January 2003 Archives

Tonight I got the new computer booted up and running. Here are the specifics of my new hardware:

Athlon XP 2000+ CPU w/Volcano 7 heatsink/fan
ECS K7S5A Motherboard (w/built-in audio and LAN)
256 MB PC2100 DDR RAM
GeForce 4 MX420 video card
40 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
52x24x52 CD-RW drive
3.5" 1.44 MB floppy (not sure I'll ever use it but it seemed like the right thing to do)
AT mid-tower case with 350W power supply

Total price - $350. Such a deal! Hopefully this will stand me in good stead for a while.

Of course, the best news is that it runs Cameron and Claire's Sesame Street and Lego software. We are pleased.

On Sunday, we were at the Pusateri's for a Super Bowl Party. Lots of food, lots of fun, and a little drama thrown in for good measure.

So what's with the window, you ask? Well...

Cameron was playing in the back yard. According to eyewitnesses (I was inside at the time) he picked up a rock and decided to try throwing it against the side of the garage.

It bounced off the side of the garage a few times before he released it on a little higher trajectory - right through the window. These same eyewitnesses saw Cameron's expression go from wonder "I wonder where the rock went" to interest "Hey, that window is broken" to horror "I threw a rock and it broke the window." As this realization swept over him, the wailing commenced.

Another partygoer came in looking for me just as I heard the distinctive keening of the distraught Cameron. I found him standing at the back door sobbing "I broke the window, I broke the window" over and over again. Poor guy, he was just coming unglued. It didn't even cross my mind that he'd broken a real window - I figured a window had popped out of the playhouse they were playing in or something like that. So I started trying to calm him down. Katy showed up and began the same process. Mike was very cool about the whole thing and got into the act as well - "It's okay, Cameron. Cameron. Look at me - it's okay. Cameron - it's okay."

Then it came time to assess actual damage. Cameron refused to go anywhere near it. So Mike and Katy and I went to have a look. Sure enough, a nice broken window - right through the lower pane. Mike whipped out his digital camera and took the picture you see above. Then, with a glint in his eye, he went into the garage and retrieved the rock:

As you can see, it's one of those nice flat river rocks - good heft, nice shape. It is a rock that begs to be thrown, much as the One Ring strives to return to Sauron's hand.

I stuck the rock in my pocket and will put it in Cam's keepsakes box "as an heirloom to my house," just because I have a perverse sense of humor. And, as luck would have it, I won some money in the company Super Bowl pool - so Cameron isn't going to have to cash in any savings bonds this time.

I know that the time is coming when window-breaking won't be particularly funny - but for now, all I can do is shake my head and grin. Poor kid.

Tonight I started putting together my new PC.

Much was accomplished but I've still got a few things to do. Chief among these things is finding the jumper that I need to connect my CPU cooler to the power supply - and that was supposed to be included with the thing. I should have known not to buy a relabeled "this part was returned but it's just fine, really" fan from Fry's.

I'm pretty pleased though. Everything went together smoothly - mechanically speaking, at least - including the greatly-feared "spreading of the thermal compound onto the expensive but rather flimsy looking CPU with a butter knife." And since I can't turn it on until I have the CPU fan powered, I get to go to bed imagining that everything will work when I do get to that part.

I had another entry I wanted to make tonight but it's late and I'm tired. Perhaps tomorrow I'll get around to telling you Cameron's latest tale of woe.

You know how "they" always tell you to change the batteries in your smoke detectors when the time changes?

I've got another little event-based task for you to consider - if you own a dryer, open it up and clean out the lint on Super Bowl Sunday. It only takes an hour or so - if you're not hosting a party or something you should be able to squeeze it in.

This will accomplish two things - one, it will allow air to flow through your dryer as intended, improving the efficiency of the dryer. This will save you energy, and therefore save you money. Two, it will prevent a lint fire from breaking out in your dryer, possibly saving your life.

Ok, end of sermon.

I will leave you with this thought on lint - why is it all grey? And if our clothes are shedding all that grey, shouldn't they get brighter with every pass through the dryer?

The man walked past the sliding glass door on the way to the pantry. It was indeed a beautiful day - a light breeze moving gently through the trees against a crystal blue sky.

