Categories
Movies

Megamind

Awhile back, the Wife had purchased Megamind. It’s a Dreamworks computer animated movie. We figured it would be a good movie for the kids; however, because it’s rated PG we figured we ought to do our diligence and screen it ahead of time.

I’ll say upfront that I was unaware of the casting prior to watching it. Had I been aware of it, I would in all likelihood have been more averse to watching it at all. Having seen it now, don’t, if you’re not a Will Ferrell or a Tina Fey fan, let the casting affect your decision to watch it. I found the movie entertaining and never once suspected they were in it. So from my standpoint, their brand of humor does not detract from the movie one bit.

Continue reading “Megamind”
Categories
Family

Blue Blanket

So the lass’ fever went away over the weekend and we ended up sending her to school today. But she wasn’t right when she got off the bus. She was very subdued, no spring in her step. When she got inside and had eaten her lunch, she laid down on the couch and took a nap.

Two hours later she woke up and her fever was back with a vengeance, though she wasn’t exactly acting sick. I informed the Wife of the fever and we were able to get an appointment for her for late in the afternoon.

Turns out she has an ear infection. According to the Wife, the doctor had only just looked in her ear when he diagnosed her. The doctor also noted that she wasn’t acting very sick- she was babbling away asking him questions and watching him write his notes very intently according to the Wife. He gave her a prescription and they were on their way.

When we put her to bed last night, she’d been in tears because her ear hurt. This was after she’d had her finger stuck in her ear- we’d just assumed she’d bruised it or something. The Wife gave her some meds to help and she fell asleep. But not before she took her favorite blue blanket and covered her ear with it. She said it “made it feel better.”

So tonight, when I checked on her before going to bed, sure enough she had her blue blanket on her ear again. Guess she decided to stick with what works.

Categories
Misc

Pettiness

On the drive home from bringing the kids to school, I spied myself a tailgater. Now I was driving at the appropriate speed on the road, so there was really no cause for riding 3 feet off my rear bumper. You know, so close that the rear view mirror looks like a closeup of the driver? I hate that.

Fortunately, I was going to be turning in a few moments, giving me an opportunity to deploy one of my preferred tactics against tailgating buffoons: the suddenly-slow-down-to-almost-a-complete-stop-but-not-quite-to-make-a-turn move. Use your turn signal! Bonus points for pre “drifting” towards the center of the road; thus, preventing the tailgater from swinging around you before your turn is complete.

The frustrated gesticulations are like a bonus cup of coffee. Next time don’t tailgate. Jerk.

Categories
Family

Quiet Weekends are Rare

I’ve been tinkering on my computer for a good part of the weekend, continuing work on a program I wrote for working with my blog. It was nice to sit down and get the work done. The price paid is that other things didn’t get done. I suppose, this post marks the beginning of dealing with those things.

But to get to this point, I had to have the time to sit here for an hour or 2 at a time and concentrate. That means children have to be occupied in non-destructive, non-Wife-annoying activities for long periods of time. It helps when the kids are a little on the 5+ side- luckily for me, both of mine qualify.

Even so, there’s been nowhere we’ve had to go or be this weekend. Well, except for bringing the boy to his sleepover, but that doesn’t count because it was a dropoff and afterwards he was someone else’s to deal with. That left the lass and she was content to play quietly and then watch a Scooby-Doo marathon before going to bed.

But it’s been a loooong time since we’ve been able to claim a weekend like this. Between school, hockey, daytrips, errands and whatever else comes along, these sorts of weekends are just exceedingly rare. I expect that after this one, that pattern will resume. Such is the life of a parent, I suppose.

But it was nice to have the chance to exhale for a couple days.

Categories
Computers

If Your iPod Touch Won’t Turn On

Having dealt with this issue twice now, I can safely assuage some fears immediately- no the device is not necessarily beyond hope, there is a means for recovering it.

The procedure is simple-

  1. Plug the iPod Touch into your computer via the USB cable.
  2. Start-up iTunes manually.
  3. Press and hold the ‘HOME’ button on the face of the iPod touch and the ‘Sleep/Wake’ button on the top edge simultaneously for several seconds.

This is a Hard Reset and normally shouldn’t be done. But then, if you can’t get it to do anything anyway, what’s there to lose?

Shortly thereafter you should see the familiar, and comforting, Apple Logo appear on the screen. Then just let everything finish up.

If that doesn’t work, then you might have reason to panic…

Categories
Football

NFL Labor Situation

As of midnight last night, the players have been locked out by the owners.

