I've noticed that I'm still getting 70% of my referral hits on my new site from here, which tells me either that some people haven't updated their bookmarks, or that I wasn't good at telling people that I've moved. So, in case you're wondering where I moved to, it's www.twopuffsofair.net
When you get there, bookmark it! Thanks! :)
So T had an ear infection last weekend, which accounted for her high fever and our sleepness nights. She was prescribed antibiotics, which she has to take orally, so it's in suspension. I went to Costco to fill the prescription, and I got home to discover that the flavour of the medicine is banana. This is, of course, a disaster. Not only is it nasty tasting, but T is actually allergic to banana, so she kind of has an aversion to that flavour anyway. She refuses to have anything to do with it.
We got our doctor to prescribe another kind of antibiotic that was a different flavour. Strawberry. Of course, now that she's all averse to taking the meds, she refuses again. Not with the spoon, not with the syringe, not anyhow.
We've been through this before. It takes a few days of stubborn-ness (in the mean time, we're just pouring it in there and hoping she swallows at least some of it) and then suddenly, she just decides that she's going to take the medicine with no fussing, and that's the end of it. Now she just takes it, and that's it.
The funny thing is that now she knows how to spit, having had lots of practice spitting out the medicine all over us for the last few days. Sigh.
technorati tags:kids, parenting, medicine
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Have you ever had a secret that you've never told anyone, ever? I have. Which is surprising, because normally I don't keep anything really secret, at least not anything that only I know, and nobody else. So here it is. My secret. It's not that exciting, really, but more of an interesting human behaviour study.
I was conned.
A con man managed to get $20 from me.
It happened on the afternoon of my wedding rehearsal. Which probably explains the whole thing right there, because I wasn't thinking too clearly. Too much stress, right? I'm walking to the copy store to pick up our program inserts, and a man comes up to me, looking distressed. "Can you help me?" he says. He says that he's a soccer player, visiting from France, and he was just at the Varsity arena practicing, but his team left without him. He needs some money to get to the airport hotel where they're staying. As we're talking, a car drives by, and the driver slows down. "Are you getting help? Are you going to be ok?" yells the driver to the man. He turns and nods to the passing car, and the car drives off.
I ask him for more details, why he can't just call? He says he doesn't know the number. He's lost. I say that I'm actually quite busy, it's my wedding rehearsal, and I have to pick up the programs. I'm not sure why I told him this much. "Oh, you're getting married!" he says. "I'm going to send you a bottle of champagne! When I get to the hotel, I'm going to send you a bottle, and send you your money back. I just need to borrow some money to get back to my team. They're leaving in the morning." I remember he was a well dressed black man. He had some keys that he was toying with the whole time.
"That's really not necessary, I don't need the champagne," I say. "I really have to go."
"I'll come with you."
It doesn't look like I'm going to get rid of this guy, so I agree. I think I was thinking that I shouldn't be standing on the street with this guy, I should at least go to the copy store where there are more people. We walk.
We get to the store, and I take care of my programs. He waits. He takes a piece of paper, and writes down the name of his hotel, and gives it to me. "Here is my hotel," he says, "you can call and I will leave the money for you, and I really want to give you something." I take the paper.
We leave the copy place, and I'm really needing to get back, so I ask him, "How much do you need?" He hems and haws a bit. I make the mistake of taking out my wallet, and he sees that I have a $20. "I need that," he says, pointing to the $20. And I don't know what I was thinking, but I gave it to him. I pulled it out and gave it to him. Maybe I was thinking that if I don't give this to him he's going to mug me for it. I don't know. All I know is that as soon as he had the $20 his whole expression changed. His face went dead. There was no more anxiety, no more distress in his face. He took the money, turned, and walked away.
I think that a part of me simply let him con me, knowing that he was doing it, but unsure of how to get rid of him. Another part of me says he needs it more than I if he has to go to such lengths to get money from people. Another part of me is fascinated by how elaborate the whole scheme is. Like Sawyer in LOST. When I look back I'm sure that the passing driver was the second man in this 2-man con. His role is to legitimize the con, make it seem as though he's really in trouble, and really needs my help.
Why post this now? I was reminded of it on Sunday, because I think I was the intended victim of another con, this time successfully defended. I'll tell you about that one next time.
