TV Viewing

Stardate 59093.0 (9-30-2005)
Obviously, I am just not into the things normal people are. This comic borrowed from PVP illustrates the point:


I looked at a TV Guide preview of the returning fall shows about a week ago, and realized I don't know a few of them, and don't care to watch most of them. I fell asleep on the season premiere of CSI:, and never finished with the season premiere of The Simpsons. I tried Desperate Housewives because April watches it, and was bored. I did catch Lost, but I am getting impatient with it. The Amazing Race 8 looks to be fun, though. It's about the only show I will go out of my way to watch.

On the other hand, C# for LEGO Mindstorm looks fun. Patrick and I could waste a lot of time on that. We could build robots to do tomorrow what we do every day, TRY and TAKE OVER THE WORLD! (Paraphasing The Brain from Pinky and The Brain.)

Mood: Good
Music: 1985 (No idea who the artist is)

End of Entry

MountainCon 1

Stardate 59092.6 (9-26-2005)
Random notes: Kibizt (or kibbitz) is indeed Yiddish in origin, but it is an English word. I used it at dinner Saturday, and Drama wanted to know if I was Jewish. No, I'm not. English is a polygot language. I remember back in the mists of time reading that English absorbs words from other languages at a phenomenal rate. 10,000 new words were introduced within 50 years after the Norman invasion in 1066 A.D. (or C.E.), mostly synonyms. The example given was that before, there was only one word meaning "Of the king", kingly. The French speaking Norman persons added Majestic and Royal. This is
a good thing, since 'What a kingly view!' and 'You are a kingly pain in the behind'
just don't have the same ring. Just be glad I didn't drop into Techspeak (The words are English, but I have not idea what you said.)

Vaughn Armstrong talked about his obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child. I think just about every child has some sort of OCD. Patrick will ask how many minutes it will take to go from one place to another, and will expect an exact number. (I do the same thing, I just learned not to do it out loud.) That's probably not OCD, but I do it anyway.

Thomas scored his first goal in soccer Saturday. April was stuck with ferrying the kids from one game to the next, along with a birthday party and Cub Scout function. I got to read my ebook at the con.

I got a new laptop at work last week. This week I found what I had failed to transfer off the old one, all of the training manuals I have been working on for the past month. Not a big deal to lose, but annoying.

Someone sent me this:

Stress Management 101

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water? "
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden. So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."

"Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!"

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:


--Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

I'd rather be neither.

--Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

But then many will not hear.

--Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

--Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.

--If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

--If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

Not if his friends show up.

--It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

I always thought my purpose was to insult everyone in the Universe in alphabetical order. Wait, that's Wowbagger.

--Never buy a car you can't push.

Then what's AAA for?

--Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

--Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

--Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

Depending on whether you are the worm or the bird. POV means a lot.

--The second mouse gets the cheese.

For the life of me, I can figure this one out.

--When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

A variation on: "The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of the oncoming train."

--Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

See below.

--You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

--Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

--We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

--A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

Major Premise: Man is mortal.
Minor Premise: I am a man.
Conclusion: I am mortal.
Loophole: If I act like a child, I'll live forever.
Acting like a child is good, but I'd love to EAT like a child again. The effects of a bad diet
show up this week:

Weight: 192.5 lbs
Mood: Strange (which is normal for me)
Music of the Moment: None. One of the wires pulled loose from my headphones. It bugs me to listen to music in one ear only.

MountainCon 1

Stardate 59092.5 (9-25-2005)
Mountain-Con 1 went off, thanks to a huge effort from a dedicated group of fans lead by Carl Stark. It was a hit with every attendee I talked to. It was a little smaller than was hoped, but that did lead to a side benefit. Every convention I've been to over the years has always pushed you through a long line to get autographs. You were not allowed personalized autographs, and in some cases, you were not allowed to speak to the person signing. I didn't stand in a long line, and everyone got to talk to the guests.

Vaughn Armstrong gave a good show, and Bill Blair's after show "costume" was amusing.

After the Switchblade Kittens did their show, I got to play Roadie and help them load up the equipment. I enjoyed their show, especially the tribute to "Theasarus" Kitten, and watching 1 year old Kaylee getup on stage and dance. We went to dinner where I had fun listening to Tonya and Drama reminisce.

I think we should do this again.

