The Gigabeat passed a test today. . .I tried it out with some video for the first time. Since I haven't had much else to do I have been ripping our DVD library to the Media Center computer, and downloading movies to my Gigabeat. Today it played Sahara and Serenity back to back on a single charge, though it started giving a low battery warning right at the end of Serenity. That's 4+ hours, so I'm happy with it. At any rate, it will get me through my upcoming plane ride.
July 2007 Archives
Dones tagged me with the following bleme:
The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. Donald, shame on you! I didn't get a comment. . .
Okay, here goes:
(1) Fact: I hate memes. Well, I don't really hate them. But I don't like them, either (don't worry Donald, we can still be good friends).
(2) Fact: I rarely pass along memes.
(3) Habit: I snap my toes (like snapping your fingers, except with toes).
(4) Habit: I always play with the pages of the book I'm reading. This is one reason why books are better than computers: you can't stroke a monitor, and if you do, it doesn't make a nice ruffle noise.
(5) Fact: I don't have a car payment (I must be a communist or something!)
(6) Habit: I read Dilbert every morning at work. I also usually read the New York Times op-ed columns daily. Recently Todd Grotenhuis noted with amusement that I read the New York Times. My reasoning is simple: there isn't another national news source that I trust. Fox and CNN are both entertainment-focused (their headline stories are always about either sensational crime, sensational disasters, sensational scandals, or a some combination of those) and when I want to know what's going on I'd rather be informed, not entertained.
(7) Fact: NPR is the only radio station I listen to. Ever.
(8) Fact: Since I got my Gigabeat, I don't listen to NPR as much anymore. I really like my Gigabeat. I'm going to see how it does with a movie when I fly out to Philly this week.
I realize that something awful is going to happen to me, but I'm not tagging anyone. If you like this meme, have fun with it. But don't blame me. . . :)
With my family already gone and myself shifting hard into vacation mode (I'm leaving to join them next week), I am enjoying some down time. Having peace and quiet and time to do whatever I want only slightly takes the edge off missing my wife and kids.
So, what have I been doing? Well, mostly working, actually. I've been able to catch up on a lot of loose ends at work and get my office cleaned up considerably. Last night I left before 6 PM and went disc golfing at a new-to-me course. The guy I played with (a salesperson who calls on my plant) and I had a great time playing (twice) a challenging little 9-hole course. I played fairly well -- I shot a 28 the first time around, and a 29 the second time. The second round I had one bad hole, and two very nice birdies. The highlight of the first round (no birdies, one bogey) was hole number eight. My tee shot hit a tree about 75' out. My second shot, from about 200' away through a very tight fairway, missed going in the basket by about 12". It hit the side of the basket instead. I also had an ace run on one of the holes (I don't remember which). I had a lot of fun, but didn't get back home until after 10 PM.
I've been trying to keep up with our garden's bountiful harvest as well. We have cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes coming out of our ears. Pretty soon we're going to have butternut squash, too. Oh, and green beans. Mmm, green beans.
Today I (what else) worked all day (well, only 8-5, really). I spent some time in the garden this evening and tonight I'm going to watch a movie, I guess. I'm also trying to put the house entirely in order before I leave. I like coming home to a clean house.
One thing I don't like coming home to is Illinois. Whenever I cross back into Illinois I cringe a little inside that I live in this state.
As of today we own the titles to both of our vehicles. Yippee!
We took the kids to see Ratatouille this afternoon and had a fun time. The 3yo had his hand buried in the popcorn the whole time. The 4yo and 6yo paid rapt attention; the 7mo and the 2yo were a little harder to handle. But all in all it went well, with only 4 interruptions (3 bathroom trips, 1 popcorn refill) over the 2 or so hours. It was a pleasant day all in all as the weather around here has been rather nice for this time of year.
We bought the 6yo a real Bible for his birthday, an ESV children's edition. He reads along now from his own text during the evening family time.
On another note, I started showing him how to play SimCity 2000 today. I'm still looking for other options as the interface for it is somewhat complicated -- perhaps Zoo Tycoon or Rollercoaster Tycoon. I'm not even sure where to find those games anymore!
The respite of a Wednesday off -- a 4th of July that was quiet enough for me to take care of my lawn maintenance -- gave me the opportunity to fully relax and enjoy a weekend. No projects, no mowing, just time with my family.
Yesterday morning we went to a pickin' patch with our pastor and his wife and children. By the time we got there (10:30ish) it was really hot and most of the blackberries had already been picked. But we got enough mostly-ripe berries that I think we'll be able to make a yummy cobbler. I took a looonnng nap yesterday afternoon and then we had a nice quiet evening at home. I fried fish. Mmmmm.
