Today, Alex is 8.  I used to roll my eyes when I was young and the old people would say "your life will go by really fast", but I'm finding it to be more and more true.  The last time I checked, he was about 2, and now all of a sudden he is 8, and (as he tells me) "hitting puberty". (he's NOT) .

The things I like about Alex are:

- he likes Music

- he's always up for an adventure.  All you have to say is "Do you want to go with me?" and he'll grab his shoes and run for the door.

- he asks me tuck him in every night

- his best friend is a girl, and he doesn't think girls are "Gross".

- when anyone is sick, he'll make them a card, and do his best to make them feel better.

When he was a baby, he had weird digestive issues, so he had to have the most expensive formula they made, and he would STILL throw up all the time.  Now, he doesnt have ANY digestive issues, and he wants to eat constantly.

I used to think only marketing people did it, but now it's spreading.

http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/philfactor/archive/2008/01/27/43174.aspx

Today Alex had his 8 year old checkup at 9:00, and he had to get a shot.  That was a MAJOR trauma, and like a sucker, I said that if he did OK with the shot, he could come to work with me instead of going back to school.  I think he would have crawled over barbed wire to do that.  I know that's bad parenting, but he hasn't missed any school yet this year, and I figured one day couldn't hurt.  So off to the office we went.  I set him up with a computer at an empty desk, then we went and got coffee and hot chocolate from the starbucks machine in the supply room.  For some reason, Alex is obsessed with office supplies, so he was also excited that I grabbed him a notepad and a pen...he wanted to stock up and take a bunch of them home, but I wouldn't let him.

Anyway, while I was doing whatever it is I do at work, Alex wrote a story.  I saved it, then scanned it and put it in the box I keep my secret money supply in.  I included a translation too.  I'm going to keep it to look at when he is a teenager, and I need to remember what he was like when he wanted to be around me.

Hi my name is Alex Im 8 years old and I have 2 brothers 1 sister there names are Jake Isabell and Eric.  I have a great dad and a great mom I'm so glad I have them.  I have nice friends and  a nice house and the best part I have a .. xbox360.  It is awesome.  I have the best Adick and Im going to have the best basement.  I love my family members so much I like my friends.  Some day I'm going to be a computer programmer my dad has a billion computers.  Facts to know: favorite food banana, favorite sport skateboarding favorite video game halo3.  Favorite music country favorite tv show american idol favorite baseball team yankees favorite football team panthers favorite place Microsoft favorite race car driver jeff gordon. favorite movie high school musical 2 and 1

Well, Jenny had surgery on December 17th, and she's finally better.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that she went back to DC tonight, and won't be back until Friday.  Her customers miss her.  To celebrate, I cleaned the oven and yelled at Beavis and Butthead Eric and Alex for squirting toothpaste all over the sink in the bathroom that I had JUST CLEANED.  I am the meanest daddy ever.

I am trying to decide what kind of present to buy my computer.  Since this is the first time she's been out of town in a while, I think my computer deserves a good present

This post originally started out as a comment in reply to my internet friend Joelle's comment about the laptop situation here...she was surprised that Beavis and Butthead Eric and Alex have their own laptops.  It wasn't really a hard decision, the biggest concerns we had before we bought them were a) the kid's safety while on the internet b) the cost and c) keeping their computers secure, and keeping badware off of their computers and out of my nice clean home network.  All of the problems were pretty easily solved, and now everyone is happy.  Sharing computers is like sharing toothbrushes...you can do it in an emergency, but it's kind of icky.

- Keeping the kids safe on the internet.

Both laptops came with Windows Vista, which has built in parental controls as part of the basic package.  I decided to use OneCare Family Safety instead, which is free from Microsoft. (Onecare Family Safety is totally unrelated to Microsoft's pay Antivirus/Anti-Spyware program OneCare, which I also use. (I'd like to meet the genius who decided THAT was a good idea).  I really like Family Safety, both because of the price and because I can log in remotely and see what the kids have been doing on the internet.  Family Safety makes sure that the kids don't visit inappropriate sites on the internet, restricts who they can IM with (there is a list that only a parent can add people to), and will alert me if they start visiting places they don't need to go.  Neither kid is interested in sex yet, so there is not even much temptation there yet, but it's good to know I'll be able to see what they are doing when the time comes.  The biggest thing that gets blocked (by looking at the logs) is goofy youtube videos where there is inappropriate language.

