DJ Breslin's Website - News Archive

26 October 2008 - My washing machine isn't dispensing from the bleach chamber. Somehow that led to me flushing my hot water tank. Home maintenance is funny like that.

I went online to figure out if the bleach problem was common. It's common enough that you can find several postings on it. I had a sense about this washing machine a few months after I bought it, so I paid for the super extended warranty, which I normally never do. So, I'm not too worried about it, but I did want to check it out. In the process of that research, I started reading about "water hammer," which I quickly identified as something that was happening to my pipes when the washing machine would run. It's unrelated to the bleach, but the links were right next to each other. One way to potentially fix water hammer is to drain your house's plumbing of all water so the air chambers can fill back up. It's unclear if I even have air chambers, but it was the easiest/cheapest thing to try. When reading about how to handle that, the advice was the use the opportunity to flush your hot water heater, which has never been done in the 10 years we've owned the house. A led to B led to C. It seems to always work that way.

I finished Week 2 of the hundred push-ups program. I will be doing the exhaustion test later today to see what column to work with when I start Week 3. So far I think I'm seeing mild progress, but I'll know for sure when I do the test tonight and compare it to my initial exhaustion test.

19 October 2008 - Really bummed about the Red Sox loss. I guess it was a fun ride though... that 7-0 comeback was incredible. Would be better remembered with a win tonight, but you can't have everything. At least now my kids know what it's like to be a Sox fan.

I spent some time Saturday and Sunday trying to fix a laptop for a friend. It had been overwhelmed by viruses and trojans and was crashing immediately after login. I tried booting it to safe mode, but it hung on mup.sys. There's an easy fix for that involving using the repair option from an install CD, but the CD drive did not work! Best I could do for them was take out the 2.5" hard disk, put it in an enclosure and recover their data. I burned a couple CDs with their most precious data (family pictures) and gave them the whole drive back in the enclosure in case they ever wanted to get to something else (like music, movies or software). It's a real shame, since the laptop was most likely perfectly fine, needing only a wipe/reinstall, but without a working CD drive, there's not much I could do. If it were a desktop, I could've put in one of the many CD drives laying around my computer room. Oh well.

I stopped doing the 100 pushups thing. No reason to stop... just wasn't convenient. I will try to pick it back up tomorrow (Monday) and just re-do Week 2 Day 1. We'll see...

General Colin Powell endorsed Senator Barack Obama. Independents and moderate Republicans take note!

6 October 2008 - If you were reading my tweets, you might have noticed that I'm doing the 100 pushups thing. I did my initial test last week and clocked in at 20 straight pushups before fatigue. That put me at a starting point of Rank 3. Today was Week 1 Day 1 and I just completed the trial: 10 pushups, then 12, then 7, then 7, then maxed out at 14 (shooting for 9+) with rests in between. It went pretty well! I worry that I won't scale up with the regimen though. We'll see... you can watch my log on the tracking site.

29 September 2008 - If Senator John McCain is elected, there is a significant chance that his Vice President will have to step in. Governor Sarah Palin is his choice for VP. This is her exchange with Katie Couric...

Katie Couric: Why isn't it better, Gov. Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Sarah Palin: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the -- it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Seriously? This election is an absolute no-brainer. When I saw the SNL skit, I thought it must be an over the top caricature of the interview, but it was nearly verbatim!

28 September 2008 - I've made a small change to the front page of the site. It's all CSS happy now. What a pain in the butt to get it there though. I'll do the news archive page later, but the rest of the site probably will never get the treatment. It's far too hard.

I've grown to like Twitter, so I expect the feed to be a permanent part of the site. Given that it's 2008, I made the assumption that I could go wider and I placed it on the right side. My tweets also update my facebook status. That's three birds with one stone... my site, facebook and Twitter itself.

As much as I find facebook to be user unfriendly, I end up using it more than MySpace, because it remembers my credentials and saves me from typing. Also, it seems to have the momentum of the internet behind it.

Oh, my site is now mobile friendly too! It drops the header, footer and tweets and just renders the main content. Try it out!

4 June 2008 - Alright, don't think I'm weird for posting about a sushi restaurant so much, but I really like this place and I'm always blown away by their presentation. And that's saying something coming from me. I'm usually all about efficiency and "just get the food in my stomach quick" type of mentality, but something about this place is very soothing, comfortable and I find myself appreciating all their effort and style as much as the great food. Speaking of the food being great... I should say that my favorites are the Yum Yum, Ninja, Rainbow and Bethany items.

The staff is also wonderful... very friendly... very inviting. I really enjoy eating there. Oh... and "HI!" to the Tomo Sushi people who might be reading this right now. ;-)

I stopped in for dinner during my walk home today. So pretty!

tomo sushi spiral

30 May 2008 - The boys wanted to take their mother to their new favorite sushi place. We tried plenty of items that we hadn't had before. The Tomo Special was a favorite. Just have to share this incredible presentation again...

tomo sushi boat

28 May 2008 - As many of you know, I'm taking the bus and walking more. Why? I'm kinda revolting against my car (read: gas). And obviously I need more exercise. But I'm finding it also gives me time to read and it gives me a mental break between work and home. It's surprisingly effective... and I think it has mellowed me a bit.

You also might have read in my Tweets that the boys and I tried and liked Tomo Sushi. Well, today when I was walking home from work, I stopped in there by myself and sat at their bar. Not only was the food just as fantastic as the first time I went, but I was surprised at the end by a beautiful dessert. Check it out!

tomo sushi desert

24 April 2008 - You might notice something unusual above this space. They are called "tweets" and they come from a site called Twitter. They let you blog minutiae about your life on their site directly, via IM or text. Additionally, they let you put feeds to this information into MySpace, Facebook or directly into sites more under your control (like above).

I'm not thrilled about the placement on my site right now, because it seems to blur into the more substantive (ha!) material I write here. But for now, I'm just going to leave it as-is while I try it out and see if it's worthwhile. I don't seem to blog much anymore and maybe this will be a lighter weight way of posting at least something once in a while.

7 April 2008 - Almost exactly four months have passed since my last update. And I return to impart some very, very important information.

I have determined, through direct experimentation, that Tide HE with Febreeze does not rinse well out of clothing. Tide Free HE is the clothes washing liquid of choice.

I found myself using the Febreeze-laden Tide HE to do a few loads of laundry and the clothes kept coming out soapy. Not obviously so, but a quick squeeze of the damp clothing (especially towels) caused soap to gush out. After repeated proofs of this effect, I switched to Tide Free HE and have had no soap gushing events to speak of since.

That's right... I post after 4 months of dormancy with this. It'll have to do. :-)

9 December 2007 - It's been a while since my last update. Main reason: not much positive to blog about. In the biography of DJ (which will never be written), 2007 will go down as one of the worst years ever. And if it doesn't, then I really don't want to think about the years ahead of me... they would have to be devastating (and I suppose they could be).

But, it's time to get back on the horse and at least update the site for the sake of it. I don't want to feel like blogging a year from now and then be de-motivated, because the site's so stale.

The kids got their first trimester progress report (aka "report card"). As usual, they both did awesome. I'm very proud of them. They also have a piano recital coming up next week. Their piano playing skills blow me away. I'm so glad they've stuck with it.

Anyway, let me get some pictures out of the way. I won't feel right blogging about mundane stuff until I catch up on these...

19 August 2007 - I finished building this Dania bureau/armoire last night. And for the first time in 2007, I put my clothes away in a drawer. That really struck me. It's a simple and poetic reminder of how much I've lost.

A recent conversation at work had a similar effect. I don't recall how it came about, but I made the statement that I don't own any groceries (with the exception of Coke Zero). It's been several years since I was in a grocery store to truly "shop for groceries." All of the food I consume is gotten from work, dining out or friends. Since I carefully track all of my spending, I can back up this statement with data. Year-to-date for 2007, I have spent ~$5100 on "dining out" and $380 on "groceries." 93% vs. 7%. A total of 17 grocery store transactions for the whole year so far. And since there are so few, I can look at each one and tell you that they are almost all wine club, personal alcohol or Coke Zero related. I actually remember buying "regular" groceries once this year, but it was all frozen food to nuke up, nothing more, and I think most people would not classify that as grocery shopping.

Oh, and I will never buy Dania furniture again. It is way too expensive and very crappy. I've built plenty of put-it-together-yourself furniture over the years and I've never experienced such poor build quality. And this is across two pieces (I also built a nightstand), so it wasn't just bad luck. Both pieces are wobbly, because the only thing holding them true is the paperboard backer. A cross brace is sorely needed, even for the little nightstand.

1 August 2007 - We had a new person start in the engineering group today... a QA engineer. That's really great, to have new blood, especially in my group. We'll have more coming soon, but we have to find them first.

I don't really have anything else to share. Everything is work related and therefore boring and without context (for you). Things are really tough still. Trying to work through it. Not succeeding...

