Author: Gerry

Categories
Family

The Boy Stands Up for a Friend

We didn’t find out about it from the boy though. We found out from the Mother of the boy’s friend, who wanted to email us because she was so happy with the what the boy did that she wanted to make sure we knew.

Apparently, his friend has been having some trouble with other kids, mostly consisting of name calling. In this particular instance, they were all playing a game together when a couple other kids started in on the boy’s friend. The boy told them to knock it off or they’d stop playing the game. That ended it.

It’s a strange combination of amusing and frustrating that we found out like this. We ask him about his school days everyday, and mostly we might Just as well be asking him questions about special relativity or imaginary numbers. Guess it just didn’t rate that, on one of those days we asked about, he’d stuck up for a friend. Even so, we’re not going to get too bent out of shape in this case.

For all the time spent correcting him here at the house and when we’re around, it’s still never a sure thing how they’ll behave when they’re on their own. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised.

Categories
Football

Guess We All Have to Wait ‘Til September

Supposedly, Peyton Manning finally demonstrated he can throw the football again today for John Elway and the Denver Broncos. And what’s more, it went well according to Elway.

BUT WAIT! Did he actually throw? There’s no tape to prove it, only the word of an NFL team official.

There’s always something brewing in the NFL.

Categories
Family

The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

When the kids were a bit younger (this seems a funny think to write, but a couple of years when they’re young makes a world of difference) I remember them learning to procrastinate around bedtime.

Back then, then weapons were endless questions while saying good night, extra hugs, whining about this or that, starting a conversation about the next day. I also remember thinking it would be nice when they got older an outgrew that stuff.

Well, here they are, a little older, and they are still procrastinators at bedtime. Except the weapons have changed. Now, they brush their teeth a little longer, they have to put on lotion, they have to put away laundry, they have to pick up dirty laundry, they have to clean up toys, they have to pull out clothes because they hate pulling out clothes in the morning.

Sigh

Maybe when they get a little older…

Categories
Misc

More Archery Reviews

Over at GeekDad, there’s another review of movie based archery technique and this time, it’s not so good. The movie is The Avengers and the character is Hawkeye, the world’s greatest archer (in the comics world that is) . Except that, according to the review, with is technique he isn’t so great after all.

An interesting read. I suspect if one were to read these sorts of reviews enough, one could glean most of the basics to being a decent archer. Also noteworthy are the lengths the author goes through to try and not tar the movie in the process of excoriating the archery.

I wonder what this guy thinks of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, Kevin Costner’s Prince of Thieves and Abigail in Blade: Trinity? Respectively, I’d guess fair (Legolas fires so many times, there’s sure to be some stinkers), good (the setup shots are pretty good, but the more fluid ones where he’s firing one after another probably not so much), and excellent, based on my reading of this one and the last couple of reviews the author has written.

Categories
Cub Scouts

Collections

Following is a slightly modified version of the meeting minutes I sent to the parents for our latest Cub Scout Den meeting. As usual, names have been removed.

To start things off, a few of the Scouts had completed a number of home assignments and earned a second Tracking bead on their way to earning their Wolf Badge. Following is a list of all the home assignments and the achievements they correspond to:

  • Healthy Habits Chart- Achievement 3a
  • Emergency Contacts- Achievement 4a
  • Family Fun- Achievement 10
  • Duty to God- Achievement 11
  • Making Choices- Achievement 12

In their notebooks we’d handed out earlier this year, their was a Healthy Habits chart as well as Emergency Contact worksheet to complete. I’ve also included some pdf’s of worksheets I made to help out with the other assignments.

There have also been a number of “lesser” home assignments related to things like chores, making their own breakfast, and doing the dishes.

After getting the administrative stuff out of the way, we played a little touch football outside to take advantage of the nice weather. All the Scouts enjoyed that. I played QB for both teams and miraculously, the game ended in a 6-6 tie (no extra points in touch football).

After that, the rest of the evening belonged to the Scouts. Everyone brought a collection to show and talk about for a few minutes. We got a chance to see Pokemon card collections, hockey card collections, a coin collection, a couple of rock collections, a crystal collection and a dinosaur collection. All the kids did a nice job of presenting and listening.

After last night, all of the Scouts have done enough to earn a 2nd tracking bead. Those Scouts who have also completed all the home assignments will have earned a 3rd tracking bead. With only 3 achievements remaining, I don’t see any problems with them earning their Wolf Badges this year.

