Back at the Panera again today, because the stupid transformer behind our house blew out this morning for no particular reason, again. Of all the days to do so, this was a bad one; I’ve got sketches due this afternoon and a conference call. There’s nothing like shouting over the din of a coffeehouse during a conference call.
In happier news, a Flip Mino appeared on our doorstep this morning, mostly because the Kodak was sold out at Amazon and I’d still need to buy a memory card to use the damn thing. I opened it up before I left (clearly, they looked closely at the iPhone packaging; theirs was done very well) and within 15 seconds was shooting video. I then plugged it into the USB port of my MacBook, and within 20 minutes the battery was fully charged. Later this evening I’m going to do a side-by-side comparison of the video from my Canon G3 with the Flip video to see what the differences are. Overall, I like it very much so far.
Update: I totally get this thing now. And it’s really a work of genius; all of the best design cues (minus the case, which honestly feels a little cheap) are taken from generations of the iPod and put to good use here. What I’ve read elsewhere is completely true: It is absolutely perfect for capturing something quickly with a minimum of fuss and bother, at the expense of high quality output. But the portable form factor, ease of use, and utility outweigh my desire for uber-quality HD video—I’ll get something that shoots high-quality video a little later. Right now, this is all we need.
The spam issue has been solved, I believe. Yesterday evening the site got the shit kicked out of it by spambots, at the rate of one a minute, for about three hours. I shut commenting down completely, and then by accident stumbled on CommentRegistration, a plugin that lets me authenticate commenters locally. So if you’ve commented here before, please take a moment to register (it’s fast, free, and you’ll get a new toaster with deposits over $1,000!) so you can continue to comment all you like. I’ve fixed the problem with registrations not working correctly. I’ll verify you, and then you don’t need to wait a day to see your comment come through!
Really, give it a try so I can test out the system. Please!
In other news, the rain barrels are empty and the air conditioners are out of the windows. It’s officially autumn around here, which means I need to insulate the gutted exam room this weekend to keep some of our heat inside, as well as mix up some hydraulic cement and seal up the holes in the ice room downstairs. And, remember that cabinet I started refinishing last year? I have a few more screws to drill to finish it off so that we might actually use it! Oh, and there’s the lawn, which has two weeks’ growth and half the neighborhood’s leaves… I’m very optimistic, I know.
Update 10.23: I’ve disabled that plugin and removed it, because I was getting unreliable and unexplained results. The documentation is pretty sparse, and there isn’t any customization available unless I start hacking Perl, which I’m too tired to do right now. I’d like to just enable TypeKey on this site (a hosted authentication system) and be done with it, but the documentation for that is about as sparse as it is for this plugin. I found this writeup of someone else’s experience, and with a little tweaking, I’ve got 90% of the service hooked up. Please do me a favor and try this system out. I know it’s another web service to sign up for, but they can handle stuff like lost passwords and info updates where that plugin I tried could not. I’d really like to hear from you all; I just can’t deal with all of the spam right now. And please let me know how it works for you.
Matt Haughey, the creator of MetaFilter, just switched his personal weblog over to TypePad, and wrote a post about why he did so. If someone as technically proficient as he decides to make his life easier, I’m listening. There’s real food for thought in there, and I have to say, after four+ years of banging my head against MovableType, using a hosted CMS package is looking pretty good right now. One of the reasons this weblog hasn’t changed its look in two years is because it’s such a goddamned hassle to do so. For the short term, I’ll stick with what I’ve got, and look into a more modular template system for 3.3. Down the road? Who knows.
Comments are currently turned off due to some serious spam issues. I’m working on some fixes for the problem.
Update: They’re back on, but you’re going to need to register to leave a comment. It should only be a one-time thing, and very easy to do. Meanwhile, all of the images are now too big. I’m working on a fix for that tomorrow.
Hi little one. It’s been a while since I wrote you, but that’s because we’ve been working so hard to keep up with you. You’re sacked out on the couch next to my leg as I type this, wrapped in a huge warm fuzzy blanket like an Eskimo. Which is good, because it’s gotten cold around here. I think this family is going to make fleece outerwear a line item of its own on our tax returns this year under “Capital Investments”.
I’m going to jinx this whole fucking thing now by writing that your eating schedule has gotten a little easier on us; we’re feeding you a little more now, which seems to have the effect of knocking you out easier and for longer periods of time. Sadly, you’re currently suffering from constipation, which the books all tell us is normal; what Mama and I are fearing is the inevitable blowout that will occur after several days of storage. Good times, kid.
