The whole thing started last spring, when we put our two houses on the market. This past spring, a year later almost to the day, her house finally sold and we had the wherewithal to purchase a new house. We packed her house into two POD units and moved them into storage until we had a place to put them. At the same time, we took mine off the market because it hadn’t sold yet, and we didn’t want to take the chance of it selling and us having no place to go. Turns out it wasn’t a concern, because we found the house we wanted to buy within days.

We made an offer, they countered, we met in the middle, and two long months later, we took possession. When that day finally arrived, we couldn’t move in immediately because we had too many other family obligations (Jami’s sister graduated with her doctorate! We couldn’t miss that graduation day…). So, exactly one week after we took possession, I had the two full-to-the-roof POD units filled with more boxes and heavy furniture than any one person has any business owning, delivered for unloading at the new house. With the help of some very friendly neighbors, we started unloading them that night. We continued unloading the next night, and did so until we dropped. We spent our first night in our new home that night. Fortunately, the bed was easily accessible in the POD unit, so we didn’t have to sleep on the floor. By the time we were done, though, it wouldn’t have mattered where we slept… we were too tired to care. Finally, on Saturday, some friends came over to help unload the rest.

By Saturday night, we were absolutely beat. Unfortunately, our work was not yet done. We spent Sunday at the old house, packing up, mowing the yard, and cleaning. Then we devoted that evening at the new home unpacking, straightening up and getting all the computers back online.

Being Memorial Day weekend, we had an extra day which was spent back at the old house for more packing (about 500lbs worth of books – plus lots of this and that) and lots of cleaning. Monday night was given to more unpacking, more cleaning, and more organizing. We did give ourselves a bit of a break for a glass of wine on the front porch before getting back to it.

At the end of the weekend, between the two of us and some very helpful friends and neighbors, we have a pretty good start on a new home.

But our work is not yet done. The POD units were still in the driveway as of Wednesday, to be picked up on Thursday and Friday. Saturday we’ll get a truck to move the rest of the heavy stuff out of my house. Until then, we’ll spend a lot of time at the old house getting as much packed and moved as possible so that the friends who are helping on Saturday only have to help us with the heavy items we can’t move by ourselves. From there, it’s a matter of final cleaning and finishing up a few little details here and thereto get it in tip-top shape to put back on the market. We’re hoping to sell it within the next 2 and a half months. We’ll see…

I hired out the pool table itself, preferring to have someone experienced in dismantling pool tables do that job.  It was taken to one friend’s basement, along with two barstools and the light this morning.

This afternoon, I, my wife, and the couple from whom we bought the whole set, moved the rest of it into the garage in our Southern Home.  That includes the captain’s chair, the player chair, four rolling chairs, a high top table, and a flip-top poker/game table, and a 60″ standing bar.  Thankfully, we had a family truck to use, which meant we had to make a couple trips, and put stuff in cars as well, and make two trips to boot, but we didn’t have to pay anything for it.

One step closer to having a usable pool table!

Christmas Day Proper was spent, just my wife and I. We carried on what is becoming a wonderful tradition of opening one present per hour. We did that first on Valentine’s Day, and she had the fantastic idea of applying it to Christmas too. So, with homemade IHOP style pancakes and mimosas, we opened our gifts to each other, watched Milo & Otis, and I introduced her to Firefly. She’s not totally hooked yet, but I can see the roots sprouting. ;)

The day after Christmas was spent at her parent’s house. Her younger sister and bro-in-law were there with her parents, and her older sister joined us via Skype for the opening of yet more presents. I wasn’t sure how that would go, having only been a Skype user since the night before, the the extent of my usage being with my wife in the other room, but it was really quite cool. We just turned the laptop (and thus the built in webcam) around to face whoever was opening presents at the time, and it was almost like she was right there in the room with us. I have some pictures of her on Skype, but they’re not terribly flattering.

At the end of it all, my wife and I got quite a few presents, some fantastic, some more funny than anything, and others merely… curious. But, instead of going through the Christmas swag we snuck away with, I think I’d rather talk about what my wife and I gave to others (and what I gave to my wife). This is pretty much a complete list (as far as I can remember), but there are a few things that I couldn’t find, so I’m keeping them in the queue for next year.

• $30 Gift certificate to Sears
• DVD’s of Milo & Otis, The Aristocats, Cinderella, Lady & the Tramp
• DVD’s of Firefly Season, Serentiy
• Bathtub waterproof foam pillow (non-inflatable)
• Bathtub adjustable shelf with bamboo book rest & wine glass stand
• Silver mini Christmas Tree
• Flannel Shirts
• Presso Hand-Pressed Espresso Maker
• $100 Gift certificate to Par Exsalonce
• Candy bars and lemon drops
• Schlemmertopf German clay glazed roaster
• Gingersnaps
• Jellies
• Postit Notes
• Bath salts
• Topsies Carmel Corn
• Dominoes Mexican Train Set
• Grizzly G1286 3 x 3 Large Sanding Drum
• Jacobs Chuck 30602 1/2-Inch Keyed Chuck
• Lodge Striped Hot Handle Holders/Mitts, Set of 2
• Peltor NEXT Skull Screws Foam Earplugs Corded – Single Pair
• Samsung SH-S222A/BEBE Internal Half Height Supermulti PATA 22X DVD-Writable Drive
• Tiny little cast iron scent skillet & scent cubes

Elliot the Cat doesn’t care about presents. He misses The Squanto, and wants his nap. We have to disagree about the presents, but we miss The Squanto, and like our naps too. At the end of it all, I have to say I like married Christmas. :)

We hit a couple stores, but settled on a Dell 17R from running Windows Home Pro, with the i5-460M, 8GB system memory, and a 5,400rpm 500GB drive from Best Buy. We had an interesting time obtaining it, which I’ll relate here for your edification.

