Leadership Education and Development

I got back from LEADS on Friday.  Prior LEADS modules may not have been particularly fun, but they always had a lot of content.  Sometimes too much content — in fact, sometimes the modules have a gruelling schedule of work.   I have occasionally come out of the modules feeling inspired – which dissipates, of course, but at least the content was sufficient for me to go “hmmm”.   

This time around,  the content was sorely absent, the time spent there seemed wasted and I feel anything but inspired.     We were at the Ivey Spencer leadership centre at Western U, listening to a speaker recommended by Western.  The guy basicaly served as a facilitator while we made up the content as we went along.   They could have achieved the same, or better, result by simply putting us in a room and saying “your topic is Strategic Change Management. Discuss”.  It certaily would have been cheaper.  Man, I have to get S into this type of sideline.  I have no doubt that this guy probably got around $5,000 per day.  Our LEADS Co-ordinator kept taking him aside and telling him that we needed more meat on those bones, but he never did deliver.

Meanwhile, we have a project on the topic due in April.  Luckily, we learned that everything we think about the topic of Change Management is right, so the project should be easy to do — we might as well just wing it.

8 week ultrasound

This week, the ultrasound was booked in a different office.  We waited in a cramped and busy waiting room for over 1/2 hr before getting the ultrasound.  Not that a 1/2 hr is horrible.  But at Hannam, there isn’t as much of a wait, and the waiting area is roomy and pleasant – and we weren’t expecting this time to be different.

I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures this time around, but the ultrasound still showed the 4 gestational sacs.  This time, thought, only one had anything going on  inside.  On certain angles, this one looked like it held a gummy bear with a mechanical heart.

Heartbeat is 174 bpm, the head to rump measurement is 1.7 cm and it measures as being 8 weeks 1 day.  S is 8 weeks 2 days pregnant, so all is well.  That said, we’re still supposed to go for an ultrasound next week as well as the week after that.  And since there’s always a risk of miscarriage, especially before 12 weeks… I’m still in the wait-and-see phase. 

Meanwhile, S’s general nausea has escalated to daily frequent gagging — ever since having contracted a norovirus last week (from me.  Sorry!).  Hopefully once she’s fully over the virus, she’ll be back to just regular nausea which is expected to go away in another couple of weeks.

So, to recap – Yay Baby A.  Just keep on keeping on like you are and we’ll see you sometime around Sept 10.

7 week ultrasound

S and I went to the clinic yesterday morning for the ultrasound.  S wanted to see the heartbeat.  I wanted to see how many were in there – since the fertility drugs resulted in 4 mature eggs.

So – the ultrasound showed that S is currently pregnant with twins, but it looks like only one is really thriving (two heartbeats, though).    The ultrasound technician sounded kind of odd and was asking what kind of medication S was on. Turns out, last week S would have been pregnant with quadruplets — all four of her eggs had fertilized and implanted, and there were four egg sacs on the ultrasound.

 

The clinic calls them Babies A, B, C and D even though two of the sacs are now empty.  These sacs – babies D& C – measured 6 weeks and 6 weeks 1 day respectively. 

 

Baby A measures 7 weeks 1 day, is 1.1 cm and has a heartbeat of 156 beats per minute. Things look good for Baby A.

 

Baby B measures 6 weeks 3 days, and has a heartbeat of 135 beats per minute.  But because S is 7 weeks 2 days pregnant, this one isn’t thriving and the doctor expects that it will not develop further. 

 

So, the good news is S is definitely pregnant, and junior should arrive around Sept 10 (if all goes as expected). 

 

The bad news is that for around half an hour between the ultrasound and having the indepth conversation with the doctor, we thought we were having twins…  We had known it was a possibility, and although we hadn’t been exactly hoping for twins, we found we were both excited after the ultrasound to see two heartbeats.  Then we learned that it was highly unlikely that baby B would survive….and now we’re a bit bummed instead of being elated.  But we definitely have Baby A (yay baby A!)

 

It was a roller-coaster day and I’m still exhausted from it! 

Leave

A while ago, I looked at S’s benefits and my benefits to see what we were entitled to with respect to pregnancy and parental leave.  Somewhere in there, I could have sworn that my employer topped up my wage for the entire leave period.  But, now that S is actually pregnant and we’re getting our names on wait lists for daycare, I decided to look again and confirm what was what.

Basically, legislation says we are entitled to leaves that total 1 year (pregnancy for S, and parental that can be shared between the two of us).  And we’re entitled to EI for our leave periods.  But EI benefits are significantly less than our wages.  You get 55% of your wage up to a maximum payment of $447 per week, before tax. Our employers top up our benefit for part, but not all, of the leave periods.  Between the two of us, there will be 14 weeks where one of us gets leave but only gets EI payments.