I've also restricted their login hours on the machines using Vista's built in account controls so that they can't log in after 9:00 on weekends and 8:00 on weekdays.  (although I think I've actually turned that off for some reason, so I'll turn it back on).

We also have a rule that you aren't allowed to have the computers in your bedroom.  Like I said above, neither of them really has any idea how much fun girls are yet, so we are mostly just setting a precedent there.  This was something that Jenny thought up, and I think that it's a really good idea.

While I think that the prevalence of perverts on the internet is fairly overblown, their safety is my most important priority.  By using the free tools available, and monitoring what they visit, I think that they are safe.  In addition to the technological solution, I spend a fair amount of time talking about what they are doing on the PCs with them, and we always talk about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. 

(Digression:  OK, I think the prevalence of perverts on the internet is very common, what I think is rare is for adults to troll around looking for kids to abuse.  The vast majority of sexual abuse of children occurs by a friend or family member, so I'm much more concerned about that than I am someone victimizing them on the internet.  That, and I watch what they do on their computers like a hawk)

- Cost.

Both machines are refurbished Dell Inspiron 1501s, with 1GB RAM and a 60GB disk.  They were 399.00 each from Dell, and I had a 15% off coupon and free shipping.  When you consider how much money people spend on things like ipods, that wasn't all that much.  They should get two or three years use out of the machines, although I'll have to put some more RAM in them at some point in the not too distant future.

- Keeping my home network clean.

I have Microsoft OneCare installed on the machines, which is pretty neat:  I can (from my computer) make sure that they have up to date antivirus and anti-spyware protection and enforce backups.  Onecare is 50.00/year, and I got a discount because I work there, so it's really only 20.00.  Since they are running Vista as standard users, they cant install anything without me logging them in as an admin, so they get no bouncing cursors, funky screensavers, or spyware.

I've had a Samsung Blackjack for the past year or so, and it does everything I want a mobile phone to do, and it gets my work email too (since the company paid for it, I feel obligated to occasionally read my email on it).  Last year, Samsung promised that when Windows Mobile (the operating system that the phone uses) got upgraded, they would upgrade the blackjack.  Yesterday, they finally released the upgrade.  The only problem was that the upgrade instructions specified that you need to be running Windows XP or Windows 2000 to download and install the new software.  They evidently meant it too, because it wont work on Vista.  I hate when that happens.

So I looked around the house, and here's what the computers are running:  Vista x64 (my desktop), Vista x64 (my laptop), Vista x86 (the computer in the kitchen), Vista x86 (Jennifer's laptop), Vista x86 (Eric's laptop), Vista x86 (Alex's laptop), Mac OS 10.5 (the family room computer), Windows Server 2008 (the server),  but NO XP machines.  "No problem", I said, "I can go to work and do it".  So I got here this morning, and I see that I have:  Vista x64 (desktop), Vista x86 (laptop), Windows Server 2003 x64 (server), Mac OS 10.4 (random mac that I keep around to make sure silverlight works on more than just windows).  Crap.  Once some of my coworkers decide to show up (they are a lazy and slovenly lot) I will probably be able to find someone running XP, but until then, I'm stuck. (I would just use Virtual PC, but it doesn't support USB connections, and I need that to perform the upgrade)

You know what this means, don't you?  Exactly!  It means I don't have enough computers.   I need to discuss this with my manager and/or my wife.

So after the kids went to bed, I went out and took a couple pictures of the moon.  I had to come in pretty quickly, because it was about 25 degrees, the wind is blowing 15 miles an hour, and I didn't have any gloves.  The moon is big and it was kind of orange.  It rose about 2015, so these were taken when its as close to the ground, and the dust causes the color change.  It looks pretty cool.  I need a 400mm lens now.

My internet friend Beth had -7 weather in Idaho or Iowa or Illinois or one of those I states up north.  I don't think I could handle that.

