This Blog Has No Point

Tribute to Twilight fans (New Moon, whatever)

2009-11-27T21:28:00.001-08:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Dr. Suess is mostly good, but...

2009-11-27T20:11:00.000-08:00

The Mizz loves this book. I don't.

If you can't see the video, click here.

1337! Now with a bike rack!

2009-10-04T05:35:00.001-07:00

Had to stop and visit my baby.

Productive couch

2009-08-23T19:07:00.001-07:00

I'm going to lose the nerd crown in my house. This was going on while I was doing dishes.

Franny's new do

2009-07-26T20:04:00.001-07:00

Since Franny apparently won't post a pic...

Happy Birfday F!

2009-06-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday Franny! It's not as easy to celebrate as it used to be, but I gotta recognize your day. :)

(Sorry about the poor picture. It's from the Mizz's zero point naught megapixel camera. D's always sleeping in the room with the good pics.)

Remember the point of the day

2009-05-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

Happy 1st Birthday D!

2009-05-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

I had to sneak a happy 1st birthday wish in here for D while it was still actually his birthday. He's catching up with his brother just as fast as he can. He figured out walking in about a week, and although he's not great at it yet, he loves it and gets further every day.

Tomorrow is official party day, with a Cinco de Mayo theme, including beer, margaritas, guacamole, and a pinata. We're really just using D's birthday as an excuse to invite some friends over, but he doesn't seem to know that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog yet, so everybody be cool. Don't spill it to him, OK?

Maybe it's a good idea Dad's not on Facebook

2009-04-24T23:53:00.001-07:00

Mom's okay, I suppose. She'll never post anything about burping. :)

Erin Go Braghh

2009-03-17T18:37:00.000-07:00

(pinch)

The Day the Muzak Died?

2009-02-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how it happened, but I found out about real news via the Onion, which noted that the Muzak company (elevator and hold music) filed for bankruptcy. Turns out it's true, but that's not the point.

What got me is that I had almost forgotten about the term "elevator music", which maybe is their problem. I work in a lot of different places these days, and I can't think of the last time I rode an elevator that was playing music. Now, maybe I'm just not hanging around the classiest places, but I remember back when most public elevators in businesses had heart-stoppingly boring music playing, and you'd think that I'd stumble on it now and then if it was still popular. It's almost the same thing with hold music. These days, if there is anything playing at all, it's either some radio station that's local to the business's call center or propaganda from the business itself. Usually, though, it's just stone cold silence, often making me think I've been disconnected. (Since I'm usually on a cell phone these days, I don't even expect a dial tone to clue me in.) Anyway, has this stuff largely disappeared, or am I just frequenting the wrong kind of establishments?

Who's your favorite president? Okay, now which one's the best?

2009-02-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

C-Span released their 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey today. It ranks all the past presidents in a number of categories and called the overall winner as...drum roll please...Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, totally rocked.

As I'm sure everybody already knows, James Buchanan is officially the WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER. Actually, I admit that before checking Wikipedia, I couldn't remember what he might have done that would warrant that title. Apparently he didn't really do anything. As in, he did nothing to stop the South from seceding. That might have been it.

For the record, W came in number 36 (out of 42, if you have to ask). Obama is still leaping tall buildings and shooting laser beams out of his eyes, so historians haven't noticed him yet.

The link at the top goes to the official C-Span survey page. It has the whole list, as well as breakdowns of the categories in the survey. A little light reading for political junkies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Whether you celebrate the Christian Saint, the cheesy romance, the massacre, or something else, everybody has an opinion. Enjoy it however you want.

Franny and I both used to hate the day. Actually, hate is too strong a word. Apathy is closer. (I may have mentioned this before, but...) However, 10 years ago today, we took it back from the monsters in the greeting card industry. You see, ten Valentine's Days ago, Franny agreed to marry me. Since we still like each other after all this time, we still like the day. We don't go overboard, but we do make sure to take the excuse to eat too much chocolate. (Of course, other things, like rain or Tuesday, are good excuses too.)

My proposal was simple, but effective. I found several conversation hearts that said "MARRY ME" and decorated a cupcake with them. (It was one of the sad, mass-produced cupcakes from the grocery store bakery with too much sickly-sweet icing that Franny for some reason, LOVES.) I was nervous as hell, and my overtired bride-to-be almost ate the snack without looking at the messages, but I slowed her down and the job got done.

For fun this year, I got another bag and dug out all the "MARRY ME" ones again. Apparently morals have changed in 10 years, as there was a grand total of one. However, there were several saying "FAX ME". Perhaps, in 10 more years, they'll add "TEXT ME", you know, to keep up with the times. There was also one that said "30 GIRL". Can anyone tell me what that's supposed to mean?

Happy Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T20:12:00.000-08:00

I hope you like Friday the 13th. Apparently, we have 3 of them coming at us this year. If you're into superstitious nonsense, here's a list of 13 tidbits about the date. We can also apparently expect another Friday the 13th movie, as in another Jason Voorhees craptacular slashfest. I really thought we played that one out. In the 80's, they threatened to do 13 of them, but they seemed to get tired of it after about nine of them years ago. However, I guess somebody needs to pay the bills, so here they go again.

I missed Charles Darwin's 200th birthday yesterday. It's also the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species..." I'm not trying to a start a war, but his natural selection and evolution theories definitely influenced my view of the natural world, so I'm just putting out a thank you. Apparently, England went a little loony yesterday, with Darwin events all over the place, including a reenactment of a debate between a Darwin supporter and a Church of England bishop. Richard Dawkins (Darwin's rottweiler) was to play the part of Darwin's guy, and someone from the Church was going to be the bishop. However, the Church guy was going to skip the part about which side of his opponents family was descended from monkeys. Apparently, the Church of England is somewhat more scientifically enlightened than it was 150 years ago. In the U.S., however, we apparently still want to fight about it. Louisiana has taken the lead by adopting guidelines allowing teachers to bring in outside, unapproved material to add additional "facts" and debate about controversial topics, a plan aimed squarely at bringing anti-evolution material into science classes. Say whatever you want about creationism, but it isn't remotely scientific (which is kind of the point) and has no place in science classes. Happy now Chuck? See what you started?

Imagining the tenth dimension

2009-01-30T23:28:00.000-08:00

This video attempts to give you a way to imagine the concept of dimensions beyond the third. Watch it and see why you do NOT want to mess with a physicist. Just TRY to follow it. I can think of more than a few people who's eyes are going glaze over way before the halfway point, making them wonder what I was smoking when I decided this video was cool. Maybe there's another science nerd out there who will like it though.

Watch Imagining the ten dimensions in How to Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Congratulations 44

2009-01-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, Barrack, you finally did it. Good luck with the mess you've inherited. If anyone can handle it (besides Franny), you seem like the guy. You've broken an historic barrier today, but as the first Hawaiian president, you're setting a shining example for the world. (If I were you though, I'd run over to the Supreme Court and redo that oath before the wingnuts find someone to read the Constitution to them.)

So I get this phone call from Franny...

2009-01-08T06:07:00.001-08:00

"Is this the child abuse hotline?"

"Um. Yeah. Don't do it."

"Do you want to hear the offense first?"

Converting to Metric

2009-01-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

Since I'm such a measurement nerd for work, I have to appreciate xkcd's Guide to Converting to Metric. Enjoy.

Overheard at work

2009-01-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Among the many places I work, I am occasionally in R&D test kitchens. They're pretty cool actually. These people can come up with anything and have very well stocked kitchens to do it with. But anyway, standing around tasting things all day apparently makes you a little punchy.

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"It's kind of chewy."

"Yeah, you have to hold it in your mouth for a while, like for an hour."

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"It's a good source of calcium."

"It's also a good source of butt fat."

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"Did you taste that bean thing the other day."

"It was awful. It was like beans cooked with grass clippings."

"All I could think of was dirt. It really smelled like dirt when I microwaved it."

"It tasted like a funeral for your pet."

[I can't say as I understand that last part.]

Can you keep the printer not coming to me?

2009-01-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, the Mizz was babbling his way through dinner and among other things, he started talking about the printer. For some reason, he blurted out, "Can you keep the printer not coming to me?", I believe as some sort of toddler joke. I didn't understand, so I asked for some clarification, and he repeated it. In talking about it, however, it became clear that his little 3-year-old brain had latched onto it, and he actually got worried that the printer was going to come and get him. He really needed me to make sure to keep the printer away. For the next couple nights, the last thing we had to discuss on the way to bed was that I would keep the printer not coming to him. I finally managed to convince him that, first of all, printers didn't usually try to get kids, and second, I had tied it to the computer AND the wall AND the phone. I showed him the collection of wires and cables sticking out of the back of it and that seemed to be that.

A short time later, the Mizz started to ask about fire. I don't know exactly what triggered it, but he seemed pretty concerned. Every night, he asked, "Will you come get me if there's a fire?" Each night he thought about it a little more and it morphed into things like, "If there's a fire outside the window, and we open the window, the fire will come inside. If there's a fire outside the door, and we open the door, then it will come inside and we'll have TWO fires. If there's a fire in the WHOLE room, then we'll have to jump over it. Will you help me jump over the fire?" "We could build a hose INSIDE if there's a fire. Will you build a hose inside?" "That's why we have a smoke betactor." "I have some more questions about fire." It finally settled back down to, "Will you come get me if there's a fire?" and then kind of chilled out for a couple days.

Then last night, as I'm leaving the room, I hear, "Will you come get me if there's a fire or a printer?"

[Added 1/20/09: He's recently added, "Will you come get me if there's anything that makes me sad? But that's mostly just fires and printers." It must be hard to be three.]

Welcome, 2009

2009-01-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Except for the most wonderful arrival of D in May, I can't say this has been my favorite year. It wasn't all bad, but it wasn't exactly roses either.

It was pretty sad to watch the housing market and the economy slowly and obviously tank in front of my eyes while the talking heads all claimed this was just a blip or that was just a minor correction. W won't be missed by many. It's been pretty embarrassing to have him represent me to the rest of the world, and only to have him become more and more impotent and ineffectual as everybody wished desperately for someone else. It's sad to see that we are still in two wars, neither of which appear to be close to an end, one of which has not even achieved the goals of getting rid of the Taliban and finding the ass who started this whole mess in the first place.

I'm fully aware that we'll pull through this. We always do. When backed into a corner, we've quite often shown ourselves to be a pretty resilient country. Hopefully, Obama will be able to help channel that energy in a positive direction. I'm am hopeful that he will at least be able to put a positive and more generally appreciated face on the country. I feel like he's got a more realistic world view than we've had lately and that every situation will not be approached as black and white or right vs. wrong. Is it too much to ask that we have a leader that keeps everybody's interests in mind and tries for the best for everyone? Probably, but I can hope, can't I?

--------------------

Well, that was about the most pessimistic Happy New Year I could have come up with. Plus it was a day late. Shame on me. It's really not that bad. I've got a wonderful wife and two excellent boys. I've got a decent house, which is still worth more than I paid for it. Although it's probably not recession-proof, my job appears to be relatively secure. (At the very least, we service a lot of wastewater plants, and no matter how bad the economy, nobody stops flushing. :) We've got a new president coming on board that I actually like so far. Plus a tin full of cookies and candy just showed up in the mail, so how bad can things be exactly?

Here's wishing everyone a happy and safe 2009!

Happy Chanukah!

2008-12-28T22:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Chanukah! I'm not quite late with this, but I'm cutting it close. The Mizz has really enjoyed the celebration this year. He still doesn't really get it, but he's very into candles and presents, so he's having fun. It's been a little confusing for him this year with it spanning across Christmas, but a menorah burning with a lit Christmas tree in the background pretty much defines our family. Maybe next year the Mizz will understand a little better, but until then Happy Chanukah to everyone.

(Incidentally, I always used to spell it "Hanukkah", but I'll allow that Franny should be the resident expert in the house, so now it's "Chanukah".)

Merry Christmas 2008!

2008-12-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everybody! I wish I could be with the rest of my family today, but I'm still very thankful for what I've got right here with me...

Due to inclement weather, Portland will be closed until further notice.

2008-12-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

In Portland, we like to complain that we never see any snow. Now we like to complain that the freakin' snow won't stop. We have about a foot so far and it's still coming down pretty strong. Everything is pretty much shut down. Unless you're an EMT or a snowplow driver or a television reporter, there's no need to be anywhere, and no good way to get there. After everybody on the street put our trash cans out last night, they decided that they won't be coming to pick them up until further notice. Although Tri-met was official driving buses on most routes, I watched a guy at the stop outside my house for at least an hour. I don't know if he ever got his ride.

I'm actually enjoying all this. It's easily the most snow I've seen since we moved here, and since everybody is inconvenienced the same, I don't feel too bad about missing work. It's been pretty cold (~20 degrees), so we don't spend much time outside, but it's beautiful, especially since it's mostly been snow and not so much ice lately. Mizz loves playing outside and would stay until he froze to death if we let him. D is not as impressed with the cold, but he loves staring out the window and watching snow fall with me. Our main downfall to being outside is that we don't own much cold weather gear. I dug out old ski pants and gloves for Franny and me, but the Mizz is playing outside in two layers of pants and fleece mittens. We had to borrow a snow suit for D. The Mizz has a pair of snow boots that we picked up somewhere, but Franny and I only have hiking boots and heavy socks. But we're so enthralled with big snow that we go out and freeze anyway.

I noticed not long after we got here that weather reports on the west coast contain much more guess work the back east. In Virginia, we got to watch the weather coming for days before it got to us. Here, we have a dockworker 60 miles west squinting at the horizon, saying, "Weather's comin'." Last weekend, they got it right on Sunday and the snow matched pretty well with what was predicted. For the rest of the week, however, they predicted snow and ice everyday, and pretty much we just got wet roads that steadily improved all week. Most area kids got the week off school, and lots of businesses were closed or limited. Then Friday night, it was snowing, and for the most part, it hasn't stopped since. Now I just heard that we might expect 5 more inches for some new records. The National Weather Service updates/advisories/warnings have been changing every few hours and quite often don't match the last one very well. Now, what was supposed to be rain by tomorrow afternoon has been changed to rain/snow and then more snow. We'll see what actually happens, but for the moment, we're not going anywhere.

The best part though is that we're going to see the first white Christmas I've had in a long time. Christmas lights look so much better in the snow.

Arctic Blast '08!!!

2008-12-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

"This just in from our 24/7 Storm Tracker Team Coverage of Arctic Blast '08. We take you live to the corner of 36th and Yada Yada, where, for some reason, Susie the Weather Chick is reporting live from a gas station at 4:30 in the morning."

"As you can see behind me, the station is pretty much empty now, but is was busy last night as people prepared to hunker down for this winter storm. We talked to the clerk inside and he said it was slightly busier than normal last night and that people were buying Doritos to stock up. I want you to see something. Can we pan out and show the truck. [Pan out to see open delivery truck, probably delivering Doritos.] Well he's not there right now, but the driver was wearing shorts! Isn't that crazy? [Pan back to overexcited reporter.] Anyway, we thought we saw a few flakes earlier and we got pretty excited, but as you can see, it's just rain right now. The roads appear to be getting a little slick though. [Pan to show car driving by with no trouble whatsoever.] It's looking like it going to get pretty interesting out here today. Live from a gas station, this is Susie the Weather Chick. Back to you."

"Thank you Susie. Our [big breath] 24/7 Storm Tracker Team Coverage Arctic Blast '08 Storm Coverage Weather Center is just showing rain right now as well, but the National Weather Service forecasts that if the temperature drops below freezing, the rain could turn into sleet or snow and the roads would likely freeze over. In other news, one source reports that if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump it's ass when it hopped."

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Seriously, Arctic Blast '08 is what one station is calling our weather. We did have a bit of snow and some ice, but it's hardly as newsworthy as everybody's pretending. It's been raining only for most of the last 20 hours or so and does not look like it's going to be below freezing until this evening, but we're still under a winter weather advisory. For the record, the preceding report was not near as fictional as it should have been. Most of that is only slightly edited versions of what was actually reported.

On the fun side, the few flakes that were dropping yesterday morning were huge (1/8 inch) perfect snowflake shapes. I'd never actually seen snowflakes that looked like snowflakes are supposed to look before. I felt like a little kid for a moment.

Um...just watch this

2008-11-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

This probably doesn't say anything good about me, but this video just about pegs my nerd-meter.

Gobama!

2008-11-04T20:38:00.001-08:00

For all my noise last night about our outdated electoral system, it looks like the most popular candidate did manage to win again. Congratulations, President Barack Obama. (I know it's President-elect, but that's awkward.)

This is a weird situation for me. I'm not normally one to wear my political preferences on my sleeve, or at least not to feel strongly about them, anti-W sentiment excepted. But I'm actually happy for the outcome this time. For the first time ever, I feel like I voted for someone that I actually want to see get the job, rather than just the lesser of two evils. I don't pretend that Obama is without flaw, but he's the first politician that actually made me want to vote for him.

