Archive for December 2005
December 28, 2005 - 10:00 AM
It's a strange time, between Christmas and New Year's. The build up to Christmas lasted for weeks; now in an instant, it's gone. The next day, it may as well be February as far as holiday lights are concerned - they seem out of place. There's an odd feeling of loss and impatience; the usefulness of the current year is over, and we're waiting for the new one to start. It's as if 2005 is in its final death throes, and would it
please not make a fuss and just die already so I can get going with 2006? kthx.
The only exception seems to be the Christmas tree that will probably come down some time this weekend. We're allowed to hang on to that one bit of magic for just a few days longer. And I'm going to cheat and leave the Circus World shot at the top of the page until Ought Six.
Christmas was nice, especially since Reilly is now three and can enjoy it. As expected, he had more presents to open than we would have liked. I hit the dollar store for little boy knick-knacks - crayons, polished rocks, a few little cars, and a Nerf-style desk basketball hoop. Two sets of grandparents and some other relatives and friends later, he had a few dozen presents to open. About ninety percent through that, the materialism started to kick in - "more stuff!". His words exactly. We'll have to watch out for that.
It's hard with a three-year-old. Jesus' birthday, they can sort of understand. But it's nebulous at best and easily confused. We heard a lot of "No,
mine birthday!" while explaining what Christmas is about. Then the presents are real, physical, and understandable, much more so than pictures or videos of the nativity or the concept of just who Jesus is. No wonder materialism is rampant during the holidays.
See you tomorrow.
December 24, 2005 - 06:10 AM
Circus World is how we in our house refer to the neighbor with the most, loudest, brightest, and other -est's, etc. decoration for the holidays. CW used to be just a couple of houses away, and you couldn't be much more gaudy than they were. It was hard to describe; I wish I had a picture.
That neighbor has since moved away, and now the title is held by Santa Steve, who owns the house pictured in the page header. It's much more tasteful than the last CW.
Steve has been working on it since Veterans Day this year. I think he has spent more on lights, signs, and blow-up characters that we're going to spend on Christmas as a whole.
Goon always wants to stop to see it, so I turned down their street to let him take it in. Steve was hanging out in his garage with a Santa outfit on; he chatted with us for a while and gave Reilly a candy cane and a 'Merry Christmas'. What a cool thing to do. "I figured why not, may as well get the santa suit and have fun with the visitors."
Here's my favorite character from Santa Steve's Circus World o' Christmas Cheer:
Fat Boy, indeed
CW 1st runner-up; I like this one:
"He worked really hard, Grandma."
"...So do washing machines."
A couple of famous characters in our neighborhood
Here are some other choice pics from this season. Enjoy them, and your holiday!
Reilly at the Chesapeake Susquehanna & Western Model Railroad's Christmas open house. Karl has been putting together his 24' x 40' layout for eight years, and opens it up to the public every Christmas. Reilly and I were both mezmerized.
Whoosh
Karl and his creation
(Well, 1/3 of it anyway)
One of the towns in the layout. Check out the airplane in the sky, and the Palace Theater in the middle of the town (click for larger version, and sorry for the camera shake):
Best model train accessory EVER
The Palace Theater
Here's a bonus for everyone who read to the end:
Why honesty isn't always the best policy
Happy Holidays to you and yours.
December 21, 2005 - 04:12 PM
Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm on vacation, which means I have much more free time, and what follows is that I spend it randomly and haven't made time to write.
Slept in yesterday, unintentionally. Well, intentionally but unconsciously or something like that... I meant to do it, but not the part of me that thinks. The decision was made when I shut off the alarm and turned over. So the day got off an hour late. Not that big of a deal, but it still makes me feel like my day is going badly for a while. Even on vacation, I need to get up early. There's something pretty wrong, or pretty right, about that. I don't know which.
Halfway through my grocery shopping (between stores - I didn't just walk out in the middle of aisle 6), I stopped into a local coffee house for some hot chocolate, peace, and relaxation.
We have a Starbucks, but I don't bother with it... I don't drink coffee, and they have very little in the way of things without coffee in them (that I've seen so far). And because it's so bloody trendy. I don't like trendy. (Jeans, cowboy boots, BYU sweatshirt, my ten-year-old Dartmouth hat, and a long wool coat give that away if nothing else does.)
