Month: May 2007

Categories
Around the House

Memorial Day

We celebrated this Memorial day at home. CDF and I took the girls to the park in the morning, and then MDF played in a small pool at the neighbors house later in the day.

At the park MDF played on the slides a little, but spent most of the time running around and swinging. CEF sat in a swing for a long time too. Unfortunately on the way back to the car, MDF tripped in the parking lot and scraped her knee (but when we got home, since she had to rest her leg for a while, she got to watch the first volume of Lord of the Rings with me).

Categories
Rambling Thoughts

Power of Negative Thinking

I consider myself an optimist so when someone say’s to “think positively” I’m usually agreeable to the idea. But then today I read an article, Dear Oprah, please stop promoting The Secret written by John Gravois for Slate Magazine. In it he puts forth a rather convincing argument that people are so busy thinking about the best-case scenario, that they forget to plan for problems.

His only two examples of professions that are trained to think negatively are doctors and computer workers. While I’ve never thought about myself as a negative thinker, “Murphy’s law” is invoked regularly at work, so negative thinking might have slipped in unawares. When I write programs I do have to plan for everything that might go wrong and come up with solutions to handle the events gracefully.

So what is the power of negative thinking, and how could it help improve our lives?

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Around the House

Bath Time

Lately I’ve been giving MDF and CEF a bath together. I don’t remember when I started doing it that way — but it’s been a month or so. CEF just loves to be in the tub. She gets really excited whenever I start the water running.

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CEF loves having a bath

MDF enjoys having CEF in the tub with her. They don’t play together much yet, but MDF will give CEF toys. CEF just kicks her feet in the water and tries to grab whatever is going by her.

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MDF enjoys being
silly in the tub too

MDF is pretty good about having her hair washed — though she does put up a fuss about it sometimes. She liked when I put her hair in a “pony tail” and then showed her the picture.

Categories
Daughters

CEF is Scooting Now

CEF has started scooting around on the floor. She uses both elbows and one knee to get around. She is not very fast — until you turn your head and then she has gotten into something before you can look back again.

The other day she was on the living room floor, on her stomach, and I called her to come to me. I didn’t really expect her too, but she started scooting to me and made it to my shoes, where she then go distracted by the laces. Then this morning she was at the beginning of the hallway and had started fretting when I disappeared into the bathroom. So I tried calling her to come to me again. She made it about a third of the way down the hall and then she rolled on her back and started cooing at the ceiling.

Categories
Around the House

Candles

Last night at about 8:15 our electricity went out. It was just starting to get dark so I had enough light to find and light some candles before it got completely dark. MDF enjoyed getting the candles lit and had lots of questions about why the electricity went out.

The first thing MDF when the lights went out was that the computer had turned them off — since it shut off at the same time. But I told her it was something else, such as a car hitting a telephone pole and breaking the power-line.

Then we talked about the water still working — because gravity pushes it down from the water tower.

“I’m glad gravity didn’t go out,” she said seriously.

I laughed and told her it would never go out (as far as I know), so we would have water as long as the water tower was full (though it does take electricity to get water up there).

Categories
Work

Expiring Data

Yesterday Ars Technica had an article giving an alternative view on collecting and storing data called Escaping the data panopticon: Prof says computers must learn to “forget” . Having pack-rat tendencies myself I found the article interesting.

I think the idea of data with an auto-expiration date is good for most companies and especially the government. I think he missed a lot by not including data life-cycle management in his article, since it’s already been a topic of much discussion in business and IT circles.

But what about personal data on one’s home PC? Or personal data one has posted online, at a forum for example. He seems to suggest that every file should come with a year or two expiration, including pictures from one’s digital camera. My gut reaction is to say absolutely not! I want to delete unwanted files intentionally, not have them disappear because I forgot to change the expiration to 10,000 years.

Online forums feel different to me. I don’t care that my post disappear after a while (many already do), as long as it’s clear up front that they are not kept permanently.

In conclusion, I think the author is misdirected. Companies, Governments, and people who collect data from others do need to have a data life-cycle policy in place, and get rid of old records. But I don’t see any advantage to extending that into the home in any automatic fashion whatsoever. A manual process of weeding out old files would still be a good thing though.

Categories
Around the House

Pictures

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Camera Girl
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CEF Growls
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Talking on the Phone
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CEF Observes the Antics
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Anna Cate and MDF
Categories
Daughters

Fish Pond… with Sharks!

After reading a book about turtles, MDF asked about what different animals eat. We got around to fish, and she asked if they eat mosquitoes. I told her they did, if they mosquitoes were in a pond big enough to hold fish.

As we drank water before she went to bed, she had an idea.

“Dad. If we take the sand out of my turtle… and put water in it… we could have a pond.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

“Then we could have sharks, and…” She never did say what else we would put in the pond, I guess the sharks took up all the room.

Among Other Things

After CEF had a bath tonight she was rubbing her feet on her bouncy seat like she often does, and she either developed a blister, or popped one that was already there. Anyway, once it popped, she would cry every time it touched something. It didn’t help that she when she gets mad, she likes to kick her feet. It was only getting worse.

So after changing her diaper, I put a band-aid over the open blister. It helped some, though if she kicks her feet hard enough it still seems to hurt. MDF was very concerned about the band-aid (as well as the blister), and she kept telling CEF that the band-aid would help the blister feel better.

Continue reading “Fish Pond… with Sharks!”
Categories
Daughters

Late Run to Food Lion

Tonight I realized that I had forgotten to get dog food. So I took MDF and CEF with me to Food Lion. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage them both and a bag of dog food, but I ended up putting CEF in a shopping cart — with the seat cover that CDF bought for MDF — and let MDF ride on the front. We made it through the store all right, and the girls got a complement from the cashier who thought they were both cute.

Categories
Daughters

Tricycle

MDF has been riding her tricycle a lot recently. This past weekend we walked to the Library to return some books. MDF rode along with us on her trike. It was the farthest she has ever gone, but she did a great job.

I had to keep telling her to stay beside the edge of the road, but she has been getting better. Tonight she was able to stay at the side of the road by herself as we went down Campbell and Hayes streets. She even knew to get off into the grass when a car came by us.

An adorable thing she does while riding is she rings her little bell as she goes along and then waves to someone (or no one) around — CDF, CEF, or myself most of the time.

Update: the other night CDF and MDF were fooling around and I took some pictures.

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Two Girls on a Tricycle