I guess my secret's out.

Amazon seems to be fully aware of what a nerd I am.

I got this in an email from them today.



Is it that obvious?

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Here are some pictures from our 2008 Paintball excursion, set to "Prowl" by Jawbone Hill. Enjoy!

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Tomorrow is the second annual paintball outing of my church's men's group. Last year was my first time playing paintball, as you may recall, I took a shot to the head:

This was the game where I took my biggest beating. I was shot in the head. With an evil paintball. Fired by Bill, my friend and pastor. Man, did it hurt. As I raised my arms and yelled "I'm out!", I took a shot from behind in each shoulder. These are wonderful friends I have.

Here's what it looked like during the game and the day after:

Good times. And tomorrow we should have an even bigger crowd than last year. I'm bringing three guests: my dad, Tom, and David (who tried to prank me today at work and earned himself a head shot of his very own tomorrow). Should be a blast.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

As the title says, I pick on David. A lot. Probably more than I should.

For those who don't know, David has been my boss on and off since 1999. He's also one of my closest and dearest friends. I often compare him to the older brother I never had. I've been very blessed in my life to work with someone with whom I get along so well. David is easy going and good natured, which are great qualities in a boss.

But, partly because he's so easy going and good natured, I pick on him more than I should.

I love a good prank. And David sets himself up for pranks pretty regularly. Yesterday, for example, he left his laptop in my office while logged into Twitterific. So added something to his Twitter feed: I think Ted is crazy hot. Ted is our network administrator.

Now you have to understand something about my pranks. It's never my goal to hurt, only to amuse and occasionally embarrass. But even then, not in a big way. So, when you think about it, I could have posted something far, far worse on his Twitter feed.

Today, I posted to his Twitter feed again: "Tom may be even hotter than Ted." Tom, of course, being another co-worker. Dave deleted that one and wasn't very happy with me. Rightfully so. Once was funny, twice was just being mean.

So this is my public apology to David. I'm sorry, my friend. I really am. I know I pick on you a lot, but it's all honestly in good fun.

Having said that, here's an abridged history of the pranks I've played on David.

- Changed his time and date settings to Swiss French and Catalan.
- Took a screenshot of his computer with many open windows then set that picture as his wallpaper. He actually re-installed his operating system because of that one.
- Wrote a program to play the mosquito sound at random intervals and installed it on his computer. I didn't realize at the time that he would be using his laptop to demonstrate something for the scouts that evening. Oops.
- Same as above, only with a Sam Kinison scream instead of the mosquito sound.
- Rotated his iMac's display by 180 degrees. I was actually unable to set it back, and it took some serious finagling (mostly by Mike) to fix it.
- Repeatedly set his wallpaper to a "Bisexual and Proud" picture prominently featuring a rainbow.
- Intercepted the replacement iPod hard drive he had ordered and switched with a standard 3.5 inch ATA drive.
- Stuffed a beach towel into the ductwork leading into his office. This was in the middle of a very hot summer.
- Disconnected his peripherals and ran dummy cables to his computer. He couldn't figure out why his iPod wouldn't synch.
- Made a modern art arrangement of iMac "hockey puck" mice and hung it from his vent (this was actually Ted, and not me).
- Sent him a before-and-after video of his office challenging him to find ten (non-existant) differences while he was out of the office (this was mostly Tom and Ted).

There were more, but you get the idea.

David, all of us in the tech department love you. We wouldn't trade you for any other boss.

Except maybe Ted.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

As much as I always enjoy attending REAL World (and this year was no exception), it's always good to be back home again.

Today was a good day. We woke up early so the kids could find their Easter baskets, then headed to church for an early worship team practice (couldn't practice earlier in the week since I was in Texas). Then lunch at Jen's parents' house followed by dinner at my sister's, with all the requisite egg hunts and gift-giving therein.

After we got home, our realtor stopped by so we could sign the papers to finalize the sale of our current home. What a weird feeling. I always thought I'd be in this house for the rest of my life, but I guess that wasn't in the cards.

Yep, it's official: the Rhines are moving. Not far, only about fifteen minutes away, but it'll be a different town and a different school district, so there will definitely be some adjustments to be made. We've been looking on and off for a couple years now, but never found the house that really just "grabbed" us until a couple weeks ago. It's a half acre out in the country, but just a few minutes away from civilization. There are horses in the field behind our new home. And we'll have a lot more space, which we need.

Now that the adoption's done, I guess we just needed something else to fill the stress-void that was left.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

This is my son, Jonathan.



We adopted him today at the Lancaster County Courthouse.

He moved in with us a little more than a year ago, but since he was still in foster care, I couldn't say anything about him. But now he's all mine and I can say whatever I want, so here he is!

Handsome fellow, isn't he? Takes after his old man, I guess.

I'll write some more about the adoption itself soon (I had no idea the hearing itself would be so involved yet simultaneously so anti-climactic), but I just wanted to make sure everyone out there knows that this is my son.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Some sobering insights from a foster care caseworker:
Instead of regularly visiting children for whom I am legally responsible and seeing the truth with my own eyes, I do paperwork. The reason is simple: If the paperwork isn't completed, the city loses federal funds. The more government forms completed, the more federal money the city receives.

It never ceases to amaze me just how poorly we as a society care for those who need us so desperately.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Vote for Dave.

Do it. Do it now.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Happiness is...

... a dreary Monday morning...

... after an exhausting weekend...

... and you have a headache...

... and you need some caffeine...

... and you thought you were out of Diet Mountain Dew...

... but you found one last can in the fridge in the break room.



Ahhhh... sweet addiction relief.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Hard to imagine why I'm not getting much work done these days.



Nope, can't figure it out...

In the meantime, Jill's gone from cute little kitty to full grown cat, and all that that implies.



How did I get talked into this?

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, last year's resolutions didn't work out all that well. So this year, to save time, I'll just use the same resolutions:
1) Drop 25 pounds (I actually did have a net loss of about five pounds in 2007, but I think that can largely be attributed to the stomach virus I got in late December).
2) Read the entire Bible. So far, so good. Haven't missed a day yet. Grace wants to do it this year, too, so we're trying to find time every day to do it together.
3) More sleep. And I'm adding: more exercise. Right now I mostly exercise at night, but I'd like to start doing that in the morning. So my goal is to get to bed by midnight every night, then be up by six to exercise before going to work. This is something I'll have to work up to.
4) Oh yeah, and one new one: this website needs a graphic overhaul in a baaaad way.

What have you resolved to do or do better in 2008?

Posted in the section Personal | # |

I've never been much of a cat person.

Not to mention that Grace and I are both allergic.

So why did I let Grace get one?

Because Grace needs something to take care of, something that she can be responsible for.

And because I'm a pushover. You can see how the cat walks all over me already.

I do have to admit that she's pretty cute. Fiesty, though. She keeps hunting my feet, and she's a pretty good hunter.

Her name? Well, since we already have Jack, we decided to call her Jill. I also suggested Diane, as well as The Beanstalk, but nobody liked those ideas.

Tomorrow will be one week since she arrived and I have to say, so far, so good. My allergies are under control (thank you, Zyrtec) and Grace's seem to be okay as well. Jen, of course, loves having a cat; she's been pestering me to get one for years.

In the end, I'm still a dog person. Why? Let me put it this way. I remember watching a show on PBS a year or so in which some guy was showing people how to train their dogs. None of his techniques worked on my mutt, of course, but it was still interesting. He summed up how I feel about dogs by saying that dogs are the only animals that always choose to be with people. He also pointed out that you never hear of a cat spending the night with a lost child to keep it warm, but you do hear that kind of thing about dogs sometimes.

He also referred to a Native American legend about dogs:

Native American spirituality has an honored place for our canine companions. One legend says that Dog made a conscious choice to link their lives to humankind. The legend says that as the 'door' to the spirit realm began to close to humankind, Dog lept through to live alongside humans. And because of this singular devotion and sacrifice, Native American spirituality has since revered the dog.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

On Sunday my next door neighbor ended her months-long battle with Leukemia. May she rest in peace. If you have a spare moment, please pray for her husband and their three children. Some help is already lined up for them, but they'll all they can get.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Today I played paintball for the first time. Never played before. Heck, I've never even shot a gun before, except for my old BB gun.

One word review: wow.

Optional second word: ouch.

The paintball outing was with my church's men's group and was organized by my friend Steve. In all, fourteen of us went to Revolution Paintball today.

