Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Happy Birthday to me! This is an extra special year with the 50% increase in family size (by count, not by weight.) Our little man continues to grow strong and healthy, go to sleep easily at night, and generally be a happy guy. It’s the best birthday present I could get! My parents are also out for a visit. It’s the first time they’ve been able to spend a birthday with me in quite a long time.

P.S. If you don’t understand how this is my 21st birthday, tell a programmer I was born in 1980 and let them figure it out.

My first week of paternity leave was put to good use. Tyla got a bunch of her task list crossed off and I got a good start on the cabinet project in the man cave.

The best part of the week was being able to take a nap with Elijah every day. It’s really neat seeing him throughout an entire day. When I’m working I get a little time with him in the morning and then an hour of cranky time before bed. Now I see him in a lot more of his happier/calm moods and I feel like I actually get to know my own son a little better.

Did you know that Facebook might be using your name ads to your friends? If you say you like a company, your friends might end up with an ad that implies that you’re endorsing the company. Fair enough I guess since you are, sort of, endorsing the company by liking them. And remember, you’re not paying for Facebook so they’re going to make money off you somehow. That being said, you can disable this along with possible future expansions of the ad feature.

1. Log in to Facebook
2. Click the gear icon in the top right
3. Click “Ads” in the menu on the left side
4. Edit both options and choose “No one”

I wrote about having a chunk of skin removed back in January, but I feel the need to send out another warning message. Since that time I’ve had 6 more areas sent in for testing and one of them was bad enough that I had to get it cut out. That means I’ve now got two big ugly scars. You can laugh at me when I stop to put on my sunscreen before stepping outside, but I’m officially done with the sun. I guess Seattle is a good place for this type of behavior in the winter but in the summer, it’s one of the driest and sunniest places in the country. And don’t think that you’re safe just because it’s cloudy. Clouds still let UV through and unless they are super thick, you still need protection.

Please also consider a trip to the dermatologist to get checked. Best case is that he says you have no concerning areas and you walk out the door 15 minutes later with all worry removed. Worst case is that you have to get some treatment, but isn’t it better to catch it as early as possible? If you have a problem, it’s not going to disappear if you ignore it.

If you’re anything like me, none of this will actually convince you to go. I’ve had many friends tell me the exact same thing I wrote above and the only thing that got me to make an appointment was Tyla basically making it happen. I’m glad she did! Now I’m on a regular checkup schedule.

My employer has good benefits for women taking maternity leave which isn’t too surprising, but they also have benefits for guys. New dad’s can take up to 12 weeks off within the first 12 months from the birth or adoption! The first four weeks are paid and the rest of the weeks would be unpaid. I’m taking the four weeks off and today is my last day of work. I won’t have to go into work for the entire month of September! It’s a huge blessing and we’re looking forward to taking advantage of it. There are no major plans but we’ll be catching up on projects around the house, having a visit from my parents, and enjoying some small day trips. I’m sure that October 1 will come all too quickly.

On my latest drive through Stevens Pass, I saw a few signs for savetheriver.org. After checking it out, I learned that the Snohomish Public Utility District is attempting to put a dam in the Skykomish River. The dam will supply 30 megawatts (power for roughly 10,000 homes.) The dam itself seems like a neat idea. it can be inflated and deflated as desired to let debris, salmon and water flow past the dam. The dam would only be inflated in the winter when the flow is the highest.

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.

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.

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!

Tyla and I enjoyed watching the entire season of Treehouse Masters on Animal Planet. The shows all followed a strict formula but it was still fun to see what they came up with for each treehouse. Sidenote: it’s amazing how rude and ill-mannered rich people who want to buy treehouses can be (ie. the wife in the “Backyard Bungalow” episode.)

If you only watch one episode, check out the finale called “Love is in the Air.” Pete builds a treehouse on their own property so he gets to do exactly what he wants and wow, it’s a whopper of a treehouse! What’s even cooler for us is that we saw them building this while we were there. The film crew wasn’t there that day, but they had gotten the metal bridge supports in and were working on the main treehouse building. Pretty cool!

I’m so thankful that we stayed there last summer before this TV show hit. Even then it was nearly impossible to find an opening 6-8 months into the future and now they don’t even offer online booking or prices. You have to email them. I imagine they are flooded with requests!

My Subaru is nearing 100K. Hopefully I’ll get another few cheap years out of it, but then I’ll have a decision to make. I’m really interested in the possibility of getting an all-electric car. My commute is ~12 miles each way which seems easy for almost all the electric cars out there today. There are lots of free charging stations around the area and there are so many Teslas and Nissan Leaf’s around here that you hardly even notice them anymore.

The costs are really coming down and you can make a fairly convincing argument that you’ll finally break even on the cost after the life of the car (though people on either side of the argument will still say that’s either too conservative or too unrealistic.)

There seem to be two design ideas on the market:

1. Most companies spend a lot of money on the battery packs and provide something that will survive many charge/discharge cycles over many years. There are charging stations at many parks and businesses.
2. Tesla is building their own “super charging” stations which give you a half charge in only 20 minutes or you can do a complete automated (ROBOTS!) swap of the battery pack in 90 seconds. Charging is free. Battery packs cost about the same amount as a tank of gas.

Tesla is making cars people really want to drive with good recharging capabilities and everyone else is following an agreed-upon standard. Who’s right?