21 July 2007 - I don't think people realize how thinly stretched I am at work. And it's not just me, the whole engineering department is being asked to do way more than we realistically have capacity for. We're trying to get version 5.5.3 out the door at the same time we plan for version 5.6 and versions 1.3/1.4 of another smaller product we have. The engineering team is also partially responsible for doing the advanced planning and building of new market solutions on top of the base product (like grants management, clinical trials / participant tracking, etc.) We also have support, communications, training, documentation, staffing and mentoring roles to play.

The problem is that the team is very small. And that leads to a general slowness in our ability to get to all of these things. What I'm finding is that slowness is misinterpreted as incompetence by people outside the engineering team. For example, I haven't solicited input from the professional services group for version 5.6. It's not that I've forgotten or don't plan to. It's that we're simply not there yet. Also, customers are complaining that we don't communicate enough of what we're doing. Well, frankly, we're doing very little. And what we are doing is forward-thinking, R&D style work. Some of it isn't going to pan out. And what I've learned is that you have to be careful when telling customers about "up in the air / still being worked" type stuff. They tend to overreact and say things like, "why didn't you consult us?!" and "you can't do that!" when really, nothing's been decided yet... and maybe we will talk to them... eventually. (They also seem to have trouble remembering that we need to make strategic decisions for our own company too... and sometimes it's not in their best interests.)

I plan to have a frank discussion with my boss, but I did mention a few things to the VP of Ops & Acquisitions yesterday. If they want to get more out of me, then one thing they can do is not bother me with mundane day-to-day crap. If I say my group needs 3 laptops and 2 desktops, then just make it happen. I don't need to spend my time justifying and discussing. Either say no or make it happen. The same goes for so many things at work. Timecards and BS paperwork. You want to see me "find efficiencies" and "multi-task better" and "delegate more?" Fine... then get my shit done when I ask for it and when I say "no" to requests, you need to learn to deal with it.

It's funny, because I finally did say that I was through searching through resumes, doing phone screens and dealing with trying to hire into the group. I'm not good at it, it's not an efficient use of my time, and given our needs and overall company size, we should be able to get someone in here dedicated to do that. Well, that task did (somewhat) get shifted to someone else, but it's beneath him as well (the VP mentioned above). WTF happened to having a recruiter? Anyway, we need to get some additional software engineers in as soon as possible. Just don't get me started on how painful it is to integrate new people. I knew there was a spin-up cost... but I have now become aware, first hand, at how high that cost is to the rest of the group.

There's a big part of me that wants to go back to being an "individual contributor." There's more personal satisfaction in it for me... and definitely more praise and ability to succeed in the eyes of others. I don't think VP of Engineering is very rewarding... it's a good thing I didn't officially take the title, right? Right?! Aw, crap. What have I done?

17 July 2007 - I was trying to check my email from the new house when I realized my servers seemed to be down. We recently had a power outage, so I thought maybe it happened again. I hopped in my car at 11:30pm and drove to the old house to see what was up. Turned out the router needed a reboot (which hasn't happened ever since moving to FiOS and getting a more robust router). Took me a while to figure out what was going on... and at great discomfort too, what with sitting on the floor while trying to jury-rig some computer equipment back together. I may need to reconsider my belief that I could leave the servers at the old house; they are just too far away from daddy. I wonder if I can do a straight swap of a consumer FiOS in one house and business FiOS in the other. I can deal with it if they need me to change IPs, though that would be a hassle.

In other computer woe related news... my laptop battery finally died. It's $130 from Dell to get a new one... and it seems I can possibly get it for cheaper (say, $80), but I'm wondering if I should just get a new laptop. I probably wouldn't have done much thinking in the past about it, but money's tighter these days. I also need a new server and a new game machine. It's pretty frustrating to go from never worrying about money to thinking about it all the time.

I was already at the old house once today to care for the cats and mow the lawn. Now I'm back again (and while it's not a long trip, it's long enough to suck) and I'm wondering if I should just crash here for the night (it's nearing 1am). But if I wake up here, I have nothing to shower/dress/etc with. This is the life, baby!

*grumble*

12 July 2007 - The big red ball popped. Here's the email I wrote to my coworkers...

I regret to inform all of you that the big red ball is no more. I inflated it a few days ago to play with the kids; it was fun. Instead of deflating it, I left it alone and stored it in the garage where my car would normally be. There it sat for several days... until last night.

Amy informed me this morning via text message that, with the recent hot weather, the garage reached unusually high temperatures and...

the big red ball asploded

For those of you who never met the big red ball, share in our grief knowing that it was loved. For the rest of us, let us reminisce of the fond memories we have of time spent with big red ball. Big red ball… you were so bouncy and red. We miss you.

Some pictures of big red ball in happier days:
http://www.djbreslin.com/dj/redballproject2005.htm

The fateful text message:

/cry

Amy bought fireworks this year and we lit them off in front of the house with the boys on the 4th. It was fun!

You might recall that my furnace broke back in March. It was really hot on the 4th and when I went to turn on the A/C, it didn't work. I checked a whole bunch of things, but in the end (and after a few days of heat) I realized I had just forgotten to flip the breaker in the garage after the furnace repair. It's a good thing too... it's been over 100ºF here the last couple days.

The family is in Boston for a vacation. I hope they have fun while they're there. I miss the boys already...

28 June 2007 - The boys and I were hanging out today playing a board game after we got back from dinner at IHOP. When we were done, we were just laying on the floor staring at the ceiling. I said, "What does your tongue taste like?" There was a moment of silence, some smacking sounds and then Jarod said "cow." I asked what we should do next and Jarod suggested continuing to suck on our tongues to determine what they really taste like. Bizarre evening.

I moved into the new house a week ago. It's still a little crazy, but I'm settling in. It still feels like a hotel to me, but I'll get used to it over time... I hope. Most of the house is very nice, but I'm finding that the bathrooms are not functionally well designed.

I've just about had it at work. We are so understaffed that it should be criminal. It wouldn't be so bad if being mediocre at everything was OK, but no one lowers their expectations, especially customers (and understandably so). And no one seems to appreciate how much of the product team's time they consume. I wish I wasn't a captive to my paycheck.

Also, this summer is turning out to be more than I can handle. Our "family" is no longer functional or successful. And it basically just sucks for me. Some weeks the kids have camp... and I pay for it... and then Amy can work during the day. But, I don't think it's right to have them jammed into camps every week of the summer. So, some other weeks they don't have camp.... so Amy stays with them during the day and works nights. But then I have to leave work early every day to come home to care for them. And then I can't get much work done at night to make up for it. I'm losing 25% of my work day, at least... so I'm paying for it in that regard as well. My work is suffering tremendously, exactly when I need to be at my prime.

The only reprieve I'll get is when Amy & the kids go to Boston to have a vacation... on frequent flier miles that I paid for... while I get to stay back and take care of their house/yard/cats... and try to catch up on work.

Fuck this.

15 June 2007 - I just returned from another trip to our CCC conference, this time hosted by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. I can now add Minnesota to my list of states visited! I mentioned a little bit about CCC in a previous blog entry and I had some pictures to post from the last trip, which was to Washington DC. No pictures this time around.

I enjoyed talking face to face with our customers. I think I provided them with some useful information via some formal presentations and some informal talks. And I know I learned a great deal from them.

Here is my updated map...

map of US with states I have visited

6 June 2007 - It's nearly unprecedented, but it worked! Jericho is back! CBS announced today that they purchased 7 additional episodes for a mid-season start to season 2! Here's what the president of CBS said today:

June 6, 2007

To the Fans of Jericho:

Wow!

Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.

As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of "Jericho" for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more "Jericho," we will need more viewers.

A loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show. But that community needs to grow. It needs to grow on the CBS Television Network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available.

We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grass-roots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.

At this time, I cannot tell you the specific date or time period that "Jericho" will return to our schedule. However, in the interim, we are working on several initiatives to help introduce the show to new audiences. This includes re-broadcasting "Jericho" on CBS this summer, streaming episodes and clips from these episodes across the CBS Audience Network (online), releasing the first season DVD on September 25 and continuing the story of Jericho in the digital world until the new episodes return. We will let you know specifics when we have them so you can pass them on.

On behalf of everyone at CBS, thank you for expressing your support of "Jericho" in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.

Sincerely,
Nina Tassler
President, CBS Entertainment

P.S. Please stop sending us nuts :)

Nearly all of the cast and some crew posted thank you messages to the CBS message board when this started. A compiled list of links is here. A couple have come back to say thanks now that the show has renewed... Lennie James (aka Robert Hawkins) and Michael Gaston (aka Gray Anderson).

Additionally, three of the actors posted a video on YouTube to say thanks for all the hard work. I think this was made before the official announcement, but I think it's clear they knew some progress was being made.

