further adventures of a network weasel

Halloween pictures and a visit to farm/playground

2009-11-09T09:38:00.003-05:00

A day in the park

2009-10-08T14:50:00.004-05:00

Our Parks group hosted a fun filled afternoon last month, and I am finally getting the pictures posted.
There was all sorts of fun things for our little one to do. Not everything got captured digitally, but here are some of the highlights.
Potato sack races have changed to pillow cases races. (Still loads of fun!)

And the big fun was the Boys versuses Girls Tug-O-War.
A couple of shots as they get everyone lined up.

It is a real shame just how shy our little one can be at times.

A very good showing on the Girls side!

Not so many on the Boys side.

And while they tried with all their might, the Boys were no match for the Girls!

Fall is in the air...

2009-09-09T11:06:00.004-05:00

And pumpkins are on the ground!

While checking out a yard sale this past weekend we stumbled upon a pumpkin patch. The owner was very enthusiastic about his pumpkins and offered any and all to check them out and take pictures. Based on other years weights, he estimated this pumpkin is in the neighborhood of 400 pounds. The only limit on climbing was that shoes and belts had to be taken off. So here are the pictures, enjoy!

movie blast to make up for lost time

2009-08-06T21:53:00.001-05:00

Some Zoo pictures and "A Boy and His Worm"

2009-06-30T06:12:00.002-05:00

We took a few hours this past Sunday morning to head down to the local Zoo and have some fun walking around. Our little one had just been there with his day camp the week before, and was very excited to go back.

Mom brought some bread to feed the birds. The pigeons are so used to it they will take from your hand.

Nope, not related at all.

Le Grand Frommage!

My honey Bunny and her little Carrot.

Making sure theworm is cozy in its bowl of dirt.

A Boy and His Worm.

His first carnival

2009-06-12T22:08:00.011-05:00

And he had a blast! As always, many thanks to my dad for these amazing pictures.
I will try to add some captions when I can. Keep an eye out for the many different faces he was making at us as he went by on the different rides.

Memorial Day 5K results

2009-05-25T13:34:00.003-05:00

Temp 74.6
Humidity 48%
My time: 29:17
My pace: 9:26

An improvement over last year is always nice to see. I just wish my head was not pounding from being so stuffed up with this cold/flu/allergy thing.

Memorial Day 5K run coming up soon!

2009-05-04T08:25:00.004-05:00

2007 Results
Place Name Div/Tot Div Age Sex Time Pace
xx Network Weasel 11/15 M3039 35 M 33:27 10:46

2008 Results
Place Name Div/Tot Div Age Sex Time Pace
xx Network Weasel 15/21 M3039 36 M 31:08 10:02

2009 Results
Stay Tuned!

Mexico 2009, part 2

2009-04-28T15:18:00.008-05:00

Ok, here are another batch of pictures of our littel one from our recent vacation.
These first two are outside the famous "Hotel California" in Todos Santos.

This first one is a picture of Mom and Dad taken four year ago, right before we started earning those titles.

And here we are four years later with our little one.

drum kit for a 3 (almost 4) year old? what were we thinking?

2009-04-26T09:50:00.002-05:00

mexico 2009, part one

2009-04-11T08:11:00.007-05:00

We just arrived home from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. My folks have a time share there and invited us down with them for a very nice two weeks vacation. And here is the first round of pictures from the trip. Round two will get posted when I get the pictures my dad took. Enjoy!

Having fun with a straw in the airport.

Watching a movie with Dad during the layover.

My Dad and me on a horseback riding excursion one afternoon.

Again with the horseback riding, this time with Lands End in the background.

A puppy that went exploring while we waited for the horses to be ready.

How our little man spent his vacation.

Sleeping sideways actually worked in these beds!

A wrestling mask that his Mom liked.

... and one that he liked!

Hanging out with his Aunt across the street from the original "Hotel California" in Todos Santos.

A place that encourages graphiti.

The Missus.

Grandma got him hooked on Pina colada's (without the rum).

Just waiting for the cab.

On the way home, listening to music with Grandpa.

Busy few months

2009-03-15T18:27:00.009-05:00

And naturally, I have been slack in keeping this updated.
The biggest thing lately is that our little one got to go to his first hockey game. His aunt took great joy in making sure he know how ands when to shout "GO FLYERS!"

And the unseasonably warm weather has also made for opportunities to go on the trampoline.

Getting caught up on kid pictures

2009-01-03T20:47:00.005-05:00

So I went to download the latest round of pictures off the camera and realized I had not posted any significant number of them in a while. This gets us all caught up on pictures of our little one. Enjoy!

Who says you can't have fun outside in the winter? Jumping around with one of the cousins.

Helping Mom pack a box. The big smiles help it get ther faster.

Robots need TV too! Further proving that kids will have more fun with the box something shipped in than the actual item itself.

I get to jump as high as I want on that thing? Cool!

To make it more interesting, I will not use my hands and turn the stool upside down. We are not sure where he gets these ideas from, honest.

My pants look better here. Again, no idea how this one came about. Must have seen it on TV. At someone elses house.

Mom put the snacks too far away again. But I will not be deterred. And as long as I do not touch the ground, the crocodiles can not get me. So there.

Dad, the original lazy boy. As in comfy chair. Ignore the rumors.

Zerbert attack! Secret power attack of the reclining papa. Not to be underestimated in getting very loud giggles from children.

Wet Willy. And now it is passed on to a new generation. My job as a parent is pretty much coasting from here on out. Right?

I could get used to this.

Tunnel vision.

ok, so maybe watching through the strainer is not going to help make this show more interesting.

Child in flight

2009-01-03T10:20:00.002-05:00

One of the tv shows we were not expecting him to enjoy is "Buzz Lightyear". So much so thatevery time he is the stairs, any stairs, he wants to practise flying like Buzz. My dad had a lot of fun playing with his camera as our little one practised being Buzz on their basement steps. The above is a collection of pictures he pit together. It is not actually a time lapse sequence of a single jump but a collection of many different jumps, each caught at a slightly different point in the flight. The comment about "Legs out" is becuase the little one really wants his legs to be sticking out directly behind him, just like Buzz when he flying. After each jump he would review the picture on the screen on my dads camera to see how close he got to his goal.

The other excitement (of a non holiday flavor) lately has been the trampoline my darling bride bought via Craigs list. And since this is another "Winter that Wasn't" the weather has been much warmer than one expects for December around here so there have been plenty of opportunities to use it. More pictures on that once I get them off the camera.

*smiles*

Holidays wishesfor you and yours

2008-12-25T08:20:00.002-05:00

Let me take this moment to wish all the other passengers on this globe of ours a warm and happy holiday season.

Here is a shot of video cuteness in the form of our son wishing folk a "Merry Christmas" in English and Polish. He was "helping" vacum when this was made.

Hope is renewed (random thoughts about the election of Obama)

2008-11-05T00:33:00.004-05:00

It is amazing how a single election can restore ones hopes and dreams for a country, a planet and the future.

Not that I think there was a lot riding on this election or anything.

The process works. Real leaders can be elected in this country. Leaders that bring with them the potential for change, not just for the United States but for the World.

More importantly it demonstrates a key feature of the Democratic experiment. A nation can have dramatic change without violence.

Now lets see what we can do when a smart leader that works to bring different groups together is in charge. And what we can do to help.

meme of the week from taokodr

2008-11-03T10:08:00.000-05:00

Your result for The 4-Variable IQ Test...

Visual

10% interpersonal, 45% visual, 10% verbal and 35% mathematical!

Your strongest type of intelligence is Visual. You thrive on spatial thinking, shapes, patterns, and form. You're unlikely to be blind. You can probably think in 3D very easily. You are very likely to be attractive, based on only my most rudimentary anecdotal evidence. And you are likely to appreciate a good body in a lover.

Your specific scores follow. On any axis, a score above 25% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 25% means you use it less. It says nothing about cognitive skills, just your interest.

Your brain is roughly:

10% Interpersonal

45%Visual

10%Verbal

35%Mathematical

Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice to the world.

1. Don't date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 20%.

2. Don't be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 25%.

3. Don't have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 50%.

Take The 4-Variable IQ Test at HelloQuizzy

halloween preview

2008-10-25T15:46:00.003-05:00

This year it is Batman. He had so much fun playing with the mask at a cousins house that we bought it months ago. A black long sleeve shirt, pants, sneakers, $1.50 worth of fabric for the cape and felt for the emblems and there you have it.

At home, refusing to stand still and captured in the process of running up to see what is on the camera.

At the YMCA halloween party, starting in on the candy early. He went thru the Haunted House twice! At least three other Batmans, all different versions. A Superman, Indiana Jones, Power ranger, Policeman and a smattering of vampires rounded out the party.

slowly coming back to reality

2008-09-14T16:12:00.002-05:00

The summer is my busiest time at work. That is when there are the least number of people using the network, so that is when there are more opportunities for me to make major changes. And the period in the summer that is the busiest is the three weeks before the student arrive to start the fall semester. The rest of the summer is generally prep for those three weeks. Students moved into the dorms in various waves starting the week before Labor Day. Naturally the three weeks or so prior to that were more than a little crazy with late nights at work and long days over weekends inaddition to the regular work schedule. This years changes to the network were among the more ambitious plans I think we have ever attempted, and while it all worked out, it was not without its craziness along the way. I was in New Hampshire for a two day training class on a product we bought six weeks earlier, that was going live two days after I got back. Happily I did not find anything out during the training that caused us to have to make any changes to our plans. That waited until I returned and found a major bug in the product, or at least a major bug from our point of view. We bought a NAC, or a product that does Network Access Control for thos not up to speed on their network TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). This product was bought to replace an aging home grown set of labor intensive processes that achieved a limited form of the same effect. We are also planning on using this with the yet to be bought next generation wireless product. The NAC steps in when a computer first connects to the network and makes sure it is up to date on its operating system patches, has a required antivirus product and that the virus definitions are up to date. It can do much more than that simple list, but that is enough of a start for us. This a major step for us. It brought to light a problem with one of the antivirus products we support, which was a major time sink for our helpdesk staff. They had lines going out the door during the move in week.
Once we worked out that the new NAC was not the source of the problems, and that it was doing what it was supposed to do, my life got a bit simpler. I did loss a week repairing data jacks that were damaged over the summer but I am slowly starting to get back to regular hours and being able to focus on new projects. Or at least on those projects that got back burnered over the course of the summer.
I hope everyone else is having a less busy time of it and are able to enjoy the last vestiges of the summer season.

Back in the country, with loads of pictures

2008-07-16T15:51:00.013-05:00

Howdy, to the two of you that read this blog. We made it back without incident. I had a good time visiting for their last week. And here are loads of pictures taken during their almost three month visit.

How Mom spent her visit. *grin*

Just taking a breather in the bus stop while holding a bucket of baby pears. No reason to be concerned, just move along officer.

A frame from an upcoming music video of the blues song titled "Down by the River"

I am ready for my close-up.

uh... "Yo"

umm, was that supposed to happen?

I made this for you.

and you believed me!

I need to think about this for a bit and nothing helps me think like a good carrot.

Some fool gave this child a hat full of candy.

Don't tug on that, you don't know what it is attached too.

This is how you water a garden.

Nothing funny to say. Just a great shot of him running down a road.

Eating a fresh picked tomato in the garden... in my undies. You know you wish you were me!

You handle the peddles and I will stear.

Cruising for smooches!

Were you sleaping?

A whole new meaning to the phrase "Surfing Dad."

I saw this one on a wrestling show.

I think it goes here.

Son, I really hate to tell you this, but this is, mostlikely, the last time you will get to hang out in a pool with four cute blonde sisters.

