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   Monday, January 29, 2001
   Happy Birthday, Joann!

Boy Scouts and Bigotry?

My wife sent me a link today to this story on MSNBC.  To summarize, it's a piece about a couple of Scout troops which are going to have to disband because they disagree with the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gays.  My wife and I have an ongoing discussion regarding the Boy Scouts.  She believes the Supreme Court decision allowing the Boy Scouts to selectively designate who can be leaders is wrong.  She thinks the Scouts are practicing segregation, discrimination, and/or bigotry.  I'm on the other side, obviously.

Having been a Boy Scout, and Eagle Scout, the whole thing makes sense to me.  As a private group, the Boy Scouts should be able to set their own standards.  Part of the value of the Boy Scouts is their adherence to a fairly strict, well-known code of conduct.  And that would be?

On My Honor, I will do my best to do my Duty to God and Country, and to obey the Scout Laws - A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thirfty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.  To Help other people at all times, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

That's pretty straight-forward.  Now, I'm not going to tell you that being gay is immoral.  That's not my job.  But as noted in the article, most of the Scout troops are sponsored by churches, and the Boy Scouts are entitled to select what they wish to stand for.   

The Boy Scouts have the option to represent what they will.  Anyone joining the Boy Scouts should know, by now, what they're joining, and if they don't like it, I've got very little sympathy for someone like that.  I'm sorry, but it's pretty straightforward, as noted above.  If you're looking for the benefits of Boy Scouts, then join Boy Scouts.  If you're unwilling to live by the code noted above, then don't bother.

It's a simple system.  Too many people these days are too willing to claim "but I want THAT" and at the same time are willing to ignore the years of work that others have done to get to where they have "that".  While it is possible to earn an Eagle Scout award by the age of twelve and a half (or was when I was in scouts, assuming you joined at the minimum age, and then hit all of the minimum time limits for all of the levels; Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle), I was just a few months short of eighteen, and the top age limit, when I earned mine.  

What took so long?  Procrastination, partially - a number of personal situations which delayed my progress (I had a Bike Safety Rally as my Eagle Scout Service project.  Some five weeks after that Rally my father had a heart attack and then spent five weeks in the hospital.  I was also, finally, elected to the Order Of The Arrow).  Some of it was just the requirements.  Eagle Scout isn't easy.  It's a lot of work.  And you've got to work pretty hard to get there.

But some people say that it's unfair; Eagle Scout on your resume opens doors and gets you benefits at certain military academies, etc..  I can't say whether that last is true or not, but the first; Oh, yeah, you bet.  Eagle Scouts are NEVER unemployed.  I just took a four month VACATION last year...  

But seriously - Eagle Scout is a cloth badge - it shows you have worked hard, and are willing to do what it takes to achieve.  That's it.  And the Boy Scouts are the same way.  It shows you are willing to work hard to get where you want.  

That's what Boy Scouts is all about.  You need to stick by your beliefs, work hard, and get the job done.  Claiming "it's not fair" isn't how Boy Scouts works. 

Well, what you see to the left here is the radar loop, mostly, for the region this afternoon and evening.  Sorry about the gap there at the end - I was on my way home, and while it was only about two and a half hours between leaving work and getting onto the computer (no, the actual commute was only about an hour, counting stopping at Daycare, getting the kids, and stopping at the convenience store to get a bag of ice - something weird about that last, but I'm too tired to get the joke, I guess), seems that I missed about six hours of radar updates.  Dunno how that happened.  Anyway - I'm telling you that very few things get me out of bed faster (the "Bowman Rules" having been applied and functional in our home - "Don't wake me unless it's bleeding, burning, choking, or ..." - sorry, too much detail) than the phrase "freezing rain, followed by snow".  

