Mini-Posts for 2008-06-23

  • : is watching the Cubs/Sox game at cousin Maui’s #
  • @patloika play! play! play! who needs to pack? you can always buy what you need. #
  • holy shit, I can’t believe Gearge Carlin is dead…(learned it before i opened up twitter) #
  • : says the baby is sick - he was up all night last night! #
  • : has a mosquito bite on the back of my neck that is driving me crrrrazy! #
  • @Darchangel put some black eyeliner on that zit and it becomes a fashionable beauty mark. :-P #
  • : has case of the Mondays. #
  • : smells like baby puke. i thought this was over, but i guess they tend to regress when they’re sick! #
  • : is is really sleepy. little sick boy kept on waking up last night - i got about 2 hours of sleep. #

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Ben’s First Movie

I’ve been thinking about when it would be a good time to take Ben to his first movie. My ex-coworker, who has two kids, told me to go as soon as possible to get Ben used to behaving in a theater, so I decided it was worth a try.

Dave came home from work on Friday, and suggested we have a family outing. Usually during these family times we go to the zoo or Chuck E. Cheese, some place we know where Ben would have a good time. I suggested going to a movie - Kung Fu Panda (because, of course, I want to watch it, too!) and we packed up some snacks and juiceboxes and headed to the theater. We were a bit nervous - Ben could either go super-crazy and be a total brat, or he might be totally into the movie and behave.

Kung Fu Panda

Turns out, he fell asleep in the 10 minutes it took to drive to the theater. We got our tickets, nachos and drink and found some seats at the edge of the row, just in case we had to make a quick getaway. The previews started, and Ben was still sleeping. The movie started, and Ben was still nestled and softly snoring in Dave’s arms. We tried poking him to get him to wake, but he was out like a light. Finally, after about 15 minutes of sporadic poking and prodding, Ben woke up.

…and had NO idea where he was.

I guess it would be weird if you fell asleep in a car and woke up in a dark place with a HUGE screen showing a fat panda running around, with the sounds of little kids laughing somewhere in the room. He was a bit confused, and was constantly looking around. I handed him a nacho and he just held on to it, staring at me in the semi-darkness. Then he realized that there was something interesting showing on-screen. He started enjoying the movie, laughing when he saw the Panda do silly things, pointing out the turtle, tiger and other animals he knew. He crawled over to sit in my lap and drink some juice, and I gave him a little play be play of what was going on.

In the end, he loved it. No break downs, no screaming. I loved the movie as well - the casting of the Panda was PERFECT with Jack Black. We also found out that our theater has special showings for kids - once a week during the day. I’ll probably send Ben to one of those with his grandparents.

Next up: Wall-E. We’ll see what happens!

Mini-Posts for 2008-06-22

  • : says yesterday was a pretty tiring day! but Ben had a ton of fun. #

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Mini-Posts for 2008-06-21

  • : is off to watch "Kung Fu Panda"…Ben’s first movie! #
  • @adamdwitt i’m really excited about wizard world chicago, too! #
  • : is up at 4am cleaning. too much going on tomorrow to clean during the day. #
  • : is awake. no time to go to gymboree today, will have to reschedule. no idea how! #
  • : has a very long day of kiddy parties ahead of her #

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Mini Post Mania

I’d like to take a second to talk about all my mini posts that have been popping up. The lovely Mizz Denizzy brought up that the mini posts are a bit difficult to read, and I just wanted to let you all in on the process behind those posts.

I’ve been using two programs/social networking sites lately (frankly, I’m not sure what they actually are). One is twitter. Essentially, it’s just a box that you can enter what you’re doing or thinking, and you can see what your “friends” or people you are following are up to as well. It’s a lot faster than taking the time to write up a post with a subject - but the drawback is you only have 140 characters to work with. Most of the time, though, that’s all I need. Before twitter, there’d be so many times during the day that I’d think to myself, “This would make an awesome post!” but never have the time to write about it. But with twitter i just have to open my app on my taskbar (I use twhirl to make quick updates in twitter) and type in whatever I want. Even better, if I’m out of the house, I can text message my thoughts to twitter to update my page. There’s also a function where you can reply to other people’s twits (tweets?) by putting an “@” in front of their user name. Twitter has gotten really popular - Barack Obama actually has a twitter site that has updates as to what he’s up to.

