Chris' Thoughts

Letter to my first Capri

2012-02-19T18:11:00.001-05:00

(recently on the Internet there is a meme for auto enthusiasts to write a letter to their first car. Here in mine.)

To my first car, wherever you are now.

It was a fun, strange ride wasn't it? From my mom of all people bringing you to my attention to parking you on the grass at mom's when we moved to Georgia 5 years later.

I remember my mom coming home from getting gas in her fake-wood panel Ford LTD station wagon telling me she'd seen a car she thought I'd like. As a 16 y/o boy having your mom tell you she found a car that she thinks you'd like, I wasn't holding out much hope for what she found. Well, I was wrong. This was before the Internet, so I hadn't heard of a Mercury Capri before. But I was hooked.

Louie and I went to look at you and did a full inspection. Found a few things wrong but nothing that couldn't be fixed. I led my Dad negotiate the price and John and I went to pick you up (I didn't know how to drive stick yet.) I immediately washed and started compounding you, removing years of neglect on the paint.

As luck would have it, I couldn't drive you for a few days, mainly because it was Deb's 16th Birthday (you remember her right?) I distinctly remember pointing to you in the driveway when her mom picked me up for Deb's birthday party. (Deb has commented she didn't know that you'd be a rival for my affection for the next 5 years.)

As John taught me to drive a stick we spun the tires more than a few times getting the hang of it. I remember coming out of the parking lot at Danbury High School squealing up the hill! From there I never looked back. I think I put 100,000 miles on you in those 5 years.
As the owner of an 'unusual' car, I got pretty defensive when people called you a Mustang. Heck, even Deb got to the point where she's say 'It's not a Mustang!' when someone called you one.

Had to do a few minor repairs (including replacing the rusted doors!) but with a set of Kelly Charger tires on chrome mag wheels and black louvers you were pretty damn sweet!

We made it through Senior year of High School, a prom and that crazy summer. Deb and I would sit for hours in you talking (mostly :) Had to leave you behind when I went to UMASS that fall, but that didn't last long. 2+ hour rides to/from Amherst racked up the miles, but you were a blast to drive, even with the anemic 2.3L. Your propensity to fishtail in the snow made the rides to campus rather interesting, but still fun.

Even today Deb tells stories about calling the house to see if I was there (before cellphones) and my mom telling her I was outside working on you (usually the weekly wash and wax before we went out.)

The next stage in our relationship involved the engine transplant. Looking back (and lugging a few 2.3L Turbo engines around recently) I don't know how I got that motor home in your backseat. With a slightly peppier engine you were a lot of fun to drive. Still not sure how we made it down to that shop to fix the brakes after the transplant, but everything ended up okay, right?

And drive we did in the summer of 1989 to Houston TX. From entering Mississippi after a tornado (my first experience with the dead calm after such a storm) to driving around Houston with Connecticut plates and getting more than a few 'Yankee' comments, to the Hurricane that dumped 10 inches of rain in an hour and I was stupid enough to drive home in. To giving me a piece of home as I got lonely and tried to figure out what Deb and my relationship meant.

Our first introduction to 'Southern Summer' made it painfully clear to me that I needed A/C in my next car, which meant you probably wouldn't be with me much longer. We did make the most of that summer, going to a drag racing track a couple of times (yeah, 15-flat was fast in the 80's) and that crazy 24-hour drive back to CT with Pat. Including Pat watching the Ferrari blow past us like we were standing still even though we were well above the speed limit. (oh and I still want to know what happened to your passenger window ...)

When I got the offer to move to Georgia, I knew you weren't coming with me without A/C. From what I understand some of my cousins drove you until my Uncle Billy sold you to parties unknown.

Just so you know, I didn't give up on owning another Capri. Took a lot longer than I expected but I'm working on restoring one right now.

Oh and I'm going to try to get a custom tag you'd find funny: 'NO STANG'.

Lego Mini-figs as party favors!

2012-02-17T21:43:00.002-05:00

Christopher's 6th birthday party is tomorrow and we are going to have a Lego theme. A few months ago Deb and I had the great idea, give each kid a Mini-fig as a party favor. We found a nice, cheap box of figures and ordered it, thinking it would take a few minutes to separate them.

Well, not quite. None of the figures were assembled NOR WERE THEY EVEN PACKAGED TOGETHER.

All the boy heads were in one package, the girls in another and the bodies and legs in all five. Oops, this is going to take a while!

Dr. Frankenstein?

An hour and thirty minutes later, all assembled and packaged together.

Despite being a pain, I'm sure they will be a hit with the kids.

Christopher doing the Chicken Dance

2012-02-02T21:21:00.002-05:00

I'm still not sure why they did this at school tonight, but he had a lot of fun:

Scavenger hunt!

2012-01-15T11:32:00.001-05:00

Courtney has been asking for a scavenger hunt for her birthday for years, but being a January baby the weather really hasn't cooperated. This year was different.

First thing to know, this isn't a scavenger hunt like when we were younger (I was teenager in the 80's.) We don't need to collect things. Instead give each team a digital camera with a removable media card and require a picture of everything. This REALLY makes the things to look for much more interesting. (For example, a picture of two of team members in someone's bathtub!)

I started the task of building the list by asking on Facebook for some ideas. My cousin Randy came through with a ton of ideas, many of which I stole. (being 13/14 year olds the various ideas of listing different beers, foods, liquor bottles that they had to bring back was shot down. Fun idea though ...)

The rules were pretty easy:
- the teams could not go to the house of anyone who was playing (with one exception I'll talk about later)
- the teams could not call anyone for help
- the teams could not use any siblings or parents for the items to be found (with one exception below)
- no more than 15 items from any one house so as not to annoy the neighbors
- had to stay in the neighborhood

When thinking about items, I thought (and drove around and looked) at what our neighbors had and what I knew the parents of the kids attending the party had (just to be difficult). So I had things like a stone crocodile that one neighbor has in their yard and a very specific set of vinyl records that I knew the parents of an attendee had, just to mess with the girls.

Off they went and an hour and half later came back with pictures of lots of things, several of which I didn't expect them to find. All the neighbors they went to were cool and very helpful. Each team even got one Dad (different for each team too!) to put on a dress for the 50 points! (no pictures I promised!)

The girls were very creative in their interpretation of the rules, which was what I was hoping for. For example on item was 'a picture of the team on a rock wall'. I knew of 1 rock wall (built from rocks) in the neighborhood, but the girls instead found a climbing wall which they call a rock wall. The best though was the item of 'TV Rabbit Ears Antenna' which the girls found a pair of fuzzy rabbit ears and held it over the big screen TV. I couldn't argue with that one!

The only thing I didn't do which I planned on was the 15 minute special. The idea was 15 minutes before the time was up, call each team leader and tell them they would get 50 points if they brought back someone's mother to our house. Since they couldn't get their own, it would be interesting to see who would agree. (I still remember my brother Patrick's story of one of his scavenger hunts and finding a friend's mother in the back of the van, so this is a twist on that idea) Next time I'll do something similar.

So here is the list we used. Oh, and the one exception mentioned above, we have some die-hard LSU fans in the neighborhood and they would get 50 points if they got a picture of one of them with some Alabama fan stuff. One of their daughters' was at the party so we had to relax the rules. Also note that this was January 2012 so Alabama had just won the national title. Change those items as necessary if you use this list.

(I asked the girls if this was fun or was I being a dork, all said it was fun so I guess I'm 'cool' for a couple of hours now.)

5 points each

Everyone except 1 person on a rock wall
Everyone except 1 person at a swing set (DO NOT GO ON THE SLIDES - in case they collapse with 5 girls on it!)
The number 17
Picture with a non-sibling in Kindergarten to College (so 5 pt for a Kindergarten, 5 for a 6th grader etc.) 5 points for each year, one per year only
A 2011 Calendar
Chocolate Money
Brown Sugar
Black licorice
Wind Chimes
R2-D2, C3PO
Rudolph
Nutcracker
Jack-o-lantern
VHS tape of a Disney animated movie (1 per group only)
Photo with a HS Athlete

10 points each

dog, cat, horse, monkey, parakeet, zebra finch, owl, turtle, iguana, giraffe, hippo, any snake, any other reptile
Dinosaur, griffin, centaur, unicorn, dragon, orc, elf
Bus
Green car, yellow car, any year Camaro, any year Firebird
Red door, Red or Pink wall, Green interior wall
Pink or purple polka dots on anything besides clothes or a notebook
Bald man
Man with a pony tail
The number 42 (+20 if it references the meaning of life)
A yellow flower, a pink flower, a purple flower
Yearbook from the 1980’s or 1990’s
Someone’s aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, grandmother, grandfather
A 2010 Calendar
A January 2013 Calendar
Something from My Little Pony, Star Trek or Power Puff Girls
Stone alligator
An adult female with a football helmet on
A fully clothed Barbie doll
A fully clothed GI Joe
A red tricycle
A Louisville Slugger
Flowers made out of soap
Jawa
Life sized picture of any person/character
Unicycle
two person bicycle

20 points each

Car being repaired/restored
Any house Harry Potter tie or scarf
Bald woman
Globe or map with the Soviet Union
Anything that celebrates the Alabama Football national title
Anything that celebrates an NFL Superbowl win. (+10 points if the Giants)
Anything that celebrates an NCAA Basketball national title
Yearbook from the 1970’s
Team member in a tree
Team members (minus photographer) in a Gazebo
Someone’s great-grandfather or great-grandmother
A non-Curtin in a Giants shirt, a non-Lukasik in a Cowboy’s shirt, a non-Smith/Stagg in an LSU shirt
An album (vinyl) (+5 points if it is Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash or Def Leopard)
Something from Ren and Stimpy (cartoon)
TV Antenna Rabbit Ears
Two team members in someone’s bath tub
Speed limit sign
Stop sign NOT on the road
License plate from a non-Georgia state (1 per state only) (+10 if non-US)
Silver dollar
$100 bill

50 points each
Mr Smith wearing something from Alabama (Abbey’s team can do this one too)
An adult male in a dress
Betamax tape
8 track tape

Christopher starting to ride a bike

2011-12-07T19:53:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the little guy catches us off guard. We know he isn't going to have same interests or many of the developmental advances a boy his age would, but we hope that he does eventually. Sometimes he asks or does something so unexpected it takes our breath away. Sunday was one of those times.

He's shown almost no interest in his bike since we got it. He'll watch Courtney or Meghan ride their bikes, but he didn't show any interest in doing it himself. On Sunday, after playing with some sidewalk chalk, he went in the garage, put on the helmet and tried to ride the bike. Down the driveway. By himself.

Deb caught him pretty quickly and I helped him down to the road. He spent a lot of time looking at the pedals and wheels, but eventually was driving himself around.

Getting the hang of it:

Picking his head and looking in front, instead of at the pedals!

Pedaling by himself!

No idea why he wanted to go off roading, but as soon as we got to the pool he wanted to go over the bridge.

He wanted Deb to wear his helmet. He wanted me too, but I didn't let them take a picture.

Finally he wanted to try Courtney's bike for the ride home.

A very geeky Thanksgiving

2011-11-27T20:04:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving 2011 was quite the geeky week.

Technically it started on the Friday before when I did my annual Career Day presentation to Courtney's Middle School. This was my 6th year presenting to the middle schoolers and my 12th year in a row doing something for one of my kids. I received several good questions and hopefully got a few kids interested in being a software engineer.

The 'honey do' project of the week was to finish the pantry by installing drywall on the stairs. For those keeping track, phase one of the project, knocking down the wall and putting up drywall and shelving was completed about 12 years ago. Really, it doesn't normally take this long, but I though Deb was okay with the open stairs until she said something the other day.

In preparation for Thanksgiving Deb made some cake balls and her famous Reese's peanut butter cup pie. Desert wasn't lacking at our house this year! Thanksgiving day was fun with another family, a big turkey and some football!

The geeky part of the week got into full swing as I helped Courtney build her 3-D atom for AC Science. Nothing some Styrofoam and paint can't help design! This was one of those 'a few hours each day for a week' projects. Oh, and it's not due for 2 weeks!

Saturday afternoon Courtney and I watched the Battlestar Galatica episode where they rescue the remaining humans from New Caprica. She pretended to care as I described why they jumped the Galactica into the atmosphere before launching the fighters and even asked a few good questions (such as why didn't they go back to see if anyone was still on the ground after the Cylons left?). May have a fan here ...

Best part was Sunday afternoon while putting up the Christmas Trees, I put on Star Wars (yes the original one!) and Christopher watched it with me. Even said 'Space ship' and called the Death Star a 'moon'. I politely corrected him :) Best part was when the Millennium Falcon shot the Tie Fighters pursuing Luke he cheered!

Oh, and Christopher likes to be tickled. I got him to say 'Tickle me please' and 'I want to be tickled' before I ate him up (originally he would jump in my lap, shove my head down and say 'eat please!'

Deb's hard work:

Little helper on the Capri

2011-10-29T21:28:00.001-04:00

Today the little guy helped me with the THIRD engine for the Capri. Details here.

Teaser:

Beautiful day for throwing some flags!

2011-09-17T13:08:00.000-04:00

Last weekend the weather was perfect, so we spent a lot of time outside. Courtney hadn't had much of an opportunity to use her colorguard flags and rifle this summer since she broke her leg, but she's all healed so she got them out!

Here is Deb and Courtney twirling and throwing the flags.

Christopher thought it looked like fun so he threw the small one in the air. He caught it once or twice, but usually hit himself on the head.

Deb giving me a dirty look since I'm taking pictures of her. I promised not to upload any of her getting hit in the head!

Dragon*Con 2012

2011-09-04T17:04:00.002-04:00

This could be one of those 'Sometimes a Dad has to do what a Dad has to do' stories, but I think I had more fun than Meghan did!

On Friday my oldest daughter, Meghan, who will be 17 next month asked me to take her to Dragon*Con. I was thinking about looking into going this weekend, but we had a bunch of other things to do. That was before Jonas started talking to Meghan. Jonas is Christopher's ABA therapist. Or will be until Tuesday (another story for another day). Jonas is a big fan, and last year told us a lot about Dragon*Con and why Meghan and I should go. This year he was again going down right after Christopher's therapy and kept encouraging Meghan to go (I was out running errands (Machine shop!) so didn't hear it all.)

So at 6 pm on Friday we decided to go to Dragon*Con on Saturday. We did some quick research, figured out the first few things to do and set the alarm.

