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September 4th, 2009
12:38 pm
When we were in Maine a couple of weeks ago, we ate at a Chinese restaurant in Houlton. The food was better than I expected (admittedly, my expectations for a restaurant in a small town on the Canadian border were not high), but the fortune from my cookie left me slightly bemused. It says "Human Rights: Know Them, Demand Them, Defend Them". Aside from highlighting the fact that China has one of the worst human-rights records around, I've been wondering what that fortune means ever since I got it.
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January 27th, 2009
09:06 pm - bad news
My father called this evening to tell me that my uncle (his brother) had died this morning. My uncle had had cancer for a long time, so this was in no way unexpected, but still. . .
I learned a lot from him when I was young:
I'll always remember him grading student papers on Thanksgiving, which was my first clue that teachers don't like homework either.
He taught me how to make change, even though he always set the price on his cotton candy, balloons, games, etc to multiples of a quarter in order to make it easy on his workers.
Hmmm. When running Romex through a new wall, put the holes though the studs at a different height than where you'll be nailing up the sheetrock. I've never had an opportunity to use this piece of knowledge, but there it is in my brain. . .
Millinocket is a town, so "going to millinock it" is about travel, not an item on a todo list.
Making things look easy is usually the result of careful planning and good prep work.
I'll think of more, but that's enough for now.
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December 15th, 2008
06:56 pm
We have power again!
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November 6th, 2008
07:45 pm - Quote of the week
"When it is too-long-anticipated, a blow falls as a relief, you see. The waiting is over. I can stop fearing, now."
No, I won't explain here. Karen, the boys, and the rest of my family are fine, so don't get all paranoid.
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October 30th, 2008
11:39 am - Random annoyances
Someone called my cell phone at 3:08AM this morning. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to wake up and get to my phone on the far side of the room before they hung up, and all the caller ID shows is "Unknown". And they didn't leave voicemail. Bah.
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01:22 am
Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a non-same-sex marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.
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September 17th, 2008
04:10 pm
I want to do an Invasion of the Pod People movie where the alien pods look like Bluetooth headsets. Who's with me?
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September 5th, 2008
02:28 pm - turntable repair
We've had this turntable kicking around our house for ages. It's a fancy linear-tracking model, which means there's a little motor that drives the tonearm across the record as it plays. Unfortunately, said motor was stuck, resulting in it only being able to play the first minute or so of a record. This week I got tired of that state of affairs, and resolved to either make it work or break it beyond all hope of repair so I could throw it out. It took an amazing amount of disassembly before I could get at the motor, and even then I couldn't really get good access to the motor shaft and pulley. But I got enough, and after some poking the motor is unstuck and we have a working turntable again.
Unfortunately, the only way I can use it at the moment is to plug it into my Firewire audio box and pump the output onto my computer, which means I can listen to all the record defects in glorious 24-bit stereo through my headphones.
Oh, and I had to re-install Windows on my laptop, because Firewire audio support is Just Lame at the moment. And my laptop hardware is failing so that the screen goes permanently blank if I install the video drivers. And running Windows means I can't read my mail or web browse or IM. So I felt rather out-of-touch all week.
But now I can listen to my old Be-Bop Deluxe albums that were never released on CD! That's worth a huge amount of hassle to me.
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August 28th, 2008
03:13 pm - life is mostly good
except for the complicated bits, which are themselves mostly good. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, don't worry, it's just too complicated to explain here.
Karen's father's death has faded to a long to-do list, which is daunting, but not stressful. The lawyer says that dealing with all the details is likely to take a year or so, which means we can't be too impatient about it.
The kids are back in school, and the first couple of days have been uneventful. What more could I ask for? Especially since second-hand data suggests that I really *don't* want a pony.
And for once I'm actually looking forward to Thanksgiving. And maybe even Christmas/New Years as well. How's that for optimism?
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March 8th, 2008
11:12 am - At long last
After too many years I have finally retired the "temporary" network cable that's been running along the floor between Karen's and my computer rooms for the past N years. (How long have we lived here? Eeek!)
For my next trick I will bravely drill a hole between the first floor and the second, so that I'll be able to stop using my laptop as a router between the cable box downstairs and the upstairs wired network. I'm just too paranoid about running into electrical wires for my own good.
Current Location: my laptop
Current Mood: accomplished
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February 27th, 2008
08:52 am - Quoted without context
"I don't care how wonderful the cookies are. I'm not getting anything pierced for them."
Current Location: home
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) amused
Current Music: blessed silence
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June 29th, 2007
05:30 pm
At last I have a soundtrack for my livejournal.
Thanks to the wonderful people at thefump.com. Go listen to funny music. Do it now!
Although I always have mixed feelings about stuff like this. Would the world be a better place if I hadn't put the Hack source code on that USENIX tape lo those many years ago?
Current Mood: vaguely disturbed
Current Music: NetHack
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May 30th, 2007
09:40 pm - Milestones
Tonight my elder son got his first purely-for-him phone call. On Mothers Day he learned to ride his bike without training wheels. Tomorrow he starts Kung Fu lessons. Where has my little, itty bitty baby gone?
