"Murphy was an optimist!"
Just Breathe November 19, 2010 2:10 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Health, MentalEver since taking my breathing class at The Glowing Body, I have become acutely aware that much of my day is spent forgetting to breathe. That is, I tend to inhale far more than I exhale so when I finally have to relax and let the air out of my lungs I sound like a balloon with a slow leak. This also causes me to hold a great amount of tension and stress. I need Dory: "Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing."
add a commentTalking to your kids about Star Wars November 18, 2010 8:50 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Humor, VideoDon’t use underscores in css ids November 17, 2010 4:35 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : CSS, HTML, Programming, TechnologyToday’s reminder from your friendly neighborhood codeslinger is "don’t use underscores in css ids!" You know, those lines _ that programmers like to use instead of spaces in variable names (because you can’t really have spaces in a variable name in most languages). This was an illegal character in the original CSS1 and CSS2 specifications (updated in 2001 to be valid) so setting an id to foo_bar (e.g. <div id="foo_bar">) would be translated by the browser as foo\_bar (e.g. <div id="foo\_bar">), well, some browsers, not all browsers because you know browsers are so consistent in their interpretation and implementation of these so called web standards.
The solution? Instead of underscores, opt for dashes (e.g. <div id="foo-bar">) or camel case (e.g. <div id="FooBar">) but remember that id’s and class names are case-sensitive.
See also.
add a commentThe Megabus has Arrived in Knoxville! November 17, 2010 11:14 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Transportation, TravelWe recently took 5 of our 7 member family to Washington DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity. The round trip plan tickets were roughly $250 per person bringing just the airline cost to $1200. Had we brought the two older boys, the cost would have been $1700.
Knoxville now has a new travel service. Megabus! Tickets are on sale now and service starts December 15th. I just ran the cost of a trip identical to our flight to DC and it came to $27 for 7 people. That’s not $27 per person per way. That’s $27 round trip for the entire family! $7 from Knoxville to DC and $20 from DC to Knoxville. That’s a savings of $1670! The trip time doubles from 5 hours to 10 hours each direction but you don’t have to get naked, irradiated or groped to ride the bus. Plus the double-decker bus has free wifi for the entire trip! You could work or play the entire 10 hours.
Megabus.com is the first, low-cost, express bus service to offer city-to-city travel for as low as $1 via the Internet. Since launching in April 2006, megabus.com has served more than 4 million passengers throughout 28 major cities in the Midwest and Northeast.
Our luxury double deckers offer free wi-fi, panoramic windows and a green alternative way to travel. Meticulously maintained with professional drivers at the wheel, when you travel with us, you will be riding in comfort and confidence. We provide low-cost and reliable bus services serving 28 cities from two hubs at New York and Chicago. We offer the highest level of comfort and safety and look forward to serving you!
Imagine the possibilities! Date night in DC. Out of town Tweet up in DC (can your virtual friends stand you IRL for 20 hours?). Holiday shopping in New York City (adds 5 hours each way…30 hour round trip). Business meetings on the bus that culminate in a night on the town in DC. Oh, I’m excited!
See more at Knoxnews.com.
UPDATE: Look for more of these services in a town near you. Here’s Chinatown Bus covering the Northeast and New Century Travel which may just be a marketing site or affiliate of Chinatown Bus.
2commentsDC Universe Merges with Reality November 16, 2010 3:57 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Science, TechnologyThis sounds like the stuff of comic books but it’s real. Designer Bacteria Can Heal Cracks in Concrete Buildings
add a commentThe genetically modified microbe has been programmed to swim down fine cracks in concrete and once at the bottom it produces a mixture of calcium carbonate and a bacterial glue. This glue combines with the filamentous bacterial cells, ultimately hardening to the same strength as the surrounding concrete and essentially “knitting” the building back together. [Source, LiveScience, Designer Bacteria Can Heal Cracks in Concrete Buildings]
Of Grasshoppers November 12, 2010 2:51 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Grasshoppers, PhilosophyStudent: If you knew 30 years ago what you’d be today, would you make different decisions?
Master: If you knew today what you’d be tomorrow, would you make different decisions?
How did the snack tray go over? November 12, 2010 9:15 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family, Food, Health, Of Being DadNot terribly. Broccoli and tomatoes didn’t go over great. My children enjoyed the tray while the neighborhood kids raided their Halloween candy.
