Some interesting Time Waisters

Of course while I am at work I spend 100% of my time doing work.  And I spend all of my free time with my kids.  Not to mention, the check is in the mail and no, those jeans don’t make you butt look big.

OK, so I do spend a lot ofsome time on the computer doing almost nothing at all.  Here are a couple of cool time wasters that I have found:

1) Yahoo Widgets- These are small applications that you can put on your desktop.  Some are somewhat useful (like the weather widget) and some are pretty useless, though entertaining (Shooting holes in your desktop).

2) 3Dvia- This is a collection of 3D Shapes that are available for use.  There is an application (3D Via Shape) that you can use for free to create your own 3D objects.  Check out some of mine that I have created for Starship Pirates:

          a) MD Class Space Fighter

          b) WD Class Space Fighter

           c) XG Class Fighter/Interceptor

I have a few more in development, not all are ships (I am also designing an EV Prototype).  There are a few other sites that I have been enjoying, but these are my two biggest at the moment.

Some More “Cute Kid” Stories

OK, I forgot a couple of stories:

7) Melody is in the 75th percentile for height and the 16th percentile for weight at 18 months…making her the toddler version of a super model.  Meanwhile Dante is in the 80th percentile for both height in weight for an almost 4 year old.

Well, the kids have taken to wrestling.  Well, not so much wrestling as Melody tackles Dante…never the other way around.  It is quite amazing how that little girl can take down that big boy.  And no matter how they land, both come up laughing.

Both kids are still non-verbal.  However, they can communicate with each other.  Last night Melody grabbed her fork and banged it on the table.  Dante then grabbed his fork and banged it on the table repeatedly.  Melody recipticated.  Finally both were wailing on the table and squealing.  Cute they are.

Some “Cute Kid” Stories

It has been a while since I have had some “Cute Kid” stories.  So, here ya go:

1) When I was growing up there was a Friendly’s at the local mall.  My Mother and I would go there and we would order a small meal and then a big Ice Cream.  Since moving away from that area at the tender age of 12, I have only seen one other Friendly’s…until we moved to Charlotte.  Now, we can go to a Friendly’s that is about 10 miles from my house.  Well, I think it may have become a family tradition…

(Sorry for the quality of the pictures, my phone doesn’t take pictures in low light well.)

2) The kids are now getting to the point where they will play together.  The other night, Dante was sitting on the chair with me, and Melody came over, climbed up on the chair (I had to help a little), and proceeded to jump up and down on him.  He grabbed her and pulled her down (Both had smiles on the face, so I let it continue).  He gave her a HUGE hug and she gave him one of her patent pending baby kisses (open mouth, no pucker slobberfest, usually on the nose).

3) Mel is still not speaking, though she is picking up a few things that might be words in her mind but come out as nonsense.  She is also picking up some new combination sounds (multisyllable babble).  Her newest one is “gullie”.  She will say this sound over and over again and it is just so cute.

4) Dante has a new fascination, with my back…with my bareback.   He will come up to me, grab my hand and pull me over to the couch.  Then he will pull me down to get on the couch.  Then he will proceed to try to take my shirt off of me.  I tell ya, that kid’s first date is going to have to watch out for him.  I have to admit that more often than not I will give in and take off my shirt.  He will then lay on my back and give me big hugs and laugh and smile.  Then he will try to pull me over on top of him…essentially crushing him (but he loves it).  But, before we can get too excited “Little Sister” will come and join us.  While Dante jumps on my back, she will jump on my head.  Sometimes, I will put my shirt on her (she thinks this is hilarious…granted, so does her mother).

5) Before Dante was born I got a lot of nervous energy.  For some reason I had to give my hands something to do.  I decided to learn to juggle.  This was a skill that I had worked on unsuccessfully for a few decades, but I figured I could figure it out.  And I did.  Well, I had envisioned doing this for my duly impressed children.  This would be a time for a quote like “the best laid plans of mice and future dads.”  Well, I started juggling for Melody yesterday, and she took my balls and threw them in to another room.