He reached the pantry, grabbed a bag of spicy pork rinds, and returned to the couch in the dimly-lit den, where his paperback was waiting.

Yesterday I got a CD in the mail from Dean. We have been trading mp3 mixes back and forth for a couple years now.

One of the songs on the mix is Eric Carmen's "All By Myself" - the very definition of "70's pop ballad" if ever there was one. I happen to like the song, partly because the main theme was lifted from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2.

(Stay with me here. I know what you're thinking - hoo boy, Brad has invoked the name of some dead Russian composer and is about to go off on some classical music tangent. Classical music either boring, soft, or boring and soft, blah blah blah, how can music that's 150 years old be relevant, muz muz muz... That's not where I'm heading.)

The first time I heard this concerto, it really got my attention. By which I mean, it reached out, grabbed my shoulders, shook me a few times, and yelled "Hey! Check this out!" I can't really say that about any other classical composition, and believe you me I've heard more than a few. It comes with the territory when you're the offspring of two classically-trained musicians.

I've always wondered what triggered my reaction to this piece. I'm sure you've all heard some music somewhere that got your attention that way - so that you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing the first time you heard it. Why are we so receptive to music? What language is the music speaking that our brain seems to understand?

Just another one of those things I think about while stuck in traffic.

Claire and Cameron love to play Uno.

The only concession we have made to their tender young age is that everybody puts their cards face-up. It's hard for them to hold a hand full of cards when they are bopping around waiting for their turn - and it makes it easier for Katy and I to lead the right card in the right situation.

It's funny to see their reactions to the game. They don't yet seem to grasp the concept of "winning." Cameron often chooses not to say "Uno" when he is down to one card because he wants to draw four more cards. Both of them seem to find it funny to be skipped, and are quite pragmatic about getting hit with a Draw Two or a Draw Four-Wild card.

How long will this last? I'd give it a year or so, tops.

Well.

I finally got my weblog ported over to Movable Type. It's the hep thing to do, you know.

Not much has changed, really, with one notable exception. You can now make comments right here in the weblog, for all to see. Just click on the "Comments (x)" link at the end of the post you would like to comment on.

I've been battling problems with some browsers not displaying the sidebar correctly - if you aren't seeing a section of links and such on the left-hand side of your screen, please drop me a line and tell me what you do see - I'll try to get it straightened out. In the meantime, I'll be looking for a true standards-compliant browser.

Anyway, all the old stuff is still here - just in a new format. Read and learn,

I see that Mr. Rose is back in the spotlight.

I would like to get my feelings on this matter written down so that I can put it behind me for the evening and enjoy my drive home, such as it is.

It appears that Pete is now willing to admit that he bet on baseball as part of a deal to get reinstated. I think that's total crap.

If he admits he bet on MLB games, he is admitting that he broke Rule 21(d):

Rule 21 - Misconduct

(d) BETTING ON BALL GAMES. Any player, umpire, or club official or
employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in
connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared
ineligible for one year.

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall
bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which
the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible.

So, if he admits he bet on Reds games while he was their manager, he's right back where he started. Mr. Rose, meet rule 21(d) paragraph 2. Permanently Ineligible.

Fine with me! Nice knowing you, Mr. Rose. Now get out of my sports page.

Sadly, Bud Selig, the Scourge of Baseball, will likely treat an admission as an apology, ignore the fact that Petey has been lying about it for at least 13 years, and reinstate the him after some token probationary period.

Being a reasonable person, however, I would propose this compromise. The main thrust of all this Petey talk seems to revolve around whether he should be in the Hall of Fame. Not long after he was placed on the MLB permanently ineligible list, the Hall of Fame passed a rule stating that no player on that list was eligible for membership.

If the Hall of Fame removes that one rule, Pete can get on the ballot. He can stay permanently ineligible - and out of organized baseball - and the fawning members of the BBWAA can trip all over themselves voting him into the Hall of Fame next year too. "Yes, Pete, you were a heck of a player. And a dirtbag too." That's a message I can live with.

A few months ago we got an integrated DirecTV/Tivo unit. At first, Katy was not too sure about the new technology. She was concerned that it was going to take her a while to master the subtleties of yet another electronic device and yet another remote control.

