It seems that moving a cat is *really* expensive! We're not willing to consider sending her to a shelter just to be killed, but we're hoping to find someone in Montreal, Kingston or Toronto who can take her and love her.

She's 13 years old, declawed, likes to cuddle up. She can be a bit tempermental, but can be pet with a bit of practice. She's been feeling a bit put-out lately since Leif has been born, so someone willing to love her alot would be really appreciated. She's in good health and doesn't need any special pills or food beyond the usual "older cat" food.

Comments here or jbailey@raspberryginger.com if you're interested or know someone.

Well, I've hinted at it and told enough friends, I should get around to posting it: As of the end of this month, I'll be moving on from Canonical. By my calculations, I was something around employee #30, the first support tech, and I've had a great chance to build the support organisation up to where Linux Format magazine rated us as tied with RedHat ahead of Novell in this August's issue.

So what's up?

Well, those of you following along might remember a cute little bundle of joy entering my life. A couple of months in, I've realised that I can't stay on top of being with him and growing a 7x24 operation at this critical time in Canonical's growth. I'll be taking the month of August to be with Angie and Leif, and in September will start a new job with Google in the Open Source Program Office. I don't know the details of what I'll be doing there (The Google Omert , as one friend called it... *g*), but Google as a company is well aware of what happens with brand-new parents and the mad readjustment of priorities.

Angie and I are currently selling our place in Montr al in prep for moving to San Francisco at the end of August. I want to make sure I see people before we go, and if you're interested in buying the place, give us a call. =) Also, if you're in the Bay Area, a vegan, a parent, into Yoga/fitness, speaking French, etc., we'd love to meet you for tea sometime!

We celebrated Leif's dedication a couple weekends ago on June 17th at the Unitarian Church of Montr al. I got permission from Diane Rollert, our minister, to post the text of it.

(LJ-cut used to keep it from being too long)


Dedication of Leif Alexander Bailey, June 17, 2007

To the Child:
Leif Alexander Bailey, you have come with stardust in your hair, with the rush of planets in your blood, your heart beating out the seasons of eternity, with a shining in your eyes like the sunlight.

Your parents have brought you here to be dedicated, to celebrate the joy they have and to count themselves blessed that you are a part of their family.

As you grow, may you come to love what it is that your parents and this community of Unitarian Universalists value. May you learn to count the number of your days, to weigh their meaning, to gather into your mind the wisdom of your ancestors, to know why we call one thing right and another wrong, and to treasure beauty, mercy and justice in the deepest places of your being.

To the Congregation:
A dedication in the Unitarian Universalist tradition is one of the few sacred rituals we share together as a community. It is a covenant, a promise of love and care, that the entire community bestows upon a child.
Although Leif and his parents are leaving us to pursue new lives in San Francisco, they have chosen to dedicate Leif here in this church that has meant so much to them. Their travels may take them far away, but in this act of dedication today, we will covenant to continue to hold a place of care and concern in our hearts for Leif as he grows. Do you, as this religious community called the Unitarian Church of Montreal, take upon yourselves the privilege and the responsibility of helping to nurture the character and spirit of this child even at a distance?

Congregational Response:
We who are members of this congregation rejoice with this family in the promise of this child. We pledge him now the love and care of this community.

To the Parents:
Angie and Jeff, parents of Leif, please repeat after me this pledge. Leif, we pledge to help you to realize the best that is in you. We will seek, to the best of our ability, to instruct you by our teaching and by our example. We promise to love you with an unselfish love.

To the Child:
Leif, I dedicate you to the service of goodness, beauty and truth. I touch you with this water, which is a symbol of purity, and with this rose which is a symbol of your unfolding life, on your brow, your eyes, your lips, your heart and your hands, that your thoughts, your vision, your speech, your love and your generosity may be dedicated to the care of the earth and its people. We dedicate you that the transcending power of all that is divine may be present in you all your life long.


Closing Prayer:
Spirit of Life and Transcending Source of Love that connects us all, bless this beautiful child Leif this day and all the days of his life. As we rejoice in the promise of Leif s life that stretches out before him, let us remember those no longer with us, especially Leif s grandmother Glennis Bailey who left this earth too soon to meet her grandson, but whose memory and spirit will continue on through him. May Leif continue to serve with strength as his life unfolds so that the richness and wonder of life may be abundantly his. May peace dwell in his heart,and understanding in his mind. May courage strengthen his will and may the love of truth forever guide him.

We joined several people on a dawn walk this morning to greet the sunrise. Leif was really good through the walk, and was surprisingly awake through that, the sunrise, and the singing. He fell asleep right after.

Time to do the same for a couple hours before work. =)

Our GP didn't weight or measure Leif at his 2 month mark, but I was surprised to see a baby scale at the vet's yesterday (For more on the adventures with Lucy, see auzure_skies' postings).

So, as off 2007-06-06, Leif is 16.8 pounds or 7.6kg. =)

Wow - I'm finally starting to go through my email inbox from when Leif was born and starting to say thanks to folks for their support. I read them all at the time, but it's crazy to go back 3 months and see how many people were cheering for us.

