icons for many of the popular sites.

Buster Benson started at 7:32am and finished 750 words at 12:58pm, for a total of 325 minutes of typing at 2 words per minute.

Buster Benson was distracted 11 times while writing.

The weather while writing could be described as fair, about 59ºF, and the moon is waxing gibbous.

Checked in at Bedlam Coffee (Desserts)

8:36pm Take-out on the roof. Awesome! http://flic.kr/p/8mc2tC

&kb,nb:dinner@home

First time trying the You Gotta See This app. http://flic.kr/p/8m7aan

Share your own scenes with You Gotta See This! from Boinx Software Ltd.

Checked in at Bedlam Coffee (Desserts)

Buster Benson started at 12:33pm and finished 750 words at 2:06pm, for a total of 94 minutes of typing at 9 words per minute.

Buster Benson was distracted 7 times while writing.

The weather while writing could be described as fair, about 53ºF, and the moon is waxing gibbous.

@bdotdub Thanks, Benny! It was an idea waiting to happen, I think...

@acoxcae Cool, so does that work well with the iPhone 4 without an extra case?

People who use RunKeeper or similar on their iPhones: what's the best arm band thing? Yes, I'm one of them. I don't use a case normally. #fb

Faved @mikekarnj's tweet: My current startup/non-profit/company crushes include @teamprofounder @catchafire @jumoconnect @bamyanmedia @pencilsofpromis @warbyparker

8:36pm Shazamming songs from @samantham's summer dance mix while we make dinner with Erin http://flic.kr/p/8kTKRK

It was Murder on the Dance Floor &kb,nb,ec:cooking@home

@alicetiara Of course!

90 day challenge, day 34 http://goo.gl/fb/nPSDA

I mentioned this on Twitter the other day, but in case you missed it, I posted a short explanation of my project.  Here it is:

http://healthmonth.com

It’s been fun hearing a few reactions.  It’s all just words though… the real test will be the implementation, which is slowly but surely coming along.

The part of building websites that I dread, account management, sign in, log in, authentication, etc, has gotten a lot more interesting in the last few years.  Mostly because of all of the options for logging in via other site credentials.  OAuth, Open ID, Facebook Connect, etc.  I’ve done Open ID and Facebook Connect before, but this time around I thought that OAuth might be the best suited.  Because, even though being able to log in without creating a new account is pretty interesting, I’m more interested in getting data from the other sites than in just simplifying log in.  OAuth is good because it often gives you access to the APIs of these sites in addition to being a method of authentication.

It took me a while to wrap my head around the basics, but once I got it working for Twitter, Tumblr was no problem.  And even though Facebook has its own implementation of “OAuth 2.0″, that proved to be the most elegant implementation I’ve yet seen, and was actually a lot easier than the others.  I’m so glad I gave up on the Javascript API that Facebook offers.  It’s meant to make things simpler, but I think it’s actually a lot more fragile and complicated than the OAuth authentication options.

I also implemented Foursquare pretty easily.  And Google Contacts… but then I disabled it because I think that’s not quite the same as the rest.

Even though Flickr doesn’t use OAuth, they use something that works pretty similar, so even though I’ve had trouble getting their authentication system to work in the past, this time it was really no problem.  I think the whole series of steps of requesting a token, getting another token, and then verifying that token makes sense to me now.  Only took me about 5 years to click.

I am not just adding these sites for kicks.  There are actually a few things that I think can be improved in the whole “connect your sites up” world, which I’m excited to implement.  One thing, for example, that I don’t see many sites doing is allowing you to “auto-follow” people that you have added over time.  Or, at least, letting you know that another of your friends has joined the site since you imported Twitter or Facebook or whatever.

I’ve got another big part of the site to figure out today.  The game wall.  After you fill in your day’s work, the primary next step is to see stats and charts about your progress in the game and in the month, and the secondary step is to see how you are doing compared to others.  The secondary step is what I’m going to start working on today.

8:36pm Waiting for Inception to start! http://flic.kr/p/8kGsbj

&0,50:watchingmovie@TheBigPicture

Checked in at Big Picture - Seattle (Lounge)

@DocOnDev Hey, if you email me at my twitter username at gmail from the email address on the account, I can reset the password for you.

Dear Lucky Crane http://goo.gl/fb/0HqEE

Had someone told me during all of those years that I spent being my own selfish self that I would love a baby as much as I love you, I probably would have laughed them off.  If I could have felt even a tenth of that love, like watching a preview for a fantastic movie, I might have called all my own selfishness off and gone ahead with The Parent Agenda a bit too soon.

I don’t regret having gotten around to my parent agenda a bit late in the game.  I got to spend many years becoming my own person, operating by my own whim, and cultivating my own character.  That’s a pretty awesome thing and I consider myself very fortunate to live in a modern age where women even have the option of becoming 100% of their possibility before offering some of that possibility up to the whim of a little baby.

