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Daynotes on a budgetThe weekly diary of an EMPLOYED PC GeekUpdated: Sunday, December 10, 2000 9:47 PM -0600 | |
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Monday, December 4, 2000 Before you go any further, check out THIS, please. Kaycee needs your help to fill her room with cards. This is serious, folks. This kid (She's nineteen, and I think I can say that from the advanced age of thirty-seven) has taught ME a whole lot about attitude. Do me a favor, send her a card. Address in Dan's posting. This might become a regular nag, folks. Hello again from another Monday morning. It occurs to me that life as a four-year-old with an older sister is pretty tough, sometimes. Such as this morning, when we were getting dressed, etc., the young man in my care had put on a new pair of jeans. New to him, that is. And they're a bit large. It's not nice to laugh when people's pants fall down, but I did try not to. Poor kid came out of the elevator and took off his coat; pants were half-way down his butt. I've changed the left border yet again over here - I moved my Star Wars link up to the top of the page, along with the rest of the Daynoter links. That's because as you look down the page, I found yet another neato-keen-whiz-bang-widget for fun - the Moreover news bar starts on Tuesday and shows up every weekday. I also modified the structure of this page a little to see if I can
improve the loading speed. Lord knows I go on forever; there's no
reason to have to wait for the whole page to load before you can read my
pearls of wisdom (or something). Yesterday, I found myself grudgingly agreeing with Mr. Fahrquhar on the whole election mess; unfortunately, he's a bit off on one point. He stated that statisticians agree that there's something foul about Gore picking up as many votes as he had, while Bush consistently loses. What is clear is that in a completely clean environment, with double-blind testing, it's certainly true that a clean count would likely show very little deviation in a recount situation. However, we haven't got a clean count; we're dealing with people. I'm not blaming any one individual, or suggesting malfeasance on the part of our public officials - far from it. However, let's take a bunch of colored balls. We've got red, blue, green, and all sorts of shades in between them, so you've got roughly 500 balls. No two identically colored. Now, take a person who really likes red, and have them select the red balls, put them into one bucket, the blue into another, the green into a third, and the rest can sit in the middle of the room. Then count the balls in each bucket. Repeat the test with someone who likes blue, and again, someone who likes green. At the end of the test, go back and review the counts. We did a similar test in college. People were not told the purpose of the test, they were merely asked to sort balls. They took a test before the count started, but the test was scored by one individual, and the balls counted by another. At the end, the results were pretty obvious. Now, replace the balls with ballots. Replace the colors with Republicans, Democrats, and Others. Replace the people counting balls with people who may or may not have opinions about the whole process. Gore called for recounts in statistically Democratic counties. I have no doubt that Democratic counties in a Republican state might show some deviation in counting procedures, just the same as heavily Republican areas in a Democratic state might also show deviations. That's the nature of "margin of error" in elections. Typically, there's more than enough margin of victory to swallow up the margin of error. Not this time, though. Bottom line, though, is that no one cares any more. Gore may have won the popular vote. Both candidates got more votes than Clinton did last time 'round. And through the Electoral College, George W. Bush (hereafter known as Bush the Younger) will be our next president. I would like to see the assignment of electors changed, though, in the states, so that the electors are assigned percentage-wise to a particular candidate, rather than as a whole. This winner-take-all stuff allows candidates to ignore heavily partisan areas and concentrate most of their efforts on more balanced areas, in hopes of getting those swing votes. And then there's this, via e-mail... A history professor from Uppsala University in Sweden
read an article in which a Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should closely study what is
going on in the U.S. elections, for it shows that election fraud is not only a third-world
phenomena. I have a tough time with 5 & 6 above - I'm not getting either one of them, perhaps it's another attempt to throw accusations, but for the most part, it's pretty interesting. But back to the real world, there's one more reason I dislike Apple Computer. Not the computers themselves, mind you, but the nitwits that run the company. Apple swore up and down they would not open retail stores. However, I remember reading last spring from Macintouch and others, that Apple was exploring the concept. The amazing thing is that many of the people who use Macintoshes and get excellent service from a local dealer will welcome this sort of thing. Apple's shown that they'll partner with you just as long as you're willing to take the abuse. At some point, you'll either give and run, or get stomped flatter than a sheet of paper. Either way, Apple doesn't care - removal of competition is their goal. Apple's got GREAT products. Apple's got management that would make Machiavelli proud. That, or the Three Stooges. I'd love to have a Mac; but I couldn't, in good conscience, mortgage the future of a company, any company, on a platform available from one company that consistently lies, denies it lies, and abuses the users. But none of that seems to matter to Mac fans. I'm wondering if the marketing folk at Apple are aware they've found a way to selectively market to masochists? This could be helpful to others, perhaps. More later after laundry, dishes, and phone calls. I hope this is the last week of this "free day" business. Did I mention I'm still looking for a job? Later: Well, I guess that's that. The blue Mercury Cougar, 1988, that I bought four years ago for $900 is leaving today. It's costing me $20 to make sure it doesn't end up in a lake somewhere, but I guess that's that. Called the local vo-tech, the local hotline for cars to be donated to poor people, and any other community resource I could think of, to see if someone was interested in it. It still runs well with the exception of a new ignition switch, but hey, I'm not going to worry about it. Makes my attempts at paying it forward a little weak by comparison. I did mention Kaycee previously, didn't I? That kid - okay, young lady - is one tough girl. My hat's off to her, and her mother. How she can inspire, and still suffer as she is, is unbelievable. I doubt I'd have the strength of character to pull that one off. And now it seems that the Daynotes gang is revamping page layouts left and right. Well, Tom lost the right menu, Bob lost the left, so I guess that's that. I agree with Tom, tables within tables are a bright royal pain. However, I've split this page into multiple tables to see if that will speed loading. I got a question on it a few weeks ago, flipped off the answer from my five years' HTML experience, then said "but did you TEST IT?" Oh, of course not. I know better than that, don't I? Erm. Yes, I do know better. Now. Multiple tables load faster than one big table. Text NOT in a table loads even faster. Why? Simple - HTML needs to know the structure of a table. Due to the rather serial nature of the internet (you do remember that we're still getting one bit at a time here, it's just that some of you lucky folk are getting them at 3 Meg a second, right?), the browser you use needs to see the whole table, that means from <TABLE...> to </TABLE> before it goes about setting things up. HTML's got plenty of gotchas like that. Frames are the worst. If you're not careful, you can get it set up so that new pages don't fit the frames. Or that you never leave the frames. It's ugly. And I don't think it's the fault of the WC3. It's a bit of a poorly understood set of code, combined with poor and archaic browser implementation, combined with sub-and-non-standard implementations on the billions of web sites. There. Stomped another soapbox flat. Some day, they're going to come for me, and I'll laugh all the way to the nuthouse. Of course, while laughing, I'll probably have to share secrets. FINALLY... Well, the bad news is that the Buck Hill Shot of the Day is permanently on hiatus after Wednesday. And tonight, I broke the seal on the jar of Jif (whoops, had a Freudian slip there and almost typed "gif") Chocolate Silk. You know what that means... Yup, that's me. Employed, once again. This time, as a contractor, through another outfit, to work on something like eighteen *NIX servers running what sounds like fifteen different OSes. First thing I'm agonna do is write me a cross-reference chart.
