Tom watched the girls for a couple of hours tonight. We got home, they had been a little wild for him tonight. Some even wilder than others. Ruth got her clothes and diaper off. I went in, she had nothing on but the sock on her left foot and a smile. She was busy sitting in among her stuffed animals. It was like she had gone back to the wild, but the closest she could get was her closet.
I asked her where her clothes were; her response: "Clothes?"
I asked her where her diaper was; her response: "Diaper?"
We always knew those kids were wild.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Problems with Project Management
We have a PCI compliance project at work that was supposed to be completed today. About 4 weeks ago, the major requirements of the project were changed. Since that time, one of our little group of 3 has spent the entire time in Europe. I spent a week out of town, and a good portion of this week in meetings. We also had a fairly interesting incident with one of our SAN appliances several weeks ago.
As a result, we didn't get a major portion of needed server setup on a critical machine done. The project manager lady showed up yesterday at 4:30 wanting to find out what tasks were yet to be finished. Besides being a little annoyed at her waiting until the last minute to come find out what was happening, she's fairly annoying. John and I worked to give her as little information as possible, trying to get her to give up and go away. This went on for about 40 minutes, she kept trying to threaten to "run it up the line", which we shot down. (Having been in contact with "up the line" people all along, and knowing several of them were out of town.) Finally she asked what she should tell people when they asked, I suggested "They are not cooperating in any way, shape, or form". This appeared to have ticked her off, she left in a huff.
This morning, we were in architect's council, discussing this project and some others things we brought in to talk with that group about. About 10 minutes into the meeting, the project manager and her director came in. She looked disappointed to see us there. She appeared to not have the courage to talk about us while we were there.
This afternoon, while we were trying to get something fixed, she called having gathered a bunch of people on a conference call, and wanted to force the final critical step to occur immediately. She didn't seem to listen to the fact that we were actively working on an outage, and didn't want to have the final step completed until the outage was over. She was also trying to push through a step that didn't need to happen until next week, some of the other guys on the phone were trying, seemingly with little success, to explain that 4:30pm on Friday was a bad time to try to get network lines pulled and ready for use.
I was able to get her to stop talking about the other thing, but she kept talking about the portion we were not at that minute ready to implement. After 3 or 4 attempts to get her to listen, I hung up the phone. As far as we could tell, they were still on the conference call about 45 minutes later, when the problem got fixed. We pawned our part of the changes off on the on-call engineer, and left. As far as I know, they are still talking about it now...
As a result, we didn't get a major portion of needed server setup on a critical machine done. The project manager lady showed up yesterday at 4:30 wanting to find out what tasks were yet to be finished. Besides being a little annoyed at her waiting until the last minute to come find out what was happening, she's fairly annoying. John and I worked to give her as little information as possible, trying to get her to give up and go away. This went on for about 40 minutes, she kept trying to threaten to "run it up the line", which we shot down. (Having been in contact with "up the line" people all along, and knowing several of them were out of town.) Finally she asked what she should tell people when they asked, I suggested "They are not cooperating in any way, shape, or form". This appeared to have ticked her off, she left in a huff.
This morning, we were in architect's council, discussing this project and some others things we brought in to talk with that group about. About 10 minutes into the meeting, the project manager and her director came in. She looked disappointed to see us there. She appeared to not have the courage to talk about us while we were there.
This afternoon, while we were trying to get something fixed, she called having gathered a bunch of people on a conference call, and wanted to force the final critical step to occur immediately. She didn't seem to listen to the fact that we were actively working on an outage, and didn't want to have the final step completed until the outage was over. She was also trying to push through a step that didn't need to happen until next week, some of the other guys on the phone were trying, seemingly with little success, to explain that 4:30pm on Friday was a bad time to try to get network lines pulled and ready for use.
I was able to get her to stop talking about the other thing, but she kept talking about the portion we were not at that minute ready to implement. After 3 or 4 attempts to get her to listen, I hung up the phone. As far as we could tell, they were still on the conference call about 45 minutes later, when the problem got fixed. We pawned our part of the changes off on the on-call engineer, and left. As far as I know, they are still talking about it now...
Thursday, June 28, 2007
meeting with Oracle
We've been meeting with Oracle since Monday. They have this thing called Insight, they come and talk about our environment, then give recommendations on ways we could improve things. Today was the preliminary report day, where they report their recommendations, based on what they heard in the first 3 days. As expected, they had a number of their products that 'could help us in some of the things we do'. For the most part, they said the things we were doing were good, but implementing their suggestions and products would bring us up to a "best practices" level.
I'm not sure at this point if it was worth my time or not...
I'm not sure at this point if it was worth my time or not...
Game Time
Age of Empires
We drew numbers tonight to see who would be Rob's teammate. Dad drew that straw.
After the 20 minute treaty period, I started an army down in Rob's direction. It turned out Rob had started an army up towards Dave. Rob nearly knocked Dave out, I wrecked Rob's economy. A little bit later, Rob started in on Drew, I sent down another army towards Rob. We broke into Rob's town, and knocked him out. Dad didn't really do too well against 3 armies at once.
