Barry’s Daily Web News

Off to Florida

Today starts our summer vacation. It will be only a four day trip for me, but Cortney, Sean, and Ethan will be staying in Florida for a month. Our plane leaves in the early afternoon, giving us most of the morning to pack. It’s going to be quite a challenge to get all the gear the kids need for a month onto the plane. At least the kids are old enough that they have their own bags that the can carry (wheel) through the airport. Once we get the luggage checked in, we should be fine.

A Night of Relaxation

Sean, Ethan, and I relaxed this evening in the pool. Cortney relaxed in her own way, with a break from the kids. Tomorrow will be a big travel day, so we didn’t want to do too much this evening.

Sean and Ethan go the Dentist

I took Sean and Ethan to the dentist this morning. Both Sean and Ethan were able to get their bite-wing x-rays (side teeth). This is Sean’s fourth try or so, so I’m glad he was able to do it, so that he wasn’t beat out by his younger brother. Both Sean and Ethan were on their best behavior, and they had no problem getting their teeth cleaned. Sean still has his cross-bite, and Ethan still has his over-bite, but otherwise, their teeth are in good shape.

Sean has his six-year molars coming in, but he has no sign of losing his front teeth.

A Clear Pool

After adding six gallons of liquid chlorine to the pool last night, our pool is finally clear today. Too bad Cortney and the kids could not use the pool with those high chlorine levels…

At least Sean had his gym class this evening, so neither one of us had time to use the pool. Sean had another good gym class, Before the class, I told Sean I wanted him to work harder on his push ups in class, so he was rewarded with some birthday cake when we came home.

44th Birthday

Cortney made dinner for everyone, then we had the birthday cake out by the pool. Sean and I went swimming afterwards, but Ethan stayed out of the pool. It was breezy this evening, so I guess it was too cool for Ethan to go in. It was a nice simple celebration, and I liked it.

A Green Pool Party

Sean and Ethan both slept in this morning, which was good for Cortney. Ethan even fell asleep later on in the morning. I thought they were good and tired yesterday evening, but I was worried because occasionally they will wake up early after a long day, which makes for cranky behavior.

We had some friends over for a pool party of our own this evening. It’s too bad the pool hasn’t recovered from the recent bout of algae, as the pool water still looks green. Despite the unattractiveness of the pool color, the kids did not mind, and they had fun playing in the pool.

A Birthday Pool Party

Most of the day was taken up by a birthday pool party, for one of Sean’s fellow gym class students. In addition the swimming pool, they had a bouncy and a blow up water slide, so Sean and Ethan had loads of fun. Cortney and I did not know anyone else at the party, but we did meet some nice people, particularly the birthday boy’s parents. We all wanted to stay longer at the party, but eventually we had to leave to put Sean and Ethan to bed.

Computer Mystery Solved

It turns out nothing is wrong with the motherboard on my failed computer. The primary hard drive is completely dead. Dead as in not reporting to the BIOS during boot, so the boot sequence hangs right away. I ended up losing some data on the drive, but nothing I can’t replace or live without.

The bad news is this means I have to reinstall all the software on the computer using the working hard drive. The good news is that I still have a quality system. I remember when I built it that I wanted a reliable system, so I used quality parts, expecting the computer to last a good while. A failed hard drive is common enough, particularly after four years of heavy use, so I consider that to be an acceptable failure.

Computer Decisions

I still haven’t decided what to do with the failed computer. I could buy a replacement motherboard on ebay for $40 and get it back up and running. If I do this, I might just give this computer to Cortney, since it is faster than the one she is running. Or, I could just forget the computer, pick a few of the parts to reuse, then scrap the rest.

Ultimately, I want a media center computer installed down by the television in the family room. If I did this, I would use all new parts, so that is not an affordable solution.

So for now, I’m just backing up the files off the old computer. Cortney and I can’t go too long without our music files.

In other news, we skipped the fast food this evening and went for a regular dinner out. Sean was invited to a pool birthday party tomorrow, so we went out this evening rather than tomorrow evening. Cortney might not think so, but I noticed the kids’ restaurant behavior improving. Ethan really surprised me when he tried a number of different vegetables. He even ate garbanza beans.

In yet more news, I have started blogging at work. Unfortunately, the work blog is not accessible outside the company network. The blog is about process and productivity, so I should have plenty to write about since that’s what my current job is.

Fun Reading

Here are two of the more interesting things going on the internet right now:

• The monkey chow diet
• The stolen Sidekick phone

A Bad Day

I had a good day at work today, but things weren’t so good when I got home.

The storm we had last night threw plenty of leaves and dirt into the pool. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except the vacuum cleaner hose came loose. And to top off all the muck in the pool, I now have a fair amount of algae to deal with. I took Sean and Ethan into the pool just long enough to clean most of the muck out, then came in to shower everyone off. Sean wasn’t too happy he couldn’t swim longer.

The second problem is that my media server computer has died. It has some odd symptoms. When I turn on the computer, the hard light comes on, one of the two optical drive lights comes on, and the power light stays off. The computer doesn’t boot to the post codes, so I can’t tell what is wrong with it.

I thought the computer problem might be the power supply, so I cleaned all the dust out of the insides, reseated all the connectors, and finally changed the power supply. But, no deal. The same symptoms as before. I am now guessing that the motherboard is dead.

I built that computer five years ago, and it still served well as a media server after I built my latest computer. The problem is that the computer has all of my music files. If I had more time, I would transfer the hard drives to my computer or Cortney’s computer, but that isn’t going to happen tonight.

A Stormy Night

On the way to Sean’s gym class, we had a dust storm and even some virga, but I thought that would be the end of it. After Sean’s class was over, it just started to rain, and it rained all the way home. Fortunately the rain wasn’t too heavy, as my windshield wipers have rotted away from the the hot sun, and I have not replace them this year. Most of the trip home was on the highway, and the rain blew off the windshield at highway speed.

Sean Meets the Older Gymnasts

Sean had a chance just before his class to meet the older boy gymnasts. Sean liked it because he was able to get punch and cookies. I gather they are trying to recruit additional boys for their traveling team. While Sean is doing fairly well at gymnastics, I still think it will be a year or two before he is good enough to compete.

We had some dust storms this evening. The winds caused a big tree branch to fall off the mesquite tree and into the neighbor’s yard. I cut the branch free and pulled it back into my yard, but I will just leave it for later to cut it up.

Swimming in the Pool

I have talked a lot about the fun we heave been having in the pool, but a picture shows it best:

A Cooler Day

It was cooler today, with a high of only 108 degrees. Since we had no planned activities for Sean and Ethan, we had another fun time in the pool. Ethan is doing really well with his swimming, and is much more comfortable around the water. He is still not at the point where he can swim on his own, so this means we still keep a close eye on him when he is in the pool.

I think we all got a good workout in the pool, including myself, so I should have no problem sleeping this evening.