Read posts about family
September 9
August 16
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FaceYourManga (OsakaNYC (kitzke)) by matt
Tylor helped me make our family at FaceYourManga
This is me (Sue doesn’t think it looks like me, but Tylor and I do)
Sue
Tylor
July 29
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As is inevitable these days, my mother and I found ourselves in a political discussion. We have these frequently, although not usually at crowded family gatherings. My mom is a bonafide Bushite, much to my chagrin. She’s well-intentioned and very intelligent, but she’s 100% drinking the Fox News Kool-Aid. It’s simply astonishing how ill-informed she is on some of the most pertinent topics of this election season.
On this particular occasion, my older brother was drawn into the conversation. As he joined my mom in spouting McCain campaign and Fox News soundbites word-for-word, I made one point that I stand by: It doesn’t matter what you believe on any political issue of whatever degree of importance; if the Constitutional provisions that protect us to are imperiled by our leaders, nothing else matters. John McCain has rationalized torture, illegal wiretapping, abuse of executive privilege and any number of other atrocious violations of American civil liberties and the separation of powers critical to the functioning of our government.
To me, this makes John McCain a complete non-option for the presidency of the United States. That’s all there is to it, and I would question the patriotism of any American who feels differently. I know that’s harsh, but in my opinion there is no grey area where this topic is concerned. Either you respect and love the liberties and securities afforded us by the Constitution and refuse to support a man who has show nothing but disrespect for it, or you do not.
I’m not saying you have to support Barack Obama to be a patriot. I’m just saying that if you call yourself a patriot or a lover of liberty and support John McCain, this may be a good time to either reevaluate your choice of candidate or reevaluate your opinions with regard to liberty.
In any case, the point is this: My brother looks at my and says “Well, you’d rather be free than safe.”
*blink* *blink*
Let me explain something about my brother. If I am a student of history, he is the teacher. He has read enough historical texts concerning the founding of our nation to put me to shame (and I’m no slouch). I don’t know if he’s as well-versed in the political theory of the time (the Enlightenment principles and movements which culminated in the American Revolution), but he knows a thing or two about men choosing to be free over being safe. And never mind the fact that not being free in this case doesn’t make us any safer than before.
So you can see why it astonished me.
Yes, brother. I’d rather be free than safe. Don’t make me bust out the Franklin quotes, d-bag :P
(I love my family dearly and I know they’re not dolts - we just disagree here and it’s frustrating to see how ill-informed, from my perspective at least, they are about the people they’re supporting)
Posted in: family , politics & news
“You’d rather be free than safe.” (Lab 1663 (The Sam)) by Sam
Sunday afternoon, I visited with my family as we celebrated my nephew Aidan’s third birthday. Cake was eaten, gifts were given, fun was had.
As is inevitable these days, my mother and I found ourselves in a political discussion. We have these frequently, although not usually at crowded family gatherings. My mom is a bonafide Bushite, much to my chagrin. She’s well-intentioned and very intelligent, but she’s 100% drinking the Fox News Kool-Aid. It’s simply astonishing how ill-informed she is on some of the most pertinent topics of this election season.
On this particular occasion, my older brother was drawn into the conversation. As he joined my mom in spouting McCain campaign and Fox News soundbites word-for-word, I made one point that I stand by: It doesn’t matter what you believe on any political issue of whatever degree of importance; if the Constitutional provisions that protect us to are imperiled by our leaders, nothing else matters. John McCain has rationalized torture, illegal wiretapping, abuse of executive privilege and any number of other atrocious violations of American civil liberties and the separation of powers critical to the functioning of our government.
To me, this makes John McCain a complete non-option for the presidency of the United States. That’s all there is to it, and I would question the patriotism of any American who feels differently. I know that’s harsh, but in my opinion there is no grey area where this topic is concerned. Either you respect and love the liberties and securities afforded us by the Constitution and refuse to support a man who has show nothing but disrespect for it, or you do not.
I’m not saying you have to support Barack Obama to be a patriot. I’m just saying that if you call yourself a patriot or a lover of liberty and support John McCain, this may be a good time to either reevaluate your choice of candidate or reevaluate your opinions with regard to liberty.
In any case, the point is this: My brother looks at my and says “Well, you’d rather be free than safe.”
*blink* *blink*
Let me explain something about my brother. If I am a student of history, he is the teacher. He has read enough historical texts concerning the founding of our nation to put me to shame (and I’m no slouch). I don’t know if he’s as well-versed in the political theory of the time (the Enlightenment principles and movements which culminated in the American Revolution), but he knows a thing or two about men choosing to be free over being safe. And never mind the fact that not being free in this case doesn’t make us any safer than before.
So you can see why it astonished me.
Yes, brother. I’d rather be free than safe. Don’t make me bust out the Franklin quotes, d-bag :P
(I love my family dearly and I know they’re not dolts - we just disagree here and it’s frustrating to see how ill-informed, from my perspective at least, they are about the people they’re supporting)
Posted in: family , politics & news
July 1
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This time around though, we hadn't planned anything real for my birthday; we were actually planning on either ignoring it or postponing it for a few weeks. Our family had other plans though, so a few folks invited themselves ^_^ Since things were underway anyway, I just told the others to come when it suited them. So instead of having a house chockfull of guests, we now had a stream of people taking turns. That was actually quite nice! :)
It gave us the time to have a chat with Menno and his new girlfriend. It gave us the time to talk the whole baby-deal over with my and Marli's parents. We were able to discuss some important stuff with Marli's brother and I was able to finish off the evening with a showing of Clerks II with some of my good friends.
