phly, boy, phly - Personal

2007 Retrospective

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:49:26 -0500

2007 was a busy year, both personally and professionally. I won't go into the personal too much, because, well, it's personal, and some of the details are simply inappropriate for blogging material.

Here's the short version:

One trip to Belgium and The Netherlands.
Two trips to Israel.
Two trips to Atlanta, GA (not counting the return trip from Europe, when I was stranded for a day due to storms in the Northeast).
Three different user groups attended, with three presentations.
One major Zend Framework release
One PEAR release.
One podcast.
One webinar.
One book published.
One conference attended.

What follows is my month-by-month breakdown:

Continue reading "2007 Retrospective"

I is a published author!

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 12:37:33 -0500

So, in addition to it being my daughter's birthday, which is exciting enough in itself, I received a package from my publisher, SitePoint, with my author copies of The PHP Anthology. Very exciting to see stuff I've written published!

Name recognition

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 16:56:58 -0500

Don't know if this is actually possible, but it appears Liam is already starting to associate names with people!

Just now, Jen was holding Liam, and turned him to face Maeve and I, who were sitting on the couch. He wasn't looking anywhere in particular. Then, Jen said, "Hi, Papa!" and his eyes moved to focus on me. A moment later, she said, "Hi, big sister!" and he moved is eyes to focus on Maeve.

As I type this, Jen just tried the experiment again with Maeve, and again he moved his eyes and head to look at her!

How cool and amazing it is to witness child development!

One month old

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 01:12:33 -0400

Liam turned one month old today, and I was not there to celebrate. I miss the little guy.

Jen tells me that his one month checkup went well. The little man is not so little anymore: he now weighs in at 6 pounds 1 oz (a pound in a week! and 2.5 pounds since birth!), and measures at 18.75 inches (two inches!). Jen tells me he has developed a third chin since I left two days ago.

More importantly, the doctors say he's doing so well that he no longer needs us to wake him to feed! He's completely recovered from his low blood sugar, and, indeed, is thriving.

Not being home, I have no pictures to post. But you can view the archives to get your Liam fix, just as I'm doing now.

Happy one-month birthday, little guy!

Transitions

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:58:32 -0400

Life is in transition for me now. Two weeks ago, we got to bring our handsome baby boy home, and I haven't been sleeping much since (though more than Jen). On top of the sleep deprivation, however, comes more exciting news: I've been hired as a PHP Developer by Zend Technologies!

I was approached by Daniel Kushner in late July regarding another position at Zend, and was flown out at the beginning of August. While I felt the interview went well, I harbored some doubts; work got fairly busy shortly thereafter, and then, of course, Liam was born, and the interview went completely out of my head. Until about three days after Liam's birthday, when Daniel contacted me again about the PHP Developer position.

Work started yesterday, and I was flown to Zend's offices in Cupertino, CA, for orientation and to sit down with both Daniel and others to prepare for the projects on which I will be working. Thankfully, the job will not require that I move, and I will be working out of the 'home office' in Vermont when I return later this week.

The decision to leave NGA was difficult, but the opportunity to work with Zend is just too good to miss. I am honored to be selected by them, and hope this is the beginning of many good things to come.

Welcome home, Liam!

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 13:55:35 -0400

Yesterday, after 14 days in the hospital, Liam came home!

He gained a full half-pound while in the NICU, eats like a horse, and is a sweet little man. We're all happy to have both him and Mommy back home; Maeve was particularly excited, and performed a little dance at daycare when I told her the whole family was home waiting for her.

Thank you, everyone, for the support over the past two weeks! And welcome home, Liam!

Look Papa! No wires!

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:49:29 -0400

This has been one of the toughest 10 days of my life. Our little boy, Liam, has been, and continues to be, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, fighting to come home. I divide my time between home, work, and the hospital; Jen stays up there at night to make sure he eats well; Maeve keeps asking when Jen and Liam are going to come home; and Cuervo just wonders when she's going to be on a regular schedule for walks again.

If Jen's parents hadn't been here last week to take care of us all, I think I would have gone insane. We've met several other parents who have been there many weeks, with many weeks still ahead, and I wonder how they can do it, how they can keep up hope.

