Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 30, 2008
Someone who randomly pops into our life, says something smart, then disappears for awhile, randomly popped into my life via IM today and asked why we weren’t blogging about the current pregnancy very much. So this one’s for Tara, and anyone else wondering…
It’s not a real big mystery. See we’ve been pregnant for the past 2 years, so its lost a lot of intrigue and excitement.
It’s not literally 2 years of course. There was a brief respite in there about 7 months ago, when I had my shapely wife back. But I promptly knocked her up again, and she’s back to cankles, and I’m back to bending at the waist to give her a hug — when we’re both standing up.
Click the image if you’re
considering getting pregnant
yourself.
Yup, pregnancy #2 is progressing about as you’d expect. Better than the first one, in fact, so there hasn’t even been an excuse for an up-to-date ultrasound. The last one showed a nose, mouth and ears, so we’re assuming Abigail will look like a human when she’s done baking. We’ll find out in about 7 weeks.
Aside from a healthy, normal gestation, we’ve had a lot of other, more pressing, issues to focus on…
Thing #1 has had an ear infection for the past 3 months. When Nicole pointed out that it might be affecting his hearing, and thus his language acquisition, we pushed very aggressively to get this dealt with as soon as possible. They originally told us it would be another month before we could even see a specialist, but a phone call from a pushy dad got us in a lot earlier.
The specialist told us about what we already knew, and Benjamin is going to have minor surgery in February to have tubes put in his ears. This is a little scary for us, because it involves a General Anesthetic, which means he’ll be right out for about 20 minutes. But its a pretty routine operation, so we probably have nothing to worry about.
Right now his hearing is a “tiny bit below average” so we’re gonna nip this in the bud before it becomes a problem for him.
So that’s February. Abi’s due in March, but before she arrives we need to get our tax money back, plan for Nic’s move in April and arrange the movers for the big haul in May. Couple that with an upcoming release date at work, and we’re pretty much too busy to worry about things we can’t control. Abi will arrive when she’s ready, and Ben will adapt — kids usually do.
So far he’s doing fine with the belly. Sometimes he pets it like the cat — we’re teaching him “gentle” since he also likes to pull the cats tail. Once he thought it would be funny to smack the belly. He doesn’t think that any more.
We are, of course, looking forward to a bigger family, and to a smaller Nicole, but these things have happened on their own timing for thousands of years, and now that we’ve got the experience well documented, we really only think about it if something unusual happens. And so far it hasn’t…
7 weeks and counting. We’ll be sure to let you all know when it goes down 
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 29, 2008
Last week I downloaded some music from Journey.
Yesterday I was strangely driven to download some from Kansas…
Let me be clear, early 80s music has never before appealed to me. Is this some side effect of aging? Does everyone, at some point in their life, find themselves drawn to the music they might have heard while they were in the womb? Cause I’m listening to ‘Carry on my Wayward Son’ and find it oddly… rockin…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 26, 2008
So-called “global warming” is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!
- Chip Giller
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 25, 2008
We heard a sermon a couple weeks ago about giftedness — about focusing on your primary giftedness, because that’s where God wants to use you most.
Whether I like it or not (and sometimes I don’t) my primary giftedness is technology. Despite everything else I think I am, or wish I was, there will always be people out there who when they see me will think “maybe I can get him to fix my computer…”
So for the next couple months, aside from the incredible amount of work we’re going to have to do for this move (frustratingly, none of which can be started yet), I’ve decided to embrace my inner geek, and focus on what I know I’m strongest at.
But rather than babble about code snippets and hacks (which I have another site for) I’d like to try to talk about the more personal side of being a geek. To communicate the spirit of who we geeks are, and maybe help some people understand what it is about being a nerd that is so compelling.
For example, in most careers you can guess at a person’s successfulness or competence at their job by evaluating their outward appearance: a salesperson who has nice shoes, a good hair cut and who drives a nice car is probably good at their job.
