Inauguration Day

At the risk of being cheesy, I feel like I should write something about Inauguration Day because I think it is an important day in history. We watched it on TV at school and the kids were amazed that it was happening LIVE. There were also "oohs and ahhs" when the camera panned to the crowd waving flags right after Obama was sworn in. It was definitely a memorable day.

The first presidential election I remember was when I was in 2nd grade. We went down the hall to cast our ballots and they announced the winner over the intercom. I remember thinking that both candidates (the first George Bush and Dukakis) were kind of the same...at least in my eight-year-old eyes. I wondered if I would ever see a minority or woman president. I hoped that it would happen in my lifetime, but deep down I kind of doubted that it would. I grew up hearing people of my grandparents' generation (and even people of my parents' generation) make sexist and racist remarks. I thought it would take a long time to change people's minds.

Fast forward to 20 years later. My class reads about Martin Luther King, Jr. in our reading book around this time of year. And each year we have a discussion about segregation because they are confused by it. I talk about how my parents remember how the movie theater in Chillicothe had separate seating, water fountains, and concession counters for black and white customers. The kids ask "But why would someone do that? Who allowed them to get away with it? What about the police?" They cannot even fathom slavery or separation because of skin color. The whole concept of people treating each other in such ugly and hurtful ways blows their minds. It always makes me happy and hopeful that kids today are raised to respect everyone and can't imagine a world where people aren't treated equally.

I am excited to bring a daughter into this kind of world. I'm not really into to politics at all, but I don't think you have to be to be proud of the United States electing a black man as president. I would have been equally as proud if we had our first woman vice president. Either way it shows that the country and the attitudes of people are changing for the better. So even though the country has economic problems, I am optimistic for the future. I know that the world is a different place now than it was when my parents grew up and some of the things are much worse, but this is one area that is definitely an improvement. I like it that my daughter won't have to wonder if someone other than a white man will be president "one day". It will just be the world as she knows it.

Celebrity Sighting

Tonight, while getting groceries at Price Chopper.... we saw Slimfast from 96.5 (local alternative radio station)!! Okay, so he isn't much of a celebrity. But it still added some excitement to our Monday night.

The Big Clean-Up

We finally cleaned out the "junk room" to make room for the baby. These are before, during, and after the clean-up. Yes, that is a toilet sitting in the middle of the room. Remember how we started the bathroom remodel? Yeah, we're still working on that. I had hopes of getting the bathroom done before April, but now I'm not so sure. Other than the bathroom we have been pretty productive over the last week. While I worked on finding a place for all the junk room items, Steve worked on organizing the basement. We also delivered several pieces of furniture to my parents this weekend. They loaned it to us when we were first married and didn't have any furniture. The next step is to post some items on Craig's List. We feel pretty good about getting rid of the old clutter... and making room for baby clutter.

These pictures document the historic "crib assembly" that is a rite of passage for every new parent. It was a little confusing at first, but once we got started it went pretty fast. The next thing we are working on in the nursery is painting the closet and installing wire closet organizers.

Week 28

I'm in my last trimester now!

Today at the doctor's office I did the glucose screening to test for gestational diabetes and had another ultrasound. The reason they did another ultrasound was to check the location of the placenta. I have a low-lying placenta and it hasn't moved much since the last ultrasound. The good news is I get to have another ultrasound next month! My doctor is still thinking that it will move before April, but if it doesn't I will likely need to have a c-section. I'm not that concerned about it because I'm not one of those women who has her heart set on natural childbirth. I really don't care how it happens or what drugs they need to give me, as long as I have a healthy baby at the end of it.

It was neat seeing her move again on the ultrasound, but the pictures weren't as good as last time. This one is a profile shot. Her fist is on her eye and you can see the umbilical cord by her nose. The ultrasound technician is completely sure she is a girl (for those of you who doubted the first ultrasound) and she weighs 2 pounds 11 ounces. She gained 2 pounds since my last ultrasound.