I have to admit, however, that after the last eight years, the Democrats would have had to nominate Tom Delay for me to consider voting Republican.

Electoral College Rant Spectacular Extravaganza

2008-11-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

I've just been enjoying NBC's SNL Presidential Bash 2008, a collection of presidential skits as well as some new messages from the "candidates". I'm so tired of hearing about this stuff, but the lighter side is enjoyable.

I have been pondering our election system a lot lately. Once again, I'm flabbergasted that what remains the most powerful nation in the world still chooses it's leader with an anachronistic system like the electoral college. This was a weak compromise that barely managed to hold together a loose collection of former British colonies over 200 years ago. In the meantime, the central government has grown immensely in power and citizens essentially have real-time access to information. So why do we continue voting by a system that counts people differently based on where they live?

It seems that lots of people don't really know how the Electoral College works. Everybody is aware of the state map on election night that turns red or blue depending on the winner of that state, and the electoral college vote tally reaching for the 270 that means your candidate won. Most people are aware that there is some mysterious way that more people can vote for you, but you still might not get to be president. Al Gore, especially, is painfully aware of this. (It's happened before too, but not since 1888.) The trouble is that, contrary to popular belief, we are not voting in a national election at all. We are voting in 51 separate elections, the winner-take-all results of which are added together disproportionately to determine who gets to be president.

Your state's number of electoral votes is determined, according to the constitution, by the total of the number of senators and representatives it has. For instance, the most populous state, California, has 55 electoral votes, and the least populous, Wyoming, has 3. So California has approximately 18 times as many electoral votes as Wyoming. Fine, you say, California is much bigger, so it has more votes. However, California has almost 70 times as many people as Wyoming. What this means is that an individual voter in Wyoming has almost 4 times as much say in who get to be president as one in California. Oregon is quite a bit smaller than California, so we only get screwed by about 3 to 1. Yay.

The other problem is that the entirety of a states electoral votes are typically given to the overall winner in that state. That means that maybe more than 50% of a states voters--everyone who didn't vote for the winner--do not count at all in the national picture. Over 50% is correct. Thanks to third parties, the winners in many states have less than half the votes, but they still have more than anyone else.

Consider for a moment, California again. Say the winner got 51% of the vote and the loser got 49%. The winner gets all 55 electoral votes, and the loser gets squat. Consider the nearly 18 million people that 49% represents who are essentially not counted in the national totals. Now consider that that number equals more people than the 15 smallest states plus the District of Columbia combined. Fair?

This everything for the winner approach also gives rise to the idea of the swing state. Oregon is going to vote for Obama. Nobody really doubts this, which is the reason neither presidential candidate is bothering to visit us or promise us anything. Likewise, Obama doesn't stand a chance in Oklahoma, which means nobody cares about them either. But if you live in Missouri or Pennsylvania or North Carolina right now, demographic oddities mean you get visits every day or two. Not because you really matter more than I do, but just because the campaigns are playing the electoral math game. A change of 10000 votes in Pennsylvania might mean 21 electoral votes, while 10000 votes in Oregon is a footnote. Rather than trying to appeal to the entire country that they are trying to lead, the candidates spend their time pandering the the special interests of specific regions.

But you know what? There's no way this is ever going away. This system is enshrined in the Constitution, and that means it would take a Constitutional Amendment to change it. To pass an amendment, you need 2/3 of the House and the Senate. States representing about 10% of the population (the ones one the better end of the electoral stick), could stop this from happening. On the off chance this happened, you still need 3/4 of the state legislatures to ratify it. This means that states representing only about 5% of the population could stop it. So..., it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I have many more problems with politics and politicians, but this is what's mainly on my mind right now. I'm sick of voters in Wyoming and D.C. and the Dakotas mattering more than I do. I'm sick of hearing about swing states or red vs. blue. I'm sick of being treated as if I'm irrelevant because my state leans strongly in one direction. I'm sick of voting based on a system designed by people who thought that a black person should only count as 3/5 of a white person. And I'm sick of news media and political junkies getting all hot and heavy about the electoral game without once questioning whether or not it's a good way to do things.

That said, flawed as I obviously think our system is, I'm incredibly happy that I get to vote, and that for the most part, elections are taken as valid and power is transfered peacefully, regardless of the election mess. I'm also happy that I live in Oregon, and thanks to our 100% vote-by-mail system, I've already voted. This means I don't have to worry about it tomorrow. It also means that, since current outstanding voter lists are available to pollsters and campaign staff, I haven't received a political phone call in days. For the rest of you who have to wait, make sure to get out there tomorrow and vote, especially if you want the right to grumble about it later.

(Sorry to geek out on the numbers, but I got on a roll. In case you're interested, my numbers are rough calculations based on the numbers I found on Wikipedia.)

Stupid music in my head

2008-10-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

On the road again,
Wish I wasn't on the road again,
Rather be back home with my kids and my best friend,
Wish I wasn't on the road again.

Yeah, I'm on the road working again. It's the first time since D Money was born, so it's an experiment for all of us. I know it's necessary, at least for now, but I still feel like I'm ditching the fam'. I did the best I could for Franny. My folks will be there part of the time, and her folks part of the time, but she'll still have a couple days by herself with two little tyrants demanding the world. Good luck, F. I wish I was there to help you.

I'm back in Montana this time. I've made this trip a few times, but the last was February. It occurred to me maybe half way here that I took off without a map and without looking up any directions. Apparently I've been here enough to find it familiar. I must have been right since I didn't get lost.

The trip to Missoula took about nine hours, and at least it was decent weather. I was worried about 4th of July Pass in Idaho, since I've found poor road conditions there in the past, but all was clear yesterday, so it was pretty smooth. Today I continued on to Bozeman over the Continental Divide. 6,380 feet up if you're interested. The weather wasn't so hot although it certainly could have been worse. It sleeted part of time and I'm sure the pass is pretty icy at night. There's melting snow all day and 20's at night, so I'm sure it gets slick. I guess it's supposed to get more wintery later this week. It is Montana, I suppose.

I did find that the last hour or two in the dark last night was a lot less fun. I knew I had been driving too long when I realized the I was emphatically (and loudly) singing that I am indeed a redneck woman. I was half right anyway. Actually, although I don't even know any Tanya Tucker songs (much less all the words), and I'm hardly the girl next door in my neck of the woods, the song wasn't entirely wrong. I would rather drink beer all night than swig that sweet champagne. I definitely ain't no high class broad. My Christmas lights weren't on the front poor all year, but they did make it to March or April. And most importantly, I can certainly buy that same damn thing on a Wal*Mart shelf half price. Hell Yeah.

It looks like I should drive less and sleep more. Sounds like a plan. Good night.

Nintendo Wii Rocks!

2008-09-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'll spare the sorry it's been so long, been busy, the economy, the politics, the locusts, whatever stuff. My lack of blogging's not even news anymore. I do still remember how to do it though.

The Nintendo Wii has got to be the best video game system ever. At least that's what you'd have to think from this video. Too lazy to embed, but here's the YouTube link.

My calves are still sore

2008-08-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we took the family out for the Providence Bridge Pedal. This is an annual event, in which the city closes half of each bridge for exclusive bike traffic, including the two interstate bridges. This does not amuse drivers, who are stuck with detours and delays all morning. Too bad. Actually, due to the fact that one of our kids only has a plastic tricycle and the other one barely has feet, we chose to do the Bridge Stride instead, which only covers two bridges. I'm not sure how many walkers there were, but there were 18,000 total walkers and bikers. The Mizz rode in the backpack (hence my sore calves), and D rode in the stroller and slept, the lazy bum. Here is a picture of us setting out.

And here we are heading up an off-ramp onto I-405. This felt wrong in more ways than the sign can convey. For an added dose of wrong, marvel at the optical illusion created by the confluence of the dark pad on the backpack, my cargo pockets, and the Mizz's shoes, making my backside look positively enormous. Perhaps I should walk on the freeway a little more often.

Here is a view from the top of the Freemont Bridge. This was pretty cool, since you usually see it at 55 mph, when you are not up there for long and you really ought to be watching the road anyway.

And finally, I don't understand all the fuss about closing Starbucks stores. We can get lattes in the middle of a frickin interstate highway down here. High speed drive-through is the wave of the future.

Slo-Mo Lightning

2008-08-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is just cool!

Do you agree?

2008-08-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

A while back, we were discussing something with the Mizz and we asked him, "Do you agree?" He got a hurt look on his face and responded with, "No, I'm not a gree." So of course, Franny and I take every opportunity to ask him again, while agreeing that we are indeed grees. This does not please him.

However, tonight things changed. I asked him if he was a gree and got a resounding, "YES!" He then proceeded with, "It's 80 grees out! That's a lotta grees!"

I know, I know, I know. My kid said something cute. Probably way cuter than anything any other kid has ever said ever. Franny thought I should share it. I suppose it should say something that I haven't blogged in a month, and this is what I choose to go with. Maybe I'll be a functional member of society again someday, but apparently not yet. For now, I'm just a gree.

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted anything. I told myself that if I didn't have time to keep current on the stack of bills on my desk, I certainly didn't have time to blog. I don't think I actually got behind on the bills and stuff, but it was all I could do to get everything paid on time, including occasional online payments the day things were due. But I finally got ahead of the critical things and I have a few minutes. Ever since Baby D's arrival, most waking moments have either involved working or taking care of one or both kids. I've been able to watch movies and more TV than I've watched in a year, but only while holding an irritated or sleeping baby. Doing anything involving hands or a brain hasn't been much of an option. But we're getting better at it, so maybe this blog won't die after all.

In the time since I've last posted, I've missed (blog-wise anyway) a bunch of stuff. There were several birthdays, including Franny's and the Mizz's and the actual births of two new nieces. Baby D has started to smile and laugh at me all the time. My boss got back from a 6 week vacation beyond phone-reach. Both the Mizz and D have done numerous funny and/or impressive things. There was Mother's Day, during which my mother was visiting, and Father's Day, during which my father was visiting. The Democrats finally chose which history-making presidential candidate they are going to field. And gobs of other stuff that's escaping my mind at the moment.

Anyway, while the rest of the country is outside blowing their fingers off, I have a little time to myself. The Mizz and I left Franny and D at a 4th of July cookout so the Mizz could get to bed. the Mizz had a big day today (Thomas) and a little nap in the car on the way home, so he wasn't up to partying all night. So it's just me and the internet and a bunch of explosions outside my window. Happy 4th.

Check out my excuse for not blogging!

2008-05-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

OK. I admit that a month is a long time to go without posting, but you have to admit, this isn't too bad an excuse. Welcome Baby D, as of 5/8. Incidentally, that's my old hat he's wearing, from 1970-something. It's a tad small now.

The new guy is pretty awesome. Aside from an early bout of not getting bigger fast enough, he's doing really well. He's pretty easygoing most of the time. He doesn't need to be swaddled much to sleep, and most of his wide-awake times are during the daytime. Feeding is not going as smooth as it should, but he gets away with it by being crazy cute. The Mizz thinks he's awesome, and does not appear to be blaming him for the fact that his world has been rocked. Mizz is always wanting to hug him and look at him and make sure that the light over his bed is turned off so he can sleep. That last one is a really big deal, as the Mizz does not turn off lights without a really good reason.

I've been staying at home whenever the Mizz doesn't have daycare, but that's about to change tomorrow. It'll be Franny's first time dealing with both boys by herself, which will likely be interesting, to say the least. I won't be far away at least, for all that's worth.

There have been all sorts of things I kept thinking I should be posting, but time has usually been monopolized by one or both boys, sleeping, and, when possible, getting other things done that really need to get done, like pay bill and make sure the house doesn't come falling down around us. I even had to pay someone to do a crappy job mowing my lawn yesterday. It had been maybe 4 weeks and looked like an abandoned lot. It pains me to pay anyone to do something I think I should do myself, and especially mowing the lawn, which I don't even mind that much, but it wasn't getting done and it was the only sunny day for a while, so I suppose I'll live.

I can tell by my conversations with everyone that I have a new kid. Not the obvious, "How's the new baby?", or "Do you have any pictures?" Those are expected. I'm talking about discussing cervices and nipple pain with my sisters. I'm talking about strangers asking about water breaking and stitches. I mean, if I haven't offered you details about my wife's intimate parts, you probably don't deserve them. Seriously, the women are the worst. They figure new Dad is totally ready, not only to discuss his wife's private issues, but to hear about their recollections of their kids' births and breastfeeding issues from years ago. I'm having to picture things about my coworkers and customers that are definitely not part of my job description.

Other than the new guy and family issues, I'm pretty disconnected from the world these days. I'm aware that Oregon overwhelmingly voted for Obama, although, since I'm not a registered Democrat, nobody asked me. It's sort of amusing that we got so much attention. Usually, Oregon doesn't figure much in national politics, and after last Tuesday, will probably go back to being ignored. It's odd this year. The candidates are now having to pretend that they give a hoot about issues in Guam and Puerto Rico. Resources and effort well spent, I'm sure.

Speaking of resources, we got our economic stimulus payment, $1,500 from Uncle Sam. "Economic stimulus payment" is a much more palatable term than "throwing money at the problem," or "election-year patronization." Seriously, this it the best way the might of the federal government could be used to help the economy???

Of course, gas prices are going up. And food prices. And the sting at the pump. And the rising cost of food. And GAS! And FOOD! In case you hadn't noticed the price of gas and food rising, the local news shows are careful to work it into every story to remind you that gas and food are getting more expensive. Thanks, news media. You're a big help.

The three day weekend all looks the same to me right now, but I am also aware that it's Memorial Day weekend. I'd like to take a moment to remember the servicemen killed in the line of duty whom we are supposed to be memorializing. However, based on the TV, I think I'm just supposed to take that stimulus money and buy a new mattress. Or maybe fill up my gas tank.

Enough with the rambling. It's time to get back to my duty, which mainly consists of washing dishes and pump parts and bottles and such. See you again, in another month. (Sooner, I hope.)

This baby better come soon (but not TOO soon, of course)

2008-04-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed a dry spell on TBHNP lately. That's because we've been nesting our butts off and I haven't had much time to keep current on email, much less contribute to the world outside my house.

Thanks mainly to the frantic hormonal nesting urges of pregnant ladies (I'm not naming names), we've been doing a lot around the house. Some of it was quite necessary, such as finding a place for this new baby to sleep, and cleaning and whatnot. That seems important. The rest was probably not bad stuff, but might not have been as critical. Not critical, but who am I kidding? If it didn't happen now, it certainly wasn't going to happen a couple months down the road. The other stuff has mainly consisted of rearranging things, getting rid of things, and then turning around and buying more things, all at a pace we've never managed before, even when moving.

The rearranging seems pretty straight forward, or should have anyway. We have a three bedroom house, with one room previously being an office/den/guestroom. We toyed around with giving each of the boys his own room and doing something else for an office. Then I took a look at our house and reality sunk in. The best I might be able to do is shoehorn something into the garage, but realistically, that ain't gonna happen. So we settled on putting the boys together in the mid-size room and taking the small one (which was the Mizz's) and making it into a rather cramped office and guest room. Needless to say, the night before some friends were coming to help move furniture, we decided to leave the Mizz alone for the time being since he has seemed somewhat stressed with all that is happening. The current office would become part office/part nursery. The baby will probably sleep in our room in a new bassinet for the time being. We'll revisit the move again in a few months when the baby is ready to move out of our room, or when we want him out, whichever comes first.

The office/nursery is no longer the comforting warm orange it used to be (officially, "terra cotta." I loved it.). It is now a stark white/vanilla/whatever and has baby animals and blocks stuck on the wall. Stark is a little rough, I guess, but it's definitely not orange. Incidentally, this is the first time I've paid someone else to paint my house. It's a weird feeling to me to give someone money to do what I feel I should be able to handle. However, I have to admit that they did in a day what would have probably taken a week. Plus, I hate painting edges.

We also attempted to rearrange the bookshelves around our house, which involved the moving a bookshelf downstairs to replace a baker's rack, which took up temporary residence on the front porch. We both agreed that the book shelf was a little large and oppressive and decided to put the baker's rack back and use the shelf in place of a darker, uglier one. Of course, as soon as the baker's rack was back in place, and the bookshelf was back upstairs and full of books, Miss Prego looks at the rack and says, "I don't know. Doesn't it look too...wiry?" I don't care. It stays.

We've gotten rid of massive amounts of stuff during all this. I've been pretty impressed with us actually.

The reason we even had a bookshelf to worry about is that we got rid of enough books to fill one. That came to six shopping bags and a box. I took these to Powell's Books to see what they might offer me. They gave me $40 for a couple dozen of them. The rest went into a donation/recycling bin, which I assume is the equivalent of sending mangy strays to the humane society. I want to imagine that they went immediately to poor orphans who yearned for Dave Barry's humor and old social work textbooks, but realistically, they'll probably just be next weeks newspaper or Kleenex or whatever. The really depressing thing is that conservatively guessing, they probably cost us a couple grand to purchase over the years.

