Ben’s Journal 2.0

I saw that my dad sent a link to my blog to some friends and family members. If you are new to our story, you might want to first read my entry, “Life” from January 2nd (here) or the original note I posted to facebook called “Our Baby” here (a facebook account is required, but you don’t have to be my friend there.)

Update: Elizabeth Joy Roller was born, alive, on January 6, 2010 at 5:59pm.  She lived for five wonderful hours, and was greeted and held by her parents, her six grandparents, her uncle, an honorary aunt, our pastor Susan, and our friend Beth the hospital chaplain.  Elizabeth was dark red due to her poor air circulation, and she had only involuntary movements, since only her brain stem had formed.  Like any proud parents, we took tons of photos (about 350 of them) and made a lot of memories with her in those few hours.

For those who are wondering what can be done for us, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as we learn to live on without Elizabeth.  If you’d like to give a gift in her memory, please donate to the “Elizabeth Joy Roller Memorial Fund” at our church (make checks to “Beaumont Presbyterian Church” at 1070 Lane Allen Rd.  Lexington, KY 40504).  The fund will support the Beaumont Learning Center, a church-based preschool, where we had planned to have Elizabeth attend.  Hopefully through money given in her memory, children who come from families that cannot afford the tuition will be able to attend in her place.

Thanks for the millions of cards, facebook comments, and emails we’ve received.

I titled this entry “Awake” because that’s what I am right now.  Sheena is resting peacefully in bed, gathering strength for the storm that is ahead, beginning tomorrow.  I could be sleeping too, but physical strength is not the kind that I need tomorrow.  I need another kind.

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As usual, I begin another blog entry with, “Wow, it has been a long time since I’ve written one of these.”  In 2010, my resolution is to better manage my expectations.   Another year is over, and 2009 was probably one of the craziest yet for me.  I won’t try to recap the entire year here, but there are a few items that I need to write about.

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Have you ever done something that was probably inappropriate, but not too bad, and then had someone else make the situation much worse?  That almost happened to me this morning, and I thought “you people” would like to read about it.

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I was talking with my brother, Chris, last night about journaling and things like that and mentioned that I have this blog/journal on our website.  Then I loaded up the page for it and realized that it had been nearly two months since my last update.   As someone who was promoting the idea of journaling, either publicly like I do, or privately, I felt hypocritical and you, lucky reader, get a guilt-post.  Read the rest of this entry »

When I’m in the car driving around town, I usually either listen to music on my iPhone (I love that my car has one of those nifty AUX-IN jacks) or I listen to a couple of local talk radio stations.  Since I don’t read the local newspaper and local TV news is 90% info-tainment fluff,  I depend on those stations for local news.

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On the Simpsons this week, there was a funny moment that I appreciated. It was my favorite kind of humor – a subtle joke that requires an educated audience, but also is just goofy.  To set it up, I’ll explain that the plot this week is that the Simpson family got over their heads in debt and the bank auctioned off their house. The neighbor Ned Flanders bought it and was renting it back to the Simpsons, but they were lousy tenants so he had to evict them. The scene begins as Ned is nailing an eviction notice to the front door while the family is peeking out through the curtains.

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So when I bought my iPhone 3G, I called ahead to at&t to ensure that we could keep the same account and just add the data plan that the iPhone requires. They said that would be no problem. On release day, however, the saleslady told me that it was impossible to keep that same plan (450 minutes Familytalk) because the iPhone requires the 700 minute plan.  This was the opposite of what the pre-sales phone support person told me, but I had already waited hours in line, so I said go ahead.

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This is just a quick note to let you guys know that I’m playing with Squarespace for a few weeks (13 more days  left in my demo). I thought some people might want to follow along, or even jump in with your own free demo account (send me your link if you do). The site is getting a lot of buzz lately and they are aggressively marketing themselves through a lot of channels that I see, so I thought I’d see what they are up to.

Today is my good friend Michael’s birthday. I remembered it because he told me that his birthday was the day before the Digital TV broadcasting deadline (the day they stop broadcasting analog signals and go digital only). Apparently the government tried to move his birthday back a few months, but at least one of our local stations is standing firm and celebrating “the day after Michael’s birthday” tomorrow.

So happy birthday Michael! Apparently we get to celebrate again in April when the local CBS affiliate goes digital-only, and in June\July when the local NBC affiliate does the same.