For Peter's Sake

Where I'm at

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 15:02:00 +0000

Last year I lost my long-held domain name forpeterssake.com. It really isn't a valuable domain name (it's not even a clever pun) but it was where I had blogged at for seven years, and I was actually pretty upset to see it go. Long story short, the credit card I had on file to pay the renewal had expired, and the email alert was sent to an older email address I didn't check very often. I was on vacation at the time, so by the time I got home and saw the alert, it was too late. I had reserved the domain through Google, and it had lots of cool features, but apparently they really wanted to upsell, because they wouldn't let me renew the domain for the same price. I would have to pay quite a bit more.

On top of that, another domain registrar temporarily reserved forpeterssake.com and wanted to charge and arm and a leg to get it back. This is actually a very common practice among domain vendors, but it's pretty scummy. They know when a previously held domain becomes available, and they put a "hold" on it in hopes of extorting more money from the previous domain holder once they find out it has lapsed. So when this all happened in the summer of 2012, I just threw up my hands and said forget it.

These technical frustrations coincided with my less frequent blog posts. It actually isn't because I dislike writing (I do) or because I don't have things to talk about (plenty of that). I was wanting to share more about me and my family to people I know, but was uncomfortable doing it in a completely public format. I wanted to post pictures of my kids, details about my job, photos of our house and our activities. Most people share these on Facebook, but for a variety of reasons I've already opined on, I don't like Facebook and the lack of control its users have over their data.

After a lull in blogging, I managed to get my domain back and I set up shop blogging again—just not here. I should have left a redirect message, but I wasn't sure how the new blogging arrangement was going to work out. Well, it's been almost a year, and while it's not perfect, I think it's good enough. I'm over at WordPress now, but still accessible through forpeterssake.com. I have always liked WordPress' feature set, and it lets me set different visibility levels to my posts. So funny pictures? Those can be public. Pictures of my kids or details about my job? Password protected. It's not a perfect system, but it lets my friends and family see what I'm up to without having to sign up for a new service or create an account.

So what will be left over here? Well, not much. I won't take things down, at least not yet. But this will sit fallow like so many other blogs started since 2003. It's still hanging in there so far, but I do wonder if blogging will completely evaporate in favor of Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter. In my opinion, there is still huge value in the creator having full control over his or her platform. To have your own site design, font, etc. is just really pleasing. And being in control of your content is crucial.

So if you care, if you're reading this, feel free to head over to forpeterssake.com or forpeterssake.wordpress.com and see what I'm up to lately. If you have trouble with the passwords, see this page. And if you still have trouble, email me at forpetersake at practically any email provider you can think of. See you around!

Gotham

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Thanks to Christopher Nolan's amazing film-making, Batman is very cool again. I had a friendly argument with someone a while back about which city was Gotham City. (I know, the more obvious Batman argument would be the questionable casting of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, but we chose a more esoteric topic of debate.) My position is that Gotham is a stand-in for Chicago, while he insisted that Gotham was clearly New York City. We both pointed out many factors that favored our respective positions, which is why it was such a fun argument to have.

Chicago as Gotham

First and foremost, it seems most obvious to me that Metropolis (home of Superman in the DC Comics universe) has to be New York. It's the biggest, brightest, richest, tallest city, and there really isn't another American city that could be Metropolis. So New York has to be the real-life Metropolis, simply because there isn't any other candidate. And the next greatest American city and most logical candidate for Gotham City is obviously Chicago.
Central to the Batman storyline is the long-running corruption of Gotham City. Batman combats mobsters, organized crime, and violence, along with the obligatory cast of supervillains. And while New York can certainly boast its fair share of criminality, Chicago has a rich and storied history in that regard. Illinois is the only state I can think of with four former governors having gone to prison, and the corruption in Chicago police and public officials has become the stuff of legends. Modern Chicago, of course, is pretty cool, but at the time the Batman comics were written, it provided the perfect backdrop for a caped crusader.
Christopher Nolan actually filmed most of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in Chicago, with a few computer generated buildings thrown in to make sure the skyline was uniquely Gotham. Of course, this factor has an obvious counterpoint . . .

New York City as Gotham

. . . which is that The Dark Knight Rises was filmed primarily in Pittsburgh (a city with a surprisingly cool skyline), which cuts against my Chicago argument. Even worse, portions of The Dark Knight Rises were even filmed in *cringe* New York City, as well as Newark, Los Angeles, and London.
Public opinion seems to favor the New-York-as-Gotham theory. As the Wikipedia article on Gotham City quotes, William Safire of the New York Times wrote in 1995 that "'Gotham City,' as all Batman fans know, is New York -- particularly New York below 14th Street, from SoHo to Greenwich Village, the Bowery, Little Italy, Chinatown and the sinister areas around the base of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges." Of course, Safire has the quintessential New York-centric point of view, but more people seem to agree with him than me.
Even worse, it looks like New York has had the nickname of Gotham long before Gotham City became Bruce Wayne's home. The term was first used by Washington Irving in 1807, so history is not on my side.
But the final nail in the coffin of my Chicago theory is the statement by Bill Finger (co-creator, with Bob Kane, of Batman) that identifies New York City as the basis for Gotham City. "Originally I was going to call Gotham City 'Civic City.' Then I tried 'Capital City,' then 'Coast City.' Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name 'Gotham Jewelers' and said, 'That's it,' Gotham City. We didn't call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it."

So that's it. I lost the argument utterly and completely. Which was okay, because we had a good time with it, but now even I have to admit I was wrong. My only consolation, if any, is that I think Gotham City should be based on Chicago, and that its history of organized crime, industry, and grit fits the best of all American cities. (Though Safire's argument is fairly compelling, and apparently more people agree with him than me. Including Bob Kane.)

Old shoes

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:13:00 +0000

I threw away this pair of running shoes today. They were old and worn out, with very little cushion left in them. This is a pair of Asics Gel 2040s, and I got them my senior year in high school for $40, which was a lot if money for me at the time. This is my last pair of running shoes that actually hail back to the time when I ran competitively, and I was somewhat attached to them. I logged about 500 miles in these shoes, they were my favorite brand, and they reminded me of a time when I was younger, more care-free, and much more athletic.

Despite the nostalgia, it was time for these shoes to go. I ran in them occasionally in college, and wore them across a couple continents, but the shoes were aging along with me. They had long been relegated to work shoes rather than running shoes, and the last time I wore them I got so muddy that I never bothered to clean them up. When I pulled them out of a box today, I knew it was time to let go. But not without some recognition and a proper send-off. And as I say good-bye, I guess I'm also saying good-bye to some of the happiest parts of my past.

House

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:23:00 +0000

I enjoy writing, so it's unusual for me to go three months without pontificating here in one form or another. It seems like the period of our lives that have the most blog-worthy events are also the ones where we have the lease amount of time to write anything about it.