End of Entry

FEMA Respone

Stardate 59091.7 (9-17-2005)
A Shadow did a post about FEMA, and the flak they have been taking from the media. To put a comment on there, I'd need to create an account, which I don't want to do just to reply. And I have a blog as well. So here's my comments:

Could I have done a better job? No.
Did FEMA do the best it could with the resources it had? Yes.
Were the resources totally inadequate for the task? Yes.
Was the scope of the disaster unanticipated? Nope. The fact that a cat 4 or 5 hurricane would hit the Gulf Coast has been talked about since before warnings of a major earthquake on the Wasatch Front.

The damage Katrina did dwarfs Andrew and Camille. But the fact that FEMA and others were overwhelmed by the relief efforts is frightening. They had several days of warning. An earthquake or volcano generally does not give that.

I heard a commentator a couple of days after Katrina say the evacuation of New Orleans was the fastest, most efficient, and well done of any major city. So long as you had a car and money. That was an unanticipated problem. I heard and interview with the director of the SuperDome say the Sunday before the building could easily withstand a category 5 hurricane. Now I am hearing it will need to be torn down.

There are a lot of lessons here. The communications breakdown hampered relief efforts. Air efforts were overwhelmed with rescues, and unable to do anything about dropping food.

From the media coverage, no one was in charge. The President was in San Diego. Mike Brown admitted he did not know anyone was at the NO Convention Center until CNN reported it.

As I said, there are a lot of lessons. FEMA takes the heat over it, because this is thier responsibility. The media is slanted to the sensational, but it does drive the need to make reforms to handle future issues.

Weight this morning: 189 lbs

End of Entry

Thomas first baby tooth lost

Stardate 59091.2 (9-12-2005)
Thomas lost his first baby tooth yesterday. It was the bottom, on the right (as you look in his mouth) of the two center teeth. Not much else to record, but I thought I'd better get this down before I forget.

End of Entry

Venting over

Stardate 59091.0 (9-10-2005)
Venting is over. The issue with Qwest is not resolved, but I am at least online, and I have been able to address some web issues. So I am in a better mood.

School is now in it's second week. Thomas is doing great and seems to enjoy it. He's had some rough spots though. The first day, the teacher lined the kids up in the hall to go to lunch. Thomas lined up, but lost his shoe. He stopped to put it back on, and when he looked up, the class was gone. The poor kid had no idea where they went, so he went back into the classroom and sat down in his chair sobbing. April was at the school doing some volunteer work, and happened to glance in the room and find him. Last week the teacher lost him again at the end of school. This time he simply went out with the other class.

Patrick is doing well in school, although he is complaining of being bored. I think that will change, but I am not sure.

Rachel is hating school, at least that's what she tells me. I don't think she hates it, but she definately does not like some of the subjects, including math. Not sure what to tell her, except that she will learn it.

The first soccer games were today. I am coaching Thomas's team. Their first game went pretty much as expected, in that most of the kids didn't get it. One boy, whose brother plays, did very well. Thomas got upset when the other team scored, crying that his team was going to lose. He calmed back down in after a minute. Patrick's game was at the same time, so I didn't get to watch it. But when I went back to pick him up, the other parents told me he did a outstanding job as goalie the last half of the game, blocking all but one of the kicks. Rachel scored a goal, and again I was not there. She does play well, even though she wanted to quit during the summer.

Mood: Better
Weight: up a little
Song of the moment (the one that is going through my head): "Knights of the Round Table" from the Original Soundtrack to the Broadway play Spamalot!
"We're Knights of the Roundtable.
We dance when 're we're able.
We do routines, and chorus scenes,
and footwork impecc-able.
We dine well here in Camelot.
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot."

"We're Knights of the Roundtable.
Our shows are for-mid-able.
But many times, we're given rhymes,
that are quite unsing-able.
We're opera mad in Camelot,
we sing from the diaphragm a lot."

"We're Knights of the Roundtable.
Although we live in a fable,
We're not just bums, with royal mums,
We've brains that are quite able.
We've a busy life in Camelot...
I have to push the pram a lot."

