Saturday, May 03, 2008

Jay: Farming

We have the option of planting stuff on a small patch out back.  We’re talking maybe 3 tomato plants of decent size and maybe a couple other odds and ends, depending how much of the false bamboo I want to try to eradicate.  I was thinking that we could throw some stuff in containers on top of where the bamboo grows, effectively quashing it, but that begs the question of what for containers.

So I’m trying to decide whether to buy seeds and such and start tomatoes inside, or if I should just buy some.  Trouble is, a flat typically has more plants than I think I can fit, so I’d probably want to share with someone.  That and trying to decide what else.  Tomatoes are obvious, and reasonably compact.  The neighbor has promoted the idea of cucumbers, but those take more space.  Though it could be fun to plant something that roams and encourage it to encroach on the bamboo.  Peppers are fussy, in my experience.  I don’t care for leaf lettuce.

Anyway, half the reason for this is the kids - teaching them how stuff is raised, and where things like tomatoes come from.  Sadie will think it’s cool.


06:55 AM | Food & Cooking • Kids • Totally Random • (2) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Fess Up

Someone appears to have made us, in Deb’s name not spelled out fully, the recipient of a credit card rewards program.  We’d love to know who.  I have a couple possibilities in mind, one of whom would be anonymous and presumably want to remain so.

We first received an Amazon gift certificate out of the blue, with just enough credit card oriented material to make it look like it might be one of those things where you’d be signing away your soul by using it.  As far as I could tell on close examination, it was legitimate and from a rewards program of which we are not part.  That meant someone directing it to us instead of themselves.

Then we received a gift card for Papa John’s, clearly from the same program, mentioning a different card issuer.  There’s exactly one anywhere around here, in Stoughton, so it’s not an obvious gift card for someone here.

So.  Anyone want to tell us who you are?  And if not, thank you anyway.

Update:
Mystery solved.  Not an anonymous benefactor, but a friend of Deb’s, who thought they’d say who it was from.


06:39 AM | Totally Random • (1) Comments • Permalink

Friday, May 02, 2008

Deb: This is what you do…

if you haven’t managed to find a job that pays all the bills: you find a job that pays some part of them, however small.  So tomorrow morning I’m due to show up for orientation for my fancy new gig stocking shelves at a local branch of America’s most hated RetailMegaCorp. 

So many things I could say about this, starting with how amusing I find the full-circle aspect of the job and ending with how much I hate so much of the bashing on this particular company.  But I’m short on time today, so I won’t.

Just wanted to share a little update with y’all, since you’ve been hanging in with us through all of the drama.


10:30 AM | Job Hunting • Money • (4) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Sunday

Was supposed to be the annual Easter egg hunt for the little kids, at my grandmother’s house, but I don’t even need to discuss it with anyone to know it’s off.  The weather is, well, the kind of weather that makes us do this well after actual Easter in the first place.  Cold.  Rainy.  Completely unsuited to scampering around the yard on a search and consume mission for plastic eggs and their contents.

My mother would be handy in a drought.  Pick a day, have her plan an outdoor event on it, and voila, rain.  It’s very nearly uncanny.


09:06 AM | Humor • Kids • Massachusetts • News • Weather • Totally Random • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To Grandma Dorothy, Deb’s grandmother in Fresno.


09:02 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To Adria Crum.


08:28 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To blogger Dave Winer, who is 52 today.


08:25 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Jay: One-Hundred

Who wants to trip the odometer?  Deb’s Neatly Tangled Shop is now at 99 items sold (in under a year - very nice), and this is your opportunity to be the big one-oh-oh.  The century buyer.  The triple digitizer.

Update:
Yay!  100 Items sold!  In well under a year.  Go Deb!  And, yeah, don’t let the benchmark being reached stop you from buying, even if the shop isn’t as well stocked as it was.  She’s working on it.


10:16 AM | Business • Humor • Money • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To blogger Sarah Dopp.


09:11 AM | Birthdays • (1) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Blargh

I feel lousy this morning.  Got enough sleep, even if much of it was in Sadie’s bed because she apparently decided our bed would be better and warmer.  Well, “even if” makes her bed sound bad, and actually it’s awesome.  I may have gotten deeper sleep there.  I noticed Valerie eventually abandoned her bed too, presumably joining the crowd in ours.

I woke up from one of those crazy mashed up dreams.  It involved starting a job, and the place or aspects brought in elements of multiple past employers and situations.  The place was named Halliday, which is one job.  The lobby was right out of Corporate Software, which later became Stream.  I was supposed to start at $8.00 an hour, which happens to be minimum wage in Massachusetts currently.  I speculated they might start at slightly higher, which Flatley Company did when I worked at Waterford Village.  Minimum wage then was $2.90 and they paid $3.00.  Then minimum wage went to $3.10 and they paid… $3.10, which completely destroyed some notions I had.

