Finally, the weather is breaking. Yesterday the heat pump thawed out and I was able to switch from emergency heat to regular heat. The kids still spend a lot of time on the phone, and I'm watching a lot of older television shows to clear out my tivo buffer.

Nearing the end of another year

Well, temperatures continue to be quite cold here, with snow and ice everywhere.
The kids have a new favorite movie - Napoleon Dynamite - and I have watched it twice already.
I took a gift card given to me and used it plus about the last of the cash I had to buy a present for the 3 kids that I'd not yet given a gift. So now they all four have at least one gift for Christmas.

Temperatures are still down around 0 F. People in this area still without electricity - at least 4 or 5 households that we know personally - but the news reported around 100,000 households.
The kids invited some friends over.

Alas, in some regards, it is not much warmer here than their houses. I've electric heat, too many windows, and I'm using the emergency heat because of the amount of ice and snow inside the
heat pump. Once the temps rise over 40 degrees I can try to hurry the melting process along with some hot water.

But even then, this house never gets warm unless the outside temp is over 40.

Sigh. Over a week gone in my vacation. So far, I've hung out with the kids while my wife and eldest son spent the week in Florida, watched tv, watched Spider-Man II, Napoleon Dynamite, and Mean Girls, had to evacuate from my home due to the Ohio ice storm, and not only missed giving gifts at Christmas (for the most part) but can't even cook much for the family.

For the first half of the week, things were okay. But last Weds the snow began. That wasn't bad - we just tried to stay in. Then Weds nite the snow turned to freezing rain, and the power went out.
Thursday I decided to brave the streets and move to a site where I could at least cook
some food for the kids. We stayed there for a few hours, but then were given the suggestion to move to a local relief shelter for some heat. We tried that, but the conditions at the high school were pretty rugged. Friends of the family volunteered, out of the greatness of their hearts, to share their electric and heat with us for the night.

Friday afternoon power returned - and we returned home. The house is still cold - temps staying in the 50s or sometimes a bit lower - but we have a couple of space heaters.

Saturday, we ran to the airport, where our vacationeers were returning. We returned home, and Christmas afternoon and evening returned to our dear friends home, where we were treated to a wonderful meal and fellowship.

Now we spent the night here at the house. Weather.com is predicting that these temps of mid 20s will rise to mid 50s by the end of the week - finally, some warmth! Also, after payday and bills , perhaps I will be able to buy a few small gifts for the kids.

Even though so many preach that it is better to give than receive, it is hard for teenagers to end up with few to no gifts.

Being poor stinks.

I mean, I have 2 family members who used all their extra cash to spend a week in FL the week
before Christmas.

I'm at home with 3 other family members, with about $5 a person a day budget, no Christmas
presents, no groceries or supplies, and somehow have to make the best of this.

I'm getting calls every few hours from one of the vacationing family members who appears
to be bored camping.

One of the stay-at-homes has work scheduled nearly every day in the upcoming week. So I won't see her much of the time.

But, I've a lot of reading I can do, internet surfing, TiVO watching (YAH TiVO!!!), etc.
So I will certainly survive. But it's not going to seem like Christmas .

well, a stressful morning. I overslept - which I never (well obviously not never) do.
Got the kids off to school, then began helping around the house, reading email, etc.
while two family members prepare for a holiday trip down south. Now I'm trying
to get them to finish up the stuff I've been telling them to do for weeks...
Back later with updates.

Today was my day to go out to lunch with some friends. However, before I could go, I had a class at work I had to help with. Class ran long, and so by the time I reached "The Rusty Bucket", the guys had all left.
So I ate alone - a little Aztec chowder (chicken breast, white beans, garlic, hot pepper, cream and chives), and a 1/2 lb Reuben with a side of fries.
It was a pricey (total came to about $18 with tip) but
after that class, I needed it.

Well, my prodigal son returned home last night. Ben's intent is to move in with some friends in the upcoming weeks, so he's been spending time with them at their place to get to know them, make certain he fits in, get used to living away from home, etc.

It's hard for me - I really am Mr. Homebody, and love just hanging out at home with the kids. So having them begin the process of living on their own is tough for me. I am beginning to get a bit teary just typing this. Anyways, I know its for the best ... just doesn't mean I have to like it.

This weekend, Laura, my daughter, was so sweet. She took me out to lunch on Saturday. We stopped by an Ethiopean restaurant and had some great food. She wanted to bring home leftovers for the current beau to try out - so I gave up 1/2 my lunch to the cause. Didn't really matter - the lunch portions were so large I was pretty full.

Then, when we got home, she was getting ready for work and I found out we were invited to a little Christmas party.
It looks like it will be the only one to which we are invited, so I said "sure, let's go". We had so much fun hanging out with Mike and Amy Rodgers - they work with the youth at church and are such a fun couple. A few others - most of the Oates family, some of the Ruarks, and Sara Hunter and her friend Tyler, were also there.

Sunday, I found out that, once again, I was being asked to step and and run the powerpoint for the service. So I did it, and things went okay. Sunday School was a bit intense - the topic was supposed to be about forgiving, but the group was pretty interactive and we went in a variety of other directions. When I mentioned the tough time I was having with the kids planning on moving out, apparently I touched a nerve, because two friends came up afterwards and said how they too were either currently, or had in the past, had similar experiences.

