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Sunday, October 31, 2004

Stardate 58103.1 (10-31-2004)
Halloween went much better this year. The weather was a little cold, and it sprinkled a bit, but no snow. The kid’s buckets were filled with candy. Thomas had a hard time. He had fallen asleep before we left to go to a friend of a friends’ house. He was still tired, and just did not have as much fun as the rest. The kids went to at least 25 houses. Rachel, her friend, and her friends little sister lasted the longest.

When we got home around 8, there were not a lot of houses in the neighborhood with people home. I think we made the right choice. The kids had fun, and they got lots of candy. I put the pictures together in a photo story, as Microsoft calls it. The released a beta version of a new tool to build a slideshow of pictures with music, notes, and commentary. I am going to try using it, since I have not be satisfied with my efforts at scrap booking.

I carved the pumpkins with the kids on Friday. Patrick’s pumpkin, the one we grew in the back year, weighed 52.5 pounds. He got on the scale, and he weighed the same. Just to make sure the scale was not stuck, I got on it and so did Rachel. It was not stuck. Ah, the strange coincidences you find in life. Rachel had a haunted house on hers, Patrick a spider and a pirate skull, and Thomas a cat. 

It's nice to be off of Daylight Savings. The kids do not have to go to school in the dark.

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Friday, October 29, 2004

Science Day

Stardate 58102.9 (10-29-2004)

Rachel and Patrick went to Science Day at school on Tuesday. It sounded pretty interesting. Rachel’s comment when I picked her up was that we needed to move because we were in an earthquake zone and all the houses were built on sand. She eventually got onto some of the other things they showed the kids. Electricity was one, including what sounded like a Van De Graff generator, and other static electricity devices. Patrick primarily talked about the cars they had set up do demonstrate pedestrian rules. He was apparently ticketed while both driving a car and walking.

I spent most of the week working from home because the van developed problems. While driving it on surface streets, the engine would just quit. If you shifted back into neutral, the car would start right back up. The repair shop traced the problem down to some frayed connectors to the main computer. But with a gallon of regular gas now costing over $2, I’m not complaining.
The Amazing Race 6 starts November 16. The number of TV shows worth watching is adding up.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2004

More Models

Stardate 58102.7 (10-27-2004)

Carl Stark was kind enough to send me an ADVOT (ADVanced Officer Training) sheet for the Klingon cruiser Patrick, Thomas, and I are building. I found out there is also a Cub Scout badge for model building, although I don't know what the details are for it. We haven't had a chance to work on it again, but there is more bad weather in the forecast, and it is UEA weekend. All that's left is the detail painting, and the decals. I did repair my model of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the movies. Thomas really likes this one, and I have to admit being proud of it myself.




(click for a larger image)

We went to the Classic Fun Center on Monday. Davis Hospital picked up the tab. The boys and I played a game of laser tag, and they went on the inflatable playground.  Rachel climbed the wall, and then went skating for a while. I was impressed that Patrick wanted to try. He didn't get far, but it was only his first time. He does want to try again.

I finally fixed the Visitors page. Apache is evidently sensitive to the permissions on a file. The one that generates the calendar here was correct, and that gave me the clue I needed. 

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Sunday, October 24, 2004

Model Building

Stardate 58102.4 (10-24-2004)

Patrick and I started the Klingon cruiser Saturday. The weather was ok, if cold, for his last game. The rain started about an hour later, and continued through the day. I found to my chagrin that there was no instructions. Somewhere in the three or four moves over the last twenty years they got lost. It's a simple model, so no big deal. We started painting it today. Both Patrick and Thomas are excited about it, more than I thought they would be. Model building is a slow process. I snapped a few pictures of them painting this morning. Click for the larger image.
        


















Wow, I found a blog for someone with similar tastes in TV watching. He watches The Amazing Race, Decisive Battles, & Enterprise, to name a few. Speaking of the last two, I missed the first half of Enterprise on Friday, so I am going to record it tonight. Decisive Battles is showing the Battle of the Teutoberger Forest, titled "Herman the German".  Tonight is a good night for TV.