I have to confess that I was pretty nervous, especially never having played before. I paid my fee, grabbed my gun and mask, and picked up my standard issue 500 rounds of paint.

Wow, I thought. That's a lot of paint. 500 shots?

I went outside to get my gear ready, and I decided to check out the paintballs themselves. They felt hard. Really hard. The guys who had played before had told me that it hurts when you get hit, but I figured it would just sting a bit. But man, that paintball felt hard to enough to hurt quite a bit.

And as it turned out, they do hurt when they hit you.

The first hit I took was to the ring finger of my right hand. I did as instructed. I raised my arms, shouted, "I'm out!", and left the field. It really throbbed at first, but it went numb pretty quickly, so I stopped noticing and got myself cleaned up for the next game. I was surprised to see my finger start to bleed in a half dozen places, though.

For those first two games, we were playing in a field called D-Day. It was pretty cool, but it was tough to defend the lower ground, so after two games, we went to the speedball field.

We played three games on the speedball field. In the first two, I went out pretty quickly, but in the third, I managed to hold my ground for a while. I also learned just how quickly those paintball guns can fire. Wow, they can really lay down the paint.

Then we decided to play fortress. This was pretty cool. One team was in the fortress and couldn't leave, while the team was outside the fortress and couldn't enter. The teams really had to have some strategy and work together for that one. Defending the fortress turned out to be much easier than we expected, and trying to eleminate the guys inside turned out to be really difficult. When I was inside, somebody managed to get a paintball through a crack in the wood, right into my chest.

After that, we took a short break, during which Bill, my friend and pastor, bought a case of 2000 rounds. Not just regular paintballs, mind you. Evil paintball. Seriously: that was the brand name. It's really weird to see your pastor purchase a box of Evil.

Then we headed for a field they called Big Woods. That was a lot of fun, and I finally started to hit my stride with my first confirmed kill elimination. After a few games on that field, we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we played the jungle scenario, but we didn't like that one as much. It was too big and there was too much brush. It made it hard to navigate and hard to get around. There was a lot of action, though. Owen shot me, and I shot Owen and approximately the same time. Before that, I shot Steve, and just before that, Steve shot Adam. The problem was that we were all on the same team.

So we headed back to Big Woods, where our ref asked if she could play, too. She asked if we were interested doing the Presidential Assassination scenario, where she plays the president, one team protects her, and the other team tries to shoot her.

At that point, I looked at her and said, "How often do you get shot in this job?"

She laughed and said, "Oh, four or five times a day."

My team failed to shoot the president. We also failed to prevent her from being shot when we switched sides.

This was the game where I took my biggest beating. I was shot in the head. With an evil paintball. Fired by Bill, my friend and pastor. Man, did it hurt. As I raised my arms and yelled "I'm out!", I took a shot from behind in each shoulder. These are wonderful friends I have. :)

We wrapped with a couple games of speedball, mostly just to get rid of the remaining paint.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. It's hard not to feel like Rambo when you're slogging through the weeds, carrying your gun, trying to stay low and out of sight, trying to identify and shoot anything that moves.

The downside? Well, I'm pretty sore, and I have quite a few bruises, but not nearly as many as some of the guys (Tim, I'm looking in your direction). And I have a nasty welt on the side of my head. Otherwise, I feel pretty good. It was a blast.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

So, I was about to write up a rundown of this year's best and lamest April Fool's Day pranks, when I discovered that Wikipedia (of course) has already done it. So rather than re-invent the proverbial wheel, I here present you with their much more comprehensive list. Keep checking, as the list is still being edited as I write this.

But I didn't want to leave you completely prankless, so I decided it was time to write about the best April Fool's Day I ever had.

Those of you who know me know that I was a substitute teacher for several years after college. I loved being a daily sub. No take home work, no planning, and I got to hang out with kids all day. Who could ask for anything more? Of course, there was no benefits package, and the pay sucked. And there was never any guarantee of work.

That last point seldom proved to be problematic for me. I established myself as a reliable sub for a couple of schools and wound up with lots of repeat business. In fact, I often had to turn down work. Being a regular at a handful of schools was great, because I got to know the faculty and the students pretty well over time.

But on April 1, 1997, I found myself at a school where I'd never taught before. I was teaching 8th grade English at Landisville Middle School. I couldn't have asked for a better setup. See, the kids at my regular schools knew me, and they knew I could never resist a cheap joke, so April Fool's Day wouldn't have been as much as fun with them; they would have been expecting it from me. But at a new school, the possibilities were endless.

For my first period class, I went with the standard fake pop quiz. I even found some ScanTron forms and passed them out before I let the kids off the hook. They weren't terribly pleased with me, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I soon enlisted their help. During first period, I got out my seating chart for second period, and I asked the kids who could take a joke. They discussed the matter and gave me a name. Then I gathered from them all of the information they could muster, from easily known and obvious things to ridiculous details that I could never possibly know. I swore them to secrecy, and they agreed (and as it turned out, they all kept the secret).

When second period started, I took roll orally. This was pretty much standard operating procedure for a sub, so it aroused no suspicion. But when I came to the victim's name on my seating chart, I paused. "Hey!" I said. "I know you!"

The victim was confused. She had no idea who I was.

"Don't you remember me?" I asked. By now, the other kids in the class were staring and wondering how I knew her. I started with the easy stuff. "Oh, come on! Your mom's name is Sally and your dad's name is Mark." More confusion. That's when I poured it on. "You spent July at the lake, right? And you were upset because you had to share a room with your cousin, remember?"

At this point, the victim was in shock. She could not remember me to save her life, and with good reason. So I finally dropped the bomb: "April Fool's!"

The class erupted into hysterical laughter, and victim heaved a sigh of relief before laughing herself.

When the laughter died down, I produced my third period seating chart and asked the second period kids who could take a joke. Then I swore them to secrecy.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Amazingly, the 8th graders kept their secret all day long. In every period, I was able to take someone completely by surprise.

Ah, it was a great day. One of my best. Lots of good fun, and no one got hurt. And we even got our classwork done.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Click here for my original list.

1) When they show commercials during On-Demand programming. Come on, man. I've already paid for the content. If you're going to show me commercials, then don't charge me. Conversely, if you're going to charge me, then don't show me commercials.

2) People who let their kids run around like maniacs at the play area at Park City Center. If you can't control your kid, keep him at home.

3) Speaking of the mall, people who ignore regular traffic patterns when shopping in stores. This is America. We drive, walk, run, and otherwise ambulate on the right. This isn't rocket science. It's not even a science.

4) Diclofenac. I'm currently taking this for pain in my right heel and I can't say as it's doing much for the pain. It's doing a lot, just not for the pain. Possible side effects may include constipation, ringing in the ears, unexplained weight gain, fever, blisters, hives, difficulty breathing or swallowing, headache, dizziness, excessive tiredness, lack of energy, painful urination. Lovely. Fortunately, the only side effects I've noticed are a headache and some general lightheadedness. Maybe some lack of energy, but I'd be hard pressed to pin that exclusively on the medicine.

5) The bully who kept taking the ball right out of Grace's hands during her basketball game yesterday. She's one of about three girls in the whole league, and there's no need to put the biggest, meanest boy up against her. Every time she got the ball, he walked right up to her and ripped it out of her hands. I haven't seen her that upset in a long time. Anyway, this isn't high-stakes stuff we're talking about. They don't even keep score. But some of the parents act like they're watching their first and second graders in the playoffs.

6) The fact I barely ever play my Rickenbacker anymore. Although I hope that's changing soon. Single coil pickups rule.

7) The fact that I still can't figure out how to do ChordPro parsing and rendering in REALbasic. I'm sure it can be done, and I think it's probably pretty easy, but every time I try, I can't get my head around the problem. I should probably try it sometime when it's not late at night and I'm all tired. Plus, I haven't tried all that hard. Really.

8) All the stupid "Grow-themed" games that are popping up all over the net. Maybe it's just me, but I just don't get it. Games are supposed to be fun, not weird.

9) That The Shins played in Philly last week and I didn't go. They are rapidly becoming one of my favorite bands.

10) A bug in Tangelo that's making it eat images. It's driving me nuts. I know it's something simple and stupid, but I haven't figured it out yet, and it's really starting to drive me nuts.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

I get sore throats pretty often. And I completely lose my voice once or twice a year, fairly consistently. Between leading worship on Sunday mornings and leading worship team practice on Wednesday nights, my vocal cords get a decent workout, so I figure it's all part of the deal.

