Reality Me

Category: Daily Life

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

  • Pretty, Ugly, Layout

    To the non feed readers, I threw up a new theme. Looks nice in FF. I haven’t checked in IE anything but James has reported that it looks terrible in IE 7. I’ll have to fix it later.

    In other news, WordPress 2.0.6 was just released and claims to be the last batch of security fixes before WordPress 2.1.

    Update: Regulus2.0 seems to hold fairly well in FF1.5, FF2.x, IE 6, and IE5.5. So far the only big difference I have seen is that the two columns on the right degrade to a single column in the IEs. IE7 still unchecked.

  • Do you dance with the Crazy Frog?

    Are you familiar with The Annoying Thing? If not, you should watch the Crazy Frog Axel F video (2m 51s). Noah fell in love with this video a year ago and played it over and over and over. He’d get his boogie on and bounce, smile huge and laugh! Turns out The Annoying Thing has been highly marketed. There are music cds. There are all sizes of stuffed animals and animatronics. There are karoke microphones and radios. There are games and pencils and books. This Crazy Frog is a crazy phenomena.

    In 1997, 17-year-old Swede Daniel Malmedahl recorded himself impersonating the sounds produced by internal combustion engines. …
    In late-2000, Malmedahl’s fellow Swede Erik Wernquist encountered the sound effect and was inspired to create the 3D animation “The Annoying Thing” to accompany it. …
    In 2004, the Germany based Jamba! group (ultimately owned by VeriSign) licensed the animation and sound for distribution as a mobile phone ringtone. …
    [Source]

    As a parent, toys with noise become evil. Acid leaking batteries abound and are hidden away for years in unsuspecting places. A burning desire for a simple wooden toy or anything that does not have an on/off switch develops and such toys become legend and things of myth. Even puzzles and books squawk, squeak, and talk to you now. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I like to walk through the toy store and simultaneously set off as many as possible of those obnoxious dolls with the tags that plead "try me now!" Nothing brings more pleasure than seeing an whole aisle of bouncing, gibbering furballs. Secretly I know that some parent will thank me when it goes silent just a little sooner than it would have otherwise. What you as a parent may not know, and I only found out a few days ago, is that those toys are (rather could be) operating in "demo" mode and that if you look near the battery compartment under the fur, you may find a switch that really turns the toy on for more fun, longer and varied annoying noises.

    I can see my kids producing a video like these guys! There are some tasteless people out there in those comments. Online people should seriously follow the rule of "if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all."

  • It could happen

    I could see myself in this 30 second video.

  • Linux is easy

    Edubuntu is really impressing me! The installation was easier than Windows. The interface is pretty. The pre-installed applications are fun and intriguing; some, like the movie editor, I want to use before passing the machine onto Noah. What impressed me the most is that after the installation I rebooted and it immediately prompted me that updates were available; exactly as Windows would have done! I expected that Linux was going to be an administrative nightmare. I was wrong!

    I’ve partition the harddrive so that Edubuntu will take half. Noah will use this as his primary operating system. Linux will be used for his Internet exploration, research and browser games. Linux will be used for his productivity-school reports, video projects, spreadsheets, email and so forth. Linux will be used for education except when the educational software requires Windows. The Windows partition will be used for Windows specific games that have not been ported to Linux. The Windows partition will be used for websites that require Internet Explorer. The Windows partition will be used for educational software that has not been ported for Windows. He will also use it to become familiar with the Microsoft Office Suite although OpenOffice should make him comfortable enough.

    I am really tickled with this setup. I am debating doing Sarah’s the same way.

  • What’s that smell?

    So the bedroom is starting to get a little gamey. I’m thinking a dirty diaper is under the bed or something. Then it occurs me to that I forgot about the squirrels in the woodstove!

    Update: That is absolutely the nastiest thing I have had to deal with in a long time. I dug a hole out back then scooped the squirrel from the fire place and, when I dropped it in the hole, maggots poured from its head! Yuck! And yes, I’ll be on the roof with chicken wire shortly.

  • Sad children hurt my ears

    The worse sound in the world to me is to hear crying, unhappy children.

  • 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!"