I Love You This… SMACK

This evening at dinner I was trying to be cute with my daughter but instead assaulted our waitress. There’s a cute kids book which has a parent telling their child that they love them “…this much.” Well, being a cute dad with a cute daughter in the middle of dinner I wanted to tell Abby how much I love her. I asked, “How much does daddy love you?” And then I stretched out my hands to say, “This much.” But instead of reaching out in the air I smacked our waitress in the chest. I swear that in some restaurants like Hooters that sort of thing is a little more common. Of course the patrons doing that have had at least several beers before that sort of chest smacking activity happens. I on the other hand merely had diet Coke in my system. To top that off I was sitting in front of my wife trying to demonstrate to my daughter love.

However, there was a happy ending: the couple at the table diagonal from us (booth really, but who’s counting?) had apparently given up communicating. The husband sat there looking ugly and bored while his wife was made up, wearing nice clothes and most likely trying to be his beautiful partner. Since cro-magnon man wasn’t keeping up his part of the relationship the gal took to reading every letter that was printed on all of the propaganda, menus and sugar wrappers at the table. I felt sorry for her: she is going to be one of the many women in the United States who has an affair because she finds a man who pays half-of-an-attention to her. The other man could be the pool cleaner, the Schwann’s man or the hired pooper-picker-upper who comes every Wednesday to pick up after ‘Pickles’ the family poodle.

The moral of this odd blog entry? Men, don’t accidentaly whack waitresses in the chest, it does not demonstrate love. Secondly, men: don’t take your wife on a date and then become the most rock-like object in the establishment. Thirdly, men, don’t whack your waitress with rocks… this is generally not as acceptable as leaving a 25¢ tip, and in some cultures could leave you dead and in the gutter. Fourthly, if you’re a waitress it is highly recommended that you learn how to put makeup on. Our waitress had so much base on I thought she was a low-rider. I think it is possible to wear more foundation, but you have to have a building permit.

Wow, that was a tacky play on words, I best go spend some time with my wife and unwind.

Hardship

So, we closed on the house this morning… wow. That’s a lot of paperwork. However, my buddy Tony had talked it up so much that the paper work was much less than I expected. However, I had to sign a document stating that buying the house and assuming a mortgage wasn’t going to cause me ‘hardship.’ It’s a loan! Of course there’s hardship. Ironically, Mike, our real estate agent said they don’t ask you to sign the hardship document a second time if they foreclose 😉 The payments came in under our ‘max’ payment we could afford. I also feel like the previous owners of the house are good folks and we may stay in contact with them. Of course that’ll be weird because our decoration style could be different, or maybe we’ll just keep it a nice distant relationship so that they don’t discover that we’re really wacky folks.

I can’t wait to buy the rest of the surround sound speakers to get the surround sound working downstairs… its good that it’ll be in the basement so that the neighbors don’t complain 😉 Now that’s hardship.

Good-Bye Richard

A gentleman from church has gone to be with the Lord. He died some time mid-last week of a heart attack. However, since he lived alone it wasn’t discovered until earlier this week. Strangely enough on Easter Sunday I had seen him lose his balance a little on some steps and ran to assist him because I wanted to make sure he was OK. Richard was a very sweet man. Assuming I reach his age I pray that I am just as sweet (though I hope I’m living with my bride still). He would dote on Abby, who, being a little shy towards men in general, wasn’t sure what to do with him. However, he kindly gave her a birthday card as he did to me and Jessica even though we hardly knew him.

I’m grateful that Richard is with the Lord and a little jealous… we’ll see them soon enough.

Just a Moment Ago…

One of the folks from the mortgage place I’m using called me asking to confirm employment. They asked to speak to a co-worker. I should have said, “Hold on,” and then pretended to be someone else. However, I told her the truth: I’m self-employed. For every opportunity I have to be goofy I probably only take 1 out of 20 simply because I think of the ‘funny part’ too late. When will I learn?

They’re Coming Home!

Today my bride and my little girl come home from Washington! This is great because I’m tired of being alone in this apartment. I want to give Jessica a big hug and kiss, Abby a big hug and kiss and I want for them to go mad with me in this unlivable apartment 🙂 With almost everything in boxes I think Jessica’s going to have to take Abby out to the park or to other folks places so that Abby doesn’t go crazy for lack of toys. Less than a week left until the new place.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

Well, I’m home from Texas. It was a good, but incredibly busy trip. I slept last night for a good 8 hours I think. However, those good 8 hours were incredibly broken up because I was alone in my own bed. Jessica and Abby are in Washington and won’t get back until Tuesday.

However, I hope to get things mostly packed up in my office this afternoon so that when Jessica gets home the apartment is almost completely unlivable 🙂 We move into the new house in one week, so we’re counting days, seconds and boxes. It should go smoothly because the folks from church have volunteered so outrageously. They rock our socks off [except for the ones who don’t like rock, they hymn our socks off. If only they could hymn my new pants].

Texas Day III

This is the third day I’ve been in Texas for this trip and it has been incredibly brutal. Not that it has been bad but I’ve just not gotten a lot of sleep and the private time I’ve had has felt odd because I miss my bride and daughter. In saying that I can’t complain because so far there would have been very, very little time with them in the last two days. However, I miss the warm hugs from Jessica and Abby’s cute little smile just makes my day brighter. Furthermore, showing the cute picture of her sleeping doesn’t help either, it just makes me miss them more, but the staff here rightly tells all of the resellers from around the globe that Abby is the cutest 🙂

Odds are the blogging will be light for the next two weeks while I’m in Texas and then we move into our new home. Maybe May will be a good month for a slight relaxation… maybe.

Great User Experience: Frontier Airlines’ Self Checkin

Yesterday morning while checking in at the DIA I was greeted by an amazing self-checkin process by Frontier Airlines. This checkin was brilliant because it was so simple. That’s right I hardly had to do anything to check myself in. This is not typical for most ‘self’ anything programs. Checking out at the store at the ‘self checkout’ lanes is usually a hassle for most users. This was easy… I recommend you fly Frontier and try this. It is yet another way they have outdone the competition. Alternatively you might consider asking a complete stranger who’s flying Frontier if they’d like to let you look over their shoulder. This is must see User Interface design.

One Year

The 16th was officially the first year of our life as the Peterman family being together in Colorado. What an amazing year it has been… more to write, but I’m flying to Texas 🙂

Macromedia + Adobe = SVG?

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a technology that has been a recommended standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for some time. Adobe has put a lot of effort into a plugin for various browsers and platforms that allows people to view SVG files in their browsers. Being a web based technology, it needs to be in your browser. However, there was this really nasty competing technology: Flash. However, if the two companies merge, we could have a beautiful new age on the web where the Flash plugin supports SVG so that it’s finally ubiquitous.

This is the hope that I hold for this merger: Standards compliance, ubiquity, and maybe, just maybe a slightly better chance for Adobe prices to come out of the stratosphere.