Casual - Justin Foell

When I started writing regularly, I thought much of my content would relate to what it’s like working at home, part time, with kids at home. My oldest has been in daycare for the last two years, so it’s been easy-street as far as working from home is concerned. This changed recently when my daughter was born, and more importantly, when my wife returned to work. So it’s time to revisit what it’s like having a newborn at home.

I’ve discussed sleep deprivation before in regards to the 24hr Website Challenge. Sleep is an important thing to me and I can’t stress this enough: nothing can prepare you for the sleep deprivation you’ll experience with a newborn baby.
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Prior experience not applicable

When I was a young man (age 18-21) I marched in a drum and bugle corps. I figured this experience would have me conditioned well enough to deal with a crying baby in the middle of the night. In drum corps, we’d travel via bus at night, after the previous days show. We’d typically arrive at our next destination sometime between 2 and 5AM. We’d all stumble off the bus like zombies, grab our sleeping bags, set up a place to sleep (usually on the gym floor of whatever school we were staying at), and then go back to sleep. If you were really fancy you took time to brush your teeth with running water, and blow up an air mattress.

This is not what it’s like with a newborn. In drum corps the only variable was when you were going to arrive. You controlled how quickly you could set up your bed and get back to sleep.

Enter the newborn

Babies don’t know or care that you have to get up at 6:30AM to get to work, or that you were up until midnight feeding them the night before. They just know when they’re hungry and will cry until they eat. They also eat at their own speed, need to be burped, and generally be content before everyone can go back to sleep.

If your wife is breastfeeding, most of the burden lies on her. But as a good husband, you should help her bear the burden by fetching a baby, burping her, and putting her back to bed.

I should note that I was much more helpful with the nighttime routine with our first child than with our second. Maybe it’s because I was younger, or more excited as a new dad. Whatever the case was, I’m certainly not going to try to take credit for everything my wife has done for our children during these early development stages. So whatever sleep deprivation boogey-man stories I’m telling, you can bet she’s experiencing it to a greater degree.

There has been occasions where I’d look over and see the baby on the boppy in front of my wife. The baby could be eating, but could be sleeping, and my wife definitely looks like she’s sleeping. I’d say, “put the baby to bed, you’re falling asleep!” But she was always quick to retort that she was just resting her eyes.

The deprivation also isn’t like what you might experience with a normal work or school week. Staying up late and getting up early, you just want to get to the weekend so you can sleep in. Do these babies know what day of the week it is? Heck no! My son is 4 years old and still has a hard time getting the days of the week, but he can read a digital clock and knows not to bug us before 8AM. So that’s the best you’re going to get on Saturday and Sunday: 8AM – minus all the times you got up in the middle of the night for your newborn.

Advice

If I were to give advice to breastfeeding mothers (which I’m not qualified to), it would be to nap when your baby does. This obviously only works when you’re on maternity leave and not operating a vehicle. Many busy mothers feel they need to get stuff done while their baby is sleeping. Do yourself a favor and get all that stuff done when you have nesting urges, before that baby is born, so you can nap yourself back to reality.

For those mothers and others (like me) who are also trying to get work done during this period, hopefully your work is flexible. Tell your coworkers about your situation – you did tell them you had a baby, didn’t you?!? Your ability to work will become sporadic, and spread out throughout the day. If you do technology work, buy yourself a laptop if you don’t have one so you can be mobile. Make sure it’s powerful enough to do everything you’d normally do. Even if it just means being able to work on the couch rather than in your office, it will help.

The good news is this situation is temporary. Once your baby sleeps through the night, you will be able to as well.

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Garmin is the Apple iPod of GPS products. So when it came time to purchase a new GPS, I grabbed a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. It had a great feature set for a handheld unit: SD card expansion, turn-by-turn directions, etc. And because it’s a Garmin, it had the best “hacker” support, namely: free maps from Open Street Maps.

The one thing that I was dissatisfied with was the software support under Linux. Sure you could plug it in, and retrieve data, but simple editing of tracks (splitting, joining) was tedious. Garmin’s free MapSource software worked well, but I wanted to avoid booting into Windows just to use it. Luckily I found this thread on ubuntuforums.org. I rehash here much of the info provided there, and include some updates.
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An Aside about Strava

I use my GPS mostly while cycling. A while back a friend tipped me off to a site called Strava where you can track your rides and compete virtually with others.