I know the tendency is to try and figure out who the good guys and bad guys are and most times, social attitudes determine that balance. This time around, I really find myself in the middle. Owners seems to be airing legitimate business concerns and players are voicing legitimate employee concerns. Between the two groups, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to screw things up.

Actually, no. I’ve been confident about the prospects of the 2011 season for the simple reason that football is the sport in the US and the example set by pro baseball a few years back remains. I don’t think anyone wants to jeopardize the money making machine that the NFL has in place. Owners and players alike have too many bills to pay. If the season is affected, both parties will suffer for years due to the damaged fan relationship.

In the end, that’s the only business decision that matters. So I continue to believe they will work their differences prior to the season starting.

Categories
Family

It’s 10 O’clock on a Saturday

I’m celebrating my “hockey-freedom” weekend by sitting here at the computer, in the basement, poking around the intertubes. I slept in until 7, didn’t eat breakfast until after 8:30 and still haven’t properly dressed myself yet. Unfortunately, I feel a little guilty about the “up at 7” part. I’ll have to work on that for tomorrow I suppose.

Categories
Family

Hockey- Season Finale

Due to technical problems and then getting sick, I never got a chance to writeup the family’s season finale for hockey which happened this past Sunday. It ended up being a marathon session at the rink; which was definitely appropriate since it seems like we’ve spent the last 4 months worth of weekends at the hockey rink.

First up, the Wife and all the other hockey Moms put on an exhibition of new found skill. They even had matching uniforms (well, jerseys anyway) and nicknames for everyone! They did about 15 minutes of warm-up drills showing off various passing and shooting (ahem) proficiency followed by a game consisting of 3 10-minute periods with a running clock.

Unfortunately, the Wife’s team couldn’t pull off the comeback at the end of the game and went down 3-1. But a good time was definitely had by all. Especially the spectators. The Moms were all exhausted by the end- even with the continuous clock. There weren’t enough players to rotate entire lines, so players traded off the ice for 2 minutes at a time or so. It seemed like the rests were getting a little longer as the game progressed. The coaches will have to be sure to make conditioning a priority next year.

The boy then got his turn. Each team had 2 lines, with coaches serving as the goalies. Each line got 2 minutes on the ice. They had 2 ten-minute periods with the final period being 12 minutes so that everyone ended up with equal ice time. Their game also had a (mostly- see below) running clock. With some creative “goal tending” the game ended up tied 6-6.

The boy had a goal and an assist. The best part was that he played hard the entire time he was out there. He played smart as well- at least, as smart as an inexperienced 6-year-old hockey player can play, I think. When teammates had the puck, he tried to skate with them but giving them space and not trying to take the puck; while also setting himself up for a pass when the other team collapsed on the puck handler. There were multiple instances where he skated to the net when teammates had the puck in the offensive zone. His assist was actually one of the best plays of the game. He was on a breakaway (both teams had lots of those) with an opposing player skating with him and closing in when he saw a teammate ahead of him with a clear path to the net. So he passed ahead to the teammate, whom scored a go ahead goal. He had a chance at a second, similar assist later in the game but led his teammate just a bit too much with the pass.

Just for fun, I’ll note that with about a minute to go the boy’s team was up 6-5. The opposing team was able to get something going around the net at that point and, during the scramble, a couple of us glanced up at the clock and noticed that time had “frozen” with 55 seconds to go. The other team managed to score and tie it up at which point the clock started “working” again. Miraculously, no goals scored in those final seconds.

I don’t know if that’s the right way to handle things, but every kid came off the ice with a smile on their face. None of them had noticed the clock “malfunction.”

The parents all had smiles on their faces as well. But for different reasons- we finally get our weekends back. Until the next sport’s season, at any rate.

Categories
Misc

End of an Era- Officially

I’m not a huge space buff, but I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that yesterday was the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery. With over 148 million miles and 365 days in space to it’s credit, more than any other single spacecraft today, it’s place in space history is secure.

Fittingly, it’s final resting place will be the Smithsonian.

Categories
Family

The Lass Gets the Short Straw

Having just recovered from a cold, I was curious who in the family would be next. Early on, it seemed the Wife would fall victim as she started feeling a little out of sorts, but she now appears to be fine. But this morning, when the Wife came down the stairs, she informed me that the lass was complaining that her “belly hurt and she had a headache behind her eyes.”