Meeting the family pet.

Nothing says you are done with a post like a child riding a goat.

Loads of pictures of the cute one

2008-06-21T14:05:00.006-05:00

Here, let me help you with that bag, Grandpa.

Taking the dolls out for a walk.

Playing in the pool.

A budding thespian.

Leave me alone, I'm licking my lollipop.

Cruising with Grandpa.

Hiding in the hammock, sorta.

See, Mom, I did too eat my vegetables.

Memorial Day 5k results

2008-05-26T09:40:00.002-05:00

It is that time of year again. Our little borough had their 2nd 5k run and I took part. 240 people took part in this years run. There was some concern about whether or not I would be able to run this year. Earlier posts went over the process of recovering from the injury after the Thanksgiving Day 5 miler. And as recent as yesterday I was limping from having pulled something on my hip. Happily this did not cause any problems and I was able to finish running. Since my training was interrupted these last few months I had very modest expectations for my performance. Just getting out there was a victory. That said, I did better this year than last! My time this year was 31:06 minutes, more than two minutes faster than last year. My average pace was almost exactly 10 minutes a mile. This is very encouraging for my hopes to continuing to improve my times. If the aim to improve a few minutes year over year is modest when compared with the results of the top runners in this race. The first place mens was almost exactly half my time. The top finishers in my age bracket are ten minutes faster. So I have a ways to go before my name has a chance of showing up on those lists. Wish me luck!

and here are some pictures...

2008-05-24T08:02:00.007-05:00

Here are some pictures of our little one.

Hanging out in the airport in ones pajamas.

Helping Dziadek (Grandpa) in the garden.

"Tell me again how this becomes soup?"

If they can eat this stuff, can I?

"Ok, now poop!"

"What else needs watering? I know, the same plant I have been watering all afternoon!"

The work day is done, now we play! Please note that he has moved from throwing pebbles to throwing small boulders. Not a surprise, as they make much better splashes.

"Ok, I let you out of your pen but that does not mean you can put your cold nose on my belly, no matter how much I may giggle."

"What do you mean its not zoned for this structure?"

Home is where the heart is

2008-05-16T11:20:00.002-05:00

And since my wife and son are with her family in Poland for another two months, I am feeling a bit homesick today. The rainy weather we are having is not helping too much either. We do get to talk via Skype occasionally and email fills in the gaps, but it is not the same as being able to be in the same room as them.

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this time to myself. I have seen movies in the trheater on my own for the first time in years. I am burning through those netflix movies I know my wife has no interest is watching. My schedule is mine to mis-use as I see fit, which is always a nice thing. Laundry, dishes and cat litter still get done so it is not like a vacation from life or anything that liberating.

The language experiment seems to be paying off. Polish words are already entering his vocabulary and his pronuciation, in general, has been improving. He had been using just the start or ending sounds of words when I left and that has already started to improve such that more of the other syllables in longer words are getting incorporated.

One story for this past week comes from when they were visiting friends of the family and he got to play with the pet hamster. The full two hours they were there he carried this thing around. He gave it rides in the wagon, pretended to feed it from toy dishes and giggled like only a three year old can when it ran up his sleeve. And he has asked about it every day since the visit. I think it is the first animal he has had direct contact with that is that much smaller than him. He has been around cats and dogs since being born, but even the small ones come up to his waist and can knock him down if they are too friendly. (Keep in mind we have a 20lb cat named China that really is half his size and she can knock over full grown adults if she decides to flop down in your path. We used to put his growth in fractions of the cats size to keep it in perspective. He is now almost equal to 2 China's.) So I can only imagine what he is thinking as he finds a place in his mind for small pets that are more on his scale in terms of size. *sigh* Really wish I could have been there for it. Hopefully we will get to visit that same family when I go back in July, and it will still be as much fun for him.

I hope to get some pictures posted from my recent visit.

*smiles*

further updates

2008-04-30T13:35:00.002-05:00

Two things have captured the attention of our son.

The first is throwing stones into a small pond. Hours have been spent searching for stones of all sizes to use to make a splash. When stones are not immediately obvious he will settle for clumps of dirt. Occasionally he will even lower his standards enough to grab handfulls of dandelions or grass and toss them into the pond. I wonder if the water level will change by the time he leaves later this summer.

The second thing to capture his imagination is chicken poop. Yes, you read that correctly. Chicken poop. Fowl excrement. There is no real way to make that sound good. What happened was that on the first day of our visit his grandfather was showing him the chicken coop. He brought out a chicken to show our son up close and much to everyones surprise the chicken took the opportunity to defecate . Obviously our son was amazed at the process and, in his own almost three years old manner, said "again, again!" The next chicken that was brought was kind enough to perform on demand and a tradition was born. Now whenever we see a chicken there is a demand for "chi poo!"

The rest of our trip is going well, if not as planned. We had hoped to visit Zakopane, a resort town in the mountains along the southern border of Poland. When we called around to get some rooms, all of the hotels were booked. It was so unusually busy there for this time of year it made the evening news. We had a similar problem when we tried to find a place to stay for a couple of days in Krakow instead. So no tourist type of stuff this visit. The fall back plan has been to hang out at home, watch the kids run around the yard and drink beer each afternoon. Since the weather has been very nice each day, this has worked out well for us. Luckily there have been no Papal visits resulting in the halting of beer sales, so there has been no interruptions like during our visit in 2002. We went to a national park yesterday and walked through a castle. The day before we walked through the pine woods on the far side of the village. So if nothing else we are keeping busy.

the great experiment has begun

2008-04-28T06:24:00.002-05:00

So I am posting from the computer at my in-laws house in Poland. Here is a link to Google maps showing the village where they live:
Rudy Rysie, Poland
We landed last Wednesday afternoon. Our son was better than we had any right to hope he would be on the flight over. I think Saturday was the first day he was all caught up on his personal clock. The rest of us have just been napping at odd hours as needed. I have managed to get in two runs so far. The first was for three miles and the second was for four miles. Most of the distance is on country roads with feilds more often than houses. The only problem so far is the occasional unchained dog. Most are fairly small and the worse they have done is bark at me. Most people nod and say "dzien dobry" which is Polish for "Good day." Some are clearly wondering what idiot is out running around but they are nice about it.
The big experiment is that after two weeks I will come home but my wife and son will stay on until the middle of July. His language skills have been going through the roof, as is expected for children almost three years old. So we are really hoping he will learn enough Polish this summer to lay a good foundation for the future. The end goal is he be able to use Polish communicate with his family in Poland. We talked about this trip when we started thinking about children and we bought the tickets back in December. Now we see what happens.
I am curious how my wife will handle being a single mother living with her parents. There is also the reality of my having to deal with only seeing them via Skype or email. Should be interesting. Some friends have asked what I will be doing when I am "single" again and I have correct them by saying that instead of "single" they should just think of me as "unsupervised" for the duration.
Enough for now. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods!
*smiles*

the joys of running again

2008-04-12T08:48:00.003-05:00

Words can not describe how nice it is to be running without pain!

About two weeks ago I finally finished the physical therapy and the two weeks of breaking in the orthotics. And I can run again without the crippling shin splints. Not at anywhere near the speed I was at before the injury, or even where I was a year ago but I can live with that detail. I was able to keep some of my endurance during the last few months by using the eliptical a few times a week for a cardio workout. So now the plan is that each week I will increase the speed a little bit while still going the same distance. I am planning on running in the neighborhood 5k at the end of May. I think I can get back to the speed I was at for this race last year by then. We shall see!

a complete lack of running

2008-03-03T22:05:00.002-05:00

I have been unable to run since the Columbus Turkey Trot this past Thanksgiving due to a form of shin splints. At least lets hope it is just shin splints. The other option is particularly unpleasant in both its symptoms and treatment.

I have been working my through the labyrinth of medical professions these last few months. I started with the family doctor who said stay off it a month and then start up slow. No luck there. He sent me to a specialist in sports medicine, knees mostly I found out later. The first available appointment was three weeks after my call. This one prescribed physical therapy to deal with the injury itself and orthotics to deal with the "slight" biomechanical problem. The PT is three times a week for a month. I am one week into it. Mostly so far it has been just stretching muscles etc I have not been using much lately it seems, but lately there is a start on strengthening various things. I also have met the podiatrist for the orthotics. It was interesting to get the description of what is going on with my feet in terms of structure and mechanics. It was discouraging to be told that almost no plans cover orthotics and that I would have to pay the $500 out of pocket. It is the first thing I have heard that will help get me back on the road to running etc so I am getting them, but ouch it is not cheap.

Getting the casts done of my feet so the inserts can be made was kind of interesting. It was the first time I have seen the plaster gauze in a long time. And now a week or three wait until those are done. I might be done the PT before I even get the orthotics.

Such is life.

Small steps are fine and all, but I have to admit to getting a bit impatient with the process. I just want to be able to run so I can lose the weight I have gained over ther years. The races are a nice set of goals to have over the course of the year to keep it interesting and let me focus on something beyond the next hill.

If we ever move again, I am keeping an eye out for homes near multi use trails. Maybe that way I can mix things up a little. Some biking and some running. What I did growing up (biking) with what has become so important in these recent years (running). Just add swimming and I can go for the triathalons, which would be kind of amusing, in a "I never would have imagined that for myself years ago" kind of way.

I am still wondering what I can be learning from this process. What I can pass on to our son from this experience. Hopefully, at the very least, this will let me keep being active, so he will grow up seeing me working at staying healthy, and not fall as easily into the unhealthy habits I blame for my current state.

Now if only I could schedule the PT for some time other than 7:30 in the AM. That is what is really starting to wear on me. *sigh*

cuteness update

2008-01-19T20:14:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I posted any videos, so here are two from a recent visit with by my folks. Grandpa is helping our son build towers of dubious structural integrity out of the wooden marble track system my wife bought at a yard sale for a dollar. The first one is about a minute, the second is quite a bit longer at over six minutes. Nothing exciting just fun watching his progress through the building process. This is followed by a small collection of recent pictures.

Here is a still from the same afternoon.

Eating breakfast early one morning. Not even out of his sleep sack yet.

The improvised bed rail, for use when he comes down from a nap and decides he wants to keep on sleeping. Only used once as this just happened this afternoon and we are still shocked. He slept late this morning, actually went down for his nap then woke up after an hour and a half. This is usually it until bed time but when my wife brought him down he curled up in her lap and went back to sleep. Rather than tempt fate by taking him back upstairs she made this arrangement on the couch. He slept another hour and a half. She is concerned he might be getting sick. Given he is eating anything he can at all hours of the day, I am starting to think it is another growth spurt. Time will tell.

Thanks for visiting!

scifi meme

2008-01-16T13:03:00.001-05:00

	I received 78 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz lose weight

Year in Review

2007-12-31T11:52:00.000-05:00

I would love to say it has been a busy year, but I would be stretching things a bit. Rather than lots of big steps towards anything it feels more like a year of firming up the status quo. More like lots of little steps in a smaller area. I like to think of it as firming up the ground around the foundation. I must be getting older because I can find some peace in that realization. As always I am itching for something new but I am happy with where I am now. And there is a lot to be said for being in such a place in ones life!

I finished the Masters degree in Information Science in May, which I do not get too enthusiastic about but I do not want to make sound insignificant. Most of the effort on that achievement was in earlier years, so it is difficult to get excited about it. Mostly just happy it is done. One of the biggest things I learned was that I really enjoy taking classes. Enough that I took an Intro to Computing Class this past Fall. It was using robots to teach the basics and it was a lot of fun. I am not sure if I am going to take another class this coming semester. It might be time to work on some of the certifications and work related training.

