We had a temporary babysitter today, who drove here from Gaffney, SC, which is about an hour and a half away – I felt bad for her, so I gave her gas money.  But anyway, my in-laws came back from their trip, so I was able to have someone watch the kids while I went to get my car from the babysitter’s (the story about why the babysitter had my car is very long, and you don’t really want to know).  Anyway, it turns out that she hasn't gotten her prescriptions filled, because she didn’t want to be a bother to anyone, so I had to find a CVS that was open at 9:30 PM and had the medicine she needed. 

I was kind of surprised, because one of the prescriptions was for some pretty high-powered pain pills, and the pharmacy didn't even ask who I was – I mean, I don’t LOOK like a 65 year old woman.  Yet.  Sandy’s having pins put in her wrist tomorrow morning, so I’ll probably be needing the temporary babysitter for some of next week too.  The backup childcare thing is my new favorite benefit from work…because burning vacation to stay home and take care of the kids doesn't sound like fun to me. (Yeah, yeah, I know..it’s called “parenting”.  Whatever.)

Anyway, I also found out that next week my in-laws and my wife’s grandma will all be staying at our house.  Jenny said she might have to go to DC, but I told her that if I couldn’t go with her, she couldn't go either.  I wouldn't want to have her miss any family time.  We’re not supposed to travel unless it’s on “important” customer business, and I think I need to figure out something “important” for me to do so I don't overdose on family time.  If she DOES manage to sneak off, I’m selling one of the kids for a new camera.

(Jim got a D300.  I told him not to bring it to work, because I would be all jealous, but I know he’ll bring it in, and then I’ll HAVE to buy one for myself.  There’s no way Jenny can expect me to stand up to THAT MUCH temptation.  I’ve never been known for my self-control.  And besides, the “Jim got to get a new camera, so I have to get one for it to be fair” defense should work, right? 

Funny story (well, funny to ME anyway, and it’s my blog, I can write whatever I want):  Jenny is in Seattle, teaching a class this week.  She went to the PSS site in Sammamish, WA to teach a class yesterday, and one of the instructors is a guy I’ve known for a few years.  When he saw Jenny, the first thing he said to her was something like “You’re out of town again?  When’s Bill getting a D300?”.  So my ‘buy my camera a present when my wife abandons me’ thing is pretty well known around my part of Microsoft.)

Last night about 9:00, my phone rang, with a number I didn't recognize.  Since no one ever calls me, I didn't answer it (well, no one usually calls me, and the people who do call me have phone numbers I recognize).  They called back, so I figured it must be important.  It turns out that it was the babysitter's neighbor, calling to let me know that the babysitter fell and broke her arm.  I'm pretty sure she did it to inconvenience me.  So today, I had to lay out of work to watch the kids (I know, I know, it's called parenting.  Whatever)

I'm being a bad parent and letting them all watch TV.  They'll probably never get into college now, and it will be all my fault.  Luckily, my company has a backup childcare benefit, so I called them this morning and they will supposedly have a babysitter here at 7:30 AM tomorrow morning. 

So while the kid's brains were melting while watching Tom and Jerry this morning, I took some moon pictures.  I also figured out how to clean the sensor in my camera, because it looked as if someone sneezed all over every picture I took.  Supposedly, you're supposed to only have a specially trained technician clean the sensor, but I figured it couldn't be that hard.  And anyway, I figured that if I were to break this camera, I'll  have to buy a NEW camera to replace it....and Jenny IS out of town....

On Friday, Izzy turned 3.  Since she’s the youngest, she hasn’t always had a fuss made about her for birthdays, etc, so we decided to take her to Chuck E. Cheese.  If you are lucky enough to have never gone to CEC, count yourself lucky.  It’s kind of a cross between an 80’s arcade and a kid’s restaurant.  And hell.  The deal is, you go in with all of your kids, pay a bunch of money, and then let them run free, playing video games, watching scary animatronic rodents sing and generally having a great time.  They mark each kid and parent’s hand when they come in, and supposedly they won’t let you leave with a kid unless your numbers match.  I spent the first 20 minutes we were there trying to rub the mark off, but the ink wouldn’t come off, so they made me take the kids when I left.

I’ve figured out how to make a million dollars.  I’m going to open a concession stand at all Chuck E. Cheeses, and sell beer and valium for about 1000% markup.  I’ll be rich!

So anyway, Izzy had a great time, and she even got a crown; she’s always acted like a princess, now she has the bling to prove it.  Hopefully, I’ll never have to set foot in a Chuck E Cheese again.

Jake!

