A View from the Prairie...

No Warning

2007-12-24T14:33:00.000-06:00

Up until my gave me 'a shot across the bow' I actually thought our marriage was going better than ever. We were starting to take trips, we finally had enough money so that we had some disposable income, we held hands more than ever, and things seemed to be hitting on all cylinders. I even thought our sex life, not a particularly vibrant area of our marriage ever, was improving somewhat. I can say with almost complete confidence that I had no warning. Later on, I will talk about some signals that I had received OVER THE YEARS that I think were very foretelling.

It turns out though, that what I've experienced is very, very common. So common that Michele Weiner Davis, a popular writer of divorce and relationship self help books, call it the 'Walk Away Wife Syndrome'.

So, if you read this little article, just beware, the statistics are against you in many ways. You have 50/50 chance your marriage will survive the test of time. And don't expect any warning. In fact, if you think it's going well, that is exactly the time to worry.

The positives though : At least now I'm no dummy on relationships. I've been studying them copiously. It won't save my first marriage, but it might make my next relationship the one I've always dreamt about.

A new beginning

2007-12-16T14:23:00.000-06:00

My last post was a year ago. Its December 2007 and I now live in an apartment and share time with my children.

I think I'll slowly tell my story, mostly for myself as writing would be cathartic, but because I have learned so much that even one little tidbit might help at least one other person.

So to kick things off, back in March this year, my wife of 16 years and myself were in our kitchen when my wife says to me that she has this strange electrical connection with another person.

I ask her if this this is something for which I should be worried and she says no.

And so my saga starts with this simple and innocent statement by my wife.

Reader Rabbit and the Mystery of the 'Stuck Registry Value'

2006-06-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

I have an extremely old copy of Reader Rabbit (Windows 95 Vintage). It has been installed and uninstalled more than one time on our Windows XP laptop. It's worthwhile to note that the computer the children use is littered with all sorts of programs.

Where adults tend to use a handful of programs often, children make a special point to load millions of programs and use them for 10 seconds.

So my little boy is now very interested in reading. I decided it was time to re-install Reader Rabbit.

I knew I was in trouble when I got the first error "unInstall unable to initialize. you may not be able to uninstall the program". I'm thinking - not the end of the world, and so I continue.

It goes through a lengthy install process and when it gets to the end, I see the dialog box "Creating Registry Entries", and then I get the dialog box, nicely named "SEVERE" with the text "Cannot create registry entry".

At this point, I try deleting everything I can find all over the computer and reinstall. Same thing.

Then I get into Regedit. I search for "Learning Company" (the maker) and lo and behold I get to a registry entry called "The Learning Company" and I cannot read it.

I can tell you with absolute certainty, that this is the problem.

Here is how you solve it. For some reason, this registry entry has NO permissions for any user. In fact, no users are even listed. But you cannot add users. What you MUST do first is to click on the owner tab. You will be tempted (and I acted on my temptation) to make the administrator the owner since my account was an administrator account. But do not be fooled. You are probably logged in as a normal user that just happens to be administrator. So you make your login the owner.

Next, you add yourself to the permissions and give yourself full control. Now when you do this, you'll find out that there is probably a ton of entries attached to this one. I was not able to change things like owner hierarchically, even though I could get close to what I needed by checking the children inheret the values check box. So I had to pretty much add myself as the owner and add myself to permissions.

After you do that, just delete the whole learning company registry tree - I assume this is the only Learning Company product you might have installed.

Then try to install. It worked flawlessly.

It only took me 2 hours. This is why I own a Mac. Really, with OS X, there is simply no comparison and I can never see Windows catching up - ever.

Excellent Program for Viewing Disk Drive Usage

2006-06-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

I own an iBook G4 with only 40 GB hard drive. Not a big problem - except I ripped all of my CD's. Now it's a problem.

I have struggled with drive space for a long time and then I ran into Disk Inventory X. This is an outstanding program. It let me view my entire hard drive and within seconds find areas I can save on disk space.

On my Apple, I deleted printer drivers from printers that I KNOW I will never own. Net benefit was almost 2GB of hard drive space! I'm thrilled.

One other example : I ran WinDirStat (a windows equivalent) on my wife's laptop. I instantly found that Thunderbird had 2 very, very large files tying up almost 2GB of space as well. I also graphically can see the impact of not converting AVI's to MPEG files.