If you haven't seen Jericho yet, you can watch it all for free at CBS.com. I highly recommend it, but I guess you knew that already...

5 June 2007 - One of the best new shows of the last season was Jericho. Along with Heroes, it was the only new show to attract and retain my interest. As the season went on, former favorites like Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy slipped off my radar. Even Lost made me question if it was worth spending any more time with. But Jericho was solid. Every episode was great TV and I actually made sure I was always current with Jericho... while letting Heroes slip for 3 weeks!

All that came to a screeching halt when CBS announced it would not be renewing Jericho for next season. This was an absolute shocker to me. The ratings on Jericho were very good from the start and it seemed to be a hit for CBS. It took a bit of a dive after a long 8 week (?) mid-season hiatus, something which most TV studios are learning to avoid these days. By the end of the season it was still doing well, but underperforming expectations. In my view, it was more the fault of CBS than a knock on the show.

As you might expect, the show's fans didn't take kindly to the cancellation. A grassroots campaign began to form to let CBS know that a second season was warranted. We made our voices heard via email, phone calls, faxes, snail mail, full page ads in newspapers, petitions, etc. But the most creative form of the protest came about when someone on the CBS message board had the idea of sending nuts to CBS. (The Jericho season finale made direct reference to the incident during the Battle of the Bastogne when General McAuliffe responded to a German call for surrender with only one word: "NUTS!")

An online nut retailer named nutsonline.com was suggested and eventually a partnership was formed. So far, Jericho fans have sent nearly 20 tons of nuts to CBS in NY and LA. Additionally, over $14,000 in aid has been raised for Greensburg, Kansas which was recently wiped out by tornados. (The fictional town of Jericho is located in Kansas.)

I myself sent my fair share of nuts, emails and letters... and of course signed the petition. Sometimes these things feel like empty gestures. But this time? Well, there's no official word yet, but I believe a rare thing has occurred. I think CBS has reversed course and they are bringing Jericho back in the middle of next season. We're all hoping it's true. Just wanted to share the good news. :-)

There are articles on Variety, Mercury News and EW.com mentioning the rumors of its return. I believe it all started with a rumor posted by Ausiello on TVGuide.com, but it seems to have gained credibility now that there are quotes from Jericho writer/producer Carol Barbee suggesting this is real.

This just in... looks like AP just generated an article on this. That means it'll show up all over the place soon enough. Yay! (Yup, it's on forbes.com now...)

27 May 2007 - More pictures... and this concludes 2006. I still need to clean up the kids' pages and probably move some of their pictures out to the family section so they can do whatever they want with theirs. I'm sure I won't get that done anytime soon.

Yesterday I fought off an invasion of ants. They came in thru the area around the front door and were attracted by some cat food particles. I fear the entire underside of the house has a colony of thousands of ants, because I see them come up through a few areas outside every summer. I'm probably going to have to call a professional at some point, but for now I'm somewhat certain these ants are not much to worry about.

This weekend is going to be full of work for me, rather than relaxation. Besides having a ton of work-work to do, I have to get going on some household chores, like finally patching the ceiling and starting on some outdoor trim painting... and the typical stuff like yard work and laundry. A friend is also having a housewarming party today and I'd like to stop in for a short while. Time to get going...

10 May 2007 - Just clearing out some of the backlog of picture posts. This catches me up to October of 2006. That's way ahead of schedule. ;-)

5 May 2007 - The first Friday in May is always No Pants Day. Yesterday was no exception. Lots of participation and good photos this year. Check them out.

Also, I saw Spider-Man 3 yesterday. I put my pants on for that, but it didn't help. It sucked. Hard. Too much going on, bad guys that didn't make sense, the pacing was horrible... just, uck. The Bruce Campbell cameo was great though.

17 Apr 2007 - A couple weeks ago I found myself playing with word clouds at work. I've always been interested in alternative forms of data display that have the potential of being more meaningful to humans than what we work with today. I was clouding our log files and concatenated support case descriptions to see what "popped up" as frequent issues/bugs/error messages. It was kinda neat.

Then I clouded my own website...

actually again ago already always am amy away bad before birthday book boston boys check christmas come couple credit days dec done email everyone family finally friend friends fun game getting great having him his home house jarod jul jun kids let love may measure money movie movies never next nice night nov oh ok oregon party past patrick people pictures play post read real reason red said say school second seems seen sep server site sox state thought trip try until vote wanted wasn watch week weekend why won work year years yes yet

It's a pretty strange feeling to see the last 10 years of your life summed up by a small script so succinctly. (You can hover over each word for exact counts.) Try clouding things yourself...

The shootings that just occurred at Virginia Tech have got the "video games caused this" people coming out of the woodwork. It's tragic, yes, but video games have little to do with this... and that would be true even if the killer said, "I learned this all from video games!"

Data is a funny thing... and nuts like Dr. Phil and Jack Thompson tend to spin it and manipulate it to suit their needs. Fortunately, gamers are a smart bunch and we can overlay two data sets just as well as they can...

violence drops as FPS games are released

(taken from a discussion thread on FARK.com)

15 Apr 2007 - OK, here's a random annoyance: the common usage of the term homeopathy. I hear it all the time when I think the user intends to say something like "naturopathic" or "home remedy." I think there's plenty of validity in treating illnesses or conditions in a simpler, more "natural" way than full blown modern medicine. But homeopathy has nothing to do with that, and instead is ridiculous pseudo-science / mysticism. It concerns me that repeated, improper usage of the term might lend it some credence. Just another battle for we self-proclaimed intellectuals to fight, I guess. (I was reminded of this peeve when I saw a company market their product as homeopathic, when it was not.)

Another oddball item... the kids recently pulled out a toy we've had sitting in the garage for years... a water/air rocket launcher. Right around their bed time, I got bored and decided to play with it. Amy became interested. So, as any good parents would do, we put the kids to sleep, took their toy, filled it with water, and went outside and launched it. Once. I think it reached low-earth-orbit. We ran over to the other street and couldn't find the rocket. Hopefully we can find it with the help of some daylight. If not, and if I was the kids, I'd be pissed at me. Amy pulled the trigger though, and I'm not afraid to point that out to them.

It was very, very cool though. ;-)

Air Hogs Hydro Rocket Vector
No longer in production, since 2000.
Can't buy my way out of this one...

31 Mar 2007 - I usually come here to share the good things in my life. (Of course, I do post the occasional gripe.) The silence of this blog is a direct reflection of the number of things I have worth sharing. I try to remind myself that we are all occasionally tested and there are those who have it much worse than me. But I am quickly coming to the conclusion that, irrespective of the absolute value of my misery, it is too much for me to bear. Emotionally and psychologically, I am spent. What does it mean when you realize that drunkenness and unconsciousness are the only two states of being when it doesn't hurt to be alive?

I don't think I've experienced such a long string of unfortunate events in my entire life. Though I would be lying if I said this was the greatest stressor on me right now, it is easily true that the worst thing that has happened recently is the death of Amy's cousin Joanne. It has hit Amy quite hard and I feel terrible by proxy. I wish there was something I could do to fix it, but all I can offer is a shoulder. Her cousin was a caring, intelligent, beautiful and fun girl. It is a great loss.

What has been keeping me awake at night, heart beating and mind racing, is work. My boss (VP of Engineering) left a few months ago. His job has in large part fallen into my lap, though every member of the R&D team has taken on more responsibility. I personally haven't written a line of code since well before he left. The things I am doing now are well outside my normal routine and don't sit well with my personality. I am not a manager... and I know this now more than ever before. I have written emails at 2, 3 and 4am for weeks straight, because of my trouble sleeping. One of my coworkers finally asked if I was OK (because he noticed) and I honestly had to say, "No, I'm really not."

I'm also watching my family and my future crumble before me. It's no longer a secret that Amy & I are getting divorced. Frankly, I think it was the wrong decision, but I do understand it. It's just very hard to see something I worked on for 10 years be undone. I think the financial part of it is the real killer. That was my domain, my responsibility. I planned for scenario A... made choices that were under the assumption that scenario A would play out. Now plan B is in the works and I can't undo some of the financial decisions I've made, even though I'd now like to. Everything I did for my family, everything I thought I could provide, is now in jeopardy. And at the same time the long term decisions are being screwed up, I'm saddled with tons of new expenses, higher taxes, even more financial planning that I need to do, etc. We're going to be OK, but not as OK as we were before. In fact, we were just about to be "living the life," you know? Hell, I wanted to partially retire soon!

Our master bedroom shower stall developed a leak which Amy noticed when our downstairs dining room ceiling cracked / caved in. I finally got around to cutting a hole in the ceiling and repairing the plumbing last week. I still have a very large hole to patch. I guess I need to learn how to rock some drywall soon.