Update 11:30AM: You just pooped so much and so fast, your butt made a sonic boom. You then ate, burped, and passed out cold on my shoulder. We will need a dump truck to haul away this diaper.
Also, for the record: your mother and I would like it to be known that WE CHOSE THE NAME FIRST. Goddamn Presleys.
I’m still struggling to make a decision as to which pocket videocamera I should finally buy to take pictures of you; the contenders are still the Flip Mino and the Kodak Zi6. From all I’ve read and all I’ve seen, it comes down to two things: The Flip has the best low-light capability, and the Zi6 shoots HD. I’ve done a little sampling of the photos I’ve already taken around here, and most of them are shot in low light. However, I’m not going to be shooting indoors forever. The other considerations are that the Kodak needs an additional memory card to even be functional, and it comes with two rechargable AA batteries, while the Flip has an internal battery and no additional storage. I spent part of my weekend archiving and consolidating all of my digital photos from the last ten years, and upon overall reflection, I wish I’d been able to shoot higher resolution and been able to take advantage of RAW image processing earlier. So, in conclusion, I’m going to buy a Kodak and try it out to see the results for myself. Because, after all, you’re only going to be an infant once.
Here’s something I’ve noticed after three weeks’ sleepless sampling of basic cable TV fare:
- The 3-6AM lineup is sponsored by infomercials for stock trading, investment scams, and exercise machines.
- The morning news hour is sponsored by erectile dysfunction, male enhancement, and the automotive industry.
- Game shows are propped up by personal injury lawyers and the diet/fitness industry.
- Noon news hour and the early afternoon lineup are paid for by personal injury lawyers and weight loss pills.
- 3PM is owned, of course, by Oprah.
- 4PM through the news hour is sponsored by asbestos lawyers and junk food.
- The 7PM news is leased back to America by Big Pharma and the automotive industry.
- Primetime is anybody’s ballgame.
- The 11PM-3PM syndicated police-procedural is brought to you by phone chat lines, local car dealerships, and lousy sold-on-TV products.
It’s a good thing you’re cute, Finn, ’cause you’re kicking Papa’s ass.
The day we moved into the Lockardugan Estate, we decided the crumbling, spooky old house needed some honest-to-goodness mojo cleansing before we started hauling furniture. The house was in rough condition when we bought it, and while we could see the potential through the dirt and old wallpaper, it gave us the willies. Armed with a pair of sage sticks, Jen and I entered the house for the first time as owners and proceeded to fill every corner of every room with smoke, hoping it would have the appropriate effect: the idea is to remove negative energy and replace it with positive. Now, what the hippies don’t tell you is that burnt sage smells an awful lot like marijuana smoke; it tends to get into hair and clothes and practically scream DOPE FIEND. We opened all the windows to air out the smell, and I’m sure it resembled a Cheech & Chong movie as all of the stink wafted from the house, but we were marked permanently.
Exiting the house and walking out to the moving van, a shiny Jeep pulled into the driveway next to ours, and a colorful new character entered our lives. He was wearing a shiny white nylon campaign jacket with a huge First Marine Division patch on the back, a Korean War Veterans baseball cap, and a huge smile. He introduced himself with a handshake and a hearty “Hello, citizens!” as the Judge, a retired Marine, police officer, lawyer, and next-door neighbor. Standing downwind, we introduced ourselves, and before we could say anything else, he suddenly informed us, “Just in case, you should know, I’m packing heat.” He turned to the side and lifted his jacket to reveal a pearl-handled automatic in a holster on his hip, and after we picked our jaws up off the ground, Jen and I couldn’t think of what to say next. We stood and chatted with him for about five minutes, smelling like we’d just burned an entire bale of weed in the fireplace, praying he wouldn’t call the cops on us, and then he shook our hands graciously and walked to his front door. In the years since then, he’s always had a smile and a story for us, offering advice with property lines, warm food during hurricanes, and jokes; I don’t know that we could have wound up with a more outgoing and friendly neighbor.
Sadly, the Judge passed this week after a short stay in the hospital; it had only been a week or so since we’d seen him last. Having reviewed pictures of him in his prime at the viewing last night, it was hard to reconcile the smiling little man we knew with the hard-nosed Marine or the steely-looking cop from the newspaper photos, and he’d definitely lost a step or two in the four years we’ve known him, but he never lost the twinkle in his eye or the grandfatherly tone in his voice when he saw us. I’d like to think he was happy to have us dope fiends living next door, and I hope he knew about Finley before he passed, because I was looking forward to introducing the two of them.