Thanks everyone! We had a great day :)
Posted in: birthday , family , friends , gathering , impromptu
Impromptu birthday gatherings: nothing wrong with that! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Yesterday was a rather nice and new approach to my birthday gathering. It used to be that we invited the whole bunch to come 'round at the same time as seems to be the tradition in the Netherlands. Family and friends, all together at the same time in the same house.This time around though, we hadn't planned anything real for my birthday; we were actually planning on either ignoring it or postponing it for a few weeks. Our family had other plans though, so a few folks invited themselves ^_^ Since things were underway anyway, I just told the others to come when it suited them. So instead of having a house chockfull of guests, we now had a stream of people taking turns. That was actually quite nice! :)
It gave us the time to have a chat with Menno and his new girlfriend. It gave us the time to talk the whole baby-deal over with my and Marli's parents. We were able to discuss some important stuff with Marli's brother and I was able to finish off the evening with a showing of Clerks II with some of my good friends.
Thanks everyone! We had a great day :)
Posted in: birthday , family , friends , gathering , impromptu
May 12
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On Saturday I did the usual groceries and then spent most of my time -waiting- for the Wii to arrive :p Setting it up was rather easy, though I had to spend at least an hour fighting the Wifi settings. In the end it turns out that I forgot that I had MAC address filtering turned on, on our Airport Express base station. So all my struggling with the Wii were caused by me forgetting one simple setting ^_^;
The Wii itself is great. Just like everyone else, we've been having loads of fun just making new Miis. It's silly how much fun that is. We've also been playing Mario Party 8, which IMHO is one of the better installments of the series. At least it's better than MP5, or MP6 :D Also, the Wii Shopping Channel is a bit too addictive for me... So far I've bought two classic games that my mom used to like as well: Bubble Bobble and Kirby's Adventure.
Saturday evening was well spent with our bestest friend Menno :) We had a quick dinner at Burger King and then proceeded to our favourite cinema, Cinemec to see Iron Man. I'd been looking forward to this movie for ages and luckily it came through on its promis! Robert Downey Jr is a great Tony Stark and the special effects were great. The design of Iron Man looks great and the CGI looks damn near realistic!
On Sunday we went to visit my in-laws in Friesland. We did nothing special; just a nice hot afternoon in the yard. Dirk had the greatest barbecue meats though, as we're used to from him :)
Now that it's Monday I really ought to get my ass in gear and get started on that pile of homework. I haven't done anything in the past two weeks and it's starting to show D:
Posted in: family , friends , iron man , weekend , wii
A recap of our weekend (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Just so you guys don't think we've been playing with our new Wii all weekend: we haven't :)On Saturday I did the usual groceries and then spent most of my time -waiting- for the Wii to arrive :p Setting it up was rather easy, though I had to spend at least an hour fighting the Wifi settings. In the end it turns out that I forgot that I had MAC address filtering turned on, on our Airport Express base station. So all my struggling with the Wii were caused by me forgetting one simple setting ^_^;
The Wii itself is great. Just like everyone else, we've been having loads of fun just making new Miis. It's silly how much fun that is. We've also been playing Mario Party 8, which IMHO is one of the better installments of the series. At least it's better than MP5, or MP6 :D Also, the Wii Shopping Channel is a bit too addictive for me... So far I've bought two classic games that my mom used to like as well: Bubble Bobble and Kirby's Adventure.
Saturday evening was well spent with our bestest friend Menno :) We had a quick dinner at Burger King and then proceeded to our favourite cinema, Cinemec to see Iron Man. I'd been looking forward to this movie for ages and luckily it came through on its promis! Robert Downey Jr is a great Tony Stark and the special effects were great. The design of Iron Man looks great and the CGI looks damn near realistic!
On Sunday we went to visit my in-laws in Friesland. We did nothing special; just a nice hot afternoon in the yard. Dirk had the greatest barbecue meats though, as we're used to from him :)
Now that it's Monday I really ought to get my ass in gear and get started on that pile of homework. I haven't done anything in the past two weeks and it's starting to show D:
Posted in: family , friends , iron man , weekend , wii
May 7
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Helen D. Cribbs 1911 - 2008 (OsakaNYC (kitzke)) by matt
Helen D. Cribbs, age 96, formerly of Bradner, OH passed away Friday, May 2, 2008 at Colonial Oaks, Sugar Land, TX. On November 10, 1911 she was born to William and Anna (Christen) Bryan in Bradner, OH. In 1939 Helen married Burnell Cribbs in Covington, KY and he preceded her in death on January 1, 1969. She was employed as a teacher at Lakota School District retiring in 1975 after 34 years of teaching. She was a member and church organist at Bradner United Methodist Church and a member of the Amicus Club and Delta Kappa Gamma.
Survivors include daughter: Anna (Jim) Langley of Sugar Land, TX; son: Alan (Barb) Cribbs of Streetsboro, OH; grandchildren: Matthew (Sue) Cribbs of Edgewater, NJ, Bryan Cribbs of Urbana, IL, Katy Langley of Dallas, TX, Jeff Langley of Norman, OK; great grandchild Tylor Cribbs of Edgewater, NJ. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband: Burnell Cribbs; brother: William Bryan.
