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Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Jenny the Hamster

Stardate 58122.9 (12-29-2004)
Rachel finally got the hamster (who she calls Jenny) out of the cage and into her little ball. I have to admit Rachel is taking good care of it. The little thing likes to run around a lot. She was getting a little bored in the cage, I guess. I have no experience with hamsters, so I have no idea what they like to do. She does seem to like confined spaces. It must be a need to hide. She is also not bothered by the cat, which surprised me.

Work has been busy, which is surprising for this week. Usually it's a little boring. The are a lot of issues still in my queue. Some of them are a complex, and are taking time.

Carl Stark sent me a link to a Sci-Fi story that says Arthur C. Clarke and his family are ok. I finally sent him some stuff he has been asking for.

The toll in South Asia for the tsunamis is staggering. News reports are saying this might be the largest natural disaster ever. One 11 year old girl from Utah is missing in Thailand. There were a few amateur videos posted that showed the waves. It was incredible. For me, it's hard to imagine what that was like, or what they are going though now. I feel sorry for them.

End of Entry

Monday, December 27, 2004

Stardate 58122.7 (12-27-2004)
Natural disasters tax aid and relief agencies. I wonder how good the response will be for the scope of the quake and tsunamis in Southeast Asia and India. Sri Lanka was the hardest hit from the reports I have seen. I have only heard of the island as the home of Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey among many other achievement s) With the toll at 23,000 at the time I write, and likely to go higher, I wonder if he survived.

I work with a few Indians. I have not heard of anyone with family in the affected areas. I thought one of them told me his family was closer to the west.

I returned to work after having the week before Christmas off. Not much has happened, but as expected, the place is pretty much deserted. The cubes around me are all occupied, however.

End of Entry

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Christmas 2004

Stardate 58122.6 (12-26-2004)
Pretty accurate, in my opinion.






Your Christmas is Most Like: A Christmas Story





Loving, fun, and totally crazy.
Don't shoot your eye out!

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Christmas Story

Loving, fun, and totally crazy.
Don't shoot your eye out!

What Movie is Your Christmas Like?

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. Ours was good, if a little sad. Rachel, who for almost all her life could not sleep Christmas Eve, figured out the secret behind Santa. Rumors had already been going around class. I suppose I am not ready for my little girl to be a young woman. But the choice is not up to me, and she is doing great. The bright side is that next Christmas Eve will not be so stressfull, since the boys have no problem sleeping.

Christmas Eve day we went to the Hardware Ranch near Logan to ride a wagon and see the elk. Rachel and Patrick got to sit up front with the driver, which they thought was pretty cool. Patrick was his usual animated self, asking lots of questions. Thomas initially didn't want to go, but once on the wagon, he thought it was great. We had planned to go see the lights in Ogden, but the wagon ride was cold, and everyone wanted to get warmed up.

Christmas morning the kids did not get up until 7! This has to be the latest since Rachel was a toddler. Rachel received Zodiac Girl dolls, Polly Pocket, and music CDs. The boys presents were more Imaginext castle sets, GI Joe action figures, and Poke'mon figures and cards. I followed April's advice from last year and got her some impractical gifts: perfume and the like. I got The Return of the King and TNG season 5 on DVD, and a laser level. I'm not much of a handyman, but I have learned the value of tools over the last ten years. I use the old bubble level a lot, but the laser one has hands free mode (it can stick to a wall), and it can be as long as I need.

The kids all received new personalized banks. Rachel, however, may need to open a bank account. She takes after my side of the family in the respect that she saves and saves.

I also received a few letters with the cards this year. It's good to catch up on what friends are doing, especially those that I have not talked to in a while.

The season is past the halfway point. One more birthday and a New Year's Eve party are left. If anyone wonders why I sometimes seem to disappear, it's because there are six birthdays as well as the holidays between Thanksgiving and New Years. This keeps us busy.

