Frenzied Daddy

Happy Olympics Day!

2008-08-08T17:07:27Z

It’s 08/08/08, and the Olympics are starting. I’m still unsure how I, personally, feel about the Olympics being in China. On the one hand, I hate their politics and their human wrongs. On the other; well, the Olympics are supposed to be unifying the world in the field of sports even through wars and other strife. The Olympics are supposed to transcend our “normal” lives to some other plane.

But, of course, politics and war come back to play again, as it appears that Russia is invading Georgia using the Olympics as a distraction. Sources: here and here.

Lastly, welcome to Nola Schader, who is entering the world today. Happy Birthday, Kid!

Waterfights with the Four Year Old

2008-08-08T00:10:12Z

Of course I keep the squirtguns in the refridgerator. Doesn’t everyone?

The TT got a pair of big tank-type pump action squirtguns for her birthday. Now, I had a squirtgun, the kind you pump full of air and then you can hold the trigger down and hose the recipient. These are bigger, but you can only shoot one “pump” at a time. They hold a lot more water, too.

It’s fun to run through the yard squirting and being squirted. We put them on her list because the little pistols we had gotten were too hard to shoot; the triggers wouldn’t pull back for little ( three year old, at the time ) fingers. She loves them.

She also got a “big girl bike”- the DQ’s old kiddie bike with training wheels. She loves that too. She’ll want to ride her bike up to 9:00 PM and then when she gets up in the morning. Just try keeping her off. She wears her helmet every time ( got a new one of those too ). As she gets faster and faster, I have to run faster and faster to keep up. Those training wheels are never coming off. :p

I told her the other night that I couldn’t run behind her (hey, I was worn out) and she’d have to stay closer to home. I said I was “old and feeble.” She disagreed. She believes that “Ten is old and feeble.” I guess I’m not ten yet; but her sister shouted “HEY!”

A Sing-Along Blog?

2008-08-06T04:06:12Z

Got forty-five minutes? Good.
At work? Got headphones? Good.
Got a twisted sense of humor and a mildly warped sense of good and evil?
Check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Yup.

I can hear you asking… WHY?! Why would you do this to us?

Because it’s Joss Whedon. And Nathan Fillion. And Neil Freakin Patrick Oh-my-goddess Harris. Neil Patrick Harris has recently resurfaced in my conscience as a very funny guy. But I can’t believe Nathan Fillion in this. Over. The. Top.

I suppose it stands to reason that I liked it so much, because I adored the “once more with feeling” episode of Buffy. I think that episode peed on my leg and marked me as its own.

Yeah, you can tell a lot about a guy who likes musicals: Dr Horrible, Once More With Feeling, and twisted mummy movies ( Bubba Ho-tep ). And Weird Al.

It’s finally live!

2008-07-28T00:30:37Z

And I can finally talk about it

The Hyperdesk site is finally live. This site has been a challenge; the design is about three notches over my usual attempts. I’m really excited about this site. Honestly, most of the html and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) was out of my league. I built the “back end” where Jeff updates the content. I did most of the javascript too; we’re using the mootools libraries. I did put in a few minor css/html/image changes, but for the most part what you see is the result of another design group making Jeff’s vision come to the realm of html.

Working on this project has felt in some ways similar to working at Hot Off The Press. Jeff leads a team of incredibly talented designers and their inspiration and excitement encourage, excite and inspire me. As I’ve noted before, artistic inspiration is like fire; once it’s extinguished, the easiest way to bring it back to life is to wave more fire at it.

I don’t think I can brag about the new themes he has in production; you can see that he’s obviously working with Sony-Ericsson and Disney / Pixar. He has also signed some other big-name companies for some recognizable characters. If you’re interested in Windows Themes, you really should check this out.

Modders eat your heart out.

2008-07-25T22:43:39Z

As it happened, I loaded up a Ubuntu CD and checked the RAM and the hard drive. Found a bunch of errors, told it to chkdisk on the next reboot and rebooted. While I was working on it, I asked the DQ to paint on my case.

I can see you’re jealous.

The computer is working, more or less, “fine” now. Hurray for chkdsk.

Computer problems.

2008-07-25T20:24:15Z

Why does it always happen that as soon as you think you can relax, you can’t?

