Last night was so funny.

Before our pool league, we were discussing “rumors” or “facts” about this teacher or that teacher at our daughter’s new high school.  She was saying what she heard about teacher X or teacher Y and we (my wife and I) challenged her on whether or not she should believe other students, or at least not completely believe everything she hears.

My 14yr old daughter cocked her head, put on a faux-insulted smirk and said “Dad, I’m not that gullible…” and our niece Kaili said “What’s ‘gullible’?“  And you KNOW that as soon as someone asks THAT QUESTION, they’re in for a little ride.

I was too slow to respond (yeah, I know! impossible, right?!!?).  Caitlin pointed up at a patch of ceiling right above our niece’s head and said “There’s a gullible right up there.” 

I was barely able to contain my shock that my daughter knew a NEW way of pulling “the gullible trick” on someone.  So we went along with it and looked, pushing Kaili to look as well.  And look she did.

“Wait, where?” Kaili inquired.

“Right up there.  There’s a gullible right above you,” Caitlin responded.  She was reveling in her enjoyment of verbally torturing Kaili with her superior vocabulary.  She glanced over at mom and me, with her all-knowing eyes saying “look at me, I can trick her!”

At this point I needed to chime in.  I told both of them in a severely matter-of-fact manner, “you know, they removed the word ‘gullible’ from the dictionary a couple of months ago…” and Caitlin, who had been the instigator and predator in this particular word battle, opened her eyes wiiiiide and said “they did?!?!  Why did they do that?!!!!”

Oh, we had some fun with that response for the three seconds it took for her to realize she had been had.  Her expression went from the look of sheer elitist contentment to awe and surprise at having a word removed, to indignant mock offense at being taken.  In the same way she was taking someone else just a moment ago.

A quick shout of “DAD!!!!” and a playful slap to the shoulder let me know she knew her place, and was appreciative of the lesson.  Then she looked over to Kaili and said “being gullible means you’ll believe anything” and smiled all the bigger, probably thinking to herself “yeah, even stuff your dad tells you.”

Speaking of gullible, I’m being anxiously impressed by the more recent spam comments.  They’re really starting to look real!  It seems they’re taking information from the blog article and submitting a comment that actually seems related to the content.

Take a look at this one, put on a post of mine about XP

The comment has decent english, is related to the post, has vernacular such as btw and a smiley, and the only thing that makes it suspicious is the name and email.  ARGH!  Why are they improving!

I’m just glad I have my blog set up to approve all new commenters.  You don’t get in unlessI approve, but once I approve you, you’re good to go from then on.  Not only does it help cut down on the annoying comments like the above, but it also lets me welcome new readers.

Some of you might want to MISC this week’s Stuff.  I’ll have to check my horoscope, but I bet something’s transiting that has me sluggish, tired, cranky and short with people.  Either that, or it was something I ate.  DON’T YOU JUDGE ME! Oh wait, that was me being cranky and short with people again. 

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Happy 4th

We had a pretty darn decent Fourth of July.  Georgetown’s San Gabriel Park hosted the SERTOMA Fourth of July Celebration and we had a great time.

I have no idea who “SERTOMA” is other than it’s some creative mashup of “SERvice TO MANkind” but they put on a good show.  Hopefully it’s not, like, “To Serve Man.”

Did anyone else notice some “new” fireworks this year?  I’m talking about the ones that blow up like normal, turn colors like normal, and then fire off secondary pieces like normal… except for these new ones, the secondary pieces seem alive?  These secondary pieces look like tadpoles avoiding a predator, and it was COOL.

Here’s a 3min video of the Guinness Book of World Records Largest Fireworks show.

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Caitlin turned 14

Yup, it’s my daughter’s second anniversary at being a teenager.  Smith and Wesson’s stock went up solely on this news alone.

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Interesting Shortcut found on accident

Just now, I accidentally hit CTRL-ALT-LEFT ARROW on my keyboard.  All of a sudden, my entire desktop rotated 90 degrees.  At first I thought “WHOA, Not again! the World has tilted!” but then I realized it was just my laptop screen.  The fact that my drink didn’t spill was the first clue.

It took me a few tries, but then learned CTRL-ALT-UP ARROW fixed it to be normal portrait orientation.

Looks like this is a Vista thing vs a Video Driver thing.  I’m always thrilled to hear about more keyboard shortcuts.

