The Trixie Update

I’m getting really sick of having to post these notes about the site’s technical problems. Longtime readers are sick of them too, I’m sure.

Most of the problems stemmed from growing pains, which we’re constantly trying to address. Yesterday’s problem was totally the fault of my hosting company. They made a huge mistake and I apologize for their bad service. So why don’t I switch providers? At this point I am pouring so much work into other projects that I don’t even have the time to research other providers, nor do I want to mess with the headache of migrating the site. Basically I intend to move the site to another provider, but until I get a couple of free days, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. Just thought I would lay out the situation if anyone wanted to know the details. thanks for sticking with us.

BTW, everything is working again.

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Sorry I gave you guys a scare. I know I should have given more warning before I tried to close the site down, but I was all ready to swap her for a PlayStation. No, really — It would have been fun! I was going to post my scores on the web and write about how I wasn’t getting any sleep because I was playing games until 4 in the morning.

Anyway, for now we’ll keep on talking about babies. And speaking of which, we had the one-year checkup today so there should be some weight/height charts up soon. We also got the OK to turn off the milk! Trixie is going 100% bovine. And that means that sometime in the next week I will be turning off the Bottle Telemetry. Daily milk intake is becoming less and less important relative to her expanding diet and there’s not much reason to track it anymore.

Lastly, this week is going to be a little slow story-wise, but there will be birthday-themed TPODs (with commentary) running at least through Friday.

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Trixie didn’t like my little plan to return her to the hospital. I’m not going to go into the details, but it was messy and it involved a load of laundry. The lesson here: don’t cross Trixie, payback is hell.

As it turns out, there was no need for her to resort to drastic measures because apparently I can’t take her back anyway. The hospital had no idea what I was talking about. They said Trixie didn’t come with a warranty and that there was no such thing as a redesigned Toddler Habitat. She really is ours. So it looks like the Trixie Update is back. But I guess it’s no real surprise — you know what they about old blogs: They never die, they just fade away… only to spring back to life as the owner gets another burst of inspiration.

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With a little less than 24 hours left on Trixie’s one-year warranty, we faced a difficult decision. Returning Trixie to the maternity ward might seem a blatant disregard for such an otherwise chipper and agreeable little girl, but the truth of the matter is that the data I’ve collected from her lately is muddy, unreliable and at times contradictory.

I’ve made the decision that the only way to recover from this information disaster is to make a clean break from the corrupt data and start over from scratch at a future time. We’re glad we got to spend the last sleepless year with Trixie, and we know that she’ll land on her feet. (Or at least on her hands and feet — since she’s still crawling about a third of the time.)

We also want to say thanks to everyone for visiting and sharing in our online sociological experiment. I understand the hospital has some web cameras set up in their newly redesigned, acrylic-walled Toddler Habitat, and once I get the web address, I’ll be sure and post it here in case anyone still wants to keep tabs. Once again, thanks to all our readers and regular baby pundits. We love you all! Good night!

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As we approach the one-year mark it seems like a good time to ask this question of our readers. Are you visiting as knowing, experienced, parenting pros? Or maybe in anxious, expectant uncertainty? Or maybe you’re enjoying a childfree lifestyle. Go vote in the new poll. (Thanks to Schaff for the suggestion!)

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1) TPOD code: I’ve gotten a couple of emails lately concerning the code that runs the Trixie Picture of the Day. The TPOD is a regular Movable Type blog that has been enhanced with php scripts. Unfortunately, because of the sloppy way I built it, the php, and the way it integrates into MT, is undocumented and confusing. I don’t have time to clean it up and document it, but if any of our readers is interested in that job, and can make a tutorial that explains how it works, then I’ll be happy to send that person the files. When it’s done, I’ll post the scripts here for free and everyone can set up their own picture of the day system.

UPDATE [Jan. 15, 2005] A generous reader has documented the TPOD Movable Type templates and PHP scripts. The code and documentation is available as is. I’m unable to help install, explain, fix or answer questions about it because the Trixie Tracker software is my current priority. I apologize in advance, but if you know a little about MT and PHP, you should be OK.

Download the TPOD MT/PHP files: sit format (16k), zip format (16k)

UPDATE [Aug. 18, 2005] Here’s the One Year Ago Today code. You’ll have to plug it into the code above.

Also, here’s the script I use to calculate Trixie’s age on the home page (written by someone much better at date calculations than me.)

2) Trixie Tracker: I am pouring every free minute into its development. I still can’t set a beta release date, but we’re close. I just need more time to pull it together.

3) Hiatus: I’ve got to take a break from the Trixie Update. See #2. We’ll be back Monday the 26th, in time for me to document taking Trixie back to the hospital. (Her one-year warranty is almost up.)

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If you like baby blogs, then today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press is for you. They are running a story about blogging parents. It mentions a couple that TTU readers already know about, as well as a few new ones. Welcome to our new MN visitors. BTW, if you are a new visitor, I recommend the charts and graphs in Metrics. It’s one of the more interesting parts of the Trixie Update.

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The father of Colum (of Celebrating Colum notoriety) and I went to high school together way back when. And when John and his family recently visited NC, it worked out for Colum and Trixie to meet each other for the first time.

(Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to capture the meeting because Trixie wasn’t being that cooperative, but thankfully John had his camera.)

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[UPDATE] As far as I know, everything is working again, including comments. However, if you find anything wrong anywhere on the site please leave a comment or email me so I can fix it: TTU@trixieupdate.com. Most importantly, the poll is working again too.
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We no longer live in NYC, but if you do, it looks like there’s going to be a little segment about the Trixie Update tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I have no idea what kind of story it is, but it will be on your local ABC station at 6:45 am (or so I’ve been told.) I know it’s early, but if you have a baby, you’ve probably already been up for hours.

[UPDATE] Haven’t heard anything back yet. But there might be a new poll up…
(to your left under Latest TTU Comments)

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