We were up and out the door by 7 am on our way to the Sandy Springs MARTA station (oh, there was also a concert in downtown, the UGA football game and some literary event I can't find the name of) expecting a ton of people. Buying our tickets we saw the first cosplay character: Dr. Horrible. I didn't say anything to Meghan, but since I had my Battlestar Galactica t-shirt on he started talking to us. Another woman was standing near us and started talking as well. Turns out each of them have a different view on the merits of Star Trek original, vs. DS9 vs Voyager. It was nice disagreement, and Meghan got her first taste of geek conflict.

On the ride down more and more people dressed up, in geek t-shirts or just with badges on got on the train. A few made me realize I didn't warn Meghan about the interesting Cosplay we might she. She of course said she knew all about it and had seen video and pictures from Comic*Con. Though a few of the Gimp pairs made her give me a strange look, which I ignored ;)

Waiting on line for tickets went pretty smooth, even if there were several THOUSAND people on line with us. I ran into a couple of coworker on line, so I think I got some geek-cred for the shirt and even being there! Once we had our tickets we headed up to the parade route to get a good place to stand. We ended up standing next to a guy with his teenage daughter and her friend. And man those girls were giving the dad a hard time. He had a nice camera rig and was taking pictures of everyone interesting, especially the women. Every woman who came by with even the slightest cleavage or leg/ass showing the girls gave him a hard time. Of course then the gladiators, Spartans from 300 and man zombies came by he gave it as good as they did. Meghan was great during all of this, sometimes teasing me, sometimes making comments about outfits and taking it in stride when I told her to cover her eyes because the Spartans were coming ;)

No I didn't take any pictures. That's a little too creepy for me. Though there were people stopping cosplay people and asking for pictures all the time.

The parade was really interesting. Cool, different, strange, bizarre and odd all the same time. About 50 minutes in we left our spot and started working our way to the first session we wanted to see. The sidewalks were packed! She held on to my shirt as I pushed my way through. (I had a few flashbacks to bars in college.)

The first session we saw was about the show 'V'. It was actually pretty bad. Robert Englund and the priest from the reboot where the only ones there. And man does Robert like to talk. I was pretty turned off by him. I was worried they'd all be like this, but the next one definitely made up for it!

We went to panel with several stars from Eureka! and Pete from Warehouse 13. This was the main session Meghan wanted to go when we did a quick look at the schedule the night before. It was excellent! Both funny stories, lots of jokes and some very strange back and forth between the Eureka! actors. I'm pretty sure Jordan Hinson (who played Zoe) didn't pick her outfit out. Even Meghan commented that her top kept sliding off and she was continually adjusting. On 2 huge 30+ foot screens it was pretty obvious. I also think she was drunk or really hung over. Lots of little comments, cracks. Oh and someone tweeted that they thought she was drunk and she went off on him.

Funniest part was when Eddie McClintock (who plays Pete on Warehouse 13) answered a fan question about what products he'd like to endorse on the show. The Eureka! guys made fun of how much they did product placements, especially the Subarus. He commented that the major TV sponsor is Levitra and how he'd like to include that. To quote: "Look out Mrs. Fredricks. You scare the crap out of me, now its my turn!'. Then he made dick jokes the rest of time. And Jordan kept trying to throw in a 'that's what she said', but bombed most of the time.

We then went to a Dr.Who panel with Mark Shepard and Garth David-Lloyd. These guys were great. Meghan has become a big Dr. Who fan lately and had a great time listening to them tell stories and answer questions. Lots of cool information including how Mark Shepard almost didn't do Dr. Who because of a schedule conflict. Everyone told him he was crazy to give up and the producers of the other show changed their schedule for him.

We then went to dinner (at Hooters, since it was the only place with a small line. Heck the waitresses looked like nuns compared to some of the costumes ;) and got on line to see an early release of the latest Dr. Who episode. We waited for an hour and a half then got jammed into a ball room with 1400 other people. Oh and 1400 others who stood on line in the Atlanta heat all day. Or who hadn't showered or who were just really large. It was VERY tight and very loud. But we saw the episode early.

The one picture I wish I had taken was the woman in front of us with a formal/prom gown made into a Tardis. It was really good.

Then we headed back to home on MARTA. Met another group and talked about Warehouse 13, Dr. Who and Eureka. And Nightmare On Elm Street since one of the ladies was dressed as a female Freddie Kruger (a very nice costume too. Not too revealing but enough to fit in.)

As always we had to have some drama on anything we do, so we got off at the wrong MARTA station. Oops. Had to pay for a taxi to drive us < 1 mile from the Dunwoody station to Sandy Springs.

I have a feeling we'll be doing multiple days next year ...

Autism Awareness - Service Dogs

2011-08-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

A friend of ours, who has two autistic sons has started a website to draw attention to the laws and needs for service dogs. The website is here.

We've seen first hand how people don't understand the need for the service dog or what the rules are. At Christopher's birthday party last year she had to explain to the manager at DAC Kids why Barkley must be allowed in with the boys.

Unfortunately she had an incident with a McDonald's manager a few months ago who chased her out of the McDonalds and punched her because the manager didn't want the dog in the restaurant. Our friend panicked when one of the boys took off and she dropped a cup of soda when looking for the boy and the manager thought she threw it at her. The manager followed her into the parking lot and hit her.

Video about it here.

Is the increase in Autism diagnoses because the geeks are able to mate now?

2011-08-28T17:03:00.000-04:00

This week there has been a lot of talk about an article in Time (http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/19/could-the-way-we-mate-and-marry-boost-rates-of-autism/) that looks at the possibility of 'clusters' of Autism in general and Asperger's in particular around technical business centers or hi-tech university alumni. This isn't the first time I've heard about this, but one of the first I've seen it discussed in mainstream press. I was forwarded the Time article by at least 3 people and this was a topic of discussion at a birthday party yesterday.

For those who haven't been following the stories, the question about where Autism and Aspeger's is growing is related to how the parents of these children are meeting and mating. One of the stranger arguments is that since women are now in the math, science and engineering fields they are meeting more men and are marrying and having children. And these children have an increase incidence of Autism because the parents are technically or process inclined. In the Time article they talk about the number of children of MIT graduates who are Autistic. Another article earlier in the spring talked about clusters of Autistic children around Huntsville, Alabama (Rocket City, where a lot of the NASA engineers live and work over the last 50 years) and Eindhoven, Netherlands, the Dutch Silicon Valley.

The articles point out that in the last 50 years (last 20 specifically) it has become socially acceptable to be an engineer or 'geek'. The pay in these industries can be significantly higher than others as well. All of which leads to the premise that the 'geeks' are now able to attract mates that traditionally hadn't been available to them. And this attraction is leading to the increase in Autism since more 'carriers' are 'being allowed' to mate than any other time. In case you missed it, the 'carriers' are the geeks, male and female. Stretching it a little, the geeks and spinsters of the 1800's and first part of the 20th century couldn't attract mates, so the 'chance' of having an Autistic child were low, now that there are places for them to meet, or the socioeconomic changes mean it is now okay to marry them so the rates of incidence are increasing.

This research strongly suggests (but doesn't scientifically prove) that Autism and Asperger's is genetic. Like many diseases where both parents need to be carriers to trigger a recessive trait, is it possible that Autism is recessive? Or when the combination of the strong, but not indicative traits of Autism in engineers, mathematicians and other 'geeks', combines with some genes in our mates to cause this?

I don't know and expect to see a lot more research into this, but it does kind of make sense. The number of parents we've met in our travels with Christopher suggest that a lot of them (or both) are 'geeky' like I am. And not just engineers, programmers etc, but parents who were 'gifted and talented' or excelled in school to become lawyers and doctors.

Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. At one level it is nice to hear they are making progress in identifying what causes his Autism, but at the same time it points to me being the reason. (I know, I'm reading too much into this, so please no calls from family ;). It also suggests that new parents with 'geeky' or 'gifted' backgrounds should have their children screened sooner to get jump on the treatments.

Wordless Wednesday - Belize

2011-08-24T13:53:00.000-04:00

More here

Great service from Lowes

2011-07-29T09:50:00.000-04:00

Here is a copy of a message I posted to the Lowes' Facebook page. Reposting here so it gets picked up by the search engines.

Hi,

I want to share with you my experience at the Lowe’s in Acworth GA (#1651) this week. I’ve been shopping at this store since it opened and have always had good service, but this time was far better than I could have hoped for.

I was there with my daughter at dinnertime looking to buy double-keyed deadbolts that matched the sets we already have. Having rekeyed all the locks last summer, I thought that you couldn’t rekey a lock to an old key, so I had removed all the knob locks from the house and brought them with me to rekey them to the new deadbolts. The reason I was doing this was my 5 year old son, who is Autistic, started unlocking the doors and running away a few days before. Any chain or non-keyed lock we tried he quickly figured out how to defeat. It had been a stressful few days keeping an eye on him (and ear open during the night) to make sure he didn’t take off again.

I picked out the three deadbolts I wanted to buy and your associate Jerry asked if I needed help. I explained that I needed the deadbolts all keyed the same and the knobs I brought in rekeyed to match. He told me that he couldn’t rekey the knobs. But before he could continue I cut him off and told him they “did it last time, so why not now?”. (Even my daughter was surprised by my response, but in my defense I panicked a little trying to figure out how to get the house secured for my son.)

Jerry very nicely and very calmly explained that Lowe’s wasn’t a locksmith, BUT that the locks I had selected could be keyed to match my existing key. It took a few seconds for that to sink in, since in the past I’d never been able to get new locks with old keys, regardless of what store or company I took them to. Turns out the new Schlage locks are reprogrammable. At this point I apologized to Jerry and explained about my son. He was genuinely concerned about my problem and spent a lot of time showing me how the new locks worked and setting all the locks to match my old keys. Rather than sending me home with the locks and instructions, he set them all up for me.

By the time we were done Jerry must have spent 30 minutes with me getting things sorted out. He gave me his name and told me to call if I was having problems. He even apologized for the confusion about rekeying, but it was entirely my fault. I took the locks home and within 30 minutes had all the doors changed.

Can you forward this on to the Store Manager and thank her or him for having such a great staff and to Jerry for helping me when I was more than a little freaked out?

Thanks,

Chris Curtin

Dash shell reassembly

2011-07-01T19:50:00.000-04:00

After all the work to cleanup and paint the metal frame that one will ever see again, it was time to put it all back together. Well, not everything. The HVAC piping needs to be cleaned and the foam insulation replaced, but the metal and the wires are back.

(Why work in the garage where it is 90+ degrees when the house is air conditioned and the computer with the 'before' pictures are in the house?)

Not a lot to see here. (If you want to see what individual parts of the wiring look like behind the plastic, go here)

Hey, it's 90+ degrees outside (yes, I'll clean the table)

2011-07-01T19:43:00.000-04:00

Why work on the garage floor if the table inside and air conditioned?

Book review: Be Different - adventures of a free range Aspergian

2011-06-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

"Don't Self Diagnose!" was one of the first things I picked up when doing research into what could be going on with Christopher almost 3 years ago. It is really hard not to as you read about the behaviors of people actually diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum (ASD).

Reading this book certainly makes it hard not to. More about that later. First, my thoughts on this book.

"Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian" by John Elder Robison. This book is a series of stories and advice by a grown adult, probably in his late 40s or early 50's who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when he was 40. It contains the stories of how he struggled through his education, teen years and first part of his life as an adult. He also points out some of the things that made him very successful in several different, very disparate fields. Everything from 'tuning' bicycles as a kid to custom electronics for music to specialized auto repair.

It is a fascinating story of his life experiences and how he can now associate them back to his Aspergian brain. In more than a few parts you can't help to feel sorry for him, and the later cheer him for not giving up or letting his 'diagnosis' define who he is. Even if you don't know someone with Aspergian's it is an interesting story to read. You'll be amazed how many things he associates with Aspergian's that we do ourselves or have known others to do as we grew up.

This book is also apparently where the term 'nypical' came from. I came across this term many times but never knew why/where it came from. Basically the author doesn't like calling someone 'normal' or 'typical' because no one really is. So he calls them 'nypical'.

The sections about how Apergian's can't read facial expressions, tone of voice etc were very interesting to read. I had to stop a few times and try to wonder what that would have been like.

Since we still don't know what exactly to call Christopher's challenges, I read this book in hopes of seeing and understanding what is going on with him. (Asperger's probably isn't one of them because of his language issues. Asperger's is often characterized by the strong, almost intense vocabularies. And the ability for those with the diagnosis to go on and on about one specific, obsessive topic.)

Back to my "Don't Self Diagnose" comment above. Reading this book it is really, really hard not to apply his stories to what happened to me as I grew up. But at the same time, many of the things he associates with his Asperger's seemed to happen to everyone growing up. In each chapter I can either see those things happening to me, my brothers or my friends. That being said, the vast majority of the people I get along with (brothers included) are like me, so I can't be sure that we all aren't suspects. (A whole other post will be about the recent research showing Autism clusters around hi-tech geographic areas. That one has me thinking A LOT)

For example, a huge number of the engineers I've met over the years, both hardware, software, mechanical, electrical etc. have made the same comment: I'm good at what I do because I can focus for a long period of time on something. As kids many of us got in trouble for doing this (I remember getting caught reading Star Wars in class, hiding it behind my regular book because I was obsessed with that story). In this book the author identifies this single, obsessive nature as a strength of Aspergian brains. Does that mean all of us who can focus (obsess?) on something for hours and days have Asperger's?

Another example, many people I've worked with, not just engineers but those drawn to a technical career have joked 'I have no idea how I ended up with '. Or their friends and family tease them about 'dating above their weight class'. (Or come up with interesting nick names for their girlfriends that are shots at me, not her.) The author of this book devotes an entire chapter to meeting women, the challenges and in the end he comes up with a basic premise: the women in his life have CHOSEN him. Nothing he did directly could have made them interested in him, they just became interested after getting to know him. (Also they exclusively made the first move) And that almost nothing he did in the relationships kept them around (which isn't the same as driving them away, more that his attempts at romance etc. fail miserably). They have decided that the benefits of being with him outweigh the quirks of him being Aspergian.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this observation. I think every guy jokes about wondering 'why she's still with me', but Deb was the one who approached me first, at a time where I had no idea what to do with girls and was failing miserably each time I tried... ;) And many of the wives/girlfriends over the years have joked(?) that they can deal with the quirks of us guys because of the other benefits.

