Via John Gruber, some kind of Twitter-feed compilation of people who were… disappointed with their Christmas gifts.
On my first reading, I thought it they were attempts as sarcasm. By the end, I realized I was wrong. Time to cancel Christmas for these folks.
I’ll be pretty pissed if the kids end up on a list like that.
One gift the boy received was a woodworking kit. It consists of a motor which can be oriented 3 ways, along with necessary supports parts, to operate as a jigsaw, a drillpress or a lathe. Woodcutting capacity is small, as would be expected. The wood that comes with it is pine and it’s all very thin stock. The lathe can handle pieces probably as much as 6 inches or so, though that’s pushing it. Oh, almost forgot, it has a disc sander as well. So make that 4 tools.
Regardless, it’s more than enough to make some simple woodworking projects like small tops, model airplanes, jigsaw puzzles and those wood projects that are slatted together to make dinosaurs or cars or planes. Simple stuff that probably takes an afternoon of effort. (He was wondering if it’s the sort of equipment that “professionals” use- an amusing question considering the table saw and so forth in the garage.)
The boy had some initial enthusiasm for it, but it seems to be waning quickly. We turned a simple top together yesterday, took about 15 minutes to do so, and he liked that. But then we tried to make a slatted plane project and he lost interest in it after an hour or so. We’ve got most of the pieces cut out, but there are some holes to drill before we can start fitting it together. He wanted to finish it tomorrow. Guess we’ll see.
Hard to generalize things like this, as every kid is different when it comes to the whole deferred gratification phenomenon. I’m sure that video gaming doesn’t help in this regard- nothing much more immediate than pushing a button and watching Mario jump. I don’t like to push him about things I’d like to seem him do more of because I believe in the soft sell approach. My assumption (hope?) is he’ll pattern off of me and at some point will come to enjoy the building of a project more than the completing of a project. But I’m also aware that many of the things I enjoy are time consuming and certainly beyond his current attention span.
But more and more, I wonder if that’s just something that is innate to a child. In other words, they can’t be taught to like building stuff; it’s either a part of who they are, or it isn’t and the amount of exposure to it matters not.
Just one of the many unknowns of parenting.
Don’t know if I should be excited the kids made it to 5:45AM before finally screwing up the courage to check out the tree this morning, or if I should be horrified. I’m too tired at the moment. The boy came back up to let us know the big guy had done his thing.
At least the kids are making us coffee. And they’re in a good mood.
For now…
Merry Christmas! To you and yours.
UPDATE:
The presents are opened, the Sun isn’t up yet, 2 cups of coffee…
Megan McArdle links to an article in Slate on the decline of spanking in the US. Both make for interesting reads. Probably the most interesting tidbit is that most doctors and “experts” don’t actually believe that spanking has long term negative effects on kids. Surprisingly, these people often cite themselves as examples of kids who were spanked yet turned out OK. Why isn’t that more common knowledge?
Anyway, I’m familiar with the type of “reward” parenting discussed. We’ve engaged in it a bit, but more I know other parents who employ the technique. I think it has it’s uses, but it definitely has its limits.
For one, I don’t like the idea of setting a paradigm of rewarding behavior that they should do. Kids should help with cleaning up after dinner and gathering laundry and putting clothes away. Brothers shouldn’t beat up on their younger siblings (well, not too badly…). Kids should brush their teeth after breakfast.
Why? Because these are all things they’ll have to do later on. And no one is going to be rewarding them for it, nor is it the sort of thing that is rewarding in and of itself. Life is full of chores. Chores aren’t particularly fun and they never go away. That’s why they’re chores. Rewarding this sort of behavior as a regular thing makes them less willing to do work, unless there’s something in it for them.
Which brings up my next problem with rewarding mundane behavior- the presumption that everything can be negotiated. Or worse, they discover the ability to blackmail. I’ve witnessed on a number of occasions a child work their parents over when the request was something really taxing, like putting on their shoes and coat. Before you know it, the child’s sucking on a juice box and eating a chewy while the parent is putting on their shoes and coat. What lesson was learned do you suppose?
Rewarding does have it’s place, but in measured doses and for truly notable positive behavior. For example, the boy has a temper and the Wife and I have rewarded him a number of times when he’s actually exerted control over it. But for everyday sorts of behaviors, we avoid rewards. Instead, we expect it (the behavior) and make it known that we expect them to behave that way. If we need to nag them, or worse, so be it.
The Wife and I are expecting our gold stars any day now…
The shelf elf’s final observation post for the year. After today, he’ll “mysteriously” disappear until next December.
