Cuteness

Tonight, during our bath, Allison was lining up all the bottles on the edge of the tub.

"Hi Allison's soap!  Hi Daddy's soap!  Hi Daddy's shampoo!"

Then she picked up a little baby washcloth.

"Hi..."  (Small pause, as she thought for the word)  "Hi...  this toy!"

I thought it was so funny that I erupted in laughter.  Allie thought that me laughing was pretty funny, so SHE started laughing.  A gloriously hilarious feedback loop ensued.

Someone Broke into our House Today

Diana and Allison and I left this morning, like we do almost every Saturday, for an adventure.  We headed to an outdoor art/food festival type thing, but because the weather was rainy, we headed over to the aquarium.

We left around 9:30am, and returned home at 12:30pm.  As we were driving up, Diana noticed that our door was open.  I specifically remember being in the car first, and Diana and Allison coming to the car to meet me.  We figured that possibly the door just wasn't closed in the hustle to get the kiddo into the car.

I walked to the door, and didn't really consider that someone could be inside.  But I yelled "we're home!" and tried not to startle anyone, again not really thinking anyone would be inside.

I walked in, and went into our kitchen, and noticed that a couple of the drawers were open.  That was suspicious, but with a curious little girl running around, not unheard of.

I walked back to the front door, and noticed the drawer of a small decorative table was also open.  This was definitely weird.

I went back outside and told Diana that I thought someone had broken into our house.  We sort of sat there, not knowing what to do.  We saw our neighbor across the street, and told him what we thought happened.  I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but I cautiously (and perhaps stupidly) went back inside, making lots of noise and ready to bolt if necessary.  It became obvious pretty quick that the house was empty.

The police were called, and nice Officer Brett came and looked around, attempted to take some fingerprints (none found), and generally reassured us and made us feel a bit less scared.

Here's what I think happened, based on open drawers, etc.

Bad guy goes to the front door, and discovers that no one answers it.
Tries courtyard sliding glass door (screen was ajar).
Walks around the garage side of the house.  Tries side sliding glass door.
Tries back sliding glass door.
Makes it around to the other side of the house, and finds a bedroom window slightly ajar.
Pries the screen off the window (bent screen was found nearby), and enters.
Looks through bedtable drawers (perhaps for guns?)
Looks through cabinet under the TV (only old VHS tapes in there).
Does NOT go into bathroom (Diana's jewelry box untouched).
Goes down the hall into my office.
Grabs Diana's laptop bag (with computer inside).
TRIES to take my computer, but gets frustrated with how many wires there are (devices were unplugged from power strip, but nothing disconnected).  The front case of the computer was slightly ripped off the frame, like it was pulled roughly.
Takes my 20" flat panel monitor and webcam sitting on top of it.
Ignores the open closet which has other techy stuff in it.
Goes through the living room (not seeing my laptop on the sofa), and into the main room.
Rifles through kitchen drawers, and finds a LOT of crap we stuff in there.
Disconnects and takes my PS3.
Takes my Rock Band 2 Guitar.
Takes the subwoofer from our surround sound system.
Does NOT take DVDs or DVD player.
Leaves throught the front door, leaving it wide open.  Total time in the house, probably less than 5 minutes.

I can't imagine carrying a PS3, a 20" flat screen monitor, subwoofer, laptop case (though it did have a nice shoulder strap) very far.  Must have gone straight into a car and on the way.

Later in the night, Diana was looking around near the entertainment center and found a pair of needlenose pliers which I'm SURE I've never seen before.  So we called the police back and they'll come pick 'em up, for what it's worth, which probably isn't that much.

We went through a lot of emotions.  Scared and violated, but after talking to the very nice police officer, not as much.  He told us that in our area, violence is very rare, and violence between strangers is even more rare.  This was just a property crime, and no one doubts that if there were signs of anyone being home, nothing would have happened.