We've had pretty good luck with Craigslist and Freecycle. We've sold the stuff that we could and been able to give away a bunch of other stuff. Freecycle, especially, has been interesting. In our effort to pare things down, we put our CD's in a couple books and had several shopping bags of empty cases, which someone found useful. We gave away a bunch of old cassettes. We were happy that they ended up going to a guy whose daughter has down's syndrome and has hands that are too small to handle CD's, but who loves music. The most interesting giveaway was the vertical blind hardware. We found that the easiest and cheapest way to replace the vertical vanes that Mizz had damaged on our blinds was to buy a whole new set. I just replaced the vanes, and as such, had a brand new rail and hardware and whatnot that I felt guilty throwing away. We posted it, and in no time, a guys who needed just that found us. Cool system.

We've also become very familiar with Goodwill and Value Village for the stuff that might have value, but which is better for us as a tax break than as a sale. We figured out a while back that, if you keep your donation receipts, the tax benefit at the end of the year is about a wash with what you could get at a yard sale for most things. Plus you don't have to sit around haggling with old ladies over 25 cent t-shirts.

In the midst of our getting-rid-of binge, we've also acquired a few things. There's a bassinet waiting for the new kid. We had to take away the Mizz's bed, since it is actually a convertible crib, and will be needed again before too long. We didn't want to snatch it away from him and give it the the baby right away. So, thanks to Craigslist, he now has a Thomas the train engine bed that he just loves. And thanks to the fact that we have another mattress, we sold the one that came with the bed for almost as much as we bought the whole thing for. Go us. We've also acquired a new (old) filing cabinet and a new dresser. Craigslist has been good.

Anyway, after all this, we're more or less ready for the new kid to arrive. The rooms are almost as set up as they're going to be. We have all the furniture we're going to get. We've moved most of the things that are going to be moved. We've gotten rid of most of the things that are going. Now, our main concern is making sure the Mizz is taken care of when the time comes and trying to enjoy some time together while we can still squeeze it in. And maybe work in some blogging.

Passed out!

2008-04-14T21:11:00.001-07:00

The Mizz finally learned to get up and turn on the light to play instead of crying in the morning. He did so at 11:30 last night. I snapped this when I went in to empty the toys out of his new Thomas bed.

Polite Mizzings from a Tired Observer

2008-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not one to pretend that most anyone else cares what my kid says or that other kids don't say things just as cute. That's why I don't spend much time touting the fact that the Mizz says the darnedest things. However, the Mizz does sometimes say things that amuse me as he's getting a grip on language and numbers and the world and such. My wonderful wife thinks I should record them from time to time, and this seems as good a place as any to do it.

One thing that's fun to watch is the development of numbers and math. The Mizz counts quite well up to about 15 these days, and can do simple adding and subtracting in his head up to about 5 or 6, which seems pretty cool to me. However, his grasp of what these numbers actually mean is interesting. He knows that he is 2. He's also pretty sure the Daddy is 3 and my old lady really is old at 4. Up until recently, 3 or 4 has stood in to mean "a lot." That's changing, though, as he's becoming more interested in larger numbers. He knows about 20 and 3o and on up, but he can't count to them and they don't seem to have any value to him except as new values for "a lot." He really got me the other day though when he was standing on the scale. He knows that he is about 20. 20 what, he has no idea, but it's 20. (He's actually about 30 lbs. these days, but he's usually hanging on the counter.) I asked him how much Daddy weighed, and he decided that I must be "ten-ty." I suppose I should be offended, as I can only assume ten-ty means the same thing to him as a gazillion.

One of my favorite Mizzizms so far came at a playground. We were working on taking a big step to get over a drainage ditch in the pavement. He looks down with a "What's dat?"

"That's a ditch, buddy."

"A bitch!"

"No, a ditch, with a D."

"Bitch, with a D."

"Not quite, buddy. Ditch, like Daddy."

"Bitch, like Daddy."

"Um, yeah. Something like that. Let's go follow that yellow line over there..."

True Portland Kid

2008-03-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

Sitting down for dinner, I grabbed one of my favorite beverages, the wonderful juice of the barley. Thanks to fatherhood, that happens far too rarely these days, so I enjoy one when I can. Anyway, the Mizz sees the bottle and pipes in with, "Daddy sing the beer song???" Apparently I quote Homer Simpson more frequently than Julie Andrews.

In case you're unfamiliar, here is the beer song. I can't vouch for the exact right words, but this is the version that the Mizz hears.

Dough, the stuff that buys me beer,
Ray, the guys who sells me beer,
Me, the guy who drinks the beer,
Far, a long way from my beer,
So, I'll have another beer,
La, la la la la la beer,
Tea, no thanks, I'll have a beer,
And that brings us back to, DOH!

Travelling again, but this time for fun

2008-03-20T05:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we wandered up to see my folks on Whidby Island along with my sisters' families for a reunion of sorts before all the new kids show up. The house is nice, but it was only barely able to contain everybody, as there were 15 of us -- 7 kids, 3 pregnant women, my mother, and a bunch of guys doing their best to keep up/tolerate the pregnant lady talk. None of us are new to it or bothered by it any more, but get real, it's not about us right now. Nobody cared how my boobs were doing or how my heartburn was going.

It was a lot of fun though, and the Mizz had a great time with his cousins, especially "Baby J", who lives in Seattle and will probably be "Baby" forever according to my son. Both of them are, for the moment, single children, and are not near as good at playing with others as the 5 from the Colorado household. Imagine our surprise when they turned out to have a great time together, pushing cars back and forth and just generally copying and following each other all over the place. It looks like they're going to be excellent big brothers.

This was probably our best road trip with the Mizz yet. He's finally getting to the point of being able to be entertained in the car for long stretches. He even watched the DVD player that Franny found on sale. Usually, shows don't interest him for very long. This was a pretty easy trip. Soooooo, I guess it's time for another one.

It was good to see everyone and it was good to do it before things get even crazier. Next time there'll be 10 grandkids running around. Based on the current crew, that should be even more fun.

This dolphin is awesome

2008-03-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

This story is just awesome.

Two whales had stranded themselves behind a sandbar along a beach in New Zealand. They repeatedly tried to get over it, but the tide was going out and they were getting ever more distressed and exhausted. It looked bleak enough that conservation authorities were considering euthanasia. Beached whale usually suffocate under their own weight if they're out of the water for very long.

Along comes a white knight, or in this case, a dolphin. It somehow managed to communicate with the whales and got them to follow it down the beach a ways to an opening in the sandbar and back out to sea.

The whales are apparently safe, as there has been no further sign of them. The dolphin was already a popular sight at the beach since he has a history of playing with swimmers, but he's now a hero to boot.

Poor Risk/Benefit Analysis

2008-03-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

$1,000 an hour? Seriously??? Actual total cost so far: ~$80,000 plus one rising political career. Still to be counted: legal fees, one wife (I assume), likely fines, and possible jail time. She's attractive, I suppose. Unless I'm missing something though, I guess I'm just not macho enough to think that sounds like good financial decision making.

Way to go Spitzer. I guess they just do scandals bigger in New York than we do out here in Oregon. Our best stuff seems to be garden variety "fact-finding" trips to Hawaii and the like. There was a state representative that was caught with meth after getting in a fight with her ex's new girlfriend or something like that, but I'm pretty sure nobody outside Oregon cared.

What really gets me about this guy is that he spent 8 years as attorney general of New York catching criminals and corrupt politicians using exactly the kind of financial techniques that nabbed him. She must have really been something.

If nothing else, I guess this gives the media something to get excited about besides pretening to care what voters think in otherwise politically irrelevant parts of the country.

(BTW, I can't really vouch for the accuracy of the picture. Yahoo news says it's the right person, but they lifted the picture from MySpace, so who knows?)

Toddler Manifesto

2008-03-12T05:51:00.000-07:00

Franny e-mailed this to me. It came via an e-mail, via an e-mail, via an e-mail, etc., so I don't know where it actually came from. As Franny put it, the Mizz scored a 95, which is an A in anyone's book, but it looks like he still has at least a little bit of trouble to learn how to cause.

If it is on, I must turn it off.
If it is off, I must turn it on.
If it is folded, I must unfold it.
If it is a liquid, it must be shaken, then spilled.
If it a solid, it must be crumbled, chewed, or smeared.
If it is high, it must be reached.
If it is shelved, it must be unshelved.
If it is pointed, it must be run with at top speed.
If it has leaves, they must be picked.
If it is plugged, it must be unplugged.
If it is not trash, it must be thrown away.
If it is in the trash, it must be removed, inspected, and thrown on the
floor.
If it is closed, it must be opened.
If it does not open, it must be screamed at.
If it has drawers, they must be rifled.
If it is a pencil, it must write on the refrigerator, monitor, or
table.
If it is full, it will be more interesting emptied.
If it is empty, it will be more interesting full.
If it is a pile of dirt, it must be laid upon.
If it is stroller, it must under no circumstances be ridden in without
protest. It must be pushed by me instead.
If it has a flat surface, it must be banged upon.
If Mommy's hands are full, I must be carried.
If Mommy is in a hurry and wants to carry me, I must walk alone.
If it is paper, it must be torn.
If it has buttons, they must be pressed.
If the volume is low, it must go high.
If it is toilet paper, it must be unrolled on the floor.
If it is a drawer, it must be pulled upon.
If it is a toothbrush, it must be inserted into my mouth.
If it has a faucet, it must be turned on at full force.
If it is a phone, I must talk to it.
If it is a bug, it must be swallowed.
If it doesn't stay on my spoon, it must be dropped on the floor.
If it is not food, it must be tasted.
If it IS food, it must not be tasted.
If it is dry, it must be made wet with drool, milk, or toilet water.
If it is a carseat, it must be protested with arched back.
If it is Mommy, it must be hugged.
I am toddler!

Another Wedding Video (for starters)

2008-03-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

After the wedding videos from the other day, I was amused to stumble on this one too:

I was ready to ignore that video until moments later, when I stumbled on the next one. I should be embarrassed about it, but I have a tad bit of unfortunate history with the song, so I just can't help myself. Sad. Very sad... (Tutu should probably not play any more of these. Just sayin'.)

I had no idea how much YouTubers (iPotatoes?) liked this song. Plus they have a lot of time on their hands. There are a ton of these remixes/homages.

That ought to be enough, but if for some reason you need it, here's the original. Does anybody remember when this video was considered too racy for MTV? A little before hardcore gangsta rap and endless spring break specials.

I wonder if I'll ever develop a sense of good taste???

Chelada!!!

2008-03-10T15:17:00.001-07:00

Clam and tomato together seem bad enough as it is, but I can't think of anything worse with them than Bud Light. Also available in regular Budweiser flavor. I can only assume that I'm not the target demographic.

For the Wedding Nuts in my Family

2008-03-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

Check out these Unusual Wedding Dance Videos.

Montana notes

2008-03-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it back to civilization, at least compared to Montana. No offense, but there're more people in Portland than in the entire state of Montana. The biggest city in Montana (Billings, I think) still doesn't even have 100,000 people. (I sure hope nobody from Chicago or New York reads this and decides to start spouting statistics at me. I'm guessing that New York probably has more people than the whole Northwest. And don't even get me started on Tokyo and Mumbai and whatnot.)

I actually got back a day earlier than I expected. One of our customers declined service, so I could speed things up a little bit. They never said it explicitly, but I got the idea that money was tight, so they decided to forgo calibration this year. I'm not sure that's such a great plan. It's a little like deciding to do oil changes every 10,000 miles to save a few bucks. You'll probably still spend the money later and then some. It worked out for me though, so whatever.

I make a lot of noise, but I actually like travelling to Montana as far as travelling for work goes. People are friendly. The scenery is beautiful. This time around, there was some winter weather, but nothing that slowed me down. Lots of the rivers and lakes were frozen over, which is always cool. Lots of miles though. I think I put on about 2,400 miles in two weeks and stayed in 8 hotels, which is at least 6 too many. I have to give a shout out to La Quinta Inns though. Their rates are usually decent ($49.00 in Missoula for a single king room), the rooms are equipped well enough, and the beds I've had have always been extremely soft, which is a nice change from the ultra-firm plywood beds of the Super 8's and such.

I did have to be amused with Rock Creek, a little town near Missoula. Much of Montana is ranch land. Part of beef ranching is the annual activity of turning bulls into steers. Long story short -- you drive east from Missoula and see billboards for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival. That's all I'm about to say about that. I'll let the fine folks at TestyFesty.com deal with any further details.

On the way home, I happened to catch a radio story about a barge that hit and damaged the locks at the John Day Dam on the Columbia River last Friday. This is somewhat interesting in its own right, but it struck me because I was driving by the dam when I heard to story not too long after it happened. The lock was actually out of service for a few days, but the Corps of Engineers has since installed a temporary gate to restore passage to vital river traffic. The broken gate is floating on a barge until they can figure out how to make a permanent repair.

If this post sounds little random, it's because it's taken me almost a week to write in tiny bursts. I came back home to a sick toddler and last night was the first real good night's sleep this house has seen since I came home. Fun.

In penance for taking so stinking long, here're some interesting/funny videos that are not remotely related to Montana.

I'm still out here

2008-02-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

I'm still running around out here on the far side of the Rockies. I'm not exactly absorbing the local flavor this time around. I'm at the 6th hotel in 8 days (Kalispell, Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, Billings, and now back to Bozeman again). That kind of sucks, in case you're wondering. Moving in and out every morning isn't exactly fun, and it's especially annoying considering the cart full of work crap that I can't leave out in the car due to the fact that it's something like 20 degrees out at night.

Enough with the complaining. I got some sad news from home today. Not personal news, but somebody close enough. Just a reminder that there are people out there with bigger problems than my traveling woes.

I woke up to a couple inches of snow this morning. It wasn't enough to cause any problems, but it looked nice anyway. Despite the snow, Montanans consider winter to be about over. It's above freezing most days, at least in the populated areas, so it's almost business as usual.

I got to go clothes shopping yesterday. I say "got to," but "had to" is more appropriate. As usual, I managed to get away from Portland without something critical. In the past, I've left without sneakers, jeans, work pants, work shoes, underwear, and about every third time, sunglasses. This time, I found that I was the only person in Montana without a coat. I had a raincoat (Go PDX!), but nothing warmer than a fleece (Go PDX again!). Given the weather, that's not so good. I was going to buy a cheap winter coat and donate it to Goodwill when I got home, but I couldn't bring myself to buy something that I already have at home, especially something that hardly ever gets used. My other option was finding something unlike anything I own, but I am inherently thrifty (pronounced "cheap") when it comes to clothes, plus I lack a sense of style. I usually figure I'm pretty safe with something from Old Navy. I may not look stellar, but I probably won't look too bad. Anyway, as luck would have it, it's late in the season, so coats are on sale all over the place. More specifically, some pretty nice leather coats are on sale at Macy's. So, without assistance, I managed both to spend money on clothes for myself and to get something that actually improves my wardrobe. Now if I can only get some decent pants, shirts, and shoes, I can go out with Franny without embarrassing her.

Enough rambling. My laundry's done, so it's time to go.

On the road again

2008-02-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'm a couple days into what should be my last long work trip for a long time. Montana this time. This is a busy trip. I'll be in 6 different hotels in two weeks this time, although I'm cooling my heels for four nights in Helena right now.

The weather's been beautiful out here. It's a bit cold at night, but it's been totally clear. On my way out on Monday, the night was clear enough and the moon bright enough that I was still able to see all the mountains around me, which makes for much better night driving.

Speaking of the moon, I've monitored the eclipse from my window this evening. It looks like the moon is going to make it. I tried to check out Saturn's rings too, but my little binoculars were no match for the distance.

I'm pleasantly impressed with the radio on the new minivan they gave me for this trip. I've been able to find something to listen to for almost all of the trip, even picking through the mountains. I do admit, however, that at one point I had to choose between James Dobson of Focus on the Family yammering on about something and loud angry music. I went with Metallica, Ministry, and Tool, along with a bunch of more recent bands I'm too old to recognize.

All in all, this isn't too bad a trip, as far as trips go. Montana has some beautiful scenery, and if you have to travel, this isn't too bad a choice. Plus, unlike Hawaii, I appear to be healthy this time. That helps a lot.

Just how drunk do you have to be?

2008-02-20T05:40:00.000-08:00

This guy drove into a Portland light-rail tunnel Saturday morning. He told police he was on his way home. I guess the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Apparently, he was under the influence. Who would have guessed?

Driver drives car into MAX Westside lightrail tunnel

Bad blogger. No soup for you, one year!

2008-02-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

OK. So I obviously made it back to to land of easy internet access, but then I got lazy. Apparently, I spent enough time in Hawaii to catch a case of the "paradise paralysis" that afflicts most people who live there. I keep meaning to post something, but then it would be, "Hey, I can always do it later." A week and a half later -- pathetic. I can't say it's the worst problem to have, though, at least not for us poor souls afflicted with it. People who have to deal with us, well...

