He can lift his head quite high, and he can propel himself forward with great force, but he can't yet do both at the same time. He has a lot of fun acting like a human bulldozer, though.

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We are greatly enjoying these days of limited mobility - he can move to one side on of his crib while sleeping and even roll over occasionally, but he basically stays put. Also, he can cry and sigh and burp and laugh and coo, but he can't tell us, "no." All in all, newborn to five months is a pretty great age.

The other day we went to nanny's village to see the flooded rice fields. The Chi River has overflowed into the fields, and huge invading catfish are happy to feast on drowned field mice and other flood detritus. Unwilling to take Mr. Max out on a flimsy boat, we watched the villagers go spearfishing for dinner.

It sure is a good thing we took the trusty old Crown out on the muddy roads instead of our pretty car.

Coming soon, I promise.

I'm putting together another PC monstrosity. It shall live, and it shall help me gain access to Max's photo vaults again - soon!

Go see what you can do to help save internet radio, or hold your peace when DJ Dickhead in the mornings plays the top 40 for you every day: PANDORA NEEDS YOU

Don't forget, Pandora is already mostly inaccessible from outside the US anyway (without using a proxy anyway, hint hint).

Our university sent us foreign teachers to Mukdahan yesterday for our annual visa renewals. Until now, we had been using th immigration office in Nong Khai, but the last time we visited for 90-day notice, they told us that the Mukdahan office was becoming the top office for the Isan region and that we should go there from now on. So the seven or eight of us rode out on a bus accompanied by 26 Chinese exchange students who are studying Thai in China at various universities and are on a program here for a year. 30+ visa applicants are enough to crowd any immigration office, and it was shocking to see how understaffed the Muk office was. Everything took a long, long time. It's unreasonable to blame the people (the underlings at least) working there because they're as trapped by the system as we are... It was hard watching other applicants* come and wonder where to queue up because the waiting room side of the counter looked like the escape scene from The Killing Fields.

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What saved the day was my colleague finding a well-run expat cafe (expat customer, not proprietor) a couple doors down from immigration -the name of the place was Good Mook. Good coffee, pate on crispy French bread, and bottles of Beer Lao... It was a great place to relax and wait for all the students to get processed, until the tiny little immigration office closed at 4:30.

We got back to our university at around 9:00 PM. By the time I had a bowl of noodles with another colleague and went home, both wife and baby were sound asleep.

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* Some of the other applicants included one of Nam's Japanese teachers, and my next door neighbor (who also works at Nam's school, MSU - Mahasarakham University.)

...and a gauge is what you would need to shake up Japanese politics. The Japanese are justifiably apathetic about their leaders... Take a 12 gauge to the world stage, that's what PM Taro needs to do!

(via)

"Author Neal Stephenson visits Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, Ca, to discuss his book "Anathem". This event took place September 12, 2008, as part of the Authors@google series. "

Found outside of my office back in March. It was one of the coolest bugs I've ever seen.

I'm still catching up with all the photos downloaded off my phone.

This is so, so true.

Everybody always knows it's my phone ringing. I used to use ringtones but decided they were all gay. Also, a ringing sound is very easy to hear and recognize even in noisy environments.

[/rantish musing]

Just a quick note in between giving finals: Maxie's out of the hospital and back home. He recovered quicker than all the doctors expected and has coughed only once the whole hour we've been together. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes.

Max's lungs are apparently sounding much better. The blood tests point to a bacterial, rather than viral, infection. This is good news because it means all the antibiotics going into him weren't just to piss him off (he caught me on the jaw with not one, not two, but three Tiger Uppercuts with his cathetered and bandaged hand when I held the oxygen mask over his face this afternoon).

He is here for a three day course of meds and observation, which seems to be a WHO standard adopted in Thailand.

He is sleeping now and I'm writing my exams outside on a large balcony at the end of the hall.

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At around noon, a physical therapist came around with a gaggle of nurses and performed a series of percussive strokes with a cupped hand to Maxie's back, and then to his chest. This loosened up some phlegm and fluids, so the gaggle of nurses and Nam pinned Max down and the therapist performed suction with a small tube to his mouth and nose. It was hard to watch him choking and sobbing, but the results were immediate and effective. He slept, well, like a baby for a long time after this session. Actually, we're waiting for them to come around for another one right now.

There's something hugely wrong about sleeping on a hospital sofa. The body rejects it, the mind rejects it.

