White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Stolen without malice from MetroDad:

HER FIRST PAYCHECK

Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that makes you believe that we CAN make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house next door to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot.

The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door, and spent much of each day observing the workers.

Eventually the construction crew, all of them gems-in-the-rough, more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her odd little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.

At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing a couple of dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who said all the appropriate words of admiration, and suggested that they take the two dollar "pay" she had received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When they got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, "I worked last week with the crew building the house next door to us."

"My goodness gracious," said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?"

The little girl replied, "I will, if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the mother fucking sheetrock!"




Technorati Tags:Meme | Children | Plumbing

Labels: Children, meme

Gettin' me a little bit of Black-belt

Simple Palm Strike

Axe kick for the Masses

Elbow strike

Speed Break

Ghengis And Attila pre-test for the Masters review board.

Technorati Tags:Karate | Children

Labels: Children, Karate, TSD

The TSD Test went off fairly well this weekend. The kids did well and I managed to bumble through my Black Belt test. Now, I'm a full fledged black belt practitioner. Next test, 2 years. Heh. One down side is that I may have broken a bone in my hand. Two days later and it's still swollen. I've considered going to the local ER ... but to what end?
In other news, the chickens are doing well in spite of this weekend's "end of days" rain storms. So much flooding, so cold. The cooler weather is doing ugly things to my squash/gourds but the corn and beans are loving it. The tomato plants are growing well, but the fruit is staying green since the night time temps are not peaking above 80 yet. Ugh.

Technorati Tags:Swimming | Karate | Children | Rain

Labels: Children, Rain, TSD, Weekend

Twit reposting has been offline for a bit. It may come back, it may not. Whatever. In the mean time, I'd like to let you all know that the TSD Tournament in AC this past Saturday went off pretty swimmingly. Ghengis got 3 third place awards, Attila got 3 fourth in Forms, Weapons and breaking. I got 2nd in Breaking, 3rd in Forms and 4th in weapons. Not too shabby, but we will improve.

Technorati Tags:TSD | Weekend | Karate | Children

Labels: Children, Karate, TSD, Weekend

Another lame post due to my poor time management skills. It's not even that I do not have the time, I just make bad (incorrect) choices about what to do with it. SOooo, here I sit, pulling my hair over the crashing stock market, moaning about going back on the support rotation next week, and kvetching over my well tuned daily schedule being blown to bits because of the kids mid-term tests. We are skipping all activities except piano so that they can study for these remarkably BRUTAL examinations. It gets me all cranky and such when I don't get my swimming/tsd fix on a daily basis. We have still gone to piano lessons and I had the tiger cub den meeting on Wednesday night ... but it's just not the same, you know.

Technorati Tags:Stock Market | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Stock Market, Swimming

I'll have to make this quick as I am trying to wrap up 100 disparate tasks and still keep my sanity. This is going to be one of those awful 'status only' type posts to let you know that I still persevere to breath air. The Ever Lovely Mrs had a birthday this past weekend ... just a few hours short of having a leap-year birthdate. That would have been entirely too entertaining, but alas, she is still only a few years younger than the wizened old fart who she calls here husband. Additionally, the Parental Units made one of their Monthly trips to ensure that the Tyrants would treat them fairly after the Great Apocalyptic Reckoning. Oddly enough, in a bizarre convergence of events, an old college friend (Mandy) stopped by on her way from California. Atilla was busy at her girl scout-brownie-daisy Juliet Low World Thinking Day what-dat-and-chew event, so it was up to me to entertain while the Mrs was detained as glorified limo driver. Fortunately, the Super Grandma was about to do most of the heavy lifting (like making snacks ... I'm only good at making them disappear) so we were not too shamed by our lack of preparation. Sunday came and went, only to leave us with a pile of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. I had the foresight to go out and chop a month's worth of firewood and then lug it into the manor so we had some source of BTUs for the next week. That wood burns quickly when you are trying to keep your digits from snapping off. We were fortunate in that one of our more friendly neighbors had come back from a trip to warmer climes and needed a technical resource to help him out with a malfunctioning snow-blower. I gave him a few tips on how to get it to turn over (it had been sitting for 2 years, the ignition chamber was dry and the plug was corroded) and in a fit of gratitude, he cleared our mile long drive for us. That kept me inside for and extra 2.5 hours. We were going to do a few other things, but nearly every place we went, the doors were locked. The more important places were open, of course: TSD, Dentist, Piano. Of course, the studio ended up closing on Tuesday because the electric furnace failed and the ambient air temperature dropped to somewhere between 'Brrrr' and 'colder than a plumbers wrench in February'.

