Fairly Symmetrical
Personal Archives
09/03/2007
Yes, I know, long time no update. Bad Eric, no doughnut. :)
So much to tell, although if you watch the gallery some of it won't be news. Ollie's second tooth popped out a while back, right next to the first. Jenny and I were coincidentally talking about when his second would appear, and I happened to look in his mouth--and there it was!
He's changing so fast right now. He's just started into 6-9 month clothes (at 8 months--if he stays on this growth curve he'll be 18lb. at a year, which means he'll be wearing 12-month clothes until he's about two :-P), so there are new cute clothes to wear. He's pulling up from sitting to standing all by himself, and in fact at this point I think he'll skip crawling. He can scoot forward if he wants to, but given that he can pull himself up, he loves to stand, and if you give him your hands to help him balance, he can shakily "walk" forward... All he really needs is balance and practice: I give him a month before he's walking. I could be wrong though, he seems to alternate developing physically and mentally, so maybe he'll get to cruising and plateau there for a few months.
He loves books; just going to Barnes & Noble and walking down the kids' aisle (or heck, sitting down with a book at a cafe table) puts a huge smile on his face. Not surprising given his parents, but very gratifying. :)
He likes being upside down, too; I think he's either going to be a gymnast or a monkey, and the jury's out on which. He's figured out he can hook his toes into my ever-present belt and push up (or, more often, out); today in B&N he started adding the step of dropping his head between his arms so that he's on the verge of doing a somersault down my chest. So naturally I just grab him and toss his knees over my shoulder so he's hanging there, and he's grinning and laughing like a maniac. I'm telling you, all he needs is a prehensile tail.
He gives kisses, too, lots and lots of kisses. I hope he stays this affectionate; I know the culture will try and beat it out of him, but when he hugs me or kisses me it really is the best thing in the world.
He starts daycare tomorrow, twice a week. I know Jenny's really stressed out about it, and so am I. I'm so used to seeing Jen and Ollie pop in and out, or come over to my desk at home to see what I'm doing/steal my glasses/give me a kiss, and now that won't happen on Tuesday and Thursday. It's kind of sad to be passing so much of Ollie's time off to someone else. I'm so spoiled working at home, I get to see all the firsts in person and not miss anything. So hopefully he doesn't, like, walk for the first time at daycare (or at least, if he does, they don't tell us ;)).
Speaking of firsts, just yesterday he figured out the "M" sound. He's been saying "Dada" for a while now, but the closest he could get to "M" was "B" (so Jenny has been "Bob" for a few weeks...). Then yesterday he said "Mob", which was pretty close, and then he said "Mom" very clearly. He grins every time I say it back, and I've noticed when he gets upset sometimes he'll say "Mommommommom". Which kind of hurts a little bit, even though I try hard not to let it; I know sometimes he's going to want her instead, and he ought to. But I'm selfish like that. :)
Tonight might be another breakthrough, we'll see. He's not been sleeping well lately, although he's getting better at napping (hour naps aren't uncommon at this point, and we can often get away with just two naps a day even). At night, though, a lot of times he won't even go two hours without waking up, which is tiring, especially since he virtually never sleeps past 6 or so. So tonight Jenny and I decided to make another go of mild sleep training, so after his bath and a feeding, I put him down in his crib with Gertrude (his stuffed hedgehog, the closest thing to a lovey we've been able to identify), kissed him goodnight, and left rather than rocking him almost asleep (or to be honest, all-the-way-asleep, more often than not). He seemed to think it was playtime at first, making his "bobbobbobbob" noise and shrieking periodically, but then he got bored or lonely and started crying. After ten minutes I went in and tried to soothe him (without picking him up), but when I left a minute or so later he started crying harder. Jen left at that point (she has a class she's been going to), and I was expecting all kinds of difficulties, but at the end of the next 10 minutes, just as I got up to try soothing him again, he suddenly quieted down and went to sleep.
I am now going to probably jinx myself by checking on him, because PARENTHOOD is an anagram for PARANOIA (not really, I can't back that up, but it should be).
Nope. He's still alive; I can see him breathing. The worst part about this is that all the baby books say that 6 months (or double birth weight, which Ollie just hit) is when you should try sleep training, but they also say that SIDS is a risk until 1 year, and you shouldn't let them sleep on their stomach until then. The paradox is that by 6 months, they can roll over anytime they want to, usually (Oliver could), and left to his own devices, Ollie will sleep on his stomach. So: let him fall asleep on his stomach and POSSIBLY DIE, or start sleep training? Or poke the bear by letting him fall asleep, then trying to turn him over without waking? You can't win for losing.
Speaking of not winning for losing, at Jen's continued urging I embarked on a weight gain program. I added an 800-1000 calorie milkshake to my daily intake (ice cream, whole milk, whey protein, banana, chocolate syrup), drank it religiously for two weeks without eating any less at meals... and lost five pounds. What. The. Hell. I'm still spotty about eating breakfast though, so maybe if I add that it will help. If I drop another five I think USAID is going to start airlifting supplies into my back yard (which at least would help with the grocery bills). :(
Edit: Also, I know the site is wonky and comments are disabled. I upgraded Movable Type and it screwed everything, so I have to basically start over. Sorry, folks. :( You can always e-mail me your comments, I do love e-mails...
Edit the Second: Okay, so he woke up at 8:20 and cried, despite my best soothing efforts, until Jen got home and fed him at 9:40. Ah well. Maybe next time.
04/18/2007
So sleeping has been kind of a rollercoaster the last few weeks. For some reason there was a period of about 4 days where Oliver decided that sleeping for more than an hour was completely uninteresting. This was, to put it mildly, not much fun. We tried everything: earlier bedtime, later bedtime, feeding before bath, after bath, rocking, bouncing, white noise, no white noise... Possibly coincidentally, he got his first cold the day before this started, so he was all congested; we put a vaporizer with some Vicks in the room as well, so we tried using that, not using that, nothing worked.
And then after several days he just went back to sleeping. We both knew, intellectually, that that happens; it apparently tends to happen right before they take a developmental step. That doesn't really prepare you for four nights without sleep, though: nothing really can. :)
After that things actually got easier, so maybe that was what happened. Jenny read a helpful book that talked about the EASY pattern (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) that seems to work. The idea is that you feed them, play with them/keep them active until they get tired (usually an hour to an hour and a half), then they take a nap while you do You things, and then repeat. Every baby has their own schedule, but we managed to find Ollie's pretty quickly, and like I said it's been very helpful. The first few days he only seemed to want to nap while being held (specifically, held upright against my chest) so my You activity was to sit down and watch hockey while he slept snuggled up to me. :) Yesterday, though, he had a really fussy morning, Jenny had trouble getting him to nap at all. About 3 she asked me if I could swaddle him (I'm better at swaddling him tightly enough that he falls asleep before he works himself free; more practice) and get him down for a nap. He woke up after about 15 minutes, but settled back down again and slept until 5. I think his longest nap to that point was probably 45 minutes, so a two-hour nap was completely unexpected. :) We were actually a little worried he wouldn't sleep well last night because of it--but then he slept from 8pm to 5am, which was incredible. He woke up a few times, but always settled himself back down without either of us having to get up, and after Jen fed him at 5, he slept until 7:30 and then just quietly lay in his crib until about 8. I have not slept so well in months. :) So hopefully that week of no sleep was him figuring out how to sleep better on his own, and things will continue like this for a bit. Of course, traveling and changes in routine are supposed to cause sleep issues, and we're traveling each of the next three months, which could be "exciting".
