Monthly Archives: June 2008

Taking a week of vacation this week. I like taking off the first week in July. My last job was closed the first week of July, and I just got used to it. More importantly, it is the week Glenn was born, so it is nice to be off on his birthday. The weather is perfect this week as well. Went out shopping today, bought a few things to see if it helps my morning sneezing fits. Sometimes when I wake up, I will sneeze 20 to 30 times, until all of my sinuses are empty. Gross thought, but it is really annoying and wakes everyone up. I hope tomorrow brings new hope.

In other news, Glenn is learning more words than I can remember. One of the latest is Cho Choo for trains. When he is older, we will have to take him to at least the Heston steam museum.

Finally finished the bathroom. Really makes you appreciate not doing home repairs. I am sure Tiff will post photos soon. What a pain, but it looks so good now. It was the last major thing to do in the house, thank goodness.

I was one of the millions who downloaded Firefox 3 today. They FINALLY fixed the memory hole(s) (at least under Linux). Firefox 2, if left running overnight, would consume something like 2 to 4 GIGS of swap space. 3 has not exhibited this behavior yet. I’ll let you know in the morning. One thing is for sure, it is really fast, almost Opera fast. A little ugly though. It has an “integrated’ to the OS look, which is actually kinda ugly and Gnome looking, so I changed to my normal theme, Qute, which looks more like KDE.

It will be my second Father’s Day this weekend, and my brother Mike’s first. All I can say it that it has been a hell of a ride so far. Glenn is doing OK, he can even say OhhKay now. I taught he the word “door” tonight as well. He has been having a few tantrums, but nothing too bad. He is understanding what time out means and doesn’t like the prospect of it as well. Talking to other parents, spanking does just about nothing, but time outs work pretty well. I am looking forward to the next year with Glenn and seeing how he progresses. Tiffany is getting some away time tonight, Glenn did notice. He said Mommy Mommy several times looking for her and wanted to see her before going to be. He is sleeping now, I assured him he will see Mommy in the morning.

As you know, my old computer’s motherboard died. When shopping for a new motherboard/CPU/Memory, I thought, damn, that would be a nice watch. Something that won’t die in 5 to 10 years. Not be outdated before I unwrap the packaging. When I did get the new parts, I just replaced what was broken and moved on. No tinkering, no new OS. I just wanted my computer to work again, that’s all. I have always loved technology, but I have learned it doesn’t love you back, not like a loving wife or child. Those are the things that really matter. That all being said, I really love my new computer. At least 4 times faster than my old one. Linux does REALLY well under multi processors. One processor encodes video while the other lets me surf the web and listen to music with no skipping or slowdowns. Pretty cool. Running full screen video takes 3% of processing time now 🙂

Steve Ballmer, head of Microsoft, predicted the end of print media in 10 years. Yeah, right. I’ll remember that the next time a drop a magazine or paperback book and just pick it up, not worrying about if I cracked the screen or damaged the battery. Portable electronics are fragile. I know all about e-ink, we have all been hearing about it for the past decade. The new screens are nice, the batteries are getting better, and they will still all fail in less than 10 years. That is the way electronics is. It fails. If it has a battery, expect it to last 5 years, TOPS. Take it from somebody whose whole professional life is electronics. My degree is in electronics. It is not like paper and ink. They can’t make them last. With ROHS, they will have even shorter life spans. I am reading the Lord of the Rings novels right now, 1971 reprinting. A PAPERBACK no less. Try to find working electronic media from 1971, no less a working computer. Plus, no worrying about formats changing. It’s ink on paper. Just what I want every few years, worrying about if my book collection will have to be repurchased. Enough venting for now.

In other news, wow, wild weather here. Tornadoes ripping through a few suburbs and rain coming down in buckets everywhere else. April storms in June. As the night hours go on, it is getting HOTTER. It was 77 at 6:00 P.M. It is over 84 now at 11:00. Hope everyone makes it through the night OK.