Monkey Business

Friday afternoon (5/28/2010), Child and I left Idaho and drove the four hours down to Provo. There, I dropped her off at her parents' house and drove another four hours down to southern Utah. In the North Wash area, some friends and I hiked a canyon known as "Monkey Business."

I'm not sure if some of the people want their names posted, so I'm going to leave them off. (I've become a little more sensitive to this issue as of late...)


Sometimes it's hard to tell where a canyon really begins. Most of the time, a few shallow gullies through the desert come together into a wash, which eventually turns into a canyon. The wash we started down came to a nice, abrupt drop-off, though, albeit one that could be hiked around and downclimbed.



I liked this multi-level shot. Traffic jam in the canyon. Actually, someone else was taking a picture from the front, but for some reason I liked this better. I think it gave a better idea of the 3D nature of canyons.


So the below picture isn't anything particularly spectacular, but it amused me. It looks like S. is squeezing through a tight spot, which he is...only this picture isn't right-side up. It's sideways.


The picture below is actually the correct view. He's lying on his side, squeezing under a boulder.


I realized after picking my favorite pictures from this trip that none of them were just normal pictures of the canyon. It's like anything you do a lot: the activity itself becomes a little ho-hum, and it's just the little out-of-the-ordinary things that become interesting. Anyway, I scrolled through the pictures and found this one just to show off the canyon itself.


This picture was taken by one of the girls that came on our trip, and I just liked it for some reason. It doesn't have the pretty orange and reds of some of the other parts of the canyon, but it has a very...canyony feel to it.


One of the most common canyon creatures you'll see are small lizards. Like the canyon frogs, they have the ability to climb straight up the walls, and they're fun to watch as they scurry around.


This was one of Child's favorite pictures so I threw it in.


I liked this one. We reached a narrow section of the canyon that was easier to stem over than go through. A lot of the time, the group was spread out so much that it was hard to get a picture of more than a couple people at a time, but this time I managed to catch them all together.


This is what's known as a "guided rappel." The trick is to guide the rappeller into the pool of water.



And everyone's least favorite part: the climb out. This climb is known as the "Kelsey Exit," named after the man who first found it, I believe. I've actually been up it once before while leaving a different canyon, and it has only gotten worse. The rock is primarily rotten sandstone, so everything you touch is sandy and slippery. Not only is it steep and hard to climb, but you constantly feel as if your handholds and footholes are going to break, crumble, or slide. Not fun.


But it finally came to an end. Freedom!

Biscuits and...oatmeal?

News flash: despite their similar visual appearance, biscuits and oatmeal doesn't taste nearly as good as biscuits and gravy.

And why in the world would you put oatmeal in a crockpot, much less right next to an identical crockpot containing gravy? Sure, they had giant labels reading "Oatmeal" and "Gravy" on them, but who reads those?

Highly mathematical average

Before a comet or asteroid hit Jupiter last year, astronomers had calculated that an impact like that would happen on average every 350 years.

How did they arrive at that number? The lay-person might (amusingly) think that they had simply taken the only two other known impacts (Shoemaker-Levy in 1994 and a possible impact observed by Giovanni Cassini in 1640), subtracted the two, and got the value of 354 years, but not so!

According to arXiv, arriving at that number involved taking those two impacts, adding "crater counts on Jupiter's large moons and various theoretical calculations", and THEN deciding it was 350 years.

I am suspicious.

Allergies

There's nothing quite like waking up at 3 AM because your eyes are itching like crazy and you can't breath. Relatedly, slowly suffocating in your sleep gives you strange dreams.

And I think evolution got it backwards. Sitting up, it's slightly easier to breath but hard to sleep. Laying down, it's harder to breath, and therefore still impossible to sleep. Why not make it easier to breath when you're laying down? I'd rather spend my days (and nights) flat on my back...although I guess that would make doing my job rather difficult.

The big One Over Five!

I cross the 20% mark of my story today! (Who cares that my goal wordcount is more-or-less arbitrary, making the achievement more-or-less arbitrary as well!)

I don't know if I'm just being more dedicated, or if I spent so much time thinking about this story before writing it that I have a good idea of where it's going each time I sit down, but the writing seems to be going fast.

It still doesn't seem like very good writing yet, and I keep wanting to go back and redo things, but I'm (mostly) forcing myself to wait until I'm done.

Bit of a contradiction...

Restaurant name spotted by Child: "Original Thai 2"

You sly dog!

Tell me we don't have to fear for the future...

Siete de Mayo

Last night Child and I attended a church Cinco de Mayo party that was actually held on the Siete of Mayo. There was a lot of delicious food, but by far the best part of the party was the pinata.

One of the guys had made a life-size deer pinata, complete with horns, as the "adult" pinata. The legs were made out of thick cardboard tubes, while the body was a box wrapped in duct-tape, then wrapped in carpet, then wrapped in saranwrap. This bad boy wasn't going down without a fight.

And what a fight it was. The participants had their choice of an aluminum or wooden bat, then they were blindfolded and a sombrero was placed on their head. The deer was on a rope looped through a ring in the ceiling of the outdoor pavilion so the deer could be lifted and lowered. Each bat-wielder got a couple minutes to swing, hitting the floor, their legs, their sombrero, and occasionally even the deer. With the deer swinging wildly back, occasionally the deer and the human would get tangled up, at which point it started looking more like hand-to-hand combat then a casual party game. The person would be fighting grimly in ominous silence, swinging the bat as if they were in the jungles of New York going down under a wave of zombies.

The legs of the deer were the first to go, although the tubes were so thick that even they lasted through several swingers. When each one was finally cracked open, beef jerky and candy would spill out, because nothing says, "Deer Pinata" like meat-flavored lollipops. There were a few close calls when children, seeing the candy go flying, would dive under the pinata to collect it, apparently not understanding that being within the strike zone (or even a 20-foot radius) of a blindfolded man wildly swinging a 26 ounce Louisville Slugger probably wasn't a good idea.

The torso of the deer was an entirely different story than the legs, however. The carpeted sides were effectively impervious to the bat, and it soon became apparent that even a wrecking-ball would have a hard time getting through. When pretty much everyone present had exhausted their ingenuity, the deer was "skinned" of its carpet protection and finally finished off. Overall, it ranked right up with the most hilarious things I have ever seen in my life, and I only wish I had thought to take my camera.