Tonight she was talking on the phone with a friend about DirecTV. She could not say enough nice things about the Tivo features. She is not only a True Believer, she is out there proselytizing!

All kids have things they are attached to. Cameron's main "lovey" is a beanie baby kitten. He's had it since he was very little, and it's extremely mangy. He used to chew on it constantly, and most of the fur came out. The eyes and nose were removed long ago. But this sort of thing is not unusual, and has nothing to do with today's tale.

We were all sitting around the coffee table this afternoon, playing a game. Cameron had Kitty with him. He was tossing him around while he was waiting for his turn and accidentally threw him behind the couch. This led to great despair.

Katy got Kitty out from behind the couch, and decided to try a new approach to convince Cam not to throw him behind the couch any more. "What's that Kitty? You don't like being thrown around? It hurts when Cameron does that?" she said, holding him up to her ear.

This tactic may have worked a little too well. Cameron wailed and burst into tears. Katy immediately started damage control. "What's that Kitty? You feel better now?" I stuffed my hand in my mouth to keep from laughing.

I've been spending a lot of my blog time lately playing around with a new layout, but that does nothing to generate content. So I am taking a break from style sheets to bring you these updates.

Thursday night on the way home from work I saw a shooting star. I wasn't sure how newsworthy an item this was but some of my coworkers - a jaded bunch to be sure - seemed pretty excited about it when I mentioned it Friday. It was quite bright and streaked across at least a quarter of the sky.

Saturday we took the kids to a birthday party. It was a princess-themed party and the cake featured one of Disney's better known heroines. It took all my self control to keep quiet when the birthday girl's father asked loudly "Ok, who wants a piece of Cinderella?"

Sunday morning I was pressed into service at church. The guy who normally sets up the sound equipment had to leave town suddenly, so I got a call to come help out. This week was the annual meeting, which meant that three microphones and a video projector had to be set up. It took me a few minutes to figure out to hook everything up. They should have some drawings.

Anyway, everybody was grateful for my help, although it was not a difficult assignment by any stretch. "Plug in four cables. Ride the faders. Go home." One guy was telling me how difficult it all seemed, so I asked if he wanted me to show him how it worked. "You plug the microphone into the connector down here. Make a note of the number next to the connector. Then go to the audio board and push the slider above that number - up is louder, down is softer. Don't touch any of the other knobs. End of lesson." We're not talking about putting people on the moon here, folks.

I had today off so we thought we'd go to the zoo. When we got there the line to buy tickets was at least a hundred people deep. We decided that maybe the zoo wasn't the right place for us. We ended up down the road a bit at Travel Town. Pretty neat place, actually. There are quite a few steam locomotives and old railroad cars set up - Claire and Cameron were both quite excited to find a caboose with an intact cupola that you could climb up into. "Just like the brakeman, daddy." Cameron is pretty sure that my job has something to do with trains because I'm an engineer.

A week ago I was asking for PC construction guidance. Thanks to all my readers who pointed me at good information about putting together your own PC. I have learned much this week. Strange how fast things get going sometimes.

Mike came in to my office yesterday morning to tell me about a great deal in the Fry's newspaper insert - as a result I dashed over at lunch and picked up a ECS K7S5A motherboard bundled with an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ CPU for a mere $99.99. By the end of the day I had also purchased a 40 GB hard drive and a CD burner, and today I ordered some DDR RAM and a video card.

All that remains to be purchased is a case, a KVM switch, and some thermal grease for the CPU fan.

This morning I got involved in a Twinkie-eating contest. I got schooled.

In spite of my Zen centering techniques, my adrenaline surged at the start and I shoved the whole thing in my mouth. It was difficult to break it into swallowable chunks that way. I think I got mine down in under 20 seconds but the counter stopped when Mike flashed his Maori Warrior Face at an amazing 12.85 seconds.

But hey - it's all good. I love eating contests - even if you lose, you still get to eat!

Ok.

So I'm starting to do research on building a new PC. Just research, mind you.

Nevertheless, It's all very puzzling. I mean, what the heck is a front-side bus and why would I want one?