School Mid-Terms ... they are BRUTAL. Attila won the spelling bee the other day, so I'm not worried about her performance in the upcoming tests, but Ghengis finds very little use for all them high-falutin' fancy words and there is nothing he cannot say without a good round-house to the solar-plexus or ridge-hand to the temple. Trying to explain the difference of 'their' and 'there' to a 6 year old is a Sisyphean labor when you learned it by wrote. Lord, have mercy on his little heart because he will be crushed if he does not perform well.

Technorati Tags:Snow | Swimming | Karate | Children | Winter | School | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, School, Snow, Swimming, Winter

This was supposed to go out yesterday, but it was just too much of a poopy day. Wednesday was, as some of you know, Ash Wednesday. I celebrated my faith at lunch and only got one 'You have dirt on your head' comment. It was an awkward moment for everyone on the team as I tried to explain that it was a religious artifact, but alas, the details were lost on her. The Tyrants were somehow herded into a mass as well, but their ashes were long gone before I picked them up. It was gym day after all and it was warm enough for them to be outside. Of course, the ashes would have been wiped away when we went swimming anyways.

Not much else but me going to both TSD classes this week. So far, I think I've only missed Tuesday Adult TSD. This has only increased my exhaustion. Duh. This week is coming to a close quickly and an ominous beast awaits me me in the darkest avenue of this journey ... support beeper duty. Gha. A week of fear and loathing. I can't wait!

Technorati Tags:Work | Swimming | Karate | Children | Ash Wednesday

Labels: Ash Wednesday, Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Swimming

I got nothing today. Mostly nothing. The Ever diligent Mrs had an evening meeting last night so was late returning to the Manor. That left me in charge of the Tyrants. We had our usual scuffle about finishing the Dinner Meal, which usually involves Ghengis not eating his soup but scarfing down everything else in record time. Attila is just the opposite where she assimilates the soup via some sort of time/space folding trick but nibbles at the 'solid' food.

The other night, I watched/read the Obama speech. Then I read a bunch of talking head commentary. What it boils down to is this: Those who voted for him, liked it, those who didn't nit-picked it. Yes, there were some factual errors but lets get to what my gut says. It was a nice presentation, but what now? Silver tongues do not lick stamps, so don't tell me that the check is in the mail. We know things are a bit dicey right now and we are still in free-fall, so lets drop all the nonsense and start making the hard decisions. And spending a shitload of my money on voter registration or sending bags of cash to countries who dance in the streets when our buildings fall is the 'WRONG' thing. Maybe it's my gun-rack conservatism rising here, but it may be time for us to take care of our own business for a bit. Sorry for the rant, I'll put my soap-box away for a bit.

Technorati Tags:Politics | Rant | Children | Dinner

Labels: Children, Dinner, Politics, Rant

Ok, I apologize. My 'creative bent' of late has been MIA. That last weekend update was about as lame as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. I should of hyped the pinewood derby a little more. You know, add in the fictional explosions and ninja assault platoons ... but no, I slacked. The Work thing has been a bear of late and the current events of the nation and world lay heavy on my mind. Equivocation and perfidy seems to rule the day, not that it has changed much over time. Whaaaa! What a big baby.

A few Items of Happenstance need to be reviewed right now: One, the SuperSaturn POS is back after it's Automotive Spa Treatment. Still as difficult as it always has been, but the bumper is now firmly zip-tied to the frame. Uber-Mechanic Chris was quite diligent in servicing it ... and so we have ONE MORE YEAR(tm) before we need to replace it. Twelve years is a long time to hold onto a chunk of metal (mostly plastic) so I'll be glad to see it finally go to pasture. Of course, that would work if one would consider the cow anaology, but it is more of a pig than any barn-yard animal.