I talked to many of the neighbors, all of whom were very appropriately concerned and sympathetic.  Everyone was very helpful in offering information about what they did and didn't see.  Our neighbor on the broken-window side said that he was even out playing with his kids in their back yard for much of the time we were gone, but didn't notice anything.    We live in a very quiet, safe (feeling) neighborhood, and everyone is pretty shocked.

Anyways, crazy stuff.

This afternoon, we went to the YMCA pool with Allison.  I've never seen her so fired up.  It was great.

Hi!

Hello blog…  I haven't forgotten about you!

Summer is here.  This time of the year is one of my favorites, holding over from when I was in school.  School is out.  The Fair is opened.  A whole summer off, with no school and all sorts of adventures to be had.  It probably should have been obvious, but no one specifically told me when I started working at a full-time job that you don't get summers off anymore.  It's old hat now, but it did sting for a year or two.

You don't get summers off, that is, unless you're a teacher like my wife!  There was some talk about teaching summer-school, but that was decided against.  So this summer Diana will be a mostly-full-time mommy.  Allison will still spend some time at Dorrie's this summer, as well.  Diana has already started swimming lessons at the YMCA, as well as signed up for other adventures and opportunities.  It was great for me to get a phone call and ask how the first day of swimming lessons was, and hear "Awesome… better than I expected".  Allie apparently really enjoyed the pool and the little games they played.  Many activities were followed by an enthusiastic "MOOORE!  MOOORE!" in the way that she does.

It's hard for me to be at work and know that they are out having fun and bonding.  I'm happy, but it's hard.  Of course, taking care of a toddler is a tough job in its own right, and I'm sure there will be plenty of days that I'll be happy to escape to the office.  We're only a few days into the summer, so we'll see how it goes.

Allison is doing great.  She's growing up nicely, and learning how to be her own person.  I am choosing (for now) to not believe in the "Terrible Two's", but I can at least see where the name comes from.  Kids this age discover that they have some control over their own lives, and what they choose isn't always the same as what we want her to be doing.  It was a little tough at first, but we've learned pretty quickly how to manage her newfound independence, and will continue to do so, I'm sure.

Favorite activities these days:
Looking at pictures of family and friends
Chasing and being chased.
Watching Elmo being sung to sleep by Andrea Bocelli (google "Elmo Bocelli")
Playing the Seeker in hide and seek.

Hide and seek is especially fun.  She will run to her room and sit in the middle of the floor, facing away from the door, and count to 10:  "Waaaaan.  Tooooo.  H'reeeeee.  Fooooor.  Waaaaaas.  Siiick-sss.  Wezzzzen.  It.  Niiiiine.  TIN!"  Then get up and look for the hiding person.  We give her plenty of hints to find us, and she gets all fired up when she does.  Good times.

Not a whole lot going on with me.  I'm helping a friend work on a computer game, which has been pretty fun.  I helped set up a "Rock Band" station at work, in preparation for a big Rock Band competition, which is pretty cool.  I'm 1.5 weeks into my Hundred Pushups training, and progressing nicely, which is a good feeling.  And finally, my friends Mike and Gwen are days away from moving back to San Diego.  It will be great to have them around.   Our Fantasy Football league is already set up, and I'm already starting to analyse…

Email from Diana

Depending on who is with Allie in the morning, Diana and I write each other a "morning report" email.  Here is an excerpt from Diana's report to me:

---------
Morning was really fun.  Cheerful young lady, good breakfast.  She wanted me to sing about Bapa and Yaya [her words for Grandpa and Grandma], so I sang things like "Bapa likes to dance with..." and she would fill in the blanks.  Here are some highlights:

Bapa likes to eat.... "dinner"
Yaya likes to swim in the...."ocean"
Bapa likes to color with..."Allison"
Yaya likes to wear her...."hat"
Bapa likes to push Allison on the..."swing"
Yaya likes to go down the..."slide"
Bapa likes to bark like a..."dog"

CUTE!  She has her own thoughts!
---------

Latest news

Lots to catch up on, so let's get started.