One final thought about the book: The author ends with an interesting view of how things are different as an adult than when he was a kid. One of them hit home hard. When he was a kid he was teased, even by teachers, about his ability to become focused on something, learn about it very quickly and become an expert in a short period of time. As a kid he was 'odd' or 'nuts' (he uses 'nuts' to describe himself a lot in this book) and something to ridicule. As an adult he's seen as a fast learner and expert for the same qualities. I remember vividly being teased about my obsessions as a kid, but now how quickly I understand new things is called out regularly as one of my strengths.

So you can see why self diagnosis could be dangerous. And for the record I don't think I have Asperger's syndrome nor am I on the spectrum. I'm just a typical geek in the 21st century.

Spring Baseball for Christopher

2011-04-22T21:06:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday was Christopher's first game for the Spring season. He's playing at the Horizon Field in Acworth.

This is a big step for him. At the suggestion of a lot of people, including his doctor, we tried him in t-ball last Fall at Adams Park. After one practice it was obvious that he wasn't ready to do a mainstream league, but he was too young for the special needs field.

The field is different than anything I've seen before. It is totally fenced in with the only way in or out through the dugouts. The field is 100% playground soft/spongy with no dirt or grass.

Every player as a 'buddy', usually a teenage boy or girl, but there are a number of adults for those kids needing extra help. Every kid gets three swings at pitches (if they can hit coach pitched) or use the tee until they hit. When the ball is hit the kids run until one of the opponents get the ball, then they stop. They do try to throw to the correct bases and the buddies help with catching and telling where to throw.

Parents are not allowed on the field. They want the parents to watch instead of running around with the kids.

Christopher's buddy was a guy probably a little older than me who was wonderful with him.

Christopher got up twice (like all the other kids) and had good hits. He didn't do so well running to base, but I think he got the idea the second time.

He definitely understood going after the ball, though sometimes not throwing it to the base. Still I think he had a good time.

This was strange. Usually Christopher is the largest boy, often mistaken for someone 3 years older. Here, he is the smallest.

Nice having a chauffeur

2011-04-10T21:12:00.000-04:00

Meghan is 16 and has her permit, so she's always asking us to take her driving. Well, on Saturday she got her wish, big time.

I had her drive me all over the place Saturday morning. First a 40+ minute drive to the speed shop to pick up a part for the Capri. This was on roads she doesn't know and at speeds from 35 to 55. She did great. Even did good turning the Mustang around in the parking lot where many of the motors in the cars there cost more than the Mustang is worth! Then had her drive back, this time a different way, so different roads again.

Then had her drive me around Acworth/Kennesaw for a few stops, including parking in a very crowded Home Depot. Her only reward was a lunch at Zaxby's!

I could get used to this. Except the part with no radio and saying 'a little to the left Meghan' all the time.

Horn cover!

2011-03-30T20:13:00.000-04:00

Quick update. Was able to get the ball joint cover installed and the driver's side suspension put back together.

I also installed some Maximum Motorsports solid Caliper sleeves to hold the brake pad against the rotor.

Lots planned for next week. Kids are on Spring Break so I'm taking the week off to do things with them (and work on the car!) Hopefully the MM bumpsteer kit and hybrid steering shaft will arrive. I'll order the 2003 Mustang Cobra rack tomorrow and it should be here on Saturday too!

One thing that's been bothering me about the car is that the 'cat' head on the horn cover is long gone. I looked around a lot last year for one and no one was selling them. Well, I found one on eBay for $5. Plus $5.20 shipping!

Here it is:

Christopher and the toy Mustang

2011-03-06T17:38:00.002-05:00

About 15 years ago I bought an 97 Mustang Cobra radio controlled car. For years as the girls were growing up it was a staple at birthday parties and get togethers with friends as I would take it out and the kids would chase it or have me run between their legs.

Last weekend it was unseasonably warm, so I got the car out and played with Christopher and Courtney. Here is a video of them chasing it.

You can clearly hear Christopher at the beginning saying 'my turn, my turn' which is a huge step for him. At his last IEP we were told that he doesn't understand taking turns and it is something we've been working on with him.

Why digital Newspapers are bad for kids

2011-01-20T21:04:00.002-05:00

Isn't it strange the things we remember as kids? I very clearly remember going to Ed's Cigar Box on Main Street in Danbury, CT to get the Sunday papers with my Dad. He'd get the New York Times, the New York Daily News and I think the Danbury News Times (or the Danbury paper was delivered on Sunday, since it was delivered every day.)

I remember their always being today's paper in the house for me to read the comics. And eventually for me to start paying attention to the other sections. I think this was a big part of why I love reading today. Pre-internet I would read anything I could get my hands on. Sometimes to put it down immediately, sometimes to read it fascinated by something I hadn't read before. In college I was one of the few people on my floor who got the Boston Globe every day (I know, I pretty much skipped the sports sections) and remember a woman on the floor asking me why I get it. And not being surprised later when she told me she hates reading.

Why the trip down memory lane? Because I think the movement away from dead-tree newspapers and magazines to digital in the home is a very bad thing.

This last weekend my now-13 year old rummaged through the Sunday paper, got the comics and sat and read all of them. She's been doing that for several years and sometimes stops to look at other parts. My 16 year old hunts out the ads and Parade also sometimes stopping to look at the other stories.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I don't think they would have taken time from whatever stupid TV show or Facebook game they were playing if they hadn't seen me reading all these years. When Deb and I moved to Atlanta in 1990 I subscribed to the Atlanta Journal (or Atlanta Constitution, I can't remember which was the afternoon paper before they merged). I was a subscriber until about 3 years ago when I got sick of the incredibly Liberal views and superficial reporting of events. So I started receiving the Wall Street Journal. A lot more conservative, but a lot more stories and better depth into the stories. So for their entire lives my kids have had daily newspapers and lots of magazines in the house and have seen me and Deb reading them.

So what does this have to do with digital? The WSJ has an online version and I expect an iPad version soon. Many magazines have online versions and iPad versions too.

The difference is when a child is watching their parents do something, what they see now is not them reading a newspaper or magazine that they can pick up, it is the parents on the computer. Which at first is no different than when they play a game or watch a YouTube video, so they don't see something to mimic. Or something to catch their attention.

I have pictures of my daughters sitting on the floor at various ages looking at my magazines. No way they would understand them, but at least they were doing what I did. And as they started to read, they found lots and lots of things to read 'laying around'.

Look around your house. What is to read that is just sitting around vs. something that you have to boot up to see?

Here is a case where 'do as I do' can have a very powerful change in a child's life.

Another memory I have, in fact something that still happens, is the various articles that my parents or Deb's mom would send me/her/us. Things about investing, about raising children, funny stories. I don't know how many Zits and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons my mom mailed to me in college, but it was a way for us to communicate.

Today, you get a link in an email. Or dozens of them. It isn't the one thing that Mom read and said 'Boy, I think Chris needs to know this', it is whatever joke they got forwarded, so I don't pay them as much attention. (Following in all of their footsteps, I save newspaper articles for my kids and share them. Though I do also send lots of things to them via email)

No, I'm not being a Luddite. Heck I'm anything but one at work and in my personal life, but having a PDD-NOS child who struggles with so many things that we take for granted, I am looking at how he learns more closely than I did with either of the girls.

What I see is a lot of mimicking, including looking at the pictures in my magazines or the Sunday ads. Unlike the girls he doesn't make up what he thinks the pictures are about, but he is looking at them. So I am going to make damn sure I leave things 'laying around' and being a good example to him so in hopes that one day his basic mimicking that he does today turns into recognition and maybe some day reading.

So if you are an adult with children in the house or frequent visitors (grandparents, family etc.) please think about ways to 'leave things sitting around' so the kids can see you using them and mimic you.

Playing with Trains

2010-12-04T21:45:00.002-05:00

Over Thanksgiving I went to my Mom's and got the H.O. trains that I received for Christmas when I was a kid (probably 8 or 9?). Today Christopher wasn't feeling well so to keep him occupied, I took them out and set them up. I think at first he didn't know what they were, until he saw the engine.

Yes, these are probably 30+ years old and still work great.

I figure I have to refinish the table anyway, so why not?

Having lunch while the trains go by.

Note where the speed lever is. He's definitely my kid, wants everything to go faster! I would slow it down so the engine wouldn't flip off the track and he'd say 'push that button. Faster'. He's struggling with his 'B' and 'F' sounds so it came out 'push that button bastard'.

Had to explain several times not to put things on the track!

(Yes John and Pat I only took my trains. The rest are either at Mom's or in Dad's basement.)

AT&T DSL Billing issues - update

2010-11-17T10:01:00.002-05:00

I'm posting this so others can find out what is going on.

If you signed up for the AT&T DSL promotional offer where you get half off for 12 months and still haven't seen a credit on your bill you need to call them.

After four months of being told it may take 3 months to see the credit, I finally had enough and vented on Twitter. Someone from AT&T replied and asked me to send her the information about my account and what was going on. (I like that they responded, by why was a public bitching session required to get help?)

Today I received a call from an AT&T Escalation representative and here is what she told me:

When I signed up for the DSL, the person taking the call was supposed to submit a request for the discount, but in my case DID NOT. The rep told me that she made the request and has manually credited my account. Since it will now take 3 months for the credit to become active, she is going to manually credit me each month.

First, how old are the AT&T billing systems that it takes 3 months for a credit to be applied? Seriously, I'm in 'computers' and this is the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. One month I get, 3, come on.

Second, how didn't the people on 800# not see that there was not a credit request each time I called. Or are they just trying to get me off the phone?

So if you are having the same problem, bitch on Twitter (@att) or call and ask for proof that your credit request was submitted. Escalate if it wasn't so you aren't waiting ANOTHER 3 months.

Anyway, this should be fixed now.

Setting a precedent!

2010-10-16T11:04:00.001-04:00

At first I was going to write this posting as an apology to Meghan's future boyfriends and spouse for setting a bad precedent, but then I realized it is just part of being in a relationship. As a parent I have the view that the main things I need to do for my children is provide them a loving environment, the self esteem to do what ever they want and the education and background to succeed. I can't be responsible for her (new found) expensive tastes.

What the heck am I writing about? Well, today is Meghan's 16th birthday. Being a child of the 80's I've always had in my mine that I need to buy my daughters diamond earrings on their 16th birthday. So on Thursday I stopped at Deb's favorite jewelry store, The Shane Company and bought her a pair of diamond and white gold earnings. Of course I can't buy something like that for my daughter and forget my wife, so I also got Deb a pair of gold hoop earrings.

Yes, the whole time I was looking at them I kept thinking back to the Breakfast Club and Molly Ringwald's character giving the diamond earring that her Dad bought her to the dirt bag. I hope Meghan has more sense than that ;)

While the guy was filling out the paperwork he was nicely trying to upsell me. (which is fine, I expected it and he wasn't pushy, which is why I really like going there.) I had mentioned that we'd bought a lot of stuff there over the years and I guess our record in their CRM system shows it, since he said "Wow, yes you have". I made a joke about my 'annual tithe to Tom' and he gave me a strange look, so I explained. 19+ years ago Deb and I went looking for engagement rings and ended up at their store by Windy Hill. She saw the ring she wanted but we didn't get it. I of course snuck back and bought it, thus starting the precedent with Deb.

For many, many years, everything I bought Deb for Christmas or our Anniversary was from The Shane Company. For our 10th anniversary I even brought Meghan with me to pick out the anniversary band. At one point I started joking that at Christmas I was paying my 'annual tithe to Tom' (Tom Shane is the guy you hear on the commercials and he is the CEO. He's also been mocked by SouthPark and the local jewelers as 'Mister Happy'). So as the guy tried to upsell me, I kept responding with 'have it'. I even pointed out that I have Tanzinite earrings, which they didn't ever sell any more!'

So whoever you are in Meghan's future, I'm not really sorry for starting her down this path!

Special Needs Trusts

2010-10-03T16:45:00.003-04:00

One of the stranger things all parents have to do is prepare their wills. Having a baby is often the first time most of us think about our mortality and what will happen if we were to die.

15 year ago, Deb and I did a will when Meghan was 6 months old. We didn't have a lot then (the bank owned 90% of that house then!) so the will was pretty basic and done through one of these boilerplate law offices. It covered the traditional 'and other children not yet alive' clauses so we didn't think about it much since then.

Similar concerns about life insurance. We bought it, we pay the premiums each month and I don't think much about it.

Then I read an article a couple of months ago about the realities of having an autistic child. As most wills are written, when the estate of the parents is closed, the money from the estate goes directly to the children.

Reality of autistic children though, is that additional money may DISQUALIFY them for some services. Most government services are based on the income level of the recipient (not necessarily the family) so a sudden influx of cash would remove services.

Worst case scenario is he would lose all his services for as long as the cash lasts, then go back (usually after a waiting period), with no income. Which is not what we want.

While we have no idea what Christopher's life is going to be in a year never mind 14 when he's 18, we do need to think about it.

The solution is what is called a special needs trust. When the estate is executed, the money for the child having special needs (not just autism, but anything unusual) is placed into a trust with an executor who decides when/how the money is used. The nice thing is this trust is NOT included in the income of the child, so any services are not lost.

Reading about this, and the realities of grown autistic children, I reached out to a friend to find a lawyer to help set one up.

However, nothing needed to be changed. The basic will had a clause that allowed the executor of the estate to decide if one of the recipients of the estate was not fit to receive the money, to establish a trust for him or her. Basically, the special needs trust for Christopher was already in place.

Even the lawyer was surprised, since he had never seen a generic will written in Georgia that had that clause.

Algebra book review "Hot X: Algebra Exposed"

2010-09-06T17:15:00.002-04:00

Now that everyone is finally back in school, I have a book review for you guys. For the record, we are starting the 5th week of school here. We've already received the first round of grades and have adjusted priorities as required ;)

Meghan is now a Sophomore in High School, but it seems like 10 years ago that she was taking 6th grade math and asking for help. And I couldn't remember how to do about 20% of it (one day out of five). Back then I found a couple of books by Danica McKellar targeted at Middle School girls that helped both of us figure it out. First book "Math doesn't Suck", second "Kiss My Math". Through middle school and part of Freshman year I was able to keep up with Meghan either by memory, or reviewing one of the books. Of course I made her read them too! Second half of High School Algebra 1, though had me doing a lot more research to remember how to do thing!

