Truer Words - A Journal

Tour de France Lanterne Rouge: Happy news

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:11:53 GMT

Tour de France Lanterne Rouge: Happy news

We fans of the Tour de France have been somewhat battered and disillusioned by events in recent years, but this is the kind of storybook matchup that will make the 2008 race worth watching.

Good luck, gentlemen. Let the best man win!

The above quote is from a site that celebrates the Lanterne Rouge, the last place rider in the Tour de France (which starts Saturday!!!). She's referring to the fact that two historic Lanternes Rouge have both been added to the rosters of their respective team for le Tour: Jimmy Casper for Agritubel and Wim Vansevenant for Silence Lotto. (In other words, both of those riders have finished last in a previous TdF... and in fact, Vansevenant pretty much owned the red jersey last year.)

The story made me smile. The TdF, and professional cycling in general, is in such a mess right now that there's no way to overstate how bad it is. The idea of two historic last place finishers going "head to head," and making the event worth watching is so silly that... well, I think I agree with her.

Well said, Nancy.

Our First Attempt at Camping

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:09:17 GMT

This was quite a weekend.

Occasionally, our ecclesia goes camping together. It's not every year, but probably 3 out of 4 years, in mid-June. Wanting to share new experiences with Lauren, I decided to give it a go this year.

I've never camped. Maybe 30 years ago, when I was little, Jed and I used to camp out in our back yard, but otherwise I've never camped. That's ridiculous.

We all got spots near each other at the Hopeville Pond State Park (thanks to Ellyn for organizing the whole weekend). Not being a camper, I have no tent so Mark and Michelle loaned us theirs, and an air mattress. Gary and Ellyn loaned us a couple of sleeping bags, and Lauren and I headed over there Friday evening.

Mark helped me set up the tent (he wasn't staying over night) and pump up the air mattress, then we all settled in around the campfire. At about 10:30 I said goodnight to everyone because she was falling asleep on my lap and I wanted to let her sleep in the tent. After a diaper change and lots of fun taking out my contacts near total darkness, she was curled up like a kitten on one of the sleeping bags, fast asleep.

That lasted for a little over an hour. More than enough time for me to fall into a deep sleep.

Then, she woke up. Happy. VERY VERY HAPPY. She came over to me. She patted my face. She laid her head down on my chest and said "aaaaahhhhhhh", then went back to sleep for three minutes. Then she kissed my cheek and slept with her head on my arm... for a few minutes. Then she laid down completely on top of me and slept for a few more minutes. Then she tried to get into the suitcases.

This went on for hours. She wouldn't settle down, and would cry when I try to put her back on her own sleeping bag. Otherwise, she was perfectly happy... but also totally wide awake and unwilling to let me sleep.

At 3:45 AM I finally gave up. By 4, we were both back in the truck and headed home.

I think if I were ever facing torture, I could handle some pain, but they'd break me in a day or two with sleep deprivation.

I/we slept until late morning, then drove back to the camp site. Saturday night we didn't even try: just went home, got a good night's sleep, and went back again Sunday morning.

I'm glad we tried, and I hope we can try again next year when she's a year older.

Lauren's Dancing Debut

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:49:26 GMT

This movie of Lauren dancing is almost a month old, but I just got around to uploading it.

The description on YouTube says:

Lauren was dancing like this months before she could walk. Now that she's been walking for a while, the dancing has gotten more involved: she spins circles, and puts her hand on her hand and revolves, and sometimes even puts one hand on a hip like she's doing a cha cha. Girl's got moves. This one is her dancing debut, though. ;-)

I Hope She Understands

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:33:15 GMT

Someday Lauren is going to be old enough to realize that not every little girl spends a big piece of her life in front of a camera. That not all of her little friends have their pictures posted on public web sites for family and friends — and strangers — to gawk at.

That not every little girl has a crazy, doting "Opa."

I hope this works out. I hope she grows up knowing that she's beautiful no matter how she looks. That even though not every picture is perfect, she's always beautiful.