I don't want you to tell me what I want - I would rather figure these things out for myself. I just need some educational tools to help me get there. So if you have any suggestions, click on that link over there and email them to me.

Last night, Cameron asked me what cannons were for. "Killing lots of people at once" has the benefit of being an honest answer, but would have raised questions I really didn't want to answer. I went with "They are for shooting cannonballs. The army used to use them, but they really don't any more." Then he asked his follow-up question, "So what are tanks for?" I went back to the euphemism drawer and pulled out another one - "The army uses them to help protect our country." (Cameron knows that the army protects our country from an earlier Q and A session.)

I felt very disingenuous giving these half-truths and circular-logic answers to sticky questions, but I suppose it comes with the territory.

Typing that up reminded me of a recent time that both Claire and Cameron lied through their teeth. Through their teeth, I say!

Katy bought herself a bracelet and some earrings last month and told me that the kids could give them to her for Christmas. I had already purchased some perfume for them to give her, so I wrapped up two packages, marking one from Claire and one from Cameron. Christmas morning I had them deliver them to their mommy.

It's important to point out here that neither child had seen the contents of their gift to Katy.

After being thanked for their gift, both of them said something to the effect of "I picked it out special for you because I knew you would like it." They were most sincere. Katy and I stifled laughs and nodded gravely. Liar, liar, pants afire!

My friend Dean has launched a weblog. He has been bitten by the bug and is posting topics furiously.

He seems to think that I am his only reader. I know that I have but six readers myself, but I thought I'd try to drive some traffic his way.

Click away, my friends - Thompsonian

I've been on vacation since Christmas Eve. It's been a nice break. Part of that break was staying off the computer, for the most part, but since I know all six of you are curious about what I've been doing, here's a summary:

Holiday Festivities

We had a really great Christmas. We had fun opening gifts and having breakfast before heading down to Katy's folks for Christmas dinner. As usual, the Ruperts totally went overboard on gift giving - we didn't get all the gifts opened until well after dinner. It's also worth mentioning that this was the Katy's first Christmas morning away from her parents, much to my amazement.

For New Year's Eve we went over to some neighbors and watched East Coast network television until 9 PM, declared it 2003, and took the kids home and put them to bed.

Family Outings

On New Year's Eve day we went to the LA County Museum of Natural History to catch the last day of a touring exhibit from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I really enjoyed the old baseball-related letters and exhibits, and Cameron liked the bats and balls that were on display. Of course, we all enjoyed the dinosaurs as well. Did you know that you can tell an Allosaurus from a Tyrannosaurus Rex by the number of fingers on their hands? Allosaurus had three, and T. Rex had only two.

We also took the kids to Disneyland last Friday. It was a good day at The Happiest Place - we rode the Autopia cars, the bubble machine on It's a Small World was working, and we got Princess Jasmine's autograph. We were on the freeway home by about 6 PM and the kids fell asleep shortly thereafter. We successfully transferred them to their beds when we got home at 7:30. Katy and I decided that we should put them to bed that early all the time.

Reading List

A lot of my free time was taken up reading George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" series. It's planned to be a six-book series, of which three books are written. The second book is just as compelling as the first, and the third is also quite good. If you are a fan of epic fantasy fiction a la Tolkien, it's worth taking a look. I would recommend a notepad to keep all the names and places straight, however.

Other Events

Last Monday I hosted a poker game. Way back in 1990 or so we started having "New Year's Eve Eve" games. It was a good time to get together and play cards without interfering with actual New Year's Eve plans. I don't see the Old Gang much any more but it's still a good time to get a game together.

I always invite ten or twelve people to games, figuring about half will make it. This time, however, everybody seemed to be in town and ready to part with their hard-earned cash. I ended up having Dave rustle up a couple more guys to bring us to a grand total of twelve players. We ended up with two tables running until about 11:30 when the field collapsed to six. We played at that table until about 1 AM - with the final hand producing a pretty spectacular pot, well-documented by Mike here. That nice 6-4-3-2-A low hand you see is mine, and put me nine dollars to the good on the evening.

I've always wanted to have two tables going at once. It was great fun, minus the cigar smoke leaking into the house - which resulted in a 2 AM run to the market for some air freshener.

So now you're caught up.