Yes, yesterday I selfishly used my wife’s boobies. You know how your SAM’s membership card has a picture on it? (Costco is the same I am sure) And they get a little particularly if you get to the checkout and the person pictured is not standing with you. Our SAM’s card has my wife’s beautiful picture on it. I wanted to do the world’s fastest SAM’s trip to get some ground beef and still make it out in time to pick Noah up from karate. To do this meant leaving Cathy, Amy and Evan in the van so I could run through the store. At the checkout I get quized, "Is she [pointing to Cathy’s picture] in the store?" I respond, "she is breastfeeding the baby in the car." They let me complete the purchase.
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
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I sing the body recess
This morning Noah explained told me he wondered if the school would have another chorus separate from the 5th grade chorus. I proceeded to ask if he liked singing and so forth and what came out was "I am not in fifth grade chorus because they practice during recess [the Friday recess] and we only get like two or three recesses a week." Sigh. He has to walk his own path and make his own choices.
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Wanna watch me pull a rabbit from my hat?
So this past weekend we got the Christmas tree up and I actually got all the lights working instead of taking a month to light the tree and finishing on Christmas Eve as has become our tradition. Of course, I had hoped to really impress the wife and kids by getting the lights on the house too. Now last year I bought three extra strands when they went on sale so we could do twice as much of the roof as we did last year but I could not break those open until I found the old lights…you know, on a matter of principle. I tore the garage apart and much of the rest of the house only to find them when I wasn’t looking. Apparently for an entire year, the outside lights have been sitting beside my desk.
I don my headlamp, you know, because it is 10pm at night, and after sweeping the leaves off the front half of the roof, I proceed to string the outside of the house. Half way through I have to start reattaching the clips that I halfway took down last year. After the first 3 strands of lights (3×300=900 lights) are up, the house is looking pretty good but I am not satisfied. A glass of wine later and I am back on the roof.
Now, we live in a split rancher. What that means is that our house is built into a hillside. The front of the house is 1 story tall. The sides and back are two stories tall but the hill continues downward giving the illusion that from the roof you are about 9 meters above the ground. Of course I started taking down the gutters years ago so while we still have gutters on the front of the house, the back has no gutters so the dark roof just blends nicely with the blackness of the night. One big lesson of the night is that as you back up on a roof, even if you are sitting on it, you are not necessarily backing up in a straight line and that vast emptiness you feel under your toes isn’t roof.
Now, running the next 3 strands of lights is a little more heart pounding and shortly after getting over the peak of the roof I hear a disturbing noise as if I were sliding down the roof just before dropping into the great abyss. But I am not moving so I quickly turn my head to see what I might have knocked down the roof. My eyes are just in time to see this gray blur of fur leap from the roof, missing anything resembling a branch, and get absorbed into the blackness. Seconds later I hear a resounding thud and rustling of leaves as the thing hits the ground. Apparently I scared the holy sh*t out of one of the squirrels living in our attic. I have to admit, I almost laughed myself off the roof as I watched it propel itself into nothingness. I have seen squirrels fall from trees, shake their head and run off; I am sure this one will be back in the attic shortly.
Did I mention that I only swept leaves from the front half of the roof. Man leaves are slippery! Being on the roof at night was very enlightening. I was able to listen to something large and not domesticated tromp through our backyard. The crisp air was exhilirating!
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Molly does not have cancer
Molly had to go to the pet ER and vet while Noah and I camped in the Smokies. We just heard yesterday that she is ok! The vet feared cancer but it turned out to be an inverted papilloma (that’s a great link!) I am very relieved!
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E-mail drudgery
I don’t wanna but I gotta. Time to wade through the spam.
Why do I hate email?
- Spam wastes my life.
- I find important things that got overlooked because of spam.
- There will always be something cranky or negative from somebody.
- Email almost always generates work–often non-billable.
- I hate spam
Gmail: 416 unread; started at 3:16pm; finished 3:24pm
Personal account: 253 unread; started at –interrpted for voicemail and phone calls– -
Negotiating with Monday
Monday has held me hostage for the last time! Obviously Monday and I have different agendas. Different goals in life. Different, deeply rooted philosophies. Monday and I simply cannot co-exist. One of us has to change. I have tried to compromise with Monday explaining that Monday would better fit between Friday and Saturday but Monday will hear nothing of it. I tried being compassionate and empathetic and asked Monday what it wanted but all I got in return was a terse, "deal with it like everyone else." I got authoritarian and declared, "this is how it is going to be" only to have Monday laugh in my face and show me that Monday is bigger than me. I tried playing along by starting early and running late but I found out tha Monday does not sleep nor slow down. I can’t beat Monday and we cannot get alone. There is only one thing to do and that is: hate Monday! (and just get as much done as I can and be happy with that…)
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Conflicted
My wife is sick today and I feel like I should be working upstairs to help watch Evan and keep him from jumping on her. However, my work today demands that I be on the computer downstairs. I hate this feeling.