I hope, in fact, that she can be the kind of girl who is confident enough in herself to be honest and comfortable with the camera, without posing. Like she does now. Not beautiful like a model, but beautiful like someone that everybody wants to love, someone who loves and gives freely.

She won't become that person just because my camera can't take its eye off her, obviously, but I hope it helps (thinking about the attitude of the people behind the camera). Confident, comfortable, happy, warm, and full of brightness. We're off to a good start, but there are big obstacles in her path...

Classy Query

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:33:01 GMT

Remember the episode of StarTrek: The Next Generation when Data was studying humor and went onto the holodeck to interact with famous comedians? At first the computer gave him the funniest comedian of all time, but he specialized in math-humor and that was too specific (too focused, or vertical) for what Data wanted. (So, of course, he ended up with someone from the late 20th century. How convenient. Beside the point, too.)

That's what this makes me think of. It's an April Fool's joke that only javascripters will understand. Except, of course, it's not all that funny. Cute, but not hilarious.

I read through the comments... some big names there who thought it was funny enough to comment. Of course, the author of the joke is also the author of jQuery itself, which makes him a pretty big deal. Most of the commentors were probably just sucking up. ;-) (Same would have happened if Sam Stephenson posted something similar.)

This Round's On Me ??

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:44:43 GMT

Part of my standard morning routine is to go to the Dunkin Donuts, just a mile from my house, for an extra large coffee. This morning I was running a bit late and hadn't had any breakfast, so I ordered a bagel sandwich with it. My total came to $4.87, and I paid with my debit card as I usually do.

This evening, Corinne was looking at our online banking, and started yelling something like, "What the heck!?" I went to see what was wrong...

52 charges from Dunkin Donuts today. All different. Totaling hundreds of dollars!

Somehow, apparently, our credit card number got stuck in their drive through's cash register.

We'll obviously be disputing these charges, in the morning.

The most annoying thing about this, for me, is that two days ago the bank called me to verify that I had actually authorized AT&T to charge me $50 to add a line to my wireless account. "Yes, of course I did." But do they call to find out if I authorized DD to charge me for 52 orders in one morning?!? No. Which one of these two things looks more suspicious, hmm?

La vie à la Maison de Dillingham

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:46:38 GMT

“Life at the Dillingham House”

(At least, that's what I was trying to say. Flip?)

It's 2008 already. When did that happen?

Lauren is over ten months old already. Not walking by herself yet, but she's learning to imitate us: she waves, whispers "kitty", and of course says "dadadadadada" all the time. She can crawl at about 32 mph. Her favorite thing is playing "boo" with me or Corinne. Her least favorite thing is seeing any of her toys stacked up. Just put one block on top of another, and she'll streak across the room to knock them down.

Shannon should be coming home this month. Still waiting for the home inspection.

Mike is still up at Osborn C.I., but he's been moved into "the program", so he has a little more freedom, more social interaction, and a little less boredom.

Corinne spends most of her days cooking and taking care of Lauren (somebody's going to misread that and find it funny or disturbing), napping in the afternoons, then enjoying her time off in the evenings.

Me? I'm pretty much on the same schedule i've been on since Lauren started sleeping through the night (at six weeks). Up around 7, work most of the day, come up in the evening to have dinner and watch (play with) Lauren until it's time for her to go to bed. Then I tell myself I'm going to work until I go to bed, but I end up playing Scrabble (online, it's actually called Scrabulous) until bedtime.

PMC registration has already opened, and I've already started (casually) looking for sponsors.

Now you're all caught up. Any more questions?

Why Not Christmas

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:59:21 GMT

Just stumbled on this, and couldn't believe my eyes (or my ears).

A short cartoon on the history of Christmas. Wicked cool.

Completions

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:12:19 GMT

Electronic thermostat for the bedroom? Installed.

Range hood for the kitchen stove? Replaced and rewired.

Today, I am a man.

