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July 29, 2007
July 4th photos
And while I'm at it, I've also uploaded photos from July 4th.
Valzania reunion photos
I uploaded a selection of photos from the reunion to my Flickr account. If you're at all interested, feel free to check them out. I say this with no false modesty intended -- the better ones are James'. If you don't believe me, just check out the metadata -- anything that was taken from a PowerShot A70 is his.
Too hot to do anything
It's actually not the hottest day we've had so far, but the humidity is oppressive. The temperature is in the low 80s today but with the sodden air it feels 10 degrees hotter, at least. Too hot to spend much time outside out of the water (which I really don't feel up to today) and certainly too hot for any sort of yard work. So we're keeping the windows and doors shut and the AC's turned up to full blast to take the edge off.
Max is in his usual position on the hottest days -- in a heap at the top of the stairs, asleep. Bonnie and I believe he chooses that spot for two reasons: A) it gives him a good vantage point so he can observe anyone who comes in the front door or up the stairs; and B) it's positioned directly in between the flow of cold air from the two air conditioners in the bedrooms, which are in opposing windows, as the current of cold air flows down the stairs into the rest of the house.
He may be extremely lazy, but Max is not dumb.
Mom took the kids off our hands for a little while; she's brought them over to her neighbor's house. Candy has a beautiful in-ground pool and an open invitation to use it.
Bonnie and I aren't using the time to get nasty or anything. Instead, we're both desperately trying to catch up on work that's been piling up for what feels like months now.
Family matters
If there's a key difference between Bonnie and me, it's probably best illustrated by our extended families. Bonnie's mom and dad both had brothers and sisters who had multiple kids, so she has a wealth of first cousins (more than a dozen, at my rough count), and everyone is close enough that they see each other a few times a year. It's gotten to be a struggle as the families have grown larger, but somehow they still manage.
By comparison, I only have two first cousins -- my mother had one sister who had two kids of her own, my cousins Jen and Mike. My father's family I've just recently gotten to know a bit, though like me, he's an only child, so he didn't have any siblings to extend the family outward in that direction. Jen and Mike and I see each other maybe three times a year on average; I've met my father's cousins once, but hope to get to know them more as time goes on.
For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, my mother's side of the family -- the Cohens (my grandfather's family) and the Valzania/Barduzzis (my grandmother's side of the family) haven't really done a great job of staying in touch with everyone. The Cohens are largely separated by geography; the Valzies really aren't, at least not that much. But this disparity recently caused one of my mother's cousins on the Valzie side of the family to call for a reunion. Fortunately for us, they had it in Plymouth, home of the family mqtriarch and patriach (my grand-aunt and grand-uncle Evelyn and Frank), so it was close enough by that we could get there in about half an hour.
It was fun -- a lot of the people I saw I haven't seen in 20 years or more. (One relative remarked that he hadn't seen me since I was this tall, holding his hand to his waist. I told him that it all worked out, because I hadn't seen him since he was this tall, and held my hand far over my head.)
I'm hoping that we'll do it again before too long. Robert remarked that he felt really out of place because he didn't know anyone there. I'd like my kids to get to know my family a bit better.
July 28, 2007
Flash Gordon
So the Sci Fi Channel is resurrecting Flash Gordon as a new series. While I have absolutely no idea how good it will be, and while Ron Moore has set the schlock-to-beauty bar pretty high with Battlestar Galactica, I'm looking forward to it. If for no other reason that they kept the theme music to the movie by Queen intact.
Flown the coop
Abandoned bird's nest
Originally uploaded by flargh.
The songbirds that had been nesting in the awning under our porch hatched their three chicks some weeks ago. They grew steadily, and finally flew the coop earlier this week.
July 27, 2007
Low-key birthday
As I said, Robert turned 12 today. We didn't have a proper party for him -- Bonnie and I both had to work until late afternoon, but fortunately today was relatively slow work-wise, so I was able to take off shortly after 4 PM. At Robert's request we brought him to a movie -- by consensus, the family decided on The Simpsons Movie, which opened today. It was funny.
I won't spoil anything, but I will tell you this -- if you've watched all of the trailers that have been released since this movie's advertising campaign first begun, and I think there have been five or more, you've seen some of the highlights. Sure, there's a ton of other stuff that will make you laugh, but I'll just say that I dislike it when all the best gags are shown in the trailers.
