Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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the pilot says

Hi internet. It’s Thursday, and the guys came over tonight for a dinner of grilled bratwurst and pizza rolls. I mean, what’s a group of guys to do when their better halves all gang up and go to some “chicks only” soirée? Anyway, it was a wild party… we watched the democratic debate. Yeah, we’re old as sin. Old as sin. Let’s get to writing.

I was searching my memory the other day, trying to figure out when I first flew on a plane as a kid. I guess it was when I was younger, as I know I went to Hawaii with my folks and grandfather before my brother was born – but I don’t think I did much air travel as a kid. I remember flying when we moved to Florida, but not much before that. Keaton, by comparison, should be some 100k Red Carpet frequent flier. I tried counting up the times she’s been airborne: Florida and back six or seven times, Oregon and back ten or eleven times, and then Hawaii and Mexico. That’s more than fifty hours of in-air time. Not bad for a newly-minted two year-old. I mean, the girl has a freakin’ passport, with stamps! I didn’t even have a passport until I was twenty five or something. She’s so global.

She’s familiar with the whole process too. When we pushed her stroller up to the security line at the airport in Mexico, she reached down, took off her Crocs, and handed them up to Sharaun (yes, the TSA is worried about bombs in toddler-sized Crocs). After boarding and taking our seats, she hopped over to Sharaun’s lap by the window to look outside because she said she wanted to “See a suitcases mommy!” as they were being loaded onto the plane. As the crew started the safety announcements over the loudspeakers, she said, “The pilot says I wear my seatbelt!” And, taxiing to the runway for takeoff, she leaned into me and said, “Might be loud, daddy?” “Yes, it’s gonna get loud for a minute,” I answered. She’s a pro, I swear. Man I love that little girl.

OK folks, it’s a pretty clean case for winner right now, but in the spirit of fairness here’s this week’s You Decide Friday poll one last time before I have to start writing. Poll closes around noon today, so, if you haven’t voted yet, act fast. Have at it:

[poll=3]

And, changing subjects to wrap things up: Tonight I decided to put to good use some of the free space on my humongous 160GB iPod. I downloaded HandBrake and ripped some of my favorite Andy Griffith episodes (from the complete seasons DVDs) to iPod-compliant videos. I figure this way I can watch some of my favorite shows while I travel. I mean, there’s so much room on this dang thing, and even though I’ve got right around 100GB of music on there (which is a disgusting amount, actually), there’s still room to spare. So, I plan to rip some of my favorite DVDs (I don’t have many, I’m just not a huge DVD fan) and get them loaded. Things like The Goonies, Lord of the Rings, Andy Griffith, The Simpsons, y’know, stuff like that. Should be a good use of the space, and may even prove useful in a boring situation someday.

Goodnight my friends.

Posted on

the70s.torrent

Ahhh… listening to the Band’s live rendition of “It Makes No Difference” from the Last Waltz album; I absolutely love this song. Makes me feel good each and every time I hear it, even if it is somewhat of a sad-sounding tune. Keaton went down early (she woke up late last night with a high fever, ran a lower one all day today, and actually asked to go to bed) and Sharaun’s at volleyball – so I’ve got the place to myself. That means writin’ time.

The other day, my brain tickled by the triumphant return of Demonoid to the torrent scene, I was thinking about how prevalent “discography torrents” have become over the past year. For the unfamiliar, a discography torrent is simply a massive zipped archive of every recording an artist or group has done over the span of their career – albums, singles, extras, whatever – all MP3ized, packaged, and presented as a single one-fell-swoop download. The availability of these all-inclusive super-easy-to-get packages of music makes me wonder about the future of file sharing.

I’m betting that the whole “thrill of the hunt” aspect of music collecting which has, in addition to a genuine love of music, always fueled my lust for tunes, will more than likely be a thing of the past by the time Keaton’s generation begins filing up iPods. Just look at the history: As the internet pipes have become fatter over the years, we’ve moved from single-song-hunting via Napster to album-jacking via Kazaa to discographies through BitTorrent. Eventually, you’ll just be able to click on the70s.torrent and be done with an entire decade’s worth of music in one overnight download.

