Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tiny Girl
So Val is still on with her attempts to slide right off the weight chart. She’s under the 10th percentile now, at 13 pounds 10 oz this morning. You should see what she eats, though! In an average day she nurses 6 or 7 times, including a couple of times overnight (and my supply is fine...I’d tell you why I’m so sure but that’s TMI, I think), eats between 2 and four jars of baby food, a couple of big servings of oatmeal and/or barley cereal (with the baby food), a share of whatever we’re having for supper, and sometimes a snack.
She’s also the squirmiest baby ever. She’s also pulling up on everything everywhere, can crawl almost as fast as I normally walk, and changing her diaper has become an affair that involves me sitting on the floor with her where I can pin her arms with my legs. Otherwise it’s simply impossible. And with that skill she deftly defeated the (overly timid, young, new) nurse today, who measured her at 25 and a quarter inches. I know, because I’m the poor sap who has to dress her, that she’s grown more than a half inch in the last two months. My own measurement against her measurements once she left the room and Val calmed a little and let me stretch her out properly was about an inch longer. Which would put her right back at the sixtieth percentile, where I expected her to be (per usual) rather than the thirtieth. Ah, well.
At least her head--being easier to measure--looked like it grew appropriately!
Our doctor, being possessed of a sneaky sense of humor, ambushed me with a blood pressure check while I was there, too. And it stank, as usual, so more meds, as is becoming the pattern. I’m starting to suspect that not having slept a full night in more than six months is what’s keeping it high. God knows we walk enough, lol! And he doesn’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with me that a million bucks and a beach vacation wouldn’t cure (my words, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant, lol). So we soldier on. Sleepily.
Six Again
Very funny! My mind was going a different direction as they got in bed at the end of the day…
Blogging… Magazine?
I received an e-mail invitation to this moments a couple hours ago, and my first thought was to wonder if the people behind it actually knew anything about blogging, or if is was another “Blog Carnival” scenario.
That is, not really understanding blogging, or things like carnivals, but seeing an apparent way to piggyback on blogging for some easy cash. Or like already famed people supplementing their empires with instant-audience blogs, then holding themselves forth as blogging experts, even if they require an editor to be readable.
Just the very idea, too… a magazine for blogging? And podcasting. Which could mean it’s a magazine for podcasting that gives a wink and a nod to podcasting’s blog roots.
Anyway, seeing the lack of detail on the subscription page, I looked at the domain of the sender’s e-mail and had my thoughts reinforced, though at least they appear professional. Well, unless you click on the podcasting link and find they are so new to the topic that you get an “Index of /” page. Heh.
I might sign up regardless, as I am intrigued at the same time I am skeptical. Free is good, after all. Getting in a directory might mean a hit or two extra here and there.
I just couldn’t help those first thoughts, and can’t help that amused skepticism.
One. Yeah.
As Deb mentioned, she took the kids for a walk and to the playground yesterday.
When she was telling me about it, I asked if Sadie had gone down the tubes. Except for some exploratory ventures, mainly she went on the slide last time. Well, that and she loved the suspended bridge on the bigger kid equipment.
Deb thought for a second and said, perhaps a little uncertainly, “one.”
Clear as could be, Sadie followed that with “One. Yeah.”
Little twerp. She’s totally toying with us in the talking department.
Well, perhaps not intentionally. It’s as if the brainpower and attention go for processing everything she sees and hears, and learning the language perfectly, but none goes for using the language she’s learned, rather than her own language or symbolism, except when it happens to slip out or become a word of choice. Like ball or key.
She’ll even use a word a lot, then stop using it for weeks or months, then suddenly use it again. That includes the word she invented for candy: gee (with a hard G sound).
It’s funny, we’re probably supposed to be worried, in the age of modern parenting, but we’re not at all. A kid as bright as Sadie, who when she does talk has clarity and grammar beyond her age, will be just fine.
In the meantime, some of the things she comes out with just floor us.
On another note, Deb has Valerie at her six month checkup today. I can’t wait to find out her specs and what the doctor thinks of her antics. What I really can’t wait for is Sadie’s 2 year appointment at the beginning of October. She has grown so tall!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tired.
