Barry’s Daily Web News

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I feel good after getting in my morning run. Hopefully, this will solve the low energy levels I had last weekend. I used a little Ben Gay on my back to prevent any flair-ups with back pain.

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We took Sean outside to play in the grass after I got home from work. When we put him down on the grass, he immediately stood up. I think he is associating playing in the grass with our efforts to start him walking. Most of the time when he stands up, his feet are a little too far apart for him to take a step forward. I still think it won’t be long before he starts walking.

Found an interesting article on why kids need to play: New Scientist: Play’s the thing. I think this applies to big kids as well — see, there’s a reason why I spend so much time playing computer games.

I installed activePython on my computer today. The install comes with an integrated development environment and an impressive collection of libraries. I’m now ready to start on my first python program.

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I have decided to learn Python as my next project. Python is an object-oriented scripting language. It’s open source (meaning its free), has lots of support, and interfaces with almost any other program or language. I’m going to try to write my own web journal program. Blogger is a great program/service, and I recommend it to anyone starting out with a web-log, but I’m concerned with how long it will remain a free service. I’m also concerned that all of my journal entries are stored in a database on their server. At least these issues give me motivation for my project.

We went to the bookstore today. I picked up two books on python, learning python, and python programming on win32, both by the o’reilly press. I used the gift certificate I received from Cortney’s parents for my birthday. Thanks Corky and Leslie!

Here is a picture of me and Sean, with me wearing my new glasses:

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Nice cool day today. The high was only 97 degrees. My new glasses arrived today, and I went out at lunch to pick them up. I wore the new glasses to work, and I received more than a few comments, as I had always worn my contact lenses to work. I’ll have to get a picture up on the website of me wearing the new glasses. The glasses probably only look good if you like geek chic. On the trip out to pick up the glasses, I actually felt a cool breeze! It was way too chilly to swim in the pool this evening.

Cortney’s mom, Leslie, left for West Palm Beach, so I’m back to giving Cortney a break form taking care of Sean. I played with Sean for a few hours when I got home from work, and he stood up on his own several times. Even though he is comfortable standing, he still gets down on his hands and knees to go anywhere out of his immediate reach. He still has some congestion, but otherwise he seems to be over his illness.

I knew those cats wore good for something. Seriously, I love my two cats.

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What was that phone number again? Even if this is a hoax, it’s still a very funny one.

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New change to the journal format. After the time of posting, there is a link reference labeled “link”. Use this link if you want to link to my journal or if you want to email me to discuss one of my entries. Do no try to link the the journal entry, as the link will disappear after one week. The next improvement to my web page will be to add a mail link. The reason I haven’t done this so far is that I’m afraid my email address will be picked up by spammers. So far, my main email address has been relatively spam free. When asked to give an email address on a web site, I use floppyandzip@earthlink.net. Floppy and Zip aren’t bothered by spam.

Today was my 39th birthday. At work, our group has an unusual tradition in that you bring in donuts for your own birthday. Krispy-Kreme are preferred, so I stopped by early to pick up 3 dozen. After work, Cortney prepared a nice meal, after which I opened presents, followed by birthday cake. I topped off the evening by a nice relaxing swim in the pool.

Sean was feeling much better today. He has most of his appetite and energy back. Leslie, Cortney’s mom will be leaving us tomorrow, so we will probably have our hands full chasing after Sean tomorrow.

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Cortney took Sean to the doctor today. He’s definitely sick, but they don’t know what from. He doesn’t have an ear infection, so it is probably an upper-respiratory virus. He’s on a formula of Maalox, benadryl and water, as well as ibuprofen every three hours. He was definitely feeling better today than yesterday, as he played a bit this afternoon. He wasn’t happy when we put him to bed, and he cried himself to sleep.

After my somewhat success in learning javascript, I want to try and learn another language. I can’t decide whether to learn java or python next. I’m looking for a general purpose language, with the potential to hook up to a database. I’ve heard java is slow for user interfaces, but I understand python is an interpreted language, so I don’t see how it could be much faster. Whatever language I pick up next, it has to have all open source components.

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We were supposed to go out on a day trip, but Sean woke up with a fever this morning. It was 102 when he woke up, and was 103 before we put him to bed for the evening. He was really out of it. When he wasn’t sleeping in the crib, he would fall asleep in the lap of whoever was holding him. I’m wondering what he has. He currently doesn’t have any symptoms other than the fever. We will take him to the doctor tomorrow. I’ve had a low energy level this weekend as well, maybe I might have the same thing.

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Relaxing day today. Cortney, Sean and I went to a one year birthday party. Sean stood up on his own several times during the party. He just needs to take that first step — then he’ll be walking in no time. We all had a good time at the party. After the party, Cortney and I went to see the movie evolution. It was done by the same director as the ghostbuster movies. It was a funny and entertaining film, and a better overall film then the more “serious” science fiction movies that have come out in the last few years.

