Definitely Crazy

Rather than make a blog post of my own today, I thought I'd make a link to another blog that's using the same Google Blogger service that I'm using...

...By now everyone's heard of Phillip Craig Garrido, the man who kidnapped an 11 year old girl and kept her captive for 18 years. As I've heard the story, I've wondered whether the man was just a sick, perverted sex addict, or whether he was truly mentally disturbed. After looking at his blog, I no longer wonder. The dude's definitely crazy!

His blog would be funny if it weren't for the story behind it. Instead, it's just plain disturbing, and it makes me, like so many other people, wonder how someone like this could have kept such a secret hidden for so many years. The only thing I can think of is that he must not have been THIS crazy for most of that 18 years. Perhaps the knowledge of the evil of what he was doing to the girl ate at him and drove him into the insanity that he's living in.

Anyway, I'm going to stop writing before this DOES become a full blown post. The blog is below.

Click here to go to his blog.

Another Bad Song

A couple of weeks ago I made a post about how much Lisa and I "enjoyed" listening to really bad songs from our youth and "cringing" at them together. Below is one of our all time favorite Most Hated and Thus Most Loved Songs. And as bad as the song is, it's actually VASTLY improved by the accompanying video.

(I can't see the video!)

Deer

In the eight months that we have lived in our new home I have easily seen more deer (or more probably, had more sightings of the same deer over and over) than in the rest of my life combined.

And no, we don't live in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest. We live in a suburb in Northern Kentucky that is extremely densely populated. In 2000, there were 2,582 people PER SQUARE MILE in my city, and it's only gotten more crowded since then. So there's not a lot of forests for wildlife.

What there is, though, is about seven acres of undeveloped land that runs behind my house, land that is undeveloped because a) it is very near the interstate, b) there is a sewer and electrical easement on part of it, and c) is VERY hilly. And since there is no hunting in the city limits, this is where the deer live. And there are a LOT of them.

Before we had a dog three of the deer used to settle down every night just on the other side of our chain link fence. Since we got a dog back in March they don't do that so often anymore, but we still have regular sightings. One morning I was getting in my car to go to work and I heard a clip clopping sound. I looked up and a doe was trotting down the street like she owned the place. She skidded to a stop when she saw me, stared for about three seconds, and then went on about her way. Our street ends at a cul de sac, and when she got to it she just turned and ran into one of the neighbor's yards.

About the same time that we got a dog we also got a bird feeder on a stand. I didn't want to put the feeder in the yard because I was afraid the dog would harass the birds trying to feed, so I put the feeder just on the other side of the chain link fence. As usual when a bird feeder is put out, there wasn't much action at first. However, I found that after a day or two the feeder was being emptied in about 30 minutes after I filled it. I knew that was too quick, but I couldn't figure out what was happening until I looked out the window one day just after I'd filled it to see a deer standing at the feeder and quickly emptying it of its contents. Lucky deer. The feeder was right there at face level. She didn't even have to bend down to eat. I moved the feeder back inside the fence.

Anyway, I came home yesterday and found these two deer just outside the fence and thought it a good time to go out and snap some photos and video. In the video especially you can see how little fear the deer have. I'm only a few feet away from them but they don't run off until I get right up on them. Sorry about the bouncy quality of the video, but that's because I was walking toward them while I was filming.

(I can't see the video.)

Poker Face

I will be coming to work this morning and the first thing I'm going to do is work on the computer of one of the secretaries. She called me to her desk late yesterday without a hint of concern in her voice, saying "Hey, Bryan, there seems to be something wrong with my computer. Can you look at it?"

Before I go on, let me tell you that this is a woman who has been stressed to the max by the beginning of the school year. She's taken on some new responsibilities lately, and she's operating at all times at about DEFCON 2. She really wouldn't be able to handle any bad news.

I walked over to her computer and saw a black screen. Written on it were just a few words, the message of which isn't entirely clear to the end user, but I knew what they meant: her operating system had corrupted, and her computer was in some big trouble. I could probably get most of her files off of the machine, but it was going to take some time to do that and to get her machine working again, and there was the very real possibility that I wasn't going to be able to get ANYTHING off the computer. I focused myself on displaying my best poker face.

"It's probably something I did," she said merrily. "What can you do to fix it?"

