A great distraction from worrying about my ultrasound tomorrow (7:45 am EST, send good vibes in a northeasterly direction,  for most of you) has been a long, and sometimes heated, conversation at IB.  I post to the IndieMom section of IB more than I do anywhere now, even Digs, because the main focus of my life has been trying to get pregnant, and stay that way.  I love the digsters, but there’s a broader experience base at IM for me to draw from, so I’ve been choosing IB over Digs lately. (And, as emmalola put it, yeefan has done a fantastic job at keeping the focus on the original demographic, so I think alot of us old time Digsters are aging out of the majority there. Plus, obfuscating every single word in a post gets annoying. Seriously. Digs will not be the first place to pop up when someone types ‘sex’, so don’t type ‘s3x.’  Obfuscate real names and places if you want, but not every noun and most verbs. Anyway.)  I know that there are readers here that are from IB, and that some of my readers have at least lurked at IM, if not posted.  The mama-types are probably more familiar with it, and I’ve even pulled a few digsters over to IM as posters.  For the most part, it’s a great place.

The big hoo-ha now, though is that Im has really outgrown the space it’s been allocated. There’s no moderation, no tech support, and no need to register or login to post. I’ve never seen anonymous posting, ever, on a message board, and it’s gotten to a point now where people post anonymous, mean shit about people and their kids. Not cool for me, not at all.  And while I certainly think there is a level of over-moderation (even at Digs, I haven’t posted a new thread in ages, partly because I can never figure out where to put it — and I’m a oldtimer) SOME moderation is important, I think. As a result of all of this discussion — which is very borderline personality disorder: "I hate children and I hate you and I hate your children! But don’t leave me!" — there is discussion swirling about creating a new community.  (Read this IB’s LJ post about the current situation, as she really puts it well.)

In that discussion, I’ve repeatedly said that I’m certain there are people out there that would love to see a new community that was mama-friendly, but not all-mom, all-the-time.  The new utopia would not have anon posting, and basic moderation. (Anons might be available at the start, but moderated enough that not playing nice would be shut down right away.)  IM has been one of the most respectful places (if you never venture out into the wilds of everything else IB) that I’ve seen, especially when it comes to motherhood. No one is chastised for their choices, and everyone respects that it’s an individual’s choice to breastfeed, or not, or to work out of the home, or not, or to work part time, or not, or to have a SAHD, or not.  Because the general education level there is pretty high, I feel comfortable saying that whatever anyone’s chosen to do has been an educated decision.  If you breastfeed, there is a small army of supporters at the ready, waiting to help.  If you bottlefeed, there’s a tribe to help you too. It’s not a forum for the merits of breast over bottle, or a place to guilt trip bottlefeeders or worship breastfeeders, it’s just a place to get support, no matter what, which I think is AWESOME.  On top of all the great parenting advice, there’s an active subset of ttc’ers, people dealing with fertility treatments, and pregnant people. When I miscarried, at Digs I got ((hugs)) which is very nice, but at IM I got INFORMATION. Shared stories, suggestions on what to watch out for, hope from the threads like "pregnancy after a miscarriage" and humility from people who have gone through more than once, more than twice.

The new forum would strive to keep that conversation and information flow, and add sections that are not about kids — sections about home and living, education and jobs, politics and current events, and all those types of things. But it would have a separate, organized set of forums for those of us in the TTC/pregnant/parenting world.  Oh, and it would also not have pages and pages of sig files, tickers, powerpoints, etc, because I don’t think I’ve seen a forum yet that is fairly mama-centric that DOESN’T have them, and it’s pretty uniformly despised at IM. Also, no baby-dancing. Only goal oriented fucking. 😉 

So, my question is, who out there would be interested in joining such a community? Whether you’re an IM or not, or you’ve lurked and been intimidated to post because of the disorganization and undercurrent of knowing you could be picked on at any time, outside of the realm of IM? Email me, or post here, or whatever. I would be interested to know.

ETA: I’m not starting it, but I’m sort of on a planning committee to get this going, and am just wondering if anyone out there that is NOT currently an IM/IB would be interested.

