On the Outside, Looking In...

Time for a Purge

Out with the old, in with the new. Just finished boxing up 10 place settings of China, used fewer than 10 times in an 11 year period. Will be sending to my brother, who just happened to be in the market for China. Good times, and a free corner cabinet in my kitchen. I think tomorrow is the day of reckoning, where all unused/underused items will briefly see the light of day, then will be boxed up and prepared for donation or future yard sales.

I have tried over the past few days to find a place to sell my aged, but mint condition Canon EOS Rebel S camera. An SLR from the days of film, I've had this camera since the early '90s. It has served me well. However, everything is digital now. Out of four places that I requested quotes for the camera body, 2 lenses, and a flash, only two were "interested", and by "interested" I mean "not really interested." The offers were $45 and $65 for the whole kit. For that price, I'd prefer to keep it and/or donate it to a school or something.

As for what I'd like to purchase to replace it, well, I have my eye on a Canon EOS XSi: see the hotness here. I have spoken with other shutterbug friends who report, with some unease, the relative heft of DSLRs once you also have to contend with carting a lot of baby stuff around. I get this point. After all, for a weekend getaway to my parent's place we managed to completely fill my car with Emerson and her retinue of stuffed/plush accoutrement. I believe I managed to cram a pair of jeans, clean undies, and one sock where the spare tire should go.

Happy Holidays?

Is it Festivus already? No? Well, we can hold off on the Feats of Strength, then.

It is the time of year to think of all the things for which we are thankful. Marantha and I welcomed the biggest one into our lives this year.

For those friends and family that we will not get to see this holiday season, we send you our love and thanks.

PS--in about 4 weeks we get the *second* biggest gift in our lives: Obama in the White House!

How do you feed a cold and starve a fever...

at the same time? Emerson now has the three horsemen of the apocalypse residing somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. We have a nasty ear infection, teething, and an upper respiratory infection. If she could talk, it would sound a lot like Jack Palance. All these things combined have pushed her to a 103.2 fever. Solid!

Luckily, we have another 36 hours before we need to travel with her.

Happy holidays!

JB

great sushi

There are few things I enjoy more than really good sushi. I had feared this would be a thing we left behind when we moved from DC to St. Louis, but (aside from a couple of really bad experiences) the sushi in the 'Lou has ranged from passable to good. This weekend, however, we returned to one of my favorite places: Wasabi (on Washington Ave. downtown). The sushi was *sublime*, especially the bluefin tuna...which is pretty guilt-inducing at this point, since it is being harvested to the point of extinction.

My favorite roll at this point is the spider roll, with softshell crab deep-fried inside it. Mmm.

There is money to be made

New parents, you will recognize the subject of which I speak. The market is saturated with all manner of baby equipment. While we have striven to not let our house be overtaken with brightly colored plastic crap, it still sneaks in, then proliferates under the cover of darkness. We awaken with baby stuff everywhere.

Yet none of this stuff prepared us for the horror of teething. No frozen washclothes, chilled pacifiers, or bottles of Baby Tylenol could abate the regularity of Emerson awaking throughout the night to howl at us. Night after night.

So here is the gauntlet I throw down to medical manufacturers--you have two options. Either design a soundproof, non-toxic acrylic shell into which we can place our beloved infants (they must not be able to injure themselves in these confines); or produce Baby Ambien. I'm voting for the latter.

Just think about it. You don't have to worry about the baby taking Ambien, then driving to the store or operating a forklift later. Just a good, sound night's sleep.

The dog has the shakes...

Clyde, our Great Pyrenees mix, developed "idiopathic epilepsy," which we had thought would be rare in mixed breeds and dogs of a relatively young age. Turns out, neither was correct. So after a battery of tests, and going from having no seizures to having a ton in 36 hours, Clyde became the recipient of a healthy prescription of phenobarbitol. For the first two weeks, he staggered, drooled, slept all the time (OK, no big change in behavior there) and didn't wag. He couldn't get up and down the steps by himself. But gradually, his body adjusted to the depressant. He got back to normal. Since going on the meds, he hadn't had a single seizure that we had witnessed, although I suppose it was possible he had them while outside alone.

Tonight, we heard him gasping. He was laying on the floor and his breathing came in jerks. He wasn't twitching violently like we had witnessed pre-phenobarb, but it was still unmistakeable. He was having another seizure.

That pretty much shatters all hopes we had of being able to eventually wean him off the drugs. They vet told us if he had no seizures (as in literally none) for 2 years, we could try weaning him. The up side is that he is on the lowest possible dosage (which, due to his size, is still a ton of pills), so the epilepsy is very well controlled. It's just so *sad*.

I'm not a smoker...but

I do love a good smoked turkey. Thus was my charge this Thanksgiving, and I think I carried it off rather nicely. Of course, the 16 pounder from Trader Joes--organic, never frozen, no antibiotics, and pre-brined--probably helped matters, but after 7 hours in the smoker over hickory chunks, we had a nice, smoky brown bird.