6)  OK, no story for these, but more pictures of kids:

9

Yesterday was my anniversary. #9 if you are interested (did you guess?).

I would like to say that Angel and I spend a romantic evening wrapped in each others arms and enjoying each others company…but that would be lying.

I would like to say that I spend hours finding the perfect gift, but I would rather tell the truth.

The fact is that I had already given Angel an MP3 player for Valentine’s day and our anniversary.  It was semi expensive (certainly more than the limit she had given me), so it counted for both.  She wanted an MP3 player and has enjoyed hers thus far.  But it certainly is not a romantic gift.

Otherwise, it was a normal night.  She did pick up Olive Garden for dinner, so i guess that was special compared to an ordinary night.  But otherwise, the kids ran our evenings like they always do.

But for some reason, I have been thinking about our wedding.  It probably has something to do with my “How I met your Mother” series of posts over the past few months.  Not to mention it is our anniversary…

Unlike most grooms, I think I remember the night before better than the actual day.  Not that there is much to remember.  The rehearsal was pretty pretty dull.  Though my father did give everyone in the wedding party t-shirts that labeled their role.  I got a t-shirt that said “Groom”, Angel got “Bride”, Karen got “Maid of Honor”, Mark got “Best Man” etc. The rehearsal dinner wasn’t much more memorable.  O.K., for the most part I remember the stripper (she was hot), but that is about it.  Oh yeah, and if my Mother asks, my late Father said to tell her that we had a “Belly Dancer”.

The wedding day went off without a hitch for the most part.

I had spent the night at a local hotel while Angel stayed in my room at my parent’s house so that I wouldn’t see her before the wedding.  I am superstitious only in relation to sports, but I considered this one more of a tradition.  The funny thing is that Angel and I both decided to go to Shoney’s for breakfast.  I went to the one next door to the hotel I was staying at which was right off of exit 94 of I-64.  My wife was going to go to the same one.  But my Aunt said the knew how to get there…”It was right next to the Interstate”.  She went to the one off exit 222 on I-81.  If not for my Aunt not knowing the area, we would have seen each other.

The ceremony was just a ceremony.  Angel and I had both worn sneakers as we had planned, but I don’t think anyone else in the wedding party took advantage of that option.  Though the priest did give me my ring to put on Angel, and gave Angel her ring to put on me.  Obviously my ring fit perfectly well over her finger, but her ring wasn’t going on my finger.  We quickly switched them out.  The only other “mistake” that occurred was that I forgot to kiss her after the ceremony.  I was ready to walk back out the isle, and only paused to that the priest could announce us…the preacher reminded us of that particular tradition, then announced us.

The reception was boring.  No alcohol per Angel’s and my request.  My brother is a recovering alcoholic (per his Program, the only “recovered” alcoholic is six feet under) and I have never really had a drink due to my own addictive personality.  Some advice for people who may or may not be getting married:

1) Don’t…elope to Vegas.  It is more fun, less family and you can blow your nest egg at the craps table (granted, only if you are over 21).  You can still invite family and friends…but it will be less stress on you because most of the planning is taken care of and the guests can find other entertainment around…your wedding will not be the only thing happening.  So your guests will leave thinking your wedding was a lot of fun. 

2) If you HAVE to have a traditional wedding and reception, pick a short song for your first dance.  I don’t remember what we picked, but it was like 10 minutes long.  Even if you do enjoy dancing, that first dance is not where you want to do it.  After all, you have the Father Daughter dance and the Mother/Son dance and all of the other dances still left to do.

3) For the wedding party dance, don’t pick a “Fast” song.  We pick “Call me Al”.  This was ironic because most of the Brides Maids were Angel’s roommates in college.  Her apartment was call “The House of Al and LA” because everyone had initials (first and middle) that were either A. L. or L. A. (e.g. Angel Lynn).  But the guys just looked lost during the dance (not that they would have been less lost on a slow dance).

4) Hire Pauly.  This won’t work for most people, but we had Pauly Erickson play his Marimba (I think) during the reception.  He was the hit of the day.  He is an extremely talented percussionist (in my humble opinion).  It was truly a joy to listen to him play.

