Month in review

Image by: Occhiovivo

This month was full of good times®, as March normally is. It sees the beginning of spring, my Birthday, my Dad's birthday, easter, and normally the planning of our yearly vacation. So, let me give you the short, but juicy details of the last month.

Early on, the Grandparents were in town. Birthdays were everywhere... candles blazing, wrapping paper flying... new grill.

I rented Top Spin 2 for the Xbox 360. 5 days of tennis gaming goodness without breaking a sweat.

Easter lunch with the family. My dad dropped yams on the table, grumbled about dropping the yams. I looked over and said "Yammit!". I'm funny.

Sami's wife, Rosa, has been out of town for the last week or so, which freed Sami up for gaming. Katie, Taylor and I (and the other Katie for a night) went and played Rock Band for a couple nights. The train kept a rolling all night long... Strangely enough, when someone (Sami) is really into playing the drums it looks like he's driving a carriage on a rough road (HYAH! HYAH!).

I went to the dentist today, and found that I'll be having my third root canal and crown put on next Tuesday.

We've also been trying new foods. Al-Basha's, a greek and lebanese restaurant opened in town, so Katie, Taylor, Katie, Sami, Rosa and I tried it out earlier this month. Tonight, Katie and I went to Mona's, and Sami came to join us after he and his Dad went to Luby's. I bought some Burghul Wheat and pine nuts so that I can try my hand at making Kibbeh, one of the finest appetizers/snacks known to man. I will master the making of kibbeh. Tonight, in top form, I also made a joke using falafel... working in "feel awful". I'm hilarious.

John Adams is on HBO these days. Watch it. Love it. We watched the first two episodes, and I'm really liking it.

That was March.

The value of good sleep

I'm sitting in front of the computer at 8:30 AM, and I'm not a foggy-eyed zombie this morning. It's amazing. For the first time in three or four days, I got some good sleep last night. Fresh sheets and sudafed (dry air + sinus problems = 5 day sore throat) gave me the edge I needed.

Katie managed to get herself sunburned beyond the normal limits of human skin last weekend, and was also unlucky enough to be on medication that reacted with the sunlight exposure. So, for the last week or so, there have been a few nights where the reaction was worse than normal where she would sleep terribly. Thursday night, for instance, she woke up to intense itching and burning every 15 minutes or so, then at 2:30 woke up and decided it was time to go to wal-mart for benadryl and anything else that may help. She didn't get back to sleep until after 4.

Maybe this is what it'll be like to have kids, and that's why people are always stressed out in the first several months of parenthood.... I can see why, if they're sleep deprived.

I didn't even really realize how tired I've been over the last few days until this morning when I woke up just before 8 and actually wanted to get out of bed. Compare that to yesterday where I woke up at 7:45, fed the dog, got on the computer to post on my blog and ended up getting in bed half way through the post, where I slept until 11AM.

Anywho, I guess my point is made... Katie's still in there sleeping, the dog is outside scratching away on the door to be let in, and I'm actually able to focus on the 'puter. I hope the weekend continues to go well. Happy easter to everyone.

Weekly weekiness

Finally, the week is almost over. I haven't had such a busy week in a year or more.

Monday - Dinner with fam
Tuesday - Dinner with fam
Wed. - Lunch at Strawn's with Family; Trivia night at PieWorks (last place finish :( )
Thurs. - Dinner with Taylor, Katie, Sami, Rosa, Katie and I at AlBasha's (tasty)
Friday - Company party at the Mudbugs hockey game (good stuff)

Poor pluto suffered through the week, a parentless pup. We made a good effort to leave him outside to get energy out during the day and entertain him with racquetball fetch when we got home. To try to make up for our absence, I woke up before Katie - who is still sawing logs - and took him on a good, long walk. So, I think he's content for now to lay by the back door getting some sun and a little rest.

The big news for us this week is Katie's (almost 100%) decision to go back to school to get a degree as a specialist in school psychology. The best thing about the decision is that she's finally finding purpose in her education, where she feels like she can do good... oh, and the tuition will be paid for as long as she's still working at LSUS.

The only slight downside is that we'll have to rearrange our plans as far as having kids. It's scary talk for me, but we've had a general plan that she wants to take a few years off work when we have kids and that we want to start making babies before I'm 30. That puts some difficult decisions in our path with balancing work/school/kids/bills since the program lasts for 3 years, but we'll be able to work through it, I'm sure.

