Saturday, March 27, 2004
Math, Mulch, and Mr. Murphy
So the plan was this -- 10 cubic yards of mulch delivered on Thursday night and 5 guys coming on Saturday to help spread it. Sounds like work, but not too bad.
Well, factor in Mr. Murphy's Law and add it all up again.
Now you get 5 cubic yards at 6:30am Saturday morning and 0 guys to help spread it. Who let Murphy pass the bar anyway? Why does he get to write laws?
The Mulch Man called Thursday night and was running behind schedule. "I'm not going to make it tonight" That was disappointing, for sure, but not totally unexpected. He had first told me he couldn't deliver until Saturday and then was able to "work me in" Thursday night. Well, thanks to Murphy that didn't pan out. "But don't worry," he said, "I've got your mulch. See you first thing Saturday morning. Most people won't take deliveries that early." Well, who can blame them. I don't like getting up at 6am during the week and I don't like doing it on Saturday either.
Saturday morning at 6:15am the Mulch Man calls. "I'm on my way, but I've only got 5 yards." What?!? "I knew I was low but I thought I had 10 left. But the stuff at the bottom was contaminated." Contaminated??? "You know it was a little dirty, with some other stuff mixed in." What to do? Murphy strikes again. I guess I'll take the 5 now and get 5 more later. After all, we've got help coming today to spread it.
Then two people couldn't come. Darn Murphy! Then three more couldn't show either. Murphy, I've had enough! You will not defeat us!
So, Melissa, Delaney, and I spread it ourselves. It covers the whole play area, but we'll get the other 5 yards this week and spread it on top. The prep took considerably more time than the spreading, anyway. Hopefully we'll get the other 5 yards this week. Murphy, stay back. Get thee behind me, Murphy!
No hard feelings to those that couldn't show up to help. It was completely understandable and even laughable in the end. In fact, they're coming tomorrow to help with some other stuff. I think. Even the Mulch Man was a nice guy, but I think he overextended himself.
And I've got a picture of Delaney on top of the mulch mountain, but I'll have to pull it from my Palm and upload it later. Monday, maybe...unless Murphy has other plans for me.
Well, factor in Mr. Murphy's Law and add it all up again.
Now you get 5 cubic yards at 6:30am Saturday morning and 0 guys to help spread it. Who let Murphy pass the bar anyway? Why does he get to write laws?
The Mulch Man called Thursday night and was running behind schedule. "I'm not going to make it tonight" That was disappointing, for sure, but not totally unexpected. He had first told me he couldn't deliver until Saturday and then was able to "work me in" Thursday night. Well, thanks to Murphy that didn't pan out. "But don't worry," he said, "I've got your mulch. See you first thing Saturday morning. Most people won't take deliveries that early." Well, who can blame them. I don't like getting up at 6am during the week and I don't like doing it on Saturday either.
Saturday morning at 6:15am the Mulch Man calls. "I'm on my way, but I've only got 5 yards." What?!? "I knew I was low but I thought I had 10 left. But the stuff at the bottom was contaminated." Contaminated??? "You know it was a little dirty, with some other stuff mixed in." What to do? Murphy strikes again. I guess I'll take the 5 now and get 5 more later. After all, we've got help coming today to spread it.
Then two people couldn't come. Darn Murphy! Then three more couldn't show either. Murphy, I've had enough! You will not defeat us!
So, Melissa, Delaney, and I spread it ourselves. It covers the whole play area, but we'll get the other 5 yards this week and spread it on top. The prep took considerably more time than the spreading, anyway. Hopefully we'll get the other 5 yards this week. Murphy, stay back. Get thee behind me, Murphy!
No hard feelings to those that couldn't show up to help. It was completely understandable and even laughable in the end. In fact, they're coming tomorrow to help with some other stuff. I think. Even the Mulch Man was a nice guy, but I think he overextended himself.
And I've got a picture of Delaney on top of the mulch mountain, but I'll have to pull it from my Palm and upload it later. Monday, maybe...unless Murphy has other plans for me.
Friday, March 26, 2004
The 9/11 Commission Audio
Funny I should speak of Audible yesterday and today I get an email from them telling me that you can download and listen to the 9/11 Commission Hearings for FREE.
You can hear Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and others answer questions about what happened to lead up to that event. Hear their information and then make your own conclusions about who (if anyone) was at fault.
I haven't heard these yet, but a while back I did hear Powell's presentation to the UN before invading Iraq (another free file from Audible). I thought it was a convincing argument that there was evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, even if that seems now to be false. He's a presuasive and authoritative man that oozes respect. Can one "ooze" respect? Or are the two terms mutually exclusive?
You can hear Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and others answer questions about what happened to lead up to that event. Hear their information and then make your own conclusions about who (if anyone) was at fault.
I haven't heard these yet, but a while back I did hear Powell's presentation to the UN before invading Iraq (another free file from Audible). I thought it was a convincing argument that there was evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, even if that seems now to be false. He's a presuasive and authoritative man that oozes respect. Can one "ooze" respect? Or are the two terms mutually exclusive?
Thursday, March 25, 2004
I just don't get Dean Koontz
OK, so I've been using Audible for over a year now. It's a great service that allows me to listen to digital copies of audio books on my commute to and from work. Since it's digital, it can all easily be handled over the web, downloaded to my computer, and sent to my Palm (which is always with me - isn't yours?). It's a great service and I've heard many great books. Oh, and you can also burn to CD if you don't have a suitable digital player. And don't be turned off by the listed prices either. You can subscribe by the month and then pick whatever you want (within your allowed number of selections) regardless of the listed price.
