nick.org

Last night was tough. Not only was Eriko completely drained by the time I arrived home, which thankfully, was earlier than usual, but Jerry had a poor night sleeping.

He woke up once, was upset, couldn't talk about it, and it eventually escalated to me removing him from the bedroom. This turned into a full blown tantrum, kicking, screaming, hitting, throwing, spitting... you name it. I sat on the couch and was minimally engaged - I would put him back on the floor if he ran over and tried to hit me and I talked to him - I kept explaining that he needed to talk about what he wanted.

Eventually, he exhausted himself and with arms open, said he wanted to talk. I picked up, he asked to go back to bed and agreed to be quiet, and away we went. It took some time for him to fall asleep, with lots of whimpering, feet rubbing, and back scratching. Eriko had trouble sleeping during this time and left the bedroom briefly.

Eventually, Jerry woke up again - and again, he was unable to articulate why he was upset or awake and it escalated to me removing him from the bedroom. The tantrum was even more severe this time, with objects around the living room being thrown. I was more agitated as well, telling him that he was "not a baby and he needed to talk." Eventually, I felt that the tantrum could be dangerous to him (as he was close to the corner of the coffee table) and I restrained him on the floor. He started telling me he was a "baby" (at least he was talking) and Eriko came out of the bedroom. Once Jerry spoke, he was clearly in command of himself again and he and I went back into the bedroom.

During this tantrum he accidentally pulled of one of his gloves (to help prevent night-time scratching) and it took a while for him to articulate that this was the problem. He did, eventually, without further escalations and we finally managed to go to sleep.

I think he woke up one more time for additional rubbing, but was able to articulate that.

I don't necessarily have better ideas for helping to learn to cope - I just hope neither Eriko nor I am causing too much long-term harm to Jerry...

I have lost my way. While my current position is fun (at times) and is providing me with new experiences, I don't feel as if I'm moving towards anything.

Why am I still at work?

Good salary.
Convenient.
Comfortable.
Big investment.
Lack of alternatives.

I work hard, long and most days I am excited to head into the office.

Honestly, I seem to be operating off of hope more than reality - most of what I do I tend to feel unsatisfied with.

A case of unrealistic expectations?

I'm torn between fearing that I'm letting another opportunity pass me by and abandoning the hope that work will "pay out".

That's the rub - would I still be here if I had sold all my shares at $ 10?

Dad always told me to find something you love and the rest will take care of itself - the lack of fulfillment at work is creeping - it has become much more about the result than the journey - and on that note, I am completely lost.

I am amazed to see Jerry grow - tomorrow he hits a big milestone.

We'll have a little play date - if the weather holds up. 'll post pictures. :)

Recently Jerry has begun taking late naps in the evening. This hasn't happened every day of the week, but it has happened the majority. It seems that he isn't tired enough for a mid-day nap, but just can't make it through the entire day.

Today he woke up at 7 AM and fell asleep at 6 PM. He's still sleeping soundly, but if this is anything like his other naps he could be up any minute now. I'm hoping he'll sleep the night through so Eriko and I can enjoy an evening with each other for once...

Oops. I just saw eyes flutter open.

Work has been keeping me pretty darn busy as of late (which isn't a bad thing, considering that I still have a job...)

The rest of my time is occupied by my favorite guy - Jerry!

Very smooth. The new interface allows you to insert an image directly, so this is something dad will need for his journal.

I don't have time to see what's changed write now (as Jerry is calling) but I was using 4.0.1, so I'm sure puh-lenty has.

I just found an iPhone application for editing for Movable Type.

This technology is evolving rapidly...

This is just in its infancy, but I wanted a visual picture of the economic crisis and the affected banks. Using the Google Maps API and the FDIC's failed bank list, I created this:

Failed Banks and the TARP

Right now, it is very basic - it just shows the points where the failed banks exist. As I learn how to manipulate this, the markers will each show the name of the failed bank and the date which they failed. My next step will be to add all of the banks which accepted money from the TARP and all the banks which refused money from the TARP.

I'm very curious, what patterns, if any, will emerge...

I'm going to throw in a plug for Google Reader. For the past several years I have been using rss2email, which is a wonderful tool but not perfect. I love the fact that I can get feeds in my email - to a point. I now am watching over 20 financial feeds (what can I say, I'm hooked) - which is cool, but overwhelming my email box. I can easily see 50+ emails a day - and I don't have time to process them all.

The other downside is that rss2email does a poor job with HTML email and Dad's Journal just doesn't look as good as it should.

So today, instead of doing an hour of valuable work, I checked out Google Reader. I dig it. The interface is sweet, but the coolest feature of all is a Firefox bookmark which allows you to move to the next unread feed - and it displays the original feed in the web browser, full HTML etc. That will make reading Dad's Journal a pleasure. Finally, it has great support for the iPod Touch which is, of course, yet another addiction.

I highly recommend you check it out - oh, and you can my public feeds (or entries) here.