We didn't even go out last night:  we grilled chicken and then made brownies and had family movie night...and Jake only had one brownie (I took the picture above when he was done 'helping' me make them.  He had to keep 'testing' the batter to make sure it was OK.  Maybe the raw egg got him?).  I think they just decide to throw up to mess with me.

Jenny is going to Seattle this afternoon, so maybe Jake is protesting that.  I know I sure am.

Izzy is two, so we’re trying to get her to stop wearing diapers (and in the next few months, if the US diaper industry goes into a recession, its because we will have stopped buying diapers for the first time in almost TEN YEARS).  So Izzy has mastered the “not wanting to make a mess in a diaper” thing, but she’s not too clear on what to do next.  Today, for example, she put it all over her crib and all of the contents of her crib.  Then, this evening, she used the toy dishwasher in the playroom.  I took pictures, not because I want to gross out any of my internet friends, but when she’s about 16 and getting ready to go to the prom, OUT THEY WILL COME.

“Wiping poop off the wall” isn't one of the things they told me about during the parent classes.

I made another collection on live maps, this time of American Battleships.  There's 10 of them:

1. USS North Carolina, museum in Wilmington, NC
2. USS Arizona, blown up at Pearl Harbor
3. USS Missouri, about 500m from the Arizona
4. USS Iowa, still part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet
5. USS Texas, museum in Houston, TX
6. USS Alabama, museum in Mobile Alabama
7. USS New Jersey, museum in Camden, NJ
8. USS Utah, blown up at Pearl Harbor
9. USS Wisconsin, museum up at Norfolk, VA
10. USS Olympia, museum at Philadelphia, NJ

I've been to the North Carolina, the Arizona, the Missouri and near the Utah (you cant get too close to the Utah, since it capsized in 1941).  Maybe someday I'll get to see all of them, but I don't know if I'm willing to go to New Jersey to see them.

The pictures are cool, if you turn on aerial view and zoom in.  Check them out:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&encType=1&cid=D38B786E8EA7A572!37619

I finally got my new server up and running, with the full amount of memory I need.  After Dell came and helpfully replaced the motherboard on it, I determined that the problem was that I had been trying to install the wrong RAM.  A quick trip to crucial.com took care of me.  I’d be dangerous if I could READ.  So now, I have my server, my desktop, my laptop, my work laptop, jenny’s laptop, the kitchen computer and Beavis and Butthead’s Eric and Alex’s computers all on the same domain.

So, I get a 100% score on “Getting the guy at Dell to do what I wanted him to do" (send out a new motherboard), but a 0% score on “properly identifying the problem.”

One other thing that I noticed is that Windows Server 2008 x64 actually will run on 512MB of RAM, fast enough to serve login requests and DNS/DHCP for my home network.  I didn’t think it would even start up.  It’ a lot faster with 4GB RAM though. It’s nice and quiet too.

Jenny went back to DC tonight, she’ll be home tomorrow night.  I’m ready for her to come home already.

Today was “Author Day” at Eric and Alex’s school.  They both got to stand up and read their poems.  I got there a bit late and missed Alex’s poem, but was there afterwards to tell him what a great job he did…and I got to see Eric’s, so it wasnt a total loss.  Both of the kids used our family as the basis for their poems. 

Alex’s was:

	Daddy My dad weias [weighs] heavey on my heart. He leads me into a world of reading and computers. He helps me and I help him I love him and he loves me. I don't really understand why I "weigh heavy on his heart", but I'm pretty sure he meant it as a compliment.
Eric's was hanging in the hall:	My Little Brother’s Room It’s a mess It’s a mess It’s a mess Year old pizza in the corner, and dirty underwear everywhere, It’s a mess It’s a mess It’s a mess the bed is off its stand, and the closet is exploding. To add to all the chaos my father’s patience is fading, it won’t be long till he’s exploding too.

I figure I’ll be getting a visit from Social Services since Eric’s poem is about how Jake hides food in his room and makes his closet explode.  I can hardly wait.

I’m the only one up, so I’ve got about another 15 or 30 minutes before everyone is awake.  My in-laws are still here, and they’re leaving around 10, so everyone will be up early.   It’s supposed to rain today, so I’ll need to come up with some jobs for the kids to do so they don't drive me CRAZY.

It was cloudy all day yesterday, but it cleared up around 9:00PM, so I went out to get some shots of the full moon with my 800mm lens.  800mm is touchy, unless you have a really steady mount the picture wobbles, and the camera movement is magnified too.  (My internet friend Steve suggested mirror lockup, but I can only lock the mirror up to clean the sensor, not to take pictures.  Yet ANOTHER reason I need a D300.)

