A month and a half into the school year and it is time to replace a backpack. Any guesses as to which child’s backpack just had a shoulder strap break?
Blog
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Killer Stress
Stress will make my life shorter.
I woke this morning feeling hung over but I didn’t have anything to drink. For that matter, I had a decent amount of sleep, slept like a rock, and had ultra vivid dreams. I know getting a handle on my stress is essential. The side effects of stress that I’m experiencing are increased absentmindedness, memory loss (rather recall issues..I believe the memories are there but the ability to draw them out is hindered by stress), sore muscles, headache, blurred vision, and exhaustion.
I want to live a long stress-free life. Time to get back to Quad II.
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Sometimes I hate computers
I spent some of this weekend making the final transition back to my desktop so that I could give Tommy full custody of his laptop back. Of course, before I gave it back, one of the dogs knocked the laptop off my desk breaking one of the keys. Fortunately there was no other damage. Saturday Sarah’s Palm Centro died. Unfortunately it is out of warranty and after 2 hours on the phone, AT&T declared it a hardware issue. My phone has turned flaky as all get out randomly turning itself off even in the middle of a phone call. Then the icing on the cake, this morning my desktop computer quit recognizing the new hard drive. I wonder if Denso is hiring. I think I could handle a union, an assembly and a repetitive task.
Update: Just to keep the day interesting, we brought a plant in from the porch in anticipation of tonight’s cold weather, placed the plant in the bathroom, Cathy got into the bath, then the yellow jackets started emerging from the plant’s soil.
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We need a single payer option
Health care reform is essential in this country. People are dying so that other people can put dollars in their wallets. That is wrong.
Kimberly Young, vibrant 22-year-old who was working at least two jobs in Oxford after graduating with a double major in December 2008, became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost. "That’s the most tragic part about it. If she had insurance, she would have gone to the doctor," Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate, said. [Source, Crooks and Liars, R.I.P. Kimi Young, 22, Another Casualty of Our For-Profit Deathcare System.]
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Of Being Dad – TP
The center of the Toilet Paper roll is filled with Tooth Paste. I should mention that between basic needs, the fun of simply spinning it off the roll, making mummies, and doubling as dog chew toys, we use a bunch of toilet paper. Second to food, toilet paper is given the highest priority in this house. Rethining that, I might allow us to run out of food before I would ever dare to run out of toilet paper. To have the toilet paper roll flopping around on the holder like a flat tire on a car and simultaneously smelling bubble gum (flavor tooth paste like bubble gum and children brush more) was a little unexpected first thing in the morning. This is the joy of parenting and, no, tooth paste in the toilet paper was not in the manual.
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I need a new editor
For most of the past decade I have coded using CFStudio 5. It is a fantastic editor that was bought by Allaire from another company under the name Homesite. CFStudio was a more robust version of Homesite. Eventually CFStudio was abandoned which probably had something to do with Macromedia buying Allaire and wanting to promote Dreamweaver as their preferred editor. Now that Adobe owns Allaire/Macromedia, CFStudio has been reborn as Homesite+ and Dreamweaver still exists.
When my computer crashed, I found myself reinstalling everything. Yes, the computer is back up. It is running Windows XP and has a 500 GB hard drive. I can finally download all the podcasts I want! It also begs the question of whether or not I am using the best IDE for my purposes. I am not an eclipse fan. I see the potential and I really want eclipse to be a good solution but I’ve had too many bad experiences with it. For the past several weeks I have been coding in Notepad++ and although the compare plugin rocks the editor itself is really just an editor and I need an IDE.
Suggestions? IDE should accommodate PHP, ColdFusion, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
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Good people abound
My neighbor fell this morning while I was ordering two sausage biscuits at the Rocky Hill McDonald’s. After getting the call, I rushed home leaving the food I’d paid for on the grill. My wife was already attending to my neighbor. She
had a broken rib andwas feeling very bad. When the paramedics arrived, without slowing down, they smiled and waved to Evan. The postman took a moment to inquire about her condition showing sympathy. I returned to McDonald’s assuming I’d have to settle for getting Cathy some fries instead of biscuits. As I walked in, the manager hollered, "He’s back!" An employee said she was cooking me some fresh biscuits even though breakfast hours were clearly over. Another employee offered me coffee and everyone asked about the neighbor. I can only assume they overheard my phone conversation. No one asked about political parties, believe systems, or views on health care reform. Everyone showed genuine concern. When we have differences with people, or experience a "bad" person, I think we should not let that person taint our view into believing all people or the majority of people are the same; acknowledge that we don’t fully understand that person and should strive to know them better; and know that ultimately, all things aside, it takes a community, and we will look after one another.Update: Good news! They are back from the hospital and nothing is broken. My wife feels guilty for calling 911.
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Grouping
As I get closer to turning 40, I find myself compelled to answer more surveys so that I can check the 35-39 box as much as possible.