Hi, I’m in Florida

Actually, I may or may not be in Florida, depending on when you read this. I may be on Route 3 north. I may be at Logan Airport. Or, I may be in the air above one of our many fine states. Grace and I are traveling today, off to spend a week in the sunshine state with grandma and grandpa. Here’s hoping it goes well.

I think we’re fully prepared at this point. I’m going to leave early because I’m a the type who likes to arrive early and know that everything is in place. Here we come!

So, posting will slow down quite a bit over the next seven days, though I will try to post an update if I can. Take care, everyone. Goodnight, inkernet.

Update: We’re here. It’s hotter than hell. Regarding the plane ride: It went perfectly. You wouldn’t believe it. Not a peep or word of complaint or shudder of fear. After we landed, she said, “That was fun!” The flight attendants remarked on how well her first flight went. I was incredibly releived.

I’ll tell you this: The iPod loaded with Dora the Explorer, Little Einsteins and Mickey’s Funhouse was a LIFESAVER. If you’ve got little kids, the fifth generation iPod (iPod with video) is worth every penny. More later.

What’s happening to me?

First it was Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins. Then Neko Case. Now I’m listening to the new Dixie Chicks album, and really, really liking it. I mean, what the hell, man? Next thing you know, I’ll paint a confederate flag on the roof of my car.* At least I can take solace in the fact that Rick Rubin produced the Chicks.

I mean, I’m the guy for whom seeing Ministry and Ice Cube 12 years ago (was it really that long?) was a near religious experience. I guess I’m “growing up,” as they say (God, I hate that phrase). If you want to grow along with me, or if you’re a (*shudder*) country fan, check out the new Chicks. It’s really good. Plus, Natalie is a Berklee girl (and damn cute).

*Just kidding. That really wouldn’t be a good idea here in Massachusetts.

An outing rut and three-year-old logic

Today we’re going to the Cape Cod Natural History Museum. Again. We’ll look at the fish and birds. Again. Gracie will marvel at the jellies and sea horses. Again. Sigh.

We’re in a bit of an outing rut. We can be found at either the Natural History Museum, Zooquarium, Bonkerz (kind of a local Chuck E. Cheese) or any of the local playgrounds almost daily. Sounds great, right? What kid wouldn’t want to go out nearly every day of the week? Me, that’s who! While getting out is always better than staying home, I get pretty bored with the same thing over and over. Plus, while I love my kids’ company, they aren’t the greatest conversationalists. I need a new activity, preferably one with other adults around who are willing to chat with me.

Speaking of talking with the kids, Grace said something rather funny this morning during breakfast. Out of the blue, she announces, “Pigs like to roll in the mud.” “Yes, honey,” I say. She resumes eating, and a full ten minutes later, she lets loose with, “Cows like to roll in milk.” Your logic is a bit flawed, honey, but I see where you’re coming from. Thanks for the laugh.

In other news, the very beautiful and extremely talented Norah Jones was on Sesame Street today. Oh, yeah.

It was bound to come up: Religion

I was raised Catholic. I attended Catholic pre-school, kindergarten, elementary school, high school and college. To make a long story short, I’ll simply say that all of this is why I am no longer religious in any way, shape or form. Your milage may vary, but as I see it, the Catholic church itself is its own worst enemy. But that’s another story.

Anyway, neither of my kids have been baptized, and I have no plans to baptize them. They’ve never been to church, and we never talk about “God” at home. One of the issues I have with Catholicism is the “believe-what-we-say-or-be-damned” mentality. Listen, if you have some sort of faith that you can draw strength and happiness from, then that’s great! I hope you find it very fulfilling. However, don’t tell me that I’m a bad person because I do not, or worse yet, don’t try to “convert” me. Basically, I don’t want someone else making my religious decisions for me.

But, dear reader, is that not exactly what I’m doing for Gracie and Billy? By refusing to expose them to religion, I’m making that decision for them. Do I smell a hypocrite in the room? So, here’s the new deal. When the kids are older, I’ll present them with some information, saying something more or less like the following.

There are a great many people in the world who believe that there is a being, or presence, that has influence over their lives. Different cultures have varying names for this being, but we’ll use the term “God” to make it simple. I think the stories about God are tales about morality that are meant to help us become responsible and caring adults. Some people think there’s more to it than that. I believe that you’re old enough now to decide what you want to take from these stories. Here they are, get reading, and let me know if you have any questions.

Or something like that. The good news is, I can continue to put this off for a long, long time.

Leaving on a jet plane

This coming Tuesday, Grace and I will board a plane at Logan Airport in Boston and land three hours later in Orlando, Florida. No, we’re not going to Disney World, we’re going to visit grandma and grandpa. They recently moved out there (it’s the rule: they’re 60, they go) and I haven’t even seen their house yet. We’ll stay for a week. The trip is my father’s day present from my wife and I’m totally excited about it. And nervous.