I don’t even want to think about when Keaton’s kids get old enough… they’ll probably be able to buy a credit-card thick device from the corner market in Shanghai that comes pre-loaded with the entire history of recorded music. Where’s the fun in that? Part of being a music collector is reveling in the far-reach of your collection, touting the stuff you have to other collectors, having one of only five copies of that lost acetate recording of the Velvet Underground’s freshman LP – elitist stuff like that. That’ll all be over when any Joe Topforty can buy a “The Complete 20th Century” MusiCube at Radio Shack (which by then, as technology marches ever on, will have been forced to re-brand as something more “now,” like VHS Shack, or something similarly thirty years behind the curve).

Changing subject, but continuing the “I was thinking” theme… I was thinking today about how I’m happy with the amount of outside-the-house socialization Sharaun and I do – even with Keaton. Before we had Keaton, we’d get good-natured ribbing from our friends about the “end” of our social lives, though neither of us really worried much. In my opinion though, we’ve integrated Keaton well into our social circle. We bring her along, include her in the hangin’ out (much to the thrill of our no-kids-havin’ friends, right no-kids-havin’ friends?!), and often put her down in her Pack N Play when we’re over at friends’ places past bedtime. She’s a seasoned pro at being woken up for a ride home in the carseat.

What got me thinking, though, was my mom asking me if she needed to get Keaton some kind of bigger sleeping accommodations for our upcoming trip to Oregon over Mother’s Day weekend. My answer was “no,” but it was the first time I’d really entertained the thought of her outgrowing the Pack N Play. Not that the first thing I think of when I consider this milestone for her is our social lives, but… what the heck are we going to do when she doesn’t “fit” in that thing anymore? Is that the “lives over” point that people are referring to?

My answer: Nahhh… give me a break. Since our idea of “going out” is typically dinner and a movie or game at someone’s place, it’s not exactly like her sleep is at risk for interruption by the thundering bass of a club or gunshots at an out of control Latino block party (that sounds racist… is that racist?). All she has to sleep through is the “wildness” of a few thirtysomethings who’ve had a glass of wine or four, who might get too loud discussing while discussing their Roth IRAs or the Earth-ethics of local-grown produce (we live in California, remember?). I’m confident babygirl will be just as accommodating as she’s always been, and continue to be the great sleeper she is. But man… I bet it’s an interesting transition.

Before I go, I’ll repost this week’s You Decide Friday poll again tomorrow as a last reminder – but should you want to vote before then, you can simply scroll down the page to Monday’s entry and cast your vote there. I’ll close the poll around noon on Thursday.

PS – Oh hey, Megan posted some new candids of my girl!  Check it!

Goodnight folks.

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everything is gonna be fine

Tuesday.

Monday was a particularly productive day for me at work. The timing of the project I’m currently working on is way in the future, so most of the tasks I have now are planning-centric… and I’ve been using the benefit of time to do some experimenting along those lines, firming up the way I forecast and ready the team for what’s coming down the road. I know, without me telling you what I do it’s hard to know what that means – but, them’s the breaks folks. Anyway, I feel like I almost made up for a week gone in a single day… Because, when I want to, I can be super productive like that.

Now I’m sitting here listening to some Sabbath (courtesy of the iPod shuffling it up) and writing. I had Keaton tonight. Got to feed her dinner, give her a bath, sing her a bedtime song, say her prayer with her, and put her to bed. She didn’t nap today so she was super tired, but before I put her down she managed to say, in her little half-asleep croak of a voice, “Sing a sun song, daddy?” “The ‘sun song?,’ I asked.” “Yeah, sing a sun song, daddy?” “I don’t know the sun song, baby, can you sing some for daddy so he can hear it?” “This one, daddy: ♫ Please don’t take my sunshine away ♫.” I immediately knew the verse, but couldn’t place the song. It took me a minute, but I eventually broke into ♫ You are my sunshine, my only sunshine… ♫, and stopped to say, “Is that the song, baby?” “Yeah,” she said, and nuzzled into my shoulder. ♫ You make me haaaapy, when skies are grey… ♫ Awesome, I’m telling you… straight-up awesome.

