JaenShaesMom:Thank you for this! The hubby and I enjoyed it immensely!!
Mae The Wife:Leave it to L to know the answer! I saw a ton of them at the Botanical Garden today.
L:Dragonflies feast on, among other insects, mosquitos, and since the region's on track to get at least double the usual annual rainfall amount, there's a bumper crop of 'em. Anopheles & Culex, to be exact. So yes, they're very cool and I join you in saying: "Bring 'em on!"
KBO:Oh yeah, those are my favorite podcasts. I really like the Okkervil River one, the Belle & Sebastian, the Sleater Kinney, the Arcade Fire, and the Rilo Kiley.
mike:Locking doors for fires makes me think of the gymnasium scene from 'Carrie'. You forgot to mention half the department missed the meeting because the organizer gave out the right room, but wrong building, in the invitation.
Rev Matt:@Bill: I just assume she doesn't actually have time to read my blog, so I thought it was safe :)
Bill Murphy:Hey Mister MuthaMae, We've taken a liking to your wife as she has attitude to spare. She came to L.A. and showed those tv suits what sassy confidence means and also spiced up our lunch time with her enthusiasm. My own lovely lady Anita also found Mae to be a ...
mike:Who's to say they didn't have 3 or 4 Animals to work with?
Rev Matt:I was more amused than disturbed (and of course my analytic self was thinking: Ah, he must have run around behind the set. Even though I know the puppeteer just lowered him out of the camera's view and backed up). Love Muppets.
Grizzly:Woo Hoo! Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that Animal enters stage left, exits right, and then immediately enters left again?
I don't know what is going on this year, but I've been seeing tons of dragonflies. I don't know if there are significantly more active this year or if I'm just noticing them more than I have in the past. Anyone have any idea if there's been a large increase in them or in the distribution of their food sources? Not that I'm complaining, dragonflies are very very cool critters.
read more
Just ran across a kick ass podcast I hadn't seen before, though it's obviously been around for a while: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered. Bob usually does the intros, which are brief. Some of the newer ones are actually video podcasts from the All Songs studio. Excellent shows by bands like Bjork, Tom Waits, The National, Iron and Wine, Gogol Bordello, Spoon, Wilco, etc.
read more
Waxy has been posting on the Whitburn Project spanning chart hits from 1890 to 2008 (Billboard research for uber music geeks) and has this pithy line: Using the Whitburn data, Tom Whitwell generated a tag cloud showing the top 100 commonly-used words in song names. Dianne Warren should write a #1 hit called "Love my Baby Blue Heart: A Girl's Night Song." Someone should write that song and submit it for the American Idol songwriters competition. Hell, I might do it myself. 4/4 120bpm in C and you've probably got a shoo-in.
read more
Just had a 10 minute seminar on How To Exit The Building. I am not kidding. And there was one guy who had quite a few questions. Mostly about how to tell what on the map is a door. And where on the map does he sit. I'm glad I wasn't having to answer these questions. It was stated that we should note on the map which exits had stars on them, as other doors would be locked during fire drills. Really? I'm pretty sure that's not just illegal but stupid as well. I am the backup playground supervisor so if our PM isn't around I grab the log sheet and make sure everyone is present and accounted for and has their line buddy.
read more
The housing market isn't just in trouble in the U.S. Interesting story out of Shenzen (just across the border from Hong Kong) is almost identical in substance to many I've read about Southern California recently.
read more
When the wife goes out of town the stereotypical view is that the husband goes out carousing with his pals and causes trouble. If there's kids, he gets a babysitter and stays out late drinking and maybe going over to the Ill side. Me? I retiled the kitchen floor last night. Tonight I plan on doing a test run of regrouting the tile in the main bathroom. I am a wild man, somebody stop me!
read more
Just finished reading The Year of Living Biblically. I started it in San Diego on vacation and got about 95% done, and finished the last bit over the past few days during lunch. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it as an entertaining and surprisingly enlightening book. Jacobs is an effective writer, communicating clearly and expressively in a casual style.
In The Year of Living Biblically Jacobs tries his best to live according to the rules of the Bible. This turns out to be a challenge of course often in unanticipated ways. It's not easy to sacrifice animals in the U.S. What is most interesting is the different and conflicting explanations he finds for why these rules are what they are, and the even more diverse interpretations of the same pieces of text. Certainly there are rules that contradict one another and there are quite a few he never follows through on (there are a number of thou shalt type rules which require positive action rather than restrain action).