In my field, and in my experience, the inverse is frequently true. The more unruly the hair, or crazy the beard; the more out-of-date the wardrobe; the larger the glasses, the more likely it is that the individual is a sheer genius, and the most brilliant coder you’ve ever met.
Of course that’s a broad generalization. There are some of us geeks who aren’t computer science types, but adequate coders which occasional glimpses of genius, who also happen to have a decent eye for style or design.
And while some engineers’ are so in-tune with the code they develop that they lack basic social skills, some of us, while not as likely to bleed in binary, are able to express solutions both in code and in words. Some of us are even articulate and not entirely socially awkward.
Its the combination of the different skillsets that makes a good team. One such combination, between an awkward but brilliant engineer and an articulate geek, started a company called Apple Computers back in the 70s. And whether or not you use a Mac, because you’re reading this site, you are benefiting from what they wrought.
Back before there was Internet — or at least before you and I could use it — there was the UG and the BBS. A BBS, or bulletin board system, was usually run by a guy who had a computer, a couple phone lines, and a couple modems — although you could run one with only one phone line if you wanted. They functioned as a chat room, a message board, a downloads page and a place to play crude games. Most BBSes used strictly text and keyboard symbols, often in different colors to define the online “world.”
I remember once being given a list of phone numbers that may have been associated with a BBS and ‘war-dialing’ them on my Atari computer (with a 300 baud modem) looking to see what I could find. It was pretty cool to find people on these boards that shared common interests with you, but whom you’d probably never meet.
I did actually meet one System Operator (or SysOp — someone who ran a BBS) who lived near-by when I was about 13. He was deaf, which limited his options in real-life, but online he was a god of his own little empire, respected by his users solely because of what he knew and who he was as a person.
Even better than the BBS, though, was the UG or User Group. Nothing in the new age of the Internet can compare to the UG. If you’ve ever been to a swap meet, you have a small idea of what an UG might be like. I was much too young, in this early age of computers, to drive myself to meetings, but I can remember a couple occasions where my dad drove me to a MUG meeting (Macintosh User Group) in London, and what I remember most was the atmosphere.
A User Group encompasses all levels of geek. There would be little old ladies who dreamed of writing their memoirs on a computer. There would be business people and teachers who wanted to get more organized. There would be hard-core geeks who loved to hack at hardware or at code to make their computers do things the designers never dreamed of. And always there was toys to be found, seen, traded or discovered.
To this kind of geek, a computer isn’t a device. Its an extension of self. Its a quill in the hand of a poet, or a hammer in the hand of a skilled carpenter, or a piano under the fingertips of a talented musician. It provides a hundred different ways to express yourself — and it invites you to invent a hundred more.
Of course, its a source of constant aggravation when things don’t work as expected, but even in that it is a problem to be solved, a challenge to be tackled, and a way to connect with other people. For every problem your computer presents you, there are, and always have been, a dozen other people who’ve worked through it, and found a solution — or better, a part of a solution that complements what you’ve discovered so that the victory is shared.
A geek is not judged by their appearance, nor by any external factor. We are judged by the elegance and beauty of our solutions. Even on competing platforms, two ideologically different geeks will share the same respect for a righteous hack.
In many ways the Internet, while being the possibly the greatest thing ever invented, has destroyed the geek community. Now that any newbie can get online, there are no rites of passage left, and no proving ground to establish yourself as worthy. Any knowledge-less retard can join in a conversation he doesn’t understand and start a flame war, and “users” are so much more inept than ever before. There’s no passion required, no problem-solving skills necessary to get online any more. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that there’s still a MUG running meetings only a few miles from where I work!
In fact there’s dozens of them still around, and if their websites, devoid of any attempt at marketing or otherwise making them look appealing to the average user, are any indicator, the spirit of the UG of the 80s and early 90s still lives on. The one near me still puts out a newsletter — in dead-tree format, even!
I’m going to next month’s meeting. I’m going to put on my Weezer album (the blue one, from back before they were temporarily cool), dust off the Mac Plus, and geek out like its 1994. And I’m going to enjoy every second of it.