"Uh, I'm going to have to get my tool bag in order to look at this," I told her, "and based on this message I would think this is going to take a LITTLE more time the ten minutes we have left today. How about I look at this first thing tomorrow morning?"

"Sure!" she said cheerfully. "Maybe I'll just take off ten minutes early today."

"Why don't you do that," I said, "and I'll get my tool bag and everything I'll need and we'll do it first thing tomorrow morning."

So that wasn't what I had on my plate for first thing this morning, but it is now. I hope I'm able to be the hero.

For her sake.

Quote of the Day

Here's what I've learned about compromise--
Don't do it if it hurts inside
'Cause either way you're screwed.
Eventually you'll find
You may as well feel good.
You may as well have some pride.

--Amy Ray, "Second Time Around"

The Accident

I woke up this morning (and I guess you did, too) to the news that Massachusettes Senator Edward Kennedy died last night. I guess we all knew that was coming sometime in the not too distant future, but I was still a little sad to see the headline.

I've always been torn in my attitude toward Kennedy. I was born after "Camelot." I was four months old when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. So I didn't have a strong connection to the Kennedy family. But my parents did. I'm not sure why. Perhaps because the Kennedy's were Roman Catholic and so were we, but my parents loved the Kennedys, and I remember we had at least a couple of memorial books about the death of John F. Kennedy and I thumbed through them often as a child (I pretty much thumbed through any book that was around).

But when I think of Kennedy, I think of the car accident he had in 1969 when he drove his car into a body of water, killing the woman in the car with him, and then waited nine hours to call the police. I know people do terrible things under stress, but there's just no getting around that what he did was wrong. He was a public servant for 40 more years after that, and I hate to think that I might be remembered for one mistake I made as a young man, but I'm sorry. I can't help it. Whenever I hear or see Ted Kennedy, that is ALWAYS the first thing that comes to me.

I will listen to the news shows for the next two or three days to try to gain an appreciation for the accomplishments of the man, but I'm not sure I'll ever see past the accident.

The Charity of Charities

Something that I'm very appreciative of is the large number of pre-printed return address labels that I get from various charities hoping I'll give them money. I'm not sure how these charities get my name. I think perhaps the other charities that I HAVE given money to--such as the 9/11 Recovery Fund and the American Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina--all sell my name to other charities.

I don't know anything about these other charities, but they all send desperate pleas for money, and accompanying these desperate pleas for money are quite often a bunch of return address labels with my name and address already printed on them. The letter usually says something like, "We know you'll plan to support us, so please accept in advance this Bonus gift--a set of personalized correspondence Labels. It's our way of saying Thank You."

I don't know why charities feel the need to send these along with their beggings. Maybe they feel like I'll be guilted into sending them some money. But I never asked them to send me the return address labels, so I feel no need to respond in kind. I always just tuck the labels in with my stamps and envelopes and throw the rest of the letter away.

I have quite a collection of them, from charities as diverse as the Easter Seals to the Arbor Day Foundation to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Thanks to all of these wonderful charities, I may never have to write my name on the outside of an envelope again!

Monday Morning Writer's Block

I don't have anything of note to post for today, so I'll just give a bunch of little mini-updates.

1. Friday I stayed at work until a little after midnight. That's not my usual way of doing things. Most days I go home between 4:00 and 4:30, but I had a job that needed an extended period of time to get done, and I wanted to do it WITHOUT interruption, so I worked while everyone else was gone. I came home pretty bleary-eyed, though. On the positive side, I'm not going to feel too guilty the next time I have to leave work a little early.

2. It was nice that it was so cool this weekend. At least for me. The girls, I think, were ready to spend at least a little bit of time at the swimming pool after a week at school, but that didn't happen.

3. Speaking of the girls and school, they both seem pretty happy with how school is going thus far. It's pretty funny: for almost every year except this year, by mid-August the girls were EXCITED to be going back to school. In fact, they'd be so excited the night before that they couldn't go to sleep. But then they'd come back from school on the first day and at least one of them would be upset about something that had happened at school. This year was the complete opposite. They whined and whined for two weeks before school started about the fact that the summer was ending too soon, but they came home on the first day and both said they were so glad to get back to school. Go figure.

And that's all I got for now...

