Following Edge

My friends all know that I've refused to acknowledge the existence of DVDs for years. Davis even wrote about it recently.

Up to this point, I haven't been willing to discuss it; feigning a ridiculous ignorance of the existence of DVDs. Actually, my justification was real: there are no advantages of DVD format for the VHS tapes we own (Snow White, Dazed & Confused, The Princess Bride, The Erotic Guide to Oral Sex) and we just haven't bought enough VHS tapes in the last 4 years to justify replacing our existing ones with DVD.

As David might love to hear, this is starting to break down as we are buying more movies now that Lauren has the attention span and tastes to enjoy certain movies. Once one starts buying new tapes, it will make more sense to get DVDs if you acknowledge that they will someday have to be replaced with DVDs. (The old ones aren't the same issue since they have to be replaced in any case.

So, the time came. We shopped very hard for Calphalon cookware (as mentioned recently) and got the best possible prices. We got a Calphalon Commercial Hard-Anodized (not Teflon, that is) 12-inch Everyday Pan with Lid which Amazon is selling for $19.99. Everyone should buy this unless they have one. Even if all of your other cookware is $8.95 pans from Freddy's, you should get this pan as it is good for tons of stuff, easy to use, will last forever, and will make you a better cook. Then, we spent several times that on a few more pans at Meier & Frank. I maneuvered it so we would get their best sale price, then 10% off for their "After Christmas Sale", then get $10 gift certificates for their "15 hour sale" (which starts after the "After Christmas Sale"). Between the pans and some gifts for Lauren and Anne Marie, we got $40 in gift certificates that we could use today or this weekend. And (coming back to DVDs)...

They have been selling a Coby DVD player for $39.99, so I went in today and got a DVD player for (just about) free. I figure if I get it for free, I can agree to admit that DVDs exist.

Now, I have to think about how to get our 53 VHS tapes to DVD format. Some can be done cheaply enough by selling the VHS tapes used on Amazon and buying used DVD discs for the same titles on Amazon. But, there are some strange and obscure titles that we just can't get on DVD, so we may have to find a way to record those VHS tapes to DVD and, if we do that, we can just do them all that way. Maybe I can get my Mac or my Linux stereo (Ben, I'm still working on the description of the Linux stereo) to digitize the tapes and record them to DVD. Or maybe I can make a friend that has one of those VHS/DVD recorder things I see in the electronics stores. Anyone have experience with either of those options? If so, let me know.

So, now I know that David will be gloating in the New Year. So be it!

Happy New Year!

With Lauren in school and living on the little farm these days, there seem to be a lot of creatures that want to get to know us better.

It's not really the beasts that infest the house, barn and property that bother me most. So far, that's just been endless sugar ants, carpenter ants (as mentioned recently), tiny beetles, and spiders in the house, bunches of cats and a couple of raccoons in the barn, as well as wasps and flies all over half of the year. Managing these critters is just a part of living out here and probably includes the concerns of most homeowners.

The things that are more concerning are the things that don't just want to live on our property, but want to live on ME. So far this year, I've had ringworm (which isn't really a worm), pinworms (which ARE worms) and lice which Lauren has brought home from school or friends three times.

None of these things is hard to treat. A bit of consistent use of anti-fungal cream, Pin-X, and the Robi Comb as well as doing A LOT OF LAUNDRY (as I love to do and which I have gotten my fill of in the last two days of lice treatment) is all it takes to get rid of the creatures. However, even though I live around a lot of animals and a toddler, I just don't like sharing my body with little creatures.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Hopefully, in the new year, I'll see much less of my "little friends".

I'm going to be helping out a coworker, Keith, with a big project, which could have some challenging parts to it. My friend Victor thanked me for being a "mensch".

(This post has been briefly summarized for you due to possibly sensitive content.)

While I won't bother trying to spend all night listing the myriad gifts Lauren received, my Christmas booty included: cable ties, a coffee maker (with one-handed operation, if that's necessary), chocolate, an ice cream maker (that I have to share with Lauren), $825 cash, a "Surrounded by Asses" calendar (which is not as provocative as you guys may think, but does remind me to mention that Anne Marie did not deck me for giving her "Bad Girl" panties) and two Onsen's gift certificates for hot tubbing (that, luckily, I have to share with Anne Marie).

We also went out with Grandma Bonnie to find two GeoCaches. One in a local park and the other in a local historic cemetary. Lots of fun.

So, this coming week, Christmas will continue as we spend our $825 and shop for Calphalon cookware and other goodies.

Merry Christmas! Next up: NEW YEARS!

Do you need a Gmail account? Everyone's got one. In fact, everyone's got one to such a degree that they completely lost their value over 6 months ago.

