A friend of mine from work, Yoz, keeps introducing me (sometimes, indirectly) to addictive little shockwave games. Here’s another one of them: Desktop Tower Defense. The main problem is that it can take a good deal of time to get through. But like all good games, the time goes really quickly, at least subjectively!
We’ve had a potty in the bathroom for a few weeks now. We give her praise for sitting on it, but mostly ignore it. We’ve sat her on it in a way she could actually make use of it a few times before, but nothing’s come of it. Today on the way to the bath (she traverses the house naked from the living room to the bathroom,) she asked for the potty and went to sit on it. We asked her if she was going to pee, and sure enough, to our utter surprise and satisfaction, she did! We clapped, and praised, and smiled. And when she’d stopped, and we stopped, she said hopefully: “More?”
We went to our second museum since Sam’s birth today. And it was a much better experience than the previous time (in Princeton during Sam’s first conference.) Sam lasted for a full 40 minutes or so at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). They were having an exhibit of Picasso and American artists that he influenced. It was neat to see Picasso beside the artists the he inspired, whether direct derivations, or connected more tangentially. We saw works from Stuart Davis (neither of us knew him before and Carolyn quite liked his work), Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and others.
As usual, I am late to the internet meme game, but I recently came across LOLCATs. (see also Cats Can Has Grammar). I got one in my email about an upcoming work project. More recently, I was reviewing older, less relevant email streams came across http://icanhascheezburger.com/ — too funny! Had to share. Enjoy.
This one really cracked me up.
Dear Sam,
April has always been one of my favorite months, as it usually heralds the arrival of spring: longer, lighter days, breezy weather, delicate daffodils, and peeping baby frogs. Academics, however, like to quote T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and proclaim that “April is the cruelest month.” While it is true that the last month of the academic semester usually entails a mountain of grading, I always welcomed April gladly because it meant that the end of tedium and the beginning of May freedom was near.
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Well, I’d been hankering for some time. But tonight it became a reality. I purchased my 4th motorcycle. (No, I still don’t have the other three. I’ve only had one at a time, I’m no Jay Leno.) This one is just a little less crotch-rocket than I’d owned before. It still has zip, but it’s just a little more dignified, and a lot more comfortable. When I took it for an inaugural spin around the block, it was strikingly familiar.
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I’d forgotten how comfortable and pleasurable it is to be riding a motorcycle. It’s still an unfamiliar ride, and I should definitely have some parking lot time just getting the feel of how this particular bike handles. I’ve been wanting a Honda for quite a while. Even when I bought my most recent Kawasaki, I wanted a Honda (at the time, I wanted a CBR 600). Now, I’ve got a VFR. It’s the largest bike I’ve owned at almost 800 cc’s. It’s a sport-touring bike instead of a pure adrenaline, just-off-the-track sport bike, but it’s right for me. Just a little more mellow as I mature. A little.
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<div class="imageright">
<a href="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/v/Events/Crockett/DSCF6895.JPG.html"><img src="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/d/6757-2/DSCF6895.JPG" /></p>
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Side View
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And it came with all the accessories — the solo seat cowl, the optional passenger handles, a very nice bagster tank bra and bag, a Givi monokey tail bag, a nice staintune aftermarket exhaust. I’m feeling well set up here. Now I just need to find (make) time to get out some, away from the city and traffic. Maybe even take <a href="http://www.pashnit.com/curve.htm">a tour</a>.
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What follows is the original craigslist posting that I replied to:
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I LOVE my VFR and I have it setup just how I like it, but… I want to take a trip to South America and my VFR would probably be more work than it’s worth, sigh… Got a setup dual-sport that you want to trade?
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My loss is your gain… This baby is damn near perfect.<br /> This is Honda’s 5th generation interceptor, one of the most consistent performers in sport touring history. This is NOT the vtech edition, but the edition the Vtech guys wish they would have bought after they do their homework. Same slick, v4 engine, same v4 growl, same legendary comfort and performance.
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Cosmetically, I scraped a few parts this winter when I slipped the back out on a wet painted line mid-u-turn. Translation: I wasn’t moving very fast, but if you’ve dropped one before, you know it doesn’t take much… If you want an immaculate dealer perf. bike, this isn’t it. It was a few months ago, but some scrapes in the right fairing and engine cover prevent it from being as perfect as it was… It wouldn’t take much time, effort, or in parts to make this cherry. I just won’t do a 2 hour repair and try to sell it as new… I looked at a lot of “dropped in the garage” bikes before I bought this one and I can guarantee you that mine doesn’t look half as bad as ANY of the ones I looked at that had been “dropped in the garage”. 🙂 The bike is kept inside all of the time and was by the other owner as well.
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It has around 30,000 miles but has been completely kept up and sorted. I would love to ride this baby to Chile and back, but I don’t trust the roads, and I can’t afford to keep two bikes…
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The rear is new, the front has plenty left.<br /> Chain and sprockets are new.<br /> Oil and filter are fresh.<br /> Fuel filter and air filter are fresh.