The other news involves work. Another employee and I were solicited by a software development company here in town for interest in a position. Neither of us were especially keen on leaving unless there was something too good to be true at the other company... which, in the end, wasn't true. The other employee ended up telling the owner of our company about the solicitation, which sparked a round of "how can we make this company a place where people want to set down roots and have a career?" talks.

So, this week a few of the programmers have been throwing around ideas for making our programming environment something to be desired by recruits and other programmers in the area. Ideas like yearly training budgets and conference budgets, a percentage of programmer time being dedicated to research projects with new technologies, hardware replacement timelines, and a focus on the importance of time spent creating good development tools were all floated. All ideas I think will go a long way to improving morale and productivity.

In the end, the decision will have to be made by the owner of the company, but he really seems committed to making most of these things happen. So, I am reasonably optimistic about seeing all these changes put into place.

Well, I have a long list of things to get done this weekend, which didn't really include spending the morning blogging, so I hope everyone's doing ok and will have a good weekend.

By the way, comments do seem to be working again. I got a comment from Johnny saying comments still weren't working. Comments are still filtered, and left as unpublished until I approve them, so they may not show up immediately. But I did get that comment, so I assume things are working again.

Dear Democrats... thank you for finding your backbone!

For as long as I've been following politics, my political views have aligned closely with conservative principles... maybe even closer to libertarian principles, as scary as that is... which means that generally I agree with and vote republican (with one major exception - 2004 pres. election) but today I have to say that I'm firmly behind what the democrats are doing in the house representatives. They've finally developed a backbone, and are relying on it to stand up to the Republicans and the Bush Administration.

I just read an article in the Washington Post about the fight that's been going on between the Bush administration and the house of representatives over the wiretapping bill that's in the house now. The main point of contention has been that the Republicans and the Bush administratio want to grant retroactive immunity to the telephone companies that allowed the government to spy on citizens without warrants.

You see, telephone/communications companies allowed the goverment to eavesdrop and intercept domestic communications without a warrant a few years back. Now, several groups of people have filed suit against the telco's and probably have a good chance of fighting protracted court battles... and losing, hopefully. So, the Bush administration and Congressional republicans are trying to pass legislation that will throw out the suits against the telco's.

The republicans believe that people/companies who comply with the government should be protected from legal retribution. Otherwise, companies would be less likely to cooperate out of fear of law suits being filed against them. Of course, my perspective is that if they didn't break any law, then they shouldn't be afraid... but that's just me.

One of the other arguments used by the current administration and the republicans is that the telco's would be divulging state secrets in court if details of their wiretapping activities was made public in court. I say, big deal... as usual. State secret protection when used as a tactic to prevent court cases from being heard is, in my opinion, mainly used when politically damaging information is going to be made public, not something that terrorists or other nations will be able to use against us.

So, the great thing the democrats have done is to simply not back down and compromise so far, and now to agree to compromise and provide "relief" to the telco's by allowing them to present their evidence to the judge without the plaintiffs being present, thus sidestepping the state secrets laws that the telco's would have run into by presenting evidence in open court. Sneaky, democrats... very sneaky indeed.

I'm interested in how this plays out, and I hope to good golly miss molly that the Democrats don't cave like they've been prone to do since Bush has been in office. The increase in fighting in congress will only result in less inane nonsense that ends up being made into law... and I support that fully.

I'm old and Gray!

This past Sunday I turned 27. A very creaky, my bones is achin' 27. To celebrate the achievment of making it to this ripe old year, the family got together (including Mammaw and Pappaw, who are in town for a few days) for a birthday lunch. We grilled trout, salmon and had a few other fixings along with it. There was much fishery and piggery.

We were just planning to relax for the remainder of the day, after all it was my birthday and I like relaxing and doing nothing more than anything else. Taylor's Katie, however, ended up with 4 free tickets to see the producers at the strand theater, so we ended up leaving at about 5 or so to go get dressed for the big show.

As far as musicals go, it was a pretty good one. I expected good things based on the premise, which I found hilarious, and the fact that it was created by Mel Brooks. However, I didn't expect that the actors in a production that swings through Shreveport would be of such high caliber. Each of the prominent actors had great voices and acting abilities... I was really impressed.