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This is my Top Ten ways "How You Can Tell When You've Prayed Enough"
10. Your food is cold
9. The government gives you back all the GST they ever collected
8. Scientists discover the secret to the Caramilk Bar
7. Your Mac runs Windows
6. Osama surrenders, is pardoned, and runs for office
5. You haven't had a telemarketer call in 40 days and 40 nights
4. After the carwash, your car is free of bird doo doo for 5 whole days
3. There is an end to world hunger
2. Peace breaks out all over the world
1. The Leafs win the Stanley Cup
©2007 Eugene Huo
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I don't know you, I just spoke to you on the phone. You work at Bell Canada, and you helped me out. Thanks! My saga with Bell is now ended. I don't owe any money, and in fact, Bell owes me $6. What a hassle. I somehow mistakenly paid some bills using online banking to an inactive account. Twice. Those payments never showed up on my bill, and the amount kept rolling over to the next bill. I thought, "well, sometime when I use the Internet, it takes a while for them to process the payment, and it shows up as not paid when in fact it is. I'll just wait for them to sort it out." Nope.
I try calling to sort it out. We track down the payments, they went to the wrong account, I am assured that they will take care of it, and since they owe me money, they'll be sending me a check. I feel good, having taken care of this loose end. About a month later, I get a call from the credit department saying that they're going to call the collection agency if I don't pay my bill. What? You owe me money and you're calling to threaten me? I'm annoyed. So talk to someone that they transfer me to, and she says that I have to send proof of those two payments to this fax number. So I download the two statements of the net, PDF them, and fax the whole thing to the number. Dutifully, I call back a week later to check what's going on. That was yesterday. Well, it turns out I"M not supposed to fax the information, THE BANK is supposed to fax it, and they have to do what's called a Data Centre Trace. So I call my bank. Can they do this? Unfortunately, they can't since it's been over 90 days since the transactions were made. (I think the bank needs bigger hard drives so they can do data centre traces further back, like say, 6 years, like I have to keep all my financial records for the government... but now I'm ranting).
So I call back to Bell (this is the 4th conversation, now, in case you're counting). I get bounced around from the billing department to the credit department, finally to some woman's voicemail, at which point I hang up because I have no idea who this woman is and I don't want to leave her a voicemail.
I wait a few minutes till I calm down a bit.
Then I called again, and spoke with Anna, who took care of things. Firstly, she thought that I had already provided enough information, and even though the bank couldn't do it, what I had provided ought to be enough. Secondly, she didn't transfer me to another department, she 'escalated' my issue to her manager, and was kind enough to keep me on hold for a long time while she did so. Frankly, I was happier to be on hold than to get transferred, so I waited. She finally got back to me and said that it would take some time to sort this out, could she get a number where she could call me back? This was yesterday afternoon. So I gave her my number, and then I didn't hear back from her until just now. Good news, it's taken care of, the money is transferred, and I'll be getting a cheque from Bell. Sounds eerily familiar...
This whole payment hassle is primarily the reason why I'm no longer with Bell.
technorati tags:Bell, Canada, phone, billing, issues
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In response to K, to get her to join VIRB, I joined facebook.
And then something very strange happened. It asked me for my email, so it could search through my address book and see if anyone in there is on facebook. Now that is a cool feature. And then it imported all my blog posts via RSS. Nice.
If I were to characterize the social networks, I'd say myspace is like a community bulletin board where everybody just throws stuff on all over the place, facebook is like the white pages, and VIRB is like going to the record store to hang out.
But what do I know... :)
facebook was all over the news yesterday after the VT shootings... so sad, so heartbreakingly sad.
technorati tags:facebook, VIRB
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Hey, so I skipped the whole facebook thing. I know, everyone's on facebook. Everyone and their mother is on facebook. You know that something has reached mainstream when people on my wife's team at the hospital are all talking about their facebook pages. Granted, some people didn't get the finer points ("What does it mean to poke someone? It is platonic, or does it mean more than that?"), but it is definitely mainstream.
So what is this VIRB thing? Well, I don't think it's just another 'me-too' social network. I was talking with K about it, and she asked what's the point of joining something if no one you know is on it... Good point. (Touché.) And I agree, it's been kind of strange adding strangers to my friends list based on profiles. And I'm not finding any high school friends or anything like that. But I'm discovering new music, new bands. The discoverability factor for music is very high on VIRB. In fact, the ability to add music to your personal player is pretty cool, and then be able to recommend it to your friends is killer. VIRB can also track what you're playing on iTunes and automatically keep track of your playlist on your profile. As an artist you can post your tracks for fans to listen to, they can grab the lyrics if you want, and they can also download the file if you want.
Of course, what new site is complete without tagging? VIRB has tagging for everything. You can tag your photos, your blog posts. You can tag your friends (although they don't get to see your tags for them, they're just for you to sort out the real friends from the groupies... ha ha...). All your profile lists become tags, so all the music, books, movies and so on become tags that you can search by.