I was talking with someone, speculating that the company might pay me a little above the minimum.  Sure enough, it was going to be $8.02, which somehow morphed into the exact same thing as the $12.02 I started at with Corporate Software.  Anyway, even the reference to pay rate is a reference back to prior jobs.

The exterior of the building was some kind of generic cross between places, hard to say one more than another, but there might have been elements of a Christy’s Market, adding another old job.

Later, when I was on the job, there was a scene in an apartment.  Apparently apartments were part of what the place did, which goes back to Waterford Village.  It was vacant, had been mine, still had some of my stuff in it, and was not going to be rented any time soon.  This was like the office I had in Easton, which took me a month extra to move out of after the last official month, with them in no hurry for it.  A guy named Matthew showed up in the dream.  We once shared an apartment in Greenfield, and I was telling him he might soon want to get his stuff out of this one that he’d left it in with me.  He hadn’t even realized I’d moved.  Shades of former partners having left stuff in the office in Easton, which had to go to them, be disposed of, be adopted, or be stored.

Confusingly, in a related sequence, I was showing someone how many bookcases I was going to be able to fit, in a ridiculous arrangement, in just the entryway/kitchen area alone.  The someone was an amalgamation of a former partner and someone I didn’t work closely with at Stream, but who was similarly brilliant.

Very strange.  I also remember thinking that I could crash in the apartment if needed, like if I needed to stay over at work since the place was vacant, I had access to it, and they’d made me welcome to use it, short of actually moving in.

Lots of stuff to do today.  Hope I can remember what it is!  I have some e-mailing and calling and going and researching and writing and food storing and cleaning and organizing and so forth to be done.

We received a book yesterday that we’d order super cheap from Half.com, a used copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons.  I need to do more than skim the intro, but it should be interesting.  Sadie is beyond ready.  She fell asleep last night with a book named “Ted” open, pages down on her chest.  She studies and recites books from memory.  She knows the letters.  She has an idea of some words, like the Q thing she identifies with closing a program (Quit), that made he so excited to learn about how q and u go together.

This morning she spent some time on my lap while I didn’t write and I did an impromptu tiny lesson on m and s, which are the first ones covered in the book.  She can point them out on the keyboard (and sound like I’m stupid to ask her) and I had her say the sounds.  The actual lessons take about 15 minutes.  Not a bad amount of time to devote, once or twice a day.  I doubt she’ll need the whole thing or want to be held back to that speed once we’re rolling.

Anyway, I need to go take care of stuff in the kitchen.  And post the birthday I didn’t know about before I started this.  Sooner or later I’ll have no birthday-free days.


07:33 AM | Blogging • Books • Business • Food & Cooking • Geekery • Job Hunting • Kids • Medical • Money • Totally Random • (0) Comments • Permalink

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Jay: Happy Birthday

To blogger Erica of Swirlspice, who is apparently 30 today.


09:31 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink

Jay: American Idol 2008 Top 5

Wow.

This was the first episode in which they did two songs each, which is cool in that you get to see more of what the contestants can do.  However, they changed up the judging in a way I don’t recall seeing before.  All five sang, then the judges had a quick shot at commenting on the first performances, with a more extensive chance given to comment on second or both after each second performance.

In a classic for the ages, Paula Abdul referred to her notes - have we ever seen them making notes during an on-air performance? - and muttered about how hard it was, then went on to critique Jason, who’d gone first, on both his first and his not-yet-aired second song.  Oops.  You could see Ryan Seacrest looking off to the side for producer guidance, and then others jumping in for the save.

Oddly enough, I don’t think it’s as much of a scandal as some might.  We already know that the judges generally hear the performances from rehearsal, even if they aren’t in the audience at the time.  We already know that the judges can’t always hear the live performances as well as they might, so the rehearsal review is a tool to help them know what to expect, given the chances there won’t be much difference.  We’ve seen instances where a judge was clearly talking about a different performance than what we saw live, because there was a difference, but if they pay enough attention it can generally work.

Now, Paula is getting paid waaaay too much to get so confused, pain meds or not, but I don’t think her comments were scripted, as some might assume.  It’s most likely notes taken from rehearsals and confusion due to the change of procedure.

It was still classic.  And she still gets paid too much for that level of spectacle.  If it was scripted, it was done so with the intent of scandal to drive ratings.

They want Jason Castro gone.  He’s trying hard to oblige.  Forever in Bluejeans was okay, and suited him, but this is the top five.  He barely belonged in the top ten.

David Cook risked singing stuff nobody knew.  It was good.  Possibly only second best, this week, but you know what you can expect of him when he produces an album.

Brooke’s first performance reminded me of Kristy Lee’s Eight Days a Week, which is a really bad thing.  If Jason is safe, Brooke won’t be, despite her second number being okay.  For I’m a Believer, which she wouldn’t have been my pick to sing, it’s as if someone told her she had to smile and look happy and look at the audience.  So she did, in an artificial-looking way.  It’s perhaps bad that she did perhaps my two favorites of the whole catalog, and ones I love to sing.  I thought whichever judge it was said I Am, I Said was hard to sing was nuts.  For that, she was back to hiding comfortably behind the piano, which doesn’t an idol make, however pleasantly sung.  Perhaps she should return to the Arizona Shore.

