Roblog

I am very relieved that our beloved digital camera is back from the shop. Thankfully, it is back in time for Halloween, just in case the girls are cute. We used our 35mm camera while the digital camera was broken, but having to drop the film off somewhere and wait for the pictures was unpleasant.

To mark the occasion of the camera's return, I have posted the golf pictures that survived the camera's plunge to the concrete.

I had two events yesterday that reminded me that I'm getting old.

Firstly, since we have lots of leftover Halloween candy, it's my job to eat some of it. You know that Bottle Caps candy that tastes like sodas? I used to love them, but now they taste hideous. I'm sure I'm the one that changed, and not the candy.

Secondly, I gave my daughters some spin rides: I picked them up and spun them around and around. They loved it, but I quickly started feeling very queasy. I actually thought I might throw up. Donna had to bring me a glass of water, and I still felt the effects 5 hours later!

I'm getting old.

I've had very good experiences with my webhost, JaguarPC. In fact, when I discovered that the current offers from Jaguar PC had more webspace for the same money as my plan, the sales reps were able to upgrade my accout immediately and at no charge. The support staff has also been quite responsive, and they are promptly addressing the missing EXIF support in PHP by recompiling PHP this weekend.

Once that's done, I can load up all my on-line pictures into my new project: a database-driven picture search facility. I'm writing it in PHP and using a MySQL database to hold the data. It's been a fun diversion, but it will also fulfill a deep need of mine to not be restricted to the static picture indexes my current pictures section provides.

I feel a little foolish at work today. I keep my prescription sunglasses in the car, so that I can use them while driving and riding the bus. But as I sat down on the bus today, I realized I still had my sunglasses on and did not have my regular glasses with me! So I'm at work wearing my sunglasses. I'm trying to lay low.

I played golf again last weekend, this time with Clay and his wife, Sheryl. I improved by 1 stroke from last time, but it was on a different course, so I don't know if that means anything. If I continue to play twice a year and improve by one stroke each time, I should break 100 in the year 2017. That's OK, I have fun regardless. I did make par on one hole (par 4!) and had a 25-yard putt.

I have completed my PHP/MySql search engine for my on-line pictures to the point where I can release it to the internet-at-large! I have added a search field to my main blog page as well as my picture page for easy access.

Right now, I have it loaded with 469 pictures. That should increase to more than 500 within a few weeks as I get more pictures from this year included.

It's been pretty slow at work this month. That's mainly because I've moved off of the project I had been working on for almost 5 years because the client wanted to reduce support staff as the entire project is winding down (sometime next year). So I rolled off the project and onto a new almost-ready project. It's the "almost-ready" part that's the problem. I really can't/don't have any work for the new project until the agreement is signed, so I'm preparing as much as I can. That does not fill my days, though.

The "awkward" part is that although I am going to be on the new project, most of my co-workers do not know if they will be or not. This is because the new project has not officially started yet and the current project is still ongoing and so still needs support people. I feel like I can't be too excited about the new project (although I am), since most everyone around me does not have their future position secured.

Forgive me for being so vague about the old and new project. I guess the recent news about a Microsoft contractor getting fired for what he put on his private blog has me nervous to mention the clients' names.

At least while it's been slow, I've had some time to select my benefits options for next year and tweak my picture search page. Once of my favorite tweaks is that whenever a picture of the twins is selected, their age at the time of the picture will be computed! It's neat to be able to see that Amanda first stood up when she was 6 months and 8 days old. Cool!

Today marks the first day in 16 years that I am no longer in the "key demographic": males aged 18-34. Now, marketing executives will no longer target my opinion when crafting new movies, sitcoms, or reality shows.

Actually, that sounds like a compliment.

My pager was taken away at work today. I had not needed it since I moved off of my old project, but I still hung on to it, assuming that eventually I'd need a pager on my new project and it would be easier to keep my same service and number. As it turns out, we had a billing fracas with Skytel, who we lease the pagers and service from, so we got rid of as many pagers as we could.

It should feel freeing that I have no electronic leash now, but it did provide a certain amount of security in an emergency. I've never needed my pager for a personal emergency yet, so I guess I just have to accept that small risk of not being able to be contacted when I am away from a phone.

In looking at my web site statistics today, I noticed that a West Grove page was the entry page for several hits on my web site. Looking at that external page, it has several links to the picture pages from my trips to West Grove.

I can't figure out how those links got there. Were they added by some automated search engine? Did someone do a manual search and add them? There isn't much organization to the links on that page, and several links are duplicated, so it makes me think it was automatic. Still, it's really weird.

This short holiday week was "jeans day" at work. I like wearing jeans, but I only have one pair of work-appropriate jeans. All my other jeans have a hole in the left knee. I have not been able to figure out why my jeans always wear out so asymmetrically. My right knee was the one that had multiple arthroscopic operations (torn cartilage), so maybe I am moving in such a way that causes more stress on the fabric of my jeans over the left knee. Or maybe it's all the times I'm using the clutch in my Saturn's fading transmission.

If I figure it out, I'll let you know. In the mean time, I'd love to find a way to protect that knee somehow that would let my jeans last longer, while still being able to wear them to work.

I've furiously been trying to update my web site by integrating a database where I can. After successfully incorporating my pictures into a database, I was insipred to expand on that, including:

• storing my on-line recipes in a database
• revamping my picture index page to be dynamically generated
• generally refining my PHP code

My recent efforts have broken the image rollovers on my home page, but I've been meaning to update that, anyway, so hopefully it won't be broken for long.

My tasks at work are starting to pick up, and soon I will be very, very busy. So any PHP stuff on my web page will have to be done at home. That's the way it should be, but I've really been able to make excellent progress with it at work. I'll just be trading in that productivity for productivity that will actually help keep me employed.

Wow. We went to see the third installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - The Return of the King - and it was every bit as good as all the hype I had heard. At a running time of 3:10 (the movie was not longer than that if you don't count the previews or credits), it did not feel long. It was beautifully done.

The four-disc extended version is already on my birthday list for 2004.

One of the statistics I can access about my website are pages or files that were requested from a visitor to my web site but did not exist. I'm sure you've seen the "404 File Not Found" error messages before. Looking at a list of these failed requests can help me identify if there are any problems with my web pages that are referring to nonexistent files.

Unfortunately, the list of these requests is cluttered with things like:
/scripts/..%c0%2f../winnt/system32/cmd.exe
/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc
These file references appear nowhere in links on my website, so I know they are artificial external requests that I do not want being made, since most of them are probing my website's defenses.

Who converts a 4th-and-26 play with less than 2 minutes to go in a playoff game? The Eagles did yesterday, which enabled them to continue a drive that tied the game with 5 seconds left. They won the game in overtime by intercepting a horrendously awful pass from Brett Farve and returning it deep into Green Bay territory; this led to a short field goal and an Eagles victory. They will be in the NFC championship game for the third year in a row.

Yesterday's game was hard to bear as an Eagles fan. They won, so I am happy about that, but for most of the game it looked as if they should not deserve to win. That is how much of the season has gone, though. I wonder if they will have the worst-ranked offense (18th out of 32 teams) and defense (20th) for any team ever having gone to the Superbowl.

Yes, I think they are going to the Superbowl this year. They still have to beat the Carolina Panthers next week, but I think that Green Bay was the tougher team between the two. The Eagles will find a way to make that game gut-wrenchingly close, I'm sure, but I expect them to win.

I do not see how they can beat either of the two remaining AFC teams: the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots. I will be happy with them just getting to the Superbowl and having a decent showing.

Then maybe they can win it all next year!

For the third consecutive year, the Eagles lost the NFC championship game. They became the first team in history to lose consecutive championship games at home (AFC or NFC).

It was fun being in Pennsylvania for a few days this past week (I tagged along on one of Donna's business trips, which she will be blogging about extensively), since the whole city was Eagles-crazy. Being an Eagles fan in Houston, that was an energizing experience.

Now, however, I am again reminded how hard it is to be a fan of the Eagles. They have been pretty good for so long, which means they make the playoffs, but always end their season with a loss. It's fun to root for the expansion Houston Texans, since they aren't really expected to win, so every win is exciting, and every loss is not too tragic. I imagine it would be fun to root for a team that gets to the Super Bowl, since that is such an event just to get there is a success for most teams. But to be on the edge year after year, never really improving, but still teasing the fans with flashes of greatness is exasperating.

But I'll continue to be a long-suffering Eagles fan. After all, the longer the wait, the sweeter the victory. At least I imagine that would be the case.

I've decided my favorite kind of weather is wind. A big, strong wind. Winds when it's cold are not much fun, but I can feel so much power in a strong wind. I love leaning into the wind, feeling it whip my pants legs behind me as I walk against it.

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." -John Ruskin

My new project at work has still not been advertised at the client, so I still have to be careful about who I tell about my new project's client.

I actually wanted to go to the Galleria this past weekend. I have always opposed trips to the Galleria in the past because the traffic in the area and parking have always been very unpleasant. I even hate to go on that part of I-610 because of all the slow traffic.

But now it has a redeeming quality: an Apple store. So we went there to get a copy of iLife, and we stayed to get me some new dress shoes at Foley's and to eat lunch. We got there early (10:00) so the traffic and parking challenges were actually very mild.

I was so adamant about avoiding the Galleria in the past that Donna thought my remarkable change in attitude is worthy of a blog entry. So this one's for her.

I intended to take my umbrella into work yesterday (rain was in the forecast), but I arrived without it. Did I leave it on the bus, or did I never take it out of my car? It didn't take me long to convince myself that it was still in my car, and indeed it was there when I got to my car that evening.

But it made me realize how much I treasure my DuPont Merck golf umbrella. It's big so that I can walk comfortably in the rain with it, but more importantly it's a link to my time in Delaware when I worked for a company that no longer exists. I enjoyed my work there and it was my first real job after college. It was then that I established my career as a software support developer. I discovered HTML programming and developed an HTML-based software manual on my group's network long before I had ever heard the word "intranet". I worked with statisticians, who helped me see why data presentation was so important and the joy of hitting upon the perfect way to accurately reflect the results. I even got to attend an FDA pre-review jury for a new indication of one of our drugs. I have good memories of those 5 years.

And since the company was later bought out by Bristol-Myers Squibb, there is no way to replace my unique, one-of-a-kind DuPont Merck souvenir. I'm glad I didn't lose it.

I ride the bus into work, and the bus will not stop at every dropoff point unless someone wants to get off. You can pull a cord that makes a sound and (usually) lights up a sign before the next stop if you want to get off.

I prefer not to pull the cord. I just let someone else who is getting off at my stop do it for me. But there are rare times when no one, or very few people, are getting off at my stop. So how long do I wait until I can't stand it anymore and I have to pull the cord? I usually can last longer than most people, so it is rare I have to pull it. Of course, I don't want to wait so long that it makes it hard on the bus driver (like if he is in the wrong lane).

I think it would be an interesting psychological measure to see when a person tends to pull the cord. Someone should do a study. Not me. I'm too busy resisting the urge to pull the cord.

I'm starting to use Instant Messaging for work, since it's the cheapest way to communicate real-time with the folks in India. One of the capabilities of most instant messengers is associating a "buddy icon" with your account. This is just a small image that represents you when you are chatting with someone.

Of course, I had to make my own:

Now it may appear to be egotistical to have your own floating head as a buddy icon, but it seemed to me to be the only sensible option. Since I'll be using this for work to chat with people I rarely get to meet, it seems like it would be easiest on them to see who they are chatting with.

And yet, nowhere on the internet have I seen a buddy icon that is an image of the chatter. Perhaps that is because all the buddy icon sites provide icons that would be of use to more than one person. Perhaps it is because people don't bother (or don't have the means) to make one themselves. Or perhaps people feel uncomfortable providing a picture of themselves to everyone they chat with. The buddy icons of my boss, and two other managers I'm working with on my project are an angel, the Texas A&M logo, and an American flag.

