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Last Updated : Sunday, 2 March, 2003
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 2 March, 2003 |
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Monday, February 24, 2003 |
Update At 0830
BRRRRRRR
To borrow the line from another correspondent, seems the government might be looking to put brass monkeys on the endangered list today. Five below right now, with a minus-twenty wind chill, means it's damned cold. Fortunately, the sweat pants aren't the holey ones, so the bus shouldn't be TOO brutal...
By The Way
Should you be bored and looking to annoy someone who is perhaps getting a bit bored, surf on over to Ken Scott's site. Ken just had foot surgery last week, and is left with his computers and spring training to tide him over until he's up and mobile again. He's also a Mac guy, so that works out, too. Plenty of stuff to keep him busy...
Tech Support Nightmares...
Seems the headaches of Tech support go back a lot farther than we thought. Recently uncovered cave-wall transcripts of the first fire tech-support firm hold the following drum conversation of a typical tech support call...
LORTO : Ugh. Help Fire Tech Support!
GROG : Ugh. Fire Tech Support. Me Grog.
LORTO : Ugh. Me Lorto. Fire no work.
GROG : Fire no work?
LORTO : Fire no work.
GROG : You have fire before?
LORTO : Lorto have fire lots before.
GROG : Lots fire?
LORTO : Lorto have lots fire before. Lorto need fire lots now.
GROG : Need fire now?
LORTO : Need fire now. Lorto got Helga in cave, want to get busy. Need fire.
GROG : Grog no want details. Not important.
LORTO : Lorto need fire NOW.
GROG : Lorto need to remember this is party line drum. No privacy.
LORTO : Lorto no care.
GROG : Grog work with Lorto.
LORTO : Helga pretty. Lorto lonely long time.
GROG : Lorto need shut up about Helga.
LORTO : Lorto want fire now.
GROG : You have wood to burn?
LORTO : Lorto got plenty wood.
GROG : Will wood burn?
LORTO : Lorto no want light THIS wood.
GROG : Lorto need to shut up about that, or Grog send Og, Helga's brother, to stop Lorto.
LORTO : Helga got brother?
GROG : Helga got big brother. Ugly. Smelly too. Likes woolly mammoth.
LORTO : Likes mammoth how?
GROG : Likes short mammoth.
LORTO : Short mammoth?
GROG : You know. "Short" mammoth.
LORTO : Ugh. Lorto shut up about Helga. Lorto not want smelly mammoth-humping Og in cave.
GROG : Ugh. You still no got fire?
LORTO : Lorto no got fire.
GROG : You got wood to burn?
LORTO : Lorto got plenty wood to burn.
GROG : Wood dry?
LORTO : This wood plenty dry.
GROG : You light wood?
LORTO : Can't light wood.
GROG : You have flint and stone?
LORTO : Ugh.
GROG : You hit flint with stone?
LORTO : Ugh.
GROG : You get spark?
LORTO : No. No spark.
GROG : You hit stone with flint?
LORTO : Ugh.
GROG : You get spark?
LORTO : No. No spark.
GROG : You change anything?
LORTO : No. Me no change nothing.
GROG : You sure?
LORTO : No. Fire work yesterday. Fire no work today.
GROG : You change nothing?
LORTO : Change nothing.
GROG : You very sure.
LORTO : Very sure.
GROG : Change nothing?
LORTO : Lorto make one change.
GROG : Lorto make one change?
LORTO : Lorto make one change.
GROG : What one change?
LORTO : Stone hot, so Lorto soak stone in water.
GROG : Lorto soak stone?
LORTO : Soak stone so it not hurt Lorto hand.
GROG : Ugh. Grog want know you got big stone?
LORTO : Lorto got big stone.
GROG : So big it cover Lorto?
LORTO : Plenty big stone for Lorto.
GROG : You got friend?
LORTO : Lorto got plenty friend.
GROG : Lorto got plenty BIG friend?
LORTO : Lorto got lots big friend. Most laughing at Lorto now.
GROG : Grog want big friend to pick up big stone.
LORTO : Lorto want know why?
GROG : Grog want Lorto to lay under big rock.
LORTO : Lorto want know why under big rock? It not raining.
GROG : Grog want Lorto to wait while friend drop big rock on Lorto.