At TSD practice last night, everything was going along swimmingly until sparring. Indeed, the very last session against a green belt did me in. My hubris got the most of me and in the attempt to do a low 'X' block, I caught the full force of a kick on my finger and jammed or broke the middle and ring-fingers something fierce. I've taped them up but being right handed, this is quite an inconvenience. It's not that they were all purple and swollen that gets me, it's that grinding, low-level pain that is going to get me into more trouble by distracting me or causing me to loose focus. Argh.

The Tyrants are preparing themselves for a new and wonderful experience ... stress. This is because 'Mid Terms' are coming up. Yep, The future rulers and Tyrannical Dictators of all that exists will get their first trial by fire at the hands of addition, spelling and reading comprehension. Just the other day, Ghengis was given the ignoble honor of bringing home not just one, but TWO 'bad' grades (16/18, 18/20 which translates to a 'G' and not the 'VG' or the greatly coveted 'O'). We went over the mistakes and cooked up a strategy for his next tests ... write down the answers in the question to see if they make sense. He is just so animated and impatient ... goal oriented, Type A extravert. Don't quite know where he get's it from.

Technorati Tags:Injury | Blogging | Karate | Children | Car

Labels: Blogging, Car, Children, Injury, Karate

BOYS BATHROOM DUTY AGAIN! Yep, another swim meet and another round in the boys locker room, spending my time naming the cockroaches ... and then stomping on them. Yeah, it was that entertaining. There were a few moments where I had the opportunity to tell the twerps to get out if they are not using the crapper. It's a locker room, not a playground! To make it worse, I left my thermos of coffee in the 'loner car of poor idling' so I was pretty much up the creek, without a paddle, and a full bore migraine waterfall raging. After I was finished with my stint in purgatory, we went to a pizza party for the swim team which was more of the same except the kids were not running about screaming in their birthday suits ... nope, they were mostly dressed. The only saving grace was that I was able to pour two pints of lager down my gullet at $5.50 in 90 seconds flat. Oh, did I ever need that to dull my finger-nail scraping on whiteboard nerves.

Speaking of nerves ... the SuperSaturn POS just cost me another $1K+ in repairs for the inspection. It needs new struts, 1 wheel, new front disks, trans bolt, re-attach bumper, a leak in radiator (which will be ignored) among a plethora of faults. We have 2 more years (give or take) on the Family Tank v2.0 then we can get a replacement car for me. The damn thing is draining my dry.

Technorati Tags:Swimming | Car | Children | Weekend

Labels: Car, Children, Swimming, Weekend

Since it was Girl Scout Daisy brownie night, I was tasked with escorting Ghengis to the superfluous practice for swimming. You got to show up at the practice or you don't get to swim, eh? Anyways, in a giant cinder block bunker full of water, you can pretty much expect that I would find NO wifi, let alone an unencrypted source to hijack. So be it. TSD class, we had the usual rigmarole with a few exceptions: First, Attila had to leave early. Every other Thursday ... its an accepted event now. The unanticipated event was that one of the newer students, a rather young boy, was much too involved with the activities that he was not going to ask to leave the mat so that he could relieve himself. So, what to do, what to do. Well, certainly, just have a BM right there in your tightie-whities and soldier forth! Except he had not counted on the load bearing capacity to be exceeded by quite so much mass. A bit escaped and was swiftly trampled into a wafer thin sheen spanning about a 3 meter radius that encompased the realm of his form footprint. Once the 'crime' had been observed and dutifully reported by the other students (read: everyone shouting "Eeeewwwwww!"), I swiftly whisked him off the floor to the boy's room and we provided him with a plastic bag and a change of uniform. He still carried a persistent odor about, but we impressed upon the other students that we shall not speak of it. Everyone has an off day, a little compassion will work off some bad karma. That little adventure gobbled up 15 minutes of my time, but actually gave me something to blather about. Tomorrow: Pinewood Derby of Dooooom trumps DodgeBall TSD.

