The worse sound in the world to me is to hear crying, unhappy children.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
I can hear, ergo I can’t work
My daughter stole my ear plugs for a school project and they never came back. I’ll also blame my messy desk on her but the logic behind that will take a few minutes to figure out.
We are violating our children’s rights!
Juliet Pain of Wales hates us. She suggests that someone get Dr. Phil to intervene with us quickly.
Perhaps some relative or friend will get Dr Phil intervention for them soon, as they do seem to have become a tad obsessed with documenting their lives, to the point where it looks as if they are living mainly in order to record them… [Source]
I say bring on the doc! He will say we are an incredibly well balanced, well adjusted, happy family.
We have received numerous thank yous and positive comments from Aspie caregivers for being so open about Tommy’s experiences. I don’t think we have ever posted anything embarassing about the children.
I feel sorry for people that do not understand technology and technology trends until after they happen. We are the midst of a publishing revolution. Biographies are being written real-time. I would love to go back and read about my life in, say, 1976. If privacy is your concern, you are barking up the wrong tree. The smart pass on your keychain reveals your whereabouts and personal information. Cameras abound in places that we never think to look. Your very purchases create a record of your existence and your doing. Without much effort, a person’s day can retrospectively be tracked down to minute.
for the most part, it would appear to be a violation of a child’s basic human rights, with reference to privacy, and of The Rights of the Child, with reference to dignity, and which convention has yet to be ratified by the US – not that it needs to be ratified for the right to truly exist (rights do not exist in reality, no), all that would take would be for the parents to discover or uncover some common sense [Source]
Our websites are but a mere glimpse into our whole lives. Our lives are much more full than what the words in these posts imply. There is more drama. There are more tears. There is screaming and fighting. There is undocumented laughter and joy. There are financial hardships and worry. There is life! You live it once, you should live it fully and we do!
I do no injustice to my children through my publishings. They have no loss of dignity. I know that if I have a heart attack and die today, or get hit by a bus tomorrow, my children can return to these publishing and relive our experiences. Through my writings, I leave a legacy.
Dear Juliet Pain, I hope one day we meet and then you can judge me as a person. I would be interested in seeing if your opinion of my family would change.
Facing fears – open the email
Due to Christmas, illness, and visitors, I have not looked at my email in a week. I am afraid to open it. My gut tells me that it will take me days to catch up and that it will be litered with angry emails wondering where I have been. Honest answers and no overcommitments is the trick to facing these fears. What is the true source of the fear? Opening the email? No. Reading a disparaging email? Perhaps a little. My feelings do get hurt but that’s not really it. Losing a client? Somewhat. I really don’t need to be losing clients. Letting people down? Definitely. I can’t stand not pleasing everyone. Having to face that perhaps I made bad choices in not forcing myself to type between stomach purges and family needs? Yes! That would admit weakness!
Moving on…
From the mouths of babes
As part of last week’s aftermath, when we change Evan’s diaper:
Evan says, "EEeeeewwww!" (before we even remove the old diaper)
Welcome 2007!
So, we had Christmas. It was a great Christmas! We had vomiting. We had fever. We had diarrhea. We had visitors. May our visitors not have our stomach bug.(update: too late) All things considered, that was our only major sickness of 2006. Way to go out!
Recap:
- Friday-Sunday- last minutes, wrapping, and cleaning.
- Monday: Morning of happy children. Visit Great Granny at nursing home.
- Tuesday: Play.
- Tuesday night: inverted stomaches. First Noah. Then Amy. Then Evan. The look on Evan’s face as everything came out the wrong way for the first time since infancy was almost precious. Sorta like, "what the h*ll was that!" I spent the night jumping out of bed on the hour to make sure the children weren’t choking in their own vomit.
- Wednesday: Exhausted. Can’t tell if I’m fighting the bug myself. Tending to sick people and cleaning for Friday’s visitors. We learn that 4 or 5 elderly from the nursing home, including Great Granny, went to the hospital with an intestinal bug.
- Thursday: Evan and I spend the afternoon at the pediatrician. He sleeps in my arms and I force him to drink 5mm of Pedialyte every 5 minutes for an hour. As closing time approaches the doc shortens our hour and declares Evan on the mend.
- Friday: Grandparents from Ohio visit. Nanny and Aunt Kelly avoid the stomach bug but Pop gets it. More people from the nursing home to the hospital and CDC style cleanup begins.
- Saturday: The stomach bug hits me with a vengence and I sleep for 12 hours while Cathy cries upstairs with a migraine cursing my existence.
- Sunday: Everyone mended, we leave the house for the first time since Christmas and attempt exchanges and returns. Toys R Us says, "Can you jump through Geoffrey’s hoop?" We attempt to purchase missing parts for Tommy’s long awaited computer upgrade (I forgot about the cpu fan (ouch..it is overpriced locally by $10) and he needs the new "standard" psu of 24 pins instead of 20 pins (so naturally we run out and buy a new 20 pin psu…doh!). We all stay up too late playing Monopoly. My wife is mean Monopoly player!
- Monday: 2007 begins. I start off wanting to feel behind, carrying 2006 baggage but catch myself and refuse to start 2007 on a crabby, unhappy note. This is our New Year!
Christmas Eve Is Upon Us – Really?
It’s going to be a comfortable 13°C today. The sun is shining and there is no chance of a white Christmas this year. We will have rain! So perhaps if we can get this global warming thing under control we can return to having white Christmases!
Do you have the spirit? Seeing Santa last night was great! The children certainly are ready. I am excited and we have been blessed this year.
Our tree is a bit barren in comparison to years past at this time. We have only a few packages under the tree for fear of Evan opening them prematurely. So far, only one present has been opened. That was Molly’s doing. She was unhappy that we left her alone last night. The item isn’t damaged and the package was rewrapped unawares to the children.