1. Sunday, Nov. 14th, 2010, the price was $749.99 in the store, and online.
2. Sunday, Nov. 21st, 2010, the price was $799.99 in the store, and $749.99 online.
3. We called, and they confirmed that they would honor the online price, thus saving the ~$50 that another, less observant or stand-upish individual would have spent.
4. Arriving at the store, the sales associate (White Shirt) told us that the price was, in fact, $859.99 due to it being the last model available, and being preloaded with additional “optimization”, and the inclusion of restore media.
• I wasn’t aware that setting the native resolution was an “optimization” service, and that it dramatically increased the speed of the machine, real or apparent.
• I didn’t realize that laptops no longer came with restore media.
5. We refused the “offer” and asked the White Shirt to call around.
6. Few stores had the model (which Jami was pretty set on at this point, having encountered resistance), and the one that the White Shirt called was the same price, and also “optimized” and with media.
7. We decided to wait until over Thanksgiving to check around again, and started to leave.
8. The greeter at the doors held us, however, saying that a manager wanted to talk with us.
9. A young man in a Blue Shirt came by and explained that they could, in fact, sell us the laptop for the advertised price. They wouldn’t charge us for work we did not request, and had no choice but to accept if we wanted this particular laptop. The original sales rep was unaware of how this particular sale could be finalized; she’s a new employee, as denoted by the White Shirt.
10. We bought the laptop and left happy.

Jami postulated that it was a sales technique designed to get a few extra dollars out of unsuspecting or willing customers. By saying it was “optimized” and came with extras, customers would be more willing to part with some extra dollars. I’m inclined to agree, but we weren’t those customers. When faced with the loss of a sale, they opted to acquiesce to the formerly agreed upon lower price.

The lesson here is stick to your guns. If a price is advertised, that’s the price you pay. If they refuse, take your business elsewhere. You’ll either get the price you wanted there as they flail about trying to keep your business, or you’ll get a better deal somewhere else.

We got the laptop home, and I dove in to get it setup up for Jami, and attached to our home network. I played around with Windows 7 for the (admittedly) first time last night. I was impressed by the OS itself. I haven’t played with it enough to offer more than a “seems pretty slick”, but it… well… it seems pretty slick. I’ll play around more though, I’m sure. I had some trouble getting it to see the Samba shares on my FreeBSD server. That’s my task tonight. I’m sure it’ll be a stumper. As a side note, I was immediately impressed by the fact that the hard drive (500GB 5,400RPM) was split into system (c:\) and a data (d:\) partitions. I’d not seen that before on an OEM machine. Perhaps that was one of the “optimizations”.

I’m a little discouraged by my own Alienware Aurora m9700 laptop now. I was looking to install Win 7 on it, preferably the 64bit version, b/c 64 is always inarguably better than 32, right? Well… the hardware maxes out at 2GB RAM. What I’ve found online says that 2GB is fine for the 32bit version, but at least 3GB is recommended for the 64bit version. Still, I might go with the lowly 32bit version anyway, given that it looks compatible with the specs, and might be more compatible with the various hardware bits and pieces. I’ve not done the research, but it’s possible that 64bit drivers don’t exist for all the components.

As for the original laptop with a dead wireless NIC, I’ll recondition it as a print server until I can figure out why my CUPS/Samba setup is so flaky.

Next, a positive note about my experience at MicroCenter, and NAS…

I had more “Happy Birthday’s” messages, cards and calls than I expected, and it was both pleasantly surprising and humbling. Thank you all!

Today is Veteran’s Day, which means I have the day off. One nice thing about working in the financial sector is that I always have the day off after my birthday, no matter what. I’m honoring the sacrifices and efforts of our veterans by exercising my freedom to sit on the couch and catch up on DVR’d stories.

Also, I’m doing laundry.

Brokey:

lrw-rw---- 1 root cups 9 Sep 24 17:04 ugen0.2 -> usb/0.2.0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root cups 0, 128 Sep 24 17:01 0.2.0

Workey:

lrw-rw---- 1 root cups 9 Sep 24 17:04 ugen0.2 -> usb/0.2.0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root cups 0, 128 Sep 24 17:01 0.2.0

Yeah. I don’t see a difference either. Still, I was getting the following errors:

prnt/backend/hp.c 745: ERROR: open device failed stat=12: hp:/usb/photosmart_7350?serial=XXXXXXXXXXXXX

and

printer-state=5(stopped)
printer-state-message="/usr/local/libexec/cups/backend/hp failed"
printer-state-reasons=paused

whenever I tried to print (not the real serial number).