So, this past Monday I went to take a look at the relatively new KitchenAid 7 Qt Mixer. They’re only available at Williams Sonoma stores for the time being and we have one not too far away. The folks at the store were kind enough to pull out a unit they use for demonstration purposes and allowed me to play with it a bit. Unfortunately, it’s too new to know much about it and I couldn’t mix anything up with it. So seeing it in person is of little utility to rendering a judgement on it. Somewhat ironically, the salesperson helping me revealed she owns a Bosch Universal for her bread baking “kneads”- according to her the unit can handle 5 lbs of flour with ease.
That was the comment that kind of cemented in my mind I’d have to take a chance with the KitchenAid. The Bosch is designed for larger batches of dough, and I typically don’t make such large batches. Most of my recipes are in the 3 to 4 cups of flour range. I do have a white bread recipe that uses 6 cups at a time and a bagel dough that’s similar, but that’s it. (My disappointment in the Pro600 series becomes more evident.) Thus, a mixer after the KitchenAid style is really what was appropriate. Throw in the cookies and baking that the Wife would use it for and that makes even more of a case for sticking with it.
So I walked out of the store with the 7Qt KA. It has a 90-day “no questions asked” return policy. Thus, I figure I’ll put the sucker through it’s paces ove the course of 90 days. What’s more, having un-boxed it, it has a 2-year factory warranty. A sign of confidence in the product I’d say. Either that or they’ve really dialed in the MTBF.
The boy came home from school today tired and a bit cranky. The Wife commented he should go upstairs and take a quick nap or have a snack, he kind of skulked off, prompting her to say:
“He’s tired; he’s cranky; he’s hungry; he’s …. the boy.”
Yep. Pretty much sums it up.
After returned home from my Cub Scout den meeting, I sat down to unwind from the ordeal to hear the Wife say “I’m going to start washing the dishes by hand.” It was delivered in a calm, sincere manner.
Any husband out there should instantly recognize this statement for what it is: a threat. Allow me to translate the above: “I’m tired of the stench from the dishwasher. Fix it, or I’m buying a new one tomorrow.”
So, having spent the better part of 2 hours disassembling the dishwasher in search of “The Source” last night, I can honestly say, should there be a next time, I’ll seriously consider giving in to that threat.
The boy came home from school today to discover that his sister had received a gift from the other girl in her dance class. He turned to the Wife and said, “Mom, I think Santa has a rule about the number of gifts that you get. The more you receive before Christmas, the less you get on Christmas day.”
Subtle.
The Wife replied “Well, I guess after all the hockey gear you received, you won’t be getting much on Christmas…”
“NO. I mean, I didn’t mean that my sister should get less presents… I was just was thinking…” He trailed off into something unintelligible at that point.
The boy came off the ice from Saturday’s hockey practice visibly upset. Watching him for the final few minutes they were on the ice, it was clear that he was upset. He wasn’t skating hard at all and seemed to be deliberately ignoring the drill he in which he was involved. I’d say he was attempting to be provocative. Thankfully, the coach wasn’t biting.
Turns out he was upset because some of the other kids were laughing at him during one of the drills where he was the goalie. He was also upset because they seemed to have targeted him during one of the other drills where they just kept taking him down anytime he got the puck. He didn’t know what to make of the circumstances- other than that he didn’t like them.
For once, I was on firm ground in counseling him. I’ve suffered through similar circumstances in my time and I’d been hoping something like this would happen. Mental toughness is a valuable trait to acquire and there’s no better opportunity than when you’re made an object of ridicule.
The first rule I told him was, when getting laughed at- ignore it. It would be better if he could come up with a witty remark of some sort, but I think that’s asking a bit much from a 7-year old. I explained that if you let your antagonizer see they are getting to you, then it will only encourage them to continue.
The second thing I explained is that, as long as it’s within the rules give back to them twice as hard. If they bump you down, then go knock them down every chance you get. If you sense them coming up to try and take you down, push them away or shove back. Opponents will use whatever they can to gain an advantage in a direct competition, don’t let them get that advantage. I told him if he kept after them, they’d change their tune in a hurry.
But mostly, I told him outside of my advising him on what he could do to combat the circumstances, I told him I absolutely couldn’t intervene on his behalf. I couldn’t go to the other Dad and ask them to take it easy on him or go and talk to the other boys directly. That course would only make matters worse for the boy. There are some fights he has to wage, and succeed or fail, on his own.