Anyway, the big news since I wrote anything here is that we bought a house! It's a fixer-upper, to put it mildly, but the price was right and it's in a very nice neighborhood. It all happened pretty quickly. We had been looking at houses since last fall, and got really serious about house hunting after the New Year. We had been wanting to move for over a year, partly to get a bigger place and partly because our duplex neighbors were becoming increasingly unstable. (Violent fights, police calls, chain-smoking, Rottweiler raising—fun times!) And since renting a larger place would be a lot more expensive than buying, and since my job was finally getting stable, it was time to consider buying a home. We looked at several houses in January, and even thought about putting an offer on one, but someone else put that house under contract, and none of the other places were very good options for us. They were either too small or too expensive for our budget. So we waited.

And then, around the time I last posted on here, an older home came up on the market. It was an estate sale, and needed plenty of work, but it was in an established neighborhood and had a very generous yard (about 2/3 of an acre), close to shopping, schools, and many of our friends. The place certainly wasn't "move-in ready," and I think there was still a mortgage on the property, so the sellers had priced it low to sell quickly. We looked at it on a Saturday, and it was a wreck. The lady who lived there collected antiques, and the house was full to the brim with stuff. (And apparently there were no less than three storage units full of stuff too. You could probably use the word "hoarder" without too much exaggeration.)

But behind all that junk we saw some real potential. Most of the floors were hardwood that was in very good condition. The yard was wild and untamed, but huge by our standards, with a lot of mature trees and bushes. A lot of the more expensive components of the house (roof, heating and cooling, water heater, etc.) had been replaced relatively recently. There were four bedrooms and two very good-sized living spaces. And the layout of the house was very functional—not an open floor plan like people like to see nowadays, but still very comfortable for living and entertaining. And to top it all off, the house had an unfinished basement that we could some day finish out to nearly double our living space.

We got serious about the house in a hurry, and brought a contractor back the next Monday to look at it. We knew there was plenty of work to do, but the bones of the house were in good shape, so it checked out. We heard that there was a possible competing offer, and it was priced to sell, so we met with our realtors and a competitive offer that night. After a brief back-and-forth, dickering about closing costs, warranties, etc., we had a deal. And we were going to close by the end of March, which was only a little over a month away.

March was a busy month, as I spent a lot of time gathering documents and jumping through the new hoops of getting a mortgage after the real estate crisis. The sheer volume of documentation they ask for now is astounding. All during this time period there was a lot of other house-related activity, including inspections, minor repairs, some small re-negotiations of terms, etc. Buying a house turned out to be far more of a time-consuming process than looking for one! For a while it looked like the lender wasn't going to finish the loan on time, but it all got done under the wire (with about an hour to spare at the end of the month!) and we we were proud home owners.

And then the work really began.

During the month of April, we redid almost every room in the house. We tore out wood paneling, hung drywall, tore up carpet and tile, laid new carpet and new tile, sanded and refinished hardwood floors, painted nearly every room, and got new appliances. I spent almost every weekday evening and every Saturday in April working on the house until late at night. Becca did the same most nights, and worked at the house during the day too. Every time we went over to work on the house we would take a load of stuff with us, so most of the small items got moved ahead of moving day.

I'm not really a handyman, and I've never owned a home before, but we learned how to do a lot of it, and we had an enormous amount of help from our family and friends. There were nights where we had over a dozen people at the house painting ceilings and walls. We would have never been able to do so much in so little time if we hadn't had so much help. There were several nights when I had to stay late for work and couldn't get things done at the house, but the next day I would discover that one of our friends came over and did everything I had meant to do the night before, and had done a better job than I could have done. My parents both helped paint one weekend, and then my mom ended up coming back for most of two weeks later in the month, completely redoing our kitchen and bathroom. She pulled a couple all-nighters to get it done, and was literally finishing caulking the bathtub as we were unloading the moving truck. It was crazy, but also touching and gratifying to have so many people give so much of their time to help us out. We really felt the love.

Anyway, we got moved with surprising ease, thanks to a small army of friends who whisked things off to the truck and even helped us scrub down the old rental place. We now find ourselves in a beautiful new (to us) home with twice as much space as we used to have.

Oh, there are a lot of little things we still have to do. We still have to paint some of the windows and the trim, and get blinds hung in the windows, and put in transitions between the tile and hardwood, etc. We need to redo the master bath, and the kitchen isn't perfect, so we'll hopefully redo it at some point as well. And we've already experienced some of the joys of home ownership, when our stove broke two days after we moved in, and a bad gutter drain flooded our garage a few days after that. (We're getting both fixed, don't worry!) But the bottom line is that this is a comfortable, livable, wonderful house for us, and after two weeks, it's starting to really feel like home. I'm still pinching myself, I feel so lucky.

I was just looking around to see if I have any pictures of our house, and I have a few I took before we moved in. This isn't a very flattering picture, and all the trees and bushes are dead in the picture, but you get an idea of what the back of the house looks like. And you can see the deck where I park my grill. (I'm pretty happy about that!)

So that, in a nutshell, is why I haven't posted much lately. It is, I think, a very good excuse. We'll post some before and after pictures as we get things all done.

The pitch

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Everyone's asking for money nowadays, and funding pitches from tech companies are nothing new. But this is just hilarious and awesome.

First off, I have a soft spot in my heart for old-school adventure games. I played a few of them growing up, but most importantly, I've enjoyed playing them with my wife. She introduced me to the Monkey Island series when we were dating, and I think that if I hadn't liked it, she might not have married me. Adventure games aren't as popular nowadays, with first-person shooters and other genres doing the big selling, but there still is a loyal fan base that appreciates a format that thrived on humor and clever writing rather than sensational graphics.

This isn't the first time a video game maker has taken a non-traditional route to make a game. Markus "Notch" Persson's runaway indie hit Minecraft let people buy it and play while it was still in alpha and beta stages, and its popularity ensured that the game would reach full release. But this is the first time I have seen anyone take to Kickstarter to fund a game. In some ways, I'm surprised it hasn't happened before. I've seen movies (like this one by Jon Heder) funded on Kickstarter, and quite a few albums, but never a video game.

Which brings me back to this video—it's simply awesome. Tim Schafer is close to a legend in this niche business, and was behind some adventure game masterpieces like the aforementioned Monkey Island series and the magnificent Grim Fandango. But more importantly, the video gives you the feeling that the project will happen, and you get a great idea of what kind of humor you can expect from the game. This is just about the best pitch I've ever seen. It made me want to open my wallet, and it apparently worked on a lot of other people too. In fact, the whole project was funded in less than twelve hours. The as-yet unnamed game is supposed to be released this fall, and they've got the resources to do it. I'm looking forward to playing it.

On February

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:26:00 +0000

Thanks to you guys who took my quick pronunciation quiz. You confirmed what I had feared: I'm in the vast minority when I pronounce it "FEB-roo-air-ee" instead of "FEB-yoo-air-ee."