Ollie continues to develop every day, of course; he's holding his head up without any problems now, and he loves being in the Snugli when we're out. The grocery store and Lowe's are both favorite locations, since there's so many people and shapes and colors to see. Best of all, he and I can go out for two or three hours at a time and leave Jenny home to work, which up until now has been hard for her to do. Apparently Ollie roller over (tummy to back) yesterday, but it happened while Jen and he were at a friend's house and he hasn't duplicated the feat for me. :) He's stuffing more and more things into his mouth; his favorite is still both hands (at the same time), but he also tends to enjoy gnawing on hands, knuckles, toys, etc. It's actually a little disconcerting to have your three-month-old suddenly lean over and start gnawing on you like a little velociraptor, but I guess it makes him happy. ;) He's still really talkative--we got him a Bumbo chair so he can sit up, and he loves to sit in that thing and talk to us. I can't wait until they're real words. ;)
He's very interested in the pets lately too, he watches them all the time and occasionally reaches out towards them. They're great with him (to the point where we have to stop them giving him kisses all over his face) as well.
Hockey has been lots of fun lately. I scored another goal: I was set up in front of the goal after I joined a rush, and the forward who had dropped back to cover my spot shot/passed it at me. I managed to deflect the puck up and over the goalie's shoulder, which was very cool and exactly what I was trying to do. Managing to do what I was trying to is an exciting and not-exactly-common event, so... ;) I've been seeing the ice better lately too, doing a better job of keeping my head up and looking around to find the best pass rather than just blindly dumping it ahead. The team has kind of been on a roller coaster, but with one exception all of the games have been fun even when we lose. The exception was a win a week or so ago where one of the other team's forwards deliberately ran over our goalie on a breakaway and separated his shoulder, so we've had substitute goalies since. It sucks to see someone get hurt like that, especially since I was the one who gave up the breakaway. :(
01/05/2007
So this is just a quick update, I promise a long post later with more info and I'll add pictures when I get a chance.
Oliver Grey Kokai-Means was delivered at 5:33 this morning. He weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20.5 inches long, blue eyes (of course) and blonde/brown hair. He is the most beautiful baby ever, and lest you think I'm just being a new dad, I'll point out that all of the nurses have said so too, and they're not biased. ;)
Unfortunately, due to some complications during labor, Oliver experienced severe respiratory distress at birth, and he is making a steady recovery in the neonatal ICU of St. David's hospital. He seems like a perfectly happy, healthy newborn boy, and we're hopeful that he'll be home by Jenny's birthday.
(This post was actually written on 1/10, and pre-dated, just in case anyone is wondering. No, I did not rush home from the hospital to blog about our baby. :))
12/04/2006
Never, ever, ever ask a pregnant woman, "you got twins in there?"
Particularly if you are the waiter who is depending on her good graces for your tip. It's rude, it's thoughtless, and it makes you like like a moron who ain't never seen a pregnant woman before. And you don't get tipped very well, for some reason.
Jesus. It amazes me how people (at large) view pregnancy. I don't know if it's a consequence of modern life (where, the birth rate being what it is, pregnant women are a relative rarity), or of the images displayed in the media (where pregnant women are all impossibly skinny and never more than 3 months along), but you'd think these people had no idea that you could actually grow a real person in there! (Which is particularly interesting when combined with the fact that "newborns" on TV are invariably like 18 months old--you have these skinny, tiny women giving birth to 20-pound babies. Physics, anyone?)
In other news: I played hockey (well, went to the hockey class) last night for the first time since August. It was great fun--a pair of my friends were there, and some other guys I knew, and it was great being part of it again. One of the guys told me I looked just as good as the last time he saw me play--which is nice, but probably not quite true; I did fall down at least once. ;) My ghetto gloves lost their protective coating of duct tape halfway through, unfortunately. Hopefully my new gloves get here soon. :)
We had a really busy weekend; normally we take Sunday easy, just read the paper and have breakfast, maybe clean some stuff, take a nap, etc.; yesterday, aside from hockey, we had to get up early to make the sugar cookie base for a fruit pizza (quick tip: do not use olive oil in cookie recipes that call for "1 cup oil"; just trust me on this one), which we took to a brunch with several people from Jen's school, hosted by one of the administrators there. That was fun; she has 3 very friendly, very large dogs (Great Pyrenees), and I'm a sucker for big fluffy animals. :)
Saturday Jen went out to the mall with some friends; I stayed home and cleaned, mostly. I ended up in a grumpy mood; the weather here has finally swung towards winter (gray, cold, rainy) and I think I'm addicted to sunshine at this point. Plus I was really missing hockey (which was why Jen told me to go on Sunday); I'm not a super social person most of the time, but I really love hanging out with the people there and getting the exercise.
So anyway, we're thinking taking it easy next weekend will be good; we're really hoping Ollie decides to come out and play soon. It's been such a long process that it's getting really hard to be patient any more. :) He is at least head-down (ultrasound today confirmed it), so that's one worry pretty much out of the way.
I'm also excited about the new kitchen sink and faucet. We picked it out last week and picked it up this weekend, and we'll be putting it in over Christmas (I am not attempting plumbing without Dad around to walk me through it ;)).
Work is muy busy right now. We have a big deadline tomorrow and a bigger one the 15th, so there's lots of extra hours and weekends for a lot of people (not so much for me, fortunately). It's exciting, though; in a few weeks all the stuff I've been working on for months will finally be in the hands of real users (even if only in limited numbers). I can't wait to hear back from sales and through our forums how people react to it.
11/24/2006
I don't know what to say about my birthday this year, really. It was a pretty good weekend bookended by some of the worst travel I've ever experienced (and I've experienced my share of bad travel). We flew out Thursday morning on Continental, after getting up at 4am to make our flight. Every single time we fly Continental, going all the way back to 1999, I've sworn never to fly them again, and like a total idiot I do.
This time, there was a windstorm in Houston the night before we left, which meant that all the crews worked extra hours, so there were no crews available to fly the next morning. Delays all around. Okay, fine, whatever. But that meant the airlines had to rebook everyone in order to not miss connections all over the place, meaning no kiosk check-in. It was a study in comparative staffing strategies. The Continental desk had 4 ticket agents. Two of them were working the first-class line (length: 5 people, and not growing). Two of them were working the "steerage" line (length: 300 people and growing). The American Airlines desk right next to it had 12 agents--and no line at all.
As an extra insult, we could have driven to Houston, made our original connection, and had none of these problems. (Although, as you'll see, that plan would really not have worked out well later.)
So we get to Louisville, where some Cocoa Trios from Borders finally add something positive to the day. The rest of the weekend was pretty fun; Jen set up her parents' new computer, and I hooked up their new home theater system. Then we played pool. :)
Friday night we went to the L&N Wine Bar, which was pretty good. Their creme brulee is very good, and the drinks looked really tasty. The rest of the weekend we pretty much just hung out, watched TV, played pool, etc. Lots of fun. And I got lots of cool gifts, for which I am very grateful. Jen and I played an inaugural game of the latest edition of Trivial Pursuit already. ;)
Coming home was, if possible, even more annoying than getting there. The flight itself was fine, not late or anything, but it took us an hour to get our bags and the car was dead when we got to the parking lot. Apparently it's a miracle it drove at all before that, because the cable that runs from the battery to the starter had corroded into green powder. I won't belabor the point, but we got home at 3:30 am and I had to go back the next day to get the car towed.
Wednesday we had the car seat checked to be sure it's safely installed, then went shopping at the new outlet mall and the new Ikea store.
Thanksgiving day we spent largely cleaning and cooking; we had dinner by ourselves, then had friends over for drinks/dessert/Beyond Balderdash, which was loads of fun. I ate way too many tasty desserts. :) Today's been more relaxing, finally; I took a nap, did some Xmas shopping, and then Jen and I played Pikmin 2 for a while. And there's still two days left in the weekend, so things are looking up. :)
11/07/2006
...is my command, so I'm posting an update. :-P
I voted today, at an elementary school cleverly hidden in the woods near our house. Not that it mattered a bit, of course; Austin invariably goes heavily Democrat, the rest of the state heavily Republican, and every two years we consider walling them out and they consider walling us in. ;)
About the only votes I actually cared about were the ones funding local parks, central libraries, and theatre, all of which passed (though the theatre vote was closer than I would have thought; maybe Austin's not as arts-friendly as I thought).
