A friend’s friend’s mom [you have to love indirection] used MySpace to email (which isn’t technically email) to ask if the friend’s employer, a clothing store, had any new nightgowns in stock. That can only be more awkward if its your own mother. Note to world: children and their friends, no matter their age, should not be involved in that part of your life. That sort of clothing choice is only appropriate for your spouse and the strangers that work at the stores whose nametag you don’t read and whose faces you try to forget.
Category Archives: The Obvious
More Barns In More Places
We’re in Kansas any more. We entered the state in the AM and will finally be out of it in the PM. It is a sad state to drive the width of because the only things to break the horizon are grain silohs and barns. Periodically a town will dot highway 70 with overpriced gas and pornography for Roman people who are 30 (XXX).
The girls are being mostly good and my iPhone is getting mostly good reception. I just want the wind to stop blowing so that the car doesn’t feel like we’re going to Oz Oh, and Kansas is the boyhood home of Bob Dole, who became a congressman and got out of Kansas to represent the state in Washington DC, a much more populous place, but you can drive through it just as slowly due to traffic and construction.
More Web Developers Choose Crack Over Any Other Browser!
I have spent far too much time on ‘fixing’ a bug that only happens in Internet Explorer (AKA Internet Exploder). Here’s a run-down on the problem:
1) Use math to figure out where something should show up on the screen
2) Test in Firefox – works!
3) Test in IE7 – Fail!
4) Remove rational math that appears to make sense and replace it with nonsense – works in IE7, fails in Firefox because Firefox isn’t as buggy
What I don’t get is that more people use Internet Explorer and its older. Why does the new browser have to work better, smarter, faster and cleaner? Thanks for reading my whine.
IE7 hack post mortem: in Firefox, use math. In IE6 & IE7 use meth.
Pardon Me, Microsoft, But Would You Mind Implementing Your Own Technology?
I have tried two days in a row now to download the Windows Mobile 5 or 6 SDK. Tried. I have succeeded to actually download files, larger files that take some time to download. Except that when I download the large files and try to execute the installers it warns me. It warns me to keep me safe from bad files containing viruses. It warns me that all hellfire and brimstone might take place due to the dangerous files that are encased in the cryptic MSI file. It tells me that I cannot execute the installers – which I need for work – because it has an unknown publisher. Clicking on the publisher link on the dialog shows that it is in fact Microsoft. The author of the warning sofware is Microsoft. The author of the SDK is Microsoft. Microsoft department number one, would you please talk to department number two and make sure that your stuff works nicely with itself?
Thanks!
Thinking in Lego
Abby has finally discovered the fun that is Legos. However, she has the patience to put together a fifteen piece set, but the desire for my 100+ piece ship set (from when I was a kid). That is of course how Jessica got roped into putting together the ship set. She is still working on it. It is now going on hour five or so. The problem is that many of my sets were all jumbled together so she has to find the right pieces inside of the thousands of pieces across the floor.
Jessica asked, “Are you laughing at me yet?”
To which I replied, “No, you have to learn to think in Lego.”
Thinking in Lego is what I would call the ability to see the spacial requirements of the project and instinctively be able to find the shapes and pieces simply because you know what Lego has to offer. I used to be able to do this, but at present my patience and lack of recent experience puts me at about a 30 piece kit. Jessica is a completer, though, so she will complete what she starts. I have learned to not commit to anything that I know will take more than two minutes. Which is about as long as this post has taken me, so it must be done.
Confession: I Love Make-Over Shows. Sort Of.
I really dig make-over shows. I don’t like the shows as much as I like the before and after stuff. I would totally love to have a network dedicated to them. Except that I’d have to record the shows and watch them like I do today. That is that I watch them in fast forward. I like about thirty seconds of the show which is where they show you the before and after. Thirty minutes of TV is now about thirty seconds of TV and that’s where I’m good. I don’t need a second more. I know all of the tricks that they do on the shows so I don’t need to see the bloody surgery parts, the tooth whitening or the botox.
I’m good enough with the before and after shots – because I’m currently living in the current before and after now. I’m not likely to be extremely made over. But I’m likely to be extremely fast on my TV watching.
Sitting in the Waiting Room
My brain is still on vacation due to the last remaining strains of this cold I’ve had. After a week and a few days I had hoped I would be over this stupid thing. I somehow feel like its a side effect of running Windows or something. My anti-virus didn’t catch something.
Either way: we’re feeling somewhat better around here, its just that we’re not all better all the way. Evie and Abby will run and jump and play no matter what they feel like (other than the flu, which causes Evie to snuggle me just long enough to throw up on me), but they do sound mostly better. If all goes well they’ll be right as rain tomorrow and we’ll have to velcro them back up onto the wall in intervals to have things be quiet again 🙂
The Sickness: Part II
Tonight I got a new keyboard. Its a new Apple Wireless thingy. You see, I had to get a new one because the old one received the puke of a two year old. I’m feeling sick, Jessica is feeling sick, Abby is feeling sick, and Evie is most definitely sick. Even Kurt & Becky are under the weather. The sickness is annoying to say the least. We missed church, we missed being with some friends whom we wanted to see… but we didn’t miss going out to the grocery store to buy things that will hype us up so that we can feel half-awake instead of mostly dead.
I have to fly tomorrow morning (Monday) so I’m super-excited to spread germs, receive germs, and generally make those around me miserable or question the safety of my company. The good thing is that this new keyboard should cause me great discomfort for a few days in the hands department so that at least most of me is funky instead of just one part.*
By the way, too much vitamin C is actually diarhea inducing. I know this because in Jr. High I fed my friend too much vitamin C because he liked the ‘cherry’ flavor of the C I had. Little did he know that his immune system would kill most anything with that boost, but the explosive gastro-intestinal boost would kill his chances of getting a girlfriend. Sorry, Matt 🙂
*I’m used to an ergonomic keyboard and this is not, but since my laptop is also not ergo, its good to get used to the ‘old’ style as needed.
Thankful Thursdines Day
This Valentines day I will simply state that I am thankful for my bride. Yeah, I’ve been thankful for her before, but she does rock the Casbah. In fact, speaking of rock, Abby was surprised to learn that Jessica liked rock music. For some reason the constant kids music Jessica would play to pacify the children led Abby to believe that Jessica would prefer to listen to kids music and the cranky daddy was the one who liked rock music.
Turns out my Ska, Rock, Classic Rock, Alternative Rock and generally music loving wife isn’t as big on Backyardigans as Abby had first thought. I’m thankful for that, too!
Many Pictures To Upload
I have many pictures to upload to the interwebs. I have yet to take the time. This makes me bad in a not good sort of way. I will upload them on Monday… hopefully. Don’t hate me for being beautiful.
Update: the pictures are up on flickr.com/photos/randypeterman