Barry’s Daily Web News

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My energy has returned. I still have a dry burning sensation in my throat, but the runny nose and post nasal drip seem to be gone. Just in time for the weekend. Sean and I played a little bit together this evening. Tonight was another one of those nights where Sean was fussy between dinner and his evening milk, then just fine afterwards. Actually, what seems to be the turn around point is when he fills his diaper, usually just before or after he finishes his milk. Tonight, Sean seemed to be particularly proud of his accomplishment. Hopefully, this will translate to easy potty training.

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Sean is feeling much better. I’m not. It’s just a cold, but it leaves me with no motivation to get anything done at the end of the day. I hope my energy returns soon.

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We tried something different at story time tonight. We brought Sean’s milk with us. It was Cortney’s idea, as the milk seems to calm him down. I noticed at the library that Sean doesn’t run as fast when he is holding his milk cup with both hands. Kidding aside, it seemed to work, and he actually sat still for the part when they played the movie cartoon.

I think I’m definitely coming down with Sean’s cold. I’m going to bed early tonight. Cortney goes to the dentist tomorrow morning, so I should be able to sleep late as well, as I need to stay home just in case Sean wakes up early.

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Blogger was really slow last night, so I didn’t have the opportunity to post a message. It seems to be slow tonight as well. In the past, the blogger site has come up quickly, and I have been able to enter and edit a post without any problem. I have had problems with posting to my actual web page, but not entering the post. But now, everything seems to be slow. Blogger seems to be pushing a $40 a year membership to have access to a faster server. I might go along with this if they would also allow me to keep a copy of the database with my postings. I am currently evaluating an alternative; Radio Userland. This weblogging program does everything I need plus a few extras; one of the neat features is that you can send an email with a coded subject, and the program will automatically create a post of the email. I have already downloaded the trial version. My next step will be to edit the templates so that the new blog will look like this one. If I can do that, I will pay the $39.95 price and then switch over.

At any rate, not much happened yesterday. Sean had some sinus congestion and a runny nose. I was feeling similar symptoms, so I decided to rest and take it easy for the day. At one point yesterday morning, Sean was sitting with me on the couch watching a football game. We both dozed off for a few minutes at the same time.

Not much happened today either. Sean threw a terrible temper tantrum after dinner. After he calmed down and had his evening milk, he was a perfect angel. It’s a good thing an almost two year old doesn’t hold a grudge, or he would still be mad at us for whatever he was upset with originally.

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Most of today was spent fixing things around the house. I started by replacing the ballast for the fluorescent light in the laundry room. When I was at home depot buying the ballast, I bought some glass cleaner and a window scrubber. So next, I cleaned the sliding glass doors in the family room. I couldn’t believe how dirty they were. The next job was fixing the air relief valve in the pool filter. The old one started leaking a while back, so I tried using the silicon pool grease to stop the leaking. This had the unfortunate side effect of causing the valve to get stuck. I was able to use the pliers once to get it out and then back in, but then a few weeks ago the tab on top broke off. It took me two trips to the pool store to get the right part to fix it. All of the parts that the store had were designed to to work with the tap used for the pressure gage. So, I had to go home and take out the pressure gage and bring it back to the store to make sure I got the right parts. After the second trip, and putting the valve and pressure gage back together, everything worked properly, and afterwards I washed out the filter cartridge. This job was a month or so overdue, but I didn’t want to open up the filter tank until I new I had the air valve working. At least it was a warm sunny day, so I didn’t mind the occasional spray of the cold water. Since I had the hose out, I went and washed off the patio. The dirt on the patio was more noticeable from the inside of the house after cleaning the sliding glass doors, so it was a good time to get that job done as well.

We all went to the park after Sean woke up from his afternoon nap. Sean and I played a little bit of basketball before spending time on the swing. This time, Sean was more interested in kicking and rolling the basketball rather than picking it up and throwing it.

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It was a beautiful day today. Bright and sunny. We all went to the park after I came home from work. Sean had a good time on the swing. This park had a kiddie swing, with a bucket to prevent the kids from falling out. He was mildly interesting in me pushing him normally, but then I tried pushing Sean until he was above my head with my arms straight above me, then letting him go. He squealed in delight when I did this. Occasionally, I would run under the swing, which he enjoyed as well. I thought he would get tired of this, but when I took him off the swing, he kept coming back to the swing, grabbing it to tell me he wanted back on.

I reinstalled linux again on the old PC. This time, I used expert mode to install things the way I wanted. I am still having problems with the usb mouse. I found a few tips on the web on how to fix this, but I didn’t have time to try them. I also tried connecting to my windows computer, but was unsuccessful. I will try to research this more, then try again.

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Sean learned how to jump today. Well, almost. He throws his hands up in the air, then lifts one foot, followed quickly by the other. He has the right idea, he just needs to put everything together. He has a good time trying, anyway. He thinks it is very funny when jump into the air.

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Sean’s vocabulary is improving. He still isn’t pronouncing words properly, but he likes pointing at things at letting us tell him what they are. He also likes it when we ask him where is the … and he will point to it. I hope to get him to learn an additional word or two a day.