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Tuesday,
December 5, 2000 First, did I mention I'm EMPLOYED! Start date's Thursday. Here's hoping I survive... Second - Yes, I said "I couldn't, in good conscience, mortgage the future of a company, any company, on a platform available from one company that consistently lies, denies it lies, and abuses the users". And turned a blind eye to my own experiences with Microsoft, Dell, Compaq, and many others, in addition to wide evidence for many others doing the same. After having it kindly pointed out that I'm being a little inconsistent here (without the benefit of alcohol, no less), I guess I need to step back a bit. So why is it that I hate Apple? Certainly part of it's my most recent experience with my previous employer. No point in denying that. I look at computers as a toolbox, really. You've got your hammers, saws, and screwdrivers. Certainly, one can drive screws with a hammer, and one can pound in small nails using a screwdriver (don't laugh, when you're six and can't reach the hammers on the top of the peg board, you get pretty ingenious). And I've proven time and again you can separate wood parts using a hammer. Perhaps not to a fine-finish level, but you get the idea. To me, it's irresponsible to throw away any one of these tools. Translating it to the computing world, where Apple has perhaps 10-15% market share across the board, does it make sense to have these machines on every desktop in a company? Maybe. Not all the time, but maybe. Apple's Hardware changes just about as much as everyone else's; so that's not a factor. One major pain in the butt, however, is their emphasis on design for design's sake. Certainly the new G4 Cube is cute. Certainly it's functional. But you can't really stack it in a production environment without plenty of ventilation, etc. It would be a great server, otherwise. I guess what annoys me about Apple more than anything else is the attitude. It's the "if you don't like us, you're not cool" attitude that goes around. Frankly, the Amiga folks I used to hang around with did it better without being quite so off-putting. And the Apple folk are certainly willing to haul out machetes to hack away at whatever points you wish to make. I can't tell you how many articles I've read by computer industry "pundits" who say "I'll never write about Apples again because their supports are so (Fill in the blank with any unkind adjective you like)". The IBM-compatible platform is certainly guilty of all of these faults; the benefit of the PC marketplace, however, is that if you're getting screwed by XYZ company's PCs, you can switch to ABC company without losing expertise in the OS, purchasing all new applications, and so forth. Is my dislike of Macs total? Heck no. I'd even consider getting a new iMac once we get more space in this nuthouse. But I think it's the fanatics who put me off the platform as a real business tool. It's certainly got uses in key areas, and it's growing into others. But they really need to relax, man. Nuff about them. On to other fun stuff. All right, folks, welcome to Minnesota, home of Senator Dick Day, who lives in Owatonna, whom I find myself disagreeing with mightily on the Ramp Meters.. We here in the Twin Cities have just suffered through what is laughingly called "The great Ramp Meter Shutdown" test. I've recounted the facts previously, but I'll lay them out again. We have the largest number of ramp meters, which are basically stop lights connected to timers connected to a central traffic monitoring site, in the country. Perhaps the world. Over 400 meters scattered around the metro area. They control traffic by allowing vehicles onto the freeways at set intervals. Said traffic then waits in ramps, and gets onto the roadway and moves, for the most part, at or near the posted speeds, unless there's an accident/incident. Our dear Senator Dick Day, however, prefers to sit in traffic where nothing's moving rather than on a ramp where nothing's moving. Me, I prefer to sit on a ramp where people expect to stop rather than on a freeway where one fellow asleep at the wheel can smash up half a hundred cars, or more. Argh. This drives me nuts. Anyway, I'm employed, starting on Thursday, so I'm going to start doing lots of thinking. Again. Time to get the brain out of the jar in the bottom of the freezer and warm it up again. This time I need the UNIX brain, not the other one. Gotta remember that this time, for sure. I see Mr. Thompson's got a discussion going about vacuuming a computer and static. Gee, I thought the beaters would do in the case, but if Mr. Thompson says it's OK... Slightly Later: Oh, my. Now things are starting to pop left and right. This could be ugly, or fun. More later, when decisions are made. Such as they are. But on to other topics. Our honorable senator Dick Day, Minority Leader of the Minnesota Senate, received an e-mail from me this morning. In the interests of fairness, I'll reproduce it here.
Nothing like haranguing the public servants, right? I should have tempered my language, perhaps. Ach well. You know the rule. A fool and his mouth are soon runneth over... However, Mr. Day employs some quick wits, I guess...
Isn't that a hoot? I wonder if their mom ever told them about being careful what one puts in print. I'm not, but then again, I'm also a private individual, engaged in the service of myself. I'm not working for taxpayers and telling them the above. Ah, well. It couldn't get weirder around here, could it? He asked, knowing full well that to tempt the fates is sort of like trying to take a leak in a hurricane. And Later: Yes, he's at it again. Multiple daily posts. I bet you hate that when I do that.
Several days ago there was a discussion on the Daynotes backchannel about a Toque. Sometimes pronounced "Tuke" here in "Minnesoda", it's pretty apparent that we've got different definitions of "Tuke". John Doucette says that a "toque" is a hat that's basically a knitted tube, closed on both ends, and tucks one end into the other. This is referred to here, or where I grew up in Central Minnesota, as a "tossle cap" - actually we tended to sneer at those, because they'd lost the little pom-poms that went on top. Matt Beland says they're Iowa Hats. I guess I'm just confused. But so you know where I'm coming from, we'll plunge onward.
And to help out a little, there's my son with my "tuke" on his head. Ach, well. That's the way it goes. As a kid my mom used to knit caps and mittens for us. We even had the old idiot strings. The hats were great, but the mittens, man. Those were bad news. The problem is that knitted mittens needed a pair of what we'd call "choppers" to cover them. "Choppers" were usually leather over-mitts that were waterproof, leak proof, and all the rest of that stuff. The problem we had was in playing out in the snow. I'd put my hands in the mittens, start playing in the snow, and your hands would get instantly wet. The melting snow would soak through those mittens and I'd have frozen hands most of the afternoon. The idiot strings were especially nice. Kids could grab one mitten and pull - the string ran from the one mitten, up the sleeve, across the back, and down the other sleeve to the other mitten. Someone yanks on the one hand, you'd end up smacking yourself with the other. And some of the kids on the bus thought that was fun. Maybe it was, for them. I didn't much enjoy it. The stupid thing is that now I look for waterproof gloves, instead of mittens (your fingers either froze or sweated in those things), and I don't play in the snow nearly as much as I used to. Gee. I guess I have grown up a little. And in the continuing saga of the Senator Dick Day fiasco...
Oh, come on. You didn't actually expect me, old foam-at-the-mouth, to keep it shut, did you? I suppose it would be imprudent of me to note the Senator "does not use a computer" and yet he's retired from IBM? I just can't understand that one, unless he's got CTS or something...
And I'm sure my mommy is hanging her head in shame. Mrs. Dominik's son, getting into a tiff with a "powerful" state legislator. Gee whiz. You'd think they don't like the feedback or something. I guess Dr. Pournelle's thoughts about our descent from Republic to Empire go a lot deeper than the national level. Sheesh. And Finally: Just before we were ready to leave, this happened :
With the deer circled in the picture below.
When we first moved in here, there was a wide-open block of land. We had lots of deer. These are still hanging around, which makes it nice... Almost non-city-like, you know?
I know many people in the Metro area hate deer, and consider them pests. Sure they're a pain in the butt, and if I had a garden, I'm certain I'd be upset about feeding well over half my efforts in that department to a bunch of four-legged "pests." However, the kid in me still likes seeing these animals. They're pretty. AND AGAIN! Yeah, more from the Ramp Meter shutdown thing. I'm not going to post any more of this. I have the feeling I'm dealing with some individual who is perhaps half my age, required to type what the Senator tells them, and does so. That individual has my sympathy. I am equally certain, though, that the individual who typed as instructed is also guilty of fuzzy thinking. At the very least. Claiming "It's not my fault, I was TOLD to write that" is no excuse. If my boss tells me to go out and insult a paying customer, I'm going to make sure that the boss is aware of what's going on. I'm not going to buck the boss's directives, but at the same time, I'm not going to fall for that sort of business. Sheesh. I also have no doubt that our esteemed Senate Minority Leader is certainly guilty of writing the first reply above. It's pretty evident that he didn't think too hard about it. Though I often wonder if the esteemed Senator does think. In my humble opinion, I think the man's just not got enough sandwiches for a picnic, you know? I cannot imagine what this fellow would have done if faced with SWMBO. Then again, the first conversation with She Who Must Be Obeyed this evening was ... shall we say "educational?" SWMBO : DOLT! (<Smack>) Let this be a lesson to ALL of you - never ever do anything quickly. I'd thought my e-mail through for a number of days (at least three weeks since Sen. Day started complaining that the news media was slanting the coverage), but I think Senator Day probably didn't think this one through. Is anyone surprised? Not I. Of course, the headache I have now is primarily from trying to use elementary High School physics to explain Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity to a poli-sci major. There's something odd about understanding recounts and yet not understanding the cosmic speed limit. Ouch.
