For those who don't remember, today is Andrea's birthday.
I'm taking the day off from work so I can give HER the day off from work.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
antics
OK, let me get some things straight out there. I have very little issue with insects in their proper context. Take proper context to mean: not in my home, not in large volumes, not in any way which I could perceive as threatening to myself or my family.
I can look at a giant mound of an anthill teaming with millions of ants without even flinching, so long as this is happening, say, in a desert or some other remote location. But when I see ants in my house in numbers greater than, oh, five, and for periods of longer than, oh, as long as it takes to smash them all, then yes, I tend to develop an "issue" with said insects. The same goes for any type on insect (except for roaches...there is no acceptable quantity or duration for roaches). One spider is no problem. Fifty spiders, yes, i think I'd have a problem with that. One ant, no problem. Fifty ants of all different sizes, especially in a localized area, yeah, I have a problem with that.
My weekend was all but ruined by the ant invasion which started early last week. Why was it not until the weekend that I got really out of sorts? Well, that's when I did a little research and found out that we most likely are being visited by carpenter ants who are most likely interested in living in the walls of our house, if they are not already doing so (which I think they are). So, I develop what my wife considers irrational obsessive behavior regarding our uninvited guests.
"Why don't you get this worked up about any of our several OTHER more pressing issues, like getting the car an oil change or finding a nanny, instead of worrying about some stupid ants?"
I tried to explain it, but I think I failed. She got that it had a lot to do with control and unknowns. Mainly i got super panicked because I did some research and found out that carpenter ants like to move right in and set up shop and that to really effectively deal with them, you should probably hire professionals.
Here's where the big fear comes in for me:
A - This will require money. Possibly MONEY. It's difficult to find anything on the web about how much it costs to really deal with this problem.
B - This is something that will only get worse over time if not dealt with correctly.
C - From what I observe, there is quite a lot of room for ambiguity (are they already living in the walls? How much damage have they caused? How bad could it possibly be at this rate? Is this going to be an ongoing battle against nature? Is this going to make it harder to sell the house? How big of a mistake was it to buy this house in the first place? Did we get a sub-prime mortgage? Do we need to disclose that we had the house treated for carpenter ants when we try to sell the place? Did we get screwed by the people who sold us this house? Is this ant problem just and indicator of a larger issue with the house, like leaky pipes pipes somewhere that will slowly cause more and more water damage until one day the kitchen ceiling caves in and leaves us with thousands of dollars of repair work to do before we can even think of selling? Does my homeowners insurance cover ANY of this? etc...) and not too many places to turn to get those ambiguities resolved.
So I called Orkin to get a "free inspection/estimate" but I was able to get their customer service person to fess up to their standard treatment plan, which is a 1 year deal that comes with visits costing $275(first treatment), $80(30 days), $80(60 days), $80(90 days), $80(180 days). Well, I don't like the sound of that, but at least its something tangible.
Then I came across the website for a local pest control place that said, "Don't panic! Carpenter ants are a pest and they can cause damage but most likely they will not compromise your home's structural integrity if dealt with. Do NOT feel pressured to sign up for an annual treatment plan that costs you hundreds of dollars. We can provide you with treatment options that are much more affordable for homeowners." Basically, this is what I needed to see. A website that stated, in so many words, "Don't worry, you're going to be OK. Here's why..."
So I called them up and spoke to a guy there and he was also very reassuring. He explained how the big name places will require monthly visits, which used to be necessary, but that current technology (for killing bugs, I assume) doesn't need that anymore. Now they use a material that the ants don't detect and so they walk through it and carry back to the nest. Then, as they groom each other they end up poisoning and killing the entire colony. Sounds great, right? Well, yes, they do recommend follow up visits, but basically just twice a year, one at the beginning of the season (spring) and one in late summer/early fall. the reason being that even though you kill the colony or the satellite colony (like the one they are trying to set up in my kitchen walls, I imagine) you still need to prevent ants from re-infesting, which they are want to do unless you are able to seal up all avenues of access AND replace any of the attractants that drew them in in the first place (previously water damaged wood). In our case i think that's sort of unrealistic since this is like a one thousand year old house. So, I was straight with the guy and told him I panicked and called Orkin first and then later found his website. He said, "No problem. Definitely get their inspection." I told him that unless they told me something drastically different after the inspection than what their customer service rep quoted me, I'd be calling him back to have his guys do the treatment. his quote was basically half the price of what Orkin said, and required far fewer visits. So, really when you consider Orkin was saying that it would be about...$600 for one year's worth of ant treatment and about $400 each additional year, and this guy was saying it would only cost $250 for the whole year and then only $200 for each year after that...well, seems like a no-brainer.
Which is why I have regained my sanity, for the most part.
So that begs the question A asked me earlier. Why is this ant thing totally bugging me out when there are other pressing issues like the possibility of the car breaking down or us needing a baby sitter or some other such "unknown"?
Well, see, those are already sort of known unknowns.
I *know* that when it comes right down to it, i can take time off to watch Felix if absolutely necessary.
I also know that, if the car does break down in some way, I'm not necessarily at the mercy of the "professionals" or their ridiculous pricing schemes. I've owned cars for like, ten years. In this past year I have done what I consider to be a relatively major repair on my own at greatly reduced cost. And if the car is our of commission for a few days, a week, well, I know we can get around that too.
But when it comes to the house...I know very little about home-owning so whenever something comes up that is of direct or indirect impact to the house, our ability to live in it or at least extract out of it what we put in, I get VERY VERY nervous. I don't know if ants are a nuisance or a major major deal, if they will cost me $100 or $1000 or $10,000 (when we try to sell). And more to the point, I don't feel comfortable trying to do it myself when its not necessarily something that can be done effectively by the individual home owner.
So, pretty much anything that happens involving the house gets top billing in the anxiety show unless it is one of the few things that I already know about, like restarting the boiler, installing a new dryer, etc...