I Blame Mom

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:56:56 GMT

Corinne went to Westerly this morning with Lauren (for class), just a minute or two before this snowstorm started. Oops. An hour later, and the ground is already covered. She's on her way home again.

Those who know my Mom will totally understand this entry's title. ;-)

The Six Rules of Scrabulous Honour

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:40:54 GMT

Thou shalt use the "look up word" feature in Scrabulous to thine heart's content.
Thou shalt use the Scrabulous list of two-letter words, all that thou dost wish.
Thou shalt use anything else that's built into Scrabulous, until the cows come home.
THOU SHALT NOT use ANY word-builder web sites, programs, or anything else.
THOU SHALT NOT look up words in a dictionary (neither a book nor a program on your computer). That's what "Look up Word" is for in Scrabulous.
THOU SHALT NOT seek, ask for, or accept help from any person, pet, or vegetation, living or otherwise.

Been dealin' with some cheaters on Scrabulous (on FaceBook). People who play "average" face to face, but almost always make perfect moves online. Grr.

I Am A Comedy of Errors

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:09:42 GMT

Yesterday afternoon I went for a ~31 mile bike ride. Due to weather and travel, it was my first ride in eight days.

When I ride, I put a cheap cell phone, my debit card, and an old license in a zip-lock bag, and put the bag in a jersey pocket. I can pick up Gu, Gatorade or a new tube if needed, or I can call Corinne for a pick-up. If I'm knocked out (as happened nine years ago), the old license will tell people who I am.

After a ride, I put the bag on the shelf by my bike. I'm all sweaty, so pulling everything out of the bag at that moment would defeat the purpose of the bag.

Well, this morning I awoke Lauren at 7:20 so we could drive up to see her dad (Mike) during the morning visiting hours, and still be home in time for a few hours of work and another short ride. First stop: the Dunkin Donuts right up the street, for coffee. I waited in line for ten minutes (grr), and then — at the window — realized I didn't have my wallet. They know me, and told me to just take it.

Drove back to the house, grabbed my wallet from the shelf next to my bike (in the garage), and left again. Corinne just shook her head. I could hear her thinking, "That's my husband!"

We needed gas, but were running a little late so decided I'd go back to pay for the coffee this afternoon, and just head for the prison in Somers, CT. Plenty of gas stations on the way (the Dunkin Donuts is at a gas statiion).

The first, just three miles from the house, was closed for renovations. So, we continued to Norwich and stopped at a big, new Citgo. Grabbed my wallet, hopped out to pump the gas, and as I opened it I had something like a daydream, a vision, of my debit card (and only credit card) waiting patiently in a zip-lock bag. On the shelf. Next to my bike.

Sigh. We'll try again tomorrow morning.

(At breakfast yesterday morning, Rich argued with me that I should always keep a little cash in my wallet. "Don't need it," I said, "I just use my card for everything." D'oh!)

Thirty Five

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:45:15 GMT

thirty five dimples in the icing
holes for the wax
with the wicks
with the flames
that flicker and burn
as I start my next run ’round the sun

Actually, that's not true at all, there was no cake today. ;-)

My treat today was a couple of hours sampling all of the delicious, local fare assembled at A Taste of Mystic.

Like last year at ATOM, my favorite was the raw oysters. Weird, huh? I'd never tried them before last year. In fact, I remember gagging when I saw my Grampa eat them (or actually, raw Quahogs) when I was little. Now my taste for them is limited only by the money I'm willing to spend on them!

My least favorite was the clam chowder. YUCK! It tasted like nothing more than warm cream with potatoes.

Anyway, today marks the start of my thirty sixth chasing-of-my-own-tail around the sun. No, I'm not sure what I'll do with it if I ever catch it.

(Oh, I was going to write something deeper than this, about all the stuff that's changed and that I have learned in the last year. But one thing I've learned, finally, is that I don't have time for everything. The list of changes is LONG, so this will have to do!)