There will be more photos up this weekend. =) Recent things for him include creeping off of his blanket on the floor and rolling from his back to his front in bed. It's amazing how the simplest things are "OMG come see this, quickly!" events. =)

Why is it that half of the ads on American TV are for drugs? Do people really watch TV, and then go to their doctors asking for a particular birth control pill, or a particular sleep drug? I've always gone to the doctor with *problems*, not *solutions*.

If I have the answer, why would I need the doctor?

I’ll be making my first big appearance as a Sun employee next Monday at CommunityOne in San Francisco (this is the day before JavaOne). In addition to participating in the keynote with Tim O’Reilly, Rich Green, and Tim Bray, I’ve put together a track called Linux vs. Solaris? designed to show that the gap between Linux and Solaris isn’t as wide as one might think:

All too often, technologies are pitted against each other in the popular imagination, and Linux and Solaris are no exception—”Linux vs. Solaris” certainly does make a catchy soundbyte. Despite the juxtaposition, Linux and Solaris have much in common—both are open source, have common ancestry, and are similar enough that both users and developers can move back and forth between them with comparative ease. The “vs.” mentality is caused as much by lack of understanding of the “other side” as anything else. In this track, we will focus on the similarities between Linux and Solaris rather than the differences, the goal being to increase understanding of Solaris among Linux users and developers and vice versa. Where we discuss differences, these differences will be expressed in terms of “how we can learn from each other”. We will also discuss the migration up the stack of developer platforms and address the question, “Do operating systems still matter?” The ultimate goal of the track is to change the conversation: Not Linux vs. Solaris, but open vs. closed.

The track includes four sessions. I’ll kick things off by answering the burning question: “What’s a Linux guy doing at Sun?” Next, Jeff Bailey of Canonical and Bart Smaalders of Sun will take us “inside the sausage factory” to show how Ubuntu and Solaris, respectively, get made. Next, Don Kretsch of Sun and Joe Little of Stanford will show us Solaris Express Developer Edition and Nexenta, two very different takes on OpenSolaris. And last but certainly not least, Josh Berkus, Robert Lor, Harpreet Singh, Tim Bray, and Greg Luck will highlight why the OS still very much matters even as software development moves up the stack. Of course, there are a number of other great tracks as well. If operating systems are your bag, you should also check out the OpenSolaris track. Fortunately, my times don’t overlap with Ben Rockwood’s introduction to OpenSolaris, nor will I have to miss the opportunity to see the amazing Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, and Mike Shapiro educate, entertain, and gesticulate wildly! If you’re in San Francisco or the Bay area or are already planning to be at JavaOne, you should definitely plan to attend CommunityOne too. Register today! (P.S. - It’s free!)

I hadn't even thought of Earth Day when I was talking to my dad last night, and we got onto the subject of Electric bills bills. His is apparently ~$15/month. I think ours is just over 5 times that. *ouch* We moved here in December, and the previous owner hadn't lived here for several months, so I don't think much was done in the way of winterisation. Add daily diaper washes, drying, etc., and it's understandable (if not actually excusable).

But now we've got a nice target to aim for! =) Kyoto FTW

An evening with the family...

We had the final midwife appointment today. Being up late for work, and up early for that has left me pretty much a zombie today.

But the exciting part: Leif is now 6360g (14 pounds), and 63cm long (25 inches). So he's definitely growing *alot* =)

We'll miss seeing Charlotte to check in on him. She was more than we ever could've hoped for. =)

A Business Week Article points out that Ethanol fuels in the US face opposition because of rising corn prices. Since 25% of the US' corn supply winds up going to Ethanol, that apparently leaves less for livestock.

Last year at Opus, someone had brought along signs that said "Support Your Soybean Farmers", followed by a URL http://thankachicken.com/. While it was funny, it was an interesting reminder that vegans really *aren't* the target of North American soybean producers.

According to a the Wikipedia article on Environment Vegetarianism, "the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1". Perhaps the solution to driving our cars as much as we want on clean fuel is to go vegan? What do you suppose would give first, our car addiction, or our meat addiction?

I assume that I was sung songs when I was little, but I don't really remember them. I do remember my mom singing "You are my sunshine" to me (but only the chorus, as she thought the first verse was too sad. I'm glad that she never heard the remaining creepy stalker verses from the O Brother soundtrack). Angie will sing lullabies that she remembers, but she's the oldest of three kids, whereas I'm the youngest of two by five years.

So all this to explain why at 4am I was singing Leif to sleep with songs from The Dances of Universal Peace. Walking in circles singing them reminded me that I haven't been to the dances in a while. They're on the second Tuesday of the month here in Montr al.

We're home now. We were reading through the comments and emails. Oh wow. It'll be a bit before we're able to respond.

Thank-you all so much for the love and support!

The important thing first:

I'm pleased to announce the birth of our child, Leif Alexander Bailey. Leif is a bio-boy, so we've chosen the male pronoun. He was born at 12:41 (-0500) at the Lasalle hospital by cesarean. Angie is recovering from the surgery. Father is stunned, but has learned how to change a diaper and how to cuddle a newborn to sleep.