Then I chown root:lp both ugen0.2 and usb/0.2.0, and printing was magically working again. And yet, they still show as being root:cups. Go figure. Please. Go figure, because aside from some weird corruption in some place I don’t yet know exists, I can’t figure it out myself.

So, that done, I moved myself downtown to the KC Public Library for the first of two League of American Cyclists Smart Cycling KC: Traffic Skills 101 classes. Though there wasn’t anything in there that I didn’t already know, it was still a good time, and worth the time spent. Some really good discussion ensued around traffic law and cyclists place in it, and how to best defend ourselves out there. I’d be interested in the more advanced classes, so I’m going to keep my eyes open for those.

Now, I’m about to settle in for the evening with my beautiful wife, who’s been shopping nearly all day, with a bottle of wine and a weeks worth of DVR’d television stories.

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!

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.

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.

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.

I’m very sad.

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

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…

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.

I don’t think you deserve an explanation for how I’ve treated you. I don’t think I owe you anything. But I think we have a chance, you and I, of getting back what we once had, so I’m going to give you one.

I don’t always go where you want me to go, and often I go exactly where you don’t want me to go. What do you expect? You haven’t been visiting me that much. I’m hurt, and am feeling neglected by the lack of attention lately. So, yeah, maybe I am being a little passive aggressive. Instead of talking to you directly, I behave badly, and hope you’ll work it out yourself. I’m talking to you directly now, though. So anything that happens after this is on you.

If you’d just spend more time with me, I wouldn’t have to hide myself behind the pretty blue 2 ball. With more attention, I may have slowed to a stop a few inches back that way, and let you see your 11 ball. Look at it, all pretty and stripey. Oh wait. You can’t see it. The 2 is in the way. My bad. *shrug*

Also, about that thing you call a stroke. I bet you can’t even remember what it’s called, can you? Can you? Chicken wing! That’s what it’s called. But what’s it all about? Where’d that come from? You used to hit me true and on the straight and narrow. I used to know right where to expect you. Now, you’re all over the place. What am I supposed to do with that? I try to go where you want me to go, but what you apparently want, and what you’re telling me are two completely different things.

You did this to yourself. It’s not my fault you decided you had more important things to do. Now you want to come back and pick up where things left off. Well, let me tell you, it’s not that simple. It’s not going to happen that way. I lost faith in you. I lost trust in you. You’re going to have to earn it back. That means time. That means attention, and if you want me back, you’re going to have to give me that time and attention. If I don’t get it, I’m going to keep dumping you for the other person to see how they do.

I’m being straight with you here, which is more than I can say for how you’ve been treating me, Mr. Chicken Wing.

Now, I’m not saying I’ll leave you forever. I think we have a chance. We used to have something real good going on. It was solid. We liked each other. We joked around. We played, we laughed. we had a great time! I’m telling you, we can have all that again. But it’s conditional… we can have all that again on the condition that you treat me right, and with the respect you used to show me; the respect I deserve. We have a chance, you and I, but remember what I said: time and attention. There are no freebies here. You can’t just expect me to do what you want. You have to earn it.

I’m around… you just have to find me again.
Yours,
Cue Ball

“Hi Readers — When you get right down to it, a lot of Free-Range Kids ends up being a plea for more community. More helping each other, more trusting each other, even more hanging out with each other. And here is a story of just that: A brief glimpse of how nice it is when [...]

When zero-discretion policies and accurate risk calculus collide we have… common sense. This story is remarkable by the very fact that it’s unremarkable.

Keep tabs on your child at all times with this small but sophisticated device that combines GPS and cellular technology to provide you with real-time location updates. The small and lightweight Little Buddy transmitter fits easily into a backpack, lunchbox or other receptacle, making it easy for your child to carry so you can check his or her location at any time using a smartphone or computer. Customizable safety checks allow you to establish specific times and locations where your child is supposed to be — for example, in school — causing the device to alert you with a text message if your child leaves the designated area during that time. Additional real-time alerts let you know when the device’s battery is running low so you can take steps to ensure your monitoring isn’t interrupted.

Or…

Helicopter parents rejoice! Now you can give up any semblense that you’re raising your child to be his or her own person. With this device, you can establish, without a doubt in your childs mind, that he or she is completely incapable of doing anything on his or her own. Do you want to raise children unable to make decisions on their own? Do you want to ensure that they rely on you for the simplest of tasks well into their adult life? Do you want to spend every waking moment worried about where your child is, what he or she is doing, and who he or she is doing it with? Are you convinced by the mass-media that there are abductors and molesters around every corner, even in your own yard? If you answered yes to even one of the above questions, then our Surveillance Tracker is for you!

If you call within the next 10 minutes (and we know you will, because every second counts when your child’s life is under immediate and extreme threat), we’ll throw in our home surveillance system that allows you to monitor every room in your home from your smart phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the low low price of $24.99.

Restrictions and shipping charges apply. Only available in the continental United States.

All that said, I can see a use for this in tracking friends and fellows on long rides, such as the Triple Bypass.