He seemed to be intrigued by the advice. Particularly when I told him he could push back. My guess is it’ll take a time or two more before he remembers and gets a chance to really apply what I told him. Hopefully he doesn’t go overboard when he does. But, we’ll deal with that when, and if, it happens.
Reading through reviews of the Cuisinart 7-qt mixer, I stumbled upon a reference to the Bosch Universal Plus Mixer. I’ve searched through several review threads and I’m now extremely intrigued by it. I’ve even watched a video of someone making whole wheat bread that had at least 8 cups of wheat flour. Impressive! Even more so, the specs claim it can handle 15 pounds of bread dough. I’d never try that on the KitchenAid. Even when it wasn’t broken, because that would break it.
My only issue is it seems to be an online purchase. I haven’t found a brick and mortar that has it so I can look at it. The main knocks against it are that it’s not a great general purpose tool. I’ve seen comments that it isn’t effective at creaming sugar and so forth because of the bowl/ mixer design. Of course, in my case the thing will be used for bread dough 90% of the time so that might not matter to me.
The search continues.
If a picture is worth 1000 words, then The Invention of Hugo Cabret is easily the longest story I’ve ever read. Yet, I read it in 3 hours last night. It’s a 500 page story told mostly using pictures, with text adding the dialogue of the characters involved. The book itself clocks in at somewhere over 500 pages, with roughly 80% of them being pictures, all rendered in black and white.
But this isn’t a comic or graphic novel like Watchmen. It’s a unique approach to storytelling via the book medium. And it’s done very effectively, with the opening of the book being the best example.
It opens with pictures of the Moon over Paris to set the scene. As we flip the pages, night changes to dawn and we zoom in on a building which is revealed to be a train station. As we continue to flip through the pages our attention is brought to a young boy, whom looks to be about 10 or so, as he navigates through the station and into the vent system. Eventually, we part ways with him and we are introduced to an old man in a shop who is keeping a close eye on a large clock across the street. The boy is hiding in that clock, watching the old man’s shop. The sequence of pictures that reveals this part is amongst the most clever in the book in my opinion.
To this point, the “reader” has not encountered a single word, save for those in an introduction at the very beginning. We’ve probably flipped through 40 pages of pictures or so and we have now been introduced to the 2 main characters in the story. The reader is now introduced to the initial pages of text related to the narrative. If you’re not hooked by this point, then don’t bother.
The story itself is a simple tale about a homeless boy who has fixated on a quest that he believes will change his life. Hugo Cabret is a talented young clockworker who is rebuilding an unusual automaton. The story takes us through an extraordinary sequence of coincidences resulting in a happy ending for Hugo and the old man. The narrative drew me along easily as interesting tidbits are slowly revealed over the course of the narrative: the circumstances behind Hugo’s homelessness; how he came to reside in the train station; where the strange automaton came from; why he is compelled to fix the automaton. All this is revealed in Part 1 of the book.
Part 2 of the book is everything that comes after Hugo repairs the automaton. A pleasant surprise because my assumption from the start was the story would culminate in the repair of the automaton. When he runs it, it renders a picture with a signature. Resolving the mysteries behind the picture and the signature propel Hugo, and the reader, through the remainder of the story. All along the way, the book seamlessly transitions between pictures and text, sometimes punctuating a scene with pictures, sometimes laying out an entire scene in pictures, sometimes providing a viewpoint of the characters themselves.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a fast, pleasant read for any adult. Because of the pictures, it’s also accessible to younger readers. I showed the boy the opening sequence of the story and he was intrigued to the point of wanting to read it. The story moves quickly and even though it becomes predicable at points, I found the characters interesting enough that I wanted to know how their story ended. While it’s tempting to consider the pictures a gimmick (or worse a storyboard for the movie), I’d say it’s more accurate to think of them as essential to the story in question and actually a clever vehicle for telling the narrative.
Hugo Cabret’s invention is well worth discovering.
It was such a gob smackingly ridiculous accusation, I just turned and walked away from him. Why dignify such a thing with a response?
Last Sunday, the boy had been playing with his DS prior to it being time to go to hockey practice. I’d given him a warning notice that it was getting close to time for him to get ready. Then, the Wife had arrived home and told him it was time to get ready.
He was so upset that he yelled at the Wife, which earned him an early bedtime. That had the predictable consequence of making him more upset. But rather than stop digging the hole he’d made for himself, he redoubled his efforts. So he declared he didn’t want to go to hockey practice.
Since our KitchenAid crapped out and I haven’t been in a huge hurry to replace it with something I’m equally suspicious will give out somewhere down the line, I abused our Cuisinart food processor yesterday to make stromboli dough. While not nearly as convenient as the mixer, it was just as effective at producing an adequately kneaded dough.