We're getting somewhere between a quarter-inch and two inches of rain.  Then, at some point late tonight or tomorrow morning, that rain will switch to snow, and we'll have snow on top of ice.  And then

On the evening news tonight, they were already running the frame with the class cancellations, etc., for tonight.  I'm still getting up tomorrow morning at 5:15 am to turn on the television, and then hope that we get a lot of closings.  Specifically Burnsville Schools, St. Paul Schools, and Edina Schools.  Those three should get all of us off the hook for travel tomorrow.  At least I brought home a laptop just in case.  Ann brought home work on a CD, apparently assuming she gets to use my main workstation.  Man, I need to get her her own machine.  But then again, that would require getting more space to set it up in...  Oh, never mind.

And it's also my sister's birthday.  I remember this particular stretch in our household was pretty ugly for my mother.  Somehow, she and my father managed to pack three birthdays into five days (obviously, the births themselves were separated by a few years).  The youngest kid in the family, my baby sister, has her birthday today.  And I'm not going to tell you how old she is, but let's just say that she's no longer "trustworthy" in the hippie sense.  She'll never get that one, so I should be safe.

But we'd have three birthday cakes in five days.  That would be six birthdays, plus Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, in 120 days for my parents between October 6 and February 2nd.  Talk about busy.  And then, after my sister Susie's birthday on the second of February, no more birthday cake until August - out there in the middle of nowhere was the middle kid.  'Nuff about Dominik Birthdays.  Though if you want to freak my sister out, send her a birthday card - her e-mail address is jldomini@cloudnet.com - that'll piss her off like nobody's business, and since she never stops by here (she's got her own little den of weird), it serves her right.  And if you're looking for fast e-cards, check out Apple - while I'm not enamored of their hardware, they do make it easy to send that sort of thing.  hehehe.

And I've been thinking I should get off my butt and tune up the resume.  Between last week and this I've had five headhunters call.  And this is on a resume that's been "dead" for quite nearly seven weeks now.  Scary.  This labor market must be a lot hotter now.

Although I will tell you that there's nothing like a little ego boost first thing in the morning.  I'm running down the list of stops I make every morning, and hit Mr. Thompson's site.  And there's your name.  I know Bob is a Daynoter and all, but when Bob said, a few weeks back, "people are always surprised when an author turns out to be a normal human being rather than some god-like inaccessible entity. I'm not sure why that is." I'm not too sure how deep in his cheek his tongue is.  Of course, we're assuming here that Bob's a "normal human being" - I happen to think he's way above average, and a genuine Hardware Genius.  

There.  That should work.

And I think I mentioned it last night, but might have forgotten.  The best time to work out is that block at the beginning of the Superbowl when they show the B-2 Spirit and the Thunderbirds roaring above the crowds.  I was on the bleedin' StarTrac (a machine something slightly less painful than the old Rack), and actually made it an extra seven minutes beyond my expected time.  Had me all choked up.  That B-2 is something else.

But of all of the ads I saw, my favorite was the E-Trade ad with the chimpanzee, back from last year.  She Who Must Be Obeyed pointed out the takeoff on the 1970's anti-pollution takeoff, which I missed, but I nearly fell off the treadmill when the "dog" sock puppet landed in front of him.  I think there were about eight or nine of us howling at that.

Oh, good grief.  Dick Day is saying that the State of Minnesota should run it's own casino.  Good grief, indeed.  He says "I've had literally thoudands of people... contact me asking why we can't run our own casino."  

I'm thinking, Dick, that you should really get a room just a little further away from the mental ward.  You REALLY need to come back to reality again, bud.  That is, assuming you'd want to join the rest of us back here in normal-land.  If not, have a good time, and please - be careful out there.  We'd hate to have the state pay for your funeral expenses should you die at another press conference or something.

Oh, no.  Yet another terrifying thought - could it be that Senator Day has looked at our cartoonish Governor and has decided that this is indeed the direction he wants to go in?  Governor Day?  Good Night.  I'm probably going to dream in bad puns all night long now.

Oh, the agony...

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   Tuesday, January 30, 2001

Not Tonight, Dear...

I have a haddock.  Well, something's fishy...

Actually, the headache started at 5:30 this morning when they said "well, the temperature didn't get all that cold last night..."  Whoops.  Get yer butt out of bed and get moving...

