Car Update.

I started working on the TravelAll this weekend. I tightened up the parking brake cable, so now the car won't roll backwards if I park it on a hill.

I also order a new Speedometer cable; it should come in tomorrow. That should be fun to replace.

Overheard in the BackSeat

Once or twice a week, I drive the morning carpool to Miranda's middle school. In the morning, we have two other kids, Mae, a lively seventh grader, and Jimmy, a quiet eighth grader. They are both great kids.
One of the rules at the school is that the older kids (7th and 8th graders) have to learn all the names of the new kids in the school by the end of October.
Yesterday as I was driving, Mae was quizzing Miranda on her classmates.

Mae: Which one is Simon?
Miranda: Which Simon?
Mae: There's more than one Simon? Omigod.
Miranda: There's Simon F. and Simon P.R.
Mae: Which one is kinda tall with red hair?
Miranda: Simon F.
Mae: The other Simon. Is he tall or short?
Miranda: Uh, kinda medium.
Mae: Does he have red hair? Or blond? Or brown?
Miranda: Uh, well, it's not black. It's not really red.
Mae: Is it straight or curly? Short?
Miranda: Uhm...
Mae: Is there three Simons? Or only two?
...

That entire exchange took about three seconds. This continued for about two minutes while I continued to drive.

Then I asked Jimmy, who was riding up front with me:

Me: Jimmy, do *you* know all the sixth graders' names?
Jimmy: No. But I *can* tell the difference between the Simons.
...
For some reason, I found this response very endearing.

Fall Rains are Here

I was out last night at the local pub and noticed that the leaves were not just changing colors, they were coming off the trees. Here's a shot of some of them in the wet street.

August has a Sleepover

Okay, so it's not earthshattering news, but he and his buddy Evan had a good time, swimming at the pool and playing video games this morning. We had August's parent-teacher conference and went over his goals for the 2005-2005 school year. He wants to continue reading at the pace of a page a minute. He wants to make at least one new friend in his class (he already knows just about everybody). He also wants to learn cursive handwriting and to learn how to do the square roots of numbers like 15 (square roots of 16 and 9 are boring).
August's teacher says he is doing well and pointed out that to do square roots of 15, he will need to learn decimals. She suggested the easiest way to do decimals is with money! And August's eyes lit up. He understands money...

Miranda's Braces

Miranda got her braces on yesterday. She had been counting down the days until they went on, and now I believe she has started counting down the days until they come off. I took a peek at the payment book and the payments run through summer of 2007. Her in this picture, she is trying to eat some soup and soft bread. She said that she feels like an old person with teeth about to fall out. Poor kid.

Why I hate MicroSoft

Okay, those people who know I've worked for companies like (Sybase, JPI, Vantive , Cloudscape, Sun, Informix, IBM) might think I have a certain bias against a certain company in Redmond. I would argue, milord, that it's just not true. Yes I believe that MS Word was actually useful in version 5.0, but now (in 2000 iterations later?) in Word 2005, it's just too hard to type sh*t in -- hi Oren -- and have it come up as I wanted it without the autocorrect and re-punctuation and etc., etc., etc......gawd, I've lost me thread.

Anyhow, today, I am reseraching a minor "issue" (you may call it a 'bug' I prefer the term 'feature request in waiting') in software I created) for my employer, and I encountered the following error: Unable to update Public/Busy data.

Well, alrighty then. I'm sure the almight MS OS and Software Stack knows best, so I'll just leave that Busy data alone and let it do its public thing all by itself....

Fall Arrives (again)

After some cool weather, some warm weather, some rain (finally), we are starting to get some fall colors here in Olympia.
The maples are all turning, and at every vista you get a lovely backdrop of oranges and yellows against the stately backdrop of dark evergreens. I'll see about getting a picture of some of the remarkable trees in front of the Capitol. Until then, enjoy this tree along the walk to Lincoln Elementary.

And Maybe Some Writers, too?

Miranda has joined the school newspaper, the Nova Random. She is currently working on a profile of one of her gymnastics coaches, Coach Tiffany. After a lengthy Q & A session (twenty minutes), and a photo session, Miranda's draft is due today.


In this picture, Miranda is working on research for her report on the Mount St. Helens eruption, which occurred twenty-five years ago. The mountain has been rebuilding the lava dome in the caldera over the last couple of years and has been emitting steam and a very small amount of ash.

Family of Readers

I've always felt that if my kids grew up liking to read, it would be a small measure of my success as a parent. I must say, now that August is in third grade, he is having quite the adventure in reading. He is working his way through Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes and will read himself to sleep with a compendium of Peanuts strips.


Miranda continues to read, but is working hard at all her other subjects at school, now, too, including Geography, Math, Science, Spanish, Strings (voilin), and Art. Over the summer she read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as The Golden Compass. The last book I heard her exclaiming about was The Westing Game ("best book since ShadowHorse!")

Boojie's New Car

Last weekend, when Roxane and I were down in Portland, I bought a car. Not just any car mind you, but a 1962 International Travelall, the granddaddy of the Chevrolet Suburban. Here it is parked in the driveway. The car runs well; made it up from Portland to Olympia without complaint, but it needs a little work.
I am excited about working on it and am hoping to include the kids in the process of fixing it it.
The interior has that wonderful old car smell. Note the curved windscreen glass.