We finished most of the leftovers tonight, after eating on them for 3 days straight. Had to sneak a pizza in there for a little culinary break, and (I can't believe I'm saying this) I'm really glad that there is no more pumpkin pie left for breakfast tomorrow.

And now, back to the grind tomorrow...although this month always seems like a wash.

Getting back into teaching

So it is official--I will be teaching an evening class on wireless security and "ethical hacking". I did well enough on the two certification exams after taking the SANS course (descriptively titled "SEC-617") that they invited me to participate in their mentor program. This is a gateway to becoming a fully-fledged faculty member of the SANS Institute. In any case, the course starts March 10 and will meet on Tuesday nights from 6:30-8:30 at the Ballpark Hilton in St. Louis. There will be 10 sessions covering theory and practice.

Info on the class is available here and while this is a very advanced class (SANS says it is graduate level) I think I can do a good job at making the material approachable to people with an understanding of networking and basic cryptographic concepts.

I get compensated based on the number of people that take the class (double the compensation if I refer the students myself)...so if you know anyone who would be interested, send them my way and I will refer them ;)

When is an ear infection *art*?

When it is a performance, not an actual malady. Yes, Emerson qualified for diva status. Yes, a 5 month-old can (apparently) be manipulative. After months of sleeping nearly through the night, getting up once or twice to eat, she decided to catch up on missed opportunities last night. She went down--after a full day of playing, being her typical happy self--at 9 pm and was up at 10:40, 11:40, 3:45, 4:30, and 6am. Each of these times, she wasn't just fussing. She was *screaming* at the top of her tiny lungs. For the most part, each time you could pick her up and she would go right back to sleep.

Since we've been fighting an ear infection with her, we assumed this was classic ear infection behavior and maybe we should go get things checked out. Turns out, it was a fraud. A sham. An early audition for the Thespian Society. Now, of course, she is still sitting in her car seat, snoring softly.

She has picked up another behavior, too--wheezing loudly, like a stereotypical hillbilly laughing. She demonstrated this for the pediatrician, who decided it was designed to garner her attention. Emerson finds the whole thing very funny.

Timberrrrrr........

We had tried for the past 5 years to save this old silver maple. The rehab work they did on our property (and the adjacent house, which was bulldozed into the ground) had stressed the root system, and ultimately led to the downfall of the tree. When having some trimming work done this winter, the trimmer discovered rot that went all the way into the trunk.

Because they couldn't fit a crane into our alley, they did all the work with a climber and ropes.

If anyone needs tree work done, I highly recommend Tidy Tree Service (Frank Cagle). Their quote was half what we got from their competitors, and they did a great job.

The XBox Live Experience

So the new XBox Live Experience is out. Interestingly, it feels a lot like the Wii Experience... avatars running around, layers intead of the old "blades" layout. The customization options are fairly limited at this point, but I think I like it. At least, I'll like it until everyone decides to make their avatar a Japanese schoolgirl with tartan skirt and Princess Leia hairdo.

The best feature, though, is the ability to stream content from NetFlix. NetFlix is already awesome. I can't believe we actually used to *drive* to movie stores. Crazy madness, that. But this is actually making me consider getting a second XBox 360 to put in our main TV room. My existing XBox has been relegated to our basement bar, since that is where we apparently keep the collection of plastic instruments for Rock Band/Guitar Hero. (Note: these plastic toys should NOT be confused with the other huge assortment of plastic toys that are strewn throughout the house for Emerson).

Swift kick in the pants...old school

Welcome, all.
After unsuccessfully starting multiple blogs, on multiple platforms, I think I'm going to give Blogger a try.

I was hoping for the magic convergence out of Apple's iWeb...like so other aspects of my digital life that live on my Mac, I had hoped that an iWeb blog would synergize those elements and provide a cool fusion of pictures, video clips, and rambling thoughts. Instead, it sits there, dormant, mocking me. So what's the problem with iWeb?

Well, unlike other Apple products--iPhoto, iMovie--it isn't easy or intuitive to use. I spent nearly an hour one night trying to get a damn button set up to link to another page in the blog where I had a photo album. I could get a link, but couldn't get the button to sit where I wanted it. Fighting against the app is very un-Apple, and I think that's why I got unusually frustrated. And I *know* what I'm doing, at least compared to a lot of people out there. Then, there is the inability to update your iWeb page from anywhere except in front of a Mac running iWeb. Since I don't have a MacBook, that means I can only update from home. LAME.

The other issue is not Apple fault; I have a 5 month-old daughter, and she consumes the lion's share of my free time these days. I had been toying with the notion of (finally) learning how to play guitar. Then I made a list of all the things I already love to do but do not have the time to do anymore...and the list was shamefully long. Don't get my wrong--I have NO REGRETS, I love Emerson and what she has done to my life. I just realized that I need to prioritize and focus on existing commitments: family, friends, career. And if there is a little time here and there for Rock Band, well, that will be great, too.

So I hope I keep this more updated than my old blog (which lives at http://web.mac.com/philgrad). It will still be a place that we'll stick photos and stuff, and Marantha has a blog there too.

For now, it's back to pre-Thanksgiving house cleaning.