But not this time.

No, this time, I've become a victim of streptococcal pharyngitis, aka strep throat. I haven't had this since I was a little kid, but I have it right now.

It started Friday night with a small tickle in my throat. No big deal, probably just need to drink more fluids in this cold, dry weather.

By mid-day on Saturday, my legs were aching, I was freezing cold, and my all of my skin was tender. And my throat was really beginning to hurt, but in a way that I'm not used to. Hot tea wasn't helping. Lozenges weren't helping very much. And Aleve wasn't doing much at all. Oh well, I figured I'd feel better on Sunday.

Boy, was I wrong on that one. I woke up in a panic on Sunday because my throat was worse than ever. It hurt whether I swallowed or not. Doubting that I would be able to lead worship, I began to develop alternate plans in my mind as I packed my family and my gear into my car to get to church by 8:00 (I was late). Truth be told, I was partially hoping that the snow the weathermen were calling for would come early so that it wouldn't be an issue.

But I got to church and told the team I probably wouldn't be singing. We were down three people already between travel plans and tax season, so the others, while very forgiving and understanding, were justifiably concerned. We only had time run through one or two songs before the service, so re-arranging the whole service to rely on others' strengths was out of the question. I decided I'd give it a try, even though my throat was still on fire and my legs felt like they wouldn't hold me up.

To my astonishment, I could sing. We ran through two songs to warm up, and I made it through both. My pastor slipped me a couple lozenges and I kept sipping hot tea.

Usually our service has the bulk of the music at the beginning, followed by the sermon. Most of time, we'll follow the sermon with one more song, typically a shortened version of a song we've done earlier in the service with just me on the guitar. By that song, my voice was starting to give out.

By Sunday evening, my temperature was well over 100, and I knew there was no way I was going to work on Monday. I wasn't even going to try. So I emailed my boss and co-workers to let them know what was going on, took a hot bath, and went to bed.

On Monday, I didn't feel any better. If anything, I felt worse. My fever was coming and going, but my throat was consistently sore. I made it to the doctor's office to get checked out. The nurse swabbed my throat with that giant Q-Tip thingy and said she'd be back with the strep test results in six minutes. She was back in less than two with a positive result. The doctor put me on penicillin and sent me home.

Since then, I've been recoving and resting, but honestly, I still don't feel that great. My throat is marginally better, and my fever seems to be gone, but I feel completely wiped out. I'm going to try to get to work tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll make it or not.

But it could be worse. A good friend of mine had brain surgery today, and another friend has had a really nasty sinus infection for more than two months, so I really shouldn't complain about strep throat.

And yet I do.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, after about a six month lag in new posts to the multi-user version of truetech, I've pulled the plug on the group thing and reclaimed the domain for myself. I hope Dave, Tom, and Bill won't mind, but I think we can declare our efforts at a group blog a dismal failure. Not to mention all the time it was taking to keep up the comment spam that Wordpress kept getting hammered with.

So I'm back home at truetech for my personal blog. And life is good. Still need to fix up the template a bit and clean up the old posts, but otherwise, I'm back in business.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Yeah, I know. New Year's Resolutions are so passe. But I don't care. Now seems as good a time as any to make some fresh starts. So here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2007.

1) Lose 30 pounds.
This is a two pronged resolution. First, since I've been so very lax with my eating habits, I need to get back onto the Atkins diet full force. Second, since I've been so very lazy when it comes to taking care of my body, I need to start exercising. With our school district's wellness center across the hall from my office, I really have no good excuse. I'm going to shoot for one hour twice a week, plus regular walks. Right now I'm at 210 pounds, and I'd like to hit 180 in or around March. I'm hoping to use this blog to keep me somewhat accountable, so I'm going to try to post regular updates about my weight and my diet/exercise status. Don't be afraid to hassle me about it.

2) Read the entire Bible.
I did this in 2003, and since then, I haven't been as faithful as I should be in studying the Bible. I still have my Daily Walk Bible that I used in 2003, and I plan to use it again.

3) Get more sleep.
'Nuff said.

So there you have it. Nothing earth-shattering, and probably nothing even that out of the ordinary, but that's how I want to be better this year.

How about you?

Posted in the section Personal | # |

OK, that has to be the worst movie I've ever seen.

IMDB has it listed as Dear Santa, but in the OnDemand listings, it was called My Santa, My Dad, and it was absolutely terrible.

I'm pretty easy on movies, in general. But this one was a stinker. I'm glad I didn't watch it until today, because if I had watched it just a few days ago, it may very well have ruined Christmas for me.

I'd try to explain the plot, but I don't want to turn away the few regular readers I have.

It was like watching a bunch of sixth graders try to put on a movie with no adult supervision, and it was written by the dumb kid who never says anything that makes any sense. And that's being generous.

I feel like I need a shower.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

This weekend, I...
...learned that camels growl.
...got growled at by a camel.
...ate Nino's pizza in Millersville.
...went to my daughter's first basketball game. Sadly, her team lost by two baskets, but all the kids played well.
...watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Thumbs up.
...went to my nephew's second basketball game. Sadly, his team lost by one basket.
...learned how to operate the scorekeeping machine thingy at my nephew's basketball game. Hey, it plugs in; let the computer guy handle it!
...tried to get my nephew's coach to bribe me to help his team win. He wouldn't do it, so they lost and I didn't make any extra cash.
...solved the weird reverb problem with my church's sound system.
...watched my father-in-law impulsively stick his finger into a donkey's mouth.
...watched my father-in-law nearly get his finger bitten off by a donkey.
...received communion from a guy who looked distressingly like Horatio Sans.
...ate at Hoss's.
...wrote a program that combined 99 AIFF files into one QuickTime movie in about two seconds (the program ran in two seconds; it took about an hour to write).
...put one of our pastor's sermons online for the first time.
...worked on my church's website some more. No link; it's not ready yet. Although the clever among could probably figure out the domain name.
...installed a Nintendo emulator on my PC for Grace.
...cursed the stupid mine cart level in Donkey Kong Country.
...watched a cat hiss at Grace, then try to hide from her. The cat just doesn't like her.
...took Jack for a walk.
...swtiched Jack to a new dog food.
...helped Jen clean up dog vomit a couple times.
...switched Jack back to his old food.
...took possession of our new loveseat. Leather.... mmmmmm....
...checked my new database server pretty often. Almost to OCD levels. As of this moment, it's up and running.
...performed the Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan arrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings" at church.
...played with a chihuahua and a dachsund at Petology.
...scoured Ollie's for inexpensive gifts that Jen needs for a children's Christmas party.
...listened to the Chipmunks' Christmas album about five times.
...watched Grace, my nephews, and my nephews' neighbor make gingerbread houses.
...stole and ate a lot of candy from said gingerbread houses.
...played with the Photoshop CS3 beta.
...drove around looking at Christmas lights.
...saw three really short horses.
...finished reading Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura.
...started reading Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia.

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CBS News: Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, died Monday, a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.

As Snagglepuss would say, "Exit, stage left."

May he rest in peace. His partner Hanna passed away in 2001.

Grace just watched her first episode of Yogi Bear not three days ago, and she thought it was really cool. And she's now discovering how great some of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons were, especially since Cartoon Network owns the rights to them.

She discovered The Flintstones on her own, when Fred showed up on an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, which I have to admit is a pretty funny show.

But it can't compare to the classics like Huckleberry Hound, The Great Grape Ape, Quick McGraw, Jabberjaw, Scooby Doo, The Jetsons, Magilla Gorilla, Jonny Quest, and of course, the venerable Hong Kong Phooey (number one super guy).

So this is the end of an era. Of course, things haven't been the same since Bill Hanna died, but this seals the deal. The future of these classics is now in the hands of Cartoon Network.

From the article: The team's cartoons spanned "the Stone Age to the Space Age and from primetime to Saturday mornings, syndication and cable," Meyer said. "While he will be missed by his family and friends, (Barbera) will live on through his work."

Yep, Snagglepuss said it best: Exit, stage left.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

The basement is, as the title of this post implies, almost finished. The carpet was installed two days ago. We've been working on it for about a month and a half now. All that's left is some trim and a couple door fittings.

Here's the best part.


Click for larger image.

