Our Persisting Memories

I almost missed it since it came out on the weekend but Jay Leno wrote an article for the times regarding the US interpretation of Top Gear . Here it is in full. Read it for your own interpretation of where this is all going. NBC will either make complete crap or they'll decide to take Leno's advice. Like everyone in Britain I have long been a huge fan of the television show Top Gear, although we get it only sporadically here in America. You can find it on BBC America and occasionally it pops up at odd times on other cable channels. There have been rumours circulating that the show would eventually come to America. I hoped it would come with Jeremy Clarkson and the gang, but NBC seems to have bought the show and I got a call one day asking if I would be interested in being a part of it. I do my show full time, and these programmes take a great amount of time to make, so right away I had my concerns about fitting it in. The general rule of television is that it takes an hour ...

I love iron cookware. There's just something manly about iron, especially after being blackened and smoothed from frequent use. Over the weekend I picked up two more pieces of iron cookware, a 12 inch and 15 1/2 inch skillet if you must know. I believe the 15 incher weighs at least 12 pounds and is probably closer to 15 pounds. The main reason I've decided to do this is the difficulty in caring for and maintaining the other non-stick pans that we have. All our other cookware is now warping and the non-stick surfaces are all scratched to hell and back. This could be because we're using low quality cookware, as our large open french skillet is still just fine. Our electric griddle is also failing, which is why I decided to go with the 15 inch iron skillet. Even if you have a terrible electric range like ours you can still control temperature pretty well with iron. There just something manly about a black 15 inch skillet that weighs more than your 8 month old child.

27718|500 Sophia has joined the Army. As you can see she has her boots already, the uniform is in the mail.

27708 In an effort to get Sophia potty trained, BJ and I will offer Sophia to go potty at various times. On Monday we had success!! Sophia went peepee in the potty! BJ and I were so excited and proud of her. I am sure those of you reading this that don't have kids won't think much of this, but those of you who do have children (potty trained kids at that!) will join BJ and I in our triumph. Sophia knows her name but has been unable to say anything but "Pia". She finally said her full name, correct pronunciation and everything! However, BJ and I are so used to calling her "Pia" and have come to rather enjoy it. No reason for her to be simply Sophia all the time! Sophia continues to hug me and say "love you". She did it to Phoebe this week and began doing it to her toys and random kitchen appliances. BJ had still not been graced with this sentiment until the very end of this week. He was so happy when he finally got her love. Sophia, Phoebe...

The custom permalink structure had broken the rss feeds based on their links for a little while... at least in IE6. All should be fixed now.

Still struggling with this darn cold I go to the doctor to get drugs. Phoebe goes the next day and seems to be getting over an ear infection. While there the nurse discovers Sophia has a fever so she gets checked in as well. Turns out she also has sores in her mouth--yay for random viruses! By the end of the week the girls are well, but I still have remnants of snot in my sinuses and am just about ready to shove a vacuum hose up my nose! Sophia struggles with the letters S, P, F, and R. Needless to say her name has been difficult for her to say. I occasionally find myself making fun of her and her struggles with speech and learning to talk. She says "ham" like "haim". So I said back to her the other day "Cory Haim?" And with perfect pronunciation she comes back with "Cory Haim!" BJ laughs and I join in. What more could I do? My constant battle with Sophia at her Granny and Grandad's house is getting into the litter box, cat food, c...

Sorry for the lack of updates or snippets today. There were some pretty bad hosting problems over the last few days. I'm also under the gun at work so I won't have much time to think of anything that isn't code. I'll see if i can make sure Heather gets the weekly update done though.

My Host was having some issues today so I couldn't update during my lunch break, so I'll take the time to do so before I leave the office today. Tim has this amazing need to converge all data into a single, easily readable format (note that the definition of easily readable becomes immediately suspect when talking to a fellow software developer). If he could hire an automaton to take down his every activity and thought and plaster it on his site he'd be the first to sign up. Inevitably he'd then invite me and I would be the second. Friend Feed is blocked at work so I couldn't mess with it today, but I finally decided to start using Google reader as a feed aggregator (actually I set it all up last night). The side benefit being that I can keep track of updates to my list of favored sites. I've added the rss feed to the sidebar, and a link to the little dynamic site that google makes . This has helped distract me from the weird political pastor/politician in...