There's also groups, and speaking of groups... I just started my first group today. I called it "Hop On Pop" after the Dr. Seuss book, and it's dedicated to the sharing of children's books that you like to read to your kids. Check it out. And join VIRB! You'll like it, trust me. :)
technorati tags:VIRB, social, network, facebook, music, discoverability, children's, books
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give your little ones chocolate for dessert at dinner time. They JUST finally went to sleep, like, 10 minutes ago. And only because I caved and went in and rocked T whilst singing "Hush Little Baby". I think J just finally got bored and tired enough that she lay down and was still long enough for sleep to overtake her.
Good chocolate, though... (Lindt gold foil bunnies... yum... T can actually have the dark chocolate ones, because they don't have milk. Yay!)
technorati tags:kids, sleep, chocolate
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Hey, just found this cool software sale at MacZOT today only, 13 apps valued at $300USD for $13USD. Not too shabby.
Check it out if you're interested. There's some productivity apps, a cool workout app (hey, now I can get in shape!) and some utilities. You can find it here. The only catch is that as of now, there's only one more chance to buy, and you only have a 13 minute window. You also have to register with macZOT first, so do that if you're interested.
technorati tags:macZOT, apps, cool
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An interesting read here in the washington post:
Despite "Mommy Guilt", Time With Kids Increasing
Find the counterpoint to this article on the Parenting Blog on the Toronto Star here.
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Pro Tools 7.3 and OSX 10.4.9 (updated via Software Update) DOES NOT WORK!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!
I must have tried reinstalling PT, like, 4 times before I found this out on the forums. Doh!
Oddly enough, it's supposed to work if you update to 10.4.9 via the Combo Installer, which is a .dmg download (310MB, mind you... it's not small). I'm downloading it now. I thought I'd share while I wait for it to download. Lucky you.
Our wireless router is located in the basement, near the front of the house. When we park the car in the front laneway, I can connect to our router from inside the car. Which is what I'm doing now, keeping J company in the car as she naps. Too hard to move her, so we just let her sleep in the car. Good thing, we have an evening service to go to tonight. It's better that she naps.
Oh, speaking of which, I think she's awake now... :) gotta go. Have a wonderful Easter!
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The Apple Store was down earlier, and now we know why! 8 core Mac Pro's are now available, utilizing dual "Clovertown" processors.
read more | digg story
I took the bars off T's crib on Saturday. Unlike another father who shared with me, I did not cry or get emotional. Strange. My 'babies' are growing up, and I'm glad. Her new found freedom has so far resulted in a reduction of night visits, rather than an increase. I found that with J too. The novelty of a 'big girl' bed really keeps them there. This morning she woke up and came to our room with her little pillow and doll.
Me: Good morning...
T: Hi. (climbs into our bed)
Me: Why do you have your pillow?
T: Because. (smiles)
Me: It's wake up time.
T: Ok. I can get out of my bed now!
Me: (smiles) I know.
T: Ok. Bye! (hops down and wanders back down the hall)
technorati tags:kids, growing, parenting
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J: Why is Sunday called Sunday? Is it because we worship Jesus, and he's the Son of God?
J: Then why is Monday the first day of the week?
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T: (singing, loudly)
with my mou-----------th
will I make kno----------wn
I face the mess, I face the mess!
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well, with my new Core2Duo MacBook Pro, at least Flock sure is a lot zippier. I haven't really tested anything serious out yet, just been doing basic setting up, transferring of files and installing applications. I installed Lightroom but I haven't set up my library yet, so there's no pictures to play with. I'll be doing some work with Nuendo/Cubase SX soon, so I'll let you know how that goes. And yes, I installed Windows XP so I could work with Nuendo... I've been busy, no time to play, I guess.
Back to Flock. Flock used to take a good 10 seconds to open a new window, which was really annoying when you clicked on a link and nothing happened for 10 seconds. Now it opens a new window in under a second. Much more useable! :) I love Flock for blogging, because it gives me a nice offline blog editor, and works with blogger and wordpress.
I thought I'd share a bunch of applications that I downloaded in the course of setting up my new computer. Maybe you'll find some of them usefull. They are in no particular order, but are mostly web tools or media tools, or just cool stuff. Go searching for them at macupdate.com, they have tons of stuff. I like it better than VersionTracker. It's just nicer. I dunno.
I'm using Shades right now, actually, because it's late and I'm typing in bed, and N is asleep. It keeps the brightness of the screen down to a more comfortable level. And cool, my keys are backlit! woo hoo! :)
technorati tags:Macbook, Pro, software, free, Mac, OSX, flock, fast
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well, I gone an done it now. I went out and bought a MacBook Pro. Kudos to Coach for getting me a nice deal... :) I justify it to myself by saying that I have a new contract coming up for steady work, and it will cover the cost... and I NEED it for the job, so... yeah... ok, honey?