I’m not a competitive cyclist. I ride more to shuttle kids to the library, or for picking up groceries. But I do like to use my GPS while riding and upload the data to Strava to track my miles, calories burned, etc. It’s also fun to see what sort of excruciating rides competitive cyclists are doing.

My beef with Strava is that they just recently shut down the version 1 & 2 API access to their site. They are launching a new V3 API, but your application must be approved to use the service. Unless a new version to any API is fully available, it’s customary to leave the old version(s) of the API accessible for a period of time so developers can update their software. Unless the old API is causing undue stress on server hardware and equipment, there should be no reason that an old API is turned off before the new one is available.

My guess is that they (like Twitter) want to control who can/can’t use their API. It could also be a stupid knee-jerk reaction, like I’ve seen many governments and businesses make. Recently there was a lawsuit brought against Strava. They may now want to control the exact wording of the competitive elements of the apps so Strava users aren’t feeling coerced into regaining their top time by riding dangerously. It all feels like a digital nanny-state to me. My guess is that no open-source projects will be able to use the V3 API because there’s probably some DRM key (or equivalent) required to connect.

Nevermind that I’m a contributor to the Strava plugin for WordPress (which no longer works thanks to Strava). WordPress only powers a billion websites and has the largest market share of any web publishing platform. Isn’t the point of having an API to promote the widest adoption possible?!? If Strava doesn’t change, maybe I can convince tons of WordPress cyclists to switch to Garmin Connect – they don’t seem to be ostracizing developers.

/end soapbox

Back to installing MapSource…

Installing Wine

The first order of business is installing Wine:

sudo apt-get install wine

Then run winecfg (as your normal user). This will create a ~/.wine directory:

winecfg

Just click OK when the dialog appears.

Installing MapSource

In order to install the latest MapSource, you actually have to install an older version of the software first because MapSource checks for the presence of an earlier version during installation. Fooling the earlier versions to the presence of MapSource is actually quite easy:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c
mkdir Garmin
touch Garmin/MapSource.exe

Get an older version, like MapSource_6153.exe from http://gawisp.com/perry/mapsource/

Then run the installer:

wine ~/Downloads/MapSource_6153.exe

Follow the on screen instructions. Accept the license and it will install. At the end of the install you can launch MapSource – don’t do this! Uncheck the check mark and just exit the installation.

Once you’ve installed MapSource the simple way, you can then update to a newer version of MapSource which looks for a “proper” MapSource installation. There may be some sort of secret sauce to having your upgraded MapSource fully functional. I initially had problems with the newest version crashing when saving a GPX file. But then it went away when I did a couple of incremental upgrades. If you have this problem, maybe try removing the latest version through the Wine uninstaller and installing a slightly earlier version. Please comment if you have any insight as to what works and what doesn’t.

Add Maps

Adding a drive

My maps exist on a Windows partition on my computer. Rather than reinstalling the (huge) files in Wine, I added a Wine system drive that linked to my Windows partition.

After mounting the Windows partition (simply by selecting it under devices in the nautilus file manager), I then made a symlink to my ~/.wine/dosdevices/ folder:

cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /media/justin/OS "o:"

Replace /media/justin/OS with the correct path to your Windows partition, once it’s mounted in Linux. I chose “O” as my drive letter since I normally mount the disk as “OS” – you can choose whatever drive letter you’d like.

Add registry keys

This is most easily done by exporting registry keys from Windows and importing them into Wine’s registry. Here is a screenshot from my registry from Windows:

In the UbuntuForums post, the author notes that MapSource looks for maps under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Garmin\MapSource\Families, where as my installation (Windows 7) had the maps installed under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Garmin\MapSource\Families. So I exported the keys from Families in my Windows installation and then installed them in the same place in the Wine registry.

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/regedit.exe

After installing the key(s) into the Wine registry, I updated the values and changed any references to C:\ to O:\ – my custom Wine device that links to my Windows partition.

Once this is done you can test that your maps are being read correctly.

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Garmin/
wine ./MapSource.exe

If your maps are installed correctly, they’ll show up under View > Switch to Product. Even if you have no maps installed, MapSource may still be useful to you for downloading tracks from your Garmin and exporting to other formats such as GPX.

