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March 25, 2006
Day Trip to Austin
Heading down to Cedar Park for a one day-trip on Wednesday. I may be able to hook up for dinner if we can do it in North Austin, Jollyville, or Cedar Park. I want to hit the road for McKinney by 8 pm if possible.
Posted by Steven at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
Ghengis Grill
On the way home (on the Bennett bus) I spied that Fast Eddie's hamburger joint was closed, and that a new tenant was moving in. Mind you, Fast Eddie's had only been there for eight or nine months ... turn around in this area is fierce. Anyway ... the new tenant is probably my third most favorite restaurant chain: Ghengis Grill.
Yes, I'll finally have Mongolian Barbeque in my home town. Will the miracles never cease?
Posted by Steven at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
Day Three ... Freedom!
Overnight it froze. We woke very, very cold this morning. The only thing that drove the dads forward was the knowledge that today we'd be home (eventually). I opted out to not shower, nor require Leo to do so. Breakfast was really lame (hash browns and a biscuit with gravy).
We had only one event in the morning ... the dreaded "water" event. Kids would don waders and go into the lake to run a dredge net across the swimming area. I dreaded Leo falling into the water, and told him he didn't have to do it. It turns out that two girls managed to slip and get soaked up to their knees. Leo did participate in the science aspect of the event; using the microscope and using litmus paper to measure the Ph of the lake water (fortunately, it was approximately 7). Some of the boys using the waders and net actually caught minnows. We returned all of them to the lake.
After that event, the kids and the parents were taken to different areas to reflect on the event. Parents were encouraged to fill out a review of the camp. Some of the dads told me they were far from polite about their criticism. I gave most events an "average" rating, and only really dinged the facilities that were clearly falling apart. Holding this even in the Spring should have been a no-brainer, but we caught a winter squall that made the three days just miserable.
Lunch was a simple piece of Italian bread with cheese which the staff called a "pizza".
The buses were loaded and we hit the road at 12:25pm. We took five hours to drive home, hitting a lot of traffic once we got north of downtown Dallas. The kids on my bus got rowdier and rowdier, and the teacher on board completely failed to enforce any discipline. In the end, I just had to endure the screaming and shouting as we crawled up Central Expressway. Getting off the bus was a huge relief. Anne pulled up minutes after getting our stuff out of the bus, and whisked us home.
That first shower in three days was really, really nice.
Posted by Steven at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2006
Day Two Outdoors ...
The night was COLD. My $30 Target sleeping bag was surprisingly warm, but the cabin dropped to nearly freezing temperature over night. Also, we had rain. As bad as it was for my cabin, the cabin over the water was worse -- no thermal sink floor (open below) with the sound of water all night long, it was horrible.
Breakfast was hearty -- hash browns and eggs. I ate two helpings. The hat rule was gone thanks to the cold -- amen.
The first event of the morning for Leo's team (Team Seven) was telephone pole ope crossing. This was our first exposure to the some-what slimy wheeling-dealing with the kids. They were told to declare a "goal" (i.e. climb the pole and cross), and were all but forced to achieve that goal. If they were smart and set a low goal, they were encouraged (tricked, really) into raising that goal. This would have been fine if the weather were accommodating, but in addition to the fear of heights this event illicit, the cold and wind made the physical process painful if you didn't have gloves, which most kids didn't. Leo only climbed the ladder and then came down.
The second event was the huge wall climb. I figured Leo wouldn't do this one at all, but he surprised and delighted me by tackling it twice. He hated the climb, but he really enjoyed the rappelling down. He went two-thirds the way up both times, and was well assisted by his team members and the camp counsellor "Andy".
By the end of these two events, all of Team Seven's hands were chaffed and very, very cold. Runny noses abounded. Lunch was an escape from the cold and the wind, and well enjoyed.
Dinner ...
The Astronomy event was interesting. They didn't do a spectacular job from an amateur astronomer's perspective in terms of preparing the kids for night vision (we all had white light flashlights) and the cold and wind made it mildly miserable, but the simple constellation observations, coupled with the Greek mythology, was not too bad. I asked the counsellor to identify the constellation Leo and he did (to Leo's delight). We saw a couple of satellites and some shooting stars, and some of these kids saw the Milky Way for the first time. I brought my binoculars and took a look at the Messier objects I could locate.
