Auditors

I had to deal with some auditors this afternoon. At one point towards the end, one of the auditors said "Hasn't anyone ever taught you how to answer auditors?" His point was they were looking for a yes or no answer. They had asked a question that was very generic and had nearly nothing to do with the thing they were auditing. I had started digging into them because of the question, and this was their response.

The only thing I could think of to say was "Hasn't anyone every taught you how to talk to Unix systems engineers?", but I didn't say it. It took considerable will power to not say this to them. Hopefully they are done and don't show up again tomorrow morning...

Maybe I am just faking it

I woke up this morning not feeling well. Really, I haven't been feeling well for the better part of the last week. I haven't been eating good. Last week we had lunches brought in for work, and I definitely ate somethings that upset my stomach. On Saturday, on the way up to get Drew and Kaylyn from the airport, I had a bag of "Inferno Peanuts" and a diet Dr. Pepper. By the time we got home, the peanuts and drink were competing with each other for attention in my gut. I had a very upset stomach all night long. (Ruth tried a couple of the peanuts this morning. I tried to get her not to do it, but she didn't listen. A little tear came to her eye, but she refused to say it was spicy for about 10 minute...)

Anyhow, last Thursday and Friday I likely would not have gotten out of bed had we not had a consultant at work. Tara had to convince me Friday. This morning I woke up not feeling well. I didn't get moving very fast, and Tara ended up leaving Adam with me at home while she took the girls up to Pumpkin Land.

I eventually got out of bed, got cleaned up and started feeling like I could maybe go to work when Tara got back. Then she suggested that we use one of the restaurant coupons for lunch that were expiring at the end of the week. We went to Sizzler. (Much, much, much better than the Kissimmee Florida Ponderosa, by the way.) I tried to limit what I ate so that I didn't get sick, but I think the beef sirloin stew did me in. Or the breaded chicken things. Or something. Anyhow, by the end of the meal, I was not feeling well again. I had planned to try the corn chowder, but by the time I got around to looking at it, I was in no mood to try the corn chowder.

I ended up not doing anything the rest of the afternoon. (By not doing anything I mean sitting on the couch fooling around with my laptop. I fixed it Monday morning, so it is only natural that I be fiddling with the thing 36 hours later...) By about 5pm I started feeling a little better, so I got ready and went off to Stake interviews.

Long story short, I think the past month or so has upset the balance in my system again. Too much eating things I shouldn't. Too little walking to work. I have had a lot of "high pain" days in the last month. I think I should get an appointment visit with the doctor, he will likely put me back on that really annoying diet. Just in time for the holidays again.

I am not allowed to talk to Ruth anymore

At church this morning, I was holding Adam, Tara was holding Lily. Ruth came over and wanted to sit on my lap. I didn't want her climbing up on my lap and knocking Adam down, so I suggested that she maybe go sit in the pew in front of us in Sister Taylor's lap. Next thing I know, Ruth has taken off to the other side of the chapel to sit with her preschool teacher. All she needed was a perceived permission, and she was off. She sat over there the entire meeting.

This evening, the girls were talking about the fact that they didn't have school tomorrow. Emma wasn't sure at first, I told her I could take her over there in the morning, she could play on the playground all morning until the normal time to leave school, then come back home. Ruth demanded to be allowed to go play on the playground tomorrow morning with Emma. Tara may have a hard time convincing her otherwise tomorrow.

I'm not allowed to say anything to Ruth anymore. I should have gotten in my "Elephant and Rhino" joke before my banishment...

"We are not very smart."

Last Friday, I reinstalled my laptop with a different Linux distribution, mostly just for fun. I got it functional, but didn't bother to add all the bells and whistles, like wireless drivers.

This evening, I was minding my own business, getting ready to print out envelopes for letters to the missionaries out from our Stake, when I had a great idea: "Why not put the wireless drivers on before printing the envelopes?"

I happily went on my way, downloading and installing the drivers for wireless. Somewhere along that path of reckless abandon, I rebuilt my kernel and rebooted.

BANG!

No more Linux. Or more specifically, no more desktop client, network drivers, etc, etc. I will either have to fix it in the morning, or install afresh.