Future trays to include melons (thanks R. Neal see his comment), apples and cheeses.
add a commentEncouraging healthy snacking November 11, 2010 3:40 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family, Food, Health, Of Being DadThis is my latest attempt to encourage the children to snack well. Everyday they arrive home from school, the neighborhood kids come over, and the whole gang immediately starts raiding the pantries and fridge scouring like starving mice for sweets. My hopes are that having this tray readily available on the kitchen table will make nibbling easier and discouraging staring into the cabinets. It has already been met with skepticism.
Post will still come here… November 9, 2010 8:41 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Of Interest…but for more frequent, more relevant, better written, wittier writing, see Domestic Psychology.
add a commentJeep Top- $572, Being Told to Wait Until Summer- Priceless November 6, 2010 11:51 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Transportation, TravelIt’s 38°F/3.3°C right now. Conversion by OnlineConversion.com.
My 1995 Jeep Wrangler, purchased November 1994, has the original spice softtop on it. Well, what remains of that top. Some of it is held together with duct tape. The driver’s side window has the zipper completely ripped out and is held half closed with zip ties. I keep expecting to be driving down the road and have the top just disintegrate around me.
Why haven’t I replaced this horrible top yet? It’s not procrastination. There are some areas of my life that I may appear to be a spendthrift, but there are others that I’m just cheap (usually revolving around myself) and frankly, despite appearances, the 15 year old top still serves its purpose.
Yesterday I gave in and decided to see if I could pay someone to replace the top. He explained the replacement top would be $572 plus $150 labor to install it. The labor will require 2 hours of work by 2 people and an ambient temperature of 72°F/22.2°C. I wonder if a junk yard has a Jeep with a hard top sitting around somewhere…
add a commentPleased November 4, 2010 4:30 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily LifeI’m very happy that I finally installed the Posterous app on my iPhone.
add a commentDeep Thoughts November 4, 2010 4:25 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Deep Thoughts, PhilosophyThe shortest path isn’t always the right answer but often it is the correct path.
add a commentSeen on Reddit Regarding the Nov 2 Election Results November 3, 2010 9:43 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Politics, Touchy Subjects, United StatesAmerica is like the girl that keeps getting back together with that abusive moron everyone hates.
…but he’s going to be different this time, he swears!
[Source, Reddit, majikmixx]
The commenter who probably has it correct.
The GOP was supposed to sweep the demms and get some insane majority, they have the house but not the senate and it wasn’t a giant sweep in other contests. Furthermore the two parties as they are aren’t terribly different.
My prediction, more of the same shit we’ve seen for many years. If this is one of your first elections it might come as a shock but this is really how it’s been going. As long as Obama doesn’t fuck around with interns I think he’s still in good shape.
And the Dems will be back in control in two years because lets face it, things aren’t going to get better anytime soon. I’m not sure anyone can change that.
We shall see…I just hope they don’t succeed in making those Bush tax cuts permanent.
add a commentRally 4 Sanity – Thursday October 29, 2010 9:54 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family, Holiday, Of Being Dadaka National Lampoon’s The Doug’s Take Washington
Side note: Please Don’t Rob Me
n.b. Before I get started, allow me to counter the paranoid reaction of those who have bought into the media hype of sites like Please Rob Me.
- We computer geeks all recognized the potential for sharing sites like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp and similar sites to reveal too much information and present opportunities for people to rob you long before Please Rob Me was ever created
- Using these sites is too much work for a professional thief. A friend’s brother is a professional thief and he says he never robs on weekends (that’s when people are home) and that he simply calls the house and if no one answer he busts the door down.
- Most people leave for work by 7:30 in the morning. Professional thieves don’t need to Twitter and Facebook to know this. Yards without toys are more likely to have no one home during the day plus they tend to have nicer things.
- A drive through a neighborhood on trash day reveals who has purchased an HDTV, game system, or computer with less work than social media sites. Remember, to get the information, the thief would have to sift through tons of data.
- The people in the news using Facebook to rob others are almost always related to the victim in someway or another. Even prior to social media, vacation theft is often done by teen friends of the children.
All that said, many people also don’t realize that a simple call to the non-emergency number of the sheriff can initiate a property watch while on vacation. The sheriff asks for the types of cars that will be at the house and if any cars not on the list are there during one of the drive-bys they get questioned. I had to list the cars, make and model, of the house sitters that are staying at our house and watching over our dogs. That’s another one of those things that Please Rob Me fails to mention; social media announcements that someone is out of town does not mean that someone is not at their house.
