Kurt's Crazed Rantings

There are some good people out there. Some of them are at Pixar.

2009-01-03T20:10:33Z

So, I haven't posted in forever.

Alex, like most kids with autism, tends to fixate on things. For the last few months, he has been fixated on the Pixar lamp. He watches the movies on Youtube. He loved the Pixar lamp. He drew it in Microsoft Paint. You knowm, Luxo Jr, the hyperactive young lamp.

And for Christmas, he wanted the Pixar lamp.

Well, you can see the snag here. To wit, the US economy has put very little resources into the production of lamps that actually dance and run around and play with balls.

So, I applied my google-fu skills and discovered that there WAS in fact a Pixar lamp toy.

Yay!

However, it was only sold at the Pixar store to Pixar employees. Not to the general public.

Boo!

That's when MT stepped in. She has a blog at www.bonbongazette.com and discusses a lot of Alex's autism issues, the gluten-free casein-free diet, and her stance on mandatory vaccinations. (Don't get her started, either.)

So she started a campaign to try and find someone who could help us get a Pixar lamp. Turns out there are still some decent people in the world. The first person was a fellow who worked for Pixar and had a child with Asperger's. Unfortunately he wasn't in California. Then another fellow stepped up and we discovered that the lamp was out of stock at the company store.

Oh, crap.

Well, apparently they brought it up to the attention of the executive team. And they found one. And they sent it to Alex along with a DVD of Pixar shorts. And in the meantime, someone ELSE at Pixar found the blog and offered to help get it.

MT's blog archive for December is chockablock full of the Story of the Lamp. She even made a video. It's here. I do want to say thank you publicly to everyone at Pixar who helped make it happen. It was definitely the high point of his Christmas; that was what he played with the most. (Oddly, he gathered his Wall-E robots and a stuffed EVE and gathered them around the Pixar lamp toy. It looks like some sort of religious ritual. "Although the robots knew that they had been manufactured by Buy and Large -- knew it deep within their ROM chips -- they could not shake the belief that there was another, greater creator." )

To everyone who helped make this happen, thank you. You made his day.

On Location-Based Apps

2008-11-12T03:59:43Z

Lately I've been playing with location based stuff, stuff that tells you where other people are and where you are. I use samecell which works well but is only for blackberries. I liked that it could share proximity OR proximity and location, and that it didn't kill the battery. It also has a search function, a sort of yellow pages, which is nice. I'd like to see a version that let you pick Google Maps instead of the default BlackBerry Maps.

Tried Brightkite too. Brightkite is a microblogging site a la twitter, but with built in geolocation and picture posting. The website was able to guess my location quite accurately through Firefox. Very nice. If anybody could knock Twitter off its microblogging throne it's Brightkite. Oddly, they don't have a native Blackberry app yet which is baffling, and the BB Browser can't guess my location either. They've said one is in the works for a while. They do have one for the iPhone. Now sure, the iPhone is shiny and new but there are a lot of blackberry users out there (more than there are iPhoners) and in software like this, being first on the scene is a huge advantage. Brightkite has a lot of built in stuff (pictures, location) that Twitter doesn't, but Twitter was first. I hope they come out with something soon; I'd hate to see Brightkite settle in as a niche iPhone app.

Speaking of Twitter, Twibble is my bar none favorite Twitter client. It has geolocation and built-in posting pictures to twitpic. I can't get it to do what I want it to do though; I want a Google Maps link that I can see all my geocoded tweets with my smiling mug and where I was when I tweeted them. It seems to either overwrite past tweet locations or, as of late, insist that I am off the coast of Africa. Hmmm. It finds me just fine on the phone, but the API doesn't seem to get it right. Still, it gets good marks for having geolocation before anyone else ever even THOUGHT of it, and including twitpic integration.

I wonder if Twibble could be adapted for Brightkite. I think it would make an outstanding BK client. But that's not my call, it would be the decision of Dr. Horstmann at Spider Labs.

Loopt is very good but makes heavy demands on my battery. They have a lot of phones that work with their app. They also have Twitter integration and built-in journaling. Nicely done. Only a few things I'd like to see from Loopt. 1) Stop beating up on my battery, maybe by making the GPS polling time user-selectable. 2) The bouncy balls are a little silly and 3) please come out with a Symbian version.

I also tried Dimdix. Now maybe I'm making too much of a big deal about the name but I maintain that a social network should not want to be thought of as dim dicks. That aside, the UI was designed for mobile phones, not blackberries, and consists of software emulated softkeys. Dimdix wouldn't install on my work cell phone (sony ericsson Z310a.) The softkeys are fine for most mobile phones, but blackberry users are likely to be disappointed. Also, the 'back' button often ended up over the hang-up button -- and on a Blackberry, pressing that button while an app is running will either push the app to the background or kill it entirely! Still, Dimdix has its good points: it works with or without GPS, which is a factor for those whose phones aren't smartphones, and it's got Twitter integration. A little UI polish, maybe a blackberry version, and this app could go a long way.

Beyond411 didn't work with the GPS on my BB Curve, and from what it seems the developer has stopped work on it since about April of this year. I found Tellme filled the gap nicely. It's more graphic intensive and has more pretty UI elements, but also has built-in directions and calling right from the app, and it works with the GPS on my BB. Definitely one to try if Beyond411 doesn't work or you prefer some flashy stuff in lieu of Beyond411's focus on performance.

Rock Up Your Blackberry with Free Apps

2008-10-12T02:45:37Z

So once I got the Blackberry, I discovered that there were many, many free apps for it that you could get. There's location software (GPS tracking), twitter clients, RSS feeds, and pretty much everything you can think of.

This review is the apps that I have found that work best. I have no connection with any of these apps other than as a user, and all of them are free. Your Humble Narrator doesn't like to pay for software.

So, in no particular order....

Viigo. An RSS reader, which formats well to the Blackberry. Comes with a lot of channels already pre-subscribed, and you can add your own RSS feeds. I have my wife's blog right next to USA Today. I found the already included newsfeeds to be overkill, but it does work out of the box.

Google Mobile App. Includes Google Maps (which lots of other things use anyway, Google Search, Gmail, and Google Sync to sync your Blackberry calendar to your Google Calendar, if you use it. Google Maps is generally better liked than the Blackberry Maps software, and it does include route-by-route directions, so those whose plan does not include GPS routing will find it does everything but talk to you. The Gmail client is nice and convenient to use, and the dedicated search is easier to use than firing up a browser and going to google because you don't have to fire up a browser.

Twibble. Twitter and Blackberries go together; the better keyboards (full or the SureType keyboard on the Pearl) make Twitter a much better experience than trying to type out a post on a regular phone keypad. Twibble is by far and away the most feature-rich Twitter client out there. Its main features, in addition to the regular Twitter we all know and love, are location awareness (uses the GPS to make it possible to geocode your location) and integration for Twitpic (allowing you to post pictures via Twitter.) Twibble does come with a somewhat higher learning curve than something like Twitterberry, and it seems to take longer to get a GPS lock than other apps, but the end result is worth the effort. Twibble will also run in the background if you want, fetching new tweets automatically, making Twitter into a sort of SMS-like device. It will ask constantly if you want to let it access api.twibble.de, but it's still in development and hopefully the author can address these small annoyances, since he's done a great job of including some really cool features.

Twitterberry. Why am I including a second Twitter client? Because not everyone is going to want all the bells and whistles. If you want a straight Twitter client with nothing else, Twitterberry is your client. Also useful as a baseline to see how your twitters look to the rest of the world.

Auto Lock This is a feature that is sorely necessary for the Blackberry, especially for style-less geeks like myself who carry their BB in a holster or case. Auto Lock will automatically lock your Blackberry when you set it (10 seconds after the backlights go out, upon holstering, whatever). This is something RIM should have built into it at the factory, in my opinion, but Auto Lock is an elegant and problem-free solution. No more getting out of the car to discover your seat belt and blackberry have colluded to call someone they believe to have the phone number *#**12. Thank you geekandproud.net for providing such an elegantly simple solution.

