The Stew Pot - Part II

Paranoia was running rampant as Ian walked the six blocks to his mid-city condo. He glanced over his shoulder one last time before entering the front door. What was he expecting? Just need to sleep he told himself again. He made his way to the elevator beginning to relax slightly and pushed the up button. A pang of anxiety stirred as the lights above the elevator doors began to light in reverse order. 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 - Ian felt the bead of sweat forming on his brow - 7, 6, 5 - the fight or flight response was lining up at the starting line - 4 - relax - 3, 2 - can't stand it! Ian bolted down the hall and fell around the corner as the elevator doors opened.

He peeked around the corner still on his knees. The hall was empty. "I ought to be committed." he told himself as he stood up and collected his bag. "What an idiot I am!" He quickly moved backed to the elevator, pressed the up button and waited on the doors to open once again not noticing the pair of red eyes watching him down the hall.

When Ian woke up, he felt oddly refreshed with the memory of the previous day pushed deep into the back of his mind. Wait! The next day? He started to panic as he flung around to find the clock on the side table. There it was on the floor, he must have knocked it over in his sleep: 5:32AM. Whew! Not late. He wasn't sure if being late was conducive to keeping his job these days. He sauntered out of bed and headed to the shower to freshen up. Today is going to be a good day, he told himself. A good day.

That morning was just as good as he had hoped. The water in the shower was warm enough, his clothes were wrinkle free and his toast was cooked perfectly. He had even found a jar of homemade strawberry jam he had bought in the summer at the farmer's market. Ian was a few minutes early for the bus and that cute lady from the third floor had smiled at him on the elevator. All in my head, he had finally convinced himself it was all in his head. He had just needed sleep and now he was normal again. If only he knew how wrong he was!

The Stew Pot - Part 1

Ian had to do a double take. Did he really just see that, no not possible. He was a sane man and it was the middle of the afternoon. Curiosity was waking from its slumber in his mind as he slowly walked the hundred yards or so towards the park bench. A glance to the left revealed the expanse of the dog park with a dozen dogs and their owners playing frisbee or just doing dog things. A slow pan now to the right. A grove of trees, some underbrush, the fence separating the park from Central Avenue.

It had been sitting there on the bench like a person, but how could a rabbit get that big? And what was that in it's mouth? His first impression was that it was a poodle. A red poodle? Blood maybe? OK, get a grip idiot, there are no giant bunnies eating poodles in the park. Must have been the stress. The new boss, Mr. Worthington, had only been in charge for a week, but had already amassed a year's worth of hatred from his employees. He had been forced to work late on the new ad campaign. "Be a team player. The road to the top is paved with hard work." The mantras were beginning to seem like a war-chant.

Evidence, he needed the evidence. What is that? A little drop of red barely visible against the blue of the metal bench. He slowly placed his pinky finger into the droplet and slipped it into his mouth. As he tasted the salty flavor of blood, he realized how strange he must look there hunched over the park bench with his finger in his mouth. "Just like in the movies" he mused. Could it have been real? Was he losing his grip on reality? Had Lucy thrown her diamonds into his sky? Not possible, just not possible!

His trance was suddenly broken by the shrill high pitched voice emanating from behind him. "FIFI, oh FIFI, where are youuuuuu?" The woman anxiously walking down the sidewalk reminded Ian of Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island and with that leash in her hand ... a shiver flew up Ian's back so fast he trembled noticeably. Need sleep! Ian turned and tried not to run as he headed home. Sleep was what he needed and damn the boss.

to be continued ...

Role Models for Our Kids

I have been thinking about what my kids are seeing in the world around them these days and trying to anticipate who they may become based upon the role models they are exposed to. There are those people we would like our kids to emulate. like Peyton Manning for example. This is a man who has worked hard and been blessed with talent. He is clearly the best player on his football team and how does he respond? He goes out and plays his tail off every game, he works hard between games to be sharp for the upcoming week and his public persona is the nice guy a father would not mind his daughter dating (just so long as she is over 30).