Set up a COM device

In order for MapSource to be able to upload/download anything from your GPS, we need to set up a COM device so they can communicate. First load the garmin_gps kernel module (which strangely didn’t autoload in Ubuntu):

sudo modprobe garmin_gps
lsmod | grep garmin

And you should see something like:

garmin_gps 18212 0
usbserial 36911 1 garmin_gps

Turn on the GPS and connect it to the USB port. Then do:

ls /dev/ttyUSB*

You should see a device called ttyUSB0

Now we have to make this device visible as com1 port under Wine:

cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 com1

When you want to transfer data from your GPS, plug in your Garmin, then run:

sudo modprobe garmin_gps
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Garmin
wine ./MapSource.exe

In the Transfer menu, select Receive From Device. You should now see your device and can transfer tracks, waypoints from your GPS into MapSource.

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I had the opportunity to represent my city’s “Active Transportation” group in the 2013 Fridley 49er Days parade. We were parading under the auspices of getting around Fridley using non-motorized transportation.

I was disappointed in the turnout of or group. We had some great volunteers from the Fridley Senior Program walking with signs and banners. However my family and neighbors were the only representatives on bicycles. So if I didn’t show up (or recruit my neighbors), the parade unit would have been almost non-existent.

I was starting to get the feeling that here in Fridley, we’re all still stuck in our cars and could care less about weirdos that walk to the store or ride bikes to work.

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Our group was promoting “share the road.” We were given handout materials from sharetheroadmn.org and carrying a banner promoting the phrase. My only problem with it is the “Share the Road” campaign is brought to you by MnDOT (the aforementioned web address redirects to dot.state.mn.us/sharetheroad/). Most pedestrians and cyclists would agree that MnDOT is the worst single offender when it comes to government agencies that consistently promote driving above all transit modes.

The banner read “Stop for pedestrians at every corner.”

Then the back side (which wasn’t prominently visible) asks walkers to “look again before you cross.” My emphasis added because you never know when you’ll be run down by someone speeding in a SUV while updating their facebook status on their phone.

This two-sided banner assumes that there’s some sort of give-and-take between drivers and pedestrians. But MnDOT just takes and takes until there’s no walking infrastructure left.

At one point a resident watching the parade (who didn’t see the back of the banner) said “well, it would be nice if they [pedestrians] would look out for us [cars] before stepping into the intersection.” I inferred cars & pedestrians because she distinctly used the verb step. She should be a spokesperson for MnDOT.

Then on my way home I was cut-off (almost right hooked) by a car speeding to get into the Lifetime Fitness parking lot on E. Moore Lake Dr. before I crossed the intersection (with my son on the bike and my wife and infant daughter close behind).

All of this has just led me to believe that Fridley’s residents are simply not ready to admit the Suburban Experiment is coming to an end. Or are they?

A Ray of Hope

Thankfully our forward thinking Fridley City Council unanimously adopted the 2013 Active Transportation Plan. It’s not a law (yarr – they be more like “guidelines”) – but I hope when the next re-striping or re-paving project comes along, the city will do it’s best to accommodate those outside of automobiles since it’s good for health, and good for the economy. But it is incumbent upon city officials to act. A plan is just a plan until it’s put into action. Looking at the previous 1975 Bikeway / Walkway Systems Plan (adopted two years before I was born), it’s obvious that the city is still struggling with some of those same issues.

Doping in American Cycling

In Tyler’s book, he draws you in to the scene, explaining how the American cycling team was getting crushed in Europe – getting passed by European teams like they were riding motorcycles. They had to dope just to keep pace. He puts you in his shoes. You sensed that doping was inevitable if only to prevent further embarrassment. Their use of EPO seemed downright recreational, just give yourself a small shot into some fatty tissue.

Transfusions

Then the rabbit hole got deeper: cyclists doing autologous blood transfusions in a sly game to store your own blood and have your body to produce more, and then to re-inject extra later before a race, or in-between race stages. Let’s face it, at-home or in-hotel transfusions are not normal. Transfusions are normally reserved for medical patients who need a transfusion to survive. Clandestine blood-bag operations with anonymous delivery people add an extra layer of confusion that could lead to an athlete receiving a transfusion of someone else’s blood – which may have happened to Hamilton.

The Future – Paniagua?