While my running has been on hiatus for all of December in order to recover from shin splints, I did get very close to the goal of five miles in 50 minutes. Close enough that I my new goal for the coming year is 45 minutes for five miles. There is a five mile run in Valley Forge in late April I am thinking about as a milestone along the way to next years Turkey Trot. Getting down to a nine minute mile is a reasonable next step it seems. The bigger problem seems to be finding a training schedule that does not effect time with the family. It seems like I have to choose between losing the time in the morning or after work in the early evening, at least until the days are longer. Not enough time in the day it seems. At least not with that pesky job taking up the bulk of the day. Such is life.

The garden experiment with the Three Sisters while not productive was educational. Key lessons learned: soak the bean seeds overnight before planting and only use one type of corn. We just got a seed catalog in the mail and I am looking forward to planning out this coming years garden. Less experimenting and more of the things that have worked well these past few years. Corn, tomatoes, squash, and beans I think will be this years focus.

Last year the something new I focused on was learning to play the concertina. I bought one and managed to hammer out a few tunes. Nothing that would let me earn a living playing or anything like that but enough to satisfy the itch. Finding time to practise has been the problem since then. It was a great distraction for a few minutes from working on projects for my last class but not a lot has been done since I am planning on trying to make some time for it this year as well. My goal is one hour a week. While not a lot, it is ambitious as the little free time I have is when our little one is sleeping. Practising when he is asleep seems like a bad idea. I will check with the boss before I experiment with that idea.

This years something new is electronics. I put a 300-in-1 Electronic Lab on my wish list and was lucky enough to get it as a gift. Beyond simple curiosity, which is a big motivator in much of my life, I wanted to understand more about some of these DIY hacks I see on some of my favorite web sites. Frequently there is a simple circuit board with only a few components on it featured as the center point of the hack. I would love to be able to understand why they work. Even better would be having the understanding that would let me be that creative with only a few dollars worth of resistors etc, but lets start with the basics. Another motivator is I would like to be able to answer, and demonstrate, the questions about how something works asked by our little one. This kit demonstrates everything from turning on a light to building a radio to a different types of simple logic gates, the building blocks for what makes up the processors in the computers used throughout our lives.

Speaking of our little one, we had a startling moment yesterday when we realized he had grown two inches in the last month or two. We have a wall chart that we first marked with his height when he turned two this past summer. We went to update it a few months later but his height had not changed. Then this past week I noticed that the top of his head was just above the counters in the kitchen. This is important because I clearly remembered that it had been just below the counter top. So out comes the wall chart to see if my memory was accurate. There was some excitement in trying to get him to stand with his heels down long enough to get a reasonable marking of his height. He rarely stands still, let alone lets his heels touch the floor, so this was quite the undertaking. Eventually he caught on and let us mark his height. Then each of us had to stand there for our height to be marked. He even went and got Grandpa from the living room to make sure we marked his height as well. A long story for two inches, but it was fun and I thought to share it with you.

I hope the new year brings you what you need and may it include happiness for you and yours.
*smiles*

D&D meme, might be broken

2007-12-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

Taokodr is to thank for this one as well.

I generally only play wizards when the party is short. Rogues and Monks are more what I enjoy. Gnome Tinker would be another choice. *grin* (The only thing is I am not allowed to play them any more. Not since the incident with the ballista. I honestly did not think the paladin was within range. Mistakes were made.)
I guess it is the difference between what we are and what we play.

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Wizard (5th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-13

Dexterity-15

Constitution-14

Intelligence-17

Wisdom-14

Charisma-13

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Curse of the Meme

2007-12-05T14:47:00.000-05:00

Your Score: Fennel

You scored 50% intoxication, 25% hotness, 75% complexity, and 50% craziness!

You are Fennel! You're a cool cat. Crisp, clean, fresh, and extremely complicated. You're like quantum physics or modern jazz. Think Niels Bohr meets Ornette Coleman. You may look normal now, but once you sprout, you look kind of, uh, funny.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Which 80's Movie Scientist am I?

2007-11-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

Thanks to taokodr and the Lensman for this one!

Your Score:Ray Stantz

156 Heart, 158 Genius, 133 Cool, 166 Excitability

Dr. Raymond Stantz - (Dan Aykroyd)
Ghostbusters (1984)

You are Ray Stantz! The heart of the Ghostbusters. You're well-meaning, smart, and you have a childlike sense of wonder about the world. You might get taken advantage of, every once in a while, but it's okay... You're doing your part to help save the world.

"Gozer the Gozerian... good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension."

Other scientific possibilities:
Gary Wallace
Wyatt Donnelly
Peter Venkman
Jordan Cochran
Egon Spengler
Doc Brown
Newton Crosby
Paul Stephens
Ben Crandall
Wayne Szalinkski
Winston Zeddemore
Ben Jabituya
Lazlo Hollyfeld
Ray Stantz
Buckaroo Banzai
Chris Knight

Link: The Which 80s Movie Scientist Test written by xxyl on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

2007 Columbus Turkey Trot

2007-11-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

It was a good day for the run. Not the best but not too bad. Cloudy with a hint of rain. Temperatures right around 40. It was the first year to also have a 2 mile walk. This caused a bit of confusion at the start and a slow start for everyone. Even with that I finished at 0:51:40, almost six minutes faster than last year. But still not fast enough for a pie. Four of us ran but only my cousin got a pie with a finish around 0:43:00.
*smiles*
be well, enjoy the rest of the holiday!

random dream and other news

2007-11-13T19:24:00.000-05:00

So, in this dream I had last night, I was handed a round basketball sized object. There were arcane numbers and diagrams on the pieces of cloth making its surface. They seemed to indicate that one should push here or pull there. Following these guides I was able to make changes allowing the thing to progress through a series of forms. I remember the first form was a cross between a samurai and the honda robot as all of the pieces of cloth flared out to become sections of armor and the legs and arms rolled into place. And there was a way to keep your hand in or on it such that it could be controlled like a puppet. Next it was changed to what I can only describe as "Vampirella meets Kubuki". Finally it ended up as a Man-Bat type of monster that was particularly amazing as a puppet, before flying off. I know there were other people around but when I woke up I could not tell you anything about them. Even in my dreams I spend all my time with tech toys, go figure.

Other news is that we are in our second week of all day daycare for our son. If his mom can survive the process she plans to go back to work, at least for a little while. In large part this will let us get the money to send her and our son over to Poland to spend the summer with her family. Hopefully this will lock in the second language. He is almost two and a half now. While his verbal skills are about what you expect for a bilingual house, his ability to use baby signs to communicate is amazing. He is creating signs every day it seems and using them to communicate in ways we never would have imagined. He signs for turning on the lights, books, filling something up, birds, monkeys, cats, bananas, ... the list just goes on. There are signs he is using that we are not understanding. We suspect he is trying to tell us about his day or something along those lines. While frustrating when we don't get it, it is worlds better than when he wanted to communicate and could not.

The "Intro to CompSci" class is going well. We finished up the projects using the robot just before the midterm. It was fun programming the scribbler bot to do the various tasks. A wooden pyramid was built as a tool for many of our tasks. The first was to send the robot in, have it take pictures of the inside and then get it out of the pyramid. The outside of the pyramid was painted a vivid orange. A later task involved have the robot find the orange object in its camera, then travel to up to it, hopefully stopping before you ran into it. Simple compared to the things involved in the Darpa Urban Challenge but fun nevertheless. The last project has us shifting to building our own games. I am hoping to do a simplified version of Rogue, aka Nethack. We shall see how it goes.

halloween cuteness

2007-11-04T12:22:00.001-05:00

IMG_0530, originally uploaded by ca5m1th.

Here is a shot of our little one is his Railroad Engineer costume. This was his first year going out for trick or treat. He does not really get it yet but he enjoyed walking around at night, playing with the flashlight, eating candy, running around with the other children and visiting lots of different houses. And his mother and I enjoyed eating his candy.

IMG_0536, originally uploaded by ca5m1th.

A group shot of the other cute kids from our street that we went trick or treating with. A Princess, a pumpkin (slightly overhead), our engineer, SpiderMan/Venom and the Littler Mermaid. There was some last minute changes on the part of the Little Mermaid, who had been planning on being Wonder Woman up until the day of the event. All of them did very well with the staying together. Only the pumpkin got tired and went home early. Although I think it was more a case of the transport system for the pumpkin (mom by that point of the evening) got tired and went home early. *grin*

IMG_0535, originally uploaded by ca5m1th.

His mother handled all of the sugar transactions on his behalf. Here she is pictured with our engineer, bag in hand. We missed the shot later in the evening when the Tootsie roll residue was smeared over his face. At least I hope that is what it was...

potty training and why there will be no pictures

2007-10-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

Our little one has started showing an interest in going to the bathroom. Which is a great relief to us as diapers are not cheap and we were starting to worry about what our strategy was going to be if he decided it was not his thing. We had conversations wondering if we should home school him as a means to keep folk from realizing we had not managed to teach our child how to use the bathroom. (I never claimed we were always rational in our concerns about our child.) We have had various potty training implements scattered around the house almost since he could walk. The only interest he has shown in them is an occasional tendency to want to wear them on his head. Which makes sense to me but is a little disconcerting to my wife. A few weeks ago he made a break for it during a standing diaper change in the living room. He promptly scampered over to the nearest potty and sat down. It took a few more times before he got the idea that he could urinate into the potty. Now this is his preferred method. The ritual has become that every twenty minutes or so, as the spirit moves him, he will stop what he is doing to go and sit on the potty. Afterwards he will triumphantly get up and proceed to bring us the potty for our inspection and applause. The masterpiece in swirling yellow is disposed of, the potty rinced and returned to its place by the fire, ready to be used again. He has even been known to carry the full potty up a flight of stairs in order to present us with his latest offering. To support this budding habit he is left sans diaper for much of the time he is in the house. In fact he is sans anything but shoes from the waist down. The shirts he wears tend to be long and often his shirt is actually a onesy left unbuttoned. Think of it as a stealthy kind of nudity. Very "Risky Business: the early years". It is still startling to come home and pick your child up only to find he is without clothes on his bottom half. So far I have been lucky and he has been dry whenever I have picked him up. Eventually my luck will run out. As I am only home and able to spend time with this child during those times in the morning and evening when he is most likely to be without pants, I am sorry to say there may be a slowing down of posting his latest pictures. We don't mind it so much but tend to think the Internet is not a good place for pictures of children without pants.

Hills are hard

2007-09-21T15:06:00.000-05:00

This is an update on how running is going these days. I finished the 12 week schedule of slow increments in distance while maintaining a faster speed. It worked wonders. I started with a mile average around 11 minutes and am now below 9 minutes for the mile average. Or I was when running on the track at our local high school. The very odd track that is .20 miles on the inside lane and .23 miles on the outer lane. More importantly, the really flat track with nary an incline or slope of any sort. I did not realize how good this was until I went out on the nature trail at work for the first time in at least three months. This trail is not in the mountains or anything dramatic like that. It does however have a lot more ups and downs than the track. Long gentle inclines that just suck the speed right out of your legs. Enough that my mile average is back up to about 9:40 minutes. I have until the Turkey Trot to work on getting this closer to the pie times, which I am putting at being below nine minutes per mile for the full five miles. Plenty of time. My distance endurance has also improved. I can now run three miles without stopping at the paces mentioned above. Its not prettty but I can actually do it. So, in addition to working on my speed (better said as "try actually getting some speed") on hills, I also have to extend my distance to a full five miles. Enough to keep my morning runs interesting. Today I ran the path for the local 5k and was almost four minutes faster than when I did it back in May. I still had the problem with the hills just taking it right out of me but I am enjoying seeing that improved time.
*smiles*

on upgrades, robots and new software

2007-09-19T13:46:00.000-05:00

Three quick things for this post.