Throw into the mix Courtney as a 6th grader last year and we were doing a lot of math in our house!

Danica released another book over the summer "Hot X: Algebra Exposed". This would have been great last year. Between reasonable explanations of FOIL (come on everyone, say it with me! First, Outer, Inner Last!. Anyone else remember their freshman math teacher saying that over and over? Hi Ms. Elias!) Polynomials and graphing, this book is pretty good. While I didn't work through all the problems (that sounds like homework Mom!) I did review each of the sections and it is pretty good.

I even read several of the sections for teenage girls. Many of them are from successful women who struggled with math or school in general and how they succeeded! Probably the best one is Danica ripping on Twilight. From page 26: "And, oh yeah, if a guy says he might hurt you or that he's "dangerous" - seriously, run! ... You are way too smart to let you hormones make important decisions for you, little missy." I think this is great!

As I pointed out with the other two books, even if you have boys, get the books. You can read them and help them (come on, when was the last time you heard FOIL before this review?) or they can. Just tell him you promise not to tell anyone you have them ;-)

And I'm sorry that that FOIL song will be going through your head the rest of the day.

25th Anniversary of Hurricane Gloria

2010-09-01T20:53:00.001-04:00

With the East coast of the US getting ready for a major September Hurricane, I was reminded of another hurricane that hit the east coast 25 years ago: Gloria.

In 1985 I was a 17 year old high school senior. My parents had left a few days before the storm to go to Hawaii for their 20th wedding anniversary, leaving my brother Patrick and I home. Pat was a freshman in HS at the time. Our older brother John was away at college, and apparently my parents told several of our neighbors that if they saw John, Ed Lizak or Jason Ross to call the police since they weren't supposed to be there. Makes you wonder what they expected to happen?

My aunt was supposed to be staying with us while they were away, but something happened and she wasn't there the day of the storm.

The storm came through pretty quickly and was over. It was surreal that a few hours after the storm was gone it was sunny and clear. Pat and I started surveying the damage and found a few downed trees and a lot of leaves and limbs around. We lost power during the storm and it wasn't until the next morning that we got it back. Somehow our phone line was hit by flying debris so we didn't have a phone for several days.

Once the rain and wind stopped I drove down to Country Inn Pizza to see if they had any pizzas. Yes, in hindsight that was a stupid thing to do. Luckily the roads were fine. I figured they had natural gas ovens so they should have been okay. Apparently several dozen other people thought the same thing and by the time I got there they were out of dough! So I went to the 7-11 and used a pay phone to call Deb and my Aunt. Yes kids, this was before cell phones and the internet.

When I got back home it was getting dark and Pat and I were hungry, so we broke out the camping gear, including a Coleman lantern, and started eating all the frozen food so it wouldn't go bad. As it got darker I remember hearing many of our neighbors trying to find charcoal, flashlights etc. Pat and I sat on the deck eating and listening to the radio. It was fun to listening to them curse and yell while he and I were relaxing making sure Dad's beer didn't go bad. At some point after dark one of the neighbors came over. At first I thought he wanted to see if we were okay since he knew our parent's weren't home. Instead he wanted to know if we had another lantern!

The power came back the next day, but it took a few days to get the phone fixed.

Looking back, I don't remember being scared or even worried about it.

Living Houston during the summer of 1989 was a different situation though ... And a topic for another blog!

Why I bought an iPad for my 4 year old

2010-08-29T14:50:00.002-04:00

Back in mid-June I asked on twitter and Facebook if anyone had recommendations for a case for an iPad for a 4 year old. Very few people knew then that Christopher is PDD-NOS, so there were a few wise-ass comments, a few that questioned my sanity and a pointer to the Belkin case at Best Buy.

The first time I saw an iPad was at work where my boss bought one for the office to play with. I was fourth or fifth in line to get it, and loaded a couple of kids games on it before bringing it home for a long weekend. Much to my surprise, Christopher figured out how to use it immediately. He hadn't (and still doesn't) show any interest in the iPod touches the girls have so I didn't expect much. Boy was I wrong. Within a few minutes he knew how to open the games, close them, touch the screen, draw in the drawing app and navigate.

The weekend went by really quick, but one thing was clear, we needed to get one for Christopher. So I ordered one in June. The original idea was it would be Deb's and that Christopher would use it for educational games etc. Well, as those of you with kids can probably guess, that didn't happen ;-) The device was delayed in shipping, so I received it on a Friday, loaded it up with apps and Deb took it and the kids to Connecticut for their summer visit on Sunday. It would be almost 3 weeks before I saw him using it after the first day.

(FYI, I did come up with some ideas on how to use one in a business environment when 'playing' with the work one.)

While he was in Connecticut and Maryland visiting family, everyone commented on how well he used it and the ways he was interacting. They didn't have wifi in either place so the fun didn't start until they got home ...

The first thing we noticed the few days he was here, was he would interact with Talking Carl, tickling, yelling etc. which in July was very unusual. Then Christopher was mostly consuming media, not interacting with it.

One of his favorite games called '5 in 1' which has matching card games (think 8 or 16 cards face down, pick one and find it's match) using letters, numbers and animals. Not a week before the iPad arrived he wouldn't do something similar for his pediatrician, but he picked up on it pretty quickly. He now has another using Thomas characters but that's only 8 cards so he gets bored quickly with it.

The biggest investment at the time was a PECS card application called Grace App for Autism (http://graceappforautismoniphone.blogspot.com/) While technically not a PECS application (I think PECS is a name brand) it is an application that he can scroll through and find the picture cards to build a story strip to let us know what he wants. It was $35 which is pretty expensive for an application, but the first few weeks was pretty handy. One nice feature of the application is we can upload our own pictures to it, so I scanned all the ones we've made the previous 15 months and put them on it.

Christopher is talking a lot more now, but sometimes when he gets frustrated that we don't understand him he'll open that app and find the picture.

The iPad also came in handy when potty training. He's been very difficult to potty train, since he doesn't want to sit still for very long and can't really play with his trains or Legos on the toilet. One weekend in early August I sat him on the toilet, loaded up a movie on Netflix on the iPad and spent the whole weekend in the bathroom. We watched movies, played games and read stories (There is a really good Toy Story Disney book app that is free). By the end of the weekend he knew to go the bathroom on the toilet and we've pretty much stopped wearing pull ups during the day.

Except that now he wants the iPad exclusively to watch movies. So I logged out of Netflix automatically and told him it was broken. He seems to understand that so the drama stopped. Until someone showed him the YouTube application. You want a headache? Go to YouTube and search for "thomas the tank engine accidents happen". I don't know the story behind it, but basically it is videos of Thomas engines crashing to a song 'Accidents happen'.

Next huge drama was that those videos were all he wanted to do on the iPad, so I had to hide the app. Something good did come out of it though, he started mimicking some of the crashes using his trains, which is something he hadn't done before. So we're torn between him obsessing about those videos and how he's starting to mimic! (Also, there are some bizarre videos on YouTube about Thomas. He didn't know what to think when Thomas went into the shed and blew up the place because he was the mad bomber.)

Also, Christopher started ABA therapy in early August and his therapist is using the iPad for games, interactions etc. His therapist says it is a great tool for the things they need to do.

So yes, I bought my 4 year old an iPad. And so far it is one of the best 'non-traditional' thing we've done to help him.

Potty training a really tall boy who likes to climb

2010-08-14T13:53:00.003-04:00

Those are M&Ms taped to the wall about 2 feet from the ceiling. Those are the 'rewards' for going on the potty. Except that he is so tall that if he stands on the chair or toilet that he can reach them unless we put the up really high.

The chair is for me or Deb to sit in while he's waiting. And so we can hold the iPad ;-)

Book, Book, Book at 5:30 am

2010-08-10T20:12:00.003-04:00

The little guy woke us up at 5:30 this morning. Why is that worthy of a blog post instead of a Facebook or Twitter update? Well, because he woke us up with a book. And he kept saying "book, book" over and over until Deb read it to him.

The last few days he's insisted that we read him the same book, each night and last night he went to sleep holding it. The book? The Berenstain Bears on the Moon. This is unusual because up to now he hasn't had a 'must read' book. He has some he likes us reading, but no 'must have' book before bed.

This got me thinking about other books that our kids made us read and books that have specific meanings at various times in our lives. I've been meaning to do this since the Spring. I even sent myself an email outlining this post ;-) I don't remember the trigger specifically, but I'm pretty sure it was something that Elizabeth Lynn Casey did. Who is Elizabeth Lynn Casey? She is the pseudonym for a woman I went to High School with. Turns out she paid attention in the various English classes and is pretty good author. She also has a really good blog here. (No she's not related to Deb, though Deb's maiden name is Casey and I'm pretty sure they knew each other in High School.)

Making good use of Social Media, Elizabeth has questions for her readers or answers questions about her writing almost every day. I can't find which post prompted this idea for me, but here goes. (If this is bad, its her fault ;-)

I don't remember reading books as a little kid, but I know I did read a lot. I distinctly remember going to the library several times with my Mom and that there were always books around our house. My first memory related to a book is reading an Erma Bombeck book and sharing one of the more funny passages with my Grandfather. Only to have him question my Dad about why I was reading things like that as a kid. It took a few more years before I could read things my parents had!

I remember reading Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, war stories, history and mysteries. I remember going through a Alistair MacClean and Agatha Christie phase and even reading all of Leon Uris' books as a teenager.

I also remember really clearly having my copy of Star Wars taken away by a teacher who caught me reading it in class instead of the science book. That was one of times my parents had the 'we're disappointed in you for doing it, but can't really punish you because it was a good thing to be doing' lectures. Yes there were many, many of those as a kid.

Throw in The Outsiders, That Was Then This is Now, Guadalcanal Diary and many of the fun "school" books and I was always reading.

The book that stands out the most for me in the Green Berets. It was the book I was reading when the really cute brunette 15 year old looked over the seat on the airplane and asked me what I was reading.

Skip ahead a bunch of years, the cute brunette and I had our first Daughter and started reading children's books. Meghan had two favorites, which we read to her every night. The first, Guess How Much I Love You we could recite in our sleep. And probably did a few times. The second was the Sandman. Being a good father I of course made the books fun. One of the pictures has Big Nut Brown Hare bending over to jump and I got Meghan to say 'he's pooping!' each time we got to that page!

Then Courtney came along and she liked the same books as Meghan, but really liked Good Night Moon and some annoying Barbie's little sister horse book. I couldn't stand the Barbie book, but she had to have it each night!

As the girls got older their reading tasks got better (or not ... Twilight, uggh) and I found I was reading a lot of things they were. Yes I've read Tale of Desperaux, Spirit Bear, Deep Dark and Dangerous and all the Harry Potter books. It is a lot of fun to talk to them about the book that we are both reading!

A few days ago I started reading the Berestain Bears book to Christopher and he immediately was interested. He studied each page and even pointed to a few of the pictures and said the appropriate words or word-sounds. As part of his therapy we stop him ever minute or so when he's doing something fun and get him to interact. So things like 'say 'A' or 'say 'rock' or 'what is this?'. With this book he is very responsive. So when ho woke us up at 5:30 Deb read the book to him, but he never went back to sleep!

I hope that when my kids look back like I am now that they have fond memories of all the books we've read together.

Book review: Making Sense of Autistic Spectrum Disorders

2010-08-07T22:08:00.002-04:00

There is no easy way to start this post, so here goes. Our son has been diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum (ASD). In particular he has been diagnosed as PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified). I won't get into a lot of details here about what is different about PDD-NOS and "autistic" but he is being treated by a Developmental Pediatrician for (among other things) Autistic symptoms.

So why am I writing this? Two year ago Christopher started Preschool at the same church-school that our other daughters went to. He was definitely different as a toddler than both girls, but they weren't that similar either. By Christmas we knew something wasn't right, so we started having him tested and eventually moved him into a special needs preschool at the local public elementary school. As good as Christopher's doctors, therapists and teachers are, I still found myself overwhelmed with what was going on.

His doctor explained things well, we asked lots of questions and took lots of notes, but sometimes we missed things, or got so hammered by what was going on we missed subtle things. And, at least for me, I was afraid of the answers to some of my 'why' and 'what will happen when he's older' questions, so I didn't ask them.

We were given a lot of books, articles etc. I spent a lot of time reading on the internet, but still didn't have a good idea of what was going to happen. Honestly, we still don't know, but the book I am going to review below helped answer a lot of questions.

I found this book by accident. I was on the campus of Georgia Tech before a meeting and decided to kill a few minutes in the Barnes and Noble there. I saw this book on one of the tables, read a few pages and immediately bought it. To this day I haven't seen it in any other Barnes and Noble when I'm just walking around, so I got lucky that day.

The author is James Coplan, and from what I've been able to find out about him, a respected Developmental Pediatrician with many years of experience with Autistic children.

The first part of the book is about what the Autism Spectrum is, how your child can be diagnosed, some scientific information about what may cause Autism and what it means. It tackles head on the "Explosion" of autism diagnoses the media has been hysterical about and talks about what scientists do know and what has been proven false. Even if you don't read the whole book, find it in a bookstore and read Chapter 4.

Having completed the evaluation process for Christopher, what he writes about was still fresh in my mind. Several things I hadn't heard before were presented, several that I had heard but hadn't quite comprehended were touched on. Fortunately for my understanding, but unfortunate for Autistic children, the 'what' was presented and the author clearly stated when they don't know 'why'. There are still a lot of WTF things that are proving scientifically/statistically valid that can't be explained. Things like the jump in head circumference as an infant that has a high correlation to a later ASD diagnosis.

The second part talks about intervention approaches, progression of therapies as age and abilities increase including a pretty good set of chapters about school and how to tell your child their diagnosis. We are still really early in these processes, but it was relieving to see some of the 'next things' that we will be doing in the years ahead.

The last chapter in this section was one of the best in the book. He hits heads on the "Quackery" that is in the Autistic community. From the outright frauds, to the overzealous but good meaning therapists who say they can "cure" Autism. Having already thrown money at Christopher's therapy a few times it was a good reminder that there are no quick fixes. (Though sometimes the unexpected 'new' thing helps a lot. I'll write about the iPad we bought Christopher in another post.) The author also makes a suggestion/plea to the parents to be more open to letting their child take part in well defined and well supervised trials to see if new treatments work or to help with the "pure science" that we lack in understanding these diseases.