Another Good Commercial

Two days ago I made a post about one of my favorite commercials of all time. I saw it on a site called adcritic.com, which no longer exists. Here's another of my favorite commercials from that site. It's not a real commercial, but a mock commercial created by someone trying to get a job from an advertising firm. Still, it's pretty funny. I guess I like it so much because all through college I drove a Reliant K car, which is the twin of an Aries K.

A Game of Telephone

Several people in my district have been playing a game of telephone this week, and I guess I ended up being the loser...

This all began Wednesday when the Food Service Director for my school district (whom we'll call Sally), who is new, found out that she didn't have a keycard for the kitchen doors to give to her new dairy supplier. The supplier delivers milk once a week, in the wee hours of Monday morning, and since I'm in charge of the security systems in our school district, Sally wanted me to issue a keycard (one of those credit card-sized things similar to what you get these days in a hotel) by the weekend. She figured that it was Wednesday and she didn't need it until Friday, and that that wasn't an unreasonable request.

And if this had been a normal situation, she would have been correct. But this wasn't an ordinary situation. This was (unbeknown to anyone playing) a Game of Telephone. Note the changes in red below.

Sally asked her assistant Wednesday morning to contact me and let me know that she needed a keycard for the dairy delivery company. The assistant called one of the secretaries at the Board of Education Wednesday afternoon and informed her that Sally wanted Bryan to give her a keycard TO the dairy DEPARTMENT.

That secretary was confused (understandably) by the message, and she wanted to talk with me about it in person, but I was out in the schools working and never came back to my office Wednesday afternoon. She wasn't going to be in the next day, so she related it to another secretary in the building: "Tell Bryan tomorrow that Sally in Foods needs a KEY to the dairy CASE."

Late Thursday morning that secretary told me, "Bryan, Sally called, and she needs a key to the REFRIGERATOR. I assume you know what that means."

As you can imagine, I had NO idea what that meant. I thought maybe it had something to do with the new kitchen at the high school, a construction project that had just recently been completed. Why would I have a key to the refrigerator? I was irritated by this request, actually. So I fired off an email to the Food Service Director. "Sally," I wrote, "I don't have ANY keys for ANY refrigerators. The maintenance department should be in charge of this."

By the time Sally got this email, as you can see above, it had mutated so much from her original request that she didn't even realize that it was RELATED to that request. Further, if you re-read my email to her, I didn't mention the idea that I thought she was asking me for a key to the refrigerator. I just wrote that I didn't HAVE a key. So she assumed that I was asking HER for a key to the refrigerator. Mass confusion was taking place.

Meanwhile, NOTHING was being done about the dairy delivery guy needing access to the buildings...

All of this was unresolved until 5 minutes before quitting time Friday, when Sally showed up in my office a) demanding her keycard for her dairy person and b) wanting to know why I needed a key to the refrigerators in the kitchens. It took several minutes of sorting things out before we finally got to the bottom of the confusion.

And that's why I spent last night driving around my school district programming all of the kitchen doors instead of spending time with my family.

It would have been funny if I weren't so tired.

HIGHLY Motivated

This is one of my all time favorite commercials that I never actually saw on TV. Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's one of my favorite web sites was adcritic.com. These days that address links to an advertising magazine. Back then it was a website designed for advertising professionals, but it was quickly overrun by people like me who loved that there were thousands of commercials that you could watch online. It was like an early version of YouTube, but only with commercials (and you couldn't upload your own, either).

And this commercial was one of my favorites on that site.

If you can't see the video above, you can watch the video by clicking this link.

I've Been Compromised!

As a person who works in IT, you think I'd know better, but yesterday I found out that my usual password had been compromised...

...When it comes to passwords on Internet sites, email accounts, etc., the advice is always to not use the same passwords over and over but to have a new password for each site. And that password should be easy to remember but hard to guess and made up of a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numerals, and punctuation marks.

Sounds great, but in real life it's not so easy to remember 100 different passwords. So over my years on the Internet I've basically come up with four passwords that I use over and over again (none of which I'm going to tell you). They're like Levels of Security:

1. Level One: A Family Password that I share with my family members on sites where we all use the same password (such as when we used Netflix).
2. Level Two: My basic password that I use on sites where I'm not THAT concerned with security.
3. Level Three: A more secure password that I use on sites where I AM concerned with security.
4. Level Four: An extremely complex password that I use only on financial sites.