Our furnace died last weekend. I figured out on my own that the control board died (it has a diagnostic LED), but I was nervous enough to call a pro. $90 later he doesn't tell me anything I don't already know, except that the part will cost $400-$500!!! The same part I already found online for <$100. I told him thanks but no thanks and ordered the part myself. I just got it installed and working with some help from the all knowing internet. Just yet another hassle in my life.

There are some good things happening, but I'll be honest... they come with their own set of stresses. I'm finding it very difficult to "move on" with my life at my age and with my relationship history. Also, having another house built and paid for is, well, stressful and expensive. Who'd've guessed that, right?

Here is what I wish for...

I wish I had the time to enjoy the good things in my life. I do have good things, but I can't enjoy them, because I'm stressed out about everything else or I feel like the demands on my time far outstrip the available time.

I wish not to become bitter. I would like not to resent every single person in my life, because they represent a drain of some sort. I want to get back to looking at my friends and family as people I want to enjoy and connect with. It's not good when I dread every time the phone rings, or I get email, or someone walks into my cubicle, or when I have to take care of the kids. I'm always worried about what new demand is going to be placed on me and how I can retain the time I do have for the demands that already exist. I mean, it's a sad state of affairs when I have to comfort others that, if I die, they will be taken care of. I'm tired of feeling like a bank, handyman and chauffeur... and it's all the feeling I've had for a very long time.

I wish I could see a way out of this... a way to fix things. I'm looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'd like it not to be the proverbial oncoming train.

There is something nice to share though... the kids got their report cards and we had our parent/teacher conferences. They are doing great, the teachers love them and they are probably the best kids I could ever hope for. I am ever grateful for them, because I know I probably couldn't be a decent dad to kids who were even a little "off"... and mine are perfect. Lucky me, lucky them. :-)

11 Feb 2007 - I am still alive.

I have been quiet for reasons the vast majority of you are aware of. Changes are occurring. I will share them over time as I see fit.

The boys are sick. Really sick. Actually, they're just now pulling out of it, but Amy and I had to play doctor for a few days. I'm still somewhat sick myself, but fortunately I was already well enough by the time the kids came down with it. Something's going around. Lots of people had it.

Here's some news that makes me smile: I finally virtualized my servers. This has been a desire of mine since early 2006 and I've been trying in earnest for months now. A stroke of good luck came my way yesterday and it just worked (where it hadn't many, many times before). I don't know what it was and I don't care. I still have work to do, but it's all stuff I can make progress on. No more random crashes and unknown errors. A weight has been lifted...

31 Dec 2006 - Yesterday was our big donation day. The kids were really aggressive this year and chose to give away a lot more than I expected. I think they are hypnotized enough by Nintendo to disregard nearly everything else, though there was no way the Legos were going anywhere. We packed the minivan completely fully of used toys, games and clothes and brought it down to Goodwill. They took every last bit of it, which I was extremely thankful for. I spend a lot of time making sure the items are useful, have all their parts and come with original instructions and boxes if we still have them. I don't just dump a pile o' crap on Goodwill. I doubt they could sort it all correctly unless they had a troop of kids on the payroll. But when I spend two days of vacation to put it all together, someone better take it and appreciate it, you know? :-) We also stopped by the library and donated a few boxes of books and videos. The final count was about $1200 worth of stuff, by my estimation.

My last bit of donating didn't go so well. I like the idea behind FreeGeek and I gave them some computer equipment and cash last year. I didn't have as much equipment this year (one full computer, a WAP, 4 port router, 8 port switch and misc. cables), but I did want to give them some more money. They just had a robbery and I wanted to help. And now that Click has been bought by ITW, my charitable dollars are worth 4X what they were before. (ITW matches 3:1 up to $2000 per year for a total of $8K to a worthy organization.) But when I arrived to give them all this stuff I saw that they were closed. It frustrated me, because I didn't see anything on the website (though I see it now). And even more frustrating was that there were people there, but one guy said he didn't have the "authority" to take even just the money donation. Seemed like the typical bizarre geek behavior rather than a real reason he couldn't take it. It's not a short drive either... all the way across town. Oh well...

I was hoping to have something up on the official site at the same time I got to it on my own site, but it just didn't work out. So, here are pictures from my ten year reunion at RPI in June.

Tomorrow is the first day of 2007. Happy New Year.

10 Dec 2006 - In April of 2006 I trekked to Vermont to participate in the wedding of Scott Gancarz and Susan Ovitt. Scott is a pal of mine from college and it was a pleasure to be in his wedding. Vacations usually seem like work, but even though this was a blazingly short trip (3 1/2 days?) and I was "on duty" during the wedding, I had one of the best times of my life. I wrote about it back in May.

9 Dec 2006 - Took me a while to sort through all the photos, but here's the post for our trip to Boston in March of this year. We went a little early for a special event, but it worked out well, because we got to celebrate a couple other things that happen around that time of year.

Only 9 months behind the curve... the best I've been in a long time. And the next few posts should be easy to knock out...

My passport expired in September. Already sent in for the renewal. Hopefully this one will be put to better use than just one trip in 10 years...

3 Dec 2006 - My youngest brother Peter was in the news the other day for donating his long hair to Locks of Love. They have a video of the broadcast available on their site. Check it out... and way to go Peter!

29 Nov 2006 - A friend commented that I haven't updated in a while. She's right... but at least I haven't fallen behind any further than my typical 1 year lag. I've posted pictures of Christmas 2005 and of Lisa's visit to us in Portland in January, 2006.

I had a chance to play with the Nintendo Wii this past weekend. My coworker invited me and the boys over to check it out. It was great! The controller mechanism is exactly as much fun as you'd expect. I look forward to playing all the games and seeing how they utilize the novelty. There is a slight concern that the magic might wear off eventually, but I think if they keep a steady stream of interesting games it won't matter.

We have pseudo-adopted yet another cat. We call it "Stinky." It seems to be a completely outdoor cat and it was always very afraid of coming up to anyone. But a few feedings at our front door in what used to be Bob's house have gotten it quite comfortable with us. If it were warmer weather I'd take it to the vet and have it checked and groomed... but for now, it probably needs its thick, matted fur to survive the freezing temps we've gotten the last couple days. We actually had a light dusting of snow this morning...

Thanksgiving was good. Amy cooked a great meal, as usual. I just ate the last of the turkey for dinner tonight... cold turkey sandwich, yum. We also set up our Christmas tree.

Most of you know I was in DC a couple weeks ago for the Click Commerce Compliance Consortium (CCC). All of our current medical research customers get together and trade stories and look to us for product direction and guidance. I had to get up in front of 80+ people and give a talk on some boring stuff. While out at a bar with some customers the prior night, I got challenged to work some unusual words into my presentation... like crouton, viagra, oodles and linoleum. If I wasn't nervous enough already, that put me over the edge. It was all video taped, so when I get the podcast, I'll post it up for you to mock me (if I legally can).

Pictures from that trip, Thanksgiving and everything else in 2006 are on the way. It's 3:45am, so it's off to bed for me...

9 Nov 2006 - I don't always like what he writes, but this little bit by Lou Dobbs seemed right on.

8 Nov 2006 - What a fantastic election! The only thing I really wanted to get out of it was to have a clear message sent to the Republican party. I watched all night as they tried to spin it with "The American people aren't pleased with our progress in Iraq" or "Recent scandals took their toll." No. It's much simpler than that. The entire Republican party was punished for the treachery of the current administration.

On a visceral level, I'd love to see them impeach President Bush, but it would only serve to be counterproductive. The Democrats need to appeal to a wider audience and really shine... show the American people and the world that we aren't stupid and insane. I have no strong faith that they will (hey, I'm no Democrat either!), but they now have an opportunity to get started.

In other news, nearly all the Oregon measures went exactly as I voted. The humorous exceptions were 46 and 47. Those measures were related... 46 would allow it to be legal to even have 47. So the only logically valid vote combinations (ignoring abstaining) were "no no", "yes yes" and "yes no". I voted "yes no"... meaning that I wanted it to be legal to have campaign finance reform laws (46)... but I didn't like the particular one they proposed (47). I don't know if it's stupidity or a great sense of humor, but 46 failed and 47 passed. That's right, the majority of people voted "no yes", the only logically invalid vote. So, 47 passed, but it's still illegal, so... it failed. Way to look sharp, voters! ;-)

One thing I'm always impressed with is the high voter turn-out in Oregon, largely attributed to (in my opinion) our Vote-by-Mail system. With every passing election, the rest of the country becomes more interested in the system as they see our elections go off without a hitch, compared to their constant problems with polling stations and malfunctioning voting machines. The current turn-out is at 62.66%. You can see it for yourself (updated every 5 minutes, though I don't know how much more it will change).

Anyway, hope your vote went well.

6 Nov 2006 - See that green banner up above? That's right, it's time once again for gamers across the globe to unite in a common goal to bring some happiness into the lives of sick kids who are stuck in the hospital.