David Archuletta was remarkably weak, but he seemed to have gotten better this week at looking at the audience and seeming engaging.  It was just okay, certainly not the performance of the anointed.  No chance of a shock elimination, but I was seeing visions of a finale between David Cook and…

Syesha has completely transformed.  If she’d turned on the star power sooner, people wouldn’t be on elimination watch, even rooting for her to go despite good performances.  She earned a career last week.  This week was like the “and I mean it” underscore to that, and some.  I don’t think she’d be eliminated this week, even if Dial Idol weren’t showing her in first place.  Even David Cook wasn’t up there with her this week.  It was a four tier week, with her at the top, and the bottom occupied by Jason and Brooke.

Bottom line, it’s Jason and Brooke at the bottom.  I’d like to say Jason will leave, but fan base wise it’d probably be a safer bet to say we’ll have the Brooke meltdown this week.  And if it is as much of a meltdown as expected, that would fit perfectly with the Paula gaffe, making it a one-two punch.


06:17 AM | Music • TV • (1) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To Dale Burdett, who is 5 today.


06:16 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Jay: Thinking Aloud

This is an exercise in helping me figure out what I am going to tackle today, and beyond, and wrap my head around what awaits my attention before I get all scattered.

I probably don’t need to mention the usual dishes to wash or load into dishwasher, of which there are relatively few because I’d caught up.  I’ll want to just almost from this post right to the shower, so Deb can do laundry if her back is up to it.  Poor back.  (Sounds like it’s not.) Going to the store simply is, without option to avoid it.  I could go to the bank while I’m out.

I have to take the registry thing to the town hall for an abatement on one of the excise tax bills, and pay the two of them.  That needs to precede any visit to the registry, which needs to be preceded by contact with the insurance company.  In Texas.  Which probably means simply not possible to register car this week, before the gathering Sunday.  Annoying.  Also annoying that said gathering is at the same time as something else we were invited to first, which worst case I could have gone to with Sadie alone, since she’s the one near Dale in age, and it’s his birthday party.

I have e-mails to answer.  Some are going on two weeks old.

We’re expecting my father to swing by late in the day, so I have to plan around that, even for a quick drop off of some stuff.  That influences the timing of errands.

Yesterday I discussed a web site update with the former big client, who has realized that my original preference on something was right.  I’d proposed to them a month to month flat fee for site maintenance and updates covering most anything short of a complete redo, since it’s not covered under the current support contract they have and I did the original based on their marketing/design person’s plan.  They managed to get me to do a one shot update for the monthly rate, which ended up working out to no more than $12 an hour and required a ton of waiting.  That’s long paid, but the last tiny bit is still not done, waiting for a photo.  Obviously I am not going to make another change, which could involve changing every page, without another modest fee.  I suggested an additional change to include and will hear back eventually.

I did site backups across the empire and was going to update WordPress on all the blogs that use it, starting with Dan’s, which I didn’t update last time.  I was falling asleep at my desk last night when about to do that, so figured I’d better wait.  I’ll want to do those before much time passes, so I don’t feel like I must do the backups over again.

I have some paying work I need to get cracking on, which among other things will require me to get more familiar with RSS.  I have dabbled with RSS readers myself, but none have “stuck” and I always revert to reading from links.  How 2003 of me!  I guess I need a reader I like enough, and then to be careful what I include, or to be able to categorize it well.  I could almost see an automated system being useful, so your daily reads would appear every day, keyworded stuff would appear daily even if it’s not a daily read, and a measured amount of “check weekly” and “check monthly” stuff would automatically be included in your daily reading, perhaps varied by day, so if you want to do more reading on the weekend, it can play catch up then.

That probably exists.

I also need to learn all there is to know about measuring RSS feeds subscribed/read for a given site.  Heck, I have no idea how many people read us that way.

Thoughts?  Suggestions?

Perhaps I can fit in some of that project today.

I also need to work with/learn more about Facebook and some of those.

I’m still on the office reorganization, which spills into the kitchen, where I still have stuff on the table that was once in the office.  That seems to work okay by pecking away at it, like when I crave physical work and need to get up from the computer.

Shoot, that about covers today, doesn’t it?  Not even getting into posts to write, my book/series of posts idea to work on while timely, CotC, the business site needing updating, etc. and so forth.

Well, off to it.  Don’t be alarmed it there’s a lack of posts or if I revert to drive-by commentary.


08:56 AM | Blogging • Business • Cars • Geekery • Job Hunting • Kids • Massachusetts • Money • Totally Random • (4) Comments • Permalink

Jay: Happy Birthday

To blogger David Anderson.


04:20 AM | Birthdays • (0) Comments • Permalink
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