I just made it in 3 cup batches, since I didn’t want to beat the motor up too badly. I used a plastic dough blade, put all the dry stuff in, then closed her up and turned it ON, then poured the water in through the shoot. It actually combined the water and flour much quicker than the mixer normally would, with the bonus of not spreading flour all over the kitchen since it’s covered up. Probably took 30 seconds to completely combine the water and flour mixture.
After that, it only took another couple of minutes using the PULSE switch to knead the dough. It wasn’t perfect here, but it was good enough and I was only making stromboli dough so I didn’t “knead” it to be perfect.
Of course, the ultimate proof is in the eating. I made 3 yesterday. Two of which went with the Wife to a knitting party and the last one stayed here for the kids and I to eat for dinner. The Wife’s I filled with a pepper, onion and spinach filling for one and a turkey, mushroom and black olives for the other. The one that remained home I filled with spinach, hamgurg and sausage.
The Wife didn’t bring anything home (who knew knitters were so voracious!). There was only a little bit left of the one the kid’s an I had.
Score one for the Cuisinart.
A couple of days ago, I was trying to update my older netbook, which is now the kids netbook, and I got a bunch of strange errors during the update. A little later that morning, I discovered that my internal web server had stopped working. It’s a pretty vanilla apache install from the debian/wheezy repo. The only mods I’d made were to allow for support of the public_html folder in user directories as well as setting it up for WordPress.
I’d performed an update over the weekend and my guess is that is when it got zooted. When I tried to restart the server I got the following error message:
/usr/sbin/apache2: 1: /usr/sbin/apache2: Syntax error: ")" unexpected
Action 'configtest' failed.
This meant next to nothing to me. I mean, it looks like an error in the compiled image, but that makes no sense. I had an even more cryptic error in the error.log file which I can’t reproduce because I deleted it in the process of getting it running again. But it read similar to the above with a bunch of what looked like Unicode characters after it- in other words, no text but a bunch of symbols. Very weird. Oh, and Google was no help. I seem to be the only one to have encountered this problem.
Ultimately, I was able to get it back by uninstalling and purging all the packages related to apache2. It’s possible it had something to do with the apache2.2-bin package, but I can’t really be sure. All I know is that until I removed everything webserver related, followed by reinstalling, I was unable to get it running again. Before I did that, I archived the configuration directories for apache, php and wordpress so all I’d have to do, hopefully, is replace the stock configuration with my archived settings. As it turned out, that worked.
Ultimately, not a very satisfying conclusion. But it’s running again, so I’ll take it.
I took the mixer apart last night since it’s out of warranty anyway. The spindle assembly (or ‘planetary’ in mixer parlance) is what broke. Specifically, the drive shaft that extends from the planetary up into the motor housing sheared. That’s a piece of 3/8″ metal, steel I assume. How the hell does that fail while mixing dough?
Anyway, while trying to figure out what to do about the mixer, I came across this.
Reading the reviews, it sounds like it might be the mixer I’d hoped the 600 would be. My big problem is, it’s a Kitchenaid and I don’t buy their “legendary quality” line anymore. Unless it’s “legendary BS.” It’s a new product so I figure that could cut either way: it’s well built because they are trying to rebuild their brand, or it’s going to be chock full of new product glitches for early adopters. The price is steep, but if it’s the last mixer I ever buy then it would be worth it. Plus, it isn’t Hobart steep.
On the other hand, a new planetary assembly looks to be about $35 or so online, assuming I can find the right color. But then I’m probably just waiting for the next thing to fail.
BAH! Stupid decision making.
The 3rd Kitchenaid Pro 600 I’ve had in the past 10 years just bit the dust. Actually, it might be less time than that and it could be the 4th mixer I’ve gone through. To tell the truth, my memory is a bit hazy anymore since it seems like I’ve gone through this too many times for a mixer with reputation that the KitchenAid has but doesn’t deserve in my opinion. But it’s definitely at least 3 mixers.
I make a lot of bread dough for, well, bread. And pizza. And stromboli. And the occasional calzone. I’m probably using it minimally 2 to 3 times a week making anything from white to wheat to rye to sourdough based recipes. The Wife also uses it for cookie dough and the occasional cake.
In short, it needs to be a workhorse. I’ve checked Hobart mixer prices, but new ones are minimally $2000 and the used ones aren’t much better. Guess that’s what it costs to have something that’s reliable.
Crap.