Am I the only one who has an image of their head as their buddy icon?

I must be busy at work, as evidenced by my lack of entries in my blog last week. I got to talk with some people at our new client for the first time, and it's been tough trying to schedule all those meetings and then collect all the documentation.

So just a teaser update for today.

• I'm going to India for a week sometime in late March or early April. The timing will depend on the specific agenda we develop for the trip.
• I've developed an Applescript to manage the uploading of photos from iPhoto to my website. I didn't think I'd really get this done when I daydreamed about it, but with the right UNIX tools, it wasn't hard - it just took some time. I'll provide details later.

In other news, my great uncle "Put-Put" died last night after being in the hospital for several weeks. In some respects, I considered him a relative I had the most in common with. He was introverted, thoughtful, and had a witty sense of humor if you could get him to show it. I can't leave for Pennsylvania right away because of work stuff, but I'll go up there this coming weekend to help my family cope.

So after hinting around I can finally say what my new project at work is, because it has been announced to the affected users at the client. I am part of a team that will be supporting some of our client's applications from Bangalore, India.

Note: due to the politically sensitive nature of outsourcing jobs to offshore locations, especially India, I will never mention the name of my client in this forum. I think it's a real possibility that if any of the people at my client read this blog in which I announce that they are in the process of sending US jobs to India, I could be removed from this project. I'd rather be able to talk openly about my experiences in this blog, so I will not name my client. Sorry.

Some random, short, and unrelated notes:

Delaware: Home of Tax Free Shopping. When a Pepsi says it costs $1.25, you actually pay $1.25. My brief taste of that this past weekend reminded me how nice that is.

Quote of the day: "I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only conclude it's because I don't have a full grasp of the situation." - Mark Adler, deputy mission manager at NASA for the Mars Sprirt rover

Donna is now an official "author" on this blog. She will add entries from time to time. This way, she'll be able to blog about our family (as opposed to her CFG blog) if I neglect to mention something cute the girls did.

I had some errands to run today, but completed them all 30 minutes before my hair appointment. I decided I wanted a Pepsi, so I went looking for a Pepsi bottle that had an iTunes cap on it.

Diamond Shamrock didn't have any regular Pepsis with the iTunes cap. Target didn't have any Pepsis. Stop N Go didn't have any Pepsis with the iTunes caps. Eckerds wasn't open yet. Walgreens didn't have any iTunes caps. Neither did Amoco or Randalls. Finally, I went into a H.E.B. where I found one lone Pepsi (warm) with an iTunes cap.

I have heard about how you can cheat and ensure you don't select a losing Pepsi bottle. I usually look under the cap only to the extent that I don't feel conspicuous. I cheated. It was a winner. I bought it. I might have bought it anyway, but, honestly, I might not have.

I now have 4 song credits in iTunes. I'm hoping to build that up to about 10 or so I could get an entire album if I wanted. As it is, I am most interested in Dido and Radio K.A.O.S.. I have to convert my credits to songs by mid-April, since I'll be in India when the contest ends.

I was just informed (by a non-Rice gradutate) that it's a tradition for students to sit in the lap of the William Marsh Rice statue. She heard this from a tour guide when she was visiting the campus one day.

As a Rice graduate, I have never heard mention of such a tradition. Did I miss out on some valuable part of the Rice experience? If so, I could rush over to the campus during lunch and take care of that. Well, maybe tomorrow - it's been raining here quite a bit.

I can see that the world is flat. I have never seen the curvature of the Earth that I know is there.

But I'm about to leave for India. That's about at the opposite end of the world (by longitude, not latitude). I'll have flown 20 hours in the air, and I'll end up 11 time zones away. My Monday will be shortened by 10.5 hours.

Wish me luck!

I just sat down in my seat on flight 441 on Lufthansa from Houston to Frankfurt. It's drizzling, but the sun is shining - Houston.

We are now traveling NNE at 26,000 feet and 560 mph. I know this because that's what the video monitor shows me.

We took off at 5:30, one hour and forty minutes after my ticket said we were supposed to depart. But as Frankfurt is only 7 hours ahead of Houston, our scheduled arrival time of 8:50 AM would make it a 10 hour flight (I miscalculated earlier). I'm pretty sure they announced that this is a 9 hour flight, though, so maybe we'll only be 40 minutes late. Perhaps they build an hour delay into the flight times just in case.

Oops! Dinner is getting prepared! Maybe I can sleep after the meal.

I just finished breakfast - a tomato frittata. It was fine, but the sliced fruit (honeydew, watermelon, and pineapple) was better.

We just passed over Great Britain and are headed toward the Netherlands as we clip the North Sea.

I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I think maybe the eye mask I was wearing was keeping me up. I feel a little slow, but I should be fine getting on our connecting flight in Frankfurt. I already have my boarding pass.

Our connecting flight is scheduled to leave at 10:55. That seems like it will give us about an hour between landing and taking off again. That could cut things pretty close, depending on what sorts of customs processing we have to go through and how far away our connection is.

I'm sitting on the Bangalore flight now. Our connecting flight was almost 2 hours late, but we were very efficiently taken off the plane (on the tarmac!), loaded onto a bus, and taken to Terminal 1. Our gate (B44) was a short walk away.

I just did some more work on my Thursday presentation - now I think I can finish it off in one hour. Which is good, because I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I'll take a little nap, which hopefully will not be so long to make it hard to go to sleep when we get to the hotel

I got another two hours of sleep I would guess, and now we are about 40 minutes away from landing. I feel pretty good, considering I've spent over 20 hours in a plane while getting about 4 hours of sleep.

I am now in my spacious hotel room (1712) at the Taj West End.

I am feeling very refreshed. I'm sure that's part of the effects of the jet lag, since this would just be a late night in Houston after a good 5 hour nap.

I'm back at the hotel after a long day at the Accenture office. It wasn't a hard day - just long. I made it through the day without feeling seriously groggy, but I can feel my body needing some sleep.

I am exhausted. I don't think it's jet lag; rather, it was just a busy day. That's good, though. An expensive trip like this ought to be busy and productive.

Another busy day draws to a close. I actually realized that I'll miss leaving the team today. I always figured that the time away from my family would make me eager to get home (which I am), but it's been great to be a part of the India team for a week.

We have an early start to the day tomorrow, so it will be a challenge to make sure I wake up in time to complete my packing and take some pictures of the hotel grounds.

There is no work agenda for me today. We have a big team lunch from 12:00 to 3:00, and we'll be leaving from lunch to do some quick shopping and then leave for the airport. I mostly plan on taking pictures of the team and building in the morning.

Here's a quick rundown of the items I bought:

Wow! I knew I was tired, but I didn't realize I'd sleep six hours straight on the plane!

We've been on our return flight aircraft now for more than two hours, but we have yet to leave the ground. There is a problem with the weather radar that they have not been able to resolve. They're now trying to replace the entire radar system. If that works, we should be in the air in about an hour. If not, we'll all have to get on another plane which would add at least another hour delay.

Thankfully, we have no connection to miss, this being our last leg. As long as I get home before the twins go to bed, I'll be happy.

We did finally get off the ground just at 1:00 PM GST - a full three hours late.

My trip to India was last week, and I intend to add some details about the trip here - but later. I fell ill upon my return, and am still working on getting better. On top of that, it is very busy at the office, so I haven't had any time to myself for a couple weeks.

I will take the time to say that it was a good trip, both on a professional and personal level. Several people have asked me how it compared to what I expected. Honestly, I didn't have any preconceptions and therefore no expectations. I think that helped me enjoy the trip since I just tried to soak it all in.

I have finally been able to record the notes I took during my recent trip to Bangalore, India. It was my first overseas trip, so I wanted to keep notes so I could capture the sights and feelings of the visit.

I have put the correct date and time on the entries (all Central Daylight Time), although I entered them after the fact. Below is a list of the entries so that you don't have to wade through the rest of the blog to find them.

• April 25, 4:10 PM CDT: Leaving Houston
• April 25, 5:50 PM CDT: Flying to Frankfurt
• April 26, 1:35 AM CDT: Almost to Frankfurt
• April 26, 3:25 AM CDT: On to Bangalore
• April 26, 7:50 AM CDT: Sleepy
• April 26, 12:15 PM CDT: Arriving at Bangalore
• April 26, 2:50 PM CDT: Bangalore!
• April 26, 9:40 PM CDT: First Morning in Bangalore
• April 27, 12:12 PM CDT: Busy First Day
• April 28, 1:27 PM CDT: Long Second Day
• April 29, 1:45 PM CDT: My Last Night in India
• April 30, 9:50 AM CDT: Shopping Results
• April 30, 9:50 PM CDT: Final Day Details
• May 1, 4:50 AM CDT: Plane Problems in Frankfurt
• May 1, 5:00 PM CDT: Arriving at Houston

I guess my 1992 Saturn SL is worth at least $1000 dollars now. The clutch was failing on it, and we seriously debated whether or not to fix it. The dealer quoted $1600 to fix the clutch, and that was just too much to spend on the aging car. But most other options to replace the car were much more expensive.

So we decided to drop it off at a local mechanic, whose wife works at the school my wife used to work at, and his shop fixed it for $999.44. It can now take me back and forth to the bus stop, as well as the occasional trip all the way into work. But since it does not have any air conditioning, that is something I don't like to do between May and October here in Houston.

It does shift nicely now. It was almost comic how I had to shift it before, since I often had to use a great deal of force to get it into any gear. Once when Donna drove it, it actually got stuck in second gear, so she drove it in second home from the store.

This is too funny! Here is an excerpt from an email I got from the client team I am working with on my new project:

Well, with the rousing conclusion of 1 transition project and subsequent announcement of another... in the same week.... is anyone up for a drink?

If so, let's head to Teala's on W. Dallas this Friday after work. (If we all mentally commit to leaving here at 4:00, we can be there by no later than 4:10.....)

That was awfully nice of them to invite me, but I declined because I have other plans that evening. But almost simultaneously, I got the following email from my HR representative at Accenture:

Join us to wish Jose well on his relocation to Austin.

What: Happy Hour
When: Friday, June 4
Time: 4:00 p.m. til ???
Where: Teala�s, 3210 W. Dallas

Notice that it's at the same time at the same location! That is hysterical! It makes me really want to go, now, but I don't think I can manage it.

I am the only common person between the two groups, but I can just imagine the client group talking about the outsourcing project I have been a part of right next to a group from my company! Do you think they'll realize the connection? Of course, what would I do if I were there? Not that it would be a dramatic scene, but this was just a highly amusing coincidence.

I am not what you would consider a handyman. In fact, I am one of the least handy guys I know, which probably frustrates my father, since he is extremely handy (he built a 37-foot trimaran from the plans). I have done some simple things: installing shelves, installing a garbage disposal, replacing electrical switches. Anything that is related to plumbing or actually building something I do not attempt.

But every time I go into Home Depot, whatever kernel of handyman-ness is in me comes to the surface. "We really need a new toilet seat," "I would love to replace our faucets," and "I think we need to replace our wooden gate outside with some glass blocks" were some of the thoughts I had while visiting Home Depot this weekend. Those were amusing thoughts to have considering I was trying to find an item whose name I did not know (it was a "hose clamp", but at least I was able to describe it well and I ended up in the row where the hose clamps were before I asked someone).

Pepsi Edge still tastes like a diet soda to me. Blech. I'll stick with the full-sugared version for now.

The hottest day of the year hit Houston on Tuesday. The official high reached 100°. That also happened to be the day I needed my car for an offsite meeting just after lunch. The problem is that my car has no air conditioning. If it's 100° outside, then the coolest I can get in my car is when 100° air blows onto my face from my open window.