For lunch, I made oriental sloppy joes (ground beef, onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, beef boulion simmered until the broth was incorporated into the meat).
Laura invited a friend over and they hung out... well, Laura was on the phone off and on through the afternoon, but hung out when she wasn't distracted.

We sat and watched tv after church and then I catnapped until Ben came home (around 2am) after work. We caught up for an hour or so and then off to bed to catch a few winks before work.

Only a few more days and Ben and his mom take off to Florida for a vacation with Hurricane Sara (inside joke).

Well, they are at it again. The two oldest kids are talking cell phones again. In fact, the oldest went out and bought one yesterday. I can't tell if he did any comparison shopping and looking for the best bargain, or if he just let the sales people sell him something.

That's how my wife and I got into trouble financially - just buying whatever a sales critter told us was good. In many cases, it wasn't - we ended up with too much debt now and it makes each week painful.

Too bad people won't learn from the mistakes of others.

Man, am I tired. I had a migrain most of yesterday. Then, around 10:30 pm or so my 19 yr old called home and wanted me to come out and help a stranger he had met to jump his car. When I tried to respectfully decline the honor, he got mad and hung up. Then, as I tried to go to bed, another child informed me that there was a strong likelihood of failing a couple of courses because of a lack of understanding material in the courses. Of course, this had to wait until mere hours before they had to arrive at school and face the possible consequences...

So sick as I was, I was up nearly 1 am trying to help them understand things like determinants and solving linear equations with 3 variables (we were not successful, I am afraid), as well as learning things like calculating taxi fare, reading train schedules, calculating interest on bonds, etc.

Sigh.

And of course, the weekend also held such treats as learning that one of the young people is making plans to move into an apartment with friends, and ... oh by the way, have I seen their work badges, their driving license, their bank card, ....

On the better side, Saturday I took the two younger gentlemen to a teen Bible quiz in southern Ohio, where their team came in first in the competition bracket and one of the two had the third highest score in his division.

current weather patterns are giving me daily headaches. yesterday, I woke up several times through the night nausious and in pain. I couldn't make it up and operational to go to work; had to call in sick. There's a flu bug going around and that may have played a part as well.
However, today I am again attempting to make it through a day of work.

Went to son #2's first orchestra concert. He did well, and as my daughter says "looked cute in a tux".

Well, back to work.

I woke up this morning feeling a bit under the weather. There's some sort of bug going around. However, I'm trying to work this morning, since I've got a winter holiday coming up.

Makes the morning tough to get started though.

It's a slow start today. The weekend was stressful - independence in decision making on the part of teens and adults has its good and bad points. Particularly when people don't think all the way through about the consequences of their decisions.

thanksgiving?

Well, we spent a few hours with my family, then drove down to visit my wife's mother. One of the kids had the great idea to sneak some left over sandwiches from work with him in his backpack. Alas, they had mayo on them... when they ate them, one of the kids got sick and was sick all night, losing all their thanksgiving dinner.

I kept being called all night to get up and sit with the child as they puked their guts out. They appreciated the thought, but I ended up with little sleep. But I survived, as did they.

Thanksgiving. This year, I'm not feeling as thankful as I have in the past. It's been a dark and gloomy past few months, with some small pleasures but, in general, more pain than pleasure.

I feel so alone at times.

Well, watched some of Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi the past couple of days. Reminds me of some of the hokier series that ran in my day.

Also, had a weird experience with my TiVO . I don't remember if I've mentioned it, but I'm almost addicted to my tivo. I've had it a year now. In that time, I've upgraded it to 322 hours, and the family's easily filled that much space up .

Yesterday, I was watching some old shows when I first noticed that I was not able to delete things I'd just watched. In exploring that I also noticed that a series that I follow daily wasn't being taped.
I tried to directly record it, and that didn't work.

So I popped over into the recording history file to check on the problem. There I find that tivo is recording an "internal error 4" for recordings.
I decide to restart tivo since it was obviously not helping to just sit there.

I popped over to http://www.tivocommunity.com/ and found someone else giving that same advice, so I felt good.

I checked and after the reboot, deletes worked again as did record. Thankfully the show was rerunning later, so I was able to get the missing episode.

But wait - the weirdness continues! I decided to check to see how far back the problem had occurred.
I found that, around 1 pm yesterday, tivo was reporting shows were not recording because the power was off to the tivo.

Hmm - how does it know that - if the power is off?
I look back and see the same thing for the previous 3 or 4 hours.

Weirdly enough, my family that was at home at the time doesn't recall the power being off at all!

If you happen to run across my blog, and you also have a belief in prayer, then I would ask that, if you wouldn't mind, you offer a prayer for my family and I. We're in a bit of a crisis - something too personal for my blog. But prayer for my entire family would certainly be appreciated.

Well, this weekend a group from my church traveled up to Mt. Vernon Nazarene University to participate in the Tri-State Regional Teen Bible Quiz. It actually ended up having more than 3 states involved - I know there were teams from 5 states there (NY, PA, WV, OH, KY) and there may have even been more.

There's a bit of the background at http://www.kdconsulting.com/ (they apparently ran the quiz).

There were about 140 teams of teenagers. Our team had 1 or 2 first time quizzers and 3-4 quizzers with more experience. However, only one of our quizzers had ever attended a large tournament before.

