Frenzied Daddy

It’s Earth Day! Congratulations, and happy 4,550,000,001′s birthday to Earth. No, really, you don’t look a day over 4,549,999,000.

It’s also my brother’s birthday tomorrow (he’ll be 38, my waist measurement. Weird coincidence, eh?) and my friend Rachel’s birthday tomorrow (she’ll be 40! Happy Birthday, you young chicken, you!).

The job hunt is going. I had an interview yesterday with an interesting company; they do direct marketing of meditation and self-improvement “stuff.” (Yeah, I’m being kind of vague, but it’s ok). Every time I’ve become unemployed, I’ve been impressed at how much energy the job hunt takes. Not only do I have to keep up on my “normal” stuff, but also have to scour the paper, scour the websites, follow LinkedIn pages, follow twitter feeds, check CraigsList and even check up on RentACoder and Odesk jobs.

If I could finagle a grand a week from RentACoder and Odesk (and craigslist gigs), I wouldn’t need to find a job, but I’d need to make damn sure that money was rolling in. But I can’t make sure of it, so I have to find something substantially reliable. It’s frustrating. It’s also frustrating that I haven’t been to a real face-to-face interview since I met Don at Pacific Coast Fruit ten years ago, in a dress shirt that still had ketchup on it from eating lunch at the preschool with my daughter. I feel a little anachronistic in a dress shirt, slacks and a tie; how many programmers wear those to an interview? I don’t know, but I suspect not many. And I fear my ties are a little outdated too. Goodwill isn’t the place to shop for trendy ties.

Anyway; we’re getting along here, and I’ll keep ya posted with any new news.

Speaking of new news, congratulations to my Mother, who passed her Doctorate presentation and will be doing her studies and other doctorate stuff soon. She’ll be known around the house as “Dr Mom.”

To be totally blunt, I haven’t given much thought to “the problem of Israel.” I don’t think about it, I don’t particularly want to think about it, I don’t have much of an opinion on it. I know that there are reasons the US supports Israel. But this should have some interesting fallout. The US Army has revealed that Israel has nuclear weapons. Generally, it’s been handled like gay people in the military; the US doesn’t ask Israel, and Israel doesn’t tell the US if it has nukes. Which has left us in an ambiguous Schroedinger’s Missile state.

However, with release of this report, the US military has confirmed that they do have nuclear weapons, which puts US aid to Israel in jeopardy:

Prohibits most U.S. assistance to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards. President Jimmy Carter found Pakistan in violation of the Symington amendment in 1979 because of Islamabad’s clandestine construction of a uranium enrichment plant. U.S. aid to Islamabad was possible between 1982 and 1990 only through the use of presidential waivers.

That’s from armscontrol.org, and it covers how we kept aid flowing to Pakistan (and other countries listed on that page) through the use of presidential waivers.

I’m positive that President Obama will do the waiver thing for Israel. I’m not sure how else it’ll play out. It might be interesting for the future of our countries though.

Man, this sucks. I should stick to family stories

I missed the Watchmen boat the first time around.

Sure, sure, I heard that it’s a complex story. A rich story. And my favorite superheroes have problems (my favorite superhero is Spiderman, my least, Superman) ; these Watchmen heroes have problems. And I enjoy discussing good, evil, and the variations in between. Just somehow, missed the boat. I think I avoided the Watchmen because it was fairly popular, and I try to avoid stuff that’s popular. Sometimes. I’ve mellowed about that as I’ve gotten older.

So I asked Ms B to reserve it at the library. And now I’m reading it. And oooh boy, I see why people rave about it. It’s got that quality in a good book where I’m thinking about some of the themes presented in the book. Some of the artwork has been outstanding, but the real star is the story. I don’t recommend it for kids or for other people sensitive to violence in their stories. There’s a lot of violence; even more than most comic books.

However, as our world has increasing violence, the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, the generations-long war in the Middle East, North Korea announcing they have nuclear grade plutonium, you know the stories. The questions raised in the Watchmen about how to bring peace to our world and if it’s worth it still apply, even though it’s set in 1985 with the cold war.

Some spoilers below:
Read the rest of this entry »

This slideshow was poignant. It’s captioned “please don’t divorce us” and aimed at California. I’ll be speaking with the girls about adding to it when they wake up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got something in my eye.

* To stop the slideshow, there’s controls in the upper left of the photo area.

Not mine; Wil’s. But reading it, I had flashbacks to my childhood.

