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?).
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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