5) Don’t record the thing.  We had cameras set up to record the whole reception…we haven’t watched a single second of those tapes.

6) We left disposable cameras on each table.  I think this was a good idea, but the pictures were horrible (low quality that is) and we got so many copies of the silverware and table settings it wasn’t even funny.

7) When we got married the new tradition was to blow bubbles instead of throwing rice when the couple left.  We provided bubbles, but it was too difficult to get them blown in the wind outside.  Throw bird seed instead.

The only other thing I remember from the reception was the way my friends decorated my Prelude.  They put a couple of blow-up dolls in the front seat and (per my instructions) used soap the draw all over the car.  Shaving cream can damage the paint, and I had just gotten the car repainted a few years before that.  They also filled the back seat with balloons.

At the end of the day, we stayed at a bed and breakfast before heading home.  We didn’t leave for our honeymoon for another two weeks.  This wasn’t a storybook wedding ceremony, and it hasn’t been a storybook marriage.  But overall it was a happy day and a happy marriage.

Shameless Plug

That title is not ironic.  I am actually plugging something I have nothing to do with.  The site is http://icanhascheezburger.com/.  They have some of the coolest funniest animal pics on the web.  This was from today and it describes my mood at the moment…though I don’t think I have reached that level of prescription medications.

QWERTY

So my wife belongs to a couple of Mommy clubs in the Charlotte area.  One of them has a message board that is specific to special needs kids (including Autism).  One of the mommies on the board took the following picture of what her 4 year old autistic boy had done with their alphabet magnets.

 

This is a boy after my own heart.

This has got to be one of the coolest promos ever…

Be sure to wait for the flash to load, then wait a few seconds…

http://producten.hema.nl/

The Story of J: Chapter 10 – Recruiting

=====Work of Fiction=====

Previous: Chapter 9 – Confrontation

Table of Contents

Next: Chapter 11 – A Cold Day In…

The Office of Mentalic Affairs was indistinguishable from the surrounding Official Government Offices in the section of Trantor that was officially the “Emperor’s Estate”, but bore the unofficial moniker of “The Bureaucrat’s Playground”.    The building was labeled…a lack of labelling in this district would be quite odd.  But, of course, the label did not carry the name of the actual organization located inside the halls of the surprisingly plain building.  The label said “Office of Government Affairs”.  Part of the building was a place where “Government Affairs” were handled, but a vast majority of the building was in actual fact the “Office of Mentalic Affairs”.

Once inside, J and Kat were brought in to a plain room with no mirrors or windows or decorations.  After a couple of hours, the female “officer” entered the room.  J looked calm, but Kat was showing signs of frustration at being kept waiting so long.  in fact, it was Kat who spoke first, interrupting the first attempted syllable from the woman.

“Who are you and what are we doing here?”

“I am Dr. Olivia Thompson.” She said, to J. “We would just like to ask you a few questions, then you can be on your way.”

“We?” Kat asked, bringing a small smile to J’s lips.

“My organizations prefers to remain anonymous.  The rest of my…friends…are in an adjacent room monitoring us.”  J instinctively looked around for a camera.  Realizing that if one existed, it was probably so well hidden, and so small, that he wouldn’t see it.

Kat sat back in her chair and said “OK, ask your questions.” She then crossed her arms in a subconscious maneuver to shield herself.  She didn’t realize that her mind was wide open to the other’s penetrating mind…even more so to her…’Firends’.

“What is your name?” She was still looking only at J.

“J” He said, speaking for the first time since the space port.

“No, what is your full name?”

“That is my full name to the best of my knowledge.” J answered, deciding to be more devil’s advocate than helpful resource.  They had been picked up for some reason and he wanted to find out why.  If he was too cooperative his interrogator would get all of the information out of the exchange and he would get none.

“Fine” She said, and made a note on an electrical tablet she had in front of her.  “What is your occupation?”

These were obviously standard questions, more to probe his state of mind that to get useful information.

J decided to be straight forward with his response this time. “I am a bum.” He responded.

