Growing Moss

List Update

2008-08-12T09:37:00.003-05:00

Here are some things that are going on with me and mine

Xavier is officially a walker.
Xavier has his first pair of shoes
Xavier just started a new day care that is closer to home
Oliver is getting better about recognizing letters and numbers
My wife is going back to work full time
We are looking for a new (used) car
I've started going to work early in the morning to get my hours in
As soon as we get the second car, I'm going to be on pick-up duty.
I played my first roller hockey game since Oliver was very young on Sunday.
I feel like I'm hitting my stride at work.

In which I step back between the pipes

2008-08-12T08:33:00.002-05:00

Everyone has a set of characteristics that they want other people to view them as having. For me, one of those defining characteristics is helpful. Which is how I found myself Sunday strapping on a set of goalie pads for the first time in five years.

When I was back in college many moons ago, my friend convinced a bunch of us that we wanted to start playing roller hockey. At first it was just games on the top of the parking garage. Then it was renting out a rink for a stick and puck session. Then it was joining a league and playing. At some point in all of this, I decided that since we needed a goalie (and I couldn't skate) that it would be helpful for me to grab some pads and jump in between the pipes. I wasn't good, but I enjoyed it and I was helpful. Over time I got better and got better pads. But after a while I wasn't enjoying it any more.

The problem with being a goalie is that no one really wants to play there, but it isn't as enjoyable of a game without them. In hockey, the highs of the game are when goals are scored. Consequently (especially in rec hockey), there is a lot of effort and energy expended in scoring goals and much less spent in preventing them from being scored. Unless you are the goalie, in which case your entire game is spent trying to deny goal scoring highs to the other team. Blocking shots and getting hit by the pack are what most people fear about being goalie, but they aren't actually bad. The padding absorbs most of the impact, so it rarely hurts when you get hit. Goalie pads start out heavy and become heavier as you get tired and sweaty. They generally possess a certain funkiness that comes from games upon games of accumulated sweat. The other factor in goalie life is that it takes so long to put on all of the pads and to take them off that once they are on, they aren't coming off until the game is over. As a skater, if I get bored on defense or offense, I can just switch positions with someone or take a rush when I get the puck. But a goalie can't just switch with somone. You'd end up killing 30 minutes of precious rink time making the switch.

For the skaters, the game is much more enjoyable with a goalie than without. Without a goalie, there are a couple of options, but generally what happens is that the nets are pushed over exposing the top netting and goals only count if they hit that top netting. For the better players, hitting the net is less of a challenge and closer to a basketball free throw, so the high of goal scoring is lowered. For the newer players, hitting that netting is very difficult as you have to lift the puck just a little bit and aim it precisely. For newer skaters, the sheer size of a full net and the possibility of scoring without having to be so precise makes the game more fun. And for better skaters, getting the puck past the goalie becomes a laudable goal. If you have hockey friends, no one ever talks about their open net goals, but they'll go on and on about the slapper that just had eyes for the glove side arm hole.

With all of this in mind, I listened as the captain of my new roller hockey team explained that the two primary goalies couldn't make it today. I watched as the backup goalie started to put on the pads backwards and in the wrong order. Finally I couldn't take it any more.

"I really didn't want to say this, but I've played goal before. I'm not very good, but I'll jump in this week."

And so I pulled on the goalie pants, still moist from the last poor sucker. I strapped on the oversized leg pads and tightened all of the straps. I wriggled into the body armor and pulled over my goalie jersey. I grabbed the helmet and plunked it on my head. I grabbed the blocker, the catcher and the stick. I skated out onto the rink just in time to start the game. So unwarmed, unstretched, wearing a borrowed set of pads, I played goal for the first time in five years. It was brutal. We lost 10-3. My save percentage hovered around .500. About the only saving grace was that I did a bit better in the second half of the game.

I hope that next week the real goalies show up. But if they don't I'll hop in net again, helpful as ever.

Book: Vital Friends

2008-07-07T17:48:00.002-05:00

As a member of the Gallup poll, I get to regularly voice my opinion that President Bush is doing a terrible job. If that weren't satisfying enough, a couple of weeks ago Gallup sent me a book, Vital Friends by Tom Rath. This past weekend, I was looking for something to read and I came across it again. With a shrug and a sigh, I sat down and started to read.

The premise of the book is that people in general can become happier, healthier, and more productive by focussing on their relationships. According to the author, vital friends (friends who you can't do without) fall into eight categories that describe what you get out of a relationship. Builders are great motivators. Champions stand up for you. Collaborators are friends that share your interests. Connectors are friends who introduce you to new people. Companions are always there when you need them. Energizers are the "fun" friends. Mind Openers introduce you to new things. Navigators are great at giving advice. The book breaks down each type of friend, describes what they do, how you'd describe the friend to someone else, how to strengthen that type of friendship, how to acquire more of that type of friend, and how to be a better friend of that type.

Friendships are not always mirrors in terms of what roles the parties play. For example, my wife is a builder, a companion, and a navigator. To her, I'm a companion, a navigator, and a connector. One of the nuggets of advice in the book is to appreciate the roles that your friend is best at and not dwell on the roles that your friend may not excel at. One of the biggest fights that my wife and I had was when I tried to get her to be more of a Collaborator in a hobby that she had absolutely no interest in doing.

One of the "bonuses" with the purchase of the book is access to the VitalFriends.com website. One chapter of the book describes how to use the site. On it, you can answer questions and figure out what roles each of your friends plays in your life. But there isn't a way to sign in without the code from the book. So you can recommend that a friend try it out, but in order to access the site, she would have to buy a fresh copy of the book and hope that no one grabbed the code from the book while it sat on the shelf at Borders. I appreciate that the authors want to be paid for their work, but in the age of MySpace, FaceBook, and other social networking sites, there ought to be a way to make the service available to someone without them having to purchase the book.

Favorite cheap places to take the kids in St. Louis

2008-07-04T23:28:00.004-05:00

1) The Zoo - An obvious choice, it's good all year round. Educational and free - how could you go wrong.

2) The Science Center - Another obvious choice. That it is all pretty much indoors only adds to the appeal in the winter.

3) Tower Grove Park - There are a lot of play areas and playgrounds. But what makes Tower Grove different for me is the Fountain Square wading pool. Free and open to the public, this area is a lot of fun for the munchkins and easy for the adults. Just remember to bring a dry change of clothes.

4) It's Party Time (on Watson) - They are extremely flexible in terms of what food you can bring in and adults are free. Both of our kids loved it. Just watch out on entrances and exits from the inflatable equipment - I didn't think there was nearly enough padding.

5) The pharmacy - There is a pharmacy right down the street from my house. The attraction of the pharmacy is that we can go and pick up some nickel and dime candy for Oliver and Daddy. Each time he can try something new, so it is always an adventure.

6) The Metrolink station - Oliver loves trains. The nearest Metrolink stop is within walking distance. We can usually see three trains in fifteen minutes. And when we're done, we can walk home.

7) The Mills mall play area - Another indoor play area. This was a godsend last summer when it was too hot to go outside.

8) The library - The library is a great place to go with your kids. They have puzzles and books and movies.

9) The firehouse - Not all firehouses are the same, but if yours is anything like ours, it's a great place to take the kids. When the firefighters are not out fighting fires, they are more than amenable to showing the kids the fire engines and the ambulances. And with each visit, they get a plastic fire helmet (I really need to figure out a way to gracefully refuse them - we are frequent visitors and I'd like to make sure that there is enough for other people).

I'll add more as I think of them. Do you have any that I missed?

Interesting Java behavior

2008-07-02T13:41:00.002-05:00

I recently was working with a generic list that was being populated by Hibernate.

List fooList = getFooFromHibernate();
for (Foo foo : fooList)
{
// do stuff
}

I was getting ClassCastExceptions while iterating through the list. It took a while to figure out, but the getFooFromHibernate method had a join to the BAR table in it without selecting the fields. Because of this Hibernate dumped a Foo into the list AND a Bar. When I iterated through the list, I got the exception.

This behavior can be caught with integration tests by iterating through the lists retrieved from the database.

Learning from a bad book

2008-07-01T12:55:00.002-05:00

This past weekend my wife picked up Rich Dad, Poor Dad from the shelves at my parents' house. The book is a "non-fiction" fable of a self-made man who has become rich from the advice from his rich father figure. His actual father, aka Poor Dad, is the source of the traditional advice of Study Hard, Word Hard, and Get a Good Job. The author argues that this usually translates into someone becoming a wage slave by increasing their standard of living as their wages increase. The advice from Rich Dad falls into the usual investment nuggets of Pay Yourself First, Buy Assets, and Don't Be Afraid to Take Risks.

In general, the content of the book was mixed - some good information and some bad information. The material was persuasively presented but contained little new and/or different advice. Often the interests of the author shown through as he advised the reader to purchase his board game, Cash Flow, to buy books (he's an author), and attend lectures on how to become rich (he's a motivational speaker).

The lesson I took from the book was to wake up, to get off of our collective keesters, and to do something about building up an investment portfolio that has a non-trivial return. I'm not exactly sure how to do that (the book was unclear on specifics), but I'm at least more motivated than I had been in finding out the answer. Despite being a completionist, I doubt that I'll be following up in order to read more by the author, but I can say that it was a good book at the instant I read it.

Still ticking

2008-06-04T23:30:00.002-05:00

I had surgery today on my nose. The idea was that the doctor was going to be able to fix it before it healed up in the wrong shape. However, I think that all the king's horses and all the king's men were busy today. So it's better than it used to be, but still going to be somewhat misaligned. As long as I can breathe well through it, I'll take it. Otherwise I may see a rhinoplasty in my future. That's got to be everyone's favorite word, doesn't it?

List update

2008-05-31T00:36:00.004-05:00

Here are some of the things that are going on with me:

Looking at sending the kids to private school.
Looking at paying for sending the kids to private school.
Thinking about refinancing the house.
Thinking about moving into a better school district.
Significant changes in my birth family.
I broke my nose last Sunday.
Fighting a sinus infection.
Started at a new site.
Trying to fit into a new team.
Looking into buying a car.
Contempating being done with procreation.
Happy for my procreating friends.
Monitoring the whereabouts of the newly cruising and stair climbing Xavier.
Monitoring the meltdowns of big brother.
Being unsatisified with my writing.

My first day is Monday

2008-04-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

It didn't take too long. On Monday, I rejoin the working class. I knew my life of leisure couldn't last forever. Thank goodness.

I have had better weeks

2008-04-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

If I separate the situation I'm in from how I got here, I look at this as a fabulous opportunity. I have a skill set that is very much in demand. The job market is really good right now. If I do this right, I can find a place that is rewarding personally, professionally, and financially. This is a very exciting time. But the other day

"Daddy, can we stop by your office?"
"No, I don't work there any more."
"Oh, can we go to your office?"
"That's not my office any more."
"Oh, why not?"

Shock to the system

2008-04-03T15:54:00.001-05:00

I got fired today.

Anyone looking for a developer with ASP .NET and C# experience? I think I know one.

If I ruled the world

2008-04-02T13:07:00.002-05:00

I just finished an interesting exercise. I started writing a list of all of the events that I would like to attend this month. In a 30 day month, I came up with 16 different things that I wanted to do. And here is the catch - none of them involved my family. It was all gaming related nights out.

In my own defense, five of them start well after my family goes to bed. Two of them I don't expect to go to as they occur during the day on the weekend. And four of them I consider very much optional. On redirect, I might note that I've been noted to be grumpy when awoken early in the morning after late nights, so even my ameliorations aren't as compelling.

It is somewhat eye opening that I can find that much that I want to do where the onus of child care is placed solely on my wife. In exchange, she gets a morning exercise class three times a week in the morning and one night out a month with her book club. Sometimes I wonder why she doesn't like my hobbies. Without trouble, I can think of 16 reasons.

Montessori day

2008-04-01T23:01:00.005-05:00

My wife and I went to a meeting at Chesterfield Montessori today. Afterwards we toured the school. It was a very nice place, flooded with natural light. It was remarkably quiet too even though no teachers hovered over their charges with ruler in hand. The campus is very nice with a pool, a tennis court, a garden, some nice play equipment, and a lot of green space. All in all it was definitely a place where I'd be comfortable sending my child.

They sent us a packet of information containing the usual brochures. They also included at my request a study that was published comparing the long term effects of Montessori education on a group of 10th graders, some of whom had graduated from Montessori after 6th grade. With controls in place to control for gender, SES, and minority status, the Montessori graduates performed markedly better in science and math and almost statistically better in overall GPA. They didn't show marked improvement in language.

There are a lot of things that I like about sending my children to Montessori schools. Among them is the idea of fluid transitions. When a child shows that they are ready to move up, the teachers will allow them to flow into the next classroom. This is especially appealing to me as I have been grumping about being a year in school behind some of his cousin who is three months older. I accept that no matter how the age range sliced in a traditional educational setting, someone gets left behind. It may be that he would be bigger and more emotionally and intellectually ready when his time would come, but if he has my experience, he may just be bored. Montessori would help that as he could move up a section when he is ready move up, and not just when September rolls around again.

Having trouble maintaining motivation

2008-04-01T22:44:00.003-05:00

I've lost 25 going on 30 pounds so far. I feel lighter. I've moved from a borderline 38 waist to a solid 33 waist. I need to do some shopping as belts can only help so much. I am finding myself wearing less baggy clothing as I'm less ashamed of my body. But even with all of these good things in mind, I've been having a hard time maintaining the motivation to lose weight.