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"Minnesota Tuke" is one of those hats you might see around now
in colder climes. Typically fur-trimmed, it has ear-flaps which
fold up and fasten at the top of the head. The front usually also
has a flap that's fur-covered. With the flaps flipped up, you have
basically a fur halo. With the flaps down, the back of the hat
covers the back of the neck, the sides cover the ears and cheeks, and if
you put the face-flap down, it even covers your face.
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Wednesday, December 6, 2000 Today's lesson, my friends, is on PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Yes, those two ugly words which many of us understand, but some, yes some, fail to get. I'll first define my views on Personal Responsibility. When I spill the milk, it is not in saying "it wasn't my fault." I did it. I knocked over the glass. Certainly by accident. However, that accident was my fault. Through carelessness of one form or another, it's my fault. Clearly, we've managed to step back a few yards (or hundred yards) from where we used to be. Given the preponderance of attorneys in this country seeking to protect us from ourselves, the defense "It's not my fault!" has grown from the excuse of the immature to a standing rule in some households. If you view yesterday's tiff with the Senator from Owatonna, certainly I exercised less than appropriate judgment in sending him a message like the above. However, my frustration with the Senator and his policies is rapidly attaining the stature of legend (at least in the teacup circles of my mind). To refresh : As I recall, in the 1999 legislative session, Senator Day proposed the ramp meter shut-off test. Nothing came of his proposal. In the 2000 session, the Senator again proposed his shutoff. Rather than being ignored, it was passed by a House and Senate, as I recall, late in the session. This sent the bill onto our esteemed governor's desk, where it went through, and our Department of Transportation had to follow through. Now, mind you, I have no problems with SCIENTIFIC studies of any kind. If this process had been approached seriously, as a scientific experiment, then we'd be all right. I suspect that the problem was that Senator Day had been getting an ear-full of people complaining about the meters. Fine. But to demand that they be shut off for good? Good grief, people. Back to the facts of the case. Senator Day, on the first day of the shut-off experiment, took a TV News Crew from Channel 11, KARE, along with him on his "daily commute from Apple Valley to downtown St. Paul". Curiously, I've never had an answer one way or the other from the Senator who commutes 'daily' from Apple Valley, a good hour north of Owatonna, to St. Paul. But I digress. The Senator, having won his point, and got the meters shut off, proceeded to complain about the DOT releasing statistics to the public about the ramp meter test. 'Scuse me? If there were 50% more accidents during the ramp meter test period, I think I'd want to know about that, wouldn't you? Especially since it's part of the information we PAY for with our TAXES, dear Senator. So, we proceed to listen to Senator Day complain about "polluting the results." I wonder if he'll demand that we re-do the test, this time without the release of information. Failing that, I wonder if he'll demand we re-count the information and re-evaluate our conclusions. Hmmm... I'm thinking that parallels are starting to emerge. And I don't like them. Anyway. The point of the above discussion was to note that our Senator Day, Ramp Meter Opponent, is at one polarized end of this issue. I'm rapidly moving towards the other end, mostly based on evidence. Let's see - why do I want ramp meters? In the mornings, when I'm sitting in the on-ramp, waiting to get onto the road, I see people reading the paper, even typing memos on a laptop. I see people putting on makeup, shaving, doing their hair, nails, and various other things. Oh, yeah - eating breakfast, as well. Most of those things require at least one hand and a portion of your mental faculties, in addition to some small amount of your attention. Now, should these tasks be going on in the vehicle ahead of/next to/behind me? Not for me to say. If you want to shave while in your car, hey, it's up to you. But do I want to be next to you on the icy freeway when you've got one hand on the wheel, the other hand on your razor, both eyes and your face in your rear-view mirror, and perhaps 10% of your attention on the road, let alone your speedometer, the traffic around you, and the road conditions? I once saw a fellow eating a burger being chased by an ambulance down the freeway. I suspect (from the distance I was able to see him was well over a half-mile) that the individual justified it by saying "I'm in this empty lane, there's a vehicle behind me with sirens blowing, lights flashing, and everyone's getting out of the way. Why should I move over when I can get out of his way by going faster?" My mother used to tell us the story about the train engineer who regularly went past the fire station. One day, he was backing and forthing (one does that with trains near a switch yard) and stopped on the tracks, blocking the intersection. The firetrucks came out, and the railroad engineer took his time clearing the intersection. Yes, it was the engineer's house that was on fire. I wonder if the fellow in front of the ambulance would have moved aside if it had been his wife, daughter, mother, father, brother, or sister in that vehicle? It was certainly someone's. I can see Senator Day's point. It's frustrating to sit in ramp meters. What irritates me to the point of e-mailing the above is that Senator Day refuses to listen to the other side of the issue. The above is the THIRD e-mail I've sent him on this topic. The first two were polite, well-reasoned, and respectful. No reply was forthcoming. I had every intention of posting the message I sent before I received a reply. Clearly, the Senator's never heard of me; nor should he, he's not my representative. However, you're asking, how does all of this tie into personal responsibility? Simple. Senator Day's bill was responsible for some people getting to work quicker, and getting home quicker. That fact's not in doubt. Senator Day refuses to listen to the published polls. At the start of this thing, something like 60% of the people asked wanted to shut off the ramp meters. That's a pretty solid number. Now, over 70% want them back on, with modifications. Senator Day is insisting that we DO NOT want them on. Where he gets his information, I'm not sure, but on the off chance that it's e-mail, I wanted to be the voice in the storm AGAINST his proposals. I'm sure he's regretting the reply. I know that there are others who regret getting involved in all of this. I'm frustrated that he's unwilling to listen to reason. And I'm angry that he thinks he can say what he did and it won't come around to haunt him later. But that's the way it goes. No one ever gets everything they want. As the Stones song says "sometimes you get what you need." We get the government we deserve. I guess we deserve Senator Day. I'd like to think we're a better bunch than that, but clearly, we're somewhat lacking. More later, when I'm coherent. If I'm coherent. There's a threat for ya. Later: Yes, it's later. Let's set the stage. I'm not sure yet if I'd call today "conflicted" or "difficult" or what. Kerfluffle. That's what I feel. Sums it up nicely. To set the stage, we must introduce the cast of characters - UB The Unix Brain. Now, in case you're new around here, let's set the situation up. Our friend the $B has tentatively accepted a position as a Unix Systems Admin contractor. He's got to sign papers this evening and start tomorrow morning. NB isn't happy about this, as it's his turn in the freezer. UB is thrilled to come out of the coldbox, as it's been perhaps eight to ten months that he's done more than ls -al and basic farting around. FB is thrilled that I'm getting out of the house again, and PB, well, he's usually asleep. Now that we've covered all that, let's join a conversation in progress... UB Nyah nyah nyah na-nyah nyaaaaaah. Loser. What Smart Brain Said. In other words, this morning I started out with a tentative commitment on my part for one job, and another, better opportunity came along. I feel badly about turning down the one company for the other, but this second opportunity is less money, closer to home, working with programmers to get the whole product to work. I'm VERY excited. But I feel bad about dropping the other commitment. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it. And to throw the whole thing into a sharp bend to the left, today I was driving around in the snow we had coming down, and I really wished I'd brought the camera. It was one of those "Christmas Eve" snows we get occasionally - big, fluffy flakes, some of them a quarter-inch across, and they were all six-sided. They were all unique, too. Wow. Sometimes you just have to stop looking at the forest and stare at one or two beautiful trees.