I came up with what I thought was a clever solution. We have a casserole dish that has pads that can be heated up in the microwave and placed in the carrier with the casserole to help keep it hot. We also have one you put in the freezer that will keep the dish cool. So I took the cool pad to work with me, keeping it in the freezer in the lunch area. When I left for my meeting (right after lunch), I took the cool pad to the car and put it between my back and the car seat.

It actually worked quite well! I could feel the heat in the car, but that square foot of my back stayed cool enough that my whole body never got sweaty and gross. It started losing some effectiveness after 20 minutes or so, but I wasn't in the car too much more than that. The only other problem was remembering to take it with me (from freezer to freezer) as I traveled from office to office. I'll definitely use that technique again if I have to stay cool in my car.

I finally got around to entering all of the data collected from every gas fillup our Honda Accord has ever had. Here are the gas mileage results:

Click on the chart to see a detailed graph of our gas mileage history.

The graph shows a few interesting things:

• The mileage decreases during the hot months
• Our mileage is not going down yet
• The mileage started off very low

Being the data junkie I am, I look forward to seeing what this graph looks like in a few years.

Donna injured her back this weekend. Actually, it was Friday when she hurt it lifting Amanda out of the stroller, but she reinjured it on Sunday getting Elena out of the car seat. She was pretty much incapacitated yesterday. I hope she is able to both keep her back and the girls cared for today until I can get home.

One upside of this is that I got to take the fancy car into work today. OK, it's not really that fancy, but it has air conditioning! I was going to have to take my hot car into work until Donna became incapable of driving yesterday.

But this small change in routine had some adverse side effects. Firstly, I keep my bag-o-change in the hot car, so when I arrived downtown ready to pay cash for my parking space, I didn't have the change. I drove around until I found a parking lot for $3 (which is how much in dollar bills I had on me). Secondly, the key to my desk is on my other keychain. Thankfully, I keep a spare in my wallet; otherwise, I would have been computerless for a while since I keep my laptop locked up in my desk.

It's sometimes annoying how poorly I type. I took typing in high school, but I didn't practice enough to realize the benefits. So I still only use five fingers to type. Funny thing is, people are sometimes impressed when they see me type. My fingers fly around the keyboard (they have to, since I only use 5 of them), and sometimes I can get on a roll that does look rather impressive. But that's only until you check my accuracy.

My most common errors are transposing two characters. I type "coudl" far more than "could" on the first try. "Woudl" and "shoudl" are also very frequent typos. Sometimes, I'll get out of synch and type a word with two or three consecutive transposition errors. That probably tells me something about either the mechanics of how I press the keys, or how my brain tells my fingers to press them. When I'm independently wealthy, I'll commission a study on myself.

At least these errors almost always produce non-words, so as long as I spell-check my text, they are caught and corrected. This blog, however, does not have a spell-check built-in, so unless I catch my mistake, you might see an occasional error slip by.

I work at a large, unnamed petroleum company. I noticed yesterday that there was a security guard standing at the top of the escalator in the lobby that leads down to the cafeteria. It's a nice cafeteria, and other downtown workers come there to eat lunch on occasion.

That afternoon, a site-wide email was sent saying that a Greenpeace van was spotted in the parking lot across the street the previous day. For that reason, security was tightened and no one who does not work for the company will be allowed to go downstairs to the cafeteria.

This sounded ridiculous to me when I first read it. Nothing indicated that a direct (or indirect) threat was received or that the van's proximity to the building was anything other than coincidence. So all of a sudden we're in a "heightened security state"? But as I thought about it, I realized that the company has been a target of Greenpeace's activism in the past. Although I still think it's overreacting a little bit, I can understand their desire to be cautious.

I wonder how long of a "heightened security level" one van sighting warrants? Maybe they were here doing some reconnaissance to plan some future activism event. The company should probably proactively shutdown the group, by any means necessary, regardless of support of other companies or agencies. Then the company executives can state over and over about how the group is directly linked to terrorist organizations. Eventually, if they say it enough times, the shareholders will believe it and re-elect the board members for another four-year term.

Oops - I think I mixed up my story lines there. Sorry about that. I'm going to go have lunch in the secured cafeteria.

I'm continuing to be very busy recently. It was really stressing me out a few weeks ago, to the point where I was having trouble sleeping and eating. I'm over that now, not because I'm necessarily having less to do, but because I've decided to not let it get to me.

It's also been nice to look forward to my new computer. It's only a couple weeks away now, and in fact should be on its way here next week. Before it arrives, I'm trying to get the office in shape. It's such a stylish computer, I'd hate to sentence it to exist in the most cluttered room in our house. Not only would that detract from its look, but also I'll probably be dragging people back to the office to look at it whenever anyone stops by.

Another nice thing is that I recently got promoted. No sudden change in role or responsibilities is going along with it, but it's more of an acknowledgement of the work I have been doing recently. That takes a bit of the sting off of having way too much to do.

Busy, busy. I have several posts to make to this blog, so I'll try to catch up this week. I'll start off with an amusing story...

No new pictures in 3 months... no new blog entry in over 1 month... What is going on?

The short answer: I have been very busy at work, and it has sapped by energy and drive to work on my website. It's getting better at work (slowly) and I'm also trying to make a better effort to make sure I do take the time to add to my blog from time to time.

You can track my progress here to see how I do. Starting tomorrow...

Meetings at work are an important way to share information with a group of people all at once. They can also be rather intrusive if you have other things to accomplish.

Today was by biggest meeting day of my professional career. 10 (almost) straight hours of 9 different meetings left me wondering how I am going to make up for all my regular work I didn't get a chance to do.

6:00 - 7:00 - bi-weekly teleconference status call
7:00 - 8:00 - weekly teleconference status call
8:00 - 9:00 - server maintenance (canceled)
9:00 - 10:00 - client meeting
10:00 - 11:30 - weekly client status meeting
11:30 - 12:00 - HR meeting
12:00 - 1:00 - unit goal setting
1:00 - 2:00 - enhancement specification discussions
2:00 - 3:00 - enhancement specification discussions
3:00 - 4:00 - client meeting

I was able to get some other work done before I went home at 6:00. No status meetings at home!

So it's officially the NFL playoffs now. The regular season has ended, with my team, the Philadelphia Eagles, having clinched home field advantage throughout the playoffs several weeks ago. Since they clinched, the Eagles have performed poorly, dropping to 13-3 (still 2 wins better than any other NFC team), mostly due to playing their second string and giving their starters a rest.

I really didn't want to see that happen. It's great that the Eagles clinched so early and that their starters could rest for a few weeks, but psychologically other NFC teams are now looking at the Eagles as vulnerable. At 13-1, they looked nearly invincible. No so, now.

I understand it's important to keep everyone as injury-free as possible going into the playoffs. After all - in the 2003 playoffs, Donovan McNabb was injured and just came back for the NFC championship game (which they lost). In 2004, Brian Westbrook was out and they lost the NFC Championship game. Now, in 2005, both McNabb and Westbrook are healthy and should be well-rested, but Terrell Owens, arguably the biggest difference-maker on the Eagles team, is out for the playoffs (although there is an outside chance he could return for the Superbowl if the Eagles make it that far).

But having two consecutive losses going into the playoffs, regardless of the circumstances, is not a positive situation. Will the Eagles be rusty after nearly one month of resting their starters? Will they have lost the psychological edge against the rest of the league? Will they be unable to match the intensity of teams who have had to fight their way into and through the playoffs?

I don't know. I just hope they can actually make it to the Superbowl this year. Three consecutive NFC Championship game losses are enough for me.

I just got back from my trip to Boston with Donna - it was the first time both of us had been away from our daughters overnight. Donna's parents stayed at our house while we were away to take care of them. Everyone did just great! The grandparents appeared to weather the experience just fine, and the girls were happy and playful. Even Donna and I did pretty well, although we were ready to get home after being away for 4 nights.

The "work" part of my trip went well. I assisted Donna with a presentation about using blogs as a tool for teacher reflection. She did the part about how a blog helped her with this, and I covered the technical aspects of getting a blog up and running. I think it went well, and I hope the participants who appeared to show a genuine interest in it follow through and get as much out of having a blog as Donna has.

There was good news in three other interests of mine during the trip

• Space: The Huygens probe successfully landed on Titan
• Macs: Apple introduced a bunch of new and intriguing products, including the Mac Mini, Pages, and upgrades to iLife
• Eagles: The Eagles won their playoff game handily, without needing to resort to any 4th and 26 miracles like they did last year

I have surprised myself by the lack of entries recently in my blog. That belies the excitement I am feeling over tomorrow's Superbowl game. My Eagles are finally in it.

Almost every sportswriter is saying the Patriots are going to win in a blowout. I guess because they have won two of the last three Superbowls and have gone something like 33-3 during the past few years. That's pretty good. But the Eagles have not been shabby either. They only lost one game in games where their starters played, and the playoff games haven't been all that close.

I admit that the Eagles are in the NFC, and the NFC has been beaten up pretty good by the AFC this year. The Eagles are also handicapped by the fact that Terrell Owens will not be 100% for the game, although he still could be well enough to make some plays. The Eagles do not have Superbowl experience, except for a few select players. It will have to be seen if that will affect their play.

So what do I think? I am troubled by the fact that I'm having a hard time separating my opinion as an Eagles fan from my opinion as a well-informed football fan. I really think the Eagles have a legitimate shot. Their defense is solid, their secondary superb, and McNabb can make plays that other quarterbacks cannot. Turnovers will be the key. The team that has the most turnovers will lose.

It's only a game. I'll be fine no matter what the outcome. But I really hope the Eagles win. And if they don't, my next wish would be for a close game. And if it isn't, then I would like to see them back in the Superbowl soon so that they can try again.

It's halftime in the Superbowl. My impressions: the Eagles are darn lucky to be tied with the Patriots 7-7. The offense has been inconsistent, although a few big plays allowed them to score the touchdown. Their defense has been quite good, although the last two Patriots' possessions have had their way with the Eagles defense.

I am trusting that Jim Johnson will figure out how to stop the Patriots' offense a little better and that Donovan McNabb will not be so erratic with his passes. Otherwise, my next blog entry will be lamenting the Eagles' loss.

The Eagles lost the Superbowl because they were the poorer team. The game didn't seem as close as the 24-21 score would indicate. McNabb did not look very good, missing many of his passes badly. Even decision-making at the end of the game (an onside kick that gave the Patriots excellent field position, and attempting to complete passes in the middle fo the field with 30 seconds left and no timeouts) implied that the coaching staff was not up to the challenge.

The Eagles had the best season of their existence, but they still came up short of giving the city of Philadelphia, and their fans, the championship they have been craving.

I always get a kick out of running to catch my bus at the end of the day. Three times in the past 6 working days, I've run to catch my bus, and each time I was able to get on before it pulled away from the bus stop.

I'm not exactly sure why I like doing that so much. Part of it is knowing that I did not have to wait at all for the bus, and so I will be getting home quicker than usual. Part of it is realizing that not many people do, can, or want to, run to catch the bus - no one seems to be that enthusiastic at the end of the day. But I think most of it is the feeling that "I won" - I was able to get on the bus that is within sight, navigating the pedestrian and automotive traffic safely, and avoiding a 10-15 minute wait for the next one.

So if you see a skinny guy running down Milam at about 5:20 PM, don't worry about it. I'm winning.

I got an amusing email the other day from another Rob Reid. He said he and his friends went trolling for websites named after them. He apparently had found mine several years ago, since he lamented the absence of the Foxy video which has not been linked on my website for about 2 years. His quote was "Needless to say, mine [his namesake's site] was the best."

I guess I'll have to add a link back in to appease my hordes of fans. I think 1 person counts as a horde, don't you?

I got a new phone at work with More Features (tm), and the handset smells like coconut. That must be because the previous owner used some beauty product that smelled of coconut. It's not an unpleasant odor, but it reminds me a little of a car air freshener.

