I am blessed beyond anything I could have ever imagined for my life. She is the most caring, loving, witty, charming, funny, beautiful, and all-around amazing woman in the world. All I have to do is think of her and my sadness is cheered. A2C, I love you!
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the interwebs knows all…
I wish I had this handy guide when I met A2C. It would’ve saved a lot of hand wringing and sleepless nights!
if i had a dime…
So, I was at a wedding about a month ago, and got some schmutz all over my laptop bag. I finally got around to giving the bag a good wash this evening. As I was emptying my bag, I noticed that I was holding in my hand….
my green iPod mini
I’m pretty happy that I found it, but I’m confused that I didn’t find it earlier. I must’ve looked in this bag at least a dozen times, specifically for my iPod. Well, I’m not complaining.
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in memoriam green iPod mini
After several months of searching high and low, I’ve given up. I’m beginning to accept the fact that my green iPod mini is lost. I’ve looked everywhere, and have racked my brain trying to remember where I last saw it or used it. The odd thing is that I still have the docking cable. I always took the cable with me if I was going to be away from home for more than a normal day.
I think the thing I’m saddest about is the sentimental value of greenie. A2C gave me greenie when we were dating. I remember it was just before we got engaged. She had just returned from a trip overseas. We were hanging out in her room, and were catching up and talking about things. I told her I loved her, and she replied as she always does with, “You do?”. Only this time, she continued, “Oh good, then I have something for you!”. She jumped up and began digging through her closet. In a few moments, she produced a new iPod mini and a protective case. I was floored, as it was a pretty extravagant gift (to me, anyway).
If I were to pick an iPod myself, it would have been green. It was so nice to have something I’d use all the time to remind me of A2C (not that I needed reminding or anything). I got lots of good years out of that iPod, and I must say, I think the minis are still my favorites. I’ve not tried out the nano (older or newer), and quite frankly, I’m not all that interested. Half due to the fact that I read more than listen on my daily commute these days, and half because I’m not so enamored of all things iPod as I once was. That being said, I’m slowly becoming more and more interested in the iPhone. Must… resist… temptation… shiny…
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two weeks old, and she’s more ‘leet than I am…
If you’ve come here looking for updates on Eden, she’s got her own blog now: http://eden.therac25.net. She’s got a strange outlook on things already. I’m sure she gets that from her parents 🙂
you never see Eden and Batman in the same room at the same time…
Of course, she’s only 2 days old, so that’s not saying much. Yes, this is a shameless plug to show off the baby 🙂
She kinda looks like a Peanuts © character, no?
What is daddy feeding me?
Sometimes, Eden is waaay too serious. I mean really, babies shouldn’t be worried about the merits of compiled languages vs. interpreted languages.
It’s the eyebrows, man.
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some new code
A2C and I have been working on some new code, and we’re proud to present the results to you 🙂 Here’s what it looks like:
#include <iostream.h>
#include "flushTypes.h"
#include "Michaels.h"
#include "Wang.h"
public class baby: public Wang, private Michaels {
public:
baby *baby::baby(mother *, father *);
void baby::cry(time_t time, int intensity);
void baby::eat(time_t time);
void baby::sleep(time_t time);
void baby::play(time_t time);
private:
// This function returns true if the the diaper contains something
boolean baby::diaperCheck();
void baby::flush(bodilyFunction flushType);
}
void main(void) {
mother *elaine;
father *andy;
baby *ourBaby;
ourBaby = new(baby);
Michaels::baby(mother, father);
fatherhood.run();
motherhood.run();
parents.sleep(0);
new(life);
life.begin();
}
Next, we compile the code:
$make install --SUNDAY baby
Then, we look at the results:
$ls -l total 1 -rwxr-xr-- 1 malfunction54 michaels 19.25 13 May 15:30 EdenHopeMichaels
For those of you who can’t read the code, I’ve made a GUI that may be more intuitive for you…
Born on May 13, 2007 (mother’s day), she weighs in at 7.00 lbs
She is 19.25″ long
We proudly introduce Miss Eden Hope Michaels!
saying goodbye to an old friend…
Back in my college days (seems like ages ago now), I assembled my first PC. Ah, the memories. I hand-picked my components, trying to achieve the perfect balance of cheap, good, and fast. I had selected a motherboard and CPU combo with a 486 DX2-66MHZ processor, and 2 VLB slots and 6 ISA slots. I put in my 4 MB RAM from my first computer and lived with that for a while until I bit the bullet and added 4 MB and then another 4MB, eventually having 12MB RAM. I got a SoundBlaster AWE-32 which, at the time, was *the* top-of-the-line sound card. I also got a 2X Sony CDROM drive so I could play Myst. For the graphics card, I selected a 1MB VRAM STB Powergraph 24. 640×480@24-bit color, baby (my 14″ IBM monitor couldn’t handle resolutions above 640×480). For the communications (had to get on the ‘net!) I chose a Zoltrix 14400 model. This was a *huge* step up from my measly 2400baud modem that came with my PS/1.
I also purchased a 1GB Seagate ST31220A Enhanced IDE hard drive. A mere 3 months before, it debuted at $1000. I picked up that bad-boy for a mere $500 and change. What a deal! With it, I had to get a VLB disk controller, since the mobo didn’t have a built-in HDD controller. The last piece I needed was a case to stuff all these totally ‘leet components into.