After the movie ended I surprised the kids by walking them across the parking lot to a new arcade that opened earlier this year. It's great -- a bit on the expensive side but clean and well laid out, in the basement of the shops that frame one side of the small outdoor mall the theater is part of. It was a great surprise for Robert, especially, and we all had a good time -- I even hit the jackpot on one of the ticket games they had, so I ended up buying everyone trinkets.
Robert turns 12 today
Robert, our eldest, turns 12 today. Hard to believe he's that old. Next year he'll be a teenager, popping zits and being obnoxious, dreaming about moving out and getting a car.
July 24, 2007
NBC sued for "Predator" series
This case raises some interesting ethical questions.
If you've missed it, NBC has a TV series spinoff of its Dateline prime-time news show called "To Catch a Predator." It's essentially candid camera for pedophiles. They wire a house up with video cameras and snare online predators who have had explicitly sexual chats with people they believe are kids, when they show up presumably to have sex with them.
In this case, a man accused of having online chats who didn't show up at the appointed place instead found his home surrounded by cops and video cameras, and decided to shoot himself.
I'm really of two minds on this. On the one hand, I think online predators would do the world a favor by collectively doing exactly what this man did. I suspect there's no doubt the man was guilty of what he was accused of, based on his actions.
On the other, I understand his bereaved sister's point: He was trapped and didn't want to see himself become a public spectacle, and if NBC contributed to that, there must be a reckoning.
As voyeuristically entertaining as "To Catch a Predator" may be, I would have thought that we as a nation would have moved beyond the public square shaming that our Pilgrim forebears brought with them so many centuries ago. But maybe not.
July 23, 2007
It's never easy
Emmeline has been going to camp for the last few weeks, and she'll continue to go through August. It's a benefit of her enrollment at an after school program for behaviorally challenged children; the summer program, essentially. It's fantastic for her -- gets her outdoors in a beautiful setting, trying new things, It also presents some challenges. One of those challenges presented itself last Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon Bonnie was running late from an occupational therapy appointment with Robert and missed Emmeline at her bus stop, which is a couple of miles away from us. Obviously they didn't let her off, but when the routine was broken Emme proceeded to have a major episode. She started screaming and crying, banging her fists, kicking and shouting until the bus driver gave up, turned around and went back to camp to have her escorted off the bus by camp counselors until Bonnie could get there.
As a result, the other children on that bus (Emmeline was one of the first stops) were up to an hour late being dropped off to their parents, and her bus-riding privileges have been revoked for a week.
I suppose a week isn't that bad, in the scheme of things, but it's an additional thing for us to do. And Bonnie had to spend an hour talking with the counselors at camp this morning about what to do in the event this should ever happen again.
It's just one of the many things that, for better or worse, we have to handle differently because our kids are different.
July 22, 2007
Lots of outside work this weekend
Saturday and Sunday was about as perfect weather-wise as you could possibly want -- sunny and in the 70s. So on Saturday I mowed the lawn and Sunday I trimmed the long stuff (once I was finally able to get the cranky trimmer running, that is).
Mom picked up some new plants for the garden and we spread a bag of Scott's Step 3; I ended up watering the lawn to soak it in afterwards, which was actually more involved than it probably should have had to be, because the crappy Craftsman rotary sprinkler I picked up a few weeks ago isn't working.
I decided after the watering was done to wash the new van too. So it's clean, bug and birdshit free. For now.
July 21, 2007
It's not the medium, it's the message
When I started using the Internet a decade and a half ago, I stuck pretty much to the Usenet and e-mail. In those pre-Web days, the Usenet was a rich communication medium for users who wanted to exchange thoughts and ideas, and I almost immediately became familiar with the concept of the flame war. In which an exchange of ideas would spin wildly out of control as posters found themselves unable to contain or control the emotional content of their postings.
The excuse, as common now as it was then, is that the medium does not lend itself to the subtleties and nuances of body language and voice that make spoken communication more effective.
That is true. It's also a totally bullshit excuse.
It's the same kind of irrelevant observation that "the book is better than the movie." Well, duh. They're two entirely different media.
It's like telling me that the carrot is better than the armchair.