Friday night they quizzed 4 teams, winning all 4 matches, and that put them in 10th place out of about 70 teams. Saturday was rougher, and they ended up with a record, I believe, of 4 wins and 3 losses. This put them in 12th place out of the 70 teams... quite respectible. Not only that, but the top quizzer on our team (which was one of the two quizzers on the team who happen to be my sons) ended up as the 16th highest quizzer in the section - that was out of over 200 quizzers (maybe over 300 ... I've not seen a tally yet).

Anyways the young people did well, and youth pastor Mike Rodgers and his lovely wife Amy (as well as the parents of some of the others) were there to cheer the team on.

Also, we got to see various friends from other teams and even among the student body of MVNU . So a good time was had by all, despite my personal woes.

This has been a week of stress and pain. My wife learned some info about a friend that resulted in her being upset. Then we learned some info about one of our kids that frightened and discouraged us. Then another of the kids was being secretive, trying to keep us from reacting badly to something he was doing. Then it has been raining several days, work is stressful... one of the kids from my teen Bible quizzing has found that school is stressing her out so she has quit the team right before a competition.

While several of these things sound perhaps unimportant, there are many aspects to them which I'm not sharing publically since they, for the most part, involve others, and even when it involves me, there are parts of my life about which I'm more private.
However, the reality of things is that I'm under a lot of stress. I was talking to my eldest son yesterday, and he started to make a comment about how he couldn't understand how one of the other kids could act a particular way... and then he stopped. I made some remark about how 'well, they are [a teenager] - you were the same way at your age'?

Life surely takes strange turns. Growing up, I had a few events that took me by surprise. I kind of freaked out a couple times when relationships grew more intense than I expected. I got myself fired once for letting the air out of a fellow employee's tire as a prank (done to 'impress' .. right... a girl), etc.

Since then, I've several times found myself in serious trouble because of bad decisions. And each time, life seemed really black as I searched for solutions or at least some sort of action to take in response to the troubles I had caused myself.

More recently though, I began going through various crisis events the cause of which are actions taken by my children.

These are a different kind of panic, one which is even worse in some ways, in that they have to be the one to ultimately take responsibility over.

There have been the poor choices of relationships, resulting in brushes with the law. There have been experimentations
with substances of which I don't approve. There has been poor study habits, resulting in inability to get into college or slow down the career advancements.

Now we are in the midst of another one of these crisis points. It's too personal, and I don't feel comfortable talking about it second hand. But it is painful to see my children be hurt and to hurt themselves. And it makes me feel the pain of doing an inadequate job preparing them for adulthood.

As the weather keeps changing around, the headaches continue. Yesterday was so bad I slept nearly all day, sick to my stomach and really out of sorts with everyone.

I'm up and around today, with a bit of a headache but able to function. This stuff is no fun.

Weather here in Ohio is cooling off.

Took my wife to the local second run theater last nite to watch Bourne Supremacy. Found the dialog for the lead to be nearly non-existent, but viewed as an action film, it seemed to work pretty well.

Still haven't seen Spider-Man II or iRobots yet...

Well, election day was yesterday. I first tried to vote at 6:30 am. But the lines were quite long - probably 30-50 people - and that would result in me waiting for at least an hour or more and I was wanting to get to work by 7 or 7:30. So I left with the intent on coming back at 4. During the day, I got a request from my daughter to pick her up from the public library at 5pm, so she could get ready for work. No problem, I thought. At 4:05 pm I arrived at my polling place, and the lines were not out the door and around the corner, which I took to be a good sign.

However, it turned out that there were quite a number inside the building. I finished voting and was back in my car by 4:55 pm. 50 minutes seemed like a long time to me - particularly since I had forgotten to take something to read or play with me. So I just listed to my mp3 player and chilled.

I was able to get the daughter near the pickup time and everything worked out relatively well .

Now, being in Ohio, we won't know the results of our voting for probably another 2 weeks. What a drag that is.

Well, last night was 'beggar's night' in our neighborhood.
The two oldest of my teens were working so they missed out on sugar overdosing . The other two didn't really get all that much either - they both were helping friends hand out candy. At our place, there were 20 visitors .
So things were slow.

Well, this is the last weekend for the marching band . Our percussionist is, I believe, relieved for this time of year to have arrived. Now he'll have a bit more time - the 3 times a week practices, as well as the late Friday nites and nearly all day Saturdays will be over late Saturday after their state final competition.

Well, we continue to struggle to locate a health insurance provider for my eldest. Yesterday, I tried one of the web sites that asks for agents to provide quotes. One of the first that called turns out to have a bit of a bad reputation on the net, which makes us hesitant to deal with them.

What a mess!

Have you heard these guys?

Oh, I forgot.
I took my boys, and a friend of theirs, to hear Roper Saturday evening. About 100 or so people turned out. Most were quite a bit younger than myself.

There were 3 bands playing. I didn't know of the first two - I'm not even certain of their names.

The third band was Roper. One of the members of this band, Reese, was formerly in Five Iron Frenzy, Guerilla Rodeo, and two or three other bands. I really respected his work in FIF, so I was interested in seeing the new band.

Ben (my eldest) had bought their CD which was released Oct 19th. Of the cuts there, I found a couple that I liked
(1985 is the one I like the best).

Their Saturday nite gig was primarily the new album, with one or two cuts missing and one or two other songs tossed in.

What I enjoyed the most was the energy that Reese brought to the stage. He seemed truly to enjoy himself, and he lifted the crowd (who was already energetically waiting to see them) to a higher energy level. It was a fun night, and I found myself respecting Reese even more than before.

If you get a chance to see Roper, try them out.

Well, what a weekend. I had such a bad headache yesterday that I slept nearly the entire day. Today there's no headache, but my shoulder is throbbing.

On top of that, my eldest son and I have been working on trying to get him medical insurance. He's working in a place that provides him no benefits (he doesn't get 40 hrs a week), so we need to find something that works . However, so far, we've not had much help resolving that issue.

It is no wonder people are in such a situation these days.

Rain...

We've had a lot of it. So much I something think I'm growing webbed feet.

Right now, it's foggy, with threats of rain several of the upcoming days. My hands are aching from the weather (I suppose) but I'm in between headaches.

The kids' report cards came this week. One had several A's, a C, and a D- , another had A's, B's, and C's (I don't recall if there was anything lower or not) and the other had an A+, some A's, and a B or two. They are good kids, and I've talked to them about making certain that homework is done, studying for tests occur, and papers are turned in on time.
I also had to scold one because the excuse was that a school id was lost so access to the library was denied. Sigh...

I've not been writing much primarily because I've had a ongoing headache for several weeks now. Over the past weekend, I spend Friday nite with my daughter, watching television and helping with her homework. That was fun - really. She is pretty self-sufficient and seldom asks my advice, so it was fun to spend the evening with her, talking about school, her plans for after graduation, etc.

Then Saturday I spent with my youngest and his friends, coaching their Bible quiz team in a competition in Lancaster , Ohio. They did pretty well, even if several of them haven't studied as much as they need to. Then, Saturday evening, I was on my own for a couple of hours, then kids started coming home from their various activities and I was up until 2 am or so waiting on them.
Sunday, due to the headache, I slept a lot of the afternoon.
This week, we celebrate my wife's birthday (tomorrow).
So, not very exciting lives, but we keep busy.

Neat - I'm listening to friends at a conference - they are broadcasting an audio broadcast ...

Another morning with lots to do, and a headache to slow me down.

Well, Ben made it to his first Roper concert. Seems like
he had fun.

We're talking about going to the one near here, in Westerville, in a couple of weeks.

But first, we have to get some other issues addressed. I need to help him find a personal budget manager software package, so he can begin planning his future.

If he will start planning, and stick to his plans, he will do better than me, I expect.

Nintendo DS wi-fi explained

The boys and I are watching this subject, as we've wanted online play. I suspect, however, that all that Nintendo is going to end up delivering is head to head play in the immediate area - not internet (aka xbox live or playstation 2 online equivalent) play.

When the seasons change, my headaches increase. I don't know why - the doctors just tell me to take something (typically off the shelf) for the pain.

The past few days I've been struggling with the headaches.
I've tried not to take off time from work due to them, but some days it is tough to do.

Today is a lighter headache than normal. But I'm still struggling.

Monday morning, first week of October. Weather is cooling, and I walked off without my pull over this morning.

And of course, I think my mp3 player is in the pull over... if it isn't, then I'm really in trouble.

My head aches, and I was out sick on Friday, so I've got a mailbox full of stuff to sort out.

It must be Monday.

Monday morning, first week of October. Weather is cooling, and I walked off without my pull over this morning.

And of course, I think my mp3 player is in the pull over... if it isn't, then I'm really in trouble.

My head aches, and I was out sick on Friday, so I've got a mailbox full of stuff to sort out.

It must be Monday.

Early Sat. morning, and no cartoons!

Ah well - I'm up early this am because I'm thinking of attending the Ohio Linuxfest
down at the Hyatt today. It's free. I looked over the presentations and there are a few that sound somewhat interesting. It's just that I now have to get various people up who have to be various places around town this morning, I've got to dig up some money, etc. Sigh.

Dreary day outside. Inside the same. However, I'm rocking to superchic[k] Princes and Frogs on the Digital Audio Player.
I sure do love that song - it's my fav now, over Barlow Girls (a close second). The rest of the Regeneration album plays a lot on the player.

I doubt anyone other than me listens to most of these artists - paige, Out of the Grey, Weird Al, superchic[k], Mark Schultz, Jeni Varnadeau, and others I'd add later. Shrug - I like them... that's what matters to me.

End of Sept!

Well, fall began last week, and October begins this week.
Time keeps slipping by.

Nothing new that I really want to talk about right now - maybe later.

I'm already finding the music player addicting. I've nearly finished the first pass through our collection. I skipped a variety of cds with speciality stuff on them - things that the kids or wife bought, christmas music, etc. I've got about 5 or 6 more cds to go. Then it will be time to start 'scavaging' through the kids rooms to see what CDs of mine they have so I can rip them.

I'm still waiting to find a better ripper/conversion program.
It's a pain, not having the computer on the internet. But
putting a windows 98 machine on the internet would be like
dropping someone into a bathtub of hungry critters...

And I have to keep reminding myself to take a break from the music. I know I would listen all day otherwise, and my brain would never have periods of silence , just to rest and recoop from the day's stress.

Well, this morning started out a bit nippy - temperatures were under 50 degrees F. Fall has come to central Ohio.

I've spent the weekend learning about my new rio forge MP3 player. Not bad - though it has too little built in storage. Time to start looking for reviews of SD and MM cards to extend the memory on it.

Last night we went to the football game (and watched the kids lose by 2 or 3 touchdowns). I was cold and in pain from the long sitting on the hard benches.
I don't think I can do this much longer...

Wow - it is really wet outside today. I stopped by BK to grab a crossanwich and when I opened the window to order I was soaked.

It seems pretty unlikely that I am going to want to go to the game tonite to watch my son play in the band... as to whether I do go, that remains to be seen.

Well, another week - a busy one. Yesterday, at work they replaced my old reliable SunBlade 100 with a shiny new SunBlade 1500.

At home, kids are busy and when I'm not at work or sleeping, I am cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, taxi-ing, going to church, watching Tivo or watching DVDs.

So things have been relatively low key.

My oldest has his first regular job. It's in fast food (Burger King) and so is as close to full time without quite reaching that point. He could really use a job with benefits though.

Well, in the past week I've watched a fan dubbed release of Naruto (the first 27 episodes), Haibane Reimei, and something else which escapes me.

I've read the first volume of His/Her Circumstances.

And my eldest is hopefully starting tonite his first job.

So things are not bad.

On the other hand, it's been raining off and on all night and my number 2 son is supposed to perform with his band tonite for the opening of the Reynoldburg Tomato Festival. That should be ... exciting ... I guess.

A new month. How time flies when you're ... wait, I'm not having a lot of fun. Stress at work, home, and elsewhere makes things miserable often.

So ... what to do to relieve stress? I need some exercise.
Right now, my days consist of sitting at the keyboard from daylight until afternoon, then I walk to my vehicle, sit while driving 20 miles home, then go into the house, walk around doing chores until I am so tired I can't stand it, then sit down, read/play video games/watch tv/talk to family, then off to bed.

I get a 2 mile walk in a couple times a week - but I'm beginning to think that's not enough.

Oh, and I still can't decide on what mp3 player to buy.
I'm torn between the beauty of the iRiver and the practicality of the mpio which has removable sd/mmc card capability.

Well, I'm thinking about buying an MP3 player with FM radio.

However, I don't know all the ins and outs. So I am faced with either doing tons of research, or just buying something that has some kind of appeal to it.

I don't know how much energy I really want to put into it,
to be honest.

Rain again. The last look at weather.com showed me that here in central ohio we were facing at least 6-7 more days with rain in a row.

Rain is okay sometimes. But I'm probably going to be out one of the upcoming days for several hours in it, and that is not an appealing idea.

Today's the first day of school for one of my high schooler's and my jr. high schooler. The other high schooler has her first day tomorrow.

The summer sure did go by fast. I wish we could have done more together - but they were busy with their friends and didn't have time for dad.

The passage of time becomes more and more painful as you see friends and loved ones move on in their lives and leave you behind.

Sigh.

As the school season begins, I find myself attending
various orientation sessions, etc. with the kids.
Thus, sometimes my news is not so new...

Anyways, Dan - my 15 yr old - brought home a friend's Japanese DVD of Naruto (spelling?) anime. We've
been reading the manga (comics) now for a few months.

Other than some objection I have to the language, I had a fun time watching the first of the DVDs. It feels like I'm reading the manga - the story is pretty much the same,
but well animated and with colors instead of just being black and white.

Interesting experience. Most times we've tried anime and manga from the same universe supposedly, the stories were not very close.

Another work week begins. Who knows - perhaps this will be a good one ...

Got to see what new issues my users have with GNOME;
we are moving from OpenWindows (ancient desktops) to GNOME and users seem to find the most peculiar series of problems.

Took my son last night to see The Day After Tomorrow at the cheap seat theater we have.

We had a good time, even though there were many problems I had with various events that took place in the movie.

We just hadn't hung out together for some time. I'm going to try to make some time to do more hanging out with the kids, even though housework continues to stream at me, because time is slipping away quickly.

It's been a hard summer for me, personally, as well as watching the kids grow older and more indepedent. I miss days where we would hang out and play video games, watch anime, eat and laugh. These days, they are out with friends, working, or whatever.

And I end up sitting at home, alone, missing them.

Professor Magnus Larry

Cartoon Orbit is a cute promotional gimmick by Cartoon Network to entertain all the kids who like to collect.

Until very recently, it required one to be running Windows and to be on the Internet though, even though it is written in Flash.

In the most recent incarnation, it appears to at least be browsable by other platforms with Flash - maybe cross platform Flash apps are becoming realizable?

Why is it that people come along, thinking they have such a better idea, and it always causes more problems?

For instance, there is a particular open source community which decided to move their source code from sf.net to their own servers.

Fine - that's certainly their right. Then they withdrew access to the code, because there were companies violating the GPL. Guess the code isn't so open source any longer, is it?

Then they moved their mailing lists a couple of times, and it looks like now have disbanded them altogether, moving to a weird wiki format that is non-obvious to the browser how to use, and an irc channel which can't be reached from sites running filtering software.

So basically, the only software that performs this particular function has closed themselves off from the rest of the world. Seems like such a waste.

Survived another week. Lots of family fussiness, stress at work, etc. Then, yesterday, we took a family field trip to WV, visiting relatives first from the spouse's side of the family, then from my side.

We left around 7am - got back around midnight. Then, the body went ahead and woke up as normal
around 4-5am.

I'm beat. This is hard for an old man...

Trying to publish to blogger from email

Well, I wanted to see if this posting works
--
Tcl - The glue of a new generation.
Larry W. Virden
Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should
be construed as representing my employer's opinions.
-><-

Try out the new blog template, etc.

Today is quite a hectic day. At my place of employment, we use a login id to our systems that consists of 3 initials and 2 digits, with the 2 digits representing the department in which we report.

Well, last week, there was a realignment of responsibilities.
This means that nearly 150 people will, tomorrow, log into their systems with a new login id.

That would not be quite so bad - but then there are all the programs which, incorrectly, include the login ids, and the executables that have paths or emails to those old login ids.

So today I am scurrying about, looking for what needs to be fixed.

What fun!

Well, yesterday was my 49th birthday. It was rather a quiet one. The kids ran around town with their friends, the wife worked chores, and I ended up by myself. I think that one, or maybe two, of the kids said happy birthday. I got a few automated happy birthday wishes from email servers. Oh, and at least two of the kids friends told me happy birthday. But apparently at this age, the wife must think I'm too old to be told happy birthday, or to get any sort of recognition that I survived putting up with the family another year. At least it was better than last year's, when I was in a panic about a crisis in the family.

Well, today's another birthday. The last year has been filled with a variety of emotions and events,
good and bad. I've a child who is now legally an adult in some senses of the word. I've another who is learning to drive. I've a third who has moved from spending nearly all his time on video games and animation to nearly all his time socializing with girls... And even the baby isn't a baby any longer - he too is growing up to be a young man, dating, varying interests, etc.

I'm trying to deal with what this means to me, facing motality and even more financial issues than before; sobering reality about what impact my life has made in the world, and dealing with looking into
a future that may be pretty lonely. Along with that, I've increasing pain from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and other physical issues.

I am proud of who my children are turning out to be - well... I'd love to see the oldest get a job. But he is trying to ... he's just not had any luck so far finding something. So at least they are something that has gone right to some degree in my life.

I was listening with two of my boys last night to an early Five Iron Frenzy 'live' concert album. Boy, I'm sorry we didn't discover them until the year after the band broke up.

I love the brass sound they had, and I get a kick out of some of their lyrics (blue comb, for instance).

Tcler's Wiki

This web site is home for all sorts of information about the Tcl programming language. It is a groupware type wiki - that is to say, there's no person or person's mandating specific formatting, organization, etc.

Another day older and deeper in debt...

Anyone out there ever play Fluxx?
http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/Default.html
is the official web page. If you have a Palm Pilot, there's even a free version to play there - called MicroFluxx;
go to http://www.nosleep.net/ to find the latest version.

A Tcl note. I got word this week that a bug fix created by one of the contractors who work here is going to make it into Tk 8.4.7. This fix allows sparc solaris users to interact with japanese x input method software. This is something that has been sought for quite some time at my place of employment.

It is great to hear that is happening!

wow - how rainy it is today.

Spent an hour last night with my favorite (okay, and only) daughter as she practiced her driving skills. Do parents ever make it past the fearful stage and into a comfortable stage?

Then, later in the evening, a friend of one of the kids was reported to have expressed concern about me not liking her.
I was told it was because a friend of the family had told her this.
She's young, so she's not learned to just step up to the plate and ask someone directly what the deal is, I guess.

Watched Matchstick Men last nite on DVD. Wow - what twisted minds wrote the original, then screwed with the original ending because 'the audience will be unhappy' ...

One of the frustrations I am dealing with lately has to do with building my local tcl distribution. It involves finding the latest versions of the various extensions (modules, packages, whatever you wish to call them) and getting them to build and install appropriately.

For an example of the kind of frustrations encountered - one of the extensions requires linkage against libxml2 - a recent version. However, the OS itself only comes with an older version of the library. I've attempted to build a newer version of the library, but attempts to link statically against that new version have failed miserably.

There is a company who makes a build of many of the needed pieces available pre-built. Alas, the compilation license used makes the idea of pursuing the appropriate approvals from two companies daunting; and I still would be faced with building extensions after it was all said and done.

what a wet evening last night. On our way to a church service about an hr or so away, and for at least 20-30 minutes the rain was so bad it was tough to see out. My wife was driving at the time - I tried to swap with her, but she was determined to stick it out.

Finally got ahead of the storm and got to the location.
A tiny bit of the storm came along later, but nothing as bad as we was in while driving there.

Back from the 4th of July/Independence Day holiday.
Didn't do a lot - hung out with the kids and wife, went to church, then a parade and fireworks on Sunday. Watched television, played video game, read, did some dishes and laundry. Acted as taxi driver.

Back from vacation. I just spent the past couple of weeks with one of my kids at various church related functions. First we went to a state talent competition, where he got a second place award in mathematics (I don't know why they consider math test taking a talent...)

Then, we spent nearly a week in Illinois, at a Bible competition:
http://nyi.nazarene.org/quiz/mainpage.htm
where he didn't do so well, but says he had a great time.
This week, the same son has some high school band work and church camp, then when he returns from camp, his band marches in the local Independence Day parade.

Well, a disappointment arose today when one of my kids discovered that the job they thought they had lined up fell through.

I don't understand why an employer can't tell an applicant why they didn't accept them. If it was a matter of someone more qualified, then at least the person can keep trying. If, however, they did something that turned them off during the interview, they can work on that problem before the next one.

Anyways, it hurts me, as dad, to know that my child was so excited about the job possibility and then it didn't work out.

Wow - what a day today is turning out to be. Yahoo announces they have raised their email limit from 4-6 meg, to 100 meg.
However, they put into place a new version of the software that requires javascript and java, which breaks access from programs like lynx and other text browsers. They also have had weird problems today with things like the email body appearing off screen, etc.

Sigh - just another painful day.

Another day, another adventure in tracking down bugs.

Too bad the software is so minimally documented...

Was thinking about music groups I really like this weekend. My tastes in music are probably different than most my age - I am a sucker for solo voice and guitar (Paige for instance). I like a lot of traditional CCM (contemporary christian music).
Musicians like Michael W. Smith, Stephen Curtis Chapman, etc. I still enjoy, as well as groups like FFH.

However, I like to listen to The W's, Five Iron Frenzy, Casting Crowns, Big Daddy Weave, etc. I haven't found much in the way of rap that I like. I do enjoy instrumental only CDs - from classical to soundtrack to contemporary. I enjoy listening to some blues and jazz occasionally.

Well, I'm sitting here trying to not break into dance, as I listen to Tree63 singing Matt Redman's Blessed be the name.
What a song - I am tearing up here ... and I'm sitting at work, banging at the computer...

Well, in the past week a friend upgraded my Tivo to a second 160 gig drive and my eldest son graduated high school.

I'm tired.

More and more I miss having summers off to just kick back.
It's a a real pain to work all year round, not getting ahead of the bills, and not getting any recreational time.

Unfortunately, I've a family who manage to spend my pay check as fast as I earn it (or faster...)

Enough complaining for today!

Wow - such a long time since my last entry. So much is going on. My oldest son is to graduate from high school in just a couple of days. I have been struggling with various projects. Too busy to write.

coLinux: Linux for Windows Without Rebooting by KIVILCIM Hindistan -- Trying Linux just keeps getting easier. Knoppix and other live CDs let you take Linux with you on CD and USB keys, but you have to reboot to run your software. What about Windows users who want to use Linux in conjunction with their existing systems? KIVILCIM Hindistan explores the world of coLinux -- cooperative Linux.

I was writing to today about TiVo - here's what I ended up writing about it...


This morning, at least, TiVo has again put up for sale factory renewed
Series2 DVRs. These have the full warrenty on them.

The 40 hour model is listed at $149 - with a $50 rebate! That gets
you started at $99 . Then, the ongoing program listing service is
$12.95 a month (or a one time cost of $299).

The 80 hour model is $199 after rebate.

I bought a floor model TiVo at Best Buy at about this same price.
Another TiVo owner, with a bit of experience, helped me upgrade my
40 hr hard drive to a 157 hr hard drive. I still hope some day to
get with my friend to add a second hard drive to the system.

The only thing that would be better than TiVo
in terms of a) watching shows in less time, and
b) watch shows when I want to, without having to keep meticulous
notes on what was on which video tape, etc.,
would be if the various cable stations would join together to create a
video on demand service for all their programming, with the disk farm
being on their end.

Until that day - which probably isn't all THAT outrageous of an idea (anyone
want to invest in such a project?) I find that TiVo, with its
o extensive broadcast programming database,
o ability to create almost regular expression searching and
automatic recording of shows,
o season pass recordings that are pretty good at tracking changes
to show days/times that are announced
at least 24-48 hrs in advance
(and if you use a directv satellite setup or maybe broadband,
then I believe this time drops to less than 30 minutes),
is so much more valuable to me than my VCR was.

An example of how 'insidious' TiVo can become arose today
at lunch. I was mentioning that my kids were really
getting a kick out of watching the reruns of the old
Dilbert animated series. I was asked "Oh, when is
that on" and I had to reply that I'd no idea - tivo
finds it and records it whenever it comes on.

Similarly one of my kids were actually lamenting the
fact that they seldom saw all the 'neat' new
commercials their friends talk about at school - we
just do several 30 second skips and move on with
the show, resulting in seeing an hour show in about
45 minutes or so...

what a week. Running around every evening taking kids hither and yon. All day chasing bugs, answering questions, and trying to solve problems. The fun never ends. On top of that, I've been fighting either a cold or allergies, and so I've been physically feeling miserable. At least I'm sleeping again. For a few days, I would cough all night, feeling like I was about to lose a lung. Now, however, my wife's doing that...

Working today on building latest tcl extensions - sure would be nice if everything took the same arguments, etc. so that one command style could be used across the board. But everything has its own little exceptions, etc.

what a rough week. Lots of tough problems and busyness. And a busy weekend ahead.

Still trying to find an affordable internet provider. Sure would love to find high speed internet at a small cost.

Linux on the GameCube by Howard Wen -- As consoles grow in power and digital convergence looms, they become ever more attractive targets for free operating systems. What better hack than to port Linux or BSD to the GameCube? Howard Wen interviews the developers behind GameCube Linux.

I'm searching for an internet provider alternative. Right now, I have a no cost up to 56k internet connection. However, the isp has been
increasingly blocking web sites until its become important to consider alternatives.

Unfortunately, with my finances extremely limited, the alternatives are not great.

We've at least 4 problems.

1. content blocking
2. one phone line
3. slow speeds
4. no current tech computer (mac 68k machines and a win98 machine)

To resolve all 4 problems APPEARS that it would take, at least, $1000 up front with a $600 a year investment - way out of my range.
My range would have been a $300 up front investment and under $20 a month.

Time for spring break. I don't know what that will bring us - frustration, confusion, busyness and hopefully some fun times, along with the sombering rememberance of what Easter really means.

For many years, we only had MacOS machines in the house. In fact, for many years, that was the only thing we would consider letting into the house.

Part of the problem is financial - we just so little disposable income that there's not been enough to buy a new computer since the Apple IIgs was introduced (My first computers werre Apple IIs...).

So, during the 2003 winter, when a friend asked if I would mind if he gave one of the kids a computer for Christmas, I was taken aback. One, by the generosity and kindness, and two, because it violated a principle that I had held for years - Windows is a nuisance, bother, and a down right offensive environment.

However, we are forced into dealing with Windows at school frequently, and at the homes of friends, church, etc. And the machine was free, etc.

So I hesitantly said "Sure".

It's given us so much trouble over the past 3-4 months.

Not that Macs and Apple IIs were perfect. The kids frequently would screw around with preferences, etc. and end up hosing the computer up. Generally I could untangle things, but the last desktop at home that I was using was taken out after a fun night by the kids. I ended up getting a SPARC Solaris box just so I could read mail, etc.

Now understand - this windows box is not on the internet. The kids are not bringing home
programs from their friends. But it is still a pain.

For example, the machine is running Windows 98 - that's what the fellow who bought it could afford, he had some Windows 98 software he couldn't use and wanted to give it to someone, so that was fine.

But we see cases where Windows Media Player just stops - and freezes the system. The mouse has, over the past few months, deteriorated until it's nearly unusable. And so on.

I'd love to put Linux on the machine. But I don't want to screw up the programs that are there on the disk . Someday, maybe I'll break down, buy a SCSI card, and take the spare scsi internal disk I have ,
put it on the machine, and put linux on there.

Hamsters

We're learning about them at our place.

My daughter decided for her birthday to buy one .

I don't know why - turns out the hamster is a night creature, so it's seldom awake when my daughter is awake, and my daughter doesn't like listening to the hamster run around in its wheel...

Well, it looks like my setuid problem has little or nothing to do with the perl binary interpreters i am using, and more to do with the shell wrapper that figures out which binary to use. I have more research to do.

Well, just got an issue of Del Rey's Manga newsletter. Looks like they have 3 or 4 titles they will be publishing once a quarter or so. Only one is a title I recognize - Gundam SEED. However, one is a Clamp title, so that should be good.

My local library carries a number of manga titles, as well as a little english dubbed (and occasionally subbed) video tape and a bit more DVDs of the same titles.

I was just commenting over on news:comp.lang.tcl about the fact that so many of the Tcl books are now out of print. It is too bad - tcl is more fun to play with than most other languages I have tried.

Well, I just received an email from my friend in Japan. He is graciously sending me a copy of one of his latest articles on anime, along with a theater program from a new anime movie.

Here in the US, I seldom see movie programs. I don't know if that's a decision being made by the local theaters, or a decision by the movie companies, not to create the programs.

However, anime and manga are common topics for my family. The boys have become hooked on the Naruso and One Piece (I believe) English translations being published by Viz. I have been trying to read along with them. They also borrow, from friends, the Shojun Jump magazine.

As for anime, we're watching Trigun tv series, as well as just finished watching the first DVD of "Last Exile". We recently finished Arjuna, RahXephon, and a bit longer ago, Nadesco (spelling?) - the first television series. We of course watch a lot of the series on Cartoon Network and ABC Family as well.

Spam is surely annoying.

Right now, I get a gig or more a day, between my various email accounts. Due to my current life circumstances, I can't set things up to just delete things. My yahoo email account has only limited filtering and spam detection. My work id has some filtering, but not very effective. In both cases, I still have to browse the subjects if I want to ensure that something doesn't get trashed that I really want to see.

Well, I've kind of found a work around for my setuid perl problem. The thing is, it should work - others are doing this same sort of thing on the same machines.

Anyways, now I move on to fixing a different bug.

Sigh.

Well, if someone out there plays Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles, I'd love to hear from you. This is the latest craze in the house, and
we're trying to figure out how to get by various challenges.

I really hate squirrels and raccoons.

There was a time, a long time ago, when little furry wild animals were cute.

Then, a few years ago, I began battling the invasion forces of these despicable aliens. And that's when things really turned to the worse.

We've at least temporarily extracted the squirrels from the area between floors where they had created a home for themselves. Next is the attempt to extract the raccoons, or whatever it is, from the chimmeny.

I don't know if I will ever recover from the trauma of this.

One of the things with which I am struggling right now is perl. At work, I inherited this set of perl programs. One of them, used for setting up things, needs to run set-userid (a way for someone using the program to take actions as if they were some other user).

For some reason, this past week I discovered that the specialness of the program has disappeared. That is to say, when within the program I execute the command to say who I am, I'm not the userid I should be.

And so I am searching for reasons and techniques to solve the problem.

Well, first entry time. Where to start?

Let's see - my home web site has been sadly neglected due to life circumstances, which I probably won't be discussing here in public.

One of my favorite hangouts is the recent changes page at the tcl'ers wiki.

Right now, some of my favorite things are my search for life's meaning, my kids, my love to eat and cook, my tivo, my friends in the Tcl programming community, the internet, science fiction, computers and the internet.