Afterwards we went back to the "Filling Station" for hot chocolate. Unfortunately, Leo dumped his hot chocolate on his blanket and as a result, had a meltdown. The staff couldn't help either, despite offering (at the start of camp) to launder any blankets that becamed soiled. Feh on that.
When we got back to our cabins, pandemonium broke out. Boys from some of the rowdy cabins started running around and banging on the flimsy window covers. This enraged the kids in my cabin, who wanted to go out and get into the fray. My chaperons kept our kids inside, and finally it died down. Getting everyone to bed was a long, slow process thanks to this. I was pretty pissed with the parents who let (and in one case, encouraged) their kids run wild.
Posted by Steven at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2006
Day One Outdoor
After only five hours of sleep, I and Anne were up around 4am. I crawled into the shower (completely unaware it was to be my last for a few days) and was ready to hit the trail at 4:45am. Anne had Leo up and ready by that time, too. So, we "loaded up the Jetta Wagon, and headed to Bennett Elementary!"
There was mild pandemonium at Bennett when we arrived. Many parents were already there, and already loading the bus. Being late really cost us little, and even ensured that our luggage was not crushed by the last bits being thrown "under the bus" (the cargo area).
Leo and his friends Grant and Chris went straight to the back of the bus and immediately fired up their Nintendo DS game units. Each of these units supports ad hoc networking. Before I knew it, a whole network game sprung up around me! They played Mario Crash Cart and other games, and then degenerated into chatting with each other, sending (to a 5th grader) rude messages to each other, and giggling out of control.
We stopped in north Waco and had breakfast around 8am. The parent chaperons went to the McDonalds and quickly scarfed down the breakfast meals we bought. We were back on the road around 8:45am. Two and one-half hours later we rolled into Camp Champions, home of The Outdoor School.
We were directed to unpack our stuff from the buses and put it under a large metal canopy that is called Olympus. We later discovered that the whole camp is themed after the Greek Gods (ironic, since it is a Christian summer camp). We then had a welcome lecture by the school director, and afterward fed the kids and adults their bag lunch. The kids were told about the policy of "Universal Respect" and were given their first necklass bead (for Respect). If they misbehaved, it could (and in many cases, was) be taken away from them.
Then we were directed to our cabins, where we picked bunks ("I call dibs on top!"). These cabins were not what you would call luxurious. I'd wager that many Stonebridge lawn mowers are stowed in nicer digs, actually. This is a summer camp so the cabins were designed around the idea of letting as much air flow through them as possible. When it was as cold as it was, this was a terrible feature.
Another "feature" of the cabins was a single, exposed light bulb. I anticipated this and brought a light socket wall plug and an extension cord. The light socket in our cabin was twelve feet off the ground, and nothing in the cabin could be moved under it, (the beds were bolted to the wall), so I took this to another cabin (#9) where I became an instant hero by bringing electricity to the dads (it turns out that many brought their cellphone charger). My Treo could not connect to the Internet, but still functioned as a cell phone.
The afternoon was spent doing our first two learning sessions. We had two in the morning, and two in the afternoon. In the evening, we had a big event each night. Because the weather was so bad, we switched Astronomy and Games. This turned out to be a good thing as the second night was clear enough to see the Milky Way.
Dinner was our introduction to more of the quirky rules of The Outdoor School. Parents and Teachers are encouraged to eat before the children, and everyone is required to remove their head wear (e.g. hats) as a "sign of respect in this nation". I thought that was a hold-over from the Christian camp, but I think it was an arbitrary rule of the Outdoor School director. On subsequent meals, they dropped the hat rule thanks to the cold.
The other quirky thing about meals is that each team had to dump their trash in separate buckets that were weighed. The teams with the least waste "won" a contest each night. Unfortunately, cheating was rampant and I think the buckets nearest the door got most of the trash. An unfortunate side-effect of this rule was it encouraged kids to over eat. The kids had to drink a glass of water before they could have punch. This was a well intentioned rule that forced kids to drink the soft, mineral rich water of the Hill Country, which tastes awful, frankly.