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Thursday, December 7, 2000 I'm really very, very fortunate. Fifty-nine years ago this morning, the United States was plunged into World War II in a very ugly, nasty, and painful way. From what I understand, the intent of the Japanese government was to deliver their message that we were at war before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. However, that didn't happen. We lost millions of good men and women, and changed our country forever. I was fortunate. My father was eighteen in 1941, just having finished high school. But for the polio that he contracted at the age of three, he'd have been in that war; perhaps he'd have died, and I wouldn't be here. But he didn't. I did have one uncle, who joined. I believe, the Navy. He's now suffering from what I believe is Alzheimer's, but prior to that, you'd never met a funnier fellow. My uncle "Butch" (his real name was Adolph, so you can understand how he picked up the nickname during WWII) was a genuine riot in many, many ways. He always took time to talk to his nephews and nieces, and you got the feeling that he really enjoyed it. We have literally hundreds of Uncle Butch stories. I could tell them for hours. But there are two that stick in my mind. The first occurred before I was born. Uncle Butch worked for a lumber-products company, and they sent him to Japan for one reason or another. This must have been in the late forties or early fifties. He enjoyed the trip, but one highlight were the jelly beans he found at the table one evening. He popped them continually, enjoying the flavor and texture, and it wasn't until the next morning, ready to climb the stairway to the plane, that he had the chance to ask his host what the jelly bean-like food was. "Fish eyes" came the reply. The flight was delayed for about 20 minutes while Uncle Butch disposed of the eyes, all over the tarmac. Or so the story goes. I have a hunch Uncle Butch didn't powerwash the pavement, but rather went "hmmm. No one will believe this, it's great!" and boarded anyway. But it's still a hoot. I'll never forget summer family reunions at his cabin in Cold Spring, Minnesota. They had a cabin on a wide spot in the Sauk River, so we had water to play in. One memorable year, one of my other nutty uncles, Uncle Rommie (His real name was Roman, you can't make this stuff up, I'm telling you) brought this small car-powered vacuum cleaner/blower and some plastic tubing he'd picked up from somewhere. He'd blow up these twenty and thirty foot tubes, tie them off, and pass them down to the kids in the water. We'd have these long hot-dog like balloons to ride on, play with, and so forth. One of the tubes got away from us, and started blowing straight across the lake. The rest of us got a little tired of playing in the water, and got out with the remaining tubes, and Uncle Butch started up the boat to take people water skiing. After a couple of my cousins went, Roman's son Jon went water skiing. I was standing on the shore, so I can't tell you what happened in the boat, but I do know they were talking about getting the plastic tube back across the lake. Jonny went out on the end of the rope, roared around the lake a couple of times, and got lined up. What happened next will remain fixed in my mind's eye for the remainder of my life. Uncle Butch's boat approached at about thirty miles an hour, and Jonny lined up and approached the tube with himself near the exact middle of the tube. His idea was to get the tube across the skis near his ankles, and drag it back. Jon lined up and hit the tube nearly dead-center. And the tube had leaked. Instead of being a light-weight bag of air on top of the water, some amount of water had leaked into the bag, and it didn't move. Jon, however, did. He pitched forward, holding onto the tow rope, and went flat to the surface of the water. The skis shot out from under the bag and continued on, without him. Jon continued, airborne, for perhaps ten to fifteen feet before he started skipping. I think he bounced at least twice (we could see the grass on the opposite shore underneath him), and then remembered to let go of the rope. When they came back around, from a distance of about a half-mile across the lake, I could still hear Uncle Butch's voice. "Next time, LET GO!" I will never forget those reunions. But it was what I learned later that really raised my estimation of my uncle Butch. He'd served in a number of different areas, but on D-Day, he was the executive officer of a landing ship. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Uncle Butch was fortunate enough to host General Eisenhower on his trip across to the landing site. I remember hearing my father read Uncle Butch's words of the situation, how he approached the general and asked for several autographs for some of the enlisted men on the ship. When my father asked Uncle Butch why he didn't get one of his own, Butch replied "I was an officer, it wouldn't have been proper. Wish I had, though." I wish we'd kept a copy of that book. A few years ago Uncle Butch's car was broken into and his briefcase (with manuscript) was stolen out of the back of his car. Now we'll never have those stories. And in a larger sense, we're losing history daily. Our country, and our present-day conveniences, were safeguarded and built by that generation. They came back from horrific events and locales around the world, and set to building up this country. We've benefitted from the work our fathers and grandfathers (and great-grandfathers), uncles, aunts, and many, many others have done. We should take a little time today to remember those who sacrificed for us, and those who survived. They're dying now, and we should take the time to record their stories. There. </SERMON> On to other things. Yesterday evening, I, the unemployed bastard of Tuesday, had two competing job offers in front of me. One paid very well, but was a contract position. The other paid less, was much closer to home, was a full-time, non-contract position, and had literally every opportunity I could have ever hoped for. I found myself saying "you could pay me $100 an hour, it wouldn't make a difference." Of course, at that point, SWMBO walked into the room, got a little pale, and left again. I did, and do, feel badly about putting the other organization into the lurch. Should anyone from there be reading this, however, I'd like to point out something. I was a contractor once before. I was hired and told that I'd be working in a week or two, four at the outside. I got an e-mail from them the other day. Opportunities are still low for them, so I'd still be sitting on my hands waiting for them to market me. I can't do that to my family again. However, today is prep for stuff day. I've got a meeting of the job group at church tonight, which I'm going to go to and see if I can help anyone else. Then tomorrow, I'm taking my son on a long-promised daddy and me trip to the Minnesota Zoo. We'll see if we can spend a little time watching the dolphins from a safe distance, this time... Oh, dear. Dan is at it again. Time Sink? Oh, yes. I found the Formilab site probably about three years ago. It took me nearly three months to get away from it. It's that evil. If you're at all into space, especially near-earth orbital stuff, this is most definitely a time sink you'll want to avoid. And yes, I've shut up about Ramp Meters, as they go back on tomorrow. Just in time for me to begin battling traffic again. Whoo hoo. Though Phil Hough, fellow daynoter, has noted that they've got ramp meters in England, as well. Speaking of England - one of the big annual exhibits has arrived here at our "Walker Art Center". It's the annual showing of the best English TV commercials. One of the Walker's best-drawing exhibits, believe it or not. This area's so starved for culture that we're mistaking commercials for art. Though they ARE funny... ;-) Now, to decide if I want to get a Palm, Visor, Laptop, or struggle with paper... Let's see. SWMBO has to approve any such purchase, so, let's see... I think we'll probably work our way around eventually to the much-desired laptop - just not quickly enough for my taste. Ach, well. What can I say? I come from a long line of gadget-heads. Later: Tonight's going to be one very busy evening. We've got Brownies at one house, I've got a meeting over at church with the job group (it's wonderful to be in a situation where I can offer help, especially being where I was just two weeks ago). And I can't help but wish... When I was younger, I did a lot of outdoor play. That's what happens when you live in the country, next to large wooded pastures, open fields, and lots of other kids. Oh, and did I mention a pathological desire to avoid afternoon naps no matter what? But I didn't do a whole lot of camping and so forth until I was about 12. I tried once when I was about nine or ten. My grandmother had a Davy Crockett tent in her garage; now I didn't know a real tent from a circus tent at the time, but looking back on it now, this thing was a joke. One central pole, with a metal square hanging by string from the tip of the pole. The tent was square, perhaps six feet on a side, and simply draped over the top of this metal frame. One needed to then stake the corners and sides tightly to make sure the tent would not fall. In other words, completely impossible to erect by one person. And when one had four younger sisters who wanted to pull the thing down, well... you get the picture. One summer, I managed to talk my parents into a sleepout in the back yard. Me, Grandma's Davy Crockett tent, a flashlight, and nature. It was June/July-ish, so it wasn't too big a deal, weather-wise. I packed my "pack", hauled my blanket outside, and set up for bed. I goofed around in the yard for a while (hey, a guy on his own after the parentally-mandated bed time, pretty cool, man). I eventually conked out before the 10 pm news finished (I remember seeing the start, but not the end), and that was that. Until I awoke, the next morning, in my own bed with my jeans on. As Tom would say "WTF"? Seems that the weather fellow threatened potential rain during the overnight hours, and since this "tent" was not waterproofed (heck the Davy Crockett pictures were dyed into the cotton cloth), I would be better indoors than outdoors, soaked. Apparently, I walked into the house under my own power. Some