Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Sometimes I hate computers

I spent some of this weekend making the final transition back to my desktop so that I could give Tommy full custody of his laptop back. Of course, before I gave it back, one of the dogs knocked the laptop off my desk breaking one of the keys. Fortunately there was no other damage. Saturday Sarah’s Palm Centro died. Unfortunately it is out of warranty and after 2 hours on the phone, AT&T declared it a hardware issue. My phone has turned flaky as all get out randomly turning itself off even in the middle of a phone call. Then the icing on the cake, this morning my desktop computer quit recognizing the new hard drive. I wonder if Denso is hiring. I think I could handle a union, an assembly and a repetitive task.

Update: Just to keep the day interesting, we brought a plant in from the porch in anticipation of tonight’s cold weather, placed the plant in the bathroom, Cathy got into the bath, then the yellow jackets started emerging from the plant’s soil.

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My workstation is almost working

After fighting with trying to clone my old 60 GB hard drive to my new 500 GB hard drive, I finally gave in and started from scratch. Since I was installing from Windows XP sp1 I was limited to 137 GB partition. Once Windows XP installed successfully I upgrade to sp 2 then sp 3 and installed all security patches and updates. Then I began reinstalling software beginning with Avast antivirus first quickly followed by iTunes.

Everything seemed to be going very well until I decided to actually switch back to working on the machine. I tried to remap my development servers but cannot browse my network. I get the error message:

WORKGROUP is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

This list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available

Guess I’m network troubleshooting this weekend.

Update: I made an important discovery today. None of the computers in the house see each other anymore. I used to be able to open Windows explorer and browse to My Network Places then to Entire Network then to Microsoft Windows Network then to MSHome (the workgroup) then to a specific machine that was visible on the network. However at the workgroup level the error message above occurs. I thought it was specific to this Windows XP machine but I reproduced it on another Windows XP machine. Then I tried browsing the network with Windows Vista and also could not see any of the LAN. So on my newly installed Windows XP machine, I tested pinging various machines on the network with success. So in Windows Explorer I typed a machine name and a known shared directory "\\mickey\www" and successfully browsed the remote directory. I then successfully mapped the drive. On my Ubuntu Linux 8.04 workstation, I clicked Places then Network Servers then Windows Network and get the message "Unable to mount location – failed to retrieve share list from server" which in the past would have simply listed all the devices on the local area network.

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Of Being Dad – TP

The center of the Toilet Paper roll is filled with Tooth Paste. I should mention that between basic needs, the fun of simply spinning it off the roll, making mummies, and doubling as dog chew toys, we use a bunch of toilet paper. Second to food, toilet paper is given the highest priority in this house. Rethining that, I might allow us to run out of food before I would ever dare to run out of toilet paper. To have the toilet paper roll flopping around on the holder like a flat tire on a car and simultaneously smelling bubble gum (flavor tooth paste like bubble gum and children brush more) was a little unexpected first thing in the morning. This is the joy of parenting and, no, tooth paste in the toilet paper was not in the manual.

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Good people abound

My neighbor fell this morning while I was ordering two sausage biscuits at the Rocky Hill McDonald’s. After getting the call, I rushed home leaving the food I’d paid for on the grill. My wife was already attending to my neighbor. She had a broken rib and was feeling very bad. When the paramedics arrived, without slowing down, they smiled and waved to Evan. The postman took a moment to inquire about her condition showing sympathy. I returned to McDonald’s assuming I’d have to settle for getting Cathy some fries instead of biscuits. As I walked in, the manager hollered, "He’s back!" An employee said she was cooking me some fresh biscuits even though breakfast hours were clearly over. Another employee offered me coffee and everyone asked about the neighbor. I can only assume they overheard my phone conversation. No one asked about political parties, believe systems, or views on health care reform. Everyone showed genuine concern. When we have differences with people, or experience a "bad" person, I think we should not let that person taint our view into believing all people or the majority of people are the same; acknowledge that we don’t fully understand that person and should strive to know them better; and know that ultimately, all things aside, it takes a community, and we will look after one another.

Update: Good news! They are back from the hospital and nothing is broken. My wife feels guilty for calling 911.

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We have a new baby in the house!

Dear Knox County Schools, If I beat your fancy $500 electronic baby, does my son lose points because abusive granddad was raised in the 70s? Sincerely, I have 5 children I know what a baby crying all night sounds like and so does my son I thought I was done when Cathy said we couldn’t have a 6th

Yes, we have an electronic baby in the house this weekend. The irony is that Noah has probably changed more diapers and spent more baby time than many of his schoolmates ever will. If this is demented sex education lesson on abstinence, I give the schools an F because we don’t educate through fear and making the wonder of life a thing to dread. If the lesson is truly about the responsibility of caring for a child, I give this gadget an A+. This is a cool toy and Mattel had better step up because my 7 and 4 year old children are loving it! The diapers even have to be changed! Oh, I like the fact that there are no Caucasian electronic babies because I’m sure my son’s absentee interracial girlfriend is going to be quite the buzz at the inlaw’s church. I wonder if Noah will have the wherewithal to actually turn electrobabe into the daycare instead of carrying he/she/it into the teenager’s sanctuary.

Update: I just learned that the baby and Noah are more than a certain distance apart that the baby’s head explodes because Noah has an electronic wrist band secured to his wrist. Side note, you really should secure the bands a little tighter because I’m quite certain that I could slip it off Noah’s wrist so that he could help Evan get to sleep but no, we will be honest and I will take over for Noah tonight. Of course, I could get Evan to sleep easier if your do dad had a mute button! I must say that it is amusing watching Noah try to put electrobabe down long enough to play his video game only to have crying drag him away from the keyboard with a grin and an eyeroll.

Update: Electrobabe turned off about midnight. I have the sneaky suspicion the program was set up wrong and we’ll be seeing this child again.

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From the mouths of babes

Teenager 1, after walking through the mud, cracks joke: "We’re lucky. In Tibet they’d pay thousands of dollars for this treatment."
Me: "You really don’t know what Tibet is, do you?"
Teenager 1: "No. Well, it has something to do with religion."
Teenager 2: "Yes, it’s in Jerusalem."
Me: "Uh, no."
Teenager 1: "I think it borders China."
Teenager 2: "Well it has something to do with the Jews."
Teenager 1: "It’s mostly a tourist attraction right now."
Teenager 2: "Yup. A tourist trap."