And that's been enough for me, and I've felt fairly secure with that. But here's the problem: I used my Level Three password for an application at work. What I didn't know until yesterday was that any administrator of the application could see in clear text ANYONE's password. That isn't so bad, though, as only three of us are administrators. What WAS bad, though, was that one of the other two administrators sent out instructions to about 40 people in the district on using the application. And in the instructions she wrote something to the effect of, "If YOUR username and password don't work, use these!" And then she listed both her username and password and MINE! I was helping one of the end users with this application and having trouble logging in when she said to me, "I had trouble logging in at first, but then I used [MY USERNAME] and [MY LEVEL THREE PASSWORD] and got in just fine!"

I slowly turned from the computer I was working on and faced her. "WHERE did you get that username and password?" I asked, I think in a more menacing tone than I meant because the woman blanched and her voice got all shaky.

She handed me a piece of paper and said quickly, "From this handout." And that's when I learned all that I've told you above.

So I've spent the last day wracking my brains trying to remember all of the places where I've used that password, places like the log in page for this blog. So far nothing's been touched anywhere as far as I can tell, but still, at the moment the woman blurted out my password I felt the way I think I would have felt if she'd handed me a naked photo of myself: exposed.

Bad Songs

For the last couple of days Lisa and I have been looking at a list online of the top songs from each year of the 1980's. We've been then searching for several of the songs on Youtube and listening to them. Reminiscing, I guess you'd say.

The songs on these lists tend to fall into one of six groups:
1. Songs we remember and love.
2. Songs we remember and like.
3. Songs we remember and tolerate.
4. Songs we remember that make us cringe.
5. Songs we don't remember until we listen to them, and then we vaguely remember them.
6. Songs we don't remember and then we play them and we still don't remember them.

You might think that the category that we would most enjoy would be Number One above. But for me anyway, the categories I liked best were numbers four and five above. It was odd not thinking I knew a song and then hearing it play and just having the most vague recollection of the music. Because I hadn't heard the song in 20 or so years, it really took me back to a moment in time.

I also loved to hear the songs that make me cringe. I can't explain it really. I guess it's the same reason people scrape their nails on a chalkboard. At some level, we enjoy pain. Sometimes the songs make me cringe because they were just plain awful, and I've always known they were just plain awful. At other times, they make me cringe because they're songs I liked when they first came out, but now when I listen to them I hear what absolute tripe they are.

In any event, I thought on and off for the next few months I'd present a few of these songs I vaguely remember and songs I hate. And I thought I'd start with this one. I think I liked this song when it first came out. But now, I couldn't help but laugh as I listened to it.



If you can't see the video above, you can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMDKDAfnNFs

A Calm First Day

Yesterday was the first day of school for students in my school district. A year ago I wrote about the first day of school and how hectic it was. This year was the polar opposite. There were NO major issues that I had to run off and take care of. About the biggest opening day problem was that I forgot to reprogram the doors in the district to automatically open at 7 AM for students to come in and then automatically lock again at 8:05. Instead, the custodians had to actually walk around the buildings and open the doors with physical keys! The horror!

And it wasn't just a calm day for me, either. I talked to people throughout the district over the course of the day, and when I asked them how things were going, almost all of them used that same word: calm.

Anyway, at 2:00 I walked over to the high school and middle school to re-program the doors so that they would automatically open this morning. It was the first time that I saw any actual students walking the halls of the schools. If I hadn't made it over there I wouldn't have known that it was the first day of school at all. It would have just felt like it was another day plucking away at a keyboard.

I'll take the first day this year over the first day last year every time!

We Shoulda Listened to This Guy

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago, and I was just blown away by it. I'll let the video speak for itself...

King's Island

Friday Lisa and the girls went to King's Island. I didn't. I was at work.

I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me. There's a reason I haven't been to King's Island in 19 years. I'm not much of an amusement park person. But it looks like they all had a great time. Here are some pictures.

Rick Pitino

I know in the state of Kentucky this might seem--I don't know--insane or something, but I don't care one way or the other about Rick Pitino and his recent troubles. Other than the fact that he's a fantastic coach, I don't really have an opinion at all about Rick Pitino.

I didn't care for him (but didn't NOT care for him, either) when he was at the University of Kentucky.

I didn't care when he left to go to the Boston Celtics.