Grace has never been on a moving airplane before. I say “moving” because she has been on a stationary airplane. Her aunt is a pilot, and she let Grace sit in the cockpit of a plane once. Of course, playing “airplane” and cruising at 3,000 feet are two very different things. I really don’t want to be The Jerk With The Screaming Kid that all the other passengers will describe once the flight is over.

Grace is a bit of a nervous kid, so I’m preparing for the worst. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• The iPod is loaded with episodes of Little Einsteins [iTunes link] She loves that show. She won’t wear headphones (I don’t know why), but she still likes to watch it
• I bought a sack full of 12 little toys. I figured that if I produce one new toy every thirty minutes (three hours up and three hours back) we’ll be ok. The novelty of the first toy will not even have worn off before toy number two is produced. Plus, it will give her something exciting to look forward to. Like I said, they’re nothing fancy at all (trinket type things) but she’ll love them.
• Airplane talk. We’ve been talking about airplanes and flying on airplanes. I even took some books out of the library about airplanes that we’ve been reading as part of her pre-bed book time. Like I said, she’s been around planes so they aren’t completely foreign to her, but a little prep certainly won’t hurt (esp. regarding the huge, crowded Logan Airport. We live in a town of 4,000. Get the picture?)

Anyway, that’s the deal. I’m anticipating/dreading the trip at the same time. If I can, I’ll update from Florida. Wish us luck.

Gettin’ my lazy arse off the couch: Nike and iPod

Earlier today, Apple announced a partnership with Nike. The resulting products are pretty cool, and should interest a number of professional or amateur runners. First and foremost is Nike+. Nike+ starts with the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, which includes two pieces: a wireless receiver for your iPod nano and a transponder for your sneaker. Once the transponder is placed in a special compartment in the sneaker, it communicates wirelessly with your iPod. As you run, you hear statistics on your journey through your headphones as the music plays, like average speed, total distance traveled, miles to go before you reach your pre-determined goal, total time spent running, etc. Also, the iPod itself displays distance travelled, average pace, currently playing song, and total time spent running. Finally, you can select your favorite running song and assign it to the iPod’s center button. Need a little boost? Hit that button and there’s your favorite song, ready to push you through the last mile. Pretty cool, no?

Starting on June 14, the iTunes Music Store will feature a special Nike+ section. It will contain Nike-generated content, like time- and goal-specific music compilations. What to run for 30 minutes? Grab the 30 minute mix. Going to do a 10K over the weekend? Pick up the 10K mix. Need a little motivation, grab some tunes that feature voice overs by some of today’s elite athletes. Plus, you can check out both video and audio podcasts.

Here’s where the fun really starts. After your run, connect your iPod to your computer. The statistics from the run you just completed are uploaded to the Nike+ website (free to sign up and use), where you can compare your performance towards a goal, watch your improvements over time and more. You can even join virtual “teams” with other users and race towards a goal together, or have virtual “races.” All of your stats are presented as easy-to read graphs and charts. I like it a lot.

Back in the day, your old buddy Dave was in great shape. I used to run to and from work every day (I kept a change of clothes and took a shower there). Then my wife got pregnant, and she gained a good bit of weight. So did I. That was four years ago. She lost the weight, I didn’t. I’m a big boy, and I don’t like it. Getting winded from running around with a three year old is only going to get worse. I want to be the dad who can keep up, and even set a good example for Bill and Grace by letting them see that exercise is fun to do and a good idea. I can really see myself getting into the Nike+/Apple stuff.

So, I pre-ordered the kit ($29US). Yes, it’s official: No more chubby hubby. I just needed a huge dose of “geek” to get me off of my lazy ass (and maybe relieve a little stress).

I’m totally sick of my job

If you’re one of my nine regular readers, you know that I work as the tech support guy for a private school. I’ve been doing it for almost five years now, and I’m totally sick of it. Let me explain.

The Angel of Death

People look at me like I’m the Angel of Death. When I walk into a room or office, I’m not greeted with, “Hi, Dave!” No, I get, “Oh, God, what are you going to do to my computer?” As if I spend my time walking from building to building, coaxing people’s computers into malfunctioning, deleting important files and so on. “I’m not going to do anything to your computer,” I say. “Oh, thank God,” they say. You know what? The next time you want your computer “fixed,” I’ll remember that you don’t want me doing anything to it.

My Time is Your Time

Let’s say I’m walking across campus. Let’s say I’m carrying an ailing iMac in my hands. As I walk towards my office, I see Mrs. Employee walking towards me. Just as I open my mouth to say hello, Mrs. Employee begins speaking. She says something like, “Dave, I received an attachment and Mr. Employee told me that it’s ‘an Excel’ but every time I try to open it the computer says it went to ‘documents.’ Do know where ‘documents’ is? I need to print this before 1:00PM. It’s in my office now.”

