The Kids Are Alright

My Darling Wife took the Zoo grocery shopping the other day. As the groceries were being unloaded both babies started requiring attention. The groceries sat on the kitchen floor, until our older two children (combined age: still couldn't drive alone, legally) decided to take it on themselves to put the groceries away. Pretty much everything actually ended up where it was supposed to go, even, but they are children and perfection is a bit much to expect . . .



The loaves of bread get stacked on the back edge of the counter, after all, right? In case you missed it, that would be an open half-loaf under the two new loaves. I call this a qualified parenting win.

Stick America With a Fork, I Think She's Done

You, as an American citizen, in America, can be detained for an unlimited duration, without a lawyer, without charges being brought. President Obama just signed it into law. Because, you know, you could be a political adversary terrorist or something. Better safe than sorry when it comes to imprisoning people, right? Isn't that what the founders said, "It is better that one hundred innocent Persons should suffer than that one guilty person should escape?" Oh well I heard something like that was said, once.

Sure it's unconstitutional. But who will challenge it? If people are disappeared and don't get a trial, how will this ever get to the supreme Court with a party in valid standing as a plaintiff? Okay, so maybe somebody gets an injunction on principle and it's overturned by a court and the law is tossed out . . . but it was made law in the first place, by 86 of our 100 Senators and our duly elected President signed it despite "reservations" about the bill. You know what he should have done? Killed it. He would be a hero if he killed it but he signed the bill into law. What's worse people that (formerly) got MY vote voted for this monstrosity. The reasons this is a total fail overall are very many, but it might just be the single-issue for some single-issue voters that gets a bunch of people to vote against the wouldhavebeenamajority Republicans in the upcoming elections. We'll see.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. It's over. America as it was intended to be by the people who made it - is done. We've jumped the shark. We're now waiting for the fizzle. It was real for a minute there, though. So long, land of the free.

It's A Man Thing

My Darling Wife just had me come get #4. He's pushing 1.5 years old, and takes showers with Mommy still. She handed him to me, swaddled in a towel. Suddenly, stink!

Just as I was turning away and she was getting out of the shower, he dropped an SBD stink bomb. Crop dusted his mother and not even 2 years old.

L
O
L

verizonwireless.com Website Blows Chunks.

Comparing features of phones includes reading reviews. So I was reading reviews. The page hung and I went to a different tab where the website told me I was about to get booted off for inactivity. As I was using the website.

That is to say: if you are using the verizonwireless.com website, you get kicked off after 15 minutes unless you click the box. . . on a different tab than the one you are using. If you don't see the box because you are on a different tab using the same website, tough cookies.

Somebody report this to the thisisbroken.com website already. It's a quibble but how hard is it to get your website to track active users instead of active tabs?

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Plus the stupid popup menus and login boxes all over the place are slow, and don't dismiss as quickly as they should when they do pop up - which is often. How do you write a page so it loads with the BOTTOM of the page (disclaimers) onscreen instead of the top (content) showing? Poor. For everything else it may be the bees knees . . . but for reviewing phones in depth it could use some work. Oh well, what do you want for free?

Free Vacation, Anytime, With 1 Catch

My Darling Wife went on a free vacation this weekend. She got to choose the time and it was even available on short notice. Spent approximately a whole day with NO children pounding on the door when she was trying to powder her nose, nobody pulling her arm as she tried to take a bite, no four screaming people in the same room with her ears.

The catch: it was at my parents' house. She went and took a break from the children (including me) and hung out with the adults for New Years. She said it was a great thing. I think I'll make coupons so she can just go if she needs to.

Bonus: we made arrangements for her to get a free cell phone, to replace the last free cell phone she's had for a year. That one recently died as she was holding it in her hand going down the plastic slide at the park (a.k.a. the Static Generator 2000). Score, thanks Jesus!

Ugh . . . Hold Your Nose and Vote For Perry?

Borepatch is looking down the same gun barrel as the rest of us this election year. He has endorsed Rick Perry for POTUS 2012. It's a tough call, and we're not even through the primary election season! Can I vote for Duncan Hunter again? Oh well, we'll see what November brings us. I'm afraid it just might bring us Presient Obama Round 2 because the Republican voters stay home in disgust and Obama takes a landslide.

Republican party, you suck. Get up and shake the tree once you pick your candidate, because he sucks already and we haven't even picked him yet. If you don't convince the easily-swayed he doesn't suck more than Obama for four more years, we're screwed. P.S. we're starting off biased toward the screwed end of the spectrum.

Don't MAKE me get up off'n my chair and run for President!