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SharePoint 2007 upgrade

Tonight we’re doing our upgrade from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint (MOSS) 2007.  It’s a project many weeks in the making and I’m hoping it goes well.  For those of you who don’t know what MOSS is - it’s Microsoft’s Intranet platform.  It’s like a blog, wiki, online spreadsheet, collaboration headquarters and search engine for your company.  SharePoint 2003 was cool but 2007 is way cooler.

Some of the NEW features we’re most looking forward to are:

• Recycle Bin
• Workflow abilities
• Per-item security settings

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Best of LOLcats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Janna has been in my “Round 2″ of feed reading since I added her to my feed reader long ago.  Time for a promotion.  I really need to bump her up to “Round 1,” because I’m never disappointed in her posts.  They’re a little wacky, very cerebral, and I connect with them on various levels. 

 

Maybe its because Janna “does Band” for a living and I completely and totally miss band.  I miss high school band, I miss Army band, I miss dreaming about being in a band.   I’m currently living vicariously through my awesome daughter, who is in the best middle school band around, is about to be in the best high school band around and is pretty darn good herself (she was 1st chair flute, 1st band last year at UT’s Middle School Band Camp as a 7th grader).

One of the more recent Janna posts I connected with was her “janku” post, where she invented her own style of poetry, namely, a “janku” which she defined as a 3-line poem following a 4-6-8 rule of vowel usage instead of a 5-7-5 rule of syllables.  It was a great follow-up to her Haiku of Melancholy.  I’m especially proud of my work on her Thirteen Things the Letters TCB Could Stand For (check the comments for a story made entirely of 3 word TCB lines).

I submitted my own collection of janku’s in her post’s comments.  I find it only fitting that I completely copy her idea and make up my own form of poetry, and I need to name it “whallku”. 

There are several reasons I want to name it this:

1. It’s a fantastic greeting response.  When someone tells you “hi, whall!” you can say “whall, ku” and it won’t sound so awkward, like if you hadn’t said it at all.
2. You can use it after someone sneezes, because “whallku” is actually swahili for “gesundheit,” which is actually German for “hi, did you read the blog of whall today? haha of course you did, I only ask because it is custom!”
3. If there were a martial art made entirely of the expert use of a guitar hero controller and a euphonium, delivered with an unfaltering stream of perfect LOLcat references, it would be called “whallku“.  What am I saying, “if”?  Pshaw.
4. whallku.com isn’t taken.  Yet.

So, now for the rules of what a whallku is.

1. It shall have 3 lines, like a haiku and janku
2. The numeric phrase to remember is “3-5-7″.
3. First line has three (3) words
4. Second line has five (5) syllables
5. Third line has seven (7) vowels
   (”y” does not count as a vowel)

Here are my submissions.  Give me some whallku lovin’, won’t you?  Submit yours in the comments!

What The Hell?
Does he really think
this a good idea?

Obama, Obama, Obama…
All we ever hear.
Well, better him than Hillary!

Guitar Hero IV
A.K.A. “World Tour”.
Guaranteed addict.

blog of whall:
Insommnia cure
if ever I saw one.

Cabbage Patch Dolls.
Innocent toy trend,
or evil spawn of Satan?

CPS wrong re: 
Polygamist sect.
Yoda: “Much power they have.”

For double extra credit, see if you can create a haiwhallku, which means you satisfy BOTH requirements: 5-7-5 for syllables and 3-5-7 for words/syllables/vowels.  You might be asking yourself, “how in the world can a line have both 5 syllables AND 7 syllables for line 2? Have you gone crazy, Wayne?”

Yes, I’ve gone crazy.  But that’s beside the point.  There is an answer, and the answer is - use words that can be pronounced in multi-syllabic ways.  Like Hyundai can be pronounced “Hi-un-die” or “Hun-Day”.  The word “actually” can actually be pronounced “act-you-al-lee” or “actch-yule-lee”.  Some leniency is granted, but it’s mob rule.

I don’ recommen’
Hyundai, actually.
dey be too darn cheap.

US building first
Nuclear athlete man.
Noose at eleven.

As I mentioned before, Guitar Hero is on the brain this week. 

Recently a friend called me and said “did you hear about that guy who was put into the Guiness Book of World Records for Guitar Hero?” and sure enough I google it and find out about a 16yr old named Chris Chike who currently holds the top score for any Guitar Hero song.  The song is the fast and furious “Through the Fire and Flames” by DragonForce.

