Barry’s Daily Web News

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No storm today, but we had enough from yesterday’s storm. I had to go into the swimming pool to gather up all of the leaves that had fallen onto the bottom. Suprisingly, Cortney took Sean to the park while I was in the pool. What is surprising is that the temperature was well over 100 degrees when they left. They both came back with red faces from the heat.

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We had a big monsoon storm this afternoon. High winds (gusts > 50mpn), dust storms, thunder and lightning, and as the weatherman put it: just enough rain to move around the dust on your windshield. While we were eating dinner, we heard a loud clap of thunder, and it startled everyone, especially Sean. He started to pout with his lower lip as if he were going to cry, but we were able to cheer him up. It was cute.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Sean had his first professional hair cut. It looks good, but Cortney wanted him to have some curls, so it is a little long in the back. At least now, you can only tell that he has “bed” head while looking at him from the back.

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I’m considering building my next computer, possibly over the christmas holidays. If I do this, I would use the new computer as my main machine, Cortney would get my PIII 800 machine, and my old P1 200 would be a linux box. When I get to this point, I’ll probably get a hardware firewall/router device. This would allow any computer to access the internet independent of the status of the other machines. Right now, Cortney’s internet access is dependent on my computer being up and running. I will then switch over to ethernet network connections, at least for the computers in the loft. I could still use my phoneline network cards for the next computer, either using a hardware bridge, or use one of the current computers for a software bridge. Linux does not currently support the phone line PNA2.0 standard, which is what I have, so the phone line networking would only be for windows machines.

Sean doesn’t seem to be showing much of the effects of the ear infections. His congestion has cleared up, and he seems to be feeling better.

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Today was a day of rest and relaxation. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep well last night. Thanks to Cortney for watching Sean; I was able to sleep most of the afternoon. Poor Cortney, she has to put up with a sick baby and a sick husband.

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I didn’t get to post last night. I thought my internet connection was down, but it turned out to be a problem with my computer. When I rebooted my computer this morning, everything worked fine. I should have had more of a clue that the problem was local. When I opened my browser, the dns lookup immediately failed. If the problem was with my internet connection, it should have take 30 seconds to timeout. At any rate, everything is working now.

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We bought new luggage yesterday. I wanted to replace my 15 year old luggage with the newer rolling luggage. The new luggage uses in-line skate wheels to make it easy to roll the luggage. We ended up getting 3 pieces. A big 30 inch upright, a smaller 22 inch carry-on upright, and a tote bag that slides over the upright handle. My thinking was that I could take the car seat and bungee cord it to one of the uprights, and I then I could pull the 2 upright bags with the car seat and tote bag attached. That would leave Cortney with the stroller and Sean, which we both could manage easily. Now, we just have to wait for our trip this thanksgiving to use the new luggage! Of course, there is a small chance I can use the luggage on a trip to Italy before then.

With all of the monsoon storms last week, the pool was full of leaves. This happens pretty much any time we have strong winds. What was different this time is that most of the leaves were on the bottom of the pool. This can be a disaster, since a large leaf can clog the roving vacuum cleaner. Also, if the vacuum cleaner picks up too many leaves, the filter basket next the pump clogs up, which can damage the pump motor. It took me more than an hour to get the pool cleaned up.

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Ah!! The weekend is here! It will be nice to rest up and beat this cold virus once and for all.

One of Cortney’s good friends here is moving to Seattle in the next month. She and her husband (and twin daughters) treated us to dinner tonight. The food was good, and we all had a good time.

Interesting speech by the President last night. He may have made a good compromise, but I didn’t agree with everything he said. For one thing, he grossly exaggerated the situation on human cloning. No one is going to grow an embryo all the way to adult stage just to harvest organs. I also thought his argument on moral grounds was weak. If the current lines of stem cells were generated unethically, than I don’t see how he can justify using the results of that research. I personally don’t have a problem with it. I think we crossed that ethical line when we allowed in-vitro fertilization. One other interesting impact of the president’s decision is how the private groups that generated the stem cell lines will be compensated for their efforts. It may be cheaper in the long run for the government researchers to generate their own stem cell lines rather than pay private corporations or give away all of the government resarch rights in return for the use of the stem cells.