There was a second pinata waiting in the wings, a full-sized "golden calf" that was actually wrapped in metal bands, but unfortunately Ash was getting cold and we had to take her home.

Blockbuster

This morning I threw away the Blockbuster card from my wallet. Does that company even still exist?

NO CAPS LOCK!!!

You don't realize how often you accidentally press the caps-lock key until you disable it and have an icon pop up on the screen every time you press it.

Civil Defense Caves

This morning, we decided to trek out to the Civil Defense Caves, which are about a 1/2 hour from Rexburg. After starting with a wrong turn out of the Rexburg dollar store parking lot, I figured we had that all out of our system.

Two more wrong turns later (in my defense, the sign pointing the way had been knocked down), we arrived at the caves. It had sprinkled a little on the way up, but hey, we were going into a cave. The cave was actually a lava tube, where a hard crust had formed over flowing lava, then the liquid lava beneath had drained away leaving the shell behind. Word on the street was that they were called the "Civil Defense Caves" because back in the day, the plan was for the town of Rexburg to move in there if a nuclear war destroyed the world.


Despite not being the nearby Ice Caves, this cave had plenty of ice in its own right. Some sections of the cave had dozens of these ice balls, formed from water dripping from the ceiling.


I liked the ice slug crawling up the rock.

Wordcount vs. Percentage

I've decided I like seeing a "% completed" indication more than a wordcount indication while I'm writing. Sure, % completed is just an estimate while the wordcount is exact, but it just seems like I make progress faster. Going from "8% completed" to "9% completed" seems like a solid achievement, while going from 7147 to 8154 words just doesn't mean much.

And maybe I shouldn't be focusing on what I've done, and work on what I still need to do...

Madame Guillotine

A couple months ago I decided to try an experiment: switching from Gillette Mach 3 razor blades ($15 for a 3-pack) to cheap, one-blade Bic razors ($2.50 for a 10-pack).

The results were about what I expected. The three-bladed razor is much nicer on the skin. It shaves better, easier, and quicker. The one-blade razors scrape my skin much more easily, leaving cuts behind. However, the problems seem to be diminishing, perhaps as my skin gets more used to the rougher shave. I was seriously considering switching back for the first few weeks, but now I'm going to try it for a while longer. Over time, it's a pretty significant cost savings, at the expense of a little bit of the environment and a little of my comfort.

So...who wins?

Recently I was reading a forum thread that was talking about Linux distributions. Three comments in a row went thus (paraphrased):

Person 1: After 10 years of Ubuntu, I'm running Fedora.
Person 2: I gave up on Fedora back in 2003 and went with Gentoo.
Person 3: I used Gentoo for almost 3 years, but personally, I dumped it for Ubuntu.

Hacked!

Yesterday, the animal shelter called me. "Our website doesn't work."

Their website is hosted on my server, and I maintain it for them so I went to take a look. The first problem was easy to find: their domain name simply went to a GoDaddy.com landing page. "Looks like the domain name must have expired or something," I said. I'd seen it a dozen times before. "Just make sure the credit card didn't expire or something like that."

After fixing that, the shelter manager called me back. "It's pointing where it should, but they said it'd take a few minutes to update."

"Great," I said, but that reminded me that I had a second temporary link I could use to view the site if the domain name was down. Just for the heck of it, I checked out the site, and was greeted by flashing images and random text. Oh no! Their site has been hacked! Thousands upon thousands of mostly-empty folders with random names clogged their account. The shelter's own files and folders remained, except for the home page which had been replaced with the hacker's own page.

This was a kick in the pants. As security-conscious as I am, I had failed somewhere. Doing a little research, it wasn't hard to see where. When I set up their FTP account, I had chosen too easy of a password. It was a non-dictionary word that I had appended some numbers on to...but the non-dictonary word was their domain name and I hadn't stopped to think that a brute-force attack might toss that into the mix.

That wasn't the primary problem. Their unique password I could change, but I realized I had a bigger security hole. All the sites on my server that need to use the database use the same username/password to access it. If the hackers cared, they could glance at the database configuration file in the site that they hacked and get into the database, where they'd have access to every site's data. There wasn't anything particularly sensitive in there that wasn't encrypted, but still not a good thing.

The first thing I did was change the password on the account. The second thing was change the database password. The third thing was to give each site a unique password to the database with limited access. That way, if one site was hacked, it couldn't spread to other sites, and it would be easy to cut off that single access.

Fortunately, I keep good backups so it was easy enough to restore the hacked site. The hardest part was wading through the massive number of folders the hackers had created.

I wish I had fixed that particular security hole BEFORE something happened, but at least it's better now.

Wordcount Widget!

Note the awesome wordcount widget I added to the right sidebar. This widget is awesome because it AUTOMATICALLY tracks the wordcount on my latest work-in-progress, no manual updating needed.

For those who are interested in the technical side of it, here's how it works:

1. My computer automatically backs up all my files to a remote server every night.
2. Since I use OpenOffice, the document in question is in .odt format. I discovered that a nice feature of this format is that the word count of the document is availabe in the raw document code (search for "meta:word-count").
3. The image you see is actually a PHP script on the same remote server. When viewed in a browser, the script extracts the wordcount directly from the document and generates the image on the fly.

Result:

Hi-Ya!

Child thought it was funny, but I'll bet SHE can't kick her pizza off her plate while she's holding it and send it flying behind the bed.

I build robots, not time-travel machines

Child: "There's a text message on your phone. 'Ultimate Frisbee at the stadium tonight at 6 pm.'"
Me: "That was from yesterday."
Child: "Oh, okay. Are you going?"
Me: ...

Child's defense was that she had just gotten back from a 9.5 mile run, so I can't really blame her. And the Frisbee will have had been fun, after I invent my time travel device.

Please don't do this

If you're playing a game, and you realize you can't win, don't change your strategy to simply making the frontrunner lose. It's not the game, it's not cool, and it's not fun.

Sexy hot man abs!

When I need information on a basic programming function, such as the "abs" (absolute value) function, I like to check the standard manual page. The easiest way to do this is to type "man [function name]" into Google.