Now that you are here, while I look back on the years before you with some nostalgia, I would never go back to a time when you weren’t a part of my life.  Rather, I want to take every magical thing that I learned during my time before you and show you just how wonderful life can be.

I hope that you have all the opportunities that I did, and more.  I want to help you feel free enough to experience every emotion, free to trod down any path, and free enough to try your hand at any craft that will help you develop your own special brand of person.

I spent a lot of time getting to know myself, but it wasn’t until I started getting to know you that I felt all of my experiences close in full circle.  The best way I know how to thank you for that is to be the best parent I can possibly be for you.  I probably wouldn’t have been able to be that parent if you had come into my life a decade sooner.

I’m glad we both waited.  I’m glad you’re here now.  I know that I’m happy.  So far, you seem pretty happy, too.

Love,

Your Mom

On Diapering… http://goo.gl/fb/pJvR5

In the beginning, we decided to use disposables for a few weeks so that we could learn our Little Crane’s schedule… and figure out how to change diapers in general.  Our plan was to switch to a pre-fold diaper service after the trial disposable period, which was supposed to last for 2 weeks.

We started off with Pampers Swaddlers because someone had brought over a few and they seemed to work well.  After a short while, I was totally disenchanted with them.  If he wet himself an awful lot, the diapers would ooze bits of the gel inside that contained the wet.  The gel was hard to clean off and really grossed me out.  What is in this gel, anyway?  I didn’t know that I wanted it near my son’s bits.  Also, the Pampers had this crazy crazy diaper stink.  The kind of smell that comes out of a public bathroom, where they try to contain all that nasty with detergents that we all now associate with more nasty.  Every time the lid to the diaper can (which was OH SO CONVENIENTLY next to our bed during the first 3 weeks) came up, my sensitive noise balked and my gag reflex engaged.

Luckily, he quickly grew out of size one diapers and we switched him to Whole Foods brand size 2 (for some reason the ones were not available).  These don’t use nasty gel to contain the wet, and do a pretty awesome job without it.  I’ve never had a problem with leaking unless our son has been obviously neglected (I won’t get into those afternoons when maybe we weren’t as attentive as we should have been).  Also, they don’t try to hide the fact that poop stinks with a fragrance that frankly, stinks.  So, in my opinion, the diaper pail was easier on the nose.

By now you’re probably thinking that we used disposables far beyond the reach of 2 weeks, and you’re right!  We were a little bit daunted by the idea of cloth diapering during that first month.  The second month, I procrastinated a little.  Finally, some friends of ours gave us some Thirsties brand covers to try out.  My mom also generously offered to pay for several months of our diaper service.  I finally started using the pre-folds with covers about a week ago!

I have to say… it’s really easy.  I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t start a little sooner, but at least I know that we don’t have to fear the cloth!  A pre-fold service is probably the easiest way to go if you’re turning to cloth.  I don’t have to handle any more laundry in our tiny studio; all the dirty diapers magically disappear once a week and get replaced by clean diapers right outside our door!  Once I got the knack of folding and positioning the fold, I got pretty darn quick with it.

Sadly, the Thirsties didn’t last more than 2 days.  The extra small size was just too small on our gentle giant.  Luckily, I had a bunch of Bum Genius covers that had been lent to us from an old friend back east.  I tried them on a few weeks ago with the inserts she sent along before we started getting pre-fold service and they were pretty giant on him.  We immediately had a terrible blowout that managed to somehow work it’s way all around the house!  I put them away for a while, thinking that they would maybe fit when he was 6 months old.  But, well, when I decided that the Thirsties didn’t fit and that I didn’t want to buy a whole ‘nother set of 6 diaper covers right away… I tried the Bum Genius covers out again, this time just using the pre-fold against his skin, rather than stuffing the pocket.  I know that’s not the way you’re supposed to use them, but they seem to be working just fine!  We haven’t had a single accident in the past week, which is more than I can say for any other week with disposables.

Now our guy lets us know EVERY TIME he is wet.  IMMEDIATELY.  He does NOT like to be wet.  Luckily, the wet voice is has a pretty obvious tone.  It sounds like he’s saying, “Hey!  WTF?  I’m not comfortable and you need to take care of it.”  It’s not a cry!  It’s an uncomfortable alert that will eventually turn into a cry if we don’t change him within around 15 minutes.  Now I’m finding that this guy generally needs changing every 45 minutes to an hour during the day.  This is actually pretty awesome because I feel as if it will ultimately make our communication with each other much better.  I am hoping to start watching for cues during the next few months so we can try our hands at Elimination Communication for a few hours every day and perhaps give him an early start to taking care of business on his own.