I didn't care when he came back to Louisville. A lot of people called him a traitor, but I always thought that was ridiculous. If anything, I considered it a compliment to the state of Kentucky that he was willing to come back to the state. And I don't understand what the UK fans were so upset about. The UK job wasn't open when the UofL job was. It's as simple as that.

But my point is just that I didn't really care much about Rick Pitino in any of those cases, and I don't care much now about this affair thing.

Why aren't people focusing on something that matters, like health care? That's something that REALLY matters to EVERY ONE in the state of Kentucky, and it's where people should be focusing their energy. But no, people would rather sum it up as the government trying to force socialized medicine down our throats (when that's a pretty far cry from what any proposed health plan is really saying) so that they can get back to the trivialities in life.

Like Rick Pitino.

There's a (Really Bad) App for That

I got a new cell phone yesterday. I don't want to tell you the brand and model because I don't want to disparage the product, but I do want to make a comment about it...

...The phone came with a dictionary application built into it. Cool, I thought to myself, here's something on a phone I can actually USE. I wondered, though, how detailed each entry would be. Would it give a very short definition only, or would it contain multiple definitions and information such as pronunciation and word origins? I typed in "egregious" (which was fresh on my mind as I'd used it in a blog entry the other day) and I hit the Go button. Immediately the dictionary came back with a message "Not in Database." I stared at it for a minute but decided that maybe I didn't really know how to spell "egregious," so I chose a word that I knew I knew how to spell: obfuscate. Again, "Not in Database." This bothered me, so I decided to try a word that was a little more commonly used: circumspect. Again, not in the database.

At this point I was really frustrated so I typed d-o-g into the phone. The phone came back with this: "dog (n) a carnivorous, domesticated mammal descended from wolves. A canine. Click here for other definitions." I clicked the link and immediately received a few other definitions, including "a person of unattractive appearance," and a number of example sentences.

I typed in "cat" and "cattle" and also got definitions. I thought for a moment and then typed "iridescent." The phone immediately came back "Not in Database."

So here was the absolute worst dictionary EVER! It was filled with seemingly every word that a common English speaker would already know, but didn't have ANY of the words that someone might actually need help with. It's a complete waste.

I think tomorrow I'm going to figure out how to uninstall it.

Back to School

Yesterday morning was high school orientation for the 7th graders at the girls' school (There is no middle school in their district), and Meredith walked up to school to meet her teachers and to learn about the new year. It's hard for me to believe that she's in high school already. As the cliche goes, it seems like only yesterday...

Last night was fee payment night for the elementary school, and the whole family walked up to the school to pay fees and see who was in Natalie's class this year. There was the usual gnashing of teeth about who WASN'T in the class. Afterward Meredith walked us into the high school wing to show us her locker.

Tomorrow is the first day of professional development in my school district. Opening Day is Friday. Students come back to school Monday. Meredith and Natalie go back next Wednesday.

It seems like it's just now getting hot enough to BE summer, but it's definitely back to school time now.

-------------------------

P.S. The clip art above is completely out of place when I consider that neither my girls' school district nor my school district bus students to school. Oh well.

Toy Makers Were Trying to Kill Us!

At lunch yesterday several co-workers and I got into a discussion about toys we played with when we were kids (This all got started when I commented that the dress of a woman sitting across from me looked like a Lite Brite board). As we talked about the toys it occurred to me how absolutely dangerous some of the toys were that we played with as kids. And I came to a conclusion: either our parents were trying to kill us, or the toy industry was trying to kill us. Because I want to live under the illusion that my parents loved me, I'm going to go with the latter option.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about.

1. Lawn Darts. This is probably the most egregious example of a dangerous toy. What were our parents thinking even buying us these things? My parents wouldn't let me have a b.b. gun when I was a kid--they argued that I might shoot somebody in the eye and blind them. But we had a set of lawn darts, and a lawn dart could have absolutely KILLED someone! We used to throw the things at each other!
2. Croquet sets. I can imagine the conversation that happened at the toy company that came up with this product: "You know what would be a great toy to give a bunch of elementary kids? Giant wooden mallets! Sledgehammers, basically. Better yet, let's make them part of a game that a) has rules no one seems to clearly understand and b) encourages players to do mean things to the other players! That way the competition is sure to devolve into a game of Swing the Giant Hammers at Each Other's Heads. And to top it off, we'll include a bunch of 10 pound, ceramic, softball-sized balls that the kids can throw at each other!"
3. Pogo Sticks. I swear I think this device was designed by hospital administrators who were trying to drum up business. Why else would you create a toy that a) could ONLY be used on a very hard surface and b) was guaranteed at some point to awkwardly throw you a few feet into the air above that surface? Luckily for me, my parents loved their children and thus didn't let us have one of these, so I never had to go to the hospital with a cracked skull. My parents were pretty smart!