End of Entry

Qwest

Stardate 59090.9 (9-9-2005)
Qwest is full of idiots. Saturday email stopped, and I could only sporatically get web pages. It was Labor Day weekend, so I decided to wait until after the holiday to call tech support. I did ping the router, and the modem. The router responded fine, the modem kept getting 50 to 100% packet loss. I took the router out of the setup, and pinged the modem again. Same thing. Tuesday, out of curiousity, I pinged the DSL modem from work. It responds fine. My conclusion: the Ethernet board on the modem is damaged. I call Xmission Tuesday night (I learned the first time, Qwest techs will not talk to me unless I call the ISP first). After 20 minutes, the Xmission tech reaches the same conclusion (another lesson learned even farther back, don't give the call center techs a clue, at least initially, that you have any idea how this stuff works. Apologies to the tech call center readers, but it seems to put them in a defensive mood. Besides, a good tech will go through the steps again just to be sure.) I call Qwest. After holding in the queue for 30 minutes, the guy on the phone notes I do not have QWEST.NET as my ISP. He tells me to call my ISP. I told him I have already done that. He grumbles, then asked if they had me look at anything. I said yes, the standard cycle the power on the modem, cycle the power on the computer, check settings, etc. Grumble again. He's going to get them on the line. HANGS UP ON ME! They asked for my phone number at the beginning of the call in case they needed to call back because of a disconnect. I needed to get the kids to bed anyway, so I waited a while. No callback. Called again, 30 minutes in the queue again. A lady with an Indian accent answers. She at least walks through the diagnostic steps. The annoying thing is she insisted on being very clear, like 'P as in Pirate, I as in India, N as in Nancy, G as in George, now press the space bar, then 1, and 9, and 2, DOT, 1 and 6, and 8, DOT, 0 , that's a zero and not an Oh, DOT, 1.' Long pause, and I already typed it out or up-arrowed while she went through the litany. 'Now type Enter.' One and a half hours of this. She finally concludes the ISP's server is down. WTF? Time to let her know I am not stupid. I tell I can ping the ISP's server, although I get the same loss since it has to go through the DSL to get there. I tell her I can hook a router up, and it responses perfectly. I can put other computers on the modem, and they all have the same issue. I calmly tell her I don't agree. Every piece of equipement has been swapped except the modem, and the problem persists. I already talked to the ISP, they are up and running. The modem is faulty, and it's probably the Ethernet board. No, she can ping it, it's fine. Qwest must have some magical version of PING out of Star Trek that reports all sorts of diagnostic info.

Anyway, Xmission loaned me a modem, and lo!, it works. Nothing else on the system has changed. They are going to find someone at Qwest with brains who will RMA the modem.

Normally, I wouldn't care that much, but this month I need access to the internet.

Weight this week: 188 lbs.
Mood: Fucking Pissed Off (No cute icon for this)

End of entry

Confessions

Stardate 59082.7 (8-27-2005)

Confession, it has been said, is good for the soul. Elden Nelson, the Fat Cyclist blogged his confessions this week. Some of them were very funny, such as spending Saturday watching the hit statistics on his site, and There is no single entry in this blog that is entirely honest. I found the blog through Eric Gunnerson, and I have been reading it regularly. I just have not added it to my blogs page. It seems pretty popular. There are even references to him from the UK. Why a guy who publicly posts his weight each day to shame himself into losing it is so popular, I don’t know. He is funny, though.

So, in that vein, some things I confess:

* I have been on a Weight Watchers diet for the last four months.
* I am not sure this is a confession, though. I think I mentioned I was dieting. I don’t think I mentioned the method. I have tried a few others, such as eDiets. I like Weight Watchers because of the Flex Plan. You log everything you eat, and the exercise you do. There are suggested menus, but you don’t need to follow them. eDiets had menus you needed to follow. I like that, because there are foods I don’t like, and I have to prepare these things in advance. Some things I did not recognize, so how would I buy them at the store? Not to mention that I would not be someplace convenient to eat them.I have tried this before.
* In 2000, I got all the way down to 175, and hit a plateau. I got sick and made it to 168 one day, but that was it. I was not exercising, though, and if I had been I might have lost a little more. The problem was that I could not keep it up. I was too hungry.I don’t ride a bicycle.
* At least, not on a regular basis. The one I have is covered in dust. When I was young, I used to ride a few miles to the mall every Saturday in the summer. By high school that was uncool. I miss it now. I have tried to ride again, but I find it very scary now. There are a lot more cars now. And some of the drivers are oblivious to bikes. I do like to exercise.
The company I work for has a fitness room. There are weights, a universal, bike machines, and treadmills. I confess I like walking on a treadmill. It makes me feel good. I like to lift weights.