The Disk Inventory X was so valuable to me I sent the developer $20. Very well worth it. I highly recommend it if you care about disk space. I have nothing but praise for this straightforward program.

Apple Rumour

2006-05-06T11:48:00.000-05:00

I have heard from a completely different source the high level concept that Windows Applications will run on Mac OS without having any Windows operating system present AT ALL.

I'm a Mac user, never again to return to Windows (unless Apples falls woefully behind like in 1995 or so). I would like this. It would make the Mac the most versatile computer in the world. In other words, all of a sudden, operating system choice would be a ridiculous idea and you would pick OS X and then simply get the application that worked best for you. Seems like now some apps run better on one OS than the other (or don't exist on the other) and so you pick the OS and you are left with an incomplete access to applications.

My Head Hurts

2006-05-06T11:35:00.000-05:00

I wrote this to myself (planning to blog it) a month or so ago, but I have an update... You should read the original first before you read here.

In a fit of frustration, I told my eye doctor (optometrist) to make me some computer glasses. I figure I didn't have anything to lose and I'm only out $140 if it doesn't do anything. Computer glasses are set for optimal vision around 2 - 3 feet or so. Now the big question is prism. I instructed them to put in a prism of about 4 (2 for each eye). They didn't want to do it. I got my glasses about 5 days ago.

Now that I have my glasses here are some things I've noticed. First, without too much prism, they are really, really light. It's amazing. As expected when I look far away, I can't see things so sharply, but I think I'm pretty good to drive as they still correct quite a bit of my vision.

So I'm on my 4th day of wearing them (more on that) for computer work. I can say that I've felt almost as good as I've felt for almost 2 years. I did have a headache this week, but I think that was from dehydration after jogging. The vision think is improved. I'm almost ready to start playing with my computer again (like this blog post).

I'm left with a thought or two... For years I have gotten checkups for my eyes. For years, doctors say my eyes turn in - no news there. But for years they corrected for this... putting in a little more prism every time. As I reflect on this, I NEVER remember complaining about double vision! So why would they correct for something I never complained about.

After I had that thought, I am wearing the computer glasses all the time now. I think it's helping and I haven't had double vision for 3 or 4 days which is almost a record for the last couple of years.

So I'm left with all these questions, but the US medical system is crafted (not the right word) such that you can't ask questions as you only get the 15 minute time slot and they have to run you through.

Questions:
Why would you correct for something I'm not complaining about?
Is that fact that these reading glasses blurry a long way away making my double vision go away because convergence works together with focus?
Why would 2 doctors get such HUGEly disparate measurements?
Is my low thyroid really messing with my vision too?

Cheers.

---- original intended post ----

Today’s date is Mar 2006 and I have had a headache for almost a year now. Usually I don’t get it until late in the day.

I have worn glasses for many years. My eyes have a slight turn in, and because of that I have prism in my eyeglasses. Prism allows my eyes to turn in and presents the images to each eye such that I don’t see double.

I also work on a computer quite extensively and I’m at an age where reading glasses are getting close to reality for me.

Now I can see up close just fine, and I seem to be able to adjust to far away quite easily, but after a whole day of just living I get a headache. The pain seems to be located just in front of each ear and up a slight bit, but not at the temples and certainly it feels a little more internal than the temples.

I went to the eye doctor about this and he wanted to add more prism. So I did just that and my new glasses made my headaches even worse and tried a whole week to get used to them. If they were supposed to make my headaches go away they did not – so this is my first contra indication.

I then went to a 2nd eye doctor (ophthalmologist) and this person actually verified the optometrists readings except for one key aspect. The ophthalmologist said that my ‘near field’ prism was a setting of 4 (0 would be no prism) and the optometrist said the near field prism setting was about the same as my far field prism (14).

I’ve also gotten some blood work and my thyroid is low which can affect vision, but I’d say this as a root cause is likely low. Well I’m working on it now.

So here are some questions that give me nothing but blank looks when I ask the eye doctors… If my headaches are fatigue from working on a computer, why didn’t they sell me computer glasses first to see if they could fix the problem? If the headaches are caused by muscular strain trying to correct my double vision, then that means my muscles are working and eventually ought to toughen up and I should see correctly? I honestly don’t think the vision industry has a handle on this.

But the fact still remains that my head hurts and has for a whole year. It makes me so tired.

My new phone ROCKS

2006-05-06T11:29:00.000-05:00

I just bought the new SDA phone from T-Mobile. I had a Blackberry. I liked my Blackberry. I love this SDA. You can read lots of reviews on the phone, so I won't go into any of that.