On the other hand, we DID have stilts and a skateboard!

A New Film Genre

Lisa and I are way too cheap to pay for REAL cable. Instead, in order to get discounts on our phone service and Internet access (both of which we get via our cable company), we get the very most basic TV cable service offered. We get about 60 channels, which sounds like a lot, but I'm not kidding when I say we get about 8 real channels, 4 PBS channels, 8 community access channels, and about 20 digital music channels, along with analog versions of all but the music channels. So we can do quite a bit of flipping, but there isn't much there.

To compensate, Lisa has started checking movies out of the library. We've been watching classic films, and the last two we've seen together (I watched The Watchmen a couple of nights ago alone) are Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? We watched the second one last night, and as I watched it I couldn't help but notice the parallels between the two movies:

1. They were both made in the mid 1960's.
2. They both star glamorous Hollywood actresses in decidedely non-glamorous roles.
3. The titles are both very similar: a question that includes a female name.
4. They're both based on popular prior works (Virginia Wolfe on a play, and Baby Jane on a novel).
5. There's an alcoholic who figures prominently in each movie.
6. At a time when more and more movies were made in color, these were both black and white films.
7. Despite appreciating both films, I didn't really ENJOY either of them.

That's a lot of similarities. It makes me wonder if we haven't discovered a genre here: the depressing, black and white, mid '60's film with a question in its title and about an alcoholic woman.

If we HAVE discovered a genre, I wonder if there are any other movies out there. We might as well keep our streak alive and watch another. Can anyone think of one?

The Sweasy Expansion Factor

School for students starts in exactly a week, and it's becoming apparent to me that I am NOT going to get done everything that I was hoping to get done this summer.

Back on June 8 I made a post about all of the things that I was going to have to try to get done this summer. Here's where I stand with a week to go:

1. work with maintenance to install 38 projectors in classrooms--I think about 10 of the projectors are installed. The maintenance department worker in charge of the installations slipped and fell off of a ladder and ended up missing a week of work. Even when he came back he was still a little slow and now he has other jobs to do, too, so now it doesn't look like this will get completed until the end of the calendar year.
2. install 23 wireless access points and configure--This is actually not that hard a job. It shouldn't take me more than 2 days to complete this job from start to finish (But see below for information about my ability to estimate stuff). But I haven't started yet.
3. replace the switches in one of the district's network closets--I don't know when I'm going to get to this one.
4. install a new server in a new rolling rack and configure the server--I installed the server in the new rolling rack, but I haven't had time to configure it.
5. move several other servers into that rack--Haven't started it
6. install 5 new administrator workstations--This is done.
7. consolidate 8 aging network servers down to 2--I didn't think I was going to get to this, but due to circumstances beyond my control I am going to HAVE to complete this by next Monday. It will probably take a day of work (again, see below).
8. complete the attendance reports for THIS year--This was the most time sensitive thing, and it is completed.
9. set up the Student Information System software in preparation for NEXT year--This is also completed.
10. set up new account for new employees and delete accounts of old employees--I've completed this, too.
11. help set up and run a statewide technology conference for about 600 attendees.--Did it.
12. prepare and present one session during that conference.--Did it.
13. And actually, there are about 15 other things, but I think you get the picture--There are now about 85 other things.

So I got about half of what I was hoping to do done, which is pretty much par for the course for me. I always overestimate what I can get done. Lisa even has a name for it: The Sweasy Expansion Factor. When I tell her I can paint a room in two days, she'll say, "And with the Sweasy Expansion Factor that means you'll have it done in a week and a half. Good. I can work with that." And then she writes down on her calendar the date a week and half from now and puts on it "Bryan finishes painting." And she's usually right!

Anyway, I digress. What I was trying to say is it was a busy summer at work, and it's going to be a busy fall, too.

