Finally got my laptop hooked up to my TV correctly.  Turns out my port-replicator/docking station has DVI out, so just docking the laptop and running a DVI to HDMI cable solved the issue.

I got the idea yesterday of creating a home media center, backing up our DVDs to a 250GB external HD I have in the basement collecting dust and planned on using my laptop as the controlling “brain” of the whole thing.  Since I’m running Vista Ultimate, WMC (Windows Media Center) is already built in.  The only caveat in my plan is that my laptop only has VGA output.

I went to Radio Shack and bought a VGA to DVI-A adapter and a DVI to HDMI cable (as well as a 1/8” to audio L-R cable).  Of course, it doesn’t work because I’m trying to convert an analog signal (that’s what the “A” in DVI-A stands for) to a digital signal.  Converter boxes exist, but they’re expensive and I really don’t want to spend a lot of money on what is basically just a fun little home project.  If I did want to spend money for this, I’d just buy a computer with an HDMI output.

So, my next step is to return the cable and adapter to RadioShack and pick up a VGA to Component cable.  This is much cheaper and should do the trick.  Component cables can carry up to 1080p resolution, so the only limiting factor will be the video output capabilities of the laptop.  It supports 1280×800 resolution, so I think I should be able to get at least 720i out of it (as opposed to 480i for a standard DVD player).  We do have an upscaling DVD player that upscales to 1080i, so if I really wanted the best picture, that remains the way to go.

Up this morning at 04:00.  Our newborn slept from 23:30 last night until then which was a great stretch of sleep time.  Since we brought her home she has typically been up in the 02:00-0:300 range every morning to eat.  After helping Pauline out and putting I back to bed it was 04:45 so I figured I might as well get up, rather than attempt to go back to bed just to wake up a half hour later in a much more groggy state.

I know it’s cliche, but again witnessing the birth of one of my children is an absolute miracle.  Our little daughter was born in the evening on July 2nd and we brought her home on the 4th.  Her two older siblings have been fantastic about the whole deal. 

Yesterday I returned to work with only 345 emails to process in my inbox.  I was able to fix one defect yesterday (hooray for two lines of code!) and am setting a goal of fixing three today.

I haven’t been blogging in a while due to paternity leave but will try and post something of substance when I get caught up with stuff today.

Weight: 196lbs
Net Change: –3lbs
BMI: 26.6 (overweight)

Baby Watch 2008 continues.  About 0100 Pauline thought she might be going into labor but it was a false alarm.  She’s very uncomfortable, but the baby continues to move around.  We have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

Last night was H’s first T-ball practice.  She was a bit shy and apprehensive about it at first, but she soon made a friend to start playing catch with.  I think the work I did with her over the weekend (showing her how to hold the bat, glove, etc.) helped.  She was the last one to get a chance to bat off the tee and she strode up to the tee with a lot of confidence.  She waited for the coach to be watching and then she hit a rip of a fly ball out to right field…best hit of the night by anyone on her team.  She was so excited and I was so proud of her.

It’s great being a dad.

Weight: 196lbs
Net Change: –3lbs
BMI: 26.6 (overweight)

Last night was fairly uneventful.  We made a wonderful salad with organic greens, spinach, grilled chicken, dried cranberries and almonds for dinner.  We are participating in a harvest program with a local organic farm.  Every Thursday afternoon we get organic produce delivered from the farm.

Drove to the mall so Pauline could run a couple errands and I could gas up the Volvo.  $4.149 at BJ’s… cost me 62 bucks to fill up.  We’re really trying to consolidate errands to minimize trips.

We watched some of Batman Begins on FX last night.  Can’t wait to see the Dark Knight.

Strong suspicion the baby comes tonight.  I may well have had the last night of good sleep for a while.

Today I’m trying to continue plowing through new feature development.  I fixed something that was vexing me yesterday and that’s all working fine right now.  Moving on to my next task it looks like another developer has started doing some work in this area so I’m going to need to meet with him and make sure our code syncs up correctly.

I’ve had mostly a productive day at work today.  The number of meetings I have to attend on a daily basis has significantly dropped which has allowed me more time to sit and focus on what I’m working on.  Today, I spent most of my time refactoring a feature that my team is working on in order to create a more robust system without the need for lots of copy-pasted code.  It took me a couple hours; I’m getting my coding groove back which has been sadly absent the last year or so as I had been spending pretty much every working hour either in a meeting or creating some sort of project plan.

Waiting for the phone to ring all day.  Baby Watch 2008 is officially in high gear and it seems very likely that our baby will be born either today or tomorrow.  I have tentatively scheduled next week for paternity leave.  Since the 4th is a holiday, I can’t carry an extra paternity day over to the following week; I still have to report back that next Monday.  I suppose I could complain about it but I doubt it would do much good.

Continuing to feel better.  Starting last week I’d been going through a week of misery but things are looking up, anti-biotics are working and I am feeling more like my normal self.  Timing is good on this one (see previous paragraph).

Final Crisis #2 comes out today.  Evidently, whenever DC wants to have a big "important" series or event it has to be a crisis (i.e., "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "Identity Crisis" and "Infinite Crisis").  I read issue #1 last week and was neither blown away nor turned away from it.  The artwork was (for the most part) quite decent but story wise I haven’t been captivated yet.  The latest Action Comics on the other hand was quite excellent.

Weight: 195lbs (net change: –4lbs)
BMI: 26.4 (overweight)

3:54 PM

It took quite a while due to net congestion but I was finally able to install FireFox 3.  I’ve barely had time to use it but it seems faster than the previous version.

Prayers and thoughts go out to JB.