802.11 - I like it on this phone, but it's not great to use on a cell phone. I did make a web page on my mac so I can control iTunes using my phone. That sounds a bit silly, but its nice for two reasons. The first is that I can skip over songs I don't like and stay in bed while my Mac is across the room (my mac doesn't have Front Row). The other reason is that my Mac can play music on my stereo using Airport Express. That means my Mac is in a different room from my stereo so now I can control iTunes no matter where I'm at in my house.

Who do you vote for?

2006-02-27T20:52:00.000-06:00

As the upcoming elections (2006) get closer, I get to thinking about Democrats and Republicans. Then I get to thinking about what they say, versus what they do, and the more I think about it, the more mixed up I get. Maybe that’s the idea – get us all mixed up and focused on the national scene and then we sort of gloss over the local scene. If my memory serve me, isn’t there an old adage that “all politics is local”?

Here is part of my confusion. Let me explain then I’ll lay out my conundrum.

The Republicans claim that they are the Christian party – strong right wing politics – the moral majority and all that. Ok. I buy into that. They are against abortion – a loathsome idea – they are into ‘picking yourself up by the bootstrap’ – both Jesus and Paul spoke about carrying your own weight and honoring God by a good work ethic.

I’m not favoring the Republicans – their do it yourself ethos – while applaudable has a dark side. They seem to lack a certain compassion for the poor. Under the current administration (but is it the administrations problem – or is this a trend no party can control) the gap between rich and poor is very wide. I feel – but cannot prove – that somehow this is a much more brutal country to live in than ever before. I worry about retirement. I struggle with the concept – whether retirement is a right, or a fluke in time for the so called ‘greatest generation’.

Now the Democrats, don’t really claim to be anti-Christian, but they are the party that takes separation of church and state to new lows. Granted – this is the same principle that allowed Christianity to flourish in America – but now the principle is being applied to remove Christian concepts from America’s fabric.

I’m not being critical of the Dems. They also are a party that has a tremendous amount of compassion. They look out for the small groups – gays, other religions, the poor, the handicapped and for that they are a truly great political party.

So here is the conundrum – If Jesus’s central message is one of compassion and love (“Give me mercy, not sacrifice.”) then don’t you think it’s odd that the party that claims to be the moral party has the least compassion. And even more odd still that the party that distances itself from the moral majority the most – embracing unlovable groups of people – is the party that embraces the concept of compassion the very best – the very theme and essence of Jesus’ teachings.

So when you think this through – what do you vote for? I don’t think the answer is so clear if you really ponder it.

The Great Texas Cat Burglar

2005-12-18T16:19:00.000-06:00

This is not my own, but I pass on as it was emailed to me and deserves to be heard:

THE DILLARD'S THIEF--in McAllen,Texas

Clutching their Dillard's shopping bags, Ellen and Kay woefully gazed
down at a dead cat in the mall parking lot. Obviously a recent hit---no
flies, no smell.

What business could that poor kitty have had here?" murmured Ellen.

"Come on, Ellen, let's just go..." But Ellen had already grabbed her
shopping bag and was explaining,"I'll just put my things in your bag,
and then I'll take the tissue." She dumped her purchases into Kay's bag
and then used the tissue paper to cradle and lower the former feline into
her own Dillard's bag and cover it.

They continued the short trek to the car in silence, stashing their
goods in the trunk. But it occurred to both of them that if they left
Ellen's burial bag in the trunk, warmed by the Texas sunshine while they ate,
Kay's Lumina would soon lose that new-car smell.

They decided to leave the bag on top of the trunk, and they headed over
to Luby's Cafeteria.

After they cleared the serving line and sat down at a window table, they
had a view of Kay's Chevy with the Dillard's bag still on the trunk.

BUT not for long. As they ate, they noticed a black-haired woman in a
red gingham shirt stroll by their car, look quickly this way and that, and
then hook the Dillard's bag without breaking stride.

She quickly walked out of their line of vision. Kay and Ellen shot each
other a wide-eyed look of amazement. It all happened so fast that
neither of them could think how to respond.
"Can you imagine?" finally sputtered Ellen.

"The nerve of that woman!" Kay sympathized with Ellen, but inwardly a
laugh was building as she thought about the grand surprise awaiting the
red-gingham thief.