Anyway, I'm back in the land of normal working and not being sick and toddlers underfoot and whatnot. I have to say that between being ill and the monsoon rains, this wasn't my favorite trip to Hawaii, but it beats having a day job, I guess.

I missed mentioning Valentine's Day too. I remembered it at home, which I guess is the important part. I used to see it as a cheesy Hallmark day, but Franny and I took it back for ourselves the day nine years ago when she said "Yes." It's still cheesy, but now it's our own special brand of cheesy. The Mizz got a valentine from his cousin with a couple stickers in it. He thought that was great, and keeps mentioning that "I got a card from Baby J." (I'm curious how long his cousin, who is less than a year younger, will continue to be "Baby J.") I feel kind of bad that a card didn't go the other way too, but the Mizz is lucky "he" remembered to get his mother a card.

One other Mizz note. He's brilliant. I was gone just long enough to notice a marked improvement in his speech. He's hardly completely clear or anything, but it's noticeably better than when I left. Plus, he now understands the concept of zero. If he has one thing, and you take it away, he knows that he has zero now. In hundreds of years of civilization, the Romans never even figured that one out, although they might have him beat with the roads and aqueducts and empires and such.

Lava!

2008-02-05T23:01:00.001-08:00

We managed to avoid the rain long enough to find some lava for Franny to perch on.

Gotta build an ark

2008-02-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

Greeting from the Big Island. It's soggy to say the least. It's not a surprise that it rains in Hilo in the winter. It's kind of annoying that it's trying to set some kind of record while we're here. We had another epic downpour today, flash floods and all, despite the predicitons that the storm was moving out to sea and things should be quieting down. They're worse at predicting weather here than in Portland, which is kind of weak as it is. I'm aware of the technological limits, but I figure the paid professionals should be able to do at least as well as the tourists looking out their hotel windows. Just sayin'.

Yesterday, we took a drive up the northeast coast of the island just to see something different. We also saw Rainbow Falls right in Hilo, which was very impressive given all the water on the island right now.

We did get up to see the volcano today, including some dry spells so we didn't have to see the whole thing through rain-streaked windows. Even in the rain, it's still very impressive. There is no vantage point on the ground to see the current lava flow. It's over a ridge and is only visible safely from the air. However, the rain soaks into the older flows and the still-hot tube that was carrying lava last year was an obvious steak of steam down the side of the mountain. The stil-hot older flows are the reason it's not safe to view the current active area. It's all fun and games until somebody breaks through the crust and vaporizes in a molten rock puddle.

Incidentally, I once again had to pay for internet access. I'm sitting in Starbucks right now for $10/24 hours of service. Anywhere else, I'd feel totally ripped off, but there doesn't seem to be free access anywhere on this island, so I take what I can get. Even the hotel wants to charge you for plugging into the wall.

Also, congratulations to the Giants. You can tell the kind of fan I am these days. The game had just started when we got on the plane Sunday, and we forgot about it until dinner last night. We had to ask a waitress who won. Very sad. Very disconnected.

Back in action in aloha land

2008-02-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

I gave up writing this week for a while. I felt awful and since nobody wants to hear someone just complaining about being sick, I just decided to keep quiet, since feeling awful was pretty much all I was thinking about. To paraphrase all mothers, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Or the governator, "You whine like a girly-man."

Anyway, I've pretty much gotten over whatever it was, although it made for a long couple weeks. Last night I actually went out wandering around Waikiki for a while, and even enjoyed some Cold Stone Creamery.

Other than feeling crappy, I've had a decent stay here. It's been a bit rainy, as is more or less normal this time of year, but other than that, it's been okay. The hotel I got put up in this time is pretty nice; a lot nicer than the Super 8's and such that I normally travel to. I also did pretty good on the car. My boss reserved a compact car, in the hopes that they would be out and have to upgrade me. However, they had several Toyota Yaris's, which wouldn't remotely hold two people's stuff. So I had to upgrade, and the next step up that was available was a full size, which in this case, means a brand new (244 miles) bright red Dodge Charger. I like this car. The only downside is that this island is maybe 30 miles across and choked with traffic, so I haven't really opened it up much. But it's still fun. I could get used to this car. I like it a lot better than the Chrylser 300 we rented that's basically the same thing with different styling. I'm not sure what exactly is different, but this one handles much better and seems to have more kick. I wish Franny had been here for that. She's been waiting to drive one of these for ages.

Waikiki is a trip. The area is pretty much entirely dedicated to tourists. There is a long strip of mainly high-end shops and really nice hotels. Along the strip, there are a number of regular street performers looking for tips. There're the silver guy, a bronze cowboy guy, two different gold guys (one of which wasn't even trying), a robot, a rastaman with a steel drum, a regular stoned guy with plastic buckets, a seriously tarted-up psychic with prominently displayed cleavage, a couple magicians, some missionaries being ignored, a spray paint artist who was wearing a respirator while everyone around him sucked noxious fumes, a group of capoeira performers, and someone calling himself "The Basketball Guy". I don't really know what he did. He was dressed in orange and black and there were several basketballs on the ground, but he just pretty much wandered around the sidewalk in a circle dancing like a mental patient. There are some back streets of not-quite-as-high-end shops and other hotels. Lots of restaurants and souvenier shops and convenience stores and nightclubs and, for some reason, indoor gun ranges. There's a public golf course right behind Waikiki that claims to be the busiest course in the world. I can't verify that claim, but it's had people on it every time I've looked out my window. Waikiki is is oppresively touristy as far as I'm concerned. When I come over here, it's interesting to wander through the mayhem once, and then I'm done. Yesterday was it. It was mildly amusing, but later in the evening, when the prostitutes came out and inquired into my need for "company," I figured I had seen enough and it was time to get out of here. So today I leave.

The best part about it is that Franny is on her way here right now. I'm meeting her at the airport and we're flying to Hilo for a few days of vacation. Without the Mizz. I miss him a ton, but my folks are sitting for a few days so Franny and I can get some much-needed alone time. It's been almost three years and I'm guessing after the second one, it's going to be even tougher.

I know that complaining about the weather is not usually interesting, but Hilo's going to be a bit soggy, even by Hawaii standards. I expected showers here and there, given that we're here during the wet season, but the last week's been extreme for the state. Everybody got excited Tuesday because there was snow on three different volcanos: Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island, which is normal, and Haleakala on Maui, which is not. Yesterday, they had epic rains on much of the Big Island. Hilo had 11 inches of rain and there were several major roads closed due to flooding, although it looks like not the ones near our hotel. Another place on the island had over 17 inches of rain yesterday. It's even rained some in the Kona area, which doesn't happen all that much. The entire Hawaiian island chain is under a flash flood watch through today. How's that for timing your vacation? It's supposed to lighten up tomorrow to a more normal level, but I'm not really holding my breath. Oh, well. We'll have a rental car. If there's a sunny spot on the island, we'll find it. And even if there's not, we'll still sleep in tomorrow morning, which will be nice regardless.

Superbowl time

2008-02-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not a huge sports fan, but I do enjoy a good game. And from time to time, the Superbowl turns out to be that game. The problem is that I've never really cared one way or the other about either team in this year's game. However, my father-in-law is a lifelong Giants fan, so I suppose I'll pull for them this time. That would really put Franny in a pickle. She wants her Dad's team to win, but she's required by law to root for the opposite team as me. A real existential sports dilema. I guess we'll just have to root for good commercials, or maybe a wardrobe malfunction. Good luck anyway, Phil.

Hello from O'ahu this time

2008-01-26T22:53:00.000-08:00

I've moved on to Honolulu. Actually we got here last night. Yesterday was way too long and I felt awful. I never checked, but I'm pretty sure I had a fever by the time I went to sleep. Sooooo, no update yesterday.

Today was better. I think I'm on the downhill side of this cold finally. I had to work today, but I don't feel near as beat up as I did last night.

Tomorrow's a day off and I intend to sleep as much as I need to feel better. It's not exactly a good use of paradise, but I'm going to be here a while and it won't be much fun like this.

On a good note, the weather looks like it should be pretty good for the rest of the week. I can handle that.

Aloha

2008-01-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

Since I don't have the internet, you get a delayed action blog post. Actually, I do sort of have the internet. The hotel finally installed wireless internet, but in an evil twist, you have to pay separately for it, far too much, in my opinion. So delayed it is.

1/21/08: I made it to Hawaii today. The flight from Portland was fine, and a good day to leave too. It was somewhere near freezing when I left and the temperature was set to drop throughout the day, including freakishly low wind chills.

I unintentionally spent the day as a guide. My coworker hadn't flown in quite some time, so I got to shepherd him through the vagaries of self-check kiosks and post-9/11 security. Then I spent the flight to Honolulu with a woman who claimed it was her first real flight, whatever that means. At the least, it means that she didn't understand much about airplanes or what the beeps meant, what the flight attendants were talking about, or how to work her seatbelt. She was quite friendly though, and although she didn't let me sleep or read, she was pleasant enough to talk to and the conversation helped pass the time. (For the record, she was older than my folks. Don't get any ideas.) Then on the flight to Kona, I sat next to a guy who had never been to Hawaii before and was fascinated by Diamond Head, the various islands, the sparsity of those islands, and the volcanoes. He sounded extremely Japanese, but he said he was from Las Vegas. He is a sushi chef and is moving to Kona for three months to help a friend of his open a restaurant.

Plus, we saw whales from the plane. I always heard they were big, but they looked like ants to me.

James and I went to a second floor open-air bar called Lulu's for dinner. Rick and I had gone there last year, and we had added a dollar to the collection of signed bills stapled to the walls and ceilings. I distinctly remember standing on the bar (overlooking the street) to reach the ceiling to staple it up (they didn't mind), but we couldn't find it anywhere. Oh, well.

1/22/08: Despite being in Hawaii, today was mainly boring, what with all the working and such. Saw some lava. The weather was fine, I guess, but we were inside for most of it.

I did learn more about the big ocean water pipe I found last year. I found someone who could give me a more complete description of what they are doing there. It turns out they have several big pipes bringing up seawater for different uses. They do grow the Maine lobsters, but they also grow several other things, including shellfish, algae, and seahorses, 'cuz hey, we need more seahorses. The factory bottling expensive Japanese health water is still there and actually has its own pipe, and is currently the only use of the water that is really making money. I also found out about another use of the water. The water from 3000 feet down comes up about 40 degrees. They also have a pipe that brings water from about 70 feet down which runs around 75 degrees. Somehow they harness the temperature differential to make energy. I have no idea how much of that energy is used to pump water 3000 feet up the side of an underwater volcano. I assume there must be some extra, or they wouldn't bother doing it, but nobody I worked with knew much about it.

Other than that, it was pretty much just working. I did see a gecko and some mongooses (mongeese?), but no whales today.

1/23/08: We finished work in Kona this morning. Kona has the traffic problems of a much larger place. The problem is that, for some reason, they seem to lack any traffic planning. Everything is build as cul-de-sacs or neighborhoods built off the one main road through the area. This means that everyone in the area has to use that one road to get anywhere else. The state is widening a portion of it, but the never ending construction is actually causing even more trouble for the time being. I'm not sure how the locals deal with it.

We drove across the island to Hilo this afternoon and into the Hilo rain. It isn't always raining in Hilo (We had great weather last year.) but it's more likely here than in Kona. We got settled in and ate dinner at a place that seemed to be filled only with locals. I like that.

1/24/08: I'm on the internet for real this time. I had to break down and pay so I could get plane tickets. So while, I'm here, I'll check in with the world.

Today was a long day. Better weather though. Sunny most of the day. Among other things, I visited the volcano today, although I was working and never actually saw it. I did find that the eruption has changed significantly since last year. At that time, the lava was flowing entirely through a tube and exiting underwater, making lots of steam, but not being directly visible. However, in the meantime, there was an earthquake that collapsed the tube and the lava started flowing above ground again, but in a different area. Unfortunately, however, I will only be able to see this lava if I learn how to fly. It is in the middle of previous lava flows, which are much too dangerous to walk on. This is the same unstable new ground that collapsed to cause the earthquake.

Before I headed up that way, the radio stations kept playing civil defense messages, a sort of non-emergency emergency broadcast. It was detailing the lava flows that are potentially endangering a particular neighborhood. It kept saying that only residents are allowed in the neighborhood and that all remaining residents have been informed. However, at the volcano, I found out that the neighborhood was completely surrounded by miles of lava something like 20 years ago. "All remaining residents" turns out to be one apparently very stubborn guy. He used to have to walk to and from his house, but apparently he recently got some sort of ATV that can get over much of the lava.

On a low note, my entire trip so far has been marred by a cold. I kind of thought/hoped that warm moist air might help, but no luck. Too bad.

We're off to Honolulu tomorrow for another long week. Talk to you there.

Yet another whirlwind week

2008-01-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

I've been a tad busy this week. It started with a quick overnight trip to Bend to clean up some work left from a couple months ago. And I do mean quick. Not even time to say hi to my aunt. (Hi, Becky.) January isn't really the best time to go to Bend. It's fine to BE in Bend, what with the skiing just outside of town, but GOING to Bend, at least from Portland, can be interesting. All directions go over mountains, which get snow every time it rains in Portland. That's a lot. Getting to Bend wasn't actually too bad, but coming home over the Santiam Pass could have been better. At least the sun was out. I can only imagine the icy mess that was there a couple hours after I passed through.

If anyone catches the timestamp on this post, I'm up way too late again. I tend to get too wired to sleep before I have to leave on a work trip, which of course makes getting up early to get on the road that much worse, so I worry about that, and can't sleep, and the cycle of wired continues.

Anyway, I leave tomorrow for a trip to Hawaii. I know. Nobody has much sympathy for me, but as much as I'd rather be working in Hawaii for an extended trip than in Idaho (sorry Idaho), I'd still rather be with my family than in Hawaii. It's going to be busy, but if you have to travel, you could do worse.

The biggest drawback for the next few days is that we'll be staying in the last two hotels in the country that don't have internet access. I don't know what that's about. I'll have to poke my head back into the internet next weekend to clear out the e-mountain of e-mail that will certainly be waiting for me. Most of it will be useless, but maybe you'll send me something. I imagine it will be something like, "Oh, poor Dave. Stuck in paradise with no connection to the outside world. Shut up. Nobody wants to hear you whine between Mai Tais." Yeah, probably something along those lines.

The Boundary of Blackness

2008-01-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's not as racist as it sounds. Some researchers have created what is supposed to be the blackest substance ever made, as in it absorbs 99.9 percent of the light that hits it. It's a collection of carbon nanotubes stacked next to each other. There is a picture of it in the link (picture #3). It's blacker than the blackness standard currently used by N.I.S.T. The theory is that this might be useful in solar energy production or stealth applications. Cool stuff.

Franny's not impressed. She says she made one of these years ago. Of course you use nanotubes. It's the teeniness that does it. The light can't get through. 'Cuz the teeniness. And the carbon. I love pregnant scientists.

Hyperactive Beatbox

2008-01-10T21:48:00.000-08:00

Just check this dude out.

Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth

2008-01-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays, Franny and I finally got around to seeing An Inconvenient Truth. Among other awards, it's won two Oscars and (sort of) the Nobel Frickin' Peace Prize, so we thought we should see it, if just to see what the fuss was about.

For the record, I've been following the climate change debate for some time, and am in agreement that people probably have a lot to do with the latest spike. I'm not as clear as to what can or should be done about it, but I'm certain that the head-in-the-sand option is not going to help and will most likely make things worse faster.

The movie started off as a commercial for Al Gore. As he says at the beginning, "I'm Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States." However, he gets over the ego trip and gets down to facts that are hard to debate. He's done a significant amount of travelling (in a carbon offset jet, I'm sure) and meeting with scientists and policy-makers around the world, so whatever you think of the whole thing, you can't really accuse him of just spouting the party line. He has tons of well-documented research to back up his claims. Some of it gets a little heavy into the scare tactics of the worse case scenario, but it's good information nonetheless.

Global climate change sparks a lot of debate, and everyone seems to have an opinion. This being Portland, most of the city of course thinks it's all true and we're clearly to blame. It's not just noise though. Portland was recently on track to become the first US city to meet the Kyoto protocols. (I can't vouch that we're still in the running to be first, but we're still on the way.) However, you don't have to get far from Portland into the more conservative parts of the state where the very idea of human-caused global warming is laughable. Most of these people are not evil, just not very well informed. As best I can tell, most of the folks scoffing at the idea get their science news from Rush Limbaugh's ilk. They're very much spouting the idea that if you can throw any little bit doubt at something, then you don't have to take any part of it seriously, and you can go on just like you always have. It's the same attitude seen in the creationism/evolution debate. These people seem, either willfully or accidentally, to remain uninformed or uncaring about the scientific method and how these conclusions are deduced and defended. It's hard to listen to sometimes. I'm not even clear what the motivation for the denial attitude is. I know there are a lot of folks in industry who would like the debate to go away for financial reasons, but I'm not sure about the regular people. I guess people don't like the idea that they might be partly to blame and don't want to have to do anything different. Understandable, I suppose, but unrealistic. (If someone has a response to this, please leave a comment. I find that I'm far more informed about the "other side" than most people I know, even if I still disagree with them. However, healthy debate and new points of view are always encouraged.)

