Muppets, John Denver, and Loud Music

OK, so checking in here with some of the latest Raelinisms:

• We've listened a lot to John Denver and The Muppets' A Christmas Together. It has remained Kelly's favorite holiday album (and one of my favorites as well). Raelin, however, has taken affection for this cd to whole new levels. To the point where a few days ago, she declared that she was in fact, John Denver. And that she was building a house out of blocks for the Muppets. And that I didn't know anything about building a house for the Muppets, but that John Denver had in fact built many Muppet houses, so he knows how to build Muppet houses.


• The Muppets, in general have become sort of a parallel to the infamous Suds. We know that muppets are not Suds (though we're really not sure what the hell Suds are). We also know that Muppets aren't like the ones on the old TV show that we all know and love. I can assume that the Muppets, like the Suds, are somewhat morphable in physical shape. They can fit into very small block houses, are somewhat obedient, though still have to be repeatedly called and clapped for. We did get the original Muppet Show on DVD because we thought Raelin would really like to see the Muppets. Didn't go over so well. Not that she didn't like it, lets just say that Raelin wanted to watch the intro over and over and over =)


• We found out the other day that the most promising house showing to date, the buyer put an offer in on another house. We also just found out today that we may have a showing tomorrow, with an hour's notice or so. Nice, eh? Anyhow, so even though it's Kelly's birthday (did you call or email her?) and we were going to her mom's to celebrate, we rushed around a bit tidying up the mayhem that our house so easily becomes. To get my clean on, I like house music. Kelly likes it a lot of the time, Raelin likes it almost any time, and Liam, well, he'll have to learn to like it if he doesn't already. So I put on some music at what I consider a moderate volume and hit the kitchen. Raelin starts dancing around and having a good time. Kelly comes out from the back of the house and turns the music down. As soon as she heads back, Raelin goes over and turns it back up. Repeat 3 times. I watched the whole thing from the kitchen and was dying by the end. Kelly and I have the same conflict routinely, so having Raelin weigh in on my side of the fence on this one is an early key ally. Thing is, when it's just me and Raelin then we really crank it up, then she holds me hands and stands on my feet so we can "dance around the house together"

That's the hit for now, check out Kel's blog for more specific on the whole Christmas day thing; link in the right hand column =)

2 in 1 Day

Here's some other random updates:

-house situation is more or less the same, the exception of a couple bright spots:

1. We had a showing this week that came back that we're #1 on the list. Perfect fit: relocation to the area, middle-aged single person, new job at the local hospital (less than 5 minute drive). Hopefully she'll give us an offer that we can work with.


2. We've committed to moving to the new place 5-1-07 regardless of whether the house has sold or not. There's a lot of moving parts on this one that need to be nailed down. Of course all of them will evaporate if the house sells before then =)

-job situation is good. I'll be heading out to CA on the first for training, orientation, and to get my new laptop (_drool_). Oh yeah, also gonna swing up to Tahoe with some friends to break in my new snow board (_drool_).

-I got a random email from a fellow local hacker that's been following my blog (you know who you are =). It's this kind of stuff that continues to amaze me about the internet. I mean, with the explosion of social networking portals this shouldn't be that much of a surprise. The other time that really blew me away was many years ago when I got an email from a total stranger who's ex-wife had just passed away. They met in the Sierra at the foot of Pather Creek Falls, which is a stunning waterfall that drops into the Middle Kaweah river in Sequoia NP. He'd found a photo I had of the falls on google, though I'd since taken the page down and he could only see the cached thumbnail. I ended up sending him a high-res scan so that he could put a 7x10 framed print on the alter at her funeral. Talk about moving. It's stories like these that really keep me blogging. That and looking back at old entries to see what we and the kids were up to last year and earlier.

That all said, if you're lurking on my blog drop me an email or leave a comment. The more I know people are reading the more I make an effort to post...

Streeeetttttcccchhhh

...in an emotional sense. I had a very grumpy morning. I have this thing with sleeping that once I wake up in the morning it's unlikely that I'll go back to sleep. If I actually get out of bed and walk around, even more so. And even if I do get back to sleep, no matter how tired I feel my body wakes up by 7:30. So that was this morning. Not wanting to be up, but up. Add to that our threenager and 7 month beefcake while Kelly caught up a bit on sleep, and grumpies not helped much.

See, the thing about being a parent is, every thing gets amplified. Often this is really pleasant, like when it's happy love time, or I'm checking on Raelin at night to make sure she has covers, or any other countless number of heart-melting scenarios. However, there's also times when it's not so pleasant. When we first made the jump to parenthood I had a very rough time adjusting to not just being a father (this was actually not too bad), but becoming husband to a mother. That right down kicked my ass for several years. By the time Liam was born I was pretty much over it though...