Lets just hope that the seam in the kitchen ceiling is due to the house expanding and contracting from the changes in season. Hope against hope.
I can look at a giant mound of an anthill teaming with millions of ants without even flinching, so long as this is happening, say, in a desert or some other remote location. But when I see ants in my house in numbers greater than, oh, five, and for periods of longer than, oh, as long as it takes to smash them all, then yes, I tend to develop an "issue" with said insects. The same goes for any type on insect (except for roaches...there is no acceptable quantity or duration for roaches). One spider is no problem. Fifty spiders, yes, i think I'd have a problem with that. One ant, no problem. Fifty ants of all different sizes, especially in a localized area, yeah, I have a problem with that.
My weekend was all but ruined by the ant invasion which started early last week. Why was it not until the weekend that I got really out of sorts? Well, that's when I did a little research and found out that we most likely are being visited by carpenter ants who are most likely interested in living in the walls of our house, if they are not already doing so (which I think they are). So, I develop what my wife considers irrational obsessive behavior regarding our uninvited guests.
"Why don't you get this worked up about any of our several OTHER more pressing issues, like getting the car an oil change or finding a nanny, instead of worrying about some stupid ants?"
I tried to explain it, but I think I failed. She got that it had a lot to do with control and unknowns. Mainly i got super panicked because I did some research and found out that carpenter ants like to move right in and set up shop and that to really effectively deal with them, you should probably hire professionals.
Here's where the big fear comes in for me:
A - This will require money. Possibly MONEY. It's difficult to find anything on the web about how much it costs to really deal with this problem.
B - This is something that will only get worse over time if not dealt with correctly.
C - From what I observe, there is quite a lot of room for ambiguity (are they already living in the walls? How much damage have they caused? How bad could it possibly be at this rate? Is this going to be an ongoing battle against nature? Is this going to make it harder to sell the house? How big of a mistake was it to buy this house in the first place? Did we get a sub-prime mortgage? Do we need to disclose that we had the house treated for carpenter ants when we try to sell the place? Did we get screwed by the people who sold us this house? Is this ant problem just and indicator of a larger issue with the house, like leaky pipes pipes somewhere that will slowly cause more and more water damage until one day the kitchen ceiling caves in and leaves us with thousands of dollars of repair work to do before we can even think of selling? Does my homeowners insurance cover ANY of this? etc...) and not too many places to turn to get those ambiguities resolved.
So I called Orkin to get a "free inspection/estimate" but I was able to get their customer service person to fess up to their standard treatment plan, which is a 1 year deal that comes with visits costing $275(first treatment), $80(30 days), $80(60 days), $80(90 days), $80(180 days). Well, I don't like the sound of that, but at least its something tangible.
Then I came across the website for a local pest control place that said, "Don't panic! Carpenter ants are a pest and they can cause damage but most likely they will not compromise your home's structural integrity if dealt with. Do NOT feel pressured to sign up for an annual treatment plan that costs you hundreds of dollars. We can provide you with treatment options that are much more affordable for homeowners." Basically, this is what I needed to see. A website that stated, in so many words, "Don't worry, you're going to be OK. Here's why..."
So I called them up and spoke to a guy there and he was also very reassuring. He explained how the big name places will require monthly visits, which used to be necessary, but that current technology (for killing bugs, I assume) doesn't need that anymore. Now they use a material that the ants don't detect and so they walk through it and carry back to the nest. Then, as they groom each other they end up poisoning and killing the entire colony. Sounds great, right? Well, yes, they do recommend follow up visits, but basically just twice a year, one at the beginning of the season (spring) and one in late summer/early fall. the reason being that even though you kill the colony or the satellite colony (like the one they are trying to set up in my kitchen walls, I imagine) you still need to prevent ants from re-infesting, which they are want to do unless you are able to seal up all avenues of access AND replace any of the attractants that drew them in in the first place (previously water damaged wood). In our case i think that's sort of unrealistic since this is like a one thousand year old house. So, I was straight with the guy and told him I panicked and called Orkin first and then later found his website. He said, "No problem. Definitely get their inspection." I told him that unless they told me something drastically different after the inspection than what their customer service rep quoted me, I'd be calling him back to have his guys do the treatment. his quote was basically half the price of what Orkin said, and required far fewer visits. So, really when you consider Orkin was saying that it would be about...$600 for one year's worth of ant treatment and about $400 each additional year, and this guy was saying it would only cost $250 for the whole year and then only $200 for each year after that...well, seems like a no-brainer.
Which is why I have regained my sanity, for the most part.
So that begs the question A asked me earlier. Why is this ant thing totally bugging me out when there are other pressing issues like the possibility of the car breaking down or us needing a baby sitter or some other such "unknown"?
Well, see, those are already sort of known unknowns.
I *know* that when it comes right down to it, i can take time off to watch Felix if absolutely necessary.
I also know that, if the car does break down in some way, I'm not necessarily at the mercy of the "professionals" or their ridiculous pricing schemes. I've owned cars for like, ten years. In this past year I have done what I consider to be a relatively major repair on my own at greatly reduced cost. And if the car is our of commission for a few days, a week, well, I know we can get around that too.
But when it comes to the house...I know very little about home-owning so whenever something comes up that is of direct or indirect impact to the house, our ability to live in it or at least extract out of it what we put in, I get VERY VERY nervous. I don't know if ants are a nuisance or a major major deal, if they will cost me $100 or $1000 or $10,000 (when we try to sell). And more to the point, I don't feel comfortable trying to do it myself when its not necessarily something that can be done effectively by the individual home owner.
So, pretty much anything that happens involving the house gets top billing in the anxiety show unless it is one of the few things that I already know about, like restarting the boiler, installing a new dryer, etc...