I’m also fortunate to have good neighbors watching over the house and very lucky to have a right-wing conspiracy theory, Drudge Report reading, Obama is ruining the nation, revolution is just around the corner, gun nut neighbor who has 24/7 video cameras all around his house which capture everything entering or leaving the street. Last time some teenagers took a neighbors car joy riding, he just showed the police the video.
Enough said.
Pre-Launch
We are heading to the Rally for Sanity! Thursday started at midnight with me still on the computer trying to meet client expectations. Coffee is brewed and I’m ready to program through the night and sleep on the plane. Instead, Comcast turns off the Internet and the television for "scheduled maintenance" for fiber maintenance. Funny, I never had an announcement or warning about that. I call reveals that it will go on through the night but should be up at 6am. 9 hours later, almost to the second, the Internet returns and I’m at wits end. My attention turns to packing for me while Cathy finishes packing for 4 people and cleaning and making notes for the house sitters and for the grandparents and generally we are both frantic.
The Airport
Eventually, our crew is gathered and we head to the airport with Cathy twitching because we are half an hour behind schedule and still need to get gas. I try to check in electronically and am confused when Delta wants to charge us $23 a bag because I thought I read that 1 bag was included. I decide to check in at the airport and they clear up that 1 bag is not included and it is now $25 a bag. Lesson learned-ship your luggage with UPS. At the airport, I use the self-checkin kiosk to get checked in because it looks like self-checkin is now the only option. The printer prints our passes and we drop our luggage at the x-ray machine and head to the gate. As we approach security, I can only find boarding passes for Cathy and I. Maybe children are someone barcoded into ours but I have two and Cathy has one. A quick jaunt down to the Delta counter and a discussion with an employee reveals that I walked away from the kiosk without grabbing all the boarding passes. Apparently it paused in printing and I thought it was done.
Security
This will be Amy and Evan’s first airplane flight and they are beyond themselves with glee. We explain security to the children then proceed through. Of the five of us, the only one who gets hassled is the 5 year old. They did run my Scottevest twice which contacted an Energizer portable battery, a monocular, power cord for an iPhone, the iPhone itself, SkullCandy earbuds coiled in a bag, car keys, a bluetooth headset, a wallet and a change purse with coins but I think it was less about the items and more of a double-take. The TSA agent had this look on his face like "how many pockets?!"
The Launch
After a short wait at the gate, we board. The plane taxis and Amy and Evan watch out the windows with anticipation. As the plane accelerates, smiles widen and when it leaves the grown, the grins are ear to ear with eyes bugged out. The littlest are thrilled. The teen seemed anxious. And the mother was putting dents into the armrest with her fingers.
The cab
We had a brief layover in Cincinnati and another flight to DC. Once in DC, we hailed a cab and gave the directions that AAA had printed on the trip tik. As we approach the Lincoln Memorial, the driver accepts a call and has a conversation in Arabic. For some reason, this convinces Cathy that he is asking for directions but I am certain that he is taking us to the right place because it matches the directions on the trip tik. Turns out, AAA misprinted the address 3325 instead of 3525 and we get dropped off 3 blocks too early cementing in Cathy’s mind that my directions to the cabbie were bad which I suppose they were. Eventually our host was able to find us and later we walked from his house back to where the cabbie left us to accentuate how close we were.
DC
Our drive from the airport to the house shows Washington DC in beauty and diversity. We pass Watergate, the Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, Georgetown, Chinatown, and a place we are warned has racial conflict and lots of police. The architecture is varied from old to new but all of it beautiful. The shops look intriguing and I could spend months trying them all. I expect this will be a fantastic and sane trip!
add a commentMovibf Targets October 28, 2010 12:25 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Health, Mental, Of Being DadOne of those things that pushes me toward the brink of insanity is “shit that magically moves.” For instance, the two youngest have forms due on November 1. I prefer to do my accounting on Thursdays and was too busy the day I received the forms so I set them in an out of the way place where I’d be able to finish them this morning while the kids readied themselves for school. Of course, the forms are gone so I’m now faced with squeezing a trip into the elementary school today to go to the office with two checks ($9 and $18) and saying, “I have no idea who to endorse these to nor what they are for but they are due Monday.”
This is not an OCD thing. This is a “constantly off balance” thing. It’s one of the benefits that cone with marriage and children. Never again will you be able to find anything, particularly your tools. Supposedly this teaches you to take things in stride. The way my heart feels right now, I think it’s going to teach me how to self-administer an AED.
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