Reality Me

Category: Daily Life

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

  • From the mouths of babes

    iPhone: *barrrring bringg*
    Amy, 8 years old: "What’s our family’s email address?"
    Me: "Um. What do you need it for?"
    Amy: "I want to comment on videos on Youtube."
    Me: "Uh. We need to talk…"

  • Knoxville STEM School Excites Students

    The student/parent orientation and final tour of the STEM school before major renovation begins was this week. Noah received his official acceptance letter and will be one of 43 students in the sophomore class. A graduating class of 43! My graduating class from Germantown High School in 1988 was 672 people. I can only imagine how unique and special Noah’s education will be. The orientation was akin to a family reunion. Everyone seemed to know each other and be very like minded with regard to the goals of education. The principal is extremely enthusiastic. I have high hopes and think the Knoxville STEM Academy will do great! Oh, one of the highlights was the announcement that all students will be issued an iPad 2. There will be no textbooks. I’m thrilled and I’m thrilled for Noah.

    Video source: WBIR.

  • Heard in 5 states!

    What was I doing this morning between 9am and 10am? Hanging out with Bob Thomas, Ed Brantley, Mike Howard, and Brian Hornback on WNOX‘s The Ed and Bob Show! I had a blast! I hope they do this segment again. I think we could have talked for 8 hours on various blogging topics. Shoot, privacy and safety could be an entire show.

  • Where’s the Jeep?!

    JeepI wish Clara Peller was still around to narrate this post for me. She could squawk out, "Where’s the Jeep?" See, last night was the parent and student orientation for Knoxville’s newest high school, the STEM Academy and my 14 year old son will be attending in the fall as a sophomore. With a household of seven, mobilizing our crew is no simple matter and when the plans get changed at the last minute, anything goes. Last night the plan changed to me staying at my client’s office and the family picking me up for the orientation. The STEM school orientation was incredible. The principal is so enthusiastic and everything about the school fits into my vision of the future of our education down to the students being assigned iPad 2’s! The gathering was like a reunion. So many familiar faces showed that it felt like family and the school hasn’t even opened. But that’s for another post. Where’s the Jeep? Well, we left so excited (and with a 5 and 8 year old up past bedtimes) that we just drove home. Muscle memory steered the van, not logic. And the sad, forgotten Jeep stayed somewhere overnight in its lonely parking spot, leaving me this morning with but one question…how do I get to my client’s office today?!

    n.b. The Neon has an engine that goes cachug kachug cachug right now and expired tags so it’s not an option. Taking the van strands Cathy at home.

  • Monday

    Oh Monday…

    • can’t find parking pass
    • tags on Jeep expired
    • shoe rubbing heel raw
    • fingers cut to pieces from shingling in the dark
    • iPhone feels dirty since I haven’t been able to restore it from its latest backup
    • one eye itching and watery…no, Spriiiing
    • head filled with smog
    • today needs to be my administrative day where I just deal with the bureaucracy in my life
    • the lights are too bright
    • Rain coming and the roof ridge on the club house needs 2 hours or so.
    • still no toilet in the upstairs bathroom although progress was made on drywall
    • client obligations weighing heavy on my mind

  • Computer Lesson of the Day

    If you find yourself asking, "I wonder how hot that heat sink is?" use an infrared thermometer not your fingers! If you do use your fingers, it leaves neato yet painful parallel grayish lines on your fingers.

  • Dogboarding

    So wrong, yet so right.

    Dogboarding from DANIELS on Vimeo.

  • What does a teenage girl do to a car?

    Or maybe the question should be "what doesn’t a teenage girl do to a car?" Because the answer would be "maintenance."

    Today the inside of the Jeep was drenched. I look at the Neon parked in the driveway and recognize that I have not inspected it in quite some time. My simple instruction to the teenage driver was "Make sure it has oil and tell me when any problems arise." I once drove it an eon ago to find that the speedometer worked…sometimes. So this teenage driver was guessing how fast she was going. How she avoided tickets was beyond me. With a little research, I learned it was a common problem among the Dodge Neon’s and the fix was to remove the instrument panel and resolder the connections. She claims to have had no problems with the speedometer after that but the fact she never told me about it in the first place should have been a clue about how future problems would be addressed (er, ignored).