The first day was overcast all day, and quite cold. Worse yet, the wind was blowing at around ten to twelve miles-per-hour all the time. The boy's cabins were un-heated, and while there was a single electric heater in the bathroom, it was laughably inadequate against the cold for showering. Worse yet, only the first ten people taking showers got anything resembling a hot shower. The rest got warm or cold showers. I tried to take a shower the first morning, but ended up not bathing at all during the whole even. I never even tried to put Leo into the shower.
Posted by Steven at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2006
The Outdoor School
Tomorrow morning at 4:45 am, I and Leo embark on a three day camping trip to The Outdoor School in Marbles Falls, TX (about an hour west of Austin). I'll be about thirty minutes from the Fiala's and my company's offices in Cedar Park, TX, but about 100 years back in time.
That's right. No cellphones. No laptops. No Internet. Like a modern-day Crusoe, it's primitive as can be.
No really. No electricity (well, we'll see -- I brought some hacks to get my Juice™ -- if it works, I'll be very popular). No Barqs root beer. No IP packets. No middle-of-the-night text messages from my VoIP server ... no ... uh, that's starting to sound kinda cool.
This trip is with Leo's 5th grade class from Bennett Elementary. The whole class is going ... and I'll be wrangling a cabin of twelve 10 yr. old boys (including Leo). Oh boy. I'm not sure I can summon The Voice™ like Anne can. We'll see who's in charge by the second night.
I'm taking a bunch of gear and supplies. I'll be the battery and Sweet N' Low man. I'm sure I can fence some of this stuff! Too bad the adults are being encouraged to not bring money.
On a serious note, I'll have my work cell phone with me, and I expect it will function most of tomorrow morning and also on the drive back on Friday afternoon. Once at Marble Falls, I'm told to not expect much in the way of coverage. If it does connection I'll try to stay on AIM through the Treo. I won't be able to blog until I get home so until late Friday night, don't expect to hear from me.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 PM | Comments (3)
March 18, 2006
One of the Reasons to Live in Austin
Never been ... would love to spend a week immersed in it.
Posted by Steven at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
Dual Booting, At Last
In case you hadn't heard, Apple ships computers using Intel Pentium chips. So the next question on everyone's minds was ... when will I be able to run the Mac OS X and Windows on these machines? The answer is ... today.
I can almost feel the MacBook in my hands now ...
Posted by Steven at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)
Advantage, PC!
Thanks to Tom White for sharing this bon mot.
Posted by Steven at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2006
Musings on Dolby
Thanks to Randell Jessup!
Posted by Steven at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2006
The Great Outdoors
Another restuarant rumor (this time, the source is the vendor). The Great Outdoors is coming to McKinney, in the same shopping area that Snuffer's recently opened in. Expected opening date is this summer!
Woot! My two favorite HS restaurant chains are finally coming to McKinney. It's almost too much to hope for.
Posted by Steven at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
Iceland, Anyone?
Some of my co-workers are going to Iceland this summer (maybe even I?) to visit the (what else?) Iceland office of Maskina. The New York Times just printed a Let's Go! style review of the country and what to do there. It's a good read, and I wonder how accurate it is. I'll check the Freyr and the boys of Iceland I work with.
Posted by Steven at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2006
Vu's First Belt Awards
Vu's Martial Arts celebrated a special day today ... their first belt awards. Alanna was asked to perform an exhibition of martial arts called Exodus.
She did several 'tornado kicks' which my Nikon, alas, didn't capture at a high shutter speed. She was (until today) Vu's only black belt student (a younger boy was awarded black belt).
Later, Leo had his green belt test and awards. As a treat (although he may not have perceived it that way), his sister Alanna awarded him his belt.
They both did very well today and mother and father are both proud of them!
Posted by Steven at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)
March 08, 2006
Forte and Minuet Getting Along Better
Not much to say here ... let the pictures do the talking.
In truth, Minuet is a fireball and rarely lets Forte do this. She'd rather chase him around the house and pounce on him. He's gone from being a rather floppy, affectionate cat to a more paranoid one. He's constantly on the lookout for the stripped terror.
Posted by Steven at 01:07 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2006
Judge Staton's First Election
Yes, you read that right. For the whole day, I was Judge Staton. Election Judge, that is.