I know that many self-employed women wish they could get maternity leave – get EI payments while they take time off to be with baby.  But really, could they afford to make do with half their income, or less, for a full year — all while facing new expenses related to baby?

As nice as it sounds – to have parental leave, to be allowed to not be at work yet still receive some pay – I don’t think I’ll use the 14 weeks that isn’t topped up.  Not to sound ungrateful – but I’m just not sure I can afford it.

The new camera (s)

I bought the Panasonic LX3 from Blacks because they said I could try it out and bring it back, no questions asked, within 15 days after xmas.  The perfect solution for me to find out if I would find the camera too limiting.  I am willing to pay non-bargain prices to get a good return policy incase I need it.  In this case, however, it ends up that I don’t need it.

The LX3 is fun, simple to use (not to say it’s a simple camera – but all the myriad of  useful adjustments or options you might want to make/use are easily accessed), takes handheld pics in stupidly low light, the wide angle is excellent, and the cam is small enough that it’s easy to have with me (although it’s not an ultra compact by any means).   I was worried that 60mm at the longest zoom would be too short, and I’m sure for many things it would be.  But when I ‘ve been using the LX3 so far, it hasn’t really been an issue.  You just have to see your photographic opportunities a different way.  Of course, I can say this knowing that if I went on a safari somewhere, I’d get a camera with a much longer zoom.

I think I’ve seen LX3 output from others (on Flickr etc) that look better than mine (less with the yellow blotches, crisper indoor pics) – but I’ll assume that they do some effective tweaking in post processing.   I tried Silkypix, the software that comes with the camera to develop Raw photos, and really have no idea what to do with it.  A blind person randomly clicking buttons  would probably have similar results to my mindful work.  But the in-camera Dynamic B&W setting gives quick, excellent results (a little underexposed, so I play with the exposure compensation a bit).  I’ve never shot in B&W as much as I have in the short time with this camera. And the standard colour is saturated, but in a pleasing way (except for the overly red faces, especially on flash photos).

Meanwhile, on boxing day I happened to be looking for any spectacular deals online.  Futureshop had the Canon XS DSLR in silver with the 18-55mm IS lens for $449 (with bag and cheap ass mini tripod).  They had a better deal on the same camera in black, for $499 (with bag, extra battery and battery grip), but it was out of stock.  So I bought the silver one, and a couple of hours later the other one was available to order, so I bought it too (although it wouldn’t ship until it was in stock) – aware that when I returned the silver one I’d still have to pay for shipping.

So now I have a black Canon XS with the 18-55 IS lens (plus extra battery and battery grip), and into the bag goes my 50mm 1.8 lens and my 70-210mm USM lens from my old EOS 10s film SLR.  The 28-70 will stay on the  SLR.   Everyone says a DSLR is the way to go for taking pics of kids…so since S is pregnant, a DSLR makes sense.  Of course, the due date isn’t until Sept – so the purchase could have waited.  But it was a great price!

The Canon XS definitely does not have as many bells and whistles as my old Canon EOS 10s.  I can’t use my wireless remote shutter release with the XS (the XSi would have used it – but the XSi costs around $200 more).  The XS doesn’t have a focus assist beam (well, it does — but only in the form of a variety of pre-flash bursts.  If you just want focus assist and but not take a flash photo, you have to go into the menu system and suppress the flash, pop the flash up and use it for the focus assist only.  Then you have to remember to undo that if you ever want to take a flash photo).  And I have to use the 50mm 1.8 lens to take pics indoors without flash (using 800 ISO).  800 ISO looks a LOT better on the XS than the LX3 – and that’s no surprise.

Initially, I was trying to decide whether to return the LX3, but I still want a small carry around camera.  I like the LX3, but could return it to get a cheaper camera (the LX3 is freakin expensive).  But S and I discussed it and I decided to keep the LX3 – and haven’t looked back since.

G10?  No regrets in not choosing that one at all.  The DSLR and LX3 combo will cover my needs much better than the G10 or a G10 + DSLR combo.  And that safari - I suppose I could just keep the 70-210MM USM lens on the XS and I’m all set.  Except with junior on the way – there won’t be any safaris on the horizon for quite a while.

Now I just have to keep people from stealing my cameras and I’m all good.  Maybe I can hide the DSLR in the floor boards when I’m not at home!

n.b.  Interestingly, I almost exclusively use the LX3.  I’ve played around with the XS a bit but it’s not geting anywhere near as much use as the LX3 right now.  I’m not at the point of saying the XS purchase was a mistake, but I can say that the LX3 purchase was definitely a good one.

Update:  By December 2011 I found that I wasn’t using the camera for the types of photos I had begun taking.  Those photos were pretty much exclusively pictures of my  2 yr old son.  I found I had to switch to the DSLR just to get the fast shutter response I needed when taking pictures of little kids.  However, the Canon XS began to give me error messages that I couldn’t resolve through the “take a pencil eraser to the contacts” method that worked for some people.   I ended up selling the LX3 and using the cash toward a decent deal on a replacement DSLR.