This is the problem with my having the root password for my laptop. On a server, I don't mess around. At least not on any servers that matter. But on my laptop, I am free to wander down paths that aren't exactly best for the optimal performance of my laptop, sometimes...

Primary program

Our ward had our annual Primary program this morning. Emma was one of the first to do her part. She got up there, and all you could see was the top of her head down to her eyebrows. The counselor in the Primary presidency turned around to lower the podium, Emma started her part, and while the podium lowered you saw the little head and eyebrows lower at the same time. She had to make sure she talked into the microphone, it was pretty funny at the time.

Rearing Emmas bed

Emma has had a broken bed for some time. It is kind of hard to see from the picture above with the blankets on it, but the bottom half of the bed is sagging. They had broken the bed by jumping on it, and a couple of the slats broke.


The above picture is the bed with the mattress off. You can see she has been just stuffing things under the bed when we tell her to clean her room. I had been using Shakespeare to keep the mattress up, but they kept knocking things off. I had tried before to put the slats back in, but they kept breaking them. One of the 2 broken slats is now missing.

Today I got a couple of 2x2s, and made a couple of braces for the bed. The slats are screwed down to the braces. Emma's bed is now fixed. No more sleeping on a slant because she had knocked the books down. Unfortunately for her, I told her I wouldn't bring the bed back to her room until she cleaned up where it used to be. Now that the bed is there, she has nowhere to stuff things and actually has to clean up...

Voting

I finished Election Judge training today for the election coming up. I think it's going to be crazy over there then. I have 9 poll worker, and 21 voting machines. We will be busy all day long. I plan to vote early sometime this next week...

My new remote is great!

So, I talked to John P at work about trying to program the remote. I was explaining how I was trying to program all the buttons for the DVR, John's response was "You are trying to do all the buttons at the same time? I did them one at a time, and saved each one. I didn't have a problem doing it that way."

I hadn't considered programing just one button. I thought I would have to set everything up at the same time.

Anyhow, it only took me a little over a half hour to program all the buttons while verifying they were working. Piece of cake. The remote has 10 preprogram buttons, so you can program your favorite channels. They also had tons of stickers for different channels. We now have a fully functional remote that can work the TV and all the devices plugged into it. (Except the Wii, of course.) It's really nice.

I have one extra slot for something. In the spring I will try record the air conditioner remote to see if I can get that to work. I might also try getting some sort of remote for the lights in the back room, and try that on the new remote...

I'm lovin' it!

Tara had enrichment tonight, I took the girls over to McDonald's for dinner. I think I surprised them all when I suggested it.

The girls were sort of kind of excited about the food, but mostly excited about playing on the play land. It was double fun when Ben Weinheiner showed up a few minutes later with his girls.

After about 45 minutes or so, Ben's little girl had to head to the bathroom, she ended up having an accident, they eventually ended up leaving. Mary and Ben's other girl ended up climbing all over the statue of Ronald, even though I was trying to get them to stop.

Right after Ben left, Ruth got up on Ronald, and fell off. She bonked her nose on the ground and it started bleeding all over the place. End of visit to McDonald's. Everything is fine, Ruth ended up having a shower to get clean.

I have blood all over me. I guess I now know why I wore my bright red Nebraska shirt today...

New remote control

I bought a new remote control online last week. It is a Philips SRU4105WM/17, and I got it for $10, which is a steal.

The draw of the thing was supposed to be it's ability to learn codes, just by pressing the 'channel up' button. Our DVR has resisted efforts to find and/or set the remote code to use another remote. Same for the DVD player. I figured that even if I could get rid of 3 of the 4 remotes, it would be worth it.

The remote came today, I went right to work trying to get it going. The TV was hooked in within 30 seconds. (Not sure if every function is there for the TV, but we don't change the settings all that often, so it should be fine. It looks to be fully functional.) VCR - another 30 seconds. DVD player - about 2 minutes, but it did work. 3 out of 4. Sweet.