As of last Friday, I weighed 191 lbs.

End of Entry

Work, PHP, and Paypal

Stardate 59081.3 (8-13-2005)
Okay, it's been a while. I've been very busy, mostly with work, but some time has been spent with Mountain Con. Work is mainly busy because my boss quit, and I've been taking up some of the work. Someone in another group told me walking in one morning that they were told I was the new supervisor. Flattering, but not path I want to take. The problem is I would be doing what I have been doing for the last ten years. I want something new, something different. I feel a little stagnate mentally, and I'd like a different view of software development. I am doing some training next week, and I will be pushing an agenda for the group I have suggested before, only to be dismissed. There is no one to dismiss it now, so I might as well go ahead.

The Paypal stuff for Mountain-Con was interesting. It took a while because they have two methods of doing online payments. The documentation does not do a good job of delineating the differences between them. It took a lot of searching to find the right information. But it works now. The PHP language is pretty fun to work with, and the site, PHP.net, is well organized. They have version 5, and the stuff on Xmission is version 4. I'd like to see if they have 5 or not.

April has been busy with getting ready for school. She's into in more this year because she is president of the Parent-Teacher Group. So there is a lot of organizing, meetings, and other work for her to do. And there is still Girl Scouts and a full time job. We have given up all the soccer jobs. I will coach Thomas, but that's it. This year will be interesting for that, too. Three kids playing soccer, which means three practices, and three games. Rachel also has tennis lessons, and Patrick needs to start religious education classes. I don't anticipate a night off for a while.

Thomas and Patrick are doing swimming lessons. I think this will be Patrick's last set of lessons. He dog-paddles around the pool now, and can dive under objects. Thomas can duck his head underwater, and is working on floating.

End of Entry

Camp Kesiel

Stardate 59072.5 (7-25-2006)
Patrick went to Scout camp at Camp Kiesel last weekend. The theme was pirates, and they did a small skit from Treasure Island. Patrick got to make a sailboat (from a fry box, drinking straw, and paper), learned to tie some knots, row a boat, shoot some arrows, and shoot a BB gun. We were there all day Saturday.

Friday was the school pool party at the Roy Aquatic center. Thomas had a number of friends show up, and so did Rachel. Patrick had one, which is unusual. They had a good time. We talked with another parent about getting Thomas and some of his friends in Cub Scouts as Tigers.

Sunday we finished the new floor in the room downstairs. The dog, in a fit of pique, had defecated all over the room about a month ago. We ripped up the carpet, and installed a ‘floating’ Pergo hardwood floor. Basically you put down the planks without glue. It looks pretty good for an amateur job. We still need to get the baseboards down, and then Rachel is moving down there. Her room will be the new playroom for a while. Patrick wants to move into that room, although Thomas does not want a room to himself.

After that, we went to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”. It was good, but I thought the first was better. I think because Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow is known, and not an off the wall thing as the first show. Depp got back into the character, though. It did answer the nagging question I had about Will Turner’s father. The ending was a little surprising. I won’t give it away, but it’s the movies and no one stays dead. It’s worth seeing.

Monday’s dinner with Dad fell in the same pattern. I ordered a Sizzler steak medium, and when I got it, it was red all the way through (almost raw in the middle). They did get it right the second time.

I saw an article on MSN about wireless washing machines. The idea is that it calls your cell phone when it’s done. I agree with one lady’s assessment that it’s an answer in search of a problem. I did get a laugh out of the idea of excusing yourself from a staff meeting because your appliance needs you, or having to instruct the machine to hand the load to the dryer and telling it you expect it done and folded by the time you get home.

End of Entry

Blocking

Stardate 59071.8 (7-18-2006)
Hot weather is now here. It’s been in the triple digits the last few days. April and Rachel did a yard sale on Saturday, and netted $50. That’s not bad for a bunch of used books and videos. April shut down early because of the heat.

We took in a friends son for a week while she went out of town. Hans is a good kid, but his main source of entertainment is video games, and he took every chance he could to jump on Runescape.com. I had the firewall block it out from 10 PM to 10 AM just so he would not spend 24 hours a day on it. April had me take the PS 2 away as well, although I took pity on the sitter Monday and put it back.