And yes, Ken, we had nasty, sloppy weather.  My parents, about 80 miles to the north, got about a half-inch of ice and then they were expecting a couple more inches of snow.  Two people died up there from apparently icy roads.  Ouch.

Down here, we got rain, and then, sometime during the night, it turned to snow, and we accumulated about three inches of heavy, wet snow.  At least the surface was wet enough to allow some traction.

So, I got to work, and the Good Doctor pointed out that I was a bit of a doof in blithering on yesterday and betrayed a confidence I shouldn't have.  So, in about 25 minutes, I managed to figure out that the FTP client I had on one of my computers at work didn't work.  The FrontPage installation on my main machine, a Dell notebook, was hosed beyond simple repair, and it took three tries to get CuteFTP to work to the site.  The amazing thing was that I got CuteFTP to work at all.  Which bodes well for moving this pile elsewhere once I get a domain registered, which may well come sooner than I expected.

But then, after I got that little disaster straightened out, I found out that we had a couple of re-prioritizations going on, and suddenly Priority J became A, and Z-22 (not even on the radar screen yesterday) became B.  So today I managed to get one new copy of our app on our main production server, reinstall a second server, create a new server (using the StorCase technology recommended by Mr. Thompson through his Hardware Guys message board), and reinstalled the client application on another laptop. 

And tomorrow, the middle-of-the-road server will instead become the Japanese server.  I, speaking no Japanese whatsoever, (oh, OK - I think "domo arrigato" is "Thank you very much", but don't quote me), will install the Japanese version of Windows 2000, the Japanese version of SQL Server 2000, and then test the product.  I don't recall the job description including "crash test dummy" but then again, I'm nearly certain that's what I'm doing.  To all of you in the Pacific Rim and elsewhere who might be using the Japanese version of our software, I apologize.  

Well, at least it's a paycheck.

So, I'm off to bed.  I'm feeling like I'm going to get clobbered by something, a cold, virus, or something, and so I'm gonna go duck.  At least LANDON'S HOME!

Whoo hooo, indeed.  Now that Tom's graduated to balancing on balls, the chandeliers are available for his youngest.  Isn't that a frightening thought?  One on the floor, one in the air - at least by sea is safe for a while...

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   Wednesday, January 31, 2001
   Happy Birthday Julie!

I've decided to take a page out of Mr. Beland's book, and only do one "deep thought" piece a week.  As my wife would note, "...let's face it, he's barely got enough brains to blow his nose.  Let's not abuse them."  Or something like that. 

You doubt her?  The other day, I was looking at my hard drive at work.  "Hmmm...  Choice.com - never seen that web site."  Double-clicked on it and got a "[Y/N]" command prompt.  Oops, forgot all those batch file tricks that earned me the nickname "Batman".  I'm so ashamed.

The good news is that today was splendid.  Yup, that's a word you don't much hear anymore.  Splendid.  I had a couple of projects go well, some didn't go at all (I'm still unable to speak Japanese, and it looks pretty likely that I'm going to have to attempt to make my own Japanese Windows 2000 CD.  Yes, we've got a membership in the MSDN whatever, but someone at our corporate office decided that we needed to consolidate our subscriptions, and so they get the CDs.  We can download what we want, when we want.  Which works well until you need to have a bootable CD of something.  Gulp.  We'll see what I can do).

But the really good one was the project I got handed at 4:30 this afternoon.  I'm to write a "white paper" on what we need done in firewall environments to allow us to replicate databases across them.  Basically, I need to find out exactly what ports need to be opened, and what they're used for.  Gulp.  Pretty cool, eh?  I was a little worried, at first, and I drove home worrying about it.  Then it occurred to me.  I've used ZoneAlarm before.  And I know I can lock down every single port if need be.  So what I can do is put it on two machines; one a server, one a client.  Set them up on a hub, and block every port.  Then attempt to replicate.  And once I've figured out which ports need to be opened, close them one by one and document what breaks.  Then close them in combinations.  Then make sure we generate a unique error message (if possible) on each port closed, or combination of ports closed.