Work is taking interesting turns. I've been advocating for a more open discussion of upcoming versions of our software; in the past we've been relatively tight-lipped, but I think our customers would be better served by learning about and discussing some things earlier on. It's a balancing act, of course, but this week I got the go-ahead to post about something I've spent a lot of time working on. It's not completely public, but it is available to any member of our blog site, so while I can't exactly say "go read it", at least our customers are getting a chance to learn about and think about it. I'm looking forward to what they have to say. I kind of envision part of my role being an advocate for third-party developers and system admins, so having dialogue with those people is really helpful for me (and very interesting as well).
We had a very fun baby shower (thrown by our good friends Shannon & Stephen) last Sunday. We stuck with the "favorite childhood book" theme that worked so well in NYC, so we got some very interesting gifts, all of which Ollie will love, I'm sure. I've taken to reading a book (or story) or two each night before bed, out loud so that Jenny, Ollie, and whichever of the animals cares to listen can hear it. I have to practice my dramatic reading skills (including voices ;), after all.
Nothing else of particular interest to report; I'm looking forward to our trip to Louisville for my birthday, we're planning a post-dinner Thanksgiving party that should be great, and Christmas (and Ollie) can't get here soon enough. :)
10/24/2006
It's hard to believe it's already the end of October. (Of course, it would be easier to believe if it weren't still hitting 80 every day. I want Fall, damnit!) It seems like it was just a few months ago that we were carving pumpkins with our (still child-free at that point) friends Stephen and Shannon, not a whole year.
Of course, on the plus side, that means hockey is back on. :) We had Alec over last night to watch the Canadiens lose to Buffalo (after Janne Niinimaa guaranteed they'd win--smooth move), which was lots of fun. We have startlingly similar taste in books, too, which is cool. :) Also went out to a birthday party on Saturday that was a lot of fun. We don't stay out late very much anymore, so it was novel in that respect; we ended up hanging out in a neat little park with some friends until it got too cold.
Work is settling down a little bit again, aside from a minor crisis on Friday afternoon (why is it always Friday afternoon?) that I had to handle; it's been really busy lately, but at the moment I'm working on some estimates for the release after this, and it's hard to feel the same sense of urgency about that kind of thing. :) Tomorrow I'm supposed to take my work-provided pair of monitors in and exchange them for brand-new flat panels, which is cool. It certainly will give us back some of the dining room table--those 21" CRTs take up a lot of space. I should also be getting an IP-based phone this week, so I will no longer be tying up our phone line every morning for teleconferences. Which doesn't really matter to anyone but me (because I'll finally be able to hear everyone else in the meetings) and Jen (because she hates me tying up the phone), but hey. :-P
Nothing happening on the Ollie front. He's pretty active most days, which means Jen gets worried when he's not active, but he generally gives her a kick or two if she asks if he's OK. The class moves along; last week we simulated contractions (using ice cubes). It's all very interesting (actually, I'm finding it very useful to get a clearer picture of what my role will be, what kinds of things I will need to do and think about--I might be getting more out of it than Jen is, in some ways, although she does enjoy practicing the relaxation exercises).
Also I'm kind of getting the writing bug again for some reason. I might just ignore it until it goes away, I might not. It's been hard to start writing simply because the last time I did, I somehow managed to not save about 3/4 of what I wrote. I have the Word doc, it's just a lot... shorter than I remember it being. Which is frustrating, but I guess it's all still up in my head, so no great loss. Sometimes I think about trying to write and publish a novel or something, just to see if I could. And royalty checks (however small) certainly wouldn't suck. ;)
10/15/2006
Not much to report lately. Jen and I have finished pretty much all the prep work for Ollie, so we're down to waiting; something neither of us are particularly good at. We've been to two of our birthing classes thus far--last week we watched videos of births, which I hadn't done since Health class in middle school. It strikes me as a little odd that people actually allow the filming of their baby's birth and the use of that footage in documentaries, although I guess I could just be a pretty private person. :-P
This was actually a really good weekend. Yesterday we re-re-re-(how many years have we lived here?)-did the front yard with some new plants, some new mulch, and compost (please come back to life, front yard!), then we went to the apartment of some friends of ours for awesome homemade sushi and tempura. And weird but amusing Canadian comedy shows (of course, we have a history with those). :)
Today was slower paced, but very nice. We lazed around with pancakes (and real Maple Syrup, thankyou Fi and Simon!) and the NYT, took a nap, and then I challenged Iron Chef Jenny (or vice versa) to Battle Chocolate Chip Cookie. I think it's a draw, which just means we have to do it again. ;)
So, that's pretty much it. Nothing else to report. I would give you hockey updates, but I'm not playing hockey, so... ;)
We're all fine, here, now--how are you? (Cookie for the reference.)
09/30/2006
We finished the dots today. :) All in all it wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought it might. It was a lot of painting and a lot of work, but I think the result is well worth it. As Jenny says, nobody can accuse us of failing to stimulate Ollie visually. ;)
09/29/2006
Yes, another day of dots completed. We've finished all the "low-hanging fruit", so to speak, so things are kind of slowing down. That said, we're two large circles away from finishing two walls entirely, which is exciting, and the door and window/closet walls should be relatively easy.
09/28/2006
I jest, of course; I didn't paint any dots while Jen was out of town (it really is a two-person job), so tonight was night 3 of dot painting. I think it's going along quite well. A couple more days and I think we might be done.
09/17/2006
So Jen and I have spent more time on the nursery; four more photos in the gallery. I've mismeasured some of the dots, so it won't be exactly the way dad drew it, but I still think it looks really great so far.
The big circles made out of small dots aren't nearly as bad as I had worried they might be; just put a small nail in the middle of the circle and measure out the radius of the circle in a length of string, one end tied to the nail. Do the four "compass point" circles (E, W, N, S) first, then just use a tape measure and the string to divide out where the other circles should be. (For example, once you've done the "N" and "W" circles, measure the distance between the nearest points of each; in our case this was 29 inches. Divide that in half to give 14.5 inches, and put a dot [we'll call this the "NW" dot] there. Measure from that dot to either the N or W dot--in our case about 14 inches. Divide by 3, giving 4.33 inches; pull the string out until it crosses the tape measure at 4.33 inches from one of the existing dots--that's the center point of your next dot. Do the same thing 4.33 inches from the other existing dot, and that's the last dot in that quadrant. Multiply by four and you're done. It's easier than I'm probably making it sound. ;)
Anyway, Jen came up with the nail, and the measuring idea was mine, so it's a good thing we're together; either one of us might have had a lot more trouble alone. ;)
Anyway, I think we're making good progress--this represents probably 10 hours of work so far.
09/15/2006
Y'all (oh yeah, I said it) better be impressed by the latest photos of Ollie's room, because (as my dad warned us), those dots are kind of a pain in the ass to paint. ;)
Although the big circles made out of 3" circles will be way more painful, I'm sure. Still, I think it looks very cool even partially done. My wife and dad are both geniuses--one for coming up with the idea, the other for designing it and putting it on a 12"×12" grid so we can easily paint it.
09/11/2006
Riley and I have a new bedtime ritual. I take my allergy pills, then he hops up on the vanity and I pour him a glass of water, which he drinks while I'm brushing my teeth. He hops down when he's done, I empty out the glass, and we all go to bed.