No “Hello,” no “Do you have a minute,” no “I see you’re carrying an awkwardly-shaped, 50lb. computer that you probably want to put down and/or work on.” It’s just “me, me, me, me.”

You’ve Been Here for Ten Years

Our email system works like this: If your email box sits idle for 90 days, that means no activity whatsoever, it gets deleted. That’s three full months of not even launching the application. An employee who has worked here for TEN FREAKING YEARS, in a SUPERVISORY POSITION, came to me about a month ago with the issue that she hasn’t been able to use email. To make a long story short, we find out that it’s been well over the 90 day limit since she’s checked her mail. So, I retrieve her username and give it to her:

“Here’s your login name.”
“Oh, what’s my password?”
“I don’t know”
“I’ve forgotten it”
“I’ll reset it and send you an instruction sheet.”
“Ok”

A week later, we meet again:

“Can I get those email instructions?”
“I put them in your [paper] email box a week ago”
“I didn’t get it. I don’t know what happened.”
“Ok.”

I stick another sheet in the paper mail box. Yesterday, I’m in her building:

“Can you show me how to change my password from the default to one I’ll remember?”
“Sure, we can do it now. Ok, log into email as you typically do.”
“But I don’t have my username or password.”
“But I sent it to you TWO TIMES.”
“I don’t know…”

I look it up, print it out.

“Ok, here you go.
“So, can I change my username?”
“No, only your password.”
“Oh, how an I going to remember that?” Note: The tricky username she can’t remember is simply her first name + three numbers (e.g., “dave123.” Pretty tricky, eh?”)
“You can just keep that piece of paper with you.”

I then held her hand through the process of changing the default password.

Ten years. A supervisor. God-All-Freaking-Mighty.

Nerd-Of-All-Trades

Jobs I’ve been handed recently:

• Build a system-wide Filemaker Pro database solution (at the time, I had never even heard of Filemaker). Now do the same thing for the nursing department.
• Design and implement a data analysis solution (that will be used across all 60 sites, state-wide) in VisualBasic. I’ve never, ever used VisualBasic. I got a book at Border’s to teach myself as I go along.
• Manage various installs of OS 9.0-9.2.2, OS 10.3.0-10.3.9 and OS 10.4.0-10.4.6. The machines that run OS 9 cannot be upgraded to OS 10, and the 10 machines won’t run 9 (and some of them can’t even run classic). Now explain to 110 users why using MS Excel 2001 in classic on a Mac mini with 512MB RAM to run complex, mission-critical macros causes Excel to crash ALL. DAY. LONG. Now, run the same complex macros over a VPN from the next town under classic on a 500MHz iMac running OS 10.4.6. NOW, complain to me that it’s slow and crashes. No kidding it’s slow and crashes! “Make it faster.” Are you crazy? You’re asking this machine to do something it was never meant to do. This is a grandma-sends-email computer, not a crunching-data-over-a-VPN machine. Then I get, “Well, let’s set up a Citrix server on this end.” But you’re still limited buy the ancient iMac! Driving a Yugo on the autobahn won’t make the Yugo go fast. It’s still a Yugo.
• Design and launch an in-house website. Yeah, because I’m a web designer. Here’s the best part: I recently took a poll for my own purposes. 95% of employees had no idea my stupid in-house website even existed. Aren’t I glad I killed myself to get it up and running? Just super.
• Don’t forget the incessant barrage of “I can’t print” and similar phone calls.

I’m Only Trying to Help

So I thought I did something really cool. Several of our departments work with lots and lots of photos, all day long. So, I set up a single iPhoto library on our server, and pointed all copies of iPhoto to it. So, if the language dept. needs a picture of Johnny and so does the vocational dept., they don’t need to recreate that photo. Simply launch iPhoto, open the “students” folder and bam, theres’s a slew of Johnny photos for you to choose from (landscape, portrait, at home, in school, in the community and so on). Nice, right?

I also figured out how to have iCal calendars published to our Xserve. That way, the language dept. could maintain a calendar, as well as the school, residential services, front offices…on and on and on. We all subscribe to each other’s calendars and keeping up to date with who is doing what and when is super easy. I scheduled a workshop for everyone to demonstrate how to use both iPhoto and iCal.

Four people showed up. None of them paid attention, and one even said, “Ugh, if I have to spend one more minute in this room…” You know what? F you. If you want to go back to crashing MS Word all day because you’re using it to eding 16MB JPEGS, or if you enjoy searching for a picture of Johnny in a folder of 1100 photos, one at a time, all of them named “10332JPG,” you go right ahead. If you like having to call the family services department to find out what time your meeting is because the paper you got from the front office six days ago was incorrect just 12 hours after it was distributed, be my guest. Have fun. Have a blast.