And, since I’m already on about babygirl…

Sharaun took Keaton to her two-year pediatrician appointment today, and asked about several things which’ve been on our minds lately. #1, the stuttering thing (which, by the way, is back again, with a vengeance): Bottom line, the pediatrician said she sees “no cause for concern.” She said she’s already noted Keaton as “advanced language ability” (finally, some corroboration for Sharaun’s my-baby’s-a-genius stance), and suggested that her vocal “hesitations” are more than likely her response to a stall in development that her mind doesn’t understand, and is compensating for. In other words, she seems to think pretty much what I guessed at a couple weeks ago: that baby girl’s vocal chords are just stalling in an effort to catch up with her brain, which has developed beyond them. Not the most scientific explanation, but it works for me. The doc said she’ll continue to monitor it and see how it goes, but that she expects it’ll go away of its own accord eventually. Whew. That really is a relief to me, no matter how much I said I wasn’t overly concerned.

#2, We also informed her of the we’re-the-parents call we made to suspend indefinitely her recently regimented breathing treatments whilst in Mexico. While we made the decision together, I was the one pushing to abandon the treatments. I just got too itchy about having our two-year-old inhale atomized steroids twice a day for what I, for whatever reason, viewed as dubious benefits. I convinced Sharaun to stop giving her the treatments, and her wheezing (which the pediatrician readily admitted was most likely caused by a bug she had, and not some underlying malady) didn’t return. Sharaun said the doc actually applauded our use of parental judgment, and said she agrees with our decision and Keaton seems fine. For some reason, that flexibility and non-attachment to a “prescribed” remedy impressed me. Anyway, we felt like we’d done the right thing – which was not so much a relief as it was a nice vindication of our motivations.

And, #3, some odd breathing patterns we’d seen in Keaton while she slept. Seemingly abnormal things like her getting into a two-deep-breaths / no-breaths-for-ten-seconds rhythm instead of a normal regulated breathing pattern. I had feared this might be related to the whole “breathing” issue thing (which has actually now gone away), but the doc assured us abnormal breathing is normal in kids at this age. Which, again, helps to support my theory that being a pediatrician is about like being an HR representative in that there are no concrete answers to anything, and nearly everything is pretty much “normal” and/or “OK” depending on how you look at it.

Anyway, overall it was a reassuring doctor visit, which I take to mean all is well, or that we have a complete charlatan of a pediatrician. Fingers crossed for the former, eh?

Oh, and before I go – I wanted to include a quick image of what some sounds familiar reader at work considers funny. Below is the name plate thingy in front of my cube (last name blurred for safety… or something), done in tribute to this entry I posted a week back. Funny stuff:

See all those little pharaohs up there? Yeah, that’s gotta be my desk.

Well folks, that’s it for tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow with

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to know, and maybe even love

Hi folks. I had planned this Monday’s entry to be some kind of triumphant return to blogging, what with us being on vacation all last week and my expectations that I’d not blog much at all.

Turns out I was able to throw something together for four of the five “regular” bloggin’ days – which either is or isn’t bad, depending on your view of getting online whilst on vacation. For me, it’s as natural as reading a book or watching TV, just another vice of the modern-world… so it didn’t detract from me properly vacating. Here, then, is a normal ho-hum Monday post on sounds familiar, the kind you’ve come to know, and maybe even love. For my part, this intro is finished.

On our first day back from Mexico and I had all sorts of things planned: I was gonna finish fixing the fence that blew down eons ago; was gonna go get a haircut; was gonna maybe mow the lawn; unpack; sort through the mail… all kinds of things. Instead, I sat around playing with Keaton and watching TiVo’d episodes of Saturday Night Live. What a waste of a fine day to be outside. (I’ll tell you a secret… if I really wanted to get that stuff done today, I’d’ve done it. The fact that I didn’t get it done just means I never really planned to.)