I used to say it with a 'Y' sound, but sometime in my teens I noticed the spelling/pronunciation disconnect, and decided I liked my Februaries with plenty of 'R' sounds, thank you very much. (Also around that time I began pronouncing "neither" and "either" with the long 'I' sound. But that's NIGH-ther here nor there.)

I'll undoubtedly continue with my somewhat idiosyncratic pronunciation, simply because the difference isn't enough to impede understanding. Most people probably can't even tell I'm saying it differently. And as much as I'd love to enjoy a smug prescriptivist feeling that I'm in the right and everyone else is in the wrong, the Feb-YOO crowd seems to have strong claims to legitimacy. I saw this Pronunciation Note from Dictionary.com:

The common pronunciation [feb-yoo-er-ee], with the first [r] replaced by [y], is the result of dissimilation, the tendency of like sounds to become unlike when they follow each other closely. An additional influence is analogy with January. Although sometimes criticized, this dissimilated pronunciation of February is used by educated speakers and is considered standard.

Between its unusual pronunciation, shortest-month-of-the-year status, and that crazy leap day thing, February is undoubtedly the most eccentric month of the year.

Pronunciation Poll

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:15:00 +0000

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Health

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:46:00 +0000

In my family we've had our fair share of doctors visits lately. These things seem come in bunches. I supposed I started it all off last November, when I bashed my face in and broke off part of my tooth. Long story short, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling ill, went to the bathroom, fell or blacked out (I don't remember) and woke up in the dark wondering why my nose and mouth were bleeding, and what happened to my tooth?! Last week it was my kindergartner's turn to faceplant, which fortunately did not break any teeth, but did require a stitch in her lip. And then there have been the customary waves of cold and flu that our girls seem to bring home from every school, event, or party. Our two-year-old currently has a perpetually snotty nose and a dry, barking cough that sounds very sad in such a small body.

Despite all that drama, it hasn't been all doom and gloom. For starters, we have a great dentist, and we've all gotten to know him and his staff quite well over the last year. I now have a shiny new capped tooth in the front that looks and feels just like the old one did, and my other teeth won't need any repair in the near future. Which is great news, because we were afraid they had cracked badly when I had my crash landing, and I really wasn't looking forward to having a root canal or implant. I know no one enjoys going to the dentist, but they sure are great to have around when you need them. And at least we had dental insurance coverage at the time.

Similarly, it was nice to have a good doctor check my daughter out after she took a tumble. Becca ended up spending the whole day taking her to the dentist, a pediatrician, and the emergency room at Vanderbilt Children's. The 6+ hour wait at Vanderbilt wasn't exactly fun, and in some ways it showed a lot of what is broken with the American medical system, but it didn't make me any less grateful for it. My daughter's lip already looks a lot better, and pretty soon you'd never know it happened.

As I listened to our two-year-old hack and cough last night in bed, I thought about how not too long ago, that sort of thing would strike fear into the hearts of parents. Even in my parents' and grandparents' generation, serious illnesses were part of growing up, and they inevitably took their toll on some young children. Nowadays, I don't worry about whether she has whooping cough, or whether my kids will get the measles or polio. My kids won't even get the chicken pox like I did, because they've been vaccinated. Which isn't to say that all diseases have been fully eradicated, or that they won't get sick, and that I won't worry about them. But that mortal fear of losing a child doesn't hang over me in the same way it would a hundred years ago. The worst I am likely to experience is some lost sleep or for her to pass it on to me (both of which have probably happened by now). But I'll be okay, and so will she.

I sometimes lament the alienating and complicated way we live our modern lives. There really are some down-sides and costs with being always connected, always in a hurry, all the time. But modernity and technology have brought innumerable benefits, and for all my bemoaning our modern existence, I wouldn't turn the clock back.

The anachronistic Walkman?

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Last week I watched Super 8 when it came out on disc, and kicked myself for not having gone to see it in the theater. It's one of the best movies of the year, and a lot of fun, especially for anyone who grew up in the 1980's. The film is set in the summer of 1981, and has a certain strange nostalgia for that time period. This is the era I grew up in, before cell phones, the internet, or even most video games. The main characters are filming an amateur movie on Super 8 film (hence the name), which was pretty complicated at the time, even though you could probably get a better result with a Flip camera or decent smartphone nowadays. I won't spoil the plot (seriously, you should see it) but the kids get involved in a disaster and mystery that plays out through the rest of the movie.

There's one particular scene, however, that caught my attention. In that scene a convenience store clerk doesn't notice the events going on outside because he's listening to a Sony Walkman. The moment I saw that scene my over-developed sense of detail started flashing a warning in my head. Were Walkmans around in 1981? Before the scene was over (and it's a really good scene) I had already pulled up Wikipedia to see when the Walkman was invented and when it came to the U.S. The information on the page was actually inaccurate, but it did eventually link me to a TIME magazine article about the history of the Walkman. It turns out that yes, Walkman's were introduced in the U.S. in 1980, and while they weren't immediately successful, it would be believable for a store clerk to be sporting one in the summer of 1981.

I got a kick out of how the Walkman looked when it was first introduced. The batteries were so big that they required a separate case and belt clip. But this was cutting edge technology at the time, and it really took off. Walkmans (and their imitators) were so ubiquitous when I was growing up, with over 200 million units sold worldwide, that they basically defined the 1980's as much as the Apple iPod defined the last decade.

So it turns out that there was no anachronism in Super 8 after all. Walkmans were right at home in 1981. The device changed a lot over the years, slimming down and losing the separate battery pack. Eventually Sony released versions that played CDs, mini-discs, and later mp3s as new media formats gained popularity.

But the funny thing is, there still is something of a real-life Walkman anachronism, because I learned that the old cassette tape Walkmans are still being sold to this day. The new versions are nearly half the size of the original model sported by the store clerk in the movie, and they now run on a couple tiny AAA batteries rather than the large separate battery pack. But the device lives on, produced in China instead of Japan, and there is a small but steady demand for the old school format. That may seem out of place, but the same nostalgia I felt for the era depicted in Super 8 makes me smile to see that the old style Walkman for sale.

A couple weeks ago I went down to my basement to get out some of my winters clothes. As I looked for the right box, I opened a box of stuff from when I was in high school: some year books, sports t-shirts, photos, and an old Walkman-style cassette player with a bunch of tapes. I think I'll get it out tonight, find some batteries for it, and give it a listen.

Movie recommendation

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:12:00 +0000

I saw Page Eight over the weekend, and it was really quite good. Good enough, in fact, to break a 10-month drought over at my oft neglected movie blog to write about it. And since it's available to view online at video.pbs.org, you should watch it too. Because it's good, and the cast is great. Really, if you put Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Gambon together in a movie, I don't know how you can go wrong. Just make sure you watch it before December 7, because it won't be available for free after that. So go, enjoy! You'll thank me later.

The ugly side of Nissan

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:50:00 +0000

I like to look at cars. It's a great past-time that helps me forget that I drive a 13-year-old bucket of bolts. Right now one of my favorite cars on the road is the Nissan Maxima, which has some great lines and looks very good in gunmetal gray.