There are those that we clearly do not want as role models for out kids. Take the antithesis of Mr. Manning, Terrell Owens. T.O. as he is referred to on the sports shows has gone from a really good player to an OK player and how has he responded? T.O. has long been known as a terrible teammate, self obsessed and arrogant, and over-spoken in public to a point of being obnoxious. Definitely not what I want my kids to aspire to.

So who are the jewels of my genetics looking up to right now? Spongebob Squarepants! Ok, Now you may say that Spongebob is a funny guy who is constantly being stomped on by those around him, but doesn't he always triumph in the end?

So maybe the more important factor in not who the kids are watching, but how you (or me) as a parent communicates with them about who they are seeing. People have good sides and bad sides even if both are not always shown. And in my opinion, the best role models for kids should be the parents. Unfortunately, some parents suck at it in a monumental way, but for those of us that truly care about these things, we should strive to be the best we can be so our kids look to us and not a yellow squishy marine sponge.

Age of Aquarius, Hero vs Badguy, and I Write Therefore I Am

It has been awhile but since I had a few minutes on this Sunday afternoon, I thought I would sent an update on the last few weeks. It has been quite busy with the Joneses as I am sure it has been with you.

Just this weekend, Ashley decided to participate in Locks of Love and had nearly a foot of hair cut off and donated to an organization which creates hairpieces and wigs for children who have lost their hair due to medical reasons and cannot afford hair replacement. She is maybe even more cute with her shorter hair, but it is taking her some time to get used to it.

For Halloween this year, Ashley dressed as the crime-fighting hero Batgirl and Ryan was the super villain Megatron from Transformers. After fighting a super battle, the teamed up to find and confiscate candy from all at one of the malls in Huntsville. And what a team they made. They brought enough candy home to make any dentist proud.



As for me, as I am sure you have heard, I am participating in this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and trying to bring that writer in me out into the open. The link above takes you to my page on the NaNowriMo webpage and as of this posting my word count is just under 10,000 words after 6 days of writing. 10K is 20% of the final goal so I have to get shaking if I want to complete the task. The characters are starting to come together and the plot is shaping up as well. I haven't been able to claim a genre yet, but I do plan on putting an excerpt out there soon to give you a little taste. I do have a working title: "The Other Side of The Coin". Also anyone wanting to participate in the editing process in January (after I tweak it a little myself) drop me a line and I will send you a copy to peruse. I am not expecting an award winning production, but I do want to be able to say that I wrote a novel.

That's it for today, the kids are demanding some attention, so until next time, don't take any wooden nickels.

It may not be new, but its news to you!

It has been almost a month since posting mainly due to an extremely busy work schedule. We are faring pretty well financially here in the south as compared to the high expenses of Chicago. Lets just say we have caught up with the boat and are climbing on board compared to the near drowning state of a year ago.

I did decide though to pad the finances by teaching an overload. Sounds like fun huh? So I am not doing laboratory research or advising students leaving plenty of time for another class. A normal load for me consist of a stacked intro to bio class (all students in one lecture) with 2 labs (1 per week each) and a stacked microbiology with 2 labs (2 times per week each) for a total of 17 contact hours per week. BTW: This was considered an overload in Chicago, but included many other responsibilities. So an overload is an additional course, I chose a night microbiology for an additional 7 contact hours per week bring the total to 24 contact hours per week. The money is good, but it is a bit of stress in trying to keep organized. But all in all, still less stressful than Chicago.

As if I did not have enough to do with this workload and family commitments (it is the holiday season), I have also decided to participate in NaNoWriMo during the month of November. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) is a full force attempt to motivate lazy (excuse me: undermotivated) or aspiring novelist to crank out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. They emphasize putting words on paper instead of editing as you go to jump start the production of a first draft for editing. For people like me who have evolved to become editors instead of writers, it may be the boost I need to get back to writing.

This is also an opportunity to try out a piece of software I have been wanting to try for awhile now called Scrivener by Literature & Latte, LTD. Scrivener is a writing tool which utilizes the method of research based writing I learned in Jr and Sr High school and used throughout most of my college days. This "notecard" approach reminds me of trips to the library (before the internet of course) with a pack of fresh 3x5 index cards and an assignment in hand. Each little tidbit of interesting or relevant info read from a book or abstract index was written on its own index card and then coded to denote source and topic (now called keywords). When a bunch of cards were completed (no set number just the arbitrary "bunch"), they were laid out on a table (or bed) and organized into an outline. Then the real writing began.

