More Pictures

Here are more pictures from Kaisa's first holiday season:

Birth Story

Here is the rundown of what happened last week:

So, the one piece of advice I would have for expectant couples that are going to give birth at a hospital would be, if you go to the hospital for fetal testing any time around or after your due date, assume you're staying. Andrea & I went in to the hospital on Monday afternoon for some heart monitoring because she was past her due date at that point. The doctors noticed that the baby's heart rate sometimes decreased after a contraction, which apparently is a bad thing. Despite the fact that it didn't happen every time, they admitted us into the hospital at that time and said that the labor should be induced because the baby could be under stress. This kind of put us off our game from the start, because we really weren't ready to go into the hospital for the birth at that time. The bag was packed, but at home & not with us. And, we hadn't finished collecting all of the stuff we wanted to bring along. We assumed that Andrea would go into labor and we would have several hours at home to assemble everything before going to the hospital.

We were admitted Monday afternoon, and of course from then on, Andrea wasn't allowed to eat anything. Had we known, we would have had her eating a lot at home before going in. As it was, she only had a light lunch before going in.

We really didn't want to induce labor, but they talked us into getting started with a suppository that would help soften the cervix & hopefully help labor get started on its own. That worked to a certain extent and Andrea had somewhat stronger contractions through that night (so not much sleep). We were able to get the wireless unit going so that the heart rate could be monitored during labor (and Andrea could walk, etc), but we couldn't use it for long. About 11:50, they noticed another heart rate decrease & the place paniced for a few minutes. They hooked an electrode to the baby's head so they could get better heart rate readings, but that meant that we were stuck with the wired heart rate monitor for the rest of labor. About 12:30 her water broke & contractions got stronger after that, but were never very regular.

They started her on Pitocin at about 4:30am and that worked to strengthen contractions. She labored as best as she could, considering her limited ability to move and increasing tiredness from lack of sleep, until 3:00pm when she was 6cm dialated. The contractions through that period were not regular either. She'd get 2 in a row and then none for several minutes, so we didn't really know what stage we were in. Finding out that she was only at 6cm took the wind out of her sails and she agreed to get the epidural. That went really well (the doctors who did it were great) and she was able to sleep for a few hours.

Andrea started pushing somewhere around 11pm and kept it up until past 2:30am. Her contractions rarely got closer than 8 minutes apart, which lengthened things out a lot I think. After this much pushing, the baby was still a long way from the finish line and Andrea had nothing left, so we had the c-section. We were both really out of it by that time after going so long without much sleep, but the team of doctors did a great job with it, from what I could tell.

Anyway, that's basically it. As I mentioned, the baby was born Wednesday morning at 3:20am. She's healthy now, so that's the most important thing.

Pictures!

Here are a few pictures of Kaisa!

Kaisa Rain Amer

Our daughter Kaisa was born Wednesday, December 19 at 3:20am at the UM Hospital in Ann Arbor. She was 7lbs 12oz and 20" in length.

We are now in day #2 and mom & baby are doing fine. We hope to go home from the hospital tomorrow.

Her first name, Kaisa, was Andrea's great grandmother's name. It is the Finnish version of Catherine. We wanted to give her a name from Andrea's side of the family since she has my last name - Amer.

The middle name, Rain, should be obvious to anyone who attended our wedding. Sometimes, good things can happen in the middle of a rainy day! :) Also, we have had many other fun days in the rain - Italy, hiking in West Virginia with Gavin & Stacy, etc. And, since we are both environmentally conscous, we thought it was nice to name her something that connected her to the earth. I know, it sounds a little crunchy, but we're a little crunchy ourselves. :)

Baby Pool!

Hi all!

It's time for the baby pool! Hurry & place your entry! The winner gets... well... bragging rights, I guess. :) And a beer the next time we're at a bar. The due date is December 11. Here are the entries we have so far:

Kristy: 12/11 - 8:32 p.m.
Catie: 12/12 - 12:12 a.m.
Odin: 12/12 - 1:00 a.m.
Flamme: 12/13 - 1:00 p.m.
Gavin: 12/15 - 12: 00 a.m.
Andrea: 12/15 - 5:00 p.m.
Brian: 12/16 - 3:47 a.m.
Stacy: 12/17 - 1:00 a.m.
Sarah: 12/17 - 8:00 a.m.
Marcy: 12/18 - 8:00 a.m.
Derek: 12/26 - 3:00 p.m.
Grandma Amer is saying December 19 (right between Ryan and Megan) at 2:41 PM (the time her daddy was born).
Grandad says Dec.25 at 4:00 AM (Yikes!)

To enter, send me an email or just add a comment to this blog entry.

She will be here soon! Yikes! :)

Another reason to get a Reusable Grocery Bag!

From today's Times editorial:

Plastic bags are as much or more trouble than they are useful. Up to 100 billion are used each year in this country, and they make bringing groceries home (or even protecting a newspaper from rain) so easy. But they also choke wildlife, create litter and overload dumps for generations to come. It also takes 12 million barrels of oil to make a year’s supply.

A simple step like getting a few reusable grocery bags could cut these numbers significantly!

Excellent OpEd Piece in the Times Today

There was an excellent opinion piece in today's NY Times by Adam Cohen (click here for the whole piece) about how government needs to remember its responsibilities on the non-glamorous subject of public works. Here's an excerpt:

The nation is unlikely to embark on public works programs like those launched during the Great Depression, unless there is another economic crisis of that scale. But Roosevelt’s basic idea — that the government should employ idle hands to upgrade the nation — should never have gone out of fashion. The next president will need to confront the nation’s disrepair. It should be an issue in the campaign right now.

I think this is an excellent point. Why are we so eager to spend billions on the military, while our infrastructure crumbles? The country as a whole would be much better served if some of those billions went toward fixing the things that most people use every day.

Depressing Thought of the Day

January, 1942 - my dad was born & we were at war.

October, 1969 - I was born & we were at war.

December, 2007 - my daughter is due to be born... and we will be at war.


Blech!

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 5

Friday, October 25, 2007

Thursday night & Friday morning were spent at Casa de Campo, an enormous resort on the Caribbean Sea. This was our only down time on the whole trip, and lasted only a few hours because we had to travel back to Santo Domingo to catch our plane ride home (an
odyssey that lasted until our touchdown in Detroit... at 3:00am on Saturday!).

Here are a few pictures from Casa de Campo:

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 4

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The day started with a run through the long, narrow city park in Santo Domingo. I have had difficulty finding an online map of Santo Domingo, but the park I ran through can be seen in this
Satellite Image of the city. It was nice to get away from the treadmill and run outside (and there were plenty of folks walking, running, etc.), but despite the fact that it was about 7am, it was already very hot & humid. I was drenched by the end of the run.

Then, we loaded into the van (we were all getting a bit sick of the van by this point), and travelled to Parque Cibernetico Santo Domingo, another free zone industrial park. This one, however, also contains a trade school, that produces engineers, technicians, etc. It is a very nice facility and is certainly helping with the DR's technology push.

We then visited with a small US company that has set up shop in the DR - Caribbean Manufacturing Solutions, run by Bob Faxon (bob.faxon@gmail.com). This company is currently supplying Ford with service parts, and there is a good opportunity to expand that. This company is fully up to speed on automotive supplier requirements, as they are also located in the USA and are a supplier here (under the name Faxon Machining).

This park, and Las Americas from the previous day, are located only minutes from the Santo Domingo airport and newly-expanded sea port. We visited the DP World facility next, and were briefed on its recent expansion and plans for further expansion. This is owned by Dubai Ports World.

From there, it was on to La Romana Free Zone and then to Casa de Campo.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 3

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The third day of the DR trip started with a visit to the Parque Industrial ITABO - PIISA, which is a very modern free trade zone industrial park located right on the Carribean Sea. This park has an impressive number of companies representing a variety of industries, including a Q1 supplier to Ford (see below).