What I'm saying is pretty simple: If you don't paint like Picasso, don't blame your brushes. It's because you ain't Picasso.
July 18, 2007
Now THAT's what I call a Frickin' Van
End of an era in Boston news
I can't believe it! Natalie Jacobson stepped down from the anchor spot on WCVB evening news tonight.
She's been on the air in Boston since I was a tot -- I can't think of much more of a constant fixture in Boston news than Nat. I'm kinda bummed out. Change is good, and it sounds like she's got some interesting stuff going on moving forward, but I watch WCVB news *every* night. It won't be the same without her.
Wal-Mart to sell bible-themed toys
Bonnie heard on the news today that Wal-Mart plans in August to start selling Bible-themed toys, including a 12-inch talking Jesus doll.
"Hey, you know those helmets you can wear that make your voice like Darth Vader or Optimus Prime?" she asked. "Maybe they can do one for John the Baptist."
People are getting stupider
Another reason for me to dislike Mitt
July 17, 2007
I am Murloc
July 16, 2007
On feeding the cat
"He's taking a page from the kids. He's turning up his nose at dinner," I said to Bonnie, of the cat. Max has decided that salmon in gravy is not his proverbial cup of tea.
"He's not eating stinky fish? It must be the apocalypse!" said James.
July 15, 2007
Decent berry smoothie
So I've been experimenting with a simple berry smoothie for the past couple of weeks and finally found the right mix.
I start with about 3/4 cup of plain, non-fat yogurt, throw in a ripe banana and about two heaping cups of frozen berries, which I buy by the bag from Stop & Shop. Then I pour in orange juice more or less by eye, getting the blender blending until it's all swirling together nicely. By then it's usually a magenta-ish purple color.
Getting the right combination of flavors without going overboard is difficult. Too much yogurt and it gets sour; too much fruit and it's mushy and chunky. The orange juice sweetens it up and gives it a nice tartness. And the banana's in there to give it a bit of sweet and add some body -- bananas seem to help liquids get nice and frothy when they're in the blender.
July 14, 2007
The poor ol' Weber
Five years of near constant abuse and relatively little maintenance had left my beloved Weber Genesis Silver a mere shadow of its former self, but I spent a couple of hours doing some TLC that's really, really helped.
The Genesis Silver is a propane-powered grill with three control knobs and three stainless steel burner tubes, five "Flavorizer" bars that cover the tubes to provide some indirect heat to the meat above them, and porcelain-enameled cooking grates.
In recent years grill makers (including Weber) seem to have favored stainless steel as the material of choice. I can understand why -- it's elegant and very masculine looking, and who doesn't like that for a grill? But this one is clad almost entirely in porcelain -- there's very little actual exposed steel.
I got this as a Father's Day gift from Mom the year after we moved in and have basically used it every week since then, year round. Outside of scraping detritus off the cooking grates, I've barely done anything to the poor grill, and taking stock of it this afternoon I realized just how badly I'd let it slide.
Today I got out a bucket of soapy warm water and a Cell-O sponge and took to it. I got off years of grime, mold, and dreck, both inside and out. I got off some serious ground in mildew from the Thermoset work table surfaces and cleaned out the tray underneath, which had a two or three inch thick layer of burnt sediment from months -- if not years -- of meat drippings and barbeque sauces. Not to mention a few dead insects that had wandered into the grill by mistake. I'll run the control knobs through the dishwasher tonight to get some of the grime off of them. I need to take a run to the hardware store at some point this weekend to get some steel wool so I can get some of the thickest scaling off the sides and the interior, too.
Outside of the cosmetic improvements, I also took the grille apart and took stock of the stainless steel burner tubes. Five years of direct propane flames over the Flavorizer bars had caused one of them -- the one over the middle tube -- to degrade pretty badly, so I tossed it. I have to order a replacement set, which is relatively inexpensive -- $30. I should really get new cooking grates, too -- these are getting pretty worn. That'll run another $30.
After taking a wire brush to the propane burner tubes, I'm amazed at just how well they still work. There's some corrosion, but the flame distribution is still pretty even, which is great -- I've noticed a "cold" spot on the left hand side that will be gone the next time I run the grill (tonight, in fact, I'm making bratwurst).