Patrick had been staying over at a friend’s house before Hans came, and he came home pretty tired and moody. Thomas enjoys Hans, so he kept him going.

Wednesdays Ticonderoga meeting was a little disturbing. There was quite a bit of shouting and demanding information. If a little restraint and listening is shown, the meeting could get through faster and more efficiently, and the post-meeting gathering can commence sooner. Carl is borrowing from the scouts to deal with it (the hand in the air when silence is called for). I think stronger measures may be needed. April took the boys to a Raptors game, so Rachel was home alone and I didn’t go to the after meeting gathering.

Sunday April had a baby shower for a coworker, and I convinced the boys into seeing Superman Returns. I thought it was a good movie. Brandon Roush did a wonderful channel of Christopher Reeves. I would have liked a different villain from Lex Luthor, but oh, well. After that we went fishing at Bountiful Pond. I like the place, but it was too hot to stay long.

Monday’s I go out to dinner with my dad. He is not doing well this week. He did get his scooter fixed after a few go arounds with the manufacturer. The guy that came out to do the repair did a thorough job. He replaced the charger, and tightened the seats.

One small quandary: it seems like every week something goes wrong with the food service. One week my order is forgotten, the next week my dad’s steak is almost raw. Last week service took forever; a bottle of A1 required three requests and fifteen minutes. to get, and that was the fastest service. This week was almost right; Denny’s just didn’t get the requested side order right. It’s a bizarre pattern.

End of Entry

Assume the identity

Stardate 58063.0 (6-30-2005)

Years ago, I worked for a company that developed games for
various personal computers and consoles, as well as arcade games. They
contracted with the major distributors like Atari and EA. Some of the
distributors wrote language into the contract that the payments to the developer
would be suspended if any extra functionality were added to a game such as
Easter Eggs. I was told several times by a Vice President of IT that I was to
remove the “Arming the photon torpedoes” message from the boot sequence of
one of the UNIX servers, because that was “unprofessional”. The guy was full
of himself for being technology savvy. However, it was all with MS-DOS. He had
no idea how I added the message, and I think it frustrated him. I noticed it was
still there a couple of years after I had moved out of the system administration
job. I still have a script that gets run on a daily basis that has a slightly
updated wording "Arming the quantum torpedoes".

The point of this is that I think developers still sneak
things in. I got a warning today from Visual Studio .NET after added a module to
a project:

 



Basically, I am replacing the old module with a newer one.
The wording that caught my eye was “assume the identity”. My first reaction
to it was "What, the credit card numbers and everything?" What if a
similar message was in Windows Explorer? "The file foo.txt already exists
in C:\TEMP. Clicking Yes will allow the new file
to assume the identity of foo.txt in C:\TEMP." That would have a few users
panic. Better yet, transfer the developer to the Office software division. Then
Mr. PaperClip can have options like

"You are about to save bar.doc. This already exists in
the same location. Do you want to?
Continue. The item will automatically assume the identity of the existing item.
Move the item to a new location. You will need to visit your local Post Office
to fill out the appropriate change of address forms.
Allow the new item to create several false identities.
Inform the proper authorities of the identity theft. A Witness Relocation form
will be filled out for you."

The beauty of these is that they are not mutually
exclusive. One or all can be selected.

Humor in the workplace is important, I think. Too many
people get wrapped up in the pressure, and crack. I use sci-fi phases in
response to common questions to help.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." This is
in response to someone asking me if I will have something ready by a deadline,
usually because a exec is worried. I have an MP3 of it because the doing the
raspy breathing with the deep James Earl Jones voice is really hard. 

"You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
Standard response to a reorg and acquisition notice.

"H'jol! nadev valyinbe'" This is reserved for when I find something I did and I should know better. The fact that it is Klingon always gets someones attention. (The translation is: "Beam me up! There is no intelligent life here.")

"These are not the driods you are looking for."
Accompanied by a slight wave of a hand. When someone comes looking for someone else who is obviously not at their desk. 

"In-CON-ceivable!" For the blatantly obvious comment. 

"When 900 years old you reach, look this good, you will not." When someone realizes how long I have been with the company. 

"Humor. It is a difficult concept. It is not logical." For those worn out office jokes. 