In other topics, I feel like absolute shit. I don’t know if it’s pregnancy, or stress about tomorrow, or both, but I am really hoping that by say, 9 am tomorrow I am feeling more assured, one way or another. I just want to know. I just want to make it to the next step.  Until then, I’m queasy and nothing tastes good, and I just want to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow with all the answers. Sigh.

Some things:

New widgets to die for:

Package tracker:  Tracks UPS, FedEx and DHL, within the widget.  That’s the best part, really, some widgets are nice in theory, but end up being glorified pretty dashboard links, instead.  This one just works within itself.  It keeps the numbers you enter, so you don’t have to constantly look them up; for UPS you don’t have to agree to their T&C every.single.time you visit (or choose USA, etc etc) AND, it’s accurate within the hour.  I watched Dave’s guitar as my first test package (and yay! it’s here, wheee) and within an hour of the guitar being delivered, the status changed to ‘delivered.’ Pretty cool.

Sudoku:  I am a total sudoku convert, now, and this is nice because it allows you to put in ‘pencil marks,’ or, the possible numbers for each square. Yeehaw!

Bug: I am irrationally peeved by a promo for a new show starring Neil Patrick Harris, who I have a newfound love for since his Harold & Kumar role.  He’s in the back of a car, and his line is "I am SO going to put this in my BLOG!" and it’s just not right. The better, and more appropriate line would be "I’m SO blogging this!" Right? I mean, the line he uses (not his fault, I know) sounds like when grandma tries to sing along to your Van Halen tape, know what I mean? Just . .  wrong. And trying too hard to appeal to The Demographic.  I mean, I hate the word blog, but I know how to use it.

Thumbs up:  TypePad WILL let you upload movie files! This will so come in handy when we have a kid.  I was on campus for the iMovie part of a class, because I’ve never done anything with video before.  I mean, that’s Dave’s CAREER, so he handles that while I handle stills. My school didn’t have a camera we could use, and I tested out of the basic IT class that covers it (the same one I sat in on for the last two days).  I needed to learn it in some fashion, just since I’ll be lab assisting, I want to know the programs, right?

Anyway. This was the project I helped out on. I call it the "thanks, Dave, for letting me quit my job and go to grad school" movie.  It requires quicktime, and is a little over 4MB in size, and there is sound (but it’s worksafe) so, if you’re bored, you can watch it by clicking here. 

One of the names credited was the manufacturer of the fountain. Hee.

Based on Kate’s recommendation, I ordered the same kind, only in white, as they were on sale.  The black are, too, for 24.65 (so I would have spent more for free shipping) but the white are 26.59, so already, free shipping!

I liked the price of the over the ear kind much BETTER, but in the reviews it mentioned being annoying for glasses-wearers, which I am. Not a lot of real estate behind my ears, and vision trumps iPod, so 26 dollar earbuds trump 7 dollar clips. Dammit. But, I figure (in my constantly rationalizing mind) that since the iPod was FREE, and the phones were on SALE for 35% off, I win.

Also, I have a UPS tracking number for Dave’s guitar, it left Earth City, MO this morning, according to my new package tracking widget, and yet, my card has not yet been billed. If this is some sort of "oh, we sent your free catalog first and thought you’d like the tracking number" BS, I will be SO PISSED.  (ETA: The weight of the package is consistent with ‘guitar’ and not ‘free catalog’ so I’m confident the guitar is on its way.  If it arrives and I’ve still not been charged, I’ll call them. I so do NOT want to fuck with karma in the 2WW.)

Dear God, like I needed anything else to waste time with. . . . but someone on IB linked to SuDoKu, and it sounded interesting, and it totally is. Well, if you like weird little logic puzzles.  Apparently out there in the great beyond, they print these in the paper!  I’ve never really been into crosswords, but I do like the Jumble and Scrabble games (and will race Andy on Jumble if given the opportunity, we are both really quick at that type of thing so it’s always like "Dirge! Fetish! Loins!" and then we struggle with the punnery a little more, simply because it’s never really funny.)  Anyway. Highly amusing little puzzle.  I’ve been using it with the help option at times, completing a bunch of squares and/or lines and checking my work, which has led to lots of wondering how different personalities would try to solve the puzzle. Are there people working within the cubes only? Or in lines? Anyway, it’s pretty neat.