Instamapper. Location-based social networking (i.e, letting your friends know your location and knowing theirs) is apparently the latest and greatest big thing to hit mobile phones. From services like Loopt to the unfortunately named Dimdix, there are different ways to do it. Loopt is good but makes it exceptionally difficult to find friends (but that's understandable); they also had some privacy issues apparently spamming everyone in your address book. If you just want to keep track of yourself or share your location and nothing else, Instamapper is free and has a very small client to install.

Vlingo. Voice command your Blackberry; much better than the voice dialing app it comes with. You can even send text messages via voice. You can open the standard Blackberry apps (but not ones you install yourself, regrettably.) While it gets confused sometimes like all voice apps do, Vlingo is a great app to have if you are in the car a lot or just prefer to voice-command your BB.

Antenna and fic

2008-04-12T00:50:42Z

About a year and a half ago, the antenna broke on the Honda. It got konged by a lowering gate. So I'd gotten a replacement off ebay. Thing was, the old antenna had broken down so low that I couldn't get it out of the motor unit. Wouldn't come up, and there wasn't enough surface area to grab onto it with pliers and get it out. And the motor assembly has four screws, two of which had rusted shut, so I couldn't disassemble it.

So for a while I just drove it; I could still get my satellite radio and my Transpod (which plays my ipod through the radio.) But it always bugged me.

A week ago I was poking around online and found an entire replacement assembly -- motor, mast, the whole nine yards -- for fifty bucks. Aftermarket rather than OEM, but who cares? So I ordered it and it got here today. Took about half an hour to get it in just right (there's not a lot of tolerance and the aftermarket unit took some jiggling. But it's in, and it works. I like it; the car looks better. And I'll just turn off my radio before going through that gate.

ALso had something I haven't had for a while; the stirrings of Lecter fic. It would basically fit a revamped version of the granddaughter fic into the Lecter universe. (A separate one from any of the other ones I've done; this would be fun, and would feature Starling trying to set things right while the GD amuses himself by working at cross purposes to her.)

I dunno. I have so many unfinished stories, but it takes a lot to get them running again -- I just feel like the urge isn't there. My Voyager fics have stalled, although I have another idea for a Voyager fic. And with Lecter fic, I found myself thinking 'Daddy's Girl' and 'Alternate Strings' were the best things I'd ever done, and didn't know if I could get there again.

Does the idea of Clarice rushing around desperately trying to track down a young woman estranged from her family (and to add to the fun, a life is at stake) while the GD plans to create a symphony of destroyed faith sound like something you'd want to read?

Alex's Army

2008-04-08T01:26:46Z

April is Autism Awareness Month. And, the kick off for the Walk for Autism, which we did in September of last year when it came to Point Pleasant, NJ. So, if you'd like to walk with us, join Alex's Army, donate, or see a few pics, here is the link to our team:

http://www.walknowforautism.org/c.pkLXJ4MMKrH/b.3627115/siteapps/teampage/ShowPage.aspx?c=pkLXJ4MMKrH&b=3627115&sid=arJII0NIIkKRLZOIJrF

And my own page:

http://www.walknowforautism.org/njs/personal/kurtgw

Isabelle's birthday party

2008-02-11T23:17:32Z

was this weekend. Since her actual birthday took place over Super Bowl Sunday, we rescheduled it. Not that I cared. I am probably one of the maybe six straight men in the world who doesn't give a crap about watching sports. That's probably because I just never got into it as a kid, and then my mom dated a guy for 10 years who was a sports nut. Specifically the Mets. If the Mets lost a game, he would be impossible to live with for a few days. But I know that I am odd in this respect, so we rescheduled Isabelle's birthday party so as not to conflict with the Super Bowl, which proved to be good because the Giants won, which as you can imagine was cause for much rejoicing across the land. (This IS Jersey.)

She had a good time, of course. We had it at Baby Power. This is a baby gym. Basically it's got padded play equipment all over the place, the walls are painted retina-scarring bright colors, and it comes equipped with two (2) perky young girls who do the party activities. (Me, I think these girls get force-fed Prozac every ten minutes like I think they do with the Disney princesses. No one can be this perky naturally.)

Since we got there to set up first, Isabelle got the place to herself and Alex. SHe liked the slide.

Alex has decided he won't look at the camera.

Or keep his socks on. But he liked the place.

Isabelle liked the rainbow thing too.

Now, on to some of the friends who attended.

Julia....

Charlotte,

Annabelle,

I'm not even going to pretend I know who all these kids are, but I assume my wife knows them in some way, or perhaps they just crash Baby Power parties.

Aiden. Isabelle likes him.

Isabelle and her Aunt Lori. Aunt Lori is actually a friend of my wife's from high school, not an actual biological relative. She's Isabelle's godmother though.

More kids...

I think I know the kid in the middle...;)

Pinatas: the best way to get small children into Lord of the Flies territory in three seconds flat.

And finally, the birthday girl herself.

fun at home

2008-02-09T02:08:43Z

So we got Alex a new bed. A nice one. A bunk bed with a built in desk on one side, and a dresser and shelf on the other. And the lower bed isn't attached to the frame, so when Isabelle is big enough for a big-girl bed (she currently occupies a pink little Dora the Explorer bed with a crib mattress) we can put it in her room, buy a mattress, and voila.

We bought it online. Now that meant we had to carry it in -- they just do curbside delivery. That wasn't so bad as I might have thought -- it came in five pieces. Each of them was heavy, but not so heavy it was impossible. It was also self-assembly. No big deal there, right? As a daddy I have put together many things, and I have put together furniture in the past.

Except...they forgot to include the instructions and the bolts and screws.

Instructions were online. However, the technology to transfer screws and bolts over the Internet isn't working yet. The company is sending it, but it means Alex's room looks like a lumberyard exploded.

Even so we could deal with that.

Then one of Alex's hermit crabs died.

We got Alex hermit crabs for his birthday in December. Well, actually MT did, because I really don't want anything to do with the damned ugly mollusks. They're not exactly exciting pets; occasionally they go and eat but most of the time it looks about like you put a tank in your kid's room and filled it with shells. But they made him happy.

Well, apparently one of them got stuck molting, or maybe was horrified by the results of Super Tuesday, because it up and died. MT noticed a smell, tried to see if it was in its shell, and its leg fell off when she picked up the shell. I don't think she's making that up, because that's the sort of thing I might make up, but my wife finds much less entertainment value in severed limbs than I do, particularly rotted off severed limbs.)

She got him another one. (Another crab, not just the leg. Pet stores insist on selling the entire crab.) Alex cried when she told him. While I wasn't exactly heartbroken over the death of a hermit crab, I did feel bad about my son crying, so I didn't make any reference to Monty Python's Whizzo Butter sketch (Nine out of ten British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab, don't you know.) The one she got was lively enough to pinch her before she put it in the tank before I got home. So she showed it to me. Well, then she took it out and wanted me to pet it, which I refused to do (see: don't want anything to do with the damned ugly mollusks). Then it pinched her AGAIN. Methinks Mr. Hermit Crab isn't going to get paroled again anytime soon.

Isabelle turned three last weekend. Her party is tomorrow. Last week she just had cake at my mom's and got her presents. She's undergoing potty training now. A few accidents, but she'll get there. Now she's upstairs with MT baking her cake.

AAAGH!

2008-02-05T02:34:56Z

Sometimes I think James Lileks and I have an abusive relationship.

Oh, he doesn't know me from Adam. He has a website that I read. I listen to his podcasts. (Even though he isn't using iTunes anymore, which means his podcasts are buried amongst my iPod's collection of 80's schlock instead of separated out with the other podcasts.) I like his sense of humor. MT got me his book 'Mommy Knows Worst' for Christmas. (Bad parenting advice from the Golden Years. As it turns out, according to this book, I should put Isabelle in a box hanging from the window and spank Alex with a hairbrush for refusing to take laxatives on command.