The Computers that Never Work

This one is just for my fellow IT workers. Does it seem like shit breaks ALL THE TIME? Right now I have five iMacs and one eMac (that kernel panics immediately upon startup because its former user decided to enter his own kernel arguments) on my bench. Jesus.

Ok, rant over. I’m sick of my job. Who wants to pay me to do something else?

How I loathe the Yankees

The Evil Empire (also known as the New York Yankees) are a full game-and-a-half behind the Red Sox as they start a three game series in Fenway later tonight. Three consecutive Red Sox wins will put a very nice buffer between the two teams. Maybe Jeter will throw over the 1st baseman’s head again, and Torre will run onto the field like a crybaby. Of course, the real fun is watching Papi send one out of the park right over Judas’s Damon’s head. I can’t wait.

I know this has nothing to do with parenthood, but dads (some of us) watch sports, ok?

Update: Red Sox 9, Yankees 5. One game down, two to go.

Babies and American Sign Language

Blogging Baby has an interesting post up about teaching young toddlers some simple signs. Blogger Kristin asks, “…Have any parents tried this? And what were your results?”

Well, we taught several signs to Grace when she was young, and are doing the same with Bill right now. By the time she was 18 months, Gracie could sign “more,” “eat,” “drink,” “play” and “book.” Using these signs cut way down on her daily frustration level, as well as ours. Instead of whining or crying, she could simply sign “eat” or “more.” It was great.

When she started to pick up verbal language, the signs faded away on their own. For a while she would sign and talk at the same time, which was a nice transition for her. Now we’re doing the same with Bill, and he’s having similar success. They get the signs very quickly. Here’s how I’d recommend setting up a brief teaching session (remember, I was a special ed teacher for almost 10 years. I know what I’m doing, at the risk of sounding conceited). We’ll go with a three week process. Incidentally, “more” is a good place to start, as it can be used in a variety of situations (and what kid doesn’t want “more” all day long?).

Week 1

Mealtimes is a great time to work on this, but not right at the beginning! When Jr. is hungry, he just wants to eat and will have no patience for your demands. Instead, wait until he has finished eating the bulk of his meal, and is just pounding down a few blueberries for dessert.

Give him one and let him eat it. When he’s done, say, “More?” while producing the sign at the same time. Resist the temptation to say, “Do you want some more?” or something like that. All those words are distracting. Just pair the word + the sign.

Pair the word + sign two or three times and them give him the next blueberry. Repeat this for five or six times (or “trials”). That’s enough for today.

Repeat this post-meal process for a number of days, gradually increasing the time allowed to lapse between your saying the word and producing it with your hands. Soon, Jr. will shock you by doing it himself! Go nuts and unleash a waterfall of blueberries. Continue in this fashion for week 2 (or so).

The following (3rd) week, simply look at Jr. Don’t say or sign anything. Give him about five – seven seconds. Chances are he’ll produce the sign all on his own, with no help from you. Congratulations, he’s got it! If not, do the week 2 routine. He’ll get it, don’t worry!

Note: Only teach one sign at a time. Don’t introduce another until he’s mastered number one. And have fun! It’s should be fun for both of you. Good luck.

I ain’t sayin the boy’s gay…

We all know that gay people are born gay. It isn’t a "choice" (gee, I’d like to live a life of hardship and ridicule! Who wouldn’t choose that?), or the result of aggressive mothering or any of that other nonsense. We clear? Good.

Now, I ain’t sayin’ the boy’s gay (and I know he’s only 1), but, he loves: Playing with mom’s makeup, Gracie’s Barbies, watching Grace and the other gals at ballet class and wrapping himself in the dress-up clothes. Of course, I grew up with two sisters and I spent my share of time playing Barbie (and Strawberry Shortcake. I can admit it), and I’m straight as an arrow.

Now, before you fire off that angry email, understand that the bulk of this post is facetious. I know that it’s totally inappropriate to impose gender roles on a 1 year old. But the idea has made me think. I can remember when I was young, the thought of a father having a gay son was, well, less than savory. Today, however, I can’t believe that the same holds true. When I think of the other dads I pal around with, I don’t imagine a single one of them having an "issue" with a gay son (or daughter, for that matter). I mean, it’s 2006 for Christ’s sake. I believe we’re all beyond such silliness. My kids’ sexual preferences will have no affect on my relationship with them. And that’s that.

So, what’s your experience, dads? Am I imagining this trend, or will the Gen X dads like you and me (dads in their 30’s) be the generation to abandon this pointless and antiquated prejudice? I’m guessing the answer is "yes."