Just when she thought she'd have to giggle into her napkin, she noticed
Ellen's eyes freeze in the direction of the serving line. Following her
gaze, Kay recognized with a shock the black-haired woman with the
Dillard's bag, The Dillard's bag, hanging from her arm, brazenly pushing
her tray toward the cashier.

Helplessly they watched the scene unfold: After clearing the register,
the woman settled at a table across from theirs, put the bag on an empty
chair and began to eat.

After a few bites of baked whitefish and green beans, she casually
lifted the bag into her lap to survey her treasure.

Looking from side to side, but not far enough to notice her audience
three tables over, she pulled out the tissue paper and peered into the bag.
Her eyes widened, and she began to make a sort of gasping noise. The noise
grew.

The bag slid from her lap as she sank to the floor, wheezing and
clutching her upper chest.

The beverage cart attendant quickly recognized a customer in trouble and
sent the busboy to call 911, while she administered the Heimlich
maneuver.

A crowd quickly gathered that did not include Ellen and Kay, who
remained riveted to their chairs for seven whole minutes until the
ambulance arrived.

In a matter of minutes the curly-haired woman emerged from the crowd,
still gasping, trapped securely on a gurney.

Two well-trained EMS volunteers steered her to the waiting ambulance,
while a third scooped up her belongings.

The last they saw of the distressed cat-burglar, she disappeared behind
the ambulance doors, the Dillard's bag perched on her stomach.

My mom always taught me if it doesn't belong to you don't touch it,
guess she didn't have a wise mom like I do. Serves her right, God does take
care of those who do bad things.

Improve the IRA - Use your money to own your biggest asset

2005-11-17T13:05:00.000-06:00

The prohibition on allowing an IRA to own your personal real-estate is very, very bogus. In fact, the only difference between your IRA holding your mortgage OR your bank holding your mortgage is that the bankers get paid your money. In other words, not allowing your IRA to buy your personal residence is bank protectionism!!! Nothing more and nothing less.

I have an idea for a small improvement to all IRA's. The benefits for the improvement are:
* Increased security of retirement for individuals
* Reduced foreclosures during distressed economics times
* Increased home ownership
* Increased ability for entrepreneurship for individuals during economic low times.

I believe most of these benefits can come at NO COST to the taxpayers and with a strong POLITICAL GAIN for anyone who would champion my idea.

Here is the idea: I would like it very much if my IRA (both ROTH and/or Standard) could purchase my mortgage on my house. I would propose limitations if needed: 1) must be primary residence, 2) must be able to purchase entire mortage from lender 3) must sell at retirement. 4) must continue to make payments - but payments can be missed during hardships 5) you could think of more of course...

Finally, the genesis of this is because as a middle class worker if I'm laid off (highly likely) then I am forced to either sell my house (during bad times) or try to make my payments (horrific penalties). I think many people (errantly) choose to make payments assuming they will get back to work quickly, but doing so hurts their retirement badly. Furthermore, if the economic slump is extended, then after depleting savings AND paying penalties, they are still forced to sell their houses. Now they truly have nothing. I think if you did research they would find this to be true.

Banks - You gotta love them - Not

2005-10-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

My bank keeps putting 'secret' fees on my checking account. Very hard to find anyone that actually KNOWS why those fees are there! Here is an excerpt from their online chat service.

--------

Welcome to an online chat session at Bank of America. Please hold while we connect you to the next available Bank of America Account Specialist. Your chat may be monitored and recorded for quality purposes. You are number 1 in a queue of 1. Thank you for your patience.
You are now chatting with Carlos . Welcome to Bank of America. How can I help you complete your online checking or savings application today?
You: I need to see the COMPLETE rates and fees if possible for the regular account type.
Carlos : Good morning. In order to better assist you could I ask you a few questions geared towards your savings goals?
You: Including charges associated with using quicken
You: no i only want to see the rates and fees.
Carlos : I sincerely apologize; however, at this time via our Live Chat, we specialize only in opening new checking and savings accounts online.
Carlos :
Carlos : In order to better assist you with your inquiry, please contact our Customer Service specialists at 1.800.432.1000 we are available from 7AM to 10PM
Carlos : Or pleaser visit one of our banking centers for all of the available options.
Carlos : Please click this link to view the savings accounts offered online.
Carlos : Would you like to open a one of these accounts online today?
You: i can't open a new checking without seeing the rates and fees. how can i open a new checking if i don't know all of your hidden charges?
You: your web site does not have the complete listing of all the different fees associated with an account. can you point me to that.
Carlos : Do you mind if I ask you a few questions to determine the best account for you with none or little maintenance fees?
You: I would like you to show me the rates and fees ONLY for the regular account type and no other choices.