I finally upgraded the RAM on the home computer. Not that big a deal for most but last time I touched RAM on this thing was to remove some as it was corrupting something and requiring me to reinstall the OS every week or two. Could be lots of reasons for what happened, but I never really looked into exactly why. That was three and a half years ago. Since then the computer has been, as they tend to do, getting slower. It has been really bad recently. It dawned on me that since we had been paying off the credit cards completely these last few months, now was a great time to do something about the slowness. So I went to Crucial and used their tools to identify what type of RAM I needed and how much would max out my motherboard. It was all very straightforward, even for my level of paranoia. I use Crucial at work a lot so I was in a good position to trust them, and the price was also nice. I ended up going from 256M to 2G. It was amazing. I think I actually got whiplash from the speed the first time I turned on the computer. It has been a long time since a simple upgrade reminded me just how much fun these things can be when working as intended.

I am taking a class this semester. Not for graduate school, which I already finished. But instead an "Intro to Computing" class being offered at the sister school to where I work. Some may wonder why I am taking an Intro class, after having just finished a Master degree in the same subject. A very good question. The answer is "'cause it has Robots!" The class is part of a grant from M$ exploring the use of robots in intro cs classes. Each student gets their own robot for the duration of the class, and all of the programming assignments etc are focused on getting this little wonder to do what you want it to. It is very introductory but lots of fun. More on that another day.

Finally, I moved off of Yahoo photos and onto Flickr, and I love it. Especially the ease with which I can upload pictures to flickr using their upload tool. I generally do not like the various tools from web sites but this one has had a huge (positive) impact on how I use the service. It is much simpler for me to go thru the pictures and right click on them and select "send to flickr" than try to remember the directory they were in when using explorer and then go to that same directory using the web based tools. This is as much my fault as anythings, as I never changed the camera settings so there is a folder for each day pictures where taken. Frequently there is a single picture or video in each, which makes finding things a bit tedious. Yet, with the uploader installer, in one evening I was able to get almost entirely caught up on posting pictures of our little one. You can follow the link at the top of the left column to my flickr page and poke around for the latest pictures. Yes, he really is that cute. Except when he is trying to play us. Actually even then he is cute, since he knows that helps. The "not cute" starts when we do not respond according to his plans and he protests such injustice.

Ok, that is enough for now. I hope you and yours are well!
*smiles*

Full on video cuteness

2007-08-22T18:41:00.000-05:00

It has been a while and I am betting everyone is just jonesing for the embodiment of cuteness that is our son! These are in no particular order and there are no special occasions, just the same level of cuteness we see every day. Ok, not quite true as we are generally not filming every second of his waking life. For example, remembering to work the camera goes right out when he is cranky, upset, injured, screaming, throwing himself on the ground, spinning his head around, shooting lightning bolts from his eyes or dismembering household pets. Not that he does these things regularly or anything. Nothing like that at all, it is just we have not managed to catch it film, trying as we are deal with the particular situation at hand. (I am in fact kidding about the dismembering pets thing. The cat may walk funny for a while but it is just fine, thank you very much.)

This first one is a typical day in the back yard. First we help water..everything, including ourselves. This is followed by a rousing course of "what are you doing and can I stick my nose into the camera?" Ending finally in a demonstration ofboth jumping and making noise.

This second one reflects the process of eating as demonstrated by a toddler. Notice the fine display of dexterity, creative use of fingers and exploration of body art as personal expression.

Table forts, or blanket caves, are simply the coolest thing when you are a toddler. Right up there with empty boxes and dirt for demonstrating that the best toys and memories are more about approaching a moment with a sense of glee and less about the amount of money spent. Now if only he were doing something more interesting than crawling in and out of the "cave".

And finally, nature provides the greatest thing of all, puddles! Puddles exist for splishing, splashing and running through, in case you were curious.

early morning adventures on Friday

2007-08-19T08:24:00.000-05:00

My darling bride and son have been slightly unwell this past week with what seems to be summer colds. Lots of blowing of noses and similar trumpeting. My bride was having trouble sleeping this past Thursday night (ok, it was Friday morning by this time) due to all of the coughing and nose blowing on her part, so she went down stairs. She claims this was to let me get my sleep butI think she has gotten hooked on late night tv. Once she got down stairs she found she was not the only one up. Ok, not so much that someone else was up but better said that we had a visitor. A visitor that was startled almost as much as my bride. There was much flapping about as my bride tried to convince the visitor that 5 o'clock in the morning was not a good time for a social call. After that did not work she begrudgingly decided to wake me in the hopes I would have better success in convincing the visitor to view the wild egress. Bleary eyed, groggy and not sure I had heard my wife correctly I came down stairs to confront this persistent visitor. Not believing my eyes I thought I should record the moment. It helped that I was standing next to the camera when I had this thought. Here is our visitor:

It had decided to take a break on the curtains in the sun room. The unfortunate thing is that this room has no windows that open and is the farthest any room can be from either door to the outside. So I, armed with a broom and a drowsy determination to get back to sleep, went forth that convince it to remove itself. I figured the ceiling fans were not going to do its echo location thing much good, so they got turned off. Then I nudged it with the broom to get it started flying again. After that it was a matter of getting the front and back doors open and trying to convince it that certain doors were in fact walls. What I learned was that even though this bat could fit in the palm of my hand when curled up, it had a wingspan of at least a foot. I also learned that up close it does not fly like a bird does and can be very disconcerting when it is flying very fast at you. The swooping and circling does not help much either. Despite these challenges, I stood my ground and slowly, with several restarts, managed to get it outside. The we realized that one of the cats had decided to take advantage of the open doors and went exploring. Our cats are indoor cats so this was a bit of a tense moment as it was coaxed back inside. I left this to the expert and took my chance to go back to bed.

I can only hope your Friday morning was less interesting.

*smiles*

Spirit Animal Meme

2007-08-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

I can live with this score. *grin*

Your Score: The Otter

Here's your results! Your spirit animal has a Nobility ranking of 11 out of 18.

Your spirit animal is the otter. Playful, curious and fun animals, they are truly the start of what can be considered a noble creature. Otters are good at figuring things out, and make great friends. You are lucky to have one as a spirit animal. Otters are fairly rare as spirit animals.

***Wondering how this animal was chosen for you? These questions were carefully thought out to see how important you hold certain virtues such as: humanism, self-knowledge, rationalism, the love of freedom and other somewhat Hellenic ideals. Some of the questions were very subtle. Your score was then matched with an animal of corresponding nobility. However, you shouldn't think this was a right/wrong sort of test, but more of an idealistic values test. It's ok to not hold these values, you'll just get an animal spirit of lower stature if you do!***

Link: The What is Your Spirit Animal Test written by FindingEros on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

new toy

2007-07-14T19:16:00.000-05:00

I admit it, I am a technology junkie. So when my folks and a few other family members asked me what I would like for a graduation gift, I had a list of things with little blinky lights. At the top of the list is a strange little gadget that is not a laptop, a tablet or a pda, but in my mind a combination of all of the features I like about each of them. I like laptops for their size, relative to desktop computers. I use them regularly at work. In fact in the winter I am often accused of heating my office with the three older models I use for testing. They have come a long way from the "portable, but only with a luggage cart" models I remember my dad bringing home once in a while. The problem is they still have a long way to go. I was really excited about the tablets when they were announced. I can communicate more with a quick picture drawn on my steno pad than I can in a long email, so the idea of being able to combine drawing and a computer in a portable device was really appealling to me. The only problem was most of the models available are laptops with a tablet screen that could flip around in an effort to get folk used to the idea. In the end I think those models that try to combine tablets and laptops are just adding a layer of hardware to an outdated platform. PDAs are neat but unless you have a phone contract and an internet connection they are not terribly useful. So what is a poor boy to do?

The new toy at the top of my list is the latest version of Samsungs Q1. This is an example of a UMPC, Ultra Mobile Personal Computer. It is smaller than a tablet or a laptop but bigger than a PDA. It runs Windows Vista and any of the basic software I need in that world. I can connect it to the network via wireless 802.11b/g or via wired ethernet port. It even has bluetooth but since I have nothing else using bluetooth, I keep it disabled. I can use a pen or fingers or a usb keyboard/mouse as input devices. It is the pen I really enjoy. I can finally draw on a computer!

That said, I am still looking for a good sketch program. Something that lets me draw as if I was holding a pencil or pen or charcoal would be great. So far the application that makes it work is Microsofts Onenote. I think they got a good idea with this program. Execution of the idea is in traditional MS manner, take that as you will. What I like about it is it lets me write on the computer like it is paper, and then I can press a button and it attempts to convert it into text. If I am somewhat careful, it works. I can also just leave it as my handwriting. The software can do a lot more but that is what I like about it. I find its "notebook" analogy is a powerful concept. Allowing you to cut and paste from the different pieces of the office suite into this application, as well as pictures, links to web pages and your own handwritten notes and diagrams is pretty useful. But this is not meant to be an advertisement for ms, so on with other thoughs about the Q1.

I do not currently use a keyboard with it, as I am trying to really see what my limits are with just the pen and onscreen keyboard. As one would expect, entering data into it is fairly tedious. I am not writing this on it but only my rickety old desktop up in my office. I do however sit downstairs and surf the web on the Q1. It is perfect for that task. I have taken notes on it during a conference call at work. I even used it when playing DnD with my cousins. I was the DM and I created character sheets on it it and ran the entire adventure from the pdf file as viewed on its fairly small screen. It has nice speakers and built in microphones, so I also set it up to use Skype but I have not had a chance to test it yet. I have streamed internet radio through it over a wireless connection quite nicely.

The Q1, and UMPCs in general, are at the top of my list because I think they are the direction computing is going. This is going to ramble for a bit, even more than I tend to. Computing is in my mind not just a matter of making things smaller but of making them useful. It takes more time and money to have to code and test and everything else for lots of different computing environments. The folk that make their living at this sort of thing have known this for a while. Sorting out how to have the same operating system, or run time environment or whatever, on something that fits in your pocket as what you use at home or work is just a technical hurdle at this point. We already have computer motherboards the size of business cards that can run the same operating systems used on desktops. The larger hurdle is getting folk to use new or different means of interacting with these computers. Voice or pens or fingers or waving of your arms or your gps coordinates are just some of the ways being considered and experimented with. Likely they will all be used in various ways we can not even imagine now. We are already seeing a lot of them in use. The controller for the Wii is a great example. (ok, the Wii was also fairly high on my list as well but go figure.) Even our camera knows which way it is being held and adjusts the picture on its screen so it is always "up" relative to you. This Q1 is one of the steps being taken away from the desktop world that has defined computer use for the last thirty years and towards something new and interesting, at least for me. It is going towards where my imagination took me when I was a kids, seeing my very first computer and reading way too much science fiction.

So, now that I am seeing things that were only imagined thirty years ago, and I have worked in the industry for the last ten, I am curious where they will be when my son is old enough to need a computer of his own. Will it be more like the UMPC model or something else? What will he need to use it for? I fully expect to get him some sort of entertainment device that is built on top of a computer, but that is more so I can play with it. I wonder what he will do his homework on and how his schools will use computers to teach him and how I can make sure they do it right so he has a chance of understanding how the things are actually working. I guess that is what it comes down to, I want him to understand it and be able to work with the technology like the tool it is and not to be afraid or in awe of it. At least not more than anyone should be of any powerful tool. A healthy respect of its capabilities and a working knowledge of it limits can take one far I feel. Or something like that.