LORTO : Drop big rock on Lorto? Why?
GROG : Lorto too damned stupid to have fire. Or Helga.
LORTO : Too late. Helga left. Could not stop laughing at Lorto.
GROG : Good. Og heard. Coming anyway. You need run now.
LORTO : Too late. Og here.
GROG : Og there?
LORTO : Og here. No mammoth here. Only Lorto.
GROG : Ugh.
LORTO : That right. Og brought own wood.
GROG : Ugh. Ugh-ugh.
LORTO : Lorto will find Grog.
GROG : Will find Grog?
LORTO : Will find Grog. Do to him what Og doing to Lorto.
GROG : Grog no think so.
LORTO : Lorto sure of it.
GROG : Grog also sure.
LORTO : What make Grog so sure?
GROG : Og is Grog little brother.
LORTO : Grog have brother?
GROG : Og is Grog little brother.
LORTO : Grog and Og brothers.
GROG : Ugh.
LORTO : That mean Helga...
GROG : Grog's little sister, too.
LORTO : Ugh. Og LITTLE brother to Grog?
GROG : Ugh.
LORTO : How little?
GROG : Very little.
LORTO : How little?
GROG : Half size.
LORTO : HALF?
GROG : If that.
LORTO : Lorto very sorry.
GROG : How sorry?
LORTO : Lorto moving tomorrow.
GROG : Ugh.
LORTO : Lorto have to move anyway. Cave-mates laughing at Lorto now. Lost Helga, lost wood, lost fire, got Og. Og think Lorto cute. Og like Lorto.
GROG : Too bad. Spare me sob story.
LORTO : Now just need way to get rid of Og.
GROG : Og like you?
LORTO : Og like me big time.
GROG : Big time?
LORTO : As much as Lorto like Helga.
GROG : Too bad.
LORTO : Lorto no leave if Og follow him. Go back to bugging Helga.
GROG : Ugh. Tell Og you like baths.
LORTO : Lorto no like baths. Make Lorto cold.
GROG : Lorto like Og?
LORTO : Lorto NOT like Og.
GROG : Lorto like baths.
LORTO : No! Lorto no like baths.
GROG : Look. Lorto like baths, or Og like Lorto.
LORTO : Og no like baths?
GROG : You stupid? Og no like baths.
LORTO : Ugh. Lorto get you..
GROG : Else Og stay with Lorto when Lorto move.
LORTO : Lorto can tell Og not like bath.
GROG : Let Grog guess. Flies dropping?
LORTO : Screaming. Dropping. Lorto not know flies screamed. Could be
cave-mates screaming. Lorto afraid to uncover face. Smell so bad drum cracking. Have to stop soon.
GROG : Tell Og Mama want him come home.
LORTO : Lorto do. Og leaving.
GROG : Lorto leaving?
LORTO : Lorto leaving in morning. Know not where going.
GROG : Go west.
LORTO : West?
GROG : Got help out west. Grog's cousin Frog.
LORTO : Frog good with fire help?
GROG : Taught Grog everything Grog know about fire.
LORTO : Help lots? Smart?
GROG : Invented fire.
LORTO : Ugh. Frog got sister?
GROG : Frog bigger than Grog. No sister. Four brother. Frog littlest
brother. Beat Og and Grog together.
LORTO : Oh. Lorto starting to like lonely. Safer.
GROG : Grog think that good idea.
LORTO : Ugh. Don't tell Frog about Lorto and Og.
GROG : Too late. Party Line Drum.
LORTO : Lorto moving. Far away.
GROG : Thank you for calling fire tech support. Call again if trouble with
fire.
Update at 1500
So I Lied...
Ran to school, picked up Jack. Ran to Menards for a couple of bolts for a project, then the bank, then home. Took off my coat, told Jack "Change Clothes. What do you want for lunch?"
Before he could reply with the ritual "what can I have?" the phone rang. I answered it. School nurse calls. Rhiannon's feeling unwell. So I turn around, and five minutes later, I'm at school. Rhiannon is one of eight kids in a closet-sized nurses' office. Five more arrive while I'm there. We leave just in time to miss four more trotting in. One wobbles down the hall on the arm of one of the teachers.
