Decisions Decisions

Spring has arrived in short order and it is all too welcome. I detest the frigid days, ice, and snow that tend to linger even into April. The wheat that was planted last fall is now growing nicely and many of the fields around my little village have thick and lush green carpets that make me happy and comforted. Sometimes I even want to stop my car and have a rest on that endless and rich green carpet.

The air is sweet and the breeze is fresh with renewed life. Even the spiders and bugs are finally out to play.

As I write this my wife and daughter are napping. Cheryl is taking a well deserved rest from our little girl who has been especially cranky lately due to some more teeth that will be arriving soon. Emma is sleeping off a particulary rough play time and is looking rather angelic.

As for me, I’m taking a few minutes of rest for myself, getting ready to cook supper before we head out the door to church at 7PM. Tonight is a missionary service. The featured speaker is on her way to Paraguay and is trying to drum up the necessary financial support she needs. This is pretty normal for our denomination. Normally we have about one missionary a month come in.

Things have been in a particular state of flux recently. The realities of Cheryl wanting to stay home with Emma are forcing us into some tough decisions. If she stays home, then that will cut the amount of money we are bringing in nearly in half. As such, we may be forced to sell the house and move back in with my father. While this is not something that I particularly want to do, we may have to do it. This means that the next few weeks are going to be filled with many decisions. I will be contacting a Realtor tomorrow about getting things started to see if we can even sell the house without taking a loss on it. I also need to look into getting the furnace and air conditioner replaced as the former is on its last leg and the latter is already dead and buried.

We have a nice house, it’s just several very ah… expensive items need fixed and/or replaced before we could successfully hope to sell it.

So.

That being said, it is definitely a time for change. Those of you who know me know I am very much one to linger and lounge in the comfort zone. Change is not exactly on my list of priorities.

Oh well.

At least if we move in with Dad, we would be saving a boatload of money and we could actually afford to move to Canada. (Something that I someday want to do. I’ve always talked about retiring up there in 30 or so years.) This might actually be a positive thing. Cheryl would be able to stay home, I would have more freedom in my career choices, and we would be putting money in the bank to pay off my accursed student loans.

I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. The Devil is in the details.

---

I’m working on getting some videos uploaded, but I had to restore my new machine after I loaded Kazaa Lite K++ on it. Turns out the one I had downloaded was one of the stamped out versions with the Spyware and Adware in it. I had crap installing left and right. Even after I ran Spybot Search & Destroy three times, I still couldn’t get it disinfected. Soooooo…. I did a Zorch and Restore and now everything is back to normal. Except I need to get my video editing software reinstalled and get off my butt to get the video edited and uploaded.

FYI – I haven’t taken many pics lately either. It will probably be awhile before I can put new albums up. In the interim, I am going to be reducing the number of albums available for perusal. If you have an album you want to see placed back out, send me an e-mail and I will either republish the album and make it available to you, or I will respond with the link to the URL.

Later.

-C-

Waiting On the Ghosts

The little boy sat alone at the top of the basement stairs, staring down into the darkness below. The dripping of the faucet in the small kitchen and the barking of the dog in the garage were his only companions. As he sat there, he heard sounds in the living room. The television blared loudly with the bells and wild applause of the Price is Right, and the voice of his Mother as it echoed around the corner. She was having her daily conversations with the air. The little boy wondered why she talked to the air, and wondered if the other kids’ parents did the same.

He sat there at the top of the stairs, and looked down into the darkness, wondering what was down there. What strange beasts and creatures lurked there when the lights were off? He looked up at the light switch, wishing he could turn it on but it was too far away. It was too high for his little hands to reach.

As such, he sat there and waited. If he didn’t, Mommy would be mad.

Normally the basement was a place of refuge and safety when Daddy was home and the lights were on. The boy would sit with his father by the wood burning stove and watch the logs crack and pop as the flames consumed them. His father would pass the time by whittling a piece of wood with his knife. The little boy would stoke the fire or play with his toys or do one of a hundred other things.

But today was about waiting and listening.