The cracks in my armor are beginning to show. Last week I went out with coworkers to a Chinese place for lunch. I didn't overeat, but I finished what I'd ordered. There went that day's allotment of points. This weekend I made a double batch of cornbread with Oliver. Cooked cornmeal is Core, but cornbread is not. I'd love to confess that the cornbread went largely untasted and remained so after my wife checked and found my error, but the cornbread is no longer around to testify. And it was tasty. This morning I woke up late, had to rush the kids out of the house, forgot to pack a lunch or eat breakfast, stopped at Hardees for a breakfast sandwich, and had a Reuben sandwich for lunch. Again, not horrific, but not Core. And did I mention tasty?

Compounding my retreats off the reservation, I also have been cutting back on my exercise routine. In part, it's been schedule, but a number of days the past week I've found myself running behind, driving to work, and then not making up the exercise in other ways. At this point I should be ramping up my routine in preparation for summer running, but it's not happening. And I'm finding myself lacking the motivation to push it.

This may be a case where I am getting myself in trouble because I'm relatively easy to satisfy. Losing 25 lbs brings with it a certain level of satisfaction. And complacency. But that isn't what I need. I need to set a goal for myself. Weight loss by itself is good, but I don't see it as being an end in and of itself.

25 lbs and counting

2008-03-17T21:32:00.003-05:00

This morning I weighed myself in at 188 lbs. This makes more than 25 lbs in total weight loss since I started doing the Weight Watchers Core Plan in January. I'm solidly in a 34 waist and eying the 33s in the closet. I've also gotten a number of comments on the loss from my office mates, so I guess something is working.

I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm for the diet since I've seen significant weight loss on most diets that I've tried. Body for Life? Check. South Beach? Check. However on each of these diets, once I stopped monitoring myself, the weight jumped back on. But so far so good. I don't feel terribly deprived. It's hard to feel deprived when you can eat an apple or an orange whenever you feel hungry. Sure, I don't eat as much bread or pasta or beer as I might like, but I've tried that diet and it really didn't work.

The next step for me is going to be to start exercising. I have all the excuses in the world as to why I haven't been exercising, but even I know that they are just that - excuses. I'll feel better once I start. I know it. I just haven't.

What to do

2008-03-17T13:44:00.003-05:00

We're happy with our house. We have few major projects left to do. We like the neighborhood which is conveniently located near an elementary school, parks, and my office. There are a lot of young families with children near our children's ages. And so of course we are starting to think about moving.

I blame my neighbor. We were outside when Oliver was playing with her children. She started talking about how they were looking at moving. When I asked why, she said that the nearby elementary school was good. But after that, the middle school and the high school were downright scary. There were several weapons violations at the middle school. With her older children hitting middle school age, they were looking for a smaller house in a better school district.

I talked to my wife about the conversation and we started doing some research. The school district fared badly in the last several years of state assessment testing especially at the middle school and high school levels. The racial statistics would make our children a tiny minority at the middle school (19%) and high school (9%) levels. If we went with public schools, we would likely be looking to switch before middle school either to a private school or a new school district.

We have started doing some prelimiary looking at the housing market in different school districts. Assuming our financial situation remains the same, we could look at moving into a better school district. We've put enough equity into the house that we could afford the same size house in a better school district. We'd be paying a lot more in property taxes and would basically be paying our mortgage off longer, but we could enroll the kids in the public schools and feel confident in the education that they might receive.

But then again, this is St. Louis. So there are a ton of different private schools in which we could enroll the kids. In essence, we would more or less transfer the amount of money that we spend in day care and mortgage costs and put that towards education costs. We're still left with the quandary of how to pay for college, but that becomes a problem for another day.

At this point, I'm more inclined to look at moving. We have a good amount of equity built up in the house that would enable us to move laterally. That said, we don't have to make the decision soon. But that day is coming. And at some point, we will have to figure out what to do.

The political process

2008-02-05T22:54:00.000-06:00

My theory on elections is "Vote early, vote often." Yes, I'm from Chicago, and yes, my family has a tiny Massachusetts political history. But I'm applying that statement to a whole life of political activity. The Vote early part means that you should register to vote as soon as possible. The Vote Often part means that you should vote in as many elections as you can. Vote in primaries. Vote in school board elections. Vote for Congress. Vote for Sanjaya. Umm, strike that last one. Voting is your one true measure of saying I care enough about the process to let my opinion be heard. Having a reasoned, informed opinion is a true demonstration of your civic duty, but at least voting signals some level of interest. Too often our leaders are elected with fewer than half of all eligible voters showing up at the polls. Then they claim a mandate that the voters have spoken - when in fact most voters were not even present.

A notable absence in my theory is "And put your money where your mouth is." I don't believe that money should have as large a place in politics as it does today. It's one thing to say that money equals speech, but quite another to say that this person is allowed to speak 25 millions times louder than this other person. Publicly financed elections would allow the candidates to depend less on special interests for their office and more on voters. Yes, special interests would still have some sway, but it would be dramatically less than at current.

The other change that I would like would be to change the campaign schedule into a 20 week long affair. Every two weeks five states would have a primary, but the catch would be that the states would vote in ascending order of delegates. The first round would be something like North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming. The last weekend would be Texas, California, New York, Illinois, and Florida. This would give the smaller states some value as discriminators, but leave the end result in suspense until just before the convention. Every state's voters would have an affirmative stake in selecting the nominee. The current process all but coronates the nominee after Super Tuesday and Texas's election in March. From a practical perspective, it makes sense to hold the coronation as soon as possible so that donors can give their money to the eventual nominee who can start to put together the national election team.

Health and Well Being

2008-02-05T22:33:00.002-06:00

You know it's a bad sign when you are in the doctor's office so often that the nurses feel like they should make small talk with you. The past couple of months we've called or visited the doctor's office on the order of once a week and sometimes more often than that. Xavier had a checkup at six months, but because of a scheduling foul up we had to reschedule Oliver's appointment for a couple of weeks later. Then Xavier got sick with some strain of RSV and we were in every couple of days to make sure that his breathing wasn't getting worse. Then Oliver gashed his forehead on the countertop while playing on the stairs (see, kids, you really can get hurt) which required stitches. Then Xavier started spiking highish (102+) fevers (related to teething?) which warranted a couple of followup visits. Then Oliver complained that it hurt to urinate resulting in another trip to the doctor. I just want to know if there is a bulk rate on copays for doctor visits.

In general, my wife's health and my health have been good - no serious illnesses or injuries. We're not getting enough sleep due to our teething toddler who does not like to be wet. Some of my sleep issues are self-inflicted though. For example, last night I was out playing Magic with friends until after 1:30. I know that if I make better choices that I will be able to get the sleep I need. It's just that the time after everyone goes to bed is the time when I can do the things that I want to do - i.e. play Magic, watch TV online, read, work ...

Making better choices is a broader topic in our house. We've been trying to cut out a lot of the processed food from our diets and move to more fruits and vegetables. I've been fairly good about being good, but I do have my weaknesses. As long as I can moderate my excesses, I should be able to take off some of the extra weight that's accumulated.

What I really need to do is to make better choices surrounding exercise. I'm loath to get on the treadmill when the kids are awake for fear that one or the other will try and play with the moving treadmill and lose a finger or something. With that in mind, early morning and late night are the only other options. Early morning generally loses out to more sleep and late night loses out to more fun pursuits like laundry, Magic, or TV. For a while I was watching my TV online while using the treadmill, but ABC.com has an annoying habit of asking you to click a button to see more show - difficult to do when running on the treadmill. NBC is better in that regard, so as soon as they have something worth watching I may find myself on their site killing two birds with one stone.

Not on my game

2008-02-05T22:24:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I had to write anything that didn't involve curly braces in one way or another. It feels like I'm not quite hitting on all cylinders - more Pinto than Porsche. Thanks for your patience while my brain gets back up to speed.

Cleaning

2008-02-03T13:11:00.000-06:00

My wife and I have very different organizational styles. It usually isn't a problem until one of us decides that it is time to clean the house. My wife's style is to create a number of small piles of related items scattered throughout the house. She knows what is in each stack, but, to my untrained eye, it all resembles piles of crap scattered throughout the house. My style is to have a place for everything and to put everything in its place. When I come across stuff that I don't have a place for, I create a stuff I don't have a place for pile. So I take her scattered organized piles and merge them into one large disorganized pile. But I know where that pile is and I have a place to put the myriad of crap that I don't otherwise have a place for.

For day-to-day cleaning, I do a lot of what gets done. I'll vacuum when the opportunity presents itself. I'm usually the dish washer, the toy replacer, the laundry worker, and the remover of cat vomit (for often than I'd like). Dish replacer, floor sweeper, and spill wiper are equal opportunity tasks. My wife tends to gravitate to the larger projects. She's the wall spackler, kitchen rearranger, and room decorator as well as duster, bed maker, and bathroom cleaner. In some ways it's a flawed system because anything that isn't covered by the lists above tends to build up.

Happy Birthday to me

2008-02-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

Every year for my birthday I have a potluck, Thanksgiving style dinner for my friends. I make the turkey and the stuffing, provide the drinks, and clean the house. The couple of weeks beforehand are always a challenge because I have to make the guest list and clean the house.

Making the guest list is a challenge of restraint. If I had my way, I'd invite everyone I ever met. However, we just don't have space and seating for that size of a group (note- food is generally not a concern). My goal is generally to have about 30 adults. My initial draft guest list was about sixty adults. From there my wife and I get the list down to a managable size and the I send out the invite. I tried Evite last year, but some people really don't like it. I may go back to it though just for convenience sake.

Cleaning the house is always a big chore. I'd like to think that we aren't messy people, but I'd also like to think that we're millionaires. We started two weeks before the main event and were still putting some stuff behind closed doors on the morning of. But other than that, the house was in shape.

The event itself was successful. There were 21 adults and 14 children. Everyone had a good time. My wife told me that there was too much meat and too little in terms of sides. Considering that there were two turkeys and a ham available versus stuffing, green bean casserole, a cornmeal dish, potatoes, a bean salad and a sweet potato soup, I'll agree with her. I got a call from some friends who were overseas and were upset that they missed out. Next year, guys - I promise.

I'd like to close by saying thanks to all who attended and made the day so special.

Edit: I'd be remiss to not point out the text messages that I got from DC and Chicago to wish me a happy birthday. Thanks, guys.

Why parents get gray hair

2007-08-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

So my wife picked me up from work with both boys. We headed to the grocery store to pick up some food. When we got out of the store, I went to put the groceries away in the trunk and my wife tried to get the boys into the car seats. Oliver went first. He was being especially difficult, so my wife tossed her wallet (that contained the car keys) into the front seat so that she could use both hands to get him in his seat. Finally she got Oliver in his car seat. And then she closed the door. And I closed the trunk. And the car was locked. Apparently the wallet/keys had bounced just right or the car decided that the doors had been unlocked for just long enough. Whatever the cause we now had our toddler stapped into his car seat locked in a black car on a scorcher of a day.

My wife called 911 while I tried to talk my son through unbuckling his harness. Despite all of those weeks of "I do it," he wasn't able to get either the belt open or the chest strap. His legs were just not long enough to be able to do more than be able to touch the door handle, so he couldn't open it.

There was a UCity fire ambulance in the parking lot. We caught the one of the UCity firemen coming out of the store and asked if they could help. They didn't have the tools in the ambulance, but were willing to call for help if we needed it.

A few minutes went by before the Ladue police car arrived. The police officer didn't have the tools needed to open the door. He called for help from the Ladue fire department. The UCity fireman called for his guys as well so that we had backup in case their toolset didn't work. Meanwhile, we tried to help Oliver figure out how to open the door to no avail again. He said that he could break a window if he had to, but he obviously would prefer not to have to.

A couple more minutes went by and a Ladue fire engine arrived. They started working on the door with a jimmy. But the anti-theft measures made the jimmy ineffective. As they were working, the UCity fire engine arrived. The UCity guys went at it with a wedge and a long hook. With the car alarm going off, they unlocked the doors and we rescued Oliver from the car.

The firemen tried to take Oliver inside the fire engine where the air conditioning was going, but he is terrified of getting in the inside of the fire engine. They tried to take Oliver into the air conditioning of the police car. Same reaction. Finally I picked him up and took him into the shade and let him relax against me. They gave him a cool towel for his head and some cool water to drink. A nice lady from Schnucks brought him an orange balloon. The police officer gave him a badge.

I tried to say thank you to the police officer and the firemen. But how do you do that? They were glad to get the thanks, but I think they were all more just happy that everything turned out all right.

Through the ordeal, Oliver was a trooper. I think it helped that both my wife and I were there and that neither one of us was acting terribly frantic. It helped that we chose to park in a somewhat shaded spot. It helped that Oliver likes police cars and fire trucks. It helped that the whole thing only lasted 30 minutes or so. But Oliver was just really brave.

Finally we strapped everyone in and headed home to unload the groceries before going out to eat. As I opened his door something bopped me in the face. I moved my head out of the way and bent down to help unbuckle him. He asked me where his ballon went. I looked upwards to see his orange balloon floating away into the sky.

After dealing with a justifiably unhappy toddler we went out to eat. For some reason, I thought Ethiopian food would be fun. If you haven't tried eating Ethiopian food with a toddler, let me suggest that you DON'T. It's not fun. Especially when someone is a bit frazzled and has sharing issues.

A real, live boy!

2007-08-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

After five days of moving like an old man, I'm starting to be able to move like myself again. I don't have to contort my arms and shoulders, to wriggle my body and to finally push myself up into a semi-sitting position. I don't have to use both arms to gently lower myself into a chair. I can walk with minimal pain. It's been nice shedding the shackles of the supine and get vertical again. I'm still not 100%, but I'm getting there.