Without questioning his words, Olivia marked the answer on her tablet.

“May I ask a question?  Where is Leo?”  J asked

“He is in the field.”

“Why lie to me?” He waited a moment for the good doctor to recover from his words.  “I would like for him to be present for this interview.  I know he is here.”

“How?” Olivia asked with a little more interest that she intended.

“Is here here?” J asked, recognizing that he could get t least one straight answer out of her because of her interest.

“Yes.” She answered directly.

“He is obviously fascinated by us for some reason.  So, unless he was ordered out of the building he would probably prefer to stay and ‘observe’ us…that is the word you used, right?  I am a full believer that two minds are better than one and being the intelligent person that you obviously are I doubt that you disagree with that assessment.  You would have allowed him to stay, at least through the duration of the interview to ‘observe’ us. So, why not have him ‘observe’ us from in here?”

At that, the door opened at Leo walked in.

“I was given permission to join you.” He said to Olivia, with a little jerk of the head that indicated he received his instructions from someone higher in the organization than she was.  He took his stance behind his superior (there were no chairs left in the room).

“OK, now that you have the presence of Agent Leo, maybe we can continue.” J nodded internally happy that he had pushed this organization in to conceding to him, even if it was just a minor point.

“What are you doing on Trantor?” Olivia asked.

“We are here to look for evidence of an ancient race that may be extinct now.  We are not archaeologists by trade, but both of us have a vested interest in finding this race…or at least evidence of them.”

“And what race is this?” Olivia asked, Leo looking uncomfortable standing behind her.

“You already know.  Leo, “J said, changing his gaze from her to him “I see that you have a question.”

“Yes…” He paused for, and received, a nod from his superior. “You call this collection of beings a ‘race’.  But are you not looking for machines?  Robits?”  He said, purposely mispronouncing the last word.

“Robots.” Kat corrected him, bringing another smile from J, and a frown from Leo.  Leo had hoped that J would respond.  At least that would tell him if J had the mental capacity for reading minds.  So far, his explanations for the deductions he has made have been logical…and have neither confirmed nor denied his Mental Capabilities (with a capital ‘M’).  With Kat responding, he couldn’t tell if J knew he had purposely mispronounced the word.

“Robots are machines.” J said “that look and ‘think’ vaguely like human beings.  Isn’t that enough to call them a race?” J said with a slight tilt of his head.

“But they were just tools.  They didn’t actually think, they simply imitated the process of thinking.” Leo said.

“Whether they imitated thinking or actually thought, isn’t that enough?  Perhaps they were not sentient.  But neither is a dog.  Yet we call a dog a race…in a strictly biological fashion.” J said, sounding more like a professor of philosophy than an interrogatee.

Leo began to speak again, but was cut off by Olivia. “Why come to Trantor to look for your robots?  Surely some human on Trantor would notice a humanoid-looking machine walking around Trantor.  It may be easier to hide on a less-populated planet.”

“I think you know that also.  We were not looking for robots here, we were looking for evidence of robots.  The galaxy is a big place.  I would prefer not to search planet by planet.”

“And did you find evidence?” Leo asked.

“Not exactly.” J answered simply, without explaining. ”Why does the Office of Metallic Affairs want to know for anyway?”

Olivia answered this time. “Because if Robots exist, then it may be an unhandled variable in our phychohistorical processes.”

“But Phychohistory is over.  Seldon’s plan was only supposed to last a millennium and ended with the Foundation’s move to Trantor almost 800 years ago.” Kat said.

“That is what the populous was supposed to think.  But remember, for Phychohistory to be effective, the populous must not know that they are being controlled by Phychohistory .  I am amazed that Seldon’s Plan worked considering everyone knew they were being controlled.  In fact, the whole thing almost came crashing down on more than one occasion.  Now, we have taken great care to eliminate any thought of Phychohistory from the minds of the populous.”  Olivia said, in the longest speech J had ever heard from her.

“So why tell us?” J asked…a little too eagerly.

“What evidence did you find of robots?” Olivia asked with a small smile.

