Cleaning, Hill Air Force Museum, Mowing

Stardate 58092.6 (09-26-2004)

We've been doing a clean up and throw out, room by room, campaign. We started with the second biggest mess in the house, the 'play' room. (The first is a storage area.) The idea behind this room was a place for the kids to go and play with toys. They did this, but it ended up with toys everywhere until you couldn't walk in the room, at which point they didn't play in it. Several times we went in and picked everything up and organized it. A coworker of April's suggested that this was overload, in that there were too many toys and they could not decide which to play with, and therefore ended up playing with everything. So the broken toys, puzzles with missing pieces, and other stuff was thrown out. We are giving a number of the video tapes to the school, and some to a dentist who used to be our next door neighbor. Most of the stuff is gone, and we are making good progress.

Friday, in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid having a neighbor boy show up the minute Thomas got home from school, I took him to the Hill Air Museum. He has been wanting to go for months. Once we got there, and he saw the planes up close and realized how big they are, I think he got a little scared. He wanted to go home. So we zipped  through (I could have stayed to examine the B-17 for an hour alone), and went to the gift shop. I bought him a cheap die-cast plane, and one for Patrick because he insisted. Passing the model display case, he exclaimed "Wow, cool!". I remembered that I had found an unassembled Klingon K'Tinga model a month or so ago. I might stop by again and get a couple of simple jet fighter models so that we could assemble them one stormy day this winter. Most toy sections no longer carry plastic models. As a boy, I put together dozens of planes, tanks, cars, and ships. I remember having a model of the Bismark for years.

Mowing the lawn is becoming a bigger chore. Rachel found out that Patrick was doing it, and wanted to do it as well. So I let her do the front, and Patrick the back. The contrast in styles was fun to see. Rachel circles the lawn, but misses spots. Patrick has no pattern that I can see. He just turns as he sees fit. But he meticulously cuts every blade of grass. The back yard is about twice as much grass as the front, but Patrick wanted to do it all himself. He came up about three feet short before quitting. It was good enough for me, and I finished it.

We are attempted a game night on Sundays. Last week was the first try. When the kids could not find any of the board games they wanted to play, April taught them Rummy. Patrick broke down after coming in second place for the third time. Tonight we played a couple of rounds with his Star Wars cards (Rachel won both rounds), and then Rummy again. I asked Rachel not to take a set of cards, and helped Patrick to get a few down. He did just barely win. I know teaching someone to lose gracefully is important, but constantly losing is discouraging. He said after we where done that Rummy was a fun game.  I also remember playing the game on Sunday night with my sister an mom, so I would like to continue it.

I took a blogging quiz. I got 56 out of 100 points, and this description:

56 points is in the 51 through 80 precent (why yes, so it is. Percent is also spelled wrong)
You are a dedicated weblogger. You post frequently because you enjoy weblogging a lot, yet you still manage to have a social life. You're the best kind of weblogger. Way to go!

Finally, my snide comment about Gibby's Smash Mouth lyrics was uncalled for. I remember being dumped, and I would not have liked what I wrote. Sorry about that. The problem is I don't have anything other to say than the same thing everyone else told me, in time, all of it will go away, and there is someone out there for everyone. At the time I didn't believe it, but it did come to pass. Everything changes, and eventually for the better.

The other comment was about no other shows that I liked winning Emmys. Star Trek: Enterprise did win 2. They were not shown, which doesn't make me pleased.  I guess I should not have posted that night, but oh well.

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Amazing Race Winners

Stardate 58092.1 (09-21-2004)

Chip and Kim win the The Amazing Race. Finally, someone I was hoping would win did. Even better, the show trumped The Donald's "The Apprentice", the favored to win show, in the Emmy's. April pointed out that up until that point, there were numerous shots of Trump. After, he seemed to disappear. Sorry, "Survivor", but the tribe had spoken.  Race 6 is starting on Saturday, October 2. I have no idea who else won anything, few shows that I like ever get nominated.