I'm going to need another igniter kit -- the one that came with this grill has long since died: The gas catcher ignition chamber corroded. I've resorted to using a Bic fireplace lighter to start the grill. That'll run another $13 or so. Replacement warm-up basket and warming rack will run another $17. They're getting pretty rusty. I don't use them much anymore.
The only other thing that the Weber really needs is a new thermometer -- it fits into an opening on the front and tells you how hot the interior is; it also doubles as a meat thermometer. Oddly, those aren't available to order from the Weber Web site, or from Home Depot. Hmm.
Anyway, $100 to rehab a $500 grill seems like a pretty good deal to me, especially since that'll get it basically in brand new condition again, and hopefully net me another five years of year-round use. I'll try not to abuse it this hard for the next five, though.
Existential dilemmas in video games
Emme: "If I die, it'll be by accident."
James: "You mean not on purpose, like I like to?"
(While playing Super Monkey Ball)
July 13, 2007
Reactions to the new minivan
The kids like it, for the most part, thought they do miss the space the old van afforded them. Of all of them, James has taken the biggest shine to it -- insisting on going out for rides that he previously would have disregarded, just for the novelty of a trip in the new vehicle.
James' booster seat is right under the rear AC controls, so I learned quickly to switch the controls to the front (a dial on the dash either gives that rear passenger control over the flow of air or retains it for the driver), after a dozen or two "click-click-clicks" from his seat.
Each seat has a reading lamp, and they're pretty distracting, so I ask the kids not to use them when the van is in motion.
The biggest thing missing from the old van is a rear entertainment system, but that's a pretty easy fix. Audiovox and others sell relatively low-priced DVD player systems with flip-down LCD displays that bolt right to the ceiling of a minivan or SUV, and wire directly into the car's audio and power systems. Most of the mid-priced units I've seen even feature auxiliary inputs to attach a video game system, which I know the kids would love. I'm not in a huge hurry to get one, but I'll probably have such a thing installed before we take this van on any long trips.
Bonnie's pretty comfortable driving it; she says it handles like a car, and she's right (a Hyundai Sonata or a Kia Amanti, to be fair, as that's what the Sedona shares for a chassis with those other vehicles).
The only problem I've found with it outside of some minor cosmetic wear and tear that you'd expect after 42,000 miles is a washer motor that doesn't return the wipers to their down position. I have to call the dealer about that this afternoon.
Now *that's* what I call 'True QAM'
Swedish silver surfer gets world's fastest broadband
A 75-year-old Swedish woman has the world's fastest internet connection - at a torrent-busting 40 Gigabits per second.
July 10, 2007
New van
New van
New van
New van
July 09, 2007
The new van
We picked up the new van this afternoon, as promised. The van doesn't have a registration/plate or inspection sticker; that'll come tomorrow. But otherwise it's in great working condition. Passed a Carfax check with flying colors, too.
July 08, 2007
In case you're curious
about what the "slop" is that they eat on Big Brother 8, it is allegedly:
Natural oats, proprietary blend of whey protein concentrate, soy protein isolate, wheat protein isolate, milk protein isolate, natural and artificial flavors, vitamins and minerals (vitamin A palmitate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, pyridoxine hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin, vitamin D3, alpha tocopherol, niacin, biotin, pantothenic acid, calcium carbonate, magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, copper gluconate, manganese sulfate, ferrous sulfate, folic acid, potassium iodide), cellulose gum, salt and acesulfame potassium.
Word is that it has a faintly metallic taste and makes you fart, but the contestants can dress it up with some condiments, including sugar.
And yes, the fact that I watch this show is my secret shame.
July 07, 2007
Photos
Edmunds.com has some decent pictures that will give you an idea of what we're looking at. I'll hit the Frickin Van Part Deux with a camera soon.
This isn't the actual van, but it's close enough for government work. Ours is white; this one is silver.
This is, pretty much, exactly what the interior looks like -- fabric seats, a bench in the middle and a bench in the back. It's got doors on both sides. That'll be a nice change of pace, as it is now the kids need to climb over each other to get out the one rear access side door.
In other words, it's about as plain-jane as you can get in a minivan. As Robert put it, "Well, if there's one thing that will be different, it'll be harder to find our van in the parking lot now."