Now, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was initially dubious. She’s plenty clever and brash enough to come down those stairs feigning illness in an attempt at sympathy and a day-off from school (because when you’re sick, you stay home, rest, and watch TV! Honestly- how doesn’t that beat school if you’re a kid?) Especially right on the heels of my own experience.

However, when she came down the stairs she went right to her Mother, sat on her lap and stared at the pictures on the TV. I waited about 60 seconds during which time she remained completely silent and didn’t move once. At that point, I got up and felt her forehead to confirm what I was already sure of- she was indeed sick. We took a quick temp reading after that and it was official- a low-grade fever.

Wonder who’s next…

Categories
Misc

Back in the Saddle

One thing I figured out quickly- sitting in front of a computer with a fever is pointless. I couldn’t summon the concentration required to write even a quick post saying something provocative like “I feel like crap.” I could barely summon the concentration to sit and read a typical Instapundit post of the “Heh. Indeed.” variety.

Last night I was (finally!) pretty much back to my old self- minus a good night’s sleep. That problem was remedied overnight. As to what I was suffering from, basically I had some congestion, a bit of a cough, mild dizziness and a fever. Let’s just call it a “cold.”

I’ll conclude this by saying “Momma, don’t let your babies grow-up to have their tonsils removed…” This sort of cold has become a normal thing for me ever since my tonsils were removed due to a second occurrence of a peritonsillar abscess. At the time, the ENT doc told me that the second occurrence meant I was very likely to get more of them and he said the best treatment was to just have the tonsils removed. He gave me a course of antibiotics to treat the infection and I was fine.

My initial reaction was to resist the doc’s advice and not have my tonsils removed. After all, it had been over 15 years since my previous tonsil infection and all it took was a course of augmentin to fix me up. That didn’t seem like a bad tradeoff. Ultimately, I allowed myself to be convinced otherwise and the tonsils came out. Now, I won’t get that particular infection anymore, but I have these annoying cold-fevers to deal with because my tonsils aren’t there to help prevent them in the first place.

Too late for myself, but for those who happen to read this- consider yourself advised by someone with experience. Don’t have your tonsils removed unless it’s life threatening.

And now, back to normal blogging.

Categories
Computers

Technical Problems

Sometime around 3 yesterday afternoon, our router upped and died. It was an old Linksys model router/ firewall from before Cisco bought them out. It’s at least 7 years old and had served us faithfully that whole time, though not without the occasional glitch. It always managed to recover.

I wasn’t able to nail it down as the culprit until well after the initial problems were discovered. We’ve had issues before and previous experience had taught me that such problems were usually traceable back to our cable modem. This time proved the exception to the rule. In a nutshell, the router has a 4-port switch which became unable to maintain a hardware link for longer than a second or so. The LED’s were flashing wildly. I allowed it time thinking it might settle out; however, such was not to be.

This is the bugger I’ve enlisted to replace the Linksys model. I chose it because of the 8-ports; making my hookup a little cleaner. Previously, I had a second 4 port switch connected in order to give myself enough hookups. I also have one less power adapter to plugin. The reviews I’m reading aren’t all that positive, so I’ll have to keep an eye on it. Think I’ll be holding onto the box and stuff just to be safe.

The reviews not withstanding, I’ve been able to duplicate the setup from my Linksys, including DynamicDNS, port forwarding and so forth. I’ve also modified the admin username and password, so no mischief out there. Besides, the setup app isn’t available from the web.

For the now I have internet connectivity again. Hopefully this unit proves as reliable as the one it replaced.

Categories
Family

Quick Home Notes

The Wife has had a couple of tough hockey practices of late. She went down on her side hard earlier this week during a scrimmage. Then, yesterday, she went down on her rear, snapping her head back onto the ice. But she got up both times and soldiered on. She’s even planning on playing in the exhibition game this Sunday. For someone who didn’t spend much of her life involved with sports, the “toughness” aspect seems to come pretty naturally.

The boy has been marching steadily forward with his Martial Arts training. He’s now earned his 5th belt, a blue-green, belt. That’ll put him at the highest rank for the current children’s class that he’s in. He’ll also be a pretty young blue-green belt from what I’ve seen. Watching him during his “graduation” tonight, he’s clearly grown in his confidence.

The lass started practicing for her “Big Show.” That would be for her dance class. It’ll actually be a real recital. When she started her dance lessons, it was at the local YMCA and the teacher would, at the end of the 8 class session, have a big show where the kids would perform a little 5-minute dance to some kind of Disney princess song. They were referred to as “The Big Show.” She’s been taking a more formal dance class this year, so she’ll get a more formal recital. She enjoyed her Big Show’s, I’m guessing she’ll enjoy her recital as well.