Scrivener is setup to record text (or snippets) on individual "note cards" and then to organize by moving around on a virtual corkboard. This promotes a focus on putting words on paper and capturing the flow of ideas during writing and not on formatting and editing. After you are happy with the text and organization, the output is exported into a word processor for final formatting. Since much of my writing for class is research intensive, this will likely be valuable software for organizing my thoughts and research clippings and writing as I did in the good old days when I considered writing to be fun. I will keep you posted and probably post snippets of the novel over the course of the NaNoWriMo timeline.

Transformation (from 3 to 4 that is ...)

In the Jones household, you can't just celebrate a birthday for one day, so this last week was the culmination of Ryan's 4th birthday celebration. It all started on Saturday night (8/29) with a trip to the local grocery store in search of the perfect birthday cake. Ryan decided on a cupcake with a large yellow happy face on it which was fine by us. Sunday morning began with a rendition of Happy Birthday to the newly woken birthday boy and soon became smiles and request of "Cupcake, Mommy!"

So after a breakfast of cupcake (you knew we would give in didn't you?), it was onto the opening of gifts. Amidst the "Little Einsteins" and other education toys and books, came his favorite gift of the day - Megatron from the "Transformers" Movie. Thanks Aunt Kathy!

The next day, Cathy decided to surprise Ryan at school with a little party with his classmates. A cookie cake and an afternoon of frivolity was well received.

Things were pretty low key until Friday and Grandma came to visit. More presents came with his new favorites, also from "Transformers" including a bumpercar version of BumbleBee and Bulkhead (when he says this it sounds like Butthead).

Saturday Morning had us all getting ready and heading to Chuck E. Cheese for the family and friends party. A good time was had by all with pizza, games and a visit from the Cheese Meister himself.

But the party didn't end there. Of course we had to have the visit to play minigolf.
So in the end, Ryan had a long and enjoyable birthday celebration. But hey, how many times do you turn 4 anyway??

Use Smart Playlist in iTunes to Improve Audiobook Experience

I have a terrible memory and like to listen to audiobooks on my iPod. So as you may guess, I sometimes lose track of where I left off when I stopped listening last. While the iTunes software is good at bookmarking the stop-off point within a file, I tend to forget which file I was listening to. So to solve the problem, I use the smart playlist feature within iTunes.

The book I am currently listening to, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaimen, has 19 MP3 files. I setup a smart playlist filtering by "Album is Anansi Boys" and "Playcount is 0". I sort by chapter number and am ready to go.

Instead of listening to the book from the Audiobook section, I listen from the Smart Playlist. When I finish a file and move to the next one, the read file is removed from the list (not from the iPod though) and I know each time to listen to the topmost file.

I hope this is helpful to you since it has made my audiobook experience much better.

Paradigm Shift Regarding Digital Organization

Many geeks have seen the writing on the wall as the philosophy of organizing digital assets is evolving. I believe this is mainly due to advances in search algorithms as seen by Google, Apple and others. Can tagging and dumping be the new means of efficiently organizing digital assets?

My "old" means of organizing everything from word processing documents and spreadsheets to digital photos and music relied heavily on folders and subfolders (and more subfolders) in an attempt to categorize each item for easy retrieval. I just never knew when I would need that syllabus from a microbiology class from the fall semester of 2003. Unfortunately, when using this method can take awhile to find items, but it is usually possible to find them.

If you scan my computers' hard drives now, you will find a folder for academic work with subfolders for each class and subfolders archiving for each semester, etc. If you look in my personal photo directory, you will find folders for each year (since we went digital as I have not made time for scanning of older prints) and subfolders for each month within. Same with email archives and music and videos. I think it is safe to say that most of us who do not have a desktop with 500+ icons on it have some sort of folder hierarchy working for us.