“I suppose it is only fair that we share.  We found some really old documents outlining a place that may have had robots at one time, unless it was just a grammatical mistake in the original document, or our translation.” J said.

“And where is this planet?”

“No idea.  We are trying to solve two mysteries here.  The robots are one, and my identity is the other.  We have evidence that I may have been taught to speak at a planet with an old dialect.  Since robots are also old, we thought we would continue our research on one of the planets that claimed to be the planet of origin.  Now, why did you tell us about Phychohistory ?”

“It seemed like a plausible explanation to you and therefore got me more information.” Olivia said with a smile.

“I asked that you not lie to me.” J said, turning his attention back to Leo. “What planet would go to if you were looking for the planet of origin?”

Leo picked up a marker off a shelf that seemed to appear on the wall, and started to draw a crude representation of the galaxy above the shelf. “The common knowledge is that the planet of origin, if it exists, had to be outside the densest part of the galaxy so that it would not be bombarded with asteroids.  However, there also had to be stars in the sky to entice space exploration, so it couldn’t be too far out on the periphery.  So, if the planet of origin exists, it would have to be in a region that extends around the disk of the galaxy in this range. “  Leo ended his last sentence by coloring in a circle that surrounded the middle of the galaxy, but included a large portion of the galaxy in itself.

“That isn’t much help.  Which planet would you go to?”

“Well, the problem is that we have to take in to account the drift of the various solar systems over the past two empires.  Not a simple thing in and of itself.”  Leo continued to draw lines on the wall, indicating the solar drift.

“OK, so where would you go?” J asked strictly this time.

Leo’s voice slurred almost imperceptibly and then he said “I would try a planet located in this sector.” and he colored in a sector that was much more manageable.

J decided to let that go and accepted the answer he was given.

“So, where would you go?” Olivia asked.

“We were on our way to Baleysworld.  It is apparently one of the older planets in the galaxy and, if I am not mistaken, is located in that small square drawn by leo.”

Leo drew a small dot that was just barely inside the shaded area he had indicated. “It is approximately here.”

“May I ask a favor?” J asked in a polite tone.  “I would like for Leo to join us on our little quest.  You want to see the inside of my ship and you want to know if your precious Phychohistory is safe.  It seems logical to send someone with us.”

Olivia sat back in her chair, seeming to contemplate the request.  What the two interrogatees could not tell was that she was in mental communication with her superiors.  After a short time, and after being told in no uncertain terms that she was NOT to go herself, she agreed to the request.

“In that case, I was wondering if you could arrange for an XG class extension module to be provided for my ship.  We will install it, but two people on the little ship was cramped, three will be ridiculous.” J said.

“We can provide you with a roomier ship, and faster as well.” Olivia responded.

“That ship is itself a clue.  We will need it on our journey.” Kat said.

Olivia simply nodded her head, and in some distant office arrangements were already being made for the extension module.

Previous: Chapter 9 – Confrontation

Table of Contents

Next: Chapter 11 – A Cold Day In…

Nicknames…

Growing up, I never had a nickname, unless you count the monosyllabic “Matt” compared to the disyllabic “Matthew”.  In college, my friends tried to give me a clever nickname. 

My future wife had many nicknames from college.  We even assigned different aspects of her personality to different nicknames.  All of her nicknames stemmed from the fact that we talked about “angles” a lot in class.  Invariably one of our professors would write “Angel” up on the board at some time during the year.  So, Angel’s first nickname was “Angle”.  And, the natural pun followed…she is acute Angle.  The next nickname she received came from the Greek symbols that are most commonly used for angles.  Theta and alpha.  Theta was Angel’s geek side.  Alpha was her aggressive side.  The alpha symbol that is actually used is the lower-cased alpha which looks a little like a Jesus fish. So, another nickname was invented: Fithy.  Fithy was Angel’s flirtatious side. 

Meanwhile, I was just “Matt”.