The last section was very refreshing and touched on the topics of the family, financial planning and what may happen in the years ahead. He included an example of a prescription he wrote to the parents of a severely Autistic child. What was it for? "Dinner for two, refill six times, take as needed". He even asked for the receipts to prove the parents were taking time to maintain their relationship. He also reminds us to take care of our other children. This is one area where I think we are doing okay, but sometimes you need to be reminded.

The final chapter in the third section is about the practical matters of finances, special education rights and planning for the care of your child after you die. Not something you want to think about, but one of the examples hit home. The parents were no longer able to restrain their 12 year old autistic son when he hit puberty and had to place him in a group home. While I don't think we'll come to that with Christopher, at 4 he is already head and shoulders over most 4 year olds and is very strong. That could be us some day.

The book ends with a lot more medical/technical discussions and several dozen pages of references and resources. The section about the drug treatments and why they help is fascinating.

Unlike most of the other books and articles we've read about ASD, this is the first that either doesn't dumb it down or have 12 syllable words ever other word. The flow of the book is very good and I found it easy to read. I did have to put it down a few times to digest what we may encounter with Christopher.

For anyone entering on this journey and feeling overwhelmed, this is a great book to start with. Every chapter has tons of references if you want to dig deeper into an area when you are ready.

So do we know now what is going to happen with Christopher? No we don't. We've seen some significant improvements based on some therapies (and time) and others that didn't seem to help at all. I still lay awake many nights wondering what is going to happen to him and us. I worry a lot about the impact of this on our daughters, but I am also impressed and proud of how they are coping and how this is shaping their views of what they want their futures to be. We're still optimistically putting money every month into his college savings and so far haven't had to divert those dollars into his treatment (don't get me started on the insurance practices I've learned about, but I can say they have been both good and bad.)

What does this mean for this blog? Not much. I'm not going to be blogging exclusively about Christopher, Autism research/breakthroughs etc. I will blog about things that we find out that help or didn't, but I'll still blog about general family things.

Making Sense of Autistic Spectrum Disorders
James Coplan, M.D.
ISBN 978-0-553-80681-6
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Autistic-Spectrum-Disorders/dp/0553806815

I think it is that one Dad!

2010-07-02T20:07:00.004-04:00

Today I was working on the Capri and Christopher wanted to see what I was doing.

After "helping" me as I took off the door panels and removed the mounting hardware from both doors, he wanted to help me with the brake proportioning valve.

Random thoughts: NetFlix

2010-06-25T13:50:00.004-04:00

A couple of months ago I dropped our Showtime/HBO subscription via DirecTV. We found that we weren't watching anything on those channels or that what we were watching we actually were DVRing and watching weeks/months later (Dexter comes to mind).

I also found we were getting a lot of movies, some old, via Hollywood Video and later Redbox. (The Hollywood Video that was near us is long gone now)

So, I got us the 1-DVD at a time NetFlix subscription. This also includes free unlimited streaming via our Wii.

We've ended up using this more than I would have expected and not in really 'bad' ways. First, the streaming to the Wii is great. Lots of kids stuff, but also older movies and TV shows that we wouldn't explicitly go looking for in a video store. (Anyone remember Heavy Metal the movie? It is on there. And it isn't nearly as good as I remember from college ;-)

The streaming can also be a to PC, so we have it setup in the 'gym' so you can watch something on the PC while working out. (Technically it is my office, but that is where the elliptical machine is) This is where streaming TV episodes is really useful 24 minutes per episode is a good workout!

We now have a 'system' for using the 1 DVD at a time.
- Saturday or Sunday night we either watch a PG movie or PG-13+ for Deb and I (closest thing we get to a date night these days ...)
- Monday drop the disk into the mail, put a PG or G movie into the top of our queue for the little guy (or something the Courtney wants to see)
- Wednesday it arrives. He watches it Wednesday or Thursday morning
- Drop it into the mail on Thursday and push something Deb and I want to watch to the top of the queue
- Get a new DVD on Saturday and repeat.

Only snag is when Courtney (12) wants to see something that isn't for the little guy. Then he misses out that week, or we get it for the weekend and I miss out.

We still have a 20+ DVD queue of things that I want to see, so this should work for a many more months. At $9/month vs. 40+ we were spending on HBO and DVD rentals it is actually a pretty good deal.

18th Anniversary Weekend

2010-05-26T20:27:00.003-04:00

On Monday we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. The day ended a very busy, but very fun weekend.

Saturday was the annual Silverpop family party. The last few years were at the Atlanta Zoo, but this year we did something totally different: Malibu Grand Prix. As our CEO said during his 30 second speech during lunch, the day was for the families, and the company was thanking them for putting up with the job. Pretty cool thing to do, especially in this economy.

The park was for our use only from 9 until 12 and it was great not having lines or rude people to deal with. Courtney is tall enough to drive a go-kart so she was excited. Christopher is tall enough to ride, so he and I must have been in 6 sessions. There was also a bouncy so he stayed busy!

I managed to break one of the go-karts during our first session. I was going around the sharp left turns sideways and Christopher was loving it! One time though we bounced sideways and the clutch let go. We had to be pushed back to the start.

Tired little guy:

On Sunday I took the kids to the pool while Deb got ready for our 'date'. I had bought tickets to see Avenue Q but didn't tell her where we were going or what we'd be doing. Only that she had to be ready to leave at 3:30.

We first went to an early dinner at a good Italian restaurant (Scalini's for the locals) and I still hadn't told her what we were doing. When we got to the theater she was surprised and still couldn't figure out what the show was about. Her only clues were the t-shirts they were selling "The Internet is for Porn" and "It sucks to be me".

We arrived a little early, so we had a drink and 'people watched'. Yes, there is a very interest crowd at musicals. From parents with tweener kids, other couples on dates, to a 'blue hair gang' just about every demographic you could think of were there.

The show is hysterical, think Muppets with adult problems and adult adventures. I particularly liked the 'bad bears' that kept encouraging the other characters to do stupid adult things like Long Island Ice Teas!

I almost cried I was laughing so hard at this song:

After the show we got some dessert and went home.

I took Monday, our actual anniversary off, so we went to breakfast with Christopher and he and I played at a park while Deb went to the Dentist. I know, not sure why she picked that day for her appointment!

In the afternoon we took all 3 kids to see Shrek in 3D Imax. Damn that was expensive. Christopher would not wear the glasses and got upset when I would, so I kept taking them off, waiting until he looked at the screen then putting the back on. I think the movie was okay. The 3D scenes I did see were pretty good.

The kids also finished school last Friday, so we're settling into our Summer routine. Except I still get up at 5:50 to go to work!

Busy Spring

2010-05-20T21:01:00.002-04:00

This was one of the busiest springs in a long time. Between Softball, Girl Scouts and general kids stuff we were socked.

Courtney's team again had the best team in her park, but this year wasn't as lopsided as previous. Every team except one had a chance to beat every other. And the one the didn't had their pitcher break her leg in the third or fourth game, otherwise they would have been competitive as well.

Courtney had a lot of good hits and one great one. Against one of the tougher teams she hit a ball in the air over the right-center fielder's head and scored a home run!

Unfortunately they came in fourth in the end of year tournament, but they played hard the whole time.

This year I wasn't "dugout dude" since the girls are old enough to manage themselves. So Deb and I split going to the games. It was strange not being the dugout for the first time in probably 3 years.

We did a lot of projects this spring, but the biggest was expanding the swingset. This is the set we bought for Meghan when she was 3, so it was getting a little worn. And filthy. Also Christopher keeps running to his Godmother's house since she has a climbing wall on her swingset.

So I replaced a few boards and expanded it a little.

Before

During

After

Yes I have some staining still to do.

No I don't know who gave a 4 year old a 3 lb BFH.

I think the FAA is overreacting

2010-03-05T10:45:00.002-05:00

Yes, the dad let the kid into the tower where technically he shouldn’t have been. But the infraction is minor. The dad told the kid what to say, the kid said it exactly and the dad went back to work. I don’t see how this was a problem.

As a kid I used to love going to work with my Dad. First because they had a breakfast cart that came around each morning with donuts, but second because I got to see some cool stuff. His work was the first time I saw Green-bar paper and a computer. (Think late 70’s here people!). At the time I thought it was cool, but I had no idea what it would be used for some day. Or that I would become a Computer Scientist in school. I also loved going to Tarrytown, which was where the research arm of General Foods was located. I got to try Pudding Pops before they were released and a couple of other cool things. (I later got a Summer intern job in Tarrytown, which was cool, except for trying the fat-substitutes that Entenmann’s was testing those days …)

I also remember one day, probably in 7th or 8th grade where I signed up for the ‘mayor for a day’ program through my Boy Scout troop. While I didn’t get to be the Mayor of Danbury (Jim Dyer was in those days, so no comments about me approving the Mall on swamp land), I did get to shadow the guy who ran the Danbury airport. I remember seeing the tower, where the planes were stored, looking at the lights on the runway, watching one of them get replaced. It was a really cool way to miss a day of school.

Honestly, when I heard about the JFK kid, I was jealous. I didn’t get to direct any planes when I was ‘in charge’ but I can only imagine how cool that would have been.

So as others have suggested, discipline the Dad and Supervisor, but don’t fire him. Bad enough the kid thinks he got his Dad in trouble, but can you image how he’ll feel if he gets fired?

What my kids what me to read

2010-03-04T09:14:00.001-05:00

As a parent I find myself looking for books that my kids would enjoy reading, even if it isn’t something ‘typical’ for their age or interests. While my oldest has a vampire fixation right now (and I’m eagerly awaiting her to change!), my middle child is pretty open to reading anything. She is also not above recommending to ME what to read.

This is a fun change from when I read what they were reading to help them understand their assignments. I remember reading Tale of Despereaux in one night because my oldest didn’t understand what happened in the dungeon. It is also different from when they read the books that we had to in Elementary and High School (The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird etc.) and I reread them because I remember how good they were. (Everyone still remembers what happens to Johnny right?)

So her recommendation for this week: Deep, Dark and Dangerous. A Ghost story for middle schoolers, she was totally engrossed in it a couple of weeks ago. She told me bits and pieces about it, so when she finished it the other day she started nagging me to read it. So I did. Pretty good story, kind of obvious once you get about 1/3 of the way in if you have experience with other mysteries or ghost stories, but I don’t think a 12 year old would have figured it out as soon as I did. That said, it does have a couple of twists at the end that I didn’t see coming, but that weren’t totally out in left field.

Since turnabout is fair play, her next ‘recommendation’ is a book I got her for Christmas that she originally didn’t want to read. But once she read a couple of chapters she was all over it! The book is Flight of the Phoenix, the first book in the Beastologist series. I’ll start that next week.

Now I need to find something for the Freshman that doesn’t involve vampires …

Odysseus's Resume

2010-02-08T20:18:00.002-05:00

Meghan had a really cool homework assignment today: write Odysseus's Resume. (Yes, the guy who Homer wrote about. No not that Homer!)

Either she doesn't think I'm funny, or she didn't get my sarcasm gene. I made a few recommendations for what she should include and I'm sure she ignored me.

My favorite though was under accomplishments:

"Reintroduced Archery to the Royal Court. Led the Reduction in Force of the Queen's suitors."

I know, random.

Colorguard and Percussion Band Event

2010-02-08T20:12:00.002-05:00

This past weekend Courtney had her first Colorguard competition. Meghan does Colorguard for the high school and this winter they started one for the 'feeder' Middle Schools for Meghan's school. Courtney watched Meghan at most of the football games this fall, so she wanted to try.

They'd only been doing it for 3 weeks, so their performance was short, but they all looked good. It was obvious a few of the girls were nervous (so were a lot of parents!) but they all did what they needed to. I didn't see any obvious mistakes and I think everyone was excited and relived when they finished.

Before Courtney's turn, there was a high school Percussion competition. Wow, that was something to see (and hear). It's one thing when they are on a football field, but inside a basketball gym you could feel some of the cymbals crashing and see the control and speed they have when drumming. One group, which I think won, were dressed in all black and the drum line wore black hoods. Very cool to watch.

Courtney has another competition in a couple of weeks, so I'll get some pictures then.

50,000 miles already

2010-02-04T09:13:00.002-05:00

Wow, I've been racking up a lot of mileage lately. Yesterday I hit 50,000 miles on the Mustang. It's on 06 I bought in March of 06 so I'm well beyond 1000 a month.

For reference I hit 30,000 after 30 months.

So far so good with the car. Only major cost has been tires, but I expect to need new struts and shocks soon. No new modifications, all spare change is going to the Capri.

Screaming steering repair

2010-01-30T15:13:00.003-05:00

Anyone with a Caravan or Town and Country and 'screaming' power steering? Our 2003 had it until this morning. It was pretty annoying and 'sounded' a lot more expensive then it turned out.

The sound is what you'd expect when you're low on power steering fluid, except that the level in the reservoir was fine. After putting it off for a couple of months I was going to take it to a shop this weekend to be fixed. So I did an online search to see what they were probably going to have to do (and pay).

Boy was I shocked by how many other people had the same problem and what the solution turned out to be. Basically, the cheap ass Chrysler engineers put a filter in the reservoir that can't be replaced without replacing the whole thing. And it clogs pretty easily, starving the steering pump and making the noises.

Following the steps here, I bought the reservoir here and did the install. This video helped a lot to see what was needed.

The only thing I did differently was to use an extension on the 10mm socket to reach the nut beneath the suction hose. The extension allowed the ratchet to clear all the hoses and the nut was easy to remove. Took me about an hour total.

So for about $30 I solved what was others were charged hundreds for by the dealers and shop.

No, I didn't work on the Capri today.

She still needs to get good grades though!

2010-01-25T20:24:00.002-05:00

Today my youngest daughter told me that the little guy is 'going to buy us all houses when he signs his NFL contract with the NY Giants.' and that 'she's going to have a dozen dogs and turtles'. She then went on about what kind of dogs etc.

I asked her about the house and she said that's what football players do for their sisters. I guess she better be nice to him!

Christmas lights

2009-12-22T21:32:00.002-05:00

Things are getting a lot different around here now.

Tonight we took the kids for the annual dinner and Life College Christmas lights event. Dinner was fine and nothing unusual there.

The lights however were a lot different. Christopher was a lot more interested in them this year, looking and sometimes pointing.