I know a lot of cats like fresh water, but he has no interest--whatsoever--in the running faucet. He wants a glass of fresh water. It's pretty amusing, although I think Jen finds it funnier that I will actually indulge him. ;)
09/09/2006
Yeah, so these things seem to be monthly, so here you go for the month of September. ;) I'm just kidding... or am I?
Anyway, last weekend was lots of fun. Sandy flew in from Florida (between all kinds of crazy business trips: we appreciate the stopover! ;)) and hung out all weekend. We went to the Botanical Gardens, and also a nearby collection of animals who had been rescued. Many of them had been people's pets, which makes you wonder about humanity (I mean, who thinks a bobcat would make a good pet?) I did feel bad for the coyote, Martha, though; she had grown up on a ranch with a family and dogs to play with, and now she's stuck in a small cage with no entertainment at all. She just paced back and forth, back and forth, and she really reminded me of the poor dogs at the Humane Society, the ones who keep hoping their family will come back and find her again. Some kids came by while we were watching her, and the way she perked up was kind of heartbreaking. The vultures were kind of cool, though, especially since it was feeding time (yum, rats!). Jen was a little squicked out by that, though.
Anyway, like I said, it was lots of fun. We went to see The Illusionist at the Alamo; I really liked the movie. It was all stylish early-1900's Vienna, and magic, and love, and an ambiguous ending (I love ambiguous endings), and Jessica Beal's te-herr-ible "Generic Euro" accent didn't detract too much, seeing as she didn't have all that many lines. I liked Edward Norton's role a lot, though, and Paul Giamatti did a good job too. Anyway, if magic and intrigue in Imperial Vienna sounds interesting, you should definitely check it out. We hit the Texas State History Museum as well, which had an interesting exhibit on Braggin' (It's not braggin' if it's true!), including a Cadillac covered in rhinestones (the glitteriest car I've ever seen) and an actual, working, VW Beetle made from wrought iron (which was amazingly cool). All in all a fun visit, with a very nice mix of activities and full-out lazy relaxation. My kind of holiday weekend. :)
Lately work has been madly busy. We have a major deadline Monday (I've been working 10- and 12-hour days, highly unusual for us), and another at the end(ish) of October, and somewhere in there we're moving offices. Well, I say "we", but I'm not moving offices, because I already did. I packed up my office at work, including my work PC, and brought it home, and I now work from the dining room 4.5 days a week. (The other half day I have to be onsite for meetings etc.) Working from home is, in a word, delightfullyawesome. It's definitely nice to have separate work and home PCs--easier, at least for me, to keep the two activities separate and be able to "leave" work even though I'm still here. I feel more productive, able to concentrate better; I couldn't imagine working in a cubicle farm again. A private office, maybe. ;) The lack of commute is really, really nice. It does take some discipline, but I guess I don't really find that all that hard to manage.
This weekend we're just kind of chilling. USA Baby was having a huge sale, so we picked up a full-body pillow for Jen and a car seat/stroller system. We also took down the popcorn ceiling in the nursery (which is terribly messy, by the way; there's fine white dust everywhere), I primered it today, and will be painting it tomorrow. We need to do the polka dots soon as well, just to get that room totally done and ready.
Ollie is really active lately, and he's pretty strong. It's very weird (in a cool way) to feel him kicking or punching. Today Jen said she tapped her stomach and Ollie immediately kicked her there, so she may have invented a new game. ;)
Charlie is finally back down to his ideal weight, but Cara managed to put on five extra pounds in the meantime. The dieting never stops here, man; we just take turns. ;)
Anyway, aside from Sandy's visit, my life is all about work and Ollie, so not much else to say. I hope all you guys are having a good time of it. :)
08/31/2006
So in the last week or so it's become possible for me to feel Ollie kicking/punching/whatever else he's practicing in there. The midwife today mentioned that it should feel gentle, like gas bubbles--but Ollie is nothing like that. Jen says it feels like someone punching her from the inside, and I believe her--when he lands one where my hand is, I can feel something in there pushing out. It's an odd sensation; I'm sure it's a lot more odd for Jen, though. ;)
I'm really ready to meet Ollie. I mean, I know he's going to come out small and uncooperative and sleep a lot at first, but every time I see a small child out in the world I get this silly smile on my face. I mean, I worry sometimes too, but walking out of Central Market and passing a woman making goofy faces at her baby in the shopping cart makes it hard to hold onto anything but the anticipation. :) Of course, I have the easy part of the job at the moment, which doesn't hurt.
Today was my first official day of working from home full-time. Yesterday afternoon I loaded my workstation into the Passat, brought it home, and set everything up in the second office (a.k.a. the dining room). It's so nice--I got up at 7:25 this morning, took a shower, made coffee, and I had fixed my first bug by ten till 8. And then I had a second cup. :) The only downside is that it's somewhat harder to resist the effort to take a nap in the afternoon, but I can deal with that.
Work itself is very very busy. During my afternoon one-on-one with my boss yesterday, he asked me what I had done that morning and I totally blanked. We laughed about it, but there's so much going on right now that it really is hard to keep track of what I was doing once I'm on to the next task (well, at least for me, but I guess I'm kind of absentminded at the best of times). I've been mentoring an intern, which is definitely a new experience for me; I'm accustomed to the "walking encyclopedia" role, but direct mentorship is something I haven't done much before, so I'm glad for the opportunity.
This weekend should be fun. Sandy's coming in, we'll hit the Bat Festival and maybe some other stuff. St. Louis was so long ago (for all of us ;))... it'll be great to hang out again.
Finally, congrats guys! You know who you are. ;)
08/25/2006
07/24/2006
Sanding is, by far, the least enjoyable part of carpentry. I often wish I could just toss whatever it is in a big drum full of sand and roll it around for a while, or something. :-P
07/23/2006
No, it's not a vacation. :-P An anti-vacation, in point of fact. This is Jen's last week at TIP. I know going in we both thought it would be fun for her, that the time would fly by. Instead it's been quite the reverse; Jen made the comment Saturday that it's a good thing she's mostly dissociated the whole thing from Duke TIP, because as an experience it would otherwise have polluted the fond memories she had of her own time there. Which is really too bad; I had hoped to send our own kids there someday, and from Jen's experience, I wouldn't do so if they paid me at this point. And I'm not even talking about the things Jen has had to deal with--just the way the kids are treated and the program is run. To be honest I'm not sure whether to blame their expansion away from the Duke campus (and the resulting loss of central program culture) or the societal changes (technological and otherwise) that result in parents who panic if their kids don't have cellphones and threaten lawsuits for any imagined breach of idyllic perfection. I will never be that parent, I want my kids to learn independence, learn to deal with problems on their own, learn to make friends and experience technology as a tool, not a substitute for their own intelligence and creativity.
Anyway, Jen was in town again this weekend; she and some new friends managed to make it to one of my games for the first time this season--against the team that won the championship last season. We won, of course (it's totally her fault our record's no good... ;)), which was lots of fun. It's funny, we tend to play very well against this team (both seasons), I don't know why. I still have no points this season (2 penalty minutes, though!) which is kind of disappointing since I won't be playing this fall (or next spring). I'd like to get a goal before I have to lay off for a while, but we'll see.
I can't decide if I like the Mary J. Blige version of "One" better than the original, or vice versa. I told Jen I liked the original better earlier today, but then I just listened to the new version and I can't decide. It might be novelty, though; the song is a classic either way.
I need something new to read. Lately (okay, like the last eight years) I've been on this intelligence sort of kick, but I feel like I haven't read anything challenging on the subject in a while. There was a good article in the NYTimes magazine today about intelligence (short version: heredity rules if your environment is sufficiently challenging to allow you to reach your full potential), and I wrote about an interesting study about learning to program over on my "other" blog--the one that nobody ever reads unless they need help with the Windows Scheduler ;)--a few days ago, but I feel like there must be something new and exciting in either related philosophy or science. Hofstadter has a new book coming out, which is exciting, but I'm thinking about looking for something to read on the plane to NYC.