I have to issue a caution, though. If you type "man abs" into Google, the results you get may not be exactly what you're looking for...

Pop-yuuUUU-ler

I would never have guessed, but according to US News and World Report, BYU is currently the most popular school in the nation.

Now what's better: that distinction, or our annual winning of the "#1 Stone-cold sober school" award?

Child-ish quotes

My favorite quote from Child today: "What time did you say the 4:00 showing started?"

Pick a little, talk a little

Yesterday, Ash started talking. She's made noises before, but yesterday she just started going off, a constant stream of squeaks and "ahs!" It's very cute.

Latch for your life!

This evening, Ash sucked on her bottle so hard that when she let go, the air pressure differential sucked the nipple into the bottle.

Religious thought of the day

When we came to Earth, we were given agency. I've always understood that to be a sacred right, but it occurred to me that while we were given agency, we weren't given a whole lot.

Agency is synonymous with power. Here on Earth, we have the power or agency to control our response to a situation, but that's about it. We don't have the power to stop natural disasters, and we can't choose not to have other people affect us. In short, we have agency, but only a little. A training amount, you might say.

When Satan offered to guarantee our return to heaven by taking our agency, what he really wanted was to be the only one with agency. In other words, the only one with power. Maybe that's obvious, but it just clicked for me today.

Love

Sunday night, we went to a Valentine's Day party and my sister and bro-in-law's house. We had a great time with tons of good food and chocolate and games.

In one of the games, we randomly drew two words. One was romantic, one was not. From these two words, we had to write a poem. Here were the entries:

I may never shower, or wash off my feet,
I may not change diapers that well,
I may never take out the trash to the street,
But I will buy you roses to cover the smell.

My heart is like a shovel,
I dig you every day.
I will love you forever,
And every day I'll say:
That you are like a feather,
Soft and oh-so-sweet.
That you smell sweet like heather,
A small that can't be beat,
That I value you as leather,
And I'll always love you so,
Yes, you are like a shovel:
Buried deep so love can grow.

I love you more than chocolate milk,
I lov you more than satiny silk.
I love you more than gummy bears,
I love yoiu more than well-trimmed nose hairs.
I love you more than candy bars,
I love you more than all the stars.

You are my sweetheart, you're like a spider,
Cause you do so much work, and I love you.
You are my mom and I love you more than chocolate,
You are the love of my life and I hope you will love me too.

My darling [NAME] with the beautiful face,
I think it strange when you dress in lace.
And when your robot comes to sup,
And you give him silverware and a cup.
And I find it odd when you sing in the car,
Or do a jig on top of our bar,
And when you stand upon your head,
Or sleep upside down upon the bed.
But despite how strange you may appear,
You're the one I love, my dear.

Our wedding was better
Than if I had won the Football National Championships
And had been awarded the Heisman Trophy award.

Our
Love is,
in the things you do.
When you do the dishes,
When we walk, just us two.
And your many sweet kisses.
Love is: you.

It's one thing I will always miss, our walks on the beach so sandy.
The sweetness of your kiss is like the taste of candy,
You bring such color to life like jelly beans in a box,
My dear little wife, you are such a fox.

Random Pictures

While working in my upstairs office (this was at our old house), I heard a strange bird-like noise. I went downstairs to investigate, and after a moment found out what the noise was. Apparently our next-door neighbors were keeping chickens in their backyard. Or at least one. She was doing her best to keep her feet out of the snow.


Due to some difficulties in getting to our bank, we simply cashed my last paycheck. Ash was excited to see that much money in one place.


She also takes after her daddy in liking power tools.

Posting by email

Since I didn't have Internet access until today except on my phone, I posted the earlier "Three Doors Down" post by email from my iPhone. I've also sent a few other emails from my phone, and I think I get a little of the feeling that the Book of Mormon writers must have felt, carving their words onto metal tablets with a chisel.

I'm an incredibly slow typer on the on-screen keyboard on the iPhone, so I have to actually think about what I'm going to write, think about the most succinct way to write in, then painstakingly type it out. If I later decide that I didn't like the way I worded something, it's too hard to go back and erase, so I just add a clarification.

Webcomics

A couple recent webcomics made me laugh. The first one is from a webcomic called Dr. McNinja. He's a ninja who's also a doctor. The link is here: http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p24

Mysterious Stranger: "I will destroy this machine!" (He smashes the display monitor sitting on the desk.)
Ben Franklin II: (Rolling his eyes) "Oh no, please...not the computer monitor. That's the key to the entire device. You've destroyed everything definitely."


A second one was sent to me by a friend, and references the Mars Rover named Spirit. Since my new job is working on robots, it was somewhat applicable. This second site allows hotlinking to their images, so I'm including it below (click the image to view it larger):

Nice neighbors

Our downstairs neighbors are really nice. We found out that our ISP wouldn't be able to get us Internet service before February 4 (?!) so our neighbors were nice enough to let us borrow their wireless password.

Working online is much easier when you're not doing it on an iPhone over the cellphone network.

Three Doors Down

To go from inside our house out to the backyard, we have to pass through three doors.

The first door leads to a small room where you can go left to the downstairs tenants or right to a small hallway.

If you go through the door on the right to the hallway, you then have the option of going right again into the garage, or out the end of the hallway to freedom and two feet of snow.

If I'm ever being chased by an ax-wielding serial killer, my plan is to run into that maze of doors and get him so lost he ends up in the downstairs neighbors' apartment, where he can satiate his bloodlust while I escape out the front door.

On the other hand, they're really nice neighbors, so maybe I should lead him into the garage where I can overwhelm him with car exhaust fumes while holding him off with tomato cages.

Moving is stressful

I wouldn't advise moving more than two or three times a year, even if
your wife complains that you never leave the house and do things
together.

Ah, the joys of moving

Moving Day - 1: High Stress Situation

Keep in mind that Child's phone has been missing for the past week, so we've had a single phone we've been swapping between us. It makes everything harder when you can't communicate with each other and/or whoever you're trying to make various arrangements with.

3:00 AM: Wake up.

3:00-7:00 AM: Try to fall back asleep, fail.

8:55 AM: Walk out to car to leave for last day of work.