DVR. Ah, the DVR. The DVR resisted all efforts to automatically learn the code. It just sat there and stared at me, dumb as a brick. I tried a number of times, no luck. This remote lets you line 2 up together and teach the new one what the old one did. I taught it channel up. That worked. When you have the thing recorded, you can check to see what remote code it thinks it has. (Press the button and wait for it to blink. Like someone who has been paralyzed on TV...) The code for the DVR is 0565. I cleared the setting I put on, and tried setting the remote by code. The code took, and appeared successful, but still didn't work right.

Went back online to figure out what in the world was going on. Turns out the DVR is from Switzerland. (ADB) Maybe the DVR doesn't let thing talk to it because the remotes speak English, and the DVR speaks French, German, or Italian.

Back to just teaching the remote one button at a time. There are 33 buttons I want programmed from the old remote to the new remote. I got it done the first time, it seemed to work, but the '1' always pressed twice. The next time, the '1', the '2', and the channel up always pressed twice. Crazy thing. I tried it one more time, and both the fast forward, rewind, '1', and 'Guide' buttons all pressed multiple times.

The 'other' John, from work, bought the same remote, his came 2 days ago. I called him and explained it, this crazy double press thing happened to him, too. He said he had to start just tapping when doing it to get it to work. Ok, I can do that, I got a pencil out, and started pressing the remotes with the eraser. Try one this way did everything right but the right menu button, channel up, fast forward, and rewind. Try two made it so everything worked right except the right menu button.

I got frustrated and typed this blog entry to this point. Then I loaded the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, and checked on the girls, who were all too quiet, even for 9pm.

Next try - The '2', 'Fast forward', 'rewind', and 'pause' are all double hitting.

Another try - about 10 of the buttons double hit. Wishing I had kept the recording where the right menu button was the only one misbehaving...

Tried again, went to do the buttons really fast. Half the buttons double hit, half the buttons didn't work.

I am a glutton for punishment. 4 buttons double hitting.

Last try. No good. I will have to save it for some other day. The remote has 10 buttons that you can record keystrokes, so you can set them to go to whatever channel you want. They also sent a sheet of stickers with something like 200 channel stickers for it. If I can get the DVR working right, I can program the channels we watch the most. But not tonight. I could program channels 11 and 33, but not 21 or 23...

"dining room" floor

Monday night, Adam and I went over to Home Depot to look around. They had Dupont 'Classic Touch' laminate floor on sale for about $20 off per case. It was only $4 more per case than the Home Depot generic laminate that I was considering getting to put together a floor for the table we bought. I had looked at chair mats, but to get one that was thick enough and big enough would have cost big bucks. The case just a little bigger than the others that they sell, and it ended up being big enough that I only needed 2 cases.


The laminate I got is very nice. It is about twice as thick as the generic laminate. It looks really nice.


Tonight after Stake meetings, I put the floor together. It only took about an hour, thanks to the miter saw I borrowed from Drew. The floor is just about the right size for the table when it is pulled out to the right spot. I might add 2 feet more, but I would need an extra case of flooring, and the 2 feet is not worth the cost.


We might purchase some sort of edging for the little floor, but for now I will leave it like it is. Now I have to make the other bench, sand and paint both of them, and we can have a normal family dinner. Or at least as normal as any dinner can get with 6 kids...

Sometimes I do not understand

Last month I finished a 50+ page detailed design document for a thing we are working on implementing here at work. One of the things project type people want to do with these design documents is to get signatures from the project stakeholders on the document. (I guess in the vein of "I agree with what has been designed" or something to that effect.) I got an email this morning from them asking if I was around to sign my paper.

I didn't understand why they wanted me to sign my own paper. It's not like I didn't agree with what I wrote, it was my paper. I heard the idea started with our Managing Director, or at least he agreed with the idea, so I talked to him. He talked about how it showed a point of consensus, and that sort of thing. I agreed to sign it, even though I still don't really see the point...

The good news is that the project manager agreed to buy us lunch for the next 3 days if I signed the paper. I had arraigned lunch just a few minutes before that through our office manager, who would have had the project manager foot the bill for the lunch next week anyway... Today we had spaghetti and meatballs, mostly because of a limited window between them saying they would get us lunch and lunchtime.

I ate plenty, but I still don't understand why I had to sign my own paper...

I guess I am all talk.