I'm still feeling good. I played kickball with the kids on Friday and kicked a home run. There was a mom there who came to pick up her son early. She was amazed that I could still run around the bases! Teaching keeps me pretty active, plus I still do my pre-natal yoga class and take walks outside. It surprises me when strangers ask me about the baby because I feel so normal that sometimes I forget I'm pregnant (or that people can obviously see that I'm pregnant).

From Second Grade

Here are some funny things my kids have said about the baby....

When I first told them I was having a baby-
"The baby is going to be so lucky! You can teach them everything they need to know in 2nd grade before they even get here!"

When I showed them my ultrasound picture-
"It looks like a whale."

One of the girls brought in some of her old baby clothes to give to me. They were still on my desk when a boy walked in.-
"What are those?" he asked.
"Baby clothes," I said.
"Oh. So that baby of yours came out already, " he said matter-of-factly.
"Um, no, " I said while pointing to my belly.
(This started another explanation of how when the baby was here, I wouldn't be. They don't understand why I can't just bring the baby to school and keep teaching for the rest of the year.)

After seeing me eat a granola bar and an apple during math (I bring snacks to school because I get so hungry)-
"So do you have to eat two breakfasts, two lunches, and two dinners every day? One for you and one for the baby?"

One girl was staring at my stomach in amazement and whispered to another girl-
"She gets fatter every day."
"I can hear you. I'm standing right here, " I said.
She said, "Oh, I didn't mean FATTER, I just meant REALLY BIG."

Maiden Voyage

I spent this last week getting the bike fully prepped to ride. I decided the bike would be much more weight balanced with the batteries up front (the motor is very heavy). This also allows them to be fully suspended (sitting on the front shocks) and reduces unsprung weight. Bike racks made for suspension forks don't exist so I was on my own. It was expensive (metal strapping adds up fast), but I came up with a good solution that hangs most of the weight from the handlebars and also attaches to the top of the fork. I put the batteries in my old lunchbox that Megan was too embarrassed to allow me to take to work anymore. This also allows me to use the back rack for other stuff (like my lunch). For the picture above I have a rack trunk on the back rack, but there's nothing in it. The bike is now very well balanced though and there's a perfect spot up front to mount some sort of badge. Please submit suggestions for consideration.

The other thing I did this week was bolt on a U-bolt to keep the front wheel/fork from flipping over too hard and bashing my top tube in. You can see it in the picture bolted to the down tube. This is a problem that didn't exist before the batteries went upfront (above the axis of rotation), but the trade off is worth it and it's a cheap solution. I would like a better solution though if anyone has any bright ideas.

The final pieces I needed to get on the road came today. My Anderson connectors for the battery. I fired the controller up downstairs on the trainer first and went through my fancy computer's setup. The computer will tell me speed and battery data but more importantly, it will limit the current that the controller draws from the battery. It will also shut it down when I've gone too far and the battery voltage starts to sag. I programmed it to limit to 24 A (2C - twice the rated discharge of my battery - 12AH - and the max rated continuous current) and 40V. I almost didn't get the computer, but decided it would be worth it to keep me from drawing too much current and shortening the battery's life. It will also keep track of how many charge cycles I go through so I'll have a good estimate if I ever sell this battery pack of how much life it still has in it.

So off I went. I think it was barely 40F out.

If only all first tests went so well. I buzzed up to the park and back (2 miles) like nothing. I pedaled with the bike, but it didn't really make much difference. On the 24A limit, I could go 33 mph on level ground and 30 up the smallish hills we have around here. It was a blast. It's very close in feel to riding a low powered motorcycle. Cruising along at 20 takes about 8amps. Cruising along at max speed on level ground takes about 18amps. Acceleration goes to the limit, of course, as do hills.