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The catheter in Max's arm had to be replaced this morning (to his other arm, actually) because it partly worked it's way out last night and we had it removed to facilitate ease of motion. He cried a lot less than he did yesterday, because he was still very sleepy. I had to hold him down today, though, and it wasn't fun. In the end, though, it was all good and he was smiling again five minutes later.

Uh oh it's time to give him the inhalants via oxygen mask...

UPDATE: OK,he complained a lot but didn't throw a tantrum like yesterday.

The hardest part about today is going to be when I go home to make some finals for next week. It's too quiet without the baby.

We just had a blackout. The ceiling AC unit spun down into silence and the hospital was thrust into total blackness except for the dim glow of my trusty laptop's screen. It was at once surprising and reassuring when the hospital's generator kicked in ten seconds later - what a remarkable response time for Thailand!

The guy down the hall on the iron lung was even more impressed.

We are settled into a private room at the private hospital on the street behind Serm Thai shopping center in downtown Mahasarakham. The facilities are better than the VIP room at the provincial hospital where we stayed after Max was born.

Max has an IV in his arm and he's doing fine. He's been fine the whole time, actually. This whole week he's been coughing and getting stuffed up, but never stopped playing or smiling. It was heartbreaking watching him being held down by nurses and getting stuck in the arm with a needle. He cried LOUDLY and shook his head back and forth in pain and frustration. He actually pried his free arm loose of the sheet it was held under and he let loose with a massive backhand that didn't connect with anything. He looked at me, crying, with a look of shock and incomprehension. It was... hard to watch.

But now we are settled into the room for the night and it's all playtime and smiles again. Nam had me bring SO MUCH stuff from the house to support the little emperor's activities here... The security guard at the front door helped me schlep some crap from my car to the room upstairs; it still took three trips, and I'm pretty much a world-class bagboy.

Anyhow. The best thing about this place is that there's dedicated wireless on each room.

Google chat is ON, biotches.

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They are actually saying that he has pneumonia now. So this is kind of serious.

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Meanwhile, this next week is finals week and I'm writing tests in between being a boyservant and figuring out how to play Japanese children's music from my iriver to a pair of USB-powered PC speakers. Simple willpower isn't cutting it, so I imagine I'll take apart the inversion pump on the wall for parts and perhaps pump out the jams via venturi effect.

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Oh something really weird happened right after my last post, at home. My desktop PC, the one I put together from parts after my White Night died a few weeks ago, well it just up and died, too. I only had a couple minutes to fiddle with it, but it seems totally fuxx0r3d. I wonder what's up with that. My desktop PC karma is just really crap lately. Anyway, because I was scanning max's chest x-ray right before the PC died I forgot to take it off the scanner and bring it here for the doctor to see. So after we got here and I unloaded everything from the car, I went back home to get the x-ray. Dude, the house was so empty without my wife and the Max. Damn. No way I want to stay there alone tonight! Plus, I have the boyservant role to fill.

I am being told to go buy dinner. The night market where everyone tried fried cricket and grasshoppers after our wedding 2.6 years ago is just down the street, so I'll see what non-insect yummies are available there I guess.

He has bronchitis (and possibly a bacterial infection) serious enough for treatment at the hospital for at least a few days. The real fear is it turning to pneumonia, so the doctors are insisting a course of inhalants and IV-administered meds. We had him diagnosed first by a pediatrician at a private clinic this afternoon, then at the provincial hospital, where they wanted him to stay. It was too crowded and dirty there, so we are opting to take him to a private hospital nearby instead since he does have to stay for a while. If you need to contact us, call our mobile numbers.

I'm attaching his chest x-ray and diagnosis from an hour ago (important parts are in English) below: I tried but the Internet connection all over town has been sketchy the past few days.

Will update when possible.

LINK: The latest technology in Belarusian cucumber farming

The point is NOT that labor is too expensive in Japan for this technological marvel to work there (as stated in the linked post), nor that rising fuel costs would make this impractical, rather - Wow! Now Belarus is famous for something other than Аляксандр Рыгоравіч Лукашэнк.

(thx shintyan!)

A continuation of the Cows in My Backyard series.

Sidenote: I've noticed missing graphics here and there as a result of our recent move to a new webhost. I'll fix these soon, but in the meantime, clicking on the placeholder for a missing graphic on this site will almost always bring it up full size in a new window.

Watch it full screen (the button with four expanding arrows on the bottom right of the video window) with earphones for full effect.