years later, I joined the Boy Scouts. And I went on the Spring Camporee. It was only five miles up the road from my parent's house. I still remember that campsite (it's a county park now, it was pasture-land at that time). We were just off a gravel trail, down in a little hollow. Rise of about fifteen feet behind the tents, a flat spot, and a slope downward of perhaps six feet to the water about forty feet from the tents. Nice open clearing for a fire pit, cook kits, and makeshift tables. We had a heck of a time. And I came home with poison ivy on Mother's Day, so tired I couldn't see straight, smelling of wood smoke and three days without bathing (water temp at that time of year was still in the "are you freakin' nuts?" category) and it was just after fishing opener (which for once in my memory was the week BEFORE mother's day). Why on earth I want to do it again is a complete mystery. I've camped out in winter, in tents piled with snow; I've camped in snow caves. I've camped out in the summer in storms that would have you terrified if you were in a house; we were young, foolish, and in a large cathedral of old, slow-growth pines, oaks, and elms. The tops of the trees would howl, and the bottoms would creak, and we'd get a little wet. Not much. I've gotten poison ivy so many times and in so many places I can tell you what does and does not work. Next time I'm sitting around a campfire and some idiot throws some green "weeds" onto the fire, I'm diving for a breathing mask. Betcha didn't know you can get poison ivy from the smoke when it's being burned, didja? Me either, until it happened to me. And, perhaps most embarrassing, I learned that no matter how big a hurry you're in to get out and get into the woods, pack an extra roll or two of toilet paper, in plastic bags, and toss a couple of extra heavy-duty ziplocks into your pack for later in the week. Using leaves for various toiletries can be done, but it's best to scout the area first, and for crying out loud, do not grab the first thing that comes to hand. Talk about uncomfortable commercials about burning and itching in sensitive places, man. This is usually the time of year I sit there saying "gee, I wish I woulda camped out this summer..." and proceed to do nothing about it for next year. I do dearly hope to change that next summer. I've got a six-man tent. I've got a big cooler. If the kids bring back the flashlights, we're well-equipped there. I can borrow my mother's ten-quart cast-iron dutch oven (not the type of thing to take on a long back-pack trip, but if you're looking at a drop and plop stay, nothing beats my fruit cobbler. I think it's been long enough. SWMBO believes camping is where one has to make do without the microwave. I think it's time I get my son out into the woods so he can see dad cook with fire. Got to be some danger in this enterprise, no? And Later: Well, that's odd. I load up Excel to track my stats, and I load up the browser. And the computer locked up. Reboot. Run Norton, check things out. Reboot - I learned that a long time ago. Nice as Norton and the various other utilities are out there, Norton still hangs around. Then I got smart. Downloaded the pages with my stats on as text, ran a quick pass over with a text editor to turn it into a CSV file (each value is separated by commas, which puts it into a different column in Excel), then imported it. Boy, some times I'm really stupid. I'll let you in on a little secret. I look at my stats occasionally. Mostly just to see what's going on. And I'll be honest. Before I moved to Spaceports, I looked once in a while at the stats page. Told me how many visitors I had that day (in other words, not too damned much information). At Spaceports, I can find out what IPs showed up (but not where they came from, though I suspect I put in a line about nude leather-clad female monkeys, someone's going to start showing up out of weird places - wanna bet? Don't, it's a sucker's bet, I can't tell where they're coming from). I can see how many page loads, and what pages are generating the traffic. Wow. In other words, I'll put it in proper perspective...When I first moved to Spaceports, I was averaging two visitors a day, they'd load about 13 elements (not too tough, as the average page here takes about six elements before I put anything into it), and it would take about 82K of bandwidth. The week the good Doctor chewed me out for wasting his time (hey, it's not my fault, he was supposed to be writing, not reading), I went from five visitors a day to over forty. Then sixty the week Ann was in the hospital. Then it dropped off about ten a day to fifty for about two weeks in late October and early November, then for the last couple of weeks it's been going up in a steady trend. Maybe this will help, if it works...
Wow. That's pretty cool. And the best part is I just copied and pasted from Excel. There are times when I really do like windows. Although I did note one thing. Late last week I put up an HTML-formatted resume here, and linked it to DICE. I peaked at over 25 meg of transfer a day for the six days that my resume was linked here. Strange. I guess putting my resume into the inactive pile on Dice will drop the stats a wee bit, which is fine. I'm not doing this for the stats. Now the good news is that now that I'm employed, I'll be able to do some more technical stuff here. Then again, given the fact that I haven't done much in the way of technology since mid-September, perhaps I shouldn't. Ach well, we'll see what happens. I don't write for the stats, though it's gratifying. I write for the simple fact that I both enjoy it and it feeds a need. I've read, and re-read, and re-re-read, and... you get the idea. Anyway, in Grumbles from Beyond the Grave which is Robert A. Heinlein's collection of letters, papers, and literary asides he saved as he made his way through his life. What I thought was interesting was where he mentioned that if he was engaged in heavy manual physical labor, for example building fountains, he could avoid a keyboard, but as he got older, he needed to write more and more to keep "the monkey" off his back. I don't know that I've got a full-grown Monkey riding me. At the moment it seems more a hamster who's interested in annoying me. But who knows. But at least the little bad fortune demon has left us. Today we fell into yet another good deal. The President of SWMBO's company purchased a vehicle back in 1993. He sold this vehicle to the company later, when the company needed one. SWMBO's boss then purchased the vehicle a few years ago, and after they decided they needed new vehicles, guess who happened to be in the right place at the right time? You got it, She Who Must Be Obeyed. So we're now purchasing an Eagle Vision TSi, light gray in color, with a tan interior. Runs very well, looks very nice (though I'm sure my kids will soon putz up the interior), but there's a wee bit of a problem. The previous owners were quite kindly getting the vehicle detailed (good grief; this thing's cleaner than new), and when the detailers were cleaning it, they disconnected one of the two driver-seat power seat adjusters... So the seat could go down, but not up. Back, but not forward. So I was practically reclined when I drove home after the meeting I missed at church tonight. Figures. We'll get them next time... Oh, goodie. First, it seems Scrooge is indeed an attorney these days. But for the fact that Christmas quite literally starts in the malls shortly after early July (have you looked in the Hallmark stores? That's when the ornaments start coming out. Secondly, I've half a mind to wish the fellow would win the suit. Then they could break the relationship between December 25th and the Secular Christmas, and celebrate "Religious Christmas" on the 25th, and set up the "Seasonal Holiday" as the Friday in December falling between December 16th through 23rd. Secondly, though it's not reported on any of the local web sites yet, we've got a Darwin-Award nominee right here in town! For those of you who've never heard of such a thing, the Darwin Awards are usually given posthumously to an individual that manages to obliterate themselves in such a fashion to prove that the human gene pool is better off without them. This particular individual took a snowmobile out on a local lake (please note that we might well have two inches of ice on the lake. Smart and safe ice "use" is to stay the heck off it until it's at least four inches thick. Six inches is preferable for more than one person in a small (less than ten foot) area. Eight inches is acceptable for snowmobiles, and the ice should be between ten and eighteen inches thick before you drive a vehicle on it). The individual further attempted to "skip" his snowmobile across obviously open water. It didn't make it across. He needed to be pulled out of the water by the county water rescue crew. I do dearly hope he's in a hospital where they're performing a required a vasectomy. Too bad they aren't. My God. They just showed video of a helicopter going over the lake the man fell into, and they caught up to another fellow riding his snowmobile. He stood up, and looked to find a solid patch of ice to ride on. Found it, and dropped onto the seat of the snowmobile. The rear of the snowmobile broke through and left a hole about six feet across. The fellow was moving fast enough to get past the hole before falling through. Sheesh. Last time I mention the election this week, I promise. The good news about Dubyah getting elected is that we can all haul out all the old Dane Quayle jokes. This should be fun.
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Friday, December 8, 2000 This first shot will be short and sweet. It's my last day as an unemployed geek (hopefully forever), so I'm taking advantage of it. Jack's out of daycare with me, and we're going to go back to the zoo and this time give those dolphins what for (as compared to the dousing he got last time).. Prior to that stop, though, I'm going to stop at Barnes & Nobles and pick up a couple of more recent references on Windows Scripting. Looks like I'll be called "Bat-man" again in the new job. Among other things. "The New Guy" springs to mind. As long as it's not "hey, short-timer." And the best part is that I'm really, finally, happy. Happy and relieved. So relieved, in fact, that I started thinking about what I really want for Christmas.