*smiles*

lunch time update

2007-06-21T11:48:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned that summer is the busiest time of the year at work? No students on campus lets us work on the various services/servers we maintain. Then throw in to the mix the fact our vacation count resets on July 1st so there is an annual scramble to use up the last of the vacation days as there is no rollover or similar options. Lots to do and random staff members are unavailable for weeks at a time. Definitely keeps things interesting.

The garden at home is moving along. The 3 sisters experiment is only at 66% as the beans have not been working out for me. The corn and squash are going just fine. The beans planted when the squash were planted never came up. Waited for two weeks, saw nothing, went back, read the packages, soaked the seeds overnight and tried again. I think a grand total of three sprouted (of at least 20 planted). Now I am concerned the three will not survive as they are shaded by the squash leaves. In other parts of the garden, the tomatoes are doing well. The five store bought plants are coming along, as well as the two volunteers transplanted from the mulch pile. Two of the store bought plants lost their main trunk and are no longer growing up. Otherwise they are healthy. The spinach and lettuce are starting to look like they intend to actually grow but, as with the pole beans, not nearly the number seeded are coming up. I think I need to purge the bag of seeds I have accumulated over the last two years. The various bush beans are growing. Last years sage plant became a bush, bloomed and had to be dramatically cut back before it took over.

And everything I do in my little vegetable garden pales in comparison to the flower garden my wife has done this year. Four trees have been planted. Two different dogwoods, a japanese maple and a weeping corkscrew thing whose name I am blanking on. Add to the list the tree Chinese red wood we got last year and I think have finally broken even with the number of trees we have removed or lost since we moved in 5 years ago. There are flowers and shrubs in three different beds in the front yard, and in the back there are two starter beds and the 3/4ths of the perimeter getting filled in with various plants and shrubs. Planting books have overtaken cook books in her bookshelf. I really need to get some pictures of it all. Hopefully I will also remember to post some. *grin*

Memorial Day 5k

2007-05-28T11:19:00.000-05:00

My time for the 5k was 33:27! This is by far the best time time I have run in months.
With a mile average of 10:46.
56th overall, out of 122.
11th in my age group, out of 15.

Overall, a great day for a race. The weather was cooperative. A bit cloudy and humid but nothing oppressive and the temp was in the 70s.
Very good community support. People along the course came out and encouraged the runners.
The best was one block where at least four houses all got together and were banging on pots and otherwise making a great noise to keep our spirits up, which it did.
The 2 mile mark happened to be in front of our house. Some of our neighbors even had hoses and sprinklers out to help folk cool off if they needed it. One pair of neighbors stopped and got their Great Dane when they passed their house and she finished the race with them.
A lot of fun and I am already looking forward to next year!

ok, now I have to go shopping for grilling later this afternoon.

And while I might not think highly of the current administration, I am taking a moment to remember those that had served in the Armed Forces today.

Graduation itself, plus plans for Memorial Day

2007-05-25T10:38:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to the graduation ceremony:
mms://146.186.87.22/archive/wmv/comm2007.wmv
If you jump to 01:04:25 you can see yours truly with a grin that goes twice around my head.

In other news, our little borough is having a 5k run/walk as part of its Memorial Day festivities this year. I signed up for it and am planning on running. Well, shuffling to be more accurate, as my time for a mile is still stuck at 12 minutes on average. I found a workout plan/schedule designed to improve, decrease, this time but did not want to start it with only two weeks before the race as it spans months. The short version is to calculate the pace I want to achieve and then run at that pace for short distances. The distances are then gradually increased each week until the distances are race length. We have a nice track here at work so the plan is to start at half a lap increments and go from there. The goal is for a ten minute mile average for a five mile run. This is requires changing from ~90 seconds for a half lap to ~75 seconds. Sounds simple doesn't it? We shall see.

garden update, plus freezer

2007-05-09T09:57:00.000-05:00

Note: I started this post a week ago, so that is what was written in part 1. More recent stuff in part 2:

part1
I did not get as much done in the garden this past weekend. Only the spinach and two lettuces got their seeds planted. Not quite half of one raised bed. So two and a half to go. Should be nice this weekend. Hopefully there will be time.

The reason the garden did not get the attention it deserves was due to a sudden purchase of a freezer at a yard sale on Saturday. Suddenly it had to be gotten home, space made for it, space made for the shelves it was displacing, smaller shelves to fill in the gap moved from the attic, every thing removed from all of these shelves so they could be moved around the house. And it all had to be done when the little one was napping. Dropping a freezer on him would be bad and keeping him from wanting to be in the middle of the action is a trick we have not mastered. I still have to replace an outlet and get an extension cord for this freezer to actually get used.

Now my darling bride can stock up even more at the bulk super store. Which is good as it will let us cut down on the number of trips going to the bulk super store. We dream of only going once a month rather than our current weekly visit. Fully half of what we get is juice for the thirsty little one. I can only imagine what it would be like if we did not cut the apple juice with water.

part2
I got the seeds planted for the bean bushes, chives and corn portion of the three sisters. Bernadetta got the tomato plants into the ground and started on the stakes. Our little vegetable garden is starting to come along. The spinach and lettuce plants are starting to show.

Graduation went well this past Friday. The only hitch was that our camera went MIA over the weekend and the pictures were never downloaded. I have a picture of me from a friend also graduating, but not much for the family shots. So my big plan is to recreate them. I just want pictures of me with my folks and my family while in the graduation rob. I can live with the minor detail of not having the pictures actually taken at the event. My neighbors might think we are a little odd when I running around the yard in the graduation robes etc, but there is nothing new there.

*smiles*

lunch time update on loads of stuff

2007-05-04T10:58:00.000-05:00

So I passed my final class. I get to Graduate!

I am going to attend the graduation ceremony for this degree. I did not walk at my undergrad graduation, so this is a big deal. When I finished my undergrad I did not see the point of spending that many hours of suffering just so I and my three thousand or so closest friends could stand as a group to be told we were done. This one is a bit different. I was much more committed to this degree than I was to any other scholastic endeavor in my life. And it shows in my grades. Amazing how that works. And it has given me lots to think about for when our little one starts school.

In other news, our little one has started day care. It is for two hours two mornings each week. More a chance for him to socialize and Mom to get some errands run without having to deal with a toddler. Getting to the point of sending him to day care has been more stressful on Mom than on child. He has taken to it like a fish to water. The two ladies running the program never fail to mention how surprised they are that he adapted so quickly. The only time he fussed was when I was a little late in picking him up and that was only becuase he saw the other kids leaving without him. And in the short time he has been going we have seen a huge increase in his speaking. While he still only has a few words, he uses them and a growing number of signs much more often. It really seems as if he wants to talk, so we are really excited.

And I finally figured out what to call it when he mixes his two languages. "Ponglish" I thought I was being really creative and trendsetting when I came up with that one late at night. Then I found it is already a slang term in Polish, with a polish language wikipedia entry and everything.
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponglish Granted, my wife did not know it, so at least I am figuring out new slang before she is, in her language, which is funny as my Polish is pretty minimal.

On the music front, I found the music for "Sto Lat" and took a stab at transcribing it so I can play it on the concertina. I have not actually started practising as yet but be assured I will be posting anything that does not sound like cats in a blender. "Sto Lat" is the traditional Polish song sung at all happy gatherings. It serves in place of "Happy Birthday", "Auld Lang Syne" and "100 Bottles of Bear on the Wall" as best as I can tell. Further info as well as music and words can be found here: http://www.polishamericancenter.org/StoLat.htm
Please note the English version is not a translation of the Polish, but something of the same spirit.

Garden update: I never got replacements started for my tomatoes that decided not to start but I have gotten started on prepping the garden beds. I weeded some, ran the garden weasel over them and added some nice dark stuff from the bottom of the compost pile. I only got a few buckets full of the good stuff, where you can no longer tell what it once was, so we also turned the pile a few times and have been adding everything since to a new pile. I have all my seeds and am planning on getting as much into the ground as I can this weekend. This is what I really hope to get done: plant the spinach, lettuces, bush beans, tomatoes, sun flowers and get the mounds made and corn planted for the Three Sisters experiment. That is all I can remember from my big plan, so I should also take a look at my diagram and see if I am leaving anything out. Things like cucumbers come to mind...

Ok, lunch hour is coming to a close and I need to get back to other things.
*smiles*

I hope all is well with you and yours!

down the home stretch...

2007-04-19T11:27:00.000-05:00

Only three more classes to go and I am done the Masters program!

Granted, the group presentation for Monday is not done yet and I have not done more than select a general topic for the individual research paper due the following Monday, but they will get done.

And all four starter pots of tomatoes went and died on me last week. Still time to get another set started, which will probably be something I do to avoid working on papers etc. Weather getting nicer each day, so I might be able to do more to get the garden started.

After my school work is done, of course.

*smiles*

Just one more number

2007-03-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
23,070
people with the name My Name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Interesting concept. I wonder if anyone has included this in any calculations of being a victim of identity theft.

concertina

2007-03-17T22:14:00.000-05:00

One of my resolutions for the year was to learn a musical instrument. The instrument I wanted to learn is the concertina. So early in January I stopped in and checked out our local music shop to see what they might have in stock. They did not have one, but usually do, can we call you when it comes in so you can see if it is what you want? They finally called a few weeks ago to say it had arrived. We tried to visit last weekend when we were out for a walk Saturday but they were already closed. I managed to stop by this afternoon about a half hour before they closed and I bought the concertina. A very simple Hohner D40 20 button concertina in the Anglo style. I also bought a book title, appropriately, "The Concertina And How To Play It" by Paul de Ville. I then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening futzing around with the thing. I started out with simple stuff like figuring out how I wanted the hand straps to rest and making sure I could reach all of the buttons. I moved up a notch and spent some time seeing what I could do with the scales that were listed in the book. Not the most graceful of things to witness but helpful. I decided I needed to take a shot at a tune I chose the first one in the book. It only uses three buttons on the left hand and is called "Augusta's Favorite" but in fact turned out to be "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". After working my way through it for a while I thought I would record it for posterity. And sheer amusement value. (Don't forget, I am not the most musically inclined person. I really like listening to it but that is in general about as far as it goes. In fact I have never studied any kind of musical instrument, so bear with me. Ok, there was like maybe two clases in drums when I was 12 but that hardly counts now does it?)

My last class for the graduate degree thing starts on Monday and continues through late April or early May. So there might not be any interesting updates once that kicks in. That means I will either not be posting at all or posting all of the time a vague effort to avoid doing my research etc. We shall see.

*smiles*

fixed my audio delay problem

2007-03-16T12:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, perhaps better to say I have found a workaround that does not have the audio delay in what I post to youtube.

Here is a video of our son blowing out candles. He really likes doing this and it shows.

For the full list of videos check out http://www.youtube.com/ca5m1th

*smiles*

it has been a while, so here is a video dump of cuteness

2007-03-07T22:50:00.000-05:00

My most sincere apologies on my lack of posting. No good excuse or anything, just not managing to post. (Ok, so there has been this cough I have had for a few weeks or so, and that craziness with the student loan and getting the taxes done, but none of it is very interesting so you won't hear about any of it here. Nope, not a peep.)

So here are a bunch of videos of our little one to make up for the missing few weeks. These videos are in no particular order. Just moments captured that we want to share with friends and family. Enjoy!

Jumping is a skill he is working very hard at mastering. This one captures his current state, and he rightfully happy with his progress!

A very strange noise. Not too sure what he was trying to do but we liked it.

This is a combination of two of his favorite activities: climbing onto the coffee table and playing with blocks.

Sometimes the only way to knock over the tower of blocks is with a truck.