And then it happened.

The phone in the basement rang.

The little boy sprang into action. He ran into the front room and breathlessly said "Mama… the phone’s a ringin’ mama.."

It took a moment or two before he got his Mother’s attention. It was rude to interrupt one having a conversation after all. After an achingly long time she looked at him, finally comprehending what the little boy had been repeatedly telling her. She said "Well plug the phone in then. Hurry!"

The boy scrambled behind the couch on his hands and knees. He looked at the plug for the old rotary phone and tried to fit it into the wall. The plug was oddly shaped, with three blades each turned in different directions. He screwed up his face in concentration as his little hands tried to match up the blades with the holes in the outlet and push the plug into the wall. All the while his mother was screaming at him to plug the phone in as she was expecting Daddy to call.

Frightened, the boy managed to get the plug into the wall and the phone screamed to life. His mother lunged for the phone and answered it with a sickly sweet "Hello…"

The little boy sat there and watched as his Mother talked to Daddy.

Yes, everything was fine.

Yes, both were doing well.

He was playing and she was watching TV.

Yes yes.

I love you too.

Bye bye now. See you tonight.

His mother hung up the phone and looked down at him coolly. Knowing what to do, he once again crawled behind the couch and pulled the plug out of the wall and sat it on the carpet. He carefully laid it there so he could remember how it was supposed to fit into the wall next time Daddy or someone else called.

He crawled back out onto the carpet and tried to watch TV.

"No, you need to go wait for the phone to ring."

"But Mama… why cain’t I leave this one plugged in?"

"Because then they can come and get me. You need to keep that phone unplugged and go listen for the other one at the top of the stairs."

"Who’s they Mama?"

"The ghosts. They’ll come through the phone and get me. Now get back out there and listen for that phone in case someone else calls."

The little boy made his way back out to the kitchen and once again sat at the top of the stairs. Wild thoughts ran through his head as to how ghosts could come through the phone. If they could come through the one in the living room, what was to keep them from coming through the one in the basement?

He sat again on the top step and stared into the darkness below. His only company once again was the dripping faucet and the dog in the garage. He sat and stared, ears straining, again waiting for the phone to ring.

And hoping, ever hoping that the ghosts wouldn’t come to get him today.

-End-

Changes

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. I’ve added a new title banner to the site. I spent a little time today in Photoshop and thought I would try and hammer out a new graphic as I was getting tired of the old one. I’m starting to get the itch to change the overall appearance of the site yet again, so don’t be surprised if you have a new color scheme the next time you log in and check out what’s going on.

Six Months and Counting

For those of you who have been patiently waiting, your patience is now being rewarded. I’ve published a new photo album for your viewing enjoyment. Appropriately enough, it’s titled Six Months and Counting.

I’m still working on getting the video I’ve leeched off my camcorder edited and ready. Hopefully I’ll be able to post them here. Oh well. We’ll see what happens.

Thanks,
-C-

Houston, the Eagle Has Landed

Emma has officially achieved crawling status.

As a result, the house is in the process of being child-proofed. Our coffee table now resides in a spare bedroom, and I am contemplating TIG welding several pieces of furniture to the wall as I have nightmarish visions of my daughter pulling down bookshelves, entertainment centers and insert your favorite heavy piece of furniture here down on top of herself.

It’s with a bit of a misty-eyed nostalgia that I write this. As many photos and video clips of Emma as I have taken, I have found that I haven’t taken enough. Little moments like how she smiles, or how she used to have such a petite little sneeze that barely would have disturbed a blade of grass, but now manages to splatter my glasses with unmentionable goo.

I am watching my little girl grow up, and it is filling me with both a sense of pride and a sense of longing at the same time. Pride in that my little girl can now comfortably roll over and sit up on her own, then crawl across the floor and get her latest toy so she can start playing with it. The sense of longing leaves me uncertain though. What am I longing for? My own childhood? To understand somewhat how she views the world from down there? I am left wanting for an explanation.