Technorati Tags:Poop | Swimming | Karate | Children | Dodge Ball | Scouts

Labels: Children, Dodge Ball, Karate, Poop, Scouts, Swimming

I'm so ready for spring. No, really. I usually revel in the winter months, but after seeing our last utility bill ($300!?), I've had enough. For all you global warming folks, why is this past January 8 degrees colder than last year? Yeah, yeah, it's weather, not global climate. As far as I can tell though, the less carbon-based heating utilities I use, the colder I get! I guess I should blame that damn groundhog. No matter. Last night I canceled the cub-scout den meeting since we have a pack meeting this Friday for the Pinewood Derby. Spent the night at TSD and did not get beaten too badly. This week has been dull. That old Chinese Curse: "May you live in interesting times", yeah ... I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the mean time, I'll just keep re-arranging the deck chairs.

Technorati Tags:Scouts | Karate | Children | Winter

Labels: Children, Karate, Scouts, Winter

Nothing. Middle of the week nothing. Worse than nothing was the perfect day that expired the morn past. Kids did what I asked them to do, they did well at piano class, did extraordinarily well at TSD and I managed to survive a sparring session with TWO second degree black-belts. Sure, they were tired and I got a rest, but I still survived with minor bruises and lacerations. Other than that, the Twins got to listen to themselves from the recording they got at the radio station tour. Four of the youngsters were in the same class room so the teacher played it for the whole class. Instant celebrity!

Technorati Tags:Piano | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Karate, Piano

I'm all kinds of pissed off about gasoline prices right now. They are flirting with $2/gal here in Pennsyltucky and the world oil trade is now slumping at $35.09. Given the image I provided and the knowledge that there are 42 gallons/bbl ... after refining and by-product extraction you get about 19.5 gallons of gasoline. So, if you GAVE AWAY all the byproduct, you could reasonably see gasoline costing $1.80/g. Here is an interesting chart you can play with. Either way, what I guess we are seeing is the bi-annual fuel mix switch over with a little bit of price-fixing thrown in under the covers. Given that gasoline costs now roughly the same as it did 30 years ago, I should take that big bag of whining and shove it.

On to more 'mundane' soliloquies ... the Tyrants and I hammered through the daily schedule with few hiccups. All's well that end's well I suppose. They were oddly compliant and were even interested in snuggling with each other last night. I don't mind letting them sleep in the same bed; it's easier for me to transport them to the Perpetually Snuggly Mrs's snuggle-fest nest in the morning. Given the absurdly affectionate nature of Ghengis (It's a ruse, I can tell), I was unhappy to hear about some issues he was having with a select number of his classmates. Apparently, two of them; Joby and Chrispin (yep, names changed) had ganged up, and were trying to swing him about by his coat. His pleas for them to stop were unheeded and that made him cry. Dad programming snapped in and I started planning my assault at that moment. Slow breaths, push down monster within .... and now for the wisdom. I asked if he had talked to the teacher about it and he confirmed that she put an end to it and insisted that the two cowardly infraction-bent delinquents apologize for their misdeeds. Given that, I do not believe this will be the last of this so I went over our process flow chart. First, insist that the cease the assault. Second, if they choose to continue, inform an authority figure (Not the UN) and implore them to put an end to the situation. If the intervention is insufficient to repel the barbarians, you must be able to defend yourself. I let him know that if he get's to step three and proceeds to lay them out like a slab of meat-locker back-bacon, I will have his back and support him all the way. I know the father of at least one child and he knows me. Nice thing about private school, it's a privileged, not a right. But you still hold a bit of sway since you are forking over the Payola every month or so.

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | School | Bully

Labels: Bully, Children, Gas, Karate, School, Swimming

Here I sit at the piano class waiting room. Listening to the melodic plunking of little fingers over the faux ivory ... and the periodic admonishments of the instructor to my little Imp, Ghengis. He is getting into trouble again, so it's probably time for another lecture. While I stew over my parental duties, I tried to hijack a wireless signal, to no avail. Must be the higher humidity in the air. I did get a hint ... just a wiff of a bit of a signal, only to have it melt away like foie gras on a steaming slab of porterhouse steak. Mmmm, steak. But I digress. I could titillate you with mundane tales of my work day. Where I sit with the team as we try to figure out just what in the world we plan on doing in the next sprint. Ah, yes, the scent of failure is in the air. We are probably just going to work on some left-over cruft from the last sprint cycle. The last team just DUMPED it and said they were 'done'. Not so much, really. So be it.

