Monica and I had an evening free so we decided to sneak into the clinic and take a look at our baby-to-be.
Monica got the ultrasound machine warmed up, slathered on some of that goo, then drove the ultrasound wand around, showing me the various parts of our offspring. We could see the heart beating, which was really cool, but the most impressive thing – at least to me – was just how much this child moves. He… she…whichever… stretches, twirls, and kicks; I had no idea that babies were so active in-utero. It was frequently hard to get a good look at fingers or toes because offspring kept moving. It was a lot fun being able to see our baby, it kind of makes the reality of the coming addition to our life even more real. We’ve got a little less than three week before our ultrasound to determine the baby’s gender; I hope offspring is more cooperative and less restless then.
Author: Andy
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That’s One Active Child
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Baby’s Getting Bigger
Monica paid the baby a visit via ultra sound again today and came home w犀利士
ith three new pictures. You can clearly see the outline of a tiny human and can see fingers, toes, arms and legs pretty clearly. Monica said the baby wiggled and turned for her while she was running the ultra sound on herself. She’s (He’s?) about four inches long now and has working joints. She’s also “breathing” amniotic fluid to help develop the air sacs in her lungs.
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Baby’s Second Doctor Visit
We went to the doctor again today and got to listen to the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. Dr. Byrd told us that everything looks good and that we can try to determine the baby’s gender at our 18-week appointment.
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Baby’s First Doctor Visit
Monica had her first doctor’s appointment today and received a clean bill of health along with some suggestions for reducing her morning sickness. She also was given an ultra sound so, without further ado, here’s the baby’s second picture:
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Baby Photography
With our first child on the way, I would really, really like to have two items in hand before she (?) arrives and, with everyone’s help ($), this could become a reality.
The first, and more reasonable item I would like to have is the Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS USM Autofocus Lens which costs $2,199. The second, and more difficult item for me to attain is the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III SLR Digital Camera which costs $7,999. Any and all contributions to help me acheive this goal are greatly appreciated. I can accept cash, checks, and paypal.
Total Donations: $0.00
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Baby’s First Picture
Monica will be at the nine-week mark this Wednesday and asked Dr. Diehl (aka Jenny) to run an ultrasound on her yesterday. I think this is the second attempt at an ultrasound with the first attempt revealing nothing. Yesterday’s session had better results with our Blobble being visible. Here’s the baby’s first picture:
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Something Is Different
I start every weekday the same way: up around five, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, then I’m off to work. Monica is a different story, she’s a sleep junky and could easily sleep twenty hours a day so I knew something was up when I heard her get up and stay up while I was showering. When I finished my shower, I was greeted by her bright smiling face (she’s never bright and smiling in the morning) – she looked like she was about to burst. I already knew what it meant, even before she held up the little stick with two pink lines on it.
So that’s it. I’m going to be a father – we’re going to be parents. Good thing we bought baby furniture when it was on sale last weekend. -
The Meaningless Fish
You see a lot of bumper stickers, logos, brand names, and team spirit stickers of all kinds on just about every vehicle on the road today – any thing from the inane to the profound. I find the car with multiple stickers on it usually contradicts itself; a car with a “Leave no child a dime” sticker and an election sticker for a tax-and-spend candidate for example. I have no problem with this. It’s a free country so please, express yourself and your views; that is what so many have given their lives for, so that you may freely speak what’s on your mind. The only one that really gets my ire up is that infernal fish emblem; I don’t have a problem with the emblem, the statement it’s making, or the religion it represents, I have a problem with the vast majority of the people who put those on their car.
Hypocrites, mostly.
In my mind, that little fish emblem is proclaiming to the World that you are a God fearing believer in Jesus, that you are a follower of His teaching and, therefore, you honor and obey the law. How is it that these are the people I notice most running stop signs, red lights, and blowing by me at 85 in a 55 zone? Their cars, as with so many others out there, seem to have come without the optional turn signals or their turn signals are wired backwards. When traffic is backed up on the express way, they will zip past traffic by driving on the shoulder. When traffic is moving slowly and you need to merge, they are quick to close a gap so you can’t get in – to me, they might as well just give me the finger.
For a group of people who follow the person who put everyone and everyone’s needs before Himself and His needs, they certainly are self-centered and self-serving. Take, for example, a recent encounter I had with an elderly woman who’s car had a flat tire. I was driving home from work, tired and wanting nothing more than to get home when I spotted a car on the sholder of the express way. I could tell the rear, passenger side tire was flat even a half mile away. The car to my left and two cars ahead of me each had a fish in one form or another on their cars. Did they stop to help? No. As I got closer, I made the decision to stop and fix her tire. It took maybe five minutes of my time and helped her when it appeared that no one else would.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way perfect or selfless. Two days later I saw a car with a flat tire in the exact same place and didn’t stop. I made all kinds of excuses in my mind – she had a cell phone, she was young, I’m more tired today – whatever the excuse was, I wish now I had stopped to help but I didn’t. The other extreme is the “fishy” people who do stop, not to help – NO – to berate those who also don’t stop to help. I’m serious. Again, I was on the express way in heavy traffiic, up ahead there was a stalled car in the right lane with two people pushing it onto the shoulder and a third person standing by his fish-emblemed car yelling at the cars that were driving by that they should stop and help. I’m not kidding. Instead of stopping and helping, his “selfless” act was to put a guilt trip on the people who didn’t stop. What about the two guys pushing the car? They were a couple of Mexicans in a rusty old pickup truck – no fish.