Nissan North America is based out of the Nashville area, so the cars are pretty popular here. And it seems like the company is doing a lot of things right. Nashville is one of the markets for the Nissan Leaf, the first large-scale electric car to be produced by a car company. I see them pretty often around here, and I appreciate that they aren't quite as silly looking as the Toyota Prius series. In fact, there's a lot to like about Nissan.

But I also recently realized that Nissan seems to be trying to take the ugly car award away from now-defunct Pontiac. I've gone on the record saying that the Pontiac Aztek is the ugliest car ever made, and I stand by that statement. But the new crop of Nissans have several vehicles that are pretty hideous. For example, the Quest is Nissan's minivan. It has been pretty ugly for the past few model years, looking like an over-styled vehicle attempting (and failing) to show it was cooler than its kid-hauling roots.

But just when I thought the Quest couldn't get any uglier, they introduced the 2011 model. And wow. I mean, wow. It's like they took the retired space shuttles and threw on some wheels and a coat of paint.

That's one vehicle that never should have made it past the concept car stage. And yet, it also has a decidedly antiquated appearance. Where have I seen that look before?

Ah yes, the Pontiac Transsport from the early 1990's. It was ugly then, and it is ugly now. Proof positive that Nissan is taking some of its ugly cues from Pontiac. (Also note that Pontiac's penchant for cutsey model names went back at least to 1991. Aztek with a 'k'? Transsport? Trans-sport? Get it? The horror! The horror!)

Of course, if the ugliness were confined to the minivan category, we could all pretty easily forgive Nissan. You really can't do much to make a minivan look cool anyway. But unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Exhibit B, the Nissan Cube:

I have a hard time explaining how much I dislike this vehicle. The funny thing is, I'm not entirely against the boxy, utilitarian look. The Scion xB sort of grew on me, and once Honda toned down the amount of plastic paneling they used on the Element, I could pretty well tolerate it. But the Cube is like a bubbly bit of 1980's science fiction that never should have hit the road. Those rounded windows like ship portholes, those bulbous bumpers and headlights, and that unforgivable wrap-around window and swinging rear door. Practical, perhaps, but just plain nauseating. This is what happens when designers run amok in the show room.

Once again, I'd be more likely to overlook these excesses if Nissan showed any signs of stopping, but alas, the latest model year has some real doozies too. Not as ugly as the Quest or the Cube, mind you, but definitely not on the right track. Take, for example, the Nissan Juke.

Even that glamour shot from Nissan can't quite hide the fact that this is a ridiculous piece of stylized rubbish. (Edmunds called it a "bionic frog.") The over-under headlights seem to hearken back to the Pontiac Aztek, which is never a good sign. The grille is absurd. And most unfortunate of all, this vehicle doesn't even have the utilitarian excuse of the Cube. It sells itself as a crossover or an SUV, but it has the interior space of a compact car.

Yet another vehicle Nissan got carried away with is the Murano CrossCabriolet. With a convoluted name like that, you know it is going to be weird looking. And you'd be right. The original Murano was a fairly sleek small SUV. It's not my style, but it's not bad. The CrossCabriolet, however, is unfortunately what you might expect from such a name. Essentially, they cut off the roof of the Murano and made it a drop top.

The thing is, I bet the CrossCabriolet could be fun to drive. Most convertibles are. But there's a reason convertibles arent' SUV's. That huge roll bar on top does nothing for style or enjoyment. And it just reminds me of the Suzuki X-90, which tried to be a little bit sports car and a little bit SUV, and failed at both.

The moral of the story? Style elements for cars should not be taken from amphibians, canceled space program vehicles, 1980's sci-fi movies, or anything made by Pontiac. Ever.

A sad day

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:19:00 +0000

I am in the market for a new phone.

Long story short, I walked out to my car after church, had a flat tire, and had to pump it up with a bicycle pump enough to limp home. I had pulled my phone out to call for a ride before I remembered the bicycle pump in the trunk, and set it on the trunk while I pumped up the tire. I remembered the phone just as I was pulling out into the street, and realized it had probably fallen off when I pulled out. I quickly turned around, saw the phone, parked next to it, and got out to get it.

Just in time to watch an SUV run it over.

My daughter's vote of confidence

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:47:00 +0000

Daughter: Mom, how can I be a rock star when I grow up?
Wife: It takes a lot of work and practice.
Daughter: Could I be a rock climber?
Wife: Sure... Why don't you want to be a rock star anymore?
Daughter: Because it takes a lot of work.
Wife: Anything you want to be will take a lot of work. Even being a mom is hard work.
Daughter: What about being a dad?

In which I lose my wife's phone (and get it back)

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Last weekend we had a small family reunion in Kentucky. We rented a beautiful old farmhouse, and had a lot of fun with family members. (If I am a halfway decent blogger, photos will soon follow.) But the vacation got off to a rocky start, because when we got to the farmhouse and wanted to call my parents to let them know we arrived, we realized that I left Becca's phone in a Wendy's in Elizabethtown. Becca had handed me her phone when she went to the restroom, and I had set it on a different table than the one we were sitting at. And then we left and drove a couple hours to the farmhouse. Yeah, that was not a happy half-hour after we realized what happened, and not one of my better moments.¹Becca's phone is an iPhone, which means it had all her passwords, account information, email information, photos, etc. Basically, I left the keys to her life in a fast-food restaurant.

Whenever I screw up, my first instinct is to hurry and try to fix it. I first tried calling the phone, to make sure we didn't have it with us, but no one answered. I then sent a text saying whoever had the phone could return it to the Wendy's where it was left, no questions asked.² My next priority was to call that Wendy's location and see if an employee picked it up. Unfortunately, we had only sporadic cell phone service, and it took us a while to get online because the rental didn't post the password to the wireless network.³ Eventually I got the phone number, found a spot out in the yard where I got a couple bars of service, took a deep breath breath, and made the call.

I asked the employee who answered the phone if they had found an iPhone in a blue-green case. She wasn't sure, so she asked the night manager. The phone at that Wendy's was sensitive enough that hear the whole conversation between the employee and the night manager. I could hear the manager asking a couple other employees if they had seen an iPhone, and my heart sank when I heard them respond that they hadn't. The night manager then got on the phone and said that they hadn't seen the phone, but that I could try calling back the next day when the day manager was there to see if he had seen anything. I hung up the phone feeling pretty rotten, and walked inside to deliver the bad news. We immediately reported the phone as lost to our carrier, and Becca started changing all her online passwords.

The only silver lining of the day was that she had just put a password on the phone the week before to keep my daughters from playing with it. We figured that would stop any casual thief from immediately accessing the data on the phone, and that it would at least buy us the time to disconnect the accounts. I planned on calling back the next morning, but I didn't dare get my hopes up. There were dozens of young people in the restaurant when we were there, and it would be easy to imagine one of them picking it up and keeping it.

