I've had lots of links, pics and videos lately so why not a rollicking ramble through things happening recently in my life for a change?

Pace
...is a drool monster and we figure he's starting teething.  He's 15.3 lbs at 3 months and wearing clothes that are sized for a 6-9 month old.  He sleeps 5-6 hours at a time which is the best thing EVER.  He's a lot more alert and human now - playing with his hands, focusing on faces for extended periods.  Oh, and he's giggling and laughing up a storm and I can't help but wonder why, from an evolutionary standpoint, didn't babies develop the ability to laugh and smile at birth instead of needing a couple months for it to happen?  I'd be much more likely to save a happy baby than one who cries and bawls non-stop.  That's just asking to be left for the wolves.   Speaking of danger, Pace went for a boat ride today.  He lived.

Shea
...is loving being a mom and living in Weyburn with her parents during the week.  As you can tell by Pace's weight, breastfeeding is going exceptionally well.  Her Facebook addiction is only growing stronger. 

Work
It's hard to believe I'm about to begin my sixth month of an 18-month contract already.  Mostly because of Pace, this summer has flown quicker than any I can remember.  I've said before that I won't write too much about my work but I will mention that I'm dealing with everything from kids with head lice to regulations governing regional library boundaries and all points in between.

Garage Sales
Shea and I love going to garage sales but haven't all summer, again, for obvious reasons.  But this weekend, we went Thursday night in Weyburn, Friday night on the way into Regina and then all day Saturday with Shea's brother and his girlfriend.  I bought a crapload of books (as usual).  Pace also got a Spiderman doll and an electric guitar toy that I already find annoying, even though I was the one who bought it for him.  Best rule for garage sales?  Put up balloons people!

A Tale of Two BBQ's
Shea had her end-of-summer work BBQ last night and I had mine this afternoon at Nickel Lake Regional Park just outside of Weyburn.  Both were good but Shea's was better in a way because she hadn't seen many of her co-workers since starting her maternity leave and many hadn't met Pace yet (who was a total angel for three hours.)  Mine was better because we had steak instead of burgers.

Television
What's that?  Seriously, the only TV I watch lately is the news at noon and at 6pm (because Shea's parents do) plus the occasional episode of The Daily Show.  That's it.  We do try to rent and watch a movie or two every weekend though whether we can get through them is always up to Pace.

Books
I do get to do some reading done though probably not up to my usual book per week average.  I've just started Sixpence House about an American couple who move to Hay-on-Wye, a Welsh town with 1500 people and 40 bookstores.  Very good so far.  I also read The Starfish and the Spider about the concept of leaderless organizations which was also really good.  In fact, it's a shock to be a guy who all of a sudden reads and enjoys management books having spent a lifetime as the guy who would probably make fun of those who do so.

I guess that's it.  Later...

Shea's been resisting for a long time but while attending a 65th birthday party last night and hearing various parents discuss whether or not they should join Facebook like their kids, Shea decided she'd rather lump herself with the younger generation than the older one and has thus, finally joined Facebook.

I was happy to see her do this, at least partly for the completely selfish reason that it gave me a reminder of the initial sign-up process I went through over a year ago when I first joined (back in the good old days when only people with official college e-mail addresses could join! </snob>)

I don't really remember much about when I signed up (not realising the transformative power that Facebook would hold over our entire society just over a year later ) but a few things stood out as Shea went through the sign-up process...

- the privacy settings are right there during the set-up to be configured as tightly as you want although, to be honest, the defaults are probably a bit "looser" than they should be, especially that default that anyone of your friends AND anyone in your network can see your profile.  When you're in a network the size of a city, that's a lot of people who can peer at you!

- I could've sworn there was a menu of choices for "Religion" just like they have for "Political View" but nope, religion is fill-in-the-blank.  (Maybe politics should be too?)

- having been a bit overwhelmed lately with all the apps I see on people's profiles (including my own), it was pretty nice to remember how clean a Facebook profile is when first created.  Since the launch of Facebook Applications, the site is like MySpace Lite in terms of the extraneous crap that's all over it (and frankly has lost a bit of its appeal in my opinion because of this.)  If you feel the same way (and use Firefox), the Face Off extension might be of interest.  It removes all third-party applications from any Facebook profile you view. 

- the biggest change I noticed was that Shea had to provide a mobile phone number to authenticate her account.  Until she did that, she was having to fill out a captcha every single time she added someone.  I'm pretty sure I never had to do this when I signed up so that's a major shift and quite a frustrating one too - maybe everyone in the Facebook target demographic has text messaging access (but I doubt it.)  And up until a couple weeks ago, we didn't have a cell phone either so would've been out of the loop on this feature completely (okay, we could've "borrowed" the text-messaging feature of somebody's phone easily enough to get our confirmation password.  But the point stands - not everybody has a text-enabled cell phone - even in this day and age - so why not provide an optional way to confirm that you are indeed a real live person?)

- It was interesting to see how Shea, as a female and as a mother and as a medical professional, handled some of the decisions about what information to list versus decisions I made with my own profile/account.  She didn't list her current or any former workplaces for instance and tightened up some of the security settings from their defaults as well.

- a couple of the failings of Facebook I knew about but which weren't as much of an issue to me jumped out when Shea created her profile.  She used the workaround of creating an account with her maiden name listed as her middle name to help people who knew her before she was married to find her.  That works if you're already married when you create your account but what if you're single now and get married someday?  Or reverse it - what if you get divorced?  You've got this profile you've likely invested a great deal of time and energy into building and now, you're unable to change your name on it? 

- the other issue that jumped out was multiple schooling locations which again, wasn't an issue for me since I went to Indian Head schools all through my life.  But Shea did her schooling until Grade Nine in a small community called Creelman then went to Weyburn for high school.  Facebook makes it difficult (though not impossible) to add multiple schools to your profile, especially if they're not already in their database (which Creelman school, now closed and with a total village population of 87) definitely isn't.

- I briefly thought about creating an account for Pace but realised that they only have as recent as "2006" for the years you can choose for your birth date.  (Oh, also that this would be a cute idea initially but is probably pretty dumb otherwise.)  But yeah, why would they allow accounts to (conceivably) be created for one year olds but not babies born within the last year?  Strange.  I expected the cut-off to be 13 years old for new accounts (1994) as I think that's the age commonly used in US law for young people to create their own accounts with online services.  (If somebody wants to try an experiment, try to create an account as if somebody was born in 2006 and see what happens!)

Okay, those are some random thoughts.  If you're on Facebook, feel free to add Shea - she thinks she can catch up to my number of friends within a week or two. "Plus they'll all be real friends, not like all the "Facebook friends" your account is full of!" 

(Thanks to Grandma Joanie for suggesting the song!)