Weekly Wednesday #43

Weekly Link:
Create your own Star Trek (TOS) plot with this handy flowchart!

Weekly Twins:
Ultrasounds with twins are obviously much longer and more complex - often one body is blocking the other. We got to see both babies' faces, the ultrasound technician printed three photos, and they all ended up being of the boy.

Weekly Drum Song:
Every so often, when Kiernan is asking to watch Youtube videos and I don't really feel like watching yet another Wiggles playlist, I'll seek out some indie rock grrl videos. I tend to sneak this one in almost every time, but there's no real reaction from K ...

So I'd been delaying actually playing the CD for him, in case he hated Sleater Kinney and hurt my feelings. I finally popped All Hands on the Bad one into the car when we went to the museum on Saturday and he loved it. When the above song came on he went "OHHH! That's daddy's drum song!"

Maybe we need to ring a bell...

"Swallow your spit!" Lara says almost daily to Kiernan as the drool covers his shirt.

After brushing his teeth each night I say "Spit!" and he automatically swallows.

Accomplishments

So, Lara managed to shift enough stuff around in the basement room last week that I was able to start the great two-floor clutter shift! Lara was away this weekend, and Kiernan took an hour before finally going to sleep on Saturday, but then it was time to relocate the ancient (IKEA) shelving/desk unit in ten easy steps!

Step one: Take everything off of the lowest shelf under the window. Put it all into an empty box. Disassemble the two shelves and bring them downstairs.

Step two: Take everything off the corner section. Put it all in the area where the low section was, as well as onto the dresser top that was brought upstairs. Realize that the only way to get the CRT monitor out of this corner section is to lift it at an awkward angle straight up over the two shelf supports. Avoid head injuries (that will come later). Bring corner pieces downstairs.

Step three: Take everything off the shelves above the cupboard section, placing them on the floor in the corner. Wish you had more than one empty box. Disassemble the shelves and bring them downstairs, leaving the heavy, and bulky, and cluttered cupboard behind.

Step four: Empty and transport the shelves above the desk. Realize that disassembling the desk section itself will be very noisy and Kiernan will wake up. Luckily the corner section should now be able to be assembled, using the one corner support and the support from the cupboard section. Hurray for IKEA and their interchangeable parts!

Step five: Remember that it always took two people to assemble the corner section.

Step six: Assemble the corner section alone.

Step seven: Stand back and admire assembled corner section!

Step eight: Oh, wait, the middle shelf looks askew. Right, the pegs in the corner support need to be moved up one notch. I'll need to hold this corner section vertical with one hand and move the pegs with the other, so I'll carefully push the shelf up the corner support using my head... now I'll move them up a hole, and lower the shelf back downwaitwhat'sthatslidingnoise?

Step nine: Have top shelf fall on the middle shelf. Extract self and in the process have the middle shelf fall as well, with the side supports falling away.

Step ten: Since no concussion has occurred, repeat steps five through seven then wait until wife gets home on Sunday to continue the assembly.

Weekly Wednesday #42

Weekly Image:
Often while driving, traffic grinds to a halt and Lara (even in non-pregnancy rage mode) freaks out when it is discovered that absolutely nothing caused the slowdown. I theorized that someone tapping their brakes could cause a ripple effect of slowdowns all the way along the highway... turns out I was right!

Weekly Workplace:
An external company creating a Flash module for us. I have Flash experience. I reported a problem with the module and they fixed it using a bandaid solution instead of taking the time required to fix their mistake.

This solution caused the rest of the module to fail horribly. I told them exactly what it looks like they'd done, mentioned that I've had this same experience and research has concluded that you're not supposed to do it that way. I sent screen shots of the product (taken from Firefox, but said "It does this in IE as well."). I pointed out the exact HTML file where the problem was located and said "The previous version doesn't have this code, and I can see the problem is exactly here."

The project manager told me that this was unfortunately the ONLY solution possible. We has a brief phone conversation with her boss, in which I was able to use the technical terms the PM didn't seem to understand, and boss-man said he would take care of it. Soon he sent back a message saying they were working on fixing the problem - the team told him the issue was that I was using Firefox and everything worked as it should in IE. I forwarded him the email in which I'd stated that IE had the same problem.

There was silence for hours. Finally, they fired over the final version for review, the bandaid (and unfortunately the ONLY) solution was gone, they had gone in and done all the manual work they could have done in the first place. Bottom line - when you are a Project manager, don't give the bullshit lines to someone who knows the technology. It may work for non techies, but it was pretty damn obvious I knew what I was talking about.

Weekly Kiernan:
While stopped at a traffic light, Kiernan exclaimed "Daddy! It's a circle!"
As he's been up to speed on all his shapes for at least a year, this was just another random exclamation. I couldn't tell where he was looking.
"Another circle daddy!"
"TWO circles?" I gasped dramatically.
"Ya, TWO CIRCLES!" there was a beat, "OH!!!!!!"
"Another circle?"
"No! Two hands! TWO HANDS JUST LIKE ME!"
The circles, I realized, were the two red lights...


Later on, as we'd dropped off the guy I've been commuting with in during the bus strike, Kiernan asked "What's Ron doing?"
"He's giving you thumbs up!"
"I'm doing thumbs up too!" - indeed, Kiernan's mitten thumbs were up, but whether his thumbs were actually in it was unknown.
"We can go home and give mommy two thumbs up and say 'Good job mommy!'"
"Okay. I wanna do two fingers up too!"
"Well, I suppose that depends on the fingers."