First off, a brief Allie report.  She's growing up big and strong, loves climbing and running and jumping and dancing.  She's definitely aware of what she wants and doesn't want, and won't hesitate to make her unhappiness known.  But aside from brief flurries of unhappiness, she's really doing well.  She's talking a lot, starting to use multi-word "sentences" and communicating very well.  Good times all around.

I just got back from a brief weekend Mammoth fly-fishing trip, celebrating the first of Iwan's two bachelor parties.  I don't know how many bachelor parties that guy is going to have, but as long as I'm involved, the more the merrier.  Norm, Eryn, Mick and I drove up on Thursday night.  I spent that night and the following morning not feeling very well, probably because of the altitude change, but for some reason really turned a corner and felt fine for the rest of the weekend.  Fishing was a huge success.  We played many board games, including multiple instances of Pandemic, a team game where the object is to contain an outbreak of various diseases before they spread out of control.  Very topical.

Upon arriving back, I was introduced to a game called "Subbuteo".  I've never heard of this game, but apparently it's been around since shortly after World War II.  It's essentially soccer, played with tiny little figurines.  You use your finger to flick a figure, and in that way, dribble, pass, and shoot a soccer ball.  It's really a ton of fun.  Baditude is thinking about setting up a friendly little league, and we're all fired up on buying our own teams and stuff.  It's good times.

Mike and Gwen are in town for the week, shopping for houses.  They are over right now, along with Baditude and Trisha watching Lost.  Apparently there was some unfortunate confusion on Eryn's part that resulted in his cable being turned off and Lost being missed.  Luckily for them, we have it recorded.  It's great, as always, to see them both.  I really look forward to them moving into the neighborhood.  They put an offer down on a house nearby, which is awesome.

That's the bulk of the news for now.  Hope you, dear reader, are doing well!

Laminar Flow Fountain (Again!)

Ok, I know I'm a broken record here, so feel free to just skip this post if you're tired of all this fountain talk. I won't be offended.

I think I've gone about as far as I can go with a 4" tube fountain. So before I epoxy the whole thing together, I thought I'd post a little video showing how it was all made.



There are three main things that the fountain needs to do, as far as I can tell:

1) Slow down the water, so that it is easier to remove turbulence.
2) Remove the turbulence.
3) Reassemble the water and squirt it out the end.

The problem I've been having with the 4" tube is that if I want the water to squirt farther, I need to turn up the hose higher. That makes the water faster, and the turbulence isn't removed.

It occurs to me that with a longer tube, and more scouring pads or other features to slow down the water, it might have a better result, at the expense of a smaller package. Maybe I'll give that a shot.

Another option is to find some larger diameter pipe. This will spread out and slow down the water in a much shorter time period. The problem, though, is finding 8" pipe, end caps, etc.

I'm pretty much making all this up as I go along. If you have any suggestions, or if I've got my theory wrong (is there a hydrologist in the house?), let me know.

(If you're read this far and are totally bored, don't say I didn't warn you! This post is really meant for me to read in a few years and think "Oh yeah, I remember that!")

Laminar Fountain

I'm getting closer!

I made some adjustments today (hooray for half-days!). I packed more straws into the pipe. More could fit in there, but I've used all 1000 that came in the box. I also cut away some excess screen that was holding the straws in place.

I shortened the tube by quite a bit, so there is about 2 inches between the end of the straws and the outlet hole.

In the end cap, I duct-taped a metal washer after using some sandpaper to smooth the washer-hole as much as I could. Before putting the end-cap back on, I placed screen over the end of the pipe, so there is a layer of screen again between the straws and the output hole. I'm not sure what purpose this serves, but it's in the original patent for these puppies.

The results are much better! It's not perfect, but it's much, much better.

I'm not sure what the end goal is. I think the dream would be to embed this into the ground, and form an arch over the walkway to our front door, recirculating. That would be awesome, and not really that hard.

Sorry for the shaky video.

First draft...