We went for a walk today.
I was hoping for just a walk, but it wasn’t long before I realized that the path to a happy two-year-old ran through the playground. We went, we played, we ambled home while the baby slept. 2 and a half hours and 3 and a half miles later, the little darlings finally decided I was allowed to sit down. Outside. While they played in the sandbox for a bit longer.
It was a damned beautiful day. I don’t know what in hell we’ll do when winter gets here. Maybe Sadie will still be cooking obsessively by then…
BTW, this Gmaps Pedometer thingy? Pretty cool.
Toto, We’re Not In NT4 Anymore
Kind of makes you wonder when a simple task that wouldn’t take five minutes in NT requires upwards of three hours to figure out and make happen in Windows 2003 Server. And while my knowledge of 2003 isn’t exactly extensive, I’m not the world’s biggest NT expert either. It’s just a whole new world, having to deal with DNS and active directory.
My main experience with 2003 before this has been a 2003 SBS (Small Business Server), with a handful of workstations and no other servers. Brainless? Maybe not quite that, but not bad. SBS is cool if it’s appropriate for your needs. My other experience was assisting with a single 2003 server, replacing a dying Novell server and upgrading twenty-odd workstations.
By rights I’d have long since played with 2003 enough in a lab or in-house network setting to have become more comfortable with it, but that would require more revenue. I once did the math to figure out what I “needed” to charge per hour to cover everything including keeping up on new things. It came to $15 more than my normal rate (which is further discounted for the big client), amazingly enough placing it closer to what is normal around here.
Oh well. Perhaps progress will speed up now that I’ve made a breakthrough…
Carb Girl
The third picture is especially significant in that Sadie hated potatoes. Even in the mixed veggies babyfood that included potato, she could tell it was there. It took McDonald’s fries to get her to eat potato in some form. Maybe it helps that Val’s first potato experience was fries from Mina’s.
Valerie also thinks toast, bread crusts and pasta, even plain, are wonderful. On the other hand, I am not sure she has ever disliked any food. Declared it “meh” compared to other things, sure, but not rejected. She also loves broccoli at least as much as Sadie did. The bread picture here was actually a bit of garlic bread crust from a meal of broccoli chicken al fredo, of which she’d also eaten the other components.
However well she likes everything else, carbs seem to rule.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Wish I Had Measures
I just made the best (soft) tacos I have ever had. Because I made from scratch the best flavored meat filling ever.
I’m just astounded.
It was about half a pound or so of cheap 85% burger, flavored with garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, red pepper, chili powder, cumin, cilantro and ginger powder. I have a good idea the proportions, so I’ll try to replicate it sometime.
We used small flour tortillas, sour cream, grated cheddar and jack cheeses, and lettuce along with the meat. I’d love to try the same thing with hard taco shells sometime.
Wow.
Family Pictures
Here are some great pictures of several nieces and nephews.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Juliette Ochieng.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Todd Sattersten.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Crazy Dream
This makes my having a dream last night in which I met and talked with Ted Kennedy all the more fascinating.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Happy Birthday
To blogger Glenn Reynolds.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
DreamHost Strikes Again
I have a business domain that I sooner or later need to have hosted and start moving with for real.
Based on reputation, price and specs, I attempted to host it with DreamHost. The alternative in mind was GoDaddy, but they have some unexpected limitations.
I got through the signup and they rejected me for suspected credit card fraud, which was completely whacky. After not-too-seriously considering jumping through their hoops and faxing an image of the card to their billing people, I asked them to cancel my order. They said:
Your account was disabled for fraud so there is nothing to cancel. The only way to activate your account will be by fax.
Okay, fine, so no business ever transpired between us.
At least as a temporary measure, I’ve been trying to add that domain to my elhide.com account with Hosting Matters. When I do, it keeps telling me my domain “is owned by another user.” I just now finally put in a support request for that.
Since that didn’t work and I know I’d eventually want it on its own host and all that, I decided to try DreamHost again. Just not for as large a plan or as long a timeframe this time.