There are still the things that I still can't do. I'm not supposed to lift heavy objects like car seats or misbehaving toddlers. Apparently I can't wear pants that fit appropriately across my midsection either. I don't feel comfortable driving yet. And if I'm in bed when a child needs me to come comfort them, they just have to suck it up for an extra couple of minutes while I flail out of bed.

I know things are getting better and I'm encouraged. It's just hard to keep that in the forefront of my mind all the time.

Oversharing

2007-08-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

Is it oversharing to say that when I finally went poopy in the potty that I was so proud of myself that I wanted to show someone? Thankfully, no pictures are attached.

Let the healing begin!

2007-08-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

I've got a brand new scar and a pain in my groin that keeps me close to horizontal. I've had a couple of vertical jaunts that levelled me, so for the time being I'm going to avoid the big V. One trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night caused me tosee spots and then ground. Another trip to join my family for lunch had to be aborted when I started seeing spots again. My parents are in town and have been keeping me company, while my wife tends to a toddler, an infant, and an invalid. It might be easier to tend to the toddler if it weren't 101 outside or if he'd get the sleep that everyone so obviously needs.

But all of this aside, I've had the surgery that will enable me to be a more able husband, father, and friend. For that I'm thankful.

Thanks to Super Nanny, we're potty training

2007-07-18T23:08:00.001-05:00

My wife has been saying for months that Oliver was ready to start potty training. But I hadn't really been on board with it, as I know that it takes boys longer to get potty trained than girls. When we had tried it before, he had a lot of accidents. Since I didn't want him to have too much failure, I kept saying that maybe he isn't ready.

One of my wife's guilty pleasures is Super Nanny. If you haven't seen the show, the premise is that each week, the Super Nanny shows up at a house that is an absolute train wreck, shows the parents what they've been doing wrong as parents, and fixes the problems. I think it qualifies as a guilty pleasure because these families are the ones that you gape at as they have shouting matches on the lawn or cart screaming kids through the mall. There's also big measure of relief that we aren't those parents and that those aren't our children. But every once in a while, I see myself in the parents.

One recent episode had a line where Super Nanny told the parents that something that they were doing was a safety net for their child, but also for them. With a little reflection, it came to me that diapers were functioning the same way with Oliver and I. So we just decided to go cold turkey on day time diaper wearing. He wears a pull-up for naps and bed time, but he's in underwear the rest of the time. The key is disciplining ourselves to ask him every half-hour or so and before we leave somewhere if he has to go potty and then to march him in there. Sometimes he'll just volunteer that he has to potty.

In general it is working out well. We only have one or two urine accidents a day. Poop is still a bit of a problem, but we'll take the progress we can. We've had a couple of interesting incidents like the other night when we were coming home from a friend's house and he announced about five minutes out from home that he had to potty. That made for an exciting trip. We ended up at a Starbucks a few minutes away. Not much came out, but at least he's volunteering/

I don't know if I would have decided at this point to get into the swing of things, so thanks Super Nanny.

Just a simple task

2007-07-16T08:55:00.000-05:00

Friday night, my wife said, "I'd like for you to paint the garage this weekend. Oh, and there are a couple of rotten boards that I'd like to replace." So, in the morning, I went out to the garage and took a look. There were a few boards that had rotten spots. I got up on the ladder and took down the boards. In turns out that there were a few more rotten boards underneath them. And then underneath that one of the beams going across the front of the garage was rotten in the middle.

And so began the first of several trips to Home Depot. I picked up sheets of OSB plywood, a sixteen foot 2x4, two eight foot 2x4s, and other assorted building supplies. And what mighty machine did I cart this stuff home in? The Prius (although to be fair the sheets of plywood were cut for me and so easier transport). I will say that while the Prius is fine for lengths up to 8 feet, then sixteen foot board represented a little more of an adventure.

Then it was time to start putting everything together. It would have been nice if all of my initial measurements were correct, but there were a couple of half inch errors so I got to do some cutting of my own. Most of the pieces I was able to assemble on my own. A few of the last boards needed some shimmying in order to get in place, so I had my wife help me with that part.

When the last screw was in place, I got a second to look at what I'd done. In two days, I'd managed to more or less completely take down a side of the garage and reassemble it. While I'd be upset to pay someone for the quality of workmanship exhibited, I was pleased that I was able to get it done. Now all that remains is to caulk the seams and paint it. My wife has volunteered for that job.

One of these things is not like the others

2007-07-11T00:22:00.000-05:00

As I was drying off the other day, I chanced to lean against a counter. I noticed it because my substantial weight was not distributed evenly across the counter. There was a bump in my groin. Usually it would be a moment of pride to look down and see a lump in my groin, but not at this time and not at this location.

First, I poked at it a bit and hoped that it would go away. When wishing didn't work, I consulted Dr. Google. Dr. Google told me that it was probably a hernia and that I would likely need surgery to fix it. Then I made an appointment with my PCP who confirmed that it was a hernia. I made an appointment with a surgeon who again confirmed that it was a hernia. So it is definitely a hernia. And I'm going to have it fixed. Color me excited. And no, not at that location again.

I'm a little anxious about the whole thing. I'm anxious about the hernia itself. I need to make sure that I don't make it bigger. So I'm trying not to lift too much ( not easy when you have a toddler). But still I'm not 100% certain what all would cause it to bulge out further. If it starts hurting (strangulating), I have to head to the hospital immediately. So when I notice it, is that the beginning of it hurting

The surgery is also making me anxious. I don't like the idea of someone cutting into my especially. I'm not crazy about the idea of sharp knives near my groin. I'm going to have to take some time off from work while we have a major effort going on. Necessary but still evil.

The other thing that gets me about the hernia is that it is an injury that I could likely have avoided if I had only stayed in shape rather than turning into the oval I am today. Joy!

On cloth diapering

2007-07-10T23:01:00.001-05:00

In my dreams, reporters ask me all the time why it is that we use cloth diapers. I'm going to have to come up with a better reason because "My wife told me so" makes the imaginary reporters mock me. I'm not quite sure what that says about my mental health, but I'm working up a better set of answers.

We use cloth diapers because we're somewhat green. There are many levels of green. We're not quite the ultra-insulated, solar power generating homemakers like my cousin who's electric bill is usually negative. But we are the cloth diapering, Prius-driving, recycling, attempting compost folks who live in our house. I'm not certain that cloth diapering is automatically more environmentally friendly in terms of how much waste water and energy is expended in cleaning them, but I think so. Water can be cleaned and energy can come from renewables sources. I doubt that the energy here comes from renewable sources, but that is the factor that I can't control. And while we do use cloth diapers, we also use disposable diaper wipes. My wife wants to use the washable wipes, but I'm just not comfortable enough with them to go that route.

We use cloth diapers because we're cheap. Cloth diapering requires a substantial initial investment, but once the initial investment is made, the upkeep costs are minimal. Each Fuzzy Bunz/Wunderoo diaper shell costs about $10 used up to $15 new. Inserts are generally about $2-3. More traditional plastic pants and inserts can be found for less. My preference is to have enough diapers and inserts to postpone laundry day to at least every other day. So we have about 20 of each size (small/medium/large) and enough inserts to stuff them. Disposable diapers start at $9 for 48 diapers, which means that I would need to use the cloth diaper 96 times before I break even. With only one child, I would just about break even. Where I start to save money is when I either have multiple children or take the diapers that we have and pass them on to someone else. In some cases, we can even resell some of them. The investment is substantial and is a barrier to using cloth for people who do not plan to have large families or who do not have a lot of money.

Cloth diapers do have an associated upkeep cost. In order to keep the fabric inside the shells from pilling up, I need to wash them in a gentle detergent. The gentle detergent is generally more expensive, but the difference in cost per wash is small. As described before, I have to wash each load twice and dry each load twice. But the total monetary upkeep cost is still much smaller on a per unit basis than the different in cost between disposables and cloth. So cloth will still win out in the long run.

Results of a google search on the great diapering debate - Some of the results from the cloth diapering manufacturers are obviously biased, but
Comparison between cloth and disposables

See section on cloth/disposable cost comparison

We use cloth diapers because we can afford the time. What isn't factored in to my previous cost analysis is time spent laundering the diapers. Here cloth gets its butt wiped by disposables. Time represents another significant barrier to entry for cloth diapering. People who are busy, working, or a single parent do not have the same kind of time to devote to laundry that we have.

There are other barriers to entry into cloth diapering that also come up. It isn't the norm currently, so many people have simply not been exposed to it. Some of those who have been exposed to it do not want to deal with family and friends who haven't been exposed. Many day care centers are ill-equipped to deal with cloth diapering or are unwilling to take it on. Families who travel a lot are inconvienced when they have to deal with cloth diapers (we generally use disposables when travelling).

In the final analysis, we have time to spend and the money to invest. Using cloth diapers agrees with our principles especially frugality and environmental friendliness. But I recognize that other families make other decisions that work for them. I was careful in my previous post to note that with the cloth diapering resources at my disposal using disposable diapers was wasteful. I'm only incurring the waste when I forget to do the laundry.

Just like my wife told me to do.

Dootie duty

2007-07-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

In case, anyone ever doubts it, babies spend all of their time, eating, sleeping, and pooping. As a dad, I have limited functionality to do the first, slightly more ability to help with the second, but the third is the area where I can contribute. As such, I tend to change a lot of diapers when I'm available and take care of the diaper laundry.

The diaper laundry is particularly daunting at this stage. We have two kids contributing to the diaper pail which means that rarely a day goes by without a load of diaper laundry needing to get done. If I miss two days in a row, we are generally forced to dip into our collection of disposable diapers. I don't mind using them when we are travelling, but doing it at home with the collection of cloth diapers that we have just means that I'm lazy. I guess I got spoiled when we finally got enough diapers that I could go three and four days at a stretch without needing to do laundry.

I don't think I'd mind so much if the process turned around a little quicker. As it is, the diapers require two washes (one cold, one hot) before the inserts can go into the dryer and the shells onto the line. The inserts generally take two cycles on low to get dry. The shells usually take 6-8 hours to dry on the line before they are dry enough to put on. At least some of the newborn shells will dry a little quicker. The dry time for the shells means that I'm usually doing the laundry at night before I go to bed. So I can't go to bed before that first dry cycle is completed or we won't have enough inserts for the diapers to get through another day.

I believe in what we are doing with the cloth diapers. I really do. It's honestly the only thing that can make me reach into a bucket of urine and fecal covered diapers and begin the cycle anew. I hope it is worth it.

On a bicycle built for pain

2007-07-05T23:34:00.000-05:00

In the run up to Xavier's birth, I had been driving to work every day. But with his birth and with Oliver staying home with my wife for the summer, there is less of a need to drive. If only I could figure out some way of getting to work faster than walking...

It turns out that my wife and I have bicycles in the garage. They were POS bikes when we got them, but a bike is a bike (especially until I prove that I'll continue to do it for some time). So I took my bike into the bike shop to check the tires and to give it a tune-up. The guys who worked in the shop were rather unimpressed with my unimpressive machine, but they fixed it up well for me. A trip to REI for helmets and I was good to go.

I've been riding my bike for a week now. It isn't a long ride, but that is just fine for my out-of-shape self. Most of the uphill is on my way to work, so I always start the day feeling fresh. I hoping that in time I'll get in better shape so that the ride to work will be less of an exertion and I will consequently sweat less.

I haven't quite come to grips with my helmet. I picked the cheapest that REI had to offer. It looks like the helmet that motorcyclists that don't want to wear helmets wear. And I haven't quite come to grips with my seat. Despite the fact that it is jelly filled, it is starting to hurt my bottom as I sit. I'm not quite sure what to do in order to make it hurt less. Maybe I'll start wearing biker shorts to work under my pants. What the heck - I've already got two kids. Why would I need any more.

Me and my boys

2007-07-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

Fleas!

2007-07-05T23:04:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed the cat scratching. But at the time, we had more important things to worry about with the baby coming and all. So we didn't do anything. Post baby, post-baby company, we found ourselves with even more company.

My wife was the one who first noticed them. She kept getting bug bites on her ankles at night. Then she started seeing them more frequently. Finally she had enough. We were going to take care of them. The real question was how. If it were just the two of us, we'd just automatically bug bomb, stay away from the house for a few hours, and that would be the end of it. But with an infant in the house, filling the air and covering the furniture with insecticides didn't seem like the best course.

So the first round was to take all of the cloth/fabric that we had in the house and haul it down to the basement. Then I was going to spray the carpets. After a while we opened the windows and let the air circulate out any toxins. However, as my wife sat down to nurse the baby, she noticed one on his head.

Cue round two. I got out the foggers. In order to not blow up the house, I had to turn of the electricity and the pilot lights to the furnace and water heater. I crated up the cat and put him in the garage. I ended up placing six fogger cannisters in the house and setting them off. I let the house for a few hours and then opened up all of the windows and doors. An hour or so later, I let the cat back in the house. While this was going on, we sent my wife and children to live with her mother. I joined them when I was done with work. The next day I came back to check on the cat. And found still more fleas on me.

Cue round three. I bagged up all of the cloth/fabric that was now in the house. This time we called a pest removal place to come and take care of the problem. They came out, sprayed, and set three more foggers. While I was waiting, I took all of the bags to the laundromat and washed the whole thing. When I was time I came back, opened the house up, let the cat back in, and then left again. The next day we came back.

Living in the house is a bit of an adventure these days. Every time I stray wind moves some of my leg hair, I think the fleas are back. Most of our laudromat cleaning is unbagged and put away. There is still some more that needs to be done. We have seen a few fleas, but a little judicious spraying seems to have taken care of the problem. As soon as the laundry is all put away, I'll spend a couple of weeks religiously vacuuming the rugs.

And I really hope that that is all. I hope that Oliver and Xavier don't react badly to the insecticides that I picture lying on everything in the house. I hope the cat doesn't get sick. And I really hope that those stupid fleas stay gone.

