Ben’s Blog

Sorry for the long hiatus. I will try to do better. One post a week, minimum. Seriously.

Luke went to the pediatrician for his four month checkup on Wednesday. He is now 17 lbs., 6 oz. and 26 inches long. That puts him in about the 80th percentile for weight and 90th percentile for length according to the CDC charts. Not bad. The doctor said he looked very healthy. We can start feeding him baby food in a week or two. That should be interesting.

Luke mastered rolling over several weeks ago. He now sleeps on his stomach most of the time. That worries us a little bit, but there’s not much you can do about it. He has started teething. I don’t think there will be any coming through real soon, but he’s drooling a lot and he puts everything he gets his hands on in his mouth. In the last week or so he was started playing with his feet. Anytime you lay him on his back he goes for his feet. He chews on them occasionally, but not too often. Also in the past week or so he’s started reaching for things. He’ll reach for his bottle, his burp cloth, toys, people, etc. He even held his own bottle for a little bit the other night. He can sit up a little bit, but he slumps over pretty quick. We’re working on that.

I have decided to use Zenfolio for Luke’s pictures, but I still don’t have any up there. Soon, I promise.

It’s very hard to get unbiased information on how we’re doing in Iraq. The Republicans and Democrats aren’t going to be honest about the situation, and most of the media are just as bad.

I was glad to see this post on the Freakonomics blog today. Levitt summarizes a logical analysis of “the surge” by an MIT economist. To summarize it even further, the surge is making a difference in some areas, but it doesn’t seem to be making a long term difference.

The author’s main evidence on that front is the price of Iraqi government-issued bonds. If the government collapses the bonds won’t get paid. At the moment, the financial markets aren’t giving the government much of a chance based on the price of the bonds. Of course, financial markets do occasionally get things wrong, but they’re right more often than not.

Levitt also makes some interesting observations about academia at the end of the post.

Had I been at home last night I probably wouldn’t have watched the debate, but there isn’t a lot to do in Cassie’s hospital room. I’ve generally been of the opinion that Presidential debates don’t contain a lot of substance. Last night’s debate didn’t change my opinion, but I did find it interesting.

Let’s be honest, not all of the candidates that were in the debate have a chance to win the nomination. Giuliani, Romney, and McCain are obviously in the running. Giuliani and Romney are frontrunners, but were defensive on several issues last night; Giuliani more so than Romney. I thought McCain was pretty strong in the debate. I had previously written him off s a true contender. While I still don’t think he’ll get the nomination, it’s probably too early to give up on him.

I think Mike Huckabee should be added to the list of real contenders. He came in second in Iowa, and I would argue he won the debate tonight. I don’t agree with him on a lot of things, but I thought all of his answers were strong and he wasn’t defensive. (It is interesting to note that Huckabee was born in the same small Arkansas town as Bill Clinton.) While he has executive experience, he doesn’t have a lot of the political baggage that Giuliani and Romney do. He’s got a long way to go to get the nomination, but I think he has a shot.

As a libertarian, I found Ron Paul’s responses to be interesting and amusing. He’s way more hardcore than me, but I do agree with him on a lot of issues. Have a look at his Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, like a typical Libertarian, he doesn’t know how to make his proposals palatable for the average citizen. He has no shot at winning.

Unfortunately I still think we have pretty sad selection of candidates this time around, though both parties have candidates that are better than their 2004 nominations. The question is, will their nominations be better than 2004’s nominations? I expect Hillary will win the Democratic nomination, which frankly scares me a little bit. Even scarier is I don’t see a Republican candidate that can beat her in the general election. I’m still holding out hope that Michael Bloomberg will run as a independent.

Cassie’s surgery went well. She is now resting with the help of some Benadryl. The Benadryl is to help with the itching from the morphine. Fun stuff.

Luckily her room here at the Mississippi Surgery Center has Wifi. We’ll be headed home first thing in the morning as soon as Cassie’s doctor does his rounds.

Sorry for the huge gap between posts. I’m going to blame it on Luke again. Speaking of Luke, he’s doing great. He’ll be three months old tomorrow. He doesn’t hardly stop smiling these days. Yes, I have lots of pictures, but I haven’t gotten around to posting them anywhere yet. I’m working on it.

Cassie is feeling good too. She’ll be having surgery in Jackson next week. That should clear up the last of her childbirth-related issues. Luke will be staying with our parents in Belmont while we’re in Jackson.

We’re leaving for Belmont this afternoon as soon as I get off work to enjoy the long weekend. My parents haven’t seen Luke in over three weeks, so it should be fun. I plan on taking lots of pictures.

Tomorrow is Ole Miss’ first football game of the season against Memphis. There are a lot of question marks for the team this year (more than usual), so it should be interesting to see how things turn out. I don’t plan on making it to many games this year, but I will be watching with interest. Mississippi State lost 45-0 to LSU last night in their first game. No one expected them to win, but no expected 45-0 either. I guess that’s what seven turnovers will do to you.

More soon.

