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Tuesday, May 27, 2003 Memorial Day We took Parker to the Jacksonville Zoo. On the trip, Parker ate an entire hamburger, a feat never before accomplished. After a bried roadside stop to save an itinerant frog that had attached itself to the side mirror, we made good time to Jax. As a zoo, they have some things to work on - the aviary has a problem with rats, and flocks of pigeons are wreaking some havoc over on the African plains. For the most part, Parker was indifferent to a lot of the animals - the hot wheather an general lackadaisacal attitude of the animals probably didn't help. However, we did go crazy over the elephants, and the birds, and the jaguar, and the gorilla. His favorite animal was the siamang, whose lively acrobatic swings and leaps must have been the template for the cgi programmers of Spider-Man. He got a little firghtened in the last aviary, which was both Kristin and I's favorite exhibit; for $1.00 you can feed the birds inside nectar, which causes them to swarm you and land on your arms, your head, your shoulder. They then proceed to try and take everything that isn't nailed down - glasses, hari clips, backpack straps. It was a little loud and crazy, and Parker got a little disconcerted. On the way out, we came across a snake running across the sidewalk. Its a lot of fun when the local nature tries to compete. Afterwards we went to Grandma's and spent the evening with her and Aunt Margie. Parker was bowled over by Gracie, grandma's Boston Terrier, who he played ball with incessantly. Nevertheless, we are still NOT getting a dog. ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, May 22, 2003 Things from the FUTURE! A couple of cool things: An MIT grad has created a self defense jacket that acts as a taser. Shocking. Simply shocking. This looks like it will be cool retro sci-fi serial, with a jazz theme songs that hearkens to Johnny Quest ultra-cool. How can you go wrong with a monkey in a space suit? ------------------------------------------------
Stuck in the Middle Day five of Liberal talk radio and I have to give it up. The station I listen too has a midday host named Shelby LaPre that is absolutely venal. She is the liberal equivalent of Michael Savage. After her ennumeration of the srimes of the Bush Regime, also known as the "Bush Crime Family", I felt so drained by the invective that I had to turn it off (at Kristin's urging). LaPre asserted:
LaPre's continued assertions that the Bush administration is exactly the same as Hitler's Nazi party were very trying to listen to. That being said, I have noticed that most radio talk hosts are quick to call their opponent's viewpoints 'fascist' or to draw allusions to speeches by 'Hitler'. I think they are quick to make this judgment because in most people's minds nothing can be seen as more evil or antithetical to how they want to live their lives as Nazism. Speaking of Micheal Savage, he is currently embroiled in several lawsuits with protestors who run a website against his show and political views. Savage claims economic interference in contacting advertisers to drop his show and copyright infringement (the protestors re-air his broadcasts). Although there seem to be legal arguments in these claims, his last claim takes the cake: Respondent's savagestupidity.com domain name is confusingly similar to Complainant's registered MICHAEL SAVAGE trademark. The only difference between Complainant's MICHAEL SAVAGE mark and the disputed domain name is the replacement of the word "Michael" with "stupidity". The Respondent's domain name is also confusingly similar to the Complainant's themichaelsavageshow.com, thesavageshow.com, michaelsavage.info, and michaelsavage.biz domain names. What? So would any domain name that pairs a word with Savage be a potential infringement of their domain name? This seems to be a violation of the use of the web for free speech. If their website name was mikesavage.com, I could understand, but this name seems significantly different in my viewpoint. ------------------------------------------------
Monday, May 19, 2003 Some Observations, and an Experiment Up til now, you have had to hold down Parker to brush his teeth. You put him in between your legs, with his head in your lap, and hold down his arms with your legs and brush away. He hates this, and has always fought hard to get free, but its the only way to really get in there. Over the past few nights, however, I've seen a big change. When I get the toothbrush, Parker walks over and voluntarily assumes the position. I don't even have to hold his arms. Maybe soon we can graduate to a normal teeth brushing routine. At work, over the past few days, I'm trying a new experiment. Our local radio talk station is conservative, and Kristin has pointed out I tend to espouse the conservative ideals of that network. I've been listening to a liberal talk station, and plan to do so for a week, to see if this changes my attitude. It is Day 2, and I want to destroy my radio. I literally cannot stand it. If I hear one more host call Bush and his cabinet Nazis or make one more allusion to the situation in this country to that of 1930's Germany, I will blow my lid. I have heard some points I will agree with it, but right now it appears to mainly consist of venal vitriole of the type I only hear late at night on Conservative talk. Maybe in five days my views will change. ------------------------------------------------
Link-O-Rama The thunderstorms have moved in, and I'm parked way too far away to make a mad dash, so I'm stuck at this machine for a while. Thought I'd pass on some interesting links I have been saving: >A website celebrating the most delusional man of our time! This is a great photo - I have to find a tree like it. The true story of Mike the Headless Chicken. I might not agree with these politics, but the guy knows how to spin. Did you know the French film industry passively fought the Nazis? The religious overtones of the Matrix are many. Bored? Try answering a Nigerian Scam Letter! ------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 16, 2003 Weekly Update Two weeks later and the projects keep chugging. Here - here! It's a good thing given that the cars still refuse to be broken in. I think we've fainally tamed the LHS, and the Honda is still chugging, but they took a beating. And the honest mechanics I found - they might have tried to gyp us for several hundred, so I'll have to keep an eye on the LHS to see if the problem they described rears its head again like a many headed hydra that eats savings accounts. I finally threw off my yoke of slavery to the eBay client from Hell. He has an excuse for every shady thing he does (like use one name on one email to ask questions, then reference those emails in his own emails, changing identities on e-Bay at the drop of the hat, getting kicked off of e-Bay frequently). Eventually our