In iBook news, I really noticed a difference in the new iBook (G4, 1.33mhz, 512mb RAM) compared to the old (G3, 500 MHZ, 320 RAM) when I was uploading images to iPhoto and subsequently batch processing them in PSE3.  I had 222 pics (I never reformatted after I downloaded my NYC pics, plus all the others I’ve taken this summer) and what would have taken a good half hour to do, took less than 10 minutes, tops.  I had the images up in maybe 5-7 minutes? And the batch processing was painless, I would say 3-4 minutes from choosing the images and setting up the new folder to completion of 10 pics.  Very cool. It makes me want to empty my card more frequently, and do some more with PSE3.  I mostly use Elements for batch processing and basic editing (cropping, adjusting color, etc) because it was such a memory hog — it often took 2 or 3 tries to even get it to OPEN.  Now that I have MORE MEMORY, it’s much easier, and much more tempting.

Also, I just did a massive organization of our product manuals and warranty cards and such.  We’ve been stashing them ALL in a drawer in the kitchen, and I just organized them by room: Kitchen, Living Room, Basement, Upstairs, and Garage.  Each stash was put in it’s own ziploc bag and labeled, and tossed back in the manual-drawer. Very proud of that.  ANyway, while I was doing that, I came across all the info for my camera, and it included, holy hell, a remote!  I have been DYING to do long exposures and practice with that, but the shutter button doesn’t have threads for an old-school shutter release cable, and with long exposures, the tiniest motion fucks it up.  I took the remote and camera out and did a few test shots in the dark, and it looks so cool! I need to dig up my tripod and hit the streets.  Very exciting.

Ahhh, she is home. Home, Home Home. YAY!

They’ve changed the keyboard; no more translucent keys.  Now I won’t be annoyed by the junk underneath the keys. Whee. I uploaded all of my new software, ran software update, and got everything on all systems go.  I even downloaded some music, and tried out the mini! It’s all too cool.

I went with Limewire, which seems to be working fine for my random searches.  I also downloaded some widgets, and customized my dashboard. Definitely loving the Tiger update.  My old iBook was on Jaguar, which is all well and good, but the finder organization that Panther (and Tiger, now) is far improved. Really do like the panes, and having the usual suspects right up front.

Widgets!

Okay: Of the preinstalled ones, I saved the calendar, weather, and calculator features. Calendar is one I’m ridiculously excited about — I have an old checkbook-back-page calendar next to the bed that I’m always referencing, especially in the world of TTC, and to have that simple piece of info on my desktop without having to open iCal is fabulous. The weather report is good, of course, and I also use ForecastFox on my browser.  Calculator — again, not having to launch a whole new app for calculations is nice (though I use google for most of my basic calculations now, anyway.)

I downloaded:

• Hot off the Press: updated NYT headlines
• Onion: Updated onion headlines
• To Do tracker: a to do list. Pretty basic, but yay!
• Gas: they have info for my city, so they must have it for yours.  I’m interested in seeing how accurate it is, though.  (It finds the cheapest price for gas in your area.)
• Recent Widgets: as widgets get developed, this keeps track.  As it’s still fairly new tech, I want to keep abreast of any and see if any that I think should exist, ever do.
• Google Maps. I love the google maps, anyway, so this is nice.
• Ovulation calculator. Gotta say, not a fan. But I’m leaving it up for now because I was so excited about it.  It’s really big for what it does, and I can use the calculator at babycenter just as easily. I’ll leave it for the month and then probably delete it.
• TVTracker: My favorite!  We don’t have cable, so we don’t have the TVGuide channel, or digital menus, or what have you.  We will usually look up on TVGuide.com what is going to be on, but we have to sift through ads, and channels we don’t even GET, to get to our info.  TVTracker let me add in only the 5 channels we get, and if I want to know if it’s a rerun or whatever, I can click on it to go to Yahoo! tv for the details.  Definitely, definitely a great little tool. Especially for us geeks that have more interest in broadband than cable.