Drinking a glass of water. What could be cuter.

Still not sure why there is a few seconds delay in the audio on everything that gets posted to youtube.

20 months

2007-02-12T15:46:00.000-05:00

Our little one has reached 20 months this past weekend and decided to skip right to being a Terrible Two Year Old. We witnessed two completely separate meltdowns in a single afternoon. This is for him a very short period of time. It might have had something to do with the diaper rash or cabin fever or teething or any of a number of reasons. We just think it is becuase he can.

We also found that he gets very upset when he sees Mom and Dad hug. We think it is the jealous stage thing starting early. Is it bad that this amuses us to no end and if he really does it all of the time we are thinking of using it for a new party trick? Just taking him with us to different places, getting him comfortable and then hugging so everyone else can see the conniption? Maybe use it for some kind of awareness program for folk expecting children or young adults to educate them to the adventure of child raising? Maybe he is just protecting his turf and is making sure we don't get too friendly and start making any siblings that will play with his stuff? So many possibilies.

Dancing Wookies!!!

2007-02-09T21:43:00.000-05:00

from the Muppet Show, as posted on YouTube. Enjoy!

Throw him in the pit...

2007-01-31T22:26:00.000-05:00

...of tiny plastic balls.

Ok, not nearly as catchy as the "Pit of Despair" from "The Princess Bride" but much more cute in any case. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is our little one playing in the ball pit in our local swedish superstore.

Ok, since I managed to get that to work, here is another one. This time he is drawing and singing to himself. I use the term "drawing" in the more liberal definition of using pen and paper to do something that is not writing. This is a good depiction of two of his artistic techniques. These two are "large abstract shapes" and "tiny circles". Some other techniques in his repertoire include "small deep dashes, as though one is stabbing the paper" and "excellent imitation of seismograph during a major earthquake." Enjoy!

Which Science Fiction Writer AM I?

2007-01-31T11:22:00.000-05:00

I am:

Philip José Farmer

This prolific author brings surprising depths to he-man adventure tales, and broke science fiction's prudery barrier.

Which science fiction writer are you?

This was my first go at it. The I found you can get Gibson if you say you are into exploring cybernetics. hehe

I am:

William Gibson

The chief instigator of the "cyberpunk" wave of the 1980s, his razzle-dazzle futuristic intrigues were, for a while, the most imitated work in science fiction.

Which science fiction writer are you?

reading update

2007-01-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Over the holiday season I rediscovered the joys of reading for fun. In large part this was due to realizing that I had a long break from reading for school, as my next, and final, class does not start until the middle of March. The only downside is that I had no books waiting to be read. I have been on a holding pattern, re-reading books I already own. This works well as most of the books on my shelves are like old friends, and it is always nice to visit with old friends. Yet, this time I needed to meet some new friends. Realizing this was kind of depressing as there is no budget that can support my reading habit, and keep us fed. Then I remembered there are these places called "libraries" which will let you read books without having to buy each and every one. Amazing concept. I sort of eased into it by borrowing the second book by Chris Paolini, "Eldest" which is a sequel to "Eragon". The first has been made into a movie that has very little similarity to the book, beyond names and vague plot outlines. When I finished this book I had to figure out what to read next, as Chris Paolini has not yet published the third book in his trilogy. So I turned, as I have often in the past, to my favorite authors. They are listed off to the left side. Many of them have been kind enough to write about who they like to read. This is in fact how I discovered several of them. This time around I had two of my favorites talk about the same author. As far as recommendations go, it does not get much better. And it is not like it was two author that work together were promoting a third member of their cliche or anything. One author, Max Barry, is from Australia, while the other, Chris Moore, is American. And they were both saying how much them enjoyed reading Mil Millington, a nifty fellow from the UK. Here is a taste of his work: http://www.milmillington.com/ Check out his "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Fought About" which is also the title of the book I am currently reading, except his postings are from his life and only reflect the background influences for the fictional work I am enjoying very much.
As I am almost finished reading "Things My Girlfriend and I Have Fought About" I have started to look for the next book. I am thinking of keeping track of how much it would have cost me to have bought these books so I can use that as a way to demonstrate how much money I have saved the family with my sacrifices. Somehow I do not think it will help me in any way whatsoever. So the next book came from a friend at work. "A Year in the Merde" by Stephen Clarke. http://www.amazon.com/Year-in-Merde-Stephen-Clarke/dp/1582345910 Looks like fun. I will let you know. While I do not speak french or consider myself a francophile, I have spent some time working in both France and the UK. I am hoping this will help me get some of the jokes.
Ok, three posts in one day is a bit much.
*smiles*

kinder update

2007-01-28T21:17:00.000-05:00

Our little one is rapidly approaching 20 months. Every time we look up and see one of these milestones go whooshing by we are amazed. Amazed on many levels. There is the standard amazement at his developmental progress. While he is not talking yet, he is saying a lot. Mostly how disappointed he is we are not letting him watch more television. He has a very high volume when expressing his feelings on this matter. I have come to accept this and generally do not cave. Usually he quickly moves on to other distractions. Like drawing. He really watched his cousin when she was visiting this past holiday season. One of her regular activities was drawing or painting. She really is quite good. Our little fellow has picked this up, or at least the basics. He really likes pens and crayons and he can fill up a page like nobody's business. He has gotten very good at circles, well, something like circles. When he is not trying to push the pen through the paper. His canines have been coming through in the last week or two, so there has been all of the usual problems. And last weekend he had some unpleasant bug that only lasted a day but will forever live on in our memory. No fever or any of the other things the doctors office asked us about. Just the inability to keep anything down. By the third time we had caught onto his warning signs and got most of it a bucket. My lovely wife was unfortunate enough to catch the rest on her person. Which was just karma, as I had cuaght the first two of the day on my person. Not that we kept score or anything along those lines. Other than those times he is unwell or really in need of a tv fix, he is an amazingly pleasant child to be around. I am sure this will change in many different ways, but for now we are really enjoying it. On another level, we are amazed that it has been twenty months. It is sort of a blur. We remember finding out we were going to be parents and then everything since sorts of blurs together. There have been several visits to and from Poland and about half of my classes for grad school, so I know we were busy and all. I had a garden. Yet, it tends to feel like the last two years is all a fuzzy blend of diapers, sippy cups and teletubbies. Not too far from the truth. At least it is a warm and fuzzy kind of blur, like being under the blankets and not wanting to get up and make that mad dash to the cold bashroom.

further work fun

2007-01-28T09:40:00.000-05:00

We had two more unscheduled reboots of critical systems this past week. File corruption on a SAN mounted volume caused our system folk to have to retore to an earlier snapshot on one of them. For those not in the industry the situation briefly described above is fairly horrible and something one hopes they will never encounter. My part in this troublehsooting, as resident network weasel, has been to set up a continuous packet capture running on the SAN network. This means that as soon as an incident is confirmed, someone runs and pulls the plug on the packet capture so we will have a record of what was going on over the network at that moment. TCPDUMP is my new best friend. I had played with it before, mostly in various classroom settings, and I always thought it was an interesting tool. Anything with that many options has to be given some respect. It is the command line swiss army knife of packet analysis. (And yes, I know just how much of a techno geek saying so makes me, and I am okay with it.) In general I tend to use snoop to look at packets on an interface in a unix system so this was my first real use of tcpdump in production. We have a nice GUI product running on Win2K in a rack mount server in the network core that I use for day to day troubleshooting of problems, but there was not enough free memory on that server for this continuous looping buffer of packet capture we needed for this problem. The loop is over 2000 files, each 20 megabytes in size for a total of 40 gigabytes of network packets. And it is only the first 96 bytes of each packet so it does not include the actual data being passed, just the packet headers (information needed by network interfaces and network hardware to make sure the packet gets to its destination). Heady stuff, as it were.

Ok, enough about work. I hope to post something about the book I am currently reading. A new author for me at least and very fun.

*smiles*

Problems that are not problems

2007-01-19T12:14:00.000-05:00

It is almost zen like. "There is no spoon." sort of thing. Read on if you are interested in details of a technical nature.

This has been a very busy week at work. We had some unintended and unexplained outages late last week and this week has been filled in trying to explain at least the network side of some of the outages/interruptions. The short version is that when we went looking for an explanation for the outages we saw network traffic that did not make sense. So I spent the week trying to make sense of what we found. What we saw was network switches not keeping the hardware address of the device directly connected to it. The switches should have that information, in case you are curious. The behavior did not change when we changed switches, IP address, or hardware addresses. My boss was started to get very concerned as the only things left to change were the server and the primary router on campus. Rebooting the router effects every network connection on the campus and as such is pretty much the very last thing you want to do. And the time we can reboot the router without it effecting students is quickly going away, as student return this weekend. So I have been working with the company that makes the switches, sending them configuration files, collecting samples of all the network traffic going in and out the ports in question and all of the other fun and games of troubleshooting. And after a week, and escalting within their service I managed to figure out what was happening. I wish it was one of those "ah ha" moments but it was more one explanation kept coming up and no matter what I did I could not disprove it. And last night I finally found a way to prove this possible explanation was in fact the correct explanation. Know what it was? That everything was working correctly on both the switches and the server, we were just seeing some very unusual, but not technically wrong, behavior based on how the server was configured.
*sigh*
No one believes me when I say its not the network.
*grin*
More a reminder that I really need to get some traffic analysis going for our network. At least I got the syslog problem fixed and we are finally sending our switch logs to a syslog server. Small steps in the right direction after a week of running all over the place.
And half of our group have been sick all week. Mostly variations on the flu/cold type of thing. My boss let me know he had gone through 3/4ths of a box of tissues in one day. I have had a very sore throat that is not strep and not a cold or flu since last week. I live off of throat spray and cough drops. *blah* It is no fun to be in pain but otherwise functional.

In-Law withdrawl

2007-01-10T10:49:00.000-05:00

So the In-laws have made it home ok. SiL and niece had a horrible trip. Not sure if it was the stress of travelling or if they had some bad food along the way. Everyone else is ok, and they are all home now.
There was also an unfun moment when my BiL realized he gave the wrong date to the person picking them up from the airport. By the time he got ahold of the friend, they had been at the airport for two hours, a day early. Since they got home ok, I guess the friend came back on the correct day.
My wife is handling the suddenly empty house. She is very sad they are gone but able to function. She gets particularly choked up if our son goes into the rooms everyone was using and starts looking around like he lost something. It does not help that one of his favorite sounds these days is "Ba ba ba" which can be taken to be the Polish word for "grandmother" > "babcha". (ok, so we have also been taking it to be "ball" but that does not make sense in this context. And it is all about context.) So it will be a while before she gets her feet planted again. She has been focused on this visit for so long I am curious, in a dreading/morbid kind of way, what she will start doing with her time. She did get out a book from the library last night, which I take as a good sign she might take some time for herself. I can only hope.

happy new years to you all

2006-12-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

I hope the coming year gives you what you need and you can smile about the past year.

My goals for this coming year:
Play more with my son. (like that is difficult to work towards)
Fight less with my wife. (hmm, but i am so good at it and you are supposed to do what you are good at, right? or not in this case)
Finish the masters program. (one more class to go!)
Learn to read music and play a musical instrument. (for some reason the concertina has always been appealing to me. antone got one i can learn on?)
Run five miles in less than 50 minutes, outdoors in above freezing weather. (i just need to start running again, as i stopped after thanksgiving, what with finals and all. *sigh*)
Do more in the garden for a longer stretch of the year. (already picking my seeds, gods i love catalogs)

That should keep me out of trouble ... or at least off of the streets.

pictures of the holiday

2006-12-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

Our niece, me and our son. My initial attempts at inflating the teletubby were quite entertaining to my son.