Which is a separate excitement. Work is pretty busy right now; I have a metric ton of work to do before Sep. 15, and I can definitely use two weeks of R&R; I know at least some of it will be spent Kokai-style "commando raid" vacation, but hopefully I can sleep in at least once. ;) Either way it should be fun, with everyone from both families in one place, plus Simon & Fiona.
Sorry, I'm a little scatterbrained right now. I've got so much going on mentally that I've had trouble sleeping, something that hasn't been true since probably sophomore year of college, when I considered it a relaxing day if I got to sleep before 2 a.m. ;) I probably left something out of this update, but I can't "feature" what (as they say in Deadwood ;)).
07/08/2006
I actually had a really good day today--the sort of day that could only be made better in a single way, and that's if Jen were here to share it.
I slept in (as much as the animals ever allow), had a leisurely cup of coffee, then gave the dogs baths (so they're fluffy and they smell good now). Of course, since the dogs were clean I had to wash Charlie's crate (since if he'd laid down in it he'd have needed another bath at this point), and then I had to sweep the house in case there was any dust or dirt that might undo the baths as well. :) They were really good about the baths, usually Cara goes all "oh my god I can't believe you're abusing me this way", but today she just kind of sat there and accepted it. Charlie does this hilarious thing after baths where he rubs up against anything he can find--couches, chairs, beds--as if trying to wipe off the water or the conditioner or something. Of course both of them shed something fierce after a bath, so I've been brushing them every hour or two.
After that I cleaned myself up (it's amazing how wet and dirty one can get cleaning two dogs) and went to Lowe's. I bought the supplies (including most of the paint--excluding the polka dots) for painting the baby's room. My mom commented on how matter-of-fact I am about that at this point ("painting the baby's room"), but to be honest, we're 4 months into this and I'm more or less used to the idea now, you know? ;) Jen and I got some super cute baby outfits while she was in town. Our baby will be dressed up in growling, stomping dinosaurs, or a sweater that makes him/her look like a monkey (complete with hood with ears), or a hooded towel made up to look like a crab. (My mother found that last very funny, we'll have to put pictures up once the baby is made to look like a monkey/crab/etc.)
Lowe's was also having a sale on a combined normal/handheld shower head, so I went ahead and grabbed that, figuring that it would be useful for washing both dogs (sadly, I bought it after I washed the dogs--tactical error there) and babies at some point. Even better, that allowed me to take the shower head from the guest bathroom and use it to replace the POS $2 (I am not kidding, I priced it at Lowe's) shower head that was in the master bath. Which should be nice.
Then I played hockey this evening. Our hockey team isn't doing as well as last season--I don't know if I jinxed us or not, but we're 1-4-2 on the season, tied for last place. Still, it's a lot of fun, we just aren't scoring enough. Every game we've lost has been by a single goal, so it's not like we aren't competetive, we just can't finish off the other teams. It does feel like the level of competition has gone up--there's an "informal" league, with no refs, as well, and I think a lot of the more marginal players dropped down to that, so the regular C league is more difficult by comparison with last season. Also, the last few games the refs had gone completely crazy; two games ago, we spent nearly the entire second period short a player (at one point we had four players in the box at the same time), which is just nuts for a rec league. I took my first two-minute penalty in that game, for cross-checking (which was nonsense--the blade of my stick was on the ice; it should have been either elbowing or boarding, if they were going to call anything at all. :-P) Either way, any day I get to play hockey is pretty much a good day, and I'm used to being on last-place teams, so it beats not playing at all. :-D
Other than that, not much to report; work has been busy but not unreasonably so, I'm at least getting to work on new-ish problems. Missing Jen a lot, of course, but there isn't much I can do about that. :-P
06/29/2006
Last night was our fourth hockey game of the season. We lost the first two, both by a single goal; the first one we really should have won, the second was just a hard-fought game. We won the third game, 7-1. To be honest I felt kind of bad about that one. You'd think it would be fun to have a game like that, but I always remember the times I was on the losing end of those games and it's hard to enjoy it.
Anyway, like I said, last night was the fourth game of the season. We ended up coming back from a 2-0 deficit to tie it, but it felt like a win, the way we played. Our opponents were the best team in the league (same team that won the championship last season), so a tie isn’t bad at all (we can do better, though. ;)) After the game, our goalie stood up in front of everyone and announced that I had had a “monster” game, my “best game of the season, by far”, and that I was “absolutely everywhere on the ice”. I think I blushed. :) Anyway, it was a really good game; I had lots of great defensive plays, stopping breakaways, cutting off passes, etc.
I did have one big fall, though, which everyone teased me about mercilessly. The captain said he was taking up a collection to have my skates sharpened. :) We had the puck in their zone, 2nd period, we were getting lots of good pressure. Curry, one of the forwards, got the puck at the left wing and saw me completely open at the blue line. He passed it to me, perfect pass, and right as he did my legs just shot out from under me. Nobody within 20’, a perfect pass, and I just BAM! fell down. What’s worse is that, as I was laying on the ice, the puck was coming straight towards me. I mean, STRAIGHT towards me. If I hadn’t moved it would have hit me right in the middle of my stick. Of course, like a total idiot I tried to lift my stick (as I’m laying flat on the ice) to take the pass with the blade, and the puck goes under the stick, under me, and out of the zone. Brilliant!
Anyway, like I said, I had a good game--almost had a goal. I had the puck all alone against 3 defenders, I faked past one, ended up right in the center of the ice with the 2 defenders in front of me. I seem to find myself in that situation about once a game, so I've been trying to make it work for me. My current move is to cut right just a bit to get the defender between me and the goalie, and then shoot the puck through the defender's legs, so the goalie has trouble seeing the shot at first. This time, I’m pretty sure the shot hit the post on the far side, it was a really nice shot and I don’t think the goalie really saw it. Eventually one of those shots is going to go in, it just didn’t happen that game.
I've also noticed a number of Spoonerisms coming out of my mouth lately. After the game I wanted to talk about the fact that especially in the second period, it's important to keep our shifts short so we don't get tired and caught out of position (which is why we were down 2-0), only I said it was important to keep our "shorts shifted". You can guess what kind of jokes were made at my expense at that point. ;) I actually really like this team. Everyone on it is always in a good mode, there's teasing and camaraderie in the locker room. Jen says she approves of their teasing me all the time, and frankly I agree; it's a really great group of guys and I'm glad to be a part of it. What's even better is that I know other guys on nearly every team in the league (last nights' opponents are pretty much the exception), so there's always someone to say hi to or trash talk before the game. It's a lot of fun, and it makes me wish I could play hockey every night. :)
Playing games without Jen in the audience is kind of weird. She'd only missed a few games before this season, and I was pretty used to looking up and seeing her in the second or third row, reading her book at period intermissions or cheering during play. I keep looking for her, and of course she's not there. She'll get to see my game this Saturday, though, so hopefully I'll have another good game. :)
As far as work goes, it's pretty busy right now. We have our second-most-major deadline of this entire release coming up, and everyone's scrambling to get ready. I'm in the middle of a really frustrating problem (been working on it about 14 hours thus far, with no resolution). It doesn't help that making brand new code work exactly like the old code did six months ago--which is what we're doing--is one of the more tedious, uncreative jobs in programming. It has to be done, and it will be worth the effort at the end, but any programmer will tell you that solving new problems and writing new code is much more fun.