All that blustering on Saturday night, and I forgot to send the money to the school with the girls this morning.

On top of that, this morning we were talking about UEA weekend at work, the next school district over had today off, our girls went back today. For a brief moment, I wasn't sure that they really had school, even though I dropped them off. I dropped them off at the school, and left before they were all the way in.

I envisioned them playing on the playground all day, then going home when it was time... Yep, I'm a bad dad...

Elementary school fees

There is a law on the books here that elementary schools can not assess fees for participation in normal core school activities. (Or something along those lines.) They assess fees for absolutely everything in high school. We will have to see if my kids get textbooks or not in high school...

Anyhow, they can't assess fees in elementary school, but that doesn't stop all the teachers from asking for a per student "a $20.00 donation to help with the cost of class excursions, projects, food experiences in the classroom, gifts, etc." I consider this a hidden tax. A tax for having kids in school.

We have paid this every year. Usually as late as we possibly can, for the sake of protesting. We will be paying on Monday, because a trip to Pumpkin Land is in store for Emma this next week. Kate's teacher didn't ask for anything this year, I assume it is because he was hired late in the process, and no one told him about this particular quirk of this school.

Anyway, I am strongly considering turning it in with a little note that talks about my "not exactly a tax, not exactly a fee, not exactly dues, nearly voluntary donation" for each of the teachers. Except for Kates teacher. I will give him the $20 with a note letting him in on the secret...

Wandering around

Today I had Adam, Lily, Ruth, and Emma. At lunchtime, we went for a walk, ended up at the CougarEat, where the girls each had a donut, some fries, and a slushee. Maybe not all that nutritionally good for them, but they enjoyed it. We walked around for a while after lunch, and ended up at the duck pond for a little bit. Someone we knew was there, and gave us some bread to feed the ducks. Ruth thought this was hilarious. Lily kept throwing the bread to the ducks, but she would only throw the bread 18 inches in front of her, so the ducks kept getting closer, she kept backing up. When we finally got home, the girls were tired and all willingly went down for naps, which was really what I was going for when we started.

Busy this week, busier next week.

I think I am ready for vacation again already. It's been kind of busy this week, lots to do at work. (Not sure that anyone hear really wants to hear about work. If you do, pipe up, I can start talking about work...) Next week it busier, I fully expect to spend a lot of time at my office. It's been so busy around here that yesterday I had a friend from HP drop me an email just checking up on me, because he hadn't seen me or heard much from me lately...

Anyhow, on my way home from Stake meetings on Wednesday night, I started feeling sick, dizzy, and generally not well. (It's only about half a mile away, and I thought for a moment that I shouldn't be driving because I was dizzy.) I got home, muscled my way onto the couch, and fell asleep. It was nearly Thursday afternoon before I knew it. Emma was also sick, and basically didn't move off the couch all day Thursday. I stopped feeling sorry for myself when I heard that our Bishop ended up in the hospital overnight from a split artery or something like that. I am feeling better by now, Emma is better, and the Bishop reports that he is generally feeling better. I ended up missing my flu shot because I was not feeling well. Maybe it was the flu I had, everyone in the office had been getting flu shots for the past 10 days of so, so maybe I don't need a flu shot at this point.

Tara had a quilting Shop Hop this weekend, and has been driving all over the place the last 3 days with her Mom and a couple of the girls. She likes those things.

Restaurant Review

India Palace

We talked Missy into coming over to watch the girls, so we could go out to eat. We had talked about going to PF Chang's, but ended up at India Palace. We were the only people in the restaurant, and got a lot of attention from the employees.

I don't remember what I ordered was called, but it was good. It was a chicken dish. I nearly choked on a chicken bone that I didn't expect to be there. I actually couldn't quite finish everything. I don't normally leave food on my plate at a restaurant, or at home, or anywhere, really, but I left 4 or 5 bite fulls on my plate. I was definitely full at that point.

I also had a whole wheat unleavened bread thing. I think that might be what filled me up, really. The bread just kept expanding in my stomach...

It was good, as far as Indian food goes. They have a lunch buffet they do every day, I imagine it is more of the same, if you want to go that way.