The place I go has a trendy-ish name, Brewed Awakenings, and it
looks trendy but it doesn't have that feel to it inside. You just know it's for anyone when you walk in. It has small wood tables & chairs, and a row of book cases stocked, I assume, by the customers over the years. They have everything from textbooks (it's a college town) to an encyclopedia to the 9/11 Commission Report and a biochemicals catalog. The only thing wrong with the place is that it doesn't get much traffic, so people watching isn't as fun.
I ordered hot chocolate, which you wouldn't think would be complicated (milk, chocolate, hot) but I still had to make decisions. Short? Tall? Here? To go? Whipped cream? Drizzled chocolate syrup on top? Do you want the drizzles at 45 or 90 degree angles to each other? Op-ed pages or world news?
So I got my short/here/whipped/drizzled/45/op-ed HoCho and had a seat.
They had music going, and the first song I noticed was 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35' by Dylan, probably better known as 'Everybody Must Get Stoned'. Ha ha... I get it. Stoned, man.
Well no, I don't get it. I was born at the tail end of the 60s, so I just don't understand them, or Dylan. I can't for the life of me see what anyone enjoys about that song. But I never have liked whining, which Dylan's voice and the music manage to both be doing.
I've always thought he's complaining about Being Held Down By The Man. I wonder if he was speaking for himself or not. People use that phrase like it's still happenning today, and I figure they're either stuck in the 60's, or grew up in the 80's and are trying to be hip using slang they just don't understand. Or maybe it's still going on and I'm too out of the political loop to see it (always a possibility).
So I wonder, who is The Man today? Am
I The Man? I'm a fairly well off white christian guy, so I seem to fit the description.
I guess I better go hold someone down. Maybe the guy who took my parking spot downtown. Should I do it now, or wait 'till after Christmas?
December 17, 2005 - 11:34 AM
Actor John Spencer of 'West Wing' dies of heart attack in LA
You've given The West Wing some of its finest moments. Thanks for several great years of television.
The show won't be the same without you.
1946 - 2005
"John was an uncommonly good man, an exceptional role model and a brilliant actor. We feel privileged to have known him and worked with him. He'll be missed and remembered every day by his many, many friends."
- Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme
December 14, 2005 - 09:01 AM
Today is my last useful day at work before vacation, so it's gonna be a brief one again.
I finally slept for a couple of nights straight. It's amazing what sleep will do for you.
Today is day three of Diaper Deprivation for my goon, er, son. He's doing pretty well and hopefully we'll only need them at night by the new year. Ching! $_$ Uh, I mean, woohoo!
The number of bold words at the beginning of these paragraphs just keeps getting larger.
Until now anyway. Best wishes for you all and have a fun day.
Bonus linkage: Slashdot | Reality TV "Astronauts" Lift Off"In the latest reality show on British TV, three British "space tourists" last night succesfully blasted off on a five day mission and are currently orbiting the earth 200 miles up. Or so they think. And to forestall the first question. They aren't experiencing weightlessness due to a combination of being in a low orbit (rather than outer space where the weightlessness is) and a few under-floor gravity generators."
So the question is, who's being fooled, the "Astronauts" who "think" they're in space, or the public who "thinks" the show is what it says it is?
"Discuss."
December 13, 2005 - 05:20 AM
I had this great rant worked out in my head about those stupid Acme coupons they send you in the mail that are good for nothing if you like to buy anything convenient (as if Acme were convenient). But between then and now, I lost the desire to write it. Gotta do it right away, I'm finding.
It would have been a chuckler, too. Oh well.
Since Pandora doesn't work at my office, I started looking for alternatives.
Yahoo! Music seems a decent one - I used my regular account there and set up my own radio station, selecting the kind of music & musicians I like to listen to. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. They make you actually
listen to the ads, as opposed to Pandora that just shows them to you in your browser so you can safely ignore them. (I hope the Pandora folk don't read this...)
Interested in digital cameras? Instapundit will be hosting what I hope he calls
"Carnival of the Megapixels" - bloggers will be submitting their posts about digital cameras to him and he'll publish the list. Should make for interesting reading for techie cameraphiles.
I need to find ways to occupy myself in a leisurely yet not wasteful fashion while I'm on vacation. I'm off this Friday, all of next week, and then we have a paid holiday on the 26th - 11 days in a row.
Perhaps I'll indulge in a bit of photography, or get the music collection organized. I don't know... what does one do when you have tons of free time, no money, and can't go very far from home?
The D.C. Connecticut Avenue exit will probably see me at least once or twice, and I can finally use my Cheesecake Factory gift card that's been hanging around for months.