Why did I wait until last month to get on the bandwagon? Didn't I want to try out the ultra-slick webmail interface that everyone was raving about? Didn't I want to enjoy 1 gigabyte of email storage that was as easy to search as Google? Not really. I don't call this blog "following edge" for nothing. I didn't see the point in trying it until recently, but I'm glad I did. It's already become extremely useful. I haven't even tried the various software hacks that have been released to use Gmail as a photo gallery, backup system, file storage, or a blog.

David sent me a Gmail invite last month and he was shocked (to quote David from a quick search of his messages to me using the Gmail search, "Oh dear. I should have known this was coming") when he got greetings from me at curseyoubastard@gmail.com.

Anyhow, if anyone has waited longer than myself to try Gmail, drop me an email and I'll send you one of my invites.

 

It's almost required to fear nothing when you own a house and owning even a small farm requires a fearlessness that is nearly beyond me. It's not that I'm afraid of much. Last year, I kept things in order while one of the horses (Snickers) lost nearly 6 gallons of blood while we were trying to stem the bleeding and get her to the vet. (6 gallons is about a human's total blood volume, but happily only a sixth of a horse's). I've also endured disposing of deceased animals and nearly turning over a tractor, but, this year, fate seems to be upping the ante.

My only phobias (irrational fears) are a fear of heights and a fear of swarms of insects. The pump house shown (where we get our water, you city dwellers) was my test for both of these. The streetlight (175W Mercury Vapor Lamp, technically) that lights our property at night went out and I started with our tallest ladder to gingerly collect the bulb and replace it (without looking down, of course). Regrettably, that didn't fix the lamp and, after buying a replacement, I had to set up a ladder on top of the slanted roof to get above the lamp to replace it. You can see the acrophobic's nightmare of ladders in the first picture. Needless to say, I had to steel myself to accomplish this, but I got it done and you can see the bright and shiny results in the second picture.

So far as the other phobia goes, I heard a "crackling" in the insulation of the pump house roof this summer and knew there must be a nest of carpenter ants up there. I called Mr. Rogers Pest Management (who really is as nice as he sounds and who I would highly recommend). He said, "Definately a nest up there. This would be a really easy job. I would feel bad about charging you $250 for it when you could just go in there with a razor knife, pull down that insulation and spray everything with bug spray". I explained that being in a tiny room pulling apart a nest of thousands of (now angry) carpenter ants was in my "top 10 list of things never to do". He said he could do it within a few weeks if I wanted him to do it, but he thought I could do it just fine. Well, I steeled myself to it after 4 days of reciting exterminator mantras and took care of it.

Now, I just hope that the pump house doesn't have any further troubles and that I don't develop any new phobias for the farm to exploit.

If it weren't for Christmas, I'd be having much better success. After Ben pestered me the last two times I mentioned PookCD [1] [2] to provide details about my computerized stereo/television, I have been working on a detailed description of it which, of course, is turning into a novel as many of my blog entries do.

I would have finished it yesterday or today except for Christmas. We helped my mother (Grandma Bonnie) set up a Christmas tree in her new apartment on Friday (as pictured), went shopping yesterday for groceries for holiday baking and cooking for holiday guests. Then today, we had David and family over for a pre-Christmas brunch. Then, as if that wasn't enough accursed Christmas festivity, Lauren, Anne Marie, Grandma Bonnie and I went on a 2-hour driving tour of Christmas lights around Eugene.

I would admit that I love this time with the family and sharing the very generous nature of the holiday season, but then what could I say about my difficulty getting to important work like my novelette about PookCD? Oh well, I guess you'll just have to wait for that. Hope you're enjoying the holidays too.

After 3 months of reloading CDs into our stereo (a Linux computer named PookCD), I had finally finished. In preparation for installing a backup drive so I would never have to do this again, I ran a network wire across the living room floor for direct access to the stereo computer to reconfigure the drives.

Lauren then said "Daddy, don't ruin Christmas with wires," which got a laugh from everyone. While I didn't ruin Christmas, I did take David's advice to switch to FreeDOS as my boot loader, but didn't realize how accurate was his warning about its horrid installation program. The FreeDOS installer erased the music off one of the music drives instead of installing on the "startup" drive.

So, now I get to begin again with 400 CDs. Ayeeeee! Anne Marie says "Maybe we should get a really nice CD tower". Hah! No matter how demoralized I am, I'll never be that demoralized!

Ring. Ring. Is that my cell phone? Hello... Hi dada, I went grocery shopping with grandma... Oh, that sounds like great fun, but guess where mom and dad are RIGHT NOW? ... Where are you and mommy? ... We're at The Letters Store (Toys 'R' Us, look at the sign and you'll see why she calls it that). We're looking at all the toys! Ha ha ha!