Visitation will be held on Friday, May 9, 2008, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at the Marsh Funeral Home 4094 State Route 105 Pemberville, OH where funeral services will be conducted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 11:00 AM. Officiating will be Rev. Jeffrey Ridenour. There will be a bereavement luncheon held at the Bradner United Methodist Church immediately following the committal services at the cemetery. Interment will be in Bradner Cemetery, Bradner, OH. Those giving a memorial contribution may wish to consider the Alzheimer’s Association, NW Ohio Chapter, 2500 N. Reynolds Rd, Toledo, Ohio 43615-2820, Alzheimer’s Association, Houston/SE TX Chapter, 2242 W. Holcomb Blvd, TX 77030-2008 or Bradner United Methodist Church. On-line condolences may be sent to the family at www.marshfuneralhomes.com.
Posted in: default , family
May 1
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New video site (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
An old photo site, actually. A little while ago Flickr began accepting video uploads (no more than 150MB and 90 seconds). I just tried it out for the first time and this is the result:
Posted in: family , web
April 5
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Koganei babies (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
A very quick post to link to the website of Hamada Nursing Baby (??????????). This Koganei clinic is run by an 80-year-old woman with strong massaging hands and plenty of advice for new mothers wondering what to do with their infants. Megumi has been going there for some months, and has made a number of friends in the neighborhood with babies about the same age as Sakura. (Here’s hoping this entry helps bump the place up a bit in search engine results.)
Posted in: family , japan , life , web
April 3
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An online glossary I can really use! (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
The next time you need to communicate with a tiny person raised in a Japanese-speaking environment, head over to the Goo Labs and take a look at the ?????? (”baby-talk dictionary”). Toss your terms into the search field (you can use a baby term, like wanwan for a dog, or the normal word inu), or use one of the categorized lists listed lower on the page:
- Kana order (lists of terms for each character in the Japanese syllabary, either by baby sound or adult word represented)
- By genre (including such toddler favorites as “animals,” “foods and drinks,” and “song lyrics”)
- By sex of babies that tend to learn the term first (including months of vocabulary usage; boys lag by a half-month or so, with the exception of important words like “ramen”)
- By month of vocab usage
My favorite category is probably ????????, “maniac words.” The imported term in Japanese refers not to the axe-wielding variety but to a hobby or other interest taken to extremes, often in a “really out there” area that not many people pay attention to. Some of the examples in the Goo Labs glossary are ??? (insecticide), ????? (Aflac, the insurance firm with the popular duck), and ????? (Ultraman’s phrase “shuwatch,” to borrow the Wikipedia entry’s spelling). Crazy kids.
(Via ??????????.)
Posted in: family , japan , translation
March 31
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My spring post (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Seems like a quarterly thing, to post here. I’ve been busy. Translating and editing and enjoying visits from family (sister pictured) and watching the little girl grow larger and larger.
Jessica has been in town for 10 days or so. She came to Tokyo to watch her Oakland As play Yomiuri, Hanshin, and the Red Sox twice. They won three of four, so that wasn’t a bad start. The best seats we had were the “Excite Seats” for the season opener against Boston. Matsuzaka started, and Okajima got his pitches in, so there was no way the As would be treated like the home team even if that’s what they were on the card. We were in the second row, down the third-base line, in seats actually on the field. They came with helmets and gloves to protect us from fouls, of which there of course were none this game. And then the As lost! Walking Ortiz to pitch to Ramirez in the tenth. Bah. They won the second game the next night, at least.
Sakura was happy to meet her aunt. They played a lot and enjoyed some books together. (Sakura’s favorites these days all have buttons and little electronic songs, and Jes usually goes to bed with an iPod on to try to drive the ditties from her skull. Not that this works.) We fed Jes big piles of food and gave her no chance to exercise, beyond walking around Kichijoji looking for trinkets to purchase, so she’ll have to hit the gym hard when she gets back to California and her own waiting baby.
Bed time now. See you again in the summer! Well, sooner than that if I go ahead and get my posting act together. I owe a lot of people email as well. Sorry about that. Plugging back in . . .
March 24
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Protected: Psst, God…you killed the wrong one again. (Lab 1663 (The Sam)) by Sam
Posted in: family
December 25
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Dinner was great, as always, and of course I overate. The salmon starters were alright, but (like every year) the ham was awesome. Apparently my dad had some Finnish minister bring over a Christmas ham from Finland, just in time for Christmas. Awesome stuff and it's a shame that I couldn't bring any with me. I mean: it'd spoil on the way to Japan ;_; By the end of the night I was falling over with both sleep and stomach cramps :D Ah, you gotta love the holidays.
It was very nice to be together with the whole family again. :) I would've posted a picture, if my camera and SD reader weren't packed already :p
Posted in: christmas , dinner , family , nice
Christmas with the family (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Yesterday we celebrated Christmas Eve with my family. Everyone who wasn't stuck in a foreign place (Finland, the US) was there, so we had a nice little gathering :)Dinner was great, as always, and of course I overate. The salmon starters were alright, but (like every year) the ham was awesome. Apparently my dad had some Finnish minister bring over a Christmas ham from Finland, just in time for Christmas. Awesome stuff and it's a shame that I couldn't bring any with me. I mean: it'd spoil on the way to Japan ;_; By the end of the night I was falling over with both sleep and stomach cramps :D Ah, you gotta love the holidays.