It's still pretty rough, but the concept is there...

Laminar Flow Fountain

Every boy needs a project to work on to occupy spare brain cycles.  Projects not too complicated have a much better chance of actually be completed (see Nethack Screensaver) than those that are complex (see Rock Band Robot).  To that end, I try to also keep things as cheap as possible.  Besides, a big budget on a home-brew project is essentially cheating.

So, recently my family found ourselves at the local mall, where they have one of those cool laminar flow fountains.  This one wasn't the "jumping" type (though you've probably seen those), but instead a set of "glass rod" type flows of water shooting from a ring into the central pool.  The streams were totally coherent, and looked like solid glass.  They were accessible by small hands, and after her initial trepidation, Allie had a great time touching the water and splashing about.  We were thankful to have brought a change of clothes.

Even before Allie, I've always loved those fountains.  At one point (when we were doing landscaping, I think), I looked up how expensive they were.  I had big plans of turning our courtyard into a water-feature, with water jumping overhead or some nonsense.  Turns out, they are pretty spendy.   Thousands of dollars for a single fountain nozzle.

Recently, on a whim, I did some more searching and found that people have been making their own versions that work pretty well.  So I'm going to try to make one, too!  (Don't ask me what I'm going to do with it yet.  I haven't thought that far ahead.)

The basic idea follows thusly:  Water is fed from a garden hose into a section of pipe.  That section of pipe is much wider (4") than the hose, so the water will travel through it more slowly.  Packed into the base of the pipe are some scouring pads.  These serve to break up and disperse the incoming flow of water.  Following the scouring pads are a set of straws, all jammed into the pipe side by side, forming a "honeycomb" type arrangement (only circular instead of hexagonal).  The water is split up and travels through each straw, which serves to straighten out the flow and remove turbulence from the water.

Finally, the water squirts out a hole drilled into a cap that is closing off the other end of the pipe.  When the water squirts out, it should all be travelling in the same direction and speed, and should stick together and look like a solid glass rod.

That's the idea, at least.  Not too complicated, and nothing too expensive in there.

The details are where it gets a little tricky.  For one thing, the straws need to be held in place in the middle of the pipe.  People have accomplished this by using a layer of screen (like, from a screen door or window screen) at each end of the batch of straws.  And that screen is held in place by a ring that fits snugly inside the pipe.  So, you put a circle of screen on the open end of the pipe, and fit the ring into place, and push the whole thing down inside the pipe.  Then put in the straws, then another screen/ring combo.

The other final detail is the hole that the water squirts out of.  Drilling a straight hole through the end cap may work, but any little burrs of plastic will disrupt the water.  I guess water flowing through a drilled hole creates its (Gwen!) own turbulence.  So rather than a straight hole, you countersink the hole, so that the water is only passing through a knife-edge thin hole (the countersunk side is on the air-side of the end cap, not the water side).

So, I have all the pieces I need, I think.  Just need to assemble and test!  I'll take some pictures and let you know (lucky you) how it goes.

For now, you can see what my boy "tedstur" has made, that I'm trying to replicate

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVV587m4i0

Dream plans would involve a pump that recirculated the water.  Most likely, though, this will be used in conjunction with Allie's kiddie pool on hot summer days.  Or just to see if it can be done, and sell the plans to Norm for use in his swimming pool.  Or something.  Who knows.  That part doesn't matter much.  :)

Streisand Effect...

I've only recently heard of the "Streisand Effect" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect), but since hearing about it, it's come up a number of times.

The effect, named after Babs, is when she got all pissed off when a photographer was taking aerial views of the California coastline (I think for some coffee table type book).  She got all pissed that it was an invasion of privacy, took him to court, etc.  The end result, of course, is that the pictures of her house got spread all over the internet and news, and way more people saw them than would have if she hadn't made such a big fuss.

In general terms, making a big stink and trying to censor something can frequently have the exact opposite effect, especially on the Internet, where data can be copied and persisted extremely easily.

