Reality Me

Have a peek.

…because the kids are excited to be off to school.

It appears I missed my happy thought yesterday. I wonder if not looking for a happy thought contributed to how unhappy I was yesterday.

My brother and sister-in-law have posted pictures from their visit including great shots from the horse show.

Tommy is off to school. 

Tommy’s bus arrives at 7:10am. Last year the bus and Tommy were very much in sync. As the year went on Tommy would be more and more difficult to wake giving himself less time to prepare. Often he would go to school without breakfast. We tried sending him with a poptart on the bus but it seemed like too much of a reward plus he makes such a mess that he’d have food all over him, his face and the bus. Ironically as his wake time became later and later so did the arrival time of the bus eventually moving from 7:10 to 8:00.

Noah’s bus arrives at 7:22am. I spent 3 years fighting to get the bus off of Northshore Drive, a busy 45mph road frequently traveled at much higher speeds. Last year the street sign marking their offical bus stop was knocked down by an out of control driver. The stop sat just over the peak of a hill and at a blind corner, most blocked by overgrown honey suckle, where cars zip into the neighborhood.

Noah is off to school. 

Last year the bus driver, a kind older gentleman, agreed to turn into the neighborhood and pick the kids up at a much safer intersection. Upon his retirement halfway through the year the battle ensued again with a young punk driver writing me up as a "belligerent parent." Several heated phone calls and two days later a new driver was picking our children up at the safe intersection. I am happy to report that this year it is listed as the official pickup with Northshore as the official dropoff which is fine by me since the door opens to toward the neighborhood. The Northshore pickup originally had them crossing in front of cars and the bus to load.

In the past years other issues with this bus had been eratic pickup times and sometimes ignoring the stop all together. Officially the bus can be 15 minutes on either side of the noted pickup time. At one point this bus arrived as early as 7am and as late as 8am. Schools starts at 7:45am.

This year the bus arrived on time and at the right stop! Here’s hoping for a hassle free school year!

Sarah is off to school. 

Last year was Sarah’s first year in middle school. Her stop was across Northshore, so I thought. I was bothered by her crossing Northshore but at first I would take Noah and her to Noah’s bus stop where I was watch over the elementary students. Her official bus time was the same 7:22 as Noah’s and since I could not be in two places at once I would let her walk up the block, cross Northshore and wait for her bus.

Over time I became uncomfortable with her crossing that busy road so I changed my route and would drive Sarah to her bus stop and drop her off. I’d then take Noah to his stop and stand watch over the elementary students. Soon another parent joined the watch.

Stories surfaced that a white pickup truck was cruising Northshore trying to pickup middle school girls a few miles from Sarah’s stop. I left the watch of the elementary stop to the other parents and have changed to being at Sarah’s stop. Occasionally I let her walk. Oh, I learned that her official stop is on our side of Northshore but all the kids like to gather together on the other side. The stop is down to Sarah and one other friend and I’m sure my presence has nothing to do with that.

Battle over. I started to help Amy. I put one thing in; she put in two. The neighbor was walking her dogs and Amy said, “I want to pet the puppies.” I told her that she could after the mess was cleaned up and she scooped up the clothes in 20 seconds flat. 

• Fight with a toddler.
• Clean desk.
• Reconcile accounts that have not been reconciled in 5 years.
• Phone interview.
• Install TurboTax for 2002.
• Make a business a website for free.
• Make another business a website for free.
• Write a specification.
• Make a low dollar website.
• Work on the house.
• Sales calls.
• Work on my own websites.
• Pull $2500 from thin air.

Ham 

So here I sit. Unable to go to my computer and work for need to stand guard over a bawling toddler. There she stands. Night gown pulled over her face as she forces tears, sniffles and sobs. Why do we do this? Because I came home from taking two of the children to their bus stops to find that Cathy and Evan had returned to bed while Amy woke and dumped clean clothes from the folding basket to the floor.

Angry. 

She’s gone silent. That means she is trying to sneak away from her responsibility. Responsibility at three?! Yes. All she had to do is pick up the clothing from the floor and put it back in the basket. What will power!

We are in a stand-off. If I help her am I teaching the wrong lesson? I certainly cannot let her go without picking up any clothing. She cannot have her cartoons.

For you privacy buffs out there and for those of you that don’t think our government is acting like Big Brother, have a read of this Williamette Weekly article. It’s four pages long with some redundancy but worth the time. If you find yourself starting to bail, skip to the concluding paragraphs on page 4.

Portland’s top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage–so we grabbed theirs.