But then...he does things like this to me.

The Sears catalog. From 1973.

Dear God. The colors. The..."fashions". The plaid. All the nightmarish memories of my childhood...on the web.

Please, James? Not any more. I'll be good. I promise.

Two milestones in 24 hours

2008-01-19T23:57:09Z

Two milestones in the past 24 hours.

The first, is that the Suburban, aka 'beeg twuck', is sold. Out of the picture. Sold last night and taken out of my driveway this afternoon.

The twuck had some battle damage over the years -- I'd had a minor fender-bender in it that bent up the bumper and grille. There was a leaky power steering tube. The ventilator controls were stuck on the 'blow on your feet and thus melt them inside your shoes' position. The one rear door didn't open. The passenger side mirror had a habit of bobbling. It needed new tires. Small things all, probably a couple hundred to take care of, but all together, more money than I wanted to spend. The Burban is on its second engine; I personally have my doubts it'll go much further.

I hadn't driven it since 2006, when gas showed no signs of coming back down, and I got the Honda. So it sat for a while -- until the insurance company started yammering about it not being registered (yes, I'd let that lapse.) So Friday morning I turned in the plates.

Fortunately, an old friend of mine is in the car biz and is good at getting a quick sale. I'd thought I might get a grand for it. He told me it was worth more, and set the price at $1800 and posted it on a few truck boards he goes on and on craiglist.

Some fellow -- Hispanic, blue-collar type, but he spoke perfect English -- showed up with his dad. His dad loved Suburbans. He wanted one 'sooner than later' he said, and he had cash in hand. He had a landscaping business, and it's possible one of his trucks died (thus explaining the sooner than later bit). Didn't even dicker; after driving it around the block (he wanted to check the tranny) he offered me eighteen pictures of Benjamin Franklin and I handed him the signed title.

He came and got it. It's weird to look out and not see it. Part of me does miss the truck; Alex loved it when he was younger, and it was just FUN to drive such a big truck. It actually wasn't as bad on gas as you'd have thought for a 350 V-8 -- it got about fourteen or fifteen miles to the gallon. I could get 40 gallons of gas and I'd usually fill up when the trip odometer broke 500 miles, but I had gone as much as 600, which would be 15 mpg. (The gas gauge was a little wonky. For the first hundred miles after a fill-up it would stay on dead full. Then once it got to 1/4 of a tank -- which should've been ten gallons -- it would drop to fumes in nothing flat.)

But it was time. I'd rather have it out of my hair. His baby now, and his problems.

The other milestone is that Isabelle got her first haircut.

Now Alex did not always take to haircuts well. Some of Alex's haircuts make for rather nightmarish memories. Isabelle had asked a few times but chickened out at the last minute. We hadn't had her hair cut yet for a few reasons.
1) Since she is a girl we were growing her hair long. This is New Jersey, yanno.
2) Her hair is curly like mine, and 'long' becomes relative. When she takes a shower it will hang down to her shoulders. Then it dries, and sproiiiing, it's back up above her shoulders again.
3) She was bald as an egg until she was about two and didn't have enough to cut.

Actually, she was pretty jazzed about getting her haircut and wouldn't shut up about it until we got there. We were early. So we went to McDonalds down the street, which the kids usually love. Oh, she ate fine, but she expressed (repeatedly) the sentiment that she wished to have her grooming ritual performed first.

Oh heck.

Alex went first.

And got his usual buzz cut.

Isabelle didn't like the clipper sound. Actually, she just puts her hands over her ears when she sees him do it.

Pictures like this are a little weird -- she looks like a big girl. Then again, big girls generally don't get their haircuts while sitting on a giant, glassy-eyed zombie froggy.

Or so I'm told. Maybe top-end beauty shops do have them.

And the results:

The Time Machine

2008-01-12T02:27:19Z

I found a site that offers free audiobooks in podcast format, for my ipod. Since I spend a lot of time in the car, it helps pass the time. (I also have a Sirius satellite radio for the same reason -- but sometimes I would rather play an audiobook.)

The website is at http://www.botar.us/archives.html

Period deliberately left out there, not forgotten. ;)

I've listened twice now to H. G. Well's 'The Time Machine' all the way through. It's really an interesting tale, although there's plenty that H. G. Wells missed. The Morlocks are the result of the worker class; the Eloi are the capitalists. Except it hasn't really worked out that way. From slightly over a century later, it's more likely the Morlocks would be technically skilled; they had to keep air running into their caverns. And it's not like there aren't proto-Eloi among the users I support!

Next, I've downloaded Dracula, Frankenstein, and A Christmas Carol. Should keep me busy for a bit.

Ripped from Screamie

2008-01-12T01:54:14Z

Or Smokehater, or lorraineb, or screaminglamb, or whatever she's calling herself this week.

b>66% John McCain
63% Rudy Giuliani
63% Mitt Romney
60% Chris Dodd
60% Hillary Clinton
59% Mike Huckabee
58% Bill Richardson
58% John Edwards
57% Barack Obama
57% Fred Thompson
50% Tom Tancredo
49% Joe Biden
42% Mike Gravel
39% Ron Paul
36% Dennis Kucinich
</b>
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Hmmm. I'll have to look further at McCain. I liked Giuliani -- the man cleaned up New York! That took work. But he's got too much baggage to be the nominee.

grandhighpoobah @ 2008-01-04T22:26:00

2008-01-05T03:27:50Z

Christmas was good. The kids got...well, heck, everything under the sun. Dad went overboard as he usually does. Alex got a thing called an Eyeclops. This is a camera which attaches to your TV set and magnifies things up to 200X -- like a microscope on your TV. We put a penny on it and you can see Lincoln's ear. I tried it on my goatee and discovered that the hairs of my goatee look like very thick, spidery logs at 200X.

Isabelle got a throne. A Disney Princess talking throne. You record your name, then press the button on the included scepter. It says "Princess (your name), if only all princesses were as pretty as you." No, she's not going to develop ego issues.

She also got a Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name. This is...disturbing. Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name is a puppy that well, grows and knows your name. It has 3,000 names in its database. You plug it into your computer via USB. You run the disk, program the puppy with its name and your name. And once every 24 hours you pet it and it grows. You can hear the little servos whining.

It's fearsome. I'm convinced it's convincing her to kill us.

More work rants to come later.

Out of the mouths of babes...

2007-12-07T17:28:19Z

Isabelle is very talkative these days, and is getting into opposites.

She explained it to me, unbidden. "Daddy, I'm little. And you're big."

This is, by and large, true. I was curious to see how other family members rated.

"How about Alex?"

"Alex is big!"

"What about Mommy?"

She paused for a moment. "Mommy is SHORT."

I swear I didn't teach her that.

But it's funny.

Disney trip!

2007-10-13T02:10:16Z

When MaryTara and I got married, we had our honeymoon at Walt Disney World. It was 1997. There was a Democratic President and a Republican Congress. Cell phones were mostly analog and digital phones were just coming out. Microsoft was coming out with a new operating system called Windows 98. At that time, we had two cats. One was named Stimpy and the other was named Nala. Although Nala was a year older than Stimpy, he was her uncle. They were barn cats we adopted. A few weeks after returning, we adopted a half rottweiler/half lab mix we named Josie.

We went back, after ten years. Our ten-year anniversary was on September 27th. We went Oct 2-9 and returned on the 10th.

It was great. Disney is better than any other resort at 'enveloping'. We went to the Magic Kingdom the most, since our kids are little. We did Epcot and the Animal Kingdom, which was being built when we were there previously. It was a blast. It rained a lot, but it was okay -- sporadic bursts, and we didn't let it get in the way. MGM wasn't a good match -- it's mostly shows, and Alex gets upset about applause.