As for me, it’s just steady as she goes.

Categories
Computers

iPad2 “Smart” Cover

Says the folks at Engadget:

By now you’ve seen Apple’s Smart Cover, right? The mind blowing cover (don’t call it a case) pretty much stole the show during yesterday’s iPad2 press event, causing children to weep at the sight of our exploded bodies.

And now John Gruber:

If you do nothing else, watch the video for the Smart Cover. Seriously, it’s amazing.

You’d think he’d invented WonkaVision.

The Engadget link has a video of the cover. My mind is most decidedly not blown and, while I’ll certainly admit it’s clever, it isn’t within a lightyear of “amazing” by my reckoning.

What is amazing is that Apple (and Steve Jobs) can get people (presumably fully-grown and mature adults) who deal with technology on a regular basis to react like this to a magnet in a cloth with a couple of folds. Seriously, if Jobs announced tomorrow that he ate his bread butter-side down, I’d expect to be living in the Butter Battle Book 5 minutes later.

I mean, after reading Mr. Gruber’s head-through-the-sphincter description I was expecting maybe something made out of the memory cloth from Batman Begins. Or perhaps something (not sure what) from Under Armour. They make lots of cool stuff as glorified seamstresses- have you seen that shirt with the data collector built into it? Very cool.

The iPad2 Cover by Apple? Meh. Besides, someone else already makes a better version of it. The video for that is also at the Engadget link.

Categories
Family

How Does She Do That?

Picked up the lass from the bus today and she has a substitute sucker bus driver. As the lass is climbing down off the bus, the driver turns to me and says (roughly):

“She was a huge help today. She was telling me where all the other kids stops were, what way to go, who got off at each stop. She’s just adorable. I love her!!“

She said all this with a huge pleasant smile on her face making it clear that the lass had probably made at least her morning, probably her day and likely her week. It wouldn’t have surprised me if her bus driver had said she couldn’t wait to be on the bus with the lass again tomorrow!

All of this just left me in slack-jawed amazement at the powers of the lass. It’s one thing when the Grandparent’s are duped. I expect that because, well, they’re the Grandparents- they spoil the kids and then go home at the end of the day with a smile on their face knowing they can go home at the end of the day. As opposed to the Wife and I, who are stuck at home … with her. All the time.

… Sigh …

But I digress…

It’s one thing for family, but she regularly does this with complete strangers. She smiles at them, chirps a happily little tune and before you know it the stranger is dancing like a serpent in front of a charmer. She’s particularly effective with women (No idea why). It could be the teller at the bank, the bagger at the grocery store, the cashier at a store, an army drill instructor, the Grinch…

When they comment about how sweet/lovable she is, I used to retort “Live with her for a day and then tell me what you think.” It was always good for a laugh. But I don’t say that much anymore. The world is her roller coaster and I’m just along for the ride.

Categories
Family

Pack Parenting

During the boy’s hockey tournament this passed weekend, while coming off the ice after their second game, one of the boy’s friends and a teammate for the tournament snapped at another teammate “Get OUT OF THE WAY!” She had sat down at the end of the bench and the boy’s friend wanted to get through. His comment was not a request, it was an order and spoken with the corresponding force one would expect.

Suffice it to say, it was completely inappropriate and unacceptable, regardless that (for once!) the offender was not mine.

Continue reading “Pack Parenting”
Categories
Family

“Vacation” Ends?

Well, Ol’ Man Winter stepped up to the plate and prolonged the lass’ vacation another day or so. The boy was none to thrilled about the prospect and even tried declaring that he wasn’t going to school because his sister wasn’t. Once again, he harped on it not being fair.

Someday, when he’s all-growed up, he’ll really appreciate the unfairness intrinsic to life. Perhaps, when that day comes, he’ll learn to make his peace with it as well.

Categories
Family

Hockey Tournament

Instead of the usual practice this morning, the hockey league ran a 3-on-3 tournament. We signed the boy up for it as it would be his best chance to play some “real” hockey. If you can call hockey without checking, penalties or goalies real hockey. The nets were tiny little things about 15 inches wide and 8 inches high or so.

The tournament was the first competitive environment in which the boy participated. He’s been in other less formal things like t-ball and the like, but they didn’t keep score during those games. They didn’t want any hurt feelings. But here, there was actually going to be a sanctioned winner. Meaning there would also be a bunch of losers. Welcome to the real world I say.