Categories
Family

Life’s Slightly Weird Moments

We’ve been having trouble with the boy getting enough to eat. At least, that’s what we think. Not that he doesn’t eat well, but invariably when he comes home from school he is extremely bitter and irritable. Almost every time, having him eat a little bit when he gets home is enough to take the edge off and make him, well, tolerable anyway.

In an effort to get a little more protein into him, the Wife picked up some Chobani yogurt and Grape Nuts to see if he’d enjoy eating that. Now, he eats yogurt and likes oatmeal so it seemed plausible. When he tried it though, he quickly shook his head a said it was too bitter.

Since I’m the “Mikey” of our household, I ate the rest of the yogurt concoction. To my surprise, I found it sweet, not bitter (it was a peach flavored yogurt). I noted how sweet it was to the Wife and said I found it hard to believe he could find a problem with it. She basically gave me the “What do you want me to do?” response.

Shortly thereafter, while perusing the Intertubes, I came across this article from Popular Science and found enlightenment. In a nutshell, as we get older we lose taste buds so our sensitivity to taste goes down; kids, on the other hand, are particularly sensitive to bitter flavors which is a natural defense against eating poisons or toxins.

What are the odds of coming across an article on taste? Further, what are the odds on coming across that article after having an exchange involving that very topic?

Categories
Misc

Bummer for Encyclopedias

I’ve seen this at a couple of different sites. Encyclopedia Britannica is calling it quits, due to the Internet of course. It ran for 244 years and the 2010 edition will be the final one.

Another thing that the kids will never know what the hell it was. I can hear it now, “You mean people didn’t always look up everything on the Internet?”

Categories
Family

Contemplating Santa

Apparently, the big guy is never to far from the lass’ thoughts. Even when we’ve still got about 9 months (GASP!) until his next visit.

“Mom, how does Santa get rid all of the ash from the fireplace when he comes down the chimney? Does he just take a shower?” she asked this afternoon.

The Wife replied “Well, he takes a shower when he gets home because it’s hard work delivering all those toys.”

The lass soldiered on, “I bet I know how he gets all that ash out of his suit: He puts it in the laundry for, like, 2 hours.”

The Wife chuckled and agreed that would probably work to clean up his suit.

Not much existential questioning there. More like a logistical consideration: Santa obviously gets dirty from the fireplace, so how does he deal with it? Personally, I assumed that anyone who could come down a chimney when the fireplace is lit would have little trouble dealing with a little ash.

But that’s just me.

Categories
Armoire Woodworking

Meanwhile- Back in the Woodshop

I remember and engineering colleague of mine had a simple observation about projects: The longer it takes to complete, the more unlikely it will be completed.

I fighting like hell against that observation right now where this armoire project is concerned.

No big posts with pictures about what I managed this weekend. Rather, taking pictures and documented the actual work and design decisions will serve as incentive for me to actually get something meaningful done on the project.

But as a quick recap, when last I’d touched the wood out there I’d managed to complete and glue-up the sides of the cabinet, as well as gluing up the rear-panel, cutting the front and rear stretchers and gluing up the shelves for inside the cabinet. Then I injured my arm and that was that.

Until this weekend, where I managed to cut and install the shelf supports as well as finish sanding the shelves themselves. I also cut the shelves to their final size for when I actually assemble the cabinet. If I’d pushed things, I could have done some glue-up tonight, but I chose not to because I didn’t want to make a mistake I’d regret at this point. Perhaps this week I’ll get the cabinet assembled and glued up, complete with the shelving.

That leaves the doors as well as some molding (or cornice) as well as a top and the project is complete. Except for the finishing.

Categories
Football

Seems Risky

I’m not going to begrudge the Broncos wanting to get Peyton Manning, but if there’s any truth in this article related to signing him without seeing him throw, I mean, WOW.

I’ve heard the arguments that “Peyton at 80% is better than most anyone” but I just don’t believe that. Part of what made Manning great is his arm strength. If he can’t make the throws, then it doesn’t matter what his knowledge is. He flat out won’t be able to get the ball there on time. Talk to Chad Pennington about that, or any of a number of other weaker armed QB’s who were otherwise very competent.

