Sophia’s flitting around the house singing about “a little bag of cocaine” right now. Ahh, Regina Spektor. When Mamie pointed this out, Sophia said, “What is conecane?”
Archive Posts (Page 44)
This same basic principle could be applied in so many ways.
Only now do I realize my bed lacks any nice plush toys to snuggle.
Ok, I lied. One more. This app is so great. Sophie and I are cracking up.
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Zha Zha should be home soon so this is probably the last one.
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Sophia wrote this one too. Can you tell she takes Drama at school?
- As my friend Michael pointed out, the correct term is “Fourth Wall”. Oh well. I definitely don’t take Drama class.
Number two. We’re having way too much fun for a Sunday afternoon.
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Written, produced, and directed by Sophia with the musical talents of Sophia and Daddy.
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I love it when Facebook tells me how long I’ve been friends with someone. Oh Facebook, you have no idea…
I’m pretty dang sure it’s time for Facebook to start playing videos in desktop browsers without flash. You with me here, Mark Zuckerberg?
Had a meeting with my buddy Drew Grgich today and I’m reminded that he is the best IT guy in the business. Seriously, all you people who don’t work for McMurry, and need computer help sometimes, you’re missing out.
This is 100% true.
Sophia just asked me for the 400th time if she can have something she knows she can’t have. So I said, “Let me tell you a story.”:
“There was once a farmer who had a mule to pull his cart. One day, the mule stopped abruptly to sniff some grass, and the pots fell off the cart. The farmer looked the mule in the eye and said, ‘That’s one.
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Scootch
[ed: It thrills me that this absolute nonsense was the very last post to my Posterous blog before the site shut down. On 12/12/12 no less.]
Scootch, verb.
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I’m reading “Personality” by Henry Kellerman and having horrible flashbacks to my MBA days where we were subjected to textbooks full of great content couched in horrible writing.
The passive voice is extensively used (along with) odd parentheticals. And: So! Many! Exclamation points!
My favorite sentence so far:
Then, in part 2, I present these basic personality types and styles along with actual clinical examples of each (and as mentioned above) also with reference to how each actual type may appear when expressing a more normally inclined personality style of that type.
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If you could “like” a “like” on Facebook my wife and daughter would be stuck in and endless like loop forever.
And we’re back in Amerikay.
Well, I think we just had the most exciting part of the trip, in which Mamie pulls a poor Limerick young man off the bridge wall as he contemplates jumping in the Shannon to kill himself. She’s basically a local hero now, if only to his aunt—who, by chance, happened to walk by 10 minutes later—and his girlfriend and baby. What an experience.
Ireland 2012
Mamie and I took a trip to Ireland for our 18th anniversary.
Sister Diving Into a Nostril
[ed: Sophie was asking me about how Google works and when I explained it to her she asked if we could make it so you could search for “sister diving into a nostril” and find something. I said yes and this post was born.]
Here’s a picture of a sister diving into a nostril.
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Sometimes I go to the movies and order a medium popcorn. The cashier always says, “Do you want to upgrade to a large for 50¢ more? You get a free refill.”
I always do, which makes no rational sense because what that question really means is, “Do you want to buy more popcorn than you want? If you do you can get even more.”
An Actual Conversation with Siri
I use Siri to text my wife when I leave work to let her know I’m on my way. It is super handy and saves me about 15 seconds every day, which appeals to my inner lazy. Unfortunately, although Siri is very good, she’s by no means human. I occasionally throw her off by being too informal. The other day this conversation took place:
ME: Siri, text my wife and tell her I’m on my way home now.
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True story. Sophia decided to dress like a cowgirl today. If you know her well you know she just does this sort of thing sometimes. No occasion necessary. A few hours later I decided to take her and a friend to the trampoline park. And then this happened:
ME: You should put some more comfy clothes on so you can jump and play.
SOPHIA: Dad! I’m a cowgirl.
ME: You can do what you want but I think you’ll be more comfortable in some stretchy pants instead of blue jeans.
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Homecoming.
Homecoming.
Getting hair done
The final do—front
The final do—side
The final do—back
Isabel with her friend/hairdresser Erin. Sophia calls Erin HCL, which stands for Hair Cut Lady. Sophia has a pet name for pretty much everyone.
Thanks, HCL! She looks great.
Always-photogenic Hailey
Hailey
Isabel and Hailey
My little girl
We’ve known Madeline for 5 years and she’s had this big smile the whole time.
Gabi. She’s not going to the dance but she got all prettied up anyway.
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Sophia had to write an essay for school on her talents and how they will help her in life. Among other things:
“I am pretty good at making pies with pastry crusts. This will help me if I am ever pieless and want a pie.”
And:
“I am also good at gardening. If I ever want fresh food it will be good to have a garden that is not dead.”
Helping Isabel With Some Geometry
Finally they’re back to some math I can still do without struggling.
It’s a Euclid system! I know this!
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Serial Apostrophe Abuser
I think we can add “serial apostrophe abusers” to the list. (I make the list 5–8 times depending on how you judge me.)
Hater’s hold a sign.