Aside from work and hockey I haven't done much; I have a million things to do to the house that I just haven't had the time to do, and we're supposed to hang out with some friends for July 4th, but other than that my social life is essentially nonexistant. :) Sorry. No new baby news, either; we won't know the sex for another 5 weeks, and that's really the next big milestone. I've actually only told 3 people at work, partially because everyone who knows Jenny is pregnant seems to only talk to her about that sometimes, and I don't want that to happen. Of course I'm also a pretty private person in general.
06/10/2006
An update, at last! :-P
Anyway. Last weekend Jen and I went with some friends to see Over The Hedge. Jen and I both had qualms about seeing it; from the trailers, we both expected it to be not-very-good. We were wrong. It was said afterwards that it's the best animated movie Dreamworks has made; better than Shrek, and while I don't know that I'd necessarily give either the nudge myself, OTH is definitely a worthwhile viewing experience. The Grand Theft Auto sequence in particular is awesome, as is the movie version of Ben Folds' "Rockin' the Suburbs". And stay through the credits--it's worth it (partially because the end credits themselves are well-done and interesting), unlike the ending of X-Men 3.
I also watched the first part of Robots this week. Despite the program guide's generous four star rating, I found it completely uncompelling and deleted it after about twenty minutes. I, Robot, on the other hand, was entertaining if not particularly thought-provoking. It's Will Smith, what do you want? ;) Constantine was not terrible, for a comic-book movie. If I see it in the $5 bargain bin at Wal-Mart, I might pick it up. I'm a sucker for storylines involving an eternal war between Heaven and Hell with humans as proxy combatants, though. Tomorrow should result in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (which I had watched approximately half an hour of, while programming on a laptop in a client's home at my previous job) as well as The Maltese Falcon (which I've never seen, but I like noir and Bogart, so...) and even more excitingly, the first episode of the new season of Deadwood. I've missed Al Swearengen's poetical utterances, truly I have. I find it interesting that Robots was something I deliberately Tivoed, while I, Robot was a Tivo Suggestion--I submit to you that perhaps the Tivo knows me better than I know myself. Of course, it also recorded Prince William and Hide and Seek--so perhaps not, after all.
This week we also moved Jenny to College Station for the next two months, more or less. Which isn't much fun. I have plenty to keep me busy, including lots of work stuff (enough that I worked for a few hours today, which is not usual for me at all) and yet more home improvement Activities™, but I am accustomed to intense Jeopardy duels, and it takes all the fun out of an entire category devoted to the Oz books (not the movie!) if Jen's not here. :-P
Our parents banded together and gave us an anniversary present of a digital camcorder (for obvious reasons), so if I can manage to lay hands on a DV cassette sometime soon perhaps I will encourage the pets to do goofy things I can put on the site. Or something. I dunno. It seems like a wonderful piece of equipment, though; I can understand why people do things like this or this, when digital film technology is so accessible. I even know a few people who I'm sure would be happy to be extras in a Firefly fanfic... ;)
The hockey draft was this last week as well. One of the players from my spring team is a captain in the summer league, and had intended to try to keep the team together as much as possible. This is complicated by the fact that aside from himself, he only gets to "protect" a single player, and further by the fact that three of our players got drafted into the next league up (including my defensive partner, all unwitting). Still and all, it looks like the core is there, and it should be fun regardless. I got a little bit of an ego boost when I found out that apparently I was selected in either the third or fourth round of the draft, which seems fairly early for someone in their second season. Not that any OHL or NHL scouts are likely to be darkening my door anytime soon. And it's only a small ego boost, as I can depend on Jenny for a realistic (by which I mean occasionally depressing ;)) appraisal of my "mad hockey skillz", as it were.
This weekend's project, aside from "entertaining the dogs" (via early morning trip to the dog park) and "dealing with crunch time" (viz., working today) is "cleaning the garage". Anyone who has lived in a house with a garage for more than ten minutes knows precisely what I mean by that. :)
Last night I had a bout of insomnia, and ended up out on the hammock in the back yard at about 2am. It's worth noting that, by 2am, the mosquitos appear to have quit for the day and, in June in Austin, the temperature is literally perfect. I almost slept out there, but it on further reflection I supposed that to be a bad idea and merely enjoyed it until I felt sleepy. :)
A final thought: reading the Baroque Cycle sure does turn me into a wordy son of a gun, doesn't it?
05/25/2006
Sadly, my life is not a Mighty Ducks movie, and so, though we are indeed a plucky ragtag band which has had our problems, my hockey team did not win the championship game. In fact, we pretty much sucked for the entire game. :-P The final score was 2-1, but that was only because our goaltender had an amazing game. The other team was working us over like crazy, making good passes, frustrating our rush, getting off good shots all over the place. We just couldn't seem to get our flow going, start connecting on passes.
On the plus side, I did have two very solid slapshots, both on net, and I did have fun (although I took a slapshot off my thumb that left it swollen and sore for two days), so I can't really complain. There was an after-party, with barbecue (it's Texas) and beer (apparently my defensive partner's dad is a brewer for Shiner Bock, and procured a keg of what will be next year's Anniversary Special). I partook of neither, since we don't eat meat and I'm not drinking until/unless Jenny does (it only seemed fair), but I did spend about 15 minutes swapping hockey stories with a 14-year-old. :)
Anyway, it was a great season and I can't wait for the summer season to start.
05/24/2006
180, 9, and 6 (or 3) are today's important numbers. 180 is beats per minute. 9 is weeks. And 6 (or 3) is people, depending on whether you only count homo sapiens or not.
More specifically, 180 beats per minute is the rate of the heartbeat Jenny and I listened to today. It's the heart rate of our now 9-week-old fetus, who will make six (or 3) people in this family. Yes, Jenny and I are going to have a baby, on or about December 27th. Jenny believes it will be a boy, though of course there's no way to know for another 2-3 months at least.
The prospect of being a parent is a bit tremendous. Partially this is because Jenny and I have been reading scads of books about pregnancy and parenthood. In some ways this is a terrible idea, because these books are largely very scary. :) Still, I have definite ideas about the kind of parent I want to be, and the kind of parent I think I will be, and Jenny will be, and overall I'm optimistic. I'm generally optimistic about things, so I guess that's par for the course.
I don't mean to be melodramatic or anything; clearly we're not the first people to have a baby in this world. :) It's just a bit personally overwhelming at times. I think it will be quite the adventure.
05/16/2006
So the season has ended; my team finished in third place. The final stats for the season are available online here. If you drill down into the stats, you'll note I got no goals, no penalty minutes, and a single assist. Go me. ;) Still, I feel like I had a great first season and a lot of fun. The handful of pictures Jenny was able to get before the camera battery died are up in the gallery. I'm in black with a white helmet, #79. (I would have been #13, but someone else on the team already had it).
Being in the top 4 teams meant we got to enter the playoffs, which are a simple single-elimination tournament. Our first-round game was last night, against the 2nd-place team. Of our 4 regular defensemen, one was recovering from salmonella and the other had just gotten new skates (and isn't really comfortable in them yet) since the steel runner in his old ones shattered during a game earlier in the season (seriously). The referees seemed to kind of have it in for our team; we took 7 penalties to I think 2 for the other team, although I honestly think there were an equal number of offenses on either side. We did score first, one goal in the first period, but the second period kind of fell apart on us and we gave up two power play goals.
Fortunately, one of the things this team is very good at is coming back from a deficit, and we really went to work in the third period. My defensive partner scored a beauty of a wrist shot off a faceoff during a 4-on-4, leaving us tied. We had several more great opportunities, including one where I cut off a clearing pass, passed to a forward at the side of the net, and ended up with the rebound and a wide open net. My shot was a little off balance and someone got in the way of it, and we ended up with about 8 players involved in a scrum in front of the net--most of us laying on the ice. The puck ended up right in front of me, and I saw our center about three feet away, standing up. I very carefully used my stick to push the puck towards him, but as soon as he touched it the ref whistled us for a hand pass (which was nonsense).