I've been working with the kids on finishing their dinner in a timely manner. It would be much easier if I could sit with them while they eat, but time is short and I have a heap of chore to grind through before we head off each afternoon. This is a beast of my own creation and I'm going to have to be creative (or persistent) to overcome it. Speaking of persistence, this is a TSD week. I'll be in the Child and Adult classes every day except Friday when we have a tour at WRDV with the cubs. We'll do pizza after wards before heading over to the 'Dodge Ball Session', but I'll not stay for the adult class after 1900 hours as I will be doing my bi-monthly work poker cameo ... just to bolster that coworker relationship thing. Anything to make sure I'm held in the highest esteem when the axe falls on the work-force.

Finally, can SOMEONE tell me why oil prices are staying at $40/bbl but gas prices are nearly at $2/gal? Are the refineries cutting back on production? CRAP! I just looked and the price is now at $38/bbl. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Scouts | Piano | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Gas, Karate, Piano, Scouts, Swimming

Playing catch-up again here. It was quite a busy weekend and I did not get half of what I wanted done in the time that I had allotted to myself. The grand ball of delicate maneuvers started on Friday Night. After wrapping up the kids TSD class with the usual Battle Royall Dodge Ball Melee, I scuttled on back to the Haupertonian manor to prepare for the next week. Since I knew I would be occupied with peripheral tasks, I chose to make as much of the meals we would be consuming and bundle them up in nice little packages for each day. Provincial Chicken with Herbs and Garlic ... along with 6 bacon wrapped cheddar wursts. The Mrs loves bacon-baked chicken. I sprinkle a cup of rice along the bottom of the 18 inch skillet befor putting it in the oven for 90 minutes and the rice soaks up all the goodness. Yeah, I'm not supposed to be eating that sort of stuff, so that's why I canceled my Cardiologists Appointment. I also prepped 10 hard boiled eggs and started defrosting the lobster and little smokeys that the Tyrants like to snack on between activities. It's all a labor of love. The love of food is the most genuine love of all. That's a pithy quote that I cannot find an attribution for. Maybe I just made it up but I find it hard to believe that I am the initiator of something that ... Confucian. And, of course, there are a couple of other dishes ... mundane stuff like mac-n-cheese or spags-n-balls that I had to plow under. I tend to be happiest when I'm in the kitchen.

Saturday was HORRENDOUS! We had four/five events set up. The first thing in the morning, we had to drag the Tumultuous Twins out of their warm and snuggly lairs so we could get some nutrition in their bellies and get off to the TSD Studio in time for their test. They had other ideas. In mortal combat, I did manage to stuff enough of their breakfast between their gritted teeth between crushing blows to my ribs and skull that they would be able to make it through the test without depleting their energy reserves. This, however, resulted in my total lack of time to feed my own gullet. They did well in the test, for the most part. Attila, for the first time, broke her board in the first kick, outperforming the rest of the red belt testers. This will put them on track for being Cho Dan Bo in May ... which will get them set up for being a Junior Black Belt at this time next year. But let us not count our chicks before they hatch. Right now, we will just need to learn their third weapon form (another staff form) and then get their previous forms cleaned up. Thinking about it ... just ... wow. They'll be seven which gives them a few years till they are out of the Manor. Now my test, good grief! To start off, I was not in my peak performance health. Then, my usual bent is to go all out which tends to leave me in an exhausted state nearly half way through my 'performance art'. The sparring is towards the end and I just SUCK OUT when I get to that point. I always have some fantastic ideas about what I'm going to do and how I'm going to 'Shock and Awe' my audience, but in the end I just stand there and throw single kicks or punches while getting pummeled by my opponent. (Insert long and depressed sigh here)