It was very nice to be together with the whole family again. :) I would've posted a picture, if my camera and SD reader weren't packed already :p
Posted in: christmas , dinner , family , nice
September 21
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The aforementioned "lucky break" came when he offered to help pay for my trip to Japan. I've always been very pig-headed about accepting financial help, but I guess I'm learning to let go because I told him I'd be very happy to accept. Hacking it on our own, being independent is one thing. Not taking into account the bigger picture, is a wholly different thing.
So... Thank you dad! Thank you very muchly! :)
Posted in: family , generous , lucky break , trip to japan
A lucky and highly generous break (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
Yesterday evening I had a long chat with my father about all the stuff he's up to. Apparently he's busy getting a better hold on his financial situation. It's a healthy but slightly disorganised one. A lot of stuff I wasn't aware of came up, involving his company, his SO and so on. It was great to have a chat like that, knowing that he wants to keep us abreast of the big stuff in his life.The aforementioned "lucky break" came when he offered to help pay for my trip to Japan. I've always been very pig-headed about accepting financial help, but I guess I'm learning to let go because I told him I'd be very happy to accept. Hacking it on our own, being independent is one thing. Not taking into account the bigger picture, is a wholly different thing.
So... Thank you dad! Thank you very muchly! :)
Posted in: family , generous , lucky break , trip to japan
July 27
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Random Friday thoughts (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Last night I was correcting papers on the train, looking forward to a late night of writing up homework comments to hand back to students in class this evening. After I got home I jumped in the shower (it was about 915 degrees and raining outside) where, in a spasm of reclaimed memory, I noted that it was summer vacation at the school and I didn't have to hand back assignments until late August. Bam! Problem solved. I stepped out of the shower, put on clothes, and cracked a beer.
Sakura is sick now. She has something called herpangina, which means blistering inside her mouth and throat. Makes it painful to swallow, so she's been very fussy during feedings. Megu took her to the hospital and get everything checked up, and we now have some medicine to give her. Should be all better within a week or so. Poor baby.
Speaking of baby (-ies), Adam has posted more photos of his. See them on his Flickr site. Unless he has them protected and visible only to family and registered friends or something, in which case enjoy the Flickr warning page.
I bought a black MacBook. Stuck 2GB of RAM in it and it works just fine. I got to do the Microsoft Office dance again, the one where I try to install Office 2004, which I bought as an upgrade, and it tells me I have to have an older version on the drive, so I have to track down the disk for Office 2001 or Office X or whatever, copy the Office folder from it to the drive, point 2004 to that copy, and then erase said copy. It's all so inefficient. This machine has a camera on it; I should be able to show 2004 that yes, here's my CD copy of your ancestor, now please allow me to view this .doc filled with client comments I will ignore! Seems like it should work.
I'm now translating an article on the scandal rocking Japan's pension system, in which the Social Insurance Agency accidentally misplaced records for some obscenely high percentage of the population, rendering them incapable of receiving payments. I can't say I'm too confident in my own chances at getting a piece of this pie, since by the time I'm old enough to claim some of the yen I'm paying into the system there will be 100 million people my age and several dozen workers trying frantically to prop the whole thing up. I don't think Social Security will do me much good either—hey, the money to pay for Dubya's Wild Middle Eastern Ride doesn't grow on trees, you know—but I am doing an end run around that whole mess by not living or working in America and paying into that system. I'm way ahead of the game here.
All right, I lied. Actually I'm now editing the new issue of Japanese Book News for a very finicky client. "Please translate these reviews in a more formal register. This is too casual." "But the new critic you people have writing them in Japanese is much more casual than the last guy; we're being faithful to the source here." "Well, we know that, but ignore his style and do that stiff, formal thing." Thanks for sharing this fundamental bit of editorial direction at the end of the process, rather than before translation began.
More random things to type: I'm playing with WordPress and considering making it the default thingy for the whole bloggish shebang. It's doing stupid things with dead links that I can't seem to make go away, though; probably some permissions deal that the WP folks expect everyone just to know offhand. "Oh, when you install that plug-in of course you're supposed to chmod everything to 666, except for file B, which is 755." Pure gibberish! It's arcane wizardry like this that drives people to use MySpace.
Last but not least, I added more shots to the set of photos from our honeymoon trip to Scandinavia, lo those many years ago. Nice place in October. Much cooler than Tokyo in July. Would my company let me telecommute from three months in the future and seven time zones away? I'll ask the boss.
Posted in: family , japan , life , web , work
June 17
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What with the big staff meeting this afternoon, Marli and I visited my dad's place in Veenendaal last night. We'd decided to go for a pretty long stay since my sister+boyfriend would also be there, as well as my brother Mistoffelees who'd come over from Finland. All the siblings were together again for a day :)
It definitely was one of our nicer family get-togethers, with a barbecue, great food and an alltogether good time. My best friend Menno also dropped by since it'd been a long time since he'd seen everyone. I ended up crashing at Menno's place, since Marli needed to get home earlier than I wanted to leave. Unfortunately I got called for my stand-by duty around 0030, so that put a little dent in my mood (especialy given the fact that it was a false alarm caused by $CLIENT's customer).