I made a new sandwich by mistake last week. As I went to make a turkey sandwich to go along with my peanut butter sandwich on Thursday, I realized the turkey was bad (a few days too old). This was after I had already put the mustard and the cheese on the bread.

I had to make a quick call - no time for dawdling in the morning. We had no other lunchmeat in the house. So I decided to take a chance - I finished off the sandwich with some peanut butter. I like all three ingredients, so how bad can it be?

It wasn't all that bad, although I can't say I actually enjoyed it. It was edible but by about three-quarters the way through, I decided it wasn't worth it. I threw the rest away. You gotta know when to fold 'em.

I overslept yesterday. I forgot to turn on my alarm, and so I slept an hour and a half later than I had intended. When I finally did wake up, I showered, got dressed, read the paper during breakfast, helped wake up the kids, drove to the park-n-ride, caught the bus, and arrived at work.

At about 7:55 AM. I woke up at 5:50 AM. It's a sad commentary on my work life that this has to be considered "sleeping in" some days.

On the weekends, though, I have been known to sleep until 7:00 AM. Woo-hoo!

I was a little disappointed by my doctor's visit yesterday. Saturday evening, I went to bed early just thinking I was tired. But around midnight I began getting cold and having rather severe chills. In fact, I believe it was just my high fever alone (which I estimate to have been 103°F) that caused me to have some dry heaves.

I was eventually able to get to sleep around 3:30 under my 5 quilts, but for 4 days my fever lingered. My appetite was reduced, I was achey, and couldn't shake my 100.4°F fever.

Recently, the phrase "at the end of the day" has really been bothering me. I don't think I ever paid it much mind until a few months ago, when someone was continuing to use it in the context of "Well, I know it's not your responsibility, but at the end of the day, it's got to get done."

Now I hear it all the time, and I can't help counting the times I hear it in a given presentation. I guess I just have to work on getting over it. Perhaps, like getting a song stuck in your head, I just need to find something to replace it as my "most irritating" phrase. Maybe a good candidate would be "when the money hits the fan". No - I've just heard that once and mostly thought it was amusing.

Donna is taking the girls up to Dallas by herself next week. It will be the first time one of us has taken them on that long of a trip without the other parent around. I think they will enjoy the trip.

But what about me? I have to try to figure out what to do and/or how to take advantage of their absence. I already figure I'll go to see the new Star Wars movie, but maybe I should go see another movie, too. I'm also hoping that Mac OS X 10.4.1 arrives around then, since that would be the ideal time for me to spend some quality time with my computer.

Summer is back. Houston broke a record this past Saturday with a high of 96°. Sunday was almost as hot, and I wasn't really prepared.

I spent Sunday morning replacing our mailbox that had finally broken (not the results of vandalism - it just broke). It took me about 2 hours to do, and I was getting pretty warm doing it. It is mostly level, although it's leaning back and to the left a little.

Looking back on my efforts, I think I did not drink enough water. I was unusally crabby for most of the rest of the day, even a little short-tempered with my daughters. I eventually felt better by the evening. I hope to use this experience to make sure I keep myself hydrated, especially during the summer (the next 5 months).

I went to see Star Wars, Episode III, Revenge of the Sith last night. I thought the first 90 minutes were pretty bad. The effects were great - I especially the attention to detail in the backgrounds. But the plot was weak. I just didn't believe the final conversion of Anakin to the Dark Side. It seems like he just flipped a switch and decided to be evil. I think it could have been handled a lot more skillfully. Once that part was over with, though, the movie got pretty good.

So now it's got me thinking - why was I so disappointed with the movie? I think I actually liked Episode I better than this one, even though critically Episode III got better reviews. Has my taste in movies changed since then? Did I have too high expectations for this installment? Am I just getting older?

It must have been my high expectations. Surely I haven't changed. :-)

I am nervous to say it's a trend, but my days at work have been a lot more manageable for the past month or so. I've certainly complained quite a bit about the amount of work I have had to do for my job and all the overtime that went along with it. My overtime has dropped dramatically and has stayed down for the past several weeks.

The part that troubles me is I can't precisely say why. I have a few things that I think are contributing factors: I've been delegating more tasks to our offshore team, there has been someone working with me for the past 2 months who's main purpose was to help me with my workload, and our team's increasing experience with the applications we are supporting. But those are all gradual factors, and my workload has changed rather dramatically.

I think it might be a trend. If so, I should be able to continue to work on some of the "continuous improvement" goals that keep me energized at work.

It's common to take a departing employee out to lunch in my group, as recognition for the work they'd done while they were here. In the late 90's when the boom was in full swing, our group had to stop this practice because of the high turnover rates. Having a goodbye lunch every other week was not exactly great for morale.

It does establish a strange sort of dynamic. People who leave appear to be rewarded for leaving. For people in a stressful period at work or in a very active job market, they might see that as a prize to be won.

I wonder if there is there a better way to show the departing employee that you appreciate their hard work without making it seem you get a reward for quitting. Maybe a "private" lunch between the employee and their supervisor so that it's not such a group event, while still allowing the opportunity to honor the employee's hard work?

I don't think it's really a big deal. I don't see people leaving because they will have such an exciting parting event. It just seems to me like it doesn't necessarily send the right message.

Our new digital camera arrived a few weeks ago. After getting the "editor's choice" in the recent MacWorld, we chose to get the Konica Minolta DImage Z5. Our old camera had multiple problems: the battery compartment was cracked and the batteries were held in by rubber bands, it turned off at random times (the power switch was touchy), and there are about 40-50 dead pixels (very obvious in low light situations).

So what follows are my impressions of our new camera:

• Latency (time between pressing the shutter and taking the picture) is much better on the new camera. It still hesitates in low-light situations, but outdoors it is nearly instant.
• Big (2-inch) LCD very nice, 5 MP nice too, but my favorite upgraded spec is the 12X optical zoom. It provides more capabilities when taking pictures, and makes a very pleasant depth-of-field.
• The anti-shake feature works admirably with the large zoom. I took fully-zoomed (12x) pictures an an indoor sports arena with only a little smearing.
• The noise at higher ISO settings is noticeable. This is a little disappointing but only apparent for indoor pictures without a flash.
• It has several other features I have not tried much yet: movie mode with sound, and "progressive drive". Progressive drive mode will take 10 pictures per second (at a reduced resolution) for as long as you hold down the shutter. When you release the shutter, it will save the last 20 pictures taken. This is not good for indoor shots (the flash cannot fire that fast) but is intended for outdoor scenes when you don't know exactly when the picture-worthy event will occur.
• It uses regular AA batteries. the alkaline ones it came with have not been drained yet, but we'll obviously go for rechargeable ones. It will be our first experience with rechargeable AA's, so we'll see how they perform in the camera.

I'm pretty good at anagrams. Whether while playing Huggermugger, Scrabble, or a baby/wedding shower game, I usually do pretty good at unscrambling words. I figured it was just one of my special talents, but I just now realized why: my poor typing skills.

About 85% of my typographical errors are transposition errors. I do the common ones, like "teh" for "the", and my most frequent ones are words with "ld" at the end, like "coudl" for "could". But I also have typos like "estiamet" for "estimate". I have to deal with these errors so often, that I get a lot of practice at looking at mixed-up words.

I knew my horrible typing skills must serve a purpose!

I stayed up late last night to finish the most recent Harry Potter book: The Half-Blood Prince. I hadn't intended to stay up until I finished it, at around 12:30 AM, but I did. I had dabbled in the book starting yesterday morning, but I pretty much read straight through starting at 8:00 PM. I think it was more of a cliffhanger than any of the other previous books, and as such I'm very eager to see the resolution in the final book when it comes out (2008?).

It's funny how we came to get the book though.

I have developed a bad habit of not checking my emails at work very closely before hitting the "send" button. I get away with this because the spell-check process then kicks-in, and I almost always have some typo, acronym, or some random piece of data that is flagged as a misspelling. This gives me a second chance to review the email, and correct things like using "simple" instead of "simply", "of" instead of "if", and the like.

If the next version of Lotus Notes I use has live spell-check (with those red underlines) instead of a separate spell-check process, I'll have to change my habits or lower the standards of my outgoing emails.

I am going off dairy products for a week. I drink more milk than anyone I know, so it will definitely be a change for me. I'm drinking vanilla soy milk instead - it's not bad, actually.

I've been having some chronic GI symptoms for quite a while, and they haven't gone away. I thought they might be lingering affects from my stomach bug I got during my last (and only) trip to India, but a year and a half seems too long for that. So I thought maybe I'm developing lactose-intolerance.

I have mixed emotions about this experiment. On the one hand, I'm very excited at the prospect of being able to rid myself of my GI symptoms for good. On the other, I really like dairy products, so I won't enjoy the prospect of giving them up. We'll see how this week goes.

I have a lot of transposition typos, and I often type "ti" instead of "it". My email dictionary lists "ti" as a word, so it is not flagged as a misspelling. So what does "ti" mean? If it's the representation of the 7th note in a standard major scale (do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do), then I really don't think that should be in the spell-check dictionary. I would wager that there are far more misspellings of "it" as "ti" than there are deliberate and correct uses of "ti".

Most of the time, spell-check dictionaries strive to be as inclusive as possible, but this is a case where a word in the dictionary probably should be excluded.

And while I'm complaining about spell-check, why can't it be smarter and adjust to what I tend to type? It should keep track of what word I change my misspellings to and offer that as the first suggestion the next time I type the same mistake. Perhaps some spell-checking processes already do this, but I've not used them.

On Tuesday, I almost ruined a batch of chicken soup Donna worked on for four days. It's a really wonderful chicken soup recipe that I love. It takes a while to make, and all the chopping required is not fun.

At its final simmering stage, she asked me to turn the burner off when the timer went off. I was with her in the kitchen when she asked me to do this. Apparently, I acknowledged her request, but I had no memory of it. So by the time Donna finished with Amanda (who has been having bedtime issues (screaming and crying after bedtime)), she came back to find much of the broth had boiled away and some of the good stuff was baked onto the bottom of the pan.

I was shaken. I knew she had worked on it all day, and to have my inattention ruin all her work was very distressing. As it turned out, she was able to salvage it by adding some water. After I added a bouillon cube, it tasted pretty much normal (which is delicious).

Looking back, I do recall her saying something to me, but I did not hear what it was. I was too busy being stressed out about Amanda's wailing. Donna went back to try to help Amanda work through it, and I escaped to the computer room to take my mind off Amanda's troubles. When the timer went off, I didn't even hear it since I was back in the office.

So what did I learn? I learned that I have to work harder at making sure I hear and understand what Donna tells me, even if one of my daughters is doing her best to divide my attention. I also learned we need to get Amanda back on a calmer bedtime routine. Last night, she screamed for 45 minutes after we put her to bed, she woke up twice in the middle of the night, and she slept the last half of the night on the couch.

Perhaps after more than a year of riding the bus into work I have gotten more comfortable, but I almost always doze lightly on the bus ride into work. But today was the first day I ever missed my stop. I heard the *pings* that sounds when people want to be dropped off, but they didn't rouse me enough to bring me to full conciousness.

I finally opened my eyes as the bus stopped at Lamar, about 6 blocks past my stop at Bell street. It was actually a very pleasant morning for a little walk in downtown.

Our final pre-marriage car bit the dust on Monday. This was Donna's car that she purchased herself, and the 13 years we've had it were good ones. Towards the end of its life, it had several problems (air conditioner stopped working, the odometer is broken) but it ran pretty well.

What are they? I want some.

I have started taking probiotic Acidophilus tablets twice a day now. Each tablet has 500 million "live cells". I don't know exactly what "live cells" means, since all the tablets look just like regular pills (like aspirin) instead of a congealed mass from a petri dish. To be alive, don't they have to be metabolizing something? So what are they metabolizing? Are they multiplying or dying off as they sit in the container? Or maybe they're just dormant until presented with the right environment.