Auction 6: Magical Mystery Bundle

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:40:48 GMT

Auction six is up. It's title is Magical Mystery Bundle of Magnificent Mac Software.

Yes, as you can probably tell, I'm getting a little punchy. Go read the full description, I tried to make it a little funny.

This auction is totally different than the five that came before it. It starts out with nine apps (the apps for which I was given 20 or more licenses). When the auction closes, 16 additional apps will be chosen randomly by the computer. The only guarantee is that there won't be any duplicates.

Oh, and this one has no reserve price. :-)

If you've considered linking to the auctions but haven't yet done it (or linked once, weeks ago), now would be a good time. (Or, you know... you could actually bid on it!)

Adobe Donates to the PMC Software Auctions

seth@macrobyte.net — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:17:39 GMT

A reader of Daring Fireball wrote to find out if he could talk me into accepting one more donation for the auctions.

He works at Adobe, and is sending (I have the FedEx tracking information already) a brand-new box of Flash CS3 Professional. He bought it himself, at employee discount. (He required only two things: don't use his name, and don't tell anybody what it cost him.)

MSRP (a.k.a. "List Price") on Flash CS3 Pro is $699. It sells on eBay for $400 -$500. (If you check that, make sure you watch for the educational versions. They can't be upgraded, and sell for a lot less.)

I stopped accepting software for the auctions back in late June, but this was too good to pass up. Since I was already making exceptions, I also accepted ten licenses each of Trampoline, Lazy Mouse, and Painter's Picker from their author.

She Likes Her Nanners

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:00:01 GMT

Lauren has started on "real food," in the last week.

Kid loves, Loves, LOVES bananas. Seriously.

I'd take a picture of the process, but I'm afraid to bring my camera within 25 feet of this banana-splattering, feeding-frenzied dynamo.

(Plus, Corinne is out right now, so I can't feed the child and photograph the process at the same time, now can I?)

Skippy's List

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:07:10 GMT

Skippy's list of things he's not allowed to do in the army is hilarious.

Thanks for the link, Jim. :-)

Warning: some of it is off-color.

What A Bonehead

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:57:13 GMT

I left the house at a little after seven o'clock this morning for the drive up to Steve Davis's house in Mansfield, MA. This was to be the first century of the season, and his son Paul was going to join us for at least half of it. (Paul needs to put in some more hours on the bike if he's going to put the hurt on his dad this year like he did last year.)

I arrived at the house right on time, but didn't have any Gu (I was out), so we ran to the local bike shop to pick some up. They were closed (it was only 9:30, they open at 10). Picked up some Power Bars and Cliff Bars at the CVS, and went back to the house to change and ride.

Except I left my shoes — my brand new cycling shoes — on the shelf in the garage. At home.

Almost anything else (except forgetting the bike) could have been worked around.

No shoes, no ride.

So I'm home again, working for a couple hours before I go out for a long, solo ride this afternoon.

Bonehead.

Buffaloed

seth@macrobyte.net — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:04:34 GMT

I have enough trouble with lousy grammar, so I really didn't need to see this:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

... especially as it is a grammatically correct sentence. That's just crazy talk.

Well and Weirdly Met

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:14:39 GMT

RailsConf 2007 was good. I'm glad I went, and I believe I pulled from it — mainly from the other attendees — exactly what I wanted.

It's no surprise, of course, that the best part of the weekend was finally meeting and hanging out with Jim and Sean. Exactly as it was with Greg last year (who I missed this year (but not as much as Corinne and Lauren!) ... lousy timing on the pregnancy, Greg and Kt!), we hung out and chatted as if we've been doing exactly that for many years. Which we have, of course, but only virtually. This was our first meeting, and it was a good one.

The second weirdest experience of the weekend was meeting John Gruber's twin. He hasn't said anything publicly, but he confirms that he has seen it, some of his friends are calling the other guy, "Fake John Gruber," and John referred to it as Very Weird. Rich (who has known JG far longer than I have) agreed the similarity was eerie. They really were identical, in the sense of identical twins. Just as identical twins have little differences that help you tell them apart, these two are not identical in every little detail... but it was still weird.