The Watchmen

It's early Sunday morning, and I just finished watching The Watchmen, a film recommended to me by a friend. Lisa watched the first 30 or so minutes of the film with me but then said I was on my own; it wasn't her kind of film.

It wasn't exactly my kind of film, either, for a couple of reasons. First, it's a superhero movie, and I don't really care about superhero movies since I didn't read comic books as a kid. The one exception is Spider Man; I watched the 30 minute children's cartoon as a kid, and I've always liked Spidey ever since. For the most part, though, I don't follow superhero movies, and I'd never even heard of the graphic novel that the movie is based on before the film came out.

My second problem with the film was its length: it's 3 hours and 11 minutes long on DVD. Any movie over 2 hours is too long for me.

But I watched this whole film, and I liked it. For the most part. What I absolutely LOVED about it was that it was basically an exploration in counterfactual history, which is a branch of history that I absolutely fell in love with about five years ago when I read the books What If and What If 2. This movie supposes that superheroes are real, that they've existed in the U.S.A. since the 1940's, and the movie, in passing, explores what would have happened had that been the case. The most glaring difference is that the United States wins the Viet Nam War and Nixon gets the 22nd Amendment reversed and is elected to five terms as President. It's all very interesting stuff. In many ways, I found the musical introduction to the film that followed the cold opening the most interesting part of the movie.

What I hated about the movie was the gratuitous violence and language. There is a LOT of blood in the movie, and I'm not a big fan of that.

I'm glad I finished it, but like I said, three hours is just too much for me. I doubt I'll watch it again. But if you are into counterhistory, you might enjoy it.

Titanic

I don't really have anything useful to say today. I don't really have anything useless to say today for that matter, so instead of writing a bunch of nothing that nobody cares about anyway, I will just present you with this: It's a sand Titanic that Meredith and Natalie made last weekend at Molly's beach last weekend during the Blaine Family Reunion.

Not 20 Anymore

I have been fairly beaten up for the last two nights, and I'm starting to learn something about the physical limitations of a 41 year old body...

I had promised to take Meredith and Natalie to the Beach Waterpark Wednesday night. However, after the massive rain we had Tuesday and the fact that it was overcast and cool for much of the day Wednesday, we decided to postpone making the 30 minute drive up to Mason. We didn't want to go all that way, pay all of that money for admission to the park, only to have it rain at worst or, at best, be too cool to really enjoy the day.

Natalie, though, was heartbroken, and I promised to take her to the local swim club after dinner Wednesday night. "Will you get in with me?" she asked with those kitten eyes of hers.

"If none of your friends are there I will," I told her, hoping that one of Natalie's friends would have braved the overcast day to come to the pool.

I knew immediately upon walking into the pool that was not going to be the case. Not only were there none of Natalie's friends at the pool. There was literally NO ONE at the pool except for the workers. The lifeguard, in fact, had to come out of the office when we arrived and go down and stand at the side of the pool. We were the only ones there.

"Okay," I told Natalie. "I'm going to sit here and relax. You go on and get in, swim around, and see if any of your friends are here."

She just smiled. "You promised, Daddy!" she said sweetly.

And a promise is a promise. So I got in with her, and for an hour I did whatever she wanted. And what she wanted to do was go off of the diving boards. Even when I was swimming with the kids I usually could get out of going off the diving boards by saying, truthfully, that I didn't want to be an adult in line with a bunch of kids who was making the kids wait an extra turn. But when it was just Natalie and myself I didn't have that excuse. We went off the 3 meter diving board 20 or so times that night, and after the 18th or so dive I told Natalie, "Okay, I'm starting to feel a little pummeled by the water. I think I'm done for the night."

Natalie said, "No, Daddy. Go off two more times. Please!"

So I did. But I came home knowing I was going to be a little sore yesterday morning, and I was.

And then last night the girls and I DID go to the Beach Waterpark, and I learned that water parks are dangerous for someone my age. On one ride in particular, The Watusi, I really hurt myself. The ride is a big enclosed tube that you shoot down. The water rushes through the tube quicker and more forcefully than in most of the other rides at the water park. After several turns the bottom drops out of the ride and you fall about 10 feet into the water below. At one point during the ride water splashed in my eyes and I decided to close them for the rest of the ride, which left me unprepared for a sudden twist in the tube. I basically got whiplash, and right at the point that I felt the pain the bottom dropped out and I was unceremoniously dumped into the water below. I came out of the water telling the girls, "That one really hurt my neck," and today I can still feel it.