Rhiannon forgot her lunchbox, which returns us to her classroom, where her room is almost half-empty. Nine kids failed to show this morning, and two more dropped at lunch time. Yup. Flu season.
Update at 2000
Still Got It... I think.
Indeed. Some years ago, Ann and I got pretty good at home-made stir fry. She would take over the veggie and other prep, while I would handle the horse dead ovaries. As my sister once so quaintly put it.
In other words, I made wontons. Cream Cheese wontons, in point of fact.
Tonight, when Ann was getting off the bus, her friend mentioned those two dreaded (hyphenated, therefore it could be a single word) to her. "Stir-fry".
Damn. So, since we had to get stuff at the grocery store anyway, the addition of a few fresh veggies wasn't likely to kill us. And I picked a pack of wonton skins.
My daughter looked at me as if she'd been clubbed. "Daddy can cook?" Sheesh.
So I did. And it worked. Almost as well as the scrounged-up hanging rack I made for her (wooden curtain rod which ended up being unusable in it's original location, and thus it sat in the garage, getting nicked and dinged all summer, with a couple eye bolts from the tool box and some rope, and you've got a hanging rack that takes up no floor space in the laundry room.) Damn, I'm good.
Now, if I could remember to update the "Current" page so's you all could see this, that would be an improvement.
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Tuesday, February 25, 2003 |
Updates at 0830
Clearly, There Are Some Sick People Amongst You
They say that one in four people is mentally ill. Think of three friends. If they're all normal, it's probably you.
Which would go a whole long way towards explaining the rather unusual search phrases last weekend. Some desperate soul spent their saturday night looking through my site for the words "underpants" and "underwear". Trust me, you shall see no pictures of me in anything smaller than gym shorts. Me in a speedo would be a bit like trying to camouflage an Aircraft Carrier in the Persian Gulf with a palm tree.
What causes me to worry that some of you have more than a few kinks in your mental hoses are the ones searching for "Belly Gallery" (okay, now you've got one hit), "gorge porgy pudding and pie" (which I think is supposed to be Georgie, not "gorge" as in a hole in the ground), or the individual who searched for February 18, 2001. If you look in the header of this page, there's a 2003 Calendar link. Which, if you go there, also links to previous years. And if you go to the 2001 calendar, you can scroll down to the February 2001 calendar, and click on the February 18 link, which will take you directly to ... WTF? February 25? Huh?
Aha. I see. Many years ago, when this site was under the control and management of Mr. Gates' rather disturbing product, Microsoft FrontPage, I used the "global-search-and-replace". And in some manner, somewhere, the damned thing swapped file names. February of 2001 was all mucked up. The first week (20010205.html) was holding the contents for the week of February 19. The second week (20010212.html) held the contents for the week of February 26. And you can guess that 20010219.html held February 5th's content, which, by process of simple elimination, left 20010226.html holding February 12 and following.
The alternative is that I deliberately undertook to mish-mash the mess, which is highly unlikely. In the extreme. Of course, now I'm going to have to slog through the remainder of the stuff to see if this has happened elsewhere...
Maybe you're not all thoroughly insane, but it's worrisome.
Update at 1100
Well, That Sucks
This morning's drive coincided with a news report on the radio, but they haven't yet updated there site. So I had to go to the local paper's site to find the details about the story that the state's commissioner of the Department Of Labor And Industry failed to provide state-required manditory workers' compensation insurance for her law firm's employees. That's right, the commissioner-designate of the department to oversee enforcement of the laws, including those that require firms to purchase the manditory workers' comp coverage, AND A LAWYER, failed to follow the law. AND, just to put the cherry on the top of the sundae on this one, she also ran, and lost, in the primary to become a judge.
Now, personally, I've got nothing against Jane Volz. But I've got to ask. How does one enforce the laws that one has broken? Especially when one cannot claim ignorance of the law? Especially when one wanted to be in a position to determine guilt or innocence in the situation? I can't imagine that her law firm was in any great danger, but then again, when Wellstone's plane crashed, a whole lot of things came out - like something like 80% of last fall's political campaigns failed to purchase workers' comp coverage for their employees. Sure, it's an oversight. But when you're running a law firm?
I guess I'm just a fool for believing that government works for all of us. Perhaps it works for those who are fortunate enough to get appointed to it.