Lets just hope that the seam in the kitchen ceiling is due to the house expanding and contracting from the changes in season. Hope against hope.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
frigration
Today was a bonafide success at work. Everything was essentially all lined up and falling down right in a row by 10:30am so the rest of the day seemed like a formailty. Like a real Friday. We were migrating a major development group to our new source control tool using the process I had worked out two months ago. Yesterday the DBA didn't seem to know it was going on which was bad since they had to do most of the actual work (follow my documentation). Why was this migration a big deal? Because they had their source control environment set up in a very specific way in the old tool and I was able to move their existing settings, database (of metadata), and actual data to the new tool without them losing anything. Most of the other teams are not nearly as mature or complex as this team, so they were just taking a snapshot of their current state and uploading it into the new tool. Not this team. They basically pulled out of the old tool on Wednesday and when they log on the new tool on Monday it will be like nothing has changed (except increased stability and some improved functionality). This is a major win for my team because these guys are the last ones to go to the new tool (as far as we're keeping score...after we are "finished" the stragglers will be coming out of the woodwork...the old source tool goes down about 10 times a day, for real) and we delivered exactly what they wanted, when they wanted, and with as little impact as possible to their development. (we think). We'll know more Monday, but today felt like summer Friday afternoon.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
damn!
I just got hit with an idea that is soooooo freaking awesome that I'm afraid to even talk about it...but I alkso am in no position to make any single part of it happen, so whats the use of keeping quiet?
sigh...ever wonder if you accidentally got hit with someone else's inspiration?
sigh...ever wonder if you accidentally got hit with someone else's inspiration?
Sunday, April 15, 2007
teething
It seems that Felix is teething...for real. He's been waking up a lot more frequently at night, has his drool on 24x7, and he gets super cranky pretty quickly, especially at night.
Poor kiddo.
Poor kiddo.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
sprung?
As in, has it become spring? have we become sprung? Yesterday turned into a nice day, weather wise, and its just supposed to get better over the weekend and into monday. Which is why A turned down the thermostat yesterday (the babysitter was sweating, it was so hot in the house) and then turned it back up before we went to bed. Well, Felix woke up lots last night, most likely because he was a little cold. I couldn;t tell because when you are only in your skivvies and it's o'dark-thirty in the morning/night you don't really notice the difference between 60 degrees and 70 degrees, you just know that under blankets is toasty and out of blankets is not. So anyway, finally around 5 thirty and Felix's umpteenth wake-up, which we'd been asssuming was for feeding since his diaper was not wet, I felt his icy little hands. OK, the kid is a lot like me, so it isn;t unusual for him to seem perfectly happy even though his hands and/or feet are icy cold. His hands are covered in drool half the time, which makes them extra icy. Anyway, as I hovered about at 5:30 in the AM and noticed that it seemed a bit cooler than I expected, and Andrea's complaints of "It is sooooooooo cooooooooooold!" finally started to get some traction. I went down and looked at the readout on the thermostat. 60 degrees. While this was the type of temps we've been dying for outside, its not exactly what we were hoping for inside (or some of us, anyway). WTF? I punch the temp setting and its sitting up at 74. Hrm. That's not good. I go down to the basement and check the furnace. Not running, not a peep, and the boiler is cold. It had been hot the day before, I remember because i had dried one of Felix's diaper wraps on a radiator. Hrm. I whip out the manual and start the process of restarting the boiler. Nada. I do it again. Nada. Crap.
I check out the thermostat, do the little reset thingy on it, put it back on the wall. Nothing. Crap.
So then turn it all off...no point risking gassing or blowing us up. I go up and try the stove and oven. They both work fine, so we still have gas. I even went down to check the meter while the oven was on and heard the reassuring (or frightening, depending on what month it is and how big that gas bill is) tchink tchink tchink or the little dials on the meter spinning.
I go back up to the bedroom where Felix and A are now sleeping (or at least A is trying to sleep while Felix is out like a drunken sailor) and pull out the space heater and turn it on. At least I can heat up the bedroom and finish out the night and tackle the boiler issues at a more reasonable hour.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out the heater. The boiler isn't lighting."
"Well, call someone. It is f-f-freezing in here."
"It's Saturday morning, I doubt anyone is around..."
"Well you better call someone, now."
Sigh...
So I go into the closet and get the business card of the guy who installed the boiler just under a year ago and call him. It's about 6am now. I get his machine so I leave a message. 2 minutes later I get a call back. I think I woke this guy up. I think the boiler company he is the president of, he is also the everything else of. So, with him on the phone and Felix in hand (he decided that he needed to wake up and not go back to sleep...) we went to the basement to troubleshoot the boiler. After about 15 minutes of "Does it have one of these?" "Yes." "Push the button on it." "What button?" "There should be a button." "Oh, there it is. It's a switch." "Yeah, whatever, push it. Did you hear the relay throw?" "No." "Hrm. Ok...look for the..." we did this a couple times and finally I went back up to the thermostat and to calm Felix down (I had parked him in the dining room in the pack-n-play while i was fiddling with the boiler's electrical bits) and switched the thermostat's switch to cool then back to heat. Suddenly I heard a loud familiar "Cli-THUNK" of the boiler kicking on. I called the guy back (the call got dropped probably 3 times during this whole process) and said, "Hey, its working now. Thanks." And now we have heat, again. Which hopefully we'll get to turn off again...but anyway...the sky is clear, it's hovering around 30-40 degrees outside, maybe warmer. Supposed to get into the 50s today and 60s tomorrow. Felix and I walked to the coffee shop on the other side of the park and got coffee and breakfast burrito to share with the babymama (just me, not Felix). And all is relatively right with the world. Well, with that specific part of it at least.
I check out the thermostat, do the little reset thingy on it, put it back on the wall. Nothing. Crap.
So then turn it all off...no point risking gassing or blowing us up. I go up and try the stove and oven. They both work fine, so we still have gas. I even went down to check the meter while the oven was on and heard the reassuring (or frightening, depending on what month it is and how big that gas bill is) tchink tchink tchink or the little dials on the meter spinning.