------------

I gave up at this point! Yikes.

Playing Itunes Music on your Home Theater System

2005-10-16T20:43:00.000-05:00

Streaming Media

Recently I've purchased a Mac iBook G4. Love it. The machine really rocks. For several months I noticed itunes but didn't do anything with it. I don't have an ipod or an MP3 player. No real need.

However, my wife and I did decide to make a CD or two and we bought a couple of songs from itunes and used the itunes app to burn the CD.

On a lark though, I ripped all of our CD's. I did make a mistake and ripped them as WAV. After my disk filled up after 5 CD's, I went back and actually READ what the different formats actually were. Fortunately, itunes has a really good conversion concept so I didn't have to re-rip.

I selected AAC, which is Apple's compression/decompression algorithms for music encoding. (the music is stored in an compressed format on your disk drive and I chose the apple format).

I went ahead and ripped the rest of our CD's, which was between 100-200 CD's. Wow. What a job. That took about 2 weekends of just servicing the disk drive.

Now that we had all the CD's ripped. What could we do? Not much really. We did start listening to music in the evenings before bedtime which was something we didn't do much of. That was nice. Apple speakers not too bad, but still very tiny and tiNNy speakers.

A week later or so, we had company over and so I made a nice play list of up-tempo music and we played it from the laptop. Not so cool. My wife says that it is too tinny.

So now I decide that I ought to be able to plug in the Mac to the home stereo and that was pretty easy - Radioshack mini-jack to RCA adapter cables. But that isn't very cool because I have to have my Mac near the home theater system to play music and I have to string cables.

So, my next mission is to try to find something so I don't have to string cables. I searched HIGH and LOW and so far the best next thing is the Apple Airport Express. It basically plugs into the wall and then you plug the minijack to RCA adapter cable into it. Then from ANY computer running itunes you can play the music you select on any stereo hooked to the airport express. very cool. you can name them AND you can have multiple units in the house.

I DID leave out an important detail... you have to have a wireless network in your house, which I do. The airport express is super easy to setup, even better on a Mac, but I think its pretty easy on Windows.

Now, we want to put speakers in our bedroom. But I DO NOT want a stereo system. What I want is something like airport express + audio amplifier that I can throw into the attic. And it has to be small, like a small novel.

So far I have not found anything like this. I have found close calls by Netstreams and by Barix but not anything too close. I have found a very good simple amp (RCA in, speaker posts out) by Sonic Impact.

Also, I've noticed that I get 'skips' or 'drop-outs'. Oddly enough, this occurs more with the 802.11G (54 kbps) network than with my older 802.11B (11 kbps [ kilobits per second] ) network. I don't quite figure that out. My new router does allow me to put priority on the music data so I'll do that.

All for now.

Customer service today... Sigh.

2005-06-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

I recently bought a book that I really enjoy...

&amp;lt;br&gt;

... however, when reading the book there is a curious notation at the bottom of most of the news stories. So I decided that I would 'call' customer support. I'm very disappointed in the answer, but not altogether unsurprised. Nowadays, it's very hard to get simple answers to support the things that you purchase.

Here is a copy of an email 'support' request to penguin books:
--------------------------------

Recently you requested assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it at any time.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

To update your question from our support site, click here.

Subject
book notation question

Discussion Thread
Response (name of Penguin books 'support') 06/27/2005 12:22 PM
Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, we do not have access to the information you've requested. We're sorry we can not be of assistance to you.
Customer (xxx) 06/25/2005 11:20 AM
In your book "World War II Day by Day", there is a notation on most
of the 'news events' that looks like this:

( --> X )

... where X is a number, potentially a calendar date. Nowhere in the
book does it say what the notation means.

Could you explain to me what that notation means?

Thanks,

[ name removed ]
Austin, TX

****************************************************************************
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If you were not an intended recipient,
please notify the sender and delete all copies.
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Question Reference #050625-000014
Date Created: 06/25/2005 11:20 AM
Last Updated: 06/27/2005 12:22 PM
Status: Closed

Don't you just love the status line... Closed!

Ideas - Secret or Open?

2005-06-20T08:23:00.000-05:00

"Now that I am 40+ I'm just getting to know myself
enough to know what I really want to do in life as a
vocation. I now know that my real dream would be to be
an inventor. I don't know how, but somehow I feel that
life as an inventor could also be a spiritual life as
well as one rich in family and friends.