The latest instance of this happened recently, when the Google "Street View" van drove through the village of Broughton (never heard of it?  Well, now you have.  And that's my point).  A cranky old guy saw the van, rallied his neighbors, and they physically blocked the road to make the van go away.  They were concerned that because of recent burglaries, and that Broughton is a relatively affluent area, the Street View would invite more criminals.

Too late, dude.  Too late.  It's all over the news.  By making such a stink, he has put his small village on the map (pun intended).  Millions of people who've never heard of the place, or cared, now are focusing attention on it.

The Streisand Effect is a pretty cool phenomenon.  Keep your ears open, and I'll bet you'll hear more instances of it soon.

Crap

So I really wanted to buy a Pepsi from the vending machine, but I don't have any change or singles.  Just a $20 bill.  I know the lunchroom folks don't like making change (I made THAT mistake only once), so I figured I'd just buy some chips or something.

 

I go to buy some chips, and the lady winces when she see's my $20.  "You can just take it," she says, "and owe me 45 cents.  It's ok."

 

So now I've got chips I don't really want, no Pepsi, and the same $20 bill.

Nethack Screensaver

So I've spent the last week or so creating a Nethack screensaver.

Nethack is a very geeky computer game, that in spite of it's lack of graphics (the "graphics" are made up of text characters on the screen), is pretty incredibly detailed and intricate.  It's also very hard.  Long time readers may remember a proud post the first time I actually beat the game a few years ago, a good 15'ish years after playing it for the very first time.   I remember asking my dad to upgrade our computer to 640K of RAM in order to play the game.  To put that in some perspective, a single digital picture is typically twice that size.

Anyways, you can play the game online on a server in such a way that your games are recorded.  And your recorded games can be played back like a little movie.  I thought that this movie display would make a pretty cool screensaver.  It basically would look like a Nethack game playing itself.  So I created a screensaver, and I created a movie-player that could read those files, and I merged the two.  If I may say myself, it works pretty well, and looks pretty cool ("cool", in relative terms, a'course).

I uploaded the screensaver and it's source code (http://drop.io/NethackScreenSaver) to a public place, and posted a message to the Nethack newsgroup (where all the Nethack dorks like me hang out) announcing this release.  I did this last night.

In the screensaver, I included a little text file that says that the screensaver and its source code is being released totally for free.  What this means is anyone can download it, use the screensaver, modify the source, steal my ideas, try to package and market it, whatever.  I did this kind of as a "pay it forward" for everyone else who has posted free source code that has taught me so much over my life.  I figure if I help someone learn a thing or two, the world will be a tiny bit of a better place in the long run.

However, I also included a PayPal "Donate" link.  Clicking on the link provides an easy way to pay me money (user-defined… no set amount).  I said in the text file that I was releasing this totally for free, but if people thought it was worth a buck or two, that could throw it my way.  In all honesty, including this kind of link was less a money-making venture and more an experiment to see if anyone would actually pay me.

I just got a single donation for $20.

I'm shocked.  SHOCKED.  This is me, shocked.

In the first 24 (not even) hours, I've already exceeded my wildest, dare-to-dream expectations about making any money with this.  I still don't think I'll make any serious money, but I'm already through the looking glass at this point…

Important news...

You'd better watch this.


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children...

Allie is 1.5 years old!

This weekend, Allie turned 1.5 years old. Pretty exciting.

On Saturday morning, we hit up Legoland for the first time. I'd never been very interested in Legoland previously, hearing that it was really geared towards children without a whole lot of fun things for adults (as opposed to, say, Disneyland, which has plenty of stuff for adults to enjoy). I was actually pleasantly surprised. We bought year memberships, which are pretty spendy, but with summer coming up, and plenty of stuff for a kid to explore, I'm sure we'll hit it up early and often. I was pretty surprised at how BIG it was (cue Michael Scott). Plenty of playground type stuff for little kids, water-playgrounds for summer time (which I'm sure will be a complete madhouse), and rides and fun Lego stuff for older kids. So, that was pretty fun.

