Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

I’m writing this with w.bloggar, another tool that let’s me write posts offline with a few more features. As you can see above, it will grab the song I’m listening to and even let me post color text. Hopefully this will work well. It’d be nice to have an offline blog tool.
This weekend has been busy and fun. I took a number of pictures and will post them later.
Friday night, James showed up with a brand new Apple 12″ Powerbook. He had just bought it at the Apple Store in Pasadena. The laptop is supersweet. He booted it up and it connected to my WiFi automatically. I am jealous of the sleek new machine. The MAc OS still seems a little weird to me, but I see while people buy them in droves.
Saturday we took the kids to the Circus. They had a great time. I remembered to bring earplugs to cut down on the noise. At the circus, they keep the volume at 11. Later that evening I picked up Martin at the airport for his brief trip back to LA. James, Martin, and I stayed up surfing the web on laptops and watchign Sportscenter till the wee hours.
Sunday was Michele’s day off. I took the kids out to IHOP with James and Martin. Unfortunately, there was no wifi at the IHOP this time. The kids ate good and we went to wander around the local shoppig center. The kids love Zainy Brainy. Michele had driven down to see Jenny to take a break. The stress has been high recently and she needed a break. They went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Meanwhile, the girls and I went for a swim in the backyard.
OK. So much for the test, let’s see how it works. More later.

The replacement part for the clothes washer arrived yesterday and I installed it. Soon the washer was humming along, continuing the endless loads of laundry.
Recently I’ve fixed several things around the house. It seems that summer tends to be the season for repairs. I always feel good about fixing things.
Unfortunately there are some things I can’t fix. Engineering training does not do much when it comes to helping people through the real problems of life.
Michele and her mother have been fighting lately. I can’t even put my finger on the exact reason why. Issues both old and new, added to the stress of Lisa’s (sister/daughter) wedding are wreaking havoc. The details aren’t important, it’s the effects the worry me. The pain, tears, and anger on both sides are going to leave a mark. And there’s not much I can do to fix it.
The worst thing about it is that the bond between Michele and her mother is so strong, that it makes this kinda thing even worse. When times are good, they are like to two peas in a pod, happy and giddy to be together. That closeness is making this dispute even more damaging and hurtful.
All I can hope is that the love wins out over the anger soon rather than later. I know it will be resolved eventually, but for my own sanity, I hope it’s soon.

Back when I was spending time in Asia, it was explained to me that there were heaty foods and cool foods. If you eat too much heaty food, you will have trouble.
Well, I decided to try the Atkins thing. Eating meat is no problem, or so I thought. I appears that all the Atkins acceptable food is basically heaty food. Most of the day, I feel like I’m gunna break out into a sweat. I’m gunna keep at this diet, but I may some Chinese herbs to get me through.
I’m playing with the Zempt tool for MT entries. IT seems pretty cool. I can do things like this:

It took a look at what Winamp was playing and inserted it here. It also make it easy to spellcheck posts and do other simple formatting without having to get the HTML right.
In other news, Michele posted her take on the broken washer. Martin must be really bored because he posted a long ass entry.
I began reading The Phoenix Exultant, the sequel to The Golden Age, that I finished a few days ago. It is quite delectable. Some times I wish I had one of those jobs where you can bring a book and read during the day.
OK, time to head to bed. I was at work today around 6AM and I need to catch up on some rest.
Until then, go get the new Google Toolbar. It’s all that and a bag of chips!

The washing machine is broken.
Last night Michele casually says, “I know you just wanted to read your new book up front, but I think the washing machine isn’t washing.”
I go check and sure enough, the agitator is not agitating.
I assume that it’s due to the normal condition of Michele shoving 3 loads of clothes into the washer at the same time. She explains the reasoning for overloading the washer as “We have a lot of laundry!”
The wet laundry is pulled out of the washer and into the sink to reveal a washer that still won’t agitate. I try the usual cycling of the washer, all to no avail. Something is actually broken.
After a bit of disassembly, I find that a plastic adapter for the agitator that connects to the drive motor is stripped. Now, I don’t mean stripped as in it still works and slips occasionally. I mean stripped as in completely smooth with no traction at all. The part will have to be replaced.
It took many, MANY oversized loads to do this kinda damage.
I go explain this to Michele and her only question is, “Can I have a new front-loading washer now?”. I roll my eyes and go check the internet for the part.
The part is $4.90 and $20+ for overnight shipping. For grins, I check to see the price of a new front-loading washer. The cheapest one is around $700 at Sears.
$25 vs. $700? Hmmm… What to do, what to do?
Of course, I ordered the spare part and explained to Michele that it will take a much more expensive break to get me to buy a new washer. She just smiled.
Later, I had a vision of Michele taking a hammer to the insides of the washer, hoping to bring about the early arrival of the new front-loading washer. I need to keep a eye on her. She’s sneaky.

The heat is going to be arriving soon here in Sunny Southern California, and I am getting a quick post in before the day really begins.

Mira blowing out candles with Zoe in support.

Yesterday, the hosting provider for this site did a software upgrade.
As a result, the interface between perl and mysql was broken for part of the day. Basically it meant that MovableType didn’t work and you couldn’t read comments.
It appears that everything is fixed. Please resume your normal commenting.

A few pictures before I wrap up the day.

Mira on her new bicycle and in her new dress. Happy 5th!

Here I am lurking in the shadows on my new bike.

At lunch we headed out to grab our free Slurpees at 7-Eleven.
We walked into the store and said, “Where’s the free slurpees?”
The man behind the counter said, “Seven to Eleven!”
I said, “Yeah, where”s the free Slurpees?”
He said, “It’s over! Seven to Eleven!”
Evidently the knuckleheads at Corporate 7-Eleven decided to only have free stuff from 7AM to 11AM.
Fuckers…

Tomorrow my youngest daughter, Mira, turns five years old. It will be a good day.
I spent the evening wrapping presents and attaching a basket & bell to her new bicycle. The Magic Talking Grill is sure to be a hit as well.
I also did the final touches on my MeFI CD Swap. I had resisted opening the CDs I got before I finished my mixes. I started listening to them tonight. The CD from greengrl is absolutely kick-ass. I hope she likes my selections as much I like hers.
My good friend Len has launched his blog. Please give him a read and a comment for encouragement.

I went from 500+ emails in my inbox to under 100. The flow of emails in unending. Eventually it will wreck all productivity in modern business.
There’s got to be a better way.