His relative inexperience showed. He was hesitant and unsure of where to be at various points, especially when the puck wasn’t in his immediate vicinity. But he wasn’t alone and I and the other parents just encouraged them to skate hard and play hard. After the first couple of games, they were doing just that. He managed to score a couple of goals along the way, making the whole thing a personal success for him. I made sure to point out that the goals were a reward for working hard during the games. No way to know for sure if the “work” aspect registered with him, but we did our best to point it out and reinforce it. When he scored a goal in the final second of his last game, I made sure to point out that it was great that he kept on going right to the end.

Probably the most amusing moment came after his first goal. Since there are no goalies, play essentially continues right after each goal so the scoring team can’t take too long to celebrate or they’ll give up an easy “answer” score. Well, the boy was so excited that he skated the entire length of the ice to tell me that he’d scored his goal. Meanwhile, play was continuing behind him. I had to give him a quick “Attaboy” and then usher him back out to help his shorthanded team. Luckily, no goals against during that sequence. (FWIW- the goal was a nice shot. He was about 10-12 feet away and off to the right of the goal at a tough angle when he shot. He caught the far side of the little net with a satisfying “DONG” when the puck hit the metal frame. A little excitement was justified I’d say.)

When it was all said and done, his team came in second place. A feat that generally seemed to please him. Although he did comment that he wanted to win first place. I’d have been disappointed and surprised if he’d stated otherwise, though I’d never tell him that. We told him to keep working hard and next time he might just come in first. It was good to see that he clearly enjoyed the experience. Considering that he had a 5:30 wakeup call this morning(the first game was at 7), having him in a good mood after it was all said and done was the biggest win of the day.

Categories
Family

The New England Aquarium

That’s where we spent our last day of vacation. It was a surprise for the kids, though they did their level best to get us to spill the beans ahead of time. After realizing the brute force approach wasn’t working (“Where are we going?” Answer: “You’ll see” or “To where we’re going.”) they started using more elaborate strategies. For instance, they’d ask if we were going to place ‘X’ in an attempt to narrow down the field of possibilities. They’d ask what city it was in. Or they’d ask if we’d been “there” before. Regardless of the tactic, we maintained our cone of silence right until our arrival.

The penguins were the big attraction. They were center stage around a massive center-column aquarium with all kinds of fish swimming around, including what looked like a couple of sand sharks. There were also some groupers and a couple of massive sea turtles. I’d say that aquarium was roughly 4 stories tall and about 50-60 feet in diameter. As big as it was, many of the fish in it looked cramped for space- especially the sharks and groupers.

Around the center-aquarium were a variety of smaller aquariums stuffed to the gills (ahem) with fish. A few of the tanks had some good sized fish, but mostly they were of the smaller variety. The high lite was when the kids got to see some Cuttle Fish eat shrimp. Let’s face it, Nature at her rawest is pretty cool in general.

We ended the day watching a 3-D Imax movie about fish of the sea. It was a little disappointing, in truth, because it spent a disproportionate amount of time on just a few types of fish, the Cuttle fish in particular. It was also narrated by Jim Carrey, whom made sure to take the time to lecture us about how evil we all are and how we’re destroying our oceans but “we’re starting to learn we can do things better” blah blah blah. Too bad a shark couldn’t take a bite out of his ass.

The fun thing about the 3-D was the lass, who repeatedly would put her hand out to “pet” or touch the fish. The end featured a section where seals were coming right up to the camera and that was when she was at her most frantic in attempts to pet the seals. It was amusing to watch. When everything was done, I asked her what the seals felt like. She replied “Dad, I couldn’t actually touch them! It was just a movie.”

Well, the 3-D hadn’t fooled me. But she certainly did.

Categories
Computers

Opera 11 and Java

I guess this shows how little I actually go to sites that use java. When I finally encountered one yesterday, I learned that java was broken on my computer where my browser was concerned. I use Opera and anyone who has used it for any time knows that this happens regularly with Opera. Especially when it comes to updates. It’s annoying, but the advantages of Opera over other browsers makes it worth the minor hassle.

I’ll spare the blow-by-blow and get right to the solution. Assuming that the sun-java-plugin is installed and linked to properly, there is one system setting that needs to be adjusted. In the /etc/sysctl.d/bindv6only.conf file the net.ipv6.bindv6only setting should be 0 instead of 1. (I suppose I should mention that I’m running a 64-bit debian/testing setup.) Networking had to be restarted after making the change.

See here for details.