The first thing I did? After signing in and choosing my username, I shut it down and put on my protective film from www.bestskinsever.com. Thanks megs for the tip. I thought, well, this is as fingerprint and dust free as it's ever going to be, so I should just stay up late and put the skins on. It's kind of like putting on automotive window tinting, if you've ever done that. You get the film wet with soapy water, apply it, and then squeeze out any air bubbles until it's nice and smooth. Then you let it dry. I was a little apprehensive about putting something wet on my computer, but it's only a thin film and it dries pretty quick. I had a couple of towels around just in case to quickly dry up any excess liquid. I did the palm rest and the bottom. I'm not sure if I'm going to do the top, because I have a feeling that the apple will cause unsightly bubbles (it's slightly raised). I know, I'm anal.
There remains a few pieces for the battery, the battery latch area, and the trackpad button. There's a piece for the trackpad too, but I don't think you're supposed to use it. It would be hard to slide your finger along the trackpad with plastic film over it, don't you think?
Anyway, here we go again with new toy setup addiction. Maybe I can do some fiddling with it while I'm at work tomorrow... hmmm.... :)
... about Mac is the ability to make multiple users. Now I know, Windows can do this too, I'm not here to bash XP today. But with my recent iBook failure (I got the data off, but it won't boot up now, even with the Heinz bottle...) I moved to a temporary Powerbook graciously lent to me by N & E while they are away on vacation. So I simply set up a new user account, set up my .Mac information, synced my address book and calendar, and I had all the information I needed right there on this new computer. I'm so glad I turned on .Mac sync on the iBook set to "Daily". I realize that I rely on my address book and iCal a lot, so it only makes sense to keep it synced to the main .Mac server. Hey, I'm paying for this service, I might as well use it as much as possible, right? If it saves my bacon in case of a hardware failure, then at least the pain of migrating to a new machine is lessened somewhat. If you don't have .Mac, a lot of this kind of functionality could be achieved by Google Calendar, Contacts, and so forth. I've always been an advocate of a web based email address, rather than one provided by your ISP, since I'm always changing ISP's, but tired of changing emails. What I like about offline email tools and offline calendars is that, well, they can be used offline.
This is becoming less and less of an issue, at least in major urban centres. There's internet access pretty much everywhere. Anyone used the Toronto Hydro One Zone yet? It's still free for a few more months. Just enough time to get used to it, and then miss it enough to sign on when it's no longer free. What a great business model! Make yourself indispensable. I still haven't gotten used to Toronto Hydro being a telecom company. My dad worked for Ontario Hydro before it became Ontario Power Generation, or Hydro One, or whatever it is now... :) Aren't these companies in the business of electricity? When did they start dipping into fiber optics and networks? Ah well, it's all the same thing now, isn't it.
Wow, this was my most rambling post ever, I think.
J: Why did Jesus die?
E: Just a minute.
J: What?
E: I'm writing an email, just a minute.
J: O-kay. It'll just be a second.
J: (answering her own question) To save us from our sins?
E: Right, to save us from our sin.
J: Not only Jesus died, in the story, two other people died with him. Two robbers.
E: Yes. But they died because they had done something wrong, they were robbers. But Jesus died not because he did anything wrong.
J: He died to save us from our sin.
E: Right, and if we believe in him, and follow him, we are saved.
J: Does he have to die again?
E: No just once, for all time.
J: I think he died because he knew we didn't want to die.
E: Yeah, if we believe in him and follow him, we are saved, right? And we go to heaven.
J: Right.
J: Dad?
E: Mmmm?
J: I don't want any more toast. I'm full.
If your child is writing words in mirror writing, ie. backwards and reversed, what does that mean? J will do this occasionally, without noticing. When you ask her, she'll go, "Oh yeah. Oops." and kind of laugh and shrug. Today at a friend's house she arranged alphabet magnets into her name, but again, in mirror mode. Save for the J, it's possible because the capital letters that make up her name will be in mirror mode if you rotate them 180°. (Try it, you'll see what I mean.)
Should I be worried about dyslexia? Or is this just an active mind at work?
... to the power of social networking. I joined VIRB, the latest social network to come along after myspace and facebook. It just came out of beta last week, so I signed up.
So far it's been cool. Today Chris Tomlin added me as a friend... how bizarre!
Anyway, check out my profile!
technorati tags:social, network, virb
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My iBook died yesterday. It was working fine, we set it down, came back to it, and the screen was black. Tried to restart it, and it came on with the fan running full blast, and no startup chime. Uh oh. Tried a few basic diagnostics, but nothing worked. Everything ended up with about 20 seconds of working time, and then poof! Black screen.