At the end of the signup DreamHost gives me this error:
“This domain “thedomaininquestion.com” is already in our system!
Please contact support if you’d like to do something with it and you don’t know how.”
Aw jeez.
Their initial, admittedly instant, reply to my missive indicated they didn’t really know what I was talking about. They’re on the same page now, but jeez. If HM can fix the problem on their end, I’ll just setup shop there until I don’t fit anymore.
And I don’t think I will ever again entertain the notion of putting anything with DreamHost.
More First Playground Fun
When we first arrived, Sadie wandered around, checking things out, refusing so much as any hints of help by repeatedly saying “I do.”
Not “me do,” as my niece famously insisted to my mother about dressing herself when she was two. No, for Sadie it’s no talking at all except when things slip out, but with the correct pronoun or usage when it happens. Here she is, checking things out and getting close to using the actual equipment:
Here Sadie demonstrates the only proper way to reach the top of the slide:
Yep, the proper and efficient way is to climb up the slide itself. She used the big steps. She tried using the little steps closer to the slide, after watching another kid use them. She wouldn’t take my advice to use them; only witnessing a peer. Same with being reticent about going through the cage-like metal tube until she watched another girl go through.
She went down the little slide once, then it was big slide all the way. Eventually when the right combination of other little kids going over there but not as many people over all being there happened, she made a break for the big kid equipment and used the even bigger slide. However, it was in heavy use by others and she freaked because we stopped her from climbing up the slide and effectively monopolizing it.
Here she is, going down the big slide on the little kid side of the playground:
Finally, Valerie does not want to be little, and insists she can play on the equipment too, not merely swing or be held or sit in the stroller. Sheesh. We let her hang out on this two-tier platform like truncated steps, handy for adults to sit or to access the tubes. She climbed up a step and considered but though better of going into the mesh tube.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Verizon, D-Link and FiOS… Oh My!
Today I put a network card in my old Pentium 200 so I could transfer files easily, and in a pinch use it for internet if my main computer is ever down. Annoying with all the reboots and such, but straightforward enough.
In the process, I noticed a computer named “melissa01” using our network. Not at the time, but routinely since at least August 16th.
It’s probably the new upstairs neighbor, taking advantage of open wireless. That Verizon promised me would not be accessible by others in or around my building. They want you to use the D-Link router they provide, and it happens to have both wired and wireless capability. Yay.
This disturbed me enough to go digging into how to secure things. To me, there should be an off switch on the router so wireless can be physically, completely disabled if you do not use it. No such luck. Nor is there an easy, logical, straightforward answer to how to disable the wireless. You can’t; you can only make it harder for people to find and use.
I had not logged onto the router before. I’d thought the installation guy had set the login to something other than the default, and while I didn’t know offhand precisely what the default was, I had a good idea. After a few permutations it let me in, no problem.
At no time did I change the login or password while poking around in the router.
Based on what I learned, I turned off ID broadcasting by the router, which alone would have probably saved us having the neighbor tagging along. That lets people sniff out that you exist.
Subsequently I decided to turn of DHCP and assign us fixed IP addresses. That was how I ran things under DSL, using the DSL modem combined with a Linksys hub. I’d meant to change to that once we were functional on FiOS, but never got around to it. That’s another barrier to casual use of the wireless by just anyone.
That earned me no internet access at all. Figured that was either an artifact of DHCP not having been turned off yet on the router, or my needing to specify DNS on each computer.
Went to log onto the router to change DHCP and… nothing.
Absolutely no combination of default or logical login and password will let me open the router configuration. Apparently it went all rogue and reset itself to God knows what. Hey, not the first time I’ve seen the seemingly impossible happen like that.
Set the computer back to use DHCP so I can get online, but all I can figure is now I am going to have to set the router back to factory defaults with the little “in case of emergency” button and then won’t be able to get back online without calling Verizon to tell me what are the relevant settings.
Argh!
And if this is the upstairs people, what a way to make a positive first impression on me.