However, the plot thickened the the next day when I talked to the day manager. I asked him about a phone, and he immediately said, "Yeah, we found that phone. Let me see where it is." But my elation was temporary, as I overheard the day manager question another employee about the phone. "I gave it to Matt to hold at the register," he said. "Where's Matt?" Silence. After a few moments, the day manager got back on the phone (probably unaware that I could hear the whole conversation) and said in a serious voice that they had the phone yesterday, that they were not sure where it was now, but that they were definitely going to find out. He asked me to call after 3pm during the overlap of the day and night shift, so both managers could get to the bottom of it.

During the whole weekend, the saga of the phone was a source of continual interest for all my family members. They kept asking for updates and speculating about where the phone could be and what someone might have done with it. Every time I went came back inside after making a call, they all looked at me expectantly and wanted to know exactly what they said. The news about the suspicious employee set off a new round of speculation and condemnation as they commiserated with us. But we all agreed that knowing the identity of the likely thief was better than nothing.

When I called later that day, I spoke again to the night manager. She was very embarrassed to say that three of her employees had lied to her the night before about the phone. Two of them had basically covered for "Matt," and they had already been disciplined and assigned to write essays about the importance of honesty. (I thought that was an amusing solution.) But Matt was not there that day, and he was not answering any voicemail or text messages. The night manager said she was going to go to his house after she got off work to try to get the phone back. I thanked her and told her that if the phone was there by the time we came back from our vacation, we would not press charges. We agreed for me to call back the next day, and I went back inside to report the latest turn of events.

At first, the loss of the phone it had sort of cast a pall over an otherwise cheerful vacation. But as we got closer to unraveling the mystery, it became a source of fascination and almost entertainment. We were all on pins and needles when I called the following afternoon after the night manager came on shift. The first thing she said was "We got your phone!" and I did a little dance in the yard. She repeated her apologies, and then said that Matt would probably be fired as a result. If he couldn't be trusted with a customer's phone, what about the cash register? I told her that was up to them, but that we would definitely not file a police report.

It was sort of a proud moment when I walked back in the house and announced that they had the phone. Everyone cheered, and the final shadow lifted from our cheerful weekend. The next day we drove home and stopped by the Wendy's to get the phone — and a celebratory Frosty. Becca has since reactivated the phone and was able to confirm that no information on it was accessed. So pretty much a happy ending.

Lessons learned from the whole ordeal:

Keep track of your valuables, and don't trust your unreliable husband to watch things for you.
If you have any valuable information on it, put a password on your phone. Today.
There are always a few bad apples, but most folks are good people and will help you out.
If you do something stupid like losing a phone, make sure you do damage control immediately (deactivate, change passwords, etc.).

_______________________
¹In fairness, forgetting the phone was something of a team effort. We both saw it on the table and both thought the other one would get it. But I really don't know what I was thinking when I put it in a different place than where Becca set it down.
² I actually got the idea from a family member who used psychology and tech-fu to get her stolen phone back. I don't know if it worked, but it can't have hurt.
³ In a great bit of low-tech but clever hackery, my mom actually guessed the wi-fi password and let us get the restaurant contact information. That was actually really important early on.

Photo credit: JaredEarle.

Internet authority

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:12:00 +0000

The other day my daughter had a bad diaper rash, and we decided to look it up online to see if we should take her to the doctor. We actually have child health reference books, but the entry wasn't particularly helpful ("consult a doctor") so we wanted more information. It occurred to me that our automatic reaction to look something up online is a quintessentially 21st Century response, and it got me thinking about sources of authority online. I made a quick mental list of the sources I trust on the internet, and I thought I'd write them down and see if anyone had other or better sources.

General Knowledge: Wikipedia. This choice can be a bit controversial, since Wikipedia is inherently vulnerable to manipulation. But if you follow the hyperlinked footnotes, you'll find that Wikipedia is a phenomenal source of information. As a long-time user and editor, I have gotten used to reading articles with a critical eye, and if it's not well-cited, I don't always rely on it. But most Wikipedia articles nowadays are pretty well referenced. Hot-button or controversial topics are always suspect, but even those articles can be useful to point you to other sources.
Movies: IMDb. The Internet Movie Database, or IMDb, is the authority on movies and television shows. . Seriously, it's one of the best things ever conceived by the interwebs.
Books: LibraryThing. There doesn't seem to be any single, definitive book website like there is for movies. But I often consult LibraryThing for reviews and information. It isn't my only book destination, however, as I also go to Goodreads and occasionally Shelfari. Both LibraryThing and Shelfari are partly owned by Amazon, which is actually an excellent source of information about books, due to its very strong recommendation engine and extensive user reviews. In fact, the only reason I don't use is more is my vague notion that the fact that Amazon is trying to sell me stuff somehow colors the content.
Health: WebMD. There are some other good sources, but I habitually go to WebMD for health-related information, like my daughter's diaper rash, or how high a fever can be before you take a child to a doctor. Other good sources include the websites of the National Institutes of Health and various respected hospitals, like the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic.
Deals: SlickDeals. I like getting stuff for cheap, and though I check multiple sites, the best and most comprehensive site in my opinion is SlickDeals. Other people have different favorites, and if you're especially interested in a certain type of product, SlickDeals might not be the best for you. But with a huge user base and extensive forums, it has a lot to offer. If I want to buy a new computer or TV or want a coupon code, SlickDeals is my first stop.
Legal: Legal Information Institute. I know most people don't read legal stuff if they can avoid it, but the LLI is a fantastic collection of legal primary sources. It's got a good pedigree, too, since it's run by Cornell University's Law School. I use it almost daily, even though I have a subscription to WestLaw, because the LLI is easier to use for some things. And it's free. Honorable mention goes to FindLaw and Justia, and I also use Google Scholar's legal search tools.
Consumer Reviews: Amazon. As the world's largest online retailer, Amazon has consumer reviews for almost anything. The reviews are often more than just opinions—they often contain information about how to set the product up or how to tinker with it to use it for something else. Amazon wins with high quality and sheer volume. For tech devices, I also really like CNET's video reviews, and the decidedly gearhead reviews on NewEgg are also invaluable.
Cars: Edmunds. I am definitely not a car expert, but Edmunds seems to be the best site for reviews, resale values, repair advice, etc. Given my lack of expertise, however, I'm open to other suggestions.
News: National Public Radio. This is a tough choice, and I've gone back and forth on my preferred news source. The truth is that I never rely on one source for news, but if I had to pick one, it would be NPR. I listen to it in the car a lot, but in recent years the NPR website has become very good. I still ready the New York Times site frequently, as well as the BBC and my local newspaper websites. But I go to NPR first and most frequently.
Everything Else: Google.There is an awful lot of information not grouped into one of those categories above, and the easiest way to find it is just to Google it. I actually like using some other search engines, and I don't like using one dominant search engine, but I must admit that Google still is the best at finding what you need. And there is some extremely valuable tips and information buried in the thousands of bulletin boards, blogs, and other sites that make up the rest of the web.