1. A safe world for my kids to grow up in. Oh, I know. It's a little ambitious, but I'm going to work on it where I can... Nuff said. Off to the bookstore, the bank, and the zoo. Maybe even breakfast in there too, if one of us is hungry. I'm sure we'll have pictures later. As Tigger says, TTFN! And by the way - if you're looking for an Apple computer, expect a price drop after the first of the year.... ;-)
Although there's one question I want to ask - why on earth did the Zoo convert some observation bays over the snow monkey exhibit into birthday party nooks? Every weekend there's one-hour blocks of time you can schedule a birthday party. Right over the snow monkey exhibit. For those of you who just started considering this option, let me delicately suggest that the period between November and March or so is probably a less desirous time for a child's birthday party. Let's just say that according to the many placards posted near the exhibit, the monkeys at that time of year may well be engaged in a number of activities which do create warmth, and a whole long list of questions for small children. I managed to encourage Jack to move along before the two below us got totally out of control and started calling for the whipped cream and cat-o-nine tails. Sheesh. Can't even tell them to get a room. And THEN, there's really something a little eerie and nerve-wracking about walking through a mostly-deserted zoo to the Tiger cage. The way I looked at it, I was pretty sure if there was a crowd all over, the tigers weren't out of their cages. But when you're the only one walking through the zoo, there's no one else outside, and you're headed towards the tiger cage, you have to admit there's at least a little part of you that's saying "gee, I really hope they're still IN the cage." And of course, you remember that you're looking at an eight hundred pound animal that can travel silently, move much faster than you can on snow, and is a lazy hunter. Not lazy enough to pass up my over-fed and out-of-shape carcass, but certainly in shape enough to chase my butt down in short order. Oh, heck. I've got to finish this in a bit. I've got an errand I forgot to run. Yikes! I'm back. Failed in the errand, but hey, one must try. Mental note - any house I get, buy, build, or otherwise acquire will have the house numbers CLEARLY displayed, readably, from the street. At least six inches high, well-lit, and high-contrast. Perhaps a sign that I can light from within using a fluorescent lightbulb or something.
So when we arrived, he sat at the top of the "bleachers" and didn't want to come down. The funny part was there was a group of probably grade-school kids who were waiting to see the noon show; the dolphins were playing with a couple of their toys, and a few of the kids looked like they got damp. Jack looked a little happier about that. It took a great deal of coaxing, but I finally got him up on the ledge, and he half-turned towards me to get the picture taken. Immediately behind him in the picture below is Seamo and I believe it's D.J., that four-year old who soaked him. Figures. Birds of a feather, if you will... ;-)
Last time we were out there DJ managed to direct his splash back at the trainers. Today's splash reached the first five rows of people in the concrete steps. Fortunately, we were about seven rows up from the bottom. That worked for me. I prefer to stay dry. Especially during winter.
So we checked out the cranes, and they looked at Jack like they might well be hungry. Hmmm... I don't know if I should have warned the cranes that Jack does seem to like chicken more than beef, and they certainly could be passed off as "chicken." Hey, it's worth a try...
Jack, being the relative of the primate that he is, blew the little fellow off just like he was a yell from Dad. I'm sure this fellow will remember us the next time we're through. Although I should note that for the first time in recent visits, the Komodo Dragon actually moved this time. What was scary was that no matter where I was, his head was pointed right at me. Unnerving, to say the least. Almost as bad as turning your head and finding a six-foot shark or a python less than a foot from your face. Glass or not, I'm just not comfortable with that much closeness to the animal kingdom.
Time to get SWMBO off the phone - she's arguing with a friend of hers about the election. I'm just wondering who's going to collect these expired and abused equines before they start to stink. Oh, wait, never mind. I just took a deep breath. 'Scuse me, can we be exempt from the "second-world" status for a few weeks while we sort this out? I'm all for giving both of the candidates aluminium baseball bats and lock them into a small room. Then tell them we've got monitors in there, and as soon as we detect only one heartbeat for three full minutes, we open the door and extract one of them. Then we shove the VP candidates in the same room to do the same. Certainly would clear up the confusion. As SWMBO's personal e-mail signature has said since late 1999, "In America, anyone can be President. That's just one of the risks you have to take." Never argue with my wife. She's a smart woman.
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Later:
Yes, that's us. Actually, that's him. We eased into
the Dolphin picture, first by taking a long walk outside. First we
visited the snow monkeys, and there's really something pitiful about
them sitting out on branches with nothing to do.
Anyway,
back to the zoo. When we first got to the dolphin tanks, Jack was
a wee bit apprehensive about approaching the dolphins, especially after 
So after we did
the dolphin thing, we did the tropical trail in what the kids call
"the big room". You enter a pressurized environment
that's both warmer and more humid than the air you're leaving, which is
sort of fun because the wind out of the doors practically blows you
back. Good thing Jack was in the stroller.
This little fellow
below, however, had perhaps the most ambitious task - he charged right
up to the glass (the shots from behind Jack through the glass didn't
come through), sat back on his hindquarters, and inspected Jack like he
was so much prize beef on the hoof. 
But
I think I saved the best for last. Our friend the Lynx (no, not
the ladies Basketball team, but the actual animal) was up and around in
his environment this afternoon when we scooted through. This
fellow was perhaps ten inches from us through glass when I took this
shot. I'm not sure, but I think it impressed Jack. Though he
kept asking where the kitty's tail was. This "cat" was
about two and a half times the size of Gilligan, and looked like he was
in a whole lot better shape; he just lacked a tail. Stumpy little
thing, perhaps two inches long. Very pretty animal, though.
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Saturday, December 9, 2000 First, I see Mr. Thompson's aiming to turn Rudolph and company into ground reindeer... Or more likely, like that fellow in northern Minnesota who had at his significant other with the wood chipper (a la Fargo). I think, however, I've seen Santa's response...
Were I in the Thompson household any time after December 23, I think I'd fire up that furnace just about as high as it could go. Hot cross buns, indeed. Well, nuff about that. Last night we watched TNT's production of Patrick Stewart's "The Christmas Carol". Yes, I know. Two Friday nights in a row. I'm thinking of turning it into a Friday Ritual around here. Can you see mid-May? "Hey kids, come on into the living room. We're going to watch The Christmas Carol for the twenty-fifth straight week!" Thud. I actually found Patrick Stewart's Scrooge more believable than the fellow I saw last week. Oh, I know, it's like comparing an Arabian horse with a Kentucky Derby contender. But when Patrick Stewart's Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Morning, realizes what day it is, and then tries to laugh, it's very frightening, and moving. Sure, half the show I sat there waiting for him to say "engage," but hey, some things just don't die easy. Today, we're doing some Christmas Shopping (seems now that the pressure's off for SWMBO, she's "agreed" that we should really get ourselves a decent present, which would be a decent television. Knowing SWMBO, she's got a few features in mind. What I'm certain of is she wants a remote, Picture-in-picture, and "smart-sound" so that the occasional annoying commercial doesn't part our hair. It will be left to me to determine screen size (1.5 times the diagonal is the distance from the television, which roughly means a 42" screen; slightly over a meter. Oh hell no). As well as brand, store, and all the rest. Oh, my aching head. As I remember, last year there was a semi-useful web site that was something like "shopping list.com" or something that did shopping for you, compared prices. As long as the stuff was in an advertised sale. As long as the stuff was from a major local vendor. Still, it allowed you to compare apples to apples. Then, of course, we're going to return home to clean the house. My Mother In Law, the Mother Of She Who Must Be Obeyed, will be arriving two weeks from tomorrow for nearly a week's stay in my home. Oh, this could be fun. I do love my mother-in-law, but we've agreed that we both do tend to get on eachother's nerves after a few days. That's just the way we are. Oh well. At least SWMBO has most of the week between Christmas and New Year's off. Should be able to entertain TMOSWMBO relatively easily. Though I'm thinking we might want to upgrade the cable for a few premium channels while she's here. And I should really plan something for New Year's. Last year, I had to stick close to home, and run in on New Year's Day. My co-worker (or cow-orker, depended on the day) showed up and looked around. "Yup, everything's running." Walked out. I came in, went through the one-page checklist, signed off on it, and passed it on to my boss, the other concerned individuals, and then left. Hmmmmm.... I don't get it either. The good news is that I spoke to my new boss yesterday. I have a couple of