Anyway, I was reading O magazine by Oprah (yes, I was), when someone wrote into the health column with similar symptoms to mine after severely changing diets. My attempts to avoid dairy products helped a little, but didn't have the dramatic effect I was hoping for.

I've had 5 tablets so far, but already I think I can see an improvement. It's hard to say for sure, since I was so emboldened by its apparent success, I introduced all sorts of dairy products my body has not seen for a while. So now I can claim only a tempered success.

But Donna and I have already developed a theory why this might be the answer. Perhaps the systemic antibiotics I took after my India trip last year got rid of the good bacteria along with the bad. If so, this treatment might bring me back to a level of GI health I have not experienced since early 2004. If not, I'll have to give in and go see a specialist.

I am going to my boss' baby shower tonight, and coincidentally the MacWorld I got two days ago had the following site linked:
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

It is a really neat Java application that allows you to interactively explore the historical popularity of baby names. Donna and I spent at least 15 minutes trying the names of most of our relatives.

I drove myself into work a few times last month, mostly so that I would have my car to drive myself home after the myriad office holiday parties I went to. Since Houston's local NPR station stops their NPR programming at 7:00 PM, I got a Beatles CD to listen to on the way home. I picked the Beatles Anthology, Volume 2

This compilation of rough cuts reminded me of some of the more avante garde songs on the White Album. I instantly recalled a summer evening when I was about 12...

I needed to get to work really early on Tuesday - earlier than the buses started to run - so I drove myself into work. It was an unexpected shock, though, to experience the rush-hour traffic I usually bypass on the HOV lane when I take the bus. I sometimes get annoyed if I have to wait for the bus for more than 10 minutes, but Tuesday's experience showed me that a 10-minute wait is made up at least twice over when the bus hits that HOV lane.

I'll be sure to appreciate the bus rides a little more from now on.

A recent (temporary?) shift in roles at work means that I know have direct reports, for only the second time in my career. The first time was during the "dot-com" boom when there was a large amount of turnover and a highly-competitive recruiting environment. Within the space of a month, two people left my small group of 6, and I was the only person who could inherit their roles. Greatly overworked, that 5-month experience was not pleasant and made me feel like I did not do a good job as a supervisor.

This time, I feel more comfortable in the role and don't feel as overwhelmed, but at the same time most of my responsibilities are not as a supervisor. Mostly, I'm liaison to our client management, working on presentations or analyses, and interfacing with our India team on various escalated issues. So I haven't really been able to devote a whole lot of time to being a supervisor to my direct reports; instead, I am relying on their abilities to self-manage most of their day-to-day activities. That has worked out OK.

I have noticed one curious thing - I think one of my new direct reports is giving me the "boss laugh". I like to think I'm reasonably amusing at times, but sometimes I think this person is laughing too readily at my only marginally funny comments. It may be this person is an easy laugher, but that's not the impression I get.

I'd like to install a new junction box in my attic off of the existing light circuit to plug in my fluorescent light I found in the garage. Although I feel pretty confident I can do this safely, it sounds to me like something that only a licensed electrician can do. All things being equal, though, I'd like to be able to do this myself.

So I went on a Google Quest to see if I could tell if I can legally do this work.

I did determine that I don't have to have a license. As a homeowner, I am exempt from that requirement: Houston Electrical Licensing Exemptions. But a Dallas website implies that all electrical work must be done by an electrician unless I can prove I have the knowledge and expertise to do the job.

I think I could make this case, even given my limited handyman skills, if I could see what the electrical code was. Well, to my suprise, it is not available for free online. It appears you have to buy a copy of the National Electrical Code.

So I'll think about this some more. If I feel confident I can do this safely and correctly, I'll probably go ahead and do it. I'm not really looking forward to paying an electrician $150+ to do this for me.

Every once in a while, I'm struck by how little of what I am doing now would make sense to my past self. I've been with the same company for 7 years, but 3 years ago this project did not exist.

So, for the record (and for my future self, since my past self is unavailable), here are the tasks I listed as my having spent time on this past week. Names of people have been replaced with initials.

A happy confluence of cool weather in Houston and the standard number of adults at home this weekend (no one visiting us and neither Donna nor I traveling) allowed us to start and complete one of our winter objectives: clean out the garage.

We actually use our garage for our cars, rather than using it for a substitute basement to store anything we didn't want to look at, so this was an achievable project for one weekend. We completely emptied the garage, trashing what we could and sorting the rest, and then put it all back.

I would say we got rid of about half the things in the garage. It did not amount to all that much, but many of the items we trashed were paints or old garden supplies; some of this will take a special trip to the recycling center to dispose of properly.

Among the notable things I ran across during the project were: 2 dead rats, about 40 lethargic cockroaches (now dead), and a fluorescent light I'd like to install in the attic.

I recently relocated floors in the building where I work - from a windowless 7th floor office to a windowed 37th floor office. The office is smaller, and in fact the rooms themselves in the 37th floor are not as nice, but what it does offer is some natural light and a pretty good view.

The window is facing north and the building is on the south side of town, so I can see pretty much all of the buildings in downtown. I can't see much of the ground (except along the streets that are immediately adjacent to the building), but I can see a few highways, Minute Maid park (the roof is open), and the George R Brown convetion center.

One day last week, it was so foggy I could not see anything out my window. It was very strange to see. The fog did not burn off until about 10:00 AM.

I got the munchies yesterday at work and went down to the convenience store in the basement of my building with a coworker of mine. As I was mulling over my options from the vast array of candy bars, Whatcamacallits caught my eye. But before I could say so, my co-worker said "When I was young, I used to love Whatchamacallits."

I immediately started looking for something else. The fact that she said something about it motivated me not to get it, for fear of looking like I can't make my own decision. I ended up getting the Whatchmacallit, but I had to say something like "Actually, I am going to get the Whatchmacallit after all" to somehow excuse my selection.

Donna had a meeting she wanted to go to this afternoon, so I left work a little early to meet her there and do a "car swap" so that I could take the girls for the evening. I took them to Chick-Fil-A for dinner.

The dinner experience was OK, but neither Amanda nor Elena ate much. They were both wiggly (Amanda especially). In fact, I vetoed ice cream because they ate so little. Their wiggliness was harder for me to cope with because I had such a lousy day at work today.

But it wasn't until when we went to the play area in Chick-Fil-A that I became really uncomfortable as a parent.

I am really bad about uploading pictures to my website anymore. In the past, it has been because I have not been able to keep up with titling and putting comments on my photos in iPhoto, but at present I am essentially caught up with that. And yet I have not yet uploaded any to my website.

I have recently determined that this is because of how my online pictures are organized. It's all based on "collections", which are basically sets of pictures that are uploaded together. This made sense when my pictures were not managed by a database, since the pictures would have to be presented in a static HTML index page. But I would rather be able to upload pictures one at a time and have them available quickly on my website.

So I'm in the progress of changing my online picture presentation scheme to move away from collections. I'm thinking of transforming the collection idea into "keywords" and presenting the pictures primarily by date taken. This way, I can create a set of pictures with the same keyword (like "Glen Rose 2006") to be able to present them as a set, but also simply upload pictures with no keywords.

Look for those changes, and some new pictures, within a month or so.

Well, it didn't nearly take me as long as I thought. My design of my pictures page is complete. I'm really pleased with the layout, and it definitely encourages me to keep it updated more frequently. This week, I have uploaded 109 pictures, including two picture collections: Florida Trip 2006 and Roden Reunion 2006.

The pictures page now has three sections: a display of the latest 20 pictures added to the site, the most recent collection added along with an ability to select any other collection, and a calendar-like grid showing the number of pictures from each month and year available. These changes meant I had to update several other components, most notably the search page. I still have a few tweaks to make, but everything is functioning well.

I'm always excited when some new technological technique or toy catches my attention. I've had a few in recent weeks (Lilypond and Blender), but the last few days, it's been creating flash objects on my website via the PHP Ming functions.

If that sounds like a lot of techno-babble, well, it is. In simple terms, it's a way I can create drawings on my website that can be animated (or not), but are also vector-based, so they're resolution-independent. This originally caught my attention because someone at my wife's church wanted to know if I could help making a neat animated splash screen for their website. I said I couldn't because I didn't know how, nor have the tools, to create that type of graphics. But I realized I did have some ability to do that through PHP.

That lead to some experimentation, but that didn't last long. I then worked on getting my little bar graph-creation program converted to Flash. That was fun. Then I thought that I could use this same technique to finally fix my the counter on my Macintosh page that I never got to work beyond 99 days.

The trouble is that I want to overlay a perspective view of the counter on the image of the iMac's screen. Since the screen is tilted to the camera, it is not a perfect rectangle, so the text I put on it needs to be distorted to look right (perfect). I tried doing this with image slices, but these have to be rectangular, and it was laborious to pre-construct all possible digits to be placed on the screen. Perhaps if I could use the Ming flash tools, I could programatically distort some text and overlay it on top on the image.

My first attempts were promising, but I quickly was stymied by the lack of detailed information on how these PHP Ming functions work. I experimented some, but came to the realization that there is no facility arbitrarily distort objects with PHP Ming. I can rotate them and skew them, but I can't distort them.

So I'll have to try a different approach rather than the most robust one. I could create some digits that have the appropriate perspective already applied and then just place them on the image with PHP Ming, or maybe even the GD functions of PHP. I could ignore the perspective part of it, just skew the text, and hope it looks good enough. I'll think about it some before I start on my solution.

I may be the only one that thinks this is cool, but I just have created a flash-based pie chart with Ming via PHP. Here it is in action:

I did this to integrate with an intranet application I built at work, but mostly it was excuse to try to actually create a Flash animation with the tools I have at hand, which are pretty rudimentary. In fact, as a pie chart outside of this application, it's kind of strange. There's no way to tell what the slices represent without moving the mouse over them, and there's no title to the chart (the example above is the number of pictures on my website from each year). For my purposes, this is fine, since the intranet application supplies all this.

But doing that was surprising difficult, mostly because I found little-to-no documentation about how to use Ming in PHP. There are some examples, but nothing very comprehensive. Not knowing how the Flash model works, I had a very hard time understanding the difference between a shape, display item, sprite, button, and so on, and when you can (or should) do what to which one. Even now, I haven't been able to figure out how to ensure each new slice's label appears on top instantly (if you look closely, in some cases it fades from the previous label).

A few weeks ago, we had a team dinner to celebrate the two-year anniversary of our current project (even though it just seems like 7 years). Being the sole member of the social events committee on our team of 12 people, I had some added responsibilities that day - helping setup the restaurant space and taking our "decorations" over in advance.

I'm back from my long blogging hiatus. I had a really busy September and a pretty busy November, so it's been hard to get back into blogging. I'll try to catch up over the next few weeks.

I love it when my daughters show interest in their world. Donna and I imagine them being scientists, exploring and questioning what they see around them. A few weeks ago, Amanda pointed out the bump on her neck that went up and down when she swallowed. I explained that was part of her throat making sure the water went down into her tummy. I also told her that the water would go into her tummy even if she drank upside-down! She and Elena thought this idea was very funny. So, naturally, I offered to demonstrate this.

I got a pillow, handed Amanda a Dixie Cup of water, and went in search of a place to do a handstand. I found a place by closing my bedroom door. I put the pillow down in front of the door and did a headstand.

Now it should be noted at this point that Donna was not around. I was the primary parent for the evening and that left me with no spousal supervision.

Anyway, once I was upside down, I asked Amanda to hand me the cup. To do this, I had to remove my hand as a support, which left me supported solely by my head. I took the cup, drank a sip, and swallowed, all rather smoothly I thought. I then handed the cup back to Amanda and got down.