Alex did very well there. He didn't have any real meltdowns, and he seemed to enjoy himself. Since he was autistic we got a handicapped pass and got to skip a lot of lines. (The reason for that is that asking an autistic child to wait forty-five minutes in line is just ASKING for trouble, and Disney is sensitive to those needs.)

Isabelle about wet herself. She is old enough to differentiate between the Disney Princesses. Her pronunciation needs a little work; apparently two of the princesses are 'Sleepin' Booty' and 'Pimpess Belle'. (MT calls her 'princess' a lot, but apparently she is 'Belle' and the girl from Beauty and the Beast is 'Pimpess Belle'.

Obligatory mouse-ear pics. Isabelle isn't rabid. She just imitates what she sees her brother doing -- especially if she notices that we don't want either of them doing it.

Isabelle and Sleepin' Booty. This was at the Norwegian restaurant at Epcot, ya. I think Isabelle must've gotten a couple of sips of my Kronenberg beer when I wasn't looking.

Alex and Sleepin' Booty. He wasn't as wild about the princesses.

Belle and Snow White.

Belle and Jasmine.

Belle and Alice. Although Alice is not a princess, apparently; she specified that there were no princesses in Wonderland. But anyhoo.

Belle and Princess Dessert!

Alex and Belle at EPCOT.

Belle and her Monchichi. She saw this at EPCOT Japan and wanted it. She calls it her Monkeychi. Do any of you remember these things? My sister had a couple of them.

The kids at the Animal Kingdom.

A bird from the Animal Kingdom. A real, live, non-animatronic bird too.

(British accent) The larch. The larch.

Shera Khan. Actually, a tiger lying around at the Animal Kingdom. Isabelle informed us that it was her tiger, but we had to leave it as it didn't fit in the suitcase.

We stayed at the Pop Century, which is a good place to go with kids. They had pop jets. And pop songs. EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN POP SONG I EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE they played at least once. And I'm older than most of you young whippersnappers. I remember the eighties! That's another entire DECADE of cheesey pop music than you had to deal with! You kids!

Anyway, here are the jets.

Alex and Mickey (country Mickey at the Garden Grill at Epcot. They had fried catfish. Spicy. Best damn catfish I've had in a while. It was goooood.

Alex and Chip. (Or Dale. Apparently there is a difference -- our waitress told us. Except that I am not enough of a Disney geek to give a flying fig.)

Alex and Pluto. I think Alex is getting a little tired of this.

Alex and the Beast. Oh wait, that's me!

Belle was a little scared of the characters, but Chip won her over. (Actually, she referred to him as Chicken Dale. Which works for me.)

He got a hug. No one else did, not that night.

Belle and Pluto.

MT's favorite Disney Princess is Ariel, the Little Mermaid. Judging from the look on her face, Belle doesn't seem as thrilled.

Alex and Ariel.

Alex and Cinderella. He seems more into these princesses.

Belle and Cinderella.

Alex and (not his sister) Belle. Sometimes I think they must force-feed the girls who work as Disney Princesses Prozac tablets every ten minutes. This Belle's had worn off a little. Oh, she was fine, totally polite and nice to the kids, I'm not complaining, but she didn't have that perma-grin they all have. She was a little more natural.

You knew this one had to come along sooner or later, right?

The kids and Mickey.

I have a lot of these pics. Three hundred and forty-six, in fact. So if you want to see more comment and I'll send you the link to the entire album.

It was great, and the kids had a blast. The plane trip back was hellish. It was raining in Newark and apparently they got pansyish about letting people land. So we landed in Baltimore to get jet fuel. And sat on the tarmac there for two hours. What should've been a two-hour plane trip took seven hours.

But we'll still go back.

Autism Walk 2007

2007-10-01T03:35:39Z

Today was the Autism Walk for 2007. We marched in it. Well, walked. Our team was called 'Alex's Army'.

Alex's Army was a group of family and friends who marched for Alex. It was heartwarming just how many people came out. We had T-shirts printed up at customink.com. MT arranged it. Alex had a bit of a temper tantrum because there were so many people but got over it.

Thirty seconds after Alex got calmed down, Darth Vader and an Imperial Stormtrooper came around. I shit you not. Someone decided it would be a good idea to walk around Point Pleasant on a warm September Sunday in a Darth Vader suit.

Isabelle screamed, planted her face against my leg, and said "CARRY ME! CARRY ME!"

So I did.

For an hour.

Alex's Army raised about $1700 for Autism Speaks, which was great. And other teams marched for the autistic children in their lives. There were a lot of people there -- a couple thousand at least.

But mostly I want to thank those who marched for Alex. It meant so much that people came for Alex, wore his shirt, identified themselves as a proud member of Alex's Army.

There is one remaining Alex's Army T-shirt. Size XL. Want it? I'll tell you what. Comment on this LJ with a bid. Biggest bid gets it. The money goes to Autism Speaks.

The man of the hour. The American flag, Papa Jim's hat, and a roll from AndreAnna that calmed him down.

Our friend Mike (AndreAnna's husband) with daughter Charlotte stealing his sunglasses.
He'd better get used to it -- she'll be pilfering items of his clothing that she likes for a long time to come.

My mom and dad. Since they've been divorced since 1979, I figured I'd get this pic while I could. God knows when I'll have the chance to get another.

Our friend Jodi and her son Eric. Eric is also on the autism spectrum.

MT and Jodi

Grammas.

Grammas and Granpas.

Alex and Jim by the water at the park.

Isabelle looking pouty. That thing on her forehead, if you're wondering, is stitches. She whammed her head last week and needed a few stitches. She's fine now, and the stitches come out tomorrow. My dad did it.

AndreAnna and Charlotte

Mike, AndreAnna and Charlotte

Alex behind the wheel of a Hummer.

There's some background here. Surprisingly, the US Army was at the Walk. They had a Hummer for the kids to play with and also passed out water. Thanks, guys! The kids loved it.

And no, they couldn't have been looking for enlistees, because most of these kids won't be eligible. First because they're autistic, and secondly, because Alex, for example, is SIX. This was done solely to be nice.

Andrew, older brother to Eric (and son to Jodie.) Aiming his weapon at me. I barely escaped alive.

Eric sitting in the Hummer. The little girl in front of him is Julia, who also marched with us.

Same deal, except you can actually see a little of Julia's face.

Eric up close.

Andrew in the roof hatch, preparing to gun down evildoers.

Alex in the back seat of the Hummer.

Eric at the Manasquan Inlet.

Reagan and her little brother Max, children of Renee.

Charlotte (Mike and AndreAnna's kid from previous pics.) "You talkin to me? You talking to ME?"

She was tired.

Isabelle.

The Manasquan Inlet.

And that's about it. Thanks to everyone who showed up.

Gluten free

2007-09-29T20:27:53Z

So we've decided to try Alex on the gluten-free casein-free diet and see if it does any good.

Some explanation here. You're never alone. In fact you have millions of friends. Millions of microbes are living right with you, in your intestines. Pleasant though, eh? A lot of austistic kids have irregular gut fauna -- they have bad microbes living in their intestines. So, the theory goes, cut out gluten and casein (a substance found in dairy products) and cut off the supply of bad microbes, then try and get a probiotic into him to kill off the ones who are already there.

Fortunately, there is gluten-free chicken nuggets, so at least Alex won't starve. He lives off the things. It's one of his favorites.

We're going to officially start the Battle to Stamp Out Gluten after we come back from vacation. But we started a few things to see how they went. Gluten-free spaghetti worked well. Alex wolfed it down like he hadn't eaten in a month and had seconds. There is also rice milk. Buying rice milk makes one feel like a hippy. I ought to get John Lennon glasses and a little peace medallion.