The girls however had their heads in their iPod's the whole time. Yes I know it is the same lights we've seen for the last decade or so, but can't they at least look at them?

I expect this trend to continue with the girls as Christopher gets older and we start to do more 'toddler' things with him.

My advice to college Freshman

2009-11-19T11:47:00.001-05:00

I have posted a new entry in my Tech blog about advice to college freshmen.

Read it here.

What would you teach a 15 year old about programming?

2009-11-18T09:35:00.001-05:00

I posted my thoughts on this over on my Technology blog.

Universal Wish List

2009-11-16T21:11:00.001-05:00

Most people have an Amazon wish list. Pretty cool way of letting others know what you would like for a birthday, Christmas etc. It is also pretty handy to remind yourself of things you'd like to buy, but without the financial disaster of buying it when you find it.

The biggest problem has always been that there is a lot of stuff you'd like that you can't get from Amazon. Well, they've addressed that problem with their 'universal wish list' feature.

It is pretty cool. Basically you have a 'favorite' in your browser that runs some JavaScript when you are on a page you'd like to add to your wish list.

Adding the favorite is easy. Create a wish list in Amazon, then on the left side look for the 'universal wish list' link and follow the directions.

For example, Fox Mustang Restoration doesn't have a wish list feature. So I navigate to the page of the item I would like for the Capri, select the 'Add to Wish List' favorite in Firefox. Amazon then displays a popup for you to pick the picture of the item, change the description and add the price. Hit 'save' and then 'save' again on the Amazon page and your item is added to the wish list.

Buying from the wish list is a little more difficult, but not much. When your friend buys something, the select the 'Shop This Store' button on the wish list, then submit their email address so the item can be marked as 'bought'. So no duplicates.

I actually think Amazon missed the UI on this. What they should have done was opened the link in an iFrame, and put a 'yes I bought this' link in a toolbar above the linked-to page.

Bathroom remodeling sucks

2009-11-07T19:51:00.002-05:00

We started our bathroom remodel over 6 weeks ago. The contractor (who is a family friend) did a great job, leaving me to do some of the basic stuff. Like painting, installing new faucets etc.

6 weeks later, we still can't use our bathroom.

Wow did this thing get out of control fast. Painting took 2 weeks because kid commitments didn't allow me to work on it for more than a few hours each weekend. Now that the walls have color I started changing out the faucets. What a total cluster- this is.

Turns out that our builder decided to use some unknown-name sinks in the house. Which don't have overflows and have the drains almost 1/2" wider than a normal sink. So after installing the new drain, it leaks. After taking it apart 3 times, cleaning the sealing areas, tightening as tight as I can etc. I went to Home Depot. And Lowe's. Neither has no-overflow drains. At all.

So I go online. I can find them, but for $110 each. Screw that.

For now I've packed the holes with plumber's putty, but we'll see if that helps once it dries. Probably not with my luck.

So nothing else got done today. All day with the stupid drains. Plus kid activities of course.

Halloween pictures

2009-11-05T20:46:00.003-05:00

So what if it was a week ago? I finally was able to upload some pictures of the kids from Halloween.

It was a rainy, chilly night, so lot a lot of fun for a Saturday Halloween.

He left the costume on for about 10 minutes.

Meghan was too old/cool to go out, so she stayed home and handed out candy. No idea why there is an Edward in my foyer.

I don't know what she was trying to be. I didn't ask ;-)

All the kids made skeletons out of milk jugs. When Deb arrived for the class party they were in the kid's chairs.

I just like this one of Christopher:

Allatoona CTAE Advisory Meeting

2009-11-04T20:20:00.003-05:00

Today was my first CTAE Advisory committee meeting at Meghan's high school. CTAE stands for 'Career, Technical and Agricultural' (no idea where the 'E' comes from). Basically it is the department for everything 'not core' in High School.

I was asked to join by the Business & computer teacher, who I've spoken with a few times and offered to help. The other members include bankers, real estate, small business owners, construction managers and a couple of parents.

All I have to say is 'Wow'. The classrooms and subjects offered by this department are incredible. Since it covers a lot of topics, we had a tour of each area. How about an ex-Weather Channel video desk/backdrop with a state of the art Video system? Or a state of the art 3-D model rendering machine for the drafting group? Or a commercial kitchen for Culinary Arts that makes most restaurants look like a BBQ Grill? Or access to the entire Adobe authoring suite for HTML, Flash and animation creation?

I also was able to see a couple of the classroom that Meghan takes her classes in and can now understand some of the things she told me about.

These are definitely not the schools we went to.

Since this was the first meeting we didn't discuss much about directions for the department, feedback on course criteria etc. but that will come in our next meeting.

Cute pictures of kids on Facebook

2009-11-03T08:41:00.001-05:00

As you should know by now, the Internet never forgets. Go to the 'way back machine' or even google for old articles and you can find things online that predate the internet. Or pictures you thought you deleted from that wild 'shopping' weekend with friends!

So how do you think your kids are going to react in 10 years (or less!) when they get their own Facebook page and see all stupid pictures of them that you've posted over the years? Or when their siblings beat you to it and tag them, for all their tweener/teen friends to see?

Just saying ;-)

What's that Skirbit thing on your blog?

2009-11-02T06:56:00.000-05:00

If you look in the upper right corner of my blog you'll see a box for 'Skirbit' asking for ideas on what to blog about.

Skirbit is a tool created by a couple of Atlanta-based developers that provides a nice interface for people to suggest topics for a blogger. It is free for one blog and reasonably priced if you have multiple.

So if you want me to write about something, suggest it!

Catch up and Blog a Day in November

2009-11-01T19:53:00.003-05:00

Sorry I haven't blogged in more than 6 weeks, this has been one crazy fall.

Softball with Courtney has taken up a lot of our time. Except for the 12 days where it rained every day and we were rained out 5 games. While we didn't get any flooding, it was pretty bad less than a mile away, including a couple of washed out roads. After making up all the games (except 2) we went into the Halloween Havoc tournament and the girls won first place! It was by no means easy since both teams we played were pretty good.

Meghan's big activity this fall was Color Guard for Allatoona Band. 3 days a week after school, plus every Friday night and most Saturdays pretty much defined her fall. The last game was Friday (10/30) so she really enjoyed sleeping in yesterday!

Both girls are doing well in new schools (High School and Middle School!)

I have a number of pictures I'll post up over the next couple of weeks.

As for the Capri, nothing was done all fall. See above for why ;-) I hope to get back into it next weekend.

For the second year in a row I am going to try to blog a day in November. We'll see if I can keep up this year!

Happy birthday to me!

2009-09-15T20:13:00.003-04:00

I know it is tacky to sing happy birthday to yourself. But it is my Birthday!

As often happens, my birthday didn't turn out the way we'd expected or planned. You can blame Mother Nature for that. Had it not down poured most of the day Courtney was supposed to have a 7:30 softball game. And have Open House at 7.

Thus, the original plan was to have me pick up Courtney, take her to dinner for my birthday, then to softball. Yes, the 4th year in a row I was to spend my birthday at the field. Meanwhile, Deb was going to drop Christopher off with Meghan, then go to the Open House.

Knowing that we wouldn't be home until late, we had my cake and family presents Monday night. Deb made me my favorite cake (Carrot/Spice) with vanilla frosting. Of course with a house full of women, that wouldn't be acceptable, so she also made a chocolate cake for everyone else.

As you can see, Christopher likes chocolate cake!

Do you remember as a kid when your parents gave up on surprising you for birthdays and Christmas? They either gave you a catalog or told you to give them a list? Well, I'm at that point again. Deb had no idea what to get me, so she asked me to pick from some catalogs. First Sears and the Eastwood for car parts, paint supplies and tools.

While I deliberately picked a lot of things, she found the two or three I really needed and got them. Overall, a very nice evening.

Since we didn't have softball tonight, I met Deb and Christopher at his gymnastics class and got to watch him do the balance beam and bounce like a lunatic down the trampoline.

When I got home, I had a very pleasant surprise.

For those who don't know what these, they are some of the best candies ever made. I know it is not chocolate, but as a kid I used to get these every chance I had. They are almost impossible to find, but Deb found a case on Amazon!

Another middle school math book

2009-08-30T13:37:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago my oldest was always asking for help with her math homework and I couldn't remember the details of what she was asking. At the time we found a book by Danica McKellar (yes from the Wonder Years) aimed at Middle School Girls. See my review from back then.

Well, Meghan is now in High School and Courtney is now in Middle School. The book is still applicable and we reference it every once and awhile. However, it did not have a lot of pre-algebra. Well, Danica has released another book, this one aimed at pre-Algebra.

The URL for the book's home page is here.

For those with boys, here is a tip: get the books and read them. Then help them with their homework. They don't need to tell anyone that you used a 'girls book' to help them. (Plus I know of a couple of boys who used them, but I won't tell who ...)

Are you jealous of your kid?

2009-08-21T21:59:00.002-04:00

Style.com has an interesting article asking if you are jealous of your child. At first I’m sure you’re thinking ‘no, stupid question’. But if you’re like me a second or two later you think ‘yeah, maybe’ (and not just about the amount of time they spend with your better half).

Part of it is being a Dad (or Mom) where you’re shouldering all the responsibilities. Your children aren’t thinking about college, mortgage payments, the economy, how Grandma and Grandpa are doing in this economy or their health. The kids are thinking about video games, TV and what they are going to get for their birthdays.

Then you read the article and realize that they are talking about the ‘my kid is better than me’ or ‘my kid is better than I was at that age’. I’m not sure I agree with that with my kids. They are different, have different skills, interests and weaknesses. Yes they get to do things that we didn't, but there are also things we did and experienced that they probably won't.

Plus I’m over 40 now so hindsight always makes you be better than you really were right?

I first read the article last Wednesday. I thought about it a little bit on the way home, but started thinking of it a lot when I got home and started helping with homework. Then I realized that while I am jealous of some of the things they have and are able to do, I have no intention of going through the ‘growing up’ again.

Meghan is now a freshman in high school. I remember that age. And I hated it. I pretty much hated everything about High School until I met Deb. Then things became tolerable. While I like to ask questions about the school and the kids and what they are doing, I really don’t want to do it again. However, I remember how important it is to have someone to talk to so I ask lots of questions. Being a young lady she has different problems than I did at that age, but Deb shares a lot of the same dislike for that age.

Courtney and Christopher each have their own challenges now. Less so for the little guy, but I know that they are coming.

One advantage of having children though, is I can enjoy some of the things they are taking for granted by doing it with them. I probably wouldn’t admit it to Courtney, but I like the ‘dug out dude’ thing. First because I get to do something with her, but secondly because I get to be part of a sports team again. I ‘dragged’ Meghan to see the latest Harry Potter movie because I wanted to see it.

Having a toddler means you don’t have to grow up right? So showing your food, making farting noises with your armpit, throwing dinner rolls at the kids are all fair game right? So for a few minutes I get to be silly and not worry about everything.

So, yes I am somewhat jealous of my kids. But I also understand that while I’d like some of the things they have or get to do, I don’t want to go through what they are going to do again. I'll help and support them as they do it, but no way would I do it again.

OMG My Kids Are On Facebook!

2009-07-23T21:05:00.002-04:00

If you've been around social media for a while you've seen the articles, blogs and jokes about the college and high school kids freaking out as their parents joined Facebook.

Well, I have the opposite problem. My Kids are now on Facebook...

I've been on Facebook for a long time (well, relative to most people at least). I received one of the first non-college accounts within a week of it being open for anyone. Actually, I created two accounts one for work and one for home. Back in those days there wasn't a lot of privacy and grouping features so I wanted to keep those parts of my world apart.

Plus the reason I got the account was to figure out how to use social networks for marketing. Well, I think we nailed that one pretty well.

A year or so ago Meghan, my now 14 year old asked for a Facebook account. I thought about it for a minute and didn't see any reasons why not. I did set some ground rules, the main one is that I had to know the password and that I'd check it whenever I wanted. If I found she changed the password I would destroy the account (I own the main email address her email is created under so I can do that easily!)

She's very responsible so I didn't have any issues, nor think much about her having one. Since she sat in on my presentation about Facebook at Middle School I didn't think there would be any problems.

Then my brothers, their wives, my cousins, friends from high school, friends from college, friends from the neighborhood etc. started getting accounts. Again no big deal. Until realized that since Meghan is friends with Deb and I, that she is being 'suggested' to be friends with our friends. Not a good idea.

This year Courtney goes to Middle School, so I created her a Facebook account. Unlike Meghan who was on Facebook well before most of my friends, Courtney is 'new' so all my friends are now seeing her. And wanting to Friend her. Again, not good.

The reason it is not good, is there are some things we joke about or post that I don't want my 11 year old seeing or asking about. Or that the friends post.

Family is one thing to have as Friends, but I've been telling the girls not to accept or Friend adults without first talking to me. I'll see who they are and make the decision.

One more parenting thing I never expected. Sigh.

3 Weeks to School?

2009-07-19T21:04:00.002-04:00

Yes, it is late July and my kids have 3 weeks of summer left. Technically Meghan is done, since Band Camp starts tomorrow all week, then the week after.

Georgia has this bizarre schedule where we go back to school the first full week in August. Now they get out the Friday before Memorial Day, but it makes for a strange summer. Especially since it is fraking hot here until, oh October.

Summer went really fast this year. Deb's surprise party may have had something to do with it, but I don't feel like we sat down and relaxed at all so far.

My Favorite Picture of Deb

2009-07-02T07:37:00.000-04:00

So tomorrow is her 40th Birthday. Having thousands of pictures of her, from birth until two weeks ago (when she left for CT for her annual visit), this is my favorite.

I can't explain why, but I've had it in my briefcase since it was taken. Again there is some question on when it was taken, but it is great one of her!

Please call her, email, Facebook etc. to wish her a happy birthday!

Favorite Picture of Deb #2

2009-07-01T07:17:00.001-04:00

My second most favorite picture of Deb!

I think this was in my apartment in college, she thinks it was at a neighbor's New Year's party a few years later. Either way, great picture!

Don't worry I fixed it

2009-06-30T07:26:00.002-04:00

Interrupting my favorite pictures of my almost 40 year old wife ;-)

I found a really funny site of hacks, ghetto or redneck repairs. Now I've done my fair share of things to get something moving along or stopping a leak, but only long enough to fix it.