Ain't I smart?  No, not at all.  Like I told them in the interview - I might not know all the answers, but I've got a fair number of them under house arrest, and the rest, well, I know where they've hidden the secrets.  That usually buys me enough time to hunt down that which is needed.

Though I am a bit confused - Why Brian thinks I'm the expert on diapering with casts, I have no idea.  I'm actually waiting to hear how it's accomplished.  Though, should Tom require assistance, we here at Dominik Laboratories could pull together a team and try something out.  Let's see - I would like to work with a slightly larger model, so I'll cast up a four-year old-sized cast. . .  And since Landon Is Clearly Active, I'm going to need something to emulate that - yeah, that little fellow presently running with his pants off and buck naked before bath would work.  (never a dull moment around here, I tell you)...  That would give me a few days of "I can find it" rather than "who move that?"  Though I'm nearly certain that the noise level will go way up if we attempt something like that.  Earplug donations accepted.  

You know, it occurs to me that if Landon had been in a cast from armpits to ankles, they'd most likely have to include a hatch or something.  I could probably design something to do the job, but lacking proper medical training, I'm fairly certain I have no idea what I'm doing.  I guess we'll all wait with baited breath as we find out how Tom, Leah, Landon, and Danielle survive this next adventure.

And as we are in the last day of January, it looks like we're going to end it something like an average eight degrees above normal - this, after averaging twelve below normal last month.  Since we've got plans to drive a ways on Saturday (it being Birthday week and all, we're heading up to St. Cloud to the "auld homestead" for birthday cake, pizza, and general foolishness, you know that they're making the weather up just for us - Friday's supposed to be something like five below for a low (first time in four years we'll have below zero temps in February), and a potential for freezing rain (again) on Saturday.  Figures.

Oh well, I'm guessing it's someone else's birthday today as well...  

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   Thursday, February 1, 2001

I Don't Normally Do This...

Sorry, folks, but this one is special.  I was sitting at work this morning struggling with firewalls, replication, SQL Server, Microsoft's interpretation of the Universe According To Gates (Whenever I hear "Bill Gates" lately, the little evil voice in my head adds "Of Hell" - I don't know why, but I'm thinking if the drunken stupid monkey moron of my subconscious can figure it out, perhaps the rest of us will get it eventually).   And then my wife sends me the piece below.  And I sit there reading, with tears running down my face, thinking of my own little fireman who runs around my home, occasionally naked, and is at times a royal pain in the posterior.  And this again slapped me back into reality.  

I can't vouch for the authenticity of it, but it certainly hits home for anyone with kids.  Especially those who want to grow up and be someone really special.

I can't tell you if it's true or not.  Seems to me that it might be rather old, given the current size of Phoenix and the fact that I'm certain they've got more than one fire station now.  However, I would think that film of this would have made quite an impression on the news.

I know it did on me.  True or not, it did.

I think any parent can tell you that their entire life divides into two periods.  Those disjointed events, some vaguely remembered, some sharp as razors, prior to the birth of your children, and that fuzzy, warm period after the kids are born.  You realize that they will outlive you, and you want to be immortal just to spare them the pain of your passing.  

And yet they need to experience the pain you want so desperately to keep them from, because those that are not exposed to life grow up to be the whiney cry-baby gutless, spineless individuals who may one day rule the world, in addition to being the individual responsible for picking our nursing homes.

Frightening, yet inspiring, I think.

Well, today was one of those days that has me really worrying about my future with my current employer.  Admittedly, the whole "four month vacation" thing which started this off was painful enough - and has quite possibly made me gun-shy when this sort of thing comes up.  But on the other hand...

The company I work for used to be a pretty good outfit locally, with a good product.  About a year ago now, I guess, they were purchased by a larger company, and then things started getting "shaky".  They laid off the sales staff, and some of the technology help, as the main product support was moved to another site which does that sort of thing.  So we were moved to tier 2 support - for quite some time tier one was "Hi - your name?  Your problem?  Someone will call you back."  