I volunteered to do this months ago, with no flipping clue as to how much work it was going to be. I went to both an election law class and a Diebold™ training session that I could have taught myself. Today was the acid test, however. We had to be at Ruth Dowell MS at 6am to being the long day's vote.
Judge Staton holding up his lame Election Judge sticker (right).
All day long the MISD McKinney policeman kept wandering in and out of the polling place. Technically, he's not invited, and some election judges order any police to leave the polling area (it can be construed as voter intimidation). At precinct 12, 131 and 149, this really isn't an issue, so I let it slide.
One thing that I changed mid-day was the location of our "Texas Democrats Vote Here" sign. We had it inside, on the wall. After a while, Don mentioned that it might not be visible to Democratic voters. I quickly moved it to the door, beside the smaller GOP sign. The net result was a more clear indication that both parties were voting here.
The more clearly marked Democratic Primary sign on the door (right).
The electioneering was pretty aggressive all day, at least for the GOP. Two young women were walking around with a black labrador puppy covered in buttons (they came into the polling place and we shoo'd them off). A fairly large crowd spent the entire twelve-hour day outside in the wind. That was just crazy.
The highlight (which I completely failed to get on camera) was when Congressman Sam Johnson (R-Evil) came around to the polling place. He had been earlier admonished (I later found out) for entering a polling place and gratuitiously shaking the hands of the election volunteers, so he stayed outside the yellow marker signs. The funning thing is this put him right alongside the backside of my car, which had a bumper sticker of his opponent, Dan Dodd (D-Good Oleboy) on it! It must have been rather annoying to be out there and seeing that man's name on the nearest car! I really enjoyed retelling that story at the Democrat party later after the polls closed.
The brave, windburned GOP electioneers (right).
At the end of the day, I had thirty-four voters in our primary. This election was across three precincts, and the total registered voters are nearly ten thousand strong. We got a microscopic vote, but the GOP did only eleven times better (399 votes -- 0.3%). The turnout was, simply put, awful.
One bright moment was discovering my neighbor is a Democrat!
All day long I glared at the @#$%@#$ Diebold machines. Here's what they looked like at the end of polling:
I don't trust these machines, and I never will. Closed source electronic voting is no more democratic than what the Soviets did when they had "elections".
After we closed the polls, it was a mad dash to get the paperwork done. I felt like I was doing my Federal Tax return ... in thirty minutes. It turns out I did a pretty good job of following directions and was in and out of the county elections office within an hour of arriving.
We had a post election party in Plano, and I even drank a Margarita! Zounds!
Now I hear we have a run off in April ... oh no, not again!
Posted by Steven at 11:11 PM | Comments (2)
March 06, 2006
Get an iLife?
Enough said? BTW, I wasn't obsessively hoping for a flat-panel video iPod like some of my friends. You know who you are (David, Nick, &c.). ;-).
Posted by Steven at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
Here Come the Judge
Tomorrow I'll be working the polls, literally, as Collin County Precinct 12 Election Judge for the Democratic Party Primary at Ruth Dowell Middle School. Come by and see Judge Staton (for the day, I am legally a "Judge" and you will address me as such!) spending a vacation day sitting in the gym hallway watching all the Republicans come to vote for Rick "Goodhair" Perry like brainwashed robots (we share the hallway with the GOP).
So if you live in Pct. 12, and vote Democratic, you're probably just my wife as this is very, very small set of people (I know, I have the voter database). But we Dems. are making a stand and manning all polling places in Collin County (one of the most GOP infested of Texas) ala the Alamo.
Remember the Dowell!
Posted by Steven at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
Northpark Mall Apple Store Opening
This is the second Apple store opening I was able to make, and it did not dissappoint.
I parked near Nördstrom's, figuring that Steve Jobs always puts his Apple Stores near them in upscale malls, and I was right. The line to get into the store at 10:45am was pretty long, so I went into the bowels of NorthPark Mall for a stroll while waiting for the line to die down.
Surprisingly, much of the art work that has hung in the mall since the 1980's is still up, including the wall of Warhol prints.
When I got back to the Apple Store hall, the line had shortened considerably. The store is laid out the way that all of them are, but with some interesting tweeks. This is a full sized store, like the one in Barton Creek Mall, but without the theater in the back that Willow Bend Mall has.