They couldn't make it any easier if they tried. Go to the Child's Play website and click on the hospital closest to you. It will bring you to an Amazon.com wishlist that shows all the items they could use, how many they want and how many they've gotten. Click, buy, send to the hospital's address, done.

Last year I sat down with my two boys and had them each pick out a book and a game. If you want to teach your kids charity, what better way to do it? They know how much they love these items and you can explain that it's going directly into the hands of kids just like them who could use a little cheering up.

If you'd prefer to send cash, you can PayPal it to them or mail it to their address, which is displayed on the main page.

This is my favorite charity, because I know 100% of everything donated goes directly to the stated cause. How many other charities can say that? Check for yourself. (Note: Child's Play isn't evaluated by that site yet as they haven't been around for the minimum of 4 years that they require. I'm hoping to get them evaluated after this year.)

Do something special and donate to Child's Play today. Even if it's only a single item, it does make a difference.

29 Oct 2006 - I just dropped our ballots in the mailbox. If you read all that stuff below, you know I'd already decided on the measures. But I still had human candidates to consider. That part is always frustrating to me. There's very little concrete to go on. Furthermore, I find that I don't mesh well with Democrats or Republicans; I'm very nearly 50/50 in my beliefs.

One thing that is clear to me though, is that I want to send a message to the Republican party to let them know the vast majority of what they have done is offensive to me. Therefore I was inclined to vote straight Democrat. But I at least wanted to read up on the Republican candidate for Governor... to do the proper thing, you know? That's what's so frustrating... I pretty much like the guy! He said all the things I wanted to hear in terms of taxes, spending reforms and the economy. However, he opposes gay-marriage (or anything similar sounding) and his position on illegal immigration is too strict. The gay marriage thing alone is a bit of a deal breaker for me... and with my bias against Republicans? I just couldn't find myself voting for him.

Until President Bush's administration is out of office, I think I'll remain strongly anti-Republican. I look forward to a time when more traditional Republicans are the leaders of the party. At least then I'll have a real choice.

22 Oct 2006 - I'm about to do something potentially catastrophic to my staging server. If things go bad, it might be a while until I can post again. (Technically not true... I could just post directly to the production server... but if things go bad, I'll have other stuff to worry about.) I'm going to flip a byte on the hard disk to tell the OS it's not a dynamic disk, but rather a regular disk. The theory is that it "just works." We shall see. The reason is that I have to do that before I can run the physical->virtual migration. Dynamic disks simply aren't allowed. Finally, the whole point is to prove that it works so that I can do it to my production server. Its instability has been increasing over time. (I suspect the memory.)

So here is a monster post to tide you over... and it's all boring stuff. :-)

Patrick's at the library researching Ben Franklin for his "wax museum" class project. Jarod's at a play-date with one of his friends. The house is quiet.

Amy & I are slightly sick. Sore throats. Just uncomfortable. We watched "V for Vendetta" last night. Pretty good, but the Wachowski / Hugo Weaving / Matrix similarities were distracting.

IE7 was released recently. I use Firefox, Opera, Netscape and Safari at work for testing purposes. But IE6 was always my primary browser. I felt no need to go elsewhere. Firefox's tabbed browsing never seemed useful enough for me to switch... and Opera's was particularly frustrating. I saw no other compelling reasons/features to warrant change. Version 7 introduces tabbed browsing to IE, so I am trying to get used to it as it is clearly not going away. I suppose I don't have to use it... but I'm trying. In IE6, I had pop-up blocking on "high" which meant just about every pop-up was blocked. I got used to using SHIFT-click and CTRL-click in my browsing... SHIFT-click to open in a new window... CTRL-click to override pop-up blocking. But now CTRL-click means to open in a tab. It seems to do a decent job of knowing if the link is supposed to be a pop-up (and so it pops it up) versus a regular page (at which time it puts it in a tab). But I have found that I can no longer answer the CNN survey on their main page by CTRL-clicking their submit button. It worked fine in IE6 to override my extreme pop-up blocking. I can't add CNN to my trusted sites, because they do advertising pop-ups. I guess I'm stuck... but hey, it's just a stupid poll, right? The only other thing that bugs me is tab placement and automatic selection. Occasionally, if I have say 5 tabs open, CTRL-clicking on the first tab will open a new tab in position 6. Other times it will be in position 2 (or, more generically, immediately after the tab I'm currently on). It seems to have something to do with whether the new tab is of the same domain. I'm OK with that, if it's true. I also find, however, that my browsing habits frequently lead me to close a tab and though I want to go back to the prior tab, it advances me to the next tab. I see why they made that choice, but for my browsing style it works against me. Meh.

In other news, we are rapidly approaching another vote and Oregon has a good number of Measures on the ballot. I frequently turn to some of my friends and coworkers for their points-of-view, logic, reasoning and knowledge. We have had many great discussions over the last week on these measures. Here's where I stand... I welcome any comments, opinions, information or questions!

