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Thursday, February 24, 2005

Cub Scout Cake Auction

Stardate 58022.4 (2-24-2005)

Last Saturday was interesting. I got to the gym in time, but forgot where the keys were. It took a couple of calls to find them. I had no idea exactly how to run the scoreboard, but after the first few games I figured it out. Fortunately, there is no scorekeeping for the 5-6 year olds. By the time the 7-8 were up, I had it all worked out. Or so I thought. There is a paid referee for the 9-10s, and he stopped the first game a couple of times to tell me what I was doing wrong. He was not mean about it, but a lot of the parents were laughing. All in all, it was fun. Not so for April, who had to run to Rock Springs to get a batch of reagent for the lab. The kids were stuck all day with me. They did good, except for Patrick snacking the whole time.

The cub scouts had a cake auction as a fund raiser on Tuesday. On the advice of one of the moms with older kids, we made a simple cake, and put Pokemon toys on it. The cake that sold for the most was also simple, except the 'decoration' was three lower level Jazz tickets (vs the LA Clippers), and a parking pass. It went for $160, which just barely covered the cost.







Basketball practice on Wednesday was a bust. Rachel's went well. The coach was out of town, so the assistant ran it. He taught some interesting things, such as elbow against the back blocking. He also made any girl who was not listening run a lap. This did not go over well with some of the girls, but he got the points across. Only two boys showed up for mine, but with Rachels help we did a few things. I banged my ring finger up, though, and it is still swollen.

End of Entry

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Rachel Skiing and Patrick Cub Scouts

Stardate 58021.5 (2-15-2005)

Completely lost my train of thought on New Orleans, so I guess I won't be getting back to that after all. Oh, well, it was not that important. Lots of other things going on as well. So much that I feel overwhelmed trying to write a blog entry.

Rachel has been taking skiing lessons at Snowbasin. It's an expensive hobby, but I encourage her to learn. I never took lessons, and only went twice when I was growing up. It seemed everyone esle knew how to ski, though, and they were always going. So I think it is something my kids need to know living here in Utah. It's a popular sport, and it is good exercise. Rachel is doing well. The class she is in went down the 'big' run last Sunday, and she told me she only fell twice, and she is now capable of getting back up by herself. She said the adults kept getting stuck in the new powder. She is liking it now.

No basketball last weekend. This Saturday is my day to run the gym, so I will be there all day. Rachel wants to learn how to run the scoreboard. I anticipate a long day.

Tonight was Cub Scouts. Due to staying late at my job, we missed part of it. The last part was coloring tiger placemats for each memeber of the scouts family. I helped Patrick along by drawing glassed, a goatee, and the Starfleet symbol on mine. Patrick had no trouble recognizing it.

Several people have been talking to me about finding new jobs. It seems to be a trend. My manager suggested last week about moving back the date I start working on web programming. I got pretty upset about it, and he backed off. The new temporary director also wants to discuss it. I've been thinking about it, and I just don't want to continue working in C/C++. It has nothing to do with the people, or the projects, it's that I want to do something new. I liked the idea of Hibernate, and I have been unable to find anything like it for C++. As I have said before, it's good to see things from a different perpective, and learning different languages gives me that.

Ian Slater put up a piece about Star Trek and the direction it needs to take now. He had a few things to say about Enterprise. I don't agree that it was a mistake putting the show abroad a ship. This might have caused the writing to repeat stories from previous series, but that is the fault of the writing, not the setting. Look at the clones of Law and Order and CSI. The settings and format are all the same, but they manage to keep finding stories. I guess an Enterprise story could not be 'ripped from the headlines' like all of Law and Order. Most of the time I don't know what headlines they refer to. I assume something from the New York or L.A. Times, but I don't get those papers, so I don't know. And the granddaddy of reality shows, Survivor, did various settings in Australia and Africa, which apparently did not get the ratings. They abandoned those and went back to island formats. Not that any of those are supposed to be scripted or anything. I do agree that the Temporal Cold War was not a good idea. The time travel theme is a bit worn on Star Trek.

