No biking until next season

This year I made it to November 14th or 15th biking (I think). Cold, snow, and getting sick ended my biking for this season. It's been good and I had the extra challenge of picking up (and sometimes doing drop off) of Alice from daycare.

While shortly I think that we'll become a 2 vehicle family, I've really enjoyed being able to move around with the bike trailer. Yes, it's slower, I'm super careful with it, it's harder to get from place to place and it makes me much more tired. But I've enjoyed it very much. I love our car, but my general happiness level is so much better when I'm biking.

So that's it for the season - outside at least. Now I have to setup the trainer in the basement to ensure that the crazy level in our house stays manageable.

Two too

Well, we've survived two years with a child so far. Hopefully we have not messed her up too much. And Laura and I have not killed each other. I call that a win on all fronts. I have a hard time believing that it's actually been two years. The time has flown past in a bit of a blur. It's been good. I'm happy.

Sleds go fastest on tile

A screaming happy toddler in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an external adult

Just... follow... the... instructions.

At work we're moving from Win XP to Win 7. Finally. The testing and paperwork involved was stupid and drove me nuts. However, for testing cots I'm always more surprised when it works on XP rather than 7.

Anyways, there are carefully documented steps on the wiki on how to set things up. But people like to go off the rails sometimes. I have no idea why, I figure that it's all a big conspiracy with the weather to give me a headache. Anyways, about ten times today I have conversations like this:
Co-worker: "Uh, I did what you told me (12 times) and it doesn't work. You have to come and fix my machine."
Me: "Did you follow the instructions?"
Co-worker: "No, I decided to do something else. And now it doesn't work. You have to come fix it."
Me: "Please follow the instructions."
Co-worker: "Just tell me how to fix it"
Me: "Go back and follow the instructions. You seem to have missed step 1." (I said "one", "two" and "the first part" to 3 different people)
Co-worker: "Okay"
Pause for 5 minutes
Co-worker: "Hey, that got things working. Thanks!"
Me: "No problem"

Normally I get crap like this. It's not too bad because it trickles in. But this week it's 1/2 the group switching to Win 7 and the other half is the next week. The part that pisses me off is that these people are supposed to be technical people. I warned them several times to follow things closely and just make sure they do the steps. It's not from lack of understanding or clarity of the instructions. They read them and then decided "hey, I know better. I'll do it this way instead". For the few people that can dig themselves out of a hole that's fine. But when you don't understand what the instructions are explaining, why are you trying do your own thing. Stop. Wasting. My. Time.

*deep breath*

The week is almost over. Almost there... just 4 more days until the weekend...

More and more a little person

Every day Alice becomes more and more of a little person. Someone that perhaps is a pain to deal with sometimes, but most of the time wonderful. We can discuss things. I can explain that she can't do something, or I can explain steps that need to be taken.

Examples always help. The other day she was taking apart a stack of laundry baskets to get to her favourite. I asked what she was doing and she replied along the lines of "rocket-ship daddy", which is where she sits in the basket and I lift her up and make rocket noises... fun for all, if tiring. Well, I didn't want to do rocket-ship where she was unstacking the baskets, so I asked her to take it into the living room and make sure she restacks the baskets. If she did that, then I'd play rocket ship. So, she carried the favourite basket into the living room, came back and restacked the baskets, then proceeded back to the original basket to await her ride. She understood.

All the time she's getting more fun. It's nice now that I can explain the less-fun tasks that need to be taken care before the fun starts again.

I've got a super computer. Now what?

For the first time in my life, I have a computer that would make me an envy of my peers. It's pretty shinny too.

I'm hoping that this will keep me happy for quite a few years. My old macbook has done a good-enough job for the last 6 years. It felt like such an extravagance at the time. Now it seems almost silly that I got the model that I did. Ah well. This time I got a computer with such good specs that it's silly. It's sooo fast and quiet and best of all it's not putting out so much heat I'm worried about my bits getting cooked. No, I'm not talking about 1's and 0's when I say bits.

I now have a bigger screen, tons of memory, an all day battery charge, SD card reader, an SSD and (this might sound silly) a lit up keyboard. Oh and it also helps that I can run the latest OS because apple decided my computer wasn't going to be supported anymore.

Now I have to figure out what to do with my old laptop. I figure perhaps server by the tv. I just need to figure out what I steps that I need to do to get it there.

Another thing to do is I have to figure out a cool name for the new machine. Silver Lightening? Quicksilver? Steve? So many possibilities.

They should've sent a poet

Tonight the sunset was wondrous. The reds, oranges, yellows, all mixed with the blue of the sky and thin translucent clouds, fading to purples and blacks. When I crossed the river the sky was mirrored in the water. I simply don't have words for how wonderful it all was.

I chose not to take a picture. I felt that any snapshot would never come close to the impact that sky had. It would just become another sunset picture. It sure didn't feel like just any sunset. So I'm choosing to ask you to imagine it. All it's complexity and beauty. Each time you think about it, it will be slightly different in your mind's eye. Different, yet wonderful.

They should've sent a poet