Jan 14: Where the children of tomorrow dream and win

Scorpions, "Winds of Change," Crazy World.

Who could imagine as the wall fell that we'd be invade another country that was no threat to us, and spend five years there because we had no plan beyond "play Rambo"?

Jan 6: I've started my Christmas shopping

I ordered two books from Amazon, and to get the free shipping, I ordered a Christmas book for Jake that I'd had on my wish-list since Dec. 05.

I refuse to shop the last week before Christmas this year. That's just insane. Whomever I haven't bought for by Thanksgiving gets gift cards.

Dec 2: Things I've learned from Tom Jones

Tom Jones is not afraid.

Also, it's never to late to be sexy.

And, um, YouTube is fun.

Oh, don't be afraid to fail.

Steal from the great, in this case, Leadbelly (whom Nirvana also covered).

Dec 1: Current insane, time-consuming project

Other than the baking, I have an Advent calendar to do! Skipping NaBloPoMo, and going right to National Advent Calendar Writing Month. Eep.

Nov 20: As seen on /.

"over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting ..."

Also, I still hate Thanksgiving. Jo-Ann tells me I say that every year.

October 5: Auspices

Now there's a word not heard often enough.

Sept 28: Give me ONE reason we can't do this for real

http://www.xkcd.com/322/

Randall Munroe gets it.

Sept. 6: Shilling for charity

My friend Melissa will be participating in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Muscle Team Challenge this November. She's looking for donations, so go donate.

The MDA holds a special place in my heart. If you've met my mother, you know I'm exactly like her, except:

• she inspires fear and awe, but Jorj just gives me the get-real look, and
• I can stand up and walk whenever I want to, and she can't.

Mom's got Spinal Muscular Atrophy (a bad gene on chromosone five keeps the body from making a chemical needed for spinal nerves), and has been in a wheelchair for five or seven years now. The MDA supports research into lots of neuromuscular diseases, including SMA. An experimental technique (one paper published -- years out from anything that would help Mom) has gotten the faulty genes to produce the needed chemical. Yay science!

Go donate to Melissa, who will be participating for her friend, whose two sons have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Learning even one of your children (let alone both) have a condition like this is devastating. My grandparents had no idea what was wrong with my mother's muscles, how she got it, and if it could be cured; they had no more children. (I'm a carrier; Jake does not have SMA but may be a carrier.)

Melissa's friend's sons are young; current research might find ways to help them live longer, if not find a cure.

Donate.

Sept 6: Vacation

Tobi is here. I am in the back yard. Yesterday we biked the river drives with Jack. Tuesday we biked to the train station and shopped downtown (two new coats for me, and when did Foster's leave Reading Terminal?). Today we bike to the Korean grocery and work on projects. Tomorrow I may cook dinner. I have looked at Ruby, but that may wait until a few weeks from now.

Plum festival Sunday. New York (and a Mets game for the boys) next weekend.

I may mow the lawn and garden.

August 19: 30 miles of hills, light rain, and cows

And five miles of screaming thighs.

Anyhoo, we did the half metric century (50 km, about 30 miles) of the Covered Bridge Metric Century, winding all over Lancaster County this morning. Jorj had Jake in the sidecar on his bike. Scott biked with us, but Lynn and Nate stayed home to attend a birthday party. It turns out, I'd trained the most of any of us (two flat 30-mile rides, two hilly 15-mile rides, and near daily commuting) and didn't have an extra 35 pounds to carry, so I kept getting ahead of Jorj. I'd even pass people going uphill!

Jake did wonderfully. We stopped at about five miles to give him a break. At the 11 mile water stop we ran around like maniacs to warm him up (he refused to ride with the wind/rain cover down) and he wanted to walk, rather than ride with Daddy-O. There was yelling as we strapped him in, and we feared we'd need to stop every three miles for 20-minute play periods after that. We made a very quick stop for Jake's helmet and posing for photos by another cyclist before the 23-mile water stop. By the second water stop, he was asleep, but Jorj was flaggin. Scott stayed with Jorj while I went on ahead.

We were so far back I'd wait at every turn off to be sure they didn't miss it. At one turn off, Scott saw road markings indicating that the 50 and 100 km routes also went a different way through the intersection. Had we found a shortcut? Checking the map (yay Team Common Sense!), we realized we were at the intersection where the 25 km route rejoined our route, and if we followed the other markings, we'd re-do a 25 km loop. Maybe next year.

When the 100 km riders rejoined us, there were enough people on the route that I no longer feared Jorj would miss a turn off. That's when the five miles (eight km) of thigh burn started. Problem was, if I stopped I knew I'd have a heck of a time getting started again.

Overall, it was actually easier than when Scott and I did the 25 km route five years ago. It wasn't until I spent two and half hours driving the car that I wanted to collapse from exhaustion.

Today's motto: There is no dishonor in gearing down, only in being so stupid and macho that you blow out your knee. And I swear I wasn't thinking of Jorj's infamous bike trip with Sparks until Jorj mentioned it.

Aug 15: Lego

Courtesy Mini-Mizer. That would be me wearing a crisp white shirt with black pants and shoes, holding a glass of red in one hand, and a book in the other.

Also: wasps.

May & June 2007 January & February 2008

What I'm reading

• Beginning XSLT 2.0 More of an all-encompassing XSLT reference. Now, if we can only find it -- Jorj cleaned it up.
• Agatha Christie. Gena, I told you I'd read them again. I do find I can't read through the more mannerly X people in the country house novels so much any more. I desire a bit more action.
• Anansi Boys, Neal Gaiman. What can I say? The man can tell a story.
• Ajax in Action From the very beginning, it emphasizes refactoring code (ok) and using libraries. However, it never seems to get into DOM and parsing XML from AJAX. The code samples have no comments indicating that this file depends on this other library. The style is pure object-oriented, annoying for those of us who skipped the DHTML bandwagon. But between the book, Jorj, and working with the DOM using Perl for XML, I think I've got it.
• Information Dashboard Design Reviewed (by the writers of the Head First books) as a more practical Tufte, but the prose left something to be desired. Still, it did make me want to crunch some numbers.
• Baking: From my Home to Yours, Dorie Greenspan. I picked it up on a whim, and fell in love while reading it on the train. So far I've made the lemon-poppyseed muffins (yum! found an error in the recipe) and the lemon curd (good taste, didn't gel properly).

What I'm listening to

• The Cars, The Cars Replacing the vinyl collection.
• Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town I'll horrify Gena, Anita, Jack, Jorj, Lynn — just about everyone — and say I like Springsteen. Always have. Correction: Anita not horrified, and surprised I'm a fellow Springsteen fan.
• Lily Allan, Alright, Still For a WXPN artist to watch, not as good as I'd hoped. Heard the single "Knock 'Em Down" (about pick up artists in bars) and thought it was great, but her voice isn't that strong and her lyrics a bit too rythmless free verse. She does have some good commentary, such as "Alfie" and "Nan Your a Window Shopper" and "Dreams," but she also seems to go clubbing, and sings about it, and I just fast-forward that one.
• Pzizz at night. This was my Christmas present from Jorj.

What I'm excited about

• Sleep!
Finally getting a grip on Ajax
• Baking
• Reading (see above)
• Yoga: Jorj got me new DVDs for Christmas
• Someone's second birthday
• iPhone