Yay! I finally have a home theater! The projector is nothing fancy, an Acer 1150DX, but it's plenty for my needs. It's hooked up to an Aiwa surround sound system and our Comcast On-Demand thingy. I still need to pick up a DVD/VCR combo, but that will probably be a Christmas present.

I'm so thankful that Jen's dad helped out so much. I'm not very handy, so his help was invaluable. We had to build some walls, install a ton of outlets, put in a ceiling, and lots of other fun stuff, so I'd have been lost on my own.

And I'm thankful for Jen's help and patience. She handled a lot of the painting during the day so I could work on other (mostly heavier) things at night. Not to mention cooking for her dad and me all the time! No small task, that. And also thanks to Tom for his brief but valuable help.

Jack seems to be better now. He used to enjoy going downstairs by himself, but from the time we started demolition on the old stuff to the time the new carpet came, he was beside himself. He was really stressed out and didn't even want to come near the basement, alone or with us. As soon as the carpet was installed, he took his toys down and has been having a blast down there ever since! Weird dog.

Anyway, that's what I've been working on for a while now. Hopefully I can resume some regular updates now.

And I'm taking requests for movie night.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

I'll admit it: I don't like Halloween.

And no, it's not a religious objection or anything like that. I help my daughter get dressed up and I take her trick or treating and everything. We walked all over our development tonight, along with three other families. And this past Friday, I dressed up like a pirate and went to a costume party in my neighborhood.

I just don't like Halloween.

It's been six years today since we lost our son. He was stillborn on October 31, 2000. And every Halloween since, I can't help but think what he would been like, what he would have looked like.

Honestly, I don't think about him too much anymore. Too much other stuff to do, with work and church and family. But on Halloween, I can't help it. Once or twice tonight, I almost turned back and went home, just to sit and be alone and think about him. But I figured that wouldn't be very productive, and I didn't want to leave my daughter.

So yeah, I don't like Halloween.

In fact, I hate Halloween.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

It happens every morning.

Actually, it happens every nine minutes every weekday morning.

I try. I really do. Every time it happens, I promise myself it will be the last time. But alas, I always fall back into my old ways.

It starts at 6:00 AM, when my first alarm goes off. I wake up, reach over to the clock, and push the big button on the top in order to shut off the noise before it wakes up my wife. I know it won't wake my daughter. After seven years, she's become impervious to the alarm clock.

But once the clock has been silenced, I lie in bed and stare at the big green numbers. And I think, "I could get up early today. Get my shower and then maybe make breakfast for everyone. Maybe even get to work early. Yeah, today, I'll turn over a new leaf. In fact, I have time to take the dog for a walk before my shower. I'm going to do this every day from now on! This is the start of a new...."

And then I fall asleep again.

I know that it goes off again at 6:09 and 6:18, but I don't really remember it happening on any given day.

And at 6:27, all I know is that I'm clawing at every button on the clock in quiet despair, because my brian is too mushy to get the right one. Sometimes I turn on the "nap" feature, which then panics me because I don't really know what it does.

At 6:30, my second alarm goes off. My wife bought me the dual alarm clock a few years ago. Most people buy them so that each spouse can have a distinct wake up time. Not me. I have one because I have actually outslept my old alarm clock. It stopped trying to wake me up several times.

There's another alarm at 6:36, and another at 6:39. That's about the time I think, "Okay, no more fooling around. If I don't get up now, I'm not going to...."

And then I fall asleep again. Until 6:45. At which point, I disable all alarms and climb out of bed to begin my morning routine. Or, if it's an especially bad day, sometimes I unconsciously disable all alarms and then go back to sleep, only to be awakened some time after 7:00 by the cartoons my daughter is watching.

Now, before anyone tells me that I need to get more sleep, let me just say: "No duh."

But the fact is, I usually feel better on less sleep, within reason. Less than about four hours, and I'm worthless. With between four and five hours of sleep, I can get up pretty well. Anything between six and nine hours, and I feel like a zombie in the morning. With nine and up, I'm a bit groggy, but generally okay.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

A few days ago marked the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack. Politics aren't really my thing, so I don't have a whole to say about it.

I will mention that September 11, 2001, was the day we got our dog Jack. We had been to the Lancaster Humane League the prior Saturday and found him there among his fellow canine inmates. The good folks at the Humane League asked us to return on Tuesday morning.

On Monday, September 10, I arranged to take the following morning off of work so that I could along with my wife and daughter to bring Jack home.

I woke up late on September 11 and ate a leisurely breakfast with my family, which was a special treat for me. While we ate, my father-in-law called and said that we should turn on the television to check out what was going on. He told us that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We sat and watched while we finished our breakfast, unable to make sense of the situation.

We left the house shortly thereafter and went to the Humane League, where we picked up Jack. He was scrawny and dirty and seemed to have some bladder issues. But he was gentle and friendly, and neither he nor Grace feared the other. We took him for a short walk, and we all decided he was the dog for us. When we went back inside and did the paperwork, we watched on the small television behind the counter as the second tower collapsed. By now, we were hearing rumors of two more planes that had been hijacked.

On the ride home, we listened to the radio in disbelief as we heard about another plane hitting the Pentagon.

When we got home, Jack tried to run away for the first of many times. By that time, most of the local schools were dismissing their students. I called my boss to tell him I wouldn't be in the rest of the day.

I remember that my grandparents stopped by with my aunt and uncle, and my father-in-law stopped by later. It seemed like people wanted to be around other people. I had always wondered about my parents' ability to connect with other people of their generation simply by talking about where they were and what they were doing when they heard about President Kennedy being shot. Suddenly, I understood. This would be the day that defined and connected my generation.

Slate is hosting Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón's extremely well done graphic adaptation of the 9/11 Report. It's well worth checking out.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

So we're going to the beach for the weekend in a few weeks. Jen's aunt and uncle co-own a beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey, so we after the rental season winds down, we usually get a free weekend in the fall. I think I've probably written about it before.

Anyway, this leaves us with what is becoming a common conundrum: what to do with the dog?

We used to call my mom's neighbor, but she recently adopted Max, and Jack and Max kinda get along, but they're not good buddies or anything, so that may not be a bad idea. We had a very nice girl from our church watch Jack over the summer, but she's gone away to college.

But I digress.

Thinking about a dogsitter recently got me thinking about some of my own dogsitting experiences.

About thirteen or fourteen years ago, Jen and I were teaching fourth grade Sunday School at the church we were attending. One Sunday, The parents of one of our students asked me if I'd be willing to watch their house and take care of their dogs while they went away on a trip. I love dogs, and I knew they had a big Rottweiler (among some other pooches), so I agreed.

They lived in a big old house in the country, about a half an hour's drive from my parent's house (this was before I had moved out). I was kind of looking forward to a weekend of relative solitude out there by myself with just the dogs. So I packed up my Macintosh Classic (thinking about lugging that thing around like I used to makes me so glad to have a laptop now) and headed out to the country.

On Friday night, I settled in, made some dinner for myself, fed the dogs, and sat down at my computer for a couple hours. Two of the dogs were hunting dogs, and they lived outside (note: these were not my dogs and if you want to point out that pets belong inside, you won't get an argument from me). But Tasha, the big Rottweiler, lived inside. She was a really cool dog. She was big and strong enough to treat me like a squeaky toy if she wanted to, but she was very gentle and playful.

Anyway, I eventually decided to get some sleep, probably some time after midnight. I stretched out on the couch in the living room, with Tasha on the floor next to me. As I started to drift off, I noticed Tasha moving. Having grown up with dogs, I figured she heard or saw something, and she went to check it out. She went to the back door, then to the front door, then to each window on the ground floor. Then she stared out one window for a few moments before lying back down.

About an hour later (sometimes it takes me a while to fall asleep), she did it again. Back door, front door, each window, staring out the window, then lying back down.

It took me until about the third or fourth time that she did this for me to realize that she wasn't merely checking out a sound she heard. She was on patrol. She was the guard dog, and she apparently took her job quite seriously. I think that inside her big old doggie brain, I wasn't there to take care of her. Not at all. You see, inside her big old doggie brain, she was there to take care of me.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, the PowerPoint/Keynote tip that I posted on Friday saved my butt this morning.

I'm currently in charge of A/V stuff (music, sound, video, computer) during my church's Sunday morning services. Wherever I can, I use Keynote for the presentations. This morning, Luis was scheduled to spend a few minutes at the end of the service sharing about his recent missions trip to Peru. My pastor told me that Luis would have four or five pictures to share on the screen.