As I mentioned, I been following this debate for some time, so most of what Gore presented was old news to me. If nothing else, I'm very interested in science, so these things have caught my attention in the past. However, if you are not as well informed as you'd like to be, this movie is a good overview of where the climate change claims are coming from and why scientists and environmentalists are making such a big deal about it. Even if you don't believe anything about these claims, you still might find some of it enlightening.

I definitely recommend that people see this movie. You will not come out of it in a good mood (either because you are more worried about things or because you don't like Al Gore), but most likely, you will still find it valuable.

Little Brother Notes

2008-01-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

That's right. For the estimated one of you that hasn't already seen it on Franny's blog, the Mizz is getting a brother this May. Of course the ultrasound tech wouldn't say for certain, but it seemed obvious to all of us.

This is a little weird -- not bad at all, just weird. Both Franny and I were thinking of a girl, as was just about everybody else, for whatever reason. I guess it just made sense to think that a girl would balance things out, so that's what it must be. Rationally, of course, this doesn't mean anything, but we just never really thought about it any other way. My sister even checked the Chinese birth chart or whatever, and decided that we were having a girl and she's expecting a boy. According to her, "It's always right, with everyone I know anyway." Wrong on both counts. It's nice to know that the discount, made-in-China, lead-painted, melamine-filled astrology and old wives tales are just as bunk as ours.

On the one hand poor Franny is going to be surrounded by testosterone. Good luck with that. On the other hand, we don't really have to buy much this time around. A bit of new furniture, but that's about it. For those of you feeling the need to get us something, I think this kid will need and Xbox, a flat screen high-def TV, and a new laptop. Other than that, he's pretty well covered.

We've been having issues with names. I think part of the reason for imagining a girl was that we already had a girl name picked out, left over from the Mizz. Now we have to come up with something else, so we're back at the same place we were last time. We've had some of the same arguments and issues as last time too. Franny has a few names that she likes that I can't consider because they make me think of particular people that I don't want to name my kid after for one reason or another. Sometimes, I didn't like they guy or maybe it's a friend or whatever. She even wanted to name him the same name as the husband of one of her friends. She even said she'd be willing to stop being friends with them, she likes the name so much. That's not going to work for me though. She gave me a lot of grief for that, but some other friends agreed with me, so I think I won that battle. What concession will I have to give now, I have no idea. However, I suggested a name the other day that she wouldn't stand for. "I've never met a ______ that I liked." It was actually a little ruder than tha, but I think she now at least partly understands my logic, if not my particular name vetoes. (However, as I mentioned before, the naming rights could certainly be bought for the right price. Franny can't afford them, so she's stuck trying to find names we can agree on. I'm sure some of you probably have deep pockets though. The more outlandish options may cost more, but I'm sure there's a price. Heck, if the bid's high enough, and it would have to be high, he could be George W. Bin Laden, if that's what you want.)

The other issue we've got lately is nesting. Both of us this time, but in different ways. She wants to buy new furniture, paint the whole house, build an addition, and dig out a basement, and throw everything away. I'm more into reorganizing the Titanic's deck chairs. As you can imagine, this causes some friction. I think we're starting to meet in the middle and have made some progress on realistic ideas for how to deal with another person in the house. The Mizz wasn't such a big deal, since we had an extra room that I think we both knew was eventually going to be a nursery. However, this one will require some rearranging of things. It's gotten somewhat easier however, since we now know what we're in for.

That's pretty much where we stand with the new addition right now. Franny's getting bigger, but then, she's supposed to be doing that. I'm getting bigger too, but without such a good excuse. I've got to do something about that. (From what I hear, I'm suffering from OBD, or Oregon Butt Disease. That's what happens when it rains all the time and you're stuck inside in a place that's famous for drinking beer. It's nice to know it's a syndrome, so I don't have to feel any personal responsibility for it.)

I'm sorry Franny

2008-01-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

I owe Franny an apology. To be honest, this situation will hurt me too, but Franny will probably have to deal with it more, and I pretty much brought it on myself anyway.

What you see above is a toy cash register. We got it at the Value Village, which is a Goodwill sort of store if you've never seen one. We find this is a good place to get silly little toys that will be quickly outgrown and sometimes we even get lucky and find something good. This particular find includes a credit card, which the Mizz just thinks is awesome. When Franny tried to put batteries in it, it emitted an ear-piercing squeal and was quickly deemed blissfully broken. This worked okay. The cash drawer still worked, and the Mizz still liked sliding the card in the non-working slot.

As you may notice by the numbers on the screen, it is no longer broken. It goes like this. The cash drawer has since stopped opening. Tough. However, this evening, the Mizz brought it to me with the drawer slightly open and wanted it all the way open. It has a couple of other toys stuck in it, which was the problem in the first place. I found a screwdriver and opened it up to get the toys out. While I was in there, I noticed what was causing the electronics to malfunction. Idiot savant that I am, I decided to fix it.

Upon insertion of the batteries, it became clear that the cash register now works. More importantly, the Mizz was there and is also aware that it works. The button on the left that looks like a scanner makes a noise that is very much like a real scanner beep. The number buttons are a functional calculator with a very quite beep. And the slot on the right, when swiped with the toy credit card, makes a noise that is neither quiet nor anything like swiping a credit card. It is an irritating series of beeps that would foment riots and murder if they actually happened constantly in every checkout stand on earth.

To make matters worse, if you decide that, instead of swiping the credit card, you poke it into the slot like the Mizz does, the button gets stuck and the series of beeps repeats ad infinitum. It's easy enough to stop, but not if you are the Mizz. Plus he likes it, so he has no intention of learning to stop it. So now to add insult to injury, I have to repair this thing again so that the button can't stick.

Why couldn't I have just left broke enough alone?

Welcome to 2008

2008-01-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

HAP---py new year. That's the way the Mizz has been saying it all day. I think that's the way Franny taught him to say it. It's fun to hear, but it's even better since he has no idea what he's talking about. He did note that "Mama turned de cawendar," but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what a calendar's for either.

Our evening was pretty uneventful. I live with a toddler and a pregnant woman. What were you expecting? I did end up staying awake until the new year, but that's only because I couldn't fall asleep through the fireworks that started around 9:30 and continued until about 12:30. These weren't some big city event downtown or anything; just lunatics in my neighborhood with lots of explosives and booze but not so much sense. They do this for pretty much every holiday. They aren't picky. At least it was muted by being cold. They pull out all the stops for the 4th of July. For the morning of the 5th, imagine a battlefield where someone has removed all the bodies but nothing else.

Speaking of new years, have you made your resolutions yet? Do you ever? Why?

I typically don't bother with resolutions. If I haven't decided to make these types of decisions or actions before, I seriously doubt that doing it to celebrate an arbitrary calendar event will make any more difference. "I'm going to exercise four times a week!" (Until I don't, which will be next week. Then I've broken the streak and it's over.) "I'm going to really get myself organized this year." (Or more likely, I'll probably just neaten up the stacks of paper on my desk and label a couple of folders. Then I'll go back to doing things the same way I've done them for the last umpteen years.) "I'm really going to buckle down and learn to play the guitar this year." (Because this has worked out so well for the last 15 years. Maybe if I really mean it this time...) The problem with these kinds of resolutions is that they are well-intentioned, but if just deciding to do them was all I needed, I would have done them already. For this reason, I have never bothered with the resolving thing and have ended up in pretty much the same place without the internal guilt.

However, even as I'd been getting salty hearing people ramble on about new year's resolutions on the radio and in ads and whatnot, a little philosophical seed apparently got planted in my head. For whatever reason (Maybe it's the 2nd kid on the way; who knows?), this seed has made me get to thinking about what really matters to me and what I like and dislike about the way I'm going about things. And I've come to realize that there are really very few things that actually matter to me. I care about maintaining healthy and happy connections with my family and friends. I care about providing the best support (in every sense of the word) for my family that I can. I'd like to leave things a little better than I found them, both in my immediate surroundings and the world in general. And I'd like to keep myself in good enough shape (both physically and emotionally) to be able to do these things for a very long time. (I'd like to meet the Mizz's grandkids, and still be coherent enough to understand it.)

Anyway, I decided that I need to resolve to live my life and make decisions always keeping these things in mind. I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels; maybe not wrecking my life, but not always making headway either. I want to do things more purposefully. The things I do should improve my life, or at least not make improving it harder. I guess I just want to be a better person, but not in the cheesy, undirected way that line is usually tossed out. If I remember what's really important, then when the time comes, getting more organized, taking better care of myself, and maybe even learning the guitar should work themselves out, along with all sorts of other things, much of which I'm certainly not even contemplating yet.

(This all looks very cheesy and trite now that I see it printed, but I've been rolling this around in my head for a while and I feel much more sincere about it than I've felt about most things in a while. Certainly more sincere than it looks written out. Seriousness and sincerity are not my strong suits. Sarcasm is more my speed.)

This isn't really meant as a new year's resolution, although it was some of that crap that made me get to really thinking about it, so by the timing, I suppose it counts. I intend for this to be more of a forever resolution. If Google can have "Do no evil," then I can have this.

Or maybe I could just do like usual, and resolve not to start eating Brussels sprouts.

Yeah, I Rock

2007-12-28T22:56:00.001-08:00

I used to be the guy on the left. Then I played the game. Now I understand. (From xkcd.com)

What song is this?

2007-12-28T22:49:00.001-08:00

A rousing round of Guess the Backward Song...

[Addendum 12/29/07: Sorry if you haven't been able to see this video. I used the new YouTube feature to post a video directly into a blog. It worked right after I did it, but apparently something changed since then and the video stopped showing. I'm trying again a different way. Better luck this time, I hope.]

Wisdom

2007-12-27T20:17:00.001-08:00

Franny says I gotta post more. So here's some philosophy I found enlightening. As always, click to make it readable.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

Between the holidays and the toddler, it's been busy, but I had to post a Merry Christmas to everybody out there. Ours was fairly low key. Most of my family was in Colorado, but we couldn't make that trip unfortunately. Only so much leave to go around. We did get a chance to see them on the webcam, and although the Mizz has about a one minute tolerance for sitting still, we still got to see family on the appropriate day.

We actually started Christmas Thursday when my folks came through on their way to the Colorado festivities. They brought along a winner -- a tent and tunnel combo. The Mizz loves it, although it does pretty much fill up the living room. We're down to the tent right now, which is still plenty big for him. It's full of legos rights now. He keeps inviting me inside, but I can only fit about halfway in laying down. He keeps telling me to wake up.

We ducked away Saturday night to Newport, Oregon. It's not exactly prime beach season, but we figured, if you're going to be cooped up out of the rain with a toddler, you might as well be somewhere cool. As we rolled into town, the rain stopped, so we were able to run around on the beach for a while. The Mizz has never really seen the beach, so rain drenched sand in the cold was still pretty cool to him. He did a lot of playing with kelp and sand and just running around. He kept saying that he wanted to go the beach. When we pointed out the fact that he was at the beach, he said, "No, I want to go to the beach of the water." He then ran directly for the surf. Luckily, we had seen this coming and we were a good hundred yards from the waves and the sharks and whatnot so he was easy to catch. We also caught a glimpse of some harbor seal napping on rocks. The next morning, we checked out the historic bayside, specifically to take the Mizz to the Undersea Garden. It wasn't that cool. It was a good sized aquarium, but unlike the brightly colored brochures, it was pretty drab. A whole green and brown aquarium full of green and gray and brown fish. Somewhat interesting, but only for a short time. The Mizz did get to touch a starfish and was pretty pleased about that. More interesting were the sea lions lounging on the dock outside. They were a little wary of us, but stood their ground. After all that, we decided that although getting away was nice, cooped up in a hotel with a toddler isn't that great. We wandered up the coast a way, with a quick stop in Depot Bay (world's smallest harbor) to observe the storm action in the blowholes. The water was shooting maybe 30 feet above the roadway, which was already quite a bit above the water. Very cool. After that, we'd had our fill of driving in the rain, so we called it a trip and headed home.

Today was pretty relaxed. The Mizz got a few things, but he's still pretty young to really understand the whole day. He has fun opening presents, but if they hadn't been there, he wouldn't have noticed. Waiting for him under the tree this morning was an old Tonka dump truck of mine, circa 1974(?). It is labelled as "hydraulic." "Spring loaded" or "catapult" might have been a better description. We'll show the Mizz that feature some other time. He also got a bunch of new legos, as I was feeling limited in my creative possibilities with his old ones. Now we can build much taller towers and much more complicated castles. We even built a house, because the Mizz wanted one to put a flower on. I'm just the builder, not the designer.

We got a taste of white Christmas. We got a good bit of heavy wet snow that made everything pretty, although it didn't stick around for long. We were going to go for a walk in it, but it was already raining again by the time we got moving.

To end the day, some friends brought over Chinese food, and unbeknownst to us, some more gifts for the Mizz. The best was four eggs worth of Silly Putty. The Mizz got four plastic eggs, WITH the original wrapping, and the rest of us got a lump of nostalgia to play with.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, whether it was a big family holiday, or just another day off.

I have GOT to get me one of these!

2007-12-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

Give me one good reason why I don't need a glow-in-the-dark cloned cat. It is one of those irritating long-haired beasts, but then, I'll only be looking at it under a UV lamp anyway.

Enough already with the latkes and the fryin'

2007-12-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

I have to start this by noting that, as anyone aware of my diet will attest, I can appreciate a fried bit of whatever. However, even I have to admit that there might be a limit. We've eaten latkes (potato pancakes, VERY fried, hash brown looking, but way better) with someone on four of the six nights of Hanukkah so far. I do love me some latkes, but that's too many. I feel like I have oil flowing out of my pores, not to mention the fact that I've had probably twice the recommended calories this week.

Maybe I'll cleanse my pallette for the next couple days by indulging in another Hanukkah tradition -- donuts. I'm pretty sure there's no way those can possibly be fried... (yeah, Dave, about that...)

Happy Birthday Mom!

2007-12-08T12:22:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Mom! I know it's a day late, but at least this time I can say I was not near a computer yesterday until late at night and I was three hours jet-lagged. Mom's birthday was actually yesterday, and for the record, yes, I did call her, albeit from an airport while I was chasing the Mizz around trying to tire him out for the plane. I'm not sure how coherent the conversation was, but I'm sure she got the gist.

Since it's not polite to call your mother old, I decided to dig around for a picture to make fun of instead. I was originally thinking of a hospital one from around my original birthday with full-on beehive hair, but this one struck me. It struck me because with the chops, the perpetual squint, and the apparent lack of fashion sense, that could be me in the background instead of Dad. (In case you missed it, I'm the short guy in the blue track suit.) I also thought Mom had quite a good look going too until I realized that the glasses, shirt, and even the hairdo would probably be right at home in Portland today. I'm assuming there's some sort of polyester pants action going on too, but that might have to stay in history's laundry heap. Even in Portland, we have standards. Now that I write that, I can safely assume that the Mizz's generation will bring polyester back just to annoy me. Or maybe they'll work with 80's stuff like parachute pants and Miami Vice colors. Whatever it takes to irritate Dad.

Anyway, back to the point. Congratulations on another eventful year, Mom. Happy Birthday!

Back West

2007-12-08T07:12:00.000-08:00

We made it home yesterday. The Mizz likes to kick airplane seats, but other than that, he's an awesome traveller. On just about every flight we take with him, we get an unsolicited compliment about how well he behaved. I always imagine the compliments to be sarcastic, but on the other hand, people who really had a problem with him probably wouldn't bother to say anything at all, at least not directly to us. I attribute his positive public response to exceptional parenting.

It was odd to get back to Portland to find that it was dry. When we left DC, grass and whatnot was covered in snow and it was sleeting on us. In Portland, it's obviously been raining lately, but today, it's clear as a bell and much milder. Franny bundled the Mizz up in the airport and put on her own hat and gloves before we went outside, not realizing that it was almost 50 degrees. I kind of chuckled inside, but it was fun to watch.

Another fun thing about this trip was rediscovering video games. Specifically, by brother-in-law brought Guitar Hero, or more specifically, Rock Band. I always thought this game looked ridiculous and couldn't possibly fun for very long. That was before I played it. My rudimentary guitar experience was irrelevant, since although the controller is shaped like a guitar, it's still pretty much just a video game controller. However, picking up this guitar is much easier than the real thing, so it's easy to feel like you're really making killer music. Even Franny thought it was awesome. Add in Scene It, a movie trivia game with individual buzzers (as all trivia games should have), and Franny and I were actually having a serious conversation about getting an Xbox for Christmas. Perhaps I'm not be as old or mature as I feel sometimes. Knowing how we are, one of us will probably look at a price tag or something and decide that maybe there are better ways to waste money, but it must have been fun if we were actually having the discussion.

