I put some halloween pictures up at loytty.com.  We had a great time trick or treating; Halloween is probably the kids' 2d favorite holiday, after Christmas.

So my niece, who I love to pieces, is on my mobile phone plan.  The plan we signed her up for is for 450 minutes/month, unlimited nights and weekends, and unlimited text messaging, for about 60.00/month.  The first month, it was 60.00, and I haven't really looked in the past couple of months.  Today, since it was payday, I grabbed all of the bills and started paying them.  I got to hers, and it was $985.00.  I mean, I LOVE her, but I don't think I love her THAT much.  Jenny's head exploded.

When I was little, my mom and dad told us about when they had to drive from Georgia, where they lived, to visit their parents, who lived in New York and New Jersey (it's a deep dark family secret that I come from a long line of Yankees).  Anyway, it was 1964 or so, and they had a Volkswagen Beetle.  With no air conditioning.  At any rate, my older sister was about 2, and since they didn't even HAVE child seats back then, she spent the trip standing up between my parent's seats.  Because she was 2, and because the only thing they gave two year olds to eat back then was beets and turnips and stuff like that, she had to puke.  Since she was standing up, she just kind of let fly, and ended up throwing up down my dad's shirt.  Since it was July, and they were about in North Carolina, it was really hot.  So he had to drive the rest of the way with puke down his back.

Before I had kids, whenever I heard that story, I would laugh uproariously and wonder how in the world he kept from throwing up himself, or snapping completely, and jumping out of the car and leaving.  Now that I actually have kids, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal to me.  It would be GROSS, but not all that bad...I mean, what are you supposed to do in that situation other than wipe it off and keep going as best as you can? 

The first year of having a kid is the hardest, because you have to get used to being peed on, puked on, pooped on and a whole bunch of other indignities.  I'm just glad I didn't have kids really young, like my mom and dad did, because dealing with a kid when you are 19 or 20 doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun.  I'm glad I got to mess around and be irresponsible during my twenties.  The biggest difference between my parents generation and my generation is while they had lots of time (my mom stayed home and took care of all of us) but no money, and we have money, but no time.  Therefore, my parents would optimize for saving money, and we optimize for saving time. 

The first day this year where I could wear shorts to the office was March 14th.  Today is the first day I couldn't wear them (I believe I've worn long pants a couple of times in the past 7 months, but it's been rare).  My car told me it was 38 when I went outside this morning at 5:30, and there is a frost warning for tomorrow.  I love fall. (And yes, for my pedantic readers, I realize that fall "officially" began on September 21st, but for me, fall doesn't start until I can't wear shorts to work anymore.  I suppose I could have special Bill seasons, "Time when you can't wear shorts to work" and "Time when you can wear shorts to work", but that would be too confusing for people).

What a great title for a book.

I'm glad Izzy is only 2, and I can guarantee she wont be dressing like a skank when she lives at my house.  My older kids all roll their eyes at me when I tell them that they shouldn't be in a big hurry to grow up, but I keep saying it anyway.

If you are running Vista, you need to download and install Switcher.  While Flip3d is "cool", in that it's really nice to see for the first time, having the windows all overlap makes it hard to choose which window you want to bring to the front.  Switcher reminds me of how the MacOS does 3d window choosing.  You can't beat the price, either.

I saw that they were trying to auction off a lock of Che Guevara's hair.  Bidding starts at $100,000.00.   You would think that people who are enamored with communist terrorists would find it distasteful to have to pay money for something.

(if you dont know who Che Guevara was (other than a trendy t-shirt decoration for idiots), look at this encarta article.)

Eric had a great weekend:  he spent the night at his friend Patrick's house last night, and today he went to the skateboard park.  He hates that we insist that he wear a helmet, but we've held firm.  Looking at his elbows, its probably good that his head is protected.

I remember the first time I read Heinlein's The Number of the Beast, I was blown away by it, and thought it was fantastic.  I picked it up the other day while I was out, and was looking forward to reading it again.  Unfortunately, it's about the only Heinlein book that I didn't enjoy reading the second time.  The situations were contrived, the dialog was horrible, and none of the main characters were even remotely sympathetic.  Oh well, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress still rocks.

(I was in the sci-fi section because I was getting Ender's Game for Eric.  I think he's about old enough)

Yesterday, Jenny went to Seattle to attend a conference for work, leaving me here with all of the children.  I love it when that happens.  The only crisis we have had so far is that Izzy tried to chop her fingers off with the barbeque grill.  Luckily, there was no permanent damage.  I was afraid, for a few minutes, that I was going to have to take her to the hospital, but she ended up fine.

