Of Relevance

So Baby Aaron Zachary Blumenow has arrived! The little brat made an unexpected arrival on Feb 11. I woke up at about 4:30 am and realised that my bed was rather wet. For some reason that I cannot fathom now (denial?) it didn’t even occur to me that my water had broken. I just thought there was some “discharge”. It was only when I got up to go to the bathroom and water was pouring down my leg that I realised something wasn’t quite right. Did I jump in the car and shoot of tho the hospital? Nope…I opened up my laptop and Googled “Has my water broken?”. Suffice to say, Google said that it indeed had.

So, four/five weeks early, the baby arrived with no great drama, by c-section, and weighed a healthy 3.08kg. He’s still in the Neonatal unit, now slightly jaundiced, and I am still being monitored for the hemolytic anemia, but hopefully we’ll be united soon :-) I still haven’t held him, fed him, bathed him or done anything maternal other than incubate him for 8 months, but we’ll be making up for lost time soon :-)

This pic above is of him about an hour after birth. Isn’t he perfect? Usually babies look wrinkled and mangled, but Zac looks as if he arrived into this world in a limo. Except for the part where he pee’d all over himself and the doctor, probably with excitement :-)

The three siblings are quite enamored with the bambino, and have all given their approval. I am particularly glad that all 3 have dropped the “half” in half-brother, and have claimed full ownership. (The 3 are made up of my daughter, and Craig’s son and daughter). The next step is circumcision (ouch!) in case Zac decides to follow the Jewish religion (to which he is fully entitled since I come from a Jewish bloodline from my maternal side, and his father is Jewish). But we’re still celebrating Christmas! :-)

If all goes well, we should be going home on Tuesday/Wednesday. Either way, I hope our departure is coordinated to coincide, since I am so sick of traveling to and from the hospital. (In the last three months, I must have made at least 50 visits, and spent at least 25 full days here. So over that.)

Otherwise? I’d love to say I am all emotional and teary eyed at Zac’s arrival, but the truth is that I am simply taking it in stride. I can completely see me in him, and he’s definitely going to be my “little man”. We’re going to have some fun times. Micole is also in love with him, and has even forgiven him for “ruining” her birthday (which is today, and the party had to be cancelled).

The next obstacle is getting post-ready for his arrival! We’ve bought NOTHING yet, so thank goodness for gifts and hand me downs :-) Some fun shopping times ahead, including the nursery (and the entire new house in fact, but that’s another blog post!)

Right now, all I really want is a good, guilt-free coffee and chocolate, but in some great wisdom the hospital’s shops close at 5pm, even though visiting hours continue to 8pm. It makes as much sense as waking up a patient to give her a sleeping pill or a painkiller. And no, that’s not a myth. It *does* happen. Trust me.

This is a bit of a personal post, to keep of all my friends across the globe updated on my health progress…easier than dozens of individual emails :-)

If you are looking for the more serious posts, then please check out my Two Jumps Ahead and Internet Guide blogs.

For the rest of you…

As you probably know, I am pregnant with a little baby boy brat (Zachary), and am currently at 24 weeks. On 11 November the doctor noticed that I have a low haemoglobin count, and attributed it to a Vitamin B12 deficiency.

So far, I had what I thought was a pretty good pregnancy. I was extremely tired, all the time, and when I wasn’t sitting at my desk, I was basically sleeping. But that was how a pregnancy, especially in the early stage, was supposed to go, or so I thought. In retrospect, I was pretty stupid. I should have realised that when there were times that I didn’t have the energy to get out of the car to fetch my kid from school and slept in the car seat for an hour, that that was a problem. Etc. Etc.

But I always say that I am the healthiest person I know. I have never EVER been to a GP. I just don’t get sick.

Until I do.

It turns out, the B12 deficiency was wishful thinking. I have [Update] Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia, with unexplained causes, although a genetic enzyme malfunction is suspected. It basically means my body is destroying its own red blood cells, for no good reason, and plenty of bad ones.

Bad under any circumstance, but worse if you are acting as an incubator!

So basically…where it’s at now: I’m in my 2nd week at hospital, on steroids, hoping to be able to stabilize the red blood count. So far, it’s a bit touch and go, and although the count is dropping steadily, it is dropping less and less. The idea is to stabilise it enough so I don’t need blood transfusions.

The big goal is to keep the pregnancy going for another 10 weeks, until 34 week gestation.

The baby is doing great, and seems to be as yet unaffected by the conditions. The steroids are actually benefitting his lungs, so that’s a good thing, especially since it will probably be an early delivery.

I am feeling good, but tired. But not nervous. I am sure that all this will have a good ending.

There is no word on whether this is pregnancy induced, or whether it will be a permanent condition. There is also no point in focussing on that now. Right now the most important thing is to stabilise me, and take it all one step at a time.

I will use this blog to keep you all updated, as well as write a bit more on my view of the healthcare system in SAfrica (lots of opinions brewing!).

Thanks for all your well wishes! Thanks for not visiting (nobody wants to be in hospital ever, not the patients nor the visitors, so consider yourselves off the hook. That’s an order.)

So another school term began today, and I am not a happy camper.

I hate getting up unreasonably early, and I consider anything before 7:30 to be unreasonable. As things stand, I have to be out of bed at 6:45, and this is not to my liking at all. Not only is it cold and miserable, but by 3pm I am usually exhausted.

I wish schools started their day later. Say, 8:30 or so.