(Some background. I've always been somewhere between conservative and libertarian. I do not want a vast welfare state, I do not think diplomacy or respecting other cultures is the cure-all to the world's problems, I think that if we have to resort to the use of military force we ought to knock the crap out of our enemies and then the sob sisters can weep about it once the danger is removed, and I have no problem whatsoever with the death penalty. Also I think that if some tree has a compound that can be made into medicine for cancer patients, let's start chopping. I think that if I ever end up brain dead and vegetative for the rest of my life, then by all means, pilfer my body of organs and pull the plug. Or pilfer my body of usable organs and let my wife, son and daughter chop me up with chainsaws -- they deserve a chance to get their frustrations out. Or feed me to the wolves at the zoo. Any of those would be fine, because I would rather not live that sort of life.)

Oddly though rice milk is cheaper than regular milk. The other good thing about it is that I can drink it. About ten years ago I began developing lactose intolerance. Nothing serious, but, ah, well, gaseous emissions arise when I drink milk. For about twenty four hours or so. So I can have cereal in the morning with my kids again now.

So my wife got Alex All Natural Gluten Free Peanut Butter Panda Puffs. These actually taste good. It's the box that irritates me. On the back is a maze. You are supposed to 'help the Panda find the Wildlife Trust'. Um, okay. And he is going to do what, exactly, when he finds it? Get shoved in a crate and transported to a reserve? Appear in a Discovery Channel documentary? Forced to appear as a spokesanimal for a cereal company?

The rest of the box has similar ecopropaganda. Now look, they're entitled to their opinions, but does my autistic kid really need to be indoctrinated politically?

I'll find some way to subvert them though. Maybe I'll go out and find some poor people to oppress. Just to keep things balanced.

The real fun will come when we come back and switch Alex off gluten entirely. They say that for a while the kids turn into monsters. Then they get better. If it helps, all the better.

A great app for Java-enabled phones

2007-09-18T04:07:14Z

I have a Java-enabled phone. (It's one of the good things about Sprint PCS -- they have Java-enabled phones.) So what does that mean? It means you can get a whole lot of free programs for your phone. You don't have to pay anything for them.

So I found Morange out there.

Morange is one app that does it all. It does email. It does chat (AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Chat, MSN feeds, Google Talk, and a few others). It does RSS feeds. It has its own friend-search function. You can access files on your PC from your phone. I don't know how they managed to get this into 400K of space, but they did. It makes any Java-enabled phone into a competitor for the ever-popular CrackBerry. And even CrackBerries can benefit from Morange -- you get free chat and RSS feeds.

Getting my email from my phone is great -- I'm always on the road, and this way I can check my email from my phone. No computer necessary. That's handy in and of itself.

Now for chat, it gets better. With a lot of cell companies, you'd have to pay individually to get Yahoo, AOL, or MSN. Usually like six bucks a month for each, so $18 total. Through Morange, it's free. You pay for data, but I have unlimited data from the phone on my plan. It's free, and it covers several IM protocols, including the most popular ones.

You can set everything up on the phone. You can also log into the website and set up RSS feeds, email, and chat from there. The phone updates the next time you log in. I find it's easier to set it up on the website.

The best part -- it's free. There is a VIP plan, but you can always go with the free version. Even so, the VIP plan is only $29 a year -- hardly breaking the bank.

There are two apps I recommend to anyone who wants to try using their phone as a smartphone. One is Opera Mini. The other is this one. For everything in one package, Morange can't be beat.

Halloween

2007-09-15T02:48:57Z

So I'm a horror movie fan. MT doesn't like horror movies. One of MT's friends doesn't like horror movies. Her husband does. He doesn't have anyone to go with. See the solution here?

Yep, he and I went to check out Rob Zombie's take on Halloween.

Now the original Halloween was...an icon. It was a very low budget film for its time, and it was the original slasher movie. We didn't know a lot about Michael Myers. We knew that he snapped when he was six years old, killed his older sister, and was put into a loony bin. He escapes said loony bin fifteen or so years later, steals a mask, heads back to his hometown, and promptly begins depopulating the local teenager population.

John Carpenter is a good filmmaker, and Halloween was epic. The sequels got to be rather sucky, but the original scared the hell out of you.

So the remake couldn't be as good. And it wasn't. Rob Zombie spends about half an hour showing us the life of young Michael Myers. Instead of being from a well-to-do household, now he's a white-trash metalhead with long hair. His mom is a stripper and his stepdad (or mom's boyfriend) is mean to him. And no one will take him trick-or-treating. Oh, and he kills animals and then kills a bully. On Halloween, he snaps and kills a lot of people. Then he gets packed off to the loony bin just like in the original, except they show us that his mom still loves him and visits him (until she shoots herself, that is.)

This stuff is all interesting, and it might have made a good movie by itself. But then Zombie remembers that he is supposed to be remaking Halloween. Michael Myers in this movie is huge, the guy they have playing him is six foot eight. And he likes masks. So he kills an assload of asylum personnel and off he goes.

Back in the 80's, it was a golden age for slasher flicks. If you were a young actress who wanted to get a part in a horror movie, there was one big thing you could do to improve your chances of getting a role. Namely, display your breasts for the camera. Ta-tas were just bouncing all over the camera back then. I remember.

Rob Zombie must be in my age group and must have the same memories of chestal-unit-laden horror movies. Cuz in his Halloween we see a lot of 'em. Except they're smeared liberally with blood, which is a little disturbing. (Oddly, the jahoobies are never actually stabbed or wounded or anything, just covered with blood.)

He also violates a few horror movie rules. Laurie's adoptive parents, although they haven't done anything wrong, get dispatched with all due speed. Usually adults in horror movies have to be jerks in order to get whacked. Also, if you are a teenager in a horror movie and you have sex, your lifespan is normally measured in seconds. (See previous paragraph.) Annie, Laurie's friend, gets to break this rule. She survives. It's true that she's found topless and badly injured (by her dad, no less ...ick...) but she doesn't die. (I guess it's like the horror movie equivalent of a plea bargain -- humiliation and injury, but they take death off the table.)

All in all...it was...well, okay. It couldn't ever hope to measure up to the original. Myers is made a little more human here, but too many scenes are shot like a pro wrestler in a Halloween mask. But it won't really scare you. Hearing the Halloween theme music is nice again, but there aren't any real moments of fear or suspense. Myers hacks his way through the teenage population of Haddonfield.

I found myself wondering something: don't any of these kids have a cell phone? God knows I see teenagers all the time, and nowadays you can buy the phones at Wal Mart. Kids, if you are ever pursued by a psycho killer, you have an advantage we didn't have growing up: call 911, let the GPS find you, and the cops will come right to you. So you only have to hide from the killer for so long.

Oh, yes, and if you ever get an opportunity to shoot the killer, do so. Then empty several more rounds into him. Preferably in the head. Just on general principles, you know. Then go and get some gasoline or something and light him on fire. If there is a wood chipper handy put him in that. Killers have a bad habit of coming back from the dead, you know, and it's much harder when he's been shot, burnt, and then shredded.

Things to look out for: horror movie alums. Dr. Loomis is played by Malcom McDowell (Alex from a Clockwork Orange.) Sheriff is played by Brad Dourif (Chucky from Childs Play.)

Good news, bad news, and better news.

2007-08-22T02:33:43Z

The bad news first. At a client's today, I dropped a UPS (uninterruptible power supply; as in a power strip with a big, heavy, lead-acid battery in it to let you shut your servers down normally if power fails, and survive brief power interruptions) on my foot. My big toe still hurts hours later. I don't think I broke anything -- it doesn't hurt that bad.

The good news. I learned how to make ringtones for my phone. I have Sprint PCS, and I have the Samsung A900M phone (I like my toys.) I know a lot of people hate Sprint, but honestly I haven't had any problems with them myself. So anyhoo. The A900 can play MP3's (even has stereo headphones), but you can't use them as a ringer...or so you would think.

There are two ways to roll your own ringtone. A lot of Sprint phones have what's called AAC ringtones. Advanced Audio Coding. It's promoted as a successor to the venerable old MP3 we all know and love.