I fully expect to get retaliation in kind from Rob next week.
After the game, (and after getting Ruth a bottle and reencouraging the girls to get back in their beds) Dave and I played a game against each other. Dave wanted to make it short, so I made it short. I finished Dave off, quick and painless.
We drew numbers tonight to see who would be Rob's teammate. Dad drew that straw.
After the 20 minute treaty period, I started an army down in Rob's direction. It turned out Rob had started an army up towards Dave. Rob nearly knocked Dave out, I wrecked Rob's economy. A little bit later, Rob started in on Drew, I sent down another army towards Rob. We broke into Rob's town, and knocked him out. Dad didn't really do too well against 3 armies at once.
I fully expect to get retaliation in kind from Rob next week.
After the game, (and after getting Ruth a bottle and reencouraging the girls to get back in their beds) Dave and I played a game against each other. Dave wanted to make it short, so I made it short. I finished Dave off, quick and painless.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Bunk bed update
I started in on the bunk beds again on Friday. I've got one of the beds and one of the ladders sanded, and attached. In a couple of days, I will finish the sanding and get it put together. I plan to get it cleaned up, but not painted right now. I want to have it field tested for a little while before painting it, to make sure that it's going to work out ok...
Friday, June 22, 2007
Conference - The other 2 days
So, I forgot to keep people updated.
On Wednesday, I had a full day of sessions. That was fine by me, because the HP Certified prize patrol was only giving out prizes to those entering and leaving sessions. Most of my sessions tended to be in odd places, so I wasn't holding my breath about getting anything, and something like 1/2 the prizes were casino chips, which I wouldn't have used...
At 11:30, they had an Elvis Name That Tune contest. I ended up getting 9 out of 10, they drew names from the 3 people that got them all right to win a prize. (Some were very hard...) The Elvis impersonator would sing a bar or two of the song, then stop. No music, just him. Had I been able to hear the music playing a little (In my head), I would have gotten the title ok, but I just wasn't getting it from what he gave me.
We drove out to the temple in the evening down there. It was nice, but pretty sparse. While I was waiting for Tara to come out to the chapel, the officiator was having a hard time finding a couple to be the witness couple. They went and got a temple worker couple to cover it before Tara came out.
On Thursday, I had a session at 8am. I got there about 8:10. After that session, I went in to listen to the Mythbusters. (They also started at 8, but I missed the hour full of management speak, and got there about 10 minutes before they brought out the Mythbusters.) I learned several things. The Mythbusters are not gay, they have families. (They made that very clear for some reason.) They have 2 episodes coming up, one that involves a mouse and Elephant dung. They were cracking up about it, but wouldn't let us in on the secret because the episode hadn't aired. They also just finished an episode on Superheros, one of the things they did was build a number of things out of Batman's toolbelt.
At lunchtime, they had the drawings in the Expo Hall. I didn't win the $10,000 from Brocade. I also didn't win one of the 20 other prizes they gave away. (Mike D. won a Playstation Portable. Not sure what he's going to do with it, I offered him $5 for it, but he didn't take me up on it.)
I had a session at 1:30 that was supposed to go 4 hours. A few minutes into it, he said he made up cds with all his slides and demos. He gave us a break at 3pm, I went up, got a cd, and bolted.
We stopped at Appleby's in Cedar City on the way home. At first our waiter was ticked off because they didn't seat his girlfriend in his section, (we came in first), but he masked it well. I didn't order anything to drink, and refused water. (I didn't want to stop every 20 minutes the rest of the way home.) We ordered Boneless Buffalo Wings, he thought I would be begging for water, but to tell the truth, the wings weren't all that hot. The wings at ESPNZone were much, much, much better.
We got home at 11pm. I woke up early today to get to a meeting, the agenda item I was there for got shelved for lack of time until next week.
On Wednesday, I had a full day of sessions. That was fine by me, because the HP Certified prize patrol was only giving out prizes to those entering and leaving sessions. Most of my sessions tended to be in odd places, so I wasn't holding my breath about getting anything, and something like 1/2 the prizes were casino chips, which I wouldn't have used...
At 11:30, they had an Elvis Name That Tune contest. I ended up getting 9 out of 10, they drew names from the 3 people that got them all right to win a prize. (Some were very hard...) The Elvis impersonator would sing a bar or two of the song, then stop. No music, just him. Had I been able to hear the music playing a little (In my head), I would have gotten the title ok, but I just wasn't getting it from what he gave me.
We drove out to the temple in the evening down there. It was nice, but pretty sparse. While I was waiting for Tara to come out to the chapel, the officiator was having a hard time finding a couple to be the witness couple. They went and got a temple worker couple to cover it before Tara came out.
On Thursday, I had a session at 8am. I got there about 8:10. After that session, I went in to listen to the Mythbusters. (They also started at 8, but I missed the hour full of management speak, and got there about 10 minutes before they brought out the Mythbusters.) I learned several things. The Mythbusters are not gay, they have families. (They made that very clear for some reason.) They have 2 episodes coming up, one that involves a mouse and Elephant dung. They were cracking up about it, but wouldn't let us in on the secret because the episode hadn't aired. They also just finished an episode on Superheros, one of the things they did was build a number of things out of Batman's toolbelt.
