Month: April 2010

An Intro to Fishing

For whatever reason, the boy has been fixated on fishing this week. First he asked me if we had a fishing pole. We do- I was gifted one many moons ago.

Could he use it to catch fish?

No. He can’t. There is no hook on it, nor any fishing line.

Can we put that stuff on it?

Probably. I’d have to go and buy it somewhere.

Can we go get it the stuff so that we he can use the fishing pole to catch a fish? He wants to catch a fish. He’s sure he can be patient enough to catch a fish. How do you catch a fish? How do you hold it? Does the fish die when you catch it? How do you get the hook out of it’s mouth? Do all fish have teeth? Why do only some fish have teeth? Do fish bite? Does it hurt when a fish bites? How do you hold the fish so it won’t bite you ’cause it’s slippery? Can we eat the fish after he catches it? He doesn’t want to eat the fish- he’ll just keep is as a pet. I don’t have to worry, he’ll take care of it. How do you take care of a fish?

Can we go to get the stuff to catch a fish?

Family

Name That Song

The boy sang the following in the car on the way home:

Threader shocker,

Threader shocker,

Door may move,

Door may move,

Sunny lay martina,

Sunny lay martina,

Ding, Dang, Dong

Ding, Dang, Dong

I wish I could make that up.

Also, the kids had the following conversation:

the lass (in exaggerated, whiny tone): Mommmmaaa, I’mmmm thirrrrrsteeeeee….

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the lass: THAT’S ANNOYING!

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the lass: THAT’S ANNOYING!

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the lass: THAT’S ANNOYING!

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the lass: THAT’S ANNOYING!

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the lass: THAT’S ANNOYING!

the boy: Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

That’s actually the abbreviated version, lest ye think I exagerrate.

Football

Roethlisberger Suspended

Good.

I had doubts about whether Goodell would really crack down on him in this case. He largely proved me wrong. I’d have preferred an 8 game suspension. I also think the “good behavior” aspect of the punishment gives it less sting. Still, Roethlisberger hasn’t been convicted of any crime- yet the commissioner still chose to act. Not an insignificant precedent to set.

I guess it’s inevitable that in a league where athletic ability is prized above social maturity, there will be Roethlisbergers. It just means that the league has a responsibility to act as parent and discipline the child to make sure he learns what is acceptable behavior. The league did the right thing.

Hopefully, Roethlisberger learns the right lessons.

Computers

Going Backwards

The current window manager I’m using, awesome, is a fork off another window manager named dwm- dynamic window manager. It’s supposed to be smaller and faster than most WM’s. I felt like awesome was becoming sluggish with some of the recent changes. Most noticably on my EEE.

So, I’ve decided to go backwards a second time and try dwm on my EEE for a bit. So far, the most interesting exercise was converting the mercurial repository to a git repository. Fortunately, there’s hg-fast-export which was easy enough to get and use. I didn’t want to get cluttered up learning another DVCS, this saved me from having to do that.

My dwm impressions later.

Tags Awesome, dwm, EEE, hg-fast-export, window manager

Family

Opening Day

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 25, 2010
1 Comment on Opening Day

We left around 9 for the field yesterday. Since the festivities were supposed to start at 9:30, I figured we’d be lucky if we could park near the field. Apparently, the start time is more in the “when-everyone-has-shown-up” category and it didn’t start until 10 or so.

Opening ceremonies consisted of introducing all the teams and the coaches. The most interesting thing, from my perspective, was the late addition of myself as a coach on the boy’s team. Guess that’s what I get for helping out.

The T-ball games took about 15 minutes each. Each team got to bat once. Each kid got to bat once. Getting them to run the bases was a challenge. Getting them to shag the balls that were hit was a treat. Several kids figured they could play offense and defense. They ran the base path and then chased after the ball that was hit. Good entertainment.

The boy was convinced his team had won. We certainly don’t have to worry about his competitiveness. Hopefully I can teach him to rein it in.

That was it. We were all done before noon.

Family

Don’t Go There

More in the amusing story genre actually. The Wife wanted the kids to go outside and play today. They drug their feet. So the Wife started counting.

She got to 3, and the kids both started scrambling to get out the door. The lass was the first to the door and she wasn’t moving fast enough to suit the boy’s taste. So he pushed her out, at which point the following exchange occurred:

the lass: HEY!! Why did you push ME?!?

the boy: Because I didn’t want Mom to get to ‘4’!

Football

Tebow

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 25, 2010
No Comments on Tebow

The Broncos drafted Tebow as a quarterback. That’s what they’re saying. That will be a disappointing pick. He was a good college QB because for 4 years he had superior talent around him. His receivers were faster and his running backs were better than the defenses they played against. The SEC championship game showed that when they finally ran into a team that could match their talent level. He’ll linger in the league, but not as a QB.

Donovan McNabb to the Redskins is interesting. The Eagles got worse for the next few years and McNabb likely shortened the remainder of his career by a year or two.

Computers

Respect My Authoritah!

For those interested in being their own certificate authority, as opposed to self-signed certificates, this site is a fantastic resource. I used it a year ago to setup certificates for my mail server and I used it again today to update the certificates.

Definitely worth a read through.

Misc

French Toast!

Proof positive that anything can be made funny.

Family

Thunder and Lightening

We had a small t-storm go through today. The boy is still intimidated, but not as panic-stricken. The lass is trying to convince herself that she’s afraid of thunder. Mostly because she wants someone to hold her. The Wife and I don’t buy it though.

Family

T-Ball- The Adventure Begins

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 22, 2010
No Comments on T-Ball- The Adventure Begins

Long day yesterday.