I go back up to the bedroom where Felix and A are now sleeping (or at least A is trying to sleep while Felix is out like a drunken sailor) and pull out the space heater and turn it on. At least I can heat up the bedroom and finish out the night and tackle the boiler issues at a more reasonable hour.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm getting out the heater. The boiler isn't lighting."
"Well, call someone. It is f-f-freezing in here."
"It's Saturday morning, I doubt anyone is around..."
"Well you better call someone, now."
Sigh...
So I go into the closet and get the business card of the guy who installed the boiler just under a year ago and call him. It's about 6am now. I get his machine so I leave a message. 2 minutes later I get a call back. I think I woke this guy up. I think the boiler company he is the president of, he is also the everything else of. So, with him on the phone and Felix in hand (he decided that he needed to wake up and not go back to sleep...) we went to the basement to troubleshoot the boiler. After about 15 minutes of "Does it have one of these?" "Yes." "Push the button on it." "What button?" "There should be a button." "Oh, there it is. It's a switch." "Yeah, whatever, push it. Did you hear the relay throw?" "No." "Hrm. Ok...look for the..." we did this a couple times and finally I went back up to the thermostat and to calm Felix down (I had parked him in the dining room in the pack-n-play while i was fiddling with the boiler's electrical bits) and switched the thermostat's switch to cool then back to heat. Suddenly I heard a loud familiar "Cli-THUNK" of the boiler kicking on. I called the guy back (the call got dropped probably 3 times during this whole process) and said, "Hey, its working now. Thanks." And now we have heat, again. Which hopefully we'll get to turn off again...but anyway...the sky is clear, it's hovering around 30-40 degrees outside, maybe warmer. Supposed to get into the 50s today and 60s tomorrow. Felix and I walked to the coffee shop on the other side of the park and got coffee and breakfast burrito to share with the babymama (just me, not Felix). And all is relatively right with the world. Well, with that specific part of it at least.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
whiteout
Welcome to spring, this wonderful snowy morning seems to say to me.
We finished version 1 of A's portfolio website and let me tell you, I seriously hate Internet Explorer and this process has just reaffirmed that sentiment. Needless to say, her website whic his chock full of javascripty ajaxy XHTMLy goodness does NOT look as it should on IE (any version). Hell, I don't even think it will show up on anything older than IEv6.x.
And I'm sorry, I know its supposed to be a usability best practice to bend over backwards to accommodate every ancient browser under the sun, but you know what? Do you REALLY want to get a job working for someone who uses that kind of crap? No. In Graphic Design you judge and are judged not only by your work but also by your ability to stay current. You do not do tomorrow's design for yesterday's browser, or client, or anything.
But mostly, I just don't want to have to remake the same site like 5 times just so some schmoe who can't keep up with what's current can look at a website.
Of course, next step it to add Flash to bridge the gaps if possible.
My dad, who used to work in interface design/usability gave the website a failing grade because it lacked user feedback. Of course...he only viewed it in IE. HA. But whatever. Mozilla provides plenty of feedback. Apparently IE doesn't even treat CSS the same as everyone else.
We finished version 1 of A's portfolio website and let me tell you, I seriously hate Internet Explorer and this process has just reaffirmed that sentiment. Needless to say, her website whic his chock full of javascripty ajaxy XHTMLy goodness does NOT look as it should on IE (any version). Hell, I don't even think it will show up on anything older than IEv6.x.
And I'm sorry, I know its supposed to be a usability best practice to bend over backwards to accommodate every ancient browser under the sun, but you know what? Do you REALLY want to get a job working for someone who uses that kind of crap? No. In Graphic Design you judge and are judged not only by your work but also by your ability to stay current. You do not do tomorrow's design for yesterday's browser, or client, or anything.
But mostly, I just don't want to have to remake the same site like 5 times just so some schmoe who can't keep up with what's current can look at a website.
Of course, next step it to add Flash to bridge the gaps if possible.
My dad, who used to work in interface design/usability gave the website a failing grade because it lacked user feedback. Of course...he only viewed it in IE. HA. But whatever. Mozilla provides plenty of feedback. Apparently IE doesn't even treat CSS the same as everyone else.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
walkabout
It's funny. I signed up for the "all-in-one" package for this thing, which included the hotel that they had special booking in that is "attached" to the convention center. HA! I think the convention center and the Marriott share a parking garage or maybe one exterior wall. Anyway, the convention center is LOOOONG and all of the events are happening way down at the other end, which means I (and many of my geeky brethren) make the hike between the Marriott and the convention center D section frequently. I was worried that being out here with all my meals expensed would land me on the fat wagon, but with all this walking, and the fact that I have almost no other source of food unless I go out and buy munchies or snacks or something, I don't think I need to worry about that.
Well, I need to decide whether I get breakfast here at the hotel or check out what they are doing at the convention center.
Well, I need to decide whether I get breakfast here at the hotel or check out what they are doing at the convention center.
Monday, March 26, 2007
going back to cali
So I'm now in beautiful, overcast, colder than Minneapolis, San Diego, CA. I'm all checked into my room and I've registered at the conbvention center (and received a cheap feeling laptop bag full of "swag"). OK. Now I'm off to an orientation session to try and get the most out of this summit.
Ta.
Ta.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
mr. dad
I think maybe its is a generational thing, or maybe its a cultural thing, or maybe...who knows. But I find it funny that in the 80's a movie like Mr. Mom was, you know, a perfectly valid topic for comedy. And I'm not even talking about the PC movement or anything, I'm just talking about what I feel is a change in the overall assumptions about childrearing and who does what. I would like to think that in this day and age, the way that Andrea and I divide the work is not uncommon. Consider that in large part, girls grow up into women with the expectation that they will be working, having careers. And I don't mean that until now girls didn't have that assumption. So when it comes to kids, both parents are in the same boat. The only real difference is that for the first year the baby has biological needs that only the mother can fill (and of course, the mother is biologically impacted by the 9 months prior to birth and the several months afterwards), but other than that, there's no built-in assumptions that the mother does a,b,c and the father does d. Nope. These days, at least in my house, it goes mom and dad to a,b,c,d. In some cases, mom or dad has do do more b or d because of the current dynamics, economic forces, etc...but if all things are equal, the split is pretty close to 50-50.