While on the subject of design...

I also discovered 365inches.com where designer is trying to come up with one one-inch button design each day for a year.

They're NOT just cards.

Okay, I'm not much of a graphic designer, but I love looking at other peoples' work. So Desjgn did extensive research into the history of the look and feel playing cards, and then designed 100% plastic cards - I'm totally drooling over these... the font, the pip layout...



... omg the colours!


I. Totally. Want.

Before the twins arrive...

Here's our pre-May to-do list, which has obviously been on my mind more than blogging has (I say on my mind, because I've mainly just been pondering the list rather than going through it):

Organize the basement junk craft room. We got rid of the queen sized bed that took up most of this room's space, so that's a start.

Move the contents of the second floor junk room office to the basement craft room. Since getting laptops, this second bedroom has not been getting much use.

Move a chunk of store stock contents to the craft room. What's that? When you close a storefront and return to your online roots you need to store the inventory somewhere? That craft room will surely have room for that stuff...

Purge all unnecessary crap that doesn't fit into that room (tidily). I've been working on that for a while -- some things have actually been thrown out! The bottlecap collection from when I was a child was actually in the wastebasket until I noticed people selling bottlecaps in worse condition on ebay for a dollar each. Also, when you have eight years worth of Official Playstation Magazines you can't just throw that out... you know, in case you need to refer to the out of date previews later... hey, I managed to trash a years worth of magazines that were mostly paid advertising...

Assemble the big boy bed in the old office. This should be easy, it's from IKEA of course. The big issue is getting it set up early enough that Kiernan doesn't associate the relocation of rooms to the appearance of babies... oh, and did I mention he doesn't like sleeping in actual beds?

This'll be fun.

Delurking Day

According to half the blogs I read, today is Delurking Day!

So whether you read my blog but never comment, or comment rarely, or comment on every single post, go ahead and report in below!

Dissolving parliament...

Canadian politics has never made much sense to me until seeing this view from across the pond: Scary Go Round by John Allison -- It's all so clear now!

Weekly Wednesday #41

Weekly Link:
I've heard (pun intended) of The Bloop before, but never realized there were other Strange and Mysterious Sounds from the Earth out there...

Weekly Video:
Maybe someday I'll be reborn as an adrenaline junkie... hopefully not due to jumping off of Norwegian cliffs and then actually flying (falling with style?) in a wingsuit... Best viewed in full screen.. and just imagine it on an IMAX screen...


Weekly Kiernan:
Since I've been AWOL the past two weeks, here are two amusing incidents, although technically that doesn't catch me up at all:

We were sitting on the glider reading a story before bedtime when my stomach grumbled.
Kiernan said "Oh! Are you pooping, Daddy?" to which I replied "No, that was just my tummy making a noise."
"Do you need to go to the potty?"
"Maybe later."

Kiernan has had a cough the past few nights, which has had him waking up randomly through the night. The first night, we started the vapourizer, rubbed on some vapo-rub, and gave him a spoonful of honey. The next day Kiernan noticed the bear-shaped honey jar.
"Oh! A bear!"
"That's the bottle that hold the honey, it's shaped like a bear."
"I had honey and my cough went away. GOOD JOB, DADDY!"

Weekly Drum Song:
The only Christmas song I can tolerate (and listen to any time of the year, actually) is from the soundtrack to the movie Elf starring Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel. Zooey sings "Baby it's Cold Outside" with Leon Redbone, and since hearing her singing voice I occasionally google around to read up on the hundreds of people demanding a full album from her.
Finally, the CD entitled Volume One by She & Him, a collaberation of Deschanel and M Ward has come into my possession (I bought it, gasp!) and I enjoy its old-timey-sounding songs thoroughly, even though it can get alt-country at times... Kiernan demands song with more drums, however, so the CD is not played in the car.


Weekly Twins:
I told Lara she needs to hold those babies in until at least May 21st so they can be born under the Gemini zodiac sign. I'm not a follower of astrology, I just find that amusing. The look given to me was decidedly less amused by this prospect.

It's a boy and a....

girl!

(Just in case your RSS feed only showed you titles, you had to click through. Hurray analytics!)

Baby A showed his goods almost right away, but then he had to have the rest of his measurements taken. Then Baby B got measured.. and measured... and measured... and then almost did not cooperate, so I had to endure an excruciatingly long wait until she was finally declared female. This will the first girl after four grandsons for my mom and dad - and the fifth boy will come out first because he's lower.

A Woman's Reproductive or Sex Organs

The following excerpts are from Chapter 7 of The Manual of Hygiene - Father and Son by M.A. Horn.

(This chapter is chock full of the basics taught by high school gym teachers during sex-ed class. It would have been skipped entirely, along with the related chapter on Male Reproductive Organs, had it not been for one little nugget tucked away at the end of the chapter...)


A Woman's Reproductive or Sex Organs

While the chief function of the female breasts is to provide milk to a nursing child, they are definitely one of the lesser sex organs. The nipples contain erectile tissue, just as do the clitoris and vagina and a pleasurable sensation is experienced by most women when they are kissed or otherwise handled. As a rule, cold frigid women have small, undeveloped breasts, while those who are warm and well-sexed have well developed ones.