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

(via)

We must here publicly thank all of those who have sent Max presents from all over the world, clothes in particular. They are sooo cute! He has so many sets of clothes I'm thinking of documenting them here as a complete collection, as well as in individual photos.

MORE COWBELL

MORE COWBELL

MORE COWBELL

and finally,
ADD YOUR OWN COWBELL

(thx m)

Running chkdsk in read only mode (without the /f handle) is a big waste of time. I didn't really know that until today. I pulled a 250Gb SATA drive out of my dead PC and was using it in an external box via USB - this ended in corrupted directories for some reason. Now chkdsk is fixing my main torrent drive.

more music charts

LOLZR!!

Another shot from the Japanese festival Nam's department put on at Mahasarakham University a couple weeks back. Max needs to grow into his clothes a bit (thx Uncle D and Auntie M!)

Max was overtired and sleep-deprived today, so he just threw a big fit on and off for a couple hours. It was impossible to get any work done, but I still love him with all my heart.

---------- ---- --- -- - - - -- ---------- ---- --- -- - - - --

Sometimes, though, I stay in the bathroom longer than I need to... And I'm not even reading. The ceiling fan turns and water from the shower drips with a steady rhythm... I'm hesitant to leave my sphere of tranquility. It seems that Thailand is my new Yamato and my bathroom is the precise location of Mahoroba.

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See? I'm not the only one hesitant to emerge from my hiding place:

Best song ever?

Sometimes the sky here is so pretty it can make you cry. Even Max loved this sunset.

...and looking off to the side, but hey, that's what happens when I give somebody else the camera, right?

Well, just one Easter egg, actually, but other related pages. For the Easter Egg, just type about:internets in the address bar of Chrome and hit Enter. (BTW does anyone else remember when this was just the coolest screensaver around and how hard it taxed even those Pentium Pro systems?)

Other about pages:

• about:memory


• about:stats


• about:network


• about:internets


• about:histograms


• about:dns


• about:cache


• about:crash


• about:plugins


• about:version

(via)

This is a pretty cool PS tip: Improve your photography with classical art

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

All of his photos are on the HD of my dead PC. I haven't finished building its replacement from old parts yet. Please stay tuned.

Click to see full size.

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From the super secret force-elite mailing list (you fucking nerds).

This somehow sounds like it will be pretty boring if everything goes according to plan.

"The Box is an ambitious and unique year-long project for BBC News to tell the story of international trade and globalisation by tracking a standard shipping container around the world."

I got stuck editing a thesis this weekend when all I wanted to do was play with the baby and chill out, so this struck a note: Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis

Very flash-artsy, very cool: Go play with Japanese fonts.

(thx shin)

When I gave Max a kiss on the forehead on the way out the door this morning, he responded with a loud belch and a smile. I'd respond in kind, except that my belches still scare him.

There may yet be a Ghostbusters 3.

My big white PC died today.

Goodbye, brother. You served me well.

This is what happens when the Flash plug-in crashes in Chrome:

I like it so much I think I'll start using it as my avatar for everything.

I'm catching up on the photos in my cellphone.

Currently testing out Google's new browser (the rollout is Windows-only for now). It seems pretty cool, but the absolute coolest thing so far has been the comic strip documentation.

Google quote:

"We realized that the Web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser."

So far I'm digging the fact that they ripped a little bit of goodness from each existing browsing platform - I immediately appreciated Opera's Speeddial function. It apparently uses Safari rendering. There's a lot of rough edges and missing essentials, but it's a solid first release... And most importantly it's SUPER FAST.

UPDATE: The comics were too good for some to pass up.

Among other subjects, I teach writing at my university. Writing is a subject that really helps identify certain types of students... like the girl who just today turned in a paper about Wonder Woman's daily schedule, which included eating somtam every morning and helping people in need from 2 to 4PM everyday because "doing too much every day good causes stress and also acne." Reading her paper brought back the days of learning to put together rudimentary sentences in hot Japanese classrooms... And it inspired me to challenge her class with more assignments that can be properly exploited by the clever ones.

UPDATE: I'm grading papers at home and just found another version of the writing I mentioned above, but this time Wonder Woman is eating pork congee and washing dishes in the morning. Damn, I never really thought about superheroes washing dishes every day.

There's a new article on Neal Stephenson and his new book, Anathem, up at Wired: LINK

Here's a handy little chart of fees charged by the airlines: LINK

AKA North Korean Propaganda Posters

Go check out the whole gallery