Luis showed up with a USB drive containing 55 pictures.

Now, this is a good thing. He had lots of great photos of the trip to share with the congregation. But I was left with only a few minutes to get 55 pictures into this morning's Keynote file.

Using Friday's tip, this was a breeze. Each of the 55 pictures was imported and placed onto its own slide in about 90 seconds. In fact, the only obstacle I ran into was trying stop one of the kids from making shadow puppets in front of the projector while I worked on it.

So in the end, Luis shared some really interesting pictures with us. It was very humbling to see the circumstances in which many Peruvians live. As Jen and I contemplate moving or renovating, it was striking to see homes with no roofs, or with walls made out of cardboard.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Some good things that have happened/are happening.

1. Tom and Audra are getting hitched. Congratulations! My prayer for you is to be as happy as Jen and I are.
2. Tangelo 1.5 Public Beta is out and the skins contest is underway.
3. I burned a CD in Ubuntu Linux. I know it sounds silly, but I can remember when getting a floppy disk to show up in Linux was cause for celebration. My PC dual boots between XP Home and Ubuntu Linux. I mostly keep it in XP so Grace can play her games and stuff. I installed Ubuntu mostly just to experiment; I don't expect to use it as a main OS. Although, I must admit, it's much better than I expected it to be.
4. Dan is moving to Portland. Honestly, I'm kinda sad about this, since I've come to value Dan tremendously as a friend, but I'm happy for him. He's doing what he wants to do, and you have to respect that. Here's hoping we find a good replacement for his position at work.
5. As I've mentioned before, I'm itching to start playing in a band again. Nothing definite yet, but some progress has been made on that front. Stay tuned.
6. I finally started work on my bug database (programming bugs, not insects) after talking and thinking about it for like two years. I've decided to call it Thrip, at least for now. A thrip is some kind of bug that likes citrus fruit.
7. Got a raise. Cha-ching!
8. The latest issue of RBDeveloper has my Kodiak article in it!
9. Jen and I watched three of the five original Planet of the Apes movies. Hugely entertaining. My bro-in-law taped all five when AMC ran its marathon a couple years back and lent me the tape. These are movies I've been meaning to watch for years, but I never got around to it. We still have to watch Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and then I think we'll be ready to watch the remake Tim Burton made with Marky Mark in 2001. This all, of course, made me think of Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want To Get Off! (YouTube link) from The Simpsons.
10. New folks on Worship Team at church. I'm blessed to be surrounded by incredibly talented and humble people in ministry there. How I ended up leading this team I'll never know, but I'm grateful to serve alongside such people.
11. I got to be in the dunk tank at our church picnic a couple weeks ago. That was a hoot, although I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended at the number of people that lined up to take a shot at me.

I guess that's about it for now. I'm trying to get back to regular updates...

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Vacation Update:

That is all.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

1) The guy on 283 with the DON'T TELL ME WHAT KIND OF DAY TO HAVE bumper sticker that flips me off every time he sees me. And he's adamant about it, too. When he flips me off, he purses his lips and his face looks like he's barely containing his rage. I have no idea what that's about. I think the dude needs to think about switching to decaf or something.

2) The tetanus shot I got this evening. Hurts like a boogie. My whole right arm is stiff and sore.

3) Visual Basic. I just tried it. And it's nasty. Ewww. How do people use that thing?

4) The fact that the pharmacist and cashier at Eckerd's totally and completely ignored me when I tried to fill the prescription for my new allergy medicine tonight. The pharmacist wasn't Chuck, and that was the problem. Chuck takes care of us. This guy didn't. After 15 minutes of the two of them making eye contact with me and rapidly looking away, I left. Jen asked me why I didn't say anything, but they obviously knew I was there. Dweebs.

5) Speaking of allergy medicine, the fact that I need a prescription now. Not because my allergies have gotten worse or changed in any way, but because the stupid government won't let me buy more than one or two boxed of my beloved Actifed knockoff at a time. I'm sure this policy will bring all the meth labs to a grinding halt in production, but in the meantime, it's really become a hassle to get my medicine. So the doctor gave me a prescription for Zirtec instead.

6) Hippies.

7) My left foot. It's kinda bugging me tonight. It was okay for a long time, but it's been acting up lately. I actually soaked it tonight. I haven't had to do that for a while.

8) How iChat always open up the enclosing folder when someone sends me a file. Where do I turn that off? That's so irritating!

9) The fact that I can't figure out how to do ChordPro parsing and rendering in REALbasic. I'm sure it can be done, and I think it's probably pretty easy, but every time I try, I can't get my head around the problem. I should probably try it sometime when it's not late at night and I'm all tired.

10) Report cards. Report cards bug me. All report cards bug me.

11) People who describe a 1% tax increase as a 20% tax increase. It's disingenuous.

12) That my REALbasic subscription ran out, and that I can't really justify renewing until I can compile Universal Binaries. Note to RS guys who read this site: it's nothing personal; that's just my biggest need right now. I know you guys are working on it as hard as you can, and I appreciate it, and I'm not threatening to drop RB for Cocoa/Java/.NET or anything.

13) People who threaten to drop RB for Cocoa/Java/.NET when they don't get what they want from a new release.

14) That I can't decide on a good desktop picture right now. That's really bugging me.

15) Volkswagens.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

I'll admit it: I'm a big softie. I have a long and storied history of crying at movies, dating back to my childhood when Snoopy, Come Home always choked me up.

This afternoon, the movie of choice was Because of Winn-Dixie. It was a good movie, very cute and family friendly. And yes, it made me cry.

Now, before you go hurling epithets at me, let me explain. There were several themes at work in this film. First, there was the (very obvious) dog theme. I'm a dog-lover, through and through (note my Snoopy reference above), so dog movies get me every single time. Second, there was the father/daughter theme. Being the father of a young girl myself, I have an automatic affinity for such stories. Then throw in the redemption theme and toss in a world-weary guitarist who just wants to play music for animals, and you've got yourself a surefire tearjerker as far as I'm concerned. I didn't stand a chance.

All kidding aside, I was very interested to see how Dave Matthews did in this film, as I've never seen him act before. I thought he did a good job, although it would have been tough for him to mess up the whole freaky musician thing. His guitar playing, which I nearly always enjoy, was a really nice touch in several parts of the film.

Anyway, Grace had invited a friend over to watch the movie, and the two of them were lying on the floor in front of the couch, so I don't think they saw me wiping my eyes. I'm not sure if Jen did or not, but I was slightly more confident that she wouldn't tease me as much as the girls would have. In the end, nobody said anything, so either Jen didn't see, or she was being kind. I could go either way.

Let me conclude by saying that this curse is genetic. My mother cries at coffee commercials, so at least I'm a step up from that. By the way, Mom, feel free to leave a comment some time. I know you read this.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

In journalism class, I learned that 030 means "end of story." I've recently reached my own 030 in one area of my life. I'm not going into details here, though. You want to know, you come and ask me, because I'm not falling for that again.

Anyway, I'm back and publishing again. Thanks to everyone who contacted me to find out what was up. Things are fine, now, and mostly back to normal. Let's just say that I'm constantly amazed by the people of this world.

If you're reading this, you know that I've moved my weblog off of truetech.org. I've turned that into a WordPress weblog that I'm sharing with Tom and Dave. So we'll see where that goes.

Well, it's getting late, and I've been working on my new template for a while now, so I'll leave you with this: Youth minister smites dodgeball opponent. Discuss.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

I'll admit, I'm intrigued by personality tests. I enjoy taking them immensely for some reason (probably because I'm twisted or something).

Rob sent me this one and it looks interesting, because it's collaborative. Check it out. If you start your own, let me know in the comments.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Bill noted that I should really include the Great Thin Mints Debate in the Greatest Hits links on the sidebar. I agree, and I have rectified the situation. After all, it was, quite possibly, one of the defining moments of this weblog.

