Less Than Me

Kara: Jessica's hair is so long now!
Jake: She has Luke Skywalker hair.
Kara: She won't let me put a barrette in it.
Jake: That's 'cuz she wants to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.
Kara: She only lets me put a barrette in when she's in the car seat and she can't move.
Jake: Haha, I like how you didn't even acknowledge that.
Kara: What was I *supposed* to say?

Kara was in labor for 3 hours, so by my calculation she was going about .33333 Miles per hour.

What I've accomplished during my first week of paternity leave:
1) Caught up on the last 6 months of xkcd comics
2) Kept baby alive

Next week:
1) Dinosaur Comics!
2) Continue keeping baby alive

We bought fish sauce yesterday to make Pad Thai. The bottle has a helpful message printed on it: "HARMLESS TO HEALTH THE NATURAL PHENOMENA, IF SALT CRYSTAL GRANULES APPEARED."

I was just messing around in Firefox on my work laptop and I thought "I wonder if I type /. in the Firefox 'awesome bar' if it will be cool enough to take me to Slashdot." I typed it in, hit enter and BAM the computer turns off.

"Ok? That was a crazy coincidence!" I thought. When the computer started back up, I decided to try it again just to confirm that the reboot had nothing to do with it. So I typed /. hit enter, and down the computer goes again. I was amazed. So I ran downstairs to my desktop, brought up Firefox, typed /. and hit enter... nothing. I upgraded Firefox to 3.6 (the version I run at work), tried it again and still nothing. Apparently my work laptop is "special?"

Here's a joke I wrote for my friend Billy. I suppose I should email it to him, but instead I'll post it on my blog (which will automatically show up on my Facebook wall) and assume that he'll eventually see it...

Two guys, Billy and Jake, are getting ready in a locker room after a workout at the gym. Jake pulls a pink plastic container out of his bag, pops out a little pill and swallows it. Billy asks "Hey, what was that?" Jake says "Oh, it was a birth control pill" as he puts the container back into his bag. Billy looks surprised and a little disturbed and says "What the heck, a birth control pill? But, you can't get pregnant!" Jake turns back with a small smile on his face and says "exactly."

I was digging through my box of old cords today and came across my six year old 20 GB iPod. I remembered that there was something wrong with it, but I wasn't sure what, so I poked at it a bit and realized that the middle button didn't work. It felt like the button was stuck down (it wouldn't click) so I tried jiggling it, but that didn't help. So I decided to open it up and see if I could fix it (if I broke it, oh well, it was already garbage...)

When I got the case cracked open, the button started working again! I had unjammed the button, so I closed the case back up... and then the button was jammed again. I did this a few times before I realized that the button wasn't stuck down, it was stuck up! When the case was closed, something was pushing up against the inside of the button keeping it from being pressed in.

That something was the battery... Apparently it had expanded beyond it's housing as it aged! The battery no longer held a charge (the other thing wrong with it) so I decided to perform surgery on the iPod. I grabbed a screwdriver and pried the thing out and tossed it in the garbage. When I got the iPod back together, I could push the button! I plugged it in and confirmed my suspicion that it'd still work without the battery. So now my broken iPod works again... as long as it's plugged in. Which is fine because I have a dock with speakers where I can keep it. Yay!

My next project at work is going to be using a JavaScript framework called Dojo. I know nothing about Dojo, and I've barely ever done any JavaScript either! So all day today I've been reading books on the topic which has been really fun. One of the books had the below quote, and I thought it was spot on!

"Computer programming is tremendous fun. Like music, it is a skill that derives from an unknown blend of innate talent and constant practice. Like drawing, it can be shaped to a variety of ends - commercial, artistic, and pure entertainment. Programmers have a well-deserved reputation for working long hours but are rarely credited with being driven by creative fevers. Programmers talk about software development on weekends, vacations, and over meals not because they lack imagination, but because their imagination reveals worlds that others cannot see." -- Larry O'Brien and Bruce Eckel in Thinking in C#

Last weekend Steam was selling the X-Com pack for a measly two bucks, so I bought it! I used to play X-Com back in the day (the mid 90's) and have very fond memories of it. At $2, I figured I wouldn't be out much if it didn't live up to my memories...

Fortunately my two dollars were well spent because the game is as great as I remember! I actually can't believe how deep this 15 year old game is. It's a little difficult to get started, but I found some gameplay videos on youtube and a strategy guide that helped me get back up to speed. Last night I played for an hour or so before getting in bed to read... and then I got back up at midnight and played until 2am! It's been quite a while since a game caused me to lose track of time!

Kara is 18 weeks along now so her tummy is poking out quite a bit. Last night when I came to bed I put my hand on her belly and felt 5 good kicks. That was the first movement I've felt during this pregnancy! Then today we had an ultrasound done to find out the sex of the baby... and his junk was clearly on display! Seeing him squirm around in there was pretty cool.

So with this new evidence, I guess it's real, we're having another baby. Until last night, I kind of thought Kara was just getting fat. :p

Here's a pic of the little dude: