Link'd_LN

Guess it's time - (finally) - to bite the bullet, and get link'd to my wife.

altho - i am a little curious how she ended up a 3rd tier person? We obviously don't work in the same industry, so what Kevin Bacon shenanigans got us that close?

My (first?) less-than-stellar parenting moment

So yesterday Fiona, LN, and I went to one of the parks down by the river. We've been before, but if you HAVE to go outside, it' s hard to beat a beautiful fall day with temps in the 70's. Fiona enjoyed running around, swinging, and, most especially, the slides.

Now, if you don't have kids under 10, you may not have been hanging around kid's playgrounds recently (I hope,) but there have apparently been some major advances in playground technology. After the lawsuit happy 90's, it appears that public spaces have started having huge playground jungle gym'y sorta things, with swings and slides and monkey bars, etc, all built in. While there remain the swings with long enough chains to play 'swing war,' toddler swings have improved: there is the equivalent of a bucket with 4 holes in it (one for each leg?) that you drop the child into. This minimizes the chance of the buckle on the front coming off, and the kid flying off. Advantage: Swing 2000.

Slides in *my* day were long, straight, and metal: think a Papa John's prep table at a 45-degree angle. You generally would climb up to the top of a steep, 10' tall ladder, always keeping 3 points connected to the metal grate The stainless steel provided a smooth sailing for any cloth-covered piece of your body, with one caveat. Any day with direct sunlight allowed the slide to reach a balmy 211 degrees F: almost hot enough to boil water, but easily more than enough to scald your inner thigh. Slides today seem to be both curvy (especially nice for the toddler set, allowing Dad an extra chance or two to catch them on the way down) and HDPE. They still get warm, but not 'fry an egg' hot.

Long story short - Fi loved the slides. I mean LOVED THEM loved them. We tried to make her the responsible one for climbing back up . It seemed that making her do the hard work of gaining all of that potential energy would make the transfer into kinetic that much more rewarding. She did a bunch of that (approx 1.2 kW (kidowatts,)) then got back to her secondary job of moving mulch from one side of the park another.

At this point, Fi was wandering around without really paying attention where she was going. I guess it was about time for her to learn to watch where she was going, so, too late, I saw her walking in FRONT of the bottom of a big-kids slide. Her mom and I both saw what was happening a little too late; Ellen's first thought was apparently "oh no - i don't want that kid who is going to run into my daughter to feel too guilty." And mine was "it's going to happen, but i don't want to watch. I'll just do what i normally do in this situation - close my eyes *&* look away. "

And I did.

Postscript - Fi is alive, but didn't learn anything. Maybe life lessons that feature short-term memory loss aren't the way to go?

bought fee a spires

OK - just got a txt from Mom (stuck at the airport in Cali b/c she missed her flight - but that's another story.) In this text she said (and I quote) "Bought fee a spires."

After much thinkin, i have decided that she was an unsuspecting victim of Autocorrect.

For now, I'm running with the theory that fee = Fi, and she just couldn't get Autocorrect to leave well enough alone. Any idea what she was trying to let me know she got her youngest grandaughter?

Filed under: Things I wish I knew *before* I emptied my freezer at midnight:

Apparently ice makers are not permanent features, and can be removed to defrost.

On the other hand, it was probably almost time to throw away that 6-year-old unopened whipped topping.

Milestones: Final service to cap 43-year career | ajc.com

Milestones: Final service to cap 43-year career | ajc.com

GT Chorale folks who might follow me - please feel free to come to the concert this Sunday at 3 PM, to wish Greg farewell. Murphy may even be there.

Learned my lesson (story is mostly safe for work)

Yesterday was my annual physical, which includes everything from blood tests to turn-your-head-and-cough. About halfway through, it was time to change into the hospital gown, with a sheet covering "down there." The nurse-practitioner came in for her portion, listening to my breathing and heartbeat, and checking my circulation. All normal, until she lifted the sheet and said with a smile something that sounded like "Peanuts."

I furiously thought about what the proper reaction from me should be. Miss Manners had not covered this in her introductory etiquette course covering trips to the doctor. What *does* one say to one's nurse practitioner, who has just made some sort of potentially derogatory statement about one's, shall we say, business? "Hey!" came to mind, but I decided against it. I also rejected "What were you expecting to find down there?" Then I remembered.

Next year, I will not wear my Charlie Brown boxers.

I am a flower, delicate and precious

So - learned about one of my foibles (maybe my only one) this morning - I am not as butch as I think I am. With school starting back up, the household has been going through some scheduling changes. LN has to get up and at 'em in time to feed the baby, walk the dog, shower, and be out the door by 7 AM. She has started out this year by setting her alarm in the fives. [[Side note here - as opposed to Jody, the only times that any grownup in this house has seen a time starting with 5 in the AM are a) after a LONG weekend night of video games, in my wayward youth, or b) at 2:30, looking at the clock in the mirror. ]]

So - Monday morning, I gradually woke up to a teeny tiny stream of light, like what starts to come in at 6:30 (still early, but not RIDICULOUSLY early. ) When LN came back into the bedroom, I asked what time it was, thinking it might be time to get up. "4:30," she replied. Somehow, she had ended up waking herself up at *4* - TOO EARLY. And the stream of light from under the bathroom door, or (as i learned this AM) from the closet, or even reflected down the hall is apparently too much for my pore widdle sweepiness. I find myself unable to get back to the business of sleeping, no matter how tired I may be. It is really just as well we have this acclimatization period before we get our schedules locked in - I might need LN to add tucking me in to her morning schedule.

Example the second: I like being barefoot. I tend to walk about outside, even in summer, with the cool breezes running through the hairs on my big toes. Growing up on Sullivan's Island, I was even able to make it most of the way to the beach in summer with only a few hops from the asphalt to the painted line down the middle of the street (always smoother, and about 20 degrees cooler.) So why is it that twice in the last 2 weeks I have ended up with what I have not-so-affectionately begun to call 'dog hair splinters'?? I mean, it's almost like a needle, poking at ya poking at ya, just making me limp around for no good reason. Hmm - as an example that a) nothing new is under the sun, and b) The Google knows all, at this time there are 415 K links for that search.

So yeah - Long story short, I wanted you all to know I am aware that I am the very model of a manly man. And knowing is half the battle.

Lil' baby, upon her fifth monthiversary

As she sits on my lap, squirming, i think it is a good idea to note some of changes in our little fiona jade's life recently:

Rolling over - she's had the ability for a while now to roll over when mad (or furious, as the case may be.) But this has only recently been updated (with Mom's help, of course) to being able to roll over, more or less regularly, from front to back as well as the converse. We're not talking more than once every five minutes or so, but the frequency of this is only likely to increase, so we are taking it as a win. Bald spot on back of Fi's head - take note; your days are numbered! Bald spot on the back of Daddy's head - not so much. (Plus side :it probably has stopped growing. Negative side: because it's run out of real estate. )

Sleeping - We've been using the Halo Swaddling sleepsacks, and I think it's probably about time for us to upgrade. (they are rated from 6-12 pounds, and at over 13 lbs she's getting tall enough that she has to do froggy pose to sleep thru the night. We tried upgrading her to an arms-free, non-velcroed one night-before-last, and went in an hour later to find her, inconsolable, having rolled over onto her face, in the corner of the crib. So - back to the small sack for now. On the flip side, Daddy was able to handle a night-time cry all by himself (yes, Dug, like a big boy.) I thought it was just a need for a pacifier, but the bottle of water ended up doing the trick. Yay for self-sufficiency, yay for better dentist bills down the road!

Daycare - Today is LN's first day back at work, and, understandably, she's a little stressed and sad. i mean, who *wouldn't* want to get to spend all day with the most cutest and advanced little girl out there? On the other hand - i imagine a certain satisfaction in getting to watch math training and school safety videos instead of Dora the Explora & Yo Gabba Gabba! So anyone out there who sees her, cut her a little slack today. Meanwhile, I've ended up making the bottles, and will be taking Fi to her new weekday home.

Speaking of which- one last bottle for the road, so i must be off!

Happy Groundhog Day!

For me, this link (http://media.gunaxin.com/a-tribute-to-groundhog-days-ned-ryerson/44283) is not just the memory of one of the funnier movies I've ever seen. It's also the 3 year anniversary of one of the best decisions I ever made.

http://seannibal.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-orleans-day-one.html

Thanks again for gettin' hitched, kayraygee.

Elf on a Shelf - 2 thumbs up!

Co-worker just told me of a holiday purchase gone horribly awry; thought I would tell you all about it.

She purchased the above product, for use with her 5-year-old son. There are directions for the parents (place the elf on a shelf, and leave the book around. Then, whichever one the child sees first, you help them find the other, so that you can read the book together.) The book tells the story of the elf, who has been sent by Santa(!) to watch the child, and report back(!!) every night(!!!!) As described by my coworker, "The elf has this creepy little smile, that wasn't evident with the original purchase. Even *I* started to think this guy was reporting on me."

"As I read the book to C. (her son,) his face paled, and his eyes kept getting bigger and bigger. He would take furtive glances over at the elf, wondering if its omnipresent gaze, judgemental and stern, was still there. (It always was. Omnipresent, you know.) I began to wonder if this was too much, too fast - but there was no backing out now. I feared that if the elf simply disappeared, C. would believe that it had gone back to report to the big guy himself that C. was a lost cause. Alternatively, perhaps he would decide a fairy restraining order wouldn't be worth the trouble, and turn into a Santa agnostic years before his peers. What had started out as a cute idea about a new Christmas tradition had morphed into a smirking self-evident superego, looking disapproving at my preschooler. I'm still not sure if he got any sleep last night."

From an Amazon review:

"I work in a store that sells 'Elf on the Shelf'. There is an accompanying video, which has a song: "Elf on the Shelf is watching you, what you say and what you do. Elf on the Shelf is judging you, each and every Christmas."

I love this product, and am repelled at the same time. . The true sense of fear, never knowing when this creepy little plastic stalker is watching - i foresee a day when I would place him on a shelf in the bathroom to frighten Nugget. Or LN. I imagine potty training will go beautifully in that case.

PS - I might have taken a LITTLE literary license with my co-worker's story. Also, alliteration.

PPS - edited to correct silly spelling errors.

OK - I cried a little in the middle.

Fresh Air interview with Tracy Morgan - it's both funny, and real. (hopefully the embedded link works - if not, click the title above.)

Or, you might have to click thru to tracy morgan link.

The Referendum

OK - this quote made me break my self-imposed blog-a-torium.

"I have never even idly thought for a single passing second that it might make my life nicer to have a small, rude, incontinent person follow me around screaming and making me buy them stuff for the rest of my life. [Note to friends with children: I am referring to other people’s children, not to yours.]"

We'll see if i'm back here soon, with more better news.

A Fox news chatbot passes the Turing test. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine#p2#p2

Chatterbox - i have loved you a long time - but this, your informative whirlwind tour through the history of both AI and right wing blowhards have really made my day. Tip of the hat, indeed.

Sean's Hawaii Trip - Day 2.

OK - this is the second (and, as it turns out, FINAL) verbal history of my work trip to Hawaii. I am not sure why I stopped being verbal at this point, but do know that I did take a boatload of pictures. Those will be uploaded anon. Or, possibly, day after anon.

2/8/09

OK – here’s a picture of my day.

Um. Here's a VERBAL picture of my day. Started off a little slowly. Sandy had asked me to give her a call when I got moving in the AM, and I did. Was pleasantly surprised to wake up, sans alarm, at 6:58 AM. Yay, for getting rid of jet lag. I asked her if she wanted to do the breakfast buffet at the hotel (I have a deal for 16 bucks, which I think that I will take advantage of. At some point.) But she said, no, lunch at a local hang-out, which sounded like exactly what I was hoping for. That meant no breakfast for me – so it was back to the ABC. (of which there are at least 20 in my neck of the woods.) So, for breakfast, I ended up having something deLICIOUS. OK, not really THAT delicious. But the fresh pineapple and spam musabi. They DO love their spam.

See photo documtation below:

(ASIDE) OK – weird video on the telly. It’s a Dave Matthews video, where a brunette Julia Roberts with dreds is getting chased by a faceless guy. And Dave is creepily watching her. And many black guys are helpful to her, including at least one without a shirt making her breakfast. That seems very unsanitary. Especially if he is cooking bacon. OUCHOUCHOUCH

(UN-ASIDE) Went down to the hot tub about eight thirty. There were a bunch of couples there, two middle aged couples from Montana, three army looking kids (ok, maybe they were early 20’s) with Japanese girlfriends, and one older middle-age drunk guy. When the Japanese girls got back, the drunk guy completely tried to hit on them. And I am really surprised that the guys didn’t just kick his ass. But they eventually left, and, after telling us all how lucky we were, he left. And then went down to the pool. And stripped out of his suit. In front of the four middle school cheerleaders in the pool. Stay classy, drunky-drunk – stay classy.

There was a navy lady in town for a Conference, as well; conference topic was updating naval procedures. Or something. She seemed nice, and was from Virginia Beach – we’ll see if we see her again.

Very tired now – see ya in the AM

Spoiler alert - we didn't see her again.

Pretend it's a month ago - sean on flight to honolulu

On trip to Florida - I've plugged back in the laptop, and found two posts almost lost in the cyberspace. I'll go ahead and show you what I was feeling, on the way out to the islands. I'll likely follow this up with how I am feeling NOW, as well as with some Facebook & Flikr uploads, so, lucky you - Sean overload.

Stardate Feb 7, 1:13 PM, OK – the inflight magazine lied. We were supposed to see – (brief pause while I figure out exactly what we were supposed to see.) As it turns it out, I figured out in that brief intermission that *I* was wrong. They started out with a Tyler Perry movie – first time that I have seen one of those. The Family That Preys Together. Mildly interesting – I have seen better – it was not necessarily as good as the same story would have been on an afterschool special. For grownups. Teaching you not to chat on your loved ones, even if you are rich. Otherwise you will get beat down, unless you are Madea. Wait - wrong movie.

Had jambalaya for lunch-fest. It was tasty. Suprisingly(?) so. Wall-E is on right now. More difficuly to see because one guy on the left side of the plane has his window down so he can read his paper. Hop hop hooray. Outside Albequrque, but don’t see Bugs Bunny at all.

The audio at my chair is mono, too. So that is awesome. On the other hand, I am borrowing Mom’s noise-canceling headphones, so THAT is awesome too. (one of those may have been sarcastic - not sure which, tho) (but that might have been sarcastic too... very confusing.) (OR IS IT) (nope) ((ANYWAY) They work pretty well at getting rid of most of the ambient aircraft noise. I will have to see how they work with sound coming into both earphones, just not on this flight.

OK – time to do a little bit of work. Probably. Talk at you in a minute.

Or two. Watched Wall-E. Still a good movie. Harder to just listen to while working, of course. Some of the funniest silent movie moments I have seen. 3 PM now. Can’t really see out of the window, and the screen isn’t showing us where we are. Must be because we are over the water.

OK – I ask (secretly) and I shall receive. We’re right between San Francisco and San Jose. (which, swear to god, I spelled Hose the first time.) Wish I could say hi to Red – wait, I can. It’s just time-shifted a little. I’m only 10 miles away from you now, Red- unless you are on vacation somewhere. Anyhoo. We’re almost halfway.
4:25 hours in, and 4:50 to go. Or something. Hmm.. not sure how this works, but
we have a tailwind now. 33 MPH. I thought the winds went the other way?