For the last few months, actually since I switched to Gmail as my primary mail aggregator, I have made a concerted effort to change my own philosophy about organizing my digital materials. When I look back, I was already doing it (unknowingly) by using iTunes and iPhoto. Lets start with iTunes.

If you use iTunes and navigate into the iTunes music directory, you will probably notice a folder hierarchy which uses artist and album folders. While this is not really any different from the above mentioned method, it is within iTunes where the magic happens. Each song is (or can be) loaded with metadata including title, artist and album, but also a series of other keywords used for organization. Genre, year, bpm, groupings, etc. all can be filled in and used to search for specific songs and more importantly to create Smart Playlists. If you want to have a workout playlist, maybe you choose songs with a high bpm, if you are wanting a "live" experience, you can create a playlist with only live tracks. This is what I am talking about as the new way of organizing - tag items with relevant keywords and use better search tools to organize them on the fly.

iPhoto works in a similar way by organizing photos by event and/or keywords in addition to the metadata supplied by your camera (exposure info, time, date, camera type, etc.) Creating smart albums for uploading to Facebook or Flickr become so much easier than looking through each photo in a folder structure.

Now I find myself using the same type of organization with email, documents, spreadsheets, presentations and pretty much all digital assets (which aren't already in an archive folder that is). I use Gmail as my primary aggregator of many accounts and the google philosophy is to tag and dump into an "all mail" local and them create search strings or smart folders to retrieve targeted mails. One example is my use of the tag "Action" in which any email that come in which needs to be resolved later (see inbox zero from GTD) gets an "Action" tag. when I have time to address these messages, I simple click on the "action" tag link and all of the messages show up onscreen. When the item is resolves, I simple remove the tag and it is archived. This works because Google has such a good search engine.

Now add this idea to documents and productivity can go way up. Apple's OS X has a really good indexing search engine (Spotlight) which searches text throughout each document as well as any keywords you assign. This is even easier than assigning tags, since I usually just rely upon text strings to find documents. If I am looking for the syllabus for microbiology in fall of 2003, I can just search "syllabus 2003 micro" and I will get a list of files which have all of those words in the title of body of the document. Unfortunately, this does not work as well on Windows systems (I am forced to use Windows XP at work), but I have installed google desktop and it is better than Windows search.

In conclusion, I still hold on to the folder hierarchy system for my old files and many new files on my hard drive, but am turning to using search to find the files instead of folder diving. I do tend to use less subfolders now, and it is still important to be sure and tag items well. If you find yourself intrigued by this paradigm shift and are moving towards this tag and dump method. Just ask yourself if you prefer to do the work on the front end (tagging) and save time in retrieving files or would you rather quickly save files and spend more time looking for them later.

Bills, Schools, Dance, Christian Wicca and Ashley wants me to start dating again.

Charter Cable has now proven to be a "normal" cable company. They had actually been pretty good for us. The price was good, the installation painless and repairs after the storm handled well. Of course this was too good to be true. Cathy noticed an extra charge on our bill last month for "DVR installation and Service" ($15). Well, since we never authorized this service and do not use it (in fact didn't know it was there), Cathy called and they agreed to credit the charge. Well, imagine our surprise (not) when the same charge was found on this month's bill. Their explanation this time, "You have a DVR cable box installed so we thought you were using the service." HUH!!!!

It turns out that the installer had put in a DVR capable cable box (needed for HD content) because he thought they were out of the normal boxes. This was mentioned to the home office and was OK for 5 months. So now we are told that we have to exchange the cable box and then they will credit it back. It seems that many utility companies have these complex (and mostly automated) billing systems which cause their customers grief.

Open house for the new school year was yesterday, so we went to Ryan's school first and "met" his teacher (same as last year) and picked up paperwork. Later in the evening we went to parent orientation at Ashley's school and found out new policies and met Ashley's 2nd grade teacher. It turns out the first fundraiser starts on the first day of school. It seems that the entire year is just one big fundraiser sometimes.

Ashley's teacher is quite ambitious, but seems confident that the students will progress quit quickly this year with reading, writing, math and science. Cathy and I are excited about the curriculum with a major focus on science and critical thinking development. They are having school-wide science themes including field trips and are teaching many subjects with a "how does it work" approach rather than the traditional "do it like I do it" approach. We will keep you updated throughout the year.