These days, Mr. Mom is sort of a myth, and if he exists out there, I feel sorry for his family. Mr. Mom should be Mr. Dad.
These days, Mr. Mom is sort of a myth, and if he exists out there, I feel sorry for his family. Mr. Mom should be Mr. Dad.
mr. dad
I think maybe its is a generational thing, or maybe its a cultural thing, or maybe...who knows. But I find it funny that in the 80's a movie like Mr. Mom was, you know, a perfectly valid topic for comedy. And I'm not even talking about the PC movement or anything, I'm just talking about what I feel is a change in the overall assumptions about childrearing and who does what. I would like to think that in this day and age, the way that Andrea and I divide the work is not uncommon. Consider that in large part, girls grow up into women with the expectation that they will be working, having careers. And I don't mean that until now girls didn't have that assumption. So when it comes to kids, both parents are in the same boat. The only real difference is that for the first year the baby has biological needs that only the mother can fill (and of course, the mother is biologically impacted by the 9 months prior to birth and the several months afterwards), but other than that, there's no built-in assumptions that the mother does a,b,c and the father does d. Nope. These days, at least in my house, it goes mom and dad to a,b,c,d. In some cases, mom or dad has do do more b or d because of the current dynamics, economic forces, etc...but if all things are equal, the split is pretty close to 50-50.
These days, Mr. Mom is sort of a myth, and if he exists out there, I feel sorry for his family. Mr. Mom should be Mr. Dad.
These days, Mr. Mom is sort of a myth, and if he exists out there, I feel sorry for his family. Mr. Mom should be Mr. Dad.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Gaaah!
I never seem to find time to write here, especially be cause there is so much to write about.
The rundown:
Felix now crawls, pulls himself to standing on furniture and pants legs, can do a lap around the first floor in his walker at subsonic speeds, eats solid food, feeds himself "crackers", and maybe this week will start sleeping through the night again. He's gotten over the hump of daylight savings time change, though I don't feel that I have yet. He is a "good eater" on most days and a good pooper on the following days. I can tell that he's excited about the prospect of using the toilet, but it seems like simply a novelty to him right now.
I got promoted to Systems Engineer in January. I must have mentioned that before. Hell, I haven't read my own blog in who knows how long so I don't even know what the last thing I wrote about was.
I'm going to San Diego next week for a Microsoft conference. That's neat.
I can not wait for warm weather because the gas bill is absolutely killing me. Of course, by the time cold weather starts up again I'll probably have just finished paying off this winter's gas bill. Good grief. You'd think that with the raises and promotions I'd be doing OK but the exponential rise in heating between November and March just completely yanked the rug out from under us, financially. I mean, seriously, it would almost make more sense for us to rent a studio apartment that has utilities included for the winter months and just shut off the heat and electricity in the house. Seriously. Anyway...enough about probably the most stressful thing in my life right now. As a rule, "there's always something" to knock the wind out of our sails. Well, I just keep saying to myself, "Just make it through winter, make it through winter...". Provided I am able to use that plan where they average your gas bill out over the year...I don't think we can do another winter like this.
We've been putting a lot of time into A's new portfolio website. I think it's pretty nice and I've gotten to learn a lot of little things that I dodn't know about, like how I can write javascript and use space-age technologies like "ajax". heh.
I think I learned from my dad that the sure way to get to work on your hobbies, or to at least do stuff that you consider to be fun is to make it something that the wife is asking for. You can spend an evening fiddling with websites and learning script languages if she requests your help on making a website. You can buy that new table saw if she asks you to build her a bookshelf...
...
..agg, and here i am coming back to this post like a day and a half later...
The rundown:
Felix now crawls, pulls himself to standing on furniture and pants legs, can do a lap around the first floor in his walker at subsonic speeds, eats solid food, feeds himself "crackers", and maybe this week will start sleeping through the night again. He's gotten over the hump of daylight savings time change, though I don't feel that I have yet. He is a "good eater" on most days and a good pooper on the following days. I can tell that he's excited about the prospect of using the toilet, but it seems like simply a novelty to him right now.
I got promoted to Systems Engineer in January. I must have mentioned that before. Hell, I haven't read my own blog in who knows how long so I don't even know what the last thing I wrote about was.
I'm going to San Diego next week for a Microsoft conference. That's neat.
I can not wait for warm weather because the gas bill is absolutely killing me. Of course, by the time cold weather starts up again I'll probably have just finished paying off this winter's gas bill. Good grief. You'd think that with the raises and promotions I'd be doing OK but the exponential rise in heating between November and March just completely yanked the rug out from under us, financially. I mean, seriously, it would almost make more sense for us to rent a studio apartment that has utilities included for the winter months and just shut off the heat and electricity in the house. Seriously. Anyway...enough about probably the most stressful thing in my life right now. As a rule, "there's always something" to knock the wind out of our sails. Well, I just keep saying to myself, "Just make it through winter, make it through winter...". Provided I am able to use that plan where they average your gas bill out over the year...I don't think we can do another winter like this.
We've been putting a lot of time into A's new portfolio website. I think it's pretty nice and I've gotten to learn a lot of little things that I dodn't know about, like how I can write javascript and use space-age technologies like "ajax". heh.
I think I learned from my dad that the sure way to get to work on your hobbies, or to at least do stuff that you consider to be fun is to make it something that the wife is asking for. You can spend an evening fiddling with websites and learning script languages if she requests your help on making a website. You can buy that new table saw if she asks you to build her a bookshelf...
...
..agg, and here i am coming back to this post like a day and a half later...
Thursday, March 08, 2007
I/O
Sometimes it feels like I'm living in binary. At work on any given day I'm either swamped with work or bored. On any given day I'm either happy or crappy.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
alive
Yeah, I've been a little lax in the bloggering. I'm alive, Andrea and Felix are mostly recovered from their bouts of cold, and life is sort of back to normal.
