on there but those games tended to be repetitious. I remember playing Pac-man on the Atari 5200 until I reached the key stage where a power pellet left the ghosts permanently blue (until you ate one). Just try avoiding them! I spent a lot of time in that game but the nature of the environment, keeps it off my top 10 list.

Other Honorable Mentions:

Street Fighter II
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Myst
Goldeneye (N64)
Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Quake 1
Quake 2
Populous 3: The Beginning
Morrowind
Dungeon Siege

Treat or Treat

I remember when I was 11, I went trick or treating around the apartment complex. I was getting a good haul of candy that night. Apartments are great for that, plenty of targets to hit to load up on as much product as you can carry. I came upon one door and knocked. A middle-aged gentle man (middle-aged to an 11 year old could have meant he was only 23) answered as was the custom on such a night and according to the ritual I answered what every kid answers on Halloween.

TRICK OR TREAT!

The man kneels down, lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. He's got some sort of metal object in one hand and a tool of some sort in another. He touches the tool to the metal rod then pulls it slowly away as an electric arc appears, stretching from the tool to the object. It made a neat noise, it's firework-like properties looked cool. Even a young kid can appreciate the ozone smell that wafted from the event...but where's my candy? You know candy? Candy, sir? Candy that our generation begs for every year.

To my awe, I began to realize, he didn't have any. He said something like "Isn't that cool," or "There you go" and closed his door, waiting until the next sucker. Mmmm, a sucker would be good right about now. Wait a diddly darn minute!

I GOT TRICKED!

In a daze, I moved on to neighbors willing to give me what I really wanted. People who knew this dance. People who knew what was required of them to satisfy a young lad such as my self.

Time marched on. I went on a couple more annual Halloween trips but soon, I was done. As the years went by, even the years when I was too old to go anymore, I still thought of that guy who showed me a spark instead of giving me the treat. And as I got older, I analyzed the phrase "Trick or Treat" and I started to realize what it really meant. It's a demand, but it's a demand with options. The man technically fulfilled his obligation by providing me a trick of all things, without the treat. I actually began to retroactively support this man for bucking the system, for fighting the power, for pointing out to kids that they should pay attention to the words coming out of their mouths, to think before they speak and to take responsibility for their verbal messages.

For years I secretly supported this anonymous man who I'd never met again after that fateful night. He was just as right as the those candy dispatchers to do what he did.

But time kept marching and when I reached adulthood, I started to question that faith in a new way. I was freakin' 11! Did he expect 11 year-olds to know that trick or treat didn't always mean treat? Did he think we were professors? Did he think we cared? No! I went completely the other way on this man years after that traumatic event. How dare he assume I knew what I was asking for! I was a kid! That was pretty jerky behavior now that I think about it. Doesn't he know that's how homes get egged?

Regardless of his intention and competence though, it's the one Halloween encounter I've always remembered.

In Rainbows

I bought the new Radiohead CD, In Rainbows. Here's the thing, it's only available online, on a website right now. I felt weird calling it a CD. It's not a CD given he medium it's stored on. I guess it's an album but even that term refers to large, black discs at one time. Music compilation? Tracks? Songs? Ok, I just bought In Rainbows.

There's no price either. No MSRP. No retail, no discount. It is donation only. It's whatever you think you should pay for the alb-er musical compilation. I paid £3 (Radiohead is a UK band). After credit card charge of about 50 pence, that's about $7 with the current exchange rate.

I thought for a second about the poor sap Americans, a very hefty portion of the music-buying market, not knowing the exchange rate or worse yet, not noticing the £ on the price prompt. If someone thinks he should pay 10 for the download and thinks he's entering dollars, he'll end up paying $20 for it. $15, the average price of a CD in this country would be $30 out of pocket for ten tracks.

This is not a bad method for making money - taking advantage of American exchange rate ignorance - at least until the customer gets his credit card statement.

Radiohead is a great band. I hope this works out for them.

Old Enough To Be President (or Senator)

I've spent half my life waiting on computers. I'm exhausted tonight.

On a day when I celebrate my 35th year on this planet, I wanted to record a few thoughts. It was about a ten minute process from computer boot up, to OS load, to browser initialize and getting the website interface to load to write my thoughts. Sometimes, it just seems better to go back to pen and paper. The life of a Luddite is very appealing on some days.

It is my birthday and I had a very good day. People at work threw me a birthday luncheon with grilled hot dogs, potato salad, chips, beans and chocolate cake. It was nice to have everyone there.

After a long work day, I picked up my daughter from day care and came home. Mrs. Lock had a couple of more presents for me after giving me the big one over a month ago. The early gift was a crimson red and black DS lite. Tonight I received a package of fancy mini-cigars and a beautiful, red-dial wrist watch. I'm staring at it now on my wrist as I write this.

We grilled pork chops on the grill, had mashed potatoes and rolls. And of course Mrs. Lock made her famous white and delectable cake. The bad thing about us having our birthdays less than a week apart are the sweets and loads of left over cake we try to wade through. Bad bad bad for the waist line.

I was putting my daughter bed tonight. It's funny the rituals kids at her age (2 1/2) implement.The fact they have any habitual behavior outside of the instinctive needs is interesting. What, in evolution, gave two-year-olds the need to be repetitive about non-survival behavior? It seems like it would be important to the learning process but it doesn't seem very efficient.

Daughter Lock has this thing after she's in bed, to sign off as you're leaving her room. She has to say, in no certain order: "Bye" "I love you" and recently added to the repertoire "Good night" Sometimes these phrases are mentioned repeatedly. It has to be done every night or something might happen. We don't know what that something is because she's never tried to go to sleep without saying those things. Maybe she couldn't go to sleep. I doubt that. Maybe there's a bomb under her bed and certain key phrases have to be mentioned to disarm the bomb and she knows all of this. Whatever the reason, it's very important to her.

She has this other thing. She has associated "I'll be back" with "Goodbye." Nothing unusual if she is the one leaving, but if someone is leaving from her, it's a bit strange for her to yell out, "I'll be back." And she'll continue to yell it out until you respond with the exact thing she just said.

All very cute and mysterious mannerisms.

Mrs. Lock just asked me what time of the day I was born. It was in the nine o'clock hour. But I was born in Anchorage, Alaska. About a 5 hour difference from the timezone I live in now. Which means, as she pointed out, I was actually born October 10th EST (tomorrow).

No more cake please.

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad."
-- James Madison

Art

If someone imitates another's idea, it's a rip off. But if enough people do it, it becomes a genre.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
--Bertrand Russell