We also stopped by Dancers, Inc. in Decatur yesterday to sign Ashley up for ballet and tap classes. It has been a year since she has danced, but we are sure she will catchup quickly. While sitting in the car waiting for the girls to come out, I noticed an interesting building located right next to the dance studio called "Shadows and Light". The artwork was eye-catching on an extremely vanilla building, but it peaked my interest. An internet search yielded the following description:

Shadows and Light Occult Shoppe - shadows and light carries supplies for the entire magickal community specializing in New Orleans Voodoo, Ceremonial Magick, Christian Witchery, and Neo-Paganism. There are many paths to enlightenment.

A further search found the owner "Gypsy Nancy" was also a guitar player in the band "thejudasgoat" and a Christian Wiccan. Not only was I completely surprised to see an occult shop in the heart of the bible belt, but now had been introduced to this religion. Wikipedia list the definition of Christian Wicca as the "syncretism of Christianity and Wicca which uses the organizational and festival framework of Wicca while professing belief in the teachings of Jesus." and is credited to John Michael Greer's 2003 book The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. I have to admit, I am quite intrigued.

And lastly, as we were getting ready to go to the open house, Ashley uttered the quote of the week as far as I'm concerned. She had a small bottle of hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works and asked me if I wanted some. I said "no thanks" and guess what she said?

"Oh come on Daddy, it smells good. It will attract more girls for you!"

I thought Cathy was going to fall down.

Kids say the "darn-it" things

For those of you who watch Spongebob Squarepants, the utterance of "Tartar Sauce" is commonly heard in times of frustration in place of more colorful expletives by the usually jolly yellow sponge.

Not too long ago, Ashley decided to replace her normal use of "darn-it" in such cases with the Spongebob coined "Tartar Sauce". Well, old habits die hard as the other day when something went wrong and she balked in a moment of pure frustration, she uttered "Darn-it Sauce!" Cathy and I laughed so hard that Ashley decided that this new blended expletive would be her new calling card.

So if you should hear a loud voice booming down the hall with the utterance of "Darn-it Sauce!", run - don't walk - because Ashley is coming and she isn't too happy.

From the "Kids Say the Darndest Things" Files

While riding in the car from dinner back to home, Ashley was talking about visiting grandma. She said we could load up her bed in a Uhaul and take it to grandma's so she could stay there. And then she said, "Daddy, when you get fired from your job, can you look for a job in Mississippi so we can move there?"

I am so proud that my daughter keeps up with the latest economic news, but am worried that she may have talked to the boss!

Tales from the potty!

Ashley took to using the potty shortly after her third birthday. We had been trying for awhile and it just seemed to click one day with minimal accidents afterwards. With Ryan it is a different story.

We have been trying with him for the last year or so, but he is refusing to use the potty. He has many of the signs of being ready such as letting us know that he has poo-poo and waking up dry in the mornings. We are sure that he understands, but just refuses to make the final move.

We are trying to teach by showing as well. The other day, I was heading to the bathroom when Ryan started calling, "don't go, don't go!" I told him I was going to "pee-pee in the potty" and his response was priceless.

He looked into my eyes and said, "No Daddy, pee-pee in pull-up just like me!" while pointing to his pull-up.

The things kids say!

Just a quick word about a couple of things Ryan has said recently.

Ryan had recently gotten a toy from a McDonalds Happy Meal that had become his favorite to carry around. It was Manny the Mammoth from Ice Age. Unfortunately, Manny was lost yesterday and Ryan was uber sad. So luckily, Mickey D's lets you buy just the toy for a couple of bucks so I stopped after work and got him a new Manny. I came in the door and said, "Ryan, I have a surprise for you." He came running and I gave him the new Manny and his words were, " What's going on here! A new Manny!" We could not stop laughing since he had not said that before.

The other is from a few days ago when Cathy and Ryan were playing and Cathy asked Ryan, "Are you mommy's boy?" Can you guess what he said? ...