Anyhoo. I am going to take one more lttle break. We’re hitting some turbulence, and I want to use the rest of this batteries life on more important stuff, like work. (J’skiddin, Pipsquirt- want to save some battery life for later. Not sure why.)

OK – 5 PM. Just saw Ghost Town, with Ricky Gervais. His humor (or humour, I suppose) remains one of my favorites. His acting, however, sometimes is over the top. This was a good movie – at least 5 times better than the Tyler Perry movie. That was likely because of Tea Leone, tho. Never understood why she ended up with Mulder; I agree with what MNO said, he was always a little too mush-mouthy for me. I’ll have to go ahead and list her as one of my favorites. Who else is on that list, you ask? (or rather, I pretend that you ask?) Well, Jennifer Anniston has to remain on that list, where’s she’s been since at least the first season of Friends. Jenna Finch (Pam from the American version of “The Office” has turned out to be a remarkably sympathetic character, but I don’t think that has pushed her into my top five. I know that will be a huge disappointment for her.

We’ve got at least three more hours, and are 1060 miles away from San Fran. I wonder if we get another round of food. Apparently six point five hours since we left, and now we have a little less than three remaining. Teeny screen tells me we have a
headwind of 55 mph (now THIS is what I was expecting on the way TO Hawaii.)

Getting to hear some Death Cab for Cutie on Delta Radio Channel 12 -> I think that I like them. Might have to leap up if one of my bookends were to get up à if that happens I will let you know later. I feel like I want to get up, but I don’t want to irritate them more than necessary. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the young lady who has been asleep the whole time takes this opportunity. BRB

But sadly(?) I never was heard from again.

Awesome Album Meme

THANKS MARK :



This is obviously my band's new album cover. My mid-80's Europop band.

Steps taken:

1 - Go to Wikipedia and hit hit “random article” (or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random).The title of the first random article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to the Random Quotations page (http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3).The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” (http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days).Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

So I got a small town in Switzerland, a quote from This Guy, and this photo. I wasn't sure whether to run with 'to be taken too seriously' instead, but decided that was a little too pretentious.

The Explainer questions we never answered in 2008. - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine

OK - the above link is to questions recieved by Slate, that they hadn't gotten around to answering. They will (try to?) answer the question that recieves the most votes - I would recommend placing a vote for your favorite.

I am trying to choose between two:

• Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day?

and

• I have been accused of assault in Ohio. The woman fell over a box in the hall backward, and my brother opened the door, saw her lying there, and started hitting me. I got him down and held him down. It was all over a fight concerning my niece. What do you think will happen?

There are some doozies in there, though.

Coming back into the blogger fold...

...slowly but surely.

(I might be better served by a Twitter feed - but I'll go ahead and post the interesting thing that happened to me so far this morning)

When making coffee by the cup at work - it is IMPERATIVE to do it correctly. Otherwise, when you turn to get your creamer, your momentary confusion as to how the mug overfilled so quickly is explained by your inability to put the coffee mug in the holder right side UP.

guess i really needed that cup of coffee.

Two more brief updates to follow anon.

OpenSecrets | Donor Lookup: Find Individual and Soft Money Contributors

OpenSecrets | Donor Lookup: Find Individual and Soft Money Contributors

Look at the top two donations the Obama's have made this election cycle:

Barack gave Hillary 4k! In July - of this year! Maybe that's some of that quid pro quo I have heard so much about...

And then Michelle donated $399 to her husband's campaign. Wonder if she lost a bet, as I am pretty sure that they could both use whatever they want from their own assets without a formal donation. (wonder what that bet could be...)

Competing Tax Plans: Two Perspectives - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Link above looks at three different graphs of the same information:

McCain & Obama's tax plans, broken down by stand devs, population, and %/taxes paid.

It's pretty darn informative, and you can choose which one you want to look at most, and which seems the most 'fair'.