Measure 39 - PROHIBITS PUBLIC BODY FROM CONDEMNING PRIVATE REAL PROPERTY IF INTENDS TO CONVEY TO PRIVATE PARTY
YES	Over the last few years we have witnessed a few cases of the government using eminent domain to take land away from private citizens just to hand it over to other private interests... like developers wanting to build a mall, or even more offensively, condos/apartments/etc. Though SCOTUS has declared these acts to be legal at the federal level, I would like to see them considered illegal. This measure does that for Oregon. Many other states have already done the same. Update: I wanted to add a note here to indicate that I'm aware of another change this measure will bring about that doesn't sit well with me. If the private property owners feel the state isn't offering enough, they can bring it to trial and have the court decide. Currently, if the court decides the value is higher than the highest offer made by the state, the state is on the hook for the property owner's legal fees. If the state low-balls the owner, then they have to pay for their lack of good faith. However, this measure will change it such that the court compares its valuation to the first offer made by the state, not necessarily the highest. This reduces the state's ability to try to make an aggressive first offer, because private owners will almost certainly always bring it to court. Heck, they might even if the first offer is reasonable, as they have very little to lose. They can pump the state for more money, and if the state offers them more, then that would indicate it's likely that the court would decide a value higher than the first offer. Off to court we go. I don't like that wording change, but it's the price I have to pay to get the other thing, which I feel is more important.
Measure 40 - REQUIRES OREGON SUPREME COURT JUDGES AND COURT OF APPEALS JUDGES TO BE ELECTED BY DISTRICT
NO	Currently these judges are elected by the whole state. This would require the state be split into districts and one judge would have to be elected from each district. It requires them to reside there and have done so for 1 year. To me, this is just too much cost and inefficiency applied to a job that theoretically shouldn't be affected by politics, beliefs, etc. They are just supposed to interpret existing laws. The legislature is and of course should be elected by district, because they represent their constituents - they make the law. The judicial system shouldn't be burdened in that same way. I have no idea how this would be implemented in the real world anyway... they all have to work in Salem... would they all commute there every day?
Measure 41 - ALLOWS INCOME TAX DEDUCTION EQUAL TO FEDERAL EXEMPTIONS DEDUCTION TO SUBSTITUTE FOR STATE EXEMPTION CREDIT
NO	This boils down to a tax cut. (Explaining the tax law and/or math isn't interesting. No one debates the effect.) At the most basic level, I prefer taxes to be as low as possible while being high enough to fund all the things we want. Obviously everyone differs on what they want to be funded. However, most everyone would agree that they want the spending of their tax dollars to be as efficient as possible. We are told that the money being referred to in this measure is spent 90% on schools, public safety, low-income health care, etc. I want those things funded adequately. I'm not convinced, however, that the spending is anywhere near as efficient as it could/should be. Not by a long shot. Unfortunately, I don't have the "spreadsheets" to know any of this for sure. The part of this that makes me want to vote for it is that it is a fairly efficient way of getting a tax cut to the lower/middle class tax payer, especially families, while being almost meaningless for the upper class (in terms of percentage decrease in tax compared to income). Frankly, it would help me a reasonable amount. I was trying to think how this would play with the Oregon "kicker" law. But one doesn't really affect the other. Oregon makes a 2 year budget on the odd years. They have to forecast how much tax revenue they will get, then make a budget to stay within that forecasted amount. If, at the end of those two years, they took in more money than they predicted (and by definition, more than they spent) by 2 percent, they must refund the difference. That's the "kicker." Since this will reduce the taxes paid, they will simply be reducing their predictions, so it doesn't really change anything. (I wonder what happens when they don't take in as much as predicted... Do they take out loans to meet the budget?) If we assume the budget is always ~100% of the forecast... and this is going to reduce the actual tax (and therefore the forecast), then the budget will be reduced... and therefore spending will be reduced. Do I think they will spend more efficiently to make up for the reduced funds? No. I think they are lazy, incompetent and/or corrupt (you choose which mixture and to what degree) and so the things I care about (schools, libraries, fire, police) will likely get hurt.
Measure 42 - PROHIBITS INSURANCE COMPANIES FROM USING CREDIT SCORE OR "CREDIT WORTHINESS" IN CALCULATED RATES OR PREMIUMS
NO abstain?	This has been the most intellectually entertaining measure in my circle of friends. The knee-jerk, first-glance opinion most people have with this is: "What does credit score have to do with how well I drive?! Prohibit using it!" But that turns out to be a shortsighted approach. (And also note that this isn't limited to driving... it's homeowners, companies, etc... all kinds of insurance.) It turns out this ultimately comes down to a simple question: Do we feel credit score should be put in the same category as race, religion, national origin, gender, etc.? But before we answer that, let me explain how we get there... I would contend that an insurance company's #1 goal is to make money and that they are exceedingly good at it. They have a mountain of data to analyze and it is in their best interest to be extremely good at predicting the financial impact to them of each customer. They want to know if you are going to be likely or unlikely to file a claim. (Note that I didn't say "have an accident.") If you are likely, then you will cost them more, so they charge you more. If you are unlikely, then they want you as a customer and would like to extend a competitive rate to woo you. Now, if we assume that they are very good at what they do (all those bean counters in a back room with calculators)... and if we also assume that they do use credit score in their equations... isn't it reasonable to conclude that credit score must be a valuable tool for them? If credit score wasn't a good predictor, they wouldn't use it, would they? If they used credit score in their equations, but there was no correlation to "likelihood to file a claim," then they would be charging too little for claim-happy people and too much for the customers they actually want. That would be bad for them. So, from all that, I'm forced to conclude that if they choose to use credit score, it's for a reason... and the reason is that it does correlate and is a useful tool for them. You can debate that all you want, but I'm pretty sure the data actually backs up my logical reasoning. For example: They took the information of 170,000 policy holders that filed claims within a three year period and pulled their credit reports. They found that consumers with certain credit characteristics filed more claims and more expensive claims.[1] Note that the article is actually making a case against using credit score, but the data is what it is. So there we have it... for the sake of argument, let's assume that credit score does correlate/predict your likelihood of filing a claim. We will remove that as an angle of attack here... please just assume it to be true. The cited article above actually makes a good case for why it might be false... and self-fulfilling! But let's just assume it, even if it grinds your gears. ;-) At this point, everyone turns to their anecdotes. "Family member X had great credit until their daughter got sick and they were forced to go bankrupt paying for her medical care." "The man walked out on the mother-of-three and left her with all the bills." The idea in all these anecdotes is that some people have bad credit through no reasonable fault of their own. Why are we punishing them? It is unfortunate... but I suspect those people are in the minority. I believe it is fair to say that most people with good credit deserve it, most people with bad credit deserve it... and it is the minority who are not deserving of the credit they have (one way or the other). That's not a deal killer... I'm just saying it. Some then suggest, "why don't they just base it on past performance?" If you're a claim-filer, you'll pay more. Well... that's true. But they also need to predict, not just react. Your past history likely affects your insurance rates far more than any predictive measure already, but they still need both. A co-worker pointed out that the insurance companies already have a lot to go on... he noted that he pays quite a bit more to insure his 17 year old son for driving. He's a teenager (increase!) and he's male (increase more!) Is that fair? Why? Oh, you actually believe that age and gender correlate to likelihood-to-file? So that makes it OK to use those factors? What about the teenaged boy who never gets in an accident? Through no fault of his own, he is paying more for insurance than the 40 year old woman. I would contend that the insurance company doesn't really look for a causal argument... but rather relies on their tons of data to find correlations, with no value-judgment whatsoever. Why would you allow them age, but not credit score? Because you believe there's a causal link? The same co-worker then pointed out that they get a small break, because he has good grades. Woah ho! That sounds an awful lot like credit score. But that one's OK, because it's in our favor. That sounds a bit inconsistent... And there we have it... we are, most likely, making an inconsistent argument if we say that credit score probably is a good indicator, but we don't want them to use it. There is no logic in that, so the only way it can hold up is if we simply declare that credit score is off limits. For example, it may correlate very well that Protestants and blacks are heavy claim-filers... and that Christians and Koreans are low claim-filers. But we as a society have strictly said those factors are off-limits. We're not claiming them to be bad predictors... we are outright disallowing it, regardless of their statistical validity. So what I ask of you is, if you want to prohibit the use of credit score, please consider it in this context. I believe I have reasonably shown why you can't take the easy way out (though I understand there are some assumptions in my logic). Personally, I'm on the fence on whether I think credit score ranks up there with the other "big ones." The reason I'm leaning towards "NO" is that I believe if we remove this tool (credit score) from their toolbox, they will simply find another similar data point that will give them the predictive factor they need. I'm not sure that, to me, credit score is equivalent enough to race/religion to fight this fight. It might be correct for me to abstain from this one, since I don't have a strong personal conviction. On the other hand, if there's a large Oregon consensus that it should be prohibited, then my NO vote won't matter. But if it's a 50/50 split, I would like it to go in the NO direction, because I believe this should pass only if it's overwhelmingly agreed to.
Measure 43 - REQUIRES 48-HOUR NOTICE TO UNEMANCIPATED MINOR'S PARENT BEFORE PROVIDING ABORTION; AUTHORIZES LAWSUITS; PHYSICIAN DISCIPLINE
NO	Currently, Oregon law requires parental notification for 14 and under. Obviously, for 18+ there is no question... you're an adult. But to my surprise, while 15-17 doesn't require notification, the doctor a girl goes to can voluntarily contact the parents without getting consent from the girl. That shocked me. So, the way it is now, parents will most likely be informed... either by the girl herself or by her doctor. Any parents not informed are likely not informed for a reason. If this law passes, then a barrier will be put up for the girl and the doctor. Where once there was choice and judgment, there is now less choice. She can go to court to circumvent the forced notification, but I suggest that would be a lot to ask in an already trying time. Doctors will be at risk legally for something I don't think is their responsibility. Furthermore, the girl will likely have a considerable amount of adult interaction. Even if she doesn't go to her parents, there will be other adults she can turn to and some that she will be forced to interact with (obviously, the doctor). Finally, if a girl is old enough to decide to have sex, she is old enough to decide to have an abortion or to have the child. She should understand that those are two potential outcomes and be able to live with her decision. The parent can't fail at the sex education part and expect to jump in later. My belief is that the parent should communicate early, make contraceptive available and have a strong overall relationship with their child. If you've done things right, you probably won't get into this situation... and if you do, your child will likely come to you. But don't expect the government to do the parenting for you. (Note: I generally think parents have too much legal control for too long, so this is consistent with my personal beliefs.)
Measure 44 - ALLOWS ANY OREGON RESIDENT WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE TO PARTICIPATE IN OREGON PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROGRAM
YES	The estimated cost is zero. I can't understand why though. Also, there are no dissenting opinions. So, I guess it's YES.
Measure 45 - LIMITS STATE LEGISLATORS: SIX YEARS AS REPRESENTATIVE, EIGHT YEARS AS SENATOR, FOURTEEN YEARS IN LEGISLATURE
NO	I don't like the idea of career politicians. I like the idea of how it used to be... when you would serve your community for a short while and return to your original vocation. Also, I think we'd have less corruption if politicians couldn't be "invested in" for the long haul. But the reality is the world is more complicated and sometimes it takes a great deal of experience to get things done. As much as I don't want the alternative, I also don't want a bunch of n00bs running the state. If the cutoffs were a bit higher, I would vote for this. But as they are, I just feel they're a bit too low. Damn.
Measure 46 - ALLOWS LAWS REGULATING ELECTION CONTRIBUTIONS, EXPENDITURES ADOPTED BY INITIATIVE OR 3/4 OF BOTH LEGISLATIVE HOUSES
YES	The Oregon constitution currently bans laws that impose limits on political campaign contributions. This merely makes it legal to have those laws and details how those laws have to come into being. It seems like a no-brainer to me to make it possible to have such laws. I don't see this as affecting free speech as others suggest.
Measure 47 - REVISES CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS: LIMITS OR PROHIBITS CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES; ADDS DISCLOSURE, NEW REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
NO	And there you have it... the reason Measure 46 is there... is to allow Measure 47. :-) You might think that since I'm voting YES on 46 that I'd vote that way on 47. After reading all the limits and reporting requirements detailed in 47, I've decided that this particular implementation of campaign finance reform is too restrictive. The dollar amounts are shockingly low and it seems to force the average citizen to jump through too many hoops to make any serious contributions. Hopefully 46 will pass and we can take another stab at it...
Measure 48 - LIMITS BIENNIAL PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN STATE SPENDING TO PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN STATE POPULATION, PLUS INFLATION
NO	At first glance this seems like a decent idea. We already know that Oregon must forecast the expected tax revenue and create a budget that fits. But nothing stops them from creating a budget that uses every penny of the forecast. (Actually, there is an existing upper bound rule, but it's never been reached.) This would force them to create a budget that is only population+inflation bigger than the last budget. Assuming the population of Oregon grows, the budget would grow in lock-step with the population... and inflation is thrown in for good measure. Sounds good, right? Well, it does. But... you could make a case that the types of things government budgets spend money on don't scale with population and inflation. I'm not sure if it's true, but it seems likely to me. Roads, fire, police, healthcare... those all sound like costs that would scale faster than population. Also, what if we decided all the sudden that all state colleges should be free? Even if we all collectively decided to implement a tax to collect that money, thereby increasing the forecasted tax revenue, thereby increasing what the budget could be... the budget would be restricted to a population/inflation increase over the last budget, disregarding the extra funds taken in. There is a safety valve... 2/3 vote of each house of legislature, plus a majority vote by the people... but that seems prohibitive to me. I'm voting NO on this, because while it sounds good in theory it seems too restrictive in practice.