Once I got up off my head it hit me - my neck really hurt! I could barely move it from side to side. Amanda and Elena looked quite concerned as I put them to bed - Amanda even gave me a neck massage. As it was, I took some Advil, got the heating pad, and lay down on the bed.
I was a little worried myself as I wasn't confident I could get to sleep without moving my head at all, or what it would feel like in the morning. Even worse would have been having to explain why I would have to take a sick day from work.

As it was, I slept fine, and when I woke up my neck hurt no worse, although it was no better either. A warm shower seemed to help a little, and took took pain medicine throughout the day at work. Each day thereafter, it got a little better, and I gave Donna less frequent details about the status of my neck. After a week, I was pretty much back to normal.

I don't know exactly what I injured. It certainly wasn't bone, but it didn't feel like muscle, either. Can you injure cartilage? I don't think it had any nerves in it. Anyway, I'm very relieved that it got better and that I have no apparent serious damage.

It seems like I've been battling a cold or flu for over a month now. I know I was sick right around Christmas, and I just finished taking 3 days off last week due to a upper respiratory infection. I'm feeling good this week. I hope it lasts.

Work is also getting a little more manageable now. I find that my stress level at work is pretty much directly correlated to how much personal blogging I do. I don't feel like doing much at home except what I have to if I'm overly busy or stressed at work. So here's an entry!

My dad and stepmom are coming to stay with us for a few days, starting tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that. Donna's parents just left after Donna's trip to Seattle. The week prior to that I took off to paint the hallway (and to take care of other little things around the house). The week before that, my Mom ended her traditional New Years visit. And before that, it was Christmas. It seems like a lot has been going on recently, and it will seem strange not to be having (or preparing to have) houseguests.

Well, shortly after the release date for Book 7 in the Harry Potter series was set (July 21, 2007), we quickly sprang into action to reserve our copy. Rather than use amazon.com and suffer the day or two delay for shipping, Donna decided to reserve her copy at the local Borders bookstore. The bookstore is not sure if they'll be open at midnight that evening or not, but even if they are, Donna isn't sure if she'll be among the midnight crowd to get the new book at the earliest possible moment.

I think she should go if they open at midnight. Yeah, we're not spring chickens anymore, but I think it would be fun to be part of that event. Everyone there will be so excited to get their hands on the book, I'm sure it will be a fun place to be. I went to a recent Apple store opening, which happened to coincide with when the rest of the family were in Dallas. It was fun to experience that, even with the 45-minute wait in line (I went mostly to get the free t-shirt).

Regardless of the midnight timing or not, I'm planning on being primary/sole parent that Saturday while Donna reads, and finishes, the book. I'd be very surprised if she takes more than 24 hours to complete it.

By coincidence, I ran into an online analysis of who is represented by the "R.A.B." who left the note at the end of Book 6. I'm sure that analysis is correct. If you're interested, look in Wikipedia for that entry, but be warned - it may spoil some of the book 7 surprises.

For a long time, I've thought it would be fun to try my hand at oil painting. The biggest impediment to this is my acknowledged absence of talent for painting or drawing. I never really got into art class back in school, and my idle drawings rarely get beyond doodles. But the vibrant colors in oil paintings have continued to entice me.

Last month, I drew Foxy in various poses as she slept. The small doodles turned out fairly good, in that you can tell they're a dog and they sort of even look like Foxy. It started me thinking that maybe I could develop a talent for drawing, if I worked at it.

But starting this process is still a little daunting. We went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Sunday to participate in their weekly childrens' arts and crafts event. That day, it was self-portraits with tempura paint. The girls had fun (even if they didn't do portraits), but I did not try to paint anything. I had a case of performance anxiety. I wasn't about to try to tackle a human face, and I didn't feel inspired about any particular subject. For that matter, I didn't have a feel for the paints and how to use them to produce a particular image.

So I suggested to Donna that I'd like to try painting at home. I can then experiment with the paints and brushes at my own pace. Perhaps I can take a painting class after a while. I think I'd like that.

We got a letter in the mail a few weeks ago advising us that we need to paint our garage door the same color as our house to remain in compliance with our neighborhood's deed restrictions. This is amusing for two reasons:

1. Our garage door is white, and our primary house color is Navajo White
2. The day after we got this letter, our brick planter in our front yard fell apart, causing much more of an eyesore than our too-white garage door

Generally I am fine with having an active deed restriction enforcement policy. I understand the rationale, and I did agree to abide by it when I moved into the neighborhood. But the deed restrictions do not say that the garage must be painted the same color as the house. There is a reference to "house painting that is inconsistent with the color schemes predominant in the neighborhood" being prohibited. It just seems to me that this is not a serious enough issue to warrant a deed restriction violation report.

So, partly to indulge my creative side, and partly to be a rebel and stick it to the man, I am not painting the entire garage door Navajo White. Instead, I'm going to carefully paint the areas between the garage door panels and the interior part of the panels Navajo White. The depressed areas (what I call the "trim") I'll leave unpainted (white).

I've completed the top and bottom rows of the garage door using this method already, and I must say I really like how it's turning out. Donna would prefer I just paint the whole thing Navajo White (it certainly would be faster that way), partly because she thinks this will not be sufficient to ward off a second deed restriction letter. Indeed, as we drive around the neighborhood, I am unable to find a single garage that has more than one color on the door. We'll see what happens.

I was instant-messaging with one of the India members of my team, and we were discussing who would take responsibility for something. I thought he should, but he was reluctant. In the end, I relented with a statement of "Very well." If I were to say that to someone here in the US, I trust the person I was talking to would pick up on the nuance of that phrase that implies I am accepting, but doing so reluctantly. I'm not at all sure if my India colleague got the same message.

I almost said "OK" as my response, but that did not set the right tone. Even knowing that the tone may be lost in the IM-India exchange, I used what verbiage I thought best communicated my perspective. Perhaps he did pick up on that, or perhaps my using it in this context will help him build that awareness.

Blah. I was going to participate in my first team building event on my new project this afternoon (BBQ and kickball), but it was canceled due to the threat of rain. Now, personally, I don't consider getting wet a bad thing in Houston in June, but what's more irksome is that just about every summer day in Houston has the threat of bad weather. The forecast said rain was possible yesterday, but it didn't rain at all as far as I could tell.

The event will be rescheduled, but Donna and the girls made arrangements for their evening, so I'm left with trying to figure out what to do. Since no one will be at home, perhaps I'll go see a movie after work, but there's not a whole lot of movies showing that I am willing to pay $8.50 for.

The release of the final Harry Potter book is now close enough to warrant some excitement. Donna stopped by the local Borders to verify she was on the reservation list, since she hadn't gotten any confirmation. She was, and while she was there she got some vital information about the evening. They will be handing out wristbands starting at noon on Friday, July 20 to the people in line to identify what group they are in. At 12:01 AM on Saturday they will start letting people into the store, by group, to purchase their copy. So she can no plan on getting in line around 12:00 PM on Friday to get her wristband, and then return to the store close to midnight.

Donna has graciously been allowing me to participate in the planning of her approach to the evening, since I won't be the one waiting in line. What if some malicious book-buyer turns to the last chapter and shouts out the ending (e.g. "Voldemort kills Harry!") to the people in line? Donna will have the iPod as a bit of protection. The parking lot might be crowded, so she should be prepared to walk a ways to the store. Shouldn't she take the camera or the audio recorder?

Seeing the most recent Harry Potter movie (The Order of the Phoenix) did not help quell our anticipation. We both agreed it was a good movie and true to the book; Donna liked it best of all the Harry Potter movies so far. I enjoyed it a great deal, too, but I may have liked movie #3 (The Prisoner of Azkaban) just as well.

The day we saw the movie happened to be the day that marked Amanda and Elena's 2,000th day since they were born. We did not celebrate the occasion beyond going to Chili's and getting them desert, since their half-birthday would be just a week later ("Halfty Birthday to You").

I played broomball last night with my co-workers on my new project, and it was different than the previous times I had played with my previous project. Part of it is a demographic shift: my new group is decidedly younger and so they are, generally speaking, more athletic. But another part of it is cultural: my new project is made up of consultants (except for me) and, stereotypically or not, they played a little more aggressively than I was used to. That's all great (I'm pretty competitive myself), but it meant that I was no longer among the top 1 or 2 players. I was top 40%, I think, but not top 10%. Part of it, however, is me. I'm 7 years older than I was the first time I played, and my body just doesn't want to do what I think it should do in all cases.

I wore polyprene knee wraps under my jeans to give them extra support, but that still didn't keep me from having a nasty fall during the game. I was moving along fine with the ball, when suddenly I fell, pretty much on my own accord. It felt like I twisted my knee, and must have looked pretty bad, since everyone stopped playing to make sure I was OK. It felt fine after a few minutes, though.

The other injury I incurred isn't attributable to my lack of skill or youth. Someone whacked my thumb with their stick. That hurt for a while, and started swelling almost immediately, so I pressed it to the ice at every opportunity.

So today, my right knee is good and swollen and rather sore, which was a surprise since it didn't feel at all when I went to bed. My thumb looks swollen and bruised, but I think it's going to look worse tomorrow. It's only slightly sore.

It may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not, really. I'm realizing that I ain't as young as I used to be, and that I may have to start scaling back on what I try to do. But I don't think I'm ready to give in quite yet. I'm still going to get out on the ice the next time a Broomball event comes around.

Over the holiday weekend, I figured out the correct RSS/XML syntax for creating a podcast feed by hand. It turns out it's very picky about the syntax. But now that I've done it, it won't be hard to add new audio files to my podcast feed. If you want to subscribe to the podcast feed in iTunes, use the following link:
itpc://www.robreid.com/podcasts/robcast.xml
If you want to subscribe to it with something other than iTunes, use this link:
http://www.robreid.com/podcasts/robcast.xml

I don't know how often I'll add a new podcast to the feed, but it will likely be very sporadically. I'm guessing just a few a year, unless we really do start recording the girls every Monday. The podcast is starting out with three episodes:

• Going to SuperTarget before Hurricane Rita (2005)
• Buying the final Harry Potter book (2007)
• Reactions after the first day of Kindergarten (2007)

Last night I experienced my first major car wreck. I was traveling on US-59 S right around where it goes over Shepherd at about 10:15 PM (I was returning home after a holiday dinner with my work group). Someone going much faster than me clipped the back-left side of my car, which caused me to careen into the concrete wall lining the edge of the road. My car bounced off the wall and ended up in the second lane of traffic with a scrape on my back bumper and a completely crumpled front end. The car who hit me paused for a moment on the other side of the road and then drove off.

I can describe all this because of the damage I can see on my car and a witness' account. My memory of the event is far less detailed. I never saw the car (truck, van, scooter?) that hit me, either before, during, or after the collision. I have no idea if I spun, or how many times I spun if I did (it appears I spun at least once based on the damage and where I ended up). I recall a brief flash of seeing my car headlights pointed right at the concrete wall and then my next memory is me sitting in my car with the deflated airbag in front of me and a lens missing from my eyeglasses. I was not quite all together yet when I got out of the car and walked toward the shoulder.

Thankfully, a bystander called 911, and two others stopped as well, before the fire engine came. Two tow trucks came, and finally several cop cars. They took down the information they needed, and I tried to stay tuned in while taking stock of my injuries, which amounted to nothing more than a bruised arm and side.

I must say that my experience will Allstate has been very good. I called them last night after I got home (at about 12:00 AM), and they took all my information down efficiently. By this morning, my information was in Enterprise Rental Car company's computer system, so I had a practically paid-for car by 11:30 AM (I'm out of pocket $2/day for up to 30 days). By 3:00 PM, a claims adjuster called me and verified all the details of my claim. That call ended with the promise to have someone go out to my car to assess the damage and to send me a $600 check due to my being injured by an uninsured motorist (I guess all hit-and-run incidents get classified this way). By the people's accounts at the scene, my car seems like it will be a total loss. So when Donna returns from her business trip in Tampa, we'll have to go car shopping to see what lucky car gets to replace my 2006 Saturn Ion.