Happy As A Clam at High Altitude . . .

I have two helicopters. A Syma S109G and an S108G. They are -by far- the most-fun thing I can imagine at this price point. What is more, they absorb ridiculous amounts of crashing without apparent damage. But they will take damage and wear down eventually. The S109G was not able to lift itself, even after I straightened out the shafts and cleaned and lubricated the gearing. I thought the battery might be going downhill. The S108G was flying okay, but it wanted to turn left more than it used to do, and it sounded like it had a little gas motor inside, after it hit the refrigerator. Today I had some slack time* and decided to take a peek inside both planes.

The S109G was flying again, maybe a minute per charge. A kind soul at work donated a full set of replacement blades from his dog-eaten helicopter. The first set of blades was thoroughly chewed-up from repeated crashes. The lower main rotors lost lots of chunks (about 1/4 total length x 2mm) and it would still fly, but the upper rotors losing chunks was the end of the fun. New blades let it fly again, which was not entirely unexpected. But it wasn't flying amazingly well, or for long. I opened it up and measured the power going to the motors. These aircraft have two little motors and two little transistor switching circuits to drive the motors. I thought in all my tinkering I might have killed one of the FET switches. 4.2V DC at the motor terminals looked about right. But one motor wasn't turning strongly, if it turned at all which it did about 1/3 the time when I hit the collective. Dead motor. Boo. I left it in pieces and moved on to the S108G.

The S108G had lost a tooth on the gears when the rotors suddenly stopped under the fridge. That was the noise. I went to swap in a gear from the S109G and found the gears in the S108G are captive, held on by a pressed-in pin. Bummer. But the motors are the same, and it looks like each bird has the same two motors, a black top and a white top. They have the same motor output gears, spaced the same on the same-colored motors. I pulled the defunct white top motor from the S109G and traded it into the S108G. This involved fine-wire soldering and a delicate touch but it was done.

Sharky rides again!** I had forgotten how high-performing the S109G is. That fresh motor made it a whole new airplane, thank God. And now that I'm a better pilot I think this set of blades should last a bit longer. Now I just need to scratch together a couple of dollars for a set of gears, rob a motor from that other dog-eaten helo, and I should be back in the fun times-two!

Thanks God for making me clever enough to figure this stuff out.

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*nap time for the babies. #4 ended up n0t-sleeping and I had #1 and #2 entertain him. This worked only marginally well but at least no 3mm long screws ended up in the carpet.

**The S109G has shark teeth on the front, and the children dubbed it "Sharky" as it chased them around the living room. The S108G Laser Mouth, with a very bright white LED under the nose.

Geeks Stay Up Later

This camera I'm thinking of buying seems to have a back focus problem. I ran one google search, and came up with a half-dozen links that add up to a small book. It's a good thing I read fast because this is a lot of stuff to absorb.

Like what?

Like this. This is pretty deep into the weeds for non-camera people, so don't feel like you're missing something if you get bored immediately.

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I adjusted the focus on this camera body and committed to the purchase. Now I just have to come up with another couple hundred bucks to get a fast prime lens . . .

Nothing. I Got Nothing.

I haven't been to bed before the next day at any time this week, I think, but my memory is fuzzy due to fatigue. Last night I went to bed just before two and #3 woke up 3 times between then and three thirty. I don't know what his problem was, but it might have involved Christmas lights in front of the window shining in through the double curtains and making the room bright as the dawn.

So once again nothing is as interesting as my own navel . . . I'm off to Mish's Global Economic Analysis blog and then Instapundit to check the news. Join me or not, I'm so tired I don't really mind either way . . . .

The Flesh Indeed Is Willing . . .

. . . but the budget is weak!

I have a chance to get a screaming deal on a camera outfit, something I have been wanting for quite a while. This is a decent used kit, for sale around 1/2 the street value. I took a couple of photos for my Darling Wife, and it was "camera ho-hum" time, but then I broke out a special filter that makes crossed highlights on all spots of brightness. I took one photo of our ceiling fan and she was sold right there.

Now I need to get off my duff and finally sell all the junk sitting around not being useful. Sometimes I wonder why I hold off on doing some things . . . not-selling this stuff is one of those things. It's money sitting there gathering dust in the garage, why not . . . oooooh I was waiting for this camera deal to come along. Alrighty then. The seller is a guy who "knows where I work" and he trusts me with a camera worth more than this on an occasional basis. I'm trying this one out. Oops!

I just realized I have broken a cardinal rule: never test-drive a nicer car than you can afford! Oh well. We'll make room in the budget for this one, I think. Score!