"No, I'm daddy's boy!" I thought Cathy was going to cry before she started laughing so hard she nearly fell over.

He has come along slowly, but boy has he come.

Mommy, my goomba is out back eating puffs!

Hello and Happy 4th of July.

There are three stories I want to share with you today.

I will start with Ryan's new sleeping buddy. A stuffed goomba (see pic) which he now refuses to go to bed without. Goombas are the mushroom shaped bad guys from Super Mario games on the wii. It seems it was around this age when Ashley had a similar experience with a doll named "Lacey".

Ryan is also the focus of story number 2. A few days ago, Ryan ran up to Cathy and was saying quite frantically, "Mommy, my back, Mommy my back" while putting his hand in the back of his pullup. We thought either he had poopoo that burned (he has been battling diaper rash recently) or had hurt himself on a toy. {Or maybe he heard his "old"man uttering that line after a round of "jump on daddy".} There was no poop or sign of injury so we were confused. To make the story short, it turned out he had a wedgie and didn't know how to explain it. So now when he calls, "Mommy, my back!" we know the problem.

Lastly, one of my fears regarding Ashley seems to have come true. I was eating breakfast this morning (Raison Bran Crunch for those interested) and I heard this god-awful sound coming from the office. Upon investigation, Ashley was at the website for the cereal Reese's Puffs and was mixing a Reese's Puffs RAP. Imagine ghetto rap style with cereal lyrics! I was sincerely hoping Ashley would become a fan of rock music (or maybe even country), but not rap.

REESE'S PUFFS YO!

Screwed Again!

Okay so we have now been royally screwed by Home Depot credit with no attempt to work with us after they mucked up our account.

Here is the story:

When we first moved to Decatur last September, we needed some yard tools and were kinda strapped from the move, so we went to the local Home Depot store (they were having a no interest or payments for a year promotion) and signed up for a credit card.

{A little aside here... I had tried to setup an account online earlier the same day, but never finished the application and it was not submitted.}

All seemed fine, we bought a lawn mower, gas can, rake, etc. and were ready to tackle lawn care. Things were fine for awhile, we received cards in the mail (they came separately), and didn't use the credit again until earlier this year when we needed some basic household stuff. This is where things seemingly went wrong.

After the second purchase (both purchases were made using the card I had, Cathy's card was never used), we received two bills in the mail roughly a week apart. We thought it was just an error and since both purchases were in deferment, we just chunked it. But after another month passed and we received two bills again, Cathy got suspicious. It turned out that there had been two accounts opened: apparently the online application that had not been completed or submitted became one account and the one we set up in the store the second.

Well it seemed OK since all purchases had been made on the one card we could just close the second account. But wait.... somehow the second set of purchases were put on the second account and was now about to be 60 days late.

Well we had already paid bills for the month a didn't have enough to cover the second bill, but Cathy was told by a CSR that they could just transfer the balance into one account, wave the late fees and make the situation right, but since I was the primary cardholder, I would have to call back and get it done officially.

So I call back and am told by a different CSR that they could not transfer balances and we would have to pay on each account. So as I am on hold waiting for the supervisor to get on the phone, Cathy points out that the second account is late and has reverted to the higher APR of 63.81%. WTF is that all about!!!!

When the supervisor gets on the phone, she concurs that they cannot help us and so I begin to argue that they wrongly set up 2 accounts and then charged 2 accounts from purchases made on one card. Her solution was to go through every single transaction and say which account it was bought from, but there was nothing they could do. The bottom line is that Home Depot is not going to fix their mistake so we will have to pay the balance of the second account off next week (on payday) and the finance charges (luckily on $15), and they finally agreed to drop the late fee. Since one rep said they could fix it and the other said they couldn't, my bet is that they would if we hadn't been good customers (or had good credit).

But now we are going to be stuck with a 60 day late on our credit report because they refuse to contact the credit agencies and clear up the mistake (they still are not coping to their mistake of opening two accounts and spreading the purchases over them).

So as you might have guessed, we will be dealing with the local Lowes from now on as Home Depot has become blacklisted for our family.