Any suggestions?
December 12, 2005 - 08:21 AM
...coming here expecting something witty and/or interesting (and/or tedious?).
I had hoped to write the Monday post this morning. But alas Goon decided to get up at 4:30 and keep me company. So I decided to let him play Elmo on the 'puter; it's the only way I'll get all of the morning arrangements done in any timely fashion.
So, instead you get two links:
Hark -- Do you hear that sound? It's the radio, playing Frosty the Snowman! For the eighth or ninth time today! And that thud in the yard? Why, that's dad, falling off the ladder while attempting to hang fake icicles from the roof. And if you listen really, really hard, you can hear, softly in the distance, the sounds of shoppers trading punches over parking spots at the mall.
No doubt about it: The holidays are here!
Have a good day all, we'll get something up tomorrow.
December 10, 2005 - 06:37 AM
Woke up today to find a few inches of the stuff on the ground again. It stuck to the road & driveway, so I figured I'd have to shovel at some point. On passing by the bedroom door, a wifey voice calls out: "Is it raining? Sounds like it's raining..." Raining? I hope she's hallucinating. Sure enough though, it sounds like rain. But at six in the morning, and 27 degrees outside? No way.
Way! Crud. Freezing rain doubles the stakes - I
have to shovel right then, or I'll need a Zamboni attachment on my car to get from the garage to the street tomorrow.
I got a bit wet but managed to finish it without stopping, or getting all that winded. No one else was even awake when I came back in. Finishing an outside chore before breakfast - now
that is a good start to the day.
Following my day-off schedule: kitchen and laundry time. Then I had scheduled a half hour to get the boy ready for school but it took an hour. (Is this why I'm always late to work?) I run him over to school two hours late, per the school closing doodad on the internet - man I wish I had that when I was young. But, my kids will never know the anticipation of listening to "the list" on KYW and hoping your number is called, without the "opening two hours late" or "open with no transportation" bit trailing it.
The most dreaded sound of all was: "...667, 668, 669, 670, 671, 673..."
AIIIIIGHHHH!! NOOOO!
We were 67
2, a district with a school board that was too manly to close unless there was two inches of black ice in the
gymnasium.
On the way home, I stopped at Staples for envelopes and color printer ink for the Christmas letters. I love office supplies, and can just go wander around Staples like some people go to Borders to kill time or for a date. I've never taken a date to Staples, although my wife and I went on a date once to a Smiths grocery store, just because they have so much cool stuff.
(Why are you looking at me that way? It's not like we were making out in frozen foods or anything.)
We Netflix'd some old Dick Van Dyke episodes. This is some of my favorite TV of all time. The man is an absolute
master at physical comedy. Which may be why I never enjoyed him in things like "Diagnosis: Murder". It's just not the same without the tripping, wobbly walking, and slapstick. Though the man
can still pull a face like no one else, except maybe Jim Carrey.
Tomorrow: a report on Tree and House Decorating Day. This is the first time that my son will actually
get this enough to really enjoy it. It's gonna be a treat.
See you then.
December 9, 2005 - 05:40 AM
Well, for a layout I don't like I sure spent eleventy-hundred hours over the past day or so tweaking it. That's good, though, since the result is that I like it more now than I did before. I tried putting the calendar block in the side panel, but Internet Exploder breaks badly from the table-based calendar formatting in combination with the float-left/float-right main layout. (!@#$%^&*). But I can live without the calendar.
By the time you are reading this, I will be enjoying one of my many days off this month. Hopefully also by the time you read this, I will have my day off scheduled down to the hour. Otherwise, the entire day disappears without a trace. "What did you do on your day off?" "I dunno. I
hate wasting the day on who-knows-what. Surfed the internet and played Half-Life 2 maybe, I forget. Might've had lunch or some pop-tarts. I wish I had scheduled my day."
So, let's set a schedule so I don't end up wondering where the time went:
8:30 - 12:30: Surf the internet
12:30: Eat pop-tart
12:30 - 4:30: Play Half-Life 2
There... that should help.
I got a tip from
Uncle Glenn (Not My Real Uncle
TM) today that Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has a
blog.
I've always respected Adams and his understanding of technology, business, management, and office politics, combined with his ability to make them all funny. Well, my respect has a new dimension now: he has taken apart funny, and explained it.