One aspect of inventing is ideas. I've kept an idea
list for many years now, writing them down as I have
them. Not as a todo list, but just to remember. Maybe,
just maybe, one will jump out at me (and the family)
and we'll do something gutsy.

Originally, I never shared my ideas. After doing the
list for over 10 years though, I've been very free
with them with anyone crazy/interested enough to
listen. That by the way is ultra-counter-intuitive to
what the attornies/society tell you to do.

Anyway, it's always refreshing when I hear messages,
particularly those with a Christian grounding that
confirm that maybe my approach isn't all bad.

Here is the 'radio' spot that I thought was very well
done and made me want to forward to the group along
with a little anecdote on why it struck a note with
me.
.
I hope everyone can read the link."

<http://thehighcalling.org/WeeklyMessage/audio.asp?MessageID=188>

A fun place to eat

2005-03-24T22:05:00.000-06:00

I recently took a business friend to Malaga's. I thought it would be more fun than the normal sitdown stuffy fare (like Roy's or just about any other place). I also knew he was a wine lover of sorts.

He really like it. When he first walked into the place he about went bonkers when he saw the walls lined with bottles of wine. He was like a kid in a candy shop. He read the wine list from front to back and selected a Spanish Red, in deference to Malaga.

For the tapas, we ordered:
* Spinach and Artichoke (outstanding)
* Crusted Tuna (this was ok, but I think this one is solely for tuna lovers)
* Lamb (outstanding)
* Chicken (outstanding)
* Crawdad cakes (outstanding)

The bill was $119 after the night (bottle of wine + 5 tapas) which is probably reasonable. It was much fun and I would recommend it.

The wife is the key!

2005-03-17T07:46:00.000-06:00

i love this quote from the linked new story:

"One day, Crane called Bento's home, and his wife, Teri, answered the phone. Crane introduced himself and asked if Teri and Joe would join him at the Ritz-Carlton for dinner. Teri accepted. During the meal, Joe got up to go to the bathroom, and Crane then reached into his pocket for his checkbook. He wrote out a check for a five-figure signing bonus, and slid it across the table to Teri. "The day your husband comes to work with us," he said, "you can cash that check." When Joe returned from the restroom, Teri turned to him and said, "Honey, you start Monday." "

i'm from Nebraska so this reminds me that just when the Cornhuskers got good in baseball someone noticed. The coaches name was Dave Van Horne (sp?) and he turned us around from 'just a team' to a contender and that was pretty cool. Now when a northern team gets good in collegiate baseball, i think the southern teams start checking into it.

Lo and behold, Dave Van Horne and his wife were from Arkansas. And to Arkansas they went. I'm trying to imagine how this went, and my guess is something like this.

Arkansas Athletic Coordinator: "Mrs. Van Horn"?
MVH : "Yes."
AAC: "Come on home to Razorback country?"
MVH : "When do we pack?"

what is love

2005-03-15T21:29:00.000-06:00

As I drive home from a birthday party for a 4 year old my thoughts wander to my wife of 14 years who is driving home in a separate car - only because of the way our day came together. I've always cared for her, but as I drive home I realize that I really like her... as a friend, a companion, and just someone to hang out with. Even if we don't talk, I still like being in the same room - evidence if any that real-life magnetic waves if not other things are transmitted and received by people.

It occurs to me that what has really made me cross the line into a deeper place in our relationship is hardly ever mentioned any where in the press... it's compassion.

Yes. Compassion. Instead of her quircks and nits and wiggles bothering me, I now in fact appreciate them. I have a compassion for her and we work together to solve lifes problems and laugh through our own personal quircks.

It's coooommmmmmiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggg

2005-03-13T13:35:00.000-06:00

A nice article on the changing reality for US workers. Not mentioned in the article, but this seems to me to also touch on the switch from steady employment to a more project based economy.

Definition: Mining

2005-03-06T20:20:00.000-06:00

Be honest. You all know what mining is. You all have done it.

When you buy chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and when you are alone with your beloved creamy temptation, you do it. You go mining don't you.

It's when you intentially dig out the cookie dough bits leaving behind just the ice cream.

And it's not just cookie dough either. You can go mining with Ben & Jerry's New York Double Chocolate Crunch. You can do it with Phish Food too (I love those chocolate phish).