My darling sister had brought my dad two bottles of champagne for after dinner and she was sweet enough to bring me a can of Guiness as well :D This allowed me to mix two Black Velvets, which were as good as I remembered them to be! It was also great to see the horrified looks of some of my family members as I was "ruining good champagne" by mixing it with Guiness ^_^
Posted in: birthday , family , fathers day , get-together
A great family get-together (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
It's my dad's birthday today; he's turned 61. Congrats dad! ^_^What with the big staff meeting this afternoon, Marli and I visited my dad's place in Veenendaal last night. We'd decided to go for a pretty long stay since my sister+boyfriend would also be there, as well as my brother Mistoffelees who'd come over from Finland. All the siblings were together again for a day :)
It definitely was one of our nicer family get-togethers, with a barbecue, great food and an alltogether good time. My best friend Menno also dropped by since it'd been a long time since he'd seen everyone. I ended up crashing at Menno's place, since Marli needed to get home earlier than I wanted to leave. Unfortunately I got called for my stand-by duty around 0030, so that put a little dent in my mood (especialy given the fact that it was a false alarm caused by $CLIENT's customer).
My darling sister had brought my dad two bottles of champagne for after dinner and she was sweet enough to bring me a can of Guiness as well :D This allowed me to mix two Black Velvets, which were as good as I remembered them to be! It was also great to see the horrified looks of some of my family members as I was "ruining good champagne" by mixing it with Guiness ^_^
Posted in: birthday , family , fathers day , get-together
May 24
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Congrats to the twins, and their parents, and all the grandparents on their way to Mountain View to visit!
Posted in: family
Anna and Luke (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Sakura's cousins have left the hospital and are at home now. Their stay (with C-section and all) was shorter than Megumi's straightforward birth here in Japan, which is a shocking bit of news to everyone over here who hears it.
Congrats to the twins, and their parents, and all the grandparents on their way to Mountain View to visit!
Posted in: family
May 9
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Sakura's cousins (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Sakura just got her first two cousins. Congratulations to Adam and Sue on the birth of their twins! Hope you enjoyed sleeping during your life so far, because you don't get to do so again for a while.
Welcome to Luke and Anna Durfee. Sue is doing well and the babies are healthy (around 2,150–2,200 grams each) and ready to take on the world. Photos will go here (and elsewhere) when they become available, I suppose.
(This is sort of a duplicate post to one I made at Sakura's blog, which is where I mean to put all the baby pics and videos and my interminable yammerings about how cute she is and stuff.)
Posted in: family
April 27
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Weblog writing has been sparse lately due to a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Durfee (they came to see Sakura, and oh, I guess the rest of us as well) but now that they are gone I will try to post more frequently. I signed up for a Twitter account yesterday so now I am way more hip and connected and Web 2.0 than ever before. If you're into that then add me as a friend. I'm so ronery.
That last thing reminds me of how sad I am that this East Asian dictator's blog isn't getting updated any more these days.
Posted in: family , web
Irony High (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Photo by Jes! (Click to see the bigger one.) Apparently San Rafael High School is a bit confused when it comes to the messages sent by signs around the sports field.
Weblog writing has been sparse lately due to a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Durfee (they came to see Sakura, and oh, I guess the rest of us as well) but now that they are gone I will try to post more frequently. I signed up for a Twitter account yesterday so now I am way more hip and connected and Web 2.0 than ever before. If you're into that then add me as a friend. I'm so ronery.
That last thing reminds me of how sad I am that this East Asian dictator's blog isn't getting updated any more these days.
Posted in: family , web
April 24
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Kat’s gone to Eugene…. (Devin's Life (Lurker)) by Lurker
Katherine’s headed off today to visit her mother in Eugene, OR. My mother in law has been in the hospital the last few days due to some medical issues. It sounds like she’ll be okay, but if you would, please keep her in your prayers for a quick recovery. I know Kat’s not been sleeping well the last few nights due to worry, so hopefully her being up there will help things.
Posted in: family
April 12
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Posted in:
et cetera
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family
,
friends
,
inspired
Pursuit of Happiness (AsphaltBuffet) by Ben
Living alone sucks. There is something intrinsically unsatisfying about being by myself that just grates on my being every day. I eat alone, watch tv alone, play games alone, sleep alone and live alone. There are times in which I can be at work around people all day long and come home feeling like I never saw a person. A while ago I thought that a pet would help, and I don’t really think it would. Ugh.
Hopefully within the next month when my lease runs out and I move, I can get a place with Shelby and at least have someone to talk to. It won’t solve all my problems, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. The pursuit of happiness is a craggy path in the woods. You can walk it alone, and it’s nice to find out that you’re capable of that, but after a while you want someone to walk with you. I walk through life looking at all the great things and when I turn to tell someone about it, it’s just me. Walking down this path by myself and I realize that I’m just talking to the wind.
I’ve lived alone and away for a year and realize that 12 hours by car is too far. 12 hours is forever away. I can’t see myself moving back to Indiana in the forseeable future, but when I’m by myself, it doesn’t seem so bad. Then I realize that I love where I’m at, but not the companionship (or more accurately, it’s absense). Even talking to people online is nice but not the same. There is something that seems so decadent about having someone I could watch a movie with who would lean against me and eat my popcorn and laugh when I got flustered that the kernels had all disappeared.