Sick Puppy Report
Mr. Gerlach is, for the most part, a normal person, or so I am assured by those who know him. After reading this morning's disconcerting news, he decided to enliven next week's search report by looking for belly-button lint (thus my earlier assurances that he is, for the most part, normal. Hey, he could have gone hunting for "Mr. Underpants" references - far as I know, that character is not yet part of the dramatis personae of this site - I've seen books about a "Captain Underpants" but he's a bit short in the tooth for me). Following is his report...
> Hi John - > > Read your "sick puppy search" on your site. So, for a > giggle, decided to try "belly button lint". I know > you don't control the ads from the search engine > company, but....> > And I will confess to mild insanity. I've got kids! > > - - - - - SEARCH RESULTS BELOW - - - - - > > Search sponsors add search to your site > > > BellaBella Belly Rings Offers handcrafted belly rings > in eighteen karat yellow gold, white gold, and pure > platinum that are accented by diamonds and precious > gemstones. > > Fashion Hut Belly Rings and Bathing Suits Store > features an assortment of belly rings including navel > shields, bannana bells, 14kt gold, and dangles. Offers > swim suits in a variety of mix and match ... > > Navel-Rings.net Shop for navel rings or belly rings. > Store features belly-button jewelry made from steel, > titanium, silver, and gold, including belly rings with > glow-in-the-dark beads. > > > Search Results powered by FreeFind.com > Found 1 items, now showing 1 - 1 search tips site > map > > > << Prev | Next >> NewRefineWeb > 1. DOAB Week of April 8, 2002 > Daynotes On a Budget Last Updated : Sunday, 14 April, > 2002 at 11:09 PM -0500 Ann - Last Week [2002 Calendar] > Next Week - Search this site or the web powered by > FreeFind Site search > http://jdominik.rearviewmirror.org/2002/20020408.html
A small, very small, part of me wonders if I should look to get a free sample for myself, for my very own navel ring. Then again, maybe not. I'll spare you the mental images...
Update at 2220
That was fun...
Well, Friend A is an architect, albeit an unusual one. Friend B had son C who was doing a report on careers. Through sheer dumb luck, Son C picked architecture as a career to write his two-page paper about. Casting about last weekend, he was looking for someone, anyone, who knew an architect. I said "well, I've got a buddy, but he's a little weird..."
Two phone calls later, the two discussed things for about fifteen minutes, and all was taken care of.
Of course, I deliberately did not tell Son C about Friend A being the father of Daughter D whom Son C had thought was quite cute. Nor did I remind Friend A that Son C had a huge crush on Daughter D. Until after they'd talked.
My wife would be proud, let alone Niccolo Macheavelli.
On a wholly unrelated note, it seems the folks in Nigeria are getting desperate. I've now got offers for up to $8 billion, US, which I would receive "a reasonable share" of. Frankly, bud, if I'm dumb enough to fall for it, I don't deserve it.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2003 |
I swear, sometimes my son is just a bit off.
Today he came out of school, excited because of this evening's speaker, who would talk about being nice. Then, as Jack can do with startling speed, he changed directions.
"Daddy? What are roads made out of?"
"Well, some are concrete, some are..."
"That's it. He's also going to tell us not to smoke or you'll get concrete between your lungs."
I wonder if they sell a support garment for people who smoke...
Temporary Time-Out The second-largest copper statue in America is taking his first vacation in 105 years. Hermann The German, at 32 feet, came down from his pedestal yesterday for repairs. Turns out his Teutonic winged helm was winged in 1998 by a gust of something and he's now got only one wing - and he's got a cracked hand. Given that the hand holds a rather heavy ten-foot (or longer) sword, it's a good bet that Hermann will get a good looking-over.
Of course, there's no telling who they'll blame if Hermann comes down with more bullet holes in him. He's hopefully going to be repaired and re-flown to the tower next winter to get back on his pedestal in time for New Ulm's 150th anniversary.
He's a big boy, but thirty-two feet puts him second? Wow. That's impressive. Or sad, I suppose. They just don't make monuments like they used to...
Update at 1620
Interesting
But stupid, as the saying goes. Sneezing and farting at the same time is a lot more painful than you would think...