However, that's neither here nor there. I was talking about the negative emotional enhancement aspect of parenting. Like this morning when I'm grumpy and pissed off. Then Raelin starts in about Liam being within some imaginary boundary she's chosen, in this case within a 6' radius and that being "too close." Or Liam trying to grab my glasses for the millionth time, or whatever; there's never any shortage of ways to have my patience tested =) I'm not one for those little books of inspirational quotes, though one did strike me that goes something like "children have endless things to teach us, for instance how much patience we have." *Ping* that's the sound of a nail being hit on the head.

So now we're in Christmas season, and while I'm more excited for this holiday this year than I've been perhaps since I was a youngster, at this point I'm also very ready for it to be done. I'm done with shopping, with staying up late performing random tasks, with having Kelly more or less constantly occupied after the kids are in bed with sewing, knitting, felting, or other crafts. I'm done blowing off work during the day so I can be in my shop building things for the kids, which I can't do at night because they're asleep and my shop is right under our bed where Liam sleeps.

Granted, as I write this it's petty and whiny, but it's also very real. For now. Come Monday we'll have slept a bit more, and there will be nothing to do but sit around and enjoy the family. Hell we're even going out for dinner this year, which I think is a stroke of brilliance...

So, if you have no kids and plan on having some, I highly suggest you start stretching that emotional reality of yours, cuz those little ones will pull it farther than you'd like even as they warmly wrap you with it in bliss...

Body Mods

So Raelin and I were just talking about animal bodies. I got to thinking, what mods do I wish I had; here's a short list:

-trunk
-prehensile tail
-opposable toes (early hominids did have these, though I suppose they make walking pretty tough =)
-gills/amphibious skin (frogs can transfer oxygen across just their skin. Not as efficient as lungs, though gills would be tough to keep wet all the time =)
-wings
-full-color night vision
-upgradable chassis
-upgradable memory
-cool case lighting effects
-video inputs with less distortion

I tried looking for some of these on newegg.com though came up empty =)

Close Call...

...or you know you're living rural when...

Yesterday Raelin and I were heading out for some last-run Christmas tasks. As we headed up the main road near our house, out of no where a deer bolted from the shoulder. We missed it by a couple of feet, which isn't much when you're going 40. The car coming the other way, and especially the deer, weren't so fortunate. What was fortunate was that the other car was a little Hyundai (sp?) something or other, which has a front end pretty much made out of plastic.

As I passed I could clearly hear the sound of plastic shattering, and time seemed to slow as the animal was first scooped onto the hood, then sent flying into a roadside yard as the driver slammed on her brakes. The deer went sprawling across the grass, got up looking very dazed and ran off with a heavy limp.

This was the second time I'd seen an animal get hit; the first time was a goose getting hit in the middle of the grille on a semi going about 70 on I5 in California. Needless to say the goose's end was instant in that case.

Thing in this case that was so spooky was how quick it all happened, like almost in an instant. And how I had Raelin in the car with me. Just gives chills to think about it all...

Geek Alert

OK, so I finally got around to fully hooking up all my new networking hardware. Last week I signed up for a new ISP that's a fairly new local player in town. Their whole shtick is wireless. Initially wifi mesh and now expanded to include point to point wireless. My account has a theoretical throughput of 2.5 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up. That's pretty fast, especially the upload. Anyhow, for now I'm keeping my DSL as well, and picked up a new D-Link dual WAN router than can handle 2 broadband connections and theoretically outbound load balance on them. Right now I'm uploading some pretty big files as a test and yup, the router's working like a charm, though I'm seeing no where near 1 megabit on the wireless connection.

I wrongly assumed that I could configure my existing wifi router into a wifi access point. No dice on that, so I had to pick up an access point. Go figure, a decent access point is noticably more expensive than a 4 port wifi router with all the trimmings. I must admit though, I am quite enjoying the cool blue LED light show on the top of the access point. While I wouldn't choose to pay an extra $40 for this, I'll take it. Granted, the wifi in this thing *should* be way more bomber than my old router, but we'll see.

In addition to all this fun stuff, I've also got VoIP running here now. With the exception of the minor glitch that the original number I chose couldn't accept incoming calls, that's looking pretty solid. To VoicePulse's credit, their tech support answered pretty quick and their engineers called me within a couple of minutes of the call ending with a new number, and on the VoIP line =) That's pretty sweet...

In other geek news, since I'm on the topic, I'm absolutely loving my 30" Apple Cinema Display. 3 years ago when I first made the jump to flat panels I chose to go with Samsung over Apple. Back then Apple displays were good, though quite a bit more than the other kids on the block and Samsung was the top ranked. How things change. The first time I saw one of these large Apple displays I was overtaken by instant techno lust. Years have made the heart grow fonder, and I do not regret the capital outlay one bit. So stunning.

