Today at lunch, the lass said to me:
Dad, you didn’t let me have my snack… a long time ago.
Until she offered the qualifier “a long time ago” I was giving her one of those looks that read “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.” After the qualifier, my look changed to…
WTF?
Last Monday was the first night since early November we didn’t have a fire going to keep the house warm through the night. Last night was the second and with the predicted weather for the weekend, that pattern will be increasing in frequency.
Definitely wet ’round these here parts. Streams have overflowed their banks. Puddles have become ponds. Ponds are lakes. Good weather if you’re a duck.
On my way home from racquetball I felt like I was in a Frogger video game. Except, of course, I wasn’t the frog. Just the car trying to avoid frogs. Some of them were BIG suckers too. Looked like a couple could’ve swallowed my head.
With teeth too…
I blame global warming.
First, there was the Easter Egg hunt on Saturday. Running around with the other 4-5 year olds, he probably snatched more eggs than any of the other kids. Most importantly his sister, a fact that he noted… and then continued to note incessantly for the rest of the day. To top that off, he found one of the special “silver” eggs that earned him a prize Easter Basket. The organizers took a picture of him, his basket and the Easter Bunny together (standard treatment for the winners.) He also noted the silver egg achievement- when he wasn’t noting his raw egg count achievement.
Then came Sunday and the pinata at the birthday party. He was the last kid to get a whack at the pinata. Both by count and because his three swings broke the pinata open, freeing the candy contained therein, much to the delight of the other kids. He was very impressed with himself for being “the one” to break open the pinata. I’ll just note that the other contestants were boys and girls in the 3,4 and 5 year old range.
He went to sleep last night very pleased with himself.
Can you read this? It’s a paper the boy wrote and brought home today.
In the spring I like to swing and cros the muge brs.
Translation after the jump.
Here we go. There’s a couple more after the jump. I’m probably still going to put another layer or two on all the cherry surfaces.
Not sure what to think about this. I’ve always felt that the sudden death format was ‘fair’ enough. Everyone knows the rule going in- the defense knows it has to stop the opposing offense. It knows how far an offense has to go to be in field goal range for that team’s kicker. It’s put-up or shut-up time then. I’m not really sure what’s not ‘fair’ about that. I mean, is defense really that disadvantaged in OT?
Somewhere along the way it would be nice to get a definition of the word ‘fair’ because clearly, it means something different to everyone. One man’s fair is another man’s “Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” Perhaps it should be abolished from our dialect all together. Seems fair to me…
Anyway, meaningless rant aside, the new rule seems interesting. I wonder how long before it’s decided to just remove the “sudden death” all together and just play either an abbreviated quarter or a whole quarter.
No pictures yet- I actually started the finishing last night. First coat is done. I’m using Waterlox and applying by rubbing it on with a cloth. The results are quite nice. I’ll post pix after application of the second coat.
A couple of days after the passage of the healthcare bill, I have a bunch of thoughts, as opposed to any kind of coherenet argument or rant.
Well- mostly. I finished construction of the bottom half of the armoire today. I also cleaned up all the surfaces in prepartion for applying the finish. The dovetails came out very well after cleaning them up. I added some chamfers to the legs as well as all the corners and egdes that could have given someone a nice zinger. That’s one of the things about maple and cherry- they hold corners to well. Those suckers can be sharp when all is said and done.
Looking forward, it’s arguable I’m over halfway done. I have some details to figure out for the top- but still, I don’t have anymore drawers to make. Just 2 large doors to make. There’ll be some shelving too… maybe a hidden drawer… hmmm…. Maybe not so halfway after all.
I’ll post some pix tomorrow.
One of the things I’ve always known about raising kids is that I had to pick my fights carefully. When teaching someone with a limited capacity for nuance, I think a parent naturally opts for clear ‘yes you can’ and ‘no you can’t’ rules. As the kids get older, they don’t like the ‘no you can’t’ option so much and won’t hesitate to let you know that they’re not so keen on your decision.
The fact that I knew I had to pick my fights doesn’t necessarily mean I was very good at picking them. Sometimes it would be the smallest little thing that gets blown into them being grounded for the rest of the natural born life. Possibly even further… Then, after the heat of the moment is gone, I realized did I really need to go that far?
The hardest part for me, so far, about using git is to actually use it. I mean, I’m checking out branches, making changes and the like. But mentally I’m still in the mode of organizing file versions in my head and then futzing with command line stuff (mv, `cp and the like), as opposed to using git to help me do that.
More recently I had a couple minor git revelations that indicate I’m starting to grok this whole VCS thing a little more.
Our current 37″ tube TV is dying a slow death. We’ve started looking at flat panels to replace it. The good news is that size wise, we have an easy decision- it has to be a 40″ set because it needs to fit in the current TV cabinet. The screen would get clipped on the sides of anything bigger. For power and longevity reasons, I’ve opted to further narrow the criteria to LCD TV’s with LED backlights.