Changes, changes, changes. Miss Cranky is gone, to be replaced with The Bitter Villager. I wonder if she considered those of us who would have to update our links (g). She also stole my idea of a large first letter at the beginning of a post. Mine sinks into the second line, though, so it looks better. Rory Byth lost his girlfriend. I hope he doesn't resort to posting Smash Mouth lyrics on his site. 

I was listening to NPR the other morning, and they had a piece on how companies are training their international travelers to avoid politically charged subjects, such as Iraq. The report went on to say people in other countries are trying to find out the opinion of the American public on these issues, and how the presidential election might go. I put some thought in on this, and have decided to vote not so much for Kerry as against Bush. It's a useless gesture in Utah, whose electoral votes will go to Bush, but it will be my little no-confidence shout.

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New Team

Stardate 58091.6 (09-16-2004)

Switching between teams is brain wrenching. The regression test last weekend turned up a some anomalies. The first few were easily explained by the differences in implementation of C libraries on Windows and UNIX. Been there, seen it, conquered it, have a drawer full of T-shirts. The other couple of issues took most of yesterday and today. An hour was spent looking at the 20 lines of code that are responsible, trying to find obvious flaws such as variables not initialized, incorrect values, and a few other things that might account for it. Nothing, the code was solid. Turning to the test itself, it finally hit me. The tester set up the scenario with a bunch of inter-related data. If the data does not start out in the correct state, or the order in which it run is not correct, the test would act the way it did. I rechecked that everything ran in the correct order. Yup, nothing wrong there. Checking the initial state of the data, reconstructing what went on when, and sure enough, the problem was uncovered. Next, the hour and a half explanation of what went on to the interested parties. The day is mostly shot and my brain is still churning. The bright side is that the release is now shipping a day ahead of schedule. I pick up the kids and I need to go over the spelling words with Rachel. I find two lists in her folder. I know one is from last week, and one is the current one. My brain is balking at another "what happened when" exercise. It should be something as simple as finding a date on the paper, but I can't do it. After Rachel is in bed, April calls and tells me which one I should be looking at.

Thomas has found a friend at school. He's been talking about him for most of the week, and the boy is coming over for a play date tomorrow. Thomas is excited about that. He still hates to go to EDP, but he is in a good mood about going to school. Another friend is good. Thomas's friend in the neighborhood is a boy a year older across the street. This kid tries my patience. He has been banned from coming in the house, because within 30 minutes he has every toy Patrick and Thomas own (and sometimes Rachel's as well) out. When asked to help clean up, he announces he has to go home. I've kept him a couple of times anyway, but he can only manage to pick up one or two items in the time Patrick and Thomas pick up the rest. This week he was banned from our backyard. The boys turn on the hose, and make mud. I don't mind so long as they don't leave the water running for more than a few minutes. Unfortunately, several times they have spread the mud all over the patio furniture, and the patio itself (I described a cleanup I made Patrick and Thomas do a bit ago). Monday, while April was attending to a still sick Rachel, they did it again. April told me she found Patrick in tears, desperately trying to wash the mud away before I got home from work. Thomas was grounded, but we gave Patrick a reprieve for trying to fix it. It is bad enough that I can now instantly hear the outside faucet go on. I did have them stymied for a while by kinking the hose as I wound it up, but Patrick discovered all he had to do was unwind it past the kink. Sometimes having smart kids is not a good thing.

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Rachel Back in School, Hurricane Ivan

Stardate 58091.5 (09-15-2004)

Rachel went back to school today. One trip to the ER, one to WeeCare, and two to the doctor, and she is finally feeling better. She spent most of yesterday catching up on missed schoolwork. I had to remember what predicates were, and work with her on the pronunciation of  Osaka, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to guess what country they were studying in social studies. I also wondered why the last two cities were on the map. They might now be some of the larger cities in Japan (oops, gave it away), but of course they are well known as the only cities to date to undergo nuclear bombardment. One primitive bomb apiece hardly counts as such, especially considering Dresden and Hamburg, but it was enough. I also use the cities as clues when I feel the need to point out only one country has ever used nuclear weapons in war, and nobody can figure out which one it is.