Now we're mostly tier three, but we also have people who install our software in our office.  Today, apparently a couple of them were told that their jobs here were eventually going to be eliminated, and that there was a place for them if they wished to move.  One fellow's got family in town, the other fellow's just about to buy a house.  And I'm one of two new people in the office.  Yikes.

So I'm going to invest some time this evening in my resume.  And some poking around the job sites.  And yes, for those of you who remember, I'm not going to bother with the recruiters who are bound to call me; I'm going to do some research and call one recruiter (one I've worked with before) and that ONE will work with me.  I'm going to have to deal with the recruiters who've got the jobs, but I'm going to partner with one recruiter to make sure I don't double-cover jobs, and I go on the RIGHT interviews for me.

So that's where I'm going next.  

And on another front, we're back in the deep-freeze.  It's supposed to be ten below tonight.  Wow.  Made it through January with nary a nasty night, and here we are in February, back in the below zero blast.  All that nasty rain/ice we'd managed to collect on Monday and Tuesday?  Well, my parking lot's got ruts in it that are eight and nine inches deep.  You've got to be very careful when you're driving a car with about eight inches of ground clearance.

One last jump and I'm off.  Dr. Pournelle this afternoon linked to this story on Yahoo that chilled me for a couple of reasons.  While I can respect the fact that they're more than a little touchy (justifiably, I think), this is just too far.  The man says "...it's the thought in the mind..."  Wow.  Seventeen years late, but George Orwell, we're there now.  The Freaking Thought Police.

And isn't that a good image to send you off to your dreams?

Oh HELL!  My favorite Bag Of Wind, that fool Dick Day, is at it again.  Some of you might remember we conducted "The Great Experiment" here last fall with our ramp meters.  Old Fart-brain's idea.  And so, today, they released the final study report.  The Dick then proceeds to announce that he doesn't believe the study results.  

It's not that we willingly elect fools - I think it's pretty clear that the position, these days, doesn't attract men and women of honor and integrity so much as pompous windbags enamored with the sounds of their names and voices on the evening news.  It's a good thing Senator Day's one of those people who isn't like that...  Ahem.

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Yippie Skippie it's...Friday!, February 2, 2001
Happy Birthday Susie!

The Funnies

  Yeah, that's the way to build repeat clientele.

I guess that was my problem.  My line used to be "have vodka, need woman."

  Finally!  The perfect gift for Great-Uncle Homer!  Who knew?

Gee, I guess I'm glad they didn't raid a drug store.

Yeah, all of the really "bad" dudes carry those large-caliber rolling pins these days.

Husband OR varmint...  Well, at least now we're distinguishing between the two.

  This could be the whole problem I'm having with the Alligator pool drain...

  Finally, a way to handle that French Poodle down the hall.

  Damn.  He found his way back.  Must go further.  Must go further.

First off, a friend of mine wrote to tell me that The Little Fireman above is lifted almost exactly from "Chicken Soup For The Soul" with the merciful change in name from "Boopsie" to "Billy".  Sorry, folks, didn't know it had been stolen - but it's still good.

And to tie up some loose ends, I wasn't the John in question when Brian was wondering about help in the Syroid household for Landon.  Thank God.  

And Dan's Alternate Site post for today really had me scratching my head.  Not at Dan, mind you, but television.  And the nutballs who imitate it. 

And while I feel some for the family of the kid who was burned, part of me says "well, perhaps it's nature's way of weeding out the stupid."  Cruel, yes.  Harsh, yes.  But hey, they've even got a book called "Sex for Dummies" - if they were too stupid to figure THAT out, and you had to go and get them a book, what else is there?  Perhaps today's just been one of those days where I shouldn't try to think too hard...  

It's been one of those really long days...

It started this morning when I looked out the window at the thermometer.  Twenty-Five below zero.  Yeouch.  Foolishly, I decided to try to start my car anyway.  No Joy.

