Simplicity of the Star

At work they had a cube decorating "contest". I put up a single decoration and wrote a sign explaining it. I hope that I'll win.

And they came upon the cube seeking the decorations and they despaired because they could not find them. And lo, Jim appeared before them and told them to fear not, for a star adorned it.

But they could not see the star and grew afraid. To which Jim replied that to see the star of the holidays they only had to look for where stars are – in the heavens. So they looked up and were all like “but I still can’t see it” and Jim was like “it’s up there… no, to the left… my left… it’s on the light. Just look at the light.”

And they rejoiced at the tiny red sparkly star which symbolized everything that a tiny red sparkly star stood for.

With the joy of the holidays filling their hearts (which grew 3 sizes that day), they went on to vote for Jim’s cube in the decorating contest because they knew that was the right thing to do.

Everything is a spaceship

The other day Laura laughed when I drove through the steam coming out of a manhole cover. It might have been because I made a spaceship noise when I drove through it.

That's what I'm usually thinking about when I'm in motion. A ship navigating obstacles. Moving, timing things to be efficient, banking around corners. You know, the usual. I love walking through forested trails and I'm likely not thinking that I am a spaceship then, but I don't spend a lot of my walking time in the forest. Such is life.

So, if I walk by you and you think that you hear a "pew pew pew" sound, it's probably just the wind.

Captured the memories

Today on the radio I heard about a service called Soundportraits that will interview someone and capture how they remember events and relate parts of their life. I really like this idea. I wish that I had done this for my grandmother before she passed away. They provided a list of questions that they use for interviews.

Since I don't trust that these links will work for long, I'm going to paste the list here.

1. Tell one thing that your Mother taught you.
2. Tell one thing that your Father taught you.
3. What was your most spectacular fall or tumble?
4. What was your favourite present from childhood?
5. When did you really get into trouble as a child?
6. If you had $100 to give away, who would you give it to?
7. If you could have a perfect day, what would be in it?
8. Who has been kind to you?
9. What is your earliest memory?
10. What are you really good at?
11. What is the most beautiful place in the world... and why?
12. What is your pet peeve... what drives you crazy?
13. What was your best Hallowe'en costume?
14. When were you first on stage? How did it go?
15. What was the hardest thing you had to do yesterday?
16. What is the hardest thing about school or work?
17. What is your favourite song? Why?
18. What is your favourite food? Why?
19. What do you think is the biggest difference for children today from when your parents and your grandparents were children?
20. What is the most important thing about being a good friend?

I really like this idea.

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.