It's a ...

2007-06-01T16:46:00.001-05:00

boy. Earlier this week, my wife gave birth to our second child, Xavier Xanthus. He was 9.0 lbs and 21" long. Mom and baby are doing well.

I don't know where to begin when talking about Xavier's birth story. When we were looking over our birthing options for Oliver, my wife had talked to me about a home birth. I was not crazy about the idea for several reasons (possible complications, unfamiliar terrain, etc.). The idea was scrapped, at least until we conceived number two. The second time around I was much more receptive. We'd been there and done that. Her previous labor had taken 3.5 hours and second labors are generally somewhat quicker. We knew some people who had planned a home birth and everyone lived to tell of it. So the planning began.

My wife talked to a few people and got a recommendation on a midwife. With the midwife's help, we gathered all of the stuff that we would need to provide for the birth. Everything was laid out clearly for us. Really the biggest deal for us was selecting the right kiddee/birthing pool and a hose that would be capable of delivering clean, drinkable water to the pool. Finally with everything in readiness, we settled down to wait for the birth. And wait. Our due date came and went. And wait.. We had a false alarm. And wait... Lots of swimming and walking. And wait....

Then I got a call from my wife about 3:30.
"Ummm, when were you planning on coming home?"
"I was thinking of taking off around 5:00. Why?"
"I just got a strong contraction. I'd like you to come home."
I'll admit that I'm getting both fat and out of shape. But I fairly sprinted to the car and floored it home. Thankfully, I only live about a mile from work.

When I got home, I found my wife pacing. Her water had broken and the contractions were not distinct enough to time clearly. I called the midwife as I was running around changing clothes.
"I think this is it!"
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
At those words I experienced a mild panic. There was a non-trivial chance that I might have to deliver my baby. I tamped down the panic by assuring myself that there were two assistants easily within range. Panic subdued, I went downstairs to find that my wife wasn't talking during contractions and funny had left the building. I started filling the birthing pool and getting some last minute preparations in order. I called my mother-in-law as I was doing this to let her know that today might be the day. She told me to let her know as soon as we left for the hospital.

Quick aside - not too many people knew we were planning a home birth. Certainly our families were kept in the dark - better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Especially on my wife's side, we are probably the crunchiest parents. Home birthing was a topic that we would be happy to avoid discussing for the duration of the pregnancy.

The pool filled and my wife climbed in. For lack of anything better to do, I started massaging her back and offering my words of encouragement. At this point I started reviewing the 26-step plan for what to do if the midwife doesn't make it. For most couples, it isn't imperative to read the plan in its entirety before labor - just make sure that everything is available. But with my wife I was only really able to review until step 3 before she was far enough into labor that there was no time to review. Mercifully at that point, one of the assistants showed up.

Quick aside - people I've been happiest to see at moments in my life (the unauthoritative list)
1) My wife walking towards me at our wedding
2 & 3) My children at their births
4) My mother picking me up after my month abroad as an 11-year old
5) The assistant midwife showing up as my wife neared transition
6) The ER doctor who was going to reset my dislocated shoulder

Buoyed by the likelihood that I would not be giving birth to my child myself, I was more able to relax and focus on my wife. The midwife arrived a short while later, relaxing my further. And then the pushing started.

Another aside - Pushing is an interesting part of labor. Each time I've been torn between wanting to support my wife (head) and to see what's happening (tail). And not enough time to flip the coin.

After several minutes of pushing, the baby gushed out of my wife. The midwife directed the baby to come up into my wife's arms and Xavier gave his first cries in her arms.

It's not just a job

2007-04-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

This week was a major milestone for my company. We went live and are generating actual revenues. Not so much now that I can retire on my stock, but enough that the investors will be happy to see us stay in business. That it took until now has been a blessing and a curse. It was good that we had the time to clean up our code more before we went live. It's just that we are now behind where we wanted to be in terms of new functionality. This week has been a deep breath before another plunge.

All things maternal...

2007-04-04T23:25:00.001-05:00

My wife is doing well in general. She's had a nasty cold for the past few days that's been compounded by a lack of sleep. Number One wakes up in the middle of the night to come and join us and spends the rest of the night kicking her. Number Two (the baby formerly known as Dido) spends the whole night doing gymnastics inside her.

The pregnancy seems to be going well. Other than Number Two's increased activity level, there haven't been any problems. We've seen the ob and our doula. We're not doing a lot of prep work for the labor. That should start in earnest now.

The utero name Dido went away when too many people made the connection to the singer rather than the ancient queen. We're still in negotiation on the baby's name. We did some brainstorming the past few months and have some candidate names. Whether any come to fruition or not is a matter for more discussion.

After some discussion on her staying home after Number Two arrives, we've come to the conclusion that it will be best if she goes back to work. I think. She likes her job and the flexibility that comes with it. It would be nice to have her home, but we'll make it work either way.

Oliver update...

2007-04-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

Oliver is out of the hospital. After a couple of days and nights of inhaled steroids, his breathing improved and we were able to escape from the hospital. The next couple of days saw rapid improvement and he was given a clean bill of health. Since then he's been a very healthy boy.

The next weekend, Oliver was very excited to go up to Chicago - until we put him on the big choo-choo for the second time in a month. He was chatty and loud and fussy and whiny all the way up there. He was pretty good while we were there, but he didn't get enough rest and was getting progressively more whiny and fussy during our stay. The trip home on the big choo-choo was generally an ordeal. Much like the first trip, there was no sleeping. Add to that multiple delays for oncoming freight and you might understand why we are done with the train until he can entertain himself for the trip.

Over these two weeks, the progress that we were making with his potty training and sleeping went out the window. We've backed off the potty training for a while and will get back to it after a break. Getting Oliver to sleep has become a bit of a chore - even more when our ally the gate went down with a bad suction cup. He's had a couple of late nights this week as we figure out how to get him back on track.

His verbal skills are growing by leaps and bounds. He's using mostly full sentences now and his diction is usually clear, especially if you have the context. We can ask him questions about his day and get answers. It feels like the beginning of our ability to converse with each other. One of his favorite new games is to play the obvious question game. He'll be sitting on my lap in the same room as his mother and ask "Where's Mommy? Where's Daddy? What's Mommy doing? What's Daddy doing? Where's Mommy? ..." It's great to see him make verbal jumps, I'm just waiting for the next one.

I can see Oliver developing his personality. He likes to go outside, see the trains come into the station near our house, go to the park, go to the fire station, throw and kick balls. He doesn't like loud mechanical noises like drills or lawnmowers but the train is just fine. He likes animals but at more of a distance. He is gaining the cat's trust to the point where the cat will walk up to him for loving. Kisses from Mommy or Daddy makes any bump or bruise better. He's very good about not walking in the street and very bad about walking away from us in the store.

He's becoming a little boy.

Super baby to the hospital

2007-03-17T23:01:00.000-05:00

On Monday, Oliver felt a little warm. We tried to go to his swimming lesson, but he didn't want to get in the water, he didn't want to blow bubbles, he didn't want to get in and out of the pool, and, oh yeah, his skin felt warm. So we bagged it and headed home.

On Tuesday, he still felt warm, so no day care. My wife and I were supposed to switch in the middle of the day, but she decided to take the whole day. Tuesday night produced fevers and Tylenol. On Wednesday, he stayed home with me in the morning where he took a long nap while watching Finding Nemo (truly his mother's child). He was rambunctious as usual, but Wednesday night brought back the fevers. Thursday morning Oliver and I took a trip to the doctor's office. His O2 levels were down and he started on steroid breathing treatments. Grandma came and stayed with him Thursday afternoon. Friday morning Oliver and his mother went back to the doctor for a checkup and a breathing treatment. Friday afternoon the whole family got to pack up and head to the hospital.

Our hospital visit has been generally positive. Oliver's O2 levels are coming back up. He gone from a liter of O2 to a half-liter to a quarter of a liter to room air. His breathing treatments have gone from every two hours to every three hours and soon to every four hours. His appetite has been sparse and he's getting more difficult to confine to the room even as mom and especially dad want a break from wandering around the hospital. We've gone to see the babies (don't worry - he's not contagious - we checked) innumerable times, taken innumerable rides in the elevator, rode up and down the escalator for fifteen minutes at a crack, been down every hallway that we can a couple of times. So you can imagine how I felt when he sat most of the way up in bed and vomited all over himself for the first time in the hospital tonight.

I'm just not cut out to be a hospital parent. And I'm the one that has been getting the breaks - home to get stuff and feed the cat, out for food for parents. I don't know how she does it.

Penitential Rite

2007-02-15T22:48:00.000-06:00

I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I
have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and in my words, in what
I have done, and in what I have failed to do;

Everyone has pieces of their childhood that hold special meaning. One of mine is a section from the Penitential Rite of the Catholic mass. I just liked that the congregation was owning up to the fact that they were all imperfect, that there was no one else to blame but themselves. Me being me, it tickled my funny own that it was intoned in the usual American Catholic monotone.

Quick aside - just about every Catholic church I've gone to is peopled by the least enthusiastic congregations when it comes to participation either by spoken word or song. We once had a French transplant who came to our school and would routinely outsing the entire student body at grade school masses. It took years, but eventually she stopped singing so loudly. Go us.

My quiet moments involve revisiting and beating myself up over mistakes that I made in the distant past. Wrong words written, thoughtless thoughts thunk, dastardly deeds done, stinging statements said, optimal options omitted [yeah - don't give me too long to write something]. My thoughts, my words, what I've done, what I've failed to do. The sole plus I can find in all this is that if I ever need to complete a 12-step program, I'll have a good start on the list of people that I've hurt and/or offended.

But at what point, should I forget this stuff and leave it behind? Do my actions from when I was in fifth grade and made fun of someone that I perceived as slightly farther down the class hierarchy impact the man that I am now? I'm sorry, Kelly. Maybe they do and that is why I keep thinking about them. It's not that all of my transgressions are that far removed from the present either.

I'm imperfect. I've sinned against others. And I have no one to blame but myself.

State of the Rock

2007-02-15T22:22:00.000-06:00

With my birthday recently past, I've been thinking about where I am in my life. The short version is that I'm happy. In all areas of my life I am in a situation where I'm content. It's sort of a surreal state in that I don't have a lot of angst or anxiety pushing me in some direction. It's sort of a soft, chewy center of life.

My family is doing well. My wife is doing well with number two. The pregnancy has not generated any serious problems or major discomforts. At this point we are just beginning our prep work for number two's arrival. Number one is on track in most if not all areas of development. He's happy, healthy, and confident. So far the only real bane of his existance seems to be the vacuum cleaner. It's scary (don't ask me).

I have a lot of good friends in the area. I have a great time when we do get a chance to get together. I don't get to see all of them as much as I'd like, but I know that I can call on them when I need help or to celebrate. And they know that they can call on me too.

Work is going well. My job is challenging, rewarding, and located very close to my house. I like the guys that I'm working with. We are able to push each other technically and all get along really well together. I'm a valued member of my team. The company's prospects are encouraging.

I guess this is why I'm not blogging too much lately. Who wants to read this crap?

Birthday

2007-02-08T01:15:00.000-06:00

My birthday was this past weekend. As is my custom, I invited over friends for what has become known as Thank(Rock). The house was filled to near capacity between adults and children. I think the final count was about 40 adults and 15 children. As is also my custom, I bought way too much food - to the point that I had a completely extraneous turkey when everyone was done eating. The party went well and it was good to share the day with my friends.

So... you want to run a 10K?

2007-02-07T22:41:00.000-06:00

Over the past few weeks, I've had several people come up and ask me if I'm planning to train for a marathon again. To be honest, I hadn't been thinking about it specifically. Rather I've been lamenting the poor shape that I've slouched my way towards. So I wanted to get in shape, but I'm not specifically geared up for a marathon training. I mean I've been training for a marathon or getting fat every year for the past five years. But I'd like to support my friends in their fitness goals and really I need something that will get my burgeoning bottom off the bench and back into the game.

So as a baby step, I'm going to train for a 10K between now and the end of May. Then starting in June I'll gear up for the Lewis and Clark Marathon weekend. The advantages of targetting this weekend is that there are a number of options for someone to choose should they decide not to run the marathon due to injury or desire. They also tend not to close registration until much later in the summer than Chicago.

So if you are interested in training for a 10K, know me, and live in the Saint Louis area, let me know.

What I've always wanted

2007-01-17T11:03:00.000-06:00

Saturday morning, Oliver and I walked down to the Metrolink station. Sometimes he ran ahead of me. Sometimes he held my hand. Sometimes I had to carry him. When we got to the station, we took the elevator down to the tracks. While we sat on the bench and waited, Oliver had a snack of graham crackers. A few minutes later the train came in and we waved to it. A few minutes after that train left, another train came in and we waved to it. One more train and it was time to go home. The weather was cold and Oliver's mitten-less hands were cold. I told him to put his hands on me inside my jacket against my body. I carried him home like that - his hands warming against my body.

Last night, I stopped in his room before I went to sleep. He had fallen out of his new bed on to the pillows next to it. I picked him up and put him in bed, pulling the covers around him. He stirred briefly but went back to sleep after a minute or so of my hand resting on his back. I watched him for a minute as his breathing fell back into the rhythms of deep sleep. Back in our bedroom, I picked my wife's book and glasses off of the bed where she had taken them off before falling asleep. I spent a moment watching her as she slept, remembering earlier that evening when I tried to feel the new baby kicking her stomach. I turned off the light and gently kissed her forehead.

I'm in the place that I've always wanted to be for as long as I can remember thinking about the future. There are things about it that I'd change, but I wouldn't trade it away for anything.