A new feature that I've not seen before is the iPod Bar (across from the Genius Bar already in all Apple Stores). I didn't take too close a look, but I think it's just in response to having so many iPods out there and the need for funnelling customers to this counter for help.
The final photo is of my next laptop, the MacBook, and the cute sales clerk who wanted desperately to sell me one. Can it get any better than this?
Posted by Steven at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
March 03, 2006
Meet Joe Nuñez, Boyd Band Director
I had the privilege of meeting Alanna's future Band Director today at MNHS. His name is Joe Nuñez, and he currently works in the Birdville ISD near Ft. Worth.
We had a very friendly meeting where he explained his needs for communication with the Boyd Band community, and he expressed a strong desire to use my skills and the Internet to facilitate communications. I offered both Drupal for a web site engine and a mailing list manager for doing direct e-mailings. I explained that in both cases, the users choose what they will or won't see, and that gives them more control over their experience. He liked the idea of not having to maintain a mailing list himself, with all the hassles that entails.
On the whole it was a very encouraging experience and we even shared a n obscure bond -- he drives a Mazda RX-8, the great-grandchild of my favorite car, Sasha (the RX-7). "This looks like the start of a beautiful relationship ..." as the movie line goes.
Posted by Steven at 11:42 AM | Comments (1)
Server Upgrade
I've finally loaded MacOS X "Tiger" on the webserver, and naturally a lot of stuff stopped working correctly. I'm down to fixing the MySQL engine, which is preventing Drupal from running. All blogs seem to be ok now (as well as regular web serving and e-mail) but don't hesitate to AIM me if you run into other problems.
Posted by Steven at 08:52 AM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2006
Gobble, Gobble
My Dad sent me this clip of a comedian on Leno doing hilarious impressions of Presidents Bush and Clinton. Enjoy.
Posted by Steven at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
At Last, Snuffers in McKinney Opens
The miracle that has taken a year to come to fruition is now here: Snuffer's opened today in McKinney.
Situated on the southbound service road of US 75 at El Dorado Parkway, Pat's newest restaurant is the first to be built from the ground up. The good news is that the place is laid out the way they wanted it, but on the whole, it most resembles the Plano location in that it is one large room with a bar off to the side.
I'm personally looking forward to the Patio outside ... I've never eaten on the Patio at the Greenville (original) restaurant, but I look forward to this one.
Anne noted that the bar is probably one of the better ones in McKinney, and none too soon as the town slowly becomes wetter and wetter each year. The restaurant has top-of-the-line Samsung plasma wide-screen TVs that are visible from any seat in the house. Clearly this is a good place to catch a game and get a hearty meal.
And the food? It was smack on. They've brought up their finest chefs from the older stores and also stocked the floor with experienced wait staff. We were waited on hand-and-foot. It was great!
Pat welcomed us personally to his new restaurant.
Seeing all the managers from all these years at one place (our Snuffer's!) was great. Everyone greeted me by name, and Pat even teased me about not wearing a Tux to my first meal at his new restaurant. Anne shot back that we'd dress formally for the "official" APE meal this weekend. Nice save! I had my Snuffer's T-shirt ready earlier in the week when I thought they were opening, so it wasn't available to wear today. My bad!
Views of the main room with the requisite antique photos on the wall.
All the tables are large bench format, just like the original store, but slightly wider so that six can comfortably sit in a booth. There's alot of seating inside, but I can see the place filling up on the weekends as the pent-up demand for a new restaurant in this town of 100,000 is enormous. I hope I can get in on the weekends!
Pat's picture is on a Miller Lite beer ad featured at the table (left).
One new innovation is a huge table for large parties right next to the kitchen so orders are quickly brought to this table (right).
They've added a huge, double-double wide bench that probably seats thirty or more. It's great for large groups, but one of the managers mentioned that it was a chore to pass food up and down the extended length! I expect this will be a popular seat in the restaurant on Soccer Saturdays.
You cannot miss the big green sign on US 75 south of El Dorado Parkway as you enter McKinney from the south. Just take the El Dorado exit, and loop over the highway and back under the overpass. Come down the service road to the big green sign and pull in. Paradise awaits!
Posted by Steven at 01:56 PM | Comments (3)