Nice group shot of everyone as the kids opened gifts. We had a hold on gifts for adults this year. The gift of flying so many folk over from Poland was enough.

Here is our son "helping" our niece hang decorations on the tree. Amazingly, no ornaments were harmed.

And here is me, my wife, her sister-in-law and her brother all ready for the party.

all gussied up and nowhere to go

2006-12-23T19:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, not true, we have somewhere to go. I just don't want to go. Former neighbors of my folks are having their annual holiday event and we are going. An amazing home, food that is always spectactular and an above average open bar are some of the positives for the event. Larger numbers of people that I do not know, or at best have not seen since high school is not as much on the positive side for me today.
My wife, her brother, his wife and I are meeting my sister and folks there later this evening. It is black tie. I long ago gave in and bought my own tux. Just your basic one button model which should last me, roughly speaking, forever. Or at least until I get the full kilt in the family tartan. (There are a few other things on the list ahead of that purchase, so don't hold your breath.) Since I am, well, me, I do have green chuck taylors to wear with this tux. They sort of complement the dark green vest and bow tie. (NOt to be confused with the red chucks I wore when I got married.) If nothing else I am always more comfortable than everyone else at these things. Luckily I do not have a goal of being taken seriously to slow me down.
With all of the family staying with us for the holidays, I am not feeling terribly extroverted so getting the energy up for going out tonight is not too easy for me. I, and my wife, am currently thrilled if I can just stay on the positive side of surly right now. It is a struggle. I did get a break this afternoon and snuck off to watch a movie. Blissful. I saw "Eragon". It was at the theater nearby and started next. I read the book last year, but can not remember enough details to say how true they stuck to the story. Guess I will have to read it again. Poor me, all this free time and another book to read.

The In-laws are coming! The In-laws are coming!

2006-12-19T12:22:00.000-05:00

As I come down from having had my last class for the semester this past Saturday, I am now preparing for the arrival of my in-laws. My wife's mother, father, younger brother, his wife and their daughter are arriving later today. Please note the total number of people staying with us for the holidays is five (5). They will have been on planes and in airports for the last almost 14 hours, not counting what it takes to get through customs when they arrive. They will be with us for the next three weeks, give or take a day.

So as the rush for end of semester ended, it transfered directly to all of the things needing to be done before the arrival. Little things I have been putting off until my papers and presentations were completed, like getting christmas tree, another long baby gate to keep our little one from laying with all the interesting things on and under the tree, a booster seat for our niece so we can safely drive around with her, finshing some woodwork in the kitchen and dining room. Little things, except when they are all in one lump. They have gotten done, mostly. still some work to be done in the dining room.

This is not as crazy as it sounds, but it would have been nice to have had a nice break. The two classes this semester were IT Law and Leadership Fundamentals. They were both really interesting classes but demanding of my attention and time. I had never had a law class so getting a grounding in the basic of copyright, trademark and privacy has been good for me. The leadership class was painful. Sometimes becuase it was challenging my own assumptions about myself and my concepts of leadership and other times becuase some of the authors really want to be scientists but are so far from it in their work it is painful to read. And this is me, with my background in cultural anthroplogy, complaining about a lack o rigorous scientific methodology.

Well, only a few hours to go before the in-laws arrive, so I better make sure there is nothing I need to be doing in the meantime. I think my job will be to pour the vodka once we get back and settled in. I can do that, and am looking forward to it. I only hope have enough!

*smiles*
be well

blame the lensman for this meme

2006-12-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

Turkey Trot update, belated

2006-11-30T19:23:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving and in Columbusm OH there was at around 9am a crowd of several thousand people waiting to start running down Lane Ave. I was one of them, along with my aunt, uncle and their two fourteen year old boys. The weather was excellent. Just cold enough you did not mind wearing the layers but not so cold you lost feeling in your toes and fingers. And there was clear skies and no wind to top it all off. There were 1000 pies each for the first 1000 men and women that crossed the finish line. While I did not get a pie, I did do better than last year.
My time was 0:57:30 which is a minute more than the last time I ran on the treadmill, but more than six minutes less than last years Trot.
So, I have an average of 0:11:30 for a mile. If I really want the pie, I need to get that down to around 0:09:30 or so in order to have any kind of a chance. I also think that means I need to get off of the treadmill and get outside more often.
It is good to have goals.
It also helps to brainwash yourself by repeating them frequently. *grin*

I hope everyone is doing well and as I said before I will try to post more often once classes end in just over two weeks.
*smiles*

radio silence

2006-11-14T12:57:00.000-05:00

The radios silence will probably continue until the middle of December. Nothing bad going on, just life.

I hae found that if we do not spend a few evenings together each week, my wife and I start to get annoyed with each other very quickly. It only took five years of marriage for that one to sink in for me. Never said I was quick.

Two graduate classes takes up a lot of time in the evenings and weekends. Neat stuff. IT law and a class in Leadership. The law class has been a real eye opener into how things like copyright and trademarks work. The leadership course is mostly fluff, but it does get me thinking about the concepts even though I frequently disagree with the author.

Our son also keeps us jumping during the daylight hours. I am not home too often during his waking hours so I do what I can to help out as much as possible when I am around during that time. For some reason my wife likes to be able to take a shower and feel like a normal human once in a while, go figure.

I try to work out three times a week in anticipation of next weeks Turkey Trot. I am still under an hour for the five miles and my ability to run without having to take breaks is also improving. A year ago it really did not feel like I would ever be able to run two miles with no walking breaks but I can now.

I do still play DnD once a week. That is about it for the activities on my list of hobbies. *sigh* All those comic books going unread and robotic legoes unassembled, it is truly sad.

My reading (not a hobbie any more than breathing is one) of late has been going back through the fifty or so linear feet of fantasy and science fiction books in my office and re-reading ones I have not looked at in many years. Plus the almost annual re-reading of all things Pratchett. Good thing I hate getting rid of books I enjoyed reading!

Much more than I expected to write, back to the grind.
*smiles*

fiction part 2

2006-11-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

Dark smoke and light morning fog swirl between the trees. The bulk of the wreckage is scattered in the distance but even this far away there are pieces of debris and torn tree limbs strewn about. One section of woods does not seem quite right. Instead of smoke or fog it appears as though one of the clouds is spilling out of its own crater. He tastes the electricity in the air at the same time he sees a flicker deep inside the cloud. He tentatively approaches, no longer sure if it was a flash of light or of movement within the cloud. The crater is more a scar, a line made by something driving into the ground at an angle, ending suddenly at an out cropping of stone. The stones themselves have been toppled. The cloud seems to be flowing out from behind and below the stones. Flickering light and the taste of static get stronger as he makes his way almost by feel through the tumbled stones. A sudden gust of wind reviews a figure trapped among the rubble. The cloud quickly reforms, obscuring the stuggling figure. Not sure he can trust his own eyes, he calls out to let them know help is on the way. The static is getting worse as he scrambles down the stones. A sudden flash reveals the area as lightning seems to dance among the stones, causing him to shield his eyes and drop to the ground. He hears stones being moved as he starts to stand up. The wind is stronger now, pulling the strange cloud away faster than it can form. As his vision clears he sees that the figure is not longer trapped but is struggling to move itself out of the crater away from him. Maybe it is the after effects of the lightning flash but he can not see any detail on the figure. There are two arms and two legs and a head but its entire surface is a uniform pebbly grey. He rubs his eyes in disbelief and slows down his approach through the crater debris. The stones and trees around him are in perfect detail. He looks again to the struggling form. Its limbs do not seem to want to support its weight as is drags itself over obstacles. Lightning is dancing around one fist, grounding itself with small pops against anything it touches. Wisps of cloud are forming on its pebbled surface. He moves closer to it, not sure what he is doing there. Again he calls out to it, gently, as he is almost on top of it now. The figure stiffens and starts to spin around to face him. The fist covered in lighting swings toward him in an awkward arc. He does not even think as he lifts the crowbar to ward off the wild strike. A brilliant blue flash fills his eyes as the crowbar meets the arm just below the fist. Both he and the figure are knocked backwards and left sprawled on the ground, electricity dancing over them.

crazy work week and background for fiction

2006-10-27T19:34:00.000-05:00

So I knew this week was going to be crazy. I was just wrong on the details.
I started the week off knowing that I had to get my GIAC certification done before my second class started on Saturday. The only time I had to review the material, take practise exams and take the actual certification exam was during the work day. Luckily work is paying for the exam and my boss is of the opinion I can manage my own schedule. On Monday I got a little review done. Tuesday I got some more done and stayed a little late to take a practise exam. Did ok on the exam. Wednesday I decided to just go for the actual cert instead of a second round of review and practise exam. Good thing I did too. There is a three hour window to finish the exam and I needed every second. About halfway through the exam I started getting horrible network delays. I would press "submit" for a question and have to wait a minute or longer for the next one to appear. I was not sure if I would get enough answered correctly before that caused me to be behind enough that it was impoissible for me to pass. As it turned out I was able to get enough done to pass before I ran out of time. A huge relief for me. So it is 6:30pm on Wednesday and I open my office door, much to the surprise of several of my coworkers that had no idea I was still in the building. They were running around dealing with a problem with several systems using our SAN. To make that story short, we have been working on that SAN problem since Wednesday late afternoon. It is now Friday evening, approaching 9pm. Two of my coworkers have been here nonstop since this started, one of them my boss. This is sort of computer problem a sysadmin tech person has nightmares about as the SAN contains the data for all of our critical services. And we had to reboot it.
Keep in mind the SAN is actually six different sets of hard drives in two different buildings, designed such that it should never have to be rebooted. And we had to reboot it. Not sure if it worked yet but it is definitely making life interesting.

So I stayed late Wednesday night and did what I can to help out. I am not a server admin so mostly I just made sure the problem was not in the network and opened up a few ports for some different kinds of testing. I have actually been able to go home each night. I woke up really early on Thursday. Long before I was supposed to get up to go in early for some scheduled maintenance that needless to say has not happened. A very vivid and strange dream woke me that morning. Half asleep I tried to understand what I saw in the dream and try to explain to myself how the events could have taken place. As I did this a detailed story was created in my head. The post called "fiction part 1" is an attempt to see if I can get all of these details down on paper and out of my head. I am curious how it will go as I have not done anything like this before. And I had time to get a good start on it as I waited for various things to get done on Thursday. Friday was busy enough that this is the first time I have had to post. And no time to try to get the next segment of the story straightened out enough to post.

Tomorrow is the first day of my 2nd class. It should make for a nice break from these 14 hour days at work. Granted, I might be coming into work after class is done.

Such is life.
*smiles*
be well

fiction part 1

2006-10-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

A beat up truck is driving along an empty stretch of road on the less busy side of the airport. The driver is enjoying being the only one on the road this early in the morning, watching the fog and dew settle in the fields at the end of the run way. A large jumbo jet rises above the fog not too far ahead of where he is driving, heading into the low lying clouds. The jets normally graceful path into the sky is marred by a waggle of the wings. The driver chuckles, thinking it must be the pilot having some fun with the passengers and control tower. The waggling does not stop. It starts to get worse as it heads into the low rolling clouds. The plane is actually banking, trying to avoid the clouds. The rolling of the clouds gets worse. Sparks seem to be flying through the clouds. The truck skids over to the side of the road as the plane banks further away from the strange clouds. Sparks are jumping from the clouds to the plane. The rolling clouds are now ripping themselves apart, smaller clouds following the rolling plane in a vortex. The sparks are getting worse, jumping from the small clouds to the plane leaving burn marks across its wings and body. One of the sparks hits an engine causing it to explode. The whole plane shudders as it loses control of the bank away from the cloud cover. It is so low to the ground now it is hitting the tops of trees with its lower wing tip. The driver sees one wing dip below the tree line and then suddenly the whole plane spirals out of sight, throwing the vortex of trailing clouds into chaos. Fire and smoke are visible through the trees, just over a low hill not too far away from the driver. Now the only thing in the air are the small clouds, slowly rising back up to the low lying clouds from where they were when the plane lost control.