It started with the kids arguing about who gets to watch what cartoon. Followed by a trip to the vet for dog number 2. He’s touch excitable about these things, and whines incessantly. The silver lining is that he exhausts himself and eventually calms down and takes on the appearance of a respectable member of the canine species at that point. Until then, my ears hurt.

Family

The Kids Return

The kids returned home triumphantly today from their Grandparents. Cymbals crashed and horns blared as we drove down the driveway…

And then the pink monkeys flew out of my butt.

The boy’s balloon popped. Apparently, this wasn’t any old balloon. This balloon was his most treasured item ever. The one thing he had spent his 5 years on this earth wishing for. It completed his life.

Thus, when it popped, he cried. He cried while he brought it’s airless corpse up into his room. He cried while he finished unpacking all the stuff he brought to the Grandparents. He cried when he put on his pajamas. He cried harder when he threw it into the trash. He cried while he brushed his teeth. He continued crying after we kissed him goodnight.

The lass decided, seeing that the boy had already taken that act, opted for the little angel routine. She chirped and flitted about taking care of all her stuff. Brushing her teeth, examining all the work the Wife and I had done in the bedroom were all done with the utmost perkiness and cooperation. She climbed into bed without a complaint.

Life returns to normal.

Misc

Reality Check

Two things I’ll note from the weekend. First, while eating out on Sunday morning I was referred to as the “jacka$$ in the cowboy hat” by an elderly patron of the joint. I quietly scanned the room, noting a guy in a baseball cap and a guy in a fedora. So the problem wasn’t just that I was wearing the hat indoors. He made some other comments as well, but they weren’t as clear.

Now, the guy was at least 80 and my guess is he was speaking in a way such that he thought he wasn’t loud. In other words he was unaware that his target had heard him. None the less, I chose not to say anything at the time. Mainly because I couldn’t come up with something suitably condescending but not too belligerent. Afterwards, a couple of lines came to mind, but it was too late. I wish I had quicker responses for stuff like that. I suppose I could have walked over, put my hat on his head and said “Howdy, jacka$$!” but that still seems belligerent. Oh well.

Computers Programming Python

uzbl and dmenu

I’ve been playing around with uzbl again and decided it was high time I tried out dmenu. What I’d read made it sound pretty slick, I was just leery of having to learn how to work with another application. Thankfully, dmenu is extremely easy to use. It isn’t available as a deb package, but the source is readily available. I built it with the vertical patch.

As practice I figured I’d rewrite one of the stock uzbl scripts as a python script. I chose the load_url_from_bookmarks.sh script since it was pretty easy for me to decipher. That’s not sayin’ much since my bash scripting foo is, well- ‘miserable’ is probably the right word.

The exercise proved valuable for a couple of reasons.

Tags dmenu, python, uzbl

Misc Woodworking

Post and Ye Shall Receive

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 16, 2010
No Comments on Post and Ye Shall Receive

I posted this a few days ago.

Today, look what shows up:

I wonder what else this works with?

Family

T-Ball- The Adventure Begins!

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 16, 2010
2 Comments on T-Ball- The Adventure Begins!

The boy starts his t-ball odyssey next Wednesday. Opening day is the following Saturday.

The last couple times, he taken to slamming his bat into the ground at the ball when his swing misses. He claims he doesn’t understand why he isn’t hitting ball because he’s “SWINGING AT THE BALL AT THE RIGHT TIME! BUT THE STUPID BALL DOESN’T GO ANYWHERE!” I don’t really believe he doesn’t understand. Also, he’s completely uninterested in playing catch- he just wants to practice batting.

I’m not afraid yet.

Just wary.

Very, wary.

Computers

More EEE Touchpad Nonsense

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 14, 2010
No Comments on More EEE Touchpad Nonsense

Oh for F!@#$%’s sake.

Another update to the xserver and my touchpad is broken. After googling for about 10 minutes, I come up with this thread from just a few days ago. Apparently udev configuration is out and the xorg.conf is back in.

This is definitely a weak point in open source stuff. Changes like this should be documented better or some kind of warning or explanation that current configuration techniques are about to be broken should be available.

I suppose this is what I get for using the ‘testing’ distro.

UPDATE:

Here’s the relevant section to add to xorg.conf:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier  "Synaptics"
    driver      "synaptics"
    MatchProduct    "ETPS/2"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event9"
    Option      "VertEdgeScroll"    "1"
    Option      "MaxSpeed"      "1"
    Option      "AccelFactor"       "0.05"
    Option      "TapButton1"        "1"
    Option      "TapButton2"        "2"
    Option      "TapButton3"        "3"
EndSection

See the InputClass section of the xorg.conf man page.

UPDATE II:

The two Match lines can be replaced with a MatchIsTouchpad "1" line. I don’t know if this is better or not- but it seems like it might be preferrable since InputClass sections are applied to anything that matches according to the man page. At least it’s limited to touchpads this way.

Tags debian, EEE, squeeze, synaptics, touchpad

Family

The Boy Rides Again

The latest outing ended in much calmer fashion: with the boy gliding to stop in front of the car. There were several tense moments. Including one where he got up from a little spill and blamed the grass, the acorns and the bike (in that order) for why he kept falling when he turned. He was adamant that it was “not his fault”.

Regardless, all’s well that ends well.

Politics

Convenience is not Freedom

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 12, 2010
No Comments on Convenience is not Freedom

Another post over at Professor Bainbridge’s place centers around the definition of freedom. More specifically, he takes issue with Bruce Bartlett and James Joyner regarding a Heritage Foundation paper that “downgraded” our freedom status and now rates the US as less free than places like Singapore and Hong Kong. Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Joyner skoff at the notion, while Prof. Bainbridge is more apt to take this downgrade as a warning about our future.

In a political context, whenever the word “freedom” comes up, a quote from a high school English teacher comes to mind: