Ramblin' with Roger

I don’t want to get into talking at length about Bradley, except to say:
1. It’s not Lamaze, and
2. It was very useful in informing us about the birth process, and it felt as though we were taking control of much of the process.

One of the exercises we were to do was to come up with a birth plan, which certainly would not have occurred to me independent of the class. Ours is here.

At some point in February, there was a baby shower, arranged by Carol’s sister-in-law Tracy and others. Later, on a snowy St. Patrick’s Day, my office got together and bought me a wonderful baby carriage; Carol was in on the secret, and drove downtown to share in the festivities.

We were also busy emptying the room that would become the nursery. It had become a storage area for all sorts of things we didn’t know what to do with.

2/3/04- Little Soul “has been very active lately. Normally, [Carol] notices on her drive to work and drive home, but now she notices early in the morning, last night while we watched TV, much of the time.”

In the Bradley class, we learn about doulas. A doula is advocate for the parents before, during and after the birth.

Carol goes to her ob/gyn with a discussion of the birth plan, though without the actual sheet. She feels that the doctor is just placating her, something we talk about with our doula, Maureen.

Carol and I go back to the practice, and talk to a different doctor about items on the birth plan. He said, several times, “We could do that, if you remind me.” Finally, he declared: “What you probably want is a midwife.”

A midwife? Can we DO that? Moreover, can we change practices with Carol 8 months pregnant?

We can and we do. Carol and I go to see a midwife, who is in a practice affiliated with a doctor in mid-March, which goes well. We make another appointment to see the doctor. That’s scheduled for March 26…

Now, for the Adventures of Buckethead!

And speaking of getting fired, a piece on How to Get Fired.
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How the birthday paradox works. (You’re in a room with 30 people and two of them have the same birthday.)
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I was working on a reference question about goat milk (yes, goat milk) last week and I came to this site, which is nice enough for what it is. But the company name is Fias Co Farm, so the URL reads fiascofarm, which doesn’t exactly breed confidence. (Choice of verb was intentional.)
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This next piece is pretty dry on the face, though important, because they leave off the best part:
State Tax Commissioner Andrew S. Eristoff today urged New Yorkers to be cautious of an e-mail scam that promises a tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service but is really designed to strip people of personal information such as social security or credit card numbers.
E-mail confidence schemes of this nature are called “phishing” scams because they “bait” unsuspecting victims into providing confidential information.
To view the entire document, please visit: here
The BEST part ios that the reason the Commissioner was writing about it was that the would-be crooks tried to bait HIM. No word as to whether he fell for it.
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Buy The Exonerated on DVD and Help Support New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty-
A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this DVD will directly benefit the organization. For more information and to purchase go www.nyadp.org.
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John Stuart Mill on Military Intervention, via the English Prof.
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Truthout has a multimedia page. See W answer Helen Thomas’ question, “Why Did We Go to War?” and much more.
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Of local interest:

From Panels to Panel: A Graphic Novel Workshop
May 19, 2006 12:45-5 Albany Public Library, Main Library
Free to students with proof of enrollment!
Professionals only $15!
For more information, including a list of participants, and to download the registration form, go here.

Perhaps something like this is playing in your area-
Come to the main branch of the Albany Public Library at 161 Washington Avenue in Albany at 6:30 PM to see screenings of the ACLU’s “Freedom Files”. Each night will feature a different civil liberties topic and a discussion will follow.

1) Other than the mighty Fred Hembeck, have you met any of your fellow bloggers face to face?

Well, first off, Gordon, you have to stop referring to him as the “mighty Fred Hembeck” or the “great Fred Hembeck”. He’ll get a swelled head and be impossible to live with. Of course, I don’t live with him, Lynn and Julie do, so never mind what I just said. (Actually, he’s rather self-effacing.)

Of course, I know everybody in my FRIENDS’ WEBSITES section; not all of those are blogs; blogger Amy Roeder was one of my competitors on JEOPARDY! I know Frank; he used to work in my office. I know Elissa, who does the Albany Public Library blog.

I have been reacquainted with a guy I used to know once upon a time, one Alan David Doane, the somewhat ferocious-looking man pictured here, who was a regular customer at the comic book store I used to work at, FantaCo. We’re still in touch electronically, and he’s turned me onto Beck. (For people of a certain age, no, it’s NOT Jeff Beck I’m talking about.) He also exposed me to the current Green Day album. Of course, every day is a Green day for me.

(Dozens groan.)

2) What’s the greatest thing about being a father? (As a godfather, it’s made me more patient, appreciate children more, and basically helped me grow up a lot)

Well, I do notice other people’s kids more, and I’m more positive towards them. I talk with them at church, on the bus, which I probably didn’t do much before. (It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it’s that I wasn’t part of the fraternity of fathers, so it didn’t seem seemly, somehow.)

I’m very sympathetic to newer parents. I marvel how people operate with two or more of these small people. I was on the bus last week, and a woman came on, trying to collapse the baby carriage, and so she gave me her baby to hold for a few minutes. That sort of thing simply didn’t happen that often, pre-Lydia.

As I think about Lydia, who’s approaching her second birthday: it wasn’t that I had had this compelling need to reproduce. I’d gone five decades without kids, and I’d pretty much figured that I’d go the remainder of this life’s journey without doing so. She’s a surprise to me, at many levels.

Richard writes:
Roger,
Being an old resident of Binghamton, I thought you might know about this:
Back when I was going to school there (1975-79), someone told me that an episode of The Twilight Zone had been shot in the Binghamton bus station. Naturally, I had been to the bus station periodically (although interestingly enough, I had to take the bus to Albany because there were no direct lines to Kingston). Well, recently, I bought the first 3 seasons of the Twilight Zone on DVD. Well, sure enough, episode 21 (Mirror Image–Feb. 26, 1960) does take place entirely in a bus station and one of the characters states that he is going from Binghamton to Syracuse! The thing was, I couldn’t tell if it was a TV set or if it was filmed on location!! My memory of the bus station is not that clear and certainly, it would have changed over the course of 15 years. Do you know anything about this?

Just curious! Thanks for listening!

I had not heard this. So I pulled off my The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree (Bantam Books, 1982) off the shelf. The show you reference is during the rocky first season and starred Vera Miles and Martin Milner. Right after that 2/26 show, no episodes aired until 4/1, according to the book, although other guides, such as this one show no such break in the season.

The pilot for The Twilight Zone was shot at Universal, but the season was shot at MGM. Buck Houghton, the show’s producer was quoted as saying: “MGM traditionally kept everything they ever made. Just about everything you could ever wish for in an anthology was there, including the back lot, which had New York Streets and forests and lakes and you name it.” Zicree continues: “The ‘you name it’ included small towns from Middle America and the Old West.”

I’ve long thought Binghamton (and Buffalo) were culturally in the Midwest. In any case, there’s no specific mention of filming on location in the book for that first season, so I’m going to suggest that it’s unlikely that they shot in Binghamton, or anywhere else, at least during year one.

The Wikipedia addresses this episode, and you can tell me if it’s right or wrong. I have a vague recollection of this show, probably when it was first in off-network reruns, and I thought it looked similar to, but not exactly the same as, the Greyhound station in Binghamton.

Not so incidentally, I got this e-mail recently:

Hi Roger,