Liam is doing well, actually. The round of antibiotics is done, phototreatment ended last week, and he has passed the "eat, pee, poop, and act like a baby" requirement to come home. However, his blood sugar has taken quite some time to stabilize.

The doctors think that because Liam was born into a cold environment, and hadn't had a chance to develop blood sugar reserves (because he was born early), he's simply been catching up. They have wanted the weaning process of removing him from the glucose drip to be closely monitored and gradual, because if his blood sugar gets too low, it could affect brain development.

So, for the past week, poor Liam's been having his little feet pricked every 3-4 hours so they can test blood sugar, and if the numbers are high enough enough times in succession, they titrate the glucose solution. The poor kid's heels are puffy and striated with little red marks, and even the nurses are tut-tutting every time they have to do it. Every time his numbers are high enough to turn down the drip, there's a little cheer from us, and we start counting the feedings until he can come off it.

Tonight it all paid off -- they finally were able to take him off the IV. I was holding him at the time that they flushed the line and removed it (though he retains an IV in his arm just in case they should need to re-attach him later). Liam was wide awake, rooting for a nipple, and happy as could be. My heart swelled to be able to pick him up and walk him around the NICU, untethered for the first time since he was born.

I found Jen and Maeve in the breastfeeding room, reading stories. I handed him to Jen, shut the door, and, for the first time, the four of us got to spend some time alone, just us. It didn't last forever, but it was a good start.

Please send some positive energy Liam's way over the next day -- if the blood sugar stays up, he'll be able to come home with his loving family so we can begin our new life with him!

Liam Patrick O'Phinney

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 22:33:11 -0400

Liam Patrick O'Phinney was born Saturday, 20 August 2005, at around 9:40am, weighing 3 pounds, 7 oz! Read on for more details -- the story behind the birth is an unusual and exciting ride! However, if you're squeamish, there's some pretty... graphic... detail below, so be warned.

Continue reading "Liam Patrick O'Phinney"

On Safari

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 23:02:33 -0400

This past year, Maeve had a month-long unit on Safaris and jungle animals at daycare. One day, she came home singing:

On Safari, on Safari,
In a jeep, in a jeep,
I can see a lion, I will take a picture,
Click, click, click. Click, click, click.

On Safari, on Safari,
In a jeep, in a jeep,
I can see a tiger, I will take a picture,
Click, click, click. Click, click, click.

And so on.

There's a place just over the Quebec border called Parc Safari that we've been hearing about, and today we went up there on a family outing -- one of the last that we'll have with just the three of us (before little Liam is born).

Continue reading "On Safari"

"I'm so right"

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 16:19:32 -0400

Not long ago, as Maeve and I were en route to Jen's work one evening, Maeve was being very insistent that certain things were a certain way, and was very adamant even as I used a placating tone with her. I asked her, jokingly, "Why are you so contrary today?" Her reply?

"Because I'm so smart, and because I'm so right."

I almost wrecked the car as I guffawed. Kids. They're so dang cute. And so right!

Every little girl has to give up the bink...

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:59:16 -0400

So, last night, Maeve fell asleep in the early evening, on the couch, clutching her sippy cup and sucking on her bink while watching Scooby Doo. She woke up an hour later, and after she'd been up for a while and was less groggy, she announced to Jen and me that, "I'm not going to use my bink ANY MORE. Every little girl has to give up the bink some time, when they're four, so I'm not going to use the bink EVER AGAIN." (Imagine dramatic pauses between the all-caps words there...)

This coming from the girl who has a fit every time her bink isn't within eyesight and reach. Needless to say, we didn't quite believe her, but we were willing to support her. We told her that if she wants to stop using the bink, that's okay; it's also okay if she decides to use it again. (Fully expecting she'd want it within minutes of going to bed.)

Well... Maeve slept all night without it, and didn't want it this morning, nor in the car. She's adamant, our little warrior queen! (Which is what the Gaelic Maeve translates to in English, in case you were wondering.)

I might be jumping the gun here, but I get the feeling our little girl has taken another step in growing up... and I'm bewildered and a little sad. Much as I've hated the bink the past year, I also associate it with my little girl... and she's getting so she's not so little any more!

UPDATE: I jumped the gun. She did go a full 24 hours, but the following night decided she wanted the bink again. But there is hope for a bink-less future...

ZCE - Results are in!