And rectify is a funny word.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

From a CHUD interview with Bruce Willis:
I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion, I want them to stop pissing on my money and your money, the tax dollars that we give 50 per cent of or 40 per cent of every year, and I want them to be fiscally responsible, and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican. But other than that, I want the government to take care of people who need help, like the kids in foster care, the half a million kids who are in orphanages right now, they call them foster homes but they're orphanages. I want them to take care of the elderly and give them free medicine, give them whatever they need. There's tons, billions and billions of dollars that are just being wasted. Okay? I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican.
(Emphasis mine)

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Via TheForce.Net:

Steve Sansweet interview with new info: "The other project is live action, and the live action is going to take place between Episode 3 and Episode 4. We're looking at a 1 hour show and [Producer] Rick McCallum has said the ideal would be to come up with 100 hours to really get into the story line and characters, and that's the direction we're going in. So that is really targeted more towards the end of the decade."

Reference

End of the decade? That sucks!

Posted in the section Personal | # |

So, I finally went to the doctor tonight about my little bronchial problem. As I expected, I have bronchitis. I've had no decent voice since last Tuesday, which meant I was unable to run worship team practice on Wednesday and unable to sing in church on Sunday morning. For me, being unable to sing is a lot like being paralyzed. At any rate, I'm starting to find doctors annoying. Here's what was said, along with the unspoken subtext.

Doctor: Wow, looks like you don't come here very often.
Translation: Wow, we're not making any money off of you.

Me: I was here in September.
Translation: Yes, you're right.

Doctor: Ah, yes. For your foot. How's that doing?
Translation: Is there anything billable there?

Me: Fine.
Translation: It still hurts but you're not coming anywhere near my foot with a needle, Doc.

Doctor: Have you had a full workup lately? Had your cholesterol checked?
Translation: You need a checkup there, fatty.

Me: Yeah, there was this health fair thing at work.
Translation: I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Doctor: So what brings you here tonight?
Translation: Dang, you look like crap.

Me: Well, I don't usually sound like this.
Translation: What do you think, dufus?

Doctor (listening to my lungs with stethoscope): Sounds raspy.
Translation: Are your lungs filled with small pieces of jagged, rusty metal?

Me: Cough cough cough.
Translation: Cough cough cough.

And so on and so forth. I really kinda ran out of steam there. Should have thought that out a bit more. Sorry about that.

So now I'm ZMax, a single dose version of Zithromax. It's a powder, and you stir it into water, chug it down, and it stays with you for ten days. Side effects may include upset stomach, diarrhea, headache, and other lovelies.

But with any luck, I'll have some of my voice back for worship team practice tomorrow night.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Jim Carrey, Weirdo Freak, 1962
Susanna Hoffs, Musician/All-Around Hottie, 1959
Benjamin Franklin, Inventor/Statesman/Pervert, 1706
Betty White, Annoying, 1922
James Earl Jones, The Voice of Darth Vader, 1931
Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop's Sidekick, 1934
Mack Sennett, The Spike Lee of his Generation, 1880
Andy Kaufman, Mighty Mouse Fan, 1949
Pius V, Pope-Type Dude, 1504
Brad Rhine, Data Manager/Worship Leader, 1973

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Reference

I call bullcrap.

My department has done many a great thing without being the least bit enthused about it.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

My left foot hurts.

It's been giving me trouble since foster child O was here. See, O had really bad reflux for her first few months, and the only way to settle her down when it hurt her was to bop her. Almost violently. Jen and I stayed up many nights, pretty much just holding O and doing deep knee bends as fast as we could. Well, my legs aren't terribly strong (although it has been suggested that they resemble steel sinews), and to give them a break, I would switch to bopping on my feet. At some point, I pulled something or other in my foot.

I didn't notice right away. It would hurt like a boogie when I woke up in the morning, but I didn't think anything of it. I figured I was just getting older. So I'd limp around the house until I left for work, and by then it was starting to feel better. By the time I got home, I barely noticed it.

That lasted until about May. In May I started walking with a slight limp from the pain, and my family started noticing. I told them I was fine.

In August, I finally went to the doctor, since it had gotten to the point where I was limping quite a bit. The doctor diagnosed me with Plantar Fasciitis, which is Latin for really bad foot pain. It actually means that I had an inflamed tissue on the bottom of my foot, right in front of the heel. The doctor told me to wear comfortable sneakers whenever possible (and I've followed this advice religiously to this day, believe me), to take prescription strength Naproxen for six weeks (which was great: no headaches, no pain of any kind; it was like a pre-emptive strike against any possible pain), and to soak my foot twice a day in a whirlpool. I was also supposed to get some inserts for my shoes, but my perfectly flat feet complicated that situation a bit.

He suggested we check it again after a few weeks. If I still had pain at that point, he was planning to inject an anti-inflammatory directly into my foot.

Like fun, buddy. No one's going anywhere near my foot with a needle, pal. So I never called back for the follow up visit, and my left foot has given me nagging pain on and off ever since.

But tonight the pain very different. Usually it's kind of a dull throb, like a sore muscle. Tonight, it's more of a searing sensation shooting into my heel. I've had to stop and take all weight off of my left foot a few times tonight, just walking around the house.

I figure this isn't a good development, but we'll see what happens.

Bottom line: respect the foot.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, again with the silence.

Apparently I skipped all of November.

Time to remedy that. Time to start posting stuff here again.

I'll start with a recap of the past year or so, with the intention of showing you why it's been a quiet year here on truetech.org.

[Six paragraphs have been deleted here, because there is simply too much malice in the world. I never thought I'd need an editorial policy for my own personal site, but maybe it's time to think about that. Anyway, those six paragraphs are gone now. -Brad]

And I don't remember if I wrote about this or not, but I've also accepted the role of Worship Leader at our church. Each week, I pick out the music, coordinate the musicians, run rehearsal, prepare the computer slides, and lead the service. It's a lot of work, but I love it and I wouldn't trade it for anything. 2004 was kind of a dark year for me, with Westwood closing down at the very start of the year. We spent most of 2004 searching for a church where we felt like we fit. NewSong Fellowship Church West ended being that church. Before long, I was asked to lead worship one Sunday morning. Shortly thereafter, I was leading every other week. Next thing I knew, it was every week. Have I mentioned that I love it? It's like it's in my blood or something. But it took some time to get up to speed, which is another reason I haven't been able to devote as much time to this site as I'd like.

Combine all of that with the usual work schedule, the demands of family life, and the ongoing battle against the grubs for control of my yard, and it's been a busy year.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Wow. It's been a while. Almost a month. Sorry about that.

This is the time of year when everything gets crazy for my department. Hopefully it will ease up around Christmas.

So, anyway, here's what I've been up to. Since my last post I...

1. cleaned someone else's vomit off of my PowerBook.
   
2. had my first experience in meeting the biological mother of one of our foster kids. And yes, it was incredibly awkward.
   
3. learned, quite by accident, that our very first foster kids from a year ago are doing well and look healthy.
   
4. made huge changes to Tangelo (mostly in the area of FTP publishing).
   
5. took my family on our annual trip to Ocean City, NJ.
   
6. cried several times because I miss our most recent foster daughter so much.
   
7. received a ridiculous amount of compliments on how cool our stroller/backpack combo is. Although, truth be told, it is pretty cool.
   
8. took two vacation days.
   
9. released an updated version of Kodiak.
   
10. made lego versions of my coworkers.
    
11. went back on Atkins. Several times, in fact.
    
12. ate pizza at Mack & Manco's.
    
13. finally made another batch of my homemade raspberry iced tea.
    
14. decided, along with Jen, that working with Lancaster's Children and Youth Agency is very frustrating.
    
15. contacted, along with Jen, the president of the Lancaster Foster Parent Association.
    
16. helped my church purchase a Korg Triton LE 88 to replace the out of tune piano our host building lets us use as part of the rental.
    
17. ran my USB jump drive through the wash. Still works, though. All part of my "data cleansing" project at work.
    
18. rented a dumpster and began the monumental task of dejunkifying my house.
    
19. was quoted in a REAL Software press release about the REAL World conference.
    
20. had quite a few long discussions about what Pennsylvania really means when it says "Attribution School" on PSSA results.
    
21. couldn't think of any more witty death matches.
    
22. got to visit Tanya.
    
23. bought some new jeans.
    
24. acquired yet another hideous green PowerSchool t-shirt.
    
25. attended Parent Visitation Day at Gracie's school. I got to eat lunch with her. It was really, really nice.
    

Posted in the section Personal | # |

This morning, as Jen and I lay in bed, nearly motionless, at an hour far past that which should have seen us up and about, she said, "I feel really lazy, just lying here doing nothing."