The site is here.

An example:

Favorite Picture of Deb #3

2009-06-30T07:23:00.001-04:00

Two more to go! Remember, her birthday is July 3rd.

This was what she wore to dinner on our first anniversary.

Favorite Picture of Deb #4

2009-06-26T13:23:00.002-04:00

This was taken as part of the engagement package we did.

Here are #7, #6, #5

Favorite Pictures of Deb #5

2009-06-26T13:21:00.003-04:00

My Favorites of Deb, #5.

This is the first picture of us taken together in Greece. Yes we look really young don't we?

Pictures #6 and #7.

My Favorite Pictures of Deb #6

2009-06-26T13:20:00.002-04:00

Continuing with my #6 favorite of Deb.

This was in September of 1989. No idea where she was going.

#7 is here.

My Favorites Pictures of Deb - #7

2009-06-26T13:17:00.003-04:00

Deb's 40th Birthday is July 3rd. When preparing for her surprise party I (with the help of her Mom) got several hundred pictures of her, from all ages, and put together a slide show.

With 7 days until her birthday, I figured I'd share my favorites.

So, here is #7

This was taken a couple of days after we met in Greece

If you want to see about 120 of the pictures from the slide show, go here.

Did I mention I don't like to paint?

2009-05-31T19:33:00.002-04:00

One of my tasks for this weekend was to paint the windows downstairs in the front and the front door . I'm smart enough to know that I don't want to do the whole house in one weekend, so I started in the front.

Did I mention I don't like to paint? Of course I picked the warmed/sunniest weekend we've had all spring. Friday night I washed down everything then Saturday primered the really bad spots. I was going to paint that afternoon, but it was way too hot.

Sunday morning Meghan helped me tape off everything that wasn't already taped due to the primer, then we started painting. She helped with the windows around the front door then decided she'd had enough. I guess watching DIY and TLC is one thing, doing it is another ;-)

It took me almost 3 hours to paint everything, then another hour to cleanup this evening after it cooled down a little bit.

So if you're a redneck if only your neck/shoulders are sunburned. What if only your back half is red? The sun was behind me the whole day so I have an interesting tan now!

Coke Classic Tournament May 8 and 9

2009-05-09T17:20:00.002-04:00

Courtney's softball team was undefeated in regular play at their park so they won a trip to the Coke Classic softball tournament at Lost Mountain.

Their first game was earlier in the week, but I was at my company's User Conference so I couldn't attend. They won that one but it was a close game.

Friday night's game shaped up to be a big game because the team we were playing was also undefeated in their own park. Well, our girls stepped up and our defense shut them down.

Saturday was a long day. One of the longest in a couple of years. We arrived at the field at 9 am and didn't leave until 3:45. The girls played two great games, getting better and better with each inning. We 'won' the winners bracket so on Thursday we meet the winner of the 'losers' bracket for the championship!

Our regular pitcher and I have a bit of a game/contest going. If she doesn't walk the first batter she faces, I get her some chocolate. She's a Reese's peanut butter cup girl but won't turn away from regular chocolate. So the second half of the season if she didn't walk, I'd have chocolate waiting at the end of the inning. Friday, I went and got a bag of Hershey's miniatures so any girl that did well got one.

Of course, on Saturday I needed to do the same thing, so I got a bigger bag. Needless to say, with 10 and 11 year old girls that went over well.

For Friday's game the coaches told the girls they could 'paint' the hair of the coaches if we won. While I'm technically not a coach, apparently more than one girl wanted me to have pink hair. Thus the picture:

On Saturday we gave the girls two incentives: win the first and paint Coach Ray's fingernails hot pink. Win the second and they could throw whipped cream pies at the coaches. Well, we won both. First picture is Ray's pink nails.

However, you know the expression 'old age and trickery will overcome youth and exuberance'? Well, we got the girls back. We had them line up and 'take a picture'. But the coaches were behind the girls and on '3' shoved the plates into THEIR faces. Lots of fun!

Turn your back on a 3 year old for 1 minute

2009-05-01T20:37:00.002-04:00

I guess I need to get something else for breakfast.

He took the plastic bag with the muffins that Meghan made and very quietly opened it and took a bite out of almost all of them.

It took a few minutes to clean up him and the floor.

New (?) Car, new Blog

2009-04-25T21:59:00.001-04:00

I just created a new blog to document the rebuilding of a rare, 1984 Mercury Capri RS Turbo I just bought. See it here.

Now Courtney has a blog!

2009-04-13T20:20:00.001-04:00

She bugged me all day yesterday and when I got home for dinner. So, introducing: Courtney's Blog!

I guess he didn't want me to clean up

2009-03-29T12:44:00.002-04:00

After I cleaned up the many messes that Christopher makes in the family room each hour, he decided that he really wanted to play with all the trains.

After:

More pictures in the flickr site.

Courtney Got a Homerun Yeah! Courtney Got a Homerun Yeah!

2009-03-21T18:36:00.003-04:00

Today was the first game of the season and Courtney got off to a good start. First a bat she smashed a hit over the right-center fielder's head for a two run home run. She also started running like the lunatic she used to be. She was running so fast she caught up with the girl who was on first as they were rounding third!

(The title is the chant that the girls do when someone gets a hit.)

Second at bat she walked, but third at bat got another good, solid hit.

Her team won 21-3. It wasn't as much of a blow out as that sounds. The other team gave up 3 home runs to the same girl, but they were hitting as well. Our defense held them though.

We also went to touch-a-truck in Kennesaw. I'll post up pictures tomorrow.

Yes I as Dugout Dude again. I still have a voice though.

I remember now why I don't have ATVs

2009-03-19T21:38:00.002-04:00

I am my boss' lake house for a product brainstorming meeting and he has a couple of motorcycles and ATVs. I've been riding a 4 wheeler all day (yes we did some work!).

This evening after dinner I took a 4 wheeler into the woods, but missed the turn to get back on the road. So I went off the side of the woods, over a 2+ foot rut and dumped the ATV. I didn't go over the handlebars at least. No major damage to the ATV or me, but I remember now why I don't have toys like this.

Psst, want a bowl your kid can't dump out?

2009-03-15T16:30:00.002-04:00

This is from One Step Ahead, which makes pretty good stuff for the little ones.

Looks like it has a gyroscope in it to keep them from tipping it over.

Very good marketing team behind this ad. The kid is in the car, probably with a ton of Cheerio's and Goldfish. If he was Christoper they'd be all over the place by now.

We have that car seat too. If you do and you haven't had to take the cover off yet, be glad. I had to READ THE DIRECTIONS to get the cover off. Seriously, it is a car seat, I shouldn't need directions to take it apart!

More reasons not to leave your computer or phone logged in and unattended

2009-03-08T20:56:00.003-04:00

If you've been around Facebook or Twitter for even a little amount of time you've seen people with very strange status updates. Some silly, some really off color. Ever wondered what happened? More likely than not, the owner of that account left their cell phone or computer logged into those applications and not secured.

So some wise-ass friend decided to point this out by updating their status. Sometimes they are funny, but I don't know about you, but I think every one has that one friend who takes it too far. So, it isn't surprising to see that a meme is quickly building around this, call the Pants Status Meme.

The general idea is when you find an open account, don't be a jerk, but do try to be funny and preface it with 'pants meme' so people know it wasn't the owner posting. Some ideas:

Pants Status: <>
- plaid
- wrinkled
- on the floor
- not wearing any
- gone clamming (for those who don't know this one, think highwaters ;-)

To see what others are doing see this.

Also, remember if it happens to you just go to your profile or home page and delete the offending statements. Don't try to apologize.

Update on Molly: They have her!

2009-02-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

We just received word that John and Katharine picked her up today. Katharine has a good write up on the first hours on their blog.

Friday the 13th is even more unique this time!

2009-02-11T19:52:00.003-05:00

Think the world is going to end in 2012?

Well what about this:

"At 11:31:30pm UTC on Feb 13, 2009, Unix time will reach 1,234,567,890.
Where will you be at this momentous second?" - from Bell Labs

While not as big a deal as Y2K, this could be a significant event. Or not. If you don't know what 'UNIX Time' is, be very concerned. ;-)

I know I spent Y2K with a pager waiting for the world to end, so I'll have a beer or three tomorrow night to make up for it.

Sorry, just geeking out.

Source.

British Humor

2009-02-09T19:16:00.003-05:00

I love the show. Now I can get some clothes! Too bad the US version was killed before it took off.

How 70's Science Fiction influenced my interests today

2009-02-08T17:52:00.002-05:00

How many can you name?

Voltron!

Unfortunately I didn't get into Dr. Who until a few years ago, but I know most of the others. I had a Space 1999 ship. I remember begging my parents for one for Christmas.

I also remember watching UFO with my Dad. Ah mini-skirts and purple hair

If you want to try to figure them out, see here and here.

Haha - Patriot's Fans can ignore

2009-02-03T19:24:00.000-05:00

Still funny a year later

Dad & Daughter Dance

2009-01-25T07:48:00.002-05:00

Last night Courtney and I went to the Girl Scout Dad and Daughter dance. The theme was 50's to 80's and everyone was encouraged to dress up.

Being a child of the 80's I knew the style I wanted, I just didn't have the clothes! I couldn't find any suit jackets that were white or pink. Nor could I find my old boat shoes (must have left them at a fight?).

So I settled for a pink izod shirt, over a white izod shirt, black chino's and shoes. Unfortunately I don't have white high tops any more. I also couldn't find my skinny black tie. I'm sure Deb has hidden all of these things.

Courtney had a very nice dress that would have fit into the 80s. Except she wouldn't let Deb 'poof' her hair. She did look very cute.

We first went to dinner at Chili's then to the dance. She and I danced to a lot of songs including some from the 50's 60's and 70's. (They didn't do a lot of 80's music.) We also did the Chicken Dance and the 'stomp' thing they do in school (The one where you 'slide to the right')

Most of the girls were dressed up and a bunch of the Dads. One was Steve Perry, there were lots of hippies, a couple of skinny tie'd and lots of 50's greasers.

I don't know which was funnier: Courtney's look during 'play that funky music white boy' or 'Shout' (Animal House) where we were on the floor.

After the dance she was of course hungry, so we had to get desert. On the way I was clicking through the radio stations and Aqualung by Jethro Tull came on. I started singing and, in an attitude only an 11 year old can pull off, she said 'Um okay Dad. Are we there yet?'

Misguided 'environmental' idea and the next round of stimulus welfare

2009-01-18T11:49:00.002-05:00

Our friends in Congress are again trying to use the economy problems that they created to push their environmentalist agenda. While I support helping the environment, dumping my tax dollars into a poorly thought out, ripe for fraud plan is unacceptable.

I'm talking about the 'cash for clunkers' plan that the Senate Democrats are trying to stick into the next round of welfare, I mean stimulus plan.

Basically, if you turn in a junker car, which doesn't necessarily have to be running, Congress will give you thousands towards a new car. California tried this in the 90s and it failed, so why does Congress think it will work now?

If you agree that there are better ways of stimulating the economy, without the fraud found when California tried this, please write your Senator and Speaker Pelosi.

From SEMA, some points on what to say in your message.

Dear Speaker Pelosi

I am writing to urge lawmakers not to include a "Cash for Clunkers" provision in the economic stimulus bill. Owners who turn in vehicles for crushing would receive a "minimal" payment to purchase a new car. This is a misguided attempt to spur car sales and claim that the country's air quality or fleet fuel mileage is being improved.

* "Cash for Clunkers" programs threaten enthusiasts nationwide with the loss of valuable parts and parts-cars for repair, restoration, and customization projects. The programs also risk destroying classic, historic and special-interest vehicles, our American heritage.

* Cars turned in for scrappage often barely run, or are rarely-driven second or third vehicles that have a minimal impact on overall fuel economy or emissions.

* "Cash for Clunkers" programs will reduce the availability of affordable transportation and repair parts used by low-income drivers. It will also compete with the Salvation Army, the Purple Heart and other charities that rely on vehicle donations to raise money.

* "Cash for Clunkers" ignores better policy options. If Congress wants to act, support for repair and upgrade is a better choice and a win-win for consumers, dealers, manufacturers and repair shops. Significant emissions and fuel economy improvements can be achieved in older vehicles through relatively simple and inexpensive means: repaired/replaced exhaust systems, tune-ups, etc.

* I hope I can count on you to reject "Cash for Clunkers." Thank you for your consideration on this very important matter.

Blackjack II battery

2009-01-16T17:13:00.002-05:00

I was finally able to get Deb her Christmas present last weekend, and instead of an iPhone I bought her a Blackjack II. It fit her needs better than the iPhone. Plus it was a lot less ;-)

One issue though: the battery lasted less than 12 hours. Not good for a mom on the run chasing a Toddler, a Tweener and a Teenager.

I looked around and found the problem on an obscure site. The issue was the 'beam' feature of the phone was sucking lots of battery power. This is the feature that allows someone to 'beam' you their contacts from their phone. Since Deb stopped going to bars without me, she doesn't need that any more.

Turning it off and she has had a full charge for the last 3 days. Cool.

Courtney is 11!

2009-01-15T17:58:00.002-05:00

Courtney's 11th birthday was yesterday. More pictures on the Flickr site.

I don't know where they get the idea of messing with the cake.

She is a serious shoe girl. She got 2 pairs of boots.

Silver lining on being older?

2009-01-10T17:14:00.002-05:00

So, I'm 40 now. Even though I don't act it much. Today I had a reminder why it is good to be older.

While putting gas in the mini-van (No, having a mini-van isn't a good part of being older. stop it) it started raining pretty hard. I just put in the credit card, filled up and looked around. I don't care it was raining, the pumps were under a roof.

A young man, late teens probably, got out of his car and ran into the store, getting soaked in the process, to pay cash for his gas. Then ran back out. I'm still dry watching him.

I remember being that kid running into the gas station because I didn't have a credit card. So chalk one up for a good credit rating ;-)

I remember my Dad always used to say something along the lines of 'old age, experience and trickery will out smart youth and energy'. I guess I'm starting to understand what he used to mean.

Yeah, when I was I kid we had to go on the roof to move the antenna to watch TV!

2009-01-06T18:15:00.003-05:00

With all the talk about over the air digital TV I had some strange memories of watching TV via an antenna as a kid today.