Today after church I took the 5yo (whose 6th birthday is on the calendar this week) and the 4yo disc golfing. It was hot and muggy so we played a short 9-hole course that is pretty close to our house. It was a good time, and I played well -- but that was to be expected, since it is such a short course.
Tonight will be quiet again. It should be a quiet week as well. But the following week Jamie and the kids leave town, and the week after that I will be following them out East for an extended vacation visiting family and having fun. I hope the next few weeks are nice and restful as I expect the vacation travel will be exhausting. :)
I was reading Thomas Friedman's New York Times op-ed piece today about suicide bombers (really, they are homicide/suicide bombings) and while I share his outrage and sadness at what he calls the Muslim death cult, there is one thing I (almost, kind of, but not really) admire about these men and women. They believe in something so strongly that they are willing to kill themselves for it. I completely disagree with the way in which they choose to express their belief. But the principle is compelling.
If I were passionate about politics and had the training and means to be a political operative, I would try to organize sleeper cells of suicide legislators. I would recruit people to get into state and national offices who seemed completely normal to the voters, but who all shared a secret passion for an idea -- say, that farm subsidies need to be done away with. I don't see farm subsidies going away in my lifetime, because we can't elect enough anti-farm subsidy legislators into office. So we'll keep subsidizing unhealthy crops, and rewarding farming practices that destroy the environment, because enough voters benefit personally from it that they can't see the long-term destructiveness of the policy. (Disclosure: the company I work for lobbies hard in favor of corn subsidies in particular and spends millions of dollars trying to protect them because it benefits our company.)
So, my plan (unworkable and untenable as it may be) is this: get enough farm state legislators into my sleeper cells (this could take 20 years, at least) and then, BAM -- some day the farm bill will come up for vote, and I will activate my veto-proof majority sleeper cell, and we'll wake up the next morning and there won't be any more farm subsidies. Crop insurance, that's all well and good -- farming is a crap shoot from year to year, especially since for whatever reason we are going through a rather significant climate change. But no more subsidies.
/Dream over
*Sigh*. I'm tired this morning. Did I stay up too late? No. Did I get up too early? No. Did my 7mo have a bad night? No.
About 1 AM I awoke to the sound of the 3yo screaming bloody murder. So I jumped out of bed and ran to the boys' room and found. . .blood streaming from his nose. Hmm.
So I grabbed him out of bed and rushed him to the bathroom (in a hurry not out of concern for him -- it was just a bloody nose as far as I could see -- but because I wanted to minimize the number of awake children) to get a closer look. I cleaned up the blood and applied pressure to his nose. Now, this child does not often get his nose bloodied. It happens to the 4yo all the time because she can't keep her fingers out. But the 3yo doesn't have that problem. And the air isn't dry right now. But the why wasn't important to me at 1 AM in the morning.
You have to know that this 3yo tends to histrionics when he's upset. He's like a puppy -- any strong emotion he feels (joy, anger, whatever) is telegraphed through violent motions of his body. So I'm holding this very upset child tightly to my chest with one hand and trying to keep pressure on the bleeding nostril with another. In his fit of hysterics he refuses to breathe in through his mouth, so he's getting short of breath trying to get all the air he needs to keep up his fit of crying through the one nostril left open. From a distance, I'm sure it was all very comical.
Finally I get the bleeding stopped, but the child just *won't* calm down. At 1:15 AM in the morning, this is not making sense to me. I held him and rocked him, held him and rocked him, and finally gave up and did what any sensible dad would do. I woke up his mother and passed him off.
In the process I woke up the 7mo. So while my wife was comforting the 3yo, I was trying to get the 7mo back to sleep. That didn't work either. So once the 3yo was back in bed, my wife had to nurse the 7mo back to sleep.
Of course the 4yo woke up at the early end of her usual time this morning -- 6:15 or so.
This morning at breakfast it came to light that the reason the 3yo had a bloody nose is that he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and when he got back into bed (he sleeps in a top bunk) he smashed his nose on the ladder.
Well, that explains the screaming. Ah, the good life. Happy Independence Day!
7 years ago today Jamie and I covenanted with each other, before God, family, and friends, to spend the rest of our lives as one. I cannot imagine a more wonderful wife for me. Jamie is beautiful, loyal, diligent, loving, gracious, patient, encouraging. . .the list goes on and on.
We spent the day enjoying the most visible fruit of our marriage, our 5 children. We went to an Independence Day celebration, got some ice cream, and stayed up late to watch fireworks. The kids had a great time and so did we (mostly). In the afternoon we chatted while Jamie worked on her quilt. We went to church in the morning and sat next to one another surrounded by our children during the service.
In the big picture, there is nothing I would change about the circumstances in which God has placed me. God has given me the grace of being content with my life. Praise and honor to Him! and thanks for seven great years, and many more by His will to come.