Feel free to use them. A word of caution, you may be perceived
as not caring about your work. I've been there long enough that most people know this is not true.

End of Entry

Moab

Stardate 58062.7 (6-27-2005)

Moab was a nice break. It was not too hot, and we had a good time. I thought that it was funny that the dog was the one most anxious to get home. He kept heading to the car the day we got back to camp from Goblin Valley. It is fun to go camping with friends. Kevin started calling me Tennesee Tim after I bought a new hat. 

We tried out the KOA kabin as an experiment. It worked out. We are planning to drive to Indiana and Ohio to visit my brother and brother-in-law. The kabins are much cheaper than a hotel room, and we can sleep five a lot easier. Dayton, though, was a problem. Seems to be popular.

There were 168 emails at work when I got in Monday. A lot of questions, issues, and other stuff that seems like only I can solve. I was only gone the weekend.

MySQL crashed on my computer. I finally figured out why. For some reason, it does not like spaces in the path. So the default install to "Program Files" is bad. It did run for a few days, though, so it can't be as simple as that. I thought problems like that were long gone. I did get it back up and running. 

End of Entry

Bad Day

Stardate 58062.2 (6-22-2005)

Today was one of those days. I wake up about a quarter to eight, push Rachel out of bed to get to tennis. I can't find the car keys. After searching for 5 minutes, I do find them. I drop her off, and run back home to fix a web problem. The laptop won't boot. Fix that problem, fix the web problem, and can't find the car keys AGAIN. After an hour of searching, I call triple-A, and they send a locksmith. He can't do anything, the dealer needs to make a new key. He calls for a towtruck. The lawnmower repair guy shows up, and then the towtruck. The repair guy is in the way, the towtruck can't get to the car. The mail carrier can't get to our mailbox. The repair guy finishes, but the mower is on its last legs. The towtruck guys get the cable stuck under the tire dragging the car onto the bed of the truck. They leave tire marks on my driveway. I find the car keys after the towtruck leaves, of course. The car dealer tells me I can't use them, they have already reprogrammed the car. I thought I'd fix the day by doing some And to top it off, I didn't outscore Carl. I got 894 out of 1000.



Well, I was going to get another set of keys, and I am not surprised about the mower. It's years old, and we have beat it up. 

April's job is becoming like mine. Even when she has the day off, they are still calling all day. 

I have not gotten back to Rome: Total War yet. No time. I did think about some of my victories. A lot were with 40-50% losses. I'm not sure if that's normal, but I might check it out. I do know that was not the case with Alexander at Issus. (I can dream, can't I?) I did get the ability to build seige units. That will help. The Gauls are out of the game, which also helps. 

The week is almost over, just a little more...

End of Entry

Rome: Total War

Stardate 58062.0 (6-20-2005)

Kudos to Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale for an outstanding Batman Begins. They went a long way to make you care about the man in the costume, and why he dons it. This is even better than the Tim Burton feature. You don't get to see Batman until about an hour into it. Bale put the same voice change that Kevin Conroy did for the animated series. The movie ends with the promise of a sequel with the Joker. Rumor is that the Clown Prince of Crime might be played by Mark Hamill. It would not be a big leap for him since he did an excellent job as the voice of the same character in the animated series. I would recommend you see this.

I finally loaded Rome:Total War, and I am already addicted. You start out in 329 B.C. (or B.C.E., in the new nomenclature). Rome is just the city and the area that immediately surrounds it. You are one of the ruling families, and you expand your power by conquering cities and building resources. I defeated the Greek hoplites pretty easily, but the Gauls gave me trouble. There are also options to fight a historical battle, or just a random battle. 

The weekend went ok. I got the south fence painted. The kids (mine and two extras, plus the neighborhood kids, somewhere between 5 and 10 most of the time) were ok, but the boys could not seem to find anything to do except play video games. I don't mind that they do, but when they can't think of anything else to do, I get concerned.

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Site updates

Stardate 58061.7 (6-17-2005)

I did a few much needed site updates yesterday. The link to the Star Trek actors page was updated, the banner to the Seventh Fleet site was updated (to reflect the updated URL), and removed The Bitter Villager from the blogs, since that site is no longer maintained. Not sure what happended with it. The blogs page is getting a little small, but there are are few more I think I will be adding. 

