Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Tyla and I seem to have started a tradition of getting one of those ridiculous giant photo buttons at the fair every year, so there’s no option of skipping the fair when it comes to town. This year was a bit of a challenge with Elijah in tow, but when my parents came to visit, we all piled in the car and headed to Puyallup.

Elijah did great with us lugging him around all over the fairgrounds. He’s a real trooper! We ate fair food, saw plenty of animals, and of course posed for a photo button.

Earlier this summer, I was surprised to see a “20th anniversary” parade for the city of Woodinville. After some research (translation: reading Wikipedia), I learned that the city was incorporated in 1993 after Bothell started discussions of annexing the area. Take that Bothell!

The area was settled in 1871 by a logger/farmer named Ira Woodin. The cabin he built ended up serving as the first school and the post office. 93% of the buildings built since then have been wineries.*

The city held 10,938 people in the 2010 census which is a 19% increase from the 2000 census. Every one of those people apparently drives through downtown Woodinville at rush hour. There are some old train tracks that run through the middle of the city and make for awkward intersections under the bridge. At some point I think all 11K residents are going to be willing to pay a bit extra in our taxes to rip that thing out. Luckily my route to work avoids that whole mess.

Tyla and I continue to be thrilled with the location of our home and I’m happy to call Woodinville home. It’s nice being part of a smallish community inside the huge 3.5 million population of greater Seattle.

* Not true, but probably not far off.

PRISM is still a hot topic in the news as more and more information leaks out. I happily stay far away from politics, especially on this site, but when there are people spreading incorrect tech facts out there, I feel compelled to speak up.

I believe there are definitely some reasons to be disturbed by this news and to call my representatives to make my feelings known. However, as with most popular news stories, there are people arguing the same side as me but who I completely disagree with. Those people say they are appalled that someone was reading their email or their web traffic. Their email is private! Umm… what? Even if the NSA wasn’t reading your email, you know who can read it? Your email provider, your ISP and countless other people along the route. Not only CAN they read it, but they DO. How else can Gmail serve up those contextual ads based on words that are in your email? How else can they filter out spam? How else can they sell information they glean about you to advertisers and other businesses? And even if THEY aren’t reading your email for some reason, I assure you that China, Russia and other countries are. There’s nothing difficult or illegal about the technology since it’s all sent across the Internet unencrypted. It’s trivial to read it.

Now if you want to call for changes in the scope of the NSA’s powers, create better oversight and transparency, or stop the government from using their web snooping to profile citizens, then that’s fine. But please don’t muddy the waters by being surprised that someone is reading your email.

On a related note, there’s an excellent open letter from a guy named Ben Adida to President Obama which makes some fantastic points about this whole debacle. He does a wonderful job of communicating his point logically without letting emotion ruin the argument. Here’s my favorite quote from the letter, but please go read the whole thing:

What would have become of the civil rights movement if all of its initial transgressions had been perfectly detected and punished? What about gay rights? Women’s rights? Is there even room for civil disobedience?

Though we want our laws to reflect morality, they are, at best, a very rough and sometimes completely broken approximation of morality. Our ability as citizens to occasionally transgress the law is the force that brings our society’s laws closer to our moral ideals. We should reject mass surveillance, even the theoretically perfect kind, with all the strength and fury of a people striving to form a more perfect union.

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.