Jacobs' musings on the importance of a given rule relative to other rules is particularly insightful and relevant in our modern world. Is it more important to condemn homosexuality (which is mentioned a handful of times) or to help the poor (which is mentioned dozens upon dozens of times)? Another continuous thread in the book is to highlight the impossibility of Biblical literalism. You cannot literally follow every law because some of them are in direct contradiction of one another. Then of course there is the matter of interpretation of what the text actually says anyway. Modern translations ...
read more
My daughter is sometimes too much like me. I've written in the past about meaningful names. I am something of an organization junkie so the naming thing sort of goes right along with that. I edit all my MP3 files to list the artists names with their last name first. It's a sickness.
Point being: as we were getting in the car today Boo was carrying one of her many stuffed penguins (not all Tux, but that's how it started) and I asked what his name was.
Boo: Penguin Me: Like Petey Penguin, or Paul Penguin? Boo:No, just Penguin. That's his only name. He only has one name: Penguin. Me: That's easy to remember at least. Note also that her favorite stuffed animal of all time that she cannot be without is a pink rabbit named Bunny.
read more
Three days into our vacation the laptop started freezing. Since the whole reason we brought it with us to the beach was so that my lovely wife could be among the first to register for sessions at a conference I placed getting it working high on the priority list. So during naptimes and after the babies went to bed I spent some time working on it. I quickly reduced it to being a hard drive problem of sorts. Fortunately we were vacationing in San Diego, in the Land of Fry's Electronics.
My brother and brother-in-law had ventured there on day two in order to get an Airport Express so we'd have wireless connectivity instead of a single hardwired network link. See? I'm not the only geek in my family. I will also note that my nephew was spending his downtime learning PyGame, which I was rather pleased with as Python is my language of choice.
Not having any tools or install media with me I picked up Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) as well as a multi-head screwdriver with torx bits and an 80G PATA drive. For good measure I grabbed a USB/IDE adapter in the hopes that I could recover my profiles from the dying drive. I at least was able to back up the critical user files to a jump drive.
Taking apart an iBook is not for the faint of heart, as I discovered. I followed the 13 pages of instructions at ifixit.com and managed to only end up with some ugly dings to the case, a dozen ...
read more
I take a back street into our complex at work that is called, I kid you not, Planned Industrial Drive. It snakes through several blocks of abandoned warehouses in various states of decay as well as a number of active warehouses. While driving past one particularly unpleasant looking building I noted a group of smokers hanging out desultorily on the loading dock littered with discarded office furniture. I thought "Man, that has to be a miserable place to work." As I pulled up to the security gate I realized it was my building.
My eldest daughter is quite a character. She sings and dances and concocts elaborate stories that her dolls then act out. So a fairly typical 4 year old girl. One thing she learned (FROM ELMO!) is that 'shake your booty' will invariably get a laugh from adults. The other day when she jumped up on the play table and started shakin her booty, I asked "Where did you learn that?" She stopped, looked innocently up at me, and said "Uhm, internet?"
read more
Last night an old friend and a new one stopped by for a few hours en route to their next adventure. The wonderful conversation reminded me of how much I miss hanging out with the guys from Colorado. Doug has been a mentor and inspiration for me since we first met. He has an amazing ability to distill complex ideas into a few simple sentences and always points me to some interesting new uses of technology. Talking to him and Rebecca all evening I felt a certain sense of ease that I don't often feel in dealing with a lot of people in the midwest.
We talked about a broad range of things, from music to movies to art to politics to family to dreams and it seems we just barely scratched the surface. But as usual Doug has inspired me to be more active in my intellectual pursuits. He would make a good cult leader, and I mean that in a nice way. He's charismatic, grounded, and conveys a sense that everything you are saying is important. Mae and I are working on several different medium term plans that will probably take us out of the midwest and one of those paths could well end up where I would be able to work with him again, which would just be great.
read more
I don't know what is going on this year, but I've been seeing tons of dragonflies. I don't know if there are significantly more active this year or if I'm just noticing them more than I have in the past. Anyone have any idea if there's been a large increase in them or in the distribution of their food sources? Not that I'm complaining, dragonflies are very very cool critters.
read more
read more