In yet other geek news, I also recently jumped back into the PDA world with the purchase of a refurbished Palm T|X. Really like it. Alot. I haven't owned a PDA since my Palm III died many years ago. The devices have come a long way since then, and Palm has done well by bundling a ton of software. I love the wifi and bluetooth, though the thing is, it's got a better sound card in it than my 3G iPod, and that's just pathetic (for the iPod). One night I decided on a whim to head over to Staples and pick up an SD card for it. As I was looking at the cards in the aisle, I somewhat forlornly decided that the $100 for a 2 gig card was worth it and went up to the register. Just so happens that there was a guy bringing back a whole pile of SD cards. One of them was a 2 gig that didn't work in his PDA as it couldn't address that much memory. So I was like, "hey I'll buy that, any discount for the open box?" The cashier basically let me know that it was a huge pain in the ass for them to send it back to HQ, so they dropped the price 10%. Not huge, but I'll take it. Also turns out it was the last day of a sale on those cards, so the register price was like $35 or something. Plus the discount, plus the ink cartridge coupon I had. I went ahead and bought the other one they had in stock, too. So now my new PDA is like a 4 gig iPod nano, though with expandable memory and a decent UI.

OK, end of geek ramble...until my new job starts and I get hooked up with a new Macbook Pro...reports to follow...

Angry Hippies Piss Me Off

Just returned a little while ago from a friend's birthday party. As at most parties there's always some folks I don't know, and being the introvert that I am I actually tend to avoid meeting them so I can just talk to the people I already know though don't spend enough time with...

Anyhow, so my friend and I were catching up a bit, just shooting the shit. I was asking him about the house he's been working on for some time and what's next. He was asking me about the new job. Since he's self-employed he had specific interest in why I decided to take the jump into working for someone else. Through this conversation there was this woman standing a few feet away that I've never seen before and hadn't even been introduced to. At some point in the conversation, when answering my friend's question about how the offer came about and I was saying something to the effect of "well the salary's really good, and the benefits are great, you know health insurance, stock options, and retirement." I mean, what the fuck, that's pretty tame. But little miss hippy priss who's not even *in* the conversation and no less even *knows my name* chirps up with a sarcastic "wow, health insurance, stock options and retirement, sounds like someone's talking about the American Dream." Yes, as a matter of fact, I *am* talking about the American Dream. Mine. So fuck off.

Anyhow, a few minutes later I'd moved into the other room and was chatting with another woman who I've recently met through Kelly and some other mutual friends. It was the first time I'd talked just to her. She runs a small business with a partner and she was telling me a little bit about wanting to expand into online sales. So she was asking me questions like who do I work for, what's a typical day look like, etc. In general I find that people don't really have a clue what I do, so I tend to be somewhat ambiguous when I answer such questions, but she kept looking for more detail. My not-friend from earlier had also happened to join in, and when I mentioned that most of the employees at the new company work from home as the company is virtual, she couldn't keep her cake hole shut, even though she *still* didn't know me and *still* wasn't in the conversation with a happy "wow, virtual, it doesn't even exist!" followed by a forced laugh. Um, go blow a goat or something...

The thing is, I know what it feels like to be a self-righteous hippy type. I was one for many years and poo-pooed anyone that worked in front of a computer as a soul-less wage slave and deserving of my contempt. That was before I utterly burned out on outdoor education, which by the way also enabled me to meet some simply incredible people that made their living in tech. Hmmm...time to re-evaluate the old world view.

Anyhow, so I didn't take it too personally, but it still pisses me off. I want to be like "ok, did I actually do something to piss you off or are you just an unhappy bitch?" Perhaps that's a little too harsh, but it does get to me when I feel judged simply for my choice of work and the fact that yes, I enjoy computing. Get that? I enjoy my computers. So go eat yer frickin' granola and keep to your self. While you're fuming I'll be teaching my kids about perma culture, the importance of eating organic meat, and generally building my dream life with the means provided by my silicon job. I certainly know first hand that striving to be wholer-than-thou led only to a deep sense of personal insecurity...

Finally...

OK, just when I come in to finish a rough beginning of an entry, I find it gone. I guess Google was serious with the "beta" label for this version of blogger =)

Anyhow, so where was I? First off, a couple of kid updates:

-A couple weeks ago at dinner were eating turkey (surprise =). Somehow the conversation turned to what animals we eat and which we avoid. After a long joking list from me, Raelin chimed in with "Reggie." See, Reggie is our cat, and as incredibly annoying as he has become in middle age, I would personally not want to eat him. I told Raelin that wouldn't be such a good idea, to which she responded with her threenager response "why?" Well, because animals with paws don't taste very good, I answered. Totally straight-faced she replied "well then just cut them off." ROFL!!!

-A couple nights ago she stirred in her sleep. Somewhere between waking and sleep she said "Daddy?" I answered "Yes, Raelin?", her "goats like to climb" and with that fell back asleep.

On the Liam front, well he's learned himself how to crawl, but being a chip off the old block that's not good enough. No. He wants to walk now. He's been standing with our help for a while now, and he's even pulled himself up to standing on his own a couple of times that I've seen. Today as I was holding his hands he took 5 steps, then 3 more. Now realize these are very wobbly, very primitive steps. But steps none the less. He was quite pleased.

Other things he likes: babbling, drooling, taking tubs, watching Raelin, whatever Raelin happens to be playing with, Raelin. Being upside down, tossed in the air, etc.

And that's about it...short and sweet as I need to be off to bed here =)