11 Oct 2006 - I haven't had much to say lately, so I haven't posted. Funny how that works. I'm posting now mostly just for the sake of it.

We have a decent number of "new" people at work now. Some of them are truly new, like less than 3 months on the job... but others are only new in this weird sense that they haven't been there for eternity. One, two even three years on the job is still "new" in this sense. During wine club last week, us "old" people got to talking about some videos we made on the 1 year anniversary of the re-founding of Webridge. The intent was to thank the upper management for guiding us through the dot com bust and subsequent layoffs while still managing to keep the company alive. I dug up the old CD (made on March 11, 2003) and put it on the web. You can see it here. The footage was taken randomly by different people over the course of a week or so. I then labored for 2 very long nights splicing it all together, adding music and sound effects, and bringing it together into some form of sanity. You may not get most of it, but I'm OK with that.

I read a story this morning on the death of cursive writing. I've been saying it for years... both that the death is imminent and welcome. Cursive as a way of common writing has always annoyed me; I find it hard to read. It's more of an art, like calligraphy, and in that form maybe it should remain... for the odd non-email letter here and there. But don't waste my kids' time teaching it in school. (And they almost entirely don't... it's more extracurricular at this point.) I'd be much happier if they taught them to type (and they do!) The only cursive writing I've ever liked is my mother's... and it's actually a form of stylized printing, not true cursive. Begone cursive capital Q! Away with lower case z! I declare you ridiculous!

26 Sep 2006 - Amy & I watched Heroes last night. It's off to a slow start, but I think that's a good thing... give it some time to build up the characters. There seems to be a touch of conspiracy thrown in too. As though perhaps the Heroes' abilities are part of some Intelligent Design. (Tee hee.) One touch I really liked was the Japanese Space/Time Bender Super Hiro guy. It was nice to see at least one of the Heroes not be all angsty... or, as they say these days, "dark and twisty."

I won't be able to watch the CW's Runaway, because it comes on opposite Heroes, but it looks like a solid show. (I caught the encore of the series opener tonight.) Donnie Wahlberg plays a man falsely accused of murder and on the run with his family. The woman who played the wife of Jack Bauer in season one of 24 also plays the wife here.

Big news, by the way... Amy got a job!!! She starts tomorrow. I'm very excited for her and proud too. She did a fantastic job in school and has moved more quickly than every other student she graduated with to take her national exam, state exam, get licensed and insured... and now to actually land a job. This is the biggest change to our family since the kids started going to school. And it's a welcome one. I have my eye on a nice little HD LCD... ;-)

21 Sep 2006 - I watched the series premiere of Six Degrees (6°) tonight. Based on written descriptions, I was really psyched up for it. But when I saw the lead-in previews for it while watching Grey's Anatomy (glad that's back on!), I just knew it was going to suck. Amy & I sat through it and pretty much agreed it was a waste of time, right up until the very end when it seemed to grab us both for just a moment. Just wasn't enough though... to the curb!

Everyone on the net already knows about White & Nerdy. (But you know, just in case you don't, I used the power of HTML to put a link there.) The lyrics and the video are rich with humor. If you pause it in certain places, you can unfold the layers. The man's a genius.

I attended Back-to-School night today as well. Got to meet Jarod's new teacher... she seemed really nice. Briefly spoke to Patrick's teacher. He looped with her so we are already familiar. (Looping is when they spend 2 years with a single teacher.) Should be a good school year. They're getting so old now... soon they'll be done with elementary and on to middle school where they start to have class specific teachers.

Funny anecdote: as I sat in Jarod's chair and surveyed the other parents, I realized that I still think of them as adults... parents... older people. And in truth, I actually was probably the youngest one in the room (except for the teacher, oddly enough). But then I checked out every other dad's hairline. ZOMG! They all had hair... and I look 40. But I'm still fighting the good fight. When I get to the point where I have to use a cane, I'll think about giving up my "Got Wang?" and "Fruit Fucker" t-shirts.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a roll of bubble wrap. Pop pop...

20 Sep 2006 - A new show called "Jericho" premiered today. I'm a big fan of post apocalyptic / survival themes (which is why I liked so many of Costner's movies that others didn't) and this show certainly fits that genre. The inaugural episode was good... no complaints. I look forward to seeing how it progresses.

I tend to get on the treadmill while I watch my shows, but the TV available to me is a tiny, standard def, 17" TV hooked up to the longest cable run in the house (so I get a lot of ghosting on certain channels). I've been thinking of picking up a small (24"?), wide screen, high def LCD panel and hooking it up to an over-the-air antenna to watch my shows in HDTV that is likely much better than the HD I get over cable. I'm 5 miles from the HD broadcast antennas and they are all within 2° of each other from my location, though I'd likely use a multidirectional antenna anyway. Assuming that works out (it should), I don't think I'd keep cable around if it weren't for the kids. I'd miss the occasional Alton Brown show on FoodTV and I'd lose HD ESPN, but otherwise I think it'd be OK. And the monthly savings... damn it's enticing.

I'm playing Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KotOR 2) right now. It's nearly 2 years old, but I never got around to playing it when it came out, as much as I absolutely loved KotOR 1. It's good, but not quite as good as the first. But it pulls me back in much more than Oblivion. Man, Oblivion is just painful to play. Next up after KotOR 2 is Prey. I can't wait to fire it up. (Yes, yes... I'm slow.)

Oh, and I just learned that you can use the hammer-on / pull-off technique in Guitar Hero. I've gotta practice that soon...

17 Sep 2006 - It's been a while. Sorry, been busy. I picked up Guitar Hero on Friday of last week and played it like a rock star over at Andy's house. Mark, Jeff and Dena were there too. Lots of fun. That night, I related a story about how I named a Nintendog "Blumpkin" and my kids were yelling into the DS "Here Blumpkin!, Sit Blumpkin!" So, we coined a new word that night: "Strumkin". It's just like a Blumpkin except you're playing Guitar Hero instead of, well... go look it up. I brought GH into work on Monday and people had a pretty good time with it.

We also had customers in for training last week. We pushed wine night up to Wednesday and had a pretty good time playing GH and karaoke with them. We let them know that the last class was out with us `till late, so on Thursday (their last day of class... flying out the next morning), a couple of the women came out with us and hung until... 3AM. We went to Henry's (yes, credit card stealing Henry's), then a sex shop called Spartacus (we got told to quiet down in there), then to a strip club and finally back to work where they chilled (and nodded off) until we finally took them back to the hotel. There's always a handful of really cool ones in every class. ;-)

Things at work are weird. We're getting bought again... by some random Fortune 200 company called Illinois Tool Works that just runs around buying smaller companies. They used to be purely hardware... "ITW designs and produces an array of highly engineered fasteners". But apparently they're trying to branch out into software now. They also own the company that makes Space Bags.

Right before this was announced, I was writing an email in my mind's eye to the local managers letting them know I thought they were doing a good job lately, after what seemed like months of a really negative environment. New people were being hired, new hardware was being brought in to rectify the employee-bought hardware, and we hadn't been bothered in a while with talk of outsourcing, finding efficiencies, rising to challenges and all that other bullshit. Of course, it was only short lived and it's back in full force again.

Ugh... I wrote like six paragraphs here, but I don't think this is the place for it. I just needed to vent. But tell me this... why does management ask for your opinions on our current problems and the solutions and then say you have "attitude" when you give them the straight answer that everyone else agrees on, but no one wants to say to their face? They don't like the answer, that's why...

On to better news... I've been waiting for Amy to post about it and I think she has... but she is fully licensed and insured to work as an LMT in the state of Oregon! Today is her graduation ceremony at East West College (though she's been done for a while). And she's already been interviewing and scouting out different types of work (even teaching). She won't tell you this (or maybe she did), but she graduated with a 4.0! The stuff she had to learn was intense, but it's no surprise to me that she nailed it. I'm very proud of her.