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Add ons that I can remember:<br /> Heavy Throttle Meister<br /> (Don’t know how I slabbed it without these)
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high mount staintune exhaust<br /> (absolutely the best exhaust for the VFR hands down – Sounds like a mean V8)
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givi top case rack and top case – I even mounted the optional back rest<br /> (I think you could mount the side bags with some added hardware)
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turbocity Fuel pressure regulator<br /> (takes out a mid-powerband surge)
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Bagster tankbag and tankbra combo<br /> (tank bag LATCHES onto the tank-the bra ain’t pretty, but the tank is pristine)
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Stock exhaust and bike covers also go with it (I don’t want any reminders…)
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and probably more that I don’t remember.
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Come take my baby away before I change my mind…
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Carolyn has posted a warm post over on MonsterFool called Good Times which I encourage you to check out for Sam tales. I share her general sentiment. Usually I notice it each night as we sing the final lullabies in our bedtime ritual.
Dear Sam,
Do you have anything in your life that you’re (almost) always glad that you’ve done, you usually enjoy doing, but you dislike (or just have a hard time) starting? I have several of these. Working out is one of them. I have a hard time getting from the house to the front door of the gym. Once I’m through the doors, I usually enjoy myself, and when I’m done a workout, I rarely regret having been. I call this phenomena after the first time I became aware of it in myself — “like going to the Shack.” I hope “the Shack” will be a part of your childhood and life, though based on our current life and location, it is unlikely to have the impact on your life that it had on mine. It is a remote place, but was even more remote when I was young. Every other weekend or so, my parents would drag me up there. I hated the transition — it meant a long car ride. It meant leaving my friends (and toys) with whom (and which) I’d so recently been playing. However, once we were there, I fell easily into the groove. The shack is a simple place. Beautiful. Quiet. Natural. I’m afraid that writing your newsletter is “like going to the Shack.”
I hate when I’m stopped for directions in San Fancisco. I’ve not been in the area long, and I spend astonishingly little time in the city that isn’t 1) in the office or 2) on the walk to/from BART/carpool.
I was stopped on the walking portion of my morning commute today by an older Hispanic man and his obviously embarrassed wife. He told me, in fairly unaccented English: “I am looking for the office of Miglatude.”
Sam, Carolyn and I went for an outing today after Sam’s afternoon nap. We generally try to do these things in the morning when we have a little more time, but it was a typically lazy Sunday morning complete with lying around on the couch, listening to jazz and a pancake breakfast, so morning wasn’t happening.
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It was a sunny afternoon here in El Cerrito, but we could see the fog nestled around the city with only the transamerica building and one other poking out. We couldn’t see the Golden Gate Bridge either though the bay itself was clear and beautiful. We decided to continue our foray regardless, and I’m glad we did as it made for some neat pictures, even if not terribly panoramic ones.
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<div class="imageright">
<a href="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/v/Places/BayArea/GoldenGateBridge/DSCF6741.JPG.html"><img src="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/d/6482-2/DSCF6741.JPG" /></p>
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Fog-shrouded bridge
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Because we read that the parking area for walking along the bridge is only available from the northbound lanes, we went into the city across the Bay Bridge, and then North across the Golden Gate. In the process, we got to see parts of the city that we’d not seen before either. While I know why we live out here on the northern side of the East bay ([relative] space, quiet and affordability), I’m saddened by how foreign most of the city still is to me.
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<div class="imageleft">
<a href="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/v/Places/BayArea/GoldenGateBridge/DSCF6748.JPG.html"><img src="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/d/6510-2/DSCF6748.JPG" /></p>
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Bridge into Fog
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Anyway, we crossed the bridge, got off at the parking area and started walking. Sam is in a stage where she doesn’t really want to hold anyone’s hands when she walks now that she’s pretty good at walking by herself. But with 6 lanes of two-way traffic on one side and a several hundred foot fall on the other, hands-free was not an option for this trip. As a result, we ended up carrying her most of the way. I don’t know that she could have gotten past the barriers on either side if she’d tried; I doubt it. But there are just some things I don’t want to learn the hard way.
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We made it back past the “Welcome to San Francisco City and County” sign, and turned back around. We had dinner in Sausalito which reminded me at times of Mediterranean France, and small Eastern, US seaside (or gulf-side) resort towns (like Cedar Keys, FL). Unfortunately, we made a poor choice of restaurants and while the food was passable, the waitress ringing up our meal at the cash register felt compelled to tell me that the tip wasn’t included in her calculations. The busboy cleared the table while we were still getting packed up, even taking away Carolyn’s water almost immediately after she said she was still drinking it. He even cleared the tip away. Maybe that’s why the waitress thought she was getting stiffed — the busboy’s been stealing from her?
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<div class="imageright">
<a href="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/v/Places/BayArea/GoldenGateBridge/DSCF6752.JPG.html"><img src="http://gallery2.accapehart.com/d/6526-2/DSCF6752.JPG" /></p>
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Sailboat and Sausalito
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</a></div>
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Regardless, we had a nice trip. Nice enough, and close enough to the city that we thought maybe we’d like to live there, but I both imagine that it’s quite expensive, and that living in such a place would take away from the magic of visiting such a place. I’m still thrilled that we live in a place where we can make trips to places like the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito afternoon jaunts!
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