Frickin' Van II: Le roi est mort, vive le roi
So, just a quick update: Yeah, the van is dead. The motor is hosed. I got it home from the mechanic's this morning and discovered this thick spray of motor oil and antifreeze on the hood -- it had regurgitated just as I got home. It's really screwed.
A new motor is going to cost about $800, and installing it will cost another $1100 or so, according to the guy who I've used now for years and trust implicitly. So I've got to come up with about $2000 to fix it.
Oddly, I plan to, though that didn't stop Bonnie and me from getting the wheels in motion to buy a replacement vehicle this afternoon. If everything goes okay, on Monday afternoon we'll be taking possession of a 2004 Kia Sedona LX (in white), a pleasant enough minivan that seems to be pretty gently used.
Bonnie and the kids will have reliable, well-warrantied transportation, and, now that we're in summer, a car with working air conditioning (for the first time in about eight years)! I'll call it the Frickin' Minivan, I think (Frickin' Van Part III: The Revenge is an alternate choice).
I've been impressed with Kias for a while now, and I found that this particular vehicle had good acceleration and a comfortable ride, roomy inside (with seating for seven, though that would be a bit cramped), and all the features we were looking for -- A/C, auto transmission, seats that come out if we need them to, a more fuel-efficient engine (right now if I get 13MPG I feel lucky; in the new one I'll be getting 20 or so).
Let me be honest -- my credit rating sucks. So financing a new vehicle was out of the question, and as it is I'm amazed that they're financing us this one. But I'm delighted that they were able to pull it together, in any case. And it also helped that the dealership was willing to offer a 24 month, 30000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty that covers everything from the drive train to the air conditioning. They even give me a loaner if the van needs to be fixed, something neither AAA nor my insurance will do.
The fact that they were willing to give us a car to drive for the weekend, knowing that we were without wheels of our own, was just icing on the cake.
Anyway, I've been hounding Bonnie for the last six months to consider buying a second car, because there have been an increasing frequency of incidents that could have been much more deftly handled by us both if we'd been able to split the task of chauffeuring the children or if we'd had separate vehicles to ride in. Especially since she's working now, it makes more sense, but it's never been financially justifiable to consider it.
Well, that $2,000 seems infinitely better spent fixing the Frickin Van Part II than it does in trying to finance a second vehicle, or worse, to drop that money on a used car of uncertain vintage. So my plan, as it stands, is to take the FV off the road for a while until I can afford to fix it, then put it back on the road once I'm ready. Hopefully by Hallowe'en at the latest.
July 05, 2007
Van troubles
Yesterday we drove up to my father in law's house to spend the Fourth with the family and indulge in some illegal fireworks once it got dark. On the way, I noticed the van was running quite warm, so I pulled into an auto parts store and picked up a couple of gallons of coolant -- I figured that would be more than enough.
Boy, was I wrong. First gallon went right through it, and so did the second.
Not a drop was coming out underneath.
This was bad. I was blowing a little bit of steam, but not gobs of white smoke like you might expect with a bad head gasket, so I limped it in to the mechanic.
He found the coolant, all right. Mixed in with the oil. So the head gaskets were blown after all.
It'll be a huge repair, and with the odometer reading 239K miles or so, it's probably better just to get something else at this point. But the idea of getting into car payments fills me with dread.
July 03, 2007
Quick and dirty Transformers review
As I had promised them, I took Bonnie and the kids to see the Transformers movie on opening night -- we just got back a little while ago. Without going in to any detail, here's the thing: It's a summer blockbuster about a toy that was popular in the 1980s. If your religion is built around the Transformers and Optimus Prime as some kind of Odin All-Father with tailpipes, then you're bound to want to declare jihad on Michael Bay. But if you go into it expecting a typical action-packed extravaganza with lots of explosions and quite a few laughs along the way, it's awesome, and it was definitely worth seeing, and I'll only be too happy to buy it on DVD when it comes out.
I want Barricade, by the way. That Decepticon is freakin' AWESOME.
Shia Lebeouf is shaping up as an extraordinary actor, by the way. He's really great in this -- personable, charming, cute. I can see why some are comparing him to Tom Hanks, honestly.