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Humane Society Youth Ambassadors
Sophie and her friend Allison ran a fund raiser for the humane society this summer. They put on a “dog show” with the neighborhood dogs, complete with games, prizes, and homemade treats. Their goal was “101 donations” (aka, $101), which they handily beat.
They were then invited to participate in the Arizona Humane Society Telethon as “Youth Ambassadors.” They had a blast!
Sophie (short hair) and Alison just about to go on the air to be interviewed.
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I don’t know who Lisa Borowsky is or what she stands for, but I’m voting for her because she’s blonde.
[ed: To be clear, this was in response to campaign posters plastered all over the city that just said “Lisa Borowsky” over a photo of a pretty woman with blonde hair. No mention of the position she was running for, any party affiliation, etc… Just a pretty face and a name.
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Understanding the tar Command Line
You almost can’t install a piece of open source software without invoking the
tar command. Inevitably, the installation instructions include a command line like the one below. Use this handy guide to fully understand what each part of this powerful command really means.
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For My Fellow Computer Programmers
I bought a Makey Makey for my girls and I to play with. At one point, the girls wired up a series of aluminum-foil-based touch pads taped to the floor. Each pad was connected to a different input (with a different colored wire). I wrote a little HTML page that responded to the input by showing/hiding matching colored bars.
When we first set it up we had the blue-wired touchpad mixed up with the green one.
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[emotionally manipulative post with copious spelling errors]
Like if you agree!
This is What I Think Every Time I See Time Travel in Movies
Same place, different time.
A lot happens in one minute. The Earth moves about 11,000 km in its path around the sun. Meanwhile, the sun (and all the rest of the solar system) moves about 13,000 km in its path around the center of the galaxy. Note that the Earth itself is about 13,000 km in diameter.
The whole Milky Way galaxy also “moves” in the direction of the constellation Leo, but this is due to the expansion of the universe itself, so it would be fair to say that any “same place” in the universe also moves with it, making this movement irrelevant.
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Anton Ego’s Piece at the End of Ratatouille
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
HTTP Parse Error / Bad Request Line
Yeah I know. You’re getting this:
21-Jun-2012 5:40 PM: HTTP parse error, malformed request (127.0.0.1): #<Mongrel::HttpParserError: Invalid HTTP format, parsing fails.>
21-Jun-2012 5:40 PM: REQUEST DATA: "\026\003\000\000A\001\000\000=\003\000Oã¿\000\001hìÍëÂZd^h9\216\247áKP
\224\000\nZQ\264ZæJü���/\000\005\000\004\0005\000\n\0002\0003\0008\0009
\000\026\000\023\001\000"
Or maybe this:
[2012-06-21 17:40:18] ERROR bad Request-Line `\026\003\001\000\001\000\000\003\001Oã¾òîË~w"T9ÙëänÓXÊ¡Ë;±©\037Ì"ç¦ \003\031Q\000\0006À'.
[2012-06-21 17:40:18] ERROR bad Request-Line `\026\003\000\000A\001\000\000=\003\000Oã¾òI~1Wj
Z@Õ¸+\006´\017mhøÍ¥'ú]��\026\000/\000\005\000\004\0005\000'.
And you have no idea why. And it is driving you crazy. I got you…
You meant HTTP not HTTPS.
This Took a Really Long Time
But I’m very glad it’s done.
Three Windows virtual machines pre-configured with IE6, 7 and 8.
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Confederacy of Dunces Big Chief
Mamie made these “Big Chief” notebooks for her book club meeting tonight. They read A Confederacy of Dunces.
Big Chief notebook party favors based on the notebooks references in the book.
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Sophie's First "Top Pie"
Sophie made this strawberry-rhubarb pie with a little help from dad.
Sophie’s first pie with a top crust.
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Sophia Hamster Balling
At the Arizona Centennial Celebration. (Happy birthday Arizona!)
Sophie getting ready to roll in this hamster ball contraption.
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This Actually Happened Last Week
Jesse was across the room with his bluetooth headset on:
JESSE: “Remind me to call Dog Ear on Friday”
ME: “I’m not your secretary. Put it in your calendar.”
JESSE: “Actually, make it for two o’clock.”
ME: “Ok, if you say so. I put it in my calendar so I can remind you, you disorganized hack.”
JESSE: “Confirm.”
ME: (confused) “Wait, are you talking to Siri?!”
JESSE: (to me this time) “What are you talking about?
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Getting the Kids Haircuts
The stylist has this sign up in her lobby. #like
The sign in the lobby.
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Recovering Partial Files from a Damaged ZIP on Mac OS X
Well, call me stupid, but I set up some periodic database backups using ZIP. Unfortunately, the normal (non-64-bit) ZIP file format can’t handle input files over 4GB (even if the output ZIP file is much smaller).
The Problem My cron jobs began failing when one of my databases grew over 4GB, but I didn’t notice because ZIP files were still being created on schedule. Alas they were truncated files that couldn’t actually be unzipped.
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Isabel is Super Excited to See Christopher Paolini
I took Isabel to the Burton Barr library in Phoenix for a Christopher Paolini talk and book signing.
Isabel waiting for the talk to start.
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