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Cortney took Sean to the doctor today. He has been congested for a week, and had a screaming fit yesterday. It turns out he has an infection in both ears. I’m not happy about this, as I thought we put the tubes in his ears to prevent this. The good news is that the ear infections are not bothering Sean that much. For the last two nights, Sean has been in a better mood and has had much more energy than I have had. The doctor also pointed out that Sean’s upper eye teeth are coming in.

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Even more unusual weather: When I drove home from work this afternoon, normally the hottest time of the day, the temperature was only 93 degrees. It was cloudy all day long. We received just enough rain to make my car dirty, not even enough to wet the ground.

When I get the chance, I plan to have a commentary on the current human cloning debate. I’m still feeling the effects of this cold virus, and I’m still short on my sleep; otherwise, I would be spending more time here on my journal.

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More unusual weather today. The temperature reached 109 degrees before a monsoon storm arrived around 2:00 pm. We had several hours of high winds and lots of dust, but no rain. I had to go out again and clean out all of the leaves from the pool. I didn’t see any broken branches on our trees, so that is a relief.

Another tough day today. I think my cold/virus symptoms are peaking; or at least I hope so. I came home from work early to try to rest before my Italian class, but I couldn’t sleep. I think if I can get a good night’s sleep tonight, I should be able to make it through all this.

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It was a hot day today. The high was 113, one degree short of tying the record. While it has been hotter earlier in the year, it was more humid today, making it much more uncomfortable.

I was pretty much out of it today. I’m coming down with a sore throat and have some congestion. Cortney had the same symptoms. The only good news is that she is feeling better, so hopefully I’ll be back to normal in a day or two. Even though I didn’t have much energy, I still had fun playing with Sean. I was sacked on the couch, and he kept bring his toys to me to play with. For the softer toys, I would throw them into the living room, and he would go get them and brim them back. It’s real cute.

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I ended up doing more yard work than I wanted to today. I wanted to trim back the bougainvilleas, since they have been growing wildly all summer. While I was at it I noticed that the tree by the playset had a broken branch, probably from the winds from yesterday’s storm. The branch that had broken was about 2 inches in diameter, so It took a little to clean up. I think the tree is a palo verde, but I’m not sure. I also trimmed back the mexican bird-of-paridise that was starting to overtake my rose plants.

I saw my first black widow spider. I suspected that the irregular spider webs on the back porch were cause by black widow spiders, buy I had not seen any. The one I found today was living inside the well for the pool skimmer basket. It’s not living there any more.

Sean still has some congestion, but whatever he has is not slowing him down any. I think Cortney and I are both fighting off what is likely to be a cold virus, and both of us feel worn down.

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We were going to have friends over this afternoon to have a pool party, but we cancelled it because Sean had a runny nose, and we didn’t want their daughter to get sick. It was just as well, since we had a monsoon storm this afternoon. We had some dark clouds and heavy winds, but not a drop of rain. I went out afterwards to clean up all of the leaves in the pool, and I took a wrong step and fell into the water. The corner of the pool near the pool filter has a very sharp curve, and I took too much of a shortcut across the corner. I was wearing an old pair of shorts, so it was no big deal.

Even though Sean may be coming down with a cold, he had a good day. He ate a big breakfast and lunch, and was very playful all day long.

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We tried a new restaurant tonight that served greek-italian food. It was good, and we are likely to go back again. As I was finishing up my meal, Sean took a tour around the restaurant. The other patrons didn’t seem to mind, and Sean had a good time.

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Italian class again tonight. The class is enjoyable, but it is certainly taking up a lot of my free time. I have a brief break of an hour or so when I get home from work to eat dinner and play with Sean before I go back out to class. When I get home from class, I have about 20 minutes or so before it’s time to go to bed.

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I’m definitely feeling tired after 3 long days at work and an evening class last night. I plan to get some extra sleep tonight. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Sean tonight, as Cortney went to work out at the gym. We had fun playing follow-the-leader, fetch, and other activities.