The other site is Plurk, which I’ve only been active in since last week (my internet crack dealer Walter sent this one over to me). Plurk is similar to Twitter, but the interface is different, as well as the whole feel of the community. Twitter is more based on the person - “Let me tell you what I’m doing”. Plurk is more of an interactive place - where it’s a lot easier to reply to people’s “plurks” and have discussions. Think of it as a discussion group for people with ADD. It’s a lot more social, and a lot more fun than twitter. The only downside (to me, anyway) is that there’s this reward system called “karma” that gives you points based on certain things (or takes them away). Some people on the site are karma crazy and that’s all they talk about. Me? I really don’t pay attention to it. Oh, and if you’d like to join, enter a comment and I’ll send you an invite - I get karma points for inviting friends. Not that I care about karma points. :-P

So ANYWAY…I’m rambling.

I didn’t like having a separate Plurk area and a separate Twitter, so I used a function to import my Plurks into twitter. Everything is in one place. It gets a little weird, though, because plurks are usually in the third person, so they look odd in twitter.

Also, I want to keep some record of my twits on my blog, so items that are in twitter are posted to my blog. Usually this happens mid-day, which I hate, but that would account to the one day delay you see in some mini posts. I’d been kicking myself for not keeping track of Ben’s milestones, and having my twitters in my blog is a great way to remember these times. It fits the way my brain moves a thousand miles a second.

Any time you’re reading the mini posts and you see a line that starts with a colon (”:”) that means it was a post in my Plurk account. Any time you see an at sign (”@”) in a line, that means that I’m replying to someone else’s twitter, which, unfortunately for you, you can’t see. So they’ll probably make no sense to you.

So, I hope that helps. It bugs me that my blog is littered with my mini-blogs, but time is a luxury I no longer have. I’m also going to be changing this layout within the week because the current default layout has some crappy coding.

Man, I ramble a lot at 5am.

Here’s a pic of Ben!

Mini-Posts for 2008-06-20

  • : is researching the best way to retouch a photo to look like a painting #
  • : says MTV has whirlyball in one of their ads! it’s one of my favorite sports to play. nice to see it recognized. #
  • : says Ben keeps on farting while he’s sleeping. It’s hilarious. #
  • : says I hate page timeouts after i’ve done a lot of work. especially when it happens at 2 in the morning #
  • : says my graphics table has gone on strike. the light is on, but nobody’s home. must switch to regular mouse. #
  • : asks has anyone taken their own passport photo? i’m a cheapo. #
  • : says don’t you hate it when see an object every day, but when it comes time to find it, you have no idea where it was you saw it? #
  • : says just noticed a bunch of happy birthday greetings people posted to my myspace. i know it’s a month late, but thanks! #
  • @jamessime you must take pictures! i remember them from “the Ringer”. my sister works with kids who have disabilities and loves it. #
  • @eric55 thanks! #
  • : says back to back home runs by the cubs. wheee!!! #

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Mini-Posts for 2008-06-19

  • : is enjoying watching "So You Think You Could Dance" the 2nd time around, this time w/o a two year old yelling in the background #
  • : was planning on working tonight, but 2 hours later haven’t done anything. the internet’s a damn black hole. #
  • : needs a vacation #
  • @jangofettish GET OUTTA HERE! Where’s it gonna be? I swear I’m going to be first in line. My hate for Sonic will turn to love. #
  • : says congrats to my pal Aquaman aka Sam whose wife just gave birth to a baby boy! #
  • : says I need to return a pair of shoes I bought for Ben. I underestimated his rate of foot growth. #
  • : says just got a remote for my camera. going to test it out now! #
  • : says Taylor Swift has the prettiest eyes. #
  • : thinks Chris Brown has the talent of a young Michael Jackson. Hope he doesn’t find himself on the crazy train. #