This term, meaning “bread and water” (from Spanish pan y agua), is used to describe cyclists riding clean – like they’re just fueled by bread and water.

A friend of mine just assumes that all star athletes are juiced up to just below the point where they’ll get caught. Cycling is especially tainted. As Hamilton explains, the Festina affair in 1999 merely shifted the drug carrying responsibility from the team to the cyclists themselves. Teams and riders claimed they were riding paniagua, but Operación Puerto in 2006 showed that things had just gotten more secret and sophisticated.

We can thank Tyler Hamilton (and to some extent Lance Armstrong) for coming clean. Tyler telling all gives insight into the lengths riders would go to get their fix. He broke the omertà so that the sport can start anew. Now teams, besides taking a stance against doping, are sharing their power data. Even without obtaining rider’s power data, it can inferred through well known climbs like L’Alpe d’Huez.

The entire sport including riders, team directors, and doctors, needs to prove that it can ride clean. Some argue that it will make the sport less exciting, but I think it will do the opposite. No longer will you have super-human multi-day efforts. A rider that dominates one day will be spent, opening the door for “fresh” riders to overtake them the next day. I don’t want to see a race where the yellow jersey only trades riders during the first week. I’d like to see it be contested right up until the end.

So is everything clean? Probably not, but it’s heading in the right direction. The peloton is slowing down towards mere mortal speeds. But as an insider, Tyler Hamilton has heard rumors that small autologous blood transfusions are still happening – and he believes it.

While current pro cyclists may not be using drugs – storing blood for a performance boost later is not normal. Transfusions should be used for saving lives, not underhanded winning.

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Once the BNSF railroad passes over the south side of I-694 and expands into the vast Northtown Yard, you have but one option to cross it in Fridley City limits: the 44th Ave. Bridge.

I always had assumed that this bridge is in Columbia Heights, but it lies in Fridley proper. The notion sunk in when I saw a Fridley Police car staking out the bridge – presumably looking for speeders.

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And speed they will. This bridge has a 2-lane road with extra wide lanes and extra wide shoulders. The speed limit is 30 MPH. Who are we kidding? No one is going to go 30 on it because it is engineered like a 45 MPH road:

44th-wide-lanes — Impatient driver, wanting to go faster than 30 MPH

The view from the top of the bridge is actually quite fascinating. You can see the “hump” at the Northtown Yard in action. A train backs up slowly to a hill (the hump) and one-by-one cars are uncoupled and roll down the other side, switching to various tracks so the non-unit train cars get rearranged to move on to their next destination:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/family_man_system/28129427798/

Photo courtesy of Man of Family

Getting up to the top of this bridge is the laughable part. There’s no real entrance to the bridge walkway from the road on the east side. There’s just a narrow, weedy, sandy, decaying section of asphalt that says “trouble” more than “walk this way:”

The path is perilously narrow, squeezed down by the guard rail. Once you get to the bridge it turns to concrete and doesn’t get any wider. In fact it feels narrower since you’re now encased between a fence and a jersey barrier:

I think it would be impossible for two pedestrians to pass without brushing shoulders. Yet automobiles on this bridge are given a extra-wide berth for their whopping 30 MPH:

This bridge is technically a county road (Anoka County Road 2). I understand that the county (and state) sometimes operate with heavy hands. But regardless of who assumes ownership, someone should be ashamed of themselves.

The next time this bridge is resurfaced, the lanes should be narrowed to 10 or 11 feet, to fully reflect it’s 30 MPH speed limit, and the shoulders should be even narrower yet. Then the pedestrian area could be widened to provide actual space for non-motorized traffic to travel in both directions simultaneously without the certainty of a head-on collision which is guaranteed today.

Justin Foell

Technology, Bicycling, Hobbies, Kids, Life.

Category Archives: Casual

Newborn Sleep Deprivation

Prior experience not applicable

Enter the newborn

Advice

Garmin MapSource in Linux (Wine)

An Aside about Strava

Installing Wine

Installing MapSource

Add Maps

Adding a drive

Add registry keys

Set up a COM device

Fridley Hates Pedestrians (Part 5) – Share the Road

A Ray of Hope

Omertà is out, Paniagua is in

Doping in American Cycling

Transfusions

The Future – Paniagua?

Fridley Hates Pedestrians (Part 4) – 44th Ave. Bridge