You can see for yourself, if you want. I went to clean out my car today and I took the video camera with me to give it a video inspection (MOV, 3.0 MB). I also captured some stills from the video.

So I am still in pretty good shape. My left side is still fairly sore, but only when I twist or clench in certain ways. My arm soreness is almost too slight to mention, but I do have some overall aches now, albeit (albethem?) very minor aches.

It's been almost a month since my car wreck, and I'm doing quite well. The physical effects from the crash had an interesting progression:
   - day 1: sharp pain in my left side when twisting or clenching, minor bruise on inside of left arm
   - day 2: pain lessening
   - day 3: sore neck when turning my head; moderately severe vertigo with nausea when I look down or up
   - day 4: very sore neck, dizziness a little less and no nasuea
   - day 5: sore neck a little better, dizziness lessened, a big sneeze reaggravated my side
   - day 10: neck soreness almost totally gone, dizziness very minor

Now at day 30, I still have to admit to a sense of very slight dizziness when I look down sometimes, but it is very minor. I fact, I played soccer two nights ago, and took several tumbles, but felt no accident-related effects afterwards and never felt even slightly dizzy.

Another unanticipated side effect from the accident is that I discovered more than my dad, wife, and Jeff read my blog. I had responses from one of my former coworkers (who I hadn't talked to in almost a year) and a friend from high school (that I hadn't talked to in over 20 years!) after reading about my wreck. That was surprising and heartwarming.

There are other accident-related storied to tell, but I'll leave them for other posts.

Never having been in an accident before, I never had to challenge my auto insurance company with a claim. My experience with Allstate was a very positive one, and I definitely have no intention of shopping around for a different insurer. The check they sent me was more than I expected since they gave me a great value assessment on my former car.

So my first instinct would be to apply this cash to the down payment of my replacement car and end up with a small monthly payment or short term loan (after all, I had just one year left to pay on the car). But Donna had the good sense to think some more about it. We have to make some bathroom repairs, and we'd have to get a loan to fund that remodeling effort. We hadn't yet shopped around for rates on loans, but here the Saturn dealer was offering 0% financing on new car purchases! Hmmm....

We ended up putting a modest down payment on the new car and financing the rest at 0% for 5 years. So we are now free to apply that cash from the claim to our remodeling effort and finance the remainder. In effect, we are getting a 0% loan for a large portion of our bathroom remodeling.

We went to The Great Indoors on Friday and enlisted their services to oversee the remodeling effort. They should be contacting us this week to schedule a project manager to come out and give us an estimate of the labor costs. That is pretty exciting, since it's our first concrete step to actually getting started on the long-overdue bathroom repairs.

I do dislike transitions. They're actually a little invigorating and exciting, but they're generally always painful.

I got a call yesterday from a Senior Executive saying that they needed some help on performing the "due diligence" on a new deal (that is potentially quite large) for taking on support of 900+ applications (in this context, "due diligence" is the initial investigation phase to collect and analyze as much data about the potential deal as possible to confirm that the original exchange of information between Accenture and the client does not contradict any assumptions). Getting in on the beginnings of a large deal like this could be a great role for me, since it would likely lead to a long-term role. That combined with the fact that I've not been 100% utilized recently in my current role which ends this summer regardless made me eager to get involved.

The problem, as always, is ending my current role. I *really* like the client I'm working with now; it's a striking difference from my previous client which endemically treated contractors as resources to expend, rather than partners to value (although some individuals there were very supportive). I want to not only live up to my professional responsibilities here before I move on, but I also don't want to leave my client manager in a lurch.

I try to reassure myself that it wouldn't be so painful if there wasn't mutual regard between myself and my client contacts. If they disliked me, or I disliked them, it would be a much less stressful transition (which is how my last transition was like, now that I think about it). So overall, I'm glad that this transition is somewhat painful.

The way these things tend to start, it's very important to get involved swiftly and visibly with the new project, since these are among the first impressions and contacts the client will have with some of the people that may be coming onto the project to stay. That means that if I am to get involved in the new opportunity, it has to be immediately or not at all so someone else who has the time can start.

Thankfully, both my current project's Accenture leadership and the client manager are willing to work with me to allow this to happen. It all hinges, of course, on my ability to complete my deliverables by the end of this month. I'm confident I can do that, but it will make for a busy month. Although, frankly, an uncomfortably busy month will be a nice change of pace from the slow drip of activity I've had recently.

I have been looking at a unique opportunity to determine how fast my thumbnail grows. When I got in my car wreck last December, the depoying air bag's cover hit my thumbnail, and gave me a small bruise. I suppose it was coincidence that it happened to line up almost exactly with the edge of my lunula. Since then, it has been traveling up my thumbnail, more or less intact.

Carefully measuring its position, I can see that it has traveled about 6/16 of an inch since December 11, which is 70 days ago. Some quick calculations indicates that this translates to almost 2 inches (5 centimeters) a year. This is 0.0000000035 mph, in case you were wondering.

Searching on the web, I can find growth rates between 0.8 and 1.8 inches per year, so that puts me right on the edge of the upper bounds. If those figures are accurate, perhaps my thumbnail just grows faster than most, or maybe my thumbnail injury did not move along precisely with my thumbnail growth as I'm assuming.

I got a surprise Valentines day present from my wife last month: a bear from Build-a-Bear Workshop. She got one for my car, actually.

You see, back when I got my first Saturn, which was the first car I bought myself, I was very excited about it. I thought it would be fun to have a representation of the other 8 planets in my Saturn. I had a Mercury thermometer, a small glass Earth hanging from my mirror, a Mars bar wrapper, and a small Pluto figurine in the back window. When we started dating, Donna helped me get a few others: postcards of Venus de Milo and Neptune. I never did get Uranus or Jupiter (although I thought about spilling some red nail polish to make a great red spot).

So for Valentine's Day this year, Donna got me a bear with a solar system t-shirt. It stays in my car as its mascot. It took a few weeks for me to come up with a name, but once I realized it should take on the name of a moon of Saturn, I just had to pick one. Most of the names of Saturn's moons sound feminine. I sort of like the names Tethys and Enceladus, but in the end, I chose Mimas.

Naming the bear after a moon of Saturn is particularly appropriate because the bear's pants keep falling down. He really needs some suspenders.

Ever since my car accident I've experienced some vertigo of varying degrees. Except for the week after the accident, it has been very mild and only when I moved my head in certain ways. It was so mild, in fact, it never prevented me from doing anything - I continued to play soccer (and broomball) without any ill effects (although I wasn't very good at either to begin with). But since it had lingered for all these months, I scheduled a doctors visit for this week (tomorrow).

As luck would have it, though, I recently realized my symptoms have disappeared. I can't say for sure when it was (since they were so mild to begin with, I may have been symptom-free for several days before I noticed), but it seems like it was late last week. So now, I think I'll be canceling my doctor's visit.

There's part of me that says I should still go, but it really feels like this is a permanent state, rather than a temporary cessation of symptoms. And if I have no symptoms, there's really nothing for me to say at the doctors office. If the symptoms recur, I can always schedule a new appointment.

It's been a while since I saw a movie. It was Vantage Point as I recall (which was not all that good). But the summer movie season is starting and there are several ones I would like to see:

• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: opening May 16
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: May 22
• Sex and the City: May 30
• Get Smart: Jun 20
• Wall-E: Jun 27
• Hancock: Jul 2

These movies are listed here for my benefit only so I can see what movies I'd like to see - or at least which ones I once wanted to see but then didn't make a point to go see them.

I started to feel a small "dry patch" in my throat last night, which has grown into a full-fledged, but mild, sore throat today. As this is my only symptom (although perhaps I am more tired than normal), this feels like a cold.

Another indication that this is just a cold is that I am especially hungry. For some reason, I get hungry when I have a cold. It has been that way for as long as I can remember. I packed leftover macaroni and lasagna for my lunmch today. I ate my macaroni at 8:00 AM and my lasagna at 9:00 AM. I guess I'll have to buy my lunch when I get hungry again.

Amanda complianed about having a tummy ache and a headache this morning (although she does this rather frequently so I didn't really pay any attention to it, especially since she continued to play rather vigorously), but her forehead felt a little warm. Her under-arm temperature was 98.2°, which is technically a fever, but not high enough for us to do anything about it just yet. It may be that she'll stay home from VBS with me tomorrow if her fever gets worse.

If it wasn't already clear from my previous post, I have uploaded some select pictures from my Kelleys Island trip and my visit to West Grove.

I stumbled upon instructions on how to create a water sprinkler toy last week, and they made it sound easy enough for even me. I am not a "handy man" by any stretch of the imagination, so I was excited by the prosepct of making something myself.

So on Saturday, I took the girls to Home Depot to get the materials. It took me a long time because I am not familiar with any of the materials (OK - I know what PVC pipe is, but that's about it). It took me an especially long time to fing the "misters" that would provide the pleasant spray. I ultimately had to settle for nozzles that didn't say "misting" on the label, but they turned out to be a fairly good facsimile. The other shopping challenge I had was my purchase of a "hole punch" that would make the neat little holes that I could fit the nozzles into. Only after I destroyed the tool by whacking it with a hammer against the PVC pipe did I realize it was designed to make holes in a garden hose instead. I used a drill to make the holes.

Even despite my novice handyman status, this project was fairly easy and fun. I did have difficulty making the right size holes in the PVC pipe, since I was determined to fit the 5/32" nozzle ends into a 5/32" drill hole but the threading on the nozzles were wider and never bit into the pipe, no matter how hard I pressed and turned. Once I made the hole 3/16" wide, it worked fine. There is also one nozzle that doesn't spray. Since that's just 1 nozzle out of 10, I haven't diagnosed it yet. I'm sure there's just some obstruction in the nozzle that I can clear once I take it out and examine it.

So now I have this very homemade-looking water arch that looks identical to the one shown on the Instructables site. It's light and easy to setup (although it's a little bulky), and the girls like playing in it. Frankly, I enjoyed walking through it during my brief breaks from cutting the grass last evening. Refreshing!

Building it made me remember how much I enjoy water features. Before the girls were born, I had ideas to make a water fountain in the backyard. Flush with my recent minor success building water a feature, I'm thinking about that again. But even do-it-yourself fountains get a little pricey ($100 is probably as cheap as I could do it), so I doubt I'll start that until our bathroom remodeling is paid off.

A group at work (what Accenture calls a "community," which is a group of geographically related, if not project-related, employees) was planning a meeting with a "games" portion at the end. There were going to be 3 Wiis (Bowling, Boxing, and Trivia), Bingo (I'm still puzzled why this game was selected), and Pictionary. Excellent! Pictionary is my game.

I've been told that one way that you can identify a personal strength are those tasks that seem fun and effortless for you, but others find difficult or laborious. I've discovered one of my strengths that way at my current project: visualizing concepts, diagrams, or process flows in a presentation or handout.

I've done a lot of process design and communication in my current project, which includes developing the materials for that. Rather quicly, I became the person putting together the presentations. At first, it was just because I knew the material and had the time, but over time I started getting ad-hoc requests to translate someone's scribbles into a coherent, pleasant, and understandable display. I enjoy doing that, so I've never complained.

So now I'm known as the expert for diagrams and regularly get such requests from my team. Yesterday, in fact, my manager came to me with some scribbles, which I converted into some diagrams in Powerpoint a few hours later. That afternoon, he mentioned multiple times how great they were, and how when he showed it to his peers and his manager they appreciated the graphics and thought it really made the concept clear. Personally, I thought this was a little over-the-top for just a couple of Powerpoint slides - it was easy. But I had to remind myself that this is not false praise from him, but a genuine appreciation of something that he finds difficult or impossible to do.

I'm finding it hard to translate "Powerpoint artist" into a substantial item on my internal Accenture resume, but it has lead me to think that perhaps I should seek future roles that allow me to continue to utilize this strength of mine.