However, the number one weirdest part of the weekend was that Sevin Sayers was here! (Ok, his name isn't really Sevin Sayers, but he's being very weird about this and wanted his name removed from the site. So it's something *like* Sevin Sayers. (Let's just say there's a reason I haven't seen ‘Sevin’ in years.)) He was completely out of context, as though my life's threads were suddenly exchanging objects or pointers in some way that surely indicated heap corruption and would result in an OS shutdown (kernel panic!) any second.

I first saw ‘Sevin’ on Friday morning, but never really thought it was him, just looked and sounded a bit like him. Then again that evening, but it was just after I met John's dopplegänger so I decided my brain was having a little more fun with me. When I saw him for the third time on Saturday, I stared at him for a few seconds trying to find the subtle differences that would make him not look like ‘Sevin’ anymore.

He finally looked back at me, and immediately looked very confused. "Seth?!? What are you doing here?"

"Right. Funny you should ask that."

Gruber or His Not Evil Twin?

seth@macrobyte.net — Sat, 19 May 2007 04:33:13 GMT

At dinner tonight (hamburgers at the Red Robin), I explained the nightmare that I suffered implementing Markdown support for BBEdit. I told my funny-to-me-at-least story about wanting to snail-mail Guido's beautiful Python language spec to John Gruber with instructions to cook and eat (and how I thought it couldn't hurt the language-design process).

Imagine my surprise, then, when Mr. Gruber sat down in the row ahead of us, just thirty minutes later, for the evening's keynote presentations! (Mac-heads, most of you may better know John Gruber as daringfireball.net)

No, it wasn't the real John Gruber, but he looked so much like him that he had me fooled for a few seconds. (One might say that he had Grubered John's look and feel, if one knew exactly what it means "to Gruber" something.) :-D

Please compare this picture of Gruber's non-evil twin with this one of the original. Freaky, no?

Picture of Sean and a Fountain

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 May 2007 21:03:37 GMT

Here's a picture of Sean McMains, taken last night on our way to dinner. Yes, he's taking a picture of a fountain on the sidewalk. These copper fountains ("bubblers") are all over the place.

Cool feature: click this picture to zoom in on the fountain. Try it!

Update: Now you can Zoom Out from this picture, too. This is what we call "meta photography."

The Stay-at-Home-Logue

seth@macrobyte.net — Fri, 18 May 2007 04:49:49 GMT

In response to my travelogue, Corinne has written up a funny accounting of the first two days at home since I left.

Have to say that I now understand why she wouldn't tell me about it over the phone. I think she didn't want to hear me trying to figure out if it was ok to laugh or not. :-)

When Lauren is crying because she's hungry, you don't have any choice: you simply MUST feed her. The alternative is (your own) death or total insanity, which clearly aren't "choices."

Her decision to feed Lauren in the back seat of the Blazer sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Meet the Airhead

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:52:06 GMT

Our ecclesia just had our Spring study weekend. Great time, great classes, but man am I an airhead when I'm tired and over-busy.

Example: after the group dinner at the hall on Saturday evening, we were all going to the Locke's house for a campfire/bonfire. They live fifteen or twenty minutes from the hall. Corinne was home sleeping, so Lauren and I went to the Locke's to hang out for an hour or two. But I left the diaper bag at the hall, with all of Lauren's necessities (food, diapers, bottles). Didn't realize that until we were already in the house.

But wait, there's more. I brought my laptop to their house, so that I could work on digitizing the video and/or audio of the day's classes. When I realized that diaper bag was still at the hall, we left to get it and just go home. But I left the laptop at the Locke's house.

Sigh.