Blogger seems to be having server problems. I wrote and posted last night’s entry, only to find out that I couldn’t get it to my web page. I wasn’t able to update the web until this morning. After I am more comfortable running linux, I hope to have my own server solution.

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The high today was 81 degrees, a new record. Of course, that didn’t do me any good. It was 50 degrees when I drove into work this morning, and it was 72 degrees out when I drove home. So, all the warm temperatures occured while I was inside at work. Sean got to wear shorts today. We took him to story time, which is the first time since they stopped having the sessions in early December. He didn’t pay to much attention to the book readings, but he enjoyed the songs and the movie.

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We have a new contract worker in today that I will be training to help me out at work. I dropped him off to get his ID badge, and I had a message waiting at my desk when I got back. To get his badge, he needed an export compliance plan since he was only a Canadian citizen, not US. I was also told he shouldn’t even be in the building. Oh well. I got him straightened out with a temporary badge, and we will worry about the permanent badge tomorrow. I expected the company to bring him in with out a computer or even an office chair, but the lack of paperwork to even allow him to work surprised me.

I’m a little more comfortable running linux now. I am using the KDE desktop manager, which seems a little too slow on my pentium 200 machine, but is supposed to be the most similar to windows. I installed my first software package. which is about the same as installing a program on windows. My next tasks will be to:

1. figure out why the usb mouse doesn’t work after using my KVM switch
2. hook up networking between windows and linux
3. figure out how to run the printer from linux
4. start exploring linux applications.

These items should keep me occupied for a while.

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Sean learned a new trick this morning. I normally let him play with my vitamin pack at breakfast. He likes the crinkly sound of the plastic. This morning, his breakfast wasn’t ready yet, and he was standing next to my when I got the vitamin pack out of the pantry, so I let him play with it. He grabbed it, and ran over to the dining table and put it down where I normally sit. I thought that was really cute.

It was a beautiful day today, sunny and warm with a light breeze. Sean and I had a good time hiking in the afternoon. I think his favorite part of the trail was the section that looks down on the road nearby. He likes watching the cars go by.

During dinner tonight, Sean worked on his vocabulary. He kept pointing to the items on his dinner plate, waiting for us to tell him what they are. He did this over and over again. I think he now knows the difference between corn and chicken.

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I was tired yesterday. After Sean went to bed, I went to bed myself, and didn’t get around to writing a journal entry.

Today, we went to the new Chandler mall. It was close to an hour drive from our house, but we wanted to do something different. They had a nice children’s play area, themed after a giant board game. Sean had fun there. We ate at the cheesecake factory there at the mall. The waiter served Sean a plate with some orange slices and bananas. I don’t think we have ever served Sean oranges, and he I tried to eat the peel part of the orange, which he didn’t like. At least he realized his finger tasted good after touching the oranges. After we drove home and a long nap for Sean, we all went to the park. I brought my basketball, and Sean had fun running around the court chasing after the ball.

I installed linux on the computer that use to be Cortney’s. The install was easy enough, and all of my hardware was recognized. But, I still am not sure what to do with it. I was able to use a web browser, and that was about it. I don’t even know how to create a file. do I look forward to browsing the information on line and on the help pages (called man pages in Unix terminology).

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I was disappointed that Sean did not greet me at the door when I arrived home from work. He was watching one of his spot videos. He didn’t even notice my until I placed myself between Sean and the TV, then he just moved enough to see the TV again. He must really like his spot videos. The rest of Sean’s evening didn’t go as well. He got both his hair and his nails cut, and he cried through both.

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Back to the daily grind. No holidays until Easter Friday this year. Cortney had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I had some time to spend with Sean. We went for a walk over to the grocery store to pick up a few items. We also played a little bit in the back yard. I read Sean several books, each one over and over again. I like spending time with Sean.

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It’s a new year, and already I have too many things to do and too little time to accomplish them. Cortney’s parents flew home today. I’m sure Sean will miss them. He was getting spoiled from all of the attention he was receiving. I do have to say that is development has increased in the last week. He can now walk down the steps on his own, and he can accomplish several other new tasks. On the way home from the airport, we stopped by the furniture store and finally bought a dining room table. We had been looking for a table for about a year and a half now. We had previously agreed on a table, but it was a little expensive. We waited for a lower price, and we decided to go for it today. The set should arrive in a couple of months.

It was a nice day today, so we took Sean to the park. On the way home from the park, we went on a longer walk than usual to give Sean a little extra exercise. Sean still had plenty of energy after dinner, so we spent some time playing with him with his new Christmas toys. He likes to pile up the blocks and then knock them down again.

I finished installing all of the software on Cortney’s computer. Tonight, I moved the computer over to her desk. Cortney already noticed the speed of the faster computer. She is getting an upgrade from a 200MHz Pentium I to an 800MHz Pentium III. There a couple of minor things to be fixed, but otherwise I should be able to move to the third computer, the one she had been using. I will make this computer a Linux box. I have already downloaded a copy of Mandrake Linux. It will probably be another week or so before I get around to the Linux install. Everything has been going smoothly with my computer, and I have started using it for my everyday tasks.