I miss the familiarity of a girlfriend. The wall to lean against that gives support. The wall that sometimes needs to be supported itself. There is something very satisfying about being needed by someone else that casual friendships cannot provide. I think that everyone wants to feel needed to bring some purpose to their actions and value to their life. Being alone steals that away. It cheapens existence and leaves a person searching for a void. I don’t feel empty and need something to fill a place in my life, I feel too full with nowhere to go. It’s like being an extra puzzle piece on a table with a complete puzzle. I’m not looking at how to move to fit, I’m looking for a different puzzle.
April 10
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My mother and her husband had flown over to the Netherlands for a long weekend, so we went to see them at my sister's yesterday. It was very nice to see them again since it'd been at least a year! I'm sorry to say that we had to leave early, in part due to the crap I described in my previous blog post.
@ Anu: we're sorry for leaving so early, we really -do- miss you you know? :)
* Website
I've been cooking up ideas for a completely new build of Kilala.nl. Most of the content will remain the same (although some parts will be taken offline) and the change will be mostly visual. I plan on finally -really- learning CSS so I can implement some nice, graphical trickery.
In order to get to a point where I can start working on the new code I'll first need to get some things sorted. I'm already working on moving all archived blog posts into the database (only 2002 and 2003 remain) and I've set up MySQL + PHP on my Powermac so I can run a local version of the website. Still, it'll be a very long road 'till I finally get to the end result and I hope that the creative process involved will keep me a bit happier.
* Doubts about work (see yesterday)
One of the doubts I was talking about earlier, about work, is that I would love to do something more creative than systems administration. Of course I "make" stuff now as well, but I can never go: "This is me! This is what I've built! Marvel at my handiwork!". Scripts and proposals and solved incidents just aren't tangible like that.
I think this website is here to at least partially fill that gap: I'm trying creative processes that I never would get to use otherwise. Thing is though, jobs with tangible, creative processes start to sound more and more enticing! Jobs like gardening, cooking and carpentry where you make something and people care.
That's something jobs in IT are renowned for: most people outside your sphere of influence, but inside the same organisation, don't really seem to care about what you do. So if you're part of a team of sysadmins the "we care"-level drops steadily once you moved outside your department.
For now I'll stick to my current job and get more creative hobbies. There's still that sewing project lying in the corner and woodwork sounds rather relaxing by now :)
Posted in: family , mother , overhaul , website
In other news, here's some updates (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach
* FamilyMy mother and her husband had flown over to the Netherlands for a long weekend, so we went to see them at my sister's yesterday. It was very nice to see them again since it'd been at least a year! I'm sorry to say that we had to leave early, in part due to the crap I described in my previous blog post.
@ Anu: we're sorry for leaving so early, we really -do- miss you you know? :)
* Website
I've been cooking up ideas for a completely new build of Kilala.nl. Most of the content will remain the same (although some parts will be taken offline) and the change will be mostly visual. I plan on finally -really- learning CSS so I can implement some nice, graphical trickery.
In order to get to a point where I can start working on the new code I'll first need to get some things sorted. I'm already working on moving all archived blog posts into the database (only 2002 and 2003 remain) and I've set up MySQL + PHP on my Powermac so I can run a local version of the website. Still, it'll be a very long road 'till I finally get to the end result and I hope that the creative process involved will keep me a bit happier.
* Doubts about work (see yesterday)
One of the doubts I was talking about earlier, about work, is that I would love to do something more creative than systems administration. Of course I "make" stuff now as well, but I can never go: "This is me! This is what I've built! Marvel at my handiwork!". Scripts and proposals and solved incidents just aren't tangible like that.
I think this website is here to at least partially fill that gap: I'm trying creative processes that I never would get to use otherwise. Thing is though, jobs with tangible, creative processes start to sound more and more enticing! Jobs like gardening, cooking and carpentry where you make something and people care.
That's something jobs in IT are renowned for: most people outside your sphere of influence, but inside the same organisation, don't really seem to care about what you do. So if you're part of a team of sysadmins the "we care"-level drops steadily once you moved outside your department.
For now I'll stick to my current job and get more creative hobbies. There's still that sewing project lying in the corner and woodwork sounds rather relaxing by now :)
Posted in: family , mother , overhaul , website
March 16
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Posted in: family
Sakura Ruth (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Born at just past 8:30 in the evening on March 5, 2007. She weighs 3,384 grams, is 51 centimeters long, and is (hopefully) fast asleep right now, unlike her dad. Welcome to the world.
Posted in: family
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Visiting hours are one to seven each afternoon/evening, so I took off early from the office and came over to see the kid. She has a good grip for a one-day-old. I have to bring some work home when I leave the office before it gets done there, but I'm happy to do so when I get to change diapers and hold sleeping infants and stuff.
More photos from the evening are up at the Flickr site.
Posted in: family
Fingers (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Yesterday Sakura and her mom were both running fevers, and there was concern about a shared illness of some kind. Tests for influenza were negative, which was good, but the baby went off to the NICU for a night for observation just the same. During the night both patients' fevers came down to healthy ranges and beginning this morning they've been in the same room. (The hospital stay will be about five more days.)
Visiting hours are one to seven each afternoon/evening, so I took off early from the office and came over to see the kid. She has a good grip for a one-day-old. I have to bring some work home when I leave the office before it gets done there, but I'm happy to do so when I get to change diapers and hold sleeping infants and stuff.
More photos from the evening are up at the Flickr site.