I'm busy as all get out at work, Andrea's super busy at home taking care of Felix and working on keeping the vestiges of her career alive until she can revert back to full-time focus on it, and Felix is, of course, super busy learning and developing, and being an all-around genius baby. He cruises around in his walker, fowards and backwards, and he's loving being able to stand by holding on the sides of his crib or pack-n-play. When placed on the floor, he can slither forwards but currently he only has reverse gear when crawling. He's eating solids pretty muchy every day, and a wide range from rice cereal, pureed veggies, and now pureed lamb, which seems boring and gross at first (think of a watery pate) but after the first spoonful he goes absolutely nuts for it. And now I know where the really really bad smelling poop comes from. He now has almost regular mini adult turds. GREAT.
We interviewed babysitters over the past two nights and had some superstar applicants, all of whom we plan to use. Oddly enough, one of them was a girl I went to highschool with (she was one year behind me). In sort of happy/sad news, 3 out of 4 babysitters seem to be very successful and on track to be way more successful than either Andrea or myself feel right now (they were all grad students in medicine or Law, etc...).
But hey, whats important is now we have a stable of stars we can call on to take some of the heat off of us in case we want to go out or Andrea just needs a rest, and luckily none of them are demanding the $$$ that our last round of "Nanny" ads got us. This time we just said "Looking for occasional babysitters, great for college student" and thus got responses from all of these uber-high-quality grad students. sigh.
I'm busy as all get out at work, Andrea's super busy at home taking care of Felix and working on keeping the vestiges of her career alive until she can revert back to full-time focus on it, and Felix is, of course, super busy learning and developing, and being an all-around genius baby. He cruises around in his walker, fowards and backwards, and he's loving being able to stand by holding on the sides of his crib or pack-n-play. When placed on the floor, he can slither forwards but currently he only has reverse gear when crawling. He's eating solids pretty muchy every day, and a wide range from rice cereal, pureed veggies, and now pureed lamb, which seems boring and gross at first (think of a watery pate) but after the first spoonful he goes absolutely nuts for it. And now I know where the really really bad smelling poop comes from. He now has almost regular mini adult turds. GREAT.
We interviewed babysitters over the past two nights and had some superstar applicants, all of whom we plan to use. Oddly enough, one of them was a girl I went to highschool with (she was one year behind me). In sort of happy/sad news, 3 out of 4 babysitters seem to be very successful and on track to be way more successful than either Andrea or myself feel right now (they were all grad students in medicine or Law, etc...).
But hey, whats important is now we have a stable of stars we can call on to take some of the heat off of us in case we want to go out or Andrea just needs a rest, and luckily none of them are demanding the $$$ that our last round of "Nanny" ads got us. This time we just said "Looking for occasional babysitters, great for college student" and thus got responses from all of these uber-high-quality grad students. sigh.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
good...grief.
Felix and Andrea have come down with various versions of a "cold." He has a runny nose and nasty mucusy cough, she has a head ache, body ache, dried-out sore throat. I seem to have escaped the worst of it myself with just a slight headache one day last week and your usual winter craptacular nasal crud. Anyway, on top of staying up with Felix a lot at night because of his coughing, i was also on-call last week (ended at 10am today) and Sunday and Monday nights had stupid idiots calling me up between 1 and 2 am.
I stayed home monday to take care of Andrea and Felix. My dad is there today to help out, (Thanks dad!) which lets me go to work in good conscience. And holy howdy doody! Yesterday, while i was at home, but working (during their naps) my boss drops it on me that, hey, there's this Microsoft thing in San Diego in March and wouldn't I be interested in going? Hell yes. SO I spent a good chunk of today jumping through hoops to get my stuff lined up and wham bam thankya ma'am, I'm going on a business trip. I feel like I've finally grown up. And this will be my first time to California (though not my first time out west. I did go to Seattle over Memorial Day Weekend a some years back, but that's a different blog). So, wowzers. So much to happen all at once.
All this time we've been pretty lucky that Felix has been pretty healthy. This cold is enough to make me understand why people get so wigged out sometimes when their kids get sick. I'm just so worried that one of these times he's not going to be able to move all that crud and then we're in for a really wild ride...Hopefully he'll be turning the corner on this thing and start getting better because he sure seems to get at least a little bit worse each day, if at least not any better.
I stayed home monday to take care of Andrea and Felix. My dad is there today to help out, (Thanks dad!) which lets me go to work in good conscience. And holy howdy doody! Yesterday, while i was at home, but working (during their naps) my boss drops it on me that, hey, there's this Microsoft thing in San Diego in March and wouldn't I be interested in going? Hell yes. SO I spent a good chunk of today jumping through hoops to get my stuff lined up and wham bam thankya ma'am, I'm going on a business trip. I feel like I've finally grown up. And this will be my first time to California (though not my first time out west. I did go to Seattle over Memorial Day Weekend a some years back, but that's a different blog). So, wowzers. So much to happen all at once.
All this time we've been pretty lucky that Felix has been pretty healthy. This cold is enough to make me understand why people get so wigged out sometimes when their kids get sick. I'm just so worried that one of these times he's not going to be able to move all that crud and then we're in for a really wild ride...Hopefully he'll be turning the corner on this thing and start getting better because he sure seems to get at least a little bit worse each day, if at least not any better.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
solids
As I mentioned, Felix is about a week or two into eating solid foods. So far he has eaten rice cereal, squash, potato, sweet potato, and carrot. his attitude towards these foods ranges from grudgingly tolerating to totally loving it. And with solid food comes....dun dun DUN, solid poop. I go away to work during the day and come back at night. Felix generally does most of his pooping during the day so there are times when I may go for several days without coming face to face with a Felix fece. As he has been eating more and more solid foods, his frequency of pooping has gone down, so for me the shift from the innocent, sickly sweet smelling yellowy poopums to the nasty, brown, solid, shitty smelling shit has been rather abrupt. The honeymoon is over.