8:56 AM: Discover car has been broken into. Nice little going-away present. Lova ya too, Utah. Of course this was the first time we had parked outside our garage all winter (our garage being full of moving boxes). The criminal wasn't particularly smart; he managed to figure out how to open the doors because they were unlocked, but he couldn't decipher how to unstick the suction cup of the GPS unit in the front window, so he just broke it off.

Also pointing to his newbiness was the fact that he missed $25 in the center console and a multi-thousand dollar paycheck on the front seat. He did manage to make me 45 minutes late for my last day of work, though, and waste time calling an insurance company who apparently doesn't believe in returning messages (yes, that's you, USAA).

Of course, incidents like this is exactly why we have insurance. After a prior break-in or two, I tossed around the idea of installing some sort of homemade camera in my car, hooked to my wireless network. I finally decided I'd spend a lot less time and probably the same amount of money just getting insurance and not letting it bother me.

10:00 AM: Attempt to print rental agreement for new home, so I can sign and fax it back. The office chooses that day to change every printer in the building. Spend twenty minutes going from printer to printer trying to figure out which one is which before finally emailing it to a friend who emails it to a friend who prints it off and gives it to me. Sign the document, fax it back. No good. Apparently Child's signature also has to be on the document. Child is not present. Child calls them, convinces them to let her sign it Monday.

12:30 PM: Going away lunch. Initial plan was Goodwoods (a BBQ joint), but to include a new vegan hire we go to PeiWeis instead. PeiWeis is packed, go to Mexican food next door. Get a Tres Leche cake for Child. She likes it. On the way back to the office with five of us packed in a car, we realize that a single accident has the ability to wipe out the entire company. The driver slows down.

4:30 PM: Leave work for the last time. With two brand new programmers taking my place and a single harried original programmer, I get the feeling I'm fleeing a sinking ship. Of course, the truth is that in today's digital age, it's impossible to flee a technology-based company unless you block all your old coworkers in IM, refuse to answer their emails, calls, or text messages, and avoid them on any social networking sites.

Archiving the perpetually-replenished To-Do email for the last time is a nice feeling.

5:00 PM: Pick up moving truck. Load friend's piano in moving truck to take from Provo to Draper. Turn down (generous) offer of another piano from Child's mom. Driving a 26 foot truck feels like you're driving from the second story window of a house.

5:30 PM: Drop off piano. Going down a ramp is much easier than going up. Especially when exceptionally skilled backing-up of a 26 foot truck practially drops the ramp in your front door.

6:00 PM: Nearly get killed by a car which someone parked on a hill and didn't put the parking brake on. When you're leaning in the door of a car that's rolling backwards downhill, it's surprisingly hard to either back out OR find the parking brake. Fortunately, the people who had parked behind us had left about five minutes earlier, or they'd have a crushed front-end on their car and we'd have a crushed rear-end on our car.

7:00 PM: Snow starts to fall. Big, thick, fat flakes. Looks like we'll be packing and driving in six inches of snow in the morning.

10:00 PM: Go to bed.

Hooray for kind neighbors!

When you think about taking a meal to a neighbor, it's usually when they're sick, just had a baby, or something along those lines.

I have to say, though, it's incredibly nice to have someone invite you over for a meal during Moving Week. A few days before you move, your entire kitchen is backed up, your refrigerator and cupboards are bare because you don't want to move food with you, and you're left either eating out or eating Cup o' Soups.

It's even better when they send you home with two full plates of leftovers for a second meal.

Growing like a weed!

Child took Ash to the pediatrician's office today. Ash is in the 95 percentile for height and 25 percentile for weight. Apparently our parenting strategy of food-deprivation and daily sessions with the rack are paying off.

Unintended consequences

Yesterday at church, the teacher of the 2-year-olds asked me to bring in our 4 month old daughter, Ash. She wanted to teach the kids that they had two fathers: an earthly father and a heavenly Father.

The problem is that now there's a bunch of 2-year-olds going around telling their friends that they have two daddies. It could make things a little awkward.

A little planning ahead would have been nice.

Tonight, Child and I enjoyed the excitement of trotting five hundred-pound loads of dirt across the street to dump them in the vacant field prior to our move. Unfortunately, the boxes of dirt were frozen solid, which made it a little hard to retrieve the cardboard (I didn't feel right dumping the cardboard, even though it was already half-dissolved).

Now why didn't Child tell me to get rid of the boxes of dirt back in, say, November? You know, before it was frozen solid and freezing cold outside...

Big News!

It's official, so I can post it on my blog now. I've accepted a position at a robotics startup in Idaho called 5D Robotics (motto: "Two Ds better than reality!").

There were a lot of things to weigh while considering taking the job. My current job had great pay, and I just got a raise at the beginning of the year. As a matter-of-fact, I'll be taking a fairly significant pay cut to go to this new job.

In addition, my current job allows me to work from home 4 days a week, with the flexibility to take off whenever I want. At my new job, I assume I'll be working in the office every day, 9 to 5.

I also really like my current coworkers, and I know the company is going to go big (it already is).

However, my decision was based more on my long-term interest. At my current job, I build real-estate websites. I really enjoy web-programming, and working in real-estate was fine, but I got my Masters Degree in robotics. I think working with robotics has more potential to keep me interested and sharp. (Plus, my Masters advisor will be happy to know I'm finally using my education.)

In addition, from the brief meeting I had with my new coworkers, I think they'll be easy to get along with as well. They seem pretty committed and experienced.

I told my current bosses today at work. We had a full day of interviews scheduled for a new programmer, so basically I told them to start looking for two new candidates instead of just one. They said they were sorry to see me leaving, but they wished me the best. I'll miss the company too.

I also told our landlord, since we'll need to get out of the last few months of our contract. He was understanding as well.

The last person I need to tell is the Bishop. I was just called as the new ward clerk two weeks ago, and the Bishop said, "I look forward to years of good service from you!" Um, would you be satisfied with a month?

Anyway, things are going smoothly, so we're down to packing everything up now. My goal is to pack everything that's small enough into banana boxes, so our moving truck is nothing both furniture and neat stacks of identical boxes. I think Child is catching my vision as far as that goes...