"Hey," I said. "You've earned it. You deserve to lie here doing nothing for a while. Go back to sleep."

On Thursday morning, I woke up and went about my routine, just like every other weekday. I checked my email, took a quick look at NetNewsWire Lite, shaved, took a shower, gathered my gear, packed my lunch, kissed Jen goodbye, looked in on Grace, and looked in our foster daughter.

But it was the last time I'd look in on her.

The social worker arrived at 2:45 PM, a full fifteen minutes early, to come and take her back to her mother.

I had left work a few hours early so I could be home when she left. Her departure was kind of anticlimactic in the end. The social worker took the baby, strapped her in her car seat, and drove her out of our lives.

Jen, Gracie, and I stood in the front yard for a moment or two and blinked back tears. She was gone. We walked inside and closed the door, and then started cleaning up and packing up baby gear. More tears came, but we were okay.

We had picked up this baby from the hospital when she was two days old, in mid-February. She'd been with us ever since. Now, at just over five months old, she was going back to her mother.

I tried not to get attached. But she wiggled her way into my heart, and she had become my girl, a title I'd previously bestowed upon only Jen and Grace. She knew me, and I could see in her face that she thought I was her Daddy. When I came home from work, she smiled and giggled. She knew my tricks. When I held her up, she arched backward to get me to swing her gently back and scoop her up again. Then she'd smile a crooked smile at me and lean back again. I knew her most ticklish spots, and I knew which of my silly faces made her smile and laugh.

As I stood in the yard and watched her drive away, I wondered what would go through her head as she cried for us. Would she wonder why we weren't coming? Would she think we'd abandoned her?

The consolation, of course, is bittersweet at best: within a few weeks, she'll forget all about us.

Last night, Grace went to sleep at my parents' house so that Jen and I could have the first night to ourselves we've had since February. This morning, we slept in, more for Jen's sake than for mine.

Jen's the real hero. She was the one who did the late night feedings and diaper changes. She was the one who carted her to the doctor. She was the one who still took care of Grace and me while she took on this baby. She was on who hadn't had a decent night's sleep in five and a half months.

So this morning, as Jen and I lay in bed, nearly motionless, at an hour far past that which should have seen us up and about, she said, "I feel really lazy, just lying here doing nothing."

"Hey," I said. "You've earned it. You deserve to lie here doing nothing for a while. Go back to sleep."

And she did.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

You know what I like about Dave? He's decisive. Once he makes a decision, he sticks with and never second guesses.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

---

Happy Father's Day, everyone.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

On Friday night, Jen and I accompanied Tom and Audra to a viewing of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Contains spoilers.

I've read some reviews about EP3 and its predecessors. Many of them refer to George Lucas ripping up their childhoods. Such phrases are, of course, complete drivel. What many geeks of my generation fail to realize is that Lucas's target audience has always been boys around the age of 10. It just so happens that many of us were around that age when the "classic trilogy" of episodes IV, V, and VI was released. Lucas hasn't changed much; we've all grown up. In the intervening years, many of have to come to idealize the original Star Wars trilogy and esteem as one of the great myths of our time.

Frankly, Star Wars is, indeed, one of the great myths of our time, along with such creations as The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. But the movies were still aimed at little kids. Kids who buy toys and cereal.

With that in mind, I hereby declare Revenge of the Sith to be a great movie. I do not feel that George Lucas has crapped on my childhood or any such nonsense. In fact, if I had to pick one thing about which to be angry at Lucas, it would be his newfound resolve against creating episodes VII, VIII, and IX. He says now that he never said there would be nine movies, which is utter nonsense. Everybody knows that were supposed to be nine. But I digress.

It was the best of the six Star Wars movies, in my opinion. Seeing Anakin Skywalker's descent into madness, as Mike so aptly described it, was heartbreaking. Having seen the backstory on the big screen gives much more depth to the classic trilogy. Knowing why and how Anakin fell for what should have been seen as an obvious ploy makes the whole story that much more tragic, and his ultimate redemption all the more meaningful. The tale of Anakin's fall is very cautionary; it warns us all how easy it is for good people to fall into darkness. His reasons were noble enough: he wanted to protect his wife. And after losing his mother, who could blame him? But, as does every tragic hero, he went too far. It wasn't enough to protect her: he wanted to make her immortal. That was his undoing. It was his refusal to settle for anything less than the absolute that made him such easy prey for Darth Sidious. Several people have commented that Anakin's conversion to Darth Vader was too quick to be believable, but I disagree. It was very believable, which is precisely what makes it so very frightening.

The opening sequence was astonishing, from the vast batallion of ships to the Chancellor's rescue. Right from the start, the movie establishes that Anakin's relationship with Obi-Wan has changed significantly. Obi-Wan now treats his apprentice with more respect, and Anakin seems to have matured quite a bit, which is a nice change from his whiny petulance in Attack of the Clones. But their relationship is strained when Padme, Anakin's secret wife (the Jedi are forbidden to marry) reveals to him that she is pregnant.

Anakin begins to have nightmares about Padme dying in childbirth, and he begins to be obsessed with preventing her death. He visits Yoda seeking advice, of course without revealing any information that would get him into trouble with the Jedi Council. Yoda tells him to learn to let go of anything he's afraid to lose. Sage advice on any account.

Long story short, Palpatine, who is of course secretly Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, convinces Anakin that only he can teach Anakin how to save Padme. And Anakin, consumed with the thought of protecting his wife, gives in. Sidious names him Darth Vader, and a new villian is born.

Vader travels to the volcanic planet of Mustafar to kill Nute Gunray, Viceroy of the Trade Federation. In doing so, he made me very happy. Gunray was absolutely the dumbest character in the prequel trilogy, from his lousy costume to his ridiculous pseudo-Asian accent. Obi-Wan tracks Vader to Mustafar and what follows is one of the coolest lightsaber duels in the Star Wars franchise. It ends with Vader in defeat, and Obi-Wan walking away, leaving him for dead, mangled, crippled, and burning.

But we know it doesn't end there, because we've already seen Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, right? Palpatine/Sidious finds what's left of Vader's body and has him turned into the twisted cyborg we see in the classic trilogy. As Vader assumes his new costume (or old costume, depending on how you look at it), we hear the faints strains of Imperial March. And then, in a very nice touch, we hear the voice of James Earl Jones coming from behind the helmet.

All in all, it was a good time and a good movie. Do I think Lucas has redeemed himself? Not a question for me to answer, as I didn't feel personally offended by the first two episodes of the prequel trilogy. I never felt that Lucas had betrayed me or my childhood memories, nor was I offended by Ewoks in 1983. And I thought Boba Fett was the coolest guy ever when I was a kid.

No, in the end, I just think it's a good series of movies, and that this one was the best of them. Personally, I hold out hope for episodes VII, VIII, and IX. I'd love to see more.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

From Star Wars Spirituality, featured on christianitytoday.com:

Partly because the Star Wars saga is melodrama, and partly because human instinct tends to prematurely separate the sheep from the goats, the potential for the redemption of Darth Vader never crossed the well-set minds of most viewers. For some, the redemptive ending was not entirely plausible. The Time magazine reviewer, for example, thought it corny. But the very surprise it occasions effectively uncovers the bad manners of contemporary cynicism and hopelessness. That is admittedly a preachy point to make, but the effect of the ending of The Return of the Jedi, the unlikely return itself, pivots on the audience's usual gullibility about the way the world usually works, which is badly. Sinners, whores, and late grape-pickers all the same, contemporary imaginative habits are constrained to see judgment and doom, to turn away from the possibility of renewal.

Very interesting reading.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Warning: This entry is rather rambling and disconnected. It's been a strange evening.

Where to begin?

My stepgrandmother passed away a few days ago. She was my paternal grandfather's second wife. Now, before you get all weepy, understand that I haven't seen her since his funeral in 1998. Before that, our last encounter was at my wedding in 1994. So it's not like we were close.

But, still, she was a decent woman from what I could tell, and I know that many in my family will miss her.

Tonight was her viewing. The funeral is tomorrow, but I won't be attending that. Because the relationships in that branch of my family tree are, well, strained a bit, we debated whether to attend even the viewing. But my parents decided to go, and my sister and I went with them.

We all met at my parents' house and drove together. Talk about strange. I can't honestly remember the last time my parents, my sister, and I rode in the same car alone. It was like being a little kid again: Dad was driving, Mom rode shotgun, I sat behind Dad, and Becky sat behind Mom. There was no prior discussion of where anyone would sit. We simply regressed fifteen years and sat in our "assigned" seats.