My first nickname came at work.  I was given the nickname of “Magic Matt” by a coworker.  I have to admit to some slight of hand here.  You see, one of my jobs was as a first tier reviewer of defects.  If a defect was caused by an environment issue on the server, then I was responsible for correcting said issue.  For some reason, people would have some trouble reproducing defects in my presence.  But also, I would have people come to me with the same environment issues repeatedly.  So, I developed procedures for correcting them.  When an issue popped up, I would fix it quickly on my computer, then ask them to show me the problem (knowing I had already fixed it).  Before they would show me, I would put both hands on the monitor, and in my best evangelical voice I would say “Be Healed!”  Of course, when they tried to reproduce the issue, it would be fixed.  I think they actually started to think I was magical.

Later, in another job, I got two more nicknames.  Scorsese…because I had the reputation for creating really complicated and entertaining slide show presentations.  And Shakespeare because one of my coworkers thought I had a distinct and pleasant manner of speaking.  Not quite as impressive as “Magic Matt”, but still, I was happy.

Well, the nickname thing has continued.  We hired a nanny last summer for Melody who would call her “Squirt”.  Of course, it caught on.  Melody is also known as the “Two-Legged Princess”, “Trouble”, “Mel”, “Melly” and “Melly the Martian”.  The last one is when she wears pigtails and they stick up slightly.  Especially if she happens to be wearing green.  Angel doesn’t like it when I call her that though.

Dante hasn’t been spared from the nickname parade either.  He is known as “D”, “Little D”, ”Dude”, “Buddy”, “Jumping Bean” and “Mini-Matt”.  Mini-Matt is because there is apparently a similarity between myself and my son.  Except he is cute, and I am not.

Yes, that is a Christmas Tree in the background. Yes my son and I are wearing matching Hawaiian shirts…I don’t see a problem here.

Even the dogs are not spared. 

Peanut is referred to as “Pea”, “Princess Pea”, “The Four-Legged Princess”, “Tummy Girl”, ”Cory’s Girlfriend” and ”Baby Girl”.

Sparky is “Sparkles” (especially when licking up a mess made by the kids and their dinner), ”The Sparkinator”, “Food Monger”, “Mr. Floppy Tail”, “Ada Barkinator” (in a sing-song fashion), and “The Little Butt” (A misunderstanding.  When he was a puppy and still to small to get up on the couch my wife picked him up and said something along the lines of “Oh aren’t you just a little mutt”.  I misunderstood and another nickname was added to the list.

Honeybear is “The Brat”, “The oofer” (He doesn’t pronounce his W’s), “Plushy”, “The Not-So-Little Ball of Fur”, “Muddy-Bear”, ”Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go Right Now, Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go” (Like a commercial for adult diapers from around the time he was born, but applied to him because of his tendency to walk really fast, like he is always late).

Sasha is the “Gremlin”, “Asasasa”, “Saaaashaaaa” (In a whisper similar to Harry Potter when he speaks to snakes), “The Tongue” and “Stop Licking Me”.

Even our vehicles have not been spared.  My first car, a Red 1984 Honda Prelude was first named “Klann” (pronounced “Klaun”) after my Father’s company…and the first place I drove after getting the vehicle.  Then named “Fireball” after he was unjustly dismissed.  Then came “Snowball”, a white 1998 Honda Civic.  Then came Thomas, the Blue Subaru station wagon. And finally my 1998 Dodge Durango which was named “Later” because I kept referring to “him” as “The Durango to be named later” (similar to “The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as ‘Prince’”).  We had a Saturn Ion which never got named…granted we only had it for three months.  I also had an old 1988 Nissan 200SX which never got a name, but should have been called “the Money Pit”.  Now we have had my wife’s Dodge Grand Caravan for almost four years now, and we still don’t have a name.  The closest we have come is “The Home Away from Home” and “The Camper”.

Nicknames are constantly being added to our list.  I like them partially because they remind me of where I was and what I was doing when the nickname was first used…even if it isn’t my nickname. 

 

Gratuitous picture of the kids…BTW, the duck still doesn’t have a name:

 

I don’t usually do this…but

I try not to have posts that are just pictures, but gram took this picture over Christmas and it speaks for itself…