So then, after getting everyone to the appropriate distribution points today, I ended up out at a client site.  And yes, you can tell the kind of day I had just by reviewing the quotes below...

• It's never done THAT before.
• Just a minute, let me check that...
• Well, THAT'S odd...
• I don't believe that's ever happened before.
• That's a new one on me.
• Are you sure?
• I've never seen that happen.
• That's unusual...
• Uh-oh.  Just a minute.

Yes, one of those days.  I developed some real empathy for what Gilligan and company MIGHT have gone through - we went out expecting to get this whole thing done in a few hours - very simple procedure - set a database up for replication (we have scripts, and we know how to use them), set up the replication on each client (we've got a little tool - here's the server, here's the name of the database, and here's the local place to dump the data - See, I did too learn something over the last couple months), and head back to the office in time for lunch.

However, as I'm learning, there's definitely something fishy about this particular client.  Our experience there is so contrary to every other client location we've visited (and in the "we" I'm not including myself, I'm including the guys who've installed this software at several hundred locations all around the US), and the consensus is that something's definitely unusual out there.  Perhaps we're not getting told the whole story.  Oh well.

Two more quick notes - 

First off, though I've been trying to avoid the whole discussion of girlfriends started by Dave, and picked up on by Jonathon and Dan, I got hit with it last night from a different direction.  A certain young lady of my acquaintance confessed to her mother last night that there was this young fellow named...  Well, we'll just call him "Timmy" though the Father Bear in me wants to change his name to "dead man walking".  This young fellow was a classmate of hers, and she really liked him, but he made her tummy "feel funny."

Oh, hell.  Seven's way too young to be faced with this.

In grade school, I'd had a heck of a lot of self-esteem issues.  I decided, as a freshman in high school, that I was going to "give it a shot."  I believed that the worst that a girl could do was say no, and perhaps laugh in my face, when I asked her out.

For some ridiculous reason or other, I somehow fixated on this tall, beautiful blonde girl in one of my classes.  I've mercifully forgotten her name now, but I'm sure a quick glance through that yearbook would pop it right back to the forefront.

I asked her if she wanted to go to the movies.  She said no, and laughed.  No biggie, I thought, and moved on.

The next day, it was all over school.  "He asked HER to the movies..."

That put me off my rocker for a few months...  or so.

But during most of my adolescent years, I tended to idolize the women I wanted to go out with.  I'd spend a lot of time staring at the pretty ones, and really wanting to go out with them.  And, once in a while, I did.  But I didn't find what I was looking for, that "girlfriend" that I really wanted.

I kept chasing after the girls, and they were just fast enough and smart enough to stay about a half-dozen steps ahead of me.  After one particularly bad stretch (I'd been "sort-of" dating a girl I knew, but we were still trying to decide about the whole boy/girl issue), I ended up going to about eighteen weddings in the space of two and a half years.  I was actually in five of them.  And of those five, I had five different dates (and the really sick part was that the five I was in occurred within four months of one another).

And I'd reached the conclusion that I was fed up with dating.  I'd had it.  I'd gone after the pretty girls, the popular girls, the exciting party-types, and the thoughtful, serious girls.  And it just wasn't working.  So I gave up.  I decided I wasn't going to screw up any more friendships by dating friends.  I'd had it.  As I told one girl who'd never gotten close enough to the girlfriend stage to be called an ex-girlfriend, I felt like a large bucket that kept pouring and pouring and pouring, and no one was refilling it.  I was getting rejected time and again, and I was tired of it.  I didn't want to chase after someone else and find myself sitting there asking "well, what went wrong THIS time?"

So I gave up on "girls" and started making friends.

And that's how I met Ann.  We were part of the same large circle of people in college.  I've been very fortunate in that I've been able to make pretty good friends where ever I go, and I was able to be part of two radically different groups of people.  Ann was part of that second group.

I can still see how she looked the first day I met her.  In her boyfriend's room.  As I was working on his loft.  She captured my interest from the first moment I saw her, and when I listened to her harangue another friend, I said "wow, smart too."