With the new week, I’m going to do another You Decide Friday poll, where you, my dearest readers, get to cast your vote and let me know what I should write about come week’s end. The rules are simple, vote for your top choice, with the understanding that just because something wins doesn’t mean the other topics are cast away for good – they’re all just binned ideas from my running list anyway. What are you waiting for? Flex your democracy people:

[poll=3]

Wow, a few paragraphs… a poll… not bad for getting a late Sunday night start, eh?

Oh, and guess what? Whipped topping!

I managed to get a respectable collection of images from our Mexico trip up online today, and only one day back from the vacation. I deserve some kudos for that, right? Yeah, I do. Give it up. You can surf over to the aforementioned gallery by clicking right here. Enjoy.

Gonna tack on something that doesn’t really fit, deal.

While we were flying there-and-back for vacation this past week, and in light of all the recent airlines folding and facing delays in financial problems, I’ve come up with what I think is a pretty solid airline bailout or recover plan. Most MBA students know the story about Delta and the three olives, and I think my cost-saving idea may be even more revolutionary than that. Here goes: You know those plastic bags attached to the oxygen masks? The ones that the airline tells you every time you fly “will not inflate, but oxygen will be flowing?” Brace yourself: Get rid of those bags.

Dudes, really. You’re equipping each of your passengers’ oxygen lines with little plastic bags that only cause confusion, as evidenced by the fact that your flight attendants have to explain that, while it’s obvious they aren’t doing anything, they are “working” anyway.

You’re welcome. I just saved you millions on bag-costs.

Oh, nevermind.

Goodnight then.

Posted on

good to be home

A happy Friday to you, friends and enemies alike. I wrote some stuff again today, and you’re about to read it, I think. Enjoy.

My time in Chicago was short. Not that I wanted it to be at all, let along long… but I had hoped we’d have landed earlier, as we were planning on making the most of the overnight delay and taking the train downtown for some pizza or something. We got in too late, though, and ended up eating a horrible and overpriced dinner at the hotel bar. After which neither of us had the will or determination to stay up and chat, so we retired to our respective rooms (cramped little odd-shaped holes off the main floor that must be reserved for airline comps).

In the end, I made it home and am glad to be back here in the 75° Californian weather with my two favorite girls. Keaton gave me a hero’s welcome, and even colored me a picture as a homecoming gift. Sharaun appreciated the authentic South Carolina grits I brought her, and I was more than happy to change into a fresh pair of boxers. Good to be home.

Now then, let’s close the week “In Pictures” with snaps from my Thursday. You’ll have to live without Friday shots, as my night-before blogging schedule makes that impossible. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll be sure to do it again sometime sooner than four years from now. For now though, here are some highlights from today (yesterday, as you’re reading):

Well, almost time for me to sign off. I’ll take this chance to remind you that it’ll likely be a bit slow around here next week while we’re all on a family vacation in Mexico. But, however strange it may seem, I am taking the laptop with me – so I could end up posting once or twice if I feel up to it (it’s hard for me not to, being perfectly honest).

Oh, and, just quickly before I go – I wanted to note that I broke 200,000 pieces of blocked comment spam sometime in the past couple days. Incredible.

Goodnight.

Posted on

someone called me a writer

Happy Monday morning friends.

As you read this, I’m winging my way to South Carlolina via DC. A couple days there doing some sort of work-type stuff and I’m back home. Two days at work and then I hit the skies again, this time with family in-tow, for a weeklong vacation in Mexico. That said, that’ll likely be a pretty sparse week for blogging, so let’s enjoy this while we can.

Anyway, today (Sunday, as I write) was a good day. The girls all got together to do some winetasting, so I invited the abandoned guys over for a BBQ and some beer. I cooked up a ton of ribs, and we all ate to excess. Even the weather cooperated, for the most part.  And now, fresh from the shower where I tried, with some small success, to wash the stink of oak smoke off of my skin and out of my hair – I’m ready to start a blog.

