Unthinkability

I’m attending the Fall 2007 Illinois Dietetic Association Workshop at Illinois State University.  Me, Scott Blank (Peoria), Mike (Peoria), and Calvin (Bloomington) are the three men in a room of 100 women. Pardon me while I ramp up my testosterone levels to compensate.  I live in a house with my wife and three girls, so I’m used to this environment.

The featured speaker is Annalynn Skipper Ph.D., R.D., FADA, and the Editor-In-Chief of ADA’s online Nutrition Care Manual. Today’s topic: An Overview of the Standardized Language for Nutrition Care.

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My daughter came to me and asked “can we have a puppet show?”  Of course, I said SURE!  She then proceeded to ask me to help her build some puppets.  I envisioned some popsicle sticks, some markers, some paper. and some glue.  My daughter had other ideas…

She began describing puppet with strings.  Ack.  She wanted marionettes;  Seven of them.  How else would she do a puppet show of “High School Musical?”

After some attempts at negotiating with her, my daughter finally settled for two of the seven.  We examined the Ken doll, made a shopping list for materials, and set off for Lowes.

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We were sitting outside on the patio tonight having some quiet time after work, and our 4 year old looked up from her Barbie and said “I had a bad dream last night.”

“What about?” we asked.

 She replied “It was about bees in my room, but it was a cartoon dream.  It was a cartoon inside my head outside my brain.”

I’ve never heard a better description.

I’m becoming more aware of how we create new realities within our existing worlds to escape.  I have noticed that I gravitate towards new ventures and new toys to distract me from the crap that is bugging me.  Whether I’m bothered by the stressful, the disheartening, or the simple monotony, I have a tendency to fixate on and become obsessive about new things to distract me from my life.  Just look at this list of some of the things that I’ve obsessed about:

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Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures are designed to keep you safe from microbial nasties that live in your food.  Commercial kitchens are bound by regulations to properly handle, cook, and store food.  Some of the Critical Control Points (CCPs) refer to washing hands and utensils, some refer to cooking food at or above a certain temperature, and some refer to storing food below a certain temperate.

While HACCP is a ’standard process’ for establishing food safety procedures, there does not appear to be a ’standardized list’ of types, steps, or protocols for HACCP activities.  I haven’t found any list of things that contains “Anthropometrical Precaution #2: Wash Hands after handling,” or “Thermal Precaution #12: Cook at or above x degrees for a minimum of x minutes,” or “Nasal Precaution #42: Blow nose on clean shirt sleeve.”  This is driving me crazy.

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You don’t really know how out of shape you are until you look through your closet for clothes to wear to the gym.  After 5 minutes digging through my closet, I was left saying “What!? I only have one pair of workout shorts?  And why are these T-shirts so small?!”  I’ve definitely acquired a slight bowling pin physique in the last 10 years.

I just signed my contract with Cardinal Fitness, and must say that I’m impressed.  With the one-time signup fees ($70) and monthly membership dues ($20), the monthly charge for the first year is only $27, and they have great equipment.  Sure, they don’t have an Evian water fountain or restroom attendants, but they do have treadmills with built-in TVs and the full range of free weights, etc, blah blah blah.  They are my new best friend.

So tonight, armed with my Zune loaded with Keith and the Girl and Goodnight Burbank, I did my first workout in 13 years.  Funny that I haven’t even thought about “how I’m going look in six months,” or “how my clothes will fit better,” etc.

The key benefit to being older (38) and having three kids is that you have lowered your expectations so much over the years that you hardly expect anything anymore.  Not that you’ve given up hope; in fact, its quite the opposite.  You operate on a combination of faith and autopilot.  You set stuff in motion and let it roll on its own.  Sure, you’re just going through the motions, but you learn that the right motions will get you where you need to go.

I just flew back from the gym, and boy are my arms tired.

If you have electricity in your house, you are probably familiar with version numbers.  Software developers use version numbers to differentiate between different builds of the same application, and these version numbers are critical to our way of life.  Why on earth did Microsoft take it upon themselves to turn my world upside down!?

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“Moonlight” is an open-source project attempting to implement a clone of Microsoft Silverlight on Linux.  This is great news for me (and other developers) faced with self-doubt regarding our continued allegiance to the Microsoft development platforms surrounding .NET.  This is also bad news for the Adobe Flash camp hoping to maintain a monopoly on the scaling vector graphics (SVG) market.

Funny how the business side of software must treat the minorities (Mac, Linux) with as much respect as the majority (Microsoft Windows).  Funny and true for my company, who looks to woo the sometimes persnickety healthcare market with their desire to use non-Microsoft thin client devices.  Whatever we make, it really needs to be able to run on Opera and/or Firefox on Linux, though very few are ready to implement Linux-based devices within their Microsoft Active Directory authentication infrastructure.  That’s been my experience, anyway.

Allow me to apply my  “curse” on Microsoft by predicting their victory over Flash within 4 years.  Every time that I have predicted a major upheaval or downfall of a company, the exact opposite has happened.  (more…)

Yes, I am a geek dad.  I waited in line at midnight for Halo 3

And then I stayed up until 3am playing it.

It certainly wasn’t the rush that I remember for Halo 2, either emotionally or in terms of the number of people who stood in line with me. 

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