I like all the sites, and I've used most of them for years. But if you can think of a category I totally missed, or think you have a better site than one of the ones I listed, I'm all ears.

The taste of summer

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:06:00 +0000

We have a tiny patch of dirt in front of our porch that we're using as a garden. Last year it was a spectacular failure, with all but the parsley wilting or getting eaten by insects. But this year we have had an enormous yield with our tomatoes, and some decent basil as well. We only have three tomato plants, but we'll probably get several dozen tomatoes out of them during the course of the summer.

It's sort of exciting to see them ripen—it gives you a sense of anticipation and excitement that you don't get when you buy food at a store or market. The girls watch them closely and announce to us when they think the tomatoes are ripe.Yesterday Becca picked a couple for dinner, and sliced one up right after picking. It was perfectly ripe, still warm from the sun, and she said "It tasted like summer." I immediately knew what she meant.

For me, though, the real taste of summer is really good corn on the cob. I'm not a particularly huge fan corn on the cob, but I like it, and when I get a really sweet ear of corn it reminds me of grilling in the backyard when I was growing up.

One of the clients at my work brought by some ears of corn from his garden. I took them home and we had them for dinner last week. My soon-to-be kindergartener loves corn on the cob, but the 2-year-old had never had it before. She seemed to like it, though. The best part about the dinner was shucking the ears with my daughters on the front porch. They had never done that before, and their reactions were hilarious when I peeled back the husk and they recognized what was inside. They eat corn all the time, but it comes in a frozen bag. It reminded me that a lot of kids (or adults) don't really know where their food comes from.

To be honest, it wasn't the best corn on the cob, but it still tasted like summer. We'll have to pick some up at one of the road-side stands soon, because I want some of the good stuff. I love when half the kernels are white and half are yellow, and they're so fresh that the kernels snap in your mouth as you take a bite.

I don't have pictures of them, but we also got some cherries last week. They were even worse than the corn, actually, which is probably why I don't have pictures of them. But they reminded us of a summer 8 years ago, before we were married, when I camped with Becca's family on the shore of Lake Erie. We were going to Cedar Point the next day, it was a lazy summer evening, and we got a huge bag of really delicious cherries to eat after dinner. We spent all evening eating them and spitting the pits across the campsite to see who could spit the farthest. I think my happy memories are somewhat colored by the fact that I was with Becca after having been apart all summer. Being head over heels in love with someone tends to make everything better. But I think those were good cherries anyway.

Borders, books, and bookstores

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 02:31:00 +0000

I listened to this NPR article on the way home today, and it got me thinking about my reading habits and the future of bookstores. If you haven't heard, the nation-wide chain of Borders bookstores couldn't even hold it together in bankruptcy, so the whole chain is going out of business and is liquidating. I know Borders has really taken a hit in the last few years. They bet big on brick-and-mortar stores right around the time Amazon was starting to dominate and Barnes & Noble was moving much of its sales online. They also invested heavily in CD sales, right around the time the bottom dropped out of that market. So Borders lost both those bets. They hadn't been profitable in the last five years, so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that it's all over.

Having Borders go out of business really won't affect me much, since the local Borders closed some time ago. But I'm guessing it is going to have some longer-term affects.

First, as sad as it is to see a big chain (and 11,000 jobs) go down, the silver lining is that it might pave the way for smaller local bookstores to find a foothold.
I like going to bookstores. I like browsing, I like leafing through books and picking up ones that have attractive covers or authors I recognize. But I almost never buy new books because I perceive them to be too expensive. I can't be the only one.
I don't rely on bookstores for recommended reading. I rely on friends and family. If that doesn't work, I rely on book blogs or sites like Goodreads. If that doesn't work, the recommendation systems of Amazon and other online vendors are very good. And if that doesn't work, I'm still probably more likely to consult a librarian than a bookstore.
One thing that stood out to me in the NPR article (which you really should read or listen to, by the way) is the quote from the guy who analyzes Barnes & Noble. He said he was agnostic to supplier and device agnostic. He just wants to read, and he doesn't care much about whether it comes from Borders or Walmart or Amazon. He also doesn't care much if he's reading it on a Nook or Kindle or in paper. That's how I feel. I like a real book better, but there are some significant advantages to ebooks. Bottom line is that I just want to read stuff, whatever the easiest or cheapest way is to do that.
Speaking of ebooks, they apparently are the future. Certainly not the exclusive future, because paper books are just nice and people still like them. But now that Amazon is selling more ebooks than printed books, the writing is on the wall. And apparently that's how Barnes & Noble escaped the same fate as Borders--they went online and made their own e-reader.

If you have any other predictions about the future of books, I'd love to hear them. I actually care a lot about books--they fill my home and have been a big part of my life since I was small. My love of reading is a huge part of who I am and what I do for a living. There's a lot to lament about the change of the book world, but I'm actually fairly optimistic that there will still be room for bookstores as long as people are reading. And despite hundreds of cable channels and thousands of video game titles and all the wonders of "teh internets," people still love to read.

Photo credit: MorBCN.

86 reasons

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:11:00 +0000

I hate Facebook. I really do. I would have deleted my account long ago if it weren't for the social utility, and the fact that they would save my information anyway, regardless of whether I deleted the account. So I really don't do much on that wretched platform.

But if I hate Facebook, I really hate Facebook Apps. I've never enabled one, and I block everyone I find. They were particularly annoying when they were new and a few over-exuberant classmates and family members used them excessively. Facebook just isn't useful (or pleasant) to me when I have to wade through dozens of Mafia Wars requests, Farmville updates, and hokey quizzes. Those things were cute when the internet was new. Not so anymore.

Well, today I signed onto Facebook for the first time in a while, and happened to notice in one of the options menus a list of all the apps I've blocked. There are no less than 86 of these things, and reading through them is actually kind of funny. But no, I do not want to know what Sex and the City girl I am, thank you very much. So here's 86 of my reasons why I don't like Facebook.