But for the last several days I've been listening to The Face by Dean Koontz. I'm bored. There are so many words and so little action. Granted, I opt for the unabridged versions of these books and I'm 4 hours into a 25 hour book. But I finally gave up. It was boring. Just boring. Too slow. I've haven't been this disappointed in a book since I "read" one of John Grisham's works. I don't get him either. All his books are about lawyers, aren't they?
By contrast, some of the better books I've listened to are:
But for the last several days I've been listening to The Face by Dean Koontz. I'm bored. There are so many words and so little action. Granted, I opt for the unabridged versions of these books and I'm 4 hours into a 25 hour book. But I finally gave up. It was boring. Just boring. Too slow. I've haven't been this disappointed in a book since I "read" one of John Grisham's works. I don't get him either. All his books are about lawyers, aren't they?
By contrast, some of the better books I've listened to are:
- The Lion's Game by Nelson DeMille; also Mayday by the same author
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale, Jr.
- 1st to Die by James Patterson
I'm Getting a New Computer.....No I'm Not!
Last night, I again priced out a Dell system. They've just had another price drop and were offering some decent specials, so I actually convinced myself to place an order. It's been almost four years since I've bought a desktop system. My home PC is a 350MHz Pentium II. That's a long time between upgrades for anyone, but especially for a geek like me.
Trying to get the most bang for my buck, here's basically what I went with:
The total with tax and shipping was $1300 and something. This machine should do circles around my old one and it's got enough space for the growing MP3 collection (over 30GB!) and enough video and processor power to get back into gaming (if time ever allows). It'll handle video editing from our Digital 8 camera with FireWire and be able to burn creations to DVD. The LCD display will take up less space, although I'll probably want to use the dual-monitor capability of the video card and keep both displays. The sound should be top-notch and even the mouse is a significant upgrade over our old-school ball mouse.
Then I had some time to think about it.
With two kids, we don't use the computer at home as much as we used to. When we do, it's now mostly for web surfing and email. But we still do a fair amount of photo editing and design/publishing. We do still have 2 desktops and a laptop, though they're all ancient by today's or even yesterday's standards. And it is almost $1400. And we could do without it even longer.
So I cancelled the order. Perhaps another day. Perhaps.
Trying to get the most bang for my buck, here's basically what I went with:
- Dell Dimension 4600
- 3 GHz Pentium 4 hyperthreaded processor with 800MHz front side bus
- 512MB dual channel 400MHz SDRAM
- 17 inch LCD - this one's not great, but they only give you $50 credit if you don't get any display at all. I'd like to upgrade to one of the fast Samsung's or a ViewSonic later
- 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - an impressive gamer's video card. This thing alone has more processor power than most of my previous computers.
- 120GB serial ATA hard drive
- WinXP Professional
- Logitech MX500 optical mouse
- SoundBlaster Audigy 2 with Dolby 5.1 and Firewire
- 5.1 Speaker system
- DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives - it's cheaper to buy a LiteOn DVD+-RW drive from NewEgg later for $100 and swap out the CD-RW to get DVD write capability
The total with tax and shipping was $1300 and something. This machine should do circles around my old one and it's got enough space for the growing MP3 collection (over 30GB!) and enough video and processor power to get back into gaming (if time ever allows). It'll handle video editing from our Digital 8 camera with FireWire and be able to burn creations to DVD. The LCD display will take up less space, although I'll probably want to use the dual-monitor capability of the video card and keep both displays. The sound should be top-notch and even the mouse is a significant upgrade over our old-school ball mouse.
Then I had some time to think about it.
With two kids, we don't use the computer at home as much as we used to. When we do, it's now mostly for web surfing and email. But we still do a fair amount of photo editing and design/publishing. We do still have 2 desktops and a laptop, though they're all ancient by today's or even yesterday's standards. And it is almost $1400. And we could do without it even longer.
So I cancelled the order. Perhaps another day. Perhaps.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Bathroom Humor
How much do you know about bathroom (specifically men's bathroom) etiquette? Think you've got what it takes to pass the bathroom quiz? You can download it or just run it from here.
Once you get it right, go back and take it again and fail on purpose. Just for grins.
Once you get it right, go back and take it again and fail on purpose. Just for grins.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Pez Office Cam
I've added the Pez Office Cam in the sidebar to the right. This will probably need some tweaking over the next several days, but perhaps it will be pseudo-interesting.
Click on the image to get a thumbnail of the last several visitors to my office. Each thumbnail also links to a larger image. Updates are motion-triggered and the number of new images is limited (I've only got a tiny little bit of web space here).
Click on the image to get a thumbnail of the last several visitors to my office. Each thumbnail also links to a larger image. Updates are motion-triggered and the number of new images is limited (I've only got a tiny little bit of web space here).
Monday, March 22, 2004
Victoria's birthday party
Just wanted to let you all see the invite to Tori's first birthday party. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get to take a good picture of her by herself to use on the invitation. But happy to be getting them out regardless. We are hoping for nice weather so that we can have all sorts of outdoor fun - easter egg hunt, little kid crafts, swinging and climbing on the new playset.... you get the idea. Hope to see you all there.