Categories
Family

Suffering the Consequences

There’s a natural tendency to loosen the reins on kids as they get older. Parents don’t have to bug them to go to the bathroom, or brush their teeth or do their homework or whatever, as much because they’ve come to realize that not doing those things have some consequences like sitting in a mess or having bad-breath or having their parents nag at them.

But lately, the Wife and I have loosened the reins even more noticeably, and deliberately. The boy and the lass play together a lot, and often times the lass will try to rough-and-tumble with the boy. I’m speaking now of those times when it’s clearly all in good fun.

For a long time now, the Wife and I have closely monitored this stuff because we didn’t want the boy accidentally hurting his sister. It wasn’t unusual for one of us to completely cut it off after a point because it seemed like a sure thing something was going to happen. And if we weren’t telling them to stop outright, we were telling them to watch out for this, or that, or don’t break this or that.

But somewhere along the way, we both stopped doing this. It’s like we both decided at the same time that it was high time they learned themselves what can happen. Now, the only thing we tell them is to go and do it somewhere else since we’d like to have a little peace and quiet.

And the other day for the first time, at least that I can remember, something happened. I was upstairs at the time, but I heard the crash followed by the panicked wailing of the lass. When I got downstairs, the boy was sheepishly hanging back while the Wife was checking out the lass’ chin. She was still crying pretty hard at that point. In the end, she got a good bruise on her chin from her fall and that was it.

I still don’t really know the full details, but I do know that the two of them were going around and around with each other before it happened. So all I did was go up to the boy afterwards and calmly told him to try and be more careful next time. But I didn’t scold or punish him because they were both equally to blame for it. Actually, I’m not even sure “blame” is the right word. Fact is, stuff happens and it’s not always pleasant.

It just so happened that this time, the lass took the brunt of consequences. Next time, maybe it’s his turn in the barrel.

Is there a payoff to our new non-interventionist mindset? Mainly, I’d say it’s reduced stress level. Not playing the part of the ref in a fight takes quite a bit off our shoulders. Plus, the kids may figure out quicker what they can and cannot do without our input. After all, it’ll be their mistakes and by this point, they understand what’s appropriate and what’s not.

Categories
Family

Stubborn

“I’m not going to sit here and argue with you; you didn’t take a shower yesterday,” I stated to the boy, ending our argument.

The boy had just finished his homework, spelling words and some reading. The lass had finished her shower several minutes ago. I’d made a deal with them: after finishing up his homework they could watch one episode of their current favorite cartoon, Beyblades. It’s a show about battling tops. No really, that’s what it’s about.

So the boy had finished up his homework and wanted to watch the cartoon. I told him he had to go take his shower. He’d gone outside after getting home from school and taken advantage of the nice weather. Plus, he hadn’t taken a shower in a couple of days, so it was time.

His argument was that he’d taken a shower last night. Now, I had suggested he take a shower last night since he’d returned home from martial arts all sweated up, but he had hemmed and hawed, told me he’d taken one a couple days ago and I’d given up.

Now, he was claiming he had in fact taken a shower that he hadn’t taken. Not only that, he was quite emphatic about the point. I went around with him a couple of times before I finally told him the argument was over. To be honest, at that point I really didn’t care if he took a shower, but I wasn’t going to tell him that and give him a ready excuse to have his way.

He was silent, trying to decide what to do. Finally, he blurted out an exasperated “FINE! I’ll take a stupid shower even though I already took a shower last night and now I shouldn’t need a shower for the rest of my life.”

And off he went. I sat quietly, reading on my Nook.

I sent the kids to bed a bit earlier tonight because they like to use stall tactics to extend their up time. They balked initially, but I persisted and they relented without too much difficulty.

When I got upstairs, the boy happened to be the first one ready to go down, so I said my “Goodnight” to him and clicked off the light to his room.

As I entered the lass’ room, she still wasn’t quite ready for bed. She was putting away her school clothes. She was being very meticulous about getting it on the hanger and then into the closet. In other words, she was stalling.

Finally, she finished with a flourish, hopped in bed and asked, accusingly, “Dad, how come you always say Goodnight to my brother first?”

Sigh

There’s nothing they won’t pick a fight over.

As I walked over to the bed, I told her that I don’t, in fact, always say Goodnight to her brother first.

“Yes you do.”

Really? This game? Right before bed?