The free trade zone concept is one that has been in place in the DR for more than 30 years. It consists of areas designated by the government (most are privately held and others are owned by the government) as areas to which materials can be imported and exported without taxation. This was originally set up for the apparel industry, so fabric could be imported to the free zones without tax and the apparel could be exported without tax. The same concept applies to other industries and works well for parts with high labor content.

One supplier in this park is Control Devices, Inc., which is a Ford Q1 supplier (site code S930V). They produce switches and other small electrical devices for Ford and other OEMs.

From there, we travelled across town to Las Americas Industrial Free Zone, which is owned & managed by:

• Luis MI. Pellerano - l.pellerano@zfla.com
• Claudia Pellerano - marketing@zfla.com

While there, we visited two suppliers.

The first was Pixley Richards, which is a small precision molding company. They have 6 machines currently, ranging from 110-165 tons. They are currently producing the housing for smoke detectors. They also produce switch housings that are sent across town to Control Devices. Mold designs are done in the USA, but this site does have the ability to do testing and quality checks and hold very tight tolerances of the parts they produce.

The final supplier visited at this park was Power-One, which is a producer of electrical devices such as DC-DC converters, AC-DC power supplies, etc.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 2

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Day 2 of the Dominican Republic trip took us to the Pisano Industrial Park in Santiago, which is approximately 2 hours north of the capital, Santo Domingo. The park is shown here.

• Primary contact for this industrial park:
  Ing. Jeannette Domínguez Aristy. (jdominguez@pisanozf.com)
  

We visited three suppliers at this park.

1. DMG International - a small plant that specializes in cutting and sewing leather for use in Alan Edmonds shoes. This was included in the trip to show the capabilities of suppliers in this area to handle leather. Automotive supply by this company is unlikely, since they probably could not handle the volume or quality requirements. The area, however, is known for fine quality leather (see B'Leather below).
   
2. K-Rain Industries - a producer of automatic sprinkler systems. This facility is equipped with several injection molding machines, sized from 65-300 tons. They handle the injection molding, assembly, and testing of these parts. They can handle tight tolerances, but have limited ability to repair tooling, so they carry 1.5 weeks of safety stock. Material used is ABS SD-0170 from Samsung, China.
   
3. Paxar Dominicana - a maker of labels for the apparel industry. This facility has the ability to produce many kinds of labels at high volume. They are a potential source for bar codes or other labels or stickers for the auto industry. Capacity is available because apparel industry has shrunk in the DR as companies flock to China.
   

The afternoon consisted of a visit to B'Leather, and was probably the most interesting visit of the trip. I had no idea how much went into the production of leather products. This facility produces high-quality leather that is used for shoes, and has also begun supplying leather at the tier 2 or 3 level to Toyota. An explanation of the process is:

"Blue Leather" is brought in. This is the hide of the cow that has had the hair removed and has been treated with a chemical process to turn it from an organic to an inorganic material. This process turns the hides blue. They are inspected, washed, shaved (shavings, unfortunately, end up in landfills) and cut. The smell in this part of the plant is a bit strange - unlike anything I've smelled before.

The material is then placed in enormous drums, where it is treated with whatever dyes and chemicals are needed for the end application. They stay in these drums for 12 hours, and are then dried.

Material for use in automotive must be stretched before its dried. These hides must be dried in driers (as opposed to hung). They are then manipulated through several processes to make them soft a supple.