In the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray battle for hi-def disc based media dominance, one of the underlying issues was the new DRM implemented on both formats. One of the reasons I was a proponent of HD-DVD while is still existed, was because of the mandatory managed copy, and the less obtrusive DRM. Both formats implement AACS encryption, but Blu-ray, in addition to AACS, has another optional layer of protection in the form of a customized virtual machine that handles further plaback limitations. By encapsulating another level of encryption beneath a virtual machine as BD+ does, it makes the business of cracking such a scheme much more difficult. Anyway, Slysoft's AnyDVD HD has done it . In the absence of mandatory managed copy, or the absence of a proper implementation that would allow a server based disc-less movie browsing and playback, this is huge news for the do-it yourself home theater PC crowd. This means that for the foreseeable future you will be able to rip Blu-Rays to your hard...

I'm going to reprint the text of the speech in it's entirety. I believe his methodology to correct the issues he addresses in the speech to be wrong but his sentiment is spot on. Here's the speech in it's entirety as found at the huffingtonpost . Remarks of Senator Barack Obama "A More Perfect Union" Constitution Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union." Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin o...

These are from the book Safe Baby Handling Tips . You can buy it at Amazon . There's a couple dozen more after the jump.

Sophia's unexplained fever was apparently the start of a sinus infection. She lovingly spread it to Phoebe and myself. I can't remember the last time I was so sick with sinusitis. The apple juice obsession has ended, and so begins the milk phase. We ran out one day and she cried and cried for milk until I decided to use daddy's type of milk to pacify her until he could get back from Braum's with her whole milk. Sophia comes up to me out of nowhere, hugs my leg and says "lub (love) you". She repeats the affection several more times throughout the week, even when I come home from being gone. She hasn't done it to BJ yet, much to his sadness. 27658 Phoebe pulls herself up on the furniture--no help included! She also takes a few steps when we hold her hands while standing. I think she is progressing almost too fast! BJ steam cleans our living room carpet and decides to switch the couches. We rather enjoy the change and neither the cats or the kids noti...

For those not in the know this is the case that will be reviewed by the Supreme Court, beginning this week, to determine the constitutionality of the DC gun ban. Here's some snippets from the Washington Post in this article . Despite mountains of scholarly research, enough books to fill a library shelf and decades of political battles about gun control, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity this week that is almost unique for a modern court when it examines whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. The nine justices, none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment's meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years. Regardless of your individual position on gun rights, you should read this article to know what is being decided . There are so many arguments for either side in the quesiton of gun rights that I'm not going to comment very much, as it would am...

There's one more picture but it contains Bentley getting the last word. Raised middle finger after the jump.

Sled Driver is a autobiography of one of the pilots of the SR-71. The book is very difficult to obtain but contains one of my favorite snippets of aviation history. Here's the aforementioned snippet reproduced in all it's glory. There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment. It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawl...

Professor Layton is the first best true puzzle game I've ever played. It's for the DS and really utilizes the interface to present a series of more than 100 puzzles and allow you to solve them. It's wrapped in the veneer of an adventure game resembling an old school point and click. The adventure is secondary to the awesome puzzles you'll find in this game. The second puzzle I receive while playing the game is actually one that was asked of me by my father when I was about ten. He had a habit of asking me these odd riddles and brain teasers. This particular riddle involves calibration weights and a scale. There are 8 weights that are supposed to be the same weight but one weight is actually lighter than the other. You have a scale that you can use to compare the weights but you can only use the scale twice. What methodology do you use to identify with 100% certainty the weight that is too light? Some other examples of puzzles it asks are your typical matchstic...

27596 Another productive week for Phoebe. She sits up on her own, can pull herself up to her knees completely on her own, can get to a sitting position from her stomach, can also babble more letters and syllables. Auntie Jennifer and cousins are in town again. Sophia has a lot of fun playing with Gwennie and sometimes Linus. Gwennie spends the night one night. I let the girls paint before having a bubble bath. I took off their shirts to avoid paint on their tops. Because of this, Sophia realizes she can paint on her body. Gwennie so appropriately comments that Sophia is "ooey gooey". I figure no big deal, the paint is washable, but one bath later and her stomach was still green. Sophia has unexplained fever again for 2-3 days. (we went through this back in January) 27586 Forgot to mention this in last week's post: The Sunday after BJ's talk mishap he was unable to go to church due to allergies and one sick child. I was able to attend and the subject for tha...