Being Saturday, I didn't have much time to figure it out until the evening. It turns out it's the infamous iBook G4 logic board "issue", which involves a loose connector on the graphics processor. You can get the machine to work by applying pressure on the case, just under the 'option' key, on the palm rest. Here's what I used to keep the pressure on while I did an emergency backup of all the data... good ol' Heinz!
I'm such a geek, but I just discovered I can send contacts from Address Book to my cell phone via Bluetooth. This is awesome. Now I don't have to enter people's phone numbers and names using the phone... I wish I had figured this out sooner! :) w00t! Happy nonetheless!
There's nothing like spending a little time with something (or someone) to really get to know their personality and little quirks.
Quirks about my phone:
... actually work in a professional environment? Because if they did, they'd realize that a billion musical ringtones and only ONE NORMAL RING doesn't cut it!! Fiesta? Nocturnal? Espionage? Come on...
Seriously, I just want my cell phone to ring like a phone. Call me old fashioned. Call me grumpy. Call me "concerned with maintaining a certain level of professionalism". On my new phone (Nokia 6265i) there's only one "real" ringtone, condescendingly called "Agency", and while it's a real ring, I don't care for it.
This is a call... for help!
So I've had a day to play with my new phone and so far, i like it.
Some things that I could live without:
This last 'gotcha' is kind of annoying. I was hoping to use the phone as a MP3 player, but it seems I can't just plug in a pair of headphones and start listening to tunes and podcasts. I have to buy another plug in accessory in order to enable this function. It's something they don't tell you when you read the description on the box.
Anyway, I will have to go find an audio adapter at Pac Mall, maybe. And get some miniSD memory too, since it's practically the only way you can get MP3's on the phone. Definitely NOT ready to go out of the box. Very much unlike what the iPhone experience will be, I'm sure... :)
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So I got a new phone today from Telus... even though my contract wasn't up till August, I guess they want to lock in their customers before the ability to keep your number with any cell service comes into effect. (And K practically pushed me into the Telus store) :0 Anyway, whatever the reason, good for me. I got a Nokia 6265i for $30 with a 3 year contract. And 3 months of free unlimited local calling as a bonus. That's pretty cool.
Now I just need a Mac with Bluetooth so I can transfer stuff onto the phone, and I'm golden. Get a new computer just to use the phone... there's something vaguely unsettling about this line of reasoning... LOL.
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what passes for dinner conversation at our house:
T: Can me go sliding down the riverbank?
N: What?
J: Like Franklin?
N: No!
T: Why?
N: Because you'd get all dirty. The riverbank is very muddy.
T: Oh. If me clean it can I slide?
E: (laughing uproariously)
N: Ok, if you can clean it, you can slide.
T: I can wipe it...
E:You can wipe it?
T: with a napkin....
technorati tags:kids, conversation, story, parenting
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An interesting article in New York Magazine:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index.html
It's not surprising that what we tell our kids has such profound impact on them, but it is surprising that a seemingly positive statement can have a negative effect. An interesting article on a complex issue, and interesting from a parents or educators point of view.
technorati tags:parenting, praise, children, kids
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I registered J for JK a few days ago. A very cold and windy morning, a prelude to the blizzard that hit us that evening. I filled out the form, which had a surprising number of questions on it. Besides the contact information and phone numbers, there were questions about physical development, sharing, how your child behaves when angry or frustrated, how you as a parent respond, language development, and so on. J's language is pretty advanced, so I checked off 'yes' to every question. Does she speak to adults? Do adults understand her speech? Do peers understand her speech?
I felt like I was taking a test, as though my ability to fill out the form properly was a measure of how good a parent I am. Do you remember when she said her first word? Before 12 months, 12-18 months, 18-24 months? Her first sentence? When did she first properly use the conditional perfect continuous verb tense? Ok, I'm kidding about the last one. Well, I mean, about them asking that on the form, anyway.
Our concern is that J will be bored in JK. However, I'm sure she'll find lots of fun things to do, and we know there's more to learning than the 3 R's. To some extent, we expect the increased socialization and being involved in a structured routine will be good for her. And as much as I think she's a wunderkind, I often have to remind myself to allow her just to be four years old, and not to push advanced things on her even though she can handle it. I don't want to rob her of the simple pleasure of being a kid by making things really pressured and academic. So I relax, I stop worrying about whether she should really be in Grade 1, or if she's going to be some pre-teen university grad, or wonder what her IQ is. I take a deep breath. I look at the snow outside and do NOT think about how now would be a good time to teach her about the different kinds of snow, or remind her that water has three forms depending on temperature, or blah blah blah. Instead, and to her delight, I ask, "Hey. You wanna make a snow angel?" :)
technorati tags:parenting, kids, kindergarten, IQ, school
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I'm splitting up. Just me, though, don't worry. From now on, all the tech/camera/computer stuff is going to be on my photography site blog, which I just launched this week. Here you'll still find the kids stuff, the parenting stuff, and most of the Mac stuff. Photography stuff will be here:
www.eugenehuophotography.com/blog
I hope you find it enjoyable, and hopefully I won't bore you to tears over here with my camera/printer/Lightroom ramblings. :) cheers!