April and I have been following Hurricane Ivan for the last day and a half. Friends and family have all left New Orleans, as far as we can tell. My mother-in-law called yesterday afternoon to say she was leaving with a cousin. She called back about 9:30 that night to tell us they had reached Baton Rouge. Normally it's about a two hour drive. April found a website for one of the local TV stations, and she was watching all their weather report videos. I hit on the idea of looking at the traffic cameras. It was weird to see one side of the freeway clogged with cars, and the other clear, and knowing this was within the last 30 seconds. At this point the city has escaped serious harm. 

I took the Jung Typology Test to kill a little time waiting on a compile. Big surprise, I'm an introvert. I had to laugh at the personality type it gave me, Mastermind. It sounds like a comic super villain. Yes, that arch foe of justice, MASTERMIND. The description was all flattery. Only 1 percent of the population fits this type. Hey, but I'm in the group with Ayn Rand, Stephen Hawking, and Ike.

Shoot, the annoying pair of Colin and Christy were not eliminated on the Amazing Race. I was all set to see them go. Well, here's hoping they don't win on next weeks' two hour finale. I was surprised to find that Race 6 is scheduled to broadcast Saturday, October 2. They were taking applications for another race last month, so I am guessing there will also be a 7. Now, if one or two other good shows pull through the season, I'd be happy.
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Titanic Exhibit

Stardate 58091.0 (09-10-2004)

Went to see the Titanic exhibit at the ZCMI mall last Monday with Rachel and my sister, Susan. I am glad the entrance fee was discounted that day, as I don’t think it was worth the full price. Upon entering, they handed you a boarding pass with the name of someone who was actually on the ship. At the end of the tour you could find the name of the person on a list that also indicated if they survived or not. A little on the morbid side, but it did generate some interest. Rachel’s second-class passenger did not make it, but both Susan’s and my steerage passengers did. This disappointed Rachel a little. One other thing I noticed is the optional audio tour guide is digital. It struck me because I remember at a Etruscan exhibit a few years again there was a guy at the end of the tour busily rewinding the cassette tapes. Another job eliminated by technology.

I did learn a few things from it. A first class accommodation on the ship is between $45,000 and $73,000 in today’s dollars. Steerage is about $650. It wasn’t exactly cheap to sail on the ship. Microorganisms are eating away at the steel in the hull, and in a few more years the ship will collapse.

Monday as well I let Patrick mow the lawn. I kept an eye on him the whole time, and I told him quite a few times that if he lost control of the mower, just let go and it will stop. He had to stop about four times. But he stuck with it. He even wants to do it again.

The van is legal again. April took it in the last time, and it passed. This experience is why we dread car registrations.

Patrick had his first soccer practice Wednesday. He’s on a team with his friends from school. The new commissioner is allowing this now. He seems to enjoy it more. I decided not to coach this year. Patrick had too many problems with me coaching, and Rachel is getting beyond my ability to teach. The games start on Saturday.

I also took Patrick to a cub scouts meeting Wednesday for a troop at St. Rose. Unfortunately, he found out that his best friends are joining a troop at St. Paul’s. He wants to join that one. It took some talking to April, but I think that would be the best.

Rachel has strep again. One more time this year and we will probably be removing tonsils.

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Dinosaurs, Car trouble, Programming

Stardate 58090.5 (09-05-2004)

I went with Thomas on a field trip to Eccles Dinosaur Park on Friday. One of the good things about 4 ten hour days is that I can become a little more involved with my kids school activities. Rachel is unfortunately beyond the field trip age, and most of the class parties for Halloween and such. Patrick is still having some activities. Anyway, despite the rain, the park was fun. Thomas has been looking forward to it for the entire week. He found a friend by the name of Riley. He and Thomas have much the same personalities. After a talk by one of the park employees, who showed everyone some interesting fossils. He did very well with the kids, but I think he talked a little long. By the time he was done, it was 11 am and we were left with about 20 minutes to explore the park and eat lunch. Not much time with a couple of 4 year olds. We walked around, and passed the two Pre-K teachers. Riley wanted to follow them, and I agreed. In retrospect, that was a mistake. They were with a boy named Alex. He's the hands on, tactile type, which is the opposite of Thomas. I had given him the Batman raincoat, which was a magnet to Alex. By the end of the bus ride back to school, Thomas was in tears because Alex would not leave him alone. This was the subject on the ride to get Patrick, and the ride home. As I have mentioned before, you can see your worst personality traits reflected in your kids. Thomas has my habit of concentrating on the negative.