My inlaws came by last night on their way to Paris from Costa Rica (it’s amazing how blasé people are about going 1/2 way around the world on a whim; 100 years ago it would take a couple of weeks to get from Paris to Costa Rica, and 200 years ago it would take a few months.  Now, it takes 3 days, and 2 of them are spent hanging out in North Carolina).  Anyway, they found an astronaut outfit at a yard sale, and brought it to Jake.  He hasn't taken  it off since.

I finally got a picture of all of the kids at the same time, where you can see all of their faces (usually, I get about 2 of them, and the back of the other’s heads or something like that).  I probably wont get another until 2010 or so.

Eric and Alex are semi-dressed for scouts, which is every Monday evening. Eric definitely is getting a haircut soon.

The computer we use as a server (DHCP, Active Directory, etc) died on me, so I was on the lookout for something I could use to run Windows Server on.  Dell was having a sale on refurbs, so they had a PowerEdge T105 server for 280.00.  It only came with an 80GB Disk and 512MB of RAM, but I have enough stuff lying around here that I can probably come up with something.  So I ordered it, and on a whim, went and checked out RAM prices at NewEgg.  I saw that 8GB of RAM that would fit the server was only 140.00.   Coincidentally, that VERY SAME RAM would fit in my PC, which has a measely 4GB of RAM in it.  (I think you can see where I’m going with this…)

So here’s my taskman before:

and after:

I’m thinking that I’ll just turn the pagefile off.  My dad is in Bulgaria spending my inheritance, so I cant show it to him and tell him that my computer is better than his, but I’ll do that when he gets home.  (My dad and I have computer contests, to see who has the better machine.  He has more money than me, but I know more about it than he does, so we’re fairly evenly matched).

The ram is officially for the new server, but I cant get anything other than the memory that came with it to work in it yet. I had to stop messing with it, because I got mad at it.  I’ll pick it back up tomorrow afternoon.

(Don’t tell Jenny that I put the RAM for the new server into my computer.  It’ll be our little secret)

I got some nice pictures of the moon tonight, I’m finally getting the hang of it (having the moon be about 3/4 helps too, because it’s REALLY bright).  My internet friend Steve gave me some hints too, on how to keep the vibration down.  Hopefully, by the time the moon is full on the 20th, I’ll be ready to get some really good shots (if the weather cooperates).

Since Jenny refuses to have any more kids, the childbearing in our family has passed to her sister Stephanie.  Stephanie is going to have her first baby in a few months, and everyone is really excited.  I already volunteered to babysit whenever they want…I love babies.  I’m kind of hoping that when Jenny sees the new baby, she’ll want to have another one.  I’d have 20 kids if I could talk her into it.

Go look at the ultrasound pictures…and leave Steph a comment, but not about how they throw up on you or how much it hurts to have a baby or anything like that…keep her illusions as long as possible.

My internet friend Beth is having a yard sale, and she mentioned she’d be selling some Willie Nelson CDs.  Since I’ve been a Willie Nelson fan for a long time, I half-jokingly said “I’ll take all the Willie Nelson you’ve got”.  I was surprised when she took me up on it!  So the other day, I got a mailer with about 18 Willie Nelson CDs. 

The great thing about Willie Nelson is that he’s been singing for years and years, so of the 18 CDs I got, I only had 4.  I’ve been happily ripping CDs for a while, and it’s great listening to some of the songs I haven't heard in a few years, and more than a few that I have never heard.  My Willie Nelson collection now has 38 albums, and 622 songs (I don’t know how many are duplicates).  They’re all ripped in lossless WMAs or 320K MP3s on my hard drive.  That’s a lot of Willie Nelson.

(In other news, we went out to dinner last night as a family and NO ONE puked today.  Which is good.)

I was bored tonight, so I played around with Virtual Earth, which lets you view satellite pictures of all sorts of places.  You can make collections of interesting places and share them too, which is really cool.  I used to want to be a pilot, so I learned alot about military aircraft up to about 1985 or 1990.  (I never got to be an airforce pilot because I have bad eyes.  and a hatred of authority.  and poor hand-eye coordination.  and a lack of desire to study.  Oh well…

But anyway, I was looking around on VE, and I checked out the Airforce’s Boneyard, where they store old planes that are still sort of usable, so they don't have to maintain them, but they can start them back up should the need arise.  I shared the collection, so you can look too.  There’s a couple things I didn't know what tehy were, but it was neat to look at them.