computers in my "quad" (dear me, I've got four desks - just imagine the mess), a pile of computer hardware, and we talked this afternoon... New Boss Well, we've got a couple of fast computers... I'm REALLY going to like this place... Really. This will be fun. Speaking of "This Place" I should probably ask - first, I'll brag a little. I've got a nineteen inch monitor (Sony Trinitron, Multiscan 420GS) that sits on average about two and a half feet (30 inches) from my face. I've had some feedback that a fixed font size is bad. If I let the user set the font size, then the images float over one another, or worse, muck up the text. Thoughts, anyone? Of course, I could just capture entire screenfuls laid out just the way I like them, shove them into gifs, and do it that way... ;-). UG-HA-LEE, in other words. I suspect this page looks like trash now, but I think I'll be doing a whole new layout next week or the week after. Time to clean things up around here... I'm not going to have the free time I did before, ya know. Whooooopie! Later: Well, that was fun. First off, I apologize to my regular visitors for the bouncing up and down with the font sizes... Some have accused me of using "atomic fonts," while others (after the "atomic" portion was corrected) thought that giants were prone to visit here. All I have to say is prior to SWMBO, I was always told "size matters." She said "that's OK, dear." You can interpret that any way you wish (and yes, I can already hear the giggles), but I've given up telling you what size you need to see. It's all up to you. The graphics this week may well be all fubar'd, but we'll get by. Anyway, today. We did shopping... and more, and more, and more. I'm not a real clothes horse with my clothes. My wife can look into an eight-foot deep walk-in closet with well over 75% of it dedicated to her clothes, and say "I have nothing to wear." I can look at a laundry pile and say "well, that one's not SO bad..." - just kidding. Anyway, with the new job starting on Monday, She insisted that I spend money on clothes. This comes hard to me, so I fought it long and hard, and finally, lost. We started at Kohl's. This store looks like they're trying to compete with Sears in appearances, but with Target on price. I've NEVER seen anything in that store that sold for full list. Today I was browsing racks of $50 pants, telling her she's nuts, I'm not putting those on to crawl under desks, and she pointed out the signs - $20-$30. Sheesh. Unfortunately, due to my height-challenged horizontalness, I found no pants at Kohl's even close to my size. So we started arguing. I was voting for Big K, or Target, as both were acceptable to me. She, on the other hand, pointed out we were across the street from The Men's Wearhouse. She mentioned that, as a vertically-challenged human of what is perhaps best referred to as unique proportions, I'd best go there. In other words, they have in-house tailors who will shorten my pants to the requisite fourteen-inch inseam (just kidding, it's a LITTLE longer than that ;-). So, after fighting, grousing, and losing, we step into the Men's Wearhouse. And it was just like the commercials say - couldn't get four steps inside the place before a fellow in a nice suit came roaring up to ask if we needed help. Within five minutes we had eight pairs of pants hanging on a rack, ranging in color from dingy white to dirty gray. SWMBO were exchanging words like "tope" and "dusty gray" but I'm sticking to my definitions. I prefer black pants, ever since the fine folks that make Garanimals gave up their adult line (The garanimals line, for those who were unaware, was a kid's clothing line that allowed children to match similarly colored animals together to make outfits - a purple and blue stripped hippo on a shirt tag, for example, would go with a red and blue striped hippo pair of pants - blue being common on both tags). Anyway, after a few minutes of gulping and looking, I realized that the prices at the Men's Wearhouse were about the same as Kohl's, and the quality of the clothes were certainly better than I'd find at Big K (for obvious reasons, we avoid WalMart unless we're looking for name-brand products - most non-branded stuff from Wal-Mart, in my experience, tends to fall apart within weeks - sorry, just my experience). The gentleman said they'd have the pants shortened up for me, make at least two pairs of pants for Jack with the leftovers (kidding), and I could pick them up tomorrow afternoon. Wow. Then, we stopped to look at the YMCA and membership. The woman's going to make me exercise, damn her, and she keeps telling me it will be good for me. The problem that she fails to recognize is that when I'm at the gym working out, it's also likely that at least one of the chimpanzees in my charge will also be with me. And when that happens, we're going to be dealing with at least one of them exercising, and if that happens, that little imp will get stronger, faster, and more difficult to catch. This is not, in my humble opinion, the way to improve the odds of winning over the child. I've already explained to him that age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill, and he chooses to ignore me. This is not a good sign. So after that, we got a bite to eat, ran to the library, grocery store, and Target. Target was a special riot, because we needed to pick up additional storage containers for the children's toys. Oh, what fun. We've now got a 50-gallon "tote" (like I'm going to sling the sucker over my shoulder and toddle around with it), with wheels, we call Jack's Bedroom. The other tote, which was a 65-gallon rubbermaid "tote" (same applies), lacked a lid. After asking the young fellow we found, he looked through the aisle, couldn't find a container, shrugged, and said "let me check the back room." I waited for him to walk off, and instead he took this barcode scanner "gun" arrangement from a hook on his belt, punched a couple of buttons on the keypad on top, and then scanned the tag on the shelf. "Nope. These are the last two." Wow. Retail has certainly changed. So then we came home to clean. Ugh. And we find out that TMOSWMBO, my Mother-In-Law, checked prices for her trip back up for Christmas in two weeks, and it seems that the fine folks from Greyhound have more than doubled their prices; last year's eighty dollar ticket for a round trip is going for nearly one-sixty. Since she had a coupon from her flight home a couple weeks back, she checked with the airlines, and it's almost cheaper to fly. She's got to come up a day earlier, which is fine, and head home when she wants to, but things work. Now, what to do with the hour and a half I used to spend each week surfing want ads? Oh, yeah. I suppose create a new layout for this place... ;-) And please - if anyone else has ever encountered (perhaps thirty or more years ago) Skippy Peanut Butter with bacon bits in it, let me know, eh? I swear that such existed, and can remember my father making peanut butter sandwiches for us late at night - we'd split a bottle of pepsi with our sandwiches. SWMBO swears it's gross, I'm nuts, and should be committed. Figures. Somehow it's all MY fault.
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Sunday, December 10, 2000 Well, that was much less painful than I'd expected... Did a new layout for next week, ditching most of the tables, etc., in favor of the clean layout everyone else is going towards. Yeah, call me a trend-follower... Actually, if you look back at where I started, it's a deja vu all over again... We're slowly getting moving around here. That is, SWMBO is still abed, the small chimps we're raising have already cleaned their room better than I'd expected at this point, and they're currently playing with newly found toys (this is what happens when one rotates toy boxes - stuff long-forgotten at the bottom gets rolled to the top, and the kids go "wow, would you look at that!" Kinda like Christmas, two weeks early). I'm really excited about tomorrow. Less so the rest of the week, as there's a bit of a flub up on my part that will have to be paid for, over the next month or so. These things happen, I guess. I'll just have to behave. And speaking of behaving, I need to do research. SWMBO has pointed out that the nearly 20-year-old television we have in the living room has finally begun to show it's age. While I'm not much for television (I will watch The West Wing, faithfully, but there's little else on the weekly television that entices me. I'll watch the History Channel for specific programs, occasionally Biography on A&E, but for the most part, I don't watch too much. I TRIED to watch Sci-Fi's DUNE but William Hurt wasn't engaging as Leto (I watched about 20 minutes of it), and when I flipped back a little later, the actor who played Paul was just not working for me. I'm sure the adaptation was well done and many found it interesting, but I thought David Lynch's version, while very over-simplified, was superior in many regards). Ach, well. I think the chimps have awakened SWMBO, and the cleaning will begin. Ugh. More later, if I survive... But before I go... A simple translation chart to bring male-speak into the female communications realm... MALE: "I'M GOING FISHING" All right. On the bottom of the page, I've decided to open my blinkin' mouf instead of keeping it shut. Some weeks ago, Bob Thompson brought up a message board. Bob's a very intelligent, very talented fellow. Bob was getting all sorts of messages asking about various hardware issues, etc., and would reply to those, in addition to posting them to his pages. The benefit of posting them is that Bob was then able to teach the rest of us how to solve the issue/deal with the oddity/whatever. Chris Ward-Johnson, the good Doctor Keyboard, has run a message board for some longer time, now, and is in the process of switching to a new one. The Good Doctor handles many questions (probably the same league as Mr. Thompson does), and Phil Hough points out the simple mathematics of the situation - if you get 1000 messages asking for help in a single week, and you spend ten