I haven’t activated FlightTracker, but I totally would if I was coordinating an airport pickup.  that’s nice, because the results don’t cause you to leave the dashboard environment, as many do. (Such as AirCompare, one that checks prices for plane tickets. It’s okay, but I’d probably use orbitz first, since they’ve always been a great source.)

I haven’t adjusted to the scrolling trackpad, yet, and I assume it’s like the curve of learning the trackpad, anyway. I haven’t yet figured out how the speed feels, but that will show up once I download some photos, I’m sure.

The mini is cool, and lime green, and the rebate form is READY to go, which was sort of imperative for me to fill our before moving on to anything else.  We are notoriously bad at getting rebates out on time, but when it’s an almost 200 dollar rebate, it gets prioritized, quickly.  So, that’s all set.

On the flip side, Dave’s guitar is still backordered… until a MONTH from now. FUCK. I was counting on that to sort of ease the blow of "gretchen is surrounded by new technology, wheee!" but no, it won’t. 🙁

My first day was okay too, I was there long before he was, but I’ll be helping out tomorrow. I got my GA parking pass, which gives me access to commuter AND staff lots, which is nice.  There’s more commuter parking, so I imagine I’ll use that mostly, but the staff lots are closer to campus.  If I do end up knocked up and uncomfortable, it might be nice to have that option of slipping in and parking close.

Speaking of, have now had two really positive babyish dreams.  I don’t believe I’ve ovulated yet, but I dreamed 2 nights ago of a baby girl, no big plot, but I was changing her diaper and that’s how I knew it was a girl.  Then last night, I dreamed that I was in my doctor’s office with the ultrasound machine, and I decided to give myself a scan, and was amazed to see (and hear!) an embryo and it’s beating heart.  It was very positive, I started to worry about getting caught playing with the technology and wondering if I was just seeing a pre recorded ultrasound, but in my dream, I knew it was all going to be okay.

It’s interesting, because I had ultrasound nightmares before the Ultrasound of Doom, that even in my DREAMS, I was trying to justify as me just being neurotic again. When it happened, though, it was very similar to the dream I had, which is partly why it was so traumatic.  Instead, I feel like the next round will be positive, and the dream last night really helped with that.

And, holy hell! iBOOK! YAAAAAAY! Pictures of furniture tomorrow, I hope.

Received in an email at 6:30, pm, today, FRIDAY:

Your order is complete and ready for p/u and invoicing at our YORK VILLAGE WAREHOUSE.  Hours are 9 AM to 4:30 PM, weekdays. 

Bastards. I could just cry. I could’ve had the whole weekend! THE WHOLE WEEKEND! And instead, I have to sit on my itchy little hands and work — WORK! Can you imagine! — before I go pick it up.  On the other hand, Dave is working a late night on Monday, so I get to time to revel in my new iGoodness alone for a bit, without feeling guilt about not making a good dinner or being able to hold a non-‘this is soooo cooool!’ conversation.

Also, I think my recurrent stuffy nose has nothing to do with fertility, but everything to do with the combination of moving my ibook station to the dining room table, next to an open window, that looks over the back yard. And I really wish I kept track of my stuffy nose and lawn-mowing, because I think that that’s the missing link. Dave mowed last night, and today, I could just die of sinus pressure. Allergy and sinus pills have not helped. Egads.

After my own dark past with credit, now resolved thank god, thank god, I am now getting TONS of credit card offers.  In our house, we get at least three a day, I would guess.  I finally decided to find out how to opt-out of such things, and thought I’d do a post on credt-y stuff.

First, to opt out, visit https://www.optoutprescreen.com .  I’ve put in the whole URL, because it’s important to have the httpS in there to let you know it’s secure.  It asks for all of your identifying information, yes, so I googled the shit out of it, and felt very confident about submitting said info when a PDF at the ftc.gov site gave it (along with a phone number and address) as an option to staunch the flow of credit card offers.  (Phone is 888-5-OPTOUT/ 888-567-8688)

Also, most (all? I should research) states are providing one free credit report a year to individuals.  Maine started this a year or two ago, but it was a pain in the ass — download this form, snail mail it to this agency, etc etc.  Now, AnnualCreditReport will do all that for you.  (Maine and most of the northeast is not available until September 1, so sit tight for a few weeks.)  You can get one credit report from each of the big 3 agencies every 12 months — all 3 at once, or you can space it out over every four months to keep track of what’s what.