First, I remember my dad going to radio shack to buy one of these on the roof antennas. But not just any antenna, one that had a motor on it. I don't remember exactly why we did this, but I suspect it was because we needed to watch the Giants.

Next I had to help my dad put it on the roof, attached to the fireplace. And not fall off.

Then run the cable, probably 1" wide, down the side of the house, in the window and to the TV. For those who remember my parent's house this is why we had those metal spikes in the side of the house until they got cable ;-)

We also had to run a ground wire. I remember Patrick joking about the ground wire for some reason, pretending to be electrocuted.

Anyway, this thing was the balls for the 1970s. When you turned on the TV, you could move the dial that went 359 degrees around and it would move the antenna the same degrees. So you'd start with the TV on the football game you wanted to watch, then turn the knob until the picture got good then turn it back when it went bad. I remember fighting over which position was 'best' for a particular channel.

In those days we had maybe 8 channels? NBC, CBS, ABC out of New York, CBS out of Hartford, Fox 5 (the original!) out of New York, PBS out of New York and Channels 9 and 11 (Mets and Yankees respectively). None of this 600 channels with nothing on. We had 8 channels with nothing on!

Anyway, as more people are trying to get HDTV over the airwaves I have to wonder if these antennas are coming back.

yeah, that was pretty random.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2008-12-29T13:10:00.002-05:00

Wow, this has been a crazy month. I don't know if it was the 30 posts/30 days thing last month or just all the Christmas planning, but I haven't had a chance to blog in a while.

So some updates:

No iPhone yet. Still need to wait to get Deb her Christmas present

I helped with the 'holiday breakfast' for Courtney's school. Pretty fun, but I wouldn't want to be her teacher after all those kids ate all that chocolate, sugar and caffeinated drinks.

Christmas Eve Mass went pretty well with the little guy. We arrived an hour and a half early and found an empty parking lot. This is strange since most years there are already a lot of people in the church by then. Another sign that our church is no longer as active as before. We didn't even try to go to the church, instead going to the 'hall' where they had a second mass at the same time. Christopher had to explore everything, including the bleachers in the gym where Mass was said.

By the time Mass was ready to start he was a little fussy, but not bad. I held/fought with him the whole Mass. I was setting on the right aisle, left most seat so I could see the priest and he could see me. I swear he saw Christopher stick the Curious George sticker on my nose. When we went to communion he gave me a strange smile, so I guess he did.

Did I mention the battery on the van had died before we went into Mass? So between keeping Christopher occupied I was looking around for anyone I knew to give me a jump after mass. I forgot this was Christmas, so most of the people were there for their once a year visit. We went out to the car and held our breaths as it turned over and started. I think what happened was we were waiting in the car before mass and drained the battery with the DVD player. It has been fine since.

We ended the night with our traditional Chinese food dinner (no Jason we aren't Jewish, but this is the South so nothing else was open!)

Christmas day was nice and some-what relaxing. Christopher received two dozen Thomas engines, 100 yards of track and lots of other Thomas-themed toys. So we've been doing trains since.

I'll get some pictures up in the next day or so, but the kids (and Deb except for the iPhone mess) all were happy with their presents. I received a couple of cool things, but my favorite was a t-shirt Deb found from Cherry Bomb. On the back it says 'Disturbing the Peace since 1968'. (They make high performance mufflers.) Since I was born in 1968 it was fitting.

We are currently trying to figure out what to do for New Year's Eve.

Not much else new around here.

Nice service AT&T so much for customer loyalty

2008-12-13T11:31:00.002-05:00

So Deb wants an iphone for Christmas. Shouldn't be a big deal right? We've been with Bellsouth/AT&T for 15 years. So I went to the store today to see what my options are.

Turns out, we aren't eligible for upgrades until 1/1. Yes 2 weeks from today. And they won't budge on the upgrade date. So a new iphone is $399 or $499 today. I wait 2 weeks and it is $199 or $299.

So $200 for 2 weeks. I get putting limits on when you can upgrade, but being within 2 weeks and not giving me a break, especially before Christmas?

I need to go do the math, but I think it is cheaper for the next two years to break the contract and go with Verizon and get her one of the new blackberries.

Santa's Gmail read the subjects ...

2008-12-03T12:52:00.003-05:00

Frosty is hysterical!

From here.

30 posts in 30 days

2008-11-30T11:16:00.002-05:00

So that wasn't has hard as I thought it would be. I missed 1 day once I got started, but made up for it with a couple of multiple-post days.

I only had one 'filler' day when I didn't feel like writing. Not bad.

And I haven't exhausted my list of blog ideas. So look for a few more interesting (or bizarre) posts in the coming weeks.

Hydraulic UPS Trucks?

2008-11-30T11:12:00.004-05:00

This is very cool. Forget about gas/electric hybrids, how about going 100% hydraulic? UPS, who uses an obscene amount of fuel for their fleets, who also figured out how to not make left turns, is introducing a hydraulic driven truck.

Details here.

I'd love to hear how acceleration is in such a drive train. Do they have an ABS-like control pump to control speeds?

Anyway, great idea to reduce fuel needs.

Middle School Career Day

2008-11-29T13:02:00.002-05:00

The Friday before Thanksgiving, Meghan's middle school had a career day. This is the third time I've done it for the 8th graders. Unlike the elementary school kids, this is more focused on getting the students thinking about what they want to do post High School.

I took some of the slides from last year, but upgraded them to remove pictures of Meghan and talk about the new things my company has been doing about Share To Social on Facebook. I also told them about Caitlin Davis and how she blew everything with one picture.

Deb was in the first presentation, which was the first time she's ever seen me present in public. Then Meghan was in my last group. The first and last groups were very interactive, asked questions and responded when I asked them questions. The second group pretty much sat there and looked at me.

I did manage to freak out the teacher. The classroom is equipped with a 'smart' white board that detects when you click on it with your hands and fingers. I had not worked with one before, but I was able to quickly incorporate it into my presentation. It is easy to explain what a requirements document is, a testing environment etc. when you can show them.

The freak out came when I was talking about what a QA (Quality Assurance) team does. At a couple of different points in my career I have managed QA teams so it was on the 'how I got here' slide. So I explained quickly what 'negative testing' is, by walking up to the board and running my hands across it like it was a table of sand. The board flickered, changed views, changed colors etc. but eventually settled back down. I told the students this was what a QA person would do: something you would never expect. I thought the teacher was going to freak the first time. Even Deb said something later about her face as I did it.

I enjoyed doing this and will do it again next year if asked.

Ever regretted sending an email?

2008-11-28T15:50:00.002-05:00

Or calling an ex (or current) at 4 am to tell them how you feel?

Well, Google has decided that they can help you not send that email when you've had a little too much holiday cheer. It is called 'mail goggles'. Really. See here.

The name is unfortunate, since 'beer goggles' imply doing something you wouldn't if you weren't drinking. To me 'mail goggles' would make you more likely to send an email.

Something like Gmail popping up a dialog box:

'Hi, it is 4 am and I see you are sending email. According to my advanced A.I. I see you used to send Suzie messages every eight hours or so, but haven't in 3 months. Would you like to send her one now?'

Can't stop you from calling that person, but isn't that what friends are for?

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T19:25:00.001-05:00

Wow, what a busy couple of days.

Usual turkey-related events all day. My Mom was visiting so she showed Meghan how to make gravy, played the Wii with the girls and overall had a good time.

The turkey was done a couple of hours earlier than expected thanks to the new oven, so we had a late lunch instead of early dinner. Still good though.

We then went to the park since it was almost 60 degrees here. 30 this morning 60 around 4 pm. You have to love the south!

For those who know Deb, I can assure you there was plenty of chocolate for dessert. A bunt cake, a chocolate cream pie and sugar cookies decorated as turkeys rounded things out.

geek frustration - picture frame

2008-11-26T19:16:00.002-05:00

I just spent 3 very frustrating hours trying to figure out why the digital picture frame I bought my mom a couple of years ago wouldn't show the images I send her. It is a NuVue 561 and works fine with the 2 GB SD card from her camera, but not the 2 GB SD card I bought for her.

I finally figured out that the NuVue only supports 1.0/1.1 of the SD specification, but the new cards are all 2.0 of the specification. The problem I was having is the 2.0 GB card I bought for her camera two Christmas' ago is a 1.1 (so it worked), but anything new is 2.0.

I eventually found that the Kingston Memory 2.0 GB cards are 1.0/1.1 so that works in the NuVue.

Overview of what we're doing: I bought my mom a card reader for her Mac laptop to copy images from CD/camera to the card in the picture frame. This way I can send her CDs of the kids, she picks what pictures she wants and can update the frame.

Wordless Wednesday - Bubbles

2008-11-26T08:49:00.003-05:00

See who else is 'wordless' today.

Backing up files, images and videos to the Internet

2008-11-25T07:44:00.003-05:00

As more and more of our history is recorded on digital media, the risk of losing everything due to a non-disaster grows. In the past, it would take something major like a fire, flood or tornado to destroy all the pictures and negatives we createed. Now, it take a power surge or just disk drives wearing out.

For this reason, I have 3 copies of every digital picture and video we've taken and why I'm starting to have all the old negatives scanned. One copy is on Deb's computer (which I bought a new drive for because we have over 22 GB of stuff now), one copy on my computer (which I'll buy a new drive after Christmas for since it is full now) and an external hard drive that I store away from either computer.

The thinking is that if we lose one hard drive, we have the other copies. If we get robbed they (hopefully) won't find the external drive or not know what it is since it looks like a book.

That doesn't protect us from the same disasters that could impact us if we had photos.

However, I have found something that can help. Mozy is an online backup system. You buy space on their servers and install a client on your PC (Mac too I think). The client monitors files in specific directories and copies new or changed files to the Mozy servers.

Depending on the speed of your UPLOAD connection to the Internet (usually about 1/4 the download speed) it can take days to get the first backup. For example, to backup 600 pictures, around 3 MB each, it took about 24 hours. The first backup, which was around 20 GB took a week since I only have 300 KB up speed.

Downloads are pretty reasonable and the UI (both web and install) is pretty intuitive. It also knows when the PC is in use so it doesn't take all the CPU or bandwidth.

It can also be used for any file on your computer, such as Quicken records, old taxes, documents for school or work etc.

The only thing I would do differently, is I would have taken the PC to work for the first sync since we have 100 MB up/down pipes there. It would have been done in an hour instead of a week. (No, not really, that would be an abuse of corporate resources. But I seriously thought about it 5 days in.)

Blah day

2008-11-24T18:29:00.003-05:00

So I'm trying the 'post a day in November' thing, but today I just don't feel like coming up with something creative.

It is raining, cold, I had to work and I didn't get a lot of rest this weekend. Damn I'm old.

I shouldn't complain since we're in a drought, but it still kind of sucks.

At least I didn't fill the screen with 'Blah'.

Photo and negative scanning

2008-11-23T13:36:00.005-05:00

Want to join all your friends uploading old, sometimes embarrassing photos of your friends growing up to Facebook? Wanting revenge on that friend who put you senior H.S. photo, with big hair and leg warmers online?

Well, have I found the service for you.

ScanCafe is one of a dozen or more photo and negative scanning companies you can use. However, they are a little different.

First, they don't want you to pick specific negatives to send them, they suggest you send them all and let them scan them in. Then they present them online for you to choose which ones you want to keep. You go to their website, select the ones to keep. Then they create a DVD and mail it back to you.

This was really useful for those old photos where you took 2 or 3 of each scene 'just in case'. Now, just select the best one and skip the others.

They ship your negatives or photos to India, but that isn't a big deal any more. Heck UPS offers overnight to most places in India, so don't sweat it.

I've used them twice so far, sending around 600 negatives each time. Turn around was < 6 weeks each time. I haven't been going in any specific order, so when I get them back it takes about 30 minutes to sort them into the correct folders.

Some examples from Christmas 1995 :

(Chris, if you want a hi res one of this let me know and I'll zip one up.)

144.5 MPH this morning

2008-11-22T14:25:00.002-05:00

For my 40th Birthday my brother Pat got me a gift certificate for 3 laps as a rider around Atlanta Motor Speedway from the Dale Jarrett Racing Experience. The first opening was this morning, so we loaded up the family, including Grandma Marie, and headed down.

It was 27 degrees when we left this morning. It was maybe 40 when we got there, but it didn't matter!

The first thing I did was to get in the fire suit and picked out a helmet. Then climbed into the #99 Office Depot car. It took a few minutes to get my picture taken, so Deb was snapping away. As for the teddy bear, I'll explain that later.

When we started the first thing I noticed was how banked the turns were when you are up that close. Starting on the lower stripe it was very noticeable. The first lap was to get up to speed but you could definitely feel the speed and g-forces. As we approached turn 3 you could see where someone lost control of another car and hit the wall. Skid marks right into the wall. It didn't bother me, but is something that stuck in my head.

The second lap, the first at full throttle was a different experience. Going hard into turn 1, the driver lifted off the gas, but you could still feel the g forces. He got back on the throttle going into turn 2 and you could feel the pressure on your left side.

Straightaway next, lots of speed, then he didn't brake going into turn 3, and I was pressed back again. Turn four went quickly then another straight away.

Lap 3 into turn one I could feel the pressure on my left ear and was pushed back even farther into the seat. When he hit the straightaway again I looked over at the tachometer and saw he was pushing around 5500 RPM. Lower than I expected but still pretty damn fast.

Turn three for the third lap was even faster, this time my head was being pushed back. Oh, I was wearing an Hans device. Amazing piece of technology if you don't know what one is.

Lap 4 was our fastest, taking 0:38.5 seconds. Based on the calculator on the website, that equated to 144.5 MPH.

Lap 5 was a slow down lap. Total time in the car was probably less than 5 minutes, including getting out.

Apparently when the car was pulling in the brakes were squealing and my Mom wasn't too happy about that.

Christopher was interested but not as much as when he sees a train. But he was good. The girls were great and enjoyed seeing the racetrack and cars.

As for the teddy bear, Christopher took home his class' 'pet bear' for the week. He needs to write (well okay we do) about what he did with the bear. About 6 other kids have done it so far and the most exciting seems to be a trip to Walmart. I think Christopher is going to have the best story of the year. No, the bear didn't go on the ride with me, but I explained to the guy getting me in the car about the bear and he brought it over for Deb to take a picture of.

This was definitely one of the cooler birthday presents ever. Thanks Pat!

Lots more pictures on the Flickr site.