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Thursday, October 21, 2004

E-books

Stardate 58102.1 (10-21-2004)

Before moving back to the original team, the guy who gave me tasks asked what I liked to do in my spare time. I told him I liked Sci-Fi, and he told me he read Sci-Fi as well. He has not read a paper book in about two years. Every new novel he reads he buys as an e-book on his PDA. If it is not available in that form, he doesn’t read it. It sounds good, in that I would not have to track down the book, or remember what page I was on last. Except I don’t own a PDA, and I don’t think I will for a while. I’ve thought about it. The main issue is that as soon as I get a PDA, it will be outdated. I don’t have to worry about paper books being incompatible. I have yet to find a use for the device. I have a digital camera, and my cell phone stores numbers and if I want, reminders for events. I still use a paper calendar on the fridge to keep track of which kid has hot lunch at school. In short, I haven’t yet justified owning a PDA. Maybe if I could choose from a list of books to read during the moments I am waiting. I guess I could use it to record the blogs, but I don’t speak those out loud, and I tend to stumble over words as I speak. I also edit the entries, mainly reordering the paragraphs to flow better.

Google does have a nice service if you can do text messaging on your cell phone. Google SMS can be used to find definitions, restaurants, residential listing, and other things. Kinda handy if you don't have a phone book or dictionary handy. I tried it for fun, and it came back in a couple of seconds. 
Here’s an interesting idea: a library of e-books. You check it out for a period, and then when that period expires, it automatically dumps from memory. Maybe someone could even come up with a device that looks like a book. It could contact the library via cellular modem, and you could select the book you want to check out, and it downloads it to the ebook. I am sure there is something like this already, I just haven't looked.

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Monday, October 18, 2004

Network issues, Thriller, Soccer

Stardate 58101.8 (10-18-2004)
Very good weekend for getting some outstanding projects done. I went back to work on the home network. After nearly a day and a half, the obvious hit me. The DSL modem had a router in it. I attached a wireless router to that. The IP address of the DSL was 192.168.0.1, as was the wireless. TCP/IP does not like more than one device to have the same address. The breakthrough came after I installed a second network card on the desktop machine, hooked to the wireless. XP recognized it and configured it fine, but complained there were two devices with the same address. That was the event that kicked my brain toward the problem. So the DSL router gets the default 192.168.0.1 address all the other devices look for as a gateway. The wireless is set up with a static IP address. Both routers have DHCP enabled, but they serve only the devices attached to them. Both have DNS lookup set to the ISP’s servers. One little annoyance is that if the power flips off, I need to power down the wireless for a few seconds. It doesn’t happen too often, though. Of course, the day after I get it all set up, the power does blink. Twenty-twenty hindsight keeps yelling at me that the problem was obvious, I just couldn’t see it.

Rachel, Patrick, and April went to a play at Weber University called Thriller Friday night. I had a prior commitment and couldn’t go. We felt Thomas might be too scared, so he went with me. The play was apparently very good, because both Rachel and Patrick talked about it on the way to soccer the next day. There were lots of monsters, but most of it was humorous.

Soccer is winding down. Rachel played her last game for the fall, and Patrick’s is next week. Rachel’s team pretty much dominated, due to a ringer. I did see some improvement in teamwork the last game. One thing I did note was Rachel’s friend Audra. She started out the season only kicking the ball when it came her way. The last few games she has been taking the ball from opponents, and dribbling it down the field.

Patrick’s team has been struggling. Most of the players are new to U-8, where there is a goalie and positions. The players did not understand what special tasks the goalie could do (such as grab the ball with their hands). Patrick had a tendency to show off, such as flailing his arms as he kicked the ball, or kicking the ball and falling down. This last game I had him sit down and watch went he was out. He noticed a few things, and I told him he needed to pursue the ball after kicking it. He tried this the next time he was in, and he scored a goal, as well as helping two other teammates score. The team still lost, but the game was good.

Rachel starts indoor soccer. This is competitive, and several parents have been recruiting her. Basketball will be starting in January.

Monday morning was raining, dark, and a little cold. After I woke the kids up for school, Thomas came down in his pajamas. I told him he needed to get dressed and ready for school. He told me that it was not time for school because it was the middle of the night. It was a little sad to have to correct him on it.

Xmission updated the web server to Apache yesterday. So far, the only thing that does not work is the Visitors page. There is help for this on the web, though, so I should get it back up soon.