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Thursday, February 27, 2003 |
Update at 0730
Childhood Memories
I like to flatter myself by thinking my childhood was fairly normal.
Prior to starting school, in the mornings, after my father left for work, the TV would go on. We would watch only two programs. Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo. Then the TV would go off until lunchtime, when Carmen the Nurse and Casey Jones would fill out the lunch hour. If I dawdled on my way to naptime, I could see Rocky and Bullwinkle, and occasionally Underdog. Then the TV went off. After naptime, in the late afternoon, before my father came home, we could watch only Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street, until they started Electric Company. Then we got three shows.
I look back at it and yeah, that's a lot of television. That was about an hour or more in the morning, another hour at lunch, and then an hour in the afternoon. Then again, I'm not a stay-at-home mom raising five kids (by the time I was eight). Sure, the TV was on, but it was almost ALWAYS a background to something else. I was playing with something, somewhere, which was usually more engaging than the TV. But on more than a few occasions, the TV would grab and hold my attention, and I'd learn something.
There were plenty of people who helped to form my childhood, and now adult, personality. Some were rambunctious and just plain weird, like the Captain (I'm still not quite clear on why the damned ping-pong balls would rain down when he talked to Mr. Moose, but I am certain that Mr. Green Jeans was no relation at all to Frank Zappa. Researched that one thoroughly, I did). Other personalities, like Carmen and Casey, were just plain fun.
But to watch someone like Mr. Rogers take the time to talk directly to me, well, that was special. Most of the shows would have someone running around and goofing off. Mr. Rogers was always careful to set and talk, you got the feeling that even though he might be moving from one place to another, tying his shoes or changing his sweater, it was the talking that was the most important part.
And he had that cool train thing that took you to a whole different place where I liked just about everyone (except for that damned Henrietta the cat with her "meow meow blah meow blah blah meow" speech patterns).
But I guess, looking back at it, my childhood was probably exceptional. I was influenced by intelligent people who weren't looking to push a product or service or encourage me to stomp hell out of some other group while wearing some dipstick costume. I've got a strong sense of the absurd, but also plenty of clear understanding of a personal "right and wrong".
Most of all, I value "face-time" - that time I get to talk to my kids, not as a "well, I can do this instead of something else" or "I'm doing this to pass the time" stuff. I value time I get to spend learning who they're becoming, and picking the influences that will be working to make them be better people.
While I figure I'm special, I'm equally certain that I'm going to be but one of several million people today in mourning. One of my childhood influences passed away this morning. Later today, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood will be on TV like it has been, locally, for over thirty years. Jack and I will watch it.
And I'll miss him a little more with each passing year.
Update at 2130
What Day?
Lots of running around today and so very little to show for it. I spent enough time in the car that when I sit down, I feel uncomfortable without a steering wheel in front of me.
So, as a result, the warming weather and all the rest leads to not a whole heck of a lot going on around here. This weekend is the Cookie Delivery, Part One, plus some recent additional running around. I'm sure there will be other mischief to get into.
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Friday, February 28, 2003 |
Update at 0830
Short Takes
More later, when I recover and get my day rolling in a proper direction - if any.
Update at 1630
I'ts a Little Known Fact...
But seriously, folks...
Seems Venezuela has found a unique way to handle a power crises. Of course, it'll foul up other things...
In a previous life, I worked with time and attendance systems. In areas with reliable power, we used the AC cycle (Alternating Current is supposed to switch between positive and negative sixty times a second) to help keep the clock accurate. If your power was good, the clock would lose or gain as much as a second and a half over the course of a year. We once synchronized a clock to a PC in our offices and let it run, for three years, on our AC power. The computer was synchronized (through some expensive proprietary software) to the Atomic Clock in Boulder, CO. Over those three years, we were able to determine that our "test" clock, which lost power and switched to internal battery backup three times, was within two seconds of the Boulder clock. Which isn't bad if you think about it.
But, let's just say that some nitwit decided to drop the frequency - to, say, 58 cycles a second. Let's do the math, shall we? Over the course of a minute, your clock would only advance 58 seconds. Your watch would be fine, but the wall clock plugged into the wall would show 16:29:58 at 16:30. Or actually, at 16:30:00, your clock would still show 15:57:00.