I downloaded the latest Visual C++ Express beta, and have been playing with it. I also installed PHP, Apache, and MySQL. PHP is pretty fun, and a little easier to use than Perl. I might convert some of the stuff on this site from Perl to PHP. One page is already done in PHP. Apache is hooked up with PHP, so I can play around with stuff on my machine without uploading it to the world at large. I am also trying to move the Star Trek info from Access to MySQL. It should be easy, once I am a little more familiar with MySQL. TOAD, a program I have been using with Oracle at work for many years, is available in beta for MySQL. Quest Software, the maker, is looking to go commercial with it soon. I have the printer networked again, except to the laptop. For some reason Win98 insists the drivers are not found despite the fact I installed them. The machine does not have enough memory to run XP, and I don't want to add more. 

The 20 Gig drive in the old computer fizzled last week. Not much of a loss since it contained games and stuff mirrored from the other drive. I'd like to get a USB drive now. The two drives were mashed one on top of the other, which does not leave much for airflow to take the heat away. I did lose the Age of Empire mods and games I had, but I can get those again. I realized I still had not even loaded Rome: Total War after buying it six months ago. I just don't have the time to sit down and play a computer game. One of the neighborhood kids was in playing yesterday, and was VERY fascinated with Starfleet Command III. I let him borrow it for a while. 

The uprights for the stairs on the deck are done. Just a few pieces of lattice, and the outside to do, and it's done. 

Rachel has been taking tennis lessons all this week. She has to get up and out to them by 8 AM, but they are right here in Layton, so it's not a big deal. She really likes it.

Patrick is still obsessed with the Pokemon Gameboy game. It's to the point where he wanders around outside with it. 

It's going to be a busy weekend. A friend's mother passed away suddenly, so we are watching her kids while she goes to Florida. 

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Wood chips in the back yard

Stardate 58060.5 (6-5-2005)

Long time between log entries again. Its been a busy time. This may end up as a very long entry. The last few peices came in for the deck railing, and I finally put it up. I have to admit, it looks good. There was some confusion because the company did not order the correct stuff, but they got it straight with little fuss. I also put up the lattice underneath, so all that is left to do is some of the side and under the top stair. I'd like to get some solar lights that sit on top of the posts, but I need to decide which posts they need to go on.

We also weeded out the back slope last week, and had 13 cubic yards of wood chips delivered to our house. Because of the fence, I had them dump it in the driveway. I borrowed a wheelbarrow and started Saturday. I recruited Patrick, who has been obsessed with a Pokemon gameboy game by telling him he could have five minutes for every wheelbarrow. The other two kids wanted to help, so I offered money. The word spread across the neighborhood quickly. I soon had about seven kids. Within the hour, it dwindled to one. He worked the entire day. I had to have him stop before he dropped. I myself got dizzy late in the afternoon, which is a symptom of heat exhaustion. I took a break until the evening. A little after nine it was all moved. It was a little more than we needed, so I gave some of it to the neighbors. 

I have also been busy with the Mountain-Con website. It was running on Ray Graham's Xmission account. I saved all the information, and then tried to get it into a usable format. I struggled too get the frames working. I found out that FrontPage wanted to be smart and insert framesets all over the place. I eventually went to Notepad to get it to work. 

I have been on WeightWatchers for the last month and a half. I've lost about 12 pounds. The web site is pretty good, you can keep track of what eat online, and there is a lot of information. I like the program because you can eat whatever you want. It controls the amounts, and encourages more good food. I'd like to get to a more healthly lifestyle. The thing I did find amusing is that last week, at the weekly weigh-in, it warned me that I was losing weight too fast. It told me I needed to eat more, or lighten up on my activity. Be more lazy and don't go hungry, that's not bad.

I took my boys to see Revenge of the Sith. They loved it, I thought it was good, but not a memorable movie. I had already read the book, so I knew what was to happen. Ian McGregor and Ian McDermid did an excellent job, Hayden did alright, but I was disgusted with Natalie Portman's character. The first two have her independant, capable, and smart. This one she is weepy, whining backdrop. The effects were awesome, of course. 

I also saw Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I liked the romance story. It did not take over the film, and gave Aurthor more a a reason to move. The film was badly paced. The book was introduced without any preamble, and there was no explanation as to why towels were important. Some of the funniest dialog from the book was not in the movie. It was still good, but it could have been better.