For those who want it by the numbers: Leif was born 60 hours after the membranes first ruptured (which was significant, but still just a trickle once we saw what water breaking is *really* like, holy crap). After 49 hours, we transfered from the birthing centre to the hospital since labour had stalled (7cm dilation). Angie was in active labour (4 cm dilated) for 39 hours. At the hospital, after 8 hours, the doctor determined that she was fully dilated and encouraged her to push. Labour had stalled (head was transverse), and so the c-section was ordered.

The result - A healthy baby weighing 4660grams/10 pounds, 4 ounces. 55.5 cm long / 22 inches.

Pictures are up on my flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbailey/

We're still not answering emails, calls, or taking visitors yet, really. The messages are being received however, and are much appreciated.

running off to the birthing centre now.

I just had a total Mr & Mrs. Smith moment. You know the bit where they're standing in the elevator, listening to the elevator music. Waiting for the door to open.

That would be the waiting time between the water breaking, causing us to page the midwife and her phoning us back. =)

The advice: Sleep now, relax.

And so shall it be. =)

(Update: 9am)
Contractions are 6 minutes apart, but still the kind she can sleep through, so she is. Spoke to the midwife, and she advises more rest. Next update with her, assuming nothing eventful, is around 1pm.

(Update: 2pm)
Contractions have slowed to every 12 minutes, but have increased in intensity. Just spoke to the midwife, who gave some tips about moving things along. She just got into the birthing centre after 3 hours of being on the road. It's usually a 30 minute trip, and she lives near us. She thinks that it will be fine, though, given that she was mostly stuck behind snow plows. Next phone call in 2 hours.

(Update: 4:30pm)
Contractions up to 5 minutes apart, lasting about 45 seconds each. We're enjoying a relaxing afternoon watching X-files. She's convinced that she's talking fine through her contractions, but her sister did a great impression:

Well, as I was saying, I ...

(she crouches over)

Oh there's one. Yup.. I'm having a contraction..

(pause)

Yup. Well. I can still talk through them.

Mhm, yup. Sure you can. =)

The midwife called us to check in. Angie described herself as "impatient". Otherwise everything seems to be going as normal. The midwife will call us again in an hour or so to sort out plans for the evening, probably including a visit to us at home since we're close enough to where she lives.

(Update: 6pm)
We've hit the magical number of contractions: every 4 minutes for 45 seconds. Apparently we're supposed to phone after two hours of this, but we phoned after one. My bad, but this is when we had planned to talk anyway. She answered the phone when we paged the midwife, and was sufficiently unable to talk that she handed to phone over to me. The midwife will be here for an in-person visit in about an hour (subject to speed of traffic)

(Update: 7:30pm)
At 7, I went out to shovel a space for the midwife to park. It turns out she drives a cute little VW bug. so at 7:15, I dig her out of the snowbank she got wedged into because I hadn't dug enough of a spot. 7:30, we're now both inside. =) Temperature is being taken, contraction charts being reviewed, etc.

(Update: 8:15pm)
The midwife just left. Right now Angie's 2cm dilated. Apparently there are multiple membranes, and they haven't all broken. This is a good thing because it continues to protect the child and give it manuverability. Charlotte will be back in 2 hours to see how we're doing.

---

I'll update this entry with random little updates, and post a new one when we head out.

Finished! It's a little greener than I'd hoped, but it makes sense given that we didn't bleach it all the way.

Now back to waiting for Sprout to appear...

Oy, Angie and her sister are mixing the bleach now...

I guess this is point of no turning back. =)

I had the most wonderful dentist appointment this morning. bbollenbach was so excited over this dentist http://www.smilemontreal.com/ - but it seemed mostly because they use lasers to do any fillings or whatnot.

I started off by going to their website to get the phone number, and found a web form there. I filled in information asking for an appointment. I got an email back on a Sunday night from the dentist saying that someone would contact me during the week. They were nice enough to call during the evening (which was funny, since I'd given them my work number assuming they'd call during the day, but I was here anyway that day) and booking the appointment was easy.

I got an email saying that they'd booked the appointment and a link I could click to get an iCal appointment. This didn't work in the Google Apps for Your Domain setup, but might if I were using local mail.

A day before hand I got an email asking me to confirm that I would make the appointment by clicking a link.

The place is a little further away from M tro Vend me than I'd thought - it's beside the Westmount Public Library. I walked in to find a nice spacious waiting room. The office manager / receptionist was very friendly, and this continued through to dealing with the hygienist and the dentist himself. I usually *hate* hygienists - most of the ones I'd met before hand had been dentists from overseas whose accreditation's hadn't been accepted here. So understandably bitter and annoyed. My only other good hygienist had been at the clinic in Toronto, but that was also the dentist who tried to convince me that there were no risks with using mercury fillings, and that she was exposed to it much more anyway, so why was I so insistent on white fillings anyway? (Worth noting that my plan *covered* white fillings, so it wasn't an issue of price or anything.)

The dentist was also a really calming presence, and answered my questions with a smile. I need to go back, so I'll know more about what he's like then. But so far I suspect I've found a keeper.