minutes each on them (simple - some questions you can toss off the answers to in less than a minute, even cutting and pasting the answer, and some take perhaps an hour or more of research - ten minutes seems to be a pretty small estimate for average), you're talking 10,000 minutes. That's 167 hours. I'll fall back on a previous career's knowledge and point out that if you take seven days, 24 hours each, and do the math, that's 168. Now, if the good doctor were to forgo eating, sleeping, potty breaks, and learning new things, he'd have a blinking one hour a week for bathing, etc. Not the life I'd like to lead. However, my good friend JHR has pointed out his own personal preferences regarding the switch from e-mail to messageboard. On the one hand, I find myself in agreement with JHR. I've got a number of e-mail addresses, I check them regularly (some monthly, as they're regular spam collectors, some daily, as they're well-filtered), but I check. And the terminally disgusting part, for me, is the incredible amount of crap one collects. I'm not quite sure how the marketing gurus think I'm interested in "hot teens", hot stock tips, how to collect judgments, cheap vehicles and homes on-line, and a new way to make money using the net. This is a sad state of affairs that I'd hoped we'd never reach, but about six months ago, I put into place a couple of well-tested filtering rules for my e-mail; I will, about three times a week, check my "inbox" folder. Most of the time I look at my "Real Inbox" and other key folders. And I don't like that. The flood of crap-mail has me agreeing with Dr. Pournelle - I'd love to strangle the bastards, bare-handed. That said, I'm going to have to make sure I've got a good alibi for the next several hundred years... Giving out my personal address to message boards is something that's not attractive to me. Anyway. JHR makes the point that he will not register nor will he log in. Understandable. Given the discussion about time above, that the central purpose of the message board has come down to one of effective use of time, which I applaud. I'm pretty sure neither of the above gentlemen wish to ignore e-mail. In fact, Mr. Thompson and have had a bit of an exchange regarding his anti-reindeer ideas... I'm thinking of adapting it for a more straightforward use of clearing the air above my apartment building of the occasional departing or arriving jumbo jet. But I'm not so sure JHR's final point works - at least, it hasn't for me. Early on, I attempted to find some answers to some questions via newsgroups. After reading the FAQ carefully, watching posts flow in and out for about an hour attempting to insure I had the right idea about the group, I posted. In less than eight minutes, I'd been flamed as a newbie from twenty-seven people who showed themselves to be intelligent, if cryptic, in their posts. As I noted that "I'm new here, I've looked through the archives, current postings, and other information, and I was wondering if anyone's got any information about *this* problem that that I'm having" and was told to "take your f*****g newbie questions elsewhere" by at least three people. Stopped counting after that. But JHR has every right to his policies and opinions. As do we all. Message boards might well be the newsgroups of the future; sort of a selected water cooler where you can keep the riff-raff out. Some will choose not to participate, which is very unfortunate. I won't stop reading him, because he's got plenty of wisdom to impart and a good heart. But I'm not going to try to change his opinion, either. It's his, and that's that. NOW : off to make dad's special omelets, then we clean. TMOSWMBO will be here a week from Friday, and we haven't done the tree or the decorations, or the baking yet. There's a LOT to do... But before I go, one brief reminder for some of you. If you, like I, like eggnog, and if you, like I, like a wee bit of nutmeg on top of your eggnog, then you, like I, had damned well better check the labels on your spices. Chili powder on eggnog completely ruins the experience. Sort of like using a nuclear weapon to cure an infestation of ants in your home. And so I decide to check my hotmail account for mail. Sure. The CND (Critical Need Detector, trademark of Pournelle) is on, and working at 110%. Whole internet seems slower than mole-asses in the outdoor weather (we're in single digits and dropping, but nothing like Mr. Syroid's, who, come to think of it, might well be exporting that stuff south... to ... uh, hey, wait a minute here!) Anyway. We're off to pick up some more stuff, and drop off some stuff, and have a run past the YMCA. If they like the looks of us (and I'm sure that if I hide in the trunk, they'll accept the rest of the goon squad I hang around with), we're members, and can use the pool. You have been warned. Pasty-white winter flesh coming your way soon. Not to mention a swimsuit that seems to have a higher-than-normal gravitational attraction, as in it tends to droop a bit. Again, you have been warned. You know, I should probably mention that the swimsuit isn't gold lame', just to make sure none of the other Daynoters leap to remove me from the crowd. Argh. Feh. Phooey. I give. Damned Hotmail. I'm thinking I should go back and refit the whole site here to redirect e-mail to another free-mail site provider. I wonder if Hotmail's been moved over to Windows 2K servers? Last I'd heard, Hotmail relied on BSD for their main servers; would be a heck of a way for Microsoft to get folks onto their MSN service - make the free ones suck, and then produce marginally better ones elsewhere. Sheesh. LATER: And more argh, feh, and phooey. Rats and an assortment of those words not normally uttered in a family-friendly site. We went out this afternoon, and it was a good old -5 F (something like -37 C), and after running errands, etc., returned home to -9F (nearly -40 C). And of course the car we depended on up until last Thursday as the ONLY vehicle, which sat alone and apparently, it thought, unloved, in the parking lot, has decided not to drive now. Or at least not start; given nearly ten-below weather (and with the clear skies above us, I'm thinking at least another eight degrees in the basement before we hit the floor, I'm near certain that the vehicle won't start up tomorrow morning). Lovely. Well, at least we're home, with one working vehicle, and warm. And tomorrow I start work. Got to love that. At least the weekend wasn't a total loss - the Vikings lost again, facing last year's Super Bowl champs. It's pretty clear that Denny Green is perhaps above average when it comes to NFL coaches (given the large number that continue to get jobs despite losing records), but he's just lacking in some part that is required to really, finally, actually bring home a Super Bowl championship. As a child, the Vikings made four trips to the Super Bowl. And they faced teams that in some cases really sucked, and in some cases they were really very good. But even when the bad teams showed up, they had great days. And the Vikings quite often couldn't find the damned sidelines, let alone win the game. But this team just hasn't got what it takes to take it to the next level and win playoff games against tough teams. They can't beat tough opponents, which is the basic requirement for a championship team. So it goes. We'll get them next year. We hope... Good Grief. This is so painfully stupid as to be ridiculous. I go to the bookmark of Hotmail I've got in my favorites. The browser sits there like a complete lump, then generates the typical IE error message off my hard drive. So, I says, I'll just type in the basic hotmail URL and go
there. It bounces me through 64.4.43.7, then to 216.33.157.7
before hitting 64.4.14.250, then barfs. It sits there on the URL Ach, well. Off to Monday. But before I go, I swear to you that I will find that bastard working in the marketing department at Hallmark, and I'm going to shave thin bits off him and shove them through a needle whilst he (or she) watches. I'm really not happy with them, despite the quality programs which they do sponsor, but it's the damned commercials. These people write commercials that suck your heart right out through your chest and stomp the sucker flat. I think the thing that pains me the most is the fact that I'm really stuck in the middle. As a child, one of my most cherished (and I know, my mother's most dreaded) moments was charging into the living room, before dawn (heck, give me a break - we're talking a 7:30 am sunrise around here at that time of year), and waiting for my mother to get at least two cups of coffee into her before she sat down to watch the whole batch of us. And then, weirder than a Christmas Morning from any Dr. Seuss book, we'd all take turns unwrapping presents, so we could each see what the others got, and the reactions. Now, I've got two children of my own. I'm stuck between a widowed mother-in-law who I do love, and hate to leave alone on Christmas, who lives six hours from us. I've got my own parents, about two hours in the other direction, and I miss them, but I've also got my own family, and traditions, to worry about. When my children are older, I want them to be able to look back and recall our Christmas traditions. But it's tough to develop them when you're never home for Christmas. And I think that's what tears me up about the Hallmark ads. The one that always kills me starts out with a woman's voice talking about how she and her father would take a walk out towards the hill out back near midnight on Christmas Eve, and they'd look at the stars and the houses lit up in the valley. In the background, Pachabel's Canon is playing, softly, and the woman says "but this year's the first year I won't be able to come home and take that walk." Sheesh. I'm such a sucker. But it gets me every single time. Ach, well. Off to unpack the pants I got yesterday, pick a nice outfit for work, and get ready to roll... Ah, employment. You never really know what you have until it's gone. I'm going to ENJOY Working!
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