    First thing I noticed this morning? No oil! 2nd? Check engine light. The inside of the car is filthy. The trunk/boot is full of what appears to be half Goodwill, a quarter stuff sent home from the grandparents, and 1/4 teen’s stuff. A positive! The tires look great. A negative. The transmission slips (you’d think she’d mention that one). Oh, and the windshield wipers are worthless. But it did perform well on the Interstate.

    I suppose if I were a better father, she and I would have spent many a weekend together performing maintenance on the car. Teen driver 2 approaches so I’ll have a chance to do better.

    Update 29-March: Changed the oil today. Discovered the transmission had no fluid whatsoever. Not even sure how the car was moving.

  • The vicarious busker

    In the middle of 1993, I decided to spend three months in the dance studios of the upper floors of Knoxville’s Candy Factory practicing my dance, pantomime, comedy and choreographing my juggling routines in preparation to hike Europe while living off the rewards of my busking. I had successfully busked the corner of Jackson Avenue and Central on the corner of Manhattan’s for 12 weeks every Friday and Saturday night making at least $50 a night sometimes working as little as two hours which was better than the tips I made on a full shift waiting tables at Shoney’s plus someone usually bought me a beer or two. My "success" in Knoxville along with the encouragement of a friend who had eight years experience juggling for money (2 on the streets, 6 on the cruise line/college circuits) left me confident that I would eat well, pay my bills, and stay in nice hotels and if that didn’t work out my friend had advised me on how to sleep under a bush without getting arrested or having equipment stolen.

    By the end of 1993, I was making $13000 a year working 70 hours a week with 4 other smelly guys in a tiny, cramped motel room which had been converted to a software development office with desks made out of doors on filing cabinets. The shower doubled as storage and a sound room for recording audio. Another room was reserved for artists, one for customer service, and two for packaging and shipping.

    My European ship sailed and I now live vicariously through the videos of buskers such as Street Show Keith.

    Street Show Keith from StopDropAndRoll Inc. on Vimeo.

  • Word of the Day

    Blindsided

  • From the mouths of babes

    Me: "Whoa!"
    Amy: "What was that?"
    Me: "I almost fell off the roof."
    Amy, calmly: "Well, that wouldn’t be good. We don’t want a broken finger AND a broken leg."

  • Upgrading my dev server

    As a web application developer, I have a development server in the house. It’s been running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS…let’s be straight..Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 converted to also be a server and highly customized. Last night, I boldly decided to upgrade directly from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubunto 10.04 LTS. My original plan had been to bring in new hardware and create an entirely new server from scratch. Here’s hoping this goes well. Hold onto your socks!

    Update: This went without a hitch.

  • From the mouths of babes

    Evan, 5 years old, has religious debate: "It’s kinda weird."
    Amy, 8 years old: "What do you mean?"
    Evan: "Well, Jesus. How did he create himself?"

  • My Family Needs a Bus

    Volkswagen is bringing back the microbus!

    It’s powered by an electric motor and uses an iPad to control the entertainment system, climate control and other functions. Volkswagen said the Bulli can go up to 186.4 miles on a single battery charge. That’s far, considering that the Nissan Leaf is rated at 73 miles on a charge by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Bulli can go up to 87 miles per hour.

    [Source, MSNBC, Hippies rejoice! VW unveils new version of microbus]

  • Don’t steal…ask for help.

    Last night I learned that someone drove through our neighborhood between 1am and 3am Sunday night/Monday morning looking in people’s cars and stealing easy to grab stuff. For instance, two neighbors both had left wallets on the dashboard and are now sans wallet. One lost a camera but other obvious grabs like checkbooks and radios were left alone.

    This is the first I’ve heard of any incident like this since I moved to the house in 1997. It feels like a dry run so I’ve notified the Sheriff and put the neighborhood on a property watch. I hope the crooks don’t return. I’ve got good neighbors. Several are good ol’ boys in the neighborhood would are watching now and we do live in the county.