On the way home from a somewhat long night of revelling, I stumbled past the local computer shop and beheld the most interesting case I’d seen to date. The design was interesting, but not overdone, and it seemed large enough to house the many upgrades I envisioned for my perfect machine.
This case lasted me several years and many fun upgrades. And, many sleepless nights fearing that I’d completely screwed something up. I remember playing Doom with an audio CD playing in the background (Usually Smashing Pumpkins). This required a TSR (terminate and stay resident) driver for the CDROM drive. Oh yes, did I mention the not-so-leet Labtec speakers? “Tiny and Tinny” was their claim to fame but for the college dorm, they were enough.
Its first rejuvenation was the move to a Pentium 100 on an Asus P/I-P55TP4XE with upgradeable pipeline burst cache (which I bumped from 256KB to 512KB). This beast had 24MB of RAM, an MPEG-1 Decoder card (the docs were all in Korean, but hey, it was free). I also splurged on a 17″ Sony CPD-17SF-II Trinitron monitor which was driven by the amazing, all-powerful Number9 Imagine 128 4MB VRAM PCI graphics engine. 24-bit color at 1152×864. I also decided to get into digital artwork and purchased a Wacom 4″x5″ tablet. Sweet. I decided to upgrade the mouse to a Logitech Mouseman Serial 3-button mouse. Count ’em and weep! I also bumped up my keyboard to a Microsoft Natural (the big honkin’ original, not the Elite). It was on this machine that I first installed Solaris x86 and Linux (Redhat, then Slackware).
Eventually, I upgraded, as the case had the worst arrangement for the drive cage. Any maintenance required disassembling the entire drive subsystem, which was a lot of work back in those days. I kept the old case lying around, and eventually revived it with old parts salvaged from discarded PCs (I believe it was a Pentium in the 150MHz range), and finally, I purchased overstock components and it lived out its last days as a 1GHz Celeron with 256MB RAM on an Epox baby AT motherboard (they actually made baby AT motherboards after the turn of the century!) The mobo/CPU/RAM live on in my current linux box, but that’s another story. As you can see, it also acquired a mass of stickers. The kana on the left side is the hiragana for my english name. I lovingly glued, X-acto knife’d out the excess, and taped over it with clear packing tape to preserve it for all time.
So, It is with misty eyes and a heart swelling with emotion that I bid a fond farewell to a trusty but finicky old friend. You will be missed.
stupid
so, tonight, as A2C and I are walking to our car, we notice 2 men in a van trying to park in front of us. As we drew closer, we noticed that they were bumping up against our car. I told the man in the street that we were about to leave, and could they pull out for a second to allow us to leave. This would allow them to park their vehicle much more comfortably, rather than playing bumper cars to get in.
Of course, they didn’t speak english. Nor did they seem to understand the rudiments of logic and the laws of the physical world. They refused to move their car, and insisted we back up to let them in. No amount of explanation would get this simple concept through to them.
I told them they were damaging our car, and to please stop. So, the guy on the sidewalk begins grabbing the fender of our car and trying to put it back in place (he didn’t actually damage that part. It was damaged before, but he thought they did it)
Then, it happened. Something in me snapped, and I completely lost my patience with these two. So did A2C. Their continuous chatter was really irritating me, and the fact that they would not see the simple solution to the situation was making me furious. It was not a pretty sight. In hindsight, I’m not proud of the way I acted towards those two men. I took down their license plate number and asked the driver for his license. He said he had one, but of course, didn’t produce it. I wasn’t getting anywhere here, and I was getting more and more upset. I finally convinced A2C that we should just squeeze our way out, and just get out of the situation. She was also very upset at these two and was not in a mood to be trifled with.
Now, hours after the incident, I find it hard to sleep. I want to let it go, because there was no real damage done, and I feel bad for my behavior. On the other hand, I can’t get over how stupid these guys were. Firstly, their car was clearly NOT going to fit in the spot they chose. Secondly, could they not understand that parking would be easier with our car out of the equation?
Thinking back, we both prayed for forgiveness for losing our tempers and for the very un-christlike display of anger. I think the reason I got so upset was because I couldn’t get them to understand something I thought was so simple, and I couldn’t communicate with them. This is one test of patience I’ve failed, but I see that I’ve failed, and I pray I’ll do better in the next situation like this 🙁
like a beaver gnawing my nerve endings …
When I was 16, I had back surgery to alleviate a problem with a herniated disc. One never fully recovers from something like this, and one of the many charms of growing older is that these things come back to haunt.
Earlier this year, I started getting some pain in my right leg. With some stretches and exercise recommended by my favorite physical therapist, I was soon back to “normal”. However, some months later, the pain returned. Of course, if I’d get off my lazy butt and actually keep up with some kind of exercise routine, this probably wouldn’t happen at all.
Anyway, so the pain this time is much, much worse. It is reminiscent of the pain that led to my earlier surgery. Not good. I am currently only able to manage the pain until I can see a specialist (In this metro area, it can take weeks or months to see a specialist). I’m hoping that it is only temporary, since we are supposed to go to 日本 in October. I really don’t want to be in this condition for that trip.
Until then, I can only hope that the constant, irritating pain will subside, and I can start exercising to prevent this from happening again.
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