Computing like it's 1969

2007-01-11T16:47:00.000-06:00

My work laptop runs very, very slowly. When I have a standard set of applications open, opening another tab on my browser can take up to a minute. I can't listen to any form of sound from Pandora to CDs as they skip like a hyperactive toddler. This wouldn't be as much of a problem except the application that I'm working on requires several applications open at the same time. When I have them open I get shitty performance.

I can't figure it out. Other laptops with approximately the same configuration and installations run ridiculously faster than mine. It doesn't appear to be hardware related as every troubleshooting tool and scan returns that the device is working properly. It doesn't appear to be memory as my memory utilization is low compared to the amount of memory on the system. It's not spyware or anti-virus activity. I'm completely baffled.

I'm also really annoyed as it is sucking my desire to work. Each task become a Sisyphusian nightmare of clicking and waiting. Several tasks that I've been assigned to do I've had to farm out to other people because my machine was physically incapable of performing the task. The Sisyphusian tasks make for Sisyphusian days.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. We're getting a new machine for me to work on. And I may be able to borrow a co-worker's machine while he is away the next week or so. But in the mean time I'm back to waiting... and clicking...

Latest ultrasound

2007-01-09T08:40:00.000-06:00

Getting an ultrasound when you don't want to know the sex of the baby is an adventure. You want to know how the baby is doing - verify that the baby has two of everything that he is supposed to and one of everything that she is supposed to. Verify that there is just one baby. You want to make sure that there aren't any serious complications and that the baby is growing at the right rate. So you want to see.

But you don't want to see everything. At one point the tech was making sure that the kidneys were functioning. She spent an awful lot of time in that area. At one point I turned away because I didn't want to see anything that I didn't want to see. I imagine when it comes to this point, it's easier on the tech to be one of the couples that wants to know gender as they can just fish around in the right area and announce, "It's a ..." I have the sneaking suspicion that the tech really wants to know and chooses an angle that will tell her something that the uninformed wouldn't see.

In the end, we still don't know gender and that's just fine with us. The baby is growing just fine, has enough of all the required parts, and not too many or too few. Our little nine ounce baby is on his way and we can't wait until June to meet her.

Update

2007-01-08T06:50:00.000-06:00

I think the official deadline for blog slackerhood is one month post-free. Me being me, I am going to try and get this in just before the deadline. It's not that there hasn't been anything to write about or that I haven't had the time to write, I just haven't felt motivated at the right times.

The family is doing well. Oliver is going through a massive verbal growth spurt. Mostly he's still just using phrases with a word or two, but lately he's been moving into three and four word phrases. He's not quite as chunky as he used to be. He is getting much more precise in his gross and fine motor skills. There is a real marked difference even from his birthday a month ago.

Oliver has recently begun his transition to his own bed. We've manged to get him to go to sleep in his own room and his own bed, but he is so used to having other bodies around that he'll go hunting for us in the middle of the night, crawling over whatever it takes to find us. Even when that thing is the edge of the bed. The pillows and the carpet have been life savers. One night I decided to sleep next to the bed so that I could reassure him that there was someone in the room with him. We both had a scare in the middle of the night when he dropped down on me. It's a process, but he seems okay with it, so we continue.

My wife is doing well in her pregnancy with number two. She hasn't seemed particularly uncomfortable, but she hasn't had much of an appetite recently. We had a first name session and didn't come up with anything productive. It'll probably be a couple of months until we find something mutually acceptable. In the mean time, we have another ultrasound appointment today, so we'll have more art for the refigerator.

Work is going well. We're gearing up to go live at the end of January. I have a feeling that I'll be spending a lot of time at the office. the thing that has really been getting to me is that the laptop that I work on has been performing like a dog the past few weeks. Other developers have several version of visual studio open, several web browsers going, and I can't play a Cd and compile a piece of code at the same time -- Never mind having anything else productive going. It's sapping my will to work.

Personally, I'm doing well. I'm in the process of resolving to lose some of the copious weight that I've put on over the past few months. I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. But isn't that why I'm in trouble in the first place? Other than that I'm happy. I'm healthy. My family is happy and healthy. What else would I want?

Announcing...

2006-12-01T12:03:00.000-06:00

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking to family and friends. While the holidays certainly played part in our conversations, the big annoucement was that

We're Having Another Baby!

ahem

The next addition to our household will be arriving sometime towards the end of May or early June. The answers to everyone's questions are
1) Of course, we are going to find out what sex it is. Just as soon as it is born.
2) We were able to conceive the old-fashioned way - no doctors, no shots, no IUI.
3) Oliver is excited about being a big brother. He seems to be leaning towards having a sister, but I don't think he's nailed down any strong preference.
4) We haven't come up with a good in-the-womb name yet. I'm leaning towards calling it Dido, but my wife has veto power.

We intentionally told my parents first (actually we told Oliver first, but I don't think he'll remember that). I called them on their anniversary. I told them that I wanted to wish them a happy anniversary at the same time. When they put me on speaker I wished them a happy anniversary. I told them that I had forgot to send flowers and begged their forgiveness. Then I said that I made something not strictly for them but that they would love to see it. "What is it?" "We're expecting a new baby." They were quite pleased to hear it.

The next day we were at my sister-in-law's place for a niece's birthday. I figured that my wife would eventually get around to spilling the beans, but she said that I could do it. We were in the kitchen later talking about how birthdays closer to the holidays are just so hard. "Well, our next one will have six months in between, so that will be okay." They caught on immediately.

It was the best of sleep. It was the worst of sleep.

2006-11-26T13:40:00.000-06:00

The past couple of weeks Oliver has not been napping and has been having a hard time getting to sleep at night. He's been uncharacteristically cranky. Tantrums, screaming - as you can imagine, this has made life at home a lot of fun. Oliver has been dealing with some changes in his day care. He recently moved up from the lower level to the two year old room. So new teacher, new environment, new kids, new schedule.

But the last couple of days we've concentrated on getting him back on schedule. We focused on a consistent routine and an earlier time. It wasn't a lot of fun during the first couple of scream-fests, but the past couple of nights have gotten much better and naps are improving. And not coincidently his behavior is improving. And we couldn't be happier.

Blogging honestly

2006-11-20T18:33:00.000-06:00

In the beginning, when I created the blog, I had intended to write whatever I wanted to. But I made one fundamental mistake. I told people about my blog. I started thinking about metablogging and adjusting my content based on the fact that I knew that people I knew were reading what I wrote. I didn't write about all of the things that I wanted to because there are just something that you don't talk about in public. So I didn't write about the times when I was frustrated with my wife or any other personal issues. And I started censoring myself on the things that I did write about when I staryed running into people who read my blog and wanted to continue the argument that I started on the blog in person. And then I ran into trouble when I was an idiot.

Recently, a friend of mine blogged about the fact that she and her husband were having marital troubles. It was a revelation for a number of reasons, but the one that is germane to this post is that it was just so honest and personal. I aspire to be able to post like that.

Just bear with me while I work up the courage.

Casting about on TV

2006-11-16T12:45:00.000-06:00

So far, the only show that my wfe and I watch regularly is the Amazing Race. We haven't really picked up any new shows to watch since the demise of most of our shows last season. Since I have some spare time, I've been sampling different shows to see if any would stick. So far, for good or ill, no luck.

I've watched a couple of episodes of Heroes. You'll notice that I didn't say that I've been watching since the beginning. Lacking cable and the ability to see previous episodes, I'm going to have to pass on that one since I have missed a lot of the early world building.

I've watched a couple of episodes of Studio 60. I like the dialogue. I like the actors. But it just isn't coming together for me. I guess it is because it lookes and sounds so much like the West Wing. But now all of the elements from the West Wing are being used in support of an SNL-from-when-it-was-good clone instead of in support of the fate of the free world. I just can't care that much.

I caught an episode of Show Me the Money. What a piece of crap! Contestants are given so many outs that no question is really suspenseful. They are told to choose between A, B, or C, when the actual choice doesn't matter. They answer the question and then pick the dollar amount and then Shatner stalls until they go to the reveal of up or down. Yay - there are dancers. Other than a blatant appeal to males, why? It suffers markedly in comparison to Deal or no Deal.

Deal or No Deal is another game show that has beautiful babes for no apparent purpose. The offer from the banker is never really suspenseful if you understand probabilities - the banker offers something like expected value. Howie is a good host and the game is simple enough to rival even Wheel of Fortune for simplicity. I just can't get into this one either.

Any recommendations for someone without cable? if not, that's okay too. There's always books.

Jonesing for some Magic

2006-11-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

The past few weeks I've really been jonesing for some Magic. Basically ever since I got back from the prerelease I've wanted to go out and play. But there are several problems with this. One, since I already have one night a week out by myself, I feel guilty about wanting to go out on another night, leaving my wife alone with Oliver. Two, I don't actually know of that many places to go play. For a while there was a website that kept track of where to play and when for the St. Louis area. But a couple of months ago whoever was playing for the domain and hosting let it slip. So now there aren't any good ways to find some where to go play. Three, I could call a friend or three and see if anyone wants to play but most of the people that I know who play are in similar situations to me in terms of family commitments. In the end my real life Magic experiences end up being limited to infrequent get togethers with friends and semi-annual trips to the prereleases.

I'm seriously thinking of getting into Magic Online. In some ways it fits with where I find myself. I don't necessarily have the freedom to buy enough cards, spend enough time, meet enough people, or travel to enough tournaments to be competitive. When I do have the time, it is usually between the time that Oliver goes to sleep and I call it a night. Whether I'm watching TV or playing Magic, it shouldn't make that much of a difference to anything else that I'd be doing.

But I don't want to do it regardless. I feel like it would invalidate the money that
I've already spent on Magic the Paper. I don't like their Wizard's pricing model which prices digital cards at the same price as paper cards. And it would take a lot of money to get me to the point where I am with the paper cards I own. Or really even near it.

Ideally, if I could get my wife to play with me, that would be perfect. She enjoys games, is very competitive, and has a quick mind. It would be another thing that we could do together and an occasional game fits the time between Oliver's and our bed times. But she has categorically stated that she has NO wish to EVER learn how to play. So i'm looking for another option. Preferably something that won't bankrupt me.

Sacrifice Mypetrock

2006-11-12T21:00:00.000-06:00

When I first learned about patterns in software, it was a revelation. Patterns are a way of describing the underlying template behind software design. A number of the algorithms that I used suddenly fit into a common framework. The work that I've done since has been better since I have more precise language to describe what I'm doing.

After we got back from the training course, my manager told us about another group of patterns that occur in management. One of them is called the Sacrifice One pattern, where a manager assigns a potentially big time sink or terrible task to one employee so that the rest of the team doesn't get effected. In my later work at that company, our group renamed that pattern to be Sacrifice Mypetrock as I was the assigned sacrifice for task after task. It fot my personality as I enjoyed taking on new tasks, but I just wanted someone else to be the sacrificial lamb just once.

After a while it occurred to me that I find myself being the sacrificial lamb a lot. When I played roller hockey, I volunteered to strap on the pads and play goalie. I wasn't very good at it, but everyone let me play because being goalie more or less sucks. I told my new project manager about it during my interview and I'm finding myself again being the sacrifice. It's not quite the same in my gaming group where I purposefully sought the role of DM but the idea is the same - one person taking on a time-consuming task in order to save the rest from having to do it.

I find that it also happens in my little family. "I'm sure that Daddy wants to go outside with you." "I'm sure that Daddy would like to give you a bath." "Ask Daddy to change your diaper." It's not that I don't like spending time with my son, but it doesn't seem that the fun parts get delegated with the same frequency. And I feel like I'm a terrible person if I don't want to be sacrificed at the moment. To be fair, I've done my share of sacrificing my wife, but it never seems that she gets sacrificed as often as I do.

Results are in

2006-11-08T09:57:00.000-06:00

I feel good about the results of yesterday's election. Just about everything I went there to vote for passed. The voters of Missouri only missed an option to pile on the smokers. For the rest, McCaskill won, stem cell passed, minimum wage hiked, and it looks like the Democrats will get a chance to hold Bush's feet to the fire for a year or two. Good times. Good times.

My voting experience was mixed. I ended up waiting about an hour and a half or so in order to get in to vote. I passed the time talking with some of the people who were around me. My wife dropped Oliver off at the point at which I got in to the polling place, so I needed to vote while holding a screaming toddler. TGI-touch screen. In retrospect, I should have let him do some voting on the touch screen in order to calm him down. For all I knew about the judges that I was voting for, he wouldn't have been any more or less informed.

After I voted, we headed to Bread Co for dinner. Mommy joined us after she finished voting. My little man must have been hungry because he polished off his kids meal and a healthy chunk of my wife's soup before he was finished. Then home and off to bed with him. Then off to bed with me to calm the screaming toddler. I'm beginning to notice a trend.

Joke Grenade

2006-11-07T15:18:00.000-06:00

Sometimes the funny stuff comes with a time delay. Some times you don't see the funny stuff until much later.

Says my female coworker with a broken arm, "Pretty soon I'm going to be really good at typing with one hand."

A couple of minutes later I'm giggling at my monitor.

Go vote!

2006-11-06T16:05:00.000-06:00

I don't really care what your political persuasion is (well, that's a lie, but I don't care for the purposes of this post) - tomorrow is Election Day. Go Vote!

The 10 second update - Great times

2006-11-06T16:00:00.000-06:00

My brother came to town. Oliver, my brother, and I went to the City Museum and had a great time. I went to a couple of Halloween parties on my own due to munchkin maladies and had a great time. Oliver got to go out trick or treating on or about Halloween twice and had a great time. This past weekend, we sat for a friend's child. She and Oliver had a great time hanging out together. Saturday we went to a friend's wedding while Oliver got to be with a paid sitter for the first time. Then later that night he went to a friend's house for his second time with a sitter. Sunday night we went to the Magic House. Oliver had a great time sliding down the three story slide.