Swingers
Looking at the playground pictures reminded me I’d never posted Sadie’s first time on a big kid swing, back on July 22nd. Here she is with my grandnieces Katherine and Julia:
The strange thing was that she propelled herself, as if she had been born knowing how to do it. Except it seems less strange after seeing how she operated at the playground, watching what other kids did and learning, or getting her nerve up, in the case of the metal mesh tube, from that. She probably saw one of the other kids pumping her legs to go and emulated.
The funky safe swings in the little kid (red) section of the playground were a step backward for Sadie, but Valerie didn’t mind. Sadie also didn’t remember how to make herself go. The weird seats made it easy to push them without unseating them, so that was good.
In the last shot you get a good view of the bigger kid equipment, which little kids were also using. Sadie took it upon herself to join them for the last little while we were there.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Michele Catalano.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Black Beans and Rice
So we’ve been experimenting, because it’s gotten tiring eating chicken one night, beef the next, chicken, beef, chicken, beef, chicken...oh, hell, you get the picture. It suddenly occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that beans are wicked healthy and stupid cheap, so I decided to start there. I did this for supper last week and it was more than edible, if a bit on the simple side.
1 cup black beans, dried
1/2 medium onion (Vidalia, in this case), diced
1/2 medium green pepper, diced
1 good size clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil
After picking over and washing the beans, I quick-soaked them (beans+ 4 or 5 times their volume in water, bring to a boil and let boil a couple of minutes, then cover ‘em and let ‘em soak for an hour before pouring the soaking liquid off...this worked wonders as far as cutting down the unfortunate bean-y side effects), then added three cups of water and put them on high heat to boil. Meanwhile, in a skillet, the garlic, onion, and green pepper met with the hot oil and sauteed for a few minutes, then they went in the pot, too. Covered and set to simmer, the beans took almost precisely an hour to be perfectly done. We ate these with brown rice and corn, with a bit of cheese and sour cream on top. Yum.
I loved ‘em just the way they came out. Jay thought they were a bit “bean-y” and has lobbied for doubling the pepper and onion and garlic next time around, so I think we’ll try that soon.
Having real garlic in the house has been a boon, too, in that it’s encouraging us to throw it into just about everything. I made chicken and broccoli alfredo last night and cooked the chicken with some of it, and made garlic bread with some more. Very good. Very, very good.
Sadie In, Sadie Out
Poor Pluto
I didn’t see anything seriously wrong with the proposed definition of planets as bodies orbiting the sun and having sufficient gravity to be spherical.
Apparently that was just too controversial, as the official word is now planet Pluto no longer (via Catallarchy). The article says nothing of the official definition, or whether this is purely arbitrary. One would hope they applied a definition that would fit in any other solar system, not merely one that says “yo, you guys stay, you go, you lowly Kuiper object you; you make us want to throw up a little.”
If there’s a formal definition that is reasonable and led to the desired result, it probably has something to do with some elements of orbital plane, shape or size.
Funny thing is, there was such a furor over the expansive proposal, this will go over easily. Had they gone straight to this, there might have been as much furor the other way.
Another funny thing is, now that they’ve defined something easily identifiable by size, shape and orbit - big enough to form a sphere with its own gravity, orbiting the primary - but chosen not to call that “planet,” I wonder if there will be a word for it.
Of course, at a time like this I can’t help thinking something like “that’s no planet, that’s a space station!”
Update:
Here’s a better article, which explains how they got there. It’s not such a deviation after all, basically adding a clause to the definition much discussed in the past week. Here’s the definition from the article, with the change bolded by me:
“a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
That even makes some sense. The asteroid and Kuiper belts are debris fields, apart from Pluto’s crossing with Neptune’s orbit. The orbits of the eight major planets are clear.
So it is applicable to any solar system, and we do have a new category: dwarf planets, favored by the Snow White Mining and Terraforming Company.
Ready for Launch
Sisters Impatient and Thoughtful, loaded in their stroller, ready to go for a walk.