After all, if God made me a geek, why fight it?
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 22, 2008
Well its done. The last difficult conversation has been had, so I can share our news with you all. This likely won’t come as a surprise — to those who don’t already know. But its big for us, and its been important to approach it as the massive challenge that it is…
We’re moving back to Ontario.
Lest this seem anti-climactic given the video — to which I’ll speak later — let me take you back two years and try to communicate what it took to move here in the first place.
We’d entertained the idea of moving to the States for a long time, and in July of 2005 it seemed like that might actually happened. Then our contact dried up. We went on a missions trip together to Asia in August, hoping, but not knowing, if things would start moving again on our return.
In October of that year that contact reconnected with me in earnest, and I began the long interview process. It was almost December when the offer came in officially — more money than I’d ever made, but just barely enough to make the move worth it. We took it, not for the money, but for the adventure, and began probably the most grueling 3 months of our lives.
December was full, not of Christmas, but of runs across the border: getting my Visa status, getting drug-tests, and finding an apartment. Nicole had her hands full arranging a moving company and packing/purging our belongings, since we’d be paying per pound for the move.
The first Sunday in January ‘06 we went to our home church in Ontario for the last time as members, said some good-byes, then took a walk together in the park where we were engaged. After that I got in our brand new SUV and drove the 9 hours alone to a completely empty apartment, with an air mattress, some clothes, and enough dishes for one meal at a time.
I lived there, with my meager belongings (and later a 12″ TV I bought at Walmart after I got my signing bonus — nearly a month after I was expecting it) subsisting mainly on Chunky Soup and Kraft Dinner, for a month while Nicole finished preparations for the move. She ended up getting here a week ahead of our stuff, which got held up in the moving truck by a snow storm. By that point we had a bed and a couple more dishes.
I have never been so broke and scared and alone as when I first got here. This literally was “starting from scratch.” But we had a plan to make it work, and my first order of business was to find a church where we could get involved — a family of believers who could help make this place home. And God provided Northway Church almost immediately. To quote the pastor, we “hit the ground running” getting involved in every way we could. We knew God didn’t send us here for a job, He sent us here to teach us how to Go, and we intended to serve our hearts out and learn everything we could.
And we did. For the better part of 2 years we served and learned and grew. God blessed us while we were here with friends and with a family and with a successful career. And then He made it clear that we were done, and that it was time to go home…
This move will be no easier than the last. Although we’re not moving to a strange new country, there are new challenges that make this unique.
Last time we moved with 0 kids. This time we’ll be moving with 2 — one a newborn.
Last time the cost of the move was offset by $10,000 signing bonus — all of which was required. This time the cost of the move is coming out of our pockets.
Last time I was moving to a new job. This time, we’re not sure what will happen with my job.
Last time my bride and I were separated for a month. This time I’ll be missing my whole family for just as long.
This is no small challenge in front of us. The plan is for Nicole and the kids to move home to her parent’s place about a month after Abigail is born (which is supposed to be around March 20th) and start looking for an apartment for us to live in. She’ll have about a month to find us a place, during which I’ll be arranging the movers and holding down a job here, while sending pretty much the entirety of my pay checks back home to Canada. We plan to use our New York income tax refund to pay for the move itself.
As I said, the outcome for my career is uncertain. I had the difficult conversation with my boss today, and its in his hands to investigate the options and try to arrange what he feels is best for the company. I love my job (although depending on what part of a project cycle I’m in, I may not tell you that) and its our hope that I’m able to continue doing it from Ontario — despite the fact that there is no office near-by. That’s not in my hands right now, however, so the best we can do is pray, and trust God has a plan…
As for why we’re moving home. There are three main reasons that I’ll speak to briefly, for now, although I may need to work them out further in later posts.
The first can be looked at in one of two ways. One way is a little depressing, so to look at it another way: we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. As I said above, we came here to learn and to serve. We would have kept doing that forever, if God had allowed it, but it became clear that He had other plans. To put it plainly, the doors closed. And although people, including (but not exclusively) myself, could be found at fault for parts of that experience, we asked God this past August for clear direction on what came next, and His answer was inarguable. We lived this adventure to its fullest, and we are very proud of how God used us and taught us. That’s a big part of what that video is about.