The driver does not even think about the clouds as he gets back on the highway and heads toward an access road going roughly in the direction of the downed plane. He scrambles for his cell phone and gives a curse when he sees it has no signal. He just drives through the flimsy gate at the head of the access road, hoping the owner will not mind given the circumstances. As his truck crests the low hill he sees that the access road runs parallel to the path the plane took through the trees. He gets as close as he can to the wreckage and pulls off into the woods. While not very thick, there are still enough trees to stop him from getting too far off of the road. He grabs his cell phone and a crow bar from behind his seat before continuing on foot.

5 mile update

2006-10-20T21:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I actually ran 5 miles on the treadmill today with a time of 55:30.
To say I am quite pleased with myself is an understatement. My time a year ago was around 1:03:00 or so. I shaved more than a minute of my mile average time and my last two miles were faster than my first two. I also saw a number on the scale I have not seen in many years, 209. Might be a low point, a fluke or some other strange anomally, but I am counting it!

So the Turkey Trot is in a month. And I am looking forward to it. I am really close to the time where they were still giving out pumpkin pies.

Wish me luck.

*smiles*

What is a network weasel?

2006-10-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

Network weasels are members of the genus Mustela trained to install network cabling between the BDF (Building Distribution Frame aka "wiring closet") and the end station (aka "wall jack" or "network outlet"). Due to their high intelligence, elongated bodies and agile fore paws they have been found to be particularly successful in navigating the conduits, plenum ceilings and wall cavities. In recent years special accommodations have been made to increase the specifications of the diameter and bending radius of conduit used to provide the cable paths within buildings in order to improve the efficiency of the network weasels. A typical scenario for which a network weasel is used would be as follows: An end user requests a new network connection from the networking group. The networking group notifies the weasel wrangler on call in the weasel pit and informs them of the request. The wrangler selects an appropriate weasel from the pen, puts on the special collar to which one end of the cable and weasel adapted tools are attached. A proprietary method of images and scent markings are used to communicate the requested station location to the weasel and it is then released into the correct conduit path. The weasel wrangler then monitors the tension on the cable spool and amount used to ensure the network weasel does not take a path that exceeds the IETF distance recommendations for the cabling used in that facility. (As a side note, one weasel wrangler can in general monitor up to 10 different weasels actively installing cable. Some notable exceptions have been able to succesfully monitor up to 24. These are the elite weasel wranglers and often are found in the most demanding, and rewarding, environments.) Once the network weasel has navigated the conduits, ceilings and walls to the requested station location as indicated by the scent markings it proceeds to terminate the cable onto the preinstalled jack in the faceplate. It then returns to the wrangler in the weasel pit where the cable is cut from the spool, terminated and connected to the network hardware.

Please note that network weasels are working animals, much like seeinng eye dogs, and as such should not be distracted from their duties by petting or offers of food. Should a network weasel fall through a damaged ceiling tile in your office, do not panic and do not approach the weasel as it will be disoriented and may bite. It is also important to not touch the weasel as the contact might disrupt the weasels scent memory and cause it to perform its duties incorrectly. Please contact your on call weasel wrangler who will safely and correctly return the weasel to its duties. Do not forget to contact your Facilties department to request a new ceiling tile.

If there are any questions about network weasels, please feel free to contact me in the weasel pit.

I guess all that time in college really paid off..

2006-10-05T13:00:00.000-05:00

My score on The How Much You Know About Women Test:

**************************************

A Femme Fatale!
(You scored 95% !!)

"Da-Yum! You must BE a woman! Good job!"

**************************************

Take it!
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=16632578631264830153

2006-10-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

I am not sure how to think about this result.
I wonder if they count my Pez dispenser collection as "action figures"?

You can thank Taokodr for this one!

How White and Nerdy Are You?

Running for my life

2006-09-29T20:04:00.000-05:00

My doctor gave me an ultimatum about two years ago. It was not a new topic but with the coming birth of my son it took on a whole new level of significance. He told that if I did not loose a significant amount of weight and start watching my diet I would probably have a serious stroke in my fifties. I had the triple threat of warning signs: obese (greater than 235 at one point), outrageously high cholesteral (and higher on the follow up test) and a family history of heart problems. Even I could not argue with the facts on this one. I got winded walking up stairs and could rest my drink on my stomach.

Biking has always been my favorite way to get a workout. I had lived near bike trails growing up, in college and even at my last apartment six year ago. Now, while I really like our house, it does lose points as it is a twenty or thirty minutes drive to the closest bike trail. Not very encouraging, having to waste an hour just going too and from a place to ride. No wonder it had been a few years since I had even touched my bike.

So I started by getting back into running, something I had not really done since my days in Army ROTC. This was the last time I had been part of a regimented workout program, so I went with what I knew. What I remembered from my early morning PT was doing two mile runs, so this was my first goal in training. It is good to have goals. It really helps if they are realistic. Mine may not have been very realistic at first. The two mile runs started off more as two mile walks with brief periods of what can only be described as shuffling. It was fun for a few months and I could see steady progress. Eventually I started noticing all sorts of pain in my left foot and shin splints. The pain in my foot got bad enough that I talked to my doctor. It was planar fasciitis. No fun and a long slow trek back to where I was when I realized I was injured.

So I started slow again, paid a lot more attention to the shoes I bought and did everything I could to make this become a habit I could realistically do for the rest of my life. About this time last year I was back to where I had been many months earlier. I could finish two miles and actually have run for most of it. This felt great.

We were making arrangements to visit family in Ohio for Thanksgiving, when my aunt mentioned that her family, all four of them, were running in that years Turkey Trot 5K and did I want to sign up for it? The first 1000 men and 1000 women across the finish line got a pumpkin pie. My dad and I said sure, why not, and did not think of it again until we got there. What did I have to worry about, 5K was only 3 miles, more or less. It was a stretch but I was due for a challenge. And I like pumpkin pie.

Imagine my surprise when I found out I was mistaken about the 5K distance. It was 5 miles. A bit more than I was expecting and about double what I had been doing. Ouch. And the weather forcast was that it would be windy with freezing rain turning to snow and a temperature in the teens. My father wisely decided that what he really needed was a good chance to sleep in and wished us all luck. My wife was convinced that was the wisest course. I think the was the thought of the pie that made me decide to brave the elements and do the run.

It was everything you think it could have been. Cold, wet and windy. The route doubled back on itself, so at least halfway the wind was helping you. And did I ever need the help. It was more grueling than anything I had done since I was a cadet running around downtown in the early hours or crawling through the bush at 3am on a nearby Army base. I loved it. Not because I did well or anything but becuase I was out there trying. Just getting off my ass is always the hardest part for me and there I was running in the gear I had bought, and used, many years earlier for a backpacking trip in the White Mountains. I did not get a pie, but three of the other four in my family did. And I was within ten minutes of the last pie. I came in at around 1 hour 4 minutes and the last pie was around somewhere in the 50-55 minute range. I had a new goal. I would come back and at least do better. Hopefully enough better to warrant getting a pie.

About this time last year the finishing touches on a new athletic center were being done at work. I could not ask for better timing. I had new goal for the year and a workout facility with 7000 square feet dedicated to machines and weights just opened at my job. Free of charge and between my office and the parking lot. Ok, I was more than a little sick of the building as I had spent the last few months making sure it got wired correctly but I could get over that little twinge.

It took a while but by this past spring I was really going two or three times a week. I used the treadmill and the bike machine. I tried getting into some of the strength training machines but after aggravating a few old injuries and losing a week here and there I put that on the back burner until I was comfortable with the cardio. Then I noticed my left foot was starting to ache a lot and I had to back down on how hard I could push myself in the treadmill. This felt discouraging as I had never really gotten past the point I had reached during last years 5 mile run. My two mile time was never lower than 22 or 23 minutes. Ok the first mile was usually around an even 10 minutes, but I could not maintain that in the second mile.

Then early in the summer I started getting the very familiar pains in my foot again. The only problem was this time it was in my right foot. So again I had to back off of using the treadmills for a while and let that heal. This time I think I caught it early enough and followed a reasonable course of treatment. Stretching the legs each morning and before and after each workout really made a difference. I found that I could use the treadmills but only if I did not go faster than 5 miles an hour. 5 miles an hour is 12 minutes a mile and that put me at one hour even for five miles, assuming I could even go that far. I was still in the two miles mindset and rarely worked out longer than 30 minutes. Again a discouraging thing to think about compared to the one year goal I had set.

One of my coworkers who was also making use of this new facility saw me working out and asked why I wasn't using the cross trainer? That stopped me in my tracks as the only reason was that it looked silly and I had never tried using it before. The cross trainer has a platform for each foot. When using it it can be adjusted from being like walking on a flat surface to climbing a ladder, as well as the resistance it takes to move the platforms. This thing kicked my ass the first few times I used it but I had found something I could do that gave me a great cardio workout with low impact on my heels.

Slowly this became the only machine I used, especially once I understood the significance of some of the readouts it was providing. Who knew that METS were so important a reference for gauging a workout? I had set myself a short term goal of increasing the time of my workout from the thirty minutes or so to a full hour. This machine gave me a great way to do this in small increments. I could increase the resistance a little one day or increase the level another day to give the workout some variation as I increased the time. And slowly I was able to get up to using this thing for a solid hour three times a week.

Since the start of my own classes the begining of this past month and the amount of reading that goes with it, I had started having to drop workouts. I even missed a week due to allergies or some flu thing that just knocked me out. I knew that while being able to go for an hour on the cross trainer was a very good thing, it was not the same as running. I had to find out where I was if I was going to be able to make any adjustments in time for this years 5 Mile Turkey Trot. So I set myself a new goal: run five miles on the treadmill. See if it kills my feet or does something to my neck or back. Just find out if I can do it at all.

I wanted to be able to do this several times before the trot and the first deadline was tonight, the last day of the month. I did it, despite having stayed in the office an extra hour and really wanting to come home and spend some time with my son before he went to bed. I ran five miles in just under one hour on the treadmill. It was great. The first three miles hurt but once I got past that point and got into a good groove I could just shuffle along like there was no tommorrow. It was not pretty but it felt so different than where I was a year ago, let alone two years ago. It really was amazing.

Now I am in a monitoring mode. I plan on taking it easy this weekend and see if any part or parts of my body start to complain about the abuse they are taking. I will go back to using the cross trainer for at least the next week or two, then we shall see about giving it another shot. That and stretching my feet and legs a lot.

Wish me luck. I will let you know if I get a pie, or at least do better than last years time.

*smiles*

btw, in the last two years I have lost about half of the weight the doctor wanted, enough to get me out of the obese category. While I have stalled at the 215-218 range, I feel much better and can really see a difference. For the first time in many years I have had to shorten my belt by a notch. Small steps. It took me ten years to get to this point, I do not expect it will happen overnight. Now if only I lived near a bike trail again...

Just trying to get a running start

2006-09-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

this blogging thing is getting out of hand

2006-09-20T12:29:00.000-05:00

I started out on yahoo's beta blog service, as my primary email is through them.
Check it here if interested:
http://360.yahoo.com/ca5m1th

We shall see if the joining of gmail with blogger will change my habits any.

*smiles*