Allie's continuing to grow and learn, as well as express herself, both positively and negatively. We had a good bit of time that she knew the word "yeah", but not "no". That is no longer the case, and many requests are met with a solid "no!" When her parents dictate that she will do something that she doesn't want to do, she can throw a little bit of a fit, going limp-body and flopping to the ground roughly. So far, those don't last too long, and are usually easily overcome, but it's a bit of a new development. I don't think there have been too many really severe meltdowns that lasted more than a few minutes.

When she's happy and comfortable, she'll toddler off into the distance without a look backwards. But if she's around strangers who appear to be paying any attention to her, she retreats to the comfort of Mama or Daddy's arms (which, in spite of her nervousness, we admit we really enjoy).

Her language skills continue to develop. She's learning new words all the time, and refining the ones she already knows. (Oh, the other good thing about Legoland is that it's right near Palomar airport, which means planes are flying overhead all the time. Each one is pointed out with an enthusiastic "air-pane!", or maybe even a "hey-a-da-dar" (helicopter)). She's getting more and more comfortable stringing words together, like "Mamas-shirt" and things like that, and referring to herself ("Ai-son").

In other news, there's not a whole lot of other news.

Where Allie Goes to the Doctor...

Allie had her 1.5 year doctor's appointment today. 

 

For her part, Allie was a trooper throughout.  She was nervous, but fought back her tears.  When I first laid her on the table for the doctor to check her out, she declared that she was "Aw-none" (all done). 

 

The doctor asked questions that I was thankful to have the right answers to, like "Is she running and climbing?  Is she talking?  Is she using a spoon and cup?"  The kind of answers that I might feel worried if the answer was no.  But I answered yes to everything, and the doctor declared her "perfect".  I agreed, but (as I explained to Allie), I am biased, but she is a medical professional!  She's gone through YEARS of school, and even she thought Allie was perfect!

 

Dr. Gina (as we call her behind her back) remarked that Allie was 90'somethingth percentile for height, and pretty average for weight.  I asked if there was a way to predict her height, and she said that you can double their height at this age to get a prediction.  That would put Allie at 5'7".  So, Olympic gymnastics is probably cut.  Professional beach volleyball it is, then!

 

She had to get two S-H-O-T-S, but only cried for a tiny bit.

 

Afterwards, with tears still drying on her face:

"OK, Allie.  You're all done!"

"Aw-none!"

"Would you like to go outside?"

"Out-tide...!  Yeah."

"Would you like to go to Dorrie's house and play?"

"Yeah..."

 

Cute.  She's a good ship...

 

I never got a chance to post a recap of my mile race against Iwan.  It's a long and harrowing tale about a boy and four laps around a high school track, but the long and short of it is that Iwan is in much better shape than I am, beating me by half a lap and over a minute in time.  I'm not sure exactly how the whole event came to be, but that's how it ended.  Running a mile with absolutely zero training was a little humbling.

 

It got me thinking about other fun events we (not just me and Iwan, but everyone) could do, and perhaps turn into an official "Super Happy Lucky Best Day of Champions Decathlon of Domination".  Some events that come have sprung to mind:

 

Field goal kicking (longest)

Football accuracy

Free throw contest (most made out of N)

9-ball pool (bracket tournament)

Poker tournament

Mile Run

General knowledge quiz (random Trivial Pursuit type questions)

…?

 

Any more suggestions?  I'd like things that are varying tests of strength, dexterity, agility, intelligence, and even luck, but that anyone in any physical shape could compete in.  I was thinking this could be part of Best Weekend Ever 2K9, but maybe could be pushed up to celebrate Discostup's triumphant return to SoCal or something.

 

Not much other news.  I celebrated 10 years at my work, and (unrelated to that) gave a talk to a pretty big audience (the Systems division meeting) about some technology that we're using.  I was pretty nervous, but have heard lots of feedback, both directly and indirectly, about how well the talk went.  It's always a good thing when you're supervisor comes over to tell you that other people were telling her how much they enjoyed the talk.  So that was nice.