I’ve updated my template store at SIDesigns.com. So if you want a new look for your website or blog have a gander at the templates. You can also sign up as an affiliate.

Touch the puppet head

Ever wonder what the back of a smilie looks like? 🙂

Student: I have more than I can possibly do.
Master: Do what you must.

So I had this somewhat embarrassing email for which I was very thankul. I used to write very properly. I was one of those human dictionaries that could pop out a correct spelling of a word I’d never used. Create whatever reason you want – age, laziness, too much in my mind, whatever – my spelling and grammar have deteriorated. My resume has a line that reads:

· Writing: Well written, exceptional grammar, technical writing skills

And then it is followed with this line:

· Organizational: very spatial oriented, structured, can work equally well with hierarchical or abstract concepts and organization, 5 years practical experience in Software Quality Assurance and associated training compliment organizational skills

I keep my resume at the Perfect Job. It needs updating badly. Now I’ve always been hardnosed when evaluating candidates’ resumes for proper spelling and well formed sentences so I was quite surprised when someone took the time to send an email pointing out my horrid error of using "compliment" when I obviously meant "complement." I wonder how many times this was noticed and not mentioned.

I spent the entire day and evening trying to install Apache 2, PHP 4.4.0, and MySQL 3.23 on my workstation. I’m mentally fatigued. I succeeded in installing Apache 2 and PHP 4 but my installation of MySQL 3.23 is not cooperating. I’ve thrown in the towel but this has been a gratis day when I need to be maximizing my returns.

I basically followed this document and summarized it with:

STEP 1: Go to Start->Control Panels->Add/Remove Programs and Remove PHP 5 (do NOT remove Apache2).

STEP 2: Download PHP 4.4.0 from http://us3.php.net/get/php-4.4.0-Win32.zip/from/a/mirror ( you can get to that link from http://us3.php.net/downloads.php and choosing PHP Installer under Windows 4.4.0 binaries ) Use the ZIP package NOT the installer.exe.

STEP 3: Install PHP

STEP 3.1: Extract the files to C:\ This will create a folder called C:\php-4.4.0-Win32.

STEP 3.2: Rename the folder C:\php-4.4.0-Win32 to C:\PHP

STEP 3.3: Copy the file C:\PHP\php.ini-recommended file to your windows folder: c:\windows (might possibly be c:\winnt)

STEP 3.4: Rename C:\windows\php.ini-recommended to C:\windows\php.ini

STEP 3.5: Copy the file C:\PHP\php4ts.dll to your windows system folder. For XP and ME this is c:\windows\system32\

Now you have PHP 4.4.0 installed and Apache 2 installed. Next we will change some configurations.

STEP 4: Edit httpd.conf (find this file by going to Start->Program Files->Apache HTTP Server 2.0.54->Configure Apache Server->Edit the Apache httpd.conf Configuration File OR go to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\ and locate the file httpd.conf) to change the line that reads

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var

To be

DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm index.html.var

STEP 5: Open httpd.conf for editing. Find the section with references to “LoadModule” and after the last LoadModule line add

LoadModule php4_module “c:/PHP/sapi/php4apache2.dll”

STEP 6 Open httpd.conf for editing. Anywhere after the LoadModule line from STEP 6 add:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Next you will edit the php.ini file which contains setting that control the behavior of php.

STEP 7: Open php.ini for editing. This file should be in c:\windows\ and find the line that says

doc_root =

Change it to read

doc_root = C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs

Now we will test.

STEP 8: Open Internet Explorer or Firefox (or browser of choice) and go to http://localhost/html/phpinfo.php If you see a screen that shows the php version and lots of variables then you have successfully installed the apache web server and PHP.

Next you will install the MySQL database server.

STEP 9: Get MySQL 3.23 (Note: The production server uses MySQL 3.23.39 which is why we aren’t using 4.1) from http://downloads.mysql.com/archives/mysql-3.23/mysql-3.23.58-win.zip saving it to a temporary location.

STEP 10: Unzip mysql-3.23.58-win.zip

STEP 11: Run setup.exe choosing the Typical installation.

STEP 12: Run C:\mysql\bin\winmysqladmin.exe to set a username and password for accessing mysql (don’t forget these).

Author unknown. Thanks to Shae Leighland for publishing it.

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car
keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
The car isn’t washed.
The bills aren’t paid.
There is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter.
The flowers don’t have enough water.
There is still only one check in my checkbook.
I can’t find the remote.
I can’t find my glasses.
And I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I’m really tired.