Y esta la vida!

iCatchup with iPictures

The other day I downloaded all my photos off my iPhone, so I decided to post a few of the top pictures here. Forgive me if I've already posted any of them.

This first one is from a date night that Child's parents gave us. They watched Ash while Child and I went to an Egyptian museum that was hosting a date night for couples. We did Egyptian-themed activities like writing something in Egyptian hieroglyphics (mine says supercalifragilisticexpealidocious) and having a mummy-wrapping contest.


Child in a mummy wrap.

We were playing Pirates' Dice with a cousin of mine. The rules clearly state that since it's a piratey game, you're allowed to try to peek at other people's dice. Leaning over towards the other players is suspicious, though, so I just stuck my iPhone over his shoulder and took a pictures.

A few weeks ago the animal shelter had an appreciation luncheon for all the area rescues, animal control officers, and volunteers. I was invited for old time's sake. This was a cake that one of the shelter employees made; it's sort of a tradition at the shelter. (Don't worry, the litter box was washed really well before she used it for the cake.)


Nothing like buying your precious darling a "Minnie the Fiend" blanket...

Earrings

Why would you pierce the ears of an 18 month old baby?

Especially if it looks like a boy?

I just need your social security number now.

I was playing Scrabble online, and after saying hello to my opponent over the in-game chat, I asked a common question. "So, where are you from?"

"Pretty sure I'm not going to tell you that one. I know how things go on the Internet," she said.

I was surprised, and a little impressed. Most people don't have a clue about privacy on the Internet. At the same time, giving away your state (the usual answer) isn't usually a danger, since that narrows you down to at the least 500,000 people (hello, Wyoming!). I said something to that effect to her, but there was no immediate response.

It made me curious though. She also had a picture of herself and her full name right there as her profile name. "If you're worried about privacy, why do you have your full name right there?" I asked.

"Do you know how many people don't use their real names?" she said.

Well, no. And I noticed that she didn't actually say that wasn't her real name. It was an uncommon name, but it sounded pretty realistic.

I did a quick Google search of that name, which turned up a bare 46 results. Most of them led back to a single MySpace page, owned by a girl with the same name...and the same person in the profile picture. With all sorts of details about the girl, including her age, occupation, home town, which schools she was attending, and the fact that she was going to be away from home for the weekend visiting family.

As it turns out, her home state was pretty uncommon as well. South Dakota. I felt a little guilty; she was probably right not to give it out. That uncommon state, combined with the fact that her name only turned up one significant person, was pretty compelling.

About that time, she posted another message in the Scrabble chat. Apparently she had thought about what I said, and decided that I was right, the state didn't give away that much. "South Dakota," she had posted.

Where's narcolepsy when you need it?

My wife's asleep on the bed. Our daughter is asleep beside her. Our niece is asleep in the crib. Our cat is asleep behind my computer.

Why am I awake again?

Hint: he's talking about a favicon

what do I need to tilte and icon to needs to be to show up in the address bar and what size that is?

Comparision

The top two pictures are of me (left) and Child (right). The bottom picture is our (now 11 week old) baby, Ash. Who does she look more like?

Thoughts

1. Smokers Stink

Do smokers realize how bad they smell? I know this isn't unique to me, but I can be sitting in my car at a stoplight, with the windows rolled up, smell cigarette smoke, look around, and spot a smoker in a car several yards away.

Today I was walking through one end of the lobby of a building, and I smelled smoke. Sure enough, a distance away across the lobby was a smoker. He wasn't even smoking at the time, just standing there obviously waiting for someone. He just emanated cigarette smoke smell.

I'm just glad I live in a part of the country where very few people smoke. I don't know how people in high-smoking areas stand the stench and the carcinogens so thoughtfully foisted on them smokers.

2. Unethical People Stink

People telling lies. People implying things that aren't true. People furthering personal grudges by taking advantage of their position. Employers lining their pockets at the expense of their employees. People lining their pockets by taking advantage of the inexperience or lack of knowledge of others. I'm shocked by how some of these brokerages treat their agents, and what they'll do to make some money.

3. Jealousy Stinks

Even though I would never lower myself to that level, it's still hard to hear about people not that different from myself making hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing unethical things.

Why would a hacker wear gloves?

A story on CNN about hackers messing with Comcast's homepage had the following image:


Why is the hacker wearing gloves? You can't really type with gloves on, and what exactly is their purpose? Are you trying to keep from getting fingerprints on your own keyboard?

Fun and games!

Two nights ago, Child surprised me with a trip to "Play!", put on by the Utah Symphony, where they played music from video games. It was tons of fun. They had music from classics like Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, up to modern games like Halo and World of Warcraft.

I had to laugh, though. Child was crowing about how sneaky she was to get me into nice clothes for the symphony without me suspecting that something was up, then we get there and there's people wearing death metal tee-shirts and spiky purple hair. It reminded me of the time we went to the Tran-Siberian Orchestra and saw an older couple walking in wearing a really nice suit and fancy dress. I'm not sure they knew exactly what kind of music TSO played...

Even considering the subject matter, I was surprised how many kids were at Play!. It was a brilliant scheme to get the younger generation involved in "culture." Abravanel Hall was packed, and I'm surprised it was a one-night only event.

As an addendum, yesterday afternoon I played some Frisbee. The weather was amazing! I seemed to have more energy than I've had the past couple months, the games were exciting and close, and our team pulled out a win in the end. It was just about perfect.

As he was leaving, one of the guys said out loud what was also my opinion, something to the effect of liking playing with this group of people because everyone played hard but no one took the game too seriously. Everyone had fun, and everyone went home happy.

And more.

While I was typing that last post, Child came in and said, "I need to vent some frustrations." She had three different companies she's trying to call (to give them money!), and 5 different phone numbers between them. No one answered.

Seriously, businesses. Do you honestly feel good running this way? I still think dark thoughts about Comcast, Dell, and Brent Brown auto, whose reps at various times misled, lied, and simply hung up on me.

3 for 3

Three companies, three problems, one day! I'm on a roll!

With this company, my online account was having problems. The customer rep I called said they knew about the problem and that it only affected certain accounts, but their systems were down so she couldn't transfer me to the person who could fix the problem. Her advice was to "wait another billing cycle and see if the problem's still there."