And, if you are totally fucked as far as credit goes, especially credit card debt, Consumer Credit Counseling Services (link to the Maine branch) saved my ass. I am a homeowner now, you know? There are tons of scammy "counseling services" or "debt repair" services out there, but CCCS is one of the oldest and most trusted.  I can vouch for them.  The National Foundation for Credit Counseling has a lookup service, as well, if you need advice.  (a search for my ZIP code brought me to CCCS of Maine, who I used and loved.)

Still taking suggestions on your favorite widgets, and I’ll probably ask at IB tomorrow (weekdays are better for asking questions over there, I’ve found.)

There’s this odd sense of anxiety over the arrival of the new iStuff, and I finally figured out WHY. I can’t track my packages!  I know it should be in "in about 10 days," but I can’t go to UPS.com and KNOW that when it hits Chelmsford, it’ll be here within 48 hours. I am totally at the uni’s mercy. And what if they make calls alphabetically, and call me (with the S surname) too late?! Hee.  I’m just so acclimated to knowing Where My Stuff is at any given moment, I feel adrift with such a flimsy timeline.

But! My furniture will be here between 10-12 tomorrow.  I will post pictures, but probably once I get my new iBook, so hopefully by next weekend.  Also, I’ll have pics of meeting Emily (still not downloaded!) and our trip to the Tourist Free beach yesterday, and pics of the hammock that Dave FINALLY installed.  He’d never experienced a hammock, and I harped and harped to get it hung, and once he tried it he was all "ooooohhhhhh, this IS cool!"  I grew up with a hammock, and LOVE them, and my sister sent us a big one for our birthdays.  It’s finally hung!  I just bought a cool canvas and orange feather bolster on sale at Target, and I’m about to go out with the new Steve Martin book to enjoy my yard. Can you believe it?

(And maybe, just for a MINUTE I wondered if my wireless signal would reach that far. I bet it does, but I’m not going to try.)

The two big questions are first, with the reasoning second:

What are your favorite dashboard widgets?

What service do you use to download music, and is it mac compatible?

I have ranted and raved about various technology-related things here (filed under geeky, I do  believe) and I’ve converted my fair share if internet friends to services like TypePad (I should seriously get a cut) or GMail, or Bloglines, or… well, the list goes on, probably.  Now, I’m looking for YOUR advice.

There are a couple of things that, despite my technology background and education, I never got around to doing and/or learning about.  The first is video editing, which is kind of obvious if you know me at all, because Dave does all that stuff in our family.  I handle still shots, he handles motion. It works well. So, I don’t know iMovie or the like, but I could learn it damn fast if I had to.  The other thing I don’t do is download music.  Lots of reasons why — until we moved here, we connected at ~18-20Kbps using my free uni dialup account.  When we moved into town, we hit the DSL ground running and are all wireless and hoooooweee, is that ever cool.  Dave has used WinMX to download on the windows machine (that now refuses to connect to the internet for no discernible reason, except that it’s a homemade Win machine) and I used iTunes, once, to get an REM song for a wedding I shot to have on the disc…. anyway. I don’t download music because this iBook has only a CD-ROM drive, and I hate wires so hooking up the external RW drive is a pain in the ass (but it’s a great drive, and that’s just me hating wires talking).  No burner, no bandwidth for a long time, and thirdly, no iPod to fill has meant that I don’t download music.  But, now, I want to! There are certain songs out there that I really WANT to have, and (oh, a fourth thing, the 10gb HD on here is thisclose to being full, and the new iBook will also have the SPACE to dl music) I want to know how to get them.  I’m not OPPOSED to paying for iTunes or whatever, but free or monthly membership type things are good, too. (In case you haven’t understood yet, I am a mac user, btw.)

Second thing, what are your favorite widgets, Tiger users? I’d love to know.  Oh, I can’t WAIT to get my new electronics.