We had a good time back East, but it's good to be home. We were in our regular bed and the Mizz seems glad to be back in familiar territory. At the very least, our house is somewhat childproofed, so we can comfortably let him play at his own convenience for minutes at a time. That's worth a ton right there.

Now if I could get him to sleep later than 4:30...

Northwest Storm

2007-12-06T05:02:00.001-08:00

If you haven't seen it yet, this is I-5 near Centralia, Washington. I believe the water has subsided somewhat since this picture, but the road is still covered in a lot of mud that has to be removed before it can be reopened this weekend.

If you're interested in seeing some details of the storm, The Oregonian newspaper has put up an interactive map of various pictures, weather satation reports, etc. I especially like the rain guage and wind speed reports, such as 129 mph in Bay City, Oregon (near Tillamook, of cheese fame). It also shows road closures, but those are current, so some previously closed roads are not shown. Yesterday, the roads from Portland to Astoria, Seaside, and Tillamook were all closed.

I'm not sad we missed this one.

How's traffic in your town?

2007-12-06T04:51:00.001-08:00

This elephant apparently got mad during an elephant polo match in Sri Lanka. I can't say that I blame him. (Yanked from Yahoo! photos)

I did it again

2007-12-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

There I go again, wandering off and forgetting the blog. For three days I was travelling without the internet, but no excuse otherwise. Lazy? Probably.

The internetless travelling was a whirlwind work trip to Bend, Oregon. Lotsa work, long days, whine, whine, whine. Actually, it wasn't horrible. The guy I was working with has a timeshare membership that scored us what amounted to a two bedroom condo for $30 a night (total). No internet, but that per diem is going to feel great for this one. The real problem was coming home. We had to get home Wednesday evening, but Bend is on the other side of the Cascade mountain range from Portland, and as luck would have it, there had been a boatload of snow on the Cascades the night before, with more on the way. Both of the reasonable passes through the mountains had lots of snow and chain requirements. Although we had chains and some snow driving skill between us, we decided to be prudent and go straight north to The Dalles on the road that only had a weather warning rather than the severe weather alert on the passes. This might have added and hour and a half to our trip on a normal day, but due to the snow that happened during the trip, it added more like three. So a trip that's normally about three hours ended up taking us six, although we found that my van, loaded down as it was, actually held the road rather well and we never even had to put on the chains. But still, nine o'clock at night is no time to roll in if you haven't been out doing something fun.

Non sequiter FYI: my capitalization of The Dalles is correct. "The Dalles" is the actual name of the city. Why the mix of the French "Dalles" with the English "The" I have no idea. I was thinking you might see this type of thing in Canada, but then I figured that there, it would probably say "The Falls/Les Dalles" with some kind of legal fight as to which part should be listed first. This is the main reason this country should never officially declare an "official" language, god forbid two of them. We are still free to call things whatever we please, as long as we can convince other people to call them the same thing. Freedom fries, anyone?

Now we're travelling again, this time back east to see family. I wouldn't say the Mizz was a complete joy to travel with, but he could have been so much worse. He got to ride in a taxicab, two airplanes, a bus, a black car, and some escalators, all equally fun to him. He took a good bit of entertaining on the planes, but for the most part, we were able to keep his feet off the chair in front of us and he only cried one in the Chicago airport, mainly from being way overtired and cooped up. Due to a kindly jet stream, we actually got to Chicago about an hour early. However, due to an unkindly winter storm through the Midwest, there were delays all over the place and our next plane took off an hour and a half late. O'Hare is not cool enough to justify four of my hours. The flight from Chicago to DC was pretty bumpy -- not so bumpy as to frighten you, but bumpy enough that the captain kept the seatbelt sign on for the whole flight and wouldn't let the flight attendants up either. Not scary, but miserable for lots of people, especially the Mizz, who kept wanting to "come see Daddy" or "come lay on Daddy". We talked a lot about the signs with the arrows (seatbelt signs) and the fact that Mommy and Daddy both have to wear their seatbelts too. He wasn't buying any of it, but we all survived. The plane was late enough getting in that they were in a rush to get the next set of passengers boarded as quickly as possible so they could get off the ground before 10 pm, as there is a hard and fast curfew at Reagan National. We finally rolled in about midnight, much later than planned, but luckily we have nice relatives, and they were up waiting for us. Thanks guys, you're awesome.

The funnest part of the trip so far has been the car Franny scored for us. She had a couple free upgrades from Enterprise, so she tried to get us a Dodge Charger. They were out of them, but we're running around suburban Maryland in a Chrysler 300. It feels a little wrong. This is quite a bit more car than we're used to driving, but it's kind of fun. It's not the top of the line version, but then, I don't think I've ever driven a top of the line anything, so I don't really know what I'm missing anyway. This one has 250 hp and handles wonderfully, so we can certainly have a little fun. Franny's main gripe is that, since it's not the really nice version, there aren't nearly enough gadgets and buttons for the passenger to play with. The Mizz is fine with it though, as the dash is full of blue lights at night. We could drive him around on a tractor if there were enough lights on it.

How was your Black Friday?

2007-11-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

The whole idea of Black Friday really does nothing for me. Why on Earth would a store even bother existing if it depends on lunatic shoppers staying lunatic each year only a month before the year's end to ensure that it can turn a profit? If everything is on crazy sale, how does this help anyway? Aren't there safer ways to make money? (Not in America, Dave. Here, the lunatic shoppers are as dependable as the tides.) And from a shopper's perspective, how little is your time worth that you want to wait in insane lines at four in the morning to get the extra 15% off of crap you don't need anyway? I'm not a big fan of shopping as it is, and shopping in crowds is never worth it.

So naturally, I met Franny at the mall after she got off work Friday. I'm clearly an idiot. Luckily, we didn't last too long and had more fun wandering around downtown in the cold. Actually, the Pioneer Place Mall in Portland wasn't too bad. It's just a couple city blocks in the heart of downtown, so parking is kind of an issue. As Franny put it, lots of people want to be able to park their SUV's in the store.

I kind of wonder about the effect of Black Friday anyway. For one thing, lots of people shop online now, which is not really tied to being at the store opening at 0 dark-thirty, while still allowing you to get some great deals. You can still shop at three in the morning, but you can do it in pajamafied comfort after a case of beer, if that's what floats your boat. I've seen a few things here and there which would never be purchased otherwise.

Another thing that I would think might dilute the after-Thanksgiving sales is the pre-Thanksgiving sales, AKA Christmas creep. I began hearing Christmas music before Halloween this year. Costco had it, but in their defense, they they probably got it in HUGE batches that might actually take two months to completely hear. I was also working at a place where someone brought in AWESOME Halloween cookies that we were enjoying when someone found a radio station that had already switched to 24-hour Christmas programming. Not that there's much Thanksgiving music, but seriously, one holiday at a time, please. To paraphrase Lewis Black (Jewish, but apparently not intensively so), "How long does it take you people to shop?"

One good note about Christmas creep: Nordstrom and I agree on something, which is unusual. Nordstrom is all about fashion and other expensive stuff, while I have no fashion sense that I am aware of, and I am borderline miserly. My mother-in-law is a big fan, but I'm merely aware that it's a department store specializing in things I don't understand. However, Nordstrom apparently refuses to put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. For that I commend them. Perhaps I'll buy something from them some day, although for the life of me, I couldn't begin to guess what.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T22:41:00.001-08:00

I'm sure this picture is on about 10,000 blogs today. I found it years ago, but I still chuckle a little at it every time.

We had a bunch of people over today, including my folks, with whom we haven't shared Thanksgiving in quite some time. It was nice to have experienced help in the kitchen, although that's not why they were invited. Everything was ready at about the same time, which is something that we don't do so well even if we only have a couple dishes to coordinate. As it was, we had maybe 10 different things to prepare or rewarm. My parents pulled it off despite a snafu with our oven being unknowingly turned off prematurely, which says much more about the design of our oven/timer controls than it does about our kitchen staff. (One start button, but two stop buttons. It still catches us from time to time too.) All in all, a great time, with food compliments all around.

Sesame Street is not normally related to Thanksgiving, but since I found that picture again, I can relate this story. Apparently, Children's Television Workshop is releasing some early seasons of Sesame Street with a warning that they are for adults only due to the behavior of some of the characters. Incidentally, we already own this set, but without the warning. They are definitely from another era. Cookie Monster smokes a pipe (and then eats it), Oscar is REALLY a grouch, and Gordon, a grown man, invites a little girl back to his house for milk and cookies. However, as far as I'm concerned, the only real problem with these old episodes is the disheveled puny-headed Big Bird.

Well, poop.

2007-11-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

Today just didn't work out right at all. A couple days ago, I was going to have a couple quick stops this morning and then be home in Portland sometime in the afternoon, which is good since I was supposed to drop a piece of equipment off for my boss to use tomorrow morning. That slipped a little bit yesterday when I worked with another one of our techs and he was having trouble getting all his stuff done. He's only been with us a few months and apparently doesn't have the Speedy Gonzalez thing figured out yet.

Anyway, in a fit of stupidity, I said I'd pick up a couple things from him, which put me getting home an hour or two later, but no big deal really. Then the last thing I was working on last night ended up requiring a stop back again this morning. Again, not too bad, but not helping. However, when I got there, my contact was in a meeting, but "he'll probably be out pretty soon." Twenty minutes later, I decided to go get something else done and come back. By the time I got back, nothing continued to happen. "I'm sure he'll be done soon. This is much longer than they usually meet." Great. Now what? My next stop is 70 miles up the road, so I'm not exactly going back and forth, and I have to meet this guy before I leave since some of his stuff is broken and he needs to know about it. So, I wait, watching my getting-home time slipping further into the evening.

About half the equipment at the next two places (the originally scheduled places) was not working right, taking even longer. Now I'm looking at getting home at maybe 9 pm. Not what I had in mind, but it's still home.

And then I get the call from the office. It starts by asking can I stop by one more place tomorrow on the way home? I've got the only stuff to work on this particular equipment, so it's got to be me. Hell, no I can't stop by tomorrow. First, the boss wants the stuff I have tonight, and second, I don't want to be out here anymore. So, naturally, I'll be stopping by tomorrow. The boss decided for some reason to switch his schedule around, so getting home tonight, although still desirable, was no longer an absolute requirement. I ended up deciding that neither I nor the guy who desperately needed this last stop wanted to do it starting at 6:30 this evening. He didn't want to come back to work, and it would optimistically put me home no earlier than 10 or 10:30. Given the rest of the day, optimism seemed misplaced. So, I'll see this guy first thing in the morning, fully caffeinated and ready to go, and then drive like a crazy person to get home before the turkey day traffic gets too bad. It sucks that Franny is stuck alone with the Mizz for another probably too early morning, but what can you do?

We'll see if this plan holds any more water than the one I had today. At least I'm getting paid, right? Sorry for the rant. It's been that kind of day. For reading this far, you get a treat. I give you the true origin of hip-hop.

How smart do I write?

2007-11-19T23:02:00.000-08:00

So, as of the previous post, I am apparently writing at a Junior High level according to the Blog Readability Test. I have to admit that I'm feeling a little inadequate after learning that fact. I mean, I wasn't exactly an English major, but c'mon.

I'm not actually sure how this reading level is determined. The website doesn't say what it takes into consideration, but I'm assuming there's stuff about sentence length and complexity, and probably some keywords it looks for. Maybe even something about proper grammar and spelling. Who knows?

Something else I just considered... Is it desirable to be at the Genius end or the Elementary School end? I've plugged some friends into the site and they span the whole range, even though they all seem like smart people. The site gives no clue whether a higher education rating means that you are smarter and it shows in your writing, or that you write things in such a complex way that people need more education just to figure out what you mean. I guess I should be happy in the middle of the pack. Satisfyingly mediocre.

Under a log?

2007-11-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

I must have been under a log; I haven't posted in two weeks. I have been busy though. I'll try to be brief. We all know how that'll work out, I'm sure.

I had started a work trip almost two weeks ago. I went out to Bend for a few days of work before continuing on to Southern Oregon. However, a day into it, I had to run back to Portland to spend the night in the hospital with the Mizz. When Franny called me from the doctor's office, it was very clear to me that I had to get back there. I missed the worst of it, as the Mizz was finally asleep by the time I got there. That was the longest three hour drive I've ever taken. I have a very good imagination.

The problem was that the Mizz had a bad reaction to a shot he had received the day before for the croup. It was a normal enough prescription for his issue, but he experienced a rare side effect. Rare enough that it is not a warning you normally get with it, but common enough that the folks at the childrens' hospital understood what was happening. Luckily it seems to have caused him no lasting issues and he seems to be back to his normal toddler antics now.

When we felt that he was going in the right direction, I had to return to my previously scheduled job responsibilities. Friday night, it was down to Roseburg to be ready to work first thing Saturday morning. Worked on and on and on through today. Tomorrow is almost a day off, just a couple of hours of driving to be further down the road for Monday morning.

I spent several days on the Southern Oregon coast, even stretching down into California. I thought I was going to get rainy weather all week, but it was beautiful on Sunday when I went out to the coast. Then Monday is was raining with gale force winds. Then it was beautiful, then drizzly, then sunny, and then rainy again, with rain heavy enough to make even Oregonians complain. Most of the time, our rain is just a drizzle. I have a raincoat, but I almost never put it on. With this stuff, however, you could actually get wet.

Lots of places (including Portland) like to make the claim that, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes." This is intended to help you understand just how unpredictable the weather is in the speaker's particular part of the world. Most people act like they invented the phrase, and hey, aren't they witty. However, although it may actually apply to other places too, the Oregon coast in the Fall is the place I've been that most deserves to say it.

Thursday evening, I made my way down to Eureka, California. It's not super far, maybe 100 miles south of the border, but it was a pretty long trip down US-101. It was slow and twisty, drizzly, foggy, and since that section of road is called the Redwood Highway and goes through Redwood National Park, there were giant freakin' trees right up to the edge of the road. "Elk Crossing" signs too. Somewhat stressful. It was much better on the trip back north the next day. Beautiful, with either huge trees in the mist or ocean vistas. I found the elk. They were lounging on a lawn in front of some cabins by the side of the road. These ones seemed to know about the lack of hunting on national parks. I also passed the "life-size" statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Trees of Mystery. It's a side-of-the-road attraction in the middle of the park that has a tour through the redwoods to show you just how interesting 1000 year old trees can be. I remembered the statues like it was yesterday, even though I was only 9 or 10 the last time I saw them.

Eureka is in the middle of Humbolt county. It's reputation preceded it. On my way through the redwoods, the only radio station I could get for a while was playing 2 straight hours of the Grateful Dead. It was interrupted only by commercials for greenhouse and hydroponic equipment dealers. However, despite being in town for almost 14 hours, not one person offered to sell me pot. Luckily, I live in Portland, so if it's ever an issue, I'll just roll down Belmont or something.

I spent today with one of the crassest individuals I've had the privilege of meeting. They customer is always right though, I hear. He has several small locations, so I got to follow him around the mountains all day. I'm done with him though, so tomorrow it's a little further south, and then home by Tuesday. I've put on something like 1,400 miles so far this trip, and I have another 500 or so left. I'm sick of the road.

So much for brief, but you didn't really expect that, did you?

The Mizz is ill

2007-11-04T19:35:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since we've had a sick kid on our hands, but daycare sent the first gift of the season home on Friday. The Mizz appears to have croup. I'd heard of this, but until Friday, I had do idea what it meant. It's a horrible sounding cough that apparently isn't normally too bad of a problem. As Yahoo! Health notes, kids with croup usually sound much worse than they feel or actually are. It's true, he sounds awful. His throat is not right, so as Franny noted, he sounds like Minnie Mouse -- much higher pitch than usual, which is an odd thing to hear from a toddler who is already pretty high pitched. The cough itself is often described as sounding like a barking seal. Geek that I am, I also think it occasionally sounds like Gollum. Other than the occasional horrible cough, the only symptom is fever. Not surprising, since apparently the most likely cause is the influenza virus. As long as we keep him calm and give him ibuprofen when he gets too hot, he seems to be doing okay. The real problem is proving to be sleep. He wakes himself up coughing and then is up for a while. It took me about 11 hours last night to get maybe 6 hours of sleep, and that was in four spurts. 6 hours is livable, but not when you do it like that. Franny is especially hit hard, since she's not getting much sleep as it is. We dug out the humidifier this evening. Here's hoping tonight works out better, although it hasn't started out well.

Web 2.0?

2007-11-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

Franny asked what the heck I meant by Web 2.0. I don't know if it was a serious question or not, but here's a primer to the webs.

