Random Thoughts: Westward Bound

OK, so it's not that far west, but we are going to Connecticut this weekend. It should be fun. Hopefully, the lake will be warm enough to encourage me to go swimming. The pond at the campground on Memorial Day weekend was warm enough, but it is quite a bit smaller than the lake. The air should be plenty warm to encourage a swim no matter how cold it is.

It's strange how different things can be with a small change in position to the North or West. I fully expect temperatures to be 10-15 degrees warmer. The other thing that may occur is a severe thundershower. That would be fun. Laura has experience a couple distant thunderstorms, but never a direct hit. Loud and frequent lightning strikes are always fun, assuming you aren't on a golf course or anything.

On another note, I was hoping to get my latest photos up to the web before this weekend, but it looks like I won't get a chance. I also have a bunch of videos to post to YouTube when I have the time, too. Of course, that all has to wait until Monday or later, because I have to go home, quickly pack, and hop in the car.

News: Mostly Restored

Due to a bug in the back-end (mySQL for those that care) of my website/server, all the posts were being displayed in numerical order, which happens to be approximately reverse chronological order. This is most useless as you might imagine. There is one fix to the problem and one improvement to the problem. The fix, which likely won't happen, is to upgrade mySQL. The reason I say it won't happen is because ipower would have to do it, and from posts I have seen elsewhere, they won't do it. The improvement, on the other hand, is to upgrade my blog software, which I have done. The unfortunate problem with this, though, is that I had to upgrade a plug-in, which required an upgrade to my gallery software, which failed which requires me to reinstall it and re-import all my photos.

The one thing that will make it slightly easier/faster is that I can direct import from the server, rather than uploading them all. Unfortunately, though, all the photos that were rotated on the site directly, are no longer rotated. That means many of the thumbnails will be sideways for the foreseeable future unless anyone is willing to rotate thousands* hundreds of photos one at a time.

* - There are, in fact, thousands of photos, but my guess is around 300-500 need to be rotated.

News: Test Post

Don't know exactly what the deal is, but ipower seems to have migrated my site. It doesn't seem to work quite right though. I just need to post this to see what happens.

Random Thoughts: Cold, wet and windy

I can honestly say I haven't been as cold and tired as I was from Friday and Saturday. All said, I think it would have been much better without the wind. I was much more cold and much less willing to walk because it was so windy. Also, I got very little sleep because the wind kept me up all night. I almost think I would have been better off if I had skipped sleeping all together. At the very least, Jeremy and I would have played a little more cribbage. Anyway, it was a fun event of our own making. Of course, as it turned out, it wasn't really a team event. In fact, it wasn't really an event at all unless you went inside all night. Some teams, it would seem, did just that. The same people that I saw at dinner, pizza party, and breakfast were all clean, dry and had neat and orderly hair. It's a definite sign that they were fair-weather Relayers.

In any case, I don't know if I will do it next year. The event could be much more fun if we truly had a team. As it was, we had more along the lines of half a team. Rain or shine, I could see it being much more fun if the team plus families showed up and stayed the night and walked in groups. Either way, though, I still had a bit of fun.

One other note, there was a kid who was attempting to run for 24 full hours. Getting some of the back story, he was the product of a group home. He really likes running and is really good at it. Back to the story, he was planning on running for a full 24 hour span. Unfortunately, was not successful. He had two things going against him. First, was the previously mentioned weather. The second thing he was lacking was a support system. People were periodically running with him as moral support, but even that was unplanned. He needed people to provide him Goo and Gatorade and water at periodic intervals. He needed coach runners to push him along when the wind picked up and the rain was sheeting in. Heck, he probably could have used more fresh shoes and socks to help with the foot fatigue. All said, it looked like he lost it around midnight. I know he was running when we were setting up around five. Doing the math, he probably ran for about six or seven hours at (I would estimate) a 9 minute per mile pace. Factoring in bathroom breaks, I put him in at 30-45 miles or so. Even though he didn't run for 24 hours, he still ran a quite respectable an impressive ultra-marathon. So, I just have to say, "Congratulations nameless kid I don't know and will likely never see again."

Random Thoughts: Ready to Relay

Well, tonight is the Relay for Life. It should be interesting. We are expected to get 1-3 inches of rain and 15-30 knot winds. I'm thinking that we really, really need to make sure the canopy is secure. The tent won't go anywhere with me inside, but last year the canopy was lifting up a bit with a light breeze.

It's gonna be real tough to miss my good night kisses from Laura. Dead-beat parents just boggle my mind. I don't know how some people can just walk away from their kids. Unfortunately, I think they reproduce more than good, caring parents so they will soon be the norm. It's scary that a movie like Idiocracy could be a premonition-documentary instead of an all-out comedy.

Anyway, I'm done with my work hours now, so I'm just waiting for my cube-mate to get back so we can make a trip to good, old Ocean State Job Lot for high-salt, high-fat "nutrition."

Random Thoughts: Baby Vomit

Sunday was a fun day. I got almost no sleep Saturday night because I had a fever nausea. It wasn't that high, but it was bad enough to cause me to be really hot and really cold at the same time. I also had that scratchy feeling to my skin like I am sleeping under a sandpaper sheet. Apparently, Laura was also sick because she woke up around 5:45 a.m. and proceeded to 'blow chunks' all over her bed. An hour later, she seemed to be OK. We had been planning to go to Erin's half marathon to cheer her on, so I had to assess her condition because I didn't want to take a baby an hour from home to have her barfing everywhere. I gave her three tiny bites of banana. She seemed fine. I gave her two tiny sips of water and sat her on my lap to read a story. Two minutes later she started to gag. Fortunately, I was able to keep my cloths clean/dry by catching her throw-up in my right hand. Ten seconds later, I was fortunate again when I caught the next round in my left hand. Ten more seconds later, I was most unfortunate that I didn't have a third (and a fourth) hand. As I sat on the kitchen floor with a dry-heaving, crying shivering baby and both hands full of baby vomit I calmly called, "Uh, Erin... I need some help."

Laura is well past the newborn spit-up stage. That was never really a big deal, either. A little curdled milk really isn't all that bad. Baby vomit, however, is an entirely different animal. I am really glad Laura never had an illness like this. I really hope this doesn't happen again any time soon.

Baby Gallery: Laura in Spring

Sorry there haven't been any updates in a while. I had been actively migrating all my pictures to the new server, but I ran out of free time. Things are getting a little hectic these days. Anyway, here is three months worth of photos. One thing which I haven't figured out yet is the fact that I can seem to get photos to rotate properly. As such, some of the photos are going to be sideways. Unfortunately, until I have time to figure it out, you will just have to deal with it. :)