At lunchtime, they had the drawings in the Expo Hall. I didn't win the $10,000 from Brocade. I also didn't win one of the 20 other prizes they gave away. (Mike D. won a Playstation Portable. Not sure what he's going to do with it, I offered him $5 for it, but he didn't take me up on it.)
I had a session at 1:30 that was supposed to go 4 hours. A few minutes into it, he said he made up cds with all his slides and demos. He gave us a break at 3pm, I went up, got a cd, and bolted.
We stopped at Appleby's in Cedar City on the way home. At first our waiter was ticked off because they didn't seat his girlfriend in his section, (we came in first), but he masked it well. I didn't order anything to drink, and refused water. (I didn't want to stop every 20 minutes the rest of the way home.) We ordered Boneless Buffalo Wings, he thought I would be begging for water, but to tell the truth, the wings weren't all that hot. The wings at ESPNZone were much, much, much better.
We got home at 11pm. I woke up early today to get to a meeting, the agenda item I was there for got shelved for lack of time until next week.
Book Review
The Fan
Peters Abrahams
Bleh. I picked this box up, because a few weeks ago, I heard a news blurb about Barry Bonds, wondering if some crazy fan would try to hurt him to keep Hank Aaron's HR record active, a la "The Fan."
Turns out this book was not worth the reading I put into it. The book takes about 200 pages to show the guy's life spinning out of control. Then it takes a 100 pages showing him get violently obsessive over a baseball player.
If you took out the sexual references, the vulgar language, and the generally brooding of the book, you are left with a fairly short story. I don't recommend the book, so here's the end: The main character kills one baseball player, then completely flips out, and is killed trying to get to another.
Move on to the next one on the shelf. I don't plan to ever read anything by this author again...
iHome
Our hotel room had an iHome. This is a desk radio clock that also supports iPods and mp3 players. It was very nice. You could set the thing to do the alarm via the iPod. At $100, we are very likely to have one of these things sooner or later...
2 Pictures from The Shark Reef
Here's the 2 best pictures I got at The Shark Reef. Lots of others were blurry...
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Conference Day 1
The first day of the conference, I had a full schedule. I went over to try to grab a piece of fruit at the meal place at 8:10, and was told in no uncertain terms that breakfast ended at 8am. End of story.
I ended up landing in one of the hands on labs where they were having trouble getting their machines to work. Bob had tried to do something funny in his image, and made the machines unuseable when he installed them Monday night. I sat with him and helped him with the Ignite commands to get the installs goin faster, without any intervention. (Bob was struggling a little to reconcile all the vodka he had drunk the night before.)
My presentation was at 1pm. I got no phone calls during it, thamks for that. The room was about 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else in the conference center. I had about 20 people there. It went well, I had at least half the crowd very interested and engaged in the presentation. (Only one person left, and only one person fell asleep.) I had a number of requests for my slides to be emailed. (About a quarter of those that were there at the end, which is the same general percentage as the very popular presentation I did several years ago, which they had me do a second time. I consider this as a good sign.)
At night, we went with the HP Certified people to Jimmy Buffett's margaritaville. The food was good, I ate too much. We left after we were done eating, right around the time people started looking like they were getting trashed. It turns out we missed a oncert by Jimmy Buffett himself.
After we got back to the hotel, we played Catan: The card game again. Tara one the first game, so we switched decks. (I took the red deck from her.) I won the second game, I right now, I figure the odds are stacked for the red deck.
I didn't sleep with my bi-pap at night, and woke up at 6am feeling kind of sick. Too much jerked salmon the night before. Even now at noon, I still taste it from time to time...
I ended up landing in one of the hands on labs where they were having trouble getting their machines to work. Bob had tried to do something funny in his image, and made the machines unuseable when he installed them Monday night. I sat with him and helped him with the Ignite commands to get the installs goin faster, without any intervention. (Bob was struggling a little to reconcile all the vodka he had drunk the night before.)
My presentation was at 1pm. I got no phone calls during it, thamks for that. The room was about 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else in the conference center. I had about 20 people there. It went well, I had at least half the crowd very interested and engaged in the presentation. (Only one person left, and only one person fell asleep.) I had a number of requests for my slides to be emailed. (About a quarter of those that were there at the end, which is the same general percentage as the very popular presentation I did several years ago, which they had me do a second time. I consider this as a good sign.)
At night, we went with the HP Certified people to Jimmy Buffett's margaritaville. The food was good, I ate too much. We left after we were done eating, right around the time people started looking like they were getting trashed. It turns out we missed a oncert by Jimmy Buffett himself.
After we got back to the hotel, we played Catan: The card game again. Tara one the first game, so we switched decks. (I took the red deck from her.) I won the second game, I right now, I figure the odds are stacked for the red deck.
I didn't sleep with my bi-pap at night, and woke up at 6am feeling kind of sick. Too much jerked salmon the night before. Even now at noon, I still taste it from time to time...