I went and looked for it on youtube and holy crap, that’s one freakin’ fast song.

Too bad the video is from a cell phone or whatever, but DANNNNNNGGGGGG.

So Caitlin (13yr old daughter) and I got thinking — what if we played the song in multiplayer on expert?  We wouldn’t get kicked off the stage, and we could see who could sight-read the song the best.  Yes, I said SIGHT READ.  THE SONG.  THE BEST.  I’m talking about that nigh impossible song in the video above.

Let’s just say she SMOKED me.

Seventy Percent?!?!?!?  On a SIGHT READ?  That’s CRAZY. 

Um, yeah.  Player One (that would be me) totally bit compared to Player Two.  Well, except for 3% of the time.

UPDATE: Oh, did I mention I went ahead and got GH3 for the Wii now?  Thanx Dave2 for the gentle reminder.  For now we have one controller but I’m sure we’ll get a second one before too long.

Time to go back to the playing… and building up my groupies on guitarhero.com. 

Did you know that 27 was my favorite number?  Well, maybe 17 is, which would make 27 my SECOND favorite number.  But I always stay away from 17 or 27 in any of my PINs in case you’re trying to hack into my bank account or ATM cards.  Good luck to you anyway if you ever get in.

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Strep

Both the missus and I came down with strep - she got it bad Wed night and I started getting hit on Thu. We got on the antibiotics and are both bouncing back finally. It sucks getting sick during the holidays, although I seem to make a habit of it. It never fails - when I have some time off for work, SOMETHING major interrupts the time. A couple thanksgivings ago, the air handler in our data center went out. Or I get sick. Seems my body senses that I have some “downtime” coming up and it inevitably decides to take over the down time. I even tried to take Thu and Fri off this last week but it ended up being taken up by dr visits and feeling icky-poo. At least this time I kept my hands in my pockets and refused to shake people’s hands and stuff. I’ve decided to be stingy with my germs.

Did you know that you can get strep in the mouth, throat, skin, heart and muscle? I thought it was just a throat thing! There were many years where I got strep twice a year but ever since I started using Listerine twice a day (a knowledgable doctor gave me that tip) this is the first case of strep I’ve had in probably 6 or 7 years.

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XMAS Holidays!

XMAS for us usually means family in town - Sister-in-law with 2 kids, another sister-in-law with husband and 2 kids, sometimes another sister-in-law with husband and one kid, and of course the people who are in town: grandma and grandpa, nana and granddaddy and brother with spouse and one kid. Sprinkle in some friends, movies, XMAS present exchanges, a little bowling at Main Event, shooting pool and some strep and you’ve got a full holiday.

One of the cool things we did this last week was attend Caitlin’s Canyon Ridge Middle School Christmas Concert. She had a 14-measure solo in one of the songs! The song was incredible - called “Imani”, which means faith. I have it on video but the stupid thing from my digital camera won’t convert to any of the formats so I can upload it to youtube or anything, ARGH. I’m hoping the school will make a digital recording available because it was truly awe-inspiring. You sometimes can’t believe these are MIDDLE SCHOOL students making these sounds.

One thing that was kind of interesting was that in the Imani song, there was also a percussion solo, and that soloist is the son of my Avaya reseller.  Small world!  Man, her solo was so so so good!  The Avaya reseller video taped it with a much better camera and said he’d give me a copy.

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Best of LOLcats

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Cabling job

I’m finally done with phase one of our re-cabling project at work and let me tell you - it’s nice to actually have time to do a job RIGHT. Here’s how the cabling for our new network area looks now, complete with actual labels on the cables.

Of course, I have 3 more racks to do, but now that this first half-rack is done, it gives me plenty of room to work with. mmmm, blinky lights…..

Twenty weeks of stuff you don’t want to MISC.  Been a busy week.  How have you been?

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We three dogs

I thought I’d share a pic of our three dogs - Jupiter, Zina and the newest member of the Hall family - Bebe (shown in order). Actually, Bebe belongs to the in-laws but since we share a back yard and a kennel run, he’s over at our house a lot. He survived the Distemper false alarm and is just finishing up tackling an eye infection on his right eye (you can kind of tell in the picture). He’s cute, young, playful and gives Jupiter a lot of attention, for which we are eternally grateful.