Why is it that people who are irresponsible and cannot pay their bills get lower rates and special treatment, but us responsible folks get screwed?

Another Storm??

I am beginning to believe that "someone" doesn't like the fact that we moved to northern Alabama.

Last night there was a major storm in which we sustained 70+ MPH winds and torrential rain for almost an hour. If you have read previous posts then you will already know that our area is prone to flooding. Well, luckily I think the wind was blowing hard enough to push the rain into the next property so it did not come up to the door as usual. Don't get me wrong there was a lot of water in the yard and the driveway was flooded. It looked a lot like hurricane Elena (from 1985 I think) when we were watching through the window.

We lost power around 7:45PM and spent quite a few minutes in the hallway wondering if the roof was going to blow away. Trees were uprooted and branches scattered. Just take a look at the photo of half a tree from our neighbor's yard which was trapped in our tree. We ended up with only limbs (some huge) down and power outage until around 2:00AM (cable and net out until 8:00pM tonite) so we consider ourselves lucky.

The kids had a grand time though running through the house with flashlights and getting to stay up late. Cathy and I have began saving for a return trip to Chicago! I will take shoveling snow and blizzards over hurricane-strength wind and flooding any day.

Another Noah?

Well, it happened again: the near flooding of the homestead! On Friday night, Decatur had nearly 5 inches of rain and the sewer system is just not able to handle that much water. The water level rose to just lapping the doorframe, so we had almost all of our towels positioned to hold back the water at the front and back doors. Luckily, the rain ceased at just the right moment to allow drainage and prevent in-home damage. This happened again on Sunday, but the water did not come quite as close this time.

We are frustrated since the city will not fix the situation and is not available when these floods occur. We called many agencies including public works and the police department and just could not get anyone to answer. I do not guess it has to be said that we will not be settling in this area for the long haul.

On the other hand, it did take care of 4 anthills and the wasp nest that had started in a log which lines our carport. It helps to look on the sunny side sometimes.

Plans to deal with this in the future include the previously mentioned making sure the drains are clear when we have flood warnings and the purchase of sandbags to shore up the doorways to help prevent house flooding.

The Battle is Lost

Well it has finally happened. IT has won the battle and I will be giving up my PowerMac at work. It turns out they found a way to block my MAC address on the network so I am dead in the water via internet. So I'm in the process of switching back to windows (insert sigh here). At least it will be an XP machine with 4gb RAM instead of vista with no hardware power.

So I am beginning to look for windows alternatives to the many Mac apps for which my productivity has come to depend. Here is a short list of what I have found so far:

Mac : PC alternative

Dashboard and Spotlight: Google desktop and sidebar

Adium: Digsby

iPhoto: Picassa

Spaces: I will try microsoft powertoys first

1password: KeePass

Textexpander: Texter

iWork: MS Office (ugh)

Safari: ie7 (IT is blocking firefox, safari and chrome)

garageband: audacity

I am still needing alternatives for: quicklook, imovie, quicksilver, SnapzPro, automator, pdf editing and apple mail (they also block outlook trying to force us into using firstclass).

All in all, I am not alone in thinking our IT department has lost the realization that they are a service department and have become way too controlling.

Easter Egg Hunting

We went to the Citywide Easter Egg Hunt in Decatur Yesterday and the denial I had tried to hold onto was finally lifted. I had tried to convince myself that it wasn't that different here, but when we pulled up to the park and heard the musical entertainment, I was shocked. They were playing countrified gospel music!! Not the obvious choice for a children's event, but I guess it reflects the area.

In better news, at least they had actual eggs (plastic though) for the kids to find instead of the paper cutouts they used in Evergreen Park. They let all of the kids go hunt at the same time, so the bigger kids dominated. Ashley was able to get one egg, but Ryan was to small to get any.

We discussed amongst ourselves ideas to make the hunt more fair, but in the end made our own egg hunt this morning. To paraphrase the commercial, "you live, you learn and then you have your own egg hunt!"

Out of the mouths of babes!

Ryan, Ashley and Cathy are playing "Mario and Sonic at the Olympics" for Wii and as usual there is some trash talking before the race starts. Cathy tells Ashley, "You're going down!"