Random News

Allie is going through a bit of an intellectual renaissance period right now, which has been a lot of fun to watch.  She's learned a lot of new words, most critically being "yeah" (which we're very gently encouraging towards "yes") and "again" (pronounced "ennnnNNN?")  Those two words go a long way in helping her communicate what she wants, which must be very liberating from her.

One of her favorite toys is a wooden alphabet puzzle.  It's a board with cutout letters that can be removed and replaced.  We dump out all the letters, and she can pick them up individually and recognize which letter goes in which spot.  She sometimes has a hard time rotating them correctly to get them to fit in the cutout shape of the letter, but she's getting better at that.  She knows the sounds of many of them, too.  B's say "buh, buh", and L's say "la-la-la" and S's say "ssssss", etc.

She's pretty much mastered the spoon.  There used to be a certain amount of dumping of food between bowl and mouth, but she can now keep it pretty level and get most of the food in there.  So, for most of the meal, we just put food in front of her and let her go to town.  Quite often, she's putting it away as fast as we can get it in front of her.

She still loves to run and chase and be chased.  At some point, we were moving a futon out to the garage, and in the process we put the big futon mattress on the floor of our living room.  It's still there, because she loves to jump and play on it.  She'll ask for music, and run walk in circles clapping her hands and giggling in her own method of dancing.  Putting a our big bean-bag thing on the futon makes a nice mountain for climbing on and off.  She loves climbing, and does a lot of practicing stepping on and off stair steps.

She's generally eating well, sleeping well, and happy and playful.  Good times all around.

In other news, we got our annual electric bill.  You may remember that we invested in a solar power solution a little over a year ago, and exactly a year ago, turned on "net metering".  This means that we don't pay a monthly bill, but instead let everything run for a year.  During the day, we generate excess electricity, and our meter runs backwards (effectively crediting our account).  During the night, we consume electricity, and our meter runs forwards as normal.  At the end of the year, all the debits and credits are added up, and we pay an annual bill.  Our bill was $190, which I think is pretty good for a full years worth of electricity.  (Of course, any savings are going to go towards repaying the debt of thousands of dollars to get solar in the first place, but whatever.  It's still pretty cool.)

In even other news, I got hit by a computer virus recently.  I downloaded a program called "Super" or something, which is a REALLY cool video conversion software package.  Video formats are kind of black magic, and this program let you convert from one format to another, and set a bunch of options, etc.    In retrospect, there is some suspicion that this program is an open door for malware to get onto your computer.  That's unfortunate, 'cause it was a really cool program.

Shortly afterwards, I was hit with the "MS Antispyware 2009" program.  It popped up and started scanning my PC, coming up with all sorts of Bad Things.  Basically, this program intentionally puts stuff on your machine, then scans it, reports the bad things, and extorts money from you to clean it up.

It did some other really nasty stuff.  If I tried to run Spybot Search and Destroy, for example, it would intercept the call and not let the application run.

It would also redirect web searches.  For example, if I searched on google for "ms antispyware 2009", I'd get a lot of search results on how to remove it.  Clicking on any of those links, however, redirected me to "windowsclick.com" which a big encoded URL.  Online virus scanners didn't appear to work, either. 

However, I found that I could hit the Google "cached" link, and still get to the page.  That eventually led me to my savior, Malwarebyte's anti-malware program, which appears to have found all the bad stuff and cleaned it up.  Oh, and when I actually was able to download this program, I couldn't install it.  After some more "cache" web searches, I found that I could rename the installer executeable, and then it would run.  So I got it installed.  I then needed to rename the actual installed exe program name before I could run IT.  Motherfuckers. 