Web 1.0 (although nobody called it that) -- The Internet Bubble. Put up a website full of information for people to look at. Then, um... profit. That's what was supposed to happen anyway. Mosly we just transferred venture capital into the Housing Bubble. Nice one, guys.

Web 2.0 -- User Generated Content. Put up a web site, and then let the people fill it with information. Think Wikipedia and YouTube, but also Twitter and the LOLCat Bible Translation Project. In case that last one doesn't ring a bell, LOLCats are silly pictures of cats (usually) with pidgin sayings that make them ever so hilarious. At least they did for a moment, but they won't go away. I suppose that if you're 40 years old and still living in your mother's basement, sometimes you take a break from the porn and still need something to occupy your time.

Web 3.0 -- The Internet Becomes Self-Aware. Expect terminators to start showing up sometime next year. But don't worry too much. They'll still be running Windows and will need to reboot from time to time, completely forgetting what they were doing. The governor of Kahliforneeah will be very confused. The machines will end up being deported for lack of documentation. Good luck with that, Austria.

Extend your Battery Life

2007-11-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Franny forwarded me a link regarding tips to extend battery life for the devices in your life. Some of the tips are not necessarily helpful for all battery types, but they probably won't hurt.

The biggest issue with batteries (of all types) is temperature cycling. Everybody knows that keeping batteries in the freezer until you use them keeps them good longer, right? Yes and no. The cold of the freezer doesn't really do anything good or bad. What is good about the freezer is that it is a constant temperature. Anyplace that stays more or less at a consistent temperature is a fine storage place. This means that although carrying your laptop in your car with you is fine, leaving it there in the hot sun or overnight in the cold will not do it any favors. (Plus it'll probably get stolen, but at least the thief will have a dead battery. Ha. Who's laughing now?)

Laptops are especially prone to heating problems, mainly since some people seem to want to use them on their laps. The vents are usually located on the bottom and can easily be blocked, potentially causing the computer to overheat. The vents usually don't do anything for the batteries; they are meant to cool the processor, which cranks out quite a bit of heat. However, the batteries are also typically on the bottom and get warm during use. (Anybody remember Toshiba's exploding laptop batteries?) If they are set on a lap or pillow or whatever, they will not properly cool and will likely have some of their life sucked away each time this is done.

I hope this is helpful for someone, and thanks, Franny, for passing it on.

Why Twitter?

2007-11-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

For those of you unaware, one of Web 2.0's more annoying, yet for some reason, popular features is Twitter. It is similar to a blog, but you can only add very small messages. The theory is that you continually update your audience, presumably your friends and family, on the mundane activities of your daily life. "Going to lunch now. Tacos, I think." "Eating a burrito instead." "Back from lunch now. Catching up on email." "Drooling on keyboard." Can't you just taste the excitement?

Anyway, I live with the live action version of this phenomenon in the form of the Mizz. He's at a wonderful stage where he's learning words as fast as possible, but has not yet developed a filter between a thought and an out-loud statement. I'm sure it's just practicing to see if he gets the expected reaction, but from the other end, it gets a little old. Putting him to bed now goes something like this: "Turn off the star light. Music on. Turn off the hoodle (little) light. Chill out on Daddy. I huggin' Daddy. Night night Daddy, see you ina moning. Daddy gonna go out. Daddy goin' out. [Muffled through the door...] Daddy out." This is pretty continuous. "One on and one off upstair. That's a stereo. I eat turkey and bread at school. I pway wif da wed ball; Mama pway wif the blue ball." On and on and on...

Why a full grown adult would want to live like this just because it's on the internet is beyond me. Perhaps I'm older than I feel.

Separated at Birth?: Fonzie edition

2007-11-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

Make a fist. Make a fumb. Make a AAAYYYY!

Science with Franny: Device Chargers

2007-11-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Everybody has a tangle of wires somewhere that is supposed to charge the various devices that our lives demand these days. We have cell phones, cell phone bluetooth headsets, mp3 players, PDAs, digital cameras, and whatever else we've managed to accumulate. Every one of these things comes with its own unique charger/cable. I have long wondered about this, as has Franny, although she has been much more indignant about it. I have been somewhat more forgiving about it knowing the different voltage and power specifications of different things, but I have certainly thought that it must not be that hard to standardize on something, or at least a minimum number of somethings. I recognize that a charger for a car battery should probably be more robust than the tiny one for my bluetooth headset. However, most personal devices these days are made with similar technology and similar, somewhat low, power requirements. Everything large I buy plugs into the exact same outlets in my house with the exact same electricity. Why can't smaller devices do the same thing?

My first taste of cross-device adaptability was when I realized that my laptop and my portable printer for work both use the exact same AC adapter. Granted they are both HP, but this was a first. As both are battery operated and last quite some time, I now have one less cable to drag around with me and find an outlet for, especially in hotels, which are notorious for their dearth of available plugs. As it is, I often end up unplugging a light or the alarm clock or something to avoid having to charge my phone at the bathroom sink.

I thought we were onto something a couple years ago when Franny and I got our Motorola RAZR phones. I also got a bluetooth headset, and about the same time, got my Creative Zen Micro mp3 player. I was thrilled to see that all these devices charged through a mini-USB port. Knowing that all USB ports are the same and have the same 5V power supply, I stupidly thought that industry had finally agreed on a charger standard. After some experimental research, I found that my Zen charger caused my phone to lock up and be useless. Luckily, removing the battery reset it and it survived, but I learned my lesson. After some more web-based research instead, I learned that although the power circuits on USB cables are identical, the devices apparently send other information back and forth with their respective charges that, at best, can't be understood by other devices, and at worst, cause software errors in those devices. Stuff like, "I'm full now. Enough with the electricity already," but in a different language for each device. I had to wait two more years before industry heard our call.

Enter the Open Mobile Terminal Platform, a mobile industry forum, mainly cellular carriers, but including manufacturers as well. They have decided to adopt the micro-USB (like the mini-USB, but even harder to plug in without looking at it) as the standard charging and data cable for some future generation of cell phones. This means that whatever phone and phone-related device you buy will fit the same generic charger, and that your phone will still cost just as much, but if you want a charger to go with it, you will have to pay extra. Everybody wins. I realize that this is just for cell phones for the time being, but cell phones cross over with PDAs these days, which means that lots of other small personal data devices can't be far behind. I don't know how long we have before seeing this spread as the default way that devices are designed, but I for one can't wait.

Of course iPods and iPhones will probably still be different, but that's just because Apple is special.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T20:54:00.001-07:00

I hope everyone is having a fun Halloween. These are our jack-o-lanterns this year. Tutu helped the Mizz design his, but we just carved it this weekend along with the Mama Pumpkin and the Daddy Pumpkin.

We didn't do candy at home this year, since the Mizz is going down right at prime time. We just left the light off like all the other pathetic anti-social people in our neighborhood, although I did hear someone down the street scaring the crap out of trick-or-treaters. Oh, the memories.

We did take the Mizz out earlier to go trick-or-treating at the mall. He was a dragon, of the Old Navy type. He's a natural. Most of the kids just stood in line and held out their bags like collecting candy was their jobs. But not the Mizz. He delighted in holding his bag (a "happy" skull) at arm's length, and saying, loudly but not screaming, "Twick o tweet!" Sometimes he was several feet away from the person with the candy, and sometimes he was saying it to random trick-or-treaters walking down the hall, but he's getting the idea. Give him time. He got the hang of it after a while and then wouldn't stop. Once we let him eat a couple pieces of candy though, the monster was unleashed and he had a one track mind after that. I also found that young ladies at stores giving out candy in their sexy whatever costumes interact much differently with the old guy and his cute kid after Mama goes off shopping. I wasn't doing research, mind you, just an observation. It does seem that if you're looking to hit it off with someone half your age, for some reason a two year old dressed as a dragon would be a helpful accessory. They still gave out pathetic candy though. Franny snagged the only Reece's cup and there wasn't a Hershey miniature in sight. Just gobs of tootsie rolls and hard candy. You'd think businesses could do better, especially the big boxes. They could have had full size candy bars to give out without putting a dent in their obscene profit margins. Maybe that's not true, but I'm going to imagine it is anyway. I mean, Macy's running out of candy an hour into the event. Seriously. (Sounds like someone's jealous that nobody wants to give him a bag of candy. Poor, sad old man.)

How else does Portland do Halloween? How about a Zombie Walk? Be careful about clicking that. The link might not be too safe for appetites, depending on your zombie/gore tolerance. For the Zombie Walk, a bunch of people gather at Pioneer Courthouse Square at a designated time near Halloween and then stagger around town amusing the locals and freaking our tourists and children. There's something surreal about a video of a bunch of zombies lurching and moaning through Pioneer Place mall and then calmly riding the escalators en masse.

How to Kill Nostalgia

2007-10-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I was a huge fan of Star Wars. How could you not be? "70's kid and nerd? You're our exact target audience. But wait, we've got more. Now that it's the 80's and you watch too much TV, we have the Transformers too!" The were both very cool concepts, ones that I still kind of dig.

So what the hell is this?

For around $50, you get a Darth Vader robot that transforms into the Death Star. (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you probably haven't read this far anyway.) These are two concepts, each superbly awesome in its time and on its own, that have been repackaged in an unholy alliance of all that is wrong with both of them. On the transformer side, you have Darth Vader, admittedly a tall guy, but human-sized nonetheless, transforming into the Death Star. ("It's headed for that small moon." "That's no moon. It's a battle station.") Here I'm thinking of Megatron (giant frickin' robot) turning into a pistol (itty bitty little popgun). Even at twelve years old and in love with the concept, I had a problem with the physics. And as far as Darth Vader goes, he was cool because he could choke you to death from a whole other starship. "The ability to destroy a planet pales in comparison to the power of the force." Vader's own words -- probably misquoted, but pretty close. He didn't need to be a giant killer robot; he was already badass. This mirrors the Star Wars action figures changing from the 70's characters, which were shaped much like normal people, to versions which are more along the lines of pro wrestlers. Why did they have to go messing with these things?

Bonus movie review: Transformers

Here I'm talking about the version from this year, not the animated one I missed in the 80's. I'm almost embarrassed to say it's one of only two movies I saw in the theater this year. (To maintain a shred of intellectual dignity, the other one was The Last King of Scotland.) It had to happen. This movie was more or less doomed to look awesome while paying no attention to plot or character development. Of course, I had no choice but to see it. C'mon. It's the Transformers.

It did not fail to deliver. It looked really good. Great actually. The Transformers themselves looked and moved far more realistically than I expected they would. Michael Bay nailed the transforming noise perfectly and he avoided the stupid thing from the cartoon where Optimus Prime had a trailer when he was a truck, but it just disappeared when he was a robot. I always thought that was lame. And, well, they weren't any worse actors than the actual people. The writing and characters in this overpriced toy commercial managed to reach a level of suck that far exceeded what I could have imagined. I would have guessed that the entire thing was written by people my age, but back when they first saw the tv show in 1984. However, a good chunk of the plot twists were ripped straight out of Independence Day, so it must have been more recently. Anyway, this is a classic case of, "we can do this cool looking thing, now we just need a story." In the end, the cool-lookingness was just barely enough to make the theater experience bearable. I would have been sorely disappointed if I had watched this on a two foot wide screen in my living room with the sound turned down so the Mizz could sleep.

The Bleeding Edge of Web 2.0

2007-10-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Scarborough Research (as if I've ever heard of them before) has just released a paper regarding the prevalence of blogging in various cities in the US. I'm proud to say that Portland came in second, as that somehow must make me a better person. Apparently, 14% of Portlanders are bloggers, behind only Austin, TX, at 15%. The national average was 8%. The cities above 10% are:

Austin, TX, 15%
Portland, OR, 14%
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA, 13%
Seattle/Tacoma, WA, 13%
Honolulu, HI, 12%
San Diego, CA, 12%
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, 11%
Columbus, OH, 11%
Nashville, TN, 11%
Colorado Springs/Pueblo, CO, 11%
Washington, D.C., 11%
Atlanta, GA,10%
New York, NY, 10%

When you round to the nearest percent, there are a lot of ties. The press release is located here. It has a lot of guesswork as to the reasons for these rankings, but get real, the only reason any of you are going to click is to find out where your own city is on the list. (The complete list is on page 3 of the link.) Someone on the radio this afternoon guessed that our reason was Portland's weather forcing us to find some way to amuse ourselves indoors. You can't drink beer and coffee all the time, although both are certainly compatible with blogging.

The only problem I see with the research is that, to Scarborough, you are a blogger if you have "read or contributed to a blog in the last 30 days" (my emphasis). By that logic, I am also a reporter, a novelist, a chef, an actor, a rock star, a magazine editor, and a hard core rapper. You should feel lucky that you heard of me just as I was on the verge of making the big time.

(Careful, Dave. That's two posts in two days about blogging. You're running the risk of becoming a caricature of yourself. Or at least becoming an insufferable Blogger-with-a-capital-B.)

Portland Shanghai Tunnels

2007-10-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

An interesting piece of Portland history is the Shanghai Tunnels. Back in the day of the somewhat lawless West (a century or so ago, give or take a decade or two), Portland was known as a bad place to have too much fun in the rougher parts of town. There was a network of tunnels connecting lots of the businesses downtown to the waterfront, which is a park now, but at the time was the main cargo/shipping part of town. Many less-than-honorable captains would pay less-than-honorable Portlanders to abduct young men and conscript them into duty as sailors until their ships landed somewhere else. You would be drinking for free with some kind stranger and wake up later on a ship already at sea, having been drugged and then hauled through the tunnels to the waiting ship without anyone above being the wiser. There was lots of trade with China, hence the "Shanghai" tunnels.

That's the story anyway.

Turns out it might not be actually totally true per se. Archeology and historical record-searching is apparently not finding much of the evidence promoted by the outfit making money by taking people through what is left of the supposed tunnels.

There is evidence of some tunnels, although the extent of the network seems to be in dispute. Also, the practice of Shanghaiing sailors was widespread, with San Francisco being the most notorious city, but with Portland certainly playing a part. The main dispute however, is whether the tunnels that may or may not have existed had anything to do with the kidnappings. According to the stories, law enforcement was widely corrupt at that time and was involved in the kidnappings, at the very least by being bribed to look the other way. Why then, would anyone worry about the expense of building and maintaining tunnels when you could just as easily pay off the cops and drag a poor sucker down the street? We're only talking about something like four or five blocks in the middle of the night.

The reason for the Shanghai Tunnel dispute is that most of the research and evidence seems to be in the hands of the Cascade Geographic Society, and they are not sharing. Supposedly, they (mainly a "he", but supposedly with some volunteer help) are withholding everything they have until they can finish a book about the tunnels. There is precious little other evidence available beyond "My Grandpa knew a guy..." or "I used to play in the tunnels before the city closed them." The problem is that the best anyone can do is a story about a story, since anyone with firsthand knowledge is long gone. In addition, most of the portions of the city involved have since been renovated, so most of the tunnels that were supposed to have existed are also long gone.

The Cascade Geographic Society is not helped academically by the fact that they seem to want to push the "haunted" aspect of the existing tunnels. It certainly make it seem like they are more interested in guiding tours than conducting research, although since they aren't giving specifics, who knows?

I for one hope they have a trove of evidence and blow this story wide open. The Shanghai Tunnels (or "Portland Underground") are a very popular story around Portland. Definitive proof of the stories would only heighten the importance of what some believe is an integral part of Portland history. But I'm not holding my breath.

No matter what evidence is ever produced one way or the other, this story is certainly not going anywhere anytime soon.

Cool new blogger feature

2007-10-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

Blogger just introduced something that I stumbled on yesterday. If you comment on a blog hosted on Blogger (like mine for instance) and you send the comment while signed in with a Google account, you can opt to have further comments to that post emailed to you. This seems like a very cool way to turn a single random comment into a conversation.

I personally have a habit of reading a post, leaving a comment, and then forgetting about it completely. Sometimes it would be nice to get a response to a comment or to see what other people have to say, and then have the chance to add something else. I used to have to remember to check back again, which happened far too rarely. There is WAY too much information flowing in my DSL line to remember everything that was interesting.

You've always (for a long time anyway) been able to subscribe to an RSS feed for the post, but I have gobs of feeds already, and that's just another thing to remember to check. Now I can get it stuck in my face by Google, but more importantly, only if I want to.

You have to have a Google account to use this feature, but last I checked, they're still giving them away for free. (Note: you don't have to be using gmail. They will send it to whatever email you give them when you register for an account.)

I'm blogging about blogging. How full of myself am I?

Odds and Ends

2007-10-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here's some more stuff that I've found interesting/amusing, but that for one reason or another, didn't justify immediate mention. You probably won't care about most of this stuff, but that's why it's all lumped together.

Since campaign season is well upon us again, check out FactCheck.org. They are pretty good about cutting through a lot of the political bull, especially where numbers are thrown around.