Sometime Friday Keaton started showing signs of having a cold again: runny nose and coughing. By Saturday evening she was running a low fever and she was congested and having issues breathing. In fact, by later Saturday night her breathing had morphed into full-on wheezing, and was pretty shallow and fast. Sharaun called the doctor, and she said that, since we’ve been through something similar before, Keaton likely has an asthma-like reaction to some illnesses (I guess chestcolds or something). The last time she was breathing like this they actually gave her a breathing treatment at the pediatrician’s office. Anyway, she asked that we bring her in the next morning for another treatment, and so that they could give us a machine (called a nebulizer) of our own to continue the treatments at home.

For those not familiar, a nebulizer is basically a machine that vaporizes medicine in liquid form so that the user can inhale it directly. It’s used often to deliver the steroids that asthma sufferers use to get relief. In my youth, a good friend of Sharaun’s used nebulizer often for her asthma – and my buddies and I used to goof on her (in front of her, so it’s OK… right?) for it. I think it was the name that was hilarious to us, so futuristic sounding or something. We’d give her the Vulcan salute, and crack jokes about being on the bridge of starship or battling Klingons. Yeah, and now karma has turned it all around on me yet again. Anyway, the treatments really seem to help Keaton, and the doctor said it’s only temporary just to ensure we knock this cold out for good. Read ahead and you can even see a picture of babygirl “nebulizing.”

Changing subject… I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 over the weekend and everything seems to have come through OK for me (I’ve read of some folks having issues). So far, I like the new and improved backend overall, and I’ve reserved a special place in my will for the new image upload/link/align tool – which makes adding images to my posts so much easier. And, with the gallery capability being so integrated now, I don’t need to use the NexGen plugin anymore. Actually, I’m going to go ahead and try to do some 2.5 gallery beta-testing this week, by reviving an old sounds familiar weeklong gimmick from the past. I’m sure you are just dying to know which gimmick…. so…

Back in November of ought-four, I did a cool weeklong “thing” for the blog where I took pictures of what I did each day and posted them along with the entry. Ever since doing it I’ve told myself I needed to redo it, but I never have. So, in the spirit of doing all kindsa new kindsa stuff up in this camp, I’m gonna try it again this week. At our sawmill, we call this week “workweek fourteen,” which we abbreviate, all nerd-tastic, as WW14. So, this week will evermore be dubbed: In Pictures – WW14’08, or IPWW14’08 for… ummm… short. Anyway, one of the rules is imposed this time is that I’ll take only crappy images with my cellphone camera, partly since I’ll be traveling and won’t leave Sharaun without our “good” one, and partly also because I just always have it with me. No time like the present… so let start with Sunday in pictures:

Actually, as something of a postscript here, you may have noticed that those images are still in the old-gallery style (with the fancy popup browser). That’s because, try as I might, I couldn’t get WordPress’s built-in gallery to work how I wanted it to. I’ll keep working on it to try get it right, but for now, and so I can still do this week “In Pictures,” I’m sticking with what works. OK, that’s enough talk about WordPress. And, I think I’ve built up the daily-dose of pictures such that it’ll be hotly awaited each day (right?). And, wrapping up…

Before I go – I read this article with interest the other day, as it reminded me of something I’d written before here on the ol’ blog. I called it “Run 83,” but essentially it’s the same concept: Modern science pushes the limits of experimentation just a little too far and accidentally destroys everything. (A little self-promotion there, I suppose.)

In closing, the other day, someone called me a “writer.”

This someone is the kind of someone who knows me, knows I write here on this internet-website-online, and (I think) reads sounds familiar somewhat often. But, still. To hear someone call me a “writer,” a word used to describe an artist (good one, or not), was humbling.

That’s all. Goodnight.

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the fastidious princess


Hey, guys… hope the week’s been good to you so far. We’re about halfway through I figure, so that’s something… I figure.