I have always been unusually skinny. In fact, I've sometimes been on the "unhealthy" side of the chart when I compare my weight and height, even though for my body type I've never felt like I've been too underweight. My dad had mentioned a few times that once he hit the age of "x", he started putting on weight. This magical age "x" has changed every few years as I pass it and don't gain any weight.

But now that I've passed 40, it seems like perhaps I am starting to gain a little weight. For the longest time, I was just about at 145 lbs. Now, however, my weight is more consistently 150. And yesterday, wearing just a t-shirt and pajama pants, the scale reported my weight as 155. 155?!?

I have never had to deny myself any food craving I've had, but if my weight continues to climb, I will have to start doing so. I have no idea how easy or hard that will be for me. I almost always have an evening snack before I go to bed. I think I could stop doing that without much difficulty - if I have to. Other behaviour modifications (like consistent exercise) might not be so easy.

So I think to start, I'll try to weigh myself consistently and chart my weight. Donna models the right way to do this (without the data collection and Excel charting). If 155 is just a blip, or even if that's my new stable weight, I doubt I'll act. But if my weight continues to trend upwards, I'll stop indulging every little food craving I get and see if that does the trick.

Well, now I really will have to get a Facebook page. My wife informed me yesterday that she had one! I am so used to her checking with me to help her perform whatever new computer task she wants to do (even if she is more than capable of figuring it out herself), that I was truly shocked that she had a Facebook page without any help from me!

Some of my friends (real friends, not Facebook friends, obviously) had indicated I should get on Facebook. I think I really ought to, since it appears that people are relying on it to keep connected. I suspect I'd actually like it, since I like fiddling with my own web page from time to time.

So expect my Facebook page to appear within the next few weeks. For those of you that read this blog, you'll be getting a friend request from me shortly thereafter.

On the first Friday of every month, the main Accenture office building where I used to work has a "breakfast social". I have never gone to this because it would take time away from my work at my client, since I'm rarely ever at that office (it's not even my "official" home office location anymore). But today, I thought I would stop by for breakfast which would accomplish two additional tasks:

One of my favorite comic strips of all time was one that was handed out at my Linguistics class. Click on the image below to see the whole thing.

It still makes me laugh!

I am far too excited and proud about a small project I completed at home this weekend. I finally added a new outlet in the attic so that I could hang up and plug-in the fluorescent light that has been sitting up there for about 8 years. Up until now, the attic was lit by one incandescent light bulb, which was laughably insufficient for the space. And now that we are starting to officially use the attic as part of our filing/storage system, I wanted to make sure the attic was usable.

I had never added an outlet to an existing circuit before, so it was unknown territory for me. I have a general home care book (from Home Depot) that describes how to add to an existing circuit, so at least I had some confidence that I was connecting the correct wires to each other. The job was also made much easier when I realized that I could hang the fluorescent light first, and then run an extension card to plug it in. That way, at least the attic would be lit while I was working in it.

Now I have to resist the urge to go up there every day just to bask in the wonder of my newly-installed light. Elena helped me clean up some of the attic yesterday (where there is flooring, it had been covered with bits of wood, insulation, and in many places, nails), but there is little else to do up there now. Maybe I can come up with something else to do up there before it gets way too hot to set foot in the attic (in about a month).

Today marks the end of the two days off I took between projects.

I just placed my order for my first digital SLR camera. I am really excited! My budget was $1500, and for that I got:
- Nikon D60 body
- Nikon AF-S 18-200mm lens
- Wireless remote shutter release
- Extra battery
- UV filter (to protect the lens)
- Video cable

This is shortly after my Dad's visit, during which he let me play with his ultra-fancy Nikon D90 (with multiple copies of most accessories). I took some pictures just during the 4 days I got to use it that I could not have taken with my existing digital camera (which is held together with rubber bands):
- Using low shutter lag to take pictures exactly when I want to: Elena twirling, Amanda twirling
- Using the optic of the zoom lens to get a nice depth-of-field: Amanda hunting Easter eggs

So hopefully, next week, I'll be enjoying my new Nikon D60. I can't wait!

I got my much-anticipated Nikon D60 DSLR yesterday. I was very excited to get it and relished the unboxing and assembly of all the parts: body, lens, camera strap, little viewfinder cover when taking timer or remote shots. Holding it in my hand and just operating the zoom on the lens feels wonderful. I’m really happy that it was delivered to our house in time for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday get together this weekend. I’m looking forward to getting to learn its many controls and taking some fabulous pictures in Richardson.

The back display was particularly striking. It had a full-screen dashboard of the various settings of the camera, including a visual representation of the aperture and shutter speed. It looks really nifty. But I then quickly realized why those graphics were so impressive, taking up the entire display: the D60 has no live preview, so that I have to look through the viewfinder to frame the shot.

I was dumbfounded. What digital camera doesn’t have a live preview? Isn’t that one of the great advantages of a digital camera – being able to view the picture you are about to take without having to hold the camera up to your eye? Surely the most expensive digital camera I’d ever purchased would have such a basic feature, wouldn’t it?

After some research, the answer is decidedly “no”. Apparently, there are rather tricky technical issues with providing a live-preview in a DSLR that are only recently being overcome, not to mention that it drains the battery very quickly. My father’s Nikon D90 (which is the only DSLR I’ve used for any length of time) is the cheapest Nikon DSLR to offer it, and it is twice the price of the Nikon D60. There are other DSLRs to offer live-preview, but it’s by no means a standard feature.

So I’m working on getting over that shock. I have to get back in the mindset of my old film-based SLR, which obviously had no live preview. Compared to that, this DSLR is exquisite. I’m sure it will help once I start getting some results out of the new camera. I’m fully expecting the pictures it takes to be wonderful. I need to get over it - with a computer purchase looming in our near future, I don’t see upgrading to a D90 just yet. Maybe someday. Of course, by the time that “someday” comes around, I suspect there will be other options that will make both the D60 and D90 look rather outdated.

Well, my first 140 pictures with my new Nikon D60 was a rousing success. Although I was initially shocked that the D60 had no live preview, that didn't matter much when I started using the camera. With it, I was able to take pictures with great depth-of-field, some where the timing of the shot was critical (using the low shutter lag of the D60), and where a long optical zoom was helpful. There was one picture where not having the live preview was awkward (taking a close-up picture of a flower), but I didn't miss it any other times.

So the current verdict is that it's a great camera. I'm looking forward to taking many more pictures with my new fancy Nikon D60.

One of the pictures I took at my daughter’s last swim meet had a really interesting splash effect. Most of the pictures that turn out well have a lot of water splashing and you can recognize who the swimmer is. In this case, it appears that two water drops of about the same size collided in midair to produce a “crown”. Look closely in the upper-left area of this picture and you might see a small water drop that looks like a flower.

http://picasaweb.google.com/glenshiregators/Meet3VsAshtonVillage#5350348430115133794

I’ve seen this effect in pictures where people use strobe lights to try to capture water droplets striking a surface, but I never imagined I’d see this shape at the local pool. Neat!

My camera is dangerous. I love my (still new) Nikon D60 DSLR, and I’m still using it whenever I can. I finished my stint as my daughter’s swim team photographer this week, and I continued to get compliments on the photographs I took every week. In fact, the swim team organizers are looking for someone to bring an LCD projector so they can show the pictures during the swim party this weekend.

And this past weekend, I took a few pictures at a “water day” event at my family’s church. There were only a few people there, but I had my camera with me and tried to get some good splashy action shots. About half of them were good enough to share, and after posting them to my Picasa album, I get several compliments.

Water pictures are especially dramatic with my new camera. The good optics combined with the low latency of the shutter release (so that I can take a picture precisely when I want to, and not 2 seconds later) allow me to get people’s faces with abstract water blobs seemingly floating in air. It’s the kind of shot you can’t get with a typical point-and-shoot digital camera.

People just don’t realize that it’s not actually that hard with the right equipment (which I now have). Granted, I do color-correct the photos, only show people the good ones, and crop almost all of them (cropping photos correctly makes a huge difference), but it still isn’t difficult.

So the dangerous part is that I like taking pictures with my new camera, but when I do people are really excited about the results. I foresee being asked to be the official/unofficial photographer for future events. That’s not all bad, but I don’t want it to feel like a burden or that I’m obligated to be the photographer for every event.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to find the right balance. In the mean time, I’ll enjoy taking photos and the ego trip I get from all the effusive compliments afterwards.

A few months ago, I was moved at work from sharing a conference room (which afforded a certain amount of privacy) to what is called a “trading bench”. This is basically one step down from cubicles, in that I’m sitting at a long desk with people on either side of me. I have some desk space and a low (3’) wall facing me. Although I can do my work OK, I have no space to personalize and little-to-no privacy.

To block out some nearby conversations, I’ve started occasionally using my headphones. I’d been bringing in my CD collection, a few at a time, to rip onto my work computer so that I can listen to music when I need to block out the background chatter. For whatever reason, I stumbled upon the iTunes Radio Stations, which are a large listing of streaming audio from various internet sites. This is really nice, since I can listen to and discover new songs in categories of my choosing.

I tend not to listen to NPR at work, since that actually distracts me from what I’m supposed to be doing, but I do listen to pop music, guitar instrumentals, and a SomaFM station called Lush which is what I’ve been listening to a lot recently. It seems to be the right balance between being entertaining and ignorable.

--- For those of you reading this in Facebook, I suggest you go to my blog page directly at http://www.robreid.com/weblog/. It is much more readable there. ---

Today I’ll tell you the tale about when I got trapped in the Waste Management Smoking Patio. I call it “Trapped in the Waste Management Smoking Patio”

Almost 2 years ago, I had a bad car wreck that totaled my Saturn Ion. Amazingly, I had no serious injuries, save for some severe dizziness a few days later. It was so bad that I went to the doctor that day.

The diagnosis was there was nothing permanently damaged, but that if I wanted an MRI, the doctor would be willing to order that procedure. I said that as long as it got better, an MRI seemed unnecessary to me.

That's where I thought we left it, but a week or so later, I got the following letter in the mail.

I ignored the letter, but have found it quite amusing ever since. Forgetting to have an MRI of your brain seems like evidence right there that you really need the MRI of your brain. I wonder what the person who filled out that note thought my state of mind was, and if they thought the note was going to be helpful.

---- Facebook users – go to my actual blog to see a more legible version of this note ----

I was always a high achiever academically in school, and my favorite subject was math. I got into a “fast math” program that taught Algebra I and II in middle school. I loved it, and I now wish I remembered the long-hand way to compute square roots I learned in that class. The next year, as a freshman in high school, I took geometry (typical for a 9th grader) and pre-calculus (decidedly not typical). The end result was that by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had run out of math classes to take at my high school (pre-calc was as far as my small school went). The solution we came up with was for me to take evening math classes as a local college.

I was doing some menial task at work on Friday - data entry, essentially - when I went to enter the name of "Cain, Nicole". It was supposed to resolve into an email address as part of the process. I moved on and went back to check my work, and realized I it hadn't resolved into a proper email address. I had typed in the wrong name: "Cain, Valerie".

It took me a minute to recognize where this came from - Valerie was someone I had worked with in 1995. I would not have come up with her name if you asked me, but there it was, and I had typed it. It brought back a flood of the names of people that I had worked with back then, people who I had not thought of in years.

I spent a few minutes trying to satisfy my curiosity about some of them. Many were on LInkedIn. So now I'm considering adding them to my network on LinkedIn to see if I might be able to meet them again. They were the group where I had my first "real" job after college, so there is a fondness I have for that job and the people that worked there. I'm not sure what I'd say to them, but it feels like it would be "neat" to say hi.

But I have not yet made the plunge yet of connecting with them. We'll see if I do before our next trip back to the north east this summer, where I would have the opportunity to see them.