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Recently I was playing with J with an old baskteball rim and a bouncy ball... I held the rim against my stomach and she shot the ball. She was surprisingly a pretty good shot... I was impressed.
Later on, she mentioned that she would like a baskteball hoop in the backyard. My wife replied that we couldn't until we fixed up the backyard, because the pavement is uneven.
"Remember last summer, the ground is all bumpy, and you scraped your knee? We'll have to wait till we do the backyard."
J thought about it for a moment.
"Mommy? I'm ok with scraping my knee."
:)
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What to expect with Lightroom 1.0
Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe's workflow management tool for photographs, ships in two weeks. Rick LePage runs down the latest changes to the public beta and previews what's coming in version 1.0 of Lightroom.
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well, I did it. I plunked down my hard earned money and pre-ordered my very own copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0. Why, you ask? Why am I not towing the Apple party line, and using Aperture? Well, for one thing, I can't run Aperture on any of my machines, they're too slow. And when I saw the demo of Lightroom's newest editing features, I was sold. I already like the workflow in Aperture A LOT, so now that I could conceivably stay in Lightroom for most of the light editing and touch ups on my images, I was sold.
I am told that v1.0 will be FASTER than the beta versions, something that I'm hoping will eke a few more months of performance out of my current machines. I really want a MacBook Pro, but I'll wait as long as I can. I mean, why get one now with only 2 cores? The 4 core one shouldn't be too far away... THEN it'll really fly.
technorati tags:Adobe, Lightroom
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Kow Kow gave J the present that he's been saving for nearly 4 years. He bought it when J was a few months old, and it's this Beauty and the Beast talking figurine set, complete with ballroom doors, a dance floor, and the rose under glass. Anyway, when you put the figures on certain spots, it plays a bit of dialogue from the movie. One of the lines is Belle asking "What's behind this door?" J quickly quipped..."Lucky Ducks!", looking through the doors at the game sitting behind it!
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It's 10:50PM and J is still awake. Our lunch / AGO excursion was a success, but she crashed afterwards at around 4:15 and slept till 6. It means that she's completely messed up now... good thing there's a birthday party tomorrow. That should completely mess her up, and then she'll go to bed early. We have a nice quiet evening planned... :)
Ansel Adams / Eisenstaedt was fun. Not as leisurely a time as I would have liked, but to be expected with a 4 year old to corral. I noticed that all the pictures are hung too high for little kids, and there's a lot of reflections for them to contend with. I guess that's why she was happier when I carried her. We spent the most time looking at "Rose on Driftwood". She seemed to like that one. Because the AGO is under construction, there was not a whole lot to see. Actually, it was probably fine, because as it was we spent nearly 2 hours there. There happened to be a kids art installation which was more like a play area, so there were some construction toys we played with for a while, and some paper to draw on, which she did.
Hmm.. sounds quiet upstairs... Birthday girl is finally asleep.
There really is something about viewing the Adams prints in real life, not reproduced in books or posters. I was struck by how sharp they were, how detailed, and yet how small. The posters you buy are bigger than the actual prints he made. One of the prints which I have in a wall calendar was very small, 4 or 5 inches square. Maybe it was a contact print. Anyway, I thought it was quite small, and surprised.
It helps my thought process actually, because I've been wondering if I really need a wider format printer than 13". Oh yeah, I'm thinking about printers, in case you didn't know. More on that later. Anyway, perhaps there is something to be said for printing 'small' (although 13 x 19 really isn't small) and viewing the prints more intimately, at 3 to 5 feet.
Anyway... enough musing for one night. Time to finish preparations. I'm off!
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Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Been battling a sore throat that wouldn't go away. Better now.
J's birthday party is this weekend. She's been counting the days for over a week now. She's been itching to decorate for almost as long. On the weekend I relented and helped her hang up a few paper snowflakes we had made. That seemed to satisfy her for a few days, anyway.
She's more excited about the party than her actual birthday, which is the day before.
It's a secret, so don't tell, but I have the day off on her birthday, and I plan on taking J to the AGO on her birthday, just her and I. There's a Ansel Adams / Eisenstaedt exhibit there right now. Maybe we'll go out for fish and chips for lunch first.
I want to start traditions in our family, and a father-daughter birthday outing is a great idea. Doing something was my wife's idea, I can't take all the credit. Going to the AGO was my idea. J's been asking about going for a long time, and we keep telling her "when you're older". Well, I guess she's older! I have a feeling we won't be in the gallery long, but at least she'll get a taste.