RailsConf is this weekend. I'll have lots to do, but I think my only responsibilities will be to bring myself and my laptop to the hall and back to the hotel every day. As long as I don't forget the basics (like dressing myself every morning), then everything will be fine. ;-)

The Picker of English Nits

seth@macrobyte.net — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:58:49 GMT

The crazy overuse of the word "get" is still bugging me, though having reread this old conversation on that topic was thrilling. We once conversed most intelligently here on Truer Words!

Months ago I told Brian Andresen that a new corruption of English was bothering me, and then he started to hear it and I'm pleased to report that, for a time, it bothered him almost as much as it did me.

Which corruption is that? Rather than just state it, I'll offer a hint. The clue is here. Try and find it by rereading this message very carefully. I'll give a gold star to the first person to describe it.

Even NPR, that bastion of Good English, has committed this faux pas on a regular basis in the last half year.

Yes, Greg, I know that you believe there is no such thing as Good or Proper English. That may or may not be true, but the definition of Poor or Improper English is (In My Opinion) when choice of phrasing is senseless.

Maybe I'm an old-fogey-conservative-English-professor type, but (again, IMO) not all Improper English should become accepted just because it's common.

Pwned By a Baby

seth@macrobyte.net — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:46:21 GMT

Last night I taught midweek class in Westerly, and (as always) brought Lauren with me. (Wed. and Fri. nights are Corinne's nights off). My Mom was the first adult female there, and claimed Lauren for the duration.

After class, she was passed around from lady to young lady, to the point that I could barely keep track of her. She needed to be fed, so they took turns with her. Ethan even held her for a minute, but apparently he didn't know that babies fart. When she trumpeted he passed her back and ran for the hills.

She only drank two ounces instead of the four I knew she'd want, I think mostly because nobody realized you have to actually burp her a few times in the process.

Unfortunately, that meant she was still hungry when I put her in the Blazer for the drive home. As soon as we started moving, she started up the I'M SO HUNGRY I'M GOING TO DIE IF I DON'T GET SOME FOOD SOON!!! cry. She'd had two ounces, so I knew she'd survive the 25 minute drive home... but I could only tolerate it for five minutes. She didn't settle down with the car's motion like she usually does, so I stopped in an empty Brooks Drugs parking lot, climbed into the back seat, and tried to give her another ounce or two from the second bottle.

For some reason she just wouldn't drink it. She quieted down when the nipple was in her mouth, but she wasn't drinking it. I gave up after ten minutes. (This wasn't inexperience. I feed her two or three times per day, every day. Maybe it was the weird setting.)

She started hollering again as soon as I put her back in the seat, but this time she quieted down after a couple minutes and stayed silent all the way home. (So quiet that I, being a noob, had to check to make sure she was still breathing! Bah.)

I was still annoyed when we returned home, so I handed her to Corinne and tried to relax. Yes, I admit it: I may actually have been annoyed, possibly even angry, with a helpless baby. Some of you probably think that makes me evil or heartless. (You probably don't have kids.)

However, Corinne was in the middle of something, so I ended up holding her for a few more minutes until she could prepare another bottle (which I could have done, and would have if she was screaming again). I laid down on my oversized Lay-Z-Boy, and put her on my chest, facing up with my hands on her belly so she couldn't slide or roll away.

After just a few seconds of that, she craned her head around at this really bizarre angle and stared up into my eyes. She just laid that way, staring at me, daring me not to admit she's adorable.

Yeah, I've been pwned by a one month old baby. Darn kid.

Sosumi ;-)

seth@macrobyte.net — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:54:32 GMT

Cool. I just received an email from someone in Germany threatening to sue me if I don't take down this web page. Apparently someone's job prospects were harmed by it.

Seriously? Yes, that's what the letter seems to say, anyway.

OK, not to sue me, specifically... the threat was to sue Free-Conversant (where the page is hosted), which is a service owned by Macrobyte, which is owned by me. Close enough.

For now I'm just going to be amused and wait for the owner of that site to respond (he received the same threat... and at least he seems to be in the same country). If I ever receive either a friendly or official / legal correspondence, my reaction will certainly be different.

Guess I don't respond well to threats. ;-)