She intrigued me, and I asked about her as soon as I could discretely do so - hung towards the back of the pack when we went to dinner (all fifteen of us or so) and said "hey, what's the scoop on her?"

Once I found out she was dating a friend of mine, the doors slammed shut.  Perhaps it's a guy thing, perhaps it's an honor thing, but I have always felt that the one certain way to screw up plenty of relationships is date a friend's girlfriend.  If she'll date you while she's dating him, she'll do the same to you.  If he finds out you went behind his back, you might not only lose him as a friend, but plenty of other friends as well.  Besides, it's just not honorable.

So we remained friends, if a little distant.  I found opportunities to tweak her during the remainder of the school year, and by the end of the year, she'd gone through one friend and he'd dumped her, and there was another who was acting fairly proprietary about her.  She went off to the east coast for the summer to work, and I stayed home and busted my butt doing late-night work in fast-food.

She came back the next fall, and that's when we started slowly moving closer to one another.  She came in with a design for a loft (a method for college students to re-capture some floor space by putting their beds up on stilts, as it were, and putting the desks underneath).  Her "design" consisted of four two-by-fours on the corners and a piece of plywood nailed on top.

After being revived (I don't remember if I passed out from lack of oxygen due to laughter or just the sheer shock of it), I offered to help.  No charge (I'd gotten out of the loft business and sold the truck, and was driving my 1984 tempo).  I built lofts for her and her roommate, installed it, and managed to hang around.  It took a month of us "dancing around" one another before we started dating.

It probably took another three months before I realized that I didn't have a "girlfriend".  I had a best friend.  And that's why, almost twelve years ago now, I said "you did want to marry me, didn't you?"

Not the most romantic proposal you'll get, but then again, I wasn't marrying any old girl.  I was marrying my best friend.

And I know seven's way too young to understand that.  I also remember the girls I had crushes on in grade school.  And you know what?  I'd love to spare my daughter the pain she'll undoubtedly go through, but that's not going to happen.  She's going to have to go through it the same way I did.  It's all part of growing up.

But let me tell you this, you young men out there.  Should you set out to deliberately harm my daughter, you had better pray I get to you first.  Because your choices are me, her Mother, who is Swedish and German by birth, and Polish and Irish by environment, and who has a pretty good grip on the fundamentals and even finer points of intellectual torture (trust me, I know this from personal experience), and her Godmother, who is the typical fiery Italian.  And if that doesn't scare you straight, there's her ex-Marine Godfather.  Given that group people all looking to hang your pelt on their wall, you'd just better hope I get to you first.  It'll be over a whole lot quicker if I do.

(Added 2-5-2001 : She Who Must Be Obeyed has taken offense to being called Swedish, preferring instead the more accurate designation of "Norwegian".  Please note that my attempt to change her distant ethnicity was in attempt to hide that portion of her genetic makeup which would be somewhat embarrassing.  In other words, when she calls me a "Stupid Swede" and I retort back "Dumb Norsk" it's completely a sign of affection...  I think -- jd)

Secondly, I've got an early day tomorrow for the trip to Cloud-town, plus a laptop with DVD player to make the trip a little more fun (maybe, maybe not, we'll see), and birthday presents to wrap yet.  So tomorrow's update will be similarly late.  Oh, for some sleep...

I think I'm well behind on sleep.  I heard that the average person spends about 25 years of their lives asleep.  And if you live to be seventy, you're looking at ten entire years worth of Mondays.  That's a pretty crappy setup, if you ask me.  I'll trade ten years of Mondays for about two years of sleep, starting tomorrow.  

Well, it was worth a shot.  G'nite.

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   Saturday, February 3, 2001

Coherent?  Me?  It's an ugly, nasty little rumor.

