knock knock

who's there?
POLICE
As in, police battering ram knocking in the door of the crack shack across the street. Yup, once again A. and I were having a meal when we heard a noise (we thought someone was smashing up our car). Turns out it was just the cops executing a full-on commando style raid on the shack. And I got it all on the cam...well, every 5 seconds of it until it got too dark. Weird thing is, I don't know if they arrested anyone. We saw them let some people go. But then a van pulls up and a contractor gets out and starts boarding the building up. Crazy. Unfortunately a lot of the guys probably weren't home. The car that is usually there was gone, so it looked like the place was full of the fat dude, the skinny dude, one of the ho's, and a bunch of little kids. How sad. And animal control confiscated the dog. So bizarre. Never a dull moment!

crack shack

So i set up a little webcam in my attic so I could monitor the activity at the crackshack across the street. The program I'm using to capture the feed from the webcam is an open source app called Fwink. Unfortunately, it isa pretty barebones and doesn't have an archiving or auto-naming function, it just takes a snapshot and saves it to a specific filename every X amount of seconds (or minutes or hours).

SInce I can't really be monitoring this thing all the time, the archive would be nice. So I htink I'll write a little vb script to run that will automatically copy this image file to an archive directory with a new, incremeneted, filename. That would be a lot more useful.

Yes, I suppose I could set up a live stream, but saving an archive of THAT would be very space consuming.

what a cute little pumpkin monkey boy

Do you find, as a parent, that you string together the most bizarre terms of endearment when talking to your baby?

captain stupendo

Well, I've done it again. Disregard the birthday fiasco with my stint as an amature plumber that made it rain in my kitchen. Oh no. That was nothing. Tonight, after a sumptuous dinner, Andrea and her brother took Felix upstairs to hang out in the bedroom and read magazines. Ah ha! A Friday night and there are more than enough people to manage Felix's feedings and diaper changes. I better jump on this opportunity!

So I close the door to the basement, open all the windows and the door to the outside at the top of the basement stairs, and I dust off the wooden rocking chair that I have been lightly sanding over the past few days. What better time to get that first coat of primer on it? I'm planning on working on this project tomorrow, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow like it did today, so who knows. I've got the basement ventilated and closed off from the rest of the house. So I start painting. I get about 1/4 of the way done with the first coat of primer (spray-on primer) when Andrea throws open the door at the top of the stairs.

"What the hell are you doing?!?!?!?!?!"
I'm getting a head start.
"The entire house is filled with noxious fumes! Stop doing that right now. Are you insane?????"

It's one of those moments when you think to yourself, "How can they possibly smell this two stories up???" But sure enough...the whole house smells like spray paint.

I dunno. It seemed perfectly rational when i started. So now I've got all the windows opened, door opened, fans blowing and Andrea has taken Felix to her brother's for the night. I feel about this tall [

deeper and deeper in

Have you ever had one of those projects where it starts out something simple like, oh, change a flat tire but by the time you are done you've installed a brand new transmission? I'm starting to get the feeling I'm halfway down the road on this one.

Last week it got chilly for a couple of nights. Andrea requested heat and I figured, no time like the present to check out our new boiler. Well, I discovered that while MOST of the radiators worked great, the one in the baby's room wasn't heating up at all. Hrm. That's kind of a required area as far as heating goes. So I try the valve. No knob. Hrm. No biggie, I take the knob from the radiator in the bedroom and put use it on the radiator in the baby's room. After much heaving and hoeing I finally got it to move just a pinch in the direction of OPEN. Huh. Wait, what's that? a drip of water? another one...a leak. Close the valve! So I crank on it theo ther way and it goes a little bit in that direction...but it still leaks. Ugh. So now I've gone from no heat to a leak...

The obvious answer is "Fix the valve" but since the valve barely turns as it is, well, I figure we might as well go and just replace the valve. After all, this is in the baby's room and i want everything working tip top not half-assed. So I go to Home Depot with pictures on my laptop any everything and find their plumbing specialist. "Oh sure no problem, you just replace the valve. No problem. Shut off the intake and you get no water coming out. You fix it, sure." (btw he's mexican or something. I say, "But what about all of the water inside the radiator?"

"Oh yes, I see your question. Very true." So I thank Yoda and buy a pipe wrench, the biggest steam radiator valve they have, and a radiator key (needed one anyways). it would seem to be a simple operation. Well, anyways, I go down and turn off the boiler, shut of the gas, and set the thermostat to the lowest setting (35 deg). Then I close off all of the water valves I can find (making careful note of which valve was ALREADY off) and then open up the boiler's drain outlet. Luckily, it has threads and I can attach a hose to it and run it to the utility sink in the laundry room. So I drain that out. Then, after dinner I start working on the valve. yup, there's still plenty of water in that radiator. Being that there's pretty low clearance beneath the radfiator, I'm using these short, sandwich-sized tupperware containers to catch the water and dump it into my 4 gallon bucket. Did that for about 15 minutes and thought to myself, "I have a shopvac, what the hell am I making such a big mess with this silly system for?" So then I used the tupperware to catch the water but then sucked it up using the shop vac asa sorta secondary reverse water pump...and after about 20 minutes and two shop-vacs of water later the gush was just a drip drip drip.