Now, that may sound cruel, but, actually, Lauren is sophisticated enough to enjoy us being at one of her favorite stores without her. She has a good amount of perspective for a not-quite-4-year-old. She brightened up and made sure to mention all of the Christmas List items we should be looking for. What was on her list this year?

• Barbie with the baby -- We think she means "pregnant Barbie" which they either really took off the market earlier this year or is simply sold out. Grandpa Ken got her a Barbie and Kelly (Barbie's very little sister) set that will probably address this.
• Wooden Blocks -- She already has Lincoln Logs and a small set of wooden blocks, but the blocks at her Montessori school make her want more quality (expensive) wooden blocks to build "tall" things.
• A Car -- I presume she wants a 4-seater that's easy to get into. Easy to get dolls and dolls' babys into, of course. We haven't found this yet. Of course, we could get the rediculous Hummer H2 toy car which we saw everywhere for $100, but you wouldn't imagine we'd do that, would you.
• That damn baby -- We're not sure where she got this idea, but since I think she has enough damn babies, we got her a Dora the Explorer calendar instead.

Ken, my father (pictured above with myself and with Lauren and who you've seen previously) visited this weekend. While he kept up his usual pace of visiting almost a dozen people in less than three days, he's also taken plenty of time this visit to play with Lauren, which I think is a real treat for both of them.

Ken and I have a hard time talking about personal things, which I think must be typical of father-son relations, but we share a lot in common with raising kids (his younger kids, my half-siblings are just entering their teenage years), interest in investing and, of course, gossiping about my mother, Bonnie. Even though I sometimes wonder if we could be closer personally, I think our recent habit of seeing each other twice a year and keeping up to date on each others' seldom-changing lives is as much as we can spare in each of our busy lives and is much better than many families are able to manage.

We'll get to see Ken again this Summer in Oregon for the family reunion near Glide. I sure hope we can make it to Chicago to visit him in the coming year, but with the trips we need to take to Philidelphia for Anne Marie's Nure Practitioner certificate program, I'm not sure it will be possible. We'll make it there again relatively soon, I'm sure.

This week, with Ken's visit, with Bonnie moving and spending time looking at old pictures of my childhood (as the one above), I realize what great parents I have and what an idyllic childhood I was able to enjoy. I'll have to tell you more about it later. Thanks mom and dad!

Where does technology go when it's on the following edge? Evidently into my office closet or into the hay loft of my barn. I'm in the process of cleaning out my office closet and it's brought up a real issue. You see, there are basically four types of things in there (and in the hay loft):

• Essential tools and parts for maintaining the technical apparatus at my work. Example: Dymo LetraTag 2000 labeler. You've got to have this stuff, so no problem here.
• Spare parts and equipment in case something critical should fail or that I'm working on repairing. I decided in about 1996 that instead of buying expensive equipment and services that supposedly "never fail", I should buy inexpensive things so I can afford to have a spare for when it does fail (since everything fails). Example: Toshiba VP100 Voicemail System Line Cards. I expect to have these things around so there's no problem here.
• Stuff that has no practical use right now, but I want to look at it because it's cool. Example: Thermochron iButton Starter Kit. If I didn't have stuff like this, technology would be interesting to me, so there's no problem here.
• Stuff that is probably useful to someone or somewhat valuable, but not current. The "following edge" of technology that no one is really hot on, but lots of people or companies are still using. Example: Loop Technology T1 2-port CSU/DSU. This stuff is the big problem as I have a lot of it, but don't have any use for it myself.

Now, I have tried selling some of this stuff on eBay. The problem is that the market is highly specialized. Someone out there is going to need a 2-port T1 CSU/DSU or a replacement Micom router or a Copper Mountain DSL modem only once in a while, but the chance that they'll need it any find it the one week I have it on eBay is a real stab in the dark. I need a place to put this stuff online that it will pop up for them when they need one of these specific items and search Google for it.

The truth is that I feel more like the custodian of these things than like I need to make money out of them. It's as if someone handed you a box and said "we found this box of stuff in your front yard that looks like a time capsule. Some slightly valuable antique jewelry in there, but probably not worth much. Do you toss it? Do you make it to Goodwill? Do you sell the trinkets at the antique store and toss the rest? Of course not! It's likely someone would really care for this stuff and need it, but you just don't know how to find them. It may sound silly, but I do believe there is someone out there saying, "These old routers are breaking down and I need to keep this network running until we get the new network installed in June, I wish we had a spare, but they're hard to find since the equipment is to obscure". I want to say "I have it and you can take it for the cost of shipping". Maybe I'm crazy on this point.

Well, I think my answer will be to use this blog as a vehicle. Since it now has enough visibility that I see my own blog entries on the first few pages when I search for some things, I'm going to come up with a way to start sticking a list of the "following edge" equipment around here someplace in hopes that someone will take it for the cost of shipping (or a really low price in some cases).