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Free Day
Monday was basically a free day here at the conference, for some reason. (Things started really late.)
I ended up getting a $30 gift certificate to the HP Certified store. I got a nice jacket, a new binder, and juggling balls. (Also good for throwing)
We went to an attraction here that's full of water predators. (The name escapes me right now.) We took about a hundred pictures for the girls so they have something to look at. (No pictures here right now, this isn't my machine.)
We went down to the pool for about an hour. Tara got burned up.
We went to the ESPNZone for dinner. Their wings are very good. I had a black and blue burger.
We were tired by about 7:30, so we went back to the hotel, and played "Catan: the card game". Tara won, but I think I can take her next time.
Today, I have a full slate of sessions from 10 to 6. That includes my presentation, but I'm not telling you the time because I don't want anyone (this means you, Rob) to be calling me in the middle of it.
Details might be sketchy between now and Thursday, if nothing else, I will generate a number of entries on Friday to get everyone up to date.
I ended up getting a $30 gift certificate to the HP Certified store. I got a nice jacket, a new binder, and juggling balls. (Also good for throwing)
We went to an attraction here that's full of water predators. (The name escapes me right now.) We took about a hundred pictures for the girls so they have something to look at. (No pictures here right now, this isn't my machine.)
We went down to the pool for about an hour. Tara got burned up.
We went to the ESPNZone for dinner. Their wings are very good. I had a black and blue burger.
We were tired by about 7:30, so we went back to the hotel, and played "Catan: the card game". Tara won, but I think I can take her next time.
Today, I have a full slate of sessions from 10 to 6. That includes my presentation, but I'm not telling you the time because I don't want anyone (this means you, Rob) to be calling me in the middle of it.
Details might be sketchy between now and Thursday, if nothing else, I will generate a number of entries on Friday to get everyone up to date.
Father's Day
The Primary had the kids make ties for their dads. The idea was if you had one child in primary, you wore one tie, 2 in primary, you wore 2, and so on. I ended up getting 3 decorated ties, but the girls were outraged that I didn't have a tie to wear for Lily and Ruth, so I ended up wearing 5 ties to church. There are 2 problems with wearing 5 ties at a time - they get kind of heavy, and they get kind of hot. I didn't have the mmost ties on in the ward.
During primary, they did "Dad in a bag". They bring you in in a bag, the primary asks questions to try to figure out who you are. My questions went like this:
"Do you have 5 kids?"
"Are you Kate's dad?"
They got it in 2. I'm no sure what that means.
Tara and I drove to Las Vegas. Halfway through, my right shoulderblade started hurting pretty good, I hurt it picking Ruth up off the floor of the pew behind us in church. It's been off and on since then.
I tried to call my Dad for Father's Day, but he was gone. I didn't get another chance. (Sorry.)
During primary, they did "Dad in a bag". They bring you in in a bag, the primary asks questions to try to figure out who you are. My questions went like this:
"Do you have 5 kids?"
"Are you Kate's dad?"
They got it in 2. I'm no sure what that means.
Tara and I drove to Las Vegas. Halfway through, my right shoulderblade started hurting pretty good, I hurt it picking Ruth up off the floor of the pew behind us in church. It's been off and on since then.
I tried to call my Dad for Father's Day, but he was gone. I didn't get another chance. (Sorry.)
Friday, June 15, 2007
Latched on
Mary has been latched on to Missy since the minute she saw her at the airport. I guess we having been giving her enough attention...
What's the going rate for tipping the ballon animal guy?
I hope it's somewhere around $1.25 per animal. We went to Brick Oven for dinner, there was a ballon animal guy wandering around the place. The girls each got one.
Kate got a dolphin
Mary got a horse
The little monkey got a little monkey. (As we were leaving the restaurant, she was singing "The monkey, the monkey and the brain)
Ruth got a cat. She's decided the proper way to hold a cat is by it's tail.
Kate got a dolphin
Mary got a horse
The little monkey got a little monkey. (As we were leaving the restaurant, she was singing "The monkey, the monkey and the brain)
Ruth got a cat. She's decided the proper way to hold a cat is by it's tail.Thursday, June 14, 2007
Thursday night game time
I lost. I lost bad. I lost quickly.
Rob delivered a beating, and I likely deserved it.
Dave went out second, Dad went out after, Rob was the Last Man Standing.
It took 3 hours, I was knocked out after the first hour. I stuck around (meaning: did some Stake business, feed the baby, laundry, read a book, watched TV) for the 2nd game, which we didn't get around to. (something about it being midnight on the East coast.)
I'm not bitter, just battered.
Rob delivered a beating, and I likely deserved it.
Dave went out second, Dad went out after, Rob was the Last Man Standing.
It took 3 hours, I was knocked out after the first hour. I stuck around (meaning: did some Stake business, feed the baby, laundry, read a book, watched TV) for the 2nd game, which we didn't get around to. (something about it being midnight on the East coast.)