First off, for the craftsmen. Lovingly trim your MP3 down to under 30 seconds with the audio editing tool of your choice. I use Audacity. Why? Because it's free and I don't like paying for software when free alternatives are available. (See Firefox, OpenOffice, FileZilla, et cetera.)

Why thirty seconds? Because otherwise when your phone is playing your symphonic masterpiece, your call will roll to voicemail. This is usually considered bad, since cell phones are usually for talking and not serving as a platform to hail your ringtone making splendor.

Now Audacity can't make an AAC, at least I don't know how. No biggie. It will make an MP3 if you download the LAME encoder (instructions are on the page) or a .wav. Now we turn to software pushed by the coolest dictator ever -- namely, iTunes. iTunes uses AAC. It's for the stupid DRM dealio. (Now I do wonder what would happen if, say, the cat jumped on your lap and you accidentally, of course, hit 'Record' in Audacity while the tune was playing in iTunes...)

Anyhoo. Import your hand-crafted ringtone into iTunes. Lovingly right-click on it and pick 'convert to AAC'. Presto. One AAC file. Now you have to right-click on it and find it in Windows Explorer, since iTunes loves to bury its AAC files nine layers deep in \Program Files\iTunes. Save yourself the hassle and make it find it for you.

Now to get it on the phone, there are several ways. For Sprint users, there are a few choices -- http://www.sprintusers.com/focus , or http://rumkin.com/tools/sprint/index.php .

Both of these services will take your carefully detailed, hand-polished ringtone, wrap it gently in TCP/IP packets, and send it on to your phone via text message. It texts you with a URL, you go get your new ringtone.

But technology moves ever forward! 3Guppies has done them one better. They do the heavy lifting for you. You upload an MP3 of your own choice, carefully picked from your collection, and you can trim it down to 30 seconds online. Then they also send it to your phone. Great job, guys! You have to register, but that's okay by me for what you get. (Then again, if I'm kidnapped by the Russian mafia in a month and 3Guppies had something to do with it, they may lose their ringing endorsement, but until then I'm happy with them.)

So in the past couple days, I've tried, and come up with the following:

1) Star Trek communicator sound (just a .wav I converted and sent)
2) Star Trek Red Alert klaxon (the .wav was just the one 'wooooop', then I inserted 1 second of silence after that, and cut and pasted three times)
3) Ren and Stimpy -- Ren saying, "You fat, bloated EEDIOT!"
4) Captain Kirk saying 'Who am I to argue with the captain of the Enterprise'? (I may delete this one -- just not interesting.
5) Ren laughing maniacally (specifically, the scene in 'Stimpy's Invention' when the happy-helmeted Ren is overjoyed to be cleaning Stimpy's litter box -- even after fifteen years, I could place it immediately. It's just after he says the immortal line "See how I love to clean FEELTHY cat boxes!" Alex, in a display of filial devotion, fell in love with this one and wants me to play it again and again. My wife is not as amused as he.
6) They Might Be Giants, a clip from 'The Statue Got Me High'

My wife pointed out that counterpointing all this was the fact that you could just buy ringtones for fifty cents or so. While true, this does not have the fun of creating. Besides, I could get the kids to say 'Mommy, you have a phone call' and have that as a ringtone.

So that's your standard geek info for the day.

Better news: for our ten-year anniversary in September, MT and I are taking the kids to Disney World in early October. (That does miss our anniversary by a week, but it worked out better that way.) I'm looking forward to it.

She's doing most of the planning -- Disney World has become a lot more of a prior-planning type of place to go to since we were carefree newlyweds. They want you to make all of your dinner reservations in advance. I think the kids will love it, although Isabelle is a bit young. (On the other hand, because of her age, she gets into the park free -- nothing to sneeze at!)

So. I get a vacation and I told you how to make ringtones. How's that?

Prison Break

2007-08-19T03:20:22Z

Since I hardly ever get to watch TV, I tend to find things I can watch on my ipod. I happened across both seasons of Prison Break. It was interesting, so I watched a few episodes. I got hooked.

The first season, obviously, was about a planned prison break. Specifically, Michael Scofield, a structural engineer, gets himself sent to the same prison where his brother is due for execution for killing the Vice President's brother. Of course, his brother claims innocence.

Michael is not only a structural engineer, but his firm worked on the prison, so he has the blueprints. In order to bring them with him, he had them tattooed on his body. Literally. A full-sleeve body tattoo. THe first season is about Michael in prison plotting his way out.

The other characters were good, for the most part. Fernando Sucre, his first cellmate, was a good character. T-Bag (Theodore Bagwell) was (is; he's still on the show) the creepiest, most evil character on TV in a long time.

There were some flaws. Apparently, Michael cannot even remember a phone number without having it tattooed on his arm. And for that matter, how was Michael supposed to read blueprints that he tattooed on his BACK? It was all encoded. For example, Michael needs a bolt out of the bleachers in order to make it into an Allen wrench. Okay. Did he really need to tattoo Allen Schweitzer and the stock number of the bolt on himself? He couldn't just remember, "Get a bolt out of the bleacher and sand it?"

At the end of the first season, Michael escapes with a whole load of other convicts. Wisely, Season 2 weeded some of these guys out. In fact, Season 2 was a downright bloodbath for whacking characters. They went after D.B. Cooper's money (he was in the prison under his real name). THey went to expose the EEEVIL conspiracy that had framed Michael's brother. While they did a good job of explaining the conspiracy, it's still an old story.

What else surprised me was some of the goofy mistakes they made. At one point Michael demands a Presidential pardon from the President (she's part of the EEVIL Conspiracy don't you know.) Um, Mike...you were convicted of state crimes. Your brother was convicted of murder under state law. (Because if it had been federal, Lincoln would have been shipped to Terre Haute, IN, where federal death row is.) The President of the United States cannot pardon state crimes -- the governor of Illinois would have to do that. ('Cept they'd killed him too.) For that matter, in Season 1, Lincoln is on death row. Okey fine. Lincoln is allowed to work with other prisoners, has all the same privileges. Not fine. Death row prisoners are confined to their own highly secured unit.

Still, it's gripping drama. It keeps you interested. Michael is smart, although he still has trouble dealing with the prisoners he had to deal with. His plan worked pretty well, although there were several setbacks.

The second season lost a little steam, but it still worked. T-Bag is as nasty as ever, and showed a few signs of humanity, even. I liked it.

So now I'm waiting for Sept 17th, when Season 3 starts. At the season finale, Michael was caught in Panama and sent to a prison in Panama which makes Fox River look like Disneyland. So Michael will have to accomplish a second prison break.

Free Voicemail with a nice extra toy

2007-08-15T04:20:25Z

So I was looking around the web and found this. PrivatePhone. It's by NetZero, the people who tried to bring you free internet (and didn't do so well.)

Basically, the deal is free voicemail. Oh, I suppose they spam you for it, but that's not the end of the world. (That's also what throwaway email accounts are for.) They give you a phone number (an actual, real phone number, no extensions or anything). You call in, get your messages, and there you are. It's a lot like the voice mail you probably have on your cell phone or at work.

There are two cool things about this.

1) You have a separate number that you can give out to people you might not want to give your actual phone number to. Dates, annoying salesmen, whatever. Of course, they want you to upgrade to a pay account for things like call forwarding. The free version, however, will send a text message to your cell phone when you get a message. Nice deal.

2) The other thing I like is the 'Gotta Go' option. Basically, you call your VM box and schedule a Gotta Go call (minimum is five minutes, max is...oh hell, I don't know.) Whenever it's scheduled, it calls back. At that point you use all your acting skills to pretend that someone else is on the line and you desperately, must leave. So, looks like I'm getting out of the next staff meeting!

You can also check your messages online if you like. And apparently you can set up as many as you like, as long as you have separate email accounts. So you have a camouflage number, and you can get out of meetings, and all you have to do is delete a few spam mails begging you to upgrade.

For free...hey, not too shabby.