The second reason we’re moving home, dear American friends, is your economy. You can argue partisan politics, right versus left, all you want, but the harsh reality of the matter is, someone screwed the pooch — repeatedly. Your war, your spending, your debt and your government are hurting your freedoms, your wealth and in many ways, the very fabric on which this incredible country was built.
For many of you, this will be a dip that you can ride out. As a country you will recover and learn from this, and as voting citizens, you can flex your rights and ability to make changes. But as of this posting, your national debt is $9,194,599,829,656.43 — or $30,203.24 per person — its growth accelerating rapidly. A significant majority of that debt is owned by China.
Fortunately, the incredible structure of this country allows you the power to change that.
As visitors here, however, we have no such recourse, and we are held hostage by the value of the US dollar. With each point it drops, our ability to plan for our future is put further in jeopardy. As much as we’ve loved this place, its not our responsibility, nor would it be wise for us, to see the US economy through this low point. We need to be where our income is backed by the power of our vote — which is in Canada.
This doesn’t mean that Canada is in much better shape than the States — only that by being there, we get a small say in what our government does. Something we sacrificed by moving here.
The third reason is our own responsibilities. As much as we’ve loved serving and lending our strengths to the goals of others, we have some things of our own that we need to take care of:
- Our children need family around, who can support them and help them grow… I have not traditionally placed a lot of value on proximity as a factor in the strength of a relationship. My family is made up of explorers and wanderers — my brother and sister are in Calgary, while my parents are in Asia — and we all know that we love each other, regardless of geography. Nic’s family’s giftedness, however, lies in warmth and hospitality. In creating welcoming and nurturing places to live and grow. And those are the things that are most important for our young children right now.
- As adults, Nicole and I are in that wonderful stage of life — smack between paying off our own education, and starting to wonder how we’re going to pay for that of our kids. As much as my heart yearns to wander, the responsible thing for us to do right now is settle down, finish paying for our school and our cars, and build some equity. These are gateways to freedom that we need to continue to tackle in earnest — before our 30s catch up with us.
So we’re moving home, because its the right thing to do. Do not think, for an instant, that this is “out of our system” or that we intend for this to be our last move. Because that’s another intent of that video — to remind ourselves, and those that love us — that the incredible adventure of pursuing God across the globe is at the very core of who we are as a couple.
We will settle for awhile, where its safe and comfortable, for the benefit of our kids, and to take the steps necessary to earn the freedom that we want. But we will not get too settled nor too comfortable…
Why? Well that’s the final intent of that video: to answer the question why. If I failed, with what I put together, to communicate the sheer joy and excitement and immense reward derived from our adventure in New York, then look up the verses I put at the end.
It turns out that its not just what we believe — its what God commands His children to do…
For those who missed it, here’s the video again:
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 18, 2008
If my project ships on time, with no casualties — its apparently contributed to a heart attack and a car accident already — then it will be a miracle… and I’ll be really proud of this team.
Who woulda thought that software engineering could be this dangerous?
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 15, 2008
Last year Apple announced a new product, that we were all expecting, called the AppleTV. When it first came out, there was much celebrating, and this site even got in on some of the action. Then reality set in. Here was a $300 castrated Mac Mini that played video in only one codec and required you to sync with your home computer instead of streaming your content.
It’s like they got the vision, and then totally failed on the execution. Or maybe they had a different vision altogether.
See what Apple and Microsoft are trying to do (Microsoft with the XBox Live Marketplace) is to make the current HD format war irrelevant. That’s a good thing. For those who don’t keep their finger on the pulse of the industry, technology giants like Sony and Toshiba have been fighting a public battle over control of the next-generation DVD disc format — to the detriment of the consumer. Its like VHS vs. Betamax all over again, only this time its worse. What they don’t really realise is that the delivery medium is about to change.