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Mini-Posts for 2008-06-18

  • : says although I don’t drink "pop" a lot, i’m a sucker whenever Mountain Dew or Orange Crush are available #
  • : is watching Shrek 3 for the 10th time, because Ben doesn’t want to go to sleep. #
  • : is finally going to sleep #
  • @pdiaz elaborate on weird sleeping experience, please. i am intrigued. #
  • @PhilipClark eew. #
  • after much anticipation and apprehension, my upgrade to Firefox3 was non-eventful. I hardly even notice a difference. #
  • : thinks that my Firefox 3 upgrade wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be. Actually, it’s pretty much the same. #
  • @pdiaz that happens to me most nights…usually because i feel like i’m supposed to be working, but i’m not #
  • @tcrweb yeah, i try to follow the backup mantra, though usually i only think of it AFTER something bad happens :-P #
  • : will stop talking in third person. It’s just weird. #
  • : didn’t know that she had her exposure bias set on her camera for the last several weeks. no wonder the pics have been coming out dark! #
  • : says firefox3 has taken up 96% of my CPU several times already. i am not amused. must troubleshoot. #
  • : is all teary while watching the Tim Russert tribute #
  • @melindamusil i got rid of a couple add-ons that i didn’t need anymore, and things seem to be going OK #
  • : says I’ve sorted through 2 years of pictures to make into CD’s for friends. I always promise them pics, but forget to send them. #

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Remembering Tim Russert

I’ve been wanting to post this for a long time, but have been knee deep in other projects lately (sorry for the lack of updates!)Tim Russert

I can’t say I’ve watched “Meet the Press” a lot, or that I really keep up with politics. I don’t know all the big names, know where all our politicians stand on all issues or watch news stations all the time. But I knew Tim Russert. As someone who had pledged almost a decade ago that I would vote to make a difference, Tim became a beacon of light that made politics interesting. Seeing his face, you knew that this guy was real. He didn’t have evil ulterior motives and unlike many of the politicians that he had interacted with, he told the truth. He was constantly trying to make politicians accountable for what they have said without attacking.

It’s interesting that his death has hit me so hard. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because it’s an election year, and Tim made the whole process understandable. Maybe it’s because he seemed like such a genuine person, even though you knew he was someone of great intelligence, it never seemed like he was talking down to us.

Now I wish I knew more about him. I’ve been watching all of the special reports and the tributes. Behind the man we saw on TV was a deeply religious man, a man who appreciated where he came from, who always let his family know how he felt about them, who lived an incredible life. Today, I’m watching the memorial (and it’s INCREDIBLE annoying that the sound keeps on cutting out on MSNBC) and it’s beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s obvious that all who knew him were affected by him, and are deeply saddened to lose a colleague and friend. He was a great man that had died too young. But behind him he has left a wonderful legacy - he has set the bar for interviewing, for our politicians to be prepared and be held accountable for their words and promises, and a beautiful, loving wife and a son that reflects so many of his qualities.

Rest in Peace, Tim. No one will ever be able to take your place.

Mini-Posts for 2008-06-17

  • @daysies um, i would think Dylan had a fake ID. come on, the guy looks like he’s 30! :-P #
  • : has just finished a conference call with Malaysia. drawing pictures on a virtual whiteboard overcomes any language gap! i gotz skillz! #
  • @adamdwitt @patloika did i miss board drama? #
  • @edcasey i don’t really think that there’s a good way to smell like lunch meat. #
  • : has just finished conference call #5 of 6 calls for the day. almost over! #
  • : has a really busy day today. her calendar is chock full of conference calls. #
  • : says just took my own passport photo. in my bathtub. because that’s the only area in the house that has good lighting and white paint. #

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