The Time Sink

Yep, I missed both weekend days; but heck, that's how it is some days when you're having fun. ...or dealing with OSes and updates <g>. Saturday more or less turned into the 'birthday day' because work and other events pretty much used up Friday. ...so Saturday seemed like a good day to do all the fun stuff.

One of the better parts of the day occurred after presents and such in the late morning; I decided "breakfast burritos (huevos con chorizo) was what I'd like for brunch (pumpkin pie was 'breakfast'). ...the only thing was we looked to be short on tortillas, so I asked Brad if he wanted to go to the store with me. ...walking! You should have seen his eyes!

Yep, I doubt there's a kid for a pretty good radius here in YuppieLand who has ever had to or even wanted to walk a mile or so to the store. So, yeah, cameras slung, we headed out on a Grand Adventure, stopping at the empty sites of old homes, cutting across fields and generally taking our time to travel miles and miles for two buck's worth of flour tortillas.

...and since we were having such fun, Starbucks on the way back seemed only right <g>. ...and it was fun to explain things to him (Mr. Constant Questions) as we wandered back and watched a hawk circling one field and a humming bird feeding at a berry bush.

The other reason for not playing catch up here on Sunday evening is one most of the Daynotes crowd is familiar with: there's a tech rule that says you only upgrade drivers or install a new OS late in the evening and before you post for the day. I believe things work that way because that may be the optimum way to generate sufficient blood pressure late at night to post a decent rant. I chose to go to bed <g>...

My decision to upgrade both the keyboard (to an HP Multimedia one, not bad) and the rodent (a newer Logitech trackball) was good for a first class headache late Sunday. Well, that and the oldest wandering out and wanting to know if I had a "cover page" on the shelf with the copy paper (yeah, long story, but one most parents of teens can pass along)... Things went well with the keyboard, but somewhere along the line the rodent routine really ran rampant and ruined running rodents on both the Win2k boxes. I don't know if something choked the KVM or if it's just the USB->ps2 adapter, but it took a bit to get things squared away, and that was only with the old trackball running.

Spring and Fall, counterpoints to each other and buffers between Winter and Spring. ...and the makings of an interesting and fascinating night of homework. Seriously!

Brad had one of those assignments that I dreaded from elementary school through college: "Read this poem and give us your interpretation; discuss the use of metaphor and simile and..." Joy. ...and he was looking like a kid who really didn't want another 'uphill' homework session.

...only when I read the assigned poem, "A LIGHT exists in spring" by Emily Dickinson, I not only pretty much "got it" on the first pass, but it occurred to me to have Brad read "Fading Sunset" and see if the simpler prose and the associated pictures might help before tackling Ms. Emily.

So we walked our way though "Sunset's" verses and photos and the 'why' and 'how' of the lighting since he totally groks that sort of thing as a photographer, and then we took on Ms. Dickinson's work. ...and while walking him through it by paired lines and paragraphs and having him describe to me what photographs he would take to illustrate her work I saw things click into place. Yeah, the words left the page and became "that pink sunrise shot of the mountains" and "sunsets over the field". ...and this year's probable last-ever photos of the passion flower fruit blooms due to the construction of new homes up against that fence underscored the last stanza of her poem. Yeah, I think he got it...

I took the day off today. That means off from work and off from home. ...and with the exception of one work bit, the phones off too. Yeah, I took the boys to school and had an appointment with the chiropractor. ...and I bladed and grilled lunch. ...and picked Brad up from school. ...and planned a bit and walked a bit and took photos here and there. ...but most of the day involved doing things at my pace and trying to relax and recharge the ol' internal batteries in the hope of getting some projects done over the weekend.

...but now it's time to watch the local team take on Boise State on the premier ESPN game of the evening. Hey, Cecil! Are you ready for some football?!?!?

Busy, busy, busy here this weekend. I have the computer hutch more or less emptied out and computers hooked up willy nilly everywhere. Hopefully I'll be more or less reconnected by Sunday evening!

Just a little update as I'll be off line for much of the rest of the day tearing apart the wiring mess that has accumulated over the last year as I've added and subtracted and moved and abandoned and ...well... yeah, it's time to find out why things are still working when I'm looking at the ends of power cords and USB cords that aren't connected to anything.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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