Who really wants shelves full of discs anyway? 5-6 years ago it might have been cool to show off your DVD collection, but now its actually a little embarrassing. What we really need is digital content delivery. I want to pick up my remote, chose any movie ever made, and with a touch of a button, start watching it.
This is the goal of the AppleTV and the XBox 360 — living room dominance. What Apple failed to do with their product is to respect the pioneers of this concept.
While the big companies have spent the last 10 years in-fighting over how to do this and how to make money on it, their gadget buying consumers have been making it happen for themselves. The original XBox actually made a stellar Media PC when hacked to run Linux and the XBMC software. The Mac Mini, with its small footprint, FrontRow software and handy remote was decent as well. And we put those devices to work — years before Apple or Microsoft got their crap together.
All of our household DVDs (save some of the Disney ones) are on our network in DVD-quality DivX format. We’ve been able to watch them all with a touch of a button for the past 3 years. Why would I buy into a solution, like Apple’s, that forces me to abandon that content?
Today, as I write this, Apple is announcing AppleTV Take 2. They now have a better movie library, and finally support movie rentals. Congratulations, Apple. This is what we’ve been asking for. But you still missed the boat. Despite the fact that the AppleTV is a perfectly capable little computer, you’re still screwing over your customers by refusing to stream our own content in the common Codecs we’ve been using. It’s not like it would be hard for you to do — the software exists already.
I will not buy a BluRay/HD-DVD player, and I will not buy an AppleTV 2.0. I want to buy it — I’m an admitted Apple fanboy, but all of the above have missed the point. You can’t step forward by abandoning the early adopters who pioneered the technology you want to sell. You have to respect the people who built this market for you. Sadly, Microsoft is the only one who gets this, and as long as the XBox 360 is the only device on the market that both sells/rents HD content AND allows me to continue to consume my own, then Microsoft is going to win the vote of my wallet.
The MacBook Air on the other hand… that’s pretty hot…
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 15, 2008
Today is beta test day for my project. This is where customers actually get to use it against their data and see what they think. Its too late to make any big changes to the code, but this is kind of an indicator of how well the project will be accepted in the market. They’ll also get the opportunity to pinpoint any functionality holes or bugs — giving me a little under a week to react!
On top of that its MacWorld day, and every good Mac Geek will be refreshing their favourite gadget blog all afternoon to find out what Steve wants us to buy next. This is like the Super Bowl (or Stanley Cup if you’re Canadian) of geekdom, and I can’t wait to see what the coolest computer company ever is going to unleash this year! I’m almost more excited about their projects than my own. Even my boss, a recent Mac convert, seems a little torn over which presentation to pay attention to…
Posted by Nicole Wise on Jan 12, 2008
Despite having an ear infection for the past 2 months, Benjamin is doing great and still making us laugh.
Since the last big update Ben now has 4 teeth, two on the top, huge ones that look like Chiclets, and two on the bottom. I think some more might be coming in soon. He is walking with much more confidence and turning around great. I don’t know that I would say he is graceful at it yet but getting better everyday or at least with as much grace as any of my kids will have since they have me as their mother.
He now also attempts to run — but as some parents know their feet sometimes just won’t move as fast as they would like and he ends up doing a face plant on the floor. He doesn’t do it so much now but he used to point at something and then walk or run to it, making you wonder what is he doing and what is he looking at!
One of his newest things is peek-a-boo – where he’s the one hiding. He does it mostly after a bath and he’s wrapped up in the towel, he laughs and laughs even though eventually he has uncovered himself except for a tiny piece of towel covering his face. Another is hide and seek… Say you’re in the kitchen and he leaves and walks around a corner and you say “Where’s Benjamin?” a couple times and he will then come back around the corner with a great big grin and a laugh, and back he goes to hiding…he’ll do this for about 5 minutes. Laughing with glee the whole time.
Also I wish we could catch this on camera because it is very hard to describe but Ben has this new smile/grin that’s so weird and silly looking, it is a very big toothy grin from ear to ear and he eyes get all squished too…see very hard to explain. I’ll try to get a picture of him doing it, maybe.