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From the mouths of babes
Cathy sends text message: "Fighting nausea"
Doug sprints upstairs: "Are you pregnant?!" -
From the mouths of babes
This one comes second hand because I was in the store.
Dad: Pulls up to liquor store and goes in. Eggnog sometimes needs rum.
Well now, I guess the school, the church, and the grandparents have done their job. Apparently Tommy thinks that by being near the bottle, he’ll catch drunkedness or something.
Tommy: "Why are we at a wine store!"
Mom: —I don’t know her reply—
Tommy: "You better keep that stuff downstairs!" -
Inadequate Dad
I love taking my daughter to pre-school. She bounces and sings and laughs on the way to school. She sometimes cheers as the building comes into sight. This morning she declared how beautiful her lunch box was. I am glad she likes it. I am glad she is happy. I find her beautiful. Today the teachers commented on her wonderful hair and that they thought it had grown over the Thanksgiving holiday. Indeed, it looks longer. I am prideful when others say how cute Amy is. I love her face.
I feel sad though as I look at her happiness and innocence knowing that our jaded society lurks in the not too distant future waiting to rob her of that joy and turn innocence into scorn. I cannot protect her from the vast negativity, hate and politics that seem to seep into our lives. Even this morning I found myself having to pander to someone’s political play where none was needed; unnecessary tension.
I hope she never loses her smile. I hope remains so happy.
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Highlight of the weekend
It was a glorious holiday extended weekend. We gave thanks and ate well with family. I worked in a productive workday albeit came across as a crank pot to my wife. We met with The Claus. Celebrated a parting. Put up our Christmas tree and decorations (neglecting the missing outside lights…now where did I put those things?). Completed a difficult and long overdue phase of one of my many home improvement projects. Majorly cleaned a room.
If I had to pick a single moment to highlight, I would pick causing a friend spew his beer and have to excuse himself from the table. What a good weekend!
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Sometimes we need space
I haven’t sent any emails…
Please! Stop with the emails! [Source]
And my friend wants to be left alone…
Now go expend your energies where they will do good… [Source]
I still wish I knew what was going on and how I could reach out. I just hope she doesn’t quit blogging or coming to activites around town.
I’m done. [Source]
Update:
I am writing elsewhere though. [Source]
That is good.
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No Muse
I have had difficulty writing this past week. I think the things I want to write about are too personal, too embarrassing or will draw too much criticism. Some people do understand.
"You guys are really happy together. You struggle to make ends meet, but you just love each other so much, you make it through the tough stuff. You’re gonna be fine." [Source]
Of course, AT has shown how to write personally and deeply without concern. I think many of us are asking if we could possibly live up to the tribute that AT created for Barbara Jamie Bearden Kilpatrick (aka GoldenAppleCorp, GAC). The wake was exceptional. I am impressed with how well AT is handling himself. He even caught me off guard last night by asking about and expressing concern for Molly. We can all learn something from AT. Composure. Love. Tribute. How to face adversity. And the fact that I need to go before my wife so that so that I don’t hear "well Doug, that was good and I know you loved Cathy but geez, didn’t you see how AT did it?"
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What is programming?
In essense, a client presents a challenge and I solve the problem.
Today’s challenge: a custom ordering system (shopping cart) written in ColdFusion is producing the wrong totals.
The system design: tax is built into the price of the items stored in the database except for certain non-taxable items. A flag indicates if an item has tax built into the price or not. At the bottom of the invoice, the amount of tax charged is shown.
The problem: The system allows for the administrator to apply a discount. Tax cannot be discounted but the total tax shown on the invoice is calculated off the discounted price.How do you solve this kind of problem? I use my tools available to me. I could just jump into the code and start changing it but I can do a better job and document my efforts by using MS Excel and MS Word to help solve the problem.
- I pull up the sample invoice that the client used to show the incorrect figures.
- I reproduce the invoice in Excel.
- I open the database (in this case with MS Access) and find the products listed on the invoice so that I can be certain which items are taxed and which are not.
- I manipulate the spreadsheet to assure that I am using the correct math formulas to get the correct result.
- Find the code within the system that calculates the tax and change it to use the new formula for presentation.
Update: I think perhaps the end of this post was lost…