There was no update during lunch today as I was traveling to a meeting in Austin. At lunch I was probably sitting in a Schlotzkys eating a Turkey and Guacamole sandwich. Today I suppose I should share some notes on another love in my life. Hot Sauce. I'm not quite crazy enough to have an inedible collection of hot sauces, but I can share a thing or two about almost every sauce you'll find in your local market and a few you'll find only by special order. Flavorful Sauces: Tapatio is a rather salty and comparatively thin hot sauce. It's in the same league as tabasco for heat but doesn't share the vinegar taste. It has a tomato/pepper derived flavor and goes particularly well with quesadillas, beans, salads, and any jack, or queso fresco derived meals. Valentina is much milder and slightly thicker. It goes well with shrimp, ceviche, and fresh seafood. It's milder than Tapatio. El Yucateco is a habanero based hot sauce that's probably twice as hot as ...

I received this e-mail from a friend of mine and rather than forwarding it on into the depths of spam filters everywhere I though I'd post it here. Thinking of Having Kids? Do this 11 step program first! Lesson 1 1. Go to the grocery store. 2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. 3. Go home. 4. Pick up the paper. 5. Read it for the last time. Lesson 2 Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their... 1. Methods of discipline. 2. Lack of patience. 3. Appallingly low tolerance levels. 4. Allowing their children to run wild. 5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers. Lesson 3 A really good way to discover how the nights might feel... 1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room ...

After picking up a new PC, I've started collecting a few gems in PC gaming. I've always loved adventure style games (Myst, King's Quest, etc etc), and this style of game is sorely lacking on consoles. The best part about poking the dark corners of adventure gaming is that you're bound to find a few hidden gems. The first gem I've found is Penumbra: Black Plague . I'm trying to get ahold of the first game in the series, Penumbra: Overture, but these things are hard to find. Penumbra is a first person adventure game, with a robust physics system that seems far superior in normal tactile manipulation to something like Havok, which Half Life and other modern games used. The developers, Frictional games , consist of 3 people. The physics system was coded by them and my favorite part is that everything feels heavy. Things don't just skitter about the room after a collision. There's very little actual combat, as you spend your time trying to hide and sne...

Well, at least he wins the Atchley home phone call record of the Presidential candidates. 5 total calls from Obama or supporters 3 total calls from Ron Paul or supporters 1 call from Clinton I spoke with a live person from Obama and Ron Paul campaigns, or at least a supporter cold calling. I'm still holding out for a general election Mormon showdown between Mitt Romney and Harry Reid in 2016.

Link to the news from his current publisher's forum . Time to reroll. :( Sorry for the attempt at dark humor, but it was hilarious to me when I thought of it. And here's a fun comic to commemorate him .

27500 Phoebe has been very busy this week. She always goes after Sophia's sippy cups if she leaves them lying around. She was actually able to drink out of the sippy cups this week. I think she rather enjoyed it. With a little help from mama, Phoebe is now pulling herself up. Yay! She also stabilizes herself much better when standing at the couch. She is sitting up on her own and still has the occasional fall over but has gotten much stronger. A couple weeks back she was babbling mamamamama, but only for one day. Now it is a consistent thing when she plays to go on "mamamamamama". It's nice to hear. Phoebe has discovered a new, fun thing she can do. She gets up on her hands and knees and starts flapping her lips and spitting, but she likes to watch the spit as it falls to the carpet. Another fun thing --screaming at Sophia to try and get her to scream back. It works.....100% of the time. 'The wiggle' has progressed. Instead of only doing it on her ...

What a unique experience during the presidential primary cycle. Texas matters. I received two phone calls over the weekend asking me to vote for their candidate, one for Obama and one for Ron Paul. I've already "thrown my vote away," for Ron Paul, but every time I can push the school of thought that many of Ron Paul's views represent I'll continue to vote outside of the frontrunners or the major parties. Obama is going to win the Democratic primary and the election. There's too much of a groundswell surrounding him for there to be any other outcome. I think he'll do well to restore the US in the eyes of the rest of the world. His largely globalist view of world politics could push us more to the forefront in the various organizations we participate in, but he's an unknown quantity in economic matters. He's pro-consumer in his legislative rhetoric, but not damning enough towards big business to stifle. If he looked like he would cut corporat...