My point isn’t really people who speed or who don’t help with flat tires or who lay a guilt trip on others, it’s that if you want to declare your faith and the beliefs that go with that faith, you better back it up with your actions or you’re nothing more than a hypocrite. That’s why you will not find a fish emblem on my car, not because I don’t believe in God but because I know I’m imperfect and human and that I have made some really bad choices and big mistakes – in short, I’m just another sinner like everyone else and capable of anything. If I fall, fine; I’m only human. If I have a selfless moment, great! I’ll move on and hope it happens again. Regardless of my being selfless from time to time and in a world that already has a scrutinous eye on religion and, especially, the Christian faiths, I’m not going to put a fish on my car and give the World a reason to persecute believers even more.
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Honda
To Whom It May Concern:
On September 6th, I brought my 2003 Honda Accord V6 to the Service Department at Wolfchase Honda in Memphis, TN. The previous evening, I had trouble getting the car to start and assumed that the battery was getting weak. On my way to the service department that morning the car dropped out of gear suddenly while I was driving, the engine revved to between 5,000 and 6,000 rpm, returned to an idle rpm, the transmission engaged again and repeated this behavior four or five times. Since I was within a quarter to perhaps a half mile of the service department I left the car in drive and allowed the car to coast down the overpass I had just crested and made it to the service department; the car exhibited the behavior described above several more times before I finally arrived.
I informed the service department of the problem with the car being hard to start and of the new problem with the transmission that had just happened, then left the car with the service technician. Later in the day I received a call from Danny at Wolfchase Honda who informed me that the battery did need to be replaced, the car needed brake pads and that the rotors needed to be turned, all of which I was expecting and quite prepared for; then Danny told me that the transmission had to be replaced, something I was most certainly not expecting and not at all prepared for.
My Accord was affected by the transmission recall released in the summer of 2004. Because of the disinterested and unconcerned service I had experienced from the service department at Dobbs Honda on Mendenhall, where I originally purchased the car, I reluctantly took the car there in order to have the recall service performed. The recall service was completed that day and I picked my car up that afternoon. When I picked up my car, I was told that they had determined that the transmission did not need to be replaced so they had installed the oil piping kit as required by the recall. I asked a number of questions about the transmission and any precautions I should take or any warning signs I should look for; all of my questions were answered with either a flippant “don’t worry about it” or a shrug. I gave up on getting any of my concerns addressed and left.
I immediately noticed a difference in the transmission’s shifting; when the transmission shifted from one gear to another it felt like it was shifting hard and the car would frequently buck or lurch as well; occasionally, it would even cause the tires to squeal or chirp when the transmission shifted from second to third gear. That evening, as my wife and I were driving home, we both heard a metal-on-metal rubbing or scraping sound – something like sheet metal rubbing against an axle or rotor; I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and checked under the car, in the front wheel-wells, and under the hood where I could find no loose parts or any parts that appeared to be rubbing or missing. I got back in the car and drove it home as cautiously as I could, meaning that I accelerated very slowly, did not brake hard, and did not exceed 35 MPH.
Before driving the car the next morning, I called the service department at Dobbs Honda on Mendenhall and described both the hard shifting and the metal-on-metal rubbing sound we had heard. I was told that the hard shifting wasn’t unusual and would go away after “it settled in” and that someone had probably just left a tool under the hood and that’s what caused the noise we heard; again demonstrating a complete lack of concern on the part of the service technician. After about a month of driving the car without the hard shifting problem resolving itself, I called back again and, this time, was told that this was normal behavior. Frustrated, I gave up on getting Dobbs Honda to do anything about what I considered to be a problem.
Which brings me to the problem I have now, a bad transmission. First, I refuse to take my car back to Dobbs Honda for service; I don’t trust them, I don’t think they care about their customers, and I think they provide poor service at best. Based on the service we have received from Wolfchase Honda for my wife’s 2005 Pilot, I now have my car there and want them to repair my car. Second, I do not think it is unreasonable for me to believe that the problem with the transmission is related to the recall from the summer of 2004. The car exhibits the hard shifting behavior primarily when shifting in to or out of second gear – the gear specifically mentioned in the recall; when the car dropped out of gear yesterday, it was when the transmission was down-shifting from third to second; after that, I lost track of what gear the transmission was in due to the erratic shifting it was doing. Again I would suspect second gear since I was traveling at or below 30 MPH.
Quite honestly, I would like for Honda to replace the transmission at no charge to me because, from my perspective, I was sold a car that had a transmission that was predestined to fail prematurely due to a defect and, when Dobbs Honda had the opportunity to correct this, they chose the quick, easy, and least expensive fix then ignored my complaints about the transmission. For me, this is a huge blow to my confidence in the reliability and dependability of Honda vehicles and my trust that Honda will stand behind their cars and their service.
To add to my disappointment and frustration with this situation, I have been a spokesman for Honda since purchasing my 2003 Accord. The first car I owned was a 1982 Honda Accord Hatchback; I did all of my own service and as much of the maintenance as I was capable of, put 247,000 miles on it, then had to sell it in 1991because I was moving overseas. When I returned, I tried Audi, Chevy, Toyota, then, after a particularly bad experience with a BMW, I came back to Honda due to my past experience. I have raved about the Accord I purchased and have influenced a number of co-workers, friends, and family members into purchasing a Honda. I know that, due to my opinion of Honda, there are five Honda Accords, two Honda Civics, and a Honda Odyssey van that have been purchased by my co-workers within a four year period. My sister now owns a Honda CRV due to our experience and we recently upgraded my wife’s Honda CRV to a Honda Pilot.
To not waste your time, I have left out other details that may or may not have bearing in this matter; I will elaborate further if you want me too. I appreciate your taking your time to read this rather lengthy letter and appeal to you for help in getting my Accord repaired by replacing the transmission. Anything you can do to expedite this would also be appreciated since I am currently without a car.