Category: Family

Baby Name Time – Part Deux

Yes indeed, we’re making a list and checking it twice.  I wrote previously about a neat interface on the Internet for finding name frequency data at a site called the NameVoyager, and I still value the site’s data.  But another site has taken things a step further, and not only provided frequency data but also recommendations.  You can pick a few seed names and see what else comes up.  It is called Nymbler (thanks for the tip Darcy!)

Want to see our short list?  Yeah, me too.  We’ve narrowed each sex down to 20 or so names that we don’t dislike.  Is our future child’s name on the list?  Hard to say.  There are a few I really like but Alisa’s nose wrinkles every time I mention them.  So those don’t look so viable, if you catch my drift.

Ah, this is the fun part!  It is merely deciding the very first and strongest impression your child will make on people, even in their physical absence.  No problem.

Happy (Belated) 2nd Birthday Marley!

It’s a real shame – it really is.  My own daughter turned two on May 5th and I didn’t get a chance to blog about it.  What’s that?  Why didn’t I get that chance?  Well, it seems my cable Internet went and got broken on Sunday, the day of her party.

Several visits by the cable provider later and we’re back in action.

So here’s a belated wish going out to my lovely little girl.  I assure you pictures of the party and the ceremonial cake sacrifice will follow.

2008 – The Year Of Being Creative

Welcome to 2008 everyone!

I’m not usually up for New Years resolutions and such, but I guess you might read this post as such.  Over the past few months I’ve been taking a really close look at my day-to-day activities, my level of life-satisfaction, and my progress towards my long-term goals.  I’ve noticed a pretty important disconnect:

I’m not really on track to meeting my long term goals.  Heck, I’m not even really clear on my 5 year plan right now.

During the fall I attended a UI conference that, for some reason, had a very large impact on me.  Not because it presented particularly challenging  material (though it did) but more because of the introspection I was able to run through while away from work and home.

My conclusion after these months of thought: I need to introduce further creativity into my life and to my activities.  I’m not creating enough opportunities for expression, artistic growth, or creative experiences.

So I have found a new focus or theme for 2008: Being Creative.  I’m going to consciously work towards this goal, setting myself challenging and achievable goals on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  I don’t see this as a New Year’s resolution, but more of a life direction choice.  I’m going to be giving it some daily thought hopefully resulting in some daily action.  I don’t want this to fizzle out after 2 weeks, I’m taking this really seriously.  Maybe I’ll have to provide periodic reports here for some kind of accountability.  Accountability to the masses of people who read my magnificent blog.  Not you Samson, you’re just a temp.  (inside joke from this year’s Holiday Compilation).

Let’s begin!

Alisa Bridger – M.A.

I’m overwhelming proud to announce that Alisa has officially graduated from her Master’s programme. She marched across the vaunted stage at the UBC Chan Centre on Thursday, Nov. 22 2007 to become

Alisa Bridger B.A., B.Ed., M.A.

Soon she will become

Alisa Bridger B.A., B.Ed., M.A., RCC

Do we see a PhD in her future? Most certainly! The question remains, do I get a few more letters after my name or does she continue to plough though it all while she has momentum? Either way, she’s worked herself to the bone and we’re all incredibly proud of her accomplishment.

Immunizations And Autism – A Little Research

Marley’s coming up on her 18 month immunizations (well, she’s actually past-due for them now) and someone brought up the topic of the risk of autism with the 18 month immunizations. I checked out a few resources, and wanted to thrown them up here for anyone else interested.

  1. The 18 month scheduled immunizations don’t actually introduce anything new i.e. that Marley hasn’t been exposed to before
  2. The furor about a potential link between autism and vaccination concerned the MMR vaccination, based on a study published in the Lancet in 1998
  3. Dr. Andrew Wakefield authored the study
  4. The MMR vaccine is administered to infants in BC at the ages of 12 and 18 months
  5. Symptoms of autism manifest before the age of 3 years old
  6. Wakefield’s study has been debunked as “nonsense”, and medical professionals today are still battling the FUD he generated
  7. 10 of Wakefield’s 12 collaborators have retracted the Lancet study (2004)
  8. Wakefiled was discovered to have large conflicts of interest

    The doctor was doing paid research for a group of parents of autistic children who were trying to mount a class action suit against the makers of the MMR vaccine. Later it was revealed Wakefield had taken out a patent on a new vaccine while publicly challenging the safety of the existing one.

  9. Another vaccine that caused concern about autism was the Hepatitis B vaccine, due to mercury content (thimerosal)
  10. The dosage administered in Canada is far below the levels in the US (in 2001), and both are below the safe exposure levels
  11. Thimerosal is now only present in influenza vaccines. It was removed due to public perception, not safety concerns (the power of consumerism!)
  12. No connection has been found between thimerosal and autism

As a person with a degree in Microbiology and Immunology, I’ve always been a proponent of vaccines. I’ve had to re-evaluate my stance now that I actually am a parent and have to make decisions for someone other than myself. My position though hasn’t changed – the risks introduced by vaccination are far less than those of not vaccinating against these diseases.

Many people believe that we’ve managed to get these diseases under control, and that vaccinating is no longer necessary and introducing the children to these vaccination risks is now riskier than the chances of actually contracting the disease. Bollocks I say! Today we live in a society that should be considered global – and this means our children will be coming into contact with cultures and societies that do not have these diseases under control.

Take for example Ireland’s response to the MMR-autism scare:

Ireland saw measles soar from 148 cases in 1999 to 1200 cases in 2000 when MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunization rates dropped to 76% in response to concerns of a link between MMR and autism. Several children died in this outbreak. When enough people stop immunizing, there is more disease and children may die.

Medical experts believe the magic number is 95%, by the way: 95% of a population must be resistant to a disease before it can be considered under control.

Vaccinations seem to be a fire-and-brimstone topic for parents and microbiologists. There’s a lot of money involved in the industry which naturally leads to people doubting the intentions of the players. One could argue though that this is where Canada’s health care system helps clarify things – making money is not the ultimate purpose of a publicly funded health system.

Medical experts all seem to be agreeing with one another here – vaccinations are the safest bet for our children right now.

Resources:

Who’s Child Is This?

Who’s child is this?

Seriously – where did the sweet little girl go and who is this berserk Scottish animal?

Click the picture for the full-sized treat.

Marley is enjoying her stickers, as you can tell.

Stickers seem to be becoming a mean of obtaining goods and services. I was into stickers as a kid as well, but I certainly never thought of them as currency.

Sand, Water, and a Whole Lot of Dedicated Creativity

This past weekend the family took a trip up to Harrison Lake for a look at the Sand Sculptures.  I only took a few pictures (I figured there’d be lots of other people taking pictures) but maybe you’re interested in looking at the few I snapped ….  If anyone else who was there that day wants to share their own pictures, send them my way and I can add them to the collection.

Put simply: it was an astounding display of creativity and physics.

Sounds Like An Urban Legend About Plastic … But …

Alisa forwarded me this article on plastics and some of the thoughts currently available on how safe they are to use for eating – apparently they may not be as inert as some people thoguht they were. If you are interested they offer links and resources to information about the different kinds of plastics out there, how to identify them, and where to buy safe ones.

The article links to the Canadian Cancer Society page on using microwaves with plastics as well – another good quick read.

It all sounds like something you’d expect to disprove on Snopes, but there seems to be a little meat on this bone.