And I wouldn't mind it as much, since he poops so much less frequently, but also his pee now smells like...well...piss, and he does that even more now. Not more frequently, but more voluminously. Sigh... my baby boy is growing up.
And it is another one of those wake-up calls that you realize you really are a parent when you find yourself wiping a poopy butt (or in Felix's case, prying that nasty brown mass out of his crack). Up til now it has been all rosy and runny and not at all like what you do for yourself in the bathroom. Well surprise, you are really doing the thankless job now. Now we're really in the shit.
Next week we're going to start in on the fruits. Bananas, mangoes (if we can find any), etc. No citrus, no raw apples either, but applesauce is supposed to be ok.
And I wouldn't mind it as much, since he poops so much less frequently, but also his pee now smells like...well...piss, and he does that even more now. Not more frequently, but more voluminously. Sigh... my baby boy is growing up.
And it is another one of those wake-up calls that you realize you really are a parent when you find yourself wiping a poopy butt (or in Felix's case, prying that nasty brown mass out of his crack). Up til now it has been all rosy and runny and not at all like what you do for yourself in the bathroom. Well surprise, you are really doing the thankless job now. Now we're really in the shit.
Next week we're going to start in on the fruits. Bananas, mangoes (if we can find any), etc. No citrus, no raw apples either, but applesauce is supposed to be ok.
amature oden
I was informed on Sunday that I would be in charge of dinner all week due to A's busy evening schedule. And on top of that, I was going to be going grocery shopping by myself("I don't care if we just eat sandwiches every night." -A). OK. So I needed to come up with a game plan because when I try to shop and cook according to what normally does in the kitchen six types of hell break loose and it's never pretty. So I decide I'll go into uncharted territory. I had read about the asian "hotpot" (every asian country seems to have their own variation) meal. Basically, you have a pot of broth that you get simmering and you throw in all kinds of everything. The differences between regional hotpots seems to be the specific types of ingredients and how you eat it. In some you add everything and then you simmer for a looooong time, in others you get your basic broth a bubblin with just a few key flavoring ingredients and then you have all of your other ingredients chopped and ready in bowls. You then toss in whichever ingredients you like and they cook up quickly. This usually means things like fish, pork, chicken, tofu, veggies, etc. You throw it in, was a minute, and pull it out. You then eat your cooked items with various dipping sauces. That's the chinese style, as I understand it.
Well, I decided to try Oden, which is the Japanese variation. This is the kind where you add your ingredients early on and simmer for hours. Traditionally you make oden using your basic dashi (broth of either konbu, shiitake, niboshi [sardine], or bonito flakes) and then adding your ingredients, all of them, and then just let that puppy simmer, adding water and shoyu as necessary. Also, you can keep adding ingredients as necessary. So I made my shopping list and picked up several basic items for making an oden. If it worked out well, we would have a new easy to make dish in our repertoire, and if it was a flop, hey, I took a risk. Oh, and also oden is considered a "winter dish" that is warming and filling.
So last night I made a double batch of konbu dashi (8 cups water, 2 pieces of konbu[plankton/seaweed/sea vegetable]) which gives somewhere between 6 and 7 cups of broth. Tonight I had A start the broth simmering as I was leaving from work. I only had her use 5 cups because I didn't want to use all of it and I didn't want it to be 8 cups of flop if it flopped. Well, I get home to the smell of...mmmmm...simmering seaweed. It actually smells nice for a while because it gives the feel of being near the ocean. It is only after an hour of simmering without adding anything else that it starts to smell too much like low tide. Well, the co-op we shop at has a semi-respectable ethnic/gourmet selection so I was able to get certain things like konbu, dried shiitake, and of course produce. Unfortunately they didn't have daikon raddish but I substituted black raddish. And they didn't have yam starch cakes or fish cakes or any of those truly "oriental" ingredients, which is fine, I didn't want to try this with seafood the first time...too much risk of things going wrong and being inedible. I picked up some produce that I thought would compliment the black raddish and broth, like green onion, leaks, potatoes. The recipe I was following also included boiled eggs. Well, I can do that.
So tonight I got home from work to the simmering broth. After it had been simmering for almost a hour and getting quite strong, I chopped the raddish, leaks, shalots, carrots, potatoes, and beef (I had picked up a pack of stirfry-ready beef strips). Keep in mind, when you do an oden with meat, you really should try to get the best cut of meat available and you should have it very thinly sliced. Since I was putting together the first-time low-budget oden, and since the butcher at the co-op did not have a deli slicer, I opted for pre-cut meat of relatively low quality. No biggie. Worst case scenario is I end up firing up the wok. Ok, so I've added all my ingredients and walked away. The idea is to let it simmer for at least 2 hours, making sure to add more broth, water, and shoyu to keep it liquid and from getting too heavy.
And, as i chopped stuff and added stuff I did a very cheffly thing and kept taking little tastes of everything before putting it in (not potato, of course, but everything else) and kept tasting the oden as is simmered along. Now, remember, I wasn't using any seafood or fish, but mostly pretty standard ingredients for your basic stew. I started to get a little disappointed when my japanese experiment started to taste like "basic beef and vegetable stew". Hrm. Well, after a couple hours of adding water and shoyu, I decided it was time to actually dig in and have myself a bowl.
DELICIOUS. Granted, the ingredients I used were not traditional japanese, but more traditional american, but damn....good stuff. The first bowl I had was just straight up stew. YUM. Half-way through it I added buckwheat soba noodles and more stew. WOW, even better! The second bowl was more noodles, more stew. DELISH! Now I decided that I wanted to dress it up a bit before Andrea had her first bowl, so I rehydrated a handful of shiitake, added the resulting shiitake broth (only about a teaspoon work, unfortunately) and the rinsed and chopped mushrooms.
