Antenatal Class #1

Family

This week Claire and I attended our first antenatal classes at Pindara Private Hospital on the Gold Coast. We technically had the choice of doing the antenatal classes over a single weekend or five two hour sessions spilt over five weeks. Even though we booked in for the antenatal classes months ago, we had no option of doing the weekend course as the were already booked out. It turns out that September is the busiest baby delivery month in the year, so all related services are pressed for resources.

While I knew the basic information we were going to cover at the antenatal classes, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. The instructor for our courses is a nurse working at Pindara and she did a great job in keeping things flowing well. To break the ice a little, everyone had to introduce themselves, what they do for a living, when they are due and the sex of their child if they knew it.

Some observations from the first session:

  • Claire and I were the youngest in our class, the average age would have been closer to 35
  • Everyone in our class were first timers, though I guess that is to be expected
  • Normally the majority of couples had found out the sex of their baby. Our group were completely the opposite with only two couples finding out the sex.
  • Normally there are a bunch of women have c-sections, there was only one in our group and I don’t think it was by choice.
  • A room full of pregnant women really is a beautiful sight.
  • Intesting that some women respond to the hormones by it actually levelling out their moodiness, where as others is had made the more moody.
  • The overwhelming good thing about the pregnacy among everyone was being able to feel a baby moving inside.

The next class should be pretty interesting as well, as we get right into the nitty gritty of child birth – so to speak!

Pamela Anderson, PETA & Publicity

News, TV

Pamela Anderson is in Australia this week for a brief stint in the Big Brother house. I learned quite a few things about Pamela Anderson that I didn’t in her time in the house, for instance she is a strict vegetarian and an advocate for PETA.

As I’m trekking to work each morning, I listen to 102.9 Hot Tomato with Luke and at the moment a shifting set of co-hosts while they re-establish their morning crew. The current female that is on the morning show, made a statement that she doesn’t feel that Pamela Anderson is really a supporter for PETA because she accepted the job for Big Brother, however KFC are one of their major sponsors.

The discussion continued and Luke’s point of view was that it was a job, regardless of who was supporting/sponsoring the show. He felt that she has, in his terms, serious ying yang, because even though KFC sponsor the show, she was willing to put her case forward. The female said she shouldn’t have taken the job and that should have been her form of protest.

I don’t agree with that at all, I think she would have received orders of magnitude more press because she took the job, pressed her point and created a media feeding frenzy. Consider for a moment if she had turned the job down, if it even made the evening news, it would have been a one line quip that Pamela Anderson was asked to enter the Big Brother house but turned down the role due to conflicting interests in sponsorship. There wouldn’t have been more said about it and it certainly wouldn’t have been mentioned repeatedly.

What do you think, should she have taken the job and in which case do you think would have gathered more press ?

Seiko Chronograph

General, Photos

Seiko alarm chronograph watch model SNA767P, square face, stainless steel construction and 100M water resistanceOn the same trip to Brisbane when I  overcame temptation, I put a new Seiko chronograph watch on lay by.

This Seiko watch is part of their Conceptual series, though you’ll have a hard time finding information about them on the Seiko web site. As an aside, having to stumble around their site to find information it really does drive home how important having a quality web site that is up to date with product information is. In the end, the only way I could find information about it was going through the advanced search page and applying the appropriate number of filters to whittle the results down.

As you’d expect, It comes with the standard set of features:

  • water resistant to 100m
  • date
  • 1/5s high precision stop watch
  • alarm

An alarm isn’t a revolutionary feature on its own, however it isn’t something that you normally see on an analogue watch. I don’t expect it is something I’ll use all that often, I use my mobile phone as my alarm clock but in the off chance I don’t have that with me – it might prove useful at some point.

I think it is a pretty snazzy looking watch myself, what do you think?

Super Shiny Sparkles

Photos, Wedding

White gold wedding rings on a wood tableIn 2005 when Claire and I were married, everything was shiny new – including our wedding rings. Over the last couple years, our wedding rings have become increasingly dull compared to their former glory.

While in Brisbane today, Claire dropped them in to get re-plated. I guess I’d become used to their appearance as they were, because when I put my wedding ring back on today – I couldn’t believe the luster the gold had after being re-plated, buffed and polished.

While the refreshed wedding bands really do shine now, they don’t compare against the diamonds in Claire’s engagement ring. As with the dull appearance of the gold, despite Claire cleaning the diamonds periodically – it appears that they were still very dirty. After coming back from the jeweler, the diamonds absolutely glisten! I’ll have to get a photo, just as a reminder so we don’t wait so long between getting our wedding rings serviced.