Dave's Good Stuff

Our wedding photos are available online! Our photographer, Jessica of JDC Photography, has put them up for us at Collages.net. Just log in with your e’mail address (or an e’mail address) and your first name (or a first name) to view them.

The photos are available in 6 galleries, listed off to the left once you log in, and there are plenty of photos to choose from, so take your time, and enjoy!

Don’t take too much time if you want any, because the galleries all expire on October 10th, 2010. After that, they’ll be viewable in lower resolution on my own gallery. If you want print quality versions after October 10th, you’ll have to actually contact myself or Jami directly, and we know how much of a chore that is. It’s positively chorish, even. We get that. It’s ok. We understand.

So, have at!

Jami saw my PuTTY screen a couple of weeks ago while I was preparing a major home server upgrade. Upon noticing the frantic scrolling green text of a compile in progress (I have my term colors set to mimic the old Apple //e I grew up with), she belted out “What’s that?! What are you doing?! Is that some sort of crazy ‘Logo Rhythm’ thing?!”

She’s prone to sudden and unexpected outbursts. It’s her way.

One such outburst involved the History Channel. While on the couch together I was watching the History Channel (and it wasn’t about Hitler!) while she and a friend of ours who was sitting on the other couch, were talking about flowers, or butterflies, or ribbons, or some such thing. Upon noticing what I was watching, Jami immediately belted out “Boring!! What is that?!”

I couldn’t help but start laughing. As did our friend. As did, or course, Jami. The passion with which she evoked the single word “Boring!” was admirable. Thus, it immediately joined ranks with the many inside jokes we’ve developed over the last two(ish) years. I did not, however, change the channel.

This time, having asked with equal passion (and a touch of fear) about those crazy “Logo Rhythm” things, I knew immediately what she was talking about. She was talking about “Logo“, that old teaching tool for up and coming programmers where you push the little turtle this way and that. I’m not sure what that says about me that I knew immediately what she was talking about, other than perhaps that I’m critically geek. It’s my way.

New inside joke: Check.

Her childlike enthusiasm and high intensity are just two of the many things I adore about my wife. Put the two together and you have a definite distinct incomparable third.

Lest you think I make fun too much, ask her sometime about “squeeze more bees.” I’m certainly not above my own butchered colloquialisms… Then there’s my penchant for self injury… In short, I’m a bit of a mess.

Now, if you’re reading this, then the server upgrade is complete and all is back in order. I’m finally current, having not upgraded my poor server in over six years.

The two major upgrades were FreeBSD 5.x to 8.x including all the userland components, and Apache 1.3.x to Apache 2.x (yes, I finally made the move). Additionally, I reconfigured the hardware to take advantage of the Gigabyte GA-7DXR onboard RAID1 capability. Yeah, it’s an old motherboard, and I’m just mirroring, but it still works and I don’t need blazing performance. I just need some assurance against drive failure.

For the last two nights, Elliott the Cat has been quiet the whole night through.

Over the course of the last few weeks, he woke us in the middle of the night with incessant, insistent crying. He was fairly consistent from night to night, making minor adjustments in his timing. First, he cried at 2:30. Then at 3:30. Then 4:30. 5:30 followed. A slight relapse back to 4:30. Then back to 5:30. His best nights had him sounding 8 to 12 meows, followed by a head butt into the door.

His worst night was 73 meows. SEVENTY THREE meows in quick succession, and in a variety of tones and volume. That night was about a week ago.

Seventy Three.

Three score and thirteen.

I don’t know… maybe that’s not that many. But I’ve only rarely cohabitated with a cat, and not for very long. That seems a lot to me.

But for the last two nights, he’s been quiet. Nary a single “mrrow” has awoken us, and he has apparently determined that the door will not yield to the ministrations of his noggin. In fact, this morning, Jami found him laying next to the door in the hallway, seemingly with patience and resignation waiting for her to get up and give him food and petting.

So, I think he’s settling in. We’ll see how he does when he moves again to yet another new house. We’re hoping that’s sooner rather than later.

On another note, we got a nice card from the vet where I took The Squanto for the last 6 years. It got me all misty again… I miss petting him on the couch that Elliott the Cat has fully taken over now. But, I think The Squanto would have wanted Elliott to succeed to that throne.

It’s taken a while, but we finally took the time to sit down and look through the honeymoon pictures… in the end, with only a very few exceptions, we just put them all up. Enjoy!

I picked The Squanto up from the vet yesterday. It hit me harder than I thought it would.

I paid for the cremation, took him from the (very nice, warm and compassionate) vet and I carried him out in a little box. He rode home with me in the passenger seat. Having him next to me that way, in that little 2 X 2 X 4” plastic box, made him being gone somehow more real.

I have to admit to not even wanting to write that, as if some irrational part of my brain thinks that if I just shut my mouth and keep quiet about it, he’ll come prancing around the corner, bright eyed and ears perked up wanting to go for a ride.

Part of me thinks it’s silly to grieve so over a pet. The rest of me, a much larger part, can’t help it and doesn’t care if it’s silly or not.