I'm not bitter, just battered.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Mission Journal
One of the members of the Stake Presidency brought us each a book to Presidency meeting today. The book was called Missionary Letters. It was all the correspondance he had with people on his mission. It's 600 pages long. (He wrote a lot of letters.) He also indexed the thing. I was impressed. Now I have to get going on my mission journal again...
New bunkbeds
I started making bunkbeds for the Mary and Kate today. (Only started, I ran out of critical materials, and didn't get them until 9:45pm) Their existing bunk bed is very space inefficient, and the top bunk is fairly high.
The bed has 2 cases for the mattresses, and will have 2 "endcaps" for stability and stairs. The endcaps are a problem. I want to fasten them to the casings with either lag bolts or carriage bolts. Carriage bolts would be nice, because I could always tighten the things down if the bed loosens from the all-night-every-night funtime party zone that the girls make out of their rooms. The problem is that I am connecting 2 2x6's, and the carriage bolts come in 3' or 3.5' sizes, what I really need it 3.25". (Or I need to recess the bolt, but that would require a new drill bit...)
Lag bolts seem like a good idea, I could by 1/4" wide and 2.5" long lag bolts, and sink them trough both boards. The only problem there is I'm not sure if they will loosen over time, or if too much rough play would loosen them.
So, audience voting time. Do I go with carriage bolts, recessing the bolts so they don't stick out and poke things, or do I use lag bolts, and just be done with it. Keep in might I'm also not 100% sure that my design will be stable enough for children to use at this point, we won't know until I have it fully assembled.
Now, this isn't like voting for your mayor. If you are unclear as to what a lag bolt and carriage bolt is, you shouldn't vote. (Or at least your shouldn't be picking the 'nicer looking' one...) Anyone with prior experience or knowledge of the subject matter got an opinion?
The bed has 2 cases for the mattresses, and will have 2 "endcaps" for stability and stairs. The endcaps are a problem. I want to fasten them to the casings with either lag bolts or carriage bolts. Carriage bolts would be nice, because I could always tighten the things down if the bed loosens from the all-night-every-night funtime party zone that the girls make out of their rooms. The problem is that I am connecting 2 2x6's, and the carriage bolts come in 3' or 3.5' sizes, what I really need it 3.25". (Or I need to recess the bolt, but that would require a new drill bit...)
Lag bolts seem like a good idea, I could by 1/4" wide and 2.5" long lag bolts, and sink them trough both boards. The only problem there is I'm not sure if they will loosen over time, or if too much rough play would loosen them.
So, audience voting time. Do I go with carriage bolts, recessing the bolts so they don't stick out and poke things, or do I use lag bolts, and just be done with it. Keep in might I'm also not 100% sure that my design will be stable enough for children to use at this point, we won't know until I have it fully assembled.
Now, this isn't like voting for your mayor. If you are unclear as to what a lag bolt and carriage bolt is, you shouldn't vote. (Or at least your shouldn't be picking the 'nicer looking' one...) Anyone with prior experience or knowledge of the subject matter got an opinion?
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Mattress testing
(I think we are close enough to Missy's coming out here to tell portions of this post without her changing her mind and not getting on the plane.)
I put the air mattress in Emma and Ruth's room tonight. There is room for the air mattress because we had previously pulled both of their dressers out of the room, because they were getting into them every night and throwing their clothes all over the place. (And sometimes into the hall)
We've been having some trouble with Ruth. She's just reveling in all her "terrible two" glory. She just goes from one thing to another, getting into trouble all along the way. Kate has been assigned as her permanent shadow.
For example, this afternoon, I put her in her high chair, she wanted some chocolate pudding. I figured that if she was in the high chair, she wasn't able to get into something else. Instead of eating the pudding, she made the largest mess physically possible with it.
Last night at about 11pm, Ruth was screaming. (her and Emma had come out of their room.) I went back there, Ruth was on the floor of the bathroom, they (or she) had knocked loose the drain pipe for the bathroom sink, and the water was fully turned on. Luckily, it appears the floor in the bathroom was in no way level, and all the water was pooling by the tub. We were at a half inch to an inch deep over there by the time I got to it. I did not react well to the situation, but that was last night. I can laugh at it now.
Anyway, we would like to have her stay in her room and not go crazy at night. Serious plans are being made to stick all 4 girls in the same room, so there is a 2 girl oversight committee for Ruth. For tonight, I told Kate I wanted her to sleep on the matress to make sure it didn't deflate in the night. Then I said, "oh by the way, make sure Ruth doesn't get out of the room."
Anyway, I'm sure they will be perfect little angels for Missy. Or she will never agree to watch them again. One of the 2.
I put the air mattress in Emma and Ruth's room tonight. There is room for the air mattress because we had previously pulled both of their dressers out of the room, because they were getting into them every night and throwing their clothes all over the place. (And sometimes into the hall)
We've been having some trouble with Ruth. She's just reveling in all her "terrible two" glory. She just goes from one thing to another, getting into trouble all along the way. Kate has been assigned as her permanent shadow.