Dial M for Murder

On Thursday, we went with Matt and Talia over to campus to watch the play "Dial M for Murder". It had been long enough since I had seen the movie that I didn't really remember all the details before had, which I think was good.

The play was well done, I really liked the way they did the set. They had the apartment, with a little bedroom on one end, and a little porch on the other. The set rotated back and forth, so when the scene had its important part in the bedroom, they rotated the set around so everyone saw the bedroom. (Even when there was dialog in the main part of the apartment, the important piece was in the bedroom, and the rotation focused you on it.)

The only other thing to say about it was it was a little surprising that they chose to include cigarettes and drinking in a play on campus. It is the first time I can remember then portraying a cigarette in someones mouth. They were trying to get the feel of the era, I just thought it was interesting to note...

Preparing to have dinner, like a 'normal' family

On Thursday, I found a table at Shopko for $75, regularly $200. On Friday, we bought it. Saturday morning, I started making a bench for the table.
I plan to make 2 benches, one for each side of the table. We will get a big plastic mat for under the benches and table, and we can start eating dinner together. A normal family dinner, or at least as normal as it gets around here...

Restaurant Review

Cafe Rio

We went to Cafe Rio before the play. I had tamales. The tamales were ok, but I think the ones I made were better. Tara had a steak salad, which I thought tasted pretty good.

Lots of people go to this place. I'm not sure it's quite as good as everyone implies, (the Bishop of our ward feels the same) but the food is good. Just not super good. Sometimes our office orders it when they are doing training or whatever, when the food is free, it is excellent, at least for the cost.

SALSA!

Tara found a new kind of salsa at Costco this past weekend. It's a Kirkland labeled salsa, and it is really good. I'm gonna have to stock up. As an additional bonus, it comes in a size that (finally, compared to other bottled salsas) will last more than one sitting. It weighs in at 4 pounds. I'm pretty sure I can't eat 4 pounds of salsa in one sitting, at least not tonight. Maybe I will try on Saturday during the football game...

Book Review

The Last Days of Krypton
Kevin J Anderson

We were at a bookstore in Kissimmee last week. (Not an easy place to find, especially when you start by driving the other direction because you don't know where a bookstore is.) I was poking through the books a little, poking through the comic books, that kind of thing. This book looked interesting, and had a holographic cover. I might have gotten the book anyway, but the holographic cover sealed the deal.

This book is about Superman's parents. It goes from the point they meet to the point where Superman is launched into space. In the meantime, they have Brainiac come and take Kandor and General Zod come to power and then finally get defeated. The author tries to keep the story true to the first 2 Superman movies, at least making it work right.

This was a well written book. He does a good job building the world of Krypton and the events that led up to the planet imploding. I think this book would make apretty ok movie even, if someone really cared to do it. They really didn't need to draw people with the holographic cover, it's a pretty good book.

October Goals

Here's a new set:

• Fix Emma's bed. They broke it a while back, sometimes she ends up sleeping at an angle if they have been crazy in there.
• Winterize the garden. Sometime this month, we will lose the tomato plants, that will be the end of it. I do have 3 spaghetti squash that are doing well and will be ready to be picked soon as well.
• Clean out the gutters. It has been a while since I have done this, the gutters over the carport need it pretty badly.
  
• Fix the truck - Go see if the block place has any over runs I can get. If so, work on the wall. OK, so at least fix the truck.
• Read 2 books. My yearlong goal is 18 books, I am at 16 books, so this would get me there...
  

Jelly Legs

Tom came over late tonight to help me get the truck back home from the girls school. The school is about a 1/2 mile from the house, but it is mostly downhill from the school to here, so I had hopes that the 2 of us would be able to do it.

It took a lot of strength to get the truck out of the parking lot. We really had to push hard to get the thing to the street. Once we were in the street, we drove (or glided, with style) down the median. We didn't need to push once we were on the street, I think we got up to 15 or 20 miles an hour going downhill. Fortunately, both of the lights stayed green, so I didn't have to decide whether to run the light or not. (Does it count as running if you are pushing the car? It's more like coasting the light.)

