This week was The Captain's first experience travelling since we first found out about the pregancy while on vacation three months ago.  On Thursday, January packed up her photography gear and headed out to Colorado to shoot a wedding in the beautiful ski village of Telluride. While everything we've heard and read suggested that a flight of that length and the severe altitude -- 10,000 feet above sea level in some places -- wouldn't be a problem at all for The Captain, I couldn't help but be a little concerned for mama and baby. I was glad to know that we had our 18 week doctors visit just days after she got back on Monday, and that appointment confirmed that everything was just fine.

But what I really can't wait for is our next appointment. September 22, 2010: The day we find out if it's a boy or girl! If there's one thing to know about Team Soell, it's that we don't like surprises, so we're super-eager to find out what we're havaing as soon as possible. To that end, we've jumped the gun a little bit and done a few home tests to try to get a leg up on the news. And believe me, we've tried everything from the somewhat-plausible sounding to the outright ridiculous:

Chinese Gender Chart

It's Chinese, so it must be old, mysterious, and time-tested right? Here's the chart. First, it's worth noting that the "age" is actually the mother's Chinese age. I'm not sure how it's calculated, but apparently January's Chinese age was 32 at the time of The Captain's conception, even though her American age was only 31.

Verdict #1: Girl

The Boy-Girl Quiz

If there's one thing we've learned from Facebook, it's that everyone likes taking quizes. We found this lovely gender predicting test that claims to combine all the old wives tales into a single place on About.com. Some of the more interesting questions included:

• What do you crave: Salty or Sweet?
• Which direction does your pillow face? (the only available answers were North or South, interestingly enough)
• Is the color of your urine dull yellow or bright yellow?

So, yeah. Pretty scientific stuff.

Verdict #2: Girl

Wedding Ring Gender Prediction

We've read this also being done with a needle, a pin, or any other metal object. But the idea is that you attach a wedding ring to a piece of string, dangle it over the expectant mother's belly, and watch how it swings. If it swings around in a circle, it's a girl. If it's back and forth, it's a boy.

Verdict #3: Boy

Mayan Gender Prediction

We still won't know for another couple of years whether or not those Mayans were right with their whole "2012 is the end of the world" prediction, but the end of the world wasn't the only thing they tried to predict. According to the Mayans, you can predict the gender of your unborn child by adding the mother's age to the month at which the child was conceived. If the sum is an odd number, you're having a boy. Even means girl.

Verdict #4: Girl

IntelliGender

There is one final test. The IntelliGender test is an over-the-counter kit, available at most drug stores, which purports to tell you with 90% accuracy the gender of your unborn baby. It says it can be taken when the baby is as few 10 weeks old. This may sound highly scientific but, to be honest, the reviews on this product are pretty abysmal. Still, we saw it on sale on Amazon and decided to give it a try. As with most scientific tests, this one involves peeing in a cup. The urine is mixed with some powder in the provided cup and is supposed to sit for ten minutes. Afterwards, the color of the liquid is compared to the colors on the cup and used to determine the baby's gender.

Verdict #5: Boy

So there you have it. Three out of five unscientific tests agree: We're having a girl! Unless we're having a boy! Check back with us in three weeks and we'll see what one of these newfangled Ultra Sound machines has to say on the subject.

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For as long as I can remember, and possibly more rapidly than at any other point in history, our generation has experienced a constant evolution of technologies and platforms by which we consume entertainment. The starting point for my generation was FM radio, cassettes and VHS. Each of those technologies gave way several times over; Now we can get crystal clear "HD audio" beamed to us from satellites, perfect digital audio and video downloaded directly from the Internet at a fraction of the size they used to be, and videos with quality 100 times better and 10 times smaller than the VHS tapes from my youth. 

As my generation has reached their late twenties and early thirties, I'm seeing many of us collectively hitting a wall for how much progress we're willing to take. Specifically in the area of books. Just a few short years ago, marked by Amazon's introduction of their Kindle e-reader, the e-book market really exploded. I say "exploded" not because it was born along with the Kindle, just that it was the beginning of the public-at-large's accessability and awareness of e-books. And while the Kindle and other e-readers have been very successful overall, I'm hearing a lot of resistance to the digitization of books from people a lot younger than I would have expected. The reasons for the reluctance to move to digital books has, for the most part, fallen into two categories: A distrust and dissatisfaction the medium, and nostalgia.

I can understand the distrust of the e-book medium, even if I don't subscribe to it. I'm sure we all remember Amazon's hugely ironic gaffe last year when they remotely deleted copies of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984. After that incident, many people became wary of investing in e-books with the knowledge that their provider could remove it or alter it at their chosing. Certainly, there is something a lot more concrete and permanent about a physical book that a digital book can never match. Many people have also balked at e-book, citing their price as the problem. The argument goes that, since the book is being sold in digital form, it should be hugely less expensive than a physical book. While most newer paperbacks cost somewhere in the $14-16 range, and their equivilent e-books are sold for about $10, that is apparently not a big enough drop for some people. 

I get it. Traditional books are more permanent, trustworthy and, well, traditional. There is a definite advantage to them on these counts and while I feel the advantages of e-books make these tradeoffs worth it, I can't fault anyone for thinking otherwise. It's the other reason -- nostalgia -- that kind of trips me up. Nearly every time I ask someone why they won't give the Kindle or another e-book reader a try, they initially cite things like the cost or the distrust of the medium, but when they're pushed to explain their reasoning a little more fully, nine times out of ten it comes down to a vague statement about it taking the experience out of reading. This statement often includes the words "cold," "mechanical," or "joyless."