After I slithered out of the test as a slithering mass of pulsating pain, we stopped off for a bite of pizza with the rest of the available crew and celebrated our ability to put on a strong face in spite of the various wounds leaking precious body fluids. From there, it was on to a Swim Meet where, again, I had bathroom guard duty. It was steaming hot in there but I was required to stand fast and for good reason. The janitor had a peculiar predilection of creeping in the back door every so often and slum around in the bathroom stalls. Creepy. I did get to see their performance on the Mrs's laptop after she uploaded the video and pictures she took. That's her thing, I sit in the locker room and embrace the aroma of teen-age angst while she sits amongst throngs of semi-detached family members and chews through several packs of rechargeable batteries. Fair trade, I think.

Since this is Scout Week, we had a special mass at church for the cubs to attend. We all sat in the front row and periodically throughout the service, Father K would make mention of it. Really quite sweet actually. Both Attila and Ghengis were there in the front row along with the rest of the Horde. Since this was done at the 10am Family mass, I had to let the gals at the Sunday school go on without me. I hope they managed. After that, the Mrs took our little girl scout (Daisy, Brownie?) off to manage a cookie-pimping table at the local grocery store while I took my mini-me off to the movie theater. While Ghengis and I were slouching through a rather expensive matinee showing of 'Dog Hotel', the minions of cookie crook managed to offload 100 boxes of tasty diabetic failure. She has personally sold over 70 boxes now. At 3.50/box, they are doing a brisk business! We had a bit of time before the gals were done, so after the expensive movie, we took the Cybernetic Mammoths out and gave them a thorough scrub-down. They were beginning to get that particularly interesting smell that can only be described as "moldy sweat sock full of Doritos". Yeah ... they need to get out more but they are seriously 'indoor dogs'. Thor balks at any inclement weather outings. Big Sissy.

The rest of my time was allocated to showing Eldest Son how to do his next staff form and compelling him to keep on trying to ride his bike. He's getting a bit to big for it so I can see an Upgrade in the near future for him. He has the 'going straight really fast' down pat and the 'panicked emergency brake' ... the turning part is the stich right now. Other than that, the Mrs and I did a bunch of prep for the week. Clothes, swim gear, TSD props, lunches, etc... Same work, every week. Life is superb ... elegant ... and splendid (Ghengis's new word).

Crud, forgot to whine about gasoline prices. WTF! Why are they at nearly $2/g when the oil price is sticking to $40/bbl!? Damn crooks!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Swimming | Karate | Children | Weekend | Scouts

Labels: Children, Gas, Karate, Scouts, Swimming, Weekend

Out sick yesterday, got very little done except tending the fire in the wood stove and hosting a den meeting for the cub scouts. This cold really got the best of me. My hope is that I can shake this before Saturday, when we have the TSD tests. Oh, that would suck on so many different levels. Fortunately, this is just a Pre-Test for me. I can hopefully perform to a sufficient level of competence without having to jeopardize my health. After this weekend's experiment in self destruction, I have a six month training period before the 'real-deal' blackbelt test where I get to fight the Master and his perfidiously dangerous minions. Yeah, I'm a tad intimidated.

In other, less boisterously disastrous news, the piano practice the other night went well. The Tyrants are doing so much better. It boggles the mind that they can train their little digits to tickle the ivory they way that they do. My futile attempts at teaching myself from their books has not fared quite as well. I just cannot seem to make my fingers do what I want them to do on command without a great deal of perspiration and focus. I'm a fairly good typist, but that seems to be a detriment when it comes to the c-d-e-f-g scales. Rats. And something else: gas prices. What is going on here!? Oil prices have gone down to $40/bbl but the unleaded regular is creeping up. Let me guess, the refineries are down for annual maintenance. Riiiight. I call bullshit on that!

Technorati Tags:Gas | Piano | Karate | Children | Illness

Labels: Children, Gas, Illness, Karate, Piano

Hrmmm, spent the day struggling with a SNMP issue at work only to find out that someone created the issue thinking that they were checking in a configuration file for Solaris instead of SUSE linux. Major oops, since we were only deploying this to linux hosts. Heh. That's what I'm reduced to at work these days, spotting other people's missteps.