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Thursday, October 14, 2004

Superman is dead

Stardate 58101.4 (10-14-2004)
Superman is dead. Christopher Reeves, who took the Man of Steel to a number of big screen movies, passed away last weekend. He suffered an accident on a horse in 1995, and was paralyzed from the neck down. He became a bigger man by using his fame to champion a number of issues. I was rooting for him in his goal to walk again. I loved the cartoon in the Standard-Examiner that showed an empty wheelchair by a window, and the comic book character soaring away from the balcony.

I am getting a little paranoid in my old age. I was working on the monthly testing Saturday, and I received a meeting notice from the department manager. I was the only one on the list. I can't remember the last time I had a one-on-one with her. I worried about it all weekend. It turned out that as our group's supervisor is taking a new job in technical support, she wanted to know if there were any concerns or questions I might have.  

Enterprise started out a little bad, but not too bad given where they left it. The idea of the temporal cold war is coming to an end. I can't say I am sad to see it go. It never really made sense to me. Much of the the rest of the season looks good, though.

Saturday's Ticonderoga auction was great fun, and it seemed to go well. The only bad thing is that I forget my camera. The Ticonderoga website has no photos from 2004, and I was hoping to add a few. I was glad to see Ray Graham's art go for good money. He does excellent work. I wish I had that kind of talent.

There's going to be a lunar eclipse on October 27th. I hope to get a few pictures of it, and it should interest the kids, at least for a few minutes.
We are not sure what we are doing for Halloween this year. Last year was such a disappointment. I am still holding out hope that we will find somewhere to do some serious trick-or-treating.

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Sunday, October 10, 2004

Decisive Battles

Stardate 58100.7 (10-07-2004)
Decisive Battles on the History Channel is TV program I found I like to watch. I've always been interested in history, especially military history. And something about computer animated soldiers act strangely just appeals to me. It was kind of funny to watch a Roman scout in the battle of Cynoscephalae (say it with me very slowly, SIGN-a-SEF-a-LA) back up towards the Greek spears in a jerky manner. Computer AI has advanced, but still has a way to go. Cynoscephalae, which is Greek to everyone meaning "Dog's Head", is the battle between two military styles, the older phalanx of Alexander the Great and the new Roman legion. I knew such a conflict had taken place, and the Romans had won, but not where or when. Alexander's descendant, Phillip V, lost the battle, and his bid to rule all of Greece. It was interesting to learn that the victory came about because the Roman squad leaders could change the tactics of the men they led. Next up is The Bitter Villager's favorite queen, Boudicca. 

Spaceship One won the X-prize. I didn't know they were that close. I also thought it had to be a three man shot. Anyway, congratulations. It's a good thing to see someone get into space. 

Patrick went to cub scouts. He definitely likes it. They made some neckerchief clips and a flag for the den. I listened to some of the older kids as they went over basic geology, and it does sound like it will be worthwhile.

I've been reading some of the spoilers on season 4 of Enterprise. It looks to be a good season. I hope it makes it to season 5.

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Sunday, October 03, 2004

Back to the old team, Thomas Corn Maze

Stardate 58100.3 (10-03-2004)
Presidential debates just never interested me, probably because no matter what is said, the candidates can always reverse it. So instead of watching them, we watched Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed with the kids. The kids thought it was very funny, but it was more of a nostalgia trip for me. I watched Scooby Doo, Where Are You? endlessly as a kid. I picked the habit up again when Cartoon Network came on. So I knew all the creatures in the movie; the Black Knight (What a Night for a Knight), Miner Forty-Niner (Mine Your Own Business), Tar Monster (The Tar Monster), Captain Cutler (A Clue for Scooby Doo), and the Ten-Thousand Volt Ghost (What a Shocking Ghost). The kids' favorite was the zombie (kind of nondescript, but I am guessing Which Witch is Which?).

Tuesday Patrick and I went to the cub scout pack meeting at St. Paul's. It was long and boring, but Patrick does know the kids in the new tiger cub den, so he is happy. I overheard his best friend Robert telling him that they get to make things, and go places. Robert was very excited about it, and he passed it on to Patrick. As we left. Patrick wanted to get the uniform as soon as possible. 