Teenage Two Year Old
Good Posture Starts Young
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Very Cool Site
Received In E-Mail
Chili: The Results Post
That third picture is more to show the bread I bought than for another angle on the bowl of chili that could properly keep a spoon standing upright. I saw wheat Italian bread cheap at Hannaford and it looked so yummy I bought a loaf to go with the chili. The bread turned out to be merely okay; not fine enough to be like white but different, and not strong enough to be strongly flavored wheat. Plus for all Hannaford make great baked goods, I think Wal-Mart’s addictive white Italian bread is probably better than theirs, giving the wheat an automatic strike against it.
I think the chili would have been great served with injera, which I’d love to try making someday. It may not be Ethiopian, but it’s similar to the types of dishes served on or with the flat bread.
But I digress.
The chili came out near perfect. Deb says it’s the best she’s ever had. I say near because I know it could be improved slightly, but it was damn close. Sadie enjoyed it, though mainly she picked the meat chunks out. But they were the bulk of it anyway.
Monday night was when I’d planned to make it, with Deb having pre-cooked plain a bag of pinto beans. I was late enough and we realized it would take long enough and the beans were abundant enough that we changed plans. I drained a lot of the water from the beans - more than I probably should have, it turned out - and scooped aout two cups, perhaps a third of the total. I made those into refried beans, a first for me. They came out pretty good.
I’d also overbought the steak, already expecting to make something else out of part of it, or so have even meatier chili than I did, so I cut off half of one of them and stuck it in the cast iron pan with spices. It sealed the outside and left too rare the inside, despite and maybe because of my efforts to cook it fast, so I ended up cutting it into small strips in the pan as it cooked. It wound up being the most amazing flavored steak I have ever made. I could barely keep from eating it all before it got into the burritos. Which is what we made, with the homemade refried beans, steak, cheese and sour cream. They were yummy! And I can’t get over how cheap. It was maybe $2 for the entire meal that left us stuffed.
Meanwhile, I cut the rest of the steak I’d opened into small chunks. After we ate I cooked them in the cast iron pan along with a clove of garlic and almost half each of a green bell pepper and large Vidalia onion. Tossed that into the bean pan and then cooked the other, larger steak, cut up in small chunks, with a bunch of spices, cooking until the meat was done and the liquid was concentrated. That went into the pot.
Stirred and simmered and spice and flavored. I used a dash of apple cider vinegar, a large can of tomato paste, probably about the same as two of the traditional tiny size, and ultimately ended up adding some ketchup, a fair amount of water, and both white and brown sugar. At one point all you could taste was concentrated bell pepper and it was very bitter, so I ended up doing an unusual amount of adjusting the other way. And repeatedly adding chili powder to get that flavor component to come through correctly. That was the main spice, but along the line it also had red pepper, black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, cilantro and ginger (unless I am thinking of the burrito steak), and cinnamon (in the anti-bitter phase).
In the end it tasted similar to my old faux chili, but thicker and meatier. It wasn’t as hot as I have sometimes made the faux chili, or at least the heat was covered well, but it was delicious. As I noted elsewhere, Valerie loved the taste of the sauce, and Sadie declared it good in the face of fussy eating lately.
Doing it the night before worked out perfectly, too. It cooked until something like 10 PM, then went in the fridge sometime after 11, after enough of a cooldown.
The chili experiment was so successful it’ll probably be a semi-regular thing, especially in the winter as it’s that sort of hearty.
What Is It?
Deb asked what this was, after Sadie had shown way too much interest in it earlier, and I didn’t know so I took a picture like a good blogger. I recognize it as nothing edible, but that’s just a broad “what it isn’t” that’s not a big help beyond basic wild food safety.
It’s sort of a vine-like, weedy plant climbing the suckers at the base of one of the trees our cars nose up to in the driveway.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Classic Valerie
Nope, she wasn’t trying out for Blue Man Group: The Junior Edition. She’d found a rogue crayon of Sadie’s. Compared to that, how bad could it be to let her try the chili? Which she loved.
As of today she seems to have grasped and run with the idea she should grin face-wrenchingly for the camera, so she’s gone from serious in most shots to big smiles much of the time. This seemed more spontaneous, and is a classic picture.
Now if we could get her to sleep all night…
Happy Birthday
To my stepsister, Laurie, who is 41 today. For some reason that seems weirder than my being 45, or my sister being 49.