She really is getting older. She plays on the computer now... her favourite site is uptoten.com. Kwala and Boowa are on there, and they have lots of games and animations to watch. It's pretty silly. Her current fave song to sing is "Our friend the jolly snowman, has a very big ab-Do-men..." You have to hear it to appreciate the true heights of silliness this song reaches. As it turns out, Kwala has the same birthday as J, which was kind of a bizarre coincidence. Sharing your birthday with a cartoon character, how odd.
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day 2 of being organized thru Entourage Project Manager. (gah. I'm using a MS product to be organized.)
Is it sad that "My Life" is a Project?
I made a number of phone calls today that I'd been meaning to make for a long time, tying up loose ends. It felt good.
See? I can be productive when I want to be.
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I hate being frustrated.
I mean, why would FedEx list a location as being a drop off centre when they're not? I went there, and they said they wouldn't be set up for a week. Ahhh! Of course, it was 4:15 and too late to go anywhere else, not that I could remember where any of the other locations were... this place was like an internet cafe / falafel house / corner store. I guess you get hungry for some food while you're pwning your friends...
discovered a new show today... 30 Rock. It's pretty good, I think. I liked Studio 60 (cancelled yet? not yet.) but it was kind of too serious, and I never got to see enough of the sketches. At least with 30 Rock you don't see the sketch but the rest of the show is actually funny. And Alec Baldwin deserves that Golden Globe for the show... he's so straight it's hilarious.
technorati tags:30, Rock, frustrated, TV, Alec, Baldwin
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ugh.
After watching the iPhone being demo'd by Steve at the keynote, I am inflamed by desire to have one. So bad.
But really, I am actually sick. I have a wretchedly sore throat. hurts to swallow. Food goes down funny. Food tastes funny. I don't like that.
New Dream Rig:
And all this for what? I feel like an incomplete artist if I can't hold something in my hand. A print. We must do everything in service of the print. Every photographer wants to see his or her work in a print, preferably a big one.
I don't know, maybe I'm sick in the head. Anyway, the list is just the dream. The reality is a little bit slower, a little more pokey, but it works. So I just need to make some prints! :)
technorati tags:wiebetech, sick, sore, eSATA, Mac
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Bert Decker, CEO of Decker Communications, had this to say about Jobs vs Gates.
Presenting: Steve Jobs vs. Bill GatesIn their contrasting keynotes today and yesterday, there was no contest of course. Steve Jobs presents an experience and Bill Gates presents data. But it’s worth a brief look to see their different approaches, so we can do the former, not the latter.
technorati tags:keynote, communication, jobs, gates
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[my pseudo live reporting on the Keynote... as I read it on macrumorslive.com and engadget.com, and yeah, I stole the pictures from engadet...]
So, what have we here?
Apple TV. Knew about it already, the iTV. Cool. Only 720p.
The new device. A widescreen, touch contol, iPod/mobile phone/internet mobile communicator. Do I want one? Not sure yet. Looks like a revolutionary UI, though. iPhone. iPhone? Can they call it the iPhone?
RUNS OSX. wow, it looks sleek. Desktop class applications? They're giving Blackberry a run for their money. Cool. Looks like widgets to me...
Syncs with iTunes. shows 8GB on screen? is that enough? must be flash. Is that just for iPod?
2MP camera. Slim... 11.6mm. wow. Don't sit on that baby...
screenshot with Nemo (clown fish) looks gorgeous. my kids would love that. Nemo!
Oh, playing the Beatles on his iPhone. Finally!
Automatic sensors for orientation, automatically rotates. Very smart.
It's a GSM + EDGE phone. Will we be able to use that in Canada? My poor phone is looking pretty beat up by comparison... I think I need a new one, don't you?
SMS/texting is like iChat now. Nice. Probably still never use it, but nice.
Photo management. nice use of gestures, you grab the picture with two fingers and 'pinch' it to resize the picture.
Hmm, he's summing up the iPhone now, and there's still 45 minutes left in the keynote. What's next, what's next?
Push IMAP email with yahoo. smart. Web surfing with Safari. Mail with, well... Mail. OSX on a mobile. Who would'a thunk it?
Ok, so he's not wrapping up. Now it's the Internet capabilities. He's demoing Google Maps... which now senses where you are, and gives you a map of your surroundings. So that's what Google and Apple have been up to... Eric Schmidt makes a guest appearance on the show.
(engadget is so funny. They keep commenting on the crowd reaction. They're leaning forward, on the edge of their seats. Going crazy. "People are rapt, everyone is actually literally leaning forward and on the edge of their seat. We've never seen a presentation like this before." Guys, that's because you're used to watching Bill Gates talk. Sorry, Bill. Welcome to the Reality Distortion Field that is a Steve Jobs keynote.)