So, now i have the valve disconnected from the radiator. No problem...however, I can;t seem to get the valve disconnected from the pipe that sticks up out of the floor. Sigh.

This project started as troubleshooting a cold radiator and now I've moved on to replacing plumbing fittings...next thing I'll be replacing all of the pipes o the house. By the end of this I expect I'll have a new bathroom installed as well as Central Air.

It is starting to feel like this old home should have come with a Home Depot line of credit as well.

Anyway, I'm attempting to enlist my next door neighbor and his handy-man friend to help me out with this. We'll see how it goes.


Oh, and tomorrow is my 31st b-day. in 20 minutes, I'm officially over 30. I will have passed the last of the events listed in the header of my blog. i guess its all down hill from here.

interesting side note:
Google "replace radiator valve"" and you'll find that almost all hits will be within the UK. Weird! Better make sure you have the right sized spanner!

my thoughts exactly

Wondermark

I have thought this same thing EXACTLY.

And we just had Felix's 2-month checkup/vaccinations. If you are a parent I don't have to tell you how horrible THAT appointment is. It was all I could do to keep from punching the nurse out.

Anyway, Felix now weighs 13lbs, 10oz, is 23 inches long, and I forget how big his head is.
Those measurements are in the 97th, 76th, and 53rd percentile, respectively. But the weird thing is, he isn't a fat baby. I've seen some fat, I'm talking megasaurus, babies and he's not one. He must just be really dense. Must be all that muscle...and maybe those big hands and feet. But yeah, now momma is going to try to satisfy his frequent sucking urges with something other than a feeding. But he's totally not fat. it's bizarre.

mfing pos aholes

This morning Andrea decided to get out the vote. She puts Felix in the carseat and then closed the door. When she did so, the driver's side front window of the car shattered, showering the inside of the car with the tempered shards of glass. It appears that at some point, someone hit our car. From her description, it sounds like there is some paint or something and a slight scrape on the door, but otherwise the window was the only thing that appears really damaged. So, $200 down the drain to buy a new window and I'm kinda sorta wishing we had our own driveway, but you know, it coulda happened anywhere. Anyway, of course Andrea was pretty shaken up because, you know, glass exploding all over the inside of the car with Felix in his carseat is pretty traumatic. Felix is OK. Andrea is OK. We're all pissed off.

Comprehensive coverage with full glass coverage is only about $12 more per month. I think we'll be doing that as soon as we can get it inspected. Here's hoping that all the little dings and such don't disqualify us.

church v. state facts

We watched an episode of "30 Days" in which an athiest was sent to live amongst Christians (notice the big C, as in non-denominational, bible-toting, megachurching, born more than once christians). It was a very interesting episode and I learned some factoids about myself and other free-thinking brethren.

That IN GOD WE TRUST is on the money and UNDER GOD is in the pledge of allegiance is not really proff that the USA was founded upon a religion.

In God We Trust first appeared on the 1c and 2c coins in 1864 and wasn't added to all currency until 1966. From the US Treasury currency fact-sheet:

A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. The first paper currency bearing the motto entered circulation on October 1, 1957. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) was converting to the dry intaglio printing process. During this conversion, it gradually included IN GOD WE TRUST in the back design of all classes and denominations of currency.

The words "Under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 by Congress as the result of a campaign by the Knights of Columbus.

So, while there is officially only 5% of the US population that is atheist, I suspect the number is actually higher but many people do not openly admit it. So hey, finally, a 16-35 year old white male finally, legitimately, belongs to an oppressed minority group.

And if you think athiests are not oppressed...think again. How comfortable would you feel if our currency had "There is no god" printed on it? (borrowing from one of the people on the show). Yeah.

And why isn;t there any mention of God, any god, in the constitution?

Its funny, because as much as people following different religions have problems getting along, they at least have the common experience of beliving in a god, so they relate to eachother in terms of, "Oh, you've just got the story a little mixed up". It realy is comparing apples to apples. Whereas the atheist is unrelatable. "You think the story is fiction? No, no, non-fiction, no-fiction! See? It's in a book and everything."