Time to do some last minute tiddying up!
Santa Lives in Westmoreland
So being a dad, I had the sudden urge to torment the children with a long drive home so that we could look at lights. I turn into Westmoreland and suddenly see Santa running up his driveway with candy canes in hand for each of the children! As he opened the door to the van Evan puckered up but quickly became contented as a candy cane was presented to him. I think Evan figures Santa is alright.
This guy was great! I look forward to one day being as creative and taking time to bring such magic to people’s lives. Thanks Santa!
One hour and still going
So yesterday I delivered the client’s machine expecting to quickly pull in the old data. I was hoping for 1 hour and alloted 3; it took all day. We had to get a child to an appointment at 4:30 and at 4:00 I was still downtown watching the progress bar on a data file conversion slowly tick away. The client called at 6pm to say it was still going. Just to add to the fun, their network quit pulling up websites for a machine as I was trying to leave. Guess where I’ll be today!
Quote of the Day
Meter reader: "Wow! Your electricity usage is high. I mean like, this is what a mansion uses!"
Bad customer service begets bad service
So one of my clients call Friday, "Doug, our network is down!" So I drop everything and rush over there as quickly as possible to spend the afternoon tracing through knotted cables resembling a plate of spaghetti and a cluster of switches and routers with extra routers thrown in as leftovers from the previous technician’s troubleshooting attempts. See, everyone always wants to pull in the lowest dollar solution first because any upstart techie is going to say, "sure, I can do that." which has this rippling effect of rising costs and client doubts. When the lowest dollar solution fails, they call in the next higher yet lowest dollar solution who now has to not only solve the original problem but fix any problems created by the previous low dollar solution. The result is that the higher lower dollar solution has to bill more than if they were the first on the job. If that person fails and another person has to be called in, the costs only escalate.
I still have moments when I will tell a client "I’m not the right person for the job." My father-in-law cringed recently as he overheard a phone call in which I did just that. That said, I also subscribe to the philosophy of "never turn away a sale." The two statements are in obvious conflict. The way to keep the sale and do the right thing for the client is to say "I’m not the right developer but let me run project through someone I trust." That is not always plausible but gives you a billable while knowing that your client will be taken care correctly since you will be managing the work.
After resolving Friday’s network issues, the client sent their company’s financial computer with me to get a new version of Peachtree installed. After spending the better part of the weekend removing spyware, malware, and viruses, I proceeded with the upgrade only to find it consistently failing. My first round with Peachtree technical support sent me retracing my steps through possible solutions already researched via Blingo. Slowly I began to think I had a bad compact disc.
I have visited one of the plants that mass produces cds. A cd is created much the same way an LP record is produced. A mold is created. Little plastic pellets are melted into gooey platter. And the data is pressed into the plastic. Yes. I said, "the data is pressed into the plastic." That sounds weird and inconsistent with the cd burners you have in your home computer. A cd writer uses a chemical process. Mass produced cds use a physical process which includes creating pits and lands that reflect the light from the laser differently. When the cd reader detects a change from pit to land or land to pit it tells the computer that a 1 was read. If there is no change, say pit to pit or land to land, it tells the computer a 0 was read. Your cd burner at home removes some the dye in the cd and causes light to reflect or not reflect thus emulating a pit or land. This chemical is prone age which is why a "burned" cd has a shelf life.
You’ll note the reflective metal (aluminum or gold) of the CD is on the top, under a thin layer of acrylic which is just under the label. The bottom of the cd has 1.2mm of polycarbonate plastic. This is why I cringe when I see someone lay a CD down upside down to "protect it from scratches." The laser focuses beyond the surface of the bottom of the CD and minor scratches on the bottom have no effect while a minor scratch on the top can destroy the reflective surface. Scratches on the bottom can be buffed out while scratches on the top cannot be repaired.
The odds of getting bad pressed CD are pretty slim. The Peachtree installation disc was just that. Because the odds are so slim, technical support is alway hesistant to send replacement CDs. It took some doing but they finally gave in. There was only 1 file I could not copy from the CD. They would not give in and put that file online for download. That I consider bad customer service. My client understands what has happened but it does not negate the fact that I told them they would have their machine before business opened Monday morning and I still have it on Wednesday.
Nice
Squirrels in the Attic
Last year we had some unwelcome guests, two squirrels in the attic. I ran us out of the house by converting our home into the sweet smell of my grandmother’s closet. By the end of the summer, the moth ball smell had final dissipated and the critters had not returned. When this year’s cold came, so did our boarders. Eventually I will get them out of the attic.
All day today I’ve heard scampering in the bedroom. I finally figured it out! We have squirrels in the woodstove! My solution? I grabbed a string of firecrackers, lit it and threw it in. Unfortunately, I have to come realise that my woodstove is more of a crab trap for squirrels than a home. Now I have a trapped and very frightened squirrel. It is Christmas. Maybe I’ll name him Ches and simply light a fire…
Update for clarity’s sake: For the record, a Fisher wood stove will comfortably house two crazy squirrels and contains a fist full of fireworks very well but will not keep the smell of gun powder from permeating throughout the house.
I hurt my wife
but I got the splinter out.
So, like, she has been glaring at me most of the day and once barked at me, "are you blogging?!" Obviously something was wrong. So I turned on my super mind reading powers and got nothing. I inquired. I got nothing. I reviewed the day. I got nothing. Finally, I found the instant messenger window that was hidden away that had a message from an hour and a half ago, "would you get a splitter out please?" Note to self: Check that more often.
It’s that time of the day
Explain it to me again. Exactly, why do they have to eat?