Their system was also down the last time I called, a month ago. Either they have a terrible system, or it's a convenient excuse to avoid doing anything.

If I ever start a company, "customer service" isn't going to be a PR phrase, it's going to be a top priority.

Disappointment

If you gave someone a $3,000 check, and they didn't cash it for a month and a half, would you cancel it and hope they had forgotten about it, or would you remind them about it?

If someone did that to you (the "cancel and hope you forgot about it" option) , how would you react?

Stuck a between rock and a hard place

GiantInsuranceCompany(tm) says they attempted to charge my credit card for my premium, and the charge was reversed. BankOfVisaCard(tm) says no request was made, much less a reverse or decline on a charge.

So what now happens? I'll tell you what happens: I get stuck with a fee.

Attitude problems

We have a great daughter, but I've gotta say, she has a real chip on her shoulder.

Double meaning

Our company is building a website for a medical software company. Their tagline is "Whether your patient is coming in or going out, [Company] has the solution."

Considering that their software will potentially be used to manage terminal patients, perhaps "going out" isn't a good phrase to use...

And it's the kitchen by a nose!

Yesterday, Child and I got a clock that we ordered online. It has the spiffy feature that it projects the time on the ceiling--a nice feature when you wake up every few hours with a baby.

The clock is a "radio controlled" clock, meaning the time is set automatically to a radio signal it receives from an atomic clock based in Colorado.

Child and I had to laugh when we reached this part of the instructions: "It is highly recommended to set the projection alarm...in the area of your home that is closest to Colorado."

Let's see, closest to Colorado...would that be the living room or kitchen? Better get out my ruler.

(In fairness, this is only during the setup phase of the clock, because they want the fewest number of walls between the clock and the radio signal, but still...)

Favicons

Favicons are the little icon next to the address bar at the top of your browser.

This is more of a note to myself so I can find it later, but it might come in handy down the road to someone else:

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/images/favicon.ico">

Random Acquaintance

Yesterday, Child and I attended a baptism for one of her high-school friends. While there, she met another friend who had recently gotten married. During introductions, we found out that both I and Child's friend's husband have the same first name. We also are both programmers. We both program in PHP. We both work from home.

The coincidences didn't stop there. We both looked familiar to each other, and after running through Ultimate Frisbee, college classes, and old apartments, we realized that we knew each other from a past writing group. In the process of figuring that out, Child and I found out that he and his friends had actually started the Quark club (BYU's sci-fi/fantasy club) many years ago. Quark was where Child and I first met. (Incidentally, "quark" is the sound a quantum duck makes.)

He thought it had died out when he and his friends left college, and it actually had, but someone had eventually revived it. It's now a full-blown club with dozens of active members; weekly writing meetings, reading groups, and movie nights; monthly socials; and at least one marriage a year. He was shocked to hear that, and I think it made his day to know that the club he had started was going so strong.

Completely unrelated: if Jean Valjean used the prison number tattooed on his chest to prove that he was Jean Valjean instead of the innocent man Javert had captured, then why didn't the LACK of a tattoo on the innocent man's chest prove his innocence?

Out you go!

This makes me happy.

In short, the mayor of Stockon tried to fire a policeman who gave his son a ticket. Talk about your sense of entitlement. The town was rightly angered, and the situation was made worse by the mayor's refusal to talk about the situation at a town meeting.

Fortunately, the town was in the middle of elections, and the mayor was promptly kicked out, garnering less than 25% of the vote. Some of those votes were from people who voted (by mail) before the incident happened and wanted to change their votes after, but were denied.

The system still works on occasion.

Depths of plumbing

Our house has plumbing problems. They're not related in any way, but over the last couple months I've had to figure out how to fix toilet problems, bathtub problems, bathroom sink problems, and finally kitchen sink/disposal problems.

Look out Mario, I'm moving up.

Bread

Last night I dreamed about bread. But this wasn't just any bread, it was delicious, airy-light French bread, crackly on the outside and soft, smooth, and almost sweet on the inside. It was amazing.

Maybe it was because we were looking at wheat grinders and talking about making bread the night before.

Amazon oops!

This morning Amazon started a promotion, selling the new Tran-Siberian Orchestra album "Night Castle" for cheap. I bought it using the credit card number Amazon had thoughtfully (and un-asked for, as far as I can remember) remembered from the last time I bought something, then I downloaded the MP3s.

A couple hours later, I got a notice saying that the credit card I had used was invalid and my order was being canceled. I went and checked my Amazon account, and sure enough the credit card was an old one. However, I've already downloaded the MP3s.

Do I call them up and say, "Hey, I need to give you money!" Do I just re-buy the album using a valid credit card even though I don't need to download it again? Why didn't they run the credit card before allowing me to download the album in the first place?

Crackers for all!

Yesterday, Child and I visited the animal shelter to show off Ash. We visited a couple weeks ago but missed a couple friends so we visited again. Pat had made a beautiful blanket with cat faces on it for Ash.

Faster! Faster!

There's a deer doing laps in the empty field across from my window. Seriously, he's sprinting across it, turning around, and sprinting back. He's already done it like three times.

Rights, and not so rights

Last night and this morning I read an extremely interesting talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks about religious freedom, and how it was under attack.

It got me thinking about "rights." Rights are what are at the center of the "gay marriage" debate, but I think a large part of the disconnect between those for and against comes down to differing beliefs about rights.

Every right is not created equal. There are basic human rights, some of which are outlined in the U. S. Bill of Rights and all of which are granted by God/the universe/existance/whatever metaphysical concept you choose to accept. Other rights are those defined and granted by political bodies, such as speed limits, the drinking age, the voting age, municipal waste dumping laws, etc.

The tricky part here is that political bodies have stepped in and blurred the line. They've taken the basic human right of a religious union and wrapped it with a vast collection of government-granted privileges. This gray area causes confusion to arise. What exactly does the government have the right to do when it comes to marriage, and what supersedes its rights? Inevitably, because of the confusion and the nature of government, it overstepped its bounds.

And what were the opposing camps supposed to do? The religionists saw a cherished human right as being under attack and tried to protect it by codifying it into a form the government understood (a constitutional amendment), while the pro-gay-marriage activists understandably in turn saw that as an attack on their attempt to gain political privileges similar to those enjoyed by married couples, and fought back.