Idiot that I am, I egged her on. “No, I don’t.”

“Yesyoudo.” No smirk. No hint of a smile. She seemed to be completely in earnest. How do they do that?

I gave her a kiss and said “Goodnight” to her, and as I walked to the door, I told her “No, I don’t.”

“Yesyoudo.”

Thankfully, she was in bed and I was heading downstairs for the rest of the evening. “Goodniiiii-iiiight” I called back.

No reply this time.

Categories
Misc

FDOS?

As I type this, the temp outside is 50. It’s not too surprising, really, since the Winter has been pretty mild. An early shot of Spring has been a high probability for awhile now.

Still, it’s a little disappointing to see even the mild temperatures yield so early.

Categories
Cub Scouts

Taking Over

Last night officially marked the beginning of my reign as CubMaster for our Cub Scout Pack. It was just a planning meeting for our next Pack Meeting, as well as starting to think about some of our forth coming events like our annual fishing derby and Spring campout and crossover.

The hardest part about the night is our younger Shepherd. He’s very much a watchdog and he hasn’t had nearly enough practice with letting people into our home, so he barks. And barks. And barks. And when he’s done, he barks some more.

I will say that one thing I’m coming to appreciate quickly as someone in a leadership position: waiting around is a good way for something not to get done. I’m finding it’s better to get on something early, rather than to blithely assume things will work out. I’ve gotten away with that approach to a degree with the Den meetings I’ve done. But that won’t work on a larger scale.

The boy seems pleased with the fact that I’m running the show. I guess he likes being “the boss’ kid” or something. Plus, for last night’s meeting, we had several child guests as well. Cub Scouts being basically an all-volunteer sort of thing, the other people who came to the committee meeting had to be able to bring their kids if they didn’t have alternate arrangements. The boy and the lass both were happy to have the company.

He’s already looking forward to the next meeting.

Categories
Football

Time Stops for No One in Football

Even Peyton Manning.

Although the part of this whole thing that continues to catch my attention is stuff like this:

And Manning will be an unrestricted free agent who can shop himself to any NFL team. If he’s as healthy and prepared for 2012 as the recent reports have suggested, some NFL team is going to get one of the best free agent acquisitions in NFL history.

I continue to have my doubts about this. Even if he’s healthy, what team is going to get him that has a cast of receivers capable of complimenting him? What if he goes to a team with a crappy O-line? What if his arm is only 85% of what is was?

The assumption that he’ll be back and as good as ever is dubious. I’ll fully admit to being wrong if that’s what happens, but it’s hardly the slam dunk most pundits seem to think.

Categories
Family

Hockey Ends

Today, at long last, the hockey season came to a close. The boy had his season ending game in the morning and the lass’ finale was mid-afternoon. When it was all said and done, we went out to dinner to celebrate.

For posterity’s sake, the boy’s team lost. Badly. The boy did seem to play harder, but as the game wore on and his team’s scoring attempts continued to fizzle, the boys effort also did. Most of his teammates as well. There were plenty of potential lessons to be learned there I suppose, but I’ve learned that I can’t teach them. They’ll have to seep into the boy’s psyche on experience at a time. The only thing I did tell him is that it won’t be the last time he’ll lose. For once, he didn’t argue.

Interestingly, he was plenty mad when he came off the ice. It was like he actually cared about winning the game. A little later, though, I think he remembered that he’d decided he didn’t like hockey and that the season was over so it didn’t last long.

The lass’ team, on the other hand, went out with a bang. Actually, it was more like a KABOOM. And an earth-shattering one at that. They actually stopped keeping track of the score at the end, that’s how big they won.

The lass also played well. She even scored a goal for her efforts, which was the family highlight of the day. She’d come down the boards in the offensive zone and there was a mini-scrum for the puck. She was on the outside of the scrum and noticed that the puck had popped out. So she just kind of skated over and took the puck and no one followed her. She kept right on skating towards the net. By that point, she was almost parallel with the net. Because of the extreme angle and the way the goaltender positioned himself, it didn’t look like there was any chance to score. But she kind of flicked the puck towards the net and, wouldn’t you know, the puck found enough space to squeeze through for a score.

Right now, all th hockey equipment has been washed and laid out for drying and subsequent storage. The boy left himself the possibility that he play again in the fall. I think that’s about right. The lass wasn’t talking about it. She was glad the season had ended and is looking forward to having normal weekends again.