I also tried it out at 18amps limited to see what it would do. That takes me down to about 27 cruising on flat and 25 up hills. That may be enough for my purposes. I'll do some more research, but I think there's very little data for how long the battery will last at 2C discharge (although I'm not doing 2C all the time, just under acceleration). There is data for the 1.5C discharge rate and supposedly the batteries have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles under that kind of discharge.

Stats for the ride tonight:
9 miles
3 AH
Final Voltage: 52.8V
19Whr/mi AVG
Max Speed 34

20Whr/mi (and I did a lot of high speed running) would put me at 0.4 AH/mi (For a total range of 30miles!) My commute to work is about 3 miles one way. This means I can almost commute a full week without charging the batteries. We'll see if it works that way in practice. With a 1500+ cycle lifetime these batteries won't be limited at all by cycle lifetime, only by service lifetime - which is 6 years!

Christmas 2008

I know I'm a little late posting about Christmas. Steve has already chastised me. "What have I been doing with my time off?" you ask. Well, I have spent my days eating, napping, taking walks, and watching the View. Obviously, there is not much time for blogging in my busy schedule.

Anyway, Christmas recap:
While Steve's parents were fighting an epic airport battle (the airport won), we did Christmas activities with my family. On Christmas Eve we went to First Baptist Church's evening service (a favorite tradition of mine). Then Christmas morning we all opened our gifts. It snowed the night before so it was a white Christmas. We received a bounty of maternity sweaters, baby clothes, DVDs, books, and tools.

Best present: First a little background knowledge. The whole family is a fan of Magnum, P.I. In fact the baby was nicknamed Thomas Magnum Fetus before we found out she was a girl. Justin is collecting all the seasons, so I got him season 3 for Christmas. As an added bonus, I also made mustaches out of felt for the whole family. There was even a tiny one for the fetus. Awesome gift, right?! I missed Justin opening it, so I questioned him about it later. I told him the Magnum DVDs were from us and he needed to look inside. He pulls them out and says, "Um, there are pieces of felt in here. Was that a gift, too?" He was confused. I explained that they were "overly-aggressive mustaches" to wear while watching Thomas solve crimes. We didn't end up watching any episodes, but we did have several excellent photos. In mine there is a little mustache on my belly, but you can't see it very well. In the family picture, Dad already has a mustache, so he didn't need a fake one. Steve happened to be dressed in Magnum attire.

The Saturday after Christmas was jam-packed. Tom and Marsha finally made it back to Chillicothe around 4:00am from their visit to see Steve's sister, brother-in-law, and niece. After a short nap they joined us in Trenton for the Hickman Christmas (Marsha's family). I brought Guesstures over to play with Trent and Connor. Trent was a really good actor! After eating lunch and opening presents, we went back to playing games. Then all of a sudden Steve looked at the clock and it was 2:40 and we were supposed to meet people at the bowling alley in Chillicothe at 2:30. Oops. We said our goodbyes in about 30 seconds and raced out the door.

My high school friends Brooke and Melanie had a mini reunion when we weren't bowling. Melanie recently became an entrepreneur and I'm so proud of her I have to share her website: Piggy Paint. Marissa, Casey, Amanda, and Lauren also bowled with us. Right after bowling we went to Uncle John and Aunt Marilyn's for the Meneely Christmas. Because I'm lazy I'm going to refer you to my cousin Amanda's blog about the night. The best part (as always) was the white elephant exchange. Also, memorable was Casey's first taste of gooseberry pie. The Meneelys love gooseberry pie. Well, I don't, but most of the others do. We harassed Casey to try it and it almost didn't go down. Maybe that was because he stuffed it all into his mouth at once. So Casey got 2 points in my book for trying gooseberry pie and about 10 points for practicing Dr. Mario between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The picture is of Grandpa with all the grandkids and great-grandkids. The next weekend we were back in Chillicothe for the Kerr Christmas. Unfortunately, someone (me) forgot to bring the camera and we don't have any pictures. Unless someone emails me some pictures of a shark hat (ahem, Becky), and then I can share. All of the presents I brought were animal themed this year. The shark hat was really the best, although there were some other good contenders- pink flamingo balloon, wind-up caterpillar, and pig flashlight to name a few. Steve didn't play his annual game of chess with Charlie, but we did play Apples to Apples and Charlie won.

Update: Becky came through! Here's the shark hat:

Saving for College

Executive Summary:
Go with the 529 if you plan on contributing more than $2000/year and you're not interested in opening both a 529 and a Coverdell (you can do that).

Go with the 529 if you're terrified the kid will spend it unwisely when they turn 18.

Go with the 529 if you want the absolute easiest option.

Otherwise, check out the Coverdell vs. 529 points below to determine which is best for your situation.

Saving for College:
Believe it or not I had a request to post about boring stuff that I love! I would have posted this anyway - for torture purposes - but now I know that at least 1 person is going to read it.
First off, there are lots and lots of options for saving for college. Taxable accounts, 529's, Coverdell (Education Savings Account), Savings Bonds.... on and on.

However, under current laws (and that's a big assumption) you can knock out some of these almost immediately. Savings bonds don't have much of a chance of keeping up with inflation. Taxable accounts... are taxed. True, situations could be imagined where a taxable account would work out as better than a non-taxed account like the 529 or Coverdell.. but you need to both know what you're doing investment-wise and tax-wise and you need to have some good luck with federal tax laws that are subject to change. I'm just not willing to bet that capital gains will always be as tax favored as they are right now. Math isn't the only consideration though. How much you want the kid to pay for their own education? How tight of control do you want?

In general though, if you're trying to save for college the two best considerations right now are the education IRA and the 529. Here's are some good comparisons:

http://www.younginvestor.com/pdfs/529CoverdellCompare.pdf
http://bammorgan.blogspot.com/2006/10/coverdell-vs-529-educational-savings.html
http://www.fool.com/college/compare.htm

Some important points that 529's and the Coverdell have in common:

• Contributions are taxed (as your income) when they go in.
• Earnings are withdrawable tax-free for qualified expenses like
• Tuition, Room, Board, Fees, Books, Supplies
• If the money is used for non-qualified expenses the withdrawer will pay income tax on the earnings plus a 10% federal fee.
• The money can be switched to a different beneficiary (coverdell might require some extra upfront setup here?)
• Anyone (friends... extended family...) can easily contribute.

The main points where they differ with winner in ():

• (529) You can contribute only $2000 / year to a Coverdell.
• (C) With the Coverdell you control where the money goes (which securites you want to buy) - this also means the return-eating fees will probably be lower.
• (529) The 529 is better for financial aid considerations (need based scholarships) since the 529 is considered to belong to the contributer and the Coverdell is considered to belong to the student.**
• (529) If you use a 529 plan in your state (you can use any state and some have much lower fees) the contributions might be deductible.
• (C) The Coverdell covers expenses for primary and secondary schools. The 529s only work for college expenses.
• (529) In most situations, for the Coverdell the assets are turned over to the student at age 18. For the 529 though the contributer is always in control.
• (529) Coverdells have to be distributed when the student is 30. 529s generally don't have this.
• (529) The Coverdell has income restrictions. 110k for individuals or 200k for families. I think you can get around this though by having the student make the contributions - still subject to the $2000/year limit.
• Both can be setup by extended family and anyone can contribute. However, on the coverdell when you set it up you name a "responsible individual" that has to be a parent of the student and they control the money until the student is 18. For the 529, the person that sets it up is the "contributer" and they get all the tax benefits and control.

** This isn't always true. It depends on the source of the aid and the school (Private schools have different rules). It's "in general" true though with 5.64% counting against if it's in the parents name and 35% counting against if the asset is in the students name... or 0% if the 529 was setup by a grandparent or extended family. This is why opening a taxable account in the students name is also a big no-no... even though the tax they will pay would be fairly low when they are going to school (15-20% under current laws depending on the state and the amount of withdrawal).