A More Accurate Harry Potter Sorting Quiz
Are you Scene, Preppy, Skater, Jock, Nerd or Emo?
Bejeweled Blitz
Bubble Island
BuddyPoke
Café World
Causes
Collect Hugs
Death´s Time
Decode your robot name
Discover Your Birth Number
Family Feud
FARKLE
Farm Town
FarmVille
Fish World
FrontierVille
Happy Island
Happy Pets
Hello City
How many Harry Potter spells do you remember?
How smart are you in Math?
How Well Do You Know Me?
How well do you know your musicals?
Island Paradise
Just how Utahn are you?
Know-It-All Trivia
La Meteo del Humor
Likeness
LivingSocial
Lyre Love
M.A.S.H
Mafia Wars
Make Your Jersey
Medieval Personality Quiz
Millionaire City
MindJolt Games
Movies
My Polls
Nightclub City
Paid Opinion
Pass a Drink
PathWords
Pieces of Flair
Polls
Que cancion de Sin Bandera te va mejor?
Quizazz
Quiz Creator
Quiz Monster
Quizopolis Quizzes
Quiz Planet
Roller Coaster Kingdom
Send A Round
Spot The Hidden Images
Stats About Me
Texas HoldEm Poker
the really random Quiz
Typing Maniac
Visual Bookshelf
WB BD-Live
What's your Musical Key?
WHAT BADASS ANIMAL ARE YOU?
What breed of dog are you?
What Calvin alter ego are you?
What D&D Character Class are you? (3.5)
What Decade Fits Your Personality Best?
What Dewey number are you?
What Famous Literary Character Are You?
What girl are you from which girly movie.
What Kind of Sister-Wife Are You?
What Kind of Southern Woman Are You?
What Musical are you?
what spongebob character are you?
Which alignment are you?
Which Bluth Are You (Arrested Development)?
Which Charles Dickens novel are you?
Which Harry Potter character are you?
Which Hogwarts house you'd end up in?
Which Liquor Are You?
Which Sex and the City girl are you?
Which television series do you belong in?
Which that 70's Show Character are You?
Which TOLKIEN character are you?
Which Vera Bradley Pattern Are You?
Yacht
YoVille

The perils of TweetDeck

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:19:00 +0000

Several days ago word broke that a risqué photo was "tweeted" out from the Twitter account of a Democratic Representative, who most Americans had never even heard of before. The photo isn't quite obscene, but let's just say I'm not in the habit of posting pictures of gentlemen in their skivvies in an obvious state of arousal. The media really picked up on this because the Representative in question is a darling of the Democratic Party, taking a big role in the healthcare debate, and because he is a well-known user of new media tools such as Twitter and Facebook. And also, well, because his last name is Weiner.

New York Representative Anthony Weiner (yes, it's pronounced that way) initially denied that the photos were from him, implying that his account was hacked. But his denial was carefully worded and actually didn't say that he didn't send it. The college co-ed in Washington state who received the picture wouldn't speak about the incident, and after a few conflicting statements, Weiner stopped answering questions as well. Rather than turning it over to the authorities, Weiner went out and got a lawyer and a private investigation team. Things were already looking fishy by the time conservative bloggers got a hold of other photos Representative Weiner had sent to other girls online. Then he admitted that the photos "may" have been him. The bizarre episode reached its apex today when he gave a press conference admitting his responsibility, and that this was just one of half a dozen girls with whom he had traded lewd pictures over the past few years. He said he won't resign, but his wife (a protege of Secretary Hilary Clinton in the State Department) was notably absent and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is already calling for an ethics investigation.

Here's the thing, though: I knew he was lying as soon as I heard about it. I knew before he confessed, before his answers got all wishy-washy, and before I knew anything else about the situation. I knew it because the first article I read happened to mention that Rep. Weiner used a service call TweetDeck to post to his Twitter account. And it just so happens that I used to use TweetDeck, which had a really nice app for Google Chrome. But I stopped using it because when you responded to direct messages (private conversations in Twitter) it would sometimes send the message out as an @reply. If you're not a Twitter user, that means it is specifically sent to the person, but it's public for everyone to see. After twice sending messages to the world that were meant for my wife, I stopped using TweetDeck. Both messages were pretty innocuous, with no identifying information (or amorous intent), but it was enough to make me stop using that platform to post to Twitter.

It was also enough for me to know exactly what happened to Anthony Weiner when he sent out the bulging briefs snapshot. So yeah, I called this one. But maybe this will get TweetDeck to fix that bug.

On my dresser

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:28:00 +0000

Found this on the handle to one of my dresser drawers last night. I wish I could say this was unusual, but this kind of thing happens all the time at my house. Is this some sort of children's warning, like a bizarre kid's version of the black spot?

Despite the regularity of this sort of bizarre appearances, I am always at a loss to explain what led to them. My children mystify me.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Thu, 26 May 2011 19:24:00 +0000

I was a huge fan of Pee-wee's Playhouse when I was little. It was my favorite Saturday morning show for years, and I never missed it. I've seen episodes of the show online as an adult, and frankly, I'm not quite sure why I liked it so much. But it had some actors who got big later on (Lawrence Fishburn or Phil Hartman, anyone?) and a lot of funny, campy routines that were pretty memorable. (To this day I occasionally drop references to the show in my everyday speech, like the Secret Word or the Connect the Dots.) My favorite episode as a kid involved a giant pair of underpants that Pee-wee used for lots of different games. I found a clip of it online today, and it really isn't that funny, but at least it inspired some good pranks when I was in high school.

I was thinking about Pee-wee and friends because I just picked up Pee-wee's Big Adventure for $5. While Pee-wee's Playhouse hasn't exactly stood the test of time, the movie that launched the series is actually really good. Yes, you read that right—it's kind of brilliant, in a bizarre and garish sort of way. Paul Reubens, the zany (and legally challenged) creator of Pee-wee Herman, co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman, who was just starting his stint as a writer at Saturday Night Live. Reubens and the producers picked a young Tim Burton to direct the film. It was Burton's first feature-length film, but his trademark elements of the macabre and surrealism were already well-developed. The soundtrack for Pee-wee's Big Adventure was provided by the now-legendary composer Danny Elfman—the first of many collaborations between Burton and Elfman.

My wife doesn't exactly share my appreciation for all things Pee-wee, but maybe I'll convince her to sit down and watch it sometime. But until then, she's planning on going out of town in a couple weeks, and I know exactly how I'm going to spend one of my evenings when she does. If you haven't seen it before, I highly recommend it. It's a bizarre but lighthearted treat, and a reminder of what Tim Burton used to do before he cast Johnny Depp in every movie he made.

Easter stories

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 03:22:00 +0000

Story #1: One year growing up we had an inside Easter Egg hunt, I think because it was raining. My dad hid eggs all over the downstairs, while we waited excitedly upstairs. The eggs included both colored hardboiled eggs and plastic ones filled with candy. After the hunt, my parents gathered up the hardboiled eggs and discovered that we were missing one. It wasn't until late summer that I found it behind the stereo. I wanted to break it open to see how bad it smelled, but my dad wouldn't let me. Smart dad.

Story #2: At Easter and Halloween, my parents used to tell us not to eat all our candy at one time or it would make us sick. I genuinely thought that was just a line they said to keep us from spoiling our dinner, so I never paid attention to that. And then one year I ate all my Easter candy that same day, and my stomach really did feel awful. I realized my parents weren't just telling me that so they could poach out of my basket over the coming days. Although I bet they did that too. I know I do.