So are the Wife and I.

Categories
Family

The Lass Speaks Her Mind

The Wife instituted a “chore chart” a week or two ago. The idea being to allay the problem of the kids arguing over who did what when or last. That way, we don’t have to deal with arguments like “I emptied the dishwasher last time” and so forth.

The lass finally told us what she thought about the Wife’s new system, “Mom, the chore chart really isn’t working for me.”

That’s too bad for her, since she’ll have to continue to deal with it. But thanks for the laugh.

Categories
Misc

Hilarity- Hacker Style

This story is funny from the standpoint of the highjinks pulled by the guys who hacked the system. It’s less amusing when you consider the information that was potentially hacked by the amateur hour on display by the politicians involved.

From the article, consider the following:

  • The administrative password and account for the system were admin and admin.
  • No one even realized it had been hacked for 2 days.
  • The guys who hacked the system prevented or stopped 4 other attacks while they were in there- apparently no one realized these attacks were on going.

These are mistakes that most amateur network admins wouldn’t have made. And these guys wanted to conduct an election with this system. The other antics were from the “all in good fun” family.

I’ll also note that the article refers to a “public key” being lifted by the hackers and used to change the ballots. I don’t think that’s quite correct, because in encryption, a “public key” is, well, public and means just that- anyone can use it. It’s used to encrypt data so that only a corresponding “private key” can be used to decrypt the data. The idea being that every public key has one, unique private key. Therefore, I’m guessing that they were able to get the “private key” and used that to change the ballots, since the private one is the key that network admins aim to protect for encryption purposes since, if that one is made public, the encryption scheme is essentially broken.

While the rest of the mistakes were on the admins, that one is on the article writer.

Categories
Misc

On a Personal Note

Back at the beginning of last Summer, in order to help foster the boy’s continued interest in it, I started taking martial arts lessons at the school. I don’t take the same classes, nor are we on the same curriculum. That makes total sense, since what an adult is capable of deciding and following through on is vastly different from that of a 7 year-old.

Of course, my start got derailed by my elbow surgery back in the Fall. I lost 3 months of training as a result. I think it affected the boy as well a bit, since he was a little more difficult to get enthused for his classes.

Now that I’m involved again, it’s nice because I can help him with certain things he’s currently learning, like the forms or certain self-defense techniques. I offer to help him and I work with him a bit if he wants to. If he doesn’t that’s no problem. I have no desire to pressure him to like it.

Anyway, the school “graduates” it’s students on a monthly basis. Or, I should say, it holds a little graduation ceremony on a monthly basis for those students who are moving on to a new belt level. I’ve only been back at it for a month to this point but the instructors asked me to attend the graduation today. I actually asked them if I was graduating to the next belt level, and they indicated “No” to me. It left me somewhat confused and their explanations didn’t help me much. I just resolved myself to following through on what they asked and leaving it at that.

So imagine my surprise when, at the end of the ceremony, they graduated me to the next belt level. In one sense, I won’t complain since I’ve shown so far that I can handle the curriculum. On the other hand, I’d just been out for 3 months and was only 1 month back. On the third hand, this is the belt level where I get to start sparring, which is something I’ve been greatly looking forward to.

The boy has been sparring for awhile now, so I get to play a little catch up. Maybe I can get some lessons from him.

I’ll note for the record that the Wife was uspet because she didn’t bother coming to the graduation.  I’d told her I wasn’t graduating to the next belt level and that she wasn’t going to miss much.  So she took the kids out to eat while I participated in the graduation.  Naturally, events turned out a bit different.  In the grand scheme, it’s still not that big a deal- there are more belt levels, more significant than this as well, to come.  Between mine and the boy’s, she’ll have plenty of chances to watch graduations.

Categories
Family

The Boy 1 – The Lass 0

Earlier this afternoon, the boy wanted some space from his sister. His sister, for whatever reason, wasn’t in a mood to oblige him. Finally, he appealed to authority (me) and I told the lass to layoff for awhile and respect his space.

So then the lass says to me, “Dad, what kind of game do you want to play tonight since we’ll be eating early?”

The boy immediately chimed in “I know! Let’s see who can stay quietest the longest.”

The lass replied “Hmmph. I don’t like that game.”

The boy: “You lose.”