So now you know, that there is a miner in every one of us.

2005-03-05T15:56:00.000-06:00

Quick Restaurant Review #2:

Went to Giss's restaurant on William Cannon Drive West (Austin TX).

Again, standard fare Americana type stuff.

My wife ordered pot-pie. My daughter ordered pot-pie. My boy ordered a corn dog and I ordered my old friend: the cheeseburger.

My cheeseburger was pretty good. On a scale of 1-10, it was probably a 7. I ordered it with American cheese and mushrooms. I don't think my wife was blown away by the pot-pie and my little girl (age 7) didn't eat hers either. As far as a corn dog, I think my boy liked it.

The check was about $31 so I would say that the place was pretty expensive for what you get, but the quality was not bad.

2005-03-05T15:52:00.000-06:00

Quick Restaurant Review

Recently after church, three families (about 6 adults and 12 children) went to Willie Nelson's Roadhouse restaurant in Austin, Texas for lunch.

I ordered a cheeseburger and substituted mashed potatoes and gravy for the french fries. My wife had a salad.

Overall, the restaurant I think would be a real strong average. Very much standard fare Americana food. My mashed potatoes were outstanding, but my burger was awfully salty. We did have to wait a long time to get our check... with small children that can be a harrowing experience.

I guess I'd give them a 5 on a scale of 1-10.

2004-03-31T10:58:00.000-06:00

Street Conversation

While in San Francisco at a technology conference, I was stopped by some very comely young ladies. They were handing out free passes to the Larry Flynnt Hustler Club.

I told them my wife wouldn't approve and they told me it was a very wife-friendly establishment. Anyway, the conversation progressed and I told them the Moscone Convention Center was full of males.

"Oh we know that. That's why we're here, but we're not having much luck handing out the passes."

I said " That's because engineers are a very conservative bunch. Also very loyal to wives and girlfriends too ."

To which they replied " That explains alot. You should have seen the bankers. They loved getting the free passes. "

... and this is the class of people the free worlds financial system is entrusted to.

2004-02-26T22:20:00.000-06:00

Sad Day

While at work today I noticed that my boxer shorts were a bit thin. More than thin, they had a hole in them. They were my favorite pair.

With men, we bond with our clothes. We have a long term relationship with them. We're the complete opposite of women, who wear something once and that's it.

We have T-shirts that mean more to us than many family members.

Today is a sad day. I'm saying goodbye to an old friend. Oh... I'll move on, but for a moment, I'll catch my breath, have a melancholy thought or two, and then allow them to be whisked away by a Glad bag.

And I know what my boxers were saying as they teetered on the edge of the garbage can...

"It's a far far better thing I do ... "

... and so on.

A sad day indeed.

2004-02-12T14:10:00.000-06:00

Understanding Numbers

My two-year-old boy can count to about 8, but he is mostly just repeating a little number song I made up for him. He knows that 2 follows 1, but I've been fairly sure that he did not know that 2 is more than 1.

My wife told him quite carefully last night that he is entitled to ONE cookie. Right after saying that she gets a phone call. When she returns to the kitchen, my boy is found under the dining room table.

He directly looks my wife in the eye as he fondles the plate of cookies and says to her sternly "TWO cookies, mom."

When it comes to cookies, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt...

TWO is better than ONE.

2004-02-07T15:02:00.000-06:00

A serious bug in your software

I am a marketing manager for a small software company. Our company produces compiler, linkers, and debuggers mostly. In my product line, we sell a completely integrated product, everything I just mentioned is always sold together as a package. Because of the integrated-ness, over the last 2 years, we inadvertently overlooked putting a licensing check (to make sure only paid users could use our product) into the compiler portion of our product. By the way, the compiler is the only part of our product which can be used without the rest.

When we wised-up and saw our omission, we promptly added a license check since the compiler probably represents at least 1/2 the value of the product.

Probably about 2 weeks after releasing the new product with the license check, we received a 'trouble ticket' through our tech support. The trouble ticket reads something to the effect that a change that we made has caused our customer to have serious problems completing their project.

This sounds serious so we investigated. It turns out that our license check was preventing them from using 100's of copies of our compiler when they had only paid for 9. When we told them that was not a bug, and the licensing check was actually supposed to be the way it worked they then said the following.

"Could we have the following feature request put into the product as soon as possible? : Remove the licensing check."

Uhhhhhhhh. Wellllll. Let me think.

No.

May we send a quote?