You think it’s easy to write this much every day and still be so awesome? Well, it is. Sometimes I look back on the tons and tons of words on this webpage and kinda freak out: “Good Lord, when do I have time to do ‘real’ stuff with all that writing?” Eh, I seem to find plenty of time. Surprisingly, even to me, it’s not as time-consuming as it looks – I guess.

Oh, before we get started, I updated Keaton’s picture gallery late today with some images from her 2nd birthday party here at home (at the kids gym with all her buds), and a few from Easter. Go ahead and go check that out now, this thing’ll be here when you get back – take your time even. (Yeah, I know, I said I might have some video… but man… that’s a lot of work!)

Anyway back to the writing/blogging thing if I may, I’m happy to say that overall daily readership here at sounds familiar has experienced a measurable uptick for 2008. That makes me happy, and I’m always excited to find out about new readers and get new comments – keep ‘em coming. Also on the rise are the spam comments the site gets, although thanks to the near-perfect filtering of Akismet very few end up getting through. Seems like just yesterday (it wasn’t, it was back in September of 2006) when I was exclaiming about my Akismet spam-blocked count breaking the 100,000 barrier, and here we are this week hovering just under 200,000. Amazing.

And, last on the blogging run of topics: You guys and your poll-gaming. I should’ve never said how easy it was to fool the poll by deleting cookies. Early Tuesday morning someone up-voted the “pants off” voting option by about ten votes. Turns out, however, that with this new polling plugin, I can actually see who games the system – and by how many votes. So, if I wanted to, I could completely discount “artificial” voting. Don’t think I will, though, as it seems to me that if someone wants to go to the trouble, they must really want to read something. Anyway, the poll for this Friday is still open, and right now the triple-X topic is out in the lead. If you’d rather see things turn out differently, make sure you flex your muscle of democracy and make it happen. I’ll post the poll again Thursday, but for now if you haven’t voted just cruise down the page and do it.

Yesterday after work I decided to get into the garden and prep it for the Spring planting. First job was to pull all the wheat from my failed “know the cost of a loaf of bread” project. Turns out wheat, I guess like any grass really, has a pretty extensive root network – guess that’s why they plant the stuff as erosion control on hillsides, eh? – anyway, pulling it took some time, after which I backfilled with more fresh compost/peat/etc. Since Keaton got some super-awesome toddler-sized garden implements as gifts for her birthday last month, I brought her outside with me to help. At first, she wasn’t having it. Being the fastidious princess she is, when I hoisted her up into the garden box she just stood there, rooted in her spot, looking down at her shoes with the most concerned look on her face. “Don’t like it, Daddy!,” she’d whine. “You don’t like what, baby?,” Dad asked. “Don’t like the sand in my shoes! My shoes are dirty, Daddy…” I tried to explain to her that getting dirty is part of gardening, but she wasn’t having it.

After ten minutes or so spent standing statue-still fretting over the dirt in her shoes, I tried to accelerate things by piling soil around her feet, completely covering them like we were at the beach. At first she whined some more, but soon enough she pulled her feet out and asked me to take off her shoes. Once she was barefoot, she seemed a little better and started walking around. Soon enough she was throwing dirt at me, it was quite a rapid progression. At some point, we found a worm while turning up soil, and I had her hold out her hand so it could crawl on her. She called it a “silly worman,” which is apparently what they are called on The Backyardigans (so sayeth Sharaun), and seemed to enjoy herself as it wriggled up her arm. We found a cocoon too, the kind where the pointy butt-end is still sort of alive and spins around to corkscrew the thing into the Earth. She held that in her hand and watched it move, and even knew, after I told her what it was, that it was going to turn into a butterfly.

We had a good time, and the garden is now ready for some new stuff. We were planning on planting tonight, but I got home a little late from work and the wind was up so it was a bit chilly (it’s looking like the amazing weather we’ve been having the past week is about to take a turn for the worse with the forecast showing rain and wind the next couple days). Maybe tomorrow if the weather holds and it’s warm enough as the sun goes down, otherwise we’ll have to wait till the weekend or something.

Well folks, that’s enough for me tonight… sorry it’s all over the place. Goodnight.