Posted in: family
March 5
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March already, eh? (Lab 1663 (The Sam)) by Sam
I can’t believe we’re already more than two months into 2007. Before you know it, it’ll be Summer and I’ll have to deal with humid weather again >:|
Anyway…
Paul and I moved into our new apartment this past Friday. As I’ve said to just about everyone (I think), it’s ghetto…but it’s cheap. It’s also close to my parents - less than 100 feet separate their front door from ours. Ordinarily that would bug me, but since my parents will have my sister and her children with them for the time being (I don’t have the energy for a Crackhead™ update…suffice it to say they’re “off” again - for now, at least), I’d rather be close by where I can help out if need be. Plus, since my dad and I are still carpooling downtown to work everyday, it’s nice to be able to just meet him at the car in the mornings.
Work is going pretty decent, we got our new computers recently but I forgot to post about it. I went from a Pentium 4 3.0GHz with 1GB of DDR, integrated Intel graphics and a single 17″ LCD to a Core 2 Duo E6400 with 4GB of DDR2, a Radeon X1300 and dual 17″ displays. Not bad, not bad at all. It’s legacy free, so I can’t use my old ergo keyboard or the internal IDE DVD burner that I had in the old box…but I can work around that stuff. I’ll find a USB ergo keyboard, and our team lead just mentioned ordering either external burners or the internal models from Dell.
I snapped a picture with my phone for a thread on Ars this morning, I might as well post it here. Forgive the poor quality:
So yeah…not a lot else going on. Naturally things are still a little weird for me, what with being single and all. I honestly expected this breakup to really hit me a lot harder than it has…but aside from a couple of instances where I’ve been inconsolable and unable to sleep, it’s not been bad at all. Most days it’s just a kind of lingering, dull sadness. Most of the time it helps that we’re still good friends - seeing her and hanging out with her makes it better. Well, sometimes it makes it worse, but not usually :)
Anyway, that’s some awfullly emo crap up there - but bear with me, it was my first serious relationship and it lasted two and a half years. This time last year, I was fully expecting to spend the rest of my life with Jessi. Now finding myself without her is bound to throw me off my game for some months, I’d expect.
Posted in: daily , family
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Operation "Surprise the crap out of mom” is a success! (Devin's Life (Lurker)) by Lurker
My mom was insanely surprised and overjoyed to see me. :) I’m actually here in her salon surfing a borrowed wireless connection. I’m going to meet my brother for lunch in about an hour. 
Posted in: family
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I’m sitting in a coffee shop…. (Devin's Life (Lurker)) by Lurker
Drinking their coffee!
Yes, I’m here in Seattle again. We were up for my friend Wesa’s wedding and we’ve been quite busy. We’re heading out today but I have a few hours to myself. Kat’s gone to Ikea with a friend of ours and I’m waiting for my mom’s store to open and for her to show up so I can surprise her. Assuming she’s working today that is. If not, I’ll have to hop a bus downtown and sneak up to her condo. 
It’s gonna be fun, she has no clue I’m here.
Posted in: family
February 13
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Ho-ly Crap. (Lab 1663 (The Sam)) by Sam
It’s been a while since we’ve had a sort of general “what Sam is up to” post, so I guess now’s as good a time as any.
I moved out of the apartment in Carmel at the end of December. I’ve been hunting around for a new apartment since then, but for various reasons didn’t find one until just recently. I’m hoping to get moved into this new place on the NW side of Indy in the next few days. In a strange twist of fate, I will be sharing a two-bedroom apartment with my younger brother Paul.
In the meantime, I’ve been crashing various places - I stayed in an extended-stay hotel through most of January, and have been crashing at my parents’ house for the last week or so. Suffice it to say that I’m ready to get back into my own place with my own things (and a stable, fast Internet connection).
My sister gave birth to her third child last Friday. She named her Annika Jael (yeah, I know). Of course I’m very happy that we have a new addition to the family and every life is precious, etc. However, it’s a little tough to get excited about Mary’s third baby when she can’t take care of the two she had before - not to mention ongoing problems with The Crackhead.
Le sigh.
Anyway, due to extended exposure to the nephews, I contracted a fairly nasty case of strep throat (again) towards the end of last week. My doctor called in a heavy duty antibiotic airstrike in the form of azithromyacin. Although at my worst I was absolutely incapacitated with pain in my throat, ears and head, a mere three days of this treatment and I’m left with only a scratchy throat and a mild headache, totally treatable with a couple of aspirin and a cough drop. Hoorah!
Lessee, what else is new…
Work is going well, but nothing really exciting is happening. We’re supposed to be getting new workstations sometime soon. Conroes, 4GB of system memory and dual displays? Yes, please!
Um, I got a new cell phone. That’s something new, I guess - right? I used to have a Samsung SCH-A650. It was very basic, but in my experience very reliable (Jessi has had some reception problems with hers, however). It was essentially the freebie phone that I got when I started my plan with Verizon almost two years ago. As I approached the “new every two” part of my contract this year, I decided that I wanted to upgrade. Although I never had much use for a cameraphone, over the two years that I’ve had my non-cameraphone I’ve been in more than one situation where I would have liked to have had the ability to take a quick snapshot of something. So that was on my shopping list, plus .mp3 capability if I could get it. Enhanced data features would be good too.
Following thos criteria, what was available from Verizon and guided by reviews at PhoneScoop.com, I settled on the Samsung SCH-A930.