He talks about how humor works in comic strips (or in general) and lays out
six elements which are funny if you combine them the right way. The part that got me was that he holds up Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side as arguably the funniest comic strips ever (and I heartily agree):
...the few times [C & H] featured the parents doing the main action, it fell flat. Whenever it combined Calvin and Hobbes (both exceedingly cute), with some witty dialog (clever), a dangerous wagon ride (cruel), Calvin acting like a typical kid (recognizable), and thinking about adult philosophy (bizarre) it fired on 5-of-6 humor elements, which is virtually unheard of.
[...]
The Far Side comic made a huge splash in its day primarily using the elements of bizarre, cruel and clever. Often the comic included an animal that was cute too, in its own way. That’s 4-of-6 humor elements. No wonder he sold a trillion calendars.
Calvin has got to be my most beloved of comics. Even more so now that my three-year-old reminds me so much of Calvin. That boy is in his own world. (If you wonder why I refer to him as Calvin from now on...)
By the way - I've never, ever gotten a laugh out of reading The Family Circus. I've been known to say that it's a waste of otherwise good space on the comics page and how on EARTH does Keane manage to keep an audience?
But...
I have to admit: now that I
have said three-year-old and live it every day, I get it. I laugh, not like I do at the others above, but I do laugh. I only run into the strip every now and then, but I somehow connect with Billy and his family now. Thank you, Bill, for giving some occasionally trying times a lighthearted feel and helping us smile about them. (Geez, I must be growing up or something.)
December 8, 2005 - 05:38 AM
Our first snow is mostly gone today, just some left on rooftops or sloping hills that keep their back to the sun. My son was so excited yesterday morning after the white fell all night: "I make-a
snowman!" Sadly, we had to go to work and school instead of playing in the yard. (Mom Nature hooked me up though; nothing on the walk or driveway to shovel... woohoo!) I told him that he'd have to make a snowman during outside play time at school.
But as it turns out not all the kids brought boots, and they couldn't take only part of the class outside. Wouldn't be fair, apparently, or perhaps they didn't have the staff. Hopefully the latter.
So today no snow left to play with; of course we had to go to our normal routine anyway. Dropping off a 3-year-old at preschool is an interesting exercise in sociology. Who will he want to sit next to while he eats breakfast, and why? The boy with the fire truck shirt? The cute girl with a demeanor the same as his? Me? Today it was me, and he looked sullen as I walked out, sad that I couldn't have breakfast with him. Sigh.
And people think I want to work out of my house just so I can dress casual.
I'm not sure I like this new site layout. It's miles better than the last one, though. It'll be a nice temporary setup until I work out something better. I feel like a kid in high school trying to figure out what style I want to be: today, Russian skyline. Tomorrow, I sit at the bad kids table with faded jeans (that was subculture in the 80s), a black Ozzy shirt and a wallet chained to my belt.
Okay, back to work.
Lunch! Soup! Yay! Curry once, curry twice! Etc.
Speaking of back to work and sullen children: I spoke to a friend the other night who let me know he had just quit his job, and will be working for a mutual friend who was laid off a couple of years ago. This 2
nd friend has put his own business together and now has enough work for the two of them. Bravo! I say, bravo! I love to see hard work paying off - and he has put a
lot of hard work into it. The American dream in action.
When you work in the Fortune 500 world, SOHO business seem a million miles away. I don't know which stress I would prefer... idiocy at a big company, or not knowing if a check will arrive in time for grocery shopping or to pay the mortgage. Apparently, I like the former since I didn't take a voluntary severance package that was widely offered earlier in the year.
I met up with a buddy of mine from work a few days ago, who
had taken the package, back in May. Here at work, he was one of the most wired and stressed people I've ever met. By his own admission, he had to drag himself out of bed in the morning moments before he should have left his house to get to work on time.
Now, he easily gets up two hours earlier than he used to, gets a ton of stuff done around the house (raking leaves at 6am?), enjoys his wife and little boy, and will, at some point before my company stops paying his package, find a new job. He's relaxed and having a great time of it.
I'm jealous of all three of them.
December 7, 2005 - 05:23 AM
Ran across this yesterday:
Pandora.com - it's a personal radio station of sorts:
Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the music universe.
...
We take your input (artists, songs) and feedback ("I like this", "I don't like this") and use the Music Genome Project to create stations that play songs that are musically similar to what you've told us. That's it; only the music counts. We don't care how popular the artist is, who's backing them, and we don't care which genre bin they usually belong in. Only the music matters.
They don't have every kind of music (classical is notably missing so far), but they are adding new stuff all the time.