What are we going to do?
I already have a "taxable account" and Megan and I both have Roth IRAs. Funding education from either of them was actually a major consideration for me. I assume our daughter will get great financial aid on her own. I also am of the school of thought that having some responsibility for paying your way or deciding to take on debt is good for a kid. This wasn't my situation so that's a bit unfair. But that's the way it is. So with those assumptions I was tempted to just keep track of any contributions anyone wanted to give and eventually (on my terms) give that money to my daughter. The biggest reason not to do this is that I think it's nice for the grandparents (and anyone else that wants to contribute) sake to have a separate and distinct account.

Between the 529 and the Coverdell.... tough choice. I'm a bit worried about the $2000/year cap on the Coverdell. But if it was a problem we could always open up a 529 (in addition).

I see three main reasons most people go with a 529. (1) So the kid doesn't have control of the account at age 18. I'm not so worried about that. If you can't tell, I plan on giving incorporating financial education early and often. (2)For financial aid considerations. But I'm not so worried about that either. Megan had a full ride, for instance, and I don't think her having a savings account in her name would have affected her scholarship much since her scholarship (and the ones I got too) was mostly academic-based (as opposed to need-based). (3)You don't have to be financially saavy at all with a 529. Most states are managed by good firms that give you limited choices. In simplification, you tell them how conservative you want it invested, you throw the money in, and they put it to work how they see fit (they charge a fee, of course). I consider myself pretty "up" on where to put money so that fees are low and risk is appropriate for the length of the investment.

So in general, I'm leaning Coverdell.

Other Links:
Great comparisons of each State's 529 plans: http://www.savingforcollege.com/
More info on 529s: http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/529.htm

HEB progress

I decided I should start calling it a Hybrid Electric Bike since I can pedal it.

Anyway, I'm down to one last thing on the HEB. Connectors for the battery. All the stuff from ebikes.ca came with Anderson Power Pole connectors. They are pretty much industry-standard for high current connections like this. I'd know stuff like this if I ever got around to mentoring for FIRST. Unfortunately for me there are VERY few places in town you can find these things. I now know several specialty electronics retailers. Since I wasn't willing to drive to southern Olathe during 8-5 office hours I just bought them online. So they're on their way and I should be able to ride late next week if I'm so inclined.

Other than the connectors I didn't have everything went very smoothly. I had to figure out a place to put the PWM controller. I was initially assuming I'd keep it in the rack trunk with the battery, but after seeing the stuff I figured out I didn't want to disconnect all the junk (computer/throttle cable/motor power connection/motor hall sensor connection) everytime I carried the battery with me. I'm planning on carrying the battery with me everytime I go to work since it's worth $500 and is easily steal-able. So I mounted it with a fabricated clamp and the water bottle connection on the seat tube. It looks extra-dorky because it has a big red power push-button on top. Aside from mounting the controller I had to mount the twist grip throttle (super-easy) and mount the computer (also super-easy). Finally, I had to route all the cables as cleanly as possible. I think it turned out all right. The battery will sit in the rack truck (with lots of extra space) and I'll just have one connection (battery/controller) to connect/disconnect when I want to take the battery with me. The rest of the expensive stuff is either bolted on (controller) or will be locked with my bike cable (hub motor).

I took the final product out for a short fully-loaded test drive. It's a real pig, but I can still pedal it. The bike really was built like a tank and came in unloaded at 30lbs... but with the rest of the gear (battery and motor and controller) it adds another 30lbs and the whole thing tips the scale at 62lbs.

Baby Name

Megan and I whittled down our list of possible names to a shortlist of 5. We put up a poll here so "the public" could vote. If you are worried that not enough people are going to vote for the best name on the list, rest assured that we're not going to take the results of the poll into account in any way. :) Additionally, it's totally possible we'll just make up another name that isn't on the list and just use it without public approval. For instance, maybe we've already decided her name is "Peach". Who knows.