It burns me to the core that smart computer people could be so evil to write stuff like this.  I compare it to a doctor that makes patients sick on purpose, or firefighters who start fires.  A special, ironic breed of evil.  Attentive readers may remember that I've chosen to forego virus protection on my PC, and this hasn't made me second guess that decision at all.  It's almost worth testing, though… setting up a virtual PC with a virus checker, and see what it detects and catches.  Maybe I'll give that a shot someday.

Speaking of computers, we bought a new laptop.  Our old laptop was just that… old and slow, and it's something I've wanted to do for a while.  I loaded it with the newest version of Windows, called Windows 7, which is going to be the successor to Vista.  Like Star Trek movies, it's commonly known that every other version of Windows is good, and every alternate version sucks.  Star Treks 2 (KAAAAHN!), 4, and 6 were considered good.  1, 3, and 5, not as much.

Windows 98 was good.  Windows ME, not good.  Windows XP is good.  Windows Vista is apparently not good.  Windows 7 is in beta, but has gotten lots of good buzz, so we'll see.  So far, I think it's pretty snazzy.

Ok, that's enough of an update for now.  Smell you later.

Intelligent Design

Football

This morning, Allie and I were playing football. I was doing the "play by play" announcements.

"Blue-42… hike! Daddy hands the ball off to Allie. Allie sweeps right!"

(Allie runs off, hugging a full-sized football, and I chase her)

"Here comes Daddy! FUMBLLLLLLLLE! Daddy recovers and runs. Allie chases him! Oh no, Daddy tripped!"

(I fall on the ground, face down, but continue on with the play-by-play)

"Allie comes up to make the tackle."

(pause)

"Allie stands there, looking dumbfounded."

(I start cracking myself up at this point. She comes up and pulls up the back of my shirt)

"Daddy is down by contact! Allie is looking for Daddy's belly button on his back!"

The fact that I'm cracking myself up makes me laugh even more.

Good times.

Good news, Bad news, and OK news...

The good news: Iwan entered into and won a spot to play in a shotgun start at Torrey Pines today (the day after the final round of the Buick Invitational). And actually, he won a foursome, and invited me to join him! We'd play from the pro tees, and play with the same pin placements as the pros did yesterday.

I went to the driving range a few times this week, and recorded the Buick for watching and re-watching. I was all prepped to play the holes, and then come home and review how the pros did, etc. I was really, really looking forward to this.

The bad news: It rained all last night, and was pouring this morning. We got up and headed out, only to find out that they were gonna shut the course down for the day. Rivers were forming, greens were turning into pools, and the course was deemed unplayable by the grounds manager. He was really apologetic, but made the call.

The OK news is I'm still going to take today as a vacation day. I'm pretty disappointed, though.

Rock Band at work...

The weirdest thing just happened at work.

 

My workboy Scott got a call at his desk.  I wasn't really listening, but my ears pricked up when he started saying things like "Oh, you should probably ask Adam about that.  He knows a lot about it.  Can I put you on speakerphone?"  He motions for me to come over.

 

I'm wondering what I'm such an expert at.

 

I come over and look at the name on the phone.  It's a relatively important mid-level manager named Josh.  My mind races about what he could be asking about, and cross referencing that with things that I know about that Scott doesn't know.

 

Josh:  "Hey Adam…  I hear you know a bit about the game Rock Band?"

Adam: "I do…  wait, are you serious?"

 

He continues asking lots of questions about the game.  How many people can play, can you play competitively and cooperatively, can you play online, how many songs, etc…

 

I'm at once "in the zone", answering all his questions at once, but at the same time wondering in the back of my mind why he's asking.  His questions are kind of leading, as if he has some motive, so I'm trying to guess at that.

 

He finally reveals that he's part of planning a 35th anniversary party for our company, and wondered how Rock Band could fit into that.  He invited me to be on the planning committee, and I jumped at that. 

 

At our most recent holiday party, they had (among other things) a "Dance Dance Revolution" video game set up.  I commented that I thought Rock Band would have been a fun thing to have as a side activity, as well.

 

It was pretty much the most exciting business call I've had in a long time.