Sadly, it doesn't work properly on my PC at the office. (Update: they say they were having server problems. Update tomorrow.)
I had
mentioned earlier that (among other things) my Amazon wish list was empty. Well, no more... I found
a few items that I would enjoy and are reasonably priced.
Finally,
Uncle Orson had a
new-ish link on his site today, for LDS folk: Brother Orson Reviews Everything. This current essay isn't a review so much as a commentary on LDS culture - he asks, "Are Mormons Funny?" and proceeds to hit the nail on the head, smashing some less humorous thumbs in the process.
Surf around the Nauvoo site, there's some other items of interest, including a "culture-not-commandment" piece - well, rant is probably the best word. Check it out for some thought provocation .
Okay, one more: Steve @ Ethesis
points to a post by his fascinating friend Ozarque (see links
here for some stories that are really worth your time).
She asks if we really need
commercials where dads fork over $80 to their teenage daughter to buy designer jeans:
I don't know what you think of that "Dad, I need 80 bucks.." Ameritrade commercial running on CNN and the other news channels right now; I know what I think of it. It turns my stomach.
When the teenage girl tells her Dad she needs 80 bucks for a pair of jeans that she has to have because everybody has them, Dad asks her who the designer is, runs to his laptop and orders 100 shares of the designer's stock, and turns over the 80 bucks -- which, needless to say, he has right there in his pocket.
Ozarque talks about what the conversation
should look like, but one of her readers adds the Best. Version. Ever:
TEEN: Dad, I need 80 bucks.
DAD, not looking up from his book: I hear Taco Bell is hiring.
TEEN: Dad, I need 80 bucks.
DAD: Sucks to be you, huh?
Right on.
December 2, 2005 - 04:40 PM
My wife posted a joke on her blog for me today from
Readers Digest, where a computer expert gives advice to his wife following a "minor disaster" she experienced on their home PC:
As I listened with pencil poised, ready to record his instructions, he said, "Okay, here's what you need to do. Go downstairs, put the tea kettle on, and don't touch the computer again until I come home."
It may sound ridiculous, but what with we IT people being pragmatic and such, that's often the best way to handle a problem. Just ask
Nick Burns. ("There, was that so hard?")
I'm grateful that I don't have to do phone support any more. Here's a couple of reasons why:
One: people who think they know
nothing, so they don't do anything you tell them to do - just in case they might mess up and cause their PC to blow open like Clark Griswold's Christmas turkey:
Me: "Are you ready? Okay. Type, 'i p c o n f i g' and hit Enter."
User: "Okay" <absolutely no typing happening here>
Me: "Um... what does it say?"
User: "Nothing"
Me: "Did you type 'ipconfig'?"
User: "Er, wait... yes. How do you spell that?"
Me: <spelling verrrry sloooowly> "iiiii... peeee... seeeee... ohhh..."
User: "Wait, wait, hold on... What came after I?"
<five minutes later>
User: "Okay, let me read this back. 'Eye pee see oh...' or was that a zero?"
<five minutes later>
Me: "Great, you got it; hit enter." <click> "What does it say now? Just give me the numbers on the fourth line."
User: "'See colon slash arrow eye pee see oh en eff eye gee', then a blank line, then 'Windows 2000', is that right?"
Me: <crying>
Two: people who think they know almost everthing, and just need a support person on the line for that one bit of trivia we might have picked up between rounds of Doom while we were in college:
Me: "What does the error say?"
User: <reads error>
Me: "Okay, here's what we need to do..."
User: <sounds of furious typing>
Me: "What are you doing?"
User: "I think if I just format the floppy disk..."
Me: "WAIT! NO NO NO NO!"
User: "Okay, I've got it. Hey, I can't find my files..."
Me: "I..."
User: "Can you come to my desk? It's not working..."
Me: <crying>
If you're wondering why IT folks would prefer to have you go get a cup of tea sometimes, it's because we know it's one of those occasions where it will go faster or be less stressful for everyone if we just fix it ourselves.
(Occasionally, we just haven't the slightest idea what's wrong and don't want you to know it. But that's rare. Right?... Hello?)
<crickets chirping>
So for those two occasions, we don't take chances with 'remote control' via the phone. Go get yerself a nice hot cup of chamomile and relax. We'll have you sorted out in no time.
There. Was that so hard?
December 1, 2005 - 01:21 PM
Thought I'd try out a new look; the Kubrick skin was getting... well, old.
Any thoughts?