I'm surprised at how much I like to take pictures at night.  I like to be able to think about shots and set my aperture and shutter speed without being rushed.  I got some good shots tonight: the good thing about having a 4GB memory card is that I can take shots at all of the possible settings I could need, and then keep the good ones. The first one is the moon:  we're about at a full moon now, so I had to set the shutter to 1/200 or even 1/320 instead of the usual 1/125 I use for the moon.

The second shot was pretty lucky, a nice picture of Deneb rising over the neighbor's house.  The moon was so bright that I didn't think that I got anything usable, because the moon would be too bright.  I had to bring the stars out with Photoshop, but I'm pretty happy with the result.  I really like the blue, and you can sort of see the clouds too, although that may just be my imagination.

Soon I'll want a better tripod... the one that I have now is hard to lock down where I want it, it seems to move around too much.  Jim's talking about getting a better camera too, so I'm jealous.

The weather says that it may sleet/freezing rain tonight, it would be cool if it were snow, but I figure that won't happen. 

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A:  A stick.

in 2004, some guy broke into our house when we were gone and stole some stuff, mostly electronics.  Luckily, our insurance paid for it, the only irreplaceable things they took were the digital pictures that were on my PC, mostly pictures of the kids.  I was really upset, and I really feel bad that I wasn't home at the time of the crime so I could have shot the burglar, but such is life. 

Since then, I've been kind of anal about keeping my digital pictures on more than one computer in more than one place.  Until this week, my process was to use robocopy.exe (which is built into Windows Vista, and freely available for xp) to copy all of my pictures from home to work via a terminal server session.  This works ok, but I want more, so I signed up for a Mozy account.

Mozy is an online backup company.  The way they work is that you pay 4.95/month per computer, and you can backup an unlimited amount of stuff.  It seems as if the upload is capped at around 500kB/s, so its going to take about TWO WEEKS to upload the 50GB of digital pictures I have (at 10.2 megapixels, shooting RAW+JPG, files add up quick).  Once I get everything up, I'll only have to send changes.  I paid for a two year account, and EMC recently purchased them, so I figure they won't go out of business and take my data with them. 

well, it wasn't a FULL snow day, because the kids only had a 2 hour delay, but it was cool.  It started snowing around 11 last night, and it kind of snowed, sleeted and then rained all day today.  It was nice enough, but not pretty.  I can't for the life of me figure out how to take a decent picture of snow while it's happening, but this is the best of a bad lot:

Note the lovely house under construction across the street.  Next to it is a nice field of mud that Eric and Alex went and played in.  Luckily, I caught them coming in and had them strip down before they tracked bright red North Carolina clay through the house.  Jenny is doing much better, but if they had brought all of that mud in, her head would have exploded, and I would be stuck here with all of these kids all by myself.

Jim was kind of cranky about the whole snow thing, but that's just because he's dead inside.  I know that DEEP DOWN he really likes snow too.

They say we might get another dusting of snow this weekend.  My appetite is whetted now, I want about 12" like we got in 2002 or 2003.

I didn't mention it earlier, because I didn't want to jinx it, but it appears as if we are going to get some winter weather tonight.  I think it's just going to be sleet and freezing rain and crap like that, but I'm desperate, I'll take whatever I can get.  The kids are all excited:  Eric wants to stay home from school, Alex wants to go and get "supplies" (In case we get snowed in, I guess), Jake wants to build an igloo, and Izzy just wants to sit on my lap.

WeatherUnderground says:

1:00 AM Chance of Light Rain , Chance of Light Snow

4:00 AM Definite Light Rain , Definite Light Snow

7:00 AM Definite Light Rain , Definite Light Ice Pellets (sleet)

The way it works around here is that they will probably call school off about midnight tonight.  I have to got to the store later this afternoon anyway, and its a good thing we don't need bread or milk (or beer), because it will all be gone.  Tomorrow, it will be fun to stay at home, light the fire, and enjoy being together.

Jim and the other anti-winter weather people I work with will sit at home and be grumpy.