On the surface, it met all of my requirements. After having it for about two weeks now, I can say that I’m about 85%-90% satisfied with it. As a phone, it’s not really any different than my A650. The UI is different, but is neither better or worse than the A650. All of the normal “phone” functions are about the same as my old phone, except that perhaps the general volume seems to be louder and/or clearer (I can’t tell which, maybe both) - not that the sound quality on the A650 was bad, to be sure.
In the other functions I looked for - camera and music player - it seems adequate, if not stellar. The phone is, I believe, a 1.3MP - a full .1MP more resolution that the first digital camera I ever bought ;) It does the job, and having it on a swivel is nice. Transferring photos from the camera to a computer is kind of a hassle. I bought the USB cable for the phone, but haven’t found any software that I like so far that allows you to transfer photos or videos (or “PIX” and “FLIX” in Verizonspeak) from the phone to the computer. It’s a shame they just don’t write it so the phone shows up as a USB mass storage device. Anyone out there who’s better versed in cell technology know why they don’t just do this (other than keeping their proprietary hooks in the device, of course)? Anyway, I’ve been having a bit of fun with the camera, so much so that I opened up an album in my Coppermine gallery just for cheesey cameraphone pictures (I also added a feature to the front page of the blog, for those who haven’t noticed, that displays the most recently uploaded photo to any of my Coppermine albums).
The music capability of the phone is very strongly tied-in with Verizon’s VCast service, which I do not use. The fact that I have to convert all of my .mp3s to .wma before I could load them on the phone (using the proprietary VCast plug-in for Windows Media Player - again, no USB mass storage device goodness for-the-lose). However, I found a good batch converter which made even this process bearable. It’s a good thing that I only have a few GB of music, or storage space could have been a problem (you people with >100GB of music probably don’t want this phone, at least not to use as a music player). I haven’t yet purchased a micro-SD card to put in the phone to expand its capacity, but I loaded up a couple of Peeping Tom tunes and listened to them on the headphones that I got with my Verizon “music” kit (which also included the aforementioned USB cable and the craptastic VCast software). The headphones were comfortable and the phone played back the music well, although the interface is probably less-intuitive than your average dedicated music player. The buttons and OLED on the front of the screen help to minimize that a bit, though.
The only other negatives about the A930 are the placement of the speakerphone button (which is so inconvenient - right along the side of the phone near the volume buttons - that I’m actively seeking a way to disable it) and the fact that when used for non-phone functions, the battery doesn’t last long (not surprising there, I’ll probably pick up an extended life battery sometime in the near future).
Okay, so that’s all about the phone. Oh, I built two new Core 2 Duo rigs for Jeff and Cara last weekend. Jeff’s is having some trouble, and as soon as I’m feeling better and/or have a good place to set it up and diagnose it I’m going to take a look - a loose HSF on the processor is my current hypothesis, though. Cara’s seems to be performing admirably, though ;)
I guess that’s about it for everything. We were supposed to get hammered overnight with snow and ice, but I haven’t looked outside yet to see how bad it was. Wish me luck!
Posted in: daily , family , technology
January 8
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Posted in:
blogs
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family
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me
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school
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spain
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travel
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vacation
2007 (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin
I'm back and settled in for my last semester of school. Needing only two credits to graduate, I am only taking two classes, which means I have class only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I realize many people would kill to have this much free time, so I'm forcing myself to take advantage of it.
My first project for this semester will be sorting through, processing and uploading the 1500+ photos I took on our 10 day trip to Spain over the holidays. It was an action-packed trip, and we were exhausted most of the time, but we saw a ton of stuff, had a wonderful time and met some great people! Definitely something I won't forget for a long, long time.
Being free five days a week means I'll have little excuse to not blog. FWIW, here are my blog stats for 2006 and 2005 (thanks to Alex King for the SQL queries).
2006 2005 ==== ==== Number of posts: 162 100 Posts per day: .44 .27 Days between posts: 2.25 3.65 Average post length: 1428 1362 Total length of all posts: 231,413 136,295
I almost doubled my frequency on 2006 and I think I can definitely double it in 2007.
More goals/projects as they come up. Talk to you soon!
Technorati Tags: blogging, 2007, stats, vacation, trip, Spain, photography, photos, family, school, college, graduation
January 5
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On the subject of those, we're heading downtown to Yotsuya this evening to have our own on this side fo the Pacific. Stay up late, watch some idiotic television programming, maybe go to the local shrine after midnight. There will be plenty of food to plow through, as there usually is when you go to a dinner event prepared by the Enchante crew.
Happy 2007 to everyone (anyone? Bueller?) who takes a look at this blog from time to time. In the new year I'll try to do more with this place. I swear! I will need to get active and share pics of the little one on the way.
Posted in: family
Clan Durfee plots world domination (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf
Or something . . . I'm not sure what they're doing, sitting around the Christmas table and drinking champagne and poring over secret code books. I hope that's what they are. Would be boring for them to end up yet another game to play at family get-togethers.
On the subject of those, we're heading downtown to Yotsuya this evening to have our own on this side fo the Pacific. Stay up late, watch some idiotic television programming, maybe go to the local shrine after midnight. There will be plenty of food to plow through, as there usually is when you go to a dinner event prepared by the Enchante crew.
Happy 2007 to everyone (anyone? Bueller?) who takes a look at this blog from time to time. In the new year I'll try to do more with this place. I swear! I will need to get active and share pics of the little one on the way.
Posted in: family