My ‘play computer’ went belly up. While Ms B was on vacation and while Miss B and Miss K were home from school. So they’re going crazy looking for something to do while their mother plays on her computer. Work computer’s still fine, and laptop’s still fine, but I’d really like to upgrade the laptop ( it’s kind of puny. And elderly. )

My days are full right now, but I think I’m going to either track down a Ubuntu cd and test the ram/hard drive ( and probably reinstall windows ) or ask my Brother to diagnose it for me, so I know what I need to replace. It pretends it’s a hardware problem ( a windows xp blue screen flashes on the screen briefly and then it reboots ) but I’ve tried stripping it down to just processor, motherboard, each stick of ram and harddrive with no change.

The Antithesis of the Frenzied Daddy

2008-07-23T15:51:07Z

I have a client who once described me as “phlegmatic.” At the look of dismay, he rushed in to say that he meant that it was hard to get me worked up about something and he thought it was a good thing to not be careening about, from one hilarious mishap to another.

He’s pretty much my polar opposite. I found a list of his aspects on a counter in his office ( in a public space. I wasn’t snooping ). One of them very distasteful to me: competitive. I honestly can’t think of a word that means more of an opposite to me than “competitive.” I can see how his competitiveness falls into line with his Libertarian-ness. As far as I know, those Libertarians want to succeed on their own merits and not be held down while “the government tries to make a level playing field.” (Whereas I believe that the government has a responsibility to the citizens to help them live their lives better, and the citizens have a responsibility to the government to provide it with the means necessary to do that )

Competition has never been my strong suit. It goes along with … and there’s a word I can never remember. It’s the word that means “internal drive.” … Aspirations! I don’t have very high aspirations. Hell, right now, I just want the damn bills to be paid.

Boo’s on Probation

2008-07-21T02:26:35Z

The TT is now four. She got herself a new bike for her birthday and we took her to Pier Park to ride on the trails over there. She’s doing great! I’m really impressed with how well she stays going on the bike and how determined she is to keep going when something unfortunate happens.

Boo was in her basket, and the TT started going down a fairly tall hill. Shortly afterwards, she was shouting “AAAAH NO BRAKES!!!” Hmm. Ms B tells me, after I’m cradling the kid and congratulating her on what was actually a pretty good landing, that it’s better to put on a burst of speed and catch up to the kid who’s shouting “AAAAH NO BRAKES” rather than putting one’s hands on one’s head and screaming “AAAAH LOOK OUT FOR THAT TREE!” ala George of the Jungle.

She really did a great job of getting up, announcing that she was ok ( “I’m ok!” ) and getting back on the bike. I think she was afraid we’d just pack it in.

While we were there, the DQ was on her skateboard keeping us company. She rolled great! She’s really getting the hang of turning and stopping. I can’t wait until she starts learning some tricks.

Some weekend updates

2008-07-07T04:49:00Z

July 4 was fun We didn’t go anywhere, but we had a lot of illegal fireworks in our neighborhood. The TT was running back and forth from the front door to the back trying to see everything. I think she’s either going to be a fire fighter or a pyrotechnician when she grows up

The DQ is off to camp. She’s been hyper about it for the last three days, driving us nuts. But now she’s off and gone for a week. The TT was despondent, and wanted to make sure … “when I’m big like [the DQ] I can go to camp, right? Right? RIGHT? DADDY? RIGHT??!” She was funny too.

I made my wife squeal!

2008-06-27T22:44:36Z

She hasn’t squealed in a long time. It really made me smile to consider how happy I made her.

Basically, I entered a contest that an “internet marketing” blog was having. They were giving away a bunch of stuff and one of these things was an iPod Nano! I entered, hoping either to win the iPod or the $200 american express gift card, but not really expecting to win anything; generally speaking, I don’t win stuff.

But I did this time- I won the iPod nano! It’s a 4GB model, brushed stainless. I was told it would be engraved with the logo of Market Leverage and of the blog I was reading. I worried that it would have a big ugly ML on the front. Actually, there was a discreet “congratulations from … ” line on the back. I’m pretty happy with it.

But the divine Ms B is even happier. I admit that an iPod is on my “oh that’d be nice” list, but she plays this game called “what would be on my ipod” … she’s been wanting one for a long long time. I’m so glad I won it for her The nice folks at Market Leverage also sent a couple of shirts, so that’s cool too.