Of course, I think I'd better put a time limit on it. Perhaps if I list things and no one cares for six months or a year, I'll cart it off to the technology recycler. Some of the stuff has been sitting in my storage so long that it's probably truly interesting to no one (a 1990-era System V Release 3 dual-88000 processor Motorola Unix computer with 112 serial ports, for example), so I'll have to find the recycler for that stuff anyhow.

Wish me luck with my cleaning and watch for the equipment list to start in the new few weeks.

I was going to tell you about my sad collection of technology that I'm trying to dung out of my closet and my hay loft, but I've decided that today is the perfect day for "Apple Gloat Time"!

Back in 1998, shortly after I met Anne Marie, I bought my first stock, 52 shares of Apple Computer, because it had dropped to a shockingly low $22. I only had $1200 to invest, but I figured it was certain that the stock would eventually double (to about $50), which is my criteria for buying stock.

Of course, always being on the "following edge", the stock then dropped to around $15, showing a loss on paper of about $400. So what did I do? I spent $2000 that I had stuck in an IRA to hide from taxes to buy another 127 shares (that's 1111111 in binary, by the way, which must be good luck). Before Lauren was born, Anne Marie and I stuck another several thousand dollars into IRAs because that's what you do when you're thinking about starting "a family", but I didn't stick any more into Apple stock.

In the meantime, Anne Marie doubled one of her $2000 IRA investments in Nordstrom's and I doubled one of my $2000 IRA investments in Earthlink. I just sat on the Apple stock. I'm the ultimate stupid long-term investor.

Well, some big-time analyst raised his "target" for Apple stock to $100 recently thanks to the success of the iPod and the stock jumped up into the $60 range. I'm going to sell the stock if it goes below about $55. Even if it might go higher, my "following edge" philosophy is to be happy with tripling my money rather than insisting on catching it at the top price.

It is just unbelievable to me that these bits of cash I was able to barely afford to squirrel away in Apple stock now show $8600 in profit. Scary to think about too much.

Gloat Gloat Gloat. I won't tell you too much about my recent purchase of Netflix at $17.50, especially since it's now at $11.20. It could be my first big loss since it has a chance to go out of business before it reaches $35. But, Anne Marie and I both have friends that use Netflix, so there must be something going on there, even though I refuse to acknowledge their business.

We got our Christmas tree this Thursday. I was still miserable with my cold, but not too miserable to insist that we get an appropriately sized tree. (I'm finally feeling 80% better today. Thanks for asking.)

Last year, I bent my standards and we got the largest tree at the nearest tree lot. It was only 9 feet tall which I just felt wasn't all it ought to be. Now, I'm no size king, but in a geodesic dome where your living room ceiling goes up to almost 25 feet, 9 feet just seems inadequate. So, after visiting three tree lots, we were able to make this selection.

I think the first picture here gives some perspective with Anne Marie up on a ladder and still not able to reach the top. Sure, she's under 5 feet, but believe me that it's still pretty big to me and I'm over 6 feet.

We decorated the tree with lights and Lauren and Anne Marie put on the ornaments and balls. I think it's quite charming. Sure, it needs something on the top, but I'm still working on how to manage it.

I love the feeling of home during the holidays. We've been invited to a big party on Christmas Eve, but I think I don't want to miss enjoying some quiet time at home in front of the Christmas tree. Since Lauren is almost 4 now, I think she has a much more tangible sense of anticipation for Christmas which also gives the holiday season a bit more energy. It was decided today that we'll have Christmas dinner with "Grandma Bonnie" and "Oma Sally" at our house on Christmas Day. I think it will be very nice. I guess I'm feeling a very nice general sense of optimistic anticipation for the holiday season.

Happy holidays to all of you.

Lauren and I have a routine... Whenever I say "Lauren, how are you feeling?", she says "Better... Better get a bucket... blehhh". It's a classic line from Monty Python's Mr. Creosote and always gets a laugh.

While it's a fine joke, I was thinking yesterday (while reading about Nadia being sick) that you don't really want to be there when it's happening. Nevertheless, Lauren started vomiting at about 1:00am, so we've been up for a few hours so far as she continues while watching TV. She just fell asleep again on the couch, so I'm hoping we're mostly done. In any case, Lauren and I will be entertaining ourselves today instead of having Lauren go to school.

I went to the doctor today for my own lingering sickness. The doctor said that even though I don't think things are improving, the slight changes in my symptoms point to me feeling better in a few days without any medicine or treatment aside from rest and chicken soup. Even though I didn't get much from the doctor visit except hope of feeling better soon, Anne Marie thinks that Lauren got something from playing with the toys at the doctor's office and it's keeping us company all night.