March 2008 Archives

It seems like for every step forward we take two back. Rory had been sleeping better - we’d done some painful let-him-cry-it-outs, and made some gains. But its all come to naught it seems. He is up several times at night again, and i know that i’m pretty tired - I can’t imagine how wiped out Ciara is. Crap.

Watch this, for reference to the title.

So, after farting around for a while tonight, i managed to get the latest version of the SlimServer software running on my NAS box. I had installed version 6.5.3 before, but this new installer uses version 7. Wow, what a difference. The web interface has really been improved, and over all speed seems better too. Not only in the UI sense, but also in terms of CPU usage on the NAS too.

Anyway, just a quick geek-update for you. Still very happy with my NAS purchase!

It seems that the end is near for my favourite jacket. The pit-zips are starting to pull away from the jacket material, and its starting to wear thin in a couple of places. I bought it, a Burton AK model, 6 years ago, and have worn it pretty much every day from November till April since then. Although it was expensive, it has lasted and put up with way more abuse then any other jacket i’ve owned. I have no complaints about its durability, or functionality.

I think this is the “newest” version of it. I’ll have see if i can try one out here in Toronto some place. If the old one lasted this long, i’m interested in getting another one. It is just too bad i don’t actually do any snowboarding anymore.

Last night was my first real play of Warhawk. Man. That is some kind of fun game. I mean, i know that i’m never going to be great at it (i’m about 22 years too old), but its fun. The vehicles are great! Blasting around with the jeep, or flying the ‘hawks or lumbering with the tanks, all have something going for them. Anyway, i’m having a gas with it so far, and i haven’t even played with anyone i know yet!

After a trip to the doctor, Rory’s new stats are:

• Weight: 9 kilos
• Height: 72 cm

One more kilo and we’ll be changing car seats!

I thought i should point to this real-time raytracing demo in flash. This is, really, pretty amazing. Not practical but an impressive use of flash. That is all.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter/whatever-you-want-to-call-it holiday! We had a bunch of family over, and served up a big roast with all the vegies and potatoes and gravy you could want. Actually more then you could want, judging by my expanding waist-line. Sigh. I really have to work harder at the whole “no, really, two helpings is more then enough” way of looking at things.

Rory is this close to crawling. While that is great, he is also about this close to walking, which scares the pants off me. Early walking is basically a huge “lets-keep-the-parents-in-perpetual-terror” game to the babies. Really, i’d be happy if he just sat around till about one and a half. However, that’s just not going to happen, so i’ve started getting all the gates ready for the danger zones in the house.

I’ve also succumbed to the Warhawk video game. I haven’t actually had an opportunity to play online yet, but just driving and flying around alone was fun. Conor particularly liked the tank, and kept telling me “Shoot! Why aren’t you shooting?!” as we drove around blowing things up. Very entertaining.

Because there is also live chat in the game, i picked up one of the PS3 cameras, because it was cheaper then buying a bluetooth headset, and i can use it with my computer. I need to check into software which uses the camera - Conor thought it was pretty funny seeing us on the TV, so he might enjoy some games that use it.

Interesting use of the pypy project - flex-pypy - write a program in python, compile to a flash SWF. Interesting…

Ruby! I figure it has had so much press recently via the takeoff of the whole Ruby-on-Rails thing, and Redmine (Project Management tool) is programmed in it, so i have ample reason to learn it.

A time to turn over a new leaf, as it were. Rory had an extremely good night last night, for which both Ciara and I are grateful. This could be the start of us not being the walking dead during the day! I think part of the better sleeping is that he has been cutting a new (first!) tooth, which, you know, must hurt. So we wait and see, night by night. But i’m hopeful that better nights are here!

I was just reading Barack Obama’s speech from the other night. It is quite good, but i was having a moment of cognitive dissonance, where i suddenly felt that i was in an episode of The West Wing. I think many people loved the imaginary President Jed Bartlet, played to perfection by Martin Sheen. Anyway, parts of this speech made me think of the way his character spoke, and evoked some of the “wouldn’t it be great if there really was someone like this in office” feelings, and then i realized, shocked, this is a real guy. And he might win. And things might change.

We can only continue to hope.

First to Arthur C. Clark and second to Gary Gygax. Both these men influenced how i grew up and my way of looking at the world. The world has lost a little bit of its spark.

I pretty much dropped out there for a while. I’m struggling to get back.

Anyway, enough about me! Rory just cut his first tooth! He is also sitting up by himself, with very few tumble-overs. We are going through some sleep issues with him, but things, after been quite bad, are back on track to being better. Which his parents are very grateful for, as the sleeplessness was making at least one of them into a depressed zombie. Rory is also super chatty. He just blabs on about who-knows-what, in a very entertaining way. Especially at dinner. We’ve started to do this “roaring” thing (how appropo!) with him, were he will make a roar sound, then each of us will do one, and back and forth for several minutes. Very entertaining for all involved.

Conor is getting taller and taller by the minute. You can practically see him grow. He is still very taken with Dinosaurs, but has his interests to other animals and physical sciences. We had a brief fling with Volcanos and other geology related subjects, and whales were also a big hit. His latest fav video is Monsters, Inc., which i think he watched about 6 times this weekend. Also, it seems that we have already reached the phase where the parents don’t actually know anything, and can’t tell him anything. I was sure that that phase wasn’t supposed to start so early.

That’s the quick kids update. I’d say i was going to get some new photos up, but, really, whats the point? When i get some up, i’ll post them here. Until then,

peace