Yup, our roof leaked. Small surprise, huh? When I was between fifth grade and tenth, we lived in a singlewide trailer in Anchorage. It had a built-on “lean to” that always leaked. I’ve probably mentioned it in the past.

In the summer, it didn’t leak. Because there wasn’t any rain. And if there was, it did leak, and patching the holes would be difficult due to the water. In the winter, it leaked a lot. The roof was flat, so the snow piled up, and Dad would go up there and sweep it off. But the snow would melt and it would leak again. Dad would go up when it was dry to patch the holes with a bucket of tar-stuff.

But I always hated it when the roof leaked.

FusionFall is out, and Miss B (the DQ, Miss Smart Aleck, The Resident Four Pointer, She-Who-Is-On-The-Honor-Roll), is very excited. It’s not a free game, but it is “inexpensive.” It’s about six bucks a month; it’s less than one rental at the video game rental store, it’s less than half the price of Everquest, it’s one (adult) serving when we eat fast food. She did play it during the free open beta, and enjoyed it.

During the recent budgetary crisis, I discontinued her allowance. It was only $2.00 a week, but it would cover a basic FusionFall subscription.

Something that one of the morning DJs said has kind of stuck with me all day. The station I was listening to is supporting a program that does mentorships for kids from pre-K through high school, getting them out of a cycle of poverty. One of the DJs spoke up and said that when he left home (as a teenager), he had an unofficial mentor who taught him things like how to get the electricity turned on when you rented an apartment, how to balance a checkbook, how to open a checking account. These were something his dad (or mom, but he only mentioned his dad) didn’t teach him.

It’s something my dad didn’t really teach me either. Not directly, anyway- I did see him with a huge ledger sheet doing his budget.

So I was wondering about teaching Miss B “how to open a checking account” and “how to balance it.” When should she learn that? I’ve been mulling over, at her next birthday (Jan 4), that she’ll be 12. I could take her to the credit union and help her open a checking account, and organize a deposit for it once a month for the balance of her allowance, and she could pay for, say, fusionfall, out of it. Is twelve the right age to start that, or should I wait?

And yes, I know that opening the account might take significantly more than her allowance.

The TT and I were on our way home after dropping the DQ off at school. She sits in her carseat, in the back, next to the passenger side window. She looked out and saw an 18wheeler and started laughing and giggling– “Daddy, that truck has lights underneath it!” I looked over, and indeed, the cab had some brake lights underneath. We were coming up to a train track and slowing down, so she got to see their lights come on.

This lead to a really sweet, fun discussion about trucks; explaining how the trucks come apart and can pull different loads, how some of the trucks can carry milk, others are big boxes that get filled up, and even some trucks can carry those shipping containers that she sees on trains and boats. And how the big cranes at the docks would be able to pick up the shipping container and put it onto the truck.

Every new revelation was greeted with “ooooooh” and “aaaaaaah.” And we pointed out every container type truck on the road. Eventually, she wanted to know where they were going. I said that since they didn’t have names on the sides, we could only guess- they might be going to Fred Meyer’s or to Toys R Us, but we didn’t know. She thought about that for about two seconds and announced “Or maybe they’re going to Safeway! Or to someone’s house!”

It was great.

Hmm, Even Fox News is announcing “President Obama.” I’m just sitting here refreshing the page hoping it stays blue. It was kind of funny watching the three west coast states turn blue at eight pm ( refreshing those pretty flash maps ).

It’s really interesting to see how close the popular vote is. When the first few results were coming in and the electoral votes were for McCain, and the popular votes were for Obama, I was annoyed. But then it switched, and the electoral votes were for Obama and the popular votes were for McCain, and I was happy. I’m such a hypocrite.

Now that I can be less stressed about a possible Palin Presidency (let’s not talk about 2012), I can worry about Measure 8 in California, and the Sizemore initiatives in Oregon. Let’s worry about those now.

It’s a small world. I picked up “Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait” by K.A. Bedford. I’m enjoying it so far, it’s early yet, but it’s fairly science-fictiony and it’s fun to find a murder mystery where a time machine plays an important role. I like the character (Spider), how he feels about his relationship with his wife, and that he hates his job.

So I went online to track him down. I typed “K.A. Bedford” into google, and found his blog. Ok, he’s using wordpress (like me). He’s got a pretty theme, and he also likes XKCD. That was nice; this Australian Stranger who happened to write this book I’m enjoying also likes a comic I like. Oh, and the Yarn Harlot. He links to the Yarn Harlot too.