communications broke down to calling each other 'nonprofessional', with I threatening to not hono the project as he violated e-Bay policy and he countering with possible damages under Massachusetts law. Let's hope that THAT issue is settled. Parker has seen the dentist, who has identified cavities in his four fron teeth. He believes that breat milk through the night is the culprit, a belief which I, Kristin, La Leche, and dozens of books refuse to believe. I believe it is a combination of things: weak enamel, the month that Parker would eat nothing but raisins, and that we weren't diligent when his teeth first appeared to brush, and often we just brushed them clean with water and no type of paste. Rather than let him go for several years without teeth, we are going to get them filled, but he will need to be sedated, and the nearest open date is several months away. And, of course, our insurance won't cover the specialized care. I am beginnon whether the plan was worth it. When Parker gets new teeth, however, he'll have one less menance to face: a lawyer is seeking to ban the sale of Oreo cookies. Shock of shocks - he claims they are not good for you! ------------------------------------------------
Thursday, May 01, 2003 Work-Related Peeves And, now a rant about employment and the marketplace: Up til now, I have enjoyed a 5.o rating in Elance for my freelance work. Then I received two feedbacks from clients, one who I just finished work for and one who I did work for in December. The latest job gave me a 4.6 overall and the earlier project gave me a 4.3, dropping my average to 4.8. This would ordinarily not be bothersome to me, except for the fact that both clients gave me glowing praise in the comments field. Why give me top notch praise in the comments field and grade me lower in the numerical categories? I think potential clients look at the numbers more so than the comments anyway - it's the first thing that appears in your profile. I'll have to have another 3-4 5.0 profiles to get my numbers back on top. And, at my real job, there are outside providers apparently trying to divest me of my job. Specifically, it is 352Media, formerly known as Silverscape, the company that took over my many of my functions out at Moltech. They sent an email to Susan asking her if she would want to consult with them about having them take over our web site. Although it does good for me to know she told them not interested, t still makes me uncomfortable that there are vultures in the wings waiting to take away my employment. Of course, if I were full-time freelance, I'd probably do the same thing :) ------------------------------------------------
Cash Terminators I would call last month "The Rise of Machines". Yes, the machines rose, and they proceeded to bite our posteriors with a vengeance. It all started about three weeks ago while Kristin was working on some of my freelance projects. Suddenly a pop up appeared that stated malevolently "Did you ever dance with the Devil By the Pale Moonlight? Pray for your Hard Drive!" Knowing that Jack Nocholson does not, in fact, live within our PC, Kristin suspected a virus, and looking on the web, I'll be durned if this wasn't the final step in a progressive virus called Devil's Dance which has been floating around since 1989. Amazed our machine did not detect the virus, and in a tizzy, we went and bout the lastest Anti-Virus software, whose list of known viruses listed this little nasty culprit. And that was the beginning of our troubles. Not only did the Anti-Virus program fail to load completely, it apparently disabled all scriptng features on our computer, including Java, Search, and Add and Remove features. Furthermore, ever since, our hard drive has been prone to showing us a new Blue Screen of Death entitled "Physical Memory Dump", after which the hard drive will apparently fail for several hours before righting itself. Through independent means we have searched the system backwards and forwards and found no evidence of the original culprit, which would seem as if it was a flase alarm, but still leaves the question of where did the pop-up window come from? We are currently searching to buy a new computer to have a backup in case this one goes kaput. I was leaning towards a MAc, but finding them too expensive, I looked at the more reasonable PC options. And just when we had selected a seller and a model, the other machines decided to stand up and make themselves recognized. We had planned to take the LHS in because a intermittent throbbing of the engine. Just days before I had planned to do so, the brakes went as well. Also, the dealership then pointed out that the tires were in bad, bad shape. So, in the span of just a few days, and much bus taking and car swapping, I have had the cylinders in the Honda replaced, and the LHS was been the proud recipient of dozens of new organs: four tires; shoes, drums, and rotors; ignition wires and spark plugs; a fuel filter; and a rear transmission mount. Meanwhile, she still needs an alignment, and the Honda has a mysterious starter problem that so far has eluded the cheapest mechanics that money can buy (the first group believed it was the starter - they replaced it, and it started fine. The second group who had the EXACT same problem four days later traced it to a loose wire to the starter and repaired it. Let's see what the third group finds). Don't you just love how the mechanical things in your life know when you have extra money in your pocket? ------------------------------------------------
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Tuesday, May 27, 2003 Sharing Meals  Parker and playgroup pal, B. ------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 23, 2003 Little Climber Oh, how am I to explain that the table isn't to be sat upon? I mean, there is a chair, and it is the perfect "step stool" up to the table. And the table has neat things on it.  Oh, am I in trouble now!! ------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 16, 2003 Pinching I guess I should be grateful that it isn't to others, but this is just disconcerting!    Is this normal behavior? He must not be doing it hard enough to hurt, since he still has a smile on. What a silly boy! ------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, May 06, 2003 Playing Hard at Playgroup Parker got to fully experience the beginning of Florida summer at playgroup today. Seems he really does have Mama's penchant for turning bright red and sweating when it is hot. Of course, he playe really hard after this picture, and I just knew he'd have heat stroke!!  ------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 02, 2003 Visit with Nana and Grandpa Parker enjoyed seeing his Nana and Grandpa for a short day visit. He got them to help him build with blocks, which is always a fun pasttime.   ------------------------------------------------
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