Our solution was to include a crystal clock which was accurate to about 7 seconds a year if the power was unreliable. You could switch from the AC line to the internal clock if you needed to, as we did on occasion when we installed these things in big electrical welding shops (where in one case we had as much as five minutes of fluctuations early and late in a week's time. A graphing power meter was attached to the building's power (at our expense, of course), and we showed the owner that the power would drop or rise by as much as 25%. Ouch).
Now I don't recall the AC voltages overseas or in South America, but I do recall we had international settings on these things to conform to particular countries. Since the United States and Canada shared the same electrical grid (and I think Mexico as well), we didn't worry about it too much.
But that's an odd one. I would think that the lower frequency would increase problems with all sorts of electronics...
Score One For Promotion
I sent Rhiannon's worksheet in to school today to the teacher with a note, to show how fast she'd done it. Didn't really think too much about it, just wanted to share the excitement, I guess.
Rhiannon came off the bus today, and said the teacher took her aside. "I'm going to see if there's room in the advanced program for you. If not, we'll work on one together" she said.
Wow. I just did what never occurred to my parents - a little bit of promotion of the kid's abilities, and there's a chance she'll get to do the "Gifted thing". Wow.
Most of the credit is hers, of course, but boy, that makes me feel pretty good...
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Saturday, March 1, 2003 |
Update at 1015
"They Seemed Smart"
I think I've said that at least once a week for the past nine years.
I fail to understand how otherwise apparently intelligent humanoids can take utter leave of their senses and completely, carefully, totally misunderstand or deliberately disregard a simple set of instructions.
Like this morning.
Genius Child and That House Ape were instructed, last night, repeatedly between 8 pm and their "weekend" bedtime of 9:30 pm that the following morning (this one), they were to
I assumed Jack being outside for several hours yesterday in the nearly-forty (above) temps we got would encourage his little dynamo inside to slow to something approaching light-speed, and allow him to sleep for a while.
Silly, silly proto-humanoid that I am, this was a foolish, futile hope.
I, for reasons yet to be thoroughly understood, was awake at 0600. Perhaps it's because I could legitimately sleep in this morning that I wasn't able to. Perhaps it's because of worry or whatever, I don't know. But 0630 found me in my usual spot, slaving over a hot keyboard.
In between hunting for drivers to download and seeking the appropriate wall-wart power supply for the 7-port USB hub (one of two - 6V/4A, so of course I find a wide range of "close but no cigar" blocks, but I digress), The Artist Formerly Known As The Genius Child (TAFKATGC) and Small Mostly-Hairless House Ape (SMHHA) began their depredations.
First up was SMHHA, who trotted downstairs at 0719, looked at me with a grin (after his midnight freakout last night - only the second or third time that's happened in this house, and the first in about eight months), and said "TV?"
I maintained an stable, possibly even calm, demeanor, and softly said "no, go back to bed until your clock says nine-zero-zero." "But Daddy, it says nine-ell-one" says the monkey. Huh? It took a few minutes. He has some issues with identification of six and nine (he sometimes flips them), and I guessed (correctly, as it later turned out) that the clock was inverted (don't ask).
I settled down, post-SMHHA-departure, only to get not quite ten minutes of quiet thought in before TAFKATGC trots out of her room, smiles brightly, and says "TV, Daddy?"
Having on other occasions assumed that it was a game and replied "No, Daddy Born Human Male Hetrosexual" which has earned, and will earn, repeated smacks from SWMBO, I said "No, it's not 9 am".
"Oh. I was just..." With a simple glare, the sentence which she started ended with a trailing off of that ever-so-typical excuse. She quietly went into her room. And then stood at the door, opening and closing it. I can tell this because she's got her first-communion banner on the door, hanging from the doorknob. We try hard not to let interior doors close tight around here due to the possibility that one or more feline residents (you know, the short folk with the non-opposable thumb problems) might spend several hours trapped behind one of those doors. So her banner has a dowel that's about a foot long, and blocks the door open.
The reason I could tell she was using the door to aid in air circulation was because about every twenty seconds or so I could hear the end of the dowel hitting the hollow-core door.
While this wasn't yet a musical morning, SMHHA was doing his best to prevent it being monotone, by reminding me, again, why I prefer to build with wood and not with metal. Granted, I did not know his penchant for music when we purchased a metal-framed bunk bed, but when I found out, boy, was I regretting that choice.