Weekend in Chicago

2006-10-24T14:42:00.001-05:00

We went up to Chicago this weekend. Originally we were going to run in the marathon, but a stress fracture on my part and shin splints on my wife's part forced us from the running. But Oliver and my parents had not seen each other in several months and we still had friends who we had trained with who were running so we went up to Chicago.

We drove up to Chicago on Thursday night. I spent most of the drive trying to find the nearest ESPN radio affiliate as we listened to the Cardinals game. I'm not a big baseball fan, but it's hard not to know what's going on with the Cardinals when you live in St. Louis. Plus, it was an exciting game and more interesting than Central Illinois. Once we arrived, my mother welcomed us and immediately commenced playing with Oliver. They both had a great time. I chuckle about how extraneous I am when my parents get a chance to see the little one, but it is too true.

On Friday I got to work while my wife and mother took care of Oliver. It was perhaps unsuprising how difficult it was to get a lot accomplished. Plus, their DSL connection is very slow which complicated matters further. My mother and my father took Oliver with her to my brother's place so that she could watch my niece and Oliver play together. Later that night Papaswoof and Elistirk and Charlotte arrived. They crashed with us Friday night.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast. After breakfast, we watched Charlotte and Oliver play together for a while until it was time to take off. Then I took Papaswoof and my wife off to the airport to pick up Phil. Oliver stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. I remembered the wrong flight arrival time, but it wasn't too much of an inconvenience. After we picked him up, we went to the Marathon Expo. My wife and I picked up our packets and promptly returned our timing chips. We headed back to Papaswoof's hotel in order to pick up some of his stuff and stopped along the way for a late lunch. We ended up at my brother's place for a pre-race carb loading dinner. Oliver got to play with his cousin some more. Then we watched the first game of the World Series and headed to bed.

Sunday morning dawned cold, cloudy, and clear. The threatened rain barely materialized. As my brother and his girlfriend watched Oliver, my wife and I ran about trying to see Phil and Papaswoof as they ran. We managed to see Phil twice. We got his attention once. We didn't see Papaswoof until the end of the run because we were looking in the wrong sections of runners. In the end, they both did really well - beating their time goals. After the marathon, we ran into trouble coordinating various other parties from Phil's parents to Elitsirk and her family. In the end, Phil ended up going home with his parents and I ended up dropping Papaswoof off at his hotel. We went out to dinner with my brother and his girlfriend and then headed by my folks' place to say good bye. We didn't end up getting home until after midnight.

All in all it was a good weekend. I would have preferred to have been running, but other than that I have no complaints.

Marathon recap

2006-10-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

Back in April, my wife got a note from her work offering her a free entry into the
Chicago Marathon. She was looking for an overarching fitness goal for the year. I had been interested in running more over the summer. Our desires coincided and the marathon training began. I sent a note to some friends about training for a marathon and got a few volunteers. We started training in May. The group continued to meet every Saturday in various configurations until two weeks ago. We added a runner who knew a friend of ours, but injuries forced her to stop training. Similiarly injuries forced both my wife and I to stop training. But our friends kept on training. And this past weekend, both of them not only completed the Chicago Marathon, but did so while beating their time goals. You guys rock!

And now I'm asking myself, what's next? Next week I should be able to start running again. Over the winter, I'll refocus my energies on shorter races - 5K, 10K, up to a half-marathon. I could run the St. Louis Marathon, but I'm pretty sure that it will be tough to find training partners for that. Instead, I'm more likely to do the Marathon relay event.

Anyone want to go for a run?

Castless

2006-10-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

I went to the doctor's office this morning and got the good news that I can take the cast off! I'm still on the sidelines for the next few weeks, but the doctor didn't think that there would be anything wrong with me walking to work or walking around Chicago for this weekend's marathon. I'm psyched about getting the thing off.

Writer's block

2006-10-18T09:41:00.000-05:00

This is about the fourth time that I've opened up a window to start a post and had little to nothing to say. I guess it's not that I don't have anything to say, but rather nothing is coming out.

I go to see the doctor tomorrow and should be released from my strap on cast. I'll be very happy to have it off. It's just been really annoying to deal with. Going up and down stairs has been quite a chore. Not being able to drive has been a pain. Having to curtail the amount of walking that I do has been really limiting. With the office having moved to Clayton, I'd like to walk, but I can't. Never mind enjoying the last of the fall weather and going for a run.

I'm headed to Chicago this weekend to watch the marathon that I should be running. Phil and Papaswoof are running and we are going to do our best to cheer them on. I'm looking forward to the trip as it has been quite a while since I saw my parents. They are looking forward to seeing me or more accurately they are looking forward to seeing Oliver.

My brother is coming down for a visit next week. I know that he is looking forward to spend time with his little buddy. I'm looking forward to spending time with him. I tend not to get to spend any time with my brother one-on-one as I only get up to Chicago a few times a year and so it usually turns into a Family Circus.

Not doing anything this weekend

2006-10-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

My wife and I were trying to figure out if we had any plans this weekend. And for the first time in a long time, we don't. We don't have any nagging home improvement projects that need to get done. We don't have any runs scheduled (or would we be able to do any). We're not going any where. We don't have plans with any friends (yet).

I really don't know what to do with myself.

Bathtub experimentation

2006-10-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

Oliver had a great time while taking a bath tonight. First, he filled a large cup with bath water very carefully. I couldn't tell if he was trying to get all of the bubbles or none of them, but whatever he was doing, he was doing it precisely. Once the water was in the cup, he stirred it vigorously with his scoop. Rinse. Repeat. Great fun.

Later I started trying to comb his hair. Eventually he got the comb away from me and dropped it in the water. The comb floated up to the surface. He pushed it down. it floated up. He pushed it down harder. It floated up. He held it down for a while. It floated up. He kept trying different tactics to sink the comb. It was fun to see his mind at work trying to solve the problem.

Ever get the feeling...

2006-10-04T23:26:00.000-05:00

... like what is supposed to be helping you is in fact hurting you? It may be because I'm not all that bright and decided to walk to work on Monday, but my leg has been hurting me more than it did before I put on the strap-on cast that is supposed to be helping my leg heal. It may also be because I spent much of Saturday and Sunday with it off so that I could stain the deck. It may also be that I'm just frustrated because since the cast is on my right foot, I can't drive and am dependent on the kindness of others for my transportation. It may also be that I'm just more sensitive to how my leg feels since I know that there is something wrong with it. Whatever it is, I just have that feeling. And I have to wait another two weeks to see if my hypothesis is correct. Waiting sucks.

Hockey draft

2006-10-04T23:19:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday I held a draft for the people who are doing my fantasy league this year. Because we had remote people, we opted to do the draft on line to mixed results. On the plus side, the usually interminal draft only took about two hours. Having an inflexible time clock set at 1:30 helped people who might otherwise spend 5:00 hemming and hawing over a pick make up their mind. The program took care of removing previously drafted players from the list, so there wasn't the usual problem someone asking in the 15th round if Joe Thornton had already been drafted. All good.

But we had a couple of people who had problems with the interface and ended up making some of the wrong picks. There was also a bit less of the intrapersonal interaction between managers that characterizes the usual draft. A lot of the stuff that happened in the room didn't make it on to the chat board. In the end, I think that I would do another online draft next year and maybe add a few more roster spots if it is going to go that quickly.

Night screaming deserves a quiet night

2006-10-04T23:15:00.000-05:00

Oliver has been waking up in the middle of the night screaming. It wouldn't necessarily be so bad, but it also wakes my wife and I up too. And if we could divine what it was that was waking him up, we could fix it. But he wakes up calling for water and refuses his water cup. He wakes up for blankets and refuses the blanket we give him. And those are the times when we can decipher his requests. I keep hoping that this is a phase that will end in about a day and a half. But so far no luck.

Killing time

2006-10-04T23:06:00.000-05:00

I've recently been turned on to Pandora, an off-shoot of the Music Genome project. You enter a band or a song, and it starts playing songs that sound like the band or song you started with. It works well, but only as long as you stay within the narrow confines of what you like about the particular band or song. I may like 80's Madonna and Ragtime, but the musical intersection is too varied to help Pandora effectively pick music that you'd like. I have found some bands that I like using Pandora. Massive Attack puts out music that fits within the realm of what I like in electronica. But I've learned that I don't like a lot of music that fits within the realm of electronica. This is also a massive time sink, FYI.

Our gate is on our back fence, giving us a complete fence. I just need to put in the latch so that you can use the gate. Details, details. It's been somewhat satisfying to know that we did it ourselves even though I know that whoever comes in after us will wonder what inebriates put it up.

Tonight there was a hash that started not too far from my house. so I stopped by beforehand and at the on-after to put in an appearance. It was literally too close not to go. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be limited to just appearances for a while. As it is, I'm just killing time until my leg heals.

Hey - it's only been a month...

2006-10-02T22:29:00.000-05:00

September was an interesting month. That's why I haven't written anything in a while. And for once I'm only being a little bit facetious.

We've been busy around the house. Oliver is proving to be quite a handful. I can't imagine what a difficult child would be like. He has been very excited about the new Metrolink stop and has ridden the choo-choo a number of times. Each time is just as exceiting though. Plus, in the morning, there is always the game of spot to choo-choo as we head to the highway. He's got a pretty good vocabulary that I'm getting better at deciphering.

The other night he even got a joke. I was trying to put him to bed and he kept calling for a ball. "Ba! Ba! BA! BAAA!" Finally, I said, "Oliver, are you my little sheep?" He paused. He thought about it. Then, he said with a smile, "Baaaa! Ba! Baaaa! Ba!" over and over for a good ten minutes. It didn't get him down any earlier, but at least I know that he shares my sense of humor - what there is, anyway.

Domestic chores are also eating up a lot of time. Beyond the usual day to day tasks, we have started a number of other projects. We have most of the fence up in the back of the house. We just need to put on the door in order to complete it. But Oliver has run out of patience with the whole exercise which has really put a cramp into our time to work on it. This past weekend I restained our deck. My wife has been working on fixing up ouor first floor bathroom and the addition.

Work kept me busy. The beginning of the month was devoted to preparing for an important demo. The later part of the month was spent doing code development. Perhaps the three most important/interesting things that happened were the road map, the Chili day, and the move. The road map that I'm talking about is the high level overview of our Go To Market Strategy. Up until the day when it was presented, I had an inkling of how much work it was going to take in order to get our system to production. After that I have a more specific idea of the functionality that we are going to have in January as well as some of the big pieces coming down the pipe. On the one hand it comforts me to know that that is all we have to do. On the other hand, we have to do it all.

The last Wednesday of the month we had a Chili day at work for both our company and our parent company. I had been debating as to which prize I wanted to win - hottest or best. As it happened, I forgot to start cooking my chili until the morning of the contest and threw it together in about 25 minutes. While competing against other chefs who had spent up to a week strategizing their dishes, I ended up winning the prizes for Most Interesting Use of Ingredients and Worst Dressed Chef. Those who know me know that I deserved both titles.

The following Friday our company moved into its new digs in Clayton. We're now on our own in a new space. It's kind of liberating to have some space to spread out. Plus, the office is only a mile or so away from my house. Ka-ching! I've been looking forward to this ever since I first talked to the project manager back in March. Today I walked to work. Tomorrow my wife will drop me off on her way to work.

I'm not actually being a weenie in having my wife drop me off at work. I have a stress fracture in my right leg and have a strap on cast. It seems that I put too much stress on my legs by training for a marathon while not dieting and gaining 20 lbs. Yes, folks, you too can train for a marathon and gain weight if you follow my example. So no marathon for me. No marathon for my wife either - nasty case of shin splints. There's not a lot of sympathy floating around at our house.

Before I was enfeebled, I did manage to hare a hash again. It started near downtown Clayton and I had the group do a Where's Waldo as I wandered around the Clayton Art Fair. Then the trail led them over the new MetroLink tracks and through Wash U's campus during a sorority softball tournament. The dirty old men of the group were quite impressed. One of the hashers got lost on campus and ended up in Forest Park. She managed to convince a bus driver to give her a ride to Clayton though...

In other recreational news, I went to a prerelease for Time Spiral, the newest Magic expansion. Over 20 hours of playing, I had a great time. I didn't win anything significant - only two packs - but I was in contention to win half of a box and could have split it with my opponent. However, I thought my deck was better than it was and I got run over but quickly. Instead of 18 packs, I got 0. Ah well, live and learn. But it was a great time and i really like the set. I'd like to buy a couple of boxes if I can.

Wanted: Waldo

2006-09-08T08:06:00.000-05:00

Friends,

I need a volunterr to play Waldo for a live Where's Waldo hunt. Please send me an email if you are interested.

Fencing

2006-08-31T13:32:00.000-05:00

Way back when we had a retaining wall installed on the back side of our house, the people who did the work needed to take down the fence in order to get their equipment into the backyard. For whatever reason, the fence never got up back up and was left in place in pieces. Years passed (not kidding).

Recently, my wife decided that she wanted some barrier in place to keep Oliver from running out to the alley. And so began the saga of the New Fence. The first episode consisted of getting several preconstructed fence panels and posts from Home Depot and hauling them home. In case you are curious, they are in fact quite heavy. My wife and I lugged them home strapped to the roof rack of my mother-in-law's minivan. Does anyone else feel like an idiot whenever they are a hauling around something strapped to their roof?