Well, lots of other things have gone on. Aside from a Ticonderoga activity and taking Rachel to Snowbasin, I worked the weekend. I am not sure how things are getting off track, but I have ideas to change a couple of things to bring it back in line. With new people to train, I can't let things spiral out of control.

End of Entry

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

No more Enterprise

Stardate 58020.2 (2-2-2005)

Yes, I was planning on continuing the New Orleans experience. Today, however, has not been a banner day. If I had a mood indicator, it would be unhappy, bordering on depressed. Work was its usual frantic self. "We need things done in a hurry." A program that is run every month, and has been running fine, suddenly developed weird behavior. Most of the morning was spent working out that the config files had been messed up. I barely had time to find that out before heading out to a memorial service. The husband of a friend that has helped me out a lot with coaching soccer succumbed to a brain tumor last week. Patrick is good friends with his youngest son. I had met him a few times, and he was a good guy. The service was very well done, but it is a rememberance of someone who is no longer here and leaves me feeling sad. Coming home, I jumped on the network at work to finish what I was doing. Waiting for a transfer, I caught up on the news. The first thing on a number of Sci-Fi news services is that UPN has dropped Star Trek: Enterprise. Damn. As I write this now, though, it may not be a bad thing. This opens the possibility of the show being picked up by another network with more market penetration. The fourth season has been excellent so far (which reminds me that I have fallen WAY behind on my reviews). I wish this had been the third season. The Xindi arc had a few good shows, but overall I was not impressed. Being out of town, and N.O. not having a UPN affiliate that I know of, and not having the opportunity to watch anyway, I missed "Babel One". I enjoy going to the viewing parties at the Stark abode, but other things keep preventing me from getting there. I now need to make it a priority. I then went through the blogs page (which has also developed some bad behavior), and read some new entries from Rory Blyth. As a work on the problems of the blogs page, and do some updates of the site as a whole, I think he will be dropped. His "new format" consists of whines, why aren't you paying attention to me, and a sad tale of his life to date. Not interested.

End of Entry (consisting of a single rambling paragraph)

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

New Orleans

Stardate 58020.1 (2-1-2005)

February 1, 2005, one full day back from our trip to New Orleans. We left Thursday afternoon, and returned Monday afternoon. If you are looking at the calendar, the last entry was done from my mother-in-law's computer down there. My kids were interested in Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday" for those of you without outrageous French accents, the day before Lent begins). The official day is next week, but parades start a couple of weeks before. It's a big deal there. The kids get the day off of school. There are lots of parades with floats, and the costumed occupants throw beads, cups, and toys to the crowds. The first one we went to it has been raining all day, so there was not much of a crowd. All of the parades have different names, such as Ceasar, Rhea, and Bacchus. The big famous one is Rex. Each one is organized by a club, or krewe. The celebration brings in millions of dollars to the city.













I learned all this from a tour of Mardi Gras World, which does a lot of the floats.






















There is even a parade featuring dogs in costume. This years theme was Harry Potter. One of April's friends was involved in that one, so we went to see it and her. Her family was there as well, and I smiled as her sister-in-law tried to explain that they were fans of the books and movies, and this was for fun. I was dealing with the kids, or I would have had replied that I've seen this a lot at conventions all over the west.
















I don't feel as out of place there as I used to. It's a different culture. I have some fun with the fact there are no laws against open alcohol containers. You can even purchase drinks from a drive through place. Seafood is also a staple. Growing up here, for me, seafood was frozen shrimp and fish sticks. When I was a teen, I found crab legs and lobster, but the cost of these made them a luxury. So when we go there, we get crabs, shrimp, and crawfish. I have found out that you can catch crawfish here in Utah with a general fishing license. You have to kill them when you catch them, since there are laws against transporting live game animals. Not sure if that would be worth the trouble.

Well, I need to jet. I hope to continue with the description tomorrow.

End of Entry