And now on to the important stuff: the perquisite benefits of being a middle-age, middle-class dad. Grab the Tyrants and stuff them full of dinner while they bang on the piano and do their 100 pages of math and spelling homework. Quickly laing waste to the tasks at hand, we grab a couple containers of 'Little Smokey Cheese Wursts' (not bacon wrapped, sorry) and head off to the drowning pool were we simulate the storming of Normandy. The Old Ladies flee in fear as the Tyrants plow into their hastily formed defenses. It was almost funny to see the looks on their faces as they skimmed over the surface of the water like pink little patrol boats sans torpedoes. Wrap that up and skip the hot tub; it was closed due to too much sloughed flesh in the intake valves. Yetch. Quick change into the TSD clothes with a second (dry) set of swimming clothing on underneath - they each get a hard boiled egg and we hit the Karate Studio. Flash forward about an hour, we have just finished sparring so the class is over. The Ever Patient Mrs glides in the door and they all run off to Swim Team Practice for 2 hours; Genghis with his Lobster Chunks, Attila with her Mandarin Orange Slices, and both with a stick of string cheese. A few hours later, I limp out of the studio after getting rolled fairly throughly and meet up with the rest of the Haupertonian Household where a roaring fire and loyal Cybernetic Mastodons bay longingly at the beginnings of a light flurry of snow coming down. Of course, that snow is quite efficient at making those mountains of dog deposits in the back 50 look more like a pristine range of Matterhorn look-alikes than what they really are: Frozen Turd Bombs. Can you believe that (aside from the nasty cold I'm battling) this is an optimal day for me?

Technorati Tags:Illness | Swimming | Karate | Children | Work

Labels: Banalities Work, Children, Piano, Swimming, Tang So Doo

Going lazy again today. The kids were home all day yesterday, driving the Mrs up the wall. We skipped swimming and TSD so that they could go out in the slush and play with the Cybernetic Mastodons. What a mess. Nothing like being chilled to the bone and getting a snoot full of 'Wet Dog Cologne' while trying to make a slush-man. Then, getting smacked in the back of the head with a partially frozen slush-ball. Sweet. The whole matter makes no sense though. The roads were not all that bad and it would not be a great effort to get the Tyrants to their Higher Education Facility. Today, they have an open house that I will be attending ... in the same classrooms where I teach Sunday School every week. There will be no great surprise, but to support the moral and emotional well-being of my offspring, I'll be there.

Other mundane news: I got a haircut yesterday. It was getting a bit long so I stopped by my favorite barbershop over by the Airbase and got shorn. Those old Italian guys really can do a top notch job with a 'flat top' cut. What else ... hmmm, selling girl scout cookies for Attila and doing well with that. Moving a box or two every day. Oh, and I tried to set up a bunch of network components for the Mrs. She got four 1tb networks disks and when I tried to hook them up to a hub, they were unresponsive. I plugged one into the wireless router's hard-line ports and it sprang to life. I'm guessing that the lousy 8 port 10mb hub is just not going to work for this application. I'll probably surrender and get a 24 port 100mb switch. Home networking can be such a challenge sometimes.

Technorati Tags:Networking | Swimming | Karate | Children | School

Labels: Children, Karate, Networking, School, Sunday School, Swimming

Word of the day: Turgid

Not much else. Standard day in the manor. No piano yesterday though. The instructor is on vacation at Disney World. Good for her, because this ice storm is making a real mess about here. Thought we might have a 2hr delay ... but that did not happen. Called the hot-line at 0545 sharp and the cancellation notice was already up. So, I lit the fire in the wood-stove and got my big old rear on the road. Took twice as long as it should have to get to work, but that was expected. The POS Super Saturn (of Doooom) handled ok, which is more than I can say for some of those high performance AWD beasts.

I'm not sure if TSD is going to be open tonight, but we'll give it a go. Have to make sure the Tyrants are sufficiently tired every night before they go into their meditation chambers!

Technorati Tags:Ice Storm | Swimming | Karate | Children | School

Labels: Children, Ice Storm, Karate, School, Swimming