For anyone that's unfamiliar with the premise, the story concerns two broadway producers who realize that they can make more money on a flop than on a successful show by overselling investment stakes in a show and pocketing the money for themselves after the play flops immediately. They search for the perfect play that is guaranteed to only last a single night, and find "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden". They plan to use this play, find the worst director in town, raise two million dollars, hire the worst actors in New York, watch the play flop and leave town with the money.

Anywho, that's enough musical talk. For the remainder of the week we've been going to work and visiting with the parents while Mammaw and Pappaw are in town for dinner each night. Last night we had homemade personal pizzas, and tonight we had fried catfish. It's been great having them in town to visit with every night... and not having to cook is a big plus.

Tonight we took off just after dinner so that Katie could make her bible study. So, I am stuck at home by myself... which gave me time to put together my birthday present from the family - a Weber Baby Q grill. I'm glad to finally have one so I can cook Salmon, Trout, and Steaks without having to fool with coals and such. Plus, it comes with a little book with cooking times and prep recipes, which are all pretty tasty.

Comments were working... 'til I jacked them up

Comments were working temporarily after the upgrdae to Movable type 4.1. However, I tried to turn on the Captcha plugin that's included with MT, and apparently didn't have the necessary perl package to support it. Instead of failing gracefully, Movable Type expected users/me to type in a captcha value. Of course noone could type one in, since the captcha wasn't shown and all comments failed.

So, now I think that comments are actually working again. I tested them, and they work. Happy commenting to those who have tried and been denied.

What happened to my puppy?

What happened to my puppy? He was small, his breath was fresh. He even smelled clean.

At some point, that puppy left. A dog that smells like a mexican porto-potty and acts like one of the hilton sisters arrived.

At least once a day I think that I could send him to the pound and be no worse for wear... but I think that's just the way it goes with labrador puppies. He's not even a year old yet (10 months, I think), so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. If he's as crazy as he is now in a year, then I'll be posting affectionate words about that crazy dog that I used to own. For now, though, I'm posting with the little stinker lying right at my feet chewing on a bone.

Pieworks Trivia Night Part Deux, etc.

Another trivia night came and went earlier tonight. The Rapscallions added two new members, and ended up coming in 4th out of 7 or so teams. Last week we placed second, so I have to blame the two new team members. It's only logical.

It was awfully crowded this week. Someone must've alerted the local community about the trivia event... stinking community. We arrived 15 minutes early and had to switch tables with a couple occupying a large table so our party could sit at the same table. I even had to yell my jokes, which ruined their effectiveness. After all, jokes about the liberation of france are best served quietly, if at all.

In other news, this past weekend the family headed over to Dallas to see the grandparents. We had a good visit, the pinnacle of which was seeing my dad make a hasty decision to build a computer rather than ordering one from Dell. You see, a Fry's is 10 minutes from my grandparents' house and they were selling a motherboard/CPU combo and a case for a very good price. So, I advised my dad to get in on the computing action. He partook, and it was good.

So, last night I went over to the parents house and put the PC together. It's only the second PC I've built from scratch, and proved much easier than the first. The case had a large, quiet case fan, sliding panels for 5.25" drives and removable trays for 3.5" drives with rubber grommets to deaden the noise... it's amazing how far case design has come since I bought my rattling old case.

Now that I've built another PC I've got the fever... and the only prescription for my fever is more computer building (mouseover). I'm going to have to submit a formal purchase request to my wife for the approval of a new computer. It will be met with a denied stamp a few times... but I think I can convince her to bring out the approved stamp eventually.

Lastly, my wife has been complaining about her GPS unit... a Garmin nuvi 350. She complained today that it takes her a different way leaving a location than it did on the way in. I'm convinced that it's in the best interest of GPS companies to do so. If they keep you lost, you'll continue to need the GPS unit. If you start learning how to get to and from the places you need to go, why would you keep the GPS unit?

If you've ever tried using GPS units, you may find that sometimes you end up going through residential areas to get to your location... and that location may be a shorter distance to your destination, but not the most direct (larger roads with less turns). It's part of their dastardly plan, I'm convinced. I would say that 'the commish called it in', but in lieu of a commish at Garmin, I'll have to say that the CEO called it in.