For example, this afternoon, I put her in her high chair, she wanted some chocolate pudding. I figured that if she was in the high chair, she wasn't able to get into something else. Instead of eating the pudding, she made the largest mess physically possible with it.
Last night at about 11pm, Ruth was screaming. (her and Emma had come out of their room.) I went back there, Ruth was on the floor of the bathroom, they (or she) had knocked loose the drain pipe for the bathroom sink, and the water was fully turned on. Luckily, it appears the floor in the bathroom was in no way level, and all the water was pooling by the tub. We were at a half inch to an inch deep over there by the time I got to it. I did not react well to the situation, but that was last night. I can laugh at it now.
Anyway, we would like to have her stay in her room and not go crazy at night. Serious plans are being made to stick all 4 girls in the same room, so there is a 2 girl oversight committee for Ruth. For tonight, I told Kate I wanted her to sleep on the matress to make sure it didn't deflate in the night. Then I said, "oh by the way, make sure Ruth doesn't get out of the room."
Anyway, I'm sure they will be perfect little angels for Missy. Or she will never agree to watch them again. One of the 2.
The anti-schedule
Headed into interviews, I thought I had the President's schedule all worked out and ready to roll. Things don't always go as planned.
His 6pm appointment didn't show. There was a kid the President wanted to visit with today, who moved into one of the wards recently. The ward had his phone number wrong. I had been looking for him for the past 2 days, even stopped by his place. The guy walked in at 6:02pm to get an eccelssiastical endorsement interview, just as I was getting his correct phone number from his uncle. (He came around the corner and said "Are you talking about me?" (He has a sort of uncommon first name)) He met with the President first. At 6:05, someone came in for a Living ordinance recommend that didn't make an appointment. She had scheduled to be at the temple tomorrow at 6:30am. (She's going on a mission next week) I asked her to come back at 8pm, and moved the 8pm appointment to 8:30, because one of the Bishops cancelled. (So far so good.)
Mark was there, I told him I fully expected the 6pm appointment to saunder in at 7:30. (He's done this before.) He walked in at 7:10. I was off by 20 minutes. I told him he missed his time, and invited him to take a seat, but didn't promise an audience with the Stake President. Between going a little over on 2 appointments, and fitting in the 6:00/7:10, the 7:30 appointment with a Bishop didn't start on time. The new 8:00 came back at 7:45, he took her first, and got in with the Bishop (7:30) at 8:10.
The 8:30 appointment got in at about 8:45, which I thought was pretty good. The Stake president ended the night only 15 minutes late for his 9pm appointment.
I fully expect next Tuesday to be just as crazy as today was, but I will be out of town. Good luck to them, I say.
This is why I don't normally make a post on Tuesdays.
His 6pm appointment didn't show. There was a kid the President wanted to visit with today, who moved into one of the wards recently. The ward had his phone number wrong. I had been looking for him for the past 2 days, even stopped by his place. The guy walked in at 6:02pm to get an eccelssiastical endorsement interview, just as I was getting his correct phone number from his uncle. (He came around the corner and said "Are you talking about me?" (He has a sort of uncommon first name)) He met with the President first. At 6:05, someone came in for a Living ordinance recommend that didn't make an appointment. She had scheduled to be at the temple tomorrow at 6:30am. (She's going on a mission next week) I asked her to come back at 8pm, and moved the 8pm appointment to 8:30, because one of the Bishops cancelled. (So far so good.)
Mark was there, I told him I fully expected the 6pm appointment to saunder in at 7:30. (He's done this before.) He walked in at 7:10. I was off by 20 minutes. I told him he missed his time, and invited him to take a seat, but didn't promise an audience with the Stake President. Between going a little over on 2 appointments, and fitting in the 6:00/7:10, the 7:30 appointment with a Bishop didn't start on time. The new 8:00 came back at 7:45, he took her first, and got in with the Bishop (7:30) at 8:10.
The 8:30 appointment got in at about 8:45, which I thought was pretty good. The Stake president ended the night only 15 minutes late for his 9pm appointment.
I fully expect next Tuesday to be just as crazy as today was, but I will be out of town. Good luck to them, I say.
This is why I don't normally make a post on Tuesdays.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
"Greatest Hits" - by me
Here is the much anticipated "Greatest Hits" post, where we go back and look at stuff from the past 2 years.
Remember the time I very nearly created a non-mail box? And it's bigger brother, the Junk Mail box. I still think it's a good idea... Or the time I thought about returning my mailbox to the post office.
My all time favorite Year End review. This post also contains my alltime favorite comment. What I think about at work all day.
Some of the stupid things I have done to myself in my lifetime: screwing up my hand, The Picture Tara can't believe I keep showing people, How I hope to go. Doing my own laundry. A memory from High School, Washing Dishes, This one isn't funny anymore...,
Honesty with the Dentist.
The FIG principle
Then there is the kids: Emma at a birthday party, Emma being herself, Bad Parenting skills, Christmas, Lawn Gnome, Lydia the Tattoed Lady, The traditional Easter pictures. I don't yet have a picture of Ruth drinking from the spray bottle, I have to get that one...
Just some other random stuff.