My general views: the LX3 had a wonderful wide lens and I had a lot of fun playing with the 24mm end of it (rarely did I use the zoom feature).  I had a great time taking landscapes and urban shots and really enjoyed the results I got, especially with the dynamic B&W setting.  It could take handheld night shots very well — and many of my favourite shots were evening or night shots.  It really made taking photos fun again.  As for people shots, though,  I found the colour cast on skin tones jarring  –  too magenta — and I couldn’t be bothered working to tweak out a custom colour setting.

Do I miss it?  A little bit.  I miss the fun of taking random street scenes …. something I just don’t have the same degree of opportunity to do anymore.  I work longer hours, drive instead of walk to work, and spend my leisure time playing with my son.   I have since bought a little Canon P&S with a freakishly long zoom for its size. It’s a SX220 HS.   Sensors have really improved over the years and it takes decent shots at high ISOs.  But it is not a fun camera.  It’s utilitarian.  It’s something to have on me when I don’t want to carry the DSLR and want more reach than the iPhone.  I think I tend to use it mostly as a video camera.  It’s no LX3 by a long shot.  but then, it isn’t meant to be, either.

 

 

 

Nesting

We took an extra week off with the idea that we’d book a last minute sell-off to someplace warm.  I had been planning a weekend away in NOTL (to make use of a wedding present we never cashed in: a generic “gift certificate” for a weekend at a NOTL B&B).  But S wanted to go to someplace warm — she had friends talk about Cuba and wanted to go.  I’m not sure why, since these friends tend to just sit by the pool and drink.  But whatever.  Since she had a strong preference, I decided she should plan the trip.

As it turned out, we had to go to the clinic for the blood test on the Monday.  Friends told us to expect to be asked to go back 2 days later for another test to track the HcG levels (which double every 2 days).  So we realized we’d have to play the vacation by ear.  S started investigating a short trip to Quebec City instead.  But it never got off the ground.  Instead, the urge to nest hit her — hard.

She thought that it would be a good idea to paint the former guest bedroom (future baby’s room).  But first, it was my job to patch nail holes and random issues with the walls (she didn’t want to be exposed to possible lead paint or other toxins).  In some spots, seams in the old wallpaper (there are many many wallpaper layers under the more recent paint layers) were cracking and the paper was pulling away from the plaster.  I made the mistake of trying to remove some of the wallpaper – only to find that parts of the wall had been patched with drywall and mesh tape.  The newer patches were flush with the topcoat of wallpaper layers/paint – but now that I had removed the wallpaper, the patches sat higher than the rest of the wall.  Not pretty.  There was no way I was going to see what horrors were to be revealed on the other 2.9 walls.

So I aborted mission.  I took a knife and ran it down the wall to have a clear finish line and used a whackload of drywall compount to create a soft taper between the all the high parts and the low parts.  I also fixed all the nail holes and smoothed out areas of the wall that needed it. It took me days to do it all, and now it looks fine in the matte grey of dried drywall compound.  Hopefully it will continue to deceive the eye when paint is applied.   Maybe we should paint the walls matte grey?

While I was doing this, S was in the basement re-organizing the shelves in the storage area and emailing relatives to offer some of our stuff.  It looks a LOT tidier down there –  She sure had more to show for her efforts than I did for mine.

Meanwhile, with S’s help I hung the flat panel tv we bought each other for xmas in the living room.  It turned out pretty well.  We even drilled holes in the wall to hide the wiring.  The next day, S and I tidied up the main floor, but there was something in the air – a whiff of irritation and annoyance.  It was not a fun time.   S wanted the big mirror hung in the living room.  I took a stab at working on it – but it was just too complicated for the length of time we had (3 hours before we were supposed to go watch her team play hockey).  In fact, I was so done by then that I stayed home while she went out with her team.  Normally S is my favourite person to spend time with.  But the day of being with her while she was in frenzied cleaning mode had a bad effect. 

We hired Lil Sis to do the painting, and gave her a timeline.  All we have to do is give her the paint.   Now – what colour….

Pickles

We’ve had a jar of pickles in the fridge for a while now.  A long while.  Sometimes in the summer we’d pull a pickle out of the jar and slice it up to put on hamburgers.  Occasionally, for a snack, I’d have a pickle and a hunk of cheese.  Occasionally, S would join me.  But, overall, the pickles were forgotten in the back of the fridge.

Today, she’s had at least 4 pickles, and we bought another jar when we went grocery shopping this morning.  Halfway through this post, she asked “can I have a pickle?”.

Apparently the whole pregnancy and pickles thing is true true true.