Today we went to see Kicking and Screaming, using some passes that April won. The movie was not very funny, and pretty much the same as every other movie about losers becoming winners. I would not recommend seeing it.

My dad is free from restrictions, and can leave his home. He is happy about it, but a little grumpy about needing the walker. But he is more independant now.

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Star Trek TV ends

Stardate 58051.8 (5-18-2005)

Enterprise is over. No more new Star Trek. I admit to having mixed feelings. The show, for the most part, did not live up to what I thought it was originally billed as. I was hoping for more contact with the races seen and, to the TOS crew, well known. The fourth and final season did live up to it. 

I read a week back about Carl Stark’s mini-crisis of faith over the fact that everyone has a different opinion of the various series, and some folks tend to trash the series they don’t like. It’s not in the spirit of IDIC, or Gene Roddenberry’s creation of a tolerant universe. Personally, when asked which series is my favorite, I usually answer TNG. However, I am not telling the full truth. There are parts of each series I absolutely love, and other parts I cringe at. 

The outrage over Orson Scott Card’s comments about how Star Trek ruined Sci-Fi was interesting. I have read many of the authors he mentions are shafted, and each one has had bad stories or whole series. Asimov himself mentions some stories he wished he never published. He is entitled to his opinion, but I would be a little more tolerant if he took in some other opinions as well. He does have a fan base, so his word does carry more weight with them than other voices. I do get the feeling he is miffed because no one asked him to write a story for Star Trek.

The show actors have come out to say that they were unhappy with the way the show ended. In this, I would agree. I have nothing against Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis, but it was a slap in the face to the regulars of Enterprise to bring them in for the final show. If this was the last show of the season, and it was coming back, it would probably have been fun. As it is not coming back, this tells the regulars that they were not good enough. It seems the producers think of TNG as the deity. I’m trying to remember what other sci-fi shows were one when it premiered. Max Headroom and possibly The Flash. Not much in the way of competition. Not the case today.

On a positive note, Star Trek has passed the magical 700 episodes. Few TV shows even come close to that mark, and of the ones that have done so most are daytime soap operas. 

Last note: Before Enterprise moved to Fridays, I used to watch Joan of Arcadia. I saw a couple of reports today stating this show was also canceled. I did not watch at all this season, but the season before was fun. The Amazing Race is over for the season (and Rob and Amber from Survivor did NOT win!). 

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Washington D.C. trip

Stardate 58051.5 (5-15-2005)
Guess I should write up another blog entry, considering it’s been more than a month. It’s been a busy time. 

Rachel and I had a great time in Washington, D.C, a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of walking. We had a hotel a couple of blocks from the Capitol building. The first building we walked by was the Taft memorial. We did not find out until later what it was.

Rachel spent a lot of time with the Hope diamond. She also took pictures of all the gems. She also got to hold some insects. 

Museum Of Natural History

The big cockroach

The cherry trees were in blossom

Air and Space Museum

The National Zoo

Atop the Washington Monument

The bad part of the trip was the security. We could not get into the capitol, and it would have been nice to show Rachel the House of Representatives. She also wanted to see a sculpture of three women suffragettes. You could get tickets for a tour, but that was just not the same. When I was there in 2000, we wandered the building, looking at a lot of the statues and memorials. Everywhere there were metal detectors, and I was wanded twice. I tend to get tired of being looked at as a potential criminal. 

My dad was finally sent home Thursday of this week. He is happy about that, but I think he assumed that life would go back to the way it was before he broke his hip. He is restricted to his home except for a few hours a week. He is not to drive, which really bothers him. But he is home, so we are making more progress. 

I was shocked, along with a large number of other people, to learn that a friend, Ray Graham, passed away last week. The funeral on Thursday hit hard. I will miss him. It was good to hear the number of people whose lives he made brighter with his good humor, and I was pleased to hear how he made each one feel unique. I feel a very bright light has been dimmed.

We purchased two new (but used) cars this week. A Ford Taurus, and a Mazda MPV. The old Mercury Villager was developing a few problems. The Altima was fine, but it was over 200,000 miles, so it was time. 

Another person turned in his notice at work this week. We did have one more start as I went on vacation. He came from another healthcare company, so he understands the industry terms and business pretty well. He is doing good so far.

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