We’ve been out looking for other little Schips, in spite of the fact that one of the tips for grieving pet owners is to stay clear of lookalike pets for future companionship. Bah. As much as it hurt to see him go, and as much as I miss him, I can’t help but want another of the feisty little guys (or gals). I’ll ignore that tip, thank you very much. If I can convince Jami, I may just ignore it twice.

Supporting my hardheadedness in that regard, there are lots of Schip pups out there, ranging from $200 to $1,000, depending on the seller and the pedigree. We’ve got time, though… we want to give ourselves a chance to miss The Squanto, and since puppies are so much work, we want to wait until Jami is home for the summer between school years. So, next summer it is!

On another, slightly more pleasant note, our remaining furry family member is starting to relax. Elliott the Cat hasn’t had a very good time with the move from her(our) place to mine(ours). It’s been rather rough on him. Either he’s hidden in the basement behind some boxes (which have since been packed away for better staging while the house is on the market), or he’s been getting us up at 02:30, or 03:30, or 04:30 with truly incessant meowing for attention (I counted 50 meows before I lost count two days ago). In short, he’s stressed and showing a couple of the classic signs of feline hyperesthesia syndrome.

Jami was pretty worried for a few days, but he’s shaping up nicely. The last few days he’s been very social, hanging out with us upstairs in the living room, instead of hiding out, wide eyed and twitching, tail flicking violently in the basement. What’s more, for the last two nights he’s waited until 05:30 to start meowing outside the bedroom door. That’s a dramatic improvement over 02:30, 03:30 and 04:30.

We’ve adopted an “ignore him and he’ll go away” attitude. The alternative is to respond, thus reinforcing and prolonging the behavior. By ignoring it completely, he gets no feedback, and more quickly realizes that it simply doesn’t work.

One beloved pet has gone to the clearing at the end of the path, and another is settling slowly into his new life with us. Life goes on.

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I never wanted to be “that guy” that posts pictures of his pets on the web, thinking that anyone would care. But, here I am. He was a great little puppy, and I miss him.

Everyone Loved The Squanto…

This afternoon at about 5:15 I put my puppy, who I’ve had for 15 years, to sleep. I was petting him when he died.

I’m very sad.

He was my most favorite puppy. His first mommy is very sad too.

Following my recap of Sunday, I move on to Saturday…

09:00: House Showing at the North House

We were up at 7 to give us time for some last minute cleaning for the 09:00 house showing. No feedback on the house showing. This is both relatively common and somewhat disappointing. It’s always good to get feedback, even if it’s just “This just isn’t the house for us…” Oh well… there will be more. There has to be.

11:30: Lunch with Friends at The Legends Cheeseburger in Paradise

Lunch was with friends of mine from St. Louis who couldn’t make it to the wedding. They’re a very nice couple, the female half of which I befriended in college, and have stayed in contact with over the years, albeit infrequent contact. They have two gorgeous children, a boy and a girl in elementary school. Jami could relate quite well to them, as well as the parents. It was a nice lunch, though it wasn’t long enough. The boy is young enough that sitting in a booth in a restaurant for 2 hours left him quite restless, and he was very excited to see the bee hive at the KU Museum of Natural History.

17:00: Wedding in Baldwin City at the same church we were married

The wedding in was very nice… then again I’m a little biased. It was very similar to ours, with only a few minor changes. That is to say, it was beautiful. I think it may have been even shorter, though. The only thing really lacking was all the fun music blasting the sanctuary as the crowd is dismissed by the Bride and Groom.

18:00: Reception at Abe & Jake’s in Lawrence

The reception at Abe & Jake’s Landing was fantastic. I didn’t realize they’re only open to private parties and events. Last I heard it was your standard bar. Of course, that was 6 years ago. Things have, apparently, changed. It was a great location, though, and almost everyone had a really great time. The food was great (same caterer that we had – same MENU, in fact), the drinks were flowing freely, and the dance floor was never without plenty of dancers. It was big and spread out enough that there were places for everyone, regardless of how they wanted to spend the evening. Again… similar to ours, with the only difference being that it was inside instead of out.

Afterwards, we hung around and helped clean up as things were winding down. It was the least we could do, since the bride’s family helped us so much at our wedding, both during set up and during clean up.

24:00: Back home at the North House

A 45 minute drive back into town, and we were back home and in our beds, looking forward to a relaxing Sunday, and the previously mentioned introduction of Elliott the Cat into the South Home…

50 Days until the Big Day!!

Predators On Facebook Tough To Track – Kansas City News Story – KMBC Kansas City: “KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Your child could be talking to a sexual predator on Facebook and not even know it. Thursday, February 18, 2010.”

Just watched this on the television… more ridiculous scare mongering from self-important local news personalities. To be fair, the advice was good, such as “Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in real life.” and the tips for parents

However, they lost me with the bits about the sex offenders and the lack of police manpower and time to check them all was completely glossed over. They ignored the fact that the list is so polluted with people who have no business being there, that the police may miss the real threats

In the end, it was irrational fear mongering in the name of ratings without any real perspective on the level of danger.

But that’s what I expected to find, so that’s what I found.