Time wound down and ran out; unlike the regular season, there are no ties in the playoffs, so we went to a 5-minute 4-on-4 sudden death overtime. We played for about 3-1/2 minutes, with some good chances on both sides, until a miscommunication ended up with us apparently having too many men on the ice. (I'm not completely sure there actually were too many men, but that's what was called.) One of our centers, my defensive partner, and I ended up as the 3 in a 4-on-3. I was really excited to get tapped for the 4-on-3, since it indicated a lot of trust from my captain and teammates. Less than a minute later my partner got the puck in our zone. He had some time, so he held it, and the center started yelling for him to ice it all the way down. Instead, he very calmly passed it straight up the middle to the center, who fought off the lone defense in his way, broke in on the goalie, and beat him 5-hole. It was an amazing goal shorthanded in overtime, and the crowd (friends and family as well as the teams waiting to play the next game) started yelling. It was great. :)
So we're into the championship game, which will be played next Monday. We've played our opponents three times: beaten them twice and tied once, so we feel like if we play well we have a great chance. Either way, I've had an amazing time this season and I'm really glad I got to play.
In other news, yesterday and today my company held the annual conference for our independent resellers, consultants, and other developers. This year it was held here in Austin. I was scheduled to judge an annual competition yesterday, but I had to bow out at the last minute because I needed to make it to my playoff game. Today I gave a 25-minute presentation on recent improvements to one of the tools we sell. It was very well received, although I have several notes on things I can do better next time I get the opportunity. It was very interesting to me to meet all these people who build an entire ecosystem of software based on our stuff, and hear their perspectives on how things are and should be. Being an insider was a new experience for me too; all these developers wanted to know what's coming down the pipe, and how things work, and I have to keep in mind what I am and am not allowed to state publicly. It was very cool taking questions and being able to give good answers. Hopefully I'll get to participate in the conference in years to come as well.
04/30/2006
Of course, as soon as I brag about it, the streak is over. :-P We lost yesterday, 2-1, leaving our streak at 5-0-1. Ah well, time to start a new one.
In other news, I finally got the new floor in the bedroom put down (again). It's nice to have that out of the way, even though between putting floor down and hockey I'm pretty tired and sore. :)
04/27/2006
I'm really bad about updating this thing. Sometimes I'm not entirely sure why I have it. :-D
Anyway, hockey has been going great. All of a sudden my team is on a tear; we've won our last 5 games, the most recent with a substitute goalie. In that stretch we beat the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams (we were more or less in 4th place for most of it). As of this last game we are tied for 1st place in the division with either 1 or 2 other teams (the latest games haven't posted to the website yet).
Of course, I still don't have a goal, an assist, or a penalty to my credit. I'm the only player on the team who has not missed a game of which that is true. :) Partially it's just luck; I've certainly had chances for goals or assists. Mostly it's due to the fact that I tend to play a defensive style; my partner tends to play pretty offensively, joining the rush or pinching to try to hold the puck in, which means I'm covering back in case he gets beaten. Still, we're winning and I'm having a great time, so I'm happy.
Work is going well. I've been working on my presentation for our reseller/developer conference, which is coming up very soon. I'm a little nervous;hopefully it goes well. No hecklers, that sort of thing. ;)
The garden hasn't died yet. We've been watering more than we did last year, and that seems to be helping. The bell pepper plant from last year has actually grown quite a bit, so here's hoping it feels productive this time around. This weekend I'm going to put up the new mantel and re-lay the floor in the bedroom. I'll be painting the guest room this summer, and I need to find some way to keep the stupid transition pieces attached to the new flooring (I think I'm going to end up drilling into the concrete and screwing them down) and then hopefully that will complete the inside of the house for the time being.
Also, for some reason, yesterday and today I've been thinking a lot about Neil. I'm not really sure why; maybe it's that all the flowers around here are blooming. I remember noticing on the way back from Houston that the bluebells were blooming along the highway; they were kind of heartbreakingly pretty actually. Either way. I still miss him a great deal, especially when I cut up bell peppers or broccoli.
04/06/2006
Sorry about the lack of updates. I got busy again. Or got lazy again--take your pick. ;)
I won't recap the games individually, but our last 3 games have been a loss (a really bad loss; our captain got injured and one of our players got ejected for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty), a tie (0-0; our first shutout), and a win (in which I played like crap; see below) respectively. Aside from the really bad loss (which wasn't fun for reasons other than losing the game), the season so far has been lots of fun. I feel like I'm learning something every time I'm on the ice; I feel more confident every game, and I feel like every game I find some way to make a good contribution, even if it's not scoring (and it's not; I have 0 goals/0 assists on the season--but 0 penalty minutes, too ;). I actually kind of love blocking shots, partially because I find it incredibly frustrating when other people block my shots, and turning that around is very satisfying.
Anyway, I got really, really sick last weekend. I played hockey Sunday afternoon, felt great, had a great game (the tie, which we really should have won but for their substitute goalie playing like a pro), came home, had dinner, and then spent much of the night throwing up. Oh, and massively delirious. Apparently I was a real pain in the ass; I don't remember much of it. Monday morning I felt slightly better but was weak as a half-drowned kitten and still shaky, so I stayed in bed all day. Wednesday, we played our next game, and I was very obviously still tired. I couldn't seem to stand up on the ice at all; I fell down even more than usual (and usual is fairly often--my teammates call me the "Tasmanian Devil" for my signature spin-around-and-fall-down routine). Fortunately I don't seem to have relapsed, and we have a 10-day layoff to the next game, so I have time to recover.
We just finished a major milestone at work. The project that's been taking up the time of the majority of our developers for the last 3-1/2 years has finally come to a closure point, and from here on out we're going to be starting to pull that code into our existing applications and actually shipping it to customers. This isn't really new for me, because the stuff I've been working on has been the actual shipping applications, up until the last 3-4 months. Lately I've been getting things in place to significantly improve our infrastructure to make that migration easier; after Monday that will all be done (we'll be using .Net 2.0, SQL Server 2005, and Team Foundation Server--all really cutting edge stuff) and I'll be back working on actual code, which will be nice. I'm really a code monkey at heart. :-D
Some of the stuff I've been working on (and will be working on) is really cool; I'll be helping present some of it at one of our annual conferences, aimed at our resellers and other people who customize our application. That's very exciting for me; I often envy the situation of the various Microsoft developers who blog about their work and have very active, engaged communities, and this is kind of a similar situation for me. Although I've worked on applications for end-users at other jobs, this is the first time that I'm really starting to get directly connected to users/developers who aren't actually on my team or working for my company, and that's pretty cool.
03/24/2006
It's funny how you can coincidentally start listening to a particular song that somehow fits right into your life.
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
From How to Save A Life by The Fray.
03/19/2006
I had my third hockey game yesterday. Our first two ended in 2-2 ties; the team we were playing had won both their games (one of them 6-1), and is in first place in the league, so we knew it was going to be a challenge. To add to the difficulty level, our captain (who works for SXSW) wasn't going to be there, and as it turned out we were actually at least 3 people short of our full team. Jenny and several of our friends came to root for my team. They apparently had quite the party up in the stands, with cider and rum, beer, chips, etc. They also yelled quite a bit, especially at the referees (who were terrible--missed several really blatant calls, including a trip on what would have been a breakaway). It was fun playing in front of people I know and getting cheered on. :)
Nonetheless, we started the game working hard; we haven't been getting many shots on goal, so we tried to step that up and just shoot the puck more. We had some great chances, but nothing was going in. Fortunately we were doing a good job holding them off as well; they scored once, but all in all we were playing well. The second period we actually kind of took over; we spent a lot of time playing in their zone, getting some good passing and some great shots. Unfortunately their goalie made a lot of good saves and we just weren't getting to the rebounds.