End of Entry

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Changes

Stardate 58122.4 (12-24-2004)
Changes, changes. I fixed a few things on the blogs page. Bruce Eckel moved his blogs, as did Ahoyhoy. I added Dani Hancock along with her RSS feed. I am a bit puzzled by LiveJournal. The blogs have an RSS feed, but there is no link or graphic to tell you. Firefox detects it, however, and I can grab the link from there.

Thomas and I watched the animated version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I've probably mentioned this before, but I always liked it. I figured out a few years ago that I liked most of the cartoons that Chuck Jones had done. He always did the expressions very well.

Christmas shopping is almost done. I did a few deliveries tonight, and I have one more tomorrow.

End of Entry

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Stardate 58122.4 (12-24-2004)
Changes, changes. I fixed a few things on the blogs page. Bruce Eckel moved his blogs, as did Ahoyhoy. I added Dani Hancock along with her RSS feed. I am a bit puzzled by LiveJournal. The blogs have an RSS feed, but there is no link or graphic to tell you. Firefox detects it, however, and I can grab the link from there.

Thomas and I watched the animated version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I've probably mentioned this before, but I always liked it. I figured out a few years ago that I liked most of the cartoons that Chuck Jones had done. He always did the expressions very well.

Christmas shopping is almost done. I did a few deliveries tonight, and I have one more tomorrow.

End of Entry

Amazing Race, The Polar Express Movie

Stardate 58122.2 (12-22-2004)
Kind of a strange Amazing Race. The teams did not reach a pit stop. The videos on the web site promised they would talk about it, but didn't. It was intentional, though. The team from Utah was eliminated a couple of weeks ago, and my next favorite, the pro wrestlers, are way behind.

We went to see "The Polar Express" today. It was a good movie, with some action and a nice storyline. Obviously, there was far more than the book. Tom Hanks did a great job. The animation was top of the line. I think in a short while it will be impossible to tell live actors from animated ones.

I'm still waiting in line to read "His Excellency". I am trying to decide if I really want to read the book. George Washington is one of my favorite historical figures. He is the only one who walked away from power. A comment in one blog I read complained that all sorts of books keep coming out about famous people and the dirt associated with them. Lewis Carrol was a pedophile. Others were gay, or slavers, or something else. I guess we forget they were human. I would think you don't want to know about the bad, but just try to emulate the good. Isn't that the purpose of heros? To give the rest of us a standard to reach for?

End of Entry

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Rachel's birthday Age 8

Stardate 58122.1 (12-21-2004)
Rachel, Thomas, and I went out last night to get Rachel's birthday present: a hamster. We bought the cage and accessories a few weeks back so that everything was ready. Rachel was excited; she has been looking forward to this for months. Events kind of conspire to work out for the good, I think. We have a cat and dog. We used to have another cat, but we had to give him away because Patrick is allergic to cat hair. The other one is old and spends most of her time sleeping. Rachel would not have been able to get the hamster if we had both cats because the male was an accomplished hunter. I've see the female try to catch mice the male brought home, but she has no clue about what to do. She took a couple of looks at the cage, but apparently she decided it's too much effort. The dog could care less.

I took Rachel and her friends to Park City to go snow tubing. It was very cold, but they loved it. I don't mind cold that much, but I was thankful I remembered to bring a cap. No gloves, but I just stuck my hands in my pockets. The cold helped the tubing, because people were zooming down the slope. I kind of understand why they require a wavier. Sometimes someone didn't quite make it to the end, and sometimes they got slammed by someone behind them. On little boy got whacked hard by his father. 





We had cake and presents in the warming yurt. Rachel had a soccer game at 4:15, but it started to snow as we left. It took about 50 minutes to get to Park City, and about 100 to get back. She missed the game, but I think she would rather have the party anyway. 


Rachel on the left, Cortnee in the black and yellow coat, right of her is Melissa Benjamen and her mother, Britnee, Audra, and Liz.








I finished reading the the predecessor to "The DaVinci Code", "Angels and Demons". This is also a good book. So far, I have liked every book I have read written by Dan Brown. The guy sitting next to me on the plane was reading "Digital Fortress". There is one more book of his that I know about and have not read. It will have to be next on my list.