Thursday I found out I was being put back on the old team. There is a ton of work to do, and they need help. The other team was fun, and it was a good experience. I did feel as though I did not do enough for them. Java is a good language, but I think Sun needs to add to the capabilities of the language. Hibernate is a great tool for mapping database tables to queries, but it relies on @ tags in the comments. If you mess up on a tag, the only way to catch it is through testing. For example, I spent about a couple of hours tracing down a problem, only to find it I typed a single quote instead of a double quote on a column name. At that point I saw C#'s attributes in a new light. This is a compiler supported feature, so the problem would have been discovered earlier and corrected faster. I still miss parameterized types in both languages.

Friday, after several failed attempts, I finally got Windows XP SP2 installed. The install kept hanging in places, especially in the "Checking your configuration..." stage. Now, however, I have a new software firewall installed, and everything looks ok. I have not tried any games yet, but most of the problems I have read about stem from multiplayer modes. I don't really have time to play them, and the one time I did, AOE II refused to connect to MSN Gaming Zone after I started the game. While waiting on the install, I tuned into CNN after April called to tell me Mount St. Helens was erupting again. I remember watching news reports of the 1980 explosion, and we visited the mountain in 1998. I bought a videotape of the eruption and the aftermath.

Friday as well I went with Thomas on a field trip to a corn maze at the Cold Creek fish farm in North Ogden. They had two mazes. The first wasn't an actual maze, since it gave you only one choice of a way to go. The second one is an actual maze, with a tunnel in front, and a Halloween theme. The kids did not do that one. At the end the kids could pick out a pumpkin, which pleased Thomas. He has adjusted to school, and found some friends. He doesn't mind extended day much anymore. The EDP teacher told us Monday he went up and asked her for a particular blanket. She was surprised, as this was the first time he actually spoke to her. I have noticed he is more relaxed and comfortable in a group of kids, as at Robert's birthday party below, so school seems to be having a positive effect on his social skills.

Saturday was a busy day. Patrick had a nine o'clock soccer game, and Rachel had one at ten. Patrick's team does ok, but most of them are still in the habit of kicking the ball and stopping to watch where it goes. Patrick has improved in that he is not purposely falling down each time he kicks. He did try for a fastbreak down the field, but was intercepted. I think the kids need to work on stamina, because they were tired and lackluster during the second half. One mother told me that last week her son didn't understand he could pick up the ball as goalie. I wondered at the time why he was having problems with the position. Still, the boys all seem to be having a good time. 

Rachel's game was a little more active. The older kids have better skills, obviously, and more teamwork goes on. Some of the girls are more talented. Rachel is not one of them, but she enjoys the game and does ok. Even though no official score was kept, parents are getting competitive and keeping track. The game ended in a tie. Given the talents of the teams, and some of the girls in particular, this was pretty good. 

As I mentioned, Patrick's best friend Robert had his birthday party Saturday. It started later in the afternoon. April was working, and I had a Mountain-Con meeting, so Patrick went off with another friend, Josh, from school. After the meeting, Rachel, Thomas, and I went to the Halloween superstore on Riverdale road. Rachel got a vampiress costume, and Thomas got a pirate costume. We saw Rachel's Pre-K teacher there. She knows Thomas, and she tried to get his to wear a pirate hat with dreadlocks attached. I told him he looked like Captain Jack from Pirates of the Caribbean, but at that point he wanted to leave and go get Patrick. He was a little confused, and kept asking me where Josh lived. We were still a little too early to pick up Patrick, so I just drove around. I was a little surprised as I drove by Robert's house that Thomas was able to identify it as such. So we went in a little early, and Rachel and Thomas got to have cake. Robert's father Charles recruited me with one other father to ambush the kids in a silly string fight. I took Thomas and Rachel along. Charles told me after he hadn't thought it was a good idea for Thomas to do that. I knew Thomas would love the chance to surprise Patrick and his friends. He stayed for a while longer and played with them. I don't think before he started school he would have done this.

I rearranged the Enterprise reviews. I found a way to fix the size a table, and add a scrollbar. Frontpage doesn't like it, though, and keeps changing it. I might investigate other web editors. I am a little worried about the size of the reviews now. Everything for a particular season is pasted in one file, so season three is 77K. It's large, but I think it works better.

Well, enough rambling for now. It's been a busy week, as usual. I have probably missed quite a few things to blog about. I think about stuff to enter, but when I get a chance, I don't really have the desire. I loved Carl's results from the weblog quiz, "But if you'd post a little more often, you'd make your readers very happy." It depends on whether you blog to keep readers happy, or yourself. I try for both, but lean toward making myself happy.

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