I read recently that pupils at schools in the US that started 30 minutes later had a remarkably increased level of concentration, because apparently that extra 30 or so minutes of sleep in the morning can make all the difference.

And while we are on the subject of school times, I think schools waste so much time that it boggles the mind. Now, I am not advocating that kids go to school and work, work, work straight through (although I am not actually sure why this is such a bad idea), but I think there should be much less of all this crap that is clothed as “school work”.

For example, my kid had to go back to school today, even though she watched the World Cup final yesterday. This is because the school need a certain school days in the year, and it couldn’t sacrifice the Monday. OK. So I considered not sending her, but in the end thought we should be slightly more responsible about it. So she went. And what did she do the whole day? She helped rearrange and clean the classroom. Well. Honestly. She has a whole room of her own she could help me clean.

And I could have slept in.

Another Geekretreat has come and gone, and as with most things it is probably best to put reflections on paper as soon as possible.

The first thing that struck me – but not for the first time, is how talented, passionate and inspired my fellow geeks are. There was nobody at the retreat who did not positively contribute to it. At an event like this one, where 50 people with a common thread but diverse backgrounds come together, it might seems risky to not have a set agenda, or even a set of clearly defined goals right from the start. But that is the beauty of the creative process. Slowly but surely everyone starts to fill in the blanks – no one has to catch up, or “get it”, because there really is nothing to get. We come together, we talk. We ask. We think. We inspire. And we listen. There are very many discussions – almost no time slot is taken up with a one way communication – but there are very few heated arguments.

There were over forty speaking opportunities, and nobody’s voice was silenced. There were no keynotes, no sessions that were more important than others. We sat and we listened to people sharing their ideas, and if we were not inspired or connected with what we were hearing, we moved on to another venue, another speaker, another passion.

And as diverse as the ideas were, they did have common threads running through them, The ones that resonated most with me was the national pride, and the sense of urgency of using our skills and our knowledge to empower others in our country.

But there was something stronger still: the willingness to seek solutions rather than hide behind obstacles. That is rare for our society: we tend to complain, but don’t often propose how a situation can be made better. At the Geekretreat, believe it or not, nobody ever swore at Telkom, or the government, or the dti. We really didn’t focus on what is wrong, but rather on how we can make it better.

So, can 50 geeks come together in Stanford Valley, spend 3 days talking, listening (and drinking) and come up with solutions to problems that have been baffling the country for years? Suprisingly, yes. And that’s because we each understand the power of one. It might be that social media has made us bold in our approach to conquering large problems, since we know that one blog post, or one tweet even, can start an avalanche. But that’s a blessing, because we are not discouraged by the enormity of the problems.

A lot more, I hope, will be written up about the projects proposed or discussed at the Geekretreat. I hope some get traction, and start happening. Here are a few:

And what did others think? From a quick ad hoc survey, all participants really enjoyed the opportunity to mingle, talk and share. A common thread running through the comments is that it is wonderful to realise that companies and people who previously thought of themselves as competitors have now realised they will achieve more if they work together.

And just for that little gem, the Geekretreat should be considered a great success.

(A special word of thanks to all our sponsors: <Telamenta, Old Mutual, Skyrove, Yola, White Wall Web, Seacom, IS, Jackie Scala, eConsultancy, Orca Wireless)

(And as an aside, our venue, the Stanford Valley, was absolutely awesome. If you are looking for a quiet retreat, away from the hustle and bustle, you’d be doing yourself a favour by checking it out. )

written by Eve Dmochowska
This post appeared originally on www.TheBroadbandBible.co.za

So my partner Craig and I have opened up 2010 with our official release of the The Broadband Bible, which is a 66 page pdf that compares ADSL and Wireless plans in South Africa. All in all, there are 35+ ISPs listed, and about 300+ different plans. And it took a long time to put together. You can download it for free here, or read it below.

I did most of the tabulating and comparing myself, which was an eye opener. It made me realise what a convoluted and confusing industry this really is. In fact, as Craig says, it seems that some ISPs make their living my purporsefully making the plans as complicated and difficult to understand as possible, and hiding from an apples-to-apples comparison.

And from looking at our comparison tables, it is mind boggling to understand how some ISPs get away with charging what they charge. Some prices, for a virtually identical product can be up to five times as high as those of the cheapest provider. When you get over the shock, you start feeling a big bout of disgust.

And although it is (hopefully) true that the more expensive ISPs offer faster speeds (lower latencies) and better customer service, this certainly does not come across clearly in their explanations of the service.

What is most interesting to me though, is how the Internet promises “perfect information” (all information supposedly available online, all easily accessible) yet manages to sustain such price discrepancies, for a basic commodity. Basically what it boils down to is that the theory of having perfect information does not (not even closely) lead to attaining the “Perfect Price”. And why not? I guess the extra layer of what needs to happen with the perfect information (careful analysis, rational decision process) is a challenge many simply are not committed to. Which is why, with pretty websites and confusing language, many ISPs get away with overcharging.

All this highlights a worrying trend: is the online audience expecting to be spoonfed all the time, or will there come a time when easily accessible perfect information will become the standard? Certainly Craig and I are going to continue creating “Consumer Bibles”, comparing specs of products so that the audience can make better informed decisions (our next bibles are the Printer Bible and the Laptop Bible, launching January 21 2010). At the very least we hope this will start a trend of clear reporting by the manufacturers, and indirectly force better prices, and better products.

Download The Broadband Bible for free here, or read below

The Broadband Bible