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Technology and the corruption of copyright.– Good article on intellectual properity. One of my ideas is to make it illegal for corporations to own intellectual property. Corporations generally have no interest in promoting the public good, only in protecting their monopoly interests in intellectual property. IMHO, true creativity only lies with individuals.

Cortney and I went to see a Diamondbacks baseball game at the bank-one ballpark, otherwise known as the airplane hanger. We went with a group of people from work. It was a very exciting game. The Diamondbacks started a pitcher pulled up from the minor leagues. The rookie pitcher gave up 3 runs in the first inning. The Diamondbacks also scored 3 runs in the first inning, but our rookie pitcher gave up another 3 runs in the second inning, before being pulled from the game. Both teams went through quite a few pitchers, but in the end, the Diamondbacks beat the L.A. Dodgers 13 to 9. D-Backs outslug Dodgers

We were really hot walking from the baseball stadium to the car, so we had to cool off in the pool when we got home. Sean had fun playing in the pool as well.

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My back is feeling much better today. It’s still a little sore, but at least it loosened up, so I don’t have to walk around like a penguin. Cortney’s Mom, Leslie, flew in from Florida today. She will be staying for a week, and spending a lot of time with her grandson. After picking Leslie up from the airport, we stopped for dinner on the way home. Afterwards, we took Sean into the swimming pool to show off some of his aquatic skills. Even though the thermometer in the water read 84 degrees, it seemed like the pool water was cool. I find that to be refreshing, but Cortney doesn’t like it. Sean doesn’t care too much, but if we don’t keep him active in the pool, he starts to shiver. When this happens, I bring him into the shower stall and spray him with warm water, warming him up and rinsing off the clorine at the same time.

At work, I’m actually using my new javascript report utility, and integrating it with the test scripts that I need to run. While I really like the sorting features, I want to get back and clean up some of the interfaces. But, one must balance production with production capability, so I have to get the important work done, then apply the “polish” when I have the free time.

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My back was still sore from last night. I was in a lot of pain at work and didn’t do much when I got home. One thing I did do was go to baby time, which started up at the local library today after a one month break. Baby time involves singing, finger plays and a few short stories. We bring Sean regularly, as he really enjoys it. Tonight though, he seemed a little distracted and wanted to crawl around and explore rather than listen to the songs and stories.

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At work today, I received a “spot” award, which is a $50 company gift check for taking the initiative to improve our test report utility. Not a bad deal considering I learned quite a bit about javascript in the process.

After work, I decided to install a new toilet kit in the half bath downstairs to add more “flushing” power. Our house has the earlier generation of low water toilets that just don’t seem to work right. Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, I decided to use the new tank seal rather than the old one. After flooding the bathroom floor twice trying to get the new seal seated properly, I ended up going back to the old one. Time spent installing the new parts: 15 minutes. Time spent with the tank seal and cleaning up the bathroom floor, 45 minutes. Somewhere in the process, I also ended up straining my back. At least now the toilet has a very satisfying amount of water pouring through on a flush.

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I spent most of the morning working on the yard. I started off by planting some annuals in the planters on the porch. I ended up getting periwinkle (vinca). This wasn’t my first choice, as the periwinkle requires a high amount of watering, but the more drought tolerant annuals don’t have the traditional flower look I was trying to get for the patio. I followed up the planting by trimming the mesquite trees, the oleander bushes, and the bougainvilleas. Tomorrow is the loose trash pickup so I just left a big pile in front of the driveway. I then trimmed the front hedges and tried to rake up some of the droppings from the mesquite tree. I then raked up a full bag of leaves from the trees by the pool. I finished by mowing the lawn, washing off the pool filter cartridge and then hosing down the pool deck and the patio. After this I was quite exhausted. Even though the weather was seasonably cool, I probably drank a gallon of water while I was working and an equal amount for the rest of the day.

I spent most of the afternoon relaxing, but I did a little bit of cleaning inside the house. I also got some time in to play with Sean. Today, he stood up briefly from all fours. He starts off by straightening his legs, then looking in between his legs, then swinging his head upwards. At dinner time, he pulled a place mat off of the dining table. Unfortunately, it had my glass of ice water on it, so he wasn’t too happy when he gave himself a cold bath. I’m hoping he will learn from the this experience not to pull things off the table. Sunday evenings is when I do my laundry. I’m picky about how I want my clothes ironed, so this means doing it myself. As most evenings, I usually finish off by doing the day journal entry, then either playing on the computer or reading until I fall asleep.

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I went for a nice leisurely run today. I didn’t time the run, but I’m guessing that I was running around 10 minutes a mile pace. As I get in better shape, I will pick up the pace a bit. Running at a slow pace allows me to take in more of the desert scenery.

I spent most of the day cleaning the house. I vacuumed almost all of the carpeted areas in the house and then followed up with the steam cleaner. Does anybody know why they called it a steam cleaner? As far as I can tell, it just sprays cleaning solution, swirls it around with some rotating brushes, then vacuums it up. I could probably use the shop vac and get the same results. Tomorrow I take on the outside of the house and do some yardwork.