But really, what stood out for me the most was the trailer before the movie for a new J.J. Abrams movie that went unidentified. It depicts a calamity in New York City culminating in a tremendous fireball that levels part of Manhattan and sends the decapitated head of Lady Liberty rolling down the street.
The Hollywood buzz is that this is a trailer for a top secret project called "Cloverfield," which has been rumored to be everything from a movie adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" epic (a rumor that seems to have been resoundingly crushed at this point) to a remake of a recent Korean monster movie known to English-speaking audiences as "The Host."
I'm not sure what to believe, but I can tell you that everyone in the theater was buzzing after seeing the trailer, and Bonnie, Robert and I were both very intrigued to find out more.
Regarding the iPhone
I spelled out most of my reasons why I'm rather ambivalent about the iPhone in an editorial that was posted last week -- I'm not a compulsive early adopter, and I'm not fed up enough with my current cell phone, a BlackBerry 8700, to feel the need to replace it quite yet (although I do find some of its idiosyncrasies irksome).
But upon further contemplation, there's another big reason why I don't have an iPhone-shaped hole in my heart right now, and I think it explains why I didn't get an iPod right away, either: I'm not a commuter. I'm a telecommuter, to be sure, but I haven't worked in a cube-farm for more than a few hours at a stretch since I was first employed by Macworld back in May, 1999.
As a result, I don't have an overwhelming need for gadgets that make my mobile life better. Without a regular morning commute or any shuffle between buses/trains/subway cars, I don't need an iPod to drown out the noise. I certainly have one, and I use it occasionally, but I can literally go weeks at a time without picking it up (I often tune in NPR on the car radio if I'm out shopping for groceries or bringing the kids some place). And while I appreciate having a cell phone, I don't rely on it extensively for business, mainly because coverage in my region is still spotty enough that I absolutely need to have a land line in order to make and receive calls in my office.
If that factor was different -- if I was traveling weekly or even monthly, or if I needed to go to the office every day, I'm certain that I would have been in line with everyone else last Friday to get an iPhone. Because seeing them and reading and watching everyone's reaction to them, I recognize that they're a marvelous piece of engineering.
I love a good deal.
A month ago I told you the story of how I scored a free gas-powered weedwhacker from our friends John and Christine. I've used it a couple of times since then. With its new spark plug the weedwhacker is working fine, but it could do better. And thanks to Sears' rather unbelievable back-catalog of parts and supplies for their vast inventory of products, I was able to rather painlessly procure the parts that I needed to make it better.
Getting a new spool of trim-line for it was painless enough; Sears keeps that stuff in stock. But I noticed when I popped the old spool off that the spring to tension the spool was badly sprung. What's more, the handle to hold the weedwhacker was being held on with a mickey-moused zip line. At some point in the past, the previous owner had lost the bolt and t-knob used to keep the handle in place, and set that up instead. It worked, but only to a point -- the handle slid all over the place.
A visit to Sears' Web site and a quick check of a PDF document showing a breakdown schematic of the weedwhacker, and I ordered the replacement parts -- all together, $8.73 (plus another $6.99 in shipping). I'm sure I paid something on the order of 1000% markup, sort of like buying $1.29 resistors from Radio Shack. But ultimately I don't care, because the parts arrived in a little padded plastic envelope today and they all fit perfectly. So for $16, plus a $3 spark plug and $5 spool of trim-line, I get a gas powered weedwhacker; something I'd have to pay $130 or so new for. I love a good deal.
This is the third or fourth time I've ordered material from Sears' Web site for various Sears appliances we have in our house. Once it was for the refrigerator, for the icemaker bin; another time it was for the dryer, for its lint screen, and I'm sure there's been at least one other time.
I'm always impressed that no matter how obscure the part or how old the equipment, the site has a schematic that shows you what you need and the part is always available and arrives promptly. Seriously, other companies could learn a thing or two.
I don't pretend to be a handyman, but I can do some pretty simple repairs and maintenance to some of the gadgets and appliances we depend on, so I'm grateful for a good resource to get what I need that makes it easy to use. It's certainly better than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and just tossing equipment when something goes wrong and buying a replacement. So much stuff *is* built to be discarded, it's nice when you find stuff that isn't.
Holy crap, it's July
Here we are already in the first week of July, and I've gotten absolutely nothing done that I planned to once the weather got warm. It's totally embarrassing.