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&encType=1&cid=D38B786E8EA7A572!37583

Depending on the zoom level, planes appear and disappear, since they took the pictures at different times.

I hope everyone has a good weekend…it’s supposed to rain here again, ugh.

Jenny went out of town last week, so I got a new lens:  this one is kind of different, its a 400-800mm fixed aperture telephoto.  At 800mm, you get f16, and that’s it, so you’re kind of limited in what pictures you can take.  Luckily, the moon is really bright, so f16 isn't that much of a problem.  It’s been rainy here for the past couple of weeks, but it finally cleared up a bit yesterday and tonight, so I got to experiment a little bit.

Last night, I went to a vacant field out near our house; I was so excited I went about 45 minutes before sundown so I could be ready.  I have a GPS strapped to the top, since it’s manual everything, I don't have to worry about rotating the lens around.  (I took the picture with my phone..and while it’s not going to replace my real camera, that’s not a bad shot for a camera phone).

Anyway, last night I got a few shots, but there was so little moon that they didn't really look that good.  Tonight’s was better, but they are still not crisp, so I need to practice more.  At 800mm, you have to walk away from the camera to take the shot, or you’ll get vibration.  I also had to lengthen the exposure longer than I like to use for the moon.  Usually I like to do f11 or even f10 with 1/125 or 1/100, but since I’m limited to f16, I had to go down to 1/20 or slower.  Luckily, the moon isn't going anywhere, and it doesn't cost me any money to practice. 

Jenny said “I thought photography was going to be a cheaper hobby than computers”.  Silly girl. The next time she goes out of town, I think I need a heavier tripod, because the one I have is too wobbly and it’s hard to move the head precisely.  That won’t do.

Anyway, here’s the shot I got tonight.  I’m not happy with it, but hopefully as I get more practice with this lens I’ll get better and more clear shots.

I loved Visual Basic.  My first real programming job used mostly VB (3.0), and I’ve done projects in VB2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.  I even did a project with VB for MS-DOS.  When I started at Microsoft, I spent the first year or so doing phone support for vb.  I pretty much knew vb6 backwards and forwards.  I even wrote some KB articles:

• BUG: CommonDialog FilterIndex Always Returns Default Filter Index
• FIX- UserControls with Menus Cause Resource Leak
• PRB- Visual Basic GetSetting and SaveSetting Do Not Work in IIS Components
• How To Use SHFileInfo to Get the Associated Icon for Files
• How To Use SetWaitableTimer With Visual Basic
• PRB- Server Stops Responding When You Call Microsoft Transaction Server Component Under Active Server Pages
• PRB- App.Logevent Does Not Work in Components that You Call from ASP on Windows 2000
• BUG- Internal Protection Fault When Using Format Function
• How To Obtain Files Copied from Windows Explorer
• How To Get the Window Handle to a WindowsCE Control from VB

(I’m particularly proud of the SetWaitableTimer article). 

A lot of people denigrated VB6 as a “Toy” language, but for bread and butter corporate applications, it let you get apps written really quickly, with a minimum of windows “plumbing” work – you could focus on what your app was supposed to do, which was usually massaging data, instead of how to handle WM_PAINT messages and junk like that.

I’ve always said that when I get old and gray (well, oldER and grayER) I’m going to go and maintain vb6 code for the IRS until I retire.  VB is like the COBOL of the 90s, it will be around forever.

Anyway, I moved on from VB6 a long time ago, my current customer is more of a C++ and C# kind of place; and the current version of “Visual Basic” is lots of things, but it’s NOT Visual Basic. (DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent the feelings of anyone at Microsoft.  blah blah blah).

But I wrote this all down because VB6 went out of support yesterday, April 8, 2008.  That means if anyone calls in to support and says “my vb app wont work”, we’ll say “What?  VB What?  What’s that?”.

If you dont have piclens already, go and get it, it’s free.  For IE users:

1. Go to http://www.piclens.com
2. Mash the download button
3. Do what it says.

After you’ve installed it, go to a web gallery like smugmug or flickr, find a set of pictures you like, and if you notice when you mouseover the image, it will have a little “Play” button on it:

Press the button, and you’ll see a cool gallery of the images on the page.  If you need some pictures to look at, check out the cutest kids in the world at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weloytty.  They also have a firefox plugin.  The galleries look a lot cooler if there are a lot of pictures in them. 

This is getting ridiculous.  Today's puker was Eric.  I think that the problem may be that every Saturday, we go and eat Japanese food, and that doesn't agree with them (at least Alex and Eric, because they're the ones who puke).  I didn't even give him a chance to come and find me, I just got up when he started.