The girls are just about old enough to go on these rides alone, and I think the next time we go I may have them do just that.

Venom in Politics

Yesterday morning I was talking to an acquaintance and she brought up the troubles she was having with medical problems. In just two months her family has had to deal with three unexpected major surgeries, and she was saying bitterly how hard it was making ends meet.

"Sounds like you could use some help," I said.

"You better believe it," she said.

"You must be in favor of Obama's health plan, then," I said.

Her face hardened, her lips tightened, and she glared at me for several seconds before finally replying, "I could NEVER be in favor of anything that came out of that man's mouth!"

I wrote about a year ago about how saddened I was that people with opposing viewpoints are treated with such venom these days. That conversation yesterday reminded me of this. I don't have a problem with her not liking Obama's overall liberal viewpoint. I don't have a problem with her not liking the currently proposed health reform bill (I have some problems with it myself, not the least of which is that I don't think it does ENOUGH to help people like the person I was talking with). What I DO have a problem with is her dismissing the plan without even considering it just because Obama was the President while the bill was being proposed.

This kind of negativity is nothing but bad for the country. And it's ultimately destructive. I would even go so far as to say that someone who won't objectively study and consider ideas proposed by our leaders--regardless of which party that leader is from--is unpatriotic.

I don't care whose flag they're flying from their porch.

A Blog about a Blog

I know. I know--it's really lame to write a blog entry ABOUT someone else's blog entry. But it's okay, isn't it, if that other entry is really cool?

As I've mentioned, Lisa resigned as Vent Haven Museum curator at the end of last year, but she still participated in the conVENTion this year. She helped the new curator with a special exhibit about professional ventriloquist Jay Johnson, who made a short video about the special exhibit on HIS blog. Lisa is in the video quite a bit.

You can read Jay's blog post and watch the video by clicking this link.

Another Sign of the Times?

About a year ago I posted a blog entry about a sign that I found tacked to a utility pole in Elsmere and how I felt it was sort of a sign of the times (pun intended).

I've found signs like the one below in student bathrooms throughout my school district. I hope these signs are NOT signs of the times, but are instead just overreactions.

We'll find out this winter...

Molly's Farm

Yesterday was the Blaine Family Reunion at the Miller Farm in Batavia. More pictures are forthcoming, but I wanted to show you the Photosynth I created of the Miller Farm, taken from the dock of the pond. I've written about the pond many times before, saying that it's not a "farm" so much as it is a family playground/water park. The photos are all taken from the dock of the pond. Meredith and Natalie can be seen playing on the beach, and there are some other family members swimming in the pond.

You can see more of the pictures by clicking the grid button (looks like a tic tac toe board) on the toolbar of the photosynth, and if you can't see the photosynth at all below you can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/np42qt

Three Months of May

Friday the dog stayed away from me for a while. I think she thought I was mad at her.

She was partially right. I was mad. But not at her. I came home from Meredith's band concert last night (video coming soon) and went to let Xena in through the basement door. I opened the door and stepped outside, and as the dog came running happily toward me I screamed out in anger, "Oh, come on! Will this grass EVER stop growing?"

In the spring, I'm used to the grass needing to be mowed twice a week, but by the last week of July, heat and less rain has usually contributed to the grass going dormant, and I usually only have to mow twice a week, or worse case scenario once a week. But Friday was July 31, and I had just mowed the lawn Monday, but when I went outside to let Xena in, the grass was maybe seven inches high and starting to go to seed. It's wearing me out!

System Administrator Appreciation Day

As I mentioned in passing in yesterday's post, yesterday (Friday, July 31) was System Administrator Appreciation Day. While my job encompasses a bit more than system administration, it is part of my job, so I'll take it. Yesterday was MY day. And it worked out because I actually took the day off (so that Lisa could go out of town), probably the last M-F day I'll have off until Labor Day.

If you're wondering what it is that a system admin does, you can look here to find out.

And in searching for the above page I found this page, which is loaded with System Admin humor (I didn't know there even WAS such a category). The first two videos are both pretty funny. The third, not so much.