Story #3: The city I grew up in had a city-wide Easter Egg Hunt the Saturday before Easter, and we went one year. They had spread hundreds (if not thousands) of plastic eggs across a park, and there were several hundred candy-crazed kids barely able to wait behind the ropes until the organizers gave the signal. When it started, there was a huge stampede. It was all over in a few minutes, and at the end, I had only gathered one or two eggs. My brothers had fared similarly. We opened our eggs and ate the candy, but in one of mine there was a slip of paper with the number 3 on it. My dad said that I had to go to the pavilion to claim a prize there, so I went back. There were actually a lot of prizes there, and the top three were all the same thing: a huge yellow stuffed bunny, with a black top hat and tuxedo jacket. It was about 4 feet tall, and to my eyes, it was the most awesome thing I had ever seen. I ran back to the car, carrying the enormous bunny aloft, and celebrated with my two brothers. It was never really "my" rabbit, since we all played with it, and even though my parents didn't like it from the day we brought it home, it took them a couple years before they managed to get rid of it.

Story#3.5: This is really just a follow-up to the big bunny story. There was a neighbor girl I grew up with that was sort of my rival all growing up, even through high school. The year I won the bunny at the city Easter Egg Hunt, she apparently saw me and was really jealous. She brought it up on more than one occasion, which I thought was funny, but I think I liked that I actually got something she didn't. When you have something awesome, the only thing that makes it cooler is if someone else you don't like wants it but doesn't have it. It's selfish, but it's also human nature. And it basically made the big bunny that much cooler. Best. Easter. Ever.

A day in the dark

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 13:25:00 +0000

Last Monday a series of storms swept through our region, spawning a few tornadoes and downing a lot of trees. So by early afternoon, Nashville had over 80,000 people without power. The majority of people had their power restored by late evening, but we were some of the lucky 15,000 or so who didn't have power restored about 24 hours. (Perhaps it was payback for our refusal to participate in Earth Hour a few weeks back?)

It was sort of an interesting 24 hours, and made us realize how much our lifestyle is dependent on electricity. When the power went out it was daytime, but the heavy rain clouds blocked out a lot of the sun, so it was pretty dark long before sundown. Reading was difficult, even in the afternoon, without candles or a lantern. A lot of the things the girls like to do, such as watch PBS or play word and math games on the computer, were out of the question. So Becca got out the Legos and blocks and they had a low-tech playtime afternoon.

When I drove home from work, it was like going back in time 100 years. There was a distinct line when I passed under a bridge, with street lights and signs and houses fully illuminated behind me, and complete darkness in my neighborhood up ahead. It was kind of unnerving. It was also chilly--the weather was pretty cold after the stormfront came in, and since our heater is electric-powered, that didn't work either.

When I got home, we hunted around for flashlights and candles to use in the evening, and talked about what to have for dinner. With the power out for the foreseeable future, I was reluctant to open the refrigerator and freezer more than necessary. Not being able to watch TV is one thing, but having all your food spoil is another entirely. We ended up going out to eat, which was fun because we hadn't done it in a long while. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones with that clever idea, and waited quite a while for a table. But it didn't seem that bad because we missed having lights and heating. We actually went shopping after that, mostly just to stay in a place that was light and warm, and delayed going home until an hour after the girls' normal bedtime.

We used candles and a flashlight to see around the house as we put the girls to bed. We quickly found out which candles worked best. Our decorative pillar candles were gave off the most light, but so did some of our jar candles with longer wicks. (Just one little LED flashlight, by comparison, was at least 20 times brighter than the best candle.) The candles were enough to see the room, but not very useful to read or see details. Bill Bryson has a recent book called At Home that looks at the history and evolution of homes, and one of the things he points out is that people essentially lived in the dark until the introduction of the light bulb. I now see his point--even with six candles in a room, it was hard to read a newspaper or magazine. Fortunately for us, the girls' night light is actually a plug-in flashlight with its own battery, which made bed time a lot easier. We bundled them up in warm sleepers and extra blankets, and they slept fine.

After bed time, I made a trip to the local Walmart to buy a few groceries and a 10-lb. bag of ice to keep the food cold in the refrigerator and freezer. I noticed that the flashlight and coolers were almost all sold out. It was also weird to go from our small, dark house to the brilliant florescent illumination of the Walmart.

That paradox continued through the evening. I could make calls, play games, and watch movies on my phone. But if the battery ran down, I couldn't charge it. Same with the laptop. And neither of them could connect to the internet, because our wi-fi router and modem were down. I was reading my new issue of Wired magazine, but I was doing it by candlelight. We both took showers at night rather than the next morning so we could get the last of the hot water from the hot water heater. And we ended up going to bed early because we got tired of peering at printed words by candle, and there was sort of nothing else to do. Ben Franklin's "Early to bed, early to rise" aphorism seemed more mandatory than optional without electricity, which might have explained his interest in that topic as well.

The next day was equally strange. I shaved and dressed with the flashlight, and then left my house in the 1800's, got in my "mechanical horse," and had zoomed off to my heated, illuminated work while turning the heat up and listening to the radio. When the power finally came back on around mid-day, our house returned to the 20th Century, but not the 21st--we had electricity, but no internet or cable TV. Comcast wouldn't restore signal for another day. So we were in the light and warm, but still felt strangely disconnected from the world. At least we had a set of "bunny ears" for the TV to use with our digital converter, so the girls could watch their shows in the afternoon and we could at least check the weather on the nightly news. (Although it's incredibly annoying to wait through a full half-hour news program just to hear the last 30 seconds of the weather report at the end.)

Lessons learned from our day in the dark? Modern devices are awesome, but limited. A lot of our entertainment and lifestyle habits are dependent on electricity and internet connectivity. But so are our eating habits, and those are harder to change for longer periods of time. Our power loss was localized, so I could just pick up ice. But if it was a situation like Northern Japan last month or the Gulf States after Hurricane Katrina, that wouldn't be an option. I also see the attraction of a wood or gas fireplace as an alternative heat source in the event of power loss. If it had been colder, we would have basically been camping out in our own house.

We actually were in good shape for the power failure, with candles and flashlights and batteries. And we had a fun evening together, going from shopping to doing things by candlelight. The only permanant downside was that I didn't get to watch the NCAA Men's Basketball finals, but from what I hear, I didn't miss much.

Photo credit: Jason Staten.

Arora Borealis

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:23:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for time lapse photography, and seeing the Aurora Borealis is on my bucket list. Small wonder, then, that I thought this video was beautiful. I recommend keeping the HD on, letting it load, and then watch it full-screen.

The video is by Terje Sorgjerd, who tromped around the Norway-Russia border in -25 C (-13 F) weather to capture these amazing shots. Thank you, Terje!

Via BoingBoing.

Blue foot

noreply@blogger.com (For Peter's Sake) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:53:00 +0000

The other day I was changing my youngest out of her pajamas. She was wearing those cute little footie sleepers that little kids wear. But I was somewhat alarmed when I pulled her feet out of the footie part of the pajamas and saw that her left foot was blue. It looked like she had circulation cut off or something.

But she seemed to be fine, her feet were the same temperature, and she giggled equally when I tickled each foot one at a time. I was puzzled, until I fished around in the foot of her sleeper.

Ah, there's the problem. If I walked around on a blue crayon for several hours, my foot would be blue too. I felt a little bad that she had to walk on a crayon, but at least I knew her foot wouldn't fall off.