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:33:00 -0400

Got the official notification: I passed the Zend PHP Certification Exam, and can now report I'm a Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE)!

Thanks go to my bosses at NGA for giving me the opportunity to attend php|Tropics, to Marco Tabini for offering the ZCE exam as part of the php|Tropics conference fee, and to my wife, Jen, and daughter, Maeve, for putting up with me while I studied... and being good sports about having to stay home while I went to Cancun. Hopefully next time I can take you along!

Moving into City Living

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 13:00:00 -0400

We did it... we moved, again.

However, unlike our previous two moves, which were interstate, this time we stayed in the same state. The same county, even. What made (makes; we're still finishing up as I write this) this one so jarring is the fact that we're going from the rural mountainside to the fourth floor of a new apartment/condo building adjoining an interstate spur.

Why would we do this?

Continue reading "Moving into City Living"

We're having a baby!

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 18:01:52 -0400

I can't believe I haven't announced this to the world yet, but Jen and I are expecting another baby! The due date is mid-September. And.... we decided at the ultrasound this past week we would go ahead and find out the gender... and....

Continue reading "We're having a baby!"

Enter the Matrix

nospam@example.com (Matthew Weier O'Phinney) — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 23:33:41 -0500

I couldn't resist... the car model demands it...

For those not familiar with where I live, my family and I live in West Bolton, VT -- about 20 miles from Burlington, and at the base of Bolton Mountain. Our daily commute is 4 miles on a dirt road, another 3 to 4 miles on some twisty two-laners at 35mph to the interstate, and around 10 miles on the interstate into Burlington. Then there's all the miles in town getting Maeve to day-care, Jen or myself dropped off, and whomever has the car to work. And we only have one car.

So, you can imagine the crisis when, almost a month ago, our Toyota Rav4 died on the way in to work.

We started it up that day, and it had this funny knocking sound. I remembered a similar sound in my old pickup back in Montana... the one that died. I determined to get it into a shop that day to get it diagnosed. The noise came and went while we were on the backroads, and because it wasn't constant, I figured it couldn't be too serious.

And then we tried to get to highway speeds.... a few miles on the interstate, and it was evident we were in trouble. The Rav was having trouble maintaining 60mph on the way up French Hill -- when it normally was able to accelerate past 70mph. And the knocking sound was getting worse and louder.

We resolved to pull off at the first exit, at Tafts Corners in Williston. I pulled into the first gas station there, and as we tried to find a place to park the vehicle, a mechanic was flagging at us to stop the car. He came over to where we parked and said, "Sounds like you've blown your engine."

These, of course, were the absolute last words I wanted to hear.

To make a long story short, apparently a bearing was thrown when we started the engine that day, and because we decided to drive it, we basically destroyed the engine. The cost to replace it: around $6,000.

Now, we're not exactly what you'd call "financially secure". We've had a lot of transitions in the past five years, and except for the past year and a few months, haven't typically both been working at the same time. We've been in a perpetual cycle of having enough to pay the bills... but having to pay consistently late. And we haven't been able to do much, if anything, about our educational debt. In short, our credit sucks. Which means that $6,000 is a big deal.

Did I mention that, at the time of the incident, we still had 17 months left on our car payments?

And, on top of it, I've been in the middle of a huge project for work that's required a fair bit of overtime -- and very little wiggle room for personal time?

The timing could not have been worse, either professionally or financially.

We've been very fortunate, however. Jen's parents very graciously offerred to pay off our existing car loan -- which helped tremendously. It bought us both the time to figure things out, as well as eliminated one factor that may have barred our ability to borrow towards repairs or a new car. Additionally, a friend of Jen's turns out to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to dealing with car salespeople, and went to bat for us in working out a deal. If it hadn't been for her efforts -- and those of the salesperson, who also went to bat for us -- we would not have gotten more than a thousand or so for the vehicle; we ended up getting over $3,000 for it, as is. Finally, the finance guy at the dealership advocated for us tremendously so we could get a loan on a new vehicle, with the Rav as our trade in.

So, to conclude: We're now proud owners of a 2005 Toyota Matrix! (And now the mystery of the title is revealed... to all you Matrix fans out there...)

I'll try to get a photo of the car up soon... about the time we update the year-old photos on our site...