Since I am too poor to buy my computer a present this time, I decided to move the xbox360 downstairs, and put it on the big tv.  In the attic, the xbox was attached to an old tv that was literally my grandmothers:  it works fine, but it's showing its age, and everyone I talk to about xboxes just raves at how great they look on an HDTV.

So in this picture, Al and one of the neighbor kids play Halo.  Jenny doesnt think that they should be able to play Halo, since it's kind of a mature game, but I think it's good training for when they join the army.  To fight Aliens.  Aliens need killing.

Jennifer will hate having the xbox in the family room, but since she isnt here, she doesnt get a vote.  I'll move it back before she gets home.  Or maybe I wont, it depends how I feel.

I've been in the tech industry for about 15 years now, starting as a sort-of programmer at a fiber optic cable plant in 1992-ish.  Since then, I've worked for lots of different companies. The shortest I ever stayed at a job was about 2 months (BCS), the longest has been about 8 years and counting (Microsoft).  I have been very fortunate in that I've always switched companies on my own terms, and have never been laid off (or fired).

One weird thing about my employment history is that I quit Info Systems after a couple of years, went to work at a different company for 6 months, and then went back to Info Systems.  Later, I worked at Microsoft for a couple of years, quit for 6 months, and then went back (where I've stayed).   I went back to Info Systems because that is where Jenny worked, and I went back to Microsoft because, well, it's MICROSOFT.  Proverbs 26:11 is apt for me.

My job now is a lot of fun:  I work with a very large customer, helping them make sure that their applications work properly with Windows.  I have a lot of latitude to organize my own work, and the people I work with are really smart, passionate and excited about creating great software.  Most of them are a lot smarter than I am too (which isn't saying that much).  Tomorrow, quite of few of them are getting laid off.  While I understand that the days where you could go to work for a company right out of college and stay until you are 65 are long gone, I'm glad that I have never had to experience getting laid off first hand, because I'm sure it sucks.  Luckily, the unemployment rate for techies in the DC area is about 1%, so most of them will be ok.

This is why my IM name is "I Love Microsoft" tonight.

This morning, Eric, Alex and I went to the lake to see my parents and my older sister and her kids.  I only took Eric and Alex, leaving Jake and Izzy at home with Jenny (again...she loves when I do that).  We had a great time, even though the lake is as low as I have ever seen it and it was a bit chilly.  One advantage of living close to the lake is that I can come home after a day of family time.  Today, we brought Eric's favorite cousin Will home with us, and Betsy will pick him up in the morning on the way home.  Will and Eric are inseparable, and they always have  good time plotting schemes, as shown in the picture.  One thing they do that I hate is they team up to exclude Alex.  Bastards.

The high point of the day was when Alex stepped on a sharp rock and sliced his foot open.  Of course, he freaked out and started running around like Roger Rabbit, spewing blood everywhere.  Luckily, my mom was right there, and having been a nurse, she was able to calm him down and get him to sit down.  At first, we thought he was going to have to go to the hospital for stitches, but upon closer examination, it turned out to be fairly superficial.  I bet he will have a scar though, and he liked it when I told him that he could always tell women he got the wound when he was a pirate or something.  Chicks dig scars.

I put some of the pictures I took up at loytty.com.  I really need to take a class on photography, because I bet I can get some better pics if I just learn how to work everything.

I was getting ready to go to bed, and I decided to look at what new music got released today on the Zune.  (Tuesday appears to be the day that the music industry releases new stuff...or at least it's the day that iTunes, URGE and Zune (the services I use) all have new music on them.  ANYWAY, Randy Travis has a Christmas CD out.  I LOVE Christmas music, and around November 1st, I go into an All Christmas Music All The Time rotation at work.  I have Christmas lights and a Santa hat for my Darth Vader and everything.

My co-workers love me.  Except for the ones with no Christmas spirit, and they are just bitter because Santa wont bring them anything.

In a stunning change of pace for our family, tomorrow I am going to go out of town, and my wife is going to stay home with the kids.  I am usually really glad to get away for the first day or so, but then I want to come home.  This trip will probably be the same.  The REALLY good thing is that we are doing a "Platform Strategy Review", with a bunch of people from Redmond:  I am going to lend moral support, and I am not going to be on the receiving end of a game of "stump the geek".

I have meetings tomorrow and Thursday, and I had one lined up for Friday morning, but it looks as if it isn't going to happen, so maybe I'll be back Thursday night.  My cousin Kristy lives in DC, and she evidently has a new "special friend", so maybe I'll call her and see what's going on.