Category Archives: uncategorized

Been working on the backyard. Here’s our new French doors, freshly installed:

And here’s the gazebo, fully assembled. You can’t really tell, but the doors are behind it.

And, of course, there was Gracie’s birthday.

And we bought Grace a new friend, Rainbow Fish.

Other than that, been working on Tangelo 1.0b5. Thanks to Bill and Leslie for helping out with documentation.

Looks like I’ll be travelling to Knoxville and Chicago this summer, plus Ocean City for vacation.

I started playing on Grace Church’s Worship Team this week. It was weird to be with another group of musicians, but it was good to play again.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

No, wait. It is a bird. A small, flightless waterfowl, to be exact. A penguin.

I am caught in the grip of SuperTux, an open source game I happened upon a few days ago. It’s a clone of Super Mario Brothers, featuring, of course, a penguin, the darling of the open source crowd.

Even though it’s trendy or cool, I’m a sucker for side scrollers. There’s something to be said for simple, engaging gameplay. Sure, it’s not 3D. Sure, it’s not ultraviolent or controversial. But it sure is fun to play.

Today is May 25, 2004. This is the day my daughter turns five years old. This fall, she’ll begin Kindergarten. I don’t know how this happened. I blinked, and all of a sudden there’s this baby in the house. I bilnked again, and suddenly there’s this little person, who can walk and talk and do all sorts of funny things. And today she’s been with us for five years.

It’s just after midnight. Five years ago right now, Jen and I were in the hospital. Jen was doing the hard part. Her parents were there waiting. My mom was there waiting. Her sister was there waiting. We were all in the room together. We weren’t supposed to have that many people in the delivery room, but Jen was in labor for a long time, and we had all stuck it out, and the nurse didn’t have the heart to kick us out when it was “time.” So we all got to be there.

All but five years after that, she got her first stitches. On Saturday, she tripped at the store and bumped her head on a metal shelf, requiring four stitches, which she doesn’t feel look very princess-like. I’ve never had stitches myself. Gracie tells me I don’t ever want to. She’s probably right.

But she does feel like a princess now. A few hours ago, I installed a canopy on her bed. She fell asleep grinning and staring at the canopy and talking about how much she felt like a princess.

I hope she always feels like a princess. She’ll always be one to me.

You know, for a long time now, I’ve figured that TV had gotten pretty warped. But I think a lot of things follow a pendulum, and that soon TV would be improving again. Alas, I’m beginning to lose hope.

At the risk of offending reality show junkies, reality TV is simply one of the worst things that has ever happened. Ever.

And we’ve reached a new low. Introducing Dr. Love’s Super Baby Making Show. Yes, that’s the actual title, as reported by CNN. And in case you didn’t guess, here’s the goal: Ten couples from around the world could compete in a reality TV show in Singapore to see who can procreate first, the city-state’s self-styled sex guru said Thursday. Yes, that’s right, the first couple to get pregnant wins. I think they should have called it Making the Baby, in an homage to Making the Band, one of the worst shows ever to grace our airwaves, which incidentally gave us Otown, one of the worst “bands” ever.

At least it’s kind of for a good cause. I mean, aside from making babies, which is almost always a good thing. But part of the goal is to encourage Singaporeans to have more kids, since their population has been on the decline.

According to the article, nine foreign couples and a Singaporean couple will take part. I sincerely hope that one of the foreign couples is not this German couple: A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless – they weren’t having sex. Yes, the childless couple hadn’t yet sealed the deal, so to speak. Of course, abstinence is the best birth control, but only when you’re trying not to get pregnant.

More from the article: The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education. Good for them. You know, this could really enhance their marriage.

While your qualifications are noteworthy, I regret to inform you that you are not among the finalists for the position.

I’m thankful for some clarity, finally. Looks like I’m staying at Etown, and I’m happy about it.

I’m part of a really good team. There’s Dave, who quite frankly, needs me to look after him and wouldn’t be able to function effectively without me. And Mike, who’s been a faithful friend and companion since seventh grade (and who also happens to be the best hardware guy around). And Nicole, aka Niner, who will realize tomorrow what I did to get even for the stunt she pulled during the “Change Process” seminar at the IM conference. Not to mention Angry Young Dan, my favorite libertarian, who is now so sneaky that his website can no longer be read by mere mortals. Throw Doris and Brenda into the mix, and you’ve got yourself quite a crew. A crew that I’m proud to be part of.

I know it’s really easy to say stuff like after you’ve been rejected, but you can ask Dave and Mike – I made my decision before I got canned.

You know, I don’t even remember who gave the speech at my college commencement nine years ago. All I remember, aside from the grad cap tanlines on my head, is waking up and telling Jen that I didn’t want to go, because, really, we were just as graduated without the ceremony. (Note: We got married the summer between our junior and senior years of college.)

She would have none of it, so off we went. Our parents were planning on being there anyway. I think we walked to graduation.

But I don’t remember who gave the speech. Certainly wasn’t anybody cool or famous.

So now I read that Will Ferrell did the speech at Harvard last year:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Faculty, Administrators, Friends and Family and, of course, the graduating Class of 2003, I wish to say hello and thank you for bestowing this honor upon me as your Class Day speaker. After months of secret negotiations, several hundred secret ballots, and a weekend retreat with Vice President Dick Cheney in his secret mountain bunker, a Class Day speaker was chosen, and it was me. You obviously have made a grave error. But it’s too late now. So let’s just go with it.

And Jon Stewart was at William and Mary:
I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.

Penn State had freakin’ Bono! But I doubt he said anything funny. He’s been remarkably non-funny lately.

But that’s not the kicker. Villanova had Big Bird AND Oscar the Grouch. That’s right, Caroll Spinney, and he did some of it in character!

Now if there had been muppets at my college graduation, I wouldn’t have had second thoughts about attending.

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Which OS are You?

Are these people computer programmers or serial killers? Find out here. I scored 6/10.

While I still intend to create a standalone comments system for use with tangelo, I’m not going to do it tonight. So I’ve temporarily signed up with HaloScan, which is actually providing trackback as well. I’m reasonably happy with the look of the HaloScan comments. I just wish it provided email notification in the free version. Oh, well, I suppose one can’t have it all.

I’ve ripped out tangelo’s old FTP code and replaced it. Seems much more stable and reliable now except for one specific case that I need to nail down, when republishing a huge number of individual posts. Otherwise, it’s in way better shape than it was.