In a P.C. world rapidly purging itself of colorful, unique people, he was the real deal, and I will miss him. Farewell, Marine.
You’re over three weeks old, little girl, and there are days early mornings when it feels like you’ve been here forever. I started writing this entry three days ago, and I’ve edited it at least twice a day since then, but it never gets completed, because I’ve been busy tending to the needs of our little family and finding time to get some sleep.
Your grandparents came to visit last week, and I was afraid Grandma was going to blow a gasket if she had to wait another day to get you in her hands. Apart from the wonky sleeping schedule and the screaming, they were really happy to meet you, and I think they were even more sad to leave. We, however, were zombies, so I’m afraid we were less than perfect hosts during their stay. I understand the appeal of being a grandpa now: You can come, visit, hold the baby for just as long as you please, and when it begins to fuss or poop, you just hand it off to the parents and run for the Buick in the driveway. What a sweet deal!
You are doing well this week after a little bit of a scare on Sunday. Friends with toddlers told us we’d become obsessively interested in your pooping schedule, and I remember chuckling and nodding my head, but I didn’t realize just how important your poop would be. We have celebrated color change, worried over texture, sampled smell, and Mama charts your frequency with the precision of a Swiss watch. When you stopped pooping on Saturday, we got worried, hoping your once-regular deposits would commence, but there was nothing all day. Early on Sunday morning, the pediatrician told us in a sleepy, slightly irritated voice to relax and wait it out, and we hung up feeling embarrassed and sheepish. But you still would not poop! Breakfast came and went; lunch came and went. After a snack, a burp, and a nap sometime between the football games, your intestines started burbling, and then you let loose with the hugest poo that a baby ever produced. After we changed your diaper and wiped down your entire backside, you crashed out like you’d just lifted a refrigerator up a flight of stairs.
As far as the sleep thing goes, it seems like every time I think we may have you in some kind of a groove, you have some kind of new meltdown that throws me off. Your current schedule goes something like this: Breakfast at eight, a nap until lunchtime, and afterwards you’ll crash until three or four. After first dinner, you’ll fuss or doze until second dinner, and then fuss and doze some more until the 11 o’clock news, after which you’re down like a sack of potatoes until five or six AM. You must really like the early morning newscast, because it’s impossible to get you back to sleep soundly before breakfast.
We are currently enjoying a magical sleeping solution I am sure will only last a week: The Baby Bjorn. The first time we tried it, you screamed your fool head off. Undaunted, we tried again on Sunday, and after fifteen minutes of quiet consideration, you passed out cold. I was then able to walk you around the house for another three hours, dead asleep, head mashed into my chest, while running some basic errands. It was a revelation. Mama used it this afternoon, and the effect was the same.
I thought we may have also made a breakthrough with the feeding schedule a couple of days ago. You had a fantastic day, a regular schedule, and you slept quietly through the night with only the briefest of feedings. The next day, everything went completely to shit. You would not settle, your schedule was all over the place, and none of us got much sleep. And every time I think I’ve found a good way of calming you down, it fails to work when I need it the most: at 3AM after you’ve been up for an hour, restless and refusing to close your eyes. I can pace a groove in the floor with you, I can rock you until my knees fall off, I can sing until I’m hoarse, I can rub your head until your hair falls out. You look up at me with that peaceful, I’m very very sleepy face, and I’m thinking you’re about ten minutes away from passing out completely, and then you get that worried look on your face, the one that says Hey, I’m supposed to be screaming bloody murder right now for no particular reason, and I know it’s going to be at least another half an hour to calm you down again. We’ve had to continue wrapping you up like a Hot Pocket so that you won’t get all phantom limb on us and scratch up your face while you’re sleeping; this is why you’re wearing socks on your hands. It also stops you from scaring yourself awake at night, something you tend to do when you’re unwrapped.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: this is a young man’s game.
I know there’s a financial crisis brewing, and money is best left liquid, so is it wrong of me to see this 1968 Airstream Landyacht for $3K and immediately want to go buy it? Not that I have anyplace to put it.
It got down to 63° last night, so we cranked up the furnace this morning to warm the house. I’ve been meaning to gather a list of links on caring for steam heating systems. In no particular order: Bleeding, shimming, gurgling and clangs, Steam radiator tips, and troubleshooting a steam distribution system.