I can tell that these reasons are made at a very emotional level, and it's quite possible that you can't talk someone out of those arguments. However, I wanted to state, officially and for the record, that this has not been the case for me over the past eight months. In December of last year, January and I bought a Kindle as a Christmas present to ourselves and it's done nothing but enhance my reading experience. If you think you can't develop a strong attachment to a book by reading it on an e-ink display, you're dead wrong. A gentleman I follow on Twitter was mentioning this week that he was working his way through Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho. The thought of the book instantly transported me back to a scene in southern California at sunset, sitting on the boardwalk after a huge rainstorm, where I was enjoying a local beer, the conversation of the locals, and lazily working through the same book on my Kindle.

Similarly, over this past month I have been obsessively working my way through Tana French's Murder Squad mystery series. After what has felt like the hottest summer in the history of the world, we've actually had several nice cool weekend in a row. I have no doubt that years from now when I think of these books, I'll remember sitting on the front porch with Gus, reading chapter after chapter and enjoying a the first cool breezes we've felt in months.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the memories, the nostalgia, are attached to books themselves. It's not the physical book, it's the characters you've come to know. It's not the physical act of turning actual paper pages, it's in remembering the stories. If you've been holding off on giving the Kindle or the Nook or some other e-reader a try because you're afraid the joy of reading will be lost to a "cold and mechanical" device, just give it shot. If you're anything like me, you'll find that the convenience of having your favorite books with you in a single place translates to reading more, and reading more diversely. 

What about you? Have you given e-readers a chance yet? What are the reasons holding you back?

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January had this idea several weeks ago about putting together a weekly report on our lives as expectant parents. Rather than putting together a blog post at each doctors appointment or event that seemed important, it might tell a better story looking back on the pregnancy in week-long intervals, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Today officially marks The Captain's 17th week in our lives and to celebrate has graciously allowed January a full week without nausea! Yes, what we thought would never arrive, a time when the mere mention of food didn't make January's stomach turn, has finally arrived. And I've been celebrating this by cooking up a variety of tasty foods that we both enjoy but haven't been able to eat in months. Chicken and black bean soup! Enchiladas! Chocolate chip pancakes! It's like we've discovered shopping and cooking in advance for the first time here.

The downside to the decreased nausea -- and I don't know if there's a link here or not -- has been an increase in exhaustion. It may be related to the 10 hour wedding shoot she had on Saturday, but January has a bit more tired than usual this week. Rather than worry about it, though, she's reveling in it; Today marks the beginning of a month full of travel for her, so the downtime in the weeks to come may be more scarce than she's used to.  This afternoon, I'm dropping her off at the airport as she heads to Telluride, Colorado to shoot a wedding this weekend. Next weekend is Philadelphia, and the weekend after that we head to North Carolina for our last baby-free vacation.

We will also be going back in to the doctor's office for our 18 week checkup on Wednesday. No ultrasound this time, but we did order an IntelliGender Gender Prediction test last week. We're prepared to take the results of this test for a grain of salt, as the reviews are pretty spotty, but we thought it would be fun to see what it says. I'll be sure to post the results in next week's update.

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Twice in the past month, I've read about people getting their iPhones stolen. The stories were actually strangely similar: On a bus, some punk just walked by, attempted the grab, and bolted. According to my informal survey, this method has about a 50% success rate.

I thought it would be good to take a minute and throw together a quick PSA for all iPhone owners out there who haven't gotten wise to Apple's MobileMe service yet. If you're not familiar with it, MobileMe is first and foremost a service that Apple offers to all their computer, iPhone, and iPad users to help you keep your data in sync. Between the two of us, January and I have four Macs, two iPhones, and two iPads, and the MobileMe service keeps our calendars, contacts, preferences, and setting automatically synced between all of these devices. That's the primary selling point that Apple uses to pitch their MobileMe service. For iPhone users, though, there's an even bigger benefit.

iPhone users who hook up their phone to a MobileMe account get some really invaluable security features. The best one in my opinion is the "find my iPhone" feature. If someone swipes your phone, you can log in to Apple's web site and find where it is through a number of different methods. First, you can track the location on a Google Map like this:

If you need to narrow down the location, you can send a signal to your phone instructing it to start beeping. This will work even if your phone is in silent/vibrate mode. I'm not ashamed to tell you, I use this feature weekly just to remember where in the house I've left my phone. Finally, if your phone does get swiped and you're unable to track it down for whatever reason, there's a final security measure whereby you can remotely wipe everything off your phone. If you've got to lose your phone, you might as well delete your personal information off of it, right?

The big reason I've heard from a lot of people about why they don't protect their iPhone with MobileMe is pretty obvious: the price. An individual account purchased through Apple goes for $99/year, which is a decent chunk up front. What January and I have found, though, is that there's a realy easy way to subsidize this cost: Go in on a family pack with some friends. The 5-account MobileMe family pack retails for $150, but you can get it through Amazon for right around $90. Divide this up with four other iPhone-loving friends, and you can each get these extra features for less than $20/year.

In my experience, there are plenty of iPhone users out there who, at $20/year, are absolutely interested in MobileMe. If you want to get in on a family pack, just ask around and I'm sure you'll quickly find four other people willing to throw some cash your way to get added to your plan. I hope this post doesn't come across as spammy; I'm not getting paid anything for this post, it just seems like there are a lot of iPhone users out there who could benefit from this relatively cheap service to protect their phones. If you're interested, you might even want to just write a quick comment and maybe someone will contact you.

Regardless, protecting your $200+ investment with a $20/year plan just makes sense. If some punk decides to try to pull a smash-and-grab on you the next time you take the bus, you may not make out as well as Johan did:

Affiliate link: Apple MobileMe Family Pack from Amazon.com

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