Because he gets so upset about wetting himself, we are still using disposables during the night and when we go out for long spells in not very kid friendly venues during the day.  I’m just not willing to stress the whole family out by taking on multiple diaper changes during the night.  We are enjoying sleeping for a few hours at a time!  We are also enjoying the mornings, when I bring our Crane to bed at 5,  just roll over to nurse him at 7, and sleep until 9.  That delicious morning time wouldn’t be possible without his sporting those disposables.

Here he is just yesterday in a Bum Genius cover, as I swaddled him to take a nap and he thought about how to torture the cat once he gets full control of his hands:

(Please ignore the fact that his outfit does not match.  It made sense before I took his pants and jacket off for his nap!)

Checked in at Bedlam Coffee (Desserts)

8:36pm Trying to figure out OAuth all day for the 3rd time. This time with wine. http://flic.kr/p/8knWgz

&kb,nb:working@home

@livlab Thank you! I will definitely try to keep doing what I love, for fear of the alternative!

If you were tasked with making something famous -- anything -- what would you go for? #fb

Faved @bittman's tweet: Score One for the Oceans http://post.ly/nzce

I wish I was a 24-hour person http://j.mp/cQ3qew

Four faces I've never seen before http://flic.kr/p/8k9436

Shot in my IncrediBooth in Seattle

8:36pm Just saw Niko get excited about Sopor's soft fur for the first time http://flic.kr/p/8k6Jkp

&kb,nb:dinner@home

Our 8 Week Appointment! http://goo.gl/fb/xO2vg

We took our Lucky Crane to his 8 week appointment with Dr. Cullen last Friday.  Technically, it was an 8 week and 6 day appointment since mom kept forgetting to schedule it in.  We are pleased to report that he is very healthy and practically perfect in every way.

He will start his vaccination shots at his next appointment.  He’s on a limited schedule because mom thinks it’s best, and really- he’s not going to daycare doesn’t need too much junk in him at once.  For now, I’m just fattening him up with my ridiculous amounts of breast milk to keep him chugging along.  And I’m not kidding about fat!  At 9 weeks old, he is a WHOPPING 25 inches long and 16 pounds, 1 ounce wide.  He’s not even on the charts for his weight, is at the top of the charts for his height… and has an average sized head (thank goodness, says mom).

Here he is, not caring a bit for modesty, sharing all his baby blubber with the world, wearing his polka dot bikini:

Will You Look at This Guy? http://goo.gl/fb/yzZz4

So satisfied with himself for sort of holding up his own head while sitting in his Bumbo seat.  So ridiculous I crack up every time I see this photo!!  I mean, really!  It’s verging on too much hilariousness.  Babies are surely the greatest invention of the whole round human race.  So delicious that it’s amazing we don’t eat them up for real.

A little explanation about what I'm building right now, if you're interested: http://healthmonth.com

A little explanation about what I'm building right now, if you're interested: http://healthmonth.com

Buster Benson started at 2:07pm and finished 750 words at 2:50pm, for a total of 42 minutes of typing at 38 words per minute.

Buster Benson was distracted 2 times while writing.

The weather while writing could be described as cloudy, about 55ºF, and the moon is waxing gibbous.

Faved @fraying's tweet: Yes, this is the iPad app I've been working on. http://magcloud.com/ipad

@copygeniusgirl No worries. Sorry for the trouble!

@etherjammer Sure thing. What's her name on the site?

Faved @helenjane's tweet: Hobos are the new ninjas.

@MeganWelling Yeah. Will they give you this month's rent back for making you move out?

@MeganWelling Ideal time to move!

Buster Benson started at 1:47pm and finished 750 words at 5:05pm, for a total of 198 minutes of typing at 4 words per minute.

Buster Benson was distracted 6 times while writing.

The weather while writing could be described as cloudy, about 57ºF, and the moon is first quarter.

Have any of you used elance.com to find work? How did you like it? Also, do you know of better site for finding small web projects? #fb

Checked in at Bedlam Coffee (Desserts)

Separate good will for each thing http://goo.gl/fb/9sUW3

Good will is a valuable thing.

Somehow, in our brains, we know exactly how much good will we have towards any number of things.  Our wife, our baby, our job, people who walk slow, rain, people who are always late, people who drive you to the airport, people who hang out with you with no notice, our parents, our computer, AT&T, etc.

It would be interesting to investigate just how we are able to have completely different amounts of good will towards all of these things without it seeming contradictory to ourselves.  How is it possible to have so little good will for a long line at the post office while having so much good will for the person who saves our spot for us while we run to get a coffee?  It goes deep into our old brains’ sense of fairness, justice, manners, and what’s right and wrong.  An early feature of our cerebral cortex, most likely.