Ryan turns around and says to Cathy, "You are going down, I'm going up!"

A lesson in Marketing

Ryan sits on the couch next to mommy as she reads the farm animal book to him.

Mommy: What does a horse say?

Ryan: Neighhhhh

M: What does a pig say?

R: oink, oink, oink

M: What does a duck say?

R: quack, quack

M: What does a cow say

R: moo, moo chick-fil-a!

Ashley's 1st Grade Play

Ashley was Cat#2 in this year's Eastwood Elementary 1st Grade Play "Eastwood at the Zoo". The Cats opened and closed the play and just plain looked cute throughout. Look for some video to come soon via youtube.

Our Favorite "Thing"

To celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss on Monday, Ashley's school had a "come to school dressed as your favorite Dr. Seuss character. Guess which one is our favorite.

The Emperor's New Shoes

So we are at Payless shoes looking for some shoes for Ashley to wear in her 1st grade play and Ryan spots these Lighting McQueen slippers that he just "had to have"! Guess what his favorite movie is?

Snow ... in Alabama??

Thats right, folks! Snow in Alabama! We had snow falling for a few hours this morning and it even stuck for awhile. This picture was taken around 9:00 AM and by 11:00 it was all gone. But it was nice to start March with a snowy ground cover. Just like Chicago again (nah, not really!) :-)

Chicago style parting gifts

He slid his hand into the outer pocket to fish out the keys while walking towards the car. The day was over and his tired feet were ready for a break. He glided into the bucket seat and inserted the key into the ignition while stepping on the clutch. Turn - nothing, turn again - nothing, turn again- cursing emanates from his mouth.

Yes yes folks, it seems that 3 -4 years of Chicago winters can do wonders for killing car batteries. Not to mention brakes. So after shelling out $450 for new brake rotors and pads (for the Saturn)this last weekend, we have to shell out another $70 for a battery for the Honda. All courtesy of the fine Chicago winters with corrosive salts and ice. Another good thing about moving back south.

Drive to work

As I was driving to work this morning, I am teaching 2 days a week at the Huntsville campus of Calhoun College, I was thinking how cool is it to drive pass this giant rocket on my way to work and to walk out of the front door of the campus and see it as well.

One of the three Saturn V rockets on display nationwide, this is quite a spectacular site when you turn the corner on I565. You can visit the US Space and Rocket Center website for more info. BTW: this is where space camp is held as well.

Our Little Superstar.

On Friday (1/30), Ashley performed in "Eastwood Idol" at Eastwood Elementary School. She sang and danced to the song "Rock Monster" from the VeggieTales Movie "The Pirates who Don't Do Anything". This is a parody of "Rock Lobster" by the B52's. Ashley did not win, but did a great job anyway. She even made the local newspaper (Decatur Daily).  We just might have ourselves a future superstar! 

Home for the Holidays

Well, we decided to stay home for the Christmas and New Year's holiday, but we were not without visitors. My sister Kathy was the first to come by from Dallas and was kind enough to bring us our old full side bed that she was finished with. This was perfect for Ashley so we upgraded beds for the kids. Ashley is now happily in a full size and her twin is now Ryan's first "big boy" bed. Hard to believe that in 3 years, he has not once gotten out of his crib, but it was time for him to move to a big bed and he loves it. He has only gotten out once in the last couple of weeks so it is a success. The kids loved having her around and actually cried a bit when she left. 

Cathy's mom came for Christmas and again the kids were excited to have someone else to play with. And of course, they loved their presents. Ashley wins the best kid award as she was overheard telling people that even though she did not get the one thing she asked Santa for (Nintendo DS), she was grateful for what she did get. I guess we are doing something right! Again the kids were sad when she left.

Lastly, the Appelts from Chicago were able to stop by on their way back from holiday in Florida with their new son, Nathaniel. He was quite the cute little guy and Cathy was enamored with him. Even Ryan got into the act by bring Nate a blanket and saying, "Here's a blanket, baby."

All in all, it was a good Christmas with 2 weeks off and a lot of family time.