The second episode was the attempted removal of the existing fence. The removal took a long time in part because a weed had grown through the fence links and become so big that it actually had bark. We've managed to remove most of the above ground part and with wire snips were able to cut off the fence links that are now part of the plant. I'm calling this the attempted removal of the existing fence because we had so much trouble removing one of the fence posts that we decided to use it for the new fence. After all, it is clearly not going anywhere.

But why is it not going anywhere you ask? That is the part of the trilogy of unfortunate events that brings our story to a screeching halt. Our original plan was to put the fence at the edge of the alley. But when we started digging, we found a metal plate about three inches down. Fearing that it was covering some sort of utility lines, we suspended digging until DigRite got back to us. A couple of days later and an all-clear signal from the utilities, we started going again and managed to unearth one mother of a 1/4 inch thick, 8 feet tall, 2 feet wide steel plate. After hauling it out of the way I started digging a hole in the middle of the stretch where we wanted to put the fence. Eight inches down I ran into another sizable stretch of concrete. I tried digging in another spot and came across another sizable chunk of concrete. When I tried to unearth the fence post, I found it was squeezed between two sizable chunks of concrete. At that I decided that I'd had enough of sizable chunks of concrete and called it a day.

So at this point, we still need to remove the tree/weed and will likely have to dig through a sizable chunk of concrete in order to place the other fence post. ARGH!

Downright pleasant again

2006-08-31T13:22:00.000-05:00

It was hot. And then it got downright pleasant again. But this time I can't really take advantage of it since my leg hurts. I'm not sure, but I think I have a stress fracture on my right leg near my ankle. So in the mean time I'm icing it, trying to stay off it, and loving the weather from afar instead of going for a run in it.

Grumble. Grumble.

Downright pleasant

2006-08-16T12:08:00.000-05:00

I don't know what has gotten into Mother Nature all of a sudden, but the weather has been downright pleasant. It's not too warm during the day. It cools off at night. The humidity is somewhat restrained. I've come home from work and wanted to be outside rather than fleeing the unrelenting heat to the safety of my air-conditioned home. I'm confused - this is still St. Louis, right?

Well, until I wake up from this dream I'll be hitting the streets to go running when I get home.

When good plans go awry

2006-08-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

I was playing a session of D&D last night with my group. They were just about out of resources for the day and had holed up to sleep. It seemed like a good time to taunt them by having the BBEG (big bad evil guy) show up at their doorstep and then leave. But they had decided that they'd had enough. They popped out of their rope trick and blasted him. One critical hit with a disintegrate ray, a cruddy initiative roll on his part, and a few clobberings later, the BBEG was dead and the players were celebrating. Curse them and their infernal competence.

Weekend travelling

2006-08-14T11:21:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend travelling up to Chicago for a race. While we were in town, we got to see some family and friends which was great. I hadn't gotten a chance to see my family in several months and it had been over a year since I got to see my friends. Oliver had a great time playing with his cousin including one stretch where the two of them were running around the table playing Cowboys and Indians for Toddlers.

The race went well and bodes well for the marathon to follow. I attempted to follow my own racing advice and managed to keep my ego in check and only wrote inexpensive checks that my body couldn't cash. I know that I need to be a little more dedicated to my training though - my heart rate was higher than I would have wanted in some sections of the race.

Travelling with Oliver was good too. He slept most of the way up to Chicago and a good section of the trip down. When he was awake, my wife kept asking things for him to name. Usually he isn't too much into that, but yesterday he was more than game to try. I guess this means he's in the middle of a verbal growth spurt. So now I have to watch my mouth.

Meet the Neighbors

2006-08-10T11:39:00.001-05:00

It's not that I'm not social, but I haven't really spent a lot of time talking to my neighbors. It's been better since we had Oliver, but we still don't spend a lot of time interacting. I think part of the problem is that I haven't really adjusted to the idea that I'm a grownup, that all of the parents up and down the block are my peers. So when I talk to them, I feel a little awkward, as if they'll discover that I'm not really a grownup.

Last night I took Oliver to the local playground and ran into one of my neighbors from down the block, M. M is a SAHD with two children, one of whom is a couple of months younger than Oliver. Talk about a potential gold mine of inter-child interaction that we've ignored for a year or more. M and I had a good conversation about running as we watched our children run around the playground. It was good and by the end of the encounter, I felt much more comfortable.

And maybe I found another neighborhood playmate for Oliver.

Too much Angel

2006-08-10T11:39:00.000-05:00

I've been watching Angel Seasons 1,2 and Buffy Season 5 (thanks to Amanda). And I've discovered the downside of having shows on DVD. When a show is on TV there is at least a week lag between episodes. Not so on DVD. If you are willing to stay up, there is nothing that prevents you from doing so. And so I've put in a couple of long nights recently speeding through seasons of Buffy and Angel.

I can tell that my wife is also getting a little too much Buffy. The other day I got up early and as I was leaving to go to a race, I heard her talking in her sleep. "Need to get book... vampires..." Sure sign of too much Buffy. I'd say that she was the only one, but that'd be a lie.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...

2006-08-07T08:43:00.000-05:00

In the big storm, we lost half of the tree in front of our house. After removing the fallen debris, it became obvious that the rest of the tree needed to come down. So on Saturday, my brother-in-law came over with his chain saw. I cut down a lot of the low branches with a bow saw before he came. When he arrived, we went on to the main event.

The most exciting part of the job was chopping off the top of the tree that was angled towards my neighbor's house. I climbed the ladder resting on the trunk of the tree with my bow saw. We tied a rope around the tree just above the height of the ladder and he took hold of it, pulling from the ground. I started sawing through the trunk below the cut. When it started cracking, I climbed down the ladder as fast as I could and hit the ground in time to see the tree top gracefully crack and fall harmlessly into the neighbor's yard. After that it was more or less just a matter of cleanup - using the chainsaw to cut the big branches into smaller chunks to get piled up by the curb and hauled away by the city.

After he took off, I spent some time drilling holes into the soft wood of the stump. I covered the remains of the stump with some fertilizer and watered the area. The thought is that in several months, the stump should rot away enough that I can get rid of it without having to grind it away.

Update:
We got the tree down just in time. The city came by this morning and finally started clearing our street of debris.

Now I lay us down to sleep

2006-08-04T07:31:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I'm trying to get Oliver down to sleep, I end up putting myself to sleep as well. I'll wake up from my nap and then look at the clock and figure out whether it is worth it to get up and go downstairs or pencil myself in for extra sleep that night. Last night was an extra sleep night. I went down about 9:00 and woke up about 7:00. It was great. I probably should have gotten up and got some stuff done. There wasn't anything of major importance though, so I'll just get it done today.

I do sometimes get frustrated by our bedtime routine. We opted not to use Cry It Out as a bedtime solution. So when Oliver goes to bed, we lay down with him until he drifts off. It used to get be Mommy but eventually she got sick of being the only one who could do it. So it sometimes includes both Mommy and Daddy. It's becoming a huge time sink especially when he takes a half-hour or more to work his way down.

Introducing the human sausage!

2006-08-03T16:45:00.000-05:00

When I started upping my training program, I let the diet fall by the way side. Up until recently I hadn't been too bad, but eating out for a week straight due to power failures is not a recipe for weight loss. Add unrelenting heat and a desire to not be out in it on top of that and you have a recipe for weight gain. I'm still not too bad, but I'm trending up towards my pre-diet weight. As in I'm almost there.

Before the power outage, I went to the New Balance store on Clayton and bought a running shirt that was marked half off. One of the many benefits of being a man is that off the rack clothes generally fit the same. Since I had been losing weight and wanted a tighter fit I selected a large. It wasn't until I tried it on at home that I realized that it was a compression shirt.

Now combine the mental pictures and you get a pretty good idea of what a human sausage would look like. Just douse me in beer and toss me in the frying pan. Now, I'm been a rock (training for a marathon) and a soft place. I'm not planning on starting a diet, but I may have to reel in my appetite somewhat.

And for those of you who are groaning about the mental image - eat me.

At home with power

2006-07-28T07:49:00.000-05:00

I got a call from my wife about 2:00pm yesterday. "We have power!!" I was in the middle of a meeting and had to quash the desire to go home. I successfully managed to keep it quashed until 4:00 when I couldn't keep it down any longer. At home I cleaned out the refrigerator and the freezer before the family got home. With no food in the house, we ordered in a pizza. After dinner my wife went grocery shopping while I gave the child a bath and put him to bed. And for the post bed excitement, my wife and I watched a couple of episodes of Buffy season five before it was time for us to go to bed too.

And it was great.

400th post!

2006-07-25T21:54:00.000-05:00

This is actually my 400th post. This has been an interesting century of posts. It feels like a bit of an anticlimax since I haven't been posting very much recently. I haven't really had or made the time to keep updating. I spent a lot of time posting from my old job as it was winding down.As I hit my stride at the new job, expect to see me return to form.

We're still without power. Actually at this point, I don't know anyone else without power, so we win. I'll be expecting my booby prize any minute now. We've been able to depend on the kindness of friends and family, which has made a tough situation easier. But there is just something about being able to spend time in your own space. There is a certain lack of familiarity, privacy, being able to do your own thing, ... that you just don't get when you are at other people's homes. I appreciate what everyone has done for us, opening up their homes and allowing us to stay, but I just want to go home.

Update: The universe has kindly relented and I get my wish. I'm going home!

Still without power

2006-07-25T13:26:00.000-05:00

A friend recently observed that the home answering machine is the greatest remote power checker in history. However, there is something very depressing about calling yourself only to hear ring after ring go unanswered.

Update

2006-07-24T07:40:00.000-05:00

It turns out that we are one of five houses on our street to be still without power. I think that when the branch dropped, it took out the transformer. So with 40% of our city and several hundred thousand in the area still without power, I think it'll be a while until they come investigate our little stretch of houses.

I'd say that it sucks to be us, but really up until this point, it really hasn't been too bad. We have been able to rely on the kindness of friends and family. My family stayed with Andi and her husband one night. The next night my wife retreated with Oliver up to her mother's place while I stayed with Elitsirk and her husband so that we could go for our long run. The next morning everyone who stayed there pitched in for a huge breakfast after our run. After checking on the cat, I rejoined my family at my sister-in-law's place. In the morning, my wife and I helped out with my sister-in-law's paper route. Later, I came back to the house so that I could check on the cat and get ready for work.

All that said, I am ready for the fun to be over. There is just something to be said for being in your own space with your own things.

The storm

2006-07-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

Wednesday I was giving Oliver a bath and waiting for my wife to get home when the lights started flickering. Great, I thought, it'll be a brownout. Then I heard a crack and a thud. A few minutes later there was another crack and a loud popping sound and then we lost power. I got Oliver out of the tub and we went to investigate. We looked out at the back yard and I noticed that the sycamore tree in our neighbor's yard had dropped a limb damaging their garage and snapping the power line. I had a sinking feeling that this wasn't going to be a quick brownout. I looked at the sky to see if it was greening and I should take Oliver to shelter in the basement, but it never really got to that point. I got him dressed and we went downstairs.

Once we got downstairs, I got to see the biggest part of the damage. The tree in our front yard had split down the middle in the wind. The tree had fallen towards the house, but landed just in front of the front door. It didn't even break the screen. It turns out that it only twisted our front gutter. And all those guys who looked at trimming the tree thought it would hit the house. It was barely a grazing, guys! Inspection completed, I settled Oliver down to sleep. Until Mommy got home and the inspection had to start all over again.

Last night, I picked Oliver up from day care and stopped by the house. We were still without power and the house was starting to heat up. I started trying to saw my way though the tree that was blocking the front door but Oliver was not being cooperative. Rather than gut it out we called some friends and crashed at their place last night. After work today, we'll drop by the house again and see if the power is back on. If not, our nomadic days aren't quite at an end.

Pet peeve

2006-07-19T15:18:00.000-05:00

One of my pet peeves is when you are talking to someone and they repeat the same word over and over again even when it doesn't fit the context of what they are saying. It's sort of like when you spent time in public speaking class counting the "Umm"s and "Errr"s of the pupil under scrutiny. One of the guys that i work with uses the word "actually" five or six times per verbal paragraph. Arrrghhh!

Now I'm LinkedIn

2006-07-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

The very day I post about my problems losing touch with people, a friend invites me to join LinkedIn, one of those online networking sites. I spent a couple of hours looking online for friends and acquaintances. I managed to find a couple of friends from school in the list. I had the most trouble finding other people who worked at the places I did. Not because they weren't on there, but because the system was broken.

Bad dream

2006-07-18T08:29:00.000-05:00

This morning I had a day-mare as I dreamed that I ran into my freshman roommate, Nate. What made it a day-mare instead of a dream was that I started trying to talk to him about Oliver and found out that he and his wife had had infertility problems. Mmmm love that shoe leather. Sure it isn't like the falling dream or the naked public speaking dream, but it is one of the things that I'm afraid of - losing touch with people that I was such good friends with.

I've lost touch with a lot of people over the years. Pat, who I was friends with in grade school. The guys on the cross country team in high school. My other friends from high school. My friends from college who have left the area. I know that i don't necessarily have the time to keep up with everyone, but occasionally i'll come across something and think "Cliff, would really think that was funny." and that's when I feel the loss.

More insidious than Tom's Diner!

2006-07-13T09:02:00.000-05:00

It's one thing when you get a song stuck in your head. That happens to everyone. Just start humming the chorus of Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega and watch what happens. But what happens when you get a book stuck in your head? I've had Goodnight Moon stuck in my head for the past couple of days. It alternates with But Not the Hippopotamus on my head's internal playlist. And there really isn't anything that you can do to get it out. At least with Tom's Diner you had a chance. You could always lapse into Yellow Submarine or YMCA in order to cleanse your head. But there is no dealing with Goodnight Moon.

