Elizabeth Ann was born today at 3:10pm. She weighs in at a hefty 8 lbs 12 oz and stretches out to 21.5 inches. Mom and baby are both doing terrifically. Dad’s ecstatic!

H is in labor now. More later…

Tonight we said goodbye to our dog Nestle. She has been a part of our family since we picked her up in front of the Von’s in Barstow, CA, almost 12 years ago. Nestle (named for her chocolate brown fur when we received her) is a labrador/border collie mix and despite her 50-60 pounds always believed she was a lap dog.

She’s been fighting cancer since early this year and on our return from vacation we discovered that it had taken hold again in her foot — she’d had a toe removed in February. We brought her home last night and spent one more day with her, then allowed her to give up the fight. She is an excellent dog and will be terribly missed.

Hell of a way to end 2006.

There is a very interesting article in this month’s Fast Company magazine about Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL). It looks like their time has finally come - prices are dropping rapidly and even Walmart is starting to push them very hard; they realized they would save $6,000,000 every year simply by switching the lamps in their display ceiling fans to CFL’s.

I did the math on the lamp sitting next to me here in our family room. It was a 3-way bulb that we usually use at the middle setting or 70 watts. We have it on every night, so I figure that’s an average of 4 hours/night for 365 nights. (70 x 4 x 365)/1000 = 102 kilowatt-hours (Kwh). We’re currently paying $0.21981/Kwh, so this single bulb costs us $22.46/year to light.

I replaced it tonight with a 15 watt CFL - we’d actually already bought it but it was unused in another lamp that’s still in storage - a new one, according to the Fast Company article, now costs only $3.00 at Walmart. At 15 watts it uses 21.4% of the energy of the 70 watt bulb, yet produces the same amount of light. Since it use 79% less energy, we’ll save $14.65 after subtracting the cost of the bulb. That’s a 500% return on investment in the first year on just a single bulb! And since the bulbs can last upwards of 10 years, the savings continue to multiply.

Replacing just one lightbulb in every one of America’s 110 million homes would have the same impact on the environment as removing 1.3 million cars from the road. It would reduce the amount consumers spend on energy hundreds of millions of dollars.

The next time you’re at your favorite retailer, pick one up - the packaging will help you choose an appropriately sized replacement for your current incandescent bulbs. Try one out and see what you think.

Saving money by helping the environment; sounds like a win-win to me!

Prompted by getting a mention by Greg at DaddyTypes (wonderful site), I figured it was time to start updating this dusty old page, so here goes.

There have been some changes since last we spoke - wife, daughter and I have pulled up roots and moved north, arriving in the Bay Area in April. I’ve taken an exciting new job with New Haven Unified School District as Executive Director of Technology. It’s been a whirlwind couple of months as I settle into the many interesting challenges that face me here. The good news is that I’ve got great people working with me, support from my bosses and the board, and funding to get stuff done. The bad news is that it’s much less hands-on - it’s a challenge for this geek to not be up to his elbows in the nitty-gritty tech stuff.

Science Friday had a great segment the other day honoring Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday. The segment featured authors HW Brands (The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, which I’ve read and highly recommend) and Page Talbott (Benjamin Franklin: In Search of A Better World). They did a great job of covering in a fairly short time some of the highlights of a truly amazing life.

Emma Hobbs was born to us on Tuesday, November 8. She weighed in at 7lbs 12oz and was 20” long. Mom and baby are home resting (ha!). more pics available here.

I found on some blog or another a link to some very cool photo-stitching software (a program that takes multiple images and creates awhole image from them). It works surprisingly well, and it’s free!

This probably only matters to about 4 people, but the power outage in L.A. today took out my hosting provider, Dreamhost, for almost 10 hours today. Not real thrilled with them at the moment, but in their defense this is only the second significant outage I’ve experienced with them in the nearly 6 years I’ve used them.

Anyway, all appears to be working correctly again, so that’s good news.

One of my teammates has created an unofficial forum for current, past, and prospective students of the W. P. Carey Online MBA program to discuss the program away from the “official” boards hosted by the school. The site features both public and private discussion boards and should be a great resource for potential students seeking information about the program as well as a place for current students to decompress and get to know one another, particularly cross-cohort.

It’s a little light on content in the public board right now but I expect that will pick up as the site gets on the radar of prospective students. The private boards are turning into a lot of fun, but if I told you why I’d have to kill you!

Link