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April 5th, 2007
04:07 pm - A really loud noise
It snowed last night. This is not terribly unusual for April in Massachusetts, despite my eight-year-old's insisting that it it a sign of the Apocalypse. Sometime early in the morning (5:30? Six? It's hard to tell) my wife woke me up because the power had gone out. I set an alarm on my cellphone and went back to sleep.
A while later I was awakened by a loud scraping/screeching/??? noise. "What the heck was that!?" I shouted as I jumped out of bed. I looked out the window and saw. . . Branches. Where there weren't any when we went to bed. I looked out the other windows on that side of the house and, just as I'd feared, we now have one fewer tree, and a bit of firewood (some cutting and splitting required). After checking that none of the windows had been broken, and there weren't any protruding branches in the house I went back to bed.
This morning, with bow saw and loppers in hand, I went out to survey the damage. Some of the paint on the side of the house is scraped. I'm glad we were planning on painting the house this summer. At least one of the tomato cages is bent. The arbor still has some large limbs on it (I only spent an hour cleaning up--I'll do the rest tomorrow when I'm enjoying the "spring holiday") but nothing appears to have broken.
And there's branches everywhere. I really need to buy a chipper/shredder. Northern has a nice-looking Troy-Bilt self-propelled C/S/V for ~$800+shipping. If only I had money. . .
There was a nest in one of the branch-intersections. I dunno if it was old or new, but I hope the inhabitants got out ok.
The most annoying part of turning it into firewood and mulch (so far) is the bittersweet, which seems to have roped every branch to its neighbor. Tomorrow I'm keeping a set of pruning shears in my pocket to deal with it. Oh, and my chainsaw. We have electricity again, so I'm definitely running the extension cord out a window and plugging it in. It'll be my constant companion once I get the small stuff out of the way.
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March 1st, 2007
09:31 am
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate!
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
1:regardless of the lovely dog you have, are you more of a dog person or a cat person?
I'm a cat person. Definitely.
2:Coffee or Tea?
Tea (decaf these days). I never learned to like the taste of coffee. Despite this, I have it on good authority that I make a good pot of coffee.
3:Have you ever managed to get someone hired with your company's HR?
Nope. Our HR department is something of a joke within the company. The fact that they call themselves "Human Capital" doesn't help. The cynics call them "Human Cattle" and comment that they're all married and use their spouses health plan.
4:If you weren't a computer geek what would you do?
I'm not sure, because I discovered the joys of computers far too young. Write?
5:What do you look forward to introducing your kids to?
That's a toughie, since I've already introduced them to most of the fun things in my life. Fandom? Check. Gaming? Check. Sushi? Oh my aching wallet yes. Books? Check. Lego? Yes.
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August 19th, 2006
04:30 pm - Things I learned on my Summer Vacation
1: The dog runs faster than I do
2: The dog's ancestors were bred for pulling things
This means that if the dog sees a fluttery insect and gives chase, I should *not* try to run with the dog. He pulled me off my feet. In that split second between when I lost my balance and when I hit the road, I had just enough time to think "this is going to hurt. A lot." Fortunatly, I managed to get my arms into proper breakfall position. Unfortunatly, I didn't manage to do the same with my legs. Injury inventory: a dozen bruises, half a dozen scrapes, one somewhat strained shoulder. It could have been much worse.
Oh, and while rowing the rubber boat around the island two days after straining my shoulder may not be the smartest thing to do, I shouldn't panic even if the return trip is against the wind. The public boat landing is downwind. For the record, I did make it back to our dock without too much trouble.
Current Location: Maine
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August 13th, 2006
12:58 pm - contemplating wrong numbers
The other night, shortly before midnight, my wife called me away from my computers because someone had called my cell phone. She announced this by waving the phone in my general direction and declaring "Your mistress called." Since I don't have a mistress, it was clear she was joking. The person (whoever it was) must have realized their mistake as soon as they heard K's voice, and hung up without apologizing. "How odd," I thought, "doesn't everyone preprogram all the numbers they're ever going to call so they won't have this problem?"
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December 1st, 2005
01:46 pm - It's all cicadabug's fault
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.
When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.
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August 20th, 2005
July 19th, 2005
10:46 am - On Bill Gates and why people are not choosing high-tech careers
I see that Bill Gates claims that high-tech careers aren't exciting enough to attract college students. I find this rather amusing inasmuch as it's next to another headline, saying that HP is going to lay off 14,500 people.
The cynic in me says "HP is not really laying off that many people. They're laying of all those people here and then they're going to hire that many people in China or India." IBM recently did that, and was completely unapologetic about it. They didn't quite say "Evereybody's doing it. Now it's our turn," but that was the gist of their justification.
I work in high-tech. Unless something changes drastically in the next ten years, I am not going to recommend a career in high-tech to my children. I don't want them to try to work in a field where they need to compete with workers in third-world countries (at third-world payscales) for jobs. Even burger-flipping at McDonalds pays better.
College students aren't stupid. They read the news too. They need to get a degree that will allow them to get a job that will pay enough to pay for said degree. A high-tech degree will not do so unless you live in China, India or a similar low-wage country. Is it any wonder the number of people getting such a degree is going down?
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