This is the week for car problems, apparently. We've been struggling to get the van to pass safety inspection. The station in Kaysville won't pass it because they say the lights are wired wrong. I countered that we have had the car since 1997, so why is this a problem now. We have since taken it to an independent shop, who did a repair on a ball joint and passed it. Thursday the Altima quit idling. It would run fine so long as you pushed on the gas pedal. The mass air sensor failed is what we were told. It was also suggested that the spark plugs and fuel filter be replaced. I noted that they did not suggest replacing the oil, oil filter, or air filter. That would have been bad, because I just replaced them last week. I have had repair shops tell me the oil needed to be replaced within 100 miles of the last oil change. So two somewhat expensive repairs ate up the money for the deck railing. April pointed out that this is the first repair the Altima has had in the last twelve months, and it has been running fine. 

We watched a friends kids Saturday and Sunday while the parents went to a company function in Park City. The mother was thanking us left and right, which kind of puzzles April and I. She picked up Rachel and Patrick and kept them for a couple of hours every Friday last year before soccer practice, so we felt we owed her. Coupled with the fact April was working and the van was being fixed, I wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't an imposition. Her eight year old daughter is best friends with Rachel, and her six year old daughter is  good friends with Patrick. The big concern was the three year old, whom I've always seen attached to her mother. She turned out to be a little angel. The best part of the time they were here was while watching 'Ella, Enchanted" Saturday evening. The three year old walked up to me, and asked in a quiet voice if it was ok to sit next to me. (Even Thomas smiled at that) She curled up next to me, and within five minutes she was asleep. 

Kathleen Dollard wrote an article for Visual Studio six months ago called "Save the Hobbyist Programmer". It generated a lot of comment, including a heavily commented post by Rory Blyth. Rogers Cadenhead fanned the fire again last week, generating a new post by Rory Blyth. Lots of opinions on this, and I added some of my own.  A sentence that got my attention was "Most jobs in IT aren't about human progress, they're about making humans obsolete and allowing fewer to control more." I disagree. Progress, whether in IT or elsewhere, is about making things better, cheaper, and faster. This process has been going on for the last 150 years or more. Making humans obsolete is the side effect. My dad points this out to me every once in a while. He retired from the optical business in the early 80's. He tells me that when he was working, it took five people to make a pair of glasses. He went back to the office for a visit a few years ago. He says now it takes one person, and they just enter the correction and frame selection into a computer. Automation does the rest. So that's four people displaced. I have to think, however, that without progress I would not be writing this, and I would not be employed doing what I do. I don't know if anyone has an idea of all the effects such changes have. I certainly don't have any answers. 

Some good freeware suggestions here from someone trying to put a system together from them. He missed SysInternal's Process Explorer. SC-Diskinfo looks good. No matter how big the disk space, I always manage to fill it. It does annoy me that half of the space is Windows. Microsoft announced last week that they were splitting the release of the next version of the OS. Advanced features (such as WinFS and Avalon) that may not be compatible with existing software will be removed and released in 2006. A study was quoted which shows after three years, XP only has 50% of the installed base of Windows systems. 
I have heard rumors, but here is the first I have seen where someone was fired for the contents of a blog.  I guess I need to watch what I put here.

I have done a couple of late night sessions with AOE II. Nothing online yet, still against the computer. Easy wins all. I had a scenario with just two players in a forest, each with a fortress that the computer kept kicking my butt. I must have erased it, because I can't find it. I'll have to try and recreate it. There was an online scenario called Agincourt, which would be fun to play. Unlike a lot of battles, there are a few good resources on the net for this. Most of the time, I can't find more that when a battle took place and between who on the net or at the local library. Growing up, I seem to remember better books on at least a few of them.
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