In At The Death

2007-08-15T02:32:07Z

Harry Turtledove's books are a guilty pleasure of mine. He has written an alternate-history series of novels that show a victorious Confederacy at the end of the Civil War (which ended in 1962 after Britain and France forced mediation between the USA and CSA.) It's fascinating. Turtledove mostly follows history through its normal timeline; the CSA, Britain, France, and Russia fight the USA and Germany in World War I. The CSA and friends lose. An embittered Confederate soldier named Jake Featherston joins a small hole-in-the-wall party called the Freedom Party, and rises to power in the CSA, establishing concentration camps for black prisoners. The Settling Accounts series details our alternate WWII.

So while you all were happily reading the last adventure of Harry Potter, I was waiting for In At The Death, which concludes the series -- all of it -- on July 31.

My biggest complaint about the series was how slavishly it followed real history. The CSA tries a blitzkrieg against the US, occupying Ohio. Then they suffer a defeat in Pittsburgh (aka Stalingrad in our time.) And there is a lot of fighting.

Thankfully, In At The Death did not feature a Jake Featherson in his bunker under Richmond, marrying his secretary Lulu and then shooting himself. No, here Turtledove finally lets his alternate timeline deviate from ours. Featherston does get waxed, but not the way Hitler did. (Hitler never rose in this timeline -- Germany is still the German Empire, still under a nominal Kaiser.) Winston Churchill is still British PM, but a lot more warlike and fascist than he was in our timeline. Which is...well...interesting, because Winston Churchill's mom was American. In a world where the US and UK were bitter enemies, it's unlikely he would have even been born, let alone become Prime Minister.

The unlikeliest part of the book is in how it treats the race for the A-bomb. In our timeline, the US had most of the good physicists from Germany, an assload of money, and a lot of land and electricity and equipment and such to play with. We built the a-bomb first. (The Soviets did not have their A-bomb until 1948 or 1949.) We built three of them -- Trinity, Fat Man, and Little Boy. Three. That was the amount of A-bombs in the world in 1945.

But in this timeline, smaller, poorer nations all come up with it independently. The Germans build the first one since they've got all the best physicists. The Brits build two. The US builds three. And the CSA builds one. The Germans end up building quite a few -- Petrograd gets nuked first, then some British cities, and finally Paris. On our side of the pond, Philadelphia gets hit, Newport News,VA, and Charleston. Just not too likely.

Which brings me to another thing -- Turtledove just loves to rename things in his world. Tanks (as in big snorty machines with big cannons mounted on them and treads to drive with) are called barrels. That's fine. He clearly loved the nonsense word 'flabble' he came up with in this series -- flabble meaning to complain or gripe. He keeps using it. A whole lot of flabbling going on in this timeline. That got a little tiresome. Suicide bombers make an early appearance, called 'people bombs', which seems like a kiddy name for something so serious. The a-bomb itself is called a 'superbomb', and created a 'toadstool cloud'. By this point it gets a little tiresome. (Jake Featherston himself gets to see the nuking of Newport News, where he sees the toadstool cloud. Personally, I wonder if Jake wouldn't have gotten some sort of radiation sickness from being six miles from ground zero. But a-bombs in 1945 were not like they were later, where pretty much, if you see it go off you're dead meat. When Henderson Fitzbelmont, the CSA's chief physicist, makes reference to a 'sunbomb' (H-bomb), I wanted to scream.

Turtledove tells his story through multiple characters; four pages from one character's POV, then another, then another, then another. That's a fine narrative technique. We see most of the Confederate government characters get waxed. Jake Featherston eats it halfway through the book -- hardly a surprise, but his end is satisfying. (I'll post it only if people ask for it, since I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who may read it.) Jefferson Pinkard, the concentration camp commandant, is another. Turtledove's greatest accomplishment was that he made Pinkard a human, downright likable character. (We saw his love for his family which helped counterbalance the awful deeds taking place at Camp Determination and later Camp Humble.)

Pinkard's end comes through a somewhat contrived set of events (Texas changes sides, seceding from the Confederacy and arranging an armistice with US forces in exchange for tossing over the camp personnel). The character becomes a lot more dislikable in his last few vignettes. Of course, it's hard to kill off some characters. But eventually, Pinkard is hanged, and rightly so.

Jonathon Moss, the pilot turned occupation law lawyer turned pilot again was shot down in earlier books and ended up in Georgia with a black guerilla group. He shot Jimmy Carter! Hehehehe! When US forces make it down to Georgia he meets up with them, learns to fly 'turbo' (aka jet) planes -- sigh -- and then does a lawyer turn as Pinkard's lawyer. He doesn't have a lot to work with, obviously.

After Featherson's death, Don Partridge (an out-of-time Dan Quayle), the nobody who was Vice President of the CSA (to prevent coups) surrenders to Morrell, and the CSA is occupied. Unlike WWI, the USA means it. In prior books, Turtledove often made the USA out to be morons. No more. All of the CSA is put under military occupation.

Cassius took over for his dad Scipio as our black Confederate viewpoint character. Cassius makes some very relevant observations about race. Turtledove doesn't gild the lily here either. (It wouldn't be in Cassius's character, either -- he saw things as they were, he is a guerilla until the US comes down to him and then he becomes a black auxiliary of the US army.) It's about as meaty as Turtledove gets here. Good stuff. Cassius knows that life will never be the same; he won't be able to meet and marry a black girl (another US black character, Cincinattus, gets to see his own daughter get married.)

(Now with Canada under occupation since WWI -- like our very own gigantic version of Northern Ireland -- that means the USA is gonna need a lot of troops. The only non-US occupied part of North America is the Republique du Quebec (or maybe it's Republique de Quebec, I dunno). Y'see, we spun Quebec off into its own country after WWI. Why? Turtledove doesn't really say why. To annoy the English Canadians, I guess. Anyhoo, Quebec in this timeline is its own country. But if the US wants it to do something it usually plays along.

We haven't had a Canadian character in the series for the past few books. Dr. O'Doull served as our semi-Quebecois character. He went into Quebec with the US Army in WWI, married a local girl, stayed in Quebec for 25 years, then went back down to join the US Army in WWII and served up MASH-like pithy observations about war. Oh, and he sawed off a lot of legs and chopped out a lot of people's lungs. Then he goes back to Quebec, sees his wife and son, picks up his practice again, and drinks applejack. (I guess applejack is popular in Quebec. Now Riviere-de-Loup, where O'Doull lives, is pretty far north up there. I didn't think apples would grow that far north, but what do I know?)

It would be interesting to see this timeline go further, now that it's actually different from our own. The US is trying to occupy all of English Canada AND the entire Confederacy. (And they're not nice to the Confederates either.) That would require a huge army of occupation. Most likely, this US is going to be mostly concerned with North America -- it wouldn't do the global-leader role that the US did after WWII in our timeline. No United Nations, no Marshall Plan, nothing like that. In place of the Soviet Union would be Imperial Germany, who has to clean up Europe itself, Russia itself (they still got a czar, apparently -- no red revolution.)

Overall I liked it. But no more guilty pleasures every summer as the new book comes out.

Computer Cop Drama

2007-08-09T22:32:12Z

At the former codependents today. They've cleaned up their act a lot. They actually act like a company now. 'cept....

Well, I got to play Internet cop today. Nothing particularly interesting, except one girl who goes to somethingawful.net (a forum, apparently.) Where she looked at things like "Massturbation" "Confessions - NWS" and my personal favorite, "Applying at a male escorting place in Japan." I've always found humor in absurdity, and unless this chickadee is planning to move to Japan and change genders, that's pretty absurd.

Even so, I know people are going to be mad at me. They always are. Apparently it's their absolute right to shop for shoes online, listen to internet radio, and learn how to become a Japanese male escort.

Back in January, I had to play computer cop. One woman asked the moron financial person for a list of bonuses. All well and good. Except that the moron gave her not just the bonuses for the people she oversaw, but EVERYONE. So the executive director about shit. I got called into her office and got direct, specific orders. Go to that office. Get in her email. Find it and delete it. Whereever it is.