Jack enjoys tapping on his metal bed frame with just about anything hard enough to elicit a noise. Then he evaluates the noise as to tone quality, pitch, etc., and proceeds to work up a composition. At least, that's the assumption I'm forced to make given the amount of noise that comes out of the room when he's "bored".
TAFKATGC, on the other hand, had managed to master the art of telling time (which she'd previously forgotten, apparently) well enough to return every thirty minutes (on the dot), checking to see if it was OK to turn on the TV. Unbeknownst to me at the time (I plead youth and inexperience, combined with long years of mostly-painful service), SMHHA was doing the same to his mother on a varying, roughly-every-twenty-minutes schedule that was truly diabolical in it's timing. Just as she was about back to sleep, he would return.
At the anointed time, they were finally allowed to come out, and they immediately went to work on the Laundry Ann did last night. My latest contraption (a spare wooden curtain rod held to the ceiling by rope and eye bolts - I only needed to buy rope and a cleat for this one) was hanging from the laundry-room ceiling, at a height which would encourage them to get their stuff and hang it up in their closets. Of course, they didn't see it until I pointed it out to them.
Then we had a talk. I was really proud of myself. No screaming, crying, begging, pleading, whining, or yelling. I made it all the way through. And they are now in their rooms, playing "quietly". In this case, for SMHHA that means he can do anything short of a jet engine on full-power reverse, while TAFKATGC is quietly singing, playing, and crying in her room - the "crying" is part of her playing with dolls...
Ah, Kids. I used to think my mother was joking, but I'm learning there are several levels to "knowledge". There's short-term knowledge, long-term knowledge, very-long-term-knowledge, and then there's the ultra-deep-in-your-bones-honest-truth knowledge that comes from having children and understanding the statement "Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids."
Update at 1830
Relaxing? Not.
Ah, well. After the above was written and it was supposed to be posting (hit the wrong icon, apparently), I hit the showers and we loaded up and headed out for the various errands. Which, somewhere, had gone from "one quick stop" to five or six.
Off to get the Girl Scout cookies. Over to the library to get the books I'd requested. Back home to unload. Off to the Grocery store - no, not that one, the other one. Okay, a one-eighty back the other way, and then, after all of that (and a fist full of coupons), it turned out we needed to hit the other one for two items - Turkey Sausage and Yogurt. So of course we come home without the turkey sausage. In my defense, we looked, they didn't carry it in the sausages, but rather in the ground, un-sausage'd form we "de-sausaged" for spaghetti sauce.
In between all of that, we took a quick break. Memo to self - when I win the lottery and want to open a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, locate it next to and within site of (preferably sharing a wall with) a grocery store. Then, cook good food, put a fan on the roof right over the oven, and pay extra for the heating and cooling (and write it off), because the smell will cover the parking lot. It's cheap advertising.
We stopped at Roland's Ribs, Roland being a rather large fellow who has cheffed (if that's a proper word) his way around the US, working for various four and five-star restaurants, etc., and decided to open his own rib joint.
Your initial impression when you walk in is that the place isn't quite what you would expect - the stove is in the middle of the kitchen, not all that far from the register, and Roland himself is more often than not working the place himself. Unlike Famous Dave's, where Dave's picture on the wall is as close as you get to Famous. Or Dave, whichever he prefers.
Roland, on the other hand, has a nice place, and takes care of you. He was the only one working this afternoon, and we had to wait a bit to place our order. We waited, and as a thank you, we got free drinks. Not bad.
But then there was the food. Omigawd. Put it this way - two years or so ago we were in that place, and Ann didn't much care for it. Today, I think we had a problem leaving. Mostly by waddling. And since Roland couldn't remember if we ordered two beef brisket sandwiches or two pork sandwiches (Rhiannon got the pork, Ann and I the beef), he brought out two of each, and sent us home with the extra one.
So that was today. Tomorrow is Church, cookie delivery, cookie delivery, aiding some friends who helped move us into this house, and looking at their new house they're moving into NEXT weekend, and then home... It'll be a long day, but very worthwhile.