B'Leather ships these automotive hides to the US for use on Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 1

Monday, October 22, 2007

Participated in a trip to the Dominican Republic along with Ford's Emerging Markets group. This was the first emerging markets trip that included tier 1 suppliers, who could potentially look either for tier 2 sources or scout locations for possible future tier 1 plant locations. Particpants included:

• Myself


• Jenny Hu (Ford)


• Paul Prestel (Ford)


• Sam Thigpen (Summit Polymers - 269-377-5698 - sthigpen@summitpolymers.com)


• Chris Allison (Magna - 248-760-5685 - chris.allison@intier.com)


• Luis Barrio (Faurecia - 248-709-3075 - lbarrio@troy.faurecia.com)


• Jason Fahlbush (Faurecia - 248-765-0158 - jason.fahlbush@faurecia.com)

Hotel: El Embajador

This is a place built in the 1960s, and was the site where the Cuban hotel scenes were shot for the movie Godfather II. We did not get a chance to sit around the pool, however, since this trip was fairly packed with supplier visits, etc. My review of the hotels is that it is a nice place, but showing a few signs of its age.

First night included a dinner at Pat' e Palo restaurant, which was very good. Everyone gave enthusiastic thumbs up to the food and the atmosphere. This is in a very old building (housed the first tavern built in the new world - in 1505!) that sits across a square from the home built by Christopher Columbus's son.

Our hosts at dinner included Llc. Eddy Martinez Manzueta, Secretary of State for Commerce for the Dominican Republic. (Click here for an interview w/ Sr. Martinez about economic opporunities in the DR - our discussion went over several of these topics). Other hosts:

• Hector Rafael Gonzalez (rafael.gonzalez@cei-rd.gov.do)


• Cesar Jose (cesar.jose@cei-rd.gov.do)

Here is a picture of the team, after dinner, taken in Pat' e Palo. Sr Martinez is in the front, on the left of Jenny Hu from Ford (her left).

Greener Tournaments

Cross posted from A2Ultimate Forum:

Hi all,

Through my ultimate career, I've found most ultimate players to be somewhat socially conscious. In addition, our sport is pretty benign when it comes to its environmental impact. We don't damage the fields as much as many other sports, which means that a somewhat lower amount of fertilizers and water should be required to keep our spaces fit for play.

Where this falls apart a bit, however, is at tournaments, and especially ones where food is served. Take a look around when a tournament day is wrapping up and check out all the garbage generated! This includes cups, plates, wrappers, and of course lots & lots of bottles!

I'd like to start moving our Ann Arbor Ultimate sponsored tournaments (like the upcoming end of summer league tournament) to be more environmentally friendly. These are just suggestions of what everyone can do to minimize the environmental impact of tournaments. Eventually, perhaps we can make them the rules:
1 - Bring a reusable water bottle or two. This reduces the need of getting many small water (or Gatorade) bottles & they can be used at the picnic for pop (assuming there are 2 liter bottles) or beer (assuming there's a keg). Plastic bottles are petroleum-based and while they can be recycled (although they are often thrown away at tournaments because there are no available containers for plastic recycling) I don't believe they can be made into new bottles. I'm not an expert, but I don't believe plastic can be used over and over again like glass.
2 - Bring an extra frisbee. Why? Frisbees make great picnic plates! They are much sturdier than paper plates and the lip helps prevent spills. If you have camping silverware, bring that along, too.
3 - Bring an old t-shirt to use as a napkin. Heck, you're going to do laundry after the tournament anyway. Just throw in the extra shirt.
4 - Bring big bags of food (trail mix, fruit, carrots, etc.) for the team to share during the games. This reduces the need for everyone to bring their own small bags which reduces overall wasted packaging.Any other thoughts on what we can & should be doing are certainly welcome. Just add your comments below.

Thanks!

Brian

Baby prep - cloth diapers

Thinking a lot about what to use after the birth of our first child. Thanks to Martha Hale for pointing us in the direction of Tree City Diapers.

Going the cloth route. Mainly because Andrea & I really don't like the disposable things. Too much waste! Wish us luck! We'll certainly be doing a lot of laundry! :)

We are registered there. Seems like a nice, local company.

Couch for Sale

We're trying to sell our couch, after getting another one from my parents who are moving to Florida. It's still in good condition and is great for napping on! :)

Here's a picture.

First post

New blog. More to come...