So, the other night I sat on the couch and caught some video of Emma crawling across the floor towards her books and her rice bowl. (A cheap substitue for a toy which she finds infinitely entertaining.)

On a side note, we went to Wal-Mart the other night and picked up two Sesame Street toys for Emma. The first is pretty swag, even from an adult’s standpoint. It’s called an Activity Atom and it makes me wish I was a baby again so I could have such cool toys to play with. It’s motion activated with tons of lights and sound effects. There are lots of knobby things for the baby to touch and set off sounds. It lights up and rotates like an atom. Pretty sweet. Further cementing the fact that Emma is my daughter by genetics and birthright, not the postman’s or the milkman’s, she loves all things technological. If she sees our phone in the living room, she goes nuts and scrambles for it. If she sees my or Cheryl’s cell phones, she goes nuts and scrambles for them. If she sees my computer she lunges for it.

Detour:
One night I let her bang away on my keyboard. She successfully managed to enable StickyKeys and nearly did a shut down and restart of my system.

Seeing that she likes phones so well, we snagged an Elmo cell phone for her as well. She likes it pretty well, but not as well as the nearly ten-year old broken keyboard that I cut the cord off of to let her play with.

Yes, you heard me right, a ten year old broken computer keyboard.

Man, is this kid my daughter or what?

It was hilarious. I sawed the cord off of it with a steak knife, then sat it down on the floor to see what she would do. Forget the activity atom. Forget the cell phone. She took one look at it and you could almost hear her thinking “God bless America and get out of my way there’s a keyboard on the floor for me to play with. “

So needless to say, Cheryl and I shared a good laugh over that one.

---

In a surprising turn of events, I have managed to obtain a new rig.

System specs are:

• Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition (I would have preferred Professional, but compromises had to be made. Oh well, at least I can still use Knoppix.)
• AMD Athlon™ XP processor 3000+ (2.167 GHz) with QuantiSpeed™ architecture
• VIA KM 400A2 Chipset
• 80 GB HDD (augmented with my already beefy 30 gigger)
• AOL 3 month membership included (promptly exorcised with much hissing and holy water)
• 512 MB DDR RAM (PC2700 – Augh augh augh!)
• 56K* ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem
• Bundled with eView 17F – 17″ Flat Screen CRT 16″ Viewable, 0.25mm dot pitch
• 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
• 48x Max. CD-RW Drive (and it’s blistering fast…); 16x Max. DVD-ROM Drive; 3.5″ 1.44MB FDD
• Standard Multi-Media Keyboard, 2-Button Wheel Mouse, Amplified Stereo Speakers (never took them out of the package… I just plugged in my current set with the subwoofer.)
• Pre-Installed Software: Microsoft Works 7.0 (exorcised), Microsoft Money 2004 (exorcised), Encarta Online, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader, Power DVD, Microsoft Media Player, Real Player (exorcised), Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, MSN (exorcised), CompuServe (exorcised), Norton AntiVirus 2004 (90 days complimentary subscription), AOL (lather, rinse, repeat)
• 6 Channel Audio
• VIA S3 UniChrome™ 3D Graphics
• 6 USB 2.0 ports (2 on front), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio In & Out, 3 PCI slots (2 available)

Needless to say, I had this thing out of the box less than 24 hours and I already cracked open the case and started adding parts. I tossed my 32MB vid card from Bahamut into the new rig, as well as my 30GB hard drive and my Sound Blaster Audigy card.

Rock on. The new rig has been christened Neo-Bahamut. And yes, as was explained in posts past, we geeks tend to name our rigs.

All that needed to be said to say this:

Since I now have a kick butt setup, I can now take video from my camcorder and save it to hard disk, then add transitions, effects, and other such items. What does this mean for you?

You get to see video of Emma crawling, playing, or whatever the heck else I feel like posting.

Hopefully anyway. I’ve captured some video, and have played around with editing it, but I’m still in the process of learning the software. It’s my goal to have clips posted to the web for family and friends to watch. Keep your eyes peeled.

More pics soon. Promise.

-C-