Result? Instant divide.

Unfortunately, there's no easy fix. Religionists will always think that pro-gay-marriage activists are contributing to the erosion of the foundation of society. Religionists won't like giving special privileges to a demographic that they see as defining themselves by a sexual deviancy. On the other hand, same-sex couples will always think they are being marginalized until they have the exact same privileges as heterosexual couples.

However, those irreconcilable differences were no excuse for the behavior that occurred before and after the Proposition 8 vote. If I understand him correctly, that was Elder Oaks' point. The Proposition 8 vote was all about political privileges to gay marriage advocates, yet they simultaneously attempted to deny other voters their political privilege of voting, by using intimidation.

Granted: neither side was blameless in every aspect. However, voter intimidation is pretty serious. I'm not aware of anything the pro-Prop-8 crowd did that approached that level.

I think both camps need to start by coming to a better understand the opposing camp's point of view. Religionists would see that same-sex marriage advocates aren't deliberately fighting against marriage, but for similar priviliges to those enjoyed by heterosexual marriages. And same-sex marriage advocates would benefit by understanding that this is a bigger issue to religionists than just hospital visitation and death benefits.

The truth is out there

Knowledge leads to understanding and happiness.

Half-truths, outright lies, and even facts taken out of context lead to confusion and unhappiness.

Go with your gut on this one.

Worst Nightmare

It's official. I had to add Internet Explorer 8 to my list of browsers to support. Curse you, IE 8!!!

How come every version of Internet Explorer that comes out insists on rendering a webpage slightly different from all its earlier incarnations? I look at the same webpage in IE 6, 7 and 8 and one has a weird gap between two elements, one thinks it's Picasso and skews an image, and the third one decides to get creative positioning an element.

I know it's possible to be consistent; Firefox has managed to do it right the past three or four versions I've used. In Firefox, I've only seen one problem that occurred from upgrading to a new version, and that was a fairly esoteric mouse dragging issue.

dIE.

Health Savings Account (HSA) Research

I've been doing comparison of various health savings account (HSA) providers, and there's a lot of variety. Here's my findings so far:

UMB
Setup fee: $0 for partnered health insurance providers
Monthly fee: $2.50

Debit Account:
Interest paid:
$0 – $999.99: 0.50%
$1,000.00 – $4,999.99: 0.75%
$5,000.00 – $14,999.99: 1.00%
$15,000.00+: 2.02%

Investing Account:
Monthly fee: $1.50
Transaction fee: $14.95
Options: 7 major mutual funds

Impression: It was hard for their agents to get their fees straight. Three calls resulted in three different sets of fees, although each fee bounced around between two values. The fourth time I called (to see if I'd get yet another quote) I got a guy I had gotten before so I couldn't see if I'd get yet another. Anyway, I took the value for the fees that was quoted two out of three times in each case.

They had a nice selection of mutual funds from seven major companies (including American Funds and Fidelity), but no Vanguard, which I was hoping to find.

HealthSavings Administrators
Setup fee: $20
Monthly fee: $3.25

Debit Account:
Monthly fee: $2.00 (for balances below $2,500)

Interest paid:
$0.00 – $99.99: 0.00%
$100.00 – $999.99: 0.15%
$1,000.00 – $4,999.99: 0.50%
$5,000.00 – $14,999.99: 1.00%
$15,000.00+: 1.50%

Investing Account:
Quarterly fee: 0.0008 * account balance, max $16 per mutual fund
Options: 22 Vanguard mutual funds

Impression: The reason I found this company was because I was looking for a company that offered Vanguard mutual funds, which they did. One of the few, apparently. On the downside, you're limited to 22 pre-selected Vanguard mutual funds.

An even bigger downside: you can't have both a debit account and an investing account. You have to choose one or the other. This means if you want to invest your money (and you do) then you don't have a handy debit card to make your purchases/payments with. You'd have to submit a reimbursment request for each transaction (or perhaps you can submit them all at once at the end of the year?).

On the plus side, they don't charge transaction fees to move money into or out of their 22 Vanguard mutual funds.

Chase
This one's tricky. Apparently Humana (who we're getting our high-deductible health plan through) negotiated their own rates with Chase, so these numbers might not apply perfectly to everyone. I imagine they're close though.

Setup fee: $0 for partnered health insurance providers
Monthly fee: $3.00 ($2.50 if you use a non-partnered health insurance provider)

Debit Account:
Interest paid: 1.01%, no matter the account balance (0.50% for non-partnered plans)

Investing Account:
Monthly fee: $2.50
No transaction fees.
Options: JPMorgan and American Century mutual funds only.

Impression: limited investing choices. The fees you're charged and interest you get may vary depending on who your insurance provider is (this is probably the case with a lot of companies). In short, the limited investing choices is the biggest con, and the 1.01% interest rate is the biggest pro.

First Horizon Msaver:
Setup fee: $0 for partnered health insurance providers
Monthly fee: $2.50

Debit Account:
Interest paid:
$0 - $499.99: 0.10%
$500 - $3,499.99: 0.20%
$3,500 - $4,999.99: 0.50%
$5,000 - $9,999.99: 0.75%
$10,000+: 1.00%

Investing Account:
Monthly fee: $2.50 if you only stick to 8 selected Goldmann Sachs mutual funds, $0 if you go their full brokerage account route.
Transaction fees: $29.95+ if you go their full brokerage account route.
Options: Potentially anything

Impression: I like their website. I like the fact that you can open a brokerage account that gives you access to whatever stocks or mutual funds (Vanguard!) you want, but the transaction fees are really high.

Fifth Third Bank
Setup fee: $0 for partnered health insurance providers
Monthly fee: $2.00

Debit Account:
Interest paid:
$0.01 - $2,999.99: 0.50%
$3,000.00– $4,999.99: 1.00%
$5,000.00+: 1.50%

Investment Account:
Monthly fee: $2.00
Transaction fees: $0
Options: 25 funds from a variety of companies

Impression: Uses a MasterCard debit card. I seem to notice that a lot of places don't accept MasterCard. Is that really the case?