Fixed a bug in the Perl script that was generating these pages. Perl, like a lot of languages, counts the months starting with January = 0 instead of 1. I knew that, I just forgot to add one when it wrote the standard date.

End of Entry

Monday, December 20, 2004

Christmas Train

Stardate 58122.0 (12-20-2004)

 In front of the engine.




























Add caption
Catching up on things, slowly but surely. We been working on some refinancing, and a person came over to our house yesterday to sign the final papers. We got a better interest rate on the loan than what we had, so the monthly payments are less. We will need to refinance again in three years, but experts say you should do that anyway.

Last Wednesday, Rachel, Thomas, and I went on the Heber Valley Railroad’s Christmas Train. April and Patrick came down with a cold, and couldn’t go. We got to the station just as the train pulled up. We’ve ridden it in the past, and my kids were always scared of the noise and steam. Thomas was fascinated this time. They served cookies and hot chocolate, sung Christmas carols, and they read “The Polar Express”. The train only goes a few miles now. Back when it was the Heber Creeper, I remember it used to go all the way to Bridal Veil Falls. My understanding is that much of that track has become unsafe, and it is too expensive to maintain it.


I personally have always loved steam engines. My grandfather worked for the Great Northern Railroad, and he was an engineer for a while. I had a model railroad as a kid. I worked for hours at a time on the track layout, electrical systems, and town. It wasn’t as good as the ones you see in the magazines, but it was mine. The hobby has dropped in popularity due to video games. On the other hand, the Internet had made far more resources available. I don’t have room in my house, and I don’t have the time, but maybe someday I’ll build one again.

End of Entry

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Java Log

Stardate 58121.8 (12-18-2004)
Reading an entry from The Bitter Villager about Java-Log, the first thought that came to mind is this is another online programming site. That was followed up by the fact that this person is not a programmer, so it could not be. Indeed, it's a fireplace log. I just found it interesting that I tend to look at the word Java, and immediately think of the language, and not coffee.

I made a few more fixes in the log entry. The return characters needed to be translated into HTML. I will need to do some other translations as well, but for now I just won't use the characters. Carl Stark wrote in his blog that he thought some people put too much effort into blogging. Since I had detailed the process I went through, I figured that one was about me. A quick email confirmed it. Not that I mind, as I have encountered that opinion before. I love to construct new things, be they programs, castles with my boys, or changes to the house. I could just blog to one of the free bloggers, but they don't do exactly what I want to do, and I have fun doing things this way.

I also discovered through Carl that some friends are now blogging, so my list of frequently read is growing.

End of Entry

Friday, December 17, 2004

Updates

Stardate 58121.7 (12-17-2004)
Apologies for the long time between entries. Pressure from work and holiday events have conspired to eat away all my time. I have, however, made some progress. The web based log entry system is up and running (except for updating the RSS feed, but I am close on that). The Welcome page has been redone, although there is no visible difference. The change is that the recent list of updates and the Updates page come from the same source, which frees me from having to move stuff from page to page. The log entry page will add itself to the list on the Welcome page. It adds the font and style sheet markers automatically. There remains quite a bit I could do, and I will, but at least I have the basic stuff in.

During all this, I read a few blog entries about how much time some people are spending in front of the computer. It always seems ironic to me. The computer was supposed to free you, not chain you to it. I try to combat this by setting up script files to automatically take care of routine tasks. For example, as soon as I am done with a change for a program at work, the server is updated, programs are recompiled, and the tester environment is updated. I spend almost no time transfering files and compiling.

Speaking of the job, I talked to a number of people, and I will be moving to web development. I need a replacement, though, so if you have C programming experience, UNIX experience, Oracle SQL experience, and Visual Studio experience, there is a job opening. I am involved in the hiring process, so I don't think I am eligible for the referral fee.

April went to Anahiem last week to train on an instrument. The end of the week was our tenth wedding anniversary. So she arranged for someone to take the kids, and I flew down on Friday. There was no agenda, we did whatever came to mind, and we slept in. It was great.

End of Entry