Sim Life

Mark August 20th, 2008

Ever since I got on Facebook, I’ve had a harder time keeping up with the blog.   This blog used to be how I shared things with people I knew and how I let them keep up with my life.   Now I use twitter, Facebook and various other social networking sites to keep up with friends and family, coworkers and trends, technology and ideas.

The iPhone doesn’t help either — but there is a likelyhood that soon I’ll be able to post pictures directly from the phone.

Anyway, I wanted everyone who reads to know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet, I’m just working on things slower.   I’ll try to post at least once a week with something interesting about the kids or something I’ve been thinking about.  Oh and I will keep catching up on the pictures as I get to it.  If you’re interested in finding out fun, random things about us in a more timely manner you can befriend Andrea or me on Facebook.   You might even see more pictures, more often–who knows.

• Blog
• Comments(0)

Mark August 9th, 2008

• Photo
• Comments(0)

Mark August 8th, 2008

Timothy is at Wal-Mart and asks to be left in the car.   Andrea explains to him that she can’t leave him there because he might get hurt and then they would take mommy away to jail.

“They’ll take you to gailge?”

“Yes”

“Will they take me to gailge too?”

Stifling a laugh, Andrea replies “No, ‘gailge’ is for adults, not little kids.  We would be apart!  I don’t want that!”

“Me either!”

He’s talked about being in ‘gailge’ for days now, though.   Hilarious.

————————————

Bethany looks at me in the eyes and says : “Daddy, hear this.   ‘What, what?  Who, who?’” (imitating the owl from ‘The Sword in the Stone’ — but getting it a little backwards.)

————————————-

My son was sick yesterday and when at the store, he got a WHOLE box of Dots just for him.  Of course, we control the FLOW of Dots out of the box, he just gets to eat the whole box, eventually.  We talked about sharing them, but that they were his to share.

“Here you go buddy, 5 Dots, just for you.”

“Thanks, Daddy!  Yeah, Dots!”

“Can I have one?” I say, gesturing with the box to indicate that I would get one out of the box.   He already knows he doesn’t get any more.

He thinks about it and then hands me a lemon one from his hand.  “You can have this yellow one, daddy.”

“Oh, buddy!  You don’t have to give up yours, I was just seeing if I could have some from your box!  Timothy, I’m so proud of you for being so generous.”

Made me very proud.

• Blog
• Comments(0)

Mark August 2nd, 2008

We love potential.   It is the possibility of something that gives us hope and dreams.   Potential in a new job, potential in a new hobby, a new significant other, a new president, a new town, a new movie, a new book, a new life.   We all love potential, because it allows us to consider things as they would be if things were perfect.

But when we see the result, we are almost always disappointed.    Andy Osenga blogged about this recently in his disappointment with Batman–not that it was bad, just that it wasn’t life-changing.   My wife experienced it in reading a high-profile book release this weekend.   After reading the first three books in the series, all the potential of the last one was incredible–so when she finished, she was, inevitably, disappointed.   It’s because we’re in love with potential that we all struggle with how things end.

The artists that die in their prime only further illustrate this affection for the possible instead of the actual.  What would they have done?  Each of us can have in our head our own version of what would have been perfect–none of which would have really happened.  It’s why we say that someone dying before their time was tragic, while someone dying after a long illness is “the right time.”  It’s as though once you lose your potential in anything, it’s time to bow out gracefully.

I think this begs the question–how do you finish?   Finishing something, by default, means turning the potential of something into something kinetic.  Once it’s kinetic, it’s permanent, it’s real.   I think it’s for this reason that finishing has to be done with integrity above all else.  Making something final is bound to disappoint someone–all you have is knowing that you made a decision that was completely congruent.

So when you see something come to an end, and feel the disappointment–I think the most important thing is to realize that nothing we can do in this life will every satisfy.   Though we would love it to.

• Blog
• Comments(2)

Mark July 25th, 2008

Randy Pausch died last Friday.  It makes me sad that someone so inspiration is gone, but so happy that he was able to use his condition to inspire the world.

Favorite quote: “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!”

Thanks, Mr. Pausch

• Blog
• Comments(0)

Mark July 21st, 2008

Bethany is cute.

She is potty training and she put some 1s and 2s in the potty… when she was done she came out and Mommy said “I’m so proud of you Bethany!”  to which Bethany held out her little hand and said in a straight laced way, “Give me a five.”

——————————————

Last night  we went to see the Dark Knight while Tom and Ashley watched the kids.  Timothy wasn’t going to sleep, so he came down and watched the Hobbit.  As we were leaving he was explaining to Tom and Ashley, “They go to scary places, and then I’ll show you the Misty Mountains.”  Aparently after a little while playing with them after we’d left, he turned to them (they are currently dating) and said, as if to question their qualifications “Do you guys have kids?” leading to much hilarity amongst the two adults.

—————————————————————-

We had a friend who is just a few months older than Timothy have a birthday party on Saturday.   We told Timothy about this earlier in the week and he kept asking about it.   Every day, we’d tell him that he had to go to sleep x-many more times before it would be time for Aeryn’s party.  Finally, on Friday night he announced, “One more nap, then we get to go to Aeryn’s Birthday!”

More cutness to come.

• Blog
• Comments(0)

Mark July 18th, 2008

Continue Reading »

• Photo
• Comments(1)

Mark July 17th, 2008

I’ve had the privilege of working on a Rails project at work over the last 2-3 months.  I got to do a small project (the “test” project for this one) last December before Rails 2.0 came out and now that I have started really diving into Rails this time around, I’m thoroughly enamored.

The creators of Rails basically wanted to create a framework that made it fun to code and solve problems again.   It’s not without its problems, but it certainly accomplishes this goal.

I’ve never been able to SOLVE A PROBLEM as fast as I can with Rails.   I’ve also never been able keep things clean and readable like I have this project.   This is a probject that at any other company on any other framework would have 4 developers on it trying to coordinate and discuss, instead, it’s got one.   I am constantly “in the know” and don’t have to coordinate, this saves tons of time and maintenence costs alone.  On any other framework, it probably would have still taken twice the amount of time it’s taken to create as well.

But there’s something that’s a little troubling about this whole thing.   With such easy and fun programming, lots of developers are flocking to Rails.   So instead of being a guy with a unique skill, I’m YARD.   You guessed it.  Yet another Ruby/Rails developer.  I think YARDs are a lot like real yards in the sense that most of them drain a lot of resources and end up just sitting there and looking nice and pretty.   You don’t really want to do without your yard, but most developers that are in it for the fun might not be the best at solving your problems.

So maybe I’m not YARD, maybe I’m ARDVARK - Another Rails Developer that’s Valuable, Agile, Resourceful and Knowledable. Oh… too much.

Until I’m found out one way or the other, I’m finally having fun coding again, and that’s more than I can say for some.

• Blog
• Comments(0)