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but we’ve been very busy between taking care of Luke and Cassie’s post-childbirth medical issues. There are a lot of afflictions that can pop up after childbirth, and Cassie has managed to have most of them. She’s been in the hospital twice (not counting childbirth) and numerous doctor’s offices. We had to drive down to Jackson to see a specialist on Friday. She’s feeling much better, but she’s going to have surgery in about three weeks. Nothing too serious, but we’re ready for things to get back to normal. Whatever that is when you have a newborn. :)

Luke is doing just fine. He’ll be 7 weeks, 2 days old in a couple of hours. We weighed him a few days ago, and he’s already gained over three and half pounds. He’s been grinning at nothing in particular since day one, but in the last few days he’s started smiling in response to us talking to him. One little smile can make up for a lot of things. :)

I’ve put some pictures of Luke up on Flickr. However, I’ve taken a lot that aren’t up there. My Flickr Pro account expired, and I’ve been exploring my options. Zenfolio and Smugmug both looked promising, but I haven’t been real pleased with anything I’ve seen so far. I’m going to try to make up my mind soon so I can put some more pictures up.

My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived yesterday. I’m on page 330 of 759. So far the “Hallows” haven’t even been mentioned. The book is definitely a page turner, but I feel like it could be moving a little faster. I’ve felt the same way about the last couple of books. If you’re like me, and it’s been two years since you’ve read the Half-Blood Prince, you might have a look at it’s Wikipedia page. You probably don’t want to read this page though. :)

Friday night, June 1st, at 11:08pm, Luke Benjamin Pharr entered the world. He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 and 1/2 inches long. Both he and his mom are doing well. They were both discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon after less than 48 hours.

I haven’t had a chance to go through all 142 pictures I took at the hospital, but I’ve posted a few that caught my eye (set, slideshow). More details and pictures to come as soon as I catch up on my sleep. :)

Cassie went back to the doctor yesterday. She had to see a different doctor because hers is out of town. They did some sort of (standard) stress test on Luke, and he passed with flying colors. I got a good recording of his heartbeat during the test. I’ll post it this afternoon if I get a chance.

Cassie hasn’t progressed any since her last visit, but the doctor said she’s already in good shape to be induced. If she hasn’t given birth by Monday morning, she’s going to be induced. We have to be at the hospital between 5:30 and 6:00am. The doctor said that if everything goes according to plan, Luke should arrive in the mid to late afternoon.

I got to hold Cassie’s cousin’s three day-old baby this past weekend. Now I’m even more exciting about Luke’s impending arrival. On the one hand I’d like him to be born in the next couple of days so I can spend the weekend plus my week off with him. On the other hand, it’d be nice to have one more weekend of normalcy. :) Good thing I have no choice in the matter.

Ole Miss faced Vanderbilt in the semifinals of the SEC tournament on Saturday. Vanderbilt is ranked #1 in the country, but because they had lost a game in the tournament and we hadn’t, they had to beat us twice to advance to the tournament finals. We only had to win once to advance. They scored 8 runs in the first one and a third innings of the first game. They eventually won 13-1.

We led 3-2 for most of the second game. In the bottom of the ninth Vanderbilt scored a run to make it 3-3 and force extra innings. (The tying run actually scored on a foul sacrifice fly to left field. That brings up the question of whether the left fielder should have let the foul ball drop instead of catching it for the out. I say yes, but it’s a pretty unique situation.)

In the top of the 10th, Ole Miss scored two runs when the catcher threw the ball into left field during a pickoff attempt at third base. The pickoff attempt occurred after a failed suicide squeeze. Crazy stuff. We then scored another run to make it 6-3. That’s a pretty secure lead in most extra inning situations, but we somehow allowed Vandy to score four runs in the bottom of the inning to win the game.

Sunday afternoon Vanderbilt played Arkansas for the SEC tournament championship. Vandy won 7-4. They are the first regular season champion to win the tournament in 10 years.

The NCAA also announced regional sites for the NCAA tournament Sunday afternoon. Vanderbilt, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Ole Miss will be hosting 4 of the 16 regionals. Vanderbilt is hosting its first ever regional. (Wow. That just shows you how far they’ve come.) Ole Miss is hosting one for the fourth year in a row. Texas is the only other school in the country that can make that claim.

Ole Miss will be hosting Southern Mississippi, Troy, and Sam Houston State this weekend in their regional. In my opinion, Southern Miss is the only team that has a chance to beat us, though Troy might surprise us. We’ve split two games against Southern Miss this year. However, neither team was using their best pitchers, so it’s hard to tell much from that. Our first game will be against Sam Houston State on Friday night.

The 13th Annual Oxford Double Decker Arts Festival was held on Saturday, April 28th. The festival takes its name from the double decker bus that was imported by Oxford in 1994. The bus was a big hit, so another one was imported a few years ago. They’re used for special events and entertaining visitors. A bit of history for you: Oxford, Mississippi was named after Oxford, England in the early 1800’s in an effort to convince the state legislature to build a University here. Obviously it worked. Thus, the buses kind of fit with the British theme.

I wandered around during the early afternoon and took a few pictures with my Fujifilm F31fd. I’ve posted 15 of them on Flickr. The slideshow is probably the best way to view them. Don’t miss the history in the description of one of the courthouse pictures.

This is the first set of pictures I’ve run through Lightroom. It saved a couple of them that were pretty badly underexposed. In the past I would’ve had to just throw them away. I think I’m getting better at separating the wheat from the chaff. I took over 100 photos and pared it down to these 15. Your comments are welcome. If you don’t have time to look at the entire set, I’ve posted four below.