In that class of flatpanel, there aren’t a lot of options. Ideally, I’d like to get the full-array LED backlight as opposed to the edge-lit versions. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell which are which. It appears that Sharp has something, possibly Sony and Samsung, and that’s about it. Also, it looks like the full-array costs a pretty penny as well- possibly $300-400 more.
The guys at Best Buy said that the Sharp Aquos has had some problems and the Samsungs and Sony’s are superior. Price wise, they’re all in a similar neighborhood. My main hesitation is that I think the Sharp is the only one with the full-array LED and is priced a lot lower than the other two would be with the full-array. But I don’t want to buy a lemon either, or worse, something that dies in 6 months.
Decisions, decisions.
Last night at dinner, the boy used the old “eeny-meeny” rhyme to make a decision. On a personal curiosity note, I wonder how long before he realizes that it always results in the alternate choice from the start object.
Now back to dinner- the lass liked this rhyme so much that she started chanting it as well. Of course, being completely new to her, she botched it. The boy corrected her and she tried again. This pattern repeated a number of times until she was able to properly recite the whole thing.
I looked at the wife afterwards and said “So that’s the stage of development we’ve reached, the eeny-meeny stage.” She laughed- she was thinking the same thing.
Having been using open source software for years now, I’ve never really done any thing to try and reciprocate, as it were. Well, I’ve finally gotten my chance and contributed a 3-line bug fix to the python-markdown package.
Here’s the fixi, marked for posterities sake.
No, it’s not farting rats.
While we were in the car, somehow the kids brought up the topic of the Statue of Liberty and could we see it. The Wife said that it was just a ‘ferry’ ride away.
After a brief pause, the lass replied:
And the fairy’s name is Silvermist.
The Wife and I both took a few seconds before we realized what she was talking about. One of Tinker Bell’s fairy friends is Silvermist. Apparently, she thought that Silvermist, the ‘fairy’, would take us to the Statue of Liberty.
While we were out I found the book The Blind Side which has been made into the movie by the same name. I read through the first chapter of the book- mainly because I couldn’t put it down.
That chapter recounts the final play of Joe Theisman’s career. For any fan of football during that time, it is likely a play that’s seared into the memory. It is still, 25 years later, The quintessential example of the unpredictable violence the games participants can be subjected to. I’ve only watched it once. That was enough. When I see a replay of it starting, I turn away until I know the replay is done.
The chapter steps through the play, describing in detail how the play unfolded. He breaks off the narrative to go into a great amount of detail about the affect Lawrence Taylor had on the game of professional football. He does this in an effort to offer a more complete explanation of what happened on the play. In effect, he is stating that this play is not the culmination of the 4 seconds it took for the play to unfold, but the previous 4 years of havoc which Taylor wrought on opposing teams’ offenses. It was because of LT that the term ‘blind side’ came into being in football. This sets up the remainder of the book. The whole chapter is a good read. I recommend finding the book just for that chapter.
The most interesting bit for me were the final words of the chapter.
Listening to the play as it was called on the radio, I can still recall the announcer (I think it was Frank Gifford) exclaiming how LT had jumped up from the pile waving frantically for the trainers to get on the field. As it turns out, his gesturing had nothing to with with the trainers.
LT wasn’t afraid of anything on the football field per se. But he was claustrophobic. When he tackled Joe Theisman on that play, he ended up near the bottom of the pile. That, coupled with knowing Theisman’s leg had snapped like a twig, kicked his claustrophia into overdrive.
His frantic behavior after the play had nothing to do with Theisman or the medical staff. It was all about fighting off the claustrophobia.
I know Manny is the star of the show, but really, what’s his purpose? His tools are all alive and do all the work for him. He never has anything to finish the job. He always has to find Kelly- who DOES have everything he needs no matter how obscure. Of course, could Kelly’s business model possibly survive without Manny? I wonder if she cuts him sweet deals on stuff.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever seeing money exchanged. Could there be something else going on? How does Manny payoff his debts to Kelly? For that matter, has Manny ever charged any of his customers for his services? I haven’t seen it. How does anyone live in this world?
Is there any point to Mr. Lopar? Other than being a tool?
So, we have a show with talking tools that do all the work, a hardware store run by a woman who has everything the handyman needs, a handyman who never actually touches his tools, and no money ever exchanges hands. And Mr. Lopar with his cat, who clearly hates his owner.
What exactly are we supposed to learn from this show?
Since the boy has learned the rudiments of reading, I decided now would be a good time to introduce him to the modern wonder of email. I had no idea he would be so excited to have email. I suppose what-with the Wife and I always checking ours, it’s only natural. It’s one more thing he has in common with Mom and Dad.
The first email he ever received is reproduced here for posterity:
Are you ready for SCHOOL today?
And his first sent email was as follows(to yours truly):
are you ready for rakitblol
He’s corresponded with Mom, Grandma and Grandpa as well. So far, he’s typed in all of his own messages.
I wonder how long the novely will last?