It’s Souvenir Week at the kid’s school. We parents got to sign up for a 30 minute reading slot where we’d, well, read a book to the class and then hand out some piece of memorabilia related to the book. I signed up for the very first slot (wanted to set the bar high, ahem…) this morning, the Wife is signed up for a Wednesday slot.
I opted to read Chapter 4 from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Figured it was about the right length and was interesting enough (that’s where Harry first meets Hagrid out on that rock with the Dursleys) that the kids would enjoy it. Having finished up, I’d guess I was right. There was some fidgeting towards the end, but held there attention pretty well. The favorite part was when Dudley got his pig tail- they laughed at that part. Proof they were paying attention.
Some notes in no particular order:
That’s supposed to be a wizard’s hat next to the book. That was my ‘souvenir’ for the kids. They got a kick out of that too.
The Kiss had nothing to do with anything. It didn’t make it along for the ride, just into the picture.
The Cowboys-Giants game was indeed a good one. Too bad it broke the wrong way. When it was over, I was pissed I’d stayed up to watch it. In some ways, it’s kind of nice to know a football game can still get me fired up like that. I was even talking to the TV.
A bunch of observations:
If the Cowboys don’t have a 14 point lead with 2 minutes to go, they will lose. How can there be talk about Rex Ryan becoming a head coach when he can’t get his defense to perform in the clutch?
This year is shaping up to be Tony Romo’s steadiest, most consistent year. Even when he makes mistakes, he’s doesn’t totally crater (excepting the Lions game). Still, he’s not in the Brady/Brees/Rodgers class.
Is it just me, or do the Packers remind anyone else of the Patriot team that went undefeated? Great offense, so-so-good-enough-to-get-by defense, other-worldly quarterback play. I find it interesting that I haven’t found anyone else making the comparison. We also know how that one ended…
I called the Dream Team when it was first dubbed so. I’m still chuckling.
I’m still not buying Tim Tebow as a starting NFL QB. But he’s passed my expectations by such a wide margin now that it’s hard for me not to reconsider it. A little anyway.
Having reconsidered, I still say ‘No’, Tim Tebow will not be the Bronco’s next great QB. Other defenses will figure him out, the Bronco’s defense won’t always be this good, and he still can’t throw the ball well enough.
Archie Manning needs to STFU. Really. He’s used up all his good will credits. Go back and be retired Archie.
Patriot fans mock Peyton Manning when he yelled at his receivers. Tom Brady yells at his receivers and no one says boo. Go figure.
The Ravens will win the Super Bowl. Just because I wanted to say something silly.
The Wife has been desiring a printer stand that she could roll under her desk. It’s a simple project to build and I figured it would be a perfect afternoon project to do with the boy. He didn’t need much convincing and was particularly excited when I told him he could paint it.
The overall design was simple: 4 pieces of pine with the top long enough to accommodate the printer, the two middle supports tall enough to offer a little storage but still short enough so the whole things can fit under the desk with the printer on top, and a bottom.
I had the boy help me measure the length of the printer, then I drew up some simple plans. The dimensions were easy, 2 feet long and 1 foot tall. Initially, I drew up a box, but he didn’t like that. So I altered the box by sliding the 2 sides closer together so that the box had “wings.” He liked that one much better. With the design all set, we added up the lengths of wood and then set off to grab some wood to make it.
I guided him towards the pine because I knew that would be the easiest to work with. I sold it to him by telling him it would be the easiest to paint. Then I pointed out some things about the wood to look out for, like rough spots where the planer didn’t cut the board cleanly, and helped him settle on a nice piece of wood.
When we got it back to the shop, he helped measure the length to cut. He even worked up the courage to use my mitre saw to cut the boards to length (with a little help from Dad). After everything was cut, he just wanted to start gluing. But I told him we had a little more to do so that it would be nice and strong. He wasn’t too happy with having to wait to put it together.
I talked him through setting up the dado blade on the table saw, and then how I was setting up the mitre gauge so I could make the cuts. He couldn’t help make those cuts because he isn’t tall enough to work at a table saw. It didn’t take a lot of time and we got the glue up done shortly thereafter, where he helped tighten up the clamps.
Since it was for the Wife, he wanted to paint it purple and red- her favorite colors. A bit garish for my tastes, but it was his call, not mine. He painted the outer portion purple, and the inner boxed are red. Again, I had to help him to make sure more paint ended up on the wood than on the floor (and everywhere else), but he did a nice job.
All that’s left is putting the wheels on the bottom. Then the Wife will have her printer stand, and the boy will have finished his first woodworking project.