31 Aug 2006 - OK, going all out of order here so that I can post pictures of PAX 2006! I had a great time with Mark, Kevin and Phil in Bellevue, WA. We played games, met lots of new people, had some good beer... just a generally fun time. This is the one event I truly look forward to every year. It's pretty much the only big thing I do just for me.

18 Aug 2006 - Great fun and lots of audience participation. If you know, go!

I've had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this mutherfuckin' plane!

Snakes on a Plane

15 Aug 2006 - We just got back from our quick one-night camping trip to Hoodview campground on Timothy Lake. It seems my server detected my absence, became moody and promptly crashed. Sorry for the downtime. So far only one person seems to have noticed... ;-)

Bringing the end of 2005 posts nearer, I present you with a paltry selection of images from our 2k5 "Thanksgiving."

13 Aug 2006 - I'm on a roll! I'm rapidly bringing my 2005 picture posts to a close. Check out the Halloween pictures. Thanksgiving and Christmas are on the way next... and that'll be it for 2k5. I haven't looked at our picture archive for 2006, but I imagine all the normal events will be there...

12 Aug 2006 - Today is Patrick's 8th birthday! He chose a LaserTag party this year. Gotta go pick up his cake and head on over. Should be fun!

11 Aug 2006 - Ready to be grossed out? Last night was trash night. I opened the lid to the big 32 gal. trash can to put in the last mini-bag of trash and out came... maggots! They were all attached to the top of the lid so they went flying onto the garage floor. And guess what I was wearing... shorts. Not a haz mat suit, not full body armor, not even pants and socks... any of which I'd highly recommend when dealing with a situation like this. Yup, maggots were all over my bare feet.

This has happened to me only once before... and at least the other time it was reasonable. When we first moved into the house in 1998 we generated too much trash (and you can put out only so much in OR at one time), so we were backed up. One bag sat around for too long and there were a small number of maggots in it by the time I got around to it. No excuse like that this time. I don't really know why they were there... nothing abnormal went on that I know of. The trash was sealed, as it always is. These guys were beefy and huge, too. I couldn't have done better if I was trying to grow prize winning maggots. I spent slightly less than an hour cleaning up. It was very unpleasant.

Alright, I think I've shared enough on that. I hope you weren't eating. How about some more pictures then? These are from mid October, 2005. We went to a Fall Festival / Halloween type thing at a farm. It was cold and windy, but a lot of fun.

8 Aug 2006 - Well, it was bound to happen sometime. I have finally been a victim of fraud/theft. I got a call from the Visa fraud department the other day concerning some suspicious charges they were seeing on the Visa logo'ed ATM/debit card my bank issued me. I logged into my bank site and immediately saw that the last three purchases were done in Mexico. The fraud dept. dude read off transactions that they had already blocked that I couldn't see online... and they were all in San Diego or Mexico. He locked my card out and said I should then contact my bank directly. My bank said I could sign some affidavit documents detailing which charges weren't mine and they would reverse them. So, that's all underway.

Here's the thing. The person(s) responsible picked the wrong card to steal. Here are the facts... I (almost) never use that card for credit card style or debit style purchases. I only use it at the ATM to get cash. Every single one of the fraudulent charges has posted as a credit card style purchase (sometimes using the CVV code on the back, like in an over-the-phone or online order, which has to be seen by human eyes). My PIN hasn't been compromised. (The bank and Visa confirmed this.) So, I am certain it wasn't an ATM skimmer scam. The card has (almost) never been out of my possession. How did they get it?

Well, I said "almost" earlier, because I used the card as a credit card for the first time ever just two weeks ago, at... Henry's Tavern. When the waitress took it to run it, it was the first time it's ever been out of my hands. This was the only opportunity for something like this to happen. I feel 99% confident that either the waitress or someone else on the staff there skimmed my card (or at least wrote down the numbers). The only other option is that they delivered my card to another table by accident and another customer did it. I'm already in contact with the management at Henry's. I tend to be vindictive; we'll see if I get the opportunity.

On a lighter note, I've posted a small number of pictures from the Fall 2005 Little League season that both Patrick and Jarod participated in. It was a given Patrick would do it, but I was really proud of Jarod for giving it a try. Of course, Patrick returned for Spring 2006, but those pictures will come later...

6 Aug 2006 - Here are the 2005 PAX pictures. There aren't many, but I posted what I had. I'm really psyched to go again this year. In fact I just bought a Nintendo DS Lite to ease the pain of not having a BYOC spot... yay!

Nintendo DS Lite

26 Jul 2006 - Patrick's 8th birthday is rapidly approaching. This year, he's chosen to do laser tag for his birthday. That should be a lot of fun. Last year, he had his birthday at Oregon Gymnastic Academy, just like Jarod did. In fact, this was something like the fifth birthday we've had at OGA. Crazy! At least this year is a little different.

Next up, I'll have pictures of my 2005 trek to the Penny Arcade Expo. 2006 will be the third year PAX has been run and I originally wasn't planning on going, but I signed up at the last second. It's just about exactly one month away. Looking forward to it!

25 Jul 2006 - AT&T responded to my email and said they'd reverse the charges and ensure the service was fully canceled. I got hold of someone at Verizon who had a clue (after 2 transfers) and she made absolutely sure both the phone line and DSL were fully canceled and that my current bill would be recalculated and resent. Of course, I had to tell her that I refused to be transferred away from her and that all dealings with other Verizon people had to happen on a 3-way phone call. I had to pin someone down and force them to be my advocate. Very annoying. But hopefully this mess is behind us.

The kids & I finished our Star Wars marathon, ending with Episode III tonight. It's the only PG-13 movie of the bunch, but they told me it didn't feel very PG-13. :-) I've seen all the movies several times over, but I was once again struck at how great the story truly is in Episodes I-III. The complexity, subtlety, depth and emotion was very hard to convey to my kids. From talking to friends, I got the impression that most adult viewers missed it as well. I think parts of Episode I and the actor behind Anakin in II and III incalculably damaged the movies' in the eyes of many viewers. Oh well... at least the indoctrination of my kids into the Star Wars mythos is complete. As I write this, one of them is whistling the theme at the dinner table. :-)

24 Jul 2006 - We traveled up to Seattle to see the Red Sox. They ended up losing 9-8, but the game was very exciting. It even included an inside-the-park homerun. Weird!

Today we went to see Monster House. It's an animated movie for kids about a haunted house. I have a college friend who works on animated movies and she made sure she went to see it. We all loved it. Good job Clara! (Her name's in the credits too!)

I wanted to take a moment and thank Amazon.com for their great customer service. I pre-ordered a computer game. As part of the package, I was supposed to get a pewter figurine free of charge. When the game came, there was no figurine! I returned to the website and saw that I needed to add it to my shopping cart separately when I bought the game. (It's an otherwise separately purchasable item.) I wrote to Amazon, explained I missed it and hoped for the best. I figured they'd have me pay shipping at least. Nope. Before I heard back, I got an order confirmation email saying it was on its way, no charge. I later got an email from a customer service rep. asking if this was satisfactory. Impressive!

On the other hand, I've got companies like AT&T and Verizon that are pissing me off. I recently got fiber installed to my house. More speed, less money. The installation and performance have been phenomenal! But... canceling my phone, DSL, long distance, etc. has been a nightmare. It was hard enough to find the right people to get it done. And even though I did successfully cancel, I still got bills for service I no longer had. So, now I have to call again and straighten it all out. What a pain in the ass! This is in contrast to the small ISP (DSL-Only.net) I used on my DSL line. I called them up, they canceled my account, and told me they wouldn't charge me for the few days I still had the service into my next billing cycle. They were awesome; I'm going to miss them. I used to get Christmas cards from them too. :-)

Companies need to straighten up on the customer service front, especially when it comes to what should be trivial tasks. I find that services handled by computers are far more reliable. Any time I have to talk to a human to get something done, there's a damn good chance it's going to go poorly.

19 Jul 2006 - It's been a while... sorry. Been busy. Went camping. Lots of stuff.

Regarding President Bush's veto of allowing federal funding for stem cell research on embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization procedures that would otherwise be thrown away anyway, I thought this chunk of text from Patti Davis was particularly correct:

The veto comes as no surprise; that battle line was drawn years ago. But it's hard to believe that the 70 percent of Americans who support stem-cell research really care what President Bush does. I'm not suggesting they won't notice, or be bothered - even annoyed. I'm certainly not suggesting that federal funding couldn't move research along at a faster pace. But caring is an emotion of a deeper kind. When we truly care about another's opinion, it's because we value that person and hold in some esteem their judgments and pronouncements. It also might mean we believe that individual can influence the tide of the future with their opinions.

This is a president who has no currency left with the majority of Americans who, polls have shown, do not trust him. We won't totally shrug off his intransigence, but we won't waste too much time m