Sadly, Amy and I were woken just after 4 a.m. today with the blaring of sirens down our street. Amy, 41 weeks pregnant as of today, wasn’t sleeping so well in any case. My old journalistic nose kicked in, literally, as I could smell smoke from the nearby apartments. One unit appeared to be a total loss on the upper floor. Hopefully, everyone got out. I headed down the street to see what was up, and take a few photos. No news on injuries yet, but all the area TV stations arrived as I was leaving. It’s really amazing to me that it’s been seven years since I chased this type of news for a living. I love my job today – but sometimes miss the street.
Masters in 3D
Although the snow mass has not even begun to melt over some areas of the Northeast, the annual Masters golf tournament begins this Thursday. The Augusta National Golf Course opened it’s gates early Monday morning to those holding one of the hardest tickets in sport – Masters ‘badges’. See – they are so hard to get they don’t even call them tickets! Anyway, my old newspaper buddies in Augusta at The Augusta Chronicle lifted a page out of the 2000 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and have published a collection of 3-D photos from the 2004 tournament. You’ll have to find your own red/blue glasses, but the effects are pretty interesting.
Photo by Michael Holahan/Augusta Chronicle
Masters Baby?
So far, the eggplant doesn’t seem to have sped this along. We have until about 7 p.m. tonight until Scalini’s free dinner and t-shirt deal expire. Oh well. As I’m sure my brother-in-law Scott would attest, this is all probably just a conspiracy to make sure that our baby arrives right around 7 p.m. this Sunday, just as the Masters tournament concludes. I’m sure they have CBS on the hospital tv system, so hopefully Amy will find the azaleas and green grass have a calming effect. A guy can hope, right?
PII and Your Baby
Several blogs I check out regularly (including BoingBoing and DaddyTypes) point to this posting at Debris.com telling the woeful tale of a company which has insinuated itself into the hospital L&D process, and seem to generally take advantage of a very hectic time in new parents lives by sucking your personally identifiable info (PII). They promise a ‘free’ portrait of your new child – but that’s essentially in exchange for becoming fodder for Growing Family’s list sales efforts. Growing Family’s privacy policy – you know, the one you don’t read ’cause your in freaking LABOR – gives them the right to share your private information with anyone.
Growing Family will use your information from time to time to promote additional products, services, rewards and special offers from Growing Family Network and its select Network Partners.
As Debris.com so appropriately notes – ‘My point is not that Growing Family was deceitful. My point is that, to my dismay, caveat emptor begins at birth.