When we got to our street, the traffic had cleared, and there were no pedestrians, so we took the corner "full" speed, and coasted almost all the way down to our house. We just had to push it a little more to get it to the house. It ended up being quite a bit easier than I was expecting, really.

Now I've got a little bit of jelly legs from pushing so hard. I guess I'm getting weak and soft.

September Goals - the final review

If you recall, there are only 4 goals:

1. Read 5 books. I finished 4 books. I have 2 books at least half done. Not 5 books, but close.
   
2. Sell the minivan. Drew is still working on selling his car. We will eventually be selling the minivan to him.
   
3. Finish a detailed design document at work. I think I finished this before we left. There wasn't any noise in my inbox about it when I got home, but you never know. We plan to do implementation in October regardless.
   
4. Enjoy our vacation. I enjoyed our vacation.

I guess 2 out of 4 isn't bad.

Truck not quite fixed yet

Before we left on vacation, the truck broke down. I got someone at work to tow it home. On Sunday before we left, I got ready to push it into the drive, so that it would not get ticketed while we were gone. The truck started right up, which made it very easy to get into the drive.

Today I went to pick up Emma from school. The truck started right up. The truck did not start right up, however, after getting Emma and being ready to come back home. It is sitting over at the school, forsaken and forlorn. Emma and I had to get picked up from the school.

Poll Results

We are back. Today is Oct 2, but to maintain some sort of temporal consistency, I will back date the posts from our vacation. Expect a flood of posts sometime today.

I have 549 emails in my inbox. Even I am shocked at the low number.

Filling in the gaps from the vacation

So, here's what else we did this past week:

• Rob and Amy came in Wednesday morning. Russ got in Wednesday afternoon. Jonathan and Amber got in Wednesday night.
  
• We played plenty of Wii games, mostly Dance Dance Revolution, Mario Kart Wii, Star Wars Legos, and Wii Sports.
  
• We spent some time in the house pool. At one point, we had a good game of Horse going. (I think Jonathan won.) We also played a good game of water animal basketball. (Rob claims to have won that one.)
• On Wednesday and Thursday, I had a very lucky streak going. I could not lose a game of spades. Try as they might, I kept winning. We played until about 3:30 in the morning, waiting for me to lose. I eventually did lose at some point during the weekend.
• We played a game called "Killer Bunnies" which was hilarious at 4 in the morning.
• The house was supposed to have a King, a Queen, a Double, and 2 twin beds. The Queen bed ended up being a double. We made due. On the 30th, the cleaning service came to clean the place. They said we were supposed to be out of there and called the owner. He little confused when I talked to him, and also thought we were supposed to be out. I had a copy of the email confirming our reservation. I wasn't too worried about it, we were right, they were wrong. The owner called back 15 minutes later to apologize. (Which was good, since we already had the contract, and I had a lawyer with me...) It turned out the schedule with the cleaning service was messed up.
• Other games we played: Pitch, Catan, Cities and Knights of Catan, Guillotine, The bean game (Not sure if that was the name), Carcisonne, Ticket to Ride. (There might be others.) Jonathan and I also played 2 hands of Gin Rummy, but I went up 120 points to zero. We didn't finish the game.
  
• It was really, really nice to relax, visit with those guys, and have a good time. It was a very good vacation.
  

Here is a short video of Dance Dance Revolution action.

Going home

Rob, Amy, Tara, and I went to the Orlando Temple Wednesday morning. We had to hurry to get into the session. (They do them once an hour.) We made it, it was nice. It was also nice to find myself and Rob in the temple after all this time. (Not that there was any question about it, it was just nice to be there.)

After the session, it was time to head to the airport. We stopped at Steak and Shake, a little diner type. It was pretty good, I had a beef taco salad. It tasted fine, but looked like the kind of beef taco salad I would expect from a place that runs from the Midwest. (With apologies to Midwesterners out there.) The ground beef looked like bacon bits for some reason. It did taste good.

We got to the airport, and ended up being B10 and B11 on the SouthWest line. I thought this was pretty good, but there were less than 90 people on the plane. (It was a big plane.) The flight was supposed to be a direct flight, it ended up being a "mostly" direct flight. We had a brief stop in St. Louis, where most people got off, and nearly no one else got on.