Steve is now showing the iPhone in use. He's not demo-ing the features, but he's using it like you or I would. Listening to music, call comes in, music fades, looks for a photo to send, looks up movie time, ends call and music fades back in.
I'm waiting for him to say "And it's available today." And how much? Wait for it... wait for it... details, I want details!
OK, here it is. 4GB for $499, 8GB for $599, shipping in June. Cingular in the US. Europe by 4th Quarter 2007. Asia by 2008. Canada... who cares to mention Canada? Nobody lives there.
So.
Anything else?
(wow, they're roasting Stan Sigman, CEO of Cingular. He's using cue cards. Aparrently, he's really boring.)
(ooh, Steve's presentation clicker went AWOL. The backup too. A rare hiccup in an otherwise stellar keynote so far... we could say it all went downhill after Sigman came on... so funny, he tells a story about Woz and their high school hijinks... smooth...)
Announces change of company name to Apple, Inc. dropping the "Computer" from their name. Look out Sony.
That's it?!
John Mayer is there to play. Cool. But... that's it?!
Mayer plays: Gravity • Waiting for the World to Change
And it's over.
technorati tags:apple, keynote, reaction, iPhone, AppleTV, Canada
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decisions decisions.... do I wait for the keynote video stream to be posted online, or do I tune in to the text only live update?
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The big buzz is on in Las Vegas. Microsoft is spending millions to market Vista and XBOX, I guess. I don't care. I'm a true Mac-head, I just want to see what new stuff Apple is going to bring out on Tuesday.
True, there are a few trends that will affect Apple in the near short term. 802.11n, for example. Or HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray.
Bill Gates' keynote is this evening. Steve Jobs' keynote is Tuesday. (funny how both their names end with an "s"... huh...)
What would I like from Apple? A Mac. Not a Mac Pro, just a Mac. Not an iMac, a Mac. Something without a screen, with a Core2Duo, with 3 slots and a real graphics card. A place for 3 hard drives.
But since everything is going portable, I guess I won't be getting what I want. Look for something new in the laptop space.
Just two more sleeps till Tuesday!
technorati tags:keynote, apple, macworld, wish, dream, mac
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Hey, hope you all enjoyed teenagefanboy's OSX tips. Here are some of my own:
1) Don't turn on Filevault unless you absolutely have to. It's a hassle and a slowdown It's found in the Security preference pane. It's most annoying feature is that whenever you delete something, it has to do a secure delete from your encrypted user space whenever you shut down or restart, which can take quite a long time (5 minutes?) when all you wanted to do was restart because you installed a new program or something. Annoying.
2) Where do you put your Dock? Mine is on the right. I find it's easier to zip the cursor over to the right than to the bottom.
3) If you have a Macbook (Pro), you can two finger scroll on the trackpad. Put two fingers on the trackpad and drag up and down. Voila, you have scrolling!
4) If you want to convert an audio file from one format to another, say WAV to mp3, you can use iTunes. First set the import format to what you want to convert to (a little counterintuitive) and then select "Advanced -> Convert selection to"
5) Command-Option-Esc. This is the "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" of the Mac world. It will bring up the Force Quit window, in case you're experiencing the "spinning beachball of death". I like it better than Ctrl-Alt-Delete because you can do it with one hand instead of two. Use your thumb on the Command-Option keys, and hit Esc with whatever finger reaches up there and feels most natural. Maybe it's because of piano lessons, but it feels totally right to press two keys with the thumb.
let me know your favourite OSX tips, or questions you might have. I'm here to help. :)
with two friends recently switching to mac (lured by the ever so enticing MacBook Pro) I thought I'd share a neat utility that no one should be without: superduper. It's a backup utility for OSX that really is very nice. And because the new year's is always a good time for resolutions, make "Back up regularly" one of your resolutions for 2007. Somewhere down the line you'll thank yourself for doing so.
The nice thing about superduper is it's free, although you can pay for it and unlock extra features. I'd encourage you to at least use the free version to make a backup of your hard drive. Of course, you need some kind of external hard drive to back up to. And one might question the reliability of backing up one fallible medium to the same fallible medium, but hey, it's better than nothing. You can make the stack of DVD backups some other time, but for me, I'm backing up my hard drive overnight, automatically. It'll even shut down the computer when it's done. How cool is that?
Here's hoping your hard drive never crashes, but for those who have experienced that sinking, gut wrenching feeling, you know how much a backup is worth!
Happy 2007!
technorati tags:superduper, backup, hard, drive, computer, recovery, resolutions
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