April 2006 Archives

I'm going to be a Dad in a few days, maybe a week or so. It is a strange feeling, cuspal, marking a firm transition from being someone's son to having a son. I'm scared, excited and dreaming about it.

There is the daunting sense of being entirely responsible for a creature that can't really look after itself as well as a new born foal, until it is 21 months old. Then supporting and encouraging him until he is at least 21 years old and the rest. Then there is the life change, a simple weekend away is not just the two of us and a hotel or tent wherever we fancy. There is much more preparation and thought required. So far only one room is over run with baby things, though a lullaby Miffy has made it into our bedroom already. I'm sure the rest of the house will be given over happily to him, much to the cats' chagrin.

Yet in return for these small relinquished freedoms we get to watch our child grow up and take his first step, say his first words, run, climb and become a person. I know that this happens by the million every day across the world, but it happens to someone else and their child.

I've thought about growing up and the decisions I made, forced and unforced and the irresponsibility that childhood offers, it will be a challenge I think. 2006 is not the 1970s and the world is faster, harder and more accessible. Whether we stay in London til he is a teenager is unlikely, so the question becomes when to leave, but not yet.

Walthamstow seems like a nice place to bring up a baby and on towards being a toddler, we've made one step towards that in booking a nursery place for him. Before that we have a first summer to play with him. I'm so looking forward to meeting him and losing sleep in exchange.

Last Friday on Radio 4, there was a short piece on buggies or pushchairs in the Today programme. I'm soon to be a Dad, so it was close to my interests. First on the name, though, I call them buggies, as that was what they were called in Belfast. Pram is the older word, I'm not sure where pushchair came from.

In the interview there was a sense of disagreement over the need for a buggy to be a certain size. I can see the point of this, the three wheeler all terrain travel systems are enormous and heavy. We've spent a long time thinking about this and dismissed anything that we couldn't easily pick up empty, let alone with a small child or baby inside. This ruled out the majority of the travel systems, which I feel are really aimed at the US market and people who drive almost everywhere. See this conversation on DaddyTypes for an insight into the US / Europe cultural differences on buggies.

So that left the cheap end of the market, the basic Maclaren buggy and the posh end of the market. We wanted a buggy / pram usable on the tube system from birth to two or three, so looked a bit more up market. There are a range of mainly Dutch products in this space, which matches London in its use of public transport and limited use of cars, plus they have cobbled streets and mixed weather.

So, between Bugaboo, Quinny and Stokke, what did we like and dislike. The Bugaboo Chameleon is undeniably attractive and appealing, in the shop it does really want to be bought. It is compact folded, easy to collapse and light. It also works in a clever two wheeled mode for walks in the forest. However it is quite wide and your baby is a long way from you. They are also everywhere and the celebs' first choice for baby accessory. Still, it came a close second.

The Quinny Buzz is a nice product, but too wide in the rear wheels and the handle height adjustment is awkward, with too fiddle buttons to press in. The space between the wheels is also a bit low, especially when the bag is attached. I'm over six foot and it felt like I was continually kicking the bag. It came third for us, but the Zapp looks great for an older child and really compact.

So on to the winner, the Stokke Xplory, it is bigger than the Chameleon folded, slightly heavier and more expensive, but it won for a few unique features. Your baby is up high, right next to you, which is psychologically very powerful. A comparison with the Chameleon and the baby is a foot lower, which was key for us. It does the two wheel trick too and in a more elegant manner than the Chameleon, so we are thinking it would be perfect for navigating the many steps in London's Underground. Lastly it can work as a high chair in cafe, which means we are no longer restricted to places which can supply high chairs.

The Xplory is not the cheapest of the three options, but it is the best life fit for us, living in London and wanting to keep using the tube / underground to get to places. Thanks to my brother Andrew for helping us to buy it.

I spend much of my life doing non-physical tasks, usually in front of a computer, thinking things out in Omnigraffle or talking in meetings. The last two months have given me a different focus, doing house repairs and decorating.

There is something immensely satisfying about making physical things, O'Reilly have tapped into this well with Make, but restoring and repairing a house is a pleasurable job. Getting to see the results everyday of a sanded step or firmly nailed down floorboard encourages you to do it well, as you have to live with it.

Something I have found from this is that jobs like painting are all in the preparation and the finish, the actual named task, painting the wall is actually the smallest part of the job. The prep in particular is key, you can't make things smooth with paint.

Lastly, doing these physical tasks has made me more aware of the passage of time and my ability to fill it with tasks of my choosing. Office life is slow in comparison, there is no meeting to have, just a list of jobs to do. The list is less apparent with intellectual tasks, as they are just not as real. If you sand a set of stairs, then you are absorbed in that task, then it is complete and you do the next task. There is less fallow time or maybe it is just more apparent productivity. Maybe it is just that these tasks are easier to start or have more obvious beginning and end points, compared to intellectual tasks.

They certainly have a different nature these two types of job, gardening is similar, but has a longer time span. Maybe if doing things with my hands was my full time job, I'd see things differently. In my job I do make things, but none of them have a physical existence, so perhaps this is just the appeal of change. Yet there are echoes of it in climbing, hiking and running, so maybe it is just the pleasure of controlling your body to make it do things correctly and making yourself physically tired in the process.

• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Saturn's moon 'best bet for life'
  lots of water and organic molecules
  (tags: saturn xenobiology cassini enceladus)

We've been in just over nine weeks and have done some serious refactoring of our house in that time. Virtually the entire top floor has been redone and about two thirds of the house redecorated. I've lost count of the number of things that we've done, but somewhere around 500 odd tasks seems about right.

We've had the house rewired, sockets only; had the bathroom demolished; a new one built and installed; plus had several rooms replastered. The front bedroom, the back (baby) bedroom and the bathroom, plus the entire hall, stairs and landing now have smooth solid plaster.

Downstairs, we had an abortive and fraught relationship with a floor sanding person, who walked off the job vandalising as he went and he stole my nice hammer and tape measure. Further replastering in the living room and removing built-in cupboards, there and also in most of the bedrooms.

The house is awash with lovely Farrow and Ball colours, including half a dozen whites. We've learned to tile bathrooms, sand stairs, clean paint brushes, do endless hoovering and countless other jobs to make things right. We've also acquired lots more tools and the knowledge to use them.

All the preplanning was on backpack, then onto sheets of lovely yellow legal pad with a page per room. Tom, Vivvy, Michael, Vicky, Arthur, Doreen, Andrew and Abbie have been amazingly helpful and generous, so thank you all. Lucy has been amazing throughout, you are fabulous.

More photos and recommendations of tradesmen to come and maybe some stuff on doing physical things vs non-physical things, we'll see.

I feel that we own the house properly now, having got to know it so intimately over the past couple of months, from its joists to the curve of the plaster work. There is still a lot to do, but our focus of the past two months will arrive soon, so the rest can wait.

• Web services, Rails-style
  very nice and easy way to add xml responses to your ruby apps
  (tags: ruby rails web_services)

• ETech 2006 Atom Case Study Links
  Tim Bray's links about Atom
  (tags: timbray atom atompp)
• Digital Web Magazine - Just Build It: HTML Prototyping and Agile Development
  Advocating prototyping in HTML rather than a page based tool like omnigraffle or on paper
  (tags: prototyping)