Hashing in the news

2006-07-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, hashers make the news. Usually it is because some flour dots are confused with some powdered virus stock, but occasionally hashers get good press. This story in the Indy Star newspaper, http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060710/NEWS01/607100413, led to a story on MSNBC, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12579116/. Both stories painted a decent picture of what it is like to hash.

ON ON

Syriana

2006-07-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

I watched Syriana last night and I thought it was well done, but I didn't connect with any of the characters enough to find myself really caring about their plight. The Matt Damon character is one that should have really resonated with me as the father who loses his son and is looking for something to believe in. I think it had something to do with the disjointed manner in which the story was told. Any of the characters could have made a compelling story but taken together I didn't get enough time to make the connection. On the other hand, you could argue that the point of the movie was less in the characters and more in the story or the political message of the movie, but I'd prefer to sacrifice the message in service of a more compelling and involving story.

The Full Monty

2006-07-11T11:50:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while a movie comes along that makes you glad that you are older. I keep telling myself that I'm glad that it didn't come out when I was deeply involved in my fraternity in college as I'm sure that I could have been persuaded with only the most gentle of prodding to have joined a group of guys for our own version of the Full Monty. On the other hand, in the days before I had my own mug hanging up at Growlers, I might have looked less like the mark Addy character and more like the guy that likes to run into walls (or at least more than I currently do). I do find that it resonates more with me as I get older. The Mark Addy character who has trouble losing weight. The Robert Carlyle character who is willing to do anything to continue to see his son. Plus there is the thought that in some number of years that the software development career that I've chosen for myself could become decidedly less profitable and/or I could become scrap like them. I could always change careers then. Hmmm... maybe I really need to work on my abs...

Active weekend

2006-07-05T11:29:00.000-05:00

In contrast to many other weekends, this one was surprisingly busy. My wife and I decided (that is to say my wife decided and I concurred) that it was time to fix up the downstairs addition. The downstairs addition was the sole remaining room in the living area that we hadn't yet worked on the walls to any significant degree. So on Thursday night we moved all of the stuff that was in the room out into the dining room and started working on it. By Friday night we had gotten much of the loose paint scraped off. Saturday we dropped Oliver off with grandma and got a layer of spackle up. It was looking like we were going to get it done this weekend.

But then we went to a family birthday party. At the party my wife talked with her brother about different rough textures that we could apply to the walls to camoflage the roughness of the surface underneath. She decided that she really liked the look of "knockdown," but it wasn't something that we were going to be able to get done ourselves due to the difficulty of doing it right. So the game plan changed from "let's finish it" to "let's just get it into a less embarassing shape."

The rest of the weekend blurred into Oliver time, spackle time, and barbecues. We put up some more spackle before we went to sleep Saturday night. Sunday I took Oliver in the morning so that my wife could get some work done. Sunday afternoon was a BBQ at a friend's place. Monday I was on Oliver watching duty. Tuesday we ran a race in the morning and then I watched Oliver while my wife took a long overdue nap. Tuesday afternoon was another BBQ and then I painted the walls white last night. We still have to move the stuff back into the room before my parents arrive on Thursday night.

Avoidance of Annoyance

2006-06-29T08:42:00.000-05:00

I've noticed a trend among the relationships of my friends. In general it seems that the one of the key dynamics is the avoidance of annoyance of one partner in general. Take the relationship that I have with my wife for example. There have been a number of times when I've done something that I didn't want to do or vice versa to avoid annoying my wife. If I were to have a night without parental responsibilities and didn't clean the dishes or do the diaper laundry or otherwise have something accomplished to account for my time, she would be rather annoyed. And so whatever it is, it gets done not because I feel any need in particular to have accomplished something.

Is it just me? Testify in the comments.

Let's play ball!

2006-06-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to the Cards game with a couple of guys in my office. It was an odd group as two of the four of us didn't really follow sports and I don't much like baseball. Sure, I can talk a good game since I listen to sports radio, but I'm really just not that into baseball. It was vital to know when the Cards were in town when I worked in O'Fallon as ballpark traffic was crazy. Now that I'm not even taking the highway to work I imagine that it will become less important.

The game itself was okay. The Cards lost 3-1 to the Indians. The Cards weren't able to put up much offense and most of the offense took place in the top of the first before we were able to even take our seats. Our tickets were amazing - four rows off the field on the third base side. But the two most interesting things were the rain delay and the FredBird t-shirt. The rain delay was interesting because apparently the only place in St. Louis to get rain last night was the ball park. And no sooner than they called the game and got the tarp on the field did the rain stop.

There is a story behind the FredBird t-shirt. The CEO of the company had gone to the game a couple of weeks ago. There were a couple of Hoosiers in front of them. As the game wore on they became drunker and more amusing. When FredBird came out to throw out the t-shirts, they hooted and hollered but alas no t-shirts came their way. "He always gives them out to the kids." "Fuckin' bird..." So when FredBird came out, we chuckled about that until one of the FredBirds girls bounced a t-shirt off someone and into my lap. We decided then and there that our CEO needed to get that shirt.

Lazy weekend

2006-06-27T08:51:00.000-05:00

Friday night we got together with some friends because our mutual friends had come into town from DC. I had a good time. I was on Oliver duty for much of the night and kept him entertained by playing with the kids in the yard. We ended up having to leave at Oliver's bed time. I offered to let my wife stay and hang out, but instead we came home and hung out.

Saturday morning we went for a run with the group in the morning and then spent the rest of the day trying to get a few things done around the house. We took a family nap in the afternoon. Later in the afternoon my wife took Oliver to the pool and I stayed home and got some stuff done. Then I got to put Oliver to bed for the second night in a row.

Sunday morning, I got up with Oliver in order to let Mommy sleep in. When she got up, she decided that it was my turn to go to the early yoga class. I took extra care to hydrate and went to the class. It still kicked my butt, but I'm getting the hang of it. Now if I could just stand on one leg. When I got back, we had lunch and then Oliver and I went down for a family nap while Mommy got some stuff done. We ended up going back to Target Sunday night so my wife could look for some organization stuff. Oliver and I spent about 45 minutes playing chase through the aisles of Target. Then home to bed.

Movie Review: Underworld: Evolution

2006-06-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

Underworld: Evolution starts its story immediately after the end of Underworld. At the end of the movie, Selene has killed Victor, the head vampire, and gone on the run with Michael, the human descendant of Corvinus. Selene goes back to negotiate with Marcus, the new head vampire, only to find that he has slain all of the vampires in the coven and is now after both Michael and her. The movie becomes into a long chase sequence as Selene and Michael look for information to help them try to stop Marcus from reuniting with his brother, William, the first Lycan. At the same time, Selene has a series of flashbacks establishing her place in the Underworld universe.

Kate Beckinsale adds a layer of vulnerability to Selene which wasn't present in the first movie. While this isn't exactly the kind fo movie that requires significant acting skills, she adds a touch of class to the procedings. Plus, she looks outstanding in her leather outfits. Scott Speedman mercifully spends most of the movie not speaking but rather fighting in hybrid form or just providing eye candy for the girlfriends dragged to the movie. Tony Curran provides a credible villain and Derek Jacoby adds a bit of dramatic weight to the role of Corvinus.

I had a difficult time deciding what I thought about the movie. On the one hand, the story on its own is good, but the movie suffers from excessive flashback syndrome. On example is that the film spends time establishing a backstory for characters that were already killed off in the previous movie. Good for universe continuity, but bad for pacing. The other qualm with the movie is that the majority of the film is lit with blue light. Vampires are not supposed to fight in daylight, but there were times where the lighting made it difficult to figure out what was going on.

I'd recommend Underworld: Evolution for fans of the previous movie, but everyone else can wait until it hits the bargain rack at the video store.

The other side of an interview

2006-06-23T11:44:00.000-05:00

I've never really been on the other side of an interview before. So yesterday when we did a phone screen with an applicant, I had a weird feeling of deja vu. I remember answering the questions about the things that I had done, trying to strike answer their questions based on my own experiences, trying to make a favorable impression on disembodied voices on the other end of the line. In the end I guess it worked out for me as I'm here now.

The nice thing about the interview was that the candidate seemed like he was pretty strong. I'd hate to have to do one of these where the candidate was clearly unqualified.

Yoga is kicking my butt

2006-06-22T13:45:00.000-05:00

My wife and I have been doing Bikram yoga classes. I've had 5 classes and every one has kicked my butt. We start by lying down on our towel and mat in the heated room. When it is time for the class to start, the instructor walks in and turns on the lights. The next 45 minutes takes the class through a series of standing postures, many of which require you to balance on one leg. I'm particularly bad at balancing on one leg, never mind doing so while kicking my other leg up over my head. Finally we go to a set of ground based postures punctuated by sit-ups. Many of the postures are familiar to me from my days as a runner, but they are all done a little bit differently in yoga.

From the beginning of class until it ends, I usually end up sweating out about 7-10 pounds of water. This tends to make my towel a little bit sodden and difficult to balance on. I guess I'd do better if I were going more often than once or twice a week, but right now that's all that fits into my schedule. I do feel like I'm getting a benefit from going. I just wish it would stop kicking my butt so much.

Transitions

2006-06-22T11:59:00.000-05:00

One of the toughest things about going to a new job is all of the transitions that you make along the way. The easiest transitions are the physical ones. I'm trying out new routes to work and new routes to day care. I wear a new set of clothes to go to work. I'm carrying a laptop back and forth to work with me. I now sit at a table across from my co-workers instead of in a cube farm.

The cultural aspects of the switch are slightly harder. What is the protocol for lunch? Is it an "eat at my desk" kind of place or does everyone go out together for lunch? What movies/music does everyone listen to? What is the office pecking order? Are knees really appropriate in an office setting?

Finally there is the mental aspects of the switch. Whenever you get to a new spot, you have to learn a new business. Additionally in my case, I have to learn a new technology. It takes me a while to get my feet under me and during this time i feel like I'm that cousin that nobody talks about.

I'm back!!!!

2006-06-17T22:26:00.000-05:00

Apologies to one and all who visited this space looking for updates over the past week and change. I was out of town and generally away from the internet for the duration. And I missed you all terribly. Sounds good anyway...

We left on Wednesday night after work. The actual leaving of town was quite an effort as we didn't have everything ready to go or packed when the time came. And went. As we came. And went. And came back because we forgot things. Wednesday night was a long one as we decided to push all the way to Niagara Falls from St. Louis in one shot. For those of you playing at home, that's a 12 hour haul. To complicate matters, Oliver had eaten a boatload of blueberries and had the requisite runs to accompany them. Every so often we'd have to stop, change his diaper, slather him with cream, and resume driving. The good thing about the whole experience is that Oliver really took all of the driving in stride and was as good as you can imagine for the duration.

Thursday we got to Niagara Falls. We intended to do some sightseeing before naptime, but that didn't end up happening. We all ended up taking a 3 hour nap together. By the time we woke up, it was time for dinner. And after dinner, it was time to go back and sleep. This would make our trip sounds like a complete waste of time, but we'd gotten a Falls View room on the Canadian side and got to go to sleep watching the falls in action. The next morning we went for a run with Oliver and then went on the Maid of the Mist. It was cool to see the falls in action from down below. My wife and I enjoyed it; Oliver did not. By now it was time to check out of our hotel and we headed to Albany.

We were in Albany for the wedding of a friend of my wife. When we arrived on Friday night, we thought we had an hour to spend getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, but we hadn't reset the clock from Central Time, so we ended up arriving a little late. The wedding itself on Saturday came off beautifully and without a hitch. I spent most of the reception on Oliver duty. I ended up taking him back to the hotel to crash before they cut the cake. My wife spent some time renewing acquaintance with friends from college and had a good time.

Sunday we drove from Albany to Boston to spend some time with my aunt. We got there early enough on Sunday that we were able to take him out to Castle Island where Oliver got his first taste of the ocean. It might have worked out better if he were dressed to swim. As it was he walked onto the beach and into the surf (after my wife removed his shoes) and then took a header when he went to turn around.

Monday we went downtown Boston to take in some of the sights. We started on a Freedom Trail tour, but had to give up after Oliver was clearly not having a good time. Perhaps the 90 minute tour was a bit ambitious to start with. Either way we got some food, discovering that Oliver likes Fish and Chips, and went back to the Boston Public Gardens for Oliver to nap. Unfortunately he woke up just after the swan boats closed for the day.

Tuesday was a bit of a lazy day as nap time coincided with the time that we were getting ready to depart. A long nap and dinner plans with family meant that we were only able to see one thing (the USS Constitution) before heading out. We went to my aunt's house in Leominster for dinner. Oliver wasn't much of a dinner companion (preferring to feed his rice to the rug), but he was sufficiently charming that we weren't tossed out of the house on our collective ears. Wednesday we took a trip through Cambridge and had a few more sights planned, but we aborted and spent more time with my aunt.

Thursday started the long circuitous trip home. We started in Boston in the morning, visited an aunt in Providence in the morning, took a trip out to the middle of nowhere for lunch, continued through the middle of nowhere to Hartford but missed seeing a friend of my wife, and then continued on through nowhere to end up in Syracuse for the night. While it was a pretty trip, it made me appreciate the interstate. From Syracuse we drove to Detroit to stay with a cousin for the night on Friday and finally we drove from Detroit back home on Saturday.

It was a great trip, but I'm so glad that I'm back home.

Last day

2006-06-07T12:22:00.000-05:00

Today is my last day at work. I've transferred all of my knowledge. I've said all of my good byes. I'm basically killing time until I think I've stayed long enough. I've got mixed emotions. I'm excited for the work ahead and I'm going to miss these people. It's always tough when you make a change as you leave behind the familiar for the unknown. But change is good. And so I'll keep telling myself until I leave here for the last time.