I’m a bit late posting these, but here are a few photos of Elijah from the past month.
NE 160th St and 405
We live just off the intersection of 405 and 160th St. Recently, a bunch of flowers appeared on the bridge. I finally searched for what it was about and thought it was this story about a fatal hit and run accident on 405. Unfortunately it looks like it might have been this other story about a teen who jumped or fell off the bridge and was run over by multiple cars. Occam’s razor suggests that second story is a suicide since he was wearing all black and it’s pretty hard to fall over that railing. So whichever event those flowers are for, it’s a lot of sadness happening close to home!
BOB Stroller Review
After months of research, Tyla settled on the BOB stroller for jogging. I wasn’t thrilled with the price (we traded in Tyla’s first car for less than the cost of the stroller!) but after checking it out, I was impressed with the build quality. Even the 20% off coupon at Babies R Us wasn’t enough to match the screaming deal on Amazon. We ended up with the slightly more expensive Stroller Strides version because it comes with a free week of Stroller Strides classes which she is already planning to do anyway.
Unboxing was very simple. I just had to pump up the tires and attach them to the stroller. One tricky bit was that we have a Graco Click Connect 35 car seat. BOB isn’t making a car seat adapter for these new Graco seats but they say the Chicco adapter will work. I picked up a used adapter from a friend at work and it works great. While Elijah isn’t quite old enough to go jogging with Tyla yet, the car seat adapter will be handy to use for more casual walks.
We’ve heard lots of people who love these strollers and keep them for a long time so hopefully we get our money’s worth! I’m already thinking about how I can modify it a bit to add some LED lights for visibility while she’s jogging.
Birth Costs
How much does it cost to have a child at the hospital? We had some wild guesses going into this, but I think we’ve finally received all of the bills related to the birth. Now remember that Elijah’s birth was probably one of the more expensive ways possible, but still, this will at least give you a ballpark idea. All of the doctors and companies involved billed our insurance for $36,224.50. Our insurance said “Ehhh…. no… how about your charge us 52% of that and we’ll call it good?” And then, obviously we didn’t have to pay 19k since our insurance picked up a good chunk of the tab.
How much would you pay to have a healthy wife and child? It was definitely money well spent! We’re very thankful to have such incredible medical care available within walking distance of our home.
Scorecasting Review
If you enjoy sports and statistics, there’s a book you need to read and it’s called Scorecasting. The tagline for the book is “The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won” and that’s a pretty good description. I tell people it’s like Mythbusters for sports colloquialisms. Does defense really win championships? Does home field advantage exist and if so, what causes it? Are the Cubs really cursed? When should you punt? They go into very rigorous detail to answer each question. That rigor can create for a bit of slow reading in a couple spots, but overall, it’s a winner!
Golden Steer Recommendations
A friend and I were recently talking to a third guy about the Golden Steer butcher in Bellevue. I’ve tried a lot of things from them and they are all delicious, but if you’re going there and feel overwhelmed, here are my favorite purchases in no particular order:
- Bacon hamburgers
- Bacon sausage
- Pepperoni stick
- Beef kabobs
- Boneless rib eyes
- Beef hot dogs
- Any of their brats and sausages
I’m getting hungry just thinking about this. Luckily we have a rib eye marinating in the fridge right now!
Painting Timelapse
Last weekend, we put a coat of white, reflective paint on the flat roofs on the church property. I set up a GoPro in the corner of the roof on a tripod because I can’t even do manual labor without geeking it up.
By the way, if you want to see more stuff like this and photos from the work days that I organize at church, you can friend the church on Facebook. In addition to doing the property maintenance, I’m also the self-appointed social networking guy so I’d love to see our numbers go up!
Ikea Cabinet
Have you ever used Ikea cabinets? I’ve heard really good things about them and I’m thinking about using their cheapest version for a project in the man cave. We’re going to make an entire wall into a bunch of storage and a long desk. Playing around with Sketchup and a premade library of Ikea cabinets gave me this rough idea:
This is probably going to be one of my big projects for the month of September when I’m home on paternity leave. Next steps are to finalize the design and pick up the cabinets. I’ll get those installed and then figure out how to make a desk top and the shelves. If you’ve done anything similar and have advice for me, I’d love to hear it.
Xbox 360 Infrared Receiver
While I love the design and quietness of the newer slim version of the Xbox360, the infrared receiver on it isn’t very good. You have to be pointing your remote control directly at the box to get it to register. Since we use the 360s around the house as our Media Center Extenders to watch TV, we spend a lot of time accessing them via remotes. We were having particular trouble in the living room so it was time for a little change.
I picked up an infrared extender for $17 on Amazon. It’s a very simple IR repeater. You plug the transmitter onto the receiver of the 360 and then put the new receiver somewhere that’s more visible. We stuck it onto the bottom corner of our TV. The whole thing is powered via USB which would be super convenient if our TV had USB power (it doesn’t.) The new extender works much better and it’s very rare to have trouble registering a command from the remote.
Save the River
Of course environmental protection groups do not like the idea of adding a dam to the river and they have a pretty good argument. The river is part of the state’s Scenic River System and much of the PUD’s power already comes from hydro dams.
That being said, this design seems like a pretty good compromise design. It provides power and helps decrease the use of fossil fuels for power without having a huge impact on the land. If this isn’t good enough, I wonder how the environmental groups propose that the PUD should move to more renewable energy sources? The comments I read were all just renewable energy in someone ELSE’S back yard.