Of the dialogues between the atheist and the Christians, one of the most tellings exchanges went something like this:

C - So, I know what you DON'T believe in. But what do you believe in?
A - That you should treat everyone well and you are responsible for your actions. Everyone should act morally and ethically.
C - But, I mean...how do you know that's right? We have the Bible. What do you have? What tells you what's right and wrong?
A - There is no text. I believe these things are correct because they are logical, rational ideas, they are what I would consider natural laws.
C - But who tells you what's right or wrong?
A - Who tells YOU what is right or wrong?
C - God. The Bible.
A - Logic. Reason. I can figure out what is wrong or right myself through reason, natural law. The golden rule.

Very telling. Think about that.

life events

So the other day I bought my first coffee maker. Finish reading before sending me emails saying, "But you could have had my coffee maker!" because I know I have scads of dads who are probably eager to give me their coffee makers as an excuse to buy a brand new one that they've had their eyes on for a while. I KNOW I can probably take my pick of the second-hand coffee makers and I still may. I bought a simple French-press, which is the coffee equivalent of a tea strainer.

I figure that if I'm going to turn into my dad, I might as well commit to it. I've been a candy-coffee (cafe mocha) drinker for years. I hadn't quite been able to get used to the oily bitterness of water-straight-off-the-bean coffee. As I get older and my palate becomes both more finely tuned and (oddly) more forgiving, I find the previously mentioned bitter water to be less offensive, in fact, possibly enjoyable with the right additives. I think i am sliding down the slippery slope that Starbucks convinced so many to perch upon when they made coffee saturated with chocolate and whipped cream available to the masses. Consuming the mochas, mint mochas, turtle mochas, and white chocolate mochas, one creeps ever closer to diabetic coma sugar saturation. So you start to scale back your additives. Whipped cream is slowly replaced with lots and lots of half&half, chocale syrup with plain sugar from packets. And as the amount of these additives is reduced, you must switch from espresso to regular coffee as the base liquid because, on its own, espresso is terribly horrid stuff (please send hatemail to startbucks@starbucks.com). Next thing you know, you're ordering a tall dark roast that you add one cream and two sugars to. Then, one day, maybe out of curiosity or out of a coffee condiment shortage induced desperation, you take it black. And it doesn't kill you. And maybe you do it again the next day. Next thing you know, you are proud to say, "No thanks, I take it black" in the same way you might say "No thanks, I prefer to walk."

So, I've started to slide down to slope. This change is also ushered in by Felix and the need to get caffeine at home. Soft drinks, diet or otherwise, are looked down upon in our household because of their ill effect on teeth. Tea is #1 and coffee is viewed as equally acceptable. Since I'm just not a huge of most tea (I drink tea I just don't prefer it, for some reason) I decided to dive into the coffee world. Here I am.

And its not half-bad.
The thing about a french press is that you need to use coarsely ground coffee. At the grocery store you can buy whole bean coffee and ground coffee prepackaged. The ground coffee that is prepackaged is rather finely ground for use in drip coffee makers. If you use this kind of coffee in a french press, beware! That is akin to accidentally putting rocket fuel into your car when you thought you were using regular unleaded.

So now I need to either get myself my own grinder or do that thing at the coffee store where you grind your own beans there. Anyway, so now I am having a morning cup'o'joe every morning sans mocha. It gets me going. Eventually I may move up to an automatic coffee maker, but that's really something you do when you are either a) too jittery to operate a manual piece of machinery such as the prehistoric lever at the heart of the french press or b) you need to make a lot of coffee, and fast (which frequently leads to case A).

Also realize that when your french press exclaims on the packaging "8-cup coffee maker" they are talking about your basic 4oz measuring cup, not 8 big-bad american mugs. Take note when measuring out your finely ground jetfuel beans...

new neighbors

From Andrea's report a few minutes ago it sounds like the crack shackacorss the street has been upgraded into a cat house with the new neighbors. We'll see how long it takes ot get those folks out of there.

see, I'm not the only one who gets it.

See, this is what I'm talking about.

This is from a webcomic called Brinkerhoff, about a rabit who gets divorced.

fuzzy

Been having a little trouble focusing at work. Mainly because I was out all last week learning ....

baby burner

Felix has inherited my (and my dad's) internal combustion heating system. I should have known from the first day (the second or third at home) that he kicked his way out of his swaddle, that he would be like me: unable to sleep with his feet under a blanket, unable to experience temperatures higher than 78 dregree F withour breaking into a sweat (but not bothered at all by the nearly constant liquid-cooling effect). Yes, Felix is more comfortable in a short-sleeved onesie than a sleeper with footies. There is a reason why his bedroom has the only full-time AC unit (though it hasn't been runnig as of late due to the temperate weather) while Andrea and I only use on when the heatwaves break upon our distant shore.

While I am comforted that Felix is a heater just like dad, it also means that when I hold him or he sleeps on my stomach or chest, we both kick our cooling systems into overdrive because our combined heat can raise the room temp several degrees in a matter of minutes.