Anybody heard about Constitution Day? It is on the anniversary of the day of adoption of the U.S. Constitution, September 17th. Specifically it is the day that all high schools and colleges receiving federal money (most schools, certainly all public ones) must teach about the constitution. Don't worry if you don't know about this. Apparently, neither do most students. It is new as of 2004. What ever happened to government class? I remember the Constitution being a pretty important issue back when I was in high school. I don't know anyone in college who wasn't well versed in it. What's happened since? Does Congress assume that since the current administration has apparently never read the Constitution, then probably nobody else is aware of it either. As a fun additional factoid, Constitution Day was proposed by Senator Robert Byrd of WV, who apparently always carries a copy of the document with him.

Google has launched "The Google" for older adults who may or may not be terribly internet-savvy. I originally thought of my parents when I read this article, but that's not really fair. Although they don't know beans about their actual computer, they are pretty good at finding their way around the internet. Which means they're probably reading this and know I'm making fun of them. Crap.

On a related note. For those unaware, RTFM means "Read The Freaking Manual." Or something like that.

Congress is finally standing up to the President and promoting real science again. Yay!

Did you know giraffes do this? I hardly ever even see them as active at all. I saw a film of one running once, but usually they're just slowing rambling around their pen at the zoo munching leaves or whatever.

Lastly, a little debate fodder for Franny's former coworkers.

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

Long time, no blog

2007-10-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure where I've been lately. Just not in a blogging mood I guess. Things have been happening though.

In case there's anyone reading this who doesn't also read Franny's blog, she's pregnant again. Yes, it was intentional. Thanks for asking. Not super far along yet, but she did decide to dig out the prego clothes this evening. Due next May, so there's still a bit of time to purchase naming rights. We certainly reserve editorial control over the final name, but there's probably a right price for just about anything.

Franny's folks were here last week, and we had a nice visit with them. The Mizz had a great time seeing Gran and Grandpapa. And I didn't have to cook for days. Mothers-in-law aren't that bad after all. Who knew?

The only down moment of their visit was our trip to the pumpkin patch. Actually the trip to it was fine. And the patch was fine too, as far as pumpkin patches go. The Mizz had a fun time trying to pick up pumpkins that weighed more than he did and finally settled on drumming on them. There were also tractors and a barn full of aneeemals, most of which he could name. He failed on the llama, but we'll check again next year.

JUST KIDDING!!!! There's no way in the world we'll be going back there again! At least not at pumpkin time anyway. Every person in Northwestern Oregon was apparently there. For those who don't know, Sauvie Island, as nice as it may be, has only a two lane bridge connecting it to the real world. At the end of that bridge is a light that lets maybe 10 cars out at a time before letting the main road pass you by for several minutes. Do a little math on the huge number of cars on the island for the pumpkins, and you get Dave and Franny and Gran and Grandpapa and the Mizz stuck in a car moving at just over 1 mile per hour for TWO STINKING HOURS! Then for kicks, add another half hour to get back home after the bridge, which would be expected. This apparently happens every year. You think they'd put a cop at the end of the bridge or retime the light or something.

To top it all off, why were we stuck in one car together when we had driven out in two? Because we found that our car was low on gas. This did not seem like a problem on the way in, as we were maybe 5 miles from a gas station. However, we did not count on idling for two hours and decided not to risk it. Franny and I ended up taking a couple gallons of gas back later and found that if we had just waited three more hours, the full round trip took just over an hour.

The only bonus was that we had taken two cars out there in the first place. We hadn't intended to do that, but there was a problem with our car. When we bought it a couple months ago, one of the rear seat belts was damaged and we had it replaced. However, Gran was the first person to try using it and found that the wrong latch had been installed. We now have a useless left rear seat belt until we can get it replaced again. Oh, joy.

Other than that little episode, the in-law visit was fine. They even agreed to keep an ear out for the sleeping Mizz one evening so Franny and I could have a little time out. We were tired and I still had to work in the morning, but we don't get time out together much, so we weren't about to say, "No." We spent a couple hours eating cake, drinking coffee and playing Scrabble at Palio's. We always enjoy their deserts. Plus I won the Scrabble game (but not by much). Don't tell Gran though, 'cuz she'll want to challenge me, and she will most assuredly kick my sorry butt. She's absolutely insane about that game. I don't know is she's the craziest Scrabble person in the world, but she's the craziest one I know.

It never really affected me, but Portland played host last week to a pretend real terrorist attack, which was then interrupted by a real false bomb scare.

We were one of the cities in the Topoff exercise this year. Supposedly, some terrorists blew up a dirty radiological bomb on a light rain train on the Steel Bridge, and the local, state, and federal authorities got to practice what they would do in that case. This ranged from first responders having to check out the scene and deal with "casualties" while wearing protective suits to a local animal shelter trotting out it's new emergency animal shelter trailer. Apparently they learned from Katrina and put together a way to deal with "evacuees" with "pets." In this case, some of the "pets" were "teddy bears," but they wanted to practice, so they logged them in and caged them just like the real animals that came in. Like all of these exercises so far, the responders tried out things learned from previous ones and exposed some gaping holes nobody had thought of. All in all, interesting goings on for a few days.

However, on the "wrap up" day of the exercise, there was a bomb scare when dogs checking out the hotel that Michael Chertoff was going to visit later indicated that they found something bad. Nothing was ever found, but it did close of several blocks for a few hours. In the end, the assumption was that there was some residue on one of the military or other government vehicles already at the hotel. Seems important to make sure, I would think.

In personal news, I was a little ill last Thursday and again yesterday. I don't know what that was about. Most likely, the Mizz had begun the season of bringing microbes home to me from daycare.

This weekend, we finally got up to see my folk's new place. Unfortunately, due to job stuff, we had to go up Saturday and come right back Sunday, but that's all we could do for now, and we had to see it. It's awesome. The house itself is fine I suppose, for a house that was last renovated in the 70's. Importantly though, someone had the foresight to put it on the western slope of Whidby Island, Washington overlooking the Olympic Mountains, Port Angeles, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Victoria, BC, and the San Juan Islands. It could be a teepee, for all it matters. I'm glad to report that Dad is getting excellent use out of the telescope we got him for retirement. We thought he might have a good time watching the ships going by into Seattle. We didn't know that both he and Mom would have a hard time doing anything else. From what I hear, they are forever running because one of them sees a cool ship or a whale or something. The scope even has a prominent place in their living room and appears to be permanently located for easy, and constant, use. I want to retire.

We also met up with my younger sister in Seattle on the way home. Younger, but she just turned 30 on Friday, so I don't know if that counts as young. I was definitely told that I was old at 30. Anyway, she's doing well. Plus she's pregnant too. We got an "official" announcement, so I suppose it's okay to share. Plus plus, she's due the same day as Franny. What're the chances?

To bring things completely up to date, I got to visit the dentist this afternoon. I think I mentioned a while back that I would need some crowns. Dental work from years ago finally giving up the ghost, or the teeth anyway. Well, now I have two temporary ones in place. I'm going to be eating like an invalid for a couple weeks until I can get the real ones. They don't look horrible, but they apparently can't handle things like biting. Joy. The experience was as good as it could have been, I suppose, but I can't say I enjoy being pumped on adrenaline for an hour and half while having to sit still. It's not like it hurt, what with the gallon of Novocaine, but I kept imagining it was about to start any minute. When a guy is drilling in your teeth, it's hard to think of much else.

This would have been easier in a few smaller posts.

Who needs Zagat's

2007-10-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

This sounds vaguely familiar. (Click if it's too small to read.)

Huh?

2007-10-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

This is what I get when I ask for a really big smile. Something gets lost in translation.

And the Mother-of-the-Year Award Goes to...

2007-10-15T21:49:00.001-07:00

...the woman in Oklahoma who decided to use her toddler as a shield when a bounty hunter tried to use a taser on her boyfriend. There are just so many wonderful parts to this story, I don't know where to begin.

Maybe this is why my sister decided to have so many kids. A little army of human shields. For like 9 years, she's had someone small enough to keep her out of harm's way. Heck, for most of that time, she's been able to have at least two of them at wearable age; a toddler in a backpack with a little one strapped on the front. A little drooling flak jacket. Good thinking Jenn. Maybe there's a method to your madness after all.

I'm not sure the Mizz would stop much. He's kind of a bean pole. His alarm scream is excellent though.

Hey, wait a minute...

2007-10-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

I've been told (mainly by my sisters) that I can be like this from time to time. Probably because I'm usually right. Maybe us nerds are just smarter than everyone else, and therefore we're more likely to be right. Yeah, that must be it.

More Metrology Notes

2007-10-07T21:25:00.001-07:00

I find it interesting that not long after my metrology tirade, I noticed a mention of the International Prototype Kilogram in this news article. Interesting little twist of English to metric conversion.

(For those of you unfamiliar with BBsopt, this is the same website that also reported "Apple Stores to Begin Charging Entrance Fee", "Bush Proposes Faith-Based Firewalls for Government Computers", and "Microsoft Reveals Windows Vista SP1 Will Install XP". I just found the coincidence with my last post amusing.)

[Addendum 12/28/07: I find that I occasionally get hits to this post that come from searches on "metrology". If you are actually looking for metrology information, you'll probably find this post more interesting.]

Mass Metrology: A small taste of Dave's job

2007-10-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I hear, "So what exactly do you do anyway?" For some reason, metrology and calibration are unusual concepts for most people. My sister heard metrology, and wondered why I wanted to be a weatherman. The details of what I do really don't matter that much to most people. The world keeps on ticking as long as people like me are out doing our thing. Yeah, Dave, but what is your "thing"?

Don't worry if your eyes glaze over while reading this and you don't finish. I'm sure you'll be in the majority. I just present it in case anyone is interested in the arcane science of what I do.

I'm a small part of a large system linking measurement devices all over the world back to standard measurements somewhere. That's metrology, or the sturdy of precision measurements. Calibration is just the comparison of one measurement device back to something that is traceable through an unbroken chain of comparisons to one of those standards. Most measurements in this country are traced back to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a part of the Commerce Department. NIST laboratories maintain the U.S. national standard for thousands of things. Some are basic measurements like the second or the meter and some are more obscure such as standard Columbia River beach sand or whatever.

I'm more concerned with the basic measurements. NIST has extensive experimental apparatus that can determine with a great deal of precision exactly how long a meter is using light speed and how long a second is using atomic fluctuations. Most basic units are defined this way. There is an accepted standard that the distance light travels in a certain fraction of a second equals one meter. Everybody agrees on that definition, so anyone can find the meter depending only the ability to isolate the fraction of a second and measure how far the light went.

It used to be that all measurements were based on artifacts, or specific things that defined a yard or a foot or what ever. In the beginning, the myth goes that a yard was the distance between the king's thumb and his nose. Someone decided that something more specific might be useful since different places had different kings, so he decided to use a particular stick that was about the right length. He then could make copies of that stick and pass them around so everybody was using the same yard. However, over time, this method begins to fail as the specific artifacts are used and damaged. You end up with a bunch of sticks that are something like a yard, but none of them are exact anymore and none of them completely agree with each other, which kind of defeats the purpose. So over the years, most units have been defined in terms of physical properties of certain materials, properties that will theoretically never change. Therefore everyone who can set up experiments to measure those properties can recreate the units as precisely as they can measure them.

The sole exception to this method is mass. Up until around 1800, the kilogram was defined as the mass of one cubic decimeter of water. A cubic decimeter was used instead of a liter because length is a base unit, while volume is derived based on length. However, since water can change due to temperature and pressure, a better method was needed. Again, like the stick, someone made a prototype kilogram, which was from that point considered the de facto definition of a kilogram. However, nobody has yet come up with a proper physical property measurement for mass to replace this old method of measurement.

The current, most exact kilogram was made in the 1880's, as were the various copies of it scattered around the world. The primary kilogram prototype (pictured above, inside concentric bell jars) is in France and the U.S. top kilogram (pictured below) is at NIST. The primary kilogram is kept sealed and locked in a vault almost all of the time. It is brought out once in a great while (maybe once every decade or two) for comparison with the various national standards. Other than that, it never gets touched. The U.S. national kilogram is then compared occasionally by NIST against several copies they use for checks against other weights. My company has a master set of weights that are sent to NIST every five years for comparison against that second tier of weights. Those are then compared against our other weights once a year and against another set that is used for customer weight calibrations. I then take my weights and calibrate balances and scales used in the world. We even work on other metrology balances that are used for further weight checks. The idea is to handle the sets closer to NIST as little as possible in order to keep them from changing too much between calibrations. There is a certain amount of uncertainty in each comparison, which increases for each step away from the prototype. If your weights change beyond that uncertainty, then you throw the work you've been doing into question. That's bad.

To put the precision into context, I have Class 1 weights (the best available) ranging from 20 kilograms (about 45 lb.) down to 1 milligram (a tiny piece of foil you would overlook if you didn't know about it). For the smaller of these weights, say below about 200 grams, I know the exact weight down 8 digits beyond the decimal point, with the uncertainty (different for each one) showing up in the 5th or 6th place. This means that I know the values of my weights to at least 7 significant figures. This is important since the best balance (precision scale) I work with has 20,000,000 divisions (2 grams to 0.1 micrograms, or 0.0000001 grams). For reference, the main prototype is known to about 10 significant figures.

The problem with all this is that the prototype kilograms are suffering the same fate as the sticks, despite all the care put into their handling. The main prototype has lost approximately 30 micrograms over the last century. That means that if you assume that it was once 1.000000000 kilogram when it was made, it is now 0.999999970 kilogram. Seems pretty insignificant doesn't it? It is, for now at least. There are almost no instruments in the world good enough to see that difference. However, the kilograms will get worse and instruments will get better, especially as we continue to try and probe further into the atom and deeper into space. Eventually, this definition will fail to be good enough.

So what to do about it? There are two options that scientists are pursuing right now.

The first is basically making a better kilogram prototype. A group of Australian scientists is working on just that. They are trying to make a perfect sphere of silicon (pictured below) that is exactly one kilogram. The atomic weight of silicon is known quite well as is it's crystalline structure. It's quite possible to grow a very large perfect crystal of silicon. That's how computer chips are made. Then you apply a little math. You can figure out how many atoms of silicon you need to make a kilogram based on its atomic weight, and knowing the crystalline structure, you can figure out how big a sphere needs to be to contain the proper number of atoms. The hard part is now to make a perfectly round sphere of exactly the right diameter (using length, which is known very well). By the time they are done with this thing, it will essentially be the roundest thing ever made. This is basically just making another prototype, which will have the same issues as the current one. Unlike the current one, however, someone in the future can do the same thing again and come up with an identical, or maybe even better version, limited only by measurement and machining capability.

The second option is the watt balance. It is designed to use electrical properties, which are known very well, to determine the mass of an oscillating body. The math is very intensive. This type of device exists. NIST is working very hard on this method of mass determination. In the long run, something like this will likely take the place of having an artifact that must be compared back to. However, for the moment the uncertainty of doing it this way is still higher than using the current shrinking French kilogram.

Most of this is mainly academic. We are many centuries away from these variations causing the common man any trouble. A half a pound of deli ham and a gallon of gas will still be the same things as far as you will be able to tell. This becomes a problem only at the edge of research and possibly into some VERY exacting manufacturing, although I can't think of an example. Nothing you could afford anyway.

There. I obviously find this interesting, and I assume that if you made it this far, it must at least hold passing amusement for you. Let me know if I left anything too muddy or if something doesn't make sense.

Fun Bottled Water Fact

2007-10-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

I happened to be working at an environmental lab today. This place performs all sorts of analytical tests on all kinds of things -- mainly soil and water samples. They look for basics like sediments and microbes and more obscure things like dissolved organics and metals. They have a very extensive lab and one of their most basic necessities is very pure water for testing purposes. It wouldn't do much good to use water with dissolved iron or whatever in it during a test for trace amounts of iron. To that end, they have a very nice, and very expensive, water deionization (DI) system.

Knowing all this, I was completely taken aback when I saw one of the technicians filling sample containers from an Evian water bottle. She saw my look and explained that their DI system was down, but that for most of their tests, Evian was the purest thing they could buy. "It doesn't have anything in it. Nothing we'd be looking for anyway."

This would seems like a glowing recommendation for Evian. "It's so pure, you can use it for lab tests." But you have to understand that the dissolved metals that the lab would be concerned about are the same "minerals" that are touted in bottled water marketing, including Evian's website. That means that you are basically getting very clean water, or the same thing that you would get by extensive filtering or distilling. The fact that it's filtered through an Alpine glacier field in France doesn't really matter.

Personally, I've never been a fan of Evian; I've always considered it pretty bland. It turns out I might have been right. The same minerals that apparently aren't in it are the same ones that give water it's taste, and are even added by many other brands specifically for that taste. I've always felt somewhat morally superior to Evian drinkers ("naive" spelled backwards and all that), mostly because I just like to be difficult. This just serves to embolden my holier-than-thou attitude. Just what I needed. I should be a real joy at parties now.