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Props

She’s not a bragging kind of person, so you wouldn’t hear it from her.  But *I* am a doting parent and not afraid to brag on my kids.

Caitlin got a ranking of 4th in the District at her most recent Flute District Tryouts.  This is out of more than 60 flutes!  It also means she qualifies to go try out for Region next weekend, and if she makes that, she gets to play in a Region concert made up of the best band members around.  At the middle school level, they don’t have a “state” competition; that’s not until High School.

We couldn’t be more proud!  Here’s a snap of me and Caitlin at this last UT Band Camp, where Caitlin earned 1st chair of the top band.

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Global Warming Alarmism

I don’t know much about Global Warming or the lack of it.  I don’t know if man is causing it, or if it’s just part of our normal cycles.  How could we possibly know?  The world is what, 6 billion years old or something and we’ve been crawling on it for a blink of an eye.  Plus, man is inherently flawed.  Practically ALL science we ever thought was true turned out to either be wrong or drastically different than we expected, and boy will our descendents 200 years down the line really scoff at us in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, Hollywood and alarmists like to spread fear.  And too many people just buy into the fear.  It is for that reason I’m thankful for a recent speech given by Senator James Inhofe.  It seems a lot more straightforward, honest and unconcealing than most of what you’d see on TV or in the papers.

It’s long (2hr speech) but well thought out and well delivered.  It should be linked to as a counter-point to all global warming articles out there that use little to no science to push forward their scare and fear.

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Best of LOLcats

 

I thought I’d pose a query to the masses (I’m pretty sure the space goes between the e and the m, and not the m and the a) about a recent situation involving a question Jaden asked me and the answer I gave.

The time I spend with Jaden (5yrs old at time of writing) in the mornings, getting ready and waiting at the bus stop, is priceless.  He’s so aware of everything (”look at that rabbit!”, “it’s cooler outside, Dad…”) and very appreciative of the things he sees.  He also asks those questions of life that adults don’t think about so much (”why is it so dark now?” and “do you like going to work?”) and is already planning his day (”we have PE today and we’re going to play with the parachute. I love the parachute”, “Can we go bowling after school?”).  Some of his comments make me wonder what the kids talk about at school (”yesterday the chocolate kid hit me”) so I perform interference and investigate a little when required.

Sometimes Jupiter waits with us, and that’s special in itself.

On occasion, Caitlin (now 13) will wait with us because she wants to get to school earlier than the bus would have her get there.  Despite the extra 30 miles it puts on our car and our budget, I sometimes submit to the request.  A dad’s gotta do what a dad’s gotta do.

This past week, Jaden made clear that Caitlin had gotten on his nerves.  I’m not saying it’s on purpose or one is right or anything; it just happens with siblings.  So one morning, Jaden just looks over and says “I don’t want Caitlin living with us any more. I don’t like her.”

Now, I *know* he doesn’t really mean it.  I think he’s testing out his thought processes and, like most children, hasn’t developed his internal filter yet.  Some people never do - you know who I’m talking about, probably — people who will say anything to anyone and not realize what it may come off like. 

So at the time, I reassured him, and said something like “oh, you don’t really mean that.  Caitlin loves you and [blahblah]”  Of course, I meant the words I told him; I just don’t recall the exact words I used.  But he was ok, I was ok, and all was right in the world and we could go back to our discovery of life, the bus stop and oooh, there’s a SPIDER!

Totally unrelated to the aforementioned encounter and conversation, over the two nights following this conversation, Caitlin spends the night at a friend’s house.  As a result, she’s not home at all other than to pick up toothbrush, clothes, etc, so Jaden doesn’t see her.

Jaden asks the next day “where’s Caitlin?”

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Now the dilemma.  I wanted to say something like “Well, you said you didn’t want her living with us anymore, so she’s not here.”  I want it to sink in how his words mean something, and realize how serious his wishes might be.  I wouldn’t have carried it too far - I just want to teach a lesson of sorts.  I can imagine his eyes getting big like “what?”.  It’s like when a kid tries a cigarette and the punishment is to make him smoke 3 of them in a row so he hates it and teaches him you don’t always realize what you want - except without the nicotine, not to mention second-hand smoke I’d have to endure.

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I didn’t.  At the time I just said, “oh, she’s over at so-and-so’s house”.  But I keep thinking about the answer I wanted to give.

What say you?