Last night I had this feeling I was forgetting something. AT’s bash! It was one of the reasons that I didn’t want to go camping this weekend. What was I thinking?! Looking forward to seeing Mrs. Eaves pictures.
Year: 2007
Excited to See Tommy Grow Up
I am participating in a transition fair at West High School today. It is good to see so many familiar faces! Tommy’s teachers are there. Old friends are there. I like chatting with the parents of Tommy’s peers, the professionals, and people we have gotten to know over the years. The social opportunity, chance to catch up, and sharing of information is almost more valuable than the actual workshops. We talked our way half way through the first session!
This fair is exciting because Tommy has done so well for himself. I am excited at the prospect of Tommy going off on his own to further his education and then move onto be self-sufficient with a career. So unbelievable to consider either possibility since earlier in Tommy’s life we had assumed he would always live at home or otherwise under someone’s wings.
Do you have a PEACE of chalk for tomorrow?
Do you have your chalk ready for tomorrow? Writing on the sidewalks is not vandalism or graffiti, it’s art! And it washes away.
Campaign to shift the paradigm from conflict to UNITY. From a double negative "No to War" To a double positive "Yes to Peace" [Source]
“Chalk4Peace” is a very simple, fun and inexpensive peace action
that you can implement in your local community [Source]
Get out tomorrow and draw a peace sign or a heart on the sidewalk!
Warning! Sanity Free Day Ahead
Unbelievably stressful day planned today!
I like my work
I build very complex web application systems. I mean so complex that sometimes I forget that certain functions were built into the program; sometimes they surprise and even impress me. One of my habits is to code for the impossible. I often will slip in error messages for conditions that should never occur.
"Ever since the first computers [t]here have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code… that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated? There free radicals engender questions of free will… creativity… and even the nature of what we might call the soul." [Source] excerpted from I, Robot
Tonight I was testing an application I am trying to launch when I received "Something strange has occurred. Please log out and log back into the system then try your request again." Strange indeed! I usually make my impossible error messages a little more meaningful.
SuperDad
Tonight was the elementary school’s open house. It may have been only the kindergarten open house but the cub scout troop was meeting so there were enough cars at the school that a couple of people parked on the lower branches of some of the trees and a couple of SUVs managed to find some space on the roof. Cathy went early and helped sell year books. I caravaned the children around town as we picked up Sarah, Sarah’s friend, and Tommy from high school activities. We ended up at McDonald’s having dinner with some cub scout friends of ours. In due time, we dropped Molly and Tommy off at the house with hopes Tommy would do some chores and the rest of us deploy to the school. Look out! Chaos coming!
We had a wonderful time, saw some friends, had pleasant chats with teachers, Sarah fell chasing Evan and bled all over the new kindergarten rug, and Amy was able to show off her school. As we came to a close, I noticed the volunteer form horribly empty so I inquired and put our names down. In that time, already-over-volunteered-Cathy stared on in dread as I swiped another bit of time out of her life with a few strokes of a #2 pencil. While she was entranced with my unsanctioned scheduling, Sarah and Evan departed, followed shortly by Amy. As the ever confident Amy found herself alone in the hallway, she took it upon herself to walk out the front of the school, through the dark parking lot, and off to the playground. The parents got a frowny face tonight. Sarah and Evan took one hall of the school. Cathy raced to the gym. A couple of scout dads joined in the search with one commenting "my child is missing too…but he’s old enough to walk home!" The teacher joined the posse. Amy was found on the playground and as she was walked into the school, her name blared across the school intercom so that all visitors became away that the McCaughans lose their children.
Didn’t Noah go with us? Anyone seen Noah?
Of Grasshoppers
Student: What’s that in my way?
Master: Life.
Panic!
Don’t take hand lotion to the airports! Hand lotion is the next terror substance! Because..well..uh, terrorists have smooth hands? No, that can’t be it. Um… No..can’t publish that thougth.. that would take away the G rating of this blog? What’s that? I lost my G rating? Oh I never had one! So, Knoxville wants to be Boston?
A white substance left in a hospital emergency room, prompting a quarantine of the area may have been a hand lotion. [Source]
Oh NO! Potentially deadly substance found in hospital! What do we do?!
"It smelled good, so we’re thinking it was a hand lotion," [Source]
That’s right! Stick yer nose in that thar anthax and tell me ifn its dangerous. After the spokeswoman for the Knox County Health Department, whose job is apparently to go to crime scenes and shove her nose into unknown substances, you know, like medieval food tasters!, after she lived, it was determined that something had to be done with the substance.
A private contractor that handles the hospital’s wastes will incinerate the bottle and contents, Dougherty said. [Source]
You got that right! We determined the substance to be inert and harmless so instead of having a hospital employee, or the high paid (she does get paid well for shoving her nose into stuff right?) health department employee, or for that matter one of the sick people at the hospital, or a child, to simply throw the container into the trashcan, we are going to pay a "private contractor" (read that as expensive) to dispose of the substance. I had the personal privilege of working with one of the fine companies in Oak Ridge who get paid to move hazardous waste around. You know those spray cans of paint, compressed air, and so forth that you so casually chunk into the trash can? Those are considered hazardous materials and government agencies have to pay to have them "properly disposed of" which means that they are dumped into 50 gallon drums, sealed, and shipped to a landfill at $10,000 per drum. Not tightly packed mind you. Sure, they could fit a lot more cans in a drum if the spray cans were put in an orderly fashion but if you just throw them in the drum you have to create more $10,000 invoices (and it takes less time). So you can bet the private contractor is going to take a vacation on that container of hand lotion.
Does anyone think before they jump anymore? Or has the government just got you that scared! Is this over? No way! For your enjoyment, the News Sentinel promises to spend more money on this horrific event!
More details as they develop online and in Friday’s News Sentinel. [Source]
Anyone know what teenage boys do with hand lotion? That’s what’s happening with your tax dollars right here!
Of Grasshoppers
Student: COFFEE!
Master: Procrastinator!
Of Grasshoppers
Student: I feel terribly beat up.
Master: Those who take up the fight, feel the punches.
Who Uses That Dying ColdFusion Anyway?
ColdFusion? Since its inception naysayers have declared "ColdFusion is dying!" It remains my favorite web application language (over others like PHP, ASP classic, ASP .NET, etc). And I continue to pay our bills primarily working with CF.
Who else uses it? Why the National Institute of Standards and Technology of course!
Of Grasshoppers
Student: Why do they not help me?
Master: They are helping themselves.
Of Being Dad
"So, do you have plans to go to school today?"
When Online Friends Go Missing
You know, last week I had my withdrawal. I received no comments, questions, or phone calls. It was a little discouraging. I vanished and no one cared (of course, they probably just looked at Cathy’s blog and knew exactly what was going on) Toward the end of the week, I did receive a “you still alive?” email and for that I was very thankful.
With that said, What’s happen to Phillip?!Bluesloth is redesigned!
The Machine is Broken
I feel so beat up. I just want to sleep. My body is sore all over. My brain aches.