The other day I was working on the computer and Benjamin had knocked over our wall mirror — I thought nothing of it since he loves to smile and wave at himself. Then suddenly he starts freaking out and I look over and he is trying to get to us in the bedroom but can’t because the mirror is on the floor completely blocking the doorway. It was face-up and he couldn’t cross it, because he was apparently scared that he might fall in! I go rescue him and then we start to play with the mirror on the floor so he won’t freak out next time it happens…since then he has walked on a tiny bit of the mirror to get by but only if he is holding on to the wall!
Ben also loves music and loves to dance but he can be picky with his music. He won’t dance and get all excited about every song but when he hears one he likes his feet start going and his arms start waving, almost like he is trying to fly away. Sometimes instead of moving his feet and hands he just does a kind of bounce but that normally leads to him falling over because he gets too excited!
For those who are wondering, he’s feeling much better. Our New Year’s eve stomach problems made all of our tummies a little tender, and Benjamin took the longest to get back to normal. Finally this week he’s started eating (and sleeping) like his old self again.
Posted by Jonathan Wise on Jan 08, 2008
So its another year of jonandnic.com too. This little of hobby of mine, after only about 7 years, is finally starting to feel like it has a bit of value. I’m not in a terribly literary mood today, but I’m stalling on delivering the rest of the “big changes for 2008″ news until it gets ironed out a bit, so here’s some ramblings around this here website of ours…
Last month 42% of the visitors to jonandnic.com came from the States, 33% from Canada, 13% from Europe, 3% from Australia, and my parents holding 1.08% from Asia (since Chad and Nicole are home in the States for a year.) A lot of other regions provided enough hits to make it on the map, but not enough to be statistically significant. Still we’re very glad you dropped by. There’s just a few parts of Africa there that aren’t visiting… but they can probably be excused for that until we get some more OLPCs over there!
We average about 100 visits a day, and 56% of you are new visitors (or got a new computer) since August.
Most of you stay for just under 2 minutes, and visit 1.5 pages per visit. Which, to be honest, is about how much time I spend on any given site.
The geek site is holding its own, too. Its sitting at about 20 hits a day, but people are starting to ask questions and make their own suggestions and ideas, which was really the intent of the spin-off.
Not that’d I’d ever be able to go the dooce route, and make a living on blogging, but I would be interested in hearing from you all, if you have any thoughts:
Why do you visit? What parts of the site do you like/find interesting? For those of you who lurk, and don’t comment, why not? Any suggestions on what we could change/update to make this site more interesting or worth visiting?
As for why this blog is here… well, I found this quote while reading a book called “North to the Orient,” by a very old-school blogger, which I thought perfectly summed up the answer to that question…
What, then, is this collection of chapters? How to explain it? Why did I write it? There is, of course, always the personal satisfaction of writing down one’s own experiences so they may be saved, caught and pinned under glass, hoarded against the winter of forgetfulness. Time has been cheated a little, at least in one’s own life, and a personal trivial immortality of an old self assured.
And there is another personal satisfaction: that of the people who like to recount their adventures, the diary-keepers, the story-tellers, the letter-writers, a strange race of people who feel half-cheated of an experience unless it is retold. It does not really exist until it is put into words. As though a little doubting or dull, they could not see it until it is repeated. For, paradoxically enough, the more unreal an experiences becomes — translated from real action into unreal words, dead symbols for life itself — the more vivid it grow. Not only does it seem more vivid, but its essential core becomes clearer. One says excitedly to an audience, “Do you see — I can’t tell you how strange it was — we all of us felt…” although actually, at the time of the incident, one was not conscious of such a feeling, and only became so in the retelling. It is as inexplicable as looking all afternoon at a gray stone on a beach, and not realizing, until one tries to put it on canvas, that it is, in reality, bright blue.
- Anne Morrow Lindberg, 1935
If I only we had adventures like hers to write about!
