Frenzied Daddy

And I can finally talk about it

The Hyperdesk site is finally live. This site has been a challenge; the design is about three notches over my usual attempts. I’m really excited about this site. Honestly, most of the html and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) was out of my league. I built the “back end” where Jeff updates the content. I did most of the javascript too; we’re using the mootools libraries. I did put in a few minor css/html/image changes, but for the most part what you see is the result of another design group making Jeff’s vision come to the realm of html.

Working on this project has felt in some ways similar to working at Hot Off The Press. Jeff leads a team of incredibly talented designers and their inspiration and excitement encourage, excite and inspire me. As I’ve noted before, artistic inspiration is like fire; once it’s extinguished, the easiest way to bring it back to life is to wave more fire at it.

I don’t think I can brag about the new themes he has in production; you can see that he’s obviously working with Sony-Ericsson and Disney / Pixar. He has also signed some other big-name companies for some recognizable characters. If you’re interested in Windows Themes, you really should check this out.

As it happened, I loaded up a Ubuntu CD and checked the RAM and the hard drive. Found a bunch of errors, told it to chkdisk on the next reboot and rebooted. While I was working on it, I asked the DQ to paint on my case.

I can see you’re jealous.

The computer is working, more or less, “fine” now. Hurray for chkdsk.

Why does it always happen that as soon as you think you can relax, you can’t?

My ‘play computer’ went belly up. While Ms B was on vacation and while Miss B and Miss K were home from school. So they’re going crazy looking for something to do while their mother plays on her computer. Work computer’s still fine, and laptop’s still fine, but I’d really like to upgrade the laptop ( it’s kind of puny. And elderly. )

My days are full right now, but I think I’m going to either track down a Ubuntu cd and test the ram/hard drive ( and probably reinstall windows ) or ask my Brother to diagnose it for me, so I know what I need to replace. It pretends it’s a hardware problem ( a windows xp blue screen flashes on the screen briefly and then it reboots ) but I’ve tried stripping it down to just processor, motherboard, each stick of ram and harddrive with no change.

I have a client who once described me as “phlegmatic.” At the look of dismay, he rushed in to say that he meant that it was hard to get me worked up about something and he thought it was a good thing to not be careening about, from one hilarious mishap to another.

He’s pretty much my polar opposite. I found a list of his aspects on a counter in his office ( in a public space. I wasn’t snooping ). One of them very distasteful to me: competitive. I honestly can’t think of a word that means more of an opposite to me than “competitive.” I can see how his competitiveness falls into line with his Libertarian-ness. As far as I know, those Libertarians want to succeed on their own merits and not be held down while “the government tries to make a level playing field.” (Whereas I believe that the government has a responsibility to the citizens to help them live their lives better, and the citizens have a responsibility to the government to provide it with the means necessary to do that )

Competition has never been my strong suit. It goes along with … and there’s a word I can never remember. It’s the word that means “internal drive.” … Aspirations! I don’t have very high aspirations. Hell, right now, I just want the damn bills to be paid.

The TT is now four. She got herself a new bike for her birthday and we took her to Pier Park to ride on the trails over there. She’s doing great! I’m really impressed with how well she stays going on the bike and how determined she is to keep going when something unfortunate happens.

Boo was in her basket, and the TT started going down a fairly tall hill. Shortly afterwards, she was shouting “AAAAH NO BRAKES!!!” Hmm. Ms B tells me, after I’m cradling the kid and congratulating her on what was actually a pretty good landing, that it’s better to put on a burst of speed and catch up to the kid who’s shouting “AAAAH NO BRAKES” rather than putting one’s hands on one’s head and screaming “AAAAH LOOK OUT FOR THAT TREE!” ala George of the Jungle.

She really did a great job of getting up, announcing that she was ok ( “I’m ok!” ) and getting back on the bike. I think she was afraid we’d just pack it in.

While we were there, the DQ was on her skateboard keeping us company. She rolled great! She’s really getting the hang of turning and stopping. I can’t wait until she starts learning some tricks.

July 4 was fun We didn’t go anywhere, but we had a lot of illegal fireworks in our neighborhood. The TT was running back and forth from the front door to the back trying to see everything. I think she’s either going to be a fire fighter or a pyrotechnician when she grows up

The DQ is off to camp. She’s been hyper about it for the last three days, driving us nuts. But now she’s off and gone for a week. The TT was despondent, and wanted to make sure … “when I’m big like [the DQ] I can go to camp, right? Right? RIGHT? DADDY? RIGHT??!” She was funny too.