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Sunday, March 2, 2003 |
Update at 1030
Uh, Duh
Gotta upload it for you to see it. Sorry. Maybe more later. Thanks to Dan Seto, I stayed up last night because I caught part of the America's Cup race down under in Mike Barkman's neighborhood. The Kiwis tried, but the Swiss just seemed to have gotten more breaks.
Of course, I say "Swiss" in the sense that the money and some of the labor came from Switzerland. Seems the captain, tactician, and more than a few of the crew came from New Zealand. Some came from the United States, too.
It'll be fun to watch the Swiss host the next race. I mean, don't the rules require it be held on an ocean? I think Lake Geneva doesn't quite qualify... Gotta run.
Update at 2320
Hmmmm...
All right. Let's see, here. You're in second grade, and there's this little thug of a bully who is hanging around the playground. You know the type - thumps hell out of second-graders, really winds up on the melons of the first-graders like he's a little Mark McGwire, swinging for the fences. A real nasty little shit. Eight years of getting his way, eight years of being the king of the mountain. You know the type.
Along comes an utterly different piece of work. A little thug - a real hit-man in training, a junior in high school. This one, sixteen years of work to get to a point where he regularly carries knives, guns, and all the rest, and because he belongs to the biggest, baddest, meanest gang on the block, no one messes with him.
He walks up to the eight year old and blows his brains out. Do you cheer, as a second-grader, that the little shit who took your lunch money is gone? Or do you worry at night about that sixteen year old little beast who could and would happily kill your parents, let alone you, if they looked at him funny at a stop sign?
In point of fact, they're both bullies. They're both nasty pieces of work, little shits who deserve a simple case of retroactive abortion to wipe the slate clean and start over. Sometimes the protoplasm gets a bit of a tweak too far one direction or another, and there's not a damned thing one can do - your options are "lock him up for the rest of his life with other little thugs just like him and let them feed on each other" or "kill 'em" - neither is pretty, but those are your only options.
And so, at the bottom of this week, we're faced with two bullies. In one corner, the eight-year-old, Saddam Hussein, certifiable bad-ass mother who happily thumped those who spoke against him twenty years ago, gassed his own people because they decided they didn't like his ugly mug, and is a genuine threat to his own little neighborhood.
In the other corner, the High School Junior high-jinks of one George W. Bush, nearly-elected president of These Here United States, who is preparing to stomp the hell out of the other bully. Sure, Saddam is masterfully handling the propaganda regarding the outcome of things. I have no doubt that in a year, Saddam will be, at best, in a marked grave, and Bush will be trumpeting this fact in his re-election bid (long may he loose).
I also have my doubts that the world will continue to be a nice place for us Americans. Simply put, once you act like a bully, you ARE a bully. It's not a case of "well, he did it first." As a parent, I do not give a green-stripped fig for who started the fight between my children - I just want it stopped before something (or someone) is broken. Once the immediate danger is past, I then look into the root causes and the outcomes.
But the world is no longer the balanced place it was fifteen years ago. There's no opposing bully to keep the United States honest. Which means trumped-up evidence and suspicion are good enough now, whereas they weren't back then.
Sure, we've suffered a horrible attack, and there are more lunatics out there lurking around, attempting to do it again. And I'm equally certain they will succeed, somewhere, and more people will die.
And somewhere, someone's going to say "they deserved it". Probably not, as the people who will die will likely be innocent bystanders. But in a larger sense, a case could be made that we did.
Run Run Run Went to see some friend's new home east of Stillwater this afternoon. "East of Stillwater" is a nice way of saying they've gone full-boat loco and have moved to the wilds of Wisconsin. About fifteen miles over the border, they spent $25K and got two acres of rough, wooded land. That's versus a less-than-quarter-acre lot in Burnsville for over $100K. Sure, "Location, location, location" but when I can look out their upstairs window and see the Shoreview broadcast tower lights (1500 feet tall and about 40 miles away) well, yeah, that's nearly almost worth the drive.
It's a three-bedroom home, 2500 square feet, and it's about 45 miles from where we are now. Sure, I'd love it, but the drive would kill me.
Oh well. We can regularly visit, which helps.
Now, off to bed - tomorrow is Ann's birthday, so she's off. I'm sure the day will be full of surprises. For me.
Goodnight.
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