I guess this is kind of a boring blog. Maybe I'll have to spice it up a little.... (Or at least add some blinking lights to keep you entertained.)
Remember the time I very nearly created a non-mail box? And it's bigger brother, the Junk Mail box. I still think it's a good idea... Or the time I thought about returning my mailbox to the post office.
My all time favorite Year End review. This post also contains my alltime favorite comment. What I think about at work all day.
Some of the stupid things I have done to myself in my lifetime: screwing up my hand, The Picture Tara can't believe I keep showing people, How I hope to go. Doing my own laundry. A memory from High School, Washing Dishes, This one isn't funny anymore...,
Honesty with the Dentist.
The FIG principle
Then there is the kids: Emma at a birthday party, Emma being herself, Bad Parenting skills, Christmas, Lawn Gnome, Lydia the Tattoed Lady, The traditional Easter pictures. I don't yet have a picture of Ruth drinking from the spray bottle, I have to get that one...
Just some other random stuff.
I guess this is kind of a boring blog. Maybe I'll have to spice it up a little.... (Or at least add some blinking lights to keep you entertained.)
Star Trek and Star Wars books
Missy emailed me the other day, she was cleaning out the basement and found a bunch of Star Trek books. She wanted to know what I wanted her to do with them. I suggested eBay, but I don't know if that happened.
Tara brought home a list of Star Wars books from the library. (They got it off Wikipedia.) It was sort of surprising how short the list was. (Ok, it's long, but not that long.) There are about a billion Star Trek books, a lot fewer Star Wars books.
I guess Star Trek has 5 TV show series (not counting the cartoon) and the 400 movies they made to work from, Star Wars only has the 6 movies and the "Clone Wars" cartoon shorts. (Coming soon to the top of my Netflix queue...)
Maybe the Star Wars books are more tightly controlled than the Star Trek books. Who knows. Who knows?
Tara brought home a list of Star Wars books from the library. (They got it off Wikipedia.) It was sort of surprising how short the list was. (Ok, it's long, but not that long.) There are about a billion Star Trek books, a lot fewer Star Wars books.
I guess Star Trek has 5 TV show series (not counting the cartoon) and the 400 movies they made to work from, Star Wars only has the 6 movies and the "Clone Wars" cartoon shorts. (Coming soon to the top of my Netflix queue...)
Maybe the Star Wars books are more tightly controlled than the Star Trek books. Who knows. Who knows?
Thursday, June 07, 2007
More fun at work
We have been vacating an old SAN device for the last week. We had scheduled an outage for Monday morning to finish the moves.
Today, John and I figured out a way to finish the work without bringing everything down. This means that I still have to stay up all night, but nothing has to go down.
The things we do for people around here...
Today, John and I figured out a way to finish the work without bringing everything down. This means that I still have to stay up all night, but nothing has to go down.
The things we do for people around here...
Game Time
Age of Empires - The Warchiefs
Rob, Dad, Dave, and I played a free for all game. Drew was quite late getting there, he hopped on when he got home to play game 2, which didn't happen. I meant to record the game, but I forgot until way too late.
No one attacked me right away, which was nice. When I decided to attacked Rob, I was met up with an army from Dad, and I got pinned between the 2 of them. (I had sent my entire army.) I went to attack Rob a second time, and ran in to an army Dave had over there. I got pinned again. I did manage to knock out the Factories of both Rob and Dad.
The third time I went to attack Rob, he wasn't there. Dave had kicked him out. About 10 seconds later, my town was attacked fairly effectively by Rob, but I kicked him out.
Rob was nearly knocked out when he took all his dudes and attacked Dad. I sent an army up to try to put Rob out first, but he got too far into Dad's town center, and Dave started heading my way. (I could see the whole board by then.) Rob and Dad were knocked out at nearly the same time.
Dave and I were left, we both had good economies, I figured we were basically at a statemate, we stayed in stalemate condictions for over an hour.
When I got to the point that I was making good headway, and was in the perfect position to knock Dave's Factories out, he decided he was done and quit. It was nearly 1am his time, so it's very probible he was tired.
Long story short: I win!
Rob, Dad, Dave, and I played a free for all game. Drew was quite late getting there, he hopped on when he got home to play game 2, which didn't happen. I meant to record the game, but I forgot until way too late.
No one attacked me right away, which was nice. When I decided to attacked Rob, I was met up with an army from Dad, and I got pinned between the 2 of them. (I had sent my entire army.) I went to attack Rob a second time, and ran in to an army Dave had over there. I got pinned again. I did manage to knock out the Factories of both Rob and Dad.
The third time I went to attack Rob, he wasn't there. Dave had kicked him out. About 10 seconds later, my town was attacked fairly effectively by Rob, but I kicked him out.
Rob was nearly knocked out when he took all his dudes and attacked Dad. I sent an army up to try to put Rob out first, but he got too far into Dad's town center, and Dave started heading my way. (I could see the whole board by then.) Rob and Dad were knocked out at nearly the same time.
Dave and I were left, we both had good economies, I figured we were basically at a statemate, we stayed in stalemate condictions for over an hour.