Today we went to St. Cloud and goofed off with family.  Then we went and goofed with friends.  Then we came home.  And I've got two very pissed-off cats, because we were in a house with a cat AND a dog - don't ask me the dog breed.  One half black lab, and one half some Turkish Herding Dog.  When I heard the name, I asked "is that Japanese for 'Bear'?"  Max is that big.  Take your average black lab, split him in half down the middle, stuff another one in there, then sew him back up.  That should about do it.  But a sweeter puppy you've never met.  His only major flaw is when he likes what you're doing, he puts his large, hairy, heavy paw on you.  

I've got fairly big hands.  My palms are about four and a half inches wide.  Max?  Hell, his paws are nearly that big.  No, not when he's standing on them, when he's "patting" you and letting you know he's enjoying what you're doing.  And Max is a big boy.  He nearly decked Jack with that tail, which, as is typical in a puppy (Max is still not quite one human year old), starts wagging at the very tip and ends up misdirecting most of the latter half of the dog.  I spent some time marveling on how he was able to get where he was going just by walking - that rear end was all over the place.

Anyway, got home to a couple of e-mails reminding us of other, less fun things we need to worry about.  My friend, the gentleman who landed on his head, has managed to come off the respirator, was sitting up today, and is nearly down to no additional assistance for breathing.  Which is good.  He's also got a bit of a staph infection.  Which isn't so good.

Oh well.  Behave.  I'll be back later today with more foolishness, I guess.  G'nite.

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   Sunday, February 4, 2001

Ah, yes.  Today we traded one form of torture for another.  Instead of working out, we went back to the Parade of Homes for another shot to the head...

I guess I'm not certain what the heck is going on with the local governmental entities, but I'll give you my observations of it from the seamy underside.  

We've got what's called the Metropolitan Council.  Since we're not one big city, but a collection of roughly forty smaller ones circling the big three (Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington), we've got a Governor-appointed council to look after the collective interests of the metro area.  In other words, these are the geniuses who've brought us a metro-wide transit system which cannot carry me from one end of a suburb to another without at least three transfers, and one might well happen at one of the downtowns.

Our Met Council works with the local communities to make sure we're all doing OK with the whole urban development thing.  They work with communities making sure that there's enough developable land available, and also that development isn't going too fast.  Apparently they're afraid that we'll spread out like a mosquito on a windshield or something.

Anyway, last fall there were some reports on one of the local TV Stations about how the Met Council figures what's open land, eligible for development, and what's not.  After seeing the survey, one of the local builders pointed out that much of the land the Council figured was available was wetlands, oversized lots, parks, and land they had previously decreed would not be available.  Well, DUH.

So, today, we were looking at houses and lots.  One of the areas we'd looked at last fall was New Market, a community about 20 minutes south of here.  At the time, New Market lots were selling for between $20,000 and $25,000.  

At some point over the last few months, however, Lakeville put the breaks on all new development.  Lots in New Market are now in the $45,000 to $50,000 range.  Same lots.  On the one hand, it's incredibly disappointing.  On the other, it's probably a good thing.  We'll just keep looking anyway to torture ourselves.  That's why we skipped the workout - we ended up doing the stairmaster anyway going up and down the stairs on all of the houses we looked at.  My personal favorite would have given me four levels to work with, three bedrooms, two bathrooms (plus rough-in for a third), and an area of approximately eighteen feet by twenty-four feet for my "computer room".   Now THAT would be almost a decent size... ;-)

And then, I've got a fun week ahead.  First off, our office is going to be running at half-steam, at best, with a lot of people out.  Second, I've got a project and only one day to get it going, and that's tomorrow.  Third, my father gave me an old hard drive of his last night - it has an old copy of his Family Tree Maker database on it - and he'd really like it back.  When I told him to send it to OnTrack, and see if they'd bargain, they don't any more.  They quoted him $300, and he said "heck no" and that, as they say, was that.  Now to see if there's anything I can get off it.  If that works, I should be able to get his old PC off him as well.  Granted, it's only a 166 Mhz Pentium machine, but hey, it's better than nuthin...

Well, I'm off to see what happens if I get off this machine early for a change...  Probably nothing, but I've still got to make lunch for tomorrow.  Oh, the fun...  ;-)

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