In the third period things kind of fell apart for us. You could tell we all started to get tired; all of a sudden they were getting lots of chances, including rebounds, and they started piling up the points. I think we were down 3-0 maybe halfway through the third when we got a bit of a break; one of our forwards was getting pressured by two opponents in the neutral zone; he'd drawn them to the left side, so the right side was wide open. I yelled at him to put it off the right boards, and he banged it perfectly off the right side. I picked up the puck and skated in, along with two teammates, for a 3 on 1 chance. I stickhandled around the last guy, who challenged me rather than just trying to slow us up and give his teammates a chance to backcheck. This time when I broke in on the goalie I made sure to get the shot off, a low wrister that rebounded to the left--where my two teammates were waiting. After a flurry of shots and rebounds, I circled back up to my right defense position, since I didn't want to give up a goal. Our forwards kept pounding away, shooting the puck and retrieving it, and about 20 seconds later it finally went in.
Unfortunately that was pretty much the last hurrah; after a wicked wrist shot beat our goalie from an impossible angle :-P to make it 4-1, I ended up as the defender in a 1 on 1 break. Unfortunately as I tried to transition from skating backwards to skating forwards so I could keep up with the guy, I tangled my feet and, in Jenny's words, turned some kind of crazy double toe loop thing and crashed to the ice, leaving him to go in and score.
So the game ended up 5-1, but for all that I think that if we'd had all our players it would have been a lot closer. We just got too tired to keep up with them anymore, and they took advantage of it. Hopefully next time we play them things will be more even. :)
Overall I think I played well; I made a number of good passes and heads-up plays. I did take one hard shot off the inside of my calf that stung a bit, but as I'm ordering sturdy new shin pads today or tomorrow, that should take care of that. :)
After the game I showered (though I wish the rink had hot water...) and we all hit Opal Divine's for drinks and snacks. Then Jen and I came home and had fried chicken (yum...) for dinner, and watched Jeopardy until Jen fell asleep, at which point I rocked the board. :)
Overall it was a lot of fun; I wish every Saturday could be that good. It was especially nice after this week; Jen and I keep finding things around the house that are related to Neil, which is really hard. There are a couple of our better pictures of Neil up on top of the TV cabinet, which I think is nice even when it hurts to look at them. I wish we had more pictures of him, but he was a little camera-shy. I've gotten to the point where I can mostly discuss it with random people without feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and cry for a while, which I guess you could call progress. I still kind of feel like he should be here, though; like I should walk into the bedroom and his cage should be there, with him hanging out on top of his castle. He never is, though. Which sucks.
Edit: Actually, looking at the stats online, it looks like maybe we were only missing one person (the captain), and we actually had the same number of players as our opponents. Jen said it looked like they had more people, but maybe not. Of course the stats aren't perfect; our goalie is listed as getting an assist on our goal, but that's because one of our forwards was wearing the goalie's spare jersey. :)
03/14/2006
Neil lived in a purple palace with a purple castle to sleep in. He raced around his cage at top speed, sending bits of litter out the corners as he peeled out. Neil loved cantaloupe, blueberries, cheerios, broccoli, and peppers. When he ate watermelon the juice ran down the corners of his mouth and stained his white fur red and we called him a vampire piggie. When Neil was a baby he climbed his castle and out of his aquarium and scaled a book case (a height of a foot above the aquarium) we don't know how he did it. Neil and I used to play a game called "reverse lion tamer" where I would open my mouth and he would insert his entire head. He was not scared of the cat and would blithely ignore the paw fishing around for him until we screamed at Riley. When Neil was excited he would bounce around on your chest like a piece of popcorn popping while chittering. When he was scared he would whistle softly. When I held him in my arms with his head on my chest he would butt his head up under my chin.
When Neil's eye was bad they said he might not even live and he got his sight back.
When he broke his teeth off he grew them back.
It turns out that Neil probably had a very inner ear infection that gave no symptoms. This ear infection went on so long it seeped into his bones, his nervous system, and his brain. Neil could not fight hard enough to win this battle.
And neither could we.
Neil died today, at 6:30 am at the specialist vet in Houston we took him to. We were supposed to plan a course of action today for the newly developed nervous system problems but it was too late to plan. We had promised him that if he lived until Monday the special vet would make it all better. He lived until Monday but she didn't make it better.
Neil was supposed to live at least five more years.
I loved him very very much and I miss him very very much.
Neil died this morning about 6:30 in a hospital in Houston. He fought through more things than anyone could have asked. I miss him.
As with everything else, Jenny says it better on her blog.
02/14/2006
This year was an interesting Valentine's Day. Jen and I very rarely do anything super special (last year was an exception)--it's right in the middle of her semester, and I'm not all that romantic at my best. :-P
This year I was planning to make our "special dinner" staple (Salmon in Puff Pasty with dill cream sauce, and asparagus with lemon-butter sauce). Unfortunately we didn't have any puff pastry, so I stopped on the way home to buy some and accidentally picked up puff pastry shells instead. Which would be great for making little fruit tarts, but aren't really useful for packing salmon into. :( So I fell back on the phyllo dough we still had. Which was old, and dry, and cracking all over the place, which made it kind of difficult to wrap around the salmon and rice. A little creative brushwork with the egg-and-water "glue" helped quite a bit, fortunately, and it turned out all right.
Then, of course, the raspberry creme brulee took longer than expected to cook (probably my fault--I put cold water in the pan instead of starting with boiling, so it probably took forever to get up to heat), so by the time it was done cooling Jen and I had fallen asleep. So I broiled the sugar on top, wrapped them up, and popped them in the fridge for another day. Hopefully they turned out good. :-P I don't know what it was, today was just not a good cooking day for me. In retrospect I should have made the brulee on Monday.
All in all it ended up being a good Valentine's Day. Jen gave me some very nice gifts, and I officially signed up to play in an adult ice hockey league; the new player evaluation skate is next Tuesday, and the draft is the Thursday after that, so we'll see what happens. :)
01/23/2006
Jenny took Neil in to the vet today for a progress check on his eye (which is doing extraordinarily well, all things considered), and it turns out he's a local celebrity. Apparently the specialist we went to see in Houston (who took a CT scan of Neil's head for us) used his slides at a conference this weekend, which the vets here in town went to see. So when Jenny walked into the vet today, and the vet tech found out that he'd had a CT scan last week by Dr. Antinoff, she all but asked for his autograph. Which I find hugely amusing. :) Everyone knows his name.
12/09/2005
Just wanted to let you all know that we have added a gallery for pictures from Christmas this year. So far it has our tree (beautiful), our fireplace (slightly less beautiful), and Neil's Superhot-Decked-Out Christmas Palace. More to come.
12/05/2005
Today was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right. I spent the morning trying to figure out why adding tax to orders was coming up with the wrong numbers, only to discover that the person who told me it was, was using the wrong tax percentage to verify. Then I spent the afternoon trying to track down a ghost in the machine; a bug that didn't actually exist. My own fault, of course, as I broke a rule that I've spent the last month trying to get someone else to follow. :-P
On the other hand, when I organized the garage tonight (ok, I admit it, when I've had a bad day I put upbeat music on really loud and clean things) I found an ice hockey helmet we inexplicably bought for Jenny back in St. Louis when she expressed a brief interest in roller hockey. This means that I can ditch my crusty, rusty, stinky old roller hockey helmet for a nice new one actually designed for ice hockey. So that made me feel better. :)
Work in general is pretty busy right now. We pushed RC1 (that's Release Candidate 1 for you non-programming types) to our QA department this afternoon, so we're moving right along. I'm going to be interested to see this go out to customers and hear exactly what they like and don't like about it. :) I also have some ideas for things I want to change or add in the