HSA Bank
Setup fee: $18.00
Monthly fee: $2.25

Debit Account:
Interest paid:
Below $500: 0.25%
$500 - $2,499.99: 0.65%
$2,500 - $4,999.99: 1.00%
$5,000 - $14,999.99: 1.50%
$15,000+: 2.05%

Investment Account:
Everything is done through TD Ameritrade.
Transaction fee for stock: $10
Transaction fee for no-load mutual funds: $50 (high!)
Investment options: anything

Impression:
It doesn't appear like Ameritrade has very good customer reviews, and the fee for a no-load mutual fund is really high, but the benefit is that you can invest in anything you want.

HealthEquity (IntermountainHealthCare's preferred HSA vendor, based in Draper, UT) gets a dishonorable mention and no link because they refuse to disclose their interest rates until you actually sign up. Seriously?! What type of bank (or ANY financial institution) doesn't tell you their interest rates up front? I'll tell you what type: the type that have poor and uncompetitive interest rates. I'd be interested in talking to anyone who uses them to see if that's the case.

Health Savings Account (HSA)

Child and I have been looking into health insurance options. With a new baby, our rates are about to go up, and it's hard paying all the money we do when all of us are healthy as far as we can tell.

The option we've decided on is a Health Savings Account (HSA).

The idea is that instead of paying full premiums for regular health insurance, you pay a smaller premium for health insurance with a high deductible (high-deductible health plan, or HDHP). Along with that, you open a special health savings account (HSA) where you can deposit money (such as the money you saved by paying smaller premiums). This money is used to pay for any medical expenses.

There's a few pros and cons.

Pros:
If nothing ever happens to you, you're not out the money as you would have been if you'd spent it on insurance premiums. It just builds in your savings account.

Any money you put into the savings account is untaxed if you eventually use it for qualified medical expenses.

"Qualified medical expenses" are defined very broadly. Things like acupuncture, chiropractors, even lasik eye surgery are acceptable, as well as the more usual things like medications. You're still paying for the chiropractor, but if you'd be paying anyway, it's better to pay with untaxed money.

After age 65, you can take the money out for non-medical expenses without penalty, although it will still be income taxed if used for non-medical expenses. (In other words, it will be tax-deferred.)

Cons:
You have a very high deductible; usually $3,000 to $10,000. This means that if something big happens, you have a very large out-of-pocket expense before insurance kicks in.

This also means that for smaller things like doctor visits and prescription medications, you'll be paying for everything since it's doubtful you'll reach your deductible.

Any money you put in the savings account is supposed to be used for medical expenses only. Before age 65, if you take it out for something other than medical expenses, the government hits you with a 10% penalty plus income tax.

A Star (A*) path/route finding Javascript code

For a little side project I was working on, I needed a Javascript implementation of the A Star (A*) path finding algorithm. I couldn't find a good/simple one online, so I coded my own. I'm posting it here in case anyone else is interested in using it. Example map:  
Example path:  
The usage is simple. Make a single function call, passing in the start and destination x/y locations as arrays (e.g. [1, 2]), the board as a two-dimensional array (where 0 means a spot is open), and the number of rows and columns in your board. A final parameter indicates whether diagonal movement should be allowed.
  
<script>
path = a_star(start, destination, board, rows, columns, allow_diagonals);
</script>  

The function will return an array of nodes from start to destination with the shortest path. The x/y values of each node can be accessed like so: path[0].x or path[0].y.  

<script>
for (var i = 0; i < path.length; i++)
    alert("X/Y of path node: "+path[i].x+"/"+path[i].y);
</script>  

Download the A Star Javascript code.

Example implementation:
<html>
    <body>
        <script src="a_star.js"></script>
        <script>
        //Set the number of rows and columns for the board
        var rows = 10;
        var columns = 10;

        //Create the board, setting random squares to be obstacles
        var board = [];
        for (var x = 0; x < columns; x++)
        {
            board[x] = [];

            for (var y = 0; y < rows; y++)
            {
                //Give each square a 25% chance of being an obstacle
                var square = Math.floor(Math.random()*4);

                //0 = open, 1 = obstacle
                if (square == 0)
                    board[x][y] = 1;
                else
                    board[x][y] = 0;
            }
        }
    
        //Set the start and destination squares (and guarantee they're not an obstacle)
        var start = [1, 1];
        board[1][1] = 0;

        var destination = [8, 8];
        board[8][8] = 0;

          //Indicate whether we should do cardinal directions only (N, E, S, W) or diagonal directions as well
         var allow_diagonals = true;
 
        //Use A* to see if there's a path between them
        var path = a_star(start, destination, board, rows, columns, allow_diagonals);

        //Draw the board
        for (var y = 0; y < rows; y++)
        {
            document.write("<div>");

            for (var x = 0; x < columns; x++)        
            {
                document.write("<div id='board_"+x+"_"+y+"' style='"
                    + "float: left;"
                    + " width: 20; height: 20;"
                    + " border: thin solid black;"
                    + " background-color: "+(board[x][y] == 0 ? "white" : "black")
                    + "'></div>");
            }

            document.write("<div style='clear: both;'></div>");
            document.write("</div>");
        }

         //Mark the start and end nodes a special border color
        document.getElementById("board_" + start[0] + "_" + start[1]).style.borderColor = "yellow";
        document.getElementById("board_" + destination[0] + "_" + destination[1]).style.borderColor = "yellow";

         //Highlight the path
        for (var i = 0; i < path.length; i++)
            document.getElementById("board_" + path[i].x + "_" + path[i].y).style.backgroundColor = "red";
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

Choice Quotes

"Although we're using the term 'radiation' it is nothing like radioactive radiation."

- Found while looking for reviews of the ultraviolet SteriPEN.

September Snow

September refused to go without a final hurrah. This pictures is a little late, from the last day of September, but I wanted to post it anyway.

We had our first taste of snow on the mountains. You can tell from the picture that it didn't make it down to the valley, but it was enough to let us know winter is coming. I always enjoy the changing of the seasons.

Of course, right now our relatives in Wyoming and Idaho have REAL snow. I don't think I envy them yet, not in the beginning of October.

Halloween I

Child had a great idea for a Halloween decoration:


After we did that, I added this to our door:


(The misspelling is...um...pirate spelling.)