So I got there and looked. No bonus info. However, this woman had apparently found herself a girlfriend, and had been sending hot, steamy emails to and from her new girlfriend. Inventive, she was.

So I called the exec, let her know I had not found what she wanted, but I had found something else. Which I kinda had to do.

Anyhoo, ever since then, this particular woman has been cool to me. Not rude, not anything that I could complain about. We were outside smoking and she made a rather studious point of ignoring me. We'd been friendly before, she seemed like a decent type, and I didn't hold anything against her. I didn't go looking in her email because I was looking for porno or mp3's or just because I could. I had direct, specific orders to search her email.

What pisses me off the most is this. The moron who gave her the wrong info, starting this whole mess, she's all buddy-buddy with. The exec director who gave those orders -- they're okay with each other. So far as I know they're friendly. But me, who had to come in and clean up the mess -- and found something I didn't expect to find -- I get the cold shoulder.

Her dad works there too, and he's been noticeably cool towards me. I guess she told him. Look, why don't you take up your complaints with the person who demanded I get that out of her email? Am I really being so unreasonable here? And after eight months, isn't it time to get over it?

But then there wouldn't be drama.

Simon Pretty again

2007-08-08T02:25:02Z

A week or so ago I blogged about Simon Pretty, who has leukemia and whose sister was a perfect match for him but refused to donate her marrow to him.

It didn't work out well.

"A CANCER sufferer whose sister refused to give him her life-saving bone marrow is dying after a transplant from a stranger failed.

Merseyside businessman Simon Pretty has only a fortnight to live after his body rejected bone marrow from an American donor.

Simon, 46, is now at home with his partner Jacqueline and their three children, aged eight, six and three, after doctors said there was nothing more they could do."

The whole thing is sad. I wonder why his sister refused. Apparently they had quarreled, and in all honesty he had come off in the first article as seeming very arrogant, looking down on his sister and mother.

Even so, it's too bad. I don't know a lot about leukemia; at this point even if the sister relented it might be too late. I didn't think he should have hung his sister out to dry in the media, but that shouldn't earn him the death penalty.

grandhighpoobah @ 2007-08-07T11:27:00

2007-08-07T19:31:58Z

Argh.

Ever have one of those days where you find yourself wondering how we've survived this far as a species?

It's been one of those days.

A little drama at work. One hospital is in deep shit because they haven't been submitting their agreed-upon data for three freakin' years, and is trying to play pin the blame on me. This is a concern for me. It would be more of a concern if the people involved actually had the common sense God gave a duck. Their story doesn't hold water, the contact at the state knows it. She's openly told me that one guy there is a liar. It's sort of like playing Doom on the 'I'm Too Young to Die' setting. You know you're going to win.

I got a call from one woman at that hospital; can't send her report. WHich she can't do because she deleted a folder she wasn't supposed to delete. After much arguing and backtalk, she finally made the damn folder again. It works! Hallelujah!

Doctors and nurses, most that I have met, are all decent, hardworking people. But administrative, office-type positions -- watch out. I've found some of the most incompetent, dishonest, and dumb people in hospital office jobs. I guess they just don't see it as important, so they put whoever in those jobs.

Heck, some of the worst IT people I've met were in hospitals. One guy didn't even know what file and folder rights were. He honestly had no clue what I was talking about. At another hospital, they just had the most bureaucratic, apathetic IT staff ever. I'd tell them what they had to do. They would nod. I would suggest we actually, you know, DO it. Nope, had to get permission from this team, or that team, or this VP, or whatever.

But it's not just the hospitals, not today. I got to meet, and later help, She Who Cannot Be Named.

I should explain. Early last year, "Bart" and I were sent out to an agency that wanted to move from their old Novell server to a Microsoft server. Not a big deal. Except their IT person was easily the worst IT guy I have ever met.

We did the job over two days. We tried to get him to help out with little things (joining machines to the domain, etc.) He would look at us, nod, smile, and go back to his desk and surf the web for flights to Liberia. (Apparently that's where he's from.)

We left on Friday. Monday morning he called in a panic. No one could log on. Thing was, I was at another agency and couldn't get down there. I asked him to try a few things. He told me he wouldn't do anything. He was going to just log problems until we got there.

"Bart" got there. I'm not sure what happened myself, but "Bart" described it as a total loss. We had to reformat and start from scratch. I don't know what the idiot did, but on Friday they had a working domain, everything fine, everything checked out. He managed to make it shit the bed over the weekend.

He called constantly. All the time. He wouldn't help, apparently he figured out that he could have us do it for him. Then his VP got mad because he was burning up all his contract hours, so his authority to call us out there was revoked. He had to get his veep's permission. (That's the ONLY time that's ever happened.)

After that, he called us for tech support. Oh, the calls. Things that should have taken five minutes took an hour and a half. He would argue, whine, act like a little kid, and plead with us to come do it for him. We would remind him that he no longer had the authority to call us out.

One call in particular will be scarred into my memory for a long time. He was trying to set up a printer with an IP address. He wouldn't do what I was telling him to do. I asked if the CD was in the drive. (I was remoted into the machine.) He said yes. I opened My Computer and went to the CD drive and found the manual. He insisted he couldn't do it. I then opened the manual (it was a pdf), found exact instructions, and told him to read the screen. He told me no, he wouldn't read the screen. I told him that was the exact answer to his question. He still refused. I told him then that I would, if he wanted, call the VP he answered to and ask to come out, but that I would tell the VP that the answer was right in front of him and he was refusing to read it.

We noticed that if we mentioned his name, he would be on the phone later that day, as if he was an evil spirit summoned by saying his name. Like Beetlejuice. So we referred to him as He Who Cannot Be Named, since that did not seem to trip the malevolent spell.

Well, even touchy-feely, lefty mental health agencies have their limits, and eventually the agency concluded that we were correct in what we'd been back-channeling to his bosses: that He Who Cannot Be Named was not just a bad hire but a hopeless case. Training wouldn't work; he just flat out refused to do anything in the hope we would do it for him. In order to make him go quietly, they told him that his position had been eliminated.

Then they hired She Who Cannot Be Named to replace him.

He Who Cannot Be Named came back at one point. He was not happy and threatened to sue. "Bart" and I told the agency that we would be glad to testify on their behalf to the utter incompetence of He Who Cannot Be Named.

"Bart" and I disagreed, at first, on She Who Cannot Be Named. She Who Cannot Be Named called me whining for support on another app I support. I told her to install it off the CD and then map a drive to the shared folder where the data tables actually lived.

Her response: "How would I do that?"

I saw bad things ahead. I don't expect Suzy Secretary to know how to map a network drive. I do expect an IT person to know that. If I were interviewing someone and they didn't know that, I would immediately cross them off the list. It's basic stuff.

"Bart" was more optimistic, believing she could learn. He learned the hard way that I was correct. She Who Cannot Be Named does know how to make users. She Who Cannot Be Named has to be reminded to add the login script to add the network drives. Once, I could understand. Seven times?

She Who Cannot Be Named came to the office today to get a CD "Bart" had left for her (her agency is very close to us.) She told me she would need me later. After a little phone tag, we got it squared away, but it was more of the same. "Go here." "Waiit!" "Click this button." "I don't see that!" "Fill in the information." "What do I put?" (The employee's name, you ninny, can't you read?)

One high note. Our graphics chick moved her laptop and couldn't get her scanner to work. She actually gave me some hope for the human race. She'd tried basic troubleshooting before getting me to help her. I noticed that the USB port on her scanner was wobbly, and that gave me some concern. Replacing the cable did the trick. I'm fair; that's not something she would have been expected to know. She says it worked fine before. I still think the scanner's gonna die; that wiggly port is not a good sign. But she tried, and her tries indicated she was thinking.

A little neural activity. That's all I ask.