When I got to the point that I was making good headway, and was in the perfect position to knock Dave's Factories out, he decided he was done and quit. It was nearly 1am his time, so it's very probible he was tired.
Long story short: I win!
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Uptime is overrated, anyway.
I have had 5 boxes crash in the last 9 days. Last week, one of them died completely, which is something I've been expecting for some time now. 3 of the others were SAN related.
Today's entry was one of our main DB servers. It took pretty much everything down. I'm tired of this stuff.
Today's entry was one of our main DB servers. It took pretty much everything down. I'm tired of this stuff.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Summer Library Reading program
The annual Summer Reading program is on! This year, they have shortened the book review that we have to do for each book, which is good. Every week, they have a weekly prize drawing for the reviews turned in this week, so I plan to have at least one entry a week entered for the weekly prizes. There should be a number of book reviews here as a result. The next one is a book on Niagara Falls, every that sees it thinks I am reading a book about Nicaragua. More on that later.
Post 1001. AKA - "Out of context Visiting Teaching message report"
You may have noticed - I didn't until today - I have hit 1000 posts on this blog. That means there is about 36 of them now that are about anything meaningful. Maybe sometime in the next couple of days, I will go back and do an introspective "greatest hits" post to commemerate this milestone.
The other day, we came home, Tara's visiting teachers had been by, and dropped off 5 little kid's plates with a little message. (And a bar of fancy soap. I'm not exactly sure how these 3 things all tie together, I guess I am missing something.) I have been using one of the plates in an effort to serve myself smaller portions. I don't know that this is working, since going for seconds is always a real possibility.
Anyway, the message they left had a little note on it:
Now I know nothing about the background to Tara being dropped off this message, but I won't let her tell me, I prefer my own delusions. I figure Tara's visiting teacher doesn't actually like me. She's trying to get rid of me, and she's on a campaign to help Tara find someone else.
It's kind of weird, and I fully expect a rebuttal soon.
The other day, we came home, Tara's visiting teachers had been by, and dropped off 5 little kid's plates with a little message. (And a bar of fancy soap. I'm not exactly sure how these 3 things all tie together, I guess I am missing something.) I have been using one of the plates in an effort to serve myself smaller portions. I don't know that this is working, since going for seconds is always a real possibility.
Anyway, the message they left had a little note on it:
"Maybe this talk could be of some help!
good luck
love, Stephanie"
The message was from the September 2003 New Era, by Elder Lynn Robbins, it was entitled "Finding Your Sweetheart".Now I know nothing about the background to Tara being dropped off this message, but I won't let her tell me, I prefer my own delusions. I figure Tara's visiting teacher doesn't actually like me. She's trying to get rid of me, and she's on a campaign to help Tara find someone else.
It's kind of weird, and I fully expect a rebuttal soon.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Game Time
Cities and Knight of Catan
Me - 1
Tara - 0
I volunteered to put the game away, since I won...
Me - 1
Tara - 0
I volunteered to put the game away, since I won...
Slurpees
It was hot today. After I mowed the lawn, I came in to try to cool off, but it didn't really work all that well. I decided we all needed to take a trip over to 7-Eleven.
We got ready to go, I got everyone into the car but Kate. Tara went in to get Kate, but she was in the bath. We forgot she was doing that. Does that make us bad parents? (We did let her get dressed before we left, if that influences your answer.)
The girls were excited to get the Slurpees. Mary had a banana flavored one, all the other girls had Cherry. Tara had a Coke flavored slurpee. I got a Dark Cherry Lemonade slurpee. I thought there would be less lemonade in it than really was.
Anyway, the slurpee did the trick. Maybe I'll have to start visiting 7-Eleven more often again...
We got ready to go, I got everyone into the car but Kate. Tara went in to get Kate, but she was in the bath. We forgot she was doing that. Does that make us bad parents? (We did let her get dressed before we left, if that influences your answer.)
The girls were excited to get the Slurpees. Mary had a banana flavored one, all the other girls had Cherry. Tara had a Coke flavored slurpee. I got a Dark Cherry Lemonade slurpee. I thought there would be less lemonade in it than really was.
Anyway, the slurpee did the trick. Maybe I'll have to start visiting 7-Eleven more often again...
Friday, June 01, 2007
Happy National Doughnut Day
Today is national doughnut day. Enjoy.
Krispy Kreme is offering free doughnuts to people in celebration. Someone at work gave me $5 to celebrate, we went over to the doughnut shop for lunch, and had a doughnut. I had creme filled with chocolate frosting.
I'll have to let the girls know about it later...
Overwatering
Last night, before playing Age of Empires, I started watering the garden. I meant to run out there just before the treaty period ended, but the treaty period ended just a little earlier than I expected, and I forgot about the water. After Age of Empires was over, I booted back up into Linux to get some work things done. I remembered the water about 9:30 last night, 2 hours after I planned to turn it off. The garden took a lot of water, there were large mud pools on top. It's a good thing there is good drainage, but we will have about a billion peas in the next few days...
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