We had our weekly Sunday afternoon cleaning party today, and everyone will always behave the same way:

	Alex (7) complains a little bit about how it's "not fair" that we make them clean up all the time.  Then he goes and does it.  Total time invested:  about 25 minutes.  He then helps me clean up the bathrooms.
	Eric (9) quietly goes to his room and sits there, staring at the wall, because there  is "too much to do, I'll NEVER get it done."  At about 5:00, he breaks down and does it.  Total time invested:  2 hours of sitting on the floor complaining, 25 minutes cleaning.
	Jake (4) happily bounces into his room, ready to have a great time.  He then opens all of the drawers in his room, and climbs up them, to the top of his dresser.  Then he jumps off.  Next, he takes the knobs off his dresser, and starts to climb back up.  Unfortunately, the sharp screw that gets exposed when you take the knobs off cuts his leg, so we have to fix that up.  (He doesn't even seem to care too much about it,, he just will say something like "I cut myself"... he'll was bleeding all over the place too (see pic)).  THEN, while Jenny fixes him up, he'll steal a (thankfully water-soluble) marker and decorate his closet door.  When you ask what he think's he's doing, he'll say "I didn't write on the WALL!"  I'm pretty sure he isn't related to me.
	Izzy (2) will just kind of wander around, "helping" everyone.  Today, she got really mad at me because I wouldn't let her play in the toilet while I was cleaning it.  She's a doll.

So overall, it was a pretty boring weekend.  Jenny is doing better, but she isn't 100% yet.  Hopefully, she'll be recoevered by next weekend, so we can go out.  I traded Eric's old laptop to the babysitter for some babysitting, so I want to use it up.  Last night, for our "date night", Jenny and I watched The Bourne Identity, with Matt Damon in our bedroom.  It was pretty good. 

I hope everyone had a good weekend, and I'm looking FORWARD to going back to work tomorrow.

The weatherman is just messing with me.  Now weatherbug says NO snow.  I believe it's because my coworkers (and yes Jim, I mean you) were not thinking happy thoughts about the snow.

I'm going to be seriously upset if we dont get a good snowstorm this year.  Just one....

 The trials and tribulations of the last Window Server 2003 machine at Microsoft.com

The Lone Server

   
Video: The Lone Server

It's funny, but probably only for computer people....

There's more at http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/pages/about-lone-server.aspx

 

I looked at Weatherbug this afternoon, and saw:

Sunday

A chance of snow showers in the morning. Cloudy with a chance of rain showers. Highs in the mid 40s. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.
Sunday Night and Monday

Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain or snow showers. Lows in the upper 20s. Highs in the upper 40s. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.

I am doing the snow dance now.  I'm sure they are just toying with me, like they do every year.

Bill Gates isn't the worlds greatest speaker.  I mean, its always interesting to watch him speak, because you can tell that he is super smart, and it's interesting to see "the richest man in the world" but he isn't a very dynamic speaker.  He always looks like he slept in his clothes, and you can tell he isn't having that much fun up on stage.

(And while I don't think that Bill Gates is "The richest man in the world" anymore, due to currency fluctuations, I'm pretty sure that in 20 years, no one will remember who Carlos Slim is, and everyone will remember who Bill Gates is)

The way Bill makes his speeches interesting is that he usually plays a video or two that are pretty funny.  One year, he did a spoof of Napoleon Dynamite (with Josh Heder, the star of Napoleon Dynamite, in it.  Its good to be Bill Gates, everyone returns your phone calls).  This year at CES, the video he showed included appearances from lots of people:  Jay-Z, Bono, Steven Spielberg, Matthew McConaughey, a bunch of Microsoft VPs and stuff and:  Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.  They all poke fun at Bill, and it's pretty funny, in a geeky sort of way.

Check it out http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080107/bill-gates-last-day-microsoft-video/

The one good thing about the Christmas season being over is that I can get to go to work and have some adult conversation for a change.  Today, I argued with Alex for about 10 minutes on who was the better band:  Nirvana or the Naked Brother's Band.  I didn't convince him either.  And of course, I had to explain to him that you can be part of the greatest Rock and Roll band of our generation and STILL be an idiot (Kurt Cobain).