This is a hard entry to write. There's a lot of backstory and history, but very little of it is appropriate to share. Or at least, it's not my business to share it.

At any rate, we made our appearance at the viewing. I don't recall seeing any tears. This is largely becuase my stepgrandmother had been quite ill, and her passing ultimately came as a relief to those who were closest to her. Someone told me tonight that she was heard saying, "It really takes a long time to die."

We ran into a bunch of people that know who I am: Rusty's kid. But they don't know me. And I sure as crap don't know them. But I shook hands and smiled politely, just like Dad was doing. He didn't know all of them, either.

We also saw some people I used to know quite well: my Dad's brother and his family (well, except for my cousin who is a year younger than I am, who would have been one of very few people I would very much like to have run into tonight). We used to hang out with them all the time, but a family argument drove a wedge between the two families. Thankfully, that wedge is slowly being removed. I hope one day it's gone altogether. It's a sad thing to lose friends. It's a sadder thing to lose family.

Becky and I talked for a bit after leaving our parents. We're both so thankful that our kids get along well. Gracie genuinely counts Becky's boys as among her best and truest friends. And I can honestly say that I consider my sister to be a good friend as well. Same for her husband. Yet here we are, siblings with families that get along well, just like my Dad and his brother. Kind of a sobering thought. So my sister and I agreed to make every effort to sustain friendship between our families and kids.

Like it says in that "Sunscreen" song: Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Of course, it also says: Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Thanks to Tom "Dizzle-Hizzle" Crawford, I'm back online and no longer a victim of Comcast's DNS issues.

Don't ask me how, though.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, there's nothing quite like being on the 15th floor of a hotel in a strange city when they're calling for possible tornados in the vicinity. The wind's starting to howl like crazy. The lightning looks like kinda cool from up here, but the novelty is really starting to wear off now. A weather alert just went across the TV screen saying that it would be wise to get to a basement. Fat chance of that.

You know, when I was here last year, a building down the block caught on fire. Maybe Austin doesn't like me being here.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Jen wasn't feeling well, so Grace and I went to the grocery store unsupervised. And it wasn't one of those quick and dirty trips, either; it was a full-blown week's worth of groceries type of things. Jen was apprehensive, but like I said, she wasn't feeling well, so armed with a list of items and two coupons, Grace and I headed to the store.

One of the items on the list was hair dye. Now, in order not to give away any secrets, I won't say which of the three of us required this item. But it was Preference by L'Oréal, Medium Auburn.

I had no idea they had so many different shades of hair dye. I figured they had your basic selection: black, brown, blonde, red. Maybe light and dark within each color. But, no, there's like 100 different shades. So I started scanning the shelf for medium auburn and had some trouble. Grace was helping.

Finally, I turned to Grace and said, "You know what? Let's get bright red and surprise Mommy." (I guess the secret's out.) There was a woman stocking shelves nearby who overheard me. Without even looking my direction, she said, "I hope you have a comfortable couch."

I laughed and replied that it wouldn't be the worst thing I've done. As I was talking, Grace tapped me on the arm and handed me the box with Medium Auburn. "How did you find that?" I asked her. I mean, Grace is just a beginning reader. We work on books like Hop on Pop, but they don't have words like medium or auburn.

"I recognized the lady on the front of the box," she said.

That's my girl.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Well, we have a new addition again. This time, it's a newborn baby. Born a week ago today, came to us last Wednesday. Good as gold.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Tangelo's really generating interest, apparently.

The Mac OS X version alone has been downloaded over 3,300 times since its release last Tuesday. The bradrhine.com website has received over 135,000 in seven days. I had to upgrade my hosting plan (so please don't click that link!), but that's a good problem.

Apple featured Tangelo as a "hot pick" on its Mac OS X Downloads page. That was pretty cool. By far, they're driving more traffic to us than anyone else. But we're also getting a lot of traffic from MacNN, MacWorld, and Ranchero Software, because Brent Simmons was cool enough to give us a mention (Tangelo supports the External Weblog Editor API he authored). Brent Simmons is one cool guy.

So version 1.1 is in the works. I've added a little feature or two and tweaked some existing ones. Plus I need to do some work on the FTP portion of the setup wizard.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Today I turn 32 years old.

In honor of this momentous occasion, please buy me lots of stuff from my Amazon wish list.

No, I'm just kidding.

Kinda.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Grace had her first visit to the allergist the other day. We were able to see to test results almost immediately, so we know now that Grace is allergic to cats (as am I; this we suspected already) and mold (this was a surprise, but not a shock). She also has mild asthma. So she's now on an Advair inhaler twice a day and a nasal spray once a day. Plus, she has eye drops, an albuterol inhaler, and Zirtec to be used as needed or in emergencies.

Poor kid was a real trooper when they shot her up with cat, tree, grass, dog, mold, and ragweed. Then they poked her with histamine, and the nurse explained that it was her positive control, which meant amazingly little to Grace. She then explained that she was going to come back and check which ones got red, puffy, or itchy. The "positive control" immediately began to bother Grace, so the nurse pointed out that itching was forbidden. Grace nearly cried at that news.

About twenty minutes later, the nurse returned and said it looked she was allergic to cats and mold. But they needed to run a second test to be sure, so they gave her a few more injections on the other arm. A few tears trickled down Grace's cheek, she didn't make any noise, even though the nurse and Jen and I all told her it was OK to cry if it hurt (like the kid in the next room who wouldn't quit wailing). But Grace was absolutely stoic (a description that's been used for me recently under very different circumstances).

The second round confirmed it: cats and mold. The cat allergy isn't severe, nor is mine. Grace gets a runny nose and watery eyes around cats. I get slight congestion in my chest. Nothing serious, but nothing either of us wants to live with. Fortunately (and I mean this on many levels), we don't have a cat. Even more fortunately, she's not allergic to dogs in the least. Grace and I were happy to hear that. Jen was strangely disappointed.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

Santa was good to me this year:
Strong Bad DVD
New Chris Tomlin CD, Arriving
Return of the King, Special Extended Edition
Return to Waterloo on DVD
m-Audio Keystation 49e (expect more MP3s soon)
Namco Joystick with Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Galaxian, Boscovian, and Rally X
7.5 foot prelit fiber optic Christmas tree

Good stuff.

Jen and I also got a chance to perform at our new church on Sunday. We did a medley of "Here I Am To Worship," "Papers and Boxes," and "O Come All Ye Faithful." We followed that up by doing the Barenaked Ladies' version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings." We were pleased with how it went. Apparently, others were as well: we'll be leading worship there next week.

Also on Sunday, I helped my friend Brett move some of his fiance's stuff into his house. They get married in less than two weeks, and I couldn't be happier for them.

On Saturday, we did the normal Christmas thing for us. After we got up, Gracie found and opened her presents from Santa. Then we got ourselves together and headed to my sister's house for breakfast with her family, my parents, and my grandparents. After we exchanged gifts and hung out for a while, we went to Jen's parents' place for more family stuff (we do our gift exchange with them on Christmas Eve to help slow down the Christmas day schedule a bit).

Good Christmas this year. Plus, I'm still off until Wednesday.

And then Thursday is LOTR day. Sweet.

Posted in the section Personal | # |

So, aside from my Christmas mix, it's been a while since my last post. Lots of reasons for that:

1) [I had to delete this paragraph. -Brad]

2) I've been writing a student information system at work, and at home, and everywhere I could take my laptop. The system went live on November 30, and things have slowed down a bit for me since then. Our teachers use it for attendance, discipline, and demographics. It's built on PostgreSQL, which is great technology. The front end is done in, of course, REALbasic. For the first time, I really feel like I've provided the teachers with a tool that meets their needs.

3) We're redoing Gracie's bedroom for Christmas. It's very pink. The tinted primer had it looking like Pepto-Bismol, but now that the first coat of real paint's on, it looks more like bubble gum. But before we could do that, I had to sand off the pictures that Jen had painted (grass, bumblebees, butterflies, bunnies, the sun, and the moon) to cover up some of the drips and mistakes from the 2001 paint job. The majority of the walls was painted sky blue, and after sanding, I was scooping blue stuff out of my ears, wiping it out of my eyes, and coughing it up. It was nasty stuff. But the painting's now all but done.