Ok, keep in mind also that I'd been sampling and eating this stew all night for a couple hours now, and each time you just add more water, more soy sauce, and if you get low on other stuff, add more of it! I started out with a lot of veggies and stuff so I've not really had to add any more, just more liquid. It is nice and warming. Now, next time I'll try to go the extra steps to use some more authentic ingredients, and of course, the traditional way of eating it is to put karashi (hot mustard) on each bit before you eat it...but all in all, while not the most authentic, it is certainly a delicious tasting, hearty, homey, warming meal. I think I'll have this stuff for lunch tomorrow too. It'll go great with a sandwich. I can hardly wait! Finally, a meal that is better the longer you cook it!!!! no more over-cooking!
Well, I decided to try Oden, which is the Japanese variation. This is the kind where you add your ingredients early on and simmer for hours. Traditionally you make oden using your basic dashi (broth of either konbu, shiitake, niboshi [sardine], or bonito flakes) and then adding your ingredients, all of them, and then just let that puppy simmer, adding water and shoyu as necessary. Also, you can keep adding ingredients as necessary. So I made my shopping list and picked up several basic items for making an oden. If it worked out well, we would have a new easy to make dish in our repertoire, and if it was a flop, hey, I took a risk. Oh, and also oden is considered a "winter dish" that is warming and filling.
So last night I made a double batch of konbu dashi (8 cups water, 2 pieces of konbu[plankton/seaweed/sea vegetable]) which gives somewhere between 6 and 7 cups of broth. Tonight I had A start the broth simmering as I was leaving from work. I only had her use 5 cups because I didn't want to use all of it and I didn't want it to be 8 cups of flop if it flopped. Well, I get home to the smell of...mmmmm...simmering seaweed. It actually smells nice for a while because it gives the feel of being near the ocean. It is only after an hour of simmering without adding anything else that it starts to smell too much like low tide. Well, the co-op we shop at has a semi-respectable ethnic/gourmet selection so I was able to get certain things like konbu, dried shiitake, and of course produce. Unfortunately they didn't have daikon raddish but I substituted black raddish. And they didn't have yam starch cakes or fish cakes or any of those truly "oriental" ingredients, which is fine, I didn't want to try this with seafood the first time...too much risk of things going wrong and being inedible. I picked up some produce that I thought would compliment the black raddish and broth, like green onion, leaks, potatoes. The recipe I was following also included boiled eggs. Well, I can do that.
So tonight I got home from work to the simmering broth. After it had been simmering for almost a hour and getting quite strong, I chopped the raddish, leaks, shalots, carrots, potatoes, and beef (I had picked up a pack of stirfry-ready beef strips). Keep in mind, when you do an oden with meat, you really should try to get the best cut of meat available and you should have it very thinly sliced. Since I was putting together the first-time low-budget oden, and since the butcher at the co-op did not have a deli slicer, I opted for pre-cut meat of relatively low quality. No biggie. Worst case scenario is I end up firing up the wok. Ok, so I've added all my ingredients and walked away. The idea is to let it simmer for at least 2 hours, making sure to add more broth, water, and shoyu to keep it liquid and from getting too heavy.
And, as i chopped stuff and added stuff I did a very cheffly thing and kept taking little tastes of everything before putting it in (not potato, of course, but everything else) and kept tasting the oden as is simmered along. Now, remember, I wasn't using any seafood or fish, but mostly pretty standard ingredients for your basic stew. I started to get a little disappointed when my japanese experiment started to taste like "basic beef and vegetable stew". Hrm. Well, after a couple hours of adding water and shoyu, I decided it was time to actually dig in and have myself a bowl.
DELICIOUS. Granted, the ingredients I used were not traditional japanese, but more traditional american, but damn....good stuff. The first bowl I had was just straight up stew. YUM. Half-way through it I added buckwheat soba noodles and more stew. WOW, even better! The second bowl was more noodles, more stew. DELISH! Now I decided that I wanted to dress it up a bit before Andrea had her first bowl, so I rehydrated a handful of shiitake, added the resulting shiitake broth (only about a teaspoon work, unfortunately) and the rinsed and chopped mushrooms.
Ok, keep in mind also that I'd been sampling and eating this stew all night for a couple hours now, and each time you just add more water, more soy sauce, and if you get low on other stuff, add more of it! I started out with a lot of veggies and stuff so I've not really had to add any more, just more liquid. It is nice and warming. Now, next time I'll try to go the extra steps to use some more authentic ingredients, and of course, the traditional way of eating it is to put karashi (hot mustard) on each bit before you eat it...but all in all, while not the most authentic, it is certainly a delicious tasting, hearty, homey, warming meal. I think I'll have this stuff for lunch tomorrow too. It'll go great with a sandwich. I can hardly wait! Finally, a meal that is better the longer you cook it!!!! no more over-cooking!
Friday, February 02, 2007
work work work
With my team's "creative year-in-review presentation" out of the way (I did a 9 minute animated video based on LOST and using southpark-esque 2d animation, featuring my team) and one of my team mates having moved on to greener pastures, I am now full swing into the new year with several new tasks and projects on my plate. I have been BUSY as hell.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
fast food
Felix had his first "solid food" yesterday night in the form of rice cereal in breast milk. And, of course, he was a natural and didn't spit any of it out. A little bit dribbled out the side of his mouth while he was chewing, but otherwise he took it all right from the spoon and gobbled it down. He's really been chomping at the bit to start eating anyway, so I think he's been waiting for this.
Also, his 6 month appointment was on Friday. He's 18lbs, 4 1/4 oz, 27 inches tall. He's in the 70 something percentile for height, 60-something for weight, and high-fifty-something for head circumference. He's a growing boy. It was also the first doctor appt that he didn't have a major poop during.
Also, his 6 